Holy Cross Abbey (Poitiers)
The Abbey of the Holy Cross was a French Benedictine nunnery founded in the 6th century. Destroyed during the French Revolution, a new monastery with the same name was built in a nearby location during the 19th century for a community of Canonesses of St. Augustine of the Mercy of Jesus.
History
Founding
The abbey was founded in 552 by the Frankish queen, Radegund as the first monastery for women in the Frankish Empire in what is now the village of Saint-Benoît, Vienne. It was founded due to a threat of excommunication of her husband, King Chlothar I, King of the Franks, by Germain, the Bishop of Paris. To avoid this penalty, the king provided the bishop with the funds to acquire lands near the episcopal palace to construct the Abbey of St. Mary, as it was originally called. As his third wife had failed to provide him an heir, the king allowed Radegund to become a nun in the new monastery.The first abbess was Agnes of Poitiers, a former lady in waiting to the queen, who had refused to take this office for herself. The community initially followed the Regula virginum written in 512 by the noted bishop Caesarius of Arles, who had written it for a group of women in his city who had wished to lead lives of greater asceticism.
The nunnery was renamed in 567 to the Abbey of the Holy Cross, when Radegond was given a gift by the Emperor of Byzantium of a fragment of the True Cross. As part of the ceremony of processing to the abbey with this sacred relic, she commissioned her friend, the Italian nobleman and religious poet Venantius Fortunatus, later to become bishop of the city, to write a poem to mark the occasion. For this, he produced the hymn Vexilla Regis, considered to be one of the most significant Christian hymns ever written, which is still sung for services on Good Friday.
Rebellion
In 589, an insurrection broke out in the community of nuns which became a scandal throughout the empire. Led by two royal princesses, Basina, daughter of Chilperic I and her cousin, Chlothild, a group of nuns left the abbey and took refuge in a nearby church. There they accused the abbess, Leubovère, of both excessive rigor in her treatment of the nuns under her charge and of immorality. The group recruited a large group of men to seize the abbess and confine her. Intense fighting took place in the abbey which lasted for days.The turmoil only subsided when royal envoys intervened, restoring a fragile order and dragging the ringleaders before King Charlemagne to answer for their actions. Most were excommunicated, yet even years after the rebellion was quelled, rumors of hidden grievances and secret alliances lingered, casting a long shadow over the abbey's reputation.
Modern era
The abbey was heavily damaged during the French Wars of Religion during the 16th century. What does remain of the ancient abbey buildings dates from that era. They were constructed under Abbess Charlotte-Flandrina of Orange-Nassau, daughter of William the Silent, who had converted to Catholicism and entered the abbey as a nun.Most of the ancient abbey buildings were destroyed in the course of the French Revolution.