Abbaye Saint Aubin d'Angers

Saint-Aubin Abbey is a former abbey in Angers, founded in the 6th century and dispersed during the French Revolution.

The abbey's origins date back to a funerary basilica (memoria) built to house the tomb of Bishop Albinus (529–550). Albinus had been buried in a cellula angusta pending completion of the great basilica, which took place between 550 and 576. The nova basilica was soon named after Saint Aubin, as Gregory of Tours mentions ("Dix Livres d'histoire", l. VI, 16). The funerary basilica became a monastery around the 6th–7th centuries. In 616, Bishop Bertrand du Mans implied monastic activity: "venerabile Bobeno abbate de basilica sancti Albini", as did the author of the first Vita S. Magnobodi (9th or 10th century): "abbas vocabulo Niulphus qui coenobium". Excavations carried out in 1997 during the redevelopment of the Musée des Beaux-Arts (Logis Barrault) showed that around this period, the courtyard area of the building was empty of human habitation, and that a few burials were present; the occupation of this period is interpreted as already being the enclosure of the Abbey of Saint-Aubin. A canonical community took the place of the monks in the 8th or 9th century. Bishop Théodulf d'Orléans, accused of supporting Bernard of Italy, was detained here from 818 until his death in 820. Saint-Aubin definitively regained its abbey status with the return of the monks in 966 (Cartulaire de Saint-Aubin, no. 18), when the establishment was reformed. The monks were dispersed by the French Revolution. The abbey church was demolished in 1811 to create what is now Place Michel-Debré, and the cloister was incorporated into the new Maine-et-Loire prefecture building. The fortified bell tower, separate from the abbey and formerly the abbot's own property, has been preserved (the "Tour Saint-Aubin", still visible on rue des Lices).

Data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).