Glanfeuil Abbey (Abbaye de Glanfeuil, also known as Abbaye de Saint-Maur-sur-Loire), was a French Benedictine monastery in Anjou. The village of Saint-Maur is in the commune of Le Thoureil, in the diocese of Angers and the modern department of Maine-et-Loire.
It was founded by Saint Maurus, according to the legendary account of abbot Odo of Glanfeuil, or by Benedict of Nursia himself, the teacher of Maurus. The modern common view is that the founder, one Maurus of Glanfeuil, was a distinct person.[1] The site is thought to be that of a Roman villa, and the religious community may date back to the 6th century.[2]
Glanfeuil claimed to be the oldest Benedictine foundation in Gaul. Rorgon I of Maine was perhaps the founder or patron, in 824.[3] In 868 the monks of Glanfeuil founded a second monastery, at Saint-Maur-des-Fossés.
The abbey was destroyed by the Normans, but rebuilt. It was suppressed in 1790 in the wake of the French Revolution. Eventually it was refounded in the surviving structures, in 1890, by Louis-Charles Couturier.[4]