Abbaye de Berdoues

Berdoues

Around 1135, twelve monks from the distant abbey of Morimond, in Champagne, settled in Gascony on land offered by Count Bernard d'Astarac. Under the leadership of Abbot Aubert, they founded Berdoues, which would become one of the most prosperous Cistercian abbeys of the Gers. The monastery's vast cartulary, drawn up around 1175, is today a precious source for understanding the agricultural and economic rise of medieval Gascony. The monks of Berdoues did not confine themselves to prayer: around 1281, one of them, Pierre de Lamaguère, took part in founding the bastide of Lézian, which would later become the town of Mirande. The abbey came down through the centuries, but the Revolution closed it and largely dismantled it in 1791. Today only an 18th-century wing survives, whose chapel and staircase have been listed as historic monuments since 1933, along with a few fragments of the cloister still visible. The village of Berdoues, south of Mirande, thus keeps the discreet memory of an abbey that was a major spiritual and economic centre of medieval Gascony.

Getting there : Village of Berdoues, south of Mirande (Gers)

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

Ambient sound