The Commentary was written after August 1153, since it speaks of iocunde recordacionis abbas Bernardus. We learn also from it that the author – his name is here spelled Clarenbaldus – was a disciple of Hugh of Saint Victor, and of Theodoric the Breton, no doubt the famous chancellor of Chartres.
Has causas mihi aliquantulum pertinaciter investiganti doctores mei venerabiles, Hugo videlicet de Sancto Victore et Theodericus Brito reddidcre. Magister vero Gillebertus Picta- vensis episcopus verbis perplexis hanc causam reddit. Que tametsi dispendiosa videri possunt, tamen in medium proferam, ne tam clarum doctorem cum famosis doctoribus ascribere videar invidere.
He therefore writes his criticism on Gilbert with the object, in part, of showing that his judgement of him is not influenced by any grudge against including the illustrious doctor in the same class with the famous doctors first named; so I understand the concluding words of the quotation. He charges Gilbert, as so many others did, with an excessive obscurity of style:
Exemplum huius lucidissime planitiei magister Gillebertus Pictavensis episcopus multo verborum circuitu tenebrosam obscuritatem inducit, liberatque verbis reni frivolam involventibus, ut credatur, etc.
Clarenbald even finds fault with Gilbert's logic, speaking of him as falsum sibi in logica fingens, aut certe male intelligens principium, quod est hoc, etc. In one place he describes some views of his as expressly heretical and as having been condemned at the council of Rheims:
Ex hoc loco episcopi Pictavensis error ortus esse videtur, ut tres personas numero differentes esse assereret. . . . Ergo nec numero tres persone inter se differunt. Quum vero in concilio Remensi sub Eugenio papa super aliis rebus liber eius reprehensus dampnatusque tam scolarium lectionibus quam claustralium ademptus est, et hic error, utpote heresibus eius aliis nullo modo preferendus, ibi commemoratus non est,
