Founded around 1145, Hambye Abbey was established by William Painel, Lord of Hambye, and Algare, bishop of Coutances. The monastery was founded by a group of Benedictine monks from Tiron in the Perche region. Fueled by an ideal of rigor and austerity close to that of Cistercians, these monks built a sober and elegant abbey typical of the early Gothic period. Construction took place in the late 12th and early 13th centuries.
The religious community reached its apogee in the 13th century and then, after a long decline over the following centuries, disappeared in the 1780s. Like all abbeys, it became national property at the beginning of the Revolution and was eventually sold in 1790. The owners transformed or destroyed buildings and scattered the furnishings.
Having belonged to the abbey for three centuries, the altarpiece was sold. The convent buildings became farm buildings, while the abbey church was used as a quarry from 1810 and was gradually dismantled.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nicolo Ciampini
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