ROBERT OF TORIGNY

Known also as Robertus de Monte, abbot and chronicler; d. June 24, 1186. He was a benedictine at the Abbey of bec from 1128 and became prior there (1154) and then the most celebrated abbot of mont-saint-michel, where he promoted monastic discipline, learning, and physical expansion. alexander iii invited him to participate in the Synod of Tours in 1163. A man of high culture, he revised the Gesta Normannorum ducum of William of Jumièges, adding it as book eight of the Historia Henrici I regis Anglorum; his continuation of the chronicle of sigebert of gembloux is an important source of Anglo-French history. He was also interested in the history of the East, in the translation of the works of aristotle, and in the history of the episcopal sees of France, for which he drew up an important catalog.

Bibliography: Chronica, ed. l. delisle, 2 v. (Publication de la Société de l'histoire de normandie; Rouen 1872–73), also ed. l. c. bethmann, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores (Berlin 1826–) 6:475–535; Tractatus de immutationibus ordinis monachorum, ed. l. delisle, op. cit. 2:184–206. m. manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, 3 v. (Munich 1911–31) 3:346, 442–445. j. de ghellinck, L'Essor de la littérature latine au XII ^e siècle, 2 v. (Brussels-Paris 1946) 2:96–97. k. schnith, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 8:1343.

[o. j. blum]