The Hundred Years' War, that led the country into ruin, saw the birth of
highwaymen, large gangs who looted, pillaged, ransomed and ravaged
the countryside. Alas the Carthusian monastery of Valbonne was not spared. Establishments
as vast and isolated as the monastery, incapable of effective defense
by their very vocation, were singularly exposed.
The religious struggles of the 16th century had very severe repercussions
on the monastery as well. In 1585, the site was ravaged, looted
and burned. Four centuries of archives went up in smoke!
Only, the "Kalendarium Cartusiae Valisbonae", a voluminous manuscript
of 1200 pages, written beginning in 1661, recalls a summary of the first four
centuries of the life of the Carthusian monastery.
The Grande Chartreuse sent new fathers to restore and repopulate it. Work
began in 1593 and the cells were ready for to be reoccupied ten years later. A particularly
energetic prior, François Laurent, assured the site's security and so
permitted the return of a regular conventual life to the monastery.
The grand cloister, as we see it today, and the entrance doorway were
started during this period. The doorway, in the Renaissance style, as
majestic as it is, is surmounted by a fortified window on corbels, witness to the defensive concerns
that were still manifest at that time. The reconstruction was long, and
the new church was only built between 1770 and 1780. |
