Robert Champeaux

Robert de Champeaux was the abbot of Tavistock Abbey, Devon, England[1][2][3] from April 1285[4] to 1325.[3] He was known for his "piety and zeal for improvement"[4] and has been described as probably "the greatest and wisest" of "the abbots in the later monastic period".[5]

Career

Abbot Robert's abbacy was long[6] and regarded as prosperous, and he is known from several documents.[7][8] He was well known for the largess of his gifts of alms to the poor of Devon[9][10] and for providing a living for church workers in the district.[4]

He was an avid builder of church buildings.

The Church of St Eustachius in Tavistock township was built in 1318 by Abbot Robert Champeaux[11] as was the church of St Mary and St Rumon in the same year.[4]

He also added to the Monastery itself.

References

Notes

1. Pole p. 41.
2. Hoskins, W. G.; Finberg, H. P. R. (1952). "The Tragi-Comedy of Abbot Bonus". Devonshire Studies. London: Jonathan Cape.
3. Finberg p. 277.
4. Oliver p. 91.
5. Alexander, J. J. (1937). "Tavistock in the Fifteenth Century". Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association. 69: 247–285.
6. Finberg p.180.
7. Finberg p. 92, 233.
8. Hall, John G. (December 1931 – January 1932). "Notes on Denbury". Devon & Exeter Gazette.
9. Finberg p. 226.
10. Robert Brentano,Two Churches: England and Italy in the Thirteenth Century, With an Additional Essay by the Author. (University of California Press, 1988) p 246.
11. Church of St Eustachius at Historic England.org.uk.

Bibliography

• Finberg, H. P. R. (2014) [1951]. Tavistock Abbey: A Study in the Social and Economic History of Devon. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
• Oliver, George (1846). "Abbey of Tavistock, in the deanery of Tavistock". Monasticon Dioecesis Exoniensis, Being a Collection of Records and Instruments. Hannaford. pp. 89–112.
• Pole, Sir William (1791). Collections Towards a Description of the County of Devon. J. Nichols.