Sénanque Abbey (

Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...

: ''abadiá de Senhanca'', French: ''Abbaye Notre-Dame de Sénanque'') is a Cistercian

abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The con ...

near the village of

Gordes Gordes (; oc, Gòrda) is a commune in the Vaucluse département in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France. The residents are known as ''Gordiens.'' The nearest big city is Avignon; smaller cities nearby include Cavaill ...

in the ''département'' of the

Vaucluse Vaucluse (; oc, Vauclusa, label= Provençal or ) is a department in the southeastern French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. It had a population of 561,469 as of 2019.Provence Provence (, , , , ; oc, Provença or ''Prouvènço'' , ) is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the Italian border to the east; it is bor ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

First foundation

It was founded in 1148 under the patronage of Alfant,

bishop of Cavaillon The former French diocese of Cavaillon (''Lat.'' dioecesis Caballicensis) existed until the French Revolution as a diocese of the Comtat Venaissin, a fief of the Church of Rome. It was a member of the ecclesiastical province headed by the Metropol ...

, and

Ramon Berenguer II, Count of Barcelona Ramon Berenguer II ''the Towhead'' or ''Cap de estopes'' (1053 or 1054 – December 5, 1082) was Count of Barcelona from 1076 until his death. He was the son of Ramon Berenguer I, Count of Barcelona, and Almodis de La Marche. The '' Chronic ...

Count of Provence The land of Provence has a history quite separate from that of any of the larger nations of Europe. Its independent existence has its origins in the frontier nature of the dukedom in Merovingian Gaul. In this position, influenced and affected by ...

, by Cistercian monks who came from Mazan Abbey in the Ardèche. Temporary huts housed the first community of impoverished monks. By 1152 the community already had so many members that Sénanque was able to found Chambons Abbey, in the

diocese of Viviers The Roman Catholic Diocese of Viviers ( la, Dioecesis Vivariensis; french: Diocèse de Viviers ) is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. Erected in the 4th century, the diocese was restored in the Concordat of 1822 ...

. The young community found patrons in the

seigneurs ''Seigneur'' is an originally feudal title in France before the Revolution, in New France and British North America until 1854, and in the Channel Islands to this day. A seigneur refers to the person or collective who owned a ''seigneurie'' (o ...

of Simiane, whose support enabled them to build the abbey church, consecrated in 1178. Other structures at Sénanque followed, laid out according to the rule of

Cîteaux Abbey Cîteaux Abbey (french: Abbaye de Cîteaux, links=no ) is a Catholic abbey located in Saint-Nicolas-lès-Cîteaux, south of Dijon, France. It is notable for being the original house of the Cistercian order. Today, it belongs to the Trappists ...

, mother house of the Cistercians. Among its existing structures, famed examples of

Romanesque architecture Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of medieval Europe characterized by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque style, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 11th century, this lat ...

, are the abbey church,

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 ...

, dormitory, chapter house and the small ''

calefactory The calefactory (also ''warming house'') was an important room or building in a medieval monastery in Western Europe. It was here that a communal fire was kept so that the monks could warm themselves after long hours of study in the (unheated) c ...

'', the one heated space in the austere surroundings, so that the monks could write, for this was their

scriptorium Scriptorium (), literally "a place for writing", is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European monasteries devoted to the writing, copying and illuminating of manuscripts commonly handled by monastic scribes. However, lay scribes an ...

. A

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 ...

was added in the 17th century, when some minimal rebuilding of existing walls was undertaken, but the abbey is a remarkably untouched survival, of rare beauty and severity: the capitals of the paired columns in the cloister arcades are reduced to the simplest leaf forms, not to offer sensual distraction. The abbey church is in the form of a

tau cross The tau cross is a T-shaped cross, sometimes with all three ends of the cross expanded. It is called a “tau cross” because it is shaped like the Greek letter tau, which in its upper-case form has the same appearance as Latin letter T. Anoth ...

with an

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...

projecting beyond the abbey's outer walls. Somewhat unusually, its

liturgical east end In Western ecclesiastical architecture, a cathedral diagram is a floor plan showing the sections of walls and piers, giving an idea of the profiles of their columns and ribbing. Light double lines in perimeter walls indicate glazed windows. Dash ...

faces north, as the narrow and secluded valley offered no space for the conventional arrangement. In the 13th and 14th centuries, Sénanque reached its apogee, operating four mills, seven granges and possessing large estates in

Provence Provence (, , , , ; oc, Provença or ''Prouvènço'' , ) is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the Italian border to the east; it is bor ...

. In 1509, when the first abbot '' in commendam'' was named, a sure sign of the decline of vocation, the community at Sénanque had shrunk to about a dozen. During the

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 ...

the quarters for the lay brothers were destroyed and the abbey was ransacked by

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

s. At 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 ...

the abbey's lands were

nationalized Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to p ...

, the one remaining monk was expelled and Sénanque itself was sold to a private individual.

Second foundation

The site was repurchased in 1854 for a new community of Cistercian monks of the Immaculate Conception, under a rule less stringent than that of the

Trappists The Trappists, officially known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance ( la, Ordo Cisterciensis Strictioris Observantiae, abbreviated as OCSO) and originally named the Order of Reformed Cistercians of Our Lady of La Trappe, are a ...

. The community was expelled in 1903 and departed to the Order's headquarters,

Lérins Abbey Lérins Abbey () is a Cistercian monastery on the island of Saint-Honorat, one of the Lérins Islands, on the French Riviera, with an active monastic community. There has been a monastic community there since the 5th century. The constructio ...

on the island of St. Honorat, near

Cannes Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. T ...

. A small community returned in 1988 as a

priory A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or nuns (such as the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans, and Carmelites), or monasteries of ...

of Lérins. The

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

s who live at Sénanque grow

lavender ''Lavandula'' (common name lavender) is a genus of 47 known species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It is native to the Old World and is found in Cape Verde and the Canary Islands, and from Europe across to northern and easte ...

(visible in front of the abbey, ''illustration, right'') and tend

honey bees A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosm ...

for their livelihood. It is possible for individuals to arrange to stay at the abbey for spiritual retreat. Two other early Cistercian abbeys in Provence are Silvacane Abbey and Le Thoronet Abbey; with Sénanque, they are sometimes referred to as the "Three Sisters of Provence" (''"les trois soeurs provençales"'').

Gallery

References

* Dimier, Père Anselme, 1982: ''L'art cistercien''. Editions Zodiaque: La Pierre-qui-Vire. * Fleischhauer, Carsten, 2003: ''Die Baukunst der Zisterzienser in der Provence: Sénanque - Le Thoronet - Silvacane.''. Abteilung Architekturgeschichte des Kunsthistorischen Instituts der Universität zu Köln. Cologne University. * Morin-Sauvade, Hélène & Fleischhauer, Carsten, 2002: ''Sénanque''. Editions Zodiaque: Paris.

External links

Sénanque Abbey Web site

Gallery of images and groundplan
*
Photos of Senanque Abbey
{{DEFAULTSORT:Senanque Abbey Buildings and structures completed in 1178 12th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in France 1148 establishments in Europe 1140s establishments in France Religious organizations established in the 1140s Cistercian monasteries in France Romanesque architecture in Provence Buildings and structures in Vaucluse Christian monasteries established in the 12th century Churches in Vaucluse