CLAIRVAUX (Chiaravalle, lat. Clara vallis), ABBEY. — The celebrated abbey of C. is indissolubly linked to the name and glory of its abbot, St. Bernardo. Chosen by St. Stefano Harding to found a new monastery, he departed from Citeaux with twelve companions, and before long a valley hidden among the mountains appeared to his eyes: marshy, watered by the river Aube, dense with woods and brambles, it was called the Valley of Wormwood or Bitter Valley. Here the pious travelers settled: it was 25 June 1115. Situated in Champagne, in the diocese of Langres, it was soon transformed, not without grave sacrifices on the part of those holy religious, into a pleasant and exceedingly fertile valley: Jongelin gives a vivid description of it in the Notitia abbatiarum S. Ord. Cisterciensis (Colonia 1640, pp. 20-22). There the monks built the famous monastery which, together with the valley, was called
C. (a place-name subsequently very frequent: V. CHIARVALLE), a nursery of saints and scholars, bishops and cardinals, among them Pope Eugenio III (1145-53); Grammatico calls it “the noble monastery of France,” and Bernardo himself “the heavenly Jerusalem.” Ugo I, count of Troyes, contributed greatly to the endowment of C.; kings, nobles, and bishops showed themselves generous, especially the count of Champagne, Teobaldo, who, in 1135, in view of the community’s enormous growth, had almost the entire construction enlarged at his own expense. King Alfonso I of Portugal, in a letter dated
27 April 1142, offered his kingdom for the needs of C.
Between 10 October 1118 and 11 February 1154, C. alone founded no fewer than 67 monasteries, which in turn multiplied prodigiously. At the death of St. Bernardo, on 20 August 1153, the monastery numbered more than 700 monks, devoted to contemplation and agricultural labor, to study and the arts (v. CASTRES).
Up to 1718, 49 abbots are recorded, under whom the monastery experienced various fortunes (cf.
the list in Gallia Christiana, IV, Paris 1728, cols. 796-814). The abbey was sold at auction in 1792 and its rich library dispersed; subsequently converted into a glassworks, it is today a state penitentiary. The ancient enclosing walls measured approximately 2 km. in length.
Among the abbots are remembered: Roberto di Bruges, Goffredo, Ponzio di Polignac, Gerardo I, Enrico, later cardinal-bishop of Albano, Pietro Monocolo, Corrado di Urach, Stefano Lexington.
The buildings were grouped into two complexes: the monks’ quarters, alongside which stood the church, the library, and the study rooms; and the structures intended for artisanal activities.
The church had a Latin-cross plan divided into three aisles covered by groined vaults, with a shallow apse-ended choir flanked by two chapels on each side. At a later date, the choir was demolished and replaced by nine radial chapels with trapezoidal plans; part of the nave in front of the presbytery was instead adapted as a choir. The church, thus enlarged, was consecrated in 1174. Its characteristics shaped all Cistercian architecture (v.). The plan of 1667 reproduced by Viollet-le-Duc attests that the abbey retained its original arrangement until that time, but in the following century it underwent extensive alterations. — Vedi Tav. CXI.