Notre-Dame du Reclus Abbey

Notre-Dame du Reclus Abbey or Sancta Maria de Recluso Abbey was a male Cistercian monastery near Sézanne in the Épernay arrondissement of the diocese of Troyes. It was founded by Bernard of Clairvaux around 1142 around the hermitage of the Blessed Hugues-le-Reclus or Hugo reclusus, who gave his name to the abbey. Hugo had at first retired from the world to an arid place in the parish of Saint-Prix known as Fons Balimi around 1128-1130, before being joined by a few companions. He was mentioned in the cartulary of the abbaye Saint-Pierre-d'Oyes (canton of Sézanne) on the subject of the sale of a pond and of an estate of the Abbaye Notre-Dame du Reclus in 1176 by Hugh of Baye, who also confirmed his uncle Simon's gift of the rights of the forest of Talu to the abbey due to its extreme poverty. This abbey thus became a daughter house of Vauclair Abbey. Hugo possibly died that same year and after his death the villagers kept his memory alive by burning a lamp on his grave.