Monasticon Gallicanum (1677-1710)
Bibliothèque nationale de France
The foundation of the Priory of Saint-Robert-de-Cornillon was promoted by the counts of Albon, whose domains included the castle and site of Cornillon. Around the 1070s, Guigues I († c. 1075) and his son Guigues II the Fat († c. 1079) placed this location at the disposal of the Abbey of La Chaise-Dieu (Haute-Loire) so that a monastic community might be established there. A priory was thus founded under the dedication of Saint Robert of Turlande (c. 1000–1067), founder of La Chaise-Dieu, who had recently been canonised.
Detail of Atlas de Trudaine (1745-1780)
Archives Nationales
The Priory of Saint-Robert remained under the protection of the County of Albon and later of the Dauphiné of Viennois. Thanks to this support, it achieved prosperity and prestige; there was even an attempt to raise it to the rank of abbey. At that time, it possessed a Romanesque church with three aisles, a transept and three apses, as well as a cloister and the usual conventual buildings. By the mid-sixteenth century, however, the site was in decline, probably as a result of the Wars of Religion, which affected this territory in 1562. Owing to its poor condition, the priory was entrusted in 1657 to the Congregation of Saint-Maur (Maurists), who undertook its reconstruction, a process that continued into the eighteenth century.
It was suppressed during the Revolution; in 1791 it was sold, and shortly afterwards much of the church was demolished. In 1812 the site passed into public ownership, and the remaining conventual buildings were adapted as a shelter for vagrants, an institution later transformed into a psychiatric hospital, a function it still fulfils. Subsequent alterations led to the disappearance of the remaining conventual structures. During works carried out within the hospital complex in 2017, an archaeological excavation brought to light the foundations of the priory’s medieval buildings.
The current hospital center
Guigues I of Albon, the founder
Illustration from Album du Dauphiné (1839)
- AUVERGNE, Abbé (1865). Documents inédits rélatifs au Dauphiné. Vol. 1. Le cartulaire de Saint-Robert. Grenoble: Prudhomme
- BESSE, J.-M.; i altres (1939). Abbayes et prieurés de l'ancienne France. Vol. 9: Province ecclésiastique de Vienne. Abbaye de Ligugé
- ESPINAY, G. d’ (1862). Note sur le cartulaire de Saint-Robert de Cornillon en Dauphiné. Mémoires de la Société d'agriculture, sciences et arts d'Angers, vol. V
- JOUNEAU, David; i altres (2019). L’évolution architecturale du prieuré Saint-Robert-de-Cornillon (Saint-Égrève, Isère). Les Cahiers de Léoncel n°29
- PEIGNÉ-DELACOURT, Achille (1877). Monasticon Gallicanum. Paris: G. Chamerot
No visible remains of the priory survive today. It stood within the grounds of the Saint-Robert psychiatric hospital, in the municipality of Saint-Égrève