Orval - Mystery, Treasure and Nostradamus

The Legend of Orval

One day la Gran Contessa ("the Great Countess") or Countess Matilda of Canossa was visiting a small chapel near the forests of Orval.

 

She was a woman under a continued pressure as the deaths of both her mother and husband in 1076, had left her in sole control of her great Italian patrimony as well as lands in Lorraine. On the behalf of the Pope himself she was fighting the German King Henry IV who would sort to conquer Matildas throne. Legend says that she stopped at the fountain and somehow her wedding- ring accidentally fell into the fountain. Eventhought she had been estranged from her late husband (her stepbrother Godfrey the Hunchback) She was in great distress at her loss of the ring. She prayed to the Lord for the return of the ring and at once a trout rose to the surface of the water with the precious ring in its mouth. Matilda exclaimed: "Truly this place is a Val d'Or (Golden Valley)", from which the name "Orval" is derived, and in gratitude she made available the funds for the foundation of the monastery and to this day the spring still supplies water to the monastery and its brewery.

Let all guests that come be received like Christ, for he will say,
"I was a stranger and you took me in."

                                 

In 1070 a group of Benedictine monks from Calabria settled in Orval, at the invitation of Count  Arnould de Chiny, lord of the manor, who welcomed them and granted them land from his own domain. Construction immediately begun of the church and a monastery, but after some forty years, possibly because of the death of Count Arnould, the monks moved away again. They were replaced by a community of Canons Regular, who completed the construction work: the abbey church was consecrated on 30 September 1124 by Henri de Winton, Bishop of Verdun. Soon afterwards, however, the Canons ran into economic difficulties, a situation which led them to request affiliation to the Order of Cîteaux, at that time in full expansion. Their request was transmitted to Saint Bernard who accepted it. He entrusted the re-establishment of Orval to the eldest of his daughter-houses, the Abbey of Trois-Fontaines in Champagne. On the 9th March 1132, seven monks under the leadership of Constantin arrived at Orval from Trois-Fontaines. Monks and Canons formed one single community and began at once on the adaptation of the buildings to Cistercian usages. The new church was completed before 1200.

For five centuries, Orval led a hidden life, like so many other monasteries of the Order. During the 12th Century, the abbey seems to have been prosperous ; from the middle of the following century, calamities were often to be its lot for long periods. In 1252 the abbey was gutted by fire and the consequences weighed on the community for almost a century. Certain buildings had to be entirely reconstructed. Around 1252, the monastery was destroyed by a fire; the rebuilding took around 100 years. So serious was the state of misery that for a time the authorities of the Order went so far as to envisage the suppression of the monastery.

During the 15th and 16th centuries, the various wars between France and various neighbouring regions (Burgundy, Spain) had an important impact on Orval. At one stage a foundry was established on the site. In 1637, during the Thirty Years' War, the abbey was pillaged and burnt by French mercenaries. In the 17th century, the abbey converted to the Trappist branch of the Cistercian order, but reverted back to the Rule of the main order in around 1785.