La Chaise-Dieu

La Chaise-Dieu was founded in 1043 by Robert de Turlande. It was named "Casa Dei", from which La Chaise-Dieu developed. From the 11th to the 13th century, the abbey experienced rapid and significant development. When the founder died in 1067, already 300 monks lived here. In the Auvergne La Chaise-Dieu gained importance similar to that of the Burgundian Cluny Abbey. The abbey received many donations from noble families and administered 42 daughter monasteries. Popes who visited the abbey include Urban II, Calixt II, Alexander III. and Innocent II. In 1342, Pierre Roger, who had lived as a monk in La Chaise-Dieu, became Pope in Avignon under the name Clement VI. He financed a new building of the abbey church, in which he was finally buried. The building was completed in 1378 under the pontificate of Gregory XI, a nephew of Clement VI.

Since 1516 La Chaise-Dieu, like most other French abbeys, became "in commendam" so the commendatory abbot drew the revenue of the monastery but without fulfilling the duties of the abbot or even residing at the monastery.

Calvinist troops looted the abbey in August 1562. After most of the monastery buildings were destroyed by fire in 1695, they were rebuilt by the monks in the decades that followed. In 1786, Cardinal de Rohan, who was involved in the "Affair of the Diamond Necklace" was exiled to La Chaise-Dieu. While the abbey had 40 monks at that time, religious life ended at the beginning of the French Revolution.

Pierre Roger, the later Pope Clement VI, was born into a noble French family and entered the Benedictine order as a boy at the Abbey of La Chaise-Dieu. In 1307 he took up studies in Paris. He was granted the priory of St. Baudil, a dependency of La Chaise-Dieu in 1324 and became the Abbot of the royal abbey Fécamp, at that time one of the most important monasteries in France. In 1328 Pierre Roger was named Bishop of Arras and became a royal councilor of King Philip VI. He held the diocese of Arras less than a year, when he was promoted to the Archdiocese of Sens. He held the Archbishopric of Sens for one year and one month, until his promotion to the See of Rouen in 1330, where he was promoted to a cardinal in 1338. On May 7, 1342 the Conclave in Avignon elected him the new Pope. He was enthroned as Clement VI a few days later. He was a highly educated man and one of the best speakers of his time. He was a very secular pope with pleasure in delights of all kinds.

One of the ways in which a Pope rewards his supporters is to raise them to the Cardinalate. Only four months after his coronation, he apointed ten new cardinals. Nine of them came from Southern France, five of them were nephews. Clement VI was Pope for ten years and died in Avignon in December 1352. Three months later his body was transferred to La Chaise Dieu in a splendid funeral procession.

His tomb was surrounded by 44 statues depicting his relatives. They all got destroyed by Huguenots in 1562 and only the tomb survived.