Guibert De Nogent

Guibert De Nogent, a French scholastic theologian and historian, of noble and wealthy parentage, was born in 1053 near Clermont, and died in 1124. He lost his father while quite young, but the diligent care and zeal of his pious mother gave to his early training a strongly religious tendency. He was educated at the abbey of St. Germer, which he entered at 12 years of age, and where he enjoyed the instructions of An-selm (q.v.), then prior in the neighboring abbey of Bec. At first he found his chief delight in poetry and the reading of classic poets; but a severe illness gave a more serious direction and higher development to his inner life, and he devoted himself to the study of the Scriptures and ecclesiastical writers. At the age of fifty he became abbot of Notre-Dame de Nogent, where he composed most of his works. Though not exempt from the credulity and monkish devotion to hierarchical ideas which belong to his age, Guibert was for his time a man of more than ordinary learning and independence of spirit, to which he gave expression in his severe condemnation of the prevailing superstitions' and errors in regard to relics and false miracles. The best edition of his writings is that published by D'Achery under the title Venerabilis Guiberti Abbatis B. Mariae de Novigento Opera Omnia prodeunt, etc. (Paris, 1651, fol.). In this edition are found (p. 1-525) the following works of Guibert (the list and sketch of Which, given here, are based on Herzog), viz.:

1. Liber quo ordine sermo fieri debeat ; written while he was a monk at St. Germer, and especially interesting as being one of the few works on Homiletics coming to us from the Middle Ages: —

2. Moralium Geneseos Libri x; a figurative exposition of Genesis after the style of Gregory the Great's Moralia in Jobum: —

3. Tropologiarum in Prophetas Osea et Amos et Lamentationes Jeremice libri v; with a preface and epilogue addressed to Norbert, founder of the Premonstrants (q.v.):

4. Tractatus de incarnations contra Judaeos; an apologetic treatise in vindication of the divinity and virgin-birth of Christ: —

5. Epistola de buccella Judge data et de veritate domi-nici corporis; in answer to the question whether Judas received the Eucharist or not, with a defence of Lanfranc's doctrine of the Eucharist against that of Berengarius (q.v.): —

6. De laude S. Mariae liber; wherein, though a zealous worshipper of the Virgin Mary, he makes no mention of her immaculate conception:

7. Opusculum de Virginitate: —

8. De pignoribus Sanctorum libri iv; a work on the worship of saints and relics, in which many abuses and errors connected therewith are boldly criticised and condemned, and the monks of St. Medard at Soissons are severely censured for pretending to possess a genuine tooth of Christ. Guibert will not allow that the miraculous virtues claimed for relies are a proof of genuineness or sanctity: —

9. Historia quae dicitur gesta Dei per Francos sive Historia Hierosolymitana; a valuable account of the first; Crusade, founded on an earlier narrative by a crusader, perhaps a Norman knight, entitled Gesta Fran-corum et aliorum Hierosolymitanorum, which is complemented by materials obtained of other eye-witnesses: —

10. De vita sua sire Monodiarum libri iii ; an autobiography after the plan of St. Augustine's Confessions, and containing also much material valuable for the history of the Church and of the social life of the period. Besides the works above enumerated, Guibert wrote some commentaries on the minor prophets (the MSS. of which were formerly preserved in the libraries of Vauclair and Pontigny), as also another exegetical work, mentioned by himself (De vita sua, i, 16), but now lost, bearing the title Capitularis libellus de diversls evange-liorum et propheticorum voluminum. He was also probably the author of a sermon delivered at the feast of St. Magdalena, found in Mabillon's edition of the works of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, ii, 701. Another work, Elucidarium slve dialogus summara totius Christianae re-ligionis complectens, has been erroneously ascribed to him. Herzog, Real-Encyklop. 19:584 sq.; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 22:515; Clarke, Success. of Sac. Lit. ii, 617; Mosheim, Ch. Hist, c. 12:pt. ii, ch. ii, n. 71; Hist. litter, de la France, 7:80, 92, 118, 124, 146; 9:433. (J. W. M.)