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Origin and history

The Hôtel-Dieu de Blois finds its origins in the Benedictine abbey Saint-Laumer, founded in the 9th century by monks fleeing Norman raids. First installed in the Saint-Calais chapel of the château de Blois (866), they were renovated in 924 by Viscount Thibaud outside the walls, near the church of Saint-Lubin. A fire in 1114 destroyed the latter, triggering the construction of a new abbey from 1138, consecrated in 1186 with the transfer of the relics of Saint Laumer and Saint Lubin. With no royal taxes, the monks controlled the suburb of Foix and financed a large monastery in the 12th century.

In the 14th century, the abbey was fortified to resist the Hundred Years War, absorbing the parish of Saint-Pierre-du-Foix (dissolved around 1362). Ruined by the Wars of Religion (Sac de Blois in 1568), it was restored in the 17th and 18th centuries by the Reformed Benedictines of Saint Maur. This work concerns the abbey, chapter, refectory and dormitory. The Revolution dissolved the abbey in 1789: its buildings became a hotel-God, saving part of the structures. Only the ancient abbey, renamed St. Nicholas, remains assigned to worship.

Between 1845 and 1847, architects Pinault and Jules de la Morandière added new buildings to the ensemble. The Hôtel-Dieu, disused in the 20th century, then houses the Departmental Directorate of the Territories. Partially classified as the Historical Monuments (1939, 1967, 1992), the site preserves elements of the 12th, 17th and 19th centuries, including two cloisters (including the Grand Cloister, disappeared before the 17th), a chapel dedicated to the Virgin, and 19th century gates. Now unoccupied, he is waiting for a project of reconversion.

The abbey of Saint-Laumer had a historical rivalry with the abbeys of Bourg-Moyen and Pontlevoy, all located in Blois. The monks, close to the Counts of Blois and then to the kings of France, retained rights over the palace chapel of the castle and many outbuildings. Their influence declined with the creation of the diocese of Blois (17th century) and the abolition of the abbot charge, a century before the final dissolution of the abbey.

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