Order of Fontevraud

The Fontevraud Order or Order of Fontevraud was a monastic order founded in 1101 by Robert of Arbrissel, with a rule based on the Benedictine Rule. It was initially a double rule, with neighbouring but separate houses for men and women, both under the same rule and both under the authority of the Abbess of Fontevraud. It became a women-only order early in the 15th century. One of its daughter houses was Nuneaton Priory.

Robert wrote a brief Rule of Life for the community, based upon the Rule of St. Benedict. Unlike the other monastic orders characterized by double monasteries, the monks and nuns of the Order of Fontevrault followed the same Rule. In his Rule, Robert dealt with four principal points: silence, good works, food and clothing, encouraging the utmost in simplicity of life and dress. He directed that the abbess should never be chosen from among those who had been brought up at Fontevrault, but that she should be someone who had had experience of the world (de conversis sororibus). This latter injunction was observed only in the case of the first two abbesses and was canceled by Pope Innocent III in 1201. At the time of Robert's death in 1117, there were about 3,000 nuns in the community.

In its heyday it was protected by the House of Plantagenet then the Capet branch of the House of Bourbon. The Order's fragile economic basis was exacerbated by the devastation of the Hundred Years War, which lasted throughout the 14th century. A canonical visitation of fifty of the priories of the Order in 1460 showed most of them to be barely occupied, if not abandoned. It and its mother house of Fontevraud Abbey were suppressed in 1790 due to the French Revolution, with an attempt to revive it by Mme Rose in 1806 as one for women only and following a modified rule.