CAEN, a city of north-western France, capital of the depart ment of Calvados, 71 m. from the English Channel and 149 m. W.N.W. of Paris on the Western railway to Cherbourg. Pop. 50,872. The castle, founded by William the Conqueror and completed by Henry I., is still employed as barracks, though in a greatly altered condition. St. Pierre, the most beautiful church in Caen, stands at the northern extremity of the rue St. Jean, in the centre of the town. In the main, its architecture is Gothic, but the choir and the apsidal chapels, with their elaborate interior and exterior decoration, are of Renaissance workmanship. The graceful tower, which rises beside the southern portal to a height of 2S5 ft., belongs to the early 14th century. The church of St. Etienne, or l'Abbaye-aux-Hommes, in the west of the town, is an important specimen of Romanesque architecture, dating from about 1070, when it was founded by William the Conqueror. A marble slab marks the former resting-place of William the Conqueror. The abbey-buildings were rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries, and now shelter the lycee. Matilda, wife of the Conqueror, was the foundress of the church of La Trinite or l'Abbaye-aux-Dames, which is of the same date as St. Etienne. Other interesting old churches are those of St. Sauveur, St. Michel de Vaucelles, St. Jean, St. Gilles, Notre-Dame de la Gloriette, St. Etienne le Vieux and St. Nicolas, the last two now secularized. The monuments at Caen include one to the natives of Calvados killed in 1870 and 1871 and one to the lawyer J. C. F. Demolombe, together with statues of Louis XIV., Elie de Beau mont, Pierre Simon, marquis de Laplace, D. F. E. Auber and Francois de Malherbe, the two last, natives of the town. Caen is the seat of a court of appeal, of a court of assizes and of a prefect. It is the centre of an academy and has a university with faculties of law, science and letters and a preparatory school of medicine and pharmacy; there are also a lycee, training colleges, schools of art and music, and two large hospitals. Caen, despite a diversity of manufactures, is commercial rather than industrial. In the south-east of the town there is a floating basin lined with quays and connected with the Orne and with the canal which debouches into the sea at Ouistreham 9 m. to the N.N.E. The port, which also includes a portion of the river-bed, communicates with Havre and Newhaven by a regular line of steamers; it has a considerable fishing population. The industries of Caen include timber-sawing, metal-founding and machine-construction, cloth weaving, lace-making, the manufacture of leather and gloves, and of oil from the colza grown in the district, furniture and other wooden goods and chemical products.
Though Caen is not a town of great antiquity, the date of its foundation is unknown. It existed as early as the 9th century, and when, in 912, Neustria was ceded to the Normans by Charles the Simple, it was a large and important place. Under the dukes of Normandy, and particularly under William the Conqueror, it rapidly increased. It became the capital of lower Normandy, and in 1346 was besieged and taken by Edward III. of England. It was again taken by the English in 1417, and was retained by them till 145o, when it capitulated to the French. The university was founded in 1436 by Henry VI. of England. During the Wars of Religion, Caen embraced the reform; in the succeeding century its prosperity was shattered by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685). In 1793 the city was the focus of the Girondist movement against the Convention.
See. G. Mancel et C. Woinez, Hist. de la ville de Caen et de ses progres (Caen, 5836) ; B. Pont, Hist. de la ville de Caen, ses origines (Caen, 1866) ; E. de R. de Beaurepaire, Caen illustre: son histoire, ses monuments (Caen, 1896) .