on 16 October to try capital and other cases, presided over by the prior. The priory lands also included the town gibbet. Its buildings were damaged in the Hundred Years' War but rebuilt. Henry V of England confirmed the priory's temporal rights but towards the end of the Middle Ages the monks abandoned communal life and began living in separate lodges, although they still came together for worship and prayer. From 1575 Louis de Lorraine, cardinal de Guise, was prior commendatory to the priory. The French Wars of Religion and the commendatory regime meant that from 1674 the priory was organised differently - the monks returned to Fécamp and the priory's lands were entrusted to a fermier général. The priory church was still used for mass on Sundays, celebrated by monks from the abbaye de Saint-Vigor in Bayeux. At the French Revolution the priory was confiscated, sold and turned into a farm, whilst the town council bought the tower. The priory church's nave was demolished in 1750 and only its choir remains. The sieur de Gribeauval, inventor of the light cannon, stayed at the priory at the same time as the régiment d'Aquitaine and the régiment de Saintonge in 1778. The church passed into state ownership in 1844 after being listed as a historic monument in 1840. In March 1914 it was bought by monsieur Emmanuel Fauchier Delavigne and his wife and after major rebuilding works they used it to house the first ever private horticulture school in France from 1929 onwards, now the École du paysage et de l'horticulture. The town and priory were liberated on D-Day (6 June 1944) by soldiers of the Tyne-Tees Regiment and it took in refugees from Caen during the battle of Caen soon afterwards. A cultural association was set up in 2003 to revive the site and on 1 January 2008 the state passed ownership of the priory to the Calvados department. List of priors 1058–1069 : Turquetil c. 1106 : Nicolas 1188–1219 : Roger 1188–1219 : Julien (subordinate to the abbot of Fécamp), Raoul (prior) c. 1231 : Geoffroy de Caen c. 1255 : Gervais de Norrey 1286–1288 : Richard de Plumetot c. 1317 : Guillaume Champion 1331–1346 : Geoffroy de La Palue c. 1362 : Henri Goribout (sub prior) c. 1370 : Pierre de Joinville c. 1374 : Guillaume de Blangy c. 1392 : Raoul Flament 1423–1424 : Thomas Langlois (prior)