Trois-Fontaines Abbey was a Cistercian abbey in the present commune of Trois-Fontaines-l'Abbaye in the French department of Marne, in the historic province of Champagne. It was the first daughter-house founded by Clairvaux Abbey, one of the four Cistercian primary abbeys, and was established north of the head of navigation of the Marne at Saint-Dizier by Bernard of Clairvaux in 1118, on isolated woodland given by Hugh de Vitry, which the monks drained. It was a large community, comprising at its height some 130 monks. The abbey was very active in its first century or so in the settlement of daughter houses: ⁕Lachalade Abbey ⁕Orval Abbey in Belgium ⁕Haute-Fontaine Abbey ⁕Cheminon Abbey ⁕Châtillon Abbey ⁕Monthiers-en-Argonne Abbey ⁕Szentgotthárd Abbey in Hungary ⁕Belin Studenac Abbey, Belafons, in Vojvodina, Serbia The chronicler Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, who covered the years 1227 to 1241, was a monk here. The abbey's isolated site protected it from armed attack. It fell however into the hands of commendatory abbots in 1536. Between 1716 and 1741, the abbot in commendam was Pierre Guérin de Tencin, French ambassador in Rome, who was made a cardinal in 1739. He rebuilt it, making good the damage caused by a fire in 1703. In 1790 it was sold off, and the premises largely demolished for the sake of the building materials. Wikipedia [ - ]

Trois-Fontaines Abbey was a Cistercian abbey in the present commune of Trois-Fontaines-l'Abbaye... [ + ]