25
June 1115 A.D. Bernard
of Clairvaux’s French Monasteries
Some of the backstory on
Bernard more largely.
Gildas, Marie. "St. Bernard of
Clairvaux." The Catholic
Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02498d.htm. Accessed 5 May 2014.
His
parents were Tescelin, lord of
Fontaines, and Aleth of Montbard, both belonging to the highest nobility of Burgundy. Bernard, the third of
a family of seven children, six
of whom were sons, was educated with particular care,
because, while yet unborn, a devout man had foretold his great destiny. At the
age of nine years, Bernard was sent to a much renowned school at
Chatillon-sur-Seine, kept by the secular canons of Saint-Vorles. He had a great
taste for literature and devoted himself for some time to poetry. His success
in his studies won the admiration of his masters, and his growth in virtue was
no less marked. Bernard's great desire was to excel in literature in order to
take up the study of Sacred
Scripture,
which later on became, as it were, his own tongue. "Piety was his
all," says Bossuet. He had a special
devotion to the Blessed
Virgin,
and there is no one who speaks more sublimely of the Queen of Heaven. Bernard was scarcely
nineteen years of age when his mother died. During his youth, he did not escape
trying temptations, but his virtue
triumphed over them, in many instances in a heroic manner, and from this time
he thought of retiring from the world and living a life of solitude and prayer.
St. Robert, Abbot of Molesmes, had
founded, in 1098, the monastery of Cîteaux, about four leagues
from Dijon, with the purpose of
restoring the Rule
of St. Benedict
in all its rigour. Returning to Molesmes, he left the government of the new abbey to St. Alberic, who
died in the year 1109. St. Stephen had just succeeded him (1113) as third Abbot of Cîteaux, when Bernard with
thirty young noblemen of Burgundy, sought admission into
the order. Three years later, St. Stephen sent the young Bernard, at the head
of a band of monks, the third to leave Cîteaux, to found a new house
at Vallée d'Absinthe, or Valley of Bitterness, in the Diocese of Langres. This Bernard named
Claire Vallée, of Clairvaux, on the 25th of June, 1115, and the names of
Bernard and Clairvaux thence became
inseparable. During the absence of the Bishop of Langres, Bernard was blessed
as abbot by William of Champeaux, Bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne, who saw in him the
predestined man, servum Dei. From that moment a strong friendship sprang up
between the abbot and the bishop, who was professor of theology at Notre Dame of Paris, and the founder of
the cloister of St. Victor.
The
beginnings of Clairvaux were trying and
painful. The regime was so austere that Bernard's health was impaired by it,
and only the influence of his friend William of Champeaux, and the authority of
the General Chapter could make him mitigate his austerities. The monastery, however, made rapid
progress. Disciples flocked to it in great numbers, desirous of putting
themselves under the direction of Bernard. His father, the aged Tescelin, and
all his brothers entered Clairvaux as religious, leaving
only Humbeline, his sister, in the world and she, with the consent of her
husband, soon took the veil in the Benedictine Convent of Jully. Clairvaux becoming too small for
the religious who crowded there, it was necessary to send out bands to
found new houses. n 1118, the Monastery of the Three Fountains was founded in
the Diocese of Châlons; in 1119, that of Fontenay in the Diocese of Auton (now
Dijon) and in 1121, that of Foigny, near Vervins, in the Diocese of Laon (now Soissons), Notwithstanding this
prosperity, the Abbot of Clairvaux had his trials. During
an absence from Clairvaux, the Grand Prior of Cluny, Bernard of
Uxells, sent by the Prince of Priors, to use the expression of Bernard, went to
Clairvaux and enticed away the abbot's cousin, Robert of
Châtillon. This was the occasion of the longest, and most touching of Bernard's
letters.
In
the year 1119, Bernard was present at the first general chapter of the order
convoked by Stephen of Cîteaux. Though not yet thirty
years old, Bernard was listened to with the greatest attention and respect,
especially when he developed his thoughts upon the revival of the primitive
spirit of regularity and fervour in all the monastic orders. It was this
general chapter that gave definitive form to the constitutions of the order and
the regulations of the "Charter of Charity" which Pope Callixtus II confirmed 23 December,
1119. In 1120 Bernard composed his first work "De Gradibus Superbiae et
Humilitatis" and his homilies which he entitles
"De Laudibus Mariae". The monks of Cluny had not seen,
with satisfaction, those of Cîteaux take the first place
among the religious orders for regularity
and fervour. For this reason there was a temptation on the part of the
"Black Monks" to make it appear that the rules of the new order were
impracticable. At the solicitation of William of St. Thierry, Bernard defended
himself by publishing his "Apology" which is divided into two parts.
In the first part he proves himself innocent of the invectives against Cluny,
which had been attributed to him, and in the second he gives his reasons for
his attack upon averred abuses. He protests his profound esteem for the Benedictines of Cluny whom he
declares he loves equally as well as the other religious orders. Peter the
Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, answered the
Abbot of Clairvaux without wounding
charity in the least, and assured him of his great admiration and sincere
friendship. In the meantime Cluny established a reform, and Suger himself, the minister
of Louis le Gros, and Abbot of St. Denis, was
converted by the apology of Bernard. He hastened to terminate his worldly life
and restore discipline in his monastery. The zeal of Bernard did not
stop here; it extended to the bishops, the clergy, and the faithful, and remarkable
conversions of persons engaged in worldly
pursuits were among the fruits of his labours. Bernard's letter to the Archbishop of Sens is a real treatise
"De Officiis Episcoporum". About the same time he wrote his work on
"Grace and Free Will".
In
the year 1128, Bernard assisted at the Council of Troyes, which had been
convoked by Pope Honorius II, and was presided over by Cardinal Matthew, Bishop of Albano. The purpose of this
council was to settle certain disputes of the bishops of Paris, and regulate other
matters of the Church of France. The bishops made Bernard secretary
of the council, and charged him with drawing up the synodal statutes. After the council,
the Bishop of Verdun was deposed. There
then arose against Bernard unjust reproaches and he was
denounced even in Rome, as a monk who meddled with
matters that did not concern him. Cardinal Harmeric, on behalf of the pope, wrote Bernard a sharp
letter of remonstrance. "It is not fitting" he said "that noisy
and troublesome frogs should come out of their marshes to trouble the Holy See and the cardinals". Bernard
answered the letter by saying that, if he had assisted at the council, it was
because he had been dragged to it, as it were, by force. "Now illustrious
Harmeric", he added, "if you so wished, who would have been more
capable of freeing me from the necessity of assisting at the council than
yourself? Forbid those noisy troublesome frogs to come out of their holes, to
leave their marshes . . . Then your friend will no longer be exposed to the
accusations of pride and presumption".
This letter made a great impression upon the cardinal, and justified its
author both in his eyes and before the Holy See. It was at this
council that Bernard traced the outlines of the Rule of the Knights Templars who soon became the
ideal of the French nobility. Bernard praises it in his "De Laudibus Novae
Militiae".
The
influence of the Abbot of Clairvaux was soon felt in
provincial affairs. He defended the rights of the Church against the
encroachments of kings and princes, and recalled to their duty Henry Archbishop of Sens, and Stephen de
Senlis, Bishop of Paris. On the death of
Honorius II, which occurred on the 14th of February, 1130, a schism broke out in the Church by the election of two
popes, Innocent II and Anacletus II. Innocent II having been banished
from Rome by Anacletus took
refuge in France. King Louis le Gros
convened a national council of the French bishops at Etampes, and
Bernard, summoned thither by consent of the bishops, was chosen to judge
between the rival popes. He decided in favour
of Innocent
II, caused him to be recognized
by all the great Catholic powers, went with him
into Italy, calmed the troubles
that agitated the country, reconciled Pisa with Genoa, and Milan with the pope and Lothaire. According
to the desire of the latter, the pope went to Liège to consult with the
emperor upon the best means to be taken for his return to Rome, for it was there that
Lothaire was to receive the imperial crown from the hands of the pope. From Liège, the pope returned to France, paid a visit to the Abbey of St. Denis, and then to Clairvaux where his reception
was of a simple and purely religious character. The whole pontifical
court was touched by the saintly demeanor of this band of monks. In the refectory only
a few common fishes were found for the pope, and instead of wine,
the juice of herbs was served for drink, says an annalist of Cîteaux. It was not a table
feast that was served to the pope and his followers, but
a feast of virtues. The same year Bernard was again at the Council of Reims at the side of Innocent II, whose oracle he was; and then in
Aquitaine where he succeeded for the time in detaching William, Count of Poitiers, from the cause of
Anacletus.
In
1132, Bernard accompanied Innocent II into Italy, and at Cluny the pope abolished the dues
which Clairvaux used to pay to this celebrated
abbey--an action which gave
rise to a quarrel between the "White Monks" and the "Black
Monks" which lasted twenty years. In the month of May, the pope supported by the army
of Lothaire, entered Rome, but Lothaire, feeling
himself too weak to resist the partisans of Anacletus, retired beyond the Alps,
and Innocent sought refuge in Pisa in September, 1133. In
the meantime the abbot had returned to France in June, and was
continuing the work of peacemaking which he had commenced in 1130. Towards the
end of 1134, he made a second journey into Aquitaine, where William X had
relapsed into schism. This would have died
out of itself if William could have been detached from the cause of Gerard, who
had usurped the See of
Bordeaux
and retained that of Angoulême. Bernard invited
William to the Mass which he celebrated in the Church of La Couldre. At the
moment of the Communion, placing the Sacred Host upon the paten, he went to the door
of the church where William was, and pointing to the Host, he adjured the Duke
not to despise God as he did His
servants. William yielded and the schism ended. Bernard went
again to Italy, where Roger of Sicily was endeavouring to
withdraw the Pisans from their allegiance
to Innocent. He recalled the city
of Milan, which had been
deceived and misled by the ambitious prelate Anselm, Archbishop of Milan, to obedience to the
pose, refused the Archbishopric of Milan, and returned finally
to Clairvaux. Believing himself at
last secure in his cloister Bernard devoted
himself with renewed vigour to the composition of those pious and learned works
which have won for him the title of "Doctor of the Church". He wrote
at this time his sermons on the "Canticle
of Canticles". In 1137 he was again forced to leave his solitude by order
of the pope to put an end to the
quarrel between Lothaire and Roger of Sicily. At the conference
held at Palermo, Bernard succeeded in
convincing Roger of the rights of Innocent II and in silencing Peter
of Pisa who sustained
Anacletus. The latter died of grief and disappointment in 1138, and with him
the schism. Returning to Clairvaux, Bernard occupied
himself in sending bands of monks from his too-crowded monastery into Germany, Sweden, England, Ireland, Portugal, Switzerland, and Italy. Some of these, at the
command of Innocent
II,
took possession of Three Fountains Abbey, near the Salvian Waters in Rome, from which Pope Eugenius III was chosen. Bernard
resumed his commentary on the "Canticle of Canticles", assisted in
1139, at the Second General Lateran Council and the Tenth Oecumenical, in which
the surviving adherents of the schism were definitively condemned.
About the same time, Bernard was visited at Clairvaux by St. Malachi, metropolitan of the Church in Ireland, and a very close
friendship was formed between them. St. Malachi would gladly have taken the Cistercian habit, but the sovereign pontiff would not give his
permission. He died, however, at Clairvaux in 1148.
In
the year 1140, we find Bernard engaged in other matters which disturbed the
peace of the Church. Towards the close of
the eleventh century, the schools of philosophy and theology, dominated by the
passion for discussion and a spirit of independence which had introduced itself
into political and religious questions, became a veritable public arena, with
no other motive than that of ambition. This exaltation of human reason and rationalism found an ardent and
powerful adherent in Abelard, the most eloquent and
learned man of the age after Bernard. "The history of the calamities and
the refutation of his doctrine by St. Bernard", says Ratisbonne, "form the
greatest episode of the twelfth century". Abelard's treatise on the
Trinity had been condemned in 1121, and he himself had thrown his book into the
fire. But in 1139 he advocated new errors. Bernard, informed of
this by William
of St. Thierry,
wrote to Abelard who answered in an
insulting manner. Bernard then denounced him to the pope who caused a general council to be held at Sens. Abelard asked for a public
discussion with Bernard; the latter showed his opponent's errors with such clearness
and force of logic that he was unable to
make any reply, and was obliged, after being
condemned, to retire. he pope confirmed the judgment
of the council, Abelard submitted without
resistance, and retired to Cluny to live under Peter the Venerable, where he
died two years later.
Innocent II died in 1143. His two
successors, Celestin II and Lucius, reigned only a short time, and then Bernard
saw one of his disciples, Bernard of Pisa, Abbott of Three
Fountains, and known thereafter as Eugenius III, raised to the Chair of St.
Peter. Bernard sent him, at his own request, various instructions which compose
the "Book of Consideration", the predominating idea of which is that the
reformation of the Church ought to commence with
the sanctity of the head. Temporal
matters are merely accessories; the principal are piety, meditation, or
consideration, which ought to precede action. The book contains a most
beautiful page on the papacy, and has always been
greatly esteemed by the sovereign pontiffs, many of whom used it
for their ordinary reading.
Alarming
news came at this time from the East. Edessa had fallen into the
hands of the Turks, and Jerusalem and Antioch were
threatened with similar disaster. Deputations of the bishops of Armenia solicited aid from the
pope, and the King of France also sent ambassadors.
The pope commissioned Bernard
to preach a new Crusade and granted the same indulgences for it which Urban II had accorded to the
first. A parliament was convoked at Vézelay in Burgundy in 1146, and Bernard
preached before the assembly. The King, Louis le Jeune, Queen Eleanor, and the
princes and lords present prostrated themselves at the feet of the Abbot of Clairvaux to receive the cross.
The saint was obliged to use portions of his
habit to make crosses to satisfy the zeal and ardour of the
multitude who wished to take part in the Crusade. Bernard passed into Germany, and the miracles which multiplied
almost at his every step undoubtedly contributed to the success of his mission.
The Emperor Conrad and his nephew Frederick Barbarossa, received the pilgrims' cross from the hand of
Bernard, and Pope Eugenius, to encourage the enterprise, came in person to France. It was on the
occasion of this visit, 1147, that a council was held at Paris, at which the errors of Gilbert de la Porée, Bishop of Poitiers, were examined. He
advanced among other absurdities that the essence and the attributes of God are not God, that the properties
of the Persons of the Trinity are not the persons themselves in fine
that the Divine Nature did not become incarnate. The discussion was warm on
both sides. The decision was left for the council which was held at Reims the following year
(1148), and in which Eon de l'Etoile was one of the judges. Bernard was chosen
by the council to draw up a profession of faith directly opposed to
that of Gilbert, who concluding by stating to the Fathers: "If you believe
and assert differently than I have done I am willing to believe and speak as
you do". The consequence of this declaration was that the pope condemned the
assertions of Gilbert without denouncing him personally. After the council the pope paid a visit to Clairvaux, where he held a
general chapter of the order and was able to realize the prosperity of which
Bernard was the soul.
The
last years of Bernard's life were saddened by the failure of the Crusade he had preached, the
entire responsibility for which was thrown upon him. He had accredited the
enterprise by miracles, but he had not
guaranteed its success against the misconduct and perfidy of those who
participated in it. Lack of discipline and the over-confidence of the German
troops, the intrigues of the Prince of Antioch and Queen Eleanor, and finally
the avarice and evident treason of
the Christian nobles of Syria, who prevented the
capture of Damascus, appear to have been
the cause of disaster. Bernard considered it his duty to send an apology to
the pope and it is inserted in
the second part of his "Book of Consideration". There he explains
how, with the crusaders as with the Hebrew
people, in whose favour the Lord had multiplies his prodigies, their sins were the cause of
their misfortune and miseries. The death of his contemporaries served as a
warning to Bernard of his own approaching end The first to die was Suger (1152), of whom the
Abbot wrote to Eugenius
III:
"If there is any precious vase adorning the palace of the King of Kings it
is the soul of the venerable Suger". Thibaud, Count
of Champagne, Conrad, Emperor of Germany, and his son Henry
died the same year. From the beginning of the year 1153 Bernard felt his death
approaching. The passing of Pope Eugenius had struck the fatal blow by taking
from him one whom he considered his greatest friend and consoler. Bernard died in
the sixty-third year of his age, after forty years spent in the cloister. He founded one
hundred and sixty-three monasteries in different parts of Europe; at his death they
numbered three hundred and forty-three. He was the first Cistercian monk placed on the calendar
of saints and was canonized by Alexander III, 18 January 1174. Pope Pius VIII bestowed on him the
title of Doctor
of the Church.
The Cistercians honour him as only the
founders of orders are honoured, because of the
wonderful and widespread activity which he gave to the Order of Cîteaux.
The
works of St. Bernard are as follows:
- "De Gradibus Superbiae", his first treatise;
- "Homilies on the Gospel 'Missus est'" (1120);
- "Apology to William of St. Thierry" against the claims of the monks of Cluny;
- "On the Conversion of Clerics", a book addressed to the young ecclesiastics of Paris (1122);
- "De Laudibus Novae Militiae", addressed to Hughes de Payns, first Grand Master and Prior of Jerusalem (1129). This is a eulogy of the military order instituted in 1118, and an exhortation to the knights to conduct themselves with courage in their several stations.
- "De amore Dei" wherein St. Bernard shows that the manner of loving God is to love Him without measure and gives the different degree of this love;
- "Book of Precepts and Dispensations" (1131), which contains answers to questions upon certain points of the Rule of St. Benedict from which the abbot can, or cannot, dispense;
- "De Gratiâ et Libero Arbitrio" in which the Catholic dogma of grace and free will is proved according to the principles of St. Augustine;
- "Book of Considerations", addressed to Pope Eugenius III;
- "De Officiis Episcoporum", addressed to Henry, Archbishop of Sens.
His
sermons are also numerous:
- "On Psalm 90, 'Qui habitat'" (about 1125);
- "On the Canticle of Canticles". St. Bernard explained in eighty-six sermons only the first two chapters of the Canticle of Canticles and the first verse of the third chapter.
- There are also eighty-six "Sermons for the Whole Year"; his "Letters" number 530.
Many
other letters, treatises, etc., falsely attributed to him are found among his
works, such as the "l'Echelle du Cloître", which is the work of Guigues, Prior of La Grande
Chartreuse, les Méditations, l'Edification de la Maison intérieure, etc.
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