Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire - Abbaye de Fleury

The abbey at Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire was founded on the banks of the Loire river mid 7th century. It is one of the oldest abbeys of the Benedictine rule in France.

The story starts in 672, when some of its monks traveled to Montecassino (Italy), dug up the remains of St. Benedict of Nursia (+ 547) and his sister St. Scholastica and brought them home. After the relics had reached at Fleury Abbey it which was renamed Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire - and due to the relics became a major place of pilgrimage.

A famous school and a scriptorium existed here in the late 10th century.

The erection of the church started around 1071. When the church was consecrated in 1108, the long nave was not completed.

The abbey thrived, but times got rougher. In 1562, the abbey was pillaged by Huguenots. The buildings were restored, but looted and destroyed again during the French Revolution. Saint-Benoît's monks left the abbey and so the history of the convent ended after more than 1100 years.

The abbey church had escaped destruction and got restored in the 19th century. In 1944, the convent was refounded the abbey buildings were rebuilt by Benedictine monks after World War II. So the history of the convent was just interrupted for about 150 years.


It was the abbot St. Mommolus, who effected the translation of the relics of Benedict of Nursia. So in 672, monks from Fleury traveled to Montecassino to transport the saint's relics, which had been left behind in the ruins, to their monastery.

The tympanum in the north portal depicts the removal of Benedict's relics from the tomb in Montecassino and the "translatio" to the Abby of Fleury.