GOUGARD, LOUIS. - Benedictine historian, born on 14 June 1877 in Malestroit (Morbihan), died in Farnborough Abbey on 24 March 1941. He entered the Benedictine Order in 1901 and was appointed in 1910 prior of the Abbey of St Michael in Farnborough (Hampshire, England), where he lived and worked for the rest of his life, with the exception of a brief period during the First World War (1914-18).
His scientific, especially historical, activity focused on research into the origins of Christianity among the Celts, on monasticism, on Irish ecclesiastical and monastic liturgy, and on the influence exerted by Irish monks on medieval culture on the European continent. In the field of liturgy, G. was, however, at the forefront among those who recognised the value of historical and patristic studies and used them skilfully for the general history of the Church and, in particular, for Celtic studies. G. contributed many articles to various Catholic dictionaries and encyclopaedias, such as the DACL, the *Jahrbuch für Liturgiewissenschaft*, the first three volumes of the DFC, and the DSp. Of his numerous publications, only the most important are cited here:
Les chrétientés celtiques (London 1911; 2nd ed. ibid. 1932); Gaelic pioneers in Christianity (ibid. 1923); Devotional and ascetic practices in the middle ages (ibid. 1927); Ermites et reclus, études sur d'anciennes formes de vie religieuse (Linguë [Vienna] 1928); Anciens coutumes claustrales (ibid. 1930); The achievements and the influence of Irish monks, in Studies, 20 (1931), pp. 154 ff., with preparatory work for a new Monasticon Hibernicum; Les saints irlandais hors d'Irlande (Louvain 1936).