Abbaye Notre-Dame de Paimpont

Paimpont

Tradition has it that Judicaël, king of Domnonée, and his friend Méen, the abbot of Gaël, founded a monastery here in the 7th century; the documents, more sober, show at the end of the 11th century a priory dependent on the abbey of Saint-Méen. Around 1199 according to Guillotin de Corson, around 1211 according to Dom Morice, the priory became an abbey of canons regular of Saint Augustine, endowed by the lords of Lohéac and then of Montfort, whose seal appears on an act of 1303 against Pope Boniface VIII. The abbey church was raised in the 13th century, a long vessel of red schist with a single nave; the abbot Olivier Guiho, in the 15th century, had it vaulted with ribs and gave it its bell-tower, and it was he who pleaded in 1405, at Ploërmel, against Raoul de Montfort for the monks' rights in the forest of Brécilien — the same forest whose uses the charter of 1467 would regulate. In 1649 the reformed canons of Sainte-Geneviève took the house and built the great range. In January 1790 four hundred rioters forced the abbey and burned its title deeds; in May 1792 its property was auctioned at the court of Montfort. The church has become that of the parish: one sees there the arm-reliquary of Saint Judicaël, of the 15th century, and an ivory Christ of the 17th. It is the best-preserved medieval monument in the whole history of Brocéliande, and it speaks neither of Merlin nor of Arthur.

Wikipédia — Abbaye Notre-Dame de Paimpont ↗

Getting there : In the village of Paimpont, next to the pond (car park). Parish church open during the day; for the treasury (arm-reliquary of Saint Judicaël, ivory Christ), enquire at the Paimpont tourist office, next door.

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

Ambient sound