According to the patriarchs’ chronicle Gerard had his origins in the villa of Premariacco near Cividale; therefore he did not belong to the German nobility, as his predecessors, yet, as it can be argued, to the freemen’s descent of that place. Only a few data are known about him: in 1122 he granted the chapter of Cividale archdeacon’s authority; in 1125 he made a donation to the monastery of St. Peter on the Karst. After Henry V’s death (23 March 1125), together with the archbishop of Milan he took the part of Conrad of Hohenstaufen and was therefore excommunicated by the papal legate. According to what was written by the archbishop Conrad of Salzburg, Gerard was a supporter of the imperial politics and withstood the Gregorian reformation in the patriarchate. A memory of him is left on 10 July (†1129) both in the book of the anniversaries of the chapter of Cividale, and in the necrologue of the monastery of St. Maria in Valle.