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Vignogoul

The first time Vignogoul was named as a Benedictin women's monastery was in 1150. In 1178 the community was ruled by Cîteaux and in 1259 the monastery became an abbey. In 1211 the church which was falling in ruins began to be rebuilt. The lower part of the nave with its roman buttress was erected at beginning of XIIIth century. The first nave was supposed to be covered with frame built on diaphragm arches. From 1243, Elizabeth d'Alignan, the last prayer, had planned to ellarge abbaye and after her Guillaumette Daude, the first abbess, in 1259, carried on building the choir, the side chapels. The nave cover couldn't be finished before the turmoils of the black plague and the hundred year's war. It was only in 1446 when the abbess Marguerite Alamand could carry on the building and the current barrel voults was built in the middle of the XVth century. Rich of its roman past, the abbey has an only nave which is a major characteristic of gothic in Languedoc. Still cistercian in 1791, the abbey was sold to a wine grower from Pignan. In 1862 it was listed and restored in 1912. Its rebuilt stone paved roof focuses on gable crown over seven ?oculi? of the chevet.