Abbaye d'Hautecombe - Saint-Pierre-de-Curtille (Savoie), France
N 45° 45.164 E 005° 50.332
31T E 720794 N 5070494
[FR] L'abbaye royale d'Hautecombe a été fondée en 1125 par Amédée de Lausanne, avec l'aide du comte Amédée III de Savoie. [EN] Hautecombe Abbey is a former Cistercian monastery, later a Benedictine monastery.
Waymark Code: WM11XQR
Location: Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France
Date Posted: 01/06/2020
Views: 7
[FR] Elle a été construite durant le xiie siècle par des moines cisterciens et est particulièrement connue pour être la nécropole de la Maison de Savoie (comtes de Savoie, leur famille, et quelques membres de la famille ducale de Savoie) puis de quelques-uns des rois et reines d'Italie.
Après une période active et prospère jusqu'au début du xve siècle, l'abbaye, comme nombre d'autres maisons religieuses à cette époque, tombe sous le régime de la commende (gestion des biens matériels par une personne extérieure à l'abbaye), et la piété de la vie religieuse s'en ressent fortement. Les vocations se font graduellement moins nombreuses jusqu'au xviiie siècle, et la vocation de nécropole est complètement perdue. La Révolution française (qui agrège la Savoie, indépendante, à la France sous le nom de département du Mont-Blanc) chasse les rares derniers moines et détruit une partie de l'édifice.
L'abbaye revient dans le royaume de Sardaigne après le congrès de Vienne au début du xixe siècle. Elle est alors reconstruite en style baroque troubadour par la volonté du roi de Sardaigne, Charles-Félix de Savoie (1765-1831) et de Marie-Christine de Bourbon-Siciles. L'abbaye est à nouveau confiée aux cisterciens à partir de 1826 ; elle retrouve sa fonction de nécropole des souverains avec l'inhumation du couple royal.
[EN] For centuries it was the burial place of the members of the House of Savoy. Its origins lie in a religious community which was founded about 1101 in a narrow valley (or combe) near Lake Bourget by hermits from Aulps Abbey, near Lake Geneva. In about 1125 it was transferred to a site on the north-western shore of the lake under Mont du Chat, which had been granted to it by Amadeus III, Count of Savoy, who is named as the founder; and shortly afterwards it accepted the Cistercian Rule from Clairvaux. The first abbot was Amadeus de Haute-Rive, afterwards Bishop of Lausanne.
[EN] The origins of Hautecombe lie in a religious community which was founded about 1101 in a narrow valley (or combe) near Lake Bourget by hermits from Aulps Abbey, near Lake Geneva. In about 1125 it was transferred to a site on the north-western shore of the lake under Mont du Chat, which had been granted to it by Amadeus III, Count of Savoy, who is named as the founder; and shortly afterwards it accepted the Cistercian Rule from Clairvaux.
Hautecombe was for centuries the burial-place of the Counts and Dukes of Savoy. Count Humbert III, known as "Blessed", and his wife Anne were interred there in the latter part of the 12th century; and about a century later Boniface of Savoy, Archbishop of Canterbury (1245–1270), son of Count Thomas I of Savoy, was buried in the sanctuary of the abbey church. Aymon, Count of Savoy financed the expansion of a burial chapel at Hautecombe which was constructed from 1331 to 1342.
The abbey was restored (in a debased style) by one of the dukes about 1750, but it was secularized and sold in 1792, when the French entered Savoy, and was turned into a china-factory. King Charles Felix of Sardinia purchased the ruins in 1824, had the church re-constructed by the Piedmontese architect Ernest Melano in an exuberant Gothic-Romantic style, and restored it to the Cistercian Order. He and his queen, Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies, are buried in the Belley chapel, which forms a kind of vestibule to the church. Some 300 statues and many frescoes adorn the interior of the church, which is 66 metres (217 ft) long, with a transept 26 metres (85 ft) wide. Most of the tombs are little more than reproductions of the medieval monuments.
The Cistercians resettled the abbey from Turin, but the Italian monks soon left, and were replaced by others from Sénanque Abbey, who remained until about 1884. The premises were taken over by the Benedictines of Marseilles Priory in 1922, but in 1992 the monks left for Ganagobie Abbey in the Alpes de Haute Provence, and the buildings are now administered by the Chemin Neuf Community, an ecumenical and charismatic Roman Catholic group.
Full name of the abbey/monastery/convent: Abbaye Royale d'Hautecombe
Address:
Saint-Pierre-de-Curtille,
73310
Religious affiliation: Roman Catholic
Date founded/constructed: 1125
Web Site: [Web Link]
Status of Use: Acitvely Used
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