page_title: Soleilmont Abbey
section_title: Cistercians
hierarchical_section_title: Soleilmont Abbey / History / Cistercians
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Abbaye Notre-Dame de Soleilmont à Gilly en 1604. Albums de Croÿ, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale.
context_page_description: Soleilmont Abbey is an abbey of Trappistine nuns situated in the forest and commune of Fleurus, at Gilly near Charleroi, Belgium, founded, according to tradition, in the 11th century, which became Cistercian in 1237. The nuns were expelled as a consequence of the French Revolution in 1796, but soon re-established themselves in 1802. The community became Bernardine in 1837, and Trappist in 1919.
context_section_description: In a document dated 11 January 1237, Baldwin II of Courtenay, Count of Namur, requested that the Cistercian Order accept Soleilmont Abbey, which they duly did, as a dependency of Aulne Abbey. On 23 March 1238 Pope Gregory IX placed the abbey under papal protection, and, at the same time, confirmed the deed of transfer of the abbey to the Cistercians.
  To support his request Baldwin confirmed the gift made by his mother, Yolande of Hainaut, to the abbey of a fishpond, a mill and a meadow, and although some further gifts later increased the monastic endowments, the abbey never became wealthy. On account of their lack of resources the nuns were exempted in 1640, for example, from their dues to the Cistercian Order, and their poverty was often mentioned in the assessments of goods that were customarily made at the elections of an abbess.
  Soleilmont was affected by the general decadence of monastic life that took place throughout the 14th century, to the extent that by 1414 it had been decided that the only option was to close the monastery. As a final resort before closure, however, a new abbess, Marie de Senzeille, was sent to Soleilmont from Marche-les-Dames Abbey, another monastery in the County of Namur, to attempt to re-establish order, which she did so successfully that Soleilmont was not only reprieved but became a model for other communities of nuns in the monastic revival of the 15th century.
  The 15th century Margot of Hainaut, celebrated for her abilities as a player of jeu de paume, a precursor of tennis, spent her later years as a nun in Soleilmont.
  Prominent abbesses of the 16th century were Oda de Virsel and Madeleine Bulteau (resigned 1603), whose successor, Jacqueline Colnet (d. 1639), was a friend of Albert VII, Archduke of Austria and his consort, the Infanta  Isabel of Spain, to whom she gave, from the relics of the abbey, a Holy Nail. She was principally remembered in the region however for twice ending attacks of the Black Death in the town of Châtelet, in 1628 and again in 1636, by having the abbey's famous image of Our Lady of Rome carried through the streets.
  During the wars later in the 17th century, the nuns of Soleilmont, as a poor community of unprotected women, suffered particularly from harassment and theft by the soldiery.
caption: Abbaye Notre-Dame de Soleilmont à Gilly (1604). Albums de Croÿ, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
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