Lobbes Abbey
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Lobbes Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Lobbes in Hainaut, Belgium.
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[edit] History
[edit] Foundation
The monastery was founded about 650 by Saint Landelin, a penitent brigand, so that the place where his crimes had been committed might benefit by his conversion. As the number of monks increased rapidly the founder, desiring to consecrate his life to austerities rather than to the duties of abbot, resigned his post.
[edit] Early development
He was succeeded by Saint Ursmer, who devoted himself to preaching Christianity among the still pagan Belgians. More fortunate than most monasteries, Lobbes preserved its ancient annals[1], so that its history is known in relative detail. The fame of Saint Ursmer, his successor Saint Ermin and others soon drew large numbers of disciples, and Lobbes became the most important monastery of the period in Belgium. The abbey school rose to special fame under Anson, the sixth abbot. Another eighth century abbot was Saint Theodulph.
About 864 Hubert, brother-in-law of Lothair II, became abbot. By his dissolute life he brought the monastery into a state of decadence, both temporal and spiritual, from which it did not recover until the accession of Francon. He united Lobbes to the Bishopric of Liège, which he already held; the monastery was unable to escape from this situation until 960. The reigns of Abbots Folcuin (965-990) and Heriger of Lobbes (990-1007, a famous writer) were marked by especial development, the school especially attaining a great reputation.
[edit] Decline
From this period, although the general observance seems on the whole to have continued good, the fame of the abbey gradually declined until the fifteenth century, when the great monastic revival originating in the Bursfelde Congregation, brought fresh life to it. In 1569 Lobbes and several other abbeys, the most important of which was St. Vaast's Abbey at Arras, were combined to form the "Benedictine Congregation of Exempt Monasteries of Flanders", sometimes called the "Congregation of St. Vaast".
[edit] Dissolution
In 1793 the last abbot, Vulgise de Vignron, was elected. Thirteen months later the abbot and the community were expelled from the monastery by French revolutionary troops, and under the law of 2 September 1796 the abbey was dissolved. The monks, of whom at that date there were forty-three, were received into various monasteries in Germany and elsewhere. Most of the monastery buildings were subsequently destroyed, except for the church, which remained as a parish church, and the farm and a few other minor buildings that were later incorporated into the railway station.
[edit] Notes
- ^ the Annales Laubicenses, printed in G. H. Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores
- This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
