Charterhouse of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon: Monastery

Pope Innocent VI issued a papal bull founding the charterhouse (Carthusian monastery) on June 2, 1356, next to his palace in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. A religious community of about forty people began building the church of St. Mary (consecrated 1358), the great cloister and small cloister. Having escaped the plague that struck the city of Avignon in 1361 , Pope Innocent VI, by a bull of August 1362 , decided to appoint the monastery, Notre-Dame du Val de Benediction. On 22 November 1362 , the King of France, John II , attended the burial of Pope Innocent VI, in the Trinity Chapel of the Charterhouse. After a fire destroyed the papal palace, the monastery of St. Jean (St. John) was built on the site. Abandoned after the Revolution, the state began restoration in 1909 under the architect Jules Formigé; in 1959 the tomb of Innocent VI was restored to its original location.