CAEN. - Currently the chief town of the Calvados department (France). It is first mentioned in 1027 under the name of Cadomum, but it was still a simple village 12 km from the Channel when William the Conqueror and his wife Matilda founded, in reparation for the wrongs committed, the Abbaye aux Dames, with its attached church dedicated to the Holy Trinity (1066), and the Abbaye aux Hommes, with its church consecrated to St Stephen (1077). It may be said that the true foundation of Caen dates from the construction of these two abbeys, which gave the city a great impetus.
Other notable churches are: St Nicholas (1083-93); St Peter (15x1-35); St Saviour, with two apses, one Gothic and the other from the 17th century; Notre-Dame-de-la-Gloriette (1609). It is part of the diocese of Bayeux and has seven parishes. It has been the seat of a university since 1436, of an Académie des Arts, Sciences et Belles-Lettres, and of the Society of Antiquaries of Normandy. But above all, mention must be made of the Institut du Bon Sauveur, founded in 1712 at St-Lô by a small group of "sœurs associées pour les petites écoles"; the institution took the name "Sœurs du Bon Sauveur" from 1726, from the small oratory attached to it, dedicated to the Most Holy Saviour. Anna Leroy and Margherita Lecouvreur de la Fontaine established a house in Caen in 1720. In 1790, the priest Pietro Jamet, born at Fresne (Orne) on 12 September 1762 and died at Caen on 12 January 1845, was appointed confessor; he brought the institution to such prosperity that he is considered its second founder. His special merit lies in the establishment of a new method of education for the deaf-mute (G. A. Simon, L'abbé Pierre-François Jamet, Caen 1935). - See Pl. XIX.