Abbaye Notre-Dame de Beaugency, Augustinian abbey in Beaugency, France
Abbaye Notre-Dame de Beaugency is a Romanesque abbey church built of small, irregular grey stones, made up of connected sections with pitched roofs. On the left, a lower gabled section has three arched windows with dark openings above a small arched doorway; to its right, a taller gabled section has a single tall arched window and a deeply recessed arched doorway framed by concentric stone arches. A third lower section with a similar recessed doorway stands further right, and behind it rises a square stone tower with arched openings and a pointed slate roof. A potted tree stands at the base of each left doorway.
Raoul de Beaugency allowed the canons serving the primitive church to free themselves from seigneurial tutelage between 1104 and 1108, under the Gregorian reform, and they built their abbey. Around 1140 the church was rebuilt as the Romanesque abbatiale still standing, its construction distinguished by stylistic study into two campaigns: the chevet, the non-projecting transept and the side aisles, then the nave and west facade. In 1152 the annulment of the marriage of Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine was held in the abbatiale, a prelude to the Hundred Years' War; in 1568 fire destroyed the roof framework, and the Genovevan canons restored the buildings a century later.
The abbey church, now the parish church of Notre-Dame, is where the marriage of Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine was annulled in 1152. The former cloister and the so-called Devil's Tower now belong to the Lycée de l'Abbaye, and the old dormitory has been turned into a hotel.
Part of the complex now functions as a private vocational training facility while other sections serve as hotel spaces, which may limit visitor access to certain areas. Check accessibility before arriving since portions of the buildings are not open to the general public.
The abbey buildings are now split between several uses: the former abbatial church serves as the parish church, the old cloister area and the enclosure tower known as the Devil's Tower belong to the Lycée de l'Abbaye, and the former dormitory has been turned into a hotel. The former abbey was partly listed as a monument historique in 2006, while the former abbatial church had already been classified in 1862.
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