MAREDSOUS. - Benedictine abbey, in the diocese of Namur (Belgium), founded by the abbey of Beuron on territory donated by the Desclée family.
The monks, who arrived there on 14 October 1872, began the construction of the monastery and took possession of the first cloister buildings on 29 June 1876. On 1 May 1878 the monastery was erected into an abbey under the government of Dom Placido Wolter. The church was solemnly consecrated on 19 August 1888.
The building complex, of a solemn grandeur but not heavy, repeats the characteristics of the best French Gothic style. Besides the church and the convent it comprises an abbey school with a humanistic orientation (founded in 1881) and a school of crafts (the bindings produced there are noteworthy).
Cultural activity had in M. a very active center. As early as March 1884 Dom G. van Caloen founded there the periodical Le Messager des fidèles, which in 1890 became the Revue bénédictine (v.). In 1898 Dom G. Fournier gave life to another periodical, Le Messager de St-Benoît, which became in 1910 the Revue liturgique et monastique. Also noteworthy are the Bulletin d'histoire bénédictine, begun in 1893 by U. Berlière; the Bulletin d'ancienne littérature chrétienne latine, published by B. Capelle, and the series Anecdota Maredsolana, to which Dom G. Morin (v.) gave particular impetus.
From M. there set out in 1895, directed by Dom G. van Caloen, the first Benedictines to restore the Brazilian Congregation, and in 1899 the founders of the abbey of Mont-César at Louvain. In 1920 the abbeys of M. and of Mont-César, together with the women's abbey of Maredret (near M.), separated from the Congregation of Beuron and formed, with the abbey of St. Andrew near Lophem (Bruges), the Belgian Congregation of Mary Annunciate.