Ter Doest, Abbey of
TER DOEST, ABBEY OF
Former Cistercian abbey in the town of Lissewege, seven miles northeast of Bruges, Belgium, near the canal connecting Bruges to the sea (Latin, Thosanum ). Founded as a priory of saint-riquier in 1106, it became a cistercian monastery on Jan. 1, 1176, as a daughter of the Abbey of les dunes. Under its first abbot, Hacket, and along with Dunes, Ter Doest began expansion of both its wool industry and its land holdings, which extended even to the islands in the estuary of the Lys and Schelde Rivers (c. 1240). The abbey church and conventual buildings were erected in 1244, but by 1309 the acute economic crisis forced the monks to sell some of the property. The decline continued until in 1559 Ter Doest was joined to the newly created Diocese of Bruges. Pillaged in 1571 by the Calvinists of Westkapelle and Ramskapelle and burned by them in 1578, the monastery was suppressed in 1624 and reunited to Dunes. Ter Doest was confiscated and sold at the time of the French Revolution but was bought back by the monks of Dunes and given to the Diocese of Tournai (today Bruges).
Bibliography: l. h. cottineau, Répertoire topobibliographique des abbayes et prieurés, 2 v. (Mâcon 1935–39) 2:3134. m. a. dimier, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillart (Paris 1912–) 14:1039–44.
[m. j. stallings]