The abbey | ©Anecdotrip.com / CC-BY-NC-SAThe name of this beautiful Cistercian abbey came from a man called Ebbon de Charenton, a local lord, who drowned into a lake near the abbey: in memory of this sad accident, this lake was called "black lake", noir lac.
But this is only a legend!
Anyway, 12 monks from Clairvaux abbey came there in 1136 in order to found a monastery. In the beginning, it was very hard for them.
Archives told in 1149, monks were starving; they even asked from other abbeys a little bit of wheat...
Fortunately, in 1150, Ebbe V de Charenton gave them money: from then on, Noirlac get out of this difficult situation. They started to raise church, cloister, several buildings...
In the 13th and 14th centuries, the abbey became richer: the estate was composed of 17 farms, a 275 hectares wood, many mills...