ON BL. ROBERT OF BRUGES, ABBOT OF CLAIRVAUX IN GAUL,
IN THE YEAR 1157.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Robert of Bruges, abbot of Clairvaux in Gaul. (Bl.)
BY R. D. B.
§ I. Cistercian saints omitted in the Bollandist Work on their own day. Why Bl. Robert is treated in this place. Of his cult, birth, and monkhood.
Up to this point the deeds of Bl. Peter the One-eyed, abbot of Clairvaux, have been discussed. Several saints of the abbey of Clairvaux, The reader will have seen that an ecclesiastical cult, slight indeed but wholly legitimate, was shown to him for several centuries. But many other abbots and monks of Clairvaux too, honoured with no less veneration, were passed over by our predecessors in our Work on the day on which they are inscribed in the Cistercian catalogues of saints and menologies. They kept this silence for this reason, that, since they had in hand only doubtful indications of legitimate cult, as they often confessed, they did not think it lawful for them to give them a place among the saints in the Bollandist Work. We, more fortunate than these most prudent men, have obtained a most weighty document, unknown to them, as it seems: from which it is altogether manifest that a cult either of the blessed or of the saints was accorded to Bl. Robert and other monks of Clairvaux more than a century before the Urbanian decree of the year 1634. This document, or Compendium of the Saints of the Cistercian Order, published in the year 1491 at Dijon in France by the most illustrious man Jean de Cirey, abbot of Cîteaux, and lately by the distinguished Guignard, presents not a few saints of that Order. With how much care this catalogue was compiled the preface itself demonstrates: A brief enumeration of certain saints and blessed, says Cirey, out of the very great number of those who, serving the Most High purely under the habit and observance of this sacred Cistercian Order, are believed, on account of their proven holiness of life and the illustrious and evident showing of miracles, to reign happily with Him; extracted from the book which is called the Exordium of Cîteaux, from the Life and works of Blessed Bernard, from many histories and treatises of the saints, and from our journeys made into the various monasteries of the Order through various regions of the world for visiting and reforming them. Of whom those whom the Lord willed, through the determination of holy mother Church, to be written into the catalogue of the saints and elevated are deservedly called saints, but the others properly blessed; although at times one is put for the other.
[2] for a whole century before the Urbanian decree, Having set these things first, Jean de Cirey recites the principal saints of the abbeys of Cîteaux and Pontigny; then he sets out the series of the saints of Clairvaux in these words: At Clairvaux, abbots: the aforesaid Bernard, sent from Cîteaux. Robert from Les Dunes. Geoffrey, once the faithful notary of Bernard. Pontius from Grandselve. Gerard, also a martyr, from Fossanova. Peter the One-eyed. Henry, afterward cardinal. Monks: Gerard, the aforesaid brother of Blessed Bernard, cellarer. Hubert, prior. Godfrey, afterward bishop of Langres. Silvanus. Bernard, afterward Pope Eugene III, and many others. If in this place he omits two other abbots of Clairvaux, Blesseds Fastred and Conrad, whom he numbers among the monks of the monastery of Cîteaux, this is the cause, that they were afterward elected there to put on the abbatial mitre. Then he proceeds to review the saints of other Cistercian abbeys. But Jean de Cirey in the Compendium expressed not only his own opinion but also that of others, as is manifest from the preface: and this is especially evident from the fact that almost the same catalogue, for the most part in the same words, is found at the end of the Cistercian Missal printed at Paris in the year 1526. For since liturgical books among the Cistercians and many other monks are not printed except by the authority of the general chapter of the Order, it follows that the aforesaid catalogue was annexed to that Missal by the will of the whole Order. And from there Miraeus transferred this index into the Cistercian Chronicle, Henriquez into the Fasciculus of the Cistercian saints, and, in the Spanish language, in the year 1602, Barnabas de Montalvo into the Chronicle of the Cistercian Order. Since Cirey's Compendium of Saints and the Catalogue of the Cistercian Missal of the year 1526, hagiological monuments by no means to be spurned, are older by a whole century than the Urbanian decrees of the year 1634, all the saints presented in them are still legitimately venerated with the ecclesiastical cult with which they have been adorned from that age to our times.
[3] they were honoured with public cult. Nor is it an obstacle that their names, if you except St. Bernard, are passed over in the two most ancient hagiological documents of the Cistercian Order, namely in the Cistercian Kalendar edited by Georgius Martyrologium Adonis, page 710. and by Philippe Guignard Monuments primitifs de la Règle cistercienne, page 290., and in the Usuardine-Cistercian Martyrology likewise printed by Philippe Guignard Ibid., page 303 and following.: which book scarcely differs from the Usuardine martyrology of the fifteenth century copied for the Cistercian convent of women of La Cambre near Brussels. For in that age it was established in custom among the Cistercians that they should introduce not even the least change of the pristine Benedictine discipline, especially in liturgical matters: or even that they should exalt as few as possible of the monks of their Order with any ecclesiastical cult whatever, lest reverence toward the saints should suffer harm Benedict XIV, De Beatificatione etc., book I, chapter XIII, number 17.. Hence in their kalendar and martyrology, of which we have just spoken, St. Robert, the founder of the Cistercians, and his nearest successors SS. Alberic and Stephen being omitted, they celebrated the memory of St. Bernard alone. Let the reader also note that that ancient Usuardine-Cistercian Martyrology was used by the monks of that Order up to the year 1689 Cistercian Martyrology of the year 1689, Preface., augmented indeed with some celebrated saints: although already then (as is plain from the Cistercian Kalendar placed before the Missal of the year 1487, and especially from the Breviary printed at Paris in the year 1615) the liturgy there had been much changed. Cirey and the Missal of the year 1526 were followed in the year 1630 by Henriquez in the Cistercian Menology, and in the year 1631 in the Fasciculus of the Saints of the Cistercian Order, in the year 1656 by Bucelin in the Benedictine Menology, in the year 1683 by Heredia in the Lives of the Saints and Blessed of the Order of St. Benedict, in the year 1687 by Nivardus Van Hove in the Cistercian Kalendar, and in the year 1689 by the whole Cistercian Order, and also, as it seems, by the monastery of Villers in its Martyrology.
[4] Of most of them, a prudent silence in the Acta Sanctorum. These writers, even after the Urbanian decrees of the years 1625 and 1634, did not at all hesitate to celebrate in their menologies as saints or blessed the servants of God reviewed in Cirey's Compendium and in the Catalogue of the Missal of the year 1526, reckoning that they were to be numbered among those excepted by the pontiff himself. Yet our predecessors did not dare to follow them, nor to give a place to most of them in the Bollandist Work: chiefly because Cirey's Compendium was unknown to them, and they did not know by what authority the Catalogue had been drawn up Acta Sanctorum, volume III of February, page 52.. Which prudence no one will readily blame who understands their situation before and after the decrees of Urban VIII. Our Papebroch, setting it out, says Ibid., Propylaeum of May, part II, page 171* and following.: The decree (of Urban VIII on the cult of the Saints, issued in the year 1625) is as it were the rule of the present Work (the Bollandist) for defining whose Acts, as of Saints and Blessed, ought to have a place in it: and not only that, but also a shield against any complaints whatever of excessive either rigour or laxity in making the selection. Hence to Rosweyde (who, doubtful in mind for eighteen whole years, continues Papebroch, could not fully settle with himself whether he should begin the work, in which he saw that, by admitting or passing over many saints, he would bring on himself incredible ill-will) the Urbanian decree of the year 1625 was greatly pleasing. Beyond doubt it would have been all over with the Acta Sanctorum, not yet begun, had not Pope Urban come to its aid with his decree. Rosweyde, who died in the year 1629, was succeeded first by Bolland, who, certain of the legitimate cult of those whom twelve or thirteen centuries had acknowledged as Saints, was nevertheless uncertain about not a few men of the middle age renowned for holiness. Nor did he judge it opportune to set his hand to the work so long as it was not held to be defined what course of immemorial time was, according to the mind of Urban VIII, to be judged sufficient for excepting from the law there enacted the cult of anyone never expressly canonized or beatified by the apostolic see. But to this inconvenience too the same Urban VIII applied a remedy, declaring in the year 1634 that by that name is understood a time exceeding the limit of a hundred years. But even after both decrees of Urban, since there were at hand no interpreters of it in whom all would place very great confidence, our predecessors, as being laxer than some and more severe than others, judged that a singular, though at times excessive, modesty was to be used. But afterward, when Benedict XIV had enriched the Urbanian decree with excellent commentaries, and had extolled with no common praises the diligence and prudence of the Bollandists in illustrating the Acta Sanctorum, they spread their sails. Wherefore if ever a suitable occasion occurs of treating individually of the saints of Clairvaux and others of the Cistercian Order omitted at their own days, we shall seize the one offered. And indeed it seems altogether opportune to illustrate at present the Acts of Bl. Robert, second abbot of Clairvaux, one of them, since, no otherwise than Bl. Peter the One-eyed, he held the abbatial staff at Clairvaux. Certainly several others, advanced to the same dignity in the same monastery, such as Blesseds Geoffrey, afterward abbot of Hautecombe; Fastred, afterward abbot of Cîteaux; Conrad, afterward Cardinal E. R., were undeservedly passed over by our predecessors:
and at first sight they seem to deserve praise in this volume no otherwise than Bl. Robert after Bl. Peter the One-eyed. But the matter is not so. For since on the day of their death they were not abbots of Clairvaux, they claim a place for themselves not here but elsewhere in our Work.
[5] Of Bl. Robert the best documents survive. Of Blessed Robert there survive to us several documents, and excellent ones, besides Cirey's compendium and the catalogue of the Missal of the year 1526: of which some are Cistercian, others of Les Dunes. The chief Cistercian ones are the Exordium Magnum and the Book of Tombs: which Henriquez, Manrique, and others used very much for committing to writing the annals of Bl. Robert and others. How much the Exordium Magnum is worth, according to the recension of Ignatius de Ybero published at Pamplona in the year 1621, and that published at Rixheim in the year 1871, has been shown both in our Work Acta Sanctorum, volume IV of August, page 254. and also several times in this volume. The Book of Tombs, published in print by Henriquez Fasciculus Sanctorum, volume II, page 470 and following. and the distinguished man Charles Lalore Trésor de Clairvaux, page 185 and following., is, on the testimony of Charles de Visch Bibliotheca scriptorum Cisterciensium, page 121., in some part (not beyond about the year 1165), attributed to Bl. Geoffrey, the notary of St. Bernard; so that the praise of Bl. Robert, who died in the year 1157, inserted there, would be his work. The documents of Les Dunes were collected by the monks of Les Dunes Jan Brando, Gilles de Roya, and Adriaan de But, who departed this life in the years 1428, 1478, and 1488, having in hand the manuscript codices of their monastery now lost, and the Cistercian Exordium; in such a way, however, that Brando showed the way to the two later ones. These writers have been extolled with praises by Charles de Visch [Compendium chronologicum abbatiae de Dunis, page 83; Bibliotheca scriptorum Cisterciensium, pages 5, 8, 176.], Félix Goethals Lectures relatives à l'histoire des sciences et des lettres, volume IV, page 36., Émile Gachet [Bulletin de la Commission d'histoire de Belgique, series I, volume III, page 101.], and the distinguished man Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove Chroniques des religieux des Dunes, Introduction, page I and following.. De Roya's Annales Belgici to the year 1478 were printed through the care of Andreas Schott at Frankfurt in the year 1620; de But's Chronicle of Flanders from Lideric I to the year 1419, through the industry of Canon J. J. De Smet, at Brussels in the year 1837, in the Corpus Chronicorum Flandriae. Likewise the Chronicle of the monastery of Les Dunes of the same de But was printed under the care of the venerable priest Van de Putte, at Bruges first in the year 1839, then in the year 1864. Brando's Chronodromon in part, namely the series of events from the year 1384 to the year 1414, continued to the year 1488 by de Roya and de But, was brought out in the year 1870 by Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove. Nor did he edit more, since only the province of illustrating the reign of the Burgundian dukes had been entrusted to him. From the other part of Brando's Chronodromon, not yet made public, we shall excerpt the passages pertaining to Bl. Robert.
[6] He is venerated on the 29th of April. We judge it superfluous to dispute about the ecclesiastical cult of Bl. Robert, since already above, setting up the discussion about Cirey's Compendium and the Catalogue of the Missal of the year 1526, we have shown that the most devout man and several other monks buried at Clairvaux are by right and deservedly numbered among the saints. So it will be enough to indicate on what day his holy memory is observed in the kalendars and menologies. Yet neither in Cirey's Compendium nor in the Catalogue of the Missal of the year 1526 is a day of cult assigned to Bl. Robert and the other saints of the Cistercian Order. But since on the 29th of April the holy abbot passed from this life to heaven, this day was made sacred to him by Henriquez, Bucelin, Heredia, Nivardus Van Hove, the Cistercian Martyrology published in the year 1689 by the care of Mabillon and Chastelain and others, and also the manuscript Martyrology of Villers, Sigismundus de Albertis, and the other Benedictine or Cistercian hagiologists. Raissius imitated them in the Auctarium to Molanus's Natales Sanctorum Belgii, celebrating Bl. Robert on the 29th of April with a lengthy eulogy and naming him blessed, as did also Sanderus in the Hagiologium Flandriae, and especially in the first volume of Flandria Illustrata, and also François-Xavier De Ram in his edition of Butler's Lives of the Saints; Du Saussay likewise sets him forth at the same day in his Martyrologium Gallicanum, but abstains from calling him saint. The writers of the antiquities of the Cistercians, Barnabas de Montalvo Coronica del Orden de Cister, volume II, book IV, page 78 and following., Manrique Annales Cistercienses, volume II, at the year 1157, chapter I, number 2., and others, since Robert advanced the affairs of his Order in no mean degree, and attained splendour by miracles, the testimonies of his holiness, speak of him as of a saint, and for the most part call him by this term. Let the reader who wishes to read through the deeds of the blessed monk more fully explained consult these writers. We, however, bring them forward described less diffusely, because we are only filling in the gaps of our predecessors. First, of the birth and monastic profession of Bl. Robert.
[7] Bl. Robert, born at Bruges of the Flemings, This Robert, says de But, was a Fleming, of Bruges by country, and also a specially beloved kinsman of St. Bernard In De Smet, Chronica Flandriae, volume I, page 286.. But in this place, instead of Robert the nephew of St. Bernard, I judge that de But, whom Henriquez Fasciculus, volume I, page 174. and Sanderus Flandria illustrata, volume I, book IV of the affairs of Bruges, page 248. follow, wrote Robert of Les Dunes: because the ancient Cistercian and Clairvaux historians are silent about so honourable a kinship. Meyer Annales Flandriae, book V, page 43 verso., Henriquez Vidas de los Padres de Dunas, page 64., Sanderus De Brugensibus claris, page 70., de Visch [Compendium chronologicum abbatiae de Dunis, page 18. Compare Heinderycx, Jaerboeken van Veurne etc., volume I, page 86 and following; Chronyke van Vlaenderen (Wyts edition), volume I, page 180.], and others add that he was by country and family de Brugis, or of Bruges, so that by these words they signify native soil and stock. In real truth it is manifest from contemporary documents that the blessed man was brought into the light at Bruges of the Flemings, and that in the Middle Ages there flourished there a family named de Brugis, which held the lordship of Gruuthuse in the parish of Aarsele in the neighbourhood of Tielt. Hence too Blessed Robert is sometimes said to have been born of the Gruuthuse family [De Visch, Bibliotheca scriptorum, page 289; De Ram, Vies des Saints de Butler, volume II, page 482, Brussels edition; De Mersseman, in Biographie des hommes remarquables de la Flandre occidentale, volume II, page 129.]. Which statement is not without difficulty. For no trace of it appears among the older writers either of Clairvaux or of Les Dunes. Indeed in the Book of Tombs of Clairvaux Lalore, Trésor de Clairvaux, page 201. the blessed man is called the lord Robert de Brugis: but in the other documents of this monastery there is the utmost silence about his birth. But whether Bl. Geoffrey annexed to his name the phrase de Brugis in order to distinguish Bl. Robert from his namesakes, for instance from Robert, the nephew of St. Bernard, a monk of the same house, I would not dare to determine: but this is certain, that Geoffrey of Péronne and Alan of Lille are named in the Book of Tombs Gaufridus de Perona, Alanus de Insulis, etc., not on account of family but on account of the place of birth. The same seems to be thought of Bl. Robert, because Jan Brando, Gilles de Roya, and Adriaan de But, monks of Les Dunes, most diligent investigators of the origins of their monastery, making no mention of the nobility of the blessed man, call him simply Robert, monk, of Bruges: and Iperius in the Chronicle of Saint-Bertin In Martène, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, volume III, column 603. also supports them. On account of this silence of the older writers about the noble family of Bl. Robert, I judge that he was not sprung from the house de Brugis or of Gruuthuse. And to this opinion of ours no small weight is added from the fact that a learned writer, our contemporary, bringing the lineage of the house of Gruuthuse to the balance, Col. [ ] found no one in this famous family older than Erembold, a crusader of Bruges in the year 1096, and not one in the twelfth century, but several in the thirteenth and following centuries [J. Van Praet, Recherches sur Louis de Bruges, page 44 and following.].
[8] about the year 1131 he becomes a monk of Clairvaux But the year of the blessed monk's entry into the monastery of Clairvaux is not wholly certain, but it seems to have been about the year 1131; and this we gather from the Book of Tombs and from a certain letter of St. Bernard and other historical documents. In that part of the Book of Tombs which de Visch Bibliotheca Cisterciensis, page 121. judged to have been written by Bl. Geoffrey, a contemporary of Bl. Robert, we read: The lord Robert of Bruges … with the illustrious man … Geoffrey of Péronne, treasurer of the church of St. Quentin, received the habit of sacred religion at … Clairvaux Trésor de Clairvaux, page 201.. Likewise in a letter to Geoffrey and his companions, and therefore to Bl. Robert, St. Bernard says not obscurely that they all (they were thirty in number), obeying his admonitions, would put on the monastic garment at Clairvaux. That Bl. Robert, Geoffrey of Péronne, Alan of Lille, Rener of Thérouanne Compare Henriquez, Fasciculus, volume II, page 480., and other companions assented to this most devout counsel before the year 1138 is not doubtful; since in this very year Bl. Robert was appointed by St. Bernard abbot of the monks of Les Dunes, as we shall see below. But since the holy abbot of Clairvaux is not to be thought to have laid so great a burden on any but a man who had professed the monastic life for some years, Angel Manrique reasons in this manner Annales Cistercienses, volume I, year 1131, chapter II, page 220.: Nor will it be much if his (Robert's) conversion preceded by seven years, and so fell in the present year of Christ, namely 1131, especially since it is altogether established that they were converted while the saint was staying at Liège, nor is any other time easily assigned in which Bernard travelled through those parts. Now of Bl. Robert chosen ruler of the monastery of Les Dunes.
§ II. Bl. Robert abbot of Les Dunes, then of Clairvaux. His death.
Bl. Robert, of the monastery of Les Dunes in Flanders, Bl. Robert, after about seven years, as it seems, spent at Clairvaux, was sent by St. Bernard into Flanders, to substitute the Cistercian Rule for the monastic institutes of Savigny in the monastery of Les Dunes. The monastery of Les Dunes, built one mile from Furnes, between Dunkirk and Nieuwpoort, received its name from the Flemish word duynen, which are hilly and sandy shores, in the midst of which situated
it was. In which place the office of abbot does not seem to have been arduous for Bl. Robert, since the disciplines of the Cistercians and of Savigny differed little from each other, or even the monks of Les Dunes, most devout men (how many there were de But could nowhere find out), vehemently desired this change. These events Brando recorded in many words, Gilles de Roya and de But in fewer. We set out the series of events of Brando, as a writer older than the others, according to the copy transcribed from the codex of Pieter Lammens through the care of Cornelius Nelis, bishop of Antwerp. In the year of the Lord 1107, says Brando Compare Bibliothèque royale de Bruxelles, manuscripts, number 7979, page 172., in Flanders a certain Ligerius, famous for holiness, not far from us, in the place where the monastery of Les Dunes is now situated, toward the sea on the eastern side, dwelt for twenty-one years and began to build a house there; to whom, lying hidden in the same dwelling, a very great multitude of men began to flock, eager to serve as soldiers of the supreme King in the habit of Savigny.
[10] of the monastery begun by Ligerius he is appointed abbot, That Ligerius was a man renowned for holiness is reported by the Cistercians, who number him, as being the founder of the monastery of Les Dunes, afterward Cistercian, among the saints or blessed of their Order [Compare Henriquez, Vidas de los Padres del desierto de Dunas, chapter I, page 5 and following.]. Charles de Visch reports Compendium chronologicum abbatiae de Dunis, page 5 and following. that to him Fulco, a monk of Morigny of the Order of St. Benedict in the district of Bourges, betook himself with the consent of his abbot in the year 1127, and he shows that several, among whom either Brando or his copyist, falsely called him a monk of Savigny. De Visch adds that Fulco in the year 1127, with the approval of the abbot of Morigny, received the garment of the Savigniacs from Ligerius, and when the latter died in the year 1128 succeeded him as abbot Ibid., page 9. Compare Acta Sanctorum, volume IV of August, page 240.: all which things Brando reports at the year 1128 in these words: The lord Fulco, a monk of Savigny, coming into Flanders to a place near Furnes upon the sea, where the abbey of Les Dunes is now situated, and finding there a certain Ligerius leading the hermit's life … having changed his habit, since he was a black monk, took the habit … from the aforesaid Ligerius, and, establishing the manner of the same life in the same place, a little afterward succeeded Ligerius. Then that house founded by Ligerius in the place which is now called the old monastery, in the first year of the lord Fulco, who was the first to rule as abbot in the same place, was most devoutly transferred to the place where the monastery now is. And all these things were done in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1128. The lord Fulco delivered the monastery of Les Dunes … at Clairvaux, in chapter, into the hands of Blessed Bernard the abbot, on the day of Petronilla the virgin, to the Cistercian Order, and it was incorporated into it. Fulco himself, taking the habit of the Cistercian Order, remained there, resigning the office of prelacy, indulging his soul more quietly in contemplation. But Blessed Bernard sent the lord Robert, a monk sprung from Bruges, a man of outstanding holiness, as abbot to Les Dunes, on the nones of April; who, the first abbot of the Cistercian Order, presided worthily and laudably over the same monastery of Les Dunes for fifteen years, until the death of St. Bernard, and, succeeding the most holy father as abbot of Clairvaux, administered it vigorously for five years. In agreement with Brando are the Vaucelles continuation of the Chronicle of Sigebert [Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae, Scriptores, volume VI, page 459. Compare the Works of St. Bernard, volume VIII, Supplement, column 1247.], Iperius in the Chronicle of Saint-Bertin In Bouquet, volume XIII, page 470., de Roya Schott's edition, page 27 and following., de But Place cited., the Anonymous of Blandin Bouquet, volume XIV, page 19, Gilles li Muisis In the Corpus Chronicorum Flandriae, volume II, page 149., and many others whom Leopold Janauschek cites [Originum Cisterciensium volume I, page 52. Compare Acta Sanctorum, volume IV of August, page 169 and following.]. St. Bernard had followed Bl. Robert with such love that, grieving at his absence, he sent him a letter; which Mabillon and Migne have edited Works of St. Bernard, volume I, column 530, Migne edition.. Moreover St. Bernard, as de But writes, following his disciple, entering first at Furnes, preached a sermon to the clergy of St. Walburga on the nones of April, in the year of the Lord 1138, and set his beloved Robert over the monks of Les Dunes Chronica abbatum monasterii de Dunis, page 6.. Hardly anything else about Bl. Robert is in the Chronicle of the abbots of Les Dunes. But Adriaan de But himself gives more in the first Supplement.
[11] and he greatly benefits it. From what has been said it is altogether manifest that the more ancient origins of the monastery of Les Dunes were as humble as could be. But under the abbots Blesseds Robert and Idesbald and their successors it took such increase that in the following century it held an illustrious place among the monasteries of Flanders. To this prosperous outcome no small contribution was made by St. Milo, bishop of Thérouanne, Thierry of Alsace, count of Flanders, and his wife Sibylla, who showed much goodwill from the beginning toward the monks of Les Dunes, especially when they took up the Rule of Clairvaux. Nor could the brethren of Les Dunes fail to become renowned for holiness [Manrique, volume II, at the year 1153, page 245; compare Raissius, Auctarium SS. Belgii, at the 29th day of April.], since their abbot, Bl. Robert, was the exemplar of the monastic virtues for all, and in matters of greater moment obeyed the counsels of St. Bernard. A specimen of this supreme observance is found in the letter which the holy abbot of Clairvaux wrote to Bl. Robert, who had asked him how he should treat an indocile novice. This letter of St. Bernard, a most useful document for the rulers of monasteries, can be read in the works of the holy doctor edited by Mabillon. Mabillon thought it was written about the year 1139 Works of St. Bernard, volume I, column 550, Migne edition.. Nor is there doubt that Bl. Robert obeyed many other admonitions of St. Bernard, which the holy abbot of Clairvaux gave him at his request, especially when in the year 1146 he travelled through Germany and Flanders: of which journey the Bollandist Jan Pien Acta Sanctorum, volume IV of August, page 192 and following, 209, 242. and the most eminent Cardinal Pitra Works of St. Bernard, volume VIII, column 1798 and following, in Migne. have written learnedly.
[12] He succeeded St. Bernard of Clairvaux When St. Bernard died on the 20th day of August of the year 1153, Bl. Robert succeeded him as abbot of Clairvaux [Chronicle of Clairvaux, Works of St. Bernard, Migne edition, volume VIII, column 1247.]. Manrique Annales Cistercienses, volume II, at the year 1153, page 245., Henriquez Fasciculus, volume I, page 179., and Miraeus Chronicon Cisterciense, page 98., following the Book of Tombs of Clairvaux, report that the monks were greatly urged to elect him by St. Bernard himself when near to death; but these things the writer of the Exordium Magnum passed over: where we read only: There succeeded the most blessed Father Bernard in the government of the monastery of Clairvaux the lord Robert, abbot of the monastery of Les Dunes in Flanders: whose prelacy the Lord deigned to reveal almost seven years before the promotion was made in it [Exordium Magnum, book II, chapter XXI, page 124, Rixheim edition; Acta Sanctorum, volume IV of August, pages 325, 327.]. Bl. Robert was soon followed [Manrique, Annales Cistercienses, volume II, at the year 1153; Vaucelles continuation of Sigebert, in Pertz, Monumenta, Scriptores, volume VI, page 460.] in the abbey of Les Dunes by Albero, nephew of Thierry of Alsace, count of Flanders, a monk of Clairvaux, whose memory is observed in the Cistercian menologies at the 9th day of November: who, not being able to bear the air of Furnes, returned a little afterward to Clairvaux, having obtained as successor Bl. Idesbald. But Blessed Robert, no otherwise than in the monastery of Les Dunes, greatly increased the affairs of Clairvaux in many ways. He himself clothed in the Cistercian garment Bl. Henry of Marcy, afterward Cardinal E. R., and many other illustrious men Book of Tombs, in Trésor de Clairvaux, pages 189 and 195.. But above all by his excellent virtues he showed the brethren the way of Christian perfection. With what outstanding humility he was eminent among the other monks at Clairvaux we learn from the author of the Exordium Magnum. He obtained from God that Andrew, archdeacon of Verdun, who with a certain other cleric had received the yoke of the monastic discipline of Clairvaux, but was seriously thinking of taking up a milder religious life, should persevere in his holy purposes.
[13] and, renowned for holiness, He is also related to have been warned in sleep by two young men most beautiful in appearance of the passing into heaven of a certain most devout brother, and, roused by the noise of the board, to have run with the other brethren to the sick monk and to have commended him, dying, to God. The author of the Exordium Magnum adds: So the lord Robert of blessed memory, second abbot of Clairvaux, when he had faithfully, prudently, and humbly spent the talent entrusted to him in the gain of souls, was brought into the joy of the Lord, joined, if not equal in merits, yet in beatitude to his most holy predecessor; so that he rejoices together in heaven with him whose worthy successor he had deserved to be on earth in so religious a congregation. The relics of his body were laid in the tomb which was built in the wall of Clairvaux near the door of the church: where other perfect monks, truly worthy of God, also rest. In a somewhat different way the happy end of Blessed Robert is narrated by Montalvo Coronica de Cister, volume I, book IV, chapter 17, edition of 1602., whose words Henriquez rendered in Latin Fasciculus Sanctorum, part I, page 183.: He prayed the Lord and besought Him with assiduous prayers and tears that, if his life were not necessary for the salvation of souls, He would snatch him from the miseries of this world. The Lord heard him, and when, having returned to Clairvaux from the abbey of Igny, where, forewarned by divine revelation, he had elected Blessed Peter the One-eyed as abbot, he was giving himself to God; there, seized by fever, he took to his bed, and a little afterward gave back his spirit to God; and by whose merits, both while he lived among men and after he was joined to the heavenly ones, the Lord deigned to work frequent miracles.
[14] he died in the year 1157. We have several times mentioned the praise of Bl. Robert inserted in the Book of Tombs [Trésor de Clairvaux, page 201; Henriquez, Fasciculus, volume II, book II, Distinction 41, page 476.]; which we think it useful to report here in full: Under the second stone arch in the same cloister are the bones of several persons buried in the former chapter-house, translated on account of the building of the dormitory which now stands and of the new chapter-house; for the diligent reader will also find the first letters of the names of each carved there on the stones. The middle place, more eminent than the rest, is held by the lord Robert of Bruges, second abbot of Clairvaux. He, with the illustrious man the lord Geoffrey of Péronne, treasurer of the church of St. Quentin, received the habit of sacred religion in this Clairvaux. And when the monastery of Les Dunes, which by monks of our habit, but not of our Order, to be built
had been begun, was making no progress at all, and had been handed over to Blessed Bernard, then St. Bernard ordained the same lord Robert abbot there. And within a few years that whole monastery was built and enriched, and endowed with possessions, and anticipated with that blessing whose grace continues in the same place to this day. This venerable man, then, our most holy father Bernard, a few days before his most happy departure, in the presence of his brethren, not without much commendation of his person, admonished and counselled them to elect as his successor. Him therefore, after his passing, the lord Godfrey, bishop of Langres, formerly prior of Clairvaux, named abbot. To him the Lord granted, during the whole time of his rule, within and without, not only in his own Clairvaux but also in her daughters, such peace that those times seemed most happy. And when three years and a half had passed, since on the holy day of Parasceve he had walked with bare feet and had been severely afflicted by the cold, at the vigils of the following Saturday he was seized by so grave a fever that he could not without difficulty be carried from his stall by the hands of the brethren into the infirmary. There, troubled by the same fever for a few days, continually persevering in pure and humble confession, not without great lamentation of the whole congregation, he rested in the Lord on the third day before the Kalends of May, that is, on the 29th day of April of the year 1157.
From the first words, just reported, we gather that Bl. Robert was buried at the beginning in another place: where that was is not known Manrique, Annales, volume III, year 1157, page 291.. The tomb which he then obtained, as well as those of Blesseds Serlo, Humbert, etc., has been described by Durand and Martène, Henriquez, and others [Voyage littéraire, volume I, page 101. Lalore, Trésor de Clairvaux, page 200. Fasciculus, volume I, page 183.]. Bl. Robert was succeeded in the abbatial see of Clairvaux by Bl. Fastred, first abbot of Cambron in Hainaut, his native land: whose cult is exactly the same as the cult of Bl. Robert.
[15] Valerius Andreas wrongly attributes a panegyric to him. Since their own glory suffices for the saints, it is less fair to extol them with another's praise. Wherefore we depart from Valerius Andreas, who adjudges to Bl. Robert a little work not his own. For Valerius writes Bibliotheca Belgica, page 795, edition of 1643.: He delivered a most elegant sermon on the anniversary day of the deposition of St. Bernard, which the religious of Les Dunes read even today. But de Visch Bibliotheca scriptorum Cisterciensium, page 289 and following., a monk of Les Dunes and a contemporary of Andreas, examining this composition, found that it was the same which Henriquez in the Fasciculus Fasciculus, volume II, page 268. and Jacques Merlon, after the works of St. Bernard, attributed to Geoffrey, fourth abbot of Clairvaux: whose footsteps Mabillon afterward followed in the edition of the Works of St. Bernard Works of St. Bernard, volume VIII, column 573, Migne edition.. But it is manifest that the author of this sermon, which was delivered in the tenth year after the death of St. Bernard, that is, in the year 1163 Ibid., column 576., was not Bl. Robert, who in fact died in the year 1157. Had de Visch attended to these things, he would not have remained doubtful whether that sermon is Bl. Robert's or another's, and would have said that the blessed monk was in no way the writer of the panegyrical oration on St. Bernard. And if in his Bibliotheca Scriptorum Cisterciensium he did not deny him a place, he did so both because, besides Valerius Andreas, Sanderus De Brugensibus eruditione claris, page 70. numbered him, as a learned man, among the writers of Bruges renowned for erudition, and because it is established that he was a most learned man, and he is reported to have written certain other things too, although the titles have not come down to us. These and other words of de Visch were copied out almost to the letter by Jean-François Foppens Bibliotheca Belgica, page 1074..
[16] The fortunes of the abbey of Les Dunes. Before an end is put to this Historical Commentary on Bl. Robert, I think this one thing must be added, namely that of the buildings of Les Dunes, which the blessed abbot fitted to the Cistercian institutes, not even a stone remains upon a stone. For the Calvinists in the year 1575 and following laid waste the monastery of Les Dunes with fire and sword, and put the monks themselves to flight hither and thither. Moreover Bernard Campmans in the year 1623 carried its demolished bricks to another place, lest they be gradually buried by the sea sands, and so that they might be used for building a new monastery. That plan, however, he did not carry out, because he transferred the monastery of Les Dunes within the walls of the town of Bruges in the year 1627, to avoid the attacks of the Dutch Calvinists De Visch, Compendium chronologicum abbatiae de Dunis, pages 96, 105, 109.. From that seat, at the end of the eighteenth century, the French Republic expelled the monks of Les Dunes. The buildings of the extinct monastery of Les Dunes were converted into the diocesan seminary in the year 1833 by François Boussen, bishop of Bruges, with the consent of the senate and people of Bruges and with the approval of the last monk of that monastery, Nicolaas de Roovere, a man of the greatest integrity Kersten, Journal historique, volume II, page 395..
[17] The Cistercian Order renowned for holiness. By way of crowning we add the series of the Cistercian saints whom the Holy See has permitted to be honoured in the liturgy by the members of that Order of both sexes Officia propria Ordinis Cisterciensis, Venice, 1795.. In the month of January: St. Guarinus; St. Alberic; St. Amadeus; St. Gerard, brother of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. February: St. William; St. Humbeline; St. Boniface at La Cambre near Brussels. March: St. Aelred; St. Peter of Castelnau; St. Gerard, abbot of Clairvaux; St. Stephen of Obazine; St. Vincent Kadłubek; St. Raymond. April: St. Hugh; Bl. Ida of Louvain; St. Stephen, abbot of Cîteaux; St. Franca of Piacenza; St. Robert, first abbot of Cîteaux. May: St. Peter of Tarentaise. June: SS. Bernard, Mary, and Grace, martyrs; St. Robert the Englishman; St. Aleydis, at La Cambre; St. Lutgard. July: St. Theobald; St. Baldwin. August: St. Famianus, at Ursaria in Spain; St. Bernard of Clairvaux. September: St. Hildegard, called a Cistercian nun. October: St. Martin; St. Maurice; St. Hedwig; St. Bernard Calvonius. November: Bl. Eugene III, Roman pontiff. December: St. Galvanus. And these are the Cistercian saints celebrated in the Catholic liturgy. But many other saints of the same Order are honoured with a legitimate, though less solemn, cult: whose deeds have been or are to be illustrated in our Work. Nor are the brethren distinguished for holiness to be passed over, of whom Henriquez, Miraeus, Brito, Montalvo, Manrique, and others write, and who have shone like stars in the Church of God. Wherefore the reader cannot but call the Cistercian Order a holy nation.