Abbaye de Villelongue

Saint-Martin-le-Vieil

At the foot of the Montagne Noire, a monk from the distant abbey of Morimond, named Guillaume, chose this enclosed valley between 1145 and 1149 to found a monastic community, raised to a fully fledged abbey as early as 1151. The place prospered on the gifts of neighbouring lords, but it was the turmoil of the Cathar wars that truly made its fortune: when the monks of Villelongue took sides against the heresy, they won the protection — and the generosity — of Simon de Montfort, the ruthless leader of the Albigensian Crusade, who showered the abbey with lands confiscated from the defeated lords. This accommodation with the power of its day allowed the abbey to give itself a remarkable cloister, whose capitals, carved in the 13th and 14th centuries in the southern Gothic style, dare to depict animals and human figures — an artistic liberty that nonetheless contradicts the austerity demanded by the early Cistercian rule. The plague epidemics of the 14th century, then the Huguenot destruction of 1568, at the height of the Wars of Religion, hastened the community's decline. Now in ruins but partially restored, the abbey of Villelongue can be visited amid romantic gardens, offering one of the best-preserved Cistercian ensembles in the South of France for anyone who wishes to read, in the stone, the compromises and the beauties of a monastery caught up in the Cathar storm.

Getting there : Commune of Saint-Martin-le-Vieil, at the foot of the Montagne Noire, 15 km south-west of Carcassonne, Aude; open to visitors in season

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

Ambient sound