Grandselve Abbey

I am Jehan-le-Boiteux. I wanted to live as a hermit in a large oak forest. In 1117, while others were living there like me, a religious arrived from Périgord. He told us his name was Géraud de Sales and that he wanted to bring us together to live here as a community. It was Etienne who became our first abbot.

And so Grandselve was born…

I’m Bertrand. In the year of grace 1144, when the great Bernard de Clairvaux came to the Toulouse region, I met him and offered him my abbey: thus, it was under the name of Notre-Dame de Grandselve that Cistercian life was established.

My name is Richard. On this day in April 1283, I invite the bishop of Toulouse and several prelates to preside over the dedication ceremony of our majestic abbey church: a magnificent brick vessel 100 meters long, 20 meters wide.

Look up at the vaults! Could there be any more beautiful?

I am the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Grandselve. I’ve taken three centuries to grow up: here I am in 1476, at the center of a grandiose estate made up of towns, barns, farmland, pastures and vineyards. But all this attracts the covetousness of the King of France, Louis, who wants to place men of his own to benefit from the rents of my immense estate. That’s how I came to know my new masters – abbés commendataires – who would succeed one another for the next three centuries…

I’m Dom Dominique Bermond, prior of Grandselve, along with my eleven brother-monks and a handful of brother-convers. We’re expecting a visit from the mayor of the neighboring commune, who warns us that the new authorities will soon be conducting the inventories they’ve requested. Every one of our books, pieces of furniture, linen and tools will be counted… How did I manage to keep the precious reliquaries and shrines safe? As I speak to you now, in 1791, we have been definitively expelled, and my heart sinks at the thought of what is to come.

I’m the now-defunct Abbey of Notre-Dame de Grandselve, said to be one of the most beautiful, largest and most radiant abbeys in the south of the Kingdom of France. In the eighteen years since it was horribly put up for sale, I have been ripped apart, dismantled, demolished brick by brick, stone by stone: my abbey church destroyed, my conventual buildings demolished, my cloisters scattered… Only the gatehouse remains as a reminder of my greatness.

My name is Patrick Froidure. I’m a farmer and I bought an estate named Grandselve. I know nothing of its past. Like my neighbors, I grow corn, beans and wheat. One day in 1968, I wanted someone to clear away a pile of rubble that was in the way of my crops. As the bulldozer finished its work, I asked for a little digging, as I was intrigued to find rubble on farmland. It was there, at a depth of just under two meters, that magnificent, intact tiles appeared: decorating the floor of the church choir, they were waiting to be uncovered so that Notre-Dame de Grandselve could be reborn.

I’m a member of the association Les Amis de l’Abbaye de Grandselve. Today, I’d like to take you on a journey of discovery through the restored abbey. I’ll tell you about the seven centuries of its history.