Abbaye de Preuilly

Égligny

In 1118, Stephen Harding, third abbot of Cîteaux and true architect of the Cistercian expansion, entrusted Artaud, a former fellow student of Saint Bernard, with the mission of founding a new abbey with a dozen monks. Preuilly thus became the fifth daughter house of Cîteaux, and above all the very first not to be itself a "primary abbey" of the order – a discreet but essential milestone in the Cistercian genealogy. Thanks to the support of Theobald IV of Champagne and his mother Adela of Blois, a powerful lineage that protected many monastic foundations in the region, the abbey enjoyed lasting prosperity over the centuries. Then came the Revolution, and abandonment: today only stretches of wall remain, as if suspended in the Brie countryside – the walls of the choir rising to the springing of their vanished vaults, the side walls of the nave and one arm of the transept, ghostly silhouette of a once-living sanctuary. Listed as a monument historique, Preuilly today belongs to a private family who watch over these romantic remains, where the golden stone mingles with wild grasses and where one senses, in silence, the scale of what this great medieval monastery once was.

Getting there : Near Bray-sur-Seine, in Seine-et-Marne, ruins visible from the edges of the site

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

Ambient sound