Marmoutier Abbey (Tours)

:"for Marmoutier Abbey in Alsace, see Marmoutier Abbey (Alsace)"Marmoutier Abbey, also known as the Abbey of Marmoutier (often Marmoutiers), was an early monastery outside Tours, Indre-et-Loire, France. In its later days it followed the Benedictine order as an influential monastery with many dependencies.

The abbey was founded by Saint Martin of Tours (316-397), circa 372, after he had been made Bishop of Tours in 371. Martin's biographer, Sulpicius Severus, affirms that Martin withdrew from the press of attention in the city to live in Marmoutier (Majus Monasterium), the monastery he founded several miles from Tours on the opposite shore of the Loire River.

Sulpicius described the severe restrictions of the life of Martin among the cave-dwelling cenobites who gathered around him, a rare view of a monastic community that preceded the Benedictine rule:

In 853 the abbey was pillaged and destroyed by Normans, who killed over 100 monks. During the years shortly after 1000 AD, the abbey grew considerably, becoming one of the richest in Europe. In 1096 Pope Urban II consecrated its new chapel, and preached the First Crusade. Pope Calixtus II preached crusade again in 1119, convincing Count Foulques V d'Anjou to take part and leading to his subsequent role as King of Jerusalem. In 1162 Pope Alexander III, who came to reside in Tours after being chased from Rome by Frederick Barbarossa, consecrated the monastery's new Chapel Saint Benoit.

The abbey eventually grew too small for its inhabitants, and was completely rebuilt at the start of the thirteenth century under the leadership of Abbot Hugues des Roches. In the following century its abbot Gérard du Puy became cardinal-nephew to the last of the Avignon popes, Gregory XI. In 1562 the abbey was again pillaged, this time by Huguenot Protestants at the start of the Wars of Religion. Again however it recovered. English diarist John Evelyn visited the abbey, and recorded this entry for June 6, 1644:

The abbey was disestablished in 1799 during the French Revolution, and within a few decades the bulk of its buildings had been demolished. Today its grounds contain a private school, and of its former structures only a few ruins remain.

References

* Sulpitius Severus "On the Life of St. Martin". Translation and Notes by Alexander Roberts. In "A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church", New York, 1894, [http://www.users.csbsju.edu/~eknuth/npnf2-11/sulpitiu/lifemart.html available online]
* John Evelyn, "Diary and Correspondence": Volume 1, ed. William Bray, London: George Bell and Sons, 1882. Chapter 5. [http://nils.lib.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2000.01.0022 available online]
* [http://www.francebalade.com/tours/trsnord.htm France Balade online article]