Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot and Doctor of the Church (Part Six)

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20 August (Feast of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot and Doctor)
Double
White Vestments

Altar of Saint Bernard in the North Transept of Ebrach Abbey, Germany.

Author: Mattana

Photo: June 2012. 

(Wikimedia Commons) 

Ebrach Abbey, Germany.

Author: Mattana

Photo: June 2012.

(Wikimedia Commons)

In the year 1128, Bernard of Clairvaux participated in the Council of Troyes, which had been convoked by Pope Honorius II, and was presided over by Cardinal Matthew, Bishop of Albano. The purpose of this Council was to settle certain disputes of the bishops of Paris, and regulate other matters of the Church of France.

The bishops made Bernard Secretary of the Council, and charged him with drawing up the synodal statutes. After the Council, the bishop of Verdun was deposed. It was at this Council that Bernard traced the outlines of the Rule of the Knights Templar, who soon became the ideal of Christian nobility. He later praised them in his De Laude Novae Militiae.

Again, reproaches arose against Bernard, and he was denounced, even in Rome. He was accused of being a monk who meddled with matters that did not concern him. Cardinal Harmeric, on behalf of the Pope, wrote Bernard a sharp letter of remonstrance stating: "It is not fitting that noisy and troublesome frogs should come out of their marshes to trouble the Holy See and the cardinals."

Bernard answered the letter by saying that, if he had assisted at the Council, it was because he had been dragged to it by force. In his response Bernard wrote: "Now, illustrious Harmeric, if you so wished, who would have been more capable of freeing me from the necessity of assisting at the Council than yourself? Forbid those noisy troublesome frogs to come out of their holes, to leave their marshes . . . Then your friend will no longer be exposed to the accusations of pride and presumption".

This letter made a positive impression on Harmeric, and in the Vatican.

Altar of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Ebrach Abbey, Germany. 

Die Abteikirche der ehemaligen Zisterzienserabtei in Ebrach. 

Author: Thomas Mirtsch. 

Photo: June 2012. 

(Wikimedia Commons) 

Bernard's influence was soon felt in provincial affairs. He defended the rights of the Church against the encroachments of kings and princes, and recalled to their duty Henri Sanglier, archbishop of Sens and Stephen of Senlis, bishop of Paris.

On the death of Pope Honorius II, which occurred on 14 February 1130, a schism broke out in the Church by the election of two popes, Pope Innocent II and Pope Anacletus II.

Innocent II, having been banished from Rome by Anacletus, took refuge in France. King Louis VI convened a national Council of the French bishops at Étampes, and Bernard, summoned there by consent of the bishops, was chosen to judge between the rival popes. He decided in favour of Innocent II. This caused the pope to be recognized by all the great powers.

He then went with him into Italy and reconciled Pisa with Genoa, and Milan with the Pope. The same year, Bernard was again at the Council of Reims, at the side of Innocent II. He then went to Aquitaine, where he succeeded for the time in detaching William X of Aquitaine, Count of Poitiers, from the cause of Anacletus.

In 1132, Bernard accompanied Innocent II into Italy, and, at Cluny, the Pope abolished the dues which Clairvaux used to pay to that abbey. This action gave rise to a quarrel between the White Monks and the Black Monks, which lasted 20 years.

Statue of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, kneeling before Christ on the Cross, in Bamberg, Germany.

Bamberg, Alter Ebracher Hof, Bernhardskreuz von 1738 von Daniel Friedrich Humbach.

Photo: Andreas Praefcke. 

September 2008. 

(Wikimedia Commons) 

In May of that year, the Pope, supported by the army of Emperor Lothair III, entered Rome, but Lothair, feeling himself too weak to resist the partisans of Anacletus, retired beyond the Alps, and Innocent sought refuge in Pisa in September 1133.

Bernard had returned to France in June and was continuing the work of peace-making which he had commenced in 1130. Towards the end of 1134, he made a second journey into Aquitaine, where William X had relapsed into schism.

Bernard invited William X to the Mass which he celebrated in the Church of La Couldre. At the Eucharist, he "admonished the Duke not to despise God as he did His servants".

William yielded and the schism ended. Bernard went again to Italy, where Roger II of Sicily was endeavouring to withdraw the Pisans from their allegiance to Innocent. He recalled the city of Milan to obedience to the Pope, as they had followed the deposed Anselm V, Archbishop of Milan.

For this, he was offered, and he refused, the archbishopric of Milan. He then returned to Clairvaux. Believing himself at last secure in his Cloister, Bernard devoted himself with renewed vigour to the composition of the works which would win for him the title of "Doctor of the Church".

He wrote at this time his sermons on the Song of Songs. In 1137, he was again forced to leave his solitude, by order of the Pope, to put an end to the quarrel between Lothair and Roger of Sicily. At the Conference,  held at Palermo, Bernard succeeded in convincing Roger of the rights of Innocent II. He also silenced the final supporters who sustained the schism. Anacletus died of "grief and disappointment" in 1138, and, with him, the schism ended.


PART SEVEN FOLLOWS