CONCERNING ST. BERTHOLD, FIRST PRIOR GENERAL OF THE ORDER OF ST. MARY OF MOUNT CARMEL.
AROUND THE YEAR 1188.
CommentaryBerthold, First Prior General of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Mount Carmel (Saint)
[1] Among the manifold victories gained over the Mohammedans during six hundred years, the most joyful, lofty, and abundant fruit and glory was achieved in that victory whereby in the year of Christ 1099 the Holy Land was recovered, joy at the recovery of the Holy Land Jerusalem was captured, and the most powerful Babylonian King of Ascalon was defeated. But, alas, that joy did not continue for a full century without Jerusalem being lost in the year 1187, and the bitterest mourning filling the Christian world everywhere, and grief and lamentation afflicting the minds of the most pious men -- when they saw the Holy Land, won by the contests of so many illustrious heroes, watered by so much blood shed, and ennobled by the death of so many so generously endured, again pressed under Mohammedan tyranny and groaning, the grief that followed its loss with no hope appearing of ever recovering it. In this common sorrow of all Christians, the bare representation of which even now afflicts our minds, Divine goodness provided an illustrious consolation, in willing that the Order of St. Mary of Mount Carmel, together with other surviving heroes, should be transferred from the Holy Land to these territories, mitigated by the Carmelites being brought to Europe and everywhere throughout the Christian world be extended and distinguished into many Congregations. How much this was done to the benefit of all Christendom, the whole world knows; the Supreme Pontiffs acknowledge it in many letters and Apostolic Bulls granted to this Order; and we too shall endeavor to confirm it in this work, as we report the Acts of very many Saints of this Order in each month.
[2] the first General of these is believed to be St. Berthold, venerated on 29 March Among these men, St. Berthold stands out, the first Prior of the Order on Mount Carmel, assigned to this 29th of March by Molanus in his Supplement to Usuard in these words: "On this same day, St. Berthold, Confessor, of the Carmelite Order." The same is read in the German Martyrology of Canisius and the General Catalogue of Ferrarius. His feast is celebrated each year on this same day with an Ecclesiastical Office under the double rite throughout the entire Carmelite Order, and this proper prayer is recited for him: "May the venerable solemnity of St. Berthold, your Confessor, protect us, Lord -- he who, as he governed the Carmelite Order
with all holiness governed and increased the Order, so may we feel his perpetual protection." All the rest is taken from the Common. What is greatly to be lamented is that no Acts of his exist written by contemporary or ancient authors; or certainly, if they were committed to writing, they perished through the attacks and persecution of the Saracens. Giovanni Battista de Lezana treats of him in several places in the Annals of the Carmelites, and at the year of Christ 1187, number 15, says: "Concerning the sanctity of Blessed Berthold, testimony is had from the perennial and constant tradition of our Order, received as if by hand almost from the very time of Berthold himself." He adds in the Mirror of the Order that he is called a religious, holy, and famous man.
[3] The name Berthold is Teutonic and very commonly used by the Germans, whether he was from Limoges Belgians, and French. Andreas Saussay inscribed St. Berthold as a native of Limoges in his Gallican Martyrology at this day. Two writers of the Carmelite Order flourished toward the end of the fifteenth century who likewise affirm he was from Limoges, namely Arnold Bostius in book 6 of the Speculum Historiarum, chapter 2, and Palaeonyderus in book 2 of the Antiquities of the Carmelites, chapter 10. They assign to St. Berthold a brother Haymer, or Aymer, or Ademar, Bishop of Le Puy, who, having set out as Apostolic Legate to the Holy Land, died after the capture of Antioch in the year 1098. and brother of Ademar, Bishop of Le Puy? William of Tyre describes his death in book 7 of the Deeds Done in the Holy Land, chapter 1. Then to both men Bostius and Palaeonyderus assign as parents Guy de Malafayda, a native of Limoges, and the granddaughter of Solomon or Solon, King of Hungary, married to him in the year 1045. Both Haymer and Berthold are said to have been sent in the year 1070 to study at Paris, and recalled after receiving the insignia of the Doctorate in Theology. But Lezana rejects this conjecture at the year 1061, number 5, because this Solon or Solomon was only crowned, still a five-year-old, in the year 1053, at the command of his father Andrew. Others therefore, in place of Haymer or Ademar, Bishop of Le Puy, substitute Haymeric, a native of Limoges, afterwards Patriarch of Antioch, or of Haymeric, Patriarch of Antioch? relying on the authority, as they judge, of St. Cyril, the third General of the Carmelite Order, whose Acts we set forth on the 6th of March, and they attribute to the same a treatise On the Progress and Various Rules of the Carmelite Order, recently reprinted by Daniel of the Virgin Mary, Provincial of the same Order in Belgium, in his Vineyard of Carmel; the principal copy of which exists at Paris in the College of Navarre, written in the year 1446.
[4] According to this treatise, therefore, the Patriarch Haymeric had a brother Berthold, according to this tradition he was made Prior of Carmel a perfect Religious and holy Priest, whom by the unanimous consent of all he installed as the first Prior in the year of the Lord 1121, and entrusted to him the care of the souls of the rest. But since the said Aimeric was only made Patriarch around the year 1137, the said Daniel judges, together with Lezana, that in place of the year 1121 (which he nevertheless admits is read in the Venetian printed copy and most manuscripts), the year 1141 should be substituted. Baronius in his Annals transfers these things to the year 1181, where at number 13 he has the following: "The Religious Order of the Carmelites, who fixed their seats in Palestine on Mount Carmel itself, took its origin under Alexander the Roman Pontiff, but in which year of his pontificate is uncertain. The promoter, propagator, and guardian of these was he who held the Apostolic See's legation in the East: Haymeric, Patriarch of Antioch, who, considering that many from the West who had come to lead the eremitical life in the Holy Land were scattered here and there and exposed to the incursions of the barbarians, gathered them into one and led them to Mount Carmel, once nobly ennobled by the habitation of Elijah. These were the beginnings from which, as from a small spring a river, the immense company of religious men grew." So writes Baronius, with whom Bellarmine substantially agrees in his Chronology, when he writes that the Carmelite Order was confirmed by Alexander III in the year 1180. In the cited treatise on the Progress of the Order, the same period is indicated in these words: "And on this Mount Carmel, the Patriarch Haymeric caused a monastery to be built in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, surrounded circularly by a high wall, in which he intended to enclose them; but before he had completed this monastery, God removed him from the world." We deduce that he survived until the fiftieth year of his patriarchate and the year of Christ 1187 from a letter written in that year to the King of England, in which he sought assistance for the Holy Land. he died around the year 1188 Beyond which time also, when Jerusalem was captured by the Mohammedans, Lezana believes that St. Berthold lived and saw the souls of various Christians, killed at that time out of hatred for the Christian faith, being carried to heaven -- as John Grossus, Prior General of the Carmelite Order around the year 1400, testifies in the Garden of Saints of his Order, in this eulogy written about him:
[5] eulogy from Grossus "St. Berthold was the first Prior General of the Order, whom the Lord Aimeric, Patriarch of Antioch, on account of the miracles by which he was illustrious among the people, assigned as Prior General by the election of all the Brothers of Mount Carmel. In the time of this holy man, many Brothers on Mount Carmel and in other places of the Holy Land were killed by the Pagans who had invaded the Holy Land, on account of their constancy in the Christian faith; whose souls, with the crown of martyrdom, he beheld with his own eyes being raised to heaven by Angels. On Mount Carmel, where his body rests, he was illustrious for many miracles: curing two paralytics, giving sight to the blind, and granting the power of walking to the lame. On the 29th day of March he carried his soul to heaven." So writes Grossus; from which Werner Rolewinck in the Fasciculus Temporum at the year 1184 summarized thus: from Rolewinck "St. Bartholdus of Mount Carmel, assigned as Prior by Aimeric, Patriarch of Antioch, became known to many with a more celebrated fame. Among other marks of his holiness, he saw the souls of very many of his Brothers, whom the sword of the Saracens had consumed, being borne to heaven by Angels with the crown of martyrdom." Arnold Bostius in the book On the Patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary, chapter 9, reports this: and from Bostius "Berthold, a Frenchman by nation, Prior of the holy Carmel by office, a man of incredible life, resplendent with many miracles both living and after his death."