CONCERNING ST. GILBERT, OR GISLEBERT, BISHOP OF MEAUX IN FRANCE
After the year 1000.
Historical Commentary
Gilbert, Bishop of Meaux in France (Saint)
By I.B.
[1] The Meldi, called Meldae by Ptolemy, inhabited a region of Gaul which lies between the rivers Marne and Seine, and was afterward called the Saltus Brigensis, now Brie. Their chief city -- whether it is the Iatinum of Ptolemy, or was called by some other name -- afterward assumed the name of the people, St. Gilbert, Bishop of Meaux, so as to be called Meldi or Meldae, in French Meaux. An episcopal chair has stood there since the time of St. Denis. For he is said to have been the Apostle of the Meldi near Paris, just as of the Parisians, and to have ordained as their first Bishop St. Sanctinus, who is venerated on September 22. After him many illustrious Bishops lived there, enrolled in the registers of the Saints: and among these, in the eighth century after Sanctinus, St. Gilbert, or Gillebert, or Gislebert.
[2] His age is indicated by Francois de Belleforest in volume 1 of his Cosmography, page 356, where he also lists the other Bishops of that city down to Louis de Brezay: The forty-third, he says, was St. Gilbert, who was living in the year 1004. when did he live? Concerning him the monk of Auxerre thus makes mention on page 74 of his Chronology: At this time flourished Gislebert, Bishop of Meaux, praised by historians, a man of outstanding virtue and distinguished by the glory of miracles: whose Life, published in a most brilliant style, exhibits examples of many virtues for those living and those who will live through the ages.
[3] Claude Robert in his Gallia Christiana notes that he was consecrated by the Metropolitan Leotheric... that he gave to the Canons of St. Mary and St. Stephen (whom he calls the Brothers of the Holy See of Meaux) many churches, among which is listed the small abbey of St. Rigomer, Bishop and Confessor: that he died on February 13, around the year of Christ 1009, and that his feast is celebrated in the Church of Meaux: he gave much to pious causes, venerated on February 13, and indeed with a double Office, as is evident from the Breviary of Meaux. Molanus thus consecrates his memory in his addition to Usuard: At the city of Meaux, St. Gislebert, Bishop and Confessor. Canisius has the same. Ferrari also mentions him in the General Catalogue of Saints; Constantinus Ghinius in his Birthdays of the Canonical Saints; Andre Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology. elsewhere on February 4. Bellinus of Padua on February 4, the day on which the feast of St. Gilbert of Sempringham is celebrated, has this: On the same day, St. Gilibert, Bishop and Confessor. Whether he wrongly thought him to be a Bishop, or whether the Bishop of Meaux is venerated on that day, I do not know. Mention is also made of him in other catalogues of the Bishops of France, in Demochares on the Sacrifice of the Mass, volume 2, chapter 19, and in Jean Chenu. Since, however, we have not yet been able to obtain that Life published in a most brilliant style, we shall give here some epitome of it from the Breviary of Meaux, set forth in three Lessons of the second Nocturn: and what Claude Hemeraeus has gathered from the same Breviary and another more ancient one, and from other documents, in his Augusta Veromanduorum illustrata, at the year 983. The Breviary therefore has it thus.
[4] Lesson IV. Gilbert was born in the territory of Vermandois, of distinguished birth, from parents Fulcard and Gilla: whose nobility was commended by their singular piety, together with their close relationship to Count Albert II. Those same parents he had as solicitous tutors in his tender age, and as pious encouragers toward those things which pertain to divine worship. When the strength of a more mature age arrived, excellently educated, they placed him among the Clerics of the Church of St. Quentin in Vermandois, then most celebrated for the fame of their sanctity and erudition. Where, having found the best guides, Gilbert shortly after gave his name to the Christian militia, made a Canon at Saint-Quentin, and, joined to the college of Canons, he lived so piously that he was a source of great admiration to both clerics and laypeople, and won the hearts of all. Count Odo of Vermandois, the successor of Albert, held him most dear, and Gilbert frequented his court, though very often against his will: yet neither was his purity stained nor did his devotion grow cold.
[5] Lesson V. Moved by the fame of his sanctity and virtues, the most pious Bishop of Meaux, Hercanraudus, summoned him afterward Archdeacon at Meaux, and appointed him Archdeacon. In which office he conducted himself with such charity, prudence, and moderation that if anything had occurred contrary to the Canons or to ecclesiastical decorum, he would immediately take note of it kindly and prudently remedy it, and often he would bestow upon the Clerics what he could rightfully have demanded from them. When the aforesaid Pontiff died, and at last Bishop: by the will of God and the wishes of all, Gilbert was appointed in the place of the deceased: who, however, shrank from that honor with as much zeal as the entire people was borne toward him with desire. Count Odo, who at that time was residing in the town of Epernay, confirmed the election with his vote: and he could not but embrace the man whom he had so often declared most worthy of the episcopate, now elected to that office.
[6] Lesson VI. Consecrated as Bishop, he did not change his manner of life, nor did he relax anything of his customary offices of piety, prayers, fasts, and bodily mortifications: in which office he lives holily: he was always merciful to the poor, kind to the good, and most severe toward the obstinate. His dignity did not lift his mind to vainglory, but thinking humbly and nothing grand of himself, he judged that he had taken on a burden rather than an honor. And so with a truly fatherly, not imperious, spirit he received, cherished, and instructed his people. When he had governed the Church of Meaux entrusted to him piously and holily for twenty years, and had shone like a lamp before his flock by his words and examples, he dies on February 13, 1009, at last, full of merits and illustrious with miracles, he consummated his angelic life in a happy death, on the Ides of February, in the year of salvation 1009, in the time of Robert, the most Christian King of the French.
[7] So much for these. Robert ruled the French from the death of his father Hugh Capet, who died on August 28 of the year 999, until July 20, 1032. He who is here called Hercanraudus is called Hercaraudus by Hemeraeus, and Archanradus by Claude Robert, the forty-third Bishop of the Church of Meaux. Hemeraeus disagrees with what is affirmed in Lesson IV: for he establishes that Gilbert was born in the time of Albert I, that Albert II assumed the governance of the Vermandois in the year 1015, after the death of his father Heribert, who were then the Counts of Vermandois, Albert I's son, whom his brother Otho, or Odo, succeeded only in the year 1025, so that Gilbert could not have frequented the latter's court before he was summoned to Meaux by Hercanraudus, whom he succeeded in the episcopal throne in the year 989, and since he held it for twenty years, dying in 1009. Moreover, the same author writes the following about St. Gilbert, using other ancient documents, and perhaps even the ancient Life itself which we desire.
[8] Gilbert shone as a most brilliant light of the Church of St. Quentin and the territory of Vermandois, while Albert was Prince, born of Fulchard and Gilla, the most noble and wealthy of the people of Vermandois. For when he had reached those years in which one is formed in the first letters for Christian virtues, he was delivered to the discipline of the college of Canons of Saint-Quentin, and quickly displayed the force of a character disposed to all that is excellent: for which reason he was most dear to Count Albert, especially since the distinction of his family commended him to the friendship of the Prince; Gilbert, a holy Canon, and having obtained his lot in the same Clergy, and enrolled in the sacred militia, he shone among our people with such sanctity of life that no one was held to be more adorned with virtues. When the sweetness of these virtues had also wafted to the neighborhood, he was sought by the Bishop of Meaux (who was then Hercaraudus) and was made Archdeacon of that Diocese: and the Bishop having shortly after died, he becomes Bishop of Meaux, he was elected by the wishes of all to be placed over the See. Count Otho, the successor of Stephen, Count of Meaux and Troyes, most graciously testified his assent to this nomination to the two Clerics sent to him for this purpose at his villa of Epernay, where he was then residing; with the Count of Meaux approving, he said moreover that he congratulated the entire diocese and himself that God had offered them such a Bishop, one who, from the court of the most pious Count Albert, who was related to him by blood, had long since been invited to the Archdeaconate of Meaux; and that this same man, with the agreement of all hearts, was now being summoned even to the episcopal dignity.
[9] He discharged the episcopate with the utmost integrity and sanctity. First, however, at the request of the Clergy of Meaux, he assigns a portion of the goods to the Canons: he divided the ecclesiastical property into parts, one to be assigned to the Bishop and the other to the college of Canons. A charter of this matter exists in the archives of that same Church, from the year 1004. While discharging the laborious and perpetual cares of that office, he was seized by the illness from which he departed this life, and having entreated the Bishops Leotheric of Sens and Fulbert of Chartres to come to him, he said: sick, he is fortified by the Sacraments by two Bishops, "We owe you immortal thanks, sacred heads and lights of the Gauls, that you crown the last breaths of an old friend with your blessing: that you refresh with the saving Viaticum your colleague who is struggling with death itself and the adversary who lies in wait at the heel of every life: and that, finally, you lay the lifeless body in a Christian tomb." and is buried: And a few days later, his soul, borne aloft to heaven by the merits of an innocent life as if by wings, left his body: which, buried in the church of Blessed Stephen at Meaux before the altar, beneath the steps of the apse, long shone with very frequent and very great prodigies. he shines with miracles. His memory is celebrated with religious veneration and worship among the people of Vermandois and Meaux.
[10] A Fulchard (whether or not Gilbert's parent, I do not know) is among the illustrious courtiers of Counts Albert and Heribert in the Register, and his sons are Anselm and Raimbold. But the old Breviary of Meaux named only one brother of Gilbert, called Ivo. he is believed born at Ham, and a Canon there. The people of Ham wish Gilbert to be their citizen, and claim that he was once a Canon in the monastery of the Blessed Mary of that city, before monks were introduced there while Baldric was Bishop of Noyon. Certainly that town, though of moderate size, yet noble for its own dynasty, boasts, besides Gilbert, of having given birth also to the man excelling in the glory of letters and deeds, Jean de Bellinis, Abbot of Arrouaise, whose illustrious and flourishing eloquence in speaking at the Lateran Council under Alexander III the Fathers greatly admired.
[11] Ham, which (as Hemeraeus here attests) claims for itself the birth of St. Gilbert, is a small town but a strong one, or of Ham, on the Somme, on the river Somme, between Saint-Quentin and Peronne: our people commonly call it Han. Claude Robert perhaps errs when he writes that Gilbert was consecrated by the Metropolitan Leotheric, by whom was he ordained? whom he writes elsewhere was elected in the year 1000, when Gilbert had already governed Meaux for eleven years, according to the information recited from the Breviary of Meaux concerning the year of death and the time of his See. And indeed the same Robert acknowledges that a synod was celebrated by Sevinus, who presided over the Church of Sens before Leotheric, and that the Bishop Reginald of Paris participated in that synod with others, while elsewhere he affirms on the testimony of Glaber that the predecessor of the same Reginald died in the year 993. Therefore before that year neither was that synod of Sens held, nor was Leotheric yet Bishop, much less did he consecrate Gilbert four years earlier. But what is now not very clear, we shall sort out when we have obtained the Life praised by the monk of Auxerre.