Abbaye de Gomerfontaine

Trie-Château

In 1207, the lord Hugues de Chaumont and his wife Pétronille gave their manse of Gomerfontaine to a small community of Cistercian nuns. Pope Honorius III confirmed the foundation in 1222, and the priory became an independent abbey in 1226. For nearly six centuries, generations of nuns followed one another in this quiet little valley of the Vexin français, far from the great male abbeys that made the glory of the Order of Cîteaux. The most savoury episode of its history dates from 1626, when Mother Agnès Arnauld, of the celebrated Jansenist family of Port-Royal, was sent to reform the community. She found the place in such a state of material and spiritual dilapidation that she wrote, with grating humour, to her sister Mother Angélique that God had sent her to Gomerfontaine to make her personally experience the article of the Apostles' Creed: descendit ad inferos, "he descended into hell". The abbey never fully recovered and disappeared with the Revolution in 1792, sold as national property. Now private property, the site keeps silent about the eight centuries of women's monastic life it sheltered.

Getting there : In the Vexin français, in the commune of Trie-Château, some ten kilometres from Gisors (Oise)

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

Ambient sound