History
The Chartreuse du Liget is an ancient Carthusian monastery located in the heart of Southern Touraine. Unique in its kind in the region, it was founded at the end of the 12th century by Henry II Curtmantle, King of England and Count of Anjou.
Following the Carthusian Rule, the Chartreuse du Liget is composed of a high house situated at the Liget and a low house at the Corroirie. It also includes an isolated chapel erected in a clearing of the Forêt de Loches, precisely where the first monks who founded the Hermitage settled.
Although the following times were hectic, particularly with the Hundred Years War and the French Wars of Religion, the Chartreuse became highly important in the Middle Ages.
-
A large reconstruction and extension project was just bbeing carried out when the French Revolution put an end to it. In 1791, the Carthusian Fathers and Brothers were forced to leave the place. The numerous pieces of furniture, the 6900 books of the library as well as the 150 works of art were scattered. After the Revolution, some of them were to be found in Tours, Loches, Chemillé-sur-Indrois, Nouans les Fontaines… The buildings of the Chartreuse (the Monastery, the Corroirie and Saint-Jean Chapel) were sold as property of the nation or totally destroyed.
-
Today, the high house of the Chartreuse du Liget still comprises a magnificent and imposing portal dating from the 18th century as well as numerous buildings and outbuildings reconstructed in 1787, the remains of the Great Cloister, those of its 17th century church and a defensive wall reinforced by a medieval watch tower.
-
Between 1862 and 2015, Saint-Jean Chapel, the Corroirie and the high house were progressively listed at a regional scale and registered as national historical monuments before benefitting from heritage conservation. In 1947, like la Corroirie and the surroundings of the two groups of buildings, the high house was integrated to a classified site under the historical monuments protection act of May 2nd 1930.
-
Today, the high and the low houses are still lived in by a descendant of Côme-Edmond de Marsay who, in 1837, bought part of a domain which was finally pieced together in 1899.
The Chartreuse du Liget is one of the five Carthusian monasteries founded before the 15th century in western Europe.