Under William's disciple and successor, Gilduin, the community flourished and increased. King Louis VI., whose confessor was Gilduin himself, endowed it liberally, and other donors were not lacking. Saint-Victor became rich, and its fame for learning and holiness spread far and wide.[1] Abbot Gilduin lived to see more than forty houses of monks or regular canons[2] flourishing as dependencies of Saint-Victor. He died in 1155, some years after the death of the young man whose scholarship and genius was the pride of the Victorine community.
Notwithstanding a statement in an old manuscript, that Hugo was born near Ypres in Flanders, the ancient tradition of Saint-Victor, confirmed by the records of the cathedral of Halberstadt, shows him to have been a son of the Count of Blankemberg, and born at Hartingam in Saxony.[3] His uncle Reinhard was Bishop of Halberstadt, where his great-uncle, named Hugo like himself, was archdeacon. Reinhard had been a pupil of William of Champeaux at Saint-Victor, and after becoming bishop continued to cherish a profound esteem for him. The young Hugo renounced his inheritance and entered a monastery not far from Halberstadt; but soon, in view of the disturbed affairs of Saxony, his uncle Reinhard urged him to go and pursue his studies at Saint-Victor. The young man persuaded his great-uncle Hugo to accompany him. By circuitous routes, visiting various places of pious interest on the way, the two reached Saint-Victor, where they were received with all honour by the abbot Gilduin. This was not far from the year 1115, and Hugo was about twenty at the time. He was already an accomplished scholar, and doubtless it is to his previous
- ↑ On the neighbouring schools of Notre-Dame and St. Genevieve see post, Chapter XXXVII.
- ↑ At the opening of his Expositio in regulam beati Augustini, Migne 176, col. 881, Hugo explains that the precepts under which a monastic community lives are called the regula, and what we call a regula is called a canon by the Greeks; and those are called canonici or regulares, who "juxta regularia praecepta sanctorum Patrum canonice atque apostolice vivunt." Thus the "regular canons" of St. Augustine were monks who lived according to the rule ascribed to that saint. In the case of the Victorines the rule was drawn up chiefly by Abbot Gilduin. See Prolegomena to the works of Hugo, Migne 175, col. xxiv. sqq.
- ↑ See the Prolegomena to the works of Hugo de Saint-Victor, by Hugonin, Migne 175, col. xl. sqq.
