On the north bank of the Dordogne,the Celtic clan established their settlement 
that served as their territorial headquarters.The town,Sarllac,prospered greatly
and one of the finest town in Aquitaine,with temples,aqueducts and amphitheatre
that would seat thirty thousand.

  In the third century,heralding a period of decline for the town,the town was
sacked by the Alemens.In the fifth century the Visigoths occupied Aquitaine and
spread south to Provence finally dismembering Roman Gaul.Suffering successive
barbarian onslaughts,Sarllac withdrew into itself to become an almost anonymous
enclave,until its fortunes were revived with the advent of St Pierre.

  Christianity flourished in Perigord under Charles the Great,and he supported
the establishment of economically powerful Benedictine monasteries.When he died,
invasion by the Northmen left trail of destruction along the Dordogne,churches and 
monasteries were pillaged and destroyed.

  In the latter half of the ninth century there was a great resurgence in ecclesiastical
buildings and over the period of the next two hundred years over a thousand churches,
abbeys and other religious buildings sprang up in Perigord in the style  of architecture
that we call Romanesque.

  Despite the turbulence in the Dordogne in the Middle Ages the population began to 
increase and the forest was slowly cleared for agricultural use,often under the
direction and encouragement of the Church and the religious orders.River traffic
of the Dordogne was constant,with boots laden with wine from Bergerac destined
for ports in both France and England.

  The abbey built by St.Pierre in twelfth century occupies a hilltops site on the 
western edge of the Sarllac,with fine south views over rolling hills to the valley
of the Dordogne below.The original abbey was badly dameged in the Hundred Years War
and almost entirely rebuilt yet again in the eighteeth century.