Ancien prieuré d'Arthous

English translation

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History

Around 1160, monks from the Case-Dieu in Gascony came to live there under the rule of Prémontré. The monastery enjoyed the favour of the viscounts of Béarn and the kings of England and its prosperity grew in the 13th and 14th centuries. The 16th century was a period of decline and devastation. The Wars of Religion accentuated the ruin of the monastery, with fires and destructions. A new period of prosperity followed, increased after the reform of the order under Louis XIII. At the Revolution, the abbey was suppressed and fell into ruins and became an agricultural estate. Very little remains of the conventual buildings from the Middle Ages. According to the usage of the Premonstratensians, the refectory was parallel to the church, along the wing of the cloister. The body of building where it was located, destroyed in the 16th century, was rebuilt at the end of the 16th and in the 17th century. The upper floor is partly occupied by the monks' cells. To the east of the space formerly occupied by the cloister, there is no trace remaining of the chapter house and other rooms which must have occupied the ground floor of the old dormitory building. On the west side, the body of building where the cellars should have been, in the extension of the main façade of the church, projects slightly in relation to it and appears to have been rebuilt in the 18th century. Chapel of the 12th century. Conventual buildings of the 12th and 18th centuries.