GILBERT OF HOLLAND (HOYLAND)

Cistercian abbot cited frequently as a source of monastic theology and medieval exegesis; place and date of birth unknown; d. at the Cistercian Abbey of Rivour, Diocese of Troyes (France), 1172. Little is known of Gilbert, called "one time abbot of Hoyland" by the Clairvaux Chronicle. The earliest record of him is in documents he attested (c. 1150–58) when he was already abbot of Swineshead, an abbey in the region of Holland, in Lincolnshire. He was still abbot there when in his Sermones in canticum (41) he referred to the "recent" death of St. aelred (d. 1167). Claims that he was either from Clairvaux or from Scotland-Ireland appear to be unsubstantiated; he may have been sent from Rievaulx (c. 1148–49) by St. Aelred to ensure an orderly changeover to the Cistercian rule at Swineshead, and he was perhaps exiled about 1170 in the controversy over St. thomas becket. He wrote 48 Sermones (Patrologia Latina 184:11–252), continuing St. Bernard's commentaries on the Canticle of Canticles. He remains known and memorable by these sermons, which, though lacking St. Bernard's genius and grace, reveal not only practical and personal details but the developed literary culture set to serve the Biblical mysticism of the 12th century. The Bollandists [May 6 (1688) 3F] and the 1952 Menologium Cisterciense (117) list him as " Blessed Gilbert."

Bibliography: j. leclercq, "Théologie traditionelle et théologie monastique," Irénikon 37 (1964) 50–74. c. l. kings-ford, The Dictionary of National Biography from the Earliest Times to 1900, 7:1194. e. mikkers, "De vita et operibus Gilberti de Hoylandia," Cîteaux 14 (1963) 33–43, 265–279. j. morson, "The English Cistercians and the Bestiary," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 39 (1956) 146–170. j. vuong-dinh-lam, "Le Monastère … les observances monastiques … d'après G. de H.," Collectanea ordinis Cisterciensium Reformatorum 26 (1964) 5–21, 170–199. b. smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (2d ed. New York 1952, repr. Notre Dame, Ind. 1964). h. de lubac, Exégèse médiévale, 2 v. in 4 (Paris 1959–64).

[p. edwards]