Monastère du Lieu-Dieu

The Monastère du Lieu-Dieu (also known as the former Abbey or Monastery of Lieu-Dieu) is a medieval religious site located at Le Lieu Dieu in the commune of La Genétouze, in the Vendée department of the Pays de la Loire region in western France.

It was founded in the 1190s (around 1190) by Richard the Lionheart (Richard Cœur de Lion) for canons of the Premonstratensian Order (Order of Saint Norbert / Prémontrés). The community remained at this location for only about eight years. Around 1197–1198 the brothers transferred to a new and more permanent foundation at Lieu-Dieu-en-Jard (present-day Jard-sur-Mer), which became the better-known Abbaye Royale Notre-Dame de Lieu-Dieu. The original site at La Genétouze continued thereafter as a Premonstratensian grange (agricultural estate and dependency).

The surviving remains date from the 12th century. The principal protected element is the chapel, together with the surrounding bare or built land that contains an important archaeological deposit. These elements (cadastral plots A 480, 925 and 926) were inscribed as a Monument historique by decree of 16 December 1991.

Today the site is private property. It represents an early and relatively short-lived Premonstratensian foundation in Bas-Poitou and preserves archaeological evidence of medieval monastic activity in the central Vendée.