Abbaye Notre-Dame de Sénanque / Sénanque Abbey - Gordes (Vaucluse, PACA, France) - Romanesque Architecture on Waymarking.com

Complex of the Cistercian abbey Notre-Dame de Sénanque (founded 1148), located close to the village of Gordes in the département of the Vaucluse in Provence, belongs among famed examples of Romanesque architecture in France.

The Senanque Abbey was founded in 1148 under the patronage of Alfant, bishop of Cavaillon, and Raymond Berenger II, Count of Provence, by Cistercian monks who came from Mazan Abbey in the Ardeche. During the Wars of Religion the quarters for the lay brothers were destroyed and the Senanque Abbey was ransacked by Huguenots. The community was expelled 1903–1926 and departed to the Order's headquarters, Lerins Abbey on the island of St. Honorat, near Cannes. A small community returned in 1988. The monks who live at Sénanque grow lavender (visible in front of the abbey, illustration, right) and tend honey bees for their livelihood. Sénanque Abbey, thanks to its great preservation and beauty, belongs dureing season among the most visited touristic targets in Provence...

Among Abbey existing structures, there are several examples of fine Cistercian Romanesque architecture - the abbey church, cloister, dormitory and chapter house, all of them are masive, austere buildinga with thick stone walls, typical for Cistercial architecture of this period. A refectory was added in the 17th century, when some minimal rebuilding of the existing walls was undertaken, but to this day the Abbey is a remarkably untouched in its Romanesque beauty and austerity. The Abbey church is in the form of a tau cross with an apse projecting beyond the abbey’s outer walls. Somewhat unusually, its liturgical east end faces north, as the narrow and secluded valley offered no space for the conventional arrangement.