Abbey of Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte


The Abbey of Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, located in the commune of Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte in the Manche department of France, was a Benedictine monastery founded in the 11th century by Néel de Néhou, Vicomte of Saint-Sauveur. The abbey has longstanding connections with the nearby Channel Islands. After being dissolved in the French Revolution it became in the 1830s the mother house of the Sisters of Christian Schools of Mercy, now the Congregation of Saint Marie-Madeleine Postel.

Establishment

Starting in 1067, the abbey was built by the monks of Jumièges Abbey for the founder Néel de Néhou, Vicomte of Saint-Sauveur, to replace the college of secular clergy who officiated in the chapel of his castle. Around 1180 the first windmill was installéd there. The abbey was consecrated "in the early years of the second half of the twelfth century" by Bishop Algare. However, it was not completed until 1198, at the wedding of Mathilde, the daughter of Raoul Tesson, with Richard, Baron of Harcourt. The construction of the abbey lasted more than thirty years under the three families of Saint-Sauveur, La Roche-Tesson and Harcourt.

Hundred Years' War

During the Hundred Years' War, the then Vicomte, :fr:Geoffroy d'Harcourt|Geoffroy d'Harcourt, was forced to yield his castle at Saint-Sauveur to the English commander John Chandos, who razed the choir of the abbey church, forcing the monks to take refuge in Cherbourg and in their possessions in Jersey. They were not able to return until 1422.
Restoration work was undertaken after the battle of Formigny in 1450 and the expulsion of the English, under direction of abbot Jean Caillot. The choir, which had been levelled, had to be rebuilt at this time. However, part of the conventual buildings disappeared, as the introduction of commendatory abbots reduced the funds available for rebuilding.
Jacques Le Febvre du Quesnoy, Bishop of Coutances and abbot of Saint-Sauveur, died at the abbey and was buried in the chancel of the church.

French Revolution

During the French Revolution, a decree prohibiting monastic vows was passed on 13 February 1790. The abbey was sold as national property on 4 June 1791. The bailiff Hector Louis Amédée Ango, grandfather of Barbey d'Aurevilly, thought to protect the abbey church by transferring the parish service to it, but his plan was opposed by the constitutional priest Fr. Nigault de Lecange. The church was sold for 8,525 livres on 23 May 1793 and used as a quarry.

Ruins of the Abbey of Saint Sauveur

Gerville notes that in 1825 "the demolition of buildings is advanced." In 1831, demolition continued, as mentioned by the English antiquarian Henry Gally Knight. In 1832 Mother Marie-Madeleine Postel was able to buy the abbey ruins that she wanted to make the parent of the congregation that she had founded in Cherbourg. There then remained only two small low houses to the left of the church and the entrance porch and the lower part of a building that had served as a cellar and storeroom.
The abbey church was included on the first list of Prosper Mérimée in 1840. Two years later, in 1842, the reconstructed bell tower collapsed after a violent storm, and destroyed the transept and the first bays of the choir. Undeterred, Mother Marie-Madeleine Postel, despite her advanced age, undertook to rebuild the entire building by entrusting the work to François Halley, a local architect and sculptor.
To finance the works she sent her niece, Sister Placide Viel, to ask for help from Queen Marie-Amélie, wife of Louis-Philippe I.
The reconstruction was finished in 1855, nine years after the death of its champion. Her relics are preserved in the north transept, in a tomb by François Halley. In the same chapel are the relics of Blessed Placide Viel and also those of Blessed Marthe Le Bouteiller.

Abbots

Abbey in commendam.
Congregation of the Sisters of the Christian Schools of Mercy
Modern refounding