Housed in the 17th century former bishop's palace, the Museum of Old Nîmes tells the story of city since the end of the Middle Ages through everyday items and bourgeois interiors. An essential visit to discover local traditions and daily life in Nîmes over the centuries. Local 18th and 19th century interiors have been reconstituted. The textile industry is of prime importance in the history of the city and is the subject of displays in the museum, with famous Nîmes shawls exported to the whole of Europe in the eighteenth century. A blue room is devoted to Nîmes cloth, the famous denim.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).