Lérins Abbey

The island, known to the Romans as Lerina, was uninhabited until Saint Honoratus, a disciple of a local hermit named Caprasius of Lérins, founded a monastery on it at some time around the year 410.

According to tradition, Honoratus made his home on the island intending to live as a hermit, but found himself joined by disciples who formed a monastic community around him.

In 426 St. Maximus was elected Abbot and remained for seven years until he was appointed the first documented leader of the Ancient Diocese of Riez.

The abbey provided three bishops for the diocese of Arles: Honoratus himself, followed by Hilarius and Cesarius in the fifth and sixth centuries respectively.

Saint Nazarius (Abbot) (Saint Nazaire), the fourteenth abbot of Lérins, probably during the reign of the Merovingian Clotaire II (584-629), successfully attacked the remnants of paganism on the southern coast of France, overthrew a sanctuary of Venus near Cannes, and founded on its site a convent for women, which was destroyed by the Saracens in the eighth century.

During the Middle Ages, the monks were obliged to take an active part in defending the coasts against incursions of the Moors of Algeria, and a fortified monastery was built between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries.

In the French Revolution, the island became the property of the state, and was sold to a wealthy actress, Mademoiselle de Sainval, who lived there for twenty years.