Lyre Abbey

Lyre Abbey

Lyre Abbey (17th century)
Monastery information
Full name	The Abbey of Our Lady of Lyre
Other names	Abbaye Notre-Dame de Lyre
Order	by mid-12th century Benedictine
Established	1046
Disestablished	1790
Dedicated to	Virgin Mary
Diocese	Rouen
People
Founder(s)	William FitzOsbern, Lord of Breteuil, Earl of Wessex, Earl of Hereford.
Important associated figures	Robert de Beaumont, Earl of Leicester, Thomas Becket, Cardinals Jean Le Veneur, Hippolyte d'Este, Louis d’Este, Louis of Lorraine (1586-1588), Louis of Lorraine (1593-1598), Jacques Davy Duperron, Armand Gaston Maximilien de Rohan Maurists.
Site
Location	La Vieille-Lyre, Eure, France
Visible remains	part of abbot’s residence

Lyre Abbey (L'abbaye Notre-Dame de Lyre ) was a monastery in Normandy, founded in 1046 at what is now the village of La Vieille-Lyre. From in mid-12th century it was a Benedictine house. It was abolished at the French Revolution and the abbey buildings mostly destroyed.

One of the many monasteries that sprang up in Normandy in the 11th century, the abbey of Lyre was founded in 1046, a near contemporary of Bec Abbey and the two great monasteries at Caen, the Abbaye aux Dames and the Abbaye aux Hommes (Saint-Étienne).

The founder of Lyre was William FitzOsbern, (c. 1020-1071), Lord of Breteuil, in Normandy who is one of the very few proven companions of William the Conqueror known to have fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. He was a relative and close counsellor of William, being later made Earl of Wessex and Earl of Hereford. From its founder the abbey received important grants in its immediate vicinity, but also further afield.. In the wake of the Norman conquest FitzObern became one of the great magnates of early Norman England, acquiring extensive lands there, from which he made generous donations to Lyre Abbey, which emerges in the Domesday Book as one of the Norman abbeys with the greatest landholdings in England..