Jumièges

JUMIÈGES. - Benedictine abbey of St. Peter, founded by St. Philibert in 654 on a plot of land granted on the banks of the Seine in the diocese of Rouen by Queen Bathilde, wife of Clovis II.

The abbot Philibert, besides the monastic buildings, built three churches, the first dedicated to the Most Holy Virgin, the second to St. Peter, the third to St. Germanus. The abbey flourished rapidly and sent missionaries to Great Britain and Ireland. At the end of the 8th century Charlemagne had Tassilo, duke of Bavaria, and his son Theodo buried there; over their tomb, rediscovered in the 10th century, a sumptuous monument was erected in the 13th century, around which the legend known as that of the Enervés de J. grew up.

The abbey suffered a fire in 841 and the sackings of the Norman invasion; it was restored by Duke William Longsword, to whom are owed the bases of the two towers still existing in the facade of the church of St. Peter. Then there was again a period of decline. At the beginning of the 11th century Duke Richard II summoned to J. William of Volpiano, abbot of St. Benignus in Dijon, who installed there as abbot his disciple Theodoric of Montgomery (1014-28). The church, dedicated to the Most Holy Virgin, was then taken up again (1037) by the abbot Robert Champart; the dedication took place on 1 July 1067; its abbot represented the clergy of Normandy at the Council of Clermont of 1095, presided over by Pope Urban II.

In 1332 the abbot William the Younger began the reconstruction of the church of St. Peter, in an era of great reflowering of the abbey, which was nevertheless invaded and sacked by English troops in 1358; the monks who had been driven out returned there with the abbot John of St-Denis in 1370, but again the English troops of Henry V put it to the sack in 1415; the monks were forced to sell a part of the goods for the restorations. In 1450 King Charles VII stayed there.

In 1515 the abbot Philip of Luxembourg introduced there the reform of Chezal-Benoît; the abbot Francis of Fontenay rebuilt the cloister and repaired the church of the Most Holy Virgin. The Protestants sacked the abbey on 8 May 1562. Under the abbot Marian of Martimbos the reform of St-Vannes was introduced; in 1663 the new library was built; between 1704 and 1732 the new great dormitory, precisely when the decline was beginning. The French Revolution dispersed the monks in 1793.

The church dedicated to the Most Holy Virgin still preserves the facade with the two towers, more than 50 m. high, of the 11th century; the central nave, and the lesser one on the north side, still preserve their vaults; the choir and the transept were demolished at the beginning of the 19th century. A passage, called that of Charles VII, joined this church with that of St. Peter with three naves; the ruins of the cloister and of the library also survive, while the dormitories are destroyed. A museum gathers fragments of statues, capitals and tombstones.

Enrico Josi