Rue Robert-d'Arbrissel is the main street through Fontevraud-l'Abbaye, the village that grew around the great abbey founded by Robert d'Arbrissel in 1101. The village did not develop in a straightforward way, however. For centuries, the abbey kept its immediate surroundings largely free of ordinary housing.
It was only from the late 16th century that building began to fill the gap between the abbey and the older hamlet of Les Ormeaux. Much of the street was completed later, with houses built on land released after the old village cemetery was moved in 1814.
The abbey itself became the royal necropolis of the Plantagenets. In the nave of the abbey church are the remarkable recumbent effigies of Henry II, King of England and Count of Anjou, Eleanor of Aquitaine and their son Richard the Lionheart.
So this ordinary-looking village street leads directly into a place with an extraordinary royal history.
