Abbaye Saint-Pierre de Moissac (Муассак)

 church, museum, ancient, monastery, Order of Saint Benedict, cloister, Roman Catholic church

Abbaye Saint-Pierre de Moissac.
The Abbaye St-Pierre de Moissac was founded in the mid 600s.
In 1048 Moissac became affiliated with Cluny.
Today the two glories of the Abbey are its cloisters, which are said to be the oldest surviving cloisters with narrative capitals (though Santo Domingo de Silos might dispute this), and the sculptures of the portal (and particularly the trumeau - central door pillar) of the abbey church.
46 of the 76 cloister capitals illustrate themes from the scriptures or the lives of saints.
The cloister gallery roofing was rebuilt in the late 1200s and again in the 1900s, but the original capitals and columns remained in place. The cloister also contains reliefs of Abbot Durand de Bredons, evangelists and disciples. The cloister is run as a separate state museum .The church is still used as a Roman Catholic parish.
The cloisters, having survived Simon de Montfort in 1212 and the English, Hugenots, Revolutionaries and other nasties since then, nearly got destroyed by the great railway craze of the mid 1800s.