Fontenelles Abbey or Les Fontenelles Abbey (french: Abbaye des Fontenelles; Abbaye Notre-Dame des Fontenelles; la, Fontenellae, Fintanelum, Fontenacum or ''Fontenaeum'') was an

Augustinian Augustinian may refer to: *Augustinians, members of religious orders following the Rule of St Augustine *Augustinianism, the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and his intellectual heirs *Someone who follows Augustine of Hippo * Canons Regular of Sain ...

monastery in the former commune of Saint-André-d'Ornay (incorporated into

La Roche-sur-Yon La Roche-sur-Yon () is a commune in the Vendée department in the Pays de la Loire region in western France. It is the capital of the department. The demonym for its inhabitants is ''Yonnais''. History The town expanded significantly after Napo ...

in 1964), in the

Vendée Vendée (; br, Vande) is a department in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France, on the Atlantic coast. In 2019, it had a population of 685,442.

, France.

History

Abbaye des Fontenelles de La Roche-sur-Yon

The abbey was founded in 1210 by local landowners Guillaume de Mauléon, ''

seigneur ''Seigneur'' is an originally feudal title in France before the Revolution, in New France and British North America until 1854, and in the Channel Islands to this day. A seigneur refers to the person or collective who owned a ''seigneurie'' (or ...

'' of

Talmont-Saint-Hilaire Talmont-Saint-Hilaire () is a commune in the Vendée department in the Pays de la Loire region in western France. The commune was formed by the merger of the former communes of Talmont and Saint-Hilaire-de-Talmont in 1974. Richard I of England ...

, and his wife Béatrice de Machecoul, lady of the manors of La Roche-sur-Yon and

Luçon Luçon () is a commune in the Vendée department, Pays de la Loire region, western France. Its inhabitants are known as Luçonnais. Luçon Cathedral is the seat of the Diocese of Luçon (comprising the Vendée), where Cardinal Richelieu once se ...

. The monastery was originally

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

but after a lawsuit broke out between the abbot of Fontenelles and the abbot of

Marmoutier :''See Marmoutier Abbey (Tours) for the former abbey in Tours.'' Marmoutier (; ) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin département in Grand Est in north-eastern France. The origin of the place is the former Marmoutier Abbey, of which the abbey church st ...

, a prestigious Benedictine monastery, the community became Augustinian, as a daughter house of the nearby Chancelade Abbey, in about 1224.''

Gallia Christiana The ''Gallia Christiana'', a type of work of which there have been several editions, is a documentary catalogue or list, with brief historical notices, of all the Catholic dioceses and abbeys of France from the earliest times, also of their occupan ...

'', tome 2 (relatif aux provinces ecclésiastiques de Bourges et de Bordeaux), cols 1433-1437.

Imprimerie royale IN Group (french: IN Groupe) is a French company specialized in the production of secure documents such as identity cards and passports, which it designs and sells to various governments and companies. It is the continuation of the Imprimerie Na ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, 1720 The church was dedicated in 1248 by Jean de Melun,

bishop of Poitiers The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Poitiers (Latin: ''Archidioecesis Pictaviensis''; French: ''Archidiocèse de Poitiers'') is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church in France. The archepiscopal see is in the city of Poitiers. Th ...

. The last regular abbot died in 1487, after which the abbey passed into the hands of

commendatory abbot A commendatory abbot ( la, abbas commendatarius) is an ecclesiastic, or sometimes a layman, who holds an abbey ''in commendam'', drawing its revenues but not exercising any authority over its inner monastic discipline. If a commendatory abbot is an ...

s. From 1632 the abbots of Chancelade shared in the governance of Fontenelles. From 1669 the community was taken on by the reformist Congrégation de France. The church was damaged during the

Hundred Years' War The Hundred Years' War (; 1337–1453) was a series of armed conflicts between the kingdoms of Kingdom of England, England and Kingdom of France, France during the Late Middle Ages. It originated from disputed claims to the French Crown, ...

. In 1533 there were only 9 monks here. In 1562 during the

Wars of Religion A religious war or a war of religion, sometimes also known as a holy war ( la, sanctum bellum), is a war which is primarily caused or justified by differences in religion. In the modern period, there are frequent debates over the extent to wh ...

Protestants attacked the abbey, killing some of the monks, set it on fire and largely destroyed it. In particular they damaged the church to the extent that part of nave collapsed, leaving it permanently shortened, with a

Greek cross The Christian cross, with or without a figure of Christ included, is the main religious symbol of Christianity. A cross with a figure of Christ affixed to it is termed a ''crucifix'' and the figure is often referred to as the ''corpus'' (La ...

floor plan. Protestants attacked it again in the 1620s but were forced to repair the damage. The monastery was restored from 1669 onwards by the canons of the Congrégation de France. The abbey, by that time containing only three monks, was suppressed during the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

in 1791. In 1794 the passage of the "

infernal columns The infernal columns ( French: ''colonnes infernales'') were operations led by the French Revolutionary general Louis Marie Turreau in the War in the Vendée, after the failure of the Royalist Virée de Galerne. Following the passage on 1 Aug ...

" through the

Vendée Vendée (; br, Vande) is a department in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France, on the Atlantic coast. In 2019, it had a population of 685,442.

left it entirely abandoned. The site was later used for agriculture: the church was turned into a barn and the abbot's lodging into accommodation for labourers. Continued neglect brought about the collapse of most of the remaining buildings including in 1935 the collapse of the south transept of what was left of the church. The site remains private property.

Buildings

The monastery was built in

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

in the

Angevin Gothic The Plantagenet style or Angevine Gothic is an architectural style of western France, mainly of the second half of 12th and the 13th century. By Eugène Viollet-le-Duc it was called "Style ogivale Plantagenêt", something like "Plantagenet Ribs Sty ...

style, transitional between Romanesque and

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

. The truncated church is the most intact structure remaining, and contains the tomb of either the foundress Béatrice de Machecoul or her daughter Jeanne, Vicomtesse de Thouars, consisting of a recumbent effigy (

gisant A tomb effigy, usually a recumbent effigy or, in French, ''gisant'' (French, "lying"), is a sculpted figure on a tomb monument depicting in effigy the deceased. These compositions were developed in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, and ...

) in an arched recess (

arcosolium An arcosolium, plural arcosolia, is an arched recess used as a place of entombment. The word is from Latin , "arch", and , "throne" (literally "place of state") or post-classical "sarcophagus". Early arcosolia were carved out of the living rock ...

) with small figures.Yves Blomme, ''Poitou gothique'' (''Les monuments de la France gothique''). Paris, Éditions Picard, 1993 There are also substantial remains of the

chapter room A chapter house or chapterhouse is a building or room that is part of a cathedral, monastery or collegiate church in which meetings are held. When attached to a cathedral, the cathedral chapter meets there. In monasteries, the whole communi ...

but the rest of the former structures are in ruins.

References

External links

Histoire de l'abbaye des Fontenelles
on

France Bleu France Bleu is a network of local and regional radio stations in France, part of the national public broadcasting group Radio France. The network has a public service mission to serve local audiences and provides local news and content from each ...

Histoire de l'abbaye
on France 3 Pays de la Loire
Histoire de l'abbaye
on TV Vendée {{coord, 46, 39, 51, N, 1, 29, 11, W, display=title Augustinian monasteries in France Buildings and structures in Vendée