Despite being pillaged during the French Revolution, the Abbey still contains the funeral statues of King Henry II, his son Richard the Lionheart and his daughter-in-law Isabella of Angouleme, as well as of Queen Eleanor who commissioned the recumbent statues in polychrome tuffeau stone, which have been remarkably well-preserved. Henry II and Richard the Lionheart are represented with the royal sceptre and crown, while Eleanor is holding an open book.
The statue of Isabella is unique in that it is made of wood. They are located in the nave of the abbey church , whose size and sobriety make it a very imposing building. The roof of the nave is structured into four vaulted spans comprising a line of cupolas, which testifies to the Byzantine origins of the Norman style in Anjou.
The choir and transept, on the other hand, remain faithful to the local architectural style in the Loire Valley. Accommodation nearby. Eleanor died at Fontevraud Abbey on April 1, , at the age of When Henry was 15, his father decided to adopt the French practice of ensuring the succession by declaring his heir the junior king.
Henry was crowned at Westminster Abbey on June 14, Henry the Young King died at the age of 28 on June 11, , in Martel, France from dysentery also called the bloody flux , the scourge of armies for centuries. Henry was so popular that the people of Le Mans and Rouen almost went to war for the custody of his body. He had requested to be buried in Rouen Cathedral but as his body traveled through Le Mans, the bishop ordered his body to be buried at the cathedral there.
The Dean of Rouen Cathedral had to resort to legal means to bury Henry according to his wishes. Not wearing his chainmail, Richard was hit by an arrow from a crossbow shot by a soldier on the castle battlements. Richard unsuccessfully tried to pull out the arrow and a doctor did a less than adequate job of treating the injury which became infected with gangrene. Knowing he was dying, Richard forgave the man who shot the arrow and asked him to be set free.
The first permanent structures were built between and The abbey was a double monastery, which means that both monks and nuns occupied the same site. The Order of Fontevrault became an international success, with monasteries throughout Europe. The position of Abbess attracted many rich and noble women, including members of the French Bourbon royal family. The tasteless Louise de Bourbon left her arms and monogram on many of the embellishments she made during her term of office.
In the early years the Plantagenets were benefactors of the abbey and while Isabella d'Anjou was abbess, Henry II's wife Eleanor of Aquitaine became a nun here, as later did her daughter, Jeanne of England. During the French Revolution, the order was dissolved. On 17 August , a Revolutionary decree ordered the evacuation of all monasteries by 1 October of the same year.
The last abbess, one Madame d'Antin later died in poverty in Paris. The abbey became a prison from to , including the war years. The plaque on the right reads "In this abbey, converted into a prison, members of the Resistance were incarcerated from to for fighting against Nazism. Do not forget them". The restoration of the abbey church started in the early twentieth century under the architect Lucien Magne and continues into the twenty-first.
However, there is no remaining corporal presence of Henry, Eleanor, Richard or the others on the site. Their remains were destroyed during the French Revolution. Henry II was called "Curtmantle" because of his short robe. Henry was the first of the House of Plantagenet to rule England and attempted to annex Ireland in compliance with a papal bull.
Weak, ill, and deserted by all but an illegitimate son, Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, Henry died at Chinon on 6 July His legitimate children, chroniclers record him saying, were "the real bastards. The victorious Richard paid his respects to Henry's corpse as it travelled to Fontevraud Abbey, upon which, according to Roger of Wendover, 'blood flowed from the nostrils of the deceased, as if His tomb was destroyed during the French Revolution. Today, his effigy rests in the Abbey of Fontevraud next to his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine.
The arms of England depicted in a window at the abbey show the three lions of England, though in his lifetime Henry seems always to have used his two lions as Count of Anjou. She is well known for her participation in the Second Crusade. Her tomb effigy is decorated with magnificent jewelery She is depicted reading a book, a mark of her great culture, the ability to read being exceptional for a layman and even more for a woman in an age when the church discouraged all learning.
Richard was a central Christian commander during the Third Crusade, leading the campaign after the departure of Philip Augustus, and gaining victories against his Muslim counterpart, Saladin. He spoke very little English - his first language was Occitan and spent very little time 6 months over 10 years in his Kingdom, preferring to use it as a source of revenue to support his continental armies. He "devastated the Viscount's land with fire and sword" and besieged the lightly armed castle of Chalus-Chabrol.
Some chroniclers claimed that the siege was motivated by a local peasant discovering a treasure trove of Roman gold, which Richard claimed as feudal overlord.
In the early evening of March 25, , Richard was walking around the castle perimeter without his chain mail, investigating the progress of sappers on the castle walls. A man standing on the walls aimed his crossbow at the king, and a quarrel struck him in the left shoulder near the neck. He tried to pull it out but failed. A surgeon removed it 'carelessly mangling' the King's arm in the process.
The wound became infected and then gangrenous. Richard asked to have the crossbow man brought before him. He turned out to be a boy.
The boy claimed that Richard had killed his father and two brothers, and that he had killed Richard in revenge. The boy expected to be executed but Richard forgave the him, saying, "Live on, and by my bounty behold the light of day,".
He ordered the boy to be freed and sent away with shillings. Richard then set his affairs in order, bequeathing all his territory to his brother John and his jewels to his nephew Otto. Richard died on Tuesday, 6 April in the arms of his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine.
His final act of chivalry proved fruitless as his mercenary captain Mercadier had the crossbow man skinned alive and hanged as soon as Richard was dead. Richard's brain was buried at the abbey of Charroux in Poitou, his heart was buried at Rouen in Normandy, and the rest of his body was buried at the feet of his father at Fontevraud Abbey.
He remains one of the few Kings of England remembered by his epithet, and is an enduring, iconic figure in England. John 24 December — 19 October reigned as King of England from 6 April , until his death.
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