ON SAINT ROBERT, THE FIRST ABBOT OF MOLESME AND FOUNDER OF THE CISTERCIAN ORDER,
BEGINNING OF THE 11TH CENTURY.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Robert, Abbot of Molesme and Founder of the Cistercian Order (St.)
§ I. Reforms of the Benedictine Order, Robert's beginnings, foundation of Molesme.
When the most celebrated Order of the holy Patriarch Benedict, now having an age of four centuries, by I know not what evil, certainly by the very age of the times, A three-fold reformation of the Benedictine Order in Gaul, which is wont to bring destruction even to the firmest things, had made some loss in Gaul of the ancestral discipline; there were given divinely men distinguished in holiness and zeal, who reformed the morals, gradually depraved, to the laws and rigor of the first institute. The first effort in such a holy and useful business was put forth in the year of our Lord 910 by Blessed Berno: who, having founded the Cluniac monastery in the district of Mâcon upon the river Graune, as the first Father of the new, as it were, Order named after it, how useful he was to the Benedictine Order by restoring the old institution, the many well-constituted monasteries propagated from Cluny, The Cluniac, and the many holy men and leaders in the Church who came forth from it, have taught. Following him, at the beginning of the 11th century, was Blessed Bernard of Tiron, who with equal happiness, The Tironian, but less progress, introduced a reformation into the diocese of Chartres. But none was more celebrated than that which Cîteaux, founded by him, first admitted under the auspices of Saint Robert. And the Cistercian, most celebrated, authored by Saint Robert, For extending most widely, not Gaul alone did it enclose (though it built within Gaul the great monasteries of La Ferté, Pontigny, Clairvaux, and Morimond, which Cîteaux calls its daughters), but pervading soon all Europe, it renewed Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, and England. The Sainte-Marthe brothers are the authors that the monasteries of men formerly numbered over 1,800, those of women over 1,400: to one going through the Cistercian Library of Charles de Visch, about one thousand in this age of ours are offered. So that it is no wonder that several Supreme Pontiffs and other distinguished men in the Church have so greatly poured forth praises of Cîteaux and the Order propagated from it.
[2] Henriquez in the Apparatus to the Cistercian Menology collects the distinguished encomia of the said institute; whence this of Clement I is: "The Cistercian Order," he says, "is a flowing fountain of gardens, watering other Religions and Orders, Encomia of the Cistercian Order from illustrious men, and bubbling up into them with salutary examples. This is the delightful fount by variety of virtues, distinguished in purity of cleanness, patent in piety, indefatigable in holiness. By whose merit it has so merited to grow, that exceeding the name of a fount it is reckoned a river, whose laudable progress from virtue to virtue, that he may see the God of gods in Zion, gladdens the unity of the universal Church as it proceeds: in which, having obtained the splendor of clear light by the evidence of its merits, it shines as a morning star in the midst of the mist of this world; and in it sending forth splendid rays as the sun, like an aqueduct coming from paradise it overflows into many waters, watering the garden of its plantations, the assemblies of the cloistered whom it has brought forth, with the waters of graces, and intoxicating with the wine of spiritual gladness the fruit of its birth. For the sacred religion of this Order, from the auspices of its institution as if deserted and trackless, inasmuch as initiated by few cultivators, at length bringing forth the fruit of honor and honesty, extended its branches indeed of honor and grace as a terebinth, budding generations and offspring it budded. Wherefore it rejoices and rejoices praising and praising, now exults in a remarkable numerous multitude, which once as if despicable was hidden in solitude." Thus the Pontiff. To which not inferior is this of Richard Archbishop of Canterbury and Legate of the Apostolic See Ep. 96: "O desirable camps! O venerable congregation! O Cîteaux, how great is thy house! how fertile in sons! how magnificent in tongues! how glorious in peoples!" And this of Peter of Celle Ep. 14 bk. 7, speaking thus: "That hen of Molesme, full of feathers and well-feathered, how many and what kind of offspring has it produced from its womb, when from itself the Cistercian college by original germ it brought forth! My God! from that one egg how innumerable a sand of monks and converts has covered the face of the earth! with what bright splendor has it reformed and illuminated the skin of the world, blackened by the infected negligence of living!"
[3] Robert is born around the year 1017, Of this so copious spiritual harvest, therefore, the sower Saint Robert, by nationality a Gaul, by homeland either a Champenois or a Norman, was born around the year of our Lord 1017, of his father Theodoric and mother Ermegardis, equally noble in riches and in race, transferred from secular to monastic life in his 15th year of age: He becomes a monk in the Cellensian monastery and Prior, whose novitiate he placed in a monastery of the Order of Saint Benedict, not far from the city of Troyes in Champagne, which is called "Cell of Saint Peter of Troyes," and by other names, "Monastery of the German Island," "Saint Peter of the Cell," "New Cell," "Old Cell," "Cell of Bobinus," and in the older Gallic idiom "Monstier la celle de Troyes": of whose foundations, laid by Saint Frodobert under Chlodovaeus III and Chlothar III, we treated in the Life of the said Saint Frodobert on January 8. After the customary tests of the ascetic life Robert was enrolled in the Order, then so cultivated virtue and holiness, that by the will and consent of all he was declared Prior of the monastery, and more then than when he was living in private, was a model of morals. Thence he passed to the Tonnerre monastery, afterwards Abbot of Tonnerre, which, of the same Order in the diocese of Langres, is sacred to Saint Michael, having got its name from the town to which it belongs, Tonnerre. Here created Abbot by the Monks (the Sainte-Marthe brothers place him third in order after Dodo and Alfred), he held that prefecture for some time. For when he had discovered that the regular discipline had so fallen there, that however much he strove, then Prior in Saint Ayoul: he could not raise it; laying aside the dignity, as a private man he returned to the Cellensians: for whose Abbot he was shortly Prior for a time in the monastery of Saint Ayoul, until he began to undertake Molesme.
[4] The beginnings of this monastery came from the former forest of Colan: which neighboring the town of Tonnerre, a certain Priest leading a solitary life, inhabited. To him when first two brothers, about to expiate the crime of mutual slaughter conceived; and then four others, loving the same purpose, had joined themselves as companions, sought by the hermits of the Colan forest, they lived for some time with each one's private effort of virtue, bound by no common laws. Yet it pleased them a little after to have a certain plan and common form of living; and especially that which at that time was most commonly practiced throughout Gaul, of the Benedictines. Wherefore, that they might have both a knowledge of it and a fitting master, from the neighboring Tonnerre monastery they asked for Saint Robert as Abbot, whose fame of holiness was already bright. But by the monks, very unwilling in this, because they were of corrupt morals, and therefore feared the old discipline to be reborn soon, they suffered a rebuff for a time; yet in such a way that they did not throw away all hope of obtaining Robert at last. For when, with the Tonnerre monks left on account of the corruption of morals, Saint Robert returned to the Cellensians, for whose Abbot he was Prior in the monastery of Saint Ayoul; having set out to Rome, they insisted with prayers before the Pontiff, that he should give them power of taking for themselves, from the neighboring monks of the Benedictine Order, a master of a new and regular life, whom they should think most fit for this. Which having been granted, Saint Robert again was sought; He forms them according to the institute of Saint Benedict, and because the Pontiff was interposing his authority, he was easily obtained from the Cellensian Abbot. Wherefore given as head and master to the seven hermits in the Colan forest, he began to form their morals to the regular institute of Saint Benedict, and gradually also to increase the number of his disciples. That Blessed Alberic was among these, whose Life we gave on January 26, Manriquez in the Annals of the Cistercians is the author: "Alberic," he says, "taken up to the habit, sanctified the beginnings, and he admits Blessed Alberic to the habit: whether more holy or more learned is a doubt, compared with himself; both are certain, if he be compared with others; nor only in divine letters instructed, but also in human. A man of letters sufficiently skilled in divine and human things, a lover of the rule and of the Brothers, the Exordium calls him. He exchanged all the hopes he had conceived in the world with that poor state. The holy Father had other disciples, while he stayed at Colan, but the moment of affairs rested with this one."
[5] Because therefore the origin of the very new congregation of Regulars was so happy and auspicious, it promised daily greater progress and future increases of its beginnings: Leaving Colan, which when Saint Robert saw the Colan forest was not sufficiently fit for, about to seek a more commodious seat for the new monks, he departed; and going out of the forest and traversing the neighborhood, he fell upon that which was called Molesme. This therefore judging suitable for the greater things which he was undertaking, for his companions and for building the new monastery he chose as a seat. That was begun to be founded in the year of our Lord 1075, December 20, and retaining the name of the forest in which it stood, to be called Molesme; He founds Molesme in the year 1075; afterwards a celebrated and much-endowed ascetic house. It is praised by Caesarius in book 1 of Miracles in these words: "In the Bishopric of Langres is situated a monastery, named Molesme,
most celebrated in fame, illustrious in religion, ennobled by distinguished men, ample in possessions, and famous for virtues. Ordericus, in book 8 of his History, thus recalls its beginnings: "In Burgundy there is a place which is called Molesme: there, in the time of Philip, King of the Franks, the venerable Abbot Robert founded a monastery; and, by the inspiring grace of the Holy Spirit, gathered together disciples of great religious devotion, and courteously instructed them in the zeal of virtues in holy poverty, after the custom of other monasteries." Once the monastery of Molesme was founded in this manner, Saint Robert was the first, as was fitting, to preside over it with the authority of Abbot. and Abbot placed over it, Thus testify the public charters of donations at the Sainte-Marthe collection, and the diploma of Dainbert, Archbishop of Sens, in Camuzat's Promptuarium sacrarum antiquitatum diœcesis Tricassinae. There, as Manriquez testifies, Blessed Stephen put on the monastic habit upon returning from the thresholds of the Apostles, and afterwards became the third Abbot of the Cistercians, and has been treated by us under April 17.
[6] So illustrious, moreover, were the life and virtue of the first monks of Molesme, that they were requested by nobles in the neighborhood to establish new monasteries on their estates. Thus indeed, with Saint Robert as founder, a monastic house was established on the heights of Vaux-de-Cernay. Concerning this matter, such charters are extant in volume 4 of Gallia Christiana of the Sainte-Marthe brothers: "In the name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. the monastery of Vaux-de-Cernay: While the fragrance of the most sweet odor of the monastery of Molesme was spreading far and wide, many men of devout religion conferred benefactions, and requested monks from the aforesaid place to build monasteries on their estates and possessions. After this request for holiness had reached the ears of the aged Joffrid, a most noble prince and most faithful to holy Church, he likewise requested and obtained from Lord Robert, the first Abbot of that place—adorned in morals, approved in his way of life, shining with the splendor of virtues, graced with humility, patience, justice, fortitude, temperance, and prudence—monks from thence; and these monks built a monastery in the castle which is called Vaux-de-Cernay, and there led a life of holy conversation, etc." Thus the charter.
[7] Yet discipline at Molesme, which had begun so holy, was quickly corrupted, becoming more lax he first deserts the monks of Molesme, through too much prosperity in temporal things; such corruption of morals gradually followed, that however much Saint Robert strove by example and admonitions, they could not be recalled to their original integrity. Therefore, despairing of a remedy, and abandoning those whom he had founded, he went to Aux, a monastery neighboring Molesme: where at first he was held as a simple monk, then indeed as Abbot, he continued to let the torch of holy life shine forth. Manriquez relates that after the departure of Saint Robert, the care of the monastery remained with Alberic, who had previously held the office of Prior under that Abbot, although, in the absence of the holy Father and with morals so depraved, little happily: for having been scourged with blows, because he demanded discipline, they thrust him into prison. When Brito maintains that this injury was inflicted not after the departure of Saint Robert, and not upon Alberic, but upon Stephen, he is corrected by the same Manriquez in these words: "Brito the Portuguese errs, then, when he changes the time, and more gravely when he changes the persons. He takes away these laurels from Father Alberic, that he may crown Stephen with them; and (which you may wonder at) by a made-up or feigned speech, by which Robert is said to have rebuked the transgressors under such a theme, 'We have treated Babylon, and she is not healed; let us forsake her.' I, in the Little Exordium of Cîteaux, composed by our first Fathers, who drew the matter from what they had seen with their own eyes, read it written not of Stephen but of Alberic: who, for this business, namely the reformation of the monks of Molesme, had suffered many insults, imprisonment, and blows. together with Blessed Stephen." Thus he; adding that the withdrawal of Alberic and Stephen to the solitude of Aux must also be placed in this same period: "At which time," as he says, "namely while Father Robert was absent, it came about that they both could and would depart from Molesme without anyone else's permission—perhaps even were nearly compelled to do so, having received the blows—never otherwise about to leave the place, whether by obtaining their Father's permission or without asking it." Ado, or whoever else wrote the Life to be given below, suppressing the imprisonment and the beatings—indeed even the hardening of the hearts of the beaters into evil (which, it is said, was granted to his Molesmians)—teaches that the departure was out of a desire for a stricter and solitary life. "There were," he says, "among them four braver men, Alberic and Stephen, and two others, who, after the rudiments of cenobitic exercise, sighed for the singular struggle of the hermitage. Going forth therefore from the monastery of Molesme, they came to a certain place, whose name is Aux, etc."
§ II. The beginnings of the monastery and of the Cistercian Order, and the transition of Saint Robert to the same.
[8] Returned to the monks of Molesme by order of the Pontiff, Bereft of such men, the monks of Molesme, soon wearied of their bereavement and henceforth to be better sons, sought back the Father whom they had lost from the Supreme Pontiff himself: who agreeing, and giving the business to the Bishop of Langres, namely that he should command the absent ones to return; obeying first, Saint Robert, having left Aux, and then the two others, Alberic and Stephen, having left the wood of Aux, gave themselves back to Molesme. Yet Ado conceals the return of Alberic and Stephen, asserting that, having left the wood of Aux, they immediately began to found Cîteaux. But that this is very far from the truth, will be evident from the Cistercian history which we shall presently subjoin, and can be gathered from this, that he himself writes that they had received from the venerable man Joseramnus, Bishop of Langres, a sentence of excommunication unless they should return to Molesme. For it cannot be believed that holy men would incur so great a crime and penalty of contumacy rather than return to Molesme; especially since there they would find their Father Saint Robert and the ready wills of the brethren for correction. Their return certainly was most salutary for the affairs of the monks of Molesme, providing as it did the occasion for the founding of Cîteaux and the Order named from it: with Blesseds Alberic and Stephen, concerning which these things are drawn from Manriquez: "With all therefore restored to Molesme, and one fold again being made out of all under Robert as Shepherd, they set themselves more fervently to restoring discipline. And some striving in every way, while others, terrified by their recent lapse, not daring to resist, the way to the expelling of vices became easier. Many things were seen to be changed for the better, even in those for whom the habit of sinning had made the correcting impatient, and with the harsher points being relaxed by dispensation, most of the rules were kept to the letter in accordance with ancient custom. One who compared present affairs with past ones would judge that enough and more than enough had been done: but to the holy men anything that was not the highest seemed the lowest, and the road already traversed affected them less than what remained. And, with a few words interposed, Stephen, most prominent in this care, called the indulgences prevarications, and the dispensations sins. He was the first author to Alberic and certain others, and then to Father Robert, of setting aside dispensations, so that, if it could be done, they should remain at Molesme, but if not, should migrate somewhere else." Thus Manriquez.
[9] To these we add a much older and more accurate narrative concerning the whole undertaking of Cîteaux, from book 1 of the select History of the Order propagated thence, which once existed in manuscript at our college in the city of Emmerich. It runs thus: "These servants of God, few in number but strongly inflamed with that fire he deliberates concerning reforming the discipline of the Benedictine Rule: which the Lord Jesus sent upon the earth and desires to be kindled vehemently, when they heard the daily readings of the Rule in Chapter, and weighed that the Rule prescribed one thing and the customs of the Order held another, were most grievously saddened, seeing that they themselves and the other monks had promised by solemn vow that they would keep the Rule of the blessed Father Benedict, but were in no way living according to his institutes. At first therefore, often conferring privately among themselves, they lamented their transgression; and anxiously considered how they might find a remedy for so great an evil. But when afterwards the word was uttered openly, the others, who were carnal and could not say with the Prophet, 'because from on high he sent fire into my bones, and instructed me,' began to mock the servants of God, and in every way they could to harass them, that they might cease from so holy a purpose. Lam. 1, 13 But they who were led by the Spirit of God, and therefore were free, not caring for their malevolent persecutions, turned to God with all the effort of their mind, by prayers most urgently asking that the Lord's mercy would deign to direct them to such a place, in which they might render the vows of their lips, which according to the Rule they had confirmed but not kept. Then, considering that the Apostle admonishes that not every spirit is to be believed, and that the Rule, which they desired to keep perfectly in all ways, commands him to be corrected who should presume to do anything without the Abbot's permission; they humbly approach their Abbot, present a complaint concerning the transgression of the Rule, unfold the most fervent desire of their vow, and humbly pray that by his help and counsel they might accomplish what they had conceived in their mind by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. 1 John 4, 1 But by the will of God, that Abbot, compunct for the hour, praises the purpose of the servants of God, and most firmly promises not only to give his counsel and help, but also that he himself would be their inseparable companion in so holy a purpose. Hearing which, those humble brothers in spirit were greatly strengthened, then for the first time understanding that truly the word had gone forth from the Lord, and that they had not followed the dreams of their heart in such a desire, but the right hand of the living God, working virtue in them.
[10] And so these magnanimous men, the future leaders and standard-bearers of innumerable soldiers of Christ, desirous not so much of new things as of great things and things to profit the whole world, while with constant discussion they sought among themselves how they might bring what they desired to effect in a fitting manner, prudently observed by consulted judgment of reason that they ought by no means presume to change their place or Order without the consent of the Apostolic See. and with the matter communicated to the Papal Legate, There was then in the region of Gaul, as Legate of the Apostolic See, the venerable Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons, a man venerable in religion, prudence, and authority. Him the aforesaid Abbot and Brothers, who burned with the desire of renewing the monastic Religion, approach; they humbly unfold the fervor and vows of their hearts: they complain that the customs of their Order differ too greatly from the rule they had professed; they sorrowfully confess that thereby they have clearly and knowingly incurred the crime of perjury. They add moreover that they wish to order their life entirely according to the institutes of the Rule of their holy Father Benedict, and earnestly beg that the Legate himself may extend to them, for freely executing this, the strength of his help by Apostolic authority. But the Lord Legate, being prudent and discreet, having carefully considered their allegations, pronounced them to be commendably moved; and favoring their spiritual vows with happy auspices, by such a letter exhorted them to accomplish, with full liberty, what they had conceived with a pious mind.
[11] "Hugh, Bishop of Lyons and Legate of the Apostolic See, to Robert, Abbot of Molesme, and the Brethren desiring to serve God with him according to the Rule of Saint Benedict. and the faculty having been obtained, Be it known to all who rejoice in the advancement of holy Mother Church, that you and some of your sons, brothers of the monastery of Molesme,
stood in our presence at Lyons, and professed that you wish henceforth to adhere more strictly and more perfectly to the Rule of the most blessed Benedict, which up to now you have held in that same monastery lukewarmly and negligently. Since it is established that this cannot be fulfilled in the aforesaid place because of many impediments; we, providing for the salvation of both parties, namely those departing thence and those remaining there, have judged it useful that you turn aside to another place, which the divine bounty shall designate for you, and there more healthily and quietly serve the Lord. To you therefore then present, namely Robert the Abbot, and to the Brethren Alberic, Odo, John, Stephen, Letald, Peter, and to all whom regularly and by common counsel you shall decree to associate with you, we both then counseled to keep this holy purpose, and we command you to persevere in it, and by Apostolic authority, through the impression of our seal, we confirm it in perpetuity." This diploma of the Papal Legate, by which he gives Saint Robert and his companions power to found the Cistercian Order, is also reported by Miraeus in the chronicle of the said Order, and makes it evident (differently from what is narrated in the Life) that Blessed Alberic and Stephen had returned from the solitude of Aux to Molesme before this faculty was sought and they all migrated together to Cîteaux; nor did they found Cîteaux without Saint Robert, who was the administrator and director of the entire business; although the first urger of the matter, in the Magnum Exordium, is said to have been Saint Stephen in these words: "But afterwards, when the word of renewing Religion had been stirred up in the same house, Stephen himself first among the first labored with most fervent zeal, and insisted in every way that the place and Order of Cîteaux should be instituted, of which afterwards, by God's ordaining, he was to be appointed pastor and teacher."
[12] He chooses Cîteaux, Having therefore obtained the faculty of renewing Religion from the Papal Legate, Cîteaux, then a dense forest of Burgundy, seemed opportune: before Saint Robert migrated thither from Molesme with his companions, Blessed Stephen is said to have been sent by him with letters to Odo, Duke of Burgundy, the exemplar of which, as Brito writes, is brought forward from a certain manuscript of the monastery of Alcobaça, and is as follows: "To the most illustrious Duke Odo, Robert, Abbot of the Church of Molesme, and those who with him desire the service of the Lord, send greeting and felicity. Acknowledging the piety and grace given to you by the Lord, we do not wish to innovate anything without the goodwill of your Highness; letters having been sent to Odo, Duke of Burgundy, although it is ancient and not new to run in the pursuit of virtue. Wherefore know, that with the consent of some of our companions, to whom the grace has been given of acknowledging themselves, we have resolved, according to the precepts of the most holy Rule, to live in true poverty and sincerity of conscience. And because we could not lead the rest to the same opinion, we have decreed both to dismiss them and their governance, and with those who wished to follow our footsteps, or rather those of the holy Father Benedict, to migrate to a hermitage. But because we have very often experienced your spirit toward us, and now must experience it against rising storms; we have made you certain of all things, praying the Lord and Father of graces that he may preserve you and your house unharmed. Amen." The reply to this letter, written by Odo, Duke of Burgundy, is brought forward from the same memorable manuscript: and with his approval, "Odo, Duke of Burgundy, etc., to the venerable Father Robert, Abbot of Molesme, and to the others who are one with him in the Lord, eternal peace in the eternal God. The letters of your sincerity have been brought to us, by the hand of the most modest man Stephen, your companion, having seen which, we approve both the intention and the work. Do what the Spirit commands; I will not fail you, but from the provincial Bishops, and if it should be necessary from the Roman See, I will obtain whatever you shall wish. Choose the place of your solitude, and pray the Lord assiduously for me. May the Lord preserve your sincerity and increase your pure intention."
[13] After this the transition was made, Molesme being left behind, to Cîteaux: the author of the previously praised Cistercian Ms. History proceeds to narrate the series of the migration thus: "After this," he says, "the aforesaid Abbot and his men, relying on such and so great authority, returned to Molesme, he migrates there with 21 monks in the year 1098, and from that college of Brothers chose companions who, rejecting the blandishments of a more relaxed life, burned with ready spirit to hold purely and simply to the purity and simplicity of the sacred Rule: so that among those who had stood before the Legate at Lyons and those who were called from the monastery, there were twenty-one monks; who, with desire for a more perfect life and for keeping the Rule of the holy Father Benedict to the letter, entered upon the strait and narrow way. In the year therefore of the Lord from the Incarnation 1098, Lord Robert, Abbot of the monastery of Molesme founded in the diocese of Langres, and with him the Brothers, whose hearts God had touched, preferring to be wearied with labors for God with their beloved Father Benedict rather than to be dissolved by the conveniences of this life, went forth from Molesme; and set out eagerly for the place which by the grace of God they had previously foreseen as suitable to their purpose, that is, for the hermitage which was called Cîteaux; which place, situated in the diocese of Chalon, and because of the density of its woods and thorns unused to the approach of men at that time, was inhabited only by wild beasts. Coming therefore to this place of horror and vast solitude, the men of God, understanding it to be the more suitable for the religion which they had long since conceived in mind, and for which they had come there, the more it was despicable and inaccessible to secular men; having cut down and removed the density of the woods and thorns, began to construct a monastery in that place, by the will of the Bishop of Chalon and by the consent of him whose the place was. In the same year therefore which we have mentioned, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of April, the solemn day of the nativity of the most holy Benedict, which a twofold joy had then made the more celebrated on account of Palm Sunday, which fell on that same day, where he founds the Order and the monastery, with angels rejoicing and demons wasting away, the house of Cîteaux, and through these the Religion of the entire Cistercian Order, took its beginning through men wholly devoted to Christian philosophy." These things agree with what Caesarius handed down to memory in his history concerning the foundation of Cîteaux in the century next following. The year of the founding of the Order and of that first monastery is also spoken by the following verses, inscribed on the front of the Cistercian church:
In the year one thousand, one hundred, less two by one, Under Pope Urban, and Philip King of the Gauls, With Odo, Duke of the Burgundians, giving the foundations, Under Father Robert the Cistercian Order began, Producing many monasteries in the whole world, Thus to endure long through the holy name of Jesus.
[14] Cîteaux is distant from Dijon about five leagues, situated in the diocese of Chalon in the Duchy of Burgundy, now a very ample monastery enriched with many estates. Some wish the name to be derived from Cisterns, from the munificence of the Viscount of Beaune, others from Cistels, a Gallic word signifying marsh-reeds. The estate belonged to Raynard, Viscount of Beaune, and his wife Hodierna, and therefore their permission was necessary for building upon it. They yielded it very willingly, and consecrated their munificence to the servants of God for posterity by perpetual charters: which are brought forward by Henriquez in the Menology for March 21, in the following form: "Be it known to all Christians present and future, that Raynald, Viscount of Beaune, and his wife Hodierna by name, and their sons Hugh, Humbert, Raynard, and their father-in-law Raymund, for the remission of their sins and those of their predecessors, granted to Lord Robert and the Brothers who wished with him to observe the Rule of Saint Benedict more strictly and perfectly than it had been observed hitherto, from their estate which was anciently called Cîteaux, as much as should be necessary for them and their successors the servants of God for constructing a monastery and its offices, also for plowing, indeed for every necessary use, etc."
[15] and of Duke Odo of Burgundy, Odo too, Duke of Burgundy, greatly augmented Cîteaux; for he added the estates reserved and excepted by the Viscount of Beaune, and built the first house for the new inhabitants. In the charters just described it is thus narrated: "Concerning the remainder of that land, which it then pleased the said Raynard to retain, Odo, Duke of Burgundy, made with his concession and good pleasure, such an exchange and agreement with him, for the use of those monks, that namely for that land he should receive every year in the castle of Beaune twenty solidi, both he himself and his heirs after him. Moreover in the same exchange the Duke himself granted to him and to his sons, as many vineyards in the territory of Beaune as they could plant and cultivate in their own demesne." The Cistercian Ms. History of our College of Emmerich continues in this manner: to whom he is commended by the Papal Legate: "Moreover the Archbishop, the Legate of the Apostolic See, by whose blessing, command, and authority so great a good had received a stable foundation; considering the poverty of the servants of God, and that in the barren place they had occupied they could neither subsist nor construct buildings unless they were propped up by the help of some powerful person; wrote to the illustrious Prince Odo, then Duke of Burgundy, asking and persuading him to cherish and maintain the poor of Christ, having zeal for the glory of God and for the monastic order, and to come to the aid of their needs according to the magnificence of his principality. And Lord Odo, Duke of Burgundy, acquiescing in his petition and counsel, being delighted also by the fervor and devotion of those Brethren, completely finished at his own expense the wooden monastery which they themselves had begun in their poverty, and for a long time procured them in all necessaries there, and abundantly supported them with lands and cattle.
[16] in a place shown to him by God; That the place was divinely shown to those about to inaugurate the new Order, Manriquez is the author beyond all authors of that time, gathering this from these words of the Magnum Exordium, which we cited a little above: "Going forth from Molesme they set out eagerly for the place which by the grace of God they had previously foreseen as suitable to their purpose, that is, the hermitage which was called Cîteaux." They consecrated the temple to the loving Mother of God, and consecrated to the Virgin Mother of God, a custom derived afterwards to all other monasteries of the Order thence propagated: whence this notable testimony of Blessed Humbert, General of the Order of Preachers, in his sermons: "This Order holds the Blessed Virgin in such reverence, that all its churches are consecrated in her honor. Hence those monks in their churches are, as it were, always before the Blessed Virgin and her Son." Similarly it is said by Gregory X, "the Cistercian Order, dedicated to divine services, and assigned among the other Religions to the glorious Virgin by singularity of devotion from its first institution."
[17] Manriquez writes that Saint Robert, before he departed from Molesme, delivered a grave exhortation to those who were to remain there: that they, however, accompanied his departure with tears, and officiously and most lovingly supplied utensils for the offices of the new monastery, especially those which pertained to divine worship. Finally they substituted for their most beloved Father, Gaufred, by others called Goffrid; a man indeed, as he himself says, "composed in manners, imbued also with sacred disciplines, who would fill the parts of an Abbot not unsuitably, if he were able to make others such as he was himself." But to Cîteaux, by Walter, Bishop of Chalon, by the authority of the Papal Legate,
Saint Robert was given as first Abbot: concerning whom the Cistercian Ms. History says this: he is appointed first Abbot. "At the same time the Abbot who had arrived received from the Bishop of Chalon, to whose diocese the place itself belonged, the pastoral staff with the care of souls by command of the aforesaid Legate, and caused the monks who had come with him to confirm their stability in the same place by rule, so that that church, fortified both by divine and human favor, and also strengthened by Apostolic authority, arose as an Abbey to be ordered according to the Rule of Saint Benedict." These same things, in almost the same words, the little Cistercian Exordium narrates, a work of the greatest authority, inasmuch as it was written by the first Fathers of Cîteaux. The same is clear from the letter of the Bishop of Chalon written to the Bishop of Langres, which we shall presently give, and from the Cistercian Calendar published at Dijon, in which Blessed Alberic is mentioned as the second Abbot of Cîteaux. So that it is now beyond controversy that Saint Robert was the first Abbot set over Cîteaux, which we had left undecided on January 26 in the Life of Blessed Alberic, and had deferred to this place.
§ III. The recall and return of Saint Robert from Cîteaux to Molesme: his age, sacred cult, writers of his life.
[18] Yet in a short time, resigning his office at Cîteaux, Saint Robert had to return to Molesme, sought again by his Molesmians from Urban II. For "not long after," continues the Cistercian Ms. History, "this space of time having elapsed, the monks of Molesme, by the will of Lord Gaufred their Abbot who had succeeded Robert, The monks of Molesme seek the return of Robert from the Pontiff: sent messengers to the Roman Curia, importunately asking of Lord Pope Urban, that the aforesaid Abbot Robert should be restored ecclesiastically to his former place, that is, to the monastery of Molesme. Overcome by their importunity, the Lord Pope commanded his Legate, namely the venerable Hugh, that, if it could be done, the same Abbot should return, and the monks loving the hermitage should remain in peace." The same things, with the phrasing somewhat changed, the little Exordium reports, in which also this letter of Urban, concerning the recall of Saint Robert, written to Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons, is read: "Urban the Bishop, here he commits the matter to his Legate, servant of the servants of God, to the venerable Brother and Bishop Hugh, Vicar of the Apostolic See, greeting and apostolic blessing. We have received the great outcry of the Brothers of Molesme in Council, more vehemently requesting the return of their Abbot. For they said that religion had been overthrown in their choir, and that on account of the absence of that Abbot they were held in hatred among the Princes and the rest of their neighbors. Compelled at length by our Brethren, we command to your Dilection through the present writing, signifying that it is pleasing to us that, if it can be done, that Abbot be brought back from the hermitage to the monastery. But if you are unable to fulfill this, let it be your care that those who love the hermitage may rest quietly, and those who are in the monastery may serve the regular disciplines."
[19] To Hugh, having read this letter, nothing was of greater importance than to execute the commands of the Pontiff: Manriquez writes that at Petra Incisa, concerning this matter, a provincial Council was convoked by him at Lyons: at least he wrote the following letters, which are extant in both Exordia, to the Bishop of Langres: "Hugh, and the Legate to the Bishops of Langres and Chalon, servant of the Church of Lyons, to his dearest Brother Robert, Bishop of Langres, greeting. What we have determined concerning the business of the Church of Molesme in the colloquy recently held, we have judged necessary to make known to your Fraternity. The monks of Molesme came before us there with your letters, showing the desolation and destruction of their place, which they had incurred through the removal of Abbot Robert, and earnestly asking that he himself be restored to them as Father. For they hoped in no other way could the peace and quiet of the Church of Molesme be restored, or the vigor of the monastic order be recalled there to its former state. Brother Goffred also was present there in our presence, whom you had ordained as Abbot of that church, saying that he would gladly give place to this Robert, as to his Father, if it should please us that we send him back to the Church of Molesme. Having heard therefore your petition and that of the Molesmians themselves, and reading also the letters of the Lord Pope directed to us concerning this business, committing the whole to our disposition and judgment, finally by the counsel of many religious men, both Bishops and others who were present with us, acquiescing in your prayers and theirs, we have decreed that he be restored to the Church of Molesme: in such wise, namely, that before he returns thither, coming to Chalon, into the hand of our Brother the Bishop of Chalon, to whom according to the custom of the other Abbots he had made his profession, that to him Saint Robert may resign Cîteaux he shall render the staff and care of the Abbacy; and the monks of the New Monastery, who had made profession to him as to their Abbot, he shall dismiss free and absolved from that very profession; and thus from the Bishop himself he shall receive absolution from the profession which he made to the Church of Chalon.
[20] We have also given license of returning with him to Molesme to all those Brothers of the New Monastery who shall have followed him, on this condition, that henceforth neither party presume to solicit or receive any of the others, except according to what Blessed Benedict ordered concerning the receiving of monks of a known monastery. After he has done these aforesaid things, we send him back to your Dilection, that you may restore him to the Church of Molesme as Abbot: yet in such wise that if hereafter he shall desert the same church, and receive Molesme from him: no one shall be substituted for him while the aforesaid Abbot Gaufred is still alive, without our consent and yours and that of Gaufred himself. All which things we command to be ratified by Apostolic authority. Concerning also the chapel of the aforesaid Abbot Robert, and concerning the other things which when departing from the Church of Molesme he took with him, and with these gave himself back to the Bishop of Chalon and to the New Monastery, we have established this, that all things shall remain safe to the Brothers of the new monastery, except a certain Breviary, which they shall retain until the feast of Saint John the Baptist, that they may transcribe it with the assent of the Molesmians. At this determination there were present the Bishops: Norigandus of Autun, Walter of Chalon, Berard of Mâcon, Pontius of Belley, and the Abbots, Peter of Tournus, Jarentius of Dijon, Gausoeranus of Athanac, Peter also the Chamberlain of the Lord Pope, and many other honest men of good testimony." Thus Hugh to the Bishop of Langres.
[21] How these things obtained their effect, both Exordia narrate thus: "All these things that Abbot approved and did, absolving the Cistercians from the obedience which they had promised him either in that place or in Molesme; and Lord Walter, Bishop of Chalon, dismissed the Abbot free from the care of that Church, and so he returned, and certain monks with him." The letters of Walter written also to the Bishop of Langres are in the Little Exordium as follows: which rightly being done, "To his dearest Brother and co-Bishop Robert, Bishop of Langres, Walter, servant of the Church of Chalon, greeting. Be it known to you, that Brother Robert, to whom we had committed that Abbey situated in our Diocese which is called the New Monastery, has been absolved by us from the profession which he made to the Church of Chalon, and from the obedience which he promised us, according to the determination of the Lord Archbishop. He himself dismissed those monks who had decided to remain in the aforesaid New Monastery, free and absolved from the obedience which they had promised him and from their profession. Therefore hereafter fear not to receive him and treat him honorably. Farewell." From these the manifest error of the author of the Life comes to light, who says that Saint Robert, after his return to the monks of Molesme, presided with the authority of Abbot over both Molesme and Cîteaux: and over Cîteaux indeed, because he could not be present, appointed as his vicar first Blessed Alberic, and, this one being taken from the living after two years, Blessed Stephen: for the reader will gather that these things are contrary to the truth from the little Exordium, where in chapter ten it is thus written: "Therefore the Church of Cîteaux, widowed of its pastor, assembled, and by regular election promoted to itself a certain Brother, Alberic by name, as Abbot."
[22] He returns to Molesme, Having returned to Molesme, Saint Robert, with only two monks, nevertheless did not in his heart forsake the Cistercians; that he addressed them frequently with letters, Chrysostom Henriquez, in the Fasciculus Sanctorum Ordinis, is the author, and he transcribes one of them, which is of this kind, from the Chronicle of Brito: "To the Brethren, who upon the mountains of Cîteaux are ascending to the mountain of perfection, Robert, once their companion, now plunged into the valley of miseries, the palm after the ascent, and the remembrance of himself in ascending. If the tongue could take the place of the pen, the tears of ink, the heart of paper, perhaps the pen would reach the ears, and maintains correspondence by letters with the Cistercians: the ink the eyes, the paper the affections, and all together, all together would move even you all to the affection of commiseration. For after I did not adhere to you, my tongue adhered to my jaws: when my eyes did not see you, the light of my eyes and that itself is not with me. While my heart was torn from you (if ever it can be torn from you), it became as wax melting in the midst of my belly. But though torn from you, yet this tearing has not separated anyone from you; for those whom the charity of Jesus Christ joins, the spaces of the earth divide in vain. Let Molesme have the presence of the body, bound by the laws of obedience, provided Cîteaux possess the desire of the soul. This the Most High, whose secrets are inscrutable, has ordained, that I, drawn into diverse things, may not have the soul distracted by bodily conversation, nor the body distracted to enjoy so holy a conversation: for the soul dwelling with you pour forth prayers; the body, whose soul you possess, salutes you in the Lord, as possessors of its best part."
[23] Various opinion concerning the time of his death, Concerning the year of Saint Robert's death there is no consensus among writers; Baronius, in his notes on April 29, following the Chronicle of Sigebert, ascribes the death to the year 1098. Fiteriensis, in the notes on the Little Exordium, adds one year, and two in the Annals of Manriquez. But they are convicted of error from the charters of donations, by which in Camuzat's Antiquities of the Church of Troyes Saint Robert subscribed in the year of our Lord 1104, and in the Sainte-Marthe collection in Molesme in the year 1105. These end his life in 1110; who at least preceded the year 1112, the other, and with him Longhelin and Claudius Robert in Gallia Christiana, in 1111. However that may be, he did not advance in age beyond the year 1112: for it is clear from what the Sainte-Marthes adduce in the cited passage that in this year Guido presided over Molesme. Nor is there sufficient agreement concerning the day also on which he died: this Surius in the Life, and Bernard Brito in the Cistercian Chronicle, say was April 29. But this is the day of his transferred feast: whence the Cistercians, by the admonition of their Rubrics, when they celebrate this day as a feast of Saint Robert, are commanded to omit from the hymn Jesu corona celsior, which the Church sings of Confessors, this verse Anni recurso tempore, along with the three next following. The words of the Rubrics are these: "The following verse is not said in the feasts of Saints Remigius, Julian, Robert, on the Translation of Saint Benedict, nor of any Confessors, whenever they are transferred to another day." Consonant with this is the verse composed in the ancient manner about this very matter:
Remi, Rober, Juli, Translatio, non canet ANNI.
The feast of Saint Robert, and begins on April 17: before it was transferred, occupied the 17th day of April, namely according to that constitution of the Cistercian Chapter:
"Concerning Blessed Robert, first Abbot of Cîteaux, let the feast be kept on the fifteenth of the Kalends of May, etc." Adhering to this constitution, the Canons Regular of the monastery of Bodeken in the diocese of Paderborn, when they were about to inscribe in their notable Codex, folio 178, the Life which we give as transmitted from John Gamans, began thus: "Here begins the Prologue to the Life of Blessed Robert, first Abbot of Molesme and also of Cîteaux: whose feast is celebrated on the 15th Kalends of May." On the same day, according to Fiteriensis, that verse, omitted in the subsequent transferal of the feast, was not customarily omitted: whence we rightly gather that the feast formerly coincided with the day of his death, and accordingly that Saint Robert died on April 17, or the 15th Kalends of May, as the author of the Life in the Bodeken Ms. holds.
[24] Beatification in the year 1212. He was included in the number of the Blessed in the year 1222 by Honorius III, Supreme Pontiff, permitting the monks of Molesme to venerate him as a Saint in their church, and faithfully to implore his suffrages before the Lord. Manriquez in his Annals maintains, at this very year, not long after the beatification or at the beginning of the following year, that he was inscribed in the Canon of the Saints, and that papal diplomas were sent concerning this matter. This is certain, that in the same year the Cistercian General Chapter decreed, the institution of the feast, "That concerning Saint Robert, first Abbot of Cîteaux, let a feast be kept on the fifteenth of the Kalends of May with twelve Lessons, as concerning Blessed Jerome; and one Mass, as concerning Blessed Benedict." The name is read inscribed in various calendars of the Church: of Menard, of Wion, in the Roman Martyrology, and commemorated in the Martyrology. in the Cistercian Menology of Chrysostom Henriquez on April 29, and in the same also on March 21, on which day he says he departed from life as read in the Calendars of Salamanca and Dijon. In the Dijon Calendar on the said day we have seen these things: "The Cistercian Order happily began under Abbot Robert in the year 1098. Robert himself on the same day, which is sacred also to our holy Father Benedict, fell asleep in the Lord in the year 1108." As the Sainte-Marthes say, Guido, the first Abbot of Molesme after him, wrote his Life: who wrote the Life and whence it is given. another was written in the twelfth century, about a hundred years after the death of Saint Robert, by a certain anonymous monk of Molesme by command, as he states in the preface, of the most reverend man Lord Ado, Abbot of Molesme, whom the Sainte-Marthes teach to have died in the year 1197, and call him Odo. "Let my name," he says, "be silent: lest perhaps the work itself should become contemptible among the unlearned, if the name of a sinner should appear at the front of the work." The same man, showing unique zeal for truth, I do not doubt but that he employed it; it must be confessed, however, that he was at times led away from the truth, when he believed too much the monks of Molesme, who, out of rivalry against the Cistercians, not a little obscured the truth of the history. This was first perceived by our John Grathusius of pious memory, when he found in our college at Emmerich the Ms. Codex of the Cistercian History in the year 1638, and compared both it and what he had read in the works of Saint Bernard and Peter the Venerable with the Life published by Surius. And the latter indeed, having received an apograph of the Utrecht Ms. of the church of Saint Saviour, such as we also have, did not have the Prologue, since it was lacking there; and he changed the style at times, and often rendered the words more contracted, as he found them. We give the Life whole and unaltered from the often-praised Codex of Bodeken: in which whatever is less sincere, written from a spirit alien to the Cistercians, we have either already corrected in this preceding commentary, or shall hereafter note as to be guarded against in the Annotations. Thirty years after the death of Ado, under another Ado or Odo, efforts were made for obtaining canonization, and it was accomplished as we have said: concerning which monuments are extant inserted by Philippe Labbe in volume 1 of the Bibliotheca Mss. and are thence to be transcribed here; in which toward the end there is mention of a Life to be exhibited to the Pontiff by the Procurators of the Molesmians; which that it is the very one we are publishing, can scarcely be doubted. Among more recent writers, the life was written in French by Simon Martin of the Order of Minims in the Flowers of Solitude, in Portuguese by Bernard of Brito in the first part of the Cistercian Chronicle, in Latin by Manriquez in the Annals of the same Order, and by Chrysostom Henriquez in the Fasciculus Sanctorum. It is also extant in the Legend of the Saints printed at Louvain in the year 1485 and in the Utrecht Mss. of Saint Saviour, but in a more contracted form.
LIFE
By an anonymous monk of Molesme, under Abbot Ado in the twelfth century.
Drawn from the Ms. of Bodeken by John Gamans, S.J., collated with the Ms. of Utrecht and Surius.
Robert, Abbot of Molesme and Founder of the Cistercian Order (S.)
BHL Number: 7265
FROM MANUSCRIPTS.
PROLOGUE.
Since, with Jesus the great Priest having entered once for all into the sanctuary through his own blood, the way of the Saints has been made manifest; I think it worth the effort to describe the life and conduct of those who, imitating our Savior as far as human frailty permitted, amid the storms of this present life, stood strongly in the contest of the struggle, glorifying and bearing Christ the Lord in their bodies, and remaining most constantly in their purpose of holiness until the end of life. For these are they of whom Scripture speaks: "The path of the just, as a shining light, increases and advances to the perfect day." Prov. 4:18 These are the stars which the supreme Pontiff has placed in the firmament of the Church, whose splendor drives away the darkness of human ignorance, and shows the port of salvation to those laboring in this great and spacious sea: among whom specially shone the venerable Blessed Robert, first Abbot of the Church of Molesme: whose purified holiness is the more gloriously proclaimed, the more scarcely anyone is found in our days who even fears God. Whose life I have undertaken to write, not presuming upon my own ingenuity or knowledge, but rather placing hope of progress and the consummation of the work undertaken in Him who makes the tongues of infants eloquent, and who, to rebuke the prophet's madness, once granted the faculty of human speech to a dumb beast of burden. To this was added the command of the most reverend man Lord Ado, Abbot of Molesme, By order of the Abbot of Molesme this Life is written, and also the instant and devout request of the Brothers of the same place: to whom I judge it altogether unworthy to deny anything. Lest therefore I should appear empty before the Lord, although I am not of such virtue or merit that I can be an example to others, yet I have given my effort, that he may not remain wholly hidden from them, who has been given by the merit of his holiness to the adornment of the most holy Church. Whoever therefore, reader, you shall have approached, I beg, seek not the name of the writer in this, because fleeing the glory of men, and seeking to be praised by God alone, I have kept my name silent in this work, the author suppressing his name. lest perhaps the work itself should become contemptible among the unlearned, if the name of a sinner should appear at the front of the work. If anything shall have been said less elegantly or less becomingly, I humbly beg pardon from the reader; admonishing all to whom the present writing shall come, that they seek not from me ornaments of words: because truth, sufficient and comely in itself, does not seek to be colored with the pigment of words, nor to be painted with the stibium of the harlot Jezebel. Let them hear finally the Doctor of the Gentiles, and disciple of truth itself, saying, that the kingdom of God is not in speech, but rather in virtue. 1 Cor. 4:20
CHAPTER I.
Saint Robert's birth, his training in the religious life, and certain offices of authority.
[2] Blessed Robert, therefore, sprung from the regions of Champagne, shone forth as it were a beautiful flower of the field: He is born in Champagne whose adornment indeed in honesty of morals was pleasing to those beholding him; and the odor of his holy reputation, diffused far and wide, invited very many to the imitation of himself. And I judge I have rightly compared this holy man to a flower; because Scripture says of the saints, that "they shall flourish out of the city like the hay of the earth." Ps. 71:16 Further, because nobility is a certain praise proceeding from the merits of parents, we shall show from whom the blessed man drew his origin. His father therefore was called Theoderic, his mother Ermengarde, both indeed illustrious according to the dignity of the world, with his father Theoderic, mother Ermengarde; but before God most illustrious for honesty of morals: they used the abundance of things in which they temporally abounded in such wise that they seemed rather dispensers of the supreme Father of the household, than possessors of earthly substance. Knowing moreover that "he lends to the Lord who has mercy upon the poor," they wiped away the dust of earthly conversation with pious alms: indeed, though placed in the flesh, they lived not according to the flesh, dwelling by thought and avidity in heavenly things, and adorned their crowns with works of virtue, as with the glory of precious stones. These things I have said for this reason, to show how holy a root that was, from which this Saint, as a scion of the tree of life, sprang forth for us. But since we have made mention of his parents, how the Holy Spirit forestalled the holy man in the blessing of sweetness, while he was yet enclosed in his mother's womb, we shall briefly relate. For to his pregnant mother the glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of God, appeared in sleep, having a golden ring in her hand, and said to her: from whom when pregnant the Blessed Virgin asked him as her spouse: "O Ermengarde, I wish the son whom you bear in the womb to be betrothed to me by this ring." With these words, the Blessed Virgin, leaving the woman sleeping, vanished: but she, arising from sleep, began to revolve the vision in her mind. The blessed Mother of God however appeared again to the woman; as once, to confirm his promise, the Lord is read to have appeared again to Samuel.
[3] When therefore the days were fulfilled, the woman brought forth a son, b whom, when weaned, she handed over to be imbued with the study of letters; in which advancing beyond all his contemporaries, he drew from the fountains of the Savior with a pure heart, whence afterwards he might pour forth the grace of salvation to the peoples. When he was fifteen years old, he puts on the monastic habit in the monastery of Celle, avoiding the contagions of the world, he decided to consecrate himself entirely to the Lord; whence offering the flower of most pleasing youth to the Lord, at Saint Peter c of Celle he received the regular habit: where devoting himself to fasts and prayers by night and by day, he showed to God a grateful service, subjecting the flesh to the spirit, the spirit to its Creator. When the time came that God might be glorified in his servant; and that the lamp, which had lain hid under the bushel, might be placed upon the lampstand to illuminate the Church; he, in whose hand are the hearts of men, inspired the Brothers of the same house, in which he is elected Prior: that they should choose the man of God Robert for themselves as Prior. For it was worthy, that he who by the guidance of grace had for a long time learned to hold the governance of his own life, should become judge and moderator of others. There was at that time in the remote hiding-places of the woods d a certain hermit, desiring to serve God the more freely, the more secretly: who, while with assiduity of fasts he was mortifying the flesh, a certain Priest then inhabiting the neighboring hermitage, and by the urgency of prayers was strengthening the spirit; the Lord looked upon his humility, and not without a great miracle through him the multitude of those serving the Lord increased.
[4] For two soldiers, brothers indeed according to
the flesh, but according to the spirit not agreeing in the same sentiments, devoted to the zeal of vainglory, were seeking for the display of their strength the execrable fairs which the common people call tournaments. When they were making their journey through the forest in which the aforesaid hermit led his solitary life, to whom two brothers meditating mutual slaughter, they began alternately by secret thought to treat of mutual killing. For wasting away miserably with the poison of envy, they were considering within themselves that, one of them being dead, the one who should survive would succeed to the possession of the deceased. But God Almighty, who knew that they were soon to be vessels of mercy, did not permit them to be tempted beyond what they could bear; but made a way of escape with the temptation, lest they should carry into effect the iniquity which they had conceived. And for this reason the providence of God permitted them to be vexed by so wicked a temptation, that afterwards, when placed in the progress of virtues, they might not proudly attribute to themselves what they had; but might rather refer it to Him by whose mercy they had been delivered. When therefore, having finished the business to which they had gone; in which they had acted strenuously enough according to the customs of that people, so much that they carried off the fruit of human praise from all who had been present; returning to their own affairs, they arrived with prosperous step at the place in which by secret thought they had treated of mutual killing; there, as if admonished by the place itself, or rather pricked by divine inspiration, they began to shudder at the wickedness they had contemplated, and to be disturbed in themselves concerning the crime they had conceived. Recalling to memory that the hut of the hermit mentioned above was nearby, by equal vow they directed their journey to his little dwelling; their conscience cleansed, and through confession, vomiting out the pestilential poison which had lain hidden in their hearts, with the filth eliminated they prepared in themselves a habitation pleasing to God. Finally, being rebuked by the man of God concerning the wickedness they had contemplated, they departed from him, informed by salutary admonitions: whose burning speech as a torch kindled heavenly desires in their minds, wholly extirpating from them ambition for earthly dignity, and creating in them the kindling of virtues no less sweetly than wholesomely.
[5] When therefore they had come to the place in which earlier one had contemplated rising up against the other; they began to speak among themselves, and said to each other: "What," said one of them, "dearest brother, were you thinking about us yesterday when we were passing through?" And as the other was unlocking the thought of his heart to his brother, "And I," said the other, "was thinking nothing at all different." Who immediately, compunct in heart, returning to the man of God, they join themselves as companions of the solitary life; the pomp of the world spurned and its haughtiness trodden under, began to live spiritually with him, and humbly to bend the neck of their heart to bear the sweet yoke of Christ: whence who would doubt that their conversion should be ascribed to the merits of Blessed Robert? By whose magistracy, as the following lesson will teach, they were to be imbued with regular disciplines. But God, who consoles the humble, added to multiply his servants, so that within a short space they came to the number of seven: which number indeed figures the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit: which we know to have been worked through his servant Blessed Robert for the salvation of many. For the same Spirit prepared these seven men as it were the seven columns of a spiritual edifice: for through these the monastic order began to revive, and the root being sent forth to the moisture of grace, to bear spiritual fruit: so that, when it was thought to be wholly consumed, it might again germinate at the odor of grace, and make foliage, as when it was first planted.
[6] Saint Robert elected Abbot of Tonnerre, Meanwhile Blessed Robert, famous enough in holiness and grace before God and men, was elected Abbot by the monks of Saint Michael of Tonnerre e. But the aforesaid hermits, when they had no one to form them in regular disciplines, hearing the fame of the blessed man, took care to send two of their brothers to him: who, when they had come to the place in which the man of the Lord was rendering his assiduous service to God, found the Provost of that house in the audience chamber. sought as master and superior by the aforesaid hermit-dwellers. Who, when he had learned their purpose and the cause of their journey, they scarcely obtained from him by many prayers that they should be led to the private chamber of the man of God. For the Provost, f pierced by the sword of envy, thought he himself perished if the Lord had ordained anything worthy of praise through his servant concerning the progress of others: whence he persuaded the Brothers of the same house, and the companions of the Abbot, not to assent to the petition of the Brothers who had come to seek that the man of God should preside over them. Nevertheless Blessed Robert, rejoicing at their petition and just vows, would have satisfied their desire, had not the Brothers of Tonnerre unanimously opposed. Yet informed with salutary admonitions, accompanied by prayers, and strengthened by blessings, he sent them back to their own place: and singularly established them in hope that, as soon as the opportunity should be granted him by the Lord, he would fill them with joy in his countenance. It is well here to consider a little the dispensation of God: for although their purpose was holy and their desire just, yet it was delayed to this end, that it might be prolonged and grow; that when they had attained what they had sought, they might hold it more dearly and observe it more carefully.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II.
The monasteries of Molesme and Cîteaux founded.
[7] The man of the Lord, however, always thinking not of the things of the world but of the things of the Lord, when he saw the Brothers of that place declining from the path of equity, fearing lest the malicious companion might rub off his rust upon the white and simple one, and deform the beautiful face of his soul; because morals are wont to be formed by association; returned to the cloister of Celle, whence he had departed. Where Leah, who is called "toilsome," Returning to the monastery of Celle, put aside for a time, he enjoyed the embraces of the beloved and long-desired Rachel, drawing in joy from the fountains of the Savior what he might afterwards pour out to the Faithful for their salvation. But because the city set upon a mountain cannot be hidden, Blessed Robert, firmly rooted and founded upon the mountain Christ, upon the death of the Prior of Saint Aigulph a was again chosen to feed the humble flock of Christ, having been made Prior in the same house by the unanimous vow and equal desire of the Brothers. He becomes Prior in the monastery of Saint Aigulph: But the aforementioned hermits, inspired by love of the heavenly life, when they saw the man of God always advancing in God and becoming better than himself, having taken counsel, sent two of their Brothers to the Apostolic See, in order that from the Supreme b Pontiff they might obtain by prayers that the man of God, Blessed Robert, should become Father and Pastor of the little flock of Christ: for they knew that it was wicked to contradict the Supreme Pontiff, or by rash audacity to go against his commands. The Supreme Pontiff however, hearing their purpose, rejoiced greatly, and kindly assenting to their petition, sent them back rejoicing to their own, relying on the Apostolic blessing; commanding and enjoining by Apostolic writings the Abbot c of Celle that whomsoever of the Brothers they should choose, he should hand over to them as Abbot. to the aforesaid hermit-dwellers a Superior is given by Papal authority, The Abbot of Celle, however, upon learning what the Supreme Pontiff had commanded him, yielded Blessed Robert to those asking: sad indeed and mourning, but not daring to go against the Apostolic commands. For he saw that their consolation was his tribulation and that of his own, because from his house a cedar column, firm indeed and imperishable, was being taken away. Blessed Robert however devoutly accepted the care of the pastoral office, seeing that his labor would not be without fruit, because the unanimity of the flock, rejecting earthly things and seeking heavenly ones, obeyed his salutary admonitions: whence again he was coupled to Leah, namely the active life, for procreating spiritual sons: according to the inner man indeed serving the Lord in the spirit of humility, but according to the outer man quite strenuously fulfilling his ministry.
[8] with great fruit of the regular life: In the place therefore which is now called Colanus, serving the Lord in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, by fasting and praying, they bore the weight of the day and the heat with equanimity: sowing in tears, that with exultation they might bring back with them to the Lord's granary the sheaves of justice. But because the solace of labor is the sight of a fellow-laborer; God, who looks upon the vows of the humble, added that he multiplied his servants, so that in a short time they became thirteen, and agreed with the Apostles, so far as was in them, in honesty of morals and also in number. The man of the Lord Robert, however, desiring a place fitting, with guardians left there and the Brothers taken up, withdrew into a certain forest, he founds the monastery of Molesme: whose name is Molesme: where, laboring with their own hands, they cut branches from the trees, and built from them dwellings in which they could rest, and completed an oratory also of similar structure, in which they frequently offered to the Lord salutary hosts and the sacrifice of a contrite spirit: they who, when they had no bread with which after long labor they could refresh their bodies, used only legumes. It happened, however, that the Bishop of Troyes d was making a journey through that forest, in which the men of God in the greatest poverty and humility were serving the Lord, where he is visited by the Bishop of Troyes, and came to that place at the hour of refreshment with a company of his companions. Whom the men of God devoutly receiving, were in some measure confounded, because they had nothing to set before those to be refreshed: in whose humility and poverty the Bishop was not moderately edified and compunct, bade farewell and departed. As time went on, alleviating the want of the monastery, when they had nothing from which the Brothers could be supported even a little, they had recourse to the counsel of Blessed Robert. He however, who never placed gold as his strength, nor said to fine gold, "my confidence," taught them to place their hope in the Lord God, knowing that God would not suffer the soul of the just to be afflicted longer with famine. When therefore they had no money, he nevertheless sent them to Troyes e to purchase provisions, acquiescing according to the letter in the counsels of the Prophet: "And you that have no money, come, hasten, buy and eat." Isa. 55:1 When they had entered the city of Troyes barefoot, immediately a rumor about them ascended to the Bishop: who causing them to be brought to him, receiving them devoutly enough, showed the love he had toward God in the humanity exhibited to his servants. Finally, clothing them regularly in new garments, he sent them back to their Brothers with a wagon loaded with cloths and breads. By this blessing the Brothers, not moderately comforted, learned to be patient in adversity; moreover, from that day onward there was not lacking one who would minister to them the necessaries both in food
and in clothing.
[9] While they endured most constantly in the service of God, many came to them fleeing the world, and casting off the burden of the world, placed their necks under the sweet yoke of the Lord. Some from distant parts also sent them necessaries, that they might receive the reward of the just, when they ministered necessaries of this present life to the just. with discipline relaxed, But because in most cases abundance of things brings poverty of morals; when they had begun to abound in temporal things, they began to be emptied of spiritual things; so that their iniquity seemed to come forth as it were from fatness. Blessed Robert, however, not setting his heart on the riches that flowed in, tried more and more to advance in God, and according to the institutes of Saint Benedict to live justly, piously, and soberly. Seeing which, the sons of Belial rose atrociously against the man of God, provoking him to bitterness, and tormenting the soul of the just with wicked works. Nor let it move you, reader, that iniquity claims a place for itself in that holy congregation; since pride, of heavenly nation, invades heavenly minds, recalling them to their own origin; and hides in ashes and sackcloth that which is wont to appear in great things, in fine linen and purple. Finally, Scripture being witness, we have learned that, when on a certain day the sons of God had come to stand before the Lord, Satan also was present among them: for thus from the beginning there has not been lacking in the Church both a just one who might advance, and an impious one who might prove him. Job 1:6
[10] Seeing, however, the man of God that he profited nothing in correcting them, with the monks of Molesme abandoned, and that, the observance of regular discipline being set aside, each one was walking after the depravity of his own heart; he resolved to leave them, lest while in them he sought spiritual gain in vain, he himself should suffer detriment to his soul. A discord therefore arising among them, he departed from them: and came to the place which is called f Aux, in which he had heard that there were Brothers dwelling, serving the Lord in the spirit of humility. To whom when he had come, he was devoutly received by them, and he lived for some time among them, laboring with his own hands, so that he might have something from which to give to one suffering need. Devoting himself incessantly to vigils and prayers, he served the Lord tirelessly: and since in holiness he excelled all; serving all, he reckoned himself the least of all. He is made Abbot of the monks of Aux: Whence not long after he was elected by them as Abbot: whom he took care to govern in all modesty, giving care to the infirm, and fostering the sound, not as lording it over the clergy, but having become a pattern of the flock from his soul.
[11] The monks of Molesme, however, led by penitence that they had offended the man of God, and had in a certain way expelled him from themselves through disobedience; anxiously deplored their ruin both in morals and in possessions: and in their fall they experienced that he is restored to the monks of Molesme: by the merits of Blessed Robert the Lord had granted them abundance even of temporal things. Having taken therefore the counsel of salvation, they approached the Supreme Pontiff, by whose authority relying, they called the man of God back to Molesme: where incessantly intent upon fasts and prayers, with zeal of God he was zealous for those subject to him, so that in a short time he reformed for them the observance of monastic discipline. There were among them four men stronger in spirit, namely Alberic g and Stephen, and two others, who after the rudiments of cloistered exercise sighed for the singular struggle of the hermitage. Going forth therefore from the monastery of Molesme, they came to a place whose name is h Vinicus; which when they had inhabited for some time, at the urging of the monks of Molesme, from the venerable man Joceramnus i Bishop of Langres, unless they should return, they received k a sentence of excommunication. Compelled therefore to leave the aforesaid place, he founds and rules the monastery of Cîteaux: they came to a certain forest, called by the inhabitants Cîteaux: where, building an oratory in honor of the Blessed Mother of God Mary, they could not afterwards be called back from their purpose by either threats or prayers, fervent in spirit, and tirelessly serving the Lord day and night. But Blessed Robert, hearing of their holy conversation, taking with him twenty-two Brothers, went on to them: that he might be a sharer and helper of their holy purpose: by whom he was received with the greatest devotion, and presided over them for some time with fatherly solicitude, instituting their life and morals by rule, and showing and giving himself as the form and example of religion and honesty.
[12] The monks of Molesme, however, taking it ill that they were deprived of so great a Pastor, approached the Supreme Pontiff l, that the man of the Lord Blessed Robert might be compelled to return to the Church of Molesme, which he had founded earlier. The Supreme Pontiff, hearing that the new plantation of the Cistercians was firmly rooted in Christ, rejoiced greatly, having discovered that they flourished in every honesty of morals, and that, formed by the example of Blessed Robert, they observed the Rule of Saint Benedict more fervently. Seeing, however, that destruction threatened the monks of Molesme if they were defrauded of the presence of the man of God, he wrote to the Bishop of Chalon m, that, another Abbot having been ordained for the Cistercians, he should compel Blessed Robert to return to Molesme. Which having been learned, Blessed Robert, He returns to Molesme. knowing that obedience is better than sacrifice, and that it is as a crime of idolatry to refuse to acquiesce; having disposed there what pertained to the observance of the new institution, set over them as Abbot n a man worthy of God, named Alberic, who had been one of the first monks of the Church of Molesme: and thus all things having been salutarily ordered, he returned to the monastery of Molesme, which he himself had founded in honor of Blessed Mary. When Alberic died after two years o, Stephen [p] succeeded, ordained as Abbot of the Cistercians by Blessed Robert: and thus being the institutor of that new plantation, since by his judgment the ordering of both monasteries, namely Molesme and Cîteaux, pertained, with two monks he returned to Molesme; the Cistercians indeed mourning over his departure, but the monks of Molesme on the contrary exulting over his return. And from the town of Bar [q] a very great multitude of honorable men and common people came forth to meet him, who received him with great rejoicing and divine praises. But he with his own, nay rather Christ's little flock, namely the Molesme college, entering the place prepared for him by God, with all alacrity of mind magnifying divine providence, which disposes all things, cherished with fatherly affection the flock committed to him, instructing them in regular disciplines: nay more, he became to them an example of the Rule, living among them according to rule.
ANNOTATIONS.
p Whether Robert lived so long is uncertain; this is certain, that no right over the Cistercians belonged to him, yet I would not deny that by his counsel they could be directed in either election. Alberic died and Stephen the Prior, then absent, was elected in the year 1109: concerning whom the before-praised Orderic writes that he was "English by nation, a man of great religion and wisdom; and for more than twenty-four years, gloriously excelling in doctrine and holy operation, he held it"; and resigning the government in the year 1133, he died the following year, as has been shown in his place.
q Bar on the Seine (for by this addition it is distinguished from another Bar on the Aube) adjoins Molesme at an interval of two leagues, at the mouth of a little stream flowing into the Seine, on which the monastery stands.
CHAPTER III.
The death and burial of Saint Robert, certain miracles at his funeral.
[12] How the holy man migrated from the prison of the flesh, and by what signs also the Lord illustrated his precious death in his sight, it is pleasing more fully to open to your charity. He is admonished by God of the hour of death, When therefore Blessed Robert had fought as soldier for the Lord in many contests of labors, very much wearied by the weariness of this present life, he desired with burning desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ. God, hearing his desire, revealed to him the hour of his departure not a few days before, as he himself had most desired; which he, knowing beforehand that it was imminent, indicated to the Brothers. Detained for some time therefore by bodily infirmity, he heaped up the merits of thanksgivings by the virtue of patience, and glorying in his infirmities, and preparing a habitation pleasing to the virtue of Christ in himself. In the year therefore of his age the eighty-third, on the fifteenth a of the Kalends of May, he gave his body back to the earth, but his spirit to God, to whose service he had clung tirelessly,
with the earth weeping and heaven rejoicing, he gave back. But his sons, namely the monks of Molesme, whose every joy and consolation was in him, weeping most bitterly, more ardently pressed on with the funeral rites of their reverend Father. Although they did not in the least doubt concerning the heavenly reward of his merits, and concerning the suffrages to be conferred upon them through his merits, nevertheless they were more vehemently distressed over the presence of their Father now withdrawn from this light. And since, while he was still on earth, he proved by his just works that he had been a son of light, God at his passing declared how great his merit was in his sight.
[13] For above the dwelling in which the lifeless body of Blessed Robert lay, an unusual light gleams above his funeral bier, in the first twilight of night, two most brilliant arches of different color appeared: which, expanding themselves to the breadth of a great plaza, seemed to be extended to the four parts of the earth: of which one was stretched from the North to the South, the other from the Northeast to the West. And at the summit, where the two arches were joined, a clear light, in the likeness of the lunar circle, shone forth: which extending itself on high, completely excluded the darkness of night from that place. And in this light a reddish cross appeared, at first indeed small, but gradually growing, it became great: around which were innumerable circles of varied color, in each of which individual reddish little crosses arose, wonderfully growing with their own circles: which, when they had spread themselves everywhere in the firmament, wonderfully illuminated the whole place of Molesme: so that by evident signs it appeared that the Blessed man, who in that same place had received his falling-asleep with piety, was a son of light.
Nor is it to be doubted, sprinkled with crosses: that for declaring the merit of his sanctity, the light with the crosses was sent from heaven: so that through this it might be given to understand that the Holy One of God, fleeing the works of darkness, had crucified his flesh with its vices and concupiscences: which crosses therefore appeared in multitude, so that it might manifestly be clear that his imitators would be many, just as he himself was of Christ. But what shall I say of the arches, except that they were signs of the covenant between God and man, between creature and Creator: for, to touch upon something from the old history, when the Lord had smelled the sweet odor from the offerings of the Holy Patriarch Noah, he said, "I will set my bow in the clouds of heaven, and I will remember my covenant which I have made with thee." Gen. 9:13 Which testimony of Sacred Scripture I do not think I have taken up incongruously, though it is rather to be referred to the mystery; because the spirit of the holy man, going forth unto God, was as a kind of first-fruits of sacrifice, and as a kind of taste of the sweetest odor. And since no one doubts that the world stands through the merits of the saints, it is to be believed without doubt that the holy man, now freed from the flesh, obtains pardon of sins for those devoted to him, and more frequently obtains the gifts of graces. b
[14] To impress his sanctity more deeply upon human minds, the Creator of the universe also worked salvation upon the sick who were devoutly assisting at the funeral rites of the holy man, which, with the Lord's help, the following reading will declare. at which also two sick are healed: Two sick people, fervid in faith, approaching the place in which the clay of the holy body, emptied of its vital spirit, lay; after they were permitted to be placed under the bier and to touch his burial shroud, immediately they received their former health; and they converted the lamentation of the grieving Brothers into a solemn joy on account of the miracle wrought through the servant of God. But also, just as once through a captive maiden the power of the Prophet Elisha became known to the King of Syria, so too through the female sex He wished His servant to become known among the Franks. For the Countess of Nevers, c while she was staying in a certain town with a company of maidens and soldiers; a precious necklace lost is found when she had a golden clasp at her neck, precious both in the material of gold and in the engraving of stones; it happened that, to show off its beauty and value, she took it off her neck and held it in her hands, and passed it to others to handle. Who, while they were admiring the beauty of the clasp and passing it around in turn to be looked at, it happened that, when they mingled conversations about other matters, they forgot about the clasp which they were holding. But the Countess, putting her hand to her neck, after she discovered that it was unfastened, began solicitously to inquire to whom she had handed over the aforesaid clasp: and when, questioned individually, they said they did not have it, the noble matron began to be more and more disturbed in mind. Now there was much straw in the place: which the same woman ordered to be winnowed, lighting a lamp, and sweeping out the whole house in her search. But when she could not find what she was seeking, a certain maiden, who was in her service, approached her, most firmly asserting that if she would faithfully implore Blessed Robert, the same Saint would without doubt restore her clasp to her. with a candle lit in his honor. Faithfully agreeing to her advice, the Countess ordered a candle to be lit in honor of Blessed Robert the Abbot. When this had been done, immediately, in the presence of a great multitude of people, the clasp was found in her lap. Men as well as women came together, glorifying God for so great a miracle, and proclaiming Him wonderful in His servant Blessed Robert. And this miracle became so famous, that whoever in all that region should lose anything, does not delay to take refuge in the aid of the man of God, and thus receives the thing which he had earlier lost without delay. Nor is it a wonder if the holy man received from the Lord a singular grace in the recovery of lost things, since he himself is a lamp burning and shining in the house of the Lord, so that whoever should approach him is illumined, and through him the lost drachma is recovered.
[15] Moreover, with the funeral rites around the body of the Blessed man completed according to custom, he is buried in the church of Molesme that most holy clay was venerably handed over to burial by the neighboring Abbots and other reverend persons gathered for this very purpose; and was honorably entombed in the church of the Blessed Virgin, which he himself had founded in her honor. But Almighty God, to prove that His servant Blessed Robert lived after the laying aside of the flesh, adorned him with the glory of many miracles. The same holy man also, to show that he was caring for his sons even after his bodily sight was withdrawn from their eyes; if ever they were negligent in God's service, or had risen too late for Matins, many times he was accustomed to rouse the sacristan, reproving the negligent, and exhorting the devout to better things. But these things concerning the life and conduct of the Blessed man we have passed over briefly in a rude style, so caring to satisfy the devout, that we might not burden the fastidious with a copiousness of words. Let no one estimate that all the monuments of his sanctity could have been written down; but let him know that it has happened to me, as is accustomed to happen to unskilled Poets, that when they have presumed upon material exceeding their strengths, being weighed down by its mass, they do not finish what they began: and so, not only Jews, but also the Christians of our time seek signs, when sanctity does not consist in the showing of miracles, but rather in the working of virtue. To satisfy both, we shall briefly touch upon a few of the many things which the Lord has worked through him.
[16] After the Holy man had departed to Christ in a happy passage, the reputation of his virtues began to be diffused far and wide, and the Lord was near to those who invoked the name of the Saint. The Blessed Mother of God also, At the fame of the miracles of S. Robert who had espoused to herself the man of God, while he was still enclosed in the narrows of his mother's womb, did not cease to communicate to her servant the grace which she had singularly received from the Lord. For from the day of Blessed Robert's departure, miracles began to happen very frequently in the church of Molesme, which the same holy man had built in honor of the same Virgin: to whom from his earliest age he had given himself entirely, and had served with a special devotion. Therefore, by the grace of divine dispensation publishing in all the earth the miracles which Almighty God deigned to work by the prayers of His Mother and the merits of Blessed Robert in the church of Molesme, a multitude of peoples began to flow together from everywhere.
[17] Now it happened that a certain poor little woman, laboring under the epileptic affliction, a boy is rescued from a certain epileptic's. was preparing to come to the church of Molesme, to seek aid from the Mother of the Lord and from His servant Blessed Robert. Therefore, taking with her two little boys, one of whom hung at her breasts, the other followed with feeble step the tracks of his mother, she pursued the intended journey. Now, when the day was already declining, she came to the monastery d of Quincy, begging hospitality from the monks: but since their tradition does not admit the female sex within their boundaries, the miserable woman was compelled to depart from there and spend the night in the woods. Then by chance she found a fire, which rekindling from the sleeping ashes, she remained there with her two little ones. But in the middle of the night a wolf came, and while the woman sat on one side of the fire, the cruel beast lay down on the other. Seeing which, the woman, imprinting the sign of the Cross on her forehead, most devoutly commended herself and her boys to God and to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to Blessed Robert. Meanwhile her sickness invaded her, a boy seized by a wolf and while her lifeless body was trembling, the wolf, as if it had waited on purpose, snatching away the smaller boy, fled. But when the plague of the disease vanished, the woman, as if rising from the dead, sought between her arms for the little infant, whom she had been holding a little before, and knew she had not otherwise let go. The woman rejoices to be freed from pain, but this is succeeded by a pain perhaps more cruel: for consulting her elder son, she altogether recognized the miserable outcome concerning the younger. What should the wretched woman do? where to turn, she knew not. For she could not express the force of such great pain, unless someone, clothing himself with a mother's entrails, should learn by experience such pain. through the same he is restored: Yet amid words of wailing, this was the repetition of her words: Give back, give back the deposit, Blessed Mary: give back the deposit, Father of Molesme. Marvelous thing! while she repeats these words, and by often crying out Blessed Mary and Saint Robert exaggerates the force of her pain; behold, the beast, forgetful of its savagery (whose property it is not to spare, but to devour), coming out of the forest, and carrying the boy in a gentle mouth, restored him unharmed to his mother: who, with the sorrow consumed by subsequent joy, completing the journey of the pilgrimage she had begun, in the presence of many recounted the sequence of the matter; and even on the boy's back the marks of teeth appeared, a more familiar proof of the thing done.
[18] How great things the Son of God works in the church of Molesme for the praise of His Mother and for the declaring of the merits of Blessed Robert, both is evident from what has gone before and is declared by what follows. In the village which is called e Novallavies, a certain man occupied with outside business with his wife, a little infant left at home in his cradle having locked his house, had left only a little infant sleeping in his cradle. Meanwhile the fire, finding material of its consumption, gradually growing, manifested itself on the outside. With the flame now raging on the surface of the roof, the people f ran up wanting to succor him in his loss, but in vain: for the whirlpool of flame forbade approach, spread everywhere
around. At length the parents, running up rather late, and often calling out the boy's name, beat their breasts, tore their hair, and the house did not feel the fire: the love of the parents, more bitterly aroused over the danger of the boy. But whenever the force of pain permits the mother to breathe again, she repeats these words: To Thee I commend my son, be Thou his shield from the face of the devouring fire around him, O fount of mercy, Lady of Molesme. At last the parents run up, praying that of the body they may at least find ashes and embers. Who would not marvel? Let those who hear pay attention, and let the whole world marvel and be astonished at the novelty of so great a miracle. They find the little infant smiling at the coals: and with the cradle along with the little clothes burned to ash, with the clothes burnt, he is saved from the fire. the fire knows not how to rage against the boy alone. Behold, if anyone should wish to express a likeness, and to equate present things with past, for the praise of His Mother and for declaring the merits of Saint Robert, the Son of God the Father deigned to renew the ancient miracle of Babylon: for with those three boys this fourth could be counted, if only the flame had spared the little garments. Now when he had been brought by the parents and presented to the church, very many gathered, praising the Lord together: by whose counsel, lest the matter be taken from memory, it is committed to the faithful guardianship of letters.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER IV.
Various diseases cured, a blind man illuminated, a paralytic raised, demoniacs freed.
[19] Now indeed if I should try to write all the things which the Lord works through his servant, I shall not be able to suffice for the labor, since time will fail me before abundance. For daily in the church of Molesme the mercy of the Savior is present to those imploring the aid of Blessed Robert: for by his intervening merits at the tomb the blind are illumined, the feeble recover their step, the sick are healed, evil spirits, not bearing his presence, are expelled from possessed bodies. Lest this perhaps seem incredible to someone, we have taken care to transmit at least a few of many to the notice of posterity. For although tongues are for a sign not to believers but to unbelievers, nevertheless because even in our times the withered, sickly faith needs to be watered, now let us gird ourselves to discharge what we have promised.
[20] To strengthen this miracle more fully, another miracle perhaps not unequal was added. For when, comforted not moderately by God's benefit, they were going on their way rejoicing, it happened that they entered a city whose name is c Tudela. Now they were received into hospitality quite honorably by a certain powerful man. And when they were talking together amicably, the nobleman was recounting God's mercy through the merits of Blessed Robert. Hearing what had been done, the man with whom they were lodging, sighing more deeply, said: Behold, my wife, deprived of all function of limbs from the loins downward, cannot move from her place, a paralytic woman unless she be carried by the hands of menservants or maidservants: but this wound is not recent, rather seventeen years have now passed since this happened to her: yet if that Saint of whom you speak is of such merit, I trust in the Lord that my wife is to be restored to health by his prayers. Now the pilgrim, recounting not only what he himself had experienced, but also what he had seen in others through the merits of Blessed Robert; encouraged his host, as much as he could, to ask for God's benefits: to whose words the same man giving faith, he effectually persuaded his wife of this same thing. After the shades of night had withdrawn, and Phoebus's lamp had illuminated the world with its rays; with the pilgrims departing, the faithful man placing his wife on a litter, went to Gaul with great preparation, not putting an end to his labor, until he came to the place in which the body of the Blessed man was venerably entombed.
[21] Now when they had come to a place in which there was a certain heap of stones, which is called the Mount-of-God's-Joy, about to ask Blessed Robert's aid, immediately being set down by her servants, brought by her husband to his tomb she is prostrated on the ground, and, poured out wholly into tears, she most devoutly begged that her health be restored to her. Now the multitude of the sick, blind, deaf, withered, who, through the man of God with joy returning to their homes, stopped with the woman taken down from the litter, joining their prayers to hers, and recounting the things they had experienced in themselves, and had also seen and heard in others, inflamed her mind to ask more urgently. And without delay; the sinews of her thighs, he grants health, which the long sickness had contracted, gradually began to extend themselves, and her bones to receive their own strength. The woman also, feeling God's power working in her, is raised up step by step, and without anyone's help springs to her feet; giving thanks to God and to Blessed Robert, and suddenly in praise of God and of Saint Robert the mouths of all who were present are loosed, and a voice of exultation was diffused afar. When the woman was asked by her husband to climb again into the litter to proceed to the church, she would not consent, but went on ahead of the others walking and leaping, praising God, so that according to the letter there seemed to be fulfilled in her that prophecy of Isaiah: then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be opened: for she who before was impotent, behold went before the others; and she whose mouth before, from confusion, could not be opened, was all poured out in praises of God. Isa. 35:6 Now coming to the church in which the body of the man of God lay buried, which was about two miles distant from the place in which the woman had been healed; she gave thanks to God and to Blessed Robert, by whose merits she did not doubt she had been freed from that sickness in which she had been held. Prostrate on the ground before the tomb of the Saint, most devoutly kissing the earth in which his body lay, she ministered to all who were present material for wonderfully proclaiming God in His Saint. With the prayer completed, and the tomb of the man of God honored with many gifts offered, they return to their homes with joy, leaving behind as a testimony of her deliverance the litter in which she had been carried; which miracle, that it might not be hidden from posterity, the same litter hung for a long time before the doors of the basilica.
[22] How much power this Saint received from the Lord in putting to flight unclean spirits, he frees a demoniac woman. the miracles worked at his invocation declare. For, to be silent about others, a certain woman, when she had entered the church of Molesme for prayer, and was standing before the altar; by a hidden judgment of God, seized by a demon, she was miserably vexed. By the counsel of an older monk who was present, the woman's husband, who had come with her, bound her to the tomb of Blessed Robert. Now the miserable woman raged so cruelly, that she tried with her teeth to attack all who wished to approach. At length, admonished by her husband, she calls out the name of Blessed Robert, saying: Saint Robert, ask the Blessed Virgin, that she herself may obtain liberation for me from her Son. Which said, immediately the woman, freed before all, gave thanks to God. Another woman also from the village whose name is d Baignous, when she had given birth in her bedchamber, by I know not what judgment of God turned into madness, struck and killed her husband Evonga: who, bound with ropes and brought to the church of Molesme, as soon as she was able to touch the tomb of the Blessed man, was freed from the demon, suffering nothing of the kind thereafter. Come to herself, when she saw herself bound with ropes, she began to marvel; and at length, recognizing the crime which she had committed, she began to weep for a twofold cause: on the one hand bitterly lamenting her sin,
on the other giving thanks to God for her liberation. These things and others like them the power of Christ does not cease to work, through the merits of Blessed Robert, to the praise and glory of His name, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be honor and glory, world without end. Amen.
[23] God rewards his liberality toward the poor, I think it not amiss to repeat things omitted, and to note briefly how Blessed Robert showed himself of modest severity toward his subjects, and how liberal toward the poor. For when on a certain day two Clerics found the man of God before the doors of the church; they began urgently to ask alms from him. Now the man of God, since he wholly abounded with the bowels of mercy, desiring to relieve their need, immediately ordered a certain one of the Brothers, whose office it was to minister to the tables, to be summoned. When he had commanded him to give something to the needy, he received an answer from him, that there were absolutely no loaves in the monastery. Whence then, said the Saint, shall the Brothers be refreshed today? He answered: I do not know. Without delay: the hour came, at which the Brothers, having performed the solemnities of the Masses according to custom, were preparing to approach the tables. When the holy man had heard the sound of the bell, as is the custom at that hour, he asked the Steward whence he had the loaves which he would place before the Brothers to be refreshed. I, he said, have reserved a few, taking care that at the hour of refection food might not be lacking to the Brothers. Then the man of God, kindled with zeal, fuming and indignant that in the flock committed to him there had been found the tare of disobedience and the darnel of distrust, entering the refectory took up in a basket the loaves placed on the tables, and threw them headlong from a certain little hill near the church, into the water e which ran beneath; unwilling that in the sons of God the fault of disobedience be found. But God, looking from on high upon his zeal, had already inspired certain devout women of f Châtillon, to bring loaves to the Brothers to be refreshed. For the man of God Blessed Robert, returning from there, found at the gate of the monastery three wagons loaded with loaves, which the aforementioned women of Châtillon had already brought for the refection of the Brothers. Then the man of God, summoning the Brothers, rebuked before all the distrustful and disobedient Brother, and animated all the Brothers with salutary admonitions to presume upon God's mercy in necessities. g
ANNOTATIONS.
PROCESS OF CANONIZATION.
Robert, Abbot of Molesme and Founder of the Cistercian Order (S.)
BHL Number: 7267
[24] This Process of Canonization, together with the Origins of the Cistercian Order, extends in volume I of the Library of Manuscripts, edited by Philippe Labbe. The Cistercians, together with the Molesmes, urge before the Pope Namely, in the year 1221 the Cistercians gathered at the general Chapter, and in it they decreed that intercessions should be made, and petitions offered, to Pope Honorius III, that he should inscribe Robert in the Catalog of Saints. The zeal of the monks of Molesme was also added, seeking the deserved honors of their common Father; and with joined either letters or legates, both worked upon the Pope, that, judging what was asked to be fair; before he should decree public cult to S. Robert; to explore the holiness of his life and to know his miracles, as is the custom of the Church, he delegated certain suitable men. These were Bishop Hugo II of Langres, and Valentinus Girondus or Giraldus, from Abbot of Molesme and then Cluny promoted to this, and Rolandus, Abbot of Cluny: to whom the Pope, concerning making this examination, gave the following letters;
Honorius, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his venerable Brothers the Bishops of Langres and Valence, and to his beloved son the Abbot of Cluny, who commits the examination to two Bishops of the diocese of Mâcon, greeting and Apostolic benediction. We rejoice in the Lord, and we are delighted in his praises, that, as the beloved sons all Abbots of the Cistercian Order gathered in general Chapter, as well as the Abbot of the Convent of Molesme have insinuated to us by their letters, Robert of happy memory (who was the first Abbot of the monastery of Molesme, and first laid the foundation of the Cistercian Order, which by divine favoring grace has grown into a holy temple in the Lord), living religiously, shone with such grace of merits, that the Lord, having then worked many and great miracles through him, still after his happy decease at his tomb, for the manifestation of the same sanctity, deigns to work greater ones: so that him whom the virtue of conduct honored on the way, the glory of miracles may insinuate to us to be honored in his fatherland. Wherefore they have earnestly supplicated us; that since it is clearer than light that he reigns in the order of Confessors in the Church triumphant, we also should inscribe him in the Catalog of Saints in the Church militant. But, because in so great a matter one must proceed only with the greatest gravity, we, having full trust in the Lord concerning your faith and discretion, by these Apostolic writings command your discretion, that solicitously inquiring both into the life and into the miracles of the aforesaid Saint, you faithfully intimate to us by your letters the truth which you shall find: so that, sufficiently instructed by your report, we may proceed in it, as according to God we shall see fit to proceed. But if you cannot all be present to execute these things, let two of you nevertheless execute them. Given at the Lateran, on the eighth day before the Calends of February, in the fifth year of Our Pontificate.
[25] which they institute at Molesme Thus far the Pope concerning the said examination (which both Bishops, the Abbot of Cluny being impeded by other business, instituted at Molesme). Manriquez writes that since S. Robert had been taken away from the living a hundred years before, when none of his contemporaries survived who could bear witness concerning the miracles wrought during his life, the Examiners, content with the history that existed in writing concerning his life and signs, sent it to Honorius, together with the one we append, which contains the process of canonization, in the letter. He himself, pursuing an error once begun, names the author of the Life Odo; whereas this was the name of the Abbot by whose command it was written, not of the author. The letter itself is of this kind: and they send to the Pope To the most holy Father and Lord Honorius, by the grace of God the supreme and universal Pontiff of the Holy and Apostolic See, H., by the same grace Bishop of Langres, and G. of Valence, with a kiss of the feet, greeting and the service of due reverence. We have received your Holiness's mandate in this form: Honorius Bishop, etc. Therefore, by the authority of this mandate, personally coming to the place (the Lord Abbot of Cluny, our colleague, having committed his office to us, Bishop of Valence), we received witnesses, whose depositions we have caused to be written down word for word in this manner. witnesses concerning the blind woman Oddo, Abbot of Molesme, sworn, said that when in his boyhood he was in a secular habit, he saw a certain woman blind from birth, having a daughter, as the mother herself firmly asserted, whom he himself led to the tomb of the venerable Father Robert, of whom we are treating; and when she kept vigil there with her mother one night, she received sight. At this deed the same Abbot was present and saw it. The same Abbot also saw, at the time of the dedication of the church of Molesme, after he had received the monastic habit and the priestly order; that when the tombs, on account of the reverence of the dedication, were being removed from the church, and they came to the tomb of the same venerable Father; at the motion of the tomb, a certain woman smearing her own eyes with earth, there received sight.
[26] and another dumb Another, eating of the same earth, recovered speech, having been dumb for three years, as her husband and she herself firmly asserted. It happened afterward, not yet two years having elapsed from the present examination of witnesses, that a certain cow had been wounded by a wolf: which the woman whose the cow was, perceiving, sprinkled the wound with holy water, and a certain trembling woman healed and immediately a continuous and enormous trembling of head and arm invaded her: who on that same day returning to the aforementioned tomb, was immediately cured and wholly healed. This the same Odo saw in these times, now established as Abbot in the same Church. He saw moreover a certain monk named Ragnerius, who had been made furious, bound at the tomb of the same venerable Father, and in the same place recover health through divine grace. likewise concerning a contracted woman and a furious man healed; William the Priest, sworn, said concerning the woman who had received sight at the time of the dedication, the same as the Abbot: but concerning the woman who had recovered speech, he had heard very often, but had not seen. Concerning the woman who suffered trembling of head and arm, the same as the Abbot. He saw moreover a certain woman who had worked on a festival day, on account of which on that day, as is believed, she had been struck in the hand, and was so deprived of the use of her hand, that it was despaired of that she could be healed; but through divine clemency and the Saint's merits, approaching his tomb, she was immediately healed. He also saw a certain furious man healed there. Albericus, monk and Priest, sworn, said, concerning the miracles done in the dedication, the same as the Abbot: concerning the woman who recovered the health of her hand, the same as William.
[27] concerning the eye gouged out and restored, Jacobus, monk and Priest, sworn, said that a certain brother of his, in the flesh, established in boyhood age, was so enormously injured in the head, that his eye, torn from its own place, hung from his face. Who, at the instance of Jacobus himself, being carried to the often-mentioned tomb, was immediately healed by divine clemency, and without any injury the eye returned to its proper place. For all these things the monk Jacobus saw concerning his brother. But concerning the other two miracles done in the dedication, the same as the others. The aforesaid Jacobus also saw a certain woman being carried from far parts, who for a long time had been contracted; and immediately upon seeing the monastery concerning the contracted woman healed, in which the venerable Abbot rests, to whom she had devoted herself in hope of recovering health, she was cured and wholly healed. Milo, a layman, sworn, said concerning the eye gouged out and
restored, the same as Jacobus: concerning the miracles done in the dedication, and concerning the woman who suffered trembling of head and arm, the same as the Abbot and the others. Bartholomew, monk and Priest, sworn, said, concerning the two miracles done in the dedication and the woman struck in the hand, the same as the others.
[28] concerning the blind man, Hugh, Priest and monk, sworn, said, that he saw a certain blind citizen of Metz, coming out of devotion and in hope of recovering sight to the often-mentioned tomb: who coming to it recovered sight, and he saw scales visibly flowing from his eyes. Who more quickly setting out from there to Saint James, concerning the contracted woman, was lodged on the way in the house of a certain woman, who lay contracted in bed: but by his counsel, causing herself to be carried to the tomb of the Saint, she was healed. This is the woman of whom Jacobus, monk and Priest, speaks above; which Jacobus agrees with Hugh, but from hearsay. and others William, monk and Priest, sworn, said, that he saw a certain Cleric, who for a long time had been contracted, healed at the same tomb: and concerning the two women in the dedication, the same as the others. Licelinus, monk and Priest, sworn, said, concerning the two miracles in the dedication, the same as the others. Martin, sworn, said, concerning the miracles done in the dedication, and concerning the woman who had been healed from injury of hand, the same as the others. and a maniac: Haymo, monk and Priest, sworn, said, that he saw a certain furious man healed there. Master Simon, Priest, sworn, said, concerning the miracles done in the dedication, the same as the others; adding, that a certain layman at Molesme, mocking with insults the venerable Father, and deriding his miracles, and concerning a blasphemer against the saint suddenly slain departing from there, on the following day within the boundaries of the same village was slain by two soldiers. This too Jacobus said he had seen. He saw moreover a certain layman, who had been contracted for eleven years, healed at the often-mentioned tomb.
[29] Fulco and Jacobus, monks and Priests, sworn, said that when on a certain day they were next to the often-mentioned tomb, and exhibiting reverence to the holy man by bowing their heads; a certain monk stood by with them, breaking out in these words contumeliously, with them present and hearing: Why do you bow your heads to him? Know for certain, that he never was a Saint. Moreover a certain very deformed rustic, striking the tomb with his foot, proclaimed similar things. and another dying from a sudden swelling of the foot. But immediately a swelling seized that foot, ascending universally through the whole body; so that within a fortnight, burdened with that infirmity, he breathed out his spirit. Concerning the furious and the fevered who had been healed, an infinite multitude was crying out before us, and they firmly asserted that they had been healed. So that the common opinion of the whole region prevailed so much concerning these things, that it greatly extols the very tenor of the attestations. These things are said to have happened in our times, as is expressed above. But from the time of his death, the memory of which does not remain, infinite miracles are recounted; so that the whole neighborhood does not at all doubt that he has been equated to the Catalog of Saints in miracles. For the rest, his life will be presented to Your Holiness in writing, by messengers of the Church of Molesme, which shows sufficiently that he shone with many merits. But what we have heard, faithfully inquiring with the greatest diligence, we declare to Your Beatitude through the present writings, that your holy Paternity may see what is to be done in such matters.
[30] Thus far the letters of the Bishops to the Pope, and the examination concerning S. Robert's sanctity and miracles, concerning which several Abbots in the neighborhood also wrote their testimony to Honorius in these words: testimonial letters of several Abbots concerning the miracles. To the most holy Father and Lord, universal Honorius, by divine providence Pontiff of the Holy Apostolic See, the Abbots of S. Benignus of Dijon, and S. Stephen of Rheims, S. Michael of Tonnerre, and S. Martin of Melun, of the diocese of Langres, with a kiss of the feet, greeting and the service of due reverence. Since the church of Molesme, and those churches in which we have to minister, are very near to each other, and so neighboring that scarcely or in no way does anything great happen in any of them, which swift fame does not quickly bring to the others; concerning the life of our holy Father Robert, first Abbot of the Church of Molesme and founder of the Cistercian Order, which shone forth venerable with countless virtues; and concerning the miracles, which daily at his tomb, with divine clemency working, are done, we have thought it worthy to bear testimony to the truth in the present article. For unceasingly the voice of the people of the whole same region cries in our ears, that the greatest multitude of contracted, blind, dumb, and others held by various infirmities, daily flowing together to the tomb of the said Saint in the church of Molesme, with prayer made and the Saint's name invoked, with their former health received, are seen to return unharmed to their homes. Whence it is, that inflamed by the Saint's miracles, your most holy Paternity, interceding for the canonization: as much as we are able, humbly and devoutly we supplicate, that you may decree the often-mentioned S. Robert, whom God has wonderfully magnified among his elect by shining merits through miracles in our parts, to be canonized and added to the Catalog of Saints. Thus the Abbots.
[31] Honorius, having read these letters and the aforementioned testimonies, since he desired some other things before decreeing universal cult for S. Robert throughout the whole Church, and pronouncing him a Saint; meanwhile gave power to the monks of Molesme of venerating him, and celebrating an Office of him, only in that church in which his sacred bones were stored, concerning which matter there is this diploma of the Pope: Honorius Bishop, servant of the servants of God, diploma of the Pope decreeing the cult. to his beloved sons the Abbot and Convent of Molesme, greeting and Apostolic benediction. Since once by your letters and messengers you had earnestly supplicated, aided by the testimonies and intercessions of many, that we should inscribe B. Robert of holy memory, whose body resting in your church shone with many and great miracles, in the Catalog of Saints; we, lest in so great a matter we should seem to use any levity, have commanded to be inquired, both concerning his life and concerning his miracles, through our venerable Brothers the Bishops of Langres and Valence: since for this, that someone may be held as a Saint in the Church militant, it is necessary both that the merits of true faith, which works through love, with final perseverance precede, and that clear miracles also follow; nor do one without the other fully suffice for the indication of sanctity; because some do their works that they may be seen by men; and sometimes an angel of Satan, transfiguring himself into an Angel of light, often deceives men, as is read of Pharaoh's magicians. Since therefore the aforesaid Inquisitors have fully written back to us the truth concerning these things: because, although they have intimated to us certain miracles which he had done after death, concerning those which he is said to have done in life, they have not made full faith: we, lest we should seem entirely to be wanting in your prayers, concede to you, that venerating him as a Saint in your church, you may confidently implore his suffrages with God. Given at the Lateran on the 6th day before the Ides of January, in the sixth year of Our Pontificate. Manriquez says he had these letters excerpted from the Vatican; and he adds, that in this same year or at the beginning of the following one, when that which was lacking in the first process had been supplied, S. Robert was absolutely inscribed in the Canon of Saints, and it was decreed in the general Chapter of the Cistercian family, that his feast on the 15th day before the Calends of May with the Office of twelve Lessons throughout the whole world should be more solemnly celebrated.