Rodulfus Glaber

Rodulfus (or Ralph) Glaber (which means "the Smooth" or "the Bald") (985–1047) was a monk and chronicler of the years around 1000 and is one of the chief sources for the history of France in that period.

Life

Glaber was born in 985 in Burgundy. At the age of 12, his uncle, a monk at Saint-Léger-de-Champeaux, found him a place in the monastery, but he was expelled for bad behaviour. In one of his own writings, he tells us that by pride, he resisted and disobeyed his superiors, and quarreled with his brothers. Later he joined the monastery of St. Benignus near Dijon where he met reforming Piedmontese cleric William of Volpiano in about 1010. In 1031, he moved to the Abbey of Cluny, headed by Abbot Odilon de Mercœur, and finally to the Abbey of Saint-Germain en Auxerre in 1039, where he remained until his death.

Works

His works include a hagiography of William of Volpiano, the Vita Sancti Guillelmi Abbatis Divionensis, but it is for his history that he is best known. The history, entitled the Historiarum libri quinque ab anno incarnationis DCCCC usque ad annum MXLIV (History in five books from 900 AD to 1044 AD), was begun at the Abbey of Cluny, probably around 1026 and no later than 1027, and completed at Abbey of Saint-Germain en Auxerre.