High Middle Ages · Europe · Religion

1117

Cistercian reform of Fontevraud

1117

Robert of Arbrissel's controversial double monastery of Fontevraud in the Loire valley, which housed both monks and nuns under an abbess's rule, received further papal approval. It would become the favored burial place of the Plantagenet kings of England. Eleanor of Aquitaine herself would retire there in old age and be buried beside her husband Henry II and her son Richard, their tombs topped with painted stone effigies.