Gerald of Sales[a] (c.1055 or 1070 – 1120) was a French monastic reformer from Salles, Lot-et-Garonne near Bergerac, Dordogne in the south-west of France.
[2] According to a tradition going back to his Vita,[3] he became a canon regular of St. Avitus, from the diocese of Périgueux, and the monastery of Saint-Avit,[4] A friend of Robert of Arbrissel, and follower of Vitalis of Savigny;[5] like Bernard of Thiron, Gerard set up Benedictine houses, or groups of hermits, mostly in the west of France, and was important in the later spread of the Cistercians, from their beginnings in Burgundy.
[6] Following a spirituality very close to that of the Cistercians, Gerald of Salles monasteries progressively joined them.
[22] Loc-Dieu Abbey belonged to a series of monasteries reformed by Gerald of Salles.
He was beatified in 1249, and was reburied in a marble tomb,[23] south of the altar at Châtelliers Abbey.