Bernard of Cluny
Encyclopedia
Bernard of Cluny was a Benedictine
monk
of the first half of the 12th century, a poet, satirist, and hymn
-writer
, author
of the famous verses De contemtu mundi, "On Contempt for the World".
His parentage, native land, and education are hidden in obscurity. He is frequently called Morlanensis, which title most writers have interpreted to mean that he was a native of Morlaix
in Brittany
, though some credit him to Morlaàs
in Béarn
. A writer in the Journal of Theological Studies (1907), VIII, 354-359 contends that he belonged to the family of the seigneurs of Montpellier
in Languedoc, and was born at Murles
, a possession of that distinguished family; also that he was at first a monk of St. Sauveur d'Aniane, whence he entered the abbey of Cluny
under Abbot Pons
(1109–1122). It is certain that Bernard was a monk at Cluny in the time of Peter the Venerable
(1122–1156), for his famous poem is dedicated to that abbot. It may have been written about 1140. He left some sermons. There is also a dialogue (Colloquium) on the Trinity). Recent dating of certain monastic regulations known as the Consuetudines Cluniacenses by "Bernard of Cluny" to c. 1080-85 make it impossible that he was their author.
s, nun
s, bishop
s, monks, and even Rome itself are mercilessly scourged for their shortcomings. For this reason it was first printed by Matthias Flacius
in Varia poemata de corrupto ecclesiae statu (Basle, 1557) as one of his testes veritatis, or witnesses of the deep-seated corruption of the medieval Church, and was often reprinted by Protestants
in the course of the 17th and 18th centuries. This Christian version of the Satires of Juvenal does not proceed in an orderly manner against the vices and follies of his age. It has been well said that Bernard seems to eddy about two main points: the transitory character of all material pleasures and the permanency of spiritual joys.
Bernard of Cluny is indeed a lyrical writer, swept from one theme to another by the intense force of ascetic meditation and by the majestic power of his own verse, in which there lingers yet a certain fierce intoxication of poetic wrath. His highly wrought pictures of heaven and hell were probable known to Dante
; the roasting cold, the freezing fire, the devouring worm, the fiery floods, and again the glorious idyl of the Golden Age and the splendours of the Heavenly Kingdom are couched in a diction that rises at times to the height of Dante's genius. The enormity of sin, the charm of virtue, the torture of an evil conscience, the sweetness of a God-fearing life alternate with heaven and hell as the themes of his majestic dithyramb. Nor does he dwell in generalities; he returns again and again to the wickedness of woman (one of the fiercest arraignments of the sex), the evils of wine
, money
, learning, perjury
, soothsaying
, etc.; this master of an elegant, forceful, and abundant Latin
ity cannot find words strong enough to convey his prophetic rage at the moral apostasy of his generation, in almost none of whom does he find spiritual soundness. Youthful and simoniacal
bishops, oppressive agents of ecclesiastical corporations, the officers of the Curia
, papal legate
s, and the pope
himself are treated with no less severity than in Dante or in the sculptures of medieval cathedrals.
It may be added that in medieval times "the more pious the chronicler the blacker his colours". The early half of the 12th century saw the appearance of several new factors of secularism unknown to an earlier and more simply religious time: the increase of commerce and industry resultant from the Crusades, the growing independence of medieval cities, the secularization of Benedictine life, the development of pageantry and luxury in a hitherto rude feudal world, the reaction from the terrible conflict of State and Church in the latter half of the 11th-century. The song of the Cluniac is a great cry of pain wrung from a deeply religious and even mystical soul at the first dawning consciousness of a new order of human ideals and aspirations. The turbid and irregular flow of his denunciation is halted occasionally in a dramatic way by glimpses of a Divine order of things, either in the faraway past or in the near future. The poet-preacher is also a prophet; Antichrist, he says, is born in Spain; Elijah has come to life again in the Orient. The last days are at hand, and it behoves the true Christian to awake and be ready for the dissolution of an order now grown intolerable, in which religion itself is henceforth represented by cant and hypocrisy.
The metre
of this poem is no less remarkable than its diction; it is a dactylic hexameter
in three sections, devoid of caesura, with tailed rhyme
s and a feminine leonine rhyme between the two first sections; the verses are technically known as leonini cristati trilices dactylici, and are so difficult to construct in great numbers that the writer claims Divine inspiration (the impulse and inflow of the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding) as the chief agency in the execution of so long an effort of this kind. The poem begins:
It is, indeed, a solemn and stately verse, rich and sonorous, not meant, however, to be read at one sitting, at the risk of surfeiting the appetite. Bernard of Cluny is an erudite writer, and his poem leaves an excellent impression of the Latin culture of the Benedictine monasteries of France
and England
in the first half of the 12th century. The modern interest of English-speaking
circles in this semi-obscure poet centres in the lovely hymns of exceptional piety, warmth, and delicacy of sentiment dispersed through his lurid satire; one of them, "Jerusalem the Golden", has become particularly famous. The American
composer Horatio Parker
composed an oratorio
that took its text from Bernard of Cluny's poem, Hora novissima, in 1893.
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
of the first half of the 12th century, a poet, satirist, and hymn
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
-writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
of the famous verses De contemtu mundi, "On Contempt for the World".
His parentage, native land, and education are hidden in obscurity. He is frequently called Morlanensis, which title most writers have interpreted to mean that he was a native of Morlaix
Morlaix
Morlaix is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in northwestern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.-Leisure and tourism:...
in Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
, though some credit him to Morlaàs
Morlaàs
Morlaàs is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France.It is the seat of a canton.After the Roman city of Benearnum was razed by the Vikings in 841, Morlaàs became the capital of the ancient province of Béarn. It remained the capital until the 12th century, when...
in Béarn
Béarn
Béarn is one of the traditional provinces of France, located in the Pyrenees mountains and in the plain at their feet, in southwest France. Along with the three Basque provinces of Soule, Lower Navarre, and Labourd, the principality of Bidache, as well as small parts of Gascony, it forms in the...
. A writer in the Journal of Theological Studies (1907), VIII, 354-359 contends that he belonged to the family of the seigneurs of Montpellier
Montpellier
-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
in Languedoc, and was born at Murles
Murles
Murles is a commune in the Hérault department in Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France....
, a possession of that distinguished family; also that he was at first a monk of St. Sauveur d'Aniane, whence he entered the abbey of Cluny
Cluny Abbey
Cluny Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in Cluny, Saône-et-Loire, France. It was built in the Romanesque style, with three churches built in succession from the 10th to the early 12th centuries....
under Abbot Pons
Pons of Melgueil
Pons of Melgueil was the seventh Abbot of Cluny from 1109 to 1122. He was descended from a noble lineage of Languedoc which had long supported the Gregorian reform. He himself was a godson of Pope Paschal II....
(1109–1122). It is certain that Bernard was a monk at Cluny in the time of Peter the Venerable
Peter the Venerable
Peter the Venerable , also known as Peter of Montboissier, abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Cluny, born to Blessed Raingarde in Auvergne, France. He has been honored as a saint but has never been formally canonized.-Life:Peter was "Dedicated to God" at birth and given to the monastery at...
(1122–1156), for his famous poem is dedicated to that abbot. It may have been written about 1140. He left some sermons. There is also a dialogue (Colloquium) on the Trinity). Recent dating of certain monastic regulations known as the Consuetudines Cluniacenses by "Bernard of Cluny" to c. 1080-85 make it impossible that he was their author.
On Contempt for the World
De Contemptu Mundi (On Contempt for the World) contains about 3,000 verses, and is for the most part a very bitter satire against the moral disorders of the monastic poet's time. He spares no one; priestPriest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
s, nun
Nun
A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...
s, bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
s, monks, and even Rome itself are mercilessly scourged for their shortcomings. For this reason it was first printed by Matthias Flacius
Matthias Flacius
Matthias Flacius Illyricus was a Lutheran reformer.He was born in Carpano, a part of Albona in Istria, son of Andrea Vlacich alias Francovich and Jacobea Luciani, daughter of a wealthy and powerful Albonian family...
in Varia poemata de corrupto ecclesiae statu (Basle, 1557) as one of his testes veritatis, or witnesses of the deep-seated corruption of the medieval Church, and was often reprinted by Protestants
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
in the course of the 17th and 18th centuries. This Christian version of the Satires of Juvenal does not proceed in an orderly manner against the vices and follies of his age. It has been well said that Bernard seems to eddy about two main points: the transitory character of all material pleasures and the permanency of spiritual joys.
Bernard of Cluny is indeed a lyrical writer, swept from one theme to another by the intense force of ascetic meditation and by the majestic power of his own verse, in which there lingers yet a certain fierce intoxication of poetic wrath. His highly wrought pictures of heaven and hell were probable known to Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
; the roasting cold, the freezing fire, the devouring worm, the fiery floods, and again the glorious idyl of the Golden Age and the splendours of the Heavenly Kingdom are couched in a diction that rises at times to the height of Dante's genius. The enormity of sin, the charm of virtue, the torture of an evil conscience, the sweetness of a God-fearing life alternate with heaven and hell as the themes of his majestic dithyramb. Nor does he dwell in generalities; he returns again and again to the wickedness of woman (one of the fiercest arraignments of the sex), the evils of wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
, money
Money
Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...
, learning, perjury
Perjury
Perjury, also known as forswearing, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding. That is, the witness falsely promises to tell the truth about matters which affect the outcome of the...
, soothsaying
Divination
Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual...
, etc.; this master of an elegant, forceful, and abundant Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
ity cannot find words strong enough to convey his prophetic rage at the moral apostasy of his generation, in almost none of whom does he find spiritual soundness. Youthful and simoniacal
Simony
Simony is the act of paying for sacraments and consequently for holy offices or for positions in the hierarchy of a church, named after Simon Magus , who appears in the Acts of the Apostles 8:9-24...
bishops, oppressive agents of ecclesiastical corporations, the officers of the Curia
Curia
A curia in early Roman times was a subdivision of the people, i.e. more or less a tribe, and with a metonymy it came to mean also the meeting place where the tribe discussed its affairs...
, papal legate
Papal legate
A papal legate – from the Latin, authentic Roman title Legatus – is a personal representative of the pope to foreign nations, or to some part of the Catholic Church. He is empowered on matters of Catholic Faith and for the settlement of ecclesiastical matters....
s, and the pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
himself are treated with no less severity than in Dante or in the sculptures of medieval cathedrals.
It may be added that in medieval times "the more pious the chronicler the blacker his colours". The early half of the 12th century saw the appearance of several new factors of secularism unknown to an earlier and more simply religious time: the increase of commerce and industry resultant from the Crusades, the growing independence of medieval cities, the secularization of Benedictine life, the development of pageantry and luxury in a hitherto rude feudal world, the reaction from the terrible conflict of State and Church in the latter half of the 11th-century. The song of the Cluniac is a great cry of pain wrung from a deeply religious and even mystical soul at the first dawning consciousness of a new order of human ideals and aspirations. The turbid and irregular flow of his denunciation is halted occasionally in a dramatic way by glimpses of a Divine order of things, either in the faraway past or in the near future. The poet-preacher is also a prophet; Antichrist, he says, is born in Spain; Elijah has come to life again in the Orient. The last days are at hand, and it behoves the true Christian to awake and be ready for the dissolution of an order now grown intolerable, in which religion itself is henceforth represented by cant and hypocrisy.
The metre
Meter (poetry)
In poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...
of this poem is no less remarkable than its diction; it is a dactylic hexameter
Dactylic hexameter
Dactylic hexameter is a form of meter in poetry or a rhythmic scheme. It is traditionally associated with the quantitative meter of classical epic poetry in both Greek and Latin, and was consequently considered to be the Grand Style of classical poetry...
in three sections, devoid of caesura, with tailed rhyme
Rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...
s and a feminine leonine rhyme between the two first sections; the verses are technically known as leonini cristati trilices dactylici, and are so difficult to construct in great numbers that the writer claims Divine inspiration (the impulse and inflow of the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding) as the chief agency in the execution of so long an effort of this kind. The poem begins:
- Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt — vigilemus.
Ecce minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus.
Imminet imminet ut mala terminet, æqua coronet,
Recta remuneret, anxia liberet, æthera donet.- (These are the last days, the worst of times: let us keep watch. Behold the menacing arrival of the supreme Judge. He is coming, he is coming to end evil, crown the just, reward the right, set the worried free, and give the skies.)
It is, indeed, a solemn and stately verse, rich and sonorous, not meant, however, to be read at one sitting, at the risk of surfeiting the appetite. Bernard of Cluny is an erudite writer, and his poem leaves an excellent impression of the Latin culture of the Benedictine monasteries of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in the first half of the 12th century. The modern interest of English-speaking
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
circles in this semi-obscure poet centres in the lovely hymns of exceptional piety, warmth, and delicacy of sentiment dispersed through his lurid satire; one of them, "Jerusalem the Golden", has become particularly famous. The American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
composer Horatio Parker
Horatio Parker
Horatio William Parker was an American composer, organist and teacher. He was a central figure in musical life in New Haven, Connecticut in the late 19th century, and is best remembered as the teacher of Charles Ives....
composed an oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
that took its text from Bernard of Cluny's poem, Hora novissima, in 1893.