MOISSAC. - A Benedictine abbey dedicated to St Peter, situated at the confluence of the Tarn and the Garonne, founded in the mid-7th century by St Amandus, apostle of Aquitaine. His successors, St Ansbert and Leotadius, carried out constructions that were ruined by the Saracens in 737; the restorations by Pepin and 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 down in 1042. After passing to the Cluniac Congregation under St Odilo, the abbey flourished again; its first Cluniac abbot was Durandus (1048–72), who rebuilt the church in the style of that of St Martial in Limoges and consecrated it on 6 November 1063. Abbot Ansuqitil added monastic buildings (1085–1115); around 1140 the great square tower was raised and the façade tympanum was carved, featuring the scene of the Apocalyptic vision, so frequent in the miniatures of the period. The church was dedicated in 1180. Abbot Americ de Peyrac (1377) began restorations; Abbot Americ de Roquemaurel (1431–49) rebuilt the church, completed by his successor Peter of Carmaling (1449–83). In 1625 the abbey was
secularised and fell into decline. In 1767 Abbot de Gontaut-Biron demolished part of the buildings. The National Assembly suppressed the abbey; church and cloister were sold. The monastery lay to the north-west of the church; the whole complex was enclosed and fortified until 1229; today only the church and the cloister remain, the latter rebuilt during the second half of the 13th century under Abbot Bertrand de Montaigu (1260–93), using Romanesque materials. In the western ambulatory are bas-reliefs of the Apostles indicated by inscribed epigraphs in the archivolts. Characteristic are the capitals, carved with 66 episodes drawn from the Old and New Testaments and from the lives of the saints.
The abbey’s archives are preserved in the departmental archives of Tarn-et-Garonne at Montauban. Of the abbey’s cartulary (from the year 673 to 1626) an authenticated copy is in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, Collection Doat, nos. 127–31, where there is also a 15th-century manuscript copy of the Chronique of Americ de Peyrac, ms. Lat. no. 4491.