Skip to main contentAccessibility feedback
Dear catholic.com visitors: This website from Catholic Answers, with all its many resources, is the world’s largest source of explanations for Catholic beliefs and practices. A fully independent, lay-run, 501(c)(3) ministry that receives no funding from the institutional Church, we rely entirely on the generosity of everyday people like you to keep this website going with trustworthy, fresh, and relevant content. If everyone visiting this month gave just $1, catholic.com would be fully funded for an entire year. If you’ve never made a gift, now is the time. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar this week only. Thanks and God bless.
Dear catholic.com visitors: This Catholic Answers website, with all its free resources, is the world’s largest source of explanations for Catholic beliefs and practices. We receive no funding from the institutional Church and rely entirely on your generosity to sustain this website with trustworthy, accessible content. If every visitor this month donated $1, catholic.com would be fully funded for an entire year. If you’ve never made a gift, now is the time. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar this week only. Thanks and God bless.

Gilbertines

Order founded by St. Gilbert about the year 1130

Click to enlarge

Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, b. early in the twelfth century of an Anglo-Norman family and connected with the earls of Hereford; d. at London in 1186. He became a monk at Cluny in France, where he rose to the rank of prior; then he was abbot at Abbeville, and later at Gloucester. He became Bishop of Hereford in 1147. As abbot and bishop he took an important part in ecclesiastical and national affairs, was a supporter of Empress Matilda and a confidential adviser of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1163 he was transferred to the Bishopric of London, though such a translation was very exceptional at the time; but he received the support of Becket and the special consent of Alexander III. Foliot was a man of learning and eloquence and a good administrator. The austerity of his life was almost too widely known. However, in the great struggle for the rights of the Church between Henry II and St. Thomas of Canterbury he definitely took the king’s side. In the stormy scenes at Clarendon and Northampton and during the prolonged negotiations of the years of St. Thomas’s exile, his name is foremost among the opponents of his archbishop; and he was one of the prelates who, by their remonstrances against a renewed excommunication in 1170, brought about indirectly St. Thomas’s martyrdom. It may be true that Gilbert was opposed to Becket’s personality and methods more than to his aims, but Henry II would have been more than a match for a diplomatic bishop. A king who combined to such an extent intelligence and passion could have been checked only by a wave of popular enthusiasm.

F. F. URQUHART


Did you like this content? Please help keep us ad-free

More from Catholic.com

Enjoying this content?  Please support our mission!Donate