Before the village existed

The Valbonne abbey soon found itself with a property portfolio made up of land purchased or donated by local lords and other individuals. But the rapid collapse of the Chalaisian Order and the transfer of the ownership of the abbey to the Lérins monastery, left a prior and two or three monks as the sole occupants in Valbonne. This sad situation was reflected in other causes of misery that began to sweep through Provence. There was the plague of the Black Death, disturbances that followed the death of the queen Jeanne d'Anjou, the ravages of armies of mercenaries and of invaders from the Barbary Coast of North Africa. These waves of murderers and plunderers decimated the population and left the estate of the Valbonne Abbey "ruined, uninhabited, uncultivated, stony and overgrown."