LA CHAISE-DIEU (Casa Dei). - A Benedictine abbey formerly in the diocese of Clermont, at present in that of Le Puy-en-Velay, in the department of Haute-Loire. It was founded between 1044 and 1052 by Robert, son of the count of Aurillac, who was its first abbot (d. 1067) and was canonized by Clement V in 1351.
The primitive abbey church was consecrated by Urban II on 18 August 1095 and dedicated to the martyrs Sts. Vitalis and Agricola. The abbey soon became very flourishing, with more than 300 monks: among these was Pierre Roger, who, having become pope under the name Clement VI (1342-52), in 1344 had the reconstruction of the abbey church begun by Ugo Morel, Pietro di Cébazat and Pietro Falciat; the work was finished in 1378 and dedicated to the founder St. Robert; the abbey was then also rebuilt under Gregory XI, nephew of Clement VI. The Gothic building (73.62 x 24.20 m) has three naves of equal height (18 m): five chapels open off the apse. The 156 choir stalls in Gothic style were donated by the abbot A. De Chanac (1378-1420); the fourteen superb tapestries made at Arras, after designs by Taddeo Gaddi, were offered by the abbot G. De Sénétaire in 1518, and contain subjects taken from the Old and New Testaments. On the frieze of the wall surrounding the choir a danse macabre was painted in the 15th century (A. Vicard, Les fantômes d'une danse macabre. L'art funèbre du moyen âge, d'après la fresque de L. C.-D., Le Puy 1918).
Among the sepulchral monuments are remembered those of the abbot R. de Montclar (1346), of Nicola Roger de Beaufort, archbishop of Rouen and uncle of Clement VI, of Queen Edith, wife of Edward the Confessor, but the most sumptuous is that of Clement VI, ordered by him as early as 1351 from Pierre Roye. The statue of the Pope in white marble lies recumbent on a sarcophagus of black marble. The aedicule that surmounted it, decorated with 44 statues, was broken by the Huguenots of Blacons on 2 August 1562, who plundered church and abbey. The statues, restored, suffered a ruinous fire in 1692. The abbey was destroyed at the time of the French Revolution.
Annexed to the southern side of the church was the cloister, of the end of the 14th century; two galleries with vaults remain of it, preserving the coats of arms of Clement VI and of the abbot de Chanac. The last regular abbot was the munificent G. de Sénétaire; afterwards the abbey of L. C.-D., which had had jurisdiction over other abbeys and notable priories, declined and had commendatory abbots such as the cardinals Richelieu, Mazarin, Serroni, first archbishop of Albi, and Rohan, who was exiled there in 1786. The remains of the monastic buildings rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries are today partly occupied by public services, partly by private owners.
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Enrico Josi