Notre Dame de Montivilliers Abbey

The abbey, adorned with the flamboyance of the cloth industry.
Did you think gender equality was a challenge of our time? Think again! As early as the 7th century, the Church was concerned about it. Bishop Saint Ouen of Rouen, in particular. May Heaven grant that as many female communities as male monasteries be established on its lands.

Thus, strengthened by the prelate's support, Saint Philibert founded the Abbey of Montivilliers; an abbey for nuns draped in coarse wool behind their strict enclosure.

An abbey situated in the heart of a cloth-making town so prosperous that in the 15th century, the burghers triumphantly added a second, flamboyant nave to the Romanesque bays of the Benedictine abbey church.

But strange parishioners these were: the sans-culottes drove out the nuns. An abbey! Prisoners were once held here. A brewery was opened. And... Silence.

Rediscovered splendor, in the intimacy of the stones. A presence lingers here. And one thinks of those women prostrate in contemplation of the Mystery. Their memory will guide you from the restored refectory to the rebuilt cloister, and from the chapter house to the dormitory, along a moving museum journey, a vibrant evocation of monastic life, its history, and its architecture.