Montreuil Abbey, or Montreuil-les-Dames, was a

Cistercian nunnery Cistercian nuns are female members of the Cistercian Order, a religious order of the Catholic Church. History The Cistercian Order was initially a male order. Cistercian female monasteries began to appear by 1125. The first Cistercian monastery ...

in the

Diocese of Laon The diocese of Laon in the present-day département of Aisne, was a Catholic diocese for around 1300 years, up to the French Revolution. Its seat was in Laon, France, with Laon Cathedral. From early in the 13th century, the bishop of Laon was ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, located at first at Montreuil-en-Thiérache (commune of Rocquigny, department of

Aisne Aisne ( , ; ; ) is a French departments of France, department in the Hauts-de-France region of northern France. It is named after the river Aisne (river), Aisne. In 2020, it had a population of 529,374. Geography The department borders No ...

) until the 17th century and afterwards in

Laon Laon () is a city in the Aisne Departments of France, department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. History Early history The Ancient Diocese of Laon, which rises a hundred metres above the otherwise flat Picardy plain, has always held s ...

, where it was known as Montreuil-sous-Laon.

History

The nunnery was founded by Bartholomew, Bishop of Laon, in 1136. In its early days the community occupied themselves not only in traditional women's tasks such as weaving and embroidery, but also in tilling the fields, clearing the forest, and weeding the soil. The nunnery rapidly gained a great reputation and within a few years the community numbered nearly three hundred. A community this large was difficult to manage, and within a century of its foundation the abbey was forbidden by the

Abbot of Clairvaux Clairvaux Abbey (, ''l’abbaye de Clairvaux''; ) was a Cistercian monastery in Ville-sous-la-Ferté, from Bar-sur-Aube. The abbey was founded in 1115 by Bernard of Clairvaux. As a primary abbey, it was one of the most significant monasteri ...

to take more novices until the number of nuns at Montreuil was reduced to one hundred, which figure was not in future to be exceeded. In 1636 the warfare prevalent in the region forced the nuns to abandon the abbey, which was destroyed. In 1655 they were eventually granted as a replacement the former

leper hospital A leper colony, also known by many other names, is an isolated community for the quarantining and treatment of lepers, people suffering from leprosy. '' M. leprae'', the bacterium responsible for leprosy, is believed to have spread from East ...

of Saint Ladre and Saint Lazare in La Neuville, a suburb of Laon, which became known as Montreuil-sous-Laon The abbey was suppressed in 1792 at the French Revolution. The premises were subsequently used as a workhouse, a lunatic asylum, and as a lodging for refugees, and suffered considerable damage and alteration during this period. After a major refurbishment in the early 1990s they are now principally residential in use.

Holy Face of Montreuil

Throughout the

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

Montreuil was a place of pilgrimage on account of its possession of the ''Sainte Face'' (i.e. Holy Face) as the

Veil of Veronica The Veil of Veronica, or (Latin for sweat-cloth), also known as the Vernicle, the Veronica and the Holy Face, is a Christian relic consisting of a piece of cloth said to bear an image of the Holy Face of Jesus produced by other than human mea ...

. This representation of the face of

Christ Jesus ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Christianity, central figure of Christianity, the M ...

, which was regarded by many as the original relic, was really a copy of the ''Vera Effigies'' in

St. Peter's Basilica The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican (), or simply St. Peter's Basilica (; ), is a church of the Italian High Renaissance located in Vatican City, an independent microstate enclaved within the city of Rome, Italy. It was initiall ...

at Rome. It was presented in 1249 to the then Abbess of Montreuil, Sybilla, by her brother Jacques Pantaleon, afterwards

Pope Urban IV Pope Urban IV (; c. 1195 – 2 October 1264), born Jacques Pantaléon, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 29 August 1261 to his death three years later. He was elected pope without being a cardinal; he was the fi ...

. The painting, apparently of Eastern origin and already ancient when it came into the hands of the nuns, bore an inscription that seemed undecipherable, baffling even

Mabillon Dom Jean Mabillon , (; 23 November 1632 – 27 December 1707) was a French Benedictine monk and scholar of the Congregation of Saint Maur. He is considered the founder of the disciplines of palaeography and diplomatics. Early life Mabillon w ...

. Subsequently, however, some

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

n scholars asserted that the words were Slavonic, and read ''Obraz gospoden na-oubrouse'' (in

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

, ''Imago Domini in linteo''): "the image of the Lord in a linen cloth". The ''Sainte Face'' was not destroyed along with the abbey in the French Revolution, as was once believed, but was instead deposited in 1807 in the treasury of

Laon Cathedral Laon Cathedral () is a Roman Catholic church located in Laon, Aisne, Hauts-de-France, France. Built in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it is one of the most important and stylistically unified examples of early Gothic architecture. The c ...

, where it remains.Cairn.info: Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 2001/4, p.7
/ref> The term

Holy Face of Jesus The Holy Face of Jesus is a title for specific images which some Catholics believe to be miraculously formed representations of the face of Jesus Christ. The image obtained from the Shroud of Turin is associated with a specific medal worn by s ...

has, however, in recent years been more closely associated with the image obtained via the negative plate of the 1898 photograph taken by

Secondo Pia Secondo Pia (9 September 1855 – 7 September 1941) was an Italian lawyer and amateur photographer. He is best known for taking the first photographs of the Shroud of Turin on 28 May 1898 and, when he was developing them, noticing that the photo ...

of the

Shroud of Turin The Shroud of Turin (), also known as the Holy Shroud (), is a length of linen cloth that bears a faint image of the front and back of a naked man. Because details of the image are consistent with depiction of Jesus, traditional depictions o ...

References

Sources

Montreuil Abbey
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Catholic Encyclopedia ''The'' ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'', also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedi ...

article
Patrimoine de France: Abbaye de Montreuil à Laon
{{Coord, 49, 34, 12, N, 3, 36, 8, E, type:landmark_region:FR, display=title Cistercian nunneries in France 1136 establishments in Europe Monasteries in Aisne Christian monasteries established in the 1130s