Gregorian Chant in France: Monasteries Open to Pilgrims

The Divine Office and how to join it

Benedictine and Cistercian monks meet in church several times a day to sing the Divine Office, the public prayer of the Church, made of psalms, hymns, readings and prayers. The Rule of Saint Benedict calls it the Work of God and says in chapter 43 that nothing is to be preferred to it. Chapters 8 to 19 of the Rule set out its hours and the psalms for each one, for winter and summer, Sundays, weekdays and feasts.

A monastic day usually begins with Vigils in the dark and Lauds at dawn, continues with the conventual Mass and the short hours of the morning and afternoon, and ends with Vespers and then Compline at nightfall. The psalm verse “Seven times a day I praise you” (Psalm 119:164) lies behind this pattern. Vespers, Compline and the Sunday Mass are the easiest times for a visitor to attend.

Visitors sit in the part of the church open to the public, while the monks sing in the choir. Stand and sit when the monks do, and follow the texts if the abbey provides a booklet. The Second Vatican Council called Gregorian chant specially suited to the Roman liturgy and said that, other things being equal, it should have pride of place (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 116). Practice varies between communities, in the rite of the Mass and in the language of the Office, so check each abbey’s website, which also gives the times of the Office.

Dom Guéranger and Solesmes

The revival of the chant in France began at Solesmes, in the Sarthe. Prosper Guéranger was born on April 4, 1805, at nearby Sablé-sur-Sarthe and was ordained a diocesan priest on October 7, 1827. He acquired the empty buildings of the old priory in 1832, and on July 11, 1833, five priests began monastic life there. On September 1, 1837, Pope Gregory XVI raised Solesmes to the rank of abbey, and on October 31 Guéranger was named its abbot and superior of a new French Benedictine congregation.

Guéranger led Solesmes for nearly forty years and promoted the Roman liturgical books throughout France. In 1841 he began to publish The Liturgical Year, a commentary on the feasts and seasons of the Church that he did not live to finish. He died at Solesmes on January 30, 1875. His cause for beatification was opened in 2005, and he bears the title Servant of God.

To sing the Office properly the monks needed reliable chant books, and they searched the libraries of Europe for medieval manuscripts. In 1889 they published the first volume of the Paléographie musicale, which set out the manuscript evidence. Dom Joseph Pothier and Dom André Mocquereau did much of this work. Pope Pius X accepted the Solesmes chant, and the Vatican edition of the chant books based on it was commissioned in 1904.

The abbey church keeps the Saints of Solesmes, groups of sculpture made between 1496 and about 1553 by artists whose names are lost. The monks were expelled several times and lived in exile from 1901 to 1922 on the Isle of Wight, where they built Quarr Abbey. Solesmes is the mother house of about 25 foundations, and its Offices are open to the public. Men may stay in the guest house inside the enclosure; women can rent houses in the village. Our Via Gregoriana is built around Solesmes and the cathedral of Le Mans.

Fontgombault and Ligugé

Fontgombault stands on the banks of the Creuse. Pierre de l’Étoile founded it in 1091, and 22 monks from Solesmes re-founded it in 1948. With nearly eighty monks it is the largest of the Solesmes foundations. Mass is celebrated in Latin according to the 1962 Roman Missal, and Gregorian chant is at the center of the community’s liturgy; the monks sell recordings of their chant to support the house.

Fontgombault has made its own foundations: Randol in 1971, Triors in 1984, Gaussan in 1994, and Clear Creek in Oklahoma, founded in 1999 and raised to the rank of abbey in 2010. Our Via Benedicti begins at Fontgombault.

Near Poitiers, the Abbey of Saint-Martin at Ligugé is the oldest monastery known in western Europe. In 361 Saint Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, gave the site to his disciple Saint Martin. The Revolution destroyed the old abbey; monks from Solesmes restored it in 1853 as their first daughter house, and it was made an independent abbey in 1864. Expelled in 1880, the community took refuge at Santo Domingo de Silos in Spain, and after a second expulsion in 1902 it settled in Belgium before returning. An enamel workshop was set up after the Second World War, and the novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans, an oblate of the abbey, wrote about it in L’Oblat.

Saint-Wandrille and Le Bec-Hellouin

In the Seine valley of Normandy, Saint-Wandrille has one of the longest monastic histories in France. Saint Wandrille and his nephew Godo founded it; the deed of gift for the land is dated March 1, 649. Vikings burned the abbey in 852, and the monks returned only in 966. The abbey was suppressed in 1791. Monks from Ligugé restored monastic life at the end of the nineteenth century under Dom Joseph Pothier, the chant scholar of Solesmes. Expelled in 1901, the community came back from Belgium in 1931, and a new abbey church was consecrated in 1970.

Le Bec-Hellouin, to the south in the Eure, was founded in 1034 by Saint Herluin. Lanfranc came to teach there as prior and master of the monastic school, and Saint Anselm followed him as prior and was later abbot. Lanfranc, Anselm and Theobald were all later Archbishops of Canterbury, and successive archbishops have visited Bec. Of the medieval monastery the fifteenth-century Tower of Saint-Nicolas still stands. Olivetan Benedictine monks led by Dom Grammont re-established the abbey in 1948, and the community is known for its pottery. Both abbeys lie on the site’s Archangel’s Way, which continues to Mont-Saint-Michel.

Fleury and Cîteaux

Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, upstream from Orléans, grew up around the Abbey of Fleury, founded in the seventh century. According to the ninth-century chronicler Adrevald, the abbot Mommolus had the relics of Saint Benedict brought from Monte Cassino; the monks of Monte Cassino dispute the account. After a fire in 1026 the church was rebuilt in the Romanesque style, and its great porch tower, raised under Abbot Gauzlin, rests on fifty columns. Abbo of Fleury, abbot from 988 to 1004, led the abbey school in its greatest period. Monks from La Pierre-qui-Vire restored the abbey in 1944; about thirty-five monks live there today, members of the Subiaco Congregation.

Cîteaux, south of Dijon, is the mother house of the Cistercians. Monks from Molesme led by Robert founded it on March 21, 1098, then the feast of Saint Benedict. Alberic was the second abbot, and Stephen Harding, the third, wrote the Charter of Charity that organized the order. Saint Bernard was a monk of Cîteaux before he left in 1115 to found Clairvaux. The Revolution emptied the abbey in 1790. Trappist monks returned in October 1898, and the community, Cistercians of the Strict Observance, still lives there. The library, completed in 1509, survives from the old abbey, and the monks have made a cheese under the abbey’s name since 1925.

In Provence, the Cistercian abbey of Sénanque and the Benedictine abbey of Sainte-Madeleine at Le Barroux also receive visitors. Their rules for visits and their liturgy are set out on their own websites.

Staying in a monastery guest house

Chapter 53 of the Rule asks that guests be received with every care, because Christ is received in them. It places them in the charge of a monk appointed for the purpose and keeps them apart from the community except by permission. That monk is today’s guestmaster, and every stay is arranged with him by letter, email or the form on the abbey’s website. Give the dates you hope for and say if you are coming for a retreat.

A monastery guest house is meant for prayer. Guests are expected to attend at least part of the Office, keep silence in the house and at meals, and respect the enclosure. Bring modest clothes, a missal if you have one, and an alarm if you plan to rise for Vigils. Many abbeys have a shop that sells their books, chant recordings and goods, such as the pottery of Le Bec-Hellouin and the cheese of Cîteaux.

In church, sit in the public part and keep phones off. Do not photograph or record the monks during the Office. The times of the Office change on Sundays and feasts and, in some houses, with the seasons, so check the timetable on each abbey’s website before you set out.

Our ways that go there

• Via GregorianaThe Gregorian Way, six days
• Via BenedictiThe Way of Saint Benedict, seven days
• Via ArchangeliThe Archangel’s Way, six days

Holy places: Solesmes, Fontgombault, Saint-Wandrille, Le Bec-Hellouin, Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, Cîteaux. Saints: Saint Benedict, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint Anselm.