Page 316 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - France

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ABBAYE DE Did You Know?

Monks copying out
FONTENAY come and warm their
manuscripts could
hands in the abbey’s
Warming Room.
EXPERIENCE Burgundy and Franche-Comté Founded in 1118 by St Bernard of Clairvaux, the The bakehouse is no
! E3 ⌂ Côte-d’Or £ Montbard # 10am–5pm daily (to 6pm
Apr–Nov) ∑ abbayedefontenay.com
Abbey of Fontenay is the oldest surviving Cistercian
foundation in France and offers a rare insight into the
highly disciplined Cistercian way of life.
longer intact, but the
Situated deep in the forest, this site offered the peace and
13th-century oven and
seclusion that the Cistercians sought for their abbey. The
chimney have survived.
sublime gravity of the Romanesque church and its plain but
elegant chapterhouse, built in early Gothic style, embody the
austere discipline and spartan lifestyle of the Cistercian order.
Supported by the local aristocracy, the abbey began to thrive
and remained in use until the Revolution, when it was sold
and converted into a paper mill. In 1906 the abbey came
under new ownership and was restored to its original
appearance. With its dormitory, bakery, prison, forge
and many other outbuildings, it is one of the world’s
most complete surviving monastic complexes.
The visitors’ hostel is where
weary wanderers and
pilgrims were offered
board and lodging.

ST BERNARD AND THE CISTERCIANS
In 1112 Bernard, a young Burgundian nobleman,
joined the Cistercians. At the time the order was
In the forge monks
still obscure, founded 14 years earlier by a group produced their own
of monks who wanted to turn their back on the tools and hardware.
elaborate lifestyle of Cluny (p332) and espouse
poverty and simplicity of life. During Bernard’s
lifetime the Cistercians became one of the most
famous orders of its time. Part of this success was
clearly due to Bernard’s powerful personality and The expansive Abbaye
his skills as a writer, theologian and statesman. de Fontenay, with its
many outbuildings
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