Abbaye Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa

Abbaye Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa has a long and winding history, starting in 840, when near the river Tet "Sant Andreu d'Eixalada" was founded. This small abbey was washed away during a flood already soon after.

The monks moved to nearby Cuixa, where in 879, abbot Protasius (he came from Urgell) and Miro the Elder, count of Conflent and Roussillon (and brother of Wilfred the Hairy) signed the founding treaty of the new monastery.
Under protection and influence of the Counts of Cerdanya the abbey gained importance. A large complex was built over the next century. In 974 a monk from Cluny (!) consecrated the main altar of the new church, dedicated to Saint Michael. Since 961 abbot Garin led the monastery. He was a perfectly connected intellectual figure, friend of Gerbert d'Aurillac (later Pope Sylvester II). At that time Pietro I Orseolo, formerly the Doge of Venice and later a venerated Saint, joined the community as well as Saint Romuald, later the founder of the congregation of Camaldolese.

Influental and powerful Oliba (971-1046), descendant of Wilfred the Hairy, count of Berga and Ripoll and later bishop of Vic and abbot here kept the place in the political center of the County of Barcelona. He had founded a couple of monasteries (eg. Montserrat), had been a political adviser and was a well travelled man. He had been impressed by the architecture he had seen in Italy and was heavily involved in the architectonial process, transforming the pre-romanesque complex, started by his predecessors.

Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa lost the importance it once had and during the next centuries. There was a row of self-confident abbots, without any interest in monastical traditions. The French Revolution ended that - and the last monk fled 1793, just before the revolutionists ruined the place with great effort. The abbey was sold afterwards by the government - and another story started.

The abbey fell in disrepair. The cloister, erected 1130-1140, was still complete in the 1780s. After the Revolution the new owner had different plans, as he needed a water basin, and reckoned the cloister the perfect place.

In 1841, the owner tried to sell the cloister to Perpignan, where it should find a place in the garden of the archbishop, but the negotiation failed. At that time 37 pillars and capitals were still in situ. Soon after the cloister was taken apart. Most carvings were sold to people in nearby Prades, to beautify their gardens.

Around 1905 an American sculptor, living in France, opened an antique trade. He tracked down the scattered pieces of the cloister - and started to buy them sucessfully. He was proud, that in the end he had the major part of the cloister, having spent about 3000 US$.

To cut the story short, most of the pillars, arcades and capitals are now in New York, where the joined the cloisters from Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert and Bonnefont. They are all part of "The Cloisters", once founded and financed by John D. Rockefeller, now part of the "Metropolitan Museum of Art".
The large fountain, that was the center of this cloister once, can now be seen in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. There te fountain is the center of a cloister, that once was in Saint-Genis-des-Fontaines.

The Cloisters:
www.metmuseum.org/visit/visit-the-cloisters/

Philadelphia Museum of Art
www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/42060.html

There must have been a workshop of carvers within the 10th century, that probably worked near the quarries in Villefranche-de-Conflent, where the marble was cut. This workshop developed a distinctive artistic style, that can be seen as well in the prieuré de Serrabone and in Saint-Martin-du-Canigou.

An ape or monkey with some dirt in its right pupil.