Guibert of Nogent

Who was Guibert of Nogent?

Guibert de Nogent was a Benedictine historian, theologian and author of autobiographical memoirs. Guibert was relatively unknown in his own time, going virtually unmentioned by his contemporaries. He has only recently caught the attention of scholars who have been more interested in his extensive autobiographical memoirs and personality which provide insight into medieval life.

Guibert was born of parents from the minor nobility at Clermont-en-Beauvaisis. Guibert claims that it took his parents over seven years to conceive, as he writes in his Monodiae. According to his memoirs, the labour nearly cost him and his mother their lives, as Guibert turned around in the womb. Guibert's family made an offering to a shrine of the Virgin Mary, and promised that if Guibert survived, he would be dedicated to a clerical life. Since he survived, he followed this path. His father was violent, unfaithful and prone to excess and died within a year of his birth. In his memoirs, Guibert views his death as a type of blessing, stating that if his father had survived, he likely would have forced Guibert to become a knight, thus breaking the oath to the Virgin Mary to dedicate Guibert to the church. His mother was domineering, of great beauty and intelligence, and exceedingly zealous. Guibert writes so much about his mother, and in such detail, that some scholars, such as Archambault, have suggested that he may have had an Oedipus complex. She assumed control of his education, isolated him from his peers and hired him a private tutor, from the ages of six to twelve. Guibert remembers the tutor as brutally exacting, and incompetent;nevertheless Guibert and his tutor developed a strong bond. Around the age of twelve, his mother retired to an abbey near Saint-Germer-de-Fly, and Guibert soon followed. Entering the Order at St. Germer, he studied with great zeal, devoting himself at first to the secular poets Ovid and Virgil—an experience which left its imprint on his works. He later changed his focus to theology, through the influence of Anselm of Bec, who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury.