Lay Abbey

A Lay Abbey (Fr: Abbaye laïque) was a basic component of the Middle Ages in the western foothills of the northern Pyrenees. The adjective lay indicated that the property did not belong to a religious order. It is possible to identify a hundred lay abbeys, some only by conjecture due to the disappearance of the texts.

The founding principle was the creation of a parish by a lord or even by a large farmer, sometimes very small, in order to tithe, so that he could maintain a church.

Although he was not a member of the church, the lord called himself Father (L'abbé in French or L'abat in Basque), a term appearing in the 11th century. The meaning of "father", came from the Latin abbas or abbatus which came from the Hebrew abba.

The Father's house was distinctive, often called the abadia (Basque for Abbey) and was to a certain extent the foundation of a parish.

Considering that a tithe is one tenth of the income, only thirty farms were sufficient to build a viable lay abbey.

Lay abbeys existed mainly in the Béarn, the Bigorre and their margins. To the west, the Soule (Basque Country), to the north Chalosse and the Tursan, then south to Armagnac, the Astarac, and the Adour valley. Overall, the inner basin of the Adour. Practically, there were no lay abbeys beyond. (Nevertheless, Canon Ulysse Chevalier wrote on "lay abbeys and the presence of Roman towns under the consuls" in 1882).

According to the assumptions made based on the theses of Pierre de Marca these foundations followed the Carolingian Empire, when Islam was approaching the Pyrenees. Faced with the threat of invasion, illustrated by the Viking incursions into the Adour in the 9th century, the church tolerated these foundations that allowed it to establish its presence in areas of recent or uncertain evangelization.

This interpretation is discussed by modern historians and archeo-geographers. They see local customs of tithe distribution continuing in this form; the customs may be related to ancient Aquitains or proto-Basques in territories where feudalism was recent.

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