Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The abbey of Lesterps originated in the late 10th century, when Jordan I, lord of Chabanais, founded a religious community around a chapel called Stirpis ("clearing" in Latin). Around 1032, this foundation was officially called Saint Peter, with the approval of his family, including his son Boson, monk at Mont Cassin, and Renaud, abbot of Charroux. The abbey adopted the rule of St Augustine in 1038 under the impulse of Gautier, a canon of the Dorat, thus becoming an Augustine abbey.

In the 11th century, the abbey experienced violence when Jordan II, the founder's son, took the monastery in 1040 to ransom the area. The conflict with Adalbert II, Count of the March, devastated the abbey: the church was partially destroyed and Gautier, then on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, escaped the massacre. Upon his return, he rebuilt the abbey with the help of Pope Benedict IX and King Henry I. Gautier died in 1070 and was canonized under the name of Saint Gautier, his cult being established in 1091.

The 12th and 13th centuries saw the abbey flourish despite internal scandals. Abbé Ramnulfe (1110–140) enlarged the bedside with a walk-through and radiant chapels, while pontifical investigations in 1198 and 1234 revealed accusations of dilapidation, simony and violence against Abbé Boson and Aymeric. A burrow established between 1473 and 1480 attests to its influence on sixty dependent parishes.

The wars of Religion ravaged the abbey in 1567: the Calvinists of Compaignac, lieutenant of Coligny, looted and burned the monastery, leaving the places in ruins for a century. In the 17th century, the merchant abbot Charles-François de La Vieuville introduced the genovéfains, which partially restored the buildings. Despite repairs, the church, which became dangerous, was banned in 1738 and sold as a national property in 1790. In the 19th century, its stones served as a quarry to build the village school.

Today, the abbey remains three spans of the Romanesque nave, covered by a cradle, and a 43-metre bell tower, classified as a historical monument since 1862. Monastic buildings, including the capitular hall transformed into a town hall, date back to the 17th and 18th centuries. The choir and transept, which collapsed around 1815, were no longer visible, but architectural traces (chapitals of the 12th century, rallies of vaults) testify to its past grandeur.

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