Fontfroide Abbey: cloisterFontfroide Abbey: chapter houseThe abbey church
Fontfroide Abbey (French: Abbaye Sainte-Marie de Fontfroide; Latin: Fons frigidus) is a former Cistercian monastery in France, situated 15 kilometers south-west of Narbonne near to the Spanish border.
It was founded in 1093 by Aimery I, Viscount of Narbonne, but remained poor and obscure, and needed to be re-founded by Ermengarde, Viscountess of Narbonne.[1] In 1144 it affiliated itself to the Cistercian reform movement.[1] Shortly afterwards the Count of Barcelona gave it the land in Spain that was to form the great Catalan monastery of Poblet, of which Fontfroide counts as the mother house, and in 1157 the Viscountess Ermengard of Narbonne granted it a great quantity of land locally, thus securing its wealth and status. The abbey fought together with Pope Innocent III against the heretical doctrine of the Cathars who lived in the region. The Black Death, which reached Narbonne in 1348, decimated almost the entire community.[2][3]
It was dissolved in 1791 in the course of the French Revolution.
It was re-founded in 1858 by monks from Sénanque Abbey. In 1901, because of the French legal changes, the community was driven out of France and went into exile in Spain: the abbey was abandoned.[4] The premises, which are of very great architectural interest, passed into private hands in 1908, when the artists Gustave and Madeleine Fayet d'Andoque bought it to protect the fabric of the buildings from an American collector of sculpture. They restored it over a number of years and used it as a centre for artistic projects.[5]
It still remains in private hands. Today wine is produced here of the AOC Corbières quality under the French appellations system. It also has a small working farm, bookstore and restaurant and takes paying guests.
The Night, c. 1910-1911, part of a series of decorative panels by Odilon Redon, commissioned by Gustave Faret and located in the Fontfroide Abbey library[6]
^ abBerman 2000, p. 131.
^"Une abbaye cistercienne". Abbaye de fontfroide (in French). Retrieved 17 January 2022.
^Larguier, Gilbert (8 April 2014). Le drap et le grain en Languedoc : Narbonne et Narbonnais 1300-1789. Études. Perpignan: Presses universitaires de Perpignan. ISBN 978-2-35412-198-3.
^"Petites histoires d'archives #20 Le couvent assiégé (Carcassonne, 1903)". archivesdepartementales.aude.fr (in French). Les Archives départementales de l’Aude. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
^Mario d'Angelo (ed) La musique à la Belle Époque. Autour du foyer artistique de Gustave Fayet. Paris, Fontfroide, Béziers. Paris: Éditions de Manuscrit, 2013.
^Geipel, Gary (25 January 2013). "A Late Blooming". The Wall Street Journal
FontfroideAbbey (French: Abbaye Sainte-Marie de Fontfroide; Latin: Fons frigidus) is a former Cistercian monastery in France, situated 15 kilometers...
Gary (25 January 2013). "A Late Blooming". The Wall Street Journal FontfroideAbbey Hosts An Exhibition By The Painter Odilon Redon (2016) "Portrait d'Arï...
the 12th century by the Cistercians as a grange of the nearby FontfroideAbbey. Fontfroide was dissolved and its buildings and assets, including the grange...
Kingdom of Aragon. Many abbeys exist throughout the department of Aude. The best known are FontfroideAbbey, Lagrasse Abbey, the abbey of Sainte-Marie Villelongue-d'Aude...
century) Vaults of Chapter House of FontfroideAbbey Nave of Saint-Sernin Basilica in Toulouse Six-part rib vault in the Abbey of Sainte-Trinité, Caen (about...
with her feelings about Bernadette and went to visit a monk at the FontfroideAbbey, who helped her regain spiritual peace following Bernadette's death...
Bernardins at the University of Paris. In 1311 he was made Abbot of FontfroideAbbey and quickly became known for his intelligence and organizational ability...
the former FontfroideAbbey - still to have the original passage of the lay-brothers, by which they were enabled to move round the abbey between their...
created music festivals, such as the Festival musique et histoire in the FontfroideAbbey in southern France and the Jordi Savall Festival, set in historic monasteries...
Santa Maria de Aguiar Abbey, copying the facade of FontfroideAbbey. Dormitory room, dependencies and cloister ruins of Tarouca Abbey. São Bernardo Convent...
of Fontfroide, a modest starting point for what would later become one of the most powerful monasteries in the region, Cistercian Abbey of Fontfroide. Leaving...
Languedoc. In 1202, he made profession as a Cistercian monk at the abbey of Fontfroide, Narbonne, and by 1203 was confirmed as papal legate and chief inquisitor...
of Andoque de Sériege, not hesitating to overbid, bought back Fontfroide to save the abbey from an American ownership. This year, the colourful stained...
Spanish enemies; shortly afterwards he retired to the Cistercian abbey at Fontfroide, Narbonne, southern France, where he died on October 24, 1870, aged...
again ruled alone, at least until 1184. In that year the abbot of Fontfroide, the abbey where Aimerico was buried, donated the hamlet of Terrail to the...
Fregoso the general of the Venetian armies, who was Abbot Commendatory of Fontfroide (Narbonne), was appointed by Pope Julius III on 23 January 1555, on the...
Madrid (1526–1530) after the Battle of Pavia. He was Abbot Commendatory of Fontfroide (Narbonne) and of Nantueil. He received his bulls on 11 February 1534...
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