Les Amis de l'Abbaye

The "Association des Amis de l'Abbaye de Signy" is an association according to the law of 1901, created on 25 March 1992, and has 140 members to date. According to article II of its statutes, its purpose is the "Defence and Illustration of the former royal abbey of Notre-Dame de Signy" and as such to ensure the cultural and tourist management of the historic part of the former abbey of Signy. The financial needs of the Association are covered by the subscriptions of its members supplemented by subsidies from local authorities. HISTORY: The Cistercian abbey Notre-Dame de Signy was located in the commune of Signy-l'Abbaye (Ardennes). This commune occupies the centre of a forest in the shape of a large crescent open to the East and formed by vast massifs separated by the nascent river VAUX and the outlet of a magnificent resurgence, the Gibergeon. It is here, more than eight hundred years ago, that twelve monks from the Abbey of Igny under the leadership of their 1st abbot, Bernard de Cambrai, arrived by the Roman road Reims-Cologne passing through Château-Porcien, then took the ridge roads that cross Chaumont-Porcien, asked for hospitality from the canons of Saint-Berthauld and went to Draize to the place called Signiacum. At that time it was only a marshy area and a small hamlet of a few thatched cottages which could not yet accommodate a religious community. The area had to be cleared and drained, so the monks were housed in Draize during the development of the site and the construction of the regular buildings, but the foundation took place on 25 March 1135, the day of the Annunciation. Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, friend and adviser to Bernard of Clairvaux, leaving his abbey and the Benedictine order at the age of 60, retired there as a simple monk to write his major works and live the Cistercian poverty. Signy was a high point in religious history, with its blessed people and their writings, imbued with Cistercian spirituality. It remained a powerful abbey until the Revolution, which confiscated it and sold it as a national asset. The monastery house was sold at public auction and transformed into a spinning mill, and part of the dismantled façade was rebuilt a few metres later as a dwelling house. Of the abbey, only a few infrastructures remain in the monastic enclosure, as well as the hydraulic network, both deep and surface. Following this monastic life, the town maintained an essentially agricultural economy, although forestry, the work of the forges, mills, breweries and the cloth and wool industry employed a large workforce. Signy owes its post-revolutionary development mainly to its spinning mills. Until the First World War Signy was prosperous thanks to the activity of 7 spinning mills which continued a well-established local tradition, because "long before the revolution geographical dictionaries report a renowned and prosperous drapery industry in Signy". The population of the town was then about 5000 inhabitants. Unfortunately, the First World War put an end to these activities. The spinning mills, destroyed by the Germans, could not be rebuilt and the population fell to less than 2,000 inhabitants. Today, Signy remains a peaceful town, in the heart of the old monastic mense. The Signy Abbey Association organises visits, excursions and conferences, particularly on Cistercian Day on the 2nd Sunday in September in the buildings of an old spinning mill located in the monastic enclosure.