Abbaye Notre-Dame de Mazan

Mazan-l'Abbaye

At more than 1,100 metres, amid the forests of the Ardèche uplands, Mazan is the first Cistercian abbey established in Languedoc. Around 1119–1120, Bishop Léger of Viviers welcomed monks in search of solitude and obtained for them an estate called the "Mas d'Adam"; Cistercians from Bonnevaux, in the Dauphiné, settled there under Abbot Pierre Itier. Despite one of the harshest climates in the Vivarais, the abbey prospered to the point of sending out colonies across the whole Midi: it founded Silvanès in the Rouergue, Le Thoronet in Provence, Bonneval in the Rouergue and Sénanque in Provence — three of these daughters rank today among the most celebrated abbeys in France. Its farming granges covered the lower Vivarais, and the monks even founded the town of Villeneuve-de-Berg. Then came the Hundred Years' War, the plague, the Wars of Religion and the commendatory system (1469): twelve monks in 1661, six at the Revolution, which dispersed the community in 1790. In the 19th century the abbey served as a stone quarry for the inhabitants — the village was literally built with and within the monastery — and the last vaults were dynamited in 1905. Listed in 1946 and restored from 1967, the remains — apse, apsidal chapel, west gallery of the cloister, vault of the refectory — still raise their russet granite against the fir trees, witnesses to a spiritual adventure born of the solitude of the high plateaux.

Getting there : In the heart of the village of Mazan-l'Abbaye, on the D239 between Saint-Cirgues-en-Montagne and the col de la Chavade; remains freely accessible all year round, interpretation panels on site.

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

Ambient sound