Guibert

Saint Guibert (Wicbert) was a nobleman of Lotharingia, a hermit and the founder of Gembloux Abbey in present-⁠day Belgium. He was born in 892 and reposed on 23 May 962 as a monk of the monastery of Gorze. He was canonized in 1211. He is commemorated on 23 May.

After taking part in several military campaigns, he withdrew as a hermit to the family property at Gembloux, inherited from his father. In 936 he founded there a fortified and almost independent monastery, with its own currency, dedicated to Saint Peter the Apostle and the holy martyr Exuperius. Some relatives disputed the legality of the foundation, on the plea that the land had been given in fief to his ancestors and could not be alienated without imperial authority. The emperor Otto I summoned Guibert and Erluin to his court, was favourably impressed by how they defended their pious undertaking, and on 20 September 946 issued an imperial diploma approving the monastery and granting it privileges.

Guibert appointed his friend Erluin first abbot, and himself became a monk at Gorze near Metz. He returned to Gembloux in 954, when the Hungarians threatened to pillage the monastery, bringing the Rule of Saint Benedict, and a second time in 957, when his brother-⁠in-⁠law Heribrand of Mawolt had seized the monastery's revenues; he persuaded him to leave its possessions undisturbed. When Guibert died in 962 the monks of Gembloux came to take back the body of their founder from Gorze. His entrails were buried at Gorze, and the body was treated with salt and herbs to prevent decay on the journey and brought to Gembloux, which became a place of pilgrimage.