About Bèze Abbey
Religion, Monasteries, Interesting Places
The Bèze Abbey (French: Abbaye Saint-Pierre, Saint-Paul de Bèze), was a monastery founded in 629 AD in Burgundy, France. It was destroyed several times during the next three centuries by Frankish warlords, Saracens, Normans and Hungarians. At the end of the 10th century the abbey was re-founded and entered a golden age for the next two centuries. By the 13th century the spiritual life of the abbey had declined and the monks were mainly concerned with temporal matters. The abbey lost most of its monks during the Hundred Years' War and the Black Death of the 14th century. In 1429 it was fortified with stone walls, a moat and towers, two of which have survived. The abbey was again devastated by feuds in 1513, and by the French Wars of Religion (1562–98) and the Thirty Years' War (1618–48).
