[2] According to the Kentish Royal Legend, Minster Abbey was a double monastery founded AD 670 by Domne Eafe or Domneva; Eormenburg or Ermenburga is either her original name or that of her sister.

Domne Eafe was a Kentish princess who accepted land for a house of prayer as Weregild for the killing of her brothers Æthelred and Æthelberht.

[5] At the end of the eighth century the abbess was Selethryth, sister of King Offa of Mercia, and she was remembered for recovering estates of the abbey which had been seized by Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury.

[6] According to late traditions the abbey was sacked by the Vikings in about 855, but at the end of the ninth century Asser wrote in the present tense that "an excellent minster is established on the island".

It became a private house until in 1937 it was bought by Benedictine nuns from St Walburga's Abbey in Eichstätt, Bavaria as a refuge from persecution and became a dependent Priory.