The abbey of St. Maurice is built on the ruins of a Roman shrine of the 1st century
B.C. dedicated to the god
Mercury in the Roman staging-post of Agaunum. The Latin name
Acaunum, which became
Agaune in French, came from a
Gaulish term meaning "pointed rock". The site housed a Roman customs post, where a tax was levied on all the goods that crossed this cluse at the entrance to the Rhone Valley. According to
Eucherius, Bishop of Lyon,
Theodore of Octodurum constructed a small shrine around 370 to commemorate the martyrdom of
St. Maurice and the Theban Legion, which was said to have occurred in the area where the abbey is located. Theodorus then gathered the local hermits in a common life, thus beginning the Community of Saint-Maurice. In 515, the
Basilica of St. Maurice of Agaunum became the church of a monastery under the patronage of King
Sigismund of Burgundy, the first ruler in his dynasty to convert from
Arian Christianity to
Trinitarian Christianity. The abbey became known for a form of perpetual psalmody known as
laus perennis that was practised there beginning in 522 or 523. The chants were sung day and night, by several choirs in rotation without ceasing. The practice continued there until the 9th century, when the monks were replaced by a community of
canons.
Amatus of Grenoble joined the abbey around 581, later retiring to a hermitage. The abbey had some of the richest and best preserved treasures in Western Europe, such as the
Ewer of Saint-Maurice d'Agaune. In the mid-9th century,
Hucbert, brother-in-law of the king
Lothair II, seized the abbey. In 864 he was killed in a battle at the
Orbe river and was replaced by the victor, count
Conrad of Auxerre, who became the
commendatory abbot of the abbey, and Lord of the
Transjuran Burgundy.
Boso, later
King of Provence, (850-887) received the abbey around 870 from his brother-in-law,
Charles the Bald. Conrad's son,
Rudolph I of Burgundy, who had inherited the commendatory abbacy from him, became king of
Upper Burgundy in 888, and was crowned in a ceremony at the abbey itself, which he then made the royal residence. His descendants continued to rule as
Kings of Burgundy, in a line running from Rudolf I to
Rudolf III. They directed the abbey until around the year 1000. The monastery remained the property of the
Kingdom of Burgundy until 1033, when, through the defeat in battle of Eudes, a nephew of Rudolf III, it passed to the control of the
House of Savoy.
Amadeus III, Count of Savoy, became the commendatory abbot of the monastery in 1103 and worked to revive religious observance at the abbey by installing there, in 1128, the community of canons regular, who still live there under the
Rule of St. Augustine, in place of the secular canons. Throughout the history of the abbey, its strategic mountain pass location and independent patronage has subjected it to the whims of war. The abbey was often forced to pay ransom or house troops. In 1840,
Pope Gregory XVI conferred the title of the
See of Bethlehem in perpetuity on the abbey. In 2019, to diversify its revenues, the abbey launched its beer production. The brewery, fully owned by the abbey, produces three beers. The yeast used to produce them was taken from a parchment dating from 1319. Today the abbey consists of some 40 canons, with 2
lay brothers. The Most Rev.
Abbot Joseph Roduit, C.R.A., who was elected in 1999, resigned with the permission of
Pope Francis on Wednesday, 18 March 2015, replaced by
Abbot Jean Scarcella on 1 August 2015 . The canonical community serves both the spiritual needs of the territory of the
Territorial abbey as well as five
parishes in the
Diocese of Sion. The canons also operate a highly ranked
secondary school. ==Architecture==