Abbaye de Grandselve

Bouillac

Almost nothing remains of Grandselve, and that is perhaps what makes its story all the more dizzying. Founded in 1114 by the hermit Géraud de Salles, then attached to the Cistercian order in 1144, the abbey became within a few generations one of the most powerful in the south of France: more than 20,000 hectares of land, 25 agricultural granges, daughter abbeys spread as far as Spain, and even the founding of bastides, those medieval new towns designed to develop the countryside. Grandselve exported its wine as far as Bordeaux — 300 barrels in the 14th century alone — and in 1281 founded a college of theology in Toulouse to train its monks. This economic and intellectual power collapsed abruptly at the Revolution: from 1793, the buildings were given over to systematic demolition, and the abbey church, though consecrated in 1253 and more than 100 metres long, was razed within a decade. Only the 18th-century entrance gateway survived, almost by miracle, standing today in the middle of the fields like a door opening onto the void. The abbey's carved capitals have found refuge at the Musée Ingres-Bourdelle in Montauban, while a seal matrix of the abbey rests, more surprising still, in the British Museum in London — the last scattered echo of a vanished monastic empire.

Getting there : Commune of Bouillac, 20 km north of Toulouse, Tarn-et-Garonne; gateway visible from outside, collections at the museum in Montauban

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

Ambient sound