Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Notre-Dame de la Clarté-Dieu Abbey, founded in 1240 by the monks of Cîteaux, is a Cistercian abbey located in Saint-Paterne-Racan (Indre-et-Loire). It was created thanks to a legacy of ECU 3 000 from Pierre des Roches, bishop of Winchester, who entrusted its realization to Abbé Guillaume IV de Montaigu. Twelve monks, according to the Cistercian tradition, settled there on 22 July 1240. The abbey, designed to accommodate a hundred religious, quickly suffered the ravages of the Hundred Years War: looted and burned in 1364 by Amaury de Trôo, then abandoned in 1383 after a new attack, forcing the monks to take refuge in a nearby castle.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the abbey was partially rebuilt: the west wing was reworked in 1693 (transformed into a dovecote), and the prior's home was rebuilt in 1733 (although the date of 1714, engraved on the building, was erroneous). Monastic life gradually declined, with only seven monks in 1704 and four on the eve of the Revolution. The abbey, sold as a national property in 1791, passed into the hands of several owners (including Jean-Baptiste Chicoyneau de Lavalette and Louis-François de Sarcé), who dismantled part of the buildings to reuse the materials.

In the twenty-first century, the conversing building, the refectory and the prior's pavilion, used as a farm after the Revolution, remained. The abbey enjoys protections for historical monuments: the chapel of foreigners is registered in 2006, and the monastic enclosures is classified in 2011. The remains bear witness to its original Cistercian architecture (carpent of 1274 in the dormitory of conversers) and its subsequent transformations, like the large 18th century classical pavilion, marked by the arms of the abbey.

The abbey, direct daughter of Cîteaux (its 25th and last foundation), illustrates the evolution of monastic settlements in Touraine, between medieval prosperity, decline in modern times and partial destruction at the Revolution. Its history also reflects political and social upheavals, from the conflicts of the 14th century to its conversion into an agricultural field and its contemporary preservation.

External links