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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Abbey of La Tenaille, founded around 1137 by Father Guillaume de Conchamp under the impulse of Gérard de Blaye, was a daughter of the Abbey of Fontdouce. Set up in a region contested by local peasants, it quickly became a place of pilgrimage thanks to its prestigious relics: a nail of the Cross of Christ and the plucked-out tenaille. These sacred objects attracted the faithful, who came to take the oath, strengthening its importance on via Turonensis, one of the four main paths leading to Santiago de Compostela.

In the Middle Ages, the abbey prospered thanks to the gifts of the local lords, such as William of Maingot in 1160, followed by the families of Pons, Barbezieux and Archiac. However, its decline began in the sixteenth century, marked by the dissolution of monastic habits. In 1542, the Bordeaux Parliament denounced the "dissolute" life of the monks, compared to bandits looting the countryside. The situation will worsen in 1582, when Jacques de Pons, Protestant lord of Plassac, drove the last eight monks out, killed one, and ran the buildings.

In the 17th century, the abbey's income was confiscated by the Duke of Épernon, then transferred in 1615 to the Jesuit College of Saints, becoming their main source of financing. The Jesuits developed vineyards and salt marshes there until their expulsion in 1762. The abbey, seized as a national property in 1793, was sold to private individuals. Today, there remains only a 12th century chapel, warehouses of the 18th century and a home, witness to its glorious and tormented past.

The chapel, classified as a historical monument in 1958, has a Romano-Byzantine portal and a baroque fronton, while the 18th century "Château", with its Italian roof, evokes its adaptation into a private residence. The archives of the abbey, destroyed in the fire of the Collège de Saintes in 1793, reveal mysteries, such as the legend of wine emerging from a fountain, told by Gautier in 1839.

Among the 25 registered abbots, James II of Catrix, appointed at the age of 12 in 1539, embodies the decadence of the institution. His uncle, John IV of Catrix, had obtained the abbey by rotation in 1533. The last notable act was the sale of the land in 1832 to Alexis Martin de Bonsonge, whose granddaughter married Count Étienne Lunet de Lajonquière, the last notable owner of the estate.

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