SIGEBERTO of GEMBLOUX. — Benedictine, born c. 1030 near Gembloux, died there on 5 October 1112. He taught for more than 20 years at the monastic school of St-Vincent in Metz, then returned to the same post at the abbey of Gembloux (diocese of Namur), where he had received his first education and taken the Benedictine habit. Although he was regarded as a pious monk of irreproachable conduct, and had lived in the diocese of Liège with a reputation as a zealous reformer under some of its bishops, he nevertheless allowed himself to be led astray by his particularism as a man of Liège and by his conservative mentality, to the point of violently opposing the decrees of Gregory VII.
His Apologia contra eos qui calumniantur missas coniugatorum sacerdotum is an erroneous interpretation of the Pope’s thought. More concerned with the independence of Liège than with the defense of Emperor Henry IV, S., in his Epistola Leodicensium adversus Paschalem
papam, protests against Paschal II’s invitation to Count Robert of Flanders to turn his arms against those members of the clergy of Liège who were loyal to Emperor Henry, and sets episcopal authority against the Holy See. S.’s prejudices also partly mar his historical work, which is nevertheless worthy of interest; besides a Chronicon universale and a De viris illustribus, he is credited with the continuation of the Gesta abbatum Gemblaechium; a double Vita s. Lamberti, the patron of his homeland, and various other biographies. For all these works he was able to draw abundant information from the renowned library of his monastery.
A writer of clear and pure style, S. must be counted, according to Fr. E. de Moreau, among the most learned and cultivated writers of the Middle Ages.