Citeaux Abbaye de Villers

The Mill
This large mill-bakery was built in the 13 th century. Still used after the abolition of the abbey, the mill bakery was partially refurbished into a hotel-restaurant following a fire in 1858. Only the south wing still served as a mill.
The hotel was expanded in 1897, but the improvements did not reach the south wing, which remained unoccupied for over a century. The hotel burned down again in 1953. The two upper levels of the building are the result of successive transformations and restorations.

Citeaux Abbey, in Burgundy, was founded in 1098 by Robert of Molesme. Beginning with this "New Monastery" and its first four daughter abbeys (La Ferté, Pontigny, Clairvaux and Morimond), abbeys founded on the Cistercian principles of solitude, poverty, and manual labour spread throughout Europe during the 12t and 13tn centuries.
The Rule of Saint Benedict (t 547) remains the founding text of Cistercian life. However, under Abbot Stephen Harding (1109-1134), the Cistercian Order adopted its own organisational structure through a Charter of Charity.
The women's branch of the order was established in the 13th century.
Saint Bernard (1091-1153), the first abbot of Clairvaux, is still remembered as an emblematic figure of the growing order. Born to a noble family, he became one of the greatest religious and political leaders of his time.
He outlined the rules of the Knights Templar, advised popes, denounced the philosopher Abelard, criticised the Cluniac Order, and preached in support of the Second Crusade. He left to posterity a significant collection of correspondence, as well as treatises, sermons, and poems to the glory of the Virgin.
At the time of his death, the Order included 351 abbeys, including 169 founded from the Clairvaux branch alone.

Agricultural work
This system of direct farming by lay brothers was responsible for the continuous economic growth of the Cistercian Order from the early 12th century to the first half of the 13th century. By the second half of the 12 th century, the Order allowed abbeys to sell their surplus produce at markets and to collect some profits, which had previously been prohibited. This was the case with the tithe, a tax on the "tenth part of all things on which the sun shines, the dew gathers, or the wind blows", as stated by a 1230 charter of Villers.
In the late 13th century, the recruitment of lay brothers decreased. The 14th century saw an economic crisis, which led the monks to sell many parcels of land, lease the others, and group them into four "districts": Villers, Louvain, Mellemont and Schoten.

In 1146, a small community of monks settled down on land donated by the Lord of Marbais and located between the springs of Goddarch to the south and Chevelipont to the north, at the crossroads of the Thyle River and the Mellery Road. In addition to the abundance of water needed to irrigate the crops, move the mill wheels or the smiths' bellows, and meet the daily needs of the monastery, the site is surrounded by schist rocks, a material that was used for the majority of the abbey's construction. Finally, there was abundant wood, which was necessary for both daily life and construction work.

The abbey is surrounded by high walls that define two enclosures: the abbey, including the monastic buildings and the mill, and the farm,

The abbey was closed down in 1796,

Church
The church was the abbey's largest building, measuring 94 m in length, with a nave rising to 23m. Its construction began in 1197 in Romanesque style, as witnessed by the front porch. From 1210, the Gothic style was adopted under the impetus of Abbot Conrad of Urach. In the late 13th century, side chapels were built onto the northern aisle. Towards the mid 18th-century, the abbots modernized the west front in the Neoclassic style of the time, although nothing remains of this today.
The monks assembled at the church seven times every day and once every night for services.
They were installed in rows of seats, known as stalls. Today, we can still see their location in the eastern area of the nave. They were separated from the lay brothers and guests by a high partition, no longer in existence: the rood screen.

Despite all these changes, the natural setting around the abbey remains relatively well-preserved to the north, east, and west of the large enclosure, where the large Hez Forest, one of the last remnants of the large Brabant forest, can be found.Læs mere