secrated abbot by William of Champeaux, the learned Bishop of Châlons (1115).1

St. Bernard was born in 1091, at Fontaine-Duémois, near Chatilly in Burgundy. He was of noble parentage, his father being a respectable knight. His mother, Aleth, as so frequently happens in the case of great men, was at special pains to instill into his tender mind those sentiments of piety and religion which, when assiduously cultivated in early life, are rarely, if ever, lost sight of in after years, and never cease to exercise some influence for good. Previously to Bernard's birth, his mother had learned in a vision that her son would one day be the keeper of the house of the Lord, and, according to her custom, as soon as she was able to go abroad, she brought him to the altar and consecrated him to God.

Bernard was early sent to school, where he soon distanced his companions in speculative studies and dialectical skill, and from his most tender years manifested a grave and peaceable disposition, and a decided tendency to a life of solitude and contemplation. He used to say in after life, when thrown among the noise and bustle of the world, that his mind had been nurtured and his soul inspired by long residence among the grand old trees of the forest. After the death of his mother, the young man was drawn into the society of youths, whose morals were such as are usually associated with that season of life when the passions are strong and fiery and the mind ill-balanced, and was for a time in danger of being led into unseemly excesses. But by the aid of the lessons taught him in early life by his pious mother, he quickly recovered himself, broke loose from all worldly ties, and, gathering about him thirty young men of kindred dispositions and aspirations, entered the monastery of Cîteaux (A. D. 1113).

1 Bernardi Opp. (letters, speeches, poems, practical exegetics, ascetical writings.) Best edition that of Merlo Horst, revised by Mabillon, Paris, 1667–1690, 6 vols. in fol. 1719, 2 vols. f.; Venet. 1726, 2 vols. f. in Migne, ser. lat. T. 182- 185. A beautiful reprint of the edition of Mabillon by the Frères de Gaume, Paris, 1839-40. His life was written by three of his contemporaries— William, abbot of Saint-Thierry, Gaufred., and Alanus ab Insulis, monks of Clairvaux (Mabillon, Acta SS. ord. S. Bened., T. I. and IV.) Among moderns, see Neander, St. Bernard and his Age, 2 ed., Berlin, 1848; Ratisbonne, Vie de saint Bernard, Paris, 1843. See above, p. 538.

Having, with the exception of a short interval, severely chastened his passions and disciplined his conscience through life, he was now prepared to take in and bring home to himself, as far as is given man to do, the most sublime teachings of the Church. Equally distinguished by great learning and practical good sense, and by a deep and sincere humility and a dislike of any sort of honor, this wonderful man had a remarkable tact in meeting and overcoming, when he could not set aside, difficulties; and his eloquence, backed by his ascetic appearance, his self-denial, and his numerous miracles enabled him to carry out successfully the most difficult undertakings.

Bernard was the type of his age. Who knew so well as he how to meet the various forms of fanaticism of that age when the incoherent vagaries of an unchastened imagination and a stubborn and indocile reason mingled, like the remembrance of some hideous dream, with the intellectual awakening then going on? Enamored of the Church and of the high ideal he had formed of her, he knew better than any other the disorders by which she was afflicted, and fearlessly attacked them wherever found, whether among the clergy or the laity, in popes, in bishops, or in princes, and having thus rebuked their shortcomings, gave them salutary advice as to their future conduct. To him did Innocent II. owe his recognition as pope, and Eugene III. the great influence which he enjoyed; on his recommendation the Knights Templars, already somewhat relaxed, received the sanction of the Holy See, and to his sweeping eloquence and energy is due the organization of the Second Crusade; and, finally, to his zeal and apostolic labors many fanatical heretics owed their conversion and return to the Church. What a number of projects did this one man undertake and successfully carry through single-handed! By a life of self-denial and meditation, he rivaled the perfection of the most renowned anchorites of the East, and in the energy and activity he displayed in consulting for the temporal and eternal welfare of his fellow-man, was not surpassed by any Irince or bishop of his day. This powerful representative of the spiritual element, this angel of peace among men, this arbiter between kings and nations, did not long survive his

friend, Pope Eugene, whom he followed to the tomb August 20, 1153. No sooner had the news of his death got abroad than petitions came pouring in from all countries, praying for his canonization, and he was accordingly placed upon the calendar of saints in 1174.

The monastery of Clairveaux was a model of monastic life, and so great an authority and influence did the order acquire through the reputation of Bernard that its members were led to call themselves Bernardines. Before his death his order had spread to every country of Europe, and numbered two thousand establishments.1 From all quarters-from every part of France, from Italy and Spain, from Germany and Switzerland, from England and Ireland, and from Denmark and Sweden-came applications for monks formed at Clairveaux to found monasteries in these distant lands on the model left by Bernard. There in that desert valley, at the foot of solitary mountains, did the turmoil of the world cease, and in those tranquil cells did countless souls find peace and rest, and many a broken heart solace and repose. · Ah, how much happier am I," writes a monk of Citeaux, "in cultivating wisdom, here in one of our humble huts, than in living with my friend amid the magnificence of great

cities!"

The chronicles of this order are crowded with the lives of saints. From it went forth great statesmen and rulers of the Church. To it does agriculture owe a large debt of gratitude, and the lower classes much of the amelioration of their condition. Its influence was everywhere felt; and even religious, usually very tenacious and jealous of their own rules and traditions, sometimes reformed their own monasteries on the model of Clairveaux. It was thus that Suger, the celebrated monk and statesman, reformed the monastery of St. Denys, of which he was abbot.

1 1 Dubois, Hist. of the Abbey of Morimond, and of the principal equestrian orders of Spain and Portugal, Münster, 1855, from the second French edition of Dijon, 1852.

§ 241. The Order of Grammont (Grand Mont).

Historia brevis prior. Grandimontensium; Historia prolixior prior. Grandimontensium et Vita S. Stephani, ord. Grand. institutoris, by Gerhard, the seventh prior of Grammont ( Martène et Durand, Collect ampliss., T. VI., p. 113 sq., 125 sq., and 1050 sq.; Mabillon, Annal. ord. S. Bened., T. V., p. 65); the statutes of the order in Martène, de antiq. eccles. ritibus. Helyot, Vol. VII., p. 470 sq. Hurter, Vol. IV., p. 137 sq.

Stephen of Tigerno, in Auvergne, was born in 1046. His parents had long and earnestly sought God to bless them with a son, and when Stephen was born to them, great pains were taken to have him properly brought up and educated. When twelve years of age, he accompanied his father on a pilgrmage to the tomb of St. Nicholas of Bari; but, falling sick on his return, he was placed under the care of his countryman, Archbishop Milon of Benevento, who had him suitably educated for the ministry. During a visit to a monastery in Calabria, the young man's thoughts took another direction, and, being strongly impressed by the quiet, order, and beauty of monastic life, returned to France and founded the new order of Grammont. It received the special approbation of Gregory VII. (A. D. 1073), who, in writing to Stephen, told him "to found as many houses as there are stars in the heavens, and to beg of St. Benedict to obtain for him spiritual graces rather than temporal blessings." In compliance with the wish of the Pope, Stephen at first adopted the Benedictine rule for his community; but later on, when his religious came to ask him to what order they belonged: "To that of the Gospel," he replied, "which is the basis of all rules. Let this be your answer to such as inquire of you. As for myself, I shall not suffer that I be called either monk, canon, or hermit. These titles are so high and holy, and imply so large a measure of perfection, that I should not presume to apply them to myself."

His own austerity, and that which he required in those about him, soon drew to his side a number of followers, with whom he settled first at Mount Muret, Limoge; but, having been forced to give up this place, he fixed his abode permanently at Grammont, a few (five) miles distant.

Stephen of Tigerno died February 8, 1121, leaving to his brethren only the legacy of poverty and an abiding trust in God. His spiritual children proved themselves worthy followers of their holy founder. The first written Rule of the order is attributed to both Stephen of Lisiac, the fourth, and to Gerard, the seventh prior (A. D. 1188), and enjoins the most strict observance of the vow of poverty, forbidding the community to receive or hold any estates or possessions whatever. "Never," says the Rule, "is one as secure of the Divine love as when living in poverty. It is therefore necessary to observe it most scrupulously." And, to put the observance of it beyond all doubt, the Rule further prescribed, "that the administration of all temporal affairs shall be intrusted to lay-brothers." But it was precisely this precaution against the laxity to which excessive wealth usually leads that, in course of time, disturbed the peace of the order and seriously injured the good name which the holiness of so many of its members had merited for it. Monks and lay-brothers fell to quarreling with each other, and the latter, having possession of all the wealth of the monastery, administered it to the detriment of the former. In 1317, Pope John XXII. reformed the Rule and raised Grammont to the rank of an abbey, having under it thirty-nine priories.

§ 242. The Carthusians.

The Life of St. Bruno (Bolland. Acta SS. m. Octob., T. III., p. 491 sq.) Mabillon, Ann., T. V., p. 202; ejusdem Acta SS. O. S. Bened., T. VI., P. II., praef. p 52. See also the awful legend de vera causa secessus St. Brunon, in eremum (Launoi, Opp., T. II., Pt. II., p. 324 sq.) Dubois, la grande chartreuse, Grenoble, 1846. The statutes of the order of Carthusians first ordered by Guigo de Castro, author of the Vita S. Hugonis Grandinopolitani, in Surius, and the Bollandists, ad. I. m. April. Cf. Helyot, Vol. VII., p. 424 sq. Hurter, Vol. IV., p. 149 sq. Henrion-Fehr, Vol. I., p. 78 sq. Historical and Political Papers, Vol. VIII., p. 328 sq.

Bruno, a priest of Cologne, and afterward canon and master of the cathedral-school at Rheims, where Urban II. was one of his pupils, was the founder of this order. Disgusted with the worldly life of Manasseh, the archbishop, who on one occasion so far forgot himself as to say that "the archbishVOL. II-44