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The Other Saint Bernard: The ‘Troubled and Varied Career’ of Bernard of Abbeville, Abbot of Tiron

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2009

KATHLEEN THOMPSON
KATHLEEN THOMPSON
Affiliation:
43 St Andrew's Road, Brincliffe, Sheffield S11 9AL E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Geoffrey Grossus' lengthy life of Bernard of Abbeville leaves unanswered many questions. Comparison with contemporary sources suggests that Bernard was a career churchman with an interest in ascetism and the apostolic life, who left his original house in Poitiers because of resistance to reforms that he had introduced as abbot. A successful search for a patron enabled him to establish an entirely new community at Tiron in the Perche, where he was able to implement his ideas, although the community did not remain at the forefront of monastic thinking after the death of its charismatic founder in 1116.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 60 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 657 - 672
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 David Knowles, The monastic order in England, 2nd edn, Cambridge 1966, i. 200–2.

2 Thiron-Gardais (Eure-et-Loir, ch. l. du cant.). A tour of the site can be found at http://www.mairie-thiron-gardais.fr/sommaire.php?partie_id=5

3 For general accounts see L. K. Little, Religious poverty and the profit economy in medieval Europe, London 1978, 76–8; C. H. Lawrence, Medieval monasticism: forms of religious life in western Europe in the Middle Ages, 2nd edn, London 1989, 156; and Giles Constable, The Reformation of the twelfth century, Cambridge 1996.

4 G. W. S. Barrow, ‘The royal house and the religious orders’, in his The kingdom of the Scots: government, Church and society from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, London 1973, 165–87, first published as ‘Scottish rulers and the religious orders, 1070–1153’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th ser. iii (1953), 77–100.

5 Archives Départementales Eure-et-Loir, Chartres, H1374: a quarto volume of ninety-eight parchment leaves, published as Cartulaire de l'abbaye de la Sainte-Trinité de Tiron, ed. L. Merlet, Chartres 1883. For the earliest reference see William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum anglorum: the history of the English kings, ed. and trans. R. A. B. Mynors, completed by R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, Oxford 1998–9, i. ch. 440 at pp. 786–9.

6 The epithet Grossus has become attached to Geoffrey's name. It appears to have been derived from the only manuscript of the Vita to have survived from the Middle Ages, which was used by René Courtin, an early historian of the Perche around the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Courtin says that the livret he used was entitled Vita venerabilis Bernardi, primi abbatis monasterii sanctissimae Trinitatis de Tironio, Ordinis sancti Benedicti, diocesis Carnotensis, scripta per Gaufredum grossum, monachum: Histoire du Perche, ed. O. de Romanet and H. Tournouer, Mortagne 1893, repr. Marseilles 1980, 156.

7 The most accessible text is PL clxxii. 1362–446. A French translation has been published by Bernard Beck, Saint Bernard de Tiron, l'ermite, le moine et le monde, Cormeilles-le-Royal 1998.

8 See, for example, the Fleury compilation, Miraculi s Benedicti, published as Les Miracles de saint Benoît écrits par Adrevald, Aimon, André, Raoul Tortaire and Hugues de Sainte Marie, moines de Fleury, ed. Eugène de Cartain, Paris 1858, and Baudouin de Gaffier, ‘L'Hagiographie et son public au xie siècle’, Miscellanea historica in honorem Leonis van der Esse, Brussels 1944, 135–66.

9 For Letaldus of Micy see Thomas Head, Hagiography and the cult of saints: the diocese of Orléans, 800–1200, Cambridge 1990, at p. 226.

10 PL clxii. 1058ff, 1043ff.

11 Johannes von Walter, Die ersten Wanderprediger Frankreichs: Bernard de Tiron, Vitalis von Savigny, Girard von Salles, Leipzig 1903–6.

12 Recent work on the vita presents it as an attempt to reconcile two traditions among Bernard's successors at Tiron: Jean-Hervé Foulon, ‘Les Ermites dans l'ouest de la France: les sources, bilan et perspectives’, in A. Vauchez (ed.), Ermites de France et d'Italie (XIe-XVe siècle), Rome 2003, 81–113 at p. 88.

13 For the lords of St Valery see G. H. Fowler, ‘De St Walery’, Genealogist n.s. xxx (1914), 1–17. For the family connections of Abbot Geoffrey of Vendôme (1093–1132) with the nobility of western France see Geoffroy de Vendôme, Oeuvres, ed. G. Giordanengo, Paris–Turnhout 1996, p. viii.

14 ‘Hunc ab ipsis deputatum studiis litterarum, supernae dignationis gratia suae dilectionis excepit gremio, ut ad omnia facile, quibus erudiebatur, attingeret, unde factum est ut in grammaticis ac dialecticis rationibus, aliisque litteratoriae artis aliquantis pervigeret facultatibus’: VBT, para 6.

15 ‘Juvenis igitur sanctis inspirationibus acquiescens, ad quod trahebatur facere non distulit; Ponticum sibi natale deserens, Aquitaniae regionis partes ingressus est’: ibid. para 9.

16 Marbod, , ‘Vita Sancti Gualterii seu Gauterii abbatis et canonici Stirpensis in dioecesi Galliarum Lemovicense’, PL clxxi. 1563–76.Google Scholar

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19 Letters of Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, ed. and trans. Helen Clover and Margaret Gibson, Oxford 1979, 142.

20 Pierre-Roger Gaussin, L'Abbaye de la Chaise-Dieu (1043–1518), Paris 1962, 92–119 at p. 105.

21 See the figures quoted by Callahan, ‘William the Great’, 326 n. 23.

22 ‘Letters of Urban ii’, PL cli. 368–9.

23 Jaap van Moolenbroek, Vital l'ermite: prédicateur, itinérant, fondateur de l'abbaye Normande de Savigny, trans. Anne-Marie Nambot, Assen–Maastricht, 1990, 149; Jean-Marc Bienvenu, L'Etonnant fondateur de Fontevraud: Robert d'Arbrissel, Paris 1981, 16.

24 Coutansais, ‘Monasterès’.

25 Cartulaire de Saint-Cyprien de Poitiers, Poitiers 1874, nos 123, 285, 355; Yves-Jean Riou, The abbey of Saint-Savin Vienne, Poitiers 1992, 5.

26 Beech, George, ‘Biography and the study of 11th century society: Bishop Peter ii of Poitiers, 1087–1115’, Francia vii (1979), 101–21.Google Scholar

27 ‘Gervasius coenobii amplificandi ac ditandi gratia pro memorata acquirenda ecclesia avide insistebat; Bernardus vero nullatenus acquievit, animadvertens quod Simoniaca pestis ex latere subintrabat’: VBT, para 14.

28 McDonnell, E., ‘The vita apostolica: diversity or dissent’, Church History xxiv (1955), 15–31Google Scholar; Olsen, G., ‘Ecclesia primitiva’, Traditio xxv (1969), 61–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 On the origins of the house see de Bascher, Jacques, ‘Villesalem: l'ermitage fontgombaldian et les origines du prieuré fontevriste’, RM lxi (1986/8), 97–129 at pp. 112–13.Google Scholar

30 Becquet, Jean, ‘Les Chanoines réguliers en Limousin aux xie et xiie siècles’, Analecta Praemonstratensia xxxvi (1960), 193–235 at p. 206.Google Scholar

31 The rule of Saint Benedict, trans. David Parry, London 1984, 1.

32 VBT, para. 48. On Robert see Jacques Dalarun, L'Impossible Sainteté: la vie retrouvée de Robert d'Arbrissel (v. 1045–1116) fondateur de Fontevraud, Paris 1985.

33 Georges Duby, The knight, the priest and the lady: the making of modern marriage in medieval France, trans. Barbara Bray, Harmondsworth 1984, 7–13.

34 Malmesbury, Gesta regum anglorum, i, ch. 440 at p. 787.

35 La Chronique de Saint-Maixent, 751–1149, ed. Jean Verdon, Paris 1979, 170–2.

36 ‘P episcopo Pictaviensi praecepit ut monasterio Cluniacensi satisfaciat de abbate S Cypriani consecratio eidem monasterio satisfieri ab abbate Malleacensis iubet’: Philipp Jaffé, Regesta pontificum romanorum ab condita ecclesia ad annum post Christum natum MCXCVIII, 2nd edn, Leipzig 1885–8, i. 710.

37 OV iv. 328.

38 For the foundation of Montierneuf see F. Villard, ‘La Fondation de l'abbaye de Saint-Jean’, in R. Favreau (ed.), Poitiers Saint-Jean-de-Montierneuf, Poitiers 1996, 9–24.

39 PL cxxxix. 438, ep. xii.

40 Cartulaire de Saint-Cyprien, p. xiii.

41 Ibid. 44 n.1.

42 ‘Defuncto abbate R et necdum sepulto, statuitur domnus B. Hunc Cluniacenses recenter a parte apostolica commonent, qui, veniens Cluniaco, abbati et monachis indicat se in via jam esse positum et paratum respondere de objectis ante domnum apostolicum Rome. Veniens ergo Romam et causam suam presuli summo ostendens, sine effectu rediit; qui post non multum temporis videns se non posse sufficere tantis negociis, diligens otium, relictis omnbus, secessit in heremum’: ibid. no. 43 at pp. 45–6.

43 ‘uti erat diffusus charitate, coepit omnes intus introducere et pauperes et ignobiles ad Deum trahere. Monachi vero tepentes et frigidi, plus de praesenti quam de futura vita solliciti, ex invidia coepere pluries resistere, dicentes possessionem monasterio, quae tot recipere posset, deesse’: VBT, para 47.

44 ‘dum sanctum virum hoc modo extrudere nequeunt, alium inquirunt. Cluniacensibus namque monachis fuerunt, sese in auxilium fore spondentes, ut S Cypriani monasterium suis legibus subjiciant; quia si hoc fieret, Bernardum inde recessurum minime dubitabant. Qua suggestionis exhortatione animati Cluniacenses, dominum papam iterum adeunt, et ut Bernardum ab officio abbatis suspenderet nisi illis subderet monasterium denuo compulerunt’: VBT, para 56; Treffort, C., ‘Le Comte de Poitiers, duc d'Aquitaine et l'église aux alentours de l'an mil (970–1030)’, CCM xliii (2000), 395–445, esp. p. 430.Google Scholar

45 ‘Interea monachi S Cypriani, per annos ferme quatuor multis laboribus atque expensis satagentes, ut a calumnia Cluniacensium Ecclesiam suam liberarent, facere nequiverunt. Qua difficultate necessitatis compulsi, cum Pictaviensis episcopi litteris eremum adeunt, abbatem suum inveniunt; et ut Ecclesiae suae laboranti succurreret, rogaverunt’: VBT, para 55.

46 ‘Zelo igitur justitiae accensus, illud Salomonis secutus: Justus ut leo confidens absque terrore erit, dominum papam, et omnes illius in hac re complices, non praesumptuosa audacitate, sed libera magnanimatate, in extremei judicii examine ante judicium, nullis ignorantiae, tenebris falli, aliquibus muneribus corrumpi nescium, constanter invitavit’: ibid para 57; ‘Et quia scriptum et ‘iustus ut leo confidit’, in Romana sinodo contra Paschalem papam pro libertate aecclesiae litigavit': OV iv. 328.

47 ‘Papa autem tantae constantiae tantaeque sanctitatis hominem, qui nihil in mundo cuperet, nihil nisi Deum solummodo quaereret, quia secum retinere non potuit, ei hujusmodo officium injuxit: scilicet ut populis praedicaret, confessiones acciperet, poentitentias injungeret, baptizaret, regiones circuiret, et omnia quae publico praedicatori sunt agenda sollicitus expleret’: VBT, para 59.

48 Bienvenu, L'Etonnant Fondateur, 42.

49 Ibid. 34–6.

50 On the licence to preach see G. G. Meerseman, ‘Eremetismo e predicazione itinerate dei secoli xi e xii’, in L'eremetismo in occidente, 164–81.

51 L. C. Loyd, The origins of some Anglo-Norman families, ed. C. T. Clay and D. C. Douglas (Harleian Society Publications ciii, 1951), 79.

52 Identified as Chenedet (Ile-et-Vilaine, cant. Fougères, comm. Landéau): Beck, Saint-Bernard de Tiron, 29 n. 34.

53 ‘Comperto autem, fama referente, quod ille ad S Cyprianum ulta non rediret, nec ad insulae mansionem, omnibus inamabilem propter difficilem ingressum et exitum, remearet, multi ad eum confluere coeperunt, cupientes ejus eruditionibus institui, vitaeque exemplis roborari’: VBT, para. 61.

54 J. S. C. Riley-Smith, The first crusaders, 1095–1131, Cambridge 1997, 104–5, 136, 144–5, 155, 166, 222.

55 Kathleen Thompson, Power and border lordship in medieval France: the county of the Perche, 1000–1226, Woodbridge 2002.

56 VBT, paras 62ff.

57 Ibid. para. 78.

58 Ibid. paras 96, 97, 99.

59 See the general observations in Paul Antony Hayward, ‘Demystifying the role of sanctity in western Christendom’, in James Howard-Johnston and Paul Antony Hayward (eds), The cult of saints in late antiquity and the Middle Ages: essays on the contribution of Peter Brown, Oxford 1999, 115–42.

60 H. E. J. Cowdrey, ‘Count Simon of Crépy's monastic conversion’, in Papauté, monachisme et théories politiques, I: Le Pouvoir et l'institution écclesiale: études d'histoire médiévale offertes à Marcel Pacaut, Lyons 1994, 253–66, repr. in H. E. J. Cowdrey, The crusades and Latin monasticism, 11th–12th centuries, Aldershot 1999; OV vi. 86.

61 Gaussin, Chaise-Dieu, 107ff; Jessee, W. Scott, ‘Robert d'Arbrissel: aristocratic patronage and the question of heresy’, Journal of Medieval History xx (1994), 221–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62 OV iv. 330; Malmesbury, Gesta regum anglorum, i. 770; William of Newburgh, Chronicles and memorials of the reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, ed. R. Howlett, London 1884, i. 51–2.

63 VBT, para. 62.

64 Ibid. para. 63.

65 Ibid. para. 70. For the gift of a cup and its lid to the Cluniacs at Nogent-le-Rotrou, see Saint-Denis de Nogent-Le-Rotrou, 1031–1789, ed. Charles Métais, Vannes 1894, no. liv. For gifts made by Henry i's wife see Lois Huneycutt, Matilda of Scotland: a study in medieval queenship, Woodbridge 2003, 119, and for those made by the empress Matilda see Marjorie Chibnall, The Empress Matilda: queen consort, queen mother and lady of the English, Oxford 1991, 189. For Peter Damian see Lester K. Little, ‘The personal development of Peter Damian’, in William C. Jordan and others (eds), Order and innovation in the Middle Ages: essays in honor of Joseph R. Strayer, Princeton 1976, 317–41.

66 VBT, para 70. For the famine see OV vi. 166, 172.

67 VBT, para 80.

68 Yorke, Barbara, ‘The legitimacy of St Edith’, Haskins Society Journal xi (1998), 97–113, esp. pp. 105, 102nnGoogle Scholar; Chibnall, Empress Matilda, 151.

69 VBT, paras 96, 97.

70 Julia M. Smith, ‘Celtic ascetism and Carolingian authority in early medieval Brittany’, in W. J. Sheils (ed.), Monks, hermits and the ascetic traditions (Studies in Church History xxii, 1985), 53–63, and ‘Oral and written: saints, miracles and relics in Brittany, c. 850–1250’, Speculum lxv (1990), 309–43.

71 Bede, ‘Life of Cuthbert’, ch. 10; VBT, para. 27.

72 I. Wood, The missionary life: saints and the evangelisation of Europe, 400–1050, London 2001, 34. A full study is available in A. Angenendt, Monachi peregrini: Studien zu Pirmin und den monastischen Vorstellungen des frühen Mittelalters, Munich 1972.

73 Phyllis Jestice, ‘A new fashion in imitating Christ: changing spiritual perspectives around the year 1000’, in M. Frassetto (ed.), The year 1000: religious and social response to the turning of the first millennium, New York 2002, 165–85.

74 Marbod, ep. vi, PL clxxi. 1480–6; Morin, D. G., ‘Rainaud l'ermite et Ives de Chartres: un épisode de la crise du cénobitism au xie-xiie siècle’, Revue benédictine xl (1928), 99–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

75 The most accessible account of Henry's career appears in R. I. Moore, The origins of European dissent, London 1977, 83–101.

76 Cf ‘beware of exaggerating the novelty of the twelfth century in the history of monasticism’: J. L. Nelson, ‘Medieval monasticism’, in P. Linehan and J. L. Nelson (eds), The medieval world, London 2001, 586.

77 Jaeger, C. Stephen, ‘Cathedral schools and humanist learning, 950–1150’, Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte lxi (1987), 569–616 at pp. 586ff.Google Scholar

78 VBT, para. 74.

79 For social outcasts see ibid. paras 130, 135.

80 Ibid. paras 61–2. For a possible parallel with Robert of Arbrissel and the development of a rule at Fontevraud see Jessee, ‘Robert’, 232; with Gilbert of Sempringham see Brian Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertine order, c. 1130– c. 1300, Oxford 1995, 78ff.

81 Cartulaire de Tiron, no. xx.