Dating and Authorship of the Writings about Saint Gerald of Aurillac

While the writings about Gerald of Aurillac, especially the Vita Geraldi, are an invaluable source for the history of the central Middle Ages, their dating and authorship has been erroneous. Odo of Cluny’s authentic work, written ca. 930 (BHL 3412, called the Vita brevior), is a much more limited version of the vita, little known to scholars. The more elaborately detailed version (BHL 3411, called the Vita prolixior) as well as additional miracle stories and a sermon for Gerald’s feastday all belong instead to that most infamous forger of the era, Ademar of Chabannes, writing in the 1020s. This conclusion can be made based both on internal and external evidence, including the surprisingly disproportionate inclusion of Limoges and its patron saint Martial in the longer version, its mistaken depiction of Gerald as a count, and its inclusion of wording that seems to anticipate the Peace of God and the trifunctionalism of medieval society. Correcting the dating and authorship of the two versions of the Vita Geraldi and, in particular, accepting the unreliability of the many details in the longer version, will have far ranging consequences for the history of the central Middle Ages.