LA CHAISE-DIEU (Casa Dei). – Benedictine abbey formerly in the diocese of Clermont, currently in that of Le Puy-en-Velay, in the department of Haute-Loire. It was founded between 1044 and 1052 by Roberto, son of the count of Aurillac, who became its first abbot (d. 1067) and was canonized by Clement V in 1351.
The original abbey church was consecrated by Urban II on 18 August 1095 and dedicated to the martyrs Sts. Vitale
and Agricola. The abbey soon became very flourishing, with more than 300 monks; among them was Pierre Roger, who, having become pope under the name of Clement VI (1342–52), had the reconstruction of the abbey church begun in 1344 by Ugo Morel, Pietro di Cébazat, and Pietro Falciat; the work was completed in 1378 and dedicated to the founder, St. Roberto. At that time the abbey was also rebuilt under Gregory XI, nephew of Clement VI. The Gothic building (73.62 × 24.20 m) has three naves of equal height (18 m); five chapels open onto the apse. The 156 Gothic choir stalls were donated by Abbot A. De Chanac (1378–1420); the fourteen superb tapestries made at Arras, from designs by Taddeo Gaddi, were presented by Abbot G. De Sénétaire in 1518 and depict subjects taken from the Old and New Testaments. A danse macabre was painted in the 15th century on the frieze of the wall surrounding the choir (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 funerary monuments are those of Abbot R. de Montclar (1346), Nicola Roger de Beaufort, archbishop of Rouen and uncle of Clement VI, and Queen Edith, wife of Edward the Confessor; but the most sumptuous is that of Clement VI, which he commissioned from Pierre Roye as early as 1351. The statue of the Pope in white marble lies on a black-marble sarcophagus. The tabernacle above it, decorated with 44 statues, was smashed by the Huguenots of Blacons on 2 August 1562, when they sacked the church and abbey. The statues, restored, suffered a disastrous fire in 1692. The abbey was destroyed during the French Revolution.
Attached to the southern side of the church was the cloister, dating from the end of the 14th century; two galleries with vaulted ceilings bearing the coats of arms of Clement VI and Abbot de Chanac remain. The last regular abbot was the munificent G. de Sénétaire; thereafter the abbey of L. C.-D., which had exercised jurisdiction over other abbeys and important priories, declined and had commendatory abbots such as Cardinals Richelieu, Mazarin, Serroni, the 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 and partly by private owners.