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Origin and history

The abbey of Sainte-Marie-au-Bois is a former abbey of the order of Premontrés, founded between 1130 and 1139 by Simon I, Duke of Lorraine, near his castle of Prény. Located in a forested valley crossed by a tributary of the Trey, it is built thanks to the donations of the Messina abbeys Saint-Pierre-aux-Nonnais and Sainte-Glossinde, as well as local lords. His first abbot, Richard, a disciple of Saint Norbert, arrived from Laon to lead the community. Although tradition attributed its foundation to a visit by St. Norbert in 1126, modern historians instead placed its creation after the Council of Liège in 1131, where the Duke Simon decided on two foundations: Sainte-Marie-au-Bois and Sturzelbronn. The buildings, completed around 1150, also house a monastery of nuns today disappeared, whose remains remained in the eighteenth century under the name of the Celle-des-Dames.

In the Middle Ages, the abbey prospered by serving the surrounding parishes (Vilcey-sur-Trey, Viéville-en-Haye, etc.) and founded in 1257 the seminary of Saint-Nicaise at Pont-à-Mousson to form its novices. However, its proximity to the Château de Prény made it a recurring target: looted by the Messins in 1324 and 1427, occupied by the troops of Charles the Temerary in 1473, it also suffered the ravages of the war between Lorrains and Barrois. Despite these trials, it remains a spiritual and economic centre, managing land, mills and vineyards. In the 16th century, after a renovation of the abbey church, it was devastated by Protestants and then led by abbots like Didier Malhusson, whose reign marked a decline in monastic discipline.

The seventeenth century saw Abbé Servais de Lairuelz attempting a reform by transferring the monks to Pont-à-Mousson in 1608, leaving only two religious at Sainte-Marie-au-Bois. The abbey finally declined after the Thirty Years' War (1635) and the ravages of Swedish troops. At the Revolution, it was sold as a national property in 1791 and turned into a farm. In the 20th century, writer Charles Péguy stayed there in August 1914 with his regiment, describing a "great peace" in the ruins. Ranked a historical monument in 1926 and 1929, it preserves remarkable Romanesque remains, including an abbey church with an architectural mystery (nef shortened?) and a two-vessel capitular hall. Today, its symbolic gardens, created in 2007, evoke medieval themes, but access remains limited to Heritage Days.

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