Abbaye de la Trinité de Vendôme et la Sainte Larme

Vendôme

It all begins, tradition tells, with a prodigy: one night in 1033, Count Geoffrey Martel and his wife Agnes saw three spheres of fire fall into a spring. Reading in this a sign of the Trinity, they founded on the spot one of the most powerful Benedictine abbeys of the kingdom. Answerable directly to Rome, La Trinité de Vendôme received two popes, Urban II and then Paschal II, and its abbot bore the title of cardinal. But what drew crowds of pilgrims for seven centuries was a unique relic: the Holy Tear, the tear Christ is said to have shed at the tomb of Lazarus and which an angel is said to have gathered, offered according to tradition by Geoffrey Martel on his return from an expedition. At the end of the 15th century an extraordinary cupboard-monument of Flamboyant stonework was built in the abbey church to display it to the faithful — art historians have studied it as a "monument of the Holy Tear". The relic disappeared in the early 19th century, during a transfer to Rome, but the setting remains: a spectacular abbey church where the 11th-century nave converses with a 14th-century choir, behind one of the finest Flamboyant Gothic facades in France, a lacework of stone attributed to Jean de Beauce. Beside it, the free-standing Romanesque bell tower, 80 metres high, is said to have served as the model for the Clocher Vieux at Chartres. The stained-glass window of the Virgin and Child (around 1140) is among the oldest preserved in France.

Getting there : Town centre of Vendôme, rue de l'Abbaye. Abbey church open during the day, free admission; abbey quarter (museum, cloister) around it. Coordinates for the centre of Vendôme (approach point), the abbey church is a few dozen metres away.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound