Abbey of Saint-Evroul

[4]: 5–8  However, the abbey does not appear in surviving documents until the reign of Charles the Simple, when it is mentioned c. 900 under the name "monasterio que vocatur Uticus.

At this juncture, many of the monks are said to have "taken the path of the devil" and internal and external dissensions with bishops and temporal lords were frequent.

In 1258, during a visit by Eudes Rigaud [fr], the Archbishop of Rouen, the number of monks had decreased to thirty-one, only nine of these being priests.

In 1628, Saint-Évroult adopted the reforms of the Congregation of Saint Maur, and from 1675 to 1778 Maurist priors expanded and repaired the abbey.

[4]: 36–39 On 21 September 1789, the National Assembly declared all church property biens nationaux and the last monks and lay brothers left the abbey.

Orderic Vitalis took a leading role in seeking out and copying manuscripts in abbeys in France and England.

For a while, the monks focused on binding and cataloguing the collection, but this was followed by a period of indifference (with a brief intermission under the Maurists), resulting in the loss of many volumes.

Around fifty choice volumes were transferred to Saint-Ouen between 1660 and 1682, after which Bellaise wrote a good catalogue of the remaining 159 manuscripts.

The collection included the Bible in five languages, the works of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas,[8]: 93 [15] an illuminated 14th-century lectionary,[16][17] an 11th-century sacramentary,[18][19] and musical treatises by Guido of Arezzo.

The intact gatehouse of the abbey
A manuscript from Saint-Evroul depicting King David on the lyre (or harp) in the middle of the back of the initial 'B'.