ON SAINT HUGH,
ABBOT OF CLUNY IN GAUL.
YEAR 1109.
PREFATORY COMMENTARY.
Hugh, Abbot of Cluny in Gaul (St.)
By D. P.
§1 His predecessors, age, disciples, memorable friends.
We described the first seat of the Cluniac Order and its cradle, and the head of all the monasteries of the same institute, on January 13 in the Life of Blessed Berno. He was the first of the Abbots of Cluny, and before he founded Cluny, at Gigny and the monastery of Balmes, under whose founder Saint Euticius he had spent his novitiate of monastic life, Hugh the sixth of the Abbots of Cluny, he was a most holy Archimandrite. Him, after he had died in the year of the Lord 926, Saint Odo succeeded, a noble Frank, who from being a Canon of Saint Martin of Tours became a monk and first Abbot of Tulle. Whom Aymard succeeded, called by other variant names among writers Eymardus, Ademarus, and Ademardus, a distinguished cultivator of holy simplicity and innocence, unfortunate in this, that in the year 954 he lost the faculty of seeing; wherefore of his own accord renouncing his dignity, he yielded it to Saint Majolus; who, born in a very noble place in Provence Valence, was first Archdeacon of the Church of Mâcon, and finally exchanged life with death in the year of the Lord 994. After his death Saint Odilo, called "de Mercoeur," succeeded, son of Berald I surnamed the Great, Lord of Mercoeur in Auvergne, and of Gerberga. After whose happy passage to the heavens, which fell in the year 1049, Saint Hugh, of whom we here treat, began to sit at the helm of the Abbey of Cluny: concerning whom the Bibliotheca Cluniacensis collects not a few testimonies of illustrious men; from which, that we may sip a few, let the first be of the author of the Life of Saint Arnulph Bishop of Soissons in this manner: Praised by the testimonies of illustrious men in the Bibliotheca Cluniacensis. "He was most chaste in body and mind, continually intent and devoted to alms and prayer: most insistent guardian and promoter of monastic discipline, perpetual nourisher of perfected monks and persons fitted for the ecclesiastical life, wonderfully fervent procurer and propagator of the holy Church." But this from Sigebert of Gembloux in the year 1087: "Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, is held remarkable for piety, distinguished for discretion, famous for holiness and religion." The curious reader will find more similar things there, lest we repeat all: we add however the eulogy which the Chronology of the Abbots of Cluny offers us: "He was conspicuous not only for the nobility of flesh but also of mind, and beyond what can be believed, by his faith and industry everywhere enlarged that place (understand Cluny) above all his predecessors in buildings, ornaments, possessions, monasteries, cells. Who since he was fitly adorned with the exercises of all virtues, with the hand of providence he more strictly restrained the Order of monastic religion which was flowing too loosely, and established that double Masses, one for the departed Brothers, the other for the living, should be sung daily in the two oratories built by him. In alms indeed, above all men of our time, he was always so intent, that the sentence of that ecclesiastical word is judged worthy to apply to him, which says: 'The whole Church of the Saints shall declare his alms.' Ecclus. 31:11 This man, given to us by God, was permitted to live long for the progress of this place; and instructing by words and examples alike the flock entrusted to him, he multiplied it manifoldly; and finally, worn out by old age, on the third of the Kalends of May in Paschal week, he rested with a holy end." Thus far from there.
[2] The year of Saint Hugh's birth must be defined from the year of his death and the age which he had then reached, born in 1024, died in 1109, for he died, as the writers of his Life hand down, in the 85th year of his age, on the eighth day after Saint Anselm migrated from life, whom since we have shown on April 21 to have died about Easter of the year 1109, it is necessary that Saint Hugh's birth fell in the year of Christ 1024. We say, therefore, that Saint Hugh was born in the year of Christ 1024. In the year 1039, of his age 15, having embraced among the Cluniacs the institute of Saint Benedict, under Saint Odilo then Abbot, he entered the monastic life: ten years later, namely in his 25th year, and in the year of Christ 1049, upon the death of the same, he was announced successor to the Abbatial infulae, and in that office he laid up the rest of his life, namely sixty years, with eight days and two months added, as is written at the end of the second life: a long time of holy dignity, and to many whom he imbued with the precepts of religious life, most healthful. For from his school there came forth Bishops, Cardinals, his disciples Morandus, Pontiffs, and men remarkable for the holiness of their life in sacred veneration. For the Cluniacs owe to him Blessed Morand and Saint Ulric, inserted into the choirs of the heavenly ones; of whom the former is venerated among them on June 3, the latter on July 10, admitted by Saint Hugh himself to the monastic habit, along with Gerald later made Bishop of Ostia: concerning whom the Chronicle of Cluny has the following: "That Gerald was Scholasticus of the city of Regensburg, Gerald,
and at Saint Ulric's request went to the city of Rome with the aforesaid Ulric: and having obtained absolution of their sins, as explorers of the virtues they came to Saint Hugh, and under him received the second regeneration in the monastery of Cluny. This Gerald himself was remarkable, conspicuously prevailing in wisdom, counsel, and gravity of character; not many years after he was made Grand Prior, and afterwards, at the command of the Pontiff of the Apostolic See, namely Gregory VII, he was elevated to the Pontificate of the Church of Ostia. The care of which See he ruled with the greatest solicitude; and bringing back to his Lord the talent of the negotiation entrusted to him with doubled interest, he merited to hear: 'Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord.' Saint Ulric too, Ulric, magnificent in divine exercises, Saint Hugh the Abbot caused to be promoted to the Priestly office, and appointed him his Chaplain and counselor: and because he knew him to be wholly composed in virtue and wisdom, he also prepared for his flock through him access to confession. Whence both the old and young came to him, laboring with various passions, opening their consciences to him so much more sincerely as they were more secure. He himself with the greatest charity received all, and after the manner of the wisest physician cured each with the fitting remedies of penance. This same Saint Ulric, begotten from the illustrious lineage of the Bannarii of the city of Regensburg, shone like Lucifer among the other stars of heaven, thus shining among the noble line of his kindred. The rest of the merits of his virtues and miracles are had in the book of his deeds; his feast or solemnity is held among us on the tenth day of the month of July." Thus concerning Gerald the Bishop and Saint Ulric. A brief Life of Blessed Morand, to be given at its time, exists in the Bibliotheca Cluniacensis col. 501 and following. and others, To these must be added also the illustrious men from the same School: Goderannus Bishop of Saintes, Duranus Archbishop of Toulouse, and Hugh Duke of Burgundy: Hugh Duke of Burgundy, of whom the last, grandson of Robert II Duke of Burgundy through his son Henry, burning with desire of a more holy life, having transferred the Dukedom to his brother Odo—namely to him who founded Cîteaux a little later—he put on the monk's habit at Cluny under Saint Hugh, and after three years of holy and severe life there, passed away in the year of Christ 1097: on whose sepulchre among the Cluniacs this epitaph is read inscribed: "Here rests a man of famous memory, great despiser of the world, Hugh Duke of Burgundy, monk of Cluny, afterwards Priest."
[3] The Pontiffs who under so great a Master acquired the virtue which raised them first to the sacred purple and then to the supreme summit of ecclesiastical dignity, Urban II, are Urban II and Gregory VII: the former, from being a Canon Regular of the Order of Saint Augustine, which he had professed in the Roman Lateran monastery, seeking a stricter institute of living, took the monk's habit in the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Cava; and thence setting out into Gaul, gave himself to be trained among the Cluniacs, first by Saint Odilo, and then by his successor Saint Hugh; by Gregory VII, with whom at Cluny, while each was still a monk, he had contracted a holy intimacy, he was honored with the Cardinal's purple; finally in the year 1088 he ascended the Pontifical Chair of Saint Peter as Rector of the universal Church. This man indeed, that is Gregory VII, Gregory VII, called Hildebrand before his Pontificate, from Prior of the Cluniac monastery, was chosen into the college of Cardinals by Nicholas II, and in the year 1073, by unanimous consent of the Fathers, was with signal profit to the Church declared Pontiff, and shone with such virtue and holiness of life, that with his name from then on inscribed in the calendar of Saints, he also obtains sacred veneration with them. Many of his letters to Saint Hugh exist in volume 26 of the Councils: for in that storm which the Emperor Henry III had stirred up by perpetual dissension against Gregory and the Church, he was a timely counselor to the Pontiff, and was set over arduous affairs to be treated for the common benefit of the Christian cause: in which how greatly the Pontiff desired his aid, and how necessary he held it, he expresses in letter 62 of book 1: "Therefore," he says, whom he asked by letter to help in grave affairs of the Church, "let your Religion know, that we who until now have borne the absence of your presence denied us with wonder, can no longer endure it without much anxiety and disturbance of mind. For you ought to remember how many and how great affairs we have placed in your hand and that of our brother Gerald Bishop of Ostia, which on account of your absence either perish neglected or cannot have a fitting end. For when we sent the aforesaid Bishop in the service of Saint Peter beyond the mountains to the King, we expected that you would come. Wherefore, though disturbed, we admonish your Dilection with innermost affection, that you take care to visit us, placed in many and great distresses, as quickly as possible," etc. Thus the Pontiff writes to him among many deep things of this kind: whose affairs, most difficult with Henry already mentioned, he so handled, and he reconciles him with Emperor Henry IV: that he freed the Pontiff for a time from the dangerous storm; and having loosed Henry from the bond of anathema by which he was held, he made him a friend of the Church.
[4] A close intimacy existed for him with Blessed Peter Damian, some of whose letters sent to him the Bibliotheca Cluniacensis collects. Moreover, Saint Peter Damian was at Cluny, with Saint Peter Damian, and there by Saint Hugh's report he learned those terrible examples which are referred to in letter 15 of book 2; and at the same man's urging he wrote the Life of Blessed Odilo; for thus Damian speaks in its prologue: "Hugh, rector of the Cluniac monastery and leader and chief instructor of the spiritual army, laid upon me this labor, that I should briefly compose in my own style the Life of Blessed Odilo, namely his predecessor; that from those things, which in the earlier pages were found to be more widely diffused, I should cull in a short compendium whatever was more useful and more necessary. Compelled by whose command, I shall not pursue the elegance of luculent eloquence, and he cultivated friendship with Desiderius Abbot of Monte Cassino: but as I shall be able to grasp from the records offered, with the help of Almighty God, I shall try to serve pure truth." Saint Hugh also familiarly used the friendship of Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino, afterwards Supreme Pontiff and called Victor III: for having set out for Monte Cassino about the year 1083, he established with him a communion of merits between his own and the Monte Cassino monks, which in book 3 of the Chronicle of Monte Cassino chapter 50 Leo Ostiensis relates thus: "In these times the venerable Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, a man of celebrated life and fame, came devoutly to the thresholds of Father Benedict. Whom the venerable Desiderius, as befitted so great a man, receiving with great honor, and joining the Society of the Cluniac Brothers to our Congregation, having entered into a pact, these singular men decreed that the memory of our congregation should be perpetually held among them, and of theirs among us."
[5] with Araldus of Chartres. What shall I now say of the Bishops of Gaul, bound to the Cluniac monastery through Saint Hugh? Volume 6 of d'Achery's Spicilegium in the Miscellanies of epistles presents two to us, Araldus and Isembardus, through whom the discipline and to some extent the endowment of the Church of Cluny was signally commended. "Araldus, Bishop of the Church of Chartres, and the canonical Fraternity of the same Church, inspired divinely by the desire of having the fraternity of the same monastery, by the good fame of the virtues of the Cluniac monastery, as of a flowering garden filled with the most delightful odor of lilies and roses, grant a certain prebend to the Brothers of the aforesaid monastery for perpetual use": as is had in number 23; then in number 24: "Isembardus, by the grace of God Bishop of Orléans, and the whole Congregation of the Holy Cross... asked by Hugh the venerable Abbot of Cluny and the most holy Congregation entrusted to him, and Isembardus of Orléans and their Chapters, that on account of the previous love and society which they had mutually entered, they would grant the prebend of a certain canon to the church of Saint Peter and the Brothers serving there, to be held in perpetuity, they assented with this condition, that they too should receive us," says the Bishop in his instrument, "into their fellowship, and should make each of our Canons as one of the monks, He enters into a Society. and give us a share of their prayers and alms and other benefactions; and that the obit and anniversary day of the death of each of our Canons, as of one of their cloistered monks, should be commended with prayers, alms, and other solemnities: but if it should please any of the Canons to become a monk, if he wished or was able to give nothing, they should receive him freely: but our anniversary, that is of the Bishop, they should perform as of their Abbot, and of my successors every year: but we, on our part, would do the same for the Abbots and monks of that church, as for our own Bishops and Canons, both living and dead."
§ II The singular regard of the Emperors and Kings toward Saint Hugh.
[6] He is invited by Emperor Henry II to his son's baptism: Hugh was also greatly dear to the Princes of the age. Among these, first to be named for dignity is Henry, Emperor second of this name, King of the Germans the third; to whom, when he himself in the year 1051 had by letter congratulated him on his restored health and the son granted him divinely by adoption; the Emperor, writing again to him, thus concludes his letter: "But that you excused yourself from being able to come, on account of the length of the journey, as we had commanded, although we would have gladly received your coming, we forgive on this condition: that at Easter you come to us at Cologne, if it is possible to happen; namely, if we dare to say so, that you may receive from the sacred font the same boy, about whom you have so rejoiced, and with the gift of your benediction sign him as a spiritual father: and thus together, purified from the leaven of sins, we may merit to enjoy the unleavened bread of heavenly glory in the Paschal solemnity." So it was done in the following year, and by his paternal name the boy was called Henry, afterwards Emperor of the third of this name, King the fourth; whose mother, the widow of his deceased father, wrote in the year 1056 an epistle to "the dearest Father and Abbot Hugh worthy of every acceptance," which is number 14 in the Miscellanies of d'Achery's Spicilegium 2 (where the preceding also and others to be soon cited are referred), to this effect: "Since my harp is turned to mourning; instead of joy, groaning; and instead of the exultation which your letters had made, she is asked by his widow to have her son commended, I return lamentable complaint. Yet my heart, fearful with grief, shrinks from reporting all. Wherefore, and because swift rumor of evils, as is its wont, has announced my grief to you, I pray that you commend to God my Lord, whom you were unwilling longer to preserve in the flesh, at least by praying with your convent for the deceased: and obtain that your son may long be his heir and worthy of God: and strive also to quiet by counsel, troubles, if any should arise against him in your neighboring regions of his kingdom. Farewell, Father."
[7] from Henry III, deposed, Hugh did not fail in his parts: but Henry III, gradually depraved by the flattering suggestions of his worst counselors, violating the liberty and rights of the Church by manifest contumacy and disobedience, finally merited to be excommunicated by Pope Gregory VII; in the assembly of the Princes at Augsburg he was to be deprived of the Empire, unless within a year he had been restored to the Church's grace. Then seeing himself placed in a strait, he began to look to Hugh, whose counsels and paternal admonitions he had perhaps neglected to hear; and having set out into Italy for the cause
of seeking absolution, with him interceding and pledging on his behalf, he obtained grace in the year 1077. But shortly he returned to his old ways, or rather the simulator threw off the mask of penance; having also progressed so far, that with an Antipope created he stirred up a most pernicious schism, to the ruin of many souls and to the utmost confusion of the whole Empire. But he who attempted to cast out the common Father of all the faithful from the See of Peter, was himself cast down from the empire by his own son Henry IV in the year 1105. Then, lacking counsel, as a spiritual father he receives suppliant letters, bearing "to the dearest and most beloved Father Hugh and to all the holy Brothers of the Cluniac monastery, the sweet affection of a son and the devout obedience of a brother, nay of a servant," he wrote an epistle which in the said Miscellanies is number ten, with this beginning: "Because we have always kindly experienced your piety and paternal solicitude toward us, so that we believe ourselves to have been often freed from many dangers by your holy prayers; therefore, dearest Father, we have recourse to you after God, as to the sole refuge of our need; and we humbly beseech that we may find at least with you, some solace for our miseries. And would that it might happen to us to see your angelic face in body, that prostrate at your knees, we might familiarly lay our head, which you received from the saving font, on the bosom of your holiness; and there, weeping our sins, relate in order the multitude of our tribulations." He commits himself once to his arbitration After he had done this in this letter diffusely and lamentably, he thus concludes: "But now it is time to put an end to so long a tragedy of our miseries: which, therefore, we have taken care to lament to your piety, most loving Father, because in God and in you is our great and singular hope of counsel and help, of our salvation and liberty. Whence with all affection and desire of mind, we commit our whole counsel to your faith: and whatever about our reconciliation with the Apostolic, whatever about the peace and unity of the holy Roman Church, saving our honor, you shall decree must be done, all we promise without doubt to God and to you that we shall do. Hasten then, dearest Father, to take counsel for us; and let it not weary you, we beseech, if not for the liberation of a son, because we have sinned in heaven and before you, at least to labor for the salvation of your hireling."
[8] Not content with these directed through the Cluniac monks, again he added others, to be read subsequently in the same place, and committing again, through other messengers, whatever, although a sinner yet a spiritual son, he could more devoutly and humbly, praying for his most longed-for and beloved Father; by which he again begged for the sanctity of his paternity, as a publican, the refuge of his sins; and as a shipwrecked man, the port of salvation, with most longing devotion, and professed that he placed the whole cause in his counsel and that of other religious men whom he might wish to have for this purpose, promising to do whatever he might dispose. Finally, in a third letter, wishing to testify to the hope of obtaining divine mercy, by the example of the Israelite people, who, sinning, was punished by the Lord, and repenting, was judged worthy of pardon; "It is a long time," he says, "that you have not visited your sick one, as you were wont; and that you have not cured your contrite one with the fomentations of exhortations and consolations." Afterwards, through his own prayers and those of the Cluniac Brothers, he desires to be commended to God, that "He," he says, "who prevented us with the mercy of good will, may deign to direct our works to a fruitful effect"; those, indeed, of which in the same epistle he had thus promised: and promising complete amendment: "We make known to your Serenity, that for the repair of the churches, which in our times, through our sins, alas! have fallen, in all ways, as God has given strength, we wish to labor; and to accede henceforth to the sound counsels of all good men; if in any way we may be able to gather together what is scattered, and to join together in the glue of unity what yawns by the wedge of schism; and to repay the ruin of the Church, which has been made through us, by the restoration of peace and justice. Moreover we signify to you, that if with God favoring us, we shall be able to gather Kingdom and Priesthood into one, after the peace is confirmed we purpose to go to Jerusalem; and to see the holy land, in which our Lord was seen in the flesh and conversed with men, we very much desire, with Him favoring us; that there we may more expressly adore Him, where we have known Him to have suffered for us the blows, spittings, scourges, the cross, death, burial." Thus he, which, as Baronius notes, and other things, could insinuate the mind of a most pious man: but that he was so composed, that when he was pressed down, then slyly he would put on the mask of piety for deceiving; which presently he would lay aside, when he had accomplished what he had attempted; by right and deservedly those whom he called holy patrons, he experienced as avengers, punished with sudden death in the year 1106, the fourth of the Ides of August.
[9] consulted by Philip King of France, It is credible that the repentance of Philip I King of France was more sincere: who, after an incestuous concubinage of ten years, was finally absolved at Paris in the year 1104, not from fear of losing his earthly Empire, but from desire of more certainly obtaining the heavenly, did not disdain to incline himself to this, that "for the time remaining, with us," says Saint Hugh (writing back to him in letter 8 of the aforementioned Miscellanies), "he professed to wish to live with one mind and in concord … And since," continues the same Hugh, "God has opened to us the gate of sweet familiarity, for addressing you about Himself; now for the first time we open to you, what not now for the first time we have begun to think and wish concerning you, that from now on you may have more propitious affection and greater intention toward the good. Toward the true, I say, good: toward the highest good, which is God. O great friend, remember that you once asked me whether any of the Kings had ever been made a monk. I answered, Yes. But if we were certain of no other, the example of Saint Guntran King of the Franks alone would suffice, who leaving behind the pomps and vanities and enticements of the world, was made a monk … He persuades him to the monastic profession, Let it also move and terrify you, the lamentable fall and the lamentable end of your contemporaries and neighbors, William I say King of the English and Henry the Emperor: of whom the one, by the blow of a single arrow, not in war but in a wood, perished in a moment of time; the other, among many anxieties and heavy hardships, which he had long endured, recently, as we believe you have heard, departed." Which we believe was written in the very year in which Henry died. Now King William (as on April 21 in the Life of Saint Anselm is more fully described in book 2 of Eadmer's history number 43) had died in the year 1100, in the month of October. Of the last days of Saint Guntran we have a few particulars from Fredegar, given on March 28, in which although there is no mention of his being a monk, we still believe it sufficiently probable that if in the monastery of Saint Marcellus, in which he is buried and venerated, he also lived for some time and died, at least he died in the monastic habit; as with the monks of Prüm the Emperor Lothar; with this difference however, that this last is known to have yielded up his Empire and Kingdom by public renunciation; of Guntran no such thing is read. However it may be, Hugh uses such an example, in the monastery of Cluny. and having exhorted the King to true penance and perfect conversion, which can be apprehended neither by an easier nor a more certain way than the monastic profession; he thus at last concludes: "Behold the Princes of the Apostles, judges of Emperors and Kings and of the world, are prepared to receive you into their house of Cluny, which our fathers named the asylum of penance. And we are ready to have you as a King, to treat you as a King, to serve you as a King, and for you to beseech the King of kings more devoutly; that for His own sake He may restore you from a King to a monk, and from a monk to a King by Himself; now no longer ruling in a very brief and tiny corner of earth for a short time, but in the widest and most happy expanse of heaven, reigning with Him without end."
[10] Moreover, these pious and holy thoughts of King Philip, as is wont to happen to men hardened among many and great vices, especially carnal, were either too late or little effective: and the King himself, before he spontaneously laid down his earthly kingdom, was taken from the earth in the year 1108; but what living he could not or neglected to do, dead he in some measure wished to obtain, in his final will commanding that he be buried in the Fleury monastery of the Benedictine Order. Alphonsus King of Spain. The will of Alphonsus King of the Spains, sixth of this name, was more apt to a royal infirmity, and so more efficacious. This man, long a captive with his brother Sancius, reckoned that he owed his life, liberty, kingdom to the prayers of Blessed Hugh and the Cluniac monks; therefore around the year 1070 he sent to him this Letter, which appears as number 19 in the Miscellanies of the Spicilegium of d'Achery VI: by which he "to Hugh, venerable and most excellent Abbot of the Cluniacs, bright with the flowers of virtues, supported by the fuel of virtues, and mellifluous elder of all sweetness, ... and also to the whole most noble Congregation of Peter and Paul, he himself Alfonso, by the grace of God King of the Spains, with every devotion of mind and body ... prays for the guardianship of true charity, the joys of eternal life, and perpetual prosperity and salvation, and whatever is higher, from his innermost heart, with embraceable love, in the Lord Jesus Christ." He gives thanks for Brother Robert sent to him, Then he speaks thus: "With what devotion I love you, most glorious Father, you yourself know better, as I reckon, than any doctor can write on paper: He nevertheless knows and Robert, whom I hold above all monks more excellent and dearer, and your most faithful Confrere from the innermost heart, knowing how your love has become to me as fire, burning all day and night in my heart. Whence if you had given me all things which you can have in the world, I think nothing to be in comparison with that good, that on my account you have sent to our parts a little portion of your flock, which you have fostered with spiritual hand. Wherefore, by the grace of the Lord illuminating you, I, servant of the servants of God, wholly subject to your piety, more and more beseech your paternity, that you persevere in the good which you have begun; that you may deign to send some domestics of your most holy Religion, to fill that place of ours and yours, which you have begun to water with your most holy fount, with your sweetness, while I am moved in this frail body. For this know, most holy Father, that the tribute which my father was wont to give to that most holy place of Cluny, I, with God's favor, in the days of my life shall double ..." who beneficent toward Cluny above all, He then indicates that he had also provided by his testament that the same should be done by his royal successors; Robert, who would be with him in life and death, he humbly entreats to be left in his kingdom; and for establishing there the use of the Roman Office, taken up at Hugh's persuasion, he asks that Lord Gerald the Cardinal be obtained for him from the Pope.
[11] Hugh, about to respond worthily and gratefully to such affection and to the many and great other benefits following it, the constitution
issued, Hugh establishes a sharing of merits, "To all the Brothers in the Cluniac monastery, both present and future," thus decreeing:
"Be it known that concerning Lord Alphonsus King of the Spains, our faithful friend, who has done and still unceasingly does for us such great and remarkable benefits, that we cannot compare to him any of the Kings or Princes, whether of past or modern times; namely, that in all the good things which, by the Lord's bounty, shall be done in our place or in others subject to our jurisdiction, he shall have special participation, both in life and after death. Moreover we have given him in his lifetime one Psalm, that is, 'May the Lord hear thee,' to be sung at the third Hour without intermission; and at High Mass one Collect, that is, 'We beseech Thee, Almighty God,' in like manner as long as he shall live. We have also decreed that on the day of the Lord's Supper thirty poor men shall be placed for him at the Mandatum, and on the holy day of Easter a hundred poor no less shall be refreshed for him by the Chamberlain. And above all these things we have decreed, that he shall have a daily prebend in the refectory at the high table, prayers, masses and alms, as if he were sitting to feast with us, which is always to be given to one of Christ's poor for the salvation of his soul, both in life and in death. And wishing to add to this good measure, pressed together and shaken up, an overflow, we have given him in the new church of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, which he himself seems to have built from his own resources, one of the principal altars, so that the divine mysteries celebrated there may avail to his salvation: and when he shall have completed the course of this temporal life with its due end, besides the Offices, Masses, and alms to be performed for him both living and dead, which must be done for him, for one year at the aforesaid altar a Mass shall specially be sung for him." I omit what on his anniversary day, just as for Lord Henry the August Emperor, namely the second, he prescribes to be done, wishing in all things his most devoted Queen wife to be made a partaker, and her anniversary to be performed as that of the Empress Agnes. The particulars can be read in the Miscellanies of the said Spicilegium number 20; for these are enough to know Hugh's gratitude toward his benefactors.
[12] I pass to the Princes of the second order, among whom Theobald, he receives the son of Count Theobald from the baptismal font: "by the grace of God Count of the Franks, and his wife Adelaide … moved by faith and devotion to the holiness and religion which, by divine grace favoring, was held to be more outstanding and more celebrated in the College of Cluny, determined to send their son Odo, to be renewed by the sacred mysteries of regeneration, to Hugh the venerable Abbot and to his convent; judging, by the clemency of heaven arranging, that it would not be in vain for themselves, to have had more religious than richer parents in Christ: for whose more propitious effect of grace and defense and more efficacious progress … they concede and give to the Cluniac monastery a certain estate which is called Cossiacus." The full document is had in the already cited Miscellanies number 22, and the donations of Hugh Duke of Burgundy, and shortly in number 25 follows the Donation of the church in the castle of Avalon, made by Hugh Duke of Burgundy to the Cluniac monastery, where "Lord Hugh the Abbot seems both to preside and to be of service," in the year of Christ 1077, "for the imitation of many of the powerful and wealthy of this age, who, taught by divine preaching, transferred the means given them by the Lord to better uses, disinheriting themselves in this world, that they might become heirs of the heavenly kingdom." and of Guy the monk, formerly Count of Mâcon. Soon in the year 1078 "Guy, once Count of Mâcon, weighing how useless is every honor of this age, nay how harmful and seductive unto eternal damnation, with the mercy of Christ visiting and inspiring him, for His love wholly renounced the world in the Cluniac monastery, that there subject to regular discipline, he might do penance for his sins"; and he gave besides many estates, which the instrument enumerates to be read in the oft-mentioned Miscellanies of the Spicilegium 6 number 26. And these suffice for the sake of a specimen, for to collect more is not of our purpose.
§ III Foundation of Marcigny, veneration of Saint Hugh, writers of the Life.
[13] He founds the monastery of Marcigny for women, The care of Saint Hugh was not only to preserve monasteries founded elsewhere in the vigor of temporal and sacred affairs, but also to found new ones in addition for women. Among these is Marcigny, situated not far from the town of Semur and the river Loire, in the Bishopric of Autun: of whose foundation this fragment of records survives in the Cluniac Library:
"In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Be it known to all our Brothers and to all the sons of the holy Church of God, that I Brother Hugh, Cluniac Abbot, with divine aid going before and cooperating, with our brother Lord Gaufrid of Semur reconciling and helping, have founded and built up this place of Marcigny, small enough at first, and as it were a certain asylum from the ground, in our times. For it has seemed good to us that, just as through the founding of our holy Fathers sinful men had Cluny, if they wished to renounce the world and its pomps; so also for sinful women, fleeing from the snares of the world to this place, and groaning from the heart for what they had committed, the divine clemency should not close the entrance of the heavenly kingdom," etc. "But let a graver danger of eternal death threaten those, who would not blush to vex or attack this house of the handmaids of God and the Most Blessed Virgin," etc. Saint Peter the Venerable pours himself forth at length in the praises of this monastery and of the religious life of those professing in it in book 1 of Miracles, and says that when the said monastery, suddenly seized by a chance fire, was already admitting the flame into its inmost chambers, and Hugh Archbishop of Lyon was inviting the enclosed nuns to exit, which, the nuns refusing to exit, a certain one of their number, called Gisela, responded to the Archbishop: "Us, Father, the fear of God and the precept of our Abbot, that we might escape eternal fire, has enclosed within these bounds which you see until death: whence by no means can it come about, that by any necessity we should transgress the limits of penance set for us, even by a step of our foot, unless by him, who in the name of the Lord enclosed us in this place, we are released." From that point indeed the Archbishop was lifted up to such confidence in God, that with the flames forbidden to range farther, the fire being extinguished at his command, what remained of the religious house, is miraculously preserved from further fire, with the nuns enclosed even in such necessity of leaving, was preserved from the fire. That Saint Hugh sent her frequent letters full of salutary admonitions is altogether beyond doubt: in the Cluniac Library we have found only one, which is of this kind:
[14] "To the sweetest daughters and most loving sisters, stripped of the pomp of the world, and gathered at Marcigny to the honor and praise of the holy and undivided Trinity, he exhorts them by letter, under the patronage of Blessed Mary ever Virgin and of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, Brother Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, greeting, grace and blessing, now and forever. Let it not be hidden from your hearty Charity, O daughters, that from the time that we founded that place with divine clemency going before and cooperating, we have most clearly felt and experienced the propitiation and pious regard of God Almighty to be present there: who by His grace has promoted the place itself with spiritual increases, and has amplified it somewhat with temporal benefits. For when at first, as we believe, with God ordaining, we had placed a few sisters there, and they had begun to flourish with the fervor of charity and religion, and with the mortification of vices; the kind Creator and Lover of souls deigned gradually to gather there others and others from everywhere, and to establish one beautiful fold, and as it were a certain flock of white doves. Some of whom already He has brought out from the temptations of this age by a glorious end, and has happily, as we hope, raised to the joys of blessed recompense: but some, namely you who now remain, He still awaits in His mercy, until it shall please His dignation, that He may propitiously snatch you from the miserable hardship of this exile, and lead you to their happy fellowship. to progress in virtue, To you therefore, O daughters, here specially is our speech directed, through which with paternal affection we address your unanimity, beseeching in the Lord and for the Lord's sake, that thither you sigh, thither you transfer the whole intention of your mind. Whatever is seen in the world, reckon as nothing and empty and as a cloud passing by. And because you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Lord shall come to your calling; be not secure; but by day and night watchful, and solicitous about the salvation of your souls, prepare the chambers of your hearts for the embraces of your Spouse, that is of that great King, to whom you have promised fidelity, taking attentive care that He may not find in you anything that may displease His majesty. Consider therefore what you have done, reconsider what you have vowed: and if any of you is stung by her own conscience of having exceeded in anything, namely by thinking, speaking, doing, or perhaps giving or receiving undue things, or doing anything else contrary to your profession, let her return to her heart, have recourse to the fountain, humbly manifest the matter to her Prior in our stead and truly confess it, and thus, as far as human frailty permits, with God's help beware of such things hereafter. Whatever of good therefore, whatever of charity, humility, patience, obedience, holy compunction, and true confession or even bodily exercise, whether before the eyes of God alone or among yourselves, you have done, we enjoin it all to you on God's part for the remission of your sins. And now because your holy devotion asks that (since, hindered by the weight of age and the weakness of infirmity, you no longer hope to see our bodily presence) we may give you some memorial, in which you may have both your consolation and a representation of our memory; approving your desire, through this present epistle we fulfill what you ask, wishing that it be kept with you, and be recited to you on five principal feasts in Chapter. which he orders to be recited to them a few times each year henceforth, Suppliant then and prostrate in heart, I call on the Lord Almighty, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, that by the merits and prayers of Blessed Mary ever Virgin, and of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and of Saint Benedict and all the Saints, He may bless you, and absolve you from all sins whatever you have committed in soul and body; confirm you in your holy resolve, and lead you to a blessed end: where you may receive from His hand, what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love Him. And this too we ask of the clemency of the same God, that as often as this epistle shall be recited to you, He may deign to bestow upon you the fullest grace of blessing and absolution. Amen. All also, who shall love you according to the Lord and have helped you, and have supported your tenderness, may He Himself help them, and make them worthy of His grace. Amen. Now then,
I beseech, O daughters, remember me a sinner, both here and before the Lord. Amen."
[15] Saint Hugh was buried, as the Cluniac Chronicle narrates, "in the greater church, which he himself built in honor of the Apostles Peter and Paul, behind the morning altar: at last he was raised up, and now his body rests over the main altar of the said basilica." A few years after his death, namely in the time of his successor Pontius the Abbot, he was enrolled in the number of the Celestial ones by Calixtus II: He is inscribed among the Saints by Calixtus II. concerning which, Hugh the monk wrote the following in his epistle to the said Pontius: "He, namely Calixtus II, came a second time to Cluny, and there devoutly performed the feast of the Lord's Circumcision and Apparition. And while among other things he often treated of the life and miracles of Blessed Hugh, he did not attend to the documents of any people more copiously written on these matters, but gratefully accepted authentic persons presented in the midst of the Cluniac Chapter, more strongly testifying to what they had seen and heard of the Saint. With the Bishops and Cardinals equally assenting, for the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Pope decreed that the Birthday of so great a Confessor, approved by so many and such great virtues, should be made festive." Etc. Galesinius inscribed his name in his Martyrology on July 5, mentioned in the Martyrologies on April 29, but the rest, as Grevenus, Maurolycus, Molanus, Menard, Miraeus, on April 29: on which also with these words he is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology: "At the monastery of Cluny, of Saint Hugh the Abbot." He indeed died on the fourth feria after Easter noted above, just like Saint Anselm: which feria falls on the 4th of the Kalends of May or April 28: but he died as the day was growing to evening, or as others say, at night, and therefore by the authors of the Life and in the obituaries the day noted was the 3rd of the Kalends, which the aforementioned Martyrologists have followed.
[16] The first to write the Life were Ezelo and Gilo, Cluniac monks, as Hildebert testifies, Authors of the Life, Ezelo and Gilo, who is soon to be commemorated. Whether it exists anywhere in its entirety! we do not know: we seem to have some compendium, from a manuscript of the Monastery of Bödeken of the year 1640, drawn out by Father John Gamans. For although there is not read what alone Hildebert declares in his preface to have been changed by himself: the rest, however, are conceived in such words, (an epitome is given from these) as to make clear they are drawn from those which he alone had before his eyes; adding what he saw, what he heard: also omitting certain things, for the reason set forth in the prologue: of which since a part appears in the said manuscript, we have deemed it fitting, for the greater satisfaction of the curious reader, who wishes his judgment on those omitted things to be free, to give that very epitome, not indeed in the first place, but in the third; having placed first, as more worthy, the already mentioned lucubrations of Hildebert, and of Raynald equally venerable. Then Hildebert Bishop of Le Mans. Now Hildebert (from whose style we also gave on April 2 the Life of Saint Mary of Egypt adorned with a metrical paraphrase) was, from the discipline and monastery of Saint Hugh himself, promoted to the rule of the schools of Le Mans, then made Archdeacon and then Bishop in the year 1097, and seems to have written about the year 1115, afterwards in the year 1125 elevated to the Archbishopric of Tours. We have received the Life of Saint Hugh written by him from the manuscript collectanea of our Sirmond, and compared it with those published in Surius' collection and in the Bibliotheca Cluniacensis. The other Life, which we give from the manuscript Codex of the Most Serene Christina, Queen of Sweden, and from another of our Douai College, explaining many things which the former did not touch, passing over some things said by them, was composed by Raynald already named, not a brother, Raynald the Abbot, nephew of the Saint, as the Sainte-Marthe brothers write, but (as is clear from the Venerable Peter of Cluny in book 3, Epistle 2, and by his own assertion) the nephew of Saint Hugh himself; made Abbot of Vézelay in the diocese of Autun (where formerly there had been nuns) in the year 1108; having prefaced that "if perhaps the zeal of some man of loftier talent may previously have sweated at this work" (with these words he seems to hint at Hildebert's writing, which had not come to his hands) "he thinks his work should be left to the excellence of the greater and wiser men, but his own should be attributed to the study of the lesser and less capable." But he cites no previous authors, inasmuch as treating of this argument "as I have partly seen," he says at the end, "partly by the report of probable men I have learned": and the things he had written in prose, summarizing them in verse, he thus concludes:
"These things, Father Hugh, of your Raynald, your nephew, the sayings, Receive, I beseech, in pious fashion, and protect me, Father."
And since both some other things, and the time of his death and rule, are here more expressly confirmed, and the matter is brief, and does not exist anywhere else: we have chosen also to add this from the same manuscript of the Queen. Moreover Raynald himself in the year 1128 was made Archbishop of Lyon; and living one year in that dignity, he was buried at Cluny under this epitaph: "Here rests Raynald, formerly Abbot and restorer of Vézelay, and afterwards Archbishop of Lyon."
[17] Also Hugh, a Cluniac monk, after the Saint's death received to the Order by Pontius his successor, Hugh the monk, first to this his Abbot after the year 1120 wrote an epistle, in which he inserted many things about Saint Hugh, to be given from the Bibliotheca Cluniacensis, in the first place among the Analecta, in which also he treats of the Canonization of Saint Hugh performed at Cluny by Pope Calixtus II; supplementing certain things omitted by others. With which the Cluniacs not being content, compelled him to write a full Life: which itself also on account of the antiquity of the writer deserved to be given, were it not enough that it exists in the Bibliotheca Cluniacensis, and from this in the latest edition of Surius. And so we shall use it only to illustrate the first Life; but the singular things there held will constitute the second chapter of the Analecta. Finally a certain Anonymous described certain more noteworthy points, a certain Anonymous, concerning the rule and holiness of Blessed Hugh, of which a part exists fully described in the aforementioned Lives, unless you prefer to believe them transferred hence to those; a part will fill the third chapter of the Analecta. The Hymn which the Venerable Peter wrote in praise of Saint Hugh, and the Venerable Peter. after Pontius Abbot of Cluny, exists among his works in the aforementioned Bibliotheca col. 135, written in the manner of a Sequence, and containing a summary of the Life: you will also see testimonies of the ancients about the same Saint collected col. 468 and following; which it did not seem worth the trouble to transcribe here.
LIFE
By Hildebert Bishop of Le Mans.
Hugh, Abbot of Cluny in Gaul (St.)
BHL Number: 4010
BY HILDEBERT FROM THE MANUSCRIPT.
PROLOGUE.
To the venerable and most Reverend Abbot a Pontius, by the grace of God, Hildebert, by profession b a Priest, by life a sinner, wishes to attain the common hope.
A fitting outcome to human actions is promised, to profess nothing beyond one's powers; which whosoever neglects to heed, either falls into vice, or wholly failing, sad and confused, hears: "This man began to build, and was not able to finish." I have feared to fall into neither of these, when, compelled by the authority of your petition, I have undertaken in whatever style to commend to memory the life of Blessed Hugh. To this labor, although I have felt my talent unequal, I have nevertheless preferred to be found a ridiculous writer, than disobedient to you. I have hoped for a reward from obedience; but I have believed that the blush from my defect would be prevented by your correction: which I still believe, ask, pray for; ready to receive as a gift, if you remove from the eyes whatever you shall feel that tongues may dread. It is a kindly thing, and grateful to a prudent writer, correction: that indeed pleases me, but when a person corrects, not a crowd: for a fault is repressed late, when now the people insult the faulty. But from this chiefly I confess pardon must be asked, that after men of ampler learning, c I speak of Ezelo and Gilo, who are read to have vigilantly written about the most blessed Hugh; The Life was previously written by Ezelo and Gilo, I have dared to undertake to treat a matter, following whom, as from afar, I should be found to have painted a monkey for a man, and fashioned a pitcher for an amphora. Moreover, the author of this presumption is Pontius, hoping in me for a sharpness of talent, of which I myself am not conscious. Pontius' tongue moved the case, authority acted, religion pleaded. To resist Pontius is difficult; who, in obtaining, by a certain prerogative of grace, is helped even in silence. Overcome by these things, I have tried to retrace what I had already read written, not to testify anything about them as about things seen. Let no one wonder, when in the present work he shall see something added, something suppressed, something changed, which those who wrote about Hugh before me did not put in, did not keep silent, or wrote differently. I have added, I confess, but what I myself saw, but what I heard, to which I bear witness, the fidelity of the author, and my witness is true. Indeed what I have altogether suppressed, was done for this reason, lest the reading of it, which could raise calumnies, should derogate from the authority of those things, which without peril of faith could both be written and believed. But this alone, I think, has been changed: that Count Geoffrey of Anjou, and what was emended by him. surnamed d Martel, is said to have presumed against Abbot Hugh, concerning which matter, because truthful reporters were lacking to the aforesaid writers, they incurred the charge of falsehood. Whatever therefore, as was given me from above, I have written out; either let it come into your hands by your judgment, or if you decree it should be suppressed, let it altogether lie hidden. Yet it pleases me less to bring forth what is approved, than to conceal what is faulty: for it is an uglier loss, to lose a name once acquired, than not to have acquired it at all. May the Lord God preserve you, holy Father, among the sons of His adoption. You will know, however, that you repay me in kind if you love me and pray for me.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER I.
The birth of Saint Hugh, his taking of the monastic habit, the Abbatial dignity, and his virtues in it.
[1] Blessed Hugh, therefore, an Æduan by nationality a, illustrious by noble parents, His homeland and family, was yet more illustrious by the prerogative of life and the titles of virtues. When he had passed the frailty of infancy, b Dalmatius his father (a man indeed of consular rank), and his mother c named Aremburgis, bore different affections concerning the boy's education. The woman, devoted to God, judged that he should be given over to the studies of letters, because she asserted that the dignity of the Priesthood had been divinely promised to him before he was born. A presage of future holiness, For when she herself had in her womb the labors of childbirth, and was fearful of the danger, a certain religious Priest of holy reputation approached the altar of the Lord to offer the sacrifice for her: then, as he was celebrating the sacred mystery, as it were the form of a certain boy appeared in the chalice, bearing an inestimable brightness. Reported to the mother, the vision earned belief by the Priest's authority; therefore it was worthy that he who had been promised in the chalice should be dedicated to the ministry of the chalice. But the father, desiring an heir for his transitory possession, was destining the boy for the insignia of secular warfare. Whence when he had now reached his boyhood years, he is set to military exercises, he was urging him with his coeval youths to ride, to turn a horse in a circle, to brandish a spear, to carry a shield with ease, and, what he more deeply abhorred, to set upon spoils and plunder. But he, born for another profession, refused the soldier both in bodily inconvenience and in mind. Less fit for arms, untaught for rapine, already wholly drawn by both nature and grace to Christ. Hence when the aforesaid young men on a certain day took away a cow from a poor man, the recruit of Christ was vehemently grieved, no man's associate in the fault, he repairs the damage inflicted by his comrades: because no man's accomplice in rapine. He however, repaying the loss to his neighbor with an annual compensation, suppressed his complaint, repressed his poverty. Thus the servant of God makes both a kindly injury to the poor man, and the damage fruitful.
[2] Though still in his boyhood age, he showed by words and deed a mature old age. With virtues, Already then inexorably persecuting licentiousness, he took humility as the guardian of chastity. Already then a despiser of softer adornment and delicacies, amid enticements he knew no enticements. With youths he had nothing youthful except age. Great was his disagreement with robbers, wondrous was his compassion toward the afflicted. He committed the Word of God to a tenacious memory, a frequent visitor of the church, but secretly: for he feared his father, who assigned the first-fruits of virtues to leisure and idleness. At that time Hugh was the Bishop of Auxerre d, who also vigorously governed the Consulate of Chalon. On account of this man Blessed Hugh his great-nephew scarcely extorted from his father permission to set out for Chalon. And trained in letters, he takes the monk's habit at Cluny: Having tasted Grammar in this city, which opened as it were a certain door for him for his introduction to the depths of the divine Scriptures, at last the youth, his secular garments torn off, chose to be cast off in the house of his God, rather than to dwell in the tents of sinners. Therefore following that word of the Gospel: "He who does not take up his cross and follow me, is not worthy of me," with his father unaware, who set himself against him as he sighed toward his homeland, both with words and examples, he came to Cluny; to e Blessed Odilo, who at that time was the Abbot in whom the aforesaid monastery gloried, he indicated what he had in his mind. Luke 14:27 Then entering the Chapter according to custom, when in the Assembly he made known the petition of his adoption, f a certain one of the Brothers, taught by the Holy Spirit, said: "O happy Cluny, who has today received a treasure more precious than every treasure!" Therefore with his life changed along with his habit, he devoutly ascended the first steps of the monastic order, I mean obedience and humility, which in the Christian religion hold the first place in morals. Pre-eminent above the rest in these, without complaint he bore whatever difficulty the profession he had undertaken involved: and as if the observance of the monastic rules were less sufficient for perfection, the servant of God added for penance, where after many examples of virtue, the Lord for a crown. For food taken beyond the rule of the monk so broke his fast that it did not at all take away his hunger. Moreover, insisting on sacred vigils, in continuous prayer he often passed the night sleepless. Happy were his companions: abundance of weeping and continual meditation on the heavenly joys. Ambition stole nothing from the monk, pleasure claimed nothing for itself. In his mouth was nothing of arrogance, in his speech nothing of vanity, wholly holiness, wholly a monk he spoke. From the monk's habit also, so much grace was added to the servant of God, that even his father, who g had taken his son's holy purpose less ill, said he was fairer than usual.
[3] There now shone forth in him the fullness of pastoral solicitude, to whom not less was supplied by sense for counsel, Made Prior, than by religion for example. Famous for these laudations, by the consent of the Brothers Blessed Odilo established him as Prior, to benefit both the possession by his providence, and the order by his discipline. The young man undertook the care of the aged, and so executed the business undertaken, that neither did administration lessen religion, nor religion hinder administration. For into the young man, from his promotion, no arrogance crept, the fervor of his order did not cool: the dignity imposed on him was the material of virtues, not their waste. With such gentleness he showed himself a father, with such severity a teacher, that against delinquents he used neither mercy too remiss nor discipline too excessive. With the good odor of his name thus diffused, He reconciles the monastery of Payerne to the King. he acquired the favor of the people and of princes, which he did not at all seek. Whence also, sent to the Teutons, h he restored to the monastery of Payerne the grace of the King i, from which it had fallen. Learning there of the passing of Blessed Odilo, in bitterness of spirit he returns to the monastery, bringing with him the generous gifts which the aforesaid King through him had sent to Cluny for the adornment of the house of the Lord. Received with the reverence due him, he found the Convent full of tears. He exhorts them to refrain from weeping, when he himself could not refrain from weeping. He consoles the mourning, who admitted no consolation. By all the Father of all was bewailed, and the memory of his paternal piety recalled the dried tears. The master himself indeed was buried, but in the minds of his disciples the merits of the master lived unburied. I shall necessarily fail, if I try to unfold the virtues of Odilo, who by teaching and example alike made an assembly of men into an assembly of virtues.
[4] There was at hand the time in which the desolate fold should be provided for, and with fasts and prayers sent ahead, Made Abbot of Cluny, a pastor should be sought from the highest Pastor. The sons of adoption assemble, concerned only for the salvation of souls. At length, while anxiously seeking among themselves whom the Lord might deem worthy of pastoral solicitude, a certain Adalmannus, to whom by religion and age alike greater authority belonged, named Hugh the Prior; the Assembly with concordant assent followed the namer. Then, as he resisted, and proclaimed himself unworthy, on the day on which the holy Church celebrates the Chair of Blessed Peter, the Archbishop of Besançon k elevated him with the blessing of Abbot. Having undertaken the Pastoral watches, the servant of God drew no insolence from his promotion, indulged no access of vices: under him indeed, as guardian of souls, neither judgment failed the sin, He shines with various virtues in this rule: nor increase failed religion. His whole life either Mary or Martha claimed for herself. Insatiable in reading, insistent in prayers, at every time he benefited or profited. Whether he was more prudent or simpler, you would judge with difficulty. As in his words nothing was idle, so in his work nothing was suspect to honor. He knew not how to be angry except against vices. His doctrine, which fit individuals, sufficed all: it had more of the father than of the judge, more of mercy than of censure. He himself, conspicuous in form, eminent in stature, added to the gifts of his body the titles of his virtues. Always silent with the Lord, but always speaking in the Lord or about the Lord when he spoke. Intent on many things, no one found him less in particulars: for he was wholly held by those things which he had previously undertaken to do. God above himself, his neighbor as himself, things beneath himself, he loved with ordered charity. Equally gentle and patient, for his own things indeed he gave thanks, but for the injuries of the poor he wept.
[5] And because he had read Christ saying, "What you have done to one of the least of mine, most generous toward the poor, you have done to me," he provided for their needs with such insistence, as if it were clear that the very person of Christ was present. Wherefore the greatest multitude of the needy crowded him, for whom, a faithful and prudent steward, he prepared food and procured clothing. He declined no work of mercy, no kind of helping. He was present at the desires of all, provided only that the times agreed with the desires. As he journeyed, troops of the poor ran to meet him, wherever they heard he was to pass; to them he dispensed gold pieces with a liberal hand; more willingly spending that which, spent, a greater reward would follow. When the food was lacking, with which he was wont to load pack-horses l for the uses of the needy, messengers were directed hither and thither, to procure those things which would suffice for the multitude, and fulfill the desire of the sick. Furthermore, whomever age or heavier sickness had afflicted, he ordered to be brought nearer, and more gently scrutinized their distresses; most officiously asking what they lacked or wished. He shrank from no one's conversation: he feared no one's inconvenience. Toward querulous old men and those flowing with sores he was moved with compassion, to multiply his benefits, to press upon them a service full of reward. I speak little things: to lepers horrible in aspect he frequently showed a fastidious service without fastidiousness. You would see around his bed an immense heap of diverse garments, which with a few of his familiars brought in, he himself was accustomed to cut out and sew. You would see also loaves, you would see also meats, to the lowest of their needs he condescended. all prepared at hand, lest delay in the gift torture the expectant poor man. To poor monks also he destined more generous benedictions, lest poverty of household affairs force them to wander either from the monastery or from the monk. With this kindness he aided the Massilians, with this he aided many monasteries. Moreover, the tyranny of the Princes, with which they unceasingly raged against the poor of Christ, when he did less by exhortation, he mitigated by gifts. To these pursuits he consecrated his mind, to these uses silver and gold. He preached that they shone better as spent than as kept; and according to the testimony of Ambrose, he then truly spent the chalice of the Church, when he redeemed from hunger or from the enemy, by the chalice, those whom the blood of the chalice had freed from death.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II.
Grace with Henry II the Emperor, Legation undertaken for the Pope in Hungary, Council of Reims celebrated, Alphonso King of Spain freed from prison, Monastery of Marcigny founded.
[6] He receives the son of Emperor Henry at baptism, With these and other praises of virtues, therefore, Blessed Hugh was held great among the great, providing from his counsel for the salvation of their souls. There grew under him from day to day the religion of the Cluniac monastery, and the odor of his name was as the odor of a full field which the Lord has blessed. Whence also the Emperor of the Teutons, namely Henry II, desiring to see his face and obtain his friendship, requested with suppliant voice that he deign to come to him. The pious Father hears the petitioner, enters Saxony, and is received with the greatest honor and joy alike. A few days passed there, at the King's request he lifted his son from the sacred font, imposing on the boy the name of his father. He celebrated Easter with the Emperor at Agrippina Cologne; with the Teutons marveling at in the still youthful age, the white hair of his morals, the gentleness of his conversation, the grace of his countenance, the mildness of his words. By these indications of virtues, the King's soul was so bound to him and to the Cluniac monastery, as if the King himself had struck a perpetual friendship with them. At length, permission to return scarcely obtained, the pious Pastor returns to the fold, bearing ampler gifts, which were sent as a certain pledge of love by the aforesaid King. Thus the servant of God returning, gladdened with his arrival the sons who were awaiting their father in prayers about the King's summons.
[7] The same man afterwards, at the command of the Roman Pontiff, having set out into Hungary, undertook care about the reformation of peace b, insisted prudently on the business undertaken and completed it, sent as legate by the Pontiff to Hungary, executing for the praise of God and His glory the things that had been entrusted to him. Whence when he was returning gifted equally with the King's favor and with much reward, he was captured by a certain tyrant of that region, and all those things were stolen which among his men were found precious. By this injury indeed the servant of God is disturbed; and captured, he is restored to liberty by Blessed Maiolus' intercession: he has recourse to the help of prayers, intercedes for his evil-doers, solicitous less about the loss of things than about the peril of souls. And lest, as if trusting in his own merits, he should seem to demand either pardon for the transgressor or restitution of his substance for himself, he commits both matters to Blessed Maiolus, asks that he be helped by the prayers and merits of Maiolus. Without delay: the author of the injury, compunct, prostrated himself at the knees of the Abbot, with contrite and humbled heart begs pardon, all those things which had been taken being fully restored: and that the offended one might even be placated by obedience, he who had made the plunder provided an escort for the Abbot. In many other matters also the diligence of Blessed Hugh, sought by the Roman Pontiff, merited from him praise and from the Lord eternal reward. Indeed when Pope Stephen c was held by his final illness in the city of Florence, he is present to the dying Pope Stephen, by the vow of the man lying sick he came there, monks of consummate holiness accompanying him, to whom, according to Paul's word, to live was Christ, and to die gain. And the aforesaid Bishop testified that at the servant of God's entry the evil spirit departed, but at his exit returned. Phil 1:21 A blessed man indeed, whose life Satan abhorred, and whose presence he dreaded. Finally when the aforesaid Pontiff, now brought to his last, had commended his weary limbs and his nature, confessing itself mortal, to sackcloth and ashes: having received the life-giving Sacraments, he breathed out his spirit between the sacred hands of the Abbot.
[8] When Leo the Ninth, about to translate the body of Blessed Remigius, had come as far as Reims, and d was there celebrating a general Synod, in the Council of Reims he acts strongly against the Simonists, the blessed man was present, full of authority and reverence, and by his presence contributing greatly to the precepts of the said Council. Where when action was taken against the Simonists, and some Bishops, to whom either conscience had brought confusion or inexperience silence, were debating the said heresy too remissly, he himself, kindled with zeal for justice, sought steadfastly to abolish the merchandise of Simon. For ascending from the opposite side, and opposing a wall for the house of Israel, he was not moved by the number of those resisting, nor by respect of persons. In which Council, when he was asked about his own promotion, he said: "The flesh willed it, the spirit resisted." e A sound answer indeed, because the just man is first the accuser of himself, and is shown to have been beaten by the temptation of the flesh to fall, but to have resisted by the virtue of the spirit lest he fall. Now there was in him such grace in exhortation, that in expectation of his speech the souls of illustrious persons were held suspended: whence also at the Pope's command he had a holy prayer full of grace, by which both Simonists were expelled from the dignities ill-acquired, and fornicator Priests were restrained from the sanctuary of the Lord.
[9] Another indication of his holiness and merits also followed. He is seen to have Christ as his assessor: For Hildebrand, Deacon of the Roman Church, who afterwards was alloted the majesty of the same See, directed into Gaul, entered the Cluniac Chapter. Where when he had sat for some time, he saw Christ sitting beside Blessed Hugh, suggesting to him the rules and decrees of the monastic order. Leaving thence, he indicated to several what he had seen. Thenceforth he both more devoutly embraced the familiarity of the servant of Christ, and proclaimed his holiness. Alphonso King of the Spains, He frees King Alphonso from prison, who having been captured by his brother Santulus f, was held in chains. Hearing this, the Abbot of mercy enjoined to insist on prayer for the King, mindful of the love of his father Fredeleidus g, who had bound the Cluniac monastery to himself with many benefits. Therefore, when placatory hosts were offered for him, when prayers were multiplied, through a certain Bishop Blessed Peter indicated to him that the day of his release was near, h obtaining, by the intercession of the Cluniac Abbot and Convent, that, freed from his chains and released, he should receive his empire. Without delay the same Apostle appeared to Santulus sleeping, threatens grievous things unless he should restore to his brother, drawn from prison, the dignity evilly taken. Awakened by the vision, Santulus hastily fulfilled i whatever the Apostle had commanded. Thus Alphonso, restored both to himself and equally to his kingdom, that he might merit to see his liberator and be granted his conversation, sought by dispatched letters. The desire of power is fulfilled, and the Pyrenean mountains having been crossed, the servant of God is received solemnly and with festive apparatus. The King exults at the arrival of so great a guest; finding nothing in his action, nothing in his word, nothing in his habit beyond the teaching of morals. Who, that he might not at any time seem ungrateful to his intercessors, with a paternal tribute doubled, disposed that two hundred ounces of gold k be assigned annually to the Cluniac monastery, wishing to hold the day of each exit, namely from prison and from the body, as celebrated. By whom laden with gifts he returns home: Thus the man of God returning with the aforesaid money, was bringing with him a certain Moor, indeed recently baptized, but still blacker in mind than in skin. To whom, for his receiving of the Christian faith, when the pious Abbot, showing him greater reverence, had provided precious garments, that man like a whitewashed sepulcher put his sacrilegious hands into the perforated Abbot's pack-bags, drawing out from them whatever of gold or silver was found in them. Who being caught in flight, however, and brought back to the Abbot with the pecuniary goods carried off, the fraudulent attempt did not harm the servant of God. Great indeed are these things, but greater are what follow.
[10] At the castle of l Blitrium, certain men of perverse mind are punished who inflicted injury, exasperated the reverend Father with injuries inflicted: to whom, when they asked pardon, although the pious Abbot, prone to forgive, indulged them, yet their presumption was gravely punished by the Lord: for immediately the flames devastating, the castle of the wicked was burned up. Which, that it might be believed to have been done rather by divine vengeance and not by chance, to certain inhabitants of the same castle, who had gone out on some business, and were ignorant of the injuries and the fire, there appeared two knights long dead. Whom when the aforesaid inhabitants had well recognized, and were stupefied by their encounter, they said: "Return as quickly as possible, you will find Blitrium burned: where while Blessed Hugh was there, neither was respect given to his religion, nor to his order." Astounded and terrified, the inhabitants, returning with great haste, found the matter as they had been told. But let no one think that the man of God, as if desiring money, either sought or accepted the offered riches. He spent the money for pious uses: Their abundance served not avarice, but mercy; not himself, but the needy. He saying with the Prophet: "Lord, I have loved the beauty of thy house, and the place where thy glory dwells," consecrated whatever the devotion of the faithful conferred on him wholly either to the ornaments of the Church or to the expenses of the poor. Ps. 25:8 His soul was neither lifted up by the affluence of things, nor cast down by their loss. In every state he set earthly things below heavenly, transitory things below eternal.
[11] Furthermore the same man, not only solicitous for the salvation of men, He founds the monastery of Marcigny, also took care to lead women from the shipwreck of this great and spacious sea to the port of salvation, both insinuating to them the way of life with teachings and paving it with expenses. For in his own patrimony, which is called Marcigny, he built a certain monastery and workshops fitting to religion, where more advanced women, loathing marital license, could cook off their old errors, and merit to be bound by the embraces of Christ. This place noble persons chose, who, having experienced also the delights of marriages, so much the more patiently lacked both, as they had learned that in them was both a brief and full-of-sorrow pleasure. These he established to live under such rules, and with Rules, that none of them either by the necessity of household affairs, or by any business, should be exposed to the gazes of men; lest those to whom he had enjoined the vow of continence, the gaze should entice to fault. Their agents, religious and prudent agents, under whose keeping neither did possession fear distraction, nor did honor fear damage. No
young girl, even rarely, was there, lest the still lascivious fervor of youthful age should either contract infamy for the place, or generate scandal among the Sisters. m For their instruction he appointed a certain old man, named Rencho, a monk of consummated testimony, who knew how both to provoke devotion through mercy and to ward off excesses through discipline. Moreover, lest in the handmaids of Christ, by lack of food or clothing, the sacred purpose should fail; he provided for them rich incomes, purchased estates: thus providing for their need, lest either superfluity bring in fault, or destitution extort complaint. He also adorned the monastery with many ornaments, and adorns it with holy Relics, and besides the other pledges of saints he placed in it the arm of the blessed Virgin and Martyr Agnes, clothed in silver and gold.
[12] Other monasteries also were built under him and through him, and very many cells constructed n; old Abbeys, He builds and reforms other monasteries. which the negligence of their inhabitants had wholly worn down, were recalled to their ancient dignity both of order and of possessions. For under the aforesaid Father the Cluniac Religion so flourished, that thence Abbots were sought for the desolate monasteries, and there were taken up equally both the examples of holiness and the quality of discipline. Happy the Church that from that holy Assembly merited to have its highest Priest. But how great his discretion and mercy were, the kindness shown to the younger monks demonstrates, to whom, when by custom a smaller pound of bread and drink was handed over, he himself ordered an equal one to be given; judging it just that for those whom the same weight and heat of the day afflicted, the same denarius should be paid as it were. A sound arrangement indeed, which both restrained the aforesaid age from murmuring, and strengthened them for the labor of undertaken obedience.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER III.
Secrets of souls inspected by him and future things predicted.
[13] Knowing the temptation, he confirms a novice: To show how pleasing to God was the obedience he showed in all things, Blessed Hugh is said, with the discernment of spirits, to have had the grace of prophecy. For in those who were professing the monastic ascent, with what mind each came to him, he discerned with free mind: he saw who in the net of Blessed Benedict would be a good fish, who would bear the angel of light, who the angel of darkness. Which grace indeed, lest we seem to confer upon him rather than to refer what was received from God, the examples supplied serve and support his testimony. He confirms the novice knowing the temptation: A certain Lord, named Maingodus, wounded in mind by the delay of his reception, which the provident father for a time had suspended for the sake of testing him, decided to go out and flee. Which having been learned with the Spirit revealing, the most pious Abbot rebuked the aforesaid Brother with harder words, indicating to him both the wounds of his mind, and applying to the wounds the medicine of paternal consolation. Thus he, returning to himself, patiently awaited the reception, the delay of which he had lamented.
[14] He predicts the death of the King of England. The death also of William the younger, who had succeeded his father William the great and conqueror of the English, he indicated by an evident prophecy. The servant of God was at Marcigny, and with him the man of glorious reputation a Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury of the English, two great luminaries, whose devotion by mutual exhortations and examples progressed in love of rewards. There were there also three other monks, namely Baldwin and Eadmer and Eustace, all sons of light, and walking in the commandments and justifications of the Lord without blame. To whom Blessed Hugh turning, said: "It is abundantly clear to reveal divine judgments to the Archbishop, by which the just Judge deposes the powerful from their seat and exalts the humble. To you however we say, that against the King of the English last night sentence of proscription has been given, and he will shortly reign no more." b A few days passed, and behold, the blessed man's vision, which had been promised, was followed by the event. For the aforesaid King, while he was insisting on the pursuit of hunting, was struck in the heart by the arrow of a certain knight, and immediately, prevented by sudden death, expired. Thus with the King's life ended, it became clear both that the grace of prophecy was in the Abbot, and that the faculty of returning to his See came to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had yielded to the King who was persecuting him.
[15] The body of Saint Amandus, Likewise the servant of God, while he was in Aquitaine, came to the church of Blessed Vivianus, a solicitous visitor of holy places. Where when he was diligently reading the acts and life of the aforesaid Confessor, he found in it mention made of a certain good man, by name Amandus c, about whom, desiring to be more fully informed, he asked the present Clerics about his reputation and homeland, his purpose and end and sepulture. It was answered to his questioning that Blessed Amandus had been Master of Saint Vivianus, distinguished in merits, conspicuous in teaching, famous for examples. His body, according to popular rumor, had its sepulture in Gaul. But on the following day, the Dean of the Canons in the same place, about to build a hospice, asked Blessed Hugh that the foundation of the work undertaken be designated. And he, taught by the Holy Spirit, said: "Here lay the foundations, and you shall not regret it." At his suggestion the servants digging more deeply found a mausoleum of marvelous beauty, distinguished with the name of Blessed Amandus: which being found, the Clergy exult, the people glorify God, who is wonderful in His saints, now doubting nothing about the merit of the Abbot, which had shone forth in the discovery of the Confessor.
[16] and he detected the hidden wickedness of a certain man: Wonders succeed wonders. For the sake of consolation the pious Father used to visit places which touched the monastery of Cluny. Therefore having entered d the Cell of Blessed Mary which is called "of Charity," when he was receiving with a kiss the Brothers gathered there, he both shrank from the encounter of a certain one of them and declined the kiss. For doubtless, with the Spirit teaching, he had learned that the man's mouth was full of blasphemy and filth, and not fit that the servant of God should deign it with the kiss of peace. As those present wondered and were held in suspense at the newness of the thing, the same Abbot in familiar conversation inquired what miserable life he led, what devotion he had. Answering that he was a mechanicus e and stained with the tricks of necromancy, the shepherd drove him from the fold, as announcing no signs either in his words or in his habit of conversion. Thus in one and the same affair, both the fraud of the wolf and the providence of the shepherd were made known.
[17] The same servant of God, received at the monastery f of Angery, his bodily senses having been laid to rest a little, with the purer gaze of his mind, saw a certain lightning from on high
coming, being absent he perceives someone's hidden sin, bursting into the auditorium of the Cluniac monastery, and dragging great ruin with it. From this vision the man of God gathered that an offense had been committed at Cluny, which, unless it were purged by most speedy correction, would provoke the indignation of the Supreme Judge upon that place. Without delay, he returns to Cluny, setting the profit of souls before the business pressing him, which he had undertaken to do. g Then having entered the Chapter, with the same spirit by which he had already recognized the fault, he also recognized the person of the culprit. Addressing him by name, he said: "Blush, Peter, and do penance while it is allowed, lest you begin to repent then, when penance is fruitful to none whatever: lay yourself wholly open to the Prior, uncover the wound of your mind, that according to the quality of the wound you may feel the care of the one healing. Unhappy man, shake off the yoke of the devil, and embrace the yoke of Christ, for his yoke is sweet and his burden light. whom he earnestly exhorts to penance: Because though often admonished, you do not cease to refuse, let a stricter discipline punish the fault accompanied by obstinacy, for to spare your faults tends to the peril of others." With these words and added blows, the contumacious Brother was restored both to himself and to the order, and the good of obedience, which exhortation did not confer, censure called forth.
[18] He does the same elsewhere: At another time also, a similar vision appeared to him. For to him sleeping a certain person approached and said that it was necessary for him to travel as far as Chalon, because an offense had been committed in the monastery of Saint Marcellus, h which, having been thus far covered with silence, would have to be cut away by monastic discipline. Roused by these things, the servant of God seizes the journey: and entering the monastery, he found the matter to be as he had learned through the vision. Therefore, having applied medicine to the wound, he drives away the inveterate and difficult-to-heal corruption. On a certain night, while the man of God was providing for his tired limbs with a little sleep, he is warned to remove a book of Virgil hidden beneath him, he seemed to see a multitude of serpents lying under his head, and other reptiles of diverse kind, by which being disturbed he could not continue his sleep. Then with the pillow removed, he found a book of Virgil, and having thrown it off, he drew peaceful sleep. Apt indeed was the vision of the matter, since the fables of the Poets are nothing other than certain poisons i.
[19] It is worth while to add to what has been related those things which we learned both by hearing and by sight. He predicts an episcopate to someone, Our predecessor Hoellus k, Bishop of praiseworthy memory, setting out for Rome to see the holy man of God, turned aside to Cluny. Who, after he had obtained the faculty of speaking with him, was led with a certain one of his Archdeacons to him in a small chamber, dedicated to sacred colloquies, and more celebrated for its dweller than its cultivation. When the sons of adoption had met together, and were mutually communicating to each other the benefits of their prayers, Blessed Hugh more frequently gazed upon the aforesaid Archdeacon: "Only," he said, "do not fail the grace of God, because it has been provided that you shall in no way remain in the order in which you now administer." A little time passed, and the outcome followed the prophecy. For the Archdeacon l in the following year was allotted the Pontifical dignity. We heard this, we saw it present, we were made partakers of the prayers of that blessed man in that conversation. We indeed, with rumor revealing, had learned some things about his holiness, some about his gentleness, some also about those things by which judgment is given both to vice and increase to virtue: we found however greater things, weighing the vigilance of the Pastor from the conduct of the flock.
[20] There remain also other things, by which it is openly shown that that patron of justice, [and predicts to another the punishment to be incurred after death for excessive jests,] among the marks of holiness, shone with the grace of prophecy. For a certain monk, named Duranus, was accustomed to bring forth words moving laughter, untrainable to lay aside his prejudicial levity. The same man, however, in the rest, against which there is no law, had so provided for himself, that first to m Abbot, then to Bishop, he merited to be promoted in life and teaching. Who when he listened less to the Abbot rebuking him, "Brother," said the Abbot to him, "unless you do worthy penance, after your passing you will appear to the upper world returning with foaming lips." Now it came about that he did not cease from idle words, nor did the effect promised by the Abbot's prophecy fail. For the aforesaid Duranus, paying the debt of nature, appeared in the promised habit to a certain Siguinus, namely a religious Priest, miserably asking his help, whom while living he had scorned to obey. When the pious Father had learned this from Siguinus' report, having chosen seven Brothers, he imposed silence for a week, so that the excess of the mouth might be purged by the obedience of the mouth. With the others obeying, one of them, a violator of the precept, broke the silence. Again the Bishop, whereby, having enjoined silence on his followers, he frees him. bearing the same habit as before, appeared to the aforesaid Priest, accusing the disobedience of the Brother, who while he broke the commandment, excluded the support of the others. Hearing this, the most clement Father, with another seven days' silence, supplied the defect of the broken obedience. Whence it came about, that he was shown a third time, now bearing nothing foul, the Bishop gave thanks to the Abbot, through whose intervention the reproach of his mouth had been wiped away, the sentence of the judge changed. This, when related, both declared the merit of the Father, and helped among the Brothers the reverence for the obedience undertaken. Thus the discernment of spirits conferred upon the man of God taught him by effective magistery, what was to be accomplished by correction, what was to be tolerated by mercy, what was to be punished by censure.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER IV.
Various diseases cured by him.
[21] But let no one think that the Abbot shone only for his prophetic visions, on whom together with the discernment of spirits was also conferred the grace of healings. He gave health to various by tasting the remnants of his table, For it is well known that several, oppressed by various ailments, recovered by taking the remains from his table. A certain Acard, laboring with the force of fevers, owed his restored health to the aforesaid medicine. Three Brothers besides, lying ill with the same ailment, the merit of the blessed man restored to their former health: to two of them, indeed, by the grace of eulogies sent, it gave back the wholeness of salvation; but the third, after he had for six months at Bourbon endured the burnings of quartan fever, by the holy Father, who had come there opportunely, was ordered to be present at the sacred mysteries. The feverish one came, and at the Abbot's command, wine having been drunk after Mass, in which the holy relics of the saints had been washed, the burning of the fever departed. O the praiseworthy humility of the Father, who preferred that what could be ascribed to his merits be assigned to the relics of the Saints! Jarento also, a monk of happy testimony, recovered after long-lasting injuries of fevers, by drinking wine in which the sacred fingers had been washed, after the Sacrament offered to God.
[22] Blessed also the physician, who with the health of bodies sought the health of souls: blessed, I say, a knight from the custom of plundering and from a fever, the soul, by whose merits both temporal remedy was acquired, and by whose exhortation eternal. To the same man, as he was setting out for Crispeium b, a feverish knight c ran up, beseeching to be helped by his most holy intervention. Then, as he pressed more heavily: "Abstain," said the Abbot, "abstain, brother, from plunder, and thus you shall obtain lost health." The knight abjures plunder, and at that same moment, at the Abbot's prayers, both the vow was made and the burning of the fever extinguished. Let no one wonder that health was conferred on bodies by the Abbot's merit, to whom also this grace accrued, that souls drawn from the prison of the flesh found the judge placated by his intervention. A certain one of the Brothers, having paid the debt of nature, but not yet buried, appeared to two persons, who had acquired for themselves a name through religion, saying that he had taken two shillings beyond the license of the sacristan, under whom he was serving, and had spent them of his own will. By this excess his rest had been delayed, which, however, could be granted by the Abbot's intercession. When morning came, though one did not know this about the other, in the same order, in the presence of the holy man, they told the aforesaid vision in Chapter. Therefore the transgression being diligently examined, and found venial, by the suffrages of prayers which the most clement Father enjoined to be performed more devoutly, and by a more generous bestowal of alms, it merited to be dissolved.
[23] He frees another from paralysis: In the city of Paris there was an illustrious man named Robert, by profession a knight, so torpid with paralysis, that in the same man you would say part lived, part was already buried. This long-lasting and lethal corruption had long since taken away the hope of salvation from the sick man. But it happened at the same time that the servant of God entered Paris, and ascended to the church which was of the most blessed Genovefa
the Virgin, both by name and by body celebrated. Hearing this, the aforesaid sick man was brought there by others' aid, fell at the Abbot's knees, and with sighs and tears implored him that he might merit his intercession before God. The Father is moved by the suppliant's anxiety, and amid the sacred solemnities of the Masses, procures the requested help for the paralytic. Yet presuming nothing from his own merits, he turns wholly to the Prince of the Apostles, by whose shadow health was given to the sick, and by whose prayer life was restored to the dead. Therefore, taking his chasuble d, which by the report of the ancients is believed to be in the said church, he raises it over the prostrate sick man, exclaiming: "Peter the Apostle said to the paralytic, May the Lord Jesus Christ heal you." At these words immediately Robert so recovered, as if Peter himself had declaimed prayers for him. He returns whole who had come half-alive, with those present testifying that his life was well-pleasing to God, whose postulation before God they had seen to be so effective e.
[24] He heals a leper: Perhaps these things might be ascribed to Apostolic merits, and since by his shadow it is clear that health was restored to those who were ill, it might be asserted that Robert had recovered by his garment. But things no less wonderful than the merits of Hugh are read to have been done by him, to which the benefit can be assigned to Hugh with no peril of faith. For the same man, while in Gascony, as he was visiting the little cells subject to the Cluniac monastery, saw not far from the road a small hut, whose inhabitant was needy and leprous. This man, from rich made poor, cast down from splendid, leprous from sound, led a life more grievous than death. The servant of God rejoices that he had found a fitting time, in which to visit Christ in the poor. Therefore, with the others going ahead, he himself with only one monk companion enters the shelter, devotes himself wholly to consolation, caresses his torn skin, gives him the name of happy in his misfortune, to whom it was given to be purged by bodily scourges and by the fire of poverty. Finally, as the man of God was about to depart, having nothing to give the poor man, he stripped off the lambskin in which he was clothed, and clothed the poor man. An unexpected grace accompanied the garment: for from the moment the poor man was clothed with it, the deformity of his skin departed; and with the contagion of leprosy wiped away, wholeness and appearance was restored to all his members. Christ's servant goes out leaving a blessing for the poor man, which profited him more than hope in receiving it, and revealed the merit of the giver more than his vow. Others also are read to have received sought-after health both from the garment and from the water which had dripped from his hands.
[25] He restores the use of voice to one: Wigo, a monk, a man of venerable reputation and a useful vessel in the house of the Lord, had lost the use of his voice, very sad, because at the approaching Nativity he could not pay the debt of the office of singing. While he was resting beside the Abbot's footstool, and was hoping for the restoration of his voice from his sacred merits, he secretly took the strap of his cap and put it around his neck; and immediately, with the trouble that blocked his arteries dissolved, the use of the former modulation was fully restored to him. A cancer (a lethal ailment) had eaten the joint of the foot of a certain Theoderic, a knight indeed of great power, but of greater devotion before God; which because it had overcome the care of medicine, was also taking away the hope of life. Yet by the Abbot's merits, he heals a cancer, in this order the burning of the horrendous plague was extinguished. The Abbot had sung Mass, and servants had carried water dripped from his hands to the sick man, present and asking for it, with the Abbot not knowing. Which poured upon the eaten-away parts, its condition was restored to the joint, the loss of the consumed flesh was supplied, and with the water serving in place of medicine, the Abbot, without knowing, restored health. For it was hard and intolerable to the man of God, that anything from those things which were around him or that remained from his table, should be carried off with an eye to obtaining salvation. A man of true virtue, he traced it to the ruin of virtues to crave the tongues of others: for there is no desire for praise except of that whose material is in the soul, and whose witness is in heaven. Which since his deeds and words equally acquired for him, yet no haughtiness crept upon the sighing man from the proclamation of miracles for another reward. The servant of God, unknowingly, profited others too, of whom, if not all, yet some we have thought should be imprinted on the page.
[26] There was in a certain obedience a Monk, named William, who lying ill with a long-lasting infirmity of the leg, and takes away the swelling of his leg: could not carry out the offices enjoined on him. For this had increased into such a swelling, that having lost its natural form, it seemed like a certain ball. And when the growing disease was speaking nothing other than death; he, wholly turned in hope and faith to the merit of the Abbot, placing his hands on the swollen leg, said: "I command you, affliction, in the name of Jesus Christ, and on the part of the Father whose precepts brought me here, that departing, you permit me to fulfill the obedience enjoined on me." On the following night, while he slept, two monks in white appeared, who said they had been sent by Blessed Hugh: then one indeed placed his hands on the leg and poured oil; but the other with a gentler and as it were suspended contact, seemed to anoint the sick parts. This done, as the monks departed so departed the infirmity, and grace brought back the wholeness which medicine could not. The monk, waking, when he felt the distresses of his infirmity banished, ascribed the restored health to his blessed Father.
[27] From difficulty of childbirth, a certain woman, having lost the office both of tongue and of hand, He grants an easy birth: feared also losses of her other parts. To her lying in such distress, it was suggested in sleep, that she ought to set out for Laisiacum f, where by the merits of Blessed Hugh she would be relieved of both inconvenience. The woman obeyed, and having been brought there, while the aforesaid Father in the Oratory of Saint Sulpicius g was celebrating divine mysteries in her presence, by his merits she merited to obtain full remedy for both diseases. Let it be believed that in calming the passions of human bodies, a grace was conferred from above on the son of adoption, which is said to have been shown by him also in disturbed air. For Louis the Count, He calms a storm: and Sophia his wife, namely a man and woman of praiseworthy devotion, had received him with hospitality at Aldechiarcum h. Then when the table was set in the garden, the disturbed air sent forth signs of a storm. The disturbed servants run about, not knowing what to do with the dishes already laid out. But the servant of God, raising his hand, opposed the sign of the Cross, and thus drove off the impending storm. Which, lest it seem to have departed rather by chance than by the Abbot's merits, while rains were raging all around with thunder, that place is said to have remained exempt from storm, and serene. At Paredum i, a certain boy, consecrated to the monastic soldiery, He heals a crushed one: a plank falling from the roof of the Bell-tower prostrated. At that time the blessed Abbot had come to Paredum to visit the brothers. The boy, in whom veins tried at the thumbs announced imminent death, is brought half-alive to him: the brothers weep as if for an already dead boy, who had scarcely begun to live in the camps of spiritual soldiery. Finally the pious Abbot, contrite in mind, handles the contrite boy, insists on services in place of obsequies, and Christ's veteran runs to the gate of Christ's divine piety, with such insistence of prayers that both health was restored to the boy, and the boy to the assembly.
[28] He is eagerly sought out by various people: Invited by the reports of such miracles, many chose above all to see him, to cling to him, and to be instructed by his most holy teachings. For his whole life, equal to sacred institutions, his whole conversation was a teaching of the blessed life. Few or no monasteries were there, which did not profit from his wise institutions or examples. But how with what paternal affection he embraced the monks or Abbots coming to him, how sufficiently he responded to those seeking, how piously he opened to those knocking, is difficult to explain. Among whom the Abbot of Soissons k, approaching the chief of monastic perfection, had as his companion in the journey a certain Priest named Peter, who had long ago obtained the friendship of Blessed Hugh. From which familiarity the Priest spoke to him more securely: "We know, most holy Father," he said, "that you take care of the wretched, and according to the Apostle's word, with the weak are weak. 2 Cor 11:29 Whence also for a certain brother of mine, knocking at the gate of your mercy, I lament that help should come to the wretched one by your sacred prayers, whom a putrid wound, and one occupying more widely the sound parts, has brought into the danger He heals a wound. of despair." At length the pious Father, yielding to the miserable entreaties, ordered bread which had been left over from his table to be brought; having blessed what was brought, he gave the blessed bread to the Priest: he also gave him part of the staff, which he was accustomed to carry in his hand, by which he was accustomed to support himself. Having received these, he returns in hope and faith, as much as before he had been troubled by his brother's distress, so much afterwards to rejoice in his salvation. For from the moment the wood was placed upon the ulcer, and the sick man ate the bread of the blessing; the trouble of putrid flesh was so driven out, that no pain, no indications of the infirmity remained there.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER V.
Protection of Angels, certain evils repelled by him; the malevolent divinely punished: his liberality compensated.
[29] He sees his guardian Angel, Moreover on a certain day, while the Abbot was sleeping a little, by pressing cause two monks woke him. The Abbot asking: "Why," he said, "have you brought here this boy?" The monks answered that they had brought no one. The Abbot replied, saying: "Do you not see that boy of elegant form?" Again as the monks marveled, testifying that they saw no one at all; the Abbot, perceiving that something divine had been shown to him, turned his speech to other things, making no further mention of the boy. I believe there had appeared to him the guardian Angel of his body, by whose watch he avoided both the temptations of the airy powers and the imminent dangers of the body. Whence when at a Berziacum he had given himself to sleep, protected by Angelic guardianship, he escaped manifold danger of death. and by the protection of other Angels, a thunder-bolt,
For suddenly, with the air disturbed, winds rising up began as it were to enter into conflict; lightning raged more frequently, the house was struck by stones and hail, thunderbolts flew, by which not even the Father's dormitory, adjacent to the church, remained untouched: for the force of the thunderbolt bursting in, so with wandering course searched through the aforesaid dwelling, that to say an equal miracle, just as the three boys in the furnace, so also the Saint of God was preserved amid raging flames. The danger was increased by mortar and stones falling from all sides, which the wall, broken by the thunderbolt's blow, scattered around the sleeping Abbot. The servants were running about, the monks were complaining, thinking the Abbot either buried by the ruin and stones, or consumed by the fire. But he, protected by divine watches, lost neither his sleep to the noise, nor his safety to the ravaging flames. Thus the servant of God, surrounded by a horrendous fire, merited by virtue to be freed, and went out unharmed.
[30] And death, The same Father is read to have been preserved also in other dangers, and his holy passage, which seemed imminent from a most grievous infirmity, was by the intercession of the Convent and by costly expenses of alms, deferred to a holy old age. For at a certain time, Blessed Hugh, afflicted with such great trouble of body that despair of life followed the impending trouble; from the middle of the mountain which is adjacent to Cluny, as if about to give a final blessing to the Brothers, was brought to the Chapter. The Convent weeps, and he lacks consolation, whoever strives to console another. The sons call upon the Father, the disciples surround the Master; the flock goes over the unwearied watches of the Pastor; and the marks of his piety are proclaimed everywhere, which call forth tears. Then at his sign, he is presented to the images of the holy Apostles, hoping by their merits to obtain the health he sought. Which being obtained immediately, it restored to orphans their guardian, to sons their father, to the poor their provider. Nor do we think less worthy of the stylus, and he escapes a precipice, that as he was setting out for Rome, both life and safety were preserved for him in death. For he, while he was proceeding toward the city of b Gap, through steep mountains and doubtful turns, came upon a very high precipice with unforeseen approaches. His mule, descending into the valley on which her first steps leaned, found nothing solid. c The monks grow pale, distrusting that the present danger could be avoided by any counsel; but the Lord, providing for His servant a full end of blessed hope and glory, wonderfully led him out from the open abyss; the mule divinely leaning toward that part in which she found a solid and unobstructed way. Moreover, from a similar danger a certain Cleric, returning from Spain with the Abbot, while he was going ahead of his companions to the inn, and was improvidently falling into a horrendous precipice, He frees someone from shipwreck: at the invocation of the Abbot's name, caught by a small branch, merited to be freed. Moreover, to a certain Gerald, rashly rowing through the Loire, the Abbot invoked is said often to have been present. For when his small boat was sunk, as the matter was resulting in danger of life, he himself calling out his name, swam unharmed to the bank. In which person, the Abbot's merit shone forth the more, as that man, long disturbed in brain, in inexperience indeed boarded the boat, but by grace escaped death.
[31] Great indeed were the merits of this man, whose friends were not unrewarded before God, nor were the despisers unpunished: not that he himself wished the death of a sinner, or ceased to pray for his enemies, who knew that no one truly loved Christ, until he also loved his enemy for Christ. But sometimes God wishes the contempt of Saints to be punished even in this life, lest the just man be envious when he sees the peace of sinners, and say: "Therefore in vain have I justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent?" There are perhaps also other more hidden causes, for which the just Judge here both repays the rewards of benefactors, and punishes injuries. But how strictly by judgment He struck those who inflicted insults upon this His servant, we shall not weary to unfold briefly. He, therefore, wholly occupied with zeal to propagate monastic religion, while he was striving to reform it in the monastery of d Mauzac, bore the envy of some, endured reproaches, called a seducer and hypocrite, a tyrant and invader. Among whom a certain Cleric broke forth into such madness, threatening to dig out his eyes, is deprived of his own: that he said he would dig out the Abbot's eyes if the longed-for opportunity for this work were granted him. Those also who were more temperately disparaging the Abbot accused him of presumption to be punished; saying that the dignity of the order and of the person should not be exasperated with insults, but rather cultivated with obedience. And lest it be doubted that the Lord was gravely offended in His servant, according to that Gospel word, "He who despises you, despises me"; such a worthy vengeance followed the presumption of the venomous tongue, that scarcely eight days had passed, by the requiring of his fault, the eyes of him were dug out, who had craved the sacrilegious ability against the eyes of the Abbot. Luke 10:16
[32] Pontius of Burget, a man of blameworthy will against the servant of God, hearing that the Abbot would visit the parts of Auvergne, e in which he himself was staying, another, avoiding his presence, is afflicted with illness, since he neither wished to see him, nor to seem to have avoided being seen out of contempt, feigning illness fell into his bed. Now it came about that, with the Abbot having set out there, the infirmity which was being feigned became real: which indeed so increased, that with the faculty of speaking lost, he was thought brought to his last. Whom, therefore, formerly he had not wished to see, afterward compelled he saw, through intermediaries begging in every way that he might merit to be visited by him. The sick man, visited, in tears and groaning confessed his fault; for whom contrition of heart acquired pardon, and the Abbot's intervention health.
[33] The tyrannical presumption of the Count of Anjou f, namely Geoffrey surnamed "the Bearded," g was vehemently afflicting the monastery of Blessed Martin, which is called "the greater monastery." The servant of God, asked by the aforesaid Abbot of the monastery another, at his prayers inexorable, is punished with prison and delirium, that both by counsel and by the intercession of prayers he might come to the aid of the oppressed Abbey, did not delay to be wearied all the way to Tours; so much the more willingly undertaking the difficulty of the way, because that place had received the foundations of monastic religion from Cluniac discipline. Coming to the Count, when he profited nothing by words, he did not blush to embrace his knees, or to fall at his feet. Every form of supplication was taken up, by which mildness even among cruel powers is provoked: yet he, bearing a hardened mind, turned away from the supplicating Abbot: who also broke forth into this madness, to say that he would reduce the Convent of Blessed Martin to the service of one ass. The servant of God, finally rising from the dust, when he strove to soften the tyrant, whom he had grasped by his cloak, with salutary words; he, having broken the brooch by which his cloak was fastened, departed with the exhortations despised. Upon his departure, the man touched by a prophetic spirit is remembered to have said that saying of Samuel: "Thy kingdom is rent from thee this day." 1 Kings 15:28 Which prophecy indeed the event of the matter declared: for expelled from the Consulate, that despiser was so long detained in prison by his brother Fulco, that his body was not released from custody before his spirit was released from his body. To whose cumulative punishment this also was added, that having lost his senses, he fell into boyish inanities and raved until death.
[34] Berardus also of the castle of Retortorium h, raging with unusual exactions in the estate of i Cavariacum, which is under the right of the Cluniac monastery, an unjust vexer of Cluny is all but consumed by fire: sustained a similar vengeance of punishment. This man, for some time patiently tolerated, then admonished by Princes and ecclesiastical persons to cease from tyrannical injuries; when he equally despised all, Blessed Hugh committed the whole business of this matter to John the Baptist: to whom he turning, in tears and groaning demands his most ready help against the aforesaid Satan. Without delay: the event of the matter showed that the Abbot's prayers had been heard. For he, losing both his senses and his sight, is carried by the hands of his men to his house, speaking all things confused; and the indignation of the just Judge raised against him, he showed by other signs also. For his bed in the night was twice set on fire, and nearly consumed him with a deserved burning, who was consuming the possession of the sanctuary with undue exactions and plunder. Compelled by which scourges, he at last returns to himself; he abjures his exactions, restores damages, promising that henceforth he would presume nothing against the sanctuary of the Lord. Whence it came about, that he who by despising the servant of God had drawn upon himself a double misfortune, by repenting, with the divine vengeance repressed, received full health.
[35] He admits the assassin of his brother to asylum and the habit: Consider, reader, with what affection he sought the salvation of the souls committed to him, who even toward the murderers of his brother and his father expressed and emulated the mildness of David. For he, according to that Gospel saying: "Forgive, and you shall be forgiven," having conferred forgiveness on both culprits of the homicide committed, to his brother's murderer fleeing to him, to whom, to avoid the relatives of the slain man, no refuge was open, opened the bosom of his holy protection: in which he, received, both escaped the danger of temporal life, and found the way of eternal life. Luke 6:37 For compunct at the Abbot's suggestion, the homicide took the supreme habit of penance, in which having happily completed the causal pilgrimage of this world, when he ceased to live, he began to live. Moreover, his father having died, He not only does penance for his murdered father, whom the Duke of Burgundy his son-in-law had killed with his own hand, he strove to aid him before God by this intervention, that he might transfer to himself the satisfaction for his sins, which the enemy's sword had prevented, that he might be afflicted with continued fasts, and offer more frequent sacrifices. He also undertook to wear a breastplate, but also does penance for his murderer: seeking by his own tortures to expiate the sins of another. But also for his murderer, lest the ancient enemy should triumph over him, he interceded with victims and prayers offered to God. Whose charity therefore grew up to loving his enemies, it is no wonder that his alms also, in the hands of those distributing them, received increase, as some assert. This happened to Adhemar, the silver which he spent on the poor is not diminished, dispenser of the blessings of the servant of God, who afterwards merited to be promoted to Abbot both by knowledge and by life. He, setting aside ten shillings to distribute to the needy at the Abbot's command, though for a whole month he seemed to be pouring them out rather than giving them to the poor, yet felt no loss in the distributed silver. Behold the increase of the oil of Sarepta and its cessation alike, grace and the end of grace. For as long as the widow had a vessel, the oil flowed: but it stopped, when the vessel was lacking to the one asking. So also to Adhemar, what he might give to the poor, while faith was present, was not lacking: but was lacking, when he began both to give glory to God and to be weakened in faith.
[36] The same man moreover, when he had only nine denarii, and had given them to a poor little woman, finding fifteen gold pieces on himself offered them to the Abbot. Whom the magnanimous Abbot immediately hastened to place in the bosom of the poor, knowing that no field would respond more fruitfully to its cultivator than the bosom of the poor. and what is spent is replenished from elsewhere. His Chamberlain Jarento proved this, setting out for Valence with the blessed Father. Indeed when his purses had been drained for the use of the needy, when at the Abbot's command he was with sad and bitter mind paying out ten shillings (which he had reserved for the expenses of the Brothers), "Do not," said the Abbot, "do not, son, fear, we shall not enter the gate of the city, until the field to which we committed seed, shall bear fruit, returning
more than it received." Which prophecy indeed the promised event immediately fulfilled: for before they entered the gate of the city, there was one who for a few denarii bestowed upon him no small weight of gold. The dispenser, wondering, gave glory to God, becoming so much kinder toward the poor, as he was more secure about his recompense.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER VI.
Many brought by him to a better and monastic life, the Cluniac church enlarged.
[37] Many are reformed by his example and holiness, With such and so great proclamations of virtues, the man of God was held greatest among the great, walking in the unspotted way, and stirring up and exalting in the sons of his holy imitation the monastic institutions. The branches of this vine were extended up to the sea, and its offshoots to the river. Of these some Abbots, by example and word alike, bore the dignities conferred on them: others conspicuous only in virtue, thus lived in the flesh beyond the flesh, that while by necessity they were present in the affairs of men, by will they were present in the affairs of Angels. To enumerate these and to recount their life in this present work is to drive the chariot beyond the goal: except that the disciple's praise is also the glory of the master. But to proclaim the devotion of the sons, that you may exalt the merits of the father, is nothing other than if you tried to help the splendor of the sun by bringing torches to it. For there still remain so many signs of his virtues and works, that for recounting them, with a little rest taken up, it is necessary to breathe as a panting horse. Wherefore for the hour we lay aside the stylus, with the help of the servant of God whom he serves: to attack more confidently what remains. a
[38] Now the holy man had escaped the stumbling-blocks of slippery youth with unstumbling steps, in old age he relaxes nothing of the rigor of life and abstinence, bearing from his birth indeed sixty-five, but from his taking up of the rule, forty years. The virgin Wisdom warmed him, whom the blessed old man as another David embracing, when his body failed, he was eminent in himself through maturity of sense and prerogative of counsel. From the troubles with which such an age is surrounded, no defect in religion came upon him: with the same devotion as before, he taught the laws of the monk and observed the sacred institutions. But also the more abundant provision, by which the love of the sons sought to restore the father, failing in body, to the divine office, was nothing else for him than material of virtues. For some easily lack delicacies, but few could abstain from things set before them: which however Blessed Hugh was accustomed so, that when many things were placed before him as he was about to eat, from these he indulged his nature a little, nothing to gluttony. Whatever went beyond the necessaries for his refection, served the multitude, not the person; the needy, not the Abbot. In which refection, it was very wonderful, that wine was never placed before him, but with dry food his fasts were broken, as if one about to make mortar should mix only lime and sand. Thus he running through a weak age not weak, daily added something to religion: the nearer he felt the end of the military service entrusted to him, so much more fully both instructing the camps of the Lord with words, and going before them with examples. He also decided to lay more ample foundations of the monastery of b Cluny, impatient that the Brothers, daily and rightly increasing in merit and number, were burdened with offices quite too narrow. Sound indeed was the Father's purpose, which was shown equally by a revelation and by a happy outcome. For to a certain one of the Brothers, named Gunzo c, a man indeed of praiseworthy and illustrious memory, by the admonition of a certain monk, to whom Saint Peter had appeared, but at that time lying ill from trouble of body, Peter the Apostle appeared, surrounded by a mitered d consortium, and bearing the majesty of a certain other condition. Who declaring his name and the cause of his coming to the one lying, said: "Brother, hasten to Abbot Hugh, to report to him that the pressure of my sheep is grievous to me, which, enclosed within the bounds of that Cluniac fold, too narrow a place burns; it is time that he prepare for them material lodging, who in them has already prepared spiritual lodging for God. But you above the rest are chosen for this legation, that from the health conferred on you, faith may come to the words." He added also that seven years would be added to him, if he faithfully performed the obedience imposed on him: but if Blessed Hugh should delay to obey, that he would undergo the trouble which the messenger had escaped. With these things said, he seemed to stretch cords, and to measure the quantity of length and breadth: he showed him also the quality of the Basilica to be built, ordering that the memory of both the dimensions and the plan cling more tenaciously in his mind.
[39] He enlarges the Cluniac temple: The Brother, awakened, presented himself safe to the Abbot, to whom disease had been threatening destruction. In order are reported, whatever had been said to or shown to the monk. The Abbot believed, and encouraged by the divine admonitions, built so great and such a Basilica e for the habitation of God's glory, that whether it is more capacious in magnitude or more wonderful in art, it is hard to say. This is of his glory and beauty, which, if it is permitted to believe that the heavenly inhabitants take pleasure in human dwellings for such uses, you might call a certain ambulatory of Angels. In this, the monks as if led out of prison, a certain free space restores, so accommodating itself to monastic institutions, that the narrowness of the Choir does not require that orders be mingled, nor stations confused, or at any time wandering abroad. Many things remain, with the saying of which we would be occupied, unless places inscribed to divine services obtained more praise from the merit of the inhabitants than from the hand of the artificers. Which indeed accrued to this structure, of which we speak: which though most splendid in the talent of the builder, is much more splendid from its inhabitant: of both glories, namely of the flock and of the place, Blessed Hugh insisted as a solicitous procurator, to say before God and his Angels with pure conscience: "Lord, I have loved the beauty of thy house, and the place where thy glory dwells." For by his most holy leadership, many thousands of souls having gone forth from Egypt, he brought many to fruit and the monastic life; offered the sacrifice of a contrite spirit, and the host of praise to the Lord of hosts in this desert, made the sanctification of the Lord, and the cord of his inheritance. For just as in catching fish the fisherman uses diverse instruments; so for the salvation of souls the son of prudence walking in diverse ways, was made all things to all men, that he might gain all. The hook always hung for him, always nets cast in the sea, always to the shore of rest and life, small and great fish were brought out. For always under him and through him, according to that saying of Isaiah: "The wolf dwelt with the lamb, and the leopard lay down confidently with the kid." Is. 11:6 With these indeed who had come from the people, so patiently did lofty powers bear the yoke of the Lord, that neither the haughtiness of their descent nor the insolence of their power pressed upon them: the greater any one had been, so much more humble in all things. But those who from fear of failure were afraid to profess the monk, the provident father so tempered monastic discipline, that even those accustomed to delicacies bore it without complaint.
[40] and by wonderful prudence Count Guigo: Of this matter Count Guigo was witness and example, a man indeed too indulgently brought up from boyhood, untrainable to renounce the delicacies frequented from the cradle. Whom when even lambskin clothing wounded, and he could bear nothing next to his skin except the skins of foreign mice or silk attire, Blessed Hugh, however, by circumspect dispensations formed him to endure the roughness of whatever garments. For lest he break a bruised reed, when he had become a monk the use of softer garments was permitted him, which was covered over by the regular habit. A sound counsel indeed, by which the wise Abbot had foreseen that the recruit of Christ, out of shame, would put aside the softer cultivation, and would take ill that he alone in the spiritual soldiery should at any time be accused of sloth, who in the secular was always said to have contended with the better. That it so happened, the Count's conversation indicated: for suddenly changed, with the dispensation garment cast off, he ordered new crosses to his flesh; and fighting the good fight, by a blessed end he merited the eternal gift. f
[41] Moreover, for those desiring to emerge from this great and spacious sea, how great a refuge there was under Blessed Hugh, divine signs also taught. g For a certain man, having set out for Rome by vow, someone divinely destined for him takes the habit at Cluny: prostrate before the tomb of the Apostles, was praying to be taught with more copious tears by what way he might go to God. To him caring about this thing, Peter the keybearer of heaven appeared, and suggested that he set out for Cluny: that Cluny was the laver of souls, and there salvation was to be found, if he should have the Abbot of that place
propitious to him. The suppliant thus instructed, returns rejoicing, hastens to Cluny, asks with word and voice for the Abbot, and having found him, lays open his sacred desire, unfolds the history of the divine vision, recounting in order whatever had been commanded him by the Apostle. The Abbot is bent, not delaying to satisfy the suppliant. Received here, he arranged ascents in his heart the more studiously, because by divine revelation he had learned that from this fellowship of men, he was being promoted to the fellowship of Angels.
[42] This also that monk Goderannus had learned, who having left the monastery of Blessed Remigius h, when for the sake of stricter discipline he had migrated to Cluny, how greatly his institution profited a certain monk. by the marks of his merits and prerogative of knowledge merited to hear from the Lord, "Friend, come up higher." For having first been made Abbot of Maillezais i, afterwards he obtained the dignity of the Church of Saintes. Now it happened that while he was present, the Eucharist was given through the hands of Blessed Hugh to a certain leper. Who, when having received the portion of the sacred bread he could not use it, and long struggled, strove in vain, with the Sacrament falling from his torn mouth with saliva and phlegm horrible to see, Goderannus placed both his hands beneath, and triumphing more gloriously over himself than over any enemy whatever, applying it to his mouth swallowed the whole. Seeing this, the blessed Abbot was astonished, saying that the gridiron of Lawrence was better than this torment of the soul. With these and other persons, as with certain luminaries, the Cluniac monastery was illuminated, was a certain gymnasium of virtue. In their morals and life there was very much of the Father; and whose Pastor it was, the whole flock spoke by its own conversation. Of whom we forbear to speak more, judging that it suffices for the knowledge of their devotion, that before us Ezelo and Gilo, most distinguished men indeed, are said to have written about them more vigilantly.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER VII.
His death foreknown and piously met, his reception into heaven revealed.
[43] The 59th year from the ordination of Blessed Hugh was drawing to an end, The old man does not cease exhorting his monks, and the revolving time had brought the solemnities of the Lord's Nativity: on which day that veteran soldier of Christ, led by the Brothers into the Chapter, by his most holy exhortation comforts the weeping for divine service, strengthens those of failing soul, who with failing step could not stand. He impresses upon them that the conflict is against the princes of darkness, but enemies of this kind will easily yield, if they find a steadfast fighter. The monk's purpose is a certain fortification, nor will there be hope of refuge elsewhere, if with them acting more remissly the plotter should find a place of breaking in. Taking occasion also from the present day, he undertook another, but not foreign, narration, and insinuates that the Holy Virgin appeared to him, "I know," he said, "I know a certain one, to whom in the oratory the Mother of Mercy deigned to appear in this form. In her bosom an elegant boy, bearing a divine beauty: she herself gentle with a kindly gaze, she herself mild and intercessible for obtaining intervention for sinners. To whom the divine infant, applauding, said: 'This hour, this night, marked by my nativity, proclaims glory come to the Angels, peace to men: this night, conscious of my grace, opened the obscurities of the law, dissolved the prophecy of the Prophets. In this I born from you, O illustrious Mother, crushed the head of the serpent, by which it raged against the human race, emptying its ancient power. Where now are the wiles of that venomous serpent? Where are the darts with which, before my nativity, he wounded souls to death?' With these things said, the wicked spirit mixed himself in. Whom the boy sharply rebuked, and forbade him to disturb the praises and services with which the devotion of the faithful followed his nativity, to promote piety on the birth of Christ, with his usual envy, and he departed sad and confused. With him driven farther away, 'Know that Christ with his Mother is present at your services, and from the quality of souls either dictates punishment or reward. Wherefore with sincere devotion of mind receive him, who in whomever he finds well-pleasing to him, will make a perpetual dwelling.'" As he was telling this with tears, the Convent understood that the vision he had related had been shown to no other than himself. Moreover, he had kept silent the name of the person, lest he seem rather to be seeking glory for himself than to be telling the truth.
[44] He prepares himself for death by various bodily afflictions: In the following Lent, when the failure of his strength testified that the day of his burial was at hand, the wearied Father added to his labor, and the Lord to his crown. For with fastings multiplied, he followed his tired limbs with a holy injury: the crosses imposed on his flesh, and tears continued with groans, spoke of him as occupied with desire of another conversation: his vigils were longer vigils, and such as defrauded nature of due sleep: the remaining time either prayer or reading claimed for itself. It was little for the man of God that his spirit should be urged to go forth by nature, unless it should also be urged by tortures added. For the soul, desiring its Creator, held it as an exquisite torture to linger longer in the prison of the flesh. Under this observation therefore, when Lent had passed until Palm Sunday, for the celebration of the solemnity of that day a greater crowd both of the people and of monks had gathered at Cluny. Hence, the ornaments of the church having been taken up for the procession, the Convent goes out in white: with whom when the blessed Abbot desired to go out, called to another exit, what he wished he could not. He desired to be present in the white-robed choirs, and by his presence to exhort his soldiers to praises of Christ: but when he felt his strength failing him for this, those whom he could not accompany in body, he followed with prayers and blessing. There was already in his face a certain portion of future glory, to which you would say something had been conferred of the likeness of the Angels.
[45] Moreover while these things were being done, a certain man of obscure b name strove eagerly to burst in to Blessed Hugh, which he understands to be at hand from a farmer, to whom it was revealed: crying that he had received a great legation to him. Entering, he said: "Do not despise me, holy Father, whom, slender in things, unknown in lineage, only the authority of him who sends me commends. I was planting c recently in the field, when suddenly certain persons appeared to me, of venerable dignity and beyond the men of this time and our condition most worthy in honor and glory: there went before a certain Lady, whose face I could not gaze upon in her swift passage, my gaze pursuing only her back: there followed however an old man venerable with snowy whiteness, who bending his eyes back upon me said: 'Listen, you, O farmer, whose is this field which you cultivate?' To whom I: 'It is of the Blessed Father and Lord Hugh the Abbot.' Then he said: 'Mine is the field, and mine is the possessor. For I am Peter the Apostle, and she who goes before is the blessed Mother of God Mary, surrounded by the fellowship of holy souls. You therefore, hasten to Abbot Hugh, to tell him: "Dispose your house, for you are about to enter upon the way of all flesh at once."' To obey such commands I delayed, fearing lest I be called a vain-speaker and interpreter of falsehood. But again admonished, and because I had delayed the report of the aforesaid vision, rebuked with more grievous words, I hastened to perform the legation long deferred." With these things said, others indeed accused him of falsehood: but the blessed Abbot asserted that it was a certain sign of his burial. Thenceforth in tears he awaited the promised calling, saying with the Apostle: "I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ." Phil. 1:23
[46] The day of the most sacred Supper was at hand, and behold the servant of God, having bestowed a last blessing on his monks, not so much by the law of the time as by the affection of love, enters the Chapter: where, when for those whom the Cluniac monastery had bound to him by sacred familiarity, he had ordered abundant almsgiving to be made, asked to absolve the Convent, he wept most copiously. At length, bringing forth an answer wearied by sobs, "Shall I," he said, "absolve you, whom my own conscience binds? Shall I lift your burden, I prostrate and lying under manifold excess? How shall prayer, subjugated by sins, break the yoke of sinners? We however, though unworthy, shall pursue the due office: but the Lord, who frees the fettered and raises the stricken, what is of his piety, may he deign to work within you inwardly." Then with his eyes lifted to heaven, his cheeks bathed with tears, he absolved the flock entrusted to him. He added also the consolation of a blessing, following Christ the master, who about to pass to the Father, blessed his disciples left behind in the pressure of the world, always going to be present to them by grace, whom he was leaving in body. Then with the service of the poor completed, for the imitation of the example of the Lord's humility, the blessed Old man at the hour of the Mandatum returns to the Chapter, washes the Brothers' feet, adding from the Gospel reading a holy sermon, and washes their feet: calling forth a stream of tears. On the following Saturday also he was present at the sacred Offices, greeting the column d of new light, and praying with frequent sighs, that to the land of promise, which he was already gazing at as from a threshold, he might merit to come with unstumbling step.
[47] There still remained so little strength in his fragile body, that in the church he celebrated the Paschal solemnity, having celebrated the Paschal Office, adorned with festive ornaments, which alike the glory of the day
and the purity of that holy soul somehow announced. Refreshed there with spiritual foods, he turned aside to the house in which he was accustomed to dwell. But when evening came, stricken with illness, he fell into bed, expecting nothing else than the end and reward of his labors. On the third feria when now his dim eyes, his failing tongue, and the other offices of his senses were crying out the present transit, being asked whether he recognized the life-giving flesh of the Lord; "I recognize it," he said, "and adore." He also strove to venerate with most Christian devotion the sign of the saving Cross offered to him. Who, that he might show even dying how vigilant and solicitous he had been about the watches of the sheep entrusted to him, in whatever words he could, announced that the Anniversary of the Archbishop e Gaufridus and of Abbot Guido was at hand, signifying that the due benefits should be paid to the deceased Brothers. A blessed soul indeed, which could not forget the salvation of its own even at that time, in which for some forgetfulness of their own salvation is wont to succeed.
[48] Moreover, the servant of God, about to go out of this Egypt, orders the reliquary of Blessed Marcellus f to be presented to him, interceding his pious Advocate with tears, he dies with great mourning of all: that by his escort, after exile, he might be restored to his homeland. The sons seated by him weep, and one does not console the other, where to all the cause of lamentation was equal and inconsolable. To whom he, signifying his departure, when he had brought forth "Bless," lost the faculty of speaking. Then when the day had inclined to evening, having been brought to the church of the most blessed Mother of God Mary, his weary limbs and his nature, confessing itself mortal, he commended to sackcloth and ashes. Then as the sun was setting, the sun set: and the spirit, freed from the burden of the flesh, happily exchanged temporal things for eternal, for the dwelling of the fatherland. There arises a cry from the sons present, who, roused by the struck tablet, as is the custom, had gathered for the commendation of that blessed soul. Each had as it were a special cause for grief; and as many as were the mouths, so many marks of his virtues were brought forth. For some recalled the Abbot's persistent hatred against vices, others recounted his paternal affection toward penitents. Some lamented that the poor had lost their Father, widows their advocate, orphans their defender. Some recalled the grace of prophecy conferred on the Father, more that he was marked from above by the discernment of spirits. There were even those who lamented that Hugh had feared to anger Christ, if angry he should see the sun setting. Each had overflowing what he might declaim in his praises, and tongues were lacking to recount his merits, not merits to the tongues to recount. The balm for anointing his body, not sufficient, is divinely increased, Among these companies of lamenters and the throng of those lying upon his lifeless limbs, scarcely was there time for the body to be washed, scarcely to be wrapped in priestly garments. For whom when this human service was being performed by the Brothers, a little balm (which seemed hardly sufficient to anoint his head) is said to have received so much increase, that it abounded for anointing the parts of the rest of the body.
[49] These things being duly performed, the people rushing in are admitted, how much they had profited under his patronage, There is a thronging to the funeral, indicating by their tears and expenses. With his cry the neighboring hills resound, the obsequies are celebrated with sumptuous lights. Each one recounts how true was the liberty under him, how great the progress of things, what glory of morals under his sacred discipline. There is running amid these things to embrace the Father's footsteps, garments are watered with weeping; and each believes little has been provided for him, unless he venerates his feet either with a kiss or an offering. Thus, three days passed in tears, with the burial prepared with due honor, g on the Sabbath the happy deposit was received. But the Blessed Abbot passed on the third of the Kalends of May, full of authority and grace, leaving to his sons joy about his crown, example about his life, glory about his body, hope about his intercession. Who indeed how great was his favor with God, after his passing also became known by many proofs.
[50] There was at Cluny Bernard h, a certain just man, holy and fearful: a certain monk, to whom religion had acquired reverence and name. He, as Blessed Hugh was migrating to the heavens, weighed down by sleep, could be roused neither by the noise of those running about, nor by immoderate cries. Not long afterwards he fell into bed, about to yield to the supreme ill of human commonwealth. When he was being urged to exit, having summoned some monks, "To you," he said, "Brothers, I have thought it necessary to open what vision the Lord has shown me. You, as I tell it, do not accuse of falsehood, who, if not by love of virtue, at least by fear of the judgment to which I am doubtful called, I should fear to lie. You know indeed that I recently spontaneously left the obedience of Nogent i; but by what reason I left it, perhaps you do not know. As I was sleeping a certain venerable person appeared to me, naming himself Dionysius k the Areopagite, and urging me to return to Cluny with these words: 'It is necessary, brother, recalled divinely to Cluny, it is necessary for you to return to Cluny as quickly as possible, and to greet Abbot Hugh, about to enter the common road of pilgrimage. You will also see his successor, to whom from the Roman borders divine grace has been sent, the Princes of the Apostles have committed the pastoral watches.' Compelled by this suggestion, I hastened to return to Cluny. Woe to me miserable, the Father indeed departed: but I did not merit to greet him departing. Whether I should accuse the sleep that held me, or give thanks, I am uncertain. It envied and provided. It held the eyes of the flesh, that I might not see him as he departed; but where he went, it showed to the inner eyes. l I saw, and with God as witness I saw the heavenly ones mixed with the mortals, and the most blessed Mother of God Mary: m there stood at a distance certain archers, who, the most sacred Virgin being known, as if terrified, departed and confused. There was seen there a multitude of Martyrs and likewise of Confessors, He beholds him being led to heaven by the Saints, of whom I was given to recognize some from above, and to discern among the qualities of them: I knew there Blessed Martial, and Martin, and the glory of Abbots, Benedict. These two were seen to lead the spirit of Blessed Hugh into the most fertile vineyard, and to place him there, as about to rest after his labor. In which place, while I was equally wondering at the glory of the Saints, and what was being done, he gently turning his eyes toward me, said: 'Stand, Brother, and eat with us from the white clusters which abound for us: I will here [n] rest a little, until the swelling of my feet subside, and the dust be shaken off, which by the manifold circuit of the ways I have contracted o: then I shall pass to another dwelling, which the Lord has prepared for me in eternity. But you will say to Pontius my successor, [p] that he in no way permit himself to decline from humility, that he insist on works of mercy, forgetful of his own, be moved by others' injuries. Above all, let him burn with zeal for the law, and toward delinquents be neither remiss in indulgence, nor immoderate in discipline.' He was still speaking, when sleep departed with the vision soothing my soul. But know that I have spoken the truth, if the present infirmity ends the course of my life: if not, I have called down the Judge upon my head, because I have contrived a falsehood." These things related moved the hearers, taught by his death, that Brother Bernard had uttered no lie. For on the third day [q], having gone out of man, he left both a testimony of the Abbot's glory, and a hope of his own salvation to the Brothers.
[51] On that same night also, in which Blessed Hugh migrated to the heavens, a not dissimilar vision is said to have appeared to the Abbot of Noyon. The same was revealed to another. It seemed to him that two beds were carried to heaven by Angels, which with softer adornment, provoked forgetfulness of care and sleep. But the Angels, who were carrying the beds, cried out with these words: "We shall place in these beds two illustrious men, namely Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury, and Hugh Abbot of the Cluniac Monastery; who after earth merited heaven, after labors rest, joy after tears." After these things the Abbot, awakening, related to several what he had seen, tracing the aforesaid vision to the passing of each person. Nor was his understanding frustrated, since both are remembered to have escaped the anxieties of this body about the same time. Other marks of the Blessed man's merits also shone, which are read to have been performed even after death on those held by various ailments. Appearing to a blind man, he restored his sight: To a certain Hincmar an overgrowing whiteness had covered the pupils of his eyes, and had condemned him to miserable blindness: to whom when the hope of recovering salvation hung from the merits and intervention of the Abbot; it is remembered that the servant of Christ appeared to him in sleep, and admonished him not to seek the illumination of body, but of mind: yet at last, having impressed the sign of the Cross over the eyes of the one beseeching, the servant of God is said to have departed, and the blindness to have been wiped from his eyes. and a certain man recovers his mind at his tomb. Also a certain one of the Brothers, named Guido, when a new madness had shaken from him the tranquility of mind and body, being led to the tomb of the blessed man, with the trouble driven out, rested, restored to himself and likewise to the Convent by his sacred merits: with our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns through infinite ages. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
ANOTHER LIFE
By Raynald, Abbot of Vézelay, afterwards Archbishop of Lyon.
From the manuscript of the most Serene Christina Queen of Sweden, and another of our Douai College.
Hugh, Abbot of Cluny in Gaul (St.)
BHL Number: 4008
By Raynald FROM THE MANUSCRIPT.
PROLOGUE.
To all the sons of the Church of Cluny, Brother Raynald, not so much Abbot as servant of the Church of Vézelay, wishes in the Lord salvation.
When I am urged by the admonitions of many Brothers to describe succinctly the life of the most pious Father Lord Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, it is my counsel to serve devotion, not presumption. But if perhaps the zeal of some man of loftier talent should have sweated at this work before us; I would not, that I might obscure him and make myself bright, do this; but I think that his work should be left to the excellence of the greater and wiser men; but ours, attributed to the study of the lesser and less capable: nor will the humility of unpolished speech be ugly, provided the style itself purely serves the truth.
CHAPTER I.
Adolescence piously passed: beginning of monastic life, the Abbatial dignity, liberality toward the poor, familiarity with Christ, power over demons.
[1] Therefore the blessed man, drawing the line of his lineage from the most noble of the Burgundians, Born of noble stock, was begotten from his father Dalmatius a man of consular rank, his mother being Aremburgis, a very religious woman and not unequal in birth to her husband. Which venerable matron, pregnant with this happy offspring of whom we treat, when birth was at hand, thought to beg a certain venerable Priest to offer a sacrifice to God for the alleviating of the distresses of her childbirth. When the man of God had obeyed her devout prayers, with a presage of future holiness: he saw; and behold in the very holy Chalice, as the image of a certain little infant appeared: in which he could express, how great a merit before God that boy would be, who was being born. Soon with the office of the Masses performed, the Priest hastens to prove the outcome of the matter; and he found the infant born, whose presage he had seen and recognized in the mirror of so great a Sacrament. Then predicting many things of him, he declared that he would be a great man, if he should live. Which from the very rudiments of his boyhood became sufficiently known, as he more frequently attended either the church or the schools; but at stealthy hours, He is exercised in literary and military pursuits: because he feared his father, who wished to apply him to military studies. And when a more precious garment, more becoming in variety of colors, was fitted to him, he rejected it for a more abject and simple one; and he gave his effort not to lasciviousness, as that age is wont, but to innocence and simplicity; he also frequently, with his parents unwilling, gave himself to reading. For all these things and similar, when he was blamed by his father and by his coevals, namely because these were contrary to soldiery; he resolved with himself to seek another soldiery for himself; to which these things, without which he was unwilling to serve, should not be contrary.
[2] Therefore leaving all things, naked he escaped from the world: and submitting himself to the magistry of Blessed Odilo, He takes the monk's habit at Cluny: he becomes a monk at Cluny: at whose reception a certain one of the elders, as is reported, bursting out into these words, said, "O how great a treasure, Cluniac Church, you have today received!" Who afterwards, of how great humility, of how great purity and honor, and how fervent in the love of God he was, not our speech, but the skill of Blessed Odilo, as a youth he holds the office of Prior: who within the years of his youth ordained him Praepositus of Cluny, declares. In whose office of rule, with what mercy and charity, with what vigor and vigilance he insisted, the devotion of the Cluniac elders makes manifest: He is elected Abbot: who at the first word about the election of an Abbot, when he who presided over the election had named him, and wished to proceed to nominate others; they immediately snatched him from his seat, and with the praises of God raised him to Abbot. Then finally what crosses he imposed upon himself, Clothed in a breastplate, he does penance for his deceased father: let the breastplate, with which being clothed next to his flesh he subdued his youth, alone among the rest brought into the middle be sufficient; under which both his own, though innocent, and his father's penance, who had already departed from the world, he was doing. But of reading and prayer, on which he insisted almost continually, I think I should define in few words: because in both he showed himself so insatiable, most addicted to reading and prayer, as if when he read, God was speaking to him visibly; but when he prayed, he was conversing with God face to face.
[3] But I am not able to explain the number of his mercies: namely how pious toward his subjects, how generous toward the poor he was, most profuse toward the poor, how benevolent he showed himself both toward strangers and toward his domestics. Indeed he was regarded with such charity and modesty toward his sons, that daily their number increased; and each thought himself happy, who came under so great a Father to the grace of conversion. For about his alms, who can worthily recount? On which he so sweat, that besides daily food he also procured clothing, both in winter and in summer, fitting for the poor, and spent almost whatever he could have on their needs. O faithful dispenser of Christ! to whom it was little to feed the poor with bread, unless he fattened them with meats: little, unless he often gladdened them with wine: little, unless he often had them rewarded with silver coins, sometimes even gold. And what were all these to him, unless also manifold clothing should follow? To drive off the cold woolen garments were prepared: with which he himself sews the garments. to repress the heat linens were bought: and lest anything be lacking to perfect charity, he himself with the Brothers who attended him, was wont to sew them: then he would distribute shoes, not without grease with which to anoint them. Nor would you believe him unlike John, who on account of the immensity of his alms alone in the Church is surnamed "Eleemon," while he was spending incomparable treasures on their expenses; and what would be thought sufficient for riches to some most powerful King, this he often dispersed for relieving the miseries of the poor.
[4] What shall I say of his memorable faith, by which he shone with such merit before God, that both God heard his vows; and frequently, either with him not knowing or with him absent, He worked miracles through him? For, that I may come to other things in their place, let us first of all bring to the middle that miracle about the Savior himself; which, although he did not see it himself, yet the faithful witness Pope Gregory VII, who was formerly called Hildebrand, is known to have been of this matter. For thus when on a certain day in the Cluniac Chapter (inasmuch as he was a monk and still Subdeacon of the Roman Church), he was sitting beside the blessed man, He is seen by Saint Gregory VII to have Christ as his assessor. turning he saw the Lord Jesus seated beside him: and as if in individual judgments favoring him, he appeared cheerful in face and bearing. Presently he, with all astonished, being ignorant indeed of the matter at its depth, rising to so great a Judge, wanted to place the Lord in the middle. At last, asked by the most holy Father why he had risen from his seat, he set forth the vision (which he confessed he did not know with what eyes he had seen it), as we have prefaced: in which we can consider, with what purity and equity he discussed faults, who merited to have the Judge of ages as his assessor. This man, as is reported, a man of such authority and grace, on account of the severity of discipline and the mildness of temperance, used to call a "bland Judge," especially for this, that as a mother he coaxed his sons, and as a father he corrected their delinquencies.
[5] But while I consider what regarding Pope Stephen was done through him; I think it not beside the point, He is present to Pope Stephen dying, that it should be inserted into this work. For he was lying in illness at Florence a city of Italy: and not without the grace of God, visited by the holy man, after much conversation held with him, that he might merit to die between his hands, he begged the Lord. When behold, the enemy of the human race, at the hours at which the man of God was absent, presents himself to the gaze of the dying Pontiff, by whom he drives out a demon: and with the horror of his aspect terrify and disturb his mind; but at the entry of the man of God, to flee, and as long as he was with him, to appear no more. Which when it was learned, the said Pontiff afterwards detained him with the most urgent prayers, and he remained with him until his departure; and his body, washed with his own hands and wrapped in funeral garments, he placed in the sepulcher.
[6] No wonder if in the presence of such a man the devil was put to flight, whose spirit so clung to God, that even the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in His own person deigned to come to visit him. Which then too, although by a revelation not like the former, yet not unequal, shone forth, when a certain elder, as the same man, as we believe, recounted of himself as of another, saw the very Redeemer with a cithara, He sees Christ singing the psalms in the choir with the Brothers. singing psalms in the Cluniac choir before each of the Brothers; and the song which was heard was that evangelical antiphon: "But to sit with me is not mine to give to you, but to those for whom it has been prepared by my Father": then also so great an odor of heavenly spices was seen to boil up, that it was believed to surpass the fragrance of all balsams.
CHAPTER II.
A deceased man freed from punishments, the sick from diseases: temples and monasteries built or reformed.
[7] He heals one alienated from himself and therefore seized by disease: Nor do I think it should be covered with silence, that a certain Brother, named Pontius, had almost felt the judgment of divine animadversion in himself; unless heavenly piety had come to his aid through this servant of God. For when at a certain cell, to which Mons a is the name, this Brother was staying, and the reverend Father had come there; he, because, as one foolishly murmuring against the Father, he did not wish to see him; feigning illness, withdrew to his bed. But the more he tried to withdraw himself from the man of God, the more life (not now by pretense, but by certain illness) hastened to leave the body: so that now with his voice sticking in his throat, speech was failing. There is a running to the pious Pastor, that he might commend the sheep almost departing to the highest Pastor. Presently he hastening, sent forth absolution before commendation: and thus the sick man, his strength and voice a little restored, confesses his fault, accuses his rashness, implores pardon and obtains it, and thus finally recovers from that trouble.
[8] He imparts absolution to a deceased: Another, when he had departed from this world, and his body was being kept unburied in the Cluniac oratory as was the custom, appeared to two Brothers on the very night of his falling asleep: to whom he confessed the crime of two shillings, which he had given to a certain man without license: and because he had died without confession of this offense, he demanded absolution from the holy Father, before he should be delivered for burial. When morning came, the vision as if with one mouth both set forth before the whole convent to the blessed man. Then, having inquired about the person whom the deceased had named, the matter was found according to the shown vision. Presently penance being enjoined on all for the brother, with prayers, psalms, alms,
and Masses added, absolution followed. Thus indeed, thus not only on earth; but also in heaven his faith bore virtue, virtue power, power glory, glory here humility, there a crown, day by day.
[9] He heals a leper, At a certain time also, when he was making a journey through the parts of Gascony, with Hunald b, a most prudent man and his monk, accompanying him, not far from the road he saw a certain cell, in which a certain man, noble indeed by birth but stricken with leprosy, was dwelling: whose morals when he had investigated, and had recognized his patience to be proved; the man remarkable for piety turned aside to visit him, and by a word of consolation fulfilling the office of charity, took off his fur garment, and with some silver coins gave it to the sick man. When he had departed, the sick man, where he put on the garment, immediately recognized himself cured of the plague of leprosy.
[10] Again the same most holy man had come to Paris, and a paralytic: and had with pious religious worship visited the church of Blessed Genovefa, which is situated outside the walls of the city, both for devotion of her most sacred body, and for veneration of the Prince of the Apostles, whose chasuble is believed to be there: to where then a certain knight, named Robert, who from the wound of a warlike blow had incurred paralysis, brought by the hands of his servants, was asking him to supplicate the Lord for his salvation. He, taking up the Apostolic infula, placed it on his weakened members, and having imposed that antiphon which is sung in the church about the saving of Eneas the paralytic, with the name changed, said: "Robert, may the Lord Jesus Christ heal you." Immediately, with all seeing and marveling in joy, sound and whole he returned home. But what miracles he performed through the obtaining of sacred pledges are as innumerable to us as they were more frequent; in which however he showed himself so cautious, that he always imputed to the Saints, whatever was granted to anyone by God from his ministration.
[11] Likewise at some time, about to enter Valence of Gaul, He bestows all things on the poor, he meets a multitude of the poor, which was asking for alms from a dispenser so famous throughout the world. He orders Jarento his steward, a Brother most vigorous in all things, to distribute silver coins to the whole crowd according to custom: but he after, affirms that he has scarcely ten shillings remaining, the rest having been consumed in similar work, and these must perhaps be kept for a greater necessity. "Do not," he said, "tremble, Brother, God is faithful, and trust; because these being distributed, our good rewarder Jesus will faithfully enough recompense us in the present; if we shall be cheerful givers." The Father's commands are fulfilled, and before they came to the city, behold a certain man from the city offered him gold, which exceeded the price of the shillings ten times. Then turning to the aforesaid Brother: "Take it," with God recompensing his liberality: he said, "and do not further mistrust the good lender." How often this man of singular trust in God freed himself and the house over which he presided from great and intolerable penury, by the faith by which he was wholly in God, it is too long to enumerate.
[12] But what he wrote to the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, let one out of many suffice to relate briefly. On a certain occasion, with want urging, there was sent from the brothers to him a legation (for he was then at Marcigny c), praying that in such great necessity he might provide for them. He turns therefore to his singular refuge; [having sent an epistle to the altar of Saints Peter and Paul for relieving his want, he is heard:] sends an epistle to the Apostles, asking and beseeching that they would have mercy on his servants; and that they, who had thus far governed that place, and had promoted it from small to great, would now also deliver him from these distresses; and not regard his sins, but their many mercies. The legation of faith is therefore carried before their altar. What more? So great, within not many days passed, an abundance of things arrived, that it relieved not only the want of that time, but also of the whole year. And because, with the occasion presenting itself, we have made mention of the blessed Apostles; it is worthy to relate how by them the blessed man was admonished about the foundation of a new basilica.
[13] A certain Abbot of the monastery which is called Balmes d, Gunzo by name, to whom by heavenly admonition he builds a more majestic church: a man of great honor and simplicity, when at one time he was failing at Cluny from the grievous ailment of paralysis, so that he believed himself to have come to his extremity; on a certain night, he saw the Apostles Peter and Paul themselves standing by him with the Protomartyr Stephen: of whom the first and chief, namely Blessed Peter, after he had been asked by him who they were, and had uttered his name and that of his companions; thus began: "Rise, Brother, quickly, and to Hugh the Abbot of this church, bring these our commands: The narrowness of our basilica the multitude of the Brothers can scarcely bear, and we wish that the Abbot himself build a more ample one: nor let him distrust about the resources, it will be ours to provide all things which will be necessary for this work." To whom he: "I do not dare," he said, "to undertake such a legation, because faith would not be given to the words." And the Apostle: "Have from me this sign of the truth," he said: "that presently, with the duty of the legation fulfilled, you will find yourself safe from every trouble." He had spoken, and from his eyes the vision immediately disappeared. But when dawn came, he recounted the commands to the man of God in order, and from the Apostle's promise he became whole. And this was the first cause, which chiefly inclined the mind of the holy Father to begin so great a work. Whose construction displays in itself such grace of beauty and delight, that in all the Western region (for about other parts of the world it is less known to me) no basilica is more remarkable than this.
[14] But lest I seem to have published this alone as the magnificent work of this man of God, other things being passed over, with Cluny enlarged, he renovated Cluny, he enlarged the number of the Brothers both inside and outside more than all his predecessors, he reformed cells with buildings, he extended possessions by their limits. Who restored in religion the churches of the blessed Confessors e Martial and f Giles, but this blessed man? Who that of Saint g Austremonius of the Auvergne, but this blessed man? He founds and reforms various temples and monasteries, Who brought back the Vézelay church of Saint Mary Magdalene to the pristine state of the regular order, but this blessed man? He founded at Poitiers h the monastery of Saint John the Evangelist from its very foundations in religion: he also illustrated with religion the church of Saint i Bertin the Confessor with many monasteries of Flanders itself: the place also which bears the name of "Charity," through the man of wonderful grace before God and men, Gerard his monk, from the beginning built.
[15] At Paris the church of Saint Martin, which is called "of the Fields," especially in Gaul. he transferred from the Canonical order to monastic rule. But why should I traverse almost all Gaul, which he so adorned with monasteries, that whether in France, or in Aquitaine, or in Burgundy, nay wherever through all its parts you turn, everywhere you see the religion of such a great Father shining? But is it only in Gaul, or are the Western provinces to be passed over? Of each of which, with what light of religion he illustrated them, the monasteries bear witness, most of which in them, he either built himself or reformed very many to a better state. In his own patrimony also, with the zeal and help of his brother Gaufrid, he founded the monastery of Marcigny for holy women; for whom he instituted the law both of cenobites and of anchorites; that they might both emulate the purpose of obedience, and in the solitude of perpetual cloister imitate the life of anchorites.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER III.
Secrets of souls known; future things predicted, diseases cured.
[16] Among so many gifts of graces, the most holy man also did not lack the spirit of prophecy; in which meanwhile in discerning the wills and souls of the brothers, He forbids a certain man from the kiss on account of a hidden sin: he was endowed with such grace, that he often predicted their morals and affections. Whence it happened, that at a certain time, when going through and visiting his cells, he had come to the place of Charity; among the other brothers, he refused the kiss to one. Asked about the cause, he answered that an evil spirit had its habitation in him. With those who were present astonished, the miserable man is questioned about his conscience, who presently confesses that he had long been celebrating Mass without the Priestly Order; that he had received no confession or penance, and was still persisting in that crime itself; but when he should have done penance, afterwards he became scandalous and worst. So also at the city of Avignon, He reproaches a scandalous beggar: when on a certain day a certain weak man was asking alms from him; the man of God, looking upon the wretched one, is said to have addressed him with such a response: "Alms indeed for Christ, whom you pretend, I give you; but your life full of drunkenness and lust, displeases Him; of whom you lie that you are a poor man." Immediately all the citizens who were present, turned to wonder, affirmed him to be such, as the holy man, who had never seen him before, had reproved him to have been.
[17] A certain novice also, named Maingodus, while he was afflicted with the tedium of expectation of taking the habit,
and had already resolved with himself not to endure any further delays, He keeps the novice in the monastic life by detecting his temptation: he was forestalled by the man of God by the spirit about his thought. For he both indicated how he had wished to depart; and admonished him that he should not wish to go against the regular examination. Who afterwards showed a praiseworthy conversation, and happily consummated the course of his life, as was said to him from heaven through a vision in the very article of death.
[18] There was also a man of wonderful simplicity and grace, named Duranus, Bishop of the city of Toulouse, who, although he had been religious in life, yet from cheerfulness of mind he sometimes brought forth words moving laughter. About which matter, when he was often rebuked by the holy Father, whose monk he was also; on a certain day in spirit he predicted to him, that after he should migrate from this life, with foamy mouth he would appear by a vision to some of the Brothers: which so happened. For to a certain Chaplain of his, named Higuinus, after his departure he appeared, and as the man of God had predicted, with foaming lips he teaches the Brother about the deformity of his mouth: namely that he was paying the penalties for the fault of idle speech: and he asks that he open his cause to the pious Father. To whom when the vision was revealed, the man full of the Holy Spirit imposed silence for one week on seven Brothers; but one of them violated what six kept intact. Then the Bishop again appeared to the aforesaid Brother, from which he frees him: with his mouth now cleaner, but from a certain part still with saliva flowing; saying that he had been purged by the obedience of the Brothers who had kept silence; but he complained that by the neglect of the seventh Brother that part remained not yet cured. And so, what had been seen, are again intimated to the Father, and with the breaking of the silence made up by another week, finally the third time he showed himself to the same Brother without any deformity.
[19] This also I think should be committed to memory, that a certain Flemish Cleric, a Canon of Saint Audomarus the Confessor, He appears to an absent man, named Lambert, when he had resolved to renounce the world and to submit himself to the magistry of the blessed man; was detained by the Provost of that town, with force applied both to himself and his possessions. Therefore on a certain night, the aforesaid Provost sees coming to him a person of great severity, with a pastoral staff; which naming himself the Cluniac Abbot, with many beatings was demanding the Cleric with his things. At length when day had been restored to the lands, the Cleric who had been exacted is called; and the vision being set forth, and the face and habit of the holy Father being insinuated, he is released with his things, and is made a monk at Cluny. There was a certain man, named William, He heals a certain man from swelling of the leg, who had been sent by the holy Father to a certain obedience, whom soon such a disease struck in the leg, that he succumbed to the obedience imposed, and with the swelling spreading could not bear the leg. Then having conceived faith, "Through him," he said, "who sent me here, I tell you, plague, that you permit me to fulfill the obedience which has been enjoined on me." He spoke, and in the following night, he saw himself visited by two men who said they had been sent by the holy man; and in the form of physicians he was treated and cured by them. In the morning, waking, he felt himself sound from every ailment.
[20] Another from inflammation of the foot, Another, named Theoderic, was burned in the thumb of his foot as if by a certain fire, so that he could scarcely indulge in sleep or in any quiet of the body. He asks the procurator of the sick to receive cautiously the water in which the holy Father's hands were washed at the hour of Mass, and to bring it to him. Therefore having seized the opportunity, the water is received from his hands, and poured on the burning foot: and thus immediately the burning wholly ceased. and another wounded: A certain Auvergnat knight had been wounded in battle, and with the scar drawn over less cautiously, the pus enclosed lethally was occupying the whole body; he was tormented daily with immense pains, and even to death despairing he was expecting the exit of life. He had a brother, a certain Cleric, despairing himself also of carnal medicine; but not distrusting God's mercy: who thought the blessed man should be sought for his languishing brother. Therefore coming to the man of God, he begged counsel about so great a trouble, and asked that he send him some fragments of his food: he also asked for and received a wooden shaved thorn, which the man of God then by chance held in his hand. He therefore took the fragments, and gave them to his brother to eat, consigning the scar with the thorn in the sign of the Cross; and immediately the pain was so put to flight, that the sick man, with all who were present astonished, left his long bed, and felt nothing more of the trouble of his former ailment.
[21] He restores a crushed boy to himself. A certain monk boy at the monastery of Paredum, while he was praying in the choir with the Brothers; when one of the planks was falling, which was joined to the vault of an eminent tower, was crushed from the crown of his head. There is a running to the venerable Father, who then by chance in another church, namely of the Mother of God, was insisting on the divine work: and so grave a crushing of the boy, now almost lifeless, is announced to him. When he came, he wet his face with blessed water, and with prayer following held back the barely palpitating spirit hastening to the exit: then gradually with his strength resumed, made whole, he survived a long time.
[22] He heals a Nobleman seized with madness on account of his unjust plunders. There was in the territory of Lyon a knight, named Berardus, Lord of the Castle of Rehoterium, who was devastating the place of Blessed Peter Cavariacum, and striving to reduce it to depraved uses. For which matter when he was often rebuked by the holy Father, and more and more his malice was raging; on a certain day being lifted up into pride, he brought threats and so departed from him. He, taking up the arms of faith, invokes Christ as protector, and demands John the Baptist, in whose honor the basilica of the same place is consecrated, as defender. Soon on that very journey between Cavariacum and his castle Lusesium, struck by divine judgment, he went mad, and carried off by the hands of his men, he is dragged to his bed: even that very night he was scarcely freed from a burning which occupied his bed once and twice, scarcely reserved for satisfaction on the following day; by which however, performed at the judgment of the holy man, with his absolution he rested from that madness.
[23] Robbers, by whom he had been plundered, are divinely punished. At a certain time also when the blessed man was making a journey through Aquitaine for certain uses of his church; certain robbers from the castle, to which the name is Briderium, burst upon him, and led off his mules with much baggage: which crime divine vengeance followed. For in the same year by the Aquitanian Duke Guido, who was also called William, their town was overthrown, and burned with the fire of divine animadversion. In counsel too the man of God was endowed with such grace, that whoever sought him for the sake of counsel both in divine and in worldly affairs; was so imbued from the fount of heavenly doctrine, that he believed himself as if informed by an Angel.
[24] He wards off frequent thunderbolts from a certain monastery. Which the church of Saint Michael, which is situated in that part of Cisalpine Gaul which is called Clusa, sufficiently proved in the repelling of thunderbolts. For when that place was being struck by frequent lightnings, and a horrible storm was threatening desolation to the monastery, on account of the destruction of certain Brothers; at last the blessed man is consulted about changing the habitation of the place. Then the man full of God answered that the place should not be deserted: but that the patronage of Blessed Laurence the Martyr should be implored by daily commemoration. Whose counsel appeared of such efficacy, that from that time, by the merits of the holy Martyr and by the faith of the most blessed Father, the place rested from thunderbolt strokes. But while he was useful to others in counsel, he was also ready and provident for himself: which because it is long to show in many of his affairs, yet I will briefly dispatch a few for example of the matter.
CHAPTER IV.
The Council of Reims celebrated, the schism composed: the pious death.
[25] At a certain time Leo the ninth, Pontiff of the Roman See, In the Council of Reims he acts as orator: for extirpating the heresies of the Simonists and Nicolaitans from Gaul, was celebrating a synod at Reims, and discussed the entries of individual Fathers; who when they were responding individually about their elections, the man of God is said to have given such a response about his conscience: "The flesh indeed consented, but the spirit resisted." At which word he was held in such admiration and grace by all, that among so many most eloquent men, among so many elders, he himself still a young man, was chosen to give a sermon to the whole Synod. His counsel was sought not only by neighbors, He is sought by the highest for giving counsel: but also from the farthest parts of the lands: nor only by private persons, but by great orders, of Kings, Emperors, Pontiffs, both of the Roman See and of many other Sees: to whom he responded with such moderation of equity, that he set God first in all things, and showed himself benevolent to all. Which was clearly shown in the schism of the Emperor Henry against the Roman Church.
[26] And called by the Pontiff to compose the schism, For the reconciliation of which, when he had been summoned by the supreme Pontiff Gregory VII, and passing by the thresholds of the Apostles (because there a Caesar with his army was lingering), he had turned aside to the supreme Pontiff; the King, learning this, sent a legation to him, judging him reprehensible, that he had passed over for the sake of a mortal man. But the man of God answered that not from contempt, but from good intention he had passed over the place: more quickly would he obtain pardon from the Apostles, if on account of reforming peace he had approached the stern Pontiff first rather than return to the grace of the same Pontiff; and would be less profitable to the cause, if under the appearance of prayer, he should seem to have preferred the royal conversation to the Pontifical. And though the man of God had not been able to bring them to concord, yet the Emperor, made a little milder by such a rational response, He goes to the Emperor Henry. came to Sutri b, lest at Rome he should see second him whom he could not see first, for his conversation: where after much speech held with one another, the King on bended knees made satisfaction for a certain Brescian Bishop c, who had inflicted the injury of capture d on the man of God himself, led by royal zeal.
[27] Of his discretion indeed I can recount so much less satisfactorily, as it is most difficult to go through his individual works. But as I have briefly discoursed about his other virtues; so also of that, which is the mother of all, and without which none of his deeds are found, I shall briefly explain. And because a matter is by no indicator brought out better than by example; He sweetly induces Count Guigo of Albon to monastic life. therefore we have thought Guigo, Count of Albon, should not undeservedly be remembered, saved by him by a new kind of discretion. This man indeed when on a certain day he was conversing with the holy Father, among other things denied that he could become a monk, unless he were permitted to be clothed as he wished always in a secular garment: which when the man of God heard, and desired to yield to his will
giving in to his will, he satisfied him, and gained his soul for God. For having been made a monk, at first he went clothed beneath his cowl in softer and more precious garments: then when he saw the humility of the Brothers, and likewise the simplicity of life and habit; reproaching himself as it were a lion among the sheep of Christ, of his own accord he cast off secular and pompous things: and thus within a brief space of his conversion, about twenty days, he rested with a good end.
[28] We shall then worthily and truly praise religion in him, Famous for many virtues, if we shall say his habit, gait, gesture, speech, if finally all his works to have been holy and irreproachable throughout his whole life. Patience indeed, humility, modesty, sobriety, and the other virtues which he had, it is not necessary to describe: which were in him as if innate, and adorned his acts from the very cradle in every way. But of his charity I think it unworthy to pass over one thing, in which no one is who would dissent that he was admirable. For when two soldiers had killed one of his Brothers, He imparts asylum and the monastic habit to his brother's assassins: and no place of refuge, where they might take themselves for safety, was open to them in Gaul; this blessed man received them in the asylum of Cluny, and having made them monks, retained one under the rule of the monastic Order; the other, who had been the head of the evil, fleeing away and afterwards bent on plunder and rapine, and for this reason evilly killed, he lost. And since the whole life of the blessed man was nothing other than virtue, and we cannot collect individual things on account of their enormity, therefore let us make the end of this work about the end of so great a Father.
[29] By the exercise of various virtues he prepares himself for death: The holy man therefore through the glorious labors of life, when he was already desiring with his whole mind to enter the way of all flesh, that he might receive the reward from the very King, to whom he had always served as a soldier, in eternal blessedness; did not cease daily more and more to exercise good works, to be zealous for mercy, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to postpone everything to the service of God, to hold inflexibly the rigor of his order, always to observe religion both in himself and in his subjects; finally to emulate, embrace, and obtain all virtues, and thus continually to expect the day of his calling. Meanwhile the Paschal solemnity of the Lord's Resurrection had come, and the holy old man, about to pass from labor to rest, when on the very day of the Lord's Supper he had absolved his Brothers, both absent and present, with paternal authority; with the life-giving Passion and Resurrection celebrated, on the fourth feria, with the day now advancing toward evening, in the Oratory of the Blessed Mother of God, he rendered his blessed spirit to God: whose body, treated with spices, was buried in the new basilica, which he himself built, toward the Eastern region.
[30] Whose pious death is at the same time revealed to a certain one in England, Whose obsequies, on the very night when he migrated to the Lord, a certain religious Brother, named Baldwin, once the steward of Lord Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury, saw in spirit from England, as he himself told me, in order. For everywhere incomparable mourning, everywhere wailings, everywhere laments resounded: whatever of grief at the funeral of the holy father was taking place at Cluny, he himself, placed in Britain, saw the whole; and understood by whose cause all was done. Then having called Lord Rodulf the Bishop of Rochester, who was then comforting the church of Canterbury over the recent death of Lord Archbishop Anselm, he set forth the vision, and predicted that the holy old man had migrated from the world. Therefore with the day and hour noted, after not many days he learned that the holy man had died, and found the time noted according to the vision which he had seen. A certain Abbot also from the Cambrai district saw two couches being carried to heaven: And to another his passage to heaven. of which one was said to be of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the other of the Cluniac Abbot: one ascended on the fourth feria of one week, the other likewise of another week on the same feria: which after a few days had passed, the event of the matter proved: for Lord the Archbishop passed on the fourth feria before the Lord's Supper at dawn; but the holy old man on the Sunday, as was said above, with the Resurrection celebrated on the same feria, namely on the eighth day as evening was advancing, was released from the flesh. These things concerning the Life of our holy Father Hugh Abbot of Cluny, as partly I have seen, partly by the report of probable men I have learned, let me have touched upon, in whose praise let us thus sing these little verses.
"Rule of virtues, Father Hugh, glory of monks, Hope of the poor, despiser of wealth, harbor of the miserable. Vessel and temple of God, libation and sacrifice of Christ, His epitaph. In the flesh he is laid on the earth, but his spirit has sought the stars. O happy chariot! happy charioteer of yours! Make that you carry to the stars, those whom here by living you were ruling. The last light of his life, the second-last of April shone. Eternal light, God, may you shine upon him through every age."
He ruled the Cluniac Church for sixty years, with eight days and two months added e, whose merits may help us before God forever and ever. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
METRICAL SYNOPSIS OF THE LIFE
By the same author Raynald from the said manuscript.
Hugh, Abbot of Cluny in Gaul (St.)
BHL Number: 4009
By Raynald FROM THE MANUSCRIPT.
Distinguished in titles and famous for his praise throughout the world, We sing Hugh, your hope, Cluny. May God breathe upon these beginnings, may he favor these vows, That I may merit to speak worthy things of so holy a Father. What nobler lords Burgundy had, This distinguished man drew his descent from them. He is born of noble Burgundian stock For from his father Dalmatius nothing more illustrious was ever produced, Except that he too much delighted to follow wars. Mother Aremburgis, not unequal to her husband in lineage, Shone in her morals, more noble than even herself: She struck with fear, at the impending danger of birth, Thought to seek the vows of Priests. A new thing for so many ages: while it was being offered by one, The form of an infant was seen in the chalice. Who and how great the one born should be held, The figure seen in so great a mirror teaches. He, with the sacraments performed in the customary manner, Proclaims as remarkable the one whom he found born. Wherefore neither did the life of the boy fail its seer; Nor could the morals of youths violate him. He, now wholly clinging to schools, to church, given to piety and letters, Set aside plays for the studies of virtues. He refuses noble garments, for a humble garment, And with simple ones simply walks. But his father thence fearing, lest he so grow unaccustomed to arms, Rebukes him, as if guilty of piety: That such things, unless unlearned, are harmful to soldiery: An old man scarcely shrinks from what he learned as a youth. He abhors military exercises: That he had once made him the heir of his goods; That he had always loved him more among his brothers. Thence that he ought to follow paternal customs, paternal traditions too, Lest he seem to degenerate. These things the father: but the youth at last does what he bore in mind And fugitive seeks you, Cluny. Becomes a monk at Cluny, Him Odilo, a magnificent man, then Pastor and Abbot, Receives among his sheep, instructs and cherishes: And in a brief space so proved him in virtue, That he set him over all the Brothers in order. Nay he also afterwards elevated him with the honor of Prior; That at some time he himself might bear his place. So humble, gentle, so fervent, and so severe, That with the Father dead he rightly became Father. O concordant! O unanimous the sentence of the Brothers! For one voice was whatever sounded there. The whole phalanx demands that brother as Abbot: And thence becomes Abbot: There was no choice of Fathers, but Father Hugh. What crosses he thereupon imposed on himself presently, The breastplate gives faith, with which he well subdued himself. Clothed in a breastplate he expiates his father's crimes: This he bore to the flesh while he mourned his father's crimes: This he bore to the flesh while he subdued his members. Believe the man to have been almost always praying or almost always reading, As long as he held the rule: Now to have heard God, now to have consulted him: Hence hope, thence faith, both love bind. Writing of the Father's piety I shall seem guilty, If he who in no matter was second to anyone in praise, If I shall report what wealth he poured out on the poor Christ, prodigal toward the poor; Measure exceeds me, number surpasses me. Yet I can briefly define, what I feel; In his time no one distributed better. Now at last let us come to the titles of his faith, Let the signs of Christ hold the first place. Be witness of the matter, you Gregory the Seventh Pope! These secrets God willed him to see. He is seen to have Christ as assessor at his side: When the distinguished Father was one day teaching the Brothers, Discussing their morals, destroying harmful things, This distinguished man, then Subdeacon of the city, Still Hildebrand, afterwards the Apostolic man, Then assessor of the Father, looked, and behold the Redeemer Is seen to have sat down beside the Father from his side; And as if by his habit and face he favored the judgments, So cheerful, placid, and so serene was he. To whom this man rising, with the crowd of Brothers marveling, In the middle of the seat wanted to place God: Whence being asked, what cause had been to him, He relates what he had seen, recalling the Father in order. There is a city of Italy, called Florence by name, He drives away a demon from Pope Stephen by his presence: Here Pope Stephen was reported to be dying: The Saint visits him, the wise physician of souls, And often ministers to him the word of life. But the cruel and envious enemy of our race, When the holy man is absent, he himself deceitful is present, Frightens the Pontiff, disturbing him gazing with horror; When the holy man is present, he himself deceitful is absent. And so long was the present alternation drawn out. Then the Bishop asks the father always to be present: He obeys the prayers, nor does he withdraw himself from him further, Until he sees him die, until he buries him. Nor wonder that he repelled the old tyrant, Whose mind and soul clung to God: And to whom he was fixed, to whom by night and day he was free, He sees Christ singing the psalms with his own: This, seen by him, while there is place, I shall report. The Choir of the Brothers was singing psalms to the Lord, and the Father himself Saw Christ singing psalms with a cithara.
Who individually was seen to sing through all, a certain man fleeing from him, Fills the place with an odor which surpasses balsams. Nor let me pass over you, ailment feigned from anger, Which that guilty Pontius vainly feigns. This man once, lest he should enjoy conversation with the Father, Fled to his bed, and so feigned evil: Not with impunity however; for presently he is so made sick, and therefore truly seized by the disease he had before feigned, That now speech almost failed him: And unless the holy man hastening should visit him, Even no hope of life would have remained. But as he is absolved from his faults by the holy Father, Presently his strength returns, and his very speech returns. he is restored to health: You also, who unbidden had shillings to give, We know you experienced the Father's help: For you were dead, but not yet buried in the flesh, he comes to the aid of a certain deceased guilty of violated poverty: When one vision warned two Brothers: That you first asked to be absolved before being buried, Otherwise, the gift could harm you: And that faith might be given to their words by them, The man is also disclosed, to whom you had given the shillings. When these things were made known to the Father, what vows followed, You better know, to whom pardon is given hence. It is unlawful to keep silent about the leper cured by the garment, the leper by his own garment, Which the holy man gave compassionate to the wretched one. Nor does the memorable infula of Peter escape the mind, and heals a sick man by the casula of Saint Peter: By which through him the ailing is restored whole. Whence I report ten shillings recompensed tenfold with gold, Either for your praise, King of the poor. You Peter with Paul the letter of this Father bent, He writes a letter to Saints Peter and Paul, You bent to relieve his want often. And you admonished the Father to found a new temple: And through these the messenger himself is made safe of the matter. Speak, Cluny, of the state in which Father Hugh placed you. And he builds a temple, Speak of the number of Brothers, which he gave numberless. Speak of the cells, speak of the churches which he himself founded. Speak, of the many monasteries which he restored. Among all however, foster, I ask, Marcigny: He founds the monastery of Marcigny: This place he constituted in his paternal right. Here he established holy women to serve God, And to continue song to the Mother of Jesus. You also, Spirit-discerner of spirits, kindly Spirit, In discerning souls were not lacking. Hence it is that the Saint denies the kisses to a certain Brother, He indicates to certain ones their secret sins: Whom he proves not to have offered as a Priest. Hence from the poor, zealous, he reproves one, For whom luxury and drunkenness were damnable. You meditating flight, whom the blessed man himself prevented, Hence too you felt your heart was laid open. That Duranus, Bishop of the city of Toulouse, He predicts penalties to the Bishop for license of jesting, From the father after his death, what he was paying, he learned. Foaming at the lips, for words moving laughter, That he would be seen by anyone, he learned. Who as soon as he died, to a certain Siguinus at night, Foamy appears, recalling the Father's words. But the pious and wise and sagacious physician of souls, To the Brothers to be silent, he commands for a week. From whom having enjoined on his monks a seven-days' silence he frees him: He appointed this for seven Brothers; but one neglects What the rest keep, nor yet did this escape. For again the Bishop revisited the same Brother, And reported the set rules of the Father transgressed. Himself sufficiently helped, that the six faithful had been silent, But what still remains, the seventh hindered. Having received these, the Father solidifies what had been broken, Through as many Brothers and for a week. Then the Bishop returns, no longer deformed, as before; But shining in form and decorous he was. Lest you become a monk, O Cleric, thrust into prison! The Father frees you with Angelic help. Whom grief of the leg hindered from obeying the Father, He heals certain diseases: At his name he himself drove out the evil. With the remnants of his table many are reported to have been cured, The thing he touched, was often a remedy. You crushed boy, who could scarcely breathe, You were made whole by the prayers of the Father. Whom no rest the burning of the foot permitted to have, By the water in which the Father was washed, recovered. How vainly, Berard the knight, you threaten the Saint! He prays, and you go mad, while he grants pardon. What did Briderium avail you, what that plunder? By which, by the merits of the Saint, you perish by fire from heaven. Now how great this Blessed man was in counsel, I shall briefly explain, for brevity pleases. Long had frequent thunderbolts struck the people of Clusa, He wards off thunderbolts from a certain monastery: And the holy Father is consulted about these. You, good Laurence, you on account of Caesar's fires, Which you well conquered, he orders to be here venerated: He affirms that you can sufficiently drive off these fires, If night and day they should celebrate your merit. The Father's commands are fulfilled, presently the thunderbolts cease, And thus that place remains without fear. What or how great was the discretion of the pious Father, He induces a Count by wonderful industry to monastic life: Guigo, Count, one of many, proves: This man, swearing, denied that he could become a monk, Unless it were allowed to wear a garment as of a Count. The Saint gave assent, and gains the Count: He in a brief space so dies a monk. And that no perfection might be lacking to the holy man; He grants asylum and the habit to his brother's assassins: He himself is reported to have loved the murderers of his father. Made an asylum for those blood-stained with a brother's death, I believe by this deed he is not less than King David. Let these things on the Father's merits, these on his virtues, Published suffice, now I shall relate his death. When the festivals of the Paschal triumph were being celebrated, He dies in the year 1109. From the time the Virgin bore God born in the flesh, With a thousand years and one hundred and nine completed, That happy old man passed to rest. At whose obsequies a certain religious man, His obsequies are revealed to an absent one, In mind indeed is rapt, but himself remaining far away. Across the sea, which divides the Normans and the Britons, Placed here he saw what Cluny was doing. Grief sounds everywhere, nowhere except lamentation is heard, Nothing is perceived without sobbing or groaning. He therefore notes the day, on which the Saint is thought to have died, And within a brief space proves this is the day. Whence two couches, which were being carried to the stars, and to another his passage to heaven. As a certain elder reports having seen, I call to mind. Of Bishop Anselm, by which Bishop Kent rejoices, Was reported to be the first casket: And that which was second, to belong to the holy Father, Was insinuated, but after eight days. Faith follows what was seen, for after the Bishop passed on, On the eighth day the Saint is known to have died. He held the sacred rule through twelve lustres, Add two months, eight days besides. These, Father Hugh, of your Raynald the nephew the sayings, Receive, I pray, in pious fashion, and protect me, Father.
EPITOME OF THE LIFE,
written by Ezelo and Gilo Cluniac monks shortly after the Saint's death, excerpted by an Anonymous.
From a Bödeken manuscript in the Paderborn diocese, drawn out by John Gamans of the Society of Jesus.
Hugh, Abbot of Cluny in Gaul (St.)
BHL Number: 4015
By Bernard FROM THE MANUSCRIPT.
[1] Blessed Hugh Abbot of Cluny, was a native of Autun, of noble birth, After the presage of future holiness, with his father Dalmatius a consular, a man intent on warlike affairs. His mother, pregnant, when she was laboring gravely in childbirth, begged a certain religious Priest to celebrate Mass for her deliverance and for the salvation of the one to be born. Who, while he was more attentively carrying through the solemnities of the Masses, and suspended in contemplation, was raised above himself; is said to have seen in the chalice, over which he was more ardently bending, the form of an infant, radiating above human measure. A worthy vision indeed, and truly presaging the future: "In the chalice appeared one not yet born, who from his adolescence receiving the chalice of salvation, evangelical imitator of the Lord's passion, turned the words of the Gospel into works, and even into old age called on the name of the Lord."
[2] Placed in his childhood years, not, as that age is wont, did he loose the reins of lasciviousness, nor softened by idle luxury did he follow trifling frivolities: but according to what is written of Jacob: "He dwelt innocently at home." Gen. 25:27 Then going to Cluny, he handed himself over to Blessed Odilo; and changing his life with his tunic, he most devoutly received the habit of holy religion. Made a monk and at last Abbot, Consequently, refined to pure from worldly rust in the furnace of discipline, by sudden heat he surpassed the long lukewarmness of many. After these things, made Prior, also with Blessed Odilo the Abbot dead, he succeeded him in the rule, though resisting with tears, certainly good in knowledge, better in conscience; best in temperance, angelic in form, composed in morals, conspicuous in natural gait, sweet in unaffected speech, and remarkable in other such charisms. In that time Henry II the Emperor was governing the summit of the kingdom most vigorously: dear to Henry II, whose father Augustus conferred a the insignia, which he had worn at Rome, in his obtaining of the kingdom to Cluny. Wherefore the son, keeping in his very marrow the love of Cluny as an hereditary right, decreed to bind the flourishing Father more tightly to himself. And so he invited Saint Hugh, blossoming in his adolescent age, to come to him, and gladly received him invited; and obtained that he should lift his son Henry III from the sacred font. Then also he celebrated Easter, He baptizes Henry III, the son of the Paschal Lamb, together with the Emperor, surrounded by an angelic company of the Cluniac elders, at Agrippina colony. Nor long after, scarcely released by Augustus, he returned to Cluny, accompanied by gifts and grace.
[3] Whose grace also did not escape Pope Stephen; who when he was lying bound by illness in the city of Florence, with the holy Hugh coming, testified to the bystanders that his enemy withdrew, he is present to the dying Pope Stephen: and with the same departing, approached: wherefore lest he should be urged by the insuperable infestations of the Enemy, he prayed for his diligence, by whose presence the plotter was confounded. And now the tears of the father had long put away the malign attacks, when the Apostolic man in the bosom of the presiding one breathed out his soul: whose hands having been fittingly composed, he was handed over to burial. But also to the most reverend Hildebrand, with name and grade changed afterwards called Gregory, He is seen to have Christ as assessor, most clearly shone forth that spiritual Father Hugh obtained much grace. This man indeed, not yet distinguished with the Pontifical b summit, placed in the Cluniac Chapter, bore witness that he himself had seen the Judge of the world beside Saint Hugh; who sitting on the right continued to favor regular discipline. Hence made Pope, he used to call him "bland tyrant"; when with the fierce he had shown himself a lion, with the mild a lamb, not unaware how "to spare the subjected and to chastise the proud."
[4] In the time of Pope Leo IX the body of Blessed Remigius was translated at Reims: He is present at the Council of Reims, but the Apostolic man presided over so great a Translation, and celebrated a general Council especially against Simonists. Father Hugh also was present armed with faith, and a great company of illustrious men followed him. But so great was the multitude of the perverse, that the good scarcely dared to rebuke the evil: and even if they had dared, more easily would break forth
the outcry of those living evilly than the free voice of those who felt more soundly. Soon at the exhortation of a certain most distinguished man for the Synodal cause, by the command of the Lord Pope and the persuasion of a certain most distinguished man Saint Constantius c Canon of Reims and of others, he acted laudably and probably refuted the evasions of those who were accustomed to stand against the truth with a lie.
[5] Hildephonsus King of the Spains, revering the holy father Hugh he is loved by King Alphonso: more than all, obtained with ardent vows that he might merit to see him: first because from the capture of his brother Sancius by the prayers of Saint Hugh he had emerged; then because he was disposing to join together more strongly the bond of his father Fredelandus and the Cluniacs, otherwise he would be considered disobedient to Blessed Peter and ungrateful for his benefits. For he d, when he was held in the most strict custody, and the Cluniacs were devoted to prayer for him, it was made known through a certain Bishop, how by the insistence of Hugh and his men importuning to reconsign him shortly to his proper power, e and to promote him up to the scepter. Without delay the Keybearer of heaven, to Sancius usurping the kingdom, terribly appearing at night, threatened death, unless he should presently release his brother. Quickly the disturbed tyrant rose, and him freed from chains, returned to his bed. And so it came about that the liberated King, with the paternal tribute doubled, annually also assigned various ounces of gold to his intercessors, and left the day of his liberation celebrated among our people.
[6] He shines with the spirit of prophecy: Saint Hugh, giving many things to the uses of the poor, as if reputing them vile trinkets, often bore their plunder not angered: nay moreover he had such a measure of precepts, that neither excessive remission nor excessive severity should be held. Moreover with the spirit of prophecy he was wont to discern in novices, who were to be made solid with the stability of wheat, and who, as chaff, were to be winnowed by the evil spirit. But at a certain time when he was at Marcigny, with the illustrious Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury joined to him, who, for the sake of justice removed from his Archbishopric, rejoiced in his consolation, admonished by a divine revelation, he foretold the momentary death of William King of England: and as he had predicted, so it happened. For while he through the glades longed to shoot fugitive stags with arrows, he suddenly received an arrow in his heart, with which his soldier was attacking a stag. At another time, while the same Father was sleeping, he saw in sleep under his head a multitude of serpents and beasts lying, who shaking out and searching what was under his head, found a book of Virgil by chance placed there. Presently, the secular codex being cast away, he rested in peace, and recognized the manner of the material of the book congruous with the vision, which full of obscenities and the rites of the pagans, was unworthy to be placed under the bed of a holy man. A certain brother named Duranus of f Brodon, first appearing as an idiot, He predicts to Duranus a penalty for trifling, afterwards made not incongruously Abbot of Moissac, thence by the prerogative of wisdom promoted to the Bishopric of Toulouse, shone among the workmen of the agriculture of God by the merit of industrious solicitude. This man, circumspect in other things, often incautiously brought forth words moving laughter. For which reason the venerable Father Hugh many times rebuked him, and not profiting enough, threatening about the future prophetically thus said: "Certainly, dearest Brother, unless while living you shall have laid aside ludicrous words, wholly forbidden to a monk, after death you will appear horribly." Which prophecy indeed it is known was fulfilled when he migrated. For to a certain Siguinus, the Father's Chaplain, appearing with foamy mouth, he tearfully asked his help, whom he did not wish to obey while he lived. And he frees him, now dead, from it: When Siguinus reported this to the Lord Abbot, he commanded that seven Brothers for one week should continue the silence of their own mouths for the deceased, seven Brothers being chosen for this: with the others obeying, one of them, a contemner of his vow, broke silence. Again the Bishop, revealed to the same, complained greatly about that faithless brother, who, while he was not silent, interrupted his healing. Hearing this, the most pious Hugh commanded that the break of silence, which had happened through one, should be patched up by the silence of other seven days. Which being done, the soul of the Bishop, appearing a third time, showing himself in Apostolic state, g brought thanks of his integrity back to his purgator, the aforesaid and ever-to-be-remembered Hugh.
[7] Likewise at Silviniacum h a certain Brother, named Stephen, supplanted by the snares of the ancient enemy, He helps a Brother who had killed himself, laying his hands on himself to anticipate the crown of martyrdom, killed himself in a certain forest: yet he was of grave anger; by which complexion of his the tempter roused, by chance prevailed. This man's soul, rapt to judgment, had the accuser, i holding forth the deadly knife, as hostile. The wretched one, prodigal of his own soul, stripped of his cowl, by Apostolic intercession obtained, that before the entrance of the Cluniac cloister he should so long remain, having the cowl in his hands, until by the prayers of Saint Hugh and the Brothers he might merit to put it on, and receive his order. And he was asking for help; Which we say a certain Brother seeing in a vision, announced to the Lord Abbot: yet not immediately as he should have. Wherefore in the time of the Rogations, because he had delayed to announce what he had seen, by beatings indeed he was compelled to publish it. With the rest going to the procession he alone remained in the choir, since he was lame. Saint Odilo appeared to this same one, vigilant, in visible form with two men; and behold, with prayer made, he called the man and entered the Chapter, and rebuked the Brother's sloth, with great vehemence of harshness commanding his assessors, sharply to inflict discipline on him. After the Litanies, rebuked, he announced to the Abbot both the vision and his own affliction. Immediately the pious Father commanded that they should insist on alms, prayers, and hosts so long, until the specter, with another vision with a sacred habit, appeared, and his body is not judged unworthy k of the cemetery.
[8] It happened at one time that Saint Hugh had given the Eucharist to a certain leper, subtracted from the communion of men bodily, but then communicating: who, with swollen lips and an ulcerous mouth chewing injuriously the body of the Lord, he marvels at Goderannus' virtue. by importunate spitting cast out the little portion, with nausea following and horrible foam. Then the soldier of Christ Goderannus, who was present, seeing the Sacraments of his Lord so unworthily handled, gathered what was being disgorged with swift obedience. And behold the magnanimous man, placing both hands under the life-giving Sacraments, threw into his own mouth the vomit of the nauseous sick man, with the lethal biles adhering, faithfully absorbing. In which matter the pious master, stupefied, and stuck astonished at the perfection of his disciple, without doubt asserted that Lawrence's gridiron had been more tolerable. This Goderannus finally promoted to the Episcopate of Saintes, the higher he ascended, the more brightly he shone.
[9] It is the custom of the Cluniac monastery, that above the other solemnities the Nativity of the Lord should be celebrated more devoutly with a certain singular affection, On the night of the nativity, and song with melodies, with the kindling of candles, and what is much more excellent, with spiritual devotion and with much outpouring of tears, should be solemnized with the angels. Therefore for this festivity the Brothers prepared themselves and all their things. That venerable Father Hugh, who as an old man was still surviving, entered the Chapter where the Brothers were, and brought forth these things to all. "Know, Brothers, that the kind Jesus is present at your solemnities; and on the contrary, that the wicked enemy labors with envy, that he may mingle some mists of his darkness with so great a splendor. For a certain Brother," he said (giving himself to be understood), "saw the mother of mercy holding in her sweetest lap the very son, whom she had borne the preceding night, and a multitude of holy Angels standing by him with immense light. he sees Christ insulting the demon: The same God as a boy was exulting, and showing the joy of his heart by the gesture of his body and the clapping of his hands: and turning to his mother said, 'You see mother the night of my nativity, which is at hand, to be illumined with joys? In which both the oracles of the Prophets and the praises of the Angels will be renewed, and from my birth from you all things similarly heavenly and earthly will rejoice. Where now is the damned treachery of my enemy? Where now is his power, which before this singular joy dominated the world?' Which that imprudent one hearing, going out from his hiding place, betrayed himself from afar; and ignominiously defiled, with much weeping and howling, was praying to be admitted: and, 'If,' he said, 'in no part of the church am I admitted, in some at least of the remaining rooms may I be received.' But the son of the Virgin, 'Go, rascal,' he said, who going round the rooms, 'so that you may not lament that my power has prejudged you, try what you can.' But he, released, sought the entrance of the Chapter; and trying to enter, could not: for so swollen himself, and the entrance of the Chapter so narrow he found, that in no way could he enter; truly inflamed with the apostema of old pride, he could not pass through the humble entrance. Thence to the dormitory of the Brothers he turned his step, and trusting that he could disturb them with his usual phantasms, he was not able to penetrate them. he tried to enter: but by that same grossness of his from the door repelled, he withdrew. Afterwards to the refectory he transferred his hope of harming, and there, on account of some little care of the body, suspecting greater carelessness of minds, there also so many obstacles of divine things from the reading of words, so many beams from the devotion of hearers, so many bars he found from the charity of those serving one another in turn, that, in no way able to proceed further, he was compelled to retreat. Thus rejected from all the rooms of the church, from the sight of the most pious Redeemer and most glorious Virgin mother, with that confusion which he deserved, that pestilential one withdrew. Be cautious, therefore, O brothers, and give immense thanks to the omnipotent and most merciful Savior; because both he has driven away from you the most wicked enemy, and himself has remained to celebrate the feast with us." l
[10] A few days before Saint Hugh died, to a certain rustic man laboring in the field, a vision of Saints appeared, His death is announced to him by Saint Peter; which a certain royal Lady preceded, whose back as she passed and face he saw. That holy company a certain elder was following, who stood and said: "Whose, farmer, is this field which you cultivate?" Who said: "Of Blessed Peter and the Lord Abbot of Cluny." And the elder to this said: "The field is mine, and the Abbot is my servant: but you, hasten to announce to our Abbot, that he dispose of his house which he has nourished, because after a short time, he will be allotted the end of this life. But tell him Peter the Apostle has announced these things to you: and those who precede me, announce to be the Mother of God and the ministering Saints."
[11] How piously he died: The same Hugh, placed in the article of death, recalling the anniversary of Archbishop Gaufridus and of Abbot Mendon, admonished the forgetful: of such tenacious memory and such charity was he; because there he was not unmindful of fraternal salvation, where scarcely anyone is reminded of his own. On the very night on which he died, he imposed the blessings of the Lessons on the readers. His last word was to the bystanders: "Bless." His body in the Chapter by the Brothers in white was first washed with water, then with wine. At last with a little balm, which remained in a small vessel, three times his whole body, though large, was fully anointed; which scarcely would have sufficed for his lovely head alone, if by the heavenly blessing being multiplied between the hands of those serving it had not abounded.
Blessed Dionysius the Areopagite appeared to a certain Brother at Nongentum, saying that he should hasten to go to Cluny, so that he might bid farewell to Saint Hugh, about to depart immediately… m "I came, unhappy one, but the Saint migrating I did not greet: yet it was given
to my spirit what is agreed to have been denied to my body: his soul received by the Saints, for I saw the heavenly ones mixed with mortals and with the college of the monks the Mother of God shining more brightly than the star of the sea, by whose presence she so terrified and put to flight certain archers appearing, just as a strong wind is wont to cast down autumn leaves: among whom Martin the gem of Priests, and Benedict the sun of Abbots, leading the spirit of Saint Hugh, placed him within a certain beautiful and most fertile vineyard, that he might there rejoice and tarry for a short time; where Saint Hugh himself, looking upon me, thus invited: 'Eat, dearest, from the white clusters which superabound for us, and make solemn companionship with me: for I shall pause here a little, he is led to a place of rest, until a certain swelling subside, which I contracted in my dusty feet from a long circuit of lands: but immediately, with my steps cured and the worldly ash shaken off, free I shall pass to better things. But say to my successor Pontius, that he keep the treasures of humility and innocence, and reputing the needs of all as his own, be zealous for mercy: let him wisely dispose the zeal of the monastic order by my example: for thus acting manfully he will obtain help from God, who does not desert those hoping in him.'"
[12] That same night too, on which the blessed Father slept in the Lord, and with Saint Anselm he ascended to heaven: a certain Abbot saw two Saints, in vision decently adorned, being raised to the stars by the hands of Angels, and heard voices on high saying: "These two correctors of themselves and of the world, on beds shining with gold, we shall place for the merit of their life: namely the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Abbot of Cluny, who are fathers of many sons in glory." These two indeed almost at one time died.
Of the Abbots of Cluny from the first up to blessed Hugh these verses were made:
"Berno in order, Odo stands first in honor the Happier: Saint Majolus rises from these, a form of men, his predecessors. Fiery, scarcely restraining his burning soul: After was the holy Odilo sent from the Auvergne shores, Milder in disposition than fierce in command: Next you come, Hugh, using well-balanced reins, Later in order, earlier in usefulness."
ANNOTATIONS.
ANALECTA
From other things collected in the Library of Cluny.
Hugh, Abbot of Cluny in Gaul (St.)
BHL Number: 4011, 4012, 4013, 4014
By Bernard FROM THE MANUSCRIPT.
CHAPTER I.
From the Epistle of Hugh the monk to Abbot Pontius.
[1] Commanded he writes the things omitted by those, To the most serene Father, the Cluniac Abbot Pontius, his Lord, his servant Hugh. While I weigh, Father, your excellence, unbidden I do not dare to speak before you. But since I see that certain memorable things concerning the great Hugh, your holy predecessor, are silent, if your dignation shall bid me speak, I briefly dispatch a few things out of many, small things out of the greatest. These things I marvel that those diffuse Writers have omitted, who of him have written such great volumes. What I relate, is most well known to those present, but for the memory of posterity, as you command, they are commended.
[2] Blessed Hugh had once gone out to the French, to visit them. Coming however to the territory of Beauvais, he entered a Gornacum on the river Arona. There Albert, a distinguished man, honorably received him. The man's wife, named Ermengardis, and she herself ran to meet so great a guest reverently. that the Saint predicted a son, a monk, to a pregnant matron, Whom the holy man, as he saw her, breathed on by a prophetic spirit, said: "Lady, you are pregnant, you will bear a son, who, as it shall please God, will be a Monk." Hearing the woman what she had not before known about herself, she was marveling: those present, noting the heard oracles, were rejoicing. Afterwards, according to the word of the servant of God, that pregnant woman bore a son. The boy grew, who being born and grown, and assigned to the office of armed men, having undertaken the soldiery, as that race of men is ill accustomed, became pernicious. Meanwhile the Saint, full of days and virtues alike, closed his last day in the Lord. There was then in Italy at Pavia the glory of Pontiffs Godefredus b Bishop of Amiens, distinguished in teaching, after the glorious death of the saint revealed to Saint Godefridus the Bishop, conspicuous in holiness. While therefore blessed Hugh departs this present life, is given eternal life, the Bishop saw distinguished assemblies being prepared to go forth, with lights and the other things which are wont to be solemnly shown in a procession. To the Bishop asking who it was whom the triumph of such great glory awaited; it was answered, that to conduct Lord Hugh, the Cluniac Abbot, that festive devotion of the Saints was proceeding. Which when the Bishop marveling revealed to his companions, and noted the time at which he saw it, having returned to Gaul; he found that at the same time at Cluny the Saint had migrated, at which it had been shown to him at Pavia.
[3] But after the Saint departed, under Abbot Pontius he becomes a monk: you, happily elected, and worthily substituted in the office of so great a Father, with the Lord leading descended to the aforesaid parts of France: where, according to your noble custom, preaching good things to all, you found that youth about whom the Saint had predicted, found you called, called you led out. Him at Cluny a Monk named Landricus we have seen for many years, prevailing in good morals c. Thus, most benign Father, thus your predecessor the most holy Abbot Hugh, whom you greatly loved, nay whom you love, thus among his other virtues is proved also to have shone with prophecy: thus in the dissolution of his body, revealed to the Pontiff, is known to be a fellow citizen of the super-celestial ones. But now let my smallness be silent, rather let your charity weigh how lofty these things are. For of this height to speak, I so lowly ought to have feared.
[4] Finally in the year 1118 from the Word born of the Virgin, with Pope Paschal dead, under whom also Pope Gelasius coming to Cluny, who governed the summit of the Roman See for 18 years and more d, Pope Gelasius was taken up by catholic election, and consecrated, a man above all learned, generous in alms, provident in counsel. He, with Henry IV, Emperor of the Romans, raging against the Church, declining, went down to the sea, by ship sought Gaul: and to you first, a courier being sent from Pisa, he made his arrival to be pre-announced: for you, namely the Cluniac Abbot, the Roman Pontiff has as his own and special son in the parts of Gaul. Him you met at Saint-Giles, to him and to his great retinue you most elegantly ministered mounts and other things most generously. there he dies, Him, weakened by the trouble of the sea, in your native soil, which your father Peter, the powerful and noble Count e of Maguelonne, gave over to the right of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and from there received, you, the Pope, most officiously nourished. Who again convalescing, and desiring to come to his Cluny, passed through Lyon of Gaul, descended to Mâcon f, where oppressed by the most grievous ailment he most insistently commanded himself to be carried to Cluny. Being carried there, and received with the highest reverence, having completed the first year and four days g of his Episcopate, in the midst of the Brothers, with the Bishops and Cardinals standing around, in his own house, a proper Pastor rested in peace at Cluny.
[5] and coming to the same place Pope Calixtus, After him the reverend Wido Archbishop of Vienne was elected by the Catholic Church at Cluny, and thus ordained as Pope Calixtus. h He i excels in the sublimity of earthly nobility, but more beautifully shines forth in the splendor of heavenly charisms. He returned a second time to Cluny, k and there devoutly performed the feast of the Lord's Circumcision and Apparition. Who while among other things he often treated of the life and miracles of Blessed Hugh, canonizes Saint Hugh. did not regard the charters more copiously written on these matters of anyone's, but gratefully accepted authentic persons presented in the midst of the Cluniac Chapter, more strongly attesting to what they had seen and heard about the Saint. With the Bishops and Cardinals equally assenting for the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Pope decreed that the birthday of so great a Confessor, approved by so many and such great virtues, should be made festive… l Let this suffice me to have said, and let your grace grant me pardon… m
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II.
From the Life written by the same Hugh.
[6] To the holy Assembly of the Cluniac Fathers, the servant Hugh. The charity which serves as free compels me to obey pious commands. By precept therefore, not by presumption, I have undertaken to say something about Blessed Hugh, though unworthy. Not in prejudice to those who before me wrote about the Saint with elegant pen: but I serve our own, while I gather some things omitted by them, contract what was more copiously published, and pass over many things lest I burden the occupied. With this protestation premised, the author briefly touches upon the birth, monastic profession, and election of the Saint; and having incidentally indicated what happened at Florence, continues the undertaken matter thus:
[7] More wonderful things I subjoin to the wonderful, which I recognize, proved by authentic men relating them. These indeed are reported by Gaufred of Mont-Saint-Vincent and Rainald of Autun. Duke of Burgundy a Robert was burdening Haganon Bishop of Autun with excessive infestation, Coming to Autun to the Council of Bishops, and everywhere Burgundy was laboring from various incursions of robbers. Wherefore the Bishops, Gaufred of Lyon, Hugh of Besançon, Accard of Chalon, and Drogo of Mâcon, met at Autun b, and asked the aforesaid Hugh the Father of great counsel, the Cluniac Abbot, to come. There was an abundant multitude of illustrious men present, an infinite people flowing together, praying for peace with unwearied cries. Coming, the Duke himself, nay the tyrant, entered Autun; but by malign arrogance refused to be present at the assembly. But Father Hugh, stirred by the fervor of charity, went to the tyrant: whom vehemently rebuking, with all marveling, he brought him with him as a most gentle sheep. When the Bishops were beseeching that Father Hugh should speak for making peace, with the crowds on all sides falling silent, and hanging on his mouth, he said thus: "Let those who seek peace, who love God, hear us, act with us. But whoever is not a son of peace, who is not of God but an adversary, to him on the part of the Omnipotent I command that he go out from us, and not harm the divine work. [With demons expelled from him, he reconciles the Duke of Burgundy to the Bishop of Autun,] Scarcely had he finished speaking, when behold a certain one tall in stature, fierce in face, with many following him, going out, disappeared. There was not in such a great multitude of men anyone who knew any of those going out. Individuals marveled, all were astonished. To those asking one another about these things, there was no other answer, except that with the Saint forbidding, demons had visibly gone out, and going out of the crowds at once vanished." These things being thus driven off, the Saint's preaching shortly had such efficacy, that at his bidding, the Duke himself forgave the death of his own son c to the murderers, and the Church received peace. O blessed man, whose presence Satan could not bear, whose command he unwillingly performed. A wonderful thing indeed, but piled up with a greater miracle. With the Holy Spirit seen overshadowing his head: For as long as the holy man was teaching holy things in that assembly, as a white dove appeared present above his head. To whom it was given to see this, they glorified God, for not all merited to see this glory. Stephen, Archpriest of d Parriceium, under every assertion himself, though unworthy, was testifying to have seen it.
[8] Father Hugh had come to Paredum, He expels a serpent from a certain woman: that there he might devoutly celebrate the feast of John the Baptist. To whom a certain woman with a crowd interceding for her came: because a violent irruption of a venomous serpent held her womb. Then the Saint, moved by mercy, ordered water to be brought, which with sacred prayers and blessings he marked beforehand, and having received a spoon, he poured three times from that water into the woman's mouth praying. Which done, immediately the serpent, with all who were present seeing, went out horrendous through the woman's mouth. Those who had come with mourning, returning with joy, praised the Lord. Gaufred, a faithful man, in whose presence the Saint at Autun put demons to flight from the crowd, is also wont to testify that he saw this about the serpent cast out by him.
[9] At another time also for the sake of making peace, the aforesaid Father with Bishops Roclenus e of Chalon, and Drogo of Mâcon, was likewise present in a hunting field. With the crowds standing round, a certain one defiled with the worst crime, did not fear to be present. Whom the Saint, He detected the hidden misdeed of a certain one, taught by the Holy Spirit, gazing from afar, said to those present: "Do you see that wretched one?" he said. "Do you see him full of a demon?" And immediately he designated him, and ordered him to come to him. Being presented, he said: "How did you enter here to us, who wished to defile yourself with this crime (and he set forth the crime)? Why, wretched one, have you presented a demon in you to us? We seek peace, we do not want a demon." Confused, he could not deny. Seeing which deed, very many who were present, one to another in a low voice said: "Let us withdraw from this man, who knows how to see the hidden things of men, lest he also in our sins, as that one in his own, be able to detect us." Finally, at the Saint's inquiry, whose Episcopate that man was from, he found that he was of a certain parish of Chalon. Then the Saint set forth that wretched man and likewise his sin to Bishop Roclenus: whom the Bishop took aside, and corrected according to his office. There are witnesses who were present, the venerable men Robert of Sion, and Gaufred whom I placed above. How great these things are, let your charity weigh, let my smallness inwardly be silent.
[10] The Saint was at Nanctoacum f, a messenger came who said that Wilencus had died: Not him, who was announced, but another dying he recognized: this Wilencus was Prior of La Charité. While the pious Father was celebrating Mass for the deceased, in the usual manner he presented himself to the Lord as a living host, and thus holding the Son in his hands, he offered him to the Father, the offered he received in his mouth: by which taught, he goes out to the Brothers, reveals to his companions, that at La Charité not Wilencus, but Orius had died. There was there Odo, who was Prior of Cluny, afterwards Bishop of Ostia g, then supreme Pontiff of the Apostolic See, Urban II. Who, legation being sent, found according to the word of the man of God, not Wilencus had died, but Orius.
[11] Sabina also, a nun of singular testimony in the Jotrum monastery h, saw the Mother of mercy with the glorious company of the Blessed. His glory as a dead man is revealed to an absent one. She also saw a white couch fittingly adorned to be present in that company, and heard that Abbot Hugh of Cluny was to depart in it. Sabina related the vision, and not long after a messenger came, saying the Saint had migrated, whom the said vision had signaled to be about to depart. Thus the Saint, both approved by miracles and shown forth beforehand by the sacraments of revelations, in the midst of his sons his body died, perpetual in holiness, he departed from the world, he lives to the Lord, worthily buried he lies at Cluny: but the holiness of his institutions remains, but the discipline of the order which he taught everywhere flourishes, but in the heavens the crown of his merits shines forth. This Hugh, in the 15th year of his life made a monk, in the 25th ordained Abbot, in the 85th dead, rested in the Lord on the third of the Kalends of May, in the year of the Incarnate Word 1109. i
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER III.
From the Collection of the Anonymous in the aforementioned Library.
By ANONYMOUS
[12] That William the English King a, greatly loving Saint Hugh, before he could enjoy his conversation, when the benediction of the absent through his messenger, namely Lord Warmund, who afterwards from the rank of Abbot of Dol b to the Vienne
Archbishopric c ascended, had heard, and received from him the gift of his fellowship; he laid down his royal cap, and submitted his head with such humility, as if through an Angel he had been invested with the gift of divine grace. King William having received the offered fellowship of the Cluniac monastery And when his Satraps were astonished because they saw the wonderful thing, and saw his otherwise inflexible neck excessively humbled, and they thought it should be inquired what had been the cause, why, receiving nothing visible, toward such a person giving nothing, he had so emptied out his royal majesty, he answered, saying: "Do not marvel that I have inclined myself so devoutly, and so humbly, because the cause of such a great benediction and investiture specially required that I do what I judged should be done. For I have never received so great a gift, nor should you think that on the day I obtained the crown of this kingdom I acquired anything so great, bows his neck to receive: because of all things which I have there will be a limit to be left behind, as there was a beginning to be taken: but of the heavenly glory, the pledge of which I have as it were received, when I joined myself to the holy Cluniac college, there can be no end." Thus the prudent William philosophizing from the treasure of his heart, repressed the astonishment of his men with greater admiration, and directed the eyes of secular minds to this, that they might recognize how much holy Hugh was to be considered present, who was held in such esteem from so great a one absent. For that King was attending in his legation, what weight there was, what profit, what gain might come to his soul, if through the consent of the reverend head he could merit communion with so great a body. Then the King sent to the Lord Abbot and the holy Convent a cope almost entirely of gold, in which scarcely anything except gold or electrum or the weaving of pearls, and a series of gems appears; and below from everywhere tinkling d little bells, themselves hanging of gold; the Queen however sent a chasuble, plainly most worthy of the sender and the receivers, because so rigid, that it could not be folded.
[13] The same King of the English William, a magnificent man and vigorous in arms, and most powerful with infinite wealth and forces, when he had begun to possess the aforesaid region, and had obtained its royal crown by war; wishing worthily to arrange the Episcopates and Abbeys of that land, sent letters to the most illustrious Abbot Saint Hugh, he asks from him monks for the churches of England, and commanded him, begging, that he direct six persons to him from our Brothers, by whose counsel he might do whatever should be done by him about the Churches to be arranged, and with these appointed as Rectors he might be secure about the sheep to be guarded and ruled. He also added that he would give a hundred pounds of silver for each annually to Cluny, under the title of friendship and grace, lest perhaps it be grievous for the holy place to lack its persons, and to lose their fruit. But he who wished to be a buyer, could not, because he found no seller of monks. For the Philosopher of Christ responded, who reckoned nothing comparable to the souls of the Brothers: "Your petition, Lord King, descends from good will, you who wish to arrange the people delivered to you by God for their salvation. Yet just as what you ask is worthy of your majesty, so what you enjoin is incongruous with our salvation: that I should sell souls, which I received in peril of my soul and my head, out of desire of earthly gain, and send them to perdition, either general or special, namely where either all or some of them might perish, and I should render account to God for them: before whom gold avails nothing, nothing silver profits, whom Saint Hugh refuses to send for the price offered: nor the argument of empty excuse. How therefore shall I do for any gift, what if I should do for the whole world, would be too little to me, since for one of them lost I should perish? For what does it profit a man if he should gain the whole world, but lose himself, and make detriment of himself? Therefore, dearest Lord, do not ask this from me, which I cannot do except with my own perdition: because for no price do I wish to sell my soul, which indeed I would give to sale, if I should send one of the Brothers committed to me where I should lose him: and I would more willingly give money for procuring monks, whom I greatly need for various places to be arranged by me, than for their sale I would receive. For what Chapter of ours in those parts would they fear, where they should see no monastery of ours, to whose port they might be able to apply or be bound? Command therefore something else, and bear this patiently, if what you have asked cannot be done with the salvation of your friend. Farewell." This the pious Father wrote back to that distinguished King. Who first vehemently indignant because he had been refused in his prayer with so great a gift, after his fury returned to his mind, and recognized that this man of God was truly to be preferred to all: and therefore is held in greater esteem by the King. for no appetite of temporal things dominated him, and he reckoned the salvation of souls incomparable to all gold: and therefore himself comparable to no person of any power at all, because by no cupidity was he shown flexible or mutable from the right path. He turned therefore from indignation to admiration, valuing his rejection more than the acceptance would have been, if he had been heard. Therefore he repressed the anger which had rushed in, and acquiesced in the reason, which he thought after the perturbation of mind had departed.
[14] At a certain time e it was necessary for the holy man, for the protection of his sons, to have recourse to the mother Church, To Blessed Peter Damian coming to Cluny, and to invoke the patronage of the Roman See. Wherefore seeking the refuge of that city, with great labor and difficulty he obtained Lord Peter, torn from the Pope's side, namely Bishop of Ostia, surnamed Damian, that he might be given to him to fight for the great Peter, and to prostrate adversaries by his wonderful prudence and eloquence. f For that man was so worn everywhere by his use of singular abstinence and the binding of iron chains, that hardly a way could be found by which the weakness of his body could be cherished, to endure somehow the grave burden of riding. And because he could often be offended by a slight scandal, he needed to be often placated by some giver of satisfaction. To which matter the venerable Hugh so inclined himself, that he might reform his mind to tranquility, as if he were another Martin, who thought nothing unworthy, which humility persuaded should be done. When therefore that other Gregory had come to Cluny through the abundance of his eloquence, but not through the equality of the Apostolic life, and he had seen the kindness and discipline, and had conferred his rod and staff, he began to stick and to be astonished, how those could be holy, or have holy founders, who abounded in such good things: and again, how those could not be holy or perish, who so devoutly bore such a heavy weight of labor, and the custody of monastic discipline.
[15] At times indeed he judged the abundance of foods, and he wished more tightly to restrict their abstinence, what he responded: at times he marveled that this grace was lacking to those fasting, which he saw they had. Yet if it could be, as he himself said, that both virtues of obedience and of abstinence might be joined in them, then indeed nothing of Apostolic perfection would be lacking. About which matter meeting Lord Abbot he was begging, that they should suspend themselves from fat for at least two ferias, who in the rest were so perfect, that they owed nothing to the anchorites. To whom venerable Hugh, the distinguished guardian of discretion, said: "If, dearest Father, you wish to increase for us the crown of reward through the addition of a fast, first try with us the weight of labor for at least eight days, and thence judge what you should think ought to be added. For as long as you do not taste the pottage, you will be able not to know that it requires the seasoning of salt; and if you will not have applied even your smallest finger, you will in no way be able to judge discretely and worthily about the fraternal burden." Which he hearing, feeling the gravity of such a bundle unbearable for his powers, ceased from his petition of adding weight, and began to strike himself, whence he had wanted to wound others, because he could not direct an arrow at them without his own wound: understanding that that weight was great, and that what he himself could not grasp ought to suffice, who seemed to stand in such a summit of virtues. Instructed, therefore, the Bishop returned much more instructed than he came, and carried with him a great treasure of avoiding vain glory and of grasping true humility. g
[16] Venerable Hugh, the Abbot of this holy Cluniac monastery, On the feast of the Holy Spirit he commands a hymn of the same to be sung, not only solicitously watching with all the industry of his mind for monastic religion, but also in the divine offices, to be advanced to better by the grace of God, decreed with the common counsel of the Brothers, that on the holy day of Pentecost, the hymn "Come Creator Spirit," h should be sung at the third Hour, which namely had not been sung before, so that by the visit of the same Paraclete, that is, Consoler, we might merit to be compunct, to be inflamed with love, and to be illuminated by grace. And that the good of alms might support this most salutary prayer, he established that on that same day an abundant refection be shown to the poor by the master custodian of the Church, and the poor to be received at a feast, of bread, wine, and meat: with this proviso that as great as shall have been the number of Brothers on the feast, so many poor also be refreshed. But if he cannot of himself know the number of Brothers, let him learn their number from the minister of the refectory or from the custodian of the sick. And that he might obtain from the Lord the reward of such a good work, it was decreed, that on that very day at High Mass, after the first Collect of the familiar Mass "Almighty eternal God," should be said for him in silence by the Priest. To the supporters and observers of this precept therefore peace, salvation, and grace from God the Father, and Jesus Christ his Son, and the Holy Spirit the Paraclete. But to the contemners and violators, unless they quickly repent, the wrath of the same omnipotent and eternal Judge, and the eternal damnation of the inextinguishable fire. [And the Office of the Dead to be performed after Pentecost for those who are buried at Cluny.] It was also decreed by the same Father with the consent of the Brothers, that a general office be done each year, on the fifth feria after the octaves of Pentecost, for all resting in the cemetery of this place: so that as in the feast of All Saints is done, with the said vespers all the bells be rung for Vespers, and after supper for the office, and on the following day for Mass in which the Tract "Out of the depths" be sung by two Cantors, and all the Priests who shall have sung Mass on that day, "God by whose mercy," should sing specially for them, and others the seven Psalms, and twelve poor be refreshed, and whatever shall remain of the refection on that day be given for alms. But also through all the places subject to this place, the same thing is decreed to be done for the deceased of each place's cemetery: namely that in the monasteries where the congregation of Brothers is, no less should this be performed. But in cells where no more than five or three are staying, if they cannot refresh so many poor, at least as many as there are Brothers, so many be fed.