Savigny Abbey

Savigny Abbey was a monastery in northern France. It was founded early in the twelfth century. Initially it was the central house of the Congregation of Savigny, who were Benedictines; by 1150 it was Cistercian.

History

It was situated on the confines of Normandy and Brittany. The founder was Vital de Mortain, who set up a hermitage in the forest of Savigny (1105).

Rudolph, lord of Fougeres, confirmed to the monastery (1112) the grants he had formerly made to Vital, and from then dates the foundation of the monastery. Tts growth was rapid, and Vital and St. Aymon were canonized. It had 33 subordinate houses, within thirty years.

In 1119 Pope Celestine II, then in Angers, took it under his immediate protection, and strongly commended it to the neighbouring nobles. Under Geoffroy, successor to Vital, Henry I of England, established and generously endowed 29 monasteries of this Congregation in his dominions. Bernard of Clairvaux also held them in high esteem, and it was at his request that their monks, in the times of the antipope Anacletus, declared in favour of Pope Innocent II.

Serlon, third successor of the Founder, found it difficult to retain his jurisdiction over the English monasteries, who wished to make themselves independent, and so determined to affiliate the entire Congregation to Citeaux, which was effected at the General Chapter of 1147. Several English monasteries objecting to this, were finally obliged to submit by Pope Eugene III (1148).

In later centuries discipline became relaxed. In 1509 the Abbey was pillaged and partly burned by the Calvinists, and records of the following year mention but twenty-four monks remaining.

It continued to exist until the Revolution reduced it to a heap of ruins, and scattered its then existing members. The church was restored in 1869. a

References

*TISSIER, Bibliotheca patrum cisterciensum (Bonnefont, 1660-69);
*MERLET AND MOUTIER, Cartulaire des Vaux de Cernay (Paris, 1857);
*DE DION, Etudes sur les eglises de l'ordre de Citeaux (Tours, 1889);
*DU MONSTIER, Neustria Pia (Rouen, 1663);
*Hist. Litt. de la France, by the Benedictines of St. Maur IX, X, XII (Paris, 1868-70);
*MANRIQUE, Annales cistercienses (Lyons, 1642œ59);
*MARTENE AND DURAND, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum (Paris, 1717); Gallia christiana, XI (Paris, 1805);
*JANAUSCHEK, Originum cisterciensum (Vienna, 1877), I;
*Roger Dodsworth, "Monasticon anglicanum" (London, 1682), II;
*JONGELINUS, Notitia abbatiarum ord. cist. (Cologne, 1640);
*Migne, Dict. des Ord. Relig. (Paris, 1850).