Supplier: Abbey of Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire
Ingredients: cane sugar, glucose syrup, essential oil. Gluten free
Net Weight: 150g
Made in France by the monks.
Fleury Abbey, a story of men on the move
Between 630 and 650, double foundation under the patronage of Saint Mary and Saint Peter
The first mention of a monastery living under the Rule of Saint Benedict appears in Gaul around 620 in a letter addressed to the Bishop of Albi by the abbot of a monastery near Castres. Shortly afterwards, some monks settled on the north bank of the Loire, 30 km upstream from Orleans, on a small hill near the village of Fleury, and built a church dedicated to Notre Dame there, while a second a colony of monks settled a hundred meters further on, around a Saint-Pierre church. At that time these communities were not yet living under the rule of Saint Benedict, but under that of another great founder, Saint Colomban.
The two communities did not take long to merge and the monastery was now known under the name of Saint-Pierre de Fleury.
660 Arrival of the relics of Saint Benedict
During the 8th century, the patronage of the Prince of the Apostles was abandoned for that of Saint Benedict, a change motivated by the arrival of the relics of the Patriarch of Western Monks, brought from Monte Cassino in Italy at the initiative of the Abbot Mummolus. This event was at the origin of the rapid expansion, prosperity and influence of the abbey which became Saint-Benoît de Fleury, while the village later took that of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire.
865, 879, 897 The Normans burn down the monastery.
After the ordeal of the Norman invasions which plunder and destroy, the abbey will bloom again, and the tenth and eleventh centuries are the great era of the spiritual, intellectual and artistic influence of Fleury.
930-942 Odon de Cluny, abbot of Fleury
Reformed around 930 by Saint Odon de Cluny, but keeping its independence and its own customs, Fleury in turn became a model house and reforming center exerting its influence on Lorraine, the Loire Valley, Brittany, Normandy and England.
988-1004 Saint Abbon.
Under the Abbey of Abbon, Fleury reached the peak of its influence. Abbon is held by his contemporaries for the most educated man of his time, his literary and scientific work is vast and he knows how to discern and promote the literary gifts of his monks. The monastery receives an exemption charter from the Pope. Under his abbatial and that of Gauzlin, his successor, the abbey shelters a whole host of writers, historians, hagiographers and poets, some of whom, like their abbot, still find publishers and translators today. Artistic activity was above all the work of the next generation, the one that was formed on the benches of the abbey school when Abbon was abbot, and who flourished his talent under Gauzlin.
1004-1030 Gauzlin begins the tower-porch of the abbey basilica and rebuilds the buildings after the fire of 1026
1067 Construction of the current basilica begins
1108 On March 21, consecration of the apse and the choir. On August 2, King Philippe I is buried under the sanctuary.
1218 Dedication of the basilica finally completed
1413 The stalls are executed and placed at the crossing of the transept
1486 The abbey is put in order, that is to say that its superiors are appointed by the King.
1562 Looting during the Wars of Religion
The Hundred Years War and the Wars of Religion ruined the monastery and disrupted regular life, the membership of the community collapsed.
1627 Richelieu, commendatory abbot, gives the monastery to the Congregation of Saint-Maur.
1704 Construction of the organ gallery
1712-1731 Construction of a new monastery
1791 the Revolution disperses the community; at the beginning of the empire the monastery was used as a stone quarry….
1865-1903 First resumption of monastic life by monks from Pierre-qui-Vire
Shortly before his untimely death, in 1854 Father Muard, founder of Pierre-qui-Vire, came to Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire and predicted to the parish priest that one day his sons would sing praises to God here. In fact on January 7, 1865, at the request of Mgr Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, 3 monks from Pierre-qui-Vire settled in the presbytery of Saint-Benoît and took charge of the parish while waiting to be able to rebuild the monastery . But in 1881, then more decisively in 1903, the religious were expelled from France. A monk dressed as a secular priest and exercising the functions of vicar, can however remain in Saint-Benoît until 1928.
1944 Refoundation
Returning from exile in 1920, the community of Pierre-qui-Vire was able to buy, in 1935, part of the land located to the south of the Basilica and send a group of brothers to maintain them. On October 11, 1944 thirteen monks finally resumed monastic observance in Fleury and began rebuilding the monastery.
