France: Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, Église Notre Dame de l’Epinay

The Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives (Épinay was the original name of the town) was founded in the 11th century; the earliest records of the monastery date back to 1011, when Countess Lesceline - great-aunt of William the Conqueror - had her château transformed into a monastery to house a community of nuns. The nuns were soon replaced by Benedictine monks from Jumieges.

Consecrated in 1067, the church was destroyed in a fire almost fourty years later. The construction of a new church would begin two years later and took more than a hundred years to complete. The monument retains very few elements from its earliest days, since it was entirely rebuilt during the Gothic period, between the 13th and 15th centuries. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the abbey church was restored and rebuilt.

At the end of the French Revolution, the monastery was sold as national property and the abbey church was transformed into a parish church of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives. Remarkably, the town and the abbey were spared by the bombings at the end of World War II. The tall towers of the abbey church still dominate the town.