Vaucelles Abbey

This study examines Vaucelles' policial, social, and economic life in the in order to explain how the Cistercian house (a direct daugher-house of Clairvaux) flourished in the borderland region of Cambrésis in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This study asserts that three principal factors influenced the foundation and development of Vaucelles. First, the abbey was fortunate in its local support, beginning with the castellan family and expanding to include numerous regional families and the bishops of Cambrai. Second, the abbey was established in a political borderland, a geo-political situation that Vaucelles survived and actually turned into a positive feature of its development. And finally, Vaucelles was a Cistercian monastery, a direct daughter house of Clairvaux. Vaucelles' Cistercian observance fostered relationships that were particularly significant to the abbey's development from the late twelfth century onward. These factors offer exceptional tools for demonstrating many features of Vaucelles' political, social, and economic life during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.