Manoir de Brion
Encyclopedia
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
priory
Priory
A priory is a house of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or religious sisters , or monasteries of monks or nuns .The Benedictines and their offshoots , the Premonstratensians, and the...
of the abbey
Abbey
An abbey is a Catholic monastery or convent, under the authority of an Abbot or an Abbess, who serves as the spiritual father or mother of the community.The term can also refer to an establishment which has long ceased to function as an abbey,...
of Mont Saint-Michel
Mont Saint-Michel
Mont Saint-Michel is a rocky tidal island and a commune in Normandy, France. It is located approximately one kilometre off the country's north-western coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches...
, France.
It is located near the village of Genêts
Genêts
Genêts is a commune in the Manche department in northwestern France. It was the port of the oppidum Ingena , the main settlement of the Abrincatui....
, in Basse-Normandie
Basse-Normandie
Lower Normandy is an administrative region of France. It was created in 1956, when the Normandy region was divided into Lower Normandy and Upper Normandy...
, and was founded in 1137 by the abbot Bernard du Bec
Bernard du Bec
Bernard du Bec , also known as Bernard le Vénérable, was a Benedictine monk who served as the thirteenth abbot of Mont Saint-Michel. He belonged to a high-ranking noble family in Normandy....
. Several kings and members of the royal court stayed at the Manoir de Brion while on pilgrimage
Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...
to Mont Saint-Michel, including Charles VI
Charles VI of France
Charles VI , called the Beloved and the Mad , was the King of France from 1380 to 1422, as a member of the House of Valois. His bouts with madness, which seem to have begun in 1392, led to quarrels among the French royal family, which were exploited by the neighbouring powers of England and Burgundy...
in 1393, Louis XI in 1462 and Francis I of France
Francis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
in 1532. The explorer Jacques Cartier
Jacques Cartier
Jacques Cartier was a French explorer of Breton origin who claimed what is now Canada for France. He was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas", after the Iroquois names for the two big...
was also presented to King Francis I at the Manoir de Brion before his 1534 voyage to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, where one of the Magdalen Islands
Magdalen Islands
The Magdalen Islands form a small archipelago in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with a land area of . Though closer to Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, the islands form part of the Canadian province of Quebec....
would be named Île Brion
Brion Island
Brion Island is an uninhabited island in the Magdalen Islands archipelago in the middle of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and part of the municipality of Grosse-Île, Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec, Canada...
. During the Second World War, the building was used as a hospital to shelter wounded soldiers. The English writer Vincent Cronin
Vincent Cronin
Vincent Archibald Patrick Cronin, FRSL was a British historical, cultural, and biographical writer, best-known for his biographies of Louis XIV, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Catherine the Great, and Napoleon, as well as for his books on the Renaissance.Cronin was born in Tredegar, Monmouthshire...
resided there until his death in January of 2011.