About Fontfroide Abbey

Fontfroide Abbey was founded in 1093 by Aimery I, Viscount of Narbonne, but remained poor and largely obscure for decades, requiring an effective re-founding by Ermengarde, Viscountess of Narbonne. In 1144, the community affiliated itself with the Cistercian reform movement, and shortly afterward the Count of Barcelona granted it land in Spain that would become the great Catalan monastery of Poblet — of which Fontfroide is counted as the mother house. In 1157, Viscountess Ermengarde granted the abbey substantial local landholdings, securing its wealth and regional status. Fontfroide became directly entangled in one of medieval Europe’s most consequential religious conflicts when the abbey fought alongside Pope Innocent III against the Cathar heresy prevalent in the region; the pope appointed Pierre de Castelnau, a Fontfroide monk, as papal legate specifically tasked with suppressing the Cathar movement. In early 1208, Castelnau was assassinated, allegedly by an agent of Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, a known Cathar sympathiser — his murder became the direct pretext for launching the Albigensian Crusade. The abbey was dissolved in 1791 during the French Revolution, refounded in 1858 by monks from Sénanque Abbey, and in 1908 purchased as ruins by the art-loving collectors Gustave and Madeleine Fayet, who undertook an ambitious restoration reviving Fontfroide’s former grandeur. Today, one of the abbey’s most enchanting features is its expansive rose garden, home to over 2,000 different rose varieties, whose vibrant floral display contrasts strikingly with the abbey’s solemn stone architecture.