Robert Céneau was a French bishop, historian, and controversialist.

He was born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. In 1513 he became doctor of the Faculty of Theology in the Sorbonne

Sorbonne

The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...

, and in 1515 was made Bishop of Vence. From here he was transferred in 1530 to the See of Riez, and in 1532 to that of Avranches.

He took an active part in the religious and polemical discussions that attended the Protestant Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

.

Works

He wrote several controversial works, the most important of which are:

• "Pro tuendo sacro coelibatu" (Paris, 1545)
• "Tractatus de utriusque gladii facultate, usuque legitimo" (Paris, 1546, and Leyden, 1558)
• "Axioma de divortio
  De divortio
  The De Divortio is an extended mid ninth-century treatise written by Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims , which survives in a single manuscript, Paris BnF. lat. 2866. It explores the issues arising from the attempt by Lothar II, king of Lotharingia , to rid himself of his wife Teutberga and replace her...
  
   matrimonii mosaici per legem evangelicam refutato" (Paris, 1549)
• "Traductatis Calviniacae" (Paris, 1556)
• "Methodus de compescendâ haereticorum ferociâ" (Paris, 1557).

In the same year and place in which the last-named work was published, there appeared his Historia Galliae, dedicated to Henry II of France

Henry II of France

Henry II was King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559.-Early years:Henry was born in the royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, the son of Francis I and Claude, Duchess of Brittany .His father was captured at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 by his sworn enemy,...

. This was a folio volume, treating of the name, origin, and achievements of the Gauls

Gauls

The Gauls were a Celtic people living in Gaul, the region roughly corresponding to what is now France, Belgium, Switzerland and Northern Italy, from the Iron Age through the Roman period. They mostly spoke the Continental Celtic language called Gaulish....

, Franks

Franks

The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...

, and Burgundians

Burgundians

The Burgundians were an East Germanic tribe which may have emigrated from mainland Scandinavia to the island of Bornholm, whose old form in Old Norse still was Burgundarholmr , and from there to mainland Europe...

. It has but little critical value. Not long afterward he produced "L'histoire ecclésiastique de Normandie". While Bishop of Riez he issued synodal statutes of that diocese, and wrote a treatise on weights and measures under the title: "De liquidorum leguminumque mensuris, seu verâ mensurarum ponderumque ratione" (Paris, 1532, 1535, 1547).