Abbaye Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul de Solignac

Solignac

The story of Solignac begins with a goldsmith. Eligius, a Limousin craftsman who rose to the court, became the moneyer and counsellor of King Dagobert — the "good King Dagobert" of the nursery song, in which Eligius is the famous "great Saint Eloi" who sets the king's clothes to rights. Around 631–632 the king gave him the estate of Solemniacum, on the Briance, and Eligius founded there an abbey which he entrusted to monks from Luxeuil, led by Saint Remaclus, its first abbot. In his lifetime the community is said to have numbered about a hundred and fifty monks, and its goldsmiths' workshops carried on the art of the founder, the future bishop of Noyon. Plundered by the Norsemen in the 9th century, the abbey recovered and even sheltered, in the 12th century, the relics of Saint Martial during the wars between Capetians and Plantagenets. It is from this period, around the second quarter of the 12th century, that the present abbey church dates, unique of its kind in Limousin: an aisleless nave covered by a row of domes on pendentives, akin to the cathedrals of Périgord, bathed in a light that pilgrims to Compostela have been discovering for eight centuries on the Vézelay route. The 14th-century choir stalls mix sacred figures with profane drollery. After the Revolution the buildings became a prison, a boarding school and then a porcelain factory until 1937. In 2021, Benedictine monks from the abbey of Clairval restored the place to its vocation: at Solignac, prayer has resumed where Saint Eligius left it.

Getting there : In the heart of the village of Solignac, in the valley of the Briance, some ten kilometres south of Limoges; car park near the abbey church. A stage on the Via Lemovicensis to Compostela.

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

Ambient sound