The architecural style of Maubuisson Abbey 

Born from a royal project and a privileged witness to French history, Maubuisson Abbey is also part of a unique artistic and architectural tradition. In keeping with the precepts of the Cistercian order, its architecture reflects the values of sobriety and purity promoted by Saint Benedict. The Cistercian art and Gothic style that characterise the abbey thus bear witness to a subtil dialogue between spiritual rigour and architectural expression.

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  • Cistercian art

    Cistercian art followed the rule of Saint Benedict. It is an art form that draws all the secrets of its beauty from rules, squares and a cold, undisguised clarity. Cistercian art is above all architectural. The façades must be built like souls, refined and seeking purity. All these buildings are extremely simple and deliberately sober. Superfluous artifice and unnecessary ornamentation are prohibited, and renunciation of the world becomes a visible reality. Cistercian rules prohibited anything that might disturb or distract, and all sculpture, painting and coloured stained glass were banned from the church. The builders found other ways to express themselves: the quality of the materials, the care taken in construction and the proportions of the volumes.

  • An architectural style

    In architecture, Cistercian abbeys underwent the evolution from Romanesque to Gothic style, but they are still characterised by their stark lines and minimal decoration. Maubuisson, built in the 13th century, is therefore Gothic in style. It features ribbed vaults and lancet windows, but few decorative elements enhance the simple elevations: capitals with stylised plant motifs crown the pillars.  

  • The stained glass windows

    The rooms feature monochrome, non-figurative ‘grisaille’ stained glass windows, created in the 1980s and inspired by fragments found during archaeological excavations. The chapter house and parlour feature borders forming interlacing patterns around simple, neutral greenish glass, in keeping with the aesthetics and sobriety of Cistercian art. The nuns’ hall is more cheerfully coloured, ranging from yellow to light brown. The lancet windows with trefoil tracery are also reconstructions. The small columns, hooked capitals and trefoil tracery elements found during archaeological excavations of the cloister in 1979 and the chapter house in 1980 enabled a faithful restoration.

  • The tiling

    Fragments of mortar still bearing the imprints of tiles and several types of paving were uncovered during archaeological excavations. Brightly coloured yellow and green glazed tiles were found in situ or in fill. These remains made it possible to reconstruct the tiles faithfully, which can now be seen in the abbey rooms. These colourful tiles, contrasting with the Cistercian concept of sobriety, seem to express a desire to establish the abbey as a place of residence and burial for the royal family.