Gerlandus

CONCERNING SAINT GERLANDUS, BISHOP OF AGRIGENTO IN SICILY

YEAR 1101.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Gerlandus, Bishop of Agrigento in Sicily (Saint)

By G. H.

Section I. The life of Saint Gerlandus before the Episcopate: this was conferred upon and established for him.

[1] Agrigento, a city of the island of Sicily on the Libyan Sea, facing Africa, celebrated for its ancient splendor by most writers, called by the ancient Greeks "Akragas" and "the emporium of the Akragantines": of Agrigento in Sicily Diogenes Laertius, Book 8, relates that eighty thousand men inhabited it, explaining the poem of Empedocles concerning Agrigento: but at this time, Rocchus Pirrus, in his Sacred Sicily, notation 3, in which he treats of this Church of Agrigento, relates that more than eight thousand citizens are counted in it: which the inhabitants wish to have been founded there by Saint Peter the Apostle, and that Saint Libertinus was the first Bishop constituted by him, afterward crowned with martyrdom around the year of Christ 90 on November 3. The Cathedral church that existed there in the first centuries, the Cathedral church is dedicated to Saint Gerlandus consecrated by the same Libertinus or his successors to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God; after the Saracens were driven out, was dedicated by Saint Gerlandus, the first Bishop given to the people of Agrigento, to Saint James the Apostle, Patron of the Church of Agrigento, afterward named after Saint Gerlandus himself on account of his relics and the very many miracles wrought through his aid.

[2] Saint Gerlandus was of the Allobrogian race, born of illustrious parentage in the town of Besancon in Burgundy. So Pirrus, he was Burgundian by birth thinking that Vesontio, the metropolis of the Sequani, was in the territory of the Allobroges. Hence Saussay in the Gallic Martyrology adorns him with this eulogy: "On the same day, February 25, in Burgundy, the commemoration of Saint Gerlandus, a son of this province, an eminent Confessor, who, excelling in literary glory, but more remarkable for his religion, a learned and pious man out of the desire of embracing the solitary life, seeking the innermost retreats of the island of Sicily, cultivated the exercises of great virtue and sanctity: but when the sweet odors of his most pure life were breathing forth everywhere, snatched from his cell to the Pontifical throne, he was there created Bishop of Agrigento: and having for some time illuminated the Church he had undertaken with examples of heavenly conduct, he ascended through the well-spent steps of pastoral vigilance to the palace of eternal glory." So Saussay: which perhaps was excerpted from the Gallic Breviary: of which, as will be said below, Pirrus also transcribes a part, who has only these words about his life before he undertook the Episcopate: "He was a kinsman of the Norman Princes Robert and Roger; whether Roger's chaplain? summoned by them to Sicily on account of the merits of his virtues, the praises of his wisdom, the excellence of his religion, and the nobility of his birth, he was first made chief Chaplain (by which title he so calls himself when subscribing to the erection of the Church of Catania), then chosen by the Clergy and people of the city of Miletus in Calabria as Primicerius and Cantor of the cathedral church. Cantor of Miletus in Calabria But disdaining the depraved morals and licentiousness of life of the people of Miletus, he returned to his own people in Burgundy." So Pirrus. Concerning the kinship of Saint Gerlandus with the Princes Robert and Roger, no mention exists in the diploma of Roger himself regarding the privileges granted to the Church of Agrigento and its Bishop Gerlandus. He, however, who subscribes to the erection of the Church of Catania in the same Notation, folio 16 (as Pirrus here notes in the margin), is not Gerlandus but Geroldus: whose subscription there reads thus: "I, Geroldus, Chaplain of Lord Roger the Count, likewise." Miletum or Melitum, moreover, is a city of farther Calabria, adorned with an Episcopal See by Gregory VII, Roman Pontiff, who died at Salerno in Campania in the year 1085. In this city of Miletus, Roger the Count, who with his brother Duke Robert freed Sicily by driving out the Saracens, is reported to have died in the year 1101, according to Fazellus, Book 7 of Sicilian Affairs, the latter decade, chapter 1, Pirrus, and others.

[3] Concerning the recovery of Agrigento and the restoration of the Episcopal See, Fazellus writes at the indicated place: at Agrigento, the Saracens having been expelled in 1086 "In the year of salvation 1086, on the Kalends of April, Roger besieges Agrigento with a great army, and at length on the sixth day before the Kalends of August receives by surrender both the city and the wife of Tamictus the Saracen, who ruled over the cities of Agrigento and Enna, and their children. Having gained Agrigento, he fortifies the citadel and city with garrisons... He besieged Enna with a hard assault and took it... These things having been accomplished successfully, having now gained all of Sicily (except Noto and Butera), for some time he devoted his attention to dedicating sacred temples, Bishoprics, and Abbeys to God in most cities. At Agrigento he founded and erected a cathedral church most richly endowed: he is made Bishop around 1088 over which he placed Gerlandus, an Allobrogian by birth, a pious man, as the first Bishop: at Catania, Angerius; at Syracuse, Stephen; at Messina, Robert, transferred from Troina; at Mazara, Stephen of Rouen; and others elsewhere he established as Abbots and Bishops according to the condition of the places and men. Then in the year of salvation 1089 he prepared for the siege of Butera." So Fazellus: from whose account it appears that before that year Gerlandus and the other Bishops were established. Since, moreover, as Pirrus writes, Count Roger had turned his attention to restoring the collapsed prelacies of Sicily, he wrote to Gerlandus to return to him, and destined him to administer the Church of Agrigento. Pirrus deduces that the same was consecrated Bishop by Pope Urban II from a Pontifical diploma. consecrated by Urban II Urban II, moreover, was elected as Roman Pontiff on the third day before the Ides of March in the year 1088, in which year Saint Gerlandus could also have been consecrated.

[4] Lest, however, disputes should arise in subsequent times on account of the boundaries of his diocese and the properties liberally assigned to the Episcopal See, he procured that the foundation of the Church of Agrigento be established by a privilege of Count Roger and confirmed by a Pontifical diploma. The privilege of Roger was published by Fazellus, decade 1, Book 6, chapter 1, and again collated with the manuscript original of the Church of Agrigento, and published by Pirrus, which I subjoin: "I, Roger, Count of Calabria and Sicily, fortified by divine protection, girded with the sword of supernal grace, having obtained a diploma from Count Roger adorned with the helmet and shield of good and praiseworthy intention, sought Sicily to fight against the abominable ferocity of the Saracens, whom, with the sevenfold grace of God bringing it about and cooperating, nay rather with Divine mercy effecting all things, I conquered, and conquering, diminished their pride and the boldness of their men pressing against our faith, and, to speak more truly, reduced it to nothing. For who, having seen the wide and extensive ruin of their castles and cities, and having learned the vast destruction of their palaces, composed with wonderful skill, of the Saracens, to whose superfluous uses these things served, * does not observe that the inconveniences are manifold, the miseries great, and the losses innumerable? Their vehement madness and power against the Christians having therefore been annihilated, and all of Sicily obeying me and my commands in all things, I, the aforesaid Count Roger, in the year 1093 from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, with Urban II presiding over the Apostolic See, and Roger, Duke of Calabria and the Duchy of Apulia, reigning, in the conquest of Sicily I established Episcopal Churches. One of these is the Church of Agrigento, whose Bishop is called Gerlandus. To him I assign as his Parish whatever is contained within the boundaries written below, with all the rights of tithes and other parochial rights both of the city of Agrigento and of the diocese, the boundaries of the Episcopate, assigned in 1093 namely from the place where the river rises below Corleone to above the rock of Zineth, and thence it extends along the divisions of Iatina and Cephala and then to the divisions of Biccari: and from thence to the Salt River, which is the boundary of Palermo and Termini, and from the mouth of this river where it falls into the sea. And this Parish extends along the sea to the Crooked River, and from this and from where it rises, it extends to Pyra below the Rock of Elias, and thence to the high mountain which is above Pyra, and then to the Salt River, where it joins with the river of the Rock of Elias, and from this river, as it descends to Lympiadum, which place divides Agrigento and Butera, and thence along the coast to the river of Bilichi, which is the boundary of Mazara, and it still extends as this river runs to below Corleone, where the division begins, excepting Biccari, Corleone, and Termini. and possessions are established In the property, moreover, of Lord Bishop Gerlandus and of the other Bishops after him, is the Casale Cathal, with a hundred villeins, in which I grant him grain each week. If, however, anyone of all these shall have taken anything from the aforesaid Church and its Bishop, or unjustly condemned it, whatever person he may be, let him be condemned with an anathema." So Roger, on whose seal these words are read: "Jesus Christ conquers. May God aid His servant Count Roger."

[5] The Roger who is indicated as Duke of Calabria and Apulia is the nephew of this Roger, the son of his brother Robert, who had succeeded him upon his death in the year 1085, or perhaps earlier. Pirrus, on account of this privilege, suspects that Saint Gerlandus began to sit in the Chair of Agrigento in the year of salvation 1093. Saint Gerlandus was not consecrated Bishop in 1093 But in that year the boundaries of the diocese were prescribed for Bishops already previously established. A similar privilege was given to the Church of Catania and its Bishop Ansgerius on the sixth day before the Kalends of May, Indiction 15, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1091, to which Indiction 14 agrees, which should perhaps be substituted, or the following year 1092. In this diploma he asserts that he built churches in various suitable places in Sicily, and by the command of the Supreme Pontiff placed Bishops, with the same Apostolic of the Roman See both praising and granting, and himself consecrating the Bishops. Pirrus, having cited this diploma on page 10, notes that before Bishop Ansgerius of Catania, there had been established Robert of Troina around the year 1081, Gerlandus of Agrigento and Stephen of Mazara in the year 1091, where he departs from his former opinion nor in 1091 by which he had said that Saint Gerlandus began to sit in the year 1093, moved by the letter or diploma of Robert, Bishop of Messina and Troina, sent in the year 1094 to Ambrose, Abbot of Lipari and Patti, and cited in notation 4 of the Church of Patti on page 386, in which this order of the erected Bishoprics is indicated as observed: "First," he says, "he established the Church of Troina, in which he constituted the Lord and venerable Robert as first Bishop, then the Churches of Agrigento and Mazara, subsequently the Church of Catania, and lastly the Church and Bishop of Syracuse: who was Roger the Norman, to whom and to whose successors he granted and confirmed that Church to be governed, disposed, and propagated, by the authority of a privilege of Urban II, signed in the sixth year of his Pontificate, on the Kalends of December of the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1093, Indiction 2, which is erroneously transmitted as 15 in Pirrus, page 153. In which year Roger could already have been a Bishop for some years, just as Saint Gerlandus had administered his Episcopate for several years, when the same Urban II confirmed to him and his successors by a similar diploma all the goods donated by Count Roger, which I add here.

[6] "Urban, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to our beloved brother Gerlandus, Bishop of Agrigento, and to his successors to be canonically promoted, in perpetuity. [he obtains confirmation of the division of the Episcopate and possessions from Urban II] By the disposition of Almighty God, times are changed and kingdoms are transferred: hence it is that we read of nations of great name being overthrown and brought low, while base and insignificant ones have sometimes been exalted: hence it is that in certain regions the ferocity of the Pagans has seized the power of the Christian name: while in certain others the dignity of Christian power has trampled upon the tyranny of the Pagans. Just as in our times, by the valor of the most glorious Princes, Duke Robert and Count Roger, the mercy of the supernal condescension has conquered all the trouble of the Saracens on the island of Sicily, and has recovered the ancient state of the holy Church according to the good pleasure of His will. Whence we also give thanks to His ineffable mercy, and implore His grace upon those distinguished brothers, the one now deceased, the other still surviving by His working, and we ardently desire, as is the duty of our office, the restoration or ordering of the Churches that are on the same island. Just as therefore, with God's assent, we have already arranged the parishes of the other churches; so also by the authority of the present decree we arrange the diocese of Agrigento. For we decree, Brother Gerlandus, whom the almighty Lord has deigned to consecrate in that very Church by our hands, as it were by the hands of Blessed Peter, that henceforth for you and for your legitimate successors there shall remain in perpetuity to be governed and disposed of by episcopal right, whatever is contained within the boundaries written below, namely from the place where the river rises below Corleone... In the property, moreover, both by your right and that of your successors, let the Casale Cathal with a hundred villeins be preserved, as it was delivered by the above-mentioned son, Count Roger. Furthermore, whatever in the future the same Church of Agrigento may justly and canonically be able to acquire by the generosity of Princes or the offerings of the faithful, let it remain firm and inviolate for you and your successors. We therefore decree that it shall be lawful for absolutely no man to rashly disturb the same Church... Given at Bari by the hand of John, Cardinal Deacon of the Holy Roman Church, in the year 1099 on the sixth day before the Ides of October, Indiction 8, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1099, in the eleventh year of the Pontificate of Pope Urban II." So Urban II, whose long clause we have omitted, as also the boundaries of the diocese of Agrigento, which were related in the same words with which Count Roger had previously described them. Fazellus also mentions this Pontifical diploma.

* Fazellus: "would not consider the great overthrows effected by me, and their immense losses?"

Section II. The remaining deeds of Saint Gerlandus in the Episcopate: his death, sacred cult, Relics, and the church and chapel dedicated to him.

[7] Regarding the deeds of Saint Gerlandus, Pirrus relates the following concerning the construction of the Cathedral church: "Moved by pastoral solicitude, distinguished piety, and admirable charity, Gerlandus, at the summit of the city next to the most strongly fortified castle, lest the sacred things and the Clergy should be invaded by the Saracens still dwelling at Agrigento, He builds the Cathedral church raised from the foundations an Episcopal palace and a Cathedral church of squared stone and noble construction, and consecrated it to the Blessed Mary (as it had once been dedicated by Saint Peter) and to Saint James the Apostle on the fourth day of April: he completed that work in the space of six years." The same Pirrus, at the end of Notation 3, page 320, writes that the church consecrated to the Blessed Mary, Mother of God, under Bishop Libertinus, was dedicated to Saint James after the Saracens were driven out.

[8] To the words of the Gallic Breviary customarily read on the 25th of February concerning Saint Gerlandus, Pirrus adds the following: "He was most eloquent in speech, tall in stature, most handsome in person, generous in poverty, splendid in charity, munificent in giving, distinguished in the propriety of his morals; he converted not a few of the better and wiser Jews to the faith of Christ: he converts Jews whom the pious Pontiff himself raised from the sacred font. After he had presided with great devotion for twelve years and was now an old man, returning from Rome, he passed through Balnearia, a town of Calabria: there finding Dragon, the Provost of that place, he foretells his own successor with a dove-like voice, as was his custom, he humbly asked him to pray for him after his death, and announced with a prophetic spirit that he would sit after him in the episcopal Chair. Having returned to Agrigento, after six months he rendered his soul to God on the 25th of February: he dies on February 25 his body, emitting a most sweet odor on every side, the Clergy of that Church and the co-Bishops established in Sicily, sometimes laying it down in the choir, on the fourth day with the greatest honor and reverence placed it in a sarcophagus between the two Tribunals of that church." So from the Breviary. Pirrus, page 318, asserts that the principal part of the Cathedral church is called the Tribunal.

[9] in the year 1100 Octavius Caietanus, our colleague, in the Idea of the Saints of Sicily in the Chronological Index, reports that Saint Gerlandus the Bishop died in the time of Count Roger in the year 1100, counting namely twelve years of his See from the year 1088 to this year 1100. But since in the said Breviary it is stated that, apart from the twelve years during which he had lived, when he returned from Rome, after six months he rendered his soul to God on February 25, the death seems rather to be assigned to the following year 1101, in which year Count Roger also departed this life. But Pirrus, or rather 1101 because he supposes that he was ordained Bishop only in the year 1093, and on account of the words of the said Breviary that he sat for twelve years, says: "Gerlandus (as the most learned and most noble Abbot Lafarina also holds) must be said to have prolonged his life to the year of salvation 1104, three years after the death of the Count": indeed, if the twelve years are to be taken as complete and six months are to be added to them, as we have already shown, not 1104 or the following years not the year 1105 but rather the following year 1106 should be established: if, as they maintain, he had only begun to sit in the year 1093, which we have shown is less probable.

[10] On the 25th of February, Maurolycus, Abbot of Messina, celebrates his sacred memory in his Martyrology with these words: "In Sicily, Saint Gerlandus from Burgundy, Bishop of the people of Agrigento, in the time of Count Roger." inscribed in Martyrologies Galesinius relates the same from Maurolycus, to whom, he says, "we greatly assent concerning Sicilian matters." Felicius, Molanus in his supplement to Usuard, and Ferrarius in the General Catalogue have the same. Octavius Caietanus in the Sicilian Martyrology presents him with these words: "At Agrigento, Saint Gerlandus, Bishop and Confessor, under Count Roger." Ferrarius, in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, from the Lessons that are recited in his celebration, excerpted this eulogy: "Gerlandus, born at Besancon in Burgundy, coming to Calabria of the Bruttii, having stayed at Miletus for some time, was created Primicerius of the Cantors. But since he could not bear the depraved morals of the Clergy, he returned to his homeland. When, moreover, Count Roger had expelled the Saracens from Sicily, to whom the learning and the probity of life of Gerlandus were well known, he summoned him to Sicily and arranged for him to be ordained Bishop of Agrigento, recently recovered from the enemy, around the year of salvation 1085. Although Gerlandus was unwillingly raised to this dignity, he nevertheless did not wish to resist the divine will. Wherefore, having undertaken the pastoral office, he took up especially the care of the poor, pilgrims, widows, and orphans. He converted very many Jews and Saracens who had remained in that city, both by public sermons and by private conversations, to Christ. At length, having fulfilled the office of a good Pastor, he flew to his reward in the heavens on the fifth day before the Kalends of March." These things are not there without the error of the year 1085, in which he could not have been made Bishop of Agrigento, if the city only began to be besieged on the Kalends of April of the following year and was wrested from the enemy on the sixth day before the Kalends of August, as we said above from Fazellus: indeed, Supreme Pontiff Urban II did not yet preside over the Church, by whose hands he is said to have been ordained. The eulogy from Saussay we gave above.

[11] The place where the body of Saint Gerlandus was originally interred is not sufficiently certain. In the Gallic Breviary it is said to have been placed between the two Tribunals of the greater church: but this was done after the Translation. Pirrus, page 276, treating of Bishop Gentilis, asserts that some relate that it was found by him in the lower part of the church when he translated it. But concerning the translation of the body he writes the following on page 274: "For Gerlandus was renowned for many miracles before and after death, he is renowned for miracles and he healed those who fled to his tomb from their infirmities. From that place where the sacred body of Gerlandus lay, on the 20th of March in the year 1159, the body is translated on March 20, 1159 Indiction 7, Bishop Gentilis, the successor, having been informed by a certain most pious Priest, who had been admonished three times by the same divine Gerlandus about the translation of his body, translated it to the great church with solemn rite, and most honorably placed it in a wooden ark erected in a lofty place between the two Tribunals of the most holy Sacrament and of the Blessed Mary." Bishop Gentilis sat from the year 1154, or perhaps the preceding year, to the year 1171 or the following. The same Gentilis, as Pirrus also attests, in the year 1170 gave permission to Ansaldus, Castellan of the Royal Palace of Palermo, to build the monastery of the Holy Trinity in the territory of Villanova, and to rebuild the church of Saint George the Martyr, and to build another in the place called Reffeses in honor of Saint Mary: the day of the Translation is celebrated provided that the Abbot or Prior render obedience to the Church of Agrigento, and visit it three times a year, on the Assumption of the Blessed Mary, on the feast of Saint James, and on the Translation of Saint Gerlandus. But Bishop Raynaldus of Agrigento, in the year 1261, in the month of June, Indiction 4, granted the said church of Saint Mary of Refesio, belonging to his Church, with all its rights, in emphyteusis to the Presbyter Matthew, Canon of Palermo, and Master Guido the Cleric and twenty other monks, to live there under the Rule of Saint Benedict, on these conditions: that every year on the feast of Saint Gerlandus the Patron they should pay one ounce of gold as rent, and that the Abbot or Prior should be bound, either personally or through another, to visit the Cathedral church of Agrigento on the Translation of the Blessed Gerlandus. So Pirrus, page 288, in the words of the donation taken from the Agrigentine archives. In the same manner, Bishop Urso of Agrigento in the year 1219 ceded to Prior Peregrinus of Saint Mary of Adriano and his Congregation a monastery that had been destroyed by the calamity of wars on the island of Vestica, likewise the church of Saint Nicholas, which is outside the city of Agrigento in the old city, with its lands, or the church of Saint Blaise in Camarata, provided that he and his successors render obedience to him and his successors, and come three times every year on the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Mary, on the Dedication of the church, and on the Translation of the Blessed Gerlandus, and pay three rotuli of wax as rent. So Pirrus, page 285, from the Agrigentine archives. inscribed in Martyrologies The memory of the Translation of Saint Gerlandus is inscribed at March 20 in the same Agrigentine archives and in the Sicilian Martyrology of Octavius Caietanus with these words: "At Agrigento, the translation of Saint Gerlandus, Bishop and Confessor." The same is read in Ferrarius's new Catalogue.

[12] As the veneration of the people toward Saint Gerlandus grew day by day, the Cathedral church itself took its name from Gerlandus, which Pirrus, page 320, asserts was done in the year 1305, when the church was dedicated to him on November 9. the Cathedral church is consecrated in his honor in the year 1305 But on page 291 he relates the following: "In the year 1305, on November 9, Indiction 4, Bishop Bertuldus consecrated in the Cathedral church the altar dedicated to the Blessed Virgin by Blessed Gerlandus: in which he enclosed with solemn rite the relics of the holy Apostles James, Bartholomew, and Andrew, and of Vincent the Martyr, Gregory the Confessor and Pontiff, and Gerlandus, and he made that day of consecration sacred." This Gregory was the second Bishop of Agrigento, whose arm is preserved enclosed in silver caskets: he is venerated on June 22. But the citizens honor with particular veneration the body of Saint Gerlandus, and by his intercession, as the same Pirrus attests, they daily experience signs of divine power. Fazellus also, decade 1, Book 6, chapter 1, says: "Agrigento is ennobled today by its Cathedral church built of squared stone, and by the tomb of the blessed Gerlandus, the first Bishop of Agrigento after the Saracens were driven out, conspicuous for his miracles." In the 27th year of this 17th century, Francis of Trahina was consecrated Bishop of the Church of Agrigento, a chapel is erected in 1627 who adorned the Cathedral church, completed its principal part, which they call the Tribunal, and augmented it with three magnificent chapels, of which one was built and dedicated to the most holy Body of Christ, another to the Blessed Gerlandus the Patron, and he most richly founded, endowed, and adorned them, also establishing three Chaplains in perpetuity to celebrate the sacred rites daily. The third was dedicated to Saint Francis. So Pirrus, page 318. But on page 274 he repeats the following about the cult of the same Saint Gerlandus: his relics are displayed "At Agrigento they appoint a solemnity twice a year in the Saint's honor: on the day of his death, February 25, when also his arm enclosed in silver caskets and his pastoral staff are displayed for viewing, and on March 20 in memory of the Translation of his body: they are carried in procession but on the Sunday in White, in a more solemn procession of all the Religious through the city, the sacred body is carried around, and for fifteen days public fairs are held. some are at Palermo Finally, Pirrus adds that particles of the relics of Saint Gerlandus are preserved at Palermo in the great church and in the royal chapel.

BLESSED ROBERT OF ARBRISSEL, FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF FONTEVRAUD

YEAR 1117.

The Life reviewed with a preliminary commentary.

Robert of Arbrissel, Founder of the Order of Fontevraud in France (Blessed)

By J. B.

Section I. The principal monastery of the Order of Fontevraud instituted by Blessed Robert, its name, holiness.

[1] Fontevraud is a noble monastery of women in France, from which the most celebrated Order derived its origin and name, which, divided into monks and nuns dwelling in separate monasteries, the Abbess of Fontevraud, as the General Superior, the name of the Monastery of Fontevraud governs. The name has been expressed variously by writers: more commonly it is called Fons Ebraldi, or Euraldi, in French Font-Eurauld. Others call it Fons Everardi; William of Newburgh, Book 1, chapter 15, calls it Ebraudi: King John of England in a diploma, dated on the 30th of August, in the first year of his reign, which was the year of Christ 1199, extant in the English Monasticon, page 193, now calls it Fons Ebraldi, now Ebrardi: Roger of Hoveden in the latter part of his Annals at the year 1177, Frunt Eueroit: John Bromton, Abbot of Jervaulx, in his Chronicle at the same year, Ebrardi and Embraldi: others otherwise.

[2] The name was given to the monastery from the spring of the place in which it is situated. About it, Baronius, volume 12 of the Annals at the year 1117, relates the following from popular report: "They say," he writes, "that a certain young man named Ebraldus, not from Ebraldus the bandit converted around the year 1100 noble in birth but corrupt in morals, attended by a great band of assassins, once infested the adjacent royal roads with robberies and occupied the then frequent forests, of which not insignificant remnants survive to this day. Afterward, a certain Parisian Theologian, a man of extraordinary learning and a distinguished preacher of the divine word, Robert of Abruscellis by name, came there, and by his holy exhortations not only impelled that young man to change his morals and life, but moreover moved many people of every kind to despise the vanity of the world and to submit to the laws of a more austere life: for whose habitation he founded separate monasteries within the same enclosures, building different ones for men, for Virgins, for the sick, and for the remaining women; and he placed an Abbess over the entire congregation," etc. So Baronius: which Miraeus transcribed word for word in Book 2 of Monastic Origins, chapter 10, without however citing him. Guerrosius narrates the same much more at length in his commentary on the sanctity of the people of Troyes at the year 1106, numbers 8 and following, and affirms it to be a true history. But to whom could this be proved, when Baldric, Bishop of Dol, formerly Abbot of the monastery of Bourgueil, a few leagues distant from Fontevraud, and indeed a contemporary of Blessed Robert, attests the contrary? For he writes at number 16 thus: "The place was uncultivated and squalid, overgrown with thornbushes and briars, called from antiquity the Spring of Euraldus, but the name was anciently given to that place sequestered from human habitation: it was distant about two miles from the cell of Candes, adjacent to the diocese of Poitiers." If when Blessed Robert came there the place was already called from antiquity the Spring of Euraldus, then it did not take its name from Euraldus, whom he himself converted there while he was still a young man.

[3] I would not, however, deny that there were perhaps once in those dense forests the hiding places of bandits. For it is commonly celebrated in the conversations of the local inhabitants Saint Martin is said to have predicted its sanctity that Saint Martin, Bishop of Tours, when he had come to the village of Candes in his diocese, asked what that place was, thick with trees, which he was beholding from a distance: and when he heard that it was a forest notorious for robberies and brigandage, he replied that one day that forest would be made illustrious by holy prayers and religious worship of God: and that this finally came to pass seven hundred years later. That narrative itself, however, is not confirmed by any ancient testimony.

[4] The village of Candes (now a town, which the French call Candes) lies at the extreme borders of the diocese of Tours on the river Vienne, which not far from there joins the Loire. Two miles from there, as Baldric writes, or a short French league, three from the town of Saumur situated on the Loire, lies Fontevraud. Francis Ranchinus writes that the principal abbeys of the province of Anjou are Bourgueil and Fontevraud. But when he treats of Poitou, it is on the borders of Anjou he says that Fontevraud is on the borders of Tours and Anjou, but in the diocese of Poitiers. Gervase, monk of Canterbury, in his Chronicle at the year 1177, calls Fontevraud "of Anjou." in the diocese of Poitiers And John Bromton at the same year: "The King," he says, "sent to Anjou, to Fontevraud, for a convent of holy nuns." But afterward at the year 1189: "Richard, Count of Poitou, proceeded with the body of his father Henry II, King of England, to Fontevraud in Normandy." Whether he placed that monastery in Normandy because Normandy was the chief of those dominions which the Kings of England possessed in France, or by a lapse of memory, it is superfluous to inquire. Miraeus writes in the previously cited place that in Fontevraud, within the circuit of what is practically one town, there are four monasteries, now a town with four monasteries three of nuns, who number about two hundred, and one of monks, who are about forty and have their own Prior. And a little below: "The high altar of the monks' monastery of Fontevraud is situated on the borders of the dioceses of Poitiers, Tours, and Angers." And he testifies that he received these and other things from the Reverend Father William Richer, Abbot of Saint Vincent of Le Mans, formerly Visitor of Fontevraud, in the year 1617.

[5] This is the head of that most religious Order, this is the seat of the Abbess who presides over the whole of it. For the Founder wished (as Baronius notes in the previously cited place, and as will become clearer below) that the Abbess should have the supreme authority over both men and women, decreeing that the men, following the example of Saint John the Evangelist, should obey the Virgins or women; the Abbess presides over the whole Order and that the latter in turn, following the example of the Blessed Virgin, should embrace the Religious as sons. Finally, he wrote statutes and constitutions separately for both groups. And a little later he says that the Order was approved by the authentic Bulls of many Pontiffs, who teach that it sought the origin and rationale of its institution from those words of Christ, "Behold your son," "Behold your Mother." Various diplomas of the Supreme Pontiffs have recently been published, who either praised the sanctity of the Founder or fortified the Congregation instituted by him with the privilege of Apostolic authority. it was approved and praised by the Pontiffs Thus Paschal II, by a diploma given on the seventh day before the Kalends of May, Indiction 13, in the year of Christ 1106, and likewise by another given on the Nones of April, in the year of Christ 1113, inscribed "To the beloved Sisters in Christ, the holy nuns serving Almighty God in the monastery of Fontevraud"; in which he confesses that he is provoked by the more ardent zealous efforts of their Religious life, etc.

[6] Callistus II, by a diploma given at Tours at the monastery of Marmoutier on the 17th day before the Kalends of October, Indiction 13, in the year 1119, speaks thus: "To our beloved daughter Petronilla, Abbess of the monastery of Saint Mary of Fontevraud, and to those who shall regularly succeed her in the same governance, in perpetuity. When we were passing through the parish of Poitiers in the service of the Church, Callistus II dedicates an oratory there at the suggestion of our venerable brother William, Bishop of Poitiers, we turned aside to the monastery of Blessed Mary of Fontevraud: where, recognizing through the mercy of Almighty God that the discipline of the monastic Order flourishes, we decided to foster the place itself with all its appurtenances under the patronage of Blessed Peter. Whence also with our own hands, as it were the hands of Blessed Peter, we dedicated an oratory in honor of the Most Blessed and Most Glorious Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary." And the same in another Bull: "At the monastery of Blessed Mary of Fontevraud, the discipline of the monastic rule, as we ourselves have observed in person, perseveres through the grace of Almighty God: whence the religious men who fear the Lord and who are around it, love the place itself." Gelasius II, also the predecessor of Callistus, says: "Where, the same Order praised by Gelasius II through the grace of Almighty God, from a long time past the greatest observance of religion has been maintained." Afterward also Innocent II: "How distinguished and famous the religious life of the monastery of Fontevraud is, by Innocent II and how much good, through the cooperation of His grace, arises from it," etc. Lucius II also, who held the See in the year 1144, says, addressing Abbess Petronilla: "Indeed, by Lucius II on account of the greater prerogative of the religious life, which is more widely spread abroad from your place through the grace of God," etc. The same Pontiff also, addressing the nuns themselves, says: "Since we have very great confidence in you, we beseech your charity through the Almighty Lord, that you yourselves may make special prayers to the Lord for me, and strive to have them made throughout all the Congregations of your Order."

[7] Suger, Abbot of Saint-Denis, in a letter to Pope Eugenius III, which our Jacques Sirmond published from manuscripts in his Notes to the letters of Geoffrey of Vendome, among other things writes the following in commendation of the nuns of Fontevraud: "May it therefore please Your Excellency to rescue them from these troubles (which, of course, the Bishop of Poitiers, Gilbert de la Porree, as I believe, was causing them), and in the multitude of your mercy to provide for them that they may serve God in peace, commended to Eugenius III by Abbot Suger to foster and protect them under the protection of the God of heaven and your Apostolic authority: inasmuch as it is so great a place of so great a religious life, which, when we were in those parts at school, we saw had been newly begun, greatly expanded and which through God's will we have heard has already grown to almost four or five thousand nuns, and we rejoice." Suger died at the beginning of the year of Christ 1152, in his seventieth year, as Claude Robert relates.

[8] About two years before Suger, the already-mentioned Abbot of Saint-Denis near Paris, namely in the year 1150, second Abbess Mathildis on the eighth day before the Kalends of May, as is stated in the Necrology of Fontevraud, "there departed from this world the Lady Petronilla of pious memory, a venerable nun, our incomparable and irreplaceable Mother, constituted the first Abbess by our Lord Master Robert." The same Blessed Robert, moreover, as Baronius writes in the cited place, and Miraeus after him, had decreed that when the Abbess whom he had created should close her days, she should be succeeded by and the remaining pious and illustrious ones whomever the Religious women themselves should elect by their votes. Which was always observed by them, as long as the practice of elections persisted in the monasteries. Moreover, both as long as the power of electing lasted, and after Abbesses began to be appointed by the authority of the Pontiff, they always obtained the best and most memorable Abbesses, more illustrious for the integrity and holiness of their life than for their lineage: although most were the daughters of Kings and Princes, or certainly of the most noble Knights.

[9] From that time, the sanctity of this Congregation was widely celebrated, and nuns were even summoned from here to Spain and England, either to restore the relaxed discipline in certain old monasteries of other Orders, or to found new ones. Certainly in the year 1177 they were called to England, and the monastery of Amesbury in the territory of Wiltshire was given to them, which the stepmother and murderess of the holy King and Martyr Edward had once founded, as is related in the English Monasticon, page 191, from Roger of Hoveden. The monastery of Amesbury in England given to them His words at that year in the latter part of the Annals are as follows: "In the same year the same King Henry II, having expelled the nuns from the abbey of Amesbury on account of their incontinence, and having distributed them among other religious houses in stricter custody, gave the same abbey of Amesbury to the Abbess and house of Fontevraud to be possessed in perpetuity: and a convent of nuns having been sent from Fontevraud, Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury, introduced them into the abbey of Amesbury on the eleventh day before the Kalends of June, being a Sunday," etc. The same is narrated in the Chronicle of John Bromton, and it is said that that Abbess was deposed by mandate of Pope Alexander III, and all the nuns there who were unwilling to abandon their error and the turpitude of their life and to observe the rule of Fontevraud were dispersed from that house. When they had been so dispersed, "the King sent to Anjou, to Fontevraud, for a convent of holy nuns," etc. Where you see the nuns of Fontevraud being called holy nuns. Gervase of Canterbury in his Chronicle also treats of this same colony of Amesbury.

[10] The same Bromton calls it "the famous and noble monastery of Fontevraud": William of Newburgh, Book 1, chapter 15, calls it "that most famous monastery of women of Fontevraud." And Book 3, chapter 25, "a famous and noble monastery," and then, "a monastery renowned for its title of most celebrated religious life." William of Tyre, Book 14, chapter 1, speaking of Matilda the Order praised by eminent writers (he himself calls her Mahaldem), the second Abbess of Fontevraud after Petronilla, writes thus: "She had been betrothed to the son of Henry, King of England (the second of that name): but before they came together, the bridegroom, sailing to England and suffering shipwreck, was drowned in the sea: his betrothed, however, vowing perpetual celibacy, led a religious life perpetually as a nun in the religious cloister of women at Fontevraud." A suffragan of William of Tyre was, and then a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, James of Vitry. He, writing about the black monks in chapter 20 of the Occidental History, speaks as follows among other things: "We have said the aforesaid things, however, with all due peace and reverence toward certain holy and venerable convents of this Order, who still persevere in the purpose of an honorable and praiseworthy manner of life and in the strictness of their religious life. Such are the Cluniacs at the head, and in certain of their members not discordant from the head: as at Saint Martin of the Fields in the city of Paris, among the most flourishing in the 12th century and moreover the religious monks of Canterbury in England, and those who are at Afflighem in Brabant, and the black nuns of Fontevraud, with certain other devout convents of the black monks: whose charity and humility, constant labors and almost insupportable burdens, He knows who supplies them with patience and perseverance; so that while others fail along the way, they, hastening to the prize set before them, may attain the desired end."

[11] William of Malmesbury also, slightly senior to both, in Book 5 of the Kings of England thus both describes the origin of Fontevraud and praises its sanctity: "Contemporaries and companions in religion of this Peter (Bishop of Poitiers) were Robert of Arbrissel and Bernard, Abbot of Tiron, of whom the first, the most famous and most profuse of all the preachers of this time, flourished with such great eloquence, not frothy but honeyed, that with people vying to heap up riches, he built that illustrious monastery of nuns at Fontevraud, in which, all worldly pleasure being castrated, the strictest silence there so great a multitude of women devoted to God, as exists nowhere else, burns in the service of God. For besides the renunciation of other allurements, how small a thing is it that they speak in no place except in Chapter, the rule of perpetual silence having been laid down by the Master; because once silence is relaxed, women are prone to whispering frivolities?"

[12] John Picard of Beauvais, a regular Canon of Saint Victor in Paris, however, warns in his Notes to chapter 15 of Book 1 of the History of Newburgh that these regular disciplines, otherwise somewhat too severe, were mitigated by the authority of the Supreme Pontiff around the year 1450... For Mary of Brittany, then a most pious and at the same time most noble Virgin, the Superior of Fontevraud, had arranged, with the help and counsel of prudent men, that chapters be selected from the Rule of Saint Benedict and the decrees of Robert the Founder, and more diligently observed in all the convents of her family; and that those things that seemed somewhat obscure be described more plainly. afterward mitigated Of those things, however, that were deemed harsher, namely the silence that forbade conversation everywhere except in Chapter, it was moderated so that it was permitted to speak after the prayers called Prime: then after the signal was given for work.

Section II. The homeland of Blessed Robert, the history of his Life, annual commemoration, and the prerogative appellation of BLESSED and SAINT.

[13] The founder of this most celebrated monastery and Order was therefore Blessed Robert. Authors vary regarding his surname, as Andrew Chesne observes in letter 17 of Book 2 of Peter the Venerable, our Honoratus Nicquet in Book 1 of the History of Fontevraud, chapter 3, and Jean-Baptiste Souchet in his Notes to chapter 11 of the Life of Blessed Bernard of Tiron. The surname of Blessed Robert He is therefore called by Geoffrey in the said Life of Blessed Bernard "of Arbrissel," "Arbressellensis," and in chapter 23, if there is no error, "Orbreselensis": "of Abrezello" in a certain inscription cited by Souchet, and in a Rouen manuscript, according to the same, "of Abrincello": by Peter, Bishop of Poitiers, in a charter given in the year 1106, "of Herbressello": by the Newburgh writer, "of Arbusculo": "of Arbrussello" in a Le Mans manuscript codex of the works of Geoffrey of Vendome: "of Brussello" by Peter the Venerable: by Jean Bouchet, "of Bruxelles": "of Bruxello" by Jean Hiret cited in Souchet: "of Arborecello" in certain public records in William Catel: "of Arbricellis" in the Chronicle of Saint-Aubin of Angers: "of Arbricel" and "Arbrisel" in Rouen charters: "of Arbeisel" by the Malmesbury writer: by Nicquet, "d'Abruissel": Souchet more correctly judges it "of Abrissello": we retain "of Arbrissello," which is the most common among writers.

[14] The name was derived from the place of his birth, a small village seven leagues distant from the city of Rennes in Brittany (Armorica), which was then called Arbrissellum, according to Baldric, Bishop of Dol in the same Brittany: now it is commonly called Arbesec. his homeland, not Champagne of Troyes But Guerrosius in his Commentaries on the sanctity of the people of Troyes at the year 1106, number 7, affirms that he was born in the territory of Troyes, two miles from the city of Troyes, in a village named L'Aubrussel: nor does he cite any author who assigns that homeland to him, nor does he bring forward any argument to confirm it, besides that one single word. Baldric, who both knew Robert and ruled the monastery of Bourgueil near Fontevraud, and was then Bishop of Dol in Brittany, says of him in chapter 1 of the Life, number 7, that he was "a son of Lesser Brittany, born in the district of Rennes, a native and inhabitant of the village that is commonly called Arbrissellum." And at number 8, Silvester, Bishop of Rennes, addresses the same Robert, whom he had summoned from Paris, thus: "You see, dearest Brother, how the holy Church of Rennes, your mother, wavers without governance." but Brittany in Armorica For by what reasoning could the Church of Rennes be called his mother, if he had been born in the diocese of Troyes, and had only previously lived in his homeland and at Paris?

[15] Guerrosius had not seen the twofold Life of Blessed Robert that we give here, a double Life, written by contemporaries one written, as we said, by Baldric, the other by a Religious of Fontevraud, a disciple of the same holy man, who is commonly believed to have been Andrew, of whom mention is made in Baldric. And mention of him seems to be made in a certain old Necrology thus: "On the third day before the Ides of August died Andrew the Priest, Chaplain of Master Robert." Both these Lives were first published from Fontevraud manuscripts by Michael Cosnier, Pastor of the same town: who then, having searched other records of the archmonastery, sent us not a few things that he had lacked in his earlier edition. Both Lives, after Cosnier's death, were more elegantly published at La Fleche in the year 1647, with an added facing lucid French paraphrase, composed by Father Jean-Baptiste Chevalier, a Priest of our Society. But most accurately of all, Honoratus Nicquet, our colleague, wrote the history of Fontevraud in French in four books: in the first of which he set forth the deeds of Blessed Robert, in the second his holiness, in the third the institutes of the Order: in the fourth he succinctly narrated the acts of all the Abbesses.

[16] She who now administers that most holy Order with equal praise of piety and prudence, the thirty-second from Petronilla the disciple of Blessed Robert, the Abbess Jeanne-Baptiste de Bourbon enhances his honor is Jeanne-Baptiste de Bourbon, daughter of Henry IV, the Great King of France. She both devotes herself with the utmost zeal to preserving the spirit that still flourished in the Order and the dignity of religious practice; and especially strives to amplify by whatever means she can the honor of the most holy Founder Robert. And for that reason she arranged for the twin Lives that I mentioned, published at La Fleche in the years 1641 and 1647, to be sent to us, together with other booklets composed chiefly by our Honoratus Nicquet: she communicates various records with us of which one embraces the testimonies of Supreme Pontiffs, Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, Bishops, Princes, and illustrious writers concerning the sanctity of Blessed Robert of Arbrissel: the other is entitled "The Glory of Blessed Robert of Arbrissel, Founder of the Order of Fontevraud, or an epitome of his life, virtues, and praises." Finally, out of the very great benevolence with which she honors our most humble Society, she deigned to commend to us by letter that in our vast work on the Acts of the Saints we should also give a place to the Life of Blessed Robert. This, however, we had already resolved to do of our own accord, as may be gathered from what was said on January 7 concerning Blessed Vitalis of Savigny: although at that time we had not yet obtained any Life of Blessed Robert, but only certain praises of him from various writers. We have plucked not a few things from these two booklets, and from the history of Nicquet, to illustrate the memory of the holy man.

[17] Robert has not yet been inscribed in the registers of the Blessed in heaven by the judgment of the Supreme Pontiff in such a way that an Ecclesiastical office could be recited and the sacrifice of the Mass offered concerning him; but the same Abbess Jeanne-Baptiste strains every nerve to obtain this. she urges his canonization For several years now, the Most Serene Queen of Great Britain has also urged that this public cult in the Church be paid to Blessed Robert, who wrote to the Pontiff on this matter more than once, and through her Ambassador in the year 1645 presented a petition, from which the following is reported in the cited Glory of Blessed Robert, from which anyone may understand by what reason she was finally moved to undertake the procurement of the honor due to Robert among the Blessed in heaven: as does the Queen of England "In the great tumult of Great Britain," she says, "by which almost the whole kingdom is being turned upside down... a remedy and the most present alleviation of evils will be mine, if I win for myself the grace and favor of some distinguished Servant of God by procuring honor for him on earth, so that he himself in heaven may exist as an advocate before God for the happy success of English affairs. Wherefore with all humility I humbly ask that through Your Holiness it may be permitted in the Order of Fontevraud to say the Office and celebrate the Mass of the Venerable Father Robert, Founder of the same Order: who was once most acceptable, and indeed a Counselor of Fulk the Younger, Count of Anjou, Tours, and Le Mans, afterward King of Jerusalem, one of the ancestors of the Most Serene King of Great Britain, my husband: whose other ancestors also, Henry II, Richard I, Kings of England; and several Queens of England, Eleanor, Elizabeth, and many Princesses, desired with the utmost piety to be buried in the same church in which the relics of the venerable Servant of God lie, and propagated the Order founded by him through various provinces of the English kingdom."

[18] So far from the petition of the Most Serene Queen. The Most Christian King also, as we have learned, the King of France wrote to Pope Innocent X about the same cause, and ordered the matter to be pressed by his Ambassador. The Most Excellent and Most Reverend Lady Jeanne-Baptiste de Bourbon also urges (as we have already indicated, and as is reported in the same words that we give here in the cited Glory), Abbess of the Greater Monastery and head of the whole Order of Fontevraud. The whole Order urges, together with the Chapter of Canons of Candes of Blessed Martin and others and other adjacent Chapters of Canons; that the same Robert, constantly distinguished by the name of Saint up to this point, as one most celebrated for the sanctity of his life and great merits toward the Holy Church, shining with Apostolic eloquence and constancy, most devoted to the Holy Roman See and most tenacious of Apostolic authority, a perpetual hammer of heretics; most eager for martyrdom, to whom it seems to be owed on account of his merits and one who suffered very many things from the impious for the cause of piety, noble by the commendation of Supreme Pontiffs, Bishops, and illustrious writers, the most unconquerable champion of all justice and holiness, the parent of so many Saints, having won so many thousands of people of both sexes for God, the most certain asylum for all wretched persons of every kind, whose sanctity heaven proclaims by frequent miracles and earth attests by daily prayers, vows, and offerings -- that it may be permitted by the nod and authority of the Apostolic See to venerate him as a Saint.

[19] The praises that are celebrated here in a mass are partly proved above, partly will be proved in their proper places in the Life and from the same booklet on his Glory. Bishop Baldric, a writer endowed with remarkable wisdom, who was called Blessed more than 500 years ago certainly already proclaimed him BLESSED about 537 years ago. So in chapter 1, number 7: "Therefore BLESSED ROBERT (about whom we have determined to speak) was co-heir and son of the Christian profession." And at number 24: "Besides those miracles that Blessed Robert performed." And finally at number 25: "As the years rolled on, by certain signs Blessed Robert sensed that his end was approaching."

[20] The Glory cited frequently, page 33, shows that not merely the title of Blessed but also of Saint has been customarily attributed to Robert from all time past: "The Ecclesiastical rite of the Order," it says, "also has in its ancient Litanies this invocation of Blessed Father Robert, after Saint Benedict: 'Saint Robert, good Master, pray for us.' and everywhere called Saint And indeed, up to now, that spring which was anciently called the Spring of Ebraldus, in honor of Blessed Robert, who drank from that spring and in the valley in which it rises established the head monastery of the Order, is called by no other name than the Spring of Saint Robert. So closely has this appellation of Saint adhered to the Servant of God that it is celebrated by the common voice of the peoples."

[21] But previously, on page 13, the following had been related: "The body was carried with great pomp to the monastery of Fontevraud, followed by Leodegar, Archbishop of Bourges. Coming to meet the sacred relics were Fulk, Count of Anjou, Ralph, Archbishop of Tours, Reginald, Bishop of Angers, and whose relics are publicly honored many Abbots, innumerable Priests, with an infinite multitude of the people. His heart was retained at Orsan, where it is enclosed in an honorific pyramid. The altar that is nearest is called the Altar of the Sacred Heart." And on page 29 it is said that Archbishop Leodegar of Bourges wished to be buried at Orsan, where the sacred heart of Blessed Father Robert is venerated with great devotion of the peoples. We do not fear, therefore, that anyone will reproach us for so freely adorning him with the title of Blessed, which was already attributed to him some 500 years ago and more by a most distinguished Bishop, and who has been called Saint from time immemorial by the unanimous piety of the peoples, even in the sacred Litanies.

[22] The annual commemoration of Blessed Robert is noted by Saussay in the Corollary to the Gallic Martyrology, page 1216, and our Jacques Rinaldus in the Lilies of Holy France, as needing to be recorded on August 30, and both celebrate him with a notable eulogy. he died February 25 in the year 1117 Our Jacques Sirmond in his Notes to the letters of Abbot Geoffrey of Vendome, page 84, reveals the true birthday of Robert from the Chronicle of Saint-Aubin, where the following is found: "Year 1116. Robert of Arbrissel died on the fifth day before the Kalends of March. He was the founder of the monastery of Fontevraud." Charles Saussay asserts the same in Book 9 of the Aurelian History, number 12. Our Nicquet also informed us of the same by letter: for what he had previously supposed, that Robert died on the sixth day before the Kalends of March, he would take care to correct in his History, Book 1, chapter 35. That it is sufficiently established, from the consensus of the whole Order, that he died in the year of Christ 1117, which according to the French reckoning of that era was called 1116, since the beginning of the year was reckoned from the solemnity of Easter, which was finally amended under King Charles IX; moreover, on the feast of Saint Matthias the following is read in the Martyrology of the Order of Fontevraud for the following day: "On the same day, in the country of Bourges, at Orsan, his eulogy on that day in the Martyrology of the Order the glorious repose of the Reverend Lord Robert of Arbrissel, Doctor of Theology, venerable Priest, and our most beloved Father: who was a most Christian man, a splendid Morning Star of the Holy Church, and in holy preaching in a way another Paul. He was a native of the diocese of Rennes in the province of Brittany, and thoroughly filled with the spring of heavenly doctrine, and creditably grounded in religion, from the first stone the author of Fontevraud, he founded, built, and multiplied the basilica and very many cells of the same basilica, and in those same places, by God's inspiration, faithfully united men and women to serve Almighty God: whom also, while he still lived, he fully instructed both by the examples and rules of the Holy Fathers and by every sound doctrine, both by word and example. This strong athlete, the most faithful steward of the word of the Lord, while according to his custom he was proceeding to foreign nations for the sake of holy preaching, at the aforesaid place which he himself had built with God's favor, which is called Orsan, and is separated from the city of Bourges by eighteen miles, that is, twelve leagues, at God's call, old and full of days, having entered upon the way of all flesh, with heaven rejoicing and earth weeping, resting in a glorious end, he returned his body to the earth and his spirit to heaven, in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand one hundred and seventeen."

Section III. The sanctity of Blessed Robert celebrated by the testimonies of illustrious men. His tomb.

[23] I think it will be worthwhile if I briefly collect here from both of the booklets already cited the praises with which eminent writers Blessed Robert praised by Supreme Pontiffs and other illustrious men, and especially the Pontiffs, have adorned the virtues and holiness of Robert. URBAN II, Supreme Pontiff, appointed him an Apostolic Preacher: for he understood, as Baldric relates in the Life, that the Holy Spirit had opened his mouth. PASCHAL II, while Robert was still alive, called him "a man of great religion, a venerable man." CALLISTUS II, after his death, called him "of blessed memory, of venerable memory": HONORIUS II, "of happy remembrance." LUCIUS II, "a Presbyter of blessed memory, of proven religion": delegates of SIXTUS IV, "a Father worthy of remembrance."

[24] Bishop Baldric, who as we said in the preceding section, several times called him absolutely Blessed Robert, by Bishops elsewhere calls him "a holy and just man." Elsewhere he writes thus: "May the Holy Spirit therefore assist my obedience, and may the holiness of Lord Robert support me." Then: "I would indeed call this man a habitation of Jesus Christ, and an organ of the Holy Spirit, the Respondent and Vicar of the Most High, anointed with His sermons." And afterward: "Lord Robert, a spring of preaching, a spring of religion, a unique sower of the word, a distinguished and eminent Doctor, admirable in words and works, a Man to be exalted and imitated." But these and other things may be read below in Baldric himself. Peter II, Bishop of Poitiers, in a certain document written at Poitiers in the year 1106, says: "A certain apostolic man, Robert of Herbressello by name, wisely devoted to the word of divine preaching, and by the thunder of holy exhortation recalling many persons, both men and women, from worldly luxury, founded in our diocese a certain church in honor of Saint Mary the Virgin, in the place which is called Fontevraud, which place Aremburgis, wife of Wido, son of Osmund, and Rivaria her daughter, gave him for the building of the aforesaid church." The same Peter in another document calls him "a religious man, devoted to the word of holy preaching": and the same elsewhere, "a man of great religion and good repute." Gerard, Bishop of Angouleme, a very great man, had he not afterward dishonored his distinguished ornaments of virtue by fostering the schism of Anacletus, called him "a man of blessed memory and great sanctity."

[25] Peter Abelard, the Abbot, called him "an illustrious herald of Christ." The records of the abbey of Sainte-Marie de la Roe call him "a man of great authority and infinite religion." Fulk, Count of Anjou, "a most distinguished man of great religion and probity." Fulk the Younger, likewise Count of Anjou, "a most religious man, whose admirable doctrine shines by the word of holy preaching and the thunder of holy exhortation through the whole Church with his eloquence." and by other illustrious men Aremburgis the Countess, wife of Fulk, "a man of great religion, a wise steward of the word of Evangelical preaching." Others finally, "a most holy man." Andrew, moreover, begins the Life that we shall give below thus: "By the interceding merits of the one about whom I am going to speak, may the grace of the Holy Spirit be present to me." Afterward he calls him "the Lamp of hermits, a man praiseworthy from every mouth." The Abbots whom Blessed Robert consulted when the election of the first Abbess was being discussed, said: "Your counsel, dearest Father, ought rather to be followed in this matter: especially since we know for certain that among all the other mortals of our age your counsel prevails: for God has given you to the world as a counselor of souls."

[26] If anyone should seek the testimonies of more recent writers concerning the same holy man, he has above in section 1, number 2, that of the great Cardinal Caesar Baronius: in the epitome of whose Annals at the year 1117, Henry Sponde, Bishop of Pamiers in France, also by more recent writers calls Blessed Robert "a man of extraordinary learning and probity." Anthony of Yepes, volume 7 of the Benedictine History, "a pious and holy man." Claude Robert in his Gallia Christiana, treating of the abbey of Sainte-Marie de la Roe, "a man of great authority and infinite religion." An excellent encomium of him was also composed by Andrew Saussay and Jacques Rinaldus, cited above, who call him absolutely Blessed Robert.

[27] Most of the praises of others were collected or surpassed by Leodegar, Archbishop of Bourges, who (as is said in the Glory of Blessed Robert), since he could not retain intact in his diocese, in which he had died, the relics of the venerable servant of God, by the funeral oration of the Archbishop of Bourges lest the diocese of Bourges should be utterly deprived of so great a treasure, at last obtained at least the heart from Petronilla, the first Abbess, who was present: and he himself followed the body of the deceased all the way to the greater monastery of Fontevraud: where he honored him with a funeral oration, which Father Yves Magistri published in French. From it the following is expressed in Latin: "'The Lord guards the bodies of His Saints': this is what their sacred relics attest. Your Father's body also attests this, which, although prepared with no spices, has exhaled no fetid odor to this day, even though it has remained lifeless for many days. Which is a most certain proof of his remarkable holiness, which he maintained only by abstinence from the pleasures of the world, fervor of spirit, and an austere manner of living," etc.

[28] "God had provided for this age the most pious Father Master Robert: that as long as he lived, he would be a lamp not hidden under a bushel, which would illuminate the minds of sinners with the rays of the Sun of justice, the darkness of wickedness being driven away. For which of you does not know that that eminent cultivator of the desert was to some indeed an odor of life unto life, and compared with the Patriarchs but to others a sharp arrow of the Mighty One? I dare say that this Reverend Father did not lack the patience of Joseph, the constancy of Jeremiah, the zeal of Phinehas, and the charity of Tobias. He recalled David, when he passed through the desert and pressed on through a thousand perils of life toward the kingdom. He was a sharer in the counsel and skill of Daniel, and obtained the equity of Samuel. Imitating the Forerunner of the Lord, he led an anchoritic life; he relieved hunger with herbs, thirst only with cold water, and covered his body with a hair shirt. I say that he was a partaker of Pauline eloquence," etc. "He was the foot of the lame, the eye of the blind, the consolation of the afflicted, the father of orphans, the bridegroom of holy widows, the guardian and paranymph of Virgins, the refuge of the wretched, the expeller of all vices, the author of virtues, the concord of the quarrelsome," etc. And this last thing is noted to have been remarkable in Blessed Robert, "as each one has his own gift from God, who distributes to each as He wills."

[29] These and other things were said by that Archbishop at the funeral of Blessed Robert, whose mausoleum, as Baldric calls it, before the high altar, rested on four columns: his effigy was carved on the upper stone: His tomb honored his garb was sacerdotal, a pastoral staff, hands covered with gloves, a ring inserted on the finger. Moreover, that mausoleum was held in such veneration that the nuns formerly made their religious vows before it. In the year 1623 a new and much more magnificent altar was erected, consecrated on October 8 by Philip Cospeau, then Bishop of Nantes, who enclosed in it relics of the Virgin Mother of God and of Saint John the Evangelist (to whose honor it was particularly dedicated), as well as some of Saint John the Baptist and Saint Louis the King. On account of the construction of this altar, the tomb of Blessed Robert had to be moved a little further away, renewed placed likewise under a new mausoleum, most skillfully crafted: at the corners of which are various sentences from sacred Scripture, engraved in golden letters on black marble: his effigy of white marble, in sacerdotal garb, reclining in a likewise marble tomb. When the former tomb was opened, many whole bones were found: which were placed in a leaden casket, together with a not inconsiderable quantity of dust into which the remaining members had dissolved, and likewise with dust found in the tomb of Peter, Bishop of Poitiers.

[30] This inscription was added to that new tomb: "The Venerable Robert of Arbrissel of former times, with this inscription added a most pious man, and burning with zeal for souls, by the divine eloquence in which he was most powerful, led many mortals of both sexes, who followed him to desert places, to the service of God and the contempt of the world, and on that occasion was the first to establish the Order of Fontevraud: and he arranged for various dwellings to be built, especially for the devout female sex. He wished this monastery to be the head of them all: in which he placed an Abbess over not only the Virgins and women dedicated to God, but also the religious men; who approved this way of life by the holy Apostolic See from its very beginning to these times, and augmented it with various privileges and royal gifts. He died in the year 1117. Louise de Bourbon, Superior of this monastery and indeed of the whole Order, arranged for this mausoleum, adorned with a new frame, to be completed in the name of the whole Order, as for the best of fathers, in the year 1623."

Section IV. The first companions of Blessed Robert in the eremitical and apostolic life.

[31] Of those praises of Robert that were gathered in section 2, number 18, one thing remains: to show that his sanctity was confirmed from heaven by miracles. But first a certain supplement must be added concerning his deeds, which were passed over by both writers of the Life but have been related by ancient authors. Concerning the first companions and helpers of Blessed Robert in the undertaking of apostolic labors, William of Newburgh, who testifies that he was born in the year 1135, in Book 1 of English Affairs, chapter 15, already cited above, writes thus: "In the lands across the sea, Blessed Robert preaches with the Blessed Bernard and Vitalis as I have received from my elders, there were at one time three memorable men, namely Robert, surnamed of Arbusculo, Bernard, and Vitalis. These, not ignobly learned and fervent in spirit, went about through castles and villages, and sowing according to Isaiah upon all waters, they gathered abundant fruits from the conversion of many: having established among themselves by mutual agreement that Robert should bear the care of the common labor of women converted to better things, these of men while Bernard and Vitalis should provide more attentively for the males. Isa. 32:20 Robert therefore built that most famous monastery of women of Fontevraud and formed it with regular disciplines: Bernard at Tiron, and Vitalis at Savigny, having regularly established monks, each distinguished his own from the others by certain distinctive precepts. he establishes convents of women And when from these three roots religious shoots of servants and handmaids of God sprouted through diverse provinces, certain monks of Savigny founded our Byland." These things are indeed to be understood in this sense: that while Bernard and Vitalis established congregations of men, Robert also gathered women, and indeed with special zeal, inasmuch as he subjected men, and indeed himself, to the spiritual ministry of women: wherefore women especially, and perhaps even those who had been converted by those two, flocked to him.

[32] By what reason, however, friendship grew among those holy men is related thus in the Life of Blessed Bernard of Ponthieu, the first Abbot of Tiron, by Geoffrey Grossus, a contemporary author, in chapter 11. For Bernard, when he was administering the monastery of Saint-Savin with the title of Prior, since Abbot Gervasius had gone abroad and then died; having learned (as that writer says) the will of the monks, who were planning to make him their Abbot, Bernard fled lest he be made Abbot he secretly departed from them, intending to seek a thing he had desired for many years, namely the pursuit of the anchoritic life, and to acquire his sustenance by the labor of his hands. Not very far from the monastery of Saint-Savin there dwelt a certain venerable and religious hermit named Peter de Stella, who afterward became the founder of the monastery called Fons Gombaudi. To him Bernard turned, since he was already known and familiar to him, and revealed the reason he had come. he had fled to Peter de Stella Peter received him with great eagerness of soul: but because he was in the vicinity of the monks, who were striving to make him their Abbot against his will, he could not keep him with him for long, much as he desired it. Bernard, however, burning with desire for the poverty and solitude he had long wished for, and at the same time vehemently fearing that, unless he departed more quickly, he would be compelled to become Abbot, entangled in the cares of the pastoral office, at the urging of his Abbot or Bishop, earnestly begged Peter to remove him from there quickly and secretly, and to lead him to the unknown solitudes of a most remote region. Peter therefore, yielding to the prayers of the petitioner, became the guide of the journey and fulfilled what was asked. led by him into the desert to the Blessed Robert, Vitalis, and Ralph There were, moreover, on the border of the regions of Le Mans and Brittany, vast solitudes, which at that time, like a second Egypt, flourished with a multitude of hermits dwelling in various cells, holy men and famous for the excellence of their religious life. Among whom were the leaders and masters Robert of Abresello, and Vitalis of Mortain, and also Ralph of Fustaye, who afterward became founders of many and great congregations: to whom the Divine Providence, through Peter, who had known them previously, took care to add this fourth, so that with a fourth added to those three a firm square might be formed, which was afterward to bear great and broad buildings.

[33] He then continues in chapter 12: "Peter de Stella, having completed a journey of many days, arrived at Lord Vitalis, one of the above-mentioned, afterward founder of a convent of nuns whom we have already said were the leaders and masters of the hermits." So he writes. Ralph, moreover (who is here joined with those three holy hermits), was also a master of nuns, just like Blessed Robert. Concerning him, Jean-Baptiste Souchet, Canon of Chartres, in his Observations on chapter 11 of the Life of Blessed Bernard, page 187, writes the following: "Ralph was first a monk of the monastery of Hendion, which is now called Saint-Jouin-de-Marnes in Poitou; then a cultivator of the desert; and finally the director and procurator (by which name Robert of Arbrissel is also called in the index of the Le Mans codex in Sirmond's Observations on letter 47 of Book 4 of Geoffrey of Vendome, instead of 'founder') of Saint-Sulpice of the nuns: among whom he put off his humanity on the 17th day before the Kalends of September, 1129, and is buried in their church with a great reputation for holiness."

[34] That sojourn of holy men in the desert, moreover, took place after the Council of Clermont, which was held in the year 1095: but before the Council of Poitiers, which was held in 1100. Concerning this latter, Ivo of Chartres writes in letter 211 to Ralph, Archbishop of Rheims: at the Council of Poitiers in the year 1100 "The legates of Fulk, Count of Anjou, calculated the same consanguinity at another time in the aforesaid Court (namely of the Lord Pope, as he had said before), and proved it, when Philip, King of France, was accused of having taken away from the same Count, his kinsman, his wife, whom he also unlawfully retained. On account of which accusation and the proof of the crime committed, the King was excommunicated by the Lord Pope Urban at the Council of Clermont. And when after the divorce the aforesaid King had returned to the company of the aforesaid woman, he was excommunicated at the Council of Poitiers by the Cardinals John and Benedict." Ivo also mentions that council elsewhere: Baronius recites its Canons at that year in the Annals. Blessed Robert of Arbrissel and Blessed Bernard of Tiron were present at the same council, the Blessed Robert and Bernard are present as Geoffrey narrates in chapter 23 of the latter's Life: "At the same time," he says, "two Cardinals, John and Benedict, performing the legation of the Apostolic See, convoked a council at the city of Poitiers, at which 140 Fathers were present: who also struck Philip, King of France, with the punishment of anathema on account of the wife of Fulk, Count of Anjou, whom he was holding in adultery."

[35] When this excommunication was learned, William, Duke of Aquitaine, who was present, an enemy of all chastity and sanctity, fearing lest he should suffer a similar punishment for similar faults, nor are they moved by danger of death inflamed with excessive fury, ordered them all to be plundered, scourged, and killed. When his servants began to do this, the Bishops and Abbots fled here and there, and strove to seek safe hiding places in order to preserve their temporal life. But Bernard and Robert of Arbrissel, who were present at the council, most brave champions of justice and vanquishers of all iniquity and injustice, while others were shamefully fleeing, stood so immovable and constant that they neither desisted from the begun excommunication; but considered it most glorious to suffer death or insult for Christ: and although the persecutors did not inflict death upon them, these men, as far as it was in them, endured martyrdom.

[36] Souchet, from the Chronicle of Maillezais cited in Besly, notes the following: "On the 13th day before the Kalends of November there was a council, which two Cardinals, John and Benedict, held... to one of them, John by name, Saint Hilary appeared, and the Apostolic Legate, who was confirmed in a dream by Saint Hilary and said to him by way of confirmation: 'John, do not be afraid; act manfully; tomorrow I will be with you': and he excommunicated King Philip." Jean Bouchet, in the Annals of Aquitaine, part 3, chapter 2, relates that when the King learned that a council was to be held at Poitiers, he asked William, Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitiers, his kinsman, not to suffer such an injury to be inflicted upon him in his city: that William immediately ordered the Legates and other Bishops to leave the city at once: that one of the Legates asked for a space to deliberate, and that on the following night Saint Hilary appeared to him and warned him not to be terrified by the threats of the Duke, for he would be present with him: that the Duke, when the Legate reported this to him the next day, permitted him to complete everything as he judged best. he excommunicates the King The same is narrated in Baronius from Bouchet, and in the Notes to the Council of Poitiers, volume 26 of the Councils, as published at Paris from the Royal press. The same council is discussed in a fragment of the History of France, volume 4 of Chesne, but no mention of the apparition of Saint Hilary is made there. That Duke William, of whom mention is made here, was the father of the William whom Saint Bernard of Clairvaux recalled from schism to render obedience to the legitimate Pontiff. We treated of the father on February 10 in the Life of Saint William the Hermit, section three, and afterward of the son.

[37] At the time of that Council of Poitiers, Blessed Bernard was Abbot of the monastery of Saint-Cyprian near Poitiers: Robert had perhaps already relinquished the abbey of La Roe, or certainly soon relinquished it, as did Bernard his own. Concerning the latter, Geoffrey writes in chapter 24 of his Life: "Burning with love of poverty and solitude, he returned to the seclusion of the desert, from which he had been drawn by fraudulent violence, and found his mind, which had remained there. Being joined Blessed Robert preaches with the Blessed Bernard and Vitalis through France with Lord Robert of Arbrissel and Vitalis of Mortain, of whom we have already made mention above, they traversed the regions of France with bare feet: in villages, castles, and cities they preached the word of God, snatching men from the errors of their life; like strong and most powerful battering rams, aided by the forces of Divine power, with the greatest fruit they struck and broke down the walls of unbelief and vices, tore out the hearts of men from the error of perishable things, destroyed their evil conversations that corrupt good morals, scattered the wickedness of evil works, dissipated the accumulated mass of all iniquity, planted virtues in their hearts with God as author, and built up and strengthened those that had been planted by their example: and although they were not raisers of dead corpses, they did what is greater, that is, they brought to life souls dead in sins, as if by miracle and joined those brought to life to God, the true life. Performing such signs, therefore, sometimes together, sometimes singly, they went about through diverse provinces: for whom, the devil contriving, tribulations were not lacking."

[38] The same writer, chapter 42: "While therefore Bernard was building his monastery in France, Robert of Arbrissel had built his in Aquitaine, Ralph of Fustaye in Brittany, while Vitalis of Mortain was constructing his in Normandy: each establishes his own Order in different provinces whose heavenly Judge wished them to remain far from each other and separated in different regions, because each one of them built so many and such great monasteries that one region could by no means contain them, one province would by no means suffice for the congregations brought together by them." So he writes. The monastery of the Holy Trinity of Tiron, founded by Blessed Bernard, is in the diocese of Chartres. Fontevraud, as was said before, is beyond the Loire, which is the northern boundary of Aquitaine. Savigny is in the diocese of Avranches, on the extreme coast of Normandy, afterward attached to the Cistercian institutes by the Venerable Serlo, with twenty-seven others, and this in the year 1153, by the authority of Pope Eugenius III. Ralph built the convent of nuns of Saint-Sulpice near Rennes. Souchet enumerates individually, in his Observations on the said chapter 42 of Geoffrey, all the monasteries that depend from Savigny, and those from Tiron and Fontevraud.

Section V. Miracles of Blessed Robert.

[39] We shall now come to the miracles. Rightly the author of the Glory of Blessed Robert says at the very beginning of the booklet: Blessed Robert distinguished by miracles "Supreme Pontiffs, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Historians, and various writers have commended his holiness; the honor and veneration paid to the sacred relics testifies to the esteem of holiness in which he is held: the Miracles also testify."

[40] Bishop Baldric seems to have seen or wished to publish only those miracles that were performed by him in the healing of souls. "Let anyone express," he says in the Life, "what he has felt: I boldly say that Robert was abundant in miracles, imperious over demons, not only spiritual glorious over earthly Princes. For who in our time

has healed so many sick, cleansed so many lepers, raised so many dead? He who is of the earth speaks earthly things and admires miracles wrought upon bodies: but he who is spiritual in the healing of souls testifies that the sick and lepers and the dead too have been restored to health, when anyone cares for and heals souls that are sick and leprous and need to be raised." Finally, "(if I may say it with everyone's leave) through which of the Pastors has the Lord spoken so much, worked so much?" These words agree with what we reported above in section 3, number 37, from Geoffrey concerning Blessed Robert and Blessed Bernard, that they did something greater while they brought to life souls dead in sins and joined those brought to life to God, the true life, than if they had healed the most grievous diseases and wounds of bodies.

[41] But what more illustrious miracle could be desired than a religious Order conformed by his distinguished institutes and so expanded that while he was still alive three thousand members were counted, thirty monasteries, and, which is the chief thing, after so many centuries flourishing with a constant reputation for holiness -- not without the manifest patronage of its Founder before God? I remember that about forty-four years ago, when a conversation arose at the home of Matthias Hovius, Archbishop of Mechelen and Primate of our Belgium, and by the institution and wonderful propagation of the Order about enrolling our Blessed Ignatius, parent of our Society, in the register of Saints, and someone said that to accomplish this, miracles had to be produced; that most wise and most serious Bishop said that he desired no other miracles besides the Society itself founded by him: that he himself, supported by the revenues of a large Archbishopric, by the favor of the Princes Albert and Isabella of Austria, and by the favorable attentions of the Clergy and all the Orders, had labored for so many years in erecting a seminary; while Ignatius, relying on no resources of fortune, on no favor or commendation of Princes, in a short time had established so great a congregation of religious men, and had seen it confirmed with the best laws, propagated to the ends of the earth, and bearing the most abundant fruits. and by the persisting piety to this day The same thing can truly be said with merit about the Order of Fontevraud; that it could not have grown in so short a time by the industry of one man, without the special assistance of the Deity; nor could the pursuit of perfection have flourished so long in it, unless the Founder, received into heaven, were continually caring for it, arousing holy desires with heavenly aid, and advancing the labors of both the nuns and the monks.

[42] Nor were those external miracles lacking to Robert which mortals are especially accustomed to admire. but also by other external miracles In the Corollary of the Gallic Martyrology, Andrew Saussay writes thus about him: "Consummated in all holiness, he happily expired at the monastery of Orsan, afterward glorified by divine signs, with which he still shines." Jacques Rinaldus in the above-cited Lilies of Holy France: "From the monastery of Orsan, about to receive in heaven the crowns due to his battles and victories, he departed, while he triumphs here in miracles." Nor is it surprising that no miracles that occurred after the death of Blessed Robert are commemorated by Baldric, since he collected his Life most briefly after a short space of time had elapsed since his death. Andrew, moreover, pursued almost only those things that Robert did in the final period. his lifeless body does not smell foul for a long time It seemed to Archbishop Leodegar to have the appearance, not vain, of a miracle, as he himself testifies above in section 3, number 27, that his body, although prepared with no spices, exhaled no fetid odor, even though it remained lifeless for many days. "Which is a most certain proof," he says, "of his remarkable holiness."

[43] Nicquet narrates certain more recent miracles in his Fontevraud History: and this first from Book 1, chapter 36. As we have said, the heart of Blessed Robert was placed upon a marble pyramid in the church of the monastery of Orsan, three feet high, which is still seen there, sufficiently close to the high altar at the horn of the Gospel, as they say, against the wall of the church. It is not, however, intact now: for in the year 1570, when the Duke of Zweibrucken had come to France with German forces to aid the heretics, a heretic soldier who violates his relics is struck with blindness a certain soldier of his, wishing to break it, battered it with several blows. Nor was heavenly vengeance lacking: the sacrilegious man was struck with blindness and, as some have reported, with rigidity of one arm. But soon, as if the light were transferred to his mind, he recognized why that punishment had been inflicted upon him, detested the crime and the heresy from which it arose: he vowed to complete nine days of prayerful vigils there: converted, after nine days he recovers his sight and when these were finished, the faculty of seeing was restored to him. So the inhabitants of Orsan still relate, who received it from their parents, eyewitnesses.

[44] In the same church of Orsan in the year 1634, where the heart of Blessed Robert is preserved (which the people call the Holy Heart, and frequents and venerates with great piety), Masses of the Most Holy Trinity began to be celebrated, by which thanks would be given to God for the extraordinary gifts divinely bestowed upon that holy man. Then indeed the same church was spontaneously filled with a most sweet odor, a certain heavenly and invisible incense. a sweet odor at the Holy Heart The nuns of that monastery publicly testified to this, whose names are given in Nicquet, Book 2, chapter 15, as well as the physician Hugaultius and others, to whom it is permitted to enter within the enclosure of the monastery for the care of the sick. Louis Perrier, a Priest of the same order, testified that he had perceived the same fragrance, and at other relics of Blessed Robert both at Orsan before that holy Heart, and at Fontevraud when he had certain relics of Blessed Robert within his cell.

[45] In the same monastery of Orsan, both arms of Sister Gabrielle d'Assy were dissolved by paralysis from December of the year 1633 for five full months. by his aid, paralysis was healed Very many remedies were applied, to no avail. Finally, on the Monday of Easter, the 17th of April, it was decided that forty hours of continuous prayers should be made, by which the Divine goodness might be moved to come to the aid of the sick woman, and in that manner manifest the glory of the holy Founder: and when the sacred Eucharist had been received by all to that end, health was divinely restored to Gabrielle: and this is confirmed by the testimony of all of them and of the above-mentioned physician.

[46] A loathsome carcinoma on the left hand of Joanna Moussy, a religious woman of Orsan, the size of a walnut, had tormented her for several months. The aid of Blessed Robert having been implored repeatedly, a carcinoma no other medicine being applied, on the feast of All Saints of the year 1634, the evil subsided and entirely vanished. She herself and the physician testified to this.

[47] In the year 1635, at Caudenac in Bourbonnais, a severe fever had brought Henry Assius almost to the point of death: a malignant fever all the art of physicians was in vain: the mind of his mother, Margaret Lassaigne, was struck by the remembrance of miracles that were said to be worked through the merits of Blessed Robert: she made a vow to him: the fever instantly subsided, and health returned to the boy.

[48] I shall conclude this chapter with these words, which are read in the Glory of Blessed Robert, page 49: "How many, freed from various diseases by the invocation of the Servant of God, or by some act of devotion exhibited at his tomb, or by drinking the water of the spring other diseases that bears the name of Saint Robert, can be seen in the investigation made in June of the year 1644, concerning which a public investigation was taken at the monastery of Fontevraud, by the authority of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Bishop of Poitiers. And since his canonization is now being urged at the holy Apostolic See, God continues to reveal the holiness of His servant by wonderful signs."

Section VI. A letter fabricated under the name of Abbot Geoffrey of Vendome against Blessed Robert is refuted.

[49] Before we present the Life of Blessed Robert published by two contemporary writers, I think one stain, which could obscure all the honors both already mentioned by us and to be mentioned in the Life, ought to be wiped off here in passing. It was cast by a reproachful letter, which appears in Book 4 of the Letters of Geoffrey, Abbot of Vendome, as number forty-seven, with this title: "Geoffrey, humble servant of the monastery of Vendome, Blessed Robert in a letter published under the name of Geoffrey of Vendome to his much beloved brother in Christ, to preserve the measure of discretion and to be content with the boundaries that the fathers have set." Then in the very body of the letter: "To act in nothing beyond what ought to be done is angelic perfection: which our condition can by no means have as long as we are here. Therefore, since we do not have the perfection of an angel, let us by no means have the presumption of the devil. We have proposed these things, venerable brother, because we have heard by circulating unfavorable rumor that you have done and still do such things: which, if they are true, we admonish your simplicity with the bowels of brotherly charity, not to defend them with any excuse, but to correct them with all speed. he is accused of excessive familiarity with women and of rashness For we have heard that concerning the female sex, which you have undertaken to govern, you make yourself solicitous in two ways, one entirely contrary to the other, so that in both you entirely exceed the measure of discretion. You permit certain women (as is said) to dwell with you too familiarly: to whom you speak private words frequently, and you are not ashamed to lie down with them frequently, even at night, and among them. Hence you seem to yourself, as you assert, to carry the Cross of the Lord Savior worthily, when you attempt to extinguish the wrongly kindled flame of the flesh. If you are doing this now, or have ever done it, you have found a new and unheard-of, but fruitless, kind of martyrdom."

[50] And with certain things interjected to the same effect, these words are added: "You have indeed ascended, as it were, a high mountain in the world; and by this you have turned the tongues and eyes of men upon yourself. Therefore, standing on the mountain, see that you do not fall: nor by a martyrdom utterly unknown to the holy Martyrs, leave a mark of infamy upon the beginning of your religious life. Also, let none of your actions stir up scandal for the world, which almost entirely follows you. For it would be a heavier damnation for you, the ruin of many. To certain of the women, as rumor has spread and we have said before, you often speak privately, and by lying in their company you torment yourself with a certain new kind of martyrdom. To them you always show yourself cheerful in speech and harshness against others and eager in action, and you exhibit every kind of courtesy, observing no restraint. But to others, if ever you speak with them, you always appear too harsh in speech, too strict in correction: those others you also torment with hunger and thirst and nakedness, all pity being abandoned," etc. And finally the writer concludes the letter thus: "Farewell, and we humbly beg you to make us partakers of your holy prayers."

[51] It has been the craftiness of the devil at all times that whenever he saw men outstanding in virtue and knowledge those who holily seek the salvation of others are always attacked by calumnies devoting themselves to the procurement of others' salvation, and unable to be circumvented by any of his frauds or recalled from their purpose of cultivating and instilling piety in others, he should try to brand them with some infamy, their doctrine or morals being called into suspicion: reckoning that if any opinion of error or even of ignorance, if any of cupidity, if any of lust, or certainly of levity, should be stirred up, they would immediately be despised, shunned, and the salutary counsels they had previously sown would be rejected. There is no need to confirm this with examples, since wicked men boasted that Christ Himself, the eternal Wisdom, the author of all holiness, was a drunkard and a blasphemer, and used the works of demons to perform miracles.

[52] Especially, however, if anyone has begun to devote his efforts to forming women for a holier life, the agents of the devil in this business are eager to brand him with the infamy of some turpitude. especially if they convert women to God For since women are by nature more modest and timid, immediately, if they have heard any such thing, they will fear lest by subtle speeches either a stain be gradually inflicted upon their modesty, or a reproach certainly be brought upon the respectability of their name. Saint Jerome, that supreme and most chaste doctor, because he was expounding the sacred Scriptures to certain Roman matrons and Virgins, whose zeal in the pursuit of piety was extraordinary, was denounced by many as a man of little modesty, especially when they had sent away luxury and the pomps of the world. He himself testifies to this and refutes the calumnies of the envious in this regard in letter 99 to Asella, where among other things he writes: "I lived with them for almost exactly three years. A great throng of Virgins frequently surrounded me. I frequently expounded the divine books, as I was able, to many: as Saint Jerome complains happened to him reading produced constancy, constancy familiarity, familiarity confidence. Let them say if they ever perceived anything in me other than what befitted a Christian. Did I accept anyone's money? Did I not spurn gifts, whether small or great? Did anyone's coin ring in my hand? Was my speech oblique, my eye wanton? Nothing else is objected against me, except my sex: and this is never objected, except when Paula and Melania set out for Jerusalem." And a little later: "Before I knew the house of Saint Paula, the attentions of the whole city were in agreement about me: by the judgment of almost everyone I was deemed worthy of the highest priesthood. Damasus of blessed memory was my discourse: they called me holy, they called me humble and eloquent. Did I ever enter the house of any woman of loose character? Did silken garments, shining gems, a painted face, the ambition of gold, captivate me? There was no other matron in Rome who could captivate my mind, except one who was mourning and fasting, squalid with filth, almost blinded by weeping, whom the sun often found beseeching the Lord's mercy through the continuous nights. Whose song was the psalms, whose speech the Gospel, whose delights continence, whose life fasting. No other could delight me, except one whom I never saw eating. But after I began to venerate, honor, and admire her for the merit of her chastity, all virtues immediately deserted me. O envy, first biting of yourself! O cunning of Satan, always persecuting holy things!" He adds more to the same effect.

[53] But if any such mystagogue's virtue has been so publicly proven that no suspicion of crime can fall upon him, wicked men contrive something by which they may at least fasten upon him some mark of rashness and excessive self-confidence. Well known in our annals is that professor of a most religious order who, being of no very favorable mind toward our men, and unable to bear that their integrity and their circumspect manner of conversing with every order and sex should be celebrated in the talk of all the people, such a calumny fabricated against Blessed Robert spread abroad among the common folk that they suppressed the stirring of lust by the aid of a certain exotic herb. More atrocious was the calumny that was cast upon that most holy man Robert of Arbrissel, either by sinister rumors dissipated through the mouths of men, or by the letter fabricated under the name of Geoffrey, that most weighty man, which we have mentioned. The author of this letter says that he heard what he writes by circulating unfavorable rumor. But how could that rumor circulate, when the nuns are so strictly kept from the sight even of the religious men of the same institute it is refuted from the constitutions of the Order that not even the Abbess, Deaconess, or Prioress, if she wishes to confess when seized by illness, can summon a Priest to her bed; but it is prescribed in these words in the constitutions, according to Nicquet, Book 3, chapter 12, that "whoever she may be, being transported to the Chapel, she may confess and communicate there, and after communicating, the Priest having departed, she may be carried back to her bed." How then could Robert approach women so enclosed, or they approach him? Or who could believe that one who wished to provide for the security of their modesty with such great care, was himself conversing with them even at night?

[54] If, moreover, that rumor had spread widely, so as to reach Geoffrey in Chartres, how did it not reach the neighboring Bishop of Poitiers, from the favor of the Bishops toward him and cause him not to commend Robert so handsomely before the Pontiff, or even to tolerate him in his diocese? How did that rumor not then reach the court of the Pontiff in some other manner, and of the Pontiffs where rarely are unknown those things which are narrated as worthy of censure about Ecclesiastical men, especially those not far removed? But they would not have favored Robert with such great esteem, nor adorned the Order with such ample privileges, if anything similar had even slightly come to their notice. Such honorable matrons and Virgins would not have dedicated themselves to this Order in such great numbers, from the accession of many to him if any of them had heard that any such thing had occurred: nor would so many pious men have wished to adhere to him, if they had felt themselves cast into such allurements by his example. What about his holy companions Bernard and Vitalis? Would they have especially entrusted women to be instructed by him, as one divinely endowed with a special talent for this, if they had suspected him of such great imprudence, or rather impudence? Or would not the same rumor have reached them too, and roused them from their monasteries to resist him to his face? and by piety For he would truly have been reprehensible if he had attempted any such thing. How could the spirit of piety and the fear of God be kindled and fostered in the souls of women, very many of whom he had extracted from the mire of sins, if he did not abstain as far as possible from all such blandishment? Away then, sons of Belial, if any, even in jest, have said any such thing about a most holy man. Nor do I think anyone is so ignorant of Christian discipline as to think that such things could have come into the mind of a pious and wise man.

[55] What then of Geoffrey, why does he reprove his friend with such weighty words, if he did not believe it? Why did he not rather write is Geoffrey the author of the letter, perhaps too credulous? that he had heard such a reproach, but could not believe it? I do not deny that certain men endowed with vehement zeal, even though otherwise learned, sometimes give credence to crimes fabricated against pious men, even if they have heard them from only one or two persons; or at least, because they fear they may be true, they are more severely disturbed when they hear them. I could, if the reverence we owe to religious antiquity did not forbid, bring forward some who, upon the report of even one person, even a false or rashly exaggerated one, directed a violent pen against certain persons. Perhaps this writer too suffered something human, and called a witticism of some impudent man "a circulating rumor." Certainly he seemed rather harsh to some.

[56] I shall say plainly what I think. That letter was not written by Geoffrey: it could not have been nor will anyone easily show a time at which it could have been written by him, or an occasion given by Robert for it to be written. In the time of Urban II, Robert's eloquence, joined with the highest piety, was so celebrated by favorable talk of men at least before the year 1100 that the same Pontiff summoned him to himself, ordered him to preach before himself at Angers to an almost infinite multitude of people, and then appointed him an Apostolic Preacher, or, as Baldric says, "a second Sower of God's word after himself." Therefore that unfavorable rumor about Robert had not yet reached Geoffrey: otherwise, because of his great familiarity with the Pontiff, he would have warned him not to arm a man with such authority whose public behavior was so dangerous. And how could that charge then be brought against him, when no women yet followed Robert: nor indeed in the years immediately following, when he established and governed the abbey of La Roe for regular Canons?

[57] The Council of Poitiers was held in the time of Paschal II, in the year 1100, as we said above: "Not long afterward (as our Sirmond notes at letter 32, Book 4, of the same Geoffrey, from the Chronicle of Tours) the abbey of Fontevraud was built in the diocese of Poitiers." not immediately after that year At that time, you will say, even if this was not done by Robert, it was certainly spread and reported to Geoffrey; since the nuns were not yet so strictly enclosed. at the beginning of the Order But there was no reason for Geoffrey to write to Robert at that time, since he himself was frequently at Fontevraud, even before the nuns were so enclosed in the cloister, utterly removed from the sight of men. He himself testifies to this in the same Book 4, letter 32: "The reason," he says, for why would he write when he himself was frequently at Fontevraud? "that I was not with you at Easter was the infirmity of our body. For a hump grew on my back, from which I had to be cut. And although among the hands and tearful voices of the beloved nuns of God of Fontevraud, with the razor writing its letters in our flesh, our body was not a little wearied by infirmity and wound alike; neither the infirmity, nor the cruelty of the cutter, nor the harshness of the salt immediately applied, could cause me to forget you even for a moment." Geoffrey was so familiar at Fontevraud that he wished to have his hump cut away there, at the very beginnings of the monastery, as I think, since the nuns are said to have ministered to him, and he calls them "beloved of God." Why did he not then warn Robert, who was also beloved of God, if he had heard anything about him of the kind described? Why was it necessary to send so sharp a letter, and to preserve it in his papers so that posterity too might know of it? The same writer, Book 1, letter 24, writes that he came to Fontevraud to converse with the Bishop of Poitiers there. Then in letter 26 he says that he cannot safely proceed beyond Fontevraud. Therefore he was frequently there and familiar, no more with the nuns than with Robert.

[58] Nor can it seem to anyone that the letter was written after the Order was already founded and formed by its own laws: for how could the same Geoffrey have wished to enter into a most holy association with Robert and the nuns at that time, [not when the Order was mature, for he entered into an association with it in 1114] when he should rather have shunned both him and them on account of such great rashness, and the violation if not of modesty, certainly of the luster of modesty? That association, moreover, is found in the Chartulary of the greater monastery of Fontevraud, charter 27, in this formula: "We make known to future generations as well as to those present, that Lord Geoffrey, Abbot of Vendome, has the familiarity and benefice of this place called Fontevraud, before all and above all Abbots: and when he shall have died, we shall solemnly celebrate his anniversary every year. Concerning the Brothers, moreover, of the monastery of Vendome, of whom we shall have received notice, we shall do as much as for ourselves. The Lord Abbot himself, moreover, donated in perpetuity and granted to our monastery the share of the toll which he had at Saint-Florent from the sale of salt. These things were done in the Chapter of Fontevraud, in the presence of Lord Geoffrey, Abbot of Vendome, and Lord Robert, our Master, in the year 1114, Indiction 7."

[59] Is it not already sufficiently clear that neither could that rumor have been spread about Robert, nor the letter written by Geoffrey? And indeed, not even in the monastery of Vendome, in the manuscript codex of Geoffrey's works and letters -- the Abbot of that very place -- does that letter exist: nor is that letter in the Vendome manuscript codex which the Prior and Subprior of the same abbey testified and subscribed with their own hand, at the request of the Most Excellent and Most Reverend Jeanne-Baptiste de Bourbon, General Abbess of the greater monastery and of the whole Order of Fontevraud, as we said before; and it is preserved in the archive of the same monastery. Since, however, what is at stake here is a notable calumny inflicted upon the most holy Founder, and indeed upon the whole Order, many have wondered that our Father Jacques Sirmond, when he published the letters and other small works of Geoffrey from two manuscript codices, one from the monastery of Saint-Pierre de la Couture in Le Mans, the other from the monastery of Vendome, did not at least note that in the latter codex the letter is not found: from which at least some doubt could arise in the reader that it is not truly Geoffrey's. He confesses, indeed, that in the edition of Geoffrey's letters he followed principally the Le Mans codex, because not all were found in the Vendome codex. But from this we conjecture that the one who first copied the Le Mans codex compiled into one volume letters collected from everywhere that seemed to be Geoffrey's, and also this one, which bore his name. I also learned from a certain authority that Jacques Sirmond himself (for although there was frequent and familiar exchange of letters between us while he lived, it did not then come to my mind to question him about that letter of Geoffrey), Sirmond had resolved to expunge it in a second edition but I received from another sincere and serious man of our order, that he afterward judged entirely that the letter was not a genuine offspring of Geoffrey, the matter having been more maturely considered and the letter of Peter Abelard, which we shall soon cite, having been weighed; and that he had resolved, if he should again send Geoffrey's works to the press, to expunge that letter.

[60] Who then at last is the author of the letter? It might be suspected that when Robert stood so bravely for the authority of the Apostolic See at the Council of Poitiers in the year 1100, someone among the subjects of King Philip, angry with him for that reason, written perhaps by someone angry on the King's behalf directed this venomous writing against him while he was living in Aquitaine under the dominion of Duke William: or that some member of the sacred Order, goaded by the sting of envy because, as is said in the letter itself, the whole world was going after him, fabricated this calumny. For certainly in many monasteries as well, as James of Vitry complains in the place cited above, piety was extinguished and discipline dissolved: while secular Priests in Brittany, as is gathered from Baldric, and in Normandy, as Geoffrey writes in the Life of Blessed Bernard, (perhaps elsewhere too) were polluting the dignity of their state with the most shameful vices: or by an envious Ecclesiastic and therefore the Norman Priests and the wives of the Priests (for so he calls them) conspired to kill Bernard. Therefore someone of that kind of men could have devised this calumny against Robert, who was too unlike them in morals.

[61] But (as Sirmond also felt) Peter Abelard in letter 21 to G., Bishop of Paris, seems to me to indicate the true author: namely Roscelin, or Roscelinus, indeed the letter seems to have been fabricated by Roscelin, a wicked man who was condemned at the Council of Soissons in the year 1140, and was compelled to hand over his writings to the fire. Concerning him, Abelard writes among other things in the cited letter: "I give thanks to God... that I now seem to be numbered among good men, from the attacks of one who is known always to have been hostile only to the good, and whose life and doctrine are manifest to all. This man dared to FABRICATE A CONTUMACIOUS LETTER against that illustrious herald of Christ, Robert of Arbrissel: and against that magnificent Doctor of the Church, Anselm, Bishop of Canterbury, he burned to such insults that by the command of the King of England his shameless contumacy was ignominiously expelled from England, and he barely escaped with his life. For he wishes to have a partner in his infamy, so that through the infamy of good men he may console his own infamy: nor does he hate anyone but the good, who cannot endure to be good." So Abelard, and other things, against the frauds and fallacies of the wicked man. That word is especially to be weighed, that he writes the letter was "fabricated": because the slander was not composed in just any manner, but in the form of a letter, and because it was under another's name, it is rightly called fabricated, not simply written: and perhaps neither while Robert was alive, nor while Geoffrey himself was alive (who died in the year 1129), but afterward, so that a stain might be branded upon the name of both, which would redound to the contempt of the whole Order and the detriment of public piety, had not the deceit of the shameful man been timely detected and suppressed: which Abelard rightly calls a contumacious letter, because while the innocence of the Order and the sanctity of the Founder were celebrated in the talk of all, with a certain obstinacy of malice it impudently detracted from both.

LIFE OF BLESSED ROBERT

by Baldric, Bishop of Dol, published from old manuscripts of Fontevraud at La Fleche in the years 1641 and 1647.

Robert of Arbrissel, Founder of the Order of Fontevraud in France (Blessed)

BHL Number: 7259

By Baldric, Bishop.

PROLOGUE OF THE AUTHOR.

Baldric, by the grace of God Priest of Dol, though unworthy, to ^aPetronilla, the Venerable Handmaid of Christ, Abbess of the monastery of Fontevraud, and to all the nuns of the same monastery under her governance, Greetings.

[1] By no means without ^byou, indeed for your instruction, Petronilla who are the bride of God, I think this was said: "Hear, O daughter, and see," etc. Ps. 45:12 For you have heard, and truly you have heard, the voice of the one who announces: "Go forth from your land and from your kindred." Gen. 12:1 You went forth from whatever household was yours: you fled from your father's home: you abhorred the seductive allurements of the flesh that flattered you, and you came to Fontevraud: where you found and drank from an abundant spring, a spring of preaching, a spring of religion: namely Lord Robert, in our times a unique ^cSower of the Word, a distinguished and eminent Doctor, a disciple of Blessed Robert admirable in words and works, a man to be exalted and imitated. Here, having dwelt for some time among the Sisters and being instructed in holy conversation, having forgotten your people and the house of your father, with the Holy Spirit leading the way and the Lord Robert cooperating, previously married you were promoted to the office of Abbess: although you had previously served the unrest of the marriage chamber. For the necessity and benefit of the Holy Church frequently, and not without reason, obscure human institutions. ^dGod therefore raised you then Abbess of Fontevraud to a lofty throne, and set you over His people, with ^ePope Paschal approving. For ^fthat people -- a begging people, an orphan people -- needed such a Mother. By such a woman, I say, the women, who had accepted poverty solely for God's sake, were to be sustained as by a caretaker. And you shall have done well if you extend yourself entirely to their care: if you sacrifice yourself as a beast of burden to the burden undertaken: if you consider yourself the lowest of all.

[2] For the aforesaid Robert has entered upon the way of our Fathers: so that of the same Robert, now dead and, as is believed, having put off mortality, he has obtained from God the robe of immortality, crowned with it. What, however, should chiefly be done in his remembrance -- whether to weep or to rejoice -- can be determined with difficulty: since our humanity compels us to weep for the absence of our dearest friend; and since our Robert has flown away to the court of our God, about to intercede for us, security bids us to rejoice. Since, however, we do not yet know which of these two things should chiefly be done, let us in the meantime extend ourselves to both, and exercise ourselves in both until we are gradually drawn out of the valley of tears. Therefore let our eye weep and flow, because a good and eloquent doctor and friend of God has departed from us. Let our heart rejoice, because our Robert has preceded us from the filthy exile of this world to the dwelling place destined for us. His manner of life while he lived on earth, she urges him to write the Life how far it was removed from the common manner of life of men, most beloved Mother, you have commanded our littleness to describe, so that it might be committed to the record of letters, in order that the benefit of human frailty might be attended to in some way in the future. For if we find the footsteps of the Fathers written down, we much more readily imitate those whom we trust to be intercessors praying for us. This work would indeed require a Virgilian or Ciceronian style. You have imposed a great and heavy burden upon our weakness, Lady Petronilla: since both many a ^gstorm of the unstable world disturbs me, the author excuses his own slightness and especially the bestial and twofold ferocity of Lesser Brittany, in which I dwell with scorpions, has surrounded me. Finally, how will he keep the polished art of writing, whom no drop from the Sallustian bucket has ever moistened? I ask, with what rash audacity, with what gaping mouth shall I name Robert, a holy and just man, I who am overburdened with manifold sin? In the end, what shall I say? You gave me certain notes, which contained almost nothing about Lord Robert, except that they reported him to be a native of our Bretons.

[3] Yet when I remember that God bestows His grace even upon the undeserving, which I have heard; and I recall that I have read that the supreme Maker lent for a time to a brute animal, yet with hope of divine assistance namely a she-ass, the faculty of a human tongue; I do not doubt that He who makes the tongues of infants eloquent will inspire in me ^hthat eloquence, not on account of my merits, but on account of the merits of Robert who must so often be named: and that if He wills, He may pour through my leaden pipe the most limpid water, profitable for the succeeding age. to be obtained through the prayers of the Sisters I shall therefore attempt, most holy Sisters, assisted by your prayers, to which I specially commend myself, to say a little something about our Master, for whom you continually sigh: but I fear lest I, a wandering traveler, may fail along the way. If in this endeavor I shall have said anything well, he begins the work I ask you to attribute it to the gift of God; if otherwise, which I fear, impute it at last either to our decrepit age, or to our trembling hand, or to my sluggishness, or to my manner of life grown old in sins. Remember, however, that all men, except one, have lived subject to sins. Farewell.

CHAPTER I

The birth, studies, archpriesthood, public professorship in the sciences, and penances of Blessed Robert.

[4] Let us give thanks to the Lord our God, who to this day has not ceased to visit us, like the morning sun rising from on high. Nor is it a wonder, since He Himself

Truth Himself has foretold, since Jesus Himself promised this very thing in these words: "Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." But if God is with us as Emmanuel, how could the Maker and Ruler of all be idle among us? How could there be day without light? Matt. 28:20 How fire without heat? Will there be ice without frost? Sun without splendor? Blessed Robert, given to men as a light And since God can never and nowhere be idle, yet in our days He has worked before us more manifestly, when He gave to the world the venerable Robert of Arbrissel as a mirror, a suffocator of vices, a propagator and nurturer of virtues, the consolation and forerunner of all desolate and erring persons. For this Robert, a ray of the Rising Sun, an unreflected Morning Star, an authoritative Preacher, illuminated the western region of the world, and dispelled the darkness of ignorance with his authoritative voice.

[5] I, Baldric, ^aMetropolitan of Dol, Baldric writes the Life though unworthy, yielding to the wishes of the nuns of Fontevraud, have undertaken to commit and promulgate his admirable manner of life among mortals in my style, however unpolished: so that in future ages the fragrance of his examples may be redolent, and the doctrine of the Christian school may benefit from it. For any material of a history of deeds accomplished will be of greater value that it may profit many than the sequence of reading will commend. Very many things remain about Robert, to be related by a more celebrated pen, which my great inexperience greatly hinders: my advanced age also hinders, which dulls my talent, and old age, that rival, which has turned into forgetfulness. I therefore undertake this work not supported by the props of literary learning, since I trust solely in the Lord. May the Holy Spirit therefore assist my obedience, and may the Holiness of Lord Robert support me. Amen.

[6] About to respond concerning the venerable Robert, I implore the Holy Spirit, the prompter of truth, to supply what is worthy of this subject, without whose aid the very loquacity of the Dialecticians is mute, the very deliberation of the Philosophers is dull. he divides the subjects to be discussed Therefore, that we may more deeply revolve the foundation of his history, let us treat briefly from what country, from what parents he came, and in what times he flourished: that we may bear testimony to the truth concerning each point. For we shall not seem to wander, if we first discuss his origin.

[7] Therefore Blessed Robert, about whom we have determined to speak, was co-heir and son of the Christian profession, a child of Lesser Brittany, which province the Priest adorned, born in ^bthe district of Rennes, a native and inhabitant of the village commonly called ^cArbrissellum. Blessed Robert born in Brittany His father was named Damalioch, and his mother ^dOrguendis. Robert himself, from his very boyhood, began to grow in mature morals: nor, as is usual, did he as a youth follow the wantonness of that age: but he embraced, as far as he could, a bright chastity, and loved purity inwardly. He seemed to pursue through the world the letters that were fleeing, since from his infant years he had been devoted to literary studies he learns letters that he could not attain. He wandered restlessly through regions and provinces, and could not but be anxious in literary studies. And since France at that time flourished more abundantly in scholarly advantages, he left his father's borders, he goes to Paris as an exile and fugitive: he went to France and entered the city called ^eParis: he found the discipline of letters, which he had above all requested for himself, as he wished conveniently available: and there he began to sit as a constant reader. where he studies and conducts himself well He sweated entirely over those exercises: nor on that account did he neglect the observance of an approved way of life. Among his fellow students he displayed a certain majesty of measured severity: and what was to become of him, he clearly signified by certain signs. At that time King ^fPhilip, son of King Henry, was ruling the colonies of the Franks: and ^gGregory VII held the Papacy of the city of Rome. We have said these things for this reason, that we might plainly indicate in what times Robert grew up and studied. For he rendered to scholars what belonged to scholars, and did not thereby adapt himself less to the service of God. Those who knew him were already surmising something about him, since they beheld in him something great.

[8] Meanwhile the city of ^hRennes, deprived of its ⁱPatron, turned again to God, and after prayers had been offered, chose a certain ^kSilvester as Bishop, whom the sincerity of his morals and his nobility recommended: he is summoned to Rennes by the Bishop who, as he was noble in blood, was still more noble in merits: and although not very learned, he nevertheless eagerly embraced the learned. For spiritual discipline flourished in him, so that what flesh and blood had not inspired in him, divine doctrine clearly distilled. He therefore summoned from elsewhere, if he could, any learned men: a type of person which Brittany then had most rarely. It was reported to the inquirer about Robert, and about his severity and diligence, and they said: "The Robert of whom we speak, Lord, is your natural subject: for he is also a man of Rennes and well suited to your needs: he is indeed pre-eminently learned in the liberal disciplines, vigorous in body, and composed in propriety of morals." The venerable Bishop, having prepared transportation, sends to Paris, and addresses the one summoned thus: "You see," he says, "dearest Brother, how the holy Church of Rennes, your mother, wavers without governance, especially at this time, when it happens that I, almost a layman, preside over it. Be therefore, I beg, our interpreter in Ecclesiastical responses: he is asked to help him I will listen to you, and you shall speak through me. You will doubtless be able to benefit the people of God, if, having zeal for God, you are willing to serve with us for a while."

[9] Robert yielded to the entreaties of the speaker: and was now busily occupied with Ecclesiastical occupations and necessities. he becomes Archpriest of Rennes In all matters to be handled he had God before his eyes, he was idle in nothing, he extricated from himself the desire for base gain, and in each matter he lawfully commanded himself. He faithfully assisted his Bishop in everything: for the Bishop, though he was the patron, did not disdain his patronage. Having therefore remained with the Bishop for four years as ^lArchpriest, restoring peace among the discordant, freeing Churches from the infamous servitude of laymen, he roots out vices dissolving the incestuous unions of Priests and laymen, he utterly abhorred Simony and manfully resisted all vices.

[10] After two twice-repeated years had elapsed, the Reverend Bishop, touched by a grave infirmity of body, put off his humanity, and, as is believed, departed to the stars: the Bishop having died and Robert remained alone among orphans as an orphan: alone, I say, because the Brothers envied his good deeds, detested by the Canons whose envy had already begotten hatred against him. He therefore decided to yield to envy, and in accordance with the voice of his Master, to flee from city to city: for he did not wish to be a scandal to anyone, which he knew to be a great and grave sin. Matt. 10:23 He therefore came to Angers, and there he devoted himself to scholarly ^mstudies: nor on that account did he grow tepid in religion, since after study he applied himself to divine philosophy: he goes to Angers he avoided being idle, now devoted to prayer, now to reading. Determining therefore to dominate the allurements of the flesh more austerely, he put on a coat of mail next to his flesh underneath: clad in a coat of mail which garment he wore for two years, before he went to the desert. To the desert indeed he afterward went, and dedicated himself entirely to contemplation. During the two years, moreover, in which he was taming his flesh with that iron garment, he was covered above with fine clothes, under elegant clothing hiding himself from the eyes and favor of men, but manifesting himself only to the sight of God. For in all his life he despised the trifles of human favor: and like poison, he spurned all flattery. He sometimes used rare and cheap foods, and sometimes occupied himself with vigils. he lives austerely

CHAPTER II

The austere life of Blessed Robert in the desert: many converts: the foundation of the abbey of La Roe: the distinguished office of Apostolic Preacher nobly discharged.

[11] The day came on which, having enlisted a certain Priest, He withdraws to the desert renouncing the world, he hastened to the desert he had long desired: he turned aside into a ^aforest, having spurned the company of men, and became a companion of beasts. There, with what inhumanities he raged entirely against himself, with how many and how great crosses he sacrificed himself, with what dire torments he exhausted himself, who could worthily recount? For besides those things that were visible externally, such as wearing a hairshirt made of the bristles of swine, shaving his beard without water, scarcely knowing any bed except the ground, being utterly ignorant of wine and refined and fattened foods, rarely taking the most scant sleep, when natural frailty compelled it; he mortifies himself with rough clothing, abstinence, and vigils there was a certain inward conflict in him, a certain roaring of the mind, a certain sobbing of the inner parts, which you might have deemed cruel and pitiless, for which no terminal remedy could occur, which many whispered was impossible and excessive for earthly weakness. For he contended with God with incomparable wailing and devoted himself entirely as a sacrifice. Gentle and modest to all, he was hostile, obstinate, and unsparing only to himself alone.

[12] To the crowds of those who came (for great crowds came to him for the sake of seeing him), he was cheerful and eager, affable and discreet, consulted in doubtful matters, by his kindness prompt in answers. There breathed in him in some manner the fragrance of divine eloquence: for it was rare to find one of similar eloquence. and eloquence he converts many Whence it happened that upon hearing him, many struck their hearts and renounced their evil ways of life. Some returned to their homes, improved by his preaching: others wished to remain with him, and to devote themselves to his service, and begged to adhere to him as inseparable companions. He would have fled such crowds voluntarily, and would have hidden alone, had he not feared on that account to incur guilt: for he had read, "He who hears, let him say, 'Come.'" Rev. 22:17 He therefore applied himself to distributing the talent committed to him, which the Lord, returning from the wedding, would demand with interest. he gathers companions It therefore seemed good to him that he ought to gather many and give them food, lest perhaps they should faint on the way, for some of them had come from afar. Those gathered were called Regulars, who strove to live regularly in the manner of the primitive Church. whom he calls Regulars That swarm flying from the allurements of the world became therefore a ^bCongregation of Canons. Robert presided over them, teaching them in the honeyed manner of a most prudent bee. he builds a dwelling for them They therefore built a common dwelling, and they eagerly embraced the teaching through his admonitions.

[14] It happened in those days that the Roman Pontiff Urban II, pressed by the necessity of the time, came to France and turned aside to Angers. summoned by Urban II He heard about Robert: for so great a lamp ought not to be hidden under a bushel. He ordered him to be summoned, and eagerly desired his conversation. He had to celebrate there the solemn ^cdedication of a certain church, to which you would have thought the entire breadth of the world had flowed together. he preaches before him In so great an assembly he commanded Robert to speak: "And ordered him to use no unusual words." He therefore spoke brilliantly to the people: his words greatly pleased the Lord Pope. For he understood that the Holy Spirit had opened his mouth. He therefore commands and enjoins upon him the office of preaching: he is appointed Apostolic Preacher and to the one somewhat resisting, he commends the ministry of this obedience. He established him as the second ^dSower of God's word after himself: and he exhorts him to hasten everywhere to this study.

[15] From that time he began zealously to engage in the legation of the Supreme Pontiff, he preaches everywhere and to traverse the regions of the neighboring Bishoprics. He was honored by all, since he was indeed worthy of honor, for the grace of God evidently walked with him. Nor was his speech barren or idle, with great fruit which the praiseworthy companionship of both his words and his deeds commended. What he preached he fulfilled with works, lest perhaps, when he preached to others and did not practice, he himself should immediately be considered a reprobate. So great a multitude of newcomers adhered to him that the number of Canons was almost considered excessive. very many join him For the number would soon exceed the number, if he had added to the Canons even a tenth part of the supplicants. He himself, however, being of generous heart, would have wished to fail no one, if the will and rule of the Brothers had permitted. He therefore thought of departing from them. He considered, moreover, how he could accomplish this without causing them trouble. They came before the ^eBishop of Angers, in whose diocese the Canons were dwelling: and according to the consideration of the matter and the command of the Lord Pope, by the counsel of the Bishop and the permission of the Clergy, he departs from them Robert freely departed, so that he might more freely devote himself to preaching, and unencumbered might advance wherever and to whomever he could.

CHAPTER III

The preaching of Blessed Robert: the construction of the monastery of Fontevraud and of others: the institution of the Order and its governance.

[16] Torn away from the Canons not without common tears, he began to traverse regions and provinces, and at first accompanied by a few followers, to sow everywhere through streets and crossroads the seed of the word of God. with a few he more freely preaches everywhere In a short time, more persons of both sexes were joined to him: because he did not dare to repel anyone upon whom God had breathed. He still had no place where to lay his head, unless necessity compelled him. without a fixed home, with men and women following him After he had departed from the Canons, he had not yet wished to choose any place: so that free, and without a staff and without a bag, he might proceed. But seeing the multitude of followers growing, lest anything be done without deliberation, since the women had to dwell with ^amen, he resolved to seek a place where they could live and associate without the scruple of scandals, and to find a desert if one should happen to occur. he establishes a seat in the forest of Fontevraud The place was uncultivated and squalid, overgrown with thornbushes and briars, called from ^bantiquity the Spring of Euraldus, sequestered from human habitation, and about two miles distant from the cell of ^cCandes, adjacent to the diocese of Poitiers. He chose this small forest, or thicket, in which God's new family and new army might dwell and labor, and received it as a gift from ^dcertain landowners: and he led into it the miscellaneous recruits of Christianity.

[17] They therefore made there, as time allowed, certain little huts, which would merely protect them from the untimely inclemency of the weather. he builds huts there They had also constructed there some kind of oratory, in which God might be invoked, and might be lodged in the midst of His encampment. Those camp-dwellers desired to converse privately with their God, and longed to be refreshed by His colloquy. From there they went forth to their works, so that they might live by the labors of their hands and never presume to live in idleness. He separated the women from the men, however, and enclosed them within a cloister, he encloses women in a cloister, to pray as if condemning them to it, whom he assigned to prayer: but the men he subjected to labors. He did not seem to do this without discretion, because he commended the more tender and weaker sex to psalmody and contemplation: but the stronger he applied to the exercises of the active life. Laypeople and Clergy walked together in a mixed fashion: except that the Clergy chanted the psalms and celebrated Masses; the Laypeople voluntarily submitted to labor. what rules he prescribed for them and for the men Silence was imposed upon all at certain times. They were ordered to respond gently and not to swear: and all were bound together with fraternal love. There was no bitterness among them, no envy, no discord. With bowed neck and lowered countenance they walked; they avoided garrulity; they knew nothing of vain talk. This was the covenant of the subjects: this was the law under which they served. he himself is called Master by his followers Their superior they called only Master: for he did not wish to be called either Lord or Abbot.

[18] For a long time he did not ride on any beast of burden: nor did he taste wine or savory foods. more austerely in himself He himself always walked with bare feet, and wore tunics and sackcloth that were very rough: until by the counsel of Priests, his body now failing, shod, he mounted a beast of burden, and indulged his poor body a little, not that he might be delighted, but that he might be strengthened in some way for labor: for he was careful not to make provision for the flesh in its lusts. He often continued fasts, frequently spent the night in prayer, wore out his members with prolonged fasting, and troubled no one with any vexation. He utterly uprooted hypocrisy from himself, cheerful and joyful of countenance, simple and gentle in responding, abundant in distributing, indulging himself little, kind toward his own but his Brothers and Sisters much. In preaching he seemed invective against sinners, but those who had deserted sin he consoled with paternal affection: and all penitents whence it happened that many publicans, both men and women, adhered to him and obeyed him with all their might. For he sent away no one who was wandering: but at last he cherished the penitent placed in his bosom. His discourse could not fail to be effective, because, if I may so speak, made all things to all he was all things to all: gentle to the penitent, austere to the vicious, kind and accessible to the mourning; a rod to the irreverent, a staff to the aged and wavering; groaning in heart, tearful in eye, serene in counsel. I would indeed call this man a habitation of Jesus Christ, a temple and organ of the Holy Spirit, the Respondent and Vicar of the Most High.

[19] Anointed with His discourses, so great grew the swarm of those renouncing their sins that their number was almost innumerable: whom he wished to be called by no other name he calls his followers the Poor of Christ: he admits very many, men and women than the Poor of Christ. Many men of every condition flocked together: women came together, poor and noble, widows and Virgins, old and young, prostitutes and women who spurned men. Nor could the prepared huts now contain the innumerable abundance; rather, the recruits of Christ needed more capacious dwellings. He who fed the children of Israel in the desert with His savory abundance supplied them with all provisions. He also sustained this little family of His, needy and begging, in these thickets with His food: when they had not yet plowed, not yet sown, not yet harvested. For God of all inspired all the indigent people dwelling around them, with the necessities for feeding them that they might send them daily food and prepare for them a daily feast: nor indeed could this happen without God, who continued in the surrounding settlers the will to send bread. Whatever there was, was received with thanksgiving, and God was praised with thanksgiving when anything was lacking. They wished to be ungrateful in neither direction, because for present things they joyfully rendered thanks, and being more certain and robust in hope, they awaited future things: they received abundance and without murmuring endured want: and in both, blessed be God. To seek food Robert went out, a mother bee, a most prudent bee, and conversed with all: he himself procures and to God's family were now sent not only dishes, but any gifts of clothing to protect their nakedness, and gifts were lavished for the construction of dwellings. All had one will, all had unfailing means: the money of those who sent seemed to be increased, since no poverty afflicted those who sent on this account. Princes and peoples came, many sending of their own accord intending to visit God's new family, pale and wasted from regular parsimony. Nor did they depart fasting, since there they first heard a word of edification, and tasted the bread of charity for their communion.

CHAPTER IV

Various monasteries built and sustained by Blessed Robert: his piety, miracles, and death.

[20] he builds various convents, some for women, others for men Now therefore it was being urgently pressed to enlarge and raise the walls of the oratory: abundant funds were given, necessary supplies were offered: cloisters upon cloisters were being prepared: and yet three or four did not suffice for such great colleges of women. The men were separated from the women: and separately, in more remote places, houses upon houses were prepared for them. The sagacious Master again segregated the women from one another: and again distinguished them through cells and divisions: he placed them and them in groups, since each number was extending into simplicity. In the greater cloister he placed more than three hundred together: others he assigned in groups of a hundred or sixty, or in troops of another quantity, elsewhere more, elsewhere less: and he also delegated the men into separate companies.

[21] He neither wished nor could be present with the workers, because he had to preach to many nations. He therefore appointed from among the Sisters one to be the Assistant and Mistress of responses and works, he places Hersende over the building Hersende by name, who, having despised the nobility in which she excelled, had adhered to the choirs of women -- indeed, she had been the first to convert. Hersende lived as a woman both of great religion and equally of great counsel. who with Petronilla presides over the Sisters To this Hersende he also joined Petronilla, who was skilled in household management, whom Robert himself later chose as Abbess, for Hersende had already departed to the heavenly ones. These two women therefore, since he knew them to be prudent, industrious, and persons of great circumspection, he had set, as has been said, over the other Sisters. But enough of these matters. Lord Robert, moreover, was never torn away from either preaching or prayer by any petty occasions: he himself preaches but entirely devoted to his strenuousness, he traversed the neighboring and distant regions. He was accepted by Kings, Bishops, and Princes, Clergy, and all sorts of common people.

[22] ^aKings and Counts sent generous gifts into the treasury of the most poor monastery of Fontevraud. Princes and almost all gave what seemed necessary. Others gave their own estates and whatever stipends each might choose: the place having been enriched whence it happened that in a short time that place grew in houses and oratories and also in household furnishings. Moreover, from what was sent he amply assists the poor they gave abundant alms: they received the poor and did not repel the weak: they did not refuse the unchaste, nor concubines, nor lepers, nor the powerless. For he built for the lepers their own little dwellings and monastic cloisters, and Master Robert established the means by which each might be fed: and very often, as long as he lived, he visits lepers: he adheres intimately to God he himself visited such persons most humbly. He attended the celebrations of Masses with full devotion and with sobs, and, if I may so speak, knowingly admitted nothing that was irreligious. The Lord alone was his concern; he was wholly anxious, because he was thought to be at peace in a crowd. Any conversation of his was a moral edification: for whatever he said savored of God. Although he needed many stonecutters and masons and various craftsmen, nevertheless that care seemed to him the last: since his soul was anxious only in holy religion. and he speaks of him Whose pen, do you think, will explain Robert to perfection, whose mind, whose conscience, whose soul always adhered to God? When I say more about Robert, I am the more astonished; because I find more abundantly what is still to be said about him: but since I am by no means equal to those things that ought to be said, behold, as though I had said nothing, I succumb and desist, and blushing, I am compelled to exclaim: "Abundance has made me poor."

[23] Behold, we have discussed for some time the praiseworthy manner of life of Robert, and although we may seem to have said something, yet we have said almost nothing, we who desire to express with what familiarity he flourished before God, but we cannot sufficiently do so. For through whom in our days has God worked more abundant miracles? Did not Robert clearly shine as an imitator of Him who said, filled with the Spirit of God "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; He has sent me to preach to the poor"? Luke 4:18 He truly evangelized the poor, called the poor, gathered the poor. For if any woman hastened to him from the nobility, to the wise observer he likened Nicodemus and Jesus there, Cornelius the Centurion and Peter there: for the affluence of the graces of God allures all and repels none, because He wills all men to be saved. 1 Tim. 2:4 Let anyone express what he has felt; I boldly say that Robert was abundant in miracles, imperious over demons, he works many miracles glorious over earthly Princes. For who in our time has healed so many sick, cleansed so many lepers, raised so many dead? He who is of the earth speaks of the earth and admires miracles in bodies: but he who is spiritual but spiritual ones, in the healing of souls testifies that the sick and lepers and the dead too have recovered, when anyone cares for and heals souls that are sick and leprous and need to be raised. Finally (if I may say it with everyone's leave), through which of the Pastors has the Lord spoken so much, worked so much?

[24] We, our contemporaries, we too, Bishops and Abbots, Clergy and Priests, have entered into the labors of others: and from the penury which our predecessors endured, we have been fattened: and perhaps we have profited little, and, what is to be feared, perhaps it has been said as a reproach to us: "Their iniquity has come forth as from fatness." Ps. 73:7 This Robert, this Robert, I say, impoverished in every way for Christ, an exile from his homeland and from his own kindred; surrounded by the crowds to whom he had preached, though poor himself, he builds many convents in the wilderness lest he should seem to fail them, in the solitude of Fontevraud, without the money of any revenue, he built many dwellings for the poor for Christ's sake. There he arranged for oratories to be built: he laid the first foundation and the first stone: he gathered servants and handmaids of God to more than two, or about three thousand: he sustains about 3,000 through cells and regions he placed such great armies of Christians: he prepared the means by which they could be sustained: to such a degree that in so short a space of time this work would have been most difficult for great Kings. Come now, who would not testify that this beggar, this needy man, this poor man, was rich? Rich indeed he was, to whom nothing that would suffice for many was lacking: rich, I say, he was, who was able to prepare so many and such great works, which now survive, not for himself but for God Himself: who was able to feed such great multitudes of people in the deserts. But, to speak more truly, he himself could not do these things, but he evidently earned that they be done. or he obtains that they be sustained by God God was the giver and master: Robert was the steward and minister. The one poured forth ^babundantly, the other faithfully divided the drops. They seemed to have had a certain friendly contest between themselves, which of them could do more: whether He by presenting, or he by distributing? Truly God knew Robert to be a faithful steward, to whom He had committed His family, and He increased the money. For we have it written, "A faithful and prudent servant, whom the Lord has set over His household." For how could these things be done without God? I confess, and I confess truly, that the vows of those did not disagree, whose works so most certainly agreed. And these are, if you do not know, besides those miracles that Blessed Robert performed: to love God, to serve God, for God to respond so effectively to the wishes of Lord Robert: and to provide through his hand all things that his followers needed. Matt. 24:45 He knew his faith, whose will he was unwilling to offend. Finally, as long as he lived, God always exalted His Robert, so that His family might be daily increased in his hand, and the means by which each thing might be completed might be constantly bestowed.

[25] Times succeeded times, nor did Robert ever grow cold from the pact which he had struck with God, always more fervent in the love of God, always fresh, always more devout. As years revolved upon years, Blessed Robert perceived by certain signs that his end was approaching, he has a presentiment of his death: he visits his followers because as his members failed, he began to be destitute of bodily strength. He resolved to go and visit and greet his Brothers and Sisters: and he went. He comforted all in the Lord and addressed each with a benevolent voice. He commended his passing to his fellow disciples: and he exhorted them never to grow tepid from their good practices.

[26] Having delivered discourses to both sexes, having received the sacred Communion, in a praiseworthy consummation, having received the Eucharist expending himself in such salutations, that is, and in good exercises; as his infirmity grew worse, or rather as God was inviting His foster child, in the place called ^cOrsan, among the hands of his sobbing flock, he breathed forth his spirit, and, as is believed, departed to the stars, there to enjoy as a citizen of the heavenly region in perpetuity, he dies piously at Orsan or rather, according to the Apostle, having been made an heir of God and a co-heir of Christ, to enjoy eternal joys. Rom. 8:17 To the well-provided family of God, and especially to the Handmaids of Christ, his little body, moistened with tears, was returned to the monastery of Fontevraud, and was buried in a fitting mausoleum: he is buried at Fontevraud while ^dLouis was reigning in France, while ^ePaschal was administering the Papacy of the city of Rome, while Jesus Christ our Lord reigns for infinite ages. Amen.

b. That is, abundantly.

ANOTHER LIFE OF BLESSED ROBERT,

OR HIS FINAL MANNER OF LIFE AND PASSING,

by a monk of Fontevraud, Andrew, as is believed, his disciple and Confessor.

Robert of Arbrissel, Founder of the Order of Fontevraud in France (Blessed)

BHL Number: 7260

By his disciple.

CHAPTER I

The illness of Blessed Robert, and his deliberation concerning the election of an Abbess.

[1] The Life of Master Robert having been described by the Venerable Baldric, Metropolitan of Dol, in an elegant discourse; his manner of life and the propriety of his morals also having been described and recited in brief; it is pleasing also to recall briefly for the remembrance of posterity how he conducted himself near the end of his life and how he departed from this world. [The author narrates the deeds done by Blessed Robert near the end of his life, but briefly] I make known, however, to the reader of this work that I shall not note in this treatise all the things that ought to be said; but rather I shall briefly indicate the things that are to be said: for if I wished to recount in detail all the things that the Lord deigned to work through him in the last year of his life, I confess that, pressed by so great a weight, even unwillingly I would succumb. But since for investigating these things my poor little talent has almost no little knowledge, by the interceding merits of him about whom I am going to speak, may the grace of the Holy Spirit be present to me.

[2] In the first place, however, it must be said why he was called Robert: whence is Robert so called? for not without divine dispensation did he obtain such a name. For he was called Robert, as if "roboratus" (strengthened), or "certain in strength." For in truth he was strengthened, because the Holy Spirit certainly strengthened him always to act well. He was also certain in the strength of faith, and persevered in holy religion to the end. Of whom a certain religious versifier not unworthily says:

"If you seek his like, none will be found. How great he was, the fruit, bearing witness, teaches."

[3] This Robert, therefore, an indefatigable preacher for very many years already, had distributed the words of God not only to the adjacent but even to foreign nations: sick, he asks the monks whether they wish to persevere in obedience to the nuns when, as his bodily infirmity grew worse, together with other previous ailments, he suddenly began to be destitute of strength. At length, at Fontevraud, compelled by the necessity of his infirmity, reclining on his bed, he ordered all the Brothers dwelling in the same place to be summoned to him. When all had been quickly assembled, he said: "Behold, my dearest sons, whom I have begotten in the Gospel, struck by bodily affliction, I am entering upon the way of all flesh. Wherefore deliberate among yourselves while I still live, whether you wish to remain in your resolve; namely, that for the salvation of your souls, you should obey the command of the Handmaids of Christ. For you know that whatever I have built anywhere, with God's cooperation, I have subjected to their power and dominion. But if you do not wish to remain with them as you have begun, I give you permission, but with my counsel, for another religious life." Upon hearing this, nearly all said with one voice: "Far be it from us, dearest Father, that we should ever leave them: since, with you as witness, we can in no way do better elsewhere. Far be it from us," they said, which all vow "that we should forsake your counsel: rather, we all unanimously and spontaneously promise Stability and Perseverance to the Church of Fontevraud, before God and His Saints, into your hand."

[4] The congregation of our Brothers and Sisters having thus been brought to agreement, he wished to provide for the benefit of his posterity, taught, as I think, by divine inspiration. For after a few days had passed, he consults Bishops and Abbots about the election of an Abbess since he was daily burning with the heats of fevers, he summoned several Bishops and Abbots to himself, and notified them through messengers that he wished to seek a certain counsel. And since at the same time the Church of Poitiers, widowed of its own Patron, was laboring under Prince William, he ordered certain Primates of that Church to be summoned to his counsel. Finally, when a not inconsiderable assembly of religious and noble persons had been gathered, he disclosed to them the reason for his counsel, for which he had caused so great a multitude to be assembled. "I sense," he said, "my brothers, that my end is near: and therefore I have summoned you, so that by your counsel I may wholesomely provide for the benefit of our Church concerning the election of an Abbess." To whom all unanimously who commit it to his own judgment and reverently said: "Your counsel, dearest Father, ought rather to be followed in this matter: especially since we know for certain that among all the other mortals of our age your counsel prevails. For God has given you to the world as a counselor of souls: and with His help, it is very easy for you to provide counsel for the future life of your followers."

[5] Then he said to them: "You know, my most beloved, that whatever I have built in the world, I have done for the service of our nuns: and I have given them power over all my resources: and, what is greater than these things, I have subjected both myself and my disciples to their service, for the salvation of our souls. Wherefore I have resolved, with your counsel, to appoint an Abbess for this congregation while I am still alive: lest perhaps (God forbid) after my death someone should presume to contradict this decree of mine. Eccles. 32:24 And therefore, according to the admonition of the Wise Man, I wish to do all things with counsel, so that after the deed I may not have to repent. For he who does his works without the counsel of his elders shows himself to be indiscreet. [he asks whether he should not rather choose a converted laywoman than a cloistered Virgin] One thing I ask of you: whether it is permitted me to appoint an Abbess from among the converted Laywomen? So that when it has been done, our authentic ^gauthority may restrain the detractors (if there be any). For I know the dignity of this Order, I know it demands a Virgin. For it is written, 'She who guards Virgins ought herself to be a Virgin.' But how will any cloistered Virgin be able suitably to administer our external affairs, who knows nothing but how to sing Psalms? For what earthly things will she reasonably manage, who has always been accustomed to work spiritual things? In what way, I say, will she bear the weight of the practical life, who knows nothing but the joys of contemplation? By what reason will that tongue respond concerning external matters, which from childhood has been accustomed to speak with the Lord in praying, singing, and reading? It is also most difficult that she should be compelled to put back on the tunic of temporal affairs already removed, who rejoices that she now has clean feet. For I have read that 'a wise woman builds her house: but a foolish one destroys what has been built.' Prov. 14:1 For which reason I do not wish to commit this prelacy to any cloistered Virgin, lest perhaps I seem (may it never happen) to destroy what I have built: since I can be accused of what I have built with God's cooperation, if I knowingly commit this care to one who does not know it. Exod. 26:7 Let therefore, if it please you, a goat-hair covering be chosen, which may cover the tabernacle of the Lord on every side and manfully endure the storms of external affairs: so that the scarlet may be able to glow within with perfect color. Let Mary be permitted to gaze continually upon heavenly things: and let Martha be chosen, who knows how to minister diligently to external things."

[6] Upon hearing this, the elders who were present gave their assent, which they approve and affirmed that all things he had said were true. And that this opinion of Master Robert might be held firm and inviolable in perpetuity, a certain Archpriest of Angers, a man of good character, was present at this counsel, affirming that when he was once at Rome, he heard the Lord Pope Urban (namely he who had enjoined upon our Robert the office of Preacher) granting that a certain matron, who had had four husbands, might for the time being and on account of the necessity of a certain Church, be made Abbess. The man of venerable life knew well that what the necessity of our human frailty compels, the faith being preserved, the divine piety, maintaining its moderation everywhere, does not punish. When this was known, those Senators rejoiced, and they said universally that a prudent man wished to act prudently. But after the venerable assembly was concluded, they confirmed by praising the counsel of the skillful man, and returned from him to their own homes with twofold joy.

CHAPTER II

The election of Abbess Petronilla. The statutes of Blessed Robert.

[7] When the seventh month had passed since the aforesaid senate had been assembled, and the end of October was now approaching, on the fifth day before the Kalends of November, our foster child completed, not without the counsel of religious men, what he had sought from the said senate. He therefore chose for the dignity of so great an honor Petronilla of ^aCamilliac, who, having left her father's goods, had been his disciple from almost the beginning of his way of life, he appoints Petronilla as Abbess with the prior sound counsel of several wise men, saying: "It seems worthy to me that she who has borne with me the labor of pilgrimage and poverty should also bear whatever burden there may be of our consolation and prosperity. For although she was once married, a widow compelled by necessity, none seems to me more suitable for this prelacy. Phil. 4:12 For she knows above others our gifts, and, according to the Apostle, how to abound and how to suffer want. For she knows how to give a timely response to the wise, and she knows also how to condescend fittingly to the unlearned."

[8] After what the distinguished Doctor had done was heard abroad, not only our ^bBrothers with all approving but also seculars praised this kind of election. Finally, also after the Election had come to the notice of the same Petronilla, it would take long to discuss how she wished to flee, she herself most unwilling or in what ways she tried to decline her election. For she feared, not unreasonably (as was indeed to be feared), to undertake the inestimable burden of so great an honor of state. She feared on the one hand, as a wise woman, her own weakness. On the other hand she considered the inestimable magnitude of that prelacy. What more? Although greatly resisting, at length, with God's assent, overcome by the prayers of her followers, or, what is truer, she acquiesces constrained by the obedience of Master Robert, she acquiesced. Many things worthy of relating I could narrate about her manner of life. But since I confess myself to be her son, although unworthy, I am silent for the present: lest (God forbid) I be judged to be anointing her head with the oil of flattery. The election of our dearest Mother having been thus accomplished by the common consent of religious men, each returns to his own place.

[9] Afterward, not long after, when the often-mentioned Robert had begun, God being propitious, to improve somewhat from his infirmity, he endeavored to have the election we described confirmed the election is confirmed by the Apostolic Legate by the authority of the venerable ^cGerard, Legate of Angouleme: who not only granted on his part the deed of the skillful man, but also, what is greater, and by the Pope himself caused a privilege of Paschal, Pope of Rome, to be obtained through his messengers concerning the election that Robert had made. Hence it happened that our Robert gave a general precept to the Abbess whom he had elected, statute concerning the election that no cloistered woman should ever become Abbess in the Fontevraud monastery. ^dThe holy man knew well that many Churches have been ruined through the carelessness and inexperience of Abbesses who were reared in cloisters. And, that this precept might be inviolably observed by successors, it was committed to the custody of written documents, among his other mandates, which are written at Fontevraud and are preserved to this day.

[10] For the lamp of the Hermits, the aforesaid Robert, gave to his religious people certain precepts: other precepts of Blessed Robert namely, that both men and women should unanimously guard the sanctity of their religious life, in speech, in action, in food, and in dress. The man praiseworthy from every mouth knew truly concerning silence that religion is vain which immoderate speech constantly accompanies. He also knew that anyone who boasts of having faith glories in vain unless he follows the same faith with good works: for, as the Apostle James testifies, "Faith without works is dead." James 2:20 The benign man had also read: "It is good not to eat flesh." Rom. 14:21 And therefore he wished himself and his family to abstain from such food for the love of God. abstinence from meat, cheap clothing He knew, finally, how a cheap tunic demonstrates contempt of the world: and for this reason he wished both himself and his subjects to be clothed in cheaper garments. For he used to say to us that those garments could suffice for all Religious which could expel the cold of human frailty, not those which could adorn a body that would one day die; which is without doubt worthy of reproof and worldly. This rule concerning garments, however, was established by him in our religious life: that according to the teaching of Saint Benedict, neither our Brothers nor our Sisters should be blamed for the natural color, or coarseness, or width of their garments. Rule, ch. 55 If anyone desires to know these mandates in full, let him humbly inquire at Fontevraud, where they are written both for love of so great a man and as a great gift.

CHAPTER III

Peace reconciled between the quarrelsome through the work of Blessed Robert. New monasteries built and visited.

[11] This Robert, of whom we speak, had built, with God's cooperation, a number of dwelling places in various provinces, in which he enclosed companies of nuns Other colonies led forth from Fontevraud: who had been tested by long practice of the religious life in the Fontevraud cloister, according to the suitability of the places, and he assigned some of our Brothers to their service. Moreover, this was his inflexible custom: that wherever he had caused monasteries to be built for his nuns, [The Sisters' churches dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, the Brothers' to St. John the Evangelist] he would construct them in honor of the Blessed Mary, ever Virgin. And because St. John the Evangelist ^adevotedly and diligently served that same Virgin at Christ's command, as long as she lived bodily in the world, the prudent man decreed that the oratories of the Brothers should be dedicated in his veneration: which I consider to have been done not without divine inspiration, so that the Brothers might have as the Patron of their oratories the very one whom they had as an example of serving the brides of Christ. Yet I do not say such things because I wish to equate our service with the delightful ministry of John: believing without doubt that that most excellent Virgin, placed in heaven beside her Son, is alone without equal.

[12] Those dwelling places, in which the memorable man enclosed the Lord's sheep with the counsel of the neighboring bishops, he frequently visited in the manner of a good shepherd: so that if at any time, by the devil's persuasion, Blessed Robert visits his foundations: any incentives to vice should spring up, he might uproot them as far as he could. It happened, moreover, that a certain deserted place was given to him in France, with the concession of Louis, King of the Franks, which to this day is commonly called ^cHaute-Bruyere. He truly disdained to have convents of his holy religious life within towns or villages, plainly recognizing that such things are harmful to the purpose of holy religion. When the place of which we speak had been built, within a few years he sends nuns to Haute-Bruyere: he sent ahead of himself to that same place, through our Abbess Petronilla whom he had chosen, some of our Sisters, on whose account especially the place had been built: whom that man of venerable life followed with great diligence and without delay.

[13] One day in the territory of Chartres they came for the sake of hospitality to the town of Bonneval, in which there was a certain ^dabbey of monks, at the same time when ^eIvo was governing the bishopric of Chartres, who had quarreled so severely with ^fBernard, the Abbot of this Bonneval, over certain matters, Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, and the Abbot of Bonneval gravely at odds that their discord was nearly irreconcilable: for many religious persons had attempted many times to make peace between them, yet they were unable to restore peace between them. After the pious Master unwillingly heard of so great a discord, he grieved deeply for those quarreling parties, and began to consider within himself how he might reconcile them. He therefore sent ahead of himself, through ^hAngardis, a devout nun who was then Prioress of Fontevraud, his nuns to their appointed place: and he himself, having joined to himself the religious Abbot Bernard and his Abbess Petronilla, hastened to Chartres for the reconciliation of the aforesaid discord. For the man of peace grieved that Masters of the Church were faithlessly subjected to the license of detestable dissension: and, to speak the truth, he reconciles them: after the prudent preacher, impelled by charity, came to Chartres, although he labored greatly, he not only utterly destroyed that diabolical discord, but also, what many had already suspected to be impossible, restored them to their former friendship.

[14] When peace had been restored between the Masters of the holy Church, as the Lord's Nativity drew near, the aforesaid mediator of discord proceeded to the place of Haute-Bruyere, he visits the convent of Haute-Bruyere: of which we made mention a little before: and there, celebrating the Lord's Nativity with the daughters dear to him, whom not long before he had sent to that same place through Angardis, assiduous in fasts, foremost in prayers, insatiable in reading,

keeping watch through the night, overflowing with tears, admirable in teaching -- by how many ways he immolated himself for God upon the altar of his heart, or what fruit he acquired for the Lord among those of his household or among the crowds flocking to him, remains, I believe, unknown to other mortals to this day.

[15] When the glorious feast of the Lord's Incarnation had been celebrated at that same place with the highest reverence, and the community of that place, the Lord's sheepfold, had been arranged both internally and externally, he came again to Chartres at the request of others. When Geoffrey, Bishop of Chartres, was expelled, For the Bishop of Chartres whom we noted above had already died, and in his place another had been enthroned by the common election of the clergy. But so great a sedition raged between the clergy and the Count of that city, that some of the Canons, having lost their possessions, the Canons cruelly harassed, feared being torn limb from limb by the Count's order. On account of this matter a number of powerful persons had assembled at Chartres. There came also Abbot Bernard, worthy of the memory of all good men, whose praise resounds to this day through all the Churches of France. But all to no avail: they could no longer quell that dissension; rather, at the instigation of the enemy of all good, it increased daily. For the Prince of that same city had already plundered the houses of the Canons and had shut them up in their cloister: and, what is also unspeakable to relate, he had driven from the city that illustrious man named Geoffrey, whom the clergy had canonically enthroned in the episcopal chair in place of the deceased.

[16] But why do I delay? Now for the Canons themselves, after God, their sole hope rested in our Robert: summoned to Chartres, whence it came about that, sending their legations, they sought his eminence with every supplication. For the Canons knew well that God had given so great a grace to the man of whom we speak, that what was utterly impossible for others, through him He for whom all things are possible would deign to accomplish. He, however, detained by a very great infirmity, when he was asked though ill, he goes there: whether he could come to Chartres, replied that all things were possible for him even unto death. Upon his arrival, how truly he was a servant of God, even if our tongue be silent, the outcome of the affair plainly manifests. For the Lord had conferred upon him so great a grace, that not only did all religious persons venerate him, but even Kings and Princes most willingly obeyed his authority. For it was fitting that the creature should love him whom it did not doubt to be loved by the Creator, from the evidence of his works. he reconciles them with the Count: He, speaking to both parties according to the wisdom granted to him by God, with the cooperation of God's grace, uprooted from the foundation that entire diabolical machination. For at his admonition, the Count of the aforesaid city restored to the clergy everything he had taken away: and he consented to the election of that ^kGeoffrey who had been canonically elected to the governance of the bishopric, allowing him to return to the city: and, what is also delightful to relate, he bound himself to the Canons in their former fellowship. For I believe that the Lord wished to extinguish this murderous hatred through his beloved Robert for this reason: that it might become known to those who did not know, how great were the merits of our Robert in His sight. What and how great were the benefits that the Lord deigned to bestow upon the aforesaid city in those days through his servant, it is not within my ability to investigate. Yet it is pleasing to report that the heresy of simony, which had for the longest time defiled the basilica of the Canons of Chartres, he uproots the stain of simony: with the concession of Bishop Geoffrey, whose life even in our own age has a most sweet fragrance, and with the concession of the Canons of that same community from the greatest to the least, was extinguished in perpetual condemnation through our Robert. And so that this execrable pestilence might be utterly condemned in that same Church for all time, they confirmed the vow they had made with an oath.

CHAPTER IV

Captives visited by Blessed Robert, robbers won over by his kindness, deeds at Ursanus and in the abbey of Deols.

[17] When the people of Chartres had been pacified, the faithful dispenser of the word of the Lord left the city of Chartres, never to return to it again: and having joined to himself Bernard, the venerable Abbot of Tiron, He goes to Blois, whose companionship had always been most agreeable to him, they both came together to the town which is popularly called ^aBlois. In that same town ^bWilliam, the devout Count of Nevers, was held imprisoned, because he had defended the cause of Louis, King of France, for the sake of maintaining peace against the Count of Chartres. he visits with Blessed Bernard the imprisoned Count of Nevers: This William also was held dear by both men on account of the merits of his life. It is surely apparent how great the honorable dignity of that Count was at that time, whom these two pillars of the holy Church came to visit in prison. He is reported to have been so comforted that he said: "Who would not rejoice to be long imprisoned, that he might be visited by such men?" I have said these things to show that our Robert did not devote himself to idleness, but now, according to the Gospel precept, visited the imprisoned, and now recalled the quarreling to peace. When the Count dear to him had been visited and comforted beyond what his prison sentence required, those two visitors, never again to see each other in this life, most dear to him: were inseparably, so to speak, separated: for they were inseparably separated, because those whom charity joins, the distance of lands does not divide. For the bond of perfect charity is indissoluble: since, as Blessed Augustine says, "Charity that can be divided was never true." O if only these men could have known then that they would never again see each other in this mortal flesh! I truly believe that they would hardly ever, or never, while living in the flesh, have parted from each other, especially if they had known that their death was so near at hand.

[18] Abbot Bernard then returned to his own home. But our Pastor directed his journey to the province of Bourges, dispensing in manifold ways the talent entrusted to him. For the provident man knew well that for however many a person shall have edified by his example, for just so many and so great he will receive the reward of recompense from the Lord on the Day of Judgment. For just as a fertile apiary disperses its swarms in every direction, so our most pious Father distributed the honey-flowing companies of nuns from the Fontevraud cloister to other places. he goes to Ursanus: From this mystical apiary of venerable bees, therefore, he had long ago distributed a great number of our Sisters to the district of Bourges: and in the place which is called Ursanus by the people, having first prepared a wooden cloister, he had settled them, and it was doubtless out of love for them that he was now preparing to visit those parts while catechizing.

[19] But if we wish to recount one thing that happened to him on the journey,

we will make plainly known to our successors how great his patience and how great his holiness were. For as a certain one of our Brothers, Peter by name, resplendent in the dignity of the priesthood, faithful in word and life, who was with him at that time, related to us: while they were making their intended journey, he falls among robbers, one day they fell among robbers, who, after their custom, filled with a malicious spirit, not only took away the beasts of his companions, but also, what is worse, seized by the bridle-straps the very mount on which that most gentle man was sitting, and, after heaping insults upon him, cast him to the ground. he is treated with contumely by them: But he, being kindly as he was, began with a dove-like voice to rebuke them gently: and he exhorted them with mild words to restrain themselves from robbery. I truly believe that the merciful man grieved more over their perdition than over the disturbance done to himself or his companions.

[20] But Peter, his companion, from whose narration I learned this, not bearing with equanimity what had been done to the Master, spoke in these words to the brigands: "Tell me, wretches, where will you flee? You who were not afraid to disturb so great a man? but they are rebuked by his companion, Consider, I beg you, consider how great the reverence that should be shown to holy men, so that at least your madness may cease to be hostile. For, as the holy Scriptures say, holy men are temples of God. For 'the temple of God is holy, which you are' 1 Cor. 3:17. Wherefore, when any holy man is provoked to anger, it is certain that God, the inhabitant of that same temple, is provoked to vengeance. Let your fury cease, therefore: and let fruitful penance blot out the evil you have done against the holy one of God. Do you not know that this man, whom you have just now unjustly pulled from his horse, is Robert of Arbrissel, whose sweet fragrance is renowned throughout the whole world?" Upon hearing the name of Robert, the band of robbers was immediately terrified with fear, when they learn who he is, and prostrated itself at the feet of the holy man, beseechingly asking for pardon. they seek forgiveness: He, rejoicing at their repentance and graciously pardoning their petition for whatever they had done amiss against him, raised them from his feet and kindly kissed them. To them he not only granted the pardon they sought, and he even does them good, but also, what they less deserved on account of their sin, he made them sharers in all his beneficence.

[21] O ineffable man, overflowing with admirable piety, whom neither prosperity, with God's help, deceived, nor adversity overcame! For since, as it is written, "The learning of a man is known through his patience," it is surely clear how great the patience and how great the excellence in teaching this Robert possessed, wonderful charity: who in the manner we have described even rewarded his enemies. Prov. 19:11 Let us consider, if we can, with what fervor of love this man of blessed memory loved his friends, who according to the Lord's precept, of his own accord bestowed such great benefits even upon his adversaries. Prov. 12:21 For since the Scripture says, "Whatever befalls the just man will not sadden him," it is plainly clear upon what a summit of justice this man stood, who, neither provoked by injuries nor on account of friends, deviated from the straight path of his course. It is permitted to me, Brothers, to say that this man in this deed was comparable to the holy Samuel, who, wishing to repay his enemies, promised to offer prayer for them. 1 Kings 12:21 For he was not different from him who said: "With those who hated peace, I was peaceable" Ps. 119:7. What then shall we wretches in his congregation say before God, who do not even love our friends as we ought?

[22] After the lover of peace had departed in a somewhat peaceful manner from the enemies of peace, what he did at Ursanus! he arrived at the place of Ursanus, to which he was heading, not without the preceding dispensation of faith. In which place, having dwelt for about fifteen days with the sons and daughters dear to him, he devoted himself tirelessly to reading and prayer, and to preaching, and to the other exercises of the virtues. For he was waiting there for the Abbess Petronilla, who was due to come to him from Fontevraud. When she arrived, it pleased him to go out to the outlying places for the benefit of preaching: for certain people, no little hungry for the words of his preaching, had asked him he goes out to preach: to deign to bestow upon them the benefit of holy preaching. He, acquiescing to their pious entreaties, and desiring, with God's cooperation, to satisfy their admirable hunger, he turns aside to the monks of Deols: when he was already making his intended journey, having joined to himself Petronilla and certain others, one day he arrived at the ^cabbey of Deols for the sake of hospitality. The monks of that same monastery, joyfully receiving him, honorably provided him the rights of hospitality, and most humbly requested that he deign to refresh their souls with the nourishment of holy preaching.

[23] Moved by their prayers, the generous sower of the word of the Lord, on the following day, entered the Chapter house of the monks with some of his companions: where, delivering at length the last sermon he was to make to the people, how sweetly, how piously, how mercifully, at their request he preaches how devoutly, how prudently, how charitably, how simply, how discreetly, he taught his hearers, by rebuking, beseeching, and reproving, to turn from evil and do good -- even those who had the privilege of being present confess that they are unable to narrate it. But what wonder, if he fulfilled this discourse so excellently, he through whom God had given the world so many and so great discourses, almost beyond comparison, very fervently as those who had the privilege of hearing them testify? For the Lord had given him so great a grace of holy preaching, that when he gave a general discourse to the people, each person received what was fitting for himself. His preaching was not ineffectual, and efficaciously: but it so pierced the hearts of the hearers that it was plainly given to understand who was present there. For surely the Holy Spirit was present, without whose aid the word of the teacher labors in vain from without. Of whom it is also written: "For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father" Matt. 10:20. After he had finished that sermon, he completely reconciled at that same place those monks he reconciles those at odds who had a certain complaint against the Church of Fontevraud: and he also brought to concord a certain Prince of that land, Alard by name, with them.

CHAPTER V

The last illness of Blessed Robert, the reception of Viaticum, and sacred anointing.

[24] When these things had been accomplished, he urged Petronilla and Angardis, the procurators of Fontevraud who were with him, to go visit the Brothers and Sisters: and he himself with ^aAndrew, his Chaplain, set out to the people who eagerly desired his preaching, as we said above, and desiring it, requested it with many prayers. On that very day on which he departed from the monastery of Deols, which was a Friday, on the journey itself he began to dismount more frequently from his mount, He falls ill on the road:

and to make known to his companions that he was very seriously ill. When they said to him, "Dearest Father, return, we beg you, return, lest you be more gravely burdened by the illness," he said: "Do not, sons, do not say such things to me: but let us go as far as the town he is carried to Gracay, called ^bGracay, so that when the people to whom I promised my arrival hear that I have come there, if I cannot complete the journey I began, they may at least believe that I turned back compelled by necessity." Coming then to the aforesaid town, they took lodging there.

[25] On the following day, Saturday, our Teacher was so greatly weighed down by his illness that he could no longer ride at all. When he perceived this, he said to his companions: he orders himself to be carried back to Ursanus, "Prepare for me, my dearest ones, a certain wooden bier, and carry me back to the place of Ursanus, for I know that I shall die of this illness." When his host learned of this, he said to him: "Please, Master, do not do what you say: but rather rest here until you see whether you can recover from this infirmity." But he said, as if privately, to his companions: foreseeing his approaching death: "Whatever others may say, do not heed them: but do what I have commanded you, and quickly." It is surely apparent that he sensed his death was imminent: but lest his people should labor over his body, he wished to return to Ursanus while he was still alive. When the wooden bier had been prepared, as he had commanded, they carried him to the town called ^cIssoudun, and there they took lodging. The host who received him began to entreat them in many ways to allow their sick man to be cared for at his house. When this came to the ears of Master Robert, calling his companions, he said to them: "Do not, sons, acquiesce to the counsel of our host, but, as I have already told you, rather carry me back to Ursanus. he summons Petronilla there: And since he himself, as we said above, had sent Petronilla and Angardis to visit the Lord's flock at other places, sensing that his end was drawing near, he sent a messenger after them, that they should come quickly to Ursanus to visit him."

[26] The people of Ursanus grieve at his peril: In the morning, leaving Issoudun, they carried the most holy invalid to Ursanus (as he himself had commanded). At that same time a certain noble nun, Agnes by name, held the Priorate of Ursanus, who was very exceedingly dear to him, because she, on his counsel, had left behind the deceitful riches of the world, which had greatly flattered her, and had chosen poverty for Christ's sake. When she learned of the Master's so grave infirmity, how great was her grief is not easily told. Who could also relate how great was the sorrow of the Brothers and Sisters of that same place, upon hearing of our Teacher's so severe infirmity? he yearns for Fontevraud: For they truly feared to be widowed of so great and such a Pastor. As the Lord's day drew toward evening, the day on which the sound invalid had been carried to Ursanus, he himself began piously to repeat the name of Fontevraud, saying: "O Fontevraud, Fontevraud, I had so hoped to lie in you!" When Andrew, his faithful companion, said to him: "Good Master, what is it that you say? If you sense that your end is here, at least do what is yours to do: command your body to be carried to Fontevraud after your death." He replied: "And why should my corpse be carried from here? For through all the thickets (to use his own words) it would have been taken from you."

[27] On the next day, Monday, he asked that the Viaticum of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ be given to him: he asks for Viaticum, for since he foresaw that he was about to set out on a longer journey, he asked with most humble devotion that that most salutary Viaticum be given to him, without which any traveler goes entirely astray, wandering. When the Lord's Body had been brought to him, he began with inner groanings and deep sighs to beg His gratuitous mercy, sorrowing over his sins, and to call himself an unprofitable servant, and to accuse himself in all his works. But the prudent reader knew that God had so commanded: "When you have done all things that are commanded you," He says, "say: We are unprofitable servants, etc." Luke 17:10 For he was imitating that Just One who, though he was perfect, confessed that he dreaded all his works. For he waged a twofold lamentation: he grieved greatly because he had sometimes neglected the Lord's commandments; he repented on the other hand because he had not observed all the commandments. And, to summarize all his words, he lamented with wailing that he had been in all things an unprofitable servant. humbly he receives it, After he had accused himself innumerable times, having received his penance, presuming nothing of his own merits but continually beseeching mercy, he received the Lord's Body. not rashly, as some do: Let those hear this who dare to receive the Lord's Body indiscriminately to their own damnation: so that they may either blot out their sins through holy penance while there is still time, or at least, if they are unwilling, let them fear to receive so admirable a Sacrament unworthily. 1 Cor. 11:29 For the Apostle openly proclaims that "he who eats and drinks unworthily, etc." For if so great and such a man received the most sacred Body of the Lord so fearfully, how much more ought we sinners approach trembling and weeping: who, even if we have made great progress, do not dare to make our end equal to his merit.

[28] When Monday had passed, because the good man did not doubt that his departure was near, he is anointed with sacred oil: he wished, as a most devout Christian, to receive all the Sacraments of the holy Church upon himself. He therefore devoutly asked on Tuesday to be anointed with blessed oil: believing indeed in the words of the Apostle James, that through the operation of this mystery sins are forgiven to men James 5:15. Anointed then with the salutary ointment, he again fortified himself, not without inner groaning, with the Lord's Body: and not only on those two days did he fortify himself with the Eucharist of Christ, but also on all the days he communicates daily, during which he lay in that infirmity. But who could narrate in what manner or by what ways he always strove to accuse himself before the Lord's Body? Those who had the privilege of being present confess with the greatest sorrow over his sins. that they do not at all know whether he ever accused himself more than he did before the Lord's Body. There is none, indeed there is none, not even a ^drobber, not even a thief who thus accused himself: for since it is written, "The just man is first of all his own accuser," it is surely clear that he was just, who, although he had lived a life of singular devotion, nevertheless accused himself in so manifold a manner. Prov. 18:17

CHAPTER VI

The burial sought by Blessed Robert at Fontevraud.

[29] At that same time Leodegarius, a man flourishing in life and age, held the Archbishopric of the diocese of Bourges, whom, unless I am mistaken, an inseparable affection bound to Master Robert: for they were joined, I believe, by so great a love for each other, he asks Leodegarius, Bishop of Bourges, to visit him: that what the one wished, the other would scarcely deny. Of this Leodegarius I could relate many praises of his virtues: but since he still navigates amid the innumerable storms of this exile in uncertainty, that very human ignorance compels me, whether I will or no, to be silent. For not everyone who has begun, but he who shall have persevered to the end, shall be saved. To this man, Robert of blessed memory sent a certain messenger, and begged him by entreaty to deign to visit him. He, upon hearing of his infirmity, hastened devoutly to visit him. After he arrived, he ordered the small village itself to be carefully guarded by his servants day and night: for he feared to be widowed of so great a patron,

and therefore he commanded the village itself to be diligently watched. And not only did the Archbishop of Bourges then visit our Robert, but also a number of Princes of that land came to visit him with care. Likewise also the people of Ursanus themselves diligently fortified their town with guards, he is visited also by others, and instructs all with his admonitions: saying that they were blessed if they should be deemed worthy to be honored with so great a patron. And all who came to visit him received from him the prize of consolation. For although he was infirm in body, he strove nevertheless, according to his custom, to bestow the salutary admonitions of preaching upon the people standing about.

[30] Meanwhile the messenger who had been sent after the Abbess arrived as far as ^bPuye: and finding her there, Petronilla arrives: and revealing why he was following her, he immediately announced and urged her to return swiftly to Ursanus. She and Angardis who was with her, terrified by so sad a message, knew no delay in going, but set out from Puye before daybreak. At last, wretched and tearful, they came to Ursanus. Coming before the invalid who was still sound in mind, Petronilla cried out and said: "Alas, good Master! You will never again do us any good henceforth!" But ^cAngardis who had come with her, gently rebuked her, saying: "Cease, good woman, to speak such words: but rather pray God that he may deign to restore health to him yet. For He who gave him this infirmity, when it pleases Him, will also give him health." Some were also saying that he would not die from that infirmity: but he himself affirmed otherwise.

[31] It would indeed be long to recount in detail how the prudent invalid strove in this infirmity to admonish visitors of both sexes with speech seasoned with salt: but since I do not wish to weary my reader, I wish to pass on to the things he did on the third day before his end. On the Wednesday before his death, therefore, he ^dordered the venerable Leodegarius, Archbishop of Bourges, to Leodegarius the Bishop who had come to visit him, as we said, to be called to him, and said to him: "O dearest Father, you are my Archbishop, my Primate, and Patriarch. You know how I have always loved you until now, and how I have been obedient to you. You know also that for the sake of your sweet love I first came to these parts. For you asked me to hand over to you some of my good women: and I handed them over. At your counsel and request I sent them to this province. I did not have, as you know, houses here, no possessions, who had founded Ursanus, no fields. You prepared for them, for the salvation of your soul and your people, this place: you built for them, at God's inspiration, this dwelling where they could perform God's service day and night: they brought no possessions here, not gold, not silver, not even furnishings: you acquired for them lands, food and clothing, and all other necessities, in deed and word. You rejoiced greatly at their coming, and until now you have honored them in many ways and kept them well. Behold, therefore, by God's will, I am entering upon the way of all flesh, and now the time of my dissolution is at hand: for I am not better than our Fathers. he commends the nuns dwelling there: Wherefore, as long as breath remains in me, as long as I can speak, I commend my daughters and all that is theirs to your love, that you, who caused them to come here, may piously guard them and henceforth take solicitous care of them."

[32] "I wish moreover to tell your friendship the desire of my heart: I wish to reveal to your holiness my longing. he asks him, Let it be shown at the end whether you ever truly loved me while I lived: let it be manifest whether, as you used to say, you ever held me dear: for you are not ignorant that true love does not consist in words alone, but, as the holy Scripture testifies, 'The proof of love is the display of works.' 1 John 3 'Let us not love in word nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth.' I make known to you, therefore, dearest Father, that I do not wish to lie in Bethlehem, where God deigned to be born of the Virgin, that he should bury him in no other place, even a holy one, nor even in Jerusalem at the holy sepulchre: I do not wish to be buried in Rome among the holy Martyrs, nor in the monastery of Cluny, where beautiful processions take place: yet I do not say these things because I despise most holy places, which I know are truly to be loved, remembered, and venerated out of reverence for the Lord's Incarnation. For all the faithful ought to venerate holy Bethlehem magnificently, which, praised by the Prophets, was deemed worthy to be adorned by the Lord's Nativity. Although God is everywhere, all should nevertheless honor blessed Jerusalem with a certain special love, in which the Son of God deigned to redeem the world through His death. Nor should anyone despise blessed Rome, which, purpled with the precious blood of so many Martyrs, as the ^esacred Scripture testifies, surpasses all the beauty of the world. Who, lastly, being of sound mind, would dare to depreciate the supreme monastery of Cluny, where daily by God's grace so great a benefit is wrought?"

[33] "Lastly, I do not wish to be buried in any other place, save only in the place of Fontevraud. For you know, my Father, that I established the place of Fontevraud as the head of all my other places: but at Fontevraud there also is the greater part of our Congregation, there also is the foundation of our religious life. I do not ask you to bury me in the monastery or in the cloister; but only among my humble brothers in the mud of Fontevraud. There also are my Priests and Clerics: there also are holy Virgins, widows, and continent women, persevering day and night in the praises of God: there are my most beloved sick men and sick women: among his Brothers, and the sick, there are my dearest lepers, both men and women: there are the good companions of my pilgrimage: there are those who long endured poverty and toils for Christ with me: there are those who patiently endured cold and heat, miseries and tribulations for the salvation of their souls: and his old helpers who at the voice of my preaching, by God's inspiration, left both themselves and their possessions: of whom some live in the body, while others have died persevering in obedience. There lies Hersendis the nun, my good fellow worker, by whose counsel and labor I built the buildings of Fontevraud. and fellow workers: There lie my good sons, by whose prayers before God I trust that I am aided. There sleep my good nuns, by whose merits I believe I am helped before God. This is the reason, dearest one, why I refuse burial in the most holy places: that I desire to be buried among my humble little Brothers and Sisters in the mud: for I know that the living desire me to lie there, so that on the day of holy resurrection, in this same flesh, I may be able to go with them to the judgment of God.

[34] For if I shall have been buried there, both the living will love the same place more, and those this will be profitable for the lapsed whom the devil captures through disobedience will come seeking mercy. For they will hear it said that I lie in Fontevraud: and when they recall to memory that God through me rescued them from the wicked world, and that He distributed many good things to them through me, constrained by love of me, they will hasten to return to their obedience. For who of my Congregation bears bowels so hardened that, when he has perfectly remembered me, he will not soften himself, either by groaning or by sighing? When therefore they recall to mind how I always loved them, and how I instructed them, or how God through me satisfied them with His teaching, some, summoned by divine inspiration to so many benefits, and moved to penance, will come before my tomb to seek mercy from God. And since I sense that this will come to pass, I commend to my posterity that the benefit of reconciliation should be denied to none who seeks this mercy. whom he wishes to be received: If, moreover, it shall please the Author of mercy that ever, not by my merits (of which I presume nothing), but by His gratuitous goodness alone, He should deign to bestow something upon me, I will strive to intercede perpetually with that very fountain of mercy for my entire congregation: he pledges to pray for the whole order: for there is no life where true love is absent. As far as I can, I will love: since in this life I will not be able to love them. For I know that any burial does not harm the dead: I believe without doubt that the Lord can provide help everywhere to whomever He wishes: nevertheless, this is the reason I have described

why I ask to lie in these places: this is the occasion why I order my corpse to be interred in the cemetery of Fontevraud. For which reason I humbly implore the reverence of Your Holiness by prayer, that you return my body to our nuns, and conduct it all the way to Fontevraud, and there with your holy mouth perform the office of my burial. Now it will be shown at the end whether you ever truly loved me in life. If therefore you were a heartfelt friend to me, if I was ever a friend to you, grant me, I beseech you, what I have asked."

[35] He, however, not wishing his diocese to be despoiled of so great a treasure, the Bishop hesitating, answered him and said: "I, dearest Master, as I have long since begun, love you greatly with a sincere mind: but what you ask of me is not entirely in my power, but for the most part in the hands of the Princes of this land. For you know that this place is in the territory of a certain Prince, named Alard, who also himself built it for the most part. I do not wish to make you a rash promise which I could not afterward fulfill: but allow me to take counsel on this matter tomorrow."

[36] Upon hearing this, Andrew the Priest said to the Master: "Let your love know, good Master, that Agnes, the Prioress of this place, he commends this to Agnes, Prioress of Ursanus. will be able greatly to help or to hinder your petition. Wherefore beseech her to carry out your petition on her part: for she is a native of this land, and Alard was her husband, who is the lord of this village." The prudent man therefore called her and said to her: "O Lady Agnes, I command you by beseeching, and beseech you by commanding, as my Lady, daughter, and disciple, that you do whatever you can in this matter, which I have requested to be done by the Archbishop." To which she replied: "Good Master, do you wish me to do this?" He said: "I wish it, daughter, absolutely, and desire it: and on this condition I command you to kiss my hand." She then, kissing his venerable hand, promised to do what his desire had sought.

b. In French, La Puye.

CHAPTER VII

The prayers of Blessed Robert near death, his profession of Faith, and his public sacramental Confession of sins.

[37] After these things, those who stood around began to say to him: "O good Master, you ought to pray to God, since you feel yourself so near to death." All having been dismissed from his presence, To whom he replied: "I certainly desire very much to pray to God: but because of you, who hinder me, I am entirely unable: withdraw and go away, that at least I may henceforth be able to pray to my God." When all had gone out, he himself began humbly to beseech God he prays for the Church, that in His goodness He might deign to preserve the Roman Pope and all the Doctors of ^aHis Church in the purpose of holy religion to the very end. Then also he began to name his hosts one by one, and to offer prayer to God for each of them. for his benefactors, He also prayed then for all his benefactors and enemies: and for all the faithful, living and dead. At last he also began to beseech the Lord for William, Count of Poitou, who on account of his own sins was then wounded by the sword of excommunication, that if it should be within His providence, and for his enemies: He would deign in His benevolence to recall him to the way of truth. It is surely apparent how full of great charity this man was, who persevered to the very end in praying with such devotion for his friends and enemies. It is plainly clear that he loved his enemies as himself, who prayed that they be given by prayer what he himself desired to receive from God: moreover, it is even more clearly evident how wisely he loved his friends, for whom he sweetly offered to the Lord God the gift of prayer. Let us consider, if we can, with what vigilance he observed the other commandments of the law. Indeed, what is usually more difficult, he returned good to his enemies: for although he, by God's will, fell asleep in peace, I believe nevertheless that he did not lose the palm of martyrdom. And lest perhaps what I say should in any way displease, let him hear the holy Scripture thus affirming and saying: "^eMartyrdom is fulfilled not in the shedding of blood alone, but in abstinence from sins and the practice of God's commandments." Again it is written: "The whole life of a Christian man is a Cross and a martyrdom."

[38] After he had poured forth prayers to the Lord for the whole Christian people for a very long time, when almost all had already withdrawn from him, in the silence of the deep night he called to himself a certain lay Brother named Peter, who was constantly with him, and said to him: "Call Andrew the Priest to me." When Andrew came, he said to him: "Bring me, I beseech you, the wood of the holy Cross." before the holy Cross. When the holy Cross had been brought, from his bed, with whatever strength he could summon, he leapt up joyfully, and before the Cross bent his knees with great reverence, and revealed to those standing about what he believed within himself about God. Then he confessed that he believed he professes that he believes all things created by God, that Almighty God, one in Trinity and three in Unity, had made heaven and earth and all things that are in them by the command of His will. He confessed also that God had placed Lucifer, who rose in the morning, who is the beginning of the ways of God, bearing the seal of the likeness of God, full of wisdom and beauty, adorned with every precious stone, in Paradise. He related also that he believed how that one, with no one persuading him, fell of his own accord through his pride: and how, the fall of Lucifer, for ^bhis restoration, God wonderfully fashioned man from the clay of the earth in His own image and likeness. He recalled and of man, how through the envy of the devil death entered the world, and how the deceitful enemy expelled man from Paradise. He also called to memory how great were the shadows of blindness and how great the miseries that the human race endures until the end of the world, because the first man transgressed the Lord's commandment. To these he also added the flood, etc. how the human race, as its sins deserved, perished in the waters of the flood: and how God saved eight souls in Noah's Ark. To these he adjoined how gloriously God delivered the children of Israel from Egyptian servitude, and how wondrously (while the murmurers perished in the desert) He led the believers into the promised land.

[39] He also said, prostrate before the ^aholy Cross, how the Son of God, descending into the womb of the holy Virgin, made, as He had promised, a new heaven and earth: and how He willed, for our salvation, to be born in Bethlehem the Incarnation of the Word. and to be placed in a manger and to be wrapped in humble swaddling clothes, with no preceding merits on our part, but by His mercy alone. He professed also that not only did God deign to become man for men, but also (what is more wonderful) to be circumcised, baptized, and to fast. He recalled with sighing that the Living Bread, who descended from heaven, hungered so that He might satisfy us; that the Living Spring thirsted so that He might free us from perpetual thirst. He also called to memory, groaning and sighing, that He who created all things by His will, having been made man for men, the Passion, deigned voluntarily to endure mockeries and spittle, blows and scourges, injuries and wounds, and at last the death of the Cross for the redemption of men. To these the pious man joined the Lord's Resurrection and His Ascension into heaven and the coming of the Holy Spirit: to these he likewise adjoined the judgment to come at the end of the world, in which God will render to each according to his merit.

[40] At last he appended to these how Almighty God

had caused him to be born from a certain old man and from a certain poor woman: and how He had afterward bestowed upon him innumerable goods, without any preceding merits. After these things he rendered manifold thanks to Almighty God for these and other innumerable benefits gratuitously bestowed upon the human race: he gives thanks for the benefits conferred upon him by God: he also gave magnificent thanks to God because He had, by the merits of others, bestowed so many and such great benefits upon him.

[41] After the Catholic man had fully narrated his faith before the holy Cross, in the hearing of those who were there, he then made public the confession of his sins, accusing himself in an unprecedented manner, saying: He confesses publicly to a Priest in the presence of others "Hear, O Priest, my sins; and also hear, heaven and earth. The Son of God came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief. Behold, in iniquities I was conceived, and in sins I was nurtured; in innumerable ways I have sinned through my own fault." Then he confessed before all, reproaching himself, that when he was a little boy old and trivial sins. and ate with his mother, he took the fairer foods: and that when it rained, he wished for fair weather, and contrariwise. He also related, accusing himself, that while he was still a layman, at the ordination of a certain Bishop of Rennes, he once fell into the ^cpoison of simony: he confessed also that God had freely bestowed upon him a great knowledge of letters and the grace of preaching. He repented that he had not multiplied the talent entrusted to him by God as he ought. Then he said that he himself had gathered together a religious community of women, who bore the labor of holy religious life for God with excellence, but he alone had received their praise.

[42] Here indeed is the place for speaking, if I wished to narrate one by one in what manner or by what ways he accused himself before the holy Cross. greatly accusing himself: After he had accused himself beyond measure by reproaching himself, naming each sin, he sought with humble supplication the absolution of all his sins from God; and after this he prayed that He would deign to grant him his end in the near future. It is certain he dies piously. that God heard His servant in this prayer: whom He shortly after, released from the bonds of the flesh, drew away from the exile of this world.