All that we know about Bernard of Morlaix is what we can glean from his works. He is not mentioned in the extant writings of any of his contemporaries.¹ His major work is the De contemptu mundi, a poem of three thousand lines in dactylic hexameters with internal and tail rhymes, a variation of the Leonine measure. Its popularity in medieval times is attested by the survival of no fewer than fifteen manuscripts. Bernard's stringent criticism of popes, bishops and priests brought the poem renewed popularity during the Reformation;² there were six printed editions between 1557 and 1754.³ For quite different reasons, the first part of Book 1 of the poem gained favour again in the 1860s, following J.M. Neale's translation of a selection of passages, which became a popular hymn.⁴ Thomas Wright produced an edition of the De contemptu mundi in 1872.⁵ A critical edition was published by H.C. Hoskier in 1929,⁶ on which is based Ronald E. Pepin's text and translation of 1991.⁷

By contrast, only one manuscript survives (in the Vatican Library) of four other poems which are certainly Bernard's. The poems are: De Trinitate et de fide Catholica (1402 lines); De castitate servanda (524 lines); In libros Regum (1018 lines); and De octo vitiis (1399 lines - Bernard was not given to short poems). They were edited by Katarina Halvarson in 1963.⁸ There can be no doubt that they come from the pen of the author of De contemptu mundi. In the preface to De Trinitate et de fide Catholica, Bernard writes "emulor enim illos dei emulacione," which echoes the preface to De contemptu mundi, "ego horum quos emulor Dei emulatione stilum imitatus." He puts the case for expounding the faith in verse rather than prose in very similar terms, with reference to metrical versions of the psalms and other sacred writings, in both poems.⁹ The phrase "totus ubique deus, subtus, super, intus et extra" in De Trinitate parallels "continet arbiter omnia sub, super, intus et extra" in De contemptu mundi.¹⁰ The phrase "aurea zona pudoris" occurs in both De castitate and De contemptu mundi.¹¹ There are many correspondences between De octo vitiis and De contemptu mundi. Some of them are tabulated below.

 
 

De octo vitiis	De contemptu mundi
65 ad lucra feruescit, ad jus tepet, ad mala crescit	1,879 urit et uritur, angit et angitur, ad mala crescit
490 venter dape plenus	3,448 ventris episcopus ... est dape plenus
536 plurima fercula querunt	2,929 fercula plurima quaerimus
595 pudor ire pudenter	2,640 piget et pudet ire pudenter
660 est prope funus	2,570 est prope funus
793 femina nulla bona	2,456 fere bona foemina nulla
798-799 predaque, predo, dulcis putredo cute pulcra	2,459-460 pulchra putredo ... praedaque praedo
900 non [tutus] socer a genero	2,680 a socero gener est male tutus
1019 nulla Sabina valet ... Lucretia sqalet	2,552 rara Lucretia, nulla Sabina
1120-1121 homicidia, tradiciones, scisma	3,823 schismata, praelia, vis, homicidia
1141 via Pitagorei	1,268 via dextera Pythagoraea and 2,761 littera Pythagorea
1216 lac tulit et lanam neque sanat ovem male sanam	3,589 lac sibi tollitur atque resumitur a grege lana
1278 ut rota Roma datur, quoniam rotat atque rotatur	3,603 ut rota labitur, ergo vocabitur hinc rota Roma
1322 turbatis turbis in turba turbinis urbis	1,397 turbaque turbida turbine mortis

 

These references between the poems, together with a marked similarity of style, show them to be by the same author and indicate some of his favourite themes. They give no clue to the order in which the poems were written, but there appears to be a particularly close connection between De octo vitiis and De contemptu mundi.

Guido Maria Dreves gives several versions of the text of a Mariale which he ascribes to "Bernhardus Morlanensis, monachus Cluniacensis," and the attribution is supported by some of the manuscripts.¹² The poem is immensely long. It has a prologue of forty-nine Leonine lines. Its fifteen chapters average thirty-six stanzas each, and its epilogue has sixteen stanzas.

The poem does not echo the De contemptu mundi as strongly as do the four poems edited by Katarina Halvarson. It hardly could, because the De contemptu mundi does not deal with Mary except in passing. But it shows the same prolixity and the same command of difficult metrical forms. More significantly, it calls to mind a long passage in praise of Mary in In libros Regum.¹³ (The Book of Kings may seem an unlikely topic to embrace such a theme; it emerges from an allegorical treatment of the throne of Solomon, which is discussed below, p.305.) Apart from that, the internal evidence for the attribution to Bernard of Morlaix is not strong. In all the poems described above, which can confidently be asserted to be from the same pen, the author makes liberal use of classical Latin allusions and quotations.¹⁴ The Mariale is full of allusions to and quotations from the Old and New Testaments, but it has none from classical antiquity. Perhaps one might read an allusion to Horace and to the In libros Regum into the following passage:
 
 

Pulchra tota, sine nota
Cuiuscumque maculae
Fac nos mundus et jucundus
Te laudare sedule
 

O beata. per quam data
Nova mundo gaudia,
Et aperta fide certa
Regna sunt caelestia.¹⁵

Horace has "nihil est ab omni parte beatum."¹⁶ In the In libros Regum, Bernard, referring to Mary, says:
 
 

Falso Flaccus ait: "Nihil omni parte beatum."
Haec omni mentis parte beata stetit.¹⁷

But the relationship is tenuous. And there is another difference between the Mariale and the other poems. Throughout the De contemptu mundi and the poems edited by Katarina Halvarson, Satan is presented as little more than a metaphor for the temptations of the world and the flesh. In the Mariale he is presented in a more concrete and personal form.¹⁸ These are not insuperable objections to authorship by the Bernard of the De contemptu mundi, but they leave it less than certain, given that the Mariale does not obviously have an intended audience or purpose different from those of the other poems.
 
 

The Mariale is the source of a Catholic hymn which used to be popular in England fifty years ago:
 
 

Daily, daily, sing to Mary,
Sing, my soul, her praises due;
All her feasts her actions worship,
With the heart's devotion true.¹⁹

J.-P. Migne gives the text of a prose work entitled Instructio sacerdotis seu tractatus de praecipuis mysteriis nostrae religionis.²⁰ Migne notes that the manuscript ascribes it to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux but opines "non assequitur genium S. Bernardi." He gives an alternative title Gemma Crucifixi. Buchwald ascribes the work to Bernard de Morlaix.²¹ We do not have much prose of Bernard's for purposes of comparison, but Instructio sacerdotis would seem to be consistent in style with the prose prefaces to De contemptu mundi, De Trinitate et de fide Catholica and De castitate servanda. It has three parts, Quod filius Dei se dedit nobis moriens pro nobis, Quod Jesus filius Dei dat se nobis in Eucharistia and Quod Christus dat se nobis in praemium in caelo. The third part has a similarity in content, as well as in mode of expression, to the first book of De contemptu mundi, but it is obviously incomplete, in that it does not get beyond describing the pains of hell.²²
 
 

In a paper about a German "Contemptus mundi" poem from the lower Rhine, Edward Schroder describes and gives the text of a Latin poem which he takes to be its source.²³ In the version given by Schroder, the Latin poem is 373 lines in length. There is strong external evidence that it comes from the same pen as the De contemptu mundi of Bernard of Morlaix. It appeared together with the De contemptu mundi in several manuscripts and was ascribed to Bernard. One of them, for example, is described as containing "Bernardi Morlanensis monachi ordinis Cluniacensis De vanitate mundi et gloria caelesti liber aureus; item alii eiusdem libri tres eiusdem ferme argumenti ... "²⁴ The poem has no agreed title. The titles Libellus aureolus and Carmen paraeneticum appear in some manuscripts.²⁵ It is occasionally called De vanitate mundi, and is so described by Buchwald,²⁶ but in order to distinguish it more clearly from the De contemptu mundi it seems better here to refer to it by its opening words, Chartula nostra.
 
 

At a first reading of the poem, the internal evidence for Bernard's authorship may appear weak.²⁷ It is a relatively short poem. It shows the same ingenuity in metre and rhyme as Bernard's other poems, but its vocabulary is limited. It is totally lacking in the tropes and word plays which are prominent in all the other poems. It displays none of Bernard's classical learning, and there are no echoes of the De contemptu mundi, despite the similarity of theme. But it is a very different kind of poem from any others of Bernard. It is expressly written for and addressed to a young boy who has just entered the Cluniac Order. He could well have been as young as ten years.²⁸ On the evidence of some of the manuscripts, his name was Rainaldus.²⁹ The whole tone of the poem is designed to be suitable for such a young reader, and what may appear at first to be evidence against Bernard's authorship may rather be an indication of his skill in writing for a particular readership, an art greatly prized in the middle ages.³⁰
 
 

Chartula nostra tibi mandat, dilecte, salutes.
Plura videbis ibi, si non mea data refutes.³¹
 

Fortassis puero tibi frustra mittere quero
Istum sermonem, quia non capis hanc rationem.
Sed pater immensus det tibi sensus,
Roboret etatem, tribuatque tibi probitatem.³²

There is a sermon on the parable of the unjust steward which is attributed to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. Migne comments: "Indignus Bernardo nostro. Est Bernardi alterius monachi Cluniacensis."³³ It has a brief preface, addressed to Bishop Matthew, which has stylistic similarities to the preface of Bernard of Morlaix's De contemptu mundi, but not beyond what might be expected from the conventions of the twelfth century. It has some classical allusions and quotations (for example, "Scire tuum nihil est, nisi scire tuum hoc sciat alter"³⁴), which is consistent with Bernard of Morlaix's style. It is attributed to Bernard of Morlaix in the Histoire literaire de la France.³⁵ But an entry for the work in the catalogue of the library of the Benedictine abbey at Burton-on-Trent, dated about 1175, attributes the sermon to Ernaldus. The modern editors of the catalogue consider that this attribution "may be more authoritative than Wilmart's attribution of the sermon to Bernard of Cluny."³⁶
 
 

S. M. Jackson gives translations of four very short pieces which he supposes may be by Bernard of Morlaix. They are, Lines on the divine essence and Lines on the dread judgement of God, from Additional MS 16, 895, and Lines on Simeon, Abbot of York and Lines on Count Wulnoth, from Cott. Cleopatra A. viii. 2, in the British Museum (now the British Library). The first two have themes similar to those of the De Trinitate and the De contemptu mundi, but the only reason to suppose that any of these four works comes from Bernard's pen is that they appear in manuscripts which contain also the De contemptu mundi.
 
 
 
 

Bernard's monastic audience
 
 

The poems of Bernard of Morlaix were written for a monastic audience. In the De octo vitiis, for example, his homilies on the deadly sins are explicitly addressed to monks.³⁷ In the De castitate servanda he makes a distinction which seems to suggest that he is taking a wider view.
 
 

Nec tamen ex hoc nos in turbis esse negamus
Non paucos homines qui bene contineant.
Sed celebs aliud, aliud qui continet exstat:
Dignior ille deo est, dignus et iste satis.³⁸

It is tempting to read this as a reference to that chastity which is proper within Christian marriage, as defined, for example, by Pope Pius XII in Casti conubii.³⁹ It is a theme which Bernard might have developed. In De contemptu mundi he says of the people of the Golden Age:
 
 

Nulla libidinis, unica germinis insita cura;
Tunc sacra vincula, tunc dabat oscula crimine pura.⁴⁰

The inspiration for Bernard's Golden Age was classical rather than Christian, but he clearly had a basis for development of a theory of chastity which included marital relations. The fact that he does not explore marital chastity is an indication that he is addressing a celibate audience.
 
 

Bernard's inspiration for De castitate servanda was, as he says in his dedication, John Cassian.⁴¹ Saint Benedict regarded his own Rule as a framework to be filled out by the teachings of other writers, among whom Cassian came to have pride of place. He was required reading in Benedictine monasteries.⁴² The passage in Cassian's De coenobiorum institutis which Bernard is paraphrasing reads as follows:
 
 

Nemo tamen ex hoc negare nos putet, etiam in congregatione fratrum positos inveniri continentes, quod perfacile fieri posse confitemur. Aliud enim est, continentem esse, id est, egkrate; aliud castum, et, ut ita dicam, in affectum integritatis vel incorruptionis transire, quod dicitur hagnon ... ⁴³

Bernard's "in turbis" does not, in this case, mean "in the world in general". It corresponds to Cassian's "in the community of the brethren". And the distinction which Bernard makes between "chastity" and "continence" does not refer to the difference between celibate and married chastity, but to the difference between those (like Saint John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, and Daniel⁴⁴) who have achieved perfect chastity {"Vero castos, incorruptos," "qui virgines, vel mente, vel carne perdurant"⁴⁵) and those (like most monks) who are still struggling hard to be chaste, and who, either from fear of hell or desire for heaven, manage, from day to day, to win the battle against the flesh.⁴⁶
 
 

To the extent that Bernard's poems are florilegia, the fact that they are addressed to a monastic audience requires no explanation. There is in all the poems an element of extraction and re-presentation of passages from past literature in order to provide an anthology of the wisdom of the past. Such material was important for the instruction of novices. But the poems range in genre from satire through complaint to homily.⁴⁷
 
 

John Peter takes the view that Bernard is not very much aware of his audience, and that what matters to him is "simply the principle of world-forgetfulness, now by the world unhappily forgot."⁴⁸ It may be that Bernard does not have that special kind of awareness of and sensitivity to the readership he is addressing which we find in writers whose genre is satire proper rather than complaint and homily, but, if the Chartula nostra is his, he is not without skill in writing for a particular readership. A careful reading of his poems suggests that, throughout, the audience he has in mind is a monastic one. That becomes especially clear in De octo vitiis. In dealing with lust, he has a description of the wiles of women which appears, on the face of it, to be addressed to young laymen. "Young man, young man", he says, "gallop away from her with a loose rein."⁴⁹ But a little later in the same passage, he says, "Not in your monastic habit, not in your years, as advanced as Nestor's, not in the copious tears you have shed on account of lofty Sion, and especially not in yourself should you trust. You must run away from this fight."⁵⁰ Bernard, in fact, is a monk writing for monks. When he writes about women⁵¹ and homosexuals,⁵² it is the temptations they present to monks that he is concerned with. When he condemns gluttony and drunkenness,⁵³ it is in the context of monastic mortification of the flesh.
 
 

The fifteen extant manuscripts of De contemptu mundi and the inclusion of it, or of parts of it, in many twelfth-century anthologies⁵⁴ suggest that the poem was popular in its day, but that popularity may have been limited to cloistered audiences. It may be that, throughout the middle ages, Bernard's manuscripts had little circulation outside the monasteries. He seems not to have been a monk like Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who was deeply involved in affairs outside his monastery. It is only from De octo vitiis that we know of his visit to Rome. No mention of him is made by any of his contemporaries,⁵⁵ or by anybody else, for that matter, until the sixteenth century, when the De contemptu mundi caught the interest of the Protestant reformers. He seems to have led, in the spirit of Saint Benedict, the monastic life which he recommends to his brethren.
 
 

Good man, hide yourself from the corrupting temptations of lust. Escape from the fiery weapons of the flesh in the security of the cloister. You will be safe if you take on the burden of monastic obedience. If you chase after Dinah, your giddy behaviour will bring you to ruin.⁵⁶ If you stick to the seclusion of the cloister and spurn the fickle whirl of the mob, you will stand firm. You are people who wish to live in tranquillity, and you should not let yourselves be tempted to follow the devil ... Oh monk! What are you doing among the crowds? The monk has only one vocation, only one way of life rewards him.⁵⁷

He remains an Englishman?
 
 

In the manuscripts of the De contemptu mundi, Bernard is variously styled Morlanensis, Morvalensis and Morlacensis. Attempts have been made to associate him with towns called Morval, Morlas and Morlaix. H. C. Hoskier favours Morval, on the grounds that it is supported by the earliest manuscript of the De contemptu mundi.⁵⁸ C. D'Evelyn points out that Hoskier has overlooked British Museum manuscript Harley 4092, which distinctly names Bernard "Bernardus Morlanensis."⁵⁹ The Histoire literaire de la France says that Morvalensis ("que Fabricius explique de la vallee de Maurienne") is the rarest appellation and that Morlanensis ("que Pitseus rapporte a une ville d'Angleterre sans la designer") and Morlacensis are used indifferently in old maps to designate citizens of Morlas in the county of Bigorre. It therefore leans towards Morlas, a conclusion which the Dictionnaire de spiritualite confirms.⁶⁰ The Dictionnaire d'histoire et de geographie ecclesiastiques calls him Bernard de Morlaix. It mentions Morlaix (Finistere), Murlas (near Puy-en-Bearn) and Murles as possible birth places.⁶¹ James Westfall Thompson was the first (and only) scholar to make the case for Murles. He speculates that Bernard was the third son of William V of Montpellier, the brother of Guillemette who married Bernard IV of Melgueil, and that he was therefore related to Pons de Melgueil, who was abbot of Cluny from 1108-1122. "He became a monk first in the monastery of St Sauveur d'Aniane, whence he passed to the abbey of Cluny, probably during the rule of the abbot Pons."⁶²
 
 

Since he was quite certainly a Cluniac monk, Bernard has frequently been called Bernard of Cluny (Bernardus Cluniacensis). He is so styled by Katarina Halvarson and Ronald E. Pepin, for example. That avoids the problem of association with uncertain towns, but it raises problems of its own. In the first place, the text of the prologue of the De contemptu mundi suggests that Bernard, at the time he wrote the De contemptu mundi, was not a monk at Cluny itself, but at Nogent.⁶³
 
 

There is another reason why the appellation "Bernard of Cluny" is not helpful. At least two other Cluniac monks who lived at about the same time are styled Bernard of Cluny. One was prior of Cluny while Peter the Venerable was abbot.⁶⁴ Another was the author of Consuetudines Cluniacenses, which the New Catholic encyclopedia attributes to the author of De contemptu mundi, though the date of compilation of the Consuetudines makes that attribution unlikely.⁶⁵ The problem of names is evident from entries in Medioevo latino, where there is some confusion between various Bernards, but where the style "Bernardus Morlanensis, Cluniacensis monachus" seems now to be established for the author of De contemptu mundi.⁶⁶ The latest edition of Buchwald lists him as Bernard de Morlaix.⁶⁷
 
 

There is a persistent tradition that Bernard was an Englishman. In John Bale's Index Britanniae scriptorum (compiled between 1548 and 1552), Bernardus Morlanensis is listed as the author of De contemptu mundi and other works.⁶⁸ Bale gives John Boston of Bury's catalogue as his source, perhaps under the mistaken impression that Boston listed only British authors.⁶⁹ The De contemptu mundi is included in the Rolls series.⁷⁰ Digby S. Wrangham roundly asserts that Bernard "was an Englishman by extraction, both his parents being natives of this country", but he offers no sources.⁷¹ Of the fifteen extant manuscripts of De contemptu mundi, only ten are complete. It is perhaps significant that, of those ten, six are in libraries in England (five in the British Library, one in the Bodleian Library).⁷²
 
 

Bernard mentions, as a sign that the end is nigh, the Siamese twins known as the Biddenden maids of Kent.
 
 

In the English countryside a woman was born with two heads and two legs, and with four arms. Her two chests and four breasts made her a marvel. Please believe me. I am quite certain about this. What I write is true. The women did everything together, walking together and sitting together. The wonder of it! One of the women (they were, of course, sisters) died, and the other was left disconsolate. A little later, she followed her sister in death, as though they were both parts of one person, released by death.⁷³

The maids, Elizabeth and Mary Chulkhurst, were born in 1100 and died in 1134,⁷⁴ which helps to establish the date of the poem. Bernard's description of them does not constitute proof of his Englishness. He mentions in the same context other prodigies (a winged dragon, a Spanish magician and a man "in regionibus orientis" who claimed to be the Antichrist) who have no connection with England. But we may consider also his affectionate reference to Saint Gregory, the Apostle of the English, as "Gregorius meus."⁷⁵ There are a few other scattered references in his poems which might be taken to give some support to the tradition that Bernard was an Englishman,⁷⁶ but the internal evidence is not strong.
 
 

There would be nothing strange about an English monk at a Cluniac monastery in France in the twelfth century. Ordericus Vitalis (who frequently called himself "Angligena") was born near Shrewsbury in 1075. When he was ten years old, his father sent him to the monastery of Saint-Evroul in Normandy.
 
 

So, weeping, he gave me, a weeping child, into the care of the monk Reginald, and sent me away into exile for love of thee [God] and never saw me again. And I, a mere boy, did not presume to oppose my father's wishes, but obeyed him willingly in all things ... And so, a boy of ten, I crossed the English Channel and came into Normandy as an exile, unknown to all, knowing no one. Like Joseph in Egypt, I heard a language which I did not understand. But thou didst suffer me through thy grace to find nothing but kindness and friendship among strangers. I was received as an oblate monk in the abbey of Saint-Evroul by the venerable Abbot Mainer in the eleventh year of my age and was tonsured as a clerk on Sunday, 21 September. In place of my English name, the name Vitalis was given me ... On 15th March, when I was sixteen years old ... Gilbert, bishop of Lisieux, ordained me subdeacon. Then, two years later, on 26th March, Serlo, bishop of Seez, laid the stole of the diaconate on my shoulders ... At length in my thirty-third year, William, archbishop of Rouen, laid the burden of priesthood on me on 21 December ... and I have now loyally performed the sacred offices for thee with a joyful heart for thirty-four years.⁷⁷

Another example of an Englishman of Bernard's time who went to a monastery in France is Serlo of Wilton. Unlike Orderic, he did not go as a child. He was born in 1105 and entered the Cluniac house at Charite-sur-Loire in 1155. He left the Cluniacs for the Cistercians, joining the community at L'Aumone in the 1160's and becoming abbot in 1173.⁷⁸
 
 

It is quite possible that Bernard's experience may have been somewhat similar. It is worth remarking that the only contemporary of Bernard's who is known to have carried the appellation "Morlanensis" was Danielus Morlanensis, who was certainly an Englishman. Daniel of Morley came from Norfolk, in which county he held the rectory of Flitcham until 1205. He seems to have had distant connections with a family from Morlaix in Calvados, Normandy, though the place name Morley in Norfolk is Anglo-Saxon. It is spelled Morlea in the Domesday Book.⁷⁹ The modern villages of Morley St. Peter and Morley St. Botolph in Norfolk indicate where his family had its main possessions.⁸⁰ At the risk of making confusion worse confounded, one is tempted to suggest that Bernardus Morlanensis came from the same family as Danielus Morlanensis, and that we should call him Bernard of Morley. The speculation is, perhaps, less wild than that of James Westfall Thompson.
 
 

Bernard of Morlaix was certainly the author of the poems De contemptu mundi, Carmina de Trinitate et de fide Catholica, De castitate servanda, In libros Regum and De octo vitiis. He may also have written the poem Mariale and the prose work Instructio sacerdotis and the poem Chartula nostra. He probably did not write the prose works Sermo in parabolam de vilico iniquitatis or Consuetudines Cluniacenses, which are sometimes ascribed to him, or any of the short pieces which Jackson found in manuscripts which also contain the De contemptu mundi. He may have been an Englishman from Morley in Norfolk. He was certainly a Cluniac monk who spent some time at the priory of Saint-Denis de Nogent-le-Rotrou during the period when Peter the Venerable was abbot of Cluny. He may, indeed, have been prior of Nogent.

The priory of Saint-Denis de Nogent-le-Rotrou
 
 

Geoffrey, lord of Nogent and viscount of Chateaudun, founded the monastery of Saint-Denis (Sanctus Dionysius) de Nogent-le-Rotrou (Novigentum Rotroci) on the banks of the river Huine in the diocese of Chartres (Department of Eure-et-Loir). The first foundations were laid in 1028 or 1029 and the first charter of the abbey is dated 1031.⁸¹ In the early years of the abbey, there was strife among the monks because they had come from various different monasteries and could not agree about monastic customs. In 1078, Rotrou, count of la Perche, brought in a new abbot and a group of monks from Saint-Pere de Chartres, in an attempt to introduce stronger rule. But the new abbot offended Rotrou's successor, Geoffrey IV.⁸² In 1081, the abbot and the monks from Saint-Pere were expelled, and Saint Hugh, abbot of Cluny, was asked to send monks from Cluny to reform Saint-Denis. What followed was, in effect, a new foundation, for the abbey was demoted to a priory under the full control of Cluny. Saint Hugh sent two monks, Robert and Hubert, and it was Hubert who became the first prior of the new priory.⁸³ Cluny was confirmed in possession of Saint-Denis in 1095 by pope Urban II.⁸⁴
 
 

Priories immediately and entirely dependent on Cluny formed the most important group of monasteries in the Cluniac family. Saint-Denis de Nogent-le-Rotrou was among the larger of those priories, which varied considerably in size, some of the smaller ones being little more than granges.⁸⁵ In 1350, there were 19 monks at Nogent-le-Rotrou, and it had 19 dependent houses in Chartres and one in Poitou.⁸⁶
 
 

In the course of the history of the priory, two priors called Bernard are recorded. The first was Bernard of Narbonne, who, in 1109, made a hasty journey to Cluny, in response to instructions from Saint Dionysius, who had appeared to him in a dream, telling him that his abbot, Hugh, was on the point of death. When he arrived, Hugh was already dead. Bernard reported to Hugh's successor, Pons de Melgeuil, that he had had another vision, this time of Hugh being received in heaven by Saint Benedict and others. Hugh, in the vision, instructed Bernard to tell Pons to be always humble, to do works of mercy, to overlook injuries, to console the afflicted and to obey zealously the Benedictine Rule. Three days later, Bernard died⁸⁷.
 
 

Bernard of Narbonne was succeeded as prior of Saint-Denis by Guicher, who was, in turn, succeeded in about 1120 by another Bernard, called only "Bernardus Secundus," who, in that year, was engaged in litigation with the monks of Tiron about certain properties. He was prior in 1124, when the rivalry between Saint- Pere and Cluny was finally brought to an end, and in 1125, when there was a dispute about the churches at Brou and Unverre and about vineyards at Brou and Montmirail. On 24 January 1130, Bernard, at the request of Rotrou, count of Perche, handed over to the monks of Tiron the tithe of Vieux-Tiron, and that of a field at Blainville.⁸⁸ After that, there is no record of the priors of Saint-Denis until prior Yves in 1160. Nor is there very much information about the priory.
 
 

In 1130, Peter the Venerable wrote a letter to Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres, about the priory at Chateaudun, in which he mentions the prior of Nogent-le-Rotrou, but does not name him.⁸⁹ About 1135, Gervais de Malmouche gave to the priory some property near Pin. On 20 January 1144, Rotrou was killed before Rouen. His body was buried in the vault of the church of the priory.⁹⁰
 
 

The question arises whether Bernardus Secundus, prior of Saint-Denis de Nogent-le- Rotrou, is the same person as Bernard of Morlaix. With regard to dates, it is perfectly possible. The internal evidence of the De contemptu mundi gives us a terminus a quo of 1134, when the Biddenden maids died,⁹¹ and the internal evidence of the De octo vitiis puts the author's visit to Rome in 1145-1146, 1149-1150 or 1152-1153.⁹²
 
 

It is reasonably certain that Bernard of Morlaix was at Nogent-le-Rotrou. In the dedicatory prologue of the De contemptu mundi he writes to Peter the Venerable:
 
 

Some time ago, when you were at Nogent, you were kind enough to accept another of my little works. So now I offer you this work, since I mentioned it to you at that time and you are expecting it. I could not give it to you then because I did not have it to hand ... If we do not meet, I will send you the work, which was written with the help of God. If we do meet, I will hand it to you.⁹³

It is true that the vow of stability did not prevent a certain amount of travel by ordinary Benedictine monks in the twelfth century, but the passage quoted above would seem to be better interpreted as meaning that Bernard was a monk at Nogent, and that he met Peter in the course of the usual abbatial visitations, than that they both happened to meet at Nogent when Bernard was normally located at Cluny. And, if Bernard were located at Cluny, there would be no need for him to send his work to Peter.
 
 

It is true that Bernard was a common name in twelfth-century France, but a priory such as Nogent-le-Rotrou would not have hundreds of monks, as Cluny had at that time. Among the score or so of monks it probably had between 1120 and 1160, it is not as likely as was the case at Cluny that several would be called Bernard. And perhaps it is not unlikely that the man who wrote the poems and was sent on a mission to Rome would hold the office of prior.
 
 

Kimon Giocarinis attaches considerable significance to the supposition that Bernard was at Cluny itself, and maintains that Bernard's latinity and classical learning throw light on "the nature of twelfth century monastic humanism, in general, and the culture of our poet's immediate environment, the monastery of Cluny under the abbacy of Peter the Venerable, in particular ... That a writer like Bernard should have lived and worked at Cluny and that he should have found it possible while wearing the habit of a Cluniac to delve into the auctores and to give vent to his strong urge to versify, is not at all surprising."⁹⁴ That argument loses something of its force if Bernard were, in fact Bernardus Secundus, prior of Saint-Denis de Nogent-le-Rotrou, for, in that case, the poems would actually have been written at Nogent, even if Bernard were a monk of Cluny who was sent to Nogent from the mother house, like prior Hubert before him. Nogent, of course, did not have the important library resources of Cluny, to which Giocarinis draws attention. But its proximity to the great centre of learning at Chartres is worth noting. And Giocarinis' general points about Cluniac learning and spirituality remain unaffected.
 
 

Of Bernard's contemporaries, the writer who had most influence upon him was Hildebert of Lavardin. Hildebert is mentioned in the prologue of the De contemptu mundi, and his influence can be seen in Bernard's description of Rome, in his Carmina de Trinitate and in his satirical misogyny, as well as in his styles of verse and rhyme. They were not exact contemporaries. Hildebert was born in 1056 and died in 1133. He has been described as "one of the finest hymnologists of the Middle Ages" and "the outstanding classical scholar of his day."⁹⁵ In 1112, when he was bishop of Le Mans (he later became archbishop of Tours), he was imprisoned unlawfully at Nogent-le- Rotrou.⁹⁶ If Bernard was a young monk at Nogent at that time, it is possible that the two could have met.

James Westfall Thompson speculates unconvincingly that Bernard first entered the monastic life at Saint Sauveur d'Aniane while Pons de Melgueil was abbot of Cluny (that is, between 1109 and 1122). He supposes that Bernard belonged to the house of Montpellier, to which Pons also belonged.⁹⁷ The story of Bernard of Narbonne's relations with Pons is related above. Whether Pons heeded the admonitions of Saint Hugh which were passed on to him by Bernard of Narbonne is not clear, but it is certain that the abbacy of Pons had an extraordinary effect on the family of Cluny.
 
 

The enigmatic Pons de Melgueil
 
 

The internal evidence of Bernard's poems makes it clear that they were written for a monastic audience.⁹⁸ That being so, it is worth enquiring whether there was anything in the affairs of Cluny in Bernard's time which prompted him to choose the themes of his poems and the admonitory and homiletic tones which he adopts.
 
 

An obvious candidate for consideration is the dramatic fall of Abbot Pons de Melgueil. The story is told, incidentally as it were, by Peter the Venerable, in the course of his encomium on Matthew of Albano in his De miraculis.⁹⁹ Peter describes how, when he was elected abbot of Cluny in 1122, he summoned Matthew, who was prior of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, to take in hand reforms at Cluny, where there had grown up recently certain faults which had to be eradicated. Matthew sought out and rectified various abuses of food, drink and customs ("noxia vel superflua quaeque in cibis, in potibus, in moribus") and, after a little while, Peter sent him back to Saint Martin's. Then, less than two years later, there arose a "horrenda tempestas" which was like a civil war in the Cluniac order.
 
 

At this point, Peter gives us a flashback to the election of abbot Pons. While the saintly abbot Hugh lay dying, in 1109, Pons was elected as his successor. Pons came from the Cluniac monastery of Saint-Pons-de-Thomieres. During his first years in office, he behaved well, but as time went on his behaviour deteriorated, until nearly all of his monks became dissatisfied, complaining of his inconstancy and levity and his wasting of the monastery's goods. The dispute reached the ears of Pope Calixtus II. Pons rushed off to Rome as fast as he could, and begged the pope to release him from his duties. Calixtus reluctantly agreed, and Pons went off to Jerusalem, where he proposed to stay. The pope told the Cluniacs to elect a new abbot, and they chose a venerable man, Hugh, who was prior of the nuns at Marcigny, but Hugh died scarcely five months later,¹⁰⁰ whereupon a date was set for a new election. Peter the Venerable (Pierre Maurice de Montboissier) was elected. As described above, Peter called in prior Matthew to put the house in order, and Cluniac affairs proceeded peacefully.
 
 

But meanwhile, says Peter, Pons grew weary of living overseas. He came back to Italy and settled near Vicenza, where he built a small community ("monasteriolum"). Then he made his way back to France. Knowing that Peter was away in Aquitaine, Pons approached Cluny by stages, gathering supporters (fugitive monks and common soldiers) as he went. When he reached Cluny, he overcame the resistance of prior Bernard and burst into the cloisters with his rabble of followers, including even women. He forced the monks, by threats and torture, to swear allegiance to him. He melted down the treasures and sacred vessels of Cluny to pay his followers. With those followers, he waged a campaign to subdue the villas and granges of the monastery in the surrounding countryside. "Abstinet a nulla bellorum specie, rapinis rerum, caedibus hominum." This went on for the whole Summer, from the beginning of Lent to the kalends of October. Prior Bernard and a few faithful monks managed to escape and took refuge where they could.
 
 

Summoned by Pope Honorius II (Calixtus had died in 1124), Peter and his party, including Matthew, and Pons and his party, went to Rome. Pons had been excommunicated, and could not be heard until the excommunication was lifted, but he obstinately refused to make any kind of satisfaction for his sins, claiming to be answerable only to Saint Peter in heaven. At this point, Pons' followers deserted him, because he was not only excommunicate but schismatic. They repented and were absolved. Pons was deposed from all ecclesiastical honours and privileges, and died soon afterwards in an epidemic of Roman fever ("Romanus ille pestifer morbus"), which struck down many on both sides of the dispute, including Peter himself, who took more than six months to recover. The Pope wrote to Peter to say that, although Pons had died impenitent, he had been given an honourable burial out of respect for the monastery of Cluny.
 
 

That, in brief summary, is the account Peter the Venerable gives in De miraculis. Bernard's poems fit very well into the context described by Peter. The monastic communities throughout the Cluniac order were weakened by the laxity introduced under Pons, which was no sooner corrected by Matthew, under Peter's direction, than further great disruption was caused by the return of Pons and his outrageous activities. Bernard could have begun composition of De contemptu mundi as early as 1126, the date of Pons' death.¹⁰¹ It might have been written as part of Peter's campaign of reform, which gave rise to his circular letter to all Cluniac priors and sub-priors ("Loquar an sileam? Aperiam labia an claudam?")¹⁰² and led to the Statuta of 1147.¹⁰³ Bernard's castigation of sin and his apocalyptic call for repentance and return to the monastic life would fit very well into such a scenario.
 
 

But Peter's account is not without certain internal difficulties of interpretation. For example, when dealing with Matthew's reform of abuses introduced by Pons, Peter gives the impression that they were to do with food and drink and monastic customs. But later, he gives a quite different reason for the monks' dissatisfaction with Pons' administration. Pons was wasting the monastery's assets.
 
 

Dissentientes illi ab eo, et quod multa mobilitate vel levitate animi, nullis bonorum consiliis acquiescendo, ut dicebant, res monasterii pessundaret.¹⁰⁴

Again, it is difficult to understand why Pons was allowed to inflict the violence which Peter reports upon Cluny and its neighbouring villas and granges from February to October 1125, why Peter was so slow to react, why he went directly to Rome rather than back to Cluny, and why the Pope took so long to summon the two parties to Rome.
 
 

No doubt these and similar difficulties can be explained by the admittedly selective nature of Peter's account¹⁰⁵ and the apparent inconsistencies can be removed by careful interpretation. But we have another account of the affair. It comes from Ordericus Vitalis, and might be said to have rather more authority than Peter's account. It is true that Orderic was not at Cluny at the time (neither was Peter) but Orderic's account is earlier than Peter's by a decade,¹⁰⁶ and Orderic had not the direct involvement as a principal actor which Peter had.
 
 

In his account of the death of abbot Hugh I, Orderic adds the detail that Hugh himself, on his deathbed, confirmed the election of Pons as his successor, and Orderic comments that Pons, son of the count of Melgueil, succeeded to the abbacy of Cluny, but that after some time he resigned it "pro diversis occasionibus," set out on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and, on his return, died in the prison of Pope Calixtus. "His sanctity," says Orderic, "is gloriously demonstrated by the evidence of miracles at his tomb."¹⁰⁷ Later, in his account of the Council of Rheims in 1119, Orderic deals with abbot Pons' dignified response to the accusations levelled against Cluny by the archbishop of Lyons and the bishop of Macon. He describes Pons in terms of glowing praise as a man of learning and piety, distinguished in behaviour and lineage, and of very attractive personality. He was the son of a count, godson of pope Paschal II, closely related to kings and emperors. "Tot charismatum prerogativus redimitus, fortis in adversantes aemulos stabat et rigidus."¹⁰⁸
 
 

According to Orderic, the hostility of the bishops was part of the reason for Pons' resignation. They took from the Cluniacs many of their possessions, and encouraged the rebellion of the secular clergy, "qui semper invident monachis." Subjected to oppression and insults, the monks fled from various priories and granges to the mother house at Cluny, "quasi oves de faucibus luporum." There arose a disagreement among the monks in Cluny itself. Some of them made accusations against Pons to pope Calixtus, claiming that he was wasting the wealth of the monastery in unnecessary lawsuits ("quod in actibus suis vehemens esset et prodigus, ac monasticos sumptus immoderate distraheret in causis inutilibus"). Orderic says nothing about any abuses of food and drink and monastic customs, but he does throw some light on Peter's other accusation, namely that Pons wasted the goods of the monastery. It seems that he spent the money on legal suits in defence of the monastery against the depredations of the bishops.
 
 

Orderic says that Pons was infuriated when he heard about the action of some of his monks, and that he unwisely ("inconsulte") resigned his office in the presence of the Pope and set out on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. That is significantly different from Peter's account. The point of a pilgrimage is not only to go, but to come back. Orderic implies doubt about the finality of Pons' resignation ("officio relicto") and says nothing about Pons' intention to remain in Jerusalem for good.¹⁰⁹ Adriaan Bredero sees Pons' pilgrimage as a kind of displacement activity.
 
 

Pons had first made a journey to Jerusalem, a customary reaction in that period on the occasion of a social impasse, and could be seen as an act of eschatologically determined resignation in the face of problems with which he could no longer cope.¹¹⁰

Peter says that Pons went to Jerusalem with the approval of Pope Calixtus, but Orderic says he went without permission. Orderic proceeds with an account of the election and death of Hugh II and the election of Peter. Then he goes on to describe Pons' return to Cluny, for the purpose, says Orderic, of seeing his brothers and friends. At this point, Orderic's narrative is radically different from Peter's. Orderic makes Bernard Grossus (Bernard of Uxelles, who in his youth had been a soldier¹¹¹), who was prior of Cluny, the instigator of the plot of violence ("fomes et incentor seditionis"), by forcibly opposing those monks who wished to welcome Pons. But the knights and people of the region, and the people of the town of Cluny, were very pleased to see Pons, and when they found he was being excluded from the monastery, they forced their way in. Orderic says this was against Pons' will ("licet ipse hoc noluisset"). The mob, not only decent men and women, but even rogues and prostitutes ("scurris ac meretricibus") burst in and began to plunder the abbey. But they were not there long, because the newly-built nave of the abbey church collapsed, and this sign of God's displeasure frightened them away.¹¹² The monks who sided with Peter in this dispute hastened off to find him, and he promptly set out for Rome. The Pope immediately summoned Pons, who went to Rome but refused to present himself to face charges. The Pope confirmed Peter in his office, and threw Pons into prison, where he fell ill and died a little later.¹¹³
 
 

This is such a radically different account from Peter's that we would be at a loss to choose between them without further evidence. In 1932, Andre Wilmart found such evidence in the form of a letter from Pons to the monks of Cluny.¹¹⁴ It was written while Pons was on his way to Cluny, after his return from the Holy Land. The manuscript is in poor condition. In 1978, with the aid of ultra-violet light, Piero Zerbi produced the following improvement on Wilmart's reconstruction:
 
 

Dilectis fratribus in Domino Fr(ater) Po(ntius) crucis Christi et eius piissime genit[ricis serv]us et abbas indignus, salutem et fideles orationes. Quoniam placuit vos propter indignitatem et inutilitatem nostram repudium nobis mittere, gratum habemus. Nos quoque per manum apostolici alterius vobis abbatis regimen concessimus. Iccirco monemus atque rogamus [univer]sitatem [vestr]am ne propter nos inter vos s[ci]s[ma]ta ver[sentur] set in vinculo pacis unita[.......ju]xta [magn]um precep[tum] Christi [...]t[.............] [...]e eis. F[........................] [....]ne fratres qui ad nos venirent ca[.........] [......]ut fugitivos eos habeatis [..]ra[...] [.....]ser[van]tes dilectione nostra commenda [.........] pati voluerint [......] [......]. Si quos autem nuncios pro nec[essitate] [..........] ne eos capiatis set [...ad ut]ilitatem vestram sustentetis. Nos enim in unitate corporis cuius caput Christus est vobis conectimur, orantes Dominum nostrum ut nos pariter gratia et misericordia sua perducat ad vitam eternam. Commendamus nos humiliter vestris orationibus.¹¹⁵

The letter makes it clear that Pons had relinquished his office, but that he understood the relinquishment to be temporary. He is still abbot, even though "indignus". It is possible that the Cluniacs took the same view at the time of the election of Hugh II. They may have thought they were electing a stop-gap abbot, until Pons should return. But it is also abundantly clear that Pons was not, at the time that he wrote the letter, intending to return to Cluny to resume his office. He has yielded his rule to Peter, and he begs his brothers not to fight among themselves for his sake, but to live in the peace of Christ. He makes some request about the monks who have joined him, perhaps that they should not be treated as monks who have broken their vow of stability under the Benedictine Rule. He says he is joined to his brethren in the unity of the mystical body of which Christ is the head.
 
 

The tone of the letter is "one of humility and penitence, and of anxiety to promote the unity of the Cluniac family."¹¹⁶ It is not the letter of a man planning to take Cluny by storm, and it lends credibility to Orderic's account of the invasion of the abbey, especially that it happened against Pons' will, and that it lasted only one day. It would be worth while questioning, therefore, Peter's account of a reign of terror at Cluny lasting from February to October 1125. H.E.J. Cowdrey makes a strong case for 1126 as the date of the period of violence. The brief, one-day violence at the abbey was followed by immediate action on the part of Peter (who went straight to Rome) and Honorius (who at once summoned Pons and Peter to a hearing to be held in September). Pons was dead by 28 or 29 December 1126.¹¹⁷ Peter's colourful picture of troubles in and around Cluny may be an exaggerated account of the actions of some of Pons' supporters, trying, in Pons' absence and without his approval, to secure his position in the abbey's villas and granges. Orderic, as we have seen, does not mention the reign of terror.
 
 

It seems that Pons was a more complex character than appears from Peter's account of him.¹¹⁸ He was also, in his heyday, a more highly regarded person than Peter shows him to be. In the Historia Compostellana there is a description of the death of Pope Gelasius II in 1119. He died in the monastery of Cluny, in which he had taken refuge, having been driven out of Rome by the supporters of the emperor's anti-pope, Gregory VIII. Before he died, Gelasius had said that either Guy, archbishop of Vienne, or Pons of Cluny should succeed him as pope.¹¹⁹ Guy was elected, and chose the name Calixtus II. But Pons would neither support nor condemn his election. With the support of several French bishops, he proposed that the election be subject to confirmation by the clergy and people of Rome. "Quod si clerus et populus Romanus illius electionem atque consecrationem laudaverint, post illos nostra interest laudare, et eorum ditioni obedire."¹²⁰ Pons was probably doing no more than insist that proper procedures for a papal election were followed, and Calixtus' election was duly confirmed by the cardinals who were in Rome. But there followed a period of strained relations between Calixtus and Pons.¹²¹ Pons found that he no longer enjoyed the degree of papal protection from the bishops' inroads upon Cluny's privileges to which the monastery had been accustomed. But Calixtus was back in Cluny for the canonisation of abbot Hugh in December and January 1120, and he took the opportunity to heal the breach with Pons and to declare his continuing support for Cluny.¹²² He also conferred upon Pons the dignity of cardinal priest of Santa Cecilia.¹²³
 
 

But the bishops had taken advantage of their opportunity, and there followed the dissatisfaction within the Cluniac community, and Pons' appeal to Calixtus, which Orderic describes. It seems probable that, despite his renewal of friendship with Pons and avowals of support for the Cluniacs, Calixtus (who had never been a monk) was not prepared, in 1122, to give the degree of support which Pons expected.¹²⁴
 
 

Pons may appear to have been unwilling to compromise, and to have responded insensitively to the reasonable demands of the bishops. In his response at the Council of Rheims, he claimed that Cluny was subject only to papal control. From the time of its first foundation, it had held special privileges. "Notum autem sit vobis beati Patres, qui adestis, omnibus, quod ego et fratres nostri monasticas res, quas jure servandas suscepimus ... servare contendimus."¹²⁵ But this was no more than the official Cluniac line. Peter the Venerable, defending the same Cluniac privileges in a letter to Saint Bernard, argued that monks are more worthy than secular clergy to receive tithes and first fruits. How are the secular clergy, who do not look after their own souls, going to work hard for the salvation of the souls of others? "Qui namque iustius fidelium oblata suscipiunt, monachi qui assidue pro peccatis offerentium intercedunt, an clerici qui nunc ut videmus summo studio temporalia appetentes spiritualia et quae ad animarum salutem pertinent omnino postponunt?"¹²⁶ It is not difficult to understand why Cluny had problems in its relations with the bishops and the secular clergy.
 
 

But it was not only the secular clergy who were unhappy about Cluniac claims. The Cluniac family consisted mainly of subject priories, like Saint-Denis de Nogent-le Rotrou, which by the terms of their charters were governed by priors who were directly subject to the authority of the abbot of Cluny. But there were also abbeys, some of them more ancient foundations than Cluny itself, which, though belonging to the Cluniac order, retained their abbatial status. During the reign of Pons, there were eighteen such abbeys, more than ever before or subsequently.¹²⁷ The status of their abbots in relation to the abbot of Cluny was somewhat ambiguous. The monks, frequently encouraged by the bishops and secular clergy and supported by the local gentry (who had sometimes lost control of the abbey to Cluny) strove to minimise the authority of the abbot of Cluny.
 
 

The abbey of Saint-Bertin in Flanders is a case in point. Abbot Lambert, after protracted dissension, managed to introduce Cluniac customs in 1101 only by calling in the military.¹²⁸ Abbot Hugh of Cluny helped him by sending to Saint-Bertin monks from various Cluniac monasteries. In consequence, the community was divided into Flemish and Cluniac monks.¹²⁹ The chronicler of Saint-Bertin, Simon, belonged to the Flemish faction. He tells us that when Pons was a young monk in a monastery of another order, he was offered a bishopric. But Pope Paschal II (his godfather) disapproved, on the grounds that he was too young, and sent him to Cluny (where he became prior of Saint-Pons-de- Thomieres and subsequently abbot of Cluny).¹³⁰ Simon describes in detail the problems which Pons encountered when he attempted to impose his authority as "abbas abbatum".¹³¹ The affair ended in uneasy compromise, but Saint-Bertin was nearly lost to Cluny.
 
 

Given this context, Orderic's account of the fall of Pons is credible. Beset with external problems from the bishops and the secular clergy, and from the abbeys belonging to the Cluniac family, and with internal problems from his own monks, some of whom thought he should be protecting them more effectively from outside pressures, and others of whom thought he was wasting the substance of the abbey on unnecessary litigation in protection of the Cluniac empire, Pons did not know what to do. He went to the Pope for help, but got little reassurance. So, in effect, he put the problems, temporarily, in the lap of Calixtus, and went off on pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
 
 

Orderic's account is credible. But perhaps Peter's version is not altogether inconsistent with it. His colourful description of the long reign of terror which accompanied Pons' return may be an exaggeration, but he may yet have been right about a decline in observance of the Benedictine Rule at Cluny under Pons. It would surely be surprising if the Pons affair were not in some way related to the great quarrel between Cluniacs and Cistercians. Just such a relation is suggested by Joan Evans. The quarrel with the Cistercians began when Pons sent the prior of Cluny to talk to Robert of Chatillon, who had been dedicated from youth to Cluny, but who had in fact entered Clairvaux. Robert was persuaded to transfer to Cluny. But Robert was the nephew of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who reacted strongly. He wrote an open letter to Robert and, at the request of William of Saint-Thierry, an extended Apologia, in both of which he attacked the laxity of Cluny. "All Bernard's strictures were addressed against Pons and the lax usages he had introduced into the order; but it was Peter who had to face them and to make such answer as he could."¹³² Pons left a legacy of degenerate monasticism, but Peter fought hard for reform and "almost succeeded in bringing the Order back into the state in which Hugh had left it." In 1132 he decided that the time had come to draw up new statutes for the Order.¹³³
 
 

If that interpretation can be sustained, the poems of Bernard of Morlaix might still have the significance, in a context of monastic reform, which was mooted above. But there are difficulties. It turns out that Saint Bernard's letter to Robert was written as late as the end of 1124, only a short time before the Apologia, which was written in 1125.¹³⁴ Saint Bernard, that is to say, was attacking the way of life established at Cluny by Peter the Venerable, with the help of Matthew. That interpretation is confirmed by Peter's letter to Saint Bernard in defence of Cluny.¹³⁵ If Saint Bernard had indeed been attacking the laxity at Cluny under Pons, Peter's obvious and totally effective response would have been to explain that Pons had been responsible for all the evils, and they had now been put right. But in fact, he defends all the abuses of which Cluny is accused, giving no indication that he intends to change any of them.

Furthermore, it is difficult to believe that Matthew, the prior of Saint-Martin- des-Champs, could have been responsible for a reform movement at Cluny designed to bring it into line with the new monasticism. This same Matthew, at a later date when he was a cardinal and bishop of Albano, objected very strongly to the attempts at reform of the Chapter of Benedictine (but not Cluniac) abbots at Rheims in 1131.¹³⁶ He was "a Cluniac die-hard."¹³⁷ Peter the Venerable says of him, approvingly, that even when he became bishop of Albano, he continued to recite the full divine office according to the customs of Cluny. The elaborateness and length of the Cluniac office was one of the major bones of contention with the Cistercians, who thought Cluniacs should give time to manual work and less time to the "prolixa Cluniacensi[s] psalmodia."¹³⁸
 
 

Even in the Statuta, which were finally put together in 1144, Peter hardly appears as a zealous reformer. Rather, it was an attempt to strike a compromise between traditional Cluniac monasticism and the new monasticism propounded and practised by William of Thierry and Bernard of Clairvaux. He was, of course, confronted with powerful resistance from many of his monks. Orderic says, in the context of the meeting of 1132, that Peter forgot Solomon's precept that we should not transgress the ancient bounds which our fathers have set and, "Cistercienses aliosque novorum sectatores aemulatus", stood firm on his half-baked plan ("rudibus ausis"); but that later, he relented and agreed to the demands of his monks, "memor discretionis quae virtutum mater est."¹³⁹

In fact, it is possible to cast Pons and Peter in reverse roles. Adriaan Bredero regards Pons as the reformer and Peter as the defender of traditional Cluniac customs. He discusses the new interpretations of the Rule of Saint Benedict, which people wished to observe once more in an authentic way, stripped of the customs which had overtaken it.
 
 

It is just unthinkable that in Cluny, where these customs had developed to such a degree, no discussion should have concerned this problem ... The aforementioned crisis at Cluny was a result of this discussion, and the manner in which it was conducted between champions and opponents of change in the monastic way of life resulted in the two camps ending up diametrically and implacably opposed to each other. Abbot Pons also took sides in this discussion, favouring those who advocated change. His choice was probably partly determined by the fact that the current way of life at Cluny [that is, life under Saint Hugh] had resulted in economic problems, but he did not allow himself to be led exclusively by economic considerations. Indeed, even though during the latter years of his tenure his community lived in poverty, no cuts were made in the daily distribution of food to the poor, a situation later denounced by Peter the Venerable as mismanagement.¹⁴⁰

The presentation of Pons as the good guy with, in a metaphorical sense, the white cowl and Peter the Venerable as the bad guy with the black cowl is an interesting piece of revisionist history, but it leaves several questions unanswered. If Pons were a reforming abbot, his reforms must have been carried out by his grand prior. In the situation of implacably opposed camps outlined by Bredero, it would seem to be impossible that a prior who carried through Pons' reforms would be retained by Peter the Venerable when, with the help of Matthew, he endeavoured to undo the work of his predecessor. But Bernard of Uxelles was prior during Pons' abbacy, and continued as prior throughout the abbacy of Peter the Venerable.¹⁴¹ He was, moreover, the same grand prior who persuaded Robert of Chatillon to leave Clairvaux for Cluny, which would hardly be consistent with a dedication to the new monasticism. He was also the same prior Bernard who led the resistance to Pons' return to Cluny, which he would scarcely have done if Pons had been the kind of reforming leader sketched by Bredero. Then there is the case of Orderic. As we have seen, he was clearly sympathetic to Pons, but he nowhere suggests that Pons was one of those "Cistercians and other chasers after novelties" whom he detested. It is rather Peter the Venerable whom he sees in that role.
 
 

The background to the Pons affair is complex. It includes relations between Cluny and the emperor; relations between Cluny and the popes; relations between Cluny and the bishops and secular clergy; relations between the abbey and the town of Cluny; relations between Cluny and its abbatiae; relations between Citeaux and Cluny; and financial difficulties in Cluny itself. All of these aspects are dealt with in the literature.¹⁴² But, although all these are part of the environment in which Pons acted, none of them clearly presents itself as a necessary or sufficient cause of Pons' behaviour. H.E.J. Cowdrey draws the conclusion that the basic cause was a flaw in the otherwise noble character of Pons.
 
 

So long as Pontius trod familiar paths and could count upon the prestige and support which his predecessor had enjoyed from his own monks and from the papacy, his rule was a prosperous one. There is, indeed, clear evidence of faults of personality and character which were especially apparent on the rare occasions when this prestige and support were lacking: in such circumstances, Pontius was liable to lose direction and act precipitately.¹⁴³

Like the tragic flaw of a Shakespearian hero, it led to his downfall. This estimate is similar to that of Orderic: "Principium fini solet impar saepe videri."¹⁴⁴
 
 

It is true that Peter the Venerable had continuing difficulties in all the areas listed above.¹⁴⁵ But it is not at all clear that any of these troubles were due to Pons. Nor is it clear that the camps within Cluny were as bitterly and implacably opposed as Bredero suggests. The murder of prior William of Roanne by his own monks was a very exceptional event, and Peter describes it as such, making it clear also that William was a firm adherent of "morem et modum Cluniacensis."¹⁴⁶
 
 

The accusations of laxity levelled at Cluny by the Cistercians were concerned with strict observance of what the Cistercians took to be the Benedictine Rule. When Peter berated his own monks in his circular letter, the thing that he regarded as most serious was the eating of meat. Changes of the Rule in regard to receiving novices, manual work, clothing and so forth, were made by previous abbots for good reason, and that, says Peter, is how he argued in his two letters to Saint Bernard. But there can be no excuse for eating meat. "At huius capituli praevaricatio qua ratione excusabitur?"¹⁴⁷ Next to eating meat, the greatest area of dispute was the length and complexity of the divine office. How burdensome the Cluniac office was may be judged from Noreen Hunt's detailed analysis of it. Even though "it was never hard for those whose work made it difficult to attend the full community round [of the liturgy] to get exemption," Cluny had, long before the time of Saint Hugh, departed from the requirement of the Rule that the monastic day be fairly equally divided between liturgical prayer, spiritual reading and manual work, and by Peter's time the horarium left little time for manual work or spiritual reading.¹⁴⁸ In Peter's Statuta, the divine office receives a good deal of attention, and the reforms made constitute an admission of the justice of Cistercian criticism. He remarks bitterly that rules for manual work were needed because monks were spending the day propping up the cloister walls, fast asleep ("adhaerentes claustri parietibus dormitarent").¹⁴⁹
 
 

Dom David Knowles, commenting on the Statuta, wonders "whether Cluny did not regard the religious life as a routine, a profession, a task of work for which one signed on, and then performed tant bien que mal, rather than as a vocation, a way of life, a spiritual discipline and ascent."¹⁵⁰ And, in relation to the controversy between Cistercians and Cluniacs, he says:
 
 

It is certainly true that customs and circumstances change and demand new legislation, and it may be that regulations of extreme severity are not essential for religious perfection, but it is not true that a fervent religious life can exist without a constant invitation to a spiritual, supernatural ideal. No talk of charity can make the mediocre holy.¹⁵¹

During the lifetime of Bernard of Morlaix, Cluny reached the peak of its development. Peter the Venerable says that, at Cluny itself, there were between three hundred and four hundred monks, while in former times there had been seventy or eighty.¹⁵² Joan Evans says that "in spite of a dreadful epidemic in the winter of 1144 Peter succeeded in bringing up the number of monks at Cluny to four hundred and sixty."¹⁵³ According to Noreen Hunt, "the number of Cluniac monasteries has been variously estimated at totals ranging from 200 to 2,000. The former figure is an underestimation; the latter is certainly exaggerated."¹⁵⁴ Marcel Pacaut lists 303, but does not indicate that his list is complete.¹⁵⁵ It would seem that both the number of monks at the abbey of Cluny itself and the number of dependent priories and abbatiae presented problems which proved to be insuperable, and that Cluny entered a period of decline from which it never recovered. Saint Benedict had in mind communities of twelve monks with an abbot. The usual number of monks in an abbey in the twelfth century seems to have been about seventy. Certainly, from the evidence of Peter's Statuta, as well as those of Ulrich and Bernard of Cluny,¹⁵⁶ three or four hundred monks cannot be formed into a workable monastic family. As for the Cluniac empire, it was too loosely knit, and the powers of the "abbas abbatum" too ambiguously defined, for it to survive when it became large, not only in number of monasteries but, more importantly, in geographical spread.¹⁵⁷ These, rather than any actions of Pons, seem to be the reasons for Cluny's decline.
 
 

An investigation of the confusing affair of the enigmatic Pons does not strongly support the conclusion that Bernard of Morlaix wrote his poems with the specific intention of assisting a campaign of reform launched by Peter the Venerable to correct abuses introduced by Pons, or even a more general conclusion that he wrote in the context of the new monasticism, in order to further reforms along the lines proposed by Citeaux. In fact, his satirical attacks on the Cistercians, and upon Saint Bernard himself, show that he was as die-hard a Cluniac as Matthew or Orderic¹⁵⁸.
 
 

In none of his poems does Bernard of Morlaix discuss the specific issues which divided the Cluniacs and Cistercians, or the related, but not identical issues which seem to have divided the two camps within Cluny. His castigation of sin is much more general in character and his attack on the Cistercians is simple invective. His apocalyptic call for repentance is in no way related to particular elements of observance of the Rule. His appeal to his brothers to turn away from the world and devote themselves fully to the monastic life has little direct relation to particular events or controversies of his time, though, as Jill Mann points out, it reveals the preoccupations and anxieties of his age. The ritual misogyny is intended to reinforce celibacy; the diatribes against money reflect an inability to redefine social and moral duties in response to the emergence of an economy based on money; the complaints about the worldliness of the clergy spring from problems of relations between church and state; the protests about the Curia illustrate the problems of a growing papal bureaucracy.¹⁵⁹
 
 

It would seem that that Bernard's poems were written in an environment of monastic mediocrity, in which the majority of Cluniac monks were not fired with a dedication to spiritual perfection, but were pursuing the religious life simply as a routine job. They did not shirk the opus Dei. On the contrary, they delighted in the elaboration and lengthening of the liturgy. But, as Peter the Venerable saw, what mattered was not the length of the liturgy, but how meaningful it was to the monks.¹⁶⁰ Bernard's work could well have been prompted by the absence of dedication to the monastic ideal which he saw about him. "Arce monasticus excidit ordo."¹⁶¹
 
 

Despite the efforts of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, it seems that the twelfth century saw the beginning of the long decline of monasticism, rather than a renaissance. As Christopher Brooke points out, "for the most part, so far as we can tell, from 1300 on until the Reformation and Counter Reformation, the religious were not climbing Jacob's ladder, as St. Bernard had insisted that they must."¹⁶² Quite apart from the family squabble between Cluniacs and Cistercians, there was a great deal of anti-monastic literature in the twelfth century, as is indicated below in Chapter 3, which deals with estates satire. There may, indeed, have been as much in the twelfth century as there was in the fourteenth and fifteenth. And modern historians like Dom David Knowles, who criticises from within, and George Gordon Coulton, who criticises from without, say nothing that was not recognised and commented upon by contemporaries of Bernard of Morlaix. Coulton "for all his Protestantism wrote about medieval monks as if he was himself a medieval reformer trouncing contemporary vices."¹⁶³
 
 

Bernard's visit to Rome
 
 

The one hard piece of biographical information which Bernard gives us about himself in the course of his poems is that he had an audience with Pope Eugenius III in Rome. He tells us about it at the end of De octo vitiis, which is dedicated to Pope Eugenius III.
 
 

Eugenio patre¹⁶⁴ patris iras flectere matre

Christi peccator Bernardus pacis amator.

De viciis octo librum te judice docto

Scribens limandum, te, papa, precor michi blandum,

In quo succincte pro te tibi, non loquar in te.

Bernard, a sinner and a lover of peace, greets his father Eugenius, and prays that our heavenly Father's anger may be turned aside by the mother of Christ. This book which I have written about the eight deadly sins is in need of amendment. Please, Holy Father, be my learned critic, but please be kind to me. In it, I have written briefly for you and to you, but not in any way against you.¹⁶⁵

Bernard proceeds to a detailed treatment of the cardinal sins (pride, envy, anger, vainglory, sloth, avarice, gluttony, lust) for more than a thousand lines. Then he devotes nearly four hundred lines to a diatribe against Rome. But he goes on to say:
 
 

I am not talking about the Pope who is presently in office.¹⁶⁶ I have nothing but praise for the occupant of the chair of Peter, a patron of the just and pious. Nor am I talking about those members of the clergy who are holy and who follow strict moral principles, who love truth rather than money or goods. There are citizens of Rome, too, who are both wealthy and pious. I am not talking about them. All these holy people give Rome the aroma of incense and perfume. But wicked men have put an end to good things in Rome. In the past, Rome recognised the responsibilities that a just man carries. The new Rome regards a just man as nothing more than a pocket to be picked. Only when Rome serves can it stand firm. When it is intent on piling up wealth, it withers away.¹⁶⁷

What follows is not Bernard's customary recourse to commonplace. He is clearly writing about the turbulent Rome of Eugenius III. He writes of disorder and confusion in the City, and of citizens fighting one another.
 
 

Blind greed for gold drives men into hasty conflict. Blind hunger for gold makes them fight like bulls. Heavy batons are often wielded in the City. They fight shield to shield. Banner strikes banner, sword threatens sword. They fight foot to foot. Wealth is pitted against assessed wealth. To their own undoing, they fight one another for money. They rush to death, each side terrifying the other, stirred up to criminal behaviour by the power of gold. He who is after gold very soon resorts to the sword ... So the slaves of gold kill each other in violent conflict.¹⁶⁸

It does not in fact seem to have been the case that the Roman citizens were motivated primarily by greed. The basic motivation appears to have been a desire to achieve a measure of civic independence comparable with that which the Lombard cities were beginning to achieve. But for Rome there were peculiar problems. It had special relations both with the Teutonic Emperor and with the Pope. It was not only an Italian city but also the capital of the Holy Roman Empire and at the same time the centre of Christendom. "Her natural development was crushed between the upper and nether millstones of Papacy and Empire. Even when she was not torn by the divergent policies of the twain, she was not free like the Lombard cities to develop along lines of her own choosing; her civic destiny was sacrificed to the dominant idealism of mediaeval political theory".¹⁶⁹
 
 

But, despite these difficulties, the Romans did attempt to assert their independence in 1142, when they renounced papal authority and set up a government with an order of Senators. In 1144, they appointed a patricius and the Roman Republic was inaugurated. Pope Lucius II launched a military attack against it in 1145, but was decisively defeated.¹⁷⁰
 
 

Lucius was succeeded by Eugenius III in 1145. Unable to stay in Rome, he was crowned in Farfa. He moved from there to Viterbo, where he excommunicated the Roman patricius and negotiated an alliance with Tivoli against the Romans. It was at that point that the disturbances described by Bernard began. Greenaway calls them "a veritable reign of terror."¹⁷¹
 
 

Under the patricius Jordan Pierleone, the prefectship was abolished and the nobility were called upon to submit to the new regime. "The fortified dwellings of such of them as refused submission were sacked and levelled to the ground, as were the splendid palaces of her cardinals and the houses of the clergy. Not content with this, `the Roman people' fortified St. Peter's, maltreated and plundered the pilgrims, and in some cases even put to death those who would not surrender their property to them."¹⁷²
 
 

The plundering and murder of pilgrims, which both Mann and Greenaway mention, seems to derive only from Otto of Freising, who says, in The two cities, "In their eagerness for gain, they exacted, by stripes and blows, offerings from pilgrims who came to pray", and, "Indeed, in their sinful daring, they did not shrink from killing, in the very portico and vestibule of the temple, certain of those who were unwilling to make fferings".¹⁷³ These latter may not have been pilgrims, and in any case Otto may have exaggerated. He says nothing about abuse or murder of pilgrims when dealing with the same episode in the Gesta Frederici.¹⁷⁴ Nor does John of Salisbury make any mention of ill-treatment of pilgrims in Historia pontificalis.¹⁷⁵ Bernard's account of the treatment of pilgrims may therefore be close to the truth.
 
 

The path of a pilgrim to Rome is through brambles. But no wicked person dares to give him trouble. In the midst of frenzy in Rome, pilgrims to Rome enjoy the protection of Christ and the aid of Peter. They make their way, and the battle does not harm them. They do whatever they have to do. They seek the holy places in safety. Pilgrims to Rome suffer hardly any ill effects from the fighting. The wickedly blind rabble fight among themselves. The insane citizens of Rome fight among themselves, emptying their quivers and throwing stones at one another. For what? For money the bloody war is fought.

People of Etruria on pilgrimage to Rome and people of Bari on pilgrimage to Jerusalem make for the sacred portals of Rome, weeping for their sins. As they weep, they wash the dirt from their bodies and the sin from their souls, and they promptly go to the successor of the Apostles to be blessed by his hand. They seek him at the Lateran,¹⁷⁶ because they know that he is usually there, the pastor of the Lateran¹⁷⁷ with the fathers of Rome.¹⁷⁸

The pilgrims converge in a crowd. They offer to the Pope the gifts they have brought. The pilgrims seek and receive the Pope's blessing, and they depart. But the lord Pope does not hang on to any of the gifts. If that is not the case, it ought to be, lest the Pope rot with gifts. What the Roman pilgrims give is straightway given to the poor. If a pilgrim does not give gifts, he ought to, because his gifts are given to heaven.¹⁷⁹

Bernard makes it clear that he is not speaking generally. He himself travelled to Rome, went to the Lateran and had an audience with Pope Eugenius.¹⁸⁰ The political condition of Rome prevented Eugenius from residing in the City through most of his papacy, so the range of possible dates for Bernard's visit is not great. John of Salisbury mentions that he read the register of Eugenius III,¹⁸¹ but it is not extant. Migne, however, has gathered together his letters,¹⁸² and from them it is clear that, apart from his ceremonial entry into Rome upon his election in February 1145, Eugenius was in Rome only from Christmas Eve 1145 to about the middle of January 1146; from 28 November 1149 to about the middle of June 1150; and from 19 December 1152 to the end of June 1153.¹⁸³
 
 

After his first ceremonial entry into Rome, the senators told Eugenius they would dispute his election unless he confirmed their usurped authority. He was forced to leave Rome and was consecrated in the monastery at Farfa on 17 February 1146.¹⁸⁴ By April, he was in Viterbo, where he stayed for eight months, and thereafter his travels were extensive, including visits to both Cluny¹⁸⁵ and Clairvaux.¹⁸⁶
 
 

Meanwhile, the disturbances described above were taking place in Rome. Eugenius, having excommunicated the patricius, sought the aid of the people of Tivoli and put pressure on the Roman senators. He agreed to recognise the senate, provided that the senators acknowledged that their powers derived from him, and on condition that they got rid of the patricius and restored the prefect. So it was that he made his second ceremonial entry into Rome, in December 1145. But the revolution soon reasserted itself, and Eugenius had again to leave the City. By 28 January, he had moved to Trastevere (which was not included in the commune of Rome).¹⁸⁷
 
 

In 1149, Eugenius resorted to arms. According to John of Salisbury, "The pope, meanwhile, had betaken himself to Tusculum, where, mustering his forces, he ordered an attack on Rome, and gave cardinal Guy, nicknamed the Maiden, command over the army. Auxiliaries were received from the lands of the king of Sicily, but the fighting was unsuccessful. The church merely incurred the heaviest expenses to little or no purpose".¹⁸⁸ The Romans took the extraordinary step of writing to the emperor Conrad, telling him that his authority derived from the Roman senate. "We desire to exalt and to increase the Roman kingdom and empire, vouchsafed by God to your governance, and to restore it to that state in which it was at the time of Constantine and of Justinian, who held the whole world in their hands by the might of the Roman people." They ordered him to come to Rome and rescue them from the pope.¹⁸⁹ Not surprisingly, Conrad ignored this and other similar letters. The Romans, short of money, came to terms with the pope. "The pope went on to Rome and received a splendid reception from the nobles, whose noses had sensed the gold and silver of Gaul."¹⁹⁰ So, in November 1149, Eugenius made his third triumphal entry into Rome.
 
 

But the republican troubles persisted, and Eugenius had to leave Rome again in June 1150. In September 1151, Conrad at last wrote his only letter to the Romans, telling them that, at their invitation, he was about to come to Italy in order to reward the loyal and punish the rebellious.¹⁹¹ But in February 1152, Conrad died, to be succeeded by Frederick Barbarossa, who, like his predecessor, took no heed of the words or deeds of the Roman republic, and concluded a concordat with the pope. Whereupon, the Romans also entered into yet another agreement with the pope, who made his final ceremonial entry into Rome in December 1152.¹⁹² He died on 8 July 1153, at Tivoli.
 
 

That, very briefly, is the background of Roman affairs at the time of Bernard's visit. Bernard went to Rome with a particular purpose, namely to present a petition to the Pope.
 
 

So much for that. And now, since my comic Muse¹⁹³ has made her way to Rome and bent her footsteps towards the halls of the Lateran, I present these poems¹⁹⁴ to the Pope, in accordance with customary usage. And this, Holy Father, is the message that I bring peacefully to you: Greetings, Your Holiness. You opened your doors to me, now please open your ears to my request. My Muse sang about the deadly sins in the first part of this poem, but she ascribes to you, Holy Father, only a very small part in any of the things I have written about.

I will lay before you a matter which ought not to be concealed, so that you may resolve the problem and put an end to the dispute. Holy Father, let me briefly bring to your attention troubles which have for a long time afflicted the Cluniac Order and disputes which are increasing. Why do you allow the meek to be tormented without reproach [to their tormentors]? You know what the New Testament says. The raging waters were stilled when Christ walked on them. The heavenly ship is now tossed about by heavy seas. Powerful storms batter the House of Cluny.¹⁹⁵

What the dispute was, and with whom, we do not know. The conflict between Peter the Venerable and Pons de Melgueil took place in 1125 or 1126, and Pons was dead by December 1126. Bernard's petition, two decades later, could not have had to do with that affair. The controversy between Cluniacs and Cistercians was still going on, and that dispute may have been in some way connected with Bernard's submission.
 
 

If we look at the first possible period for Bernard's visit, December 1145 to January 1146, we find a letter, dated 16 January 1146, from Eugenius to Lambert, Bishop of Angouleme and Gerald, Bishop of Limoges.
 
 

We have carefully heard and considered at length, together with our brothers, the dispute which has for a long time taken place between our dear sons the monks of Cluny and the clergy of La Rochebeaucourt about the church of that place. We have heard the arguments of both parties and carefully enquired into the matter. We find, by the admission of both parties, that the monks were in possession of the church. Our judgement is that, if the monks can produce two or three suitable witnesses to prove, in our presence, that the clergy who were then occupying the church, or others on their behalf, expelled the monks with violence from their possession of the church, then the monks should be reinstated in possession of it ... ¹⁹⁶

There is a follow-up letter, dated September 9, 1146, from Eugenius at Viterbo to Raymond, Bishop of Perigueux, telling him that the Cluniac monks had fulfilled his conditions, but the clergy of La Rochebeaucourt had not complied, and ordering him to put the matter right.¹⁹⁷ Given the hyperbole in which Bernard usually (like most of his contemporaries) engages, that incident is not unlikely to be the dispute to which he refers in his submission to the pope. If we suppose Bernard to be prior of Nogent, he could well have been commissioned by Peter the Venerable to present a petition.
 
 

There are many other letters which, directly or indirectly, concern the Cluniac order. For example, a letter of 15 February, 1152, concerns privileges for Cluny;¹⁹⁸ a letter of 14 March 1152 (which Migne says is "redolent of the pen of Saint Bernard"), and a number of related letters, accuse Peter the Venerable of ingratitude and negligence, because of his failure to control the recalcitrant monks of Gigny.¹⁹⁹ But none of them, in terms of the date or the place at which they were written, seems as likely as the letter quoted above to represent the subject of Bernard's submission.
 
 

Although there is no mention of it in Migne's collection of the letters of Pope Eugenius, it is possible that the dispute between Saint-Pere and Cluny about the priory of Saint-Denis de Nogent-le-Rotrou was the subject of Bernard's petition. It was certainly while Bernardus Secundus was prior at Nogent that the long- standing rivalry between the two was brought to an end.²⁰⁰ There were other disputes while Bernardus Secundus was prior, although there is no evidence of papal intervention in relation to them. There was, for example, a controversy with the monks of Tiron which was the source of litigation between the two monasteries.²⁰¹ There was also a dispute with Guillaume Gouet about the church at Unverre, which was resolved in Bernardus Secundus' time as prior.²⁰²
 
 

As Bernard continues his address to Pope Eugenius, his image of the ship continues to signify the House of Cluny, but it also suggests the whole Church, almost as if the two were the same thing.
 
 

The sorely troubled heart will awaken Jesus who is sleeping ... "Saviour arise! We perish!" Jesus will arise, and the enemy who now grows strong and who harries the holy in order to strip them of their wealth will be ruined. A man who tries to sink this ship would be a fool. I mean, the ship which has God as its captain and Peter²⁰³ as its navigator, steering it toward good. The ship's management is justice, its timber is the Cross, its course is set by hope, it is driven by the wind of love, its leader is faith, its stern is the brotherly virtue of the community, its prow is the fatherly virtue [of pope and abbot], its anchor is the final end,²⁰⁴ its oars are encouragement. Holy Father, please be a sailor with a skilful oar to this ship ...²⁰⁵

We have no dates for any of Peter the Venerable's visits to Nogent.²⁰⁶ The date of death of the Biddenden Maids gives a terminus a quo of 1134 for completion of the De contemptu mundi. Bernard makes it clear in his prologue addressed to Peter the Venerable that the poem was written over a period of time. He quotes with approval Horace's advice that a poem should be checked over many days and with many corrections and polished to a perfect finish ten times, and that it should be held back for eight years before publication.²⁰⁷ This, like his statement that he is submitting the poem for Peter's correction not yet quite finished ("nondum omnino absolutum") may be little more than a literary convention, but parts of the poem were no doubt written some time before 1134. The terminus ad quem is the death of Peter the Venerable in 1156.
 
 

The date of the salutation and of lines 1313 to 1399 of De octo vitiis is, as indicated above, probably 1145. The same date provides a terminus ad quem for the remainder of the poem, and for the other three poems in the Vatican codex, if "has tibi presento" in line 1367 of De octo vitiis refers to all four poems. There is nothing in the poems to suggest a terminus a quo. De Trinitate is addressed to "every reader."²⁰⁸ De castitate servanda is addressed to "all scholars throughout the world who worship God."²⁰⁹ In libros regum has no salutation. For the Mariale and the Instructio sacerdotis, we have no dates, either from internal evidence or from other sources.
 
 

The story of Pons de Melgeuil illustrates something of the monastic background of the poems of Bernard of Morlaix. The upheavals in Rome at the time of his visit show some features of the political situation in which he wrote. Exciting and momentous things were going on and, although they impinged only marginally on the subject matter of Bernard's poems, they are worth taking into account in relation to the literature of complaint, his predominant genre. The literature of complaint is discussed in the next three chapters.
 

¹Unless a letter of Peter the Venerable to the bishop of Chartres, which mentions the prior of Nogent, may be taken to refer to Bernard of Morlaix (The letters of Peter the Venerable, edited by Giles Constable, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1967 (Harvard historical studies 78), v.1, p.344.) See below, p.37
²Histoire literaire de la France ..., vol. 12, Paris, Victor Palme, 1869, p.239. Ernst Robert Curtius comments that many a text escaped destruction for no other reason (European literature and the Latin middle ages, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1990 (first published 1948) p.124.)
³Samuel Macaulay Jackson, The source of "Jerusalem the golden," together with other pieces attributed to Bernard of Cluny, in English translation by Henry Preble, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1910, p. 10-53.
⁴J. M. Neale, The rhythm of Bernard of Morlaix, monk of Cluny, 7th ed., London, Hayes, 1865. The hymn still appears in modern hymnals. Jerusalem the golden, With milk and honey blest, Beneath your contemplation Sink heart and voice oppressed. The Australian hymn book with Catholic supplement, Sydney, Collins, 1977, p.437. There were translations of parts of the De contemptu mundi also by Samuel W. Duffield (New York, Randolph, 1867) and Charles Lawrence Ford (London, Houlston, 1898). An oratorio derived from part of the poem was composed by Horatio William Parker in 1901 (Library of Congress, National Union Catalog, pre-1956 imprints, s.v. Bernard of Cluny, 12th cent.)
⁵Thomas Wright (ed.), The Anglo-Latin satirical poets and epigrammatists of the twelfth century, v.2, London, Longmans, 1872 (Rolls series, Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores, v.59).
⁶H. C. Hoskier (ed.), De contemptu mundi; a bitter satirical poem of 3000 lines upon the morals of the XIIth century, by Bernard of Morval, monk of Cluny (fl. 1150) ... London, Quaritch, 1929.
⁷R. E. Pepin (ed.), Scorn of the world; Bernard of Cluny's "De contemptu mundi": the Latin text with English translation ..., East Lansing, Colleagues Press, 1991.
⁸Katarina Halvarson (ed.), Bernardi Cluniacensis Carmina de Trinitate et de fide Catholica, De castitate servanda, In libros Regum, De octo vitiis, Stockholm, Almquist & Wiksell, 1963 (Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis, Studia Latina Stockholmiensia, 11).
⁹De contemptu mundi, Prologus and De Trinitate, 292- 296.
¹⁰De Trinitate, 98; De contemptu mundi, 1,326.
¹¹De castitate, 416; De contemptu mundi, 2,387.
¹²Analecta hymnica medii aevi. Leipzig, 1886-1922, 56v., v.50, p.423-483.
¹³Lines 917-1018.
¹⁴See below, Chapter 5.
¹⁵Mariale, 3,14-15.
¹⁶Horace,Odes, 2,16,27-28.
¹⁷In libros Regum, 989-990.
¹⁸See, for example, Mariale, 7,15; 9,20-22; 12,10 and 13,29. See also below, p.112 ff.
¹⁹The Westminster hymnal, London, Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 1912, p.125. The hymn is translated by Father F. W. Faber from only a few stanzas of the original. It is attributed to Saint Casimir, which is certainly wrong.
²⁰PL 184,771-792.
²¹Dictionnaire des auteurs grecs et latins de l'antiquite et du moyen age, [n.p.] Brepols, 1991, p.121. (First published as Tusculum-lexikon griechischer und lateinischer autoren, ed. Buchwald, 1982.)
²²See below, p.103 ff.
²³Edward Schroder, "Ein niederrheinischer Contemptus mundi und seine Quelle," Nachrichten von der Koniglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen, philologisch-historische Klasse aus dem Jahre 1910, Berlin, Weidmannsche, 1910, p.335-374. The Latin poem occupies pages 346-354.
²⁴ibid., p.341-342. Schroder gives several other examples of attribution to Bernard of Morlaix in the manuscripts.
²⁵Jackson, The source of Jerusalem the golden, p.40.
²⁶Dictionnaire des auteurs grecs et latins, p.120-121.
²⁷Kimon Giocarinis opines that it "almost certainly does not" belong to Bernard of Morlaix. "Bernard of Cluny and the antique," Classica et mediaevalia, 27(1966):320.
²⁸See discussion of the experience of Ordericus Vitalis, below, p.32.
²⁹Schroder, "Ein niederrheinischer Contemptus mundi" p.342.
³⁰Harry Caplan, "Rhetorical invention in some mediaeval tractates on preaching," Speculum; a journal of mediaeval studies 2(1927):284-295.
³¹Chartula nostra, 1-2.
³²ibid., 358-361.
³³In parabolam de vilico iniquitatis sermo, PL 184,1021- 1052.
³⁴PL 184, 1028. Persius, 1,26-27.
³⁵Histoire literaire de la France, tome 12, Paris, Palme, 1869, p.242-243.
³⁶English Benedictine libraries; the shorter catalogue, edited by R. Sharpe [and others], London, British Library and British Academy, 1996 (Corpus of British medieval library catalogues, 4), p.41.
³⁷See especially his homilies on avarice (465-474) and gluttony (588-589).
³⁸De castitate servanda, 57-60.
³⁹Henricus Denzinger, Enchiridion symbolorum definitionum et declarationum fidei et morum, 13th ed, Barcelona, Herder, 1960, p.644-654.
⁴⁰De contemptu mundi, 2,49-50.
⁴¹De castitate servanda, Preface, 14-15.
⁴²Owen Chadwick, John Cassian, 2nd edition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1968, p.154.
⁴³John Cassian, De coenobiorum institutis, PL 49,53-474.
⁴⁴Cassian, Inst. 6,4, PL 49,271; De castitate servanda, 68-69.
⁴⁵Cassian, loc. cit.
⁴⁶Cassian, loc. cit.; De castitate servanda, 78-81.
⁴⁷See below, Chapters 2-4.
⁴⁸John Peter, Complaint and satire in early English literature, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1956, p.37.
⁴⁹De octo vitiis, 641.
⁵⁰ibid., 654-656.
⁵¹De contemptu mundi, 2,429-562; De octo vitiis, 599-811.
⁵²De contemptu mundi, 2, 177-200; De octo vitiis, 930-984.
⁵³De octo vitiis, 482-598.
⁵⁴A.G. Rigg, A history of Anglo-Latin literature 1066-1422, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992, p.149.
⁵⁵Except, possibly, by Peter the Venerable; see below, p.37.
⁵⁶The reference is to Genesis 34, where Dinah, daughter of Jacob and Leah, is raped by Shechem, who is subsequently killed (together with his father and all his tribe) by Dinah's brothers.
⁵⁷De octo vitiis, 801-811.
⁵⁸ Hoskier, De contemptu mundi, p.xv.
⁵⁹C.D'Evelyn, "A lost manuscript of the De contemptu mundi," Speculum 6(1931):132-133.
⁶⁰Histoire literaire de la France, v.12, p.236-237; Dictionnaire de spiritualite ascetique et mystique ... vol.1, Paris, Beauchesne, 1937, col.1506.
⁶¹Dictionnaire d'histoire et de geographie ecclesiastiques, vol.8, Paris, Letouzey, 1912, col. 699.
⁶²James Westfall Thompson, "On the identity of Bernard of Cluny," The journal of theological studies, 8(1907):394-400.
⁶³De contemptu mundi, Prologus. "Ante hos enim dies cum essetis Nogenti et aliquam opusculorum nostrorum acceptione vestra dignatus fuissetis ..." This was not Nogent-sous-Coucy (Guibert's abbey) which was not a Cluniac foundation. Nor was it Nogent-sur-Oise, which, though Cluniac, was not established until 1368 (Philippe Racinet, Les maisons de l'ordre de Cluny au moyen age, Brussels, Nauwelaerts, 1990 (Bibliotheque de la revue de l'histoire ecclesiastique, fascicule 86), p.126). It was Nogent-le-Rotrou, which is near Chartres. (M. Pacaut, L'Ordre de Cluny (909-1789), Paris, Fayard, 1986, p.414. See also The letters of Peter the Venerable, v.1, p.344, v.2., p.190, 269.)
⁶⁴Bernard Gros, who was prior in 1114. An article about him (G. M. Cantarella, "Due note Cluniacensi", Studi medievali 16(1975):763-780) is indexed under "Bernardus Cluniacensis" in Medioevo Latino.
⁶⁵New Catholic encyclopedia, v.2., New York, McGraw-Hill, 1967, p.338-339. Migne says of Bernard of Cluny's Consuetudines Cluniacenses that it was written at the same time as Ulrich's Consuetudines. He gives the text of Bernard of Cluny's introduction, and it is addressed to Abbot Hugh (PL 149, 633). St. Hugh died in 1109. The pontificate of Eugene III began in 1145, which is the earliest possible date for Bernard's visit to Rome. The identification of the Bernards is therefore just possible, but it seems unlikely that so young a monk would be commissioned to compile Consuetudines. See also Histoire literaire de la France, v.12, p.237.
⁶⁶Medioevo Latino, Spoleto, Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo, v.1, 1980 -. Even in a recent issue, the author of the Consuetudines is confused with the author of the De contemptu mundi (16(1995):637-638).
⁶⁷Dictionnaire des auteurs grecs et latins, p.120-121.
⁶⁸John Bale, Index Britanniae scriptorum, ed. Reginald Lane Poole and Mary Bateson, Cambridge, Brewer, 1990 (First published Oxford, 1902) p.47. See also Bale's Scriptorum illustrium Majoris Brytanniae ... catalogus, Basel, 1557-1559, 2v. (Facsimile reprint Gregg International, 1971), v.2., p.38: "a Bostono Buriensi in magno suo catalogo, inter Anglicos scriptores numeravit." Richard H. Rouse has established that Boston of Bury is in fact Henry of Kirkestede, monk and prior of Bury St.Edmunds, and librarian during the third quarter of the fourteenth century ("Bostonus Buriensis and the author of the Catalogus scriptorum ecclesiae," Speculum 4(1966):471-499).
⁶⁹Jackson, The source of "Jerusalem the golden," p.91-92.
⁷⁰Wright, The Anglo-Latin satirical poets, v.2.
⁷¹A dictionary of hymnology, edited by John Julian, 2nd. ed., London, Murray, 1907, p.137. 
⁷²Pepin, Scorn of the world, p.xxvi.
⁷³De contemptu mundi, 1,1049ff.
⁷⁴William Hone, The every-day book and table book, or everlasting calendar of popular amusements, sports, pastimes, ceremonies, manners, customs and events incident to each of the three hundred and sixty-five days ..., London, Tegg, 1835-1837, 3v., v.2, columns 442-450. According to the account reprinted by Hone, the maids were joined at shoulders and hips, in such a way that they had two arms and four legs. Bernard gives them two legs and four arms (De contemptu mundi, 1,1051).
⁷⁵De contemptu mundi, 3,309.
⁷⁶For example, "dabit Anglia lac," De contemptu mundi, 2,907.
⁷⁷Ordericus Vitalis, Historia ecclesiatica, PL 188,982-983. The translation is that of Marjorie Chibnall, The ecclesiastical history of Orderic Vitalis, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972-1980, 6v. (Oxford medieval texts). Vol 6, p.555-557.
⁷⁸A.G. Rigg, "Serlo of Wilton, biographical notes," Medium aevum 65(1996):96-101.
⁷⁹LDB Norfolk 166b, 227b.
⁸⁰Dictionary of national biography, edited by Sidney Lee, vol. 13, London, Smith, Elder, 1909, p.971. See also R. W. Southern, Robert Grosseteste; the growth of an English mind in medieval Europe, 2nd ed., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1992, p.88-90; Gregor Maurac, "Daniel von Morley, 'Philosophia'," Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 14(1979):204-255; Theodore Silverstein, "Daniel of Morley; English cosmographist and student of Arabic science," Mediaeval studies 10(1948):179-196; Brian Stock, Myth and science in the twelfth century; a study of Bernard Silvester, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1972, p.262-273; Lynn Thorndike, "Daniel of Morley," The English historical review 37(1922):540-544.
⁸¹There is no account of the abbey/priory in Gallia Christiana, though it is shown in the map of the diocese of Chartres in that publication (Gallia Christiana in provinicias ecclesiasticas distributa ... Paris, Coignard, 1715-1865, 16v., reprinted Gregg 1970). But the charters relating to it which are held in the archives of the diocese have been edited and published, and that is the source of most of our information about it (Saint- Denis de Nogent-le-Rotrou, 1031-1789, histoire et cartulaire, edition revue et augmentee par le vicomte de Souance et l'abbe Ch. Metais, Vannes, Lafolye, 1899.) But see also Guy de Valous, Le monachisme clusien des origines au XVe siecle, Paris, Picard, 1979, v.2, p.201 and H.E. Cowdrey, The Cluniacs and the Gregorian reform, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970, p.105-106, 109.
⁸²Cartulaire, p.xxii-xxiii.
⁸³ibid., p.xxiv and Charter 117, p.238-240.
⁸⁴PL 151, 435-436. "Confirmatio S. Dionysii de Nogento, per domnum Urbanum II papam facta."
⁸⁵Noreen Hunt, Cluny under Saint Hugh, 1049-1109, London, Arnold, 1967, p.159.
⁸⁶De Valous, Le monachisme clunisien, p.201.
⁸⁷Cartulaire, p.li-liii and documents annexes 136 and 137, p. 279-282.
⁸⁸Cartulaire, p.lv11-lx and Charters 63 (1120), 119 (1124), 39 (1125), 40 (1125) and 120 (1130).
⁸⁹"Quid enim dignum referre possim his, quae per priorem de Nogento cognovi? Qui mihi scripsit, quantum amoris affectum erga Cluniacensem ecclesiam seque specialiter ac suos agnoverit quantumque hoc non affectu tantum, sed effectu probaverit?" Cartulaire, p. 282-285. See also The letters of Peter the Venerable, v.2, p.341-343, letter 137 and v.2, p.190. Constable gives the date as 1135/48.
⁹⁰Cartulaire, p.lix-lx.
⁹¹De contemptu mundi, 1,1049ff.; Hone, The everyday book, v.2, columns 442-450.
⁹²De octo vitiis, 1365-1381. See also below, p.70.
⁹³De contemptu mundi, Prologus.
⁹⁴Kimon Giocarinis, "Bernard of Cluny and the antique," p.311-312.
⁹⁵Dame Felicitas Corrigan (ed.), More Latin lyrics, from Vergil to Milton, translated by Helen Waddell, New York, Norton, 1976, p.260.
⁹⁶Vita, PL 171, 71-73; Epistolae 2,17, PL 171, 225- 226; see also F.J.E. Raby, A history of Christian-Latin poetry from the beginning to the close of the middle ages, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1953, p.265.
⁹⁷Thompson, "On the identity of Bernard of Cluny," p.394- 400.
⁹⁸See above, p.24.
⁹⁹PL 189, 920-926.
¹⁰⁰Actually, it was only three months. Marcel Pacaut, L'ordre de Cluny (909-1789), Paris, Fayard, 1986, p.195.
¹⁰¹Bernard implies in the dedication of the poem that he had been working on it for at least eight years (De contemptu mundi, Prologus).
¹⁰²The letters of Peter the Venerable, v.1, p.388- 394.
¹⁰³PL 189,1025-1048.
¹⁰⁴PL 189,922.
¹⁰⁵"Quantum ad praesentem materiam pertinet, succinte describo." PL 189,922.
¹⁰⁶H.E.J. Cowdrey, "Abbot Pontius of Cluny (1109-1122/6)," Studi Gregoriani, 1978: 177-277.p.215.
¹⁰⁷Ordericus Vitalis, Historia ecclesiastica, PL 188,843- 844. The ecclesiastical history of Ordericus Vitalis, ed. Marjorie Chibnall, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972-1978, v.6, p.170.
¹⁰⁸PL 188,879. Chibnall, v.6, p.268..
¹⁰⁹PL 188,894. Chibnall, v.6, p.311.
¹¹⁰Adriaan H. Bredero, Christendom and Christianity in the middle ages, translated by Reinder Bruinsma, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1994, p.140. But he gives only one other example of such a pilgrimage, that of Arnold of Cologne in 1124 (p.79-80).
¹¹¹Joan Evans, Monastic life at Cluny 910-1157, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1931, p.39.
¹¹²PL 188,894-895. Chibnall, v.6, p.312-314.
¹¹³PL 188,895. Chibnall, v.6, p.314-316.
¹¹⁴Andre Wilmart, "Deux Pieces relatives a l'abdication de Pons abbe de Cluny en 122", Revue benedictine 44(1932):351-353.
¹¹⁵Piero Zerbi, Tra Milano e Cluny; momenti di vita e cultura ecclesistica nel secolo XII, Rome, Herder, 1979 (Italia sacra; studi e documenti di storia ecclesiastica, 28), p.355. There is a photographic copy of the manuscript on p.368.
¹¹⁶Cowdrey, "Abbot Pontius of Cluny," p.235.
¹¹⁷ibid., p.238-241.
¹¹⁸Though Peter at one point seems to imply that Pons blamed himself for the complaints which some of his monks made to Calixtus in 1122. "Indignationis impetum, quem in alios fortassis derivare debuerat, in seipsum retorsit." PL 189,923
¹¹⁹PL 170,1043.
¹²⁰PL 170,1051.
¹²¹ibid.
¹²²PL 170,1052-1053.
¹²³Evans, Monastic life at Cluny, p.38.
¹²⁴Cowdrey, "Abbot Pontius of Cluny", p.223-228.
¹²⁵PL 188,879. Chibnall, v.6, p.270.
¹²⁶The letters of Peter the Venerable, v.1, p.81-82.
¹²⁷Cowdrey, "Abbot Pontius of Cluny" p.206-207.
¹²⁸Simonis gesta abbatum S.Bertini Sithiensium, in Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptorum, v.12, p.648.
¹²⁹ibid., 12,649.
¹³⁰ibid., 12,652-653.
¹³¹ibid., 12, 653-654. The term "abbas abbatum", in this context, simply means that the abbot of Cluny has authority over abbots of monasteries in the Cluniac family, not that Cluny's abbot has any seniority over abbots of other orders. But Simon manages to suggest Cluniac pride.
¹³²Evans, Monastic life at Cluny, 1931, p.44-46.
¹³³ibid., p.42-43.
¹³⁴Bredero, Christendom and Christianity in the middle ages, p.140.
¹³⁵The letters of Peter the Venerable, v.1, p.52-101.
¹³⁶The text of his letter is in William, abbot of St. Thierry; a colloquium at the Abbey of St, Thierry, Kalamazoo, Cistercian Publications, 1987 (Cistercian studies series, 94), p.65-86.
¹³⁷Knowles, David, The historian and character, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1963, p.52
¹³⁸De miraculis, PL 189,926.
¹³⁹Historia ecclesiastica, PL 188, 935-936. Chibnall, v.6, p.426. Orderic's abbey of Saint-Evroult was not a member of the order of Cluny but was subject to Cluniac influences. (Marjorie Chibnall, The world of Ordericus Vitalis, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1984, p.85, p.165n.)
¹⁴⁰Bredero, Christendom and Christianity in the middle ages, p.143-144. See also Adriaan Bredero's "Cluny et Citeaux au XIIeme siecle; les origines de la controverse", Studi medievali 12(1971):135-175 and "Le Dialogus duorum monachorum; un rebondissemont de la polemique entre Cisterciens et Clusiens," Studi medievali 22(1981):501-585.
¹⁴¹The Letters of Peter the Venerable, v.2. p.345.
¹⁴²In addition to works cited above, the following are relevant: Robert G. Heath, Crux imperatorum philosophia; imperial horizons of the Cluniac confraternitas, 964-1109, Pittsburgh, Pickwick Press, 1976 (Pittsburgh theological monograph series), p.31, 34-35; Gerd Tellenbach, "La chute de l'abbe Pons et sa signification historique," Annales du Midi 76(1964):356-362; Giles Constable, "The monastic policy of Peter the Venerable," Pierre Abelard, Pierre le Venerable; les courants philosopiques, litteraires et artistiques en occident au milieu du XIIe siecle, Paris, Editions du Centre e la Recherche Scientifiques, 1975 (Colloques Internationaux du Centre, 546), p.119-138.
¹⁴³Cowdrey, "Abbot Pontius of Cluny," p.212-213.
¹⁴⁴PL 188,895.
¹⁴⁵Cowdrey, "Abbot Pontius of Cluny", p.254-256; Evans, Monastic life at Cluny,p.40-46.
¹⁴⁶De miraculis, PL 189,937-940. Peter is chiefly interested in reporting the appearance of William's ghost.
¹⁴⁷The letters of Peter the Venerable, v.1, p.390.
¹⁴⁸Noreen Hunt, Cluny under Saint Hugh 1049-1109, London, Arnold, 1967, p.99-109.
¹⁴⁹PL 189,1037
¹⁵⁰Knowles, The historian and character, p.72.
¹⁵¹ibid., p.61.
¹⁵²PL 189,1040.
¹⁵³Evans, Monastic life at Cluny, p.42.
¹⁵⁴Hunt, Cluny under Saint Hugh, p.5.
¹⁵⁵Pacaut, L'ordre de Cluny, p.400-418.
¹⁵⁶PL 149, 633ff.
¹⁵⁷Hunt, Cluny under Saint Hugh, has a detailed treatment of Cluniac expansion and the structure of the order (p.124-185). Cowdrey comments that the Cluniac penetration of Flanders "represented Abbot Hugh's first major departure from his prudent reluctance to assume responsibility on a wide scale for monasteries north of the Loire" ("Abbot Pontius of Cluny," p.207).
¹⁵⁸See below, p.150ff.
¹⁵⁹Jill Mann, "La poesia satirica e goliardica," Lo spazio letterario del medioevo. 1, Il medioevo latino, v.1, tomo 2, Rome, Salerno, 1992, p.75-76.
¹⁶⁰See, for example, the Statuta, where he regulates the pauses in the chanting of the psalms. "Mediocram vocavi, ad distinctionem illius quam quidam facere solent, in cuius intervallo orationem Dominicam, hoc est Pater noster saepe bis, quandoque ter, olim ipse consummavit." (PL 189,1026.) See also Constable, "The monastic policy of Peter the Venerable," p.129-130.
¹⁶¹De contemptu mundi 2,369.
¹⁶²Christopher Brooke, The monastic world 1000-1300, New York, Random House, 1974, p.245.
¹⁶³ibid. p.247.
¹⁶⁴Halvarson's reading is "patre." The manuuscript has "pape," which scans better. (Halvarson, p.97)
¹⁶⁵De octo vitiis, 1-5. This translation is perhaps excessively free. It is impossible to convey the sense with a literal rendering. Bernard follows the conventions of twelfth-century letter writing (briefly described in Haskins, Renaissance of the twelfth century, p.143-144) and we have here the salutation and the captatio benevolentie. It is clear from the letters of Peter the Venerable that the salutation commonly consisted of three parts: the name and title of the person addressed, in the dative; the name and title of the writer, in the nominative; and a prayer or wish, in the accusative or in the infinitive. For example, "Venerando et karissimo patri domino Petro, frater Gilbertus, salutem" (letter 127); "Venerabile domino, et karissimo patri, Atoni Trecensium pontifici, frater Petrus humilis Cluniacensium abbas, sanctorum pontificum gloria et honore coronari" (letter 6). (The letters of Peter the Venerable, v.2, p.11, p.323). The formula varied if the sender were of very high rank. For example, "Eugenius episcopus, servus servorum Dei, dilectis in Christo filiabus Heloissae abbatissae monasterii Sancti Spiritus eiusque sororibus, tam praesentibus quam futuris, regularem vitam professis." (PL 180, 1291).
¹⁶⁶Literally, "I do not refer to the raincoat". Cappa pluvialis indicates the Pope's robes of office.
¹⁶⁷De octo vitiis, 1313-1320.
¹⁶⁸ibid., 1329-1340.
¹⁶⁹George William Greenaway, Arnold of Brescia, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1931, p.100.
¹⁷⁰John of Salisbury, Historia pontificalis, ed. Marjorie Chibnall, London, Nelson, 1956 (Medieval texts), p.60.
¹⁷¹Greenaway, Arnold of Brescia, p.111.
¹⁷²Horace K. Mann, Lives of the popes in the middle ages ... Vol. 9, 1130-1159, London, Kegan Paul, 1925, p.147.
¹⁷³Otto of Freising, The two cities; a chronicle of universal history to the year 1146 AD, New York, Columbia University Press, 1928 (Records of civilization 9) p.441.
¹⁷⁴Otto of Freising, Gesta Frederici seu rectius Cronica, Darmstadt, Wissenschafliche Buchgesellscaft, 1974, p.341-342.
¹⁷⁵John of Salisbury, Historia pontificalis, p.64-65.
¹⁷⁶The Lateran basilica and its adjoining palace. The Lateran basilica, not St. Peter's, was (and still is) the cathedral church of the Bishop of Rome. In the twelfth century, the palace was the residence of the Popes and the centre of government of the church.
¹⁷⁷According to Halvarson, "Lateranis" is genitive (De octo vitiis, ed. Halvarson, p.137).
¹⁷⁸De octo vitiis, 1342-1358.
¹⁷⁹ibid., 1359-1364.
¹⁸⁰ibid., 1365-1366.
¹⁸¹John of Salisbury, Historia pontificalis, p.25.
¹⁸²PL 180, 1011-1642.
¹⁸³ibid., 1077-1100; 1402-1420; 1550-1606. Letter CCXXXVI of October 26 1147 says "datum Latalaum", for which Migne conjectures "Lateranum", but letters of October 25 and November 1 give "datum Catalauni", which suugests that may be the correct reading for the letter of October 26 (1287-1294).
¹⁸⁴Mann, Lives of the popes, v.9, p.138.
¹⁸⁵PL 180, 1196-1198.
¹⁸⁶ibid., 1343-1344.
¹⁸⁷ibid., 1099 ff.
¹⁸⁸John of Salisbury, Historia pontificalis, p.60.
¹⁸⁹Otto of Freising, Gesta Frederici, p.182-188.
¹⁹⁰John of Salisbury, Historia pontificalis, p.51.
¹⁹¹P. Jaffe (ed.), Monumenta Corbeiensia, Aalen, Scientia Verlag, 1964 (first published Berlin, 1864) (Bibliotheca rerum Germanicarum 1) p.478-479.
¹⁹²Mann, Lives of the popes, v.9, p.172-173.
¹⁹³Thalia, the Muse of comedy, because the poem is satirical. Pepin, referring to De contemptu mundi, points out that critics "note the satiric genre ... They have allowed for hyperbole, but not for humour" (Ronald E. Pepin, Literature of satire in the twelfth century; a neglected medieval genre, New York, Mellen, 1988 (Studies in medieval literature 2), p.46).
¹⁹⁴"Has [litteras] tibi presento." Bernard may be referring only to De octo vitiis, or he may refer to all four poems in the codex Vaticanus Reginensis Latinus 134, namely Carmina de Trinitate, De castitate, In libros Regum and De octo vitiis.
¹⁹⁵De octo vitiis, 1365-1381.
¹⁹⁶PL 180, 1095-1096.
¹⁹⁷ibid., 1153.
¹⁹⁸ibid., 1105.
¹⁹⁹ibid., 1517-1520.
²⁰⁰See above, p.36. See also Cowdrey, The Cluniacs and the Gregorian reform, p.105-106.
²⁰¹Cartulaire, p.lvii-lx.
²⁰²ibid.
²⁰³Peter the Apostle, as regards the Church. Peter the Venerable, as regards the House of Cluny. Bernard makes a similar play on the name Peter in the dedication of De contemptu mundi.
²⁰⁴That is, death, judgement, heaven and hell.
²⁰⁵De octo vitiis, 1385-1395.
²⁰⁶The letters of Peter the Venerable, v.2, p.269.
²⁰⁷De contemptu mundi, Prologus, quoting Ars poetica 291-294 and 388.
²⁰⁸De Trinitate, 1.
²⁰⁹De castitate, 1.