FABER, EGIDIO (GILLES DE SMEDT). — Theologian and statesman, a Carmelite, born in Brussels around 1440, died in 1506. A doctor of Leuven and distinguished preacher, he enjoyed the favor of Archduke Maximilian, who later became emperor. He renovated the Carmelite College at Leuven and played a significant role in the foundation of the charterhouse in that city.
He wrote a chronicle of the Carmelite Order, of which some fragments are preserved among the manuscripts of Giovanni Bale in the British Museum in London and in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The other works, among which a Historia Brabantiae is mentioned, have been lost.
BIBL.: G. Bale, De scriptoribus Ord. Carm. in the British Museum, ms. Harlei, 1819, f. 74v.; Cosma de Villiers, Bibliotheca Carmelitana, I, Orléans 1738, pp. 5–6; Biographie nationale... de Belgique, V, pp. 747–49. Bartolomeo Xiberta