Prémontré Abbey

Prémontré Abbey was the mother house of the Premonstratensian Order and was located at Prémontré about twelve miles west of Laon, département of Aisne, France.

It was founded by Saint Norbert of Xanten in 1120 on waste land that had previously belonged to the Abbey of St. Vincent, Laon, to which it had been given by a former Bishop of Laon; the monks of St. Vincent's had tried in vain to cultivate it. As shown in the charter of donation the place was called "Præmonstratus", or "pratum monstratum" ("Pré-montré" or Prémontré), probably from a clearing (pré or meadow) made in the forest. The name, however, easily lent itself to the adapted meaning of "locus praemonstratus", "a place foreshown", as for example in the life of Godfrey of Cappenberg, one of Norbert's first disciples (1127):

The founding tradition says that the Bishop of Laon and Norbert visited Prémontré about the middle of January and that the bishop gave the white habit to Norbert on 25 January, the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul. At the conclusion of the Council of Liège (1131), Pope Innocent II and Norbert came to Laon and stayed with Bishop Bartholomew. They also visited Prémontré Abbey and were delighted to see some five hundred religious - priests, clerics, and lay-brothers - all united in the observance of their duties under Abbot Hugh of Fosse. It was the original Premonstratensian custom to establish double monasteries, but in the general chapter of 1141 it was decided to remove the convents of nuns to at least one league's distance from the abbeys of men. Hugh died on 10 February 1161, and was succeeded by Philip, then Abbot of Belval in the Forest of Argonne. Abbot John II founded in 1252 a college or house of studies for Norbertine clerics at the University of Paris.

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