Saint Guibert of Gorze (892 - 23 May 962) is the founder of

Gembloux Abbey Gembloux Abbey was a Benedictine abbey in Wallonia near the town of Gembloux in the province of Namur, Belgium. Since 1860, its buildings host the University of Liège's Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech faculty and campus (previously known as Agronomical U ...

, in

Gembloux Gembloux (; wa, Djiblou; nl, Gembloers, ) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Namur, Belgium. On 1 January 2006 the municipality had 21,964 inhabitants. The total area is 95.86 km², yielding a population dens ...

(

Namur Namur (; ; nl, Namen ; wa, Nameur) is a city and municipality in Wallonia, Belgium. It is both the capital of the province of Namur and of Wallonia, hosting the Parliament of Wallonia, the Government of Wallonia and its administration. Namu ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

). He was

canonized Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christianity, Christian communion declaring a person worthy of Cult (religious practice), public veneration and enterin ...

in 1211. Saint Guibert's Day is observed on 23 May.

Biography

An aristocrat from

Lotharingia Lotharingia ( la, regnum Lotharii regnum Lothariense Lotharingia; french: Lotharingie; german: Reich des Lothar Lotharingien Mittelreich; nl, Lotharingen) was a short-lived medieval successor kingdom of the Carolingian Empire. As a more durable ...

who had participated in several military campaigns, Guibert withdrew as a

hermit A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. Description In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Ch ...

on family property in

(formerly ''Gemblours'') inherited from his father. In 936 he founded a fortified and almost independent monastery (having its own currency). The monastery was dedicated to St. Peter the Apostle and the holy martyr

Exuperius Saint Exuperius (also Exsuperius) (french: Saint Exupéry, Saint Soupire) (died c. 410) was Bishop of Toulouse at the beginning of the 5th century. Life His place and date of birth are unknown. Upon succeeding Saint Sylvius as bishop of Toulous ...

.Ott, Michael. "Gemblours." The Catholic Encyclopedia
Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. 3 December 2022 Guibert was assisted in this by Erluin, who had resigned a canonry to become a monk. Some of Guibert's relatives impugned the legality of the monastic foundation on the plea that the monastery was built on fiscal land which had been given in fief to Guibert's ancestors and could not be alienated without imperial authority.

Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I (23 November 912 – 7 May 973), traditionally known as Otto the Great (german: Otto der Große, it, Ottone il Grande), was East Francia, East Frankish king from 936 and Holy Roman Emperor from 962 until his death in 973. He was the olde ...

summoned Guibert and Erluin to his court, but was so favourably impressed with the manner in which they defended their pious undertaking that on 20 September, 946, he issued an imperial diploma approving the foundation of Gemblours and granting it various privileges. Guibert appointed his friend Erluin first Abbot of Gemblours, while he himself become a monk at the monastery of

Gorze Gorze (; german: Gorz) is a commune in the Moselle department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. Sites and monuments Gorze Abbey was confiscated as public property during the French Revolution; it has since been restored and utilised for a v ...

near Metz. After his stay at Gorze Abbey in

Lorraine Lorraine , also , , ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; german: Lothringen ; lb, Loutrengen; nl, Lotharingen is a cultural and historical region in Northeastern France, now located in the administrative region of Gr ...

, he returned in 954 when Hungarians invaders threatened to pillage the monastery. He brought with him the

Rule of Saint Benedict The ''Rule of Saint Benedict'' ( la, Regula Sancti Benedicti) is a book of precepts written in Latin in 516 by St Benedict of Nursia ( AD 480–550) for monks living communally under the authority of an abbot. The spirit of Saint Benedict's Ru ...

for the monastery of Gembloux. He returned a second time in 957, when his brother-in-law Heribrand of Mawolt had seized the revenues of the monastery. He persuaded Heribrand to leave the possessions of the monastery unmolested in the future. When Guibert died, in 962, the monks of Gembloux came to take back the corpse of their founder from the Abbey of Gorze. After burying the entrails of Guibert at the Abbey of Gorze, they treated the corpse with salt and herbs to prevent its decomposition during transportation to the Abbey of Gembloux, which became a place of pilgrimage."Saint Guibert de Gembloux", Nominis
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References

892 births 962 deaths 10th-century Christian saints Benedictine abbots Belgian saints 10th-century Lotharingian people {{belgium-reli-bio-stub