Medieval France
(ca. 1064-ca. 1125). Perhaps best known for his autobiography, De vita sua sive monodiarum suarum libri tres, and a treatise concerning the veneration of relics, De pignoribus sanctorum, this Benedictine monk also wrote a popular history of the First Crusade (Gesta Dei per Francos), a moral commentary on Genesis, a handbook for preachers (Liber quo ordine sermo fieri debeat), and lesser works.
Born at Clermont-en-Beauvaisis in northern France, Guibert was dedicated by his parents to the monastic life. His father died soon after his birth, and he was raised by his mother, who isolated him from other children. As a young adolescent, he entered the monastery of Saint-Germer-de-Fly, where he studied not only the Bible and theology but also classical authors, especially Ovid and Virgil. In 1104, he became abbot of a small Benedictine house at Nogentsous-Coucy. There, he wrote his history of the First Crusade and, in 1115, his autobiography. Guibert’s attitudes toward his mother, sexuality and sexual sins, cleanliness, and his (and others’) visionary experiences are important aspects of the autobiography, which also offers numerous insights into daily life, education, and social and political history. Guibert’s treatise on relics attacks the veneration of a supposed tooth of Christ at the abbey of Saint-Médard, Soissons, but it is not a total rejection of either the cult of the saints or the veneration of relics.
Grover A.Zinn
[See also: CRUSADES; HISTORIOGRAPHY; SAINTS, CULT OF]
Guibert de Nogent. Opera. PL 166.
——. Autobiographie, ed. and trans. Edmond-René Labande. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1981.
——.
How to Make a Sermon, trans. George E.McCracken. In Early Medieval Theology, ed. George E.McCracken with Allen Cabaniss. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1957.
——. Gesta Dei per Francos, ed. M.Thurot. In Recueil des historiens des croisades. 16 vols. Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1879, Vol. 4: Historiens occidentaux, pp. 115–263.
——. Self and Society in Medieval France: The Memoirs of Abbot Guibert of Nogent, trans. John F.Benton. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1970. [Excellent introduction and bibliography.]
——. De vita sua sive monodiarum suarum libri tres, ed. Georges Bourgin as Histoire de sa vie. Paris: Picard, 1907.
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