The abbey | ©Pinpin / CC-BY-SAGrande sauve in French, sylva major in Latin means "big forest". A very enchanting setting, for an abbey founded in the end of the 11th century by saint Gérard, on the foundations of a small chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
The monastery became very prosperous and a little city called Sauve settled in next to it... And pilgrims came, because we are here on Compostela road...
Popes but also archbishops of Bordeaux, Agen, Reims gave lot of money to la Sauve. The abbey had 20 priories near Bordeaux, about 60 in Europe, and vast lands!
Eleanor of Aquitaine even appointed knights to protect the abbey and its pilgrims, because it was very rich and could stir up the greed of bandits...
But the decline came quickly: wars, Revolution... In the beginning of the 19th century, the monastery was transformed into a quarry, because la Sauve's inhabitants needed stones to build their own houses...