16 Facts About Bernard Gui

Bernard Gui was born circa 1261 or 1262 in the hamlet of Royeres in the Limousin region in what today is France.

Bernard Gui then spent the following decade studying grammar, logic, philosophy, and theology at Dominican studia across southern France, including the studium generale at Montpellier.

Between 1316 and 1320 Bernard Gui acted as Procurator General of the Dominican Order, representing its interests within Pope John XXII's court at Avignon, and during this time he undertook diplomatic missions on behalf of the papacy.

Bernard Gui assisted the inquisitors of Carcassonne, Geoffrey of Ablis and his successor Beaune, and the bishop of Pamiers, Jacques Fournier.

Bernard Gui then interrogated those who had been accused of heretical activity by penitents but failed to come forward voluntarily, with the secular authorities enlisted to apprehend and, if necessary, torture the accused.

In total, the tribunals headed by Bernard Gui convicted 636 individuals of 940 counts of heresy.

However, more recent research has determined that no more than 45 of the individuals convicted by Bernard Gui were executed, while 307 were imprisoned, 143 ordered to wear crosses, and nine sent on compulsory pilgrimages.

Janet Shirley states that Bernard Gui was "more interested in penitence than punishment" and generally sought to reconcile heretics to the Church.

Bernard Gui was charged with investigating the lepers' plot of 1321, an alleged well poisoning conspiracy by French lepers, Jews, and Muslims; and provided an account of the event in the Flores chronicorum.

Bernard Gui was one of the most prolific Latin authors of the Late Middle Ages, although he rarely wrote original works, preferring instead to compile and arrange existing texts, anecdotes, and records.

Bernard Gui ordered the construction of a library at Limoges to accommodate over one hundred volumes; this was completed in 1306 and represented "one of the earliest efforts in the West to build a room devoted especially to the preservation of books".

The Dominican monastery at Limoges had been a "centre for historical study" for over a century, and Bernard Gui compiled numerous works of history.

Bernard Gui compiled the Chronique des rois de France in 1313, an illustrated genealogy of the kings of France.

Bernard Gui contributed his literary energies to the campaign for the canonisation of Thomas Aquinas, producing the hagiography Vita Sancti Thomae Aquinatis in 1318 and a catalogue of his works in 1320.

However, Bernard Gui's best-known works are those related to his inquisitorial career: Liber sententiarum, a comprehensive register of the sentences he delivered, and Practica inquisitionis heretice pravitatis, a comprehensive inquisitor's manual.

Bernard Gui's text was one of the most widely copied and read inquisitorial manuals during the medieval period, superseded only by the Catalan inquisitor Nicholas Eymerich's fourteenth-century Directorium Inquisitorum, and heavily influenced later inquisitorial practice.