Payerne - Notre Dame

Payerne Priory (= Peterlingen), a former Cluniac monastery, was founded around 962 by Empress Adelheid as the burial place of her mother Queen Berta of Burgundy. It was annexed to the reform abbey of Cluny in 962 as one of the first daughter monasteries. It was richly endowed by the kings of Burgundy and the German emperors and had extensive landholdings In 1033, Conrad II was crowned King of Burgundy in Peterlingen.

The priory was first directly managed by the abbots from Cluny, but starting in 1050 the local prior led the monastery with increasing independence. Saint Ulrich of Zell, was prior here in the later 11th century. He later founded two Cluniac monasteries in the Black Forest.

In 1444, the antipope Felix V raised the priory to an abbey. This elevation brought no benefits to the monastery. The Reformation and the weakening of Savoy's power led to the dissolution of the monastery. After the Bernese conquest of Vaud, some of the buildings were demolished.

The former abbey church of Notre Dame is an example of Cluniac architecture and an important Romanesque church building. The current construction was started in the 11th century by Abbot Odilo of Cluny on the site of the previous 10th-century church. Parts of the previous building, including the archaic capitals, were included in the new church.

After the Reformation, the church was profaned and served in the 17th century as a bell foundry, in the 18th century as a granary, and later also as a prison and barracks. Since 1926 a careful restoration was carried out.

A pride of lions