page_title: Bèze Abbey
section_title: Carolingian period (714–990)
hierarchical_section_title: Bèze Abbey / Carolingian period (714–990)
caption_attribution_description: English: Kalandozó magyar hadjáratok Hungarian campaigns
context_page_description: The Bèze Abbey, was a monastery founded in 629 AD in Burgundy, France.
  It was destroyed several times during the next three centuries by Frankish warlords, Saracens, Normans and Hungarians.
  At the end of the 10th century the abbey was re-founded and entered a golden age for the next two centuries.
  By the 13th century the spiritual life of the abbey had declined and the monks were mainly concerned with temporal matters.
  The abbey lost most of its monks during the Hundred Years' War and the Black Death of the 14th century.
  In 1429 it was fortified with stone walls, a moat and towers, two of which have survived.
  The abbey was again devastated by feuds in 1513, by the French Wars of Religion and by the Thirty Years' War.
  In 1662 a final revival began when the monastery came under the Congregation of Saint Maur.
  Most of the surviving buildings date from the reconstruction by this congregation in the 18th century.
  At the start of the French Revolution in 1789 the monastery was dissolved and the property taken over by the state.
  It was sold, and the church and main buildings demolished so the stone could be used for building.
context_section_description: The Saracens, who had conquered Spain in 714, crossed the Pyrennees and devastated the south of France.
  They penetrated up the Rhône, the Saône and the Loire until finally defeated by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732.
  The Saracens sacked the abbey of Bèze around 730.
  Dom Jean Mabillon relates that they destroyed Autun, pulled down the Abbey of Bèze (monasterium Besuense), were repulsed from Sens when they attacked it in 732, but then massacred Saint Mellin and the monks of Luxeuil Abbey.
  The anthropologist Gustave Lagneau considered that some of the present population of the region showed signs of Saracen descent.
  Between 751 and 754 King Pepin the Short (r. 751–768) gave the abbey to his concubine, Angla or Anglais wife of Théodard, to be desecrated or dilapidated by her according to her caprice.
  Pepin also dismissed the bishop of Langres at this time, and replaced him by his brother Remi.
  After this the abbey was entrusted to the bishops of Langres, but due to the difficulties of the times it was only rebuilt under the Emperor Louis the Pious (r. 814–840), when Bishop Albéric restored the buildings and reintroduced discipline.
  Albéric was made Bishop of Langres by Louis the Pious around 820.
  The Chronicle of Bèze relates that Albéric was afflicted by a violent colic that made him despair of his life.
  An old man appeared to him in a dream and told him he would recover if he promised to reestablish the monastery.
  He made the promise and regained his health.
  Albéric gave Bèze the church of Saint Laurent in Beurey in 830.
  Louis the Pious visited Langres in 830 with his son Lothair and held a provincial council.
  This council and other synods seem to have resulted in the general reform that reestablished the common life of the canons and caused all the monasteries to restore their original rules.
  At Albéric's request Louis issued a charter that confirmed all the property of the abbey.
  Albéric repaired the church of Saint-Mammès at the abbey.
  Alberic died in 839 and his body was taken to Bèze on 22 December 839.
  On 6 October 883 Geilon, bishop of Langres, gave the abbey of Bèze the relics of Saint Prudent de Narbonne, which he had brought back from a chapel in Narbonne after his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.
  In 887, when marauding Normans approached the monks of Bèze transported the body of Saint Prudent to Saint-Etienne de Dijon. 
  When the invasion was over the monks rebuilt the ruins of the abbey and asked for the saint's body from Dijon.
  The canons of Dijon at first refused, then at the command of Bishop Gauthier of Langres pretended to comply, but in fact gave the monks the body of Saint Silvin.
  Eventually the ruse was discovered, and the body of Saint Prudent was carried with great ceremony from Dijon to Bèze in 931.
  The abbey was destroyed twice during the Hungarian invasions of Europe. It was burned in July 936 when the Hungarians came from Burgundy, and again the next year when the Hungarians had spread through France, Burgundy and Aquitaine, plundering and ravaging everywhere.
  The Hungarians caused so much damage to the monastery that it could not be restored for eleven years.
caption: Hungarian campaigns in Europe
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