Aniane - Abbey Church Saint-Sauveur

The 17th century baroque facade of the former abbey church in Aniane does not look spectacular.

The spectacluar is the place. Benedict of Aniane founded a "reform-monastry" here. He had sucess, gained influence and founded and reformed a number of monasteries. 817 he headed a council of abbots at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), creating a "Codex regularum" binding on all abbey within the Carolingian Empire. Charlemagnes´ son "Louis the Pious", his friend and patron built Marmoutier (Maursmünster) Abbey for Benedict in Alsace, that is where we "met" him earlier this year. Benedict died at Kornelimünster, a monastery next to Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) in 821. He reformed the order, Benedict of Nursia had created around 530, and so gave it a base for the influence it had over the next centuries.

The old monastry was totally destroyed during the War of Relgions, rebuilt in the 17th century and "remodeled" into a prison after the French Revolution, but at least the place is still the same.