The history of the monastery of St. Stephen is certainly accompanied by the mention of another historic building. The fact is that men's Abbey St. Stephen's and women's Abbey of the Holy Trinity was built at the same time, for the same reason, and the initiators of the construction was the same people – the future king of England, Duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror and his wife Matilda of Flanders.

William the Conqueror was very anxious to marry a daughter of count of Flanders Baldwin the Fifth, but the Catholic Church did not share this desire, as William and Matilda was with each other in close kinship. Despite that the marriage was contracted without the Church's blessing, and spouses, to atone for his sin, was founded about the middle of the eleventh century two monasteries in Caen, which was the residence of the Duke. After his death, William and Matilda were buried in these abbeys, respectively, in the churches of St. Stephen and the Holy Trinity.

The Abbey of St. Stephen was built using local stone. Almost immediately in his lineup, a Church, and after two centuries, the monastery "rooted" even multiple buildings. In an age of religious wars, the monastery was sacked by the Huguenots, who reached the tomb of William the Conqueror – since then, rests in the tomb only one tibia of the monarch, the rest of the remains were lost.

In XVI-XVIII centuries dilapidated Abbey were under the control of monks marystow and gradually recovered. During the great French revolution the monastery was closed, and the Church became a place of departure of the new rituals of the cult of the Supreme being. It was only a few years later, in 1802, St. Stephen's Church was consecrated anew, and restored a few years later the monastery received under the arches of the nuns of the order of visitants, however, coexisted with them secular institution – Lyceum. During the Second world war the monastery was occupied by a hospital and a shelter for refugees. Since the second half of the twentieth century and currently it houses the municipal authorities.
The status of a historical monument of the Abbey of St. Stephen received in 1840.