Guidonis, Bernardus

GUIDONIS, gwWa'nis, BERNARDUS, (BERNARD GUI): Dominican, inquisitor in Toulouse; b. at Roy&es (department of Haute-Vienne, arron dissement of Saint-Yrieix, 27 m. s. of Limoges) about 1261; d. at Lod4ve (33 m. w.n.w. of Montpellier) Dec. 30, 1331. He entered the Dominican Order in 1279. From 1294 to 1305 he served as prior in convents at Albi, Carcassonne, Castres, and Limoges; in 1314 he was vicar of the province of Toulouse; and about 1318 became procurator general of his Order. In 1307 he was appointed inquisitor of Toulouse, where for nearly eighteen years he ad ministered his office with zeal and took an active part in the extirpation of the Catbarist heresy (see New Manicheans, II.). A fairly exhaustive narrative of his activity is supplied in the Liber sententiarum in quiSitionis TolosancE, published by P. van Limborch in his Historia inquiaWo4ia (Amsterdam, 1692). An official manual for the procedure of the officers of the Inquisition was prepared by Guidonis under the title: Practice inpisitionia (first issued by C. Douais, Paris, 1886), a volume furnishing val uable elucidations of the doctrines and peculiarities of the various heretical factions. That the Curia appreciated his eminent ability, appears from his repeated employment in the papal diplomatic serv ice. Thus in 1317 he was despatched to Italy in behalf of pacification between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and for the adjustment of partisan strifes at Genoa; and in 1318 he was commissioned to mediate a reconciliation between Philip V. of France and Count Robert of Flanders. In 1233 he became bishop of Tuy, in Spain; whence, in 1324, he was translated to the diocese of LodAve.

Along with his official activity, Guidonis exhibited a remarkably comprehensive literary industry. Of his historical works, the best known are his great history of the popes (Flom cronicomm seu caaalogus PorttifLum Romanorum); his compendious account of the popes and emperors (Catalogus br- pordtfcu' m Romanorum el imperatorum); and his annals of the French kings. Of importance, moreover, is the great work on the history of the Dominican Order, which Guidonis undertook in 1304; only parts have hitherto been published, but C. Dousis has repeatedly made use of Guidonis' materials for the history of that Order. Guidonis' digest of the acts of the original chapter general of the Dominican Order has been edited by B. M. Reichert (Monuments ordinie frnh-um prcedicato rumm, vol. iii., Prague, 1898); the acts of the provincial chapter of the Dominican province of Provence (down to 1302) were made known by Dousis in 1894. As yet unpublished are Guidonis' Spy lure sanctorale (a valuable collection of legends of the saints) and De ternporibus et annie generalium et prmrincialium conctliorum. Great confusion ensued formerly from the designation erroneously attributed to Guidonis: "de Castris S. Vincentii "; since his writings thus came to be partly ascribed to Bernardus de Castris S. Vincentii. He has also been confused with the Dominican Guido de Pileo of Vinoenaa (d. 1331), and is to be distinguished from his elder fellow Dominican, Bernardus Guidonis of Bdaiers (hence Biterrensia), who died in 1273.

(Herman Haupt.)

Bibliography: The earlier literature is given in U. Chevalier, REperloira les aourm historiques du mown-doe, bt blioyraphis, i . 1919, Paris, 1905. The principal modern work is L. Delisle, Notice err les manusaita de Bernard Oui, in Notices et eitraita les MSS. de la biblio&bqus nationals, uvii. 189-465, Paris, 1879. Consult: C. 'Molinier, L'Inquiaitton dare Is midi de la Prance, pp. 5 sqq., 197 sqq., ib. 1880; idena4 in Archivba les 'minions seir entifiques et littéraires, 3 ser., aiv. 189 sqq., 238 sqq., ib. 1888; O. Lorenz, DGQ, vol. ii. passim, Berlin, 1887; H. Bachne, in Halts was du hoot, Berlin, 1891; idem, Bernardue Guuidonis und die Apostelbreder, Rostock, 1891; Potthast, Wepweiser, pp. 150-152 (indispensable for the sources); F. Arbellot, Elude biographique et bibliographique sur Bernard Guidonia, Limes, 1896; C. Dousia, Documents pour servir h Hist. de l'inquwition, Paris, 1900.