Abbey of Saint-Sauveur d’Aubeterre
Saint-Jacques d’Aubeterre / Terra Alba / Albaterrensis
(Aubeterre-sur-Dronne, Charente)
The origin of the Abbey of Saint-Sauveur d’Aubeterre lies in an ancient Benedictine monastery that, according to tradition, was founded in the 6th century at the castle of the lords of Aubeterre. In the year 779, that abbey was secularised: part of the community moved to Saint-Pierre de Brantôme (Dordogne), while another group of monks founded the Augustinian canonry of Saint-Sauveur. The site suffered the effects of the Norman invasions and was rebuilt in the 12th century, the period to which the remarkable surviving façade belongs.
The chapter of canons held royal status, with an abbot at its head, and enjoyed a long period of prosperity, interrupted only by the Hundred Years’ War, during which it lost some of its possessions. More serious were the effects of the Wars of Religion: in 1562 the church was destroyed and only the façade remained. The canonry continued its activity in other parts of the town until 1710, when the nave was rebuilt. The chapter was dissolved in 1791 during the Revolution, although it had already been secularised earlier.
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- COTTINEAU, Laurent-Henri (1936). Répertoire topo-bibliographique des abbayes et prieurés. Vol. 1. Mâcon: Protat
- GELLIBERT DES SEGUINS (1862). Aubeterre en 1562. Bulletin de la Société archéologique et historique de la Charente, vol. 4
- SAINT-MAUR, Congregació de (1720). Gallia Christiana in provincias ecclesiasticas distributa. Vol. 2. París: Typographia Regia
The Abbey of Saint-Sauveur is located in the town of Aubeterre-sur-Dronne, south of Angoulême