Site/monument
in NIORT

Ancienne abbaye de Saint-Liguaire

St-Liguaire comes from Saint Léger, abbot of St-Maixent and bishop of Autun in the 7th century, the local dialect having distorted this name into Léodogaire.
Its Benedictine abbey was founded in 961 by Elbes, abbot of St-Maixent, on the initiative of his brother Guillaume Tête d'Etoupe, 2nd count of Poitou. Its monks cultivated the fertile alluvium of the Sèvre, drained the Bessines marsh and maintained the La Roussille lock.
Rebuilt many times after the Hundred Years and Religious Wars, the monastery was sold in 1791. The 3th century chapter room. is one of its last vestiges and 1962 bone fragments from the only known reliquary (St-Léger-du-Bois, diocese of Angers) were given in XNUMX to the Ste-Marie-Madeleine church at occasion of its millennium.
Also see: the 2 keystones of the Renaissance cloister representing the heads of emperors reused on the portal of the Ste-Macrine school.

Address

Impasse de l'Abbaye
79000 NIORT
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