MICY, ABBEY OF

Former Benedictine monastery of Saint-Mesmin, or St. Maximinus, near Orléans, Loiret, France, Diocese of Orléans. It was founded—according to suspect hagiography and charters—during the 6th century, by Euspicius and his nephew St. Maximinus (feast, December 15), the monastery's first abbot and patron saint. However, the earliest authentic document, a privilege of exemption from the tonlieu tax granted by Emperor Louis the Pious to Abbot Dructsindus, dates from Jan. 8, 815. Bishop theodulf of orlÉans had successfully appealed, prior to 814, to benedict of aniane to introduce monks. These monks restored the observance of the benedictine rule and very probably refounded the Abbey, which had declined after flourishing briefly in the 6th century and which had been pillaged by soldiers of charles martel. Subsequently, Micy was twice pillaged by Norman raiders (856 and 897), and then restored under its 10th-century abbots; it flourished materially from the 10th to the 13th century. The first history of Micy, written c. 985 by a monk, Letaldus, was the Liber miraculorum s. Maximini (Patrologia Latina, ed. J. P. Migne, 137:795–824). A monastic library of some consequence is believed to have existed there from the 9th century. The 11th-century three-naved Romanesque church, completed under Abbot Albert (1018–35), was replaced (c. 1225–50) by a larger Gothic structure. During the Hundred Years' War, Micy suffered greatly and was in large part destroyed by the English (1428) during the siege of Orléans. It was also pillaged by the Huguenots during the Wars of Religion (1562). Abbot François de la rochefoucauld in 1608 introduced the Feuillant cistercians, who occupied the monastery until its total destruction in 1792, during the French Revolution. Its last abbot, De Rastignac, was executed during the September massacres.

Bibliography: e. jarossay, Histoire de l'abbaye de Micy-Saint-Mesmin-lez-Orléans (Orléans 1902) 502–1790. m. mantitus, Geschichte der lateinschen Literatur des Mittelalters, 3 v. (Munich 1911–31) 2:426–432. h. leclercq, Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, ed. f. cabrol, h. leclercq, and h. i. marrou, 15 v. (Paris 1907–53) 11.1:912–927. l. h. cottineau, Répertoire topobibliographique des abbayes et prieurés, 2 v. (Mâcon 1935–39) 2:1845–46. a. mercati and a. pelzer, Dizionario ecclesastico, 3 v. (Turin 1954–58) 3:666.

[g. e. gingras]