Abbey of Saint-Aubin

• 1. Introduction

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  Saint-Aubin Abbey in Angers began with a death. Bishop Albinus held the see from 529 to 550 and was buried in a cellula angusta. A narrow provisional cell held his remains while a grander basilica was under construction. The nova basilica was completed between 550 and 576 and took the bishop's name. Gregory of Tours recorded it in the sixth book of his Dix Livres d'histoire. How did the community that gathered at this single grave sustain itself for fourteen centuries? And what remained when the Revolution finally scattered the last monks?

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• 2. Community and Captivity

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  Bishop Bertrand du Mans, writing in 616, named an abbot called Bobeno at the basilica of Saint Albinus. That brief record is among the earliest written evidence of monastic life at the site. The first Vita S. Magnobodi was written sometime in the 9th or 10th century. It named another abbot, Niulphus, who governed what it called a coenobium.

  Excavations in 1997, conducted during the redevelopment of the Logis Barrault for the Musée des Beaux-Arts, provided physical confirmation. Archaeologists found the courtyard area free of domestic habitation during this period. A small number of burials was identified, and the arrangement was interpreted as consistent with the abbey's enclosure.

  By the 8th or 9th century, monks had given way to a canonical community. The community's most notable detainee arrived in 818. Bishop Théodulf d'Orléans, accused of backing Bernard of Italy's bid for power, was confined at Saint-Aubin and held there until his death in 820.

  The monks returned to Saint-Aubin in 966, as document number 18 of the Cartulaire de Saint-Aubin records. That return came alongside a formal reformation of the community. The reinstated monks would, within a century, erect a bell tower that still rises above the city.

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• 3. The Tour Saint-Aubin

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  Rising 54 meters above Angers, the Tour Saint-Aubin was built in the 11th century. From its first construction, it stood outside the monastic enclosure, separate from the abbey. The tower had been the abbot's personal property, not a shared communal structure, and that distinction would prove consequential.

  In the Middle Ages, it served the city as a watchtower. A well and loopholes were built into it, giving it the character of a small fortress. Other abbey towers of the same period were constructed outside their monastic enclosures in the same manner.

  By the 19th century, the belfry, campanile, and roof had all been destroyed. The tower was repurposed as a shot tower, used in the manufacture of hunting shot.

  In 1862, the Tour Saint-Aubin was listed as a Monument Historique. Three further classifications followed in 1901, 1904, and 1968, and an inscription was added in 2007. In the first half of the 20th century, the tower interior housed the Musée de l'Industrie. It then served as a meteorological observatory before becoming a venue for temporary art exhibitions.

  The community that maintained this tower also commissioned, under Abbot Robert de La Tour-Landry, a Romanesque cloister whose carved stonework still survives.

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• 4. The Romanesque Cloister

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  Robert de La Tour-Landry served as abbot from 1127 to 1154, and the cloister was built on his initiative. Today only the eastern gallery survives, preserving the chapter house door and two sets of arcades. On the north side, the arcades form two triplets, each group containing three bays. On the south, the arrangement shifts to geminated bays beneath three enclosing arches. The twelve arcades are dated to the 12th century.

  The chapter house doorway carries three archivolt scrolls. Carved capitals on the cloister side depict episodes from the story of Samson. The spandrels beneath the southern arcades display two biblical subjects: the Maestà and the confrontation between David and Goliath.

  Beneath the carved Maestà, two angels flank the central figure. On the right, the Magi follow the star toward Jerusalem. On the left, Herod gives the order for the Massacre of the Innocents. At the center, Jerusalem is represented through the figure of the Virgin.

  In the 14th century, the monks attempted to add a Gothic vault over the cloister. The construction damaged the Romanesque sculptures it was meant to shelter. A broader reconstruction of the abbey buildings took place between 1668 and 1692. By a decree of the 19th of July 1901, the surviving cloister arcades were classified as Historic Monuments.

  The monks who completed that rebuilding in 1692 had fewer than 130 years left before the Revolution dispersed them permanently.

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• 5. What the Revolution Spared

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  In 1811, the abbey church was demolished. The cleared ground was given over to what is now Place Michel-Debré. Two structures from the former complex were not destroyed: the Romanesque cloister gallery and the fortified bell tower.

  The Romanesque cloister was absorbed into the new Maine-et-Loire prefecture building rather than demolished. Some of its surviving arcades were set into the building's open courtyard. Others are preserved in a room on the first floor of the central prefecture building.

  The Tour Saint-Aubin survived for a specific reason. It had always stood outside the abbey enclosure and had been the abbot's own property. That distinction protected it from the fate that ended the abbey church. It has since housed industry, science, and art in turn, but it still rises 54 meters above rue des Lices.

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