Gilbert of Hoyland

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Gilbert of Hoyland was a twelfth century abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Swineshead, Lincolnshire. Swineshead had been a member of the monastic order of Savigny, which joined the Cistercian Order in 1147. Gilbert apparently went to Swineshead to help the community adopt Cistercian usages.

Sometime after Bernard of Clairvaux died in 1153, Gilbert was asked to continue Bernard's incomplete series of eighty-six sermons on the biblical Song of Songs. Gilbert wrote forty-seven sermons before his death, probably in 1172 at the French Cistercian monastery of Larrivour. Fourteen other short works by Gilbert are known to survive.

Gilbert's forty-seven sermons ended in chapter 5 of the Song of Songs; another English Cistercian abbot, John of Ford, wrote another one hundred twenty sermons on the Song of Songs, so completing the Cistercian sermon-commentary on the book.

Gilbert's works have been translated into English by Lawrence Braceland, S.J. and published in four volumes by Cistercian Publications. They have also been translated into French by Fr. Pierre-Yves Emery.