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Founded: c. 1142Category: Religious sites in France
Historical period: Birth of Capetian dynasty (France)
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Le Reclus Abbey was a Cistercian monastery in the present Talus-Saint-Prix near Sézanne. It was founded by Bernard of Clairvaux in c. 1142 around the hermitage of Blessed Hugh the Hermit (Hugues le Reclus), from whom the abbey took its name. Hugh had at first retired from the world to an arid place in the parish of Saint-Prix known as Fons Balimi around 1128–1130, before being joined by a few companions. He was mentioned in 1176 in the cartulary of the Abbey of Saint-Pierre-d'Oyes (canton of Sézanne) in connection with the sale of a pond and of land to Le Reclus Abbey by Hugh, Count of Baye, who also confirmed his uncle Simon's gift of the rights of the forest of Talu to the abbey because of its extreme poverty. Hugo possibly died that same year; after his death the villagers kept his memory alive by burning a lamp on his grave. Probably also in that year Le Reclus became a daughter house of Vauclair Abbey.
Le Reclus was always a poor monastery, but nevertheless survived up to the French Revolution, when it was suppressed.
References:The Jan Hus Memorial stands at one end of Old Town Square. The huge monument depicts victorious Hussite warriors and Protestants who were forced into exile 200 years after Hus, and a young mother who symbolises national rebirth. The monument was so large that the sculptor designed and built his own villa and studio where the work could be carried out. It was unveiled in 1915 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Jan Hus' martyrdom. The memorial was designed by Ladislav Šaloun and paid for solely by public donations.
Born in 1369, Hus became an influential religious thinker, philosopher, and reformer in Prague. He was a key predecessor to the Protestant movement of the sixteenth century. In his works he criticized religious moral decay of the Catholic Church. Accordingly, the Czech patriot Hus believed that mass should be given in the vernacular, or local language, rather than in Latin. He was inspired by the teachings of John Wycliffe.