MOISSAC. - Benedictine abbey dedicated to St. Peter, situated at the confluence of the Tarn with the Garonne, founded around the middle of the 7th century by St. Amandus, apostle of Aquitaine. His successors St. Ansobert and Leotadius carried out constructions that were ruined by the Saracens in 737; the restorations of Pepin and of Louis the Pious 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 in 1042. Having passed to the Congregation of Cluny under St. Odilo, the abbey flourished again; the first Cluniac abbot was Durand (1048-72), who rebuilt the church on the model of that of St. Martial of Limoges, and consecrated it on 6 November 1063. The abbot Ansquitil added monastic buildings to it (1085-1115); around 1140 the great square tower was raised and the tympanum of the facade was carved, in which recurs the scene of the apocalyptic vision, so frequent in the miniatures of the period. The church was dedicated in 1180. The abbot Americ de Peyrac (1377) began restorations; the abbot Americ de Roquemaurel (1431-49) rebuilt the church, which was finished by his successor Peter of Carmaing (1449-83). In 1625 the abbey was secularized and fell into decline. In 1767 the abbot de Gontaut-Biron demolished a part of the buildings. The National Assembly suppressed the abbey; church and cloister were sold. The monastery lay to the northwest of the church; the whole was enclosed and fortified until 1229; today nothing remains but the church and the cloister, the latter rebuilt during the second half of the 13th century under the abbot Berrando de Montaigu (1260-93), reusing the Romanesque material. In the western ambulatory there are bas-reliefs with the Apostles indicated by epigraphs incised in the small arches. Characteristic are the capitals, in which are carved 66 episodes drawn from the Old and New Testaments and from stories of saints.
The archives of the abbey are preserved in the departmental archives of Tarn-et-Garonne at Montauban. Of the cartulary of the abbey (from the year 673 to 1626) an authentic copy is in the National Library of Paris, Collection Doat, nos. 127-31, where there is likewise preserved in manuscript, in a 15th-century copy, the Chronique of Americ de Peyrac, ms. Lat. no. 4491.