Guibert de Gembloux

Wicbert or Guibert (892 – 23 May 962) was a nobleman who became a hermit and founded Gembloux Abbey. He was canonized as a saint in 1211. Saint Guibert's feast day is observed on 23 May.

An aristocrat from Lotharingia who had participated in several military campaigns, Guibert withdrew as a hermit on family property in Gembloux (formerly Gemblours) inherited from his father. In 936 he founded a fortified and almost independent monastery (having its own currency). The monastery was dedicated to St. Peter the Apostle and the holy martyr Exuperius.

Guibert was assisted in this by Erluin, who had resigned a canonry to become a monk. Some of Guibert's relatives impugned the legality of the monastic foundation on the plea that the monastery was built on fiscal land which had been given in fief to Guibert's ancestors and could not be alienated without imperial authority. Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor summoned Guibert and Erluin to his court, but was so favourably impressed with the manner in which they defended their pious undertaking that on 20 September, 946, he issued an imperial diploma approving the foundation of Gemblours and granting it various privileges. which became a place of pilgrimage.