Tournus, Abbey of
TOURNUS, ABBEY OF
Former Benedictine monastery, France (Departement Saĉne-et-Loire), founded in 875, perhaps in a castle attached to a church dedicated to the martyr St. Valerian (d. 177). The church was presented by Charles the Bald to the monks from the Abbey of Noirmoutier who fled the Normans in 836 and brought with them the relics of St. philibert, who became, after Our Lady, the secondary patron; hence the name Saint-Philibert de Tournus. Pope John VIII approved the foundation in 877; in 937 the monastery was burned by the Hungarians. Tournus was a center of intellectual life from the 10th to 13th centuries; in the 15th century it became a commendatory abbey. It was plundered in 1562 by the huguenots, and in 1627 it was converted into a secular collegial foundation of the Diocese of Chalon-sur-Saône until its suppression in 1785. The three-nave basilica was constructed between 1000 and c. 1120.
Bibliography: g. allemang, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. m. buchberger, 10 v. (Freiburg 1930–38) 10:238. l. h. cottineau, Répertoire topobibliographique des abbayes et prieurés, 2 v. (Mâcon 1935–39) 2: 3189–90.
[p. volk]