LETTER LXVI (A.D. 1135)To the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Having received many letters from him, Bernard replies in a friendly manner, and praises the soldiers of the Temple.

I shall seem ungrateful if I do not reply to the many patriarchal letters which you have vouchsafed me. But what more can I do than salute him who has saluted me? For you have prevented me with 309the blessings of goodness, you have graciously set me the example of sending letters across the sea, you have deprived me of the first share of humility and charity. What fitting return can I now make? In truth, you have left me nothing which in my turn I can give back; for even of your worldly treasures you have been careful to make me a sharer in giving me part of the Cross of the Lord. What then? Ought I to omit what I can do because I cannot do what I ought? I show you my affection at least and my goodwill by merely replying and returning your salutation, which is all that I can do at present, separated as we are by so great a tract of sea and land. I will show, if ever I have the opportunity, that I love not in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. Give a thought, I pray you, to the soldiers of the Temple, and of your great piety take care of these zealous defenders of the Church. If you cherish those who have devoted their lives for their brethren’s sake you will do a thing acceptable to God and well-pleasing to man. Concerning the place to which you invite me, my brother Andrew will tell you my mind.THE END

[1] The title of this letter follows a MS. at Corbey. It does not appear who these regular canons were.

[2] This was William of Champeaux, a friend of S. Bernard, who died in 1121.

[3] The MS. in the Royal Library is inscribed: De Discretione Obedientiæ. Of Discernment in Obedience. This Letter was written after the death of Abbot Arnold, which took place in Belgium in the year 1126.

[4] Protoplastus, the first formed. Tertullian, Exhort. ad Castit., cap. 2 and Adv. Jud., c. 13, calls Adam and Eve Protoplasti.—[E.]

[5] Reg. Cap. 71.

[6] Antony, who was called by S. Athanasius “the founder of asceticism,” and “a model for monks,” is called “Abbas,” though he was more properly a hermit, and always refused to take oversight of a monastery. He was born at Coma, in Upper Egypt, about A.D. 250. The Paulus here mentioned was a disciple of Antony. He was remarkable for his childlike docility, on account of which he was surnamed Simplex, and notwithstanding a certain dulness of intellect seems to have shown sometimes remarkable discernment of character.—[E.]

[7] This clause is wanting in some MSS.

[8] Bruno, son of Englebert, Count of Altena, was consecrated, in 1132.

[9] Unlikeness.

[10] The founder of the Præmonstratensian Order. See respecting him Letter lvi.

[11] This was Robert, to whom Letter I. was addressed.

[12] Louis VI., “the Fat.”

[13] Stephen, who was Bishop of Paris from 1124 to 1144. The cause of these persecutions was the withdrawal of Stephen from the Court, and the liberty of the Church which he demanded. Henry, Archbishop of Sens, had a similar difficulty, and for causes not unlike (Letter 49). The mind of the King was not induced to yield by this Letter, and the death of his son Philip, who was already associated with him as King, passed for a punishment from heaven for his obstinacy. It is astonishing that after his death the nobles and bishops should have had thoughts of hindering the succession of Louis the Younger (Ordericus, Book xiii. p. 895 sqq.).

[14] All those who in a Society had the right of suffrage were regarded as brothers. So the monks of Chaise-Dieu call Louis Le Jeune by the name of brother (Duchesne, Vol. iv. Letter 308).

[15] This Alexander was Bishop of Lincoln in England from 1123 to 1147

[16] Prov. x. 1. Bernard always quotes this passage thus. In the Vulgate it is, Filius sapiens lætificat patrem.

[17] Letter 18 from the Abbot Philip to Alexander the Third is on a very similar subject, and begs that the property of the Archdeacon of Orleans, who had become a monk, should be given up to his creditors (Biblioth. Cisterc. Vol. i. p. 246).

[18] A monastery of the Benedictine Order on the river Scarpe two miles from Douai. It dates from 1029, and was at first named S. Saviour.

[19] Rule of S. Benedict cap. 63.

[20] Gravidare; gravare. —[E.]

[21] Heroid. Ep. I. v. 11.

[22] Otherwise viderunt , have seen.

[23] Vinctus , otherwise junctus .

[24] Otherwise voluntatem .

[25] It is, perhaps, of this man that Bernard speaks in his Apology c. 10: “I have seen, I do not exaggerate, an abbot going forth escorted by 60 horses and more . . . etc.”

[26] Sugere. Bernard is playing upon the name of his correspondent Suger.

[27] This deacon was Stephen de Garlande, seneschal or officer of the table to the King of France.

[28] Bernard here blames equally clerics who bear arms for the King’s pay and kings who impose military service upon clerks. Each is wrong: the one because he loses sight of the dignity of his status, the others because they confide without choice or discrimination functions of the Court or of the Army upon clerks instead of giving them to laymen, as they ought.

[29] The tonsure, or clerical crown.

[30] Job ii. 10.

[31] 2 Sam. xvi. 10.

[32] Suus ille quod suus.

[33] It was by the example of the Cistercians, as, I think, all of whose monasteries were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, that she began to be called Our Lady. Hence, Peter Cellensis says of Bernard: “He was a most devoted child of Our Lady, to whom he dedicated not one church only, but the churches of the whole Cistercian Order” (B. vi. Ep. 23).

[34] Some blame and some ridicule such a title as this, as being a vicious pleonasm, since these two words differ only in the language from which each is borrowed, and mean exactly the same thing; as if canons were something different from regulars, or as if there were some canons who were regulars and others who were not. But it may be seen in John Bapt. Signy Lib. de Ord. Canon, B. ii., and Navarre, Com. I. de Regul. ad c. 12, Cui portio Deus, q. 1, where he shows that every pleonasm is not necessarily a battology. For in legal documents certain expressions or clauses are often repeated to give them more force. It is the same in Hebrew (Ps. lxxxvii. 5, Ps. lxviii. 12 Vulg. and lxx.). Oger was the first Dean of the Regular Canons of S. Nicholas des Pres, near Tournay. Picard states this upon the authority of Denis Viller, Canon and Chancellor of Tournay.

[35] Bernard had counselled him not to resign his abbacy, and this advice he had not followed. Hence is suggested the serious question: Is it lawful to lay down the pastoral charge, to withdraw one’s self from cares and business, for the purpose of serving God in peace and quiet, and caring for one’s own soul? The examples of so many holy men whom we know to have done this add to the difficulty of the question. Many might be cited among prelates of lower rank, not a few Bishops, Cardinals, and even some Popes. Bruno III., Count of Altena, and afterwards Bishop of Cologne, quitted his see, in 1119, and retired to the Cistercian monastery of Aldenberg. Eskilus, Archbishop of Lunden, in Denmark, came to live at Clairvaux as a simple monk; Peter Damian, who, from a Benedictine monk, became Cardinal and Bishop of Ostia, after he had rendered signal service to the Church for a number of years, with wonderful constancy, in the high office to which he had been raised, returned into his cell from love of solitude and quiet, and passed the rest of his days in profound peace, in the midst of his brethren; but was blamed by the Pope because he, a useful and able man, postponed public usefulness to his private safety. One remarkable fact is recorded of him, that the Pope imposed upon him a penance of a hundred years for quitting his Bishopric: he was to recite Ps. 1. [li.] and give himself the discipline every day for a hundred years; and this he completed entirely in the space of one year. This I remember to have read somewhere (Works, Vol. i. ep. 10, new ed., Vol. iii. opusc. 20). To Pope Alexander and Cardinal Hildebrand, who became Pope later under the name of Gregory VII., he tries to justify his quitting his see, and opposes numerous examples of conduct similar to his, to the blame of the Pope and the cardinals. But it is necessary to hold to what the law prescribes rather than to the examples of other persons. The Angelical Doctor says: “Every pastor is obliged by his function to labour for the salvation of others, and it is not permitted to him to cease to do so, not even to have leisure for peaceful meditation upon spiritual things. For the Apostle regards the obligation to occupy himself with the salvation of others who depend upon him as being of such importance that it must not be postponed even to heavenly meditation: I know not what to choose, he says, for I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better; nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you (Phil. i. 22–23). It may be added that the Episcopate being a state more perfect than that of the monk, it follows that just as it is not permitted to quit the second to re-enter the world, so it is not allowable to renounce the first in order to embrace the second, considering that the latter is less perfect than the former. That would precisely be to look back after having put one’s hand to the plough, and to show one’s self unfit for the kingdom of God” (S. Luke ix. 62).

[36] Exoneratus; exhonoratus.

[37] Because a monk, when he became an abbot, was freed from the control of his own abbot.

[38] S. Luke xxi. 2–4

[39] He is here, without doubt, speaking of the Apology to the Abbot William. Oger was at Clairvaux while Bernard was writing it, as appears from the last words of that work. But as he left before the final touches were put to it, Bernard afterwards sent it to him for perusal; and he, without direction, communicated it to Abbot William, to whom it was inscribed, and to whom Bernard intended to send it.

[40] This little preface is the Letter addressed to the same William, and counted the 85th among the Letters of S. Bernard; it is placed at the head of the Apology.

[41] In this Letter the Saint expresses in forcible words how little he felt himself inclined to write to his friends Letters without necessity or usefulness, and to take time and leisure for doing so which belonged to more important and sacred employments. Also, he felt that the labour of literary composition interfered with the silence to which monks were bound, as also with inward quiet and peace. Bernard speaks of the function and calling of a monk like himself. For the monk, as such, is not called to preach and to teach, but to devote himself in solitude to God and to his own salvation, through meditation and the practice of virtues. Wherefore he says, in ep. 42: “Labour and retirement and voluntary poverty, these are the signs of the monk; these render excellent the monastic life.” But if there should be anywhere lurking slothful monks who are so imprudent and rash as to abuse the authority of the Saint to the excuse of their own indolence, let such hear him accusing them in plain words: “I may seem, perhaps, to say too much in disparagement of learning, as if I wished to blame the learned and prohibit the study of literature. By no means. I do not overlook how greatly her learned sons have profited and do profit the Church, whether in combating her enemies or in instructing the simple,” &c. (Sermon 36 on the Canticles).

[42] This Guerric was made Abbot of Igny in 1138. He is mentioned again in the following Letter.

[43] Or benignity.

[44] This kind of correspondence is a hindrance to devotion and the spirit of prayer, as he says in the Letter placed at the head of his Apology addressed to Abbot William, and also in Letter 89.

[45] This was one of the first general Chapters held by the Black Monks (as they are called) in the province of Rheims. It seems that its cause and occasion was the Apology addressed by Bernard to Abbot William, who was the prime mover in calling together this assembly, after the example of the Cluniacs and Cistercians, that they might re-establish the observance of the Rule which was being let slip. It was held without doubt at S. Medard under the Abbot Geoffrey, to whom Letter 66 was addressed. He was Bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne when Peter the Venerable spoke of him thus (B. ii. Ep. 43): “It is he who first spread the divine Order of Cluny through the whole of France, who was its author and propagator; and, far more, it was he who expelled ‘the old dragon’ from his resting-places in so many monasteries, and who roused monks from their torpor.” Innocent II, determined that these general Chapters should be held every year in future.

[46] The history of the Abbey of Wells, in England, explains to us what is meant by these words of Bernard. “The Abbot of Clairvaux, Bernard, had sent detachments of his army of invasion to take possession of the most distant regions; they won brilliant triumphs over the ancient enemy of salvation, bearing from him his prey and restoring it to its true Sovereign. God had inspired him with the thought of sending some hopeful slips from his noble vine of Clairvaux into the English land that he might have fruit among that nation, as in the rest of the world. The very letter is yet extant which he wrote for these Religious to the King, in which he said that there was a property of the Lord in that land of the King, and that he had sent brave men out of his army to seek it, seize it, and bring it back to its owner. He persuades the King to render assistance to his messengers, and not to fail to fulfil in this his duty to his suzerain; which was done. The Religious from Clairvaux were received with honour by the King and by the realm, and they laid new foundations in the province of York, founding the Abbey of Rievaulx. And this was the first planting of the Cistercian Order in the province of York.” (Monast. Anglican. Vol. i. p. 733.) Further mention of Henry I. is made in the notes to Letter 138.

[47] Esse. The word is a common one with Bernard to signify the state of a man or a business. See Letters 118, 304.

[48] Since kings and princes are, as it were, vassals to God.

[49] He was nephew, by his mother, of Henry I, King of England, brother of King Stephen, and son of Stephen, Count of Blois. “His mother, Adela,” says William of Newburgh, “not wishing to appear to have borne children only for the world, had him tonsured.” In 1126, The History of the Abbey of Glastonbury counts him among the number of the abbots of that monastery, and says, “he was a man extremely versed in letters, and of remarkable regularity of character. By his excellent administration the Abbey of Glastonbury profited so much that his tame will be held in everlasting memory there” (Monast. Anglican. Vol. ii. p. 18). Henry was elevated later on to the see of Winchester, and Bernard complains of him in writing to Pope Eugenius. “What shall I say of his Lordship of Winchester? The works which he does show sufficiently what he is.” Harpsfield reports that he extorted castles from nobles whom he had invited to a feast, and Roger that he had consecrated the intruder William to the See of York (Annal. under year 1140). The latter calls him legate of the Roman See. Brito and Henriquez must, therefore, be wrong in counting him among the Cistercians, and the latter in particular, in speaking of him as a man of eminent sanctity, taking occasion from the testimony of Wion (Ligno vitæ), who calls him a man gifted with prophecy, because when on his death-bed, in receiving the visit of his nephew, Henry, he predicted to him that he would be punished by God on account of the death of S. Thomas of Canterbury, whom he had himself consecrated; as if that saying may not have been inspired by fear rather than prophecy, as Manrique rightly says in his Annals. Peter the Venerable wrote many letters to him, which are still extant, among others Letters 24 and 25 in Book iv., in which he requests that he may return to Cluny to die and be buried there. Being invited to do so at the request of Louis, the King of France, and of the chief nobles of Burgundy, and also at the letters of Pope Hadrian IV., he sent on his treasures to Peter the Venerable, and, leaving England without the permission of the King, arrived at Cluny in 1155. He discharged from his own means the debts of the abbey, which were then enormous; he expended for the support of the monks who lived at Cluny, more than four hundred in number, 7,000 marks of silver, which are equal to 40,000 livres. He gave forty chalices for celebrating mass, and a silk pannus (which may have been an altar vestment, or more probably a hanging—[E.]) of great price; he buried with his own hands Peter the Venerable, who died January 1st, 1157. Having returned at length to his see, he died, to the great grief of the Religious of Cluny, on August the 9th, 1171.

[50] Letter 318 clearly shows what monastery these had left, namely, the Benedictine Abbey of S. Mary, at York, and this the Monasticon Anglicanum confirms. The Abbey of S. Mary, at York, was founded in 1088 by Count Alan, son of Guy, Count of Brittany, in the Church of S. Olave, near York, to which King William Rufus afterwards gave the name of S. Mary. Hither were brought from the monastery of Whitby the Abbot Stephen and Benedictine monks, under whom monastic discipline was observed; but about the year 1132, under Geoffrey, the third abbot, it began to be relaxed. It was at that time that the Cistercian order was everywhere renowned, and was introduced into England in the year 1128 (its first establishment being at Waverley, in Surrey). Induced by a pious emulation, twelve monks of S. Mary, who were not able to obtain from their abbot permission to transfer themselves to this Cistercian Order, begged the support of Thurstan, Archbishop of York, to put their project into execution. With his support they left their monastery on October 4th, 1132, notwithstanding the opposition of their abbot; to the number of twelve priests and one levite (deacon). Of these one was the Prior Richard, another Richard the sacristan, and others named in the History before mentioned, taking nothing from the monastery but their habit. Troubled by their desertion, Abbot Geoffrey complained to the king, to the bishops and abbots of the neighbourhood, as well as to S. Bernard himself, of the injury done by this to the rights of all religious houses, without distinction. Archbishop Thurstan wrote a letter of apology to William, Archbishop of Canterbury, and at the same time Bernard himself wrote to Thurstan and to the thirteen Religious to congratulate them, and another to Abbot Geoffrey to justify their action (Letters 94 to 96 and 313). In the meantime these monks were shut up in the Episcopal house of Thurstan; and as they refused, notwithstanding the censures of their abbot, to return to their former monastery, Thurstan gave them in the neighbourhood of Ripon a spot of ground previously uncultivated, covered with thorn bushes, and situated among rocks and mountains which surrounded it on all sides, that they might build themselves a house there. Their Prior Richard was given to them for abbot by Thurstan, who gave him the Benediction on Christmas Day. Having passed a whole winter in incredible austerity of life, they gave themselves and their dwelling-place, which they had called Fountains, to S. Bernard. He sent to them a Religious, named Geoffrey, of Amayo, from whose hands they received the Cistercian Rule with incredible willingness and piety (Life of S. Bernard, B. iv. c. 2).

[51] What Thurstan did for the protection of these monks, who had taken refuge with him in the desire to embrace a more austere life, may be seen in a Letter from him which we have taken from the Monasticon Anglicanum and placed after those of S Bernard.

[52] He had been Prior of the monastery of S. Mary, at York, which be quitted, followed by twelve other Religious, as we have seen above. He died at Rome, as may be seen in Mon. Anglic. p. 744. He had for successor another Richard, formerly sacristan of the same monastery of S. Mary, who died at Clairvaux (ibid., p. 745). He is mentioned in the 320th letter of S. Bernard.

[53] The monastery of Fountains, in the Diocese of York, passed over to the Cistercian Rule in 1132. It is astonishing to read of the fervour of these monks in Monast. Anglican. Vol. i. p. 733 and onwards. Compare also Letters 313 and 320 for what relates to the death of Abbot Richard, the second of that name and Order.

[54] This Geoffrey, “a holy and religious man,” who founded or reformed numerous monasteries, had been sent by Bernard to Fountains to train them according to the Rule of the Cistercian Order (Monast. Anglican. Vol. i. p. 741). Concerning the same Geoffrey see The Life of S. Bernard, B. iv. c. 2.

[55] In not a few MSS. this Letter, with the answer following, is placed after Letter 127, and in some even after Letter 252. Hildebert, the author of this Letter, ruled the Church of Mans (1098-1125), whence, on the death of Gilbert, he was translated to the Metropolitan See of Tours. This is clear, first from Ordericus Vitalis, Bk. x., sub ann., 1198, and next from the Acts of the Bishops of Mans, published in the third volume of Analecta, where Guido, his successor in the See of Mans, is said to have been consecrated, after long strife, in 1126. Hildebert only ruled in Tours six years and as many months. So say the Acts just mentioned. With them agrees a dissertation by Duchesne, and John Maan’s History of the Metropolitan See of Tours, and so also Ordericus Vitalis on the year 1125 (p. 882), where he assigns to Hildebert an Archiepiscopate of about seven years. Hildebert, then, did not reach the year 1136, as Gallia Christiana says, but died in 1132, in which year John Maan places his death. Horst, in the note to this Letter, refers to another Letter of Hildebert (the 24th), which he thinks was also written to Bernard. But this Letter, which in all the editions appears without the name of the person to whom it was addressed, is entitled in two MSS. “To H., Abbot of Cluny,” which we have followed. From this Letter we understand that Hildebert had it in mind to retire to Cluny, if the Supreme Pontiff would allow him. Peter of Blois praises his Letters. (Ep. 101)

[56] Christus.

[57] Geoffrey of Loretto, a most renowned doctor, afterwards Archbishop of Bordeaux. He took his name from Loretto, a place in the Diocese of Tours, close to Poitou. It was once famous for a Priory, subject to Marmoutiers. This is why Gerard of Angoulême is spoken of to Geoffrey in this Letter as “the wild beast near you.” Another derivation is “L’oratoire,” a monastery of the Cistercians in the Diocese of Angers.

[58] Gerard of Angoulême.

[59] “Converts” ( conversi ) was the name formerly given to adults who had been converted to the religious life, and who were distinguished by this name from those who were offered as children. The lay brethren are here meant; cf. ep. 141 n. 1. They were present at the election of an abbot (ep. 36 n. 2), just as once the laity were joined with the clergy in the election of a bishop. Here they are named before the novices, but in Sermon 22 (de Diversis n. 2) they come after them; they were not admitted into the choir. Bernard, moreover, distinguishes them from the monks. For at that time they were not among the Cistercians reckoned among the monks, as is proved by the Exordium Cisterc. (c. 15); although they made some profession. Hence Innocent II, in some deed of privilege or in ep. 352, here says: “Let no one presume without your leave to receive or to retain any one of your converts who have made their profession, but are not monks, be he archbishop, bishop, or abbot.” In the Council of Rheims, held under Eugenius III., the converts are called “the professed” (Can. 7), and although they may have returned to the world, yet they are declared incapable of matrimony, like the monks, from whom, nevertheless, they are distinguished. For the early days of Clairvaux cf. notes to ep. 31.

[60] Baldwin, first Cardinal of the Cistercian Order, was created by Innocent, A.D. 1130, at a Council held at Claremont. He was afterwards made Archbishop of Pisa; cf. Life of S. Bernard (lib. ii. n. 49): “In Pisa was Baldwin born, the glory of his native land, and a burning light to the Church.” So great a man did not think it beneath him to act as Bernard’s secretary, and his praises are sung in ep. 245, cf. ep. 201.

[61] All these were Cardinals. Luke, of the title of SS. John and Paul, was created A.D. 1132; Chrysogonus, of the title of S. Maria de Porticu, A.D. 1134; Ivo, a regular Canon of S. Victor of Paris, A.D. 1130, of the title of S. Laurence in Damascus; to him ep. 193 was written.

[62] Bruno is called (ep. 209) the father of many disciples in Sicily. Gerard seems to be Bernard’s brother. For Bruno see also ep. 165 n. 4.

[63] So all texts, except a few, in which the reading is: “Indeed, that Sun is promised to those who have been called,” &c. In the first edition, and many subsequent ones: “For the Sun which arises is not that which is daily to be seen rising over good and bad, but one promised by the prophetic warning to such as fear God, to those only who have been called,” &c.

[64] The lxx. has ???? ????????? ???? ?????. The Vulgate reads “Ecce timor Domini ipsa est sapientia,” with which the A. V, coincides, “Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.” Does Bernard quote from memory?

[65] This must be the reading, not “congregation” [ concilio ], as in Ps. i., for the sense demands “purpose” [ consilio ], and the MSS. so read.

[66] Bernard regards as a vow that kind of promise by which a man had determined in his presence to enter the religious state. See Letter 395 and Sermons on Canticles, 63, n. 6, in which he mourns the lapse and fall of novices.

[67] No. 107.

[68] Hence it is clear that Bernard was already approaching old age when he wrote this Letter.

[69] Such is the title in almost all the MSS. But in one at Cîteaux the Letter is inscribed To Bruno of Cologne, as is believed, on the martyrdom of the Maccabees. In an old edition It is thought to have been written to Hugo of S. Victor.

[70] Either a canon holding a prebend of theology or simply a student—here probably the former. But see n. 7.—[E.]

[71] Bernard usually shows himself very doubtful of the salvation of those who, having been tailed by God to the religious state, had not yielded to their vocation, and much more of those who, having entered it, though not made profession, had returned to the world. See Letters 107 and 108. But Fulk had actually made profession.

[72] i.e., not owing me obedience as a monk.

[73] Mabillon reads substantiva, but another reading is substantia.—[E.]

[74] Such of the title of the Letter in two Vatican MSS. and in certain others. In those of Citeaux it is inscribed Letter of exhortation to a friend. But at the end of Letter 106 I conjecture the reference to be to Ivo, who signs it with William.

[75] S. Bernard usually designates thus Doctors and Professors of Belles Lettres. See Letters 77, 106, and others. It is thus that in the Spicilegium iii. pp. 137, 140, Thomas d’Etampes is called sometimes Magister, sometimes Doctor. In a MS. at the Vatican we read, “To Magister Gaucher.”

[76] Some add “in honour” from Ps. xlviii., but it is wanting in the MSS., and certainly is redundant here.

[77] Hath not received it in vain, Vulg.

[78] Saccus.

[79] A familiar figure of speech with Bernard. See Letter 107, § 13; 124, § 2, &c.

[80] Some have “Luxeuil.” This word Ordericus also generally uses to designate Lisieux, in Neustria, so that there is no uniform distinction of names between Lisieux and Luxeuil, in the County of Burgundy, found among writers of this period.

[81] Compare in this place Imitation of Christ, Bk. i. c. 25. “A religious person who has become slothful and lukewarm has trouble upon trouble, and suffers anguish on every side, because he lacks consolation from within, and is debarred from seeking it without.” Read also Sermons 3 and 5 upon the Ascension.

[82] This expression is borrowed from the Rule of S. Benedict, in which it is said that the younger shall call their elders nonna (in monasteries for men nonnus), Chap. lxiii.

[83]Wimple. So all the MS. codices that I have seen, viz., at the Royal Library, Colbert Library, Sorbonne, Royal College of Navarre, S. Victor of Paris MS., MS. of Compiègne, and others at other libraries, which have “with the wimple” (wimplatæ), though all editions except two (viz., that of Paris, 1494, and of Lyons, 1530) have “one puffed up” (uni inflatæ). They ask what “with the wimple” (wimplatæ) means. Of course it is a word formed from wimple or guimple, owing to the easy change of g to w. In French “guimpe” or “guimple” is a woman’s head-dress, once common with women of noble birth (as we learn from the old pictures of noble ladies), but the more simple and modest refrained from wearing it. So we read in the French poet, contained in Borellus’ Glossarium Gallicum:— <l>Moult fut humiliant et simple</l> <l>Elle eut une voile en lieu de guimple.</l> Which may be rendered— <l>She was a lowly girl and simple,</l> <l>And wore a veil in place of wimple.</l> Now, however, the word “wimple” is scarcely heard outside the cloisters of nuns.

[84] This convent still exists under the rule of S. Benedict. It had lately been, as Bernard testifies, the object of a reform when he wrote.—[Mabillon’s note.]

[85] Cf. the French equivalent “Le bon ordre,” i.e., the strict Rule of Monastic Life.

[86] She was the wife of Count Alan, and a great benefactress to Clairvaux. She built the monks a monastery near the town of Nantes (see Ernald, Life of S. Bernard, ii. 34, and according to Mabillon’s Chronology, 1135 A.D.). The name of the monastery is Buzay; it is presided over by the most illustrious Abbot Caumartin, who has communicated to me the first charter founding the convent. In this charter Duke Conan, son of Alan and Ermengarde, asserts that he and his mother had determined to build the Abbey of Buzay, but that, misled by evil counsel of certain persons, they had desisted from their undertaking. At length Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, came into those parts. The House of Buzay was dependent upon his abbey. Bernard, seeing the place almost desolate, was deeply grieved, “and,” says Conan, “rebuked me with the most severe reproofs as false and perfidious; and then ordered the abbot and monks who tarried there to abandon the place and return to Clairvaux.” Conan interposed, and after restoring the property of the monastery which he had taken away, took steps for the completion of the building. The charter is signed by Bishops Roland, of Vannes; Alan, of Rennes; John, of St. Malo; Iterius, of Nantes; and also by Peter, Abbot of the monastery, and Andrew, a monk. But to return to Ermengarde. Godfrey, Abbot of Vendôme (Bk. v. Letter 23), urges her to resume her purpose of entering the religious life, which she appears to have abandoned. The same Godfrey, in the next Letter, speaks of her as of royal blood.

[87] That is, Simon and Adelaide, not Gertrude, as most write. For the account of the conversion of this Duchess by, S. Bernard see Life, Bk. i. c. 14. She took the veil of a Religious in the Nunnery of Tart, in the environs of Dijon, as is clear from the autograph Letters of her son, Duke Matthew, who calls his mother Atheleïde. These Letters P. F. Chifflet refers to at the end of his four Opuscula, ed. Paris, 1679. I do not refer to the pretended Letters of Gertrude to Bernard, and Bernard to Gertrude, translated by Bernard Brito, from French into Portuguese and thence into Latin.

[88] Passagium, a fixed payment from travellers entering or passing through a country; droit de passage or “toll.”

[89] I think this is Wido [or Guy?], Abbot of Trois Fontaines, who frequently went to Lorraine. Cf. 63, 69.

[90] Matilda, wife of Hugo I., Duke of Burgundy, who was cherishing her anger against Hugo de Bèse. This place was situate four leagues from Dijon, and famous for the Monastery of that name (Bèse) of the Benedictine Order. About this Hugo see Perard, pp. 221, 222.

[91] legalitati, i.e., good faith, which consists in performing promises once made.

[92] Materiatum; materia.

[93] Non disputante, sed dementante.

[94] Anselm greatly approves this idea respecting God in his Monologium and his Apologeticus at the commencement.

[95] Forefecit, i.e., offended or transgressed. Forisfactura or forefactum denoted the crime or offence: and the former word is also used to signify the penalty of a crime. Forisfactus is the criminal himself. Servus forisfactus is a free man who has been reduced to slavery as a punishment for crime (Legibus Athelstan. Reg. c. 3). From this word is the French forfaire, forfait ; and the English forfeit, forfeiture. It will be seen that the word is a legal term adopted into the language of theology. The earliest instance of its use is apparently in the Glossa of Isidore. See Du Cange’s Glossary s.v. Forisfacere. Forcellini’s ed. of Facciolati does not give the word.—[E.]

[96] i.e., Abaelard.

[97] This refers to Geoffrey, Bernard’s kinsman, who after many disagreements had been at length unanimously taken from being third Prior of Clairvaux to be Bishop of Langres, A.D. 1138.

[98] This was after the death of Archbishop Reginald, which happened A.D. 1139, on January 13th.

[99] Benissons Dieu was a Cistercian Abbey, an offshoot of Clairvaux, in the Diocese of Lyons, and was founded A.D. 1138. Alberic was its first Abbot. Not far from it was the monastery of Savigny, of the order of S. Benedict, in the same diocese. Its Abbot was Iterius, of whom Bernard here complains.

[100] A writing of this kind is attributed to an English abbot named Elsin in the works of Anselm, pp. 505, 507 of the new edition.

[101] The Church of Lyons was the Mother Church of Bernard because of its “metropolitan rights,” as he himself says in Letter 172, since he was born at Fontaines, near Dijon, and lived at the monastery of Clairvaux, both of which places were in the Diocese of Langres and Province of Lyons.