Signy Abbey

The abbey was founded in 1131 and was settled in 1135 by twelve monks under the leadership of Bernard of Clairvaux himself from Igny Abbey, its mother house; it was thus of the filiation of Clairvaux (Saint Bernard's biographer, William of Saint-Thierry (d. 1148), entered it as a simple monk.)

The monastery quickly acquired estates, and established granges, for crops, vineyards and livestock, in numerous places, including Maimby, Draize, Bray, Rousselois, Chaudion, Chappes, Mésancelle, Lavergny and Écaillère.

It was besieged and plundered by the Calvinists in 1568 and several times during the Thirty Years' War, but was eventually rebuilt.

The cross of the lay brothers survives, a monolith 7 metres high, as do the 18th-century buildings of the abbey farm and the guest wing.

Of the almost 4,000 volumes once in the library, most were burned on the spot in the Revolution, but about 300 survive in Charleville and the Bibliothèque Nationale.