Bernard of Clairvaux

ON ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, CONFESSOR,

FIRST ABBOT OF CLAIRVAUX,

FATHER AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH,

IN THE TERRITORY OF LANGRES IN CHAMPAGNE IN GAUL,

In the year 1153.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Bernard, first abbot of Clairvaux, in the territory of Langres in Champagne in Gaul (St.)

BY J. P.

§ I. The year and place of his birth; his illustrious family.

Among the great men who, as most brilliant stars of the Church of God, A holy man, most celebrated among writers, have illustrated the world by doctrine, virtues, and miracles, St. Bernard merits and obtains a plainly singular name — so far spread abroad and celebrated in every direction that there scarcely seems to be any of the Saints who has obtained so many heralds of his deeds, and writers so excellent and of such approved credit and esteemed authority. This will become clear both from the three chiefly most illustrious biographers, who transmitted his most excellent deeds to posterity in continuous discourse, and as it were by agreement, to be praised by us below; and from the documents of others, of which there will afterwards be discourse. But what we shall say in the course of this Commentary, besides those things which have been said before by others, will serve either to confirm, or to elucidate, or to amplify the life and miracles of the Mellifluous Doctor, beginning with his birth, concerning which various things offer themselves to us to be weighed.

[2] And first, concerning the year of his birth there is such agreement among authors that it is placed beyond all controversy. he came into the light in the year 1091 For the most illustrious Ángel Manrique, bishop of Badajoz, in volume 1 of the Cistercian Annals, at the year of Christ 1105, the eighth of Cîteaux, chapter 1, number 3, says: Concerning the time it is altogether certain that he was born in the year one thousand and ninety-one, namely in that year in which blessed Peter of Cava, once a nursling of the monastery of Cluny, received indeed reverently the use of the mitre offered him by Urban II in the council of Benevento,

but magnificently despised it: which thou mayest see written in the acts of his Life (in Baronius at this year). Namely that by this there might even then be shown presages of the honors to be offered to Bernard and to be despised by him. That he was born in this year thou wilt easily prove, if from the year one thousand one hundred and thirteen, in which he entered Cîteaux, thou take away the twenty-two years which he then had; in which all historians agree. Add more recent writers, who fix the Saint's birth in the said year 1091. Thus much of the time; but of the place in which our Saint began to live, the said founder of the Annals, Manrique, thus writes at number 2:

[3] At Fontaines in Burgundy: which place All who write his Life testify that Bernard was born at the town of Fontanæ (elsewhere this place is called Fontes, commonly Fontaines), so called from its springs, the dwelling and lordship of his father, about half a mile from Dijon, the noble and most well-known court of the Dukes of Burgundy. It is situated between Talant (commonly Talen), a most strongly fortified citadel, and the castle of Fontaines: which Manrique in the same place describes from Guillaume Paradin, in his book On the Ancient State of Burgundy, at his folio 140: but in our Basel edition, from page 165, these things are read: It is a most pleasant plain, two rivers, the Suzon and the Ouche, washing the walls on either side … Above the city rises Talant, a citadel most strongly fortified both by the nature of the place and by art … Opposite this is situated a castle which has its name from the springs; which Bernard, the most holy abbot, illustrated by his most illustrious infancy: formerly belonging to the lords of the knights of Châtillon, [] today a building sacred to Christ. Mabillon, the editor of the Works of St. Bernard, at the end of the second volume appended various Lives of the same Saint from column 1061, and subjoins afterwards other documents concerning him. And in the said column, after he had cited in a little note on Tescelin, the Saint's father, these things from the third Life — namely that he is there called lord of a lesser castle whose name is Fontaines, etc. — he observes that the paternal house of Bernard (as is believed) has there been turned into a convent of the Feuillant Fathers. This fact the Reverend Father Chrysostom Henriquez affirms rather than confirms more expressly in the Cistercian Menology at this day, thus writing of the Saint: He happily came forth into the light at Fontaines in his father's house, which, out of reverence for so great a Man — as being that in which he had the beginnings of his life and sanctity — was changed into a monastery for the reformed Cistercians of the Feuillant congregation: on whose foundation-stones of that sacred building the encomia and illustrious eulogies of the most holy Father Bernard were engraved in fair characters: which, lest they lie hidden beneath the earth, I have judged should here be written out.* But we forbear to transcribe them hither, since they can be read there. The event is attached to the year 1619, in which, by the command and in the name of Louis XIII, Most Christian king of the French and of Navarre, and of his most serene consort Anne of Austria, the first stone is indicated in the inscription of the same to have been laid, on the VI day of January.

[4] But, as to what again concerns the castle or town of Fontaines, the birthplace of St. Bernard, is elucidated by various notices Manrique at the cited number 2 warns that care must be taken lest it be ennobled beyond its merit and enriched with other places annexed to it. More recent writers, he says, while they read of the father's town, feign a County, and add to it several other villages to which Tescelin should give laws from Fontaines (there is cited by him Brito, who published a Cistercian Chronicle in the Portuguese idiom, book 1, chapter 14). But with no testimony at all produced; nay, antiquity itself crying out against it, by which I read rather, in book 1, chapter 1 of the Life of St. Bernard, of A SOLDIER CONTENT WITH HIS OWN PAY, WITH WHICH HE ABOUNDED FOR EVERY GOOD WORK. Nor would he have detracted from Tescelin, Bernard's father, if he had any ampler titles, who a little below fully numbered even lesser ones in the case of his uncle Gaudry. "A man," he says, "holy, and powerful in the world, and renowned in the glory of secular soldiership, lord of a castle in the territory of Autun which is called Ticilium." [] Not therefore a County, or the fat revenues of another lordship; to whom the chief incomes, if not the only ones, are designated as military pay. It is great enough if it were a suburb of the court, of another's jurisdiction than the Duke's own.* Thus Manrique reasons, and rightly, in my judgment at least.

[5] But with those things which he added — to whom the chief incomes, IF NOT THE ONLY ONES, are designated as military pay — the Fragments in Mabillon, cited above, column 1275, from the third Life of St. Bernard, whose author, as it seems, was Geoffrey, a monk of Clairvaux (we shall hereafter call them the Fragments of Geoffrey), do not sufficiently agree, where these things are said: And this man was noble by race, rich in possessions. From what has been said before, that Life of St. Bernard is convicted of error which exists in our codex marked P Ms. 13, when it writes these things: Bernard … was sprung from Châtillon, a town of Burgundy. But although concerning the noble stock of our Saint it is so certainly established that no prudent controversy can at all be raised against it, nevertheless we shall not act beside the purpose if we confirm and illustrate this argument.

[6] He had as parents, as Manrique writes at number 4, The illustrious splendor of his race the said Tescelin and Alcida, from whom our countrymen report him akin in race to the Dukes of Burgundy, and so of the illustrious offspring of the kings of France; and her to have been joined, from the family of the Counts of Cornejo, of the lofty origin of the kings of Portugal, and with Henry the Portuguese, the first Count, father of king Alfonso, in the third degree of consanguinity: whereby they bind all Christian princes to Bernard by a close covenant of blood. I in William of St. Thierry, book 1, chapter 1, and in Alan of Auxerre — the one formerly abbot, the other bishop, and both contemporary with Bernard — find only "Parents illustrious according to the dignity of the world (and Tescelin, who) so served his temporal lords with counsel and with arms that he did not neglect also to render to the Lord his God what he owed." To which may be added the following from the fourth Life, written by John the hermit, in Mabillon, column [ ]: The most blessed Bernard therefore … was sprung of a worthy stock, noble indeed in the lineage of the flesh, but nobler in the height of his mind. His father was Tescelin by name; but his mother Aleth, daughter of Bernard, lord of Montbard, a man powerful and great according to the dignity of the world, and drawing his origin (as many assert) from the nobility of the ancient Dukes of Burgundy. But let us return to Manrique.

[7] both paternal and maternal But also in Guillaume Paradin, he says, a Burgundian author, and one treating of the Dukes of Burgundy, I recognize the families of Châtillon and of Saffre, by which each was distinguished, numbered among the illustrious ones of that former kingdom (for they were once kings who afterwards were Dukes): a royal offspring or origin I do not read. It pleases me here to write out his words at my folio 93: "There are also very many other illustrious families, such as that of the Cornejos, from which Godfrey the standard-bearer of the little flame." And after not a few others enumerated, these things concerning each family of the holy Doctor: "Then that of the Châtillons, from which that divine Bernard, most holy abbot of Clairvaux, and no less most illustrious for the monuments of his genius … You have therefore, ye of Châtillon and of Saffre, wherefore ye may glory, who have brought forth from your body to the Christian commonwealth so ruddy a sun of religion: of whom it is wont to be said what Homer once sang of Nestor, that a discourse sweeter than honey flowed from his mouth." Thus far Paradin, who hands down that from the family of Saffre, as I believe, came Alcida the mother; from that of Châtillon, Tescelin — illustrious families indeed of the Burgundians, but not equaling royal splendor. Although I would not deny that the Counts of Châtillon, from whose family Tescelin came, were perhaps joined by blood to the Dukes of Burgundy, and through them Bernard, though remotely. The honor of a king loves judgment; the honor of the Saints, certain truth. Nor is the nobility of Bernard's father such as needs to be commended by additions. We write these things as certain, from an author worthy of credit of that province and agreeing with the sayings of the ancients, being about to write greater things if they be supported by witnesses worthy of credit. Thus the most illustrious Manrique, candidly and sincerely.

[8] is asserted, Whence it follows that something more might have been said in the Roman Breviary — not to say ought to have been said — concerning St. Bernard's birth than the phrase born in an honorable station. Our Father Pierre-François Chifflet in the year 1660 published at Dijon a Diatribe on the illustrious race of St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, to which he subjoined an appendix with proofs and various documents. In the preface of that same Diatribe he deservedly complains of the just-mentioned expression of the Breviary, which is indeed too humble and beneath the Saint's dignity. For indeed, he says, whoever, reading these things, should know nothing else of Bernard's birth, might easily think that he was sprung of plebeian parents — say, farmers or artisans or others of the same sort: whereas nevertheless it is established that he was on both sides exceedingly noble … Add, besides other things which he observes there, that by this lowering of Bernard's birth some injury is done to a most holy man, who deserved most excellently of the Church, since a certain splendor of his own and as it were his own base is withdrawn from his virtue — if indeed every truly prudent man judges that virtue set upon and implanted in nobility both stands out more highly and shines more illustriously. But he thus divides the order of this work of his. First he undertakes to demonstrate that Bernard was noble: then, of the equestrian order, which in those times they commonly called KNIGHTHOOD; besides this, of an ancient origin in that rank: finally, that through his mother Aleth (who was the daughter of Bernard, lord of Montbard) he was descended from the ancient Dukes of Burgundy.

[9] and by various documents Mabillon compressed the matter into few words before the first Life of St. Bernard, composed by abbot William and published by him, from column [ ], speaking thus of the paternal line, page 1059: Tescelin, Bernard's father, is reported by abbot William, chapter 1, to have been A MAN OF ANCIENT AND LAWFUL KNIGHTHOOD, that is, of approved nobility, which we call equestrian. He had the surname Sorus, that is, reddish, namely from the color of his hair, in a diploma of Hugh II, duke of Burgundy, for the monastery of St. Marcellus of Chalon: to which diploma Tescelin subscribes in the first place after Raimerius, the Duke's steward, before Bernard of Montfort, Warnerius of Sombernon, and other most noble men (see Chifflet in the Proofs to the said Diatribe, page 426). Guy of Aigremont, on the testimony of Alberic, a monk of Trois-Fontaines, was on the mother's side the brother of Tescelin Sorus of Fontaines, who was the father of Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux; and he was on the other side the brother of Ulric, under whom the abbey of Morimond was founded (consult Chifflet in the Diatribe, section 7, pages 416 and 417). Guy's nobility is proved from his marriage with Hescelina, lady of Mulley, daughter of Holduin, which Holduin had as brother Geoffrey, lord of Jonville. Thus much of the paternal line.

[10] As to what concerns the maternal, he says, Bernard's mother Aleth or Alaysia, from Chifflet whom one writer of the third Life calls Elizabeth, perhaps by a copyist's error, was the daughter of Bernard, lord of Montbard, etc. — which things we have already premised above, as we learn from John the hermit, the writer of the fourth Life. In the Necrology of the Dijon monastery of St. Benignus, where she was first buried, she is simply called A LAY WOMAN, and is described in this manner

her memory: "On the Kalends of September died Alaysa, a lay woman": by which name in that Necrology even illustrious persons are wont to be distinguished from nuns. On this day falls the feast of St. Ambrose, or Ambrosinianus, confessor, wont, on the testimony of John the hermit, to be celebrated at Fontaines: whom some here wrongly confound with St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan (Chifflet narrates these things at greater length in section 6). Rainard, lord of Montbard, was Bernard's uncle and the brother of Alaysia. Since Bernard's race was on both his parents' sides so illustrious, it is no wonder if Guy, his first-born brother, is called by William, in chapter 3, A GREAT MAN; his wife A NOBLE YOUNG WOMAN; and his sister Humbeline A NOBLE YOUNG GIRL, who walked WITH A PROUD RETINUE AND EQUIPAGE, from chapter 6. Thus much from Chifflet. To which add that Gaudry, Bernard's uncle, is called by William at number 10, POWERFUL IN THE WORLD, etc. (as was said by us before). And Josbert of La Ferté, which is situated upon the Aube, was A NOBLE MAN AND ACCORDING TO THE FLESH A KINSMAN of Bernard; from the same William, number 43. Finally the knight Rainerius was the brother of Godfrey, bishop of Langres from being Prior of Clairvaux, who was joined to Bernard by consanguinity.

[11] Moreover Chifflet proves that St. Bernard's paternal race, is proved. which has its appellation from Fontaines, was propagated even to our times through Bartholomew of Sombernon (which family was infused with the royal blood of the ancient Dukes of Burgundy by the affinity of a marrying heiress daughter). (Consult Chifflet, section 7, page 418.) The other things which in the same Chifflet concerning Bernard's illustrious race seem either less certain or less necessary we designedly pass over; this only being added, that the coat of arms of the monastery of Clairvaux, which on a black shield displays a bend of gold or of silver, chequered with a twofold line of vermilion, is not derived (as some will have it) from the family arms of St. Bernard, but from the family of the Dukes of Champagne, of whom Hugh founded Clairvaux; but that the six bars of gold and azure sloped to the right on a purple border, which is the emblem of the Cistercian Order, was taken from the family of the Dukes of Burgundy, by whose benefits and authority chiefly the Cistercian Order was founded: on which matter Chifflet, section 1.

[12] Beware, however, of extending his nobility to the kings of Spain and Portugal. Those writers therefore are not to be heard whom Chifflet in the same place enumerates — Bernabé de Montalvo, Mariana in book 10 of the History of Spain, chapter 12, Bonifacio Simonetta in book 1 of his History, and some others of the more recent — who will have the Saint sprung from that race of the Dukes of Burgundy whose head was Robert, king of the Franks; and so proclaim him a kinsman not only of the kings of France, but also of Spain and Portugal, whereby, as Chifflet adds from Manrique, whom we also cited above, they bind all Christian princes to Bernard by a close covenant of blood. And this they think they prove from the ancient arms of the Cistercian Order, but wrongly, as has just been indicated. Hence Tamayo, so often chastised in our Work, deserves here to be chastised anew, when in his Spanish Martyrology at the XX day of August, in the notes, he assigns as the first cause of St. Bernard's cultus in Spain that he was most closely joined by blood to Alfonso, surnamed the emperor, king of Castile, from Alfonso Sánchez, whom he cites. But let these things be said enough and abundantly concerning the most illustrious race from which St. Bernard drew his origin. And indeed not only the splendor of his paternal and maternal family, but also the great integrity of life and the true piety toward God which shone forth in both the Saint's parents, procure for him no small ornaments of praise, as we are now to see.

. Read domus* (house).

. Otherwise Tuillium*, commonly Touillon.

§ II. His parents, brothers, sister, a prophecy, his education, his studies.

His parents, happy in six sons and one daughter, Manrique reports these things to our purpose at the said year 1105, number 5: Virtue and piety had made his parents, illustrious according to the dignity of the world, more illustrious; whether because these are rarer among nobles, and therefore more precious if they be found: or because, abstinence from superfluous things being heaped up with an abundance of useful ones, sufficient not for themselves alone but for others, they had gained renown by munificence. The mother especially, beneficent toward the poor and unceasingly persisting in works of mercy, was not only illustrious but dear to all. Seven children increased their marriage, rather born to the Cistercian family than to their own: Guy, Gerard, Bernard (for he was third in order), Andrew, Bartholomew, Nivard, and Humbeline: six men, all to be monks; one woman, and she a nun. See concerning them the Annotations among us on chapter 2 of the first book of the Life of St. Bernard, letter e. To parents most happy in an offspring at once so numerous and so pious it is pleasing here to append the eulogies by which they are celebrated by the writers of the Life of the Mellifluous Doctor. Of Tescelin, his father, in the second Life, whose author or compiler was Alan, chapter 1, in Mabillon, column [ ], it is said that he was a man of ancient and lawful knighthood …, a worshiper of God, tenacious of justice. In the same place, column [ ], among the Fragments of Geoffrey, of which above, he is praised because he was gentle in manners, a very great lover of the poor, a supreme cherisher of piety, and having an incredible zeal for justice … Besides this: He never used arms except either for the defense of his own land, or with his lord, namely the Duke of Burgundy, to whom he was exceedingly familiar and intimate: nor was he ever with him in war but victory came to him.

[14] The same man joined to the utmost zeal for justice with which he burned a singular clemency, with excellent on the testimony of John the hermit in the same Mabillon, column 1282. For when at a certain time the said man … had by challenge appointed to contend in single combat with a certain adversary of his of a much lower race and of lesser substance, the appointed day fixed for the contest is at hand. They meet on both sides. But the venerable man Tescelin, remembering the fear of God and the divine judgments …, although he was stronger and more powerful, and could overcome his enemy and carry off from the victory the greatest gain, nevertheless of his own accord made peace with his adversary; resigning and leaving whatever was in dispute without contention. O great piety, great clemency of the man! That he was conspicuous for many offices of Christian justice is drawn from that brief but nervous eulogy which I set forth before at number 4: He abounded with his own means for every good work. What then? At the admonitions of St. Bernard he sent word of resignation to the world, and died with the odor of sanctity.

[15] Moreover William, in book 1 of the Life of our Saint, chapter 1, number 1, virtues also thus records concerning his mother: His mother Aleth, from the castle whose name is Montbard, herself also holding the Apostolic rule in her own order, subject to her husband, under him ruled her house according to the fear of God, persisting in works of mercy, rearing her sons in all discipline … But when they had grown, so long as they were under her hand, she reared them for the desert rather than for the court, not suffering them to grow accustomed to more delicate foods, but feeding them with coarser and common ones. Among the Fragments of Geoffrey, column [ ], this distinguished woman is called worthy of so great a race and of so great a husband, nay even of the glory of both … Elizabeth loved this son more tenderly than all, being taught by a divine oracle: whence also she imposed upon him the name of her father, calling him Bernard. John the hermit from column [ ] says: The venerable Aleth … was accustomed among the other marks of her virtues to go about the houses, to seek out the poor sick and needy, and to bestow on them out of her own goods what was necessary. Of the lame also and the feeble she had the greatest care; not using servants nor other ministers for performing these offices, but doing this by her own self, she came to their dwellings, and giving to each what was needful, she most devoutly ministered to the sick set apart through the hospices of the churches, wiping their pots, offering food, rinsing their cups, and doing all the other things which it is the custom of servants and ministers to perform in servile fashion. Why say more? Do we wish to narrate all her virtues? By no means, because we should not be believed. Yet one thing most worthy of report we shall bring forward into the midst — a thing, namely, full of miracle, and heard by us not without wonder, as a certain most religious abbot named Robert related it, who lived in the monastery under the yoke of Regular discipline more than sixty-seven years: for he was the grandson of that same matron of whom we wish to treat, and the son of her sister; to whom also blessed Bernard directs the first of his letters.

[16] The sum of the matter, related at greater length in the aforesaid Life, most esteemed. lies in this, that that most upright woman foretold her own death, and, being most religiously prepared for it by the last helps of the Church, commending her spirit into the hands of the Lord, with hand raised signing herself with the sign of the holy cross, rendered up her spirit in peace … In this manner that holy soul, having gone forth from the temple of the holy body, the hand, as it was raised to make the sign of the cross, so remained, all who were present seeing and marveling. O woman kindled with the fire of divine love, robust in faith, most patient in hope, devout in charity! But now let us take in sail. Of the huge concourse at her happy death; of the body sought and obtained by the monks of St. Benignus, and honorably laid there; likewise of the apparition made to her sons, of the translation to Clairvaux, and of the year of her death, the most illustrious Manrique treats at the year 1105, number 8 and following. Documents also concerning her life and death, and an epitaph, are inserted in the Proofs of Chifflet's Diatribe from page 431. That she is recorded with the title of Blessed in the Menologies of Chrysostom Henriquez, of Bucelin, and of Chalemot, we indicated long since in the Prætermissi at the IV day of April, in volume 1 of that month, page 320; concerning whom likewise we said that these things are read in the book of the sepulchres of Clairvaux: Likewise there lies there the noble lady of pious memory, most devoted to God, Aleth, mother of the outstanding Doctor and our father B. Bernard, first abbot of Clairvaux. Her death we fixed from Manrique in the year 1105, as you may see among us in the Annotations on chapter 1 of the Life of St. Bernard, letter i. We meanwhile do not dare to attribute the title of Blessed to that most pious woman, until it be established to us from elsewhere by certain documents that she was honored with a public and lawful cultus. You have, reader, what we have judged should be recorded in this place concerning the Saint's parents.

[17] The future From this most fortunate root of marriage therefore came forth those seven most beautiful little flowers of whom we spoke a little before. It now pleases us to proceed to St. Bernard's birth, education, and the rare gifts both of divine graces and other endowments of disposition and genius, by which even from his earliest age he so shone forth that he seemed not obscurely to be a prelude to the greater deeds afterwards to be done by him. And first indeed the great Man had this in common with other great men, that signs went before

his birth. For to his mother while pregnant there appeared in sleep a beautiful white whelp, but reddish on the back, and not keeping silence even in the very womb. She brings the matter to a certain religious man: straightway he, conceiving the spirit of prophecy, answered her, trembling and anxious, with that which David says to the Lord of holy preachers, The tongue of thy dogs from the enemies: Fear not, the matter goes well: thou shalt be the mother of a most excellent whelp, who, being about to be the guardian of the house of God, shall utter great barkings for it against the enemies of the faith. For he shall be an outstanding preacher, and, like a good dog, by the grace of a healing tongue shall cure in many many diseases of souls, on the testimony of William in the Life, chapter 1.

[18] the greatness of one not yet born Let Geoffrey also be heard, the fourth abbot of Clairvaux, in his sermon on the anniversary of St. Bernard's death, in Mabillon, column [ ] and following, which sermon was delivered in the year 1163, as is gathered from himself at number 5. In that sermon therefore, at number 15, these things are said of the same Saint: Whereas … he has called some in boyhood, some in youth, some in old age; yet some, but few, as it were by a certain privilege of special grace, coming before them — nay, forestalling them — in blessing, he declared, before they were born, what they should be, by such signs and tokens as he willed. Thus he terrified this venerable mother of his elect and beloved one, while yet heavy with a most happy burden, by an unwonted vision; but consoled her by the interpretation of the same vision … Thus indeed our Bernard, from the time he began in any way to live, began to appear marvelous: he was not yet being brought forth, and already he was being preached, or rather already he himself was preaching: and he was not yet even a suckling, yet already he appeared as praising the Lord. Nor undeservedly is he so commended before he was born: not undeservedly, I say, was he magnified by a divine oracle, while as a little one he was still carried in his mother's womb.

[19] Hence Burchard, abbot of Balerne, in the Subscription which he added to book 1 of the Life, is foretold by a prophecy; William its writer being dead, says: Who … seemed to have received from his mother's womb a signification [] from which were conceived presages of the future sanctity of his life and likewise of his doctrine. But his mother, joyful at such a presage, and even then foretasting the joys that would come to her from such a son, is wholly poured out into love of him not yet born, as William says in chapter 1, thinking to hand him over to be instructed in sacred letters (however much the others, after the custom of the country, as one may suppose, were destined for warfare), and to strive earnestly at whatever could conduce to that, according to the manner of the vision and the interpretation by which such sublime things were promised her concerning him, as the same author adds; which also was done*.

[20] Meanwhile, as the most illustrious Manrique records at number 7, it had always been Aleth's custom, when she had given birth, to offer her newborn infants to God, and, when offered, to take them back to be nourished with her own milk, but being born, he is offered to God by his mother, and is brought up. whether because, being a mother in the full sense (for those who do not suckle seem to halve the offices of a mother), she claimed for herself more right in those she offered, and so also offered more in them to God; or because the very offering, enclosed by both those maternal duties, might be to all inborn rather than adventitious: which cause William (hereafter, in texts to be adduced from Manrique, we shall call him William) and Alan designate a little otherwise, when they thus write in book 1, chapter 1: As though with the mother's milk she poured into them in a manner the nature of a mother's goodness. In Bernard I read something special. For first, as to what concerns the offering, "As soon as she had brought him forth in a happy birth, she not only offered him to God, as she had been accustomed to do with the others; but, as is read of holy Anna the mother of Samuel, who dedicated the son asked of the Lord and received from him in his tabernacle to serve for ever, so she too offered him in the Church of God as an acceptable gift" — from the two biographers just cited. Bernard was presented in the temple, that even thus from the outset of his life he might begin to appear the son of the Virgin Mother. Then, as to what concerns the milk, Burchard adds that he never wished to suck any other. "For, as they report of him, he never sucked the breasts of a nurse, but of his mother alone." Indeed even then a sharer of her vows before he was conscious of them, and not yet commanded, he obeyed in all things, a fellow-worker of his mother's piety and of the offering once conceived by her — himself not only the victim, but the fellow-priest. Thus Manrique, who amplifies rhetorically enough the words of Burchard's Subscription, For, as they report of him, he never sucked, etc. (See Surius on this XX day of August after the first book of the Life; for I read nothing of this matter in the Subscription of Burchard to be published by us.) The remaining things which pertain to the time of his suckling the same Burchard in Surius pursues in these words: From his mother's womb there came forth with him tokens of goodness, a gracious face, a peaceable countenance, dove-like eyes. Whatever he had as a token of goodness from the gift of nature, passed by the gift of grace into virtue. An infant, not yet speaking with the tongue, he seemed to speak by the grace already received.

[21] With singular endowments of nature and grace But concerning his exceptional prerogatives of nature and grace some things must be added one by one from William and Alan, chapter 1. And concerning the study of letters and the excellence of his genius they narrate these things: As quickly as she could, the Boy's mother, handing him over to be instructed by masters of letters in the church of Châtillon (which afterwards by Bernard's own efforts is known to have been advanced from a secular manner of life to the Order of Regular Canons), did whatever she could that he might profit in them. And the Boy, both full of grace and strong in natural genius, quickly fulfilled his mother's desire in this. For in the study of letters he made progress beyond his age and beyond his coevals. Nor is it a wonder, since besides the force of genius in which he was strong, he sedulously turned aside from the other by-paths of that early age which draw the mind far elsewhere. For he was most simple in worldly things, loving to dwell with himself, fleeing the public, wonderfully thoughtful … rarely out of doors. To these add our transcript from a manuscript of Orval, sent by the Reverend Father Alexander Wiltheim, Rector of the Luxembourg college of the Society of Jesus, in which transcript these things are read: And the Boy was in those things which pertain to letters of a most keen genius, learning more easily than all his coevals whatever was delivered by his masters.

[22] he excels. But Burchard's Subscription in Surius has thus: Weaned from the milk, and now passing into boyhood, he already displayed something mature, transcending the rights of boyhood. Nor indeed did he cultivate himself only with those studies by which the age of boyhood is wont to be formed to humane learning; but he was given also to the study of those letters through which he might learn and know God in the Scriptures, from William and Alan, chapter 1. Hence you may see, says Manrique at the year of Christ 1105, chapter 2, numbers 6 and 7, that what is wont to be said of him, that he obtained a theology infused by God, and what he himself also was wont to say, that he had learned among the beeches and oaks, is to be referred rather to his increase than to his beginnings, and to a higher contemplation of things, and one more certain than is had in the schools. Otherwise he was imbued with the rudiments of theology — rude indeed for the quality of that time, but imbued nevertheless, and versed not moderately in sacred Scripture.

[23] Whether he also That he gave attention to poetry Manrique will have it, recording in the same place, numbers 7 and 8, these things: It is not hidden from me that it was once written of him that from almost the first rudiments of his adolescence he practiced poetry, publishing verses in the vernacular tongue, which, spread far and wide throughout all France, had not become obsolete after many years: and also that he not only exercised but surpassed his brothers, otherwise most dear to him, not to say the rest of his fellow students, in contests of rhyme and in trials of keen invention. Which nevertheless, as worthy of no credit, since they were cast up by way of reproach by a condemned author (Berengar, a disciple of Abelard, in his Apology against blessed Bernard, printed at Paris in the year 1616; which nevertheless in this year 1632 the sacred tribunal of the Inquisition in Spain judged should be utterly abolished, as the same Manrique notes in the margin) and one then raging, might perhaps be true. Certainly Bernard's rhythmical prayers to the several members of the suffering Savior, to Christ the Lord and his Virgin Mother, and others of that kind, disclose the light of his genius. There is read even today his little book which is named Floretus, composed in heroic and not inelegant verse, in which he treats brilliantly and exactly of vices and virtues, of the Sacraments, and of all the mysteries of our faith.

[24] Nor is it a supposititious offspring, as it appears; since by Jean Gerson, an ancient and weighty theologian, exercised himself in poetry. it was not only admitted and published as Bernard's work, but illustrated with a sufficiently prolix commentary, which the reader will find printed at Lyons in folio at the house of Jean Marion in the year 1520, but elsewhere also. Therefore Bernard was sufficiently skilled in poetry, and practiced it in more sacred matters. Nor was it much if, the matter being once changed, and indulging place and time and age, he displayed some appearance of it. So Manrique judges. But in this matter I do not interpose myself as arbiter, both because I read nothing of it in the most ancient biographers, and because whether it be so or otherwise, it contributes nothing greatly to the praise of the holy Doctor, who by so many other lucubrations obtained that glory, so that it ought by no means to be sought from such little poetical writings. Besides, Mabillon's Admonition on the verses and rhythms ascribed to St. Bernard may be consulted, which Admonition is had in the second volume, column 891; in which he reports that he does not judge that the verses and rhythms which he subjoins are to be attributed to Bernard. But of the holy man's writings we shall also treat below, so far as shall suffice for our purpose.

. Otherwise sanctificationem* (sanctification).

. Read quasi* (as though).

. Otherwise destinavit* (destined).

§ III. Heavenly favors toward the Saint; his purpose of the monastic institute; obstacles against it overcome; companions gathered to the same; his marvelous dominion over human hearts; his life before his entrance among the Cistercians.

Besides the ornaments of genius and letters, by which the Saint shone beyond what the age of boyhood bears, The integrity of St. Bernard's life we ought deservedly to look up to his outstanding manners and the peculiar favors of divine grace in him. Let therefore William be heard in his Life among us, chapter 1, number 5: In worldly matters he was already, as it were naturally, beginning the mortification of his future perfection. He was obedient and subject to his parents; kind and pleasing to all … and beyond what could be believed modest; nowhere loving to speak much, devoted to God, that he might preserve his boyhood pure for himself. This innocent rule of living the divine mercy anticipated with blessings. For, as William reports in chapter 1, number 6: When as yet a little boy he was vexed by a grievous pain of the head, he fell into bed. There was brought

to him a poor woman, as though to soothe the pain with charms or juggleries: whom, when he perceived her drawing near with her instruments of enchantment, with which she had been accustomed to delude the common people, crying out with great indignation he repelled and cast from him. Nor was the divine mercy lacking to the good zeal of the holy Boy; but straightway he felt the power, and, rising in that very impulse of the spirit, he knew that he had been freed from all pain.

[26] he is honored by an apparition of the infant Jesus being born: What of this, that besides this health of body there was given him by the Lord a plainly singular grace of soul, when to the Boy himself the boy Jesus appeared … as though again coming forth as a bridegroom from his chamber. There appeared to him as it were again before his eyes the infant Word being born from the womb of the Virgin Mother, as is there written. But with how great streams of divine grace, with how much honey of unction the future Mellifluous Doctor was anointed from that apparition can easily be understood both from the very nature of the thing and from the fruit thereafter obtained. For the same biographer at once says: It is easy for those who frequented his lecture-room to observe with how great a blessing the Lord anticipated him at that hour, since even to this day in those things which pertain to that mystery both a deeper sense and a more copious discourse seem to be at his command. Whence also afterwards he published in praise of the Mother and of the Son, and of his holy Nativity, a notable little work, of which treatment is made in the same place. From these things therefore it is concluded that in Bernard heavenly favors answered to merits, and merits to favors, from his very boyhood; and, as I said above from Burchard, that whatever he had as a token of goodness from the gift of nature passed by the gift of grace into virtue. To which there conduced not moderately that mercy toward the poor which was in a manner inborn in him even then and was wonderful, as William reports in the same place, number 7: Neither must that be passed over in silence, that from those very boyish years, if he could have any coins, making secret alms, he both complied with his own modesty and, for his age, nay above his age, followed after works of piety. But since these things which have now been reported — whether one please to call them the beginnings or the preludes of far greater things which are to be recorded of the Saint — stand thus, it must now be seen how excellently, as his age gradually increased, the ornaments of virtues and of heavenly graces increased at the same time.

[27] the world being despised, But when, as William has it in the place cited, some time having passed, the boy Bernard, advancing in age and grace with God and men, was passing from boyhood into adolescence, his mother … happily departed to the Lord. After these things Bernard, his mother being dead, left in the world, stirred great expectation concerning himself on account of the singular graces with which he was endowed. Great hopes smile upon him; friendships beset him; horrible snares are laid for the storming of his chastity; but in so slippery an age and in so perilous a conflict he triumphs most unstained, and amid those very fires stands unharmed. But since William treats of these matters vividly in chapter 1, it is enough to have designated them here in passing. Yet these victories, as the most illustrious Manrique testifies at the year 1110, chapter 2, number 6, were not without a reward, which he carried off even in this life. An anonymous Frenchman in book 7, chapter 9, of his Acts hands down (which, being received from John the hermit, nearly contemporary with Bernard, as he himself says, claims for itself a still more certain credit) that many years afterwards, when the holy man was governing Clairvaux, certain women possessed by demons were brought to be freed by him. That from one of them the demon, put to flight before the Saint's arrival, or rather departing of its own accord, proclaimed that it could not resist Bernard; since it had been delivered to obey him in all things while he yet remained in the world, and had by his work been grievously tempted against chastity, but was altogether unconquered. Reporting these and like trophies, the holy man gloriously triumphed by the grace of God over the common enemy. We have seen a little before Bernard living in the world; but now let us follow him converted from the world to a more perfect life, in Manrique's words at the aforesaid year, number 7.

[28] Then indeed, he says, in the very flower of adolescence, in the twentieth year of his age, in which others are wont to be more retarded, he meditates on Cîteaux, the fervor of appetite boiling more deeply and overwhelming the fervor of the spirit — he on the contrary, the same grace prevailing and restraining all rebellious motions, began to feel the first callings of the desert, then first to meditate flight from the world, and to think on Cîteaux, fixed more deeply in his heart, a saving refuge for one in peril, a remedy for the weak, a preservative for the strong. He meditated on the heavenly sphere then shining on earth, which, already illumined by the moon and stars — that is, by Stephen and his companions — awaited his rays as those of the sun, which he by no means presumed. Whoever desires to read the description of this first conversion in the biographers, let him consult William, chapter 2; where also he will find the efforts of his brothers and friends, striving in all ways that they might turn his mind aside to the study of letters, and by love of secular knowledge entangle him more closely in the world.

[29] Thus he there most briefly; but the most illustrious Manrique at the year 1111, in the single chapter, number 4, amplifying these things, records that his brothers added that men are born not for themselves alone, but to profit the commonwealth, nay the world: that monks lying hidden in the desert and fugitives from the world help others neither by doctrine nor by examples; nay, cloaking their idleness under the honorable name of contemplation, they rather give their labor to sloth and laziness, and, being sustained by the alms of others, are — what once the emperor Tiberius said of others — slothful for themselves, burdensome to others. Then, that they might shake off idleness by laboring, and by seeking their food from their own sweat might also redeem the burden of others; which fame had spread abroad concerning that new kind of monks lately instituted in the field of Beaune: yet that a Youth of such great promise, excelling in disposition, manners, and genius, and granted to the world for the glory of his family, as they believed, or rather for the common use, ought not to be enslaved to the countryside and the plow: that there remained many for tilling the fields on whom no other duties could be laid; that he owed himself to public affairs, lest, if he should hide the talent entrusted to him by God in a desert and pathless land, he should incur damnation, etc.

[30] But although the efforts of his brothers and friends did not change the pious Youth, tenacious of his purpose, yet casting some delay in his way, nevertheless they cast some delay in his way. For, as William reports in chapter 2, number 11, by this suggestion, namely, as he is wont to confess, his steps had been almost retarded. The manuscript of Orval says more: They exhort him to the study of letters, by which way above all they hoped they could the more easily detain him. The word pleased him, and a day was appointed on which his brothers should provide the things necessary for his journey, and thus he should set out for Germany. But there is no counsel against the Lord. For Bernard overcame all obstacles, the Holy Spirit working and recalling to his mind the memory of his most pious mother, and the hope and expectation of a better and higher fortune which she had conceived concerning her most dear son and had already foretasted. Let us hear William on this matter in the place cited: The memory of his holy mother pressed importunately on his mind, so that he often seemed to see her meeting him, complaining and reproaching that she had not so tenderly reared him for such trifling, nor instructed him in this hope.

[31] he resolves to carry out his purpose, and draws his brothers to it. With William agrees the manuscript of Orval: But hastening to the appointed day and place, he suddenly began to turn over his mother's image in his mind, and to be confounded that he should frustrate the hope which she had conceived concerning him, and should do nothing for her by whom he had been so tenderly reared. And so thus Bernard is brought back into the former track of his heavenly calling, and was at last conquered — or rather came forth crowned as conqueror of himself and of his brothers — when, obeying the divine and maternal admonitions, he wholly devoted himself to the service of God, to serve whom is to reign; and so indeed that those same brothers, whom before he had had as his chief adversaries in his most pious resolve of a better life, he at length led over to his own opinion, and happily gathered them into the fellowship of that same monastic institute, and begot them in Christ Jesus, being made, from a brother by blood, their father in the spirit. Let us proceed with William: First of all Gaudry, his uncle, without delay or hesitation went (as they say) on foot into his nephew's opinion and consented to the conversion; then the brothers followed. But in what order and in what manner these things happened, with how fervid a spirit of the Saint, and in one place with how notable a prophecy, the same biographer William relates one by one and at the same time movingly. But Manrique attaches these things to the year of Christ 1112, the 15th of Cîteaux; where also he sets forth a sufficiently prolix narrative of the events.

[32] He is strong with a marvelous force of speech to draw men's hearts to God: But a marvelous and altogether heavenly force drove Bernard when, thundering forth the word of God, he busied himself to increase with new increments the little flock of the Lord gathered by him. For, on William's authority, while he preached publicly and privately, mothers hid their sons, wives detained their husbands, friends turned away friends: because the Holy Spirit gave to his voice a voice of such power that scarcely did any affection hold anyone. So powerful a dominion over human hearts had this new and youthful Herald received from the Spirit by whom he was inwardly driven. But among his many marvelous conversions that is to be reckoned in no lowest place which happened in Hugh of Mâcon, who is praised by William at number 15 as enlarged with nobility and probity of manners, with possessions and worldly riches: who today, by the merit of his religion and sanctity, being carried off from the monastery of Pontigny which he himself built, presides over the church of Auxerre with the merit and honor of a bishop. Then the aforesaid biographer subjoins his calling to a more perfect life. But since the account of this event which exists in William differs from that which is had in our copy from the manuscript of Orval, therefore we have not thought that the reader should be cheated of it. Behold then its text:

[33] among whose conversions that is marvelous, He said on a certain day to his brothers: I have a friend at Mâcon, Hugh of Vitry; and he too must be brought, that he also may be one of us. Now he was a noble Clerk, and already of maturer age, abounding in secular as well as ecclesiastical possessions. Those therefore who knew him began to accuse him of rashness: but nonetheless he, trusting, without any hesitation hastened to him. Now there was a report in the region that he was about to go to Jerusalem: for so he himself feigned; being about to set out not for that Jerusalem in which God was, but for that in which he is. Seeing him therefore, the aforesaid Hugh, weeping and wailing, rushed into his embraces. But the man of God utterly his tears

did not attend to them. But when he had breathed a little, he reveals to him his purpose: and behold, the grief was renewed, and the fount of tears flowed more abundantly, so that all that day his eye did not rest. On the following night they lay down together on a most narrow bed, so that it scarcely held the two: nor then therefore did Hugh cease from tears, so that the holy man rebuked him because he did not suffer him to sleep. But when he had fallen asleep, it seemed to him that, the Holy Spirit being invoked after his custom, he had discourse with him concerning the religious life, and that a voice of power was not lacking to his voice.

[34] But when morning came, as Hugh again wept, which took place taking it now ill, he began to chide him more harshly. But he said: I have not today the same cause of mourning which I had yesterday: for yesterday I wept over you; today over myself. For I know your manner of life, and I am not ignorant that conversion is as necessary for me as for you. To whom Bernard, exulting, said: Weep now enough: since those tears are most excellent: cease not. Thereafter, when the Clerks had seen them walking together and exulting together, and not being separated from one another for a moment, they tried to tear Hugh away from Bernard, fearing — nay, now openly perceiving — that they were driven by one spirit. Holding Hugh therefore, they would by no reasoning suffer that the man of God should speak with him any more. He departed therefore sad: but nonetheless his heart still had confidence in the Lord. After some days, hearing indeed of an assembly of bishops, he hastened thither that he might see Hugh. But the Clerks, when they saw him, looked at him contrary to their custom with a grim eye, and hemmed Hugh in on every side, that no approach might lie open. While the bishops therefore sat in a field and conversed, he, sitting in the midst of the Clerks beside Hugh, could not speak to him because of the bystanders: but nevertheless he wept most abundantly upon his neck: and behold, the waters overflowed and heaven gave rains, so that, being scattered, they ran with all haste to the nearest village; but the Blessed one, holding Hugh by the hand, said: Thou shalt stand with me in the rain: and straightway, serenity being restored, they alone stood in the field.

[35] And Hugh confessed the oath which he had made, that he would by no means be a monk until a year had passed. But he had done this to deceive the Clerks, since he was not ignorant of the year's probation. in Hugh of Mâcon. There, the spiritual fellowship being entirely confirmed, they returned, holding each other by the hand: and all now despairing, no one thereafter attempted to detain Hugh. From this new victory of Bernard, therefore, a new triumph grew to his praises, and that plainly a singular one, on account of so great a man whom he joined to the monastic institute. It is pleasing to weave into these the clause of Manrique which he subjoins to Hugh's conversion, at the year of Christ 1112, chapter 2, from number 3, in this manner: By which thou mayest see, even in the very beginning of his conversion, Bernard's almost immeasurable power, shutting heaven, forsooth, with clouds and again opening its gates at his pleasure, the Lord obeying, even before the voice was uttered, the mind of the man; so that not only Bernard's tongue but his heart also might even then be approved as a key of heaven. Thou mayest see besides the happy times of the primitive Church renewed, and those first callings of Christ, sparing neither kinsmen nor strangers, and the miracles and prodigies renewed by which men were drawn to the Gospel.

[36] What in the meantime, before that sacred flock entered the monastery of Cîteaux, was done, may be read in William, from whom I take these things at number 17: [The life of St. Bernard and his companions is described, before they entered Cîteaux.] The number of those who had consented in this unanimity of conversion increasing, as is read of the first sons of the Church, "Of the multitude of them there was one heart and one soul in the Lord," and they dwelt unanimously together, nor did any of the others dare to join himself to them. For they had at Châtillon one house of their own and common to all, where they came together and dwelt together and conversed; which scarcely anyone dared to enter who was not of their company … And they for about six months after their first resolve remained in secular habit, that thereby more might be gathered, while the affairs of some were being settled during that time. And these indeed were the beginnings of the great things which St. Bernard afterwards, by himself and by others, excellently and happily accomplished for the glory of God, the good of the Catholic Church, and the propagation of the monastic institute. Let us therefore now accompany him with his company as he goes beneath the roofs of the monastery of Cîteaux.

§ IV. His novitiate; the virtues exercised in it; the habit of the Order; his religious profession; the exercises of mind and body.

Under the abbot St. Stephen, Bernard with his companions In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1113, from the establishment of the house of Cîteaux the 15th, the servant of God Bernard, about 33 [] years old, having entered Cîteaux with more than thirty companions under abbot Stephen, submitted his neck to the sweet yoke of Christ. Thus William in chapter 3 of the Life. Manrique at that year, chapter 2, number 1, observes some things concerning the number of companions: Nor, he says, were all admitted without selection: the young Robert was rejected because too tender; if he should return more mature, he was to be received … Meanwhile I note that hence perhaps it came about that some hand down that there were only thirty men; others that Bernard came with thirty, Robert namely being reckoned among them, whom a deferred, not a denied, probation left as it were in doubt for either side. Nor indeed does the little book whose title is The Beginning of the Cistercian Monastery (which little work, to distinguish it from the Great Cistercian Beginning, we call the Little) increase the number of Companions beyond thirty, as is plain from the words of the same Little Beginning, chapter 17, in Bertrand Tissier, to be mentioned at greater length afterwards, whose author was holy Stephen, which run thus: Therefore in those times the Lord visited that place … For God's grace sent to that church at one time so many lettered Clerks and noble laymen, powerful in the world and equally noble, that thirty together entered eagerly into the cell of the novices, and, contending well and bravely against their own vices and the incitements of the malign spirits, consummated their course.*

[38] enters Clairvaux, And presently, says Manrique at number 2, the same author, but with the beginning taken up a little higher, composes an ancient poem, which today also is said to remain at Cîteaux, on a tablet hung upon the very columns of the church. And he recites that poem in the same place in these words:

In the year one thousand and ninety and one The castle of Fontaines gave Bernard his birth. Afterwards, only seven years gliding by, In this monastery the Cistercian Order began: Which, when at last it had grown to fifteen years, Within it the holy Man received the religious Garment under Stephen, drawing thirty companions.

What is there said of the religious garment, as needing the sponge, the aforesaid author of the Cistercian Annals corrects a little after, as we shall presently see. And in the same place, at numbers 3 and 4, he thus proceeds:

[39] For the rest, Stephen, being divinely forewarned by the oracles already reported above, Robert his brother not then admitted to it on account of his immature age. and conceiving from the showing of things present a firmer hope of things to come, Robert alone being rejected because he was a little boy, but to be admitted if he should persevere, as we noted, admitted all the rest gladly, not indeed to be at once endowed with the habit of religion, which was not then in use before the year of probation was completed; but to be proved in secular dress, to be laid aside when the year at length was past. Both of these I gather from Bernard's letter to that same Robert, the first among all of that Saint's letters, if not in time, yet in the dignity of the miracle wrought while it was being written, in the year in which it happened, to be reported by us. The first from these words: "From the world, as thou art witness, Robert, thou camest to Cîteaux. Thou didst seek, ask, knock: but on account of thy tenderness thou wast deferred for two years, albeit unwilling." But the second from what is subjoined a little below: "After these things, having been proved for a year according to the rule in all patience, having lived perseveringly and without complaint, having after the year of thine own accord made profession, then first, the secular garment being cast off, thou didst receive the habit of religion."

[40] But with how great an affluence of heavenly gifts and with what propagation of the Order the Lord heaped up the arrival of those new ascetics, and of Bernard first of all, The virtues we have from William at the beginning of chapter 3: But from that day the Lord gave a blessing, and that vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth gave its fruit, stretching out its branches even to the sea, and its shoots beyond the sea. To these add what he had premised a little before at the end of chapter 2. And indeed that by the example of St. Bernard and of his other companions very many had even then come to Cîteaux, being wearied of human affairs, the Little Cistercian Beginning testifies in the place cited above, in these words: By whose example old men and young, and men of various ages, in various parts of the world, being animated — seeing, namely, that in these it would be possible which before they had feared to be impossible in the keeping of the rule — began to run together thither, to submit their proud necks to the sweet yoke of Christ, ardently to love the hard and rough precepts of the rule, and marvelously to gladden and strengthen that church.

[41] The fervent spirit which Bernard had brought with him from the world into his monastic novitiate he earnestly strove to preserve, in his novitiate and more and more to kindle with new fuel of heavenly flames, and to adorn with the ornaments of solid virtues. For indeed William in chapter 3, speaking of his novitiate, opens a great field for running through the manner of his life and his due praises, as may be seen at greater length in the same place. Behold for thee nevertheless, kindly reader, a few specimens extracted out of the many things which are there said: How, leading an angelic life on earth, he lived, I think no one can relate who does not live by the spirit by which he lived. And presently: He entered … that house … with the intention of dying there to the hearts and memory of men, and with the hope of hiding and lying concealed like a lost vessel — God disposing otherwise, and preparing him for himself as a vessel of election, not only to strengthen and enlarge the monastic order, but also to bear his name before kings and nations and even to the ends of the earth. But the holy Novice was altogether a little one in his own eyes, thinking or considering nothing such of himself, but rather, for the guarding of his heart and the constancy of his purpose, he had this always in his heart, often also in his mouth: Bernard, Bernard, for what hast thou come?

[42] by the Saint Finally these things also follow in the same place at number 23: When he was a novice, sparing himself in nothing, he strove in every way to mortify not only the concupiscences of the flesh, which come through the senses of the body, but also the senses themselves through which they come … He scarcely allowed them so much as would suffice for the fellowship of outward converse with men. And when the pressure of continual use turned this into a habit, that very habit was in a manner turned for him into nature: and being wholly absorbed into the spirit, with all his hope directed toward God, by intention or meditation

and with his memory wholly occupied in spiritual things, seeing he did not see, hearing he did not hear; nothing had savor to him as he tasted, and he scarcely felt anything with any bodily sense. For he had already passed a whole year in the cell of the novices when, going out thence, he still did not know whether that house had a vault, which we are wont to call a ceiling. William narrates more things in the same place, with signal commendation of the novitiate passed by our Saint and adorned by him with most illustrious virtues.

[43] exercised The fourth Life, published in Mabillon and composed by John the hermit, book 2, from column [ ], records an example from which it is made clear with how great severity the holy Novice took notice even of the lightest faults. When therefore the most holy Youth was in the cell of the novices, certain of his kinsfolk came to visit him, and spoke with him. But after the signal of the ninth hour, they returned each to their own affairs, and the most religious Youth to the work of God in the church. Then, according to his custom raising his eyes to heaven, thinking to find the grace of God as before, he did not find it. He therefore considered within himself that this had befallen him for some fault or sin, and he found none but the vain talk to which a little before he had imprudently exposed himself. For which cause, when he had understood himself to be blameworthy, he prostrated his whole body beside the altar, saying with the Prophet: "Lord, rebuke me not in thy fury," etc. And when he had done this for twenty-five days, the glory of the Lord appeared to him, and filled him, and gave him the knowledge of the Saints, that his works might be consummated in good.

[44] are commemorated; as also the monastic habit, But others also came to visit him, and received leave from abbot Stephen to speak with him. And when he was being led to them, he took tow and put it under his hood into his ears: so that by this device he might be able to preserve himself free from idle talk: and thus he came to the guests, and was with them the whole hour, and heard nothing: nor did he speak, except a few words of edification. Then, the bell being rung, rejoicing and leaving them, he came into the church, his grace being thus preserved to him by God. O man of special sanctity and worthy of memory! who, providing for himself in this manner, edifies his hearers still, and will edify them to the end, being profitable not to himself only but to countless others. What that biographer says in the second example about the hood, if he wishes this to be understood of the Saint while yet a novice, and so, according to what is to be said presently, not yet clothed with the monastic garment, does not seem sufficiently conformable to the other narrative which I shall presently bring forward. Hence meanwhile it is permitted to gather with what zeal the most religious Youth applied himself to solid perfection, since he so carefully chastised in himself even the slightest blemishes which seemed to stand in his way even a little. Concerning his solemn profession and that of his companions Manrique observes some things at the year of Christ 1114, chapter 1, number 1 and following, thus writing:

[45] The following year, namely the one thousand one hundred and fourteenth of Christ, the religious vows, the seventeenth of Cîteaux, was auspicious for the solemn vows of Bernard and his companions … That Bernard and his companions professed the rule after a year, authors rather suppose than affirm; which I would not believe was done without a mystery, since it is not the habit that makes the monk, but the profession; nay, since they did not then wear even the habit of novices, as we have already shown in the preceding year, it appears truly marvelous enough that of those whose entrance is described by all, the profession is reported by no one. It was perhaps yielded to the constancy of the men of God, who, once having set their hand to the plow, would doubtless accomplish what they had begun. Nonetheless they professed the rule of the blessed Father Benedict according to the rigor of the convent of Cîteaux, and then first were clothed with the monastic habit and tonsured, which last also it has pleased me to note. For that, as without the habit, so also without the tonsure, probation was wont to be required in those times, I have as witness Cæsarius of Heisterbach, writing a hundred years later of a novice then contemporary with himself, in book 4 of the Dialogues, chapter 51:

[46] "A certain novice, when at Himmerod (an abbey of the Cistercian Order in the diocese of Trier) he had passed the year of probation quietly enough, and the tonsure. and, the will of stability having been expressed in Chapter, was to be shaven as a monk, he who was to shave him, sharpening his razor [] on a strap, at that same hour so saddened him," etc. By which thou mayest see that before the will of stability was expressed no one was wont to be shaven. Which is the more marvelous in the time of Cæsarius, in which the novices already wore the cope and hood, the badge of religion. Perhaps lest, being marked by that sign, they should be detained if in the middle of the year of probation they should wish to go out. In those first times of the Order therefore they were to be proved in secular habit and tonsure: afterwards, the tonsure being deferred, the habit was granted, however very unlike the monastic one: which we see remains even today. At length in the course of time it came about that they receive the habit and the tonsure together, which perhaps, begun by the mendicants lately arisen, was gradually extended to our own also.*

[47] But, this brief digression being left, let us return with Manrique to the solemn profession, Whether Bernard made this first. who at number 4 notes these things concerning its order: That Bernard first uttered his vows, there are those who affirm; which to me, he says, is doubtful. His tenderer age and deeper humility forbade that the master of all should be preferred to the others. Otherwise neither would Hugh have been sent as prior to found Pontigny in Champagne, nor, when Bernard was set as abbot over Clairvaux, would admiration have seized all the rest, which abbot William described in his Life, book 1, chapter 3: "Those men, indeed, being mature both in religion and in the world, marveling, and fearing for him both on account of the age of his tenderer youth, and on account of the infirmity of his body, and his lesser experience of outward occupation." I would believe that in the order of his age, either not changed at all or little changed, they were both admitted before the year and then professed; save that perhaps the Clerks preceded the married, and the married the unmarried. And let it suffice to have thus most briefly touched upon the profession omitted by the ancients.

[48] The exercises of mind and body. Hither pertains also the Saint's continued fervor, and the art of reaping divinely infused into him. Concerning these Manrique in the place cited from number 8 records these things: Meanwhile Father Bernard and his companions, fervent as they were in spirit in their new state, applied themselves to prayers, wore down the body with vigils and fastings, sang the divine praises devoutly in choir, and nonetheless worked with their hands, kept silence, applied themselves to reading, and were exercised without intermission and without complaint in the other observances of religion — Stephen, as formerly teaching, now marveling, and now truly experiencing them as vigorous leaders whom a little before he had called recruits. And indeed of Bernard's virtues William says many things, and all who wrote the Life of the blessed man, which it would be too long to transcribe hither. For the rest, what they hand down concerning the skill of reaping conferred on the Servant of God by a miracle, because it contains a peculiar doctrine, perhaps less approved, at least less in use in our times, we do not think should be passed over in silence: especially since hence there is plain to the eye the marvelous manner in which divine providence dealt with our Saint, when it willed that a Man so great, and born to accomplish the highest things of any kind, should take the beginning of so many and so great deeds toward higher things from the mean and slight labor of reaping, as we are now to see.

*. Otherwise XXII.

*. That is, a razor.

§ V. The art of reaping divinely granted to the Saint; his departure from the monastery of Cîteaux to that of Clairvaux; various notices concerning this; in what year it was founded.

St. Bernard, to be promoted to the highest things, practices the art of reaping The holy man had redeemed his ignorance of reaping, as Manrique narrates at number 9, in the next year, other works being substituted in place of the harvest: of which, though the labor was not less, the practice was easier, and the limbs readier for daily works than by taking it up again only after a year. But to be separated alone from the rest, and, while the brothers reaped, not to reap, troubled his mind ardent for the common life: and neither was there always something else to be done, nor, if there were, was it permitted him, being weak and failing in strength through excessive abstinence and vigils. Let those hear who think these outward works of less value with God. Let those hear who assign the whole business to the mind, the body being so exempt from labors that they judge it less apt for contemplation if it be wearied. Bernard, who was to be an outstanding Doctor of the Church, nay an oracle, a pillar of the faith; under whom as chief and leader the necks of schismatics were being prepared to be subdued and those of heretics to be trodden down; Bernard granted to the world for the strengthening of all Catholics and for the establishing of the very throne of the Roman Pontiff; Father Bernard, who was to move kings and kingdoms, and finally the whole Christian axis, to his own command; whose words councils borrowed while he yet lived, and to whom, as to the key-bearer of heavenly secrets, even sacred Scripture itself was to be submitted (this must be understood suitably, lest Manrique say too much); Bernard, I say, making his step to all these things, began from the skill of reaping, and that obtained from God by tears and conferred not without a miracle — tears and miracle alike commending it as useful even for acquiring the summit of a Doctor in the Church.

[50] The event William narrates in chapter 3, number 27: divinely granted to him. At harvest time, while the Brothers were occupied in cutting with the fervor and joy of the Holy Spirit, when he himself, as though incapable and unskilled in that labor, was ordered to sit and rest, being exceedingly saddened he fled to prayer, asking of God with great tears that the grace of reaping might be given him. Nor did the simplicity of faith cheat the Religious man's desire. For straightway he obtained what he asked. And from that day he rejoices with a certain gladness that he is more skilled in that labor than the rest; being so much the more devout in this work as he remembers that he received the ability in this very thing from God's gift alone. But Manrique judges that this grace given to Bernard pertains to the year of Christ 1114, because, he says, the man of God after making his profession was present only at the gathering of these crops of Cîteaux: since in the month of June of the following year he was to be transferred to Clairvaux, as we shall say. It now remains for us to consider how, being translated thither, or having gone thither from Cîteaux with the others, he began the government of the monastery of Clairvaux, which he ruled as its first abbot. The year in which he was promoted to the abbatial dignity is confirmed from ancient verses which many codices, as Manrique observes at the year 1115, chapter 1, number 6, subjoin to his works, and which he there sets down:

The thousandth year is recorded with thrice five, [*] And also with a hundred, when the holy Man is made Abbot, and follows the decrees of the former Fathers. He becomes the teacher of the Brothers, the light of faith, the rule of manners.

[51] Bernard's Brothers were sent with him for the founding of the monastery of Clairvaux, He is sent to Clairvaux as the biographer William testifies, book 1, chapter 3, number

28: But when it pleased him who had set him apart from the world and called him, that with an ampler grace he might reveal his glory in him …, he put it into the heart of abbot Stephen to send his brothers to build the house of Clairvaux. And as they departed he set over them the lord Bernard himself as abbot. Manrique records besides that others were joined to him at number 5; and then at number 6 he says: That Bernard should be set over such great men by Stephen — a youth in age, since he had scarcely passed his twenty-fourth year, weak in body, hampered or hindered by bashfulness, and destitute of all experience — seemed marvelous in the eyes of all, and for this reason perhaps was announced later. Certainly William seems to hint that he was by no means named before their departure, from what I lately recited from him, And as they departed he set over them the lord Bernard himself as abbot, and from what is at once subjoined by the same biographer: Those men indeed marveling, as being mature and vigorous both in religion and in the world, and fearing for him both on account of the age of his tenderer youth, and on account of the infirmity of his body, and his lesser experience of outward occupation. But it is nothing new that divine providence uses weak instruments for accomplishing the greatest things, as so many and so great outcomes in Bernard have proved: concerning whose departure from the monastery of Cîteaux it has seemed good to observe certain things here with Manrique.

[52] Moreover, he says at the year just cited, number 7, with his companions, since the going forth of a new Convent, as it was wont to be done in the Order, has been described by Cæsarius of Heisterbach, because it displays gravity mingled with devotion, it will not be irksome to transcribe it to the letter from the homily of the said writer on the third Sunday after the Octave of the Epiphany, which he cites in the margin, in these words: Twelve monks, in the place of the twelve Apostles, with a thirteenth, the Abbot, who is set over them in the place of Christ, are sent forth to found a new abbey. For a cross bearing the image of the Lord is given by the Father abbot into his hands, whom, as he goes forth from the oratory with that cross, the twelve ordained for this follow, as the Apostles followed Christ. Thus he from Cæsarius; where you see the number of this new colony defined. And so, the cross having been given by Father Stephen into Bernard's hands, as the same Manrique adds, he first, as the father and leader of all, then his brothers and sons went forth, to seek a place for themselves among the people of Langres. You would have seen, when they were now about to depart, the tears of all the monks falling in deep silence, and only the voices of those singing resounding amid sobs: for modesty, commanding the limbs outwardly, scarcely prevailed over the inward affections; nor would you have distinguished those who were to remain from those departing, until at the gate of the house the very lingering divided those standing from those going forward. Such, when Bernard and his companions departed, was the face of Cîteaux, devout indeed, but sad.

[53] from the monastery of Cîteaux; which is here by us But before we depart with our holy Abbot from the Cistercians to Clairvaux, since the holy man laid among them the first rudiments of a more perfect life, and by himself and by others whom he joined to those same ascetics afterwards magnificently illustrated and propagated that company; and since likewise mention has so often already been made by us of the Cistercians, and will be made further — we seem likely not to act beside the purpose if we subjoin here certain notices concerning this most pious and likewise most celebrated arena of the ascetic life, yet indicating more in the authors who have written of it than heaping up here at length and one by one, lest the discourse run out too far. Its founder was St. Robert, first abbot of Molesme, whose Acts were long since illustrated among us in volume III of April, on the XXIX day of that month, from page 662. And there, in §2 of the preliminary Commentary on his Life, page 664 and following, treatment is made of the beginnings of the monastery and Order of Cîteaux, and of St. Robert's passing to it, which happened in the year of Christ 1098. He also presided over Cîteaux as its first abbot; but not long after, the government among the Cistercians being resigned, he returns to the monks of Molesme, who were urging his return before the supreme Pontiff Urban II; as may be seen at greater length in the said Commentary, §3, as also the other things which pertain to the aforesaid holy founder.

[54] illustrated The situation of the place Gaspar Jongelinus in his Notice of the Abbeys of the Cistercian Order describes on page 6: Cîteaux (Cisteaux), the arch-monastery and head of the Order, under the rule of St. Benedict, situated in the diocese of Chalon (Chalon-sur-Saône), distant about five leagues from the city of Dijon …, in the Duchy of Burgundy. For the rest, to the first daughter of Cîteaux, the monastery named La Ferté (commonly la Ferté) in the diocese of Chalon on the river Grosne; and to the second daughter, whose name is Pontigny (Pontigni), situated in the territory of Auxerre, as you may see in Jongelinus from page 16, there succeeded the third daughter of the same Cîteaux, Clairvaux; where we shall again meet our most holy Abbot, whom we left for a while setting out thither from Cîteaux. And that place also deserves — so far and wide ennobled by the Saint's government, virtues, and prodigies — that concerning its situation, foundation, and eulogies, before we proceed to other things, we premise the following documents.

[55] The biographer William, chapter 3, number 28, says: by various Clairvaux was a place in the territory of Langres, not far from the river Aube (l'Aube), an ancient den of robbers, which anciently was called the Valley of Wormwood, either on account of the abundance of wormwood plentiful there, or on account of the bitterness of the grief of those falling there into the hands of robbers. And in chapter 4, number 40, the same author narrates these things concerning the same place: But the solitude of that very place, among the shady woods and the narrows of the mountains neighboring on this side and that, in which the servants of God lay hid, in a manner represented that cave of holy Benedict our father in which he was once found by shepherds: so that they, whose life they imitated, might seem to have some form of his dwelling and solitude. Nicolas de Hacqueville, president of the parliament of Paris, records that the valley was not only surrounded by mountains, but also gushing with a perennial spring, besides the waters of the Aube flowing between, in his poem on the praises of St. Bernard and the situation of Clairvaux, which in Mabillon, editor of the Works of that same holy Father, is reprinted in volume 2, column [ ]:

A hidden valley there was, amid the mountains, covered then With deep woodland and green bramble … Through its midst the watering river Aube glides; A spring gives thee water with perpetual bounty.

[56] In the aforesaid editor of the Works of St. Bernard, from column [ ], there is had a Description of the position or situation of the monastery of Clairvaux, notices. where, besides many other things which may be read in the same Description (which, its author being uncertain — yet a monk, as it appears to Manrique at the year 1115, chapter 2, number 2, of Clairvaux — is current among the Works of Bernard, and not without wit), these things are noted in Mabillon's edition, column [ ]: This spring therefore … rises opposite the rising sun, so that at the summer solstice it salutes from over against it the rosy face of the ruddy dawn … Where the mountain casts it forth, the valley swallows it: and in the place where it rises, in the same place as it were it dies — nay, is buried. But look not for the sign of the prophet Jonah, that for three days and three nights it should lie hidden concealed. Straightway, within a thousand paces, inside the cloister of the monastery, as though raised again from the heart of the earth, it comes forth, and appears in a manner restored to life, offering itself only to the sight and use of the Brothers, that its lot henceforth may be with none other than with the Saints. Thus he alludes to the said spring. But now the etymology of the house Manrique, cited, thus describes at number 5: The name of Clairvaux was given to the monastery in the sense of brightness, according to the manner of its occupation and exercise, the old bitterness being changed. Whence the verse:

Into a bright Valley he turned a bitter valley.

William, chapter 3, number 28, reports these things concerning the holy Abbot and his companions, the first inhabitants of the place: There then, in a place of horror and of vast solitude, those men of virtue settled, about to make of a den of robbers a temple of God and a house of prayer.

[57] Manrique, at the year 1115 designated above, chapter 2, [Its] number 1, does not seem to have had the foundation of the often-praised place sufficiently ascertained, when concerning the first comers to that place he thus determines: Whether they found it by chance, or being admonished sought it, is uncertain: it is established that they came to a place horrid enough, a receptacle, as they said, of robbers … I would believe that, being destitute of all resources, they chose this place, profitable for the use of no inhabitants, rather harmful, and for that reason far more easily obtained. Concerning the first donation or foundation of the place therefore we too must speak. In volume 1 of the Mabillonian edition, where the genuine Works of the holy Father are, column 45, there exists the 31st letter to Hugh, count of Champagne, written by him, in which he thus speaks: Can we forget our ancient love, and the benefits which thou hast so bountifully conferred upon our house? The holy Father therefore by these words professes a grateful memory of mind toward Hugh, the first founder of his monastery of Clairvaux, as is concluded from the following instrument, which Pierre-François Chifflet, among the proofs of his Diatribe on the illustrious race of St. Bernard, page 513, received from the autograph of Clairvaux and first published, in these words:

[58] foundation In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity begins the charter of count Hugh. Be it known to all present and to come that I, Hugh, count of Troyes, give to God and to blessed Mary and to the brothers of Clairvaux that place itself which is called Clairvaux, with its appurtenances, fields, meadows, vineyards, woods, and waters: retaining nothing at all for myself or my heirs. Whereof the witnesses are Achard of Reims, and Peter, and Robert of Orléans, my knights. And be it known that Geoffrey Felonia gives his pastures in the domain [] of Juvencourt, as well in wood [] as in open ground, at all times. And if the animals of the said brothers shall have inflicted any damage, only the principal shall be restored, without amends. [] And all these things I have given in the presence of the aforesaid witnesses. It is also to be known that lord Josbert of La Ferté, surnamed the Red, and lord Rainald of Perceris, gave to the same brothers pasture and right of use throughout all their land; and especially in the waters, woods, and meadows, in the domain of Perrecin. Of this matter the witnesses are Achard of Reims, and Robert, my knights. Likewise it is also to be known that I, Hugh, count of Troyes, approve and grant to the same brothers to possess freely and quietly the land and wood of Artela. These donations we confirm, I, Joceran, bishop of Langres, and I, Hugh, count of Troyes, with my seal and ring.* Of Hugh's three journeys to Jerusalem, and of his various titles at various times, Chifflet treats in chapter 21 of the Appendix presently to be cited.

[59] in what year In Mabillon, in the note on the aforesaid letter of St. Bernard, which note is had among others on volume 1 of that same holy Father, and at the end of volume 1, of which I was speaking,

a little before, these things are observed to our purpose after the charters of foundation just given from Chifflet, column XIX: As to what concerns the year of the foundation, which is not expressed in these charters, the same man (namely Chifflet, whom consult in the Appendix to the Diatribe, chapter 20), following the Chronographer of the author of St. Marien of Auxerre, refers it to the year of Christ 1114, in the month of June. And indeed concerning the month all agree: but as to the year, since both external and domestic instruments seem to gainsay it — among others the Cistercian Beginning, distinction 2, chapter 1, and the tablet hung on the tomb of St. Bernard, which in express words state the year 1115 — it seems better to adhere to the opinion long since received: since otherwise Bernard would scarcely have made his profession in the month of June of the year 1114, and Hugh himself, who granted the place, was still in the East. Clairvaux therefore was first indeed founded by Hugh, duke of Champagne; but afterwards, in the year 1135, being translated to a more ample place, it was endowed with a new fabric by the help of Theobald his successor: whence he obtained with some the name of first founder, they confounding the translation with the foundation, as Manrique well warns in his Annals at the year 1115, chapter 1. This opinion, which pleases me more than Chifflet's, I thus declare and confirm:

[60] Chifflet's other reason, which he puts in the first place for the year 1114, it happened. rests on this foundation, that in the month of July of that same year, on the eleventh day of the month, Morimond began, the younger daughter, being indeed the fourth in number among the daughters of Cîteaux; whereas Clairvaux is reckoned third in order of birth. But the foundation of Morimond is attached by Jongelinus to the year 1115; the same is done by Manrique at that year, chapter 1; the same by the Sainte-Marthes, volume 4 of Gallia Christiana, page 673. But the monuments of Clairvaux which Chifflet in the Appendix indicated and objects to himself against the year 1114 for the foundation of Clairvaux are, first, the ancient verses:

The thousandth year is numbered with thrice five, And also with a hundred, when the holy Man is made Abbot.

Then the tablet hung on the tomb of St. Bernard, in which is read: "In the year of the Lord one thousand one hundred and fifteen, in the month of June, he (St. Bernard) was sent with his brothers by blood and his convent to that place which is now called Clairvaux: but before it was called the Valley of Wormwood." To the verses Chifflet thus replies: Unless conjecture deceives me, those verses indicate the consecration of St. Bernard as abbot … which could scarcely have been done before the year of Christ 1115 … Wherefore the Chronographers of Morimond and of Auxerre noted the foundation of the monastery from their first arrival at Clairvaux, which falls in the June of the year 1114; those of Clairvaux from the inauguration of the abbot. But against this is that in the said verses the word creatur seems better able to be referred to the government of the monastery of Clairvaux, which St. Stephen committed to Bernard as he departed from the monastery of Cîteaux with his companions (of which matter treatment was made above), conformably to the words of the tablet, to which I find there in Chifflet no reply, since in it it is clearly and distinctly said: In the year of the Lord one thousand one hundred and fifteen, in the month of June, our Saint was SENT with the authority indeed of an abbot, being then appointed or created by his Superior, but in the said month not yet consecrated by a bishop. But of that consecration more will be said in the next paragraph.

. Read connumeratur* (is numbered with).

*. That is, boundary.

*. That is, woodland.

*. That is, a money fine.

§ VI. He is consecrated abbot of Clairvaux; the straits of this monastery relieved by miracles; spiritual food offered to the men of Clairvaux by the Saint, admonished by an apparition.

Why that consecration was performed by the bishop of Châlons. William in book 1, chapter 4, has handed down to memory these things concerning the Saint's consecration: But when Bernard, newly sent to Clairvaux, was to be ordained to the ministry to which he had been taken, and the see of Langres, to which that ordination pertained, was vacant, the brothers asking whither they should lead him to be ordained, there quickly offered itself close at hand the good repute of the venerable bishop of Châlons, that most renowned master William of Champeaux, and it was determined that he should be sent thither. And so it was done. Chifflet in the Appendix to the Diatribe alleged above, chapter 20, from page 676, from the text of William which I have just brought forward, proposes and resolves this difficulty: How, he says, was the see of Langres vacant in the year 1115, since it is established that Joceran was bishop of Langres from the year 1112 to 1125, as we reported from the Chronicle of St. Benignus, page 505? But the answer is at hand, that the see of Langres was then vacant improperly; not that there was then no bishop of Langres, but that in that year 1115 he was absent from his bishopric; perhaps on a journey to the thresholds of the Apostles, or to some synods, which in those very times were frequently convoked by Guy of Vienne, Apostolic Legate throughout the Gauls. Thus Chifflet. But how our Saint, having set out for Châlons, taking with him Elbold, [*] a certain Cistercian monk, as the aforesaid William narrates in the same place, and having entered the house of the aforesaid bishop, was on account of the outward appearance of his body an object of contempt to some, even to the point of derision; but was held by the bishop in the highest veneration; and how great a familiarity arose between them from their first meeting, not without the greatest spreading of the Bernardine name throughout all France, you will find in the same William.

[62] of the monastery of Clairvaux Nor shall I weave into these the other things which that biographer had premised concerning the straits of the monastery of Clairvaux in its first times, and their relief through various persons; likewise concerning the immense increase of the same monastery, which was shown to the holy Abbot in a certain vision, the outcome of the matter afterwards proving its truth; and finally concerning the zeal for perfection and the conversion of his sister; since the same writer of the Life may be consulted on these things in chapters 3 and 4. Yet because John the hermit narrates various things concerning the most straitened want with which it seemed good to divine providence to exercise and prove the holy Abbot and his subjects, and afterwards proves by various examples, altogether illustrious for that same Saint's glory, that provision was divinely made for those greatest straits in temporal things among the men of Clairvaux, therefore I judge that abbot William should be supplemented from the aforesaid John, who in book 2, column [ ], number 2, in Mabillon, having spoken of the scarcity of food, subjoins these things concerning clothing: But their garments, as well in summer as in winter, were a cowl and tunic, which were most rarely renewed. They used also cheap hose, and shoes which frequently and long remained broken and unstitched before they were repaired, which, by reason of the exceeding poverty of the leather, they bound with little cords. O men noble and great in the world! Who brought you to these dry and perilous places, save he who was rich in the heavens, and poor and humble on earth lay in a manger? Behold for thee now the Abbot's upraised spirit, and his utmost trust in God's timely help amid so many and so great evils.

[63] the want For the same writer of the Life from column [ ], number 3, thus proceeds: In that great want of which we have spoken above, among other necessities, salt on a certain day was lacking to them. And the holy Abbot called one of his brothers, Guibert by name, and said to him: Son Guibert, take the ass and go to the market, and buy us salt. But he answered: Where is the price? To whom the Man of God said: Believe me, son, for I know not the time when I had gold or silver. For above is he who has my purse and my treasures in his hands. Then that brother, as though smiling, said: If I go empty, I shall return empty. To whom the Saint said: Fear not, my son, but go secure. For he who has our treasures, as I have already told thee, will be with thee on the journey, and will supply all things for which I send thee. At these words, having received the pious Father's blessing, he went with the ass to the market, to the castle whose name is Risnellum, more incredulous than he ought. But the merciful and clement Lord did not regard his incredulity, but considered the faith of his Servant, and granted him every thing for which he had been sent. And so when he had drawn near the castle, and had come to a certain villa, he met a certain priest who saluted him, saying: Whence art thou, brother, or whither goest thou? And he answering carefully set forth to him the cause of his journey, and the poverty of the place in which the holy Father dwelt with his sons.

[64] Which when the priest had heard, he was most vehemently pricked at heart: that divine providence came to their aid and he led the brother into his house, and gave him half a measure of salt, and fifty shillings or more, as the same Guibert was often wont to relate. Which being received, he began to give immense thanks to God, and to say in his mind: Without doubt the word which I heard from my Father is true: but in this I have sinned against him with a great sin, because I did not believe him, but came hither incredulous. And bidding the priest farewell, he returned to the monastery. Which when he had entered, he ran to the Man of God and reported to him all things which had befallen him on the way. To whom the holy Father said: I tell thee, son, that no thing is so necessary to every Christian as faith. Have therefore faith, and it shall be well with thee all the days of thy life. From that day and thereafter both that brother and the others held the words of the holy Father in greater reverence. O good Jesus, the faith which that Saint had, who can relate? Then John the biographer produces another example at number 4:

[65] A certain one of the brothers of Clairmarais, coming to visit the new plantation of Christ, was honorably received, as far as could be done: through miracles, to whom, as what was at hand, half a loaf of oaten bread was offered. Which being received, and with great wonder that they should live on such fare, and carried back to Clairmarais, he announced to all who dwelt there the voluntary abstinence of the servants of Christ in the greatest poverty, their patience in abstinence, their munificent liberality in want. And straightway the brothers of Clairmarais, vehemently pricked and compassionating, agreed in common to their relief. Then the master of that place, Odo by name, a venerable man, beloved of God and men, horses and asses being loaded, brought loaves and provisions in wagons. Then indeed from that day until the present day there was so great a communion of brotherhood between Clairvaux and Clairmarais that, when the brothers of Clairmarais came to Clairvaux, deference was shown them as to one of the men of Clairvaux in things spiritual and human. To the dead also service was rendered in turn. In this manner the merciful Jesus provided more and more for his servants. To these are added these things at number 5: There came also a certain woman bringing a hundred shillings, with which the nakedness of their feet was covered. Then follow two other events, which Manrique reports at the year just

following, 1116. We nevertheless, pursuing the order of the biographer John's narrative, subjoin both of them here from him after the former ones. And what he narrates in the first place runs thus:

[66] from various events They lacked all animals except an ass, on which the Abbot was carried on his visitations, and wood was brought for their necessities. But being compelled by hunger, cold, and other wants, they complained to their Abbot that by reason of excessive poverty they were being forced to depart. Hearing which, the Abbot, consoling them gently and mildly, instilled as far as he could the fear and love of God, and the hope of eternal life and of the divine reward. But they, exceedingly distressed and afflicted with manifold grief, would in no way consent; but rather wished to return to Cîteaux. And when the Man of God had seen their despair, at last he turned himself to prayer. Which being done, he heard a voice from heaven saying to him in the presence of all: Arise, Bernard, thy prayer has been heard. Which when the brothers had heard, they glorified God and his holy Bernard; and they said to him: Tell us, Father, what didst thou ask of the Lord? But he answered: What do you wish to know, O ye of little faith? Stand here, and you shall know afterwards. And while they talked with one another, indulging for a little time in talk — not idle talk, but holy discourse — a certain man came and offered the holy Father ten pounds.

[67] it is proved. But the other the aforesaid writer of the Life thus records from column [ ]: And without delay a certain man of Bar, whose son by reason of excessive sickness was driven to despair of life, brought him thirteen pounds, suppliantly asking that he would have mercy on his son. Whom the holy Abbot sent away cheerful, promising that he would find his son safe on his return. The man returning found his son restored to health, as the Man of God had promised. For which cause he afterwards paid abundant thanks to the Servant of God. A short time having intervened, the mercy of God looked copiously and kindly upon these men, so that, abounding in eternal and temporal supports, nothing was lacking to them in any grace, according to that saying: Nothing is wanting to them that fear God. To these marvelous and serious events let us subjoin a spurious and apocryphal miracle from Manrique at the year 1116, chapter 1, number 5, where he sets it forth and rejects it in these words:

[68] An apocryphal miracle is rejected. That horses, wont to wander without a driver, ran about the neighboring peoples to collect the alms of the faithful, which they at once carried back to the monastery, and were despoiled by the townsmen of a certain neighboring villa, whether in mockery or by robbery, and instead of loaves were loaded with stones of immense weight, is a tradition received from the inhabitants. Moreover, Father Bernard being aware of the outrage (for the horses groaning under the weight thereby the more swiftly made the matter public), and cursing the perpetrators of the impiety, they hold for certain that the earth, suddenly split into two parts, swallowed the place together with its inhabitants, the church alone remaining unmoved. And there are those who believe that in memory of so great a miracle it too is gradually swallowed, namely by the thickness of one silver piece each year — the church, the place, and the stones being shown, by which greater credit may be built up for the fable. So true is it that there is no land at all which does not labor under the little fables of its inhabitants, from which not even holy men are altogether free. But whether a certain other like curse be of the same reckoning, by which the same Saint, preaching in Aquitaine, is said to have assailed Verdelais, a place of no small size in that province, we shall relate in its own time. Now it suffices to have mingled these things with serious matters as it were at leisure — Manrique might have added, and not without profit: since it is exceedingly useful to pluck up traditions of this kind, merely popular, and to distinguish false miracles from true. And this has place chiefly in St. Bernard, who, since he abounds in almost innumerable true ones, neither ought nor can be cloaked with false ones, lest by these something be detracted from the credit of the former.

[69] There remained a second and greater famine, that of spiritual food, [Bernard, strengthened by an apparition, offers the food of God's word to his subjects.] namely the word of God, since Father Bernard either preached too timidly or was altogether silent, lest by excessive zeal, inexperienced in affairs, he should wound, as he thought, the consciences of the brothers, or, to use the words of abbot William, lest they should be scandalized by his preaching rather than receive any edification. But he who checked the former by a miracle did not permit the latter to rage, it being to be repressed for the greater good of the Church; since Bernard was taken by God himself into the ministry of the word, the office of preaching being enjoined upon him, and he being fitted for so great a work by divine power; as Manrique says at the year 1116, chapter 1, number 6. That matter is more fully treated by William in the Life of the Saint, book 1, chapter 4; whence I take these things: Nor did God's mercy delay its help at the fitting time. For a few days having passed, he saw in a vision of the night a boy standing by him with a certain divine dearness, [] and with great authority commanding him to speak confidently whatever should be suggested to him in the opening of his mouth, since it would not be he who spoke, but the Spirit who spoke in him. And from that time the Holy Spirit, speaking more manifestly in him and through him, … added to him grace also among his hearers, and authority and understanding over the needy and the poor, the repentant sinner and the one asking pardon. Manrique, just cited, adds at number 7 from Cæsarius, in the Octave of the Lord's Nativity: That when at a certain time he was dictating I know not what, and had at hand a testimony which suited the present passage, and wished to reserve it for the end, fearing a lack there, he heard a voice saying from heaven: If thou reserve that, another shall not be given thee.* That Saint therefore, speaking, no longer spoke, but the Holy Spirit who was in him. The temporal and spiritual affairs of the new company of Clairvaux being thus prosperously and happily settled by divine favor, let us see certain other things exceedingly fitted to the praise of the same monastery, and so of its first Abbot.

. Otherwise Elbodone*.

. Otherwise claritate* (brightness).

§ VII. The increase of the monastery of Clairvaux foreseen by the holy Abbot; difficulties on account of the Victorine canons admitted to it; the time of the event; the marvelous patience of the holy man when sick with an unskilled physician; the conversion of his father.

There are reviewed, according to St. Bernard's foresight, Receive how the foresight of our Abbot concerning the huge influx of secular and Regular men to the monks of Clairvaux (for he saw, as William reports in chapter 3, number 29, so great a multitude of men of diverse habit and diverse condition descending on every side into the lower valley that the valley itself could not hold them) — that foresight, I say, was fulfilled through these times. For indeed, the fame of that house being celebrated, says Manrique at the year 1116, chapter 2, number 1, throughout all France, many Religious, leaving their own seats, and from veterans — nay from men who had served out their time as leaders in approved warfare — being about to become recruits at Clairvaux, sought the guidance of Father Bernard. And presently in the aforesaid founder of the Annals these things are proved by the authority of the Great Beginning, book 1, chapter 4; but because I do not read them there in the Tissier edition, I transcribe them hither on the credit of Manrique who reports them: After by the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ the house of Clairvaux was founded, so that the most fragrant repute of its sacred religion became to many an odor of life unto life, among the rest whom the secret counsel of the divine goodness called from various parts of the world, many Religious men, who in their own places seemed perfect in the observance of religion, hearing that the Lord had so specially and excellently magnified his mercy with that same house and its most holy Abbot, coming as new recruits from the labors of an eremitic warfare, desired with most fervent devotion of spirit to be associated to the college of so great sanctity.

[71] some notable men, Among whom the first, or chief among the first, were Humbert, afterwards first abbot of the monastery of Igny; Raynald, and Peter surnamed of Toulouse, William, and Gerard of Farfa, who, dwelling not indeed in one place, but in different provinces far distant from one another, so devoted themselves from the very rudiments of infancy to the divine service that, flourishing in the grace of every virtue, they seemed to have less need to be instructed by the examples of others, as though more perfect. But concerning the reckoning of time Manrique thus warns: Moreover of those who are there enumerated, though not all — for that is altogether uncertain — yet some are to be referred to this year, especially Humbert, a man of great sanctity, of whom we shall say more in what follows. For that he came to Clairvaux at the very beginning of Clairvaux, Father Bernard himself also is witness in the special Sermon on his death, which is had published in the Mabillonian edition of the Works of St. Bernard from column [ ], and in which the same holy Father says: He lived with us for thirty years, from almost the very beginning of this monastery. Mabillon in his notes on that sermon, column [ ], observes that this most worthy man lived as a monk for twenty years from his earliest age in the monastery of La Chaise-Dieu (under the rule of St. Benedict), before he betook himself to Clairvaux. Which was done about the year 1118: but the Sermon is attached by him to the year 1148.

[72] who came to the institute of Clairvaux. But of what sort and how great, and how worthy a son of Father Bernard, Humbert was, is most clearly established, first from that elegant and moving sermon which I indicated, sprinkled indeed by that same Saint with the highest eulogies of him and with the most tender affections of love toward him. Secondly, because that same St. Bernard, as Manrique reports at number 3 from the author of the Cistercian Beginning, had set before himself Humbert the servant of God as an example of perfection to be imitated, busying himself to admire his virtues, and to esteem his merits great and sublime, to reckon him a pattern of sanctity, a form of religion, a mirror of monastic purity, etc. Of his death Manrique treats in volume 2 at the year of Christ 1145, chapter 8; but of Igny (Igny en Tardenois) in the diocese of Reims, where we said he was abbot, Jongelinus, designated before, page 41.

[73] With difficulties, on account of certain Canons of St. Victor of Paris, In this same year, certainly not much later, I judge that there were added, says Manrique at number 6, (that the holy Father's vision might be the more fulfilled) certain Regular Canons of St. Victor of Paris, a house founded by William of Champeaux before he was set over Châlons, and through him aware of Bernard's sanctity beyond others, and venerating him even though not yet seen. These … by frequent letters of their founder … visit Clairvaux, and, prostrate at Bernard's knees, earnestly ask to be received on probation; if they should be approved, to remain for ever. He, as he was mature in affairs and supremely observant of another's right, neither altogether admitting nor repelling them, judged that William himself must be consulted, as the founder of that Congregation, as a man equally holy and learned, and — what afforded access and confidence — as dear to himself. The devout Prelate had directed the men to Clairvaux, and had been to them the author of changing their life. Wherefore, being consulted by Bernard, in agreement with himself, he is reported to have given such an answer: that the Canons ought in his judgment to be received (on account of

reasons which may be read in Manrique). Yet he added that he asked as a suppliant, interceded as a friend, and even enjoined it as a bishop so far as he could, and that not for strangers, but for sons. These things the holy prelate said without jealousy: not that zeal for his own foundation, nay for his Order, was lacking (for he too, having laid down his archdeaconry, had put on the habit of a Regular Canon), but because the zeal of God prevailed in the holy man. Father Bernard, relying on such counsel, or rather pressed by so great authority (and he had consulted certain others to the same effect), admitted the Canons to probation.

[74] But Gelduin, abbot of St. Victor … taking it bitterly that he was bereaved of his sons and even ignorant of it …, who had gone over to the men of Clairvaux, difficulties having arisen his Canons being called together, resolved to write to Bernard a letter humble indeed and full of veneration for the Man of God and for the whole Convent of Clairvaux, but nevertheless threatening, and either drawing the sword of excommunication against the novices, or, unless they should draw back, preparing to draw it. These being received, Father Bernard, with that mind of his which was always equal against reproaches and praises and settled in good, is established to have given such an answer as, if anyone wish to see it entire, he will find it in the third among the Bernardine letters, which exists in Mabillon, volume one, columns 13 and 14; where it is attached to the year 1120, of which I shall presently speak. Meanwhile what the holy man did in this business the close of the letter indicates plainly enough in these words: Such men therefore being so received, far be it that we should believe your sincerity either wounded in receiving them or to be wounded in retaining them: provided nevertheless that, if perchance within the year of probation … it should happen that they wish to desert what they have begun and to return to you, we do not detain them against their will. Otherwise, most holy brethren, it is not to your interest that you should strive vainly to hinder with an ill-advised anathema the spirit of liberty which is in them: unless perhaps (which God avert) you be zealous to seek the things which are your own, not those which are Jesus Christ's.

[75] If you ask what was afterwards done concerning them, Manrique at number 10 asserts The Saint meets them. that he does not doubt that they were retained, of whom there exists no further memory; whether this was granted by the authority of William, or of Father Bernard, or of both. Nor indeed was this first controversy in this matter the last. For this first dispute, agitated concerning persons, on Manrique's testimony, many others followed, and most of them grave: and more were threatening, had not Bernard — both retaining his own right and no invader of another's — met them, many being repelled, and a few not deferred but constantly retained once admitted: which the very course of the history will demonstrate. And thus much concerning the first little flowers planted in the most pleasant garden of Clairvaux under Father Bernard and cultivated by his care: who, as Manrique adds at number 11, gave this admonition to those entering the monastery: If you hasten to the things which are within, leave here outside the bodies which you have brought from the world. Let the spirits alone enter: the flesh profiteth nothing. Which the said author explaining says: This word would have terrified many, had he not, sparing the tender, expounded it of the concupiscence and carnal affections which they should leave outside, by no means to be resumed by them thereafter.

[76] Of this controversy What I promised a little before concerning the year of St. Bernard's third letter I now discharge, especially since its year is characteristic for fixing the time of the controversy which arose between the men of Clairvaux and the Victorines of Paris, of which we were just now treating. Manrique at number 10 of the year 1116 cited before says that the very acts of William, by whose exhortation and counsel Bernard acted, manifestly prove that those matters are to be referred to it, or at least are not to be deferred for a long time; since he ceased to live in the month of January of the year one thousand one hundred and nineteen; which, as he adds, the same Jean Picard (whom he had a little before cited in the notes on the letter of St. Bernard) noted from the Necrology of St. Agoulf of Corbeil. That therefore the letter was written after this year (1116), the business proceeding, but that this business was begun in that year, or at most in the following, the men being admitted, can less be called into doubt.

[77] the year is determined. But Manrique does not seem here to plant a firm enough foot. William of Champeaux (de Champeaux) is praised even with the surname venerable in the Sainte-Marthes among the bishops of Châlons; and it is there asserted that he departed from the living in the year 1121, on the VIII of the Kalends of February, as the records of St. Stephen and Alberic teach. The same year is had in Mabillon in the notes on the third letter of St. Bernard. And indeed that the same prelate did not die in the year 1119, as Manrique would have it, is urged in the notes in the same place in these terms: Conon the Cardinal and legate came in the year 1120 to the monastery of Morigny near Étampes, "having with him as a great helper William, bishop of Châlons, who had ruled the lofty schools" (that is, the theological), "and who then, having the zeal of God, shone above all the bishops of all France in the knowledge of the divine Scriptures," from the Chronicle of Morigny. Whence thou mayest refute those who place his death in the year 1119. Not therefore, according to what has been premised, must the coming of the Regular Canons to the men of Clairvaux necessarily have happened in the year of Christ 1116 or the next following; nor likewise must the Bernardine letter have been composed before the year 1120. Let us say therefore that we see no inconvenience in placing each of these events in the year of Christ 1119 or 1120.

[78] Manrique at the said year 1116, chapter 3, exhibits the holy Father laboring under a grievous infirmity from the excessive austerity of his life; [An unskilled physician creates the greatest troubles for the holy man: an angelic vision:] William of Champeaux marvelously solicitous for the restoring of his health; and a little hut prepared for this end. Then at the year 1117, chapter 1, number 4, he records that the man's health was committed to a most unskilled rustic, and the most grievous troubles which he endured. We do not transcribe those events hither, but we assign the biographer William, chapter 4, where he narrates the things which he saw. There also you will find the Saint refreshed by an angelic vision; but in chapter 5, that the holy man resumed his former rigor of living, and that a very severe one. But what the same author of the Life had premised in chapter 4, number 34, concerning the Saint's father converted to the monastic institute, Manrique binds to the aforesaid year 1117; as may there be seen, chapter 3, number 8. This conversion the cited William touches most briefly; but elsewhere the narrative is longer, clothed with various circumstances which surround the matter and are attributed to Bernard in this affair; but which need some examination.

[79] At number 9 of the third chapter just noted Manrique recites these things from Vincent of Beauvais in the Moral Mirror, book 3, circumstances which are said part 3, distinction 22, at the end: When blessed Bernard had converted all his kinsfolk, and they had followed him, his father was disobedient to him, persevering in his hardness. But when once he was preaching in his villa, and his father would not obey him, he ordered that fire be brought. Which being done, he applied it to a certain old stump which was before the door of the church: and when he labored to kindle it, it could not be kindled, but smoked. Then he enjoined all that after their meal they should assemble there for a sermon, and that each should bring with him one bundle of vine-shoots, and should throw it upon that stump. Which being done, he ordered fire to be applied, and, the bundles being kindled, the stump also was kindled, sending forth a very great and flaming fire. Then blessed Bernard began a sermon on the torments and fire of hell, how the disobedient, the bundles of their sins being cast upon them, would be tormented in hell. And of this he preached so excellently that his own hard and disobedient father followed him to cloistral obedience. Thus the author of the Cistercian Annals from Vincent; who nevertheless, since he does not elsewhere agree with himself, I fear does not agree with the truth.

[80] Which Manrique thus expresses: While he testifies that the same event happened in the same moral work in a different manner, concerning the conversion of his father, are weighed: his death is fixed. he seems, being contrary to himself, to take away credit from what he says. Certainly, wood being applied to the stump and kindled — in which he agrees in both places — he had narrated the rest far otherwise in book 2, part 3, distinction 4: "Which being done, the dry wood was quickly kindled, and the stump, slowly about the middle, sending forth from its ends a fetid moisture and a most foul smoke, long kept the fire. Then the Saint began to speak of the pains of hell, and said to his father that he himself was like that stump, which here could not be kindled by divine fire; but in hell, unless he did penance, would burn for ever and would send forth a stinking smoke. At which words the father, pricked at heart, followed him and became a monk." Thus Vincent, disagreeing with himself, nor agreeing with the biographer William, who is beyond all exception, and who, without the place of the conversion, without the person through whom it was made, without the manner in which it happened, says simply of it in chapter 4, number 34: His father also, who alone had remained at home, coming to his sons, was gathered to them. But he seems to have spent a short time in the monastic state; for when he had spent some time there, as William at once adds, he died in a good old age. Chrysostom Henriquez inscribed him in his Cistercian Menology at the XXIII day of May. Mabillon in a little note on the first book of the biographer William observes briefly these things concerning his death and monastic state from the Necrology of St. Benignus: On the III of the Ides of April died Tescelin the monk, father of the lord Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux.

. Perhaps eremiticæ* (eremitic).

§ VIII. The monastery of Trois-Fontaines adorned by the holy man with a prophecy and a miracle; whether in the year of Christ 1119 he sent his men into Portugal; by withdrawal from business he is prepared for accomplishing great things.

A prophecy and a miracle wrought at Trois-Fontaines. Manrique at the year 1118, chapter 3, number 1, narrates that another monastery was built by William of Champeaux, of whom we spoke before, in his own diocese of Châlons, that he might bind himself more closely to Bernard, a colony to be sent thither from the monastery of Clairvaux, which the holy Abbot should designate; that the name Trois-Fontaines (Trois-Fontaines) was given to the place, perhaps from the springs gushing there, and that it was the first-born daughter of Father Bernard. Of this monastery Jongelinus treats on page 38. We make mention of it here, moreover, because the holy man adorned it with a notable prophecy, and afterwards also with an illustrious miracle. The prophecy we have from the biographer William, chapter 7, where it may be read. But the miracle Geoffrey, a monk of Clairvaux, thus briefly reports in book 4 of the Life, chapter 7, of the Mabillonian edition, number 41: When the holy Father had at some time come to the monastery of Trois-Fontaines, there was brought to him a certain clerk of those who are named Regulars, a man of great age and blind. He laid

his hand on him, and made after his custom a short prayer: and at that same hour sent him back seeing to his own church.

[82] A controversy is set forth The next following year, 1119, in the same repeatedly alleged Annalist, chapter 3, contains the narrative of a historical controversy: namely, whether St. Bernard sent ascetics chosen by him at that time into Portugal, there to propagate the institute of monastic life. Brito affirms it in book 1, chapter 2; but Manrique opposes various arguments to him, thus setting forth the matter from him in the cited chapter 3, number 1: That to Father Bernard, after the matutinal praises on the sacred feast of the Precursor of the present year, the same Precursor appeared and commanded him to send monks to the farthest shores of Spain which look to the West, a monastery being built and consecrated under his name, Bernardo Brito constantly asserts, book 1, chapter 2: and that not anywhere, but in a place first to be designated from heaven, so that miracles succeeding miracles, the former should increase the hope of the latter, and the latter confirm the credit of the former. That those to be sent would again find a hermit in those parts, by whose counsel and help, if they used it, they would happily consummate the business. That then Bernard chose eight monks, Boëmund and Aldebert — the former to be abbot, the latter Prior; John, Bernard, Sisinand, Roland, and Alan (for he left the eighth anonymous) — and sent them all to Portugal after a short time, a letter being added, written to the hermit named John Cirita (for the Baptist had revealed even his name), briefly touching the matter, whose words Manrique recites from Brito; who then subjoins these things at numbers 3 and following.

[83] whether the holy Father in the year 1119 At the time when the glorious Precursor of Christ had appeared to Bernard at Clairvaux, the same author affirms that he was seen by John Cirita, leading an eremitic life in Portugal beside the river Barosa, and was heard concerning the coming of the monks and the monastery to be built by them: so that they should not seek out one ignorant, nor ask one unwilling, but one expecting them. These things Brito more fully concerning the present year: for the rest was done at the beginning of the following. But we, lest we distract the reader, shall here subjoin them in a consecutive series. The monks therefore sent by father Bernard, the Pyrenees being crossed in mid-winter, and almost all Spain traversed, reached the borders of Lamacum (today they call it Lamego). There John Cirita, meeting them, by the very proving of the prophecy confirmed them as they hesitated, and, when they were now wearied of the long journey, made the reward appear beyond the labor. Over the Portuguese ruled Alfonso the First, son of Count Henry, then himself a Count, afterwards to be distinguished with the royal title also. He, sprung from the Dukes of Burgundy, and therefore joined to Bernard the Burgundian, already of celebrated fame, at once in flesh and in spirit, could easily be persuaded by John to give the land which they should choose to Bernard's sons, the donation being confirmed by a privilege which, not many days after the men's arrival, the same king dispatched at Araduca (commonly Guimarães) in these words, which are there brought forward from Brito. And it is signed: This charter made … on the Kalends of March, in the era one thousand one hundred and fifty-eight, which coincides with the year 1120 of the vulgar era. But that the Pyrenees were subdued in the very winter, as Manrique subjoins, the date shows, being the first of March, or, as I should better say, the first after the season of winter — so that either it must be confessed that three whole months were idle, if before them, having landed, they did nothing; or that within them they crossed the Pyrenees, stiff with wintry snow and cold.

[84] Moreover the things which the same Manrique then relates at numbers 6 and 7 from Brito — sent his sons into Portugal: namely that Boëmund built small cells for himself and his men; that thence, by a light shining in the middle of the night, the place was marked out, a happy augury for building the monastery; and as witnesses of these, letters of Boëmund to John, and of the latter to the former, copies of which are there produced; that the illustrious prince of Portugal and all the nobles (among whom the archbishop of Braga), being aware of the miracles, bestowed helps for the work of the building and for the celebration of divine worship; the former seventy marks of silver, from which crosses and other vessels should be made; the latter the sacred vestments which he used, for performing the solemnities of the Masses — these things, I say, out of those which are there deduced at greater length, let it suffice to have compressed here in compendium. These things being thus set forth, it is worth while to hear the arguments by which Manrique calls into doubt, modestly indeed, but nevertheless aptly, the history recorded above. These therefore he brings against it:

[85] First, he says at number 8, and what is the chief of all, but various reasons a difficulty is caused by Father Bernard, who a little after this year — but truly after it, as I shall presently show — dissuades his contemporary and fellow abbot Artaud, [] abbot of Preuilly (of the Cistercian Order in the diocese of Sens, commonly Prully), from foundations in Spain, as being placed far off, whither it is not expedient to banish his sons. Thou hast the Saint's letter plain enough, writing to him in these words, letter 75: "I have heard … concerning thee that thou wishest to build an abbey in Spain out of thy holy Convent. Which indeed comes to me as a great wonder — what cause, forsooth, there is, what counsel, or what profit, that thou desirest thy sons to be exiles, into a place indeed so far off, to be sought and built with so great cost and labor." These things the holy Father: who, if he had already sent sons into Spain, would never condemn their being sent by another. For would he so dissuade what he himself had done? Moreover that the letter was written after this year is established even from this, that Preuilly (whose abbot Artaud was), a house founded in the preceding year, namely one thousand one hundred and eighteen, could not treat of bringing forth offspring, the sons whom it had admitted having scarcely made profession, and having been sent to found. Certainly neither Clairvaux, which was most fruitful, before three years, nor Bonneval, as less, before four, nor the rest before more years brought forth.*

[86] that that matter Therefore the letter was written after this year, but before 1122, in which the Order, being spread through Germany without any peril, lay less open to fears of this kind. Whence it is no wonder if in the following years, namely of Christ 1130, the same Saint, his counsel being now changed according to the manner of the time and the experience of events, ennobled Spain with his monks, first at Moreruela (Moreruela in the diocese of Zamora), of which below, and presently about to found or reform several other monasteries, as the very course of the history will demonstrate. By these reasons, drawn from the said letter of St. Bernard and from the time, Manrique attacks the Portuguese history. But as to what concerns the date of the letter, the Mabillonian edition of the Works of the holy Father Bernard, column 76, differs far from Manrique, where it is attached to the year of Christ 1127; by which chronological reckoning, the further one recedes from the time to which Brito binds that marvelous Portuguese colony of Cistercians, so much the more is it shown, even apart from other arguments, that it does not sufficiently stand.

But besides the argument which Manrique had taken from the said letter, he brings forward another from the very history of the event, speaking thus at number 9: The history itself, suspect to us in itself, involves certain things — and not a few — which savor less of the antiquity of that time: that in that year Alfonso ruled Portugal; whom nevertheless Brandão, the royal writer, far skilled in Portuguese antiquities, proves at length in the 3rd part of the Portuguese Monarchy, book 8, chapter 26 — either as unequal in age then, being only ten years old, or, his mother retaining for herself the dowry goods and so the principate of Portugal, as not raised to the throne before his twenty-eighth year, the testimony of the same Alfonso being also produced; that the prince gave seventy marks of silver and more for making crosses out of them; that the archbishop of Braga gave the monks the sacred vestments which he himself used — whom nevertheless it is established could, according to their own institutes, use neither silver crosses in those times, nor garments of silk such as befitted a great prelate of the Church; that Bernard, most loving of his sons, improvidently exposed them, cold and almost naked in mid-winter — since they were clad in only two loose garments — to the snows of the Pyrenees, and neither anticipated nor even awaited a more opportune time when he might have done so. Thus Manrique. Add that the consanguinity of Alfonso with Bernard is sought too far off, and so is not aptly enough stitched to the present history, from what was alleged above, §1, number 12.

[87] is shown Another argument against Brito's colony is furnished to Manrique at number 10 by the monastery of Moreruela, celebrated beyond others for the most holy Froilan and Atilanus, the former as abbot, the latter as Prior, which — the very history which Brito drew upon confessing it, and he himself not daring to deny it — first received the Cistercian institute in Spain. And yet it is established that it had not yet received it after ten years. Certainly, however much Cîteaux shone before it, it waited five years, which we shall see in its place: but that another five years were added to this, not even the writers of Moreruela themselves deny, being content indeed with that antiquity for which there is sure credit from ancient instruments, the records of Clairvaux and of Cîteaux chiefly agreeing, and no instrument or author crying out against it which I have seen.

[88] Finally the last argument opposed by Manrique to the often-mentioned Portuguese migration is drawn from a massed heap of various reasons. not to stand. Behold it for thee in his own words at number 11: What of this, that the letter which is brought forward as from Father Bernard savors little of Bernard? What of this, that in it he reports a revelation, which we nowhere else see done by him? What of this, that the other authors are silent about the same, and are found to have kept silence about so great a heap, as it were, of apparitions and miracles, who narrate the smallest things? What of this, that all the ancient memorials of the Order affirm that the monastery of St. John of Tarouca in Portugal was built many years later, namely in the year 1131? What of this, that the monasteries, frequent from that year and prolific with numerous foundations, were even for a long time before that year either wholly unheard of, or, if there was any, it remained sterile? For what Brito subjoins concerning St. Christopher, commonly of Lafões, suffers altogether the same difficulty, as we shall see in its place. At length Manrique, concluding the present controversy, says: These things, proposed by me with the end of doubting rather than of deciding, I leave to be weighed by the reader, being of doubtful judgment, and neither altogether affirming nor plainly denying. So he, according to his modesty. But we, whom it in no way concerns whether the Cistercian or Clairvaux vine stretched out its branches to the sea — into Portugal, I mean — later or sooner, assign by far the better part to Manrique, who seems to us to have so fully and plainly won the cause of the present controversy that Brito's history, which he here refutes, ought to be judged exceedingly suspect. Whence also it follows that the two letters concerning the sending of monks of Clairvaux by Bernard into Portugal — one to Alfonso, king of Portugal, the other to John Cirita, both formerly published under Bernard's name — seem not undeservedly to have been relegated to the Appendix of the letters of the same holy Father, which in Mabillon's edition, columns 371 and 372, after his genuine ones

is had. But of these things more than enough. Now let us return into Gaul, and to the deeds of our holy Abbot at Clairvaux; concerning which Manrique teaches various things at the next year, 1120.

[89] After therefore that author had treated there, in chapter 3, number 1, of men illustrious in the world who, either drawn by the holy Abbot's teaching or stirred by his continual preaching, embraced the fellowship of Clairvaux, and of the helps necessary for advancing it, Leisure on account of bodily infirmity he subjoins that sad things followed the glad things of that family. For amid prosperity, says the same Annalist at number 2, that they might trust themselves the less, they suffered other hard and adverse things, Father Bernard being separated from his sons — doubtful whether with greater grief to himself or to his own. The cause was from himself; since, while he yields to the excessive rigor of which we spoke above sooner in body than in spirit, and repents, however seriously, yet too late, of a penance practiced beyond his strength, he was compelled at length to leave the Convent of the brothers, which he had held longer, and to dwell apart — God, as it appeared, so disposing, that, being freed from those common duties, he might thenceforth live no longer either for himself alone or for his own only, but for others, nay for the whole Church, with great profit to the whole Christian world, which would use his labor in all things. The event William narrates in the Life, book 1, chapter 5. Moreover, of that excessive austerity the holy Father himself accused himself; as may be seen in the same place.

[90] prepares the Saint for great affairs. But, as Manrique rightly observes at number 4, he who from the beginning of the nascent Church has been wont to choose the weak things of the world to confound the strong, by this very uselessness of his prepared a most copious fruit. For, he being at leisure from the Convent, as we said, that very sickness procured from his freedom time for business, from his pallor gravity in his countenance, from his weakness weight in his words, and from his dissolution, as it were imminent, the esteem of all: and there was as it were a greater interest on a fleeting life, fear, as is wont, urging desire, and dread of loss commending the price. Consult the Life at the chapter just cited, toward the end. That leisure therefore excellently prepared the holy man for the affairs of the highest moment which afterwards followed.

. Read erigendo* (to be raised).

. Otherwise Artaldo, Artaudo*.

. Perhaps transmissurum*.

§ IX. Whether the place of Prémontré was given to the Premonstratensians by St. Bernard; his affection toward them and toward St. Norbert; the mutual offices of the Cistercian and Premonstratensian Orders, with eulogies.

[Of the letter in which St. Bernard asserts that Prémontré was given by him to the Premonstratensians,] It is my mind to set forth in this place SS. Bernard and Norbert, a noble pair of friends, after the example of Manrique; who, although he treats of them before Bernard's separation from his own, of which it has already been said, nevertheless weaves the present argument into that same year 1120, in which we too are now engaged along with him. At this year therefore, chapter 2, number 1, the aforesaid collector of the Cistercian Annals heaps together to our purpose the following: About the same time that great light of the Church, Norbert … instituted the illustrious Order of Regular Canons, called Premonstratensian from its first place, to the great good of the whole Church … This place, obtained by the bounty of the most blessed Father Bernard, to whom it had first been delivered, Norbert preferred, many others being spurned, as apt in itself and commended from the giver for laying the foundations of his family. The matter, because it concerns an illustrious Order, and one not only coeval with the Cistercian but familiar with it, I shall declare, taking up the beginning a little higher. He pursues therefore the narrative of this event at numbers 2 and 3, which may be read in him. It suffices for our purpose that the place of Prémontré belonged to the Cistercians before it passed to the Premonstratensians, namely by Bernard's gift. Which the holy Doctor himself expressly affirms in a letter written to the abbot of Prémontré after the death of St. Norbert, which is the two hundred and fifty-third in Mabillon, column 250, reckoning this among other benefits conferred by him upon the Premonstratensians: First indeed the very place of Prémontré in which you dwell was ours, and you had it by our gift. For brother Wido (this was the name of the first inhabitant of the place) had before given it to us by the hand of the bishop.

[92] This passage of the letter is not without difficulty, which is met in the notes in Mabillon here: difficulties are weighed, Some here stick in explaining Bernard, because it is certain that the first church of Prémontré, sacred to holy John the Baptist, was granted to Norbert by Bartholomew, bishop of Laon, from an exchange made with the monks of St. Vincent of Laon (commonly S. Vincent de Laon), to whom it belonged, on the testimony of Herman (a monk of Laon), praised presently, in book 3, chapter 4. But in chapter 10 the same author, an eyewitness, hands down that "on the other side of the mountain a greater church" was afterwards built by abbot Hugh, with a notable monastery adjoined: whose place, or at least a portion of it, had undoubtedly come to the Premonstratensians from Bernard or the Cistercians, who had received it from Wido the hermit. What Bartholomew himself conferred his letter teaches, in the Appendix of this volume, column 385. See the fuller notes in Mabillon on the aforesaid letter 253, column LXXIV, where Herman the monk is cited, book 3 On the Miracles of blessed Mary of Laon, chapter 4, saying these things: "Coming therefore to the aforesaid place of Prémontré, they enter for the sake of prayer a certain church built there in honor of St. John the Baptist. This was by right of the monastery of St. Vincent of Laon," etc. From which a certain recent writer, in his notes on the Life of St. Norbert, chapter 19 (see what I shall say a little after), testifies that he sticks in explaining Bernard's grant, which he reads to have been made by the monks of St. Vincent through the hand of bishop Bartholomew.

[93] But although six hundred arguments of that kind should stand against it, and are resolved: Bernard's word ought to hold an inescapable authority: and if indeed thou wilt consider the matter a little more diligently, thou wilt easily reconcile the conflicting statements. For it is certain that the monastery of Prémontré, in its first founding, was not situated in that place in which it had first been instituted by St. Norbert; but on the other side of the mountain, to which Hugh, Norbert's successor, to whom this letter is directed, had translated it. Of which matter the same Herman makes mention both in the place cited, where he reports holy Norbert's foresight concerning the translation of the monastery; and in the same place, chapter 10, where he thus describes the change of Prémontré: "But Hugh, seeing that that small church" (namely of St. John the Baptist, which the monks of St. Vincent had granted, as he had premised in chapter 4) "could now not suffice for so great a multitude as had assembled and was daily increasing by God's grace; knowing also that the lord Norbert, as was said above, had foreseen in spirit that on the other side of the mountain a greater church was to be built, having taken counsel with his brothers, asked the lord bishop Bartholomew, as founder and father of the place, to come, that, all the workshops being arranged, he himself should lay the first stone in the foundation of the church." That first seat or church therefore was granted by our own (that is, by the Benedictine monks) of St. Vincent: but what prevents this second one from having been granted to the Premonstratensians by St. Bernard, who had first received it from Wido the hermit? Let the two letters of Philip, abbot of Bonne-Espérance, be read, to which these things seem to correspond.

[94] The place therefore granted to the Premonstratensians by St. Bernard, and thus explained, in no way conflicts with the letters of the foundation of Prémontré, which were drawn up in the name of Bartholomew, bishop of Laon, and in which that place is said to have belonged to the monks of St. Vincent, nor do the letters of the foundation of Prémontré and to have been delivered to St. Norbert by Bartholomew himself, to whom it had first been granted by Adalbero, abbot of St. Vincent, Seifrid his successor afterwards confirming the matter; as may be seen in the cited fuller notes, where the said letters are cited. Consult our volume 1 of June, on the VI day of that month, page 862 and following, where among the Norbertine Analecta, chapter 2, a threefold diploma of Bartholomew, bishop of Laon, is brought forward, and the difficulty above proposed and resolved is weighed; but the manner of disentangling it which is there given among us at page 864 does not so much please me as that which I brought forward a little before from the aforesaid notes. But whatever petty reasonings you may bring forward against the donation here disputed, Bernard's word, as was rightly said above, ought to hold an inescapable authority; who indeed could and ought to have known excellently, and had in most recent memory, what he had given and to whom; likewise from whom, at what time, and in what manner he had before received what he afterwards gave. Nor further do I sufficiently see how this can be denied, unless the stain of imprudence and at once of impudence, and also of open falsehood, not to say of lying, be branded on a most holy man. Which be far from us. I marvel therefore that the truth of this donation was not sufficiently known by a certain Premonstratensian author, and so was not securely enough approved; which another, a Cistercian, undertook to defend with labor, as it appears to me at least, by no means necessary, nay superfluous — because one must stand by Bernard's word — if the Premonstratensian had not spread this question abroad into the public light. Understand the matter from what follows.

[95] stand in the way of this matter. There exists among the notices which I have by me concerning St. Bernard a manuscript little Dissertation, in which it is briefly demonstrated how the holy Father Bernard in his letter 252 (otherwise 253) truly says that the Lords Premonstratensians have the very place of Prémontré by his gift. Receive the beginning of the little Dissertation: The Reverend Lord Polycarp de Hertoghe, a religious of St. Michael's at Antwerp, of the Premonstratensian Order, in his notes on the Life of St. Norbert (this Life appeared with notes in the year 1656 from the Plantin press at Antwerp), on chapter 19, folios 346 and 348, wrote that he does not see how St. Bernard in letter 252 says that the Premonstratensians have the very place of Prémontré by his gift: since from the diplomas of Bartholomew, bishop of Laon (parts of which he produces), it is clear that the said place, which before belonged to the monks of St. Vincent of Laon, was given by that bishop to St. Norbert and his Brethren, an exchange more useful to those monks having been made: unless perhaps the same St. Bernard reckons himself among the Benedictine monks of St. Vincent by reason of the same rule; or, when the monks of St. Vincent are said to have inhabited that place long before, that word LONG is to be extended far into an earlier time in which that place was theirs. Which reasons are too frivolous; so much so that I have thought it worth while briefly to refute them here, and to produce others more solid. I forbear to transcribe them hither. For what has already been said suffices. After the end of the little Dissertation the author, Charles de Visch, a religious of Ter Duinen, says: I composed this in the year 1663, in the month of June. These frivolous quibbles therefore being left, let us take again the former path, and prove the holy Doctor's veneration and indeed love toward St. Norbert.

[96] The 8th letter, to Bruno, bishop-elect of Cologne,

after St. Bernard had been consulted by him about accepting the bishopric of Cologne, Various specimens are brought forward, on which may be founded among other things thus writes at its end: But you have the lord Norbert, whom, being present, you can better ask in person about such things. For that man is known to be so much readier than we in opening divine mysteries as he is also nearer to God. This letter is noted in Mabillon as written in the year 1131; but among us, in volume 1 of June, which I cited a little before, page 815, it is fitted to the year 1132, the last but two of St. Norbert's life. Very brief indeed is that eulogy inserted in letter 56, which is to Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres, but illustrious nevertheless: What you inquire of me concerning the lord Norbert, namely whether he is to go to Jerusalem, I do not know. For when a few days ago I deserved to see his face and to draw very many things from the HEAVENLY PIPE, namely his mouth, etc. That expression is altogether honorific in the Saint's pen, since in the 22nd sermon On Divers Subjects, in Mabillon, column [ ], Ambrose is called by the same Doctor a heavenly pipe. But that letter 56 is bound by Mabillon to about the year 1128. To these may be added the following fragment, which I subjoin from letter 253 mentioned above, where the holy Doctor, writing to the Premonstratensian abbot, St. Norbert being long since dead — namely in the year 1150, to which that letter is fixed in the Mabillonian edition — says: I have cherished and promoted your Order always, so far as was in me; which he then proves by brilliant arguments; and finally, all the things which had given occasion for complaints being excused (and indeed who does not know that complaints not rarely arise between the best of friends?), he professes that a close bond of friendship with them both is his and has been and shall be, thus speaking at column 253:

I will cleave to you, even if you be unwilling: I will cleave, even if I myself be unwilling. Long ago I bound myself with a strong bond, with charity unfeigned, that which never falls away. With the troubled I will be peaceable; to those who disturb me also I will give place to wrath, lest I give place to the devil. I shall be overcome by quarrels, I shall overcome by services. I will do good to the unwilling, I will add more to the ungrateful, I will honor even those who despise me. And now my soul is sad, because by whatever occasion I have offended you; and it will be sad until it be relieved by your indulgence. If you delay, I will go and keep watch before the doors; I will persevere knocking, I will be instant in season and out of season, until I either merit or wrest a blessing.

So deep roots had the friendship long since contracted with St. Norbert driven in the inmost breast of our Saint, that it persevered afterwards with so great affection toward his Order.

[97] Hence it would be no wonder — nay indeed, who would not think it prudent enough — that St. Bernard was intimately affected toward St. Norbert, that St. Norbert answered our Saint, so intimately affected toward him, with mutual tokens of esteem and benevolence; that both had not rarely friendly intercourse with one another; and that a bond of close friendship was confirmed between them chiefly from that time in which, with the joined arms of their sacred preaching, they assailed the errors of Peter Abelard? For of each champion of truth I judge that is to be understood which he himself says in his first letter, which is inscribed in his own and Heloise's name, chapter 12: They stirred up against me certain new Apostles, in whom the world greatly believed: of whom the one boasted that he had revived the life of the Regular Canons, the other that of the monks. These by preaching, etc. Thus he, shamelessly sprinkling upon their true praises the false stain of vainglory. But in what ways the founder of the Regular Canons returned like turns of favor to St. Bernard one by one, I have not at hand documents by which to teach it, except those which Manrique alleges from number 6: But that Father Norbert cherished Bernard — and not he alone the one alone, but all his sons the Cistercian family and monks — with no less reverence, two arguments persuade me, each of them efficacious: the one for Norbert, the other for his men.

[98] and that he was by the latter Certainly in Norbert it is marvelous enough that, after receiving the place of Prémontré and in that place that heavenly oracle; after several disciples were gathered, by whom the vision, already in part fulfilled, is proved to be about to be fulfilled in the rest, he nevertheless went to consult about taking up the Cistercian institute and publishing no other — which the Acts of his life sufficiently indicate, when they hand down that many Religious, both bishops and prelates (doubtless consulted by the man of God), answered diversely — from the Life in Surius on the VI day of June, chapter 22, where these things are: But when many Religious, both bishops and abbots, gave diverse counsels, one urging the eremitic, another the anchoritic life, another that the Cistercian Order should be taken up. To holy Norbert therefore, as he pondered concerning the Order to be instituted, the Cistercian one fell into deliberation, whether the proposed deliberation drew its origin from St. Bernard, its marvelous propagator, or from the most flourishing propagation of the Cistercian family, or from both these together.

[99] held in great veneration; But, as Manrique rightly subjoins at number 7, he who was preparing a new adornment of a new institute for his Church through the holy man, in that same gilded garment to be encompassed with the variety of Religious Orders, lest Cîteaux, about to lack Norbert, should have no part in his family, repaired by the imitation of Cîteaux the setting of a sun scarcely risen. For when, Norbert being promoted to archbishop, ruin was already threatening the deserted flock, this was the one hope of safety conceived by all: if they should emulate the statutes of the Cistercian Order, its annual Chapters, its contempt and rejection of all superfluous things. Consult the Life of St. Norbert in Surius, chapter 46, from which I take these things: That father was set and consecrated (namely whom Norbert had substituted for himself as successor) in the church of Prémontré, and those two (concerning whom, as a little before it had there been said, the man of God had commanded that he should appoint the one as father in the church of Antwerp, the other in that of Floreffe) in the two other aforesaid. But two others also had already been consecrated in two other churches, that of St. Martin of Laon and that of Viviers. These five, and a sixth whom the abbot of Prémontré had sent off immediately after his entry to the place which is called Bonne-Espérance, seeing the imminent dissolution of the Order in very many places, and fearing a greater one to come, came together on an appointed day in a determined place, and, cutting away whatever seemed at present superfluous in their houses, thereafter, after the example of the Cistercian Order, resolved that they would return together yearly to correct the wrong things of their Order. Which when it had been made known in other places, if in the first year they were six, and in the second nine, in the third they were twelve, in the fourth eighteen; and so thereafter they were multiplied everywhere in the lands, as their voices and acts and works testify to the present day. The above is confirmed from the Life of St. Norbert among us in the volume cited, chapter 16, page 852; but in the notes on that chapter it is indicated that Hugh, his first companion, of whom treatment was there made above at chapter 5, succeeded St. Norbert; that Waltmann was given to Antwerp, Richard to Floreffe, etc. Likewise that Walter and Henry were consecrated in the church of Laon and that of Viviers, concerning whom, as also concerning their monasteries, it had been said at chapter 13. That sixth, above unnamed, is Odo, the first of the monastery of Bonne-Espérance in Hainault near the town of Binche; as is given to be seen in the notes just assigned. Observe finally in passing these things concerning the time of the said Chapter: The holy man ordained and commanded that from all the churches which either in his lifetime or after his death should follow the rule of his institution and rule, all the abbots and provosts should every year on the feast of St. Dionysius come together to the church of Prémontré … and, being gathered together, should celebrate a general Chapter in the same place, on the testimony of Jean le Paige in the Library of the Premonstratensian Order, part 1, book 2, chapter 34, from whom I have reported these things.

[100] Moreover these and like things, as Manrique concludes at number 8, the sacred family of each laudably united by bonds of mutual love. so bound each family with bonds of likeness and likewise of mutual love that ancient authors speak of both, and scarcely of one, the other being omitted. Hear Robert the continuator of Sigebert: "In these times the Canonical Order of Prémontré and the monastic Order of Cîteaux, like two olive trees in the sight of the Lord, ministered to the world the light of piety and the richness of devotion, and like fruitful vines propagated the branches of Religion on every side," etc. Let Laurence of Liège also be heard in his History of the Bishops of Verdun, who in volume 12 of d'Achery's Spicilegium, of the earlier edition page 325, but of the later, volume 2, page 255, joining both Orders in charity, merits, and praises, says: There followed thereafter those two Cherubim spreading their wings in the midst of the Church, and, with faces turned toward the propitiatory, looking upon one another — that is, two most illustrious Orders protecting the Church by their devotion, and, with hearts turned to God, emulating one another in mutual charity: of which the one, the Cistercian, under the leadership of Bernard, abbot of most holy name, restored the monastic Order, now almost fallen, to the first rule of the Apostolic life: the other, by merit and by name Foreshown (Præmonstratus) by God, begun under the leadership of Norbert, archbishop of Magdeburg, shook the ecclesiastical order out of the mire of worldly vanity. Thou wouldst believe these two Orders to be the two prophets of the book of the Apocalypse, sent by God about the end of the world and clothed with the sackcloth of penance, the two olive trees of heavenly clemency, and the two candlesticks of divine grace. So do they torment themselves in all things, so do they water the world with the word of faith, so do they illumine it with the light of their merits, etc. These things concerning the noble and holy pair of friends, and concerning the most illustrious family of each, being treated, we are called to pursue further the affairs of Bernard, as the end of our undertaking requires.

§ X. His freedom from business compensated by holy leisure; flies killed by a miracle; the marvelous force of his speech in the conversion of others; an apparition concerning the salvation of those who shall have duly persevered in the Cistercian Order; sinners brought to amendment by the holy father through a miracle.

[The Saint, separated from his sons, is at leisure for God, and is enlightened by him;] The next following year, 1121, Manrique begins with St. Bernard, who, being separated from his sons, the more he was free for the affairs of others, so much the more was he enlightened by God, both by wisdom infused from heaven and by miracles. Concerning each of these gifts of divine munificence toward the man consult William in the Life, book 1, chapter 5. And indeed the time in which he was free from business he compensated with holy leisure. For, as Alan reports in chapter 10, number 32, column [ ] in Mabillon, being at leisure from labor or outward work, he continually either prayed, or read, or meditated. But what he wrote during these times Manrique narrates at numbers 6 and 7. Besides these, what the same author of the Annals reports

the composer of the Cistercian Annals in chapters 3 and 4 concerning the dissensions arising from the frequent passing of black monks to the white, and the letters of St. Bernard composed on this occasion, I do not see to be of such interest to us that they should be transcribed hither at greater length; as neither the illustrious prodigy of the flies killed by the Saint's word, since William sets it forth in book 1 of the Life, chapter 6, number 58. But what of the holy Abbot's preachings?

[102] his efforts in the conversion of souls, Father Bernard's zeal was strong (I use Manrique's words at the year 1122, chapter 6), and drew many lettered men, many nobles, many powerful men from the world. Indeed he scarcely ever approached Clairvaux without bringing back with him a band of novices, filling with bees that heavenly hive whence new swarms should come forth daily. William and Alan in his Acts subjoin to the catch of Châlons (for so they call it, the name being borrowed from fishing) that of Paris, which for that reason I suspect happened about this year (of his fruitful preaching William treats in the Life, book 1, chapter 7, and Alan, chapter 15). But of what sort the Parisian catch was, and how his effort, at first fruitless, then fruitful, and at last, an addition being made, overflowing, filled Clairvaux with novices, the angels with joy, and all France with wonder, the author of the Great Beginning has handed down to memory, and that having been taught the truth by Rainald, then Bernard's companion, afterwards abbot of Foigny …, who was present. The Great Beginning published by Tissier narrates the matter, distinction 2, chapter 13: Moreover on a certain occasion, when the man of the Lord Bernard, a cause requiring it, had gone to Paris, at the request of the Clerks he entered after the custom their schools. To whom, showing the form of true philosophy, he admonished them more attentively concerning contempt of the world and the voluntary poverty to be undertaken for Christ the Lord. But when the sermon was ended and none of them was converted, he went out sad, because contrary to his wish and contrary to custom this had befallen him.

[103] And coming to the house of a certain archdeacon who had drawn him to his lodging, at first fruitless at Paris, he withdrew into an oratory set up there. And when he had begun to pray in a vehement spirit, being wholly dissolved into tears by a most powerful compunction, so that the groans and sobs which he could not restrain happened to be heard outside. Which being learned, the aforesaid archdeacon began to inquire of his companions what was the cause of so great a grief. And one of them answering, a religious man, once abbot of Foigny, named Rainald, who was more privy to the secrets of the Servant of God, and by whose account we have learned these things, said to him: This marvelous man, wholly kindled with the fire of charity and wholly absorbed in God, desires nothing else in the world save only that he may be able to bring back the erring to the way of truth, and to gain their souls for Christ. And because he has just sown the word of life in the schools, and has not received the fruit of his word in the conversion of Clerks, he thinks God angry with him, whose regard he has not felt today in his preaching. Hence this storm of groans; hence this pouring out of tears: therefore now I most surely hope that the abundance of tomorrow's satisfaction will compensate today's barrenness with great interest.

[104] And so when morning came, and the outstanding Preacher had gone again to the schools, but afterwards at the Lord's nod he led the ship of his thought into the deep, and let down the nets of sacred doctrine for a catch. And when the sermon was ended, very many of those same Clerks gave themselves to the Lord by his hand. Whom he straightway, as drawn out of the peril of the world as from the waves of the sea, and set upon hired vehicles, did not delay to carry into the place of salvation at Clairvaux. At length, going out of the city with his company, he came as far as the town of Saint-Denis, and there passed the night. But when it was early morning, and his brothers thought that he would set out on the direct road, he said: We must by all means return to Paris, because there are still there some of ours whom we must also bring away thence and join to this fold of the Lord, that there may be one flock and one shepherd.

[105] When therefore they had begun to enter the city, he saw three Clerks coming from afar to meet him, exceedingly fruitful. and said to his companions: The Lord has dispatched us, and now we shall set out on our way. Behold, these are the Clerks for whose sake we came. But they, approaching and perceiving that he was there, rejoiced with great joy, and said: O how longed-for dost thou come, most blessed Father, since it was our purpose to go to thee: we scarcely thought we could overtake thee departing. Who answering said to them: And I knew it, most beloved; therefore I hastened to meet you as you fled, with loaves. Let us therefore walk together, and I shall be by God's grace the guide of your journey. The rest above mentioned being joined therefore, they followed the holy Man, cleaving to him and practicing the spiritual warfare under the discipline of his teaching all the days of their life. Thus he there, in a somewhat lengthy but faithful narrative; whence there shines the marvelous force of speaking in the holy Father, by which he strongly and sweetly drew the hearts of younger men, like a sacred magnet, that they might bear the Lord's yoke from their adolescence. Moreover it also happened that the Saint in these actions (so Manrique proceeds at number 6) preached Christian philosophy not with a premeditated but with a sudden discourse (inspired indeed by God), taking occasion from the very subjects of the schools, however minute, from Vincent of Beauvais, whom he cites in the Moral Mirror, book 2, part 2, distinction 6. But the text which is there produced by him may be seen either at the same number 6 which I was citing, or rather in the fountain itself; since the above is long enough, and a very long way remains for us in illustrating the affairs of the holy Doctor.

[106] He learns Hence therefore we slip down with Manrique to the year of Christ 1123, in which he supplies many and marvelous things concerning the holy man to be reported by us. There, at chapter 2, number 1, he recites this example from Cæsarius, homily 8 after the Epiphany: At a certain time, when St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, while yet a young man, was standing at Mass, and a certain negligence about the ministry of the altar had there occurred, a certain venerable person appearing to him with a sad countenance said: If the monks knew how much they sadden the holy angels who are present here when they are lukewarm and negligent in this sacred ministry, and how much they gladden them when they see them devout and fervent, they would be made more careful. And when the blessed man asked him concerning the state of the monks, he answered: All who shall have persevered in the Cistercian Order shall be saved. These things from Cæsarius there at the said year, number 1; whether they are to be referred to that year or to earlier ones, since the Saint is called abbot while yet a young man. Moreover of what kind that negligence was, what person appeared visible to the holy Father, and likewise in what words that prediction was more fully declared, Manrique subjoins at number 2 from the Cistercian Beginning, book 2, chapter 1, by whose authority what has been said above is confirmed. I subjoin the text from the Tissier impression, distinction 2, chapter 1 of the Great Beginning:

[107] from an apparition, It happened once at Clairvaux, while Mass was being celebrated in the Convent, that same venerable Father being present, that, the Gospel having been read, through negligence water was lacking for washing the priest's hands: which, while it was awaited somewhat too long, the Convent meanwhile stood with faces turned to the East. And while the holy Father was standing in his stall [] before the step of the presbytery, a certain monk who had died a few days before appeared to him visibly, and, standing over against him, began to shake his head as though in reproof. Whom the Servant of God, seeing, recognized, and asked why he shook his head at him. To whom he said: O if you knew how many and what sort of companions you would have in heaven, assuredly you would beware of all negligence. Which word the Saint gladly hearing, answered: Dost thou truly think that all the brothers who are in this monastery will be saved? Yea, he said, they shall be saved: and not only they, but also all who in our Order shall have lived obediently and humbly shall be saved. But the pious Father, remembering a certain brother whom for his negligence and hardness of heart it was necessary rather often to rebuke, and being on his account much saddened, added, saying: Dost thou know anything certain about that brother's salvation? He answered: Neither shall God's mercy be lacking to him. Which being heard, the holy man rejoiced vehemently, and so much the more eagerly did he with his brothers keep hard ways for the words of the Lord's lips, as he held more certainly the hope of the eternal reward laid up in his bosom.* Thus he there.

[108] that all will be saved who in the Order Manrique subjoins certain other things; but before we report them, it is of profit here to weigh what he has at numbers 5 and following concerning the prophecy of the eternal felicity of all who shall have persevered in the Order. For the rest, he says, as to what concerns the promise of salvation for all who shall have remained in the Order, let the reader receive plainly another like it, made from heaven to a certain most holy monk (it is doubtful whether of Clairvaux) named Gerard, as he lay dying, Father Bernard being alive and attesting it: if indeed that little book is his which under the title of the Doctrine of blessed Bernard is current among his Works. But from it the following are recorded by Manrique: Moreover be thou ready to obey with cheerful mind and countenance. Think of that monk named Gerard, who, when he despaired beyond measure of God's mercy, being sick unto death, lay for three days with closed eyes in an ecstasy of mind: and being visited by the Abbot, with eyes opened said: Obedience is good: I have been at the tribunal of Christ, I have seen the souls of the Saints, and himself face to face saying to me: Behold thy place among thy brethren. None of thy Order shall perish, if he shall have loved the Order; either he shall be purged in death, or shortly after death. But those who are saved of thy Order shall receive their lot either in the Order of the Apostles, or of the Martyrs, or of the Confessors. And saying these things, having received communion, he departed. Manrique, having cited these things, says: Thus far Bernard, or whoever is the author of that little book, plainly ancient, and such as deserved to be held as Father Bernard's. That little work, concerning whose author Manrique doubts, is had in the edition of the Works of St. Bernard published by Mabillon in volume 2, tome 5, among the doubtful works wrongly ascribed to Bernard, column 800 and following.

[109] But as to what concerns that prophecy, the aforesaid Annalist thus confirms the matter at number 6: of Cîteaux We read that something similar also happened at Clairvaux under abbot Pontius, and we shall report it in its place below; namely that, the word standing in the mouth not only of two but of three witnesses, it might be imprinted more deeply on the minds of all. Something similar, I say, as I believe, but not the same. For neither would Bernard have reported a thing done under Pontius, who died before his prelacy; and, that we may say, it is not Bernard's work,

but of another, a younger man of Clairvaux. But the distinction of names seems still to argue a difference of subjects: since the one was called Gerard, as we have already seen; the other Bernard, as we shall also see below from the Great Beginning. Consult volume 2 of the Cistercian Annals at the year 1167, chapter 6, number 2 and following, where that event is narrated; as also in Bertrand Tissier, in the Library of the Cistercian Fathers, volume 1, distinction 2 of the Great Beginning, chapter 26.

[110] Finally the same author of the Annals explains this argument in chapter 2, number 7, at the said year 1123: shall have duly persevered. Meanwhile I note, he says, that these promises, and any like them, so raise the minds of our men to hope that they can bring them no presumption at all, no security; if to observers, as those who will receive the same from the firmer evangelical word; if to transgressors, as those already placed outside the Order, and so outside the hope of the promised reward. Hear Cæsarius thus speaking of this in homily 8 after the Epiphany: "Let not these words seduce us, brethren. If there were among us (which be far from us) thieves, owners of private property, conspirators, and such like, such are not of the Order; because the Order excommunicates such. But he who does not communicate is an alien." Thus Cæsarius. Which the Beginning says more clearly, or at least more easily, when it promises the reward of future glory not to all who remain in the Order, but if they live humbly and obediently. The promise therefore, being made to those who observe the holy rule and thus also the Gospel, is in no way favorable to transgressors. Thus he there. But before I pass hence to another matter, it will be of profit to have admonished my reader in passing that the predictions which are narrated of those dying in the Society of Jesus are altogether marvelous; as is given to be seen in the Posthumous Glory of St. Ignatius, its founder, in volume VII of July, at the XXXI day of that month, page 851 and following.

[111] A marvelous example is narrated concerning St. Bernard Behold for thee now, reader, what Manrique had premised at numbers 3 and 4 concerning sinners brought to penance by the holy Father through miracles. The example there concerning the brother whom he had suspended from receiving the sacred communion, and who, overcome by human respect, had received the Eucharist together with the others, but could not swallow the sacred host until the holy Father had absolved him repentant, William narrates in book 1 of the Life, chapter 6, number 57. Why should I record the other example, at once marvelous and difficult of understanding to Manrique, who at the number 4 already cited calls it a work not of virtue but of a gift, and of a most special interior motion, and one rather to be admired than imitated? I narrate the event on the credit of the Great Cistercian Beginning, in which it stands in these words: A certain monk of this holy Father, through the deceits of demons and through the simplicity of his own understanding, had come to such poverty of heart that he said that the bread and the wine mixed with water which are set forth on the altar could by no means be transubstantiated into the true body and blood of Christ. Wherefore he disdained to receive those same life-giving Sacraments, as being of no profit to him. At length, being noted by the brothers because he did not partake of the Sacraments of the altar, he is approached secretly by his elders.

[112] commanding an unbelieving man to approach the sacred communion. Being asked the cause, he does not deny it; he says that he by no means gives credence to the Sacraments. And when he would not acquiesce in them as they taught and admonished, nor believe the testimonies of the holy Scriptures brought forward into the midst, the matter was referred to the venerable Abbot. And when, being called, he had come, and the holy Abbot, according to the wisdom given him, was reckoning up his unbelief, he answered: I can be induced by no assertions to believe that the bread and wine which are set forth on the altar are the true body and blood of Christ; and therefore I know that I shall go down into hell. Hearing which, the Man of God, as he was always wont in straitened matters to show a marvelous authority, said: What? Shall my monk go down into hell? Far be it. If thou hast not faith, by the power of obedience I command thee: go, communicate in my faith. O pious Father! O truly wise physician of graces, teaching himself through the unction of grace concerning all things, how he ought to heal the temptations of the sick. He did not say: Flee, heretic; go, damned one; depart, lost one; but confidently said: Go, communicate in my faith — believing without doubt that his little one, whom the womb of sacred desire was bringing forth until Christ should be formed in him, was as far from being an alien from the bowels of his charity, so also from the foundation of his faith. Being constrained therefore by the power of obedience, the monk, altogether without faith as it seemed to him, approached the altar, communicated, and by the power of obedience and the merits of the holy Father was straightway enlightened and received the faith of the Sacraments: which also he kept undefiled until the day of his death. Thus in Tissier in the Great Beginning, distinction 2, chapter 6. But those things which at first sight may seem difficult of understanding in them, Tissier explains in the notes which are had at the end of the first volume of the Library of the Cistercian Fathers: The monk, he says, of whom the discourse is here, was vexed with scruple and involuntary uncertainty: otherwise the Saint would not have ordered him to communicate, nor would the monk have said that he knew he would go down into hell because he did not believe. We are deceived if the reader who shall have maturely weighed the whole matter with its circumstances will not acquiesce in these things.

. Read egrediebatur* (was going out).

*. That is, a seat in the choir of the church.

§ XI. The sudden conversion of certain knights; a barren vineyard made fruitful; other things which are current concerning this vineyard; the mutual friendship between the men of Clairvaux and the Carthusians; the Saint beneficent toward the Premonstratensians.

[Certain noble knights suddenly converted by ale blessed by the Saint: a vineyard at first barren,] About the same time — for the year is still uncertain, and there are those who defer it too much, but undeservedly — not a few nobles of the more distinguished men of France …, while they court military glory throughout the world, making perils and enemies for themselves, and seeking not vengeance but offense, increased the number of the brothers at Clairvaux, embracing the kind of life at which they shuddered; as Manrique writes at the said year 1125, chapter 3, number 1, from William: whom see below, book 1 of the Life, chapter 6, number 61, where that band of noble knights (as William calls them) is suddenly converted by a marvelous metamorphosis. But marvelous are the things which the aforesaid Manrique commemorates at the same year, chapter 4, numbers 1, 2, and 3, concerning the vineyard of Clairvaux; which, he says, we conjecture from the course of its history to have been planted about this time. Indeed at first barren, then fruitful; then both at once, it was always a portent of obedience. A certain brother named Christopher, set by the holy Father over outward affairs …, had planted it in his leisure hours, if there were any, Bernard being unaware: since to him, as we have said, many things were not reported, lest his mind should descend from divine to earthly things with less fruit. But Gerard and Guy, Bernard's brothers, judging wine to be too great a delicacy and therefore unbecoming to the austere life of monks, kept turning away from the work, denying the labor, and dissuading Christopher from what he had begun by whatever means they could. He on the contrary urged that the brothers laboring in the field could scarcely be sustained without wine, and that there were many sick and weak to whom it must be given even as medicine; then, if it should be necessary for no use, it could easily be sold, and from its price many other things be bought of which the house without doubt had need … And these reasons seemed to Guy sufficient, that he should not altogether condemn that work.

[114] But Gerard, with the zeal in which he was fervent …, turning to him (namely the planter of that vineyard) burst out into these words: but afterwards is sprinkled with water which the holy man had blessed, "Do thou, brother, plant and tend the vineyard; yet thou shalt never taste of it, which thou shalt always find unfruitful." A marvelous thing, and worthy to be in the mouth of all. The vineyard, planted and cultivated with industrious labor, in fertile soil and with favorable sun and air, nevertheless remained barren for many years; nor did the earth bring forth fruit from it before it received its planter, and had his dead body within it … But let us bring forward two other prodigies which followed in the same vineyard. The planter being dead, when even then it did not bear fruit, the monks went to Father Bernard — it is doubtful whether Gerard also was then dead — and humbly and faithfully declared that that vineyard was barren by the curse of that most holy man, and would always remain in that state unless it were blessed by him. Then the holy Father ordered water put into a basin to be brought to him, and, being blessed, to be sprinkled through the vineyard. The water being sprinkled, as though a dew sent from heaven, the plantation germinated, and, as it had been barren to brother Gerard of old, so from that time it obeyed Bernard richly, and compensated its slowness by abundance, so that neither should the first miracle have done harm, and the second should appear more glorious. These things from an anonymous Frenchman, book 7, chapter 7, whom Silva translated, an author equally ancient and worthy of credit.

[115] and becomes fruitful. That event is described with less ornament and with greater simplicity by John the hermit in the Life of St. Bernard in Mabillon, column [ ] and following, number 10; from which, as from a genuine source, I transcribe it hither: A certain monk named Christian planted a vineyard on the top of the mountain which is nearest to Clairvaux. And the brothers of the venerable Father came, namely Guy and Gerard, and cursed it, and said to him: Brother Christian, where is thy mind, and where thy heart? Why hast thou not considered the Scripture which says: For wine is not for monks? But he said: You brothers are spiritual, and will not drink wine: I am a sinner, and I wish to drink wine. Then Gerard said: I tell thee, brother Christian, thou shalt not see its fruit. After these words they returned to the monastery. But he dug his vineyard and cultivated it for a long time. At length he died, and did not see its fruit. But after much time the keeper of the vineyard came to holy Bernard and said to him: Father, our vineyard is under a curse, and cannot bear fruit. But he said: Why, son? He answered: Thy brothers cursed it, and thereafter it has borne no fruit. He said to him: Bring me water in a basin. And he brought it to him. Then the holy man made the sign of the cross and sanctified the water. Go, he said, son, and sprinkle it through the whole vineyard. The brother departed and did according to the Abbot's command; and the vineyard grew and was multiplied, so that those who saw it marveled. You see here a manner of narrating differing from the former, but in both nevertheless the same substance of the event.

[116] To a certain objection pertaining hither To that part of the last narrative — And the brothers of the venerable Father came, namely Guy and Gerard, and CURSED it — a scruple may be raised, and in fact it is objected in the notes here in Mabillon against that excommunication,

from column [ ], where these things are: And yet, when there was question of the translation of old Clairvaux, it was set forth to Bernard by the brothers that another place was spacious FOR VINEYARDS, etc., on the testimony of Arnald in book 2, number 29, above at column [ ]; which author likewise at number 48 hands down that the monastery of St. Anastasius at Tre Fontane was assigned to the Cistercians by Innocent WITH FIELDS AND VINEYARDS. Although among the Cistercians at that time the use of wine was rare. Read Geoffrey above, column [ ], number 2. But we shall try to remove this scruple for the reader.

[117] an answer is given. We answer therefore to Arnald's passage, first, by distinguishing the persons. For since the names of the brothers are not there expressed, why must Guy and Gerard necessarily be understood there; and why cannot two other brothers of St. Bernard be understood, namely Andrew and Nivard, who were then also living? For in Manrique at the year 1141, chapter 4, number 2, they are narrated to have been present with the holy Father at the sickness unto death of their sister Humbeline, Guy and Gerard being already dead. We answer, secondly, by distinguishing the times. For suppose that both these were then present and made mention of vineyards when the translation of old Clairvaux was in question, concerning which Manrique treats at the year 1135, chapter 3; if thence you go back to about the year 1123, to which the cursing of the vineyard was above fitted, you will count about 12 years between this and that translation; so that in the meantime, from the change of the time, they could most easily have changed their former will, even at the persuasion, consent, or command of the Saint himself, so that the Cistercian or Clairvaux family, which was marvelously increasing, might be sustained from the annual proceeds of the vineyards. For in whatever direction the holy Father went out, he sowed the seed of God's word upon all waters, and scarcely ever [] returned without the interest of spiritual gain, filling the cell of probation with a multitude of novices, whose number sometimes extended to a hundred: so that, when the novices filled the choir at the Hours of the divine Office, except a few elders who provided for discipline, the monks were compelled to stand outside; on which matter the same Annalist at the year 1135, chapter 3, number 2, from the author of the Great Beginning*; whose text I lately reported from the Tissier edition, distinction 2, chapter 12. From what has been said an easy answer is also plain to the objection drawn from the monastery of St. Anastasius; concerning which Manrique at the year 1140, chapter 8.

[118] But, that having digressed hence we may return to that prodigious vineyard, Certain other marvels are current concerning the said vineyard. there remain some other things which are current concerning it, on the testimony of Manrique at the year 1123, chapter 4, number 4, where he thus speaks: The elders of Clairvaux add moreover, by a tradition received from the fathers, that the same vineyard, after some years of fertility, the grapes being now swollen and almost ripe, was struck and beaten down by hail from heaven to such a degree that it scarcely retained two clusters which could be kept for the vintage. Moreover that one of these was given to a pregnant woman who longed for it, or asked as though she longed for it. But that from the other, pressed by Bernard's hands in a huge wooden vessel which remains today, the must grew in a short time to such an amount that, the vessel overflowing, it was poured out. So Villalpando in his Itinerary, who testifies that he saw there a wine-vessel of unwonted size in the year of Christ 1599, and that he approached old men who gave credit to the tradition, having been sent thither by the most reverend abbot of Fitero to survey the antiquities of that house. Thus that vineyard, never not marvelous, never not obedient, and no less illustrious by its barrenness than by its fruit, remains even to this day, after five hundred years and more, having obtained its name from the great extent of the place, or from the events. And these things have been said in part by anticipation, which in these light matters we judge more advisable. But let the credit of this so prodigious narrative rest with its authors.

[119] It is of profit in this place also not to neglect the singular bond of love Bernard with his family by which St. Bernard and his family were bound with the Carthusian ascetics, a mutual close friendship intervening. Certain things on this subject I find woven into this year 1123, in which we are engaged, chapter 3; certain others deferred to the next following. Let us say here the former. There therefore, at number 4 and following, the aforesaid author thus writes of this matter: The Carthusian monks, arisen in the world not long before Cîteaux (a great radiance of the Church), he so bound to himself that the Charterhouse was no less his than Clairvaux. A Carthusian, received by him in hospitality, and drinking in with his own eyes what fame had told before, being restored to his own, stirred up their minds, and made those long since affected and loving break forth into outward signs also. Therefore Guigo, Prior of the Grande Chartreuse, and his brothers, having learned the sanctity of the Father and of his sons, and the multitude of those assembling at Clairvaux, venerated the men … and, the flames of love bursting forth, they provoked the silent and congratulated them on their goods, letters being of their own accord written and sent, in which they saluted Bernard, though as yet unknown, with the most ardent affection.

[120] loves the Carthusians, and they him: There exists the holy man's letter in answer to them, a most brilliant witness of mutual love, sprinkled indeed with the marks of the most tender affection toward them and of the highest veneration, and it is the eleventh among the letters; but since it is long and can be read there, we do not transcribe it here. But it is attached to about the year 1125 in Mabillon's edition. There exists likewise a twelfth letter inscribed to them, and shorter than the former, in which he excuses himself that, being hindered by very many affairs, he had come to those parts and had not seen them. This is placed in the same edition without note of time; but in Manrique it is fitted to the year 1127, and is there brought forward at chapter 2, number 6. But concerning the journey which the holy Father at another time undertook to the Charterhouse, Geoffrey may be consulted in book 3 of the Life, chapter 1, number 155 of our edition. Concerning the man's affection toward other houses and ascetics of that institute, and also toward St. Hugh, bishop of Grenoble, the Cistercian Annalist may be consulted at the year 1123, chapter 3, numbers 8 and 9.

[121] deserves well of the Premonstratensians But how much the same most blessed Father favored the Premonstratensians, and promoted the propagation of that Order, the same writer proves from the benefits or services conferred by him upon it, which he heaps together under the year 1124, number 7. But to these add a certain place in the forest [] which is called Orta, given by Louis the Younger at the intervention of the lord Bernard of pious memory, abbot of Clairvaux, as the abbot of St. Marien of Auxerre acknowledges in letter 282 in Du Chesne, which is had among the writers of the History of the Franks, volume 4, page 666. But mention of St. Marien of Auxerre is made in the synopsis of the churches or monasteries of the Premonstratensian Order in Le Paige, in the Library* of that Order, part 1, book 2, page 326. But although above, in §9, treatment was made of the favors with which the holy Father followed the Premonstratensian Order, nevertheless the reckoning of time to which the aforesaid Manrique fixes this matter has induced me here briefly to refresh its memory.

. Read umquam* (ever).

*. That is, woodland.

§ XII. Apparitions of the dead; helps rendered to the same; a prophecy concerning a novice who would depart by stealth; the archbishop and people of Reims reconciled; evil manners reformed in the Gallican church.

Gaudry after his death appears to the Saint in glory; The Cistercian Annals again represent St. Bernard as illustrious with many and marvelous favors of heaven at the aforesaid year 1124, after their accustomed manner, and one worthy of the merits of the most blessed Father, whose course of life indeed was almost a continual heap of miracles. There therefore, at chapter 2, numbers 1 and 2, occurs the precious death of Gaudry at Clairvaux, who was by flesh the Saint's uncle, but in spirit his son and disciple. When the enemy of the human race tried to trouble his happy passage from this mortal life to the immortal, the Prince of the Apostles stands by the dying man, puts the evil demon to flight, and snatches Gaudry's soul from peril: who, appearing after his death to Bernard in glory, made the event known to him, on the testimony of William, the familiar of both, who describes this event in a faithful narrative, book 1 of the Life, chapter 5, number 52. For the rest, as Manrique proceeds in the same place at number 3, as to what concerns the previous or subsequent apparitions of his sons dying, absent or present, the same author (William) hands down that they were so frequent that they can scarcely be committed to writing. Let him be heard in the place cited, number 53: It would be long to narrate all the things which, concerning those who had departed from this life, and their felicity, or even their need, the divine grace was wont to reveal to him from the very beginning. What of this, that the marvelous man knew things present and absent, and the present world and the future, walking as it were over the threshold of both, with equal ease and without any difference, the divine Spirit inspiring him, and paternally provided for his sons both in life and in death? Consult William, book 1 of the Life, chapter 7, from number 69; and chapter 5, number 53.

[123] But in what manner the man, powerful with God, snatched those from the expiatory flames, if perchance they had carried anything from this life into the other of that human dust with which even the minds of the Saints are soiled, that he succored others who were being purged in the expiatory flames, the event proves which may be read in William, book 1 of the Life, chapter 5, number 53. But that this altogether singular grace was derived from the holy Father to his sons, who, being enlightened by the sight of apparitions of this kind, as they were aware of the pains, so also earnestly applied themselves to appeasing the divine justice, being made at once masters of their wishes and partakers of the deliverance procured by them for the souls being purged — this grace, I say, we draw from the writer of the Great Beginning, distinction 2, chapter 2: There died on a certain occasion a lay brother at Clairvaux. And when, the brothers running together, the Office of commendation was being performed after the custom, a certain elder monk, a man of great religion, heard crowds of demons marching in their centuries crying and saying with the outcry of a great din: Come now, well; come now, well: only from this evil valley have we gained one soul for the portion of our lot. But when the same elder in the quiet of the night had given his limbs to sleep, the dead brother appeared to him in a vision, saying to him with sad and mournful countenance: Since thou didst hear yesterday the demons exulting over my punishments, come and see with what a terrible torment, by the just judgment of almighty God, I have been delivered over. And he led him to a certain pit of great width and dreadful depth, and said to him: Behold, into this pit I am frequently cast by the demons, whose cruelty is so great that, if a choice were given me, I had rather be plunged in here a hundred times by men than once by demons.

[124] But when morning came, while the things which he had heard

and seen the aforesaid elder had reported to the blessed Father Bernard, is proved although he too had known them by the spirit, he groaned and said: I know that, unless there were a grave cause, the demons would never have presumed such a daring. And so, entering the Chapter of the brothers, he sets forth before all the calamity of the dead brother: then, addressing the consciences of each with a salutary exhortation, he admonished them to walk more warily in the way of holy religion, affirming that the malice of the demons is great against all Christians, but then chiefly against professors of the monastic religion. After these things, admonishing them more attentively to succor the soul of the brother set in punishments, he exhorted them to appease the wrath of the Lord with psalms and prayers and with the celebrations of Masses: if perchance the merciful father, being moved by their prayers, might deign, through the immolation of the singular Host, to war down the tyrannical pride of the demons, and to free the brother's soul from their wickedness.

[125] by an example. Which when the brothers did most devoutly, a few days having passed, the same dead brother appeared again to the aforesaid elder, signifying by the cheerfulness of his countenance that his state was bettered. But when the old man asked how he fared, he answered: Thanks be to God; well. Being again asked how he had been freed, he said: Come and see. And straightway he brought him into the oratory of that place, where at each of the altars priests with their ministers were standing, celebrating with the utmost devotion the immolation of the saving Host. Behold, he said, these are the arms of God's grace by which I have been snatched away: this is the power of God's mercy, which remains unconquerable: this is that singular Host which takes away the sins of the whole world; and truly I tell thee that to these arms of God's grace, to this power of God's mercy, to this saving Host, there is nothing which can resist, save an impenitent heart. But the old man, awaking, rejoiced exceedingly at the deliverance of the brother's soul: and, setting forth the manner of the same vision to the other brothers, he rendered them so much the more devout toward the immolation of the saving Host, as he had more certainly deserved to experience its efficacy in the brother's deliverance. But the author of the Cistercian Annals casts that history into the year of Christ 1124 on the occasion of the said apparition of Gaudry, which, as they avail to deter sinners from vices, so they avail to console the penitent, for whom God has provided such remedies. Therefore, because they are useful, because plainly singular, because concerning the same matter of apparitions, though the year is still unknown, let the reader take them in good part; as he warns in the same place, chapter 2, at the end.

[126] A prophecy is narrated concerning a certain novice, The same writer, returning hence to the year 1124, chapter 3, numbers 7 and 8, commemorates the holy Father's prophecy concerning a novice who would depart by stealth, which he weaves in a manner at once horrible and marvelous from the Beginning, already most often cited. This tragic history is thus narrated in Tissier, distinction 3, chapter 20: A certain old man, Achard by name, noble by race, but nobler by the dignity of his manner of life, had the care of the novices at Clairvaux: a man powerful in the word of edification and consolation; who also in the vigor of his youth, at the command and sending of the blessed abbot Bernard, had been the devout founder and builder of very many monasteries. He, now a veteran and an old man of service completed, being appointed to instruct the recruits, vigorously fulfilled his office: and from those things which he had learned by long practice he formed minds still untrained by daily exhortations against the threefold cord of the flesh, the world, and the devil, which is hardly broken: by examples also, both old and more recent, he rendered them more wary against vices: whence we too shall touch upon some, as we have heard them from his own mouth. When the same Achard was still a novice, the venerable abbot Bernard on a certain day came in to console his novices, as he was frequently wont to do. But the discourse being ended, he drew the aforesaid Achard aside with two other novices, and forewarned them, thus speaking in a prophetic spirit: It shall come to pass, he said — and he designated one by name — that that novice shall before tomorrow withdraw by stealth. Do you therefore watch, and be ready, and do not suffer him fleeing to escape with his plunder. And if the wretched man goes out from us, because he was not of us, yet the spoils, because they are ours, you shall keep for yourselves. Hearing which, they marveled, and in silence awaited the outcome of the matter. But in the depth of the night, when two of them beheld the fugitive sleeping soundly in his bed, then they too began to sleep: for their eyes were heavy, the spirit of error mocking them. Nevertheless Achard, because he most certainly believed that the word uttered by the holy Father could not be made void, repelled with manly constancy the spirit of drowsiness which was most troublesome to him. For now rubbing his forehead, now his temples, now plucking the hairs of his head and beard, now washing his hands and face, now rousing himself by walking from place to place, he at last overcame the sleep of deceit by which he was pressed.

[127] And when it was near that the signal for vigils should be rung, about to depart from the Order by stealth, and most wretchedly punished. behold, two as it were gigantic Ethiopians, clad in blackest capes, visibly enter through the door of the house. And he who went before carried a roasted hen on a spit. [] Moreover on that same spit a huge serpent was fixed through head and tail, which girded that same hen on this side and that. With such a dish therefore they approach the bed of the false novice, and apply the smoking hen to the nostrils and hands of the sleeper. Which being straightway awakened, the demons go out, and by this horrible visible sign they showed what they were invisibly working within in his heart. And when that wretched man had awakened — not like Jacob from the sleep of contemplation, but like a vile apostate from the sleep of deception — he straightway rose, and, laden with garments, went out after the demons; and coming to the door of the book-cupboard which was in the cloister, he strove with his devices to break the lock and to take the books with him. But the aforesaid Achard most swiftly rouses his companions, and by signs and nods makes known the apostate's foretold flight. And so, following him together as he withdrew, they find him shaking the bolt of the door. Whom when he perceived, that malignant man straightway leaps away with bounds, and, rushing in headlong course through the doors of the orchard, is at last held back by the enclosures of the walls and brought back. But when day came, since, impenitent of his evils, he would not repent, because he had already been given over to a reprobate sense, he was at last dismissed to go to his own place. But on the same day, being seized by the devil, he fell into madness, and did not cease to rave until death.*

[128] [The holy man, a notable miracle being wrought, makes peace between the archbishop of Reims and the people:] To this terrible example of a false novice most wretchedly chastised we subjoin a more joyful one, and altogether notable for the Saint's glory, which the writer of the Cistercian Annals, Manrique, thus sets forth at the same year 1124, chapter 4, number 1: About the same time, the archbishop of Reims being at variance with the people, and neither being content to yield to the other, when many others had sought to procure peace, Bernard alone was seen in France who could consummate so great a work: since, being powerful at once in word and in work, while he confirmed by signs what he said, men were confounded not to obey him whom even irrational creatures, whom even the demons themselves obeyed. A man blind, deaf, and dumb, being restored to his senses and at the same time freed from a demon, bore the palm of obedience before both parties. This illustrious miracle is had in William, book 1 of the Life, chapter 7, number 73; where I read indeed that it happened at that time when it came about … that the Man of God was present to reconcile them, namely the archbishop and the people of Reims; likewise when in the palace of that same city … peace was being treated of; but that peace then followed from that miracle of Bernard, which is indicated to have happened in that same place, the house being filled with a great throng of Clergy and people, … in the presence of all, I do not read in the said chapter; yet it seems that it can either not imprudently be supposed, or be believed, that the aforesaid biographer left this implicitly to be understood, when he had premised that it came about … that the Man of God was present to reconcile them; for that a Man of God endowed with so many and so great gifts of grace and of nature, and with the highest authority among men, and with a marvelous faculty of bending their minds, was present to procure concord — what does it seem to be but that concord was then truly procured by him, especially since the miracle of which I spoke was wrought at that time? It is also credible that many others sought to procure that peace, but with fruitless effort, as Manrique reported; William nevertheless in the place cited does not have this.

[129] To the said year also the same Cistercian historian refers the labor and fruit of St. Bernard Of ecclesiastical prelates in France and of the other Cistercians in reforming the Gallican church. When the ecclesiastical Prelates, he says at number 3, throughout France somewhat loosened the reins of modesty, and by a secular and somewhat profane manner of life rendered the apostolic life less faithfully, Stephen and Hugh and Bernard and John, with the other chosen Fathers of Cîteaux, began to labor by word and example that … they might be brought back to a more fruitful rule of living … Moreover how much they profited by their labor, the bishops of the metropolitan province of Sens, and the metropolitan of Sens himself, nay and Suger, abbot of St. Denis, and all his Convent, stand as witnesses. The most eminent Baronius at the year of Christ 1127 thus speaks of this matter at number 13 of the edition of the year 1629: For the bishops of the province of Sens had profited by the example of the Cistercian monks and by the words and letters of holy Bernard, but chiefly he whom we have mentioned, the bishop of Paris, and Suger, the Parisian abbot of St. Denis, who had tightly bound with the clasp of regular observance that monastery, utterly loosed from monastic discipline; on which account holy Bernard, rejoicing with him, sent him a congratulatory letter, which is the seventy-eighth, reprinted in Mabillon, column 77 and following, where the same is attached also to the year of Christ 1127. That reckoning of time therefore does not agree with Manrique's. But at the beginning of the letter cited, Exiit sermo, these things are noted: Namely concerning his (that is, Suger's) conversion, doubtless conceived at Bernard's admonitions, about the year 1127: although the reformation of the monastery of St. Denis by Suger is perhaps reported by anticipation in the year 1123 in the Chronicle of Nangis.

[130] But concerning the metropolitan of Sens Baronius subjoins these things at the year designated a little before: he reforms evil manners. But that Henry also, the metropolitan archbishop of Sens himself, being likewise admonished by the letters of holy Bernard, and those indeed rather prolix, being converted to better fruit, diligently fulfilled those things which are the duties of a most excellent pastor, for the same cause incurred the indignation of the same prince (namely Louis, king of the Gauls), and that not moderate, but plainly such that on its account the same St. Bernard with the other abbots had again to write to the same Pope Honorius and to the Cardinal Chancellor, and plainly to exclaim that the bishops were suffering persecution for a life most excellently ordered, etc. But what that reformation was, so displeasing to the Most Christian king, may be seen in the same place. Of the bishop of Paris, of whom mention fell above, we shall treat with the Cistercian Historian at the year of Christ 1127,

meanwhile proceeding with him to the year of Christ 1125 and the next following.

*. That is, a spit.

§ XIII. Grain multiplied; a demon put to flight; a woman recalled to life; rain driven away; the Saint's former health restored by the patronage of the Mother of God; the refutation of the error concerning the near coming of Antichrist; correspondence with the Roman court.

In a time of famine the granaries of Clairvaux are multiplied by a miracle: The year of Christ 1125 in the Cistercian historian, chapter 3, number 1, opens a public theater with an illustrious miracle of the first rank. Famine, he says, was growing heavy throughout all France and both Burgundies; nor did the grain brought thither from Flanders, however great, suffice to feed the peoples: when, human helps failing, Bernard's charity and the divine power multiplied the granaries of Clairvaux, otherwise slender. But since that prodigy is described by William in book 1 of the Life, chapter 5, toward the end, it is superfluous to narrate it in this place. Nor indeed could the Saint's fatherly mercy toward the needy be shut up within the domestic walls of the monastery of Clairvaux, but it spread itself elsewhere also; as is plain from the letter to the Duchess of Burgundy, which is the hundred and twenty-first, and is had in the Mabillonian edition, column 127, and which the merciful Father of the poor thus concludes: Behold now the acceptable time, behold now the day of salvation: bestow your grain on the poor of Christ, that you may receive it back for ever with interest. This letter, printed in the same place without note of year, Manrique attaches to the aforesaid year 1125.

[132] a demon is put to flight from a man: In the same place, at number 3, he subjoins another miracle, and assigns the reason why he records it at the said year. But because it can be read in William, just assigned, it is enough to exhibit here the substance of the matter from Manrique. He has thus: A wife's fraud had assailed a man with poisons …, and she whose adultery had stained his bed, because she had once injured him, pursued him with implacable hatred. A demon tormented the man implacably. But the Man of God extinguished the sorceries by prayers, and put the demon to flight by the presence of the body of Christ, quicker than the word. Because William narrates that this happened about the time of the famine, and so in this year, the same Cistercian historian signifies that he then recites it from him. But two prodigies wrought by the holy man on the occasion of the famine he defers to the next year, 1126. But we shall here annex them to those just narrated, from John the hermit in Mabillon, column [ ], number 6: A famine arose in the parts of Burgundy so violent that men almost consumed their own limbs. And, the same necessity pressing, a very great multitude of the poor came to the gate of Clairvaux. Whence the holy Abbot and his brothers took counsel concerning so great a multitude, and by deliberation they received two thousand under a token, so that alms might be given to others also, but less. For they had not the substance from which all could be sustained until the harvest: which nevertheless the merciful Lord so multiplied that it sufficed them after the harvest, namely for the space of three months.

[133] [a woman who used deceit in obtaining alms dies; but is recalled to life by the Saint; who also suddenly drives away rain.] And so two boys received a token, their mother not receiving one. Who, being wholly at a loss what to do, thought at last to make as it were a child wrapped in swaddling clothes out of moss, that by this device she might redeem herself from the peril of the impending famine; which also she did. And so she received alms for some while in this manner, until at length the deceit was detected. Which being reduced, since what she received did not suffice her, afterwards, being in peril as much from the distress of famine as from disease, she was taken away from the midst. She being dead, the holy Abbot, passing by, heard the boys wailing for their mother's death, and ordered each of those journeying with him to inquire the cause of the lamentation. And the boys set forth the order of the matter. Which being heard, the blessed man, going to the place in which the body lay, prostrated himself in prayer. As he prayed, the woman, as though awakened from sleep, in the sight and hearing of all who stood present, was restored to life, giving thanks to God and to his Saint, by whose merits and prayers she had returned to life, foretelling also how great torments she had endured for her fault. Behold for thee another miracle, wrought on occasion and for the sake of the needy, which follows in the same place at number 7: On a certain day alms were being distributed to the poor on the side of the mountain, rain coming on; where the Saint of God, being present by chance, with hand raised set the sign of the cross against it. Which being done, the rain was seen to suffer on the right and on the left an unlooked-for division of itself, so that not even a drop touched them.

[134] [The holy Abbot is healed and is visited by the Mother of God and by SS. Lawrence and Benedict.] Let us return with Manrique to the year of Christ 1125, for a while interrupted by us: where in chapter 3, numbers 4 and 5, there is discourse of the Saint's infirm health, of visions, and of his former health obtained through the visitation and most merciful touch of the Virgin Mother of God and of SS. Lawrence and Benedict. The event abbot William reports in book 1, chapter 6, number 63, a witness beyond all exception. Of the aforesaid infirmity the holy Doctor makes mention in letter 37 to Theobald, count of Champagne (on which matter see the notes on that letter in Mabillon), when he writes to him in these words: That I have heard you were solicitous about our infirmity, I take not moderately kindly. For in this, while I acknowledge your regard toward me, etc. That letter in the aforesaid Mabillon is attached to the year of Christ 1128: whence it seems to follow that, if this notation of time stands, the blessed man's adverse health of which I spoke must be deferred somewhat later, and removed to about the year 1127. Yet what Manrique conjectures in the place cited at number 8 concerning the time of that infirmity may be consulted.

[135] The same author, having gone on to the year 1126, chapter 3, What he did that the opinion number 1, writes concerning the error by which it was believed at that time that the coming of Antichrist was not far off, the holy Abbot opposing himself to it. Meanwhile, he says, a rumor spread among the faithful concerning the coming of Antichrist as now imminent occupied the minds of the credulous common people: and, what thou mayest marvel at, on authorities not doubtful nor common, but most weighty and most holy, and among others Norbert, asserting the thing as though received from heaven. But the oracle being compared and discussed with father Bernard, he tempered his opinion. Whence also the rumor was scattered by Bernard's work. Hither pertain the things which are reported in letter 56 of the same holy Father to Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres: But when I inquired what he (Norbert) thought concerning Antichrist, he protested that he most certainly knew that he would be revealed while this present generation still lasts. But when he wished to explain to me, asking whence he had that certainty, upon hearing what he answered I thought that I ought not to believe it for certain. Yet in sum he asserted this, that he would not see death unless he first saw a general persecution in the Church. But concerning the rumor spread at that time about the said coming of Antichrist, Baronius narrates these things at the year 1106, number 27 of the edition of the year 1629: As to what pertains to Antichrist, there was indeed an opinion of men not common that Antichrist would be revealed in this century, and among others of Norbert, a man most celebrated by the fame of this time; concerning whom St. Bernard says these things to Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres: from which those things which make to our purpose we have just given. And the aforesaid Baronius says in the same place: These things holy Bernard concerning the oracle: which it is usual to fall back upon, that since holy men often foreknew that great persecutions of the Church would come, they thought from the very greatness of the events that the times of Antichrist were at hand.

[136] The author of the Cistercian Annals, at number 2, thus determines concerning St. Norbert's oracle concerning the near coming of Antichrist he might weaken; pronounced about that persecution: But although Baronius has not expressed what great persecution of the Church was made known to St. Norbert by revelation, it is easy to conjecture that it was that which under Innocent II the Church suffered from Pietro Leone, [] a most obstinate antipope, begun about the year of salvation 1130, and so four years before St. Norbert's death, and continued for nearly ten years … Thus the events themselves have proved both Father Bernard's doctrine solid and Norbert's prophecy not false, and each of them divinely instructed. And that there were not lacking those who, taking occasion from this rumor, affected the name of Christ, nay even of Antichrist, the things prove which the same author of the Cistercian Annals produces at number 3; where also he observes that doubtless more would have sprung up, had not Bernard more firmly withstood them, opposing himself to the rumor which had prevailed*. But since we have fallen upon that then widespread and likewise most harmful discourse concerning the near coming of Antichrist, we seem likely not to act beside the purpose if, for the pleasure of the learned and curious reader, we subjoin here the following observations, because they are exceedingly fitted to the present subject, although long since published in print.

[137] on which occasion In the edition of the Works of St. Bernard, made public under Mabillon's care, in volume 1, column XIII and following, there exist the fuller notes on the said Works both of that most learned Mabillon and of Horst, most celebrated for the Saint's Works published by him: but at column XXIII in Mabillon, just cited, on occasion of the holy Doctor's fifty-sixth letter, given to Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres, various things are observed, prolixly indeed but learnedly, from the aforesaid Horst: Not to Norbert alone, but to many of the more ancient Fathers (to say nothing of the more recent) it was from time to time persuaded that Antichrist and the last day of the world were at the doors; as may be seen in Jerome, Pope Leo, Gregory the Great, and St. Augustine himself. Namely from the iniquity of the times, and from the signs foretold by Christ as about to precede the end of the world, most of which even then appeared, they seemed to themselves to gather this not vainly. And to take the matter up a little higher, from the very times of the Apostles there have always been various judgments, conjectures, opinions, and prophecies of many concerning Antichrist and the end of the world. Very many philosophers and astronomers, and several impostors also, mountebanks and pedlars of trifles; likewise certain fanatical heretics, wished here to be seers and to seem wise beyond the rest of mortals: but of these most prophecies the event has now eluded, and has convicted those seers of vanity and falsehood. The rest doubtless, which still regard a future time, the following age will likewise elude; so that it may be plain how truly it was said: "It is not for you to know the times or the moments." Likewise: "But of that day no one knows." It will not be unpleasing to the reader if out of very many we report the examples of a few. But lest the narration of them draw us further than is fitting from the present undertaking, we send the reader thither.

[138] These things (so Horst proceeds at column XXIV) various things on the same subject are here noted. on occasion of the said prophecy concerning Antichrist to commemorate

it has seemed good, yet not in disparagement of Norbert, a most holy man, whom elsewhere Bernard calls a HEAVENLY PIPE. For not he alone, but many of the holy Fathers also thought or foreboded that the end of the world was not far off in their own time; whose catalogue is woven together in the same place. But observe that holy men spoke of the end of the world on a far different ground than those whom we mentioned above (the astronomers). For those spread abroad such fictions either from the observation of the stars and planets (which in other predictions generally, but in this one especially, is too fallacious), or from certain sentences of Scripture wrested to a false sense, or from mere lust of lying and deceiving, or from a zeal for popular breath and veneration. But holy men, from horror at the crimes and evils which everywhere flooded the whole world, thought that the world could scarcely stand longer, and that nothing else remained but that presently, the mass of crimes and iniquities driving it, it should fall apart, the wrath of God, namely, forestalling the term appointed for the world. Let this suffice to have taken from Horst concerning the coming of Antichrist: whoever shall wish more on the same, let him consult him. We therefore, this digression being left, let us proceed to weave on with the Cistercian historian the thread of St. Bernard's affairs, interrupted for a while.

[139] The holy Man, he says at number 4, The holy Father a fame daily more celebrated, and the favors of the princes both of heaven and of the forum, everywhere exposed to the peoples as one through whom they would obtain whatever favors they desired. And he who hitherto was known only to the French, from that time becoming known to the Roman Curia, was taken as a timely mediator with the Pontiff and with the Cardinals, to intercede for churches and for persons. The matter is proved from various letters of the Saint as from so many witnesses of his highest authority with the highest men. There exists his 13th letter to Pope Honorius, by which he asks that the election of Alberic to the bishopric of Châlons be ratified. But concerning that Alberic the notes in Mabillon, volume one, column 33, may be consulted; where the said letter is fixed to the year of Christ in which we too are now engaged, 1126, contrary to what Baronius judged: concerning which Manrique thus writes at number 6: Cardinal Baronius refers Bernard's letter, of which above, to the year one thousand one hundred and twenty-nine, as also others which we shall presently adduce; but undeservedly: since this, from the suppressed name of Bernard, nay from the very context, is proved to be the first written to Honorius; to whom he then either thought himself unknown, or at least did not hold himself known, whence he might presume. And yet there exist letters of the same to the same given before that year, which Baronius himself had before transcribed, and which we shall render more fully in their own times. But whether the holy man was made master of his wish for Alberic set forth in this letter, see in the same Manrique at number 5; who at number 7 treats of another given to the aforesaid Honorius, which is the fourteenth, premising to a copy of it these things:

[140] Not long after, the church of St. Benignus of Dijon, gracious in the Roman court. illustrious to all by antiquity and religion, but still more illustrious and dear to Bernard, commended by the remains of his mother Aleth (add also of his father, from the note in Mabillon on this letter), a suit being pending with the monks of Lisieux, implored that same Saint's favor. These are the second letters to Honorius, with a pen still timid and not running freely, but now expressing the author's name as of one known. For the rest, in what place the holy Abbot was held among the Cardinals of the Roman Curia is concluded from the letters which were written by him to them, namely the fifteenth to Haimeric, Chancellor of the Apostolic See; the sixteenth, to his most dear lord Peter, Cardinal priest. To which may be added letter 17 and those following. Why say more? Let these things therefore be said for the sake of a specimen, since both from the man's letters and from elsewhere it is established more than sufficiently that he was by far most esteemed among the highest and the lowest. But how strong and intrepid he showed himself against the powerful of this world, when the equity of a cause required it, the things which we are now to say give proof.

. Nay rather, Leonis*.

§ XIV. Actions on behalf of Stephen, bishop of Paris, against Louis the Fat; the prophecy concerning the death of his son fulfilled; the holy Abbot's labors refreshed by heavenly favors; whether St. Felix of Valois was brought to him, or was educated under him.

To Louis the Fat, vexing Stephen bishop of Paris, St. Bernard writes The Cistercian chronologist at the year of Christ 1127, which we now enter with him, in chapter 1 records the family, power, and manners of Stephen, bishop of Paris; Bernard's letters to him, and their fruit; likewise the violent harassment inflicted on the same Stephen by Louis, king of the Franks; the favor of the Cistercian Chapter besought besides, and legates sent by Stephen together with letters by which the raging indignation of the king might be checked. Then the aforesaid chronologist in chapter 2, pursuing the same subject, treats of the same king Louis's wrath restrained through the legates of Cîteaux and by fear of the interdict with which he was bound: but, the interdict being lifted by Pope Honorius, presently, the reins being loosed, it broke out afresh. These things it has seemed good to indicate in passing, because they pave the way to what we shall narrate concerning the Saint's threats and prophecy against the king. But that compendious synopsis which we have given may be compared with the fuller account which is set forth in the said chronologist, and with the observations of Mabillon which are had in the fuller notes on the letter inscribed to king Louis (understand the Fat), which is placed among the Bernardine letters as the forty-fifth. There may also be inspected what Pagi has in his Historico-chronological Critique at the year of Christ 1127, numbers 13 and 14.

[142] and St. Bernard threatens the death of his son, which also followed: Amid these things, what did the magnanimous and intrepid champion of justice, Bernard? Nothing at all, as the Cistercian Annals report in chapter 2, number 3, did the holy men omit which they did not attempt … Nay, that Bernard added severe threats, and that heavenly vengeance, unless he should repent, would shortly be at hand, Paul Æmilius in his Louis, and others have handed down. "The bishops," he says, "beseeching him, he (namely Louis) repelled from his knees; upon which impenitence abbot Bernard is reported to have declared that the avenging wrath of heaven was pressing." Gaguin adds, an author of no small credit, that the same Saint expressed the kind of punishment, and opportunely foretold to the raging father the untimely death of his first-born. "This thy obstinacy, O king," he says in book 6 of the History of the Franks, "shall be punished by thy son's death." Moreover the truth of that prediction is established from those things which have been inserted from elsewhere into the text of the biographer Geoffrey, book 4 of the Life, among us at chapter 1 at the end, where these things are: Whereupon (namely by the obstinate rebuff of king Louis) the Man of God, moved with religious spirit, on the next day rebuking the king more harshly because he had despised the priests of the Lord, freely also declared what had been revealed to him that same night. "This obstinacy," he said, "shall be punished by the death of thy first-born, king Philip. For I saw thee with thy younger son Louis bowed at the feet of the bishops whom yesterday thou hadst despised, and straightway I understood that, Philip being swiftly taken from the midst, thou wouldst entreat for Louis's substitution the Church which thou art now oppressing." Which indeed not long after (namely in the year of Christ 1131) a pitiable accident fulfilled. For, as at the year just mentioned, number 12, Pagi reports from Ordericus and the pseudo-Robert de Monte, the boy Philip, lately anointed king, while he was riding on horseback in the city of Paris, a pig chancing to thrust itself under the horse's feet, threw the horse headlong upon him, and by his sudden and pitiable death brought mourning upon the French, on the third of the Ides of October.

[143] But was king Louis moved to true repentance by so serious and mournful a declaration of Bernard? but when he profited nothing, he sends letters to Pope Honorius. By no means; perhaps not reckoning that a crime would be avenged by God which the supreme Pontiff had left unpunished. The event Mabillon thus briefly sets forth in the notes which I cited a little before, column XXI, having spoken of the Saint's prophecy and its outcome: The prince, being somewhat moved from his purpose by so great freedom of speech, on the letters of Pope Honorius by which the interdict was loosed, taking heart again, pursued more ardently what he had ill begun. Which Bernard bearing impatiently, in his own name and in that of Geoffrey of Chartres sent letters to Honorius full of just complaint (see Bernard's letters 46 and 47). But at length, as he proceeds at column XXII, a dissension so obstinate and so violent seems to have received its end in the council of Troyes in the year 1128, or certainly not much after, by the authority of Honorius himself: for which matter Bernard rendered thanks, writing to him again, letter 49: "For hence," he says, "the constancy of the bishop of Paris has been assailed with grievous insults and injuries, but not shattered: because the Lord put his hand beneath it, when he set yours against them." But as to what concerns that Stephen, Mabillon subjoins the following concerning him: Moreover that this Stephen of Paris, formerly chancellor, is distinct from Stephen de Garlande the steward, of whom in the Annals of Teulf, Du Chesne expressly proves in his notes on Abelard: nor is it obscurely understood from a certain letter of Geoffrey of Chartres, volume 3 of the Spicilegium (of d'Achery), page 160, in which he writes that holy Bernard was chosen to compose the peace with Stephen of Paris and Stephen de Garlande. As to what further concerns Louis, whom holy Bernard, writing to Honorius in letter 49, calls another Herod (which phrase is softened in Mabillon in the shorter note on that letter, column 57), it is certainly worthy of remembrance with how great religion and penitence he ended his last day, namely in the year 1137; as in the observations on letter 45 among the fuller notes cited it is permitted to see at greater length at column XXII.

[144] But in what manner heavenly consolation received those great troubles, borne by St. Bernard with an altogether manly and unconquered breast, His labors why should I record? Let the Cistercian Annals be heard, chapter 3, number 1: Bernard therefore, restored to Clairvaux and to his sons, and enjoying his longed-for quiet with an affection the more intense the more slowly and rarely it came, and never again, if he could, to be forsaken, experienced a twofold fruit of it among many others, being strengthened by a twofold vision from God, both angelic, and both commending in a special manner the monastic garland, the choir, and the chant. In the one, heavenly spirits writing down the prayers of those singing psalms in choir — doubtless to be presented to the divine Majesty; in the other, rousing them to the same, and busying themselves for the devotion of those singing psalms: both to the glory and solace of all monks, nay of all Ecclesiastics. Hear the events from the author of the Great Cistercian Beginning in Tissier, distinction 2, chapter 3: The holy Father was once present at the nocturnal vigils with that purity and devotion with which he was wont, known to God alone and to himself. And when the lingering modulation of the psalmody was prolonging the vigils, the Lord opened his eyes (namely those of the holy Father), and behold, looking he saw single angels standing beside single monks, and what each of them was singing, on tablets,

after the manner of notaries, they took down so diligently that they omitted not the least syllable, however negligently uttered.

[145] by heavenly sights But they wrote in different ways: for some of them wrote with gold; others with silver; some with ink; some also with water; but some wrote nothing at all. And the Spirit who revealed these things breathed also into his heart the understanding of the diversity of the writing. For those who wrote with gold signified the most fervent zeal in the Lord's service, and the entire intention of the heart in the things which were being sung. But those who wrote with silver declared a lesser fervor indeed, yet a pure devotion in those singing. But those who wrote with ink noted the continual practice of good will in some in the psalmody, though not with much devotion. But those who wrote with water expressed those who, oppressed with drowsiness or sloth, or drawn away by vain thoughts, seem indeed to utter something, but their heart, drawn far away, in no way accords with the voice. And, O marvelous clemency of God! For as no evil is unpunished, so no good, however small, however negligently done, shall be unrewarded.

[146] is refreshed. For the rest, those who wrote nothing rebuked the lamentable hardness of heart of certain men who, forgetful of their profession and unmindful of the fear of God, either plunge themselves with willing purpose into deadly sleep, or certainly, waking, with closed mouth are occupied with vain and harmful thoughts, not from weakness but from voluntary intention, and do not fear to appear empty in the sight of the Lord against the precept of the law. The holy Father therefore, who saw these things, remembering that saying, "Since all are ministering spirits, sent to minister for them who receive the inheritance of salvation," as he congratulated the fervor of those who advanced, so with a father's affection of piety he pitied the lukewarmness of those who failed. In the same place, chapter 4, another vision of the blessed man is set down, written in these words: Solemn vigils were once being celebrated, and the man of the Lord was present with the other brothers: and when the hymn Te Deum laudamus was being sung, he saw the holy angels shining with much brightness, and devout also with a marvelous cheerfulness of countenance: who, running through both choirs, roused now this one, now that; were present to those singing, and stood by as though congratulating them, and busied themselves in all ways that that divine hymn might be sung through with devotion. The holy Man therefore understood that that hymn was truly divine, and familiar to the holy angels, whom he saw giving their effort with such insistence that it might be sung by the brothers to the honor of God with fervor of devotion. Then, on occasion of that hymn, these things follow:

[147] are refreshed, To a certain spiritual brother also it was granted to see, while that same hymn was being begun, that from the mouth of him who began it a flame of great splendor burst forth and mounted upward. Manrique in chapter 3, number 4, says to the present purpose: Two things I find noted by the abbot of Fitero, which the reader may easily persuade himself. The one is that the rousing by the angels is to be understood not materially from sleep, but spiritually to devotion of mind, so that, if any were lukewarm, they should come forth fervent; and the fervent be made more fervent. The other, that he who began the hymn Te Deum laudamus, from whose mouth a fiery flame bursting forth and flying upward is said to have been seen by that devout brother, was none other than Father Bernard, upon whom by the enjoined office of abbot it lay to begin that hymn. Which, received in use from the beginning of Cîteaux, we see observed even today. The same historian at number 10 reports a certain particular fact concerning St. Bernard, which, as he himself recites it from another author, so I transcribe it hither:

[148] In the History of Segovia, he says, lately published, concerning the origin and progress of that most holy family It is inquired whether Felix of Valois was offered by his mother to the Saint which God provided under the invocation of the sacred Triad for redeeming captive believers, I read it noted that one of its first founders, Hugh of Valois (nephew of Count Theobald by his sister), who was afterwards called Felix of Valois, and who together with blessed John, called de Matha, laid the happy foundations of that notable work — I read, I say, that this Saint was born in this year, and after baptism was carried by his mother and brought to Clairvaux, to be offered there by Bernard to almighty God, and to receive the holy Father's blessing: which, being handed down by the author of that History, book 1, chapter 5, it has not pleased me to omit: although I do not yet know whence he drew it, nor am I ignorant that in the other things which he mixes in he strays somewhat from the truth. Certainly in the matter of time there is no contradiction, and to Hugh or Felix, if he was in truth Theobald's nephew, there is none other nearer than father Bernard, whom he would seek as intercessor with God from his very cradle. But also to Bernard it is no small glory to have had so great a nursling or client, one who would illustrate the world and that age by miracles and merits, and would fill the following ages with a glorious offspring.

[149] This matter, as you see, so far as concerns this Saint offered to God by our Saint at Clairvaux, in the monastery of Clairvaux: Manrique reports somewhat timidly from another; and not undeservedly. For what of it? The origin and education of St. Felix of Valois do not seem thus far to have been sufficiently solidly ascertained: the writer of the event which we have reported is too recent, and not of sufficiently approved authority to be able by himself alone to produce credit — whose very name Manrique does not express; nor does he bring forward ancient monuments by which the present fact may be confirmed. Wherefore let it be permitted us to desire a proof of better note before we assent to it. Yet lest too hastily, the matter being not yet sufficiently ripe, we determine anything, we defer it to the XX day of November, on which St. Felix of Valois will have to be treated of, some little light perhaps then arising for our successors for disproving or confirming the present fact. Let the same be said as to those things which are had in the Life of the same Saint, by the Reverend Father Master Friar Francisco de San Agustín Macedo, a Portuguese Minorite, published at Rome in the Latin tongue in the year 1660, in which, in chapter 2, in florid words indeed but with no author cited, the present subject is described in these words: When Felix was born, Eleanor gave him milk; but she took care to season it with honey. Therefore she went to Clairvaux and sought Bernard, whom she knew to be a heavenly honeycomb. He instilled honey into the infant by his words, nor did he refrain from an embrace, because Bernard believed that he had fallen upon lilies and roses. She offered before the altar to God her flowering pledge as a little bundle. He believed Bernard a bee, who saw the boy carrying him in his arms.

[150] and likewise whether he lived there under his discipline. There are those who say more, as I understand from a modern author who published the Lives of the Saints in French in three volumes. For at the XX day of November, in the Life of St. Felix of Valois, he affirms that there are some who will have it that he sought Clairvaux for the sake of sacred instruction under the discipline of St. Bernard: but as the above history concerning St. Felix, whom his mother is said to have brought as an infant to Bernard, and whom he offered to God, seems to me thus far little credible, so much less credible appears to me that which will have it that the same St. Felix was imbued with the institutes of the religious life under our Abbot's discipline; so long as I do not see this corroborated by suitable testimonies.

§ XV. The little work On Grace and Free Will; his seat and authority in the synod of Troyes; whether the rule of the Knights of the Temple was composed by the Saint.

The time, occasion, and eulogies The composition of this little work, by which the holy Doctor deserved of the whole Catholic Church with an immortal title, is bound to the aforesaid year of Christ 1127 by the author of the Cistercian Annals, in whom, in the same place, chapter 4, some things are observed concerning it. It is had in Mabillon, volume one, column 603 and following, and is illustrated there, page 601, with this preliminary admonition: Bernard composed this little work before the year 1128, that is, before the thirty-eighth year of his age. It treats On Grace and Free Will, on occasion of a certain conference with some man or other, to whom the holy Doctor had seemed to attribute too much to grace, as though he left nothing to free will in human acts. The chief scope of the book therefore is what are the parts of grace and what of free will in the business of salvation. Hence many things are taught concerning the free will of God, of an angel, and of man — unfallen, fallen, and blessed: likewise concerning the grace of the first man before and after the fall. A small book, but one which contains more juice and solid doctrine than great volumes of books which treat of this theological subject. The style is vigorous, full of lively wit and light: the words proper and suited to the matter; the discourse easy, not sought by art but as it were natural; not lean and thin, but rich and sinewy: elegant, well-ordered, and pleasing; not languishing with the trivial words of the schools, not barbarous or uncultivated. Not so compressed as to flow sparingly and drop by drop; nor yet so profuse as to burst forth like a torrent, as though the dyke were broken and the channel dried; but flowing forth evenly with even course and grave majesty, it shows an unfailing fountain, which is full not from another's store but from its own, nay from God's gift, and from continual meditation on Scripture, especially on the Apostle, number 48.

[152] Concerning that little work Geoffrey, treating in the third book of the Life of Bernard, chapter 8, of that little work. says: "How not ungrateful he was to the grace of God is clear from those things which he disputed as faithfully as subtly On Grace and Free Will. Nor are the words of letter LII to Cardinal Haimeric to be passed over, which was written about the year 1128. "The aforesaid bishop (Geoffrey of Chartres) asked of me some of our little works to send you: but there was not at hand what I should believe worthy of your study. Yet I have lately published a little book On Grace and Free Will: that I will gladly send you when I shall have learned that you wish it." The little book was directed to William, abbot of St. Thierry, Bernard's singular friend, to whom the Apology published above (column 525 and following), and several letters. Thus the most learned Mabillon forewarns the reader concerning this most praised little work of the holy Doctor, who also explained it with notes. Now let us make our step with the Cistercian historian to the year of Christ 1128, very honorable to the holy Father, as will be made plain from what is to be said on occasion of the council of Troyes, which even against his will he adorned with his presence.

[153] Baronius weaves it into the year of Christ 1127; but he is corrected by Pagi in his Critique at that year, number XI, in these words: To the council of Troyes, which was held in the year 1128, The council of Troyes, at which Matthew, Cardinal bishop of Albano, Apostolic legate, the archbishops of Reims and of Sens, and various bishops were present, was celebrated only in the following year; since in its preface John of Michaelis, the scribe of the council, says that it was held "on the solemnity of St. Hilary (namely on the XIII day of the month of January), in the year 1128 from the Incarnation of the Son of God, from the beginning of the aforesaid Militia (namely of the Templars) the IX": which year of the Incarnation is also found noted in

a manuscript codex of the Victorine library of Paris, and in the Jerusalem History of Jacques de Vitry. The writer of Tyre indeed says that that council confirmed the Order of the Templars, already founded nine years before: but since he there begins the year of the Incarnation either from the XXV day of the month of March or from the day of Easter, and since it is certain that the council was gathered in the month of January, the writer of Tyre can be interpreted only of the month of January of the following year of Christ; and certain learned men, when they had not attended to his manner of reckoning the years of the Incarnation, have wrongly either pleaded that the numbers in the writer of Tyre were faultily written, or have had recourse to vain interpretations. And so the year 1128 of the Dionysian era was, in the month of January, still to the writer of Tyre the year 1127, and the ninth going out from the Foundation of the Order of the Templars. Thus much concerning the year of the council; but of its acts treatment is made from William of Tyre, book 12, chapter 7, in Labbé, volume 10 of the Councils, column 922.

[154] Matthew therefore, legate of the Apostolic See and president of the council, he refuses to be present; but in vain: that he might add still greater weight of authority to the business to be handled in it, wished — besides the prelates of Reims and of Sens and their suffragans — that the abbots of Cîteaux and of Clairvaux, from William of Tyre whom I just cited (to whom by him the abbot of Pontigny is added, with several others), should be present at the same council. But Bernard, says Manrique at this year, chapter 1, number 3, who had once resolved not to go out of his monastery, as he had set forth in letters two years before to Pietro Leone, likewise a Cardinal Legate, was torn away with difficulty indeed and not without great trouble, pleading everything, excusing everything, and sparing neither the weak health by which he was held nor his own insufficiency. There exists concerning those matters St. Bernard's letter 21 to Matthew the Legate, in which he excuses himself that, being called to handle business, he had not come. It is indicated in Mabillon, column 38, as given toward the end of the year 1127. But who that Matthew was, of whom the discourse recurs above, he observes in the same place: Matthew, he says, from a canon of Reims a monk of Cluny at St. Martin des Champs, then Cardinal and bishop of Albano, a man of marvelous sanctity, from Peter the Venerable, is he to whom this letter was written, the council of Troyes of the year 1128 being at hand, from the fuller Notes, column XVI. Moreover the characteristics of that letter are such as to breathe into the reader the Saint's marvelous modesty, and are most brilliant witnesses that a man so great in the eyes of others was truly little in his own: to which likewise he sets an end with this clause of submissive obedience: Yet you (I say to you, Father) shall know that I am ready and am not troubled, that I may keep your commands. But it will be for your indulgence to spare me, where you shall have judged that I am to be spared.

[155] he commends to count Theobald reverence toward the bishops gathered in it: Why should I record his letter to Theobald, count of Champagne? It may be read in Mabillon, column 51, and is the thirty-ninth in number, bound there to the year of Christ 1127; in which he exhorts him to bear himself honorably and reverently toward the bishops set in his city of Troyes for the sake of the council. After the Cistercian Annalist had recited a fragment of it at number 5, he says: Thus far the holy Father to Theobald; seeking for himself hiding-places, and for the Church honor, and the reverence to be shown to Prelates, of whose fellowship he did not judge himself worthy. Concerning the letters which Manrique a little before cited as written by the Saint to Pietro Leone, observe some things through a lattice, so to speak. Mabillon in the notes on letter 17, column 35, which is inscribed to Peter, deacon Cardinal and legate, remarks these things: That Peter is without doubt other than Pietro Leone, likewise a Legate, but a Cardinal priest, as we have proved in the Preface to this volume. And presently he adds who that Peter seems to be. Pagi in the Baronian Critique at the year of Christ 1125, treating of Peter the Cardinal Legate whom Pope Honorius II sent against Pontius, once abbot of Cluny and invader of their monastery, at number 3 lays down that this man is different from Pietro Leone; because he was a Cardinal priest already from the year 1120 according to Onofrio, and more certainly than certain in the year 1121, as in that year, he says, we have seen. Then this Peter, to whom the cause of Pontius was committed by Honorius II, can be no other than Peter, deacon Cardinal and Legate, to whom the divine Bernard wrote the letter seventeenth in order, because his legation could have been performed in these times in no other year than the current one; whence he deduces that that letter of the divine Bernard, which Mabillon notes as given about the year 1127, pertains altogether to this year; as also two others, namely 18 and 19, given by the same to the same Peter, Cardinal and Legate; since in the following year, as he adds, Humbald, archbishop of Lyons, and Gerard, bishop of Angoulême, discharged the French legation. Mabillon in the Preface to his edition of the Works of St. Bernard the abbot, §4, number 39, had already suspected that Peter, deacon Cardinal and Legate, to whom the aforesaid letters of Bernard are inscribed, was he who came into Gaul against Pontius, abbot of Cluny, by mandate of Pope Honorius; but to me it is certain and undoubted. Thus far Pagi, who also at the year of Christ 1127, number 12, observes that the seventeenth letter of St. Bernard is wrongly recalled by Baronius to the council of Troyes; for while the holy Abbot excuses himself in it that, being called, he had not come … he there, he says, has discourse of another journey unknown to us.

[156] But as to what concerns the council of Troyes, at which we said the holy Doctor was present together with several others, his authority in the council. Whether the rules of the Templars given in it why should I report the man's authority, by which he shone like a sun among the other Fathers of that synod? For in Miraeus, in the Cistercian Chronicle at the year 1128, reviewing their names, these things are had: The above-named abbot Bernard of Clairvaux was not lacking; whose opinion the aforesaid Fathers praised with free voice. These things also exist in Labbé, volume 10 of the Councils, column 924. But in the Prologue to the Rule of the Templars in the same place, column 923, and in Miraeus just cited, which was given them in the said council of Troyes, that it was committed by it to the holy Abbot, the scribe of the often-mentioned council testifies: I, John of Michaelis, by the command of the council and of the venerable abbot of Clairvaux (Bernard), TO WHOM THIS WAS ENTRUSTED AND DUE, deserved by divine grace to be the humble scribe of the present page. But it may be asked in this place whether the Saint composed the Rule prescribed to the Templars. Manrique and Miraeus affirm it; Mabillon denies it, in volume one, in the Admonition to the sixth little work of the Saint himself in volume 2, inscribed On the Praise of the New Militia, to the Knights of the Temple, to which little work, which exists at column 543 and following, that editor premises these things to the present purpose:

[157] The Rule of the Templars Miraeus committed to the press from the Victorine codex, was its author and inserted it into the Cistercian Chronicle, "as having been," he says, "dictated by St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux (as is plain from the Prologue)." This Rule consists of as many chapters as the Rule of St. Benedict, from which for a great part it is taken word for word, that is, of 72 chapters. And it is thus inscribed before the Prologue: "The Rule of the poor fellow-soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon." Manrique at the year 1128, chapter 2, attributes this Rule with Miraeus to Bernard as author, and to prove this adduces two passages from the Prologue. The first passage runs thus: "But although a very great number of religious Fathers, who assembled at that council by divine admonition, commends the authority of our dictation, we ought not to pass over in silence in whose sight and with whose true opinions delivered, I, John of Michaelis, of the present page," etc. — which we have already given a little before. But these words do not signify that any Rule was composed by Bernard for the Templars; but that he transferred to John of Michaelis the office of scribe imposed on himself. Nor is anything more concluded from the following words, which after the enumeration of the Fathers of the council of Troyes are reported in this manner:

[158] "But the Master of the militia himself, Hugh by name, was indeed not lacking, that the holy man was, and had with him certain of his Brothers, for example Brother Godfrey, Brother Roval, Brother Geoffrey Bisol, Brother Payen de Montdidier, Archembald of Saint-Amand. And that Master Hugh with these disciples made known to the above-named Fathers, according to the knowledge of his memory, the manner and observance of the slender beginning of his military Order, which took its origin from him who says, 'I am the beginning, who also speak to you.' It pleased the Council therefore that the counsel there diligently examined by the file and consideration of the divine Scriptures should nevertheless, with the foresight of the Pope of the Romans and of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and also with the assent of the Chapter of the poor fellow-soldiers of the temple which is in Jerusalem, be committed to writing, and be kept inviolably." By which words we understand that this only was sanctioned by the Fathers, that a Rule should be prescribed to the Knights by their consent, the Roman Pontiff and the Patriarch of Jerusalem being consulted; but Bernard is by no means asserted to be its author. Nay rather, Alberic of the Cistercian Order writes that the Rule of St. Augustine was imposed on those same Knights. Whence in the Monasticon Anglicanum they are referred to the Order of St. Augustine. It would be exceedingly marvelous if Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, a Cistercian monk not far from Clairvaux, had been ignorant of this Rule of Bernard, and had assigned another in its place to the Knights who survived in his time. For these reasons the most learned Mabillon takes the composition of the aforesaid Rule from St. Bernard: and, not acquiescing in these, he thus adds others to them:

[159] various reasons being adduced, it is examined, William, bishop of Tyre, in chapter VII of the already-mentioned book XII, hands down that to those same Knights, who before the council of Troyes "were but nine, by mandate of the lord Pope Honorius and of the lord Stephen, Patriarch of Jerusalem, a Rule was instituted and a white habit assigned, whereas before they had used the common dress. But afterwards, in the time of the lord Pope Eugenius, as is said, they began to sew crosses of red cloth upon their mantles, both the knights and their Brothers who are called serving brothers. Whose affairs so grew to an immense degree that today (says William) they have in their convent three hundred knights, more or less, clad in white cloaks, besides the Brothers." From these last words we conclude that that Rule which is attributed to Bernard as author was written only after William of Tyre: since in chapter XXI certain "false brothers from parts beyond the mountains, pretending to be of the Temple," are noted, and it is charged that "certain things had grown up among those Knights without discretion and the counsel of the common Chapter, utterly to be cut away," namely that "the servants and squires FORMERLY had white garments, whence intolerable losses arose."

[160] and it is asserted that he was not the author of those rules. But there was no general Chapter of the Templars before the council of Troyes: no peculiar habit of the Knights before, but the common dress. The white one was granted them by the Fathers of the council, the Serving brothers excepted. Plainly even from these words alone it is understood that this Chapter at least was written down long after the time of the council. Chapter VII "not only does not praise the hearing of the divine office standing, but even blames it, and lays down that it be heard sitting." Which statute assuredly would not have come into Bernard's mind. In Chapter LVI it is laid down "that sisters be no longer had." Which argues that it was not a recent institute. Whether John of Michaelis be the author of that Rule, I leave to be judged by others. But that the most holy Father, even if not in this matter, yet elsewhere deserved well of the Templars, Manrique narrates in chapter 3, numbers 5 and 6.

§ XVI. Complaints of the Roman court washed away by the holy Doctor; the famous schism of the pseudo-pope Anacletus repressed by him; the year of the slaying of the venerable Thomas, Prior of St. Victor.

While he rightly administers the affairs of the public good, The affairs of the public good, to which Bernard was not rarely summoned even against his will, stirred up great complaints against him, not to say hatreds. The sum of this matter, reviewed at greater length by the Cistercian historian at the year of Christ 1129, it is not necessary to transcribe hither; since it can be sufficiently understood from the Saint's letter 48, which is inscribed to Haimeric, Chancellor of the Roman see, and in which he washes away with a strong and intrepid pen the unjust complaints against himself. Behold for thee therefore, reader, a fragment excerpted from the same letter. But observe that that writing is directed not to Cardinal Haimeric alone, but to other Cardinals also, whom he calls by the name of brotherhood; concerning which consult Mabillon's notes, column 55. Whence it follows that the Roman Curia resounded with reproaches against him, as is not obscurely concluded from the holy man's reply, from which I take these things: Does truth then breed hatred even for a poor and needy man? And can not even misery itself turn aside envy? Shall I complain, or shall I glory, that I too have been made an enemy by speaking truth? by speaking truth, or by doing right? … What in me, O good men, has displeased your brotherhood? Is it that at Châlons a man everywhere ill-famed was removed from the stewardship entrusted to him, because in the church of Verdun over which he had presided he had dissipated the goods of his lord? Or that in the city of Cambrai Fulbert, the manifest destroyer of his monastery, was compelled to yield to Parvinus, who by the testimony of all is a faithful and prudent servant? Or indeed that at Laon God's sanctuary was restored to him from a brothel of Venus? For which of these do you — I do not say stone me, but tear me — that I may receive somewhat less from my lord? And this deservedly, and with all glory would I answer, if I recognized anything of my own in them.

[162] But now, why am I judged concerning the deeds of others? he undergoes complaints in the Roman court; or if concerning my own, why as though concerning evil ones? Since that all these things were done justly and excellently, no imprudence can doubt, no impudence deny … A new kind of detraction, and truly having something like the work of Balaam, who, being led and hired to curse the people, heaped up blessings the more … But … it is nothing to me concerning these things of which I was not the author. Let them praise, if they will, or blame, if they dare; for the first indeed the lord of Albano; for the second the lord of Reims; and for the third that same archbishop, and likewise the bishop of Laon, together with the king and many other reverend persons, who by no means deny that they were the authors and chief agents in these things. If they acted well, what is that to me? If otherwise, what likewise is that to me? Or is the whole and sole fault mine, that I was present — a man worthy only of hiding-places? … I was present …, I cannot deny it: but called, but dragged. Would that I had not gone to those things! Would that I might not go to the like! Would that I had not lately gone where I should have seen a violent tyranny armed against the Church by Apostolic (alas the grief!) authority (see letters 46 and 47), as though it had not raged enough of itself. Then at last I felt, according to the Prophet, my tongue cleaving to my palate, etc.

[163] but he excellently washes them away. On account of such things, even if there were nothing else, I am burdened to be present at causes with which especially I know that I have no concern. I am burdened, but I am dragged. But from this necessity by whom could I hope to be better drawn back than by you, best of men? … Let it be enjoined, if it please, on the clamorous and importunate frogs not to go out of their holes, but to be content with their own marshes. Let them not be heard in councils, let them not be found in palaces: to causes, to business let no necessity, no authority be able to drag them … Yet I do not think that, even while I lie hidden and am silent, the murmur of the churches will cease, if the Roman Curia does not cease, according to the will of those present, to do prejudice to the absent. Farewell. Thus the great Man keenly washed away the unjust complaints against himself, answering the objections indeed the more freely as, in a conscience unacquainted with fault and hedged about with a great retinue of virtues, he stood secure against reproaches. Some things which occur in the fragment recited are explained in Mabillon both in the shorter notes on the said letter, columns 55 and 56; to which add the fuller ones, column XXII. Manrique at the year of Christ which I marked before from him, 1129, chapter 7, number 8, reports a prophecy of St. Bernard; but of that below.

[164] An immortal name What the holy Doctor had written in the letter to Haimeric cited a little before — that it was his counsel and purpose never (if it be not a cause of our Order only, he says) to go out of the monastery, unless either the legate of the Apostolic See or certainly his own bishop should call him, whom, as you know very well, it is by no means lawful for our humility to gainsay, save by some privilege of higher authority — what, I say, the holy Doctor had then written, restricting by those most equitable conditions his going out from the monastery and from the solitude beloved by him for the cause of the public good, had place in the year of Christ 1130, on occasion of the famous schism which the ill-employed and turbulent pseudo-pope Pietro Leone, having taken the name of Anacletus, stirred up in the Church of God against Pope Innocent II. Since this subject is one of the chief ornaments by which St. Bernard has merited an immortal name among posterity and a glory to be blotted out by no oblivion, we ought not to wonder that it was brought back to the anvil by the most learned Mabillon with second care, and illustrated from various documents of ancient monuments in that excellent general Preface which he prefixed to the Works of Bernard reprinted by him, §4. And so the lucubration which we owe to the aforesaid Mabillon, who has deserved so excellently of the republic of letters by so many other monuments which he has brought to light, it has seemed good to reprint in this place — not indeed the whole, but so far as shall suffice for our purpose. But those things which the same author has woven in from his own store amid the words of others I shall enclose in a parenthesis.

[165] have been won for the holy man Although, he says, Baronius and other ecclesiastical writers have written many things concerning the schism kindled between Innocent and Anacletus after the death of Honorius II in the year 1130, nevertheless some things need a fuller explanation, which we shall try to supply from the reading of ancient monuments. Then, a few things being interposed, the aforesaid Mabillon thus deduces and illustrates the present matter: Pietro Leone, a Roman of the Leonine family, from being a monk of Cluny was created first, if we believe Onofrio, by Paschal II deacon cardinal of the title of SS. Cosmas and Damian; then by Callistus II cardinal priest of St. Mary beyond the Tiber, of the title of Callistus, in the year 1120. "This Peter (as we learn from the Chronicle of Morigny) was the son of Peter, the son of Leo. But Leo, making his Pasch (that is, his passage) from Judaism to Christ, deserved to be baptized by Leo and to be distinguished by his name (interpret Leo IX). This man (namely Leo, of the Jews), because he was most learned, being made great in the Roman Curia, begot a son named Peter, of great fame and of great power to come.

[166] At that time there arose between the king of the Germans, who by succession from Charlemagne was patrician of the Romans, the things which he did and the Roman Church that most turbulent sedition concerning investitures. In which that man showed himself so vigorous in arms, so provident in counsel, and so faithful to the Roman Church, that the Pope committed to him, with the other fortifications which are at Rome, that one also which seems to hold the likeness of that city — I mean the tower of Crescentius, which on the side toward Gaul is situated at the part of the Tiber bridge — and held him familiar beyond the rest. On this occasion, growing marvelously, he was daily made better than himself, and was increased with riches, possessions, and honors." These things had to be premised, since upon Peter's family, Judaism, power, and the tower of Crescentius — which they call the castle of Sant'Angelo, by which Anacletus defended himself — depends the knowledge of the event. The Chronographer of Morigny proceeds: "Among the rest of his offspring, of whose very great multitude of both sexes he gloried in being by some called Antichrist, he begot this Peter of whom the discourse now is; who, being handed over to letters, was by some called the forerunner of Antichrist" (this reproach I should judge was laid upon him from what followed, or from the outcome). "He for the sake of study went to Gaul and to Paris, and when he returned home, at Cluny, a most wealthy and most holy monastery, he put on the monastic habit. Having been for some while imbued there with the regular institutions, he is drawn back to the court by Pope Paschal II at his father's admonition, and, being made Cardinal in the time of Pope Callistus, with that same Gregory who was afterwards Innocent II, being sent to Gaul, celebrated councils at Chartres and Beauvais." There is here no mention of the title of deacon Cardinal, which title Onofrio hands down was granted to Pietro Leone by Paschal. In which matter the authority of the Chronographer of Morigny, a contemporary of that time, is the stronger.

[167] Gregory is said to have been created deacon Cardinal of the title of Sant'Angelo by Urban II, for the good of the whole Catholic Church, and afterwards sent as Legate into Gaul by Callistus II with Pietro Leone in the year 1124. He came with him to Séez, a city of Neustria, on the testimony of Ordericus in book XII, page 877. Of this legation Vincent thus writes in the second book On the Life of Stephen of Grandmont, chapter XLIX: "The most excellent Cardinals also, Gregory and Pietro Leone, between whom afterwards there was a schism concerning the papacy, when, being sent into Gaul, they were discharging their legation in the parts of Limoges, came together alike to this man of God" (Stephen). And indeed both subscribed as Legates to a constitution of abbot Suger in the year 1125, in Du Chesne, volume 4, page 547: "I, Peter, priest Cardinal of the Apostolic See and Legate, approve and confirm. I, Gregory, deacon Cardinal of Sant'Angelo, and Legate of the Apostolic See," etc. At the same time

Bernard wrote certain letters to Peter, deacon Cardinal and Legate, namely letters XVII and following, whom I once thought with Manrique to be that same Pietro Leone. But since it is established that that Peter to whom Bernard writes was a deacon, not a priest Cardinal, those letters cannot fit Pietro Leone …

[168] in repressing Meanwhile Pope Honorius dies in the middle of February of the year 1130. The Chronographer of Morigny assigns the preceding year, after the Gallican custom, by which the beginning of the new year was drawn from Easter. Then "the Cardinals (says the same Chronographer) who were there with the Chancellor (Haimeric) and had sat by Honorius as he lay sick, set over themselves a certain Gregory (namely him whom we were just now praising), illustrious in learning and religion, and, too hastily, as is said by some, clothe him with the pontifical insignia. This they say was done for the sake of that dispensation, that they might cheat of his hope a certain Peter who seemed in worldly fashion to aspire to the papacy. This Peter was the son of Peter, the son of Leo," and the rest which we have reported above concerning him. The event Suger expresses more clearly in his book On the Life of Louis the Fat, in Du Chesne among the writers of the History of the Franks, volume 4, page 317, where he says: "That the greater and wiser men of the Roman Church (Honorius being dead), for the removing of tumult from the Church, (agreed) that at St. Mark's and nowhere else, and only in common after the Roman manner, a solemn election should be held. (But) those who by assiduity and familiarity had been nearer to the Apostolic Lord, not daring for fear of the tumultuous Romans to assemble there, before the lord Pope's decease was made public, elected a venerable person, Gregory, Cardinal deacon of Sant'Angelo, as supreme Pontiff. But those who favored the party of Pietro Leone assembled at St. Mark's according to the compact, inviting the others, and, the lord Pope's death being learned, elected that same Pietro Leone, Cardinal priest, by the consent of many bishops and Cardinals and clerics and Romans, according to their wish" (and that thus a pernicious schism was kindled.

[169] the famous Anacletian schism; Innocent's election therefore was the earlier, but over-hasty, and not made by the whole body of electors.) "But when the party of Pietro Leone prevailed, both by the support of his kinsmen (Suger adds) and by the protection of the Roman nobility," (Innocent leaves the City and goes down by ship to the parts of Gaul) "and, messengers being sent to king Louis," (he entreats his help. For which reason Louis appoints at Étampes) "a council of archbishops, bishops, abbots, and religious men; and by their counsel, inquiring rather concerning the person than concerning the election," he gives his hand to Innocent, Bernard being the author, in whose vote the votes of the whole council had concurred, on the testimony of Ernald in the second book of his life, chapter 1. Thereupon Suger, as he himself relates, being sent by the king's mandate to meet Innocent as far as Cluny — whose abbot Peter the Venerable and the monks had preferred Innocent to Anacletus, once their own monk, as we shall afterwards note on letter CXXVI. The king himself, with the queen and his sons, met the Pope as far as the monastery of St. Benedict at Fleury, and, bowing his royal head "as at the sepulchre of Peter, falls at his feet. (By his example Henry, king of England, likewise) meeting Innocent at Chartres, most devoutly prostrate at his feet" (promises him his own obedience and that of his people. But Innocent), "visiting the Gallican church, betakes himself to the parts of the Lotharingians: whom, when the emperor Lothar had met most solemnly in the city of Liège with a great college of archbishops and bishops and of the nobles of the German kingdom, in the square before the episcopal church, humbly offering himself as groom, he hastens on foot through the midst of the holy procession to him, taking in one hand a staff for defense, in the other the bridle of the white horse, and led him as his lord. And as the whole company descended, supporting him beneath, he made the loftiness of his fatherhood illustrious to those who knew him and those who knew him not." These things were done in the year 1130: where Suger is silent about Bernard, whom we learn from Ernald to have been Innocent's constant companion on his journey through Gaul.

[170] Then Mabillon observes what was done at Liège at that time, whose history, citing the manuscript Annals of Magdeburg or of Saxony at the year 1131: in which "on the Sunday before mid-Lent, on the XI Kalends of April, a most solemn assembly of XXXVI bishops and princes is held at Liège, the lord Apostolic Innocent and king Lothar and the queen being present" … This council had been preceded by the synod of Würzburg, as the same Annals have it, written by a contemporary author, namely "a council of XVI bishops, summoned by the king in the month of October, at which the archbishop of Ravenna, legate of the Apostolic See, was present: where Gregory, who is also Innocent, … is elected and confirmed by king Lothar and by all there gathered." After the assembly of Liège Innocent, on Suger's testimony, returns into France, passes the feast of Easter at St. Denis, and "three days after Easter being past (comes to Paris.) Thence, visiting the churches of the Gauls … when he had traveled for some while through the land, he chose to tarry at Compiègne." Thereafter, a council being held at Reims, as Suger hands down, and indeed "on the XIV Kalends of November" on Dodechin's testimony, there Louis the Younger received the royal insignia from Innocent on the VIII of the same Kalends, as Robert the continuator of Sigebert noted. The manuscript Saxon Annals at the year 1131: "Pope Innocent, ecclesiastical men again being gathered (that is, after the synod of Liège) and crowds of the faithful, presided for some days at a great synod at the city of Reims on the feast of St. Luke." Suger adds that the Pope, "the council being dissolved," made a stay at Auxerre, and at last with Lothar sought Italy again. The stay at Auxerre the Chronographer places after the council of Reims.

[171] Ernald in the second book On the Life of Bernard, chapter 1, places the council of Reims before that of Liège, was elaborated with second care and writes that Innocent went from Liège to Clairvaux, and then, after a short stay in Gaul, hastened with Lothar to Rome. But that the synod of Reims was later than that of Liège is established both from Suger's narrative and from the Saxon Annals, but chiefly from the Chronicle of Morigny, in which Innocent's journey is accurately described; and whose text is presently subjoined by Mabillon, as also other things which may be seen there, lest we go further than is right. Meanwhile Peter, or Anacletus, leaves nothing untried to join to his party whatever more notable men he could. Of the bishops there adhered to him Girard of Angoulême, who, since he had discharged the office of legate under the last Pontiffs, had it in his wishes to obtain that same office even from Anacletus. The same drew over William, count of Poitiers, to Anacletus. Besides this, that he might win over Roger, duke of Apulia, Anacletus gave him his own sister to wife, and crowned him king of Sicily, on the testimony of Ordericus in book XII … So many and so great troubles, which we have here described perhaps more fully than the place would allow, caused much business for Bernard, who wrote various letters on all sides to reconcile the schismatics to Innocent and to keep the faithful in their duty: he likewise undertook various journeys for the same cause, as is understood from the following letters, and from book 11 of the Life, chapters VI and VII.

[172] by Mabillon: It remains here to treat of Girard, bishop of Angoulême, whose manners Arnulf — then archdeacon of Séez, afterwards bishop of Lisieux — excellently described in the treatise published against him, which our d'Achery published in print in the second volume of the Spicilegium. His most unworthy deeds are then painted at greater length by Mabillon from the same author. Moreover, through those deadly and long-lasting times of that schism, how great labors Bernard sustained, how many journeys he accomplished, is understood from his Life and letters, as we have already said. For this cause he set out three times into Italy, and at length by his work the schism was repressed, Anacletus having died in the year 1138; for whom the schismatics substituted the antipope Victor, "not so much from obstinacy in the schism as that by some delay of time they might be more opportunely reconciled to Pope Innocent. (And indeed in fact Victor) betook himself by night to the holy Man (that is, Bernard), and he, stripped indeed of the usurped insignia, led him to the feet of the lord Innocent," as Ernald testifies in the Life, book 2, chapter 5, number 137 among us. And this was the end of that most deadly and long-lasting schism, which by the untiring cares and labors of our holy hero Bernard was most happily and most honorably repressed, Ernald, whom I just now indicated, recording at greater length the things done by him in this cause from number 129, and to whose narrative light will be brought by those things which I premised before from Mabillon's Preface. But to weave some things one by one into these I judge suited to our present undertaking.

[173] to which some things are here added by us. That in the first place is memorable and likewise exceedingly glorious to the Saint, that he opened his mouth, and the Holy Spirit filled it, as Ernald testifies in chapter 1, number 85 — being indeed chosen by that same Spirit that Bernard alone should be, in this most grave business, the mouth and tongue of all the Fathers gathered in the council of Étampes. For speaking alone with the mouth of all, from the same biographer, he named Innocent as the supreme Pontiff to be received by all: and all alike acclaimed it ratified; and, praises being sung to God after the custom, promising obedience thenceforth, all alike subscribed to the election of Innocent. But the other things which the holy man did in this cause we learn from his letters. For in that which is the hundred and twenty-fourth in number he exhorts Hildebert, archbishop of Tours, to acknowledge Innocent as the lawful Pontiff, and among many other things in his favor thus reviews the prerogatives of his right: A threefold cord is hardly broken. The election of the better, the approval of the greater number, and (what is more effectual than these) the attestation of his manners commend Innocent to all, and confirm him supreme Pontiff. And in letter 125 to Geoffrey de Loratorio, concerning whom consult Mabillon's note, he asks his effort in asserting the pontificate of Innocent, whom the Church deservedly, he says, receives; whose repute also is more illustrious, and whose election has been found sounder, prevailing indeed both in the number and in the merit of the electors. Finally, in letter 127 to the bishops of Aquitaine, he excellently defends the same cause against Gerard of Angoulême, who was playing the schismatic's part, whose manners he paints and whose subterfuges he eludes.

[174] For the rest, the things which pertain to William, count of that same Aquitaine, In what year Thomas, Prior of St. Victor, was slain. wickedly drawn over to the party of Anacletus by Girard, bishop of Angoulême, Manrique indeed narrates at the year 1130, chapter 4; but we defer these as also others to another time, when we shall treat of his conversion to a better life through St. Bernard. The same author in the same place, chapter 5, reports what the holy man did in the cause of the venerable Thomas, Prior of St. Victor at Paris, sacrilegiously slain; but Pagi in the Baronian Critique at the year of Christ 1135, number 5, proves against various writers whom he there alleges that his slaying pertains to the year 1133, which reckoning of time Mabillon also had shown before him in the fuller notes on letter 158 of St. Bernard. The cited founder of the Cistercian Annals, chapter 6, number 8, writes that St. Bernard was demanded as prelate by the people of Genoa (see

Ernaldus, book 2 of the Life, chapter 3) but in vain; observing that there befell him that saying of William, book 1 of the Life, chapter 14: Although he was worthy to be compelled, by some judgment of God I know not what, and by the singular reverence of his sanctity, he obtained long since with all men that he should never at any time be compelled to anything against his own will.

§ XVII. The journey of Pope Innocent II to Liège with St. Bernard; who defends the right of the Church against King Lothair; his excursion, as is reported, into Artois; the conversion of Guerric and of many others; Pope Innocent visits the monks of Clairvaux; St. Bernard's authority in the Council of Reims; the islands of Châlons refused by him.

Opportunely joined to Innocent II on the journey to Liège The Cistercian Chronographer, having reported under the year of Christ 1131, chapter 1, the journey of Pope Innocent II with St. Bernard to the people of Liège, and the honorable reception after their arrival which King Lothair showed to the Vicar of Christ with a reverence altogether submissive toward him, as we have already said above in §16 — these things, I say, having been reported, the same Chronographer sets forth the deed done in that place from number 3, from which it is gathered that the praised Pontiff very fittingly and opportunely joined to himself our holy Man as a companion on that expedition. For Lothair, in that lowly abasement of himself for the favor of Innocent, meaning (as Manrique puts it) to turn all things to his own advantage, and to aim at gain even out of piety and at power out of religion, lest he should serve Innocent for nothing, dared amid his acts of obedience to demand back the investitures once usurped from the Church, but constantly vindicated by Calixtus II, as we have seen above — reckoning that the Pontiff, then still an exile from Rome, indeed a fugitive, and on that account needing his help against his rival, would deny him nothing that he asked, since to him, even if he only kept silence and accepted, all things would have been granted by Anacletus. Here was Innocent's greater struggle: if he had conceded, he would have been all but betraying the Church, as one buying the tiara with Peter's rights, nay with the true patrimony of Christ, and thereby already unworthy of the pontificate; but if he drew back he would be abandoned by Lothair, and by that very king's desertion the Church, long divided and shaken, would be divided still more widely and more bitterly. Then first he perceived that Bernard had by no means come thither by chance nor by human counsel, nor been brought there to enjoy a state of peace, but to settle commotions which were even then emerging, and which, unless repressed, would rage the more violently.

[176] St. Bernard, for the defense But in what manner all these things were done, and in what manner the steadfastness of Father Bernard checked the impending tempest, the words of the other Bernard — whom we, with Mabillon, more correctly call Ernaldus, abbot of Bonneval — will supply, that the greater credit and weight may attach to what is said. In the Life, then, book 2, chapter 1, number 87 of our edition, he speaks thus: The council of Reims being dissolved, the lord Pope met the king of the Romans at Liège. (But that Innocent's journey to Liège took place before the Council of Reims has been demonstrated from Mabillon's Preface, which we produced in the paragraph immediately preceding.) And he was indeed honorably received, but that serenity was swiftly overclouded. For the same king importunately pressed, reckoning that he had a favorable opportunity, that the investitures of bishops should be restored to him, which the Roman Church had claimed from his predecessor the emperor Henry through the greatest labors indeed and many perils. At which word the Romans grew pale and terrified, judging that they had encountered at Liège a graver peril than they had escaped at Rome. Nor was any counsel at hand: until the holy Abbot set himself as a wall. For boldly resisting the king, he refuted the malignant word with wondrous freedom, and with wondrous authority put it down. So there that biographer, most worthy of all credit. To this the holy Father himself also looked back in his epistle 150, which is addressed to Pope Innocent; where, praising him from various things rightly done, and rousing his zeal against the ambition of Philip, who was attempting by illegitimate means to invade the see of Tours, he recalls these things to his memory: But neither at Liège did the barbarian sword hanging over your neck compel you to yield to the importunate and shameless demands of an angry and enraged king.

[177] of ecclesiastical right against King Lothair. Hence it is gathered, first, that the present deed of King Lothair is not narrated truly and vividly enough by Otto, bishop of Freising, in his Chronicle, which was printed at Frankfurt in the year of Christ 1585, book 7, chapter 18, page 149, when it is there written of him thus: Without any delay, having first however set forth MODESTLY how far the kingdom had been weakened by love of the churches, and at how great a cost to himself he had remitted the investiture of them, he promises help to the Roman Church. It is gathered, secondly, how very far from the truth that most lying Peter the Deacon of Monte Cassino strayed, and is refuted (as Baronius puts it under the year of Christ 1131), when, for the favor of that same Lothair, to whom he afterwards attached himself (as we shall say in its own place), he affirms against so most manifest a truth concerning the investitures that they were granted by Pope Innocent to Lothair in that assembly at Liège, speaking thus, Chronicle of Cassino, book 4, chapter 99: "Innocent therefore, having entered Germany, is received by King Lothair near Liège, confirming to him the staff and the ring after the ancient custom." The Chronicle of Cassino has been reprinted and illustrated with notes among the Writers of Italian Affairs published some years since from the presses of Milan, volume 4; in which, in the notes to chapter 97 of the fourth book, page 555, the writer of those notes indeed attempts to soften the term "lie" applied by Baronius; but Peter's most manifest falsehood cannot thereby be cleared. Further, INVESTITURE is a handing over, a sending into possession, from the word VESTIRE, to send into possession, in its own place, says Du Cange in the Glossary to the Writers of Middle and Low Latinity, volume 3, column [ ] of the most recent edition; where the learned author then subjoins very many things concerning the various modes or forms or symbols by which those transfers were made, and confirms them with examples, which may be read in him. Moreover, among the things done at that time in the city of Liège must be reckoned the coronation of King Lothair, Bernard being present, performed there by Pope Innocent; as the Cistercian Annals under the year 1131, chapter 1, number 5, relate at greater length, and thus continue at number 6:

[178] While Innocent was staying at Liège, Father Bernard He makes an excursion to Arras went to Arras, a city of the Gallo-Belgic province in Artois, to visit the miraculous candle recently let down from heaven, the Mother of God bringing it, as is there asserted from Ferreolus Locrius, who in the Belgic Chronicle under the year 1130 describes that excursion in these words: St. Bernard came to Arras for the sake of seeing and honoring, among other things, the sacred candle lately brought from above by the Virgin Mother of God. And when he had seen it and adorned it with his praises, the Mellifluous Doctor was filled with such sweetness of spirit that, for a perpetual memorial, he took care that a cross be erected in the old cemetery of the monastery of St. Vaast, opposite the Court of the Count (as they call it). For that was rightly the place in which Bernard, standing, obtained his desire: for close by, the sacred pledge then had its own repository, in the street which takes its name from the Magpies. That monument (I mean the cross) lasted until the year 1447; at which time, because it was falling into ruin, it seemed good to the ascetics of St. Vaast to restore it, and to endow it with the more august form in which we behold something of it today.* So Locrius, from the records of Dom Pronier, greater Prior at St. Vaast. I could indeed wish that the things narrated concerning our holy Abbot's journey to that prodigious candle were established from other documents.

[179] But the history of that candle the aforesaid Locrius had set out earlier under the year 1105, that he might venerate the prodigious candle of the Mother of God: writing thus of it: At Arras, in the cathedral church, that candle, most celebrated throughout the Belgic world, is brought down from heaven by the Mother of God herself to two players or harpers (Iperius calls them jugglers), Iterius of Paulinat and Norman of Brabant — a most ready and singular remedy for extinguishing the burning fire (of which we have spoken under the year 1092, and elsewhere). From which candle, hitherto diminished in nothing (Locrius flourished at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and died in the year of Christ 1614, on the XI Kalends of September, according to the Belgic Library of Valerius Andreas) — nay, wondrously increased, although it often burns — many other candles have been cast; such as those of Bruges, Fauquembergue, Boulogne, Nieuwland, Ark, Blendecques, and so on. Of the aforesaid candle there treat Molanus in the Natal Days of the Saints of Belgium at the VI day of February, Meyer in the Annals of Flemish Affairs, book 4, under the year 1095, Malbrancq On the Morini, book 9, chapter 15. Further, that candle of Arras, as Locrius adds, being enclosed in a most noble pyramid occupying the middle of the lesser market-place (it was erected in the year 1215), is borne every year with a very solemn procession to the cathedral church, and, vows having been paid there and two candles of forty pounds' weight offered, is carried back into the town to its proper chapel on the Sunday within the Octave of the solemnity of the Body of the Lord. But let us return from this digression once more to our road.

[180] He converts Guerric and several others to the institute of Clairvaux: I should believe, says Manrique under the year 1131, chapter 1, number 8, that it happened in this same year that Guerric — destined to be a great increase to the whole Order, who long since had been promoted from master of the school of Tournai to canon of the greater church for the fragrance of his sanctity and learning — leaving all things, followed Bernard, to be instructed by him at Clairvaux. Moreover, that famous conversion of as many as thirty young men, lettered, wealthy, noble, among whom also were Geoffrey of Péronne and Robert of Bruges, each of them great — which the authors call the Catch of Liège — is by no means to be deferred beyond this year, as is argued by this, that Robert of Bruges, one of them, is read to have been set over the monastery of Dunes not long afterward, at least with no other journey of Bernard to Liège intervening, so far as we know. That conversion, because it was both more copious in number and more illustrious in quality, I shall set forth first in the words of Geoffrey of Clairvaux, who not long afterward attached himself to Father Bernard, and learned all things thoroughly from his mouth and from the mouth of the converted men themselves: "Among the rest," he says in the Life, book 4, chapter 2, number 204, "whom Christ snatched from the vain converse of this world through the ministry of his servant, many men sometime noble, many wise and lettered men from the parts of Flanders professed sacred servitude under his mastership. Of whom the first seemed to be that Geoffrey of Péronne, who afterwards discharged the office of Prior at Clairvaux, and died in it" — about the year of Christ 1146, according to Manrique under that year, chapter 11, number 9. The same author, under the year with which we are dealing, 1131, chapter 2, takes up again the history of their conversion as something singular and clothed also with various attendant circumstances, and treats it separately. But since there remains to us so vast a material in reviewing the so many and so great affairs of Bernard, in every way the greatest of men, let the reader go to Manrique just cited, to Bernard's epistle 109, addressed to Geoffrey and his companions, and to the biographer Geoffrey, book 4 of the Life of our Saint, chapter 2.

[181] the reckoning of the time is weighed But the reckoning of the time he attempts to set forth

the same Manrique in the same place, number 5, linking their conversion to the year of Christ 1131. But Mabillon, in his brief notes on that epistle, says: Of these is to be understood Hermann, monk of Tournai, in volume 12 of d'Achery's Spicilegium, page 479, where he speaks of St. Bernard, whom "many famous clerics, as well from the church of St. Mary of Tournai as from the diocese itself, followed for the sake of conversion — the lord Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux." This deed Hermann reports on page 476, after the twenty-fourth year of the pontificate of Simon of Noyon, who began to sit in the year 1122. Therefore this epistle cannot, as Manrique judges, be referred to the year 1131 (and consequently neither the conversion of Geoffrey and his companions). Next, Bernard says in that epistle, Devoted, I place my shoulders, though already weary, beneath this burden. Whence Mabillon gathers that Bernard was then already near old age.

[182] But Manrique, under the year 1131, chapter 2, number 5 as cited, raising against himself the objection of those who, on account of Bernard's old age, judge that Geoffrey's conversion took place fifteen years after, concerning the conversion of Geoffrey of Péronne and of the others, or more — namely when the Saint was preaching the crusade at Liège under Conrad and Eugenius, the latter being Pope, the former emperor — answers, saying: This would appear probable to me, if there did not stand in the way the recorded conversion of Robert of Brussels (rather, of Bruges) simultaneous with Geoffrey's conversion, which it is ascertained could not have occurred in that year. For Robert, set over the monastery of Dunes eight years before, namely in the year of Christ 1138 — in which all agree — and sent thither by the holy Father, could by no means not have been a novice beforehand, and made his profession, and lived as a monk for some length of time. What is objected concerning the weary shoulders, to prove the Saint's old age at that time, does not press, especially in a man frail from failure of strength, almost useless from the gravity of his diseases, and concerning whom the physicians had long before judged that he could scarcely be preserved without a miracle; and who therefore, according to Manrique, might have spoken thus even though he were not yet an old man. But what the same author asserted, that Robert of Bruges was converted together with Geoffrey of Péronne, he had proved in chapter 2, number 3 from the tombs of Clairvaux, on which, he says, we read written: "Who, together with the illustrious man Geoffrey of Péronne, treasurer of the church of St. Quentin, received the habit in this Clairvaux." For my part I do not see that this chronological knot can easily be untied, if the conversion spoken of above by Manrique and by Mabillon falls upon the same persons and at the same time; it is otherwise, if there were two, differing in time and in persons. Certainly in the text which Mabillon cited, the name of no convert is expressed: but of these trifles more than enough.

[183] The Cistercian historian, under the year 1131, chapter 3, treats of Pope Innocent, [Pope Innocent visits the monks of Clairvaux; the Council of Reims, at which St. Bernard is present with great authority:] who, returning from Liège, visited first Cluny, then Clairvaux; of the hospitality there shown to the Pontiff (Ernaldus describes the matter in book 2 of the Life of St. Bernard, chapter 1); of the monks there troubled by the evil spirit, but pacified by Bernard, from the cited Ernaldus: likewise of the Council of Reims, and of the reckoning of the time (see what we set out in §16). But that the holy Man was present at that same council, Manrique narrates in chapter 4. Meanwhile, he says there at number 3, Innocent, traversing France, was awaiting the appointed day of the synod; whether with Bernard accompanying him or without him, is less clearly expressed. Certainly at the time when the council was being held, the weight of all affairs rested with him, as Ernaldus witnesses, book 2 of the Life, chapter 1, number 87; who has handed down to memory these things concerning Innocent: France therefore having been traversed, he summoned a council at Reims, in which, many things being ordered for the honor of God, he crowned Louis as king in place of his brother Philip, while his father (Louis the Fat) was still living. In all these things the lord Pope would not suffer the Abbot to be separated from him, but he sat with the Cardinals over public affairs. And privately too, as many as had business consulted the Man of God more secretly. And he referred what he had heard to the court, and afforded protection to the oppressed. Thus the holy Doctor not only was present at the Council of Reims, but shone also with distinguished splendors of authority among the Fathers there assembled. But did he deliver two sermons there?

[184] Both are found in Mabillon among the spurious works of St. Bernard, volume 2, column 735 and following. And upon the first indeed, which is entitled To the clergy assembled in the Council of Reims, the following censure is branded: It is not Bernard's, to whom it would seem proud and insolent to call bishops and all Prelates BRETHREN, the two sermons which are circulated under his name he did not deliver there: how much less DEVILS, as is done here at number 3. Whosesoever it be, it consists wholly of centos from Bernard, delivered before the Pope and by his command, according to number 1. But before the second, To the Pastors assembled in synod, these words are prefixed: Whosesoever it be, it is neither inelegant nor unworthy of reading. Manrique, chapter 4, number 7, determines thus concerning them: I should believe that Bernard's orations in that council were lost along with others of his little works, and that these which are circulated under his name were composed by an author of inferior eloquence, and delivered in a less weighty council.

[185] He refuses the mitre of Châlons; he works two miracles. To the splendor which was conferred this year upon our most highly esteemed Abbot may be added, first, his election to preside as bishop over the see of Châlons, from the Chronicle of Alberic, monk of Trois-Fontaines, which Leibniz published in volume 2 of the Historical Accessions, where on page 269 the matter is thus reported under the year 1131: When blessed Bernard had been elected bishop of Châlons, he refused, and through him Geoffrey, abbot of St. Médard of Soissons, is made bishop of Châlons. There may be added, secondly, a double miracle, by one of which he raised up and healed a woman long lame; by the other he restored to health a boy weeping without intermission. The first is related by Geoffrey, monk of Clairvaux, in the Life, book 4, chapter 4, number 232; the second by abbot William in the Life, book 1, chapter 6, number 59. Both happened in the monastery of Cherlieu, commonly Charlieu, in the diocese of Besançon, founded in the year 1131; which Manrique mentions in chapter 8 among the other daughters of Bernard, of which he there makes mention. Of it also the Sainte-Marthe brothers in Gallia Christiana, volume 4, page 225. St. Bernard names it in epistle 197 to Peter, dean of Besançon, and in epistle 198 to Pope Innocent.

In French, Cour du comte*.

In French, rue des Agaches*.

§ XVIII. Very many converted by the holy Father; the Genoese pacified; a letter afterwards written to them; their grateful spirit toward the Saint; the year in which he came to Rome; his deeds on behalf of the monastic cause, the empire, and the priesthood.

Under the year 1132 a remarkable prophecy of the holy Father is read in the Cistercian Annals, chapter 1, Among several others converted, the conversion of one is wonderful: number 7, in these words: The holy Father .. was confirming, by words alike and by examples, the recruits whom he had brought from Belgium, and the many flowing to him from the whole world (for ancient records relate that he had as many as a hundred novices under training, and that not once only). Of whom, when Godfrey of Péronne, "in the first time of his novitiate, anxious with filial piety for his father, a noble and powerful man whom he had left in the world, was most affectionately entreating the holy Father to ask the Lord for his conversion, the Man of God said to him, 'Fear not; I shall bury him, a proved monk, with my own hands in this Clairvaux.'" Both followed, as Geoffrey narrates in book 4 of the Life, chapter 2, whose words I have produced, where also he reports the outcome of the affair. How earnestly and how happily the great Man stood for the defense of the pontificate of Innocent II in Gaul and Italy is plain from what was set out in §16. But let us here say some things more in detail concerning the affairs illustriously done by him in Italy, since we are to accompany him as he sets out thither with the praised Innocent.

[187] Ernaldus, in the Life, book 2, chapter 2, writes thus of Innocent's departure from Gaul: He restrains the Genoese: The lord Pope could not make long delays in Gaul, but, as he had agreed with King Lothair, he met him at Rome. That journey into Italy took place in the same year 1132; which is described at greater length in Pagi's Critique on Baronius under the said year, number 1 and following; where also you will find that they dealt with one another before they reached Rome, a conference having been held in Lombardy. Manrique, chapter 1, number 8 of the same year, says: Lothair having been saluted after the conferences, Innocent sends Bernard to Genoa; he himself goes on to Pisa, to restore, if he could, peace between the two cities, which, being long disturbed, besides continual slaughters and massacres, was no little hindrance to the Pontiff's affairs. Further, this business of gravest moment succeeded according to the wish of both: whose outcome the same Annalist thus records, chapter 6, number 1: Long dissensions were troubling both peoples, namely the Genoese and the Pisans, and while vengeance was sought by each for even slight offenses, greater ones arose, and passed first into complaints and quarrels, then into hatreds, and at last into public wars. .. And the Genoese, being then of more prosperous fortune and greater power, were on that account hoped to be the slower toward peace. When, behold, Bernard, sent by Innocent, in a moment restrained their fierce spirits, in an instant calmed them, so that they would promptly carry out whatever he might command. There was no hesitation there, no delay. He came, he saw, he conquered, and by his mere look overcame whatever he willed. It was reported to Pope Innocent, and to the Pisans, who were to enter into the compacts. That peace was not there confirmed was owing only to the absence of the other party, the Genoese obeying Bernard and submitting themselves to his arbitration. Hence it came about that he who had come as legate for the business of peace scarcely had to treat of peace, it being obtained almost before it was proposed. But the short time in which he made his stay there he gave rather to the preaching of the word, evangelizing the salvation of souls the more fervently as he was the more eagerly, and the more fruitfully, heard by all.

[188] Now with what veneration he was received, in what honor, in a letter written afterwards he says he will be mindful of them: displaying reverence, he was held even while living, let us draw from no more fitting source than from the letter written by the same Saint to them, though a year later — a letter congratulatory indeed, and confirmatory of their undertaking, but historical also; which is the hundred and twenty-ninth in order among Bernard's letters. From it I excerpt the following, by which may be confirmed both what has just been said and what is to be said below: That our coming to you last year was not idle, the Church proved a little afterwards in her necessity, by which we had also been sent. You both received us honorably and held us for the little while that we were with you. .. Assuredly, as we are not unmindful, so we are not ungrateful: may He repay

He who can, and who was the cause of it — God. For with what should we requite that homage of veneration, save with service, save with affection, full of love and of grace! Not that we take delight in favor toward ourselves; but we rejoice together with your devotion. O those festal days of mine, but few! To eternity I shall not forget you, devout people, honorable nation, illustrious city. Evening, and morning, and noonday, after the manner indeed of the Prophet, I was telling and announcing, and there was as great an eagerness to hear as there was charity in the hearers. We were carrying the word of peace: and when we had found the sons of peace, our peace rested upon them. .. Wonderful swiftness, because great necessity. I suffered neither slowness nor difficulty, in almost one day both sowing and reaping, and bringing back with exultation the sheaves of peace. This indeed is the harvest which I reaped. To exiles, captives, the fettered and the imprisoned we brought back the glad hope of escaping and returning home; fear to the enemy, confusion to the schismatics, glory to the Church, gladness to the world, and so on.

[189] and how fruitfully they afterwards experienced this, But that To eternity I shall not forget you the Genoese in very truth experienced in the year 1625, when Bernard was called to their aid in the war against Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, according to the briefer notes in Mabillon, column 139. The event Manrique sets forth at greater length in chapter 6 designated above, number 6: The Genoese, he says, have been accustomed so to confirm to themselves those words of the holy Father, To eternity I shall not forget you, faithful people, nay, have so experienced them, that even after nearly five hundred years — namely in the year of Christ 1625, scarcely seven having elapsed from that in which we write these things — when they beheld the most excellent prince Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, .. laying waste the towns of their dominion and threatening them scarcely at the fifth milestone from the city, all human aid being despaired of, they appealed to the fidelity of the most holy Father, a vow being conceived after other matters to this tenor: "After these things we promise to enroll and reckon among the patron Saints of our Republic the divine Bernard, who, while he lived among men, pledged by his own letter that he would not forget * us to eternity; and we vow to celebrate his feast-day, and to see that it be celebrated both by our peoples and by our clergy, with the consent of the most illustrious archbishop and of the most reverend bishops; to build in this greater church, or in another at our discretion, a chapel dedicated to him; that on the same day of the divine Bernard a solemn procession be made yearly in perpetuity, and a solemn Mass be celebrated at his altar, ourselves piously assisting; and finally to pay out by the hand of the Duke, amid the solemnities of the said Mass, each year in perpetuity, and for this year, dowries to twelve maidens, as they call them, namely a hundred pounds to each of them. In testimony whereof we command these letters, publicly read by our undersigned secretary, to be received and subscribed and fortified with our seal; given in the cathedral church, on Sunday the twenty-fifth day of April of the year one thousand six hundred and twenty-five."

[190] So the Genoese, when ruin was pressing upon their Republic. But how according to their wish that vow succeeded for them, it is shown from the fact here narrated: the outcome demonstrated not long after. For the holy Father, having only deferred his aid until it should be proved to be his own, was propitiously present on the very vigil of his solemnity with a Spanish auxiliary fleet, to put the hostile forces the more swiftly to flight. Nor was there anyone in that populous city who did not recognize Bernard's protection, the Saint present, to whom the benefit received was to be repaid. These things by the way, on occasion of the letter, to be more amply recorded in their own times. Nay, I would add that the memory of this benefit is still fresh, and festive and devout to the Genoese not only at Genoa but everywhere in the world. Certainly in Spain, those who are frequent at the court of the Catholic king on business celebrate devoutly, and at the same time liberally, the Saint's yearly festival in the very church of their own convent, year by year. Of which we too were eyewitnesses, while we were acting as Legate for the fostering university of Salamanca to the most powerful king of the Spains in the year past. But enough of these things.

[191] Let us bring back once more into the chronological road, from which we have for a while digressed with Manrique, distracted by very many other cares he promotes Religious, the deeds of St. Bernard. By the same historian, therefore, under the year 1132, chapter 7, number 10, there is treated of Bruno designated to the see of Cologne, and consulting the holy Father whether he should accept the government of it; and Bernard's reply to him is subjoined, which is the eighth in order among the epistles. In chapter 8, number 8 is given the Saint's epistle 96, which is addressed to Richard, abbot of Fountains (in the diocese of York, commonly Yorc in England), and his companions, who had passed over from another Order to the Cistercian, in which they are praised by him for the renewal of religious discipline. In the chapter alleged, at number 9, follows epistle 95 to Thurstan, archbishop of York, whose charity and beneficence toward Religious he praises. In chapter 9, number 3 occurs the Saint's answering epistle 94, to the abbot of a certain monastery of York, whence the Prior had gone out with a number of Brethren. Last of all, in the same place at number 4 follows his epistle to Henry, king of the English, in which he asks the king's favor for the monks sent by him to build a monastery. Further, Mabillon's edition has the epistles thus entitled at column 98 and following. But what aim the holy Man set before himself in these letters — occupied indeed with so many affairs, yet unwearied for the good of the Church, as we saw above, and a patron of the propagation of his Religious family, as we were just saying — you will understand from the briefer notes in Mabillon on epistle 94. For on occasion of the address to the abbot of a certain monastery of York, which we reported a little before, he names both that abbot and the monastery, and other things: namely Geoffrey, abbot of the monastery of St. Mary in the diocese of York, of the Order of St. Benedict, from which place twelve monks with the Prior went out, and, since it was not permitted them to fly to the Cistercians, took refuge with Thurstan, archbishop of York, whom Bernard praises in the following epistle for the protection bestowed on them. Compare the fuller notes, and epistle 313 to the same Geoffrey. And on epistle 95 he observes this: What Thurstan performed in defense of the aforesaid monks, who had fled to him out of zeal for a greater perfection, his own letter teaches, to be reported from the Monasticon Anglicanum after the letters of Bernard.

[192] The year of Christ 1133, upon which falls the coming of Pope Innocent II and of King Lothair to the city of Rome, and the cause of Pope Innocent is most worthy to be marked with a white stone, on account of the various deeds which our holy Abbot left in its course to be consigned to the memory of posterity. Under this year, therefore, in chapter 1, number 2, Manrique thus records: When all were standing before the entry into the City, and Innocent had not the resources by which the business of entering it could be so far carried through, so that one Bernard might come to the rescue in all perils whatsoever and all necessities whatsoever, he wrote from the very entry of the City such a letter to Henry, king of England, whom he himself had drawn to Innocent's party — brief indeed, but lively, but keen, and the more effectual for being the briefer. It is found among the Saint's other epistles as the hundred and thirty-eighth in order, in which he asks aid of the said king on behalf of Pope Innocent. It runs thus: To wish to instruct you, especially concerning those things which pertain to honor, belongs either to a fool or to one wholly ignorant of you. Therefore it suffices to intimate the matter simply, and that in few words. We are at the entry of the City; salvation is in the gates; justice is with us: but to the Roman soldiery that food has no savor. And so by justice we appease God, by soldiery we terrify the enemy: we lack necessaries for the only necessary things. What needs to be done, that your work may be completed which you did in that magnificent and honorable reception of the lord Pope Innocent, you know better — namely by acknowledging Innocent in the assembly of Chartres, according to the fuller notes on that epistle, and from the Life, book 2, chapter 1.

[193] In what year Cardinal Baronius, as Manrique observes at number 4, seems in the following year to suppose that Father Bernard did not go to Rome this year with Innocent, nay, that he did not even cross into Italy, into which he acknowledges only a threefold coming of his: twofold in that year, namely 1134; the third two years after. And here are his words under the year 1134, number 14: Further, it happened three times that the same St. Bernard came into Italy to Pope Innocent: first this year, when he came to Pisa for the council; secondly, a little after in the same year, as the author of his Life testifies in these words: "When the holy Father was passing a second time through Milan in the same year," etc. But the third coming was when the emperor Lothair betook himself into Italy with an army, and an end was put to the schism by the death of Peter Leonis. The words of the author of the Life, which Baronius designated, stand in our edition at book 2, chapter 3, number 108. But the most eminent founder of the Ecclesiastical Annals is thus refuted by Manrique at number 5: But whatever be the case concerning those comings, of which, he says, we shall treat in their own times, that he came in this year also with Innocent the letter lately adduced testifies, a weighty witness: We are, he says, at the entry of the City. Nay, the legation through him to the Genoese, of which above, makes this same thing manifest, and likewise the other to Conrad, Duke of Swabia, which I shall presently adduce. Add that it is ascertained from the Cistercian Exordium that the Saint was three years exiled from his sons, while he stayed in Italy to settle the schism; which years, however, unless we reckon them from 1132 to 1135, we should scarcely, or scarcely even then, be able to designate.

[194] he went to Rome. For from 1135, in which it is agreed that he stayed in Gaul, to 1137, in which he is read to have returned again from the Roman court, we shall designate not three but only two. Let the reader receive the words of the Great Exordium; which in Tissier, distinction 2, chapter XI, run thus: The venerable Father Bernard, when he had once stayed for three years in the city of Rome, and in the Italian parts for the settling of the schism of Peter Leonis, etc. Manrique subjoins: And this was for him the one cause of deserting his sons for so long a time. Therefore Bernard, assisting Innocent in this very year — which cannot be called into doubt — must be believed to have been sent to Anacletus together with the holy archbishop Norbert, to restore him, if they could, to the Church. But of the three journeys of St. Bernard into Italy, to be distinguished, Pagi also treats in the Critique on Baronius under the year 1134, number 10, where he praises Manrique for having rightly distinguished his threefold Italian journey, and thus answers this objection: Nor does it matter that in the letter of the emperor Lothair, recited by us under the preceding year, the name of Bernard is not mentioned, although some bishops and abbots are named in it; for in the court of emperors

and of kings, the bishops and abbots who were present did not all subscribe the diplomas, and therefore neither were all of them named in them.

[195] As to what Manrique very lately conjectured concerning the Saint's being sent to Anacletus together with St. Norbert, Whether he was sent to Anacletus, if both were sent, they brought back no fruit of the journey undertaken for that purpose: for the words of the Saints found him inflexible, he says at number 6, and not to be softened by any accommodations, by any reasonings — according to what Ernaldus writes in book 2, chapter 2 of the Life of St. Bernard: He most obstinately avoided even a conference with the Emperor, and was bent neither by threats nor by blandishments, nor did he admit the counsel of any person whatsoever concerning his own condition. But King Lothair's entry into the City, and his imperial coronation there, let these be held as here inserted: concerning which, however, I recite these words from the Chronicle of Otto of Freising, book 7, chapter 18: But the king, bearing confidence more in his mind than in his soldiery, advanced as far as the City; and there, having strenuously accomplished with a few men such things as he could, he was crowned in the church of the Holy Savior, which is called Constantinian, by the supreme Pontiff Innocent, and obtained the name of emperor and augustus. For Peter (Leonis) had at that time occupied the church of blessed Peter, where it was the custom for emperors to be crowned. But having less confidence in furthering the success of his own affairs, and hoping rather that by delaying he would better provide for them, being indeed inferior in strength but safer in his positions, not making God his helper but hedged about with the malice of his confederates, remaining in the loftier and safer towers, he mocked the valor of Lothair; and by forbidding his own men public encounters, he neither made trial of his own security nor gave the enemy occasion of conflict: yet nevertheless he hindered their free movement by engines from above and by various obstacles, as Ernaldus alleged above testifies.

[196] But when Lothair had set out from Rome he raised his horns; so that it seemed to Innocent also he accomplished nothing with him: that it would be more to his advantage if he too should then return to Pisa. Let Ernaldus be heard, speaking thus in the same place: Innocent therefore being left at Rome, the emperor departs elsewhere. But Peter, after his departure, making frequent sallies through the City, gaped after the slaughter of the faithful. Innocent therefore, understanding that his stay at Rome was at that time fruitless for him, lest by his presence he should make more savage the rage of that beast, returns again to Pisa: and there, the bishops of the whole West and other religious men being gathered, a synod of great glory is celebrated; concerning which we shall speak under the year 1134, in which it was held. Meanwhile some things occur which are to be added to these; concerning which the Cistercian Annals, chapter 2:

[197] Innocent, they say, staying at Pisa, sends Father Bernard as legate to Germany, to reconcile at length, after a long schism he is sent into Germany, and absent keeps the Pisans in their duty: of which above (namely of eight years), Duke Conrad with the new emperor, on fair terms agreed upon by both sides, to which Lothair's childlessness gave place. But meanwhile Roger, formerly Duke of Sicily, then created pseudo-king by Anacletus, having learned of the holy Father's departure, and having got from it an occasion, as he thought, of softening the constancy of the Pisans, attacks them with envoys and letters, promising many things if they desert Innocent, if they go over to Anacletus; threatening more if they persist in their fidelity: both keenly and earnestly, after the manner of princes. To no entreaties did the Pisans yield, to no terrors, taught perseverance by the holy Father, and cleaving to Innocent from the heart. Which, being announced to Bernard on his journey, he judged worthy of everlasting praise, such a letter being written to them; which may be read, and is the hundred and thirtieth in order among the other letters of Bernard. This letter Baronius, under the year 1133, number 10, calls worthy of perpetual memory. But now let us pursue in few words, as is our custom, the things which are related to have been done by the same Bernard on that same journey, from the authors of that time, since they concern this year — as Manrique writes under the year 1133, chapter 2, number 3.

[198] He converts Adelaide of Lorraine: And first indeed that he converted many, to serve under his auspices at Clairvaux, from whom the vacant seats of the founders might be filled up, the abbot of Saint-Thierry is witness, who among the catches (so he himself calls them) made by the blessed Man, reckons the famous one of Mainz, book 1, chapter 13 of the Life; but in our division, book 1, chapter 7, number 68. But in this catch of men at Mainz, the conversion of Mascelinus above the rest was made famous, as Manrique goes on at number 4, by his resistance and by Bernard's prophecy: for he told him, unwilling as he was, that he would be converted, and at last drew him, struggling, to God. Go to Geoffrey, monk of Clairvaux, book 4 of the Life, chapter 2, number 201, where this deed is narrated at greater length. I should believe, says Manrique at number 5, that on this journey also the Duchess of Lorraine was converted by him — a distinguished woman, and no less singular in the state of a sinner than in that of a penitent. You have the deed in the biographer William, book 1, chapter 7. But, as Manrique subjoins at number 8, as regards the Duchess of Lorraine, it is agreed from the time that she was Alcis, sister of the emperor Lothair, wife of Simon, who bore him Matthew, who was to succeed in the duchy of Lorraine. But in what manner the same Duchess, persevering in holiness and justice, was held in delight by the Man of God — whom also, loosed from the prison-house of the body, she deserved to see ascending the heavens, and thereby to be the more confirmed in good, a daughter following her Father, a disciple her master, through labors to glory. Go to the Annotations on book 1 of the Life*, which is William's, chapter 7, letter l. Manrique, among the things which our Saint did on the said journey, narrates this at number 9:

[199] he deserves well of the men of Tongerloo, When the same Saint had at Rome, as we were saying, met again with Father Norbert, joined to him by new bonds of charity, he added new tokens of love. Hence it came about that, on this same journey, when he had turned aside for a little while to Cambrai, to visit the newly born house of Vaucelles, he took care that the most noble and wealthy abbey of Tongerloo should be obtained from Burchard, bishop of Cambrai, and handed over free to the Premonstratensians. That this was done chiefly at his instance, a fit witness (the instrument of donation) confirms, which Aubert le Mire produces. That instrument is found in his Cistercian Chronicle, which was published at Cologne in the year 1614, page 90 and following. Here is this fragment for you, which it may suffice to have transcribed hither for our purpose: I therefore, Burchard, bishop of Cambrai, judged that the petition of the religious men — namely of Waltmann, abbot of Antwerp, and of Bernard of Clairvaux — was to be approved, who besought that I would endow the church of Tongerloo with liberty, so that the brethren of the Premonstratensian Order, living in it under the rule of blessed Augustine, might be able freely and quietly to serve God. Judging which petition to be good, and therefore graciously hearkening to it, I make the aforesaid church of the blessed Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary free from every exaction and from the dues owed for the maintenance of the canons serving God and his holy Mother in it. Then .. I willingly ordain that in appointing an abbot the sounder part of the Convent shall have free power; but let the elect be presented to the bishop of Cambrai, etc. And among the several who subscribe their seal is found ✠ S., that is, the seal, of Bernard of Clairvaux. These things were done at Cambrai in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1133, Conrad ever augustus reigning. But Burchard is read to have died in 1131, in the new edition of Gallia Christiana, volume 3, column 27.

[200] But of the advantage which the holy Abbot brought by his legation, he reconciles peace between Lothair and Conrad. concerning which discourse was lately begun, to the common good of the Church and of secular princes, Manrique speaks thus at number 10: Now as regards the fruit of the legation: it is ascertained that Bernard obtained his request, and that, Lothair and Conrad being reconciled, he established peace for the empire for a long time. Of these things in the Polish History, from the collection of Johann Pistorius of Nidda, printed at Basel in the year 1582; in which, volume 2, book 5, page 485, these things are said under the year 1126: In Germany and Italy Conrad the Swabian with his brother Frederick had taken up arms against the emperor Lothair, until, being conquered by him, they were reconciled to him by the work of Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, illustrious for doctrine, piety, and holiness of life. And so it came about, as Manrique subjoins, that in a case plainly similar the kingdom owed nothing less to Father Bernard than did the priesthood, and that he who had established the Pontiff for the Church should no less establish the emperor for the world. But that which the praised Cistercian historian just now asserted, that Bernard established peace for the empire for a long time, I do not sufficiently combine with what Pagi has in the Critique on Baronius under the year 1135, number 12. For there, treating of the princes of the Empire swearing peace with the emperor Lothair, among other things which he recites from the Hildesheim Chronographer under the said year 1135, he transcribes the following: On the feast of St. Michael, in the place which is called Mühlhausen, Conrad, brother of Duke Frederick, is reconciled to the emperor. And presently he observes this: Already in the year 1133 (Trithemius in the Hirsau Chronicle marks the year 1134) Conrad had returned into his favor; but some dissension must afterwards have arisen between them. Unless perhaps the former are to be understood of a less solemn act of concord, which had been entered upon by them earlier; but those things which were said to have happened at Mühlhausen, of a reconciliation which was confirmed by oath in a public assembly of the princes after the first — perhaps also sworn, but with a less solemn rite.

In the printed text, barbarously, non obliviscendum*.

* Rather Atheleis, or Adelaide.

§ XIX. Things done in the Council of Pisa, and at Milan.

The Council of Pisa; The year of Christ 1134, which we here approach with the Cistercian historian, shone forth eminently in the fame of the great Father Bernard, with the highest commendation of his venerable name, as well from the affairs and miracles accomplished among the Milanese and elsewhere in Italy, as from the Council of Pisa, which was celebrated there this year. All which things afford us a noble theme concerning the praises of the most holy Man. Innocent had appointed, says Manrique, chapter 1, number 1, a council to be celebrated at Pisa this year of Christ 1134, at which there was also to be present a great part of the Church at that time, Father Bernard, by the command of the same Pontiff. When, behold, as he was hastening thither, envoys from Milan intercepted him, meaning to bring the Saint back with them, if they could, that through him they might be reconciled to the Pontiff, and through him to Lothair; this last succeeding by election into the place of the deceased emperor Henry. That nevertheless Conrad, Duke of Swabia, the same Henry's brother-in-law, had aspired to the kingdom by right of blood, has been said above. (Consult the year 1125, chapter 1, number 6.) Nay, that he was received by the Milanese, anointed at Monza — or Modicia, or Modoetia — the seat of the kingdom of Italy (where the emperors were wont to receive the iron crown, as Baudrand notes) by Archbishop Anselm, and acclaimed king of the Romans, we have also handed down from the same Conrad's brother Otto of Freising, as may be seen in the place just assigned. Therefore, constant, or rather obstinate, in this allegiance, while they cleave to Conrad, they reject Lothair, on account of Conrad

they turned away also from Innocent. For Innocent, bound by a protection inherited from Honorius, and then by many and not slight services, had furthered the party and the cause of Lothair.

[202] after whose end But now, Lothair being crowned and Conrad settled with him through Bernard, since they were held by no oath of fidelity given, and moreover wished to be reunited to the Church, they were essaying through the same Bernard to gain the favor of the Pontiff and of the emperor, Anacletus being abjured. This was the public occasion of the legation: but besides this there was another, a special one, for the many who, struck by the fame of Bernard's sanctity and of his disciples', and converted, and already then spurning the delights of the world, if they had not anticipated the holy Father's coming, at least awaited it with God's anticipating grace, meaning to deliver themselves to his mastership. From these, unless I am mistaken, the envoys were chosen, as those who from the very purpose of their own conversion would the more effectually persuade the holy Father. And the most sweet Father would have turned aside to them at once, had not the time of the Council of Pisa been pressing, from which, saving his obedience to the Pontiff, he could by no means be absent. He answered nevertheless, asking a short respite, that he would present himself after the council. And since it was chiefly by the work of the Milanese Clergy that the same city, its first error being wiped away, was being recalled to the unity of the Church, he wrote this first letter to the Clergy.* Thus from Manrique. But whether it was drawn up first or not, it is nevertheless found in the first place, and before two others, in the collection of them.

[203] The Saint defers his journey to the Milanese; Now in that letter, which in the said collection is the hundred and thirty-second in order, the holy Father congratulates the clergy of Milan on the success already spoken of, and defers his coming to them, beginning it thus: Blessed are you of the Lord, by whose zeal and industry your city has been freed from error, and, the schism being left, has returned to Catholic unity. .. And I, brethren, desiring to be made a partaker and companion of your joy, was coming to you according to your petition with our beloved brethren, your messengers, meaning to satisfy you more fully, according to reason, in the good pleasure of God, concerning the things about which you have written to me. But because the time is short in which we are hastening to the council, let it not burden you to bear with us until our return. And these things indeed to the clergy: but in epistle 133 to the citizens of Milan, by whom he had been invited to compose the peace, he writes that he rejoices that his work is required for this business, and bids them hope for his return after the Council of Pisa. Concerning epistle 137 to the empress of the Romans (Richenza, as is added in the margin in Mabillon), written after the same council concerning Milanese affairs, the holy Man signifies that the Milanese were not received into favor by the Pontiff before they themselves should receive the emperor Lothair. Hence he commends them to the clemency of the empress. But of that letter I shall speak also below. But the names of the envoys, of whom a little before, the holy Father himself expresses in epistle 134 in these words: I, brethren, provoked by so great a joy, but also called by you through our dearest brethren Otto and Ambrose, whom you sent for this very purpose, had determined to come to you together with them, etc. Further, the epistle is entitled To the novices converted at Milan*, whom he congratulates on their conversion, and pledges that, the council being over, he will see them.

[204] That the address, or title, of this epistle just spoken of led Baronius into error under the year 1134 seems to us more probable: for where he writes this at number 8: But by now the Cistercian Religion had been planted at Milan, and propagated with a fruitful offspring; that this is wrongly said, Manrique notes against the same Baronius, chapter 1, number 7. when the Cistercians were sent across to Milan. But let us hear Mabillon in his briefer note on the same epistle, in which he writes this: From this title Baronius infers that already before Bernard's coming to Milan, that is, before the year 1134, a family of Cistercians had been sent thither, and some monastery founded, to which those novices had bound themselves. But Ughelli, in volume 4 of Italia Sacra (column 197), thinks that the first monastery of Cistercians in that city is Chiaravalle, which he proves to have been founded at the second milestone from the city not before the year 1135: and consequently that in this epistle by the name of novices are to be understood those who, lately converted by the work of Bernard on his way to the Council of Pisa, had already devoted themselves from the heart to his mastership. Ughelli's epoch concerning the founding of the monastery is established from an old inscription, and from the earliest instruments of the place, in which it is constantly called Caravallis, not Claravallis. See epistle 281. So Mabillon. Further, this epistle, to which he sends the reader, is inscribed in the title To Bruno, abbot of Caravalle: on which he observes this: The earlier editions have published Claravalle: but the codices of better note prefer Caravalle: with which the domestic instruments of Caravallis agree. Now Caravallis is a distinguished abbey of the Cistercians near Milan. Now again to Bernard. You have heard, kind reader, what the holy Abbot did before he came to the Council of Pisa; behold, we now set forth for you with how great veneration he was admitted to it, with how great authority he took part in its acts, with how great advantage he profited it.

[205] Ernaldus, in book 2 of the Life, chapter 2, left these things noted for our purpose: St. Bernard takes part in the Council of Pisa with signal authority, Innocent .. returns again to Pisa: and there, the bishops of the whole West and other religious men being gathered, a synod of great glory is celebrated. The holy Abbot was present in all things, both in the counsels and in the judgments and in all the definitions, and reverence was paid him by all, and priests kept watch before his threshold, not because pride, but because the multitude, forbade common access: and, as some went out, others came in, so that the humble Man, arrogating nothing to himself out of these honors, seemed to be not in a share of the solicitude, but in the fullness of power. So Ernaldus, most faithful writer of the Life, and a witness beyond all exception. And so this was now the third council held, as Manrique observes in chapter 2, number 1, on this text (nor do I include that of Troyes, he says) in which deference was paid to Bernard in all things: one for declaring Innocent supreme Pontiff, two under him. The praised biographer then goes on to the acts of the council, which he thus touches summarily: It would be long to pursue the actions of the council: the sum, however, consisted in the excommunication of Peter (Leonis) and in the irreversible deposition of his supporters, and to this day that sentence perseveres. More concerning this council Pagi has in the Critique on Baronius under the year 1134, where he also treats of its epoch.

[206] and he exerts himself that it be not hindered by the king of Gaul, It is fitting to cull from him for our purpose what he there reports at number 3 concerning Louis, king of France, when he thought to hinder that synod. Between Innocent II and Louis VI, king of the Franks, there was some dissension, and thence St. Bernard sent epistle 255 to King Louis, and warned him not to hinder a council so necessary at this time to the Church and the kingdom, and one that would redound to the king's own honor. "But the heat," they say, "is excessive. As though we had bodies of ice," says Bernard. .. "Nevertheless, if anything has proceeded from the rigor of Apostolic authority whereby the serenity of your highness may judge itself deservedly disturbed, your faithful subjects who will be present will strive with all their strength that this same thing be revoked or tempered, as befits your honor. Among whom we also, if we can do anything." Upon what the Saint said concerning the heats, Mabillon observes in the notes on that council: The king forbade the Gallican prelates to attend on the pretext of immoderate heat. And so, the affairs of the council being finished, the holy Father discharged the pledge before given to the Milanese concerning his journey to them. It is my mind to divide into various members that expedition, so illustrious for the supreme Man.

[207] The end for which he was sent Let us consider, then, first, for what ends he was sent thither by the supreme Pontiff. Pagi, mentioned very lately, sets them forth thus at number 6: Landulf the Younger, chapter 41, in Puricelli's Monuments of the Ambrosian Basilica, number 360, makes mention of the reconciliation of the Milanese with Innocent II, and says: "Pope Innocent celebrated a synod at Pisa, in which, with bishop Robald (of Alba) representing, Thealdus de Landriano, archpriest of the church of Milan" (he seems to be the successor of Stephen de Guandeca, who in the preceding year greatly harassed Anselm, archbishop of Milan, as we there said) "Amizo de la Sala, archdeacon, Anselm de Rhode, deacon, and several others, ordinaries of the same church, and with the primicerius, priest of the Decumani, contrary to the accustomed honor of Milan and of its church, swore fidelity to Pope Innocent*" (for the Milanese, who thus far had retained their ancient liberty, persuaded themselves that the oath of fidelity decreed by Gregory VII, which today is exacted of prelates, was contrary to the dignity of their church.)

[208] to Milan, "But the Cremonese by no means released, on account of this fidelity, the Milanese soldiers whom they held captive. But Pope Innocent confirmed the deposition and expulsion of the oft-named Anselm de Pusterla (from the bishopric of Milan). Nevertheless the aforenamed, who had sworn fidelity, fearing these misfortunes of the city and church of Milan, deferred to return to Milan unless they should have a protector who would confirm before the people of Milan the expulsion of Anselm, and reduce to nothing the coronation of Conrad (made in the year 1128), and would convoke the people of so great a city and confirm them in love toward the emperor Lothair and in unity with Innocent himself. For accomplishing these things the Pope had from God a fit angel, such as was Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux." Thus far Landulf, cited in Puricelli, into whose words Pagi inserts some things of his own, as appears from the parentheses. But the Milanese History of Landulf the Younger, or of St. Paul, has not long since come forth reprinted among the Writers of Italian Affairs* published at Milan, in volume 5 of that collection, and has been illustrated with notes. The text reported above from Puricelli's edition I have compared with the most recent, as you may see from the various readings added by me in the margin from it. In the same new edition also may be consulted the notes on chapter 41 of Landulf, which are found in the aforesaid volume from page 513.

[209] Let us consider, secondly, who were sent as legates to Milan with Bernard by the Apostolic See, the legates, that a business of so great weight might be accomplished. The companions of this illustrious legation the biographer Ernaldus records in book 2, chapter 2, number 91, after those things which he had set out concerning the Council of Pisa, speaking thus: The council being dissolved, the lord Pope sent from his side, to reconcile the Milanese, the Abbot of Clairvaux, whom they had sought with many supplications, and Guido of Pisa, and Matthew, bishop of Albano, that they might wash away the schism made in that city through Anselm, and recall the straying to the unity of the Church. The Abbot therefore, together with the aforesaid men whom he had received from the lord Pope as colleagues, added to the company, by common counsel, the venerable man Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres, whose sincerity and innocence he had proved in many things. And it seemed good to the Cardinals that with so great a helper the business

of so great weight should be supported. To these we add the following notices. That Geoffrey, called de Lèves, presided over the government of the church of Chartres from the year 1116 until 1138, according to the Sainte-Marthe brothers in Gallia Christiana, volume 2, where he is praised at greater length. Of Guido of Pisa there is treatment in Ciacconius, in the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs and Cardinals, volume 1, column 987; as also at column 960 and following of Matthew of Albano, where he is adorned with most magnificent eulogies. Landulf the Younger, chapter 42, treating of Bernard's entry to the Milanese, joins to him only these companions: That aforenamed Abbot, delaying nothing, entered Milan with the bishop of Chartres and with Robald of Alba; according to the notes here, that is to say, with him whom, Anselm being deposed, the Milanese had chosen as archiepiscopal vicar for the discharge of the offices. But Ernaldus is of greater value to us than that we should here depart from him even by a nail's breadth.

[210] Let us consider, thirdly, the marvelous entry of the holy Man to the Milanese, his entry, like a prodigy, and — if you gather all its circumstances together — with a most rare, and perhaps no, example of such a reception of Saints. Hear Ernaldus, book 2 of the Life, chapter 2, number 91, cited: The Apennines being crossed, he says, when the Milanese heard that the longed-for Abbot was drawing near their borders, all the people go out to meet him seven miles from the city: nobles, commoners, horsemen, footmen, the middling sort, the poor, as though they were migrating from the city, desert their own hearths, and in distinct bands receive the Man of God with incredible reverence. All alike take delight in the sight of him: they judge themselves happy who could enjoy the hearing of him. All kiss his feet: and although he took this ill, by no means could he restrain them as they bowed down in devotion, by no prohibition drive them off. They plucked also such threads as they could from his garments, and for remedies of diseases drew off something from the shreds of his clothes, judging all things holy which he had touched, and themselves sanctified by the touch or use of them. And so those going before and those following applauded the Abbot with joyful acclamations, and, when he had been long detained within the thick press of the throngs, at last brought him to a solemn lodging, at the church of St. Lawrence, according to what is to be said afterwards in §20 at the beginning. When the tokens of public veneration, gladness, and acclamation were so lavishly poured forth, what could be done more illustrious for the Saint's praise, what more suited to the most ardent affection of the Milanese toward him?

[211] What of this, that on account of the multitude of the people poured around him there was no way of entrance? the concourse and esteem of the people, The author of the Great Cistercian Exordium, distinction 2, chapter 16, says: When therefore he was sitting there (namely at Milan) in a certain most spacious house, there was so great a multitude of men about him that no one could enter. Nay, there also he was accounted as an angel fallen from heaven, and a man next to God. For, as the same author presently subjoins, Meanwhile a certain one of the citizens of that city, honorable in dress and countenance, since he desired by every means to approach the Man of God, and nowhere found an approach, thrust himself into the midst of the crowds, crawling on hands and feet, and walking over the necks of those seated, until he might come to him whom he desired. And when he had laid hold of his feet, he began to embrace and kiss them with wonderful devotion. Seeing which, the aforesaid Renaldus, who was standing nearer, came up to remove him, knowing indeed that the holy Man was exceedingly burdened by venerations and homage of this kind. But he, turning, said to him: Let me be, I beseech you, let me see and touch the Man next to God, and truly an apostolic Man. For I tell you, and testify in the Christian faith, that I saw him among the Apostles of Christ. Hearing which, that monk wondered, and desiring to know more fully, wished to inquire of him the manner of this vision; but out of shame, on account of the bystanders, he did not presume. Nevertheless he most certainly believed that the revelation itself had been a great one, on account of which that man was so vehemently affected toward the Servant of God. Of Renaldus, the witness of this matter, I shall speak below at number 215.

[212] Let us consider, fourthly, how bravely he handled the cause of his legation, the success of the business, and how gently, without the resistance of the nobles and the discord of the common people, he executed the business committed to him. For indeed, as Ernaldus lately alleged testifies, When there had been treatment in public of the business on account of which both the Man of God and the Cardinals had come, the city, forgetful of its own strength, all ferocity laid aside, so prostrated itself before the Abbot that to their obedience might not unfittingly be applied that little verse of the poet:

To follow thy commands — to will it, as to be able, is my necessity.

But what that praised biographer says in general, the Saint himself expresses more in detail in the letter to the empress of the Romans, Lothair's wife, indicated before in this paragraph at number 203. But let us here give the Saint's own words: The Milanese were assuredly not received into the favor of the lord Pope and into the unity of the Church until openly, Conrad being refused and disavowed, they received our lord Lothair as their king and lord, and confessed him, together with the whole world, Augustus emperor of the Romans: and they pledged, the most sacred Gospel being touched, that they would worthily make satisfaction to you for the injury done. This letter, written by him in the year 1134, when he returned to Milan a second time, Pagi has under the same year, number 9.

[213] Let us consider, fifthly, that the most holy Man, with no success to be repented of, transformed the manners of the Milanese into a better rule. the reformation of manners brought the highest glory to the holy Man. Which Landulf testifies in these words, chapter 42: Meanwhile prince Conrad, having taken hold of a loftier counsel — namely from the time when he abdicated the kingdom and returned into favor with Lothair — was made standard-bearer of the emperor Lothair, and that aforenamed Abbot (he had just been treating of St. Bernard) entered Milan, which city indeed he fashioned as he willed. At this Abbot's nod all the ecclesiastical ornaments which were seen of gold and silver and palls in the church of that city were, as it were despised by that Abbot, shut up in chests; and not only males but women also were shorn, and, clad in hair shirts and the vilest woolens, are converted to whatever things are religious; water is changed into wine, etc. But of the miracles done there by the holy Man there will be treatment afterwards. Besides these ornaments with which our Abbot was adorned while he discharged the office of legate among the Milanese, others are at hand, which we shall give in the next paragraph.

Perhaps aucupabantur* "were angling for".

* Of Pisa.

In another reading is added ordinarius*.

Puricelli and another have adeo*.

§ XX. He refuses the government of the see of Milan; a note on the time; the Cistercian Order propagated there; how illustriously he deserved of the Humiliati; benefits conferred upon the Milanese.

[The Saint is so beloved by the Milanese that they wish to have him as their bishop,] Of the things most illustriously done by the Saint at Milan we have spoken a little before in such a way that not a few things remain to be said. Let us consider, then, sixthly, that our Apostolic Legate was held in such veneration and such love among the people of Milan that they demanded him as their bishop with the most ardent prayers of all. Landulf the Younger, chapter 42, narrates this thus: At length the same people, that they might have that Abbot for archbishop, ran with hymns and praises, and with their accustomed Kir. (of which in the notes on this chapter) to the church of St. Lawrence, in which he was lodged. Which that Abbot did not bear: but he said: Tomorrow I shall mount my palfrey, and if it carries me away from you, I shall not be to you what you ask; and so he departed from Milan. Puricelli, in the Monuments of the Ambrosian Basilica, number 368, expounding Bernard's answer, says: By which answer indeed the holy Abbot, himself desiring then to go to Pavia and Ticinum, seems to us not obscurely to have alluded to that which had befallen St. Ambrose, when, refusing the government of the church of Milan offered to him, he at last fled even from the city itself, "and having gone out of the city in the middle of the night (as Paulinus narrates in his life), when he thought he was going to Ticinum, he is found in the morning at the gate of the city of Milan which is called Roman." But this conjecture of Puricelli concerning that allusion of St. Bernard is altogether uncertain. And so the modesty of the divine Man refused this most honorable dignity offered to him, after his accustomed manner on other occasions of this kind. But that fact is confirmed from the biographer Ernaldus, book 2 of the Life, chapter 3; whence I cull this briefly for the present purpose at number 110: Within Italy the city of Genoa, and Milan, the metropolis of the Ligurians, chose him for their pastor and master.* So there, among other mitres refused by the most modest Man, that deed of the Milanese is asserted.

[215] and all but compel him even against his will: But why should I pass over in silence the testimony of the author of the Great Cistercian Exordium, who in distinction 2, chapter 16 has transmitted this to posterity: By the report of Dom Renaldus, of whom we have made mention above, we have learned that the servant of God Bernard, when he had once come to Milan for the reconciling of the schism of Peter Leonis, was received with so great exultation of all, etc. At last they were so pleased with him that, although they had not seen him before, as soon as he entered the city they seized rather than elected him as archbishop by unanimous consent. And when he had refused this, they were altogether ready to use force, had he not secretly escaped by flight. But who was this Renaldus, or Rainaldus? He is the same to whom there are extant three letters of Bernard, flowing with milk and honey beyond the wonted measure, as Manrique writes under the year 1121, chapter 5, number 9, which among the rest are the seventy-second, seventy-third, and seventy-fourth in order. He was likewise abbot of Foigny, in the diocese of Laon, and the first, indeed, as Mabillon affirms in his note on epistle 72; but Manrique, cited just now, denies it. He was also St. Bernard's faithful companion at Paris, who, as was reported above in §10, number 103, from the author of the Great Cistercian Exordium, was the more privy to the secrets of the Servant of God. Hence credit is won for the narration reported above from this man.

[216] in what year this happened. But from what was set out lately concerning the holy Father's coming to the city of Milan after the Council of Pisa, it is abundantly established that the mitre was offered to him in that place in the year of Christ 1134; so that it is a wonder that Sigonius so grossly went astray in the chronological reckoning of this fact, when he binds it to the year 1123. For indeed in volume 2 of his Works, most recently published at Milan, On the Kingdom of Italy, book 10, column 650, I read thus under that year: Honoricus, bishop of Milan, having died on the III Kalends of June, that dignity was conferred upon Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, on account of the wonderful opinion of his sanctity. But he refusing it, etc. Of Honoricus I set down nothing here; concerning him the notes on the same year may be consulted. In Panvinio, in the Ecclesiastical Chronicle, I find the same lapse of time under the year now often mentioned. Others, who assign the coming of St. Bernard the abbot to the city of Milan

wrongly, Puricelli refutes in the Monuments of the Ambrosian Basilica, number 331, as to whether it was the year of Christ 1119. But since they have gone astray so miserably that they do not deserve refutation here, the same author may be consulted concerning them. The Milanese therefore, in the year 1134, being frustrated of the most ardent desire with which they burned, of promoting to the archiepiscopal see and by that means retaining the holy Man with them, yet wishing to possess the Father in his sons and the Father in the sons, asked for ascetics of the Cistercian Order.

[217] Let us consider, therefore, seventhly, how well St. Bernard deserved of the Milanese and of the Cistercian Order, He propagates his Family when he propagated the latter among the former. There was at hand, as Manrique narrates under the year designated above, chapter 2, number 9, a copious harvest, both of those already converted before the Saint's coming, and of far more called by him and answering without any delay. There is extant a rescript of the same holy Father to Peter, then bishop of Pavia, in which he shows that the glory of the very many conversions experienced at this time, attributed to himself, must be referred to God alone, according to what he affirms in that epistle, the hundred and thirty-fifth in order: If the good seed, cast into good ground, seems to have brought forth fruit, the glory is His who gave the seed to the sower, fruitfulness to the earth, increase to the seed. What do we take in these things? I assuredly will not give the glory of Christ to another; but much more scrupulously will I usurp it for myself. Truly the law of the Lord converts souls, not I. The faithful testimony of the Lord gives wisdom to little ones, and not I. The hand is praised for the good shaping of the letter, not the pen. I confess, that I may attribute much to myself: my tongue is the pen of a scribe writing swiftly. Hence, therefore, may be clearly understood the huge multitude of those converted to a more perfect life. Therefore, as Manrique goes on at number 10, meaning to satisfy the devotion of both, and to render sons of peace for what he had received, himself otherwise inclined to enlarge his family, he assented to the pious and devout petition, and, a place being designated [not] far from the city, watered by native streams and pleasant, he consented that a building be set upon it, monks to be taken in from Clairvaux. That Guido, captain of the Eastern Gate, contributed not a little to this edifice, Carlo Sigonio relates: whom the reader may consult, book XI On the Kingdom of Italy, column 671 of the most recent Milanese edition. Let us go on with Manrique:

[218] That same place designated by a heavenly light, lighting up the boundaries of the house amid the darkness of night, I found in a certain manuscript of Roberto Rusca, he propagates it there: lately transmitted to me from the City, he says, by the beneficence of the very reverend father Dom Hilarion Reneatus, abbot of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, whom this our college of Salamanca formerly had as a pupil, and we as a hearer and a friend. The name of Clairvaux was given to the monastery in memory of the other Clairvaux, as though by the very word to refresh the Milanese, so long as it was not granted them to enjoy the holy Abbot. But it seems more probable that in this formation and allusion of the name of Clairvaux Manrique goes astray, from what was said above in §19, number 204, on occasion of epistle 134.

[219] Let us consider, eighthly, what the holy Father did in favor of the Order of the brethren, as they call them, of the Humiliati, while he was staying at Milan. the benefits are reckoned up, Pagi, under the year 1134, number 14, has gathered the following on this subject: At the time when Bernard was staying at Milan, he gave a rule to the Third Order of the Humiliati. These indeed had already from the year 1119, according to Tristano Calco, given a beginning to this Order; but before the divine Bernard they were not Religious. Puricelli, cited at number 375, asserts that they were called Brothers of Convenio, which Calco also committed to writing; and Puricelli adds: "An Order of this kind of Brothers of Convenio is called so to this day; and it bears this holy Abbot as patron on its own escutcheon." Puricelli subjoins that in the library of the basilica of Milan there is preserved a manuscript codex containing the privileges of the Humiliati, at the beginning of which is found: "St. Bernard came to Milan, and there shone with many miracles, and built a monastery (namely Caravalle ..). From whom (namely from Bernard) certain magnates and noble citizens of Milan, inebriated with the divine spirit, took up a form of living in a Religious habit, dwelling with their families (this then was their institute). St. Bernard therefore was the first founder of this Order. Whence the Brothers of this Third Order are today in some places called brothers of St. Bernard. Now the brothers of this Order remained thus by themselves in the Religious habit for 54 years, before a rule was granted them by the Roman Church. But in the year 1199, on the last day but one of May, a rule was given them by the lord Pope Innocent III. Wherefore it is to be known that the brothers of this Third Order were the founders of the first and second Order of the Humiliati."

[220] which the Saint conferred upon the Order of the Humiliati Galvano Fiamma, chapter 255 of his great Chronicle, in the praised Puricelli at number 375, writes: "The noble man Guido, and captain of the eastern gate, was the special helper of blessed Bernard in founding the monastery of Chiaravalle near Milan, out of his riches, in the year of the Lord 1135 ..; and this Guido built the Third Order of the Brothers of Convenio of St. Bernard at the eastern gate on the day of St. Vincent; which Innocent III confirmed, and by Innocent III it was called the Third Order. These Brothers of Convenio founded the Order of the Brothers Humiliati, and used to visit them." Which the same Galvano, who lived in the fourteenth century, confirms in the book entitled Manipulus florum, chapter 171, in Puricelli in the same place; but in the most recent Milanese edition of that Manipulus, chapter 169. But although St. Bernard and Guido are founders of the Humiliati, who before them both had neither a rule nor a Religious habit, yet this society had already begun before, as Puricelli proves by the testimony of St. Antoninus, part 2 of the Chronicles, title 15, chapter 23; by Raffaele Volaterranus, book 21; by Tristano Calco and others. Sigonius therefore is mistaken, who binds the beginning of this Order to the year 1046, as may be seen in his History of the Kingdom of Italy under the year 1046. From these things, therefore, we understand that a fixed rule of living was prescribed by St. Bernard at Milan to the said brothers. And although this suffices for our purpose, yet we briefly subjoin these notes to this fact.

[221] while staying among the Milanese. Galvano Fiamma, in the Manipulus florum, chapter 169 cited, writes that this happened in the year 1135, to which he links the Saint's return to the city of Milan. For writing under the year 1134, he presently subjoins: In the following year blessed Bernard returned to Milan .. he ordained the Order of St. Bernard, who are now called brothers of Conegio, etc. But Puricelli, alleged at page 63, also affirms that this was done on the return of which I was speaking; but he differs as to the year, affirming indeed that the matter happened at that time in which St. Bernard within this year (but he marks the year 1134 in the chronological index which is prefixed to his cited work) was a second time at Milan. But of that return we shall treat afterwards. Then the same author, page 632, does not admit that that Order was called Third from the name of Innocent III; for otherwise, he says, and better, do others think. Hippolyte Helyot, volume 6 of the History of the Monastic Orders, etc., chapter 19, treats at greater length of the Religious of the Order of the Humiliati and of their suppression: where one may see the various opinions of authors concerning its origin; the etymology, as is reported, of the name; the three different states of the Order; of the first of which, after the praised writer has treated, he affirms that the second began in the year 1134, having embraced by St. Bernard's counsel a manner of living different from the former, etc. Then he subjoins the third Order under the rule of St. Benedict, etc., and says that it subsisted until the Humiliati were extinguished: but why, in what manner, and by whom this was done, may be read there. It pleases us now to recount other benefits conferred by St. Bernard upon the Milanese, which the Saint himself records.

[222] For indeed in epistle 131, which is linked in Mabillon to the year of Christ 1135, he records what was afforded to the Milanese with this synopsis prefixed to it, Since the Milanese, though reconciled to Innocent, seemed nevertheless to waver in duty and obedience, he incites them to retain their constancy, recording the recent benefits of the Roman Church toward them — and why should we not add his own also? since assuredly they were obtained, either in part or wholly, by the Saint's interposing his authority, as it seems fair to believe — in that epistle, I say, he thus records: God does well with you: the Roman Church does well with you. He does what a father does: she does what a mother does. And in truth, what ought she to have done for you and has not done? If you asked that honorable persons be sent to you from the court, for the honor of God and your own, it was done. If you asked that what your unanimity had confirmed concerning the election of your venerable father should be confirmed, it was done. If you wished that to be lawful to you which the sacred canons judge unlawful, save indeed for great necessity — namely the translation of a bishopric into an archbishopric — it was granted. If you begged that your citizens be rescued from the bonds of the men of Piacenza, which indeed I neither wish nor am able to pass over, this too was done. In which, finally, what reasonable petition of a daughter has suffered, I do not say a repulse, but even a delay with a loving mother? Behold, for the completion, the pallium is ready, the fullness of honor.

[223] But that those things which the Milanese had asked and obtained, on St. Bernard's report above, may be better understood, the Saint himself in his letter to them. Mabillon observes in the notes on the aforesaid epistle, concerning the venerable persons sent to them: There were sent with Bernard the bishops Guido of Pisa, Matthew of Albano, Geoffrey of Chartres, as the biographer Ernaldus testifies, chapter 2, number 91 in our edition — namely to reconcile to the Roman Church the Milanese, who had kindled a schism on account of the deposition of Anselm the archbishop, elected by themselves. On the phrase your venerable father, he notes: namely Ribaldus, who was elected by them in the place of the rejected Anselm. But by the translation of a bishopric into an archbishopric, as the holy Father said, understand, he says, the restitution of the archiepiscopal dignity, which had been taken away from that church by the Pontiff on account of the schism. See the other Notes. What the holy Man wrote concerning the bonds of the men of Piacenza, he thus expounds: For while both were contending against one another in war, many of the Milanese had been carried off captive by the men of Piacenza. Besides these, concerning Ribaldus or Robaldus and Anselm, Pagi may be seen under the year 1134, numbers 11 and 12. It remains that we treat of the prodigies done both at Milan and elsewhere in Italy by our great Wonder-worker.

That is, an ambling horse, in French palefroi*.

§ XXI. He shines with miracles at Milan; he betakes himself to Pavia and Cremona; absent from his sons in body, present in spirit; his letters to them, as also to the emperor Lothair; his return to his own; the acts and the time.

Of the miracles which happened at Milan, The miracles by which God, wonderful in his Saints, illustrated this his Servant — in whose most upright life, merits, and apostolic labors he was well pleased — while he stayed among the Milanese, are described by Ernaldus in book 2 of the Life, chapter 2; from which author they have been inserted in the Cistercian Annals under the year of Christ 1134, chapter 1. But since those prodigies are narrated at greater length in the said Life, which we shall give below, therefore let it suffice to have exhibited them here in summary, for the continuing of the series of the Acts of St. Bernard which we are illustrating. Here, then, are the words of the praised biographer for you: Unheard of in our times is so great a faith of a people, so great a power in a man: among whom there was a religious contention, since the Abbot ascribed the glory of the signs to their belief, but they to the Abbot's sanctity, and thought this of him without doubting, that whatever he asked of the Lord he obtained. Nor indeed did their judgment deceive them. For, as the same biographer immediately subjoins, They therefore bring to him, hesitating in nothing, a woman known to all, whom for seven years an unclean spirit had vexed, and beg as suppliants that in the name of the Lord he command the demon to flee, and restore health to the woman. .. And applying himself to prayer, by power slipping down from heaven he rebukes Satan in the spirit of fortitude, and puts him to flight, and renders the woman sound and quiet. .. This word was heard, and the report spread abroad .. Through churches, through halls, and through all the crossways they gather from every side. .. They say publicly that nothing is impossible to him which he asks of the Lord. .. Some rush into his presence: others wait before the doors until he come out. There was a ceasing from offices and crafts. .. They run together, they ask to be blessed: and to each one it seems salutary to have touched him.

[225] a synopsis is given: On the third day, as the author goes on, the Servant of God proceeds to the church of St. Ambrose to celebrate the divine mysteries: where, an innumerable multitude of people waiting, amid the very solemnities of the Mass, while the clerics were singing and he himself sat beside the altar, offering him a little girl whom the devil was vexing with violent onset, they pray that they may come to the poor child's aid. .. The supplication of the bystanders having been heard, and having beheld the person gnashing with her teeth .. he had compassion on her age. .. He takes, therefore, the paten of the chalice in which he was to celebrate the divine mysteries, and, water having been poured over his fingers .. he applies the healing draught to the girl's mouth, and pours the medicinal drop into her body. Nor was there delay: as though Satan were burned .. going out in haste .. he broke forth. The same writer of the Life, having spoken of the license of the demons hindered by the holy Man, then treats of the expulsion of demons from various possessed persons. But because to narrate these things one by one, preserving the energy and phrasing of the author, who sets them forth at length and pathetically, would lead us out into a long discourse, let the reader go to the fountain itself; where he will also find other prodigies of cures wrought by our Wonder-worker. Milan therefore being left for a while — which has now long detained us, intent upon reporting the most illustrious deeds of the Saint there — let us set out elsewhere with him as he departs thence, namely to Pavia and Cremona.

[226] Sigonio, in the most recent Milanese edition, volume 2, he labors in vain to reconcile the men of Pavia and Cremona with the Milanese: book 11, column 671, under the said year 1134, has thus: Thence, namely from Milan, setting out by Innocent's command to pacify the cities of Lombardy among themselves, he betook himself to Pavia and Cremona. But when he had accomplished nothing among the Cremonese, he signified their obstinacy to Innocent in these words: "The Cremonese have hardened, and their prosperity destroys them. They despise the Milanese, and their own confidence seduces them. These, placing their hope in chariots and horses, have frustrated mine, and emptied out my labor." So Sigonio, from the very words with which our apostolic Man begins his letter to Innocent, which in Mabillon's edition is marked as the three hundred and fourteenth in order, otherwise 318, and is bound to the year 1134. Lodovico Cavitelli, in the Cremonese Annals under the same year, records this: The divine Bernard obtained absolution and pardon for the Milanese, when the sacraments had been interdicted them by the supreme Pontiff because they had adhered to Conrad the Swabian, and presently, Conrad being dismissed, they had adhered to Lothair: and having set out to Cremona and to Pavia, that he might there settle the inhabitants and their confederates with the Milanese, he returned from Cremona to Milan with the business unaccomplished. Of the year of that return there will be speech a little below. After he had returned thither, therefore, he freed a woman in a moment from a wretched vexation by a demon and from a contraction of the sinews; as Ernaldus reports at greater length, book 2 of the Life, chapter 3. Nor indeed did Bernard, on his journey to the men of Pavia and Cremona of whom I was just speaking, refrain from restraining the demon, as the same cited biographer testifies; where there is more. On which, placing this coping-stone, These things, he says, chapter 3, number 108, and many others the Man of God wrought while stationed within the Alps, and traversing various places he did good to those who were sick, enlightening the blind, raising up the weak, curing the fevered, and chiefly cleansing those oppressed by the devil … and the breasts which the malignant spirit had defiled he consecrated as temples acceptable to God.

[227] And the biographer, at once digressing to the Man's praises, [The supreme Man joins to the greatness of the things he did a wonderful modesty of mind:] says at number 109: Above all things I count this more sublime .., that, although he was a vessel of election, and bore the name of Christ before nations and kings undaunted; although the princes of the world obeyed him, and at his nod the bishops in every nation stood; although the Roman Church herself venerated his counsels with a singular privilege, and, as by a general legation granted, had subjected to him nations and kingdoms; although also .. his deeds and words were confirmed by miracles .., yet always thinking humbly of himself .., though he was in the judgment of all the highest, in his own judgment of himself he stood the lowest. Whatever he did he ascribed to God alone, etc. Add the infirmities and diseases by which he was proved like gold in the furnace, and also his contempt of dignities, whereby he never smiled upon any of the several mitres offered to him. Consult, if you please, the praised writer of his Life, who records at greater length the things which I have just now culled from him.

[228] Nor indeed, while it behooved him to live outside his most beloved Clairvaux, was he so occupied with the gravest affairs of the Church that forgetfulness of his sons left there seized him, or that he did not know absent from his sons in body, what things were being done there while he was far removed thence: but absent in body, yet present in mind and spirit, he met with them, visited them, and inspected them. The fact is proved from the Saint's words, which, returning from Italy, he presently uttered to the monks of Clairvaux among them in Chapter, as the Great Exordium of the Cistercian Order teaches, distinction 2, chapter 11, narrating thus: The venerable Father Bernard, when he had once stayed for three years in the city of Rome, and in the Italian parts, for the settling of the schism of Peter Leonis .., at length returning to Clairvaux, immediately after prayer had been made, entered the Chapter of the brethren. And because, wearied from the journey, he could not speak long, he uttered a brief discourse indeed, but full of consolation, saying thus: Blessed be God! who has restored to me you, my most beloved brethren, and to you me, such as I am, your Father. And I indeed, little sons, although through this three years' space I have seemed far removed from you, yet do not think that I was always absent. For know that three times in the meanwhile I returned to you, visiting this house and walking through the workshops, and always I departed cheered, always consoled, seeing your unanimity and your persistence in the purpose of our Order.

[229] present in spirit he visits them, and consoles them by letters: Innumerable are the things which that servant of God said and did, in which it manifestly appeared that he was endowed with prophetic grace, that he was many times present in spirit there where he seemed absent in body: and that he knew, by the Lord's revealing, many hidden things, and things placed farther off, which were thought to lie hid from him. But these things Dom Gerard, formerly abbot of Longpont, signified to us: who, being one of the ancient elders of Clairvaux, busied himself in searching out zealously the sayings and deeds of the holy Father. So there: to which let it be permitted us to add this also from the same source, though it looks elsewhere, which there follows: From his report also we have heard that this Saint of God, while he was preaching the word of God in a certain Chapter of monks, two of those brethren who were present saw him on the bench on which he was sitting suspended in the air, and lifted up as it were the measure of one foot from the ground. But as though these things which we said a little before, concerning the Saint's narration on returning to his own, containing a visitation unknown to them and wonderful, were not enough for his fatherly heart, he willed besides to console them by letters. Of which there are extant two epistles of his: one when he was sent into Apulia, of which below; the other written within this three years' space, as I believe, says Manrique under this year of Christ 1134, chapter 4, number 7, which he there produces. It is the 143rd in order, and is affixed to about the year 1135 in Mabillon, marked with this title, from which you will learn the matter of the writing. In it, therefore, the holy Man excuses his long absence, no less grievous — nay, more grievous — to himself than to his own. Meanwhile he briefly admonishes them of their duty. Further, under the same year the praised Cistercian historian writes in the whole of chapter 7 concerning William, formerly abbot of Saint-Thierry near Reims, then a monk of Signy, who committed to writing the first book of the Life of St. Bernard, and has been repeatedly cited by us above; but we shall speak of him below, when we treat of the writers of Bernard's Life. Meanwhile let us inspect the deeds of the most holy Abbot which are woven in under the following year of Christ 1135.

[230] There, therefore, the historian just mentioned, chapter 1, number 1, paving the way to the letter given by St. Bernard to the emperor Lothair, he writes to the emperor, that he may succor the Church: of which we shall presently treat, having prefaced some things concerning Roger, duke of Sicily, infesting Italy, etc., subjoins this: Innocent therefore, providing both for himself and for all, in this year 1135 .. sends legates to the emperor Lothair; let him come, let him defend the Church and the kingdom, let him fortify Italy with arms .. and recover what was ill seized from the invader. This was almost the first weighty legation in the affairs of the Church under Innocent which was not committed to Father Bernard, either because he shrank from stirring up war against Christians, however rebellious; or because, seized with longing for his own, and now absent three years, he was hastening his return to Clairvaux; or finally because, being appointed as more useful for Aquitaine and for the conversion of William, he was reserved by God for so great a business. He wrote nevertheless to the emperor, well-nigh sounding the trumpet, certainly inviting him to the defense of the Church and of the empire. Nay, the same emperor, deceived by a sinister report and thereby holding back Innocent from the defense of a certain church which was unjustly suffering, he rebukes rather boldly, with that liberty of spirit in which he was strong, and counsels him to desist from what he had begun. But

I do not transcribe the letter itself, which is found among Bernard's other letters as the hundred and thirty-ninth in order, and in the above-named editor is fitted to about the year of Christ 1135.

[231] These things having thus far been set forth concerning the holy Abbot's apostolic labors and miracles while he was in Italy, he returns to his own at Clairvaux; what things were done it remains that we follow him thence as he returns to his own in the year just named, with Ernaldus, book 2 of the Life, chapter 3, number 112: He had now crossed the Alps, and there came down to meet him from the highest crags shepherds and herdsmen and the rustic sort of men, and they cried out from afar asking a blessing, and crawled through the gorges of the mountains, returning to their folds, talking with one another, and rejoicing that they had seen the Holy One of the Lord, etc. But in what manner he was received by the brethren of Clairvaux, most beloved of him, the praised biographer presently subjoins. The Saint, therefore, being restored to his own, we must see what things were done among them. The Cistercian Annals under the year 1135, chapter 2, number 1, say: First, having entered his Clairvaux, and prayers having been poured forth as usual in the oratory, he is reported to have gone on into the Chapter: and presently there is attributed to him that address to his own, taken from the author of the Great Cistercian Exordium, which I produced above at number 228. Then the same Annals, number 2, write of the most flourishing observance of religious discipline, and of the signal concord of the brethren. Go to Ernaldus, whom I assigned very lately. Then they subjoin at number 3 the monks chosen by the holy Father for planting his offspring among the Milanese; at number 4 his letter to the emperor Lothair on behalf of the Pisans, which is among the rest the hundred and fortieth in order; likewise at number 7 that to Pope Innocent, which is the hundred and seventy-eighth in order, on behalf of Albero, archbishop of Trier; but it is marked in Mabillon under the year of Christ 1139, from Brower; and in the third chapter the translation of Clairvaux; finally the law of Mohammed translated from the Arabic and dedicated to the Saint.

[232] Lest this last seem strange to anyone, after that return, I produce Manrique's text in the said Annals, chapter 3, number 11: At the same time, as John Picard noted in his notes on epistle 227, Peter Maurice "sent back to Bernard a far more prolix letter, containing among other things a succinct narration of the life of Mohammed, which Peter, although most fabulous, as he himself confesses, took care to have translated into our tongue." Further, that this treatise or transcript was not only sent to Bernard but dedicated to him, the letter prefixed to that Work proves, with which it is circulated published together: which letter, otherwise weighty and worthy of these Annals, since it is by no means placed among the rest of the letters of Peter of Cluny, I have here judged not undeservedly to be transcribed. But it may be read there at number 12. Now that Peter was abbot of Cluny; from the same letter in the same place. And such indeed was the state of things when St. Bernard had returned to his dear sons of Clairvaux. To which, in place of a coping-stone, I subjoin some things concerning the year in which that return happened, since mention of it has fallen more than once above, and the writers do not seem to agree in determining the year of it.

[233] and in what year it befell. In the Bernardine Chronology, which is extant published together with the Saint's Works in Mabillon at the end of the first volume, column VI, under the year 1135 there is treatment of Bernard returning from Italy through the city of Milan, etc. Galvano Fiamma, whom we designated in §20, links his return to the Milanese to the same year; but Puricelli, whom I alleged in the same place, to the year 1134. From the text which Ernaldus has, book 2 of the Life, chapter 3, I gather that that return of the Saint is connected by him with the things which he did at Pavia and Cremona. For having spoken of these, he subjoins: When the holy Father passed a second time through Milan in the SAME YEAR, etc. Manrique, under the year 1135, chapter 1, number 4, says: That is, WITHIN THE YEAR; for so I understand it: and Manrique understands it thus, conformably indeed to what he had said concerning the deeds of the same holy Father when he had returned to the Milanese, adapting those to the said year 1135; and likewise consistently enough with the things which he narrates as done by St. Bernard among the men of Pavia and Cremona, and which he binds to the year of Christ 1134, as may be seen in him under that year, chapter 4; for things which are done within an indeterminate year, or through the space of twelve months, can suit two determinate years, so that they happened partly in the one, partly in the other. But I should incline rather to that opinion which casts the acts among the men of Pavia and Cremona, and also the return to the Milanese, not merely into one year but into the same year, so that there be no need to wrest that in the same year of Ernaldus into within the year with Manrique. For indeed St. Bernard's journey to the Milanese and his return; likewise his legation to the men of Pavia and Cremona; and also his departure across the Alps, to speak with Sigonio, are linked to the same year 1134 by the said Sigonio, On the Kingdom of Italy, book 11, whom see at column 669 and following of the most recent Milanese edition, and Pagi in the Critique under the same year.

§ XXII. William, Duke of Aquitaine, converted from the schism to the unity of the Church by St. Bernard; a demoniac woman freed by him at Nantes; various observations concerning Duke William.

The deplorable state of Aquitaine is described, The altogether deplorable state of Aquitaine — Duke William being hostile to Catholics and raging against the bishops, and Gerard of Angoulême, the pseudo-legate, intruding schismatics who rendered obedience to the antipope Anacletus — is sufficiently and more than sufficiently indicated both by St. Bernard himself and by his biographer Ernaldus. For the holy Abbot, in epistle 126, which is to the bishops of Aquitaine against the same Gerard of Angoulême, and in which he eminently defends the cause of Innocent as the legitimate Pontiff, speaks thus against that bishop, among other things, at column 134: He dares (which I say even weeping), the enemy of the cross of Christ, to trample with his feet the Saints who will not adore the beast, which has opened its mouth in blasphemies, to blaspheme the name of God and his tabernacle. He attempts to raise altar against altar; he is not confounded to confound right and wrong. He strives to intrude abbots upon abbots, bishops upon bishops: to remove Catholics, to promote schismatics. Wretched, and to be pitied, are they who consent to be so promoted, and by him. For indeed he goes about sea and dry land to make one bishop: and when he has made him, he makes him twofold more a son of hell than himself. This letter is linked in Mabillon to about the year of Christ 1132. But the biographer named a little before, pathetically representing the tragic scene of Aquitaine, book 2 of the Life, chapter 4, says: At that time the whole church of Bordeaux was laboring under the oppression of the schismatics, and there was no one in Aquitaine who could resist the prince, whose mind God had hardened: who, with Gerard, bishop of Angoulême, assenting and instilling into his heart the seeds of dissension, became the defender and author of the schism.

[235] Whoever did not subscribe to the acceptance of Peter Leonis, Duke William of Aquitaine and Robert of Angoulême raging against Catholics: being exposed to persecutions, some were punished with losses, others with proscriptions, others, driven from their own sees, were compelled to go into exile. Now there hissed in the ears of that Count with frequent persuasions, like the old serpent, that crafty man who had long been legate of the Apostolic See in those parts, and now, cast down from so great a magistracy, could not endure to be bishop of his own church only. But the other deeds of that ill-employed man, set in wickedness, the said author of the Life skillfully depicts in the same place, which the reader may see in the same Life, to be reprinted after this Commentary: whence he will become more certain of the mournful scene of the present tragedy, Gerard on this side, Duke William on that, lending mutual aid to the work. Nor did St. Bernard suffer his own aid for the good of the church to be wanting. Go to his epistle 125, fitted to the year of Christ 1131. But epistle 127, which is marked as given in the person of Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, about the year 1132, to William himself, Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine, against Anacletus and on behalf of Innocent — does it not indicate the holy Abbot's zeal toward the affairs of Aquitaine?

[236] But you would call these slighter helps of labor conferred by the Saint for the good of that province, if you should wish to compare them with the following. Bernard, about to exterminate the evil, frees a demoniac woman at Nantes: Ernaldus just now cited, after the description of the evils which were infesting Aquitaine, goes on thus at number 119: Hearing these and such things, the venerable man Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres, to whom the legation of Aquitaine had been committed by Pope Innocent, grieved vehemently, and, other business being set aside, resolved without any delay to succor the imperiled Church. He therefore seeks and beseeches the Abbot of Clairvaux, that he would succor him for the eliminating of so great evils. The Man of God assented … and promises … that he would set out with him into Aquitaine. They went therefore together .. and .. came together to Nantes, as the alleged Ernaldus narrates. In that place the holy Father freed with his staff a woman who for fully six years had had a most infamous commerce with a most impure spirit — other remedies having been tried in vain before — hurled an anathema against the demon, and drove him out. The deed is described at greater length by Ernaldus at number 119 and following. On that journey, therefore, you would say that divine providence willed to exhibit in Bernard that miracle, that it might be as a forerunner and prognostic of the great conversion of Duke William, which afterwards followed, God graciously favoring and the Saint striving untiringly, and of the destruction of the diabolical fraud which was infesting Aquitaine.

[237] thence departing into Aquitaine, he converts William in a wonderful manner: These things, therefore, having been accomplished by the holy Man against the malignant spirit among the people of Nantes, the Abbot and the legate together enter Aquitaine, according to the cited writer of the Life at number 122, who presently goes on to narrate why Gerard of Angoulême stayed in those places in which he thought himself safer, and no longer readily presented himself at public assemblies. Hence, then, it came about that from the withdrawal of that diabolical instrument an easier approach lay open to Bernard toward Duke William, and a gentler occasion of speaking. For on account of these things which Ernaldus had there set forth, and others of the kind, Gerard had begun to be confounded before men, and, fearing that things which could not be denied would be laid against him, avoided public assemblies, as the same author presently subjoins. The way, therefore, to a good success of the business being thus somewhat more leveled than before, it was signified, says Ernaldus at number 124, to the Count, through illustrious men who dared to approach him more safely, that the Abbot of Clairvaux and the bishop of Chartres, and other bishops and religious men, sought a conference with him. .. And he was persuaded not to shun a conference with such great men. And so at Partiniacum, commonly Parthenay, which is a city or town of Gaul in the province of Poitou, they meet from this side and that. But the acts

done in that assembly may be read in the said Life; where likewise it is described in how wonderful a manner the conversion of Duke William was accomplished by St. Bernard; in which there are two things which ought deservedly to seize the reader with astonishment: the one, indeed, the force of the Holy Spirit, and a certain heavenly frenzy by which the great Man was driven; the other, so great a change of a proud and obstinate prince, and following in so short a time: both set before the eyes pathetically by the same biographer.

[238] on which occasion various matters are here Our Father Godfrey Henschen, in the preliminary Commentary on the Life of St. William the Great, hermit at Stabulum Rodis in Etruria, in volume II of February, on the X day of that month, from page 433, attempted to weigh in the balance of truth and to disentangle the deeds of that Saint, wrapped in many fables and errors — a work no less laborious than not to be repented of. Thence I transfer hither briefly the things which serve our purpose. Care must therefore be taken that this William be not confounded with the former. For that this one is to be distinguished from that the same Commentary warns at §4. Moreover there are there adduced other things by which the matters reported above concerning William of Aquitaine and his conversion are illustrated. In the year 1130 he acknowledges Innocent II as Pope; but, seduced by others, he adheres in the year 1131 to the antipope Anacletus. In vain is he admonished by St. Bernard and by Joscelin, bishop of Soissons, in the same year 1131 — against Manrique under the year 1130, which things the praised Henschen judges to have happened in the following year, when it first began to be heard what that Gerard was machinating against the Church of God; from book 2 of the Life of St. Bernard, chapter 6; but in our division chapter 4, number 122. He records that this Saint then wrote the illustrious letter to the bishops of Aquitaine concerning that schism, the 126th in order among the rest, and afterwards sent the following one to William, Duke of Aquitaine, in the person of Hugh, Duke of Burgundy; of both of which we spoke lately. But in that which was addressed to Duke William this clause is set down: Through the most Christian Lothair the false calumniators have lately been caught in their lie; whence he gathers that that letter was written after Lothair was crowned Roman emperor in the year 1133 by Innocent, whom he had brought back into the City.

[239] Then he subjoins the Council of Pisa, at which St. Bernard was present in the year 1134, concerning him and the Milanese reconciled to Innocent through him. Of which there has been treatment by us above. To these he adds the meeting of the same Saint with Duke William in the year 1135, and the latter's restoration by him to the obedience of the Apostolic See. The said commentator presently recites a fragment from the holy Doctor's epistle 128 addressed to the same Duke, from which we produce the following: In that mind, he says, and in that will I remember that I departed from you some while ago, excellent Prince, that with all my affections I might wish well to you and yours, and with all my efforts help your salvation and your honor wherever I could; because I did not return defrauded of the fruit of my coming to you, but joyful, beyond the hope of many, brought back with me the peace of the Church, with the exultation of the whole earth. But I marvel by what, or by whose counsel, that wonderful change of the right hand of the Most High has so suddenly been changed for the worse, so that again, to the injury of the Church, you drove the clerics of St. Hilary from the city, and stirred up the wrath of God against yourself more grievously than at first. Who has bewitched you to depart so quickly from the way of truth and salvation? Hence we have a new care of Bernard, a new merit as regards the affairs of Aquitaine and the Church of God. But since it is most manifestly plain from the words of the letter which I was citing that it was not written before William's conversion, nor long after, therefore I do not sufficiently grasp in what way the same is linked to the year of Christ 1132 in Mabillon.

[240] Nor will it be superfluous to read in the said Commentary that the Duke in the year 1136 laid waste the Normans with war together with the Count of Anjou, these matters are weighed and that, many having been punished with dysentery, he himself in the year 1137 undertook a pilgrimage to St. James, and there died on the IX of April, from Ordericus Vitalis, book 3 of the Ecclesiastical History, which he finished in the fourth year from William's death, of the Christian era 1141, when he had lived fifty-six years among the Normans in the monastery of Saint-Évroul, having been made a monk in the year 1085, that is, fourteen years before Duke William was born, as may there be seen. But what was said concerning his death at Compostella is there proved from these words of Ordericus: In the year 1137, in the third week of March, king Stephen came into Normandy. .. At the same time William, Duke of the Poitevins, mindful of the evils which he had lately wrought in Normandy, moved by penitence, set out on pilgrimage to St. James. Then on the sixth feria, Good Friday, on the V Ides of April, he was fortified with the sacred Communion, and before the altar of the blessed Apostle venerably died. Besides these, in the Commentary often cited, at §5, are produced historians of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth Christian centuries who agree in that same death of Duke William at Compostella: at §6 there is treatment of the Life set out by Theobald, and, as you will find at §7, unknown almost until the sixteenth century: and there also various faults of it are noted: at §8 the fiction of Buchetus and others concerning the feigned death of Duke William is exploded; likewise concerning the spurious diplomas, and the fabricated testament of Duke William.

[241] for a fuller knowledge of that Duke. And these things indeed, thus far extracted in summary from Henschen's Commentary, and several others which he laboriously arranged in the same, contribute greatly to avoiding confusion of things, times, and persons, and to a fuller knowledge of William, Duke of Aquitaine, whom St. Bernard brought back to better fruit, with a most abundant fruit for the Catholic Church, and with an immortal memory of his name among posterity. But before I take my hand from this tablet, I could wish that with the designated Commentary there be compared and weighed the things which Manrique writes under the year of Christ 1136, chapter 1; and the things which he reports in chapter 2, with the historical Commentary of Henschen which stands after the Life of St. William the hermit. It remains, after these matters which we have narrated in one continuous course of discourse concerning the repeatedly mentioned conversion — the less interrupted from elsewhere, the clearer and more perspicuous — that we meet St. Bernard returning to his own at Clairvaux from the sacred expedition of Aquitaine.

§ XXIII. The Song of Songs expounded by the holy Doctor; various circumstances attending that Work are noted; eulogies of the same.

[The holy Man, returned to his own, occupies himself in expounding the Song of Songs: at what time,] Ernaldus, book 2 of the Life, chapter 4, toward the end, says: So great an evil therefore being overthrown, which was raging in Aquitaine, and the schism of Gerard reduced to ashes, the Man of God returns to Clairvaux with great joy. .. But having obtained .. some time of quiet, he occupied himself with other business, and, withdrawing into a little cell woven round with wattles of rushes (see our notes on the same chapter) he disposed himself to be free alone for divine meditations. And suddenly there meet him, in that humble lodging, as though standing at the Lord's manger, the love Songs, and the spiritual dishes of the nuptials. Which the praised biographer there pursues piously at greater length, supplying us, by the mere memory of this Bernardine elaboration, ample matter to comment upon it more diffusely. This subject, therefore, that its dignity may shine forth the more, we divide into various parts. And first, indeed, let there be speech concerning the time at which the most holy Doctor set his mind to this illustrious Work — to the writing, I say, of the Sermons on the Song. Secondly, at whose instigation he wrote them. Thirdly, why they remained unfinished. Fourthly, how often, in what manner, in what place, at what time they were delivered. Fifthly, in what year, and why, they were interrupted. Sixthly, of their manuscript copies. Seventhly, of their continuator. Eighthly, of the dignity and eulogies of that Work. The most erudite Mabillon, in his new edition of the Works of St. Bernard, volume 1, page 1263, has a Preface to volume 4 of the same holy Father, containing his Sermons on the Song, from which I cull the following. Of the time, which I had proposed in the first place, he speaks thus: Bernard undertook this notable work in the year 1135, after his return from Aquitaine, as is plain from book 2 of his Life, chapter 6 — in our edition chapter 4; from which we have just given a fragment. But that the Work was begun at the time of Advent of the aforesaid year 1135 we understand from the opening of the second Sermon: "For behold how many will rejoice at this his Nativity, which is next to be celebrated," etc.

[243] At whose urging or impulse that Work was undertaken at whose impulse is indicated in the praised Preface in these words: That Bernard des Portes the Carthusian was, if not the author, at least the instigator of that undertaking, is established from Bernard's epistle CLIII to him, in which the holy Man pleads his own slenderness to one earnestly demanding an exposition on the Song, or something spiritual: but at length he yields to his insistence, whether this is to be interpreted of the undertaking, or of the publication and sending of the Work already begun. The second interpretation pleases, especially because Geoffrey in the places just adduced, namely from book 2, chapter 6, and book 3, chapter 8 (but the author of the second book of the Life is Ernaldus; Geoffrey of the third) does not say that the authority of Bernard des Portes intervened for the undertaking of it; nay, he sufficiently hints that the holy Man of his own accord applied his mind to this meditation. The words of epistle CLIII favor this opinion: "I yield to your importunity, that at least the PRODUCING of it may take away suspicion. It is a matter with a friend. I no longer spare my modesty. Altogether, so long as what you wish be done, I shall not be mindful of my folly. Behold, a few Sermons on the beginning of the Song of Solomon, lately dictated, I am having transcribed, and, though I have not yet published them, I send them to you as quickly as may be. In which Work, when I shall have got time, Christ commanding my cares, I shall try to proceed."

[244] From which words this only is elicited, that Bernard des Portes asked some spiritual Work of our Bernard, he composed that Work: and that the first Sermons on the Song were sent to him. I know not whether of this Bernard is to be explained the passage in Sermon 1, number 2: "But I think that he will now have nothing whereof to murmur against us, who came to us a friend from the way, since he has taken up this third loaf also." Which I leave to be judged by others. Finally, to that same Bernard des Portes the earlier Sermons were addressed with epistle CLIV, in which we read this: "The Sermons upon the beginnings of the Song, which you asked and I had promised, I send you: which being read, I ask that, as soon as you conveniently can, we may be admonished by your reply either to proceed or to desist." Which likewise may be interpreted of the very transcribing and sending of the Work.

[245] But why those Sermons were not completed by the author, why it remained unfinished: Mabillon their editor brings these causes: But although, he says, Bernard

delivered these Sermons to his monks of Clairvaux on almost continuous days, he could not nevertheless within the eighteen years that he survived complete the Work begun, being interrupted from time to time by various affairs of the Church and of the kingdom, nay also by the importunate frequency of those who came, of which he complains more than once, as at the end of the third Sermon: "But behold, the malice of the day calls us away. For those who are just now announced to have arrived compel us rather to break off than to finish a pleasing discourse. I shall go out to the guests, lest anything be wanting to the offices of that charity of which we speak." And in Sermon LII, number 7: "A rare enough hour is granted me to keep holiday from those who arrive." But it is a marvel that the holy Father, distracted by the cares of a great family and of business rushing in upon him, was equal to meditating Sermons of so lofty a wisdom, and to reciting them day by day. So he.

[246] how often, in what manner, in what place and time Now indeed the point which I had before designated in the fourth place, concerning the various circumstances of these Sermons — namely how often, in what manner, in what place, at what time the holy Man delivered them — determine from the following. For, as Mabillon just now indicated, he recited them day by day. Which, he says, he himself also attests in Sermon XXII, number 2: "It is assuredly a matter of no little weariness and labor, namely to go out daily and to draw even from the open streamlets of the Scriptures," etc. For he delivered these Sermons on feast days, and indeed on almost continuous ones, as is plain from Sermon LXXXIII; where he says that he has already spent three days successively in explaining one passage. Further, he uttered these Sermons with the living voice. Whence at the end of Sermon XLII he speaks thus: "My infirmity, which you know, does not allow me to go further." And at the end of Sermon XLIV: "And of this enough. For my infirmity too enjoins a pause, as it often does."

[247] The Sermons on the Song The holy Man indeed employed meditation, with prayer, for arranging the matter of his Sermons, but sometimes brought them forth out of the abundance and fullness of his mind, not yet written, as various passages prove. For many things too in these sermons are spoken extempore, such as that when in Sermon XXXVI he rebukes the drowsy, and says: "I thought to fulfill in one Sermon what I promised concerning the twofold ignorance; and I should have done it, had it not seemed too long to the fastidious. For I behold some yawning, and some even sleeping. Nor is it a wonder: the vigils of the preceding night (for they were very long) excuse them." But nothing proves those extempore utterances so well as the passage from Sermon IX, number 6: "Another sense also occurs, which indeed I had not proposed: but I shall by no means pass it by." There is added that the holy Man hints that the Sermons, once recited, were afterwards written down by his disciples, in these words: "They were written as they were spoken," he says in Sermon LIV, number 1. "And taken down with the pen like the other Sermons, so that what perhaps has slipped away may easily be recovered." To this looks what is read in Sermon LXXVII, number 2: "But even if these things which we say be perhaps committed to letters, they will disdain to read them."

[248] by St. Bernard Further, Bernard everywhere declaimed these Sermons in the auditory of the brethren, and indeed with the novices present, according to Sermon LXIII, number 6; but not the lay brothers, who were not present at assemblies of this kind: whence he often hints that his hearers were skilled in the sacred Scriptures, whom he attests to fly ahead in wit of what is to be said, in Sermons XV number 2, XVI number 1, and XXXIX number 2.

[249] were delivered: Moreover the hour at which those Sermons were delivered was sometimes the morning, before Mass (as was said of the other Sermons in the preface to the preceding volume), sometimes the evening. Of the morning time interpret two passages, in which he dismisses the assembly on account of manual labor and the divine Office. So at the end of Sermon 1: "but the hour passes (he says) at which both poverty and the Rule's institution urge us to go out to the works of the hands." But more express to this purpose is the passage in Sermon XLVII, which he broke off on account of the impending hour of the divine Office. Of the evening time the testimony in Sermon LXXI, number 15, is perspicuous: "For now, while I have been disputing at some length, the day has declined." But enough of minutiae, which nevertheless are not ill suited to this place.

[250] To the fifth point, which I touched above — namely in what year and why those sermons were interrupted — likewise in what year and why they were interrupted. receive the answer from their editor: Bernard, he says, had completed altogether twenty-four Sermons by the year 1137: in which year he set out into Italy to compose the schism. Returning thence in the following year, he betook himself anew to the interrupted work, Sermon XXIV being repeated with another opening and another close: from which arose that diversity of reading of which we shall treat in its own place. But the sixty-fifth Sermon and the following, which begin from the exposition of that verse, Catch us the little foxes, the holy Man composed against the Cologne heretics, on occasion of a letter written to him by Evervinus, provost of Steinfeld: which letter it therefore seemed good to prefix to those two Sermons. Finally the eightieth Sermon was delivered after the Council of Reims, celebrated in the year 1148 in the presence of Eugenius, in which the error of Gilbert de la Porrée, bishop of Poitiers, was condemned, as Bernard himself records in that Sermon.

[251] As regards the sixth point, concerning the manuscript copies of the aforesaid Work, Their manuscript copies as also the seventh, concerning its continuator, Mabillon may be consulted in the place cited, in which he treats of the number of the Sermons; and on the same occasion he indicates that in the Vatican codex which is marked number 665 there is found a Preface which is read neither in the printed editions nor in any manuscripts. He adds its opening; but that may be read in the same place. Nothing in that Preface approaches Bernard's style or genius. To the Preface are subjoined only LXXXIII Sermons, under this title: "Here begins the exposition of blessed Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, on the Song of Songs." He observes that this title is noted otherwise in other codices. Then: That Exposition, he says, ends at the third chapter of the Song, at this verse: On my little bed I sought by night, from which Gilbert of Hoyland, himself also a Cistercian, an Irishman, continued it as far as this verse of the fifth chapter: My beloved is white and ruddy, forty-eight Sermons being published — a man assuredly not much inferior to Bernard in gravity and piety of speaking. But death took him from among men as he was attempting to go further in expounding, as though indignant with him, if we believe Sixtus of Siena, that he should dare to wish again to continue Bernard's labor, interrupted by itself, and to bring it to an end. Sixtus is mistaken, who says that Bernard's work was begun in the LAST YEAR OF HIS LIFE. Gilbert's Sermons we shall adduce in the following volume. So he. Besides this exposition, as he goes on, Bernard dictated another and briefer one to William, abbot of Saint-Thierry, as William himself testifies in book one of his Life, chapter XII — in our edition chapter 6. But the more convenient place for speaking of this will be in the fifth volume, where we shall report the compendious commentary from Bernard on the first two chapters of the Song.

[252] There remains the eighth point of this matter, of which I had pledged above that I would treat, and the eulogies and which consists in the dignity and eulogies of this most praised Work. Its editor in the oft-named Preface extols it with these praises: Although all the works of St. Bernard are filled with the sap of solid piety and doctrine, yet two chiefly ought to be held in esteem by all, namely the books On Consideration and the Sermons on the Song of Songs. For in those books whatever is more holy in the sacred Letters and in the councils; whatever is more wholesome in the writings of the ancient Fathers and in the decrees of the Pontiffs is prescribed for the government of the Church — all this is held comprehended in an elegant compendium. But in these Sermons, whatever things are scattered through the holy Doctor's other Works for the forming of manners and for kindling piety; whatever concerning vices and virtues, and concerning the whole spiritual life — in these Sermons, I say, all these things are handled more solidly and more sublimely, and out of the wrappings and figures of mystical allegories the secrets of all perfection are drawn forth, in a manner no less pleasant and useful than sublime: so that these Sermons are to be reckoned as certain chaste delights of pious men.

[253] deservedly given to that Work. We call this manner of writing pleasant and useful: for this is, on Bernard's own testimony, "altogether the wonderful and pitiable condition of human souls, that, although they perceive so many things outwardly by liveliness of wit, they need altogether certain figures and enigmas of bodily likenesses, so that from things visible and outward they may at least in some measure infer the invisible and inward." Which indeed is altogether excellently performed in these Sermons. But afterwards Mabillon, placing the coping-stone on his Preface on the Song, says: what Guerric, abbot of Igny, himself also a most devout disciple of the holy Doctor, thought of them, he discloses in Sermon III on Saints Peter and Paul, which with others is found in volume VI: "Our master, that interpreter of the Holy Spirit, undertook to speak of that whole nuptial song, and gave us hope from what he has already published, that if he should come to the passage about which you ask, Until the day breathe, and the shadows be inclined, he will set those shadows themselves in the light of understanding; and what has been spoken, or shall be, in darkness, he will tell us in light." So Guerric. Nor would I pass over what Manrique writes under the year of Christ 1135, chapter 6, number 10: This is that Work of Father Bernard which, since, hindered by the affairs of others — if however those things which belong to charity are alien to him — and at length forestalled by death, he had not completed, even that great sun of the whole Church, an angel alike in doctrine and in purity of life, the Angelic Doctor the divine Thomas, refused to complete, as though distrusting that the Saint's sweetness could be equaled by him. Whence, being asked by the brethren of Fossanova, where also he rendered his last breath to God, he is reported to have answered: "Give me the spirit of Bernard, and I will complete the Works of Bernard."

§ XXIV. A new Order instituted in England by Bernard's counsels; prophecies; a miracle; the Roman journey against the schismatics; the happy success of the affair.

The Order of Sempringham is instituted in England, the Saint being consulted: The author of the Annals of the Cistercian Order, under the year of Christ 1135, chapter 8, number 8, writes of the new Order instituted in England by St. Bernard's counsels, recording thus: About the same time, by the counsels of Father Bernard, whom the very man who founded it went to consult, the Order of Sempringham is founded in England, its author being Gilbert of Sempringham, a most holy man, and one who, as his very progress also proved, had received a heavenly spirit especially for the instructing of virgins. To these might be added the things which are brought forward there, and at number 9 and following, for a fuller knowledge of this matter; but,

lest we be too long, we send the reader thither, and pass hence with Manrique to the year of Christ 1136: where, in chapter 3, number 1, he weaves in a noble prophecy of the holy Abbot in this manner: This same year was to the monks of Clairvaux and of Pontigny both sad and glad by the death of Bernard's elder brother. To the latter, because they were enriched with the spoils of a holy body; to the former, because bereaved, since, forestalled by disease at Pontigny, that he might not have burial at Clairvaux, according to Father Bernard's prophecy, he showed himself obedient even in death. But what the occasion of the prophecy was, the author of the Great Exordium has left in writing — sad, but at the same time only too true — together with the passing of that glorious man. I recite the text thus from Tissier's edition, distinction 2, chapter 10: When the Man of the Lord, namely our holy Abbot, had once heard that a certain one of his spiritual sons, a good and religious man, sent by him into Normandy, was there laboring under a sickness despaired of, he resolved to send and bring him back to himself, that the devout brother might die in his own little nest, and not be deprived of the burial he desired. Nevertheless one of his brothers according to the flesh, named Wido, strove to oppose this counsel: because, being one of the stewards of Clairvaux, he intended, as I believe, to spare expense and labor.

[255] And when he pertinaciously insisted on this persuasion, [He foretells that Wido will die outside Clairvaux; he likewise says he is dead and is in glory:] blessed Bernard said to him: Is there greater care to you for money or for beasts than for your brethren? Since therefore you do not wish our brethren to rest with us in this Valley, neither shall you yourself rest in it. And so it came to pass. For that same Wido, although he was otherwise a good and religious man, yet, that the Saint's word might be fulfilled, was not consummated at Clairvaux; but at Pontigny, forestalled by sickness, he lay down on his bed, and there, God disposing, received the end of his life and the place of his burial. Nor did the holy Man merely foretell the lot of brother Wido or Guido, who was to die outside Clairvaux; but he also announced him dead, if the things are true which Manrique narrates from Brito at number 3: That the imminent passing of the now absent brother was revealed to Bernard, he says, … Arnold, in Brito, stands as witness: then that prayer was enjoined on all the sons, by which they should accompany the departing soul: but also that they were bidden to cease from it at once, and not to pray for Guido; but that Guido would intercede with God for them. "Brethren (he said), ask Guido that he pray for us, having obtained the time and the place, so that he can do it." These things Arnold reports as done at Clairvaux, while at Pontigny, putting off the bonds of the flesh, Guido was exchanging mortal life for the better with a vital death. Thus Manrique from Brito; whom you, reader, if you wish, may consult, book 4, chapter 7. We should indeed wish that this deed were reported by the biographer Ernaldus, so very often cited, that we might be the more certain of it. Under the aforesaid year, chapter 7, Manrique treats of the beginnings, the founder, and the site of the monastery of Alba Ripa, commonly Auberive; and on the same occasion he passes to the narration of a miracle done there by the holy Father; which you may see in Geoffrey in his Life, in our edition book 4, chapter 5.

[256] that he may again succor affairs afflicted in Italy on account of the schism, The holy Abbot came to the aid of the deplorable state of the Church in Italy, and by his accustomed dexterity and authority calmed the tempest raging there against the Vicar of Christ. A synopsis of the things done by him Manrique sets before the eyes under the year 1137, chapter 1, number 1, writing thus: Father Bernard was meditating in quiet the most sweet epithalamium of the bridegroom, and had already in twenty-three Sermons nearly completed the first four verses of the first chapter: when, behold, at the beginning of the present year, namely of Christ 1137, he again crosses the Alps into Italy, to put at last an end to a long war. Campania and Apulia were laboring under Anacletus, Roger the Sicilian not only favoring him, but under that pretext of piety, as it were, sought out (such is the way of men), sacrilegiously seizing the lands of the Church. Nay even that great and illustrious head of Western monasticism, Monte Cassino, no contemptible part of the Roman Church, whence so many true Pontiffs had come forth, then falling away from the true Pontiff — who shall determine whether from fear or love of Roger? — had wantonly turned aside to Anacletus, and, abbot Senioretus being made away with, had set the substituted Rainald over itself, ordained by him, and therefore likely to further his party. Finally Anacletus held Rome: whose nobles indeed now stood for Innocent; but the common people, obstinate, whether conscious of former crimes, or through hope of better fortune amid disturbed affairs — a hope which is wont to await all the most abandoned — were known to remain more pertinacious than faithful, so as to stand, if not for him, yet against Innocent. Thus Manrique on the state of affairs.

[257] he is summoned thither by Pope Innocent; But the reckoning of the time he proves thus at number 2: Therefore, in these afflicted circumstances, Bernard, the one solace, was summoned in the name of all, and that immediately at the beginning of the year now entering; for it was before Pisa was deserted by Innocent, who, as Falco of Benevento hands down to memory in his Chronicle, departed thence in the month of March: "In the year," he says, "1137, and in the eighth year of the Pontificate of the Lord Innocent, in the month of March, in the fifteenth Indiction, the aforesaid Apostolic Innocent, who was then staying at Pisa, counsel having been taken in common, came from the city of Pisa to the city of Viterbo, to speak with the aforesaid emperor." So Falco of Pisa deserted by Innocent. But that Bernard was summoned by him before he had determined to depart to Viterbo is argued by this, that Innocent himself was sought at Pisa, yet not found there, as we shall presently see. But that the holy Man was called by Apostolic authority to bring aid to affairs of the Church so calamitous, Ernaldus testifies in his Life, book 2, chapter 5, at the beginning: Meanwhile, he says, Apostolic letters call the Man of God, and the Cardinals beseech that he be present to the laboring Church. His studies are interrupted, and things which just now were continuous are resumed with interspersed journeyings. No leisure remains: the Servant of God either prays, or meditates, or reads, or preaches.

[258] Seeing therefore that his excuses were spent in vain [and that it was necessary to obey the commands, the wonderful engines of the demon against him: ] the brethren having been called together from many parts, sighing long and deeply, he addresses them with a fatherly prayer, in which he commends to their prayers the happy success of the journey to be undertaken, etc., as may be seen in the place alleged. Saying these things, therefore, and blessing them, he departed while all wept, and, everywhere received with much reverence, at last reached Rome. Most briefly, as you see, the praised biographer touches on the Saint's journey, recording nothing of a companion on the way, nothing of the stay at Viterbo: both will be supplied from elsewhere, when I shall first have reported some things from the Cistercian Annals under the said chapter 1, number 4, where their founder says: Meanwhile I note, from tradition and frequent pictures — which will be more certain than the testimonies of the ancients — that when the holy Father, about to cross the Alps, was mounting his carriage, the demon, envying the peace of the Church which was hoped for from his coming, broke a wheel, retarding as far as he could the journey begun, or, if he could, hurling down the holy Man. But then that he himself, full of the spirit of prophecy and no less of counsel and fortitude, powerfully commanded the demon that had broken it to put himself in the wheel's place, to be rolled likewise and to carry the carriage. That thus it came about that the same who was retarding should further the journey, and he who of his own accord was hindering the traveler should carry him under compulsion, being destined to be at once a mockery and an example. There are extant ancient and recent pictures printed at Rome, from which the moderns Perales, book 2, chapter 16, Montalvo, and others have drawn.* Let this story avail as much as it can. But of the journey the same Annalist subjoins this:

[259] The most sweet Father, torn from his sons, sought first Pisa, whence he had been summoned, certain things whether done at Rome, reckoning that he would find the supreme Pontiff there: but when he learned that he had set out thence, he followed him as he departed as far as Viterbo, and there was most honorably received by him and by all the Cardinals. But further, when it had been agreed by the Pontiff with the emperor to carry the whole matter through by arms, and, their forces being divided, to storm Campania on the one side and the March on the other, that they might at last the more easily gain possession of the City, the holy Abbot judged that the matter must be approached by another way — at Rome, as Ernaldus reports; not at Viterbo, as Manrique. For indeed after the cited writer of the Life had said at number 131 that the Saint had reached Rome, he immediately subjoins this: At whose coming both the lord Pope and the brethren rejoiced, and, counsels having been shared with him, according to the issue of affairs and the state of the causes, the Abbot approaches by another way, placing his hope neither in chariots nor in horses, but, receiving the conversation of certain men, inquires what their resources are; what the minds of the supporters; whether it be by error or by malice that, seduced, they draw out and prolong so great a crime, etc.; which may be read at greater length in Ernaldus in the same chapter 5. Manrique, having recited part of these, says: It was resolved that the holy Doctor be sent to Rome, to bring back to Innocent whom he could. The above things, therefore, were done at Viterbo, if we listen to Manrique; at Rome, if to Ernaldus. But the opinion of the latter does not seem to me so probable as that of the former, both on account of the things already set out from Falco's Chronicle concerning the Pontiff Innocent's having gone from Pisa to Viterbo, and on account of the testimony of St. Bernard himself, who in Sermon 26 on the Song, in volume 1 of the Works* of Mabillon's edition, column 1359, thus records, mourning the death of his brother Gerard:

[260] or at Viterbo, I remember, Lord, my covenant and your mercy, that you may be the more justified in your words, and overcome when you are judged. When last year we were at Viterbo for the cause of the Church, he fell sick, and, the languor growing strong, when now his summons seemed near, I, bearing most grievously to leave the companion of my pilgrimage, and him a companion, in a foreign land, and not to give him back to those who had entrusted him to me, since he was loved by all, as he was very lovable — turning to prayer with weeping and groaning, I said: Wait, Lord, until our return. Restore him to his friends, and then take him, if you will, and I shall not complain. You heard me, God: he recovered: we accomplished the work which you had enjoined: we returned with exultation, bringing back the sheaves of peace. Hence it follows, first, that the holy Father was at Viterbo, and drew out some stay there; and not one only, but a twofold one, and the first indeed in the year 1133, as epistle 151 testifies; the other in the year 1137, of which here is the mention, as is observed in the notes on the said Sermon; which is marked as delivered in column [ ] in the year 1138; but epistle 151, which is addressed to Philip the invader * of the church of Tours, in the year of Christ 1133, column 154. It follows, secondly, that on the later Italian journey the holy Man joined to himself as companion his most beloved brother Gerard.

[261] where he was twice. Manrique did not separate this journey from the former at number 6; whence it happened that he fused into one and the same time matters of different times, as is established

from his words in the same place: While Bernard was staying at Viterbo, it happened that Philip, the pseudo-elect of the church of Tours (for Heribert had died in the preceding year, and Philip, the nephew of his own predecessor, being intruded by force, had as a youth occupied that see) — it happened, I say, that Philip went to Rome, to be ordained pseudo-bishop by the pseudo-Pope, and thereby cut off from the Catholic Church: a young man otherwise familiar to Bernard, and illustrious for many endowments of mind: to whom, when he had learned that he was at Rome, he wrote a brief but keen letter, and no less sweet and full of the affection of love; a copy of which is at once recited in the same place, and stands in Mabillon at column 154 cited. But that the letter given to Philip does not belong to the year of Christ 1137, but ought to be drawn back to the year 1132, is gathered from Mabillon's note on epistle 150, addressed to Pope Innocent, in which the holy Doctor has this: The spirit of Gilbert has revived, as they say, in Philip, plainly both the nephew of his flesh and the heir of his ambition. Let Mabillon now be heard: Gislebert or Gilbert was the predecessor of Hildebert, who in the year 1125 was translated from the see of Le Mans to that of Tours, as we noted on epistle 122. He being dead, Philip, Gislebert's nephew, invading the see by evil arts, Anacletus favoring him, gave occasion to this epistle and to the following, which was written first.

[262] the holy Father, Philip being compelled to yield, Hugh was canonically substituted. Read the Analecta which Mabillon himself published, volume 3, page 338. But in the notes on epistle 122, written by the said Hildebert to Bernard, but placed in this order among Bernard's letters, this is observed: Hildebert, the author of this epistle, ruled the church of Le Mans from the year 1098 to the year 1125, in which, Gislebert being dead, he was substituted in the metropolitan see of Tours. This is established both from Ordericus Vitalis in book 10 under the year 1098, and from the Acts of the Bishops of Le Mans published in volume 3 of the Analecta: where Guido, his successor in the see of Le Mans, is recorded as consecrated in the year 1126 after long altercations. He ruled Tours only six years and as many months. For so the aforesaid Acts have, with which the Du Chesne transcript agrees, and Jean Maan in the Metropolis of Tours, nay even Ordericus under the year 1125, page 882: where he assigns Hildebert nearly VII years of the archbishopric. Hildebert therefore did not reach the year 1136, as is read in Gallia Christiana: but died in the year 1132, in which year at all events Jean Maan places his death. Three conclusions, therefore, follow from what has been said. One, that the holy Man stayed twice, and in different years, at Viterbo: another, that Manrique confounded both stays: the third, finally, that the letter which the same Saint wrote to Philip is to be restored to the year of Christ 1133, as Mabillon showed. But let us return to see the Saint departing from Viterbo.

[263] Amid these things, as Manrique reports at number 7, who at Rome represses the rebels. Gerard having recovered, Father Bernard at once deserts Viterbo, and, climbing to Rome, meets with individuals, gathers all together, urges upon all that Peter, the author of the schism, is to be detested, that Innocent is to be followed; preaches the unity of the Church, rebukes the dividers, wholly shuts off the refuges of excuses, etc. But what veils the rebels put forward, and what reasons the Saint objected to them for unmasking and vanquishing their perfidy, Bernard (rather, Ernaldus), abbot of Bonneval, narrates in these words: which see in our edition, chapter 5. But how great was the force of speaking in the Orator, how great the movements of mind in the rebels from his powerful discourse, how great the fruit for the Church of God of the legation discharged by the holy Man among the Romans, is perspicuous from the praised biographer, who thus records the outcome of the affair in the same place at number 132: These and other discourses of the Man of God being heard, they fell away from Peter, and daily, the ranks of that party being broken up, the bonds were burst: the mind of Peter himself also wasted away, because he by no means doubted that he was daily diminished, but that Innocent was increasing, etc.

Another reading, obtendi*.

* That is, the Cardinals.

Another reading, electum*.

§ XXV. The things which are said to have been done among the monks of Cassino, St. Bernard being present, are partly false, partly probable; the infirmity of his body, and his desire of returning to his own.

Those deeds The most eminent Cardinal Baronius, under the year of Christ 1137, having set forth the state of the schismatics in the city of Rome, asserts at number 5 that our Saint drew out a long stay there with a great increase of Catholics. But if the things are true which are found in Peter the Deacon, a writer of that time, in the Cassinese Chronicle, he must have been in Campania in the month of July, and to have discharged the office of legate at Monte Cassino. The writer of the Cistercian Annals, under the year just marked, chapter 2, numbers 1 and 2, reports that Lothair was summoned by the men of Cassino, previously devoted to Anacletus and Roger, that through him they might be reconciled to the Church; adding that the things which were here done at Cassino were omitted by Falco, whose Beneventan Chronicle he had cited, and handed down to memory by Peter alone, or published under his name. Manrique indeed confesses that these things are true, or at least probable, concerning which the aforesaid Peter may be read in the Cassinese Chronicle, book 4, chapter 107 and following, from page 563 of the most recent edition, which stands among the Writers of Italian Affairs printed at Milan, volume 4, together with the notes by which that Chronicle is illustrated. But the things which are reported as done in the presence of Lothair, as Manrique there goes on, since they seem to stray too far from the truth, lest in any part they may be imputed to us, it pleases to write in the same Peter's words. Except that nevertheless I first observe that whoever was the author of that history, beyond the other errors of which below, chose also an uncertain year; and not only an uncertain one, but a repugnant one, namely the following, 1138: in which Innocent had already returned to Rome, and Lothair had even departed from Rome.

[265] among the men of Cassino, But he then recites the author's words from book 4 of the Cassinese Chronicle, chapter 110, which in the designated Milanese edition are marked book 4, chapter 109; but we here contract them into fewer from the text in Manrique, culling from them as much as suffices for our purpose: In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in the year from his Incarnation 1138, in the first Indiction, on the seventh Ides of July, in the seventh year of the empire of Lothair Caesar, the same most unconquered prince residing at Aquae Pensiles, and Peregrinus, patriarch of Aquileia, also sitting with him, with very many archbishops, bishops, and abbots, there was sent as advocate for the Roman Church Girard, Cardinal of the title of the Holy Cross, and Guido the Cardinal, both of whom were afterwards Roman Pontiffs; and among others who are there named is marked Robert, abbot of Clairvaux. .. But on the part of the church of Cassino the hearers were Duke Henry, the emperor's son-in-law, Duke Conrad, and several others, whose names are there expressed. Silence therefore having been made, the emperor said: In this assembly there shall be discussion not only of present and temporal, but of future and eternal things. We too, following the footsteps of our predecessors, have judged it worthy to take part in this council, and to weigh the moment of those things which shall be said. These things from the said Chronicle in Manrique; but the various readings which are in the Milanese edition I do not set down, except two.

[266] as they are circulated, Manrique, chastising the acts of that session as spurious at numbers 4 and 5, says: In which you may plainly see a contention altogether unworthy of the Roman Church, the head of all the rest, with a particular member; a tribunal unworthy of the litigants, a secular one for churches and churchmen. Finally a deed unworthy of Pope Innocent, who would send the Cardinals, who would send Bernard as legate to this business; so that from these alone whoever wrote it may be convicted of falsehood. Nay, Robert (or Norbert, as the Milanese edition has) abbot of Clairvaux argues no less the substitution of a fiction. He at once subjoins the series of the disputation, prolixly continued through five days, between Girard the Cardinal and Peter himself, the latter the defender of the church of Cassino, the former of the Roman. The chief aim of the disputation was whether the men of Cassino, Anacletus being abjured, must be bound to Innocent by oath. There was added a question concerning the election of an abbot, and what right the Vicar of Christ had in it. Peter subjoins, as Manrique goes on at number 6, a second disputation with a monk of Cîteaux (so he himself calls him), drawn out through three days, in which, over an adversary evidently feigned by himself, he could easily come off master of his wish. This second disputation Manrique inserts into his Annals at the same number 6 and following; but we here give neither: both Baronius touches with keen censure under the year of Christ 1138, number 14. Let us produce his words:

[267] The acts concerning the disputation of the Cardinals with Peter himself before the emperor Lothair, they labor composed by someone at his own pleasure, since they are in manifold ways convicted of falsehood, we think unworthy to be woven into the Annals. Thus does God resist the liar, that, however crafty and cunning he be who weaves the web of falsehood, He darkens his understanding as with a spell, so as not to let him see what to others is perspicuous, that so from thence he may be convicted of falsehood. And presently, the opening of those acts having been recited, the same Baronius thus continues at number 15: But that place which is called by the author Aquae Pensiles, where it was, is asserted by the same above, book 4, chapter 109 (but in the most recent Milanese edition, chapter 108), namely that it was near Melfi. For he says: "The monks, striving to hasten their flight, came first to Melfi, thence to the Pensile lake (in the said edition, page 565, it is commonly called Lago Pesole in the notes) where the emperor's whole army had encamped with Pope Innocent." But there it happened that the emperor was present not in this year, but in the preceding, in which he came down with his army into Apulia, as has been demonstrated above in its own place on the authority of writers of the same time. How then is the present year set down by Peter, and the Indiction of the present year, and a certain day of the month of July of that year assigned, in which neither the emperor nor the Pontiff was at Aquae Pensiles; but Innocent was staying at Rome at that time, and the emperor Lothair had already withdrawn from the City toward Cisalpine Gaul?

[268] Besides, how is Robert, abbot of Clairvaux, there set down as having taken part in the public disputation together with the Cardinals, in so many matters when no other than St. Bernard was at this time abbot of Clairvaux? Moreover, how would Innocent have suffered the emperor Lothair to preside as judge between the Cardinals and the monks of Cassino, who (as we have seen) took it most indignantly that the same man had heard the cause of monks at variance among themselves? These are the things, and others, which argue that those acts attached to it are utterly fabricated, as they are of great disgrace to those schismatic monks, who are represented as disputing in that manner against the Roman Church with so great effrontery. Thus, therefore, those acts were to be marked not in the year of Christ one thousand one hundred and thirty-eight, but the thirty-seventh: not in the first Indiction, but the fifteenth: not in the seventh year of the emperor Lothair, but the fifth, and to be corrected in other respects, as we have said. Thus far Baronius: to whose censure the above-indicated writer adds these things among others

the Cistercian Historiographer at number 9, saying: To which might be added: who was that man of Cîteaux, of so great esteem then among all that the public cause should be committed to him to defend, and yet of so very little that he should remain anonymous, unknown even to him whom he was assailing? Was it Bernard, whom, lest he should again name him falsely, he preferred to omit? But Bernard would not have stood at a distance, whom the Pontiff, whom the emperor venerated, whom the world beheld sitting among the Cardinals. But neither would he have been summoned to the contest, if the contest were not to be committed to him, etc.

[269] of feeble credit, And these indeed are the charges by which the acts at Monte Cassino are traduced as spurious and fabricated by both those writers: but the author of the Historico-juridical Excursus, which in the Milanese edition is woven into his Chronicle at page 566 and following, diffusely and laboriously attempts to defend Peter the Deacon's narration against the accusations of Baronius and of Lauretus; in what manner he answers them may be seen there. But that argument which I shall here add, and which I see touched neither by Baronius, nor by Manrique, nor by the author of the aforesaid Excursus — namely the time at which the emperor Lothair departed this life — seems to have the greatest weight against those acts at Monte Cassino which are in controversy. That argument, further, drawn by Pagi in the Critique on Baronius under the year of Christ 1138, I turn to the present purpose. Thus, then, he records there at number 6 against Baronius: At number 12 and following Baronius defers the death of the emperor Lothair as far as the month of December of the current year. .. But that Lothair died in the preceding year .. ought to be beyond all controversy. For Robert de Monte, abbot Dodechinus, the Continuator of Lambert of Hersfeld, the Hildesheim Chronographer, and others everywhere relate that Lothair died in the preceding year, and his diplomas invincibly demonstrate that Conrad succeeded him in the current year. We shall overturn Baronius's foundation under the following year; where also those diplomas are recorded at number 3. Pagi goes on at the said number 6:

[270] so that they deservedly must be reckoned apocryphal Falco in his Chronicle under the year 1137 says: "This year the aforesaid emperor .. died in the parts of Tuscany." But what Pagi adds concerning another place of death belongs no more to our present controversy than does the question whither his body was carried, of which matter he treats there. But of the day of the emperor Lothair's death he writes, from the authors whom he adduces, at number 7, that he ceased to live in the middle of the night between the III and II Nones of December. But since he was crowned emperor in the year of Christ 1133, in the month of June (see Baronius and his critic), it follows that he departed this life in the fifth year of his empire. But since the argument which it seemed good to take up against the Cassinese session is placed in the reckoning of time, Baronius indeed adapts other chronological notes to the things done in it, as we have just reported; but he could not weaken them from the emperor's death, because he links it to the year 1138; nor could Manrique, who assigns this year to it in chapter 7 under the year 1139. But let us examine what the author of the Historico-juridical Excursus answers at page 567 to Baronius's argument, drawn from the reckoning of time: First, he says, he charges an error of the year, and thereupon of the Indiction. And yet it would be ill done with the credit of historians, if lighter errors of this kind should darken and wear away the truth of the rest. Further: our manuscript codex, whence these things are taken, does not read in the seventh year of Lothair's empire, as the Venetian edition wrongly does, which imposed upon Baronius; but IN THE SIXTH YEAR, which marks the thirty-eighth of Christ.

[271] and false. But critics of a keener nose will be able to reply, first, that chronological errors in historical documents do darken and render suspect the truth of the rest, when other difficulties sprinkled through them occur which make to the same effect. Secondly, that the chronological correction employed in the cited Excursus is worth nothing, as is clear from the year of the death of the emperor Lothair, whom Conrad succeeded in the year 1138. Thirdly, that they do not conceive in what way Lothair could be brought in by Peter the Deacon onto that litigious scene as its president on the seventh Ides of July, in the seventh year of his empire, or if you will the sixth, when he never saw the sixth year of his empire, much less that day, having predeceased those dates by half a year and more; by Peter the Deacon, I say, not only a spectator and witness of the transaction, but, as they will have it, its chief actor and patron. Fourthly, if that altercation was truly written by Peter, and not ascribed to him by another (see the Excursus, page 570), how can it be conceived that it was so written by him as to blunder so grossly in chronology: how likewise that he should have substituted another name for Bernard's? But between the accusations assigned above and their apology in the Excursus I do not interpose myself as arbiter by comparing together all the objections and answers, lest I go too far afield: this I say, that it does not seem to me certainly proved that Peter the Deacon is the genuine author of the Cassinese contention now so often indicated, and that it was truly held in this manner in which it is reported, and consequently that St. Bernard was present at it: for whose sake we have now so long turned aside from our design. But whether he stayed then there or elsewhere, he did not live in idleness, but in furthering the affairs of the Catholic Church, the fire of the Holy Spirit burning him, which could not be at rest. Whatever, then, be the case concerning the said altercation, the holy Abbot is read to have been among the men of Cassino on another occasion and at another time.

[272] It is ascertained, says Manrique under the year 1137, Some things which are narrated as done by the Saint among them are probable; chapter 3, number 1, that the men of Cassino .. received Innocent, Anacletus being abjured, obedience being confirmed by an oath, which, in the presence of the nobles of both courts, the abbot first of all took, as he reports from Peter the Deacon, whom he cites at book 4, chapter 116. But in the most recent edition the deed is narrated at book 4, chapter 15: the monks then followed, as you will find in the same place, and chapter 118. Manrique adds at number 4: But as regards the election of abbot Rainald, lest even that should be handled without the sons of Benedict, it was committed to Bernard to be examined, two Cardinals being joined to him, Haimeric and Girard, who should decree that it be confirmed or invalidated, and, once decreed, should either overturn or preserve it. The matter was long discussed on both sides. But when at length they understood it to be void, in order that they might carry through the business with a riper and gentler judgment, and not without a full hearing of the party — says the same Annalist — he records from Peter the Deacon what was done in this cause. The Milanese edition, book 4, chapter 119, page 583, has thus: But when the dawn grew light, Aymeric, Cardinal Deacon and chancellor of the Roman Church, and Gerard, Cardinal of the Holy Cross, and the Abbot of Clairvaux, were sent by the same Pope, to examine the aforesaid Raynald and, according to the sanction of the canons, to sequester him from the government of the abbey. And after other things transacted in this business, which are then narrated, at chapter 122, page 595, this stands: But on the following day, going up again to the monastery, they sat in the chapter, in which, after a discourse delivered by the Abbot of Clairvaux, the Cardinals by Apostolic authority interdicted the abbey of Cassino to the same Raynald, etc. At these transactions, therefore, St. Bernard took part, not without authority in speaking, if the things which are read in Peter the Deacon are wholly genuine and unadulterated.

[273] his weak health indicated to the abbots, and his desire of returning to his own. Matters at Cassino being thus disposed, as Manrique narrates at number 5, and the cities throughout Campania being subdued which Roger had by force subjected to himself and to Anacletus, when Innocent was preparing his journey toward Rome, Bernard's otherwise weak health, its strength failing beyond the wonted measure, exhausted with labors, sustained the body by spirit alone. There is extant a letter of his written this year to the assembled abbots of Cîteaux, which paints a dying man. Understand the subject of the letter from the title which is prefixed to it: He desires, namely, that these abbots be privy to his labors and sorrows, excusing perhaps by this means his absence. He wishes assuredly to die not abroad, but among his own. It is among Bernard's other letters the hundred and forty-fifth in order, and is produced in Mabillon's edition from column 150, where it is marked as written about the year in which we are, 1137.

The Milanese edition, sixth*.

The Milanese edition, Norbert*.

§ XXVI. St. Bernard sent by Pope Innocent to restrain Roger; the disaster foretold to him by the holy Man, and obtained from heaven; his mind mollified; the acts in the cause of the schism, and their attendant circumstances.

New labors undertaken by Bernard The holy Father's bodily health was indeed most wretched, or rather none at all; but not on that account, as Manrique reports under the year 1137, chapter 3, number 6, was there any ceasing from labor, nor any truce granted to his failing strength. Innocent and Lothair, setting out for Rome, took the holy Doctor with them, since without him they both thought that nothing glad, nothing prosperous, could befall. Nor did hope deceive men otherwise provident. At Rome he so furthered the affairs of the Church that a little afterwards he did not hesitate to write the following to his monks of Clairvaux, which are in epistle 144: But how necessary to the Church of God the presence of our littleness is or has been on this occasion also, I would tell for your consolation, if it did not savor of vainglory. But now it is better that you learn this through others. Hence it may be understood that the common cause was so accomplished at Rome by the holy Man that he left little or nothing to be done there. Manrique goes on: But while these things were succeeding better at Rome, again all things in Campania were disturbed, and the cities claimed for the Church, being again lost and stormed, laid waste, surrendered, were returning to the party of Anacletus. The emperor's departure brought Duke Roger, and Roger brought all evils with him, to be put to flight by the merits of Bernard alone, that the victory might be ascribed to God alone. But what evils followed the emperor's departure we shall be able to draw from no better source than from the letter of Wibald, the new abbot of Cassino, written to the emperor. A fragment of it Manrique culls from book 4 of the Cassinese Chronicle, chapter 127; but in the new edition that letter is found at book 4, chapter 126; where, in a tragic and pathetic narration, is set forth the barbarous scene of affairs, and the lamentable calamity of a madness more than bestial, which filled up every measure of cruelty in a horrid manner, as may there be read in detail. What is done meanwhile amid affairs so deplored?

[275] But the pious prince, as the Cistercian Annals go on at number 8, and heavy labors undertaken in most feeble health, broken with age and diseases, and near to death, could not succor the abandoned cause, and the victory was being kept for Father Bernard, of which he could not be defrauded by another. The holy Doctor had accomplished many things in peace, and with the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, had quenched the fiery darts of the most wicked adversary: but, not set against an armed soldier, he had not brandished a material sword against the enemies of the Church: he had not, to their slaughter, not to their flight, the rebels

driven, obedient to his words before the conflict; or dismissed to obey after a time. Therefore, lest he should be frustrated even of this kind of victory, it was brought about by divine providence that he alone, humble, poor, and dying, should be set against a victorious army, [and] should restrain Roger with words, if he could: but if not, with arms, and with those arms which, conquered and put to flight, would then dare nothing at all against the victors. Baronius records the counsel of Innocent alone. I read in Bernard (I shall presently report the letter) the emperor's consent as well.*

[276] Here for you, reader, is Baronius's text under the year 1137, [when he was sent by Pope Innocent against the raging madness of the schismatic Roger] number 28: But what does Pope Innocent do on hearing these things? Having learned by experience how vain is the salvation of man, striving in hope against hope amid so great a desperation of affairs, against the raging assaults of the Sicilian tyrant, against the ferocity of an avenging and victorious army, he set one man over against them — a humble man, but mighty in the power of God, to turn to flight the victorious enemies of the holy Roman Church. He knew plainly that such are the works of God, namely that he chooses the weak things of the world to confound the strong. Thus, therefore, sheathing again the sword drawn in defense of the Church, by Christ's command, he turned to the spiritual arms mighty through God, taking the shield of faith, and, securely receiving upon it all the darts of the most wicked one, he hastened unhurt to wound the adversary. How so? Hear St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, whom he had left at Rome to bring back to the church those who strayed by the schism (as we heard narrated above): to Roger the tyrant, breathing threats and slaughter against all who were of Pope Innocent's communion, he sends a messenger of peace, etc.

[277] Further, that this was done not by the command of Pope Innocent alone, but also by the most earnest request of the emperor Lothair and of the Roman court, he sent him, the emperor and the Cardinals also furthering the matter. Bernard himself seems to indicate in epistle 144 to his monks of Clairvaux: By the most urgent demand of the emperor, he says, and by Apostolic command, and bent also by the prayers of the Church and of the princes, grieving and unwilling, feeble and infirm, and, to confess the truth, bearing about the pale image of a fearful death, we are dragged into Apulia. Now indeed let us set forth what was accomplished in this legation of the great Man to Roger. First of all we think it must be advised, says Baronius cited very lately, that two legations are confounded together by the author who wrote the deeds of St. Bernard, namely when he affirms that Haimeric the Cardinal Chancellor was sent together with St. Bernard, and on the part of Anacletus Peter of Pisa, likewise a Cardinal. For those things concerning Cardinals sent on both sides happened afterwards, as appears clearly enough from the author who was present and committed them to writing, Falco of Benevento. St. Bernard therefore was sent first; but afterwards, at Roger's request, the Cardinals, namely when, humbled by God, he began willingly to hear the words of peace which he had despised. This point being premised, which will afterwards unfold itself, let us relate the history of the transaction.

[278] While the holy Man vainly attempts to settle the war There remained, say the Cistercian Annals, chapter 4, number 1, on Lothair's side Duke Rainulf, faithful at once to the Church and to the empire; but far unequal to Roger in forces, as in fortune. For he led few men, and conquered ones, and thence timid, and not spurning flight, by which they might escape the utmost perils. To the other's forces the booty obtained furnished power, the multitude strength, and victory spirit. Therefore Father Bernard, sent to Roger, was busy — which was the first thing — to dissuade war, to hinder engagements, to instill concord, and to sanction treaties of peace. But let us hear Ernaldus, abbot of Bonneval, book 2 of the Life, chapter 5, number 132, declaring this: Meanwhile Roger, king of Sicily, who alone now of the princes refused to obey Pope Innocent, sends to him, asking that he would send to him Haimeric his Chancellor, and the Abbot of Clairvaux; asking none the less the same of Peter Leonis, that he would delegate to him Peter of Pisa from his side. .. But he sent in guile, because he had heard that Peter of Pisa was most eloquent, and second to none in the knowledge of laws and canons: and he thought that, if a hearing were afforded to his eloquence in a public consistory, the Abbot's simplicity might be overwhelmed by rhetorical declamations. .. Not to delay long, both parties came to Salerno. But vengeance had taken the field, and had forestalled the contrivance of so great a crime. For an innumerable army being prepared for war against Duke Rainulf, the same king .. when he suddenly saw the Duke boldly advancing to meet him, took fright and fled, and exposed his scattered army to plunder and slaughter, and, innumerable soldiers being taken and slain, unwillingly enriched the Duke with wealth and exalted him with glory. All which things indeed befell him according to the word of the Man of God, as we shall presently report, after we shall have restored into a better order of time those things which are here reckoned up by the biographer by prolepsis; from the praised Falco, volume 5, page 124 of the Milanese edition.

[279] [between Rainulf and Roger; he foretells to the latter, and obtains by prayer, his defeat:] Meanwhile, he says, the Abbot of Clairvaux, a man very wonderful and discreet, who had come to that king for the settling of the infestation of so great a dissension, attempts to bind treaties of peace between that king and the Duke. But on account of the many and various matters which were sought between them, it did not yet please the power of God the Savior that concord should be bound. What more? The king himself divided his army, and manfully established it for battle; and likewise that Duke wisely ordered all his men. .. Straightway that line of the king is overthrown. But the king, .. the judgment of God coming upon him, struck with fear, himself first turning his back was put to flight: of whose defeat, and of the spoils carried off by the victorious Duke Rainulf, the same writer then treats, adding that on the second .. day standing — that is, on the XXX day, according to what is to be said in the paragraph next following — of the month of October this battle was fought. About the same time, therefore, occurred the prophecy of St. Bernard, by which he foretold defeat to Roger and announced victory beforehand to Duke Rainulf. See Ernaldus in the designated chapter, where at number 133 he thus writes: For when the holy Abbot, the first of those who had been summoned (rather, more probably, they were only summoned afterwards) coming and finding the king encamped, for many days hindered the neighboring lines from engaging, declaring to the king, "That if you enter the conflict, you will go away conquered and confounded." .. But he, having exhorted Duke Rainulf and the line of the Catholics with mighty words, promised them victory and triumph, as he had promised flight to the king. Nay rather, that heavenly Warrior obtained this signal palm by his prayers. For when he had turned aside to a neighboring little village, as Ernaldus testifies, and was pressing on in prayer, suddenly the shout of fleeing and pursuing men is heard. For Rainulf was pursuing the king's fleeing army through that very place. A certain brother, therefore, of those who were with the Abbot, going out, met one of the soldiers, and asked what had happened. But he .. "I saw," he said, "the wicked man exalted … and I passed by, and behold, he was not." Nor was there delay: the Duke himself following, when he saw the monk, leapt down from his horse armed as he was, and, falling at his feet, said, "I give thanks to God and to his faithful Servant; because not by our strength but by his faith has this victory been conferred"; and leaping again upon his horse, pursued the enemy. That illustrious triumph, therefore, by the victor's own verdict, was prayed for and obtained and given by the holy Man from God and the Lord of hosts, and was won by heavenly rather than by military arms.

[280] Meanwhile Roger, obstinate, being put to flight with huge slaughter, since he could not turn to arms, turned his mind to arts. who, since he could not to arms, turned his mind to arts. The historian of Clairvaux sets forth the matter thus at number 4: Roger, having received an unlooked-for blow, the more timid on that account, and not daring to advance further unless he should recover strength and power, awaiting — or rather making — an opportune time for it, so that meanwhile he might not be molested by Rainulf, devised a crafty counsel for the season, namely that he should cast Bernard into the hope of his conversion, and that, arms being removed on both sides, the business should be committed to disputations. The deed we shall report from Falco of Benevento's Chronicle, the reckoning of the time also being noted: On the second day standing of the month of October, as we have said from him, this battle was fought, of which above. Then the said king (so Falco goes on) fleeing thus with his followers by night, on the next day came to the castle of Palude, then hastened to Salerno: but when not many days had passed, Rossemann, bishop of Benevento, counsel having been taken with the judges of the city and certain wise men, hastened to console that king and to offer the services of the city. He begs besides that he would bestow on the people of Benevento the freedom of the possessions of the Beneventans, which the aforesaid emperor had granted. The king assented, as is clear from the instrument of privilege which Falco produces, marked in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1137, in the month of November, of the first Indiction.

[281] But having narrated the things which Duke Rainulf did after the victory reported, [The things which Ernaldus narrates not distinctly enough, or proleptically, are set forth,] Near the castle of Palude, says the same Chronographer at page 125, hedged about with the valor of his men, he pitches camp, on the day indeed of the Kalends of December. Now indeed the things which Ernaldus, abbot of Bonneval, above reported either proleptically or confusedly — first concerning the arbiters asked of by King Roger and gone to Salerno for the establishing of peace, and then concerning Rainulf's victory — we so arrange, both from what precedes and from what follows, that the things done in that assembly of legates on Innocent's part and on Anacletus's part seem to be drawn back hither, and thus not to belong to Bernard's first meeting with Roger, at which more probably the holy Father urged this assembly upon him but did not persuade him; but to another, namely after the defeat inflicted on him. For indeed Falco subjoins to the words cited by us in the last place these, from which I gather that what he first asserts belongs either to the Saint's first colloquy with the king before the battle, or that in the second, after the battle, the former things were confirmed. Thus, then, he speaks: When the aforesaid Abbot of Clairvaux, a man very wonderful and discreet, was conversing with the said king concerning a treaty of peace and the unity of the Church, that king assiduously established with that Abbot that three Cardinals on the part of Pope Innocent, who had taken part in his election, should come to the king himself; and three on the part of Anacletus, and should set before the king the order of each election. Then the king himself, the order having been heard, should choose the holier and juster election of the two parties. Note established, that is, he then ratified the assembly concerning which Bernard had dealt with him before, but with fruitless effort, as I at least interpret it. Now therefore that convocation, which Roger had before spurned, was committed to execution. For at once (so Falco goes on) it was sent to Pope Innocent and to Anacletus, and with rapid course the king's proposal is dispatched. This also Ernaldus himself signifies clearly enough. For indeed,

having set forth Roger's defeat, he writes this at number 134: Nor yet was the king's mind corrected by this blow inflicted on him from heaven, nor did the storm subside which the elation of a depraved mind had gathered: but, those who had escaped having returned after the flight, feigning cheerfulness, raising himself in royal array, his court hedged about with soldiers, he ordered both parties to be summoned, and, Peter being first instructed and inflamed by the bribes of many promises, bids him speak of the reasons of his cause. Peter therefore first strives to prove his lord's election canonical, etc.

[282] But since the praised author of the Life, in what he goes on to narrate, does not handle distinctly or fully enough the acts of the present cause with their attendant circumstances, by considering the persons, we shall supplement him from Falco. First, then, let us consider in these acts the persons who took part in them. Who were summoned thither, although we have seen it above from the same Ernaldus, nothing forbids that we here also record it from Falco and confirm the matter: It pleased them, therefore, he says, and their counsel being confirmed, on the part of Innocent, Haimeric the chancellor, and Girard the Cardinal, a very venerable man, together with the aforesaid Abbot of Clairvaux, came to Salerno to ventilate an election of this kind. But on the part of Anacletus Matthew the Chancellor, and Peter of Pisa the Cardinal, and another Cardinal named Gregory, likewise hastened. But why Peter of Pisa was summoned by Roger, we have set out before from the said biographer.

[283] the transaction, Let us consider, secondly, the acts of this cause. Ernaldus, chapter 5, number 134, records the holy Father's contest with Peter of Pisa; but how aptly and powerfully the holy Man pleaded in it is gathered from his words, which the same biographer produces, and from the approbation of the hearers. For At these words, he says at number 136, those who were present could contain themselves no longer; but they abominated both the life and the cause of Peter Leonis. What of this, that the adversary was so laid low at the first encounter that he could not resist or gainsay the reasons brought forward by his holy Antagonist, as the same biographer testifies, who presently subjoins: But the Abbot, taking the hand of Peter of Pisa, raised him up, and himself rose at the same time, saying, "If you will trust me, we shall enter a safer ark." And, as he had long since conceived in his mind, assailing him with salutary admonitions, the grace of God cooperating, he forthwith persuaded him to return to the City and be reconciled to Pope Innocent. The assembly being dissolved, the king was still unwilling to obey. You see that the acts of the present cause are circumscribed by that author within a single encounter, which Falco extends far otherwise, when he handed them down to memory in these words: These being thus assembled, whom we have named a little before from him, that king, as he was of a sagacious mind and provident counsel, first examined the party of Innocent for four days until sunset, wonderfully and beyond what can be believed, and afterwards likewise scrutinized the party of Anacletus for four days.

[284] The parties of both elections, therefore, having been zealously and diligently heard, and its circumstances the king himself ordered all the clergy and people of the city of Salerno to be gathered, and the bishops and abbots of the monasteries who had come together, and before them began thus: Lords and brethren, we believe it is not hid from your prudence for what cause I have caused these Cardinals .. to be convoked. .. But because our mind is hampered by many questions and various answers, I alone cannot bestow an end upon so great a business. Whence, if it seems good to these lord Cardinals, let them write out the order of each election, and let one Cardinal from either party go down with me into Sicily, where, the Lord favoring, we are to celebrate the festival of the Nativity of Jesus Christ the Savior, and there we shall find wise archbishops, bishops, and other men of prudent mind, by whose counsel I have hitherto followed the party of Anacletus. .. To this the Cardinal Girard answered … We will indeed send the Cardinal Guido de Castello .., who may come with you, as you ask, to Sicily. .. And these things being done, each returned to his own. On the next day coming, the aforesaid Cardinal Girard returned with his men: but the aforesaid Cardinal Guido alone remained, to set out with the king, as was appointed. And on Anacletus's part likewise another Cardinal is appointed. Which being accomplished, a ship being made ready, the king himself crossed over to Sicily.

[285] Before we go on to other matters, let the reader observe by noting, that in Ciacconius, in the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs and Cardinals, volume 1, column 968, it is said that that Guido, set over the Beneventans, governed that city for some time, Innocent II departing from it toward Rome (see Pagi in the Critique under the year 1137), and consequently that nothing hinders his having been present at Salerno with the other Cardinals, although he was not named above among them. The other thing of which I give warning is that Falco's silence concerning St. Bernard's address delivered to Peter of Pisa, and the latter's conversion by it to the obedience of the legitimate Pontiff, ought by no means to stand in the way of the authority of the biographer Ernaldus. For although the one is silent, yet the other affirms these things in express words: whose chief aim it was to gather Bernard's deeds and transmit them to posterity; but not so Falco's. Besides, not all authors who treat of the same subject write all things; for how often is it necessary to supplement one from another? Judge the same concerning the other matters of our Saint which Falco left unmentioned, but Ernaldus reports, who could easily have learned them either from a certain brother of those who were with the Abbot, or from elsewhere; since they happened not secretly but openly.

[286] Let us consider, thirdly, the place of the acts in this cause, severally. namely Salerno, where the Cardinals met with St. Bernard — the theater of the laureled victory which he won over Peter of Pisa — yet in such wise that another place in Sicily was sought and obtained by King Roger for a further discussion of the cause. But that Bernard betook himself thither also I do not remember to have read; nay rather, he does not seem to have gone thither, as is argued by what I shall say from Ernaldus concerning his return to Rome; nor do I know whether, and what, was transacted there. For indeed that Roger had not then yet submitted himself to Innocent is elicited from what is to be said below. Further, the city of Salerno was honored not only by the Saint's presence, but also by an illustrious miracle wrought through him, of which Ernaldus writes at chapter 5, number 136; and he adds that it, being divulged through the whole city, came to the ears of the king and of his nobles.

Let us consider, fourthly, the time of this cause. It was transacted, namely, at Salerno in the year of Christ 1137 as it drew to its close, in the month, as it seems, of December: for Roger said above: Let one Cardinal from either party go down with me into Sicily, where .. we are to celebrate the festival of the Nativity of Jesus Christ the Savior. Let this be the end of the most blessed Abbot's legation; of whose return to the City we now undertake to speak, meaning to narrate the things which were done by him in the next year.

In Manrique's printed text it is, barbarously, compesciturus*.

§ XXVII. The Saint returns to Rome; Peter of Pisa is united to the Church, as also Victor, Anacletus's successor; Roger likewise deserts the schism; a sacred pledge given to Bernard as he departed from Rome; he leaves his tunic there; various chronological points.

[The holy Father returns to Rome; the reconciliation of Peter of Pisa with the Church; the death of the pseudo-pope Anacletus:] The Cistercian historian thus begins the year of Christ 1138: Let Bernard, returned to Rome, open the beginning of the year for us, and, Peter of Pisa being reconciled to the Church, Anacletus failing, scarcely deserted by his own sooner than by himself: for, once accustomed to pontifical things, he chose rather to lose his soul than the name of pseudo-pontiff. In what manner each thing was done, some even by months and days, let us describe with the pencil of the ancients. The Saint's return to the City at this time, and likewise the reconciliation of Peter of Pisa, the author of his Life handed down in these few words, in our edition book 2, chapter 5: With the favor therefore of all the peoples, the king alone (namely Roger) remaining in malice, the Abbot returns to Rome: he also reconciles to the Church the aforesaid Peter of Pisa and certain others, and leagues them with Pope Innocent. Manrique goes on: But that Peter of Pisa's reconciliation happened on the fourth day of January is argued by this, that Anacletus, surviving three days, is read to have died on the seventh of the same month. That he was reconciled three days before Anacletus's death Antoninus testifies .. part 2, title 17, chapter 1, §4: "The holy Abbot Bernard reconciled that same Peter of Pisa to Pope Innocent. After three days Peter Leonis dies impenitent." But that he died on the seventh of January, Falco of Benevento, whom Baronius adduces under the year 1134 (rather 1138), expressly hands down. Under the year 1137, therefore, at page 125, Falco says: This year Anacletus, who lived under the name of the pontificate, died on the seventh day STANDING of the month of January: who sat seven years and eleven months and twenty-two days.*

[288] But Pagi, in the Critique on Baronius under the year of Christ 1138, number 1, and on what day these things happened. observes that the day of Anacletus's death is wrongly marked by Baronius and others, deferring it later with these arguments: Falco, who begins the year from the Kalends of March, says under the year 1137: This year Anacletus, etc. Baronius at number 1, Mabillon in the fuller Notes on epistle 126 of the divine Bernard, Papebroch in the Conatus Chronico-historicus, and other learned men everywhere interpret that day recorded by Falco as the seventh day of the month of January. But Peregrini, in his Notes on Falco, rightly explains this manner of speaking used by Falco of January going out, and teaches that the STANDING, or INSTANT, or PRESENT month is the month drawing to its end: which afterwards Du Cange in the Glossary of Middle and Low Latinity, at the word MENSIS STANS, proved by various examples. .. Anacletus therefore died on the twenty-fifth day of the month of January, which is the seventh from the last day of the same month, from which Falco, and those who have used that manner of speaking, begin the first day of any "standing" month. This explanation of Peregrini is confirmed by Ordericus, book 13, page 915, saying: "Peter Anacletus, who had usurped the Apostolic See for nearly seven years, sitting in his chair, on the VIII Kalends of February (or the XXV day of January) departed by a sudden death. .." The duration of his invasion, which Ordericus expresses by a round number, and says was about seven years, Falco had defined; but the copyists corrupted the numbers, etc. From these reckonings of time by Pagi, therefore, it follows that the death of the pseudo-pontiff Anacletus is to be deferred from the seventh day of January, which others will have, to the XXV day of the same month; and consequently Peter of Pisa's reconciliation with Innocent II to the XXII day of that month, according to what was said from St. Antoninus. Besides this, the note on another passage of Falco may be consulted in the Milanese edition, which I assigned above, page 129.

[289] The disastrous death of Anacletus Ernaldus narrates in book 2 of the Life, Victor substituted for Anacletus by the schismatics; but a short time after chapter 5, number 137. Of it also St. Bernard writes to Peter of Cluny in epistle

147. But indeed, the head of this schismatic faction being cut off, another grew up. The fact Falco reports at page 125 and the following, from which I cull this: When the aforesaid Anacletus had died, his Cardinals .. sent to King Roger, signifying the death of Anacletus himself, that, if it pleased him, they might appoint a Pope. And so the king, that he might hinder the party of the lord Pope Innocent, assented to their will. .. And they, returning to Rome, their supporters being gathered, in the middle of the month of March appointed for themselves Gregory the Cardinal as Pope and invader, and called him Victor. But by the aid of God's mercy that heresy and invasion reigned but a short time. And when not many days had passed, the brothers of the aforesaid Anacletus, perceiving so great a disturbance, returned to themselves, and, the Lord favoring, composed a firm peace with the aforesaid lord Pope Innocent, and they themselves and all his adversaries were converted to fidelity toward him; and that wicked man who had appeared under the name of Victor laid aside vestment and mitre, and came to the will of the Pontiff Innocent. And so with great joy and with the glory of exultation the whole Roman city exulted, and the Pontiff Innocent himself is brought .. to the unity of the Church; or rather, he is acknowledged the sole Pontiff of the Church. So Falco, recording indeed the outcome of this most longed-for matter; but not the cause, which is to be ascribed to St. Bernard.

[290] For this Ernaldus thus discloses at number 137: His party (namely Anacletus's) set up for themselves another pope in his place, they are brought to Innocent's obedience by St. Bernard: not so much from pertinacity in the schism as that they might the more conveniently, through some delay of time, be reconciled to Pope Innocent. Which Christ effected without delay by the hand of his Servant. For that ridiculous pontiff himself, the heir of Peter Leonis, betook himself by night to the same Man of God, and he indeed, having stripped him of the usurped insignia, led him to the feet of the lord Innocent. Which being done, the city rejoices with congratulation. .. The Abbot of Clairvaux is held in wonderful reverence, and is proclaimed by all the author of peace and the father of his country, etc. The eulogy of St. Bernard's merits pronounced by the Vicar of Christ on earth, in which he speaks from experience and expressly testifies what the great Man conferred upon the Church, upon the See of Peter, upon his own Pontificate, is found in the Life of the holy Father, book 3, chapter 2, number 163.

[291] the reckoning of the time at which these things happened: What shall I omit to record concerning the time and manner in which these things happened, and also the day on which the holy Abbot departed from Rome? In epistle 317 of Mabillon's edition, otherwise 320, given by the Saint to his Prior Godfrey, the particulars are found: On the Octave of Pentecost, on that very day, God fulfilled our desire, giving unity to the Church and peace to the City. For on that day the sons of Peter Leonis all together humbled themselves at the feet of the lord Pope, and, being made his liege men, swore to him liege fidelity. The clerics also, who were in the schism together with the idol which they had set up (namely the antipope Victor), humbling themselves at the feet of the lord Pope, promised him obedience according to custom, and there was great gladness among the people. Had we not awaited this peace with a certain assurance — long concealed, however, by us — we should have come long since. For the rest, there is now nothing to detain us here. .. Behold .. I come quickly: and my reward too is with me, the victory of Christ and the peace of the Church. On the sixth feria after that day our man went out from the city. And so, coming, we shall come with exultation, bearing the sheaves of peace. Thus far the holy Man. But when he indicates, with his wonted modesty of mind, that he had awaited this peace with a certain assurance, should I attribute too much to him if I said that this was foreknown to him beforehand, God revealing the matter? But lest the word liege delay anyone, Mabillon explains it in his notes on this epistle at column 296, saying: A liege man is one who by reason of a fief or of subjection owes all fidelity to his Lord against anyone whatsoever. Of the origin and etymology of the word ligius Du Cange produces several opinions of writers in the Glossary of Middle and Low Latinity.

[292] Roger the schismatic converted: Further, the praised letter of St. Bernard furnishes us matter for a twofold observation; of which let the one be, in what month and on what day he left Rome: the other, whether among the sheaves of peace of which the holy Father wrote above was Roger, who was first Duke of Sicily, then crowned king by the legate of the antipope Anacletus, and at last declared king by Innocent II. That he is to be numbered among these sheaves Baronius denies under the year 1138, number 12, in these words: Further, Roger, even when Anacletus was extinct and Victor removed, was still unwilling to recognize Innocent as supreme Pontiff. Falco affirms it at page 126, adding this to the obedience rendered by the pseudo-pontiff Victor and his followers to the Vicar of Christ Innocent II: But when not many days had passed, the aforesaid Apostolic, counsel having been taken, came to Albano, purposing, an army being gathered, to come to Duke Rainulf; but, stricken with infirmity, he could not come. Meanwhile King Roger, an army having been gathered, came into the borders of Apulia, thinking to subject to his power the cities taken from him by the emperor. Duke Rainulf therefore, perceiving that king's approach, roused the parts of all Apulia to press against his madness unanimously. Nor was there delay: with rapid course they hasten to the said Duke, and so resist that king's ferocity for nearly two months. Amid these things, as has been reported to us, the aforesaid king received the lord Pope Innocent as father and lord, and sent word to the city of Benevento and through all the parts of his kingdom that he had received him as father and lord. And we, having received his letters, called him lord and father. Roger, therefore, is said in the praised Falco to have been brought at last from his obstinate error of schism into the right way: which, whether it came about by Bernard's prayers, or by his words, or by the example of others, of whom we have just spoken, submitting themselves to the legitimate Pontiff, we do not unwillingly suffer ourselves to be persuaded that this change belongs to the sheaves of peace so happily gathered by him in Italy. So much for the first observation.

[293] Of the other observation also I had proposed to speak, when St. Bernard departed from Rome, namely when our Saint departed from Rome. On the Octave of Pentecost, on that very day, as we have from the holy Doctor's letter, the schismatics embraced the unity of the Church. But the octave day of Pentecost in the year 1138 fell on the XXIX of May. The sixth feria after that day is assigned to his departure from the City, which was the III day of June. On that day, therefore, if no impediment happened meanwhile to delay the holy Father, he gave himself to the journey, about to set out to his monks of Clairvaux. Thus at last that famous schism had its end, which before had been repressed by that great Man in its beginning, assailed in its course, and at last stormed, and now, by his agency, torn up by the roots. But having at length obtained the longed-for peace of the Church (I use Manrique's words at number 10), he who had endured the tempest for seven years scarcely suffered five days of calm; for, being born not for himself but for the public good, lest he should himself receive any fruit in life, he might always make some for others, readier to sow than to gather, he reserved the whole harvest for others. Ernaldus, abbot of Bonneval, expresses the matter thus at chapter 5, number 138: The Abbot of Clairvaux is held in wonderful reverence, and is proclaimed by all the author of peace and the father of his country. … But how long did he endure the glory? How long did he enjoy peace after so long a labor? He did not consent to receive even a day for a year. All things being settled and composed, he who for seven years and more had sweated for the mending of that same rent could scarcely be held five days.

[294] But before we accompany the holy Father as he returns to his own, and what he did before. there remain some things to be recorded which the author of the Cistercian Annals observes as having happened at Rome before his departure, chapter 2. And first indeed he writes of his fatherly solicitude for the sons of Hautecombe, when, Garinus, abbot of Hautecombe, having been promoted to the see of Sion, a new governor of the monastery had to be chosen there. On this matter see St. Bernard's epistle 142, which is to the same monks of Hautecombe with this argument: He commends the monks of Hautecombe, who had joined themselves to the monks of Clairvaux under the Cistercian Order, and consoles them for the absence of their father, taken up to a higher grade. Hence he admonishes them concerning the electing of a new abbot. In this monastery, as may be read in book 1 of the Life of our Saint, chapter 7, number 73, a woman laboring under the falling sickness was restored by him to health. Then the same Annalist at number 3 treats of Humbert, abbot of Igny, to whom there is extant a letter given by the holy Man, the 141st in order, in which he gravely censures him for having laid down the office of prelate inconsiderately and rashly. Thirdly, the same Manrique records at number 4 the constrained election of the see of Langres, and the complaints of the electors. But what was done in this matter by them at Rome, what by St. Bernard, and also by Pope Innocent, is understood from the former's letter to the latter, the 164th in order. Fourthly, after these the said author subjoins at number 6 the suit between the monks of Saint-Bertin and those of Cluny, composed by the holy Man. Fifthly and finally he sets forth at number 8 the exceeding veneration of Peter of Cluny toward St. Bernard. Let these things suffice in summary.

[295] He carried sacred pledges away with him thence, and left his tunic there, Further, Father Bernard, as he was about to depart from the City, as the aforesaid Annals report at chapter 3, number 1, Innocent attends with gifts such as beseemed both the giver and the receiver: for not with corruptible gold or silver, nor with those things which are purchased with gold and silver; but with the precious treasure of sacred bones, approved also by a miracle, and approving Innocent's donation. Certainly in the tooth of St. Caesarius the martyr that was notable which Geoffrey of Clairvaux narrates in the Acts of Bernard .. book 4, chapter 1. For that tooth, which by no force could be drawn before by others from the Martyr's head, was afterwards taken by the holy Abbot, prayer having first been made by him, with incredible ease, or, so to speak, obeying the fingers of him who took it. This deed is narrated at greater length in the cited biographer: who in the same place has also left it handed down to memory that through the tunic of the same St. Bernard, which had remained with the Templars at Rome before his departure from the City, a certain priest, laboring among them under a most grievous fever even to the despair of life, was restored to his former health.

[296] and also a great longing for himself. Now indeed how great a longing for himself the holy Man left there as he departed from Rome, anyone may plainly gather from these words in the biographer Ernaldus, book 2, chapter 5, number 138: As he goes out from Rome the Clergy attend and escort him, the people run to meet him, all the nobility accompanies him: nor could he be dismissed without common grief, who was cherished with a common love. [They weep after

him, and ask to be blessed by him, and with all devotion commend themselves to his prayers.] Then, Leave .. having been received from Innocent, peace being confirmed, the Man of God returns, and, bringing home the greatest joy, is devoutly received by the brethren with thanksgiving. But we shall meet the holy Father on his return to his monks of Clairvaux, in company with Ernaldus, when we shall first have supplied his silence concerning some things which happened on the journey undertaken to them, gathering them from elsewhere.

In the printed text, wrongly, reversum*.

§ XXVIII. Things done for the church of Langres; care of the novices of Clairvaux; the continuation of the Sermons on the Song; the death of Blessed Gerard, his own brother; Geoffrey advanced to the see of Langres; St. Hugh helped in spirit and in body; the journey to Dunes; the death of St. Malachy.

He devotes his labor to the church of Langres, Miracles were wont to accompany the holy Man as he undertook journeys for the common good of the Church: did he then produce none on the Italian journey, when he was returning to Clairvaux? The Cistercian historian, under the year 1138, chapter 3, number 3, determines none for certain, yet believes that he did not make that journey without miracles, saying: The remainder of the way, at least through Italy, was omitted by the ancients: nor is it to be believed that it was accomplished without miracles, which nevertheless, being from their frequency no longer wonderful, were reckoned almost among common laws, so that they might not grow cheap. Hence, then, let us enter Gaul, and when St. Bernard had come thither, he found an occasion in which to devote fruitful and altogether necessary labor to the church of Langres. For indeed, the Alps being crossed, as the praised historian relates at number 4, when he was now at the very doors of Clairvaux, he was compelled to turn aside to Lyons, to hinder the consecration of the bishop-elect of Langres. For the men of Langres had, against right, against law, against their promises, against the command of Pope Innocent (the son of the prince of Burgundy intervening), named for themselves as bishop a man who was a monk only by profession, but in life and manners a degenerate man, and foul in reputation even to infamy. The Saint therefore then first shuddered at the prevarication, reported to his ears, in such great men, especially in the metropolitan of Lyons, and grieved for the lot of the church dear to him, if perchance the things said were true: and lest he should suffer her to be exposed to a wolf, leaving his sons he set upon the fathers. .. But what was then done at Lyons, let us report from the same letter which he wrote to Innocent, adduced by us above. It is the 164th in order, of which we too made mention in §27; and to which we send the reader.

[298] Matters therefore among the men of Lyons being thus disposed, the holy Father sees again his dearest sons of Clairvaux, Returned to Clairvaux he visits the novices: among whom and, bringing home the greatest joy, as we reported a little before from Ernaldus, is devoutly received by the brethren with thanksgiving; but with how great affection there is no need to express in words. But the first care which fired that fatherly breast was wholly upon the novices of his monastery of Clairvaux: for that, having entered it, he betook himself without delay to their cell, the Cistercian historiographer is authority at chapter 4, commending the holy Father's excellent charity toward his sons from this text of the Great Exordium, which in Tissier, distinction 2, chapter 12, records this: The knots of the causes for which he had gone out being unraveled, he returns to the monastery, and as soon as opportunity is given, enters the cell of the novices, so that the new and tender little sons, whom he was nourishing with milk, the longer they had lacked the sweetness of his holy exhortation, so much the more copiously might be refreshed from the breasts of his consolation. .. When therefore, as we said before, he had entered the cell of the novices, and with that his soothing and edifying tongue had rendered all cheerful and more fervent for the observance of their sacred purpose, calling one of them aside he said to him: Dearest son, whence comes to you this sadness, which so perniciously feeds upon the inmost recesses of your heart?

[299] he consoles and confirms one afflicted with great sadness: But when the novice out of shame scarcely dared to say anything, he who was truly meek and humble of heart, who knew how to show himself a shepherd and not a hireling to the sheep, said to him: I know, most beloved son, I know those things which are being done about you, and therefore with a father's affection of piety I have compassion on you. For in this long delay of my absence, when I had been compelled always to lack the most longed-for bodily presence of my brethren, and it had been granted me by the Lord's grace that what I could not do bodily I might supply spiritually, and, returning in spirit, went round each of the workshops, exploring more diligently how the brethren fared, I came also to the cell of the novices: in which, when I had found all rejoicing in the fear of God and girded for the labors of penance, considering that you alone were perishing of excessive sadness, I groaned. And when, coaxing you, I wished to draw you to me, you, turning from me and averting your face from me, wept most bitterly: so that our cowl was drenched with your tears. Saying these things, the holy Father, and assailing the captive with salutary admonitions, put his grief to flight, and recalled to the freedom of spiritual gladness one now almost swallowed up with sadness. So there; but from what precedes there — This faithful and prudent dispenser of the Lord's provision had at a certain time stayed abroad longer than usual for the causes of the Church: for indeed, for the making of peace, for the mending of schism, for the confuting of heresies, he was frequently compelled by the command of the supreme Pontiff, though most unwilling, to go out — from these, I say, it is not perspicuous enough whether the deed which I have narrated, and which Manrique links to the aforesaid return of St. Bernard to the monks of Clairvaux, truly happened then, or on another of the several occasions. But whatever be the case as to the time, the praised Manrique at number 2 thus confirms the matter: This same consolation of the desolate novice Godfrey, older than the author of the Exordium, Father Bernard's secretary while he lived, and after his death his successor also in the abbacy, though not immediately, left in writing in a certain sermon which he made concerning him to the brethren in chapter; where he teaches that it was accomplished not by words alone, but also by a kiss. And presently he confirms the transaction in these words: These things, he says (namely the holy Father), and bidding him approach nearer, having kissed him with that most loving dignity of his, etc. And after a few words, as he adds, but a certain twin grace of those sacred lips, in the word of truth and in the kiss of charity, at once drove away the sadness.

[300] he resumes the Sermons But upon what sacred meditations did he spend his labor, returned to his own, and now his own again? The abbot Ernaldus, having set forth his return in chapter 5, says in chapter 6: The holy Abbot, returned to his studies, embraces his beloved Epithalamium. This also the compiler of the Cistercian Annals affirms, and sets forth more distinctly, at number 3: Then indeed, he says, taking up again the interrupted work on the Song at the prayers of his brethren, he added to the twenty-three which he had already published a twenty-fourth Sermon, taking his beginning from the interruption itself. Let the holy Father himself be heard in Sermon 24 on the Song, which he thus begins: At last now for the third time, brethren, a more merciful eye has looked upon our return from the City from heaven, and a more serene countenance has at length smiled upon us from above. The Leonine rage has been stilled, malice has received its end, the Church has received peace. Brought to nothing in his sight is the malignant one, who for nearly these eight years had troubled her with a dreadful schism. But shall I be restored to you from such great perils for nothing? I have been given to your desires, I make myself ready for your advancement: by whose merits I live, by whose zeal and salvation I wish to live. And that you wish me to carry through what was long since begun on the Song, I gladly indeed accept, and judge it worthy rather to mend the interrupted Sermon than to begin something new, etc.

[301] A twofold remark will serve to elucidate the opening of this Sermon. For the first is from Mabillon's notes on it, on which occasion where at column [ ] he observes that there is a notable diversity in the manuscripts from the beginning of the sermon as far as the place which he there indicates, and adds this: From this variation was born a great confusion in most of the printed editions, in which both openings are reported, but wrongly. For this variation arose from this, that Bernard delivered this same Sermon twice: first indeed with the shorter opening in the year 1137, before he set out to Rome the third time: but secondly, when he returned thence in the year 1138, he repeated the same with the other opening, so as to take up again from this last sermon the interrupted work. One royal codex, number 4511, repeats the same Sermon consecutively under a double opening: likewise one Thuano-Colbertine codex has it once in this place with the one opening, and again after sermon 60 with the other.

[302] The other remark is from the Cistercian Annals, number 4, namely that the holy Father indicates at the beginning of that Sermon some things are observed. that he has now returned from the City for the third time; but the compiler of those Annals warns that this is to be understood rather of the Curia than of Rome, from which, being on this side of the Alps, he had once returned, and twice from beyond: otherwise the very series of the history has taught us that he had thus far crossed the Alps only twice. But that the Curia, wherever it exists, is called Rome and the City, we have seen more than once. Thus Bernard, going to Innocent at Viterbo in the preceding year, is nevertheless said to have been received by him at Rome. In further proof of this matter that saying of Ernaldus is adduced, in our edition book 2, chapter 5, number 131: Saying these things, and blessing them while all wept, he departed, and, everywhere received with much reverence, at last reached Rome, at whose coming both the lord Pope and the Brethren rejoiced. But what the said Manrique had asserted he proves from a like example: So also the venerable John and Ilbodus, when Paschal II was at Troia, are said to have gone to Rome and returned, and to have brought back a privilege thence: for indeed the Curia was called Rome, namely from the See, even if it chanced to be settled elsewhere. See the Little Cistercian Exordium in Tissier, chapter 10, and the Cistercian Annals* under the year of Christ 1100, chapter 3.

[303] The writer of the same Annals, under the often-mentioned year 1138, The death of Blessed Gerard, who was St. Bernard's own brother: chapters 5 and 6, gathers many and various things concerning the precious death in the sight of the Lord of blessed Gerard, who was the own brother of St. Bernard, and concerning the things done on this occasion. Pathetic indeed are the things which the holy Man thought, said, and did at the death of his dearest brother. Altogether worthy to be read are the things which the mellifluous Doctor utters in Sermon 26 on the Song, where he repeatedly intermingles his affections, now of grief, now of love, now of tears and mourning, with a most sweet alternation and a sweetness truly Bernardine, and extols him with the most heaped-up praises, and implores his help as of one now granted the fellowship of the heavenly ones. Of him there was treatment in our work at the XIII day of June, volume II of that month, page 699. Further, the praised Manrique pursues in chapters 7 and 8 the cause of the church of Langres, which he had left off, and the repeated attempts at ill-kept faith. Which things

which we have set out concerning it, read above; but what difficulties then occurred in the same controversy the cited author records: but of the things which are there reported in detail we shall exhibit a synopsis from him.

[304] he bravely opposes himself to the unworthy bishop-elect of Langres, The bishop-elect of Langres, therefore, attempts anew to further his consecration, his patrons of Langres applying new engines to this end. On the side of the elect also — who was a monk of Cluny — stands the venerable Peter, abbot of Cluny, defending a son like a father, and opposing his own authority to St. Bernard's; for indeed he accuses the latter of excessive facility in believing, but excuses the former from blame. What more? Louis, king of Gaul, is approached by him: but Pope Innocent is appealed to by Bernard: various things are agitated on both sides in this cause by the litigants, as may be seen in epistle 164 given by the same Saint to the same Pontiff. Further, St. Bernard pursues his cause with so constant, so unconquered a mind, and so bravely prosecutes that elect and man unworthy of the mitre, or rather his misdeeds, that by no entreaties could he be moved from his purpose. Peter of Cluny approached Innocent also by letter, which are produced by Manrique at chapter 7, number 7; and also St. Bernard, which may be read in the same place at number 8 and following. After these things, in chapter 8, the same historian goes on to speak of the attempted consecration of the elect of Langres: whose execution he records that neither Bernard's one letter to the supreme Pontiff, which is the 167th in order, nor the other to the Cardinals, the 168th, which he adduces, could hinder. But the holy Man, always most tenacious of a purpose once conceived for justice and the common good, what did he leave untried, that he might procure a happy issue to this controversy?

[305] who at last is rejected, Geoffrey being substituted in his place. He praises and confirms the supporters and patrons of the good side in epistle 165; he again strikes the ears of Pope Innocent in epistle 166; obtaining after so many labors this fruit, that the things which had been done in favor of a man most unworthy of the see of Langres were rescinded and abolished. For the consecrated man is removed from the episcopal see: a new election is instituted: a new bishop is substituted. And first indeed, as Manrique writes toward the end of the eighth chapter, Father Bernard was elected, for whom even the vanquished themselves burned exceedingly. But when he utterly refused the burden, while several others fit for it were being canvassed, beyond hope, beyond the intention of all, one Geoffrey, Prior of Clairvaux, occurred to all — a truly great man, whom all wished, whom all demanded, from whom no one at all dissented. So he, in chapter 9 subjoining the king's hostility to the new election, Bernard's letter to him, the 170th in order, and also Peter of Cluny's constant love toward the holy Father; who, having found the same king compliant in all things, at last, grieving, tore Geoffrey from himself, says the aforesaid Annalist at number 6, presently praising him. This controversy of Langres is woven also into volume 4 of Gallia Christiana from column 575 of the most recent edition; but a collection of the deeds of Godfrey is given there from column 577, in which it is said that his election obtained full effect only in the year 1139. In William, book 1 of the Life of St. Bernard, chapter 5, number 51, he is called the holy Man's kinsman by blood, and companion in conversion, and thenceforth in all things his inseparable comrade. But Ernaldus in the same Life, book 2, chapter 3, number 114, says: There was present Godfrey the Prior .. his kinsman in flesh and spirit, a wise and constant man .. and retaining the form of holiness, etc. Such, then, was the end of the gravest difficulties and suits in the cause of Langres, in which the holy Man, accustomed elsewhere to conquer by the highest constancy and untiring labor, bore off a signal palm for justice, placing upon them a triumphal and, for the church of Langres, a salutary coping-stone. As regards Geoffrey further, consult concerning him the Annotations on chapter 3 of the second book of the Life, letter f. But now let us go on to gather other deeds of the most holy Abbot.

[306] Among the things which the Cistercian Annals report at chapter 10 concerning Hugh, He confirms St. Hugh, an ascetic of the Cistercian Order, and cures his disease: who embraced the monastic institute of the Cistercian Order, there belongs here the holy Father's letter written to him, formerly the 351st in order, now in Mabillon the 322nd, in which he praises his purpose of the religious life, and fortifies him beforehand against temptations, and rouses him to constancy and perseverance. Of this St. Hugh we treated long since at the 1 day of April, from page 46; as also of his life and public cultus. Chalemot indeed announces and praises him in the Series of the Saints etc. of the Cistercian Order at the XVI day of March. Nor shall I have strayed from my purpose if I report with Manrique, at number 7 of the chapter just cited, in what manner he was cured by Father Bernard by medicine and skill mixed with miracle, although it is agreed that this does not concern this year, since no other certain one is designated, etc. The deed is reported in Vincent of Beauvais, book 29 of the Speculum historiale, chapter 33: After these things he began to afflict himself with excessive abstinences, so that he seemed almost to lose sense and memory. Meanwhile St. Bernard, who was then living, came to him by God's providence, and ordered him to be sent into the infirmary, and that the vigils be sung to him each night before the other sick, so that afterwards he might have general leave to speak wherever he wished; and thus by God's mercy he shortly recovered.

[307] The Cistercian historiographer, chapter 13, number 8, inquires whether St. Bernard went to Dunes. it is inquired, And first indeed he alleges Giles de la Roche (rather, de Roye), affirming it in the Belgic Annals under this year 1138 in these words: Blessed Bernard came into Flanders, established Robert as abbot at Dunes, and obtains privileges from Count Thierry for the men of Dunes, namely as much land as they might be able to till with their own plows, etc. To this author the same historiographer adds Meyer, who in book 5 of the Annals of Flanders under the year 1138 left this noted: In the same year the lord Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, came into Flanders to preach, where by holy sermons and salutary examples he led very many to a pious and blessed life. Among whom a certain Arnulf, surnamed of Majorca, guarded his teaching with such solicitude, and with such patience bore long and grievous diseases before his death, that Bernard, often giving thanks to God for his conversion and constancy, said that he had been as gold proved in the furnace. But while he was pressing the word of God among the men of Furnes, he handed over the institute of the Cistercians to the monks of Dunes, and made abbot there his own monk Robert, to whom his letters are still extant, a man of Bruges by country and race; who flourished with so celebrated a fame of sanctity that he was chosen abbot of Clairvaux by Bernard himself when now at the point of death.

[308] whether the holy Father But that coming of the holy Father does not please Manrique, who in the place just produced writes this: I, as I reckon this coming in this year doubtful, so ought not — nay, could not — pass over what has been noted by weighty authors. But I judge it truer that he remained at Clairvaux, wearied of his long exile, and would entrust anything, however arduous, to Robert. But those two arguments do not seem to be of great moment. Not the first, which is drawn from weariness: for by so many other wearinesses the brave Man was not deterred, undertaken with untiring labor for the cause of the common good: why then by this? Not the second: because although he deferred very much to Robert's merits, what hinders his having swallowed with a manly breast the troubles of that journey, that with greater solemnity and security he might lay the beginnings of that new plantation? But although it is not established for us whether he had particular reasons which called him thither, and consequently we cannot affirm it for certain, so neither can we for certain deny that he had them; especially when, besides the authors cited, others have handed down to memory his coming into Flanders, and indeed more distinctly than the two preceding, whose words we have produced. For our Malbrancq, volume III On the Morini, book 10, chapter 3, page 188, speaks thus: Further, the lord Bernard came into Flanders, and cultivated the district of the Yser, or the territory of Furnes, with his salutary sermons, and in cultivating it turned aside to the community of Fulco, and so filled it with the fragrance of his nard that Fulco did not hesitate, and all his disciples, to subject themselves and all that was theirs to the Bernardine rule — even those who dwelt at the castle and wood of Ruholt. And the same mind was settled in Count Thierry and Sibylla, who had as yet established nothing either as to revenues or as to fixed structure. .. Bernard therefore indeed approved the gift offered .. but said that he must first go to the monks of Clairvaux, and there deal more maturely with that matter. Thus Malbrancq, linking his coming to the Morini, in the chronological index which is prefixed to the said volume, to the year of Christ 1137, which we disapprove. And indeed he seems there to speak contradictions, because he says that that coming happened when the schism had been overcome: but the famous schism which Bernard extinguished had its end in the year of Christ 1138.

[309] set out to Dunes in Flanders: Antonius Sanderus, in Flanders Illustrated, book 4 of the Affairs of Bruges, chapter 1, page 248, writes these things concerning the praised Robert, conducing to our purpose, which we transcribe hither on his credit: In his time blessed Bernard came into Flanders, and at Furnes delivered a mellifluous sermon to the Canons of St. Walburga on the Nones of April in the year 1138. There was too at that time near the monastery of Dunes a chapel sacred to the lord Lawrence, in which he himself offered the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass, which for that reason was held in the highest veneration almost down to our own times; but by the furies of the late war it has been utterly destroyed. The Reverend Dom Charles de Visch, Prior of the monastery of the Blessed Mary of Dunes, in the Library of the Writers of the Sacred Cistercian Order, at the name of Robert of Bruges, affirms that he was roused by the preaching and holy converse of the divine Bernard visiting Flanders, etc. Let the reader compare so many testimonies now adduced with Manrique's little doubt, and see whether this alone rather, or those more probably, is to be stood by in this controversy. Concerning matters pertaining to the abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Dunes, which was formerly in the territory of Furnes, but was afterwards transferred to the city of Bruges, the above-mentioned Sanderus may be consulted from page 246. Thus far concerning the deeds of the Saint in the year 1138.

[310] Manrique, under the next following year 1139, weaves in many things concerning St. Malachy, archbishop in Ireland, the death of St. Malachy the archbishop. a most celebrated and apostolic man there, and one who also embraced the institute of Clairvaux, whose Life St. Bernard wrote. The Roman Martyrology reports his yearly memory at the III day of November; on which day his Acts will have to be illustrated. Meanwhile let us gird ourselves to narrate other things

among the deeds of St. Bernard, for whose execution, as divine providence chose him in a singular manner, so it made him illustrious with the highest splendor when he had discharged them most honorably.

* That is, the Cardinals.

§ XXIX. Peter Abelard; his genius and character; his errors rightly assailed by St. Bernard; the latter's wonderful encounter with him; Arnold of Brescia, Abelard's disciple.

The things which are here reported from the biographer Geoffrey, The year of Christ 1140, memorable for the errors assailed and vanquished by St. Bernard, furnished great praise to the victor, signal advantage to the Church, and ample material to writers. Let Peter Abaelard or Abailard come first upon the scene — that famous wanderer from the right way, and one brought back to a better by the work and dexterity of the same Saint. The collection which I meditate on this business will contribute to a fuller elucidation of the Life of our holy Doctor as continued by Geoffrey, book 3, chapter 2, number 164, where he speaks thus: There was in those days Peter Abelard, a notable master, and most celebrated in the reputation of learning; but dogmatizing perfidiously concerning the faith: whose writings, full of the gravest blasphemies, when they had begun to fly about on every side, learned and faithful men reported the profane novelties of words and senses to the Man of God. Let us here weigh, first, the person of Peter himself, representing the image of his studies, his genius, and his character. Pagi, in the Critique on Baronius under the year of Christ 1113, number 13, says: There flourished at this time in Gaul Peter Abelard of Nantes, who composed the history of his own calamities in his first letter written to a friend. Born for literary discipline, as he himself asserts, he easily learned it, and especially dialectic; of the learning of which being very desirous, he traversed various provinces in disputing. He came to Paris to William of Champeaux, at that time chief in this mastership in fact and in fame: to whom he was at first acceptable, but afterwards most burdensome, because he refuted some of his opinions, and, presuming too much on his own genius while still a very young man, had opened schools at Melun, a few leagues distant from Paris, and at the village of Champeaux, where William was born. But let us hear Abelard himself in epistle 1, chapter 2: And from this beginning of our schools, he says, my name began to be so enlarged in the art of dialectic that not only the fame of my fellow disciples, but even that of the master himself, being contracted, was little by little extinguished.

[312] from elsewhere Hence it came about that, presuming further upon myself, I transferred our schools as quickly as possible to the castle of Corbeil, which is nearer to the city of Paris, so that thence, namely, our importunity might give more frequent assaults of disputation. So he. Let us go on with Pagi: Meanwhile William of Champeaux, created bishop of Châlons in the current year, as Alberic teaches in his Chronicle, did not desist from his accustomed zeal for teaching philosophy, and to his school Abelard came from Corbeil to Paris. But when he was again most burdensome to his master, he himself gave his labor to teaching dialectic, and after some time, having returned to Melun, again opened schools there. At length at Paris he lectured on sacred Scripture, and Peter Lombard, afterwards bishop of Paris, used his theology in composing the Sentences, as John of Cornwall, that same Lombard's disciple, relates in his Eulogium to Pope Alexander III.* You have here, reader, concerning Abelard's genius and studies; now learn of his morals, or rather of his amours, from Pagi, who at number 14 goes on thus:

[313] there are set forth Fulbert, canon of the cathedral church of Paris, asked him to imbue at his spare hours Heloise, a noble maiden, his niece, excelling in beauty, more excelling in learning, and afterwards celebrated through all Gaul for her erudition, the choice endowments of her mind, and her skill in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin tongues, both with languages and with philosophy and the other liberal arts. But Abelard, entangled in love for her, entangled her also in his own, and begot of her a son named Astrolabe: which crime he wished to lessen by honorable nuptials, Fulbert consenting; and while meanwhile he was free for his schools, he shut Heloise up with the nuns of Argenteuil, warned however not to take the veil. But Fulbert and Heloise's kinsmen, thinking that he had mocked them, cruelly mutilated him in the part in which he had sinned, and made him a eunuch; and thereupon he, covered with shame, put on the monk's habit in the monastery of St. Denis near Paris; but she received the veil from the bishop in the monastery of Argenteuil near Paris, in which she was afterwards prioress and abbess.

[314] in a historical collection, Then at number 15, some things being interposed concerning the celebrity of Abelard's school, Adam, abbot of St. Denis, permitting him to teach at the request of others, and also concerning the foulnesses at that time among the ascetics of that abbey, from the same Abelard; which I, he says, frequently and vehemently rebuking, now privately, now publicly, made myself beyond measure burdensome and odious to all. Who, greatly rejoicing at the daily insistence of our disciples, got an occasion by which they might remove me from themselves; these things, I say, being interposed, the praised Pagi subjoins this: But while the hatreds of great and small burn against him, he himself indulges his genius too much and despises others, and, as his hand is against all, so the hands of all are armed against him, and he is charged with various errors, as we shall see when we speak in the year 1121 of the Council of Soissons, and in the year 1140 of that of Sens. Which had to be treated by us a little more fully, because his Works were only after Baronius's death, and in the year 1616, dug out of darkness by André Duchesne and illustrated with notes. See what we shall say in the year 1166 concerning Gossuin, abbot of Anchin. Thus far Pagi. But we have both transcribed the above hither, and shall add several more things to them below, that we may supplement and elucidate the brevity of the biographer Geoffrey; upon whose words concerning Abelard's errors, or, to speak with the same Geoffrey, blasphemies, it has seemed good to gather the following. But I do not dispute, in order to avoid cavils, concerning the sense of his mind, but concerning the sense which the writer's words themselves bear on their face.

[315] Let us weigh therefore, secondly, in what things Abelard dogmatized perfidiously concerning the faith, as Geoffrey said. these especially, The Works of that author François d'Amboise published, printed at Paris in the year 1616, together with an apologetic Preface for the same writer, in which he produces seventeen chapters which that great lord Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, is said to have sent to Pope Innocent II, found, if it is lawful to believe it, partly in the book of Theology, partly in the book of Sentences, partly in the book entitled Know thyself; which two last books Abelard denied to have been written by him. Of these detestable errors anyone may take up this saying: Alas, that so great a crime should fall upon anyone! These things being premised, he subjoins those chapters; which thence have been transcribed in Manrique under the year 1140, chapter 4. Then the author of the apology sounds the trumpet against St. Bernard and others in this argument, on Abelard's behalf. But it is not the place here to weigh that apology at greater length or to refute it. I shall speak for St. Bernard below; I shall likewise speak against Abelard, as much as shall suffice for our purpose.

[316] But as regards Abelard's errors, there is extant the Saint's famous letter about them, the hundred and ninetieth, with this title: what pertain To the Pontiff Innocent, concerning certain errors of Peter Abelard; but in Mabillon's edition it is reported among the holy Doctor's Treatises, as Opusculum XI, from column 643, with Mabillon's Admonition prefixed to it from page 635. But at the end of that same Admonition he says: After I had written these things, our John Durand, who was then staying at Rome, transmitted to me from the faulty Vatican codex number 663 the Chapters of the Heresies of Peter Abelard, prefixed to the following letter — these very ones, without doubt, which Bernard signifies at the end of this letter that he had gathered and transmitted to the Pontiff. Therefore it seemed good to prefix them in this place for the illustration of the letter itself. This Mabillon premises; but we send the reader both to those Chapters and to the letter itself. Meanwhile, that the equity of St. Bernard's cause may be defended, some other things must be observed concerning the errors of Peter Abelard, from what Mabillon learnedly gathered on this subject.

[317] In his general Preface to the new edition of the Works of St. Bernard, to his errors: at number 53, he records this: In the first place it may be observed that Abelard, long before he had any dealing with Bernard, was challenged by Cono, Legate of the Apostolic See, to the council celebrated at Soissons in the year 1121, and that in it his book On Theology, in which erroneous chapters were contained, was given to the flames, its author being shut up in the monastery of St. Médard. But going out thence, through various excursions hither and thither he goes on to disseminate his first dogmas. Hence he is called a heretic among most men. Bearing which name grievously, he dragged Bernard, unwilling and resisting, to the Council of Sens in the year 1140. Here, in the presence of bishops and other illustrious men of the second order, Abelard himself was heard again, and confuted by Bernard; his doctrine being examined and again proscribed, the author being untouched, who appealed to the Apostolic See. But having understood that the synod's sentence had been approved by Innocent II, he desisted from the appeal, and, at the exhortation of Peter the Venerable, betook himself into the monastery of Cluny, and at last at Chalon, in the monastery of St. Marcellus, rested with a praiseworthy end. These things, repeated from somewhat further back, abundantly manifest his erroneous dogmas in the faith. Besides, while he writes railing against Bernard and raises his horns, he brings his perverse doctrine into clear light; as may be seen in Mabillon's preliminary Admonition praised a little before: We record these things for this reason, he says at column 637, that all at last may understand how impiously Abelard, if he did not think, at least wrote, both concerning the Incarnation and concerning the grace of Christ, and how deservedly Bernard said in epistle 192: "When he speaks of the Trinity, he savors of Arius: when of grace, he savors of Pelagius: when of the person of Christ, he savors of Nestorius."

[318] which St. Bernard And a little below Mabillon rightly repeats this: We record these things, I say, for this reason, that those may be ashamed who detest these errors, in that they take up Abelard's cause against Bernard, whom they further do not fear to accuse of a precipitate judgment against Abelard and of excessive irritability. In almost the same manner as Abelard, William of Conches explains the mystery of the Trinity: whose errors likewise William, abbot of Saint-Thierry, confutes in his letter to Bernard. So true is it that nothing more unhappy can befall religion than when philosophers attempt to explain the mysteries of our faith from reason alone. And presently the same author treats of Abelard's whole affair from the letter of Geoffrey, St. Bernard's notary, to Henry, Cardinal and bishop of Albano: the words of which letter may be read both there and in Du Chesne's notes on Abelard cited in the same place; to say nothing of what is reported concerning the vision of Henry, canon of Tournai, to the Fathers of the synod of Sens and to Bernard

as reported, is narrated in volume 12 of d'Achery's Spicilegium, page 478 and the following.

[319] wisely But that the equity of the cause may appear more clearly, and the prudence of our most wise Doctor in prosecuting Abelard's errors with so ardent a zeal, although what we have already set out concerning them abundantly suffices, we add besides some things concerning the defenders of the latter against the former. First, says Mabillon in his general Preface at number 55, Abelard himself is adduced, who in his Apology complains that certain things were "imposed upon him through malice (and chiefly, that) the Father is full power, the Son a certain power, the Holy Spirit no power" (which words) he abhors as "not so much heretical as diabolical," and affirms cannot be found in his writings. But of this and other chapters there must be treatment in the Observations on Bernard's Opusculum XI. Meanwhile in the same Apology of his Abelard confesses that he wrote some things "through error, which he ought not, (but) nothing through malice or through pride"; and he adds that, if he has exceeded in anything through much speaking, he is always prepared "for satisfaction, for the correcting or the deleting of what he has ill said"; and finally that he, a son of the Church, "receives all things which she receives; but what she rejects, he rejects." Well. We do not want Abelard a heretic: it suffices for Bernard's cause that he erred in certain things: which Abelard himself does not deny.

[320] But what does Otto of Freising say against the holy Doctor, or on Abelard's behalf, book 1, chapter 47? and prudently Namely, that Bernard was "jealous from the fervor of the Christian religion, and credulous from his habitual meekness, (so far) that he abhorred masters who leaned too confidently on human reasonings and secular wisdom, and if anything discordant with the Christian faith were told him of such men, he readily lent an ear." But these very things redound to the holy Doctor's glory: since nothing more belongs to a Catholic teacher than to repress as soon as possible men of this sort, who attribute more than is just to little philosophical reasonings, especially when they coin new words which can lead the incautious into error. "Further (to speak with William, book 1 of the Life, number 41), if excess of holy fervor is reproved in him, that excess assuredly has its own reverence with pious minds. .. Happy he to whom that alone is reckoned for fault which the rest are wont to presume for their own glory." But Otto himself, however much he favors Abelard, yet confesses that he "too much attenuated the three persons of the most holy Trinity, using not good examples," and on this account was judged at Soissons in a provincial synod a Sabellian heretic. What wonder then, if, singing the same things over again, he is ill spoken of among lovers of a sound faith?

[321] Of Berengar of Poitiers, who wrote an Apology for Abelard his preceptor against the synod of Sens and against Bernard, assailed there is no reason why we should much care, both because the man was of no account and of no authority, and because he himself, returned to a saner mind, would no longer be "the patron of the chapters objected to Abelard, because, even if they savored soundly, yet they did not sound soundly": meaning to suppress his own book, if he could, as he himself testifies in a letter to the bishop of Mende. Moreover, although we do not now have all of Abelard's Works in which he had sprinkled his errors, yet in those which remain many things are ROUGH, as the theologians of Paris noted, who applied AN AMULET TO EACH OF THE MORE DANGEROUS SAYINGS on the threshold of his Works: from which it were indeed to be wished that the apologetic Preface should be expunged. So Mabillon speaks — vigorously for St. Bernard, but modestly and learnedly, after his wonted manner, against Abelard and his defenders.

[322] What of this, that he eminently defends the holy Doctor's cause in the notes on his letter, it is demonstrated. the hundred and eighty-seventh in order; in which, after a compendium of Abelard's life and the letter of Pope Innocent against him and Arnold of Brescia, whom, as fabricators of a perverse dogma and assailants of the Catholic faith, he commands to be shut up separately in religious places .. and the books of their error .. to be burned with fire; after these, I say, he answers the objections which are made against Bernard and for Peter Abelard. Here is a synopsis of the matters for you. First, then, he answers the objection drawn from Otto of Freising against the holy Doctor: then the testimony of Peter the Venerable for Abelard: then the engines for undermining the authority of the synod of Sens: finally the things which are urged against the Roman Pontiff in Abelard's cause; which are there set out at greater length. Likewise St. Bernard's business against Abelard, of which thus far here has been spoken, is woven into the Cistercian Annals under the year of Christ 1140, chapter 2 and following. These are the things which it has seemed good to produce concerning the present controversy: whence it is concluded that Peter Abelard, from an acute dialectician made an ill-employed theologian, wrote dogmas erroneous in the orthodox faith, and was convicted of them, and consequently that his favorers and defenders are patrons of a bad and desperate suit; but that Bernard's authority remains entire, as of one who deserved most excellently of the common good and triumphed over the errors of that scribbler; who to this very day so stinks among sound Catholics that in the Index of Books prohibited by the Holy See, page 390 of the Roman edition of the year 1711, Abailard is marked among the proscribed authors of the first class. After the two preceding points, of which the one was concerning his morals and life, the other concerning the errors of his doctrine — both enlarged in aid of the biographer Geoffrey, whose narration we are illustrating — let us add yet another.

[323] Abelard, having encountered Bernard before the Fathers of the synod of Sens, Let us weigh, therefore, thirdly, a certain circumstance which happened in the Saint's encounter with Peter before the Fathers of the synod of Sens; but of the matter itself the same biographer may be read. This circumstance, then, concerning Abelard he reports in our edition, book 3, chapter 2, number 165: For he afterwards confessed to his own men, as they say, that at that hour his memory was for the greatest part disturbed, his reason grew dim, and his inward sense fled. Who would deny that this plainly wonderful event, both as regards the person of Abelard and as regards the person of Bernard, so happened by the singular providence of God, who indeed cast down the former, mighty in genius and eloquence in his own eyes, from the seat of reason; but exalted the latter, the humble man? The Annalist of Clairvaux sets forth the matter thus under the year of Christ 1140, chapter 3, numbers 1 and 2: The holy Father shrank from the fight, and altogether refused the contest, and professed himself no equal in the duel — an untaught man against a master, a rustic reared among beeches and oaks against a philosopher, against a most practiced professor of the schools. What had he to do with scholastic questions? What with subtle disputations? What with quibbles? In which, however, even had he accomplished anything, who was he, a poor monk, that the cause of the faith and of the Church should be committed to him? There were in it masters of notable name; there were also in the academy of Paris the Victorines, Hugh and Richard, to whom this might more safely be entrusted: that he would further the Catholic party by his prayers, as far as he could, which was more familiar to a monk than disputing. By these and like things, the more humble as he was the wiser, he was not denying himself to the Church, but glory to himself. But when the wishes of all, turned upon him, demanded Bernard alone for the fight, lest presumption should seem wanting to him as much as the championing of Christ's cause, at length he consented, meaning to receive from God himself what he should render to Him. So Manrique. To this belongs Bernard's letter, the 187th in order, which is addressed To the bishops to be convoked to Sens against Peter Abelard.

[324] departed with shame and ignominy: But in this that was wonderful, that at that same hour, as Manrique subjoins at numbers 5 and 6, genius and memory so left the wordy man, of most easy and ready discourse, and words so left him, that he remembered nothing at all ever said by him, nothing written, and neither the matter nor the terms of things. .. Thus by divine providence it came about that he who had come confident in his own strength and glorying in the multitude of his quibbles departed confounded, and instead of the victory which he had long since sung beforehand, carried off shame and ignominy.

[325] Arnold his disciple. Abelard's disciple, follower, and patron was Arnald, or Arnold, or Arnulf of Brescia, of whom above in passing, and at greater length afterwards. The perverse dogmas and harms of this shifty sycophant and heretic the holy Doctor graphically depicts in epistles 195 and 196. But to this purpose make Bernard's words concerning him, inserted in the same epistle 195: You will see the man openly rise up against the clergy, relying on military tyranny, rise up against the bishops themselves, and rage everywhere against the whole ecclesiastical order. Baronius, under the year 1140, number 3, says: Which happened when after Innocent's death he betook himself to Rome under Pope Eugenius: and accordingly he judges these among other things to have been written prophetically by the Saint. Further, below, when we treat of that Pontiff advanced to the See of Peter, we shall represent to the life the image of this most impious profaner of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, that the reader may know how exactly St. Bernard's prediction was afterwards fulfilled, and how providently the pestiferous venom of this heretic was beforehand pointed out and uncovered by him for the common good.

opportunitas*.

§ XXX. The Saint wins a cleric by dice; another by money given him to play for himself; he frees a criminal from death and makes him a monk; he patiently bears an injury; the death of his sister Humbeline; he defends the oppressed; things done in the suit of the priesthood with the kingdom.

[He overcomes a wandering cleric by a prodigious throw of the dice and joins him to Clairvaux:] There follows the year of Christ 1141, in which we shall meet the holy Abbot drawn from external business to domestic, and shall contemplate him intent upon the affairs of Clairvaux. The convent being emptied, as the Cistercian Annals report under the same year, chapter 3, number 1, year by year for new foundations of monasteries, Bernard kept supplying more and more, partly converted by preaching, partly by miracles; those who resisted were drawn on even by their own vices. Let that famous gambling — or rather beguiling — cleric be an example, who, while he seizes a horse, is himself seized by the Saint in a pleasant and wonderful manner. The story is there described from Caesarius of Heisterbach, who is cited in Homily 5 on the third Sunday after Pentecost, in these words: When on a certain day the holy Father was riding along the road, and wandering clerics, whom they call Euerandini, met him, he admonished them to conversion. To whom one said: I will play with you at dice. If the lot answers for me, you shall give me your horse: if for you, I will follow you into the monastery. The Saint answering, The Lord's will be done: presently that man, drawing out loaded dice, threw eighteen points. The monks being troubled, and not knowing God's counsel, the blessed Man, having hope in Christ, for the man's salvation raised the dice and set them down. And behold, on two of them twelve pips appeared, but the third, divided into two parts, showed on one side six, on the other five points. Seeing which, the cleric, terrified, followed*

the Man of God to Clairvaux, and was made a proved monk. This deed is to this day very celebrated in the schools of the masters of Paris. These things from Caesarius, who flourished in the thirteenth century.

[327] In a like manner divine providence played, so to speak, through St. Bernard, when he recalled by a game a certain other man, wearied of the religious Order and ready to send it word of departure, to his former institute of life. he keeps a monk in it by giving him money to play for himself: The deed Manrique reports in the same place at number 2 from Vincent of Beauvais, whom he cites as recording this in the Speculum morale, part 4, distinction 13: It is read in the Life of St. Bernard that he had received as a monk a certain man who had been a gambler; who, when he altogether wished to leave the Order, the Saint asked what he knew how to do, whereby he might get his living. But he said that he knew how to do nothing except to play with dice. To this St. Bernard: And if I entrust you with capital, I wish you to come each year and reckon with me and divide the gain. So be it, said he; and, receiving thirty shillings, went away glad. After a little time he lost it, and confounded returned to the gate. Hearing which, blessed Bernard went thither glad, and stretched out his lap, that they might divide the gain together. But he said, I have gained nothing, but have lost your shillings. But if you are willing to receive me, you may have me for your capital. To whom the Saint: It is better that I receive you than lose the whole together. And he received him, rejoicing at his recovery.

[328] he obtains a wicked man's life from Count Theobald, But in what manner the holy Man freed a criminal man, and one to be punished with death, from both evils, and brought him back to the best fruit, learn from the following story, which stands in the Great Exordium of the Cistercian Order in Tissier, distinction 2, chapter 15, and which Manrique indicates at number 3 as having happened about this same time. Hear the deed: It happened at one time that the same Servant of God went to Count Theobald on certain business. And when he was drawing near to the town where he then was, he met a copious crowd of men who, at the Count's command, were dragging a certain criminal and notorious robber to punishment. Seeing which, the most clement Father, seizing with his own hand the thong with which the wretch was bound, said to his executioners: Give me up this cutthroat: for I wish to hang him with my own hands. But the Count, hearing of the coming of the Man of God, hastened at once to meet him. For with a wonderful affection of devotion he always loved and honored him. And when he saw the rope in his hand, with which he was drawing the robber behind him, he shuddered vehemently, and said: Alas! venerable Father, what is this that you have wished to do? For why have you recalled from the gate of hell that gallows-bird condemned a thousand times over? Can you make him safe, since he has already become wholly a devil? His amendment is utterly despaired of: nor will he ever be able to do well, save by dying. Suffer therefore, lord Father, suffer the son of perdition to go to perdition; because by his pestiferous life the life of many is endangered.

[329] and out of a robber makes a monk: But the holy Father answering said: I know indeed, best of men, I know that this man is a most wicked robber, and most worthy of the bitterness of all torments. Do not therefore think that I wish to leave such a sinner unpunished: nay rather I purpose to deliver him to torturers, and to take worthy vengeance upon him: which assuredly will be the worthier as it is the longer. You had decreed that he be finished off with a brief punishment and a momentary death; but I will make him die with a long torment and a most lingering death. You would suffer the thief, when hanged, to remain dead on the gibbet for one or for several days; I will make him, fastened to the cross, live and hang perpetually in pain for very many years. Hearing which, the most Christian prince was silent: nor did he dare further to contradict the Saint's words. Forthwith therefore the most kindly Father, having put off his own tunic, clothed his captive with it, and, the hair of his head being shorn, associated him with the Lord's fold, making of a wolf a lamb, of a robber a convert. Who, coming with him to Clairvaux, was thenceforth obedient unto death, beautifully expressing the etymology of his name in the constancy of his purpose: for he was called Constantius. And so, surviving in the Order thirty years, unless I am mistaken, or more, he passed to the Lord, who through the merits of our most blessed Father mercifully deigned to snatch him from a twofold death, namely of body and of soul. So the author of the Exordium. But of Theobald, who is mentioned above, Count of Champagne, the Cistercian Annals treat in various places, whose index may be consulted, as also the biographers Ernaldus, book 2 of the Life of St. Bernard, chapter 6, and Geoffrey, book 4, chapter 2.

[330] The parent of the same Annals subjoins to these three deeds which we have just reported he patiently endures a blow struck him by a cleric: his sister dies, one of another kind at number 6, namely the execrable crime of a certain Regular cleric, by whom a blow was inflicted on the holy Abbot in revenge for a refusal, which approved the judgment of him who refused and set off his patience; which princes, which kings might venerate, his face being dishonored by a sacrilegious hand, and struck not only with redness and pain, but with swelling. Go to Geoffrey, book 3 of the Life, chapter 3, in which that matter is narrated at greater length. But the praised Manrique warns, toward the end of chapter 3, that he had heaped into one the things he had reported, since no certain year underlay each: which we too, following his example, have thought must be done. The same author in chapter 4 writes of the most pious death of Humbeline, own sister of St. Bernard, who both there and in other authors is named with the title of saint; but to us she seems thus far to be placed only among the venerable, so long as her public cultus is not established. Go to the Praetermissi at the XXI day of August. Manrique, then, records that the holy Father was present with her as she lay sick even to death, then reporting also their mutual conversations, and Bernard's recall — he having left her for a while — by the ministry of an angel striking the board. Besides these, the body, he says at number 8, of the Saint is reported to have been given to burial, Bernard celebrating the funeral Office, and amid these things rejoicing together with her and weeping: but joy prevailing, especially when she appeared to him in glory, congratulating him on the reward which by his exhortation she had merited. So he.

[331] But we have something against the reckoning of time to which the same historiographer links the death of the venerable Humbeline, in what year who elsewhere is called Humberga. In our work, in volume IV of June, on the XXIII day, from page 608, has been published the Life of St. Peter the monk, Prior of Jully near Molesme in Champagne of Gaul: in whose Life, chapter 3, this Peter is said to have been taught by an angel that Humberga would presently die. This Life our Pierre-François Chifflet had before dug out of darkness and published in print in his Treatise on the illustrious lineage of St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, from page 134. But in the observation which he has concerning the year and day of the death of the praised Prior of Jully, at page 155 and following, he determines that he departed this life in the year of Christ 1136. Whence it may be seen, as he has from page 156, that Angel Manrique in the Cistercian Annals under the year of Christ 1141, chapter 4, number 1, strayed far from the mark, where he says that Humbeline, St. Bernard's sister, was still living in the year 1140, and not long after, in the year 1141, piously fell asleep in the Lord. For if Peter the Prior, who was present at her death, died in June of the year 1136, how was she still among the living five years later? Let it suffice to have briefly indicated this here from him, the matter being set out there at greater length. This observation of Chifflet tells also against Baillet, who at the XXI day of August, in the Life of Humbeline which he published, binds her death to the year 1141; likewise against another Frenchman in the Life of St. Bernard published at Paris in the year 1704, book 4, page 350.

[332] he defends the oppressed abbot of Cherlieu, as also others: Some other things the Cistercian historian committed to writing concerning St. Bernard under the said year 1141, chapter 5. About the same time, he says at number 1, the venerable Guido, abbot of Cherlieu in the diocese of Besançon, when he was being oppressed by every injustice by the pseudo-Provost of a neighboring Convent, a man otherwise abandoned and prodigal, appeals to the supreme Prelate of the Church, meaning to go to Rome for his hearing. There is extant a letter of Bernard to Innocent, affectionate on his behalf, keen against the offender, and one which so commends the cause of the one as to describe the qualities of both. Then that letter is recited in the same place, which is the hundred and ninety-eighth in order, and may be read in the fountain itself. That business he again earnestly commends to the same Vicar of Christ, as becomes perspicuous from the next following letter given to him with this title: He asks that the sentence pronounced for the Religious unjustly oppressed be confirmed, and that ears be no longer lent to calumnies. Of the judges who pronounced sentence for Cherlieu, and in what manner its execution was retarded, Manrique writes in the same place at number 4; and at number 6 he observes that in Bernard .. it ought not to be a wonder if he did not suffer the sons whom he pursued so closely to be vexed by more powerful men: in whom the protection of the needy was so implanted by nature, but perfected by grace, that he would not suffer even brute animals to be oppressed in his presence, and said that it was vainly attempted by others, since as long as he could he would hinder it. There may be read what Geoffrey has, book 3 of the Life, chapter 4.

[333] [Louis the Younger, king of Gaul, at variance with Pope Innocent and with Count Theobald] But another tempest, and of greater peril, exercised the holy Man's labor and dexterity. Hear the matter from the Cistercian Annals alleged, chapter 6: In this same year Louis the Younger, undisciplined whether in age or in character, fierce in power, loosing the reins of disobedience against the Church, was rebellious to Innocent; he also, turned against Theobald, harassed him with an ancient grudge against a man, however holy: was it because he found him favoring the Church and Innocent, and thus opposed to himself? That cause was Bernard's and all Cîteaux's on a twofold title: first, because it was the Church's; then, because it was Theobald's, carried through by Bernard and by ours. .. Scarcely any was graver, scarcely any more difficult or laborious, the will of kings being always slippery; but the more slippery, whenever they are hurried on by anger or vengeance: Bernard was alike against the king, and for the king, though after a long time. The first occasion of the dissensions was Peter, given as pastor by the Pontiff to the church of Bourges, long widowed, namely since the death of Alberic: whom, consecrated without his assent, the king reckoned unseemly; and, if he were admitted, injurious. Nor were the counsels of courtiers wanting, after the manner of a court, not to guide but to follow, and by their very compliance to drive him headlong. Count Theobald alone, more constant than the rest, while he contradicts, was found more faithful;

but the more faithful he was, the more hated, and he provoked the king's vengeance upon himself. Of these things Robert (rather, the pseudo-Robert, according to what is to be said in §32), Sigebert's continuator, under this year: whose text in the praised Annals is presently subjoined: In this same year (namely 1141) there arose a dissension between the Roman Pope and Louis, king of the Franks: whence the Gallican church is troubled. For Alberic, archbishop of Bourges, being dead, Peter was sent by Pope Innocent, consecrated as pastor of that church; but, rejected by King Louis because he had been consecrated without his assent, he is by no means received into the city: and because Count Theobald was believed to favor his party out of reverence or the will of the Pope, the grudge which seemed to have been lulled began to sprout again between the king and him. These things being recited by Manrique, this is subjoined in his Annals: Louis added an oath in headlong anger, that, while he lived, no one consecrated without his being consulted should ascend to a pontifical see: and it was a superstition among the French that whatever they had confirmed by oath, not to perform it they reckoned infamy.

[334] Bernard, moved by these things and anxious, and taking precaution against still greater evils, strives with great effort to reconcile. sweated for a whole year — first with fruitless, then with fruitful effort — for the restoring of peace between the priesthood and the kingdom. Which in the following year the Saint himself, writing to Louis, confidently declares in epistle 221: "You know with how great labor, with how great solicitude, through all the past year, I attended to the seeking of your peace." Therefore, approaching first the king, that he might come to his senses; then Innocent, that he might spare; when neither would the one draw back from disobedience, pleading the religion of his oath, and the other, grieving that the keys of the Church were contemned, threatened anathema against the king: what remained was that he gave letters to the four Cardinal bishops of the court (among whom was Stephen, his beloved son), who should take counsel for the Christian commonwealth, and, if they could, soften Innocent. Let the Father indulge the son, the old man the young, the churchman the layman, in a word the priest the king, who indeed would wish, but out of shame would not sufficiently dare, to incur the reproach of a violated oath. And behold a copy of the holy Father's letters, which may in passing lend credit to what has been said. That letter, which Manrique presently recites, is the two hundred and nineteenth in order, and in Mabillon's edition is headed with this title: To three bishops of the court, Alberic of Ostia, Stephen of Palestrina, Igmar of Tusculum, and Gerard the chancellor. But in the notes this among other things is observed: In some manuscripts, FOUR. But the common reading is better. For Gerard the chancellor, who is here recorded in the fourth place, was not a bishop; afterwards created Pontiff, and called Lucius II. To this is added that the same letter in the said edition is woven into the year of Christ 1143. And indeed that matter for which the holy Man was laboring then succeeded well; but the discord was scarcely lulled when new dissensions disturbed the peace, as Manrique records from number 6, and forthwith will be said by us from him at greater length.

tesseris*, as a little after.

Another reading, diaboli*.

Another reading, correctio*.

Mabillon, quantaque*.

Ibid., intendi*.

§ XXXI. That suit, scarcely lulled, breaks out afresh with new dissensions; Bernard's new labors to compose it.

The peace between those at variance, scarcely composed, What we said at the end of the paragraph immediately preceding that Bernard aimed at, he obtained, as Manrique reports in the place there indicated: it is ascertained that no anathema was then pronounced against the king. Nay, that the same, convinced by the Saint's admonitions, consented to the Pontiff that Peter should be placed in the see of Bourges. But also the king's favor toward Theobald was confirmed by certain compacts, for which two men were chosen on the king's part, namely Joscelin, bishop of Soissons, and Suger, abbot of St. Denis near Paris, whom the holy Doctor had long since converted to better fruit, as we noted in its own place. For Theobald likewise two others, a bishop and an abbot, both Cistercians, namely Hugh of Auxerre, and Bernard, who should define the conditions on both sides and compose matters on both sides. But among others this especially was ratified, which the holy Father, when the peace was afterwards disturbed, recorded to both royal advocates in epistle 222 to this end: that if any controversy or dissension should arise concerning those conventions, they should do or seek no evil against each other, until the matter had been ventilated and discussed before us three together and the lord of Auxerre, who were then both mediators, and, if any controversy should emerge, were bound to be reconcilers. But it is worth recording what difficulties again thrust themselves upon the peace scarcely established.

[336] new discords overturn, on account of the wife repudiated by Ralph, It was the year one thousand one hundred and forty-two, as the Cistercian Annals report under this year, when the dissensions between the Pontiff, Theobald, and King Louis, scarcely yet lulled, broke out afresh with new quarrels. And perhaps, what could not against Innocent, a more violent anger burst forth against Theobald. Ralph, Count of Vermandois, furnished the matter, having repudiated his wife and brought in over her Petronilla, daughter of Duke William and sister of the queen. A pretext of consanguinity was sought for the divorce: nor were witnesses wanting for the royal desire, and three bishops were found among the leading men who should pronounce sentence for Ralph, yet secretly, and as it were through darkness, as though their conscience protested and would not bear the sun's gaze upon known outrages. Then Theobald, zealous for his sister, zealous for the marriage, went to Bernard, to implore counsel and aid together. But the holy Father, the truth being ascertained, and grieving first for the case of the violated oath, then for the injury to a most beloved prince, appealing to Innocent as the avenger of both, gave to him such letters on behalf of Count Theobald: which are recited in the same place; but that letter is found among Bernard's others as the two hundred and sixteenth in order. But what followed after it the praised Annals go on to relate thus at number 3.

[337] and the other married: These letters being received, Innocent sends Ivo, Cardinal priest, into the Gauls with plenary power, by whom the cause of the divorce might be decided. He, the truth being searched out and ascertained, compels Count Ralph, stricken with anathema, to dismiss his new bride, declares him, disobedient, to be put outside the communion of the faithful, subjects his land to interdict, and suspends the three bishops, by whose authority the whole matter had been done, from sacred Orders and from entrance into the church — all things according to justice and the mind of the sacred canons. Of these things Robert, Sigebert's continuator, under this year: whose words Manrique thus recites: Ralph, Count of Vermandois, dismisses his wife, and marries Petronilla, the queen's sister. On account of which, at the instance of Count Theobald, Ivo is sent as legate of the Roman See, who both excommunicated Count Ralph and suspended Bartholomew, bishop of Laon, Simon of Noyon, and Peter of Senlis, who had made that divorce. The Annals go on: The legate meanwhile, having entered the way of all flesh, confirmed the sentence by his own death. For, he being now taken out of the way, if perchance, his zeal boiling over, it should be mitigated, the Roman Pontiff alone remained to be approached, who could not easily be entreated. So Manrique. Go to d'Achery's Spicilegium, volume 12, page 480. But Louis, as the said Annals subjoin at number 4, when he sees himself frustrated, and that the ignominy which he had inflicted on the Count by the repulse of his sister had fallen back upon the queen's sister .. taking refuge in arms .. against right, against law, against the compacts, the arbiters being unawaited and unconsulted, harasses Count Theobald as an enemy, raging through all his dominion with sword and fire. And the atrocity came to such a point that the pious count, to avoid the slaughters of the faithful, the robberies, the rapes, and the other evils of war which involve victors and vanquished alike, was compelled to take an oath that absolution would be obtained from the Pontiff — either postponing his own disgrace to the safety of the citizens, or buying time by the promised absolution, which either could be denied by Innocent, or, if granted, be revoked. Bernard discloses the matter in his letter to Innocent, the 217th in order.

[338] Then the supreme Pontiff, as Manrique goes on at number 6, what the holy Man did complying with Theobald for his merits .. relaxed the anathema, unless the adulterers should come to their senses and be separated .. meaning at once to renew it. Power felt itself again mocked, and that vengeance had again vanished, in which it found itself once more entangled. And ascribing all this to Bernard (for who else could have done it with the Pontiff?), he gave him a letter overly querulous, to which Bernard answered freely, after his manner, but reverently, standing constantly, namely, for justice, while he rejects the king's unjust demand in Ralph's cause, and admonishes the same king not to oppress the innocent, nor to provoke against himself the supreme King. That letter is extant among the others as the 220th in order. And after it indeed the most holy Father's industry and care in composing this public business, of so great effort and moment, were void of the wished-for outcome, yet were not so reduced that they did not go on to devote further labor to it. Epistle 221 may be seen.

[339] But what meanwhile did King Louis? Let the aforesaid Annals be heard, chapter 2, for the common good, and what he suffered. number 1: But Louis was not exasperated — which is wonderful enough, and in a young man an indication of a better mind — nor did he disdain to answer the Man of God: nay rather he sent him a long letter, weaving excuses and complaints, in which he attacked Theobald on many counts, and on some Bernard also: that he had by fraud made a mockery of the oath, while the land still remained under interdict: that he was binding to himself by marriages the Count of Flanders and of Soissons, by whose aid he might rebel against the king: that Ralph was solicited by him, Bernard being privy and accomplice, as one who promised him pardon of sins if he would adhere to Theobald. These and like things the king having written back, Bernard appealed to two of his counselors, the arbiters of the compacts, Joscelin and Suger, by whom, as privy to the whole truth, he might far more effectually, and, as friends, more easily be brought back. That letter is found among Bernard's as the 222nd in order. Let us go on to Manrique at number 7: But when the holy Doctor sent the letter either open by chance (from which occasion was taken, as though he had done it out of irreverence), or Joscelin, reckoning it from his own conscience the more biting, and the more impatient the more reprehensible he was, returned him a most biting answer, so that he by no means feared to say that the Saint had spoken in a spirit of blasphemy — which Godfrey affirms in his Life, and the Saint's own reply testifies. See this in epistle 223; consult the former, book 3, chapter 3, number 175. We observe, however, in passing, that that letter in Mabillon's edition is not linked to the year of Christ 1142, in which we are with the Cistercian Annals, but to the year 1143. From these things meanwhile it is abundantly understood that all things were attempted by St. Bernard to bring a remedy to this most mournful controversy between two princes at variance; but hitherto with fruitless effort, as will become plain from the events which afterwards followed.

§ XXXII. Bernard's other attempts to succor the tragic dissensions of Gaul; he undeservedly falls from Pope Innocent's favor.

He signifies to Stephen, bishop of Palestrina While we make our step hence to the year of Christ 1143, a most disastrous scene of Gallic affairs presents itself to us: which, that he might change it into a happier one, how many and how great labors did the holy Man not spend

— labors assuredly the harder because they were frustrated of the wished-for fruit. The affairs of Gaul were rushing to the worse, says Manrique under this year, chapter 1, number 1, and Louis, the bonds of piety broken, was raging more irreligiously every day, more atrociously against Theobald: and that in this year 1143 .. in which Bernard, mourning and grieving, wrote this letter to the Cardinals of the court, but chiefly to Stephen, bishop of Palestrina, his beloved son, containing the wretched state of Gaul. This letter in Mabillon's edition is the 224th in order, from which I excerpt the following: You .. know how I too stood for the king in the sight of my lord, absent indeed in body but present in spirit, that I might speak good for him. For he was promising good things. But now, since he himself renders evil for good, I am compelled to write the contrary. .. Holy things are trampled among us; the Church is basely enslaved. For the elections of bishops are forbidden to be made, and if anywhere this has been presumed by the clergy, the elect is not allowed to be a bishop. Finally the church of Paris sits in sadness, destitute of its own pastor, and there is no one who dares to mutter of substituting another. It is not enough that the episcopal houses be despoiled of present goods: even against lands and against men the sacrilegious hand rages on every side, claiming besides for itself the revenues of a whole year from them. ..

[341] most deplorable The king committed to his brother Robert the office of bishop, and he, dealing masterfully in all the lands and goods of the Church .. offers to heaven daily victims, plainly not peaceful ones: the cries of the poor, the tears of widows, the wailing of orphans, the groans of the fettered, the blood of the slain. .. Besides, the king, we indeed laboring not a little, had made peace with Count Theobald ..; and behold, he seeks occasions how he may withdraw from his friend. And this is the great crime charged upon the Count, that he contracts marriages for his children with the king's barons. The widening of charity is suspect to him, nor does he think himself a king if the princes love him. .. Therefore for this reason he manifestly transgresses the conventions and constitutions of the peace, nor keeps his compacts, which his lips uttered. Finally he has recalled into his house and into his counsel an adulterous and excommunicated man, whom by agreement he had cast out, and, for the exercise of a greater malice, with many others equally wicked, excommunicate, perjured, incendiaries, homicides, the king and advocate of the Church is again allied against the lover and defender of the Church (which is not in doubt). .. Besides, he after his manner compels the bishops to curse those who are to be blessed, and again to bless those who are to be cursed. … With what face, I beseech, does he labor so greatly to prescribe to others concerning consanguinity — a man remaining with his own cousin (which is public) in about the third degree of consanguinity?*

[342] And indeed between the son of Count Theobald and the daughter of the Count of Flanders, the state of Gaul: and likewise between the Count of Soissons and the daughter of Count Theobald, whether there be consanguinity I do not know (for I have never praised, nor do I praise, knowingly unlawful marriages): but you know, and let my lord know, that these nuptials are forbidden. These are, among several other things, those with which Bernard addresses Stephen: nor unlike, as Manrique reports at number 6, were the letters to the other bishops whom he knew to adhere to the Pontiff, that they might meet so great evils as they could. But why he did not then write to Innocent we shall declare below in this same year. Of the said King Louis, Horst's notes in Mabillon on epistle 224, column LXX, may be consulted. In whom also is expounded that "about the third degree of consanguinity" of which above, and likewise in the briefer notes at column 209. Of Ralph, Count of Vermandois, repudiating his wife and marrying another, Pagi writes under the year of Christ 1142. We see, then, St. Bernard straining every sinew to succor the utterly ruined affairs of Gaul. These things having been briefly observed on the preceding letter, let us pursue the present subject with the Cistercian Annals alleged: where at numbers 7 and 8 is this:

[343] Meanwhile the Saint himself and Hugh, who were arbiters of the compacts for Theobald, and who had been given by Innocent for the seeking of peace for the Gallic church which the Saint with Hugh sets before the eyes of King Louis — which Bernard not lightly hints in his letter to him — lest anything at all should remain unattempted, went to the king, interposed the nobles, protested the divine and human laws, set forth the damages of war, and that, whichever conquered, the kingdom would perish, without which not even a king could stand. For whose was that land which was being laid waste? Whose the men against whom he raged? Was it not to be restored from his own treasury? .. And these things indeed concerning temporal gains: for concerning fame and honor they declaimed still greater, greatest concerning salvation; as is there set forth at greater length. With these and like things, assailing the king now by letters, now face to face, they persevered reverently and constantly to reprove, beseech, rebuke, in all patience and doctrine. And already the assembly appointed at Corbeil promised better things, had not the king, having scarcely heard the Saints' pleas, and tenaciously protesting after the manner of princes that nothing was granted him so long as not everything was, withdrawn indignant and raging, impatient of fairness, and not only not obeying but not hearing. Then the holy Men, confounded by a shameful repulse, but none the less constant for the peace of the kingdom, wrote such a letter to him through brother Andrew, among the dearest to them, and, as it appears, familiar to the king. It is extant in Mabillon among Bernard's as the 226th in order. Further, that Andrew (de Baudement, as is added in the text of the letter) was famous, and was employed in various affairs. He subscribes the foundation charters of the abbey of Cherlieu in volume 11 of the Spicilegium*, page 329, and is found with Bernard as witness of the concord entered into between Louis the Younger and Algrimus, archdeacon of Orléans, in volume 4 of Du Chesne, page 764. These and more Mabillon in the briefer notes on the same letter. So much in passing.

[344] but with no fruit: he against the people of Vitry To this also, that we may pursue other things done by the holy and common Father for the ratifying of peace, belongs the letter to Joscelin, bishop of Soissons, which Bernard alone, unmindful of the injury received, or rather the more loving because mindful .., as Manrique puts it at number 10, wrote. It is the 225th in order in Mabillon. But what was the fruit of so many pious and no less strenuous attempts? The praised compiler of the Annals says at number 11: Nothing was obtained with the king by letters. .. Therefore this year, by a signal sacrilege, at Vitoriacum — others say Vitriacum — which was a town of Theobald's dominion, the king lays waste with fire first the walls, then the church itself, into which almost all the townsfolk had fled, and burns things sacred and profane, men, women, those of ripe age and those not yet grown. Thirteen hundred souls perished — others reckon more — who, as though fortified by the holiness of the place, were seeking safety from religion. Then at last the king, seized with a late repentance, is said to have wept, but not yet to amend his sin. Of these things Robert, Sigebert's continuator, under this year: "King Louis takes Vitry, a castle of Count Theobald's: where, fire being applied, the church was burned, and in it thirteen hundred souls of different sex and age were consumed by fire. Whereat King Louis, moved by mercy, is said to have wept, and for this cause is thought by some to have undertaken the pilgrimage to Jerusalem."

[345] rages with dire barbarity: of which transaction the time On the occasion of which words, as I believe, says Manrique at number 12, Paul Aemilius, confounding times, relates that Father Bernard was summoned by the king, who was to implore God's clemency through him, as though he now repented. He produces these words of Paul Aemilius in his Louis the Younger: Who, being admitted and most kindly received by the king, when he beheld his weeping and had learned the cause of his grief, said: These tears, unless they quickly dry up, can extinguish the memory of the burning of Vitry: only add to them constancy and strength, and, lest it be as it were a womanish wailing, bear a manly and truly royal spirit. Before the wrath of the offended Godhead arms itself against you, turn against the enemies of temples and against a barbarous religion the torches which you brought against temple and altars. The rest, which Aemilius pursues at greater length, Manrique does not transcribe from him, but hints that the matter is so handled by him as though Bernard had exhorted Louis in this very year and on this occasion to the expedition to Jerusalem. But these things, far distant by at least three intervening years, and the one occurring under Innocent, the other under Eugenius, with two other Pontiffs, though of brief span, in between, are without cause confounded in the history. The memory of the earlier crime could impel the king: it could also be recalled by Bernard, even if it had been perpetrated two years before. And Louis was still at variance with Theobald, nor to be reconciled to him until after a year, as we shall record in its own place also. Thus far the Cistercian Annalist; who, while he corrects the reckoning of time in Paul Aemilius, gives us occasion to note something concerning the year 1143, to which he adapts the barbarity perpetrated at Vitry by King Louis the Younger.

[346] Pagi, in the Critique on Baronius under the year 1141, number 3, writing of the dissension between Innocent II the time and Louis VII, king of the Franks, narrates this at number 4 from the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis under the year 1142: The king stirred up almost all his nobles to wage war together with him against Count Theobald. Then under the year 1143: The king took Vitry, a town of Count Theobald, where, fire being applied, the church was burned, and in it 1300 men of different sex and age perished. But the praised Pagi at once observes that in the Chronicles of Gembloux and of Châlons, however, Vitry is said to have been burned in the year 1142: whose note of time he embraces under the year 1143, number 1; where, having reported the wretched state of the Gallican church, he says: but the basilica of the castle of Vitry was burned not this year, as Baronius reports at number 6 from the pseudo-Robert de Monte, but in the year 1142, as we showed under the year 1141.* This same pseudo-Robert Manrique employed above: who, even if he has Nangis on his side for the year which he marks, 1143, yet has those two other Chronicles against him.

[347] But the other Robert de Monte, whose Accessions and genuine Appendix to Sigebert were published by d'Achery after the Works of Guibert, abbot of Nogent, is examined. printed at Paris in the year 1651, hands down this under the year 1141, page 762: Louis, king of the Franks, afflicted Count Theobald and laid waste his land, especially in Champagne, where he burned an excellent castle, namely Vitry: where a very great multitude of men of different sex and age were burned up. So the other Robert, who to the vexations stirred up by Louis against Theobald in the year 1141 — in which we said in §30, from the Cistercian Annals, that the latter was harassed by the former — would have joined the burning of the castle of Vitry by prolepsis, as we suspect; (unless you prefer to read 1142 for the year 1141, with another codex which is indicated in a marginal note in d'Achery at page 760 and the next following) — the other, to say it again, Robert de Monte, and he the genuine one: concerning whom you may consult the observation in the praised d'Achery at page 715.

Oudin, in his Commentary on Ecclesiastical Writers, volume 2, from column [ ], gathered various things concerning that author; but among them is this to our purpose: He carried on his Chronicle from the year 1112, where Sigebert had left off, to the year 1182. But the Appendix to Sigebert, which was published among the illustrious writers of Germany, is for the greatest part by another author, namely from the year 1110 to the year 1155. But the genuine Appendix to Sigebert's Chronicle, composed by Robert de Torigny, as he is also called, from the autograph of the monastery of Mont-Saint-Michel, and his Accessions to Sigebert etc., that most learned man Luc d'Achery published, indicated by us above. But lest notes of this kind draw us away from our historical thread, we shall say below, under the year 1144, that these princes at variance, King Louis and Count Theobald, were brought back into favor by the work of St. Bernard; but now we go on with Manrique, who thus pursues his matter in chapter 2 of the aforesaid year 1143:

[348] [It is reported on what occasion the holy Man fell from the favor of Pope Innocent,] The holy Father was mourning these public evils, when suddenly, experiencing private ones also from the quarter whence he feared least, grief is added to grief and sadness to sadness. He had lost, himself unaware, the favor of Innocent, which he had merited by so many labors, so many services. The goods of Ivo the Cardinal legate had, with good cause, been distributed to the poor, which ought to have been reserved for the Pontiff, and the distribution was imputed to Bernard on a twofold title: that he had been designated distributor in the testament, and that as promoter of the cause of the poor he had thrust himself in even unbidden. Two abbots had been present with the dying man, through whom, with Bernard joined to them, the bequeathed goods should pass into the possession of the poor: and both went to Clairvaux, meaning, as was fitting, to seek out Bernard; but the Saint being occupied in the business of peace and not found, lest they should longer delay the testament, they alone carried out what Ivo had commanded. It seemed hard to Innocent that anything had been done without consulting Bernard: and in that cause the Saint was suspect, as one who would prefer the goods of the poor, because the poor's, to his own. But now, favor being once lost in any way — as is generally the condition of men — the things which had pleased before began to be odious. That almost nothing was done in the Church without Bernard, and that one Pontiff scarcely sufficed for his frequent letters and intercessions, who nevertheless, given to the universal Church, could not comply with one man: let the Abbot contain himself within his monastery, or contain himself at least within Gaul, and let there be something that was not transacted at his discretion. .. Thus he who once used Bernard in all quarters of the world for the establishing of his tiara, after he had established it, condemns what he chose, and, he who was soliciting one to plead for him, does not endure him pleading with him for others.

[349] and the latter's to the former When Bernard learned this of the Pontiff's indignation against him, he wrote to him, as Baronius says under the year 1143, an apologetic letter, in which, defending his own cause and powerfully excusing it, he shows that he had sinned in nothing therein so as to deserve his indignation. This is the last letter which the holy Father wrote to Pope Innocent, the 218th in order, which, although it may be read printed elsewhere, yet deserves here also to be reprinted and read again, some things being cut away for brevity's sake: I used to think, says the holy Man, that I was at some time something, even if little; but now, as I perceive, I have been utterly reduced to nothing, while I knew it not. Nor indeed should I say that I was altogether nothing then, when the eyes of my lord were upon his boy, and his ears open to my prayers. .. But now I deservedly call myself not little, but nothing; since since yesterday and the day before he has turned away his face from me. Why is this? What have I sinned? Much, I confess, if the money of Cardinal Ivo of good memory was distributed at my discretion, and not at his nod. .. I am not so dull as not to know that whatever of his own goods he has not given belongs to the Church.*

[350] given But now hear the truth simply. … When the man put off the man, I was absent, nay, very far away. But I heard from those who were present that he himself made his own testament; and what he did, he had also written down: and of his goods what he willed, to whom he willed, he himself apportioned: what was left over, he committed to two abbots then assisting him, and to me equally, who was absent, to be divided, because the poorer places of the saints were known to us. Further, those abbots, coming to the house and not finding me (for I was at that time detained by your command in the business of seeking peace), nevertheless divided the money as seemed good to them, I not only not conniving but not even knowing what they did. Let indignation now, if you please, yield to manifest truth. ..

[351] For as to what I have likewise learned, that I have displeased in my many scribblings, an apologetic letter. this I shall not need to fear henceforth: since I shall easily amend it. I know, I know, I presumed more than I ought, giving too little heed who it was that presumed to write, and to whom. .. I shall henceforth give, if I can, a tempering to my zeal, knowledge; and I shall put my finger upon my mouth. For I shall more tolerably offend some of my friends than weary with many prayers the Christ of the Lord. And even now I have not dared to write to you of the perils threatening the Church, and of the grave schism which we fear, and of the very many inconveniences which we endure. But I have written to the holy bishops adhering to your side: from them you will be able to hear, if it please you to know, what I have written. It is well to weave on to these, in place of a coping-stone, the words of Baronius under the year 1143, number 5, which he thus subjoins to the letter recited by him: It happened plainly according to that saying of the Wise Man, Ecclesiastes 7, Calumny troubles the wise man, that St. Bernard, on account of calumniators, was diminished in esteem with Pope Innocent, and so far that, so many and so great services and benefits shown by the same Saint being handed over to oblivion, no account now being had of them, he himself fell from his favor. But whether, these letters having been received from him, Innocent was of a fairer mind toward him, we do not hold ascertained. But if in that land Bernard's sowings withered, a scorching wind blowing, certainly elsewhere at least he gathered unto eternal life the seeds which, not with human but with divine regard, were cast by him into the land of the living. So let men learn not to hope in princes, nor in the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation. Thus as truly as gravely Baronius, on occasion of this letter, which, as I indicated above, was the last which the holy Doctor wrote to Pope Innocent II — now a defender in a cause so just and his own, who before had so often been one in another's. And that Pontiff indeed departed this life in the same year 1143 on the XXIV day of September; to whom Celestine, the second of this name, was substituted on the next day: his rule was brief; but of the cause of the former's death see Baronius and Manrique.

* Ralph. See epistle 216 and following.

* Corbeil above Paris.

* That is, war.

* See epistle 193.

§ XXXIII. The Cistercian Order propagated by the holy Abbot in Sweden; a prodigy and a prophecy; discords in Gaul composed by him; he is honored by the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

The Cistercian Chronographer, under the year indicated before, chapter 7, amid the propagation of monasteries The brethren departing grievingly from Bernard to foreign nations of which he there treats, on occasion of Nydala begun in the kingdom of Sweden and in the diocese of Linköping, records three wonders concerning the holy Father: of which the one is a prodigy, in confirmation of the brethren who were to be sent thither; the second is a prophecy, by which he foretold to a certain brother the place of his death; the third consists in the manner in which that prophecy was fulfilled. Here is the first for you, from the author of the Great Exordium in Tissier, distinction 4, chapter 28: The same venerable Father, wishing, he says, to have some fruit among the peoples of the northern parts, as also among the other nations, at the request of the religious woman the queen of Sweden, sent a convent of brethren to those parts. And when the monks and lay brothers who had been named for this — that they might deliver a form of religion and discipline to rude and untamed men — being stricken with excessive grief, pleaded with such prayers as they could that they might not, being about to lack the presence of so great a Father, be sent to foreign and barbarous regions, the holy Abbot answered: Why do you afflict my soul with unreasonable weepings and prayers? Or do I follow in this business my own will, and not rather the will of God, whom we all ought to obey?

[353] he confirms by a miracle, Now there were set before him the vestments and sacred vessels, and the other utensils pertaining to the ministry of the divine Office, which those same brethren who were to be sent were to carry with them. Wishing therefore to make them certain that the word had gone forth from the Lord, he lifted the basin which was appointed for receiving the water to be poured on the priest's hands, and, pressing his finger into its bottom, said: Behold, this shall be for you a sign that the spirit of the Lord has sent you. In a wonderful manner the rigidity and inflexibility of the bronze seemed to yield to the tenderness of his finger: so that of what size the sacred joint was can to this day be clearly discerned. But as much as it seems to have yielded within, so much to have exceeded the evenness without. For in testimony of so great a miracle that same basin is kept with the highest reverence in the sacristy of the house which the holy Father then established. Further, the aforesaid brethren, seeing that a manifest presence of divine grace was at hand, repressing the goads of devouring sadness, rejoiced; and although they could not without a certain shuddering of spirit go to nations most remote and hidden in the last clime of the northern winter, yet they presumed with pious confidence that the same grace of God, the merits and prayers of our holy Father intervening, would accompany them. So there concerning the miracle: but concerning St. Bernard's remarkable prophecy the same author at once subjoins this:

[354] one of them, who desired to die Now there was among the rest a certain youth of honorable disposition and dovelike simplicity, Gerard by name, sprung from the province of Second Germany, from the city of Utrecht: who, grieving more impatiently than the others, said with tears to the Man of God: Most blessed Father, I, a wretched young man, having left my father's house and spurned all things which could be desirable and lovable to me in this world, came to your fatherhood for love of religion, hoping that I should enjoy your most sweet presence, be formed by your teachings and examples, be helped by your merits and prayers, and under the shade of this holy multitude be kept safe from the whirlwind of temptations and from the heat of youthful desires: and, what I long for with all my wishes, to await the last day among the sacred bodies of our brethren resting in this cemetery. And behold, you cast me out today from your face, and I lose the fellowship of this holy college, and moreover shall be deprived of the burial I desired. Hence utterly, hence vehemently I grieve: because my heart

is troubled within me.

[355] The blessed Man, having compassion on the youth, took care to soothe his soul afflicted with grief by a gentle address, and, foreseeing and foretelling with a prophetic spirit the things which were to be after fifty years, in the monastery of Clairvaux, said to him: Go, dearest son, whither the Holy Spirit deigns to send you, and labor in the Lord's field like a strenuous workman. I promise you in the name of the Lord, and make you secure, that, as you desire, you shall die at Clairvaux, and shall await together with us the glorious coming of the heavenly Bridegroom. That brother, therefore, receiving this so glad pledge of the loving Father as an earnest of his desire, rejoiced greatly, knowing indeed that a man could neither be deceived nor wish to deceive, whom the manifest tokens of signs and prodigies declared to be a follower of wisdom and truth. He went therefore, and in the house which he was sent with the other brethren to inaugurate, running strenuously through the administration of Prior and cellarer, by the bounty of divine grace he obtained alike the name and the office of abbot: whose height of dignity, though he ascended it unwillingly, preferring to be saved in a lowly place rather than to be endangered in a lofty one, he nevertheless, having undertaken it, adorned with the brightness of a most religious converse. Thus far the praised author of the Great Exordium concerning the prophecy which the holy Father had foretold to Gerard, whose virtues being narrated — which see also in the Cistercian Annals, volume 2, under the year 1150, chapter 10 — he goes on to report in what manner that prediction was afterwards fulfilled. For thus he continues concerning abbot Gerard:

[356] But when he had now grown old and had come to a decrepit age, he is assured by the Saint that this would be; completing his fortieth year in the prelacy, and his body was shaken also by various infirmities, the brethren began to ask him that, as he had lived in common with them for a long time, so also he would deign to obtain a place of burial among them. To whom the man of the Lord answered: Do not, I pray, speak so, my sons. It must by all means be that I die at Clairvaux: and according to the promise of my Father beloved of God, I shall sleep and rest in peace in the selfsame place with the Saints who repose there. And when they objected and said, How shall we be able to bring you back thither, father, when, besides the inconveniences of aged senility, you are so shaken and weakened by so many and so great infirmities that we scarcely think you could reach the nearest borders of the Danes still breathing? — he answered with much confidence: The word of God, strong and mighty, living and effectual, which, poured into my ears through the mouth of that most reverend Man, has implanted in the inmost parts of my heart the earnest of this good hope by which I am carried, will grant prosperous successes on this journey: only do you take care to fulfill speedily what I command.

[357] And so a litter being made ready between two horses, he is placed in it: and this was fulfilled in a wonderful manner. and not without a great miracle he came from the ends of the earth, through such great spaces of lands, through so many perils of sea and rivers, to Clairvaux: and there, lying for a while in the infirmary, he breathed out his spirit in good confession. And he received the place of the burial he desired beside the little tomb of Dom Benedict the dwarf, of blessed memory, who had loved him familiarly in his lifetime. And when the king of Sweden had learned of his death, he declared with a groan that his kingdom and his land had not been worthy that in it the sacred bones of so great a man should have rested. Further, Manrique links Gerard's death to the year 1190, as may be seen in volume 3 of the Cistercian Annals under the said year, chapter 4. Jongelinus, in the Notice of the Abbeys of the Cistercian Order, book 8, page 36, writing of the abbeys in the kingdom of Sweden, alleges some things by which the things already narrated above may be somewhat elucidated. For indeed, as concerning the foundation of Nydala, which he too binds to the year 1143, as Manrique does, he says that its first abbot, Dom Gerard, was sprung from the city of Maastricht on the Meuse in Belgium: and thus is removed the ambiguity of the author of the Great Exordium, in whom, when he is said to be sprung from the province of Second Germany, from the city of Utrecht Trajectum, it is left uncertain whether he was sprung from Utrecht on the Rhine or from Maastricht on the Meuse. Besides these, from what the praised Jongelinus had set out in the cited place concerning Alvastrum or Alvastra, which he affirms was founded in the same year 1143 and in the same diocese of Linköping, and to owe its beginnings to Sverker, the renowned king of Sweden, and from what he notes concerning the kings of Sweden buried in that abbey, light comes to what the Great Exordium reported concerning the unnamed king of Sweden: for, as Jongelinus testifies, besides others Sverker, king of Sweden, chose burial here, who died in the year 1150. .. Likewise his son Charles, king of Sweden, slain by Canute the Dane, is buried in this monastery in the year 1168 beside his father. … King Sverker, slain in the Danish war, died in 1208, according to others 1210, etc. To this king, then, seems to be referred what was said of Gerard: And when the king of Sweden had learned of his death, etc., in the view expressed by the above series in Jongelinus. Further, the order of the kings of Sweden our Riccioli exhibits in volume 3 of his Reformed Chronology, catalogue 41, in which is marked Sverker II, son of Charles VII, 1192.

[358] Louis, king of the Gauls, and Count Theobald, after the gravest discords The collection, then, of the things done by St. Bernard having been carried by us down to the year of Christ 1143, the next following, 1144, opens for us a serene air after the calming, by the holy Man's work, of that gravest tempest of discords between King Louis and Count Theobald, which we interrupted for a while, Lucius, the second of this name, holding the chair of Peter. Manrique, under this year, chapter 1, under that Pontiff, thus narrates this matter, accomplished in this year, from the pseudo-Robert de Monte in his Appendix to Sigebert's Chronicle: By the mediation of the Abbot of Clairvaux, the grudge which had grown hot between King Louis and Count Theobald is lulled. To which most fortunate event that epiphonema which the same Manrique subjoins suits admirably: A peace worthy of Bernard as mediator, and one which all good men had most highly desired. But in what manner those things came about, two writers of the Life of St. Bernard have handed down to memory. And first indeed it is most worthy of relating with what pious and holy admonitions the Man of God trained Theobald to a constant and great spirit amid so many and so hard mischances of adverse fortune. Ernaldus describes them diffusely and pathetically in book 2, chapter 6; to whom, lest our discourse run out at greater length on these things, we send the reader.

[359] were happily reconciled by the work of the Man of God. From these things it is understood that that tragic and bloody controversy between these two princes was indeed happily composed by our holy Peacemaker; but to the same must be added that it was so composed that, raised into hope against all hope and driven by a prophetic spirit, he foretold the success of a matter most longed for indeed but scarcely to be expected. Let Geoffrey be read in book 4 of the Life of St. Bernard, chapter 2, number 198. But although he does not add on what conditions and with what fruit that peace was ratified, yet a most abundant fruit followed from it, the writer of the Cistercian Annals reporting it at number 7: The ancient authors, he says, were silent as to the agreed compacts, content with the report of the peace entered into. Which, however, it is agreed remained so firm and unshaken that Louis, after the divorce from Eleanor, daughter of William, Duke of Aquitaine, as one joined to him by a bond of consanguinity and not dispensed; and after Constance, daughter of Alfonso VIII, king of Castile, had died in childbirth, a full year of the marriage not yet completed, married Adela, Theobald's daughter, of whom was born Philip, surnamed Augustus, who succeeded in the kingdom, and was to bind grandfather and father more closely. Such, then, was the issue of this gravest dissension: to Theobald indeed useful and honorable, but to Bernard glorious.

[360] The holy Father was held in veneration also by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, The veneration of the Patriarch of Jerusalem toward the Saint. as is urged from the fragment of the Lord's Cross transmitted by the latter to the former from Jerusalem; of which the praised Annalist under the year 1144, chapter 4, and on this occasion, because in this very year, he says, health obtained once and again by the intervention of that same saving wood had made the Faithful more religious. Go to Baronius under the same year 1144. There is extant Bernard's letter, the 175th in order, in which, forestalled by that Patriarch's letters and presented with that sacred pledge, he shows himself mindful and grateful for both those honors. But that letter is far out of tune with the year 1144, being marked as given about the year 1135 in Mabillon's edition. But that Patriarch is William the Gallo-Belgian, as is said in the same place in the notes, from a hermit of Tours patriarch of Jerusalem from the year 1130 to the year 1145. More concerning that patriarch follows in the same notes.

§ XXXIV. Arnold of Brescia the heretic; St. Bernard's prophecy fulfilled especially in the time of Pope Eugenius III; his election and eulogies; Bernard's letters to him.

[Especially in the time of Pope Eugenius III Arnold fulfills Bernard's prophecy: his portrait] Above, at the end of paragraph 29, some things were briefly set out concerning that furious rogue: whose unbridled madness against every ecclesiastical order everywhere St. Bernard had foretold, as was there observed on occasion of Peter Abelard; which indeed was most plainly seen to have been fulfilled under the Pontificate of Pope Eugenius III, raised from the Cistercian Order to the Chair of Peter in the year 1145. Let us therefore paint in living colors the portrait of Arnold of Brescia promised in the cited paragraph and deferred hither, from Otto of Freising, book 2 On the deeds of the emperor Frederick I, chapter 21, column 719 of the most recent Milanese edition, volume 6 among the Writers of Italian Affairs: A certain Arnold of Brescia, he says, of whom mention was made above, under the guise of religion, and, to use evangelical words, bearing a wolf under a sheep's skin, having entered the City, drew — nay, seduced — an innumerable multitude after him to that faction of the untutored people, namely the Roman people standing for the senate against the Pontiff, their minds being kindled to animosity by a too soft dogma. That Arnold, sprung from Brescia, a city of Italy, and a cleric of that church, and ordained only lector, had once had Peter Abelard for preceptor: a man indeed of no dull nature, yet more copious in the flow of words than in the weight of judgments: a lover of singularity, greedy of novelty: men of which kind of wit are prone to fabricate heresies and the disturbances of schisms. He, returning from study among the Gauls into Italy, put on a religious habit, that he might the more deceive, tearing all things, gnawing all things, sparing no one: a disparager of clerics and bishops, a persecutor of monks, flattering the laity only. For he said that neither clerics having property, nor bishops having regalia, nor monks having possessions, could by any means be saved. That all these things belonged to the prince, and ought by his beneficence to pass over to the use of the laity only. Besides these he is said not to have thought soundly concerning the Sacrament of the altar and the baptism of infants. By these and other means, which it would be long to enumerate, while the church of Brescia

he was disturbing, and maliciously expounding the ecclesiastical pages to the laity of that land, who had itching ears against the clergy, he is accused in a great council held at Rome (in the year 1139) under Innocent by the bishop of that city and by religious men. The Roman Pontiff therefore, lest the pernicious dogma should creep out to more, decrees that silence be imposed upon the man; and so it was done. Thus that man, fleeing from Italy, betook himself to the transalpine parts, and there in Zürich, a town of Germany, taking upon himself the office of teacher, sowed his pernicious dogma for some days.

[362] is here painted: But having learned of Innocent's death, about the beginning of Eugenius's Pontificate, having entered the City, when he had found it roused into sedition against its Pontiff … he roused it into sedition still further, setting forth the examples of the ancient Romans, who by the counsel of a mature senate and by the order and integrity of the fortitude of their young men's spirits made the whole world their own. Wherefore he taught that the Capitol must be rebuilt, the senatorial dignity renewed, the equestrian order reformed. That nothing in the ordering of the City pertained to the Roman Pontiff; that the ecclesiastical judgment ought to suffice him. And to such a degree did the evil of this venomous doctrine begin to grow strong that not only were the houses and splendid palaces of the Roman nobles or of the Cardinals pulled down; but even reverend persons among the Cardinals were dishonorably handled by the raging populace, some being wounded. These and things like these, when for many days — that is, from the death of Celestine down to these times — they were done by him incessantly and irreverently, and when the sentence justly and canonically pronounced against him by the pastors was contemned in his judgment as altogether void of authority; at last, falling into the hands of certain men, he was taken in the borders of Tuscany and reserved for the prince's examination, and finally by the prefect of the City he was fastened to a beam, and, his corpse being reduced to dust by the pyre, was scattered into the Tiber, lest his body should be held in veneration by the foolish populace. You have here, reader, the portrait of Arnold of Brescia painted in its genuine colors: so that Bernard foretold truly and aptly, foreseeing as from a watchtower his most wicked and seditious contrivances, and comprehending many things in few, when in his letter, the 195th in order, he used those words concerning him: You will see the man openly rise up against the clergy, relying on military tyranny, rise up against the bishops themselves, and rage everywhere against the whole ecclesiastical order.

[363] Pope Lucius dies, and Eugenius is elected: For indeed on occasion of that turbulent faction of the Arnoldists Pope Lucius II died, who had succeeded Innocent II, Baronius setting forth that matter at greater length under the year 1145 at the beginning. But the same occasion which took Lucius out of the way raised without delay a new successor into the dead man's place. The see was not vacant, as Baronius there goes on, but SUDDENLY (as St. Bernard says in epistle 237 of Mabillon's edition) on account of the impending peril a successor was elected. For indeed after Lucius's death, because of the tumultuous Roman Arnoldists, the Cardinals met with one accord, in fear, in the church of the monastery of St. Caesarius, and there by God's prompting they thought that one should be chosen as Roman Pontiff not from their own body, according to custom, from among the Cardinals; but, turning their eyes upon the abbot of the monastery of St. Anastasius of Tre Fontane, of the Cistercian Order, set over it not long before under Pope Innocent II by St. Bernard — likewise named Bernard, a Pisan by country, a man notable for probity and rich in prudence in transacting business — they thought that at a most desperate time, when the City was blazing with a civil war of this kind, he would be most fit: whom, when they had found him most sagacious, with equal consent and the highest concord they elected. The writer of the Cistercian Annals, chapter 1, number 4: Whether it was conferred on the man's industry or on his sanctity is in doubt. Baronius, rarely following uncertain authors, undoubtedly relates that regard was had to both: the rest, only the man's holiness, otherwise simple, and less apt for transacting business, unless he were taught by unction as mistress. So he. Baronius's words we have already produced above.

[364] But others, says the same Manrique at number 5, his eulogies: make light of the man's industry, and ascribe all to holiness alone. But among others who are there alleged, St. Antoninus speaks thus of him, part 2, title 17, chapter 1, §7: Him, though before he was simple, God suffused with a wonderful grace and elegance. But Manrique, attributing to him both prerogatives, namely of nature and of grace, says at the same number 5: I should believe that the dovelike candor of a man otherwise industrious and prudent excelled, and that he did not wish to extend himself beyond a monk while he was contained within the bounds of that profession: that as Pontiff he loosed the reins of his own industry, which nevertheless, divinely inspired, flew ahead even beyond the mortal: which many of his deeds testify. Of the praised Pontiff's consecration Baronius, just cited, writes. Manrique moreover judges worthy of remark at number 7 what Baronius omitted, and the author of the Belgic Chronicle, whose place and words he gives, noted: that when some Cardinals — perhaps because they found the elect more constant than they had wished — desired to break his election, the holy man neither fell in spirit nor easily yielded himself to them: nay, an anathema being pronounced against the innovators, he resisted manfully, and made void their vain attempts. .. Thus he who before had scarcely acquiesced in his electors withstood the gainsayers; and as he by no means canvassed to be elected, so, being elected, he did not suffer himself to be deposed — humble alike and constant, and receding no less from pusillanimity than from pride. It has pleased us to set out these things somewhat more fully concerning a most worthy Vicar of Christ, because he was Bernard's disciple, because his friend, because his son, and thus was also a glory of the most holy Father: who inscribed to him the books On Consideration. His letter, while yet abbot, to Bernard you have in Mabillon as the 344th in order: likewise another of his when now Pope, prefixed to Bernard's epistle 273.

[365] But what shall I say of Bernard's letters to him, which Baronius under the year 1145, number 4, plainly calls golden, Bernard's and inserted entire into his Annals in the same place at number 5 and following? Some things from them I shall turn to my own use, after I have set out the following notice of them from the Cistercian historian, chapter 2: The savage madness of the Arnoldists, swelling daily, and the pressing affairs of the City and of the world detained the Pontiff from announcing by letter to his once Father, but now son, and always most beloved Bernard, the change made in him and concerning him, that he might either grieve or give thanks with him. But the holy Father, who did not yet know of the son's princedom, though rumor had long since spread it, nor of the rebellion against him, when he had endured the wished-for message or letters, in which he read with joy that Bernard had been changed into Eugenius .., and that he himself was called son, and was moreover urged by the prayers of the archbishop of Canterbury, at law against him of York (against whom too he still stood on behalf of Henry Murdac, Bernard's disciple), at last himself first broke silence, addressing the new Pontiff in the letter praised above, which in Mabillon is the 238th in order. Here are some fragments of it for you:

[366] to him He congratulates so great a son, nay now father, and looks for all things most fortunate on every side from his governance: Since, he says, I have once begun, I will speak to my lord. For now I dare not say son, since the son has been changed into the father, and the father into the son. He who came after me has been made before me: but I do not envy: because what was lacking to me I trust that I have in him who came not only after me, but even through me. For if you deign, in a certain manner I begot you through the Gospel. What then is our hope, and our joy, and the crown of glory? Is it not you before God? In fine, a wise son is his father's glory. Yet henceforth you shall not be called son; but a new name shall be given you, which the mouth of the Lord has named. This is the change of the right hand of the Most High, and many shall rejoice in that change. For just as of old Abram into Abraham, Jacob into Israel; and, that I may set before you rather from your own predecessors, as Simon into Cephas, Saul into Paul: so my son Bernard has been promoted into my father Eugenius, by a wholly glad and, as we hope, useful translation. This is the finger of God, raising up the needy from the dust and lifting the poor from the dunghill, that he may sit with princes and hold the throne of glory.

[367] letters Nor indeed had St. Bernard so put off all the authority which he had once had over his son that, in giving him these letters, he did not add freely and in fatherly fashion certain excellent admonitions to his congratulations: for thus he immediately continues: It remains that, this change of yourself having been made, she too who has been committed to you, your Lord's bride, be changed for the better, and be henceforth called by no means Sarai, but Sarah. Understand what I say: for the Lord will give you understanding. If you are the bridegroom's friend, do not call his beloved my princess, but the princess, claiming nothing of your own in her, save that for her, if it be needful, you ought even to lay down your life. If Christ has sent you, you will reckon that you have come not to be ministered unto but to minister: and to minister not only your substance but your very soul, as I said before. Then, some things being interposed, the most holy Man puts on various affections, namely of joy, of fear, and of terror: Therefore, he says, having such confidence in you as it has not been seen for many past ages to have had in any of your predecessors, deservedly does the whole church of the Saints everywhere exult and glory in the Lord: but especially she whose womb bore you and whose breasts you sucked. What then? Is it not lawful for me too to rejoice with those who rejoice? Shall I not be one of the number of the glad? I exulted, I confess, but with trembling: I exulted, but in the very instant of my exultation fear and trembling came upon me. For although I have laid aside the name of father, yet not the fear, not the anxiety, and finally neither the affection nor the bowels of a father. I consider the step, and I dread the fall: I consider the summit of dignity, and I behold the face of the abyss lying below. ..*

[368] And indeed you had chosen to be abject in the house of your God, and to recline in the lowest place at his banquet; but it pleased him who invited you to say: Friend, go up higher. And so you have ascended on high; be not high-minded, but fear, lest perhaps it befall you late to utter that pitiable cry: From the face of your wrath and indignation, lifting me up you have dashed me down. For you have obtained a higher place, but not a safer; a more sublime, not a more secure. Terrible utterly, terrible is this place. The place, I say, in which you stand is holy ground; it is Peter's place; the place of the Prince of the Apostles, where his feet stood. It is the place of him whom the Lord appointed lord of his house and prince of all his possession. If perchance you turn aside from the way of the Lord, he is buried in that same place, that he may be to you a witness against you. .. Thus far these things. But the cause why before the time

I have written to you, is this. A synopsis of it we have already set out before this letter from Manrique.

[369] The cause therefore being set forth, St. Bernard signifies what he wishes for the Church golden, and for its new Pontiff: and lastly he exhorts him to a brave and great spirit, and also to a continual memory of death, concluding his letter with these words: Be strengthened therefore, and be sturdy; let your hands be upon the necks of your enemies. Claim for yourself, by constancy of mind and vigor of spirit, that portion which the almighty Father gave you beyond your brethren, and which he took from the hand of the Amorite with his sword and his bow. Yet in all your works remember that you are a man, and let the fear of him who takes away the spirit of princes be always before your eyes. The deaths of how many Roman Pontiffs have you beheld with your own eyes in a short space! Let those your predecessors admonish you of your own most certain and most speedy departure; and let the brief time of their dominion announce to you the fewness of your days. Therefore by continual meditation, amid the blandishments of this passing glory, remember your last end: because those whom you have succeeded in the see, them without doubt you shall follow to death. And these indeed are the things which I have thought must be transcribed hither from that notable letter of Bernard to Eugenius, full of fatherly affections.

[370] But that saying, The deaths of how many Roman Pontiffs have you beheld with your own eyes in a short space! [an opportunity being afforded from these of treating the brevity of the life of the Roman Pontiffs] — that saying, I say, gave Horst occasion to inquire why the lives of the Roman Pontiffs are so short. His note on the present letter deserves to be heard, which is found in Mabillon among the more prolix notes on St. Bernard's letters, at column LXXII: It may not undeservedly seem a wonder what the reason is why the Roman Pontiffs are of so brief an age, so that Peter alone is thought to have reached the twenty-fifth year; while a premature death has snatched away very many after a few years, or a few months, nay after not many days of survival, when we see that very many of the emperors and kings were of a far longer age? A matter altogether worthy of investigation. But who has known the mind of the Lord? Yet I see that the same question was propounded to blessed Peter Damian by Pope Alexander, which he diligently handles and expounds, so that what he writes is altogether worthy to be read. See among his letters, book 1, epistle 17, otherwise Opusculum 23. "Once," he says, "you anxiously asked of me what cause seemed to me why the Prelate of the Apostolic See never lives long, but within a brief space of time closes his last day; so far that after the divine Apostle Peter, who presided about 25 years, no one afterwards of the Roman Pontiffs has equaled that space of prelacy. Nay, in modern times scarcely anyone is raised to the summit of the aforesaid See who passes the goal of four, or, at most, five years. Which, when we consider it, a prodigious amazement, so to speak, arises: since this necessity of living briefly is found in no other church of the whole world. But so far as the secret of the divine dispensation is revealed to mortals, it seems to us that the order of the heavenly judgment disposes this for the reason that it may strike the fear of death into the human race, and may evidently show, in the very princedom of glory, how despicable is the glory of temporal life," etc. Damian indeed enclosed the Lives of the Pontiffs within narrow limits, I confess, since he does not extend them beyond four or five years: yet they seem to me to be confined within briefer ones, if the histories of the Pontiffs be consulted. Most rightly therefore does St. Bernard in this letter exhort Eugenius that from the very brief rule of his predecessors he may learn to hold his own also in suspicion. So there. Further, the letter which St. Bernard wrote to the Purpled Fathers who had elected Eugenius, elegant likewise and expressed with various characters of the affections, may be read in the fountain itself.

Another reading, personas*.

* Commonly Zürich in Switzerland.

* Namely of Clairvaux, or Cistercian.

§ XXXV. Pope Eugenius withdraws to Viterbo; a miracle while he is celebrating the sacred rites there before the Armenians; St. Bernard's writings against the intruded bishop of York; certain domestic affairs; the ambition of the famous Nicholas of Montiéramey, etc.

[Pope Eugenius, on account of the Arnoldist tumults, withdrawing from Rome to Viterbo,] The collector of the Cistercian Annals, chapter 3, treats of Arnold of Brescia's entry into the City, and of the populace there stirred up by him. We have already said enough above of the crimes of this turbulent man. But Eugenius (so the same author goes on at number 3) avoiding the fury of the raging Roman citizens, withdrew to Viterbo: where, staying until the end of the year, he seemed not so much to yield as to give place to wrath, that, when it had boiled over, it might be the more easily restrained. Yet first he struck with anathema Jordan and his companions; and enrolled as auxiliaries the men of Tivoli, the ancient enemies of the Romans, by whom, being harassed, they might the more easily come to their senses. See the Chronicle of Otto of Freising, book 7, chapter 31. But of these things, says Manrique, we shall speak in their own time. Meanwhile, that gladder things might be mixed with sad ones, and that each might temper the other, the scene being changed there is adduced by him that passage of the Ecclesiastical Annals in Baronius under this year, number 27: It happened according to that divine oracle pronounced by the mouth of truth concerning the predestination of the Saints: They shall come from the East and the West, and shall recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness; since, while the Romans draw back, peoples come running from afar; while those who are near deny, those who are set far off profess, so that at least thus all who hate Sion may blush. Further, various legations of foreign nations to the Apostolic See the same parent of the Ecclesiastical Annals* records under this year, and also Manrique in chapter 3 cited. But among the things which are narrated to have happened, this illustrious miracle seems not to be passed over by us, which Baronius reports from Otto of Freising; but we shall contract it into fewer words for the sake of avoiding excessive prolixity.

[372] At that time too, says Baronius at number 29, and celebrating the sacred rites there, when Eugenius was staying at Viterbo, he received Eastern legations from Armenia and Syria, as is reported by him who was present, Otto, who also wrote most faithfully what he saw. From book seven of that Otto himself, chapter 32, therefore, we cull this: At that season the legates of the Armenian bishops and of their metropolitan .. sent from almost the farthest East, approach the supreme Pontiff at Viterbo .., and, offering him on the part of that church every kind of subjection, disclose the causes of their journey to us with many others present, at the old hall. .. Between them and the Greeks there is in certain things a certain conformity of the rite of the Sacrifice; but in others a discrepancy. For they set forth leavened bread (which is refuted in Pagi under the year of Christ 1145, number 8) as those do; but they do not mix water with the wine, as we and they do. .. And while they were disagreeing among themselves on these and other matters, choosing the Roman Church as judge, they come to consult, and demand that the form of the Sacrifice according to her custom be delivered to them. Whom the Roman Prelate, gladly receiving, admitted to the solemnities of the Masses and to the secret parts of the Sacrifice, and diligently admonished them to observe the things which were done there.

[373] And while they were doing this .. one of them, endowed with pontifical dignity, a miracle happens before the Armenians sent as legates to him. as he afterwards reported in full court, on the octave of blessed Martin, when the dedication of the church of blessed Peter is wont to be celebrated, while the Supreme Pontiff was performing the divine mysteries, saw a ray of the sun flash with splendid brightness above his head, and in it two doves ascending and descending. And when he cast his eyes about more diligently this way and that, and found no opening through which that light might be poured in, knowing that this was divine, and being the more kindled to obedience to the Roman See, he disclosed to all what he had seen. But the venerable Father, not attributing this to his own merits, affirmed rather that it had been shown him from heaven for that man's faith, namely that the church by which he had been sent might know that the power of the Sacraments was suffused with the light of truth, and might thenceforth learn with what reverence and in what form it ought to handle them. Thus far Otto of Freising, whose account we have woven into this our Commentary the more willingly because no small commendation of veneration for Pope Eugenius, at whose celebrating of the sacred rites that signal prodigy happened, and consequently for Bernard himself, is derived from it; and also for his sacred family of Clairvaux.

[374] The founder of the Cistercian Annals, under the present year, chapter 4, number 1, exhibits Pope Eugenius's solicitude for the faithful in the East, Eugenius enters upon peace with the Romans: and goes on thereafter to relate what was accomplished, both by the same Pontiff and by the Christian princes, and chiefly by Bernard himself, for the expedition of the holy war and the defense of the Holy Land. But because he weaves the same subject into more years than one following, and interweaves with them other matters which do not belong to that theme, we seem likely to provide better for the understanding of matters so memorable, for the order of events, and for the manner of the narration, if the things which he disjoined by reason of time and interrupted with other histories, we join together in the same flow of discourse, and represent deeds of different years as it were under one view, under the year of Christ 1146 and following: whither we send the reader. Of the peace entered upon with the Romans by Pope Eugenius, and of its conditions, and of the common joy with which the same Pontiff was received at Rome, Manrique may be consulted in chapter 4 cited, numbers 10 and 11. Meanwhile let us go on to chapter 5 of the year 1145 of the praised Annals; which Manrique thus begins:

[375] St. Bernard, at the request of Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury Meanwhile Bernard — with what piety toward his own, with what zeal for the public good he was driven — when he was solicited by Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, and by the leading men of the English church, against William intruded at York, on behalf of his son Henry: when he considered that a cause long begun and agitated, and not yet decided through the death of three Pontiffs, was still in suspense, and not without grave detriment to justice and to the church itself; wrote a second letter to Pope Eugenius, keen and lively, and openly disclosing what in the former he had more covertly hinted; namely that useless branches must be cut down and unfruitful trees plucked up. And presently in the same place the letter is recited. It is the 239th in order in Mabillon. But the Pontiff Eugenius, as is said at number 4 in Manrique, the state of the cause being known, which was preserved entire from Innocent's death, deferring to the sentence of his predecessor, confirmed by his letters that one must stand by the oath of the Dean of York, which William had most urgently sought; so that, unless the latter should by oath remove the charge of intrusion which among other things was objected to William, the election should be declared void and null. The Dean at first withdrew himself from judgment, feigned ignorance, fled conferences: at last, when he was compelled by censures, although he favored William from the heart, yet attributing more to truth and religion than to friendship, he at length again pronounced the man intruded, again said it, and that the election was void and null, and to be postponed to the election of Henry.

[376] he writes against William intruded at York: Then William, cut down by his own blade and seeing his own arms turned against himself, judged that he must take refuge in later letters of Innocent, whether true or feigned, and gives Eugenius trouble by a new device, so that thereupon he wrote to Father Bernard that he was zealous for the church of York and wished to remove that idol from the midst; but nevertheless that he still stuck in doubt by what way it might more fittingly be cast down. Then the holy Father, constant for truth, constant for his son, but no less zealous for Innocent, who in his own letters was branded with duplicity, again brandishing his pen against William and strengthening the Pontiff — even from those good things which he had heard were done by him — wrote such a letter to him. It is found in the editor just cited as the 240th in order; but there it is fitted to the year of Christ 1146. The outcome answered Bernard's wishes. For Eugenius, overcome by the merits of the cause and by Bernard's insistence, at length adjudged that William must be deposed and Henry substituted. Nay, having called him to himself and consecrated him, he presently also honored him with the pallium after custom; and, thus honored, sent him back to York, says Manrique at number 7; who then also reports what sacrilegious things were done by the favorers of the deposed man; on which matter there is extant a letter of St. Bernard in Mabillon's edition, the 252nd in order, whose note upon it let the reader consult, and it is marked under the year of Christ 1147.

[377] The Cistercian historian, chapter 6, applying his pen to writing certain private and domestic affairs of his Order, he attends to certain domestic affairs, begins discourse concerning the successor of Peter Bernard, taken up to the chair of Peter, in the prefecture of SS. Vincent and Anastasius at Rome. This was Rualenus: but Bernard, as is there narrated at numbers 2 and 3, bore ill .. that a son dear to him, whom he loved more tenderly than others, should be torn from him, especially when he resisted and prayed that he might be allowed to rest in his father's bosom. But at last obedience to the supreme Pontiff prevailed. .. But when Rualenus at Rome remained of the same mind, whether sluggish or humble, and neither changed his spirit along with his place, nor permitted himself either to the outward blandishments of the court .. or to the inward ones of his prefecture; nay, urgently by letters, by messengers, solicited Father Bernard to obtain his release; the Saint himself, condoling with him with fatherly affection after his manner, but none the less deferring to Pope Eugenius, by whose choice chiefly he had come thither, wrote such a letter to him, the 258th in order, in which he asks that he be sent back to him. But it happened that Eugenius not only did not admit the petition, but wrote more severely to Bernard, as though he were unwilling to please him. Then the holy Abbot, imposing silence on Rualenus and silence on himself in this business, wrote again both to Rualenus and to Eugenius; to the latter, that he might show that the obedience had been voluntary; to the former, that he might so act, as Manrique says at number 5. They are epistles 259 and 260.

[378] The praised historian, chapter 8, writes of the happy death of the venerable Humbert, and expounds a certain psalm. a monk of Clairvaux, who expired in St. Bernard's hands, and concerning whom the holy Man delivered a Sermon to the brethren, extolling his virtues with deserved praises. It is found among his other Sermons in Mabillon's edition at column [ ] and following; but it is bound to the year of Christ 1148. See the notes there. The author of the same history at the said chapter 8, number 10, says: In this same year, so far as it is permitted to gather from the series of his writings and of his life, Father Bernard, his sermons on the Song being interrupted, undertook for the sake of the monks in Lent to expound the Psalm Qui habitat; which he completed in seventeen Sermons. They are extant woven in among the Saint's other Sermons in the praised Mabillon at column 827 and following; but they are marked as delivered about the year 1140, as may be seen in the note on the sixth Sermon.

[379] The ninth chapter of the Cistercian Annals consists of a very long narration, The famous Nicholas of Montiéramey desires to be admitted into Clairvaux: which represents to the reader the crafty arts of a certain hypocritical man, that he might insinuate himself intimately into St. Bernard's familiarity and use, and by this way procure for himself a great glory of name, of which he was most greedy. But although it does not much concern us if that history be omitted by us, yet because it has a certain natural connection with the deeds of the holy Abbot, we compress some part of it into a summary from Manrique. Nicholas of Montiéramey, young in age, comely in aspect, in manners either composed or feigned; but in genius and eloquence almost to a miracle; whom on this account the Venerable Peter Maurice held among his delights, and the rest even in admiration, .. when he had beheld Eugenius on the highest See of the Church, Father Bernard in the highest esteem .., proposed to himself that he must go to Clairvaux. .. That Father Bernard, now heavy with age and diseases, and entangled in business beyond his strength .. had need of a notary, who might imitate his grave phrasing, his inverted passages of the sacred books, his sweet style: that he, if any other, was fit for this office. .. If once he were admitted to this ministry, by daily use more skillful, by greater acquaintance more useful and almost necessary, he would in a short time attain what he longed for — to become known to the world through the holy Father. .. This was for Nicholas the sole occasion of feigning a conversion; this was the aim of simulating an ardor for a more perfect life. But the feigned devotion feared Bernard as a detector, and thought it could better lie hid if it were referred first to his sons, as simpler men, and then through them to the Saint.

[380] under a sought-out color of sanctity, that convent, Therefore, a color being sought of seeing his companions .. or of visiting that holy house .. he came thither while Bernard was away. .. There, as one who had suddenly grown warm, drawn by the holy converse of the servants of God, he marveled at their life, praised the men .., and called himself unhappy who lacked so great a good. If he were admitted to the fellowship of the Saints, he pronounced himself blessed even in this life. Would that he might dare to hope, would that he might dare to ask! .. These and like things, being scattered first through the convent, then said to the Prior and the elders, all received so gladly that they were held back from assenting to the petitioner's wishes only by Bernard's absence. .. This at length was the counsel of all: that meanwhile, having returned to Montiéramey, he should persevere in his first vocation, until, his vocation being intimated and approved by the monks of Clairvaux to Bernard on his return, and by Bernard to the Venerable Peter, the votes should agree. .. And so he departed from Clairvaux not without tears — who would dare to judge whether true or feigned? But when business detained Bernard beyond the usual, impatient of rest .. the crafty and cunning man, dissembling his vices under a show of religion, first indeed persuaded the venerable Theobald, Prior of Montiéramey, to ask the same. Then, when he had him both a companion of his purpose and a coadjutor in his prayers, he wrote this letter to the elders of Clairvaux, who were to be caught by its style, either because it was effective and keen with them, or because it would be useful for the relieving of their Parent. A copy of the same letter then follows there; which being recited, and some other things related which may be read in the same place, there are recorded the things which, having now obtained his wish, he did in the monastery of Clairvaux, that he might attain the aim he had set himself of gaining a great name.

[381] and then deceives the holy Abbot by his manners and his style of writing: When the cunning youth had entered Clairvaux .. there commended Nicholas greatly to Bernard his manners, upright in appearance and modest, his keen and lively genius, his sweet style, easily bending itself whithersoever he wished, and then .. his continual compliance: all which, being approved and praised by others, especially by Peter, abbot of Cluny, to whose judgment he deferred much. And perhaps there lay hid amid these very things a little spark of self-love, while the Man, desiring leisure and solitude, found in him one to whom he could commit even arduous business. Hence a way lay open to his desire, since the holy Father used Nicholas's pen in many things, and by his example others also. Whereby in a short time he became known through the whole world. Thus Nicholas in a short time acquired the celebrated name which he had so greatly coveted. These and several other things concerning that hypocrite Manrique gathered under the present year 1145, chapter 9: where at number 13 (and after him Pagi in the Critique under the year 1146, number 13) he affirms that his fraudulent conversion must be linked to the year 1145, correcting Baronius, who thinks that Nicholas was detected in the following year and denounced to Pope Eugenius; whereas nevertheless he betrayed himself much later, as the whole series of the history will make plain, says the same Cistercian historian. Nor is it credible, as Pagi cited rightly writes, that Nicholas was so quickly detected as a forger by St. Bernard, and yet not at once dismissed from his service. And so much thus far concerning that impostor, which it will afterwards be well to remember, as also other things which I weave on to these for a fuller knowledge of the Bernardine history, in which he played his parts wickedly and fraudulently, and to which he will afterwards recur elsewhere.

[382] I follow as guide the most erudite Mabillon, who in the second part of his Preface to volume III of the Works of St. Bernard, of whose endowments of nature, carefully noted various things concerning that famous Nicholas from page 712. What I said from Manrique concerning his manners and endowments of nature Mabillon thus reports: Nicholas was a Frank by nation, from his earliest age a monk in the monastery of Montiéramey in the diocese of Troyes, four leagues from that city. He was a man of easy, versatile wit, easily flowing into the affections of others, exceedingly well cultivated in letters for the time, set over the instruction of others among his own men of Montiéramey; dear to the chief men of that age — to Atto, bishop of Troyes, to Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, to Peter of Celle, to Henry, brother of Louis the Younger; and to others. Of his admission into Clairvaux Mabillon presently treats; but of that matter enough has already been said above. Concerning the office of notary committed to him, the same Mabillon says: Bernard had several notaries, on account of the various affairs which were from time to time referred to him. The chief was Geoffrey, to whom Nicholas was joined.* But those passages in which he himself in the same place describes his study are an argument to the author of the said Preface that Nicholas had notaries even under himself. But I do not transcribe what is there narrated concerning the traffic in books, concerning the refusal of the tunic sent back to a friend who had transmitted it to him, as being little suited to his Order; and finally concerning the letters with which he plied his friends; for concerning these I readily allow the reader to consult the praised Preface of Mabillon; yet in such wise that I cull some things from it which more nearly conduce to our purpose, and so to Bernard's history. They are these, which are found at column 715 and the following:

[383] To Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, .. Nicholas was a friend even to the point of delight, [concerning the adulteration of Bernard's seal, and his fall, several things are here recorded.] whom Bernard repeatedly sent to him, that the mutual secrets of their hearts and their reciprocal affection, with him as go-between,

might be deposited. On which matter Peter's letter is to be read, which is the 264th in order among Bernard's. But at length it happened — O unhappy condition of mortals! — that Nicholas, abusing Bernard's indulgence and easiness, adulterated his seal to evil uses, and at last fell into a horrible defection, which it is doubtful whether he ever seriously amended. Of the corrupted seal Bernard, the name of Nicholas being suppressed — such was the holy Man's charity — signified to Eugenius in epistle 284. "We have been imperiled among false brethren, and many falsified letters under our falsified seal have come into the hands of many; and (what I fear more) the falsehood is said to have flown even as far as you." His disastrous fall he deplores in epistle 298 to the same Eugenius, the author being no longer concealed (since the crime was public). "That Nicholas has gone out from us, because he was not of us: but he went out leaving foul tracks behind him, and I had known the man long before: but I was waiting either that God should convert him, or that, like Judas, he should betray himself. .. Which also came to pass. Besides books, pennies, and many gold pieces, there were found upon him at his very going out three seals: one his own, another the Prior's, the third ours. .. Concerning his basenesses, with which the land is defiled, and which have become a byword to all, I forbear to pollute my lips and your ears." Bernard adds that, if he should dare to go to Eugenius's court, as he had boasted, he was worthy, if any man were, of PERPETUAL CONFINEMENT. But that fall occurred in the year 1151, as is plain from the said epistle 298 of Bernard to Eugenius written in that year; and from epistle 388, which is Peter the Venerable's, concerning the election at Grenoble, made in the same year, in which epistle Nicholas is praised as still dear to Bernard and to Peter, and a faithful go-between of both.

[384] This Nicholas must be distinguished from another of the same name: Further, that this Nicholas must be distinguished from another Englishman of the same name is observed in the oft-named Preface in these words: All think that he fled into England and betook himself to the monastery of St. Albans, and that he is the Nicholas who traduced and assailed Bernard's opinion — Bernard being now dead — concerning the conception of the Mother of God, and had Peter of Celle for an adversary. And that man indeed was called Nicholas; but that he was an Englishman is established from two letters of Peter to him, which are epistle 23 of the sixth book and epistle 10 of the ninth; whose words are there produced. And yet from the above it is established that Nicholas of Clairvaux was before his flight very well known and familiar to Peter, and was not an Englishman but a Gaul or Frank: and consequently must be distinguished from that Englishman.

[385] whither he betook himself, and what was the cause of his fall. But whither then, you ask, did Nicholas the Frank betake himself? After various wanderings hither and thither, he settled at last in his own monastery of Montiéramey, when, Bernard being taken from among the living, it was permitted him to live there safely and securely. The proofs may be seen in the same Preface; in which it is also asserted, from Nicholas's own words, what he did and what person he played in the monastery of Montiéramey. Thus, then, says Mabillon, Nicholas lived among the men of Montiéramey so as to be his own master. A wretched condition indeed of a man who had been Bernard's disciple and notary! But who should wonder, when angels have fallen from heaven itself? But in this most of all he betrays his vanity, that he glories in a multitude of friends, as he was wont to do at other times also. But the letter which is there adduced to prove this is also an indication that Nicholas sprang .. from Champagne; but that the cause of his fall is to be traced from nothing else than vainglory and pride, which drives most men mad. .. From all these things it appears what Nicholas's genius was, namely vain, inconstant, restless — of which sort scarcely ever may anything good be hoped. But what his end was we do not know. But now it is time that, after this excursion, we return to our purpose.

Perhaps deferbuerit*.

* Commonly Montier-Ramey.

§ XXXVI. Labor devoted to the public good of the Church and to the Apostolic See; a synopsis of the things which the Man of God did and suffered for the holy war.

[He commends the abbot of Cluny to Pope Eugenius: on behalf of the latter, suffering persecution, he writes to the Romans and to the emperor Conrad.] That the Venerable Peter Maurice, abbot of Cluny, betook himself to Rome to Pope Eugenius in the year of Christ 1146, the Cistercian Annals record under this year, chapter 1. There is extant St. Bernard's epistle 277 to the same Vicar of Christ, in which with the highest affection of benevolence he commends him. The venerable abbot at length reached Rome, as Manrique writes in the same place at number 6, where he was received by Eugenius not only kindly but reverently, as one whom he was not ignorant to have deserved well of the universal Church and, from the beginning, most excellently of Cîteaux, even had Bernard been silent. But of Peter there is more in the same place. The praised Annals, chapter 3, number 1, report Pope Eugenius's second flight from the city of Rome, and its circumstances: While the Pontiff, they say, governs the world from the City, and now by himself, now by strenuous legates, provides for all, having again found the City rebellious, he again yields; and he who but lately had been received with branches and hymns, scarcely three months thereafter being spent, is assailed with stones and blasphemies and driven into flight. Then at number 3 this is said: When this second sedition of the city of Rome had come, by the spreading of rumor and by the letters of friends, to Clairvaux and to Bernard's ears (although Baronius refers it to the former), kindled with the zeal for justice with which he was wont, and brandishing his pen like a sword, he wrote first to them, arguing, entreating, rebuking: but presently also to the emperor Conrad, that by him, if perchance they should persevere obstinate, they might none the less be restrained by arms. The letter which he gave to the Romans is found among Bernard's reprinted by Mabillon as the 243rd in order; which is next followed in the same place by another addressed to Conrad: both are there fitted to the year of Christ 1146; both likewise afford a striking argument of the most kindled zeal with which the holy Man burned for the public good of the Church and for the See of Peter, as will be perspicuous to one reading them. That both those letters belong to the present year of Christ 1146 Pagi also observes there at number 1, against Baronius, who recites them under the preceding year.

[387] We promised in the paragraph just preceding that we would treat, in this year and the following, of the sacred expedition of Christian princes against the infidels in the East, Before we treat in detail and that in one continuous course of narration, that the matter might shine forth the more: but now we discharge our pledge, setting out first what Mabillon writes in summary in his general Preface, §7, and which can serve as a synopsis for understanding in outline the longer narration of this history, which we shall begin in the next §. Among Bernard's last labors, he says, must be reckoned the preaching of the sacred expedition into the Holy Land: which matter, how much sweat, how much trouble it brought him, may easily be understood from his Life and writings. The occasion of this expedition, as we learn from Otto of Freising, arose through Louis the Younger, king of the Franks; who, pressed by a desire of going to the holy places — which his own brother Philip, bound by the same vow, had not been able to fulfill, death intervening — discloses his design to the princes of the kingdom. These decree that Bernard must be consulted. The holy Abbot, being summoned, judges that a business of such moment must be referred to the examination of the Roman Pontiff. This Eugenius greatly praised and approved, "the authority of preaching, and of moving the minds of all to this, being granted to the aforenamed Abbot, who among all the peoples of Gaul and Germany was accounted as a prophet or an apostle." Bernard at length obeys the apostolic letters, and, the minds of many being roused to the expedition overseas, signs with the cross King Louis at Vézelay, together with Thierry of Flanders and Henry, son of Theobald of Blois, counts, and other Barons and nobles.

[388] of the eastern expedition Meanwhile a certain monk Ralph, while he likewise preaches the cross in Germany, inflames the Christians to the slaughter of the Jews. Bernard repressed the man by letters, and himself undertook the preaching of the sacred expedition in the eastern kingdom of the Franks, that is, in that region of Germany which is situated on the Rhine. Hence the emperor Conrad proclaimed a general assembly at Speyer: to which Bernard, having gone, "persuaded the prince, with Frederick his brother's son, and other princes and illustrious men, to take the cross, working very many miracles in public or in secret." Frederick, Duke of Swabia, who took it ill that his son had been signed with the cross, Bernard mollified; he ordered the monk Ralph to be thrust back into his own cloister; and in his own place he gave Adam, abbot of Ebrach, to Conrad, who was going into Bavaria, as a companion for urging on the business of the journey. There is extant Bernard's letter on this matter to the eastern Franks, which is now the 363rd in order: which is next followed by another to Henry, archbishop of Mainz, for the repressing of Ralph: "Therefore, not only from the Roman empire (says Otto) but also from the neighboring kingdoms, that is, western France, England, Hungary, innumerable peoples and nations being moved by the report of this expedition to take the cross, suddenly almost the whole West so fell silent that not only to stir up wars, but even for anyone to bear arms in public, was accounted a crime."

[389] against the infidels, Further, so great a stirring of the whole West was attributed to Bernard's preaching: but since this expedition did not succeed well according to their wishes, all the odium of the ill outcome was cast likewise upon him, according to the common way of mortals, who are wont to estimate matters by their outcomes. Nor was there almost any other matter which affected Bernard's mind with greater grief than this, not so much for his own sake as for God's. Whence he himself at the beginning of the second book On Consideration: "If it be necessary that one of two things happen, I prefer that the murmuring of men be against us than against God. It is good for me if he deign to use me as a shield. Willingly do I receive upon myself the slanderous tongues of detractors," etc. And so far were the minds of almost all disturbed by this outcome that the holy Doctor pronounces him blessed who had not been scandalized in him. Finally how great was Bernard's sadness over this is plain both from epistle 288, which he wrote on this matter lying in bed, perhaps from sickness of mind; and from the letter of John, abbot of Casamari, to Bernard himself, which is now the 386th among Bernard's; in which he consoles the holy Man, whom he had heard was afflicted on account of the sinister outcome of the expedition.

[390] it is premised There were not wanting, however, those who undertook to defend Bernard's part: among whom not in the last place must be numbered Otto, bishop of Freising, not wont to be very favorable to Bernard. He, in his book On the Deeds of Frederick, chapter 60, makes an excursus to excuse the outcome of that expedition, at which he too was present. At the end of an excursus philosophical rather than historical, he thus concludes in Bernard's favor: "Although, if we should say that that holy

Abbot was inspired by the Spirit of God to rouse us, but that we, on account of our pride and wantonness, not observing his salutary commands, deservedly brought back a loss of goods and of persons, it would not be discordant with ancient reasonings or examples." One thing however he adds, namely that "the spirit of the prophets is not always subject to the prophets": in order, namely, to hint that it is uncertain whether Bernard conjectured concerning this expedition and its outcome from a divine spirit.

[391] Yet Bernard himself, at the beginning of the second book On Consideration to Eugenius, a synopsis of those things, where he defends the deed from calumny, does not deny that he was divinely impelled to it. "We said, peace," he says, "and there is no peace: we promised good things, and behold trouble." Then he subjoins this in his own defense: "As though indeed we had used rashness in this work, or levity. We plainly ran in it, not as at an uncertainty, but at your bidding, nay, at God's through you." And below, when men's reproaches are objected to him: "Whence do we know that the word has gone forth from the Lord? What signs do you work, that we should believe you?" he thus replies, addressing Eugenius: "There is no reason why I should myself answer to these: my modesty must be spared. Do you answer for me, and for yourself, according to those things which you have heard and seen." By which words he without doubt modestly hints at the miracles wrought by him in confirmation of his preaching.

[392] But best of all Geoffrey vindicates his holy Parent from calumny in book 3 of his Life, chapter 4: which the holy Man did in this cause, and wrongly suffered. first, because the first proposal of that expedition did not proceed from him. "For when the necessity, being heard of, had already moved the minds of many, and he was sought out once and again for this by the king of the Franks, and admonished also by Apostolic letters, not even so did he consent to speak of this or to give counsel, until at length by the Pontiff's own general letter he was commanded by him, as the tongue of the Roman Church, to set it forth to peoples and to princes." Then, because the office of preaching, undertaken by him out of obedience, was divinely confirmed by so many and so great miracles and signs, AS IT WOULD BE DIFFICULT EVEN TO NUMBER, LET ALONE TO NARRATE. Finally, because if by that expedition the Eastern church did not deserve to be freed, certainly the heavenly one deserved to be filled and to rejoice, namely on account of the death of those "who rendered to Christ souls purged by various tribulations in the fruits of penance." And indeed this very thing it is which John, the holy abbot of Casamari, signified to Bernard as ascertained by him from a revelation. But why do we delay in vindicating Bernard? Whose so great authority has long since obtained this with all, even the heterodox, that his life, his exceptional sanctity, and his doctrine are approved by the common suffrage and esteem of all.

§ XXXVII. The acts of Pope Eugenius, of King Louis, and of St. Bernard for the holy war; the Man of God's preaching; miracles; the supreme command of the war conferred on him alone, but not accepted by him; the men of Langres pacified; his authority interposed in another controversy.

Pope Eugenius takes care for the faithful in the East: Geoffrey, once a monk of Clairvaux, St. Bernard's notary, and afterwards abbot there, in book 3 of his Life, in our edition chapter 2, writing of the unhappy outcome of the holy war carried by the Christians into the East, Bernard sounding the trumpet far and wide by his preachings, and of the murmuring against the holy Man arising thence, has left us an ample field for further commentary, in which we may illustrate more particularly and explicitly this subject, set forth a little before in summary and in general from Mabillon. That certain foundations of this sacred expedition were laid in the year of Christ 1145 the Cistercian historian narrates in the same place, chapter 4: Meanwhile, he says, Eugenius, pondering in his heart and revolving in his deep mind what he had heard concerning the damages inflicted in the East by the infidels upon the Christian people — Edessa being taken, and thence Antioch, and Jerusalem itself brought into peril .. thought that common arms must be taken up .. against the Saracens. Whether he was forestalled by Louis or forestalling him is in doubt. It is certain that both agreed in this, that the one should publish the expedition, the other undertake it: that neither should do anything without Bernard. But let us hear Otto, an author of the same time, and present at almost all these things, with the authority which he had among all, reporting these very matters. In book 1 On the Deeds of the emperor Frederick I, chapter 34, he records this, which we take from the most recent Milanese edition, volume 6, from column 668: Louis, since he secretly had a desire of going to Jerusalem, because his brother Philip, bound by the same vow, had been forestalled by death, being unwilling to put off his purpose longer, having called certain of his princes, disclosed what he was revolving in his mind.

[394] [King Louis consults Bernard concerning the holy war; on whom the authority of preaching is conferred by Eugenius] There was at that time in Gaul a certain abbot of the monastery of Clairvaux, called Bernard, venerable in life and manners, conspicuous in the order of religion, endowed with wisdom and the knowledge of letters, famous for signs and miracles. Him the prince decrees must be summoned, and that from him, as from a divine oracle, counsel must be sought as to what ought to be done about this matter. The aforesaid Abbot is summoned, and his counsel is demanded concerning the aforesaid prince's will. He, judging it frivolous to give an answer on so great a business at the discretion of his own authority, answered that it would be best that it be brought to the hearing and examination of the Roman Pontiff. And so, a legation being sent to Eugenius, the whole business is disclosed to him. He, revolving the examples of his predecessors — namely that Urban on an occasion of this kind had received back into the unity of peace the church overseas and the two patriarchal sees, that is, Antioch and Jerusalem, which had been cut off from obedience to the Roman See — assented to the wishes of the aforesaid king for the spreading of the rite of the Christian religion, the authority of preaching and of moving the minds of all to this being granted to the aforenamed Abbot, who among all the peoples of Gaul and Germany was accounted as a prophet or an apostle. Whence such a writing of his is found addressed to the king and his princes. Presently the same author subjoins it in chapter 35: but because it is long enough, and was committed to print by Baronius and Manrique under the year of Christ 1145, therefore we do not here transcribe it again.

[395] But that the eastern journey was undertaken by vow by Louis VII, king of the Franks, what moved Louis to that war; the preparations; for the reason that he was stricken with compunction over the burned basilica of Vitry, with thirteen hundred souls which had fled into it (see what was said above in §32), writers relate in Pagi under the year of Christ 1145, number 13. But it would be long to relate in detail the preparations which were made in Gaul before that expedition under the said king; such are the assembly of Bourges, of which the same Pagi under the year just cited, number 12; likewise that of Vézelay, under the year 1146, number 3. But treating of the former he says: Odo of Deuil, monk of St. Denis, and Suger's successor in the abbacy of that monastery, published seven little books concerning the journey of Louis VII, king of the Franks, into the East, dug out of darkness by Pierre-François Chifflet in the Asserted illustrious lineage of St. Bernard, by which ecclesiastical history may be enriched. Then from that Odo's first little book he recites some things concerning both those assemblies: but of that of Vézelay the praised Odo writes various things in the same first book which pertain to St. Bernard. Besides others, which may be read in Chifflet, I cull from thence the following words of Odo from page 11: In the year, he says, of the incarnate Word one thousand one hundred and forty-six the glorious king of the Franks .. that he might be worthy of Christ, at Vézelay at Easter, bearing his cross, undertook to follow him. .. The Abbot also (of Clairvaux), fortified by Apostolic authority and by his own sanctity, and a very great multitude of those convoked .. were likewise present. .. And since there was no place in the castle which could hold so great a multitude, a wooden platform was set up outside in the field for the Abbot, that he might speak of the matter at hand to the bystanders. This he ascended with the king adorned with the cross.

[396] And when the heavenly organ had after his manner poured forth the dew of the divine word, an incredible multitude signed with the cross, Bernard preaching; miracles. they began on every side, crying out together, to demand: Crosses, crosses. And when he had sown rather than given out the bundle of them prepared, he was compelled to cut up his own garments into crosses and sow them. In this he labored as long as he was in the town. I forbear to write the miracles which then happened there, by which it was seen that this pleased the Lord: lest, if I write few, it be not believed that there were more; or if many, I seem to have omitted the substance. At length, an edict being made that they should set out after a year, all returned to their own homes with joy. But the Abbot, covering a sturdy spirit under a frail and almost dead body, flies about everywhere preaching, and those bearing the cross were multiplied beyond number in a short time. Concerning the assembly of Vézelay Otto of Freising also may be approached, just designated, chapter 36: concerning those of Laon and Chartres, Pagi under the year 1146, number 6; the more notable of those signed with the Cross he names at number 5. Pope Eugenius did not preside in person at the conference of Vézelay: for, as Odo reports at page 12, He indeed desired to lay the first hand on so holy a work in person; but, hindered by the tyranny of the Romans, he could not: but he delegated that care to the holy Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux. And indeed that Eugenius came into Gaul only in the year 1147 you will find in Pagi there at number 5, against others, whom he cites for the year 1146, and corrects under that year at number 2. On this matter Manrique also may be consulted under the year 1145, chapter 4, number 9.

[397] The Man of God is chosen supreme commander of the war; Very lately mention was made by us of the assembly of Chartres, so far as sufficed there for our purpose; yet in such wise that the wonderful office which was committed to the holy Abbot in the council there assembled for the expedition of the sacred soldiery deservedly requires new mention here. Baronius under the year of Christ 1146 writes of the summoning and celebration of that council, and also of the notable persons assembled in it; but then asks at number 3: What was done there? And he answers: This above all, plainly to be wondered at, which will astonish all who hear it; namely that there St. Bernard himself is chosen by the consent of all as commander of the whole war, to act as prince of the soldiery, to whom all the soldiers and the princes themselves should be subject. This was decreed in the council by the consent of all. Lest you think this a fable, there must here be transcribed the letter of St. Bernard to Pope Eugenius treating of these matters, and first commending Eugenius's zeal from the letter written by him, and exhorting him to further things, and at the last relating what was done in the council of Chartres.

[398] but he refuses that office, This last I transcribe hither from the Saint's epistle, the 256th in order, in which the preceding parts may be read:

For the rest, he says, as to that report which you have already, unless I am mistaken, heard — namely how in the assembly of Chartres (by what judgment I sufficiently wonder) they chose me as it were commander and prince of the soldiery: let it be certain to you that it was not, and is not, of my counsel nor of my will, nor even within my possibility (so far as I measure my strength) to reach so far. Who am I, that I should array the lines of camps, that I should go forth before the faces of armed men? Or what is so remote from my profession, even if strength were at hand, even if skill were not lacking? But neither is it mine to teach your wisdom. You know all these things. Only I beseech you by that charity of which you are especially my debtors, that you expose me not to human wills; but, as it especially lies upon you, that you search out the divine counsel, and give your labor that, as the will shall be in heaven, so it may be done. Mabillon in his note on this epistle advises that on this assembly the letters of Peter the Venerable and of Suger are to be read.

[399] which Pope Eugenius also disapproves: As soon as Eugenius received Bernard's letter, the Cistercian historian reporting under the year 1146, chapter 5, and learned of the warlike preparations, which, beginning in Gaul, if only they were furthered, might easily be hoped to range widely through other provinces, thinking that the sails must be spread to prosperous winds, and that no other pilot must be used than that very man who had so happily begun the voyage, writes back eagerly to the same Bernard: that he had no need of his material sword, nor of a military command — although the princes of Gaul also demanded it — but only of a spiritual one, that is, of the sword of the spirit, which, as the Apostle witnesses, is the word of God: let him rouse the war with a priestly trumpet, let him preach, reprove, upbraid the Christians, that the places of our salvation are set in straits, that the brethren are in peril, that these are to be wretchedly butchered; those to be sacrilegiously and impiously profaned, while they themselves, faithless, riot in idleness, if they do not come to the rescue. Let him thrust upon the faithful peoples fury, or more truly zeal, against the infidels, and stir up the whole Christian world against the contemners of the cross. That this legation was enjoined upon him by Eugenius, once his son, now his friend, now his father, nay in the name of the whole Church, and was ardently to be undertaken by the Man of God, who had never for his cause spared any labors, any perils. These and like things sent by Eugenius to Bernard once and again, Godfrey, who was present at all, narrates. So Manrique. Let the reader go to the biographer Geoffrey, book 3, chapter 2.

[400] The court being dissolved, and the king, as the same Annalist goes on at number 3, [Bernard's voice, rousing the people to the holy war, is accompanied by many miracles:] and the Pontiffs having returned to their own places to prepare what was necessary for the journey, Father Bernard traversed the neighboring places and cities, preaching through the provinces, with no unequal fruit. And frequent miracles added to his voice the voice of power, by which the faithful were so stirred that they left the cities almost empty and the towns deserted, while all followed the Saint, about to fight for Christ under the sign of the cross. Besides Odo, who spoke a little before of miracles, we have an irrefragable witness in Geoffrey, in the place just designated: for of the signs by which the Lord confirmed the holy Man's word, he says: But by how great and how manifold signs? As it would be difficult even to number, let alone to narrate. For at that same time they had begun to be written down; but at last the very multitude of things to be written overcame the writer, and the matter overcame the author: since indeed sometimes in one day twenty, or even more, were healed of various ailments, nor did any day easily go free of such things. In fine, at that time Christ, through the touch and prayer of his Servant, made many blind — even from their mothers' wombs — to see, the lame to walk, the withered to grow strong, the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak. But of the huge multitude of those signed with the cross it is well to hear the Saint himself, writing this of it to Eugenius in the letter which is the 247th in order in Mabillon: You commanded, and I obeyed, and the authority of him who commanded made the obedience fruitful: for indeed I announced and spoke, and they were multiplied beyond number. Cities and castles are emptied; and now seven women scarcely find one man to lay hold of: so far are there everywhere widows whose husbands still live.

[401] And these things indeed Bernard accomplished by living voice in the places in which he was present; [He reconciles the men of Langres, bishop and clergy: things done in the cause of bishop Samson,] but from those from which he was absent, because he could not go to them, or could not go so quickly, what shall I record of how much he effected by fiery letters, and letters fitted for kindling the hearts of the faithful? Go to the Cistercian historian in chapter 5 cited, number 8: But, he says, amid the warlike preparations, in this very year he restored to peace the bishop and clergy of Langres, who were at variance among themselves. And there intervened a miracle foreseen, and in the miracle a peace prophesied, when it was thought least likely to be attained. The matter is narrated in Geoffrey, book 4 of the Life, chapter 5, number 239. In the Cistercian Annals, chapter 6, stand the deeds of Pope Eugenius against the infidels, and Bernard's letter to him on behalf of Samson, archbishop of Reims, which among Bernard's letters published by Mabillon is the 247th in order. But from what the praised editor notes on it: It was once a solemn custom that kings should receive the crown at the chief festivals with a festive rite, as here at Bourges before the expedition to Jerusalem. The archbishop of Bourges contended that this was due to himself in his own church. Wherefore, when Samson had performed it at Bourges, Peter the archbishop protesting, Eugenius interdicted to that same Samson the use of the pallium. The Pontiff's letters on this matter you have in the Patriarchium Bituricense — from the other notes; from these, I say, it becomes perspicuous, first, that this sentence, with which the cause of King Louis the Younger was mixed up, was pronounced not without danger lest the ardor for the said expedition either grow altogether cold or be utterly extinguished. Secondly, that the holy Man rightly interposed his authority for the composing of this controversy, especially if you weigh its circumstances.

[402] lest that controversy should hinder the holy war. Let us hear Manrique, chapter 6, number 7: Samson was .. a bishop of unblemished repute .. and always held among the dear ones by Louis, then dearer still since he had received the crown from him. .. The promulgated sentence troubled the king, the princes, and the people, however just it was, however much it proceeded from zeal for God, and, the king being exasperated, all but tore from the hearts of the faithful the whole expedition overseas, for which all so burned. But Bernard .. whether from favor toward Samson, whom he attended with much charity, or from reverence for the exceptional religion in which he excelled among the other bishops of Gaul; or finally either deferring to the king or fearing him — deferring, I say, to his holy zeal, with which through so many expenses, so many labors of his own, so many perils of land and sea, he was preparing the eastern expedition; but also fearing lest perchance, being provoked by contempt from the Pontiff .. he might be called back from his purpose; .. with the fatherly authority in which he was strong, and with the freedom which he always used in the causes of Christ, wrote to Eugenius this letter, not empty of zeal, but full of prudence.

§ XXXVIII. A wicked preacher against the Jews repressed and brought to better fruit by the holy Doctor; a precaution against forgers of his letters.

A barbarous crime of the Jews in England upon a boy A most atrocious persecution of the Jews stirred up by the Christians in Gaul and Germany the writer of the Cistercian Annals records in chapter 7. The cause was given by a barbarous crime of that perfidious sect, that at Norwich in England they had crucified a certain boy named William: concerning whom as a martyr there was treatment long since in our Work at the XXV day of March, volume III of that month, page 588 and following, the matter being linked to the year of Christ 1144. The trumpet of the persecution was a hermit whose name was Ralph, stirring up the Christians against them by his preachings. Opportunity was added from the eastern expedition against the Saracens, which St. Bernard was so greatly furthering. Since therefore that matter has a certain affinity with the history of the holy war of which we treat, we shall report it in summary from the praised founder of the Annals. To the Jews, then, hated everywhere and chiefly by the Christian people, that savage butchery of an innocent boy did the greatest harm. For hence, he says, the hatreds of Christians against them being increased, and zeal passing over into vengeance, and a fierce covetousness of the riches in which they abounded, many conspired to their destruction, and, anger having once blazed out against the Saracens as against the enemies of Christ, the passage to the Jews was the easier. There is extant a letter of Peter the Venerable written to the king of Gaul; severe against that nation, worse and more pernicious than the nation of the Saracens, and which, though it does not consign them to the last punishment, yet urges that they should be mulcted of the wealth which they had wrung from Christians by crimes (a fragment of the said letter is recited in the same Annals). And so Peter, who was milder, cried that they should be stripped of all their goods; the rest, that they should be beheaded.

[404] But among others a certain hermit, Ralph by name, gave occasion to Ralph the monk of stirring up the peoples to kill the Jews whether from excessive zeal, or greedy of catching the crowd, and usurping the office of preaching as though sent by Bernard, preached the cross against the eastern Saracens, but against the Jews at home slaughter and death. Let us hear Otto of Freising speaking of him, book 1 On the deeds of the emperor Frederick I, chapter 37: Amid these things Ralph the monk, a man indeed having the habit of religion, and skillfully imitating the severity of religion, but soberly imbued with the knowledge of letters, enters those parts of Gaul which touch the Rhine, and kindles many thousands of the peoples from Cologne, Mainz, Worms, Speyer, Strasbourg, and other neighboring cities, towns, or villages, to take the cross; yet unwarily interweaving this with his teaching, that the Jews remaining here and there in the cities and towns should be slaughtered as enemies of the Christian religion. Which seed of doctrine, fixing its root so firmly in many cities or towns of Gaul and Germany, sprouted, so that, very many of the Jews being killed in this tumultuous sedition, many took refuge under the wings of the prince of the Romans for protection. Whence it came about that not a few of them, fleeing from savagery of this kind, betook themselves for the preserving of their lives into the prince's town which is called Noricum, or Nuremberg, and into his other municipalities. Thus far Otto concerning that pseudo-apostle.

[405] The bishops grieved, as Manrique subjoins at number 4, [under the pretext of preaching the cross by St. Bernard's command, who also against him,] that blood was shed, the law of nations violated, cities deserted, and that they were held in contempt by one monk, who, under the pretext of preaching the cross at Bernard's charge, not only without consulting them but against their resistance, was disturbing almost all Germany. Whence Henry, bishop of Mainz, sent a querulous letter to the holy Doctor, that he had substituted such a man for himself (for so it was believed), through whom things so grave, so scandalous, were preached under the appearance of zeal and justice. Then the holy Father, to clear himself of such a calumny, and no less to repress the creeping evil, wrote letters first to the same bishop of Mainz, then to all the bishops of Germany. Further, a copy of the letter to Henry the archbishop

of Mainz, which in Mabillon's edition is the three hundred and sixty-fifth in order, otherwise 323, runs among other things thus: That man of whom there is question in your letter came sent neither from man nor through man, nor yet from God. But if he boasts himself a monk or a hermit, and thence assumes to himself the liberty or the office of preaching, he can know, and ought to know, that a monk has not the office of teaching but of mourning: for whom indeed the town ought to be a prison, and solitude a paradise. But this man on the contrary has solitude for a prison and the town for a paradise. O man without a heart, O man without a forehead! Whose folly has been lifted upon a candlestick, that it may appear to all who are in the house. There are assuredly three things in him most worthy of reproof: the usurpation of preaching, the contempt of bishops, the license of approved homicide. The other things which he adds, and by which he convicts that pseudo-teacher, and defends that life must not be taken from a Jew, you will find in the said letter.

[406] and for the sacred soldiery There deserves to be read also in the same place epistle 363, otherwise 322, in which the holy Man, as the title has, exhorts to the taking up of arms against the infidels for the defense of the Eastern church. Besides, against a certain turbulent preacher he teaches that the Jews are not to be persecuted, much less killed. It is addressed to the archbishops, bishops, and all the clergy and people of eastern France and of Bavaria. Moreover this letter is as it were a trumpet-call to the sacred expedition: concerning which William of Tyre, in his history of the holy war, book 16, chapter 18, speaks thus, praising St. Bernard, in conformity with the other eulogies given above to that same holy Herald of the sacred soldiery by us in the present matter: A man, he says, of immortal memory, and a mirror of honorable converse, the lord Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, of pious recollection in the Lord and in all things to be embraced, is chosen as chief for the execution of the aforesaid office pleasing to God: who, a sedulous executor of the dispensation enjoined upon him, drawing with him fellow ministers beloved of God in the same work, tireless, unwearied, though he was of a weak body, both on account of his almost continual fastings and his too slender diet, goes round kingdoms, walks about regions, everywhere preaching the kingdom of God, etc.

[407] he writes, and converts that pseudo-teacher, But that we may return to the cause of the Jews, it will not be beside the purpose to hear Otto of Freising alleged above: But the aforesaid Abbot of Clairvaux, teaching that doctrine of this kind must be guarded against, sent messengers or letters to the peoples of Gaul and Germany, in which from the authority of the sacred Page he clearly showed that the Jews, on account of the excesses of their crimes, were not to be killed but to be dispersed. Whence he brought in also the testimony of the Psalmist, saying in the LVII (rather 58th) psalm: "God has shown me over my enemies, slay them not." And likewise: "Scatter them in your power." Thus far that historian, chapter 38. I shall finish the present subject concerning the false and deceiving teacher Ralph when I shall have shown two things to be observed. The one is that the same Ralph's temerity was not only restrained by the holy Man, but that he himself was also converted by him to the best fruit, as Otto of Freising testifies in book 1 cited, chapter 39, where he writes this of our Abbot: Coming also to Mainz, he found Ralph staying there in the greatest favor of the people. Having summoned him and thoroughly admonished him not, against the rule of monks, by wandering through the world, to assume by his own authority the word of preaching, he at length induced him to this, that, obedience being promised to him, he should pass over into his own monastery. But although this was done when St. Bernard had betaken himself into Germany, that he might there announce the eastern soldiery of the cross, yet we join it in this place with the preceding history of Ralph, adding besides Manrique's epiphonema, chapter 8: Thus Bernard restrained by persuasion him whom neither the prelates of the Church nor the princes had restrained by the strength of their power, and more quickly than it can be told he came, he saw, he conquered, removing sins while saving the sinner. It is true nevertheless that the people of Mainz, who had adhered to Ralph, bore his departure impatiently: for I read in Otto, chapter 39 cited above, that that matter happened the people being grievously indignant, and, unless they had been called back by consideration of his sanctity, wishing even to stir up sedition. So great authority had that pseudo-apostle procured for himself among the seduced people. But, as Manrique subjoins concerning the holy Father, reverence for him restrained them all; and, not daring to approve what Bernard had once disapproved, his simple word was for a law. And this was the first thing which I wished observed; to which I now subjoin the second.

[408] The holy Father in epistle 363, which I was citing, writes this: adding a precaution against the forgers of his letters. Of this also it is necessary that you be admonished, most beloved brethren, that if anyone perhaps, loving to hold the primacy among you, shall wish by his own expedition to anticipate the army of the kingdom, let him by no means dare it: and if he pretend that he was sent by us, it is not true: or if he show letters as though given by us, say that they are altogether false, not to say stolen, etc. The compiler of the Cistercian Annals remarks on this passage of the letter thus, chapter 7, number 9: Cardinal Baronius, while he narrates these things, is of that opinion, so as to think that the Saint, when he protests to all that they should not receive letters sent by him which they knew to be false, was guarding himself against Nicholas — that man, namely, whom we saw above received in the preceding year as a monk of Clairvaux, and this year writing in Father Bernard's name to the Count and nobles of Brittany; nay, we shall say below that he was accustomed to counterfeit his seal and style to the grave harm of himself and of others. But, as the same Manrique rightly observes: I should not believe, he says, that he was so quickly detected by the holy Father, especially as he was to remain in his service for some years. Nor is there reason why we should have recourse to uncertain things when we have certain ones. Ralph preaching under his name — which was Henry of Mainz's complaint — he guards himself against a like deceit. Recall to mind what I set out before concerning Nicholas of Montiéramey: but of Ralph I have just now said some things by prolepsis; some I shall say next, the opportunity being offered by the German journey which St. Bernard undertook, partly that he might restrain him, partly that he might rouse the princes of that region to the holy war.

§ XXXIX. He traverses Germany for the sacred soldiery; the grace of tongue; the force and fruit of his pleading; miracles; a conversation with St. Hildegard; the conversion of Alexander of Cologne.

Why St. Bernard set out into Germany, A twofold cause called the holy Man into Germany. Both the praised Otto of Freising expresses, book 1, chapter 39, recording this: Therefore, innumerable men in western Gaul having been roused to the expedition overseas, Bernard disposes to undertake the moving of the eastern kingdom of the Franks by preaching, as well for this, that he might soften the mind of the prince of the Romans by the word of holy exhortation to take the cross, as that he might impose silence upon Ralph, who on occasion of the Jews was stirring up frequent seditions in the cities of the people against their lords. These two reasons, then, moved the Man to betake himself into Germany: to which corresponded a twofold fruit intended by him, besides others not so much sought by the holy Father as offered of themselves. But account must also be had of the time at which he set out thither.

[410] Baronius, under the year of Christ 1146, number 25, and when: says: When the present year was drawing to its end, he betook himself into Germany. But Manrique, under the same year, chapter 8, number 2, judges it far more probable that that journey happened earlier. Let us set forth his reasons to be weighed: Cardinal Baronius thinks that he set out at the end of this year, moved, as I believe, by the history of his miracles in the Proem, which takes its beginning from the first Sunday of Advent. But since in the same history it is written at chapter 15 that the holy Father on an occasion of this kind was exiled from his sons for nearly a year; and moreover that he entered Clairvaux not long after the feast of the Purification of the following year; we are compelled to say against the same Baronius either that he went to Toulouse against Henry before he betook himself into Germany, or that he entered Germany before the end of the year: although the miracles began to be written down not from his first entry but from his coming to Constance: and this I judge far more probable, and also more conformable to the narration itself. However that may be, the Saint on entering Germany looked more attentively to both aims, that he might both rouse the Christians against the Saracens and draw them back from the Jews. Of the latter we have already spoken, the conversion of Ralph having been reported also by prolepsis, which properly belonged to this place. But of the former it now remains to treat in detail.

[411] and with how great fruit: It is agreed in the first place, Manrique asserting it in chapter 8, number 4, that toward the end of the month of October, staying at the city of Worms, he signed many with the cross for the holy war. For concerning him, coming to that same city again at the beginning of January of the following year, Philip, then archdeacon, afterwards a monk, who was present, writes in these words, which are found below in book six of the Life, part 2, in our edition chapter 3: He had passed .. through Worms two months before, and, a sermon being delivered, had there signed an innumerable people with the seal of the Christian soldiery. What then? At Frankfurt, as the same Annalist goes on, chapter 8, number 4, he met the emperor, meaning to treat certain business with him, and as it were in passing to suggest something of the holy war, and to cast seeds which afterwards should be made fruitful at Speyer. Nor did he find the man, however most reverent and compliant toward himself, easy in this business: nay, that he turned away from the journey overseas, and was not to be persuaded so as to be brought to it, Philip the author not obscurely testifies, describing all things in few words, but as an eyewitness, when he discloses what was done at Speyer in this tenor, book 6 of the Life, part 1, chapter 2: For the blessed Man had earlier met the king in secret at Frankfurt, admonishing him to provide for his own salvation in a time of abundant mercy. And when he had answered that he had no purpose of this soldiery, the most gentle Man was silent, saying that it was not for his littleness to press more importunately upon the royal majesty.* Hence it becomes plain that great force of speaking and persuading was needed by the holy Father, that he might afterwards at Speyer bend Conrad, so disposed in mind at that time, to the side he wished.

[412] miracles But we cannot depart from Frankfurt with the Saint into other places of Germany unless we narrate what was done by him there. Helmold the priest, in the Chronicles of the Slavs published at Frankfurt in the year 1556, chapter 60, page 128 and following, has thus handed down this to memory: About the time of those days there arose new things, and astonishing to the whole world. For, the most holy Pope Eugenius presiding, and Conrad the third also guiding the helm of the kingdom, there shone Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, whose fame was so celebrated by the report of signs that from the whole world there flowed together to him a throng of peoples, desiring to see the wonders which were done through him. He therefore, having gone out into the Teutonic land, came

to the celebrated court of Frankfurt, whither at that time it chanced that King Conrad had come with festive state, with all the throng of his princes. When therefore the holy Man, stationed in the churches, was more earnestly pressing on with healing the sick in the name of the Lord, the king and the highest powers standing by, it was uncertain amid such great crowds of peoples what any man suffered, or to whom perhaps relief was given. There was present there our count Adolph, desiring to know more certainly the power of the Man from the divine working.

[413] Amid these things there is offered him a boy blind and lame, of whose disability there could be no doubt. done there. The most sagacious man began therefore skillfully to press on, in case he might in this boy take a test of his sanctity. Providing a remedy for whose unbelief, as if divinely taught, the Man of God ordered the boy contrary to custom to be brought to him: for the rest he signed with a word only; but this one, when presented, he took in his hands, and by a lingering touch restored sight to his eyes. Then seizing the contracted knees, he bade him run to the steps, giving manifest tokens of sight as well as gait recovered. These things done at Frankfurt by Bernard Helmold reports.

[414] Thence, as is said in Trithemius's Hirsau Chronicle, a conversation with St. Hildegard; reprinted in the year 1690 from the presses of the monastery of St. Gall, under the year 1147, page 415, going down by boat he came to Bingen, where Hildegard, a nun, a most devout virgin of Christ .. built a monastery on the mount of St. Rupert, with whom he is reported to have exchanged sweet discourses concerning future felicity. For the holy handmaid of Christ was known to the divine Bernard both by writings and, by the report of many, approved in the Lord. To whom, when he had come, after the accustomed prayers and the courtesies of salutation, he ordered the volumes to be shown him which she, divinely inspired, had written: which having been diligently reviewed in part, marveling beyond what can be told, he is reported to have said to his companions: "These writings are not humanly devised, nor can mortal man grasp them, unless he has been inwardly and in his soul reformed to the likeness of God through love." More things, which the Saint is reported then to have said, may be read in the same place. And this fruit indeed seems not to have been sought by him when he was journeying into Germany, but offered unbidden when he was already staying there — that he might strengthen Hildegard against the reproaches of men; if his conversation with her truly holds good: which I add for this reason, that some things are inconvenient for it.

[415] For Manrique, having reported that conversation from Trithemius in chapter 8, numbers 6 and 7, with which conversation, however, some things are inconvenient. there at number 7 recites him concluding thus: But the holy servant of the Lord Bernard, bidding farewell to Hildegard the virgin of Christ, continues his begun journey down the Rhine, and at Boppard cures a paralytic in the midst of the people, having laid his hand on him. Thence by the channel of the Moselle he goes up to Trier, and cured in the same city three blind men, one lame man, and a deaf woman, all the people looking on. But the aforesaid Cistercian historian subjoins: These from Trithemius; as regards the time, of doubtful credit: for they are omitted by Philip, who from Conrad's conference with Bernard at Frankfurt describes the Saint's deeds day by day. Nor had the Saint, as Trithemius himself says in the Chronicle of Sponheim, occupied the land of Bingen with her convent before the year 1148.* Of this Saint there will have to be treatment at the XVII day of September with the Roman Martyrology; concerning whom discourse will recur below also. Here we do not add the two letters, of which the one given by her to the holy Father, the other by him to her, the same Manrique recites at numbers 8 and 9: for a greater and far more illustrious abundance of things to be told offers itself to us in the holy Man traversing Germany, and announcing the sacred arms, and flashing there with most frequent prodigies. Let us therefore join ourselves as companions to him journeying there, yet in such wise that the things which pertain to the places of the German journey, and its companions, and the most frequent, most attested miracles of every kind, which both there and on his return to his monks of Clairvaux were wrought by our great Wonder-worker, the Lord confirming his word with so many and so great signs following, we are not here about to give; but we send the reader to the book of those miracles, which we shall reprint below and shall endeavor to illustrate with notes.

[416] The greatest force of persuading in the Saint: It is nevertheless to be reckoned a miracle that, while the holy Man preached in his native tongue, namely French, of which the Germans were altogether ignorant, he nevertheless provoked a people that heard but did not understand even to tears of compunction, as Manrique observes in chapter 9, number 5, confirming the matter from Homily 16 On the Infancy of Christ of Caesarius, an almost contemporary author; from which he cites this: In the time of the emperor Conrad, when St. Bernard preached in Germany in the French tongue, he so kindled the people that they wept most abundantly: and although they did not then understand his words, afterwards, when a most skilled interpreter expounded the Saint's discourse, the people were not moved. So great, namely, was the force of that most mighty Herald, present, speaking, and burning. These things are more strongly confirmed by Geoffrey, book 3 of the Life, chapter 1, number 158, where, writing of the wonderful grace of his tongue, he speaks thus to our purpose: Hence it was that, speaking even to the German peoples, he was heard with wonderful affection, and from his discourse, which they were unable to understand, as men of another tongue, their devotion seemed to be more edified, and to feel more the power of his words, than from the understood speech of any most skilled interpreter speaking after him: of which thing a sure proof was the beating of breasts and the pouring out of tears. It is no wonder, therefore, that the road was thronged by hearers with a most frequent and most crowded concourse to this holy Orator: on which matter see among the miracles chapter 1, on occasion of the miracles which were done at Constance, and of which Trithemius also records some in the Hirsau Chronicle under the year 1147.

[417] Alexander of Cologne But the wonderful and notable conversion of Alexander of Cologne, obtained at Basel by the holy Man, the author of the Cistercian Annals sets forth thus in the same chapter 9, numbers 11 and 12, which we too do not suffer to be wanting in this place: Him, he says, we saw above meeting Bernard when he was setting out for Rome; nay, seeing the works of the divine power, or rather having experienced in himself what I shall presently tell, he at last gave his hands to the Saint's admonitions and joined himself as a companion of the journey, about to take the monk's habit at Clairvaux. But in what place and in what order these things happened must be taken by us from elsewhere. And the place indeed we have from Godfrey, the holy Father's notary, who relates that the man was converted at Basel; for as the Saint was going out of the aforesaid city he mentions Alexander, and at once subjoins: This is that Alexander who in those same days, at the Man of God's sacred admonitions and the display of his powers .. followed him, from book 4 of the Life of St. Bernard, chapter 6, number 241; concerning whom also in book 6 of the Life, or of the miracles, part 1, chapter 1, number 283. But what sort of man he was, and in what manner and order he was converted, the Great Exordium of the Cistercian Order teaches in Tissier, distinction 1, chapter 25: At Cologne, which is a notable metropolis of Germany, there was a certain master, Alexander by name, a canon (of St. Mary ad Gradus, as the marginal note has) and a most famous teacher in that city.

[418] But it happened that the servant of God, blessed Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, in a wonderful manner at the bidding of the holy Pope Eugenius entered Germany, to preach the journey to Jerusalem to the emperor Conrad and to the people of the land. And when he flashed there with innumerable signs and powers, the emperor, seeing the great wonders which the Lord showed through him, being pricked at heart, received the sign of the cross from his hand, about to set out for Jerusalem. Nor did an innumerable multitude of men delay to do the same: so that, kindled with an incredible ardor of faith, they eagerly tore from every side the cuttings and fringes of the garments of the Servant of God — which for this very reason he was frequently compelled to receive new — and reckoned themselves unhappy, whoever did not deserve to have crosses from his clothing. Many too of them, noble and wise men, rendered themselves to the Lord by his hand, who, being led by him to Clairvaux and made monks, thereafter brought the greatest fruit in the Church of God.

[419] Of whom also was one, the noble man Alexander mentioned above: to the monastic state who at that time, young and swelling with the pride of secular knowledge, and adorned also with the honors of riches and of transitory dignity, thought of nothing less than conversion: but God, who takes the wise in their own craftiness, brought it to pass in this wonderful order, as the sequel will declare. For when the most blessed Father Bernard had admonished him concerning conversion, he, swollen with secular knowledge or wealth, answered that at present he thought of nothing less, nor willed anything less, than to take the monastic habit. On that same night, therefore, when he had given his limbs to sleep, there appeared to him in a vision that same Man of God, raising him from a pallet on which he seemed to be grievously languishing, and restoring him to health. Then he took his own habit, with which he was clothed, and out of it covered Alexander. And when he had cast that same habit from his shoulders once and a second time and thrust it away with an indignant mind, at the third time at last, thrown about his neck and firmly bound to his body, he was compelled to keep it. Then the holy Father, delivering into his hand the staff which he held in his own, signified the grace of a future prelacy, and so bade him depart.*

[420] But Alexander on waking could as yet in no way be softened by a revelation of this kind, he was converted. but persisted in the same hardness of mind. But on that same day, when that most blessed Abbot was reclining at table, there was set before him a fish which is called a perch, that he might refresh himself from it. Seeing which, the Man of the Lord, his eyes lifted to heaven, prayed a long while over that same fish: and blessing it, sent it to the aforesaid Alexander for a pittance. And while he was beginning to taste it, at the very first bite he deserved to experience happily in himself how great was the power of the Servant of God's prayer: for suddenly, changed into another man, he was greatly pricked at heart, and began to pour out abundant tears over that same fish. And he marveled at himself, not knowing what ailed him or why he wept. At length, remembering the vision which he had seen the night before, he understood that he had been forestalled by the Lord in his gratuitous mercy. Whence, giving thanks from his inmost heart for the heavenly calling, he rendered himself at once to the blessed Servant of God. By whom being kindly received, and made a monk at Clairvaux, and thereafter made pastor of Grandselve, he so advanced in holiness of life that afterwards he became abbot of the monastery of Cîteaux (the ninth, as the marginal note has) and universal father of the whole Order. These things we have set forth in a faithful report, as we heard them from that same servant of God, Alexander. Mabillon, in book 7 of the Life of St. Bernard, which is excerpted from the Great*

Cistercian Exordium, on this passage universal father of the whole Order, observes this at column [ ]: A notable passage this for illustrating the dignity of the abbot of Cîteaux: on which see epistle 4, number 3, and epistle 5, number 1. .. The same abbot is likewise called Universal Father of the Order by Herbert below at number 17. But that wonderful conversion of Alexander is once more one of the fruits not sought by Bernard before the German excursion, but offered to him unbidden in it. Let us now tell how powerfully the holy Man carried the matter through, so as to induce Conrad to the holy war.

* Rather Wolkmar, a cleric of Constance, afterwards a monk.

Another reading, ad Bingos*.

* That is, pride, or elation of mind.

* That is, a portion.

§ XL. The emperor Conrad enrolled in the sacred soldiery; St. Bernard's excursions through Germany; his return into Gaul; miracles; the assembly of Étampes; the unhappy outcome of the Eastern expedition wrongly imputed to the Saint.

[Although the state of Germany opposed Bernard's aim, he nevertheless persuaded the emperor Conrad to the holy war:] Conrad thought of nothing less, as the Cistercian Annals record in chapter 10, than to take the cross and, deserting the western empire, to turn his arms to the remote regions of the East: especially since Germany was blazing with civil wars, certain of the princes being divided among themselves, and, unless they were restrained by his presence, likely perhaps to be divided from the empire. He had nevertheless proclaimed a general court at Speyer, at which Bernard should be present, to be assembled on the birthday of Christ. Let the event be seen in book 6 of the Life, which is On the Miracles, part 1, chapter 2; where besides you will find the happy success achieved by the holy Herald of the end intended, Conrad and his nephew Frederick the younger, and innumerable princes, being signed with the cross; add the miracles there reported. Nor indeed was Bernard frustrated of his labor, since he brought the discordant princes of Germany back into favor, Otto of Freising testifying the matter, book 1 On the Deeds of Frederick, chapter 42, whose words seem not obscurely to hint at it. They are these: Therefore, not only from the Roman empire, but also from the neighboring kingdoms, that is, western France, England, Hungary, innumerable peoples and nations being moved by the report of this expedition to take the cross, suddenly almost the whole West so fell silent that not only to stir up wars, but even for anyone to bear arms in public, was accounted a crime.

[422] At Speyer he preaches with the greatest concourse, But what is related among the miracles done at Speyer, part 1, chapter 2, number 302 — When .. we had gone out, and the king himself with the princes was escorting the Holy One of the Lord, lest the crowds should press upon him, etc. — that, I say, St. Antoninus expresses more clearly and pathetically in part 2 of his Histories, title 17, chapter 1, §6, speaking thus of Bernard: At the city of Speyer there was so great a concourse that Conrad, king or emperor, lest the people should press upon him, laying aside his cloak and taking him in his own arms, carried him out of the basilica. The Cistercian Annals assigned a little before record at number 6 that an image of the Virgin Mary, saluted three times by the holy Father at Speyer, once returned him the salutation, in the hearing of all. And then at number 8 there is speech of the milk of the same Virgin, with which he was besprinkled, and also of the greeting spoken to him by the most blessed Mother of God in the celebrated monastery of Affligem; which deed is deferred to the following year. But these things we shall discuss below. Now other matters call us, which the holy Man accomplished on departing from Speyer and traversing other places of Germany.

[423] The compiler of the Cistercian Annals, under the year 1147, chapter 2, and he traverses other cities of Germany, most conspicuous for miracles. numbers 1 and 2, says: The court being dissolved, and the emperor Conrad and the bishop of Constance — whom he had had hitherto as a companion of the way, or rather as an escort — having been saluted, the holy Father, about to depart from Speyer, takes with him the abbot of Kamp of his own Order, and, traversing more swiftly the remaining cities of all Germany (which is to be understood with due allowance), and illustrating them with miracles, preached the word of the cross against the enemies of the cross. .. But what cities he ran through, and at what time, let the reader take from the very companions of the way whom he brought with him, who were present at all things: whom we send to book 6 of the Life, or On the Miracles, part 2, chapter 3; where there is treatment of the dissolving of the court at Speyer, of the Saint's passage through the city of Worms, and of miracles. Thence the holy Traveler betook himself to Koblenz and Cologne, signs accompanying him after his manner, as may be seen in the chapter just cited. Why should I report the other things which, having set out from Cologne, he wrought at Aachen, Maastricht, Liège, Gembloux, Villers, Cambrai, and other places — not even Spain being excluded from these, although he was not there, nay was never there, as will afterwards be proved at greater length? But of the Saint's innumerable prodigies there are extant most striking testimonies of writers; concerning which a place for treating will be given below. You would say that God most good and great, who alone does great wonders, had shared from the infinite treasury of his omnipotence such riches of miracles with his incomparable Wonder-worker that he seems to have willed to circumscribe them neither by number, nor by places, nor by times, nor by persons — then especially when the great Man was rousing the peoples of the West to the holy wars.

[424] While these things were being done through the holy Father, says Manrique in chapter 4, Various illustrious men accept the cross: Conrad, who had before received the standard of the holy war from his hand at Speyer, in order to expedite whatever was necessary, proclaims a general assembly in Bavaria, to be celebrated at the beginning of the month of February. Because Bernard could not attend this, he substituted the venerable Adam, abbot of Ebrach, of whom we made mention above, and willed him to be furnished both with Apostolic and with his own letters, by which he might discharge the office of a subdelegate (for that too was granted). Further, what was done there Otto of Freising, who was present at it, describes, book 1 On the Deeds of Frederick, chapter 40, binding the matter to the month of February, and among other things says: At that same hour three bishops took the cross, namely Henry of Regensburg, Otto of Freising, Reginbert of Passau, and other illustrious men, of whom mention is there made. But what meanwhile was St. Bernard doing? Let us hear Geoffrey, book 6 of the Life, or part 3 of the Miracles, chapter 6.

[425] [The Man of God, about to return to his monks of Clairvaux, is famous for miracles; the acts] It was Sunday, the feast of the Purification of blessed Mary: and Louis, king of the Franks, .. came to Châlons to meet the Man of God. Very many too of the princes of both kingdoms had assembled .., that the journey to Jerusalem might be treated of by common counsel. The same author then recounts very many miracles which were wrought by him on the journey toward Clairvaux, which will be given by us elsewhere. Further, the plan of the history of the holy war requires that we do not pass over in silence the acts of the assembly of Étampes, in which the final counsels of the journey to Jerusalem were taken, on Septuagesima Sunday, in the year in which we are, 1147. Of this assembly or conference, therefore, Odo of Deuil, praised above, writes thus from page 13: King Louis therefore calls all to Étampes at the Circumdederunt me, that they might together choose what together they should endure: who, as they were eager in coming, so would that they had been prudent in choosing! For, a multitude of bishops and nobles as glorious as it was great being gathered at the place and term, the aforesaid Abbot (Bernard), and one to be praised, both offered his presence and brought news, and by both made the assembly joyful. For he was coming from Germany, and had joined the king and the nobles of the kingdom to the soldiery of the cross of Christ. Then the letters of various nations are read, messengers are heard, and these things are drawn out until evening. In these things they spent a joyful day, and what remained they deferred to the morrow.*

[426] in the conference of Étampes; There came a day more joyful than prosperous. There were present among those assembled men who said that the Greeks, as they had learned by reading and by experience, were fraudulent. But the king and his men, who deservedly feared the strength of no nations — would that they had feared frauds! But because there is no counsel nor prudence against God, they chose the way through Greece, doomed to die. If the second day was ended, it was not favorable. Then the noble men, King Roger's envoys, go away confounded, showing plainly enough by their mourning bearing the feeling of their lord: foretelling to us concerning the wiles of the Greeks what we afterwards experienced. Nor is it a wonder if King Roger, powerful and wise, wished for the king, if he loves the Franks, being sprung from our parts. Lastly the grace of the Trinity brought round the third day, and those assembled, the grace of the Holy Spirit having first been invoked (which would that they had likewise invoked the day before!), then, a spiritual discourse having been delivered by the holy Abbot, go on concerning the guardianship of the kingdom. .. Amid these things a day is appointed at Pentecost for those about to set out. More things in the same place.

[427] where also he wrought prodigies, as likewise in very many places of Belgium: Nor indeed did the holy Father leave Étampes empty of miracles: and having set out thence likewise, he eminently illustrated by the splendor and multitude of his prodigies his journey by which he was making again for Clairvaux; on entering which he healed a boy deaf and dumb. These things are accurately reported in book 6 of the Life, or part 3 of the Miracles: whence we too shall afterwards exhibit them to the reader to be read. We give the same forewarning concerning a good many others which happened at Trier, Metz, Toul, Rutila, and of which account will be had below. There may meanwhile be added to these what Arnold Rayssius noted in the Supplement to the Natal Days of the Saints of Belgium of Jean Molanus at the XX day of August: In the Duchy of Luxembourg he also once went to the monastery of Clairefontaine, which at the present day is inhabited by nuns of the Order of St. Bernard himself: and there is seen in it a spring which even today, from St. Bernard, who prayed well over it, retains the name of the spring of St. Bernard; and, drunk with faith and devotion, is believed to be of help against diseases. He passed through a village situated on the confines of the same Duchy, by name Rutila, where by the tradition of their fathers later generations record that the same St. Bernard at that same time as it were exultingly broke forth into these prophetic words: O Rutila, Rutila, you shall one day glow red; which, that the Man of God foretold concerning the Carthusians to be introduced into that place after nearly three hundred years, and still dwelling there now, no one will deny who is willing to consider his most ardent affection toward the Carthusians. So there; I could wish it in older authors. To which may be joined a prophecy concerning the monastery of Beaupré, which the cited Rayssius narrates: of the reform of the monastery of Aulne Manrique treats under the year 1147, chapter 3 at the end: of the monasteries of Gembloux and Villers I shall speak in §47.

[428] But before we pursue the remaining things which pertain to the expedition of the East, he recalls a dead man to life while preaching in Germany: let us reckon among the almost infinite prodigies with which our incomparable Wonder-worker illustrated the apostolic labors of his German journey one of the first note. A Chronicle of Clairvaux, carried from the year of Christ 1147 to the year 1192, by an anonymous monk of Clairvaux as author, Chifflet published from an old codex of that monastery in his Asserted illustrious lineage of St. Bernard, page 81 and following; but that Chronicle thus begins:

In the year of the Lord 1147 blessed Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, preached the cross in Germany: he did many and great works of power: among which he also raised that dead man of whom there is treatment in the book of Miracles of Dom Herbert. But now, lest we linger more than is enough in heaping up matters of the sacred soldiery which are outside Bernard, of the departure of Conrad and Louis into the East Otto of Freising, so often cited before, writes in book 1, chapter 44; of their arrival, chapter 58; of Conrad's return, chapter 59; of the unhappy outcome of the sacred expedition, chapter 60. Why should I report Odo of Deuil, why Baronius, why Pagi, and others?

[429] Further, concerning this lamentable tragedy, which we ought to wonder at and revere in submissive silence, the unhappy outcome of the eastern expedition is wrongly imputed to him. but cannot scrutinize, much less comprehend, let us repeat that saying of the Apostle to the Romans, chapter 11: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and his ways past finding out. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Add that saying of the royal Seer: Your judgments are a great deep. Likewise this: You are just, O Lord, and your judgment is right. What after these things had St. Bernard deserved immortally of that sacred expedition, by so many and so great cares, journeyings, labors, and miracles? What amid the reproaches with which that most upright Man was assailed, no otherwise than as if he himself had been the cause of this most disastrous and most deplored catastrophe? What was his mind amid these things, what his feeling? Shall we seem to anyone to stray from the truth if we say that there was need of the whole of Bernard, great as he was, to digest so hard a morsel? But the man, everywhere greatest, and sustaining himself by his own virtue as much in adversity as in prosperity, possessed his soul in patience; and after a fall on every side most bitter — whether you consider the good of the Christian world, or the salvation of so many souls, or the enlargement of the divine glory, if it had otherwise seemed good to the Lord, or the calumnies fastened on the holy Father, or, in fine, all the things which were outside himself — he nevertheless stood erect within himself upon the great summit of a heroic mind, so that after his wonted manner he suffered his labor to be wanting nowhere, when he saw that it could be useful to public affairs. For indeed Manrique, under this very year 1149, in which Louis VII, king of the Franks, and the emperor Conrad returned from the unhappy expedition to Jerusalem, exhibits St. Bernard intent upon good works; as may there be read. See what we shall say afterwards in §48 toward the end; likewise §49 and §50. But under the year 1150, chapter 1, he produces his most just apology from book 2 On Consideration to Pope Eugenius. Recall to mind what was set out by us above in §36; where Otto, bishop of Freising, himself — otherwise not much wont to favor Bernard — excuses the Man of God and blames the sins of the Christians. To which, for the greater confirmation of the matter, from the Chronicle of Geoffrey, monk of the monastery of St. Martial of Limoges, and afterwards Prior of Vigeois, a monastery in the same diocese, who flourished in the same century, there may be added this in Labbe, volume 2 of the New Library of Manuscript Books, where the praised chronologer, chapter 52, writes this concerning the army of the Christians: That army accomplished nothing at all, because they bore themselves without discipline: wherefore many fell away, and innumerable perished on account of their iniquity: they carried off the treasures of the churches before the journey, promising false securities: they afflicted the lowest sort of people with dire exactions, and, pompous and proud, followed the humble Christ, and strayed in vain from the most humble Just One. So he.

* Thus begins the Mass of Septuagesima Sunday.

§ XLI. The holy Doctor's contest with Gilbert de la Porrée.

What sort of man that Gilbert was, Just as Abelard's perverse dogmas, repressed by St. Bernard, so the errors of Gilbert de la Porrée, bishop of Poitiers, vanquished by the same holy Man, stirred up great odium against him. The events of this most grave business, in which the holy Doctor engaged with so great praise, are reported by Manrique under the years of Christ 1146, 1147, and 1148: let us then return to them, and explain the passage which Geoffrey left noted on this matter in book 3 of the Life of St. Bernard, chapter 2, number 166: There was, he says, Gilbert, whom they surnamed Porretanus, bishop of Poitiers, greatly exercised in the sacred letters, but searching out things too sublime for himself even to his own folly. He was born in that same city, as Otto of Freising affirms in his Frederick, book 1, chapter 46 of the edition cited above, and from a disciple became a master, and from a master at last bishop there. From adolescence subjecting himself to the discipline of great men, and trusting more to their weight than to his own genius — of whom the first was Hilary of Poitiers, then Bernard of Chartres, at the last Anselm and Ralph of Laon, brothers german — he had drawn from them no light but a weighty doctrine, his hand not being suddenly withdrawn from the rod, and, since his knowledge was in no discord with strictness of manners and gravity of life, he had applied his mind not to jests or trifles but to serious matters. Hence it was that, preserving weight as much in gesture as in voice, he showed himself difficult in words as in deeds, so that what was said by him never lay open to childish minds, and scarcely to erudite and practiced ones, as the same Otto testifies, chapter 50.

[431] and what errors Mabillon, in his general Preface to his new edition of the Works of St. Bernard, §5, number 58, says: This Hilary I judge to be no other than that great Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, whose authority Gilbert abused, as Geoffrey testifies. Bernard of Chartres is known to me from no other source than Otto's testimony. Ralph of Laon is very well known from Guibert and from Hermann, monk of Laon, and from Geoffrey, St. Bernard's notary (see here volume VI, column 1338, that is, Geoffrey's little book against Gilbert de la Porrée, toward the end), as also Anselm his brother, dean of the church of Laon. While Gilbert composes commentaries on the Psalms and on Paul's epistles, and on Boethius, he philosophizes on some points otherwise than was lawful concerning the divinity and other heads of religion. But of his errors Otto records thus in the same chapter 50: There were among the other things objected to him four chapters concerning the divine majesty: namely, that he asserted that the divine essence is not God. That the properties of the Persons were not the persons themselves. That the theological Persons were predicated in no proposition. That the divine nature was not incarnate. And besides these he flung about other lesser chapters, that is: that, by attenuating human merit, he said that none merited except Christ. That, by emptying out the Sacraments of the Church, he said that none was baptized save one to be saved; and the rest in this manner. Go to Geoffrey's little book.

[432] Likewise he disseminated his errors, offering to others a poison infected with blasphemies. he disseminated among others; and who likewise For indeed, as Geoffrey reports in book 3 of the Life of St. Bernard, chapter 2, number 166, he set before his disciples hidden loaves, offered them stolen waters, nor readily confessed to persons of authority what he thought — nay, how greatly he was unwise. But the orthodox took it to heart to set an antidote against his poison. The events Mabillon describes from number 59 in these words: But when the bishop had delivered a discourse in a crowded assembly of his own clerics, and had disseminated those same errors, two of his archdeacons, Arnald and Calo, bring the matter to Eugenius III, then coming to the Gauls, at Siena in Tuscany. The Pontiff remits the examination of the cause to the Gauls. The archdeacons meanwhile draw Bernard to their side. The examination was made at Auxerre and at Paris, the judgment pronounced in the council of Reims of the year 1148. What was done in each assembly Otto records in few words, Geoffrey, Bernard's notary, at greater length, who both wrote a little work concerning the things done on this matter in the council of Reims, and forty years afterwards a letter to Henry, Cardinal bishop of Albano. Both writings you have here at the end of volume six.

[433] Of the assembly of Auxerre, which is recorded by Otto alone, set themselves against them we have ascertained nothing particular: but on the contrary not a few things of that of Paris. That it was held at the solemnity of Easter Geoffrey relates, and consequently in the year 1147, since the council of Reims was celebrated in mid-Lent of the following year, according to Otto, and indeed on the XI Kalends of April, according to the Appendix to Sigebert. And so before the Pontiff at Paris, before the cardinals, bishops, and other venerable and erudite men, Gilbert is set, TO ANSWER CONCERNING THESE CHAPTERS. This was done FOR SOME DAYS. There are produced against him two masters, Adam du Petit-Pont, a subtle man and lately made a canon of the church of Paris, and Hugh of Champfleury, the king's chancellor, solemnly affirming that they had heard some of those things from his own mouth. Meanwhile, while many things were objected to him from this side and that, among the rest he is said to have said: "I confess that the Father is Father by one thing, God by another; and yet is not this and this." The saying Joscelin, bishop of Soissons, took ill. These things happened on the first day. On another day, being accused of having in a prose on the Trinity called the three Persons three singulars, the archbishop of Rouen (this was Hugh the third) AGGRAVATED THE CASE, saying that God ought rather to be called one singular. So, in substance, Otto, bishop of Freising, concerning the assembly of Paris.

[434] notable men, Somewhat differently Geoffrey treats of it, before which he sets the synod of Viterbo held in the same cause. As Gilbert's accuser to the Pontiff he records one archdeacon, Arnald, to whom he gives the surname Qui-non-ridet "Who-does-not-laugh". But in the assembly of Paris he sets one adversary against Gilbert, Bernard, "upon whom every business of Christ, wherever it chanced that he was present, forthwith pressed as altogether his own." The bishop, being required to produce his own exposition on Boethius, in which the suspected chapters were contained, answered THAT HE HAD IT NOT AT HAND. But the bishop denied that he had ever taught or believed, or committed to writing, that the divinity was not God, etc. To this he produced as witnesses chiefly two of his disciples; namely Rotoldus, bishop of Évreux, afterwards of Rouen, and master Ivo of Chartres — another without doubt from that illustrious Ivo, bishop of Chartres. I judge this to be master Ivo, a Regular canon of the abbey of St. Victor at Paris, then created Cardinal by Innocent II, to whom Bernard's epistle 193 is addressed. In these altercations the Pontiff orders the aforesaid book to be brought to the future council which he purposed to celebrate in the same year in the city of Reims: although it was deferred to mid-Lent of the following year, but within one year from the assembly of Paris, which we said was held at the Easter festival preceding.

[435] and discussed his doctrine: Meanwhile the exposition on Boethius sent by the author Godescalc, then abbot at Mont-Saint-Éloi near Arras, afterwards bishop of that city, examines by Eugenius's command, and elicits from it the suspected chapters, and from the books of the holy Fathers the authorities contrary to them

he notes. More things bearing on Gilbert's life and doctrine Alberic, bishop of Ostia and legate of Aquitaine, would have brought forward, had not a premature death shortly before taken him from the midst. At last in the council of Reims "they came to the discussion of the chapters which the aforesaid abbot Godescalc had noted. But because he was too tongue-tied, that book, with the testimonies of the Saints contrary to it, was handed over by the lord Pope to St. Bernard." The council consisted of the bishops of four kingdoms, of Gaul, Germany, England, and Spain. Among these were present great men, and not moderately lettered: Geoffrey du Loroux, archbishop of Bordeaux, whose suffragan Gilbert was; Milo, bishop of Thérouanne, Joscelin of Soissons, and Suger, abbot of St. Denis: to whom Louis, king of the Franks, setting out for Jerusalem, had committed the administration of the whole kingdom, and indeed, Otto adds, ACCORDING TO THE PREROGATIVE OF THAT MONASTERY. Geoffrey du Loroux, although he did not approve Gilbert's doctrine, yet favored the man.

[436] On the first day, when they had entered the consistory, Gilbert took care that THE BODIES OF GREAT VOLUMES be brought by his clerics, pleading that only curtailed testimonies were produced by his adversaries. And "What need is there," said Bernard, "to linger longer over words of this kind? among whom St. Bernard, who in the assembly of Reims eminently pressed Gilbert, The origin of this scandal proceeds from nothing else than that many believe that you believe and teach that the divine essence or nature, his divinity, wisdom, goodness, greatness, is not God, but the form by which he is God. If you believe this, say it openly, or deny it." He dared to say that this form was not God. Then Bernard "Behold," said he, "we hold what we were seeking: let this confession be written down." So the supreme Pontiff commanded, and Dom Henry of Pisa, then subdeacon of the Roman Church, afterwards to be a monk of Clairvaux, and from abbot of St. Anastasius Cardinal priest of Saints Nereus and Achilleus, went at his command and brought paper, pen, and ink. But while he was writing that confession, "And do you," says Gilbert to Bernard, "write that the divinity is God." To this Bernard said, "Let it be written WITH AN IRON PEN ON AN ADAMANTINE NAIL." When much had been disputed to and fro, the Cardinals said that they would thereafter determine the matter. The bishops, moved by this saying, because the Cardinals reserved the determination of the cause to themselves alone, appeal to Bernard that other chapters contrary to Gilbert's be composed together with a symbol of faith, lest (which very many favorers of Gilbert among the Cardinals wished) the council should be dissolved with the matter unfinished.*

[437] And so Bernard performed this: and then the bishops offered the confession subscribed by them, through Hugh of Auxerre and Milo of Thérouanne, bishops, and abbot Suger, to the Pontiff to be confirmed. Which they easily obtained. Gilbert, being at last called into the assembly, in the notable palace whose name is Tau (so the archbishop of Reims's dwelling was called from the shape of the Greek letter) FREELY RENOUNCED EACH SEVERAL CHAPTER put forward by him; and the Pontiff condemned the same together with the author's book, strictly commanding that no one should dare to read or transcribe that same book unless the Roman Church had first corrected it. When Gilbert said that he would correct it at the Pontiff's nod, the Pontiff refused. These things in extract from Geoffrey.

[438] Otto has certain particulars in chapter 56, and certain things likewise at variance with Geoffrey. Certain particulars And first indeed he relates that Gilbert's examination was entered upon THE SYNOD BEING ENDED AND THE DECREES PROMULGATED: then, the week of mid-Lent being run out, and the sacred season of the Lord's passion beginning, Gilbert was called into the midst for judgment. Then, when the books of the orthodox Fathers had been read by him in his own defense, that Eugenius, affected with weariness, urged — what Geoffrey attributes to Bernard — that Gilbert should say simply whether he believed that supreme essence to be God. But that he, wearied with the long conference, answered inconsiderately, No. Which saying, snatched at once from his mouth, the notary took down. Upon this, the assembly being dismissed, Gilbert spent all that remained of that day's space, with the following night, in canvassing his Cardinal friends, of whom he had not a few. On the following day his writing was recited, and an account of it was demanded of the bishop: but he then at last so set forth his opinion that, if the name of God be taken for the nature itself, he would indeed concede that it was God; otherwise if for the person, lest, if he should profess this INDETERMINATELY, he should be brought to this, that whatever is said of any person should equally be asserted of the essence; and so that, just as the person of the Son, so the divine essence should be indeterminately confessed to have been incarnate and to have suffered.

[439] Otto of Freising reports in this matter, Further, that this distinction was asserted by him from the testimonies of the Fathers, of Theodoret and of Hilary, and from the authority of the council of Toledo — "which authority, when the Abbot of Clairvaux wished to determine, and had uttered some words which displeased the Cardinals" — that Gilbert asked that this be written down: but that Bernard, what Geoffrey notes, answered, LET IT BE WRITTEN WITH AN IRON PEN, ON AN ADAMANTINE NAIL. At last that the holy Abbot met with the bishops, and together with them set forth his own faith against Gilbert's chapters. Which act of the Gallican church the sacred senate of the Cardinals took so gravely that they complained of this matter to the Pontiff, both against the bishops and against Bernard himself, that, AS THOUGH SETTING THE LAST HAND TO A SENTENCE ABOUT TO BE DEFINED, they had dared, without consulting them, to write out their own faith; a matter which pertained to the Roman See. At length that Bernard, summoned by the Pontiff's command to appease the Cardinals, answered humbly and with reverence "that neither he nor the lord bishops had defined anything concerning the aforesaid chapters: but because he had heard from the same bishop of Poitiers that his own faith should be written down; therefore, since he was unwilling to do it alone, by their authority and testimony he had simply set forth what he thought."

[440] who favored Gilbert de la Porrée Which humble and modest answer being received, the aforesaid indignation of the Cardinals subsided, "yet in such wise that the aforesaid writing, as having been put forth without consulting the court, and as lacking the weight of authority, should not be held for a symbol in the Church. (And so) concerning the three chapters, on account of the aforesaid tumult, nothing could be defined." Which is no wonder, says Otto; who also adds that Gilbert differed from the other bishops in the fourth, "since they professed that the nature was incarnate, but in the Son (whereas Gilbert professed) that the person of the Son was incarnate, not without his nature. Concerning the first only did the Roman Pontiff define, that no reasoning in theology should divide between nature and Person, nor that God should be called the divine essence in the sense of the ablative only, but also of the nominative." Which sentence of the supreme Pontiff Gilbert received reverently, and, his archdeacons being received back into favor, returned to his own diocese with the integrity of his Order and the fullness of his honor.

[441] very much; but before his death applied a remedy to this matter. In all these things it appears that Otto much favored Gilbert, and therefore it is not to be wondered at that in what follows he doubts "whether the aforesaid Abbot of Clairvaux was deceived in this business, as a man, from the frailty of human infirmity: or whether the bishop, as a most lettered man, craftily concealing his purpose, escaped the Church's judgment." But Otto, when near death, as Radevicus testifies, book 2, chapter 11, ordered his book, in which he had written these things, to be brought to him, and delivered it to religious men "that if he had seemed to have said anything for master Gilbert's opinion which could offend anyone, it should be corrected at their discretion." Of this whole disputation Geoffrey deservedly refers readers to Bernard's Sermons on the Song, namely to sermon 80, in which the holy Man does not hesitate to pronounce those heretics who went on to champion Gilbert's opinion: although he spares the author's name on account of his repentance. And these indeed are the things which, concerning the cause of Gilbert de la Porrée, whose antagonist the holy Doctor was chosen to be, Mabillon learnedly gathered, having dealt with it historically enough for our purpose, so that it does not seem necessary for us to have recourse to Baronius and Manrique. To what has been said thus far, however, there may be added the narration of the biographer Geoffrey, book 3 of the Life of our Saint, chapter 2, for the sake of which passage the above things have been transcribed hither. Finally, concerning those things which Mabillon above repeatedly produced from Otto, Otto himself may be seen in his Frederick, book 1, chapter 46, chapter 47, chapters 50, 51, 52, 55, and following.

* That is, ink.

§ XLII. The Henrician heretics restrained by Father Bernard; miracles wrought by him among the people of Toulouse for the destroying of their errors.

Henry's manners and errors, As I go forward in the second chapter of Geoffrey just now cited, there offers itself at number 168 and following in our edition another passage to be elucidated, concerning the Henrician heresy repressed in the parts of Toulouse, and the miracles there accomplished in confirmation of the orthodox faith, which the great athlete of the Church, Bernard, was defending eminently and happily against that most pernicious sect, both by words and by writings. As regards the reckoning of time, the things done in this cause are affixed to the year of Christ 1147 in Baronius, Manrique, and Pagi. Now that Henry was formerly a monk, then, says Geoffrey, a vile apostate, of most wicked life, of pernicious doctrine; but this the same biographer presently recounts from the Saint's own words, adducing a fragment of the letter which is the two hundred and forty-first in order, to the prince of Toulouse, of which we shall presently say more. The errors also of that most impious man Baronius recounts from Peter of Cluny under the said year, and from him Manrique under the same year, chapter 12, marks them in these words: That baptism must be denied to infants. That temples and churches are built superfluously. That the Lord's cross is not to be honored or adored. That the body of the Lord does not exist in the Sacrament of the altar. That it is vain to pray for the dead. That God is mocked by ecclesiastical canticles and hymns. So he concerning Henry's blasphemous dogmas.

[443] And immediately the same Cistercian historian proceeds thus: against whom Pope Eugenius sent Cardinal Alberic: to whom St. Bernard is added; Pope Eugenius, kindled against these errors, decrees a legation, and appoints as legate Alberic, Cardinal of the holy Roman Church, bishop of Ostia, than whom he knew none more excellent in the sacred College, to meet effectually the creeping evil. He earnestly demands Bernard as a companion of the legation, without whom nothing great in the whole world; through whom all things might be prosperously accomplished; a man wearied and broken by so many journeys, but still necessary, and such a one as would not deny himself to the Church in her need: that his health, however useful, must be exposed, and his life exposed, lest, the people of Toulouse perishing, the plague should rage into the neighboring provinces. Therefore Bernard was given as companion to the man, after however long a pilgrimage, being now for the third time this year torn from his sons. "Under this necessity (says Geoffrey) he seized upon the journey, having already before been asked more often by the church of that region (of Toulouse), and then at last persuaded and led back by the most reverend Alberic, bishop of Ostia and legate of the Apostolic See." But first he called into a share of the solicitude Godfrey, bishop of Chartres, a man assuredly great in reputation, and no less strong in wisdom than in sanctity.* Then to Alfonso,

count of Saint-Gilles, he gave this letter announcing his coming beforehand, which Manrique inserts into his history. Besides the fragment of it which I just now indicated to stand in Geoffrey, it has not seemed good to excerpt some other things from that letter, because they are ready to hand for readers.

[444] who sends beforehand a notable letter against that heretic; I would not, however, pass over the producing of the eulogy of the same, which Baronius under the year of Christ 1147, before he weaves it into his Annals, left framed in these words at number 20: Which letter indeed, by God's benefit, still stands like a sword kept in the sanctuary, with which Goliath's head was cut off: and which may be at the same time mighty for destroying the remaining enemies of God. But when the praised author of the Annals had given it, he thought the following should be subscribed to it at number 23: You have heard, reader, whence the pseudo-apostle came, and to what he came: namely, an apostate from religion, so that, all bonds being loosed by which he was held fast lest he should melt away into the works of the flesh, and that he might be free to accomplish all the evils he wished, he taught the sons of men this liberty of the flesh. But while St. Bernard describes Henry, he plainly seems to paint in the same colors the unhappy heresiarchs of our own time, coming forth likewise from apostasy, and casting themselves headlong into the whirlpool of luxury, as swine into mire. Thus far Baronius, and wisely.

[445] and then at Toulouse sets himself against him in word and deed. Further, the holy Man's coming into the city of Toulouse, the crowds rushing upon him in the most eager affection of the peoples, and the huge fruit, Geoffrey alleged before records. To these he then subjoins the miracles by which it pleased God to confirm the word of the Herald of the orthodox faith and the vanquisher of the errors opposed to it. But of the prodigies I shall speak in the next §; when I shall first have added to the preceding, which I have already reported, particular notices which may illustrate the Henrician poison and the holy Father's labors against it. Upon this matter Mabillon long since applied himself diligently and learnedly in his general Preface to the Works of St. Bernard, §6; whence it pleases to transfer this hither:

[446] Things which bear on Henry's perverse morals, his country, his hypocrisy, Bernard's zeal for the Christian cause was exercised chiefly by the Henrician heresy, which he strenuously harried by deeds and writings. .. Henry, whom the holy Man calls an apostate monk, and after him Geoffrey, is called a pseudo-hermit in the Acts of the Bishops of Le Mans, in the third volume of our Analecta (published by the praised Mabillon), where his manners and perverse acts are accurately described. From what place he sprang these words do not sufficiently indicate: "About the same time, namely under bishop Hildebert, in the borders of the adjacent regions, there arose a certain hypocrite, whom his own action, his perverse manners, his detestable dogma proclaim worthy of scorpions and parricides' punishments." He, under a counterfeited name of sanctity and knowledge, practicing base outrages, boasted that from a mere look he knew the excesses of all mortals, unknown to the rest. Two of his disciples, sent to Le Mans, reached the suburbs of the city on Ash Wednesday. "They bore, after their teacher's custom, staves and the standard of the cross, presenting by their color and outward converse the habit of penitents." The men of Le Mans, deluded by this appearance, received them as angels. Bishop Hildebert also received them graciously, who, "being about to undertake the Roman journey, among other things enjoined upon his archdeacons that they should permit that pseudo-hermit Henry peaceful entrance and leave to discourse to the people." Of which matter he afterwards abundantly repented.

[447] From these things perhaps someone may infer that Henry sprang from a region near Le Mans, his preaching, to whose people he first offered the poison of his perverse doctrine. For if he had already been known from elsewhere, Hildebert, a learned and clear-sighted bishop, would not have admitted him so easily into his city. But he could have come thither from a distant region, and perhaps from Italy, as we shall say afterwards. Henry having entered the city, "the common sort applauded the novelty after their wonted manner. (Nay even) very many of the clerics supplied him with food, and prepared a platform whence that preacher might address the crowds; (who) was eloquent to a wonderful degree. (Having heard him) the people were turned into fury against the clerics, (holding them) as heathens and publicans: (so far that) they threatened their servants with tortures, and would neither sell them anything nor buy from them. (Nay) they had resolved not only to overthrow their houses and dissipate their goods, but to stone them or fasten them to a gibbet, had not the prince and the chief men withstood their nefarious attempts."

[448] Though this was learned too late, the clergy of Le Mans, his flight, that he might infect other regions. a written declaration being published, forbade Henry and his companions to preach. Wherefore Henry, having learned of Hildebert's return, withdrew into the castle of Saint-Calais, by no means desisting from what he had begun, but breaking out daily into worse things. Meanwhile, when Hildebert, returned from the Roman journey, wished to impart a blessing to the people, he was treated with indignity by the people, corrupted by the heretic's discourses. Then he approached the seducer, inquiring of what Order he discharged the office. But he answered that he was a deacon: who, being ordered to depart from that province, "secretly fled, about to disturb the other regions in like manner, unless report were swifter," and to infect them with his viperous breath. Thus far from the acts of Hildebert.

[449] Amid these things two of Henry's disciples, Cyprian and Peter, Two of his disciples come to their senses. came to their senses from his impostures, as Hildebert's encyclical letter 78 gives assurance: in which their master is thus depicted: "This was Henry, a great snare of the devil, and a famous armor-bearer of antichrist. To him, feigning religion by his habit and letters by his words, the aforesaid brethren adhered so long until both the baseness in his life and the error in his doctrine became known to them. For when they knew that his ways were not right ways, they first returned to themselves; thereafter they passed over to us, whose diocese he had so infected that the clergy, resisting him, scarcely maintained their liberty within the walls of the church." Thus Hildebert learned too late how great a peril hangs over us from the incautious approval of new teachers, who under a show of piety corrupt the minds of their hearers.

[450] From these things it is plain that that Henry infected Le Mans long before he came to the parts of Toulouse, He infected Le Mans before Toulouse: whence Bernard drove him out: for indeed, since the Roman journey which Hildebert, while still bishop of Le Mans, undertook — at which time that infamous impostor sowed his tares among the men of Le Mans — happened before the year 1125: in which year Hildebert passed over to the metropolitan see of Tours. But Bernard set out for the parts of Toulouse only in the year 1147. And certainly in epistle 241, which he wrote while stationed in the parts of Toulouse to Count Ildefonsus, the holy Man sufficiently hints this in these words: "Inquire, if you please, how he went out from the city of Lausanne, how from Le Mans, how from Poitiers, how from Bordeaux." For this seems to be the series of that apostate's journey, who took the beginning of his preaching from Lausanne, then from Le Mans.

[451] To that sect the name and errors of the Manichees are suitable: And perhaps he had come to Lausanne from Italy; from which dregs of this kind migrated into the Gallican parts, remnants of the Manichees, as also those heretics of Cambrai brought from Italy, who in the year 1125 were condemned in the synod of Arras, at which time also similar pests of this kind perished by fire at Orléans. And indeed the Cistercian Exordium calls the Henricians Manichees, in book 7, on the Life of St. Bernard, chapter 17, where the Pope's legate and other bishops are recorded to have come with the holy Man to the parts of Toulouse for the confuting of the heresy of the Manichees. But now in what way the name and errors of the Manichees belong to heretics of this kind and their followers, the most illustrious bishop of Meaux, in his excellent Work which he wrote on the variations of the heretics, clearly shows in book XI.

[452] St. Bernard puts the same to flight, These same Henrician heretics poured into Périgord, with Pons as leader and standard-bearer, as the letter of Heribert teaches in volume three of our Analecta: where the peculiar fabrications of those Pontians are reported. Hence it is that Bernard betook himself to the peoples of Périgord, as is plain from the third part of book 6, which is On his miracles, number 4: where it is recorded that he found very many Arians among the people of Toulouse, and that he put them, as also the heretic Henry, to flight. Nay even the same Henry, having been condemned before in the Council of Pisa, is said to have been committed to Bernard that he might become a monk at Clairvaux. But he, having received letters from Bernard to the monks of Clairvaux, chose rather to persist obstinately in the error once undertaken than to return by this short way to the road of salvation.

[453] who paints Henry in living colors. Bernard paints Henry in living colors in the aforesaid epistle 241, where he writes that he was lettered, having an appearance of piety, but given to dice and harlots. His impious dogmas he records for the most part as these: no regard for priests and clerics; the abolition of the Sacraments and of feasts; baptism denied to infants. Of another class was that heretic in Hildebert's epistle 51, who rejected the intercessions of the Saints, and wrongly attempted to draw Hildebert himself into the patronage of his sect.

* Of Chartres.

§ XLIII. Other heretics assailed by the Saint.

The Cologne heretics The cited Mabillon asks whether those heretics whom Bernard assails in Sermons 65 and 66 on the Song were the same as the Henricians. And indeed that they were no others I was at one time persuaded: but, Evervinus abbot of Steinfeld's letter having been found, which gave occasion to the aforesaid Sermons, the opinion must be changed. For those heretics were men of Cologne, agreeing indeed in some things with the Henricians, but differing from them in many. Evervinus distinguishes the men of Cologne into two classes. The one said that the Church was among themselves alone, as though they alone clung to the footsteps of Christ. In foods they forbade the use of milk and whatever is made from it. In their sacraments they covered themselves with a veil, and asserted that daily they consecrated their food and drink into the body and blood of Christ: that the rest were far from the truth in the sacraments. Besides the baptism of water they admitted another in fire and the spirit by the mere imposition of hands. But our baptism, together with marriage, they rejected. Finally they said that any one of their elect or baptized had power to baptize others who were worthy; and to make the body and blood of Christ at his own table.

[455] But the others denied to the priests of the Church, as living after a secular manner, who were of the same temper as the Henricians, the holy Man assails. the power of consecrating, and of conferring the other sacraments, except baptism, which they conferred only on adults, not on infants. Every marriage, save that which is contracted between a virgin male and female, they reckoned fornication. Lastly they rejected the suffrages of the Saints, fasts, and the other macerations of the body, as also purgatory and suffrages for the dead. And so to the Henrician and the Cologne heretics there was a common temper: hatred of the ministers of the Church, of the Sacraments, of the baptism of infants, and of marriage: a few peculiar points, which do not

argue a diversity of sect but only of so many heads. In one word, they were different branches, but coming forth from the same root. Nor should I doubt that those Cologne heretics came forth from the workshop of Tanchelm.

[456] From the above rabble of heretics there were distinguished, in name at least, the Apostolics, Against the Apostolic heretics, as they called themselves: concerning whom the Cistercian historian under the year 1147, chapter 14, consigns this to writing: The Henrician heretics being repressed, and for the greatest part reconciled to the Church, the holy Father was now returning to his own. When, behold, he fell in with another sect of men, who wished to be called Apostolics. A rustic and boorish kind indeed, and without a preceptor or leader whom they might follow; but for that reason the more difficult to dissuade; for they had to be approached each one separately, and with them neither Scripture nor reason could be used. Of these the Saint, having now returned to his sons, when he had resumed for the sake of the Church, that is, of the bride, the Song so often interrupted, says in Sermon 66: "They are rustic men, and unlearned, and utterly contemptible. But there is not (I tell you) to be dealing negligently with them. For they advance greatly toward impiety, and their word creeps like a canker." And a few things being interposed, the holy Doctor says: Ask of them the author of their sect; they will give none. What heresy has not had from among men its own heresiarch? The Manichees had Manes as their prince and preceptor; the Sabellians Sabellius; the Arians Arius; the Eunomians Eunomius; the Nestorians Nestorius. So all the other pests of this kind are known to have had each their own human masters, from whom they drew alike their origin and their name. By what name or title will you reckon these? By none. Since their heresy is not from man, nor did they receive it through man, etc.

[457] But now, since they had neither an author nor a name, that they wished to be called Apostles the Saint attests in the same letter in these words: as they called themselves, he also drew his pen, I am not ignorant that they boast that they and they alone are the body of Christ. But let them persuade themselves of this who also hold this persuaded, that they have power daily at their own table to consecrate the body and blood of Christ for the nourishing of themselves into the body of Christ and his members. For they boast that they are successors of the Apostles, and call themselves Apostolics, yet are able to show no sign of their apostolate. You have St. Bernard's words concerning those heretics: whose saying if you consider — By what name or title will you reckon these? By none — it is more probable that they were different from the Henricians in name and in author. Yet Mabillon reckons them among the men of Cologne in his note on the passage just produced, observing this: I know not whether Bernard would have said that if those men of Cologne had had Henry, from whom the Henrician heretics, as their author. Although the dogmas of both were similar, as is plain to one comparing epistle 240. Two classes of the men of Cologne Evervinus notes, which Bernard distinguishes only obscurely at the end of Sermon 65.

[458] praised by Baronius. Against the most impure and most perverse dogmas of sectaries of this kind, therefore, the holy Doctor drew his pen. See his Sermons 65 and 66 already alleged, and also the most Eminent Baronius under the year of Christ 1147, concluding the matter with this eulogy of the holy Man: Whom, since I know for certain that he was divinely illustrated with knowledge, sent and approved by God in the power of manifold miracles, and imbued with an eminent holiness of life, and was a friend of God; cleaving to him most inwardly, who cleaved to God, I stand secure, deploring out of Christian charity those most abandoned innovators who, being plainly struck with an immense blindness, defer more to those brutish heretics, followers of the most nefarious men, than to Bernard: so that one must justly cry out with Jeremiah: Be astonished, O heavens, at this.

[459] [Besides other miracles wrought among the people of Toulouse in confirmation of the faith,] What Geoffrey, assigned above, reports concerning the holy Doctor's miracles wrought among the people of Toulouse in confirmation of the orthodox faith against the Henrician rabble is so sparing that it deserves to be supplemented from other documents. And in the first place let that come forth which is read in the Great Exordium of the Cistercian Order in Tissier, distinction 2, chapter 18: While the most reverend Father was still staying in that same region (of Toulouse), and, as one of the Apostles, was going about through castles and cities, evangelizing and healing all languors, refuting also, convicting, and confuting the most base ravings of the heretics; it happened that a certain blind man in that same neighborhood, having learned of the report of the powers and signs which through the hands of the Man of God were multiplied day by day, being animated with hope of recovering health, resolved to go to that same Servant of God, if perchance by the benefit of the heavenly grace which through him was copiously bestowed on wretched mortals, to him too, the darkness of his blindness being wiped away, the sweet light might be restored. Hastening therefore, and anxiously inquiring where he might find the Holy One of God, he heard that he was standing in a certain crowded assembly in the midst of a great multitude, and sowing the word of life.

[460] The Saint, even absent, restores sight to a blind man: Whither, when he had come, stumbling with his feet and running out of breath, he is struck with the sad news that the Man of the Lord had already withdrawn thence and passed over to other places. What then should he do, since, while the desire of receiving health compelled him to run further, the thickest darkness which had beset his eyes rendered him slow and less unencumbered. And when, set in a failing of mind, he was wasting away with much sadness, suddenly, inspired by divine grace, and conceiving hope from the merits of the most blessed Man with his whole heart, he said to the bystanders: I beg by the mercy of God, lead me to that place in which you most certainly know that the Man of God stood or sat. And when by the good will of those present he had at once obtained this, coming to the place he prostrates himself with his whole body on the ground, kissing with wonderful devotion the very dust on which the sacred footprints of the Man of God had stood, and earnestly imploring the Lord's mercy also through the merits of his Servant. And while he did this, and, full of faith, rubbed his eyes with that dust, suddenly, by the mercy of the Lord — who deigned to declare the sanctity of his Servant, though absent, in this grace also — he received the light of his eyes. Which deed not only brought to Catholics a strengthening of the orthodox faith, but also increased for the malignant heretics the mark of confusion and reproach. Thus far the Exordium.

decreverit*.

§ XLIV. Hardened heretics punished by God; Bernard's sanctity and miracles are in the highest veneration among the people of Toulouse; from there he did not set out into Spain.

resisting heretics But our holy Wonder-worker furthered the cause of God and of the true faith among the people of Toulouse not only by divine favors, but also restrained with punishments those who, hearing the voice of the Lord through Bernard, hardened their hearts, according to the Chronicle presently to be cited: A land therefore sick with the disgrace of so great infidelity the religious man blessed Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, conspicuous in life and learning, kindled with zeal for the faith, at one time visited, and judged that he must go with all speed to the castle of Verfeil, which at that time was flourishing with a multitude both of knights and of common folk, intending that, if he could there extinguish the heretical depravity which had greatly infected that place, he would the more easily prevail against it in others. And when he had begun to set forth a discourse in the church against those who were the greater men there, they went out of the church: whom the people also followed: whom the blessed Man following, began to set forth the word of God in the street. But they hid themselves everywhere through the houses. Yet while he none the less preached to the little crowd standing about, but they made a din and beat upon the doors, so that the people could not catch his voice, and alleging the word of God, shaking off the dust of his feet in testimony against them, that he might declare them to be dust and to be about to return into dust, he went out from them, and looking back at that castle cursed it, saying: Verfeil, may God dry you up.*

[462] Which indeed persists by manifest tokens. For at that time, are punished by God: as the ancient report holds, there were in that same castle a hundred lodgings of knights having horses with insignia and arms, and not coming back for another's oats, but for their own; from that time on true poverty, like an armed man, began to meet them frequently; whom either frequent hail, or barrenness, or sedition, or war did not allow to rest even a little. For I myself, when I was a child, saw the noble man lord Isarn Nebulatus, who had been the greater lord of Verfeil, who was well said to be a hundred years of age, staying at Toulouse most poorly, content with one nag. But in what manner and how greatly it has been visited, by God's judgment, upon the several lords of that same castle who fell away, the very evidence of things declares: since what the holy Man had cursed could not be repaired, until, the Count of Montfort giving that castle to the venerable father lord Fulk, bishop of Toulouse, from that time it began little by little, the lords being driven out thence, to be reformed; as what follows will declare in its own place. These things are narrated in the Chronicle of master William of Puylaurens, which Catel published at the end of his History of the Counts of Toulouse, chapter 1. Two terms occurring in the text I explain. Viride folium, in the vernacular Verfeil, is a castle in the diocese of Toulouse, near which St. Dominic afterwards engaged with the Albigensian heretics, as may be seen in volume one of this month of August, on the IV day, page 400. But roncinus is here to me a lesser horse, of the common sort, in French roncin, roucin, or rossin. Consult Du Cange's Glossary*. By these things, then, are supplemented what Geoffrey records concerning St. Bernard's miracles among the people of Toulouse.

[463] the fame of his sanctity and his miracles win for the Saint a wonderful esteem: Further, his miracles and preaching, and also the fame of his exceptional sanctity, stirred up there a wonderful veneration toward him; as is plain from this, that at his very coming to the people of Toulouse, and thus before he had perhaps wrought any sign among them, he was already then so beloved there that nothing could exceed it. Let Geoffrey be heard, book 3, chapter 2: But coming, he was received with incredible devotion by the people of that land, as if an angel had come from heaven. Nor could he make any stay among them, because no one could restrain the crowds that rushed upon him, etc. What of this, that the multitude of the peoples rushing on, demanding a blessing and kissing his sacred hands, was so great that, his most tender and utterly wasted flesh being unable to bear the pressure and the onset of those frequently kissing him, his sacred hands and arms swelled up to the size of fists, and, from whence others procured a blessing for themselves by the power which went out from him, thence he himself, weakened and utterly shattered, endured grievous distresses of body; from the Great Exordium, distinction 2, chapter 18, after the report of the signs of the holy Man which were wrought in the region of Toulouse.

[464] which a certain follower of Henry the heretic But so signal was the veneration there conceived concerning him and deeply implanted in men's minds, and had so openly shone forth, that by a certain malevolent and heretical sycophant it not only could not be plucked up or obscured, but shone even more brightly, the loquacity of that pert fellow, with which he assailed the Man of God, being blunted by his prudent answer.

The deed the Great Exordium narrates, distinction 2, chapter 17: At a certain time, it says, when the legate of the lord Pope and other bishops were drawing with them the Holy One of the Lord, Bernard, to the parts of Toulouse for the confuting of the heresy of the Manichees, the brethren prepared for him a mount better than usual, which might suffice for so long a journey. And when he had come to those parts, the bishops accompanying him, a certain Henry, a black monk, but then a vile apostate and prince of those same heretics, having learned of the coming of the Servant of God, feared before his face, knowing that he could not resist the wisdom and the spirit which spoke in him. Accordingly he hid himself in hasty flight, and could by no means be found anywhere at that time.

[465] There too the Lord glorified his Servant in the sight of all the people and of the princes of the land, working daily through his hands signs and great prodigies among the people. with a shameless sarcasm Nor can it easily be believed what an infinity of crowds followed the apostolic Man all day long: while some sought instruction from him, others healing, all a blessing. On a certain day, therefore, an innumerable multitude of men being present, when he had more copiously moved them concerning the preserving of the Catholic faith and the avoiding of the unclean fellowship of the heretics, it happened that there was present a certain one of those heretics who seemed more powerful and more prudent than the rest. Who, when with a bitter eye he beheld the veneration which the people bestowed on the Servant of God, was contriving to do something whereby he might in some measure becloud the brightness of his reputation and set a stain on his glory. And now, all things being finished which seemed necessary for the present, the Man of God had mounted his horse to depart. And behold, the aforesaid heretic, like a twisting serpent with head erect, came before the Man of God, and crying out before all said: Lord abbot, know that our master's nag, which seems to you so poor a beast, is not so thick-necked and fat as that steed of yours.

[466] Hearing which, the meek and patient Man answered him at once with tranquil countenance and mind, saying: rather increased than diminished. I do not deny, friend, what you assert. Nevertheless it behooves you to know that that beast at which you jeer at me is a brute animal, one indeed of those which nature has fashioned prone and obedient to the belly. And if it eats at its pleasure and grows fat, justice is in nothing harmed thereby, because the beast does what is its own. Accordingly we shall not be called to account in the judgment of God, I and your master, for the necks of beasts: but each one shall be judged for his own neck. Now therefore, if you please, look at my neck and see: and if it is thicker than your master's neck, thereby you will perhaps justly reprove me. And having said this he took off his hood, and, his head being bared down to the shoulders, his neck appeared as it was, long and slender: which, although it was eaten away of flesh and thin, was nevertheless by a heavenly gift exceedingly beautiful and white, like the neck of a swan. When all who were present saw this, they rejoiced with great joy, blessing the Lord who gave in the mouth of his Servant an answer so ready and so fitting, whereby the mouth of those who speak iniquity might be confounded and stopped.

[467] The Cistercian Annalist, when under the year 1147, chapter 13, [There are those who will have it that the holy Man set out from the parts of Toulouse into Spain;] he had taught how eminently St. Bernard bore himself in the preaching at Toulouse, reports and refutes the opinion of those who will have it that the Man of God set out into Spain. If this opinion were true, that journey must be linked to this year, he observes, for two causes: both because in it the monastery of La Espina was founded, as we shall say, he says, in its own place; and because from Toulouse the passage was easier, since the province is neighboring to Spain. So he, subjoining arguments against this ill-founded opinion; but we shall bring them forward from elsewhere. When in the year of Christ 1721 we were at Madrid, the posthumous manuscripts of Nicolás Antonio, a most illustrious man, very well known to the republic of letters by the Bibliotheca Hispana published by him, were most kindly communicated to us by the very reverend and most eminent lord Adrian de Coninck, a near kinsman by blood of the praised author. But in those manuscripts this most famous Spanish writer is wholly taken up with assailing and overthrowing the fabulous fictions and apocryphal inventions of the famous — nay rather, let us speak openly, infamous — pseudo-chronographers. Let us produce here, then, what we have drawn from his manuscripts for the present purpose. He confutes a passage of the counterfeit Julian Peter, archpriest of St. Justa, published in print, which is in his Adversaria, page 96, number 418:

[468] It is also new and hitherto unheard of, nay most false, that St. Bernard, most holy abbot of Clairvaux, was in the Spains, and whatever of lies and follies is contained in the place just cited. but their I read, then, this in the Adversaria: From the time when the emperor Alfonso took the city of Toledo and restored it to the Christians, he ordered that it be called an imperial city, the head of the Toledan and Spanish empire; and he was crowned emperor, as has been said, by the authority of Pope Anastasius IV: and therefore Bernard of Clairvaux calls him so. This holy Man came into Spain with brother Bernard, and visited the monasteries at Toledo of St. Clement and of St. Dominic of Silos, and afterwards wrote to the nuns of St. Clement. He founded in Spain the monastery called of La Espina. This fabulist the praised Nicolás Antonio thus chastises: In the first place he childishly confounds the two Alfonsos, VI and VII: for the sixth took Toledo from the Moors; but the seventh, the former's grandson by his daughter Urraca, was he whom he had already taught us in his Chronicle to have been crowned emperor by the authority of Pope Anastasius .., although both of them are called emperor by him, as indeed they were called.

[469] opinion Then, what is said, that St. Bernard wrote to this Alfonso VII, attributing to him the title of emperor, is equally false; or certainly you will nowhere find an indication of the thing among the letters of the holy Abbot. Two are published to an Alfonso; but to the first king of Portugal, namely CCCVIII and CCCLXVII, which are nothing to Julian's purpose. But that the same Bernard came to the Spains the author of a certain part of his Life denies in open words — Geoffrey, monk of Clairvaux, the holy Father's pupil, and one who says that he was present at all which he narrates. He is the author of the second book, which is elsewhere called the third and the fourth and the fifth, of the Life of St. Bernard; as is established from the preface of this part in the editions arranged by the zeal of that most illustrious man Jacques Merlo Horst. (We have the Paris edition of the year 1658.) Most openly he, when he had entitled chapter six of book 4 Concerning various and illustrious miracles wrought at Cologne, Aachen, Liège, Cambrai, and in Spain, thus prefaces concerning the Spanish miracles: "For in Spain also, where he himself was not present, the tokens of his sanctity shone forth." Which testimony of Geoffrey indeed that most learned writer of the Benedictine Order, F. Antonio de Yepes, uses, volume 7, century 7, at the year 1146, folio 370, column 4, to convict the error of a certain person (this our own Juan de Mariana committed in his History of the Affairs of Spain, book 10, chapter 12, under the year 1123) who, deceived by not obscure words of the holy Abbot to Peter the Venerable returning from Spain, epistle 227 (which is 228 in Mabillon's edition), believed that Bernard was speaking of himself. Nor do we find any confirmation of the letter addressed to the nuns of St. Clement of the city of Toledo, which in any case commends a ruinous assertion of its authenticity.

[470] and perceive He closes the column of lies with the foundation attributed to that most holy Man of the monastery of La Espina among us, which in a pleasant place of both kingdoms, of Castile and of León, distant six leagues from Valladolid and five from the city of Toro, rejoices in that name on account of the thorn of the Lord's crown preserved in it, and given to the infanta Sancha, sister of the emperor Alfonso VII, foundress of the house, by Louis called the Younger, king of France, as she was passing through Paris. The matter the same Yepes narrates in the same volume 7, at the year 1143, chapter 1, folio 328, having adduced and explained those things which seemed in some manner to signify that the monastery, suitably endowed, was offered and delivered into his hands by Sancha with Bernard present; namely the charter of endowment itself, in which the pious heroine says that she gives as a gift to Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, the inheritance of St. Peter of La Espina, and likewise a certain privilege of King Alfonso, Sancha's brother, similarly conceived for the enlargement of the same house: which things indeed men have everywhere been accustomed to say of the absent as much as of the present, for whose favor donations and offerings are solemnized.

[471] For indeed that St. Bernard, his brother Nivard having been sent into the Spains (we read Bernard in Julian), of the pseudo-Julian Peter of whom, on his return thence and from Sancha, the most holy Man makes mention in a certain letter addressed to her, which is the 301st, applied hand and industry to the building, as the receiver of the pious donation, is the constant tradition of that same house, confirmed by these rude but ancient verses, which the members of the house report as inscribed here and there on the old walls and woven into the hangings:

He seeks — [ ] — he builds — [ ] — he enriches

Sancha — Bernard through Nivard — Alfonso

It protects — [ ] — he opens

the crown of thorn — [ ] — Peter.

For to Peter, prince of the Apostles, that house of religious was first dedicated, and the church afterwards named of St. Mary. That Bernard visited the monasteries of St. Clement of Toledo, of nuns; likewise of St. Dominic of Silos, of men, Julian falsely said, lying about the most illustrious Abbot's coming to us.

[472] Further, of the foundation of St. Peter of La Espina Manrique treats under the year 1147, chapter 18; from the manuscripts of Nicolás Antonio where, from St. Bernard's epistle 301, which was cited above, he confesses that Nivard's coming into Spain is more established than its end (Nivard being the youngest of the holy Doctor's brothers according to the flesh — or is it another?). But if anyone desires to know more of the pseudo-Julian Peter, archpriest of St. Justa of Toledo, as he names himself, let him consult the praised Nicolás Antonio, volume 2 of the Bibliotheca Hispana Vetus, chapter 8, where that erudite author examines his Works and chastises them as false and fabricated, and strips the mask from their counterfeit inventor. But in chapter 9 he produces eighteen passages, from which it may be plain to anyone that Julian's Chronicle and Adversaria are refuted.

[473] What of this, that Tamayo himself — otherwise so credulous, is refuted. and so wretchedly simple and immoderate an appraiser of pseudo-Chronicles of this kind — in his Spanish Martyrology, volume 2, at the III day of April, page 469, was compelled to pronounce this: We see everywhere in these Adversaria of Julian so many follies of glosses that we should rather be compelled to swallow iron than them. But let these things be reported, as it were incidentally, concerning the fabricated journey of St. Bernard into Spain. Certainly the plainly apostolic Man abounds and shines with true journeys, and those so many, for the extinguishing of schisms and the extirpating of heresies, that it is by no means necessary to invent a false one for him. Now it seems to us opportune, to these things which in that kind

we have narrated before that he did in driving evils away from the Church of God, to subjoin the innumerable goods, or the advancement, in amending the manners of the Christian commonwealth.

That is, misfortune, in French disgrace*.

* That is, war.

§ XLV. The holy Father fruitfully intent upon amending the manners of ecclesiastics, of monastics, and of seculars.

[It is shown in detail how much good the Saint did among the prelates of the Church and the clergy] The matter and form of this subject we owe, and acknowledge as received, from the most erudite Mabillon, who in his general Preface to his new edition of the Works of St. Bernard, §3, thus records: The corrupted manners of his own age the holy Man everywhere laments and deplores, chiefly in the ministers of the Church, most of whom he brought to better fruit: so far that the whole face of the Church and of the clergy, especially the Gallican, was thoroughly changed by his admonitions and discourses, and restored to its ancient honor. For indeed he supplied to the Roman See Eugenius, a most holy man, and in him instructed all the Roman Pontiffs in the right and lawful administration of their dignity, and kindled them by the plainly divine books published On Consideration. Among bishops he recalled Henry of Sens, Stephen of Paris, and very many others from a courtly manner of living to manners worthy of the episcopal order: he also brought forward many of his own men as bishops for the example of others. To all clerics he gave salutary admonitions in the Sermon on Conversion, to the clergy. All which if anyone desires to see accurately, let him read the sixth book of the Life of St. Bernard published in French, of which Life the three later books have been woven together from his writings with great piety and with a signal selection. Of the manners and office of bishops there must chiefly be read epistle 42 to Henry of Sens, which has just now been placed in the class of Treatises in volume two. Deservedly therefore is he said, in the book On the Bishops of Verdun, to be that Bernard on whose counsels the kingdoms and the Gallican churches today, says the author in d'Achery's Spicilegium, volume 12, page 311, LEAN.

[475] to be directed to a right rule of life: There was in him a marvelous grace of speech, "so that not even his own style, though excellent, could retain all that sweetness, all that fervor. (For indeed) God had given him a tongue soothing and persuasive and learned, that he might know what discourse he ought to utter and when: to whom, namely, consolation or entreaty; to whom exhortation or rebuke would be suitable: as those will be able in some measure to know who have read his writings, though far less than those who often heard his words" — from the Life in our edition, number 158. But if we are so kindled in reading his writings, how much more those who heard him speaking? It is no wonder, therefore, that God wrought so many and so great things through him for the salvation of the men of his time.

[476] how excellently likewise he roused But who could set forth what and how great things were accomplished by him for reawakening the primal fervor of the monastic institute? To this his excellent letters and writings on this matter bear witness: the book On Precept and Dispensation, the Apology to Abbot William, and various Sermons: in which he animated monks to retain and recall the primary institute of the ancient Fathers, that is, to the labors of penance, austerities, modesty and humility, poverty, contempt of the world, love of solitude and silence, and to continual progress: in which he understood the hinge of the whole monastic cause to turn. Hence not undeservedly Peter the Venerable, in the letter which is the 228th among Bernard's, calls him at number 30 "a milk-white and strong column, upon which leans the edifice of the monastic Order; and a ruddy star which by example and by word gave light signally in its time not only to monks but to the whole Latin Church."

[477] Laurence of Liège, in his book On the Bishops of Verdun, the monastic compares two Orders, the Cistercian and the Premonstratensian, with the two Cherubim overshadowing the propitiatory: "of which the one, the Cistercian, under Bernard, abbot of most holy name, as leader, restored the monastic Order, now almost fallen, to the first rule of the apostolic life. (And) the Cistercian indeed, in this three years' space," he says, "has already grown to about two hundred abbeys of great name, merit, and number; and has already begun to spread even to the barbarous Sarmatians and the farthest Scythians." So much could Bernard's fame and the report of his sanctity, and that of his disciples, effect! Hence it came about that Bernard himself was accounted as it were the founder of the Cistercian Order, which had Bernard for a pupil, and from his monastery of Clairvaux the Order was in his own time called the Clairvaux Order; nay afterwards even St. Bernard's: although Innocent VIII forbade this in his letters of the union of the monastery of Clairvaux with Cîteaux.

[478] Hence in the letters of Albero, bishop of Verdun, in the Laurence just praised, fervor. the abbots of Trois-Fontaines and of Chaalis are said to be "of the Order of Clairvaux." And by Peter of Celle it is called "the Cistercian, or Clairvaux, Order" in book 1, epistle 24. So in the letter of Samson, bishop of Reims, which is the 435th in order among Bernard's, mention of the Order of Clairvaux is had more than once. Although it may be said that by the name of the Order of Clairvaux the Clairvaux line only, not the whole Order, is more often designated.

[479] What and how great was the strictness and rigidity of the Cistercians, or of the monks of Clairvaux, under Bernard, is not necessary to set forth in this place, since it is sufficiently and more than sufficiently plain both from Bernard's letters and writings and from his Life, especially from book 1, chapter 5, where the first inhabitants of Clairvaux are recorded to have served God [He exercised also an austere manner of living among his Cistercians or monks of Clairvaux,] "in poverty of spirit, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, in many watchings. Their pottages they often made from the leaves of the beech. Their bread was of barley and vetch and millet." So William, an eyewitness. To Bernard in epistle 1 to Robert, "herbs, beans, porridge, and coarse bread with water" are said to be the delicacies of the Cistercians. Nor are there others in Fastred in his letter among Bernard's. "So great is their parsimony in food," says Stephen of Tournai in epistle 72, "that they use only two pottages, which either the field affords from pulse or the garden from herbs. They use fish so much the more rarely as among them it is wont more frequently to be heard of than to be seen." See more in the same author, and in Peter of Celle.

[480] This vigor of the Order persevered not only to the end of the twelfth century, the manner of life, which is plain from Peter of Blois's epistle 82; but even beyond the middle of the thirteenth century, as James of Vitry testifies in chapter 13 of the Western History: "Flesh," he says, "they do not eat, save in grave infirmity. On fish, eggs, milk, and cheese they do not commonly feed*," etc. The same severity of life we French now see flourishing again in the most devout monks of Blessed Mary of La Trappe, and in some other imitators of them: who by the purity of their life, their austerity, love of solitude, silence, labor, and their other religious virtues, establish as possible in practice what we used to read of Bernard and his disciples, and scarcely believed.

[481] the female sex also not being excluded from it: The same James of Vitry subjoins in the following chapter that the more fragile sex of women had not dared, from the beginning of the Order, to aspire to the severity of so great a strictness; but that this only afterwards came into custom. Nevertheless, while Bernard himself was living, the female sex was not altogether without a share in that institute. This Hermann, monk of Laon, proves in book III On the miracles of St. Mary, chapter 17; where he treats of Montreuil, a convent of Cistercian virgins near Laon, built by bishop Bartholomew: in which the nuns under abbess Guiburgis, "all linen and fur garments being laid aside, used woolen tunics only; and not only by spinning or weaving, but also by digging in the fields, and with axe and mattock grubbing up the felled wood, plucking out thorns and briars, laboring assiduously with their own hands, sought their living in silence, and imitated in all things the life of the monks of Clairvaux."

[482] he drew illustrious princes to the monastic life: Our discourse would go on too long if we brought forward all the more illustrious persons of either sex whom Bernard drew to the monastic life — those, that is, whom we know: such as were Henry, son of Louis VI, king of the Franks, Ermengard, duchess of Brittany, Adelais of Lorraine, and innumerable other men and women. But that is a little less to be proclaimed and wondered at than that he persuaded men remaining in the world to a most devout and most upright manner of living. "There adhered to him above all indeed among the princes Count Theobald, and exposed himself and his goods for the support of Clairvaux, and placed his soul in the Abbot's hands, laying aside his princely loftiness, showing himself among the servants of God a fellow servant, not a lord, so as to obey in all things whatsoever the lowest of that house should ask." What so great a prince performed at Bernard's admonition and exhortation, both in building, endowing, and helping monasteries, and in relieving the needy, and finally in discharging the office of a best prince, abbot Ernaldus is witness, from whom we have reported the foregoing: witnesses also are Bernard's letters concerning him. Theobald's pious zeal a noble and illustrious woman, Beatrix, emulated, as we learn from epistle 118.

[483] Bernard's authority availed much in correcting men's manners. Finally, how much Bernard's authority availed in correcting men's manners the conversion of William, Duke of Aquitaine, is an example, whom from a most pertinacious schismatic he made a most compliant and most devout prince. To conclude in few words with Geoffrey: "What crimes did he not reprove? What hatreds did he not extinguish? What scandals did he not restrain? What schisms did he not mend? What heresies did he not confute?*" These are the things which Mabillon gathered concerning the advancement of manners in the Church of God, spread abroad in every direction by the great Bernard among every kind of men. But the things which pertain to heresies and schisms, worn away by the Man's dexterity and labor, have been treated by us at sufficient length elsewhere.

Perhaps rigor*.

In Mabillon's edition it is wrongly read compescuit?*

§ XLVI. Whether St. Bernard was saluted by an image of the Mother of God at Speyer; whether he was besprinkled with her virginal milk.

The salutation at Speyer, Above in our preliminary Commentary, §40, three illustrious deeds which are ascribed to the most holy Father were reserved for this place. The first was concerning an image of the Virgin Mother of God, which, being saluted three times by the holy Man at Speyer, is recorded to have once returned him the salutation, in the hearing of all, in Manrique under the year 1146, chapter 10, number 6. The second was concerning the virginal milk of the same Mother of God, with which St. Bernard is reported to have been besprinkled, from the same author in the same place, number 8. The third, finally, consisted in this, that he was saluted by the voice of the most blessed Virgin Mary among the monks of Affligem. Let us speak of each. The first the Cistercian historian just cited narrates from Johann Nauclerus, who, speaking of that matter, says: In this they agree, that Bernard came to Spita, where there was then so great a concourse of the people to venerate him,

that the emperor, lest the people should trample him, deigned to carry him out with his own hands. There are extant three circles in the pavement of the greater church, where the Man of God, prostrate on the ground, is reported to have saluted the virgin Mary three times. To whom the virgin Mary said, "Hail, Bernard." This Johann Nauclerus writes in generation 39, among other things which he records under the year of Christ 1142. This prodigious salutation by the Mother of God the same Manrique attempts to confirm, going on thus: On the circles are carved those words which the faithful are wont to chant at the end of the antiphon which we call from its beginning Salve Regina. And this antiphon, ending in those words, and show us Jesus, the blessed fruit of your womb, after this exile, Father Bernard is confidently reported to have recited, and, having recited it, to have added still more confidently that threefold invocation: at which the image of the Virgin, being moved and accepting his homage, was heard in like manner to salute the Saint in return: Hail, Bernard. So there; upon which I set before the reader, free of partisan zeal and a lover of truth, a few observations.

[485] In the first place, Johann Nauclerus is abundantly known, whom I read to have been a German by nation, because ancient authors did not mention it, a Swabian by country, and by dignity Provost of Tübingen. He published a Universal Chronicle, succinctly comprising the memorable affairs of all ages and nations from the founding of the world to the year 1500. But he flourished at the end of the sixteenth century, and thus about four centuries after the Saint's death. Nor indeed does the is reported, which Nauclerus uses, little weaken the credit of the transaction. A testimony of better note, therefore, seems needed, that the aforesaid salutation of the Mother of God to Bernard may be admitted as historically true: especially for this reason, that in book 6 of the Life of St. Bernard, or part 1 of the miracles, chapter 2 — where eyewitnesses with the highest fidelity and accuracy report so many and so great wonders concerning the Man of God which happened at Speyer — they have not one jot concerning that salutation; where, however, not to pass this over in silence would have conduced so greatly to the Saint's glory. Nor do I conceive how they could have been ignorant of the transaction, since, in the hearing of all, as it is in Manrique cited above, it occurred.

[486] But although we would not from the silence of the ancients on this matter determine for certain it seems to us less probable. that that salutation is false; yet before we admit it as true, we earnestly wish all who are thoroughly versed in and studious of Bernardine matters to be asked to deign to supply to the republic of letters suitable documents by which the present fact, which seems to us less probable, may become truly and historically probable. Nor does the Reverend and Very Reverend Father Augustine Sartorius, an ascetic of the sacred Cistercian Order, settle the matter, when in his Cistercium bis-tertium, printed at Old Prague in the year 1700, title 4, which is On St. Bernard, propagator of the Cistercians, page 91, he writes thus of the statue which is said to have saluted the Saint: This very statue of the Virgin down to this our own age preserves by the exceptional worship of the Faithful the perennial memory of the Mother of God and of her Mellifluous client. For this memory or tradition, such as it is (would that it were not merely popular!), by no means seems to weaken the arguments proposed above. Hear now the absurd folly with which William Eisengrein — whom we shall presently cite — disfigures this history, under the year of Christ 1147: These words having been uttered by Bernard, a voice breaking forth from the image declares that Bernard had come pleasing to God and to all men, all who were present hearing it. Bernard, struck by this voice, marveling, forbids the image, saying that women ought to be silent in church. Which indeed is to trifle in a matter so serious. Our Papebroch, in his manuscript Roman Journey, which he undertook in the year 1660, page 39, writes thus among other things of the statue at Speyer which is said to have bidden St. Bernard hail: To it all our students gather daily about the fifth hour, and chant the Salve with litanies. So he. Their pious faith, moreover, is to be praised, and their religious affection toward the Virgin Mother. But now what shall we say of the milk of the Mother of God, with which they will have it that the holy Father was besprinkled, if they judge that this must be understood in a physical or real sense, and not in a mystical one?

[487] Various arguments being reported That fact which I touched above in the second place must now be examined at somewhat greater length. Manrique narrates it in these words at number 8: Nor likewise are authors wanting, and those weighty ones, to whom it is pleasing that that Virginal favor, never sufficiently proclaimed by anyone although always proclaimed by all, concerning Bernard besprinkled with Mary's milk, is perhaps to be referred to this same time. Which, first handed down by William Eisengrein in the Chronicle of Speyer (would that Manrique had indicated the year!) and approved by Canisius and Coster (he does not say where), our Bivarius, book 2 of the Bernardus vindicatus, §10, and others — namely Henriquez in the Menologium, May XIII — have confirmed. To us, though the favor itself be certain — which nevertheless there have not been wanting those who denied (Jean Bertels, Dialogue 8, is set in the margin), on however light and gross a foundation — the place and time still remain doubtful: and of the time scarcely anything can be written; of the place, if anything certain can be had, I judge it must be referred to Châtillon. But of these and other not unlike matters there must be treatment more fully at the Man of God's death, for which place we of set purpose reserve them. But, not consulting the order and perspicuity of this matter, we shall pursue in a continuous discourse this matter, which we have now begun to treat, recalling hither the fuller narration of the same from the year 1153, chapter 12, to which Manrique transferred it.

[488] by which The signal favors of Christ and of the Virgin, he says, shown to Father Bernard, and under which he is generally wont to be depicted — now besprinkled with the milk of the Virgin Mary, now clasped by the arms of the hanging Redeemer; and likewise another, though less common, yet no less certain, by which the Mother offered her Son to that same Saint: because I have found that it concerns no fixed time, I have of set purpose reserved for this place. And indeed it is ascertained that these were received rather by tradition than by writing; by that constant tradition, and handed down from fathers to sons as it were from hand to hand: whose credit, though sometimes less, is wont to be less shaken — this in ancient matters, I confess, being rarer, and expressed rather in pictures than in letters, yet not therefore to be esteemed of less value, etc. Thus the Cistercian historian prefaces, and presently begins from Christ; concerning whom we shall speak below. Then he goes on thus at number 6 to our purpose: As regards the milk of the blessed Virgin, still more received and more widely spread in sacred images: so that authors vary more concerning the time and the place than concerning the favor itself: which, granted to Bernard, there is no one who doubts. One Jean Bertels alone, whom I have seen, calls it into doubt in Dialogue 8 on the Rule of St. Benedict; but on so gross and careless a foundation that it does not deserve to be confuted by us. "Because no one doubts," he says, "that Mary went before Bernard by many centuries." As though indeed anyone had ever thought that the sacred Virgin, mortal and passible, offered her breast to Bernard to be sucked; or as though after his glorious passing she would not remain to endure eternally, both glorious in the heavens and in her images on earth. But these things being omitted, because trifling, of the others I see that no one doubted.

[489] It is true nevertheless that authors vary concerning the place, various some referring it to Speyer, when Father Bernard had devoutly saluted the Virgin Mother, clement, loving, sweet. But that it happened not at Speyer, but at Châtillon, a town of the Langres district, and not in so great a throng, is more probable: perhaps when the holy Father, about to set out humbly on some one of those legations to which he was wont to be sent, was imploring the Virgin Mother's help. Further, then it is believed that the Son was offered by the Mother, whom Bernard should receive, and to whose bearing — whether outwardly in his hands or inwardly in his heart — he should give himself wholly, and under whose auspices he could fear nothing. Thus far the Cistercian historian: who, since above, as we have seen, he candidly confesses that this wonderful favor of the Virginal milk was FIRST HANDED DOWN by William Eisengrein in the Chronicle of Speyer, and no older monuments are assigned whence that chronologer received this tradition, who would fault us if we should say that that tradition of the favor bestowed on Bernard is a recent one, since he died in the year of Christ 1153, but the other wrote in the sixteenth century, inasmuch as he carried his Chronicle down to the year of Christ 1561? But can the confirmers or approvers whom Manrique named, later than Eisengrein or nearly his contemporaries, add anything of truly historical weight to Eisengrein's first tradition? Add that this chronologer wins little authority for himself, when he either first forged, or adopted from another, that folly which we chastised before at number 486.

[490] But let us not dissemble the other things which Manrique heaps up from number 7: that St. Bernard There is extant, he says, an authentic document of the Reverend lord Edmond de la Croix, then abbot of Cîteaux, transmitted to Ignatius Firminus of Fitero in the year 1599 (which very document, among his other papers, I have with me) speaking of this favor in this tenor: "In the church of St. Vorles of the castle of Châtillon-sur-Seine, of the diocese of Langres, a certain image was of old constructed in the veneration and honor of the blessed Virgin Mary, which image indeed miraculously offered her Son to St. Bernard as he prayed in the church, saying: Bernard, receive my child, the Redeemer of the whole world. Then also, beyond all power of human nature, as if he had been Christ's natural brother, the breast having been taken up by the hand of the said image, forthwith it miraculously distilled to blessed Bernard, devoted to her, three drops of milk flowing from the breast of that same image." Thus far the testimony of the venerable abbot: which Antonio de Yepes under this year, chapter 5, and Francisco Bivar, book 1 of the Bernardus vindicatus, and others record. Nay, Henriquez too in his Menologium, May XIII, mentions the image (the same, as I think) and a French inscription, which, translated into Latin, testifies to the first part of the favor; for it runs thus:

"Bernard much beloved, my Chaplain, Take, receive from my hand, sweet Jesus, the Savior of the world"

as though it were related that she offered the boy Jesus to Bernard while still living and praying.

[491] with the milk of the Mother of God The same Manrique as above subjoins at number 8: Chrysostomus Henriquez brings forward another and still more recent testimony, lately transmitted, as he says, from Châtillon of Langres itself to the Reverend abbot of Châtillon of Verdun, from whom he attests that he received it. Further, in it, beyond the tradition of the fact, the same man who reported it testifies, witnesses being produced, that the sacred effigy remains to this day, and — what you may wonder at — still preserves, or rather renews, the memory of the deed: "At Châtillon," he says, "there is an image of the Blessed Virgin, which is reported once to have besprinkled St. Bernard with her milk. For since he burned with a singular love toward the Blessed Virgin, she too showed herself a mother to him as he prayed untiringly before the aforesaid image. In the said castle there was a chapel, in whose left part the image of the blessed Virgin stood. In that same place a certain knight lodges, called

Picant, who, discharging his office in the civil wars by going round the castle, attests that he heard in the said chapel more than fifty times voices singing Ave maris stella. For the said miracle is recorded to have happened when the words Monstra te esse Matrem were uttered by St. Bernard. The wars being lulled and the castle destroyed, it was carried into the church to be more safely preserved, where with great veneration and concourse of the people — but chiefly when the necessity of the time requires — it is kept in a famous and lofty place: from which it is taken down by three priests prepared by a three days' fast, and in a solemn procession, together with the relics of St. Vorles, is most devoutly carried about by very many maidens, the same three days' fast having gone before. There are those at Châtillon who say that this same image, when it is taken down, distills drops of milk. There also survive now two priests of approved life staying there, one called Edmond, the other Clement, formerly tutor of the lord lieutenant Gaillard, who clearly and openly affirm that into the hands of a third priest, who was called Jacques Viandot, now deceased, an abundance of milk flowed down, so that he was compelled to seek the sacristy and there wash his hands." Thus far there: which things, if they are certain, win for the fact a huge authority, and almost beyond human belief.

[492] Philotheus, as Manrique goes on at number 9, treats of the favor of the milk more closely and succinctly; but relates that it was granted to Bernard more than once: was sprinkled by a physical influx;

"Why should I report how often the Queen of the highest theater was seen to utter nectar-sweet sounds to him? Often the Virgin, honoring her Servant, was wont to visit him, and often to bring back ambrosial feasts."

In Yepes I read, likewise received by tradition, that Christ appeared to Bernard together with his mother; and that to the Saint, standing between them, they offered as it were in rivalry on this side and that at once blood and milk; the former flowing from Christ's wound, the latter from the Virgin's breast; both heavenly, both irradiating and making fruitful Bernard's mouth. But that then the Saint, venerating both, and bearing equally to be defrauded of neither, at last broke forth into those words which are commonly wont to be attributed to Augustine: "Here I am fed from the wound: here I am suckled from the breast. Set in the midst, I know not whither to turn." But these things, as I believe, the devotion of pious minds has joined together rather than the truth of the matter or a simultaneous event: and I see no notice of the tradition in any other approved author; nor do I think such things easily to be believed, much less asserted. There are extant also among the Works of Nicolaus Salicetus certain other things ascribed to Father Bernard, worthy of less credit than that they should deserve a place in these Annals. So there. Further, concerning Philotheus and Salicetus I shall make some observations at the end of the paragraph next following. But Ignatius Firminus, of Ibero, a monk of Nogales in Spain .., and afterwards given as abbot to the most celebrated monastery of Fitero [in] the kingdom of Navarre, is praised in the Cistercian Library, page 167.

[493] That this favor of the Virgin's milk, of which there was treatment above, various reasons likewise being weighed, that he was not; must be understood in a physical and real sense, and not merely in a mystical one, Sartorius cited above also contends: But if some assert, he says at page 91 and the following, that Bernard was indeed suckled by the Virgin, yet not in the flesh, or with fleshly lips, nor by real and physical milk, but only in the spirit and by a certain mystical influx; this assuredly is to rub a suspicion upon an ancient truth which has been confirmed by so many pens, so many brushes, through five and more centuries: as though indeed those ancient writers had not known how to distinguish, as well as we, between that mystical influx and the physical and real one. Both suckling must be granted to Bernard, both that in the spirit and this in the flesh: this latter not to be denied, which assuredly the ancient and sincere historians principally intended. Thus far Sartorius, liberally enough. But would that he had brought aid to that ancient truth which, as he will have it, has been confirmed through five and more centuries, by at least one suitable document, and had removed the suspicion which he says is rubbed upon the transaction. Who, pray, are those ancient writers; who those ancient and sincere historians whom he speaks of but does not name? For indeed there may be thrown back at him that saying of Mabillon, a man far most versed in the affairs of St. Bernard, sincere likewise, and most deserving of his writings, virtues, and miracles, which at the end of the Fragments from Herbert's books on the miracles of Cistercian monks, in his edition so often praised before, he notes at column [ ] and 1232: In all the books of St. Bernard's miracles, he says, there is nowhere any mention of that miraculous milk pressed forth from the most blessed Virgin upon Bernard: which miracle nevertheless we see now hawked about by painters, and by incautious devotees of the holy Doctor, in preference to others most certain.

[494] The venerable Guibert, abbot of Blessed Mary of Nogent, whom in the year 1651 d'Achery published at Paris and illustrated with notes, the opinion which denies this seems to us to come nearer to the truth in book 3 On the relics of the Saints, chapter 3, §4, page 355, disapproves the milk of the Virgin Mother which is said, he says, to be kept until now at Laon .. in a crystal dove. Upon which passage the praised editor of Guibert remarks various things in his notes and observations, page 575 and following: but I excerpt thence one only, and that which chiefly bears here: That the same Queen of the heavens poured milk also upon blessed Bernard of Clairvaux some writers report: but on what truth they are supported, let those judge who shall have examined his deeds set down by three contemporary authors (with whom Bernard conversed most familiarly). For in what way can it be that, having reported more than a hundred miracles, they handed over to oblivion this one so signal? So Jean Bertels, book 8 on the Rule of St. Benedict: whom Chrysostomus Henriquez confutes in the Cistercian Menologium at the XIII day of May, and Angel Manrique, Cistercian Annals, volume 2, under the year 1153, chapter 12. What the latter answers to Bertels we have just now said: but what things from Chrysostomus Henriquez are adduced by the same Manrique for maintaining the truth of the present fact, we have also indicated above. For indeed whoever shall maturely weigh the arguments of both these Cistercian writers, partisan zeal being laid aside, and shall compare them with the argument of Bertels and Mabillon — though negative, as they call it — I shall be much deceived if he do not award the palm rather to the latter than to the former: for arguments of this kind, although merely negative, are not rarely of greater moment, the circumstances of the matters and of the writers being considered, than affirmative ones. Finally the reasons which were drawn above from pictures and from popular piety do not deserve a more laborious refutation. From these things which have thus far been disputed on both sides concerning the present controversy, we conclude that there seems to us to come nearer to the truth the opinion of those who do not admit that St. Bernard was physically or really sprinkled with the milk of the Mother of God.

§ XLVII. The salutation of an image of the Mother of God in the monastery of Affligem; Jesus fastened to the Cross, his arms being loosed from it, embracing Bernard.

[495] There is a tradition that the holy Man, while in the monastery of Affligem of the Order of St. Benedict, [The history is narrated of an image of the Mother of God which, saluted by the Saint, is related to have returned him the salutation,] which is situated in Belgium between Brussels and Aalst, was saluted by an image of the Mother of God. Of that other, and altogether singular favor of the Virgin Mother of God toward St. Bernard, of which I undertook above to treat, this is related: The celebrated monastery of Affligem, as Manrique writes under the year 1147, chapter 3, treating of the places in Belgium which the Man of God visited, was visited in passing by the holy Father, as is the constant tradition of that church: where also he strove, prayer being repeated, though with fruitless effort, to have the monks reformed to the rule of the Cistercians: but nevertheless left behind, as a pledge of a friendly mind, the staff with which he had been wont to support his feeble limbs, which even today they preserve and venerate. Nay, that something greater happened there the men of Affligem affirm, producing also ancient monuments: which, having been published by Arnold (Rayssius) a few years ago, because it presents many tokens of truth, it has pleased to subjoin here in his own words. The praised Arnold Rayssius, then, in the Supplement to the Natal Days of the Saints of Belgium of Jean Molanus, at the XX day of August, left this noted for posterity: In the same monastery there was once seen a sacred statue of the blessed Virgin, which addressed blessed Bernard, under abbot Godescalc: of which matter these verses, excerpted from the Annals of the said monastery, establish the credit:

Bernard says to Mary, Hail to you from me, blessed Virgin, And to you, Hail, Bernard, I the image willingly say back.

[496] With which the Chronicle of Gembloux agrees, saying thus: it is handed down, "Before the desolation of Belgium, and the shaking of the Catholic faith in Belgium itself, in the monastery of Affligem there was an image of the Mother of God, to which Bernard, bidding farewell, said: Farewell, kindly Mary. But holy Mary said, Farewell, Bernard." This image of blessed Mary bore Christ in her arms, carved from a white and rather soft stone, with black sand somewhat sprinkled in (which the Brabanters call labender-steen), of five feet or more in length, altogether ancient in workmanship and dress, with a veil hanging from the head to the shoulders. Which image in this late disturbance was cast down from its base and broken by a certain insolent rogue, thinking it to be of wood, that he might make a fire from it. From which pieces two others were carved: of which one is preserved at Affligem; but the other was given by the Prior to the Fathers of the Society of Jesus at Brussels. These things having been recited from Rayssius concerning that famous salutation by the Mother of God, let us hear what Manrique subjoins at number 9: Affligem, then, and Speyer contend, he says, concerning an image of the Mother of God which returned the salutation of Father Bernard as he saluted her, and each puts forward a tradition supported and confirmed by ancient monuments, against which there will scarcely be one who dares to go; for us, that neither may be vanquished, let both prevail, and let it persuade us by pious credulity — which alone remains — of a repeated favor. But while Manrique so speaks, he sticks in the bark and does not penetrate the marrow of the matter.

[497] For concerning pious credulity there is here no question: for who would deny and it is inquired that the tradition of Affligem (add also, if you will, that of Speyer, of which there was treatment above) can be piously believed? But to prove its truth from contemporary witnesses or writers of the transaction, or from historically certain documents — this is the work, this is the labor. Let us therefore inspect for a while the testimonies alleged from Rayssius. Antonius Sanderus, in the History of the Affairs of Affligem, which is inserted into the Brabantia published by him, narrates things similar to those which we have just reported, at page 8; as also the Continuation of the Chronicle of Affligem, which, published in print from various monuments of that abbey, is read in d'Achery's Spicilegium, volume 10, page 610 and following. But to the history of which there is here speech there is subjoined at page 613 that this image of the Mother of God was held in the highest veneration among the praised monks: for a custom had prevailed among them that in the morning they never went from the dormitory into the church unless by the Angelic salutation

they had saluted this image. This Continuation is preceded by a History of the aforesaid monastery in the same volume of the Spicilegium: whose editor writes this to the reader at page 23: We have added the Continuation, or epitome, of that history, composed from ancient and authentic monuments by Dom Odo Cambier, likewise of Affligem, while he was alive, exceedingly well versed in ancient matters. Further, the age of this composer or collector becomes known from these words with which he closes his little work: Last in these our times was Benedict van Haeften, who illustrated the most holy and most illustrious Father Benedict with the greatest splendors. For he published twelve books of Monastic Disquisitions, which he dedicated to the most illustrious lord Jacobus Boonen, archbishop of Mechlin and Prelate of the abbey of Affligem, being Provost there in the year 1644.

[498] on what foundation There is extant among us another Chronicle of Affligem, which is marked N Ms. 5, and to which our Heribert Rosweyde added in his own hand that it had been taken from a very recent manuscript of Affligem. Which is an indication that that Chronicle was either gathered from elsewhere by a writer then very recent, or transcribed by him from another collector. I find marked at its end the year 1514: for although other things then follow which pertain to the monastery of Affligem, namely a fifth book divided into three parts, yet it does not contain chronology, but an altogether different matter. But in the said Chronicle this is read: In the year 1148 (in Sanderus, page 10, it is written 1146) the lord Peter of his own accord lays down the burden of the abbacy: in whose place is appointed the lord Godescalc, a youth of good promise, since he drew his origin from a noble and holy family. But afterwards this is said: In the year of the Lord 1164 the lord Godescalc lays down the burden of the pastoral care, etc. But between that time of Godescalc's rule mention indeed is made of St. Bernard; yet I find nothing there concerning the salutation which the statue of the Mother of God is said to have bestowed on the holy Man, which nevertheless Rayssius above affirmed to have happened under abbot Godescalc; but the Continuation of the Chronicle of Affligem in d'Achery records that it happened at the beginning of that prelacy. Which matter, since it must have been very famous among the monks of Affligem and very honorable to their monastery, it seems a wonder that nothing concerning it is handed down by the aforesaid collector or transcriber. But from the Chronicle of Gembloux, which was cited above, it is gathered that that miraculous image of the Mother of God in the monastery of Affligem was known before the deadly tragedies stirred up in Belgium by the heretics in the sixteenth Christian century, and was honored as such.

[499] that tradition But older monuments of that tradition are not at hand for us. In Geoffrey, monk of Clairvaux, and the holy Man's companion on the Belgic journey, who in detail and accurately in part 3 of the miracles, or book VI of the Life, chapter 5, wove together a diary of that journey — which, lest we here unweave it to the reader's disgust, since it may be inspected in the place cited, it will be enough for us to note the names of the places to which the holy Man turned aside. From Liège, then, after the German preaching for the holy war, he set out to the town of Huy, in the diocese of Liège; from Huy he made for Gembloux; thence for Villers, or the monastery of Villers; hence for the town of Fontaine; from Fontaine he betook himself to the castle of Bins, that is, Binche, a town of Belgium in the County of Hainault; from Binche he was received by the castle of Mons, or now Mons of Hainault; afterwards Valenciennes, a city of the Cambrai district; the monastery of Humblières; Laon and Reims, etc.; finally he was restored to his own monastery of Clairvaux. Hence you see that the holy Man returned thither through the Gallo-Belgic tract, and not through the Flando-Belgic, in which the monastery of Affligem is situated. But this journey, which we have described, concerns the time at which the prodigious matter so often mentioned is narrated to have happened at Affligem. But that our Saint then turned aside thither we cannot hammer out from the above diary of the journey; nor do we remember to have read it in any other primitive biographer. Sanderus, however, among the eulogies of the monastery of Affligem, at page 7, records that St. Bernard so praised it: In the year, more or less, 1147, when he had beheld with his eyes the holy life of the men of Affligem, he is reported to have pronounced thus: "Everywhere I have found men; but here angels. Truly Affligem, where the spirit is afflicted." So the monuments of that place have.

[500] But although Geoffrey says nothing of St. Bernard's coming to the men of Affligem, is avoided. yet it does not follow thence that he did not turn aside to them; since the contrary is found in our manuscript Chronicle of the abbots of Villers, which is marked N. MS. 9-a, and is noted as transcribed from a manuscript of Rouge-Cloître, folio [ ] — I proceed from part 1 of the Novale Sanctorum. The year of the Lord 1333 is the last which I find there expressly noted. But after the Proem the praised Chronicle thus begins: When at one time St. Bernard had entered Brabant for the sake of preaching, that he might gain some fruit in it, as also among the other peoples, he went to the monastery of Affligem, delivering two sermons there: in memory of which the men of Affligem are reported to preserve the staff on which he had been wont to support his feeble limbs. But when he had wished to unite them to the Cistercian Order, and had not been able, he entered the monastery of Gembloux, and, being charitably received in it, left in it his chasuble, which is still there. In the Chronicle or History of Villers published in print in Martène's Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, volume 3, from column [ ], the same things are recorded. But the memorial left by the holy Father to the men of Gembloux the same Rayssius as above thus describes: He gave his chasuble, hanging down on all sides in the ancient fashion, and a stole with a maniple: in which are images beautifully embroidered with the needle by the Phrygian art; as it once befell me to see. But from those things which are afterwards noted in the praised Chronicle: But when the lord Gyroldus had resigned, the lord Fastred was made third abbot of Villers, and these two held the abbacy for nearly five years. But when in the year of the Lord 1151 St. Bernard had visited this place and celebrated the divine offices in the oratory, a convocation of many abbots having been made at Reims, he there settled a controversy arisen between us and the church of St. Feuillen the martyr — from these, I say, it is gathered that St. Bernard turned aside to his pupils of Villers more than once. Rayssius will have it that the holy Father by a prophetic spirit .. affirmed that more monks would pass to heaven from that place than from any other monastery of the same Order: as that it came to pass in later times, even from this my Supplement, he says, can be most plainly gathered: in which we have described easily thirty Religious from that monastery, all famous for holiness of life. So Rayssius. But let us return to our purpose, from which we have for a while digressed. From what we have thus far set forth concerning the famous tradition of Affligem, we draw three corollaries. The first is that we by no means wish to traduce it as false or apocryphal. The second, that we grieve because, according to our wish, we cannot more vigorously establish it as historically certain. The third, that it shall not stand with us that the most religious ascetics of Affligem go on to persevere in the possession of their tradition.

[501] But since we are here wholly occupied in gathering the heavenly favors which are reported to have been granted to the most holy Father, we shall go on with the same step as above, and shall recount his other charisms of this kind. That Jesus fastened to the cross, his arms being loosed from it, The author of the Cistercian Annals under the year 1153, chapter 12, numbers 2 and following, writing of the singular prerogative with which Christ the Lord honored his most beloved Servant, says thus: That his image hanging from the cross itself, when it was tenderly saluted by Bernard, loosed its arms and rushed into the embraces of the one saluting it, the author of the Great Exordium, a witness beyond all exception, hands down to memory. The event stands in Tissier, distinction 2 of that Work, chapter 7, described in these words: Dom Menard, formerly abbot of Mores, which is a monastery near Clairvaux, a religious man, reported a certain wonderful thing to his intimates as though of another, which nevertheless we think befell himself, saying thus: There is known to me a certain monk who once found the blessed abbot Bernard praying alone in the church: who, when he was prostrate before the altar, there appeared to him a certain cross with its Crucified set upon the pavement before him: which the same most blessed Man was most devoutly adoring and kissing. Further, that Majesty itself, its arms being separated from the arms of the cross, seemed to embrace that same Servant of God and to clasp him to itself. And while that monk beheld this for some while, he stood fixed in stupor from exceeding wonder, and was as it were beside himself. But at length, fearing lest he should offend the holy Father, if he should see him thus pressing so near upon him as a spy of his secrets, he silently withdrew, understanding indeed and knowing of that holy Man that truly all his prayer and converse was above man. We venerate this most devout story with much admiration, supported as it is by the credit-worthy testimony of the Great Exordium so often before mentioned: which is also found in book 2 of Herbert, archbishop of Torres in Sardinia, chapter 19, in Chifflet cited above, page 283. In Tissier, among the notes on both Cistercian Exordia, which are found after page 262, this is observed: What is said of Christ seen embracing St. Bernard did not happen at Mores, as is commonly believed: since this monastery was founded about the death of the holy Father.*

[502] embraced the Saint, is proved by credit-worthy testimony. Further, who that Menard or Medard was, who attests these sacred delights of Bernard, it is well to add here from Manrique, who under the aforesaid year, chapter 17, an opportunity being offered him of treating of the foundation of the monastery of Mores, says: The place having been received, Bernard sent a convent, over which he set as abbot Blessed Medard — that man, namely, to whom we said that the sacred effigy of Christ embracing Bernard was seen, whether in a vision or in fact. Further, that man of God, familiar with the Saint, and himself holy, deserved to see several other visions, chiefly concerning his beloved Parent, of which let us transcribe one .. written by Godfrey. But see, reader, this event in book 4 of the Life of St. Bernard, chapter 1. That Medard we placed among the Praetermissi at the VIII day of June; and thence we referred him to the Life of St. Bernard .., if anything certain concerning his ecclesiastical cultus should be known and indicated. Which thus far has not come my way. But of the above favor of the Crucified Manrique heaps up several other things in chapter 12, of which account must also be had by us in this place.

[503] Various other Thus, then, he goes on: In agreement is a fairly ancient tablet in the monastery of Clairvaux in the cloister of the refectory, the favor being delineated and an inscription set: which asserts the one thing, that the matter happened not once but several times, and probably presumes the other, that it happened not merely in a vision but in reality. "Elsewhere it is read" (he says) "that, when blessed Bernard had composed a certain most devout prayer, which begins,

Hail, salvation of the world, Hail, hail, dear Jesus: to fit me to your cross

I would truly wish: you know why.

Grant me abundance of yourself,

and when he recited it before an image of the Crucified, then the image of the Crucified, its arms being loosed from the cross, embraced (in another reading is added and kissed) him; and it is piously to be believed that this befell him several times." This inscription Bernardo Villalpando transcribed from the tablet itself in the year 1599, when he had been sent thither by the abbot of Fitero to survey these and other things. Antonio de Yepes also mentions it, century seven, under this year (1153), chapter 5, in the same words; in whom are the various readings which I have just noted.

[504] To the same purpose make Nicolaus Salicetus and Philotheus, notices some two hundred years ago, the one writing in prose, the other in verse; and Salicetus indeed so firmly that he produces an ancient prayer to Father Bernard, in which the same embrace of Christ is recorded. He first transcribes Bernard's words to Christ, under this title, "in the Antidotarium animæ: A most devout prayer of blessed Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, which, when he once said it before an image of the Crucified, that image, bending itself down from the Cross, embraced him." Then he subjoins a prayer to Bernard, in which, being as it were adjured by this most sweet embrace, he is asked to intercede for others with him from whom he merited so great a favor. Nay, Henriquez too in his Menologium, March XXIII, firmly affirms that in a certain book of the monastery of Cîteaux the embrace was noted down, with the very day on which it happened designated, namely the twenty-third of the month of March. "The image" (he says) "of Christ hanging on the cross embraces Bernard on the twenty-third day of March." And in the annotations, "As is read noted in the Martyrology of Cîteaux." Which if it is so, adds no light weight to all the rest.

[505] But Philotheus, an author of the same time (for he wrote when Bernard's works had lately been printed, concerning this embrace are heaped up, which the very ancient copies that even today survive show to have seen the light from the birth of printing in Europe): Philotheus, I say, an author of the same century, no less relates this same embrace of Christ, when he had described the holy Father praying before his effigy in these plain verses:

"O glory, O soothing of our grief, Christ! O salvation won for me by so hard a labor: Happy were I, if I might turn such penalties upon myself, and if it were granted to me, wretched, so to be able to die. I myself would dare to pluck unripe fruits: yet, Christ, your teeth were set on edge. Stars, earth, sea, have pity on your Lord: weep for my misfortunes, stars, earth, sea. While he recounts such things, the image of the hanging Christ loosed into his embraces its bound arms."

Thus far Philotheus, and we concerning this favor of Christ the Lord, which nevertheless did not stop at Bernard but passed on to his sons, as what we shall render below will declare. So the Cistercian Annalist.

[506] But to these things which he has just reported I add a fuller notice of three writers named by him, namely Philotheus, Villalpando, and Salicetus. The Reverend Dom Charles de Visch, in the Library of the writers of the sacred Cistercian Order, page 281, does not seem to have had the time of Philotheus sufficiently clear: as also of the authors here alleged. for he says indeed that he was a monk of the Cistercian Order, and wrote in learned and flowing verse a notable Treatise on the life and manners of St. Bernard, which is read printed at the end of the Works of the same holy Father: but of the author's time he is silent: which is somehow gathered from his Prologue, in which is set an introduction of the Blessed Virgin rousing Philotheus to write by the example of Baptista Mantuanus, whom I read to have died in the year 1516. After him, then, that man wrote. In the same Cistercian Library, page 53, Villalpando is praised, whose Works also are there recorded. He was still among the living in the year 1626, as is there said. Salicetus flourished in the year 1480 and thereafter, as the praised bibliographer testifies at page 251, where he also treats of his books. It now remains that, before we come to the illustrating of the last years of the life of the holy father Bernard, we set out first some things which pertain to the earlier ones.

Read putante*.

Another reading, Medard and Gerard*.

Another reading, iam*.

Another reading, peroraret*.

§ XLVIII. The conversion of Arnulf; heavenly glory promised him; a victory, as is reported, assigned to the king of Portugal; a journey with Pope Eugenius; his services to St. Malachy, whom he knows to be in heaven; his care for the king of Gaul: his brother a Cistercian ascetic, as also another.

Arnulf of Majorca, a great man in the world, delivers himself to Bernard, Not the lowest glory of St. Bernard was the conversion of the illustrious man Arnulf of Majorca, both because that was in itself wonderful, and because wonderful was the manner in which the holy Man furthered it. Manrique weaves it into the year of Christ 1147, which he also there reports in chapter 6 from the author of the Great Exordium, who describes Arnulf's splendor, and the order and manner of the conversion. These stand in Tissier, distinction 3, chapter 17. Here are the words for you: When the most reverend Father Bernard had once entered the province of Flanders, and was letting down the nets of the word of God for the catching of souls, and was drawing many nobles and lettered men from the waves of the world to the shore of conversion, among the rest the illustrious man Arnulf of Majorca, wealthy and delicately nurtured, secretly rendered himself into his hands. But it was the counsel of both to cover the matter with silence, on account of certain hindrances of the world, until the last day on which he should go out from his land and from his kindred. For he was a great householder, adorned with sons and brothers, and entangled in such riches that he could not tear himself away without loss and grave scandal to his own, unless he should first dispose his house wisely and cautiously. These things concerning Arnulf's splendor, and the manner in which he delivered himself wholly into the holy Father's hands, having been set out by the writer of the Exordium, the same author goes on to set forth how wonderfully the divine clemency dealt with him, that he might attain the aim of his calling appointed for him.

[508] and he is confirmed from heaven in his vocation: But meanwhile, while all things kept that silence, and these two alone in the world knew the cause of this secret business, the word of the Lord came to a certain rustic herdsman, as he was driving oxen to the plow, saying: Go, tell Arnulf of Majorca to take you with him to Clairvaux, whither he is presently to go for conversion: and be converted with him. He heard the voice indeed, but saw no one. But when this voice had been uttered, that poor man began to pray more earnestly that, if the word had gone forth from the Lord, he would again reveal his ear. And he proceeded to speak to him a second time, repeating the same word. Having therefore received the oracle now a second time, he came to the aforesaid man and said: I have a word for you, my lord. By whom, when he had been drawn aside, he fell at his knees, saying: I beseech you by Christ our Lord, take me to your Clairvaux, and save my soul with you. And, if you desire to know, the loving and merciful Lord deigned to reveal your secrets to me for the sake of my salvation. But that noble householder, hearing these words, marveled and rejoiced greatly. And, having received the man, he attached him to himself: whom also he afterwards had as an inseparable companion alike of his journey and of his conversion, and shall have, as we believe, as a partner of the eternal recompense. Thus, then, it seemed good to divine providence to strengthen and further Arnulf's vocation, a heavenly oracle being uttered also to this end. Nor indeed did he, hearing the voice of the Lord, harden his heart.

[509] For, as the author of the Great Exordium goes on, The business being finished whom, having entered Clairvaux and seriously repenting, for which he had made his stay, he came to Clairvaux, as submissive in humility as he was lofty in affluence of riches: and he conferred many things on that monastery from his substance: but he also bestowed gifts on certain other monasteries. But blessed Bernard, much cheered by his conversion, uttered such a judgment concerning him in the assembly of the brethren: For the conversion of brother Arnulf Christ is no less to be marveled at and no less to be glorified than for the resurrection of Lazarus four days dead; namely because, shut up and buried in such delights, he lay as in a tomb, and was as it were dead while living. But how sweetly and in fatherly fashion the holy Man dealt with Arnulf as he washed away in the laver of the sacrament of penance the filth of sins contracted in the secular life, it is worth while to hear from the praised author: To him, he says, confessing with groaning and many tears all the offenses which he had contracted in the world, blessed Bernard, beholding the most bitter contrition of his heart and his spontaneous will to every good work, enjoined that he should say the Our Father three times, and thereafter endure in his purpose until death.

[510] Hearing which, he answered in sadness: the Saint treats most kindly, and promises him eternal glory. Do not, I pray, mock your servant, most blessed Father. In what, he says, do I mock you? But he said: Fasts of seven years or ten would not suffice me, even humbled in sackcloth and ashes: and you enjoin me to say the Our Father three times, and to persevere in the Order? And the Saint to him: Do you then know better than I what you must do to be saved? Or does it perhaps seem to you a small thing to keep the Order and to persevere in it until death? But he answered: Far be so wicked a presumption from my soul. But for God's sake I beseech you, spare me not in the present, that you may better spare me in the future: and impose now such a penance that after the death of the flesh I may come to rest without punishment. To whom the blessed Father said: Do as I have said: and I make you secure that, the burden of the body being laid down, you shall presently fly to God without trouble. Having received this answer as it were from God, he was exceedingly strengthened, so that thereafter no violence of temptations, no trouble of infirmity, could in any measure retard him from the course of desire by which he went wholly toward God. But he was solicitous and exceedingly fearful concerning the observance of the Order and the guarding of his heart: so that I do not recall to have seen anyone so zealous a cleanser of his own conscience. From which last words it is gathered that Arnulf was to the one who narrates these things not only a contemporary but also very well known. The rest, with which the eulogy of that most religious ascetic is then woven, may be inspected in the same author. But it was altogether fitting not to pass over this wonderful conversion, whose glory indeed is eminently derived to St. Bernard from Arnulf, as from a son to a parent.

[511] The holy Man is reported to have promised victory to Alfonso, king of Portugal. The Cistercian historian under the year 1147, chapter 9, exhibits a narration concerning Alfonso I, king of Portugal, who, about to storm Scalabis (commonly Santarém), made a vow to Christ in favor of the Cistercians: and he adds that the holy Man promised him

victory, furthered by his own prayer, and seen and announced at Clairvaux. There is added the reckoning of the time, concerning which he confesses that there is a difficulty: there is likewise given a letter of the king to Bernard, and one of the latter to the former. But we should more securely support this reported fact if Manrique had produced writers of more approved and more ancient note than Brito and Brandão. But among those things which the same Manrique records of this matter there occur some not in every respect favorable to persuading its truth: for indeed, when he had reported some things from a recent inscription, as he confesses, he observes that there are several things there, but anticipating the time. Then, the transaction being set forth, he subjoins: These things Brito from ancient copies; which, however, since they bring in Gerard, Bernard's brother, as conversing — whom it is agreed died seven years before — appear, as not free from suspicion, to be corrupted and depraved by certain additions.

[512] [He accompanies Pope Eugenius to Trier and to Clairvaux: where he deserved most excellently] We indicate in summary what is reported at greater length in the Cistercian History under the year 1148, chapter 5: namely that Pope Eugenius, having set out to Trier, taking Bernard with him, celebrated a council concerning the revelations and writings of St. Hildegard the virgin; that he sent the bishop of Verdun to her; that he approved her writings and revelations, etc.; but those things may be read there. See also what we set out concerning this virgin in §39. The same Cistercian History, under the year just indicated, chapter 6, thus goes on: Pope Eugenius spent three months at Trier: after which, having returned into Gaul, visiting Clairvaux (the cradle of his Religion), then Cluny, at last Cîteaux, he presented himself to both families and cherished both. Bernard, the perpetual companion of his journey, while not even then he spares his continual miracles, was able almost to the peril of his life to bring with him a son most beloved to him, and a father, nay a father of the whole Church. For so great a concourse of peoples followed the Saint, wherever he went, that not even the Pontiff was free from pressure, but was overwhelmed by the crowd, and had at length with difficulty to be led away from danger. The event Geoffrey describes, book 4 of the Life, chapter 5: where also of the miracles. Manrique, chapter 9, writing of St. Malachy, gathers various things from the Life of that most worthy prelate, gravely and pathetically transmitted to posterity by St. Bernard, and the things which were done by him in the last time in which he dwelt among mortals. But in chapter 10 he writes of the sickness of that same most holy Pontiff, received by the monks of Clairvaux, and of the prediction of his death, and of his most devout preparation for meeting it, and of his most sweet falling asleep in the Lord, illustrated also by a miracle. But these and other things expressed by Bernard's mellifluous pen may be seen in that excellent Life of Malachy which I mentioned, from which it appears most clearly how highly our Saint esteemed this Saint, and with how tender an affection he embraced him.

[513] But that which in the preface of that Life, addressed to abbot Congan, [concerning St. Malachy, whose garment, when he was dead, he reserves for himself, and whom he knows to be in glory,] he narrates to have been shown him by Malachy when now about to breathe forth his last breath, deserves to be noted in the holy Father's own words. Thus he narrates: I ran up, that the blessing of the dying man might come upon me. But he, when now he could move no other limbs, strong for giving a blessing, his holy hands being lifted over my head, blessed me, and I possess the blessing as an inheritance. But the greatness of his love and esteem went yet further. For indeed, when the body was being prepared for burial, as Manrique narrates in chapter 11, while it is being stripped, to be washed, of garments to be resumed after the washing; the devout Abbot (as we noted above), by a pious and friendly theft, certainly a faithful one, secretly took away the tunic in which the Saint had fallen asleep, exchanging it for his own, to use it on the more solemn feasts for offering the sacrifice of the Mass, and to be buried in it at last when he should die. The matter, hidden from all as long as he lived, but after his death revealed and disclosed by him, Godfrey, who wrote Bernard's Life, .. narrates in our edition, book 5, chapter 3. But in the funeral Office of St. Malachy, the venerable Abbot, offering the saving Host for his passing, knew his glory by the Lord's revealing, and, by the same inspiring, the Sacrifice being now completed, changed the form of the prayer, and introduced a collect which pertains to the festivals of holy pontiffs, not to the commendation of the dead, saying thus: O God, who have made blessed Malachy the bishop equal to the merits of your Saints, etc. Go to Geoffrey, book 4, chapter 3, from which I have extracted this.

[514] That this was done at another time by the holy Man is reported in the Cistercian Annals, chapter 11 cited, and others, number 3; whence I transcribe hither this: That the same Saint, at least sixteen years before, when he was celebrating for Albero, bishop of Verdun, did this very thing, Antoine de Mouchy in the preceding century, from the book of Antiquities of master Richard [de] Wassebourg, archdeacon of Verdun; and in our own century, both in the Catalogue of the bishops of Verdun, and Jean Chenu, published in these very words: "Albero de Chiny in the year 1131" (supply dies. But in the Sainte-Marthe brothers, presently to be cited, it is written that he was then promoted to the episcopal dignity.) "For him blessed Bernard, when he sang Mass, is reported to have changed the collect of the dead into the collect of confessors." So they: we dare neither to deny nor to assert: certainly actions of this kind, once done in glory, if they be repeated, will lack a great part of their weight. What of this, that the very same thing was likewise done a third time for Alberic, Cardinal bishop of Ostia, whom we said died in the preceding year, as Johann Pistorius also noted in the Belgic Chronicle, at the year 1138: "In the year (he says) fourteenth of Conrad there dies at Verdun the Cardinal bishop of Ostia, lord Alberic, at whose tomb blessed Bernard, celebrating Mass for him, when he had come to the collect after the discourse for the dead, omitted it, and said the collect of a confessor.*"

[515] as is reported: It is true nevertheless that these two are perhaps the same, from the identity of place, namely Verdun, and no great distance between the names Alberic and Albero, an error creeping in which is not easily discerned afterwards. For us certain things are noted in their own places; for doubtful ones let it suffice to have touched them in passing. Thus far the author of the Cistercian Annals. In the Sainte-Marthe brothers, in Gallia Christiana, among the bishops of Verdun, page 1167, under Albero de Chiny I read this also: For whom blessed Bernard, celebrating Mass, is said to have changed the collect of the dead into the collect of confessors, when he, namely Albero, had fallen asleep in the Lord in the year 1158. Is that so indeed, when St. Bernard had already fallen asleep in the Lord from the year 1153? It follows, therefore, that either that fact is apocryphal, or the year is false. Manrique wrote above that Alberic died in the preceding year, that is, 1147; but the fourteenth year of Conrad falls in the years of Christ 1151 and 1152, and thus that change of the collect, which was narrated above, ought according to Manrique to have happened about five years after Alberic's death; which by no means coheres with Pistorius, whom he cites: and hence the fact might seem apocryphal, were there not other things which would make it come nearer the truth. And they are these. First, because this is found in Geoffrey, book 4 of the Life of St. Bernard, chapter 3, even though it was not written by Geoffrey himself, but inserted into Geoffrey from a manuscript in Horst's edition, and in Mabillon's separated even by brackets [] from Geoffrey's text; in which edition of Mabillon it is noted in the margin of that text that for Albert, as it stands there, the name Alberic must be read. Secondly, because it is there said that the present event happened at the tomb .. of one lately dead before, namely Alberic. Thirdly, because in the Chronicle of Alberic, monk of Trois-Fontaines of the Cistercian Order, in the bishopric of Châlons, which Leibniz published in volume 2 of the Historical Accessions, and whose author flourished in the thirteenth century, the aforesaid change is expressly narrated at page 320 in these words: In the year 1151 .. there dies at Verdun the Cardinal bishop of Ostia and legate, lord Alberic, at whose tomb blessed Bernard, celebrating Mass, when he had come to the postcommunion, omitted the collect for the dead and said the collect for one holy Confessor. Hence St. Bernard's act seems sufficiently confirmed, and the year 1147, assigned in Manrique to the death of Cardinal Alberic, refuted, as also in Ciacconius in the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs and Cardinals, volume 1, column 993, where also that change of the collect stands.

Let these things be said on occasion of St. Malachy: concerning whom also Manrique may be consulted in chapter 11 alleged above, number 4, in which he produces the epitaph inscribed on St. Malachy's tomb, and which, composed by Father Bernard, remains to this day, as is there said, under his name. Other things which he committed to writing in prose concerning this holy Pontiff are recounted in the course of that chapter: which Manrique thus concludes: But as regards Malachy's coming to the monks of Clairvaux, .. lest even in death he should be frustrated of his desired prayers, we shall report not only the palliums given by Eugenius to Ireland, but also the archiepiscopal sees increased, at Bernard's urging, and four designated according to the number of the provinces of that island, in the year 1152, in which it is agreed that it happened. But now other things call us, which Manrique reports under the year 1149.

[516] In chapter 1, number 5, the holy Man occurs again intent upon the public good, when, letters being given to Suger, abbot of St. Denis, he acts against a duel, and for the kingdom and king of Gaul, and — King Louis the Younger being absent — governor of the monarchy of the Gauls, he earnestly strove to hinder an execrable duel between Robert the king's brother and Henry, son of Count Theobald, which had then been proclaimed on both sides for a time about to come. Consult epistle 376 among Bernard's in Mabillon's edition. But epistle 377, given to the same man, breathes the holy Father's singular affection toward the safety of the kingdom of the Gauls and of the king, who had not then yet returned to his own after the unhappy issue of the holy war. Besides these, the letter written in St. Bernard's person by Nicholas to Manuel, emperor of Constantinople, in which the army of the Christians is commended to him at the time of that soldiery overseas — is it not an indication that the holy Man watched eminently over the common good of the Christian commonwealth? That letter is produced in the Cistercian Annals alleged, number 9.

[517] Illustrious besides, and no less so for the holy Father, was the conversion of Henry, whose brother he leads to the institute of Clairvaux, who was King Louis's own brother, to the institute of Clairvaux, as venerable to the world as it was notable from the circumstances of the case. Let us hear Manrique, chapter 3, number 7: He met Bernard at Clairvaux, meaning to treat certain affairs of the kingdom: but what he sought for a temporal kingdom Bernard exchanged for a heavenly one, the man being called and drawn by the efficacy of his word or of his prayer. Robert de Monte, who is circulated published under that name, links the matter to the year of Christ 1149: Henry, he says, own brother of Louis, king of the Franks, the fashion of the world being contemned, was clothed for Christ at Clairvaux in the monastic habit. But in what manner that conversion happened Geoffrey narrates

in the Life of St. Bernard, book 4, chapter 2. But that the Saint was foreknowing of this event before it happened the same biographer seems not obscurely to signify, when he attests that this was foretold to Henry by the holy Man: I trust, he says, in the Lord that you shall by no means die in that state in which you are now placed; but shall speedily prove by your own experience how much the prayer of these (the Brethren of Clairvaux) which you have sought avails you. Which was afterwards fulfilled on the same day, not without the wonder of many.

[518] But altogether wonderful was the change of the right hand of the Most High wrought through Bernard, whom another follows, wonderfully stricken with compunction. and beyond all hope foretold by him, in Andrew, who had accompanied the praised Henry, his lord, to the monks of Clairvaux. He inveighed against him as against a drunken and mad man, vomiting forth even reproaches and blasphemies, fastening upon the holy Father in silent thought the name of a false prophet, and on the next day devoting his monastery to curses. The cause was his lord's conversion: but, overcome on the next night by a vehement impulse of the Holy Spirit, and rising before dawn, he returned to the monastery, and showed himself changed as it were from a second Saul into a second Paul, as the biographer just alleged testifies, who describes this wonderful change in a longer discourse.

Perhaps after the communion*.

§ XLIX. He commands wild beasts; he pacifies one at variance; he recalls a dead man to life; he profits the bishop of Orléans; he answers the Premonstratensian abbot; the sickness, religious profession, and bishopric of Henry, brother of the king of Gaul; the Saint's prophecies; water changed into wine; the death of Count Theobald.

The holy Man commands the beasts: In this same year also, namely 1149, so far as may be conjectured from the series of the history, when the Counts of Vienne and of Forez were assailing one another .., Father Bernard was called for the composing of matters and the pacifying of minds .. counsels of peace were opposed by the author of the discord, and two wolves set in his way on the journey, raging with a madness beyond their inbred savagery .. terrified those who came, and all but called them back from what they had begun. Withdrawal was counseled by the companions of the way, lest they should expose themselves or the Saint to peril, to the detriment of the Christian commonwealth. But the blessed Abbot, burning with charity and fervid in faith, and not to be moved from the work of peace, an angel of peace, did not so much contemn the peril as remove it. These things from the Cistercian historian under the year just designated, chapter 5, number 1. But receive the series of the transaction, reader, from John the hermit in the Life of St. Bernard, book 2, number 8, column [ ] of Mabillon's edition: He was going, he says, to Burgundy, to pacify the Count of Forez and the Count of Vienne. But passing through a certain village, he heard from the inhabitants of that place that two most savage wild beasts, which are commonly called varoli, were raging in a neighboring wood. When his companions had heard this, they begged him to turn back, because they preferred to make a detour of two days' journey or much more rather than dangerously to expose themselves to the beasts. Unwilling to consent to whom, he answered that he never turned aside for such a cause. Nor was there delay, and behold the beasts, coming forth into the open, met them with a terrible gaping as if to devour. When the brethren see them, all from excessive fear presently fled to the holy Man, hiding about him, and cried with one voice: Holy Father, deliver us. But he: Why are you fearful, O you of little faith? At this word, his hand being lifted, he set the sign of the cross against the beasts: which straightway became as stones, as though having no power at all to harm. Which sign being seen, all who were present rendered immense thanks to the Man of God. But on hearing this, the neighbors were greatly gladdened: for from fear of the beasts they had not dared to go out fewer than twelve together.

[520] [he pacifies one of the two discordant Counts, victory over the other being foretold to him:] Setting out thence, St. Bernard came to the said Counts: and when he had sought peace from them, the Count of Forez humbly consented to him. But the Count of Vienne wickedly refused, saying that he would never have peace with his adversary until he had compelled him to go into exile: and, an army being gathered, he attacked his land. Then the Count of Forez, stricken with fear, entreated St. Bernard that he would obtain victory from almighty God. But blessed Bernard confidently promised him victory. Strengthened by this faith he attacked his enemies, and took the Count, and laid low so great a number of the enemy that scarcely anyone escaped alive. And for this victory he rendered thanks to St. Bernard. Thus far the biographer John the hermit: who a little after, at number 11, column 1289, committed to writing another illustrious prodigy in these words:

[521] While he was once sailing on the Loire, his little boat by chance struck a small bridge, he raises a boy dead in the waters; on which a boy was standing: who at once slipped into the river and was killed. And the neighbors, roused, ran up, bewailing the dead boy: whom the holy Man ordered to be brought to him; and, the dead child being offered him, the Saint prayed. And so the boy, all who were present seeing it and praising God with one voice, was at once raised up at the Saint's prayer. Then from that day and thereafter, loving the Man of God most affectionately as a son a father, he afterwards set out to Clairvaux, and there became a lay brother, called Tescelin Nascard, because he had been lifted out of the water and fished up like a fish. Manrique, assigned very lately, at number 3 also treats of this miracle; but he doubts whether it happened on this journey or on a different one; yet certainly he judges it accomplished about this time: to which he subjoins the following epiphonema: So Bernard, compared to Martin — which we have seen above in several other respects — turns out like him in this also, a magnificent raiser of three dead: of the blasphemous man whom God had punished with death; of the woman who died at Clairvaux; and of this youth drowned in the river, whom he delivered from the jaws of death. But the same Annalist shows that he had not here sufficiently clear the name of the author from whom these things are taken: for after he had narrated the event of the two Counts, which we gave above, an ancient author, whom Sylva translated, is cited by him; but to the miracle concerning the one suffocated in the waters and given back to life by the holy Man he subjoins this: These things the same French author, from whom Sylva; and we the things said thus far: whom many think to be John the hermit; others another, but a contemporary, and of unimpaired credit: concerning whose statements it may not be lawful to doubt.

[522] But the curious reader will ask whence is drawn that etymological allusion, called Tescelin Nascard, to whom a name was given from the event of the matter, which is explained. BECAUSE he had been lifted out of the water and fished up like a fish? I answer: I think the name Tescelin was proper to him before the drowning, and was not changed after it: which is confirmed by this, that St. Bernard's father bore that same name: whence it may be argued that the name of Tescelin was a proper name, and one sometimes at least wont to be given to men: so that this question seems to fall upon the surname Nascard alone. Concerning which receive the following very probable conjecture. Ménage, in the Etymological Dictionary, or Origins of the French Language, at the word nasse, gathers this: Nasse, a fisherman's implement; from the Latin nassa. Festus: Nassa is a kind of fishing vessel, into which when a fish has entered, it cannot get out. Isidore, book 9, chapter 5: Nassa, woven of osiers like a net for catching fish. Plautus: Never by Hercules shall I today seek bait out of that trap. Silius Italicus:

Not otherwise does the skillful fisherman by the glassy waves, weaving from pliant osier a light trap with wide mouth

Which seem to me exceedingly apt for solving the question just proposed: as if you should say that he was called Nascard because by Bernard's power he was drawn out of the water, as fishes are wont to be by the nassa. It remains that we do not pass over a few other things which the founder of the Cistercian Annals has concerning Bernard under the aforenoted year.

[523] In chapter 7 he reports that the Bishop of Orléans by Bernard's counsel embraced the institute of the Cistercian Order: Elias, bishop of Orléans, the circumstances of which matter, drawn out long enough, as Manrique will have it, we shall repeat from a little higher up. The same historian, then, under the year of Christ 1146, chapter 2, number 8, says: About the same time, so far as is clearly established from the series of Bernard's letters and their texture, the constant zeal of Eugenius (the Pope) for truth either cast out the bishop of Orléans (the records seem to indicate Manasses), his mitre being laid aside, or drew him to Clairvaux. He, noble by birth .. profane in converse .., dishonored by the levity of his manners the insignia of pontifical dignity, and the gravity of the Gallican church, by his pernicious examples. .. Being denounced to Eugenius .., what he could not defend by witnesses he purposed at least to lessen by intercessors, and to expose to pardon, and he stirred up almost all Gaul to bend Eugenius or to conciliate him. .. King Louis wrote for him, the nobles too wrote, and the venerable Peter Maurice wrote. One man in all Gaul there was, Bernard, who could never be brought to write. Nay, when Eugenius, hardened against entreaties, had ordered the man to be set before judgment .., he confirmed his purpose by a letter then at last given in this tenor: a fragment of which, belonging here, is subjoined, and which may be read in Mabillon at the beginning of epistle 245. By this letter, as the Cistercian historian goes on at number 9, the Pontiff, strengthened by Bernard's, appointed a solemn day for the accusers, which he intimated no less to the accused. .. But what was done with him and in him, and in what manner .. in the purgation to be made by the bishops, while the suit was still pending and not despaired of, he nevertheless of his own accord divesting himself of the bishop, chose Bernard — whom alone he had found not favorable — as his master and parent, and became a humble monk at Clairvaux, in the year 1149, in which it is agreed that he escaped — the suit being drawn out until then .. we shall report more conveniently after our manner.*

[524] Further, this transaction he describes in a lengthy discourse under the year 1149, he helps by his counsel, and joins to the Cistercians. chapter 7, which I just cited, where it may be seen that a purgation was indeed appointed for the Bishop of Orléans; but that after mature deliberation with St. Bernard whether it were more advisable to lay down the mitre or to litigate over it, by the holy Man's counsel he divested himself of the bishop and put on the Cistercian monk. But what the holy Father then did in his favor with Pope Eugenius is plain from his epistle 246 given to him, which in Mabillon is fitted to the year of Christ 1146, and thus begins: It is time that I too should write, no longer for a bishop, but for a poor and humble monk, etc. Mabillon in his briefer notes on epistle 245 remarks two things which do not agree with the narration already recited from the Annalist of the Cistercian Order. For indeed he differs from him in marking the name of the bishop of Orléans, and in the time of the bishopric laid down by him — both being briefly observed on those words of the epistle, For the bishop of Orléans: Namely Elias, he says, who, being accused of grave crimes, when he could bend Eugenius neither by himself nor through the king or his friends, in the year 1146 voluntarily laid down the bishopric

resigned, from the other Notes, and the following epistle. For indeed from the year of this letter, in which it is marked as written, and from the words which I produced a little before from it, that Bishop was then no longer a bishop, but a monk. But in the fuller Notes on the same epistle his accusation is linked to the year 1144: other things may be seen in the same place.

[525] He answers the complaints of the Premonstratensian abbot: The Cistercian historian under the year of Christ 1150, chapter 3, records the difficulties which arose between two most illustrious Orders, namely the Premonstratensian and the Cistercian. A letter written to the latter by the Premonstratensian abbot gave St. Bernard cause to write back to the aforesaid abbot, a letter being composed which is among Bernard's the two hundred and fifty-third in order in Mabillon; and in which he weighs the complaints objected by the Premonstratensians, and, answering to each of their heads, weaves a free and lively apology for himself and his own, concluding it with terms exceedingly well expressing the benevolence with which he was affected toward the family of the Premonstratensians, and his zeal for procuring peace with it.

[526] The same historiographer as above writes this in chapter 6: [The sickness, journey, religious profession, and bishopric of Henry, who was King Louis's brother: the death of Geoffrey] Meanwhile Henry, Louis's brother, whom in the preceding year we recorded as converted and awaiting the solemn day of his espousal, as he himself called it (whether before or after his profession is not sufficiently established), fell, from the huge change of his life, into a fever troublesome enough and perilous; not without huge grief to Father Bernard, who venerated in royal blood so noble a contempt of glory. .. To bring physicians and medicines made by art into the convent seemed by no means useful; but not to succor Henry in his sickness seemed almost inhuman, so that it seemed good to Bernard and the Brethren that he be carried to Paris to be cured. .. He departed borne neither in a carriage nor in a litter, although sick, nor on a horse adorned with more seemly trappings: the royal youth sat upon rustic ones, such as beseemed a monk, who accounted his being both son and brother of kings far less than being a monk. There may be read concerning his departure and the companions of his way the letter of Nicholas, whose words are there reported. But then in chapter 7 the same Henry, having pronounced solemn vows to God, after he had been restored to his former health and to his Clairvaux, was promoted to the see of Beauvais. How Bernard bore himself in this matter, how Henry; and what means were employed that both should consent, may be read at greater length in the same place. These things from two different chapters cited we have here joined together. But concerning the death of Geoffrey de Amaio among the monks of Clairvaux, as the holy Father had foretold, go to Manrique, chapter 6: who in chapter 8 treats of that famous and infamous Nicholas: but we have gathered the history of that sycophant above by anticipation of time.

[527] There follows the year of Christ 1151, where in chapter 1 Manrique treats among other things of the death of Raynald or Rainard, and of Rainard, foretold by the holy Father: a great man in the Cistercian Order and abbot of that same monastery, announced by St. Bernard; on which matter you may consult the biographer Geoffrey, book 4 of the Life of the holy Father, chapter 2, number 207. Then in the Cistercian History at number 8 is subjoined the death of Suger, abbot of St. Denis, praised by us above; to whom, when death was already imminent for him, there is extant a letter of St. Bernard, the 266th in order, in which he exhorts him to receive it undauntedly. To the present year 1151 is also bound epistle 270 to Pope Eugenius in the cause of the Carthusian Prior against certain transgressors, after dissensions had arisen among them. See Manrique here, chapter 2, and Mabillon's notes on that epistle. In this very year, as the Cistercian historiographer will have it in the same chapter, number 9, Bernard, paying his task and writing his accustomed book On Consideration to the Pontiff Eugenius, deplores many things in the Roman court which ought to be corrected by him; but chiefly the frequent legations into Spain; especially such as were profitable to the legates, but to the Church not only useless but harmful. Then he recites a fragment of book 3 from that Work. But the historian would more rightly have deferred those things to the year 1152, for reasons to be assigned by us in the next following paragraph. From these things, then, it is gathered that the holy Man in the last years of his life also, as he had been wont in the earlier, was never not attentive to catching occasions, whether sought by his zeal or offered of themselves, that he might bestow his labor for the public advantage of the Church, or the particular advantage of some community or person. There is added to this what Manrique observes under the year 1151, chapter 6, in these words: That in this very year the Decretum was compiled by Gratian, a Benedictine monk, Baronius notes under this year from a codex of the Vatican library: "The Decretum of Gratian, monk of St. Felix of Bologna, of the Order of St. Benedict, compiled in the said monastery in the year of the Lord 1151, in the time of Pope Eugenius III." But neither do I read that this was done without Bernard, in the notes on the History of Johann Dubravius, book 9, letter G: "At the exhortation of St. Bernard (they say), abbot of Clairvaux, Gratian compiled the decrees of the Pontiffs." So Manrique observes.

[528] a certain filthy place And presently at number 7 he says: Let the chapter be closed by a miracle of Bernard's, illustrious enough, accomplished about this time, but persisting still for many years after. A spring of foul water changed into a spring of wine. .. This, handed down to memory by John the hermit, since I have not been able to obtain him, let the reader receive from his transcriber Sylva. But since it is at hand in the Life composed by that John, and published after our Chifflet by Mabillon, and is there narrated in another manner, we give the event from Mabillon's edition, column [ ] and 1290: When on a certain day about the sixth hour the venerable Man was passing through the confines of the village whose name is Colombey-la-Fosse, he found in his path a spring trampled by cattle. And when he stopped there, he ordered bread to be served to himself and his disciples in that same place. But they, because that place seemed unseemly, wished rather to pass on to another place; and they said to the Man of God: This place, Father, they say, is not fit for eating. Let us pass on hence, until we come to a place where we can eat more seemly. For that place is defiled by cattle, and is beside a way daily trodden by travelers. But the Man of the Lord would not acquiesce in their words. But near at hand were certain men great in nobility and wealth, who came out from the aforesaid village to meet him, wishing to lead him into their houses.*

[529] he foretells will be salutary for many: he changes the water there into wine: To whom he in no way would assent, commanding more and more that food be prepared for him in the aforesaid place. But then one of his disciples, Hemericus by name, said to him: What is this, Father, that you wish to do? for this place stinks and is defiled by cattle: and do you wish to eat in it? When the Man of God had heard this word, he could no longer endure, but opened his mouth and began to prophesy before all, saying: Hear me, brethren, and all you who are with me. I tell you in the word of truth that a time will come in which many will seek out this place, that in it they may be cured of various infirmities. Holy is the place, as sanctified by the Lord. When the disciples had heard this, they took the loaves and food and ate with him, and many others; for several had come to meet him, as we said above. Then the man of God, lifting up his hand, the sign of the cross being made over the spring, blessed and sanctified it, and said to the servers: Draw, give to those who eat to drink. And the servers drew water and filled the cups; and it was turned into wine: and all who were present drank, and rendered immense thanks to God, saying with great joy: Truly this man is holy, truly the Holy Spirit dwells in him.

[530] The blessed Man therefore after the meal called a certain man of the aforesaid village, he foretells poverty to a man who had neglected to cleanse the said place. named John, who was rich and exceedingly well supplied; and enjoined him to take care of the aforesaid place, and cleanse it from filth, and fortify it with stones, lest the cattle should defile it. He added also, saying: If you shall be unwilling to fulfill this, know that before your death you shall suffer such want that at your death you shall not have a scrap of cloth in which you may be wrapped. But as he was slothful — nay, unwilling — to fulfill the blessed Man's commands, the thing followed as the Saint had foretold him. For at death he could not have a winding sheet out of all his possession, according to the word of the Man of God. Who would doubt that the holy Man foretold these things by the spirit of prophecy? Many things also, while he still lived, he prophesied, which we have seen come into effect long after his glorious passing. For concerning the aforesaid spring, as he had foretold, many miracles have come to pass. Even now, if any limb of anyone's body, burdened with any pain, be bathed with the waters of that spring in the devotion of faith, it has been known by many to be changed for the better. Taken also in drink, they profit the soundness of divers infirmities. For if anyone laboring under the grave trouble of a fever, Bernard the confessor of Christ inspiring it, shall have a desire of drawing, as soon as he has drawn, he grows well, and so the force of the fevers is extinguished, as if you should see, waters being cast upon an immense pyre, all the flames suddenly extinguished. When the fires of tertian and quartan fevers have been kindled, as soon as the waters are drunk, they quell the pains.

[531] The death of Theobald, Count of Champagne, of whom no scanty mention occurs above, The death of Count Theobald. you will find to have fallen in this year 1151 in Manrique, chapter 6; as also several other things, namely the integrity of his life from various writers who are there assigned; the place of his burial; the illustrious honoring of the man in his own family through royal marriages; St. Bernard's letter, witness of his sincere friendship toward him, the 271st in order; and finally Theobald's monastic profession rejected as apocryphal.

Perhaps Forestæ*; below he is called Count of Forez.

* Perhaps I read them so called from their various colors.

Perhaps evenisse*.

In French finage*, that is, a boundary district.

§ L. The pilgrimage of the archbishop of Lund to St. Bernard; the latter attends him with a miracle as he departs; the reckoning of the time of the books On Consideration; various predictions; disturbances in Lorraine composed; the mourning of his sons in the Father's last illness; his care for them.

Eskil, archbishop of Lund in Denmark, with a desire of seeing the Saint We have come to the year of Christ 1152, the last but one of the great Father's life, under which year, in chapter 3, the Cistercian Annalist speaks thus: Amid these things the venerable Eskil, archbishop of Lund, primate of the Danes, and likewise legate of the Apostolic See throughout all Denmark .., resolved to go to Clairvaux, to visit the holy Parent through so many perils of land and sea, through expenses, through the inconveniences of the way.* Of that pilgrimage Saxo

Grammaticus, page 310 toward the middle: "At the same time Eskil, wearied with domestic affairs beyond his strength, while he took thought more earnestly for quiet, leave of setting out having been with difficulty wrung from the king, sought the noble monastery of the Gauls which is called Clairvaux, and there exchanged the harsh mode of living of his native land for the gentleness of a voluntary pilgrimage, meaning to have a pleasanter use of things among strangers than among his own citizens." But the things which are here narrated from that author stand more fully in Geoffrey in the Life of St. Bernard, book 4, chapter 3, and in the Great Exordium, distinction 3, chapter 25.

[533] [seeks Clairvaux, and desires to be admitted into it; but this happened only later.] The same Manrique adds that it was in that venerable prelate's wishes to lead a private life at Clairvaux, the mitre being left; but that, since the man was very useful — nay even necessary — to many, this was dissuaded by the holy Father at that time. Wonderful too, and exceedingly honorable to St. Bernard, are the things which the alleged Annalist records concerning a loaf long preserved from corruption by his blessing alone; likewise concerning a tooth and the hair of the holy Man (Eskil had carried these away with him on setting out from Clairvaux). Which, since they are to be exhibited afterwards in their place from the same Geoffrey whom I just designated, let the reader go to him. Further, the praised Eskil, his mitre laid aside, joined himself to the monks of Clairvaux after the holy Father's death, and in the Annals of the Order frequent and honorable memory of him recurs. This man Henriquez announces and praises in his Cistercian Menologium at the X day of April.

[534] The books On Consideration written and sent in different years: To this year also belongs the crown set by St. Bernard upon his golden Work On Consideration to Pope Eugenius. Pagi, in the Critique on Baronius under the year of Christ 1152, number 2, discusses thus the order of time and of writing: Baronius speaks under this year of the five books On Consideration to Pope Eugenius elaborated by the divine Bernard, which stand foremost among his Works; but the holy Doctor did not complete them at one stretch, as Baronius thought; rather he transmitted them to Eugenius written at different intervals, as Mabillon observes in the Preface to volume 2 of the Works of St. Bernard. And the first indeed he published in the year 1149, since Nicholas, monk of Clairvaux, notary of that same St. Bernard, writing to Peter the Venerable before his departure, says "I send you the book of the lord Abbot of Clairvaux to the lord Pope." Which letter is the seventh of book 6. But Nicholas withdrew from the holy Doctor a little after, as we have said in its own place. Moreover Bernard addressed the second book to Eugenius in the year 1150, after the unhappy issue of the expedition to Jerusalem: of which he prefaces an apology from the very beginning of the book. The third he wrote this year after the death of Hugh of Auxerre: for in chapter 2, number 11, speaking of him, he says, THE HOLY BISHOP BEING DEAD; which book indeed at number 20 he declares to have been published by him in the fourth year from the council of Reims. His words Baronius cites. Finally the fourth and fifth books he completed a little afterwards, if not together with the third.

[335] At length our historical collection of the affairs of St. Bernard is brought down to the year of Christ 1153. the grave infirmity of the holy Father, This was for the Man of God the end of this mortal life and the beginning of a blessed immortality. The author of the Cistercian Annals observes under this year, chapter 1, number 2, that at the beginning of the year, that is, in mid-winter, Bernard was sick even to death, from his own letter. That letter is among Bernard's others published by Mabillon the 307th in order, written to the lord of Ostia, and there marked under the year of Christ 1153. But the holy Father writes thus to him for our purpose: Then I have learned that you are solicitous concerning the state of my body. It is true what you have heard: I was sick unto death; but meanwhile recalled unto death, and that (as I feel myself) not for long: for I am far weaker than can be believed. Which nevertheless I would say without prejudice to divine providence, which can even raise the dead. From these things, then, it is plain that the Saint was then affected with a most desperate infirmity: but at what time the growing disease at last brought him to his end, Geoffrey testifies in book 5 of the Life, chapter 2, where he describes the Man's most happy but to the brethren most sorrowful death, and thus records concerning him as he addressed them: These are the words which I was speaking to you when I was sick last winter, that there was nothing for you yet to fear: that next summer the dissolution of this body was impending (as I believed of myself). Further, how the Saint bore himself in his grave infirmity, exercising an unconquered and heroic spirit in ardent fervor and pious occupations, the same biographer had set out in book 5, chapter 1.

[536] Meanwhile the brethren (as the same writer of the Life narrates in chapter 3) pressed on with the supplications and entreaties which they could make with God. Whence also the Saint himself, knowing that his desire was deferred by their prayers, when he had begun to be somewhat better in body, the brethren being gathered, spoke these same words: and his sons' care for him: various of his Why do you hold back a wretched man? You are the stronger, and you have prevailed. Spare, I pray, spare: let me go. To which Manrique subjoins this at number 4: But nevertheless, full of the spirit of prophecy, and no less meanwhile glowing with fatherly love, he consoled the mourners, promised delay, instilled confidence, and raised all into hope, and promised that he would be deferred until summer, a truce being given to grief: "These are the words which I was speaking to you when I was sick last winter," etc. Therefore (as Manrique goes on at number 5) while they wavered doubtful between hope and fear, and scarcely, or not even scarcely, hoped that the long-impending sentence of death could be deferred, a vision confirmed those who perhaps trusted Bernard's words too little; which is set forth by Geoffrey in chapter 3 already indicated. This was the third vision, as the Cistercian historiographer observes, concerning Bernard's death, which nevertheless a fourth other followed, by which, though less clearly, yet not too obscurely, it was confirmed that it would be deferred. It showed Odo, one of the elders of Clairvaux, as about to die before the holy Father. Read this in the biographer so often just designated; to whom add the author of the Great Exordium, distinction 3, chapter 6; where, since there follows the holy Father's asseveration or prediction concerning the heavenly glory which would come to Odo immediately after death, I transcribe from the same Exordium also this:

[537] predictions For after the aforesaid vision that same servant of God Odo, drawn by a trouble of the body, came to his last. To visit whom, when blessed Bernard had come in, seeing him fearful and anxious, as though he had lived less perfectly, and on that account still awaited a doubtful sentence of the judge, he thus addressed him: Why do you tremble, why are you troubled, O blessed soul? From the days of your youth you have shown devoted service to Christ in many and great labors: and do you dread to depart? Go on, go on secure: I tell you in truth that you shall come by a straight course to your Creator, and shall appear holy before him. Strengthened by this consolation of his beloved Father, humble Odo .. truly laid hold on life. But that the holy Father might prove by the homage of pious humility that the sentence which he had pronounced concerning him was true, while the holy body still lay on the bier, before it was carried to be washed, reverently approaching, he devoutly kissed the sacred feet of a corpse worthy of God. .. The remains of his blessed body were laid, out of reverence for his sanctity, in the tomb in which we said that Humbert of pious memory was placed.

[538] are recorded: But altogether wonderful is another prophecy of the holy Man, which Manrique in chapter 2 believes to belong to the first months of this year 1153, and produces from the writer of the Great Exordium. Thus, then, it is reported in Tissier's edition, distinction 3, chapter 27: The most noble prince Gunnar, once judge and lord of lower Sardinia, when he had at one time sought out St. Martin of Tours for the sake of prayer, passing through Clairvaux on his return, and being devoutly received by blessed Bernard, and copiously admonished also concerning the salvation of his soul, by no means consented to conversion: although the holy Father, in his presence and while he chattered much, had given light to a certain blind man. To whom, as he was departing, the Man of the Lord spoke thus: I indeed have earnestly asked the Lord for your conversion: but at present I have not deserved to be heard. And now I suffer you to depart, because it is not lawful to keep back one unwilling: yet know that you shall return hither again from Sardinia. He departed therefore into his own country: but the words which he had heard from the mouth of the Man of God ceaselessly goaded his mind, the Spirit within suggesting that the prophecy which so great a Prophet had foretold him concerning himself could not utterly be made void. A little time after this had elapsed, when it had been announced to him that the blessed Man had passed from this world to the Father, he was vehemently stricken in mind, accusing himself and greatly repenting that he had not been converted at his preaching. Presently therefore he grew wholly white-hot with that fire which the Lord sends into the hearts of his elect and wills to be vehemently kindled: nor enduring to make any delay at all, he appointed his firstborn son to rule in his stead in his kingdom: but he himself, while he was still forty years old, excelling in age of body and vigor of mind, having left Sardinia and spurned all the glory of the world, entered Clairvaux poor and humble: and there, perseveringly serving under the discipline of the Order he had undertaken even to a decrepit age, nay even to death, he gloried that he had exchanged an earthly kingdom for a heavenly one.*

[539] Various tumults in Lorraine, as the Annals of the Cistercian Order relate in chapter 4, in the tumults among the people of Lorraine among the people of Metz, awaited Bernard as an angel of peace perhaps reserved for this. Nay, Hillin, metropolitan of Trier, under whom is the see of Metz, coming to Clairvaux, humble and suppliant, urged that same Saint to succor such great evils. The matter Geoffrey narrates in book 5 of the Life, chapter 1, adding that strength for the success of so great a work in this case, as had happened in other past events, was rendered to the Man of God from heaven. The Lord, he says, as he had always directed the ways of his faithful Servant, and had used a most apt instrument in each of the chief causes, had a few days before somewhat relieved the sickness of his body. And a few things being interposed: Which indeed divine providence more often disposed toward him .., that as often as some great necessity called him forth, his mind overcoming all things, bodily strength should not be wanting. .. To whom in his last work the divine power was so manifestly present that he seemed to take strength from his labors. Meanwhile, Now arms on both sides, say the cited Annals at number 4, and shouts were heard: and the one side from ardor of revenge, the other from elation at a recent victory, both raged. When the holy Father, admonished by a vision that he should yield to no repulse, but would at last obtain whatever he wished, following the bishop of Trier, came*

to the camps which, on the point of rushing upon each other, occupied the banks of the Moselle far and wide.

[540] How many and how great wonders were here heaped, as it were in a mass, by divine providence upon the holy Man! these being composed by the Man of God, various wonders, Wonderful his journey to those tracts, who was scarcely one point distant from his journey to eternity: wonderful, in the business of a peace utterly despaired of, so certain and confident a prediction of its good outcome; wonderful, finally, the composing of those most atrocious discords: for indeed the chief men of either party .., all being composed according to what the faithful arbiter (Bernard) determined, right hands being given to one another, were reconciled in the kiss of peace, as Geoffrey testifies: who, describing the whole series of the transaction, will more fully teach the reader. There pressed upon men, namely, as Manrique rightly observes at number 6, the weight of Bernard's authority, and the miracles pressed, since both sides accounted it a wickedness not to hearken to him whom God hearkened to, and whom nature herself obeyed. Besides others, two blind men enlightened at the touch of the Man of God: likewise two lame men endowed with free step, manifested God present in Bernard. Then from the same Geoffrey he reports the most celebrated healing of a woman shaken for eight years with a violent trembling and strong motions of the limbs; as also the cure of another paralytic. Go to Geoffrey himself in the place cited above: who, after he had narrated the things which happened on this last and altogether memorable journey of the most holy Abbot, thus addresses him, concluding the aforesaid first chapter:

[541] But it would be too difficult, or by all means impossible, and memorable things: returned to his own to embrace all the great deeds of that journey. But neither is it of our purpose to pursue such signs now, and to give labor to the narrating of the works of his powers. For here, most sweet Father, was the blessed end of your ways, and here was your last labor. In this work no less useful than difficult, of a peace no less despaired of than necessary, he gloriously completed your labors who always magnificently honored you in your labors, glorifying you in his name and his name in you, the king of glory, the Lord your God. So Geoffrey; who in chapter 2 treats of the Saint's return to the monastery of Clairvaux, and of the joy of mind with which he was anointed. Here are some things out of many which he writes: When, the reconciliation of the men of Metz being completed and peace restored to that province, the holy Abbot returned to the monastery, being seized with the grave trouble of a body now on the point of failing, he was drawing near daily to his departure in so great a sweetness of mind and delight of spirit, as if, sailing in harbor, he were little by little laying down his sails. And plainly he said to the brethren: "These are the words which I was speaking to you when I was sick last winter," etc., which have been set out above.

[542] and, brought to the last of life, he moves his sons to the gravest mourning; The grief of his sons of Clairvaux over the despaired-of health of their most beloved Parent Manrique records, using these words: Now the holy Father was drawing near to death, now death to victory, now victory to triumph. Now the blessed angels, now the heavenly spirits awaited a new citizen with joy — nay, the very demons awaited with such exultation as they could Bernard's departure, through whom they had lost so many thousands of souls. The brethren and sons alone, about to be deprived of so great a Father's consolation, of so great a master's guidance, mourned in sadness, ready to redeem his life even with their own. For to depart under him they placed among happiness; to live without him, among misery. You might see men made almost beside themselves, nearer, as it appeared, to death than he whose loss they bewailed. Let one of them, Geoffrey, be heard, book 5 of the Life, chapter 2: Our inconsolable mourning under so grave a crisis one may in some measure estimate and set before himself, and, if he shall feel piously, he will imagine the pale troops of sons, the wasted faces, the bloodless countenances, the cheeks soiled with tears, and the sighs and sobs of their breasts.

[543] to whom he leaves a testament. Then the same biographer directs to his holy Parent an apostrophe full of the expressions of the tenderest affection, of the profoundest veneration, and of the most heaped-up praise: but, lest I do what has been done, I do not transcribe it hither. I here pass over also the other things which he subjoins concerning the sons' coming to the Father, and his words and theirs, and their weeping. Likewise he consoled the offspring most beloved to him. Besides, with admonitions the sweet and solicitous Father instructed them (see the praised Geoffrey in the place cited) toward religious perfection, exhorting the pledges most dear to him with tears mingled from affection into a truly fatherly discourse. Nor shall I pass over those three admonitions with which, in place of a testament or last will, the most kindly Father is said by Alan, in Mabillon, volume 2, column [ ] and 1272, to have addressed his beloved sons: Seeing therefore that the end of his days was impending, calling aside certain brethren who had long clung to him in familiar converse, he addressed them, saying such things: Since I do not judge that I can leave you great examples of religion, three things I commend to you for imitation, which in the course which I have run I remember to have observed as far as was possible to me: I trusted my own judgment less than another's; when hurt, I did not seek vengeance upon the one who hurt me. I wished to give scandal to no one: and, if it ever befell, I allayed it as I could. To these deserve to be joined the things which Manrique signifies that he read in the additions to the Great Exordium, book 7, chapter 10, expressed in these words: As the sweetest swan, which, led to the threshold of death, is wont to sing with a tuneful and pleasant strain; so blessed Father Bernard, now set at the end of this present and perishing life, uttered words far sweeter and more mellifluous: so that from joy mingled with sadness all who were present there melted into tears with huge mourning and unspeakable groanings.

Another reading, Eskilus, Eschilus*.

Perhaps tetrarchalis*.

Another reading, Hilinus*.

§ LI. His disease; his death revealed; a letter, as is reported, of the Duchess of Lorraine; the coming of illustrious men; his death; his body; an end put to the miracles by obedience.

The holy Father himself describes his disease: But if anyone desires to know the manner of his sickness, there is extant a letter which he himself dictated to a certain friend a very few days before his sacred departure from us, as Geoffrey testifies, book 5 of the Life, chapter 2, who also recites it in the same place. Here is the following fragment of it for you: Sleep has departed from me, so that not even by the benefit of a lulled sense does pain ever depart. A failing of the stomach is nearly the whole of what I suffer. .. My feet and legs have swollen, as is wont to happen to the dropsical. And in all these things, that nothing may lie hid from a friend solicitous concerning a friend's state, according to the inward man (as I say, being less wise) the spirit is ready in the weak flesh. Further, this letter is marked the 310th in order, and is addressed To Arnold of Chartres, abbot of Bonneval, Mabillon noting that he is everywhere called Ernaldus in ancient monuments, as in the Spicilegium, volume 12, page 390, and in Arnulf, bishop of Lisieux, who praises his letters. That all have perished we greatly grieve. That the second book of the Life of Bernard .. must be attributed to Ernaldus, the fuller Notes teach.

[545] Manrique, chapter 7, numbers 7 and 8, writes of two other revelations, to a certain abbot near Clairvaux his death is twice revealed: besides those which we have mentioned, by which the Saint's death was foretold. Let us produce his words: At this very time in the abbey nearest to Clairvaux — and it is not yet sufficiently certain in which — a fourth revelation concerning the Saint's death at once instructed and invited the abbot to be present, if he wished, at a holy death at which all the heavenly court would be present. The event is narrated and confirmed in Geoffrey, book 5, chapter 3. But whether that abbot thought the matter not so near at hand, or did not give full credit to that revelation, or was occupied with other urgent business, this heavenly admonition was followed by another, of which Manrique at number 8 cited, made to the Provost of the aforesaid monastery by St. Bernard himself; which, since it is briefly reported by the biographer just praised, I transfer hither from him: In the monastery of that aforesaid abbot who had thus foreseen his birthday, on that night which the holy Father, about to depart in the morning, made his last with us, appearing to his venerable Provost, he bade him farewell and said: Know that I am now departing, and shall stay here no longer. And when he had told this to the abbot, the abbot, hastening and coming to Clairvaux, found on that very day that the holy Abbot, as he had said, had already departed. And this indeed was the fifth revelation of the most holy Father's death, as Manrique observes at number 8: and, so far as we know, also the last, which indeed happened on the last night, after which at the next morning's dawn he was to depart to the Lord.

[546] [the Duchess of Lorraine is reported to have written to him: the coming of illustrious men, the time of his death:] But as the time of death drew near, a messenger is reported to have come to him from Lorraine, and to have brought to him a letter of the Duchess, converted long since by the holy Man. But what she wrote in it, and what answer the Saint gave, may be read in the Cistercian Historian, chapter 7, number 9, after the narration of which matter he adds: These things from an anonymous ancient manuscript, as he calls it, from which Brito testifies that he drew: who may be inspected, book 3, chapter 28; where indeed a manuscript codex, folio 64, is alleged, and other authors are named; but let the credit of the fact rest with those who assert it; since Geoffrey, so diligent and accurate a writer of the things which happened toward the end of the Life of St. Bernard, records nothing of these. Further, of the wonderful conversion of this duchess Adelaide, William treats in the Life, book 1, chapter 7, and Geoffrey's Fragments, column [ ]. See what I said above in §18, number 198. Lastly, that the holy Man, now near to death, was honored with the company of illustrious persons, Geoffrey is witness, book 5 of the Life, chapter 2: At the last, he says, when the framework of the outward dwelling was now everywhere loosed, .. that great day dawned on which a perpetual day rose for him: at whose departure the neighboring bishops with a copious multitude of abbots and brethren had gathered. But presently subjoining the time of his death, At about the third hour of the day, he says (Manrique, chapter 7, number 11, says three hours before noon, more or less) .. he departed from the body of this death. But then he marks other notes of time: About sixty-three years being completed .. on the thirteenth of the Kalends of September he fell asleep in Christ amid the hands of his sons, namely in the year of restored salvation 1153; which the said biographer, some matters being interposed which will be treated presently, also notes, saying: These things were done in the same year in which our blessed Pope Eugenius III .. departed .. from this light.

[547] his most holy soul is borne into heaven by the Mother of God: But at what moment the most blessed Father rendered his most pure soul to his Creator, a plainly singular vision adorned his most happy passing from this life, which Manrique at number 13 thus

narrates from the additions to the Great Exordium, book 7, chapter 10: But in that very moment in which he breathed forth his last breath, there was seen in that same chamber in which the holy Man lay the most loving Mother of God, the special patroness of blessed Bernard, the most bountiful rewarder of her own, having with her in her train an innumerable multitude of angels and heavenly spirits, as befitted the queen of heaven and mistress of the angels; who, all beholding it who had come to the funeral, snatching the most holy soul of the Man of God as it were from his mouth, led it with that same train to the inner chambers of heaven, the angels rejoicing and singing heavenly hymns through the air — so that the loving one might by no means be unmindful of those mindful of her. Likewise the same queen of heaven was seen to have placed that soul of our blessed Father Bernard at her side in the heavenly beatitude. But these things Philotheus thus bound in verse in his Encomiastic Poem on the life and manners of St. Bernard:

When the snow-white spirit, amid the tears and groans of his own, the body cast off, departs on high: the Virgin herself, most radiant, through the airy tracts was seen gladly to lead the heavenly choirs: and, drawing the purple soul, set it above in the empyrean citadel, and placed it at her own side.

So there concerning that apparition; but Geoffrey left nothing written of it, which I wonder at. What of the sacred body exposed, of the concourse of men, and of the burial?

[548] The body of the deceased Abbot, duly prepared also and adorned with priestly vestments, the body exposed, the concourse, the burial, is carried into the oratory of the blessed Mother of God; as Geoffrey testifies, book 5, chapter 2, a very great multitude of men running together to it, and filling the whole valley with weeping and wailing; as there follows. For two days the Shepherd, dead, remained in the midst of his flock, while that former grace of his most sweet countenance, in nothing diminished but rather increased, fixed all men's eyes upon itself, drew their minds, and buried their affections. What besides? But the multitude of the people rushing in from every side grew beyond measure, and the onset was now becoming intolerable of those running together and of those grasping his beloved feet, kissing his hands, applying loaves, belts, coins, and whatever else to be kept by them for a blessing. And indeed on the second day so importunate was the multitude besetting the venerable body, and awaiting the burial of that most sacred pledge, to be performed on the third day, that its hour was anticipated, to avoid the troubles which were feared. Consult the biographer just praised, who relates these things more fully. What of this, that one of the brethren, laboring under the grave and long-lasting evil of the falling sickness, and, before the body was laid in the tomb, approaching it in full faith and begging its help, recovered perfect health, as may be seen in the same writer: although this healing was inserted into his text from elsewhere. Go also to the Great Exordium, distinction 2, chapter 20.

[549] Nor was the holy Father kindly only to his son and to his own household; so many miracles were done, but he showed himself propitious to strangers also. Let the Great Exordium be heard in the place just indicated: On the day before that most precious treasure was laid to rest, a certain boy came from a nearby hamlet, having, from a drying of the sinews, a withered arm and a contracted hand. Whose age and weakness those who were present pitying, invited him the more confidently to the touch of the sacred body after the ninth hour of prayer, in proportion as his innocent age dared the less to presume it of itself. But when the withered arm was applied to the holy arm, and the contracted hand to the blessed hand, suddenly, the vigor of nature returning, the arm grew strong, and the hand, freely stretching out and bending back its fingers, was restored to perfect health before the eyes of the whole multitude which surrounded the sacred corpse on every side. At whose cure so great a shout arose at once from all who were present, crying out in praise of God, that the discipline of the Brethren could scarcely repress it. But when night came on, another was brought, weak in his whole body; he lay prostrate at the bier, and before those chanting the psalms he was raised up and led to the altar. So the Great Exordium of the Cistercian Order.

[550] But a great power of miracles must have gone forth from the body of our Abbot now dead, [so that on account of the tumult of the people the Saint was ordered to put an end to them:] since it is said to have been enjoined upon him that he should not continue them further, Gosuinus, abbot of Cîteaux, forbidding it. Hear the event from the author of the Great Exordium, distinction 2, chapter 20: For indeed the lord of Cîteaux, who with several other abbots of his Order had come to the obsequies of the Man of God, considering so great an importunity of the tumultuous people, and conjecturing the future from the present, began vehemently to fear lest, if with the signs growing frequent so intolerable a throng of peoples should run together thither, by their shamelessness the discipline of the Order should perish, and the fervor of holy religion grow lukewarm in that place. Wherefore, deliberation having been had upon this, approaching reverently, he forbade him by the power of obedience to work signs further. But since the Apostle says of our Lord Jesus Christ that he was made obedient to the Father unto death, and by his example our lawgiver St. Benedict sets obedience before us in the rule unto death; the holy and truly humble soul of our Father was obedient to a mortal man even after the death of the flesh. For the signs which had then already begun to shine forth so ceased that from that day and thereafter he was never seen to work public miracles: although to all the faithful, and chiefly to the brethren of his Order, crying to him in their various troubles, he cannot be wanting to this day. For it is manifest that the lord of Cîteaux willed only those signs not to be done which would lessen the discipline of the Order through the crowds of peoples running together.

[551] this obedience of the Man a malignant spirit alleges But it will not be beside the purpose to record in this place, from the Great Cistercian Exordium which was designated a little before, what happened on occasion of this command in the case of an infernal spirit which possessed a woman, and which, being thereupon ordered to go out through the merits of St. Bernard, boasted of this obedience of his, that it might not be compelled to desert the seat it had occupied. Learn, then, the transaction from him: Several years having thereafter passed from the blessed Man's passing, there was in the parts of Italy a certain matron whom, being seized, a malignant spirit began atrociously to vex. By which lamentable mischance her kinsfolk and friends, vehemently dismayed, began with sedulous meditation to weigh what remedy there might be. Now there was in the neighborhood a certain monastery of the Cistercian Order; and, as hope conceived from any quarter is wont to bring forth confidence in minds set in straits, they resolved by common counsel to lead that demoniac woman to that same house for the sake of cure. Which also was done. The wretched woman is set at the gate: and some of those accompanying her are sent to announce so great an evil to the abbot and the brethren, and to beg help. But the abbot, taking with him certain of the elders whom he knew to be the more spiritual, goes out to the sufferer with the Lord's cross and the relics of the Saints. And when that malignant spirit, adjured by the Lord's cross and by the sacred pledges of the Saints, was in no wise moved, the abbot remembered that he had venerable relics of the hair and beard of St. Bernard: which in that same year, unless I am mistaken, going to the Chapter, he had received at Clairvaux for a blessing, and continually carried with him for his own protection. And saying nothing, he silently put his hands beneath his cowl, that, these relics being drawn out, he might press the demon by them.

[552] that the malignant spirit may go out from the possessed woman. Which that pestiferous one detecting with lynx eyes, began at once to grind the footstool with his feet and to cast spittle: and by the unseemly motion of the whole body he betrayed unwillingly what he suffered within. And bursting into speech he said: Ho there, little abbot, what do you mean to do? What mischief are you now contriving against me under that garment of yours? In vain you strive, to no purpose you labor: keep your little Bernard, for you shall accomplish nothing. But when the abbot said, By the Lord's grace and the merits of this most holy Man, you shall now go out, he answered: What? Or has it slipped you that he was forbidden to work signs? Knowing this therefore, I rest secure in this my dwelling. But the abbot and the brethren who were with him, hearing these words, marveled greatly that the wicked spirit had so quickly found that prohibition as a shield of his defense.

In another reading is added Gozeuinus*.

In another reading is added abbot*.

§ LII. Various apparitions after the blessed Father's death; his tomb; epitaphs; eulogies; the prodigious water with which his sacred body had been washed; the anniversary sermon; a description of his body and manners.

St. Bernard's heavenly glory Most holy men from various regions of the world beheld his blessed soul ascending into heaven; but among others two are recorded, the one being in England, the other in Gascony: the latter William, Count of Montpellier, whom we recorded as long since converted at Grandselve, thence sent into Spain, but now perhaps returned: the former anonymous, but of great sanctity, and not unaccustomed to like revelations: both on the same day on which he died; but the one speaking to him, the other only seeing. And of the Englishman the author of the Great Exordium has this, book 1, chapter 38: "They report that in the region of England there lives a certain Religious of great virtue, who on the very day on which blessed Bernard, abbot at Clairvaux, departed from the world, when he was in England, saw in spirit a certain very great angel sent from heaven, taking up nonetheless a certain very great soul from the earth, and bearing it with him with huge joy to the stars." With these the Cistercian Annalist begins his eighth chapter. But another apparition, which befell the praised William on that very night on which the holy Abbot departed from this life, the same historiographer subjoins from Geoffrey, book 5, chapter 3: where the reader will find it described at greater length.

[554] To these two Manrique adds a third, made, as he reports, four days' journey from Clairvaux after his death to a Regular Canon who afterwards took the monk's habit at Clairvaux. But he says that he records the transaction from an anonymous Frenchman whom Sylva translated. Thus, then, it runs: He died on the same day as the Saint, nay at the same hour, and seemed to himself to see in sleep several monks resplendent in white cowls, going forward slowly two by two, and conducting the body of the blessed Man from his cell into the church, where his funeral obsequies were being celebrated. .. Waking, he was drawn this way and that, anxious and doubtful concerning the death and the vision, whether the holy Doctor had already departed from the world, and whether he ought to pray for him, or he rather, as one who could intercede for others. Suddenly, put beside himself, he saw a star of huge brightness and beauty, and clearly knew, by a voice let down from heaven, that it was the soul of his friend and Father, about to shine before the eternal throne of God. This vision being set forth, A like other one, he says, made in Italy you have in the same place. Thus far the collector of the Cistercian Annals.

[555] Receive another, which stands in the same historian at number 5, was manifested to various persons and places: from the additions which he cites,

to the Great Exordium, book 7, chapter 10: Doctor Jacobus de Paradiso, therefore, he says, who was of the Order of the Carthusians, reports that in that hour in which blessed Bernard happily departed from this world, thirty thousand men departed from life. Among whom also was a certain man, Dean of the church of Lincoln, who, while he lived, was a man of praiseworthy life. Who, fleeing worldly honors, chose a solitary life in a certain wilderness, in which for twenty-five years he lived most holily. This dean therefore also died on the same day as our most blessed Father Bernard. But after death he appeared with great glory to the bishop of Lincoln, for the admonition of that bishop and of all who heard, saying to him: Do penance, amend your life, correct your conscience, put away pride together with avarice: otherwise you shall never have heavenly glory. For it is not so easy for a man to be saved as many believe. For when I was presented at the dread judgment of God, there were present there thirty thousand souls, of whose number the blessed man Bernard and I were saved: three went down into purgatory: all the rest fell into hell. Having said these things the Dean disappeared. But blessed be God in his Saints, and holy in all his works, who deigned that our holy Father Bernard should thus be glorified in every people and nation. In the Carthusian Library, by F. Theodore Petreius, it is noted that Jacobus de Clusa, otherwise de Paradiso (although others think them different men), before entering the Order a doctor of sacred Theology and public professor; but afterwards a pupil of the Charterhouse of Erfurt, wrote a treatise On the apparitions of souls after their departure from the body .., and died in the year .. 1465, or thereabouts.

[556] many other apparitions concerning this matter occurred: There are several other visions by which the Lord God manifested the glory of his most faithful Servant now dead. Let Geoffrey be read, book 5 of the Life, chapter 3; from which I reduce this to a summary: On the next night, after the sacred body had been given to burial, how great a solicitude the holy Father still bore for his sons .. he plainly showed. For appearing to a certain brother in much glory .., and passing by quickly as the man desired to hold him, he said, Because I have come for a certain simple brother. … About the third hour of the day the truth of the vision was proved. For a certain brother died .., and, as is altogether credible, .. he bore his soul with him. A few days also being completed, appearing to a certain other brother right magnificently, .. Know this also, he said, and tell the brethren, that the body of a certain truly Holy man, whose garment too I have, is buried in the oratory. And he meant bishop Malachy. For he had kept his tunic, in which that Saint had happily fallen asleep, for the celebration of Masses, and when about to die had ordered himself to be buried in it, as he had also buried that Saint in his own garment. Which word, however, both to that brother and to very many others until this vision was utterly unknown. Other apparitions of St. Bernard, good and many in number and singular in their kind, will be given by us afterwards in the Posthumous Glory of the Man. Let it meanwhile be permitted us to go on to other matters.

[557] the burial, the tomb, the epitaphs On the third day, then, after his death his body was buried. That the relics of the blessed Apostle Thaddeus, however, sent to him from Jerusalem in that same year, were laid upon his most sacred breast, as the blessed Abbot had commanded, Geoffrey relates, book 5, chapter 2. On occasion of the burial some things must also be noted concerning the epitaphs. Manrique in chapter 9 gives the following judgment upon them: Bernard's tomb, from the very time of the Saint's burial, was adorned by eulogies or epitaphs which are circulated together with his Works, inferior in quality to what they are in number. They are nerveless for the quality of their subject, and now harsh, now frigid, or, if they ever grow warm, uneven: certainly such as may seem to be many for the very reason that none is enough. Nor yet would I believe it was done without a divine nod, that minds otherwise supreme should as it were be blinded in Bernard's light, and that what was more than enough for praising others should fail in him — as one who alone was sufficient for himself, and who, laureate with the spirit of wisdom, was to be crowned by no others than his own writings. Baronius seems under this year to have assented to this conjecture, and to have approved it also by his own judgment: for, having begun the Saint's praises but scarcely tasted them, he passes hastily to Adam of St. Victor, one praiser of Bernard above the rest, and at last concludes: "Let these things redound to the praise of St. Bernard's praiser." ..

[558] The epitaph of Adam of St. Victor, because it truly sounds sweeter than the rest, or eulogy: I have thought must here be transcribed, the rest being omitted, which he indicates is found among the epitaphs of the lord Bernard. It is thus expressed:

Bright are the valleys: but to the Bright valleys an Abbot brighter than they gave a bright name in the world. Bright in ancestry, bright in merits, and bright in honor, bright too in eloquence, more in religion. Bright is his death, bright his ashes, and bright his sepulcher: brighter, his spirit exults before God.

So Adam of St. Victor played, and alluded to the brightness of the holy Abbot and of the place. The rest languish, and were worthy neither of Bernard's works nor of these Annals. There is therefore no need to have recourse to eulogies of this kind. Other testimonies concerning the Saint from the weightiest men of every state and condition we shall produce a little below — not even the heterodox being excluded from the throng of those praisers, who also contributed their own token to Bernard's encomiums. For indeed, if it be permitted to add our own judgment concerning the holy Father to the eulogies of the wisest men, it is most manifestly gathered, both from what has been said in the course of this our Commentary and from what is to be said below in his Life, and also after it in the Posthumous Glory to be elaborated by us in his honor, that the following titles, not shadowy but true and genuine, belong to him. He was, then, and ought by most deserved right to be called, a most holy Man, the light and pillar of the Catholic Church, the prop of the Apostolic See, the hammer of heretics, an apostle, a prophet, a wonder-worker, an Angel of peace, the instrument of almighty God, the rule of religious perfection, the propagator and glory of the Cistercian Order, in fine a vessel of election, for the doing of great things and for bringing them to a happy issue not only in most difficult but even in the most desperate times.

[559] Godfrey his notary, when he was afterwards abbot at Clairvaux, published .. a most elegant sermon on the anniversary solemnity of his sacred death. [in the sermon which was delivered on the anniversary day, there is treatment of the prodigious water] Which, although sprinkled with very many faults, saw the light in the later editions which are in circulation, together with the Saint's works, under this beginning: How sweet today, most beloved sons, ought the memory of our father to be; as Manrique observes in chapter 9, number 5. That sermon has been indicated by us at greater length in §1 of this Commentary, number 18, where it is also marked in what year it was delivered. But concerning its author let the reader consult the observations in §63. But wonderful is what is reported at the said number 5 concerning the water with which the body of the Saint, now dead, had been washed — salutary and prodigious even after many years thereafter. Let the words of the Sermon be heard: To some also the holy Father, when they did not see him in the flesh, showed himself a kindly father in spirit, brought help, took away temptation, brought consolation. For from the washing of his sacred body, when after his passing we were rendering him the due obsequies according to custom, certain brethren carried it away into the remotest parts of the world, and, as we have learned by their sure report, though the tenth year has now passed, not only does that water remain until now in every way unimpaired; but whatever water has been poured over it obtains the same grace. For although they have given of that sacred liquid to many now asking it for remedies (for they affirm that it has brought help to many), yet, another little vessel being filled with water very often, it remains to this day such as it was on the first day.

[560] an accurate description of St. Bernard Of the singular endowments of grace with which the holy Man was gifted, the writer of the Life, Geoffrey, asserts this in book 3, chapter 1: He was serene in countenance, modest in bearing, circumspect in words, fearful in action, assiduous in sacred meditation, devout in prayer, and .. in every matter trusting more to prayer than to his own industry or labor: magnanimous in faith, long-suffering in hope, lavish in charity, etc. There appeared in his flesh a certain grace, yet spiritual rather than carnal. In his countenance a brightness shone forth, not indeed earthly but heavenly. In his eyes a certain angelic purity and dovelike simplicity radiated. So great was the beauty of his inward man that it broke forth outwardly by certain evident tokens, and the outward man too seemed copiously suffused from the abundance of inward purity and grace. But now the outward state of his body the same biographer goes on thus to exhibit in the place alleged: His whole body was very thin and without flesh: the very skin, most fine, was moderately ruddy on his cheeks. .. His hair was colored between yellow and white. His beard reddish, toward the end of his life sprinkled with grey. His stature was of a becoming middle size, yet appeared nearer to tallness.

[561] is set forth. But the holy Man was of a weak body and subject to very many troubles. Let the cited Geoffrey be heard again: But otherwise this treasure was in an earthen vessel, utterly worn and shattered on every side. For his flesh labored under manifold troubles of infirmities, that in them the strength of his mind might be made perfect. Of which the more perilous indeed was in the passage of a most narrow throat, admitting nothing at all dry and scarcely anything solid: the more troublesome was a failing of the stomach and a corruption of the bowels. These were continual with him, besides others often coming on. Further, of the Man's virtues and manner of living, which the praised biographer there relates, I make no record; but I mark them to be read in the fountain itself, lest I be longer than is right if I should describe in detail all that is there written. Meanwhile I could wish that the same author had represented what was the conformation of his face, what the lineaments of his forehead, mouth, and eyes. But since he neither did this, nor do I know it to have been done by any other ancient biographer, I shall attempt, so far as I can, to supply this defect from elsewhere below.

§ LIII. His likeness; his chamber; his chalice; pilgrimages to the Saint's body.

Of three images of the Saint There are with me three engravings which represent St. Bernard's likeness. One, subscribed with this inscription: The true likeness of St. Bernard, first abbot of Clairvaux, enlarger of the sacred Cistercian Order. But that truth, or the perfect agreement of this engraving with its prototype, is there indeed asserted; but not proved. Another image, and altogether differing from the former, is prefixed to the French Life of St. Bernard, which was published in print at Paris in the year 1704. The inscription asserts that this is the true likeness of the holy Man, namely engraved on copper from a painting which was sent from Rome, and which

was taken from his own countenance in the year 1152, when he was in the 62nd year of his age. That image represents a conformation of countenance at once elegant and venerable, and joined with fatherly sweetness; but I fear it is affected. For indeed the holy Father was of a body so emaciated that the skin scarcely covered the bones; and the very bones scarcely cohered with the rest of the framework of a most infirm body, already then, so to speak, as it were morally dead beforehand to a natural death. Consult what I just now set out from Geoffrey toward the end of §52. Brief is that saying of epistle 144 among Bernard's, where the holy Man says: bearing about the pale image of a fearful death, etc.

[563] From the aforesaid images the form of the holy Man is altogether different which one, and why one is here given in preference to the others: which stands in Puricelli among the Monuments of the Ambrosian basilica of Milan, and of the monastery now Cistercian (so the Work of the praised author is entitled), volume 1, page 623. But that one is more approved by me than the two other preceding ones, because this has greater authority with us than those, as I shall presently say. For that cause, then, I have thought it better to exhibit the same here together with its inscription, which is noted in the same Puricelli, and in which it is affirmed to be the true likeness of our Saint, in preference to the two others. Further, our engraver has attempted to imitate this likeness by these lineaments and characters of the graving-tool, as you see in this his engraving, expressing chiefly the countenance of the holy Man according to the exemplar set before him.

THE TRUE LIKENESS OF ST. BERNARD, ABBOT OF CLAIRVAUX

Authority is won for the likeness which we here give by Puricelli, when at page 622, number 370, he writes this of it: This is engraved on copper faithfully enough from another of the same size, which in former years the Father General sent from Gaul to his monks, now Cistercians, in this Ambrosian monastery, commended with this eulogy, that of all hitherto engraved on copper no other has ever agreed more with the true and native likeness of the holy Abbot.

[564] the holy Father's chamber is described, etc. Nor would I silently pass over in this place some things which Manrique, under the year 1153, chapter 9 at the end, writes concerning St. Bernard's chamber and certain other matters. Meanwhile I note, he says, that there still stands today the happy chamber, of forty feet in length, of twenty-six in breadth, with a squared stone in that part of the pavement on which the Saint's straw bed was set. In the middle of the stone a hollow is seen, it being doubtful for what use it is fit: and there are those who say that it was hollowed out for the placing of fire, whereby the failure of natural heat (for of that chiefly the Saint was sick) might be repaired. There is seen also in the same chamber the wooden bed on which he lay when he gave up his spirit; preserved, out of reverence for the Saint, whole and unharmed after so many years. Finally among the relics of Clairvaux, of which some will have to be spoken of by us, there is shown, from the Inventory of Clairvaux which is cited: "A small wooden coffer plated with silver, whose lock is of silver, full of relics, namely of the priestly vestments of St. Bernard the abbot, our Father." For under this title it is noted in the Inventory. And likewise "a chalice indeed beautiful but small, with a foot and a round knob, well gilded throughout, both within and without, with its paten and spoon also gilded, of the weight of one mark and five ounces; which, out of reverence for St. Bernard, who was wont to use it in the Sacrifice, holds the first place in the Inventory." But of the Saint's relics more perhaps will be produced by us in his Posthumous Glory, if a greater knowledge of them shall come to us.

[565] Eskil the archbishop Besides those things which concern the most blessed Father's burial, and which have been reported by us a little before, we now undertake to speak of the pilgrimages piously and religiously undertaken by various persons to his venerable tomb in the first times after his death. The Cistercian historian under the year 1154, chapter 1, number 1, says: Father Bernard having been translated to the heavenly ones, vows were frequented at his sepulcher, no otherwise than at other sacred places, from almost the whole world. The first, or among the first, was Eskil, the illustrious Primate of Denmark, of whom above, in this year one thousand one hundred and fifty-four, which was the fifty-seventh of Cîteaux, coming to Clairvaux from the farthest ends of the earth. And presently, giving a reason why he links his coming to this year, as also that of the petty king of Sardinia (of whom presently): Therefore, as he goes on, about the beginning of spring, he who two years before had visited Bernard, when he had learned of the Man's glorious passing, Geoffrey writing to him, came to venerate his sepulcher.

[566] made a pilgrimage to his tomb; Further, that coming is narrated and confirmed from the words of the Great Exordium, distinction 3, chapter 25, where this is read: But not long after these things (namely after he had returned from the monastery of Clairvaux), a time having elapsed, a most sorrowful report struck his ears concerning the falling asleep of the blessed Man, his special friend, Dom Geoffrey, monk of Clairvaux, who had for no short time been the notary of that same most holy Abbot, writing to him a little book on his passing. Then indeed his heart grew hot within him, and in his meditation a fire burned: reckoning all things vain, transitory, and perishing which can hinder a man's intention from the straight course by which he tends to the beatitude of the heavenly country. And so, commending to God and to the princes of the earth the church over which he had praiseworthily presided, leaving parents and kinsmen, acquaintances and friends, and bidding farewell to his native soil itself, an eminent exile he came to Clairvaux: he visited the sepulcher of the blessed Man, once his most intimate friend, and chose to live and die at his most sacred tomb: where also, by God's gift, he afterwards received the habit of sacred Religion. So there; but recall to memory what we set out in §50, number 532, concerning the monastic profession among the monks of Clairvaux desired by him while St. Bernard was living. Add what Manrique, alleged just now, observes at number 4.

[567] In the same year, and at the same time of it (so Manrique goes on at number 5), so far as may be conjectured, to whom add the petty king of Sardinia, and Simon the petty king of Sardinia, of whom we made mention above, his firstborn being set in his stead upon the throne, and his kingdom left, he who hitherto had been unwilling to cleave to him living, cleaved to his ashes, being made a humble monk at Clairvaux. That he was therefore drawn to the Saint, and enrolled in the institute of the monks of Clairvaux, we gather from the same Great Exordium. The matter I set forth in §50, number 537, another opportunity being offered there of treating of his journey to the monks of Clairvaux, which I number among the other pilgrimages to the holy Man's sepulcher, as also that which is narrated in the praised Exordium, distinction 3, chapter 28: The venerable man Simon, formerly abbot of Chézy, which is no ignoble monastery of monks of the black Order, loved blessed Bernard with great affection of heart, so far that he seemed wholly to depend on his counsel and will. But there was in him a great desire to leave the pastoral care and to become a monk at Clairvaux. Nevertheless the holy Father Bernard, knowing the man's virtue and the grace by which he was very fit and exceedingly necessary to the monastery committed to him, as long as he lived in the flesh would never give consent to him upon a petition of this kind.

[568] On a certain day, therefore, that same abbot said to him: Lord Father, abbot of Chézy I am an old man and almost decrepit, my limbs failing in my body and diseases besides pressing on, and I feel that I am even now being dissolved. And if I fail outside Clairvaux, it will be for me an inconsolable grief and an irreparable loss. Wherefore it is necessary that even now you bid me depart, and satisfy my wishes, since death, hastening, does not allow me to make further delay. To whom the Man of God answered: Remain in your place, and do not fear. I make you secure that you shall die at Clairvaux. The man believed the Saint's words, and remained meanwhile more secure in his prelacy for several years. But after the blessed Man's passing, when now, with no one restraining him, he could not endure the goads of his desire, having laid down his government he betook himself to Clairvaux: where also, by God's great gift and a great miracle, surviving for seven years — a thing altogether wonderful at such an age or in such infirmity — he left to us all at his end an example of fervor and devotion. So there.

[569] But although those two pilgrimages are not clearly and distinctly asserted by the author who records them to have been undertaken for the seeing and honoring of the precious deposit of the sacred body among the monks of Clairvaux, [both of whom also seem to have gone to Clairvaux, that they might enjoy the solace of his tomb.] yet since it seems probable that this cause also, either as a primary one or at least as a secondary, to speak with the philosophers, had an influence on the journey of those who betook themselves to that monastery, we have thought it not alien to the truth if, following Manrique's example, we should say that those two journeys were undertaken by them for the honoring of that venerable pledge which the monks of Clairvaux possessed, they being about to enjoy its daily solace as long as they lived, being enrolled in their institute. Thus, says Manrique at number 6, all venerated Bernard's ashes; Religious in Simon of Chézy; princes in Gumarus (or Gunnar); pontiffs in Eskil, and not by a pilgrimage merely undertaken; but by a dwelling established among them, and after the rule of life of that same Saint — which was judged more excellent, and, he being absent, more arduous. Mabillon, in volume 3 of the Annals of the Order of St. Benedict, under the year 854, number 80, gives a notice of the abbey of Chézy (Chesy) of St. Peter, which is situated on the river Marne below Château-Thierry in the diocese of Soissons, etc. This it has pleased to note, because mention occurs above of the head of that abbey.

§ LIV. St. Bernard's sanctity, doctrine, and authority in the Church.

He was a Doctor The heads of the eulogies which are here noted beforehand Mabillon illustrates in his general Preface, §2. But let the reader observe that the citations which are found in him in the margin of the text have been inserted by us into the text itself; and those which he designates from the biographers, as are nearly all of them, agree with his edition; yet in such wise that they may be found in ours also, since in this the chapters of that are marked in the margin. These things being noted beforehand, let us hear Mabillon: Before we go further, it is well to weigh two titles which are wont to be attributed to Bernard, namely that he is among the Doctors the Mellifluous; and the Last among the Fathers, but certainly not unequal to the first. The Church attributes the name of Doctor to those whose doctrine has been approved by her public suffrage, especially where a harmony of sanctity is added. She calls Fathers those whom sanctity, doctrine, and antiquity commend; doctrine, I say, cleaving to Scripture and Tradition rather than to philosophical reasonings. And so those illustrious in doctrine can be called Doctors immediately after a holy man's death: but Fathers only those whom an authority long since received has made venerable, and a manner of treating matters alien to philosophical reasoning. Both eulogies Bernard deservedly obtained. And the first indeed at his very canonization Alexander III attributed to him in the Mass which he then celebrated of him, the Gospel having been said,

which is assigned to holy Doctors alone, from Matthew chapter V, You are the salt of the earth.

[571] [and a Father of the Church, called also by the title of Mellifluous, and divinely taught.] But expressly Innocent III confirmed the same eulogy in the collect composed by him, in which he is called blessed Bernard, abbot and eminent Doctor. The adjective Mellifluous, which is more recent, Théophile Raynaud claimed for the holy Doctor in a particular little book which is entitled Apis Gallicana. The first among the editors set this epithet on the title page: the Lyons editor indeed in the year 1508; then Josse Clichtove in the year 1515; and also those two monks of Clairvaux already praised above; and the same, afterwards neglected from time to time by others, Horst restored. But it is better to report it among the eulogies: since the bare name of St. Bernard sufficiently commends the title of his Works, which fills up the author's eulogy. Assuredly if any other epithet suits Bernard, most of all does that of Θεοδίδακτος attributed to him by other editors: because he seems to have been endowed with a doctrine not so much acquired by human powers as infused from heaven.*

[572] Although labor and industry were not wanting to him in reading and handling authors, He was a notable Theologian, not only sacred but also profane, as is manifest from the words of these adduced from time to time. But without doubt he had learned these things as a youth in the world, which even in old age sometimes recurred to his memory. But as a monk he had given accurate labor to theological matters: how profound and sublime the knowledge of these was in him, the two Sermons on the Song chiefly teach, namely LXXX and LXXXI; where concerning the image of God, which is in the Word and in the soul, and concerning the simplicity of God, he discourses so loftily and so aptly that no one better before or after him. The same too must be said of the satisfaction of Christ suffering for us, which is explained in a truly wonderful manner in epistle CXC to Innocent. Besides these, what can be compared, in the knowledge of the Canons, with his excellent books On Consideration? Hence is confirmed that saying of Leo the Great: A true love of the right has in itself both apostolic authorities and canonical sanctions.

[573] Finally, how much the holy Doctor was versed in the reading of sacred Scripture, his writings everywhere proclaim, and in the reading of sacred Scripture, which can be called nothing else than centos of the divine volumes, to use Sixtus of Siena's words; for indeed they are so picked out on all sides with sentences of the old and new Testament, as with jeweled emblems, and these inserted so conveniently and aptly that they may be believed to have been born there. Which manner of writing, as it is not seemly to be employed indiscriminately in any subject whatsoever, so in sacred matters it ought not to be disapproved. For to this may be brought what the Apostle says: If any man speak, let him speak as the words of God. But that Bernard sometimes wrests certain passages of Scripture into an improper and by no means literal sense, so far that he seems rather to play upon words than to expound the words themselves; this indeed may be excused on this ground, that the holy Man believed that a manifold sense could suitably be drawn out of Scripture which conduces to the forming of morals, especially where it is not a matter of faith but of adorning some pious theme, namely for the exciting of the hearers' attention and delight.

[574] But now that the most holy Man was exceedingly versed not only in the reading of sacred Scripture but also in that of the holy Fathers, and also exceedingly versed in the reading of the holy Fathers; so far as his various occupations allowed, no one will deny who has diligently read his writings. For the Fathers are sometimes praised in them, and their opinions, and their doctrine is scattered through all his Works. Whence when he says, in the Life, book 1, number 23, that he had oaks and beeches for his masters, this must be interpreted in that manner which he himself suggests to the Cardinals in book IV On Consideration, number 12: namely, that in every matter more trust is to be placed in prayer than in one's own industry or labor. Which indeed Geoffrey applied in very truth to Bernard, in the Life, book 3, number 1. Moreover, how much he profited from the reading of the Fathers, especially of St. Augustine, the book On Grace and Free Will chiefly proves, which is a certain learned summary of Augustinian doctrine. But care must be taken lest, in the holy Doctor's little work praised both here and above in §15, freedom from coercion be confounded with freedom from simple necessity. If today's destroyers of human liberty would observe this, they would not make a poison out of the Mellifluous Doctor's sap, and offer it to incautious readers and to their own perverse followers; not unlike Julian the Pelagian, who abused the words of St. John Chrysostom for denying the original sin of infants. But St. Augustine, in book 1 against the same Julian, chapter 6, explaining the words of that holy Father, and giving the reason why he had so spoken, answers Julian thus: Because, disputing, he says, in the Catholic Church, he did not think that he would be understood otherwise; no one was assailed by such a question; as you were not yet litigating, he spoke more securely. What therefore in this case the great Augustine throws back at Julian concerning St. Chrysostom holds altogether in our case too, concerning St. Bernard, who would have spoken otherwise if his age had fallen in the times of Luther, Calvin, Jansen, Quesnel. Now let us go forward with Mabillon to other Fathers exceedingly well known to St. Bernard. He joins Ambrose to Augustine in the epistle or Opusculum XI to Hugh of St. Victor; and he adds that from these two columns of the Church he is not easily torn away. He praises Athanasius likewise in Opusculum X against Peter Abelard, and sometimes also Gregory the Great. Finally in the close of the Homilies on the praises of the Virgin he confesses that he received many things from the Fathers.

[575] which is a wonder in a Man otherwise most busy and infirm: But it is a wonder that the holy Man, liable to so many diseases and infirmities, distracted by so many cares, and interrupted by affairs not only domestic (which indeed were neither slight nor few in so numerous a company of monks) but chiefly public, was equal either to the reading of so many books or to the elaborating of writings so eloquent and erudite: so far that no one can doubt that, besides a natural genius, which in him was most excellent and most sublime, a certain divine wisdom was present to him as he spoke, acted, taught, and wrote. Whence "he once confessed," says Geoffrey, book 3, number 7, "that to him meditating or praying all sacred Scripture appeared as it were set beneath him and laid open." But although he was wont to confess, in the Life, book 1, number 24, that he better attained the sense of the Scriptures "in the fountain of their first origin than in the streams of expositions running down from it; yet, humbly reading their holy and orthodox expositors, he by no means made his own senses equal to their senses, but subjected them to be formed, and, faithfully clinging to their footsteps, often drank himself from the fountain from which they had drawn."

[576] although his bodily infirmity gave him much literary leisure. This reverence of the holy Doctor toward the holy Fathers shines out everywhere in his writings, as in epistle XCVIII, number 1; Sermon V on the Song, number 6; and elsewhere. Further, leisure for reading them was granted him by that long infirmity which in the first years of his prelacy compelled him to be absent from the company of the brethren and to live as it were privately apart in the monastery — at first indeed by the command of William, bishop of Châlons, and of the abbots of his Order, as the other William, an abbot, testifies, ibid., numbers 33 and 40: but then by the force of his growing infirmity. Abbot William saw him "keeping holiday from all solicitude of the house, both inward and outward, free for God and for himself, and exulting as it were in the delights of paradise." Then the holy Man discoursed to him of the Song of Songs, as he pursues at greater length. There was added, for Bernard as he grew well, in the obtaining of a holiday for sacred studies, the management of Gerard his own brother, who so supplied his place in the monastery that Bernard, in Sermon XXVI on the Song, ascribes to him the progress of his spiritual studies. But these studies were: to pray, to read, to write, to meditate, and the like, from Sermon II on the Song, number 3. Thus the blessed Father lived for fifteen years, that is, from the founding of the monastery of Clairvaux to the schism of Peter Leonis: at which time, being employed in great and arduous matters, he at length turned out such as afterwards all Europe — not to say the whole world — admired.

[577] Not undeservedly, therefore, that great Nicolas Le Fèvre, The highest reverence among all tutor of Louis the Just, as François Balbo testifies in his Life, as he was wont to venerate all the Fathers exceedingly, so chiefly the divine Augustine, to whose reading he assiduously clung, and among the more recent the divine Bernard, whom he called the Last of the Fathers. And certainly no one of the ancients after Augustine could better have deserved this eulogy than Bernard, no one so after him: since in no one was sanctity more illustrious by miracles and deeds, or doctrine purer or more tenacious of tradition, or the manner of speaking and writing more divine, or finally the authority greater. "For to whose will," to use William's words in the Life, book 1, number 70, "did all the height of dignity, as well secular as ecclesiastical, so defer; to whose counsel did it so humble itself? Proud kings, princes and tyrants, soldiers and robbers so feared him that there seems to have been fulfilled in them what is read in the Gospel that the Lord said to his disciples: Behold, he said, I have given you power to tread upon serpents," etc.

[578] "Further, among spiritual men .. he had a far different authority. and authority he obtained For as it is said by the Prophet of the holy living creatures, that when a voice came above the firmament which hung over their head, They stood and let down their wings: so today," he says, "everywhere on earth all spiritual men, when he speaks or treats, stand, yielding to one who goes before, and submit their own senses or understandings to his senses or understandings. His writings testify this," etc. Deservedly therefore Caesarius, monk of Heisterbach, book 14 On Miracles, chapter 17, says that his authority was so great "that through the mouth of Bernard alone the purpled Fathers, kings, and princes of the earth spoke as it were through the Common oracle of the world." This esteem for the holy Doctor has been propagated down to our own age, as the testimonies of illustrious men concerning him give assurance: among whom Bartholomew of the Martyrs, that most devout bishop of Braga, a cultivator and admirer of Bernard, ought to hold no inferior place.

[579] Further, this authority many things won for him while he lived, chiefly on account of his most profound humility, but chiefly his exceptional humility amid honors themselves, than which nothing, in Bernard's own judgment in Homily 4 on the Praises of the Virgin, number 9, is more sublime. Hear Ernaldus, Life, book 2, number 25: "But very many things praiseworthy and worthy of praise meet in him. For some admire his doctrine, some his manners, some his miracles. I indeed

(he says) render honor to all these: but above all, so far as in me lies, I count this more sublime, this I proclaim more earnestly, that, although he was a vessel of election, and bore the name of Christ before nations and kings undaunted; although the princes of the world obeyed him, and at his nod the bishops in every nation stood; although the Roman church herself venerated his counsels with a singular privilege, and, as by a general legation granted, had subjected to him nations and kingdoms; although also — what is more glorious than miracles — he never went beyond himself, never walked above himself in wonders: but always thinking humbly of himself, he believed himself not the author but the minister of venerable works; and although he was in the judgment of all the highest, in his own judgment of himself he stood the lowest. (For indeed, Life, book 3, number 22) humility of heart overcame the loftiness of his name: nor could the whole world raise him up so much as he alone cast himself down." Nor indeed did so great a lowering and abasement of himself lessen his fruitfulness with others; nay, it increased it the more. For indeed (in the same place, number 8) the more humble he was, the more useful he always was to the people of God in every saving doctrine.

[580] To the Father's sanctity his sons joined their own also. To the Father's sanctity there corresponded equally the holiness of his sons, which redounded also to the Father's glory. Witness the Roman Curia itself, which accompanied Innocent to Clairvaux. "The bishops wept," (Life, book 2, number 6) "the supreme Pontiff himself wept; and all marveled at the gravity of that Congregation, that in so solemn a joy the eyes of all were fixed on the ground, and were nowhere carried about with wandering curiosity; but with closed eyelids they themselves saw no one, and were seen by all. Nothing in that church did the Roman see which he might covet. No furnishing there solicited their gaze; nothing in the oratory did they see but bare walls. Upon their manners alone could ambition gape, nor could booty of this kind be harmful to the brethren, since religion could not be lessened by being carried away." By these columns and defenses was Bernard's authority upheld: so far that (Life, book 3, number 21; book 1, number 28) "sweetness of manners took away austerity, sanctity preserved authority: bringing as it were from heaven among men a certain miracle of a more than human purity sought out with God."

[581] Add his miracles; Further, that sanctity and purity were attested by miracles, which were so clear and illustrious that even his adversaries confessed them: so frequent and numerous that Bernard himself was astounded (in Geoffrey, book 3, number 20). It is no wonder, therefore, if his authority availed so much, first indeed "toward reawakening" (as William says, book 1, number 42) "in the monastic order the fervor of ancient religion": then, from Geoffrey, book 3, number 12, "in correcting the manners of Catholics, in repressing the furies of schismatics, in confuting the errors of heretics." Which is manifest both from his Life and from his writings, chiefly from his epistles.

* That is, divinely taught.

§ LV. Various testimonies in praise of St. Bernard gathered together.

There are given eulogies concerning the Saint gathered from Mabillon The immortal encomiums of our most holy Abbot, illustrated by the most learned Mabillon and transcribed by us from him in the paragraph immediately preceding, it pleases to confirm from many and various testimonies concerning the same holy Man. These are found indeed in the Introduction to the Works of St. Bernard published at Cologne by Merlo Horst; but because the praised Mabillon published them in a better order, it has seemed good for us to conform ourselves to him. He distributes the present matter, then, into various orders of persons at the end of the second volume, column [ ] and following. It has pleased to divide the whole matter into three parts, its own class being attributed to each.

PART ONE.

CLASS I.

Of the Supreme Pontiffs.

Of Innocent II, Alexander III, Innocent II, in a letter to St. Bernard: "With how firm and persevering a constancy," he says, "the fervor of your religion and discretion undertook to defend the cause of blessed Peter and of your holy mother the Roman Church, when the schism of Peter Leonis was blazing up, and, setting yourself as an unconquerable wall for the house of God, labored to bring the minds of kings and princes and of other persons, as well ecclesiastical as secular, to the unity of the Catholic Church and to the obedience of blessed Peter and our own, by frequent arguments fortified with reason — the great advantage which has come to the Church of God and to us makes manifest." He flourished in the year 1140.

Alexander III, in the letters of Canonization to the Gallican Church: "Blessed Bernard, supported by the prerogative of a singular grace, not only shone forth in himself with sanctity and religion, but also radiated in the whole Church of God with the light of faith and doctrine. But the fruit which he wrought in the house of the Lord both by word and by example scarcely any border of holy Christendom is ignorant of, since he transmitted the institutes of holy religion even to foreign and barbarous nations," etc. He flourished in the year 1170.

[584] Pius V, in the Bull Ex innumeris, etc., among the other means which he suggests for reforming the Cistercian Order, Of Pius V, Gregory XIV. proposes the reading of the Works of St. Bernard in these words: "Where sacred reading according to the disposition of the Council of Trent cannot be had, besides those books which are necessary for the use of the divine Office and the choir, let there be had at least a Bible, and the Catechism for parish priests lately published, likewise the Works of St. Bernard, and any others that may serve for the honorable occupation of the monks," etc. He flourished in the year 1570.

To these things which we have recited concerning St. Pius V from Mabillon's edition, we add another from the Life of the praised Pontiff, by Giovanni Antonio Gabuzio, published in our work in volume 1 of May, in which, book 6, chapter 13 in other editions, but there chapter 5, page 708, number 366, this is reported of him: But as he reclined at table he willed that there should always be employed both great cleanliness in all things and, chiefly, sacred reading: and he took care that especially St. Bernard's books On Consideration to Eugenius (in which, namely, the things which must be considered for the honor of God and the good of the whole Church and the salvation of souls are clearly taught) should more often be read aloud: and, most attentively weighing the gravity of the sentences, he diligently conferred with himself what he should carry out in his own time and place. Let us now go on again with Mabillon:

Gregory XIV: "He meditated for a whole hour in the morning," says Cicarella in his Life, "reading the works of the Mellifluous Bernard, and if he drew from them any conceptions of the mind, he diligently noted them down and neatly wrote them out." He flourished in the year 1590.

CLASS II.

Of Cardinals and Doctors of the Church.

Of James of Vitry, St. Bonaventure, James of Vitry, bishop of Tusculum and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and Legate of the Apostolic See, in the book On the Western History, chapter 14, thus writes: "The Lord raised up for them from the beginning of their new plantation a skilled husbandman, a prudent and holy man, whom the Lord found after his own heart … namely St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, the most approved pearl of religion, the lamp of the Order and a star radiating in the firmament of the Church of God, who not from man nor through man, but by God's inspiration alone received a preeminent understanding of the holy Scriptures, and drank as it were from the fountain of the Lord's own breast the heavenly waters which he might pour out in many streets. And since he was mighty in deed and word, by the example of a holy and preeminent converse, and by the doctrine of heavenly preaching, but also by the power of miracles and wonderful works, he was made to many an odor of life unto life." He flourished in the year 1230.

St. Bonaventure, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and bishop of Albano, of the Order of Minors, in the Meditations on the life of Christ, which he everywhere adorned with Bernard's sentences as with jewels, speaks thus in chapter 36: "You have heard the most beautiful words of Bernard, contemplating the highest things and tasting the sweetness of prayer. Ruminate them, if you will, that they may have savor for you. But I willingly insert his words in this little Work for this reason, that they are not only spiritual and penetrating the heart, but also full of beauty and rousing to the service of God. For he was most eloquent, and full of the spirit of wisdom, and illustrious in sanctity, whom I desire you to imitate, and to practice his admonitions and words in deed: on which account I often set him before you." He flourished in the year 1260.

[585] Of St. Thomas Aquinas, Agostino Valier, Baronius, Bellarmine. St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Sermon on St. Bernard, thus says: "His mouth therefore was a precious vessel, a mouth of gold, a mouth of gems. … With the wine of sweetness he made the whole world drunk. … Bernard was gold by holiness of will, a multitude of gems by honorableness of manners and manifoldness of virtues, a precious vessel by purity of virginity. … But there were in this nine gems, of which it is said in Ezekiel 28. Those stones signify the nine orders of Angels: with which Bernard was endowed, because he had in himself the virtues and offices of all the orders of Angels, as is said in the book in which his acts are written." He flourished in the year 1260.

Agostino Valier, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, bishop of Verona, in his book On Ecclesiastical Rhetoric, chapter 41: "In St. Bernard's books," he says, "there is a certain admirable sweetness, so that they are always read with a holy pleasure of mind." He flourished in the year 1580.

Cesare Baronius, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, in volume XII of the Annals, under the year 1130, calls Bernard a heavenly Trumpet; but under the year 1143, a second Elias. And thus he writes of him under the year 1153: "Bernard, a man truly apostolic — nay, a true Apostle sent by God, mighty in deed and word, illustrating everywhere and in all things his apostolate with signs following, so that he plainly had nothing less than the great Apostles … to be called the ornament and at once the support of the whole Catholic Church: but chiefly to be proclaimed the highest honor, the highest glory, the highest happiness of the Gallican Church. Whose most happy memory may persevere continually in the holy Church, in blessing and sanctification, for the forming of manners and for discipline, and for the condemnation of heretics." He flourished in the year 1600.

Robert Bellarmine, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers, says: "St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, a plainly apostolic man, and illustrious no less by the glory of miracles than by the splendor of wisdom." Likewise volume 2 of the Controversies, book 4, chapter 14: "The same blessed Bernard shone with more miracles than any of the Saints whose lives are extant in writing. For, etc." He flourished in the year 1620.

CLASS III.

Of Bishops.

Hildebert, bishop of Le Mans, and at last archbishop of Tours, Of Hildebert, of Otto of Freising, in epistle 24 written to Bernard: "I count and hold it a very great thing," he says, "that you have opened to me the sanctuary of your friendship. Received into it, I have proved in many and great perils how much the assiduous entreaty of a just man avails." And a little after: "I therefore have and render thanks to your religion, whose bosom, as a guilty man an altar, I should long since have embraced, had the Pope, being consulted, permitted me to lay aside the office of a Bishop. He, while he sent me back to labor, envied me the glory: may the Lord not impute it to him. Meanwhile in the shadow of the wings

of your prayers I shall hope, until I be led forth from the pit of misery and from the mire of dregs." See his epistle 72, which is the 122nd among Bernard's Epistles. He flourished in the year 1125.

Otto, bishop of Freising, book 1 On the Deeds of Frederick, chapter 34, has thus: "There was at that time in Gaul an abbot of the monastery of Clairvaux, called Bernard, venerable in life and manners, conspicuous in the order of religion, endowed with wisdom and the knowledge of letters, famous for signs and miracles. Him the princes decree must be summoned, and that from him, as from a divine oracle, counsel must be sought as to what ought to be done about this matter" (namely the expedition overseas). And below: "Who among all the peoples of Gaul and Germany was accounted as a Prophet or an Apostle." He flourished in the year 1150.

[587] Peter of Celle, abbot, afterwards of St. Remigius of Reims, Of Peter of Celle, of Anselm of Havelberg, and at last bishop of Chartres, in book 6, the last epistle, writing against a certain Nicholas, an Englishman (not indeed St. Bernard's Notary, as has been proved on epistle 284), who after his death was fastening a stain upon the holy Doctor's breast, that he had assailed the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, thus runs out into Bernard's praises: "What," he says, "is this Bernard's sanctity, what his religion, what the prerogative of his merits? I am no one to set forth his holy encomiums. His life, his fame, his works, writings, miracles, faith, hope, charity, chastity, abstinence, mortification finally in his members, his speech, countenance, bearing and gesture, and things like these; these are what bear testimony of him. … He was a most familiar pupil of Our Lady, to whom he dedicated not one basilica only, but the basilicas of the whole Cistercian Order, to whose praise he composed most polished and eloquent treatises. If therefore you can touch the pupil of Our Lady's eye, write against her Bernard, to whom she herself speaks: He who touches you, touches as it were the pupil of my eye." He flourished in the year 1160.

Anselm of Havelberg, in the dialogue Against the Greeks, book 2: "In our times there appeared a certain abbot in the place which is called Clairvaux, by name Bernard, a most religious man, notable for the power of miracles, from the West even to the East most famous for his sanctity: whom the venerable Pope Eugenius, once a monk of his monastery, generally honored with fitting reverence in the councils of many bishops." He flourished in the time of Eugenius III.

[588] Of William of Tyre, and of Paris, William, archbishop of Tyre, book 16 of the Holy War, chapter 18: "The lord Pope Eugenius sends religious men mighty in deed and word to various parts of the West. … Among whom the lord Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, a man of immortal memory and of honorable converse, of pious recollection in the Lord and in all things to be embraced, is chosen as chief for the execution of the aforesaid office pleasing to God. Who, a sedulous executor of the dispensation enjoined upon him, drawing with him fellow ministers beloved of God in the same work, tireless, unwearied, though he was of a weak body, both on account of his almost continual fastings and his too slender diet, goes round kingdoms, walks about regions, everywhere preaching the kingdom of God." He flourished in the year 1200.

William, bishop of Paris, in his Sermon on St. Bernard, thus proclaims him: "He lived most excellently, taught most graciously, shone with most manifest miracles: not human instruction but divine inspiration made him wise, which he especially perceived in the Scriptures." And below: "As God recited his mysteries to Moses, and his face shone with the brightness of rays, so that the children of Israel could not look upon him: so to blessed Bernard he revealed many secrets, so that, illumined with heavenly light, he greatly illumined the Church." He flourished in the year 1230.

[589] and of Theobald, Theobald the bishop, or whoever is the author of the Life of William, Duke of Aquitaine, chapter 2: "At that time," he says, "the monastery of Clairvaux was founded, and there by the counsel of the Holy Spirit Bernard was ordained abbot for its government, who so shone forth famous in life, virtues, and doctrine that no one in the world was second to him in genius, manners, speech, style, and virtues. This is he who in his days rooted out heresies, confounded heretics, called back schismatics, instructed the erring, and reproved princes." And a little after: "O the virtue of the man, O the purity of mind, neither courting the public nor fearing the tyrant (William) for his salvation! He who fled the public, how should he have courted the height of a see? My God, how many and how great cathedral Churches, bereft of their own pastors, chose him for bishop? But the mitre and the ring did not delight him more than the rake and the hoe."

PART TWO.

CLASS IV.

Of Kings and Magnates.

Of the emperor Charles V, The emperor Charles V, as de Thou testifies, History, book 21: "For the whole two years which preceded his death, in the fellowship of the Hieronymite brethren, using as his monitor a certain Constantine who was his confessor, he solaced himself chiefly with the reading of blessed Bernard the abbot." He was famous in the year 1540.

[591] Louis XIII, most Christian king of the Gauls and of Navarre, Of Louis XIII king of the French, of Pico della Mirandola, surnamed the Just, in the Diploma granted by him to the Feuillant Congregation for the erection of the monastery of Fontaines in the year 1618, calls St. Bernard "a great and most celebrated Confessor, a Father and Doctor of the Church, a reformer of peoples, a reconciler of schisms and dissensions, a Patriarch of Religious, a worker of wonders, and an exceptional cultivator of the Virgin Mother of God." He was reigning happily in the year 1630. See in Henriquez's Cistercian Menologium at the XX day of August the excellent eulogies of almost all kingdoms and Christian and various estates, inscribed on the foundation stones of the aforesaid monastery of Fontaines in honor of the most holy abbot Bernard, but chiefly that of the Most Serene Queen Marie de' Medici, mother of that most Christian king, who by a solemn testification declares that fruitfulness was divinely granted her by the merits of blessed Bernard.

Giovanni Francesco Pico, Count of Mirandola, book 2 On the death of Christ, chapter 8: "But let us hear also," he says, "Bernard, most devout and most learned, but commonly defrauded of this last title — certainly by no fault of his own, by no demerit, since both on account of his writings, which everywhere gush with solid and wholesome doctrine, and on account of his most powerful disputations against Gilbert and Peter Abelard (by whose help they returned from the crooked path of error and falsehood to the pathway of truth), he claimed for himself the name of Learned." He flourished in the year 1500.

CLASS V.

Of Abbots and Generals.

Peter Maurice, surnamed the Venerable, epistle 29, Of Peter Maurice, of Burchard, book 6, thus writes: "To the strong and splendid column of the monastic Order — nay, of the whole Church of God — the lord Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, brother Peter, humble abbot of the Cluniacs, etc. If it were permitted, if God's disposition did not stand in the way, if a man's life were in his own power, I should have preferred, dearest one, to cleave to your beatitude with an indissoluble bond rather than either to be prince among mortals anywhere, or to reign. For what? Ought not your fellowship, pleasing not only to men but to the very Angels, to be preferred by me to all earthly kingdoms? If I shall call you their fellow citizen, although the hope has not yet passed into fact, by the grace of a merciful God I shall not be a liar," etc. He flourished in the year 1140.

Burchard, abbot of Balerne, in the Subscription to book 1 of the Life of St. Bernard, speaks thus of him: "He seemed to have received sanctification in his mother's womb, from which were conceived the presages of his future sanctity and doctrine." He flourished in the year 1140.

[593] Blessed Guerric, abbot of Igny, St. Bernard's disciple, Of Blessed Guerric, of Geoffrey, of Robert, of Acquaviva. Sermon 3 on the Birthday of the Apostles Peter and Paul: "Our master, St. Bernard, that interpreter of the Holy Spirit, undertook to speak of that whole nuptial Song (the Song of Songs), and gave us hope from those things which he has already published, that if he shall come to the place about which you ask, Until the day breathe and the shadows be inclined, he will set those shadows themselves in the light of understanding: and what has been spoken or shall be in darkness, he will tell us in light." He flourished in the year 1145.

Geoffrey, first St. Bernard's notary, then abbot of Igny, afterwards of Clairvaux, book 3 of the Life of St. Bernard, or the first written by him, chapter 7: "But," he says, "he appears far more eminently in his own books and becomes known from his own writings; in which he seems so to have expressed his own image and to have exhibited a certain mirror of himself that that saying of Ambrose too may deservedly seem able to be applied to him: Let him mark himself with his own praise, and, laureate in spirit, be crowned with his own writings." See his Sermon on St. Bernard at the end of volume 6. He flourished in the year 1160.

Robert, abbot of St. Michael in Peril of the Sea, of the Order of our holy Father Benedict, in the Appendix to Sigebert, under the year 1152: "The venerable Bernard, first abbot of Clairvaux, a man of admirable religion and of effectual doctrine, satisfied human life by dying on the XIV Kalends of September, leaving very many records of his wisdom, chiefly in his Commentaries on the Song of Songs." He flourished in the year 1180.

Father Claudio Acquaviva, fifth Superior General of the Society of Jesus, as Jean Bourghesius writes in the book entitled The Society of Jesus sacred to Mary the Mother of God, chapter 4: "He certainly cherished the Blessed Virgin and St. Bernard with a special devotion, and found them helpers in every doubtful matter." He flourished in the year 1610.

CLASS VI.

Of Doctors of Theology.

Of Henry of Hesse Henry of Hesse, doctor of Paris, afterwards a Carthusian, in his Treatise to James, abbot of Eberbach, against the defamers of St. Bernard, thus writes in part 1, chapter 3: "Where, I ask, is such a little fire of devotion found, where is such a stream of compunction poured in; where is such a goad of love applied, as in the life and doctrine of the most blessed Father Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, star of the Church, chief enlarger of the Cistercian Order, and most ardent kindler of the monastic life? And who comes forward as a more penetrating exhorter to virtues, who runs forth as a more effectual expeller of vices, rousing human torpor to heavenly things, crushing ardor toward earthly things, hindering the sleep of death, striving that the rays of divine light may shine forth, the darkness being put to flight? By whose fruitful and comely Sermons, moreover, the Virgin Mother of Christ is extolled with such glorious heraldings of praise, is adorned with the most precious encomiums of purity, is proclaimed with the most inviolate seals of virginity. And not only this, but by his doctrines the fabric of the universal Church glows red as with fresh-blooming gems, and flashes the more gloriously with a singular elegance of words. And a fruitful eloquence of heavenly watering, by the inflowing of grace, unlocks the riddles of the Scriptures, loosens knots, makes clear obscurities, sets forth doubtful things — even such as was that of blessed Bernard, eminent Doctor of the Church, who, departing into the glory of his fatherland, so watered and made fruitful the whole ecclesiastical hierarchy under heaven with the most wholesome admonitions of all sanctity in doctrine and with the examples of his life. Whom therefore our fostering mother the Church, by the fullness of an abounding testimony required in the canonization of Saints — in miracles, doctrines, exercises of virtues, his heavenly life bearing witness, found clearer than light — for his many labors, for his chaste manners, for his most strenuous acts, appointed to be honored with zeal under the title of eminent Confessor and Doctor, to be extolled with solicitous and sounding heraldings, and disposes that he be venerated with solemn honors and the more gloriously entered in the catalogue of Saints." He flourished in the year 1400.

[595] Jean Gerson, doctor and chancellor of Paris, in a certain Sermon on St. Bernard, Of Gerson, thus addresses him: "But that you, most blessed Bernard, are one of the fellowship of those fiery spirits whom Scripture names Seraphim,

I, holding by pious faith, now beseech, and beseech by your love, that, a burning coal having been taken from the altar of him whose fire is in Sion and whose furnace is in Jerusalem … you, touching my lips, may cleanse them, etc." And toward the end: "As I consider those things which by accident and as it were from without helped St. Bernard toward the seizing of the love of God, I find them to be four among the rest, which are: his mother's devotion, a fit constitution, a due upbringing, and an affection for solitude." And below: "Finally it may be said that all these four accidentally helped Bernard to be a prophet and a worker of miracles, among which I count as chief those which he wrought in the conversion of those who even fled conversion with all their strength." He flourished in the year 1400.

[596] Josse Clichtove of Nieuwpoort, doctor of theology and Canon of Chartres, Of Clichtove, in Sermon 1 On St. Bernard, thus compares him to John the Baptist: "Thirdly," he says, "our lamp, Bernard, was shining by the manifold composition of sacred works, which should profit not only the men of his own time but also posterity for the edification of faith and morals. … He certainly gave light to all, not only those then present but also those to come until the consummation of the age, by the elaboration of many books always tending to some spiritual advancement, in which there is so great a sweetness of diction that his discourse flows sweeter than honey, whence he has deservedly been called the Mellifluous Doctor." Likewise in a certain Preface prefixed to the Works of St. Bernard: "Among the works elaborated by the most approved authors," he says, "the volumes of the most blessed Bernard must be placed not in the last rank. For if it please to regard the author, he will present himself most excellent both in holiness of life and in illustrious erudition. If the very character and manner of writing, it will be found most sweet, and running on with the highest ease and elegance without the stumbling-block of harshness, so that a discourse sweeter than honey may seem to have flowed from his mouth. If finally the matter which he handles be sought, nothing else will be found than that he brings the wrappings of sacred Scripture into the light, or blasts vices with a grave thunder of words, or invites more earnestly to virtue." He flourished in the year 1530.

[597] Luis of Granada, book 2 On the Religion of Christ, chapter 27: Of Luis of Granada, "It will not be fitting," he says, "not to insert among so many most weighty Doctors the most sweet and most holy Bernard, who, the more humble he was and the more alien from vainglory, obtained the greater grace and power for working miracles." And chapter XI: "Of St. Bernard also it is read that at the beginning of his glorious novitiate he went about so rapt in spirit and set beside himself that he had lost the use of his senses. … For the force of the spirit and the taste of divine sweetness, which charity draws with it, had so drained the soul's powers and drawn them with it that he had no strength for anything else save for that." He flourished in the year 1560.

[598] Charles Sacci, doctor of theology of Paris, in his Sermon on St. Bernard, Of Sacci. which stands in manuscript in our monastery of Lyre in the diocese of Évreux, records this among other things: "He assuredly extinguished the torches of a universal schism, lest they should creep further, and that indeed by so many and so long journeyings and vigils that it is a wonder that in a man still mortal there were — nay, were more than enough — such powers of enduring affairs, journeys, and lucubrations. Not one night, but sometimes many long nights together did he keep vigil. Grave sicknesses followed, which he bore not only patiently but also with a cheerful mind, and was wont to call them imitators of the blessed and heavenly life. Meanwhile he neither slackened nor interrupted the study of the sacred Letters, which he was wont to say that he saw set before his eyes like some most level plain. He delivered infinite sermons, and wrote books most readily with a most elegant polish of words": one book On Contempt of the World, one book of Meditations, one book On the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, On Loving God, On the Steps of Humility, On Grace and Free Will, On Precept and Dispensation, To Pope Innocent, on the heresies of Peter Abelard, To Pope Eugenius, On Consideration, To the Templars, in praise of the new soldiery, To the Cluniacs, an Apologetic, on Psalm XC eighteen homilies; on the Song of Songs eighty-three homilies; on the Gospel of Luke four homilies; on the Canticle of Mary one book; on the Life of bishop Malachy one book; letters "indeed innumerable, of which nevertheless two hundred and forty-five are still in men's hands," etc. He flourished in the year 1470.

PART THREE.

CLASS VII.

Of Religious of various Orders.

Of Hugh Metellus, of Hugh the monk, of Andreas Silvius, Hugh Metellus, regular canon of the monastery of St. Leo at Toul, in his letter to St. Bernard himself, published here in volume 1, column 378: "Your name," he says, "is oil poured out, fragrant after the manner of pounded spices. The fame of your most illustrious name has passed even to the ends of the earth," etc. He lived in the year 1130.

Hugh, monk of St. Marien of Auxerre, in his Chronicle under the year 1114: "In the same year," he says, "Clairvaux was founded, whose first abbot was the servant of God Bernard, a man illustrious for a most renowned sanctity, through whom the Church of his time flowered again into the ancient honor of religion." He was writing in the year 1200.

Andreas Silvius, Benedictine of Marchiennes, in his Synopsis of Franco-Merovingian History, thus writes under the year 1126: "The lord Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, like a morning star illustrates the monastic Order, and is famous for sanctity, doctrine, and miracles in Gaul" (nay, in Germany, Italy, England), "whose life so excels that all that has been said or written in his praise is little," etc. He flourished in the year 1200.

[600] Of Hélinand, of Caesarius of Heisterbach, of Henry Suso, Hélinand of Froidmont in Gaul, a monk of the Cistercian Order, in his book On the Restoration of the Fallen, chapter 8, thus speaks of St. Bernard: "Read that most beautiful book On Consideration to Eugenius, from whose most noble style you may understand that the author of the book was wiser than Apollo, more eloquent than Demosthenes, subtler than Aristotle, more temperate than Socrates, more discerning than Plato." He flourished in the year 1200.

Caesarius of Heisterbach, a monk of the Cistercian Order, book 14 On Miracles, chapter 17: "Bernard, in that flame of a fearful schism with which the Christian world had begun to blaze, traversed the provinces, undid whatever had been done that ought not to have been done, and, girt with the sword of the divine word, broke the terror of arms. A man of so great authority that through the mouth of Bernard alone the purpled Fathers, kings, and princes of the earth spoke as it were through the common oracle of the world." He was famous in the year 1230.

Henry Suso, of the Order of Preachers, in the Dialogue on eternal Wisdom, chapter 14, thus addresses St. Bernard: "And may you too among all the Doctors of the Church be blessed, Mellifluous Bernard, whose soul was wonderfully illumined with the splendors of the eternal Word, who with your honeyed eloquence, flowing from the overflow of your heart, most sweetly proclaiming and extolling the Passion of Christ's humanity, thus say, etc. Deservedly indeed, most holy Father Bernard, does your most sweet tongue pour forth eloquence, since the mellifluous passion of Christ had so sweetened your heart." He flourished in the year 1340.

[601] Denis the Carthusian, in Sermon 1 On the Feast of St. Bernard, thus commends him: Of Denis the Carthusian, "The most blessed man, our holy Father Bernard, almighty and most kindly God so adorned with so copious and manifold a grace that it might truly be said of him what the Savior said of Paul the Apostle, This man is a vessel of election to me, etc. And what is read in Ecclesiasticus: There was not found the like to him. For in his time he had no equal in the world, but was truly the Apostle of his own time." And in Sermon 2: "God's most chosen Bernard, the most excellent Doctor of all religious, the light and glory of monks, the exemplar and pattern of the devout, was forestalled from above with so many and so great graces, adorned with so many excellences, exalted with so many privileges, that there are no wits which can penetrate, nor speeches nor discourses which can express and sufficiently praise so great a Man." He flourished in the year 1460.

[602] Sixtus of Siena, of the Order of Preachers, Holy Library, book 4: Of Sixtus of Siena, "Bernard," he says, "most excellent in holiness of life and in illustrious erudition, so drank in the sacred letters from infancy, and retained them in memory through his whole age, that as often as he attempted either to write or to speak anything, so often was he compelled to break forth into the words and sentences of the holy Scriptures. Whence also his various Writings, which can be called nothing else than centos of the divine volumes, are on all sides picked out with sentences of the old and new Testament, as with jeweled emblems, and these inserted so conveniently and aptly that they may be believed to have been born there. His manner of teaching is almost always occupied in searching out mystical senses and in forming morals. His discourse, everywhere sweet and ardent, so delights and ardently kindles that his most sweet tongue seems to pour forth honey and milk of words, and from his most ardent breast the burnings of fiery affections seem to break forth." He flourished in the year 1566.

[603] Girolamo Piatti of the Society of Jesus, book 3 On the good estate of Religion, chapter XI, writes this among other things: Of Girolamo Piatti, of Peter Canisius, of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, "What shall we say of Bernard? whom we can truly call plainly honeyed, who, teeming with spiritual instructions, and those the best and most perfect, has also this as chief, that he so mingles and weaves the sacred Scriptures into his own style that either he himself seems to speak in the words of Scripture, or Scripture to sound through his mouth. Which single thing has, together with charm, also gravity and a wonderful force." He flourished in the year 1590.

Peter Canisius of the same Society, Marial, book 5, chapter 28: "There flourished under Lothair II and Conrad III Bernard of Clairvaux, a man most celebrated in Gaul, Germany, and Italy, whom all deservedly looked up to and revered, not only for a doctrine divinely inspired, but also for a holiness of life often demonstrated by most illustrious miracles; than whom alone no one in the whole company of monks either wrote better or lived better, if indeed we admit Luther's vote." He flourished in the year 1597.

Aloysius Gonzaga of the same Society, as is read in his Life, book 2, chapter 32: "The reading of Bernard, so pleasant to him in life, he did not omit even when near death. For in the sickness which was his last he held Bernard so dear that he took care that something from his Sermons on the Song be read aloud to him daily."

CLASS VIII.

Of Jurisconsults and Orators.

Of Francesco Petrarca, of Nicolas Pithou, Francesco Petrarca, book 2 On the solitary life, chapter 14: "Bernard was wont to say," he says, "that all the letters which he knew — than whom I know not whether any other in his age was more copious in them — he had learned in the woods and in the fields, not by the disciplines of men, but by meditating and praying, and that he had never had any masters save oaks and beeches." He flourished in the year 1370.

Nicolas Pithou, in the letter prefixed to his Thesaurus from the Works of St. Bernard: "I have a great friendship and familiarity with the lord Charles Perrot. When therefore on a certain day I had gone to him, as I am wont, and many things had been said back and forth on various matters

we had conversed, mention was made of the divine Bernard, first abbot of the monastery of Clairvaux: whom he extolled with such praises, and made so much of his writings, that he induced my mind to unroll them. … And so I found true what he had foretold would be. For so great a pleasure seized me from reading him that it wiped away almost all those troubles which so wretchedly tormented my mind." The same, lower down, calls Bernard "as it were a certain pillar and support of the falling Church." He was writing in the year 1589.

[605] Of Justus Lipsius, of René Choppin, Justus Lipsius, royal professor and historian at Louvain, being asked by Aubert le Mire which of the Fathers he judged should be read for the forming of sermons, gave this answer in Epistle 49 of Century 3: "To me among all the Greeks Chrysostom is pleasing. … Among the Latins Bernard takes me, and has the use of rousing, on account of his keenness and warmth everywhere; then also of teaching and impressing, on account of the acuteness of the sentences which he frequently and wholesomely mingles." He flourished in the year 1610.

René Choppin, advocate in the supreme senate of Paris, book 2 On the sacred Polity: "At the same season," he says, "the lord Bernard shone out, a monk and disciple of the oaks, and most learned with no master going before, who from solitude into celebrity, from the shade into the sun, brought sanctity and erudition. He was as much πολύγραφος as αὐτοδίδακτος; which we see to have befallen very few writers of that kind." He flourished in the year 1620.

CLASS IX.

Of Illustrious Women.

Of St. Hildegard, of St. Gertrude, of Blessed Mechtild, St. Hildegard, abbess of the Mount of St. Rupert near Bingen, in a certain Epistle to St. Bernard, thus expresses him: "Two years ago I saw you in this vision like a man looking into the sun and not fearing. … You are an eagle looking into the sun," etc. She flourished in the year 1150.

St. Gertrude, abbess of the monastery of Helfta in the County of Mansfeld, describes the manner in which St. Bernard appeared to her, book 4 of the Insinuations, chapter 51. But among other things she says thus: "His most holy breast also, his neck and hands, seemed honorably clothed about with certain golden plates and with gems of a rosy color, exceedingly ruddy, interwoven. Whence by the golden plates was signified the special elegance of his saving doctrine, which, sedulously revolving it in a devout heart, he uttered by the ministry of his sacred throat with consecrated mouth, and faithfully wrote out with holy hands for all who wished to profit in them unto salvation. But by the gems were figured those sayings which more especially breathe divine love." She flourished in the year 1300.

Blessed Mechtild, companion of the same Blessed Gertrude in the same monastery, thus writes in the book of Spiritual Grace, chapter 91: "In the midst of the Church the Lord opened the mouth of St. Bernard, who had been singularly forestalled by God in the blessings of sweetness, because the Holy Spirit had so affluently and superabundantly filled him by inflowing that, as when a wind opens a door with a most rapid rush, so by the impulse of the Holy Spirit, kindled with charity, he poured forth the things which were divinely inspired to him, and greatly illumined the Church with his doctrine; and the Lord filled him with the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, and, illumined in mind beyond what can be told, although he poured forth many things, yet kept far more in his understanding." She flourished about the year 1300.

CLASS X.

Of the Heterodox.

Of Luther, of Neander, of Bucer, of Oecolampadius, of Calvin, of Heinsius. Martin Luther, in the Table Talk, chapter On the Fathers of the Church: "Bernard," he says, "surpasses all the Doctors of the Church: but when he disputes, he is changed into another man; there he attributes too much to free will."

Michael Neander thus writes of him in the Preface to the Gnomologia of the Greeks: "More spirit of life, doctrine, and faith is found in a few pages of the lord Bernard, who did not touch philosophy, content with Scripture alone, which he had made so familiar to himself that he spoke the mere words of Scripture, than in the whole of Jerome, who excelled all in the knowledge of tongues, arts, philosophy, and ancient wisdom."

Martin Bucer, in the book On Concord, in the article On Justification, "calls Bernard a man of God."

Johannes Oecolampadius, cited by Cuthbert Tunstall in his book On the truth of Christ's Body in the Eucharist: "Bernard," he says, "excelled all the men of his age in more exact judgment."

John Calvin, book 4 of the Institutes, chapter 11, §10, attests this: "Bernard the abbot in his books On Consideration speaks in such a way that Truth itself seems to speak." Likewise chapter 10, §17: "He calls Bernard a devout and holy Writer."

Daniel Heinsius, Oration 3: "Who," he says, "writes more sweetly than Bernard? whose Meditations I am wont to call a stream of paradise, the ambrosia of souls, angelic food, the marrow of piety."

APPENDIX.

To the above are added Evervinus and Laurence of Liège, To the above heralds of the great Man let it be permitted us to number two others by way of a make-weight. Let the first be Evervinus, Provost of Steinfeld near Cologne, in a letter given to him, which Mabillon published in volume 3 of the Vetera Analecta, page 452, where he speaks thus: I shall rejoice over your words like one who has found much spoil, who are wont to pour forth for us the memory of God's abundant sweetness in all your sayings and writings, chiefly in the Song of the love of the bridegroom and the bride, that is, of Christ and the Church, so that we may truly say to that same bridegroom: "You have kept the good wine until now." He himself has appointed you for us the cupbearer of this so precious wine: cease not to pour it out, hesitate not, you will not be able to empty the water-jars. .. O good Father, you have meanwhile poured out enough from the fourth water-jar for us all, for correction, for edification, for consummation, for beginners, for those advancing, and for the perfect; profitable even to the end of the age against the lukewarmness and depravity which is in false brethren. So Evervinus. The other who praises the holy Father is Laurence of Liège, in the History of the bishops of Verdun, in d'Achery's Spicilegium, volume 2 of the most recent Paris edition, page 251, speaking thus of Henry: Henry first takes counsel from Bernard of holy memory, abbot of Clairvaux, on whose counsels the kingdoms and churches of the Gauls lean even today.

§ LVI. The calumnies of superstitions wrongly cast upon the holy Man by heretics; Horst's exhortation to the sectaries concerning reading St. Bernard with profit.

The unjust and erroneous censures of the Magdeburg Centuriators The following observation is found after the eulogies which we have just given, in the praised Mabillon from column [ ], in which the most shameless accusations of the heterodox against St. Bernard are confuted. It is expressed, then, in these words: Horst in this place reports the unjust and erroneous censures of the Magdeburg Centuriators, excerpted from their Century XII, in which they impiously or unjustly cavil under the name of superstition at certain deeds and sayings of St. Bernard. But these censures, which the same Author distinguished into XXII articles, we have for brevity's sake reduced to ten chief heads, lest we should seem to have omitted anything. And first indeed the Magdeburgers mark St. Bernard: "that he paid worship to the Host offered and consecrated in the Mass, and used it for expelling demons. 2. That he venerated the relics of the Saints. 3. That he believed a certain power to reside in things fortified with a sacred blessing. 4. That he defended the Roman Pontiff against his assailants, and asserted for him the right of investitures against the emperor Lothair. 5. That he denied that salvation is to be hoped for outside the Catholic Church. 6. That he preached the sacred expedition which they call the Cross. 7. That he fished out the truth from the dead, and believed the sacrifice of the Mass to profit them. 8. That he wrought miracles for confirming errors, as they say. 9. That he propagated the monastic life, and induced very many to it; and chiefly that he forbade his sister, although married, all pomp of dress, and approved her separation from her husband, that she might enter the cloister. 10. That Bernard himself cast himself into a frozen pool out of zeal for chastity, and in short tortured his body too harshly."

[610] And these indeed are the superstitious works which the heretics slanderously charge upon the holy Doctor, imputed to the holy Doctor are refuted. to each of which Horst has appended sharp invectives rather than refutations. But since those things assail not so much Bernard himself as the common cause of the Catholic religion, and have been answered copiously and learnedly by many, it has not seemed good to linger longer over them. Certainly these things which the heretics charge as superstitious can be thrown back far more forcibly upon them on Bernard's behalf: whom, since Bucer calls him a Man of God, and Calvin DEVOUT AND HOLY, it is a wickedness to think that he was addicted to superstitious deeds even unto death. And accordingly those things are by no means to be branded with the name of superstition in Catholics which could not prevent Bernard from being holy and made illustrious by God with miracles. Moreover let the reader consult, if he please, the Bernardine Confession, drawn from the holy Doctor's works by Father Theodore Petreius, a Carthusian of Cologne, where he will find the passages of Catholic doctrine arranged into fixed classes.

[611] To these things there is subjoined in Mabillon's edition Horst's exhortation to the sectaries The sectaries, from St. Bernard's authority, concerning the reading of St. Bernard by them with profit: which would that, if they be not altogether senseless and hardened, they might let sink deep into their minds! Receive the text: We have heard the various censures of the Sectaries concerning Bernard. Some praise, others blame: unless perhaps in this all agree, that they all equally condemn and reject one who opposes their own tenets and manners. Yet these things which they disapprove as contrary to their own doctrine, we Catholics judge to be approved and embraced for this very reason, because we know that Bernard and other most holy men like him taught and did such things, and thus walked by a different way from them. For holiness of life gives its support to doctrine, and that cannot seem to us a false doctrine, or an erroneous faith, which Men illustrious for so great sanctity held. Why do they wish more credit to be given to themselves, resting on no suffrage of sanctity, than to the most holy Bernard and the other orthodox Fathers, whose doctrine and faith are proved by so many arguments of sanctity, nay by so many signs and miracles? Assuredly a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruits, nor an evil tree good ones. For who of sound mind would persuade himself that a man teaching impious, false, absurd, erroneous things; given over to idolatry, superstition, vain observances — such as those black censors, the Centuriators, fasten upon Bernard — could nevertheless amid these things advance with continual increases of grace before God and men, and emerge to so great a perfection of divine love and of every virtue?

[612] Further, what Bernard thought concerning the chief heads of the orthodox faith, faith, his writings abundantly testify. But even if he had committed nothing to writing, by the very tenor of his life he would have shown sufficiently to what Church he adhered, how alien he was from you in doctrine and manners. For it pleases now to address you for a little while, O sectaries, to whom too it is pleasing from time to time to read Bernard: if perchance it be granted also at some time to understand and to come to your senses. The Mass to you is mere and horrible idol-madness: but how often did Bernard offer the Mass, a true sacrifice to God? That he did not readily omit it even to his last breath the Life testifies; and you yourselves, though not without calumny.

Did he not often terrify and rout demons by the very oblation of the Mass? Did he not, coming from the altar after the Sacrifice had been offered, strike down and vanquish William, Duke of Aquitaine, that obstinate favorer of schism, yielding to no threats or admonitions, with a right hand armed not with iron but with the sacred host of the Lord's body? Read and understand, if perchance at length the hardness of your heart too may be vanquished, etc.

[613] by his example, But I go on further than the plan of my design allows: my mind was only to move you in few words, lest you should think yourselves wiser than Bernard. For why do you bring in a novelty condemned by the ancients, and condemning the ancients? Why do you not hold the way by which Bernard, and those holy Men and Confessors, and all antiquity sought heaven? If you do not believe that you err, see by what way those men go: if you acknowledge it, why do you not follow guides skilled in the way? Why do you not at length return thither whence you ought never to have departed?

[614] by his sanctity and miracles Horst confutes them, I indeed, to confess frankly of myself, if either I had from my earliest age been imbued with your errors, or if by any chance it had befallen me to turn aside from the path of truth and orthodox religion to your sects, Bernard alone would suffice me to render your dogmas suspect to me: nay, to bring me back, straying, into the way of truth. For thus should I reason with myself: If those things are not true which a man of so exceptional and irrefragable sanctity held and taught, how could so great sanctity stand together with so great falsehood? I cannot deny his sanctity, which I see attested by so many most weighty men and by writers beyond all exception, nay even by his own rivals. I behold also innumerable miracles wrought in confirmation of it, which to wish to deny does not seem to belong to a prudent man; but to slander them as impostures and works of Satan, that seems plainly to belong to a man of unsound mind, not to say a malignant one, since such things could not be done save by divine power. But indeed to believe that such things were wrought in confirmation of errors, that would truly belong to a man utterly impious, blasphemous against God, and injurious to his Saints. Let it be permitted here deservedly to use that notable saying of a certain holy Doctor (Richard of St. Victor, book 1 On the Trinity, chapter 2, is cited in the margin): "Lord, if it be error, we have been deceived by you. For these things have been confirmed in us by such great signs and prodigies, and such as cannot be done save by you yourself; certainly they were handed down to us by men of the highest sanctity, and proved with the highest and authentic attestation, you yourself cooperating and confirming the word with signs following."

[615] and he exhorts them to read his Works. These things for your sake, O sectaries, because I acknowledge myself a debtor to the wise and to the unwise: although to you, teaching those above you, you seem to understand and to be wise. But I wonder nevertheless what your mind is while you read Bernard, who differs from you by the whole heaven: your conscience without doubt crying out against your prejudiced opinions. Read henceforth; this alone I pray and urge; read, I say, and if you have any care for salvation, understand. Behold, I set before you Bernard, a light of sanctity and a guide of truth: or, if you prefer, I invoke for you Him who is the true light, nay the way, the truth, and the life. But since discourse has been begun by us concerning the reading of St. Bernard's works with profit, we seem likely to do not amiss if we now treat of the holy Man's lucubrations which he transmitted to posterity for the public good.

§ LVII. Whether St. Bernard's Works were gathered by command of the Mother of God; Mabillon's edition; the holy Doctor's characteristics in writing.

A reason is given why we do not treat of the Saint's genuine and spurious Works. I had prepared for the press what the most illustrious Manrique, under the year of Christ 1153, chapter 10, gathered concerning the holy Doctor's genuine, doubtful, and alien writings, using the labor both of other authors and chiefly of Cardinal Bellarmine in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers; but, the matter having then been weighed, I changed my counsel, and, lest I should put my sickle, as they say, into another's harvest by treating laboriously of a matter which properly belongs to bibliographers, not indeed to hagiographers, it has seemed good to forbear this labor, and to send readers on that subject to Mabillon's edition, for reasons presently to be assigned. It is well, however, to recall to memory that certain lucubrations of St. Bernard have been praised in this Commentary, namely in §15 and §54 the work On Grace and Free Will; in §§23 and 28 the Sermons on the Song of Songs; in §50 the book On Consideration. Add that the biographer Geoffrey enumerates certain genuine Works of the holy Father in book 3 of his Life, in our edition chapter 5. But on occasion of the present subject a certain matter must be briefly discussed, concerning which Manrique, alleged a little before. I set forth the matter.

[617] That historian, then, will have it that St. Bernard's Works were gathered by command of the Mother of God; That the same Saint's Works were gathered by command of the Mother of God for which matter he adduces the testimony of Philotheus: There follow in order, he says, the books which the holy Doctor left, a huge volume of Works, but far excelling in weight rather than in bulk: namely all jewel-like, or more truly golden, and concerning which, among the praises of Bernard, Philotheus .., when they had lately been gathered and published, with a certain pious but poetic license, confidently says that the human race received no greater gift (of this kind) from the Virgin than that it should enjoy Bernard's writings — these lines, which are found in Mabillon's edition, volume 2, chapter 7, column [ ]:

Yet let it be permitted to my daring muse to have said this, and to have set forth the sentiments of my mind: Never to the human race, nor to our honor, did the kindly Maiden give so great a gift as, gracious, she lately brought forth for us with her own gift — these writings to be read in their brief characters.

[618] These verses of Philotheus being recited, Manrique adds this concerning him: is not sufficiently proved. But he attributes this gift to the Virgin, because at her command the Saint's little works were gathered and, massed into one volume, saw the light for public use. So he; who presently recites the following distich from the same poet, by which he confirms the matter:

She herself indeed brought them forth, for the Goddess bade her own client to seek out the beginnings of the eminent old man.

That fact would be worthy of memory, if its truth were sufficiently established. But indeed there are some things which stand in the way of this matter. For it is against it, first, that that command is reported very confusedly. For I ask who that own client was: likewise in what place, in what manner, at what time this happened: by what records it is confirmed. It is against it, secondly, that the use of episodes is proper and frequent with painters and poets. Whence it follows that that commanded collection of the Works ought to be proved by a testimony of better note, before we support it. But now, since a little before we sent the reader to Mabillon's edition of the Works of St. Bernard, it will not be amiss to give a brief notice of it.

[619] Mabillon's edition is praised above the others; This most illustrious editor published all St. Bernard's Works, genuine, spurious, and doubtful, comprised in six volumes, in a double set. And in the first indeed he reports the four earlier volumes, or all the Saint's genuine Works; but in the second, which contains the two later volumes, namely the fifth and sixth, he exhibits the rest. But both sets, recalled to the file by a second labor, he committed to the press at Paris in the year 1690, after the first edition, which had come forth in the same place in the year 1667. The associates who strenuously laid out their labor on this edition of the year 1690 Mabillon names at the end of the general Preface. Yet him, not them, we always allege as the chief author. I said above that Mabillon published all the holy Doctor's Works, even though some letters that were written have not come to his hand. Assuredly, he says in the general Preface, §1, I think that no little Works of Bernard, at least of any moment, remain unpublished, except some letters which are hitherto wanting, and which he there assigns. But what was added in the edition of the year 1719 you will learn from the general Preface at the end of it. But in the Admonitions which are prefixed to the little works relegated by that erudite editor to the second set, he separates the spurious, doubtful, or uncertain from the genuine, with such success that he snatched the palm from all others who had gone before him in this kind of study, as Cave, a heterodox, testifies, and one therefore by no means here suspect of flattery or false praise, who gives him this eulogy: He distinguished excellently the supposititious works from the genuine, which no one ever distinguished more certainly, or judged of them more learnedly. So he in his Literary History of Ecclesiastical Writers.

[620] who describes the characteristics of genius, style, Moreover the singular and not easily imitable characteristics of the Mellifluous Doctor in writing — anointed, namely, with a peculiar unction of the Holy Spirit, who spoke through him — the same Mabillon thus expresses in his general Preface, prefixed to the first set, paragraph one, number 3, writing this as eloquently as gravely: For in his writings there shines a genius by nature noble, generous, lofty: but humane, civil, and honorable. An eloquence as it were congenital, without paint, not without ornament, but a native one. A compressed style, a lively discourse, a proper diction, sublime thoughts, pious affections, charms born of themselves, all his speech breathing God alone and heavenly things. He burns, not scorching, but kindling. He pricks and goads, not to irritate but to move. He rebukes, he chides, not to disparage but to draw. He argues, threatens, terrifies; but by loving, not by being indignant. He caresses, but does not flatter: he praises, but does not extol. He urges gently, he binds without trouble: he delights, refreshes, pleases. For indeed "his discourse," says Sixtus of Siena, "everywhere sweet and ardent, so delights and ardently kindles that from his most sweet tongue honey and milk of words seem to flow, and from his most ardent breast the burnings of fiery affections seem to break forth."

[621] But now he has a doctrine by no means common, filled with the words and sap of sacred Scripture; and of sacred doctrine which shine in St. Bernard. and so cleaving to the sentences of the Fathers that yet it is felt to be his own. For he so writes of divine things, of grace and free will, of the manners and office of Pontiffs, clerics, monks, laymen, that these things indicate a fountain, not a stream or a channel. And do we wonder if so great a man is loved? If his writings are procured, read, thumbed by all? If editions of them are made without number? If learned and erudite men bestow their labor on enlarging, illustrating, and recalling them to their native integrity? If Rome herself, mistress and teacher of the world, who once venerated Bernard teaching — nay, even reproving; if Rome, I say,

herself suffered the books On Consideration, first offered to Eugenius III, then most elegantly transcribed by command of Nicholas V, at last to be published from the Pontifical press under Clement VIII — about to bring forth the whole Bernard into the light, if Gerard Vossius (Provost of Tongeren) had likewise bestowed his labor upon the whole Bernard. Whereby it is the less to be wondered at if in the metropolis of the Gauls so great a light of Gaul deserved to be honored by the royal press. Thus far Mabillon.

§ LVIII. Various editions of the holy Doctor's Works; an opinion wrongly attributed to him; why and what Bernardine Chronology is here given.

Other printed copies are designated In the first place nothing more argues Bernard's merit and worth than the so frequent and so often repeated editions of his Works, whether before or after the invention of the art of printing. For that manifold publication is an argument how much Bernard is procured by many, how eagerly he is read, how in fine he is loved by all, to use Mabillon's words in the general Preface, §1: where concerning so many and so various editions of the same Works he presently subjoins a long and curious discourse, beginning from the Mainz edition, which Peter Schoeffer made in the year 1475, which seems to him to have been the first. But how much diligence, accuracy, and labor that Benedictine editor spent that his impression might come forth into the light as corrected as possible, will be altogether perspicuous if anyone read what he subjoins on this subject in the alleged Preface. But in that Preface which was reprinted in the edition of the Works of the year 1719 I read this added to the former: Through his whole lifetime he spent all care, all diligence, upon digging out and polishing Bernard's Works, although distracted by other and those most weighty studies.

[623] To the various impressions of which I was speaking there may be added in passing printed copies. that the Reverend and Very Reverend lord Godfrey Bouvart, of the Cistercian Order, an ascetic in the most celebrated and most flourishing monastery of St. Bernard which lies in the territory of Antwerp on the Scheldt, employed a not undiligent observation, so as to know and note down a good many and various copies of the printed Works of that same Saint. For among other things which he wrote hither concerning the same Saint on the XV day of March in the year 1737, he says: I add here a series of the editions of the Works of that same Saint, which it has been possible to find in the catalogues of libraries, auctions, and shops, in the prefaces of the Works, and elsewhere. But the catalogue of them which he appends begins from the Mainz edition of the year 1475, and ends in Mabillon's, reprinted at Paris in the year 1719, so that he designates altogether forty different editions.

[624] A certain opinion But before we depart hence to other matters, I must deal with a certain Catholic writer who imputed to our holy Doctor a certain opinion alien from sound doctrine. Of the heterodox, who make a poison out of Bernard's honeyed sap, we have already treated in §54, number 574. But whether among Catholic authors there be found any who either understand certain other things in his Works less rightly, or wrongly carp at them, as it is not ready to my hand to say, so I forbear to inquire laboriously: since that subject is not properly of our court, but of the theologians'; upon whom it lies to explain the holy Father rightly understood, no otherwise than the other Doctors of the Catholic Church. My business here, then, is with a certain Catholic author who thought he had found in Bernard what is not in Bernard. Understand the matter.

[625] wrongly imputed to St. Bernard: Luca Castellini, in his Treatise on the certitude of the glory of canonized Saints, chapter 1, point 23, §3, deals with those who assert that St. Bernard followed the error of those who denied that the souls of the just enjoy everlasting glory before the day of the last judgment, as Alfonso de Castro writes of him, book 3 Against Heresies, title Beatitudo, after the sixth heresy, § Beatus Bernardus. But what the same Castellini then brings forward for the holy Doctor's defense may be read in the place just alleged. But Mabillon handles this subject at greater length in the first volume, page 709, where he weighs St. Bernard's opinion concerning the middle state of souls. The holy Doctor Noël Alexandre also defends, in volume 6 of the Ecclesiastical History published at Paris in the year 1714, treating of this matter at pages 527 and 528. But if anyone desires more concerning Alfonso de Castro, who was a Spaniard by nation and a Franciscan by profession, let him go to Wadding's Writers of the Order of Minors, and to Nicolás Antonio's Bibliotheca Hispana.

[626] some observations on the Bernardine Chronology. Although it is not hidden from me that in the Introduction to the Works of St. Bernard, published at Cologne by that most excellent man Jacques Merlo Horst, there stands a chronology of the life and writings of that same holy Father, with a Preface to the reader; yet I have thought that account must be taken of the Bernardine chronotaxis in this place also, that, namely, to the things done by that great Doctor, and in this my preliminary Commentary recalled to determinate reckonings of years from the founder of the Cistercian Annals, a new or even a better light may accrue, if they be here represented as it were under one view in such wise that they may deservedly be able and ought to be compared with Manrique's reckoning of time, which I have followed in the said Commentary, and this from that either confirmed or amended, if anywhere it perchance goes astray. And indeed who would deny that chronology is the shining torch of history? But I produce that Chronology which Mabillon published at the end of his first volume, not Horst's. For indeed, since the latter was arranged and published after the former, we ought not to wonder that this last is of better note, arranged, namely, by one who after Horst and the other editors of the Works and writings of St. Bernard applied himself diligently and wisely to the reprinting and illustrating of the same. Of that Chronology, then, divided by us into three parts, to which we have here also added in the margin Arabic numerals and the additions, as they are called, here you have, reader,

§ LIX. Of the Bernardine Chronology,

PART ONE.

From the year of Christ 1091, which was the Saint's birth-year, to 1125.

St. Bernard's birth, the beginning of the Cistercian Order, In the year of Christ 1091, the 4th of Pope Urban II, the 35th of the emperor Henry IV, the 31st of Philip I king of the Gauls, Bernard was born in the castle called Fontaines, near Dijon in Burgundy, his father being Tescelin Sorus, lord of Fontaines, his mother Aleth, daughter of Bernard lord of Montbard. His father's house, lately granted by the benefaction of Louis XIII, king of the Gauls, to the Reverend Fathers of the Feuillant Congregation, has been turned into a monastery. On St. Bernard's lineage read the Admonition prefixed to the beginning of the Life of St. Bernard, and John the Hermit in the fourth Life, where the holy man's paternal stock is said to have drawn its origin from the ancient family of the Dukes of Burgundy.

[628] 1098. Blessed Robert, abbot of Molesme, taking with him from that same monastery 21 monks, withdraws into the wilderness of Cîteaux, and there builds a new monastery, namely in the diocese of Chalon, about five leagues from Dijon, St. Robert its abbot: Walter of Chalon and Hugh of Lyons, the bishops, at once helping and approving; but Odo, Duke of Burgundy, bestowing the lands, that there with his companions he might more strictly observe to the line the Rule of our holy Father Benedict, on whose sacred day, falling this year on Palm Sunday, that work then first took its beginning. Of blessed Robert's first companions were Alberic, Odo, John, Stephen, Letald, and Peter.

[629] 1099, the 43rd of the emperor Henry IV, the 39th of Philip king of the Gauls. the confirmation of the Order; Urban II having died in the nineteenth year of his pontificate, on the IV Kalends of August, Paschal II succeeds him, from a monk of Cluny.

Blessed Robert, at the appeals of the men of Molesme in a Roman council and by the Pontiff's command, returns to Molesme, and Alberic, from Prior, is substituted for him at Cîteaux; the church is dedicated this year in honor of the blessed Virgin.

1100. This year John and Ilbodus, monks, are sent to Rome by Alberic, abbot of Cîteaux, with commendatory letters of the Cardinals John and Benedict, of Hugh archbishop of Lyons, and of Walter bishop of Chalon, at whose entreaties Paschal II confirms the Cistercian institute by a special privilege given at Troia on the XIV Kalends of May, in the 8th Indiction, in the 2nd year of his pontificate. It stands in Baronius and Manrique.

[630] 1101. Abbot Alberic institutes the strictest observation of the Rule of St. Benedict in the new monastery, casting away whatever was contrary to the Rule.

There died blessed Bruno, founder of the Carthusian Order (which took its beginning in the year 1086), a native of Cologne, [the observance of the rule of St. Benedict; the founder; the change of habit: the death of St. Bernard's mother, etc.:] illustrious for sanctity and knowledge.

1102. Odo, Duke of Burgundy, founder of Cîteaux, dies, and is buried in the church of Cîteaux; and in the same year Henry his son takes the monastic habit there.

1103. The Cistercians are believed to have changed the black habit into white, and to have proposed to themselves to recite daily the Office of the Blessed Virgin.

1105. Aleth, St. Bernard's mother, is thought to have died on the Kalends of September, from the Necrology of St. Bénigne of Dijon, where she is buried: whose body after 145 years was translated to Clairvaux. Her death William describes in book 1 of the Life of St. Bernard, chapter 2.

1106, the 7th of Paschal II, the 46th of Philip I king of the Gauls. Henry IV unhappily closed his life in the 49th year of his empire. Him there succeeded Henry V, a son not degenerate from his father in his hostile mind toward the Church: who, going to Rome, laid hands on the Pontiff Paschal, and by force wrung from him the investitures of churches; but also the imperial crown in the year 1111.

[631] [of the king of the Franks; the deaths of Alberic and of St. Robert of Molesme; St. Bernard's conversion: La Ferté founded:] 1108, the 9th of Paschal II, the 2nd of Henry V. On the 3rd Kalends of August Philip, king of the Franks, died at Melun: whom Louis his son, surnamed the Fat, succeeded.

1109. Blessed Alberic, second abbot of Cîteaux, died on the VII Kalends of February, in the ninth year and a half of his government: to whom was substituted blessed Stephen Harding, sprung of a noble stock among the English, who had before discharged the office of Prior, and who himself too with others had gone out from Molesme from a desire of a stricter life.

1110. This year on the III Kalends of May there passed to the heavenly ones blessed Robert, abbot of Molesme, the first founder of Cîteaux — not in the year 1098, as is commonly believed.

1113, the 14th of Paschal II, the 8th of Henry V, the 6th of Louis VI, is most celebrated for blessed Bernard's conversion. Who, being about twenty-three years of age, gave in his name to the Cistercian family under abbot Stephen together with 30 companions. From which time the Cistercian Order began wonderfully to be propagated and to flourish.

In the same year La Ferté, the first daughter of Cîteaux, is founded in the diocese of Chalon on the river Grosne, by the lords of Vergy, Savaric and William his son, Counts of Chalon. The first abbot was Bertrand.

[632] [the art of reaping divinely given to St. Bernard; Pontigny and Clairvaux founded:] 1114. St. Bernard divinely obtained the art and faculty of reaping, when otherwise he was not strong enough through the weakness of his body: Life, book 1, chapter 4.

Pontigny, the second daughter of Cîteaux, is founded, four leagues distant from Auxerre, on the allodial land of Heribert, canon of Auxerre,

Hervé, Count of Nevers, concurring, under bishop Humbald: whose monastery's basilica, afterwards built by Theobald, Count of Champagne, obtained for itself the founder's name. The first abbot was Hugh of Mâcon, afterwards bishop of Auxerre, to whom several of Bernard's letters are addressed.

1115. This year are founded Clairvaux and Morimond, the third and fourth daughters of Cîteaux. Clairvaux indeed on the river Aube in the County of Champagne and the diocese of Langres, on the VII Kalends of July, not by Theobald (as some think, confounding the translation of the monastery of Clairvaux, of which under the year 1135, with the foundation), but by Hugh, Count of Troyes, as will be proved in the Notes on epistle 31. Bernard is set over the monastery of Clairvaux, and is consecrated by William of Champeaux, bishop of Châlons — Josceran, bishop of Langres, being absent — being twenty-four years of age: Life, book 1, chapter 7.

But Morimond in the same diocese, by Odalric of Aigremont and Adeline his wife, lords of Choiseul. The first abbot was Arnold, to whom epistle 4. And these are the four abbeys, as it were so many primal daughters of Cîteaux, from which thereafter all the rest have sprung.

In the same year died Ivo, bishop of Chartres, a most learned man, who had as successor Geoffrey, who discharged the honor of Legate in Gaul, most dear to St. Bernard, of whom Epistles 15, 47, and 55, and book 4 On Consideration, chapter 5, and also the Life of St. Bernard, book 2, chapters 1 and 6, and book 4, chapter 4.

[633] 1116. The first general Chapter of Cîteaux is convoked by blessed Stephen, [the first Cistercian Chapter; St. Bernard's infirmity; his father's conversion, etc.] to be frequented yearly thereafter on the Ides of September, as James of Vitry has, Western History, chapter 14.

1117. Blessed Bernard, held by a grave infirmity, is committed to a rustic physician to be cured, William, bishop of Châlons, procuring it: Life, book 1, chapter 7. In which year, or about it, is reported to have happened the conversion of Tescelin, St. Bernard's father, who not long after died, famous for the report of his sanctity, on the eleventh day of April, as the Necrology of St. Bénigne of Dijon has.

1118, the 12th of Henry V, the 10th of Louis VI. Paschal II having died after eighteen years and five months of his pontificate, there succeeded Gelasius, likewise the second, likewise from a monk of Cluny, to whom the emperor Henry opposed Maurice Bourdin, archbishop of Braga, under the name of Gregory.

[634] In this year likewise began the Order of the Knights of the Temple, whose first founders were Hugh de Payns and Geoffrey de Saint-Omer, [the foundation of the Order of the Knights of the Temple, of Trois-Fontaines, of Fontenay, and of Foigny;] as William of Tyre is witness, book 12 of the Holy War: on whose authority also that same Order is confirmed in the council of Troyes, in the year 1128, as the scribe of the council, Jean Michel, expressly has; afterwards to be extinguished by Clement V under Philip IV, king of the Gauls, in the year of Christ 1313 in the council of Vienne.

The monastery of Trois-Fontaines, the first daughter of Clairvaux, is founded in the diocese of Châlons. The first abbot Roger; the second Guido, to whom epistles 69 and 70. Likewise Fontenay, the second daughter of Clairvaux, in the diocese of Autun. The first abbot was Godfrey, Bernard's kinsman, who, the place being founded and regularly ordered, as the book of the tombs of Clairvaux reports, returned to his Clairvaux, where he was third Prior, and at last bishop of Langres.

[635] 1119, the 13th of Henry V, the 11th of Louis VI. Gelasius II having been taken from among the living at Cluny, there was substituted Calixtus II, before bishop of Vienne, the synod of Reims and of Soissons, etc. called Guido, who in this year celebrated a council at Reims on the XII Kalends of November, and happily crushed Bourdin's schism.

In the same year is composed the charter commonly called Charter of Charity, consisting of thirty articles or chapters, blessed Stephen, abbot of Cîteaux, acting, and the other fellow abbots assenting, for providing for the peace and tranquillity of the Cistercian Order, which was approved by the supreme Pontiff Calixtus II. It stands in Manrique.

1120. St. Norbert, whom Bernard calls a pipe of the Holy Spirit in epistle 56, institutes the Premonstratensian Order in a place of the territory of Laon, commonly called Prémontré. See Epistle 255 and the Notes on the same.

1121. The Synod of Soissons is celebrated against Peter Abelard, Cono, bishop of Palestrina, legate of the apostolic See, presiding, in which Peter himself was compelled to give his book On the Trinity to the flames. William of Champeaux, bishop of Châlons, died at the beginning of the same year: of whom see the Notes on epistle 3.

Foigny is founded in the diocese of Laon, to whose abbot Rainald Bernard wrote epistles 72, 73, and 74.

1122. Peter Maurice, an Auvergnat by nation, called the Venerable, Bernard's dearest friend, becomes abbot of Cluny on the Octave of the Assumption. Notes on epistle 1 of St. Bernard.

[636] The first bishop from the Cistercians; abbot Suger, Pope Honorius. 1123. About this year Peter, abbot of La Ferté, is elected bishop of Tarentaise, the first bishop from the Cistercian family, Bartholomew, Bernard's brother, being substituted in his place.

Likewise, Adam, abbot of St. Denis near Paris, having died, Suger was proclaimed successor by the common votes of the electors. There are extant several letters of Bernard to him.

1124, the 18th of the emperor Henry V, the 16th of Louis VI king of the Gauls. Pope Calixtus died in the VI year of his pontificate, and Honorius II, before called Lambert, bishop of Ostia, ascended the apostolic See in the same year.

[637] Bernard's reconciliations; his charity toward the needy; a miraculous healing: 1125. The emperor Henry V dies at Utrecht, when he had reigned 19 years, and, no children being left after him, a disastrous and long dissension arose — to be composed at length by Bernard's work — between Lothair, Duke of the Saxons, and Conrad, brother-in-law of Henry his predecessor, who, being proclaimed king by his brother Frederick and others, having crossed the Alps, is received by the Milanese, and by their archbishop Anselm, says Otto of Freising, who narrates these things in the Chronicle, book 7, chapter 17, is anointed king at Monza, the seat of the Italian kingdom. For the reconciliation of the Milanese with Innocent and with Lothair, the second of this name (in whose favor by right of election the sovereignty of the Empire fell), Bernard had much to sweat, as will afterwards be said.

In the same year a grave famine, raging chiefly in Gaul and Burgundy, exercises Bernard's charity: book 1 of the Life, chapter 10; in which year he himself too, afflicted with a grave disease, fell into peril of life, and was at length restored to health by the help of the Blessed Virgin and of SS. Benedict and Lawrence, in the same place: and afterwards the fame of his singular sanctity and heavenly doctrine flew through the City and the world.

PART TWO.

From the year of Christ 1126 to 1134.

St. Bernard patron of the bishops of Paris and of Sens: the foundation of Igny: In the year 1126 Otto, afterwards bishop of Freising, the celebrated historiographer, took the monk's habit in the monastery of Morimond. He, as his intimate Radevicus writes, was the grandson of the emperor Henry IV, brother-in-law of Henry V, uterine brother of Conrad, and uncle of Frederick, born of that most illustrious and pious Prince Leopold, margrave of Austria, as father, and of Agnes, daughter of Henry IV, as mother.

1127. About this year Stephen, from Chancellor bishop of Paris, recalled from the frequenting of the court to better fruit by Bernard's admonitions, is gravely harassed by King Louis, and at length, after many molestations, is restored to favor by the labor of the Cistercians, but chiefly of Bernard. Which Henry, archbishop of Sens, also experienced not long after and for the same cause, and had the same man as patron and defender of his cause. Consult epistle 45 and the Notes.

There is founded Igny, the fourth daughter of Clairvaux, of the diocese of Reims, by Renaud de Martigné, archbishop of Reims. The first abbot Humbert, made a monk of Clairvaux from one of La Chaise-Dieu, who not long after, from love of quiet, laying down his prelacy, returned to Clairvaux; on which account, being sharply rebuked by Bernard, then detained in Italy on account of the schism, in epistle 141, he nevertheless persisted in this holy leisure until the day of his death, on which St. Bernard delivered a discourse concerning his exceptional virtues. The second abbot was Guerric, most celebrated for piety as well as for writings, whose Sermons are here in volume VI.

[639] 1128. The council of Troyes is celebrated (not indeed in 1127, [he takes part in the council of Troyes, Reigny and Ourscamp are founded: the council of Châlons;] as Jean Michel, scribe of the council, testifies) on the solemnity of St. Hilary, Matthew of Albano, legate of the Apostolic See, presiding: and at it were present Stephen of Cîteaux, Bernard of Clairvaux, and other abbots of the same Order. In it the Fathers prescribed for the Templars a Rule and white garments (to which Eugenius III afterwards took care that a red cross be attached).

Reigny is founded in the diocese of Auxerre.

1129. Matthew of Albano (the words are Alberic's in the Chronicle), Legate, of the Cluniac Order, held a council at Châlons on the Purification of the blessed Virgin Mary: where, by the counsel of St. Bernard the abbot, Henry, bishop of Verdun, laid down his bishopric, and a certain Ursio, abbot of St. Denis of Reims, was made bishop for two years.

Ourscamp is founded in the diocese of Noyon by bishop Simon.

[640] 1130, the 5th of the emperor Lothair II, the 22nd of Louis VI king of the Gauls. he assails the schism of Anacletus; Pope Honorius having died on the XVI Kalends of February, in the sixth year of his pontificate, a most grave schism arises in the Church of God, Innocent II being canonically elected on the XIII Kalends of March, who before was called Gregory; but Peter, son of Peter Leonis, being intruded by the violence of his friends, who were most powerful in the City, Roger the Sicilian favoring him. Innocent's cause Bernard strenuously championed for eight years. See epistle 124 and following. For among other things in this very year, being appointed arbiter with one voice by the Fathers of a council held at Étampes on that matter, he declared that Innocent must be preferred to Anacletus, and induced Henry, king of England, to accept him: Life, book 2, chapter 1. See our general Preface, article IV.

[641] In the same year Bernard himself with the utmost lowliness of mind refused the bishopric of Genoa, he refuses the mitre of Genoa: left destitute by the death of Sigefrid, translated to the heavenly ones in the preceding year. But Baldwin, in the council held at Clermont in Gaul, was the first of the Cistercians enrolled in the sacred college of Cardinals. To whom is thought to have been joined Martin, that most upright man, of whom Bernard makes mention in book 4 On Consideration, chapter 5. Of Baldwin in epistles 144 and 244.

[642] 1131. Innocent having been magnificently received at Liège — having first, toward the end of the preceding year, betaken himself into Gaul — Bernard repressed the emperor Lothair, who was demanding back the episcopal investitures; and the supreme Pontiff there crowned him king of Germany, to be endowed at Rome two years later with the imperial diadem. [he represses the emperor Lothair; he will not have the bishopric of Châlons: various monasteries:] But the Lent of the present year having been passed at Liège, Innocent, returning into the Gauls, having set out to the Council proclaimed against Anacletus at Reims in the month of October, consecrated Louis the younger as king in the place of his brother Philip, unhappily killed by a fall from his horse. Which council being dissolved, says Suger in the Life of Louis the Fat, the lord Pope chose to stay at Auxerre — namely for the remaining time of the passing year — having first visited Cluny, whose church he dedicated, then Clairvaux and other churches, Bernard accompanying him everywhere. After the assembly at Liège

Ernaldus narrates the Council of Reims in book 2 of the Life of Bernard, chapter 1, against the express authority of Suger.

In this year also Bernard, as the Great Belgic Chronicle has, being elected, refused the bishopric of Châlons, and through him Geoffrey, abbot of St. Médard of Soissons, is made bishop of Châlons. The same Alberic reports, who also adds that Innocent consecrated the church of St. Médard, namely on the Ides of October, before the Council of Reims, as the Chronicle of that same monastery has.

In this same year Thomas, prior of St. Victor of Paris, a most upright man, is cruelly slain for justice by the nephews of Theobald Neoterius, archdeacon of Paris, to whom he was hateful on account of the exactions upon ecclesiastics which he had reproached. And not long after Archembald, subdeacon of Orléans, underwent the same kind of death and for the same cause, John, provost of the church of the Holy Cross, likewise an archdeacon, being the author. For the Prior of St. Victor Bernard wrote epistles 158, 159, 160, and 162. And for the subdeacon epistle 61. But the cause of both was taken up and agitated in the council of Jouarre, in the diocese of Meaux.

There is founded Moreruela, in Castile and the territory of Zamora. The monastery of St. John of Tarouca in Portugal, of the diocese of Lamego. Longpont, in the diocese of Soissons. Cherlieu, in the diocese of Besançon. Bonmont, in Savoy, of the diocese of Geneva. Rievaulx, in England, of the diocese of York.

[643] [the Italian journey; he reconciles the Pisans and the Genoese; monasteries; the German journey:] 1132. Bernard, having followed Innocent as he departed from the Gauls into Italy, reconciled the Pisans and the Genoese, and modestly and constantly rejected the bishopric of Genoa offered him again, Syrus either deferring it or not yet being raised to the see.

There arose likewise a great controversy between the Cluniacs and the Cistercians, on occasion, namely, of the privilege by which Innocent exempted the latter from the payment of tithes. See epistles 228 and 283.

There are founded the monastery of Vaucelles, in the diocese of Cambrai (see epistle 186); and of Trois-Fonts, in England, of the diocese of York (see epistles 92, 94, and following).

1133. St. Bernard, having set out into Italy in the preceding year, when Innocent's forces did not suffice for storming Rome (Lothair indeed supplying only two thousand armed men), wrote to Henry, king of Greater Britain, epistle 138 for the bringing of aid. But at length Innocent, having entered the City, crowned Lothair emperor in the Lateran basilica: on whose departure, being compelled to yield to Anacletus raging through the City, he betook himself to Pisa. Whence Bernard is sent into Germany, to reconcile Conrad with the emperor Lothair. This occasion being seized, Roger, tyrant of Sicily, endowed by Anacletus with the name of king, attempts to draw the Pisans back from Innocent's obedience: and as they constantly persisted in their fidelity, the holy Abbot gave them this year the congratulatory epistle 130. Further, on that journey of his happened the conversion of Mascelinus, of which book 4 of the Life, chapter 3, and also of the Duchess of Lorraine, in the same place.

[644] 1134. The Council of Pisa is celebrated, to which, when Bernard by Innocent's command, peace having been made with Lothair and Conrad, was making his way through Lombardy on his approach, [returned to Italy, he takes part in the Council of Pisa; the peace of the Milanese made; mitres refused;] the Milanese, deprived of the communion of the sacraments and of their metropolitan dignity because, following archbishop Anselm, they had adhered to Conrad and Anacletus, appeal to him by letter for the restoring to them of the favor of the Pontiff and of the emperor Lothair; to whom he promised that he would be present after the Council, epistles 132 and 133 being given. Nor was there delay: the council being concluded chiefly by his prudence, he is delegated with Matthew of Albano and Guido, bishop of Pisa, Cardinals, and also with Geoffrey of Chartres, to compose the peace of the Milanese: by whom, being received with huge applause and the highest veneration, he could scarcely escape the archiepiscopal honor pertinaciously conferred upon him. But many being converted there, concerning whom epistle 135, he raised up in that same place the first colony of his Order, namely Caravalle — by others faultily called Claravalle. Thence by Innocent's command, as Sigonio has, On the Kingdom of Italy, book 11, setting out to pacify the cities of Lombardy among themselves, he betook himself to Pavia and Cremona. But when he had accomplished nothing among the Cremonese, he signified their obstinacy to Innocent in epistle 318.

[645] Meanwhile after the Council Norbert, founder of the Premonstratensian Order, passes to the heavenly ones. the death of St. Norbert, monasteries founded: But also Stephen, abbot of Cîteaux, on the V Kalends of April: to whom, Wido having been rejected — who, elected while Stephen was still surviving, bore the pastoral staff for six months — there was substituted Rainald, son of Milo, Count of Bar-sur-Seine, says Ordericus, book 8, a monk of Clairvaux. He ordained in the general Chapter excellent statutes comprised in 87 heads, which may be seen in Manrique's Annals.

There are founded, besides Caravalle of Milan, Himmerod, in the diocese of Trier; Vauclair, in the diocese of Laon. The first abbot Henry Murdac, to whom epistle 321.

[646] 1135. Bernard being returned from Italy through the city of Milan, book 2 of the Life, chapter 4, [Clairvaux is transferred: Count William is converted; the Song is expounded; foundations; the death of Guido;] Clairvaux is transferred to a more convenient place, book 2 of the Life, chapter 5: where, when he had scarcely settled for a little while, he was ordered to betake himself into Aquitaine with Geoffrey of Chartres, to recall William, Count of Poitiers, and other schismatics seduced by Gerard, bishop of Angoulême, in the same place, chapter 6. Afterwards, being restored to himself for some time, he undertook that notable exposition on the Song, at the exhortation of another Bernard, prior of the Carthusians of Portes. See epistles 153 and 154.

There are founded Buzay, in the diocese of Nantes, by Ermengard, Countess of Brittany, whom on the aforesaid journey he recalled from the vanity of the world. See epistles 116 and 117. The first abbot John, to whom epistle 232. Hautecombe, in the diocese of Geneva. La Grâce-Dieu, in that of Saintes. Eberbach, in that of Mainz.

1136. Guido, the elder among Bernard's brothers, dies outside Clairvaux according to his brother's prophecy, book 2 of the Life, chapter 12 — namely at Pontigny.

[647] monasteries founded: There are founded Balerne, in the diocese of Besançon. The first abbot Burchard, to whom epistle 146. La Maison-Dieu, on the river Cher in the diocese of Bourges, whose abbot was Robert, Bernard's kinsman, to whom epistle 1. Auberive, in the diocese of Langres. Finally the monastery of Hautecombe (l'Abbaye des Alpes), of the diocese of Geneva, is adopted, Warin the abbot handing it over, afterwards bishop of Sion. See epistle 253.

[648] [the death of Louis VI; the third Italian journey; Rainulf overcomes the Sicilian; monasteries:] 1137, the 8th of Innocent II, the 12th of the emperor Lothair II. Louis VI died at Paris in the 29th year of his reign on the Kalends of August, whom his son Louis VII succeeded, called the Younger because he had begun to reign while his father was living.

In this very year Bernard, summoned by Innocent, goes for the third time into Italy, laboring under Anacletus with the harassment of Roger the Sicilian, who, being overcome by duke Rainulf through Bernard's prayers, since he could not prevail by arms, turned to words, and, feigning that he placed Anacletus's cause in the mouth of Peter of Pisa, a most eloquent man, when he had seen him convicted and brought back by Bernard, could not even so be softened to better things.

There are founded the monastery of Chiaravalle della Colomba in Italy, of the diocese of Piacenza; Boccon in Hungary, of the diocese of Veszprém, although by some it is referred to the year 1153. Likewise the monastery of Bellefontaine, now called Valparaíso, is adopted, in Spain, of the diocese of Zamora.

[649] [he puts an end to the schism; he resumes the Song; he refuses the mitre of Reims; monasteries, etc.] 1138. Lothair II, in the 13th year of his empire, ceased to reign on the III Nones of December, Conrad, Duke of Franconia, once his rival, succeeding. In which year also the pseudo-pontiff Anacletus wretchedly perished, to whom was substituted from Roger's faction Gregory the Cardinal, called Victor, who, resigning to Bernard the insignia of the supreme dignity, at length put the wished-for end to the schism, repressed after seven years by the holy Doctor's zeal and prudence. See epistle 317. But the holy Abbot, deserting the Roman Curia with no delay interposed, would carry nothing thence into the Gauls for gifts, except a tooth of St. Caesarius and other relics of the Saints, book 4 of the Life, chapter 1. Who, being made more certain of the state of the election of Langres celebrated by the metropolitan of Lyons against the pledge entered upon at Rome, wrote various letters, 165 and following; to which grief indeed there was added another far graver, namely concerning the death of his brother Gerard, whose respite he had obtained from God in Italy, where he had had him as companion on his last pilgrimage, and whom he followed with many tears in Sermon 26 on the Song, from which he resumed this golden work interrupted by himself.

In the same year Rainald, archbishop of Reims, died, as the Auctarium of Gembloux reports: but after two years, namely in the year 1140, Samson, Provost of the church of Chartres, is ordained archbishop of Reims, since Bernard himself had refused this dignity.

There is founded the monastery of La Bénisson-Dieu, in the diocese of Lyons, over which was set Alberic, to whom epistle 173. There is also adopted the monastery of Dunes, of the diocese of Bruges. The first abbot Robert, to whom epistle 324 is written, who was one day to succeed Bernard at Clairvaux.

[650] 1139. There was convoked at Rome the Lateran council [Peter, Cardinal of Pisa, reconciled to Pope Innocent; St. Malachy's Roman journey:] of about a thousand bishops, in which the favorers of Peter Leonis were again condemned, the ordinations made by him invalidated, tournaments interdicted, and Arnold of Brescia ordered to leave Italy as a heretic. From which severity indeed against the favorers of Anacletus Bernard labored to vindicate Peter of Pisa, the Cardinal, whom he had before reconciled to Innocent, as is plain from epistle 213. And not long after Innocent himself was craftily taken captive by Roger, Duke of Sicily, which was the occasion of composing the long-desired peace between them both.

In this year likewise Malachy the archbishop, Primate of Ireland, undertook a journey to Rome — not indeed, as Baronius will have it, in the year 1137; since it is established from Bernard, Life of St. Malachy, chapter 10, that Malachy survived this pilgrimage only nine years, and likewise from the last chapter, that he died in the year 1148. But Malachy on this journey, going to Clairvaux, left there six companions, who, being taught the Cistercian institute, afterwards transferred it into Ireland.

PART THREE.

From the year of Christ 1140 to 1153, the year of the Saint's death.

The council of Sens against Abelard; monasteries: In the year 1140 the council of Sens is held against Abelard, who, the chapters of his errors being condemned, appealed indeed to the Roman See, but, yielding to the persuasion of Peter the Venerable, gave up the appeal. He remained at Cluny: and, being reconciled to the Church by his work, when he had lived there praiseworthily for two years, he departed this life in the monastery of St. Marcellus of Chalon, whither he had betaken himself for the sake of curing his disease. See epistle 197 and following, and the Notes there.

There are founded this year Clairmarais, in the diocese of Saint-Omer. Whitland, in Wales, a province of England, of the diocese of St. David's; L'Oursière, in the kingdom of Galicia, of the diocese of Orense. Larrivour, by others Ripatorium, in the diocese of Troyes, over which was set Alan, afterwards bishop of Auxerre, compiler of the Life of St. Bernard. Likewise Innocent assigned to the monks of Clairvaux the restored monastery of St. Anastasius at Aquae Salviae, Bernard of Pisa, St. Bernard's disciple, being set over it, who thereupon under the name of Eugenius III into the Roman See

was taken up. Finally there are adopted the monastery of Bangor, granted by Malachy, Primate of Ireland, to Bernard; and also Casamari, in the city of Veroli in Italy.

[652] 1141. Pope Innocent, says Robert de Monte, [King Louis's land interdicted; Count Theobald harassed by him; the death of Humbeline, St. Bernard's sister; monasteries; Pope Eugenius.] interdicted the demesne land of King Louis, because he was unwilling to receive the archbishop of Bourges, whom nevertheless he afterwards received, and absolved him from the oath which he had unreasonably taken. See epistle 218 and following.

In which year also the same Louis, king of the Franks, as the same author has, afflicted Count Theobald and laid waste his land, especially in Champagne, where he burned the castle of Vitry, where a multitude of men of different sex and age — namely thirteen hundred souls, as Robert de Monte testifies in the Supplement to Sigebert, who reports this under the year 1143 — was burned. Consult epistles 217, 220, 222, 223.

At this time occurred the death of Humbeline, St. Bernard's sister, concerning whom book 1 of the Life, chapter 6.

There is founded the monastery of Mellifont in Ireland, of the diocese of Armagh, Malachy procuring it, Christian and his companions being taken from Clairvaux, whom the aforesaid bishop had left there to be instructed. See epistles 356 and 357.

[653] Alfonso, king of Portugal, beneficent toward Clairvaux, etc.: 1142. Ivo, Cardinal priest, from a regular Canon of St. Victor at Paris, is sent into the Gauls to pronounce sentence upon Ralph, Count of Vermandois, who, his former wife being repudiated, had brought in over her Petronilla, sister of Count Theobald — the daughter of William, Duke of Aquitaine, the queen's sister. In which anathema were involved also Bartholomew of Laon, Simon of Noyon, and Peter of Senlis, bishops, the authors of the divorce. See epistles 216, 217, 220, 221.

Likewise Alfonso, king of Portugal, made himself and his kingdom tributary to Clairvaux, 50 maravedis, or double-weights of proved gold, being assigned.

In which year also, as Robert de Monte testifies, or in the one just past, as Ortelius relates in Anselm of Gembloux in Le Mire, that great Hugh of St. Victor, St. Bernard's friend and chief admirer, a second Augustine of his age, rendered his soul to heaven. See epistle 70.

There are founded the monasteries of Melón in Galicia, of the diocese of Tuy; and of Sobrado, about these times, in the diocese of Compostela. Likewise Hautecrête in Savoy, of the diocese of Lausanne.

[654] Pope Innocent dies, monasteries, 1143, the 5th of the emperor Conrad III, the 6th of Louis VII king of the Franks. Pope Innocent dies on the VIII Kalends of October, when he had sat nearly 14 years, whom Guido de Castello succeeds, called Celestine II, to whom epistles 234, 235.

There are founded Alvastra in Sweden, of the diocese of Linköping. Nydala (by others four years later), in the same place. Belleperche, in the diocese of Montauban; Meira in Galicia, of the diocese of Lugo.

[peace between King Louis and Theobald composed by St. Bernard; the death of his brother, etc.] 1144. Pope Celestine, a half-year not yet completed, departed: to whom is substituted Gerard the Chamberlain, from a regular Canon Cardinal priest of the title of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, called Lucius II. At which time Bernard composed peace between King Louis and Count Theobald. Epistles 220 and following are to be read.

In this year likewise dies Bartholomew, abbot of La Ferté, St. Bernard's brother. Likewise Stephen of Châlons, Cardinal, bishop of Palestrina, of the Cistercian Order, a man of great sanctity, to whom Bernard addressed various letters.

There is founded Beaulieu, in the diocese of Rodez.

1145, the 7th of the emperor Conrad III, the 8th of Louis VII king of the Franks. Pope Lucius having died on the V Kalends of March, there is substituted Eugenius III, from abbot of St. Anastasius at Aquae Salviae, before called Bernard, of whom above under the year 1140. See epistle 237 and following. At which time St. Bernard, being consulted by King Louis concerning the sacred expedition, remits the matter to the judgment of the supreme Pontiff, from our general Preface, article VII.

There is founded La Prée, in the diocese of Bourges.

[655] 1146. In the council of Chartres proclaimed this year for the sacred expedition, to which Peter the Venerable, being invited, epistle 364, could not come, as is gathered from his answer, epistle 18 of book 6, St. Bernard, being elected chief commander of the soldiery, by Eugenius's mandate exhorted the peoples of Germany, the Eastern Franks, [St. Bernard elected chief commander of the holy war; preachings; miracles; Villers founded:] the Bavarians, the English, etc., to take the Cross both by letters and by living voice, many miracles giving their support: epistles 363, 365, and the book On Bernard's Miracles.

In this year likewise the church of Tournai, which for 500 years and more had been committed to the bishops of the church of Noyon, received its own bishop, Anselm by name, from an abbot of St. Vincent of Laon, from Pope Eugenius III, Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, among others procuring it.

There are founded Boxley in England, of the diocese of Canterbury; Villers in Brabant, of the diocese of Namur. Its foundation the Auctarium of Gembloux in Le Mire places in the following year, in these words: Twelve monks with abbot Laurence, and five lay brothers, sent by blessed Bernard from Clairvaux into Brabant, built the monastery of Villers.

[656] 1147. Eugenius, in the preceding year, the Romans harassing him by Arnold's faction, [Pope Eugenius in Gaul; synods; the Saint goes into Aquitaine against Henry the heretic; Santarém conquered by his merits; monasteries:] of which epistle 242, taking refuge in Gaul, is this year honorably received at Paris by King Louis, who, when in the preceding year, as Robert de Monte reports in the Appendix to Sigebert, he had taken the cross at Vézelay on Palm Sunday, and at the same time Robert his brother, and Geoffrey, Count of Meulan, and many others, they departed this year from Paris — namely on the XIV day of June, as the Cluniac Chronology has — about to set out into Syria against the Saracens.

In this same year several Synods were held in various places. The first at Étampes, in which the business of Jerusalem and the disposition of the kingdom were treated, Bernard being present, the administration of Gaul being committed to Suger, abbot of St. Denis. See the Chronicle of St. Denis, volume 2 of the Spicilegium, and the book of the Miracles of St. Bernard, chapter 16. The second at Auxerre, Eugenius presiding. The third at Paris, as Otto of Freising testifies in his Frederick, book 1, chapter 50: in which the cause of Gilbert de la Porrée being propounded, it was remitted to the council of Reims to be celebrated the next year. See the general Preface.

Besides, Bernard with Alberic, Cardinal bishop of Ostia and legate, and with Geoffrey of Chartres, goes into Aquitaine against Henry the heretic, of whom in our general Preface and in epistle 241. In which year also Alfonso, king of Portugal, the city of Santarém having been stormed by St. Bernard's merits, by letter asks for monks for the founding of a monastery of the Cistercian Order in his kingdom.

There are founded Alcobaça, by the aforesaid king in Portugal, of the diocese of Lisbon; Vauricher, in the diocese of Bayeux; Margam, in Wales. The monastery of La Espina, in the diocese of Palencia in Castile, by Sancha, sister of King Alfonso. See epistle 301. Likewise Grandselve, of the Order of St. Benedict, in the diocese of Toulouse, is adopted, Bernard its abbot delivering himself and his house. See epistle 242.

[657] 1148. The council of Reims having been entered upon on the XIV Kalends of April, Gilbert de la Porrée convicted by him; the death of Malachy; monasteries: Eugenius presiding, Eon, a foolish heretic, is condemned to prison: but Gilbert de la Porrée, bishop of Poitiers, being convicted by Bernard, retracts his errors. And not long after Eugenius, the holy Abbot acting, approved Hildegard's writings in the council of Trier, having first performed the dedication of the church of Toul, at which Bernard also was present. In which same year the aforesaid Eugenius, having been present at the Chapter of Cîteaux and having consecrated the new cemetery, bidding farewell to the brethren not without tears, returned into Italy.

After Eugenius's departure from Gaul, St. Malachy, Primate of Ireland, about to set out again to Rome to the supreme Pontiff for the sake of the Pallium, happily closed his day at Clairvaux on the day and in the place he had desired, on the very day of the solemn commemoration of all the dead, whose memory began to be held famous immediately from his death. See the consolatory epistle 374 to the Irish; likewise his Life in volume 2, and two Sermons delivered at his laying to rest, in volume 3. Further, when St. Malachy was already almost at his last, the building of the new Clairvaux being completed, the bones of the venerable Fathers who had fallen asleep in the former monastery were translated from the old cemetery into the new on the feast of All Saints: from Sermon 1 On St. Malachy, number 2. His canonization is referred in the Chronicle of Clairvaux in François Chifflet to the year 1192.

In the same year died blessed Humbert, abbot of Igny — not in the year 1145, as Manrique thinks. See the proofs in the Note on the Sermon delivered by Bernard on his death, which stands in volume 3.

There is founded Cambron, in the diocese of Cambrai. The first abbot Fastred from Clairvaux, over which also he presided after Robert. There is also adopted Aulne, formerly of Benedictines, then of regular Canons, in the diocese of Liège. Likewise in the Chapter of Cîteaux this year Serlo, abbot of Savigny, subjected himself and 30 monasteries, which depended on Savigny, a monastery of Benedictines of the diocese of Avranches, to Clairvaux: but Stephen, Father and founder of the rising congregation of Obazine in the diocese of Limoges, four.

[658] [Henry, brother of the king of Gaul, becomes a monk of Clairvaux, and then a bishop; monasteries; the Saint's apology:] 1149. This year, since the expedition overseas had had an unhappy issue, Louis returned into Gaul. See epistle 386, book 2 On Consideration, chapter 1, and the Life of St. Bernard, book 3, chapter 4. Who indeed, girding himself again for a new one, is held back by the Cistercians, as Robert the abbot relates in his Chronicle under the year 1150.

In the same year Henry, brother of Louis, king of France (the words are the Chronicle of Tours'), formerly treasurer of blessed Martin of Tours, afterwards clothed at Clairvaux in the monk's garb, is promoted to the bishopric of the city of Beauvais: which indeed the Chronicle of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif of Sens places in the following year. Read epistle 307 and the Notes.

There are founded Fontmorigny, in the diocese of Bourges; Aubepierre, in that of Limoges; Longuay, in that of Langres; Loos (Praise of the Blessed Virgin), in that of Tournai. Boulancourt, of regular Canons, in that of Troyes, is adopted.

1150. Eugenius having been restored at Rome to St. Peter's after many conflicts, Bernard, transmitting the second book On Consideration, prefaces an apology concerning the counsel of the expedition to Jerusalem, and receives a consolatory letter from John, abbot of Casamari in the city of Veroli, which is now the 386th among Bernard's.

[659] a letter written by him to the dying Suger; monasteries: 1151. Abbot Rainald having died toward the end of the preceding year, namely on the XVII Kalends of January, there was substituted Gosuinus, from abbot of Bonneval of Vienne. See epistle 270.

Likewise dies Hugh, bishop of Auxerre, called a man of good memory in the Chronicle of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif. On the election of his successor see epistles 261,

274, and following. There died likewise Suger, abbot of St. Denis, a most upright man, to whom, set at his last, Bernard wrote epistle 266.

Louis and Eleanor, says Robert de Monte, in Lent at Beaugency, an oath having been given before the archbishops and bishops that they were kinsfolk, were separated by the authority of Christendom.

There is founded the monastery of Esrom in Denmark, of the diocese of Roskilde.

1152, the 8th of Eugenius III, the 15th of Louis VII king of the Franks. Conrad in the 13th year of his empire resigns the purple by death to Frederick surnamed Barbarossa, Duke of Swabia, Conrad's nephew by his brother. But also Theobald, Count of Champagne, a man of signal piety, having died on the VI Ides of January, is buried in the monastery of Lagny on the Marne, of which he had been advocate, to whom not long before his death Bernard wrote epistle 271.

The abbey of Moreilles, in the diocese of Maillezais, is adopted; the abbey of Clermont, in the diocese of Le Mans, is founded. About this time Armenteira, in Galicia, of the diocese of Compostela, is adopted.

[660] 1153, the 2nd of the emperor Frederick I, the 16th of Louis VII king of France. [peace having been composed among the men of Metz the Saint dies; his promise concerning the taking of Ascalon, and his successor.] Eugenius closed his day on the VI Ides of July, when he had sat 8 years, 4 months, 13 days: whom Conrad succeeded, from a regular Canon bishop of Sabina, called Anastasius IV. And not long after the most holy Doctor Bernard, having discharged many labors for God and the Church — when, seized from the midst of winter's tempest with a grave disease, as he writes in epistles 288, 307, and 308, he had nevertheless composed peace among the men of Metz — himself at last rested in peace on the XIII Kalends of September, three hours before noon, in the 63rd year of his age, the 40th of his monastic profession, the 38th of his prelacy. In which week also Ascalon, a most fortified city in Palestine, according to the Saint's promise frequently repeated, was taken by the Christians, as Geoffrey testifies, book 3 of the Life of St. Bernard, chapter 4. Bernard had as successor at Clairvaux Robert, from abbot of Dunes.

There are founded the monasteries of La Peyrouse, of the diocese of Périgueux; of Mores, of the diocese of Langres; and the abbey of Montederramo, of the diocese of Orense in Galicia, is adopted.

§ LX. St. Bernard enrolled by solemn rite in the canon of the Saints.

St. Bernard's canonization was deferred, As the dignity of the great Father's being reckoned in the number of the Saints was honorable both to the Man himself and to the whole sacred Cistercian Order, on account of the manner and attendant circumstances in which that sacred and solemn act was performed; so concerning the year in which it happened there is no agreement among the learned. It is not, says Mabillon in volume 2, column [ ], to be placed in the last rank among Bernard's eulogies, that he was the first from the Cistercian Order who deserved to be entered in the roll of the Saints by solemn rite. This the blessed Man's singular sanctity demanded, the immense labors undertaken for the Church, and finally the heavenly attestations of notable miracles, to which it might seem a wickedness to subscribe too late. Scarcely ten years had flowed by from his sacred death when in the council of Tours, celebrated in the year 1163, Alexander III sitting and presiding, that matter first began to be agitated. But the supreme Pontiff, although otherwise for his veneration toward Bernard he would most willingly have assented, judged nevertheless that it must be deferred for a while, for those reasons which he himself afterwards set forth in the letters of canonization.

[662] "For when," he says, "we were attending to that business (namely of canonizing Bernard) with a sufficiently favorable affection, and for what cause: there came on a multitude and frequency of petitioners, who in various provinces demanded a like thing. Whence, since we saw that all could not fittingly be satisfied, it was resolved, for the avoiding of scandal, that there be deferred in this case also what for the time had to be denied to the rest." But at last Alexander himself, at the request of Gerard the abbot and the Convent of Clairvaux, meaning to satisfy the pious wishes of his sons, willed that Father Bernard be enrolled in the fasti of the Saints. So Mabillon. But that, as I indicated above, this matter was most honorable to our holy Abbot, and also to the whole sacred Cistercian Order, and especially to the ascetics of Clairvaux, will become perspicuous from the Apostolic letters which we shall report a little later.

[663] some assign one year to it, some another; Now meanwhile it must also be examined to what year that canonization ought to be linked. The same editor of Bernard's Works as above discusses this fact thus at column 1341 cited: But in what year this happened, since it is not expressly stated in the Apostolic letters, the opinion of authors is not one, some referring it to the year 1164, as Horst and Henriquez; but others to the year 1166: but both, as it seems, against the reckoning of time; since Gerard, abbot of Clairvaux, to whom Alexander's letters are addressed, entered upon his prelacy only in the year 1172. Best of all Ciacconius, in his Alexander III, to whom, from his knowledge of Roman antiquities and of Pontifical documents, a safer credit is due, places it in the year 1174, and following him the most learned Sirmond in the Notes on Peter of Celle on epistle 9, book 9, and Manrique in the Annals: with whom Alberic in his Chronicle agrees. There is added the testimony, beyond all exception, of the Chronicle of Clairvaux in Chifflet of the Society of Jesus, written by an anonymous but contemporary author.

[664] but it happened in the year 1174. In the said Chronicle, then, which the same Chifflet published in the book which he composed On the asserted illustrious lineage of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, at page 84 this is noted under the year of the Lord 1174: In the same year was made the dedication of the church of Clairvaux, and the canonization of blessed Bernard, and his elevation: at which was present dom Guichard, archbishop of Lyons, formerly abbot of Pontigny. And in the following year, in the general chapter, they received the chant of blessed Bernard, and the chant of the Trinity. Hence it is gathered that this sacred act, by which Bernard was enrolled in the fellowship of the heavenly ones by solemn rite, must be restored to the year 1174, and fell on the XVIII day of January, distinctly noted in the Apostolic letters; and thus, as Mabillon computes, twenty years, four months, and twenty-nine days having been completed from his death, as is clear to one going backward from the said year and day of the month to the XX day of August and to the year of Christ 1153, the year of the Saint's death. Of his elevation, of which mention was made in the Chifflet just recorded, discourse will return below, after we shall have produced the ancient documents, even though they stand published elsewhere together with St. Bernard's Works, which illustrate the sacred inauguration of the Man reckoned among the Saints. But in the edition which came forth in the year 1719 there is prefixed to the Apostolic letters a letter of Traimund or Tromund, a monk of Clairvaux, to Gerard the abbot, by whom he had been sent to Rome to urge the blessed Doctor's canonization. But since it is of no great concern to the reader to read what is recorded in that letter, I do not judge that it should be transcribed hither. First, then, let there be produced

The Apostolic Letters of Pope Alexander III to the Gallican Church, concerning blessed Bernard's being reckoned in the number of the Saints, and his festival being henceforth solemnly celebrated in the Church.

Alexander, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his venerable brethren all the archbishops and bishops, and to his beloved sons the abbots and other Prelates of the churches established in the kingdom of France, greeting and Apostolic benediction.

The Pontiff gives the reason why St. Bernard's canonization was deferred; It happened formerly, while we were staying at Paris, that certain great and venerable men made mention of canonizing Bernard of holy remembrance, once abbot of Clairvaux, desiring indeed and suggesting to us with pious entreaties that in the council which was shortly to be celebrated at Tours we should give a speedy effect to this worthy and praiseworthy wish. And when we were attending to that business with a sufficiently favorable affection, there came on a multitude and frequency of petitioners, who in various provinces demanded a like thing. Whence, since we saw that all could not fittingly be satisfied, it was resolved, for the avoiding of scandal, that there be deferred in this case also what for the time had to be denied to the rest. But lately, at the insistence and devotion of the brethren of Clairvaux and of other exalted persons, the same entreaties being renewed with us, we brought back to our memory the holy and venerable life of that blessed Man: how he, supported by the prerogative of a singular grace, not only shone forth in himself with sanctity and religion, but also radiated in the whole Church of God with the light of faith and doctrine. But the fruit which he wrought in the house of the Lord both by word and by example scarcely any border of holy Christendom is ignorant of: since he transmitted the institutes of holy religion even to foreign and barbarous nations, and extended the foundation of monasteries, and called back an infinite multitude of sinners walking through the breadth of the secular way to the uprightness of the spiritual life.

[666] But especially the most sacred Roman Church, and why afterwards granted. over which by God's authorship we preside, laboring once under the whirlwind of a grave persecution, he so sustained, as much by the merit of his life as by the zeal of the wisdom given him from heaven, that he is worthily to be held in memory both by us and by all the sons of that same Church, and to be venerated with a perpetual devotion. But in the affliction of his body he so rendered the world crucified to himself, and himself to the world, that we trust that he obtains also the merits of the holy Martyrs, whom it is agreed to have led so long a martyrdom by the order of confession and by the frugality of his life. All which things being weighed with pious consideration, and set forth in the council of our Brethren, trusting in the mercy of God, to whom he perseveringly and faithfully served, and presuming also upon the merits of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and of that same most blessed Confessor, we have commanded that he be enrolled by the authority of the Apostolic See in the catalogue of the Saints, and have decreed that the feast of his commemoration be henceforth publicly celebrated. You therefore, who are wont both to receive the institutes of that same Apostolic See and to honor God more gloriously in his Saints, so celebrate the memory of this Saint on earth that by his prayers and merits you may receive worthy rewards in heaven. Given at Anagni, on the XV Kalends of February.

Apostolic Letters of the same Pontiff Alexander to the King of France.

Alexander, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to Louis, illustrious King of the Franks, greeting and Apostolic benediction.

He signifies it to the king of France, The loftiness of your royal magnificence knows (as we believe) that those things which we have learned to be pleasing and acceptable to you along with the honor of God, we always further to a useful effect with a great and willing mind. But most of all we observe this in those works in which especially both the honor of God and the glory of his Saints is declared: knowing also that whatever shall be ordained by Apostolic authority for the adornment of the Church and the honor of the heavenly King will be most pleasing to you. Whence, since Bernard of holy remembrance, once abbot of Clairvaux, was both always dear to God and pleasing and acceptable as much to you as to your whole kingdom, we have decreed that he be canonized for the glory of God and the exaltation of the Church and of your whole kingdom, and be honored with a festive celebration among the most blessed Confessors — trusting as much in the mercy of God and in the merits of his blessed Apostles Peter and Paul as not ignorant of his converse and holiness.

[668] [to whom he also commends affection toward the Saint and toward the monks of Clairvaux.] We admonish therefore the royal piety of your most Christian Serenity that you embrace with the arms of glad devotion this gift of heavenly grace, conferred upon your kingdom while you reign; and that you show yourself devoted with your wonted piety toward him who now fully enjoys heavenly beatitude, whom for his venerable sanctity you loved while he was still set in darkness. But the monastery of Clairvaux, which he founded, in which also his venerable body rests, we wish you so to hold commended out of reverence for him that you may always deserve to have him as patron. Given at Anagni, on the XV Kalends of February.

Apostolic Letters of the same Pontiff Alexander to all the abbots of the Cistercian Order.

Alexander, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved sons of Cîteaux, of La Ferté, and of Pontigny, and of Clairvaux, and of Morimond, and to all the abbots of the Cistercian Order, greeting and Apostolic benediction.

To the abbots of the Cistercian Order As often as an honorable opportunity is afforded us that we may in something answer according to their merits the faith and devotion which you have had toward the Church of God in our times, we willingly embrace that opportunity; and in those things especially which are known to breathe a special virtue, we do not delay to meet your advancements. But it happened at this time that the proposal which had of old been put forward concerning the canonization of blessed Bernard, once abbot of Clairvaux, and, on account of the scandal of certain persons demanding like things, deferred from the celebration of the council of Tours, was brought back, God willing, to our memory; and He wrought with us a sign for good, who kept this work of piety to be consummated by our hands. For we, recalling with a solicitous remembrance the life and sanctity of that same most blessed Confessor — namely how he was magnificent in himself by the prerogative of religion and holiness, and how useful and most copiously fruitful he was to the whole Church of God, but especially to your Order, by faith and doctrine — trusting in the mercy of God and of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and presuming also upon the merits of that same holy Confessor, have thought that he must, by the counsel of our Brethren being shared, be enrolled by the authority of the Apostolic See in the catalogue of the Saints, and that the day of his laying to rest must be publicly celebrated in the Church.

[670] Whence, since this so abounds to the glory and honor of the supreme Creator that it may redound also to your edification and consolation, he writes concerning it; it especially concerns you to give thanks to almighty God, who in modern times willed to raise up a Man of perfect and notable sanctity in your Order. Do you therefore receive the gift of his munificence with a special devotion, and honor especially in his celebration God, who is wonderful in the glorification of his Saints. Given at Anagni, on the XV Kalends of February.

Apostolic Letters of the same Pontiff Alexander to the monks of Clairvaux.

Alexander, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved sons Gerard the abbot and the whole convent of Clairvaux, greeting and Apostolic benediction.

and to the abbot of Clairvaux, As concerning the religion and piety which you bear toward God nothing remains doubtful to us, so it is always manifest with a clear certainty as regards the strength of the devotion and faith you have shown. For you could not, nor henceforth, God being the author, will you be able, to appear degenerate from the grace of sanctity, whom it is agreed to be the heirs of a holy Father: to whom both spiritual grace abounded for merit, and efficacy of works was not wanting for an example. For you know and recall with pious veneration how Bernard of blessed memory, the first abbot and chief founder of your monastery, was indeed acceptable to God for the virtue of his religion, and gracious to the Church of God for the fullness of his devotion and faith, so that you would deservedly have to be held blameworthy if you were in anything negligent of his imitation and veneration. It has pleased us therefore that you had solicitude for him as for a loving Father, and demanded his canonization with a praiseworthy wish. We, to whom it is always at heart, for the many services of your devotion, son abbot, and for the religious and pious zeal of your whole house, continually to comply with your prayers and to favor your advancements, graciously assent to this wish, that we may prove both our grace and our benevolence toward you.

[672] commending to him the giving of thanks. The life therefore of that same most blessed Confessor being recalled to memory — namely how he shone forth in faith and religion and doctrine, and with how great a light of conspicuous brightness he radiated in the Church of God — we have thought, the counsel of our Brethren having been had, trusting in the mercy of God and of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and presuming upon the merits of that same Saint, that he must be enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints, and that the day of his laying to rest must henceforth be observed as festive and solemn. Whence, since it especially concerns you both to imitate his life and to venerate his glory, busy yourselves in all things both to be zealous to cling to the footsteps of that same holy Father, and to keep the feast of his sanctity, that, whose converse you have deserved to share, you may be held worthy to be partners of the same beatitude. Given at Anagni, on the XV Kalends of February. From all these testifications and arguments of the highest veneration toward the blessed Man, shown by the Apostolic See in decreeing to him the public honors of the heavenly ones, we ought to conclude that scarcely any canonization down to that time was celebrated in the Church of God with greater solemnity than St. Bernard's, and consequently that this was most honorable both to the Man himself, and to the whole Cistercian Order, and especially to the ascetics of Clairvaux.

§ LXI. The prayers for the Mass dictated by Pope Innocent III himself; the elevations of the body; altars; relics sent into various regions of Europe.

Pope Innocent III Besides the other things of which we have just treated, and those altogether singular adornments committed to letters by Alexander III, the Vicar of Christ, when he joined St. Bernard to the company of the heavenly ones, this too happened as a singular thing, that afterwards another Supreme Pontiff not only prescribed his Office to be recited in the sacrifice of the Mass, but even dictated it with his own mouth. Receive the fact from the Mabillon designated before, who narrates it thus from column 1344: Monuments of so great a commendation were not enough for Bernard's memory and huge merits, unless the supreme Prelate of the Church also should with his own mouth dictate his Office. This Innocent III performed at the supplication of John, from metropolitan of Lyons a monk of Clairvaux, and at the same time of Rainer, a monk of Heisterbach, Innocent's confessor, in a letter given to John in the year 1201; which the said author presently recites in the same place in these words:

[674] To John, formerly archbishop of Lyons. We would not deny with his own mouth dictates the collects of the Mass: what you willed to ask, since from it the fruit of eternal recompense accrues as much to us as to you. For you asked, being requested by the brethren, that, in honor of blessed Bernard, first abbot of Clairvaux, whom the Apostolic See had enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints to be venerated, we ourselves should dictate with our own mouth the Collect and the other prayers, to be said with greater devotion both on account of the authority of the dictator and on account of the style of the dictation. And behold, as we could, at the instance of our beloved son brother Rainer, we have taken care to hear your petition. The Collect. Perfect in us, we beseech you, Lord, the loving effect of holy religion, and for the obtaining of the bounty of your grace let blessed Bernard the Abbot and eminent Doctor ever intercede with you for us by his merits and prayers. Through our Lord, etc. The Secret. May the offering of this Sacrament be pleasing to you, O God, which in memory of the Lord's Passion we offer to your majesty. The Postcommunion. May the food which we have taken work its own effect in us, almighty God, that the eating may incorporate into himself those who eat. Who with you, etc. Given at the Lateran, on the VI Ides of July.

[675] These being produced, Mabillon adds this: Where you see that St. Bernard was distinguished by the name of Doctor by the supreme Prelate of the Church: and honors the Saint with the name of Doctor. which indeed an old codex of Corbie, in which the Saint's life is contained, testifies was employed by Alexander III himself also in the Mass of the canonization, where, the Collects Be present to our supplications, etc., being premised, and also the Gospel of Doctors, You are the salt of the earth, this is subjoined: This Mass written above of St. Bernard was first celebrated by the lord Pope Alexander III.

[676] Let us now return to the holy Doctor's elevation, which in the paragraph immediately preceding was indicated by us in passing from the Chronicle of Clairvaux in Chifflet; The elevation of the body where we saw the dedication of the church of Clairvaux, the canonization of St. Bernard, and his elevation bound to the year 1174. Manrique under that year, chapter 2, number 2, defers the elevation, speaking thus: The Great Belgic Chronicle mentions the dedication of the church of Clairvaux and the canonization of St. Bernard under this same year; although it confounds them with the elevation of the Saint's body, which nevertheless it is agreed happened four years afterwards. But since the author of the Chronicle of Clairvaux, a contemporary and beyond all exception, whatever be the case with the Great Belgic Chronicle, affixes that elevation to the said year 1174, he does not seem to us to be accused of error, if he can be excused by another way. And indeed why can he not, if we admit that two elevations happened at different times, Mabillon going before, who at column 1341 observes the following?

[677] As regards the elevation, of which there is mention in the cited authority (namely of the Chronicle of Clairvaux in Chifflet), a twofold one in the book of the tombs of Clairvaux it is said to have been made by that same Guichard of Lyons indeed, and by Henry, abbot of Clairvaux, some years after the canonization: but that this must be understood of another and more solemn translation the very words sufficiently declare; when they hint that the aforesaid abbot Henry procured that elevation through G., archbishop of Lyons. The words of the book of the tombs of Clairvaux in Manrique, whom the alleged Mabillon cites under the year 1178, are reported there in chapter 3, number 1, an opportunity being offered concerning Godfrey of Soissons, who was present among the rest: But hearing (Godfrey) of the canonization of blessed Bernard made by Alexander III, Pope of happy memory, and of the translation of the body of that same blessed Bernard to be made under the lord Henry, seventh abbot of Clairvaux, coming to the general chapter, he thereupon hastened to Clairvaux: where with the archbishop of Lyons and his fellow bishops he most dutifully strove to be present.

[678] must be admitted. Then from the same book, in Henry's epitaph, Two, says Manrique at number 2, good and magnificent works at Clairvaux, besides innumerable other good ones, he gloriously consummated. For blessed Bernard, whom the lord Pope Alexander III had already canonized, and had commanded the day of his laying to rest to be celebrated with joy by the whole Church, the venerable bishops and other reverend persons being stirred up on this side and that, he caused, through our venerable father the lord Guichard, archbishop of Lyons, formerly abbot of Pontigny, to be elevated and raised again with great joy and exultation of the whole Gallican church, and to be religiously and honorably placed in a marble tabernacle behind the altar of the blessed Virgin Mary, as it appears today. Does it not therefore seem from these testimonies altogether probable and consonant with truth that there were two elevations of St. Bernard's body: the one indeed in the year 1174, which was less solemn; but the other in the year 1178, more solemn?

[679] Of the second Henry, abbot of Clairvaux, writes to Stephen, king of England, But of Henry, abbot of Clairvaux,

there is extant a letter concerning this later elevation, not marked however with chronological notes, to Stephen, king of the English, in Mabillon at columns 1345 and 1346, and it contains this: There was celebrated among us an honorable and solemn day, delightful with a new festivity, and festive with an ample delight; inasmuch as the raising again of the most sacred body of blessed Bernard rendered it most celebrated for us, and suffused it with a clearer light. O how we wished the presence of your majesty to share in those joys, more heavenly assuredly than earthly! so that both for us the beauty of so great a festivity might grow from your princely glory, and for you, from the merits of the most illustrious Confessor, a bounty of richer blessing might flow forth by a certain wonderful watering. But since the ample distance of a most remote region grudged us that, we transferred our wishes to a spiritual remedy, and we brought it about, God favoring, that, although your presence was lacking there, your memory was not idle. For solemnly we impressed your name, with the tokens of your piety, upon the affections of your brethren and, as was fitting, upon the hearts of your sons: who, having received it with ample devotion, might in a manner offer it to the gaze of the holy Father, and present it to the sanctuary of the heavenly court.

[680] and sends him a finger of St. Bernard: Besides, lest the occasion of bodily absence should defraud the royal store-chambers of a share in the gift discovered, we send you an honorable portion from the treasure of his relics: reckoning it utterly unworthy that the piety of so great a prince should be defrauded of a participation in so great a sanctity. Receive therefore a finger of that sacred hand, which, because the just man shook it free from every bribe of earthly gain, God, as was worthy, filled with a most affluent abundance of heavenly blessing: of that hand, I say, whose touch healed the sick, strengthened the feeble, made men firm, put demons to flight: of that hand which laid the first stone in the foundations of our Clairvaux, to which you are disposed to give roofs. But it was our care diligently to seal in a little vessel what is sent, lest either the treasure hidden there should lie open to injury through frequent openings, or some guile of a pious fraud should creep in at the prompting of a devout pilfering.

[681] But now what shall we say of the other adornments of signal honors altars dedicated in the Saint's honor: which were honorably bestowed on the Man when reckoned in the canon of the Saints? The author of the Cistercian Annals, under the year 1174, chapter 2, number 2, writing of that solemnity, says: I should believe that on the same feast an altar was also consecrated to the Saint; of which kind very many were being erected in his honor in other churches also. And in the same place at number 3 the same Cistercian historiographer subjoins: Certainly in this year the bishop of Tarentaise, now broken with age but prompt and inclined to all good things, at the petition of the same bishop of Langres (Walter had been treated of) and of the Brethren of Longuay, coming to Longuay, dedicated a new altar in honor of the holy Father, and a cemetery, the peoples flocking together and contending among themselves who could come nearer to survey the new sacred things. See the Life of St. Peter of Tarentaise printed in our volume II of May, on the VIII day of that month, chapter 4, page 331. But in the Annotations on that chapter, letter a, Longuay is said to be of the Cistercian Order in the diocese of Langres, a daughter of Clairvaux, built in the year 1149.

[682] Our Saint's honor was not moderately enlarged by the sacred pledges which passed into various regions of Europe. his relics I shall set down here those which have come to my knowledge, although I am fully persuaded that very many others are kept either among the Cistercians or elsewhere. In the Cistercian Calendar, which was printed at Dijon in the year 1617, there is marked at the XVII day of May the Translation of our holy Father Bernard to Avignon: of which mention was made among the Praetermissi by us at that day, in volume IV of that month, page 3. Which perhaps must be understood of some part of the sacred relics. Of the most precious pledge, namely the finger of St. Bernard, which abbot Henry sent to Stephen, king of the English, we have just spoken. In the History of the royal abbey of the Virgin Mother of God of Soissons, printed at Paris in the year 1675, book 4, chapter 2, page 398, it is narrated that the lord d'Honcourt about the year 1400 gave to his daughter Agnes a silver reliquary in which were relics of St. Bernard, St. William, and twenty others. But in the catalogue of relics at page 403 I find treatment of the garments of St. Bernard, not indeed of any part of his body. Mabillon, in the first volume, column 362, in the notes on epistle 410, formerly 366, of the holy Father, on occasion of the abbey of St. Victor outside the walls of Paris, of regular Canons of the Order of St. Augustine .., reports that the Saint's cowl is kept in the treasury of that abbey, a perpetual monument of his love toward it, together with a charter from which hangs St. Bernard's seal, of which above, he says, on epistle 284.

[683] To Spain belong a part of a rib five fingers long, into various and five other lesser relics, as is noted in our manuscript, which was taken from the Inventory of relics, or catalogue of remains, as it is wont to be indicated with us elsewhere, of the royal monastery of St. Lawrence of the Escorial. What of Italy? In volume IV of Italia Sacra in Ughelli, among the things narrated of the bishops of Genoa, under Otho, at column 850 of the most recent Venetian edition, there is treatment of St. Bernard's love and veneration toward the Genoese while he lived; and also of their recourse to that same Saint when dead, when in the year 1625, war having arisen in Italy (go to this our Commentary, § XVIII), they feared for their liberty: and indeed the Genoese not only chose him as their tutelary patron, but also appointed as their orator into the Gauls Agostino Centurione, that he might adorn our Abbot's tomb with the public honor of a silver lamp to burn continually, as you will there find in Ughelli. But what follows presently at column 851 belongs here: But Claude Argenterius, abbot of Clairvaux, received Centurione with his monks so honorably that, with the consent of those same monks, St. Bernard's tomb being opened, he judged that the legate should be presented, along with the Genoese people, with a rib drawn from the Saint's body — a gift that would be the more pleasing to the Genoese people in proportion as it was agreed that it had hitherto befallen no one either, the stone being removed from St. Bernard's monument, to behold his body with his eyes, or to carry away with him relics of the same torn from the other members.

[684] regions of Europe But the rib of the holy body, when brought to Genoa, so great a concourse of the people received that nothing more magnificent could have been done than those supplications: and, enclosed in a silver vessel for the winning of the Saint's perpetual protection, they carried it into the metropolitan church. Hence gather, reader, that those two arms must have belonged to some other Bernard, of which the monks of Cassino at St. Catherine's of Genoa boast they have the one; the Friars Preachers at Santa Maria Novella of Florence the other. For indeed, the legate Centurione looking on, and abbot Claude, and a numerous multitude of the monks of the monastery of Clairvaux, it is agreed that St. Bernard's body was found so whole and unimpaired that not even the least part seemed to have fallen away from the rest of the body. But the finger at least was then away from the rest of the body, according to what was said a little before. Ughelli, cited, in volume 9, setting forth the metropolitan see of Cosenza, at column 185, among the other sacred remains which he reports as kept in the metropolitan basilica, places an arm of Bernard the abbot; not indeed of Clairvaux, as follows from what we just now set out from the same author; unless it had been sent thither after the year 1625, which would have to be proved. Hence gather what must be said of the arm of St. Bernard which Masini in his Bologna Perlustrata, at the XX day of August, affirms to be among the nuns of St. Leonard's.

[685] transmitted. Rayssius, in the Supplement to the Natal Days of the Saints of Belgium of Jean Molanus, marks these relics of St. Bernard in that same Belgium: at folio 170 verso, At Cambron, he says, I once saw .. one chasuble of this mellifluous Doctor. The ascetics of St. Bernard in Brabant on the river Scheldt, at the second milestone from Antwerp, rejoice that they too have one chasuble of their Father and patron, together with one whole joint of his sacred hand. But on the XIV day of February of the year in which I write this, 1737, while I was in the hospice or refuge, as they call it, which the said ascetics have in this city of Antwerp, it was reported to me that that joint had been carried off by theft. In the same place, folio 170, there is treatment of the spring of St. Bernard in the monastery of Clairefontaine in the Duchy of Luxembourg; which, drunk with faith and devotion, is believed to be of help against diseases. Other sacred remains remain to be indicated in the next paragraph.

§ LXII. Other sacred remains among the Belgians; the Office; the proper lessons; whether the Saint was the author of the antiphon Salve Regina, as is said in them; the public honor paid him at Paris, at Liège, and at Rome.

The Saint's chasuble, chalice, Rayssius in the Hierogazophylacium Belgicum records a good many other relics of St. Bernard: namely at page 314 two excellent bones in the cathedral church of St. Mary at Tournai; at page 82, in the list On the bones of the Saints at the monastery of St. Aubert of the Regular Canons of St. Augustine at Cambrai, the name of Bernard is set down; at page 218 a bone in the monastery of Floreffe of the Premonstratensian Order in the territory of Namur; at page 227 a chasuble with stole and maniple in the monastery of Gembloux of the Order of St. Benedict, situated between Brussels and Namur in Gallo-Belgic Brabant. But that chasuble itself, seen by me, says the same Rayssius, more than once (with which too I unworthily offered more often the sacrifice of the Mass to God the Father), wonderfully breathes antiquity. For it is not, like our chasubles now, open at the sides on this side and that, and cleft, but closed on every side into a round, and descends to the middle of the shin. Hence the celebrant supports on his arms both its side edges gathered up below: for it has neither sleeves nor openings through which the priest's arms may be put forth.

[687] To these are added other remains noted in the same Hierogazophylacium. cowl, shirt, etc. At page 298, of the hair shirt and sudary of St. Bernard the abbot in the monastery of Maroilles of the Order of St. Benedict in the territory of Landrecies in Hainault; at page 459, of the bones and cowl of St. Bernard, bishop of Clairvaux, in the convent of Salzinnes of the Cistercian Order near Namur; at page 80, among the relics of the Cistercian abbey of Orval in the Duchy of Luxembourg, gilded there, says the author of the cited Hierogazophylacium, we saw besides the chalice of blessed Bernard of Clairvaux, which he used in the sacrifice of the Mass, and which he left there in the time of Constantine, first abbot of Orval; at page 515, We saw, says the same collector of relics, treating of Vaucelles of the Cistercian Order in the territory of Cambrai, there the shirt of St. Bernard, a singular remedy for pregnant women against the perils of childbirth; at page 3 there is marked by him the staff .. with which he had been wont to support his feeble limbs; which he left to the monks of this place, namely of Affligem of the Order of St. Benedict in the territory of Aalst, in place of a memorial.

[688] Nor will it be alien from our purpose to observe some things also concerning the Saint's cultus, with which he was honored in the Church the Office; after he had been entered in the roll of the Saints. His Office, established thereafter,

was of a semi-double rite; but that St. Pius V raised it to a double, the prayer in it being however changed, and the homily which is read to this day ordered to be added, Baillet notes at the end of the Life of St. Bernard, from Gavanti: who on this matter may be seen in the Thesaurus of the sacred rites, volume 2, page 160. We have with us a transcript of the proper lessons, which are headed with this title: From the Breviary of the parish church of Fontaines have been taken these nine lessons, which are wont to be read at the Nocturns on the feast of St. Bernard, containing some things omitted in his Life. Above this title is written By the gift of the Most Reverend Father General of the Feuillants (that is, Fuliensis): and the name of Giovanni Bona is appended, whose merits are sufficiently known, and who is praised in Ciacconius among the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs and Cardinals, volume 4, column 793. Of the reformed Religious of the Cistercian Order, who in Gaul bear the name of Feuillants, but in Italy of the Reformed of St. Bernard, Hippolyte Helyot treats in the History of the Monastic Orders*, etc., volume 5, part 4, chapter 38, from page 401. These things being remarked, here now for you, reader, are the aforesaid lessons.

[689] given from the Breviary of Fontaines Lesson I. The most blessed Bernard was born in the district of Langres, in the town of Fontaines, a worthy offspring of his father. Noble indeed in the lineage of the flesh; but nobler in the height of his mind. His begetter was named Tesquilinus, but his mother Aleth, daughter of Bernard, lord of Montbard, a powerful man, and drawing his origin from the nobility of the ancient Dukes of Burgundy. For by God's providence they begot six sons and one daughter. But since we have not undertaken to set forth a history of his lineage at present, let us at least, the Lord bestowing it, report a few miracles of his life.

Lesson II. On a certain night, therefore, blessed Bernard, keeping vigil while the monks slept round about, heard angels in the church praising God and the blessed Virgin with a clear and delightful voice: whom when he had heard, he rose secretly and went forthwith to the church, that, being placed close by, he might see more plainly what this might be.

Lesson III. For he saw the holy Mother of God in the midst of the angels, of whom one held in his hand a golden censer, another the incense. One of these leading him, the holy Man, walking as it were on the right hand of the glorious Virgin, came as far as the altar. Where with an angelic voice he heard this antiphon chanted, Salve Regina, entire even to the end, which, retaining it by heart, he is reported afterwards to have written and transmitted to the lord Pope Eugenius, that by the precept of Apostolic authority it might be held solemn through the churches, in honor of the Virgin Mother of God. Which also was done, as very many still testify.

[690] proper Lesson IV. When the blessed Man was once sailing on the Loire, his little boat by chance struck a small bridge, on which bridge a boy was standing: who at once slipped into the river and was drowned. The report being roused, the neighbors ran up lamenting the dead child; whom he ordered to be brought to him: and, the dead child being offered, the Saint prayed: the boy, all beholding it, was raised up at the Saint's prayer.

Lesson V. There was a certain religious man named Odo, a part of whose body for some time remained almost dead, lying without motion of contraction. He came after the blessed Man's death. And when from it he had bathed himself in the place of his infirmity with water sanctified by the blessed Man, he returned sound and unharmed.

Lesson VI. But another, monstrously vexed with pain of the head and altogether deprived of sense, being sprinkled from the spring sanctified by St. Bernard, was healed. Another had languished for seven years, and, being led by his parents to the sacred spring, was made whole. A certain other had labored a long time with a quartan fever, who by drinking of the same spring received health.

[691] lessons, Lesson VII. At Bar * on the Aube, then, there were two women whom demons had vexed. Then their parents brought them to the Man of God, that they might be cured by him. And when they had drawn near the gate of Clairvaux, one of the devils said through the woman's mouth to the other devil, We must go out of this woman. Why, said the demon, must this be done? He answered: I cannot see Bernard, nor hear his voice. And forthwith he went out of the woman, and she was healed from that hour.

Lesson VIII. Those who were present at this miracle, praising God, said: Truly that man is a Saint, and the Holy Spirit dwells in him. And while they said these things, the Servant of God came, and giving thanks prayed.

Lesson IX. But after prayer he turned to the other woman, saying: O most wicked demon, enemy of God, go out of this woman; at which word the demon went out of the woman, and she was healed from that hour.

[692] I explain certain words occurring above. Negatus, in which some things are explained: the cultus at Paris, at Rome that is, drowned, or suffocated in the waters. See Du Cange's Glossary, volume 4, column 1165 of the most recent edition. Incommota contractionis (in our manuscript it is written, either faultily or in a manner not sufficiently intelligible, in commota) I explain thus from the sense, so that it signifies without motion of contraction. Whether St. Bernard composed the antiphon Salve Regina, as was indicated above in lesson 3, will presently be discussed. If in the seventh lesson Barrum super Albam, or Barri, understanding town, is to be read, that is in Champagne, a province of Gaul. These so many and so various signs of public veneration toward the holy Doctor, which it has seemed good to gather in this paragraph and in the one immediately preceding, are an argument that he, as he deserved, so also obtained a common esteem of all, equal to his endowments both public and private. Add that the Faculty, as they call it, of theology of Paris, as a token of a mindful spirit for the benefits afforded to this body by our Saint against Abelard, Gilbert de la Porrée, and certain others of its diseased members, goes each year to the Bernardines on the XX day of August to celebrate Mass with a solemn rite, accompanied by an address to the assembly, as Baillet testifies at the end of the Life of the most holy Doctor. The Roman people, in memory of the benefits received from the holy Man when Rome was in very great straits, offers him a chalice with four torches, as Piazza testifies in the Sacred Hemerologium at the XX day of August.

[693] In Edmond Martène's Most ample collection of ancient writers and monuments, volume 8, and the special one at Liège. from column [ ], among the statutes of the church of Liège, made in the year of the Lord 1336 and 1337, this is noted: Moreover, roused by pious consideration and by a reasonable debt, we establish and ordain that to the good confessor and eminent Doctor blessed Bernard the abbot, who by his presence, while he lived, illustrated the holy church, the city and country of Liège in the solemnities of Masses and in frequent preachings, and by divine and admirable signs and miracles, as we recognize to be contained in our histories, a special devotion and some recompense for so great gifts be rendered to that same glorious Confessor each year on his festival, namely that his feast be celebrated in this church with three lessons from his own Legend, and with a special collect with the Te Deum, and with the Hours and Mass of the common of one confessor not a pontiff.

[694] A certain controversy referred hither a little before — namely whether St. Bernard composed the antiphon Salve Regina — Whether St. Bernard will now be examined. In the first place it does not seem certainly established that the holy Man was the first author of that antiphon: then it is not sufficiently clear, if it was another, who he may be. Both will be plain from the reasons in which various men designate various authors of that same antiphon. Among the supposititious and alien Works of St. Bernard, which Mabillon cast into his second volume, there stand four Sermons on that antiphon; why he adjudges them away from that Saint he indicates in the same place at column 721 before the first Sermon. Its author, saying in the place cited that that canticle .. was composed by Saints, rather involves the matter than decides it, since he names none of them, and seems to indicate several. For indeed that passage gave the aforesaid Mabillon occasion, in the notes which are found at the end of the first volume, columns CXVII and CXVIII, of discussing the present controversy, and of proposing and examining various things; but with a doubtful and uncertain issue, as is plain from his words, which we subjoin:

[695] composed That the author of this antiphon was Hermannus Contractus, a Benedictine monk, Wion proves at greater length in the Lignum vitæ, book 5, chapter 105, various testimonies of more recent writers being adduced, with which this context seems somewhat at variance. For I nowhere read that Hermann was distinguished with the name of Saint. Besides, John the Hermit, book 2 of the Life of St. Bernard, number 7, reports that St. Bernard "with an angelic voice heard the antiphon Salve Regina chanted entire even to the end: which, retaining it by heart, he is reported (he says) afterwards to have written and to have transmitted to the lord Pope Eugenius, that by the precept of Apostolic authority it might be held solemn through the churches. .. Which also was done, etc." From which passage the angels would have to be called the authors of that prayer. To which other words of this sermon, next to those reported above, seem to allude: "From the highest lips that canticle came forth poured out." Somewhat differently Alberic reports this history in the Chronicle under the year 1130, where he records that St. Bernard was once received in hospitality at Dijon at St. Bénigne's — "which abbey" (he says) "he always loved, because his mother was buried there; and that before the clock, about the altar, he heard the antiphon Salve Regina chanted by angels with a sweet modulation, and at first believed that it was the convent, and said to the abbot on the following day: Excellently did you chant the antiphon of Le Puy this night about the altar of the Blessed Virgin.

[696] the antiphon Salve Regina. But it was called THE ANTIPHON OF LE PUY, because Aimery, bishop of Le Puy, made it. … Whence in a certain general chapter of Cîteaux he obtained his request that this antiphon be received by the whole Order, which also was done." Aimery, or Aimar, or Adhemar, was bishop of Le Puy, a cultivator of the blessed Virgin above all, in the time of Pope Urban II. But by William Durandus in book 4 of the Rationale, chapter 22, Peter, bishop of Compostela, is said to have composed this antiphon: which Claude de la Rota also asserts in his Notes on the pseudo-Liutprand. To these things which I have thus far produced from Mabillon no others are at hand for me to add, by which the first author of the famous antiphon may from being uncertain and unknown become perspicuous.

* Feuillant.

Perhaps Barrum*.

§ LXIII. The three first writers of the things done by the Saint.

The holy Father has notable biographers. Above we spoke of Bernard's writings for others or to others; but now we shall treat of Bernard himself described by others, or of the historians of his life. Mabillon in the first place eminently praises them in the Admonition to the books On the life and deeds

of the holy Father, which is found in the second volume at page 1057, using these words: There is scarcely any of the Saints who has had so many heralds of the things he did, and those so exceptional and of approved credit as writers, as blessed Bernard: whose life and illustrious deeds three most illustrious authors pursued in a continuous discourse, as though by agreement; namely William, formerly abbot of Saint-Thierry near Reims, but then a monk of Signy; Ernaldus, abbot of Bonneval in the territory of Chartres; and Geoffrey, Bernard's own notary; all as it were eyewitnesses of the events. To these there were added others after them: Alan, bishop of Auxerre, and — to pass over other later ones — John the Hermit, and many other more recent writers: among whom Philotheus, whether a true or a feigned name, a monk of Clairvaux, sang Bernard's deeds in verse.

[698] Mabillon, having prefaced this concerning the biographers, illustrates the three first, The author of the first book of the Life and those the chief writers of the holy Doctor's deeds, with these observations: That the first book of the life of St. Bernard was written while Bernard himself was living, but unaware of it, its author William expressly asserts in its Preface — formerly abbot of Saint-Thierry, but then already a monk of the monastery of Signy, in the district of Rethel of the diocese of Reims, to which he had betaken himself from a desire of solitude and quiet, as Burchard, abbot of Balerne, testifies in the Subscription to that same first book. Of the time at which William embraced a quieter life it is more determinately established than of that at which he began his book On the Life of St. Bernard. Of both these points the cited Mabillon thus records: The time of William's withdrawal to Signy is understood from the paper book of Saint-Thierry, in which Helinus the abbot, his successor at Saint-Thierry, is first named in the year 1135. In what year that book was begun by William is not established. Certainly after the translation of the monastery of Clairvaux to a more capacious place, and the new construction of the buildings, from numbers 34 and 62 (but in our division book 1, chapter 4, number 39; and in the same place chapter 7, number 68), and likewise after the schisms of the Church were settled and heresies confuted, from number 40 (but in our edition book 1, chapter 5, number 45), and thus after the year 1140, and perhaps after 1145. Further, William died before Bernard; of whom more in volume 5, in the Admonition prefixed to the letter to the Brethren of Mont-Dieu, and in the fuller Notes on epistle 85.

[699] These things concerning the biographer who wrote the first book of the deeds of St. Bernard Mabillon judged should be observed. who, forestalled by death, left the work unfinished, But how far he carried his Life, and what he handled in it, learn from Manrique under the year of Christ 1153, chapter 11, number 1: He wrote his beginnings, his lineage, country, parents, adolescence, conversion, monastic profession, and prelacy over the then rising monastery of Clairvaux, with the rest, down to the schism of Peter Leonis. But this golden author being torn away by death from continuing the work, there was not wanting another golden one to pursue it: of whom it is well to hear the Mabillon designated above:

[700] Ernaldus took it up, who also died at his work. The Life begun by William, he says, Ernaldus, or Arnald, abbot of Bonneval, pursued in a second book after Bernard's death — not of that Bonneval which is in the diocese of Besançon; nor of the other, which is in that of Rodez, of the Cistercian Order; but of that which is in the territory of Chartres, of the Black monks; to which Arnold Bernard's last epistle, 310, was written, whatever others think to the contrary. See the fuller Notes on epistle 310. This book Ernaldus undertook at the request of the monks of Clairvaux, who out of modesty cast this province upon him, as the author testifies in the Preface of the second book, who left the work unfinished at his death. But at about what time he was occupied in writing the Life of St. Bernard you will learn from the Annotations on chapter 3 of book 2 of that same Life, letter g. To these two writers of the Acts of St. Bernard there succeeded a third: but what it concerns the reader to learn of him, the same Mabillon as above relates. Let his words concerning him be produced:

[701] To the books of these two Geoffrey added three others To the two above-mentioned books Geoffrey added three, without doubt none other than Bernard's own notary; to be distinguished indeed from Geoffrey of Péronne, of whom mention is made in book 4, number 16 (in our edition book 4, chapter 2, number 204), and likewise from Godfrey, Bernard's kinsman and companion in conversion, afterwards Prior of Clairvaux, and at last bishop of Langres, who finally betook himself to the private life of the monks of Clairvaux, and died there on the VI Ides of November of the year 1164. But Geoffrey, in the Preface of the three following books, writes in mourning that after ABOUT THIRTEEN years from his own conversion Bernard was torn from him by a bitter death, and thus Geoffrey's conversion must be said to have happened in the year 1140.

[702] [an Auxerrois by country, the Saint's notary, and afterwards abbot of Clairvaux; whose] He, an Auxerrois by country, was before his conversion a disciple of Peter Abelard, and indeed a cleric, as is plain from the book of Declamations, of which he too is the author, number 13: Lastly, we too were in the clergy. After Bernard's conversion, together with Nicholas of Clairvaux he was a notary and companion of his journeys; then, Bernard being dead, abbot first of Igny, then of Clairvaux after Fastred in the year 1162: over which place he presided ABOUT FOUR YEARS, from the Chronicle of Clairvaux in Chifflet; but afterwards, being harassed by his own men, HE LAID DOWN THE ABBACY IN THE YEAR 1165, and betook himself to Fossanova in Italy: where he was afterwards abbot, and at last of Hautecombe, as is read at greater length in the same Chronicle. In the same place certain of his Works are recounted; namely a notable work on the Song of Songs, the Life of St. Peter, archbishop of Tarentaise, and several other books and sermons.

[703] other writings are recorded. There is extant in Baronius his letter to Henry the Cardinal, and bishop of Albano, and Vicar or legate of the lord Pope, written concerning a certain new controversy which on his return into Gaul he found, namely "concerning the substance of the water which, mixed with wine, is offered in the chalice, whether it too likewise together with that wine is converted into the blood of the Lord." Likewise his is the little book Against the Chapters of Gilbert de la Porrée, bishop of Poitiers, which little book we shall report after the books On the Life of Bernard together with his other little works. Finally he wrote also against Abelard, as we shall presently say, and published a Sermon on St. Bernard, to be published below with a little commentary on the Lord's Prayer. But whether he composed the Life of Bernard, fragments of which we shall produce in the third place, and the second part of the sixth book on Bernard's miracles, besides the three books already recorded, must now be examined.

[704] To the five books on Bernard's life just mentioned we subjoin two books on his miracles: Two books of Miracles, one written by various authors; the other gathered from the Great Cistercian Exordium and from the fragments of Herbert, from a monk of Clairvaux archbishop of Torres in Sardinia: who composed three books on the miracles of his own Cistercians, published in Chifflet. The former book of miracles is divided into three parts: of which the first was written by Philip, a monk of Clairvaux, to Samson, archbishop of Reims; the second by other monks of Clairvaux, upon whom Philip himself laid this charge. Of these one is Geoffrey, likewise the writer of the third part in a letter to Hermann, bishop of Constance — concerning the miracles, namely, which he had seen wrought by Bernard from Speyer as far as Liège. To this there succeeds another letter of the same subject, of Geoffrey the monk, "to his most dear master Archenfred, and to both Chapters, his uterine brethren." Further, that this Geoffrey is the same who wrote the three later books of the life, I do not doubt.

[705] For neither do I assent to Charles de Visch, who attributes these books to Geoffrey the notary, who wrote them. but that part of the book on miracles to Geoffrey of Auxerre: whom that he must by no means be distinguished from Geoffrey the notary Hélinand the monk proves in his Chronicle in these words: "Of this Peter (namely Abelard) Geoffrey of Auxerre had once been a disciple, who for a long time had been St. Bernard's notary: who among other things said of that same Peter: I recall that he was once my master, who, emptying out the price of our redemption, commended nothing else in the sacrifice of the Lord's passion save an example of virtue and an incentive of love, etc. Blessed be God, who gave at once to me and to you a better master (Bernard), through whom he refuted the ignorance of the former and confuted his insolence: according to whom Christ exhibited to us three special things in his passion: an example of virtue, an incentive of love, and a sacrifice of redemption" — in Bernard, volume 2, Opusculum XI, number 25. "These and many other things" (adds Hélinand) "the said Geoffrey wrote strongly and in Catholic wise against Peter his master." To Geoffrey Nicholas of Clairvaux wrote epistle 42 on behalf of the bishop of Aleth. Let these things concerning Geoffrey and the other writers of the earlier Life and of the miracles suffice: of the other writers there must be treatment after the miracles themselves; but we shall weave them into this our Commentary a little later.

[706] Further, concerning the three biographers already praised the Cistercian historiographer may also be consulted under the year of Christ 1153, The credit and the time of writing chapter XI, number 4, where among the other things which he records of them he thus praises their credit and defines the time of their writing: Therefore Bernard had these three writers of his works, men notable for religion and knowledge; and no less all eyewitnesses, so that they must be believed neither to have been able to be deceived nor to have wished to deceive. Further, William, as I said, wrote while the Saint lived; abbot Arnold immediately after his death; Godfrey two years after. For speaking of the blessed bread carried off by Eskil into Denmark, he says that it was then the third year, and that it was nevertheless preserved uncorrupted: the third, I say, from Eskil's coming to Clairvaux while the Saint lived, which we recorded, on the authority of the Great Exordium, to have happened in the year of Christ 1152, at least one year before Father Bernard's death.

[707] of the three biographers, from Manrique. Whence in passing Trithemius must be corrected, in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers, where he relates that Arnold was not only a Cistercian (as though, by ascribing one man of his own to us, he compensated for the innumerable ones whom he takes away), but that he flourished about the year 1160, erring no less in this than in that. For Godfrey by no means undertook the work while he was living, who without doubt was filling out his subject as its dignity required. Wherefore, having undertaken it, as is plainly clear, about the year of the Lord 1155, it plainly convinces us that Arnold had died before, and therefore that Godfrey continued what Arnold, who had begun it, could by no means continue.

§ LXIV. Other biographers after the three earlier ones; other more recent ones; the Lives in Surius, Horst, and Mabillon; why the copy of the last is given by us to the press in preference to the others.

Alan reduced the first five books of the Life into some better order: I deferred hither a little before the remaining writers of the Bernardine Life, who after the others recounted in §63

transmitted to posterity the deeds and prodigies of the holy Doctor. Mabillon did not suffer his own labor to be wanting in noting the various matters which conduce to the knowledge of this subject. Here for you, reader, is what I read in him, volume 2, page 1233: The first, he says, is Alan, from abbot of Larrivour bishop of Auxerre from the year 1153 to 1161, in which year he betook himself again to Clairvaux, and died there in the year 1181. He wove from the five earlier books set out before a continuous series of the things done by Bernard, the proper words of the authors being employed, whom he reduced as best he could to the order of times. For where Geoffrey in book 3, chapter 4, sets the unhappy issue of the expedition to Jerusalem before the synod of Sens held against Abelard, which preceded it by ten years, Alan on the contrary sets the synod before the expedition. Likewise the same Geoffrey, from chapter 6 of book 1 of the same, reports the confutation of Gilbert de la Porrée made in the council of Reims before Bernard's preaching against Henry the heretic, and after all these Bernard's return from the City, book 4, chapter 1. But all these things are described in right order by Alan, who also is the first to record the holy Doctor's testament, omitted by the other writers.

[709] about what year he wrote: Assuredly Geoffrey himself in the Preface of book 3 confesses that in his narration "a coherence rather of the likeness of the things done than of time is observed." Nay, from the same Alan the common reckoning of the years of Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres, may be amended. For since he is said to have adhered as companion, together with Bernard, to Alberic, Cardinal bishop of Ostia and legate, setting out into the parts of Toulouse against Henry the heretic — IN THE DAYS, says Alan, of Eugenius risen, and that indeed in the year 1147 — the last period of Geoffrey's Life must not indeed be referred to the year 1138, as Gallia Christiana puts forward, but deferred beyond the year 1147, that is, into the following year; both because Geoffrey discharged the office of legation, which Pope Innocent II committed to him after the year 1131, FOR FIFTEEN YEARS, from the Acts of the bishops of Chartres published in volume 2 of the Analecta; and because Goslen, his nephew and successor in the see of Chartres, in letters granted to the monastery of Josaphat in the year 1151, calls it the third year of his episcopate. What Alan performed in the rest, his Preface to Pontius, fifth abbot of Clairvaux, teaches, who in the year 1158 succeeded Geoffrey, and four years later was promoted to the see of Clermont. And accordingly this writing of Alan's must be brought back to about the year 1170: concerning whom see more in the fuller notes on epistle 280.

[710] The second author, who follows Alan, published by the erudite Pierre-François Chifflet at Paris in the year 1679 among four Opuscula, The Excerpts of Geoffrey seems to him to be that Geoffrey, whose three later books On the Life of St. Bernard, with the second part of the miracles, we have reported above. Nor is the conjecture concerning the author a slight one. For he in chapter 6 testifies that he set IN THE BODY of Bernard's EPISTLES as THE FIRST that one which was written to Robert, on account of the miracle which FROM THE MOUTH OF HIM WHO WROTE IT IN THE RAIN WITHOUT RAIN he had received. Which indeed seems to have been the office of the notary, which Geoffrey discharged. The same author adds of himself in chapter 9 that his conversion happened from a sermon which the holy Man delivered in the schools of Paris. If this can be fitted to Geoffrey, that Sermon On Conversion, to the clergy, which is found among the Opuscula in volume 2, must be assigned to the year 1140. For indeed Geoffrey came to conversion in that very year, namely in the thirteenth year before Bernard's death, as he himself testifies in the Preface to the third book of his Life. Certainly Geoffrey speaks in almost the same way both in the Preface to the third book and in the Sermon on St. Bernard, where he treats of his own conversion, and so does the author in chapter 6 of the following Life.

[711] But from this author Chifflet reported only certain Excerpts, published by Chifflet: because the rest agreed with the other authors, and indeed word for word with that part of the sixth book of miracles which has Geoffrey himself as author. Further, that learned man judges these to have been certain collectanea concerning the life and deeds of Bernard, and as it were material prepared for writing his history: of which history, when two erudite and weighty men, William and Ernaldus, had elaborated the first and second books, Geoffrey was unwilling to obscure their pious labors by his own work; but, leaving untouched what they had handled, pursued the remaining life of St. Bernard in three books, to be annexed to the two earlier. These things are like the truth.

[712] To the Excerpts of Geoffrey (so we shall afterwards call him) there will succeed the two books of John the Hermit likewise on the life of St. Bernard, when John the Hermit composed the Saint's Life. but unfinished, which the Chifflet just praised published in that little work which he prefixed to his Diatribe on the illustrious lineage of St. Bernard. John seems to have been called Hermit from his name, not from the profession of his life. Nor perhaps was he a monk; but AMONG CERTAIN OF HIS DISCIPLES, namely of Bernard, ONCE ASSIDUOUS, WHILE STILL A BOY, as he himself testifies of himself in the second Preface, to Herbert, bishop of Torres in Sardinia. For the first was written to Peter, bishop of Tusculum. From this twofold Preface the time at which Peter was writing these books may be gathered. For Herbert was writing his books in the year 1178, in which year Peter was created by Alexander III Cardinal bishop of Tusculum. Add what John has concerning abbot Robert, Bernard's kinsman, WHO, he says in book 1, number 5, LIVED MORE THAN SIXTY-SEVEN YEARS IN THE MONASTERY UNDER THE YOKE OF REGULAR DISCIPLINE. Therefore John was writing after the year 1180, since Robert joined himself to Bernard not before the year 1113, having been offered before in the monastery of Cluny. These are the things which the above-mentioned Mabillon observed concerning those biographers published by him.

[713] A catalogue is given Further, I bring myself to think that other notices concerning more recent biographers will not displease the reader, whose catalogue the Reverend Dom Godfrey Bouvart, whom I praised above in §58, number 623, wove together and sent hither. Philotheus, Gilbert of Hoyland, Cesare Baronio, Laurentius Surius, Zacharias Lippeloo he there records; but it will suffice if I transcribe hither the following from the same catalogue: and they are these, and are reported in this order:

Franciscus Caesar, monk of Dunes, 1483.

Bernard de Rosergue, archbishop of Toulouse, 1474.

Guillaume Flameng, Canon of Langres, 1520.

The Congregation of the Regular observance at Rome, 1587.

Juan Álvarez, an Aragonese, 1595, in Spanish.

Christóbal González, 1601, in Spanish and Latin.

Chichere, Bailiff of Cîteaux, 1601, in French.

Filippo Malabaila, 1634, in Italian.

Antoine Le Maistre, under the name of Lamy, in French, 1644, 1656, 1663, 1674, 1684, etc.

Théophile Raynaud of the Society of Jesus, 1657, 1665.

Anonymous, in French, at Dijon, 1653.

Nicolas de Hacqueville, at Paris, 1667.

Luca Bartolotti, abbot, in verse, 1682.

José Almonacid, in Spanish, 1682.

François Giry, in French.

Pedro de Ribadeneira, in Spanish.

Father Viel, in French, 1603.

Pierre Le Nain, in French, 1697.

François Joseph Bourgoin, in French, 1704.

Gaspar Verstockt, in Flemish, 1650.

The Religious of Baudeloo, in Latin and Flemish, 1653.

What of this, that a Life of St. Bernard was written even in Chinese, which the Lord Abbot of Saint-Bernard on the Scheldt has, as the praised Bouvart subjoins to the above catalogue. But to the biographers already named there may be added two other recent Frenchmen, namely Adrien Baillet in the Lives of the Saints, which were printed at Paris in the year 1704; and Villefore, who published the Saint's Life in the same place in the same year.

[715] The Lives published by Surius, But since the Life in Surius, of whom mention was made above, is everywhere thumbed by the hands of all, I judge it to concern the reader that he be not ignorant of what Horst remarked concerning that Life in the Admonition to the reader which he prefixed to the Lives published by him, and there he observes that that Life, compared with that which hitherto, he says, is wont to be published together with the Works of St. Bernard, was found by me to vary not a little in words and in fact. I wondered indeed at first (for I had not then yet obtained the manuscript Life) why or in what manner this had been done. I suspected whether perhaps Surius had employed here too something of that wonted and familiar license of his which he had used in most other Lives of the Saints. But the discourse of these authors, needing no file — as being of itself, and for its design, polished and elegant enough — scarcely admitted the suspicion: to say nothing of the fact that the style familiar to those holy and likewise learned Men, in that age especially, has something peculiar and pathetic, and I know not what latent energy for moving the reader's affections, which our own writers do not so easily attain.

[716] Be it then that Surius's diligence is elsewhere noted by the learned as untimely; and by Horst. I here believed him free from fault: for I noted a difference between both editions not only of words, though more rarely, but also of matters, and such indeed as would easily free Surius's from the note of any recent alteration, as being fuller and richer than the common one, and seeming without doubt to rest on the credit of some manuscript copy. Nevertheless, while I wavered here uncertain, at last there was offered me what I had hitherto anxiously sought — an ancient manuscript copy of the Life of our holy Father from the library of the most celebrated monastery of Kamp of the Cistercian Order; which, being inspected, presently absolved Surius from all suspicion, as corresponding to Surius's edition; but in many things nevertheless far more correct and fuller: for it had also the book of miracles annexed. From this, then, we present to you, kind reader, the Life of St. Bernard. .. What you see enclosed in these marks [], know to be wanting in those hitherto published, and to be now newly inserted from the manuscript. And these are the things which Horst among others prefaces to the reader concerning his edition; on the perfecting of which, although that erudite and sedulous man spent an altogether signal and useful labor, yet we have judged that not this, but rather Mabillon's, should be reprinted by us.

[717] It moved us, first, because Mabillon added second labors to Horst's, Why the Life which Mabillon published is reprinted by us; since he had that editor before his eyes. Secondly, because he enlarged it, as will be plain from the course of the Life which he published, and as he himself indicates in the Admonition before the first book of that Life, saying: At the end here we advise that those things which you will meet with in what follows within brackets were added either by Horst from the Kamp codex, or by us. Thirdly, because Mabillon's copy, which we shall give to the press, is more corrected than Horst's, as we have been able to perceive when we compared this with that. Fourthly, because it is illustrated with new and learned notes, to say nothing of the various readings. But we use here the impression which

we have, and which came forth at Paris in the year 1690. Let the reader know meanwhile that not all the Lives which stand in the said editor will be committed to the press by us, for reasons presently to be designated.

[718] But a new division of chapters will be made by us, and the chapters themselves will be divided into new numbers. and in what manner it is given. The old division of the five books, however, we shall give after the Preface of the first book: which will then also be marked in the margin of our impression. The titles likewise of the miracles, or of the sixth book of the Life, will be given after its Preface. Besides the Annotations by which we shall attempt to elucidate this book, account will also be taken of the observations which in the month of September in the year 1672 the Reverend Father Fr. Joseph Ignatius of St. Anthony, a Discalced Carmelite, sent hither from Tournai. We shall also produce a synopsis of the miracles in the Posthumous Glory of St. Bernard, consulting the convenience of those who either have not leisure to read through the longer and numerous narrations of those same miracles, or to whom certain selected ones are pleasing, and such as are suited to a sermon, which they may fittingly set before their hearers for the matter of their discourse, and may in this way have them more readily at hand.

§ LXV. With what apparatus and with what fidelity the most illustrious Manrique wrote his Annals, and consequently the deeds of St. Bernard woven into them; of the author of the Great Cistercian Exordium.

Manrique's eulogy; The Reverend Dom Charles de Visch, in the Library of the writers of the sacred Cistercian Order, praises Angel Manrique for a most noble family, an acute and ready genius, and one prompt for all things; and also for so singular a progress in philosophical and theological studies that he was a wonder to his professors. The same bibliographer adds that he was endowed with a great abundance and elegance of words for preaching, and for inclining his hearers to whatever affection he wished, and that he exercised that office with the highest concourse and applause, being invited to it from every quarter: that he was likewise a man of the highest counsel in the weightiest matters; but that, being set over a chair of theology in the university of Salamanca, he eminently adorned this post for very many years with the highest celebrity of name. Various Works of his the alleged bibliographer also recounts. He was advanced to the episcopal see of Pax Julia or Augusta (commonly Badajoz) by Philip IV, king of the Spains, in the year of Christ 1644 (Nicolás Antonio, presently to be cited, marks the next following), as you will there find. Finally, the signal eulogies with which other learned men attended Manrique are found before the first volume of the Annals of the Cistercian Order. Of the praised author Nicolás Antonio also treats in the Bibliotheca Hispana, where he writes that he died in the city of Badajoz in the year 1649. This man, then, the Annals of the Cistercian Order obtained as their author.

[720] But that Manrique was furnished with an excellent store of documents the literary apparatus for weaving the Annals, before he composed those same Annals is abundantly clear from his Preface prefixed to the first volume of that Work, where he records this at number 4: There were at hand .. four libraries, with which, most richly stocked, Salamanca is illustrated: the domestic one of the Cistercian college, inferior to none, the fruit of the searching industry of Luis Bernardo de Quirós, formerly primary professor of holy Scripture. Nor less open to us, by the kindness of their members, were three others from outside: one from the Royal college of the Society of Jesus; two of those which they commonly call the Greater, namely that of San Bartolomé and that of Oviedo. And this last (the glorious care of that once great man Diego de Covarrubias) was in use almost before all the rest. The remainder was supplied by manuscripts sought from every quarter out of Gaul, Italy, Belgium, and Germany, and those which Ignatius Firminus of Ibero, abbot of Fitero, left — the very autographs: nay, the Vatican lay open for three years to Leandro Vadillo, a man of signal erudition, sent to Rome for this purpose, when we were first meditating these Annals.

[721] the manner of writing, love of truth But since the first endowment of a genuine historian is truth, that he had this alone before his eyes he has left attested in the most weighty words — nay, an oath being interposed also for the firmer confirmation of the matter — in the place cited at number 8: We do not doubt, he says, that many things have been omitted by us: who could gather all? that many things have been narrated otherwise than they befell. Who in so various a multitude of matters would not sometimes be blind or nod? This we affirm with an oath: that nothing has been knowingly altered by us; nothing purposely added or taken away, which we should think bore upon the history. Nor has anything been attributed to our own men which we should judge another's, being more desirous of true than of false glory. We are not of those who seek praise at the cost of others: Cîteaux does not need stolen goods. Thus the most illustrious Manrique, candidly professing that he, if he did not always and everywhere attain the truth, yet always and everywhere followed it in his Work, for whose sake these things have been indicated by us.

[722] And indeed, as he testifies that he is most tenacious of truth, and of correction, if anywhere he has erred. so also he writes not obscurely that he is most desirous of correction, if anywhere he has strayed from the truth, concluding his Preface in the place just cited in these words: Would that there were those who might correct, who might delete! Would that there were also those who might add, and show how little we have done, while they bring forth into the light more things which we have not done. Father Bernard sent a volume with a knife to Matthew the Cardinal legate, "that he might cut away with the author's own blade the imposture which he should judge worthy of removal": we could wish to transmit our Annals with knife and pen to all the learned, that they might cut away what has crept in by error, but no less add what is wanting through ignorance: which, oh, would that God might inspire in many.

[723] But now, since above we have very frequently used the book which is entitled the Great Exordium of the Cistercian Order, the title of the Great Exordium, which stands distributed into distinctions and chapters in Fr. Bertrand Tissier, doctor of theology, Prior of Bonnefontaine in Thiérache of the same Order, in the Library of the Cistercian Fathers, page 13 and following, the plan of our design seems to require that we imbue the reader with a knowledge of that Work, using the things which the said Tissier prefaces to it. And of the title indeed he gives this warning: In the manuscript codex of the monastery of Foigny, which I use, this title is found: "Here begins the narration of the beginning of the Cistercian Order; how our Fathers, having gone out from the monastery of Molesme for the recovering of the purity of the Order according to the tenor of the rule of St. Benedict, founded the fruitful church of Cîteaux, which is the mother of us all: since from it, as from a most pure fountain, the streamlets of all the churches of our Order have been derived: and concerning certain reverend persons, conspicuous in all religion, who shone at Cîteaux and at Clairvaux." Since however this book is wont to be called the Great Exordium of the Cistercian Order, as also the preceding one (in the same place from page 1), by contrast, the Little Exordium; therefore I have preferred the aforesaid title.

[724] But concerning the author he goes on thus: That the author of this Great Exordium is unknown, Angel Manrique says in the Annals: but the codex of Foigny has these words: "This book was composed by a certain abbot, Conrad by name, of the monastery of Eberbach, who was a monk of Clairvaux." And that he professed the monastic life at Clairvaux he not obscurely indicates at the end of this Work; where in the times of blessed Peter and of dom Garnier, afterwards bishop of Langres — of whom the former was the eighth, the latter the ninth abbot of Clairvaux — he asserts that he was trained in the cloistral disciplines at Clairvaux, namely about the year 1180. Now Eberbach, over which that Conrad is said to have presided, is a monastery of the line of Clairvaux in the diocese of Mainz: of which that same author makes mention with the highest praise in distinction 5, chapter 17, and elsewhere: where nevertheless he does not indicate that he is the abbot of that place. But whoever be the author of the book, I have judged it most worthy of reading, and most useful, to be placed at the head of the Library of our Fathers.

[725] copies and titles; Further, that Work Horst also praises in the Introduction to the Works of St. Bernard, page 70, prefacing this to the seventh book of the Life of St. Bernard, which he published from the praised Exordium: This book, he says, we culled word for word FROM THE BOOK OF ILLUSTRIOUS MEN of the Cistercian Order, which indeed we received in manuscript at Koblenz from the College of the Society of Jesus. Another copy of the same the Carthusian Fathers of Cologne procured for us from the Charterhouse of Wesel. But a third also Father N. of the Society of Jesus exhibited at Emmerich, transcribed with his own hand: who had also added notes of various readings: whose industry was a great help to us. Further, the reader must be warned concerning that Book, lest he be perhaps deceived when he somewhere reads these titles, Exordium of the Cistercian Order, the book On illustrious men of the Cistercian Order, likewise the book On the beginning of the Cistercian Order; which Henriquez not rarely alleges as different books, whereas it is one and the same (though elsewhere it may perhaps have obtained another heading), as he will easily perceive when he finds in the one On illustrious Cistercians (for this title alone the three manuscripts which I have seen exhibit) what that man adduces as from different books. I wished you warned of this for the avoiding of confusion, occasion for which the said author afforded the more because he divides the Exordium into books, but that On illustrious men into distinctions. But let us hear nonetheless the same writer's judgment concerning this book:

[726] the credit and authority "Of all the histories of our Order" (he says) "that book which WE CALL the Exordium of the Cistercian Order is as it were the foundation stone, and a writing most authentic." And a little after: "As for me," he says, "as often as I unroll this book, I cannot sufficiently marvel at its piety, the gravity of its style, the weight of its judgments, and the wonderful events which are reported in it: and I would dare to say this: that this is in its own kind among the greater and more precious treasures which the Church enjoys, and is to be so held by the faithful." So Henriquez, Apparatus to the Cistercian Menologium, chapter 4. To whom I too willingly assent: namely that the book is worthy to be published entire.

[727] of this Work, which Tissier published. Which I see that Aubert le Mire also, who deserved well of monastic History, wished. I wonder that no one of the Cistercian family undertakes this work for himself. I myself would set my hand to it, did I not fear to put my sickle into another's harvest. Further, the author of this book was near to the times of St. Bernard; for he dealt familiarly with those who lived together with Bernard: and he reports almost from their mouth what is here narrated: so that you may see on what credit and authority they rest. So he. Further, the desire of those learned men was satisfied when Tissier published that Work. But specimens which commend the merit of that same Work our preliminary Commentary supplies. Mabillon published, after Horst, the seventh book of the Life of St. Bernard excerpted from the same Exordium, in volume 2, column [ ] and following; which is an indication that that Work was in esteem with him also. But that it has grown by additions we have from Manrique, who alleges them, as may be seen in our preliminary Commentary, §50 at the end; §51, number 547; §52, number 555. Lastly, whether of the Exordium

the author himself gathered or wrote the things which happened while he was living, or whether other things were afterwards added, we have repeatedly cited in the preliminary Commentary both the Exordium itself and its author.

§ LXVI. What Lives, and why, are not reprinted by us; certain other things passed over.

Herbert's Fragments are reprinted by us; but not the seventh book of the Life; The six books on the life and deeds of St. Bernard, which stand long since printed in Horst and Mabillon, we shall reprint and illustrate, as was indicated above. To these Lives we shall add, with Mabillon, the Fragments — not however all of them — from Herbert's books on the miracles of Cistercian monks: but not the seventh book on the life of that same Saint, which, excerpted from the book entitled the Great Cistercian Exordium, distinction two, is so marked in Mabillon's edition; but of Horst's edition consult what I set out in §65, number 725. The reason why we exclude those books from our edition is that we have culled from them and woven into this Commentary various events which are there reported in them concerning the holy Father. If, however, any notable things remain, account may be had of them too in the Posthumous Glory. Nor indeed will the Life composed by the author or compiler Alan, formerly bishop of Auxerre, which is in Mabillon, be exhibited in a repeated printing.

[729] For that biographer wove from the five earlier books set out before a continuous series of the things done by Bernard, nor the Life, and that with the proper words of the authors employed, whom he reduced as best he could to the order of times, as Mabillon observed, whom I cited in §64; besides these, he is the first to record the holy Doctor's testament, omitted by the other writers, as was said in the same place: but since we have provided for the order of time, with Manrique going before, in our preliminary Commentary, and have given the Bernardine Chronology in it; and since we are about to produce the earlier biographers, from whom Alan compiled and abridged his Life, what need is there to commit it again to the press, and to increase without necessity so great a mass of St. Bernard's affairs from elsewhere?

[730] But let Alan himself be heard in the Prologue to that same Life: which Alan abridged; nor Geoffrey's Fragments; We, he says, from the same narration of several authors who had already then written the Acts and miracles of the holy Man, omitting some things and adding very few, compress them into a briefer sheet. What Mabillon just now said of the testament, which .. he himself first records, seems to pertain to those three admonitions which the holy Father left to his sons to be imitated when now near death; concerning which Alan in chapter 30, and which we gave above from him in §50. After that Life Mabillon subjoins the Fragments from the third Life of St. Bernard, by Geoffrey, monk of Clairvaux, as it seems, comprised in eight chapters. Consult what was said in §64. Those Fragments have been of use to us more than once in the preliminary Commentary, and perhaps will be afterwards, if any remain worthy of note. Next to these in the same place is given the fourth Life .. written in two books by John the hermit. What pertains to that biographer you have in §64 just indicated: whose Life, having been already twice reprinted, we have thought must be forborne; since we are persuaded that the primitive biographers will abundantly suffice both for the readers' advantage, and for the Saint's glory, and finally for our own office. But if he reports some particulars which it concerns the reader to know, account may be had of them also.

[731] nor certain other things. The same editor of the Lives of St. Bernard whom I just named produces at column [ ] the Praetermissa in Chifflet from Geoffrey, above, he says, at column [ ] after article 10, and afterwards found: which are followed by the panegyric poem of Philotheus the monk on the life and manners of that same Saint, whom Charles de Visch places among the writers of the Cistercian Order in his Library. That poem stands also in Horst's edition. Add two others on the praises of the holy Father; the one, to which is prefixed as author Nicolas de Hacqueville, most equitable president of the sacred senate of Paris; the other of Baptista Mantuanus from book VIII of the Fasti. But we readily suffer these poetic streamlets to be absent from our edition, where we abound in the genuine fountains of the most ancient biographers. Meanwhile let it not irk us to recall in this place what is found in Mabillon at column [ ]: In the manuscript codex of Anchin is read a poem thus inscribed: "To the venerable Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, Anselm, in praise of Clairvaux," under this beginning:

A sloping valley, which a sloping mountain overshadows.

After this brief observation there is given in the same place a Description of the position or situation of the monastery of Clairvaux; which stands in Horst also, and which I alleged above in §5, number 56.

[732] These are the things of which I had to forewarn my reader. But if in the Lives excluded from this our impression, besides those things which have been inserted by us beforehand from them into this preliminary Commentary, other documents shall present themselves which I shall find to conduce greatly either to the Saint's glory or to the reader's instruction, I shall give them a place after the Lives, in the Posthumous Glory of St. Bernard, in which a good many and signal matters concerning the Man will be gathered, which it has seemed good to defer thither. At last, then, having measured out a long voyage, so to speak, I furl my sails and subjoin the Acts; in whose printing what has been observed by us I advised the reader above in §64 at the end.

THE LIFE

Which Mabillon published on occasion of the Works of St. Bernard, published by him at Paris in the year 1690, in volume 2, from column 1061, after the supposititious and alien Works.

ON ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, FIRST ABBOT, in the territory of Langres in Champagne in Gaul.

BHL Number: 1211, 1212, 1219, 1220, 1221, 1227, 1228, 1231

BOOK ONE,

By William, formerly abbot of Saint-Thierry near Reims, then a monk of Signy.^a

A. By William.

PREFACE.

About to write the life of your Servant, to the honor of your name, The author commends the dignity of his subject, as you shall grant, O Lord God, of him through whom you willed the Church of our time to flower again into the ancient beauty of apostolic grace and power, I invoke as my helper him whom I have long since had as my kindler — your love. For who, having any breath of life at all from your love, and seeing so illustrious and so faithful a testimony of your glory and honor, unwonted to the world, shine forth, would not give whatever pains he could, that the light kindled by you may lie hid from none of your own, but, as far as can be done by a human pen (which nevertheless you yourself do better by the power of his works), being manifested and exalted may shine to all who are in your house? In which, when I long since wished to discharge some ministry of my turn, I have been hindered until now either by fear or by shame — now judging the dignity of the matter to be above me, and to be reserved for worthier workmen; now also, as one who should survive him, deliberating that this would be better and more fittingly done after his death, when the man would no longer be burdened by his own praises, and it would be done more safely from the disturbance of men and the contradiction of tongues. But he, flourishing and strong, becomes the mightier and more powerful the weaker he is in body, not ceasing to do things worthy of memory, and always heaping greater upon great, which, though he be silent, call for a writer. But I am already being poured out, the infirmities of the body of this death pressing on, and all my limbs beginning to give answer of a neighboring death; I feel the time of my dissolution to be at hand; and I greatly fear lest it repent me too late that I have so long deferred what, before I flow away, I would by all means have accomplished.

[2] But the pious good will of certain brethren also greatly impels and exhorts me to this, who, since they constantly attend upon the Man of God, and commends its credit. know all his affairs, bringing forward certain things traced out by diligent inquiry; and several also at which they themselves were present when they were done, and saw and heard. Who, since they suggest many and illustrious things which God works through his Servant in their presence, and since their known religion and their school of discipleship frees me from all suspicion of falsehood, yet call in besides for their own testimony the authority of approved persons — bishops, clerics, and monks — whom no one of the faithful may refuse to believe. Although I may have said this superfluously, since the whole world knows these things, and the whole Church of the Saints tells his powers. Wherefore, considering that a wondrous matter of divine praise offers itself to all, but that no one takes it up, those dissembling who could do this better and more worthily, I have undertaken to do in it myself what I shall be able, not from the vanity of one presuming, but from the confidence of one loving.

[Measuring myself, however, in myself, and comparing myself with myself, I have by no means undertaken to set in order the whole life of the Man of God, but in part — namely some proofs of Christ living and speaking in him, certain works of his outward converse with men, which they saw of him to whom this was granted, and which we too in part have seen and heard, and our hands have handled. For since this very thing must in great part be thought of him which is thought of him who says: But I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me; and elsewhere: Or do you seek a proof of him who speaks in me, Christ? — I have not proposed to relate that invisible life of Christ living and speaking in him: but certain outward proofs of his life, flashing from the purity of his inward sanctity and invisible conscience, through the works of the outward man, to the outward senses of man: which, as it is ready for all to know, so also for any to write in some fashion.] Especially since I have undertaken not to set these things in order more accurately, but at least to heap them into one and lay them up: nor to publish them while he lives, as neither are they written with his knowledge. But I trust in the Lord that after us and after his death there will arise those who will better and more worthily accomplish what we have attempted: who will also be able to compare his outward things with his inward, and to continue in writing his death, precious in the sight of the Lord, like to his life, and to commend death from life and life from death. Now therefore, with the Lord's help, let us set about our purpose.

ANNOTATION.

THE EARLIER DIVISION OF THE CHAPTERS.

BOOK ONE. PREFACE.

Chapter I. Of the parents of blessed Bernard, and their signal piety in educating their children; and of Bernard's disposition even then as a boy, and his excellent manners.

Chapter II. Of the integrity of the boy Bernard, detesting the care of a woman practicing sorcery; of the vision of the newborn Savior granted him, and of his mother's death.

Chapter III. Of his zeal for guarding chastity, and of his purpose of the religious life, and of his brothers and other companions won over to the same resolve.

Chapter IV. Of his entry into the Order, and the fervor of his novitiate. How sparing of food and sleep; desirous also of outward labor; and of his wonderful zeal in sacred

Scripture.

Chapter V. Of the beginning of Clairvaux, and the poor fare of the first monks there; and of its increase shown from heaven.

Chapter VI. Of his great confidence toward God in straits: and of his zeal for perfection, and his sister's conversion.

Chapter VII. Of St. Bernard's ordination as abbot, and of the care of his health; likewise of the praise of the religious discipline flourishing even then at Clairvaux.

Chapter VIII. Of the great severity of his life, and of his untiring zeal for labor amid the continual troubles of his broken health.

Chapter IX. Of the miracles wrought by him, and of the peril of arrogance in him wonderfully repressed by his kinsmen.

Chapter X. Of the other benefits of healing afforded to divers persons.

Chapter XI. Of the miracle of the letter written in a shower and not wetted, and of certain other astonishing things.

Chapter XII. Of Bernard's altercation with the devil; of the health restored to him by the Blessed Virgin. Likewise of abbot William healed by him.

Chapter XIII. Of the fame of his sanctity divulged everywhere; and of the wonderful propagation of Clairvaux itself. Likewise of the spirit of prophecy granted him.

Chapter XIV. Of certain other benefits divinely afforded through him, and of his flight from honors or dignities.

BOOK TWO. PREFACE.

Chapter I. Of the pontificate of Innocent II, bravely and happily vindicated by St. Bernard's work. Likewise of the Pontiff's journey into the Gauls, and the repressing of the Emperor.

Chapter II. Of the Synod celebrated at Pisa by Innocent. Likewise of the Milanese reconciled to the Church by Bernard's work, and of the possessed cured there.

Chapter III. Of the expulsion of demons from various possessed persons, by the power now of the Eucharist, now of bread and blessed water, now of the sign of the cross. Likewise of other benefits of healing.

Chapter IV. Of demoniacs cured, and of Bernard's wonderful humility, always thinking equally modestly of himself amid so many illustrious works.

Chapter V. Of Bernard's return from Italy, and of the translation of the monastery of Clairvaux to a more capacious place.

Chapter VI. Of the schism of Aquitaine composed by Bernard's work; and of a woman wonderfully freed from an incubus demon.

Chapter VII. Of the cause of the schism happily transacted at Rome and with Roger, king of Sicily.

Chapter VIII. Of the Prelates of the Church begotten from Clairvaux. Of the signal piety of Count Theobald, and of his grave tribulation. Book 2 is Ernaldus's.

BOOK THREE. PREFACE.

Chapter I. Of St. Bernard's manners and virtues in summary.

Chapter II. Of the visit of Hugh, bishop of Grenoble, and of the Carthusians; and of Bernard's wonderful custody of the senses.

Chapter III. Of his rare care in speech, his modesty and at the same time grace; and of his flight from dignities.

Chapter IV. Of the unhappy success of the expedition into the East, and of the murmuring against the holy Man arising thence.

Chapter V. Of the errors of Peter Abelard and of Gilbert de la Porrée confuted by St. Bernard's work.

Chapter VI. Of the Henrician heresy repressed in the parts of Toulouse, and of the miracles wrought there.

Chapter VII. Of the most sweet manners of the blessed Man, and his excellent virtues, and what he thought of his own miracles.

Chapter VIII. Of St. Bernard's writings, and of the image of his mind expressed in them.

BOOK FOUR.

Chapter I. Of his return from the City, and of the relics of the Saints carried thence. Likewise of divers benefits conferred on others by his merit, but without his knowledge.

Chapter II. Of the spirit of prophecy, and of the revelation of things to come, in which he was famous.

Chapter III. Of various future events foretold by him with a prophetic spirit.

Chapter IV. Of the wonderful and various benefits afforded by him, especially in the kingdom of Gaul.

Chapter V. Of the various miracles wrought by blessed Bernard through Germany, at Constance, Basel, Frankfurt, Trier, etc.

Chapter VI. Of the various and illustrious miracles wrought at Cologne, Aachen, Liège, Cambrai, and in Spain.

Chapter VII. Of the miracles wrought by blessed Bernard in his own country and in the neighborhood of Clairvaux.

Chapter VIII. Of the various signs and miracles published indiscriminately, of whose outcome he had first been taught in a vision.

BOOK FIVE.

Chapter I. Of the peace restored between the city of Metz and certain neighboring princes by blessed Bernard's work; and of the miracles published on that occasion.

Chapter II. Of the most happy, but to the brethren most sorrowful, death of the blessed Man.

Chapter III. Of divers revelations made after the holy Father's death. These 3 books are Geoffrey's.

CHAPTER I.

His parents, their children, his mother's vision concerning the Saint; his studies, disposition, modesty; the mystery of the Incarnation revealed to him; his purpose of the Religious life.

Chapter I.

Bernard was born in the parts of Burgundy, in his father's town of Fontaines,^a The Saint had parents notable for nobility, virtues, and offspring. of parents illustrious according to the dignity of the world; but worthier and nobler according to the piety of the Christian religion.^b His father Tecelin,* a man of an ancient and lawful knighthood, was a worshiper of God, tenacious of justice. For, waging an evangelical warfare according to the institutes of the Lord's Precursor, he shook down no one, brought false accusation against no one, content with his own pay, from which he abounded unto every good work. So he served his temporal lords with counsel and arms that he did not neglect to render also to the Lord his God what he owed. His mother Aleth,^c from the castle whose name is Montbard;^d she too, keeping in her own order the apostolic rule, subject to her husband, ruled her house under him according to the fear of God, applying herself to works of mercy, nurturing her children in all discipline. For she bore seven children^e not so much to her husband as to God — six males, one female: all the males destined to be monks, the female a nun: for, bearing (as has been said) to God, not to the world, she herself with her own hands offered each to the Lord as soon as she had brought it forth. On which account also that illustrious woman shrank from committing them to be nursed at another's breasts, as though with a mother's milk instilling into them in some manner the nature of a mother's goodness. But when they had grown, as long as they were under her hand, she nurtured them for the wilderness rather than for the court, not suffering them to grow accustomed to more delicate foods, but feeding them with coarser and common ones; and so preparing and training them, God inspiring, as though they were forthwith to be sent to the wilderness.

[4] While she was carrying in her womb Bernard, the third in the order of her sons, His future greatness is foretold to his mother: she saw a dream presaging things to come — namely that she had in her womb a whelp^f all white, reddish on the back, and barking. Being greatly terrified at this, when she had consulted a certain religious man, he at once, conceiving that spirit of prophecy in which David says to the Lord concerning holy preachers, The tongue of your dogs from your enemies, answered her as she trembled and was anxious: Fear not, the matter goes well: you will be the mother of an excellent whelp, who, destined to be the guardian of God's house, will utter great barkings for it against the enemies of the faith. For he will be an eminent preacher, and, like a good dog, by the grace of a healing tongue will cure many diseases of souls in many. Which answer the pious and faithful woman receiving as though from God, is made glad, and even then is wholly poured out into love of the not yet born, thinking to hand him over to be trained in the sacred letters according to the manner of the vision and its interpretation, by which such lofty things were promised her concerning him. Which also was done. For as soon as she brought him forth in a happy birth, she not only offered him to God, as she had been wont to do with the others, but, as is read of holy Anna, the mother of Samuel^g — who destined the son asked of the Lord and received to serve perpetually in his tabernacle — so she too offered him in the Church of God as an acceptable gift.

[5] Whence also, as soon as she could, handing him over in the church of Châtillon^h (which afterwards, by Bernard's own work, is known to have been advanced from a secular manner of living to the Order of regular Canons) to masters of letters to be trained, [he is sent to his studies, and shines with excellent endowments of nature and grace.] she did whatever she could that he might make progress in them. But the boy, both full of grace and strong in natural genius, quickly fulfilled his mother's desire in this. For in the study of letters he made progress beyond his age and beyond his coevals; but in worldly matters he was already as it were naturally beginning the mortification of his future perfection. For he was most simple in worldly things, loving to dwell with himself, shunning the public, wonderfully thoughtful, obedient and subject to his parents; kindly and pleasing to all; at home simple and quiet; abroad seldom seen, and beyond what could be believed modest; nowhere loving to speak much; devoted to God, that he might preserve his boyhood pure for himself: given also to the study of letters, through which he might learn and know God in the Scriptures: in which how much he made progress in a short time, and how perspicacious a sense he put on in discerning, may be observed from what we subjoin.

II.

[6] While he was still a little boy, being vexed with a grave pain of the head, [The tricks of a little woman being driven off, he is refreshed by a vision of the Lord's nativity:] he fell into his bed. But there was brought to him a little woman as though about to soothe the pain by charms. Whom, when he perceived her drawing near with the instruments of her charms, with which she had been wont to delude men of the common sort, crying out with great indignation he drove and cast her from him. Nor was divine mercy wanting to the holy Boy's good zeal: but at once he felt its power, and, rising in that very onset of the spirit, knew himself freed from all pain. And since from this he profited not a little in faith, the Lord proceeded to appear to him, as of old to the boy Samuel at Shiloh, and to manifest to him his glory. For that solemn night of the Lord's Nativity was at hand, and all, as is the custom, were preparing for the solemn vigils. And since the hour of celebrating the nocturnal Office was somewhat protracted, it happened that Bernard, sitting and waiting with the rest, his head being inclined, slumbered a little. Straightway the holy nativity of the child Jesus was present, revealing itself to its own Boy, suggesting increases to his tender faith, and beginning in him the mysteries of divine contemplation. For he appeared as though coming forth anew as a bridegroom from his chamber. There appeared to him, as it were again before his eyes, the infant Word being born from the womb of the Virgin Mother, beautiful in form above the sons of men, and drawing to himself affections of the holy little Boy that were now by no means boyish. But it was persuaded to his mind, and to this day he confesses, that he believes that to have been the hour of the Lord's nativity. But it is easy also for those who have frequented his auditory to observe with how great a blessing the Lord forestalled him at that hour; since to this day in those things which pertain to that mystery both a deeper sense and a more copious discourse seem to be at hand for him. Whence also afterwards, in praise of the Mother and of the Begotten and of his holy Nativity, he published a notable little work among the beginnings of his Works or treatises, the matter being taken from that place of the Gospel where it is read, The Angel Gabriel was sent by God into a city of Galilee, and the rest which there follows.

[7] his wonderful mercy toward the poor: his mother's death, and her eulogy: Nor must this be passed over in silence, that from those very boyish years, if he could have any coins, making secret alms, he both complied with the habit of his own modesty and, for his age — nay, beyond his age — pursued works of piety. But when, some time having rolled by, the boy Bernard, advancing in age and in grace with God and men, was passing from boyhood into adolescence, his mother, her children having been faithfully educated and entering upon the ways of the world, as though all things which were hers had been accomplished, happily passed to the Lord.ⁱ Of whom this must by no means be omitted, that, when she had lived a long time with her husband honorably and justly according to the justices and honors of this world and the law and fidelity of wedlock, for some years before her death, in that to which she seemed to nurture her children, so far as she could and as was lawful for a woman set under a husband's power and not having power over her own body, she herself went before them all. For indeed in her own house and in the conjugal profession and in the midst of the world she was seen for no short time to emulate the eremitical or monastic life, in sparingness of food, in meanness of dress, by renouncing the delights and pomps of the world; by withdrawing herself, so far as she could, from secular acts and cares; by applying herself to fasts, vigils, and prayers: and by redeeming what she had less of the profession she had assumed by alms and divers works of mercy. Advancing in which from day to day she came to her last, to be perfected in the world to come in that in which, advancing, she departed from this world. But she fell asleep while the clerics who had assembled were chanting psalms, herself likewise chanting, so that even at the last, when her voice could no longer be heard, her lips were still seen to move, and her quivering tongue to confess the Lord. At length, amid the supplications of the litany, when it was said, By your passion and cross deliver her, O Lord, lifting her hand she signed herself, and gave up^k her spirit, in such wise that she could not lay down the hand which she had lifted.

III.

[8] From this Bernard, beginning now to live after his own manner and by his own right, The Saint amid the world's blandishments, preeminent in elegant body and pleasing face, adorned with most sweet manners, endowed with a keen genius, strong in acceptable eloquence, was proclaimed a youth of great promise. To whom, as he was entering the world, several ways of that same world began to offer themselves, and the prosperities of this life to rise up in all things, and great hopes to smile from every side. But there beset the kindly Youth's mind the unlike manners of his companions, and stormy friendships eager to make him like themselves. Which, if they had gone on growing sweet to him, must needs have made bitter to him what had settled more sweetly in his heart in this life — the love of chastity. Envying which especially, the twisting serpent scattered snares of temptations, and by various encounters lay in wait for his heel. For when at one time, looking somewhat curiously, he had held his eyes fixed for a while upon a certain woman, at once returning to himself, and blushing at himself within himself, he blazed out a most severe avenger upon himself. For, leaping neck-deep into a pool of icy waters which was near at hand, he remained there so long that, being made almost bloodless, by the power of cooperating grace he grew wholly cold also from the heat of carnal concupiscence, putting on that affection of chastity which he had put on who said: I made a covenant with my eyes that I would not so much as think upon a maiden.*

[9] About the same time, at the prompting of a demon, a naked girl was cast into the bed of him as he slept. and the provocations of an unchaste woman, exercises exceptional chastity: Perceiving whom, he with all peace and silence yielded to her the part of the little bed which he had occupied, and turned himself to the other side, and slept. But that wretched woman lay a while enduring and waiting, then feeling and provoking. At last, when he remained motionless, she, although she was most shameless, blushed, and, suffused with huge horror and amazement, leaving him, rose and fled.

It happened likewise that Bernard with a number of companions lodged with a certain matron. But the woman, beholding the Youth comely in aspect, was taken in the snare of her own eyes, and blazed into desire of him. And when she had caused a little bed to be prepared for him apart, as for the most honored of all, rising herself by night she shamelessly approached him. Perceiving whom, Bernard, not destitute of counsel, began to cry out, Thieves! thieves! At which cry the woman fled, the whole household rises, a lamp is lit, the thief is sought, but is by no means found. Each returns to his little bed, silence is made, darkness comes as before, the rest rest, but that wretched woman does not. She rises again and seeks Bernard's bed: but again he cries out, Thieves! thieves! Again the thief is sought, again lies hid, nor is published by him who alone knew. Three times the shameless woman being thus repulsed, at last, overcome scarcely either by fear or by despair, she ceased. But when on the following day they were making their journey, his companions, chiding Bernard, inquired what thieves he had dreamed of so often that night. To whom he said: Truly there was a thief present, and what is more precious to me in this life — namely chastity, an incomparable treasure — our hostess was striving to take away.

[10] Amid these things, however, considering and weighing what is commonly said, he sets his mind upon the Cistercian Order. that it is not safe long to dwell with a serpent, he began to meditate flight. For he saw the world and its prince offering him outwardly many things — great matters, greater hopes, but all deceitful, and vanity of vanities, and all things vanity. But he heard Truth itself inwardly continually crying and saying: Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you, and you shall find rest for your souls. But deliberating to leave the world more perfectly, he began to inquire and search out where he might more surely and more purely find rest for his soul under the yoke of Christ. But as he inquired there met him the new plantation of the renewed monastic religion of Cîteaux^l: a great harvest, but lacking workmen, since scarcely as yet did anyone turn aside thither for the sake of conversion, on account of the exceeding austerity of its life and poverty. Which nevertheless, since they by no means terrified a mind truly seeking God, all hesitation and fear being set aside, he turned his intention thither, judging that he could altogether lie hid there and be hidden in the hiding of God's face from all the disturbance of men, and most of all for the escaping of vanity, whether from secular nobility, or from the grace of a keener genius, or perhaps even from some name of sanctity.

ANNOTATIONS.

Another reading, ingrediente*.

Another reading, Thesselinus*.

CHAPTER II.

He is confirmed in the purpose of his Religious vocation; his companions in it; several others converted to a better life; a vision of one of the companions, and also of a certain Cistercian.

But when his brothers, and those who loved him carnally, perceived that he was treating of conversion, [His friends strive to turn him from it; but he is confirmed by prayer; his uncle and his brothers] they began by every means to act so that they might be able to turn his mind aside to the study of letters, and by the love of secular knowledge to entangle him more closely in the world. By which suggestion indeed, as he is wont to confess, his steps had been well-nigh retarded: but the memory of his holy mother pressed importunately upon his mind, so that he often seemed to see her meeting him, complaining and reproaching that she had not so tenderly brought him up for trifling of this kind, that she had not trained him in this hope. At length, when he was once going to his brothers, stationed with the Duke of Burgundy at the siege of the castle which is called Grancey,^a he began to be more vehemently anxious in thought of this kind. And, a certain church being found in mid-journey, he turned aside,

and entering prayed with a great shower of tears, spreading out his hands to heaven and pouring out his heart like water before the sight of the Lord his God. On that day, therefore, the purpose of his heart was confirmed. Nor indeed did he receive with a deaf ear the voice of him who says: He who hears, let him say, Come. For indeed from that hour, like a fire which burns a forest, and like a flame burning up the mountains, first seizing on every side whatever is nearest, afterwards advancing to what lies further: so the fire which the Lord had sent into the heart of his Servant, willing that it should burn, first attacks his brothers — the youngest alone, as yet less fit for conversion, being left as a solace for their aged father — then his kinsmen and companions and friends, of whomsoever there could be hope of conversion. First of all Galdricus his uncle, without delay or hesitation, went (as they say) on foot into his nephew's judgment, and gave consent to conversion — an honorable man and powerful in the world, and renowned in the glory of secular knighthood, lord of a castle in the territory of Autun^b which is called Touillon.^c At once also Bartholomew, coming forward, younger than the other brothers, and not yet a knight, without difficulty in that same hour gave assent to the salutary admonitions. Further, Andrew, himself also younger than Bernard, and at that time a new knight, more hardly admitted his Brother's word, until suddenly he cried out, I see, he said, my mother. For indeed she appeared to him visibly, smiling with a serene face and congratulating her sons on their purpose. And so he too at once gave his hands, and from a recruit of the world was made a soldier of Christ.

[12] he wins; Nor did Andrew alone see the mother of such great sons rejoicing, but Bernard also confessed that he had likewise seen her. Guido, the firstborn of the brothers, was already bound in wedlock, a great man, and rooted in the world beyond the others. He at first hesitated a little, but at once weighing and reconsidering the matter, consented to conversion, if however his wife should agree. But that indeed seemed almost impossible in a noble young woman nurturing little daughters. But Bernard, conceiving a surer hope from the Lord's mercy, unhesitatingly promised him that the woman would either consent or quickly die. At length, when she refused by every means, her great-souled husband — nay, already forestalled by that virtue of faith in which he afterwards excellently shone — conceived, the Lord inspiring, a manly counsel: that, casting away whatever he seemed to have in the world, he would set himself to lead a rustic life, namely to labor with his own hands, whence he might sustain his own life and his wife's, whom against her will he was not permitted to dismiss. Meanwhile Bernard came up, who was running about gathering others and yet others from every side. Nor was there delay: the aforesaid wife of Guido was scourged with a grave infirmity. And knowing that it was hard for her to kick against the goad, Bernard being summoned, she begs pardon, and herself first asks assent to conversion. Then, being separated from her husband according to ecclesiastical custom, an equal vow of chastity intervening, she passed over into a company of holy women, religiously^d serving God to this day.

[13] and Gerard indeed, the second-born, The second in birth after Guido was Gerard, a knight strenuous in arms, of great prudence, of exceptional kindness, and one who was loved by all. Who, when the rest, as has been said, acquiesced at the first hearing and on the first day, reckoning it levity, as is the manner of secular wisdom, with an obstinate mind repelled the wholesome counsel and his brother's admonitions. Then Bernard, now fiery with faith and wonderfully exasperated by zeal of fraternal charity, said: I know, I know, vexation alone will give understanding to the hearing: and laying his finger on his side he said, A day will come, and quickly come, when a lance driven into this side will make a way through to your heart for the counsel of your salvation which you spurn; and you shall indeed fear, but by no means die. So it was said, and so it was done. A very few days being interposed, being surrounded by enemies, taken and wounded according to his Brother's word, bearing a lance in that very side, and fixed in the place to which he had applied his finger, he was being dragged along, and, fearing death as already present, cried out, I am a monk, I am a Cistercian monk. Nevertheless he was taken and shut up in custody. Bernard was summoned by a swift messenger, but did not come. I knew, he said, and had foretold, that it was hard for him to kick against the goad, and yet this wound is not for him unto death, but unto life. And so it came to pass. For indeed he quickly recovered from the wound beyond hope, but did not change the purpose or vow which he had vowed. And when, now free from the love of the world, he was still held by hostile bonds, and this alone was what retarded the purpose of his conversion, in this too God's mercy was quickly present to him. His brother came, laboring that he might be rescued, but did not succeed. And when he was not even permitted to speak with him, approaching the prison he cried out: Know, brother Gerard, that we shall shortly go and enter the monastery. But do you, since it is not permitted you to go out, be a monk here, knowing that what you will and cannot do is reckoned as done.

[14] And when Gerard was more and more anxious, a few days being interposed, he heard a voice in sleep saying to him, not without a miracle. Today you shall be freed. Now it was the sacred season of Lent. About the evening hour of the day, therefore, thinking of what he had heard, he touched his fetters, and behold, the iron cracked in part in his hand, so that he was now less held, and could walk somewhat. But what should he do? The door was barred, and before the doors was a multitude of poor men. He rose nevertheless, and, not so much from hope of escaping as from weariness of lying still, or from curiosity of trying, approaching the door of the underground house in which he was bound and shut up, as soon as he touched the bolt, the whole lock fell apart between his hands, and the door of the house was opened. And going out step by step, like a man in fetters, he made his way to the church, where the evening Offices were still being celebrated. Further, the beggars who stood before the doors of the house, seeing what was done and terrified from heaven, turned to flight, crying out nothing. And when he was already drawing near the church, one of the household of his captivity, the brother of him by whom he was guarded, coming out and seeing him hastening to the church, said, You have come late, Gerard. When he was afraid, he said, Hasten, there still remains what you may hear. For his eyes were held, nor did he at all understand what was being done. At length, when he had with a given hand helped Gerard, still fettered, up the higher steps of the church, as he entered the church he then first knew what was being done, and, attempting to hold him back, could not. In this manner Gerard, freed from the captivity of the love of this world and from the captivity of the sons of the world, faithfully discharged the vow which he had vowed. In which chiefly the Lord made known from how great a perfection this Servant of God had begun the grace of holy converse, who in the spirit of him who makes the things that are to come could see what was to be as though already done. For the lance appeared to him as present in his brother's side, when he applied his finger to the place of the wound presently to come, as he himself afterwards confessed, when he was questioned by those from whom he could not conceal it.^e

[15] But when the rest, as we have said, were on the first day gathered together in the same spirit with Bernard, Among others whom he persuades to conversion was Hugh of Mâcon; as they entered the church in the morning, that Apostolic chapter was being read: God is faithful: for he who has begun a good work in you, he himself will perfect it unto the day of Jesus Christ. Which the devout Youth received no otherwise than as if it had sounded from heaven. Exulting, therefore, now the spiritual Father of his brothers regenerated in Christ, and understanding the Lord's hand working with him, he began from this to press on with preaching, and to gather in whomsoever he could. He began to put on the new man, and with those with whom he had been wont to deal concerning the letters of the world, or concerning the world itself, to treat of serious matters and of conversion; showing the joys of the world fleeting, the miseries of life, the swiftness of death, and that life after death, whether in good things or in evil, would be perpetual. What more? As many as were foreordained to this, God's grace working in them, and the word of his power, and the prayer and insistence of his Servant, at first hesitating, then pricked at heart, one after another believed and consented. Among whom there was joined to him also the lord Hugh of Mâcon, enlarged with nobility and probity of manners, with possessions and riches of the world. Who today, by the merit of his religion and sanctity carried off from the monastery of Pontigny,^f which he himself built, presides over the church of Auxerre with the merit and honor of a bishop.^g He, hearing of the conversion of his companion and dearest friend, wept for him as for one lost, whom he heard to be dead to the world. But when first opportunity of mutual converse was given to them both, after unlike tears and the groans of unlike griefs, words began to be exchanged with words, and matters compared with matters. And when amid the very words of familiar friendship the spirit of truth was poured into Hugh, the words of their mutual conversation began to wear another face. And so, right hands being given in the fellowship of a new life, they became far more worthily and more truly one heart and one soul in Christ than they had before been in the world.

[16] [who, after he had drawn back from his purpose, comes to his senses through the Saint's conversation.] But after a few days it is announced to Bernard that Hugh, being subverted by other companions, was drawing back from his purpose. Who, an opportunity being found — that a certain great assembly of bishops was being held in those parts — hastens to call back the perishing man and to bring him to birth again. But the aforesaid companions and subverters of Hugh, watching, when they had seen him, hedge about their prey, and take from him all faculty of speaking, and block up every approach. But he, when he could not speak to him, cried out for him to the Lord. And as he prayed with tears, a sudden and vehement flood of rain presently burst forth. But they had sat down in the open field, because the air was serene and they expected nothing of the kind. All being scattered, therefore, at the sudden shower, they seek the nearest village. But Bernard, holding Hugh, said, With me you shall endure the drops of this rain. And when they had remained alone, they were not alone; but the Lord was with them, restoring to them at once both the serenity of the air and of their minds. There the covenant was renewed and the purpose confirmed, which thereafter could not be violated.^h

[17] Bernard's wonderful force in drawing minds: The sinner saw these things and was angry; he gnashed with his teeth and pined away; but the just man, trusting in the Lord, gloriously triumphed over the world. And now, as he preached publicly and privately, mothers hid their sons, wives held back their husbands, friends turned away friends: because the Holy Spirit gave his voice a voice of such power that scarcely any affection held anyone back. For indeed, the number of those growing who had consented to this unanimity of conversion, as is read of the primitive sons of the Church, Of the multitude of them there was one heart and one soul in the Lord, and they dwelt unanimously together, nor did any of the others dare to join himself to them. For they had at Châtillon one house, their own, and common to all,

where they met and dwelt together and conversed; which scarcely anyone dared to enter who was not of their company. But even if anyone entered, seeing and hearing what was there done and said, as the Apostle says of the Corinthian Christians, all in a manner prophesying, he was convinced by all, was judged by all; and, adoring the Lord and confessing that God was truly in them, either he himself clave to their unanimity, or, withdrawing, wept for himself but called them blessed. For in those times and in those parts it was unheard of that the conversion of anyone still dwelling in the world should be foreknown. But they themselves stood in the secular habit for about six months after their first purpose, so that more might thereby be gathered, while the affairs of certain of them were being settled during that time.

[18] But when the multitude began to be suspect, [a vision of one of St. Bernard's companions concerning the perseverance of his companions.] lest he who tempts should steal away any of their number, it pleased God to reveal concerning this what was to be. For one of them beheld in a vision of the night, and saw as it were that they had all sat down in one house, and that each in order was as it were communicating of a certain food of wondrous whiteness and savor. Which, when all the rest received most excellently and with great joy, he noted that two out of all that number had remained void of the participation of that saving food. For one of them did not take it; the other seemed indeed to take it, but, as taking it less carefully, it was spilled. But the event afterwards proved both. For the one, before it came to the deed, turning back returned into the world; the other with the rest began indeed a good work, but did not accomplish it. I myself saw him afterwards in the world, a wanderer and a fugitive from the face of the Lord, like Cain — a man, so far as I could observe, most lowly, and of pitiable confusion, but of excessive pusillanimity. Who nevertheless at his last returned to Clairvaux, infirmity of body and want compelling him, since, a man well born, he was cast off by all his kinsmen and friends: and there, renouncing property but not altogether his own will, he died not indeed within, like a brother and one of the household, but outside, begging mercy, like a poor man and a beggar.

[19] But now, the day of rendering his vow and fulfilling his desire being come, The youngest of the brothers afterwards follows them. Bernard, the father of his brothers, went out from his father's house with his brothers, his spiritual sons, whom he had begotten to Christ by the word of life. But Guido, the firstborn of his brothers, seeing Nivard his youngest brother, a boy with other boys in the street, said: Come, brother Nivard, to you alone looks all the land of our possession. At which the boy, moved not boyishly, said: For you then heaven, and for me earth? This division has not been made on equal terms. Which being said, as they departed he indeed then remained at home with his father, but, a little time afterwards having rolled by, following his brothers he could be held back neither by his father nor by his kinsmen or friends. There remained of that house dedicated to God the aged father with his daughter, of whom we shall also speak in their own place.

[20] At that time the new and little Cistercian flock,ⁱ living under the venerable man Stephen as abbot,^k [The fewness of the Cistercian monastery, to be increased, is foretold by an apparition.] when its own fewness began to be grievously wearisome to it, and all hope of a posterity into which the inheritance of that holy poverty might be poured was failing — all men venerating in them the sanctity of their life, but shrinking from its austerity — was suddenly gladdened by this divine visitation, so joyful, so unhoped for, so sudden, that on that day that house seemed to itself to have received this answer from the Holy Spirit: Rejoice, barren one who did not bear, break forth and cry, you who did not travail: for many are the children of the desolate more than of her who has a husband — of whom afterwards you shall see the children of children unto many generations. [For in the preceding year, to one of those same first Cistercian brethren, now set at his last, there appeared an innumerable multitude of men near the basilica, washing their garments at a spring: and in that same vision it was said to him that the spring was called Aenon. Which, when he had indicated it to the abbot, that magnificent man forthwith understood the divine consolation: and rejoicing much indeed even then at the promise, but most of all afterwards at its fulfillment, he gave thanks to God through Jesus Christ: who with him and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.]

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER III.

His entry into the Cistercian Order; his virtues; his endowments of nature; his wonderful progress in sacred Scripture; the art of reaping; the prelacy of Clairvaux.

IV.

In the year from the Lord's Incarnation 1113, the XV from the foundation of the house of Cîteaux, [He becomes a Cistercian monk, with companions, for whose wives a convent is founded:] the servant of God Bernard, being about XXIII * years of age, having entered Cîteaux with more than XXX companions, bowed his neck under the sweet yoke of Christ, under abbot Stephen. But from that day the Lord gave a blessing, and that vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth gave its fruit, stretching out its branches as far as the sea, and its shoots beyond the sea. [But because of the aforesaid companions of his some had been married, and their wives too together with their husbands had entered upon the same vow of holy conversion, by his solicitude a monastery of holy women was built for them, which is called Jully,^a in the parish of Langres, and, the Lord cooperating, it increased magnificently enough — to this day most celebrated for the report of its religion, and enlarged in persons and possessions: but also propagated now through other places, and not yet ceasing to make a still ampler fruit.] These indeed were the holy beginnings of the Man of God's conversion. But the marks of his converse, how, leading an angelic life on earth, he lived, I think no one can relate who does not live by the spirit by which he lived. For it belongs to the Giver and the Receiver alone to know how much from the very outset of his conversion the Lord forestalled him in the blessings of his sweetness; with how great a grace of election he filled him; how he made him drunk from the plenty of his house.

[22] modesty of mind, But he entered that house poor in spirit, and at that time still hidden and almost naught, with the intention of dying there to the hearts and memory of men, and with the hope of lying hid and being concealed like a lost vessel — God disposing otherwise, and preparing him for himself as a vessel of election, not only for the strengthening and enlarging of the monastic order, but also for bearing his name before kings and nations, and even to

the end of the earth. But he himself, esteeming or thinking nothing of the kind about himself, rather for the guarding of his own heart and the constancy of his purpose, always had this in his heart, and often also in his mouth: Bernard, Bernard, for what have you come? And as it is read of the Lord, that Jesus began to do and to teach, so from the first day of his entry into the cell of the novices he himself began to practice in himself what he was to teach to others.

[23] zeal for mortification, custody of the senses, For afterwards, when he had been ordained abbot of Clairvaux,^b as novices came and hastened to enter, we were wont to hear him preaching and saying: If you hasten to those things which are within, leave here outside the bodies which you have brought from the world. Let the spirits alone enter; the flesh profits nothing. Which nevertheless, when the novices were frightened at the newness of the word, sparing their tenderness, by expounding it more gently he was wont to preach that carnal concupiscence must be left outside. He himself, when he was a novice, sparing himself in nothing, pressed on by all means to mortify not only the concupiscences of the flesh, which come through the senses of the body, but even the senses themselves through which they come. For when now with the inward sense of an illumined love he began more sweetly and more frequently to feel the sweetness breathing upon him from above, fearing for that inward sense from the senses of the body, he scarcely permitted them so much as would suffice for the fellowship of outward converse with men. Which, when by the insistence of continual use he brought into a habit, that habit itself was in a manner turned for him into nature: and, wholly absorbed into spirit, his whole hope directed to God, his memory wholly occupied with spiritual intention or meditation, seeing he did not see, hearing he did not hear: nothing had savor to him as he tasted, scarcely anything did he perceive by any sense of the body. For indeed he had already spent a whole year in the cell of the novices, when, going out thence, he still did not know whether that house had a vaulted roof, which we are wont to call a ceiling. For a long time he had frequented the church building, going in and out, while he thought there was only one window in its head, where there were three. For, the sense of curiosity being mortified, he perceived nothing of this kind; or if perchance it sometimes happened that he saw it, his memory, as has been said, being occupied elsewhere, did not attend. For without memory there is no sense in one who perceives.

[24] endowments of nature, Nature too in him did not disagree with grace, so that in him also there seemed in a manner to be fulfilled what is read: I was a boy of good wit, and I obtained a good soul: and being more good, I came to an undefiled body. For indeed, for contemplating whatever things are spiritual or divine, together with spiritual grace he was strong with a certain natural power of wit, and had obtained also in this a good soul — a sensuality not curiously wanton nor proudly rebellious, but rejoicing together with spiritual pursuits, and in those things which are toward God spontaneously subject to the spirit and serving it: a body too never defiled by consent to any outrage; and, even though neglected and less * cared for than was fitting, a most apt instrument for serving the spirit in the service of God. But since in him the flesh, by the gift of prevenient grace, and by the help of a following nature, and by the good use of spiritual discipline, now scarcely lusted at all against the spirit — that is, in anything that would harm the spirit — the spirit beyond its strength, beyond the power of flesh and blood, so lusted against the flesh that the weak animal, falling under the burden, has not to this day risen again. For what shall I say of sleep, which in other men is wont to be the refreshment of labors and senses, or the recreation of minds?

[25] From that time to this day he keeps vigil beyond human possibility. sparingness of sleep and food: For he is wont to complain that he loses no time more than that in which he sleeps, reckoning the comparison of death and sleep apt enough: so that sleepers seem dead among men, just as the dead sleep with God. Whence also, if he chance to hear any religious snoring too loudly * in his sleep, or to see him lying less composedly, he can scarcely bear it patiently, but complains that the man sleeps carnally or worldlily. For in him a slender sleep accompanies a slender diet. For in neither does he indulge his body any fullness, save that in either it is enough for him to have taken something. For as regards vigils, his measure of vigils is not to pass the whole night sleepless. Further, to eating his appetite is to this day scarcely ever drawn by pleasure, but only by the fear of failing. For indeed, when about to eat, before he eats he is sated by the mere memory of food. So he comes to taking food as to a torment. For from the first year of his conversion, or of his going out from the cell of the novices, his nature — since it had always been of a too tender and delicate constitution — being worn by many fastings and vigils, by cold and labor, by harder and continual exercises, the stomach being corrupted, is wont continually to cast up raw through the mouth what is taken in. But if anything, digested by natural concoction, passes over to the lower parts, there nonetheless, those parts of the body being beset by no lesser troubles of infirmities, it is voided only with grave torment. But if anything remains, that is such nourishment of his body as it is — not so much for sustaining life as for deferring death. But always after food he is wont as it were to weigh how much he has eaten. If ever he shall have detected himself to have exceeded his accustomed measure even a little, he does not suffer it to go unpunished. But the practice of parsimony has so turned into nature for him that, even if at some time he wished to indulge himself somewhat more than usual in any bodily refreshment, he could scarcely do it.

[26] But so from the beginning he was a novice among novices, a monk among monks, strength of spirit in a weak body, labors, knowledge of Scripture, strong in spirit, weak in body, never acquiescing that any indulgence should be made for him as regards the body's rest or refreshment, nor any remission of the common labor or work. For he judged the rest to be holy and perfect; but himself, as a novice and a beginner, to have no need at all of the indulgences and remissions of veterans and perfect men, but of a novice's fervor, and the strictness of the Order, and the rigor of discipline. On which account, a most fervent emulator of the common life or converse, when the brethren were performing some work of the hands which either less practice or lack of skill denied him, he redeemed it by digging, or by cutting wood and carrying it on his own shoulders, or by any labors equally laborious. But where his strength failed, taking refuge in whatever meaner works, he compensated for labor by humility. And in a wonderful manner he who had received so great a grace in the contemplation of spiritual and divine things not only suffered himself to be occupied about such things, but was even greatly delighted. But, sensuality being mortified, as has been said — by whose curiosity or weakness in the distractions of bodily labors of this kind the minds even of any perfect men must often suffer some dissolution from the inward unity of the spirit, if not in intention, certainly in memory and thought — he by the privilege of a greater grace, in the power of the spirit, both labored as it were wholly outwardly at the same time, and was wholly free for God inwardly: in the one feeding his conscience, in the other his devotion. In the time of labor, therefore, he both inwardly prayed or meditated without interruption of the outward labor, and outwardly labored without loss of inward sweetness. For to this day, whatever he is worth in the Scriptures, whatever he perceives in them spiritually, he confesses that he received chiefly in the woods and in the fields by meditating and praying, and that in this he never had any masters save the oaks and beeches, as he is wont to say in that gracious jest of his among friends.

[27] skill in reaping obtained from heaven. At harvest time, the brethren being occupied in reaping with the fervor and joy of the Holy Spirit, when he himself, as being unable and unskilled in that labor, was bidden to sit apart and rest, being exceedingly saddened, he took refuge in prayer, asking God with great tears that the grace of reaping be given him. Nor did the simplicity of his faith deceive the Religious man's desire. For at once he obtained what he asked. And from that day he rejoices with a certain gladness that he is skilled in that labor beyond the rest, the more devout in this work as he remembers that he received the faculty in this very thing from God's gift alone. But when he kept holiday from labor or work of this kind, he was continually either praying, or reading, or meditating. For praying, if solitude offered itself, he used it: but if not, wherever he was, whether by himself or in a crowd, making for himself a solitude of the heart, he was everywhere alone. But the canonical Scriptures he read more willingly and more often, simply and in order; nor did he say that he understood them by any words more than by their own: and whatever of divine truth or power shone out to him in them, he testified that he tasted it rather in the fountain of its first origin than in the streams of expositions running down. Yet, humbly reading their holy and orthodox expositors, he by no means made his own senses equal to their senses, but subjected them to be formed: and, faithfully clinging to their footsteps, he often himself drank from the fountain whence they had drawn. Hence it is that, full of the Spirit by whom all holy Scripture is divinely inspired, he to this day so confidently and profitably uses it, as the Apostle says, for teaching, for reproving, for correcting. And while he preaches the word of God, whatever he brings forward from it he makes so plain and pleasing, and so effectual for moving as regards the matter in hand, that all, endowed with secular as well as spiritual learning, marvel at the words of grace which proceed from his mouth.^c

[28] But when it pleased him who had separated him from the world and called him He is sent to Clairvaux; the site of the place, and its poverty: to reveal his glory in him with an ampler grace, and to gather into one through him many sons of God who were scattered, he put it into abbot Stephen's heart to send his brethren to build^d the house of Clairvaux.^e Over whom, as they departed, he also set dom Bernard himself as abbot — those men, mature and strenuous as well in religion as in the world, marveling indeed, and fearing for him both on account of the age of his tenderer youth and on account of the weakness of his body and his lesser practice in outward business. Now Clairvaux was a place in the territory of Langres, not far from the river Aube,^f an ancient den of robbers: which of old was called the Valley of Wormwood, either on account of the abundant plenty of wormwood there, or on account of the bitterness of grief of those who fell there into the hands of robbers. There, then, in a place of horror and vast solitude, those men of virtue settled, to make of a den of robbers a temple of God and a house of prayer. Where for some time they simply served God in poverty of spirit, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, in many vigils. Their pottages they often made from the leaves of the beech. Their bread, after the likeness of that prophetic one, of

barley and millet and vetch, so that at one time a certain religious man secretly carried off, weeping abundantly, what had been set before him in the guest house, as though it were to be shown to all for a miracle that men — and such men — lived on that.

[29] But these things moved the Man of God less. His chief solicitude was for the salvation of many, the Saint's virtues, and a vision concerning the increase of Clairvaux. which from the first day of his conversion to this time is known so singularly to possess that sacred breast that he seems to bear a mother's affection toward all souls. There was, therefore, in his breast a vehement conflict of holy desire and holy humility. For now, casting himself down, he confessed himself unworthy that any fruit should come through him: now, forgetting himself, he glowed with a most burning ardor, so that he seemed able to admit no consolation save from the salvation of many. Assuredly charity begot confidence, but humility chastened it. But it happened amid these things that once he rose earlier than usual for the vigils. When these were finished, since a somewhat longer interval of the night remained until the morning lauds, going out of doors and going round the neighboring places, he prayed God that he would hold his own service and his brethren's acceptable: and, being set in that desire of spiritual fruit of which we have spoken, suddenly, standing in that very prayer with his eyes slightly closed, he saw on every side, from the neighboring hills, so great a multitude of men of different habit and different condition coming down into the lower valley that the valley itself could not hold them. What this signified is now manifest to all. The Man of the Lord, therefore, being magnificently consoled by this vision, exhorted also his brethren, admonishing them never to despair of God's mercy.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Another reading, XXII.

Another reading, not too much neglected*.

Perhaps diutius* "too long".

CHAPTER IV.

Great confidence toward God in straitened circumstances; zeal for perfection; his sister's conversion; his abbatial ordination; the care of his health; the vigor of Religious discipline among the monks of Clairvaux.

VI.

But when, before the impending winter, his brother Gerard, God succors the poverty of Clairvaux: a sick man is healed: the cellarer of the house, complained rather harshly to him that many things were wanting for the necessities of the house and of the brethren, and that he had not wherewith to buy them, and, necessity pressing, would now receive no consolation of words; and there was nothing at hand which might be given: the Man of God inquired how much might suffice for the present straits meanwhile: and he answered eleven pounds. Then, dismissing him, he took refuge in prayer. But after a little Gerard, returning, announced that a certain woman from Châtillon was outside and wished to speak with him. To whom, when he went out, that same woman, falling at his feet, offered him a benefaction of twelve pounds, imploring the suffrages of his prayers for her husband who was dangerously sick. Whom, having briefly addressed, he dismissed from him, saying, Go, you will find your husband sound.* But she, going away to her house, found it as she had heard. But the Abbot, consoling the pusillanimity of his cellarer, rendered him stronger for the future to await the Lord. Nor is it certain that this befell him only once, but often, when necessity of this kind was pressing, that suddenly, from whence it was not hoped, help was present to him from the Lord.^a On which account prudent men, understanding the Lord's hand to be with him, took care not to burden the tenderness of his mind, newly come forth from the delights of paradise, with the solicitude of outward things, arranging these among themselves as they could, and consulting him only concerning their own inward consciences and the cause of their souls.

[31] the Saint's angelic discourse joined with the highest zeal for perfection; In which nevertheless there befell them almost what we read once befell the children of Israel concerning Moses, when, having long conversed with the Lord on Mount Sinai, and coming forth from the darkness of the cloud and going down to the people, from his converse with the Lord his face appeared horned and terrible, so far that the people fled from him. For the holy Man, coming forth from the face of the Lord — which in the solitude of Cîteaux, and in the height of a loftier contemplation, he had for some time enjoyed in silence — bringing as it were from heaven among men a certain miracle of a more than human purity sought out for himself with God, frightened almost all men away from him whom he came to rule and among whom he came to live. For if at any time he held discourse with them of spiritual things and of the edification of souls, he spoke to men with the tongue of angels, and was scarcely understood. But most of all in those things which pertained to men's morals he set before them out of the abundance of his heart things so sublime, and exacted from them things so perfect, that the saying seemed hard, so far did they not grasp what was said. Again, when he heard them one by one confessing to him and accusing themselves concerning the various illusions of common human thoughts, which no man living in the flesh can utterly avoid, this was chiefly wherein there could be no agreement of that light with that darkness: namely, that he found men, whom in this respect he had esteemed angels. For, tasting in great part an angelic purity, and from the consciousness of a singular grace long since received from God, judging simply beforehand of the whole condition of human frailty, he judged that no religious man could fall into the temptations or defilements of these thoughts, or, if he fell, that he was not truly religious.

[32] But truly religious and piously prudent men both venerated in the preaching of his discourses even what they did not grasp, which he moderates from the submission of the brethren: and in their confessions, although they were astounded at a hearing so new — because it seemed to present a certain seed-plot of despair to the weak — yet, according to the judgment of holy Job, they thought it a wickedness to contradict the words of a holy man, not excusing but accusing their own weakness in the sight of the Man of God, in whose sight no man living can be justified before God. Whence it came about that the pious humility of the disciples became the mistress of the master. For when those who were reproved were humbled at the reprover's nod, his own zeal began to be suspect even to the spiritual master against brethren humble and subject: so far that he now rather accused his own ignorance, and bewailed the necessity that he was not permitted to be silent when he knew not how to speak: that by speaking to men things not so much lofty as unworthy of men he wounded the consciences of his hearers: that he so scrupulously exacted perfection from simple brethren, in which he did not yet find himself perfect. For he thought that they meditated in their own silence things far better and nearer to their salvation than they heard from him: that they wrought their salvation more devoutly and more effectually than they received from his example: but that from his preaching they were rather scandalized than conceived any edification.

[33] And when he was more vehemently troubled and saddened over this, he is roused by a divine vision to teach: and divers thoughts arose in his heart, after many turnings of thought and torments of heart, he resolved to gather himself in from all outward things to his own inward parts, and there to contain himself in the solitude of his heart and the secret of silence, and to await the Lord, until in whatever way of his mercy he should reveal to him his will upon this. Nor did God's mercy delay its help in the opportune time. For a few days having rolled by, he saw in a vision of the night a boy standing by him with a certain divine loveliness, and commanding him with great authority to speak confidently whatever should be suggested to him in the opening of his mouth: since it would not be he who spoke, but the Spirit who would speak in him. And from that time the Holy Spirit, speaking more manifestly in him and through him, and suggesting to him a mightier discourse and a more abundant sense in the Scriptures in the opening of his mouth, added to him also with his hearers grace and authority, and understanding upon the needy and poor, the repentant sinner asking pardon.

[34] And when he had now in some measure learned to live among men, and to do and bear human things, and was now beginning among his brethren and with them to enjoy the fruits of his conversion, [his father is received at Clairvaux; not so his sister, come to visit her brothers:] his father too, who alone had remained at home, coming to his sons, was added to them. Who, when he had spent some time there, died in a good old age.^b Their sister^c also, married in the world and given over to the world, when she was in peril amid the riches of the world, at last at some time God inspired her to visit her brothers. And when she had come as though to see her venerable Brother, and was present with a proud retinue and array, he, detesting and execrating her as a net of the devil for the catching of souls, by no means consented to go out to see her. Hearing which, she, confounded and vehemently pricked at heart, when none of her brothers deigned to come out to her, and when by her brother Andrew, whom she had found at the monastery gate, she was rebuked, on account of the array of her garments, as dung wrapped up, dissolving wholly into tears said: Though I am a sinner, for such Christ died. For because I am a sinner, therefore I seek the counsel and converse of the good. And if my Brother despises my flesh, let the Servant of God not despise my soul. Let him come, let him command: whatever he shall command, I am ready to do.

[35] [she receives a form of life from St. Bernard, and is wonderfully converted by him.] Holding, then, to this promise, her Brother went out to her with his brothers. And, since he could not separate her from her husband, at his first word he forbade her all the world's glory in adornment of garments and in all the pomps and curiosities of the world; he enjoined upon her the form of his mother's life, in which she lived a long time with her husband, and so dismissed her from him. But she, most obediently obeying his command, returned to her own home, suddenly changed according to the omnipotence of the right hand of the Most High. All were astounded,

that a noble and delicately nurtured young woman, by a sudden change in habit and in diet, should lead an eremitical life in the midst of the world: should press on with vigils and fastings and continual prayers, and make herself utterly a stranger to all the world. So she lived afterwards for two years with her husband: he indeed, especially in the second year, giving God the honor, and not presuming further to profane the temple of the Holy Spirit. Who also at length, overcome by the power of her perseverance, and dismissing her free from himself according to the rite of the Church, granted her the faculty of serving God, to whom she had proved herself. But she, having obtained the liberty she had desired, going to the monastery of Jully, vowed to God the remainder of her life with the nuns there serving God: where the Lord conferred on her so great a grace of sanctity that she was proved to be, no less in mind than in flesh, the sister of those men of God.

VII.

[36] But when Bernard, newly sent to Clairvaux, was to be ordained^d to the ministry He is consecrated abbot by the bishop of Châlons; for which he had been chosen, and the see of Langres was vacant, to which that ordination pertained, the brethren asking whither they should lead him to be ordained, the good report of the venerable bishop of Châlons, that most renowned master William of Champeaux,^e quickly offered itself from near at hand, and it was determined that he must be sent thither. And so it was done. But he went to Châlons, taking with him Elboldo, a certain Cistercian monk. He entered, then, the house of the aforesaid bishop — a young man of a wasted and dying body, contemptible also in habit, with an older monk following, elegant both in size and in strength of body — some laughing, some deriding, some, by interpreting the matter as it was, venerating. But when it was asked which of them was the abbot, the bishop, having his eyes opened first upon him, recognized the Servant of God, and received him as a servant of God. For when at first in private conversation the young man's modesty of speaking betrayed his prudence more and more, better than any utterance, the wise man understood a divine visitation in the coming of his guest. Nor was the pious insistence of hospitality wanting, until, their conversation being drawn out on both sides to a familiar confidence and freedom of speaking, his own conscience now commended him better than words. What more?

[37] From that day, and from that hour, they were made one heart who is joined with him in the closest friendship. and one soul in the Lord; so far that thereafter each often had the other as guest, and the bishop's own house was Clairvaux: but for the monks of Clairvaux there was made not only the bishop's house, but through him the whole city of Châlons. Nay, even the province of Reims and all Gaul was through him roused to devotion for reverence of the Man of God. For indeed from that so great bishop the rest learned to receive him and to revere him as an angel of God, so that a man of so great authority seems to have foreseen in him the grace of this time, being so affected toward an unknown monk, and a monk of so great humility. But a little time having passed, when the Abbot's infirmity grew so grievous that now nothing was looked for but his death, or a life graver than any death, he was visited by the bishop. And when the bishop, having seen him, said that he had hope not only of his life but also of his health, if, acquiescing in his counsel, he would suffer some care to be bestowed on his body according to the measure of his infirmity; but he could less easily be bent from the rigor or use of his custom, the bishop, having set out to the chapter of Cîteaux, there before the few abbots who had assembled, with pontifical humility and priestly charity, prostrate on the ground with his whole body, asked and obtained that for one year only he be handed over into obedience to him. For what could be denied to so great humility in so great authority? Returning therefore to Clairvaux, he ordered a little house to be made for him outside the cloisters and bounds of the monastery, ordaining and commanding that in food or drink, or in anything of the kind concerning him, no strictness of the Order be there observed, that no solicitude of the whole care of the house be referred to him; but that he be allowed* to live according to the manner appointed by him.

[38] At that same time I too began to frequent Clairvaux and him. He is visited by William, abbot of Saint-Thierry, while he was sick; Whom, when I visited him there with a certain other abbot, I found in that hut of his, such as is wont to be made for lepers at the public crossways. But I found him, by the command, as has been said, of the bishop and the abbots, keeping holiday from all solicitude of the house, both inward and outward, free for God and for himself, and as it were exulting in the delights of paradise. And entering that royal chamber, when I considered the dwelling and the dweller, the house itself struck me — God is my witness — with such reverence for it as if I were entering to the altar of God. And I was affected with such sweetness toward that man, and with such desire of dwelling with him in that poverty and simplicity, that, if the choice had been given me that day, I should have wished nothing so much as to remain there with him always to serve him. And when he in turn had received us with joy, and we asked what he was doing, how he lived there, smiling upon us in that noble manner of his, he said: Excellently. I, whom hitherto rational men obeyed, have by God's just judgment been given over to obey a certain irrational beast. But he was speaking of a certain rustic and empty man, knowing nothing at all, and boasting that he would cure him of the infirmity under which he labors, to whom he had been handed over to obey by the bishop and the abbots and his brethren. And eating there with him, when we supposed that a man so infirm, and committed to so great a providence, was being cared for as was fitting, and saw offered him, at that physician of his doing, foods which a man in health would scarcely touch for the straits of hunger, we saw and pined away, the regular silence scarcely restraining us from rising against that man with anger and reproaches as against a sacrilegious man and a homicide.

[39] [and gives excellent examples of patience, and sees that the monastery must be transferred.] But he himself, against whom these things were done, taking all things indifferently, approved all alike, as one who, his very sense being corrupted and his taste almost dead, scarcely discerned anything. For he is known to have eaten for many days raw blood offered him by mistake for butter; to have drunk oil as though it were water: and many such things befell him. For he said that water alone had savor for him, because, while he took it, it cooled his throat and gullet. So then I found him, and so that Man of God dwelt in that solitude of his. But he was not alone, with whom was God, and the guard and consolation of the holy angels: which was also shown by manifest tokens. For on a certain night, praying more attentively than usual, he had poured out his soul upon himself, when, lightly slumbering, he heard voices as of a copious multitude passing by. But waking, and hearing those same voices more fully, he goes out also from the cell in which he lay, and follows those departing. Not far off was a place still abounding in thick thickets of thorns and briars, but now far changed from that state. Over this there stood for a while as it were alternating choirs arranged on this side and that, and the holy Man heard and was delighted. Whose mystery of the vision, however, he did not recognize until, the buildings of the monastery having been transferred some years afterwards, he beheld an oratory placed in that same place where he had heard those voices. But I, unworthy, stayed with him a few days, marveling wherever I turned my eyes, as though I saw new heavens and a new earth, and the ancient paths of the ancient Egyptian monks, our fathers, and in them the fresh footprints of the men of our own time.

[40] The golden ages of Clairvaux, the religious life, silence, solitude, For it was possible at that time to see the golden ages of Clairvaux, when men once rich in virtue and honored in the world, then glorying in the poverty of Christ, planted the Church of God in their own blood, in labor and hardship, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, in persecutions and reproaches and many straits, preparing for Clairvaux that sufficiency and peace which it has today. For, judging that they lived not so much for themselves as for Christ and for the brethren who should there serve God, they counted as nothing whatever was lacking to them, so long as they left behind them what would suffice them both for the support of necessity and for some consciousness of a voluntary poverty for Christ's sake. And at first sight, by those entering Clairvaux by the descent of the mountain, God was recognized in his dwellings, since, in the simplicity and humility of the buildings, the mute valley spoke the simplicity and humility of the poor of Christ dwelling there. In fine, in that valley full of men, in which it was permitted to no one to be idle, all laboring and each occupied about what was enjoined him, the silence of midnight was found at midday by those who came, save for the sound of labors, or if the brethren were occupied in the praises of God. Further, the order and fame of that silence wrought so great a reverence for itself even among secular men who came, that they too feared to speak there — I do not say depraved or idle things, but even anything that did not pertain to the matter. But the solitude of that place itself, amid the shady woods and the narrows of the neighboring hills on this side and that, in which the servants of God lay hid, represented in a manner that cave of our father St. Benedict, in which he was once found by shepherds: so that they seemed to have some likeness of the dwelling and solitude of him whose life they imitated. For all there were solitaries even in a multitude. For an ordered charity, by the plan of the order, made that valley full of men solitary for each: because, as one disordered man, even when he is alone, is himself a crowd to himself, so there, by unity of spirit and the regular law of silence ordered in a multitude of men, that very order guarded for each the solitude of his heart.

[41] But the fare of the inhabitants was very like their simple houses and dwellings. very slender fare: The bread seemed not so much bran as earth, scarcely produced by the brethren's hard labors from the barren soil of that desert: the other foods too scarcely had anything of savor, save what hunger or the love of God gave: but even that the simplicity of a novice fervor took away from itself, since, reckoning as poison whatever might in any way delight the eater, they refused the gifts of God on account of the pleasure which they felt in them. For since, in regard to every kind of carnal endurance, with the help of God's grace, the zeal of their spiritual Father had wrought this in them, that very many things which before seemed impossible to a man set in the flesh they now not only performed constantly and without murmuring, but even with huge delight: that very delight had begotten in them another murmuring, the more perilous as they judged it as it were the further removed from the flesh, the nearer to the spirit. For, holding it persuaded, and as it were faithfully commended to their memory with the testimony of their own conscience, that every delight of the flesh is an enemy to the soul, they judged that whatever seemed to nourish the flesh with any delight must be shunned.

For they thought themselves brought back, as it were by another road, into their own country, since, by reason of the sweetness of an interior love, eating things bitter as delightfully as things sweet, they seemed to themselves to live more delightfully in the desert than they had formerly lived in the world.

[42] And when on this account they held in some suspicion the daily correction of their spiritual Father ^f, The bishop of Châlons refutes the brothers' indiscreet zeal. as though it deferred more to their flesh than to their spirit, the matter was at length brought before the judgment of the aforesaid bishop of Châlons, who happened then to be present. Whereupon that man, mighty in word, having entered upon a discourse to them, brought it to this conclusion: that he pronounced every man whosoever, who should refuse the gifts of God for the sake of the grace of God, to be an enemy of the grace of God, and to resist the Holy Spirit. For having brought forward the history ^g of the prophet Elisha and the sons of the prophets, who were leading with him the eremitical life in desert places — how, when they had once come to the hour of refreshment, a certain bitterness of death was found in the pot of their boiling, and was sweetened by the power of God and the ministry of the Prophet through the pouring in of a little meal — "That prophetic pot," said he, "is your pot, having in itself nothing but bitterness; but the meal, turning the bitterness into sweetness, is the grace of God working in you. Take therefore in security, and with thanksgiving, that which, though naturally it was less fitted for human uses, has by the grace of God been fitted for your uses to this end, that you should use and eat it. Wherein, if you remain disobedient and unbelieving, you resist the Holy Spirit, and are ungrateful for his grace."

ANNOTATA.

* elsewhere: twelve

* elsewhere: to himself

CAPUT V.

The severity of his life; his unwearied labor amid afflicted health; miracles; the peril of arrogance repressed.

VIII.

This, then, was in that time, under Abbot Bernard and his mastership, the school of spiritual studies in that most bright and most dear valley: To the great rigor of his life the Saint adds this the fervor of regular discipline, he doing and ordering all things, and building a tabernacle for God upon earth according to the pattern which was shown him in the mount, when in the solitude of Cîteaux he dwelt with God in the cloud. And would that, after the rudiments of his first conversion, after a man had in some measure learned and grown accustomed to be with men, and to understand concerning the needy and the poor, by having compassion on the infirmities of men — would that he had shown himself toward his own self such as he was toward the rest, so kindly, so discreet, so solicitous! But immediately, when he was loosed from the bond of that year's obedience and made his own master, he returned, like a bow unbent to its former stiffness, and like a torrent held back and let go, to the habit of his earlier course, as though exacting of himself penalties for that long repose and the losses of labor interrupted. You might see a man feeble and languishing attempting and undertaking whatever he wished, considering too little what he could do, solicitous for all, negligent concerning himself; most obedient to all in all other matters, but concerning himself scarcely ever obedient either to charity or to authority. For always reckoning his former deeds as nothing, he strove after greater ones, toward not sparing his body, toward adding strength to his spiritual pursuits, wearing down by fasts and vigils without intermission a body already attenuated of itself by various infirmities.

[44] He prayed standing, day and night, until his knees, weakened by fasting, [continual prayer, the use of the hair-shirt, and the slenderest food: whence the corruption of his stomach:] and his feet, swollen from labor, could no longer support his body for any long time; and as long as it could be kept hidden, he used a hair-shirt next to his flesh. But when he perceived that it was known, casting it off at once, he turned to the common usage. His food, along with bread, was milk, or the water in which vegetables had been boiled, or gruels such as are wont to be made for infants. The rest either his infirmity did not admit, or he himself refused out of zeal for parsimony. If he ever used wine, it was rarely and very sparingly, since he testified that water suited better both his infirmity and his appetite. But being thus affected and worn down, he scarcely ever suffered himself to be excused from the common labor of the brothers, whether by day or by night, or from the occupations and labors of his ministry. Physicians saw him and his manner of life and marveled, and alleged that he did so great a violence to nature in himself as if a lamb, bound to the plough, were compelled to plough. For when that frequent eruption of undigested rawness through his mouth, from the corruption of his stomach, began to be rather troublesome to others, and most of all in the choir of those chanting psalms, he did not on that account at once forsake the assemblies of the brothers; but a receptacle having been provided and dug out in the ground beside the place where he stood, he thus for some while, as best he could, got through that necessity of his affliction. But when the intolerableness of the thing did not permit even this, then at last he was compelled to forsake the assemblies and to dwell apart by himself, save so far as it was sometimes needful for him to be present at the convent of the brothers, whether for the sake of conference or of consolation, or by the necessity of cloistral discipline.

[45] And this was that sad necessity by which first that holy brotherhood [he is separated from his subjects; infirm indeed, but chosen by God for whatever things are great.] was compelled to be able to go without the continual fellowship of that holy fatherhood. Wherein we grieve indeed and lament the sad effect of his infirmity, but we venerate the affection of his holy desire and spiritual fervor. And yet neither is the effect of his infirmity in every way to be lamented and grieved over. For what if the wisdom of God willed rather through the weak things of that man to confound so many and so great strong things of this world? And what was ever at any time left undone, by reason of any infirmity of his, which ought to have been done through him according to the grace given him? For who in our age, however robust of body and of exact health, has ever done such great things as this man did, and does, dying and languishing, unto the honor of God and the profit of holy Church? How great a number of men did he afterwards draw out of the world by word and example, not only to conversion, but to perfection? How many houses or cities of refuge did he establish out of them throughout the whole Christian world, that whosoever have sinned unto death, and have been judged guilty of eternal death, might bethink themselves and turn to the Lord, and flee to them, and be saved in them? What schisms of the Church did he not ^a allay? What heresies did he not confound? What peace among dissenting churches and peoples did he not restore? And these indeed are the things common to all. But as for the goods which he bestowed upon innumerable men individually, according to the cause, the person, the place, the time — who could enumerate them?

[46] Further, if excess in holy fervor is reproved in him, [Although his fervor might be excused by the example of others, yet he himself accuses it.] that excess assuredly has its own reverence among pious minds: for whosoever are led by the Spirit of God greatly fear to reprove that excess * as excessive in the Servant of God. It has also an easy excuse among men, since scarcely would anyone dare to condemn him whom God justifies, working so many and so lofty things with him and through him. Happy the man to whom that alone is reckoned for a fault which the rest are wont to presume upon for their glory. Let his youth have been an object of suspicion to that good Youth — blessed indeed is he who is always fearful; let it have been his study to heap up so great a fullness of virtues as he had from grace with some consciousness also of his own labor. But his life too, which was set before all for imitation, ought not to have lacked the example of frugal continence. Wherein, even if the Servant of God went too far perhaps by excess, he assuredly left to pious minds an example not of excess but of fervor. But why do we strive to excuse him who himself, fearing all his works, is not ashamed to this day to accuse himself, charging himself with sacrilege in that he took away his own body from the service of God and of the brothers, while by indiscreet fervor he rendered it feeble and almost useless? But he recovered from his infirmity, and being infirm was made stronger and mighty. For the power of God, shining forth the more vehemently in his infirmity, from that time to this day works for him among men a certain more worthy reverence, and in reverence authority, and in authority obedience.

[47] He is ordained by God for the public good. For already then he was being divinely fitted for the work of preaching, for which, as has been said above *, he had of old been marked out from his mother's womb with the testimony of a divine revelation. Nor then only, but at every season of his conversion, of his subjection, and of his prelacy, by the ordering and the working of Him for whom it was done, he was being trained to this in fitting order; and, not knowing what was being done concerning him, he was being prepared thereby not only for the monastic but for every ecclesiastical order. And first indeed he dedicated the firstfruits of his youth to raising up again in the monastic Order the fervor of the ancient religion, giving himself with all zeal to this by example and by word in the convent of the brothers within the enclosure of the monastery. But afterwards, when he was compelled by bodily infirmity to another order of life and manner of living, and, as has been said, the necessity of his infirmity and the order of that necessity sequestered him more than usual from the common life of the convent: this began to be the first occasion that, being as it were exposed to men of the world, of whom a great multitude was already flowing together to him, he too, lending them his presence more freely and more liberally, should preach the word of life. And when obedience sometimes drew him further from the monastery for the common causes of the Church, and wherever he came, and on whatever subject he was to speak, he could not be silent about God, and did not cease to do the things that are of God: so in a short time he became known among men, so that the Church of God, having found so useful a member in her body, used it for whatever

it needed, and did not dissemble. But although from the first flower of his opening age he had always abounded in the fruits of the Spirit, yet from this time there was added to him more copiously, as the Apostle says, the manifestation of the Spirit unto profit — that is to say, a more fruitful word of wisdom and of knowledge together with the grace of prophecy, the workings of miracles, and the helps of divers healings. Certain of these, which I have learned by sure narration, I in turn unseal to my readers with the same faith with which they were consigned to me by faithful men.

IX.

[48] This, then, was the first sign which Christ wrought famous to the world by the hand of his Servant. Various When he had now completed a good many years at Clairvaux, it happened that a nobleman, and also his own kinsman according to the flesh, Josbert de la Ferté ^b — which is a town near the monastery ^c — fell gravely ill. He, being suddenly seized, lost utterly both his understanding and his speech. Whence his son Josbert the younger, and all his friends together, were the more afflicted with grief, because a man of magnificence, and magnificently honored, was dying without confession and viaticum. A messenger ran to the Abbot; for he was not then in the monastery. He came, and found him already lying thus for three days. But having compassion on the man, and moved besides by the tears of his son together with those of the rest who mourned, he trusted in the mercy of God, and uttered a magnificent word, saying to them: "It is known to you that in many things this man has burdened churches, oppressed the poor, offended God. If you believe me, so that what was taken away may be restored to the churches, and the customs usurped to the burdening of the poor be relinquished, he shall speak yet, and shall make confession of his offenses, and devoutly receive also the divine Sacraments."

[49] All marvel, the son rejoices, the whole household exults: miracles whatever the Man of God enjoins is firmly promised him and fulfilled. But his brother Gerard, and his uncle Galdric, not a little terrified and troubled, take him aside more privately concerning such a promise, reprove him rather harshly, and inveigh against him more sharply. Answering them briefly and simply, he said: "God can easily do what you can with difficulty believe." And so, after secret prayer, he approaches the offering of the immortal Sacrifice. And while he was offering it, a messenger arrived to report that the aforesaid Josbert, now speaking freely, most earnestly begged that the Man of God would hasten to him. And when he came to him after the Sacrifice had been offered, having confessed his sins with tears and groaning, he received the divine Sacraments; and living and speaking two or three days after this, he appointed above all that those things which the holy Abbot had enjoined should be observed without any retraction. He also set his house in order, and gave alms, and so at last, in Christian fashion, breathed out his soul in good hope of the mercy of God.

[50] The holy Father was once returning from the meadows, and met a woman what he did, carrying a little son in her arms, whom she had brought to him from far off, having from his mother's womb a withered hand and a twisted arm. Moved by the tears and prayers of the mother, he bade the boy be set down, and prayer being made, at once signing the boy, and his arm and his hand, he told the woman to call her son. She called the child, and he ran to her, and embracing his mother with both arms was made whole from that hour.

[51] Now the brothers and spiritual sons of this blessed Man were marveling at these things which they heard and saw concerning him. his friends warding off from him the peril of exaltation, Nor yet were they lifted up, after the manner of carnal men, unto human glory, but with spiritual solicitude they feared for his youthful age and his still new manner of life. In which zeal indeed his uncle Galdric and Guy, the firstborn of his brothers, went before the rest, so that he might seem to have received them divinely as certain twin goads of his flesh, lest the greatness of his graces should exalt him. For neither did they spare him, harassing his tender modesty with rather harsh words, calumniating even things well done, annihilating all the signs, and frequently afflicting even to tears with reproaches and reproofs a man most meek and gainsaying nothing. The venerable bishop of Langres, Geoffrey, both kinsman of the holy Man by blood, and his companion in conversion, and from that time his inseparable comrade in all things, is wont to relate that at the first miracle which he saw done by his hands, the aforesaid brother of his, Guy, was present. For their way lay through Château-Landon ^d in the territory of Sens, and a certain young man, whose foot a fistula had seized, sought with much supplication the touch and the blessing of the aforesaid Father. And being signed he at once grew well; and returning within very few days through the same town, they found him sound and whole. But the oft-mentioned brother of the blessed Man could not be restrained even by the miracle itself from rebuking him and charging him with presumption for having consented to touch the man: with so great charity was he solicitous for him.

[52] About the same time it happened that his uncle Galdric, are commemorated: to which add the knowledge who likewise with a similar zeal overwhelmed his meekness (as we have said before) with harsh rebukes, labored under most grievous fevers. At length, the disease growing worse, overcome by the very greatness of his pain, he appeals to the Abbot with humble entreaty, that he would have mercy on him and bring him that help which he was wont to bring to others. But he, whose spirit is sweeter than honey, first gently and briefly recalling his frequent upbraidings on matters of this kind, and charging him not to be saying these things by way of tempting him, at length, as he persisted *, lays his hand upon him and bids the fever depart. Nor was there delay: at his command the fever left him, who had experienced in himself what he reproved in others. The same Galdric also, when he had now passed some years at Clairvaux, fervent in spirit and an emulator of every good, departed from this light ^e. About one hour before his death he was troubled for a moment, and, terribly shaken in his whole body, he roared out; but returning to his former serenity, he thereafter expired with a most placid countenance. But the Lord was unwilling that the solicitous mind of the Abbot should be defrauded of the knowledge of this matter. For after some days the same Galdric, appearing to him in a vision of the night, when he answered him as he inquired that all was prosperous with him, and congratulated himself on being set in great felicity, was at last asked what that so bitter and so sudden commotion in his death had meant. And he said that at that hour two wicked spirits had prepared to cast him headlong as it were into a pit of dreadful depth: whereat, terrified, he so trembled; but being snatched away by blessed Peter, who ran to his aid, he thereafter felt no hurt at all.

[53] of the state of the dead, and the help brought to them, It would be long to narrate all the things which the divine grace was wont from the very beginning to reveal to him concerning those who had departed from this life, and their felicity or even their need ^f. Yet let me tell one, which for the admonition of the brothers he himself also sometimes recalls. A certain brother of good intention, but of harsher conversation toward the other brothers, and less compassionate than he ought, died in the monastery. But after a few days he appeared to the Man of God with mournful countenance and in wretched habit, signifying that all was not going according to his wish. And being asked what ailed him, he complained that he had been delivered over to four lizards *. At which word he was straightway thrust away and, as it were, driven headlong from the face of the Man of God. And he, groaning more heavily, cried out after his back: "I charge thee in the name of the Lord that thou make known to me again shortly how it fares with thee." And turning himself to prayer for him, and to the offering of the saving Host, he admonished also certain of the brothers whose sanctity he knew to be more ample to succor him in like manner. Nor indeed did he desist until, after a few days, as he had commanded, he was found worthy to be consoled by the knowledge of his deliverance through another revelation.

[54] and others [The most reverend man Humbert, afterwards builder and first father of the monastery of Igny ^g, labored at Clairvaux so sharply under the disease of epilepsy that, falling seven times in one day, and at length even his brain being disordered, he was scarcely held bound upon his little bed by the hands of many brothers. But the venerable Abbot, coming and finding thus the man whom for his sanctity he venerated with a special affection, was filled with zeal and said: "What are we doing? Let us go; let us pray." And when, having entered the oratory, he bent his knees, the aforesaid man fell asleep between the hands of those who held him. And he, on the following Sunday, receiving the Sacraments from his hand, obtained perfect soundness, so that he never afterwards suffered anything of the sort.]

[55] About this time ^h a famine grew strong in the kingdom of France and the neighboring regions; prodigies toward the living. but the blessing of the Lord heaped up the granaries of his servants. For up to that year the produce of their own labor had never sufficed them. But then too, after the harvest was gathered in, all things being carefully reckoned, they judged that it could scarcely suffice them up to Easter. And when they wished to buy, they found no means, because it was being sold far dearer than usual. And so, in that very Lenten season, a very great multitude of the poor flowed together to them. And distributing faithfully to them what they had, by the Lord's blessing, out of that scanty produce both they themselves alike and the poor who kept coming were cheerfully sustained until the harvest. — A poor man dwelling not far from the monastery was tormented by an adulterous wife with sorceries. For as she had threatened him in anger and fury, so she had brought it about by malignant incantations that the wretched man, his flesh being consumed, could neither die nor be suffered to live. At last he would often lose both the use of his voice and all bodily sensation, and would come back again, cruelly recalled not to life but to a more protracted death. At length the man is brought to the Man of God, who was staying in the monastery, and the pitiable tragedy is unfolded to him. And he, exceedingly indignant that the malice of the ancient enemy had usurped so much for itself against a Christian man, calling two of the brothers, bids the man be carried before the holy altar, and there, the little vessel containing the Eucharist being set upon his head, bids the demon be barred, by the power of that Sacrament, from harming the Christian. It was done as he commanded; and perfect faith restored the wretched man, after so great torments, to perfect health.

ANNOTATA.

Castrum Nantonis, Château-Landon, a small town of France in the Île-de-France and the district of Gâtinais, near the river Fusin, upon a hill two leagues south of Nemours, four toward Montargis, and twenty from Paris, likewise to the south; and it grew out of the ruins of Vellaudunum in the neighborhood, and by some more recent writers is called Castrum Landonis.

e. In

the Cistercian Annals in Manrique his death is attached to the year of Christ 1124, as may be seen in the same place, chapter 2. We gave the man a place among the Prætermissi at the 17th day of February.

* elsewhere: rather long

* elsewhere: excessive

* chapter I.

* elsewhere: yet

* elsewhere: torn apart

CAPUT VI.

Other miracles; an altercation with the devil; health restored to the Saint by the Mother of God; William the biographer healed by him.

XI.

Brother Robert, a monk of the same holy Man and his kinsman according to the flesh ^a, deceived in his youth by the persuasion of certain persons, A letter not wetted by the rain: had betaken himself to Cluny ^b. But the venerable Father, after he had for some while dissembled, resolved to recall the same brother by a letter ^c. As he dictated it, the venerable William, afterwards first abbot of the monastery of Rievaulx ^d, writing upon parchment, was taking down the same letter. And they were both sitting together in the open air; for they had gone outside the enclosure of the monastery in order to dictate more privately ^e. But suddenly an unlooked-for shower burst forth, and he who was writing (as we learned from his own report) wished to put away the paper. To whom the holy Father said: "It is the work of God: write, fear not." He wrote therefore the letter in the midst of the shower without the shower. For while it rained on every side, the power of charity covered the exposed paper, and He who dictated the letter preserved likewise the sheet as well. And this letter indeed, on account of so great a miracle, has been set first, not undeservedly, by the brothers ^f in the codex of his letters.

[57] A certain principal solemnity was being kept, and a certain brother, one communicating unworthily is punished: whom for a secret fault he had suspended from communion of the sacred altar, fearing to be noted and not enduring the shame, came exceedingly presumptuous to his hand along with the rest. But looking upon him, since the cause was hidden, he was unwilling to repel the man, but prayed God in his inmost heart that he would ordain something better concerning so great a presumption. And so the man, taking the Eucharist, could not pass it to his inward parts, and having long and much attempted it, when he in no wise prevailed, anxious and trembling he kept it shut within his mouth. At length, the sixth hour of prayer being ended, he drew the holy Father aside, and falling at his feet, disclosed to him with many tears what he was suffering, and with open mouth showed him the Eucharist itself. And rebuking him, he absolved him as he confessed, and from that moment he received the Lord's Sacraments without difficulty ^g.

[58] We have known great things to have happened through him even in the smallest matters. flies destroyed in a wondrous manner: He had once come to Foigny ^h, which is one of the first abbeys that he himself built, in the territory of Laon. And when the dedication of the new oratory there was being prepared, an incredible multitude of flies had so occupied it that their noise and their shameless running to and fro caused an exceedingly grave annoyance to those entering. No remedy therefore offering itself, the Saint said, "I excommunicate them"; and in the morning they found them all alike dead. And when they had covered the whole pavement, casting them out with shovels, they thus at last cleansed the church. And this was so well known and so celebrated that among the neighbors also, of whom a very great multitude came together for the dedication, the curse of the flies of Foigny passed into a proverb.

[59] In that monastery too which is named Cherlieu ⁱ, a boy healed by a kiss: the holy Man healed with a kiss a certain boy who wept and wailed incessantly. For since, weeping for many days without intermission, he received no consolation — a kind of malady with which physicians are not unacquainted — he was pitiably failing and wasting away. The holy Father, addressing him apart, admonished him to make confession of his offenses. And confession being made, suddenly making his countenance serene, he asked that a kiss be given him by the blessed Father. And having received the kiss of peace from the mouth of the Saint, he presently rested in all peace, and, the fount of his tears being dried up, returned home glad and whole.

[60] Once, as the Abbot was going out to labor after the rest of the brothers, a lame boy likewise cured: a father offered him a lame son, entreating that he would deign to lay his hand upon him. But the Man of God excused himself, saying that he was not of that merit from whom such benefits ought to be sought: to restore their step to the lame was of Apostolic power, not of his. Overcome nevertheless by the father's insistence, he signed the boy and dismissed him. And he grew well from that hour, and within a few days, being brought back again by the same father with much thanksgiving, was presented whole to the Man of God.

[61] There once turned aside to Clairvaux a company of noble knights, knights suddenly changed and converted: that they might see the place and its holy Abbot. And the sacred season of Lent was near, and they, almost all of them young men given to worldly soldiering, were going about seeking those execrable fairs which are commonly called tourneys ^k. He began therefore to ask of them that during those few days which remained before Lent they would not meanwhile use their arms. And when they with obstinate mind refused to acquiesce in his admonitions, "I trust," said he, "in the Lord, that he himself will give me the truce which you have denied." And having summoned a brother, he bids beer be served them, blessing it and saying that they should drink the draught of souls. They drank therefore together, some of them however unwillingly, for love of the world, fearing that effect of divine power which afterwards they experienced. For when they had gone out of the gates of the monastery, they began to inflame one another with mutual discourse, because their heart was burning within them. God therefore inspiring them, and his word running swiftly, they returned at that same hour, and being converted from their ways, gave their right hands to the spiritual warfare. Of whom some still serve God as soldiers; but some already reign with him, loosed from the bonds of the flesh ^l.

[62] And what wonder is it that the age of maturity honors this man with devout observances, when unto devotion toward him the divine power stirs up even infancy itself, as yet without reason a little child taking his hand, and a kiss given to it. and ignorant of devotion? Many know the illustrious young man Walter of Montmirail ^m, whose uncle, brother Walter ⁿ, among those knights whom we mentioned before, professed the sacred warfare at Clairvaux. This Walter the younger, then, while he was still a little infant *, and had not yet completed the third month from his birth, his mother offered to the Man of God to be blessed, rejoicing and exulting that she was found worthy to have so holy a Man as a guest in her house. And while the Man of God, as he was always and in every place accustomed to do, was speaking to those about him of the salvation and edification of souls, the mother of the aforesaid infant, holding him in her lap, sat beside his feet. And it happened that while speaking he once stretched out his hand; and the little infant tried to take hold of it. At length the effort of the little one was noticed, since he had done it rather often; and to the wonder of all, opportunity is given him that he may be able to take hold of the hand he desired. Then indeed with quite wondrous reverence, putting one of his own hands beneath and holding it with the other, he bore it to his mouth and kissed it. Nor did he do this only once, but as often as he was permitted to hold the blessed hand.

XII.

[63] Once the Man of God was sick, and as it were a certain little stream of phlegm flowed incessantly from his mouth. Bernard falls sick unto death; he confounds the devil: Whence, his body being exhausted and failing utterly, he came little short of his last extremity. And so his sons and friends came together as though to the obsequies of so great a Father; and I myself was present among the rest, because his condescension reckoned me too in the number of his friends. And when he now seemed to be drawing his last breath, in an ecstasy of mind he seemed to himself to be presented before the tribunal of the Lord. And Satan too was present on the opposing side, assailing him with shameless accusations. But when he had gone through all, and it was for the Man of God to speak on his own part, in no way terrified or troubled he said: "I confess, I am not worthy, nor can I by my own merits obtain the kingdom of heaven. But my Lord, obtaining it by a twofold right — namely by the inheritance of his Father and by the merit of his passion — content himself with the one, grants the other to me; and claiming it for myself by right out of his gift, I am not confounded." At this word the enemy was confounded, that assembly was dissolved, and the Man of God returned to himself. And when from this he rather expected the dissolution of his body to be at hand, another vision far unlike it followed.

[64] [from a vision he learns that the time of his death is not yet at hand, and is healed by the Mother of God;] For, set as it were upon a certain shore, he seemed to himself to be awaiting a ship which should carry him across; and when the ship had put in to the shore, he hastened to enter, and it, giving way, drove out into the water. Doing thus even to the third time, at last the ship went off, leaving him, and did not return. And he understood forthwith that the time of his passing was not yet at hand. Yet still his pain grew, the more troublesome assuredly in that the hope of an impending departure now less consoled him. And it happened, the day now drawing toward evening, that while the rest of the brothers went according to custom to the reading of the Conferences, the Abbot alone remained with two brothers attending him in the lodging in which he lay. And when he was more vehemently afflicted, and the pain grew beyond his strength, calling one of the two, he bids him go quickly to pray. And when he excused himself and said, "I am not such a man of prayer," he compels him by the authority of obedience. He went and prayed at the altars, which in that same church were three: the first in honor of the blessed Mother of God, two set round about in honor of blessed Lawrence the martyr and of blessed Benedict the abbot. At that same hour, therefore, the aforesaid blessed Virgin stood by the Man of God, attended by those two ministers, namely blessed Lawrence and blessed Benedict. And they were present in that serenity and sweetness which befitted them, and so manifestly that from their very entrance into the little cell he discerned also the persons of each. And laying their hands upon him, and soothing the places of his pain with a most loving touch, they forthwith drove away all his sickness. For the stream of phlegm was at once dried up, and all the pain departed.

[65] And when I too was once sick

in our house, as also was William, the author of this Life, and my sickness, stretching itself out too far, had now wearied me exceedingly and worn me down at length; hearing this, he sent to me his brother, that man of good memory Gerard ^o, charging me to come to Clairvaux, and promising that I should there quickly either be cured or die. And I, having as it were divinely received or been offered the opportunity either of dying with him or of living for some while with him — which of these I then preferred, I do not know — set out thither at once, though with exceeding labor and pain. Where there was done for me what had been promised, and, I confess, as I wished. For health was restored to me from a great and perilous infirmity; but the strength of my body returned little by little. Good God, what good did that infirmity confer upon me, those holidays, that leisure, in part unto that which * I wished. For his own infirmity, by which he too was at that time detained, cooperated with my need during all that time of my sickness with him. Both of us therefore being sick, we conferred all day long about the spiritual physic of the soul, about the medicines of the virtues against the languors of the vices. And so he then discoursed to me upon the Song of Songs [p], so far as that time of my sickness permitted, in a moral sense only, the mysteries of that Scripture being passed over, because so I wished and so I had asked of him; and each day I bound in writing whatever I heard upon this, lest it escape me, so far as God granted me and memory helped me. And whereas he expounded to me kindly and without grudging, and communicated to me the judgments of his understanding and the perceptions of his experience, and strove to teach many things to one inexperienced, things which are not learned save by experiencing them — even if I could not yet understand what was set before me, yet he made me understand more than usual what was lacking to me for understanding them. But let it suffice to have said thus much of these matters.

[66] But when, the Sunday which is named Septuagesima being at hand, on the evening of the Saturday preceding that same Sunday, I had so far recovered that I was able to rise from my bed of myself, and could go out and come in alone, I began to make arrangements for our return to our brothers [q]. Which, when he heard it, he altogether forbade, and interdicted me all hope and all attempt of returning until Quinquagesima Sunday. I acquiesced easily, since what was commanded my will did not refuse, and my infirmity seemed to require it. But when, beyond that Sunday of Septuagesima, I wished to abstain from flesh-meat, which up to that day, at his own command and under the compulsion of necessity, I had been eating, this too he forbade. And when in this matter I neither acquiesced in his admonishing, nor listened to his asking, nor obeyed his commanding, we thus parted from one another that Saturday evening, he in silence to Compline, I to my bed. And behold, the fury of my sickness, revived as if it had resumed all its former strength, seized me, assailing me with such vehemence and ferocity, and racked me with such malignity, ravaging me all that night, beyond my strength and beyond my power, that despairing of life I scarcely believed I should live even until day, so as to speak yet once more with the Man of God. And when I had passed the whole night in that pain, being summoned early in the morning he came, not however bringing me that countenance of compassion which he was wont to bring, but as it were of one reproving. Yet smiling, "What," said he, "will you eat today?" And I, who now, though he was silent, most certainly interpreted yesterday's disobedience to be the cause of that affliction of mine, said, "Whatever you shall command." "Rest quiet, then," said he, "you shall not die now." And he went away. And what shall I say? Forthwith all the pain also went away, save that, wearied by that nocturnal pain of mine, I was scarcely able to rise from my bed all that day. For what and of what kind was that pain? I do not recall ever to have suffered the like. But on the morrow I was made whole and recovered my strength. And after a few days had intervened, I returned home with the blessing and the good favor of my good host.

ANNOTATA.

p. Of the Song of Songs, expounded by the holy Doctor, we treat above at §23.

q. I understand the monks of Signy: for formerly indeed he had been abbot of St. Thierry near Reims; but at the time when he was writing these things he was a monk of Signy, according to the title prefixed to the Life which we here give.

elsewhere: was, being still a yearling, and would be known to be able to recognize only the breasts, his mother,* etc.

In Horst: that which*

CAPUT VII.

The fame of his sanctity; the wondrous propagation of the men of Clairvaux; the spirit of prophecy; benefits divinely bestowed through the Saint; his flight from dignities.

XIII.

And when Bernard, beloved of God and of men, was flourishing with such great virtues and miracles in that valley of his and in the neighboring cities [The fame of his sanctity, his power of drawing souls, Clairvaux famous everywhere,] and regions, which the reckoning of domestic cares sometimes compelled him to visit, he began also, whether by the common necessities of the Church, or by charity toward the brothers, or by obedience to his superiors, to be drawn away into remote regions: to restore desperate peaces between dissenting churches and princes of the world; by the help of God peaceably to terminate causes interminable to human sense and counsel; and, by the power of faith rather than by the spirit of this world, making things possible out of many impossibilities of this kind, as if by removing mountains, to appear more and more wonderful and venerable in the eyes of all. But most of all the power of preaching began to shine forth in him to such a degree that it softened even the hard hearts of his hearers to conversion, and he scarcely ever returned home empty. But afterwards, both the practice of his discourse and the example of his manner of life prospering happily, the net of the word of God in the hand of God's fisherman began to enclose such copious multitudes of rational fishes that from each single one of his catches the little boat of that house might seem able to be filled. Whence it came about that in a short time, by a greater miracle than all the miracles which he wrought in this life, through one man languishing and half dead and able only to speak, that valley, obscure until that time, was made both in fact and in name the Bright Valley, spreading abroad the light of a certain divine brightness, as it were from some highest summit of virtues, upon the slopes of the earth. And from that time, at that valley which formerly was called the Valley of Wormwood and of bitterness, the mountains began to drop down sweetness. She who had been empty and barren of every good began to abound with spiritual wheat, and from the dew of heaven and the blessing of God all her deserts began so to grow fat, and, the people being multiplied, to magnify gladness, that there seemed to be fulfilled in her what was once said by the Prophet to the city of Jerusalem: "They shall yet say," he says, "in thy ears

the sons of thy barrenness: The place is too strait; make room for us to dwell. And thou shalt say in thy heart: Who hath begotten these for me? I am barren and bearing not, and who hath nourished these?"

[68] and propagated into various regions. For already the buildings of the cloistral habitation have been transferred, not without certain divine revelations, from the narrower places of that Valley to a more level and spacious site ^a, and have been enlarged and amplified there; and even now that place is too strait for the multitude of those dwelling in it. Already the houses of that Order, daughters of that same house, on this side and beyond the Alps and the seas, have filled very many deserts, and there still are, and daily flow together, those for whom a place must be sought. And brothers are sought from every quarter and are sent, since the kings of the nations and the prelates of the churches, cities and regions, count themselves blessed if they have deserved to obtain some fellowship out of that house and out of the discipline of the Man of God. What do I say? Beyond civilized men, even to barbarous nations, in whom a natural fierceness has in a manner put off human nature, this religion has gone forth, where through it the beasts of the forest become men, and, accustomed to converse with men, learn to sing to the Lord a new song. Wherefore the fisherman of God, at the Lord's command, ceases not to let down his nets for a draught, and, as some go away and others succeed into their place, the fullness of that holy congregation is never diminished. This up to now his wonderful catches from Châlons, Reims, * Mainz, Liège, and several other cities have wrought and daily do work: from Flanders too and Germany, Italy, Aquitaine, and other regions, whichever, by whatever necessity, it has at any time befallen, or still today befalls, the Man of God to visit. For the grace of the Holy Spirit cooperating, wherever he goes he returns full, and his fullness accompanies him everywhere ^b.

[69] Nor does he dismiss his own, whom he sends away from himself, but wherever they are, He knows things absent. he too is always with them with fatherly solicitude. And as rivers return to the place from which they go forth, so daily do the glad or the sad things of his sons return to him. Often too, without any revelation of flesh and blood, it is made known divinely to his fatherly solicitude what is being done concerning any of them far distant from him — whether anything must be provided for them, whether anything in them must be amended; their temptations and their excesses, their infirmities and their deaths, and the onsets of whatsoever secular tribulations. For he often enjoins prayer upon the brothers present with him for the particular necessities of absent brothers. Sometimes, too, men dying in other places are known to have come to him in a vision, asking his blessing and his leave: this being brought about, doubtless, both by the obedience of those sent and by the charity of him who sent them. I had once come to him, and while I was speaking with him, I saw and heard what I ought not to keep silent. There was present a certain monk of Foigny, presently to return to his own. And when, having received an answer upon the matters for which he had come, he was already going out from him, the Prophet of God, calling him back in the spirit and power of Elijah, and having first named a certain brother of that house, charged him in my hearing concerning certain hidden things, that he should correct them; but if not, that he should shortly look for the judgment of God upon himself. Astounded, the man asked who had told him this. "Whoever," said he, "has told me — go thou, and say what I say to thee, lest, if thou dissemble, a like penalty of sin involve thee also." I was marveling at this; but as I marveled, things far more marvelous concerning him were told me in an altogether similar case ^c.

[70] For his brother Guy, the eldest among his brothers, The holy Father foreknows things to come, of what gravity and truthfulness a man he was, all know who were able to know him ^d. When he and I were once together , and were speaking of matters of this kind, and I inquired of him, as was wont to be the way of pleasant conversation among friends, "They are fables," said he, "which you hear." And when after his manner and his usual practice he was disparaging his brother's virtues, yet unwilling to be troublesome to me, "What I do not know," said he, "I do not tell you; but one thing I know and have experienced: that many things are revealed to him in prayer." Then he told me how, when those honey-flowing hives of spiritual bees first began to put forth new swarms from themselves on every side, and to build from them new houses of their Order, at the asking and the doing of Lord William ^e the bishop, they constructed in the bishopric of Châlons that which is called Trois-Fontaines ^f. And when they had sent out to it as abbot with monks the lord Roger, a man noble according to the world, but nobler in sanctity ^g, and certain men of like character with him, the spiritual Father did not let go the sons whom he sent out, but was with them in fatherly solicitude and pious affection. Whence, on a certain day when the Abbot and this man from whose relation I learned it were alone together, and were speaking to one another about those brothers, suddenly, sighing more deeply, his heart answering him something harsher than usual concerning them, "Go," said he to his brother, "pray for them; and whatever God shall show thee concerning them, report to me." For he himself, laboring at that hour under a most grievous sickness , was kept to his little bed. But the other, greatly alarmed, said, "God forbid! I am not one who knows how to pray in this manner, who may deserve to obtain this." Yet as he persisted in his purpose, the other went and prayed. Praying therefore as much as he could, he poured out his soul for each one of them; and he was so filled, through each, with sweetness of conscience in praying, and with such confidence of obtaining, and with every grace of spiritual consolation, that his spirit exulted at being heard in all with sure faith — except in two, in whom his prayer faltered, his devotion hesitated, his confidence failed. And when he had reported this to him by whom he had been sent, he at once pronounced concerning those two what the outcome afterwards proved.

[71] [he testifies that a certain man seeks the Order at the prompting of an evil spirit:] Now Abbot Roger, and some who were with him, were those whom the Man of God had once drawn out of the city of Châlons; concerning whom, or in whom, something similar had been done even then. For when he frequented Châlons for the bishop's sake, returning once he drew with him a multitude of noble and lettered men, clerics and laymen. And while they still lingered in the guest-house, and he was watering the new plantings with heavenly words, the monk who kept the gate came up, announcing that Stephen of Vitry, their master, was there to renounce the world and to dwell with them. Who else would not have exulted at the coming of such a man, especially since that valley did not yet abound much in wheat of this sort? But he, the Holy Spirit revealing to him the ambushes of spiritual wickedness, groaning a little in silence, broke out into speech in the hearing of all: "A malignant spirit," said he, "has brought him hither. He came alone, alone he shall return ^h." All were astounded who before, on hearing of his coming, could not contain themselves for joy. Nevertheless, lest he should scandalize sons still little, he received the man; he studiously admonished him concerning perseverance and the other pursuits of the virtues; and knowing and foreseeing that one who promised all things would do nothing, he admitted him to be tried in the cell of the novices along with those who truly sought God and would persevere. But of all the things which he had foretold, nothing fell to the ground. That same Stephen saw, as he confessed, while he still lingered in the cell of the novices, a certain swarthy boy drawing him out of the oratory. And having lived there some nine months, at last he nevertheless failed, and, as had been foretold concerning him, as he had come alone, so alone he departed. And the cunning of the enemy was frustrated, and by the very ruin of him whom he had prepared for the ruin of the novices, they were rather confirmed.

[72] by praying he brings back a runaway horse. Before we depart from Châlons: when the holy Father was once returning thence, both he himself and those who were with him labored grievously from cold and wind. And when many who happened then to be in his company went on ahead, and by reason of the sharpness of the cold did not attend to him, and he himself followed almost alone, it happened that the horse of one of the two who were with him, being carelessly let go, escaped and ran off across a widely open plain. And when they could not catch it, and the inclemency of the air did not permit them to spend longer upon this, "Let us pray," said he. And having bent their knees in prayer with the brother who was with him, they had scarcely yet been able to finish the Lord's Prayer, when behold, that horse, returning with all gentleness, stood still before his feet and was restored to its rider.

XIV.

[73] And to pass over from Châlons to the city of Reims: it happened once, when the archbishop and the people of Reims were at variance, that the Man of God was present to reconcile them. And when he had taken his seat in the palace of that city with Joscelin, bishop of Soissons, and the house being filled with a great throng of clergy and people, peace was being treated of, behold, before them all a wretched woman, offering him her son, full (as was thought) of a demon, besought his mercy. For that very day, rising up against his own mother, he had almost slain her, and being made dumb and blind and deaf, with open eyes he did not see, and, all his senses being stupefied in him, he remained even without understanding. But having compassion on the wretched mother, whom above all the feeling of that grief tormented, coaxing the wretched youth and stroking his head and face with pious hands, he began to address him, and to inquire how he had presumed to lay hands upon his mother. And he, returning to himself, at once acknowledged his sin, and thenceforth promising amendment, was restored whole to his mother ⁱ. In the monastery too which is called Aulps ^k, among the other sick who sought a cure, there came to him a woman who labored under the falling sickness. She, at that very hour, while she stood before him, fell down at a sudden onset of that malady. But the Man of the Lord, taking her hand, at once raised her up; nor only at that hour, but she was altogether perfectly cured of her infirmity.

[74] The duchess of Lorraine, a noble woman, but not living so nobly, [he converts the duchess of Lorraine; he obtains the grace of compunction for a monk.] having once seen in her sleep that Man of God drawing forth with his own hands seven horrible serpents from her womb, was afterwards converted by his admonition to a religious life ^l, and to this day glories that she is the woman out of whom he cast seven demons. I knew a certain cleric, Nicholas by name, given over to the world almost past hope, but freed from the world through him. And when he had taken at Clairvaux the habit and order of monastic life, seeing those who had fled thither from the shipwreck of the world redeeming the losses of their shipwreck with continual tears, and wishing to do the same himself, yet unable by reason of the hardness of his heart, he begged him with great sorrow of heart that he would obtain for him from God

the grace of tears. He prayed, and obtained for him so great and so continual a compunction of heart together with the grace of tears, that scarcely ever afterwards was his countenance found changed to anything else, or his eyes without tears, even when he was eating, when he went along the road, or while he spoke with anyone.

[75] So many and so great are the virtues which in this manner we have heard and seen concerning him, His miracles almost surpass belief: he refuses ecclesiastical dignities: and so various the helps he brought to the various necessities of men, that if anyone should wish to set forth all of them either in word or in writing, he might beget incredulity in the fastidious, or fastidiousness in the incredulous. But how pure the eye of his intention is in all his works, the body of his shining activity plainly declares. For the highest ecclesiastical honors, and the favors of secular princes, which continually pursue him as one worthy of them, he rejects not boastfully, but declines religiously and reasonably, and thereby plainly declares what he has sought and what he has aspired to in all his working. [At Milan, at Reims, the clergy electing and the people acclaiming, he was named archbishop. At Châlons, at Langres, bishop; and the same thing would have been done already in many other cities, if there could have been any hope of his consent ^m.] And although he was worthy to be compelled, by some judgment of God I know not what, and by the singular reverence for his sanctity, he has long since obtained this with all: that he should never be compelled to anything against his will. But while in this manner he flees the honor of this world, he has not escaped the authority of all honors, being worthy in the consciences of all to be feared and loved in the fear and love of God; in whose presence, wherever he may be, nothing is dared against justice; whom, wherever he speaks or acts anything for justice, men obey.

[76] he prevails with all by a wondrous authority Supported by such authority in the Church of God, when the necessity of obedience or of charity urges, he shrinks from no inconvenience of his labor. For to whose will has every height of dignity, whether secular or ecclesiastical, so deferred; to whose counsel has it so humbled itself? Proud kings, princes and tyrants, soldiers and plunderers so fear and revere him that there seems fulfilled in them what we read in the Gospel that the Lord said to his disciples: "Behold," he says, "I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you." Further, among spiritual men, and where spiritual things are spiritually examined, his authority is far otherwise. For as it is said by the Prophet concerning the holy living creatures, that when a voice came from above the firmament which hung over their heads, they stood and let down their wings: so today everywhere on earth, when he speaks or treats of a matter, all spiritual men stand, yielding to him who goes before, and submit their own perceptions and understandings to his perceptions and understandings. [His writings bear witness to this, whether he himself wrote them, or others wrote them as they took them down from his mouth.] So greatly, then, do the marks of sacred virtues commend that holy Man to this day both with God and with men, testimonies of sanctity encompass him, and the charisms of the Holy Spirit make him illustrious; and — what is greater than all these and most difficult in human affairs — all these things seem to attend him without envy. And what restrains envy from him is that he is greater than all envy, inasmuch as the wickedness of the human heart often ceases to envy a man that to which it cannot aspire.

[77] even without envy. But he himself either mortifies all envy by the example of humility, or changes it for the better by the provocation of charity, or, if it be more wicked or more hardened, overwhelms it by the weight of his authority. For who is found today of so effective and affectionate a prudence for cherishing charity where it is, and for provoking it where it is not? So beneficent toward all whom he can help, so benevolent toward all, having so much graciousness toward friends, so much patience toward enemies? If indeed he could ever have any enemy, who never wished to be at enmity with any. For as friendship belongs only to two, and cannot be had save between two friends, so neither can enmity be had save perhaps between two enemies. For he who hates, or does not love one who loves him, is not so much an enemy as an iniquitous man. But he who, loving every man, never has an enemy by his own virtue, yet has sometimes something to suffer, since another's iniquity is at enmity with him without cause. But charity, which possesses him wholly, is patient, is kind, overcoming malice by wisdom, impatience by patience, pride by humility.

The end of the first book.

ANNOTATA.

In Horst there is added: of Paris,*

* elsewhere: somewhere

* that is, by disease

SUBSCRIPTION

to the preceding work, which, the author being dead, Burchard, abbot of Balerne, appended.

The authority and trustworthiness of William are praised. The foregoing Work, which was composed concerning the life of the most holy man Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, by the venerable William, formerly abbot of St. Thierry, but then already a monk of the monastery of Signy (to which, out of a desire for solitude and quiet, he had betaken himself), is known to have been drawn up down to the time of the schism stirred up against Pope Innocent by Peter Leonis. Now the special reason of writing for the aforesaid faithful man was the friendship and familiarity by which he had long been joined to the Man of God. Whence also he had found such favor with him that scarcely another was found more intimate for communicating the secrets of a mutual love, and for holding conferences upon spiritual mysteries. And the favor of that familiarity comes forth to manifestation up to now chiefly from this: that the same Saint wrote many letters to him, in which what he thinks of him plainly appears to those who read them. He also wrote to him the Apologeticum, and another book On Grace and Free Will. Yet William had a general reason for writing, stronger than the special one; namely, the profit of the whole Church of God, lest, when a vessel full of a desirable treasure is hidden away, the treasure itself be likewise hidden: whence not undeservedly does he complain who desires it to be set forth, saying: "A treasure unseen, and wisdom hidden — what profit is there in either?" This man sets forth the riches of salvation, the desirable treasure, lest there lie hidden with the clod that which is no clod, but a most precious pearl. Yet it befell him contrary to his desire that, as he had himself declared in his preface that he feared, being cut off by death he did not accomplish so much as he had conceived in mind to commit to his pen. And so he who comes to the reading of this Work will easily enough understand from how great a perfection the pious boy and religious Bernard, like another Benedict, entered upon the beginnings of his conversion — he who even in his mother's womb is seen to have received a signification * from which were conceived the presages of the future sanctity of his life and likewise of his teaching. What also he began to do when he had become a youth is narrated in the foregoing Work, and thereafter he is diligently portrayed up to the man of perfection, so far as (as has already been said) was permitted to a most excellent painter, but one cut off.

ANNOTATA.

* elsewhere: sanctification

BOOK THE SECOND,

by Arnald, abbot of Bonneval in the district of Chartres,

from the edition of Mabillon, column [ ] and following. *

By Arnald.

PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR.

[The biographer professes his own slenderness for writing the deeds of so great a Saint,] Not a few writers, extolling with praises the deeds of illustrious men, have celebrated them in solemn words, so far as the endeavors of an excellent talent and an eloquent tongue could reach. And when the treater and the Work are wedded in joined embraces by an equal covenant, and talent and eloquence have come together for the ordering of the proposed theme, the matter has gone prosperously, and the material, worthily and orderly disposed, has come with straight course into a quiet and tranquil harbor. But where the loftiness of the business, under an unskilled craftsman, is dashed shipwrecked upon the rocks, and, the dullness of his understanding giving way, the presumption of the treater grows weary, counsel is taken about correction too late: because what has been poured out among many can neither be recalled nor corrected, and it would be more graceful for the discordance between the writing and the deeds to be scraped away than amended. Reckoning and revolving these things with myself, therefore, altogether

I fear lest, as I myself am wont to be indignant at the imprudence of many who, though they lack knowledge and eloquence, are headlong to write, and, when they have blown their noses vehemently, draw blood — so I too, if I undertake what is above me, may expose myself to derision. For who am I, that I should aspire to write the deeds of the most holy man Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, who in our times flourished with a singular religion and teaching; whose fragrance, poured out, has filled the whole Church; whose grace, the Lord working, is declared by signs and miracles?

[80] How many lettered men, how many rhetoricians, where especially there are the men of Clairvaux, who could write them. how many philosophers have the schools of this world sent into his monastery unto a contemplative manner of life and divine morals? What discipline did not flourish there, where there were swarms of masters, and outstanding men distinguished by trained understanding, who, cleaving to divine studies, teach and kindle one another with many increases of graces? [Whose unanimous whole body sings the song of degrees, and ascending with Jacob to the summit of the ladder, sees God in his comeliness, resplendent with radiant crown.] Those men assuredly, to whom nothing is lacking in any grace, ought to have taken up this labor and to have engraved the memorials of the venerable Father, so that by their zeal there might be a delightful page which they should hand on, as it were living, to be read by their disciples, and it might become a perpetual consolation set beside the relics of his sacred body and speech. But the humility of Clairvaux is wont to emulate the lowest things, and such as lie hidden from men; and those noble men blush to bring forth into public any tokens of themselves, and contempt and abjection make them more tranquil than any proffer of dignity whatsoever, in which their profession of humility seems to them to be imperiled. For causes of this kind, keeping themselves within the hinges of silence, they delight more in the sackcloth of the desert than in the buskin of the palace; nor do they now seek glory in the pen, but in the cross. In this, therefore, as also in other matters of the sort, they willingly lay the burdens of their affairs upon others. And now that the lord William of venerable memory has been taken away, who faithfully and devoutly wrote the glorious beginnings of that same holy Man, the petition for this Work has come down to my littleness, and the charity of the beloved Church has laid it upon me that I should cook pottage for the sons of the prophets. Wherein, if through negligence I mix in wild gourds, Elisha (as I trust) will season it with a little meal cast in, and the affection of obedience will excuse the excesses of unwisdom.

* elsewhere: Arnald

* elsewhere: silk

In Horst there is added: bitterness*

CAPUT I.

The pontificate of Innocent II vindicated against Anacletus by the holy Man; the emperor Lothair restrained.

Book II.

Chapter I.

At that time Pope Honorius entered upon the way of all flesh ^a. And without delay, the Cardinals being at variance in the election, and the Church divided, To Pope Honorius some substitute Innocent; others Anacletus: the greater in number and the sounder in counsel, men approved in life, men of virtues, priests, deacons, bishops, elected Innocent, whose life and repute and age and learning were held worthy of the supreme priesthood. But the other party, strengthening their infamous daring by violence and not by reason, apart and precipitately named Peter Leonis, who aspired to this height, Anacletus, by fraudulent contrivances, and ordained him though the rest resisted. But those who were on the Catholic side placed their elect, solemnly ordained, upon the chair, and led him about through those places in which by ancient custom the Roman Pontiffs hold their sessions, and for the time the honor due to the Apostolic dignity was there. And then indeed they were staying about the Lateran palace, nor was a dwelling in their own houses now safe for them, since the satellites of Peter most fiercely harassed them. Not being able to hold out there long either, through certain of the Roman nobles who were confederated with them, they had refuges for a time in their towers. But not even in these did fidelity endure. For in a short time they were corrupted either by force, or by dread of the reckless multitude, or by a price. For Peter had so great a multitude, both by the power proper to his family and by the kinship of those who adhered to him, that almost the whole city followed him, being bound to him either by money or by advantages.

[82] the power of the one, his sacrilegious barbarism; the refuge of the other He had indeed gathered together innumerable riches, both from the exactions of the court and from the traffickings of legations, which he had reserved against the awaited fairs. Moreover a great heap of his father's wealth, sealed up until then, being now distributed among the people, had armed the venal populace for right and wrong alike. And when these had been paid out, he tore from the very altars the gifts of kings among the ornaments of the Church. And since those profane Christians either feared or blushed to break chalices and to cut up golden crucifixes limb by limb, they say that Jews were sought out, who might boldly shatter the sacred vessels and images dedicated to God. Accordingly each man, hired for the crime according to his measure, greater or less, publicly sold his assent to Peter with general oaths, and set forth their hands and their arms for every kind of bloodshed, and in daily encounters assailed with curses and with swords the party that was with Innocent ^b. The servants of God therefore took counsel, and because they could not defend themselves by human force, they chose to withdraw. And ships having been secretly procured, they slipped away out of the mouth of the Lion and out of the hand of the beast, through the Tiber into the Tyrrhenian sea, and with prosperous winds driving their sails they happily put in at the port of Pisa. [When the coming of such great men was heard, and the cause known for which they had gone out of the City, Pisa rejoiced that the glory of the Roman name was transferred to her, and that, while those men were engraving upon themselves the mark of perpetual infamy, for her there was being prepared the inscription of an eternal name and of enduring fame. There come out to meet him, therefore, both the men of honor and the consuls, and falling at the feet of the lord Pope, they give thanks that he had judged them worthy of so great an honor as to choose their city, which he deigned to make illustrious by his own presence.

[83] to the Pisans. "Thine is the city," they say, "we are thy people; at our own charges we serve thee; nay rather, for thy uses the commonwealth will lay out whatever it has stored with itself. Thou shalt find no duplicity in the Pisans: they will not now cleave and now spring back; now swear and now dissolve their oaths. This people gapes not after domestic plunderings and intestine slaughters. Our nation is not bold at home, nor timorous abroad. We are neither slaves nor lords, but fellow-citizens and brothers, going before one another in honor, not provoking one another with seditious ventures. At home we practice gentleness; our fortitude strangers often experience. We, having subdued the Carthaginians and subjugated the Balearic islands, triumphing by land and sea over pirates and turbulent men, have led their kings captive in chains into Pisa; and from their spoils and varied furnishings the crossways and squares are adorned at thy coming, and the rejoicing city is crowned ^c." After words of this kind, the people going forth to meet him, by reason of the innumerable multitude the way scarcely lay open to those who came; but proceeding step by step, the Cardinals afforded the longed-for sight of themselves to the matrons and maidens and little children looking out through the windows, and, blessings being extended on this side and that, the lord Pope with his company was gloriously conducted as far as the collegiate church of blessed Mary, and honorably received.]

[84] Messengers had been sent ahead by the lord Pope into Gaul before he went out of the city, In the synod of Étampes who should make known to the Gallican church the course of the dissension and schism made by Peter, and should exhort the bishops to gird themselves for the avenging of this presumption, and, the schismatic party being condemned, to subscribe to unity. But the tenor of the affair had not yet fully become known to the bishops, nor did any presume privately to lend his consent, until, a general assembly being gathered at Étampes ^d, they should determine in common what they should accept and what they should condemn. For never has France, though other regions be prone to schisms, been at any time defiled by such a faction *, nor has she acquiesced in the errors of the malignant; nor has she fabricated an idol in the Church, nor venerated a monster in the chair of Peter. For in such causes the edicts of princes have never terrified them, nor have they preferred private advantages to general benefits; nor, turning aside to a party, have they deferred to persons, but to causes. But if aught was needed, they bravely met persecutions, and feared neither losses nor exiles. A council therefore having been convoked at Étampes, the holy abbot of Clairvaux, Bernard, summoned expressly by the king of the Franks himself and by all the chief bishops, came, as he afterwards confessed, no little fearful and trembling, being not unaware of the peril and the weight of the business.

[85] Yet on the journey God consoled him, showing him in a vision of the night a great church concordantly singing together in the praises of God, with the highest authority Bernard pleads the cause of Innocent; whence he hoped that peace would without doubt come forth. But when they had come to the place, a fast having first been kept and prayers poured out to God, when the king and the bishops with the princes had sat down to treat of this same matter, the counsel of all was one, the judgment one: that the business of God should be laid upon the servant of God, and that the whole cause should hang upon his mouth. Which he, though fearing and trembling, yet acquiescing in the admonitions of faithful men, undertook; and having diligently gone through the order of the election, the merits of those elected, the life and repute of the one first elected, he opened his mouth, and the Holy Spirit filled it. One man therefore, speaking with the mouth of all, named Innocent as the supreme Pontiff to be received by all; and all alike acclaimed that it was ratified ^e. And praises being sung to God after the custom, and obedience thereafter promised, all alike subscribed to the election of Innocent.

[86] Meanwhile the lord Pope, having with authority disposed many things at Pisa and in Tuscany he is honorably received in Gaul, and by the king of England: and in other provinces, bidding the Pisans farewell and giving thanks, was carried by ship into Provence; and crossing Burgundy he came to Orléans, where, the bishops coming to meet him, he was cheerfully and honorably received by the most pious king of the Franks, Louis ^f. Thence he is conducted by Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres, a man of great virtues, to Chartres, where also the glorious king of the English, Henry ^g, came to meet him with a very great company of bishops and nobles. This king too the venerable Abbot, sent ahead to him, brought; whom he scarcely persuaded to receive Innocent, having been utterly dissuaded by the bishops of England. For when he kicked against it in every way and drew back, "What dost thou fear?" said he; "dost thou fear to incur sin if thou obey Innocent? Consider," said he, "how thou wilt answer God for thy other sins; leave this one to me, let this sin be upon me." Persuaded by this word, that so mighty king went out of his own land to meet the lord Pope as far as Chartres. [Many things were there said and done, and many secular and ecclesiastical affairs there settled.]

[87] [he is sought by the Germans; he holds the council of Reims; he is defended by the Saint against Lothair:] Meanwhile the legates of the lord Pope, returning from Germany, brought back the assent and letters both of the bishops and of the king, and a public entreaty that, crossing over to them, he would show them his longed-for presence. For they were easily persuaded to receive him whom the rest had already received. But the love and devotion of the Gallican church detained him;

and both singly and all together they sought the Apostolic visitation. Having therefore traversed France, he convoked a council at Reims ^h, in which, many things being disposed to the honor of God, he crowned Louis as king in place of his brother Philip ⁱ, while his father yet lived. In all these things the lord Pope did not suffer the Abbot to be separated from him, but he sat with the Cardinals over public affairs. And privately too, as many as had business consulted the Man of God more secretly. And he reported what he heard to the Curia, and afforded patronage to the oppressed. And so, the council being dissolved ^k, the lord Pope went to Liège to meet the king of the Romans. And he was indeed honorably received, but that serenity was quickly clouded over. For that same king importunately insisted, reckoning that he had an opportune time, that the investitures of bishops be restored to him, which the Roman Church had claimed from his predecessor the emperor Henry through very great labors indeed and many perils. At which word the Romans grew pale and were afraid, judging that they had met with a graver peril at Liège than they had escaped at Rome. Nor was counsel at hand, until the holy Abbot set himself as a wall. For boldly resisting the king, he refuted the malignant word with wondrous freedom, and restrained it with wondrous authority ^l.

[88] Innocent visits Clairvaux: And returning from Liège ^m, the lord Pope wished to visit Clairvaux in person. Where he was most affectionately received by the poor of Christ — not adorned with purple and fine linen, nor coming forth with gilded Gospel-books, but in ragged troops bearing a rough-hewn cross; not with the thunder of tumultuous trumpets, nor with clamorous jubilation, but with subdued chanting. The bishops wept, the supreme Pontiff himself wept; and all marveled at the gravity of that congregation, in that amid so solemn a joy the eyes of all were fixed upon the ground, nowhere carried about with wandering curiosity; but with closed eyelids they themselves saw no one, and were seen by all. The Roman saw nothing in that church which he could desire; no furnishing there solicited their gaze; in the oratory they saw nothing but bare walls. Ambition could gape after their morals only, nor could booty of this kind be harmful to the brothers, since religion could not be lessened by being carried off. All rejoiced in the Lord, and the solemnity was kept not with meats but with virtues. There was whole-meal bread ⁿ there for fine flour; boiled must for sweet wine, herbs for turbot; pulse was set out in place of any dainties whatsoever. If by chance a fish was found, it was set before the lord Pope, and served the company by the sight, not by the eating.

[89] The devil envied, and being unable to bear the glory of the servants of God, whom the presence of so great a guest ennobled, the devil's disturbances among the men of Clairvaux baffled. while they were chanting psalms briskly and devoutly in choir, some of the Cardinals also being present, who were delighted in the hearing and the sight of them, he troubled a number of the brothers with a horrible dread. For one, more possessed than the rest, spoke certain blasphemous words, saying, "Say, I am Christ"; and many others, terrified and trembling, fled to the feet of the blessed Father. But he, turning to the rest, said, "Pray"; and thereupon in silence he led out those who seemed disturbed, and restrained them: so that that most wicked one, who was attempting to turn an assembly of piety into a theater and a school of innocence into a mockery, could not, as he supposed, corrupt the good esteem of religious men, but betrayed himself, and found his attempts feeble. For all was quieted with such speed that what had happened was entirely hidden from those persons who stood near, and the malignant enemy, being swiftly rebuked, was not only unable to bring upon them the scandal which he was preparing, but could not even bring the matter to their notice. And it came to pass from that time that the brothers fortified themselves with an ampler guard, and that thereafter Clairvaux grew in merit and in number and in possessions, and, its Convents being multiplied, religion was spread abroad through almost the whole breadth of that region; the holy Abbot himself also from that time shining more than usual with miracles and signs.

ANNOTATA.

* elsewhere: at the reception of Guibert or of Burdinus

CAPUT II.

Illustrious deeds at the council of Pisa; the Milanese reconciled to the Church; miracles wrought among them.

II.

The lord Pope could not make long stays in Gaul, [Bernard is present with honor at the council of Pisa, which Innocent proclaimed against Anacletus:] but as he had agreed with king Lothair, he went to meet him at Rome; and by the force of an army he was conducted into the Lateran palace. Many also of the Roman nobles faithful to the Church received him honorably. But Peter Leonis, not making God his helper, but hedged about with the malice of his confederates, remaining in higher and safer towers, made mock of Lothair's power, and, forbidding his own men public encounters, neither exposed his own safety to peril nor gave his enemies cause of conflict; yet nevertheless he hindered their free movement by engines set above and by various obstacles. He most obstinately avoided also any parley with the Emperor, nor was he bent either by threats or by blandishments, nor did he admit the counsel of any person whatsoever concerning his own standing. Leaving Innocent therefore at Rome, the Emperor departs elsewhere. But Peter, after his departure, making frequent sallies through the City, gaped after the slaughter of the faithful. Innocent, therefore, understanding that a stay at Rome was at that time unfruitful for him, lest by his presence he should make more savage the rage of that beast, returns again to Pisa, and there, the bishops of the whole West and other religious men being gathered together, a synod of great glory is celebrated ^a. The holy Abbot was present throughout, both at the counsels and at the judgments and at all the definitions, and reverence was paid him by all, and priests kept watch before his threshold — not that pride, but that the multitude, forbade common access; and as some went out, others came in, so that the humble Man, arrogating nothing of these honors to himself, seemed to be not in a part of the solicitude, but in the fullness of power. It would be long to go through the acts of the council; yet the sum of it consisted in the excommunication of Peter and in the irrevocable deposition of his supporters, and to this day this sentence endures.

[91] The council being dissolved, the lord Pope sent from his side, to reconcile the Milanese, the Abbot of Clairvaux, [whom then the Milanese receive most eagerly, and are reconciled by him to the Church:] whom they had sought with many supplications, and Guy of Pisa, and Matthew, bishop of Albano ^b, who should wash away the schism made in that city by Anselm, and recall the wanderers to the unity of the Church. The Abbot therefore, with the aforesaid men whom he had received from the lord Pope as colleagues, added to their fellowship and common counsel the venerable man Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres, whose innocence and sincerity he had proved in many things. For it seemed good to the Cardinals that a business of such weight should be supported by so great a helper. And so the Apennines being crossed, when the Milanese heard that the longed-for Abbot was drawing near to their borders, the whole people goes out to meet him seven miles from the city: nobles, commoners, horsemen, footmen, men of middle station, poor men — as though they were migrating out of the city, they forsake their own hearths, and in separate companies receive the Man of God with incredible reverence. All alike are delighted at the sight of him; they judge themselves happy who can enjoy the hearing of him. All kiss his feet; and although he took this ill, by no means could he restrain them as they bent down in devotion, by no interdict repel them. They even plucked what threads they could from his garments, and drew off something from the shreds of his cloth as remedies for diseases, judging that everything holy which he had touched, and that they themselves were sanctified by the touch or the use of these things. And so, going before and following after, they applauded the Abbot with joyful acclamations, and, when he had been long detained amid the throngs of the crowd, at length restored him to a solemn lodging. And when the business had been treated of in public for which both the Man of God and the Cardinals had come, the city, forgetting its own strength, all its ferocity being laid aside, so prostrated itself before the Abbot that to their obedience that little verse of the Poet might not unfittingly be applied:

To follow thy commands — I must alike both will and be able.

[92] All things being pacified, the church reconciled, the covenants of concord confirmed among the people, there he puts demons to flight from the possessed, other affairs began to arise; and against the devil raging and running riot in certain possessed bodies the standard of Christ was set, and, the Man of God rebuking, a more eminent power coming upon them, the demons fled terrified and trembling from the courts they had possessed. Behold a new legation, not carrying about a Roman document, but alleging by divine laws the document of faith, letters being brought forward written in the blood of Christ and stamped with the seal of the Cross, which figure by its own authority subdues and bends to itself things earthly and infernal. Unheard of in our times is so great a faith of a people, so great a power in a man; between whom there was a religious contention, since the Abbot ascribed the glory of the signs to their believing, but they to the sanctity of the Abbot, and held this of him without doubting: that whatever he asked of the Lord, he obtained. They bring to him therefore, with no hesitation, a woman known to all, whom an unclean spirit had vexed for seven years; and they beg as suppliants that in the name of the Lord he command the demon to flee, and restore health to the woman. Which faith of the people brought no small shamefastness upon the Man of God; and, humility being his mistress, he did not presume to attempt unaccustomed things, and he blushed at the people's insistent petition if he should more obstinately resist the charity of those who asked; and it seemed to him that he would offend God, and would seem to becloud his omnipotence with diffidence, if his own faith should dissent from the faith of the people.

[93] and he frees a woman possessed, with wondrous applause of the people: He was in a ferment therefore within himself; and although he asserted that signs ought to be wrought not for believers but for unbelievers, he commits his ventures to the Holy Spirit, and applying himself to prayer, by a power gliding down from heaven he rebukes Satan in the spirit of fortitude and puts him to flight, and renders the woman whole and quiet. Those who were present rejoice, and lifting their hands to the stars, give thanks to God, who visited them from on high. This word was heard, and the report spread abroad, and suddenly struck the whole city; through the churches, through the courts, and through all the crossways they come together from every side; everywhere there is talk of the Man of God; they say publicly that nothing is impossible to him which he asks of the Lord, and they say and believe, proclaim and affirm, that the ears of God are open to his prayers. Nor can they in any way be satisfied with the sight or the hearing of him. Some rush into his presence; others wait before the doors until he come out. Business and crafts came to a stop; the whole city hangs in suspense upon this spectacle; they run together, they ask to be blessed; and to have touched him seems to each one a salvation.

[94] while celebrating the divine mysteries, he cures a girl vexed by the devil, On the third day the Servant of God goes forth to the church of St. Ambrose to celebrate the divine mysteries; where, an innumerable multitude of people awaiting him, in the very solemnities of the Mass, while he sat beside the altar as the clerics sang, they offer him a little girl whom the devil was vexing with a vehement onset, and pray that he succor the poor child and crush the devil raging in her. Having heard the supplication of the bystanders, and having looked upon the person gnashing and grinding her teeth, so that she was a horror even to those who looked on, he had compassion on her age, and grieved with her at the vehemence of her anguish. He takes therefore the paten of the chalice in which he was about to celebrate the divine mysteries, and, a little water being poured over his fingers, praying within himself and trusting in the power of the Lord, he applies to the girl's mouth the healthful draught, and pours into her body the medicinal drop. And without delay, as though Satan were burned, he could not bear the power of that infusion, but, the antidote of the cross urging him within, going out in haste he burst forth trembling in a most filthy vomit. The person being thus cleansed, the devil having fled and been confounded, the church sings due praises to God, and after joyful acclamations the eager people remains there unmoving until the divine mysteries be completed. And so, in the sight of all, the girl is led home whole by her own people, and the Man of God, dismissed at length with difficulty by the people, returns to his lodging.

[95] whose license he also represses among the Milanese: By the judgment of God at that time in Milan, according to the word of Isaiah, hairy ones cried out one to another, and demons met with onocentaurs, and harassed very many with unbridled inroads; nor was there any to resist their insolence, since long under the schism of Anselm ^c — who, a supporter of Peter, had occupied the see of Milan — groaning priests, squalid virgins, accursed sanctifications, a polluted altar, had provoked the wrath of God against the people. But at the coming of the Man of God, the impostures of Anselm being renounced, and the church recalled to the obedience of the Apostolic See under Innocent, that license of the demons was impeded, and daily gave way; and at the prayers of the Man of God the devil fled; and if ever he attempted to resist, succumbing in the very conflict he was the more gloriously overcome.

III.

[96] Among those, therefore, who were vexed, an aged woman, a citizen of Milan against the malignant spirits by the sign of the cross, and once an honored matron, was dragged by many after the blessed Man as far as the church of blessed Ambrose: in whose breast the devil had sat for many years, and had already so choked her that, deprived of sight and hearing and speech, gnashing her teeth and putting out her tongue after the manner of an elephant's trunk, she seemed a monster and not a woman. Her filthy face, her terrible countenance, her fetid breath, bore witness to the foulness of the Satan who dwelt in her. When the Man of God had looked upon her, he knew that the devil clung to her and was stuck fast in her *, and would not easily go out of the house which he had possessed so long a time. Turning to the people, of whom an innumerable multitude was present, he bids them pray more attentively, and, the clerics and monks standing with him beside the altar, he bids the woman be set there and held. But she, struggling and kicking back with a diabolical, not a natural, force, struck the Abbot himself with her foot, not without injury to others also. Which daring of the devil he meekly disregarded; and for the casting out he invokes God as his helper, not with the indignation of anger, but with peaceable and humble supplication, and approaches the immolation of the saving Victim. Yet as often as he signs that same sacred Victim, so often, turning also to the woman, the strong Athlete assails the wicked spirit by making the same sign of the cross.

[97] For that malignant one too, as often as the sign of the cross is directed against him, showing himself stricken, rages more sharply, and kicking against the goad, unwillingly betrays what he is enduring. he works wonders by the body of Christ and by the sacrifice of the Mass. But the Lord's Prayer being ended, the blessed Man assails the enemy more effectually. For placing the sacred Body of the Lord upon the paten of the chalice, and setting it upon the woman's head, he spoke thus: "Thy judge is here, wicked spirit; the highest power is here; now resist, if thou canst. Here is he who, about to suffer for our salvation, said: 'Now shall the prince of this world be cast out.' This is that Body which was taken from the body of the Virgin, which was stretched upon the stock of the cross, which lay in the tomb, which rose from death, which in the sight of the disciples ascended into heaven. In the terrible power, therefore, of this majesty I command thee, malignant spirit, that going out from this handmaid of his, thou presume not thereafter to touch her." And when, forsaking her unwillingly and unable to remain longer, he afflicted her more atrociously, having wrath as great as his time was short, the holy Father, returning to the altar, duly completed the breaking of the saving Victim, and gave to the minister the peace to be spread among the people; and forthwith peace and entire health were restored to the woman. Thus that wicked one showed, compelled not by confession but by flight, of how great efficacy and power the divine mysteries are. The devil being put to flight, the woman, whom that pestilent butcher had for so long a time fried in the frying-pan of such torments, being made mistress of her mind, her senses restored together with her reason, her tongue rolled back within her jaws, confessed God and gave thanks, and, beholding her healer, fell at his feet. A huge cry is raised through the church, every age jubilates to God, the bells resound, God is blessed by all, veneration exceeds measure, and the city, melted with charity, venerates the Servant of God above a man, if it be lawful so to speak.

[98] These things which were being done at Milan were heard of, and the report of the Man of God ran through all Italy, The celebrity of his name through all Italy. and it was published everywhere that a great Prophet had arisen, mighty in work and word, who, the name of Christ being invoked, both cured the sick and freed those beset by demons. Very great indeed was his grace in the curing of sicknesses, but in the expelling of demons his working was more frequent; because a more copious number of the vexed ran together to the proven remedies, and the working of the greater powers obscured the lesser effects. And now, by reason of the throng of the people, who sat at his doors from morning until evening, not enduring the pressure of the crowd because of the feebleness of his body, coming forth to the windows of the house he offered himself to be looked upon by them, and with hand uplifted blessed them. They also brought loaves and water with them, which, being set beneath his blessing, they carried away as sacramental benefits. Indeed from the neighboring castles and villages and cities many had flowed together; and it was the common zeal at Milan both of strangers and of citizens to follow the Saint, to seek a benefit, to hear his word, to see a sign; and they were delighted with his teaching and his miracles beyond what is credible.

[99] Besides the demoniac boy, There was among them a certain man from the suburbs, who had brought thither a boy possessed by a demon. He suddenly, in the sight of all, at the sign of the cross which the holy Man made, fell from the arms of his bearer, and, dashed upon the ground, was seen motionless as one dead and without any sense; neither voice nor breath was in him; only about his breast a slight warmth remained to him. The rest therefore give place, so that the bearer of the half-dead boy might be able to come forward and be admitted to the Man of God; and the astonished multitude awaited the outcome of so pitiable a mishap. The man therefore entered in to the Man of God, and laid the boy, stupefied and feeling nothing, before the feet of the Abbot; and he said: "This boy, lord Father, whom I have set before thy feet, has now for three years been most fiercely vexed by a demon; and as often as he either enters a church and is sprinkled with exorcised salts, or the sign of the cross is laid upon him, or he is compelled to hear the Gospel, or is present at the divine sacraments, the devil who dwells in him is offended and is tormented more atrociously. And while I was just now waiting with the rest before the doors, as thou didst form the sign of the holy cross and stretch out thy hand over the peoples, the devil, exasperated by the power of the sacramental signs, betook himself wholly, more vehemently than usual, to the vexing of the boy, and, as thou seest, occupying his whole body, nearly shuts off from him even the breath of life. But the boy himself too, when the report of the grace which thou hast received from God had been heard among us, hoping for his own healing from the cures of others, asked me to bring him to thee. I beseech thee therefore, by the mercy of God, that with thy pious and accustomed affection thou succor both my labors — I who spend upon his keeping a ruinous and perilous toil — and his misery, which is as great as thou thyself provest with thine eyes; and that thou restrain the madness of the demon

and not suffer it to go forward altogether." He wept therefore, and with face bathed in tears moved all who were present, so that all alike made supplication.

[100] whom he restores whole, Then the Man of God, bidding them trust in the mercy of God, gently touches the boy's neck with the staff upon which he leaned. And his brother Gerard too, wishing to test what had been said by the man, secretly impressed the sign of the cross upon his back. And whereas he had before lain long stretched upon the pavement before the feet of the Abbot without motion or feeling, neither seeing nor hearing, at the touch of the staff and at the sign of the cross he roared and, being troubled, groaned. The Abbot therefore bids him be laid upon his own little bed. But he, as if offended by an injury, cast himself back upon the pavement, and gnashed his teeth, and bit his keeper, and laying hands on the hair of those who were present, with what effort he could he tried to drag himself out of their hands, and could scarcely be held by them. "Come," said the Abbot, "bring him back to our bed." And so, the Abbot praying and the brothers prostrate in prayer, as though the devil were burned by the burning straw contained in the bed, he testified with cries to the suffering of a seething torment, the divine power drawing near. The holy Man therefore bids blessed water be poured into the mouth of the sufferer. Which he, with lips and teeth pressed together, would not admit; at length scarcely, a wedge being driven in to loosen the pressure, willing or unwilling he received it within his jaws and throat. And forthwith, as the penetrating sanctification went down to his inward parts, as though an antidote had been infused the malignant force burst out, and in a most filthy vomit, as at the rush of a torrent, the demon, whirled about in headlong haste, went out with huge reproach. Suddenly he who seemed dead lives, and rising quiet and whole from the Abbot's bed, and embracing his protector *, "Thanks be to God," said he, "I am well." All together give thanks to God, and those who a moment before were weeping rejoice. The cry pours out of doors; the deed done within is solemnly proclaimed upon the housetops; the whole city comes together to the spectacle; God is blessed, the people rejoice, and the affection of the whole populace rests upon the Abbot as the accomplisher of so great a work.

[101] The same Saint, laying his hands upon many who were fevered, various benefits of healing and offering them blessed water to drink, obtained health for them; touching withered hands and limbs loosened by palsy, he restored them to soundness; the blind also, upon the testimony of many, he mightily obtained from the Father of lights in that same city that they should see, the sign of the cross being laid upon them. About the same time he had entered the lodging of the bishop of Albano *, whom the lord Pope had given him as colleague in that same legation, for the sake of treating of affairs; and they were conferring upon the matters which had been enjoined them, when suddenly there rushed in upon them a youth whose hand was withered and twisted back to the arm; and falling at his feet he suppliantly asks for health. He, being otherwise occupied, blessed him indeed, and bade him go away, and with words severer than usual forbade him to trouble him further. He was withdrawing without having obtained what he had sought, when the venerable bishop bids him return with all speed, and, seizing him by the hand, delivers him to the Abbot. "To this man," said he, "who, though he obtained no benefit, obeyed thee in departing, do not thou shut up the bowels of mercy; nay rather do thou obey, and, bound by the virtue of obedience at my command, do what he asks, bestow what he seeks; and trusting in the power of him through whom he seeks health, ask and thou shalt obtain, that both we may glory in the gift of God, and he in the health he desires."

[102] At the bishop's command the Abbot, taking the boy's hand, called upon the Lord, he confers upon others. and he heard him; and the sign of the cross being made, the sinews which had stiffened were stretched out, and the flesh which a persistent * disease had frozen, its native soundness returning, was made mobile and flexible, and quicker than the word the long-languishing limb grew strong. The bishop was astounded, marveling at the effect of so sudden a power, and from that time honored the Man of God with a still ampler veneration, and himself became both a witness and a reporter of his miracles. And he compelled him to sup there that night. Whose consent to this he obtained with great difficulty, persuaded only by this reasoning: that an insupportable crowd of people was waiting on every side, and it did not seem possible for him to go out without danger. But during supper the bishop delivered the dish out of which the Abbot had eaten to a servant of his household to be kept, and charged him to keep it laid aside apart with all diligence. Some days having thereafter elapsed, the same bishop is seized with the violent burning of a fever. And remembering the Man of God, he bids the servant of his household be summoned. "The dish of the Abbot," said he, "which I lately delivered to thee to be kept — delay not to bring it hither." And when he had brought and presented it, "Pour water into it," said he, "and cut up small morsels of bread." And when this was done, trusting in the Lord and commending himself to the Abbot's prayers, he ate and drank, and without any delay grew well.

[103] The number of those coming increased, and his wondrous works invited the peoples to him; nor anywhere was rest given to the Man of God, while out of his weariness others procured rest for themselves. Those arriving met those departing, and there followed one another men begging for benefits. Among whom a certain knight brought to the Man of God in his arms a little girl who so hated the light that, her eyelids being always closed, she would even set her arm before her eyes, lest in any way some particle of light should force itself upon her. Sometimes the arms she set before them were violently drawn away, and when the light poured itself upon her she cried and wept, and brightness was to her a torment, and the light she saw fixed as it were goads in her brain. The Man of God blesses the little child, and making the little sign of the cross over her, sends her away more tranquil; and while she is being carried home, of her own accord she opens her eyes, and returns on her own feet without a bearer. And in that same place the same Saint obtained from the Father of mercies health for a woman vexed by a demon, many standing by. ^d

ANNOTATA.

* elsewhere: embedded in her flesh

* elsewhere: accomplished

* Matthew

* elsewhere: trusting

CAPUT III.

Demoniacs cured at Pavia and elsewhere; the Saint greatest in the eyes of others by his deeds, least in his own; his contempt of dignities; his return to the monastery of Clairvaux; its removal to another site.

IV.

He had now come to Pavia ^a, and the fame of his virtues had gone before his arrival, and the city with due joy and preparation received the rejoicing Man of so great glory. And lest delay should long hold in suspense the desire of the people, St. Bernard comes to Pavia; who, as they had heard of the miracles done at Milan, desired to see a sign from him, there suddenly arrived after him a certain countryman who had followed him from Milan, bringing with him his demoniac wife, whom he laid down before his feet, protesting with tearful voice his inward anguish. And without delay, to the reproach of the Abbot, the devil spoke through the mouth of the wretched woman, and mocking the Servant of God said: "This fellow, eating his little leeks and devouring his cabbages, will not drive me out of my little bitch." He hurled many taunts of this sort against the Man of God, that, being provoked by blasphemies, he might bear the reproaches impatiently and be confounded in the presence of the people, hearing himself assailed with unworthy speeches. But the Man of God, understanding his craftiness, mocked the mocker, and not himself seeking vengeance but remitting it to God, ordered the demoniac to be led to the church of St. Syrus. For he wished to give the glory of that healing to the Martyr, and that the firstfruits of these workings should be ascribed to his power. But holy Syrus sent the business back to his guest, and, taking nothing to himself in his own church, willed that the work should be brought back untouched to the Abbot. The woman is brought back therefore to the Abbot's lodging, the devil chattering through her mouth and saying: "Little Syrus shall not cast me out, little Bernard shall not expel me." To which the Servant of God answered: "Neither Syrus nor Bernard shall cast thee out, but the Lord Jesus Christ." And turning himself to prayer, he besought the Lord for the woman's healing.

[105] But then the wicked spirit, as if his former insolence were changed, where a wondrous command over the demons said: "How gladly would I go out of this little bitch, being grievously troubled in her — how gladly would I go out! But I cannot." Being asked the cause, "Because the great Lord does not yet will it," he says. To whom the Saint: "And who is the great Lord?" And he: "Jesus of Nazareth." To whom again the Man of God: "Whence then dost thou know Jesus, or hast thou ever seen him?" "I have seen him," he says. "Where hast thou seen him?" "In glory." "And hast thou been in glory?" "I have indeed." "And how didst thou go out thence?" "With Lucifer," he says, "many of us fell." And all these things he spoke with a mournful voice through the mouth of the old woman, all hearing. And when the holy Abbot answered, "Wouldst thou not then wish to return into that glory, and to be restored to thy former joy?" — again with changed voice, and laughing in a wondrous manner, "That," said he, "is too late *." And speaking nothing further, as the Man of God prayed more attentively, that most wicked one departed vanquished, and the woman, restored to herself, gave what thanks she could. The man therefore returns with the woman, and rejoicing all the way at her soundness, is restored to his home, his friends awaiting him. All rejoiced who heard the course of the deed; but suddenly the joy is turned into mourning: for when the woman touched the threshold of her house, the devil enters her again, and, more hostile than before, tears the wretched creature more atrociously.

[106] The wretched husband knew not what to do, nor whither to turn himself. the command To dwell with a demoniac seemed most troublesome, to forsake her impious. He rises therefore, and taking the woman with him returns again to Pavia. Where, when he had not found the Man of God, he follows him as he departed as far as Cremona ^b. He tells what has been done, and tearfully entreats that he may find favor. Nor is the Abbot's clemency wanting to a pious petition; but he charges that he enter the church of that city, and before the bodies of the Confessors wait in prayer until he himself follow. And so, mindful of his promise, about the twilight of the night, while the rest went to sleep, he himself, with only one attending him, enters the church, and giving himself to prayer all that night, obtained from the Lord what he asked; and health being procured for the woman, he bids her return in security to her own home. But when she dreaded the devil's return to her, as she had already experienced, he ordered a little paper to be tied about her neck containing these words: "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ I command thee, demon, that thou presume not from henceforth to touch this woman." At which command the devil was so terrified that he never afterwards presumed to draw near the woman when she had returned home.

[107] he exercises; There was also in that same city a certain demoniac whose affliction moved many to laughter, while others, who were of severer mind, had compassion on him with a most kindly affection. He barked in such a way that if you heard him and did not see the person, you would think him a dog. When the Man of God, on his being presented to him, had heard him barking, he groaned; and he barked in that manner in which dogs struck or overwhelmed are wont to be angry and to snarl * at those who strike them. And in the presence of the Man of God, panting and barking, he was more sharply troubled than usual. And so, the devil being rebuked and cast out in the power of Christ, he commands the man to speak. The man, cleansed, enters the church, is present at the sacraments, fortifies himself with the sign of the cross, hears the Gospels, confesses and prays, and renders and consecrates to God the other duties of a sound mind.

[108] as also at Milan. When the holy Father passed a second time through Milan in that same year, a demoniac woman was offered to him. For she was absent at that time when the Man of God first made illustrious the aforesaid city with his presence. Her a demon possessed, which spoke now in the Italian, now in the Iberian tongue; nor was it sufficiently certain whether there was one that was bilingual, or two, each using the idiom of his own speech; but so properly did it sound now this way, now that, that you would say: "This one who speaks is a Ligurian ; this one a Spaniard." She was also disturbed by an affliction of the knees and a trembling of the hams. When she had been brought to the Man of God, with a swift leap she sprang over the bench on which she was sitting with unlooked-for speed. Being brought back and asked what her leap and her flight meant, and whence so great strength and swiftness had come to a sick old woman, she answered that this agility was in her from the presence of the devil, so that she could catch running horses and leap upon their backs without any support. On the following day, while she was present in church at the divine Offices which he was celebrating, she was most cruelly and very long vexed before them all. The Abbot, having compassion on the woman, having already often experienced God's clemency in such cases, commands the devil to depart. He at the command of the Servant of God vanished trembling; and the woman recovered in a moment not only from the vexation, but also from the contraction of her sinews. These and many other things the Man of God wrought while he was within the Alps; and traversing divers places, he did good to those who were sick, giving light to the blind, raising up the weak, curing the fevered, and with especially diligent zeal cleansing those oppressed by the devil; and the breasts which the malignant spirit had defiled he consecrated as temples acceptable to God.

[109] In such great matters he bears himself most humbly: Now very many praiseworthy and commendable things concur in him. For some marvel at his teaching, some at his character, some at his miracles. I indeed pay to all these their fitting honor; but above all, so far as in me lies, I reckon this the more sublime, this I proclaim the more earnestly: that, whereas he was a vessel of election, and bore the name of Christ undaunted before nations and kings; whereas the princes of the world obeyed him, and at his nod the bishops in every nation stood; whereas the Roman Church herself venerated his counsels with a singular privilege, and, as though a general legation had been granted him, had subjected to him nations and kingdoms; whereas also — what is judged more glorious — his deeds and words were confirmed by miracles: never did he go beyond himself, never did he walk above himself in marvels; but always thinking humbly of himself, he believed himself not the author but the minister of those venerable works; and while by the judgment of all he was highest, in his own judgment concerning himself he stood lowest. Whatever he did he ascribed to God alone; nay, he both felt and said that he could neither will nor do any good save by God inspiring and working. But the divine power was present in the accepted time and in the day of salvation, setting apart unto his Gospel his Servant, whose humility he had regarded, whose soul the Holy Spirit had adorned; and because no duplicity stained his sincerity, nor did any sprinkling of falsity interrupt his good, that same spirit remained immovable in its place.

[110] Who, that he might always be brighter and purer, was daily tried in the furnace; weak in flesh, he is ready in spirit, and rejects dignities: and lest any rust creep upon him, he was beaten on the anvil with frequent blows of hammers, was scourged and reproved, not unto punishment for a crime, but unto glory for virtue. Never was the goad of sickness lacking to him. And since he knew that strength is made perfect in weakness, he found grace sufficient for himself in this: that he saw all his own extraordinary impulses, however slight, filed away by the file of that daily affliction. The flesh indeed was weak, but the spirit ready; and the less he could delight himself in the body, the more he delighted in the Lord; nor was he assailed by any ambition of this world, who gaped only after heavenly things. How many churches bereft of their pastors chose him for their bishop? The church of Langres near at hand chose him; the church of Châlons chose him. Within Italy the city of Genoa, and Milan, metropolis of Liguria, desired him as their pastor and master. Reims, the most noble city of France, head of the province of Belgica Secunda, sought his rule. All these calls being set aside, the honor offered did not solicit his soul; nor was his foot moved to incline himself to glory; nor did the mitre and the ring delight him more than the rake and the hoe.

[111] Neither ever consenting to those who sought him, nor refusing insolently or churlishly, he used to say that he was not his own, but assigned to the service of others. The zeal of the men of Clairvaux in keeping their Father with them. Which matter, when it was reported to the brothers, they answered: "We, having sold all that we possessed, have bought the precious pearl we found; we cannot return to patrimonies made away with. But if both the price and what was bought with it shall have perished for us, and we shall have been deprived both of our substance and of the pearl, ill has our expectation been provided for, if, our oil being poured out, we should beg like the foolish virgins before shut doors." The brothers had also, by the counsel of the most holy man, provided for themselves, and were fortified by the authority of the lord Pope, that no one should be able to take their joy from them, and that the consolation of others should become their tribulation, and their own want should heap up another's fullness. By these and other reasonings the servants of God had beaten off the petitioners; and it was already published everywhere that the Abbot was so appointed by God in the Church as Moses was among the people of the Hebrews, who, though he was not high priest, yet anointed and consecrated Aaron as high priest; and the whole Levitical succession at every time obeyed his dispositions.

[112] He had now crossed the Alps ^c; and there came down from the highest crags to meet him shepherds and herdsmen and a rustic sort of men, and they cried out from afar, Returning from Italy, he is received by the men of Clairvaux: asking his blessing, and they crept back through the gorges of the mountains, returning to their folds, speaking to one another and rejoicing that they had seen the Holy One of the Lord, and, his hand being stretched out over them, had received the grace of the blessing they desired. At length coming to Besançon ^d, he is solemnly conducted as far as Langres ^e, about which borders the brothers of Clairvaux come to meet him: falling upon their knees, they rise to kisses, and speaking with him in turn, they conduct him eagerly to Clairvaux. The brothers are present, gathered together into one, and receive their beloved Father with wondrous devotion. Their gladness is kept without tumult, with all gravity. Their brighter faces indeed could not dissemble their cheerfulness, but the chastened measure of their actions and words did not overpass its proper bounds, and their very affections restrained themselves, lest they should do anything wherein a mark of dissoluteness should offend the maturity of religion. During so long an absence of the Abbot the devil could weave nothing at Clairvaux, nor meanwhile did he rub any rust upon their sincere minds; nor in any part was the house of God, founded upon the rock, moved. So had the Servant of God, absent in body but present in spirit, fortified and made firm his work by the instancy of prayers, that not even any crack seemed to gape in so great constructions.

[113] among whom, in his absence, religious discipline flourished: No lawsuits were kept for his coming; no hatreds fostered burst out in the presence of the judge. The younger alleged nothing against the elder concerning austerity or harshness; the elder nothing against the younger concerning any dissoluteness or laxity. The state of all was entire, their fellowship concordant, their unity true; all were found of one manner of life in the house of God, in peace and holiness, ascending Jacob's ladder and hastening to the sight of God, whose delightful aspect stood forth on high. And so the Abbot, not unmindful of him who said, "I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven," was the more humble and the more subject to God, the more he understood that God was favorably present to his desires. Nor did he glory in himself for this, that the demons were subject to him; but rather he rejoiced in the Lord that he saw the names of his brothers written in heaven, whose unanimity kept them unspotted from this world.

[114] he does not approve the plan of transferring the monastery to a more ample site; His venerable brothers were with him in his counsels; there was Geoffrey, Prior of that place, his kinsman in flesh and in spirit, a man wise and constant, who also, by the merit of his religion and prudence, being afterwards ^f made bishop in the church of Langres, and retaining the form of sanctity, and not diminishing the honor of the dignity in which he is, to this day ^g praiseworthily perseveres in his going in and going out. He therefore and many other provident men, solicitous for the common profit, sometimes compelled the Man of God, whose conversation was in heaven, to come down, and set before him what the necessity of the house required. And so they suggest to him that the site in which they had settled was narrow and inconvenient, and not capable of so great a multitude; and that since the number of those coming increased daily in troops, they could not be received within the buildings that had been constructed, and the oratory scarcely sufficed for the monks alone. They add also that they had considered a suitable level place lower down, and the convenience of the river which flows down below, and that there was a spacious place there for all the necessities of a monastery — for meadows, for farms, for thickets and vineyards; and that if an enclosure of woodland should seem to be lacking, this could easily be supplied with stone walls, of which there is a huge abundance there. At first the Man of God did not acquiesce in the counsel. "You see," said he, "that with much expense and sweat the stone buildings ^h have now been completed, and the aqueducts brought at the greatest cost through each of the offices. If we break down all these, men of the world will be able to think ill of us, either that we are fickle and changeable, or that excessive riches — which nevertheless we do not have — make us mad. And since it is most certain to you that we have no monies in hand, I say to you in the Gospel word that he who is about to build a tower must reckon the expenses of the coming work; otherwise, when he has begun and has failed, it will be said: 'This foolish man began to build, and could not finish.'"

[115] To this the brothers answer: "If, when those things are finished which pertain to the monastery, the dwellers

God had ceased to send, the judgment could stand, and it would be a reasonable verdict that we should cease from the works. But now, since God daily multiplies his flock, either those whom he sends must be driven away, or a dwelling must be provided in which they may be received. Nor is there any doubt that he who prepares dwellers prepares dwellings. But far be it that through mistrust of the funds we should incur the hazards of this confusion." Hearing these things, the Abbot was delighted with their faith and charity, and at length at last acquiesced in their counsels; yet not until he had first poured out very many prayers to God upon this matter, and certain revelations too had been shown beforehand. The brothers rejoiced when the word was poured out in public.

[116] The most noble prince Theobald of holy memory ⁱ heard this, Theobald and others supplying the funds. and gave much toward the expenses, and promised ampler subsidies. The bishops of the regions heard, and renowned men, and the merchants of the land, and with cheerful mind, without any exactor, of their own accord bestowed copious support upon the work of God. Funds abounding, and workmen being speedily hired, the brothers themselves applied themselves to the works throughout: some cut timber, others squared stones, others built walls ^k, others, marking out channels, divided the river and raised leaps of water for the mills; but fullers too and bakers and tanners and smiths and other craftsmen fitted engines suitable to their own works, so that a stream, drawn through subterranean channels, might gush out and come forth of its own accord in every building, wherever it was convenient; and at length, the appropriate services being performed through all the offices, and the house cleansed, the waters that had been dispersed returned to the main channel and rendered the river its own quantity again. With unlooked-for speed the walls were completed, embracing most spaciously the whole circuit of the monastery. The house rose up, and as though it had a living and moving soul, the newly born church in a short time advanced and grew.

ANNOTATA.

* elsewhere: slow

* elsewhere: to growl

* that is, Spanish

* that is, a Lombard, or an Insubrian

CAPUT IV.

The schism of Aquitaine composed; a woman wondrously freed from an incubus demon; the Song of Songs expounded.

VI.

At that time ^a the whole church of Bordeaux ^b labored under the oppression of the schismatics; [William, prince of Aquitaine, fosters the schism, as does also the bishop of Angoulême,] and there was no one in Aquitaine who could resist the prince, whose mind God had hardened; who, with the assent of Gerard, bishop of Angoulême ^c, and with his instilling into his heart the seeds of dissension, was made the defender and author of the schism. Whosoever did not subscribe to the reception of Peter Leonis, being exposed to persecutions, were punished some by losses, some by proscriptions; others, driven from their own sees, were compelled to go into exile. That old hand hissed in the ears of that Count with frequent persuasions *, like the ancient serpent — he who had long been Legate of the Apostolic See in those parts, and now, cast down from so great a magistracy, could not endure to be bishop of his own church alone, who had seen himself prince and master of all Aquitaine. For he blushed to return to his first house, to whose power the provinces of Tours and Bordeaux and Auch had been subject, and whatever the Ocean embraces and encloses from the hills of the Iberians ^d as far as the Loire ^e had obeyed his command. Accustomed therefore to plunder provinces, and under the title of justice to make gain of causes arising, he had gathered together boundless monies, which were to him an idol and an image of apostasy. And so, seeing that the authority of his exactions had perished for him, and that his house alone, which lately had been thronged with many outcries, now lacked treasuries; bearing impatiently that his hands were not filled with gifts, a man of serpentine cunning, he hastily sent to Peter Leonis, that he might grant him the legation, and he himself would obey him with sworn fealty; and moreover would bend the prince of the land, and whomsoever else he could, to his command. The son of perdition rejoiced, because he thought he had found a place in which to spread abroad his malice, and quickly assented; and readily also, in confirmation of the error, he speedily delegated to him Gilo, Cardinal bishop of Tusculum ^f, who alone of the Romans, with Peter bishop of Porto ^g, had adhered to him.

[118] who corrupts him and wins him over. Moreover Gerard himself, who before grieved that he was maimed, took up his horns again, and thereafter began to appear more secure and more bold. For — what he had not done before — he went forth publicly in his mitre, that the very insignia of the sacred office might claim for him a fuller reverence among the peoples. He assails the Count therefore with much money, invades his soul with poisoned reasonings, and easily seduces and corrupts a ready man. First of all William, bishop of the city of Poitiers ^h, an honorable man, a Catholic man, steadfast in the fellowship and defense of the universal Church, is violently expelled, and by Gerard and his helper the Cardinal ⁱ is condemned, because he disowned Peter. There were other private causes too, on account of which the Count, hostile to him for a long time, occasion being given, most gladly persecutes and forswears him. And it seemed good both to Gerard and to the Count that for the confirming of their party they should without delay create a bishop at Poitiers. And they found an ambitious man ^k, noble indeed in family, but degenerate in faith; whom, that they might put his family also on their side in the cause, they elected, certain of the clergy consenting; and laying profane hands upon him, they not so much anointed as contaminated his execrable head. A monster like this they set up in the church of Limoges, a certain Ramnulf, abbot of Le Dorat ^l, whom not long after the divine vengeance overtook: for, falling backward from his horse on a level road, with only one avenging stone, which had been left there for this purpose, driven into his head, and his brain shattered, he expired.

[119] Hearing these and such things, the venerable man Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres, [The bishop of Chartres succors the Church, taking Bernard with him: who frees a woman,] to whom the legation of Aquitaine had been committed by Pope Innocent, grieved vehemently, and resolved, other affairs being set aside, that the imperiled Church must be succored without any delay. He therefore asks and beseeches the Abbot of Clairvaux to come to his aid for the removing of such great evils. The Man of God assented, and makes known that he was shortly to lead a congregation of monks into Brittany, to a place which the Countess Ermengarde ⁿ had prepared near Nantes ^m; and he promises that, that house being ordered according to its kinds and species, he would set out with him into Aquitaine. They went therefore together, and, that I may not use many circumlocutions, came together to Nantes. Now there was in that region a wretched woman who was vexed by a certain wanton devil. [And that lascivious devil appeared to her in the likeness of a knight, very fair to look upon, and by hidden suggestion within and by flattering speech without deceitfully inclined her mind to love of him. And when he had obtained the woman's assent, spreading out his arms, he placed her feet upon one of his hands; and with the other hand he covered her head, and endowed her to himself with the sign of this covenant. *] Now she had a husband, an active knight, but wholly ignorant of so execrable a traffic. That most impure adulterer therefore abused her invisibly, even while her husband lay in the same bed, and vexed her with incredible lust.

[120] For six years only the evil lay hidden, nor did the lost woman disclose the shame of so great a crime. who had a foul commerce with the devil, But in the seventh year she was confounded in herself and grew afraid, both by reason of the foulness of so continual a turpitude, and by reason of the fear of God, by whose judgment she feared to be cut off and damned at every moment. She flees to the priests and confesses her guilt. She traverses holy places and implores the suffrages of the Saints; but no confession, no prayer, no bestowing of alms avails her. Daily, as before, and more importunately, she is harassed by the demon. At length so great a wickedness was poured out into the open. Which when her husband had heard and learned, he execrates their partnership. Meanwhile the Man of God with his company had come to the aforesaid place; and when the unhappy woman heard of his arrival, she cast herself trembling at his feet. Bathed in tears, she discloses to him her horrible suffering and the long-established mockery, and that nothing had profited her of whatever she had done at the priests' bidding. She added that his coming had been foretold to her by her oppressor, and that she had been threateningly forbidden to come before his presence, because it would avail her nothing, and that he himself, when the Abbot departed, having been her lover, would become her most cruel persecutor. Hearing these things, the Man of God consoles the woman with kindly words; and promising help from heaven, he charges her, trusting in the Lord, to return on the next day — for night was already at hand. Returning in the morning, when she had reported to the Man of God the blasphemies and threats which she had heard that same night from her incubus, "Care not," said the Man of God, "for his threats; but take this staff of ours, and place it in thy bed; and let him do what he can."

[121] he frees. The woman did what had been commanded, and lying down in her bed, fortified with the sign of the cross, she places the staff beside her. He is there forthwith; but he does not presume to approach either to his accustomed work or to the bed itself; yet he threatens most fiercely that, when the Man of God departed, he would return to torment her. The Lord's day was at hand, and the Man of God willed that the people be summoned into the church by the bishop's edict. And when on that day a very great people had assembled at the church, amid the solemnities of the Mass, with the bishops accompanying him — Geoffrey of Chartres and Brice ^o of Nantes — he himself ascends the ambo, and, being about to speak, proclaims that all who were in the church should hold lighted candles in their hands. And doing this himself with the bishops and clerics, he publicly discloses the unheard-of ventures of the devil, and anathematizes, with the subscription of all the faithful who were present, that fornicating spirit who had burned unto such horrid defilements even against his own nature, and by the authority of Christ

forbids him thenceforth all access both to her and to all women. And so, those sacramental lights being extinguished, thereafter all the power of the devil was extinguished; and to the woman, communicating after confession, the enemy never afterwards appeared, but fled away irrevocably banished.

[122] He enters Aquitaine with the bishop of Soissons to compose the schism: These things therefore being accomplished, the Abbot and the Legate together enter Aquitaine. Meanwhile Gerard, with the Count's assent, had seized the archbishopric of Bordeaux, and held at once the church of Bordeaux and that of Angoulême. But as the monies flowed away which he had cast into the hands of his flatterers, and as the truth became more and more known, the supports of the princes were now ebbing from him, and men feared to stand forth as defenders of his perfidy. And so he stayed in those places in which he thought himself safer, nor did he now readily present himself at public assemblies. For, to repeat briefly what was done earlier: when it first began to be heard what that Gerard was contriving against the Church of God, there were sent by Pope Innocent, while he still tarried in Gaul, our Abbot of Clairvaux and Joscelin, venerable bishop of Soissons, and they came as far as Poitiers, that they might confer both with him and with the aforesaid prince. But he, that prince being already persuaded, began shamelessly to hurl reproaches against the Catholic Church, from which he was cutting himself off, and to withdraw the obedience formerly promised to Innocent; to call his own Anacletus the worthier * one elected, and whosoever did not obey him, men in error and headless.

[123] Whence it came about that the clerics, emboldened and armed unto madness, from that day publicly threatened persecution against the Catholics. the impiety of the Dean is punished with a terrible vengeance: Yet before they had so cut themselves off from unity, the holy Abbot had offered the Sacrifice to God in their church. After his departure, the Dean of that same church broke down the altar upon which he had celebrated the divine mysteries — impiously indeed, but not with impunity. For after a short time, being stricken by God, as he was breathing out his spirit, he saw the house in which he was dying full of demons, and crying out that he was being throttled by a demon, he demanded of the bystanders a knife which he might plunge into his own throat, so that, the demon being drawn out, he might live. But the devil, to whom he had been given over, extinguished him amid these words, and plunged his pestilent soul into hell. The archpriest also, who was announcing the synod of Peter, the invader of the church of Poitiers, was seized by the devil in the presence of the very men whom he was inviting to that assembly of perfidy. And upon many others too, who had been more fervent in that schism, the divine hand had exercised a manifest vengeance. On account of these and other such things Gerard had begun to be confounded before men, and, fearing that things which could not be denied should be alleged against him, he avoided public assemblies.

[124] Meanwhile it was signified to the Count by illustrious men the Count of Aquitaine, most bitterly hostile to the bishops, who dared to approach him more securely, that the Abbot of Clairvaux, and the bishop of Chartres, and other bishops and religious men desired a colloquy with him, whose zeal it was to treat with him concerning the peace of the Church and the removal of the evil. And he was persuaded not to shun a colloquy with such great men, because it might be that, counsel being taken with them, what was now thought difficult might prove easy, and what seemed impossible might by a sudden turn be rendered possible. And so they meet from either side at Parthenay [p]; and first of all concerning the division of the Church, and concerning the obstinacy of the rent which, on this side of the Alps, had settled in Aquitaine alone like the corruption of a mist, it was set forth to the Count by the servants of God in many ways and by many reasonings that the Church is one, and that whatever is outside her, as being outside the ark, must by the judgment of God perish and be washed away. The examples too were adduced of Dathan and Abiram, whom for the guilt of schism the earth swallowed alive, and it was shown that God's vengeance had never at any time been wanting to so great an evil. Hearing these things, the Count, using in part sound counsel, answered that he could give his consent to obedience to Pope Innocent, but that he could by no reasoning be induced to restore the bishops whom he had expelled from their sees, since they had offended him implacably; and that he had sworn that he would at no time accept peace with them. Long was the discourse protracted through intermediaries; and while they occupy one another by turns with words, the Man of God, snatching up more effectual arms, approaches the holy altar to make offering and supplication. Those to whom it was permitted to be present at the divine mysteries had entered the church; the Count waited before the doors.

[125] The consecrations therefore being performed, and the peace given and spread among the people, wondrously the holy Man the Man of God, now bearing himself not as a man, places the Body of the Lord upon the paten and takes it with him, and with fiery face and flaming eyes, not supplicating but threatening, goes forth out of doors, and assails the Duke with terrible words: "We have asked thee," said he, "and thou hast spurned us; a multitude of the servants of God gathered before thee besought thee at that other assembly which we already held with thee, and thou didst contemn them. Behold, the Son of the Virgin has come forth to thee, who is the head and Lord of the Church which thou persecutest. Thy judge is here, in whose name every knee is bowed, of things heavenly, earthly, and infernal. Thy judge is here, into whose hands that soul of thine shall come. Wilt thou spurn him also? Wilt thou contemn him too, as thou hast contemned his servants?" All who were present were in tears, and intent upon prayers awaited the outcome of the matter; and the suspended expectation of all looked for I know not what divine thing to be done from heaven. The Count, seeing the Abbot coming forth in a vehement spirit and bearing in his hands the most sacred Body of the Lord, was terrified and grew stiff, and, his limbs trembling with fear and slackened, he falls to the ground as one out of his mind. Being lifted up by his knights, he falls again upon his face, nor speaking anything to anyone, nor looking at anyone, with spittle running down upon his beard, breathing forth with deep groans, he seemed an epileptic.

[126] converts him from the schism: Then the Man of God approaches nearer to him, and pushing him with his foot as he lay bowed down, bids him rise and stand upon his feet and hear the sentence of God. "The bishop of Poitiers is present," said he, "whom thou hast expelled from his church; go and be reconciled to him, and in the holy kiss of peace join covenants with him, and thyself lead him back to his See; and making satisfaction to God, render glory for contumely, and in thy whole principality recall the divided and discordant to the unity of charity. Submit thyself to Pope Innocent, and, as the whole Church obeys him, do thou too obey so great a Pontiff, elected by God." Hearing these things, the Count, overcome by the authority of the Holy Spirit and by the presence of the holy Sacraments, neither dared to answer nor was able; but at once he ran forward, and received the bishop in the kiss of peace, and with the same hand with which he had forsworn him, led him back to his own See with the exultation of the whole city. But thereafter the Abbot, speaking now more familiarly and more gently with the Count, admonished him as a father not to rise up further unto such impious and such reckless ventures, not to provoke God's patience with such outrages, not to violate in any point the peace that had been made.

[127] [in which, while Gerard, bishop of Angoulême, persists, he is punished by a dreadful death.] Peace therefore being restored to the whole church of Aquitaine, Gerard alone persists in his evils; but not long after, the day of wrath coming, he was wretchedly cut off in his own house. And though the Scripture says, "There is a sin unto death: I do not say that any should pray for it" — impenitent and suddenly dead, without confession and viaticum, he rendered the spirit going forth from his body to him whose minister he had been unto the end. His body, found lifeless upon his bed and enormously swollen, was buried by his nephews, whom he had raised to honors in that church, in a certain basilica; but afterwards it was drawn out thence by Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres, Legate of the Apostolic See, and cast elsewhere [q]. His nephews too were afterwards banished from that same church, and all his offspring and planting, torn up from the root, went into exile through foreign realms, carrying about their complaints of so great a judgment. So great an evil therefore being overwhelmed, and the schism of Gerard reduced to ashes, the Man of God returns with great joy to Clairvaux. The brothers are there, poured about his feet; they give thanks to God, who heaps happier issues upon good beginnings, and everywhere glorifies and exalts the humility of his Servant.

[128] Restored to his own leisure, St. Bernard expounds the Song of Songs. But the Man of God, having obtained some time of quiet, occupied himself with other tasks, and withdrawing into a little hut woven about with plaited wattles [r], he resolves to give himself alone to divine meditations. And suddenly there meet him, as he stands in that humble lodging as though at the Lord's manger, the Songs of love and the courses of the spiritual nuptials. He considers and is amazed that that bridegroom, beautiful in form above the sons of men, upon whom even the angels desire to look, has loved a dusky bride, and one darkened by the sun, and extols her with so great a proclamation as to call her wholly fair, and to say that there is no spot in her. He marvels too that the bride herself languishes with love, and diligently inquires what that charity is whose kisses are sweeter than wine, for the tasting of which the soul pants impatiently with so great affection. And whereas the bridegroom extols the bride with many praises, yet does not in all things afford her the full abundance of himself, nor grant himself to the desiring bride unto the fullness of satiety; being sought, he is sometimes not found, and, discovered after long wanderings about, is held fast lest he flee. For a long time he poured out his soul in the meditation of these things; and expounding them in manifold ways, how much he profited therein who daily feasted upon those delights, how much he has profited us, for whom he preserved in writing the remnants of that same blessing, is manifest to those who read it.

ANNOTATA.

p. It is a town of France in the province of Poitou, commonly Parthenay.

q. In the New Library of Manuscript Books in Labbe, volume 2, where the History of the Pontiffs and Counts of Angoulême is extant, chapter 3, page 261, the death of Gerard is narrated far otherwise, described in these words: But on the day next before his death we have learned that in his confession he said to the priests that if, unknowingly and against the will of God, he had upheld the party of Peter Leonis, he confessed it and repented … But on the Saturday, celebrating Mass with the greatest devotion and outpouring of tears, on the following Lord's day he departed from the world in the year 1136 from the Incarnation of the Lord …, and that magnificent star, which by its brightness had illumined the western parts — alas! — lies hidden outside the church which he built, beneath a mean stone. The aforesaid Labbe, in the Catalogue of writers which is prefixed to this volume, observes that the History above mentioned was written by an uncertain author, who, it is certain, was a canon of Angoulême, and lived in the year 1159. But that author, whoever he was, seems as immoderate in suppressing or passing over in silence the censures of Gerard as he is lavish in his praises; for after he has reported many eulogies of him, he subjoins to them this single saying, meagerly, coldly, and most briefly: Yet toward the end he turned aside to the party of Peter the schismatic, favoring his error. I therefore ask the judgment of a fair reader whether Arnald is here to be departed from even by a nail's breadth.

r. Feüillages de pois it is rendered in French in a marginal note in Mabillon; that is, covered with pea-leaves.

* elsewhere: suggestions

* elsewhere: betrothed her

* elsewhere: more worthily

* elsewhere: breasts

* elsewhere: for some while

CAPUT V.

Things happily accomplished at Rome and with the king of Sicily during the schism; which schism being at length extinguished through Bernard, peace was restored to the Church; and he returns to his men of Clairvaux.

[He is summoned to the City by letters of the Pontiff, that he may bring help to the laboring Church:] Meanwhile Apostolic letters call the Man of God, and the Cardinals beg him to be present to the laboring Church. His studies are interrupted, and things which were lately continuous are resumed with interrupted journeyings between. No leisure remains; the Servant of God either prays, or meditates, or reads, or preaches. Seeing therefore that his excuses were spent in vain *, and that it was needful to obey the mandates, having called together the brothers from many quarters, sighing long and deeply, he addresses them: "You see, brothers, in how great tribulations the Church labors. The party of Peter, both in Italy and in Aquitaine, God being the author of it, has been crushed, and now no longer brings forth, but miscarries. In those regions the defenders of the schism have been reduced to nothing; at Rome a great part of the nobles follows Innocent, and many of the faithful favor him — who nevertheless, dreading the onset of the reckless multitude, do not dare to confess publicly the consent which they have pledged to Innocent. Peter has for confederates lost men, whom he has corrupted with money; and, their strongholds being occupied, he represents not the faith of Simon Peter but the sorceries of Simon Magus. The West being subdued, there remains a struggle against one nation. As you pray and shout for joy, Jericho shall fall; and when you have stretched out your hands to God with Moses, Amalek shall flee vanquished. Joshua fights, and that the day, being prolonged, may suffice for the consummation of the victory, he does not so much pray the sun to stand still as command it; and faith deserves both the sun's obedience and victory over the prostrate enemy.

[130] "Bring aid, therefore, to us as we fight, and with suppliant minds implore help from heaven. he exhorts his men of Clairvaux at his departure. Do the things you are doing, and stand in the rank in which you stand; and although you be conscious of nothing against yourselves, yet by your own judgment do not esteem yourselves just: because God alone judges those whom he justifies, and even the most perfect man knows not the strict examination of the divine judgment. But be not much concerned to be judged by man's day, approving neither your own judgments nor those of others; stand in the fear of God in such wise that neither, judging any man, may you ever be lifted up, nor, caring for the judgments of others, fall away into trifles; but, pursuing each duty, reckon yourselves unprofitable servants. But I must go where obedience calls us, and the brotherhood * of this house and the keeping of you we deliver and commend to God, for whom we take up this labor, trusting in his clemency."

[131] Saying these things, and giving his blessing, he departed, all weeping; [At Rome he learns what things hold the schismatics back from the unity of the Church:] and being received everywhere with much reverence, he came at last to Rome. At whose coming both the lord Pope and the Brothers rejoiced; and counsels being shared with him, the Abbot goes to work by another road, according to the issue of events and the state of affairs; putting his hope neither in chariots nor in horses, but undertaking conversations with certain persons, he inquires what their resources are, what the minds of the supporters, whether it be by error or by malice that, being seduced, they draw out and prolong so great a wickedness. He understands from private conversations that the Clergy who were with Peter, being anxious for their own standing, knew their sin indeed, but did not dare to return, lest, branded with perpetual infamy, they should be held cheap among the rest; and that they preferred to remain thus for the time under a shadow of respectability rather than be driven from their sees and exposed to public beggary. Of those who were of the family of Peter, this was the answer: that they could now be believed by no one, if they should dismember their own kindred and forsake him who was the head and lord of their kinship. The rest excused their perfidy by the oath of fealty, nor did any lend his support to that party out of a sound conscience. And so the Abbot declared to them that leagues of impiety are sacrilegious, and that profane conspiracies, condemned by laws and canons, cannot be fortified by oaths; that the sacraments of truth cannot and ought not to lend support to a lie; and that those men are mad who suppose that an unlawful thing can stand by the patronage of an oath, since irregular compacts, under whatever pretext of religion they be sanctioned, must be recalled as void and dissolved by divine authority.

[132] [who grow gentle at the Saint's discourses; not so however king Roger, but he acts deceitfully:] These and other discourses of the Man of God being heard, men fell away from Peter, and daily, the ranks of that party being broken up, its bonds were snapped; the mind of Peter himself too was wasting away, because he in no wise doubted that he was daily diminishing while Innocent was increasing. His monies had failed, the amplitude of his court had wasted away, the services of his house had withered, rarely did a guest frequent his table, his delicacies were exchanged for common victuals, the dress of his attendants was dingy with age, his stipendiaries lean and sharp-set were oppressed with debt, and the whole pallid look of his house betokened a dissolution close at hand. Meanwhile Roger, king of Sicily, who alone now among the princes refused to obey Pope Innocent, sends to him asking that he would send to him his chancellor Aimeric and the Abbot of Clairvaux; asking none the less the same of Peter Leonis, that he would delegate to him Peter of Pisa from his side. And he said that he wished to know the origin of this dissension, which had now long grown hard, and, the truth being known, either to correct the error or to ratify a judgment. But he was sending in guile; for he had heard that Peter of Pisa was most eloquent, and second to none in the knowledge of the Laws and Canons; and he thought that if a hearing were afforded his eloquence in a public consistory, the simplicity of the Abbot could be overwhelmed by rhetorical declamations, and silence be imposed upon him by the force of words and the weight of arguments.

[133] to whom Bernard foretells flight and disaster, and to his adversary victory. Not to delay long: both parties came to Salerno. But vengeance had gone campaigning, and had forestalled the contrivance of so great a crime. For, an innumerable army having been made ready for war against duke Ranulf, that same king had led out his armed lines into the field; when suddenly, seeing the Duke boldly coming forward to meet him, he fled in terror, and exposed his scattered army to plunder and slaughter, and, innumerable soldiers being captured and slain, he unwillingly enriched the Duke with wealth and exalted him with glory. All which things indeed befell him according to the word of the Man of God: for when the holy Abbot, arriving first of those who had been summoned, had found the king encamped, for many days he hindered the neighboring lines from engaging, declaring to the king: "If thou enter the conflict, thou shalt go away vanquished and confounded." But at the last, when that same king's army had greatly increased, not knowing that the issue of a war does not lie in a multitude, he scorned to listen further to the holy Man who sought the things that were of peace. But he, having exhorted duke Ranulf and the line of the Catholics with mighty words, promised to them victory and triumph, as he had to the king flight. And when he had turned aside to a nearby hamlet, and was intent upon prayer, suddenly the shouting of fleeing and pursuing men is heard. For Ranulf was pursuing the king's fleeing army through that same place. And so a certain brother of those who were with the Abbot, going out, met one of the soldiers and asked what had happened.

But he, being indeed a man of letters, said: "I have seen the wicked highly exalted and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon; and I passed by, and lo, he was not." And without delay the Duke himself, following, when he saw the monk, armed as he was, leapt down from his horse; and falling at his feet, "I give thanks," said he, "to God and to his faithful Servant, because this victory has been conferred not by our strength, but by his faith." And leaping again upon his horse, he pursued the enemy.

[134] Yet the king's mind was not corrected by this blow inflicted upon him from heaven, St. Bernard's address in the assembly proclaimed by the king of Sicily nor did the storm subside which the pride of his depraved mind had heaped together; but when those who had escaped had returned after the flight, feigning cheerfulness, exalting himself in royal array, his court thronged with soldiers, he orders both parties to be summoned; and Peter having first been instructed and kindled with the inducements of many promises, he bids him speak upon the grounds of his cause. And so Peter first strives to prove the election of his lord canonical , and fortifies his words with many assertions of laws and canons. But the Man of God, understanding that the kingdom of God is not in speech but in power, said: "I know, Peter, that thou art a wise and lettered man, and would that the sounder party and more honorable business had occupied thee! Would that a juster and happier cause had thee for its advocate! and without doubt, as thou didst allege reasonable things, no eloquence could withstand thee. And we indeed, rustics, more often accustomed to mattocks than to legal pleadings , would keep the silence we have appointed for ourselves, if the cause of the faith did not press. But now charity compels us to speak, because the Lord's tunic, which at the time of the passion neither heathen nor Jew presumed to rend, Peter Leonis, with this lord as his supporter, tears and bursts asunder. There is one faith, one Lord, one baptism. We know neither two lords, nor a twofold faith, nor two baptisms.

[135] "To begin with ancient things: at the time of the flood there was one ark. In it eight souls escaped, all the rest perishing; and as many as were found outside the ark perished. That this ark holds the type of the Church, there is no one who doubts. simple indeed but effectual Another ark has lately been fashioned, and since there are two, one of them must needs be adulterate and be sunk into the deep. If the ark which Peter governs is of God, then the ark which Innocent governs must needs be overwhelmed. Therefore the Eastern Church will perish, the whole West will perish; France will perish, Germany will perish; the Iberians and the English and the barbarian kingdoms will be sunk into the depth of the sea. The religion of Camaldoli *, and of the Carthusians, and of Cluny, and of Grandmont ^a, and of Cîteaux, and of Prémontré, and innumerable other colleges of the servants and handmaids of God, must needs fall together into the abyss under one whirlwind. The devouring sea will receive bishops and abbots and the rest of the princes of the Church with a millstone bound about their headlong necks. This Roger alone of the princes of the world has entered the ark of Peter; and, all the rest being destroyed, shall he alone be saved? Far be it that the religion of the whole world should perish, and that the ambition of Peter, whose life it is plain what manner of thing it was, should obtain the kingdom of heaven."

[136] He converts Peter of Pisa and others, Roger remaining in his obstinacy. At these words those who were present could contain themselves no longer, but abominated both the life and the cause of Peter Leonis. And the Abbot, taking the hand of Peter of Pisa, raised him up, and himself rose at the same time, saying: "If thou wilt trust me, we shall enter a safer ark." And as he had long since conceived in his mind, assailing him with saving admonitions, the grace of God cooperating, he presently persuaded him to return to the City and be reconciled to Pope Innocent. The assembly being dissolved, the king would not yet obey ^b, because he had covetously seized the patrimony of St. Peter, which is very ample in the province of Monte Cassino and Benevento, and thought that by suspensions of this kind he might extort certain privileges from the Romans, whereby the inheritance might thereafter be established for him in his own right. So Herod despised the Savior when he had seen him, and despised him present whom he had desired absent. So almighty God gave to men the brightness which he received from the Father, and makes those who despise him inglorious, and lifts up on high those who are humbled. Now concerning the cure of a certain nobleman, very well known in the city of Salerno, when the physicians — whose art and study especially flourish there ^c — were giving way, to that man, despairing of the physicians' help, a certain person appearing by night in a dream told him that a holy Man had come to Salerno, effectual in healings; and bade him seek this man out and drink of the water in which he washed his hands. He sought, he found, he asked for the water, he drank, he grew well. This report, published through the whole city, came to the ears of the king and his nobles. With the favor therefore of all the peoples, the king alone remaining in his malice, the Abbot returns to Rome, and reconciles to the Church the aforesaid Peter of Pisa also and certain others, and joins them in league with Pope Innocent.

[137] Peter Leonis being wretchedly cut off, and peace restored to the Church The time had come in which, the malice of the Amorite being filled up, the smiting angel was already brandishing his sword; and passing over the houses whose lintels the blood of the Lamb had stained, coming to the house of Peter Leonis, he found not in it the saving sign. He smote therefore the wretched man; nor yet does he die at once, but a place of penitence is given him for three days. He abuses the patience of God, and dies in despair in his sin. With a pitiable procession his body is carried out, his corpse is buried in hiding-places, and to this day that pit is unknown to Catholics. Nevertheless his party set up * for themselves another Pope in his place — not so much out of pertinacity in the schism, as that through some interval of time they might be more opportunely reconciled to Pope Innocent. Which Christ without delay effected by the hand of his Servant. For that ridiculous Pontiff too, the heir of Peter Leonis, betook himself by night to the same Man of God; and he indeed, when he had been stripped of the insignia he had usurped, led him to the feet of the lord Innocent.

[138] the holy Father departs from Rome with the highest applause, Which being done, the city rejoices and is glad; the Church is restored to Innocent; the Roman people venerates Innocent as pastor and lord; the Abbot of Clairvaux is held in wondrous reverence, and is proclaimed by all the author of peace and the father of his country. Noble men attend him as he goes forth, the people acclaim him, matrons follow, and all wait upon him with ready mind. But how long did he endure that glory? How long did he enjoy peace after so long a labor? He did not consent to receive even a day for a year. All things being quieted and composed, he could scarcely be kept five days, who for seven years and more had sweated to repair that same rent. Rome attends him as he goes out; the Clergy conduct him, the people come to meet him, the whole nobility accompanies him. Nor could he be let go without common mourning, who was cherished with a common love. [They weep after him, and ask to be blessed by him, and commend themselves with all devotion to his prayers.] Leave therefore being received from Innocent, and peace confirmed, the Man of God returns; and bringing home the greatest joy, he is devoutly received by the brothers with thanksgiving ^e.

[139] Meanwhile at Rome Innocent authoritatively disposes what must be done; and he returns to his own Monastery, another being assigned to him at Rome. visitors come from every side. Some come with business, others only for the sake of rejoicing with him; processions are solemnly celebrated through the churches; arms being laid aside, the people run together to hear the word of the Lord. After manifold destitutions the city in a short time flourishes again in opulence; peace, being made solid, brings back and recalls what had been made away with in the time of discord. The solitudes are ploughed, and the deserts grow fat; each rests under his own vine and fig tree; the nightly watches are silent, and, the doors standing open, all fear is shut out. Time being given, Innocent restores the ruins of the Church, gathers back the exiles, restores to the churches their ancient services and to the expelled their ravaged farms, and moreover bestows fitting gifts. He also established a monastery at Aquae Salviae ^f in honor of St. Anastasius the martyr — which indeed had been there before; but at this time there was only a church, and a dweller was lacking. And so, the monastic dwellings being constructed and the church restored, and houses, fields, and vineyards assigned for their sustenance, the lord Pope asked and obtained that an abbot and a convent of brothers be sent to him from Clairvaux. There is sent therefore Bernard , formerly vicedominus of the church of Pisa, and religious brothers with him, who should serve the Lord in that place according to the rule of blessed Benedict. Quickly that planting prospered, and, native men joining themselves to them, the number of the servants of God was multiplied; and pastures suitable for their nourishment in a short time produced a flock sound and manifold.

ANNOTATA.

* elsewhere: to be alleged

* Horst: fatherhood

* the Cardinals.

* elsewhere: to be emptied out

* Horst: asserts it canonical

* elsewhere: declamations

* elsewhere: Camaldulensian

* by name Victor

* surnamed de Paganellis

* Horst adds: rich and

CAPUT VI.

Prelates of the Church created out of Clairvaux; the eulogy of Count Theobald, who deserved excellently well of St. Bernard, and his adversities.

VIII.

The holy Abbot, returned to his studies, embraces his beloved Epithalamium. Illustrious men of Clairvaux; From divers regions too, the odor of that religion being everywhere diffused, the brothers are invited to found monasteries. Houses already founded and established also subject themselves to his rule, and enter upon the rules of a stricter discipline. But cities of divers regions too deserved bishops out of this college. First of all Rome is adorned with a supreme Pontiff ^a. Palestrina had Stephen ^b, a man of all moderation *. Ostia had that great man Hugh ^c. In the Roman curia itself too

Henry ^d and Bernard ^e, the one priest, the other deacon, were ordained Cardinals. Near the city of Rome Nepi ^f too flourished again under Hubert ^g. In Tuscany, at Pisa, Baldwin ^h shone forth, the glory of his native soil and a great light of the Church. On this side of the Alps, to Lausanne was given Amadeus ⁱ; to Sion, Garinus ^k; to Langres, Geoffrey ^l; to Auxerre, Alan ^m; to Nantes, Bernard ⁿ; to Beauvais, Henry ^o; to Tournai, Gerald [p]; to York, Henry [q]. In Ireland two bishops, Christians in fact and in name [r]. In Germany, in the city of Chur, Algotus [s], reverend in wisdom, in age, and in grace. These luminaries, taken from Clairvaux, made illustrious the aforesaid cities by their presence with a pure radiance, and, setting forth the glory of the pastoral office, became an example of teaching and of life to the other bishops, and in their loftiness stood ever humble.

[141] among whom Eugenius For, Pope Innocent being dead, and his successors Celestine and Lucius [t] being how swiftly cut off, Bernard, whom we said before had been ordained abbot at St. Anastasius, is made Pope of the City [u], and is called Eugenius the Third. He, a sedition having arisen among the people [x], shook the dust of his feet against the litigants, and, leaving them, came into France. And while they devoured and bit and consumed one another, he waited in peace until, wearied with conflicts and afflicted with losses, they should desire and long for his presence. Who meanwhile, a council having been celebrated at Reims [y], humbly visits Clairvaux, and presents the glory of the Roman pontificate to the sight of the poor. All marvel that in so great a height his humility is unmoved, and that in so excelling a summit the strength of his holy purpose remains; so that humility joined to loftiness may outwardly shine for his office, and inwardly may in no wise grow empty of its virtue.

[142] He visits Clairvaux. A woolen [z] tunic clung to his flesh, and by day and by night he went thus clad in his cowl, and thus lay down. Inwardly retaining the habit of a monk, outwardly he showed himself a Pontiff both in manners and in vesture: doing a difficult thing, expressing in one man the property of divers persons. Embroidered [aa] cushions were carried about for him. His bed, covered with palls, was surrounded with a purple curtain; but if you turned back the coverings, you would find, beneath the woolen coverlets laid over, matted straw and heaped-up chaff. Man sees in the face, God in the heart; but he provided good things before God and before men. He addresses the brothers not without tears; mingling with his discourse sighs torn from his heart, he exhorts and consoles, and shows himself among them a brother and companion, not a Lord or master. And when the great multitude of those accompanying him did not suffer him to stay there longer *, the brothers being saluted, he departed, directing his journey into Italy, and came to the City [bb].

[143] The holy Man wrote to that same Pope a Book * of much subtlety To him St. Bernard inscribed the books On Consideration.: in which, pursuing with most acute investigation both the things which are about him and those which are below him, and ascending also to those which are above him, he discoursed so upon the divine nature that he seems to have been taken up into the third heaven and to have heard certain words which it is not lawful for a man to utter, and to have seen the King in his beauty. In the things which are below and about him, the fellowship of morals, the equality of nature, the difference of offices, the consideration of merits, the discernment of advancements, are most subtly distinguished, and to each in its kind knowledge of itself is intimated. In the things which are above man, he contemplates heavenly things [cc] — not in that manner in which the angels consider, who always cleave to God, but in that manner in which a man of pure spirit and sincere mind can touch things divine, and a temporal priesthood be conformed to the heavenly hierarchy. For since in the heavenly warfare it is agreed that some bear rule over others, and that ministering spirits are delegated to divers offices at the nod of the higher powers, certain of them, standing nearer, receive from him what they may impart to others to be done or to be understood. And since man requires that reverence be shown to his prelacy, all things must needs be referred to the honor of the supreme power; because, though man be subject to man, or spirit to spirit, one must above all be subject to God, of whose bounty that prelacy is given, and by whose teaching it comes about that there lies open to man both the knowledge of himself, and, through faith and hope, that access to divine contemplation which is granted and vouchsafed according to his measure. The Man of God dictated, and sometimes wrote upon waxen tablets, restoring honey, and indeed more pleasing than the former [dd]; he did not suffer to perish the things divinely inspired to him. He settled the lawsuits of the churches, and composed with a gentle breath the importunate appeals which clerics at variance stirred up among themselves. Sometimes too, when he rebuked more harshly, tranquility returned, and, the storms subsiding, those who had come before him seditious, and boiling over with declamations as their bile was poured out, went back peaceable.

[144] There clung to him above the other princes Count Theobald, [The immense zeal and liberality of Theobald, count of Champagne, toward the holy Man;] and following up his love with deeds, he exposed both himself and his goods to the support of Clairvaux, and placed his soul in the hands of the Abbot, laying aside his princely loftiness, showing himself among the servants of God a fellow-servant, not a Lord, so as to obey in all things whatsoever the lowliest of that house should ask . He bought therefore estates, built houses, furnished expenses for new abbeys, and wherever the servants of God had extended their shoots he assigned monies — not establishing one house, as Solomon at Jerusalem, but wherever persons of this habit had settled, he busied himself to minister necessaries to them, as though he were making a dwelling of his own for Christ present on earth. But this too he placed in the judgment of the Man of God: that to whatsoever needy persons, at his direction, he should furnish funds for the work of God. The Abbot therefore, seeing the prince's ready mind, kindled his piety, and wished him to be bound above all to those of the household of the faith; and he counseled him to found immortal temples, and to dispose his alms with such sagacity that, always fructifying, they might ever bring forth new alms by revived and reborn increases. Then he taught him in every way to have mercy on the needy, whom the goads of poverty, stinging like wasps, drive hither and thither; he admonished him to bestow on some clothing, on others food; and he suggested that he should visit the hospices in person, and not shrink from the sight * of the sick, because in this the good of clemency would be doubled, if he both saw and cherished, if he both consoled and refreshed.

[145] an outstanding eulogy of the same Count To humble the oppressors of the poor, to defend the orphan and the widow, to have mercy and to lend, to order his words in judgment, to provide for the quiet of the Church, to understand the reckoning of the sword — these he taught him as it were an elementary primer, intimating to him the sum of the princely office, and that this is required of a prince as a debt: that he attend to the praise of the good and to the punishment of the wicked. These and other salutary admonitions of this kind the reasonable man reverently receiving, turned the luxury of his court and the pomp of his high estate into humility and honorableness; nor was there anyone who in his presence dared either to do or to speak anything unseemly; but studying to please him in this also, whether with feigned or with pure mind, they too more often practiced those things in which they saw their lord to take delight. Those therefore who attended him more intimately used to bring in to him poor men suffering false accusation; they reported the sick lying in the streets, and whomsoever were set in bitterness and misery; and he rejoiced at the occasion of clemency offered him, and embraced with a higher favor those whom he saw to be more solicitous about matters of this kind. [And because the Man of God suffered none of his own to stay either in that court or for that cause,] [ee] he set over his almsgiving two religious Men, summoned from the Premonstratensian order, to whose care it should belong to go about the castles and villages in which he himself stayed; and he ordered the sick and lepers who dwelt there to be abundantly refreshed from his own table as long as he was in those places.

[146] the biographer weaves together. But he appointed also that generous alms, suited to the persons, should be given to other poor by their ministry, whether in food or in clothing. And he willed that they should have so much lordship in his house that they might authoritatively command the butlers and bakers and cooks and the rest of the servants what they would; that they might take what pleased them; nor was there anyone who dared to forbid anything, or reported it to the Count if in anything they seemed prodigal. But those men too, fearing God and desiring to please him as much as the Count, neither diminished the magnificence of the prince, who had commanded that the fullness of charity be fulfilled out of his own goods; nor were they willing to be ungrateful to God, should they be found slothful and grasping where both the will of God and the sufficient goodness of the prince had enjoined them to be ready and unhindered dispensers. It was moreover assigned to their office that they should provide lodgings for monks and religious men whom divers affairs sent to the court, and minister necessaries from the Count's storeroom and granary. They also carried about in the stiff winter, packs being made ready, clothing for the poor, and skins and cloaks [ff] and shoes, in which grease too was not lacking, which they distributed to the needy through the villages. No work of clemency was wanting in that County: all the shipwrecked had a safe refuge in that harbor. In times of famine he did not, like Pharaoh, sell grain to the people, nor subject Egypt to himself in servitude by the doling out of provisions; but using the holy Abbot as a more divine counselor, like another Joseph, he opened his granaries freely to the needy, and neither drained the people of money, nor circumvented the afflicted by craft, nor, transferring the commonwealth to himself, heaped up private treasures on earth; but rather laying up treasure in heaven, an untiring distributor, he distributed with great alacrity both monies and provisions.

[147] Nor was a temptation of great weight and dreadfulness wanting to a man who gaped after heavenly things: St. Bernard consoles the Count in adversity but both the king and the princes assailed him, and the earth was moved and trembled; and as though God were angry with him, almost everything belonging to him was exposed to ravagers by plunderings and burnings; and the king's army covered the face of the land, and everything everywhere was laid waste. Nor was it safe for him to resist or to meet the persecutors, because his own men too had deserted him, openly harassing him; and those who remained were for ambushes, not for support; on every side were grievous straits, since he could neither guard himself at home nor provide fittingly abroad, seeing that he did not at all know who were his own, and utterly mistrusted both the perfidy of the deserters and the duplicity of his own men. But amid these straits, turning to the Lord, he sought help also from heaven; and having summoned the Man of God, whose counsel he chiefly used, and not despairing of the mercy of God, he received this from his answer: that he should understand that God scourges every son whom he receives; and that corrections of this kind either purge or prove the soul; and that Job was more glorious when he sat upon the dunghill than he had been when, with his army standing about him, he had sat unharmed upon his throne. The holy Man showed him that Solomon sinned in his ease, and, having abused good

peace, slid down into vices; whereas David his father, when his son Absalom persecuted him and all Israel was armed against him, had remained in grace. He set forth also how Satan buffeted the Apostle himself, in which tribulation, persevering unmoved, he deserved to hear that "Strength is made perfect in weakness," and that in the present life prosperity makes us more sluggish, and adversity more circumspect.

[148] Hearing these things, the venerable Count, magnificently heartened, with great fruit. ordered to be brought forth with all speed two golden vessels of immense weight and wondrous workmanship (in which most precious gems [gg] were held enclosed, which Henry, king of the English, his uncle [hh], had been wont at the solemnity of his crowning to have before him at table for the display of his riches and his glory); and tearing away from his heart delight of this kind, he ordered the gems to be drawn out of their settings, and commanded the gold to be broken up that it might be sold, and that from the price of them tabernacles beloved of the Lord above gold and topaz should be founded. Nor did Amalek desist from harassing Israel; but Moses, his hands lifted up to heaven, obtained the victory; and, as the enemies drew back, the holy Abbot, a solicitous mediator, while the brothers cried to God and wept at home, burst into the ranks; and in the time of wrath he was made a reconciliation, and, divine allegations intervening, the storms subsided, and there returned between the king and the prince tranquility and the longed-for serenity of peace [ii].

The end of the second book.

ANNOTATA.

p. Elsewhere Gerald. See the Gallia Christiana, volume 3, from column 212 of the most recent edition, and the Cistercian Menology at the 22nd of September.

q. Read Manrique, volume 1, at the year 1132, chapter 8, number 8; and at the year 1143, chapters 2, 3, and 6. Likewise volume 2, at the year 1145, chapters 2 and 5; at the year 1153, chapter 14.

r. Of them the Cistercian Menology at the 3rd day of November.

s. The same Menology treats of him at the 17th day of January, and in the addenda which are found at the end of that same Menology. That prelate of Chur in Rhaetia has a place in our work among the Prætermissi on the day already mentioned. What has been said above concerning the illustrious men taken from Clairvaux to the mitre may be supplemented from the catalogue which is found at the end of the Cistercian Menology in Henriquez, and which designates persons of both sexes of that Order conspicuous in dignity.

t. Consult the Chronology which we set forth in the Commentary §69, part 3.

u. In the same place, §34, you have the man's election and eulogies; where also there is treatment of the letters of our holy Abbot addressed to him.

x. Of Pope Eugenius departing from Rome to Viterbo on account of the Arnaldist disturbances we treated in the said Commentary §35; as also of the miracle which happened while he was performing sacred rites there.

y. This council is elucidated in the same place, §41. The Bernardine Chronology §69, part 3, may also be consulted, where, besides the council of Reims, others held in Gaul are indicated.

z. See the religion of a Supreme Pontiff, who used not a woolen undershirt but a tunic clinging to his body, nor did he cast off his cowl even at night in bed; not a scapular, which was then not permitted, on the testimony of Herbert in book 2 On the Miracles of the Cistercians, chapter 35. To Bernard, on account of his infirmities, the use of a woolen shirt with a like cap was permitted, below in book 3, number 5; but in our work at number 156. The aforesaid things are read in a note in Mabillon here.

aa. Segmentata is rendered in French in Mabillon in a marginal note as carreaux de broderie, that is, cushions embroidered with the needle.

bb. Namely in the year of Christ 1148, from the Chronology designated a little before.

cc. Besides the eulogy which is here given of that Work, other things concerning it are found in Mabillon, volume one, page 406, in the Notice to the reader, which is there prefixed to the commended Work out of Johann Merlo Horst. See the Annotations to book 3, chapter 4, letter b.

dd. In a marginal note of the Horstian edition, which we have, it is said: These words are not read in the manuscript.

ee. These words are from the Corbie codex, as is stated in a marginal note in Mabillon.

ff. Birrus, besides its other significations, is taken for a cheap and coarser garment, as may be seen in Du Cange's Glossary; which signification seems here to suit this word.

gg. Perhaps these were the gems which Suger bought from two abbots of the Cistercian order, from his book On his administration, chapter 32. The same author records that Count Theobald gave RED HYACINTHS toward the dedication of the church of St. Denis, in Du Chesne, volume 4, page 356. Mabillon here.

hh. For Theobald was the son of Adela, sister of Henry king of England, on the testimony of William of Malmesbury On the deeds of the kings of the English, book 5, under Henry I, page 159; for there, treating of the quarrel between Louis the Fat and Henry over Count Theobald, he says, of Blois (and of Champagne), son of Stephen, who fell at Ramla — because Theobald was begotten of Stephen by Adela, daughter of William the Great. What Pagi has at the year 1116, from number 14, may also be read.

ii. Of the vexations brought upon Theobald by Louis VII, king of the French, and of the peace composed between them by the Saint, we have spoken in the Commentary, which see at §30 and following.

* elsewhere: of glory

* Horst adds: him

* elsewhere: of profit

* that is, five books

* elsewhere: should have commanded.

* that is, of this religious garb, or institute

* elsewhere: at the sight

BOOK THE THIRD,

by Geoffrey, formerly a monk of Clairvaux and notary of St. Bernard; afterwards abbot of Clairvaux.

By Geoffrey.

PREFACE.

Geoffrey, for about thirteen years the Saint's disciple Distinguished men have committed to writing the memory of our most illustrious Father Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, unto the praise of Christ and the edification of many. Having found indeed an abundant matter, so far as each was permitted, and as the truth of the deeds became more certainly known to him, they set in order not the whole of it, but certain parts. But it seems to some that he ought much less to have kept silence concerning him — a child of his sanctity, a son of his condescension, a foster-son of his kindness. Whom from his breasts, after about thirteen years (which I ought not to recall without sobbing, nor am I able to utter), death alone at last, which alone could do it, tore away. In which matter would that even now, holy Father, he may please thee , as once he seemed, and for some while, to please. And who else is so much thy debtor, who so much beholden, who so much thine own? It bit, I confess, and harshly did shameless death bite; but it did not swallow the whole together. It cut off, it did not root out; without mercy it took the portion which touched itself. It took away his aspect, it took away his speech, it took away too his bodily service; but it did not snatch away faith in his help even now present; it did not absorb hope of a future sight of him one day; nor, in fine, in

the memory of things past did it take away the affection of filial devotion, which is the more deeply rooted. But for me indeed, as I know full well, neither knowledge nor eloquence is at hand, especially such as is fit for so great a work. But truly to utter thy mighty deeds, and thy praises worthily, neither the genius of Origen nor the tongue of Cicero would suffice. Yet we need not despair, since the prudent reader will be bound rather to pluck the fruit of thy works than the unworthy leaves of our words: so that, having tasted the sweetness of the former rather than blamed the dryness of the latter, he may not so wickedly bite at these as delightfully eat those. For things seen are wont to be narrated both more safely and more sincerely than things heard; and, poured into a third vessel, they more easily turn sour. And that water too is more sweetly drunk which is drawn from the spring's channel, though a small one, which a gushing vein has straightway refilled, than that which is taken from a stream that has already run further, or even from a copious river.

[150] Hence it is that, leaving untouched the books of those who have written concerning the beginnings, or even the middle course, of that same most blessed Father of ours, [he commends his own faithfulness in writing, and indicates the division of the Work.] lest I should seem to have built upon another's foundation, our discourse turns chiefly about those matters at almost all of which I was myself present; sometimes also inserting a few things, though few, which I have learned from the most faithful relation of the brothers who were there. Nevertheless the reader will find this work divided into three little books. Of which the first pursues chiefly those things which seem to pertain to the bearing, the character, and the teaching of this blessed Father. The second sets forth the many miracles wrought through him. The third is completed in his good end. This too must be noted: that in the narration of the deeds a coherence of likeness rather than of time is observed; since neither the signs themselves nor certain of his works are written in that order in which they were done; but some things have sometimes been inserted as they seemed to offer themselves at more suitable places. For that discourse seems firmer, and is wont to be held more acceptable, which rests and is illuminated by its own examples, like some structure supported by suitable columns. Some things too have been transposed, so that they might be joined to others like them, and that things of the same kind might cohere more fitly with one another. But this in the two former little books only; for in the third the sequence of the narration follows almost throughout the very order of the time itself ^a.

ANNOTATION.

* elsewhere: ought

* Horst: thus

CAPUT I.

His character and virtues in summary; his visit to Hugh, bishop of Grenoble, and to the Carthusians; his guarding of the senses, as also of his speech; his modesty together with his graciousness; his flight from dignities.

Book III.

Chapter I.

With innumerable signs and miracles, as the whole world has learned, God glorified his faithful servant Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, An enumeration of his virtues; the endowments of his body as he is ever glorious in his Saints and wonderful in his majesty. But, as he himself commends holy Malachy, the first and greatest miracle which he displayed was himself: serene in countenance, modest in bearing, circumspect in words, God-fearing in work, assiduous in sacred meditation, devout in prayer; and (as he himself admonished others, being persuaded indeed by frequent experience) trusting in every matter more to prayer than to his own industry or labor. Magnanimous in faith, long-suffering in hope, lavish in charity, supreme * in humility, preeminent in piety. Provident in counsels, effective in affairs; yet never less idle than in idleness; cheerful under reproaches, bashful under services; sweet in manners, holy in merits, glorious in miracles; abounding, in fine, in wisdom and in power and in favor with God and men. For whose holy soul God had made a help like unto itself, and had fitted a body prevented with a special blessing. There appeared in his flesh a certain grace, spiritual, however, rather than carnal; in his face there shone forth a brightness, not indeed earthly, but heavenly; in his eyes there beamed a certain angelic purity and dove-like simplicity. So great was the beauty of his inward man that it broke forth outwardly by certain evident tokens, and the outward man too seemed copiously suffused from the heap of inward purity and grace.

[152] and his constitution, and also his infirmity. His whole body was very slight, and without flesh; and the skin itself, most fine, was moderately red about the cheeks. In him assuredly whatever of natural heat was present, assiduous meditation and the pursuit of compunction had drawn off. His hair was colored between yellow and white. His beard was somewhat ruddy, toward the end of his life sprinkled with gray ^a; his stature was of an honorable middling, yet appeared nearer to tallness. Otherwise this treasure was in an earthen vessel, utterly bruised and shattered on every side. For his flesh labored under the manifold discomforts of infirmities, that in them the strength of his spirit might be made perfect. Of which the more perilous indeed was in the passage of his exceedingly narrow throat, admitting nothing at all dry, scarcely anything solid; the more troublesome was the failing of his stomach and the corruption of his bowels. These were continual with him, besides others that oftener befell. His highest study was to flee admiration, and to bear himself as one of the rest. But glory pursued him as he fled, as it is wont on the other hand to flee from those who chase it. That proverb was often in his mouth, always in his heart: "He who does what no one else does, all men marvel at." With which regard indeed he emulated the more the common life and rule, preferring nothing of singular observance in his own acts. For this reason at last he chose rather to lay aside even the hair-shirt which he had for many years worn in secret, than that he should be known to wear it, testifying that he less wishes to lie hidden who does not follow with the rest of the same profession the things common to them. Yet in those very common things there was in him a singular purity and an uncommon devotion. Neglecting nothing, he handled even the least things with zeal and attention; being wont indeed out of his own experience to define him as wise to whom each thing tastes according as it is.

[153] His hatred of gluttony, his sparingness in food and drink, his pious exercises. From almost his earliest years he so escaped the enticements of gluttony that he lost even in great part the very discernment of flavors. How often, deceived by the pious guile of those who served him, did he take one liquid for another! For he even drank oil once handed him by mistake, and was wholly unaware of it. Nor was this known before someone coming in marveled that his lips were anointed. His food was a morsel of bread thoroughly softened in warm water, with a few little sips of broth. Small indeed it was, but no small part of it his stomach cast up undigested, lest there should be for him any pleasure in food which it was a peril to take, a pain to keep down when taken, and a misery to cast up. Thus assuredly had the heavenly dispensation provided for his faithful Servant according to the desire of his heart, so that neither should the fruit of a singular abstinence be wanting to him, and he should ever avoid odious admiration under the shadow of necessity. Concerning wine indeed he often said to us that it befits a monk, when he must take it, so to taste it that he be not noted to have emptied the cup. Which he himself so observed, as often as he suffered wine to be set before him, that not only after one draught, but after a whole meal of whatever sort, his little vessel, in which drink was served him, was scarcely ever seen to be carried back from the little table less full. He could indeed but ill stand, but he was sitting almost continually, and very rarely moved. As often as he could withdraw himself from business, he was either praying, or reading, or writing, or applying himself to teaching and to the edification of the brothers, or persisting in sacred meditation. In which spiritual pursuit indeed he had obtained a singular grace, so that he endured in it no tedium, no difficulty, dwelling freely with himself and walking at large in his heart, and there setting forth for Christ (as he was himself wont to admonish others) a large upper room furnished. Every hour was short to him for meditating, every place suitable. Yet frequently, though so disposed, at the urging of a divine fear, or rather at the governance of the Spirit, he set this pursuit after richer gains, being taught to seek not what was profitable to himself, but what was profitable to many. Otherwise, in any assembly or tumult of men, unless the cause demanded his attention, gathering his mind with all readiness, he enjoyed a certain interior solitude which he everywhere carried about with him, attending to nothing at all that sounded or appeared without.

II.

[154] When the servant of God had now passed some years at Clairvaux, He visits Blessed Hugh, bishop of Grenoble: it came into his mind to visit for devotion's sake holy Hugh, bishop of Grenoble ^b, and the Carthusian brothers. Whom the aforesaid bishop received so gratefully and so reverently, understanding the divine presence in the visitation of that guest, that prostrate upon the ground he did him reverence. But the Servant of Christ, seeing a bishop great in years, famous in repute, conspicuous in sanctity, falling down before him, was vehemently affrighted, and himself likewise falling down before him, being at last so received in the kiss of peace, complained, not without heavy groaning, that his humility was confounded by the veneration of so great a man. In whose breast he obtained from that time a singular place, so that thereafter those two sons of splendor became one heart and one soul, and enjoyed one another in Christ. For, as the queen of Sheba testifies concerning Solomon, each rejoiced that he had found in the other far more than report had spread abroad.

[155] At the Charterhouse ^c too the Servant of Christ was received by the most reverend man Guigo the Prior ^d and by the rest of the brothers with the same affection and the same veneration, likewise the Carthusians: the wondrous guarding of the eyes in St. Bernard: they exulting with joy because they found him present such as they had before known him by letter. But whereas in all other things they were edified, there was one thing which somewhat moved the aforesaid Carthusian Prior: namely, the trappings of the beast on which that venerable Man was riding, being less unkempt, less displaying poverty. Nor did that emulator of virtue press into silence what he had conceived in mind; but speaking to one of the brothers, he confessed that he was somewhat moved and made to wonder at this. And when that man had reported to the holy Father what he had heard, he, no less wondering, asked what that saddlery was which had thus come from Clairvaux to the Charterhouse, so that he had never seen it, never considered it, and until that hour was wholly ignorant of what sort it was. For neither was that beast his own, but had been lent by a certain Cluniac monk, an uncle of his, dwelling in his neighborhood; and it was as that man was accustomed to caparison it for himself. Which word the oft-mentioned Prior hearing, marveled chiefly at this: that that Servant of God had so cut off his eyes without and occupied his mind within, that what he himself had met at first sight, the other had not seen in so long a space of journeying. Journeying too a whole day's way beside the lake of Lausanne ^e, he did not see it at all, or did not see that he saw it. For when in the evening his companions were speaking of that same lake, he asked them where that lake was; and all marveled.

[156] his love of solitude and of religious silence, and his modesty: Yet from the beginning he had desired in every way to withdraw himself from affairs, and never to go abroad, but to reside in the monastery. Which afterwards too, reckoning that he had found in the failing of his body an opportune occasion, he at one time resolved, and for some while maintained, until the grave necessity of the Church of God, and the command of the supreme Pontiff and of all the abbots of his Order ^f, compelled him to go forth — to whom, as to fathers, he, the father of all, deferred in all things. And by their command too, in his last years, besides his cowl and tunic he used a woolen cloth in the fashion of a shortened cape, and a cap of the same, amid such great languors and labors of body never consenting to use any furs. In garments poverty always pleased him, squalor never. They would be *, he said, tokens of a mind either negligent, or vainly glorying in itself, or courting a little human glory abroad. His gait and his whole bearing were modest and disciplined, displaying humility, breathing piety, showing forth grace, exacting reverence, by their very look gladdening and edifying beholders. Of laughter we say what we have often heard from his mouth, when he marveled at the loud laughter of religious men: that he did not remember, from the first years of his conversion, ever to have so laughed as not rather to have needed to force himself to laugh than to restrain it, and to apply to his laughter the spur rather than the rein.

III.

[157] He who had set him apart for the work of preaching from his mother's womb had bestowed upon him, in a weak body, a voice strong enough and sufficiently distinct. his speech accommodated to the capacity of his hearers, and free from trifling: His discourse, as often as an opportune occasion was found, to whatever persons, was of the edification of souls — yet according as he knew the understanding, character, and pursuits of each, suited to each set of hearers. So he spoke to country folk as if he had always been reared in the country; so to all other kinds of men, as though he had spent every effort in investigating their works. Lettered among the learned; among the simple, simple; among spiritual men, abounding in the lessons of perfection and wisdom: he fitted himself to all, desiring to gain all for Christ. He was most artfully careful to observe what, writing to Pope Eugenius ^g, he uttered out of the fullness of his heart: "If trifles come in," he says, "they may perhaps sometimes be borne; repeated, never. Trifling must be intervened against cautiously and prudently. One must indeed break forth into something serious, which they may hear not only profitably but also gladly, so that they may leave off idle things."

[158] [his wondrous eloquence and grace of speech: the understanding of the Scriptures divinely granted him.] But how winning and persuasive a tongue, and how learned, God gave him, so that he knew what discourse he ought to utter and when — namely to whom consolation or entreaty, to whom exhortation or rebuke, was suited — those will be able to know in some measure who have read his writings, though far less than those who often heard his words. For grace was poured abroad on his lips, and his speech was exceedingly fiery, so that not even his own pen, excellent though it was, could retain all that sweetness, all that fervor. Honey and milk were under his tongue, and none the less in his mouth was a fiery law: according to that of the Song of Songs, "Thy lips are as a scarlet fillet, and thy speech is sweet." Hence it was that, speaking even to German peoples, he was heard with wondrous affection; and from his discourse, which they could not understand, being men of another tongue, their devotion seemed to be more edified, and to feel more the power of his words, than from the understood speech of any most skilled interpreter speaking after him. Of which thing the sure proof was the beating of breasts and the outpouring of tears ^h. He used the Scriptures indeed so freely and so aptly that he seemed not so much to follow them as to go before them, and himself to lead them whither he would, following as his leader the Spirit who is their author. Whom indeed, that he might open his mouth in the midst of the Church, God had so filled with the spirit of wisdom and understanding that, according to what is read in the book of Job, he searched out even the depths of rivers, and brought hidden things forth into the light. For he confessed once that, as he meditated or prayed, all sacred Scripture appeared as it were set beneath him and laid open.

[159] But how freely he preached the Gospel, who could worthily proclaim, He preaches the Gospel without charge, and rejects dignities. who could worthily marvel? He believed it would be * too little to ask of his hearers no transitory means, unless he also refused the ecclesiastical dignities so often offered him. It was a small thing for him, serving as a soldier, to seek no pay; he did not consent even to receive the insignia. In fine, like another David going forth to war, he pleaded that warlike arms were too heavy for him, by which he saw many, especially in his own time, weighed down; and in his simplicity he triumphed the more gloriously. For the divine power had conferred upon him so great a grace that, although he had chosen to be abject in the house of God, yet he bore fruit in it more richly than any others raised on high, and, shining more, illumined the Church, as it were from beneath the bushel of his own humility, more than the rest set upon lampstands. Assuredly the humbler he was, the more useful he ever was to the people of God in all saving teaching, in which nevertheless he never wished to hold the place of a doctor. Plainly blessed is he who, as he himself says of a certain one of the Saints ⁱ, "loved the law, and did not covet the chair." How much more happily indeed did he deserve to sit in the chair of the virtues, while he was unwilling to preside in the chairs of dignities! In fine, like a just and brave man he labored in evangelical preaching; like a prudent and temperate man he ever guarded himself against ecclesiastical prelacy. For neither did he ever refuse contumaciously; but often, when elected to the greatest honors, he acted prudently, the divine grace cooperating with him, that he might never be compelled. Holy Moses indeed yielded the high priesthood to his brother Aaron; but he was of a more hindered tongue. Our Bernard was called back from the work of an Evangelist by no necessity, but from honor alone by humility alone. Deservedly therefore he obtained with God and men a singular grace, who set forth the Gospel not only without cost of temporal means, but even without a grade of ecclesiastical dignity — yet not without fruit of his brothers' salvation; and always strove to profit the people of God, and never endured to preside over them. Yet he rarely went out to preach, save perhaps to nearby places. But as often as any necessity drew him, he sowed upon all waters, announcing the word of God publicly and privately. Which nevertheless he did by the command of the supreme Pontiff; and at the nod also of the other prelates, wherever it happened that any of them was present. Indeed, great as he was, humbling himself in all things, he deferred to priests the more, the more fully he had understood what reverence was owed to the ministers of Christ.

ANNOTATA.

* elsewhere: profound

* that is, to be

* to be

CAPUT II.

The Saint exposed to calumnies because of the unhappy outcome of the holy war; the errors of Peter Abelard and Gilbert de la Porrée confuted by him; the Henrician heresy repressed; miracles.

IV.

Nor must it be passed over in silence that from the preaching of the Jerusalem expedition the simplicity, or the malignity, of certain men took grave scandal against him, [He is assailed with calumnies because of the unhappy outcome of the expedition to the East: innumerable miracles.] since a sadder outcome followed. Which word *, however, we can say did not take its beginning from him. For when the necessity, being heard of, had already stirred the minds of many, and he had been sought for this purpose once and again by the king of the Franks, and admonished also by Apostolic letters, not even so did he consent to speak upon this or to give counsel, until at last, through a general letter of the supreme Pontiff himself, he was commanded by him, as it were the tongue of the Roman Church, to set it forth to peoples and princes. The tenor of which letter ^a was that they should undertake the journey unto penance and the remission of sins, either to free their brothers, or to lay down their own souls for them. These and such things could truly be said upon this matter; but rather must that be said which was the weightier. For he preached this word manifestly, the Lord working with him and confirming the word by the signs that followed. But with how great and how manifold signs? It would be difficult even to number, much less to narrate, how great they were. For they had begun to be written down at that same time; but the very multitude of things to be written overcame the writer, and the material the author: since sometimes in one day twenty or even more were healed of various ailments, nor was any day easily free from such things. In fine, at that time Christ, by the touch and the prayer of his Servant, made many blind — even blind from their mothers' wombs — to see, the lame to walk, the withered to grow strong, the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak: grace restoring the more wondrously what had been the less bestowed by nature.

[161] Nor yet did the Eastern church deserve to be freed by that expedition, That expedition profitable, though frustrated of its fruit. but the heavenly church deserved to be filled and to rejoice. And if it pleased God on such an occasion to snatch away, if not the bodies of the Easterners from the pagans, yet the souls of very many Westerners from their sins, who shall dare say to him, "Why hast thou done so?" Or who, rightly wise, would not rather grieve for those who returned to their former, or perhaps to worse than their former, crimes, than for the death of those who, in the fruits of penance, rendered to Christ souls purged by various tribulations? Otherwise, whatever they may say

the Egyptians, let the sons of darkness say it, who can neither see the truth nor utter it: "Craftily he led them out, that he might slay them in the desert" — Christ the Savior patiently bears the reproach which he offsets by the salvation of so many souls. The venerable Father himself too remembers this word, saying among other things: "If one of two must needs be, I had rather men's murmuring be against us than against God. It is good for me, if he deign to use me for a shield; willingly do I take upon myself the cursing tongues of detractors and the poisoned darts of blasphemers, that they may not reach unto him. I refuse not to be made inglorious, that men may not rush upon the glory of God." These things indeed he says in the second book On Consideration. And it happened, when first the lamentable rumor of the scattering of that same army had sounded within Gaul, that a father, offering his blind son to the servant of God to be given light, overcame with many prayers his excusing of himself. And the Saint, laying his hand upon the boy, prayed to the Lord that, if the word of that preaching had gone forth from him, if his Spirit had been with him as he preached, he would deign to show it in the giving of light to this boy. And when, after the prayer, he was awaiting the effect of the prayer, "What am I to do?" said the boy; "for I see." At once a shout is raised by the bystanders — for many were present, not only of the brothers, but also of the laity — who, being manifoldly consoled to see the boy seeing, gave thanks to God.

[162] [We believe also that some considered with pleasure enough that in the same week Ascalon is taken by divine rather than by human strength in which his most happy soul was loosed from the flesh, the church of Jerusalem was quite magnificently consoled by a divine gift, as they had often known him to promise. For Ascalon ^b was taken, that most strongly fortified place, distant a few miles from the holy city, and pressing perilously upon its heel. Against this the Christians, laboring fifty years and more, had accomplished nothing; for then too it was taken not by human but by divine power. Nor is it unfitting now to insert his own words, which in that same year he had written to that excellent man, a Knight of the Temple, then minister, and now also Master of the Knighthood of the Temple, who was his uncle according to the flesh ^c: "Woe to our princes," he says. "In the Lord's land they have done no good; in their own lands, to which they have swiftly returned, they practice incredible malice, and have no compassion upon the affliction of Joseph. But we trust that the Lord will not cast off his people, nor forsake his inheritance. Moreover the right hand of the Lord shall do valiantly, and his arm shall help him: that all may know that it is good to hope in the Lord rather than to hope in princes."] But thus far concerning these matters ^d.

[163] Now this too must be recorded for posterity: how manifoldly the teaching of the Man of God profited the holy Church in correcting the morals of Catholics ^e, [What the Saint did for the Church of God is proclaimed in an outstanding eulogy of Pope Innocent.] in repressing the furies of schismatics ^f, in confuting the errors of heretics ^g. For besides those whom he taught to live soberly and justly and piously in the world, how many also he persuaded more perfectly to bid the world farewell is plain even from this: that he did not cease, as long as he lived, to fill the deserts of the world with deserters of the world. By whose ministry that prophetic word seems to be exhibited even bodily: "He hath turned the desert into pools of water, and a land without water into outgoings of waters. And there he placed the hungry, and they founded a city of habitation. And they sowed fields and planted vineyards, and made fruit of birth: and he blessed them, and they were multiplied exceedingly, and their cattle he did not diminish." Truly, in the days of the general schism, how faithfully the Servant of the Lord stood in the breach in his sight, to turn away his wrath; how effectually he stood and appeased him, and the shaking ceased; how manifestly, in fine, in the time of wrath he was made a reconciliation, need not now be pursued at greater length. It may suffice for the present if we set down the words of Pope Innocent writing to him upon this ^h: "With how firm and persevering a constancy," he says, "the fervor of thy religion and discretion undertook the defense of the cause of blessed Peter and of thy holy mother the Roman Church when the schism of Peter Leonis was blazing up, and, setting itself as an impregnable wall for the house of God, labored to bring back the minds of kings and princes, and of other persons both ecclesiastical and secular, to the unity of the Catholic Church and to the obedience of blessed Peter and our own, by frequent arguments fortified with reason — the great profit which has accrued to the Church of God and to us makes manifest." But how magnificently the faithful and prudent Servant acted also for the faith must be briefly set forth.

[164] Peter Abelard challenges him to a disputation in the council of Sens; There was in those days Peter Abelard ⁱ, a distinguished master, and most celebrated in the repute of learning; but faithlessly dogmatizing about the faith. When his writings, full of most grievous blasphemies, had begun to fly about everywhere, learned and faithful men reported the profane novelties of his words and meanings to the Man of God. Who indeed, with his wonted goodness and kindness, desiring that the error be corrected, not the man confounded, met him with a secret admonition. With whom he dealt so modestly and so reasonably that he too, being pricked in conscience, promised that he would correct everything at his judgment. But when that same Peter had withdrawn from him, spurred on by wicked counsels, and unhappily trusting in the powers of his talent and in his much practice of disputing, he sprang back from the sounder purpose. Approaching at length the metropolitan of Sens, because a great council was shortly to be celebrated in his church, he alleges that the Abbot of Clairvaux was disparaging his books in secret. He adds also that he was ready to defend his writings in public, asking that the aforesaid Abbot be called to the council to speak, if he had aught to say. It was done as he asked. But the Abbot, when called, utterly refused to come, declaring that this was no business of his ^k. Yet afterwards, bent by the admonitions of great men — lest, namely, from his absence both scandal should grow for the people and horns for his adversary — he at last consented to go, sadly indeed, and consenting not without tears, as he himself testifies in a letter ^l to Pope Innocent, in which he pursues the whole business more fully and more clearly.

[165] The day came, and a numerous church assembled; where the writings of that Peter were brought forward into the midst by the Servant of God, but he is condemned by the Supreme Pontiff. and the heads of his error pointed out ^m. At length the choice was given him either to deny that they were his own, or humbly to correct the error, or to answer, if he could, the arguments and likewise the testimonies of the holy Fathers to be brought against him. But he, neither willing to come to his senses nor able to withstand the wisdom and the spirit that spoke, appealed to the Apostolic See, that he might redeem the time ⁿ. But afterwards too, being admonished by that excellent Advocate of the Catholic faith that, now knowing that nothing would be done against his person, he should answer as freely as securely, being only to be heard and borne with in all patience, not to be struck with any sentence — this too he refused in every way. For he confessed afterwards to his own men, as they say, that at that hour his memory was in great part disturbed, his reason darkened, and his inward sense had fled. Nevertheless the church which had assembled dismissed the man and punished the abomination, abstaining from the person but condemning the depraved dogmas. But when would that Peter find refuge in the See of Peter, dissenting so far from the faith of Peter? The Apostolic Prelate therefore, involving the author himself also in the same sentence with his errors, condemned the writings to the fire, the writer to silence.

[166] [The errors of Gilbert de la Porrée are condemned in the council of Reims, Pope Eugenius being present;] There was likewise Gilbert ^o, whom they surnamed de la Porrée, bishop of Poitiers, greatly practiced in the sacred Letters, but himself also searching out things too high for him, unto his own folly. For thinking not simply of the unity of the holy Trinity and the simplicity of the Godhead, and not writing faithfully, he set before his disciples hidden loaves, gave them stolen waters to drink, nor did he readily confess to persons of authority what he held, or rather how far he erred. For he feared what they say Peter said to him at Sens:

Then is thy own concern at stake, when the next wall is burning.

At last, however, when the scandal of the faithful was growing strong upon this and the murmur increasing, he was called into the midst and bidden to hand over the book in which he had vomited forth blasphemies grave indeed, but hedged about with a certain wrapping of words. And so in the council which the venerable Pope Eugenius celebrated in the city of Reims, Bernard, the singular athlete of holy Church in his time, dealt at close quarters against this Gilbert: first indeed drawing out all that the other strove to conceal by cavils of words; then confuting him in a two days' disputation both by his own reasonings and by the testimonies of the Saints; and observing indeed that certain of those who presided, though now perceiving the blasphemy in the teaching, were nevertheless still averting injury from the person, he was kindled with zeal, and calls apart the Gallican church that was his own.

[167] a new creed is drawn up, and Gilbert comes to his senses. At length by common counsel, from the fathers of ten provinces, and moreover from very many other bishops and abbots, the Man of God dictating, a new creed is opposed to the new dogmas. To which also the names of each are subscribed, so that of all of them, as their faith was irreproachable, so their zeal too might be made known to others as irreproachable. Thus at last, by Apostolic judgment and by the authority of the universal Church, that error is condemned, and bishop Gilbert is asked whether he consents to that same condemnation. Consenting, and publicly renouncing [p] what he had before written and affirmed, he himself obtains pardon — chiefly because from the beginning he had been careful to enter upon that same disputation on this condition: that he promised that without any obstinacy he would freely correct his opinion at the judgment of holy Church.

VI.

[168] In the region of Toulouse a certain Henry [q], once a monk, Henry, an apostate monk, disseminates heresies in the region of Toulouse. then a base apostate, of most wicked life and pernicious teaching, had by persuasive words taken possession of the fickleness of that people; and, as the Apostle foretold concerning certain men, speaking lies in hypocrisy, he made merchandise of them with feigned words. And he was a manifest enemy of the Church, irreverently disparaging alike the ecclesiastical Sacraments and their ministers. Nor had he advanced but moderately in that malignity. For the venerable Father, writing thus of him [r] to the prince of Toulouse, says among other things: "Everywhere were now found churches without congregations, congregations without priests, priests without due reverence, and, in fine, Christians without Christ. To the little ones of Christians the life of Christ was shut off, while the grace of baptism was denied. Prayers and offerings for the dead were laughed at, the invocations of the Saints, the excommunications of priests, the pilgrimages of the faithful, the building of churches, the keeping of solemn days, the consecrations of chrism and of oil; and all ecclesiastical institutions, in fine, were despised."

[169] [Bernard with Alberic, bishop of Ostia, makes for Toulouse, working many miracles on the way;] Under this necessity the holy Man took to the road, having already been asked more than once before by the church of that region, and then at last persuaded and likewise conducted by the most reverend Alberic, bishop of Ostia and Legate of the Apostolic See. And coming, he was received with incredible devotion by the people of the land,

as though an angel had come from heaven. Nor could he make any stay among them, because no one could restrain the crowds that rushed upon him: so great was the throng, by day and by night, of those coming, seeking his blessing, begging for help. Yet he preached in the city of Toulouse for some days, and in the other places which that wretched man had more frequented and more gravely infected, instructing many who were simple in the faith, strengthening the wavering, recalling the erring, restoring the subverted, pressing down and overwhelming by his authority the subverters and the obstinate, so that — I do not say they did not presume to resist — they did not presume even to stand by and appear. But although that heretic then fled and hid himself [s], yet his ways were so hindered and his paths so hedged about that, scarcely anywhere safe afterwards, he was at length taken and put in chains and handed over to the bishop. On which journey God was glorified in his servant with very many signs also, recalling the hearts of some from impious errors, healing the bodies of others from various sicknesses.

[170] There is a place in that same region whose name is Sarlat [t], and confirming his preaching. where, his sermon being ended, very many were offering loaves to the Servant of God to be blessed, as was done everywhere. Which he, with hand uplifted and the sign of the cross made, blessing in the name of God, said: "By this shall you know that the things which are urged by us are true, and those which are urged by the heretics false, if your sick, having tasted these loaves, obtain health." But the venerable bishop of Chartres, that great Geoffrey (for he was present and next to the Man of God), fearing, said: "If they take them in good faith, they will be healed." To whom the holy Father, in no way hesitating concerning the power of the Lord, said: "Not so would I say it; but truly, they who taste them shall be healed, so that thereby they may know us to be true and truthful messengers of God." So huge a multitude of the sick grew well upon tasting that same bread that this report was published through the whole province, and the holy Man, returning through the neighboring places, turned aside on account of the intolerable concourse, and feared to go thither.

[171] A chief * miracle indeed which Christ displayed through his Servant in the city of Toulouse was the cure of a certain paralytic cleric. At Toulouse a dying paralytic is suddenly cured. Him, in the house of the Regular Clerics of St. Saturninus [u] — of whom he himself was one — the Man of God, visiting at the request of the abbot and the brothers about the twilight of the night, found a dying man, who seemed to be drawing his last breath. Having consoled the wretched man, therefore, and given his blessing, as he went out, as he afterwards confessed, the faithful Servant spoke in his heart to the Lord as trustfully as faithfully, saying: "What awaitest thou, Lord God? This generation seeks signs. Otherwise we profit little among them by our words, unless they be confirmed by thee with signs following." At that same hour the paralytic leapt up from his pallet, and running, followed and overtook him, embracing his sacred footsteps with the devotion he owed. Meeting him as he suddenly came forward, one of his fellow canons was terrified and cried out, for he thought it a phantom. For when could he believe he had been able to rise from his bed? Thinking that his soul, having gone forth from his body, had appeared to him in phantom form, he fled. But at last the truth of the matter gave assurance both to him and to the rest. Word goes forth thence among the brothers; they run to a spectacle so delightful; the bishop too and the Legate run among the first; thence they go to the church, that very man who had grown well going before; there is a shout in the praises of God, the same man singing with them; the people rush from every side, Christ is blessed, faith triumphs, every unbeliever is confounded, piety exults, and impiety wastes away. Moreover the Man of God, having entered the cell where he was staying, orders all the approaches to be carefully watched and the doors to be barred, lest any entrance lie open to the people running together. [Indeed that Bernard (for this was the name of the Cleric who was made whole), not ungrateful for the bodily benefit, and more solicitous for a spiritual remedy, followed the Servant of Christ, professing the monastic Order at Clairvaux and taking the habit. By whom also he was sent again to the region of Toulouse, and being appointed abbot there, he presides to this day over the monastery which is called Valdeau [x].]

ANNOTATA.

p. These things Geoffrey, the author of this book, who was himself present at the council, relates at greater length in a letter to Henry, bishop of Albano. Besides this, the same Geoffrey published a disputation against Gilbert, which you have at the end of this volume together with the aforesaid letter. So Mabillon here.

q. The Henrician heretics restrained by the holy Doctor, and the miracles wrought by him among the people of Toulouse for the destroying of their errors, the preliminary Commentary sets forth at §42.

r. See letter 241.

s. Geoffrey's letter concerning this Henry may be consulted, which will be given below in our work, from number 351.

t. Commonly Sarlat, a town of France in Aquitaine and in the province of Périgord.

u. In French it is called S. Sernin de Tolose in the Sainte-Marthes, volume 4 of the Gallia Christiana, page 811, where there is more. The Benedictine Annals published by Mabillon, volume 5, at the year 1083, number 49, may also be consulted.

x. Vallis-aquae (Valdeau): concerning which monastery I have not found further information.

* that is, the business

* elsewhere: first

CAPUT III.

His most gentle character, and his outstanding virtues.

VII.

But since throughout the holy Man's whole return from that same province the signs grew more and more frequent, What the holy Man thinks of himself amid so many miracles. and were multiplied daily, it must not be passed over what mind he himself bore amid these things, who had learned from Christ humility of heart and meekness. For disputing with himself in his thoughts, and speaking at last out of the very abundance of his heart, he said to certain religious brothers of his own household: "I greatly marvel what these miracles may mean, or what it has seemed good to God to work such things through such a man as this. I do not seem to myself to have read in the sacred Pages of this kind of signs. For signs have sometimes been wrought through holy and perfect men; they have been wrought also through counterfeit men. I am conscious to myself neither of perfection nor of counterfeiting. For I know that the merits of the Saints, which are made illustrious by miracles, are not at my disposal; but I trust that neither do I belong to the lot of those who work many mighty deeds in the name of the Lord, and are not known by the Lord." These and such things he conferred rather often and rather privately with spiritual men. But at last, seeming to himself to have found a suitable way out, he said: "I know that signs of this kind look not to the sanctity of one man, but to the salvation of many, and that God, in the man through whom he works such things, considers not so much his perfection as his repute, that in him he may commend to men the power which is believed to be in him. For neither are these things done for those through whom they are done, but rather for those who see or know them. Nor does the Lord work these things through them to this end, that he may prove them holier than the rest, but that he may make the rest greater lovers and emulators of holiness. Nothing therefore have I to do with these signs, since I know that they are displayed rather to my repute than to my life, and are done not to commend me, but rather to admonish others." Sufficiently, if we are not mistaken, will anyone marvel at this Man's mind who has weighed this with diligent consideration; nor will any faithful appraiser reckon it more excellent to work signs and prodigies wondrously than so to interpret them when wrought.

[173] He will also judge it no less profitable to himself to know his affections as things to be imitated than his acts as things to be marveled at, [The wondrous integrity in him, and the sweetness of his character, and the moderation of his affections:] and the tokens of his character than the signs of his works. But who is fit for these things? For in this Man of God's breast purity and sweetness had settled by an equal covenant: each of them indeed sufficiently wondrous, but more wondrous the embrace of both. Thence assuredly the desires of the whole world so singularly concurred alike upon one man, because sweetness made his purity lovable, and purity made his sweetness acceptable; so that it were hard to judge whether he obtained more of favor or of reverence. For who was of so rigid a manner of life as not to revere loftily the Abbot of Clairvaux? Who of so lax a one as not to be sweetly affected toward him? For he bore a breast full of the sweetest affections, but how freely he restrained them, as often as the cause required! Most humane in affection, yet stronger in faith. And to bring forward some brief example of this matter: as he himself testifies too in the twenty-sixth Sermon upon the Song of Songs, with dry eyes he performed the obsequies of his own brother — and a brother so needful, so beloved, namely Gerard; with dry eyes he delivered his body to burial,

lest his affection should seem to overcome his faith. For any stranger whatever he scarcely or never buried without tears. Such had the divine hand fashioned him for itself — to bear fruit the more richly thereby — that the sweetness of his character should take away his austerity, and his sanctity should preserve his authority. For to whom would so great a kindness be a burden, or to whom would so great a goodness not be an honor? We read of Solomon that all the earth desired to see his face. A great proclamation; but perhaps in this respect this man is no less than Solomon. For it is not sufficiently credible that that Solomon in all his glory obtained so universal a favor of the world as this man in his humility. Nay rather it would seem altogether difficult to find from any histories one man, while still dwelling among men, who obtained in the whole earth a name so famous and so lovable from the rising of the sun and from its setting, from the north and from the sea.

[174] [The Man's most famous repute together with the utmost contempt of himself: his modesty:] For, to mention those provinces from which more certain memorials are known to survive to this day, both in the Eastern church, and among the western suns of the Irish, and from the south in the remote borders of the Spains, and from the north in the islands which are far off, of Denmark and of Sweden, his repute was most famous. He received frequent letters from every side, and returned them. From every side gifts were sent him; from every side his blessing was sought. Finally, like a most abundant vine, he propagated his shoots on every side — save that into the land of Jerusalem, although a place had been prepared by the king, he did not consent to send his brothers, on account of the incursions of the pagans and the intemperateness of the air. Nor indeed does that bishop seem to have usurped anything unfitting who, after his sacred death, while he consoled the brothers, among other things pursued this also in his praise: that "their sound is gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world." Yet the humility of his heart overcame the loftiness of his name, nor could the whole world raise him up as much as he alone could cast himself down. He was reckoned by all the highest, reckoning himself the lowest; and he whom all preferred to themselves, preferred himself to none. In fine, as he often confessed to us, amid the highest honors and the favors of peoples or of exalted persons, he seemed to himself to have borrowed another man, and reckoned himself rather absent, suspecting it to be a kind of dream. But where the simpler brothers spoke to him more trustfully, as is wont to happen, and where it was always allowed to enjoy a friendly humility, there he rejoiced to have found himself and to have returned into his own person. The modesty inborn in him from boyhood endured to his last day. Hence it was that, although he was so great and so lofty in the word of glory, yet never (as we have often heard him protest) did he speak a word in any assembly, however humble, without fear and reverence, desiring rather to be silent, unless he were urged by the goads of his own conscience, by the fear of God, by brotherly charity.

[175] his exceptional patience in sicknesses, and in other events. His patience we know to have been exercised and proved chiefly by the Lord's scourges: who indeed, from the very beginning of his conversion until the day of his sacred laying to rest, endured so much that his life seemed to those who knew him nothing but a certain protraction of death. But toward men also, even if a rarer occasion could afford perhaps lesser proofs of his patience, it must nevertheless be said at least briefly that he did not appear void of this virtue either. And because he was wont to say that this kind of patience is threefold — namely toward injuries of words, toward losses of goods, toward hurt of the body — let us set forth of each at least single examples, such as come to us for the present. The Servant of God had once written to a certain bishop ^a of the king's court and council, admonishing him upon certain matters to persuade and counsel the king to better things. But he, greatly exasperated, returned him a most bitter letter, saying in the very first greeting, "Health, and not the spirit of blasphemy" — as though, namely (which it is horrible to say), the holy Man had written those things out of a spirit of blasphemy. At which word the most meek Servant of Christ, mindful of the Lord's answer, "I have not a devil" (as his letter, still extant today, contains), said: "I do not indeed believe that I have a spirit of blasphemy; nor am I aware that I have cursed anyone, or wish to curse, especially a prince of my people."

[176] Nor did he afterwards hold that same bishop less dear, nor less familiar; examples of which but that aforesaid saying was with him as though it had not been said. The abbot of Farfa ^b had called a convent of brothers from Clairvaux, intending to build them a monastery; but the Roman Prelate hindered it, and taking them to himself, established them in another place. Whereat that aforesaid great man, of great devotion, grieving exceedingly, deposited under a bond a sum collected of about six hundred marks of silver, which, coming to the Man of God, he offered to him, asking that, since he had not deserved it in his own parts, a new monastery might thereupon be founded even on this side of the Alps. Men were sent for the silver, and the whole of it was utterly lost. Nor did the Man of God answer aught else, when it was reported to him, than, "Blessed be God, who has spared us the burden." "For to those too," he said, "who took it away, pardon must the more lightly be granted. For they are Romans." And the money seemed enormous, and that was a vehement temptation. He was wont also to rejoice, reckoning about ten monasteries, or places suitable for building monasteries, taken from him by fraud and violence, since he was unwilling to contend, and it delighted him more to be overcome than to overcome others.

[177] There came once to Clairvaux a certain cleric of those whom they call Regulars, and pressed importunately enough to be received as a monk. are reported. When the holy Father urged him to return to his own church, and would not consent to receive him, "Why then," said he, "hast thou in thy books so greatly commended perfection, if thou refusest to show help to one who desires it?" And being more vehemently instigated by a malignant spirit of wrath, as afterwards plainly appeared, "Now," said he, "if I had those books, I would tear them in pieces." To whom the Man of the Lord said: "I think that in none of them hast thou read that thou canst not be perfect in thy own cloister. Correction of morals, not change of places, if I remember well, have I commended in all my books." But then the man, making an assault upon him like a madman, struck him on the cheek, and that so heavily that redness at once followed the blow, and swelling the redness. Already those present were rushing upon the sacrilegious man; but the Servant of the Lord forestalled them, crying out and adjuring them by the name of Christ in no wise to touch him, but to lead him out carefully and have care of him, lest he be harmed by anyone or in anything. Which he commanded so strictly that the wretched man, fearing and trembling, was led out and conducted away without any injury.

[178] And indeed in liberty of spirit the Servant of God shone forth excellently, yet with humility and meekness, He rarely rebukes offenders, rather admonishing and beseeching: so that in a certain manner he seemed both to fear no one and to reverence every man. He used rebuke more rarely, acting rather by admonitions and entreaties. But how unwillingly, and not out of bitterness of heart, he uttered a bitter word, was chiefly perceived from this: that he most easily restrained an impulse of this kind. For indeed he marveled at the perverseness of men whom, when at any time perchance they are disturbed, it grieves to admit any reasonable excuse or any humble satisfaction — because the very passion of their disturbance so delights the wretched that they hate every remedy, so that they stop their ears, close their eyes, thrust up their hands, and strive in every way that a commotion once arisen may not be able to be settled and healed. Yet a harsh and turbulent answer sometimes checked his upbraiding no less easily than a humble and modest one, so that it was said by some that he pressed on with one who yielded, and yielded to one who resisted.

[179] He gives a profitable admonition on the tempering of correction. For he used to say that where modesty sounds on both sides, conversation is sweet; where on one side only, profitable; where on neither, pernicious. For where harshness sounds on this side and that, it is a quarrel, not a correction nor a discipline, but a brawl; so that it befits a Prelate rather to dissemble for the time, and, the commotion being healed, more profitably to chastise his subjects — or assuredly, if the matter so demands, to observe the counsel of the Wise Man, that "a fool is not corrected by words." He himself speaks of rebukes received less profitably, less patiently, in the forty-second sermon upon the Song of Songs, saying among other things: "Would that it were necessary to upbraid no one! For this were better. But since in many things we all offend, it is not lawful for me to be silent, upon whom it lies by office to reprove sinners; and charity urges me the more. But if I shall have reproved, and done what is mine, and yet the rebuke, going forth, shall in no wise do what is its own, nor accomplish that for which I sent it, but return to me empty, like a dart that strikes and springs back — what mind think you I then have, brothers? Am I not distressed? Am I not tormented? And that I may take to myself something from the words of the master, since of his wisdom I cannot, I am altogether straitened between two, and I know not which to choose: whether to be pleased with myself in what I have spoken, since I have done what I ought; or to repent of my word, since I have not obtained what I wished." And below: "Thou wilt say to me perhaps that my good returns to me, and that I have delivered my soul, and am clean from the blood of the man to whom I announced and spoke, that he might turn from his evil way and live. But even if thou add innumerable such things, yet they will not console me at all, beholding the death of my son — as though by that reproof I had sought my own deliverance and not rather his. For what mother, even though she knows that she has applied all the care and diligence she could to her sick son, if at last she sees herself frustrated, and all her labors wholly ineffectual, he dying none the less — will she therefore ever refrain from weeping?" And thus far of this.

[180] his meekness and exceptional charity; For the rest, he was so great an emulator of meekness and peace that if perchance any importunate petitioner had rather harshly extorted an answer from him as he refused, he was not thereafter easily dismissed empty with the same refusal. For, as it were by nature (as he confessed), he hated every scandal; and to bear the burdening of any man was exceedingly grievous to him; not to feel it, impossible. So far did he despise no one, so little did he make light of any man's scandal — even though he preferred the truth of God and justice. For as often as it was needful either to reprove the harmful acts of some or to hinder their attempts, it was done so considerately that even those who seemed to be injured had abundantly wherewith to satisfy themselves for it in their own thoughts. Indeed we have seen some even of these, and of such as it seemed there was less hope of, afterwards serve him with an ampler devotion in acts of duty, or even cleave to his footsteps. Yet he is said to have had enviers too, that he might have merit from them also. But so singularly did the glory of his name stand forth that that pest, rather by despair,

than by envy wasted away, and feared to be recognized. Nay, it was even overcome by his humility and meekness, choked by his benefits, overwhelmed by his services; for he had assuredly been taught to overcome evil with good, as, writing to certain brothers ^c, he says among other things: "I will cleave to you, even if you be unwilling; I will cleave, even if I myself be unwilling. I will do good to the unwilling, I will heap benefits on the ungrateful, I will honor even those who despise me."

[181] For so far did he embrace all men with a brotherly affection [his horror of scandal, his joy at the fruit of souls, his mercy even toward wild creatures.] that he was more grievously burned (as he himself was wont to confess) by the scandal of those to whom he seemed to have offered no occasion of scandal. For another's unearned scandal afflicted that most loving breast more than the innocence of his own conscience consoled him. For he had less hope that it could be healed, since he did not see whence it proceeded; declaring on the contrary that it was a great solace to him as often as he found wherewith he might make satisfaction either to a man on his own behalf, or to God on behalf of a man disturbed not without cause. Toward the spiritual advantage or disadvantage of all men indeed he was the more affected; and his highest desire, his highest joy, was the fruit of souls, the conversion of sinners. And yet he had pity too upon bodily needs with a most loving affection. Whose humaneness was so great that he had compassion not only upon men, but even upon irrational living creatures, upon birds and wild beasts; nor was the effect of his power wanting to his compassion. For it happened sometimes that, as he journeyed, he wondrously delivered by the sign of the cross a little hare fleeing from the dogs, or a little bird from the hawks, which (as it seemed) was about to be caught at once; and he would say to those following that they were striving in vain, and could in no wise carry out a plundering of that sort while he was present.

ANNOTATA.

CAPUT IV.

The likeness of St. Bernard expressed in his own writings; the wondrous heaping together in him of all virtues and graces.

VIII.

These things concerning the sacred character of our Father we have touched briefly, according to our small measure. But he appears far more eminently in his own books, and becomes known from his own letters, in which he seems so to have expressed his own image and set forth a certain mirror of himself, that that saying of Ambrose too may deservedly seem able to be applied to him: "Let him sound his own praise, and, laureled in spirit, be crowned by his own writings." For if anyone desires to know how solicitous a judge and searcher of his own self he was from the beginning, let him look into his first work, On the Degrees of Humility. Thence, if the religious devotion of a pious mind is sought, one must pass to the Homilies in praise of the Virgin Mother, and to the book which he published On Loving God. If a zeal fervent against the vices of his own men or of others, let that be read which he calls the Apologeticum. If a watchful and circumspect discretion in that same zeal, let him be heard discoursing On Precept and Dispensation. But how faithful a commender and helper he was of every pious manner of life, his Hortatory Sermon to the Knights of the Temple declares. How not ungrateful to the grace of God, is plain from those things which he disputed as faithfully as subtly On Grace and Free Will ^a. How free in utterance, how eloquent, and how rich in the knowledge alike of higher and of lower things, the diligent considerer will recognize in those things which he wrote to Pope Eugenius On Consideration ^b. How most devout a herald of another's sanctity, he showed by pursuing so diligently the life of the holy bishop Malachy. For in the Sermons upon the Song of Songs ^c too he becomes known both as a searcher of mysteries and as a magnificent builder of morals. In the Letters which he dictated to divers persons on divers matters, the prudent reader will observe with what fervor of spirit he loved all justice, and equally hated all injustice.

[183] [Everywhere he gives his effort to promoting good things and exterminating evil ones.] For the faithful Servant of Christ sought nothing of his own; yet whatever was Christ's he cared for as his own. For what crimes did he not reprove, what hatreds did he not extinguish, what scandals did he not restrain, what schisms did he not repair, what heresies did he not confute? And what thing holy, what honorable, what chaste, what lovely, what of good report, what of virtue or of praiseworthy discipline, arising in any region in his days, did his authority not strengthen, his charity not cherish, his diligence not promote? What thing already promoted did he not desire to be further extended? What thing perchance fallen did he not labor with all his strength, according to place and time, to have restored? Who, planning any malice whatsoever, did not fear his zeal and authority? Who, proposing any good whatsoever, did not consult his sanctity if he could, did not desire his favor, did not beg his help? Who came to the sacred temple of the divinity dwelling in his breast, to cry out faithfully concerning any tribulation, and labored without effect? The sorrowful bore away solace from him, the afflicted help, the anxious counsel, the sick a remedy, the poor support. So had he made himself the servant of all, as though born for the whole world; yet so free of all in bearing the care of his own conscience, as though given over to the care and keeping of his own heart alone.

[184] [And indeed the Apostle commends the divisions of graces; The divers charisms of holy men. and if anyone diligently inquire, he will find that from the beginning divers servants of God shone forth in divers gifts. For we read that men magnificent in faith were famous for manifold miracles; that others had a prophetic spirit, and wondrously knew things future as though present, things hidden as though set before their eyes. That others none the less, as the writings of the ancients testify, being given to a heavier abstinence, cultivated frugality; that others, in a purpose of humility, the dignities of this world being scorned, pleased greatly the author of the world; that others by the teaching of the word instructed very many in the knowledge of salvation, so that, according to the promise of holy Scripture, they should shine as stars unto perpetual eternities. Others too, laboring in the building of monasteries, enlarged the name of sanctity; others, effectually occupied in quieting the scandals and whirlwinds of this world and in promoting the affairs of God's Church, were useful in action; others, spiritually keeping holiday in sacred meditations, were sublime in contemplation.

[185] Which of these will seem to have been lacking to our Bernard? But St. Bernard seems endowed with all graces. Nay, which of these was not in him so distinguished as to suffice for his commendation, even if something of the rest had not been present? For although the Church of his time deserved to experience the profit of his action in the affairs mentioned above, as well as in very many others, yet the grace of contemplation too shines forth magnificently in him, both from the visions and revelations of the Lord and from his own writings, which overflow with spiritual meanings. Moreover the fruit of the monasteries which the Lord ordained through him thrusts itself upon human eyes so copiously and so evidently that it needs to be commended by no writings. And from the very multitude of those same monasteries every generation hereafter will be able to take sure proof how many he gathered to the service of Christ who propagated so many on every side. As to the rest, having above pursued his humility and his refusal of dignities, and also his most slender diet, we shall take care to note down, under another heading, a very few things out of many of those which pertain to prophecy and to the display of miracles.] ^d And now therefore concerning these things which consist in outward signs and in the manifold showing of miracles, the second ^e little book, as was set forth in the preface, will narrate somewhat.

The end of the third book.

ANNOTATA.

BOOK THE FOURTH,

by Geoffrey, monk of Clairvaux.

CAPUT I.

His return from the City; relics of the Saints carried thence; benefits conferred upon others; the spirit of prophecy.

Chapter I.

As in the twenty-fourth Sermon upon the Song of Songs Bernard, servant of the Lord, of Clairvaux, rejoices [Peace is restored to the Church, the antipope Peter Leonis being dead: the Saint brings relics with him from the City:] and gives thanks to him: upon his third return ^a from the City a kindlier eye looked upon him from heaven, and a more serene countenance at last smiled upon him, because the Leonine madness had been stilled, the malice had received its end, and the Church had recovered peace. And with so great exultation did the Gallican church receive him that it seemed to display no less gladness at his return than to announce concerning the peace restored. Whence he himself often marveled and complained that, whereas he judged that after such grievous throngs of men and tumults he must bid farewell to the world as though from the beginning, and must as it were undertake anew the purpose of the sacred manner of life, then chiefly he was received with richer joys and honored with attentions. But the holy Father, returning from the City, brought with him precious gifts from the bodies of the holy Apostles and Martyrs, reckoning this to be no small fruit of his labor. Among which it must be recorded in what manner he received a tooth of blessed Caesarius. For when the whole head of the aforesaid Martyr was displayed to him, that he might take thence what he wished, he asked that one tooth be given him. But the brothers who had come with him, laboring for some while in vain, were altogether unable to draw out what had been granted them. For two or three little knives which they had applied being broken, the tooth none the less still remained immovable. Then he said, "We must pray; for neither can we have it unless the Martyr himself grant it." And prayer being at length made, approaching reverently, with incredible ease he took away with two fingers what before could not be moved with instruments of iron.

[287] his tunic, kept at Rome, heals a dying man: Now the brothers of the Temple of Jerusalem, professors of a faithful soldiery, when they had at that time begun to have a new house in the City, kept his tunic as a special blessing when the aforesaid Father, their special patron ^b, was returning. Among whom in that same year a certain priest, seized by a most grievous fever, lay sick past hope. And when, wholly failing, he seemed to have come to his last, he had himself carried into the oratory and the aforesaid tunic of the blessed Man laid beneath him, being placed in the sole expectation of the going forth of death; when suddenly, caught up into a certain ecstasy of mind, and as though already loosed from the flesh, he seemed to himself to see his own body lifeless in the same place where he lay, already surrounded by a multitude of priests holding open books and celebrating the solemn obsequies after the custom. And without delay, in the countenance and habit of the aforesaid holy Father, a certain reverend person, coming forth from the altar, signed to them with his hand to be silent, forbidding them likewise with his voice to reckon as dead one whose life God had granted to the Abbot of Clairvaux. Forthwith at last, coming to himself, he found himself whole, and told the brothers what he had seen. Who indeed, as we lately learned from faithful men, is still surviving today, and living in the region of Aquitaine, and diligently confesses the benefit which he received, to the praise of him by whose merit he lives. If anyone marvels less at this, let him consider that of blessed Nicholas, out of the innumerable miracles with which he is adorned, this is commended as outstanding in the annual commemoration of his birthday: that, being far away, he turned aside the emperor Constantine by a vision from the destruction of certain men.

[188] Nor is that unlike which we append. Abbot Gerard of Mores ^c, which is a monastery near Clairvaux, absent in body, present in spirit, he rouses the sluggish in choir. testified to us that he had once seen him going about the choirs of the brothers as they chanted, and, as he frequently did, rousing the sluggish, so that what remained of the vigils was chanted more affectionately and more manfully. And when on the following day he complained to him familiarly that he had visited the chanters that night later than he ought, "I," said he, "in the hours of the night was hindered by a bodily ailment; but whither the body could not go, the spirit came" ^d. He was afraid, hearing that he had not been present in body whom he himself had so long beheld with bodily gaze, going about both choirs and rousing each of the drowsy, as he was wont, and laying his hand upon each.

[189] [At the time when the holy Father was staying at the City, Staying at the City, he heals a dying man at Clairvaux: it happened that a certain brother, Robert by name, fell gravely ill at Clairvaux. To him appeared a certain young man, like the infirmarian brother, bidding him follow him. It seemed that he followed as the other went before; and he came to a lofty mountain, in which he found the Lord Jesus with his angels, and heard him say to that guide of his, "Keep this man for me." And now the Lord also put into the heart of that sick man certain words which he sent through him to his own Clairvaux. When morning came, therefore, he sat up who was thought to be about to die at once, and, all marveling, had the lord Geoffrey, then Prior, now Bishop of Langres, called. To whom, being present, he said among other things: "The Lord charges you that you make ample buildings, which may hold the people whom he himself will send you in great numbers; and charge the brothers of the granges * that they bear themselves honorably, and offer a pattern of good example to men of the world: for woe to him through whom one man shall go back." After about twenty days, when he was still laboring past hope under the same sickness, the admirable Father Bernard, absent in body but present in spirit, came to Clairvaux, visited the sick man, chanted the morning hymns about him with a great multitude of brothers, and passed that night there beside him; and when morning came, that same brother appeared whole, and made known also to the brothers the manner of his deliverance.]

[190] We believe that the fame of the venerable man William has come to the ears of many, a nobleman returns to health in a wondrous manner: who, once lord of Montpellier, now a true poor man of Christ and a humble monk, lives in the monastery which is called Grandselve. From his relation we learned what we are about to say, as he said he had received it from the mouth of the man to whom it had happened. In the city of Auch, which is the metropolis of Gascony, a certain knight was sick. And when a raging disease had taken hold of the lower parts of his body from the loins downward, he lay for many days upon his bed, dead beforehand in no small part. At length, being pricked in conscience and trusting in the mercy of God, he orders himself to be carried, with whatever labor, to that Servant of his whose fame of miracles had so widely spread itself on every side. He had now been on the way for some days, and had advanced no less in faith and devotion than in the journey itself, when God, having pity on the man, deigned wondrously enough both to succor his infirmity and to spare his weariness. For a certain man meeting him on the road asked who he was, or whither he was going; and having learned the necessity of his journey, "I," said he, "on behalf of that Saint, charge thee to return, knowing that when thou comest home thou shalt be whole." God persuaded him to believe — by whose disposing indeed all these things were carried on. He returned, and returning received little by little that mercy which had been promised him, so that he did not reach home before he received the gift of full soundness.

[191] [The queen of England, invoking the absent man of God in the utmost peril, is presently delivered:] Matilda too, queen of the English [e, once showed so great an affection of devotion toward this Servant of God that she went out on foot with the people beyond the city to meet him as he came to Boulogne ^f, although she was with child and now very heavy. Who, after some days, when the time of bearing came, was so grievously afflicted that both she herself and the whole household utterly despaired of her life; and now, all the remaining furnishings being assigned to the poor and to the churches, a royal garment too was being prepared in which she should be buried, as one about to die forthwith. Then suddenly, remembering the Man of God and invoking his name in full faith, in that very invocation she straightway brought forth without peril the child that had been despaired of. Nor did she delay to send a faithful envoy, through whom she might give thanks to her famous Helper, calling him thus born, not undeservedly, his own son ^g.] But he, as often as it befell him to hear any such thing, refusing it no less humbly than pleasantly, was wont to say: "This assuredly must be imputed to me as it is to him who was wholly unaware of it."

[192] [by his stole, which he used in the sacrifice, a demon is driven out of a possessed man:] In the monastery whose name is Bellevaux ^h, near the city of Besançon , a certain man was vexed by a demon, doing wondrous things at his instigation, speaking wondrous things. After many prayers of the brothers, therefore, when that spiritual wickedness persisted shamelessly, the venerable Abbot of that place, Pontius ⁱ, still surviving today, remembered that he had a stole which the blessed Father had for some while used in the offering of the saving Victim. And without delay he at once took up arms mighty unto God, and trustfully assailed the enemy. Scarcely had he touched the threshold of the little cell in which the wretched man lay, when suddenly that malignant one, professing himself vanquished with horrible cries, said: "Lo, I go out, I withdraw forthwith; I cannot remain longer." And when the abbot answered, "By the name of the Lord, and by the merit of that blessed Man whose this stole was, I charge thee, go out quickly, delay not" — straightway the demon is put to flight from the man, the man is freed from the demon. Who else would not perhaps have exulted perilously that the spirits were so far subject to him that they gave way even to him when absent? But he, when the abbot himself reported it, was in no way moved, and rather mocking those whom he saw to be moved with great wonder at this, answered these same words: "Why should not we two easily have prevailed against one? Easily could God cast him out, especially since I, as you say, have been given him as companion and helper ^k." For he often used answers of this kind in matters of this kind. For he, true and truthful, no boaster but an emulator of humility, knew that men could be more effectually dissuaded from what astonished them by a certain oblique and artful objection than by an open excuse, which, by displaying a humility more worthy to be proclaimed, would not diminish but increase men's esteem. Whence in a certain place he says, speaking from his own experience: "The truly humble man wishes to be reckoned vile, not to be proclaimed humble."

II.

[193] That too was very well known: that, while still living in the flesh, but appearing in spirit, a novice learns the day of his death he foretold to a certain brother the day of his death. A certain novice brother was ill at Clairvaux, a youth of good manner of life and of good disposition. Nor was the day far off on which, after the yearly probation according to custom, he would put on the new man — if he had not first put off the man. For being made perfect in a short space, he fulfilled long times; for his soul was pleasing to God. On the fifth day therefore before his last day, when a certain brother visited him Gerard [l, who is today abbot of the monastery of Longpont ^m], that same novice, much gladdened, said among other words of spiritual grace: "Behold, on the fifth day I shall die. For today our Father the lord Abbot appeared to me with a multitude of monks, and cherishing me with gentle consolation, said that I should die on the fifth day." The report went out among the brothers, and before it was fulfilled the word was published abroad. That day was awaited by all, but above all that blessed man was in expectation of it. Now the fifth day was declining toward evening, but his spirit was lifted up more and more to the Lord.

[194] At length about the eleventh hour, set in the very agony of death, he learns from an apparition of the Saint: the light of his eyes being wholly overcast, as is wont to happen, and now attending to no one, he was hastening to his going forth. Meanwhile the holy Father, visiting him, calls him back as from a deep sleep, and as it were draws back one who was passing over, and does not permit him to depart unsaluted. At whose voice, opening his eyes, and his face being wondrously made serene, he gazed upon him for some while. We all marveled that a mortal man, nay one already dying, so far triumphed over death that in the very moment of death he exulted with joy, most beautifully exhibiting to us that saying of the Poet:

Begin, little boy, to know thy mother by a smile.

But then the holy Father, consoling him, bids him fear nothing, but forthwith by a straight course to reach the Lord Jesus Christ, and to offer him the humble greeting of his poor family. At this word, assenting with such inclination of the head and motion of the lips as he could, he again closed his eyes, and at that same hour rested in peace.

[195] Many things indeed were revealed to this Servant of God through the spirit, he foretells that Hervey, a noble boy, will be a monk: and many things we have known to have been wondrously foretold by him without any preceding revelation; of which, for example's sake, we subjoin a few. When the holy Father was once in the city of Noyon ⁿ in the house of bishop Simon ^o, there was brought to him Hervey de Beaugency [p], a boy exceedingly charming, sprung of royal blood, and nephew of that same bishop. Concerning whom on the following night Christ showed to his Servant what was, after a time,

to come after a long while: for he seemed to himself, as it were in the celebration of Mass, to give the kiss of peace to a certain angel, which was to be carried to the boy. And not doubting of the revelation, he promised that the same Hervey would renounce the world and would one day be a devout servant of Christ. Which promise became so famous and so widely published that Hervey himself afterwards confessed to us that, when he was a youth, at all the goads of his accusing conscience it always occurred to him that it was impossible that after such a promise of the holy Man he should die in a secular habit; nor was he cheated of his hope. For the venerable Waleran [q], first abbot of the monastery of Ourscamp [r], made him a monk, and, performing an angelic office, imparted to Hervey the peace which he himself had received from the mouth of the holy Father. Whose manner of life afterwards appeared such that he seemed worthy of such an oracle. For he succeeded the aforesaid Waleran in the governance of the monastery of Ourscamp; and at the last he foreknew and foretold his own impending death while still sound and whole, the same Waleran announcing it to him by a revelation.

[196] [At Paris three Clerics were pricked in conscience by his preaching and followed him:] And what we add was like to this. When the holy Father was once traversing the borders of the region of Paris, bishop Stephen and all the rest who were there together, asking earnestly, could not obtain that he should turn aside to that city. For with great zeal, unless a grave cause pressed, he shunned public assemblies. And whereas in the evening he had arranged his journey otherwise, in the morning, as soon as he had spoken to the brothers, he bids them tell the bishop, "We shall go to Paris, as thou hast asked." A very numerous clergy therefore assembling, as they were always wont to seek the word of God from him, immediately three of them were pricked in conscience and converted from vain pursuits to the cultivation of true wisdom, renouncing the world and cleaving to the Servant of God. Of whom, as he looked upon the first, when suddenly, in the midst of his speaking, he rose and sought his feet, he bent a little and spoke into the ear of a certain brother sitting nearer him, saying: "Him I foresaw in a vision of the night just as I now see him coming, and for his sake also the Lord has brought us here." Who indeed as a novice lived afterwards in much purity and devotion, and being very acceptable to God and men, rested at Clairvaux after some years with a blessed end. There appeared once to the Man of God, while he was in the city of Troyes, his venerable sons, already loosed from the flesh, Galdric and Gerard, of whom also, according to the flesh, the one had been his own brother, the other his uncle. And when, as though hastening, they were passing by more swiftly, they answered him as he called them back and wished to hold them, that they must go on account of brother Geoffrey the monk, who, their companion from his first conversion, had served God bravely enough in the building of many monasteries. Forthwith the holy Father, rousing the Brothers, bids them make haste; and coming to the monastery, on that very day, as he had foretold to them, he found the same Geoffrey already set in his last extremity.

[197] the king is divinely punished for having despised priests. [The elder Louis, king of the Franks, being once hostile to certain bishops of his realm, drove them out of their sees and cities. Whereupon this reverend Man also wrote many letters, laboring for their peace, copies of which survive to this day. And it happened that, in the presence of that same holy Father, many bishops, desiring to bend the king's indignation, prostrate on the ground in all humility, clasped his feet, and not even so obtained favor. Whereat the Man of God, moved with a religious spirit, on the next day rebuking the king rather harshly because he had despised the priests of the Lord, freely declared also what had been revealed to him that same night. "This obstinacy," said he, "shall be punished by the death of thy firstborn, king Philip. For I saw thee, with thy younger son Louis, bowed down at the feet of the bishops whom yesterday thou didst contemn; and I understood forthwith that, Philip being swiftly taken out of the midst, thou wilt ask on behalf of Louis's substitution that church which now thou oppressest." Which indeed a pitiable mishap fulfilled not long after; and, Philip dying, the father brought it about that he who today happily reigns, Louis the younger, was anointed.] [s]

ANNOTATA.

p. Elsewhere Balgentiacum, or Baugentiacum, commonly Beaugency, a town of France upon the river Loire between Orléans and Blois.

q. Of him Manrique treats at the year 1129, chapter 7, and at the year 1142, chapter 10. Henriquez records him with the title of blessed on the 12th day of September.

r. See the Bernardine Chronology at the year 1129, and Manrique at the same year, chapter 7.

s. The preliminary Commentary §14, number 142, may be consulted.

* that is, of the farms, or country granges

* Vesontio, Besançon

* Sermon 16 on the Song of Songs

CAPUT II.

Certain other specimens of his prophecies.

III.

The Lord delivered no less wondrously than mercifully that most faithful prince Count Theobald, proved in great tribulation. [Count Theobald is wondrously vexed by the king of France; but the holy Father foretells that he will be delivered;] He indeed, most powerful in the realm and second after the king, yet wholly given to almsgiving and intent upon the pursuit of piety, was a most devoted lover of all the servants of God, but especially of Bernard of Clairvaux. Whom God suffered to be assailed and afflicted so far that, the king and likewise almost all the neighboring magnates conspiring against him, men so far despaired of his escape that religion was now publicly mocked at, piety disparaged, almsgiving derided. Monks and lay brothers were called his useless knights and crossbowmen. Nor only among strangers, but in his very own cities and castles blasphemies of this kind were now resounding. At length, when many bishops and other persons were once gathered together, the Man of God also being present, while they were treating and conferring upon these matters, a certain bishop, at that time most celebrated for authority and repute of prudence, said: "Count Theobald is in the king's hand; there is none who can rescue him." And when another prelate answered, "There is one who can free him," he, marveling much, asked who was believed to be able. At length hearing that he can rescue him who can do all things, God, being not a little vexed, he said: "He can, if he appear manifestly, if he hold a club, if he strike on this side and on that; but thus far he has not done these things." In so great a despair, therefore, when strangers pressed the aforesaid prince vehemently, yet those assailed him more grievously who had fallen away from him — almost all his own powerful men — and no less did the few who seemed to remain afflict him, being themselves also suspect by reason of the others' defection, Geoffrey, bishop of Langres, frequently and familiarly consulted the Man of God as to what the Lord revealed to him upon these matters. To whom he, when he had often answered that nothing appeared to him but tribulation upon tribulation, at length once said to him as he inquired: "In the fifth month there will be peace." And indeed on the last day of the fifth month peace was restored, he himself both praying and working for it: so that it was not doubtful that it was chiefly by his zeal and merit that that most pious prince was freed from such grave and imminent perils.

[199] as also consolation to a certain nobleman; After some years, between the same king of the Franks and Geoffrey [a, Count of Anjou, grave enmities were carried on. The cause was that the Count, besieging in his most strongly fortified town the nobleman Gerard de Montreuil, the king forbidding it, had seized him with his wife and children and kinsfolk, and had razed the fortification itself. The holy Man therefore was treating of the restoring of peace, many bishops and princes being gathered together for this very purpose; when suddenly that Count, moved with the gall of bitterness, leaving them all without a farewell, leapt upon his horse and withdrew. All being at length confounded, the assembly was breaking up in despair of peace; and the aforesaid Gerard, coming to the Man of God, asked leave to go, as one about to return to death and prison. For he had been brought to that colloquy under hostages. And when the Man of the Lord consoled him, he, weeping and wailing the more grievously, said: "I grieve less for my own lot; I mourn for all my own who shall die together with me." Having compassion therefore, the blessed Man said, "Fear not; be assured that God will succor thee and thine, and that more swiftly than thou canst even hope." For he remembered a vision which he had seen as he came to that colloquy: that as he was, as it were, about to read the Gospel, by the holy bishop Malachy

he sought a blessing; and he trusted that peace would without doubt come forth. That Gerard had not yet reached the threshold of the house, going out from his presence, when suddenly someone meeting him announced that the Count was returning. All marveled, hearing so swift an effect of the promise. For at that same hour the Count returned, and the longed-for peace likewise came about.

[200] Now that same Count had for that same business been bound by the bonds of anathema at the command of the supreme Pontiff, but was to be absolved: and to the Count of Anjou, who despised the anathema, divine vengeance. he utterly refused to humble himself, as he ought, or to confess his fault in this matter; but rather, being very high-spirited, he imprecated upon himself that God should never remit him such a fault, reckoning himself innocent and unjustly bound. Wherefore the holy Father departed from him not a little sorrowful, saying to him — for he was a man of letters — "In what measure thou shalt have measured, it shall be measured to thee again." And that same day, when certain persons complained of this insolence and said that that prince had gravely erred, the Servant of God, kindled with zeal, said: "This rashness shall be punished grievously enough. It cannot be at all but that in this same year that Count shall either die, or feel some other evident vengeance of the divine indignation." This word not a few heard both from these persons and from others. Which was so swiftly fulfilled that that same Count died within the fifteenth day.]

[201] The Servant of Christ, having once entered the kingdom of Germany, [He foretells to a Cleric who was thinking nothing less that he himself would be a monk:] was hastening to the region of Mainz to restore peace between king Lothair and the nephews of his predecessor, the emperor Henry — namely Conrad, who afterwards succeeded Lothair in the kingdom, and Frederick, father of this Frederick who, elected after Conrad, holds the sovereignty today. Now the venerable Metropolitan of Mainz, Albert, sent a certain honorable cleric named Mascelinus to meet the Man of God. This Mascelinus therefore, when he said that he had been sent by his lord to serve him, the Man of God, gazing at him a little while, said: "Another Lord has sent thee to serve him." The German was affrighted, and marveling what he meant to say, asserted more firmly that he had been sent by his lord the archbishop of Mainz. On the other side the Servant of Christ said: "Thou art mistaken; greater is the Lord who has sent thee — Christ." Then at last the man, understanding whither he wished to aim his speech, said: "Dost thou think that I wish to become a monk? Far be it from me; I have not thought of it, nor has it come up upon my heart." Nevertheless, though he refused, the Servant of God affirmed that it must in every way come to pass, not what he had thought concerning himself, but what God had disposed concerning him. At length on that same journey, being converted to the Lord, he bade farewell to the world; and with many other lettered and honored persons whom the Servant of Christ gathered at that time, he too, as had been foretold him, followed him.

[202] [Henry, brother of the king of the Franks, unexpectedly becomes a monk at Clairvaux: a certain Andrew,] Henry too, own brother of the king of the Franks, who today adorns the see of Beauvais, the Lord changed by a not dissimilar conversion. For it happened that the same Henry, coming to the Man of God to speak upon a certain secular business, visiting also the convent of the brothers, commended himself to their prayers. To whom the holy Father, amid words of holy exhortation, said: "I trust in the Lord that thou shalt in no wise die in that state in which thou art now set, but shalt swiftly prove by thine own experience how much the prayer of these men, which thou hast sought, profits thee." Which afterwards on that same day was fulfilled, not without the wonder of many, and the monastery was filled with all exultation at the conversion of so great a youth. But while his companions mourned, and his whole household wailed as though they beheld him dead, above the rest a certain Andrew of Paris cried out that Henry was drunk, that Henry was mad, sparing neither reproaches nor blasphemies. On the other hand that same Henry besought the Man of God to give his effort chiefly to that man's conversion. To whom the holy Man said, in the hearing of many: "Let the man alone; his soul is now in bitterness, and be not much solicitous for him, because he is thine." And when Henry, having conceived greater hope, pressed him to speak to Andrew, the Man of God, looking at him rather severely, said: "What is this? Have I not already told thee, he is thine?"

[203] taking this most indignantly, afterwards embraces the same institute. Andrew, hearing these things — for he too was standing by — being, as he was, exceedingly headstrong and vehemently abhorring the sacred manner of life, revolved such things with himself in silent thought, as he confesses to this day: "In this now I know thee to be a false prophet; for of this I am sure, that thou hast spoken a word, and it shall not come to pass. I will not spare to cast this in thy teeth before the king and the princes, in whatever famous assembly, that thy falsity may be known to all." But how wonderful is God in his counsels over the sons of men, laughing at their vain attempts, so that his own purpose may be fulfilled when and how he himself shall will! For on the next day Andrew went off, imprecating all evils upon the monastery where he was leaving his lord, desiring that the very Valley too be utterly overthrown with its inhabitants. And those who had heard the holy Man's aforesaid word concerning him were not a little moved and made to wonder when he seemed to depart in such a fashion. But God did not long suffer their faint-heartedness and small faith to be tried. Going forward and in a manner repelling the grace of God for that day only, on the very next night, overcome and as it were bound, the Spirit of God drawing him and doing him violence, he could not wait for the day, but rising before dawn and swiftly returning to the monastery, he showed us another Saul, or rather, out of another Saul, another Paul.

[204] Many from Flanders follow Bernard; among whom Geoffrey de Péronne: Among the others whom Christ snatched from the vain manner of life of this world through the ministry of his Servant, from the region of Flanders many nobles once, many wise and lettered Men, professed the sacred servitude under his mastership; of whom the first seemed to be that Geoffrey de Péronne, who afterwards discharged the office of Prior at Clairvaux, and died in it. In whom that evangelical word was plainly enough fulfilled: "Many shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ, lo, there." For it was wrought upon them with very many persuasions that they should have chosen rather another profession and other places, until the Servant of God met them when they were nearly scattered; and at the words of grace which proceeded out of his mouth all their former hesitation was done away, and the will of all alike was irrefragably established in his counsel. Which indeed was not done without a sudden and wholly unlooked-for change of mind in certain of them. In fine, when the aforesaid Geoffrey was now following the Man of God to the monastery, he began to be assailed with a most grievous temptation. And one of the brothers, looking at him, said: "What is it that thy face seems disfigured, and heavily wrapped in a certain cloud of sadness?" To whom Geoffrey said: "I know that I shall never more be glad." Which word when that same brother, anxious enough, had reported to the Servant of God, he, seeing a sacred church near the road along which they were walking, turned aside into it, and having entered, prayed. And while the rest waited outside, that Geoffrey, weighed down with weariness, fell asleep upon a stone. At length, when both had risen together, the one from prayer, the other from sleep, that same Geoffrey appeared as much more pleasant and cheerful than the rest as he had before been sadder. And when the aforesaid brother amicably cast in his teeth the word of sadness which he had spoken, he said: "Though then I said, 'I shall never more be glad,' yet now I say, 'I shall never more be sad.'"

[205] The same Geoffrey too, in the first season of his novitiate, being solicitous with filial piety for his father, a noble and powerful man the Saint utters a prophecy concerning his father's conversion: whom he had left in the world, besought the holy Father the more affectionately to pray the Lord for his conversion. To whom the Man of God said: "Fear not; I shall bury him with my own hands here in Clairvaux, an approved monk." Both followed: he was made a perfect monk, and was buried by the holy Father at Clairvaux, as he himself had foretold. For, as though he could not die in his absence, being sick for five months, and having in himself the very frequent — nay continual — sentence of death, he held out until the holy Father returned, who, as he had once promised, should deliver him to burial.

[206] The queen of France, wife of the aforesaid Louis the younger [b, another prophecy concerning the childbearing of the queen of the Franks; had passed many years with him and had no offspring. Now the holy Man was with the king laboring for a certain peace, and the queen was striving against it. And when he admonished her to desist from what she had begun and to suggest better things to the king, in the midst of their speaking she began to complain of her barrenness, humbly asking that he would obtain childbearing for her from God. But he said: "If thou wilt do what I admonish, I too will entreat the Lord for the thing which thou askest." She assented, and the effect of peace was not delayed. Which being restored, the aforesaid king — for the queen had suggested the matter to him — humbly demanded of the Man of God what he had promised. And this was so swiftly fulfilled that about the same time in the next year that same queen bore a child.]

[207] The lord abbot Rainard of Cîteaux, whom the holy Father, having been taken from Clairvaux, both embraced as a son concerning the death of the abbot of Cîteaux, announced beforehand: and revered as a father, entered the region of Provence for the ordering of certain monasteries. Concerning whom the Man of God, while he was at Clairvaux, as he was speaking to a certain brother, moved by a sudden inspiration, said: "The lord of Cîteaux is either dead, or about to die shortly." And that brother marveled not a little, hearing the word; yet he was the more astounded when after a few days he heard the death of that same abbot announced.

[208] likewise concerning others. [In the same year in which the holy Father was to depart from this life, three young men from the nearby town which is called Bar-sur-Aube had entered the monastery of Clairvaux for the sake of conversion, of whom the third, at the malignant one's persuasion, returned to his vomit. Whereupon the brothers, being the more solicitous for the other two, spoke of this to the holy Father, they themselves also being present. But he, gazing at them, said: "This one shall never labor under any temptation; but that one under many, yet nevertheless he shall prevail." Both, as we heard, so we saw, so much so that we often cast it in the teeth of the second, when at times he almost failed in temptation and was already beginning to go away, that it was impossible that he should be overcome whom the holy Man had said would be overcome by no temptation.] The Servant of God once spent the night in prayer, being at his own monastery of Clairvaux, and with his wonted intentness besought the Lord. And it happened at that same hour that a certain poor man, and truly poor in spirit, died in the guest cell; whose soul the holy Father heard being borne into heaven with tuneful voices; and the brothers who had been present being asked in the morning, he found that that had been the hour of his death at which he had heard the aforesaid voices making their way on high ^c.

ANNOTATA.

CAPUT III.

Marvels and various benefits bestowed by the Saint, especially in the kingdom of France.

IV.

When the blessed bishop Malachy, whose life full of virtues the holy Man diligently described, [Malachy's happy state, newly departed, is revealed to him: likewise that of Alberic, bishop of Ostia.] had, according to the desire of his heart, rendered his blessed soul to heaven at Clairvaux, the venerable abbot, offering the saving Victim for his passing, knew his glory by the Lord's revelation; and by his inspiration, the Sacrifice being now completed, he changed the form of the prayer, and brought in a collect which pertains to the festivals of holy Pontiffs, not to the commendations of the departed, saying thus: "O God, who hast made the blessed bishop Malachy equal to the merits of thy Saints, grant, we beseech thee, that we who keep the festival of his precious death may also imitate the examples of his life." Then, reverently approaching, he most devoutly kissed his sacred feet. Yet he did not consent either to disclose to anyone the manner and course of the vision, or to write it in that bishop's life, answering only this, when he was much entreated: that it pertained too closely to his own person. [Nor indeed is it doubtful that he likewise concealed many like things — namely whatsoever the Lord suffered to be concealed. For at Verdun once too, which is a city of Lorraine, when at the tomb of the most reverend man Albert *, bishop of Ostia, who had died shortly before, he offered the Sacrifice of praise for his commendation, he likewise changed the collect at the end; concerning which, however, what he had seen he was neither asked nor did he confess, although he in no wise seems to have done it without a certain revelation ^a.]

[210] Concerning those things which pertain to the grace of healings, Christ wrought so many notable things through this Servant of his He obtains an easy delivery for a woman pregnant beyond her time: that in him too there seemed to be exhibited what John the Evangelist testifies of him: "If all were written, not even the world itself could contain the books that should be written." But let us at least bring forward a few out of many for example's sake. The inhabitants call it Châteauvillain ^b, which is distant, as they say, six miles from Clairvaux; where a pregnant woman had passed all the time of bearing, and, some months having now run out, since she still did not bring forth, she marveled the more. Whose delivery was so long deferred that it seemed rather a disease, nor was she now believed to be pregnant, but swollen. For who could believe that a little infant could be held within its mother's inward parts for a whole year? The woman therefore, being despaired of, is led in this condition to the Man of God's monastery. The wretched creature is set at the gate, and the pitiable case is made known to the brother porter. He, being asked, and having compassion on an unheard-of ailment, went as a suppliant to the holy Father, faithfully telling him the woman's necessity, faithfully discharging the business of the embassy he had undertaken. And — O wondrous working of the divine power, more wondrously hastening what was wondrously being delayed! — as though the infant that was to be born had waited so long a time for this alone, at that same hour the woman bore her child; and, the remedy running ahead, that brother, returning to the gate, did not find the ailment which he had announced.

[211] by blessed bread At another time in the territory of Auxerre, at the town which is called Cosne ^c, a certain woman was in peril for many days, because the child had come to the birth and she in labor had not strength. And when the Servant of Christ had meanwhile arrived, he sent blessed water to her as she asked his blessing. The woman tasted it, and forthwith the boy was born; whom the venerable Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres, baptized, giving him the name of Bernard. On that same journey and in that same territory, while a multitude of the fevered, as they were wont everywhere, were asking blessed bread of the Man of God, a certain cleric Girard, of the castle whose name is Clamecy ^d, ill-taught and mocking, blasphemed the people's faith. But in the very words of his blasphemy, being seized with a most grievous fever, he was compelled to follow the Man of God as he departed as far as Auxerre; and doing penance with him, he obtained with many prayers that very blessing which he had disparaged. And that blessing of this kind, being tasted, restored health to so many that it could be comprehended only by the knowledge of God, by whose power these things were done.

[212] he works wonders; which bread is long preserved uncorrupted. We have seen in the territory of Meaux a knight rendering most devout thanks to the Man of God, because at the first taste of bread blessed by him he received full soundness from a quartan fever, under which he had so grievously labored for nearly eighteen months that in the hour of its onset, like a man frenzied, he did not know his own mother. We have heard also the venerable man Gerard ^e, bishop of Limoges, testifying that a certain young man of his household, mortally wounded in the head, when he lay foaming and out of his mind, a little morsel of bread which the Man of God had blessed being put into his mouth, felt so swift a power that at that very hour he rose up whole. Nor must that be passed over in silence: that the same blessing also preserved the very substance of the bread from all injury of corruption, so much so that we have seen many who for seven years and more kept those same loaves, with neither color nor taste changed. A few days ago, the venerable abbots Girard and Henry, coming from the parts of Sweden, while we were conferring upon these matters, testified to us that bread signed with his blessing eleven years before still remains with them wholly uncorrupted. And we have known the like among some of us to this day, and believe it to be laid up among many others. And now let us bring forward a testimony of this matter sufficiently fitting and evident.

[213] Archbishop Eskil visits St. Bernard, who gives him bread of wondrous power: That great man, and magnificently to be honored, Eskil, archbishop of the Danes, venerated the holy Father with a singular affection, and honored him with a singular devotion. Nor was he content to see him in his sons, when he had built a new monastery and had obtained from him the longed-for swarm of a sacred congregation. A vehement desire prevailed with him that a man of such authority, and in those islands singularly powerful in ecclesiastical as well as in secular authority, should, all his own affairs being set aside, deliver even himself to many perils and to labor. For of the expenses it is not much to speak, though we have heard him protest that he spent on that journey more than six hundred marks of silver. He came therefore to Clairvaux, at once so humble and so exalted, whom from the ends of the earth not curiosity to hear wisdom, but zeal of faith and fullness of devotion had drawn. How much he wept there; what manner of man he showed himself not only toward him whom he so singularly looked up to, but even toward the very least of the brothers, is not easy to tell. At length, being about to return to his own country, that he might be able to carry back bread blessed by the Servant of God and keep it longer, he ordered by human reckoning that it be baked again in the oven, as those who cross the seas are wont to carry twice-baked bread. But the Saint, hearing this, did not suffer so devout a man to err; but amicably reproving him that in this respect his faith was found small, he said: "Is it so, that the blessing will not be able to preserve the bread more than a second baking?" And he did not consent to bless that bread, but ordering common bread to be brought him, he blessed it and said: "Lo, take this with thee, henceforth in no way solicitous about corruption." He took it, and returning to his own people glories to this day that the defect of his faith was convicted by the most evident truth of the fact. For neither did he suffer himself not to visit the holy Father's tomb ^f; nor is he less affected toward him now, nor does he trust him less than of old when he lived — since indeed he in no way doubts that he lives more truly. He confessed to us also concerning the bread which he brought back, that until now, when the third year has already passed, the faith and blessing of the blessed Man have kept it unharmed.

[214] Religious men too who had come with that same archbishop narrated to us a malignant spirit, on account of a certain youth's conversion a miracle worthy of memory lately done in the monastery ^g which, as we mentioned above, he himself founded in his own land. "For there was," he says, "in that same region a noble youth, a kinsman according to the flesh of the archbishop himself; but on account of his many outrages less dear to him. Being seized, however, with a most grievous sickness, he scarcely obtained a visit from him, and by his hand betook himself to the monastery which he had founded. Where, renouncing the world with the greatest compunction of heart, for some days in humble and most faithful confession

persisting, he labored more and more under that same sickness. Which at length growing strong, knowing that his departure was at hand, he embraced the presence of the abbot and the brothers with wondrous affection, and admonished them with wondrous devotion to snatch up spiritual arms, that they might effectually protect the soul, commended to them, which was forthwith to go forth, and might faithfully afford it, amid the most cruel darts of the threatening enemies, the escort utterly needful. And when, amid supplication of this kind, being now fortified with the divine Sacraments, and presuming with most loving devotion upon the patronage of those same servants of God and upon the Lord's mercy, and thereby leaving to all the bystanders much confidence of his salvation, he had expired, the brothers offered as devoutly as they could the saving Victim of the Lord's Body for the commendation of his soul.

[215] Then suddenly the enemy of human salvation, conceiving great wrath at the deliverance — as seems beyond doubt — of that same soul, raging against a monk, which for many days he had believed himself to have irreparably seized, and, God permitting, exercising that wrath cruelly enough, invaded one of the brothers with a sudden frenzy. The wretched man therefore cried out with horrible voices, and was scarcely held by the hands of many. At length, being carried off with very great labor and bound upon a bed, attacking with his teeth both his own limbs and those of the bystanders, he was most dreadfully vexed. Nor did he speak in that tongue which he knew before, but in a certain new one which none of the bystanders knew. And although they understood nothing of what he said, yet they heard him utter sounds so freely and without stumbling, and not ill-formed, that they believed without doubt that he was speaking in some language. After some hours therefore, when the brothers, greatly confounded, were anxiously considering and diligently seeking what they might do, one of them, conceiving a salutary counsel by the Lord's inspiration, advises that the sacred pledges deposited there that same year by the archbishop himself — namely of the hair and beard, and one tooth of our blessed Father Bernard — be brought and laid upon his breast.

[216] is tormented and put to flight by the relics of St. Bernard: When this was done, the wicked spirit began to cry out through his mouth in the German tongue with horrible voices: "Take away, take away, remove Bernard!" And he said: "Alas, how weighty thou art become, Bernard, how heavy, how intolerable art thou become to me!" And when he had for some while gone on crying out these and like things, there was a short silence, and suddenly that same brother, the Lord having mercy, being cleansed, opened his eyes, and as one waking from a heavy sleep, marveled at the brothers standing round and most of all at his own bonds, asking modestly enough what these things meant, or what had happened. From that hour therefore, by the holy merits of the blessed Father, he received his former health of mind and body, remembering nothing at all of what he had done or spoken in that so grievous a fall. These things indeed have been said by us upon the testimony of the most reverend man Eskil, archbishop of the Danes, on occasion of the bread blessed by the Man of God, not without a certain anticipation. For the rest, let us now pursue what remains in order.

[217] who by the sign of the cross heals cattle, a lame youth, a frenzied woman, Now not only to men, but to cattle also and to herds, his blessing so frequently profited that he once harshly rebuked the cellarer of his own monastery because, not telling him, he had let the animals die from which the poor were to be sustained. Thereafter, as he was wont, he blessed salt and ordered it to be set before the animals, and at once the plague that had arisen ceased. Which in other monasteries too we have seen and known: that on hearing that the brothers' animals were dying, sometimes even unasked, but himself first admonishing them, he came to their aid with the same remedy. Gaud is the name of a certain place of the monks of Chézy ^h, where the holy Man, once spending the night, healed by prayer and blessing a lame youth presented to him, so that within a very few days, as he returned through that same place, he stood by him whole and devout. In those same parts, in a village whose name is Algorrium, the people offered him a frenzied woman as he passed by; upon whom laying his hand and praying, he left her whole and departed. Her we afterwards saw in that same village meeting the Man of God with thanksgivings.

[218] a boy's useless hand; and another's eye, and a third's contraction. In remote regions too, whithersoever the necessity of holy Church drew him, the power of signs followed him. At Verfeil (for so is called a castle of the territory of Toulouse, which, as we mentioned in the preceding book, the holy Father once entering, shone forth there with many miracles), a boy maimed and lame from his mother's womb had received soundness of both feet and of one hand at the memorial of a certain Martyr. His other hand, still useless, as though divinely preserved for him, the holy Father healed by blessing it, that it might be made known that he was a partaker of the power of the Saints. Cahors ⁱ is the name of a city of Aquitaine, through which the Man of God passed at that same time. There, besides other benefits which he bestowed on many who were sick, one of the boys of the bishop of that same city, who from a grave wound had lost the light of one eye, received sight under his hand. In the district of Angoulême too, at the place whose name is Castellare, after the offering of the saving Victim, the venerable bishops standing by — Lambert ^k of Angoulême and Gerard of Limoges — they offered to the Servant of God a boy lame and maimed from his mother's womb, whose elbows, in the fashion of a ball, clung with his knees to his navel, and his feet to his buttocks. But he, handling each limb, the sign of the cross being first made, at once with wondrous ease stretched them out and healed them. Finally, taking his hand, he raised him up and let him go, walking freely. And the people, for such great miracles indeed, praised the Lord with loud voices. For on the following day too, in the district of Limoges, in the village which they call by the name of Saint Genian *, very many signs shone forth through him. For from every side there flowed together those who labored under various ailments, and the power of the Lord was there to heal them. Where, among the rest, a boy of nearly ten years, blind from his mother's womb, was offered to the Man of God before all the people. Who, spitting upon his fingers and anointing his eyes, made a short prayer, and in the name of Christ opened the eyes of one born blind.

ANNOTATA.

* read: Alberic

* Elsewhere Germanus, Saint-Germain-Laval.

CAPUT IV.

Various places of Germany made illustrious by St. Bernard's miracles; others in Belgium and in Spain.

When the blessed Man had once entered the kingdom of Germany also, In one day he heals thirty-nine persons, and afterwards many others: he shone forth so excellently in the grace of healings that it can neither be expressed in words nor be believed if it be told. For those who were present in the territory of Constance testified, near the village which they call Doniguem *, from among those who investigated more diligently and saw with their own eyes, that in one day at the laying on of his hand eleven blind were given sight; ten maimed also were healed, and eighteen lame were raised up. But lest we should seem to have made ourselves poor amid abundance, out of the innumerable multitude we commend to memory at least a few things which are known to have been done in the more famous places. When the Man of God had come to Constance ^a, and the fame of his miracles was spreading itself on every side, the abbot of Reichenau ^b (which is an ancient and noble monastery standing within the lake of Constance) sent to him a blind man whom he was sustaining with his alms, and forthwith received him seeing. Heitersheim is the name of a place belonging to the diocese of that same city, but very far removed from the city. There too, as also in the other places of that province through which he passed, God was glorified in his Servant by many miracles. Where also a man born blind received sight under his hand. Likewise to another deaf and dumb from birth hearing and speech were restored. In the city of Basel too, when after his custom he had delivered a discourse to the people, so that there might be fulfilled in him what is read of the holy Apostles — namely, that going forth they preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following — a dumb woman was offered him, and forthwith at his prayer she spoke. A lame man was offered, and he walked; a blind man was offered, and he saw.

[220] At Speyer he works very many miracles: likewise at Frankfurt, At the city of Speyer, in the presence of Conrad, king of the Romans, who most devoutly conducted the Man of God from the church to his lodging, they offered a lame boy, asking that he would deign to lay his hand upon him. Whom, having signed him, raising him at once, he set upon his feet, and he walked freely, all acclaiming to the praise of God. In the chapel of the bishop of that same city, the king himself looking on, he restored sight to a certain blind woman, and gave the power of walking to one born lame. Many other things indeed Christ wrought there by his hand, but let a few suffice for an example. Some poor little boys too the devout king himself offered him with his own hands, and deserved to rejoice at the cure of many. Nor only at the aforesaid city of Speyer, but at Frankfurt ^c, a place of the diocese of Mainz, the same Servant of God shone with innumerable miracles. For out of the whole region they brought to him as many as were suffering, and so great was the concourse that the aforesaid king, when at one time he could not restrain the pressing crowd, laying aside his cloak, took the holy Man into his own arms and carried him out of the church. Among the very many indeed who obtained health there, a certain old paralytic of that neighborhood, a man known and honored, was brought in to the Man of God at the many prayers of his own people, and not without much labor; by whom, after a very short prayer, as was his custom, he was straightway raised up and healed,

and appeared not only whole but even strong, so that if you saw it you might believe that the man was not so much altered as another man.

[221] And as he was now going forward manfully, others were preparing to carry away the bed on which he had been brought, when one of the bystanders, Hugh, archdeacon of the church of Toul, calling him back, mindful of that paralytic of the Gospel, said: "Not so, not so shalt thou return empty; take up thy pallet and walk." And laying it upon his shoulders, he let him go as he went forward freely; and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God. There too a boy deaf and dumb from his mother's womb, lifted up by a ladder and approaching the Man of God at a window, received under his hand hearing and likewise speech. But a certain paralytic woman also of that same region, rich and honored, received there the soundness she had lost for a long time. And while, leaping up, she walked, all who saw indeed rejoiced, but above the rest the knights exulted who had brought and offered her. For their religious devotion seemed to be itself a partaker of that power. About the same time, as the Saint was passing near a village set on the bank of the Rhine which they call Boppard ^d, and was curing various sicknesses throughout the whole province, a paralytic was offered him on a pallet. For, the fame of the miracles being heard, he had had himself carried from the aforesaid village to meet him. Upon whom, laying his hand in the midst of the people, he raised the man up, and sent him home whole.

[222] In that same year ^e, as the Servant of Christ entered the city of Trier, At Trier he heals very many: the whole people, after their custom, rushed to meet him. And they offer him two sisters, who for four years had lost the light of both their eyes. Upon each of whom, imprinting the sign of the cross, he restored the sight of light; and, seeing, they followed the Man of God with the rest. In the church of that same city, when at the altar of blessed Peter the Apostle the Man of Apostolic grace had immolated the immortal Victim, a lame man was offered him, and he walked; a blind man was offered, and he saw; a deaf woman was offered, and she heard. This woman said that she had been admonished in her sleep to seek the Man of God, by whose benefit she would receive her hearing. At Coblenz, a noble castle of the diocese of Trier upon the river Moselle, which there flows into the Rhine, the Servant of God was passing through; and when he had gone forward a little, he bade a lame man who had been offered to him and signed by him be set down and walk; but there was no one who obeyed. And without delay that same lame man cries out that the drawn-up sinew of his thigh is loosening of its own accord, and that, while he knows it not, his knee is being stretched as if by another — which, however much he had before attempted it, he had in no way been able to do. All marvel; with all speed what is said is proved; he is set down at once, at once he walks, at once he is known to be sound and whole.

VI.

[223] We must not pass Cologne by. It is a great city; great was the power that attended the Servant of God there; great was the devotion of the peoples that honored him. There is shown to this day in the cloister of blessed Peter, as we lately learned from truthful persons, a youth once lame, now walking freely, who, being offered to the Man of God, received at the laying on of his hand the power of walking, whence also he is publicly surnamed his son. Abbot Henry of Sweden, of whom we made mention above *, lately reported to us that a noble woman, formerly the wife of his own brother, when after her husband's death she had fallen into frenzy for grief, and being long in that condition was kept in bonds, was offered to that same holy Father in the aforesaid city, and, being barely and slightly signed by him amid the clamoring crowd, while she was being carried back bound according to custom, recovered her former mind and her health entire. In that same city too noble parents offered their deaf daughter to that same holy Father. They said that she, given from childhood to a monastery of consecrated women, had there wholly lost her hearing, and had passed many years in that same ailment. Whose ears the holy Father, making the sign of the cross, touched, and forthwith restored to her hearing, and to her parents her hearing.

[224] [likewise he cures a woman blind in one eye, a woman with contracted limbs, and very many others:] Meanwhile there came an honored woman, likewise a citizen of Cologne, who had lost the light of one eye, and said that she had for five years spent very much upon physicians to no purpose. And her too the blessed Man forthwith gave light by the sign of the cross, giving freely what he had freely received. But another matron, offered in a bed in the church of blessed Peter, the same Servant of Christ raised up at once, and bade her go away whole upon her own feet. Hers the sinews of the thighs had for a long time been so drawn up that she could neither be raised at all nor stand upon her own feet. For from other persons those who observed more carefully declared that at the prayer and the laying on of hands of that same holy Man, in the aforesaid city within the three days which he spent there, twelve lame were raised up, two maimed healed, five blind given sight, speech restored to three dumb, and hearing to ten deaf.

[225] At Aachen and Liège and Cambrai he restores soundness to many. At Aachen, the royal seat, while the blessed Man was celebrating the solemnities of the Mass in that chapel most famous in the whole Roman world, the King of kings and Lord of lords under the hand of that same Servant of his repaired and by his mighty power restored the power of walking to a lame man, and sight to four blind. At the same time too within the borders of Liège, besides innumerable other things which for brevity's sake we pass over, near the town which they call Fontaine, at his prayer the Lord opened the eyes of a man born blind. Not only were this man's eyes blind, but even his very eyelids were closed and dead; which the blessed Man opening with his most sacred fingers, by a divine gift bestowed both vigor upon the eyelids and brightness upon the pupils. Forthwith at last that same boy, marveling at the unknown light, cried out with the greatest exultation: "I see the day, I see all the men, I see the men with hair!" Clapping his hands too and dancing, he said: "God, from this time forth I shall not dash my feet against the stones." In the city of Cambrai too, as the Man of God was celebrating the solemnities of the Mass, they offered him a boy deaf and dumb from birth. Whom, hearing and speaking forthwith, those who were nearer set upon a wooden step, that from that higher place he might greet the people with his new speech. Nor is it a wonder that a wondrous devotion of the people, a wondrous outcry, straightway followed. And of these things indeed, concerning what God wrought wondrously in the kingdom of Germany by the hand of his Servant, let a few out of many suffice.

[226] [The fame of his sanctity shines in the Spains, where, absent, he heals a paralytic:] For in the Spains too, where he himself was not present ^f, the tokens of his sanctity shone forth. For when the faithful and prudent Servant was gathering from every side the precious fruit of the Lord's cross, and again propagating it everywhere, it happened that he sent some of his sons into the Spains, desiring to have some fruit in those nations also, as in the rest. Of whose number a certain Albert, a smith, in the place whose name is Sobrado ^g, being seized with a most grievous sickness, had now for a long time lain a paralytic upon his pallet. Meanwhile through his abbot he announces his ailment to the holy Father, and entreats that he would have mercy on him. And on the same day on which the blessed Man prayed at Clairvaux for that same paralytic at the request of that abbot of his, the word of power running swiftly, and by the power of the prayer, he in the Spains suddenly grew well, feeling as though a vessel full of water were poured over his head. The abbot indeed, returning, when he had found the aforesaid brother whole, having diligently inquired of him the manner and time of his deliverance, found most certainly that while the Servant of God was praying in Gaul, he had been cured in the Spains.

[227] And since we have once turned our pen toward the Spains, let us pursue that also by sending his cap thither he heals the sharpest pains of the head. which happened concerning the most reverend Man of God Peter ^h, bishop of Asturias . That Peter indeed, noble by birth, a monk by profession, devout in piety, in a certain monastery which he then governed labored under so vehement a pain of the head that he could neither observe the rule of fasting nor stand without caps of fur ⁱ. But hearing the most famous report of the miracles which were being wrought through the Man of God, he sends by a certain brother the message of his supplication, and begs the help of his intercession. To whom the holy Man sent the woolen cap which he himself used, and promised a remedy from the Lord's power for his sick head. He received the blessing sent him with the greatest reverence and devotion. For confessing his sins as carefully as he could, and clothing himself in the priestly stole, thus at last, as one touching the hem of Christ's garment, he took the cap of Christ's servant and set it upon his head. Nor was the fruit of his faith and the effect of the blessing delayed; but he himself too marveled, forthwith feeling a swift medicine; and from that time to this day, sound and whole from that sickness, he declares to all what power he himself was found worthy to experience. For when he was made bishop he divided that gift , carrying one half with him in his chests most honorably, and depositing the other half in the monastery with the same veneration; being unwilling, namely, that either the place from which he had been called, or the see over which he was set, should be defrauded of so great a blessing.

ANNOTATA.

years placed under secular power, he both received back from those same men and, being restored to the holy Father Benedict, imbued with Cistercian discipline. His other praises may be seen in the same place. Gil González Dávila in his Teatro eclesiástico treats of him among the bishops of Asturica, commonly Astorga.

* Doningen.

* See above, number 212

* of Astorga

* that is, gifts, presents.

CAPUT V.

The Saint a worker of wonders in his own country, and famous for prodigies in the places near Clairvaux.

VII.

From this we must return also to those things which he wondrously did in his own region. He heals a certain man's most grievous ailment: For in this perhaps he may seem able to be called even more than a prophet: that prophetic honor was not lacking to him, not even in his own country. [A certain Henry, a great and powerful man in the house and household of the Duke of the Bavarians, had now for a long time labored past hope under a wretched and altogether pitiable ailment. For, feeling as it were something living and moving within his breast, and being in great part frenzied, he could neither be consoled nor be free from care, nor recognize what he feared or suffered, save that he suspected it to be a demon. In such a state he was brought from Bavaria to the Man of God at Clairvaux, and by his prayer deserved perfect soundness. Upon whom also the same Saint, laying a form of life and commandments which he should thereafter observe, sent him home whole. For to this present day, as we have learned by sure report, he perseveres so obedient that he is not only content with his own stipend, but is intent also upon works of piety; so that the conversion of his morals seems more wondrous than his cure.]

[229] Mussy is the name of a village upon the river Seine, distant a few miles from Clairvaux. likewise a dropsical man, a paralytic, a deaf and dumb man too, From this they brought a man sick with dropsy to the Man of God; upon whom laying his hand and praying, he also girded his enormously swollen belly with his own girdle, charging him that when he had received soundness he should bring back the girdle lent to him. Nor was the healing delayed, but little by little the swelling departed. At length about the twentieth day he returned slender and whole, and brought back to his Healer both the girdle and many thanks. At another time, as he went out of the monastery cloisters, they offered him an old paralytic from the nearby hamlet which is called Maisonville . And stopping, and praying briefly and shortly, he touched the man, and bade him depart whole by his prayers. As he departed, the great people who had flowed together to meet the Man of God praised the Lord not without tears. Likewise, as he once returned from a journey, a deaf and dumb boy was offered him before the doors of the monastery. Spitting therefore, he touched his tongue, and put his fingers into his ears. And forthwith the obstacles of his ears were done away, and the bond of his mouth was loosed.

[230] Maranville * is the name of a village distant about three miles from the monastery. [and a maimed girl; again a deaf and dumb man, and many others he restores to soundness.] Passing through this once, the blessed Man touched and cured a maimed girl, whom we have lately learned to be still surviving and whole to this day. About the same time in those borders, at the castle which they call Bourmont ^a, two knights were conferring about the blessed Father's miracles; but one, being less believing, said: "If he shall heal this boy, from that time I shall believe more firmly." And he spoke of a certain deaf and dumb boy who, brought up among them, had never spoken nor heard. After a few days, as the holy Father passed nearer, both together take up the boy and offer him to him. Having therefore laid his hand upon the boy, and signing his mouth and ears, he addressed him, and forthwith sent him away speaking and hearing. At Rizaucourt, a town of that same region, one may see to this day a youth by name Simon, well enough known, who was offered lame to the aforesaid Servant of God, and under his hand received the power of walking. Bar-sur-Aube is the name of a town, distant (as they say) three leagues from the monastery of Clairvaux. There too the works of divine power shone forth rather often through this Man of God. For besides those things which we have been less diligent to investigate — since all our curiosity would be overcome by the multitude of the signs — Christ there raised up four lame men at various times at his prayer and the laying on of his hand, gave sight to two blind, and bestowed hearing and speech upon two who were alike deaf and dumb. But near the other Bar, upon the Seine ^b, at his touch a blind man was given sight, and a paralytic too grew well; a boy lame from his mother's womb received the power of walking.

[231] When our most reverend Pope Eugenius the Third, from a monk of Clairvaux The wondrous concourse of the sick to the Man of God: a paralytic boy is cured: and abbot of St. Anastasius in the city of Rome, being taken to the Apostolic Chair, had entered Gaul, the holy Man went with him, nor did Apostolic power stand out less in the one than dignity in the other. For so great was the concourse to the blessed Man of those laboring under various ailments that when once the Supreme Pontiff had devoutly entered a church where he was celebrating the solemnities of the Mass, the Sacrifice being finished and those who desired a cure approaching after the custom, that same Pope was little short of being crushed by the crowds, and could scarcely be led out by the hands of his ministers. Out of the very many things indeed which were done in the company of that same Apostolic Man, we write two which the very greatness of the gladness we saw does not permit us to forget. Chalette is the name of a village set between the castle of Provins ^c and the river Seine, where a boy of nearly ten years had lain a paralytic since the previous year, so that he could not even bend his own head unless it were moved by another. Whom, carrying him on a mattress, his mother and his other kinsfolk offered to the holy Man as he passed near that same place along the public highway *. But he, having signed him and raised him, set him upon his feet and bade him go. And without delay the boy leapt up and walked, magnifying God; who followed the Saint as he departed so long, until he bade him return, though unwilling and resisting. Whereupon there was made indeed, and not undeservedly, a very great wonder, a great exultation of all who saw; but above the rest his younger brother, rushing to kiss him as one risen again, moved many of them even to tears. This boy indeed, four years after too, his mother, offering him to the blessed Man in that same village, admonished to kiss his sacred feet, saying: "This is he who restored life to thee, and thee to me."

[232] to whom add a deaf boy, In that same year *, the abbots being gathered together at Cîteaux according to custom, the aforesaid venerable Pope was present, not so much presiding by Apostolic authority as sitting among them in brotherly charity like one of them. Where, when the Servant of God, evening being come and the assembly dissolved, had turned aside to the little cell in which he lay, they offered him a deaf boy. Now that boy was of that same neighborhood, and, as we afterwards learned, long before, while keeping watch in the guarding of his flock, being struck with a sudden terror, he had utterly lost his hearing. The holy Father therefore, praying and laying his hands upon the boy, asks whether he hears. And he, crying out with wondrous devotion, "I hear, Lord, I hear," embraced him so firmly that he could scarcely be torn from him. The word was heard; the boy was presented to the Supreme Pontiff and to other persons, and this miracle was most famous. The holy Father had come to a monastery in the diocese of Besançon whose name is Cherlieu ^d, and there were with him many of the abbots of his Order, when a certain matron of those borders, lame now for a long time, was brought in a cart and offered to him. And praying briefly and signing her in the name of the Lord, he raised her up and healed her, so that at that same hour she returned home whole.

[233] a lame woman, a paralytic monk, a youth without voice, one laboring under fever, At the same time in the monastery of Morimond, which is one of the first abbeys of the Cistercian Order ^e, a certain monk lay so far loosened by palsy that, almost all his limbs being deprived of their proper function, he could move neither hand nor foot. Meanwhile the blessed Man, arriving, visits the paralytic, lays his hand upon him at his request, and at once the sick man felt help. Yet, that the miracle might be the more pleasing, he recovered as it were by degrees, first the one hand, and secondly the other. Thereafter, being about to set out, he covered him with his own little cloak at his request, and suddenly, in a short while, he obtained soundness of the rest of his body also. In the monastery of Aubrive ^f a certain young monk had lost the use of his voice, so that he could neither chant among the brothers, nor could anyone, save one very near him, understand what he was saying. To whom the holy Man, while he was visiting that same monastery, blessing water with wine, gave it to drink; and after a little a cold sweat broke out from his breast with wondrous sweetness. Then on that same day, being freed from that ailment, he began to chant like one of the other brothers, and this benefit endures to him to this day. [Many know the devout young man who, once a son of the church of Lyons, now a Cistercian monk, imitates the character of his uncle, the holy Hugh, bishop of Grenoble, whose name too he was found worthy to bear. The holy Man, hearing of his conversion, rejoiced, because he had been bound to his uncle with a singular charity, and sent him a letter of consolation ^g. And it happened that at that same time this same young man, being seized with a fever, labored grievously. Having therefore received the letter with due veneration, he hung it about his neck with faithful devotion as a remedy of health, and rejoices to this day that he forthwith obtained perfect soundness.]

[234] When the holy Father had once come to the monastery of Trois-Fontaines ^h, a blind man, a bent girl, and many others there was offered him a certain cleric of those who are called Regulars, a man great in years and blind. He laid his hand upon him, and made a short prayer after his custom, and at that same hour sent him back seeing to his own church. In the city of Troyes many miracles shone forth through this Servant of God. Of which we record two which were done in the presence of the bishops Geoffrey of Langres and Henry of Troyes. Her kinsfolk and acquaintances offered him a bent girl in the house of the aforesaid bishop of Troyes with many prayers. But so great was the concourse that, when the Servant of God, having signed her, and wondrously shaping her within his sacred hands as though she were soft clay, had raised her up, and had bidden her walk when raised, no space could be found. At length they set her upon a great table which was placed nearby,

and being raised up she walked freely, all magnificently praising the Lord. Her too we have lately heard from those who knew her to be still surviving. In that same city a mother offered her dumb daughter to the holy Father, from whom the disease of epilepsy had taken away the power of speech. And without delay, as the Servant of Christ laid his hand upon her, the bond of her mouth was loosed, and she spoke plainly. In the diocese of that same city, at the place whose name is Domnamant, when the holy Man had celebrated the solemnities of the Mass, a father offered him his blind son. And spitting upon his fingers and anointing his eyelids, at that same hour he restored him seeing to his father. And not far from that same village, at the town of Argilly ⁱ, after the celebration of the Mass likewise, signing and healing, as he went out of the church, a lame woman who had long lived there as a beggar, he filled with wonder and exultation the great people who had been gathered from every side. At the outskirts too of the town which they call Rosnay ^k, they offer to the Man of God as he passed a paralytic man so wasted in body that he seemed to carry about only the image of pale death, set upon a wagon. He too, when he had been signed and bidden to be set down and to walk, followed his own wagon whole upon his own feet, all being vehemently astounded and acclaiming to the praise of God.

[235] At another time, passing the nearby castle of Brienne ^l, of both sexes, he met a great people, as everywhere always and from every side an innumerable multitude flowed together to meet him. Where, all beholding, he touched and raised up a lame woman of that same town, whom afterwards we saw there coming to meet him with the rest, and before the rest, rendering thanks. In the district of Sens, at the castle which they call Traînel ^m, amid the sacred solemnities of the Mass, a woman whose blindness for ten years had been known there to all received sight under the hand of the Man of God, all marveling. At Montereau ⁿ too, where the Yonne and the Seine flow together ^o, in the presence of that most pious prince Count Theobald, and with not a few other powerful men standing by, they offered a paralytic woman to the Man of God as he was offering the divine Sacrifices; whom, the solemnities being ended, touching and raising up, he sent home whole at that very hour, so that, when she went away on her own feet, we saw the pallet in which she had been brought lying empty in that same church. To the same Servant of Christ, as he passed through the castle of Joigny [p] in the same diocese, they offered a blind woman in the public highway. He stopped, and praying briefly laid his hands upon that same woman, and the Lord opened her eyes. And when she was seen to see, a great exultation followed of all who were present, and crying out to one another, "Anna sees, Anna sees" (for this was the woman's name), they flowed together more copiously from every side.

[236] he frees from various ailments. Meanwhile the holy Man, hastening, was avoiding the crowds and going out, when a certain youth blind in one eye from his mother's womb followed and overtook him. Who indeed himself too at once received sight at his blessing, and the joy of the people who followed was doubled. [The blessed Man, coming once to Auxerre, entered the church of the monks for the sake of prayer, where the glorious confessor of the Lord, bishop Germanus [q], rests. To him, returning after prayer, a lame woman, creeping on her knees and hands, besought that he would have mercy on her. But he, the sign of the cross being made, took her hand and raised her up; and going out, he let her go whole, and, that she might render thanks to God, sent her to the memorial of the aforesaid confessor, walking on her own feet.] Chablis [r] is the name of a village which has a notable church of blessed Martin. For the estate itself belongs to the possession of the church of Tours, where the body of that same most glorious confessor lies. And as the Servant of God passed through this village, the people offered him a lame youth. Whom, being at once raised up at his prayer and walking freely, they conducted to the aforesaid church of blessed Martin, magnificently praising the Lord, who had raised up the spirit of his Martin in Bernard.

ANNOTATA.

p. Joviniacum, Joigny, a town of France with a stone bridge upon the river Yonne, in the province of Champagne and in the district of Sens … By others it is called Juiniacum and Jogniacum. Baudrand.

q. He has been treated of in our work on the 31st day of July, volume VII of that same month, page 184 and following.

r. Hadrian Valesius writes these things: "They say that there was formerly called Capleia a place or village of the district of Tonnerre, famous for its wine, which is now called Chablie or Chablis" (in Mabillon in a marginal note, Chably). But of Tonnerre in the Langres district upon the river Armançon, as also of the district of Tonnerre, the same author treats.

* Mussy-l'Évêque

* Meurville

* Maranville

* Charletre

* Provins

* that is, along the road, or along a road paved with stone or flint.

* 1148.

CAPUT VI.

Signs and miracles wrought indiscriminately, and foreseen beforehand by the holy Man.

VIII.

Certain healings too which Christ wondrously wrought by the hand of his faithful Servant God conferred upon him a great grace of signs, he showed him beforehand still more wondrously in a vision; many he himself perceived by the power of his mind as they were being done; to some also, at the spirit's suggestion, he came unasked. Of which, lest our narration should seem to have gone on without measure, we subjoin a few examples, admonishing also on the other hand that no one perchance should marvel that such great works are written so briefly. For we have seen many of these done in so short a time that we cannot utter them as swiftly. And although it is wont to be said that nothing is easier than saying, yet to this Servant of God, by the grace which he had received, it seemed easier to work signs than for us to narrate them when wrought. Once, as the holy Father was going out of the monastery, a certain man of those parts, meeting him, offered his son to be healed. For within the monastery indeed he consented less readily to lay his hand upon the sick, lest, namely, if a concourse of men should take place there, the quiet of the monastery should be disturbed and discipline perish. Now that aforesaid boy was witless and out of his mind; lame too, and deaf and dumb. Who at that same hour, through his prayer and the laying on of his hand, being freed at once from every ailment, heard, spoke, and walked, and, being made of sound mind, ceased utterly from his former restlessness and frenzy. And when the devout father was conducting that same son, now whole, with thanksgiving to the oratory of the blessed Mother of God, the brothers spoke with one another, inquiring about the so manifold ailment of one boy.

[238] To whom the holy Father said, "It was a scourge of God, and he foresees in spirit miracles to come, and a dire vexation of a malignant spirit. For I saw last night in this very place" (now it was beside the river Aube, where the boy was healed) — "here," he said, "I saw such a boy offered me, and, the wicked spirit going out of him, forthwith receiving all soundness and the use of his limbs." The blessed Man adds also, concerning that same vision: "And when I had gone forward a little on this same journey on which we are now going, beside a nearby village" (and he spoke of that which they call Longchamp) "a lame girl was being offered me, and the Lord was restoring her the power of walking." The brothers heard and marveled, more astonished at the expectation of the miracle to come than at the remembrance of the one past. For what like thing has the world ever heard? They came to the place; a lame girl was found there forthwith, awaiting the Man of God as he was to pass by, and awaited by those who were passing with him, according to the word which he had spoken. Being offered therefore by those who had brought her, and signed by the Man of God, by God's gift she received the power of walking, and went away giving thanks.

[239] which here In the following year a cause arose that the holy Man should go to Langres, a very grave quarrel having sprung up between the bishop and the clergy of that city. Where, when on the first day he had labored without effect, and in the morning was preparing to depart, he said to the brothers: "I saw in a vision of the night that, as I entered the church, a lame woman was being offered and healed." After about an hour, when the clerics had assembled again, and, beyond the hope of all, peace being restored, they compelled him with many prayers to enter the church of the blessed martyr Mammertus, and, because a famine had grown strong, to exhort the people to almsgiving. Where, in the midst of his speaking (as he had foretold), a lame woman was offered him and raised up, all indeed marveling, but those the more who, as they saw it done, so remembered that they had heard it would be.

[240] the biographer In the district of Trier there stands an ancient monastery which is called Rettel ^a, where, when the Man of God was once celebrating the solemnities of the Mass, an innumerable multitude was present. Meanwhile Guntram of Sierck, which is a town near that same monastery, had a lame woman brought. She, now for a long time creeping upon the ground, was quite unable to rise, but, holding little stools in her hands, was accustomed to drag her dead loins after her. And when, by reason of the multitude of the people, the woman could not be brought in to the Man of God, in the middle of the church she suddenly grew well, and leaping up she walked, giving thanks to God not without tears. Whose little stools the jubilant people forthwith carried to the altar, that they might set them before the Lord and Bernard his servant. Concerning whose cure the holy Father confessed to us that it had been shown him beforehand on the preceding night. For he seemed to himself in that same church, in the midst of the people standing round, secretly and unknown, to touch such a woman and pass on, and forthwith to see her healed, congratulating himself greatly

and exulting that he had not been recognized. On that same day too a heavenly light shone at Rettel in the blessed Man's presence, whose blessing gave the power of walking to two other lame women, and restored sight likewise to two blind. And very often it happened that in the midst of praying the Servant of God knew beyond doubt that the divine power was present. Yet the manner of which knowledge he confessed that he could express in no words.

[241] in many instances Sometimes indeed, when he had signed some and passed on, he said that they were healed; and someone of those who had heard, returning, found it as had been said. Once, having gone out of the city of Basel, he had signed a certain deaf man and passed on. And when he had gone forward a little, calling Alexander of Cologne, he said: "Return, ask whether the man hears." He went back and found him hearing. Likewise on that same day, when he had signed another man blind in one eye and was departing, he said, "God has opened his eye." This too the aforesaid Alexander, when he had turned back his way to inquire, found to be so. This is that Alexander who in those same days, at the sacred admonitions of the Man of God and the showing of his miracles, bade the world farewell with nearly thirty others, and followed him. By whom also after a little time he was appointed abbot in the monastery of the diocese of Toulouse which is called Grandselve ^b. In the diocese of Constance too, near the castle of Freiburg, when he had laid his hand upon a blind man on the road, he sent one back to see him, and he was found seeing. Which he did likewise concerning two other blind men in the district of Cologne near the monastery which is called Brauweiler ^c; and when it was reported that they saw, he confessed that he too had felt the power.

[242] In the territory of Sens too, in the town which they call by the name of Saint-Florentin ^d, and one by one a deaf woman was offered to the Man of God, upon whom laying his hand, he felt in spirit the effect of the power, while she, still dazed and clamorous (as that kind is), and as she herself had been wont before, cried out that she heard nothing. But when morning came, since neither did she return, nor did anyone report anything of her, the Saint, knowing that the divine mercy had been present to her, orders the woman to be summoned. Being found therefore to have received hearing, she came glorifying God and giving thanks to the Servant of God. The same father was going out of the city of Metz, and the devout people according to custom were conducting him, with their bishop Stephen ^e, and his brother Rainald, Count of Bar ^f, and many other persons both of the clerical and of the knightly order. Meanwhile a cause arose that he should entreat the nobleman Henry of Salm upon a certain matter which the bishop himself and the others who had assembled were suggesting to him: namely that he should give peace to the city and people of Metz, with whom he was grievously at enmity. But he utterly refused and forswore it, nor was he bent by any prayers. Amid these things others coming up offered the blessed Man a deaf man, beseeching him to deign to lay his hand upon him. But he, kindled with zeal of faith — as sometimes for necessary causes a certain awe and authority above man shone in his face — turning to the knight, said: "Thou scornest to hear us, whom presently in thy presence a deaf man shall hear?" And laying his hands upon the man, he signed him and put his fingers into his ears. And when he forthwith heard, Henry, fearing and trembling, fell at the feet of the Man of God, humbly making satisfaction, and freely granting whatever had been asked of him.

[243] Once, as the Servant of Christ was passing through the town of Brienne, narrated he saw a blind woman begging in the street; whom, gazing at her for a little while, as after her custom she begged alms of the passers-by, he said: "Thou askest silver, and God will give thee sight." Coming near therefore he touched her and opened her eyes. Who, feeling an unlooked-for benefit, marveled no less at the greatness of the mercy than at the unaccustomed light. Among the first shoots which this most abundant vine put forth, the monastery of Igny ^g in the parish of Reims was planted and happily took root. Visiting which once, the same Saint was passing through the village near the river Marne * which they call Rivolium. That magnificent man too and most devoted lover of his, Samson, archbishop of Reims ^h, accompanied him, conducting him with his wonted veneration. Now a lame old man had been set on the road to beg, to whom one of the brothers gave alms. The holy Abbot, following, when he had now passed the man, turned himself; and gazing at him for a little, asks the bystanders what ailed him, and orders him to be presented to him. The men, suspecting that he himself was about to give him something more, said: "Lord, he is lame, and cannot be moved; we will carry to him whatever thou wilt give." And when he answered a word and said, "Take him up and bring him to me," at first indeed for wonder they gazed at one another, not knowing what he was about to do. At length, recognizing him, they cried to one another: "It is the Abbot of Clairvaux, and he will presently heal him."

[244] are brought forward. For he was wont, as often as he could, to take pains not to be recognized in the villages, and to forbid his companions to make him known to any of those they met, or to say anything about him, but to tell those who asked who was passing that they were monks, or to name one of the persons going with him. So then, the Servant of God being recognized, they rush from every side, and lifting the man they carry and offer him to him. Who, laying both hands upon his head and looking up to heaven, and praying briefly, bids him be set down and walk. And when he excused himself and said, "I cannot," he said: "I charge thee in the name of the Lord and by his power, go, and be whole from this hour." What more? At once he was set down, at once he was healed, at once he walked freely, filled with amazement and ecstasy at what had befallen him. But his neighbors too and his acquaintances, rejoicing with him alike, praised the Lord, who by the abundance of his loving-kindness surpassed both the merit and the desire of a pitiable man. Whence to this day the place is pointed out by the inhabitants where so evident a sign of the divine power shone forth, where a lame old man of many years, dead beforehand in all the lower part of his body, and from the loins downward wholly destitute of all function of his limbs, while he asked an alms received health. This was the holy Man's last entrance into the region of Reims; for this was done one year before the sacred laying to rest of his body. Of which most happy consummation of his happy acts we must now speak, but under another narration. For he is greatly mistaken who supposes that all the wondrous deeds of this most holy Man can be narrated; and it is as necessary that many be passed over in silence as it is impossible that all be comprehended.

The end of the fourth book.

ANNOTATA.

* la Marne

BOOK THE FIFTH,

by Geoffrey, monk of Clairvaux.

CAPUT I.

Peace restored between the people of Metz and certain neighboring princes, not without miracles wrought on that occasion.

Chapter I.

When, after so great and so many labors and sweats, the Lord was disposing to give to his beloved Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, the long-desired sleep of a precious death, His body languishing, his spirit equally robust for its duties: and to bring his faithful servant into his rest, the ready spirit began to advance more and more in him, and the weak flesh to fail. For the holy Man, knowing that the prize was now near, ran more briskly than usual; and feeling the dissolution of his earthly habitation to be at hand, aspired with richer desires to a habitation from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. In whose most pure breast the flame of sacred desire, not containing itself, broke out in frequent tokens, and his fiery speech vehemently declared the vehemence of his inward fervor: as in the holy living creatures there are described by the Prophet, among other things, sparks like the appearance of glowing brass. His body, lying upon his little bed, was exercised with various ailments; yet his mind, none the less free and powerful, unconquered performed the things that were of God, not ceasing even in the midst of his pains to meditate or to dictate something sacred, to pray more affectionately, to exhort the brothers more earnestly. In the offering of the saving Victim, which up to his last failing he scarcely ever intermitted, he sustained by the vigor of his spirit limbs that scarcely held together, offering himself likewise as an acceptable victim to God for an odor of sweetness. At which time, writing a letter ^a to his uncle Andrew, Knight of the Temple, who was held also to be the greatest pillar of the region of Jerusalem, he says among other things: "For I am being poured out as a libation, nor do I think that I shall be long upon the earth."

[246] a monk is delivered from peril of death in a wondrous manner: [In those days a cause arose that some one of the brothers should go into the remote parts of Germany for certain

matters to be transacted. And brother Henry the monk was sent, whom six years before the same holy Father had brought with many others from the parts of the diocese of Constance. He therefore, while he was being sent, fearing the perils of a rather long journey (for it was winter), yet feared this most of all: lest it should happen that the same holy Father should depart from this life before he himself returned, and that he, being absent, should be cheated of a share in his last blessing. But he, blessing him and saying, "Fear not; both thou shalt return whole, and thou shalt find me also, as thou desirest," sent him away consoled. That same brother, having set out, was crossing a river bound with ice in the territory of Strasbourg. Then suddenly, the ice being broken under the feet of the mule on which he rode, he fell, and the violent water drew him under the ice. What should he do, sunk in the river, shut in by the ice? He remembered his Father, he remembered his promise, which could not be void. For straightway, as he confesses to this day, he seemed to himself to have the holy Father present with him; and he was suffused with such sweetness that he felt or feared neither the rush of the stream, nor the trouble of the cold, nor difficulty of breathing, nor, in fine, any discomfort at all. And without delay, being brought back against the rush of the river without any effort of his own by the divine power, he found himself at that very opening through which he had before fallen; he seizes the edge, comes out undismayed, escapes unharmed, and, his business finished, returns whole; and, having found the promise faithful, as he himself promised it, gives manifold thanks — at whose sacred tomb he remains to this day as devout as he is certain that by his merits he was called back as it were from the grave, and indeed from a sufficiently horrible one. But we need not declaim upon this. Let others compare the ancient miracles; they will assert that he was delivered no less wondrously, and from no lesser peril, than blessed Benedict's boy Placid ^b; who also, if they saw him whom a river bound with ice gave back, would compare him to him whom the whale vomited forth. For us a brief and plain narration suffices.]

[247] While the holy Father was still in his monastery of Clairvaux, though lying upon his little bed, manfully finishing the course of his life, a very grave blow came upon the people of Metz ^c. the discord that had arisen between the people of Metz and certain princes, For having gone forth in a heavy multitude against the neighboring princes, by whom so great a city was indignant to have been provoked contrary to custom, many were delivered into the hands of very few. Being at last shut in between the narrows of Froidmont (for so they call it) and the river Moselle, and dashing against one another in mutual onset, in one hour (as it was said) more than two thousand fell, some cut down by the sword, more drowned in the river. Having conceived therefore a vehement indignation, that noble city was preparing itself with all its forces for vengeance, since on the other side the outcome had made the adversaries too both stronger by copious booty and bolder. The certain devastation of the whole province was imminent, when their venerable metropolitan Hillin , archbishop of Trier ^d, grieving anxiously over what was past, but dreading things still graver, and bearing a worthy solicitude for his sons, sought in so great a necessity the one refuge, and sought out the Man of God. Coming therefore to Clairvaux, prostrate in all humility at his feet and at those of all the brothers, he asked and besought that he would deign to set himself against such great evils, to which no other seemed able to set a bound. But the Lord, as he had always directed the ways of his faithful Servant, and had used in each of the chief causes a most fitting instrument, had a few days before somewhat relieved the sickness of his body. In which days, when he was writing back to a letter of the venerable Hugh, bishop of Ostia, he says *: "What you have heard is true. I have been sick unto death; but meanwhile, as I feel, I have been called back to death, and this, as I feel myself, not for long." For reckoning mortal life to be death rather than life, he felt himself called back not from death but to death, when he was called back from his departure, though feeling that it must not be deferred much longer.

[248] Which indeed the divine providence often disposed concerning him, God wondrously strengthening the weakness of his body, in whose hand his soul was pleasing, so that as often as some great necessity called him forth, his mind overcoming all things, bodily strength was not lacking to him — those who saw him marveling that he surpassed even robust men in endurance. For when the business was finished, as though returning into himself, he labored under manifold infirmities, so that he scarcely lived when at leisure who, when occupied, knew not how to fail. To whom in his last work the divine power was so manifestly and so magnificently present that he seemed to take strength from his labors. And it happened, when, the parties sitting on either side upon the bank of the aforesaid river Moselle, the faithful mediator asked the things that were of peace, that the one party, being fiercer indeed after so great a slaughter of their enemies, refused with obstinate spirit what was required. At length suddenly, as though driven by furies, they departed, leaving the Man of God unsaluted, and to all the rest nothing but despair of peace. Nor indeed did they enter upon flight out of any contempt, but out of fear of the reverence due to him; for they feared lest he should easily bend the minds of those present, however headstrong; considering too little what he could do even upon the absent through a spirit nowhere absent.

[249] Already the assembly was breaking up in great confusion; on both sides they thought only of arms, he composes, as he had foretold, beyond expectation and entered only upon counsels of malice; when the holy Man, consoling the brothers who had come with him, said: "Be not troubled; for although through many difficulties, yet the longed-for peace will altogether come to pass." To whom also he made known whence he knew this, saying: "I seemed to myself in the night's sleep to be celebrating a solemn Mass; and when, the first prayer being little more than finished, I remembered that the Angelic song, that is, Glory be to God on high, ought after the custom to have preceded, I blushed, and, beginning the song which I had forgetfully omitted, I completed it with you together even to the end." Midnight had now passed when the holy Man, having received an embassy concerning the repentance of the aforesaid princes, turning to his own men pleasantly enough, said: "Recognize the preparation of the glory promised us to be sung, and of the song of peace." Meanwhile, therefore, the parties being called together, peace was treated of for some days, and on account of the very great difficulties arising it was often despaired of on both sides — except that all were now consoled by the holy Abbot's so sure promise concerning the restoring of peace, which had become known to all. Nor did that very delay profit little, especially those who, laboring under various ailments, obtained remedies in the flesh, or those also who, seeing, were edified in faith. For so great was the concourse that by their multitude and likewise by their importunity they almost hopelessly hindered the very business of composing peace, until at length an island in the middle of the river being sought out, the chief men of either party came to it in little boats. Where, all things being composed according to what the faithful arbiter determined, they gave one another their right hands and were reconciled in the kiss of peace.

[250] pricking the hearts of the disputants by an illustrious miracle Among all the healings indeed which the Lord there bestowed by the hand of his Servant, most famous was the cure of a certain woman. She for eight years had labored under a most grievous sickness, shaking all her limbs alike with a vehement trembling and violent motions. And when, graver difficulties having arisen, the hope of peace seemed almost to have fallen away, by the Lord's disposing the woman came, thus trembling, and no less horrible than pitiable, and all alike came together to the spectacle. At length, as the Servant of God prayed, before the eyes of all the shaking little by little subsided, and she forthwith obtained perfect soundness. Which thing moved even the hardest men to such wonder that, beating their breasts, they cried out with tears for nearly half an hour. At length so great was the rush and concourse of those falling down and kissing the sacred feet of the Man of God that he was almost crushed, until the brothers, lifting him up and placing him in a little boat, drew him a little way from the land. And when the princes, coming to him, he asked them, as he had begun, for peace, they said with sighs: "We must gladly hear him whom, as we ourselves see, God loves and hears; and, having heard him, do much for him for whom God does such great things before our eyes." To whom he (as he was always careful fittingly to decline glory of this kind) said: "Not for my sake, but for yours, does he do it."

[251] At Metz he heals a paralytic woman; he gives sight to a blind man: By a like miracle too, and at a like opportunity, on that very day the Lord inclined the minds of the people of Metz to peace. For the Saint, having entered the city of Metz, vehemently urged both the bishop and the people to the things that were of peace. But the wound they had received grievously galled them; for they were compelled to requite otherwise than they wished those whom they had thought to requite strongly enough. At that very hour a paralytic woman of that same city was offered him; upon whom laying his hand and praying, he deigned also to spread over her his own little cloak which he himself used, and to deliver it to be held by the bishop standing near, and beneath that same covering to touch her feeble limbs. And the prayer being ended and the blessing given, he raised her up; and, all marveling, she whom they had brought upon a pallet went through their midst whole. On the river Moselle too, while the blessed Man was being carried in a little boat by reason of the intolerable multitude of those running together, one of those who desired to be cured, a blind man, cried out from the bank, beseeching that he might be led to him. And when he was now passing by, the man, hearing a fisherman sailing behind him in another boat, unfastening at once the cloak with which he was covered, held it out and gave it to him that he might be received into the boat. It was done; and when he reached the Saint, according to the greatness of his faith, with great swiftness receiving sight under his hand, he cried out marveling that he saw the hills, saw men, saw trees, and all the rest.

[252] A few miles distant from that same place is a monastery which they call by the name of St. Benedict; the power of walking to a lame man. where a boy, lame and from the loins downward wholly destitute of all function of his limbs, used only his hands and his loins to move himself, dragging his dead feet after him. Whom his father, having brought him from the parts of Burgundy four years before, had left there, and from that time he was fed by the alms of the brothers. And so, when the famous report published through the whole province round about the coming of the blessed Father and the miracles which the Lord was working in him, the brothers of the aforesaid monastery, setting that same boy upon a wagon, brought him to him, asking that with his wonted loving-kindness he would succor the wretched creature. He consented, laid on his hands, prayed, and at that same hour rendered him whole, standing firmly and walking firmly. In fine, as we lately learned from the abbot of that same place, to this day that same boy, whole, follows and keeps the brothers' cattle; and, if anyone desires to know, John is his name. Another lame man too, living in the neighborhood of that same monastery, was at the same time healed at the aforesaid holy Father's blessing, and received the power of walking. But near the city of Toul ^e too, at the place whose name is Gondreville, the same Man of God gave light to a blind woman before the eyes of very many who had flowed together from the whole region. But it would be exceedingly difficult, or altogether impossible, to comprehend all the mighty deeds of that journey. Nor is it of our purpose

now to pursue signs of this kind, and to give our labor to narrating the works of his miracles. For here, most sweet Father, was the blessed end of thy ways, and this was thy last labor. In this work, no less profitable than difficult, and of a peace no less despaired of than necessary, he gloriously completed thy labors who always magnificently honored thee in thy labors, glorifying thee in his own name and his name in thee — the King of glory, the Lord thy God.

ANNOTATA.

a. In letter 288.

* Froidmont

* Hillin.

* letter 307

CAPUT II.

The holy Father's last illness, and his most happy death.

II.

When, the reconciliation of the people of Metz being completed and peace restored to that province, The holy Man is seized more grievously by illness, and draws toward his end; the holy Abbot returned to the monastery, being now seized with a very grave ailment of a body already failing, he drew near daily to his departure in such sweetness of mind and gentleness of spirit as though, sailing into harbor, he were little by little taking in his sails. He also said plainly to the brothers: "These are the words which I spoke to you when I was sick last winter, that you had nothing yet to fear; but that in the coming summer the dissolution of this body was at hand — I believe so of myself." But how plainly did we learn by our own experience what the sacred Gospels testify concerning the holy Apostles: that while the Lord foretold to them his passion, the word was hidden from them, and they could not grasp it. Assuredly, what the mind so vehemently shuddered at, it was less easily persuaded to believe, especially since he too, having compassion on his sons, suppressed words of that kind. But crying out in a manner by his deeds, "I have finished the works which the Father gave me to do," he began more and more to leave off actions, to draw back his affections, and — the cables of his sacred desires having been cast ahead by diligent intent — to cling more firmly to the shore now near, and to put in more conveniently. In fine, when the venerable prelate of the see of Langres, Geoffrey, urged him about certain matters to be done, and marveled that he set his mind to them less, "Marvel not," said he, "for I am now not of this world."

[254] he consoles his own, and exhorts them to perfection. But the holy Father, seeing, and abounding in bowels of compassion and mercy, that his most dear brothers and sons were pitiably wasting and withering away for fear and expectation of the most grievous desolation coming upon them and of a lamentable bereavement, cherished them with the sweetest consolations. And admonishing them to root more firmly, through unshakable charity, the anchor of their hope and faith in the safe bosom of the divine clemency, he promised also that he would never be wanting to them even after death. And more earnestly than our speech can express, asking and beseeching with many tears, he strove to impress upon our minds the fear of God and the love of sacred purity and of all perfection. But he also admonished, and with tears adjured, that if perchance he had ever commended to us any virtue either by example or by word, we should emulate it, hold it firmly, and advance in it; speaking indeed in other words, but with the same spirit, that saying of the Apostle: "We ask you and beseech you in the Lord Jesus, that as you have received from us how you ought to walk and to please God in all things, so also you would walk, that you may abound the more." And would that he had persuaded as effectually as he urged affectionately! But if anyone desires to know the manner of his sickness, there is extant a letter ^a which he himself dictated to a certain friend very few days before his sacred departure from us; which indeed we have thought fit to insert into this narration of ours, because, namely, although what others say of him also pleases us, yet his own words concerning himself please us more:

[255] He writes to Arnald, abbot of Bonneval, concerning his own condition. "We have received your charity in charity, and not in pleasure. For what pleasure is there where bitterness claims all for itself? Save that to eat nothing at all is, after a fashion, delightful. Sleep has departed from me, so that pain may never depart even by the benefit of the senses being lulled. A failing of the stomach is nearly the whole of what I suffer. Frequently by day and by night it demands to be comforted with some very small quantity of liquid of whatever sort. For against everything solid it is inexorably indignant. The little that it deigns to admit it takes not without grave trouble, but it fears a graver, if it should let itself go altogether empty. And if now and then it consents to admit somewhat more, that is most grievous. My feet and legs have swollen, as is wont to happen to those with dropsy. And in all these things, lest anything be hidden from a friend solicitous concerning his friend's condition, according to the inward man (as I speak, being less wise) the spirit is ready in the weak flesh. Pray the Savior, who wills not the death of a sinner, that he may not defer, but may guard, a departure now timely. Take care to fortify with your prayers a heel bare of merits, that he who lies in wait may find no place to fix his tooth and inflict a wound. These things I have dictated myself *, being in such a state, that by a hand known to you you may recognize my affection."

[256] This is the copy of the letter which, as we have said, and as his very words too declare, the holy Father dictated when his departure was already at hand. [The Saint's serenity in his last infirmity, the brothers' grief and lamentations over his departure: an illustrious] From the tenor of which the diligent reader might indeed recognize, at least in some part, that sacred breast of his: how great was his tranquility of mind, his serenity of soul, his sweetness of spirit, in the very ruin of his body; how great a root of humility beneath a summit of confidence. But it will be permitted him to estimate in some measure and to set before himself our inconsolable mourning at so grave a crisis; and, if he be piously minded, he will imagine the pale companies of his sons, their disfigured faces, their bloodless countenances, their cheeks soiled with tears, the sighs too and sobs of their breasts. [For what a tumult of thoughts was among us, what a shipwreck of souls, when a treasure so lovable was being snatched from us, while we were present and beholding, since there was neither hope of keeping him nor any means of going with him? He was a Father — but what a Father was he who seemed to be departing! In a manner our own, yet more truly common to the whole world. For he was both the boast of the good and the terror of the malignant; so that of him it might not unfittingly seem fit to sing: "The upright shall see and shall rejoice, and all iniquity shall stop her mouth." While he was present, all holiness was made glad, presumption was bridled, hardness was pricked. While he was present, every famous assembly shone as with a kind of sun; when he was absent, it appeared dark and in a manner dumb. How devoutly, how piously must each of us cry out both then and today: "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the driver thereof!" Thou wast the harbor of the tossed, the shield of the oppressed, and, as blessed Job says of himself, thou wast an eye to the blind and a foot to the lame. Thou the exemplar of perfection, the form of virtue, the mirror of holiness. Thou the glory of Israel, thou the gladness of Jerusalem, thou the delight of thy age and the one adornment of thy time, a fruitful olive, an abundant vine, a flowering palm, a manifold cedar, an exalted plane tree. A vessel of election, and a vessel of honor in the house of God; a vessel of solid gold, adorned with every precious stone — solid in faith and holiness, and adorned with various charisms as with gems.

[257] Thou the strongest and most splendid pillar of holy Church, a eulogy of the same: thou the vehement trumpet of God, thou the sweetest instrument of the Holy Spirit, delighting the pious, rousing the slothful, bearing up the weak. Whose healing hand and tongue both cured diseases, the one those of bodies, the other those of souls. Whose habit was simple, whose face simple, whose countenance sweet, whose look gracious. Whose life, in fine, was fruitful, whose death precious: because to thee too Christ was to live, and to die was gain. And if the one was perhaps more profitable for us, yet the other was far better for thee. And what is so advantageous for thee cannot but be delightful to us, if we are piously minded. But although it is pious to rejoice with thee, good Father, who hast happily entered into the joy of thy Lord, yet it is not impious to weep over ourselves, whom indeed, at thy departure, a twofold dread has beset more heavily than usual, while to us life is a weariness and death a fear. And if it is pious to rejoice with thee, who by the blessed passing of death hast come to that torrent of pleasure for which thou didst ardently thirst, yet it is not impious to grieve for our own lot, from whom both all sweetness of living has alike been taken away, and security in dying has not yet been bestowed. And if a pious congratulation is paid thee, happy soul, who exultest in the fullness of light, yet no impious lamentation is taken up over ourselves, who have been left behind, after the wondrous brightness in which we have hitherto exulted, to shudder the more at the darkness stealing in; and after the golden age which a little while ago we saw, to bear more grievously this plainly iron one that has followed. But let us bend our pen back to the order of the narration, and with such prayers as we can follow our patron's departure — an departure mournful to us, but to him rather triumphal.]

[258] moving words of the sons to the Father, and of the Father to the sons: Before this Father's decease, therefore, his sons, whom he himself had begotten through the Gospel, coming to him, assailed his most loving mind with tearful supplication, and spoke these and such things: "Hast thou no mercy upon this monastery, Father? Hast thou no compassion upon us, whom with so great affection of loving-kindness thou hast suckled at motherly breasts and cherished with fatherly consolation? How dost thou thus abandon thy labors, which thou hast labored in this place? How dost thou thus leave sons hitherto so beloved?" But then he himself, weeping with them that wept, and stretching his dove-like eyes to heaven, and conceiving with his whole mind that Apostolic spirit, testified that he was straitened between two, and knew not which to choose, and that he committed all to the judgment of the divine loving-kindness. For on this side fatherly charity urged him to assent to his sons' desires, that he should remain; and on that side the desire of Christ drew him to depart. Yet the humility long since and more deeply rooted in his breast had persuaded him to say from the inmost affection of his heart that he was an unprofitable servant, and to reckon himself a barren tree, from whose life no fruit accrued to himself or to any other. For he was wont in familiar conversation to confess that he could scarcely believe men when they believed him so useful to themselves as they said. But he declared too that he had sometimes endured no small conflict in his own thoughts upon this, because it seemed likely neither that men so truthful should wish to deceive, nor that men so prudent could be deceived, while he could not excuse either alternative. For he whom the whole world admired alone did not see (which was the more wonderful) the splendor, namely, of his own working or repute — just as that man of old, simple and upright, recorded that he had seen neither the sun when it shone, nor the moon going in brightness.

[259] the death of the most blessed Man, his frequent apparitions: At the last, when the framework of his outward dwelling, being now loosed on every side, afforded a free going forth to his desiring soul, that great day dawned on which perpetual day arose for him; at whose departure the neighboring bishops had gathered with a copious multitude of abbots and brothers. And about the third hour of the day the singular lamp of his generation, the holy and truly blessed abbot Bernard, passed happily under Christ's leading from the body of this death into the land of the living, going over from the choir of his sons standing about him and chanting psalms as best they could amid heavy sobs and abundant tears, to the joyful companies of the many whom he himself had sent before, to the rejoicing ranks of the Saints, to the meeting troops of angels. Happy the soul which the lofty privileges of its own merits so lifted up; which the pious prayers of its sons below so attended; which the sacred desires of those above so drew! Happy for him and truly serene that day, on which Christ, his full noon, shone upon him! A day awaited by him with such great desires through all the days of his life, sought with sighs, frequented in meditations, fortified beforehand with prayers! Happy passage from labor to refreshment, from expectation to reward, from the contest to the prize, from death to life, from faith to knowledge, from pilgrimage to fatherland, from the world to the Father! Of which passing of his too we know that many things appeared to very many, and things indeed not unworthy to be related; but it is exceedingly difficult to trace out each, and too long to write all. For even to this day, in many ways and by many means, his fatherly love toward his sons — truly living and vigorous even now, nay now more truly — deigns by frequent revelations to console their tears and relieve their sadness, so that the more sweetly they rejoice with him, the less anxiously they may grieve for themselves. Yet if the reader desires to know any of these that require a less lengthy narration, we believe they must rather be reserved for their own and final chapter.

[260] Meanwhile, pursuing the rest, let us with all the force we can turn our minds away from that so heavy groan and roar his body exposed, and a great concourse of people to see and honor it with which indeed the pitiable flock resounded when its shepherd departed. Let us spare the page, and, so far as we can, narrow our eyes and close our eyelids against the tears with which our Valley flowed at that departure of its own brightness — about presently to hand to the whole Church the cup of its mourning, to which hitherto it had been wont to drop down sweetness, to pour out joys, to let consolations flow. While the faithful Minister and priest of the Most High happily enters into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, to the altar of God, to offer him the sacred and acceptable victim of his own spirit, his body too, duly prepared and adorned with priestly vestments, is carried into the oratory of the blessed Mother of God. A very great and mourning throng also of noble and common folk from all the neighboring places straightway assembled, and much weeping and wailing filled the whole Valley. Yet more bitterly did the more pitiable sex of women lament before the doors of the monastery, because, while the men approached the blessed feet, the discipline of the monastic Order inexorably denied them entrance even then. For two days the shepherd, dead, remained in the midst of his flock, while that former grace of his most sweet countenance, in no way diminished but rather increased, fixed the eyes of all upon itself, drew their minds, and buried their affections.

[261] But the multitude of people rushing in from every side grew beyond measure, the confluence of the people: and now the onset became intolerable of those running together and holding his desirable feet, kissing his hands, applying loaves, belts, coins, and whatever else they would keep for themselves as a blessing and as profitable for their various needs. But most of all those who were made ready throughout the nearby places awaited the solemn third day, the hour of laying his sacred body to rest, meaning to assemble more copiously from every side. For on the second day too, about midday, so great a people had gathered, and with such zeal of piety, thronging from every side, had beset the sacred body, that scarcely any reverence was had for the bishops, none for the brothers. Whence, fearing lest something similar or perhaps graver should happen on the third day, forestalling the hour, and in the morning completing the divine Sacrifices according to custom — as for two days now they had done in the celebration of Masses and in continual psalmody — they committed that most pure balsam to its own little vessel, laying up in stone a precious stone, a most excellent pearl.

[262] The days of his life therefore being happily completed, and about sixty-three years fulfilled, The Saint's age, the monasteries founded by him, his burial, a miracle. Bernard, beloved of the Lord, first abbot of the monastery of Clairvaux, and father also of more than one hundred and sixty ^b other monasteries, on the thirteenth of the Kalends of September fell asleep in Christ amid the hands of his sons. And he was buried on the eleventh of the Kalends of the same month before the holy altar of the blessed Virgin Mother, whose most devoted priest he had been. But upon his breast, in the very tomb, was placed a casket in which are contained the relics of the blessed Apostle Thaddaeus, which, having been sent him from Jerusalem in that same year, he had ordered to be placed upon his body — with this regard indeed of faith and devotion, that he might cleave to that same Apostle on the day of the common resurrection. [Yet before that most sacred body was rendered to the tomb, one of the brothers, who for many years had labored grievously under the falling sickness, came in full faith to beg help. Whom we know to be still surviving to this day, and never from that hour to have experienced anything of the aforesaid misfortune.] These things were done in the same year in which our blessed Pope Eugenius the Third, that same holy Father's son in the holy manner of life, passed from this light — or rather from this darkness — to the light; whose merits shine, made illustrious by many miracles ^c, in that very City over which he notably presided: his successor Anastasius presiding over the Roman Church, and there reigning in the empire of the Romans the illustrious Frederick; in the kingdom of the Franks, the most pious king Louis, son of Louis ^d; while the Son of God, Jesus Christ, held the sovereignty of the universal Church and the monarchy of the whole creation, visible and invisible, in the one thousand one hundred and fifty-third year from his Incarnation. Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God, world without end. Amen.

ANNOTATA.

* that is, I have written

CAPUT III.

Divers revelations after his death; a victory foretold in sleep to king Amalric.

III.

Being now about to say a few things concerning the revelations mentioned above, let us take our beginning from that which was foretold in the seventh year before it came to pass. His death foretold seven years before: his successor: There were two brothers in the monastery speaking of the blessed Father's sacred life and his happy acts, one of whom, brought up there from his early youth, said to the other: "Dost thou know how many years this most blessed Father of ours will live?" To whom the other said: "I know not." And the first said: "I know that he will live yet six or seven years in the flesh." But whence he knew this we can now in no way know, because neither did he then declare it, and he himself died before the holy Father. Moreover this word became known to us by the relation of the other, still surviving today, who then marveled the more that he had heard it, when he saw it as he had long since heard it. And such a man is he that neither do we doubt his testimony, nor do we believe that anyone else who has known him ought to doubt it. And not this only, but — what seems worthy of no less wonder — he testifies that the name too and the person of his successor were from that time made known to him, that same brother pointing him out. For plainly at that same hour that brother foretold: "That lord Robert ^a, who is today abbot of Les Dunes ^b, is to be abbot of Clairvaux after this blessed Father." For as to his saying disjunctively that he would live six or seven years, this seems to have pertained to the fact that the same term was found to be beyond the sixth year, yet within the seventh.

[264] The time was now near, and the holy Father was hastening to the goal. [he is unwillingly held in life by the brothers' prayers: a certain man's vision concerning his death:] For he was sick, as we recorded at the beginning of this little book, so far that now in that infirmity of his strength seemed to be made perfect, and now his departure to be at hand. Meanwhile the brothers pressed upon God with such supplications and entreaties as they could. Whence the Saint himself too, knowing that his desire was deferred by their prayers, when he had begun to be somewhat better in body, the brothers being gathered, spoke these same words: "Why do you hold back a wretched man? You are stronger, and you have prevailed. Spare me, I pray, spare me; let me go." Yet before this, when in the greatest peril and fear all the brothers were humbling their souls in prayers, to one of them such a vision appeared. An innumerable multitude was coming to meet the Man of God with much exultation outside the cloisters of the monastery; in which procession, however, that same brother who saw it recognized only four going before: that great lover of his and beloved by him, of whom he himself too makes mention with praise in the fourth book On Consideration, Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres; Humbert too, who had been the first abbot of the monastery of Igny; and his two own brothers, namely Guy and Gerard. Being therefore reverently received, and after the kiss of peace long mingling friendly converse, the holy and blessed Father stood with these four, the multitude of the rest waiting apart. At the last the aforesaid men, saluting him, said that from this point they must now return. But then he grew pale, and, sadness being poured about him, declaring his inward grief of soul, said: "What then, will you go away without me?" And they said: "It cannot yet be done to satisfy thy desire and ours, until the time of the new things come." And by "the time of the new things" they meant the time when the new crops should be gathered, as the outcome afterwards plainly proved, since he died in the month of August. In the morning therefore that brother to whom this had been shown consoled the rest, who dreaded the Father's death as now at hand, and told what he had seen and heard. But it was still winter.

[265] At the same time another vision too was a confirmation of the former, likewise another brother's vision, and that of a certain abbot: save that the fulfilled truth of both now more evidently proves how evidently in each the Lord revealed what was to come. For a certain brother saw, and behold, the most blessed Man was preparing to go up to Jerusalem, and was now in readiness for the journey. To whom the venerable Odo, who from almost his earliest years, having lived strenuously enough and praiseworthily in the monastery,

had been wont to supply the place of absent superiors, reverently approaching, said that he would go before him. The truth of which vision was so shown, that the aforesaid man worthy of God, discharging a happy embassy, went before to the heavenly Jerusalem, where is the true vision of peace, ahead of the holy Father who was now preparing to depart and who would follow a little after. But a certain abbot also, near enough to him in dwelling, and no less devout in affection, a few days before this Father's most happy decease, saw him adorned with the most precious priestly vestments and suffused with excellent glory, being conducted to the altar with a great solemnity. At whose entrance the church, resounding with great voices, cried: "A child is born to us." For truly he was himself a child, meek and humble of heart, and receiving the kingdom of God as a little one; at whose merit the angelic multitude, rejoicing at his birthday, and likewise the whole church of the Saints, while he seemed to us to die, exulted that he was being born to them; while he was here consummated, that he was there beginning — singing together not so much with sounding voices as with like desires.

[266] the number of monks at Clairvaux at the holy Father's death. For if at the penitence of one sinner that whole heavenly region is roused into gladness, what joys must he be believed to have afforded to it, through whom it had received such great joys from the conversion and penitence of so many sinners? For who could estimate to how many remaining in a secular habit and manner of life, to how many also passing over to other congregations of men or of women, the Lord gave penitence unto salvation through the ministry of this faithful Servant? Or who could number those who under his care in a hundred and sixty monasteries were brought to penitence by God's kindness? For out of these alone who seemed to be his special sons, besides those who had already happily completed the course of their life, besides those who had been propagated to other places, on that day on which the most happy Father was found worthy to ascend from Clairvaux, the Bright Valley, to a brighter mountain, he left dwelling in it nearly seven hundred ^c souls serving the Lord. What wonder therefore if he be believed welcome to that court, acceptable to the King, received with gladness and exultation — he in whom the grace of God was so far from being void, who labored so happily, so effectually, more than all of his own time and of many generations before; who so copiously multiplied the talent delivered to him; who at length brought back such great gains from his trading?

[267] He appears to a certain prior, and to William of Montpellier, But thus far of these things, lest anyone accuse us of exceeding the bounds of that brevity which we promised. Now in the monastery of that aforesaid abbot who had thus foreseen his birthday, on that night which the holy Father, about to depart in the morning, spent last with us, appearing to his venerable Prior, he bade him farewell and said: "Know that I am now departing, nor shall I stay here longer." When he had told this to the abbot, the abbot, hastening and coming to Clairvaux, found that on that very day the holy Abbot had already departed, as he had said. Brother William of Montpellier, of whom we have made mention above, was once a magnificent man in the world, but more magnificent in his flight from the world. He, being made a monk in the monastery of Grandselve, most devoutly visited the holy Father. But being about to return, he complained tearfully that he would not see him again. To whom the Man of God said: "Fear not; without doubt thou shalt yet see me." That most devout William, awaiting the effect of this promise, on the very night when the blessed Father departed from this life, in the monastery of Grandselve was found worthy to see him appearing to him and saying: "Brother William." And he said, "Behold, here am I, Lord." "Come," said he, "with me." They went therefore together, and came to a certain very high mountain. And the Saint asked whether he knew whither they had come. But he confessed that he did not know. To whom he said: "We have come to the roots of Mount Lebanon. And now thou shalt remain here, but I shall ascend the mountain." Being asked for what cause he wished to ascend, "I wish to learn," said he. And he, marveling, said: "What dost thou wish to learn, Father, whom we believe second to none today in knowledge?" To whom the Saint said: "There is no knowledge here, no cognition of the true: above is the fullness of knowledge, above is the true knowing of truth." And at this word, leaving him, he went up the very high mountain before him.

[268] And as he gazed upon him going, he awoke, to whom St. Bernard had promised this. and there came to him at once that word which once sounded from heaven to John: "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." When therefore in the morning he spoke to his abbot and the brothers, he said that the holy Father had departed from this life. And noting the day and inquiring more diligently, they found it as they had heard. Well done, holy Father, who didst set ascensions in thy heart in the valley of tears; happily hast thou now ascended from Clairvaux, the Bright Valley, to Mount Lebanon, the mountain of whitening, the fullness of light, the height of brightness. Innocent in hands and clean of heart, thou hast ascended into the mountain of the Lord, unto the riches of salvation; thou hast come to the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, where purely thou mayest see pure truth, where with all the saints thy one master is Christ, where all are now taught of God. Draw us after thee, we beseech thee, and from the lofty mountain look mercifully upon thy Valley. Be present to those who labor, succor those in peril, stretch out thy hand to those who ascend. Thy kindness gives us confidence — long since proved by us, and now not emptied out but heaped up more abundantly. Nay, the vision too which we subjoin does not disagree with this presumption of ours.

[269] On the night after the sacred body had been delivered to burial, [He appears again in great glory to a certain brother; likewise to another, to whom he indicates where the garment of St. Malachy is.] the holy Father plainly showed how great a solicitude he still bore for his sons, and how, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them also unto the end. For appearing to a certain brother in much glory, and with great splendor of raiment and countenance, and passing swiftly by as the brother desired to hold him, he said: "I have come for a certain simple brother." The brothers heard this and marveled; but about the third hour of the day the truth of the vision was proved. For a certain brother of quite praiseworthy simplicity died; and, as is altogether credible, he took with him his happy soul under so great a leader, who had said that he came for him. A few days later too, appearing magnificently enough to a certain other brother, and reproving us for having grieved at his departure, after many words of consolation and the promise of eternal felicity to those who persevered in his obedience and teaching, he said: "Know this too, and tell the brothers, that the body of one truly a Saint, whose garment also I have, is buried in the oratory." And he meant bishop Malachy; for he had kept his tunic, in which that Saint had happily fallen asleep, for the celebration of Masses, and, being about to die, had ordered himself to be buried in it, as he had buried that Saint in his own garment. Which word, however, was wholly unknown both to that brother and to a great many others until this vision. Happy bishop, whose merits the holy Father proclaimed both living and dead! Happy charity, which did not fail in death! Happy fellowship, which not even that so cruel divorce sundered! For the glorious Fathers, even as in their life they loved one another, so in death also were they not divided.

[270] [An abbot comes from England to Clairvaux, and is healed at the tombs of SS. Bernard and Malachy.] For after about forty days too a certain abbot from the island of Greater Britain was found worthy happily to experience in himself the power of that sacred fellowship. Who at that same time, going with his fellow abbots to Cîteaux according to custom, had remained at Clairvaux, being seized past hope by a certain twofold ailment, namely pleurisy and a daily fever. And he had now so failed from long vexation that the brothers, who never left him, watched only for the going forth of his soul. And whereas not so much desire of the present life afflicted his mind as the desolation of his absent sons, because he was dying abroad, he earnestly asked to be carried to the tomb of the holy Abbot. Where, when he had prayed with all the devotion he could, he thought also to visit the sepulcher of the blessed bishop Malachy, placed on the north side of that oratory, and to beg his help; but fearing the fatigue, and being as it were already secure of his soundness, he did not fulfill what he had thought. On the next day, calling the brothers again, he asks that help be shown him, that he may come to the oratory. When they made objections (for they feared the danger), "It is altogether needful," said he, "that I go to the tomb of holy Malachy. For when last night I had barely and lightly fallen asleep, waking suddenly I heard a voice saying to me: 'Being now healed of one of thy sicknesses, if thou wilt be healed of the other, seek the bishop.'" They did as he wished, and forthwith it was done as had been said to him. Being made whole that same day, after very few days he took to the road and returned whole to his own people. In this work we recognize thy spirit, most sweet Father, thy zeal, thy consideration; this is thy work, so to defer to thy colleague as to share with him this honor also and this love, with whom more truly and more happily thou art honored in heaven. Nay rather, all these are of thy working, of thy gift, our God. For thou from the beginning of time hast filled the whole earth with the presence of thy divinity, and shalt one day fill it all with the glory of thy majesty; yet meanwhile, visiting more excellently certain parts of it, and places chosen beforehand by eternal counsel, thou fillest them with a special grace of sanctity. Grant, Lord, that the Valley may always abound with spiritual wheat, which, that thou mightest make it brighter in fact than in name, thou hast deigned to make illustrious with two stars of such surpassing brightness. Guard the house in which this twofold and so precious deposit is kept for thee. Let it at last be done to us according to thy word, that where thy treasure is, there may thy heart be also; there may grace and mercy and the regard of thy continual loving-kindness be present to all who are there gathered in thy name, which is above every name, as thou too art over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

[271] To the Turkish leader, meditating an invasion of Egypt Thus far the fifth Book of the Life; after which Mabillon says: "In the Vatican codex number 676 this Book consists of twenty-three chapters, the last of which is lacking in the printed editions." And in these words he presently recites that chapter concerning the Saint: The just man, set in the eternal memory of the Lord, does not neglect the memory of his own sons; doing after death, and accomplishing by miracles, what while yet living he foretold by his oracles. There is seen in the works of his power that word living and effectual, and the faithful testament which he appointed for his beloved ones: "I shall constantly," he said, "take care of the family of Clairvaux, and, continually cherishing my planting with the watering of blessing, I shall so show myself present by benefits that I may not seem ever to have withdrawn from it." From every side he seeks out for us matter of consolation; so that lately in the very parts beyond the sea, being found by our

men, he gaped after helping them. For it came to pass, many years after this Saint's death, that the signs of his sanctity shone forth from the sign of the cross, and that he himself, the consecrator of the cross, should show with what pious eagerness he sought the power of the life-giving cross. For when Shirkuh ^d, leader of the Turks, had resolved to invade the city of Alexandria and the adjacent province of Egypt, and to subject it to his own dominion; and Amalric ^e, the most Christian king of Jerusalem, being sought by the Saracens of Egypt, girds himself in a sudden onset for the defenses of relief — fearing, namely, and providing beforehand for the future, lest, if it should perchance befall the Turks to rule in Egypt, they should both work greater destruction upon the Christians by reason of the nearness of the places, and he himself meanwhile should lose the tributary payment from Egypt.

[272] Soldiers therefore being chosen, and the army being drawn up, he goes forward Amalric sets himself against him; and hastens to meet Shirkuh, going and advancing as far as the channel of the river Nile, which, springing from the fountain of paradise, waters the dry regions of the Egyptians. And when he had come to the river, he made it passable by means of ships; and leaving in guard of the bridge on either side of the river not a few horse and foot, he himself with three hundred horsemen pursues the fleeing Shirkuh, following him and his great army, which mustered fourteen thousand Turks and three thousand Arab fighting men. And while these fled a day's journey before the king's onset, there were not lacking messengers running from the midst on this side and that, of whom some suggested to the king that he should attack and now destroy that multitude, worn down and undone by hunger and weariness; and others on the contrary exhorted the Turks to stand, affirming that it would be very easy for so few to be shut in by the hand of so great a multitude.

[273] The army of Shirkuh therefore turns about, and, the king being awaited, they are drawn up for battle who before were being carried headlong in flight. And night coming on, they encamped beside the waters, which parted the two armies by a channel narrow enough. And when the king had fallen asleep, resting in the very hollow of his shield, forthwith blessed Bernard appeared to him in his sleep, upbraiding and reproaching him with his sins, and that he was not worthy to carry about in that conflict the wood of the life-giving cross (which by custom he wore hung about his neck). And at once the king, terrified and troubled, asks pardon, and tearfully confesses his sins to the Saint who was speaking to him. Then blessed Bernard, moving his hand nearer, took the holy cross which hung at the king's neck; and blessing him with a threefold sign of the holy cross, consoled him saying: "Trust, O king; in this sign thou shalt conquer, and in a peril of great fear, such as thou hast never hitherto experienced, thou shalt escape thy enemies without hurt to thyself." And when he had said this, he seemed to wish to depart, carrying with him the cross which he had taken from the king's neck.

[274] But the king, laying hold of him, said: "I will not let thee go he foretells to him, unless thou leave me the cross." To whom the Saint said: "Nay, nay, O king; I have other sons, who must be blessed with the sign of this cross." And when these things had been said, the sleep departed, and the morning brightness shone; and, abundance of splendor and light being made, each army drew near the other to enter upon the conflict. The king's squadron attacks the copious multitude, and in its midst he who, swallowed up in the deep of the sea, laid low under the standard of the cross the enemies of the cross of Christ. A thousand fall at his side, and many thousands at his right hand, and the Christians run to and fro on every side triumphing in the name of Christ; so that, while they were divided among the different parts of the battle, the king himself remained alone upon a certain mound of heaped sand, as near to death and slaughter as he was far destitute of the solace of all his own men. He saw from the eminent place of his station the Turks running together on every side. For now he expected his destruction to be at hand, save that in this he in some measure trusted: that he knew himself to be unknown to them.

[275] which then followed. Straightway remembering the past vision, and forming pious vows within himself, he promised to God and to blessed Bernard that if he escaped alive from the hand of his enemies, he would send the cross which the Saint had asked for to his sons at Clairvaux ^f. Forthwith therefore thirty of his soldiers, recognizing the king himself from afar, provoke the Turks to fight in a sharp conflict against themselves, so that, the whole force of the encounter inclining toward them, the king might remain still both unknown to the enemy and safe. And when fifteen soldiers of the sacred warfare of Christ had seen this, they burst violently through the thickest of the enemy, pursuing, according to what is written, one a thousand, and two putting ten thousand to flight among their thousands. Being joined therefore to the other thirty soldiers, the enemies who met them being scattered and cut down, they came with gladness and victory to their king. And so it came to pass that the king, according to the word of our holy Father, laid hold of the gift of that same holy Father's merits by the benefit of the holy cross. Moreover that same king with his own mouth diligently set forth the course of the aforesaid vision to Richer, abbot of Salvatio ^g, who afterwards faithfully reported it in the parts of Gaul — a man assuredly of good testimony and honorable life, as far removed from suspicion of lying as he was a stranger to the corruptions of life. Thanks be to God. Amen.

ANNOTATA.

HORST'S PREFACE TO THE READER

to the following Book on the miracles wrought through St. Bernard, and our observations upon that same Book.

From printed and manuscript sources.

Heretics, calumniators of Miracles. Among the Saints famous for the glory of miracles, Bernard seems to me to stand out, or to have few equals ^a. So that from this alone it is easy to stop the mouths of those who speak unjust things and cavil at the miracles of a later age. For assuredly there are not lacking even now Pharaohs who harden their hearts against so many prodigies seen or heard, lest they be compelled to acknowledge God wonderful in his Saints; there are also now serpents and deaf asps stopping their ears, lest they hear the voice of the charmer charming wisely. Nay, even today one may find blind and contumacious Pharisees, or worse, who dare to ascribe these things to the power of Satan. Namely, they judge miracles idle after the clear light of the Gospel has been spread through the whole world; and those which we have learned to have been done afterwards, even from men most worthy of belief, though the whole world beheld and attested them, these they reckon among fables and figments — nay, among sorceries. O blind and wretched race of men, who seeing see not, and hearing understand not! But the hand of the Lord is not shortened, even today, to do through his faithful servants things which surpass sense and nature, when it shall have been so needful. But to determine this is not ours, but his who does all things in weight and measure, whose wisdom reaches mightily from end to end and disposes all things sweetly. It would be rash and impious to fix here laws and limits for the divine power or providence. Look only upon this very Life of St. Bernard, you, I say, scourgers of the glory of the Saints; whose altogether outstanding sanctity — besides that his writings, not to say his deeds, express it to the life — so many and such great testimonies of irrefragable credit prove, that even calumny itself dares not deny it, but wrings veneration even from the unwilling, however unwilling. And miracles, though otherwise they be not indubitable and infallible arguments of sanctity, yet in Bernard were holiness of life and the grace of miracles bound together in so close a covenant, that they must needs be either stupid or impious who dare to take away from the holy Man either one or both.

[277] Wherefore let others adorn him with other eulogies; I gladly applaud them all, St. Bernard excels in the grace of miracles: what the end of miracles is: because I find none equal to his merits. Yet I cannot but call him a Worker of Wonders by excellence, having seen so many of his miracles, and the testimonies in him of a divine power working so familiarly and no less wondrously. Be it that there is some one of the Saints who claims this title for himself by long prescription of time: yet he will not take it ill to receive Bernard into fellowship in this title and honor. Although among holy men there is wont to be no rivalry in claiming praise and glory for themselves in this respect. Bernard certainly was always wont studiously to put it away from himself, knowing that all glory is due to him who works all in all, and alone does great wonders. Nevertheless it is ours to praise God in his Saints, and the more diligently to recall the miracles which holy men wrought by divine power, when the glory of God, or the confirming of faith and religion, or the salvation of the Christian people required it — lest they be frustrated of their end, if, neglected by us or by an ungrateful,

or rather irreligious, silence they have been passed over. But the chief end is to assert the divine glory, to show forth the divine power, and above all to establish the orthodox truth of the faith, whether for confuting unbelievers or for confirming the faithful. And now, that I may pass over other things beyond number, through Bernard alone I certainly see arguments so frequent and so illustrious put forth for the establishing of the faith, that in those words of Richard of St. Victor it is permitted to any Christian, if ever he be shaken by a temptation of unbelief, to deal with God: "Lord, if it be an error, we have been deceived by thyself. For these things have been confirmed in us by such great signs and prodigies, and such as cannot be done save by thyself. Assuredly they have been handed down to us by men of the highest holiness, and proved with the highest and most authentic attestation, thyself working with them and confirming the word with signs following." So he.

[278] miracles the bulwarks of faith. I fear the digression may be rather long; yet I cannot but rehearse the words of St. Gregory the Great, very apposite here. He, after he had compared the miracles of the Saints to bulwarks, and their virtues to shields, with both of which Christians even now fortify and defend themselves, speaks thus: "These men (holy Men), then — how true the things were which they said concerning God, their miracles bear witness, because they would not have done such things through him unless they had told true things of him; and how pious, how humble, how kindly they were, their works bear witness. If therefore we are tempted concerning the faith which we have conceived from their preaching, let us behold the miracles of the speakers, and we are confirmed in the faith which we received from them. What then are their miracles, save our bulwarks? For by them we can be fortified, and yet we do not hold these things in the hand of our own choice. For such things we have not the power to do," etc. It has seemed good to bring these things forward somewhat at length for the sake of those who attribute little to miracles or trust them little, and rend the glory of the Saints with calumnies, and do not honor those whom God has thus willed to honor. I hope these things will not be unwelcome or unprofitable to the reader; certainly an ingenuous worshipper of Bernard will not disapprove them. To which Mabillon subjoins these things:

[279] What the Saint did, even Berengar himself praises. To these things said by Horst it may be permitted to add that other illustrious miracles of Bernard were known to all while he yet lived — nay, before the preaching of the cross or of the sacred expedition, of which in the following Book — so that Berengar, that disciple and defender of Abelard, in his Apology for his master, however hostile to Bernard, acknowledges them as indubitable. "Long since," he says, addressing Bernard, "winged fame has scattered the odor of thy holiness through the world, has heralded thy merits, HAS PROCLAIMED THY MIRACLES. We boasted that our modern age was happy, graced with the brightness of so gleaming a star; and we thought that the world, already owed to perdition, subsisted by thy merits. We hoped that at the disposal of thy tongue lay the clemency of heaven, the mildness of the air, the fertility of the earth, the blessing of the fruits. Thy head touched the clouds; and, according to the common proverb, thy branches overtopped the shadows of the mountains. So long didst thou live, so didst thou form the Church with chaste institutions, that we supposed the demons roared at thy aprons, and we counted ourselves blessed in glorying in so great a patron." So he, bearing witness to the truth even unwillingly, although in what follows he traduces Bernard for having assailed Abelard. To which I add these observations of my own.

[280] I have in hand a letter of Brother Joseph Ignatius of St. Anthony, Various remarks a Discalced Carmelite, of whom mention was made by me above in the preliminary Commentary §64, number 718, signed at Tournai on the 10th day of September in the year 1672, and addressed to our Papebroch, in which he gives him an account of a manuscript copy containing the Saint's miracles which were wrought by him in Germany. Besides that letter I find also a leaf written in the hand of the said Joseph, to which is prefixed the following title: Miracles wrought by St. Bernard in Germany, comprised in two books, from the manuscript of the Monastery of St. Martin of Tournai. Then he subjoins what he extracted from it, and the notes which he added. The inscription in that codex is: To Henry, novice of Clairvaux. To the lord most longed for and to be embraced with the whole bowels of charity, Brother Henry, truly a royal poor man, the brothers who are with the Abbot wish health.

[281] After these follows a letter in these words: We believe that this little summary of the account should be sent especially to thee, from the manuscript codex that it may be a consolation both to thee, and through thee may become known to others to whom thou shalt judge it expedient. Troublesome to thee, troublesome to them, is the Father's delay, and that sword has pierced his own soul too, as we know. Why should he not desire such sons? Why should not such a Father be desired by his sons? Yet nevertheless, wherever he may be, his spirit is with you; and his very body, if it is not with you, is for you. For a father lays up treasure for his sons. Receive therefore a welcome gift, and repay to us who are tossed in the waves of the world the benefit of your prayer. Acknowledge what has been given you by God, when he provided for your souls so great a Father and shepherd. Thus Joseph from the said manuscript codex.

[282] To which is presently subjoined: Here ends the letter; the Proem begins, of Tournai, in these words: When in the kingdom of the Germans the true Servant of the cross was announcing the word of the cross, it was needful that he should speak to king Conrad concerning a certain business of peace; and he met him at Frankfurt, which is a village in the territory of the city of Mainz, situated upon the Main, and took its name from the ford of the Franks. There too the bishop of Constance, Hermann by name, a religious man, was present, entreating most earnestly that he would deign to go up to his own parts,* etc. From this specimen, and from others which will be given afterwards in our Annotations, it is gathered not obscurely that the Tournai manuscript agrees with the miracles previously printed; but which things are not in it we shall note afterwards. But the letter or Preface which Philip, monk of Clairvaux, in the edition of Horst and of Mabillon addresses to Samson, archbishop of Reims, is altogether different from the foregoing one of the Tournai codex, which is inscribed to the said Henry. In the notes which Father Joseph wove into the leaf sent hither, and which we shall hereafter call the Tournai notes, he observes upon the inscription from the Tournai codex that the novitiate of Henry, to whom it is addressed, must be drawn back to the year of Christ 1146, against other authors who defer it to the year 1149.

[283] of St. Bernard "This Henry," he says, "who is called a ROYAL POOR MAN, is without doubt Henry, son of Louis VI, king of the Franks, and of Adelaide of Savoy, and brother of Louis VII, who took the monastic habit at Clairvaux in the year 1149, as Sigebert has it" (rather indeed Sigebert's continuator), "and from him Baronius at the same year in the Ecclesiastical Annals. But these must be corrected from this dedicatory letter. For this letter was written at Speyer (where the imperial assembly had been held at the Lord's Nativity in the year 1146) in the month of January, as is gathered from the end of the first book of St. Bernard's miracles, where these words are read: 'But we must go, and the messenger who is to carry these things' (namely the miracles, to Henry the novice of Clairvaux, as the author of the Tournai notes inserts) 'is already hastening.' Which is confirmed from the words of the Proem of the second book of these miracles, which run thus: 'Many of you have curiously read the copy of the little book which we sent to the illustrious Henry — royal in spirit rather than in blood — concerning the signs which we saw from the first Sunday of Advent'" (namely of the year 1146, in which the first Sunday of Advent was the first of December) "'until our departure from the court which was lately held at Speyer.'" From which, he says, it is evidently gathered that Henry took the habit of Religion in the year 1146, before St. Bernard departed from Clairvaux for the assembly of Speyer. To this year, therefore, recall what was set forth above in the preliminary Commentary §48, number 517, out of Manrique — following Robert de Monte, who is published and circulated under that name, and who supplemented or continued Sigebert's Chronicle — concerning the Cistercian habit taken by Henry; and accordingly see also what is related at §49, number 526, concerning the same Henry out of the said Manrique. But since in the course of the following miracles almost innumerable places are noted in which they happened, the reader must not expect our notes upon each. For besides that this would be too long, there is also this: that knowledge of them can in some measure be supplied from the tract of country, the provinces being obvious enough, as also from the rivers and cities — not to speak of our Annotations to the five books on the Life of St. Bernard, which treat of the situation of various places.

[284] reporting the miracles, Moreover the credibility and worth of the history of miracles which we are next to give does not need our commendation, since so many and such great marks of genuine and sincere authority shine clearly in it, by which it most abundantly commends itself, so that it ought to command the fullest belief in its readers. But the notes which will be placed in the margin have been transcribed hither from the Mabillon and Horst editions, likewise from the Tournai manuscript codex; add also various things which our Henschen left observed; and they contain partly variant readings, partly explanations of places. The Preface and the first part of the miracles, in the said edition, present as their author Philip, monk of Clairvaux; to the second part Philip's name is not added in the same manner in which it is placed in the first; but in the opening of the letter which is prefixed to that same second part, and thereafter through the course of the narration, there are named Everard, Gerard, and Geoffrey, monks of Clairvaux; to whom are added Philip of Liège, Volmar (elsewhere Vuolvemar) of Constance …, "whom the holy Man snatched from the midst of Babylon." But the third part is by Geoffrey, monk of Clairvaux. In the letter of Father Joseph, however, of which I was treating above, concerning the Tournai codex which reports the Saint's miracles, they are said to have been written down not by Philip of Clairvaux, but those contained in book 1 by Hermann, bishop of Constance; those contained in book 2 by Wolkemar, formerly a cleric of the aforesaid Hermann, and afterwards a monk of Clairvaux. "The first book of my manuscript," as Father Joseph goes on, "contains the miracles wrought on each day from the first Sunday of Advent of the year 1146 … until the 3rd of January of the following year 1147, and in what places. But the second book contains those which were done from that 3rd day of January until the 5th day of February, on which St. Bernard entered Clairvaux, and likewise in what places." But that diversity of names which is in the Tournai codex does not prove that we must depart from the names of the authors which are in Mabillon's edition. For what forbids that the miracles were first written or collected by these, and afterwards transcribed by others? What has been said is favored by the Horstian printing, in which the chief authors of the miracles wrought by St. Bernard through Germany, Gaul, and Belgium are named Philip, monk of Clairvaux, formerly archdeacon of Liège, and Geoffrey, likewise a monk

of Clairvaux. And yet Philip indicates in his Preface that he did not write them, but collected them.

* elsewhere: Hermannus

BOOK THE SIXTH,

or the miracles wrought by the Saint through Germany, Belgium, and Gaul in the years 1146 and 1147, distributed into three parts, each of which presents its own authors.

The narration of Herbert, abbot of the monastery of Mores, concerning the book of the Miracles of St. Bernard, preserved by a notable miracle.

Herbert narrates on what occasion When lately the venerable abbot of Clairvaux, Peter ^b, was visiting his monasteries ^c, which in the province of Reims flourish most beautifully at the breathing of the Spirit of God, we too, having set out with him, came on a certain day together with him to the monastery of Val-Roy ^d. And we found there a copious multitude of the miracles of St. Bernard, which, because of the reader's weariness, could not be inserted in the codex of his life. For if they were written at greater length, very many volumes would be made of them. This Book of Miracles therefore, which we found not to be had at Clairvaux, we took care, having received it on loan, to carry with us, that we might have it transcribed. And it was carried in a saddlebag with seven other books, both of larger and of smaller size. And so, as we were coming to the monastery of Longpont, it happened that the horse which carried those same Books was led with the others to the water. Who, when with reins carelessly let go he went beyond the ford, slipping into the depth of the pool, wandered anxiously hither and thither for nearly the space of an hour, floating and swimming. And when those who were present cried out that that horse, bearing a burden of books and clothing with a boy set upon it, was sinking, men run up from every side to succor it. Meanwhile, however, the beast and the boy himself were hidden under the water, save that their outstretched mouths appeared a little above. But a certain young man, stripping off his garments and following the perishing pair a good while by swimming, wished to rescue them, but could not at all, the horse fleeing from him.

[286] and in what manner that book was untouched by the water. But at length, a little boat having been sought and brought from afar, by the Lord's mercy both the youth and the horse were brought back and delivered, not only living but even safe and lively. But the saddlebag containing those books was found full and swollen with water like a wineskin. Which, when afterwards through the carelessness of the servants it remained closed a very long time, at length being opened, the books were found, from the least to the greatest, so soaked and blotted out as if they had lain a long while in the depth of the pool. Nevertheless that Book of Miracles alone, although it was mingled with the rest which were soaked and submerged in the water, was found so uncorrupted and dry, so fair and fresh, that you would in no way believe it had then been drawn out of a fish-pond, but would rather say it had been taken from a bookcase. For, as is seen to this day, not even one little letter in it, great or small, did a drop of water blot out or touch; whereas the other books, as has been said, seemed so obliterated by the waters and reduced to the likeness of skins, that they were judged fit for no further uses. Whence, marveling and filled with great gladness, they gave thanks in many ways to the divine clemency, who willed even now to glorify by a sign of this kind the venerable merits of his beloved Bernard. We too, magnificently consoled, bore our own loss from the sinking of the books not only very lightly, but even very gladly; since indeed in its recovery — a truly joyful fishing — we drew out of the immensity of the waters, with the books, so great and such a miracle. And indeed a twofold matter of exultation lay upon us: both for the very glory of the miracles thus commended, of whose certainty we were made more certain by the present miracle; and for the very life of the boy that was granted, whose deliverance we do not doubt must be attributed to the prayers and merits of this most holy Confessor.

ANNOTATA.

The Preface of Philip of Clairvaux to the Book of the miracles of St. Bernard, to Samson, archbishop of Reims.

To his most dear father and lord S., by the grace of God archbishop of Reims, brother Philip of Clairvaux wishes that he may walk from brightness to brightness, as from the Spirit of the Lord.

Philip gives the reason why he treats of the Saint's miracles: It would be great presumption, were there not great love, that I presume to write to your sublimity. For what has a servant to do with his lord, a disciple with his master, a monk with a bishop? There is nothing between me and him, since the highest dignity sets him, and deep lowliness sets me, in our places. Buried among men, he is not to be called back to men, nor ought he to be called back to the trappings and glory of words who has laid silence upon his mouth. You too know, lord father, that writing ought neither to be in a monk's practice, nor at an unlearned man's command, nor in a penitent's desire. It is hard too that, while others are at leisure and see that he is the Lord, I should busy myself with pen and tablets, whom, as you are not unaware, the martyrdom of a harsher penitence must break. In truth I have learned that nothing is more effectual for earning the riches of the Lord's grace than to sit and be silent and always to consent to lowly things. Humility, queen of the virtues, brings forth her firstborn son, silence, in which and from which hangs the cultivation of justice, as the just man attests who says: "The cultivation of justice is silence." But I go too far, and the course of my speech must be broken off, because perhaps it is an inconvenient foretaste if I detain with a longer page those eyes which you owe to many. But when would my littleness, or faint-heartedness, your servant's, have presumed this, unless your humble sublimity — nay, your sublime humility — had gone before or intervened, most loving father? You ask, therefore, that I write to you what I have ascertained concerning the miracles of our Father, your friend, who loves you not in word nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And those things indeed needed a more diligent handling and a more learned handler; yet those things I did not write, but collected — being sure, however, that I heard with my own ears and beheld with my eyes all of them. Yet those things which he wrought in going and returning from the colloquy of Étampes I neither saw nor heard; but they saw and heard who were ministers of the word, and whom I believe as my own eyes. For I then entered the school of Jesus, and bade farewell to the world for ever and ever. But we have resolved to commend both these and other things, which have been excerpted with a faithful pen from the beginning of his itinerary, to some one of distinguished and religious tongues, who by the mighty power of words may bring lucid deeds into the light. You too, when you shall have received this letter, pray for your Philip, who will be yours, as long as I shall be, in the bowels of Jesus Christ.

ANNOTATA.

THE EARLIER DIVISION OF THE CHAPTERS OF BOOK VI, OR OF THE MIRACLES.

Chapter I. Of Bernard's setting out toward Constance; likewise of the persons and names of those who were eyewitnesses of the miracles.

Chapter II. Of the miracles wrought through blessed Bernard at Freiburg, Basel, and the neighboring places.

Chapter III. Of the miracles wrought by blessed Bernard at Constance and through its neighborhood.

Chapter IV. Blessed Bernard comes to Speyer on the vigil of the Lord's Nativity to the assembly of the emperor and the princes, and of the miracles accomplished there.

Chapter V. Of other miracles wrought at Speyer.

Chapter VI. A letter of the monks of Clairvaux and companions of St. Bernard to the Clergy of the church of Cologne.

Chapter VII. Of the miracles wrought through blessed Bernard from Speyer as far as Cologne.

Chapter VIII. Of various miracles wrought at Cologne.

Chapter IX. Of the miracles wrought on the journey from Cologne as far as Liège, that is, at Jülich, Aachen, and Maastricht.

Chapter X. A letter of Geoffrey, monk of Clairvaux, to Hermann, bishop of Constance.

Chapter XI. Of the miracles wrought at Liège, Gembloux, Villers, Mons, Valenciennes, etc.

Chapter XII. Of the miracles accomplished at Cambrai, etc.

Chapter XIII. Of the miracles wrought on the journey toward Clairvaux.

Chapter XIV. Of the miracles accomplished through Bernard at Clairvaux, Troyes, Étampes, Sens, and the neighboring places.

Chapter XV. Of the miracles wrought at Auxerre, Molesme, etc.

Chapter XVI. Of certain miracles wrought through Bernard at Trier, Rettel, and Frankfurt.

Chapter XVII. Of the miracles which happened at Toul through blessed Bernard.

PART THE FIRST,

by Philip, monk of Clairvaux.

CAPUT I.

The journey to Constance; miracles, and eyewitnesses of the same.

By Philip.

Chapter I.

When in the kingdom of the Germans the true servant of the cross, Bernard, was announcing the word of the cross ^a, who goes to the bishop of Constance. it was needful that he should speak to king Conrad concerning a certain business of peace. And he met him at Frankfurt , which is a stronghold in the territory of Mainz situated upon the Main , and took its name from the ford of the Franks. There too the bishop of Constance, Hermann ^b by name, a religious man, was present, entreating most earnestly that he would deign to go up to his own parts. To whose petition many affairs indeed were an obstacle; but most of all his inward solicitude for his men of Clairvaux, and his heartfelt affection toward them, to whom he was hastening in every way to return: for neither could a mother forget the sons of her womb, but for nearly a whole year he complained most grievously that his own bowels were torn from him. Yet the constancy of the lord of Constance prevailed, since he entreated in season and out of season, now by himself, now through the king and the bishops. For so indeed does that most kindly Man show that it is intolerable to him that men should be anxiously saddened on his account. But the fear of the Lord prevailed the more, and his spirit, suggesting that a great door was opened to him. For this is his zeal, this his custom: that although he has a mind most full of affection, yet with him his own affection obtains no place in the deliberation of what is to be done, but the search for the divine will claims all to itself. He consented therefore to come with the bishop. And on the first Sunday of the Lord's Advent we entered the borders of the bishopric of Constance, and were received with the greatest devotion of the people in the village whose name is Kentingen *. Many things from this

miracles of the divine power shone forth; which, even if we were to keep silence, the stones will cry out. Therefore we who were present have thought it worthy to note them down, for the sake of avoiding confusion and of driving away doubt. For we have written beforehand the names of each; and each of us testifies with sure truth to what we saw and heard. And there were with him I, Hermann, bishop of Constance, and Eberhard his chaplain ; two abbots, Baldwin and Frowin ^c; two monks also, Gerard and Geoffrey; three clerics, Philip, archdeacon of Liège, Otto, and Franco; to whom was added on the journey itself Alexander of Cologne ^d: for he was setting out for Rome, but seeing the works of the divine power and hearing the Father's frequent exhortation, he was pricked in conscience and converted. The names of each you will find from the prefixed first letters ^e.

II.

[289] Bishop Hermann. To me the priest of the village of Herenheim, being summoned for this very purpose, declared that a man blind now for ten years, who was of his household, having been signed in passing on the first Sunday ^f of Advent, when he returned home was at once given sight. This I had heard before from another, and it is most certain in the whole region. — Eberhard. I heard from two honorable men, of whom one was a priest, the other a monk, that two in the village of Lapenheim , having been signed on that same day, were likewise given sight. — Philip. On the second weekday, in my presence, a blind old man was brought into the church, and after the laying on of hands, as you all heard, the people acclaimed that he had been given sight. — Abbot Frowin. I saw that man seeing, and brother Geoffrey with me. — Franco. On the third weekday at Freiburg a mother offered a blind boy in the morning at our lodging; and while she was carrying him back after the laying on of hands, his father bade her ask the boy whether he saw; and I myself followed, and when I had questioned the boy, he answered that he saw clearly — which was also proved by many tokens. — Geoffrey. As soon as we entered the church, a lame youth received the power of walking through the sign of life. — The Bishop. We all saw him before the altar, while the people acclaimed in the praises of God. — Eberhard. I on that same day saw three other lame men raised up. — Franco. The blind woman who was given sight at the entrance of the church, and presented to the people, you all saw. — Geoffrey. And the girl whose withered hand was restored to soundness, of whom there was singing during the offertory. — Gerard. I on that same day saw a boy given sight. — Otto. On the fourth weekday, when after the celebration of Mass the Father was going out of the church, he touched the withered hands of a woman, who after a little while received soundness: you all heard the singing; Franco and I saw those very hands. — Geoffrey. So too a hand was restored to a boy, as he was going out of the village, in the sight of us all. But a lame woman also, whom at the Father's bidding our Henry, returning because she could not follow us, had brought upon his own horse, in our sight received the power of walking in that very place where a girl lame from the womb had begun to walk; and the two ran together. — Franco. On that same journey a withered hand was restored to a certain girl. And I handed her the Abbot's staff, and she held it firmly.

[290] very frequent, The Bishop. Why have you omitted this, that on the first day at Freiburg he bade prayer be made for the rich, that God might take away the veil from their hearts, because, while the poor came forward, they themselves hesitated to take the cross? For neither was the prayer idle; but, as you know, the very richest, even the worst, of that town were signed. — Philip. You remember also that blind old man who was signed on the road, and how the holy Father perceived that power had gone out — not indeed from himself, but from the word of power and the sign of life; for when we had gone forward a little he sent back men to inquire whether he saw, and he was found seeing. — Geoffrey. He himself confessed to us in secret that he often perceived beforehand the benefits to come toward those whom he signed; and concerning those deaf women who on that same day, in the village of Crocingen through which we passed, received hearing in our sight, at the touch of the first of them, as I heard from his own mouth, he spoke to God that he had not yet known any deaf person to have felt a benefit on this occasion, and without hesitation he touched them. — Eberhard. I with those two saw also a youth who at that same hour had been given sight. — The Bishop. At Herzeretheim * on the fourth weekday ^g in the morning, after the solemnities of Mass, I myself offered the girl whose hand was restored. — Philip. And I the boy deaf and dumb from the womb, whom you presently heard speaking rightly and hearing clearly.

[291] and various, The Bishop. I myself addressed the boy when he was signed, and he answered freely at once, and you all heard the outcry of the people. — Geoffrey. Whence had he the words which he had never heard? — The Bishop. From him who makes the tongues of infants eloquent. — Gerard. This was what the Father had said the preceding evening as we spoke privately: that he had not yet seen any dumb man in this life speaking; and after a little, "Since," said he, "those who are dumb from birth are wont to be deaf also, it is very wonderful whether they are ever so cured as suddenly to understand and speak a language which they had before wholly not known." — Philip. The lame girl who there was raised up and received the power of walking, and the boy given sight, we all saw. — Abbot Frowin. A mother had brought a blind little child, and being signed he had received sight; but she did not yet know it, until I offered the boy an apple, and he, stretching out his hand, took hold of it. And from this he was proved to see. — Eberhard. When the holy Man was being led out of the church, or rather was being carried before the door, in my presence and sight he signed a lame man, and took away his crutches, and he, leaping up, walked. — Philip. A boy blind from birth, whose eyes the blessed Father opened as we were going out, I saw, and the great people who were present, and nearly all of us. Likewise a man paralytic in half his body, to whom also he gave a kiss after the signing, and at once he was made whole before us; for he had also before cured his withered hand. In the village of Stieng a woman blind for four years was given sight at the crossing of the water before the people, and nearly all of us saw her. — Gerard. I on that same road saw a girl whose withered hand was healed, many seeing and acclaiming. — The Bishop. On the sixth weekday, at Basel, after a sermon had been delivered and crosses given, a dumb woman was offered to the Man of the Lord; whose tongue when he had touched, at once the bond of her mouth was loosed, and she spoke rightly. Her I saw, and I spoke to her; but the lame man who had before received the power of walking, of whom the people so acclaimed — which of you saw him? — Otto. We all saw him. — Eberhard. I and my lord's knights on that same day, that is on the sixth weekday, saw a boy whom his mother had brought blind to the holy Man's lodging, and was leading back seeing. — Gerard. Many things were done chiefly on that day which for the tumult we could not learn. For I heard him saying that he had touched blind men on that day whom he believed to have been altogether given sight or soon to be given it. — The Bishop. On the Sabbath, near the castle of Rinvel , a lame boy was raised up; and when I had heard the outcry — for I was going ahead — I returned and found the lame man walking in the midst of the exulting people. — Eberhard. At Säckingen *, on the Sabbath evening, as the Man of God was going out of the church, a boy whose neck sinews were hardened, and who could not raise or turn his head about, was offered; and when he had been signed, he returned, the sinews being loosed, raised his head, and looked freely about him. My servant, who spent the night in that same lodging and saw the boy, made this known to me, together with other companions of mine.

[292] Geoffrey. This is the village where in the morning on the Lord's day ^h, in these tracts of country a hand was restored to a boy, and another man, lame from birth, received the power of walking; and two lame persons, one a man and the other a woman, were raised up at the going out of the village, and, casting away the staves by which they had been supported, walked freely, magnifying the Lord. Nor had we gone far, and behold, a woman's useless hand was signed and healed. All of us saw this, and at each a shout was raised, and great exultation. A man out of his mind too, whom the Father had signed in that same village, we saw at once quiet and speaking soundly and giving thanks, and we heard that from this he remained whole. Returning near that same village, we spoke to the priest; and he told which of those of whom they were certain had that day been either raised up or given sight there. In the evening too, when duke Conrad met him, a lame boy received the power of walking before him and his knights, we also seeing it. — The Bishop. There happened there what I now pass over in silence, but I should wish it to be recalled by you in its place. — Eberhard. On that same day, at the entrance of the church of Doningen *, we saw another lame man raised up and walking. In the morning on the second weekday, a man lame from the womb received the power of walking at the entrance of that same church, I being present and seeing it. A boy too, whom in the morning we had seen dumb in our lodging, spoke before us. But our hostess also testified to us that her niece, who had been blind for forty years, from the fourth year of her age, was on that same day given sight. — Gerard. I in the lodging on that same day saw a blind boy given sight. — Philip. And I a blind young girl, who was given sight near the village, whom many both of our company and of the people saw.

[293] wrought by him. Geoffrey. Many things we saw that day which we can no longer remember. Yet one comes to mind, the very greatness of the gladness which I saw recalling it to memory. And I speak of the woman long lame in a certain village, through which we passed, whom we all saw raised up. — Eberhard. I conferred with my lord's knights, and out of those things which both they saw and I myself, we numbered thirty-six miracles which were done on that day. Eleven blind were given sight; to eighteen lame the power of walking was restored. To eleven maimed, hands were restored; one deaf man heard. If in the sum they come to more than thirty-six, it is because I had before counted persons, but now signs. For toward one girl many things were done, who was blind, lame in both feet, and dumb, and had one hand withered; and at many other things too we heard the people who followed us singing; but because we could not turn back, we did not see them. — Philip. On the third weekday at Schaffhausen * we lost many, because the tumult was intolerable, and the Father had altogether to refrain from blessing the sick, and to flee, so did the people press one another. — Eberhard. I myself before the altar earnestly begged him to lay hands on no one, being wholly ignorant by what means he could be led out. — Philip. Yet at the entrance of the church a lame woman had received the power of walking, in my presence; and the people's singing all

of you heard. We saw also another lame woman who, as we were going out of the village upon the hill, was signed, and forthwith, the sinews being loosed, walked freely. — Eberhard. In my sight, in that same village, a deaf man received hearing, and a woman who had been lame in both feet received the power of walking. I heard also from a certain knight of my lord's, who in that very throng was defending the Holy One of the Lord and was present at every hour, that someone's withered arm was healed, and that a lame man walked. — The Bishop. On the fourth weekday in the morning, at the entrance of the church, in my presence and sight, and that of the people and of our brothers, a man lame in both feet, and having one hand withered, was freed from both ailments, and walked freely and moved his hand. — Philip. The blind boy who was there given sight, I saw.

ANNOTATA.

* Frankfurt

* the Main

* elsewhere: Kentzigen near Freiburg im Breisgau.

* elsewhere: Everard.

* elsewhere: mine

* elsewhere: Kipenheim.

* Freiburg.

* elsewhere: Heyreresheim.

* Tournai notes: Elieng

* Rheinfelden

* Säckingen

* Doningen or Dangen.

* Schaffhausen

CAPUT II.

Miracles wrought at Constance, and in the neighboring places, and also at Speyer.

III.

Abbot Baldwin. When we crossed the Rhine, that singing which you heard — for you had all remained on the other side, the people having occupied the boats beforehand — was for the raising up of a certain lame boy, whom I saw. — Geoffrey. The blind old man who on that same journey, as we were passing through a village, received light, I saw; and a woman lame now for a long time, who leapt up beneath the hand of him who blessed her; with whom all who had known her before so rejoiced: for she had come in a cart, and was returning on her own feet. — Philip. The Father had signed a boy powerless in both arms; and when he had stretched out one arm, one of the knights, while he wished to offer him the other, stretched it out before us all. — Geoffrey. You all saw how greatly the woman exulted, marveling at the unaccustomed light, who was given sight beside the lake. — The Bishop. Our knights testify that they saw a boy paralyzed in half his body signed and healed. The son too of a certain knight, whose hand was withered, of about twelve years as it seemed, I saw when he was being brought; and at once I heard men singing, and I inquired what had happened. And a certain knight answered that his lord's son's hand had been healed. — Alexander. I saw this boy healed. — Geoffrey. I saw another, a poor young lad, whose withered hand was restored in the village nearest Constance.

[295] Abbot Frowin. What things were done at Constance, few saw for the tumult; what was done at Constance, almost unknown. yet I saw that blind man who on the fifth weekday was given sight before the altar. The abbot of Reichenau had ordered him to be brought, whose beggar he was. A boy too from our lodging, whom I myself had caused to be brought, being signed on that same day — for he was lame — received the power of walking. But for three other signs also there was singing in the church and the bells were rung, although none of us saw what was being done. — Geoffrey. Of nothing were we so ignorant as of those things which were done at Constance, because none of us dared to mingle with the crowds; and we have resolved to speak of these things which we saw. Of those things which were done on the sixth weekday I think none of you saw anything on that day. For on the Sabbath morning, during the offertory, we saw a boy with much devotion giving thanks to the Father, by whose prayer on that very sixth weekday he had received back the power of walking which he had lost. Whose devotion the holy Man beholding, turning to me, said: "There was not found one to return and give glory to God, save this boy." But before, at that same offertory, a youth deaf now for twelve years, as he himself confessed, feeling the benefit beneath the hand of him who signed him, had cried out in joy and exultation that he had received hearing. We all saw him, and some also of our company spoke to him. So too we saw the lame woman who there received the power of walking, and a lame girl who was likewise raised up. Another girl too, who was deaf, there received hearing. These things, as you know, were done at Constance, in the chapel of the lord bishop, on the Sabbath.

[296] Others accomplished elsewhere, Philip. In the hall, when he was now preparing to go out, a woman's useless hand was healed, and this I saw. — Abbot Baldwin. I spoke to that youth who at the going out of the city had received hearing, while the people, exulting, cried out. — Philip. On the Sabbath evening in our lodging at Winterthur you saw the dumb girl, when her mother brought her, and how afterwards she returned speaking; you yourselves know: for being questioned about many things she answered freely. For on the Lord's day ^a morning, by reason of the tumult, you all went out of the church, and did not see what was being done, although you heard the shout of the people crying out. But I saw a boy paralytic in half his body, to whom the divine power restored both arm and hand and likewise shin and foot, all of which were useless, at the Father's blessing. To two women also — one lame in one foot, the other in both — the power of walking was restored, and these I saw, being present. — Alexander. On that same day on the road, in our sight, a lame boy received the power of walking, and a deaf woman hearing; but near Zurich ^b, before many who had come to meet him, a lame man was raised up. — Geoffrey. At Zurich on the second weekday in the morning, in the church, a blind woman was given sight. Her I saw blind when she was brought, and I was present when a hand was laid upon her, and forthwith we all saw her given sight. — Franco. In that same church a lame girl received the power of walking, and a dumb man speech, we being present and seeing. — Philip. Likewise a blind girl received sight. Many things too were there done which none of us could see for the tumult.

[297] and distinctly known Gerard. Where we crossed the river Limmat ^c, upon which that village is set, within half a mile two maimed boys received hands, one dumb man speech, one deaf man hearing, one blind old man sight, before all. All these things we saw, and most certainly and most diligently verified, the multitude which was conducting the Holy One of the Lord in gladness and exultation acclaiming at each. — Philip. On that same journey a lame woman was raised up, whom, borne upon shoulders, when the Father had signed her he bade be set down and walk; this was she with whom the neighboring women, and all who had known her, so rejoiced. But a certain deaf man too, on that same day, beside the hamlet through which we passed, received hearing before us. — Gerard. On the third weekday, having set out in the morning from the hamlet whose name is Birbovermesdorff , before we crossed the river Reuss, we saw two lame women raised up on the way; and the Father, while he was urging them on, recognized without any hesitation the setting straight of each. For he stopped and had both set down, and they walked freely, magnifying God. — Alexander. On that same day, beside a hamlet, a boy with a twisted and stiff neck was healed before us, and moved his head freely. — Eberhard. You have omitted one thing which I saw, and a great people of the village which is called Frick ; for you all went ahead. There a certain cleric of the village which is called Säckingen earnestly asked the Holy One of the Lord, as he entered the village, that he would work some sign, because the people were very hard-hearted; and behold, they offered a woman lame for twenty years, whom, when the Father had signed her, he bade be set down, and she walked freely.

[298] Alexander. In the morning on the fourth weekday, at the castle of Rheinfelden *, are related. where we had spent the night, before the holy Man entered the church, in the outer court he healed a boy's twisted neck, and restored a girl's useless hand to soundness. — Geoffrey. In the church after the celebration of Mass we offered him a girl who, blind from her mother's womb, could scarcely see the light of the sun, nor discern anything else. Whose eyes the blessed Father anointed with spittle, and forthwith she saw clearly and discerned all things. There too a deaf man received hearing, and a certain blind man sight. — Alexander. Another boy too, whose neck sinews, hardened and drawn back, did not permit him to turn his head about, was healed in the church at that same hour. On the road too, a contracted woman, wholly powerless, whom they had carried in a winnowing-basket to meet the holy Man, when she was signed leapt up crying out; and there was great gladness among the people. But near Basel too a certain man who heard with difficulty received clear hearing. — On the fifth weekday, having gone out before daylight, we hastened to Ronascle. And on that same journey a certain deaf man received hearing, and a boy blind in one eye saw with both; nor was it hidden from the Father, but when he had passed them a little he sent men to examine, and it was found to be so. — Eberhard. When he had sent thee, said he to Alexander, to see whether the boy had been given sight, turning to me, who was walking nearer, he said: "God has opened that boy's eye." — On the sixth weekday, in the church of Ronascle, where he entered, a boy was brought who saw little with one eye and nothing with the other, and forthwith he saw clearly with both: we all saw him. For at once there was a shout at another sign also, and they said that a blind man had been given sight; but we could not see him for the tumult. — Franco. A certain lame boy, who after a sermon delivered to the people was raised up in that same church, of whom too they cried out,

I saw walking in the midst of the acclaiming people. — The Bishop. On the Sabbath, in the church of Berche, after the celebration of Mass, a cleric blind in one eye now for five years received sight. And I saw him giving thanks and exulting. — Otto. Before that, in the same place, a boy with a twisted neck had grown well, whose sinews, under the Father's hand, cracked and were relaxed; and the boy's father and the boy himself rejoiced incredibly. You all heard the people singing; I saw the boy. — Gerard. The youth whose hand was withered along with his whole arm, and who was cured there, we all saw. And the girl who on the fourth Sunday of Advent ^d at Strasbourg was raised up in the church after the celebration of Mass — over whom her father so exulted, over whom the people so acclaimed. — Philip. On that same day, before we entered the boat, a lame boy was raised up, and walked freely before the people, and those who were present cried out with joy, as you all heard. — On the second weekday we were traveling by boat, and those who were sick could not come near; yet in the evening at Bagenbach, in the lodging, a lame woman received the power of walking. — Gerard. At that very hour when the woman came in, we were complaining to one another that we had seen nothing that day; and she at once began to walk without a staff, rejoicing and praising.

IV.

[299] On the third weekday was the vigil of the Lord's Nativity, and we came by boat to Speyer; King Conrad, at first shrinking from the sacred warfare; for there king Conrad kept the feast day, there he was crowned, there was an assembly of bishops and princes. Thither the holy Father came, desiring to restore peace among certain princes, by whose enmities many were being kept back from the army of the cross of Christ; nevertheless miracles are not wont to appear frequently in those assemblies, nor does God deign, where there is so great a concourse of a curious multitude, to reveal his glory: but the Father's coming was not idle, for there was done, to use his own words, a miracle of miracles. For the king was signed with the cross beyond the hope of all who had assembled; the word living and effectual ran swiftly; truly there it was proved that the king's heart is in the hand of God. For before, at Frankfurt, the blessed Man had met the king privately, admonishing him to provide for his own salvation in the time of abundant mercy. To whom, when he had answered that he had no purpose of this warfare, that most gentle Man kept silence, saying that it was not for his littleness to press too importunately upon the royal majesty. So too at Speyer, when in a public sermon he had now for the second time, as before, admonished the king by name concerning the pilgrimage, on the third day, when the festival of blessed John was being kept, he approached him privately with his * wonted gentleness, suggesting that he must altogether take care lest there pass him by a penance light, short, honorable, and salutary, which the divine loving-kindness had devised for the saving of sinners. From whom at length he obtained this answer: that he would deliberate with himself and consult his own men, and would answer upon this on the following day.

[300] [but afterwards, being pricked in conscience by St. Bernard, he takes the cross with innumerable others.] Thereupon, during the solemnities of the Mass, the divine Spirit began so to goad the blessed Father's mind that, contrary to custom, no one asking it, he said that the day ought not to pass without a sermon. What more? He spoke, and at the end of the sermon addressed the king with all freedom, not as a king but as a man. For he set before him the judgment to come, a man standing before the tribunal of Christ, Christ commanding and saying: "O man, what ought I to have done for thee and did not?" And thereupon reckoning the height of his kingdom, his riches, his counsels, his manly spirit, and his bodily strength. With these and such words he so moved the man that in the midst of the sermon he cried out, not without tears: "I fully acknowledge the divine gifts of grace, nor hereafter, by his help, shall I be found ungrateful: I am ready to serve him, since I am admonished on his behalf." He spoke; and behold, the people, snatching the word from the mouth of the speaker, cry out in the praise of God, and the earth resounded with their voices. Forthwith the king was signed ^e, and received from the altar by the Father's hand the banner which he himself should carry with his own hand in the army of the Lord. With him was signed his nephew, duke Frederick the younger; other princes were signed, of whom there is no number. And on that same day, beside the chapel where the holy Father celebrated Mass, a lame boy received the power of walking, in my presence.

[301] Other miracles Eberhard. On the Sabbath morning, when the feast day of the Innocents was being kept, I met the holy Father as he came out of the lodging, bringing with me a knight who wished to be signed; and behold, gazing at a blind boy in the midst of the throng, he said: "What does that boy want?" And when I understood his words but little, because he spoke in the Roman tongue, he said: "Bring the boy to me." It was done as he commanded, and forthwith the boy, being signed, received sight. I myself proved in many ways that he saw clearly. — Gerard. After the celebration of Mass, being brought into the chapel which adjoins the Canons' dormitory ^f, the Man of God signed a man blind in one eye, and he at once received sight; whose first blindness and second illumination were most diligently verified. So too, as he returned from the church, he made a deaf man hear by impressing the sign of the cross and putting his fingers into his ears; and this we saw and verified. — The Bishop. So too that blind man who on the Lord's day ^g was given sight before the altar, while the gradual was being sung, whom I myself had offered. — Eberhard. I judge that many things were done there which we did not see; for we often heard the people singing, and none of us could break through to see what was being done: yet one deaf man, who there received hearing, I saw, and I offered him.

[302] Philip. On that same day an assembly was held, where the Spirit was manifestly present; at Speyer nor from this will it be permitted to anyone to doubt. For the king called together all the princes and knights who had been signed; and while all sat together, the holy Father exhorted them not with human words but with divine. But when we had gone out, and the king himself with the princes was conducting the Holy One of the Lord lest the crowds should crush him, a lame boy was offered him before the king. And he, making the sign of the cross, raises the boy and bids him walk before them all. With how great gladness, with how great exultation the boy was led away, who could tell? And the holy Father, turning to the king, said: "For your sake has this been done, that you may know that God is truly with you, and that what you have begun is acceptable to him." At that very hour, before we went out of the lodging, a girl was raised up, and a blind woman given sight. — Eberhard. In the morning on the second weekday, as the holy Man was setting out for the church, a multitude of the sick hindered us, and we bade all go ahead. And without delay a certain lame man was raised up before the altar; whether he had been signed, I do not know. Yet I saw him walking, and his wooden leg hanging in the church. — Otto. In the king's chapel, he himself being present, a boy lame from the womb received the power of walking. — Eberhard. On the same day two others, one lame and the other bent, were raised up, and, in my presence, were conducted by the whole people to the greater church. For you all heard the outcry and the ringing bells. Scarcely had I returned home, and behold, again a shout, again a ringing. I hastened to the church, and they had brought two more lame men, who at that same hour had received the power of walking.

[303] Gerard. In the evening, as the Father was returning from the king's court, wrought: a multitude of the sick beset the doors of the lodging; whom we made to sit in order, and he touched and healed each. There a boy lame from the womb received the power of walking. Another, blind in one eye, was given sight, and a man lame for ten years was raised up. These I saw at once healed beneath the hand of him who blessed them. One of our brothers testifies that he saw yet another, a deaf man who received hearing, and a woman rendering thanks that she had recovered from a pain in the head. — Eberhard. On the third weekday a blind boy was given sight, whom I saw. — Philip. Likewise a certain man in the presence of the king and princes received the sight of one eye. It was done in that place, whereat we rejoiced greatly, because there was present a certain Greek Duke, sent by the king of Constantinople. He was speaking with our Father in the king's chapel, when a blind woman was offered; but when she was signed before him, at once she was given sight; and that man was greatly pricked in conscience at this thing. So too about evening, the king standing by, and the Duke himself, and many princes, a lame boy was offered. And forthwith the faithful Man, speaking trustfully in the hearing of all, said: "In the name of Jesus Christ I command thee, rise and walk." The voice of power sounded, and power followed: and the boy, rising, walked freely; and at first indeed he went with trembling limbs or shins, but little by little he grew strong before the eyes of all.

[304] [Anselm, bishop of Havelberg, was also healed, and benefits granted to very many others.] Gerard. Anselm ^h, bishop of Havelberg, suffered most grievously in his forehead and throat, so that he could scarcely taste anything or speak. He therefore asked the blessed Man, saying: "Thou oughtest to cure me too." To whom, answering pleasantly, he said: "If thou hadst the same faith which these poor women have, it might perhaps profit thee." But he said: "Even if I have not faith, let thy faith make me whole." At length the Father signed him and touched him; and forthwith the pain and all the swelling departed. — Philip. Our curiosity has been overcome, because frequent miracles flash forth daily. On the octave of the Nativity of Mary ⁱ, as we were setting out for the church, in the Canons' cloister a lame boy received the power of walking, and walked exulting before our Father himself. — Gerard. During the solemnities of the Mass a bent boy was raised up; and him I saw whole, when his mother led him to the altar to offer a candle for the health he had obtained. — Otto. After the celebration of Mass a lame woman received the power of walking, whom we all saw walking. — Gerard. Many benefits indeed bestowed upon the sick, both on this day and the next, the king himself saw, the court saw, the whole city of Speyer saw, from whose memory they can never be blotted out. Our sheet indeed, on which we had noted these things, was lost by the negligence of a certain brother: may God pardon him. Yet three things come to memory, for there is no leisure to investigate the rest. On the fifth weekday two boys, each of whom had lost the light of one eye, were given sight in the lodging; and a paralytic was cured whom they had carried on a pallet. — Philip. In the king's chapel, while the reconciliation was being completed for which the blessed Father had expressly come, he signed a man whose head trembled without ceasing, and he was healed at that same hour. A lame boy too was there raised up. — Gerard. In the evening in the lodgings two blind men were given sight before us. In the morning on the sixth weekday a blind man received sight before us.

[305] A disparager of the miracles is punished, and healed. But we must go, and the messenger who is to carry these things ^k is already hastening. We ask therefore what the lord bishop has kept in reserve. — The Bishop. It was very well done that thou didst remind me:

for I confess it had wholly slipped my memory. A certain archer, a servant of duke Conrad, when the Duke met us, disparaged the word of the cross and blasphemed the holy Lord , saying: "He works no more signs than I do." And so, when the Father stopped to lay his hand upon the sick, the man came near and saw him whom he had disparaged; at once he fell lifeless, and lay long without sense. — Alexander. I was next to him when he fell, and his horse indeed stood motionless. But that wicked man, being thrust down, suddenly fell backward by the divine power. We were all astounded, and called the Father; nor did that wretch rise before he, dismounting and praying, raised him up. Thus, the power being known in his own person which he had before disparaged in unbelief, on the following day he was signed at our Father's bidding, to set out in the army of the Lord. — The Bishop. In all things blessed be the mercy of the Lord, who has kept for this last generation at least one of the ancient Saints, that as a most burning lamp he might hallow the darkness of this time by his life, his teaching, his miracles. Happy are you who hope beneath his wings and are filled from the breasts of his consolation; happy the congregation which rejoices in so great a Father, in whom we wretched seculars glory even by a slender acquaintance.

ANNOTATA.

* elsewhere: Bibomesdorf

* elsewhere: Fricken and Frichem

* elsewhere: Rheinfelden

* Horst: him

* Horst: of the Lord

* Tournai codex: illumine.

PART THE SECOND

of the Miracles of St. Bernard.

CAPUT III.

A letter of the monks of Clairvaux and the Saint's companions to the Clergy of the church of Cologne, in which they exhort them to reform their dissolute life. Miracles on the journey to Cologne.

From printed sources.

To their lords and friends the Clerics of the church of Cologne, greeting from their brothers and friends, Everard, Gerard, and Geoffrey, monks such as they are; Philip of Liège; Volmar * of Constance, and the other recruits of the spiritual warfare, whom the holy Man snatched from the midst of Babylon.

VI.

Before all things it befits us to give thee thanks from the very marrow of our hearts, Thanks being given to God, who has heaped so many charisms upon St. Bernard, O Lord our God. For thou hast multiplied thy mercy upon us, and hast magnified thy dealing with us, unmindful of all our iniquities, for the worthy punishing of which not even hell itself would suffice. And whence is this to us sinners, assuredly the worst of all whom, by the ordering of thy patience, the earth is compelled to bear up in life? Whence is this to us, that we breathe under the patronage of so great a sanctity? O truly inestimable heap of compassion! O incomprehensible abyss of the divine loving-kindness! He has heaped up the gifts of his grace upon the Man whom he chose, that he might gather to him from every side the most desperate sinners, in whom they might have a sanctity more safely laid up for themselves. But you, most dear ones, how long will you be heavy of heart? Would they not, if the miracles had been wrought in Tyre and Sidon which have been wrought among you in these days, have done penance in ashes and sackcloth? At one sign we read that once three thousand men were converted out of a people assuredly stiff-necked, when the voice of power uttered from the mouth of Peter had made a lame man begging at the gate of the temple to walk. How many in a short time has the city of Cologne seen raised up? And many indeed of the people to which they were called have been converted, and have most devoutly received the indulgence offered them by the supreme Pontiff and the penance enjoined.

[307] But surely unless your justice abound more than theirs, the morals of the clergy of Cologne are rebuked, and their riches, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Laymen are of the world; lawfully do they think of the things that are of the world. To the Apostles it was said: "You are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world" — whose places you today occupy, on whose stipends you live, whose power you hold, by whose authority you are strong, whose honor you claim for yourselves; with whom, that we may say it with your leave, all things are common to you, save conversion and manner of life, save works and will, save, in fine, life and repute. If one sees the flock feeding upon the ground, who wonders? But that the shepherd likewise should be bowed down, likewise gape after earthly things and seek what is below — is this not ridiculous and a great abuse? But now blush, O Sidon, says the sea: publicans and sinners go before you into the kingdom of God. The wound of this clergy is past hope; from the sole of the foot to the crown there is no soundness in it. The church has been enriched with earthly possessions, but despoiled of virtues. For there could be no long dwelling together for them, since the King of glory, made poor for our sakes, so chose poverty as to say: "Unless a man renounce all that he possesses, he cannot be my disciple." Alas, alas! We see poison added to the Church, as was said to Louis, whom you name the Pious, who chiefly enriched the churches. For we read in his history that he heard a voice saying to him: "Thou hast added poison to the Church" ^a.

[308] Or does it perhaps seem to you discordant to interpret riches as poison? which are the poison of the Church. Christ too in the Gospel calls them thorns; and the Apostle defines them to be a snare of the devil. "Whosoever," he says, "will become rich in this world, fall into temptation and the snare of the devil." Let those escape, therefore, who wish to become poor, and let each sing securely: "The snare is broken, and we are delivered." Recognize the joyful voice, you who have leapt over this snare — we speak of your brothers, who are still detained among you only in body. For neither was the word of the Lord idle, namely toward the clergy, that they may be the more inexcusable who still persist in perdition; nay, that a threefold cord, which is hard to break, may the more easily draw the rest, since to word and signs there is added also the example of neighbors. The abundance of the matter and our burning desire, by which we long to have you all as companions in the bowels of Jesus Christ, prolong this letter, as you see. Nevertheless we must leave off, especially because these things have been announced to you more copiously and more effectually by our Father himself, the Lord working with him and confirming the word with signs following.

[309] Many of you have curiously read the copy of the little book [The following miracles are written for the sake of the church of Cologne: their credibility.] which we sent to the illustrious Henry, royal ^b in spirit rather than in blood, concerning the signs which we saw from the first Sunday of Advent until our departure from the court which was lately held at Speyer. Many still ask that we do not neglect to add what things were done among you, because these will taste sweeter to you, which you yourselves saw when present. A threefold consideration has persuaded us to this: both that the new brothers, while they are still detained in finishing secular affairs, may grow warm again in this reading; and that the rest may consider what manner of thing it is which they admit, who, when so great a Father — whom assuredly, when God shall have taken him away, many will tearfully bewail — called them, either dissembled about committing their souls to him, being enticed by pleasures and unwilling, or, drawn back by faint-heartedness of soul, tremble. But let the noble church of Cologne also have, as is fitting, an everlasting memorial of those things by whose presence it deserved to be exalted. Not indeed that this writing of ours should be preserved, but that those may write these things more lucidly and more worthily who have knowledge and can bring diligence to bear. Nor do we doubt that far more miracles shone forth both among you and on the journey than we could then

know, or than we can now remember. But we have written only the most certain and best proved things; and we have resolved to add also those which the power of the Almighty wondrously works day by day through his faithful Servant and devoted Minister. But we have also thought fit to set before this record a few of those things which we saw from Speyer as far as Cologne, that these may cohere with the earlier narration. Some things too of those which the venerable abbots Theodoric of Kamp ^c and Herwin ^d of Steinfeld saw when present have been written down under their names, as we received them from them.

VII.

[310] Now since the reverend bishop of Constance is absent, Those things are related which, departing from Speyer, let his cleric, now our brother Wolkemar, supply his place in this account, and let him speak first ^e. — Wolkemar. Would that God might bid my name be enrolled among the names of the elect! Would that in the book of life it might be found even last, by the prayer and merits of him in whose praise it has pleased your holiness that this should be done first! On the sixth weekday, then, as the end of the earlier book declares, the court at Speyer was dissolved; and we hastened to Worms, where the holy Father, though he was earnestly asked, would not make a stay, saying: "I must preach the Gospel to other cities also." For he had passed through Worms two months before, and, a sermon being preached, had there signed an innumerable people with the sign of Christian warfare. Yet before we went out on the Sabbath day he touched the sick who assembled; where, between my hands, two deaf men whom I offered, while the people stood by and acclaimed, confessed with much exultation that their hearing was restored to them. — Philip. On the journey ^f a lame boy was raised up, whom truly you all saw. — Geoffrey. On the second weekday, the feast day of the Epiphany, at the castle of Kreuznach , the blessed Father, returning from the church, touched and raised up a boy whom his own parents, and many others of the people standing round who had known him, testified to have been utterly lame for six years. Him we ourselves at once saw walking, while he was being conducted to the church, all acclaiming in the praise of God. — Wolkemar. On the third weekday, at Pickenbach (for so they name the hamlet where we spent the night), on the day of the Manifestation, in the morning three miracles appeared, which I, being present, saw with my own eyes. For at the entrance of the church a deaf man was offered, from whom the Man of the Lord at once drove away deafness with his consecrated fingers and put in hearing. At the entrance ^g too a girl lame in one foot received the power of walking. The blessed Father had not yet gone out of the village, and behold, they offer him a paralytic on a pallet, who, hearing the fame of his miracles, had had himself carried on a wagon from a large village which is situated upon the Rhine and is named Boppard *; and him too he signed, touched, and raised up, and sent home whole.

[311] he accomplished on the way toward Cologne: Geoffrey. In the parish of Trier is situated a most famous village where the Rhine and the Moselle flow together, whence it is also named Coblenz. There many signs were displayed before all the people, which have escaped our knowledge or memory. Yet I remember that I saw a lame boy who was raised up in the church of St. Florinus after the celebration of Mass. But our Frederick asserts that a blind man too was there given sight, who from that same village followed the Holy One of the Lord together with Adolph, an excellent youth. He, his kinsfolk and friends not knowing it, crossed the Moselle with us, clad only in his surplice, as he had come from the church of St. Castor, in which he was a canon. Another Joseph, he left his cloak with the adulteress, and fled the Egyptians, and escaped. On that same journey, when we had gone forward a little, a certain lame man, very well known in that land, was being carried on a horse. His thigh-sinew had so withered that, his knee being bent back, that shin seemed shorter than the other by the measure of a palm. And the holy Man signed him, and, hesitating nothing about the effect of the power, bade him be set down and walk; but there was none who obeyed, perhaps because those who stood by hoped for it too little, or because they understood the word too little. The Father therefore kept silence, but the voice of power did not keep silence: for suddenly the man cried out, feeling the sinew loosened and his knee stretched out upon the horse on which he was carried. And being at once set down he walked freely, magnifying God, and all that day followed his healer. Another too, whose thigh-sinew had likewise withered, so that he scarcely touched the ground with the tips of the toes of one foot, was healed on that same road, so that he set down his heel freely and walked without a staff ^h. — Wolkemar. On the fifth weekday, at the hamlet of Remagen *, in the morning before we went out, in my presence a certain boy received the power of walking who had been lame for six years, as I learned from his own parents. There too a deaf woman heard, and a blind man was given sight, who had but one eye, and that too availing nothing.

[312] Geoffrey. Let the city of Cologne be mindful for ever of this day, When he came to Cologne, he celebrates Mass, and rebukes the clergy. on which it deserved to receive the holy Man whom it had always desired. Yet because he came unlooked for, the throng of peoples was smaller on that day. For so indeed did that treader-down of human glory always shun solemn receptions, so far as in him lay, and choose rather to enter cities secretly. Yet he can rarely do it, because greater glory follows him who repels it. In the morning on the sixth weekday, before we entered the church, in our lodging a woman blind in one eye for ten years received sight at the touch of his blessed hand, before us. She was at once presented in the church to the clergy, and lay long before the altar giving thanks to God. Meanwhile a blind boy too was given sight in that same lodging. Thereafter the holy Father, having entered the church, celebrated Mass at the altar of blessed Mary, which is placed in the eastern part; and when he had finished, before all the people a blind girl was given sight, and a rich matron, well known in the city, whose withered legs for three years could not be stretched out at all, the sinews being loosed at the sign of life, stood upright without delay. In the pulpit too, when he had gone up to deliver a sermon to the people, a blind old man received sight. Many other signs indeed were done on that same day, and they often acclaimed. But none of us was curious to inquire. On the Sabbath too we saw many things in the lodging and knew them; but because we neglected to note them down, at the coming of the multitude of the rest they have now utterly slipped from us. Yet the words which he addressed to the clergy (for he would not go out to the people that day), and how he proved by all the testimonies of the divine Scriptures that this manner of clerics — nay, this utterly unshapen life — is contrary to them, I judge has not slipped from all of them. "You," said he, "the Prophet marked when he said: 'They are not in the labors of men, nor shall they be scourged with men; therefore pride hath held them.' And Isaiah with the same spirit — nay, God through Isaiah — says: 'Let us have mercy on the wicked man, and he will not learn to do justice; in the land of the Saints he hath done wicked things, and he shall not see the glory of the Lord.' And more expressly and by name in another Prophet: 'The princes of my people,' he says, 'shall be cast out of their houses of delights because of their most wicked wills, and their clergy shall not profit them.'" But of these things elsewhere. Now let us return to the order of our narration.

ANNOTATA.

* elsewhere: Wolvemarus

* Kreuznach

* Pickenbach.

* Boppard.

* perhaps Remagen.

CAPUT IV.

Various prodigies are recorded which the holy Worker of Wonders wrought at Cologne, and, having departed thence, at Jülich, Aachen, and Maastricht.

VIII.

On the Lord's day ^a, before Mass was celebrated, a certain blind man was given sight through the sign of light and life and was led to the altar; This city for on that day an incalculable people had assembled for the promised sermon — such as none of the clerics said he had ever seen in that church. And the holy Father celebrated Mass at the altar of blessed Peter, which, placed in the western part, holds the chief place in the church. There after the celebration of Mass innumerable miracles happened before all. An honored woman and very well known in the city, who, being blind in one eye for five years, confessed that she had spent much upon physicians to no purpose, received sight beneath the hand of him who signed her. Another too was likewise given sight. — The abbot of Kamp. Of the many things which I saw there, only two come to memory. And I speak of the deaf and dumb girl, who forthwith heard and spoke; and of the lame young man, whom the divine power raised up at the prayer of his Servant. — Herwin, abbot of Steinfeld. In the street, where the blessed Man delivered his sermon — because the church could not hold the people — with us standing by, a certain blind man obtained sight, and a maimed man soundness of his withered hand and likewise arm. — The abbot of Kamp. When, the sermon being finished, we returned home, from the moment he entered the outer gate, before he touched the threshold of the lodging, in my presence he raised up a bent boy, restored her mind to a madwoman, made a lame woman walk, and the blessed Father gave sight to a matron blind in one eye. — Gerard. This was she at whom one of our brothers so marveled, that a benefit was so easily bestowed even upon a rich woman; and truly the swiftness was worthy of all wonder. For before she seemed to have been signed, she cried out that she had been given sight.

[314] Eberhard. From the time we had dined, miracles were never lacking to us on that day. with many And these indeed we know more certainly, and have diligently proved them. For the holy Man stood at the window, and

the sick were offered up by a ladder; for no one dared to open the door of the house, so great was the rush and tumult. There too the daughter of a certain rich man very well known in the city received hearing, which for many years she had utterly lost. Her parents had before placed her in a certain cloister, but the nuns had sent her back because she had wholly lost her hearing. And she had long remained thus hearing nothing, until at the touch of his consecrated hand God opened her ears. After a little too a contracted woman was raised up, and walked. — Gerard. The bent boy who was raised up on that same day, and the many blind who were given sight, you all saw. — Wolkemar. Of those whom I saw and whom I remember, I counted five, some blind in one eye, some in both. — The abbot of Kamp. Toward evening a woman was given sight who after the laying on of hands had sat blind for two or three hours. At length, wishing to go away and having no one to lead her, she groped pitiably along the wall with weeping and wailing. We all pitied her, but at once we rejoiced with her: for she suddenly cried out that she saw, and hastening to her we proved this by many tokens.

[315] Gerard. While these things were being done within, I stood outside, with prodigies and could in no way get in: from the ninth hour until evening I remained thus with certain of our brothers, unable even to reach the door or the ladder, so great was the multitude on every side. Scarcely at last, when at nightfall the crowds withdrew, having entered I saw forthwith a deaf man who received hearing. When we had supped, because a multitude of the sick had gathered, we asked the Father to go out to sign them. And forthwith to two girls, deaf and dumb, at the touch of his consecrated hand God restored hearing and speech before us. — Eberhard. There too a certain boy and a matron of that same city, both lame, were both raised up. — Philip. On the second weekday, very early in the morning, a deaf man received hearing and a blind girl sight. After a little a blind woman too was given sight; and so great a tumult and concourse arose there that the blessed Man could scarcely be drawn back into the lodging; and I know not whether there was a greater miracle there than that he escaped unhurt. — Gerard. About the third hour a multitude of the sick longed for the Man of God to come out, pressing the more importunately in that they seemed now to have but little time. Going out therefore into the street, he signed them as they sat in order, and before the eyes of all, at that same hour, fourteen were healed: seven lame, five deaf, a maimed boy, and a blind woman each received the benefit they desired. At each the people acclaimed, and their voices thundered through the clouds in the praises of God: "Christ uns genade, Kyrie eleison. Die Heiligen alle helffen uns."

[316] he makes illustrious: Moreover the archbishop of the city was staying in that same lodging, and before him too the holy Father, when he went out, gave sight to a blind boy. — The abbot of Kamp. From this time the crowd was intolerable, so that no one at all could go out of the house or come in. The counsel therefore was that he should be conducted to the archbishop's house, and set out thence more freely. There indeed a noble boy, son of the sister of the advocate of Cologne, long since deaf and dumb, received before us all, through the laying on of hands, hearing and likewise speech. There too a certain blind man obtained sight, and another, whose leg was withered and useless, obtained soundness. But a certain girl too, whose tongue had cleaved to her jaws, and who could scarcely speak, was cured at that same hour, the bond of her mouth being loosed. Of all these we are witnesses; the city of Cologne is witness. Nor were they done in a corner, but in public, that God may be glorified by all, who is glorious in his Saints. If perchance anyone should prove unbelieving or curious, it will be easy to prove many of these things to him, especially those which were done in persons neither of the lowest sort nor unknown.

IX.

[317] Having at last with difficulty gone out of Cologne, we came to Brauweiler ^b, to which add what happened in the territory of Cologne, which is a monastery two miles distant from the city. On the road too, in the presence of the people of Cologne who with due devotion were escorting the Saint, two deaf men were offered, whose ears God opened, when the blessed Father had put in his fingers and with his consecrated mouth had breathed in hearing. — Eberhard. On the third weekday, in the morning, in the church of blessed Nicholas — for in his honor the monastery of Brauweiler, which is interpreted "Black Village," is dedicated — a blind boy was given sight before the altar, whom the lord abbot of Kamp offered. Scarcely yet had the outcry of the exulting people fallen silent, and behold, a deaf and dumb man was granted hearing and speech. — Wolkemar. Another deaf man too received hearing while we stood by. — The abbot of Kamp. The first miracle which we saw on the road that day was the restoring of a certain withered arm and hand. — Gerard. We saw frequent miracles on that same day; for the way was full of people, and the whole countryside was to us a city. The second miracle, unless I am mistaken, was a man blind in one eye, who forthwith was given sight; and in that same place there happened something at which we all were the more astounded: for a woman offered her daughter, now grown up, whom she said was deaf and dumb from the womb, and many of the bystanders who had known her testified the same. And she was cured at that same hour through the laying on of hands, and heard and spoke freely before us. Nor had we gone much further when a deaf man received hearing. — Geoffrey. Up to these miracles I went ahead of the crowds; but hearing such frequent singing of the people, I stopped, and most diligently verified what was thereafter done on the journey. A deaf and blind woman heard and saw; three deaf men heard; one lame woman walked; five blind were given sight — some indeed in one eye, others in both; and of one boy, who was wholly blind, we are certain that the holy Father knew of his illumination in spirit. For he stopped, and turning to him had inquiry made whether he saw.

[318] The abbot of Kamp. So too he had done before concerning another blind man, at Jülich, at Aachen, and had sent me back, when I had passed by, to inquire; and when I returned and announced that he had been given sight, "I too had perceived it," said he. — In the evening we came to Jülich, which was a stronghold built by Julius Caesar and marked with his name. And the blessed Father, having entered the church and beheld a lame woman lying before the altar, with a certain new fervor of spirit, so that we all marveled, took her hand and raised her up with as much ease as faith. So too in the court of the church, as he entered, he gave sight to a blind man before us and all the people. — Gerard. In the morning ^c in the church, after the celebration of Mass, a blind boy received sight, and a deaf man hearing. A certain honored woman, niece of the Count of Jülich, who for five years saw nothing with one eye and so little with the other that she could scarcely keep the road without a guide, when she was signed saw clearly with both. The advocate too of that stronghold had lived blind for twenty years, and was given sight on that same day. Many other things indeed were done, and the people often cried out that "Christ uns genade" of theirs, both in the stronghold and on the road; but let a few out of very many suffice for us. — Eberhard. On the road, of those which I remember, a deaf boy received hearing, a blind woman sight, and another, lame, the power of walking, before us all. — Now Aachen is a royal seat, a most famous and most delightful place, better suited to the pleasure of bodies than to the salvation of souls. For the prosperity of fools destroys them, and woe to an undisciplined house. I speak not unto destruction; but would that he might read it who may correct it; would that some one of them might reconsider and be converted and live! There, then, in the royal chapel at the altar of blessed Mary, on the fifth weekday, a blind girl received sight: I myself was standing by the Father, but there was at once so great a tumult that we had to give way. — Philip. A certain lame old man was there raised up, whose crutches they hung up at once in that same church for a testimony; him I myself had long put off, not knowing why he wished to approach or what he sought. — Eberhard. Two women, whose hands had utterly withered, were there healed at that same hour.

[319] The abbot of Kamp. The hand of one indeed the holy Father stretched out with his own hand; but the other was healed as it were at the hem of his garment. at Maastricht, For she was standing behind his back, and complained that she could not reach his hand. To whom I said, "Put thy hand to his garment, if perchance thou canst touch it." She did as I advised her, and suddenly began to hold his cowl, and while she drew it, her fingers were stretched out, and she was healed at once. — Gerard. Nowhere on that journey was the Father so pressed as in that chapel, because the place was narrow, and crowd drove crowd, as wave is wont to hurl on wave. On this account we are ignorant of many of the things which were done. Our Gerard, then a canon of that same church, who on that same day left alike his prebend and the world, asserts that five blind were there given sight. — Wolkemar. Maastricht is the name of the place where once was the see of Liège, transferred by the most blessed confessor Servatius from the city of Tongeren. There on the fourth weekday we spent the night in the church of blessed Mary. And in the morning on the fifth weekday , after the celebration of Mass, we led the Father to a raised place, that he might heal the sick without being crushed. I was next to him, and know more fully what was done, and verified all things more diligently. There five blind were given sight, a deaf man heard, a dumb man spoke. Likewise another deaf man received hearing, and maimed men soundness of their hands. — Gerard *. On that same day, in the lodging, a deaf and dumb boy was offered; and while the holy Father was signing him, a certain honorable youth, Conrad, a canon of Cologne, renouncing the world, gave himself into his hands. He raised himself to receive him, and forthwith the boy spoke and heard. And the people were waiting outside; and behold, the boy, hearing and speaking, is restored to his parents, and copious exultation follows. For the boy was known in the city, and this was most famous among the people. And without delay a lame woman too received the power of walking, and three blind were given sight, and each was led out into the people with gladness and exultation.

[320] and what happened at Liège. Philip. When the holy Man was going out of Maastricht, a cause arose that he should turn aside to the church of blessed Servatius on business of brother Norbert, who was a Canon of that same church; but he at once renounced both his prebend and the world. And on that same journey a lame boy was raised up before us. In the church of blessed Servatius too, offering a lame man to our Father, they asked that he would lay his hand upon him. But he said: "I know not whether it will displease blessed Servatius, if we presume this in his house." And when all acclaimed and said, "Lord, it will not displease him," he said: "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and of blessed

Servatius, rise and stand upon thy feet." He rose therefore without delay or hesitation, and there was great gladness among the people. Yesterday these things were done at Maastricht. Today at Liège the whole clergy had assembled, which in that city is very numerous, and they awaited the Father in the bishop's chamber, that he might deliver a sermon to them; and behold, the Lord forestalled them with a word of power, and a certain lame Cleric, so loosened from the loins downward that he could not at all stand upon his feet, was offered to the Man of God. But he, signing and handling the feeble limbs, said: "Walk, in the name of Jesus Christ." And forthwith, being strengthened, he began to walk. And the report went out among the clergy, and they cried out: "These are thy works, O Christ, who dost so glorify thy Saints." To him be glory and dominion now and unto all ages of ages. Amen ^d.

ANNOTATA.

* Henschen: to heal.

* that is, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy. May all the Saints help us.

* elsewhere: seized.

* Henschen: fifth

* Henschen: sixth

* Henschen adds: two

* Henschen: Geoffrey.

PART THE THIRD

by Geoffrey, monk of Clairvaux.

A letter of the same to Hermann, bishop of Constance.

By Geoffrey.

To his most beloved lord and most reverend father Hermann, by the grace of God bishop of Constance, Geoffrey, such a monk of Clairvaux as he is, a child of his sanctity, wishes that he may remember his sons in his prayers.

Those miracles indeed which we saw and knew to have been wrought from Speyer as far as Liège, Geoffrey prefaces what miracles he writes, and with what fidelity. we described to the Clergy of Cologne in that manner in which the earlier ones had been described before, so that, after the fashion of a conference, each of us should in turn speak of those things at which we were present. Since therefore the copy of that little book cannot escape your diligence, most blessed father, as I trust, I have not neglected to describe the rest and to direct it to your sanctity. It is most certain indeed that we were ignorant of many even of the earlier things. For no one could pursue all of them in passing. But it hindered us most of all, when we had gone out of the region of the Germans, that that cry of yours, Christ uns genade, had ceased; and there was no one to cry out. For a people of the Roman tongue has not, after the manner of your countrymen, its own Songs by which they might render thanks to God at each several miracle. Many things therefore, covered with silence, did not come to our knowledge; although even of those which I most certainly knew I have knowingly omitted not a few, fearing indeed lest so great an abundance might beget weariness even in the most curious. This indeed I say not so much to you, of whose belief I do not doubt, as to others into whose hands these things may come: that I have written nothing save what either I saw with my own eyes, or learned by the most certain relation of our brothers who were present.

CAPUT V.

Prodigies which were wrought at Liège, and thereafter on the journey through Gallo-Belgic country, and in Champagne.

XI.

On the Lord's day after the octave of the Epiphany ^a, therefore, and on the second weekday, Prodigies wrought at Liège we stayed at Liège, while our Philip finished the secular affairs in which he was entangled. And it came to pass on the Lord's day, when the holy Father had celebrated the solemnities of the Mass at the altar of blessed Mary in the greater church before all the people, that a boy was offered whom they said was lame from the womb; but when he had signed his shins and touched his loins, taking his hand he raised him up forthwith and led him. At once there was a shout from the clergy: "We praise thee, O God"; but the moaning of weeping and sobs overcame the outcry of praise. The people, unskilled in singing, gave tears instead of song. Two withered hands too he there touched and cured, so that they received alike feeling and motion. Not yet having moved from the altar, he gave sight to a blind old man by the sign of the cross; and made another lame man walk in the face of the whole church which had assembled. — On the second weekday in the bishop's house ^b in the morning, after the celebration of Mass, a young man blind in one eye was given sight at the touch of his sacred hand, and beneath the hand of him who signed him he leapt up crying out that he had received sight. And without delay another was brought, blind in both eyes, and he too was there given sight at that same hour. And the bishop of the city was present, a diligent investigator of all he did. Hearing therefore the youth crying out with joyful voices that he had been given sight, in order to prove whether it were true, he questioned him about many things, and he answered each without hesitation.

[319] are recorded: On that same day about the sixth hour the holy Father went out to sign the sick, and there at once a certain lame man received the power of walking. But hearing that he had once gone out to the sick in a more spacious house, far more came than before. After the ninth hour therefore, going out to them, he signed them as they sat in order. And forthwith, of those of whom we are certain, five blind were given sight, and three lame received the power of walking, all worthily marveling; in the evening too, in the bishop's chapel, a certain deaf man received hearing. — On the third weekday, before we went out, three lame persons were raised up in the bishop's very house: two women and one boy. Many other signs indeed were done at Liège and on the journey; but out of many let a few suffice.

[320] likewise at Gembloux, and Villers, On the fourth weekday, having set out from the town whose name is Huy, we hastened to the monastery which they call Gembloux ^c . And on that same journey an old man blind in one eye, and a youth laboring under the same ailment, were both given sight together. — On the fifth weekday ^d in the morning, in the aforesaid monastery of Gembloux, a lame boy was offered to the Man of God, and forthwith, being signed by him, he received the power of walking, and walked before all. After a little too, at the entrance of that same village, another boy, contracted in feet and hands, obtained soundness of both sets of limbs before the eyes of all. Nor had he gone far, and behold, a boy dumb from the womb was offered on the road, and him too he signed and healed, and at once the bond of his mouth was loosed and he spoke rightly. On that same journey two deaf men were offered, and he who had made the dumb man speak made the deaf also to hear. — In those parts a new monastery is being built whose name is Villers, and a few months before the holy Father had sent thither a congregation of monks. He wished therefore to visit the new planting, even in passing, and to console his sons in their pilgrimage. And it came to pass that when he had begun to draw near the monastery, he touched, signed, and raised up a lame woman, and bade her walk freely. To two lame women too he restored in that same place the power of walking, and to a certain young man the lost sight of one eye, before the brothers themselves and very many others who had assembled.

[321] Thence he hastened to the town whose name is Fontaine, at the town of Fontaine, where our Philip had asked him to lodge with his kinsfolk. And on that same journey they offered him a boy blind from birth, who could not even open the eyelids of his eyes. All had despaired, even those who had seen very many and very great miracles. But he, hesitating not at all, laid his hand upon the boy, and, a very short prayer being made (as was his wont), with his fingers opened his eyelids and asked whether he saw. To whom the boy said: "I see, Lord, I see you; and I see all the men with hair." And clapping his hands and exulting vehemently he said: "God, God, no more shall I dash my feet against a stone." — On the sixth weekday at Fontaine, before we went out, a girl's contracted and withered hand was healed and stretched out. On the road too, beside a certain village, a lame boy received the power of walking.

[322] From here we came to the castle which they name Binche, at Binche, at Mons in Hainaut, whence so great a multitude of men came to meet us that the people covered the whole level of the fields. There they offered a lame boy upon their shoulders; whom the Man of the Lord, signing him, bade be set down, that he might walk. Scarcely could a way be prepared for those new steps, so great was the concourse and so great the tumult; yet being set down he began to walk in the midst of the people, and very many followed, leading him out into the open field. For his mother was there, his kinsfolk were there, and many who had known him, making the miracle credible by their very exultation. Meanwhile indeed, while no small part of the people had withdrawn with the boy, the gladness was doubled, and another boy likewise lame likewise received the power of walking. A third, a lame man, was raised up on that same plain, and walked and ran before all, rejoicing and praising. Near that same castle one blind man was given sight, and two deaf received hearing at the very place where he had stopped, that he might bless the people and dismiss them. — Mons is the name of the chief castle in the province of Hainaut, where on the sixth weekday we spent the night. There in the morning on the Sabbath, before we set out, a certain old man of the nearest village, not unknown to many of those who were present and to our Philip, received the light of his eyes which he had lost many years before. But a certain schoolboy too, blind in one eye, is given sight with such swiftness that the blessed Father did not take away his hand before the boy cried, "I see, Lord," all being astounded.

[323] These things were done in the lodging before the venerable Nicholas ^f, bishop of Cambrai, and in their territory, and at Valenciennes and his clerics also, and many religious men who from the whole province had come to meet the Man of God. And with the same men standing by, as he was going out of the castle, he healed a woman's withered hand and restored the power of walking to a lame man. Very many miracles flashed forth on that same day, so that many of them slipped from memory; yet of these we most certainly remember. Two deaf women received hearing on the road, and a certain boy the sight of one eye. Nor had we gone far,

and behold, in the field a woman received the light of one eye which she had long lost. On that same highway there is a certain little chapel, two miles distant from the aforesaid castle; thither an innumerable * multitude had assembled to meet the venerable Man of God, that it might see his face and receive his blessing. Nor did the Lord cheat the devotion of his people, but showed them the longed-for mighty works of his power. For there before all a certain old man, who, as was said, had remained blind for twenty years, was made to see, and a deaf woman heard, not without much exultation both of themselves and of the people. In another place too, when he had stopped, two boys were offered, each of whom saw with one eye only, and a deaf woman. Nor did he move away before he had restored both sight to the boys and hearing to the woman. And further on that same journey, near the stream Huns, before the crossing, a blind boy was given sight; after the crossing two deaf women received hearing. We were now drawing near the lodging, and behold, a lame woman received the power of walking through the laying on of hands before a copious multitude of the common people, which had come from the whole region to meet the blessed Man. Others too, feeble and sick, obtained the benefits they desired. But it is long to relate each. — Valenciennes they name the town where we stayed that night, a great and populous town. There indeed, before we entered our lodging, the holy Father, signing and raising up a lame woman very well known to the people, made her walk before all. Setting out thence, on the Lord's day ^g we came to Cambrai.

XII.

[324] But very many miracles happened both in that stronghold and on the journey; as also yet out of many we have gathered a few. In the church of blessed John, after the celebration of Mass, a boy deaf and dumb from his mother's womb heard and spoke, and the crowds marveled. He had sat beside me, deaf and dumb, and being presented before me he heard and spoke at that same hour. Scarcely had the jubilation of the clergy ceased, and behold, a lame old man was raised up and walked. There happened * something at which we were astounded above the other miracles. For a boy blind from birth, his eyes covered with a white film (if indeed they were to be called eyes, in which there was neither color nor function nor even so much as the socket of eyes), received sight at the laying on of his blessed hand. This we proved by many tokens, scarcely believing our own eyes that sight could be in such eyes. In that same place too a woman's withered hand obtained soundness. Thereupon, since the crowds pressed upon the blessed Man, he was with difficulty conducted into the house of the Regular Canons. There too he conferred very many benefits upon the sick; but these are those which we most certainly remember. Two lame men were there raised up; a blind boy and a blind woman received sight.

[325] at Cambrai, On the second weekday, in the city of Cambrai, in the church of blessed Mary, the holy Father celebrated the solemnities of the Mass at the higher altar, that, being set in a more eminent place, the people might see him and not crush him. And so, while the rest were coming to the offering, a boy was brought, deaf and dumb from his mother's womb; he, born in the nearest village, was not unknown to many of those who stood by. And he who had brought him began to beseech the Man of God to deign to lay his hand upon the boy; but we, fearing a concourse of the people, forbade him, saying that he should bring him when the Mass was ended. Yet the effect of the power forestalled expectation. For the boy, making his offering, kissed the consecrated hand after the custom, and passed on. And without delay one of the knights of the aforesaid brother of the bishop, coming up, asked the boy, saying: "Oz tu?" , which in Latin is interpreted, "Dost thou hear?" And forthwith the boy too answered him , saying: "Oz tu." For, being deaf from the womb, he spoke only those things which he had heard from the mouth of the questioner. The knight therefore went on speaking to him, and taught him to call upon God and to name the blessed Virgin, etc. And as the boy answered each without hesitation, the clerics who stood nearer came together; and, the truth of the miracle being known, they lifted up their voice, magnifying and praising God, who gave such power to men. The boy, lifted up, greets the people, and the city of Cambrai exults with joy, hearing the boy speak who from his mother's womb had never spoken nor heard. — On that same day in the bishop's house , where he had received the holy Man with great devotion, a girl's useless hand was healed at his touch and stretched out. In the evening too a father offered his daughter, long lame, and, the power of walking being received, led her home rejoicing. — On the third weekday he healed two withered hands, and a lame woman experienced that the grace of healings was effectual in Bernard's hand. A blind boy too, when he was now going out, he gave sight to at the gate; and in the field he made a deaf youth to hear and a dumb one to speak, before the whole clergy and people of the city.

[326] Vaucelles ^h they call a monastery three miles distant from that same city, at Vaucelles, Laon, Reims. which this same Father of ours had built by brothers sent long since from Clairvaux. There he spent the night on the third weekday, unwilling to cheat his sons of a fatherly visit and consolation. In that same monastery indeed, in the morning on the fourth weekday, before he went out, he healed by the power of his blessing a certain knight of that same region, who for many days, being feeble in feet and likewise in legs, could not walk; and, as he rendered thanks, sent him home whole. On the road too a man deaf in one ear received hearing. In the town whose name is Gom , beside the monastery of Regular Canons which they call Mont-Saint-Martin, they offered a lame girl to the new Martin of our time. But he, the sign of the cross being made, said: "Go, in the name of Jesus Christ." And at once, being set down, she leapt up and walked, running and praising God. — On the fifth weekday, in the monastery which they call Homblières ⁱ, a father offered to the Man of God his daughter, paralytic in half her body. She, the disease growing strong, had lost the function of hand and arm and likewise of shin and foot, and of her tongue also; but when the blessed Father had signed her, she was healed, speaking most plainly and walking, and freely moving her hands. — On that same day we came to Laon, where on the sixth weekday, in the monastery of blessed John (for there he lodged), a deaf man received hearing before all. On the Sabbath too at Reims, when the journey was now being made ready, the holy Father gave sight through the sign of the cross to a boy blind in one eye, a multitude of clerics and citizens standing by.

ANNOTATA.

* perhaps Gembloux

* Henschen: at the going out,

* perhaps innumerable

* Henschen adds: one

* Henschen: brother

* elsewhere: Hörst du

* Henschen: it

* Henschen: in the lodging

* elsewhere: Gouy

* Henschen adds: through the laying on of hands

CAPUT VI.

Other marvels in Champagne up to his entrance into the monastery of Clairvaux; likewise others thereafter, after a short stay in the same.

XIII.

On the Lord's day ^a was the feast of the Purification of blessed Mary; Why no miracles were then wrought at Châlons: he continued them and Louis, king of the Franks, a most devout and most Christian prince, was coming to Châlons to meet the Man of God. Very many too of the princes of both realms had assembled, and the legates of the king of the Romans and of Welf ^b, the renowned Duke, that the Jerusalem expedition might be treated of by common counsel. By which colloquy the Man of the Lord was so detained through those two days that he could not go out to the people, although he was most vehemently desired. For it behooved him to set the general good before private wishes. But as he went out on the third weekday, a certain woman met him, asking the cure of a withered hand; and according to her faith it was done to her, so that she was made whole at that same hour. And this miracle indeed was now done among neighbors and acquaintances, lest anyone should object that saying of the Gospel: "Whatsoever things we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy own country." For the venerable Geoffrey, bishop of Langres, was present, once the blessed Man's son by profession, now his father by dignity of office. There were present also certain princes, and not a few knights of our land. — On the fourth weekday, when the desired one was himself now drawing nearer to the desired Valley, manifest miracles were multiplied, so that he might be proved more than a Prophet, * since prophetic honor was not lacking to him, not even in his own country. For on that same day, in a village of Champagne whose name is Davamant, he celebrated the solemnities of the Mass in honor of blessed Agatha, whose festival was being kept. He had not yet withdrawn from the altar, and behold, a certain man offered his blind son, whose eyes, anointing them with spittle, he touched, and he was given sight at that same hour.

[328] the holy Man In the town whose name is Rosnay they were carrying on a wagon a languishing and utterly feeble man, for whom the grave alone seemed to remain; and upon him too, before all the people and many knights, laying his hand, he made him walk without delay; and, all being astounded, he followed whole the wagon on which he had before been carried. Likewise a boy too, who himself also for many days could not walk even one step, he signed as he went out of the castle; and at once he walked freely. — On that same highway there is situated another castle, which is named Brienne by the inhabitants. There, as the Man of God passed by, through his prayer and blessing a lame girl received the power of walking. And when he had gone out, a blind and beggar woman asked an alms of him. And the Man, looking upon her mercifully, said: "Thou seekest silver, but God will restore thee sight"; and coming near he signed her, and before all she was given sight at that same hour. And being asked how long she had been blind, she answered that for these eleven years she had seen nothing at all.

[329] Thus the Apostolic Man, imitating the Apostolic example, in other places surpassed with a most holy liberality both the beggar's petition and her hope. Nor had he gone far, and behold, a boy blind in one eye begs a blessing, seeks his touch. What would he deny him, who had given to one who did not ask? Hesitating not at all, he signed the blind eye, and that with which he could see

before, closing with his hand, he moved his finger before him and asked what he was doing *. Certain pilgrims, hearing that the Man of God was passing, offered him their deaf companion with prayers; whose ears, anointing them with spittle and putting in his fingers, he restored hearing to him at that same hour. Thereupon, when he had gone forward a little, the man followed him, gave thanks, and received the sign of the cross from him, that he might set out in the army of the Lord.

[330] On that same day we came to Bar-sur-Aube, which is a most renowned town, in the places of Champagne, until he returned to Clairvaux. three miles distant from Clairvaux. On the fifth weekday, then, the holy Man celebrated the solemnities of the Mass in the church of St. Nicholas. There the people of Bar ^c were astounded at new mighty works of the divine power. The Lord went on still to magnify his Servant, and opened beneath his hand the eyes of a boy born blind. In that same church, after the celebration of Mass, a contracted girl, whose heels had cleaved to her loins, was raised up and walked freely. Another girl too, who could not stand at all, obtained soundness there. Likewise a lame woman received the power of walking, and as soon as she was signed, feeling the power, she bade the bells be rung, as they did at each several miracle. In that same place two men deaf and dumb from birth received hearing and likewise speech. The one was a boy, the other a youth , very well known in that town. And further, one deaf man received hearing, and a girl powerless in her hands from her mother's womb was healed at that same hour. To another too he restored a withered hand to soundness before the almshouse, when he was now setting out. — On that same day the good Steward of the manifold grace of God was restored to Clairvaux, bringing back precious sheaves, returning after the likeness of the patriarch Jacob with two companies. For he brought thirty with him, and awaited nearly as many more, a vow having already been made and a day appointed for their coming. What then shall we say to these things? Happy indeed is he whose prayer is found so acceptable, whose touch so healthful, whose word so living and effectual! Happy the soul which the Lord filled with the oil of grace above its fellows; happy the tongue that heals the desperate wounds of so many souls; happy the hand overflowing with the grace of healings and with the signs of so many mighty works!

XIV.

[331] The holy Father, staying a few days at Clairvaux, forbade the sick to be admitted, To these are woven prodigies providing for the quiet of the brothers. Yet on the very day on which he was to go out, our venerable bishop offered him a young man of Langres, one of whose ears had for many years been utterly deaf, and forthwith the man heard, and gave thanks for the swift medicine. And the Father, going out of the monastery gate, found a multitude of the sick — blind, lame, withered; and very many in that tumult obtained beneath the hand of him who signed them the soundness they desired. But when he had ascended the hill, he met a deaf and dumb boy who for many days had stayed among our brothers at Fontarce, only making signs to them. Anointing his tongue with spittle, and putting his fingers into his ears, he bade him name God, and the boy began little by little to speak; but still his voice labored in his throat. Which one of our brothers observing, offered him again, asking that he would lay his hand upon his throat. And at once he spoke freely, giving thanks to God with many tears. For he had been deaf and dumb so long that his own name had utterly slipped from him, and he did not know what he was called. Scarcely remembering the name of the city from which he was sprung, he said that he was of Paris.

[332] very many, On that same journey another deaf man heard; two lame boys received the power of walking; and near Maisonville (for so is called a hamlet nearly two miles distant from the monastery) a paralytic old man was cured while we stood by, the crowds acclaiming vehemently. Ville-sur-Arne is the name of the place where we spent the night that day. But in the morning, in the church after the celebration of Mass, a youth contracted in one leg, when he had been signed by the Man of God, stretched out the sinew and walked before all the people exulting. In that same village, having entered his lodging, and many rushing in, he healed with his accustomed blessing a boy blind in one eye and a girl dumb from birth. For both the boy was given sight and the girl spoke, all hearing and marveling. In the street too, when the people detained him as he went out, two maimed men were healed; of whom one also received the lost light of one eye, and being freed from a twofold ailment carried away a twofold joy.

[333] which, setting out from the monastery On the same day, near the castle of Bar which the river Seine washes, before a copious multitude of the common people, which had assembled from the whole region, there were cured a blind boy and a blind man, a maimed girl and a paralytic old man; him they had brought on a wagon, and said that for six years he had so languished that he could neither sit nor turn his side without another's help. At the entrance of the village which they call Bargonium a boy lame from his mother's womb was raised up; at the entrance too a certain woman received the power of walking which she had lost four years before. Nor had we gone far, and behold, a woman blind in one eye came running after us; and she too, when she reached the Man of God, was signed by him at once, and received sight. And she returned rejoicing and praising. — At the entrance of the diocese of Troyes, in the village whose name is Fulceriae, a boy deaf and dumb from birth, offered by the people, was healed of both ailments at that same hour. On the road too, as we went out, the blessed hand of Bernard stretched out a girl's hand, withered and contracted from birth, as though it were of wax; and it was healed at once, so that she held firmly a staff which we handed her. All marveled who were escorting the Holy One of God — noble and powerful men of that same region. But they marveled the more, near the village which is called Wanda, seeing a girl lame and dumb from her mother's womb walking, and hearing her speak, when the blessing had been received.

[334] he accomplished But on the next day an innumerable people was gathered in the greater church of Troyes, to hear his word from the Man of God. There arose therefore an intolerable tumult of the crowds pressing upon one another; and the blessed Man, fearing danger, went out; and when he had betaken himself to the bishop's lodging, a multitude of the sick followed him and waited before the doors. And a lame girl came in, and before the eyes of all, at the Man of God's signing, obtained soundness and walked freely. And the girl was known in the city, and some of her kinsfolk were present at that same hour. After a little too a boy blind in one eye was given sight, and two others, whose hands were withered, were healed, all marveling and exulting. In the evening too, ordering the waiting sick to be placed apart beside the chancel of the church, he went out to them and signed them as they sat in order. And there were present the venerable bishops Geoffrey of Langres, who saw present with his own eyes nearly all that we write, and Henry of Troyes; there were present not a few clerics and laymen of the city: before all these a girl lame and dumb was offered to the Man of God. And when, having signed her, he led her by the hand, she began to speak and said: "I cannot walk, Lord, I cannot." We were all astounded; we asked that she be signed again, and she received the power of walking too. There too, anointing a boy's blind eye with spittle, he gave it sight. A woman lame for fifteen years, who was fed by the nuns in the church of blessed Mary, he cured forthwith by signing and handling her, so that — what before she could not do — she both sat and walked freely. Exulting therefore vehemently, she carried the crutches which she had before used, to be hung up in the church of blessed Peter. Likewise a certain young man, a servant of that same church, there received the hearing he had lost five years before. In the same city the things which follow were done. A certain smith, limping from a long sickness so that he could not walk at all without a staff, when he had been signed by the blessed Father returned rejoicing, walking on his own feet. Then a woman offered him her epileptic daughter, from whom that disease had wholly taken away the faculty of speech; upon whom the blessed Man, laying his hands, signed her, and at once she spoke before us.

[335] In the morning, having gone out of Troyes, as the holy Man was passing through the village when he had set out which they call Prunetum, a boy was offered him whose foot the drawn-back sinews had twisted awry, so that he could not walk at all; and those who had assembled acclaimed, lifting their hands to heaven, while the Man of the Lord handled the boy. And without delay, untwisting the signed foot with all ease, he bids him be set down, and before all he began to walk whole. In the town too which in the Roman tongue they call Traînel, after the celebration of Mass on the sixth weekday, a blind woman, a native of that same castle, was led to the altar before all; and when the blessed Man had laid his hand upon her, being asked by the bystanders, she said, "Soon now I shall see"; and after a little, "I see," she said, "clearly, I see you all: blessed be God, who hath dealt mercifully with me." Another too was given sight, whom they testified to have been blind for ten years. There a lame woman received the power of walking, and a dumb man speech, all acclaiming, and most of all the men of that castle, who had never before seen the like. — On that same day, as he passed near the castle of Bray (which is interpreted "mud"), a certain man met him carrying his daughter on his shoulders, who had never been able either to speak or to stand upon her feet; and at once, before the eyes of all, she was freed from both ailments.

[336] At Montereau, where the river Yonne flows into the Seine, he accomplished. in the presence of Count Theobald and many others, noble alike and common, three women — the first received hearing; the second the sight of one eye lost seven years before; the third, a paralytic, soundness: she had been carried into the church on a pallet, and when she was signed and bidden to stand upon her feet, she stood whole in the midst of the people, and, leaving her pallet, sought her home rejoicing. — On the same day at the town of Moret * ^d, beside the houses of the lepers, they offered a boy deaf and dumb from birth, whose ears were at once opened, and the bond of his mouth loosed. But when, having gone out of the castle, we crossed the river which they call the Loing ^e, an innumerable people met the Man of God; and there too a boy, whom the bystanders well knew, received by his blessing the speech he had lost.

[337] What was done at Étampes and elsewhere, At Étampes both he himself and the others who had assembled were intent upon the business of the Jerusalem expedition and of the kingdom of France. Yet he there restored hearing to a deaf man; his mind to a frenzied man whom they had brought bound; sight to two women, to one of one eye, to the other of both. Going out too when the council was ended, he gave sight to a blind girl by the sign of the cross. — At the hamlet of Messa, which is three miles distant from Étampes, before all the people who had assembled, he restored hearing to two deaf persons, a man and an old woman. — Passing through the town of Milly * on that same day, he signed and healed a woman languishing and so destitute of bodily strength that she could neither walk nor stand, and on her own feet

she returned who had been brought on the feet of others. There too a certain cleric obtained the light of one eye which he had lost, and a lame boy the power of walking. So too at Moret a man blind in one eye, who met the Man of God as he entered, was forthwith given sight at his blessing. — At Sens, which was once the greatest city of Gaul, in the sight of the clergy who had been gathered to him, he granted hearing through the laying on of hands to a woman deaf and blind; and besides other things which we forbear to write, avoiding prolixity, as he entered the town whose name is Joigny ^f, a blind woman was offered him, and, her deprivation being forthwith turned into its opposite state, from blind she was made seeing; and the report went out among the people, and from every side they acclaimed, "Anna sees" , because all had known her. But when we had gone out, the people's gladness was doubled, and before the eyes of all a boy blind in one eye from birth obtained by the benefit of grace the gift denied him by nature.

ANNOTATA.

* Henschen adds: to whom

* Henschen adds: and at once he answered that he was moving his finger.

* Henschen: two deaf and dumb men received

* Henschen adds: each of them

* Moret

* Milly

* Joigny

* Horst: twice "Anna sees"

CAPUT VII.

The remaining prodigies in Gaul and Germany.

XV.

The most blessed Man, therefore, arriving at Auxerre, entered the church of the monks for the sake of prayer, likewise at Auxerre, Chablis, Tonnerre, where that precious treasure lies, where the most sacred body of the glorious Germanus rests. And as he returned, a lame woman, who walked only on her knees and hands, met him at the gate, and holding his feet, assailed the bowels of his mercy with pitiable supplication; whose loins and knees the blessed Man, making the sign of the cross, handled and raised her up in the name of the Lord; and sent her to the most holy confessor's altar walking on her own feet. For while the woman was being raised up, the whole people which had assembled was invoking his name. This was a most well-known and most celebrated miracle in that city. For that woman was known to all, and for nearly three years they had seen her carried about on a pallet. And the holy Man lodged in the bishop's house; and there too, many seeing it, he stretched out a woman's withered hand freely and healed it. So too in the morning, as he went out, his blessed hand conferred a like benefit upon one laboring under a like ailment. — On that same day, as he passed through Chablis, they offered him a lame boy, whom, forthwith healed and raised up, they conducted into the church of blessed Martin. For to him both that church and the village itself belong, whom they marveled to have come to life again in Bernard. For while the crowds still followed him, a girl, lame and having one hand useless, was freed from both ailments before them. — In the castle of Tonnerre on that same day, in our sight, a woman blind in one eye was given sight in the lodging through the sign of the cross, and went out magnifying God. In the church too of blessed Anianus, on the fourth weekday, while he had sat down for the offertory during the solemnities of the Mass, they offered a blind boy, whose eyes the divine power at once opened beneath the hand of his faithful Servant. Likewise too a blind girl, when we were now going out of the castle, before all who were following the blessed Man, received at his signing the sight she had lost many years before; and another woman blind in one eye was given sight near the river which is named the Armançon *.

[339] On that same day we came to Molesme, which is the monastery in the monastery of Molesme, whence our Fathers once went out, from whom the Cistercian church took its beginning. There is extant a book of the Cistercian usages, where the diligent reader will find this written more fully ^a. There then (as has been said), on the fourth weekday, they received the Man of the Lord with great devotion; and when he had sat down in his lodging, a certain man blind in one eye came in, and on bended knee besought his mercy; and when he had signed him with his sacred fingers and touched the blind eye, forthwith he was given sight and gave thanks to God. And it came to pass after one hour, when it was growing toward evening and the day was now declining, that the blessed Man went out to sign the sick who were waiting before the doors. There first a boy blind in the right eye grew well, who, being signed, closed the left eye with which he had before been wont to see, and, discerning all things clearly, answered at once whatever we showed him when we asked. The same benefit God bestowed through Bernard's hand upon three others laboring under the same ailment — namely a girl, and an older man and woman; and in them too it was proved with like diligence. And further in that same place a little girl, feeble in her feet and lame from her mother's womb, was healed through the laying on of hands; and her mother exulted with joy that she was found worthy then for the first time to see her standing and walking.

[340] and while thence On the fifth weekday, as the Man of God went out of the monastery of Molesme, an innumerable multitude, which had assembled from the whole region, escorting him with due devotion, when a lame woman who had been carried in a wagon was signed by him, led her back rejoicing, walking on her own feet. On that same journey, as we entered a wood, a deaf youth received hearing, and a certain woman the sight of one eye which she had lost twelve years before, through the laying on of the Man of God's hands, many being present and seeing. Then two men, meeting him, themselves also obtained the light of one eye each, which they had lost. Nor had we gone far, and behold, the crowds running together from every side, a lame boy whom they had brought was healed at the blessed Man's touch, and walked freely, exulting. — Confinium is the name of a village nearest our own borders, through which we passed on that same day. There too, before the eyes of all who had assembled, the Man of the Lord, signing and handling a lame boy and a woman lame from her mother's womb, restored to the one his lost sight and conferred on the other a new power of walking.

[341] he returned to Clairvaux. At length, as he entered Clairvaux, one of our men met him, bringing a deaf and dumb boy who had for fifteen days now been awaiting the Saint's arrival in the monastery. Nor was the faithful boy cheated of his desire; but forthwith, when he was signed, he received hearing and likewise speech. And at first indeed he could scarcely name God, and then, at our bidding, he began to call upon the name of the blessed Virgin; and at length, the bond of his mouth being wholly loosed, he spoke all things, shedding abundant tears of joy. Many too of the brothers who had known him before, neither hearing at all nor speaking, spoke into his ears, and heard him forming all words fully. And being asked how long he had remained deaf and dumb, he said: "The third year has passed since I became deaf and dumb, and I was only making signs." And saying this with tears he blessed the Lord, who had dealt mercifully with him. To him we too render such thanks as we can for so great a Father and patron, ever glorifying and praising God, who is over all, blessed for ever.

XVI.

[342] On the sixth of the Kalends of April, as the Man of God entered Trier, Very many also the whole people rushed to meet him after their custom; and behold, they offered him two little sisters of that same city, the one for five years, the other for four, laboring under the wretched ailment of blindness; and when the holy Man had signed them, both were given sight, and were conducted into the church of blessed Peter, where at that same hour he celebrated the solemnities of the Mass. There the clergy and people saw them; there we diligently verified the truth of the miracle. The Sacrifice being at length completed, the Man of the Lord sat down beside the altar, that he might lay his hands upon the sick and they might be well. And forthwith a lame man was offered, and he walked; a blind man was offered, and he saw; a deaf woman was offered, and she heard. And she indeed said that she had been admonished in her sleep to hasten to him, by whose blessing she should receive hearing. I do not doubt that a diligent investigator would find many other things too; but I judge these can suffice for a memorial. Yet further, in the archbishop's house, we most certainly remember a boy blind in one eye given sight before us. — But fearing that brevity may be troublesome to you, I have subjoined some things also of those which were done at Rettel. The holy Father had seen in his sleep — which he made known to us rather privately — a lame woman in the church seeking him, while she was known neither by her nor by the people. And he rejoiced that he was unknown, and, coming secretly, was signing her and passing on; and suddenly she, marveling, was raised up. And the effect of this vision appeared manifest. For while the blessed Man was celebrating the solemnities of the Mass in that church, a contracted woman was brought who for many days, creeping along the ground, could not be raised at all, but went as best she could upon her knees and upon little stools which she carried in her hands.

[348] Guntram of Sierck, which is a castle situated upon the Moselle, among the people of Trier, a little distant from the aforesaid monastery, had had that woman carried into the church. She had not yet come to the blessed Father's hand, and behold, his spirit came to her secretly, as he had foreseen; and suddenly, being cured, she leapt up and walked, praising and magnifying God. And the people, seeing her, who had before known her lame, cried out in the praise of God, and taking up her little stools, straightway bore them to the altar, that they might set her before the Lord and Bernard his servant. There indeed at his touch a woman of that same village, lame for seven years, and a little contracted girl, whose thigh-sinews on both sides had grown numb, so that she could not stretch out her knees or stand upright, received before all the power of walking which they desired. There were offered him also a blind man and a blind woman, and forthwith, the sign of the cross being made, he drove away the darkness from both and restored light to both. — But perhaps this description of ours, though too short for the studious, may seem too long for the forgetful. Providing therefore for these too, let us compress what has been said after the fashion of a proverb. The church of Trier resounded with tuneful voices at Bernard's touch, as a lame man walked, a deaf woman heard, a blind man saw. Two blind sisters too the same Man of the Lord gave sight to at the entrance of the city, and in a house a boy blind in one eye. There shone at Rettel ^b, at Bernard's

presence, a heavenly light, whose blessing restored the power of walking to two lame women, and sight likewise to two blind. In that same church a lame woman, who was carried on her knees and upon little stools, was raised up before she reached the Man of God.

[344] The holy Father was once sitting in the hall at Frankfurt, at Frankfurt, and through a window the sick were admitted to his hand, of whom an innumerable multitude had gathered from every side. And behold, there was offered among the rest a certain youth deaf and dumb from his mother's womb; upon whom the blessed Man, laying his hand, forthwith cured him, and he heard and spoke freely. Yet he knew no language, but uttered only those words which he had heard from the mouth of one speaking to him. This it was which chiefly moved our Hugh to ask that this miracle be written down; but we had seen many like it. In that same hall too a certain rich and honored matron of that same region was carried in, who for a long time had lain paralytic. And her too the Man of God, signing her, took her hand and raised her up, bidding her walk freely in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. He spoke, and it was done; and leaping up she walked. Then indeed all acclaimed; but especially the knights exulted, who had carried on their own shoulders her whom they saw going back on her own feet. For their pious devotion seemed to itself in a manner a partaker of the miracle. And this too stirred our friend, so that he judged it a wicked thing that this miracle should be passed over in silence.

[345] he wrought; The third is like to this. For there was in a nearby village a man paralytic for eight years, known to all and worthy of the pity of all. For he could not move his limbs, not even if the house in which he lay had begun to blaze with fire on every side. He therefore, before us and very many others who were then attending the blessed Father, being carried on a mattress, was set down before him; whose feeble limbs he handled, the sign of salvation being made, and forthwith raised him up; and he was so perfectly cured that he at once received the sign of the cross, to set out for the army of the Lord — of whom indeed he had experienced so great and so swift a power. And when others were taking up his bed, "Not so," said the venerable Hugh, "but rather let him carry it himself"; and laying it upon his shoulders he let him go, and he walked as manfully as if he had suffered no ailment before. — The fourth miracle which Hugh asked to have written down was the raising up of a certain girl. Her they offered in the evening at the lodging, carrying her on their shoulders. And when the blessed Man signed her knees, feeling the sinews contracted and hardened as it were in the fashion of a wooden rod, "Alas," said he, "this woman's sinews are wholly drawn back"; and she could not bend her knees at all, or rather could not stretch them out when bent. And truly it was so, nor could she for many days walk on her feet, but crept as best she could on hands and feet. And so, at the Father's blessing, each sinew was at once loosened, and one of the brothers raised her up; and he himself held her shins, and little by little they were stretched out; and when she began to walk whole, we were all vehemently astounded; but the Saint himself too, signing himself for wonder, rendered thanks to the Lord of hosts.

XVII.

[346] Now let us come to what was done at Toul. For four times in this year the holy Man entered that city, nor did he ever pass through without miracles. For first, on the Sunday before Pentecost, in the church of blessed Stephen, as he celebrated Mass at the high altar, a blind boy was offered, known in that same city, who received sight through the laying on of hands; and to this day the church of Toul holds him as a mirror of blessed Bernard's powers and a faithful testimony. — Secondly too, approaching the city, he was passing through a little village very near it which they name Chaumes. And behold, the devout common folk rushed to meet him, bringing water to be signed and blessed, which forthwith, after the likeness of the Gospel miracle, he endowed by that very blessing alike with the taste and the odor of wine; and those who tasted it bear testimony to all. Whence even now in that whole region it is a most certain and most celebrated miracle that at the village of Chaumes water was changed into wine beneath Bernard's hand. For new wine was sprinkled upon someone's garment, while those running together from every side drew at the little vessel in rivalry, and for many days it kept the odor of most precious wine.

[347] among the people of Toul. Thirdly, then, having entered the aforesaid city of Toul, he feared the crowds; and because a long road remained to him, he hastened to go out by night. But some of the people, suspecting this very thing, watched him, nor could he go out even by night without a crowd; among whom a paralytic woman was offered on a pallet, whom the blessed Man, raising her forthwith, signed and healed in the name of the Lord. Her cure too became known to the whole city, which indeed that woman inhabits whole to this day, who had long lain in it paralytic. And likewise another woman, blind in one eye, who was brought to him outside the city, received sight at his signing; which on this visit we most truly and most certainly verified. — Lately indeed the Man of the Lord, being received in lodging at St. Aper's, made that monastery illustrious with very many miracles, raising up a lame boy, restoring hearing to a deaf youth. Three blind men too he endowed with the one gift of sight, in the name of him who is adored Three and One; where I do not doubt that very many miracles also shone forth: but these things, done in my presence, I know more certainly, and have described more confidently.

ANNOTATA.

* the Armançon

A letter of Geoffrey, monk of Clairvaux, recounting certain miracles of St. Bernard.

To his most dear master Archenfred, and to both Chapters, his own brothers ^a, brother Geoffrey wishes that they may be mindful of him who loves them in truth.

The author writes what he has ascertained, That I need use no blandishments of words toward thee, master, I have learned by sure experiences. For it could not lie hidden from a familiar son, whom above the rest thou wast wont to cherish more tenderly and to embrace more dearly, not because thou judgedst him worthy, but because unworthy — from one clinging, I say, to thy side, it could not lie hidden how little thou receivest those who hunt after words, plainly perceiving with the Apostle that the kingdom of God is not in speech but in power. Why then are words multiplied? Thou knowest, Lord, that I love thee; thou knowest that I need thy prayers and those of thine, and how much I love and how much I need, thou art not ignorant. I am silent therefore concerning myself, knowing that I write to one who knows me. But when * I remember in how great solicitude I left you, and all Clairvaux alike, because the lord abbot's will concerning this journey seemed doubtful, I write to you, of whom I presume the more, what things we saw and heard on it, that you may have consolation, and may none the less afford it to your own. But know this: that I write nothing save what is ascertained by truth.

[349] While we were drawing near to Poitiers, the lord Abbot began to be sick, [narrating the wondrous things which befell the Saint among the people of Poitiers;] so that he came little short of beginning to repent of the burden, and we of this journey. There, for our consolation and his own, a voice came to him in a vision, singing: "And the house was filled with the odor of the ointment." And the chant was as of a versicle, and only the last note was lacking in this manner ^b: And the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. What we are to believe was signified by that lack, what follows makes plain . On another day, as he lay down again, a new song was so put into his mouth — "The just man shall rejoice in the Lord" — that on waking he could often think of nothing else. — At Poitiers, while we sat by night and he was walking alone with a candle, the candle was put out, and the abbot of Cherlieu saw him walking without a light. And thereupon, with a certain sound, as he himself confessed, the candle was rekindled, and he carried it burning to us.

[350] [At Bordeaux he reconciles the clerics with the archbishop: elsewhere he heals the sick:] In the city of Bordeaux a thing was done worthy of a miracle, which turned the most obstinate minds of the clerics, so that they granted that Regular Canons should be ordained in the episcopal see; on which account, being excommunicated for seven years, they made no account of it at all — so far that for five years the archbishop was in exile, the church was vacant, they violently plundered his revenues, and the archbishop was so hateful to all the people that at their entry they reproached all our men, saying, "These are of the archbishop's patrons." But the word of God, living and effectual, changed their minds, beyond the hope of all who knew the difficulty of the business and its exceedingly evil entanglements ^c. — In the castle which is called Bergerac there was brought to him a nobleman laboring under a most grievous infirmity, and from that hour he grew well, as we afterwards learned ^d. — A poor and needy man of that city praises today the name of the Lord, who, broken in strength by a long infirmity, could not labor or work at anything; but feeding upon blessed bread, when he had followed us for some days, returned strong and whole. — In the city of Cahors a certain servant of the bishop, being struck on the head, had lost the light of one eye; but at his signing he received sight. There too a certain burgher drank water blessed by him, and it seemed to him as though a vessel full of water were poured over his head; and from that hour he grew well of a fever under which he had labored for seven years. — But who could set forth the devotion of the people of Périgueux? They came little short of suffocating him, so that he had to depart from them secretly.

[351] At Toulouse he brings forth great fruit In the city of Toulouse he was received devoutly enough; but for a few days they were more than enough, and even more than excessively, devout. That city indeed had few who favored the heretic; some of the weavers, whom they themselves name Arians. But of those who favored that heresy there were very many, and the greatest men of that city. In fine, not long before our coming they had seduced one of the richer men of that city with his wife, so that, leaving their substance and their little son, they withdrew into a village which is full of heretics; and thereafter they could be brought back by no persuasions of their kinsfolk. Henry therefore was summoned, the Arians were summoned, and the people promised that henceforth no one would receive them at all, unless they came and spoke openly. It would be long to relate the flights of Henry and the hiding-places of the Arians. For those Arians who were in the city fled, hearing the signs and marvels which were being done. Their supporters disowned them, and we believe that the city was altogether perfectly freed from all contagion of heretical depravity. Some of the knights promised that henceforth they would drive them out and not maintain them. But if any should prove covetous and wish to act otherwise, loving the gifts of the heretics, sentence was given against the heretics and against

their supporters, and against all who maintained them: that they be received neither in testimony nor in judgment, and that no one hold fellowship with them at table or in trade. We followed and pursued Henry as he fled; but he fled the further ^e.

[352] against Henry the heretic In those very castles which he had seduced the lord Abbot spoke, and, the people gladly hearing, those believed who were foreordained to life. Some knights indeed we found obstinate; but not so much from error, as it seems to us, as from covetousness and an evil will; for they hate the clergy, and delight in Henry's witticisms, and because he speaks to them that from which they may have occasion and excuse for their malice. Yet all affirmed that henceforth they would not maintain him, since he had fled from a colloquy with the lord Abbot. Sentence therefore was given against the heretic and against his supporters, and his most wicked life was laid open to all the people, and how in the council of Pisa he had abjured all the heresies which he now preaches, and, being restored to the lord Abbot, had received letters from him for Clairvaux, that he might there become a monk. We believe, the Lord granting it, that his malice will shortly be ended. A land seduced by so manifold doctrines of errors would need long preaching; but the lord Abbot does not seem * equal to so great a labor, and much more does he fear to be troublesome to his brothers; and this is, unless we are mistaken, that lack of a note in the chant of the versicle which he heard, of which we spoke before.

[353] Having received therefore many letters from Clairvaux from this side and that, The holy Man, and most worthy of the highest esteem. he returns with all haste; and we believe, God granting it, that not long after the octave of the Assumption of blessed Mary you will see your desire *, a Man deservedly to be desired. For would that we knew how great and how inestimable a gift God has given us in the holy Father — a faithful advocate, a mighty patron, a good shepherd, full of grace and virtues before God and all the world. In fine, that in certain places he hides his powers by humility, we have learned by sure experiences, when at his departure the sick were at once healed; so that thus it might be well with them, and no one might magnify him. But where it was necessary, he chose rather, as he himself confessed, to endure his own peril than not to provide for their salvation.

[354] There was in the church of St. Saturninus, in which we lodged, a certain Regular Canon, John by name, Many sick persons most skilled in the art of medicine. He then, lying abed for seven months, as it was said, had so languished from holy Easter that they daily awaited only his death. His shins had so wasted that they seemed in no way thicker than a boy's arms. Especially indeed the sinew of his right thigh had withered, so that from holy Easter he could stretch his knee but a little. The wretched man languished half alive, having daily the sentence of death in himself, and could not rise at all even to pass water or relieve himself. At length, because of the stench and his languor, he was put outside the monastery and placed in the borough, the canons not enduring his presence. He asks therefore earnestly to be carried near the lord Abbot; and six men carry him on a pallet into a chamber which was next to our lodging. There, being visited by the lord Abbot, he confessed his sins to him, and earnestly besought him for his deliverance and health. When therefore the lord Abbot had blessed him, he went out of the chamber, and we too went with him. And he went thinking within himself and saying, like a faithful servant: "Lo, Lord, they seek signs; and we profit nothing otherwise, so long as thou dissemblest *." And forthwith that man, leaping up, ran after us, so that we had scarcely entered our lodging when we saw him following us, and walking, as he himself said, not by his own strength but by the divine power. Thereupon he goes to the church, giving thanks to God, and the brothers singing with him, "We praise thee, O God." With how great devotion he kissed the lord Abbot's feet, no one can know save he who saw it.

[355] the holy Father A certain boy of seven years, as was said, languishing in the arms of his mother, who did not know what his affliction was, when he was returning blessed by the lord Abbot, forthwith vomited up a stone, which many too saw, and he was made whole from that hour. — In that same city he gave sight by the sign of the cross to a man now old, who had lost the light of one eye. So too to a boy who was blind in both eyes; and another, now of greater age, blind, he likewise gave sight to. — There was in that same city a certain woman who, feeling a sudden pain in her head, said, "I will not eat until I come to the Man of God"; then, when her husband compelled her to eat, as soon as she tasted bread, coming little short of being choked, and her throat being constricted, she was possessed by a demon. Thereafter for three days she could not eat or drink anything, until, being presented to the lord Abbot, she took blessed bread and water from his hand. Then the lord abbot ordered that she should pass the night near us in the chapel, wishing to come to her more privately without a crowd. But in the night she began to cry out * more vehemently, so that now the demon, now the woman spoke; and her tongue was turned now to the left, now to the right side, according as the person of the speaker changed. The demon said, all who stood by hearing: "I will not go out until the Abbot come, until the little Abbot come." Meanwhile the lord Abbot, being admonished in his sleep, came to her; and her whom he had found in so great torment he left wholly at peace. And forthwith, when morning came, celebrating the solemnities of the Mass, he gave her holy communion, and sent her home whole.

[356] restores Of those who had hands twisted to one side and fingers bent back into the palm, he healed three at Toulouse, three in its borders. For a certain girl was brought to him while he was receiving the offering, and, signing her hand and taking hold of the fingers, he opened them with all ease. The same he did also for two others; save that of the second, whose hands were both contracted, blushing because of the bishops who were present, he opened them a little, and so handed her to a certain Knight of the Temple who was present, that he himself might finish it. Fourthly, he freed from this ailment a certain infant at Dameyseria, the lord bishop of Angoulême seeing it and being astounded that, when he had signed the hand and let it go, it, as though it were a certain cord, was turned into a good state, and the fingers began to open. There indeed at that same hour he both made a deaf man hear and a dumb man speak. Fifthly, he healed a maimed man in the castle which is called Verfeil, where is the seat of Satan ^f; and he was the servant (unless I am mistaken) of a most wicked heretic. Sixthly, he healed in the castle which is called Saint-Paul those of the lord legate's servants whom a most grievous fever would have compelled to remain in a foreign land, had not the heavenly medicine of blessed bread succored them.

[357] whole. In the city of Albi there was done what we believe should not undeservedly be preferred to the other miracles. For the people of that city were contaminated with heretical depravity above all who are round about it, as we heard; so far that to the lord legate, who had come two days before us, they went out to meet him with asses and drums; and when they rang the bells to call the people together, scarcely thirty came together for the celebration of the solemnities of Mass. On the third day the lord Abbot was received with much gladness of the people. But he had heard such great evils of them that he did not at all accept their devotion. But on the following day, when it was the solemnity of blessed Peter, so great a multitude assembled to hear the word of God that the great church could not hold them. Whom the lord Abbot addressed, saying: "I had come to sow, but I have found the field already taken up by a most evil seed. Nevertheless, because the field is rational — for you are God's husbandry — behold I show you both seeds, that you may know which you ought to choose." And beginning from the Sacrament of the altar, he set forth more diligently, head by head, what the heretic preached and what was the truth of the faith. At length he asked them which they would choose; and all the people answering began to abominate and detest the heretical depravity, and to receive with joy the word of God and Catholic truth. "Repent therefore," said he, "whosoever of you are contaminated; return to the unity of the Church. And that we may know who does penance and receives the word of life, lift up your right hands to heaven as a sign of Catholic unity." And so it came to pass that, as all lifted their right hands to heaven with exultation, he himself set an end to his sermon. And let us too end our letter ^g. Farewell.

The end of the sixth book.

ANNOTATA.

* elsewhere: since

* See below, number 352

* elsewhere: put in

* elsewhere: Brageradi

* elsewhere: broken ones

* elsewhere: that he cannot be equal to so great a labor

* elsewhere adds: the desired one and

* elsewhere: not even a little

* elsewhere: thou dissemblest

* elsewhere: to be tormented

FRAGMENTS

From Herbert's books on the miracles of Cistercian monks, published in print in Mabillon. The authority of Herbert.

From Herbert

Most of these fragments In the preliminary Commentary §66 we said that we would give these Fragments, though not all of them, with Mabillon, who sets them forth from column 1223 of his second Volume. In those Fragments, then, there is placed first St. Bernard's prophecy concerning a recruit who would go out of the monastery by stealth, and who was ordered to be watched lest he should carry anything away with him. But that prophecy was narrated by us before out of the great Cistercian Exordium in the preliminary Commentary §12, and accordingly must be held as inserted here. In the second place there is recorded in the same Mabillon a long history of Schetzelo, a hermit of the Trier district, who excelled in outstanding holiness of life and in a wondrous contempt of human affairs, and whom the holy Father also visited through his men and honored with gifts. But of him, as of a blessed man, we treated not long ago at the 6th day of August, volume II of that same month, page 175 and following, where we also gave his Life out of the aforesaid Herbert, in which may be read what is extant concerning him in Mabillon.

[359] have been set forth above There follows a narration concerning a certain lay brother and Conversus of Clairvaux, accustomed to pray for his enemies, a divine vision bearing testimony to his precious death. But what is subjoined to that vision pertains uniquely to the person of our holy Abbot, expressed in these words: But blessed Bernard, when certain of his brothers related this vision before him with great wonder, answered thus: "And do you, brothers, marvel at these things? But I rather marvel at the unbelief and hardness of heart in you, who still in no way believe, or perhaps in no way attend to that voice which is cried from heaven: 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord: from henceforth now, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their works follow them.' For to me it is more certain than light, and surer than the life by which I live, that all who shall have persevered obedient and humble in purity of heart, as soon as they have put off the flesh, shall forthwith be stripped of all misery and clothed with the glory of immortality."

[360] in our preliminary Commentary; In the fourth place, in Mabillon's edition, is related St. Bernard's prediction concerning Simon, abbot of Chézy, to whom, as long as he lived, he refused a transfer from the black Order of the Benedictines to Clairvaux; but nevertheless he added that Simon would die there, as afterwards happened. We recorded the matter at greater length in the preliminary Commentary §53, from number 567, out of the great Cistercian Exordium. — The fifth place is held by Gonnario, tetrarch of Sardinia, whom the Saint foretold would be a monk of Clairvaux; the outcome answered the prophecy after that same Saint's death; concerning which read the preliminary Commentary §50, number 538, where we used the words of the great Exordium. — In the sixth place there occurs St. Bernard, who, while he was absent from his men of Clairvaux and was staying at Rome, from time to time visited them as though present, and was there beheld suspended in the air and lifted up from the ground. Of these the same Commentary §21, out of the said Exordium. — But those things which immediately follow in the seventh place in Mabillon, out of Herbert's book 2, chapter 14, contain certain other wonders concerning the Saint, by no means to be passed over in this place: This venerable Father, then, when he was once on a journey not far from the castle of Provins, it was divinely revealed to him that a certain one of his sons at Clairvaux had then departed; and at once coming down from his vehicle he performed the office for the dead, commending his soul to God. Concerning this castle consult the Annotations above at book 4 of the Life, chapter 5, letter c. Let us go on with Herbert:

[361] And when in the evening he had turned aside to the town which is named Chantemerle , [to which is added a healing foretold by St. Bernard, and a deaf and dumb girl cured:] the lady of that place, who had devoutly received him in her lodging, offered him her daughter, who had long labored under a quartan ailment, that he might lay his hand upon her in blessing and she might be well. And he, blessing and signing her, said: "Thou shalt yet suffer one attack, daughter, and thou shalt be freed." And so it befell her. — But on another occasion, when that same most blessed man was going out of Lagny, a noble village situated in the bishopric of Meaux, there was offered him a certain rather grown girl, deaf and dumb. When they had set her upon the neck of his beast, looking up to heaven he prayed briefly. And when he had anointed her lips and her little ears with his spittle, he blessed her, bidding her call upon holy Mary. Presently therefore the girl, who had never spoken, opening her mouth cried out and said: "Holy Mary." A certain Roger therefore, a religious man and a monk of Clairvaux, when he was still in the world, seeing this miracle done before his eyes, was greatly pricked in conscience; and this was, as he asserted to us, the chief cause for which he gave himself over to Clairvaux.*

[362] In the eighth and last place, finally, there is woven in Mabillon, out of Herbert's book 2, chapter 25, the eulogy of abbot Fastradus is here omitted: the praise of Fastradus, who was first abbot of Cambron, then of Clairvaux, and lastly of Cîteaux — assuredly an outstanding and illustrious man. But the eulogies which may be read there pertain in no way to the person of St. Bernard, if you except the vision of a certain Religious in England, which is related to have happened on the very day on which the holy Man departed from this life. But that has been set forth in the preliminary Commentary at the beginning of paragraph 52, out of Manrique, where he cites the great Exordium, book 1, chapter 38; but in the Tissier edition it is found in Distinction, or book, 1, chapter 24. What therefore we have given beforehand out of the said Fragments in the places designated above, let the reader receive as here produced out of those same Fragments; yet so that out of the edition of Chifflet's book, which is on the illustrious lineage of St. Bernard vindicated, and into which are inserted Herbert's books on the Miracles, we are about to supply various things which have been omitted by Mabillon. These therefore will have their place below in the Saint's posthumous Glory and Supplement. But before we proceed thither, it is to our purpose that, besides what we briefly set forth concerning Herbert earlier at the beginning of book six, letter a, we should commend his antiquity and trustworthiness.

[363] The authority of Herbert The praised Chifflet in his Preface to those three books, first published in print by him, page 159, says: He wrote three books on Miracles in the year of Christ 1178, twenty-five years after the death of St. Bernard, as is gathered from book 1, chapter 31, and book 2, chapter 13. Wherefore, as the author of the Chronicle of Clairvaux advises, the remaining years must be investigated from this year, whenever he records that this or that happened three years before, or seven or more. He was promoted not long after to be archbishop of Torres in Sardinia; and presently John the Hermit offered him certain things concerning the Life and deeds of St. Bernard, passed over by his elders, which, having received them from the mouth of some of his disciples, he had published at his exhortation. In Chrysostom Henriquez in the Menology and in the Fasciculus Sanctorum Cistercii, and likewise in Angel Manrique in the Cistercian Annals, very many things occur cited from the book of the Exordium of the Cistercian Order and its Appendix, or from the book On Illustrious Men of the Cistercian Order, or from John the Hermit in the Life of St. Bernard, which have been transcribed from these books of Herbert.

[364] is commended. Hence it is that you will find far more chapters of the Life of St. Bernard by John the Hermit cited by these authors than those which we have here brought forth from the old original; because, namely, Herbert's untitled work, which was placed immediately after John the Hermit's lucubration, was attributed by the incautious to John himself, and was held to be a kind of continuation of the Life of St. Bernard. We give the fountain itself, which the reader will marvel to have lain hidden so long in the parchments of Clairvaux, when he has considered both the trustworthiness of the author and the weight and profit of his narrations. From these things are confirmed those which we were saying a little before to be inserted in our preliminary Commentary. It remains now that we set the following coping-stone upon the deeds and miracles of St. Bernard.

* Chantemerle

* perhaps Lagny

POSTHUMOUS GLORY,

and a supplement to the Life and miracles of St. Bernard, and also to our preliminary Commentary.

ST. BERNARD, first abbot of Clairvaux, in the territory of Langres in Champagne in France.

From various sources.

CAPUT I.

Public veneration; the propagation of monasteries; most recent information concerning the Saint's tomb and relics. His shadow, and other sacred remains.

The Office among the Cluniacs: he is invoked against pestilence: What was said in the preliminary Commentary §62 concerning the Office of St. Bernard, and concerning the public veneration paid to him, may be supplemented by these things. Among the selected Statutes of the general chapters of the Cistercian Order, which from various manuscript codices are found in Martène's Thesaurus novus Anecdotorum, volume 4, I read these at the year 1321, column [ ], number 3: Item, since by the duty of monastic profession we are bound to a mutual gratitude of charity, the general chapter has healthfully ordained in this manner a service for St. Hugh, first abbot of Cluny, because in the said house and in its whole Order a solemn service for St. Bernard our father is celebrated, etc. Whence it is clear that the Office of St. Bernard was then celebrated among all the Cluniacs with a solemn rite. — To public veneration also pertains this: that the holy Man's patronage was implored against contagious disease. For after the Life and miracles of St. Adrian, the special patron against the plague, which, by Father William Hardigny of the Society of Jesus, were printed in French at Luxembourg in the year 1636, together with some other small treatises, at page 260 he numbers St. Bernard among the other heavenly ones who are favorable against that disease, and adds that in the year 1625 the Man's help was implored against it at Lier, near Antwerp, in his chapel. Nay perhaps rather in the sacred church of the Cistercian nuns of Blessed Mary of Nazareth outside the walls of Lier, where there is, as I hear, a frequent and profitable concourse to the Saint every year on the 20th day of August and throughout the octave.

[2] Above, in the third part of the miracles, chapter 7, likewise the singular memory of the Saint among the people of Rettel, number 343, those things are related which were accomplished at Rettel. And that passage of the writer is commended by the grateful memory of the people of Rettel, who honored their great Preserver with a singular cult, on the testimony of Raissius in the Auctarium to the Natales Sanctorum Belgii of Johannes Molanus, at the 20th day of August, folio 170, where he writes these things: This place too, namely the village of Rettel, he made illustrious with miracles, when

he restored three lame women and two blind men to soundness. In perpetual memory of which thing an image was erected to St. Bernard in that same church, which I have seen; and there are yearly processions to it on the sixth weekday after Pentecost, when, by ancient tradition, the devout people judge that those miracles were done there. And these things were communicated to me while I was there by the Prior of the said monastery, Peter Hayma.

[3] John Cognatus, commonly Cousin, in book 3 of the History of Tournai, chapter 50, affirms that the people of Tournai are exceedingly bound to St. Bernard, the people of Tournai, and of Anchin. and that with good right he can be held by them as patron and protector of the bishopric of Tournai, because by the interposing of his authority with Pope Eugenius they obtained a bishop of their own, whereas before they were subject to the bishop of Noyon; and that for this cause the Man's likeness has been painted in the glass of a window on the northern side, in the circuit of the choir of the cathedral church, above the history — likewise represented in painting — of the restored bishopric. And that favor of a new and proper bishop granted to the people of Tournai came about by Bernard's support, as Alberic testifies in his Chronicle at the year 1148: At the city of Tournai, he says, whereas that city had been for about four hundred years under the bishops of Noyon, at length, by the mediation of holy Bernard, a new bishop was set over it by Pope Eugenius, and the church recovered its ancient privilege. The first bishop was called Anselm, the second Gerald, the third Walter. Nor indeed will I leave unmentioned the religious cult of St. Bernard among the monks of Anchin, in Gallo-Belgic country near Douai, since his relics were carried thither by the abbot of that monastery. For Ferry de Locre in the Chronicon Belgicum at the year 1179 relates these things from the Chronicle of Anchin: In the year 1179 Simon, ninth prelate of the monastery of Anchin, on his return from the Roman council turned aside to Clairvaux, and obtained by prayers relics of blessed Bernard from the abbot of that same monastery; which, carried to Anchin, he honored with great honors. In the Gallia Christiana, volume 3 of the most recent edition, column 412, the matter is also narrated under Simon I, ninth abbot of Anchin. — Add from Manrique that Paul, abbot of Palazuelos in Old Castile in Spain, devised something singular in the Saint's honor, when he prescribed that in the confession which is wont to be uttered at the beginning of Mass, our holy Father Bernard should be invoked immediately after the Blessed Virgin: "I confess to God, to blessed Mary, and to blessed Bernard." These things we have culled from the said Cistercian historian's Appendix to volume 4 of the Cistercian Annals, page 629, and they are found among other matters which are woven in at the year 1550.

[4] He is praised for the singular Our Saint's glory shone forth most of all among posterity from the wondrous propagation of his offspring of Clairvaux; concerning which William writes in book 1 of the Life in our work above, chapter 7; and although in my Annotations upon it I had determined not to treat this subject in detail, yet it has seemed good in this place to subjoin the following for the illustration of that passage of the biographer. In Geoffrey, book 5 of the Life, chapter 2, number 262, he is called first abbot of the monastery of Clairvaux, and father also of more than one hundred and sixty other monasteries. Which is so to be understood that the holy Father raised up a great part of so many founded monasteries not immediately by himself, but through his offspring; yet so that what his sons did by themselves, Bernard the Father may deservedly be said to have done in his sons, and accordingly that happy and fruitful propagation pertains to that Saint's posthumous glory — Mabillon observing, upon the passage of Geoffrey which I just indicated, that the holy Abbot founded those monasteries as much through the abbeys subject to Clairvaux as by himself. "For Bernard," he says, "by himself raised up or adopted only about seventy-two monasteries; namely in France 35, in Spain 11, in Belgium 6, in England 5, as many in Savoy, and in Ireland; in Italy 4, in Germany two; likewise two in Sweden, and finally one and another in Hungary and Denmark, according to our Chronology" — which the reader will also find in our preliminary Commentary §59. Pope Innocent III therefore, in the Apostolic letters to the Gallican church which we wove into our preliminary Commentary §60, deservedly looks up to this singular prerogative of the Man among others, when he praises him because he transmitted the institutes of holy religion even to foreign and barbarous nations, and extended the founding of monasteries.

[5] But another Vicar of Christ on earth, Gregory IX, propagation of the monastic life, added a notable adornment to the perpetual memory of the holy Man in a like matter, when in the bull by which he inscribed St. Dominic, founder of the Order of Friars Preachers, in the Calendar of the Saints, he declares these things concerning St. Bernard, in our work volume one of the month of August, page 624: After whom — namely the first preachers of the new law and the sons of St. Benedict, of whom he had treated — Christ the Lord, as though about to renew a weary army and to render jubilation after lamentation, white horses being harnessed to the third chariot, made the brothers of the Cistercian and Florensian Order to come up from the laver of penance like flocks of shorn sheep, fruitful with the offspring of a twofold charity, holy Bernard going before, the ram of the sheep, in the power of the spirit with which he was clothed from on high, and in the abundance of the corn of the valleys; that those who pass over, being freed by him, may cry out to the Lord in strength, may say a hymn, and may pitch the camps of the God of hosts upon the sea. — There remain certain things to be noted concerning the present state of St. Bernard's body and tomb.

[6] Concerning this matter I subjoin the following, as also some other things which pertain to nearly the same subject, Whence there were communicated to us all of which will be a supplement to what was said in our preliminary Commentary §50, concerning the Saint's body and his testament or last will; §51 concerning the tomb; §53 concerning his chamber, etc. And to these things there set forth new information was afterwards sent to us, which we owe with grateful remembrance to the Reverend and Excellent Lord Candidus Briger, of the Cistercian Order, most worthy Prior in the Valley of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Field of Lilies, commonly Lilienfeld, in Lower Austria and in the diocese of Passau, and Doctor of sacred theology. For after I had set forth to that Man — as he was setting out for the general chapter which was begun at Cîteaux at the beginning of the month of May in this year 1738, and was honoring our study with his presence in passing — my desire to learn more about the present state of St. Bernard's body, he undertook that it should be his care. Nor did he do less than he undertook, as is plain from his most courteous letter, which he directed hither from Cîteaux in Burgundy on the eighth of the Ides of May in the year 1738, while the general Chapter was actually sitting. And from it I cull the following, which Briger was able to ascertain to our purpose in the monastery of Clairvaux:

[7] the most recent information concerning the holy Man's tomb and relics: His body … rests buried beneath the earth. But his head, bare of skin and flesh (which we commonly call the skull), enclosed in a silver case, is kept in that place where the treasure of the church is laid up; where there stands also a silver tomb, but containing nothing at all save the holy Man's cowl. His sepulcher, behind the high altar in the church of Clairvaux, rises about eight feet above the ground, and is clothed with little marble columns; upon which a statue of the holy Man stands above. At the foot of the tomb an altar is seen erected, upon which the sacrifices of the Mass are offered to God. The face and the sides of the sepulcher are of that shape which the enclosed sheet exhibits, though painted with a rude brush. Nevertheless the lord Abbot of Clairvaux, whom I met here today upon that matter, promised that he would send a more accurate one. The outcome answered the promise: for in the name of his most reverend lord the Abbot of Clairvaux, the Reverend Lord John Anthony Macuson, protonotary of the Apostolic See and master of novices of that same abbey, sent hither from Clairvaux a better drawing of St. Bernard's mausoleum, on the 29th day of July in the year 1738. And the drawing which I received has here been reduced from a larger to a smaller size by our engraver, who strove to imitate accurately the face of the sepulcher, according to the exemplar set before him, as you see in this copy of his.

But what the sides of the mausoleum are, the reader will learn from the second figure. Above each, as it was sent hither, stands the Saint; but it is noted by hand that in the first, not in the second, is his true vesture. Behold it:

[8] The other things which pertain here the praised Briger goes on to describe in these words: to which In front of the tomb there are seen two tablets fixed with iron chains, of which the first runs thus:

Here rests Saint Bernard, first abbot of the sacred monastery of Clairvaux.

On the other tablet the following are read: The testament of the most blessed Abbot Bernard: Three things I leave you to be observed, etc. — see our preliminary Commentary §50, number 543, where these words are not added: Behold, I leave you charity, humility, patience. After which there follows in the letter of the praised Briger the holy Father's testament bound in verse; and having spoken of those tablets, he says: Besides, the house, or rather the cell, almost wholly of wood, and the pallet on which he gave up his spirit, survive at Clairvaux to this day.

[9] Further, if anyone desires more concerning the monastery of Clairvaux itself, others are added. let him consult the French Hodoeporicon, or Literary Journey of two Religious of the Order of St. Benedict, of the congregation of St. Maur, by Edmond Martène, part 1; where at page 99 he will read that in the cemetery of which there is treatment there, the tombs of St. Bernard's brothers are to be seen, as also that same Saint's little cell, which William of Champeaux, bishop of Châlons, ordered to be built for him, that it might bring solace to one laboring under bodily infirmities. See our preliminary Commentary §7, number 78, and book one of the Life, chapter 4, number 37. In the said Journey these things too are narrated at page 100: namely, that there is no chimney in that little cell — so mortified indeed was St. Bernard that he would not have a fire built for him; but that under the Man's bed there was a great stone, pierced in several places, under which a little fire was kindled, that the chamber might be warmed without his observing it; and further, that nothing can seem more simple than that chamber and St. Bernard's bed, which is preserved there to this day; likewise that adjoining this cell is a small chapel, which probably was built that he might celebrate at the altar; that it is affirmed that he died there; and that an inscription is read there which declares this plainly enough. From these things which I have culled from that Journey, what was set forth a little before, and what is found in the preliminary Commentary §53, number 564, becomes clearer.

[10] The Saint's shadow is seen in a certain stone: Besides what has already been recorded from Martène, mention is also made in him of St. Bernard's chalice, at page 99; and of his chasuble at page 104, where he also treats of the great silver casket which

a certain bishop of Saintes had made to place therein relics of St. Bernard; but he adds that the Religious, fearing lest, if his bones were drawn out of the sepulcher, very many princes, to whom it could not be denied, should ask something of them, preferred that they be left there. It is reported also that among the men of Clairvaux the Saint's shadow is seen upon the stone on which his body was washed after death; but Martène asserts that he does not know whether this is as prodigious as is believed: "for that shadow," he says, "is not seen from every side; but one must be in a certain position for it to be perceived"; and he judges that this can happen naturally through the reflection of light. Thus he. But however that may be, that reflection of light is indeed marvelous; but whether it comes about by a miracle in the strict sense, I leave undetermined. Let us meanwhile hear Chrysostom Henriquez upon this matter in the Fasciculus of the Cistercian Order, book 1, distinction 4, chapter 51: In the sacred monastery of Clairvaux, he says, there is a stupendous and continual miracle, which has not a little commended the holy Abbot's power. For in the stone where his body, according to the custom of the Order, was washed, the shadow of that same body remains to this present day, and is clearly and manifestly seen by all. And when heretics strove to abolish the memory of so great a miracle, and hollowed out that very stone with various instruments, the shadow went down, nor could it in any way be blotted out — as I learned from the Reverend Lord Adrian Cancellier, abbot of Les Dunes.

[11] certain sacred The above-praised Martène, in another Journey which came to light at Paris in the year 1724, treating of the famous abbey of Cambron of the Cistercian Order, in the territory of Mons in Hainaut, writes at page 108 that St. Bernard's chasuble, which is shown there, breathes piety; and that it is not of cloth of gold nor of silver nor of silk, but woven of plain cotton; that it is used on the Saint's feast day, and at the first Masses of Religious. The same author at page 40, among other things which he relates of Vauclair — and which is noted above in the Bernardine Chronology in our work, part one, at the year 1134 — makes mention of St. Bernard's mantle, which in French he calls la coule, and says that it is preserved there. Nor is it irksome to observe here that among the Bernardines there is a twofold kind of mantle: one, namely, white, which is a very ample garment, and which the Bernardine ascetics use in ceremonies and when they assist at the Office; the other black, and this too is a quite ample garment, and one which the Bernardines use only in the cities and when they walk through the streets; from the French-Latin Dictionary which was published at Trévoux in the year 1704, under the word coule.

[12] remains of him are reported. In the same Martène, in the Most Ample Collection of Ancient Writers and Monuments, etc., volume 6, there is produced the foundation of the monastery of Blessed Mary of Hauterive, of the Cistercian Order, a daughter of Cherlieu, of the line of Clairvaux; and at column 317 there is placed among the chief sacred relics of that same monastery a stole of our most holy Father Bernard, of coarser cloth of a dark gray color, with which this holy Father adorned our sacristy, when in going to and returning from Germany he passed through this monastery. — In the little book of the relics which are kept at Aachen, published there in print in the year 1734, among the ornaments of the church of the Virgin Mother, at page 46 there is placed a chasuble, which is made after the manner of the Greeks, and is woven of blue silk, smooth and thick, with a cross of pearls embroidered upon it with the needle. That the Mellifluous Doctor Bernard used this chasuble in that church for the Sacrifice of the Mass in the year 1146, and after it gave sight to four blind men and the power of walking to one paralytic, is said in that same little book.

CAPUT II.

Various apparitions and predictions of St. Bernard.

§ I. He appears to a Cistercian monk; and to a Conversus, whom, having consoled him, he foretells a prosperous outcome of his affairs.

St. Bernard with St. Malachy In the preliminary Commentary §52 I related various apparitions after the holy Man's death; of others I said that I would treat in his posthumous Glory. Of these therefore let the first place here be held by that which is extant in Tissier in the great Exordium of the Cistercian Order, distinction 3, chapter 14: And it came to pass on one of the days, when Prime was being sung in choir, and he (namely William, whom I shall presently describe more fully) stood joined with those chanting in his own place, rendering the calves of his lips to the Lord in a voice of exultation — behold, there appeared to him, as he watched and chanted, St. Malachy, formerly bishop of Ireland, who lies honorably entombed in that same church. And he was sitting in a chair beside the altar, wondrously adorned with ring, staff, mitre, and the other Pontifical ornaments, as though about to celebrate the solemnities of Mass after the end of that hour. And it was then the anniversary day of the falling asleep of that same most blessed prelate, which is also the solemn memorial of all the faithful departed. There appeared with him also Blessed Bernard, that same church's most happy shepherd and patron, who himself too was gleaming in precious and white garments, and mitred, yet by no means wearing the infulae ^a. And deservedly indeed.

[14] For he was the master of the house in his own home, deferring to and rejoicing with his venerable and special guest; appears to William, a Cistercian monk; and going before his most beloved one with worthy honor, he most willingly yielded to him the solemnities of the Mass, especially on that day on which that holy pontiff had entered the court above and had first been honored with heavenly hymns. Whence also that blessed Father himself showed himself dutiful and diligent about that same holy bishop and about the ministry of the altar itself. Moreover the blessed prelate, leaning upon his pastoral staff, kept his eyes constantly fixed toward the choir. But holy Bernard looked now at the bishop, now at the Convent, now at the altar itself, as though solicitous for all. This vision appeared visibly, so manifest, to that same servant of God as he watched and beheld it with bodily eyes, so long as one psalm was sung through by the Convent at that same hour. And so, the psalm being ended, the vision was ended; but in the heart of the beholder the pious devotion of that vision could not thereafter be ended. — Thus far the great Exordium concerning one apparition of the holy Father. Another, which presently follows in the same place, is written in these words, and was shown to the same William:

[15] On another day too there appeared to him likewise that same blessed Bernard, who afterwards also sees the holy Father and speaks with him. glorious in face and habit. Whom when he had seen, he fell at his feet, praying and asking something of him. To whom the Saint said: "What wilt thou that I do for thee?" And he: "My lord father, if I have found favor in thine eyes, tell me whether I am to be saved." And the Saint to him: "Is this a small thing which thou askest? Today, as I was going out of paradise, how many thousands of men did I leave outside at the door, who indeed are tormented by a fear of this kind, being ignorant whether they are held worthy of love or of hatred." And so, these things being premised, he gave him an answer upon the matter which he had implored. But what he answered him definitely is uncertain to us, because, avoiding the pest of vainglory, he was unwilling to disclose this to us. For that man was circumspect and grave in speech, and took much care lest he should say anything which savored of his own glory. Nevertheless from the confidence of his speech and the cheerfulness of his countenance it was sufficiently given to be understood that he had received from the holy Father a joyful answer upon such a matter.

[16] Who this William was. This is that William whom we mentioned above (distinction 2, chapter 22) as having seen the spirit of fornication in the likeness of a phantom harlot curiously going about the infirmary, and, from those things which he had heard and seen from her, having foretold to the lord Robert, abbot of Clairvaux, the apostasy of two youths; which the foul flight of these, immediately following, showed to have been true. Moreover this William, before he had betaken himself to the Cistercian Order, lived a long time in the monastery of St. Aubin of Angers, as is said at the beginning of the cited chapter 14, in which many other things concerning him may be read. In the Cistercian Menology in Manriquez he is recorded with the title of blessed at the 19th day of November, and is called a disciple of St. Bernard. But concerning the two apparitions which have just been given, Herbert may be read, book 1 On the Miracles, chapter 4.

[17] [A certain Conversus at Clairvaux, Laurence by name, is sent to the king of Sicily,] The praised Exordium, distinction 4, chapter 33, records another apparition: There was, it says, at Clairvaux a certain religious conversus, Laurence by name, … a man … spiritual and devout in all his manner of life, constantly persisting in prayer and compunction with wondrous pertinacity; so that for very many years, while he kept the bodies of the holy confessors Bernard and Malachy in the sacristy day and night, he could scarcely ever at any hour be found there otherwise than always applying himself to prayer and watering the pavement with long weeping. But after the passing of Blessed Bernard it happened that this same brother was sent by the lord Philip, venerable prior of Clairvaux, to Roger, king of Sicily, upon business of that same church. Who, when he had entered Rome, having learned that that same king had very lately died, was dismayed in mind, and utterly knew not what he ought to do in such a juncture. And remembering his holy father Bernard, under whom, being frequently sent upon divers affairs, he went and returned prosperously, turning himself to prayer with groaning and many tears, he called upon that same Saint of God, saying: "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the driver thereof, why hast thou forsaken us? Alas for me, holy Father, what shall I say, or what shall I do, poor and wretched as I am — I, destitute of all counsel and help?

[18] "While thou wast alive, and at thy bidding, I went forth secure to divers lands and nations, and invoking the Saint on the road upon the doubtful outcome of his business; and everywhere I was received for thy favor's sake, bearing indeed thy greetings and letters; which kings and prelates with all the rest received as a blessing sent from heaven; and all the more noble rejoiced to be ennobled by thy commendations. But now, thou being dead, my favor has died together with thee; nor will there now be one to stretch out a helping hand to a pilgrim and a needy man. And behold, the king is dead who loved thee with sincere affection; and his son has risen in his place, a boy who perhaps knows thee not. Whom if I shall wish to approach, still so far removed, and it should befall me to suffer a repulse from him, my grief will be inconsolable, after the weariness of so great a labor and so very long a journey, to return with my business unaccomplished — I who, while thou wast alive, was wont to return to thy Clairvaux heaped with all good things.