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Fontfroide

Benedictine foundation (1093), included in the Cistercian Order in 1145 (affiliated to Grandselve). Hidden in the hills, Fontfroide quickly became one of the wealthiest Cistercian abbeys in Europe and as soon as 1151 made settlements in Catalunya (Poblet). Its influence grew during the Crusade against the Albigenses and the murder of Pierre de Castelnau, a monk of Fontfroide named Legate of the Pope, was the triggering event of this religious war (1208). A century later, Jacques Fournier, former abbot of Fontfroide and bishop of Pamiers, was elected pope under the name of Benedict 12th. Later came a period of decline and of moral crisis: the abbey was hit by the Black Plague (1348) then put in Commendam in 1476. Until the French Revolution, it was occupied only by a few monks. A small community brought the abbey back to life in 1858 but the laws of separation between the Church and the State put a final end to monastic life in Fontfroide (1901). In 1908, Gustave Fayet, an artist, a museum curator and a painting collector, bought the abbey and started extensive works of restoration and redecoration. Fontfroide is thus an amazingly preserved monastery, with its cloister and chapter house of the 12th century, a gorgeous abbatial church and its modern stain glass windows, the buildings of the lay brothers and the modifications of the 17th and 18th centuries.