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SUGER (c. 1081-1151)

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Originally appearing in Volume V26, Page 48 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SUGER (c. 1081-1151)  , See also:French ecclesiastic, statesman and historian, was See also:born of poor parents either in See also:Flanders, at St See also:Denis near See also:Paris or at Toury in See also:Beauce . About 1091 he entered the See also:abbey of St Denis . Until about 1104 he was educated at the priory of St Denis de 1'Estree, and there first met his See also:pupil See also:King See also:Louis VI . From 1104 to 11o6 See also:Suger attended another school, perhaps that attached to the abbey of St See also:Benoit-sur-See also:Loire . In r rob he became secretary to the See also:abbot of St Denis . In the following See also:year he was made See also:provost of Berneval in See also:Normandy, and in 1109 of Toury . In 1118 he was sent by Louis VI. to the See also:court of See also:Pope See also:Gelasius II. at Maguelonne, and lived from 1121 to 1122 at the court of his successor, See also:Calixtus II . On his return from See also:Italy Suger was appointed abbot of St Denis . Until 1127 he occupied himself at court mainly with the temporal affairs of the See also:kingdom, while during the following See also:decade he devoted himself to the reorganization and reform of St Denis . In 1137 he accompanied the future king, Louis VII., into See also:Aquitaine on the occasion of that See also:prince's See also:marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, and during the second crusade was one of the regents of the kingdom (1147-1149), He was bitterly opposed to the king's See also:divorce, having himself advised the marriage . Although he disapproved of the second crusade, he himself, at the See also:time of his See also:death, on the 31st of See also:January 1151, was See also:preaching a new crusade . Suger was the friend and counsellor both of Louis VI. and Louis VII .

He urged the king to destroy the feudal bandits, was responsible for the royal See also:

tactics in dealing with the communal movements, and endeavoured to regularize the See also:administration of See also:justice . He See also:left his abbey, which possessed considerable See also:property, enriched and embellished by the construction of a new See also:church built in the nascent See also:Gothic See also:style . Suger was the foremost historian of his time . He was the ' Known in French as Guitguits, a name used for them also by some See also:English writers . The Guitguit of Hernandez (Rer. medic . N. hisp. See also:thesaurus, p . 56), a name said by him to be of native origin, can hardly be determined, though thought by Montbeillard (Hist. nat. oiseaux, v . 529) to be what is now known as Coereba caerulea, but that of later writers is C. cyanea . The name is probably onomatopoetic, and very likely analogous to the " quit ' applied in See also:Jamaica to several small birds.author of a See also:panegyric on Louis VI . (Vita Ludovici regis), and See also:part-author of the perhaps more impartial See also:history of Louis VII . (Historia gloriosi regis Ludovici) . In his See also:Liber de See also:rebus in administratione sua gestis, and its supplement Libellus de consecratione ecclesiae S .

Dionysii, he treats of the improvements he had made to St Denis, describes the treasure of the church, and gives an See also:

account of the rebuilding . Suger's See also:works served to imbue the monks of St Denis with a See also:taste for history, and called forth a See also:long See also:series of quasi-See also:official See also:chronicles . See O . Cartellieri, See also:Abt Suger von See also:Saint-Denis (See also:Berlin, 1898); A . See also:Luchaire, Louis le See also:Gros (Paris, 189o) ; F . A . Gereaise, Histoire de Suger (Paris, 1721) .

End of Article: SUGER (c. 1081-1151)
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