§ 65. ST. BEBNABD OF CLAIRVAUX. 345
Bernard was descended from a noble family of Burgundy, and was born at Fontaines near Dijon. He was one of seven children, six of whom were sons. His mother, Aletha, like Nonna and Monica, was a deeply pious woman and planted in the son the seeds of religious faith.1 Carried away for a time with enthusiasm for scholastic learning, the son was overwhelmed, while on a lonely journey, with religious im pressions, and, entering a chapel, resolved to dedicate himself wholly to God. He entered the convent of Citeaux, two of his brothers following him at once, and the rest later into the monastic life.
This was in 1113 that Bernard cast in his lot with the Cistercians, and the event proved to be an epoch in the his tory of that new community. His diet was bread and milk or a decoction of herbs,2 He devoted himself to the severest asceticism till he was reduced almost to a shadow, and his feet became so swollen from standing at devotions as almost to refuse to sustain his body. In after years, Bernard re proached himself for this intemperate self-mortification which unfitted his body for the proper service of the Lord. But his spirit triumphed over his physical infirmities.3 While he was engaged in work in the fields, it soared aloft to heavenly things. He studied the Scriptures and the Fathers.
were not uttered at the same time by Bernard. The exclamation, " I have lost my life," was made in a sermon on the Canticles, Migne, 183, 867, and the other part was said by Bernard in a time of severe sickness. This is not the place to take up Denifle's charge that Luther was playing fast and loose with Bernard's utterances to make out a case, but it is sufficient to say that Luther was intending to emphasize that Bernard depended solely upon grace for salvation, and this position is justified by expressions enough in Bernard's writings.
1 Her piety is greatly praised by contemporaries. The abbot of St. Benignus at Dijon begged her body for his convent. William of St. Thierry said of her that " she ruled her household in the fear of God, was urgent in works of mercy, and brought up her sons in all obedience," enutriens filios in omni disciplina. Vita prima, I. 1.
2 Migne, 185, 250.
3 Virtus vehementius in inftrmitate ejus refulgens, etc. Vitaprima, VIII. 41; Migne, 185, 251.
846 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
His writings betray acquaintance with the classics and he quotes Seneca, Ovid, Horace, and other classical writers. The works of nature also furnished him with lessons, and he seems to have approached the modern estimate of nature as an aid to spiritual attainment. " Thou wilt find," he wrote,1 " something greater in the woods than in books. The trees and rocks will teach thee what thou canst not hear from human teachers. And dost thou not think thou canst suck honey from the rocks and oil from the hardest stones ! " This seems to lose its weight in view of what one of Bernard's biographers relates. Bernard travelled the whole day alongside the Lake of Geneva, and was so oblivious to the scenery that in the evening, at Lausanne, he was obliged to inquire what they had seen on the journey. We are probably justified in this case in ascribing an ascetic purpose to the monkish writer.2
In 1115, in company with twelve companions, Bernard founded Clairvaux — Olaravallis, Clear Valley — in a locality which before had been called Wormwood, and been the seat of robbers. William of St. Thierry, Bernard's close friend and biographer, is in doubt whether the name vallis absinthialis came from the amount of wormwood which grew there or from the bitter sufferings sustained by the victims of the robbers.3 But he does not fail to draw the contrast between
1 To an Englishman, Henry Murdoch, Ep., 106; Migne, 182, 242. Aliquid amplius invenies in silvis quam in libris. Ligna et lapides docebunt te, quod a magistris aiidire non possis. An non putas posse te sugere mel de petra o/rumque de saxo durissimo ? etc. The words remind us of Shakespeare's ot't-quoted lines :
books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
2 Vita prima, III. 2; Migne, 185, 306. A mediaeval description of the beauties of nature is a rare thing. The Canticle of the Sun, by Francis d'Assisi, is an exception. Otto of Freising accompanied Frederick Barbarossa on his journey to Rome to receive the imperial crown, and speaks with much enthusiasm about the military display of the Germans, but had not a word to say about the glories of Rome or its monuments. See Fisher, Med. Empire, II. 229. s Vita prima, I. 5.