Ligugé Abbey

Benedictine monastery in France

Ligugé Abbey, formally called the Abbey of St. Martin of Ligugé , is a French Benedictine monastery in the Commune of Ligugé, located in the Department of Vienne. Dating to the 4th century, it is the site of one of the earliest monastic foundations in France. The original abbey having been destroyed during the French Revolution, the current monastic community dates from 1853, and belongs to the Solesmes Congregation.

The original monastery was founded in 361, at a site offered by the bishop Hilary of Poitiers, to Hilary's protégé Martin of Tours, to whom it was later dedicated. The site was described as "deserted" in early writings about the abbey, such as the account of the noted historian, Gregory of Tours, who made a pilgrimage to the abbey in 591 to honor his predecessor in the episcopal see. Modern excavations, have identified a Gallo Roman villa at the site. The reputation of the founder attracted a large number of disciples to the new monastery. The monks initially lived according to the pattern of the Desert Fathers of Egypt, each in his locaciacum (small hut), this name later evolving to Ligugé. When, however, Martin became Bishop of Tours and established a monastery at Marmoutier a short distance from that city, the fame of Ligugé declined considerably. Among Martin's successors as Abbots of Ligugé may be mentioned Savin, later honored as a saint, who resigned the post of abbot to become a hermit, and Abbot Ursinus, during whose rule the monk Defensor compiled the well known "Scintillarum Liber". The invasion of the Saracens, the wars of the Dukes of Aquitaine with the early Carolingians, and lastly the Norman invasion were a series of disasters that almost destroyed the monastery. By the 11th century, it had sunk to the position of a dependent priory attached to Maillezais Abbey. It was revitalized in 1003 by the re establishment of a shrine to St. Martin, its founder, by Adalemode of Limoges, wife of the Count of Poitiers, William V, Duke of Aquitaine. The shrine grew in prominence as a place of pilgrimage until the occupation of the priory by English troops in 1359 and its subsequent destruction by the French forces to prevent its becoming a staging point for relief to the English armies. The priory reached its lowest level in 1501, when it became a benefice held in commendam. The first of the commendatory priors, Geoffroy d'Estissac, a great patron of literature and the friend of Rabelais, built the existing church, a graceful structure but smaller by far than the ancient basilica which it replaced. Rabelais was a guest of the priory for a time, a period he used to edit his early works.

In 1849 Louis Edouard François Desiré Pie, afterwards cardinal, became the Bishop of Poitiers. He was a close friend of Prosper Guéranger, the re founder of the French Benedictine Congregation, and on 19 November 1853 he gave formal approval for the restoration of monastic life at the monastery. Five days later, a small community of four monks arrived from Solesmes Abbey, led by Abbot Guéranger, and established themselves at Ligugé. This was the first daughter house of Solesmes. At first a priory dependent on that abbey, the new foundation was raised in 1864 to the rank of an independent abbey by Pope Pius IX, and Guéranger appointed Léon Bastide to be its first abbot.