Saint-Ouen
Founded in 533, during the reign of Clothaire Ist and the episcopate of Flavius, the sixteenth archbishop of Rouen, (comprehending Saint-Nienise), this abbey flourished particularly under the illustrious prelate, whose name it bears and who enriched it with his patrimony.
The 14th of may, in the year 841, the Normans landed at Rouen; the following day they burned the abbey of Saint-Ouen.
Rollo, having become a Christian, and a peaceable possessor of Normandy, ordered the abbey to be repaired, and had the relics restored which the monks had carried off to secure them from the profanation of the Normans.
The monastery soon took the name of Saint-Ouen; instead of that of Saint-Peter, by which it was previously known.
The dukes Richard I and Richard II followed the example of Rollo, and continued the restoration of the abbey.
Such was the reputation of this monastery, that the emperor Otho, who had laid siege to the town during the reign of Richard Ist, surnamed Sans-Peur, demanded a safe conduct to come and perform his devotions at Saint-Ouen.
Nicolas, son of Richard IIIrd, and the fourth abbot under William the conqueror, caused the edifice, which had subsisted until then, to be demolished, and laid the first stone of a new church in 1046. Nicolas died too soon to complete the work; it was not finished until the year 1226, by William Ballot, the sixth abbot, who caused it to be dedicated in the same year, on the 17th of october, by Geoffroy, archbishop of Rouen.
The cloister and other buildings necessary for the use of the monks were finished under Rainfroid, the seventh abbot; but, in 1236, only ten years after the completion of this church, the work of eighty years was destroyed by fire in one day.
Through the liberality of the empress Matilda and Henry IInd, her son, the monks of Saint-Ouen succeeded in rebuilding their monastery; but it was again completely destroyed by fire in 1248.