Old Church of Saint-Étienne

Old Church of Saint-Étienne, known in Caen as Saint-Étienne-le-Vieux, was founded in the 11th c. under the patronage of William the Conqueror and largely rebuilt in the 15th c., where Norman mass meets late Gothic verticality. Repaired after earlier damage, it was devastated again during the 1944 battle for Caen, leaving a lantern tower and broken nave walls open to the sky. The ruin endures as a stark monument to the city’s intertwined history of faith, authority, and war.