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Léoncel

A granddaughter of Cîteaux, through its daughter-house Bonnevaux, the abbey of Léoncel was founded in 1137 in a high valley in what is now the Vercors national park. Pillaged not only during the Hundred Years War but again during the French religious wars and subsequent events, all that survived of the abbey was its church, together with the monks' wing containing the few remains of the chapter house and cloister, that had several radical modifications over time. The pure white Urgonian limestone walls and piers of the church contrast with the lighter tuff used on the arches and the squinch supported dome. The choir, which is much earlier, is built in a more massive austere Romanesque style in which the influence of Provence can be seen. The groin vaults of the nave, bearing witness, like the aisles, to a later, more audacious, form a succession of cantilevers which allow more light in. The outside of the abbey church with its apse and Alpine bell tower are well worth seeing. Léoncel, in the region of the Dauphiné, might have led a rather ordinary existence were it not for important events which marked its history: the proximity to the Chartreuse of Val Sainte-Marie; the remarkable natural environment of the Valence plain, extending upwards to the Toulau rock (1585 m above sea level), worked at first in demesne and later as villain tenure; and finally the establishment of the commendatory abbot at Léoncel in 1681.