Chartreuse de la Verne in Collobrières

A monastery founded by the Carthusian monks

Around 1170, the bishops of Toulon and Fréjus agreed to found a monastery in Collobrières, on the site of the abandoned priory, Notre-Dame de la Verne. Under the protection of the virgin Notre-Dame de Clémence, the order of the Carthusian order of Montrieux was chosen to take over the site.

In 1174, the first Romanesque church was consecrated. Destroyed by a fire, it had to be rebuilt. Thanks to the donations received, the Carthusian abbey expanded rapidly and invested more than 3,000 hectares of forests, pastures, arable land and saltworks.

In 1215, 1271 and 1318, the monastery was ravaged by fire. Only the Romanesque church was saved. The monks did not lose hope and the building was reborn each time from its ashes. On several occasions, the monastery was attacked by looters, sometimes by the lords of the surrounding area, as in 1416 when the lords of Bormes came to rob it, or by Saracens. The premises were also ransacked during the religious wars that ravaged the Kingdom of France.

The exact date of the collapse of the vault of the Romanesque church remains unclear and two hypotheses are being considered. Some claim that it was the last invasion, which took place in 1577 during the conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, that caused the vault to collapse, others claim that the fall took place following the attacks by the troops of the Duke of Savoy against the army of the Sun King from 1707 to 1715, during the siege of Toulon.

From 1736 to 1789, the Carthusian monks worked hard to rebuild the monastery. The dates inscribed on the door leading to the dwellings, on the pediment of the vault leading to the church and cloister and on the pediment giving access to the gardens bear witness to this.

The monastery survived until the Revolution. In 1789, the constituent assembly seized all the property of La Verne. In 1792, the 16 members of the Carthusian community were forced to leave for Italy or to join the bishopric of Nice on a fishing boat. The buildings and land were sold as national property. The abandoned Chartreuse de la Verne was gradually overgrown with vegetation that damaged the buildings.

In 1921, a decree declared the monastery a Historical Monument as “vestiges dans la forêt” (“vestiges in the forest”). Only the buildings used for farming and the court of honor could not benefit from the classification. The Chartreuse de la Verne was saved from an inevitable disappearance thanks to the help of two friends, Annette Englebert and Annick Lemoine, who created the association “Les amis de la Verne” (“Friends of La Verne”). A team of volunteers was formed and began the restoration of the monument with limited means between 1969 and 1982, that year the call bell was classified as a furniture object. The work carried out enabled the Carthusian monastery to be gradually taken out of oblivion and returned to its original function. From 1986, the monastery welcomed a community of monks from Bethlehem, the Assumption of the Virgin and the Carthusian monks. Thanks to the joint action of several organizations, the Chartreuse de la Verne was gradually renovated as a whole.

The small cloister, which was never finished, still has arcades inspired by Renaissance architecture. It connects the refectory, in which the monks ate only on Sundays and feast days, to the Saint Bruno chapel, which welcomed laypeople who wanted to follow the religious service.

The large cloister has a completely covered gallery that leads to the monks’ cells and the Romanesque church, which, like the chapter house, has groin vaults. In the inner courtyard, bordered by the arcades of the cloister, we can see the monks’ graves, marked by wooden crosses.

Currently, the original bell of the Carthusian monastery, dating from the 12th century, is displayed in the great hall of the city hall of Collobrières.

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Une publication partagée par Valerie (@atreides86) le 13 Mai 2017 à 1 :15 PDT