Gilbert (1087–1190)

Biography

It was made up of monks, canons, lay brothers and converts, who were at their service. This entire society lived, under a single superior, in different monasteries that constituted a small agglomeration that also included an orphanage and a leper colony. At the death of the founder there were thirteen convents in England with a total of seven hundred men and fifteen hundred women. Henry VII suppressed them when they had reached twenty convents. Gilbert was the son of a knight companion of William the Conqueror. His father sent him to Paris to pursue an ecclesiastical career, since he judged him too tender for the exercise of arms. In the capital Gilberto met San Bernardo, with whom he became a faithful friend. He had no shortage of evidence throughout his life. At the age of sixty, Henry II of England imprisoned him under the false accusation of having helped Thomas Becket in exile. Gilberto did not deny it and that is why he went to prison. He died blind and a hundred years old, exhorting his monks to always give abundant alms.