Gilo of Toucy

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Gilo of Toucy,

Second Lateran Council
in 1139.

An accomplished Latin stylist, Gilo wrote the majority of the Historia de via Hierosolymitana, a verse history of the First Crusade (1096–1099). He also wrote the Vita sancti Hugonis abbatis Cluniacensis, a biography of Abbot Hugh of Cluny (1024–1109). A couple of letters he wrote in connection with his third legation have also survived and are highly regarded for their style and eloquence.

Life

Paris and Cluny

Gilo's birth date is unknown, but may be placed in the final quarter of the 11th century.

diocese of Paris at the time he wrote the Historia, which was before he became a monk. He was writing before 1120, probably in the first decade of the 12th century.[3]

Gilo entered the

Calixtus II on 6 January 1120. This was probably the occasion on which Gilo joined the papal entourage. He wrote most of his Vita sancti Hugonis in Rome, as he says in the dedicatory epistle addressed to Pons.[2]

Becoming a cardinal

In Rome, Gilo was elected

papal privilege on 16 May 1122. His consecration may have taken place on 20 September or 20 December 1122 or possibly as late as 7 March 1123. It was considered a great honour to be elevated to a cardinal-bishopric without first having been a deacon or presbyter.[2]

Gilo spent most of 1123 with Calixtus and the papal entourage. He stayed with the pope in Benevento in September and October.[2] Between April 1123 and March 1125, he is absent from papal records. He is again absent between May 1125 and May 1128.[3] These periods correspond to his service as a papal legate abroad.[2]

Polish and Carinthian legations

Gilo served as a legate in

Eugenius III issued a confirmation of Gilo's acts in April 1148.[3] Gilo could not have been in Poland in mid-1125. On 7 March 1125, he signed a privilege of Pope Honorius II in Rome. He is also mentioned in Roman documents of April and May 1125.[2]

In the late 1120s, Gilo undertook a second legation to the southeast of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1126, he consecrated a cemetery for the Benedictine abbey of Arnoldstein in the diocese of Aquileia in the Duchy of Carinthia. This is known only from a 15th-century copy of the document.[2][5] His remit almost certainly extended beyond Carinthia and 1126, since he is only seen again at Rome on 7 May 1128, when he signed a privilege of Honorius II.[2]

Given the uncertainty in their date, Gilo's Polish and Carinthian visits are sometimes combined into a single legatine mission, in either 1123–1125 or 1125–1128.[3]

Levantine legation

The purpose of Gilo's third legation was to resolve the dispute over the status of the archdiocese of Tyre, whether it was a suffragan of the patriarchate of Antioch or Jerusalem. In 1127, Honorius II ruled in favour of Jerusalem, but Patriarch Bernard of Antioch refused to recognise the decision. Patriarch Warmund of Jerusalem consecrated William I as archbishop of Tyre. In 1128 William arrived in Rome to receive his pallium. Honorius granted it and restated his ruling of the previous year, sending Gilo, an experienced legate, to enforce it.[3][6]

Gilo's third mission is better known than his first two. He embarked for the Holy Land in the first half of July 1128 in

William II of Tyre mentions it in his Historia, while praising Gilo as a "most eloquent and literate man"[3] and his letters as "very famous".[2] The mission was ultimately a failure. Bernard never relented before his death in 1135. Some sources have Gilo returning to Rome in December 1128 and signing papal privileges in March and April 1129,[2] while others have him in the Holy Land in 1129–1130.[3]

Papal schism

In the disputed

Innocent II. This was probably an act of Cluniac solidarity, since Anacletus had studied at Cluny.[2] Cluny itself, however, sided with Innocent. Abbot Peter the Venerable wrote a letter dated no later than 1134 encouraging Gilo to change sides.[3] In early 1131, Gilo was sent by Anacletus to be his legate in southern France (i.e., the Duchy of Aquitaine), where Anacletus' main supporter was Bishop Gerard of Angoulême. Although Gilo remained in France for several years, Gerard took the leading role in converting the French aristocracy to their faction.[2]

Soon after Gilo's arrival, Gerard was elected

archbishop of Bordeaux. In the summer of 1131, in one of the archbishop's first acts, he granted the church of Saint-Pierre-de-Bensac to the abbey of Sainte-Croix.[3] Gilo, joined by cardinals Gregory of Santa Maria in Aquiro and Roman of Sant'Adriano al Foro, was present in Bordeaux to witness this.[2] Afterwards, he took up residence in Poitiers,[3] where Peter the Venerable visited him in the spring of 1133.[2]

In 1135, Gilo was excommunicated by Innocent II's legate,

abbey of Saint-Hilaire in Poitiers. Also that year in Poitiers, acting in his capacity as papal legate, he resolved a dispute between the abbey of Montierneuf and its dependency of Foye-Montjault.[2]

Gerard died in March 1136 and that year Duke

Second Lateran Council in April, however, he was denounced along with the other followers of Anacletus and deposed.[3]

Gilo is never mentioned again after his deposition. Probably he died not long after. He was dead by 19 April 1142, when Imarus is first recorded as cardinal-bishop of Tusculum.[2][3]

Works

Historia

Main article: Historia de via Hierosolymitana

The Historia de via Hierosolymitana is a verse history of the

Bohemond of Taranto, while the Charleville poet prefers Godfrey of Bouillon.[7]

The work in its fullest form is divided into nine books, but Gilo's original work apparently only contained five, one each on the siege of Nicaea; the first siege of Antioch; the second siege of Antioch; the capture of Bara, Maʿarrat an-Nuʿman and Tartus; and the fall of Jerusalem. With the Charleville poet's additions, these became books IV, V, VII, VIII, and IX. There are unique details in Gilo's work that suggest that he had access to eyewitnesses.[8]

Vita

The Vita sancti Hugonis abbatis Cluniacensis

Hildebert of Lavardin to write biographies of Hugh. That of Ezelo is lost, but may have been used by Gilo as a source. Gilo also had access to eyewitnesses and acquaintances of Hugh at Cluny.[2] Hildebert made use of Gilo's Vita for his own more famous biography.[3]

Gilo's biography was designed for spiritually edification. It devotes most of its space to Hugh's virtues and miracles. His political activities during the

Investiture Contest and his construction a new church at Cluny are covered tersely.[2]

The Vita is preserved in two manuscripts, now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Lat. 12607 and Lat. 13090.[2]

References

  1. Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle
    (Brill, online 2016), retrieved 12 January 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Werner Maleczek, "Egidio (Gilo)", in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 42 (Rome: 1993).
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s C. W. Grocock and J. E. Siberry, eds. and trans., The Historia Vie Hierosolimitane of Gilo of Paris (Clarendon Press, 1997), pp. xviii–xxiv.
  4. ^ According to Rudolf Hüls, Kardinäle, Klerus und Kirchen Roms: 1049–1130 (Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, 1977), p. 70, no. 171, and p. 143, note 3, the document is a forgery.
  5. ^ Franc Kos, Gradivo za zgodovino Slovencev v srednjem veku, IV (Ljubljana, 1915), p. 53 n. 90.
  6. ^ Bernard Hamilton, The Latin Church in the Crusader States: The Secular Church (Routledge, 2016 [1980]), pp. 66–67.
  7. ^ Grocock and Siberry 1997, p. xiii.
  8. ^ Grocock and Siberry 1997, p. xiv.
  9. ^ A. L'Huillier, Vie de saint Hugues, abbé de Cluny, 1024–1109 (Solesmes, 1888).

Further reading

  • Karol Maleczyński. Studia nad dokumentem polskim. Wrocław, 1971. pp. 150–169
  • J. M. Brixius. Die Mitglieder des Kardinalkollegiums von 1130–1181. Berlin, 1912. p. 31 n. 1
  • R. Hüls. Kardinäle, Klerus und Kirchen Roms: 1049–1130. Tübingen, 1977.
  • Hans-Walter Klewitz. Reformpapsttum und Kardinalskolleg. Darmstadt, 1957.
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