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2 Life 3 Character 4 Works |
Bernard preached in favor of a second crusade at Easter 1146 at Vezelay in front of King Louis VII. Louis took the cross and spent 1147-1149 conducting the Second Crusade.
He was born at Fontaines, near Dijon, in
France. His father, a knight named Tecelin, perished on crusade; and his
mother Aleth, a daughter of the noble house of Mon-Bar, and a woman
distinguished for
her piety, died while Bernard was yet a boy.
The lad was constitutionally
unfitted for the career of arms, and his own disposition, as well as his
mother's early influence, directed him to the church. His desire to enter a
monastery was opposed by his relations, who sent him to study at Châlons in
order to qualify for high ecclesiastical preferment. Bernard's resolution to
become a monk was not, however, shaken, and when he at last definitely decided
to join the community which Robert of Molesmes had founded at Citeaux in 1108,
he carried with him his brothers and many of his relations and friends.
The little community of reformed Benedictines, which was
to produce so profound an
influence on Western monasticism and had seemed
on the point of extinction for lack of novices, gained a sudden new life through
this accession of some thirty young men of the best families of the
neighborhood.
Others followed their example; and the community grew so rapidly
that it was soon able to send off offshoots. One of these daughter monasteries,
Clairvaux, was founded in 1115, in a wild valley branching from that of the
Aube, on land given by Count Hugh of Troyes, and of this Bernard was appointed
abbot.
By the new constitution of the Cistercians Clairvaux became the chief monastery
of the five branches into which the ord,er was divided under the supreme
direction of the abbot of Citeaux. Though nominally subject to Citeaux, however,
Clairvaux soon became the most important Cistercian house, owing to the fame and
influence of Bernard.
His saintly character, his self mortification-- of so
severe a character that his friend, William of Champeaux, bishop of Châlons,
thought it right to remonstrate with him-- and above all, his marvelous power
as a preacher, soon made him famous, and drew crowds of pilgrims to Clairvaux.
His miracles were noised abroad, and sick folk were brought from near and far to
be healed by his touch.
Before long the abbot, who had intended to devote his
life to the work of his monastery, was drawn into the affairs of the great
world. When in 1124 Pope Honorius II mounted the chair of St Peter, Bernard was
already reckoned among the greatest of French churchmen; he now shared in the
most important ecclesiastical discussions, and papal legates sought his counsel.
Thus in 1128 he was invited by Cardinal Matthew of Albano to the synod of
Troyes, where he was instrumental in obtaining the recognition of the new order
of Knights Templars, the rules of which he is said to have drawn up; and in the
following year, at the synod of Châlonssur-Marne, he ended the crisis arising
out of certain charges brought against Henry, bishop of Verdun, by persuading
the bishop to resign.
The European importance of Bernard, however, began with
the death of Pope Honorius II (1130) and the disputed election that followed.
In the synod convoked by Louis the Fat at Etampes in April 1130 Bernard
successfully asserted the claims of Pope Innocent II against those of
Anacletus II,
and from this moment became the most influential supporter of his cause.
See also antipope. He
threw himself into the contest with characteristic ardour. While Rome itself was
held by Anacletus, France, England, Spain and Germany declared for Innocent,
who, though banished from Rome, was--in Bernard's phrase-- "accepted by the
world!"
The pope traveled from place to place, with the powerful abbot of
Clairvaux at his side; he stayed at Clairvaux itself, humble still, so far as
its buildings were concerned; and he went with Bernard to parley with the
emperor Lothair II at Liege.
In 1133, the year of the emperor's first expedition to Rome, Bernard was in
Italy persuading the Genoese to make peace with the men of Pisa, since the pope
had need of both. He accompanied Innocent to Rome, successfully resisting the
proposal to reopen negotiations with Anacletus, who held the castle of Sant'
Angelo and, with the support of Roger II of Sicily, was too strong
to be subdued by force. Lothair, though crowned by Innocent in St Peter's, could
do nothing to establish him in the Holy See so long as his own power was sapped
by his quarrel with the house of Hohenstaufen. Again Bernard came to the rescue;
in the spring of 1135 he was at Bamberg successfully persuading
Frederick of Hohenstaufen to submit to the emperor.
In June he was back in Italy, taking a
leading part in the council of Pisa, by which Anacletus was excommunicated. In
northern Italy the effect of his personality and of his preaching was immense;
Milan itself, of all the Lombard cities most jealous of the imperial claims,
surrendered to his eloquence, submitted to Lothair and to Innocent, and tried to
force Bernard against his will into the vacant see of St Ambrose.
In 1137, the
year of Lothair's last journey to Rome, Bernard was back in Italy again; at
Monte Cassino, setting the affairs of the monastery in order, at Salerno, trying
in vain to induce Roger of Sicily to declare against Anacletus, in Rome itself,
agitating with success against the antipope. Anacletus died on January 25 1138; on March 13 the cardinal Gregory was elected his
successor, assuming the name of Victor. Bernard's crowning triumph in the long
contest was the abdication of the new antipope, the result of his personal
influence. The schism of the church was healed, and the abbot of Clairvaux was
free to return to the peace of his monastery.
Clairvaux itself had meanwhile (1135--1136) been transformed outwardly-- in spite
of the reluctance of Bernard, who preferred the rough simplicity of the original
buildings-- into a more suitable seat for an influence that overshadowed that of
Rome itself. How great this influence was is shown by the outcome of Bernard's
contest with Peter Abelard. In intellectual and dialectical power the abbot was
no match for the great schoolman; yet at Sens in 1141 Abelard feared to face
him, and when he appealed to Rome Bernard's word was enough to secure his
condemnation.
One result of Bernard's fame was the marvelous growth of the Cistercian order.
Between 1130 and 1145 no less than ninety three monasteries in connexion with
Clairvaux were either founded or affiliated from other rules, three being
established in England and one in Ireland. In 1145 a Cistercian monk, once a
member of the community of Clairvaux-- another Bernard, abbot of Aquae Silviae
near Rome, was elected pope as Pope Eugenius III. This was a triumph for
the order; to the world it was a triumph for
Bernard, who complained that all who had suits to press at Rome applied to him,
as though he himself had mounted the chair of St Peter (Eli. 239).
Having healed the schism within the church, Bernard was next called upon to
attack the enemy without. Languedoc especially had become a hotbed of heresy,
and at this time the preaching of Henry of Lausanne was drawing thousands
from the orthodox faith. In June 1145, at the invitation of Cardinal Alberic of
Ostia, Bernard traveled in the south, and by his preaching did something to
stem the flood of heresy for a while.
Far more important, however, was his
activity in the following year, when, in obedience to the pope's command, he
preached to promote the Second Crusade. The effect of his eloquence was
extraordinary. At the great
meeting at Vezelay, on March 21, as the result of his sermon, King
Louis VII of France and his queen, Eleanor of traveledtook the cross, together
with a host of all classes, so numerous that the stock of crosses was soon
exhausted.
Bernard next travelled through northern France, Flanders and the
Rhine provinces, everywhere rousing the wildest enthusiasm; and at Spires on
Christmas day he succeeded in persuading Conrad, king of the Romans, to join the
crusade.
The lamentable outcome of the movement (see Crusades) was a hard blow to
Bernard, who found it difficult to understand this manifestation of the hidden
counsels of God, but ascribed it to the sins of the crusaders (Ep. 288;
de Consid. ii. I). The news of the disasters to the crusading host first reached
Bernard at Clairvaux, where Pope Eugenius, driven from Rome by the revolution
associated with the name of Arnold of Brescia, was his guest.
Bernard had in
March and April 1148 accompanied the pope to the council of Reims, where he led
the attack on
certain propositions of the scholastic theologian Gilbert de la Porrée.
From whatever cause--whether the growing jealousy of the cardinals, or the loss
of prestige owing to the rumored failure of the crusade, the success of which
he had so confidently predicted--Bernard's influence, hitherto so ruinous to
those suspected of heterodoxy, on this occasion failed of its full effect.
On the news of the full extent of the disaster that had overtaken the crusaders, an
effort was made to retrieve it by organizing another expedition. At the
invitation of Suger, abbot of St Denis, now the virtual ruler of France, Bernard
attended the meeting of Chartres convened for this purpose, where he himself was
elected to conduct the new crusade, the choice being confirmed by the pope. He
was saved from this task, for which he was physically and constitutionally
unfit, by the intervention of the Cistercian abbots, who forbade him to
undertake it.
Bernard was now aging, broken by his austerities and by ceaseless work, and
saddened by the loss of several of his early friends. But his intellectual
energy remained undimmed. He continued to take an active interest in
ecclesiastical affairs, and his last work, the De Consideratione, shows no sign
of failing power. He died on August 20 1153.
The greatness of St Bernard lay not in the qualities of his intellect, but of
his character.
The age recognized in him the embodiment of its ideal:
that of medieval monasticism at its highest development. The world had no
meaning for him save as a place of banishment and trial, in which men are but
"strangers and pilgrims" (Serm. i., Epiph. n. I; Serm. vii., Lent. n. I); the way
of grace, back to the lost inheritance, had been marked out once for all, and
the function of theology was but to maintain the landmarks inherited from the
past. With the subtleties of the schools he had no sympathy, and the
dialectics of the schoolmen quavered into silence before his terrible invective.
Yet, within the limits of his mental horizon, Bernard's vision was clear enough.
His very life proves with what merciless logic he followed out the principles of
the Christian faith as he conceived it; and it is impossible to say that he
conceived it amiss. For all his overmastering zeal he was by nature neither a
bigot nor a persecutor. Even when he was preaching the crusade he interfered at
Mainz to stop the persecution of the Jews, stirred up by the monk Radulf. As for
heretics, "the little foxes that spoil the vines," these "should be taken, not
by force of arms, but by force of argument," though, if any heretic refused to
be thus taken, he considered "that he should be driven away, or even a restraint
put upon his liberty, rather than that he should be allowed to spoil the vines"
(Serm. lxiv). He was evidently troubled by the mob violence which made the
heretics "martyrs to their unbelief." He approved the zeal of the people, but
could not advise the imitation of their action, "because faith is to be produced
by persuasion, not imposed by force"; adding, however, in the true spirit of
his age and of his church, "it would without doubt be better that they should be
coerced by the sword than that they should be allowed to draw away many other
persons into their error." Finally, oblivious of the precedent of the Pharisees,
he ascribes the steadfastness of these "dogs" in facing death to the power of
the devil (Serm. lxvi. on Canticles ii. 15).
This is Bernard at his worst. At his best-- and, fortunately, this is what is
mainly characteristic of the man and his writings-- he displays a nobility of
nature, a wise charity and tenderness in his dealings with others, and a genuine
humility, with no touch of servility, that make him one of the most complete
exponents of the Christian life. His broadly Christian character is, indeed,
witnessed to by the enduring quality of his influence. The author of the
Imitatio drew inspiration from his writings; the reformers saw in him a medieval
champion of their favourite doctrine of the supremacy of the divine grace.
His works, down to the present day, have been reprinted in countless editions. This
is perhaps due to the fact that the chief fountain of his own
inspiration was the Bible. He was saturated in its language and in its spirit;
and though he read it, as might be expected, uncritically, and interpreted its
plain meanings allegorically-- as the fashion of the day was--it saved him from
the grosser aberrations of medieval Catholicism. He accepted the teaching of the
church as to the reverence due to our Lady and the saints, and on feast-days and
festivals these receive their due meed in his sermons; but in his letters and
sermons their names are at other times seldom invoked. They were overshadowed
completely in his mind by his idea of the grace of God and the moral splendor
of Christ; "from Him do the Saints derive the odour of sanctity; from Him also
do they shine as lights " (Ep. 464).
The cause of Bernard's extraordinary popular success as a preacher can only
imperfectly be judged by the sermons that survive. These were all delivered in
Latin, evidently to congregations more or less on his own intellectual level.
Like his letters, they are full of quotations from and reference to the Bible,
and they have all the qualities likely to appeal to men of culture at all times.
"Bernard," wrote Erasmus of Rotterdam in his Art of Preaching,
"is an eloquent preacher,
much more by nature than by art; he is full of charm and vivacity and knows how
to reach and move the affections." The same is true of the letters and to an
even more striking degree. They are written on a large variety of subjects,
great and small, to people of the most diverse stations and types; and they help
us to understand the adaptable nature of the man, which enabled him to appeal as
successfully to the unlearned as to the learned.
Bernard's works fall into three categories:
(1) Letters, of which over five
hundred have been preserved, of great interest and value for the history of the
period.
(2) Treatises:
(a) dogmatic and polemical, De gratia et libero arbitrio,
written about 1127, and following closely the lines laid down by St Augustine of Hippo;
De baptismo aliisque quaestioni bus ad mag. Ilugonem de S. Victore;
Contra quaedarn capitala errorum Abaelardi ad Innocentem II (in justification of the
action of the synod of Sens);
(b) ascetic and mystical,
De gradibus humilitatis ci superbiae, his first work, written perhaps about 1121;
De diligendo Deo
(about 1126); De conversione ad clericos, an address to candidates for the
priesthood; De Consideratione, Bernard's last work, written about 1148 at the
pope's request for the edification and guidance of Eugenius III;
(c) about
monasticism, Apologia ad Guilelmum, written about 1127 to William, abbot of St
Thierry; De laude novae militiae ad milites templi (c. 1132--1136);
De precepto et dispensatione, an answer to various questions on monastic conduct
and discipline addressed to him by the monks of St Peter at Chartres (some time
before 1143);
(d) on ecclesiastical government,
De moribus et officio episcoporum, written about 1126 for Henry, bishop of Sens; the
De Consideratione mentioned above;
(e) a biography, De vita et rebus gestis S. Maiachiae, Hiberniae episcopi,
written at the request of the Irish abbot Congan
and with the aid of materials supplied by him; it is of importance for the
ecclesiastical history of Ireland in the 12th century;
(f) sermons--divided into
Sermones de tempore; de sanctis; de diversis; and eighty-six sermons, in
Cantica Canticorum, an allegorical and mystical exposition of the Song of
Solomon;
(g) hymns. Many hymns ascribed to Bernard survive, e.g.
Jesu dulcis memoria, Jesus rex admirabilis, Jesu decus angelicum,
Salve Ca put cruentatum.
Of these the three first are included in the Roman breviary. Many have been
translated and are used in Protestant churches.
St Bernard's works were first published in anything like a complete edition at
Paris in 1508, under the title Seraphica melliflui devotique doctoris S. Bernardi scripia, edited by André Bocard; the first really critical and complete edition is that of Dom J. Mabillon Sancti Bernardi opp. &~c. (Paris, 1667, improved and enlarged in 1690, and again, by Massuet and Texier, in 1719), reprinted by JP Migne, Patrolog. lat. (Paris, 1859). There is an English translation of Mabillon's edition, including, however, only the letters and the sermons on the Song of Songs, with the biographical and other prefaces, by Samuel J. Eales (4 vols., London, 1889--1895).
initial text from 1911 Encyclopaedia BritannicaBernard and the Crusades
Life
Character
Works