ABBAYE CISTERCIENNE DE VILLERS BETTNACH

In a small valley, calm and silent, surrounded by forests with majestic trees, the Canner, a small stream with a source close by, arrived in 1132 Henry of Carinthia, Cistercian abbot of Morimond. He is accompanied by monks and converts, labourers, stonemasons and blacksmiths. On land ceded by the Duke of Lorraine and other generous donors, they founded the abbey of Villers-Bettnach in this place of meditation and work. First a small chapel dedicated to Saint Catherine, named after one of the donors of the foundation, will be built. The building where it was located still exists. The gable is decorated with three Romanesque bays, very characteristic of the time. This first edification will be followed by the construction of the classical buildings found in all the other abbeys: church, abbey-church, cloister, chapter house, boiler room, refectory, dormitories, library, storeroom, shop, workshops for the works: carpentry, forge, building and reception of foreigners. Soon the influence of the Abbey of Villers-Bettnach will be very important. Teams of monks, trained within its walls, will leave to found new abbeys in Austria, Belgium, Germany and Yugoslavia. After the revolutionary turmoil and the departure of the last monks, the buildings will be sold as national property and demolished as a quarry. The abbey church was not a century old. Visitors will discover on the site the Chapel of the Humble, restored by the Association, the portal of Monsignor Coislin, the gable of the Chapel of Saint Catherine, the ruins and at some distance the pond, the water reserve of the monastery.