Herluin, a victim of leprosy,[3] was said to have seen a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary who told him to take a spa treatment at the source of the Carbec stream in Grestain (Carbec meaning "the Stream of Kari").
Cured, he decided to build an abbey in the nearby Valley of Vilaine dedicated to the Virgin and a chapel at Carbec, a site also dedicated to the healing spring of Saint-Méen.[4]
Herluin's son, Robert de Mortain, half-brother of William, was the principal benefactor, endowing it with his revenues from England.[2]
In 1358, the abbey was sacked by the Anglo-Navarrais. The monks took refuge at their safe house in Rouen, in the parish of Saint-Eloi. Between 15 November 1364 and 10 August 1365, the abbey was attacked once more. On the return of the monks, the abbey had been partly destroyed and nearly razed to the ground.
The abbey was officially closed in 1757 on the orders of the bishop. The church buildings were demolished around 1766 and the rest of abbey destroyed in 1790; of these buildings, only a few ruins remain, integrated into the Château de La Pommeraye (a private property): a defensive wall, a 13th-Century portal, an 18th-Century manor with a 13th-Century floor, and remains of the church.
A monument has been erected to the memory of the founders who were buried in the now defunct church: Arlette, Herluin and Robert de Mortain, as well as Robert's wife, Mathilde de Montgomerie, daughter of Roger de Montgomerie.[5]
Auguste Le Prévost, Carbec-Grestain dans « Mémoires et notes pour servir à l'histoire du département de l'Eure, Volume 1 », Imprimerie d'Auguste Hérissey, Évreux, 1862, Internet Archive.
References
^Gazeau, Véronique (1994). "10: The Effect of the Conquest of 1066 on Monasticism in Normandy". In David Bates, Anne Curry (ed.). England and Normandy in the Middle Ages. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 336. ISBN978-1-85285-083-8.
^ abGolding, Brian (1990). "Robert of Mortain". In Chibnall, Marjorie (ed.). Anglo-Normans Studies : XIII. Proceedings of the Battle Conference. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. p. 120.
^Golding, Brian (2004). "Robert, count of Mortain (d. 1095)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.
