Frankish Count Cancor and his widowed mother Williswinda founded the abbey in 764 as a proprietary church and monastery on their estate. Chrodegang, Archbishop of Metz, was the first abbot. In 766 it moved a few hundred meters to an Ice Age dune, and in 772 it became a royal abbey under Charlemagne. The main church was consecrated in September 774.
The Torhalle, or gatehouse, dates from the 9th century and is called the oldest largely intact monument of Carolingian architecture. It combines Roman triumphal-arch features, such as arched passageways and half-columns, with polychromatic masonry. The text credits King Louis II, though it also names Louis the German as the abbey's patron, so the attribution is unclear.
A fire in 1090 ravaged the abbey, and Spanish troops pillaged it in 1621. UNESCO listed the abbey in 1991.
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