LUXEUIL, Abbey of. - In the diocese of St-Cloud in the department of Haute-Savoie in France. L., an ancient Celtic village, was a spa in Roman times.
In 582 the Irish monk St. Columbanus founded at L. a monastery that soon became a highly esteemed center of studies. After the Benedictine Rule was introduced there, it was placed under the direct dependence of the Holy See and favored by Charlemagne; the abbots held the title of princes of the Empire. The decline began at the end of the 15th century; Charles V incorporated the Lordship of L. into Franche-Comté, which was then 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 1328-40; it has three naves with the main apse having five niches and the two side apses square; the choir stalls, carved in 1545 for the cathedral of Besançon, were ceded to L. in 1675. In the transept is a 13th-century statue of St. Peter; south of the church stands the cloister with adjoining abbey buildings partly from the beginning of the 17th century. The ancient abbey palace today serves as presbytery and town hall. At L. was born Jean Jouffroy (1412-73), later abbot of L., bishop of Albi and cardinal. Scanty is the information about the scriptorium of L. and its twofold monastic library, that is, the one comprising the choir books and the other of profane authors. No ancient catalogue has survived and the manuscripts were dispersed in the fires suffered several times and in the period of the commendam. Mabillon, visiting it in 1683, found only a few manuscripts. In 1790 these were reduced to 33 according to a list then made 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 appears at Bern, and one in the Pierpont Morgan library.
The antiquissimum lectionarium Gallicanum discovered there by Mabillon (Iter germanicum, Hamburg 1717, p. 11) reappeared in a sale in 1875 and then came into the possession of the National Library of Paris (now Ms. lat. 9427). It has recently been edited by Fr. P. Salmon (Le lectionnaire de L., Rome 1944), who has shown that it was drawn up for a secular church which the author believes to be 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).