LUXEUIL, ABBEY of. — In the diocese of St-Cloud, in the department of Haute-Savoie, France. L., an ancient Celtic settlement, was a thermal station in the Roman period.
In 582 the Irish monk St Colombano founded a monastery at L., which soon became a highly esteemed centre of learning. The Benedictine Rule was subsequently introduced there; the monastery was placed under the direct authority of the Holy See and favoured by Charlemagne, and the abbots were granted the title of princes of the Empire. Its decline began at the end of the 15th century; Charles V incorporated the Lordship of L. into Franca Contea, which was subsequently united to the crown of France in 1678. The abbey was suppressed in 1790 by the French Revolution. The abbey church of St Peter was built between 1328 and 1340; it has three naves, with the principal apse having five niches and the two lateral apses square; the choir stalls, carved in 1545 for Besançon Cathedral, were transferred to L. in 1675. In the transept there is a 13th-century statue of St Peter; to the south of the church stands the cloister, with the adjoining abbey buildings, partly dating from the beginning of the 17th century. The former abbey palace now serves as the presbytery and town hall. Giovanni Jouffroy (1412–73), later abbot of L., bishop of Albi, and cardinal, was born at L. Very little is known about the scriptorium of L. and its twofold monastic library: one comprising the choir books and the other the works of secular authors. No ancient catalogue has survived, and the manuscripts were dispersed in the fires it suffered on several occasions and during the period of the commendatory abbacy. When Mabillon visited it in 1683, he found only a few manuscripts. In 1790 these had been reduced to 33, according to a list drawn up at the time by the prior, dom Vautherot (L. Ecrément, Essai historique sur la ville et l'abbaye de L., Lure 1865, p. 136); another 13 were at Vesoul; one was sold in London in 1859, another is recorded in Bern, and one is in the library of Pierpont Morgan.
The antiquissimum lectionarium Gallicanum discovered there by
Mabillon (Iter germanicum, Hamburg 1717, p. 11) reappeared at a sale in 1875 and subsequently came into the possession of the National Library of Paris (now Ms. lat. 9427). It was recently published by Fr P. Salmon (Le lectionnaire de L., Rome 1944), who demonstrated that it had been prepared for a secular church which the author believes to have been that of Langres (id., Le lectionnaire de L. Ses origines et l'église de Langres, in Revue bénédictine, 53 [1941], p. 103; id., La liturgie langroise au XIe-XIIe siècle d'après le ms. 789, in Miscellanea liturgica in honorem L. C. Mohlberg, I, Rome 1948, pp. 443–50).