Abbatiale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul de Montier-en-Der

Montier-en-Der (La Porte du Der)

In 672 the monk Berchaire, the future saint, founded in the forest of Der — the "monastery in the Der" that gave the town its name — a Benedictine abbey, on lands granted by the Merovingian king on the recommendation of Saint Léger. At the end of the 10th century, Abbot Adso, one of the most celebrated minds of his age — we owe him the treatise on the Antichrist addressed to Queen Gerberga, which fed a thousand terrors of the year 1000 —, launched the construction of a great church; dying in 992 on his way to Jerusalem, he left its completion to his successor Bérenger. The nave with its 10th-century arcades, one of the rare Carolingian naves surviving in France, carries 11th-century galleries and rises on three levels, extended by a luminous Gothic choir. In the 20th century, the abbey church burned almost entirely; the architect Jacques Laurent undertook its reconstruction, the nave being raised again in the 1950s. The memory of Saint Berchaire, murdered according to tradition by a monk he had rebuked, still surrounds this vessel twice risen from its ashes.

Getting there : Centre of Montier-en-Der, free admission; D384 from Saint-Dizier (~25 min), near the Lac du Der

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

Ambient sound