FONTEVRAULT (Pont Ebraldi). - Ancient Benedictine abbey near Saumur in France (Maine-et-Loire), first in the territory of the diocese of Poitiers, now in that of Angers, founded at the end of the 11th century by Robert of Arbrissel.
The abbey church of Notre-Dame was begun at the start of the 12th century and consecrated by Callistus II in 1119; it underwent alterations in the 13th-14th centuries. The central vaulted nave with domes, destroyed in 1816, was called the "cemetery of the kings" because it housed the tombs of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine his wife, of Richard the Lionheart, of Isabella of Angoulême, widow of King John Lackland, and of Robert of Arbrissel. Today the abbey is reduced to a central detention house. The chapter hall still preserves scenes of the Passion painted by T. Pot (1567). Near the monumental refectory is the octagonal tower flanked by six apses. Adjacent to the old dormitory is the church of St. Benedict from the 12th century with a 17th-century cloister. Other nearby churches include that of St. Lazarus (late 12th century) with another cloister. The present church of St. Michael is from the late 12th century and contains the great wooden altar of the abbey church (1621).
Bibliography
Enrico Josi
HISTORY
Robert of Arbrissel, the first itinerant preacher in France, gathered around himself for the "poor of Christ" women and men who, converted by his preaching, followed and imitated him. After an initial period of apostolic wandering, they took as the basis of their life the Rule of St. Benedict with their own statutes. A peculiarity of this Order were the double monasteries, of men and of women — among which, however, a strict separation prevailed — governed by the abbess of Fontevrault, who presided, in honor of the Madonna, also over the male monasteries.
In the century of its foundation the Order of Fontevrault soon spread in France and in England. It had many preselites among the nobility. Several princesses of the houses of Orléans and Bourbon were abbesses of it. Pope Sixtus IV in 1475 approved the great reform of the abbess Mary of Brittany (1457-77). Toward the end of the 16th century a religious movement emerged from Fontevrault which in 1618 caused the foundation of the Congregation of Calvary (Calvariennes). Under Gabriel of Rochechouart (1670-1740) Fontevrault had a new period of prosperity, but in 1790 the Order, which still counted 19 monasteries in 4 provinces, was suppressed. In 1824 it revived in France in the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Mary of Fontevrault and today counts few members in three independent priories at Chemille, Brionde and Boulanc.