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Trois-Fontaines ene

Ruin of the abbey's Romanesque church

Trois-Fontaines Abbey (English: Three Fountains; French: l'Abbaye de Sainte-Marie des Trois-Fontaines)[1] was a Cistercian abbey in the French department of Marne, in the historic province of Champagne.

It was the first of the Cistercian daughter-houses, established north of the head of navigation of the Marne at Saint-Dizier by Bernard of Clairvaux in 1118, though it never figured among the "Elder Daughters" of Cîteaux—Clairvaux, Pontigny, La Ferté and Morimond— that dominated the hierarchic network of the Order.

The abbey was very active in its first century or so in the settlement of daughter houses:

  • La Chalade Abbey (1127)
  • Orval Abbey in Belgium (1132)
  • Haute-Fontaine Abbey (1136)
  • Cheminon Abbey (1138)
  • Châtillon Abbey (1142)
  • Monthiers-en-Argonne Abbey (1144)
  • Szentgotthárd Abbey in Hungary (1183)
  • Belin Studenac Abbey (1234)

The chronicler Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, who covered the years 1227 to 1241, was a monk in the abbey.

Between 1739 and 1753, the abbot in commendam was Pierre Guérin de Tencin, French ambassador in Rome, who was made a cardinal in 1739. Later in the century, the abbey became a private dwelling. Today its Romanesque and Early Gothic abbey church is a picturesque ruin. The outbuildings shelter a bicycle museum.

Notes[]

  1. The Trappist abbey of Saints Vincent and Anastasius, near Rome, is also called the "Abbey of Three Fountains" (Abbazia delle Tre Fontane or Trium Fontium ad Aquas Salvias): see Catholic Encyclopedia: "Abbey of Saints Vincent and Anastasius".

References[]

Coordinates: 48°43′03″N 4°56′56″E / 48.7175°N 4.94888888889°E / 48.7175; 4.94888888889

la:Tres Fontes hu:Trois Fontaines-i ciszterci apátság

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