GERARD
466
GERARD
1885); ToussAiNT, Hist, de S. Gerard fondaleur de I'abbaye de
Brogne (Namur, 1884); Anal. BoUand. (Brussels, 1SS6), 385-
3SS.
Leon Clugnet.
Gerard, Saint, Bishop of Toul, b. at Cologne, 935; d. at Toul, 23 April, 994. Belonging to a wealthy and noble family, he received an excellent education in the school for clerics at Cologne, and throughout his youth was a model of obedience and piety. He was eventually ordained to the priesthood, in which office his virtues were a som'ce of edification to the city of Cologne. At the death of Gauzelin, Bishop of Toul (963), he was appointed to succeed him by the Arch- bishop of Cologne, was well received by the clergy and people of Toul, and bore the burdens of his epis- copal office without any of its comforts. Although he avoided paying long visits to the court of the Emperor Otto II, who was desirous of keeping Gerard near him, he nevertheless obtained from the emperor the con- firmation of the privilege in virtue of which Toul, although united to the empire about 92.5, formed an independent state of which the Emperor Henry the Fowler reserved to liimself only the protectorate, abandoning to Gerard's predecessor, Gauzelin, the suzerainty of the city and the countship. Gerard is therefore rightly considered as the true founder of the temporal power of the bishops of Toul. He was ener- getic in his opposition to powerful personages who were inimical to his authority, and governed his county wisely, promulgating administrative measures, traces of which subsisted to the time of the French Revolution. He died at the age of fifty-nine, and was buried with pomp in the choir of his cathedral. Leo IX, one of his successors in the See of Toul, canonized him in 1050.
Benoist, La Vie de S. Gerard, iveque de Toul (Toul, 1700); Baillet, Vies des saints (Paris, 1701), III, 3 Oct.; Dufbene in Mem. de la Soc. des Antiq. de France (Paris, 1840), 81-89.
Leon Clugnet.
Gerard, Archbishop of York, date of birth un- known; d. at Southwell, 21 May, 1108. He was a nephew of Walkelin, Bishop of Winchester, of Simon, Abbot of Ely, and connected with the royal family. Originally a precentor in Rouen cathedral, he became clerk in the chapel of William Rufus, who employed him in 1095 on a diplomatic mission to the pope. His success was rewarded with the Bishopric of Hereford, and he was consecrated by St. Ans^lm 8 June, 1096, having been ordained deacon and priest on the pre- vious day. On the accession of Henry I, in 1100, he was made Archbishop of York and began a long con- test with St. Anselm, in which he claimed equal pri- macy with Canterbury and refused to make his profes- sion of canonical obedience before him. When he journeyed to Rome for the pallium, he was entrusted with the mission of representing the king against An- selm in the controversy about investitures. The pope's decision was against the king, but Gerard pro- fessed to have received private assurances that the de- crees would not be enforced. This was denied by the monks who represented St. Anselm; and the pope, when appealed to, repudiated the statement and ex- communicated Gerard till he confessed his error and made satisfaction.
Eventually he professed obedience to St. Anselm, but continued to assert the independence of York. When Anselm refused to consecrate three bishops, two of whom had received investiture from the king, Ge- rard attempted to do so, but two refused to accept consecration at his hands. The pope reprimanded him for his opposition to the primate, and finally the two prelates were reconciled. Gerard carried out many reforms in York, though by his action against St. Anselm he incurred great unpopularity, and the writers of the time charge him with immorality, avarice, and the practice of magic. He died sud- denly on the way to London to attend a council, and
his death without the sacraments was regarded as a
Divine judgment. The canons refused to bury him
within the cathedral, and the people pelted the hearse
with stones. Some Latin verses by him are preserved
in the British Museum (Titus. D. XXIV. 3).
St. Anselm, Episiolce in P. L., XXX, 158-9; Eadmer, Hist. Novormn in R. S. (1884); Symeon of Durham, Opera in R. S. (1882-85); William of Malmesbuby, De gestis Pontijicum in R. S. (1870); Hugh the Chanter, Live^ of Four Archbishops in Raine, Historians of the Church of York, II (Rolls Series, 1S86); Venables in Diet. Nat. Biog., s. v.; Rule, Life and Times of St. Anselm (London, 1883). Kaine and Venablee give references to all original authorities. Edwin Burton.
Gerard, John, Jesuit; b. 4 Oct., 1564; d. 27 July, 1637. He is well known through his autobiography, a fascinating record of dangers and adventures, of captures and escapes, of trials antl consolations. "The narrative is all the more valuable because it sets before us the kind of life led by priests, wherever the peculiar features of the English persecution occurred. John was the second son of Sir Thomas Gerard of Bryn, for a time a valiant confessor of the Faith, who, however, in 1589, tarnished his honour by giving evidence against the Ven. Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel (q. v.). Dif- ferent opinions are held (by Morris and Gillow) as to the permanence of his inconstancy. John left his father's house at New Bryn at the age of thirteen, and went first to Douai seminary; matriculated at Oxford (1579), and thence proceeded to the Jesuits' College at Paris (1581). Having come to England for his health's sake, he was arrested on 5 March, 1584, and suffered two years' imprisonment in the Marshal- sea. He was bailed out in 1586, and, with the con- sent of his sureties, once more made his way to the Continent, and was received at the English College, Rome, 5 August, 1586. At first he paid for himself, but in April, 1587, he became a scholar of the pope. Next year, 15 August, 1588, he entered the Jesuit novitiate; but so great was the dearth of missionaries in England that he was dispatched thither in the en- suing September.
His romantic adventures began on landing, for he was set ashore alone on the Norfolk coast at a moment when the country was in a turmoil of excitement after the defeat of the Armada, and when feeling against Catholics ran so high that fifteen priests had been butchered in two days in London, and twelve others sent to the provinces for the same purpose, though half of these eventually escaped death. Gerard, being an accomplished sportsman and rider, succeeded in making his way about the country, now as a horseman who had lost his way in the chase, now as a huntsman whose hawk had strayed. Ere long he had won the steadfast friendship of many Catholic families, with whose aid he was able to make frequent conversions, to give retreats and preach, and to send over many nuns and youths to the convents, seminaries, and reli- gious houses on the Continent. Dr. Jessopp, a Protes- tant, WTites: —
"The extent of Gerard's influence was nothing less than marvellous. Country gentlemen meet him in the street and forthwith invite him to their houses; high-born ladies put themselves under his direction almost as unreservedly in temporal as in spiritual things. Scholars and courtiers run serious risks to hold interviews with him, the number of his converts of all ranks is legion; the very gaolers and turnkeys obey him; and in a state of society when treachery and venality were pervading all classes, he finds ser- vants and agents who are ready to live and die for him. A man of gentle blood and gentle breeding — of com- manding stature, great vigour of constitution, a mas- ter of three or four languages, with a rare gift of speech and an innate grace and courtliness of manner — he was fitted to shine in any society and to lead it. From boyhood he had been a keen sportsman, at home in the saddle, and a great proficient in all country sport. His powers of endurance of fatigue and pain were
