 The Benedictine monastery of Maillezais was founded in about 989 by Gauzbert, Abbot of St-Julien de Tours, at the request of William IV, Duke of Aquitaine, and his wife Emma.The seventh abbot of Maillezais, Abbot Pierre (about 1100), who followed Richard Cœur de Lion to the Third Crusade, composed a book on the foundation of the monastery of Maillezais, He claimed to be a lover of Cicero.He also wrote a prefatory epistle for the "Historia Hierosolymitana" of Archbishop Baldric of Dol.