Comercy Abbey or Saint-Paul de Cormery Abbey (french: Abbaye Saint-Paul de Cormery) is a former

Benedictine abbey , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

located on the territory of the commune of

Cormery Cormery () is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department, Centre-Val de Loire. Its inhabitants are called Cormeriens, Cormeriennes. Geography Cormery is located 21 kilometres from Tours and 18 kilometres from Joué-lès-Tours. The area of the ...

in the French department of

Indre-et-Loire Indre-et-Loire () is a department in west-central France named after the Indre River and Loire River. In 2019, it had a population of 610,079.Centre-Val de Loire region.

History

A simple monastic foundation of Ithier of St. Martin in 791, it was raised in the year 800 to the rank of abbey by

Alcuin Alcuin of York (; la, Flaccus Albinus Alcuinus; 735 – 19 May 804) – also called Ealhwine, Alhwin, or Alchoin – was a scholar, clergyman, poet, and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student o ...

, and adopted the rule of

Saint Benedict Benedict of Nursia ( la, Benedictus Nursiae; it, Benedetto da Norcia; 2 March AD 480 – 21 March AD 548) was an Italian Christian monk, writer, and theologian who is venerated in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Orient ...

. It was then attached to the abbey of Saint-Martin in

Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metro ...

, and remained so until the dissolution of the monastic community during the

Revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

. Despite the damage caused by the

Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and ...

in the second half of the ninth century, which is difficult to quantify, the abbey developed rapidly, and around it the town of Cormery. In the middle of the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, the abbey had many possessions in several French provinces and its boats could navigate freely on all the waterways of the kingdom; with fifty monks, it was one of the most powerful abbeys in Tours. During his tour of France in 1096, Pope Urban II affirmed the authority of the abbey of St Martin of Tour over the abbey of Comery and that each newly elected abbot had to be invested with his pastoral staff at the tomb of St Martin. On July 19th 1103 Guillermus Ludovicus, bishop of Salpi and former monk of the monastery, presented abbot Guy (abbot between 1070 and 1111) with several relics such as the heads of St James the Persian and St Adrian and hairs of St Paul that Guillermus had collected while serving as chaplain in

Nicomedia Nicomedia (; el, Νικομήδεια, ''Nikomedeia''; modern İzmit) was an ancient Greek city located in what is now Turkey. In 286, Nicomedia became the eastern and most senior capital city of the Roman Empire (chosen by the emperor Diocleti ...

in the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

. The abbey was able to recover from damages it incurred in the Hundred Years' War but it never fully recovered from destructions by the Protestants it suffered in

Wars of Religion A religious war or a war of religion, sometimes also known as a holy war ( la, sanctum bellum), is a war which is primarily caused or justified by differences in religion. In the modern period, there are frequent debates over the extent to wh ...

when many of its relics were desecrated and scattered. In spite of the intervention of the Maurists from 1662 onwards, it did not regain its lustre, its numbers diminished inexorably and it was an already weakened abbey that finally succumbed to the suppression of the congregations during the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

, in 1790. The last monks were dispersed, the buildings sold as national property were destroyed or divided up and then redesigned. In the 21st century, however, there are still important vestiges of the Saint-Paul de Cormery abbey, scattered in an urban landscape where their original unity is sometimes difficult to identify among the recent constructions: the Saint-Paul tower (the bell tower-porch of the abbey church), a

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

chapel in the choir, the

refectory A refectory (also frater, frater house, fratery) is a dining room, especially in monasteries, boarding schools and academic institutions. One of the places the term is most often used today is in graduate seminaries. The name derives from the Lat ...

, which has been largely preserved even though it has undergone a lot of remodeling, and a portion of the gallery of the

cloister A cloister (from Latin ''claustrum'', "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against a ...

are still standing. On the periphery of the monastic enclosure, the dwellings of the

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The ...

, the prior and the sacristan remain. In stages between 1908 and 1933, all of these remains, with the exception of the sacristan's dwelling, were classified or registered as historical monuments, while the capitals of the preserved parts are listed in the general inventory of cultural heritage.

References

Bibliographic sources

* Agence Bailly-Leblanc et Thalweg Paysage, �
Commune de Cormery - élaboration d'une aire de mise en valeur de l'architecture et du patrimoine - diagnostic AVAP
» DF on the website of the State services in Indre-et-Loire. * Octave Bobeau, « Les églises de Cormery (Indre-et-Loire) », Bulletin archéologique du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques,‎ 1908, p. 344-370. * Jean-Jacques Bourassé, « Cartulaire de Cormery, précédé de l'histoire de l'abbaye et de la ville de Cormery, d'après les chartes », Mémoire de la Société archéologique de Touraine, Tours, t. XII, 1861, p. 1-325 * Philippe Chapu, « L'abbaye de Cormery, visite guidée », Bulletin de la société des amis du pays lochois,‎ December 1991, p. 119-138 (ISSN 1244-3816, OCLC 473577837). * Annick Chupin, « Cormery 1791-1820. Le dépeçage d'une abbaye millénaire », Bulletin de la Société archéologique de Touraine, t. XLIV,‎ 1995, p. 537-550 (ISSN 1153-2521). * Annick Chupin, « Historiens de l'abbaye de Cormery au xviie siècle : Dom Yves Gaigneron et Dom Gilbert Gérard », Bulletin de la Société archéologique de Touraine, t. XLVI,‎ 2000, p. 253-268 (ISSN 1153-2521). * Annick Chupin, « Alcuin et Cormery », Annales de Bretagne et des pays de l'Ouest, Presses universitaires de Rennes, t. CXII, no 3,‎ 2004, p. 103-112 (). * Charles Lelong, « Vestiges romans de l'abbatiale de Cormery », Bulletin Monumental, t. CXXIV, no 4,‎ 1966, p. 381-387 (). * Charles Lelong, « Encore Cormery… », Bulletin de la Société archéologique de Touraine, t. XLIV,‎ 1996, p. 785-791 (ISSN 1153-2521). * Frédéric Lesueur, « Cormery », in Congrès archéologique de France, CVIth session held in Tours in 1948, Paris, Société française d'archéologie, 1949, 416 p., p. 82-110. * Valérie Mauret-Cribellier, « L'abbaye bénédictine Saint-Paul de Cormery (Indre-et-Loire) », Bulletin de la Société archéologique de Touraine, t. XLIV,‎ 1994, p. 119-144 (ISSN 1153-2521). * Michel-J. Peutin, Cormery : mille ans d'histoire d'une abbaye, Truyes, Cadic, 1986, 18 p. * Thomas Pouyet, Cormery et son territoire : origines et transformations d’un établissement monastique dans la longue durée (8e-18e siècles) : Archéologie et Préhistoire, vol. I : Texte, Tours, Université de Tours / Région Centre-Val de Loire, 2019, 399 p. * Thomas Pouyet, Cormery et son territoire : origines et transformations d’un établissement monastique dans la longue durée (8e-18e siècles) : Archéologie et Préhistoire, vol. II : Corpus de preuves, Tours, Université de Tours / Région Centre-Val de Loire, 2019, 309 p. * Thomas Pouyet, « Cormery et son territoire : origines et transformations d’un établissement monastique dans la longue durée (viiie – xviiie siècle) », Bulletin du centre d’études médiévales d’Auxerre, no 24.2,‎ 2020 ({{doi, 10.4000/cem.17943). Monasteries Benedictine monasteries Benedictine monasteries in France Buildings and structures in Indre-et-Loire Buildings and structures in Centre-Val de Loire Christian monasteries established in the 8th century Monuments historiques of Centre-Val de Loire