GERLACH, saint. – Knight, born at the beginning of the 12th century in the region of Fauquemont (Valkenburg, Holland).
Having learned during a tournament of his wife’s death, he went on pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem, where he devoted himself for 7 years to caring for the sick. Upon his return, he withdrew as a hermit to Houthem lez Fauquemont; according to tradition, he lived there in the hollow of a tree, wearing the habit of the Canons Regular of Prémontré, without belonging to that Order. He died on 5 January 1170. An abbey of Premonstratensian Canonesses was erected over his tomb, founded in 1201 and suppressed in 1786.
BIBL.: Acta SS. Ianuarii, I, Antwerp 1643, pp. 304–21; Friene von Sales Doye, Heilige und Selige, I, Lipsa 1920, p. 411; J. Habets, Houthem-Sint-Gerlach en het adellijd vrouwentift aldaar, in Publications de la Société historique et archéologique dans le d'he de L'ubourg, 6 (1869), pp. 1–245. Pietro Grootens