The Men's Abbey In Caen: St. Etienne

We took the #2 bus from Memorial to the Hotel de Ville and first looked at the Men's Abbey and its St. Etienne abbey church, one of the great examples of later Romanesque architecture.

The larger abbey complex

Helpful model

Heads of state at the 60th anniversary of D-Day

Today's wedding; where's the bride?

The abbey church--St. Etienne's--is so hemmed
in you can really only see the west facade and a
smidgeon of the bow

Anne Houle's nearby sculpture, Monument to the Memory of
Destroyed Buildings

The two more or less identical towers

Nave...not a whiff of Gothic here; it was consecrated in 1066,
I think; a big year for William

Elevation; not much light, not much height; six-
part ribbed vaulting

Some thousand or more Caen residents survived the month-long
battle for the city by taking refuge in the abbey church

The Brits and Canadians were alerted and kept their fire away
from the abbey; unlike several Caen churches, St. Etienne was
thus relatively unscathed

Nave vaulting and crossing

Aisle

Tomb of William, who died in MLXXXVII; after the Hugenots
and the Revolution got through with him, only a thigh bone
remains

Chancel, altar; remodeled in the 14th or so,
hence the pointy windows

In the Sacristy (they leave the door ajar so you
can see it), a 16th century "portrait" of William
in the manner of Henry VIII

Starboard bow

I can't say "our set is complete," but this is one more of the
important pre-Gothics we've finally gotten to see