MOISSAC. — Benedictine abbey dedicated to St. Peter, situated at the confluence of the Tarn and the Garonne, founded around the middle of the 7th century by St. Amando, apostle of Aquitaine. His successors, St. Ansberto and Leotadio, carried out constructions that were destroyed by the Saracens in 737; the restorations of Pipino and Ludovico il Buono were destroyed by the Normans. Today it lies within the territory of the diocese of Montauban.
The church, rebuilt between the 10th and 11th centuries, burned down in 1042. Having passed to the Congregation of Cluny under St. Odilone, the abbey flourished again; its first Cluniac abbot was Durando (1048–72), who rebuilt the church on the model of that of S. Marziale in Limoges and consecrated it on 6 November 1063. Abbot Ansquitil added monastic buildings (1085–1115); around 1140 the great square tower was erected and the tympanum of the façade was sculpted, in which the scene of the apocalyptic vision appears, so frequent in the miniatures of the period. The church was dedicated in 1180. Abbot Americo de Peyrac (1377) began restorations; Abbot Americo di Roquemaurel (1431–49) rebuilt the church, completed by his successor Pietro di Carmaing (1449–83). In 1625 the abbey
was secularized and declined. In 1767 Abbot de Gontaut-Biron demolished part of the buildings. The National Assembly suppressed the abbey; the church and cloister were sold. The monastery stood to the northwest of the church; the whole complex was enclosed and fortified until 1229; today only the church and cloister remain, the latter rebuilt during the second half of the 13th century under Abbot Berrando de Montaigu (1260–93), reusing the Romanesque material. In the western ambulatory there are bas-reliefs with the Apostles identified by inscriptions carved in the archivolts. The capitals are characteristic, bearing sculptures of 66 episodes drawn from the Old and New Testaments and from the lives of saints.
The abbey archives are preserved among those of the département of Tarn-et-Garonne at Montauban. Of the abbey’s cartulary (from the year 673 to 1626), an authenticated copy is in the National Library of Paris, Collection Doat, nos. 127–31, where there is also preserved, in a 15th-century manuscript copy, the Chronique of Americ de Peyrac, ms. Lat. no. 4491.