Today was devoted to a visit to Clairvaux, an abbey turned prison. You have to take a guided tour - I was surprised by how many people showed up, all French. It isn’t really on any main tourist circuit, but it was one of the first and most successful of Cistercian abbeys, and then France’s largest central (federal) prison for many years.
Clairvaux abbey was founded in 1115 by St Bernard. It was the second of the Cistercian mother-houses; the first was founded a few years earlier at Citeaux. Bernard was not only saintly, but also political. He got wealthy people to support his ventures, he intervened successfully in papal disputes, he was sent forth to recruit for the Second Crusade. He started here with a gathering in the woods; then a few wooden buildings by a small stream, then stone buildings with a hydraulic system to provide water for a burgeoning monastery. This is an eighteenth century barn inside the complex.
The 12th and 13th centuries saw rapid expansion of the Cistercian order, and Clairvaux was soon “mother house” to eighty other monasteries and convents. More buildings were constructed and a wall three kilometres long surrounded (and still surrounds) the site. Here it is seen from the small village just outside.
At its height 900 people lived here, both monks and lay brothers. Towards the end of the 17th century numbers started shrinking, and by 1789 at the start of the French Revolution only 30 monks plus some lay brothers remained. They were expelled and the Abbey and its lands expropriated by the French government, the fate of all religious houses in France at this time. This is a photo of the oldest building left on the site. It housed the lay brothers and was recently restored.
Napoleon saw a use for the buildings: a prison. It didn’t take long to fill them right up, with the number of prisoners generally over 2,500. This prison, antiquated as the buildings were, only just closed in 2023. The French state is now restoring some of the buildings - a mammoth task that will take years. Part will be a museum, and it is hoped to attract some form of industry to fill other buildings.
It was cold inside and I was shivering by the end of the visit. The monks didn’t have any heating, not even fireplaces. Most of their windows didn’t have glass; they sometimes used animal skins to cover them. As the abbey buildings were built on low lying land, moisture would seep up into the cellar floors and the stone structures would be damp. They certainly were today.
As a prison, there still unbelievably was no glass for many years on most of the windows. By mid nineteenth century there was one large room, the refectory, with heat. Later other rooms also got some heat.
The monks and lay brothers slept in large communal dormitories (300 men to a room) on straw pallets on the floor. This practice was maintained as a prison until about 1850 when metal cots were brought in. Men were allotted 1.5 square metres of space each, so those dormitories were crowded.
Cistercian monks lived structured days with 8 hours of prayer, 8 hours of work and 8 hours of sleep. The prisoners also led structured days with 12 hours of labour, mainly making cloth and clothing items. The monks ate no meat, surviving on frugal meals of vegetables and grains. The prisoners ate terrible quality blackish bread and thin vegetable soup to which bits of meat were added once a week.
I don’t know about life expectancy of the monks, but for the prisoners mortality was high. At one point in the nineteenth century there was a public inquest because about one third of the inmates had died over a span of three years. The prison superintendent was fired but the private companies that provided things like the bad bread and rotten meat weren’t fined.
Until the later part of the nineteenth century the prison also housed women and children. This room was home to 300 women and girl prisoners. Yes, children. The youngest admitted was five. Children were arrested in the 19th century for theft, prostitution or simply ‘vagabondage’ (homelessness). They were kept in prison until they turned 21. The girls slept on one side of this room, then worked at knitting machines on the other side of the room. They were allowed out of this room for one hour a day. The mats on the floor are a modern addition to wick up moisture and dampen echoes as this space is used for a series of concerts in the fall.
Cistercian buildings are very plain but also beautiful, with finely proportioned architecture and lots of light. Theresa and I saw a stunning Cistercian abbey church north of Naples a couple of years ago, for instance. But the church at Clairvaux was torn down during the conversion to a prison to sell the stone for money. In the oldest surviving building there is a lovely basement food storage room, later used as a workshop for prisoners, that gives a little idea of Cistercian architectural grace.
The prison added a few buildings. Here is a special wing for solitary confinement, used as a punishment when prisoners broke the rules. One rule introduced in 1839 by government decree was absolute silence. Prisoners were never allowed to talk to each other. Worse than the monks who lived mostly, but certainly not completely, in silence. Prisoners in solitary confinement were forced out for exercise for one hour a day, each alone in a small confined area under constant watch by a hidden guard, so that they would remain sane. Maximum stay here was 90 days. An even worse punishment was to be put in a row of cells one floor underground, with no windows and no light, in total darkness.
So that was today’s visit. My other two stories for today aren’t much happier. Weaving through the forests here one sees various things. Hidden away in the trees is a monument to 21 men shot in 1942-43. During those years the Vichy regime used the prison to house enemies of the French collaboration with the German occupiers; German soldiers meted out justice in the prison from time to time.
Another hidden away forest monument marks the spot where St Germaine, a young girl, refused first to give an invading Vandal a glass of water, and then refused a marriage offer from a Vandal king. She lost her head in consequence. This was in 407 when northern peoples (Goths, Wisigoths, Vandals and others) were invading the land in very bloody battles.
So many people have lived here - hard lives, sad or happy lives, creative or deadened by constant work. So few names are remembered. St Germaine doesn’t even get a Google mention - completely outshone by another St Germaine who was a 16th century shepherd girl. I only got the first Germaine’s story from our guide today, a local lad who had majored in medieval history. And the prison cemetery has no marked graves.
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