La Valsainte

La Valsainte Charterhouse or La Valsainte (Latin: Vallis sanctorum omnium, later Vallis Sancta) situated in La Valsainte in the district of Gruyère, Canton of Fribourg, is the only remaining extant Carthusian monastery in Switzerland.

The charterhouse, in the heart of the valleys of the Javroz and the Jogne, was founded in 1295 by Girard I, lord of Corbières. In the Middle Ages it was the owner of a vast territory covering the greater part of the present communes of Cerniat and Charmey, over which by right of its lordship it exercised the high and the low justice.

It was destroyed by fire in 1381.

In 1454 it passed into the lordship of the County of Greyerz, with which it passed again in 1535 to the city of Fribourg.

The government of Fribourg were not kindly disposed toward the monastery, but their efforts to suppress it and absorb its revenues were for many years opposed by the French, who supported it. However, in 1778 the Pope agreed to its suppression, and the government of Fribourg used its revenues to cover the costs of the Diocese of Lausanne, for which they had become responsible. The monks moved to La Part-Dieu Charterhouse at Bulle.

In 1791, during the French Revolution, the empty charterhouse at La Valsainte gave shelter to refugee French Trappists under Dom Augustin de Lestrange, and in 1794 the premises were declared by Pope Pius VI a Cistercian abbey, which became the birthplace of the Cistercian Reform movement. The Trappists were expelled by Napoleon in 1798, but returned to it from 1802 to 1812 and again from 1814 to 1815. From 1818 to 1824 the monastery provided shelter for a group of Redemptorists. It was then sold, and demolished apart from the principal block, built in 1729.

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