The
abbey was founded in 1239 at
Roesbrugge by Willem van Bethune and his wife Elisabeth van Roesbrugge for the
Canonesses Regular of St. Victor of
Prémy Abbey near
Cambrai. They are believed to have opened a school. The abbey thrived, but in 1572 began the troubles of the
Eighty Years' War. Marauding
Calvinist soldiers made Roesbrugge uninhabitable for the community. Some of them sought refuge in Ypres, others in
St. Omer. The abbey was pillaged by the Calvinists and subsequently laid waste by Spanish troops. Once the
County of Flanders was again in the hands of the King of Spain, the sisters in St. Omer returned. The
Council of Trent recommended that monasteries should re-settle in or near towns, and the community from Roesbrugge decided to settle permanently in Ypres. They began once again to provide schooling, but more incidents of war caused them further setbacks. In 1744 the abbey was destroyed by the troops of
Louis XV, King of France, during the
War of the Austrian Succession. Reconstruction began in 1778 and in 1782 the abbey was reopened. Yet again war intervened, this time between Austria and France in the
French Revolution. For this reason, in 1793 a new abbess was not elected, only a prioress. In 1798 the abbey was seized by the French and sold. The sisters were dispersed, but after the
Concordat of 1801 between
Napoleon and
Pope Pius VII were able to buy back a piece of ground immediately adjacent to the site of the former abbey, and began their work again, including the management of a boarding school. ==References==