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Notre Dame de Lerins abbey
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Notre Dame de Lerins Abbey, on the Ile St Honorat
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The fortified Monastery dates from the period from the 11th to the 14th century.
Around 1073 the construction of a 1st refuge tower was started by the abbot Adalbert II, who probably also began the construction of the Suquet Tower (Cannes).
Over the following centuries other elements were added, including the building of two superimposed cloisters, the entirety incorporated in a boss facing.
In the basement, some very big cellars (12th and 14th century) probably housed reserves of food. There, there was an oil mill and bread oven.
The first storey was devoted most especially to work and communal life.
The cloister was built, based on inner courtyards of 14th century houses, around a water tank, of which most of the columns were inspired by Roman monuments.
The second storey wes devoted to prayer. The cloister has 12 octagonal marble columns opening onto three chapels, one of which is the Holy Cross Chapel (14th century).
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The upper floors were reserved for the army : garrison hall, and signal and defense terraces with the site of the old bell. In 17th century engravings you can see that there had been a roof in the place of the crenelles restored in the 19th century.
The 12th century medieval cloister is situated in the heart of the monastic community's present day quarters.
It is composed of four galleries of which the construction was spread out from the end of the11th century to the end of the 12th. A Cloister with small openings, carved as one block in an extraordinarily hard stone made iridescent by the light. Not the slightest ornament, not the slightest sculpted console. The Cistercians of today can feel right at home here.
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Two, big 12th and 13th century halls border the two sides of this cloister.
The chapter room gets its name from the fact that each day the community gathered there to listen to the reading of a passage, to a "chapter", from the Rule of Saint Benedict and to its commentary by the Abbot Father. In this room important decisions, admissions into the monastic life and the election of the Abbot (the superior of the monastery) were also made.
The refectory gets its beauty from its vast Gothic vault. The Rule of Saint Benedict provides for simple food for the monks, eaten in silence while listening to the readings.
The monastery buildings surrounding the medieval cloister date from the end of the 19th century, after the Cistercians from Sénanque took up the monastic life on the Ile St Honorat. Two large wings for habitation in straight angles, with colonnaded passages, one of which houses the monks "cells", the library, the infirmary and the kitchens.
The other wing has been, since the 1960's, converted into a monastic hotel. The present day church, build on the site of that from the 12th century dates, from the same construction period ; it was consecrated in 1928.
©José Nicolas
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Notre Dame de Lerins Abbey, on the Ile St Honorat
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Ile St Honorat, French Riviera
Abbaye Notre Dame de Lérins
BP 157 - 06406 Cannes cedex - France
Phone : +33 (0)4 92 99 54 00 - Fax. : +33 (0)4 92 99 54 01
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