Fontevraud Abbey

Robert d'Arbrissel (1045 – 1116) started as an itinerant preacher, was exiled to Paris. Then was an archpriest fighting lay investiture and clerical concubinage. His reforming zeal aroused such enmity that he was compelled to leave the diocese.

He became a hermit. His piety and eloquence attracted many followers, for whom in 1096 he founded the monastery of La Roé.

Robert left the convent and, living in the utmost destitution, worked again as an itinerant preacher. His eloquence drew crowds and provoked the church hierarchy. So in 1100, he was requested to give up the nomadic life and to settle down with his followers. Robert founded the "double monastery" Fontevraud Abbey.

He himself could bear the sedentary life only for a short while. He appointed Hersende de Champagne (Heloisa´s mum?) to lead the convent and hit the road again. In 1116 he died in the Priory of Orsan.

From the very beginning the convent had a strong support from the aristocracy, above all from the House of Plantagenet. Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the most powerful ladies of medieval times, joined the convent, when she retired from the political powergame in 1200. She died here in 1204 and in the nave of this church, once choosen as the burial place for the House of Plantagenet, is her tomb.

The convent was successful and existed upto the French Revolution.

In 1804 Napoleon signed a decree, transforming the abbey into a prison. The abbey was a prison upto 1963! Holding upto 2000 prisoners, the prison was known to be of the "toughest in France".

The nave of the abbey church.

To squeeze in more prisoners here, four floors were installed within this nave upto the renovation and rebuilding process. Thousands of prisoners have lived (and died) here over more than 150 years. All walls of the abbey are covered with carved with names and dates.

Where the visitors gather are the tombs of the Plantagenets.