Lori Walters
[See also: ÉCHECS AMOUREUX; GUILLAUME DE LORRIS; JEAN DE MEUN;
ROBERT DE BLOIS; ROSE, ROMAN DE LA]
Hult, David F. “Gui de Mori, lecteur médiéval.” Incidences 5 (1981):53–70.
——. Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: Readership and Authority in the First “Roman de la Rose.”
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 34–55, 59–60, 63–64.
Huot, Sylvia. The Romance of the Rose and Its Medieval Readers: Interpretation, Reception,
Manuscript Transmission. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 85–129.
Jung, Marc-René. “Gui de Mori et Guillaume de Lorris.” Vox Romanica 27(1968):106–37.
Langlois, Ernest. “Gui de Mori et le Roman de la Rose” Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes
68(1907):1–23.
GUIBERT DE NOGENT
(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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