Mondaye Abbey ( or Abbaye Saint-Martin de Mondaye) is a French Premonstratensian abbey in the Bessin countryside at Juaye-Mondaye, Calvados, nine miles to the south of Bayeux. Founded in 1200, it is the only Premonstratensian house still active in Normandy, with two dependent priories at Conques and Tarbes.
History
Medieval
In the mid-12th century, a priest named Turstin withdrew to a wooded Norman hill to live as a hermit, where he was quickly joined by a circle of followers. When Turstin died in 1200, the bishop of Bayeux established the community under the Rule of St. Augustine. Turstin's brother-in-law Raoul de Percy donated land for the abbey. In 1210, under the protection of La Lucerne Abbey, the order was incorporated into the order of Saint Norbert. Over the following years, the abbey continued to receive donation from the de Percy and de Vassy families, as well as from lesser nobility and well-to-do farmers. At the end of the 13th century, a church and monastic buildings were built to replace the hermitage. In 1343 the abbey's gifts were interrupted by the Hundred Years' War and rivalries between pro-French and pro-English lords in the area. In 1347 the Black Death killed a third of the population, the abbey's lands were uncultivated and the Bessin was ravaged by armed bands. The abbey itself was ravaged by Richard FitzAlan, 11th Earl of Arundel, in 1389.
1500-1700
Mondaye flourished again under the abbacy of Jean Feray (1512-1557). Its monks attended the university of Caen and included many doctors of theology among them. However, this high period was interrupted by the French Wars of Religion, with the abbey burned, its treasures dispersed and its abbot Julien Guichard killed by Huguenots on 5 September 1564. After the Council of Trent, calm returned and the monastery church was restored thanks to support from Anne de Médavy.
In 1631, Claude Leclerc du Tremblay was appointed commendentory abbot by the king and headed the abbey for the next 75 years. The Lorraine reform revising the Saint Norbert rule and making it stricter and closer to its origins was adopted by Mondaye abbey in 1655. Choosing a prior by the chapter of the congregation partly avoided the disadvantages of a commendatory abbot.
1700-1815
Three regular abbots were appointed by Louis XIV and Louis XV, and ruled the abbey from 1704 to 1763. Under these three figures' aegis a total reconstruction was begun as part of the momentum of the new classicist style, to meet the then-prevailing need for grandeur in France. The church, monastic buildings, entrance pavilion and farm (where 30 people worked) were all rebuilt, though with the order's austerity maintained by small cells and by only having chimneys in the prior's lodging, the warming house and the infirmary. It was supervised by the architect Eustache Restout (himself prior and sub-prior of Mondaye) from 1706 to 1743, with his last years devoted to decorating the church (including paintings by his nephew Jean II Restout). In 1763 the abbey again fell under a commendatory abbot and building work stopped.
On the French Revolution the Premonstratensian order was despoiled of its goods and the 17 monks at Mondaye were dispersed or imprisoned. One of them was father Paynel, curé de Juaye, who took the oath of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy before abandoning the priesthood to become mayor. Paynel did, however, reconcile with the church, saving the abbey church from destruction and taking nine priests opposed to the civil constitution into his house. Once the revolutionary turmoil was over, Father Goujon ceased to be clandestine prior and gathered together the parishes of Juaye, Couvert and Bernières-le-bocage - the commune of Juaye-Mondaye originated in this era. From 1806 to 1812 the monastic buildings housed a collège.
1815-1940
In 1815 the Trappists of Valenton took over the buildings at Mondaye but left them in 1854 when their maintenance became too expensive for them to bear. The Premonstratensian order moved back into the buildings on 13 June 1859, when the bishop of Bayeux solemnly handed back the keys to it to canons coming from the Belgian abbey at Grimbergen. The community underwent a major phase of expansion and increased their number of parochial missions, preaching tours and retreats. It also restarted work on building north and south wings in the classical style.