Originally a chapter of secular canons, the Braine Abbey was given to the Premonstratensian order by the Bishop of Soissons in 1130.

From the Middle Ages there also survives the remains of a half-timbered house and the abbey church of Saint-Yved.

With four bays, the nave joins the transept by a remarkable lantern tower rising to 33 metres (108 ft).

Before the revolution the Church of Saint Yved and Notre Dame contained magnificent tombs covered with enameled copper tiles, whose drawings are now in the Gaignères collection in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

According to the Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture few other buildings better show the symmetrical system used by master architects of the late twelfth century."