The first vita was written by Baudri of Dol, bishop of Dol-en-Bretagne (formerly abbot of the monastery of Saint-Pierre of Bourgueil), shortly after Robert's death in 1116 and was likely commissioned by Petronilla.

[5] Sometime prior to 1076, Robert returned to his parish and supported the election of the noblemen Sylvester de La Guerche as Bishop of Rennes.

[6] For the coming four years, Robert would serve as Sylvester's archpriest, effectively running the diocese of Rennes and implementing the ideals of religious life he had lived and studied in Paris.

Bishop Sylvester attempted, with Robert's assistance, to introduce reforms to celibacy and liberate churches from the influence of nobles but this provoked antagonism in Brittany, especially amongst the local clergy.

[10] Free now to engage in the new stage of life as itinerant preacher, Robert took the roads and his eloquence, heightened by his strikingly ascetic appearance, drew crowds everywhere.

His occasional anticlerical preaching spared no one, leading to criticism of his former schoolmaster Marbod, now bishop of Rennes, who accused him of mentioning the crimes of "even those in high offices".

[13] These accusations led to Robert being summoned to the council of Poitiers in November 1100 which two legates of Pope Paschal II had convened earlier that same year.

[14] The demands of the council were therefore that the unregulated life of Robert's mixed gender group became regulated and that, most importantly, they built separate living quarters for men and women.

[15] Robert also took part in the council's decision in excommunicating Philip I of France on account of his lawless union with Bertrade de Montfort, who later would later become a nun in Fontevraud.

[17] The place was well chosen as it provided the protection from ecclesiastic critics of Robert but also by being between the castles of Chinon, Saumur and Loudon from the near-anarchic and warlike political conditions that haunted Anjou in that time.

Baldric of Dol writes of the presence amongst Robert's disciples of meretrices – a Latin word usually used at the time to refer to prostitutes, or at the very least, morally loose women.

[20] The accusation made against Robert by Geoffrey of Vendôme of extreme indiscretion in his choice of exceptional ascetic practices (see P.L., CLVII, 182) was the source of much controversy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

This natural daughter of Henry IV of France applied to Pope Innocent X for the beatification of Robert, her request being supported by Louis XIV and Henrietta of England.

In the event, Robert was never canonized, but he was beatified and so is venerated by the Catholic Church as "Blessed" and recorded as such in the current edition of the Roman Martyrology.

The original recension of the Rule of Fontevraud no longer exists; the only surviving writing of Robert is his letter of exhortation to Ermengarde of Brittany.

[22][23] He has been portrayed as proto-feminist, religious radical, ascetic or even an early fighter for class struggles on a mission to change the order of the world.