The Deeds of God

onent--the third book, in particular, if used with discretion, offers rich material for a study of the civil disorder that took place in Laon 1112-111-- the first book has attracted the attention of most recent scholars and critics because it offers more autobiographical elements. However, Guibert did not include among those elements the exact date and place of his birth.[3] Scholarly discussion has narrowed the possible dates to 1053-1065, although the latest editor of the Memoirs, Edmonde Labande, categorically chooses 1055. Among the candidates for his birthplace are Clermont-en-Beauvaisis, Agnetz, Catenoy, Bourgin, and Autreville, all within a short distance of Beauvais. No record of his death, generally assumed to have occurred by 1125, has survived.

In spite of the lack of exactitude about places and dates, the Memoirs provide an extensive account of some of the ways religious, psychological, and spiritual problems combined in the mind of an aristocratic oblate, who became an aggressive Benedictine