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The Heritage of Saint Bernard in Medieval Art

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The Heritage of Saint Bernard in Medieval Art THE HERITAGE OF SAINT BERNARD IN MEDIEVAL ART James France That Bernard’s personality was multi-faceted is a truism acknowledged by most Bernardine scholars. Jean Leclercq talks of “several Bernards” and says that he “has always been a paradox.”1 Adriaan Bredero calls him a controversial figure whose interventions were not universally appreciated and whose sainthood was not always recognized.2 Brian McGuire described him as “the difficult saint.”3 Bernard himself made frequent references to the pain caused by the inconsistency between his monastic profession and his activity in the world. He likened him- self to an “unfledged nestling, exposed to winds and tempests,” and in another letter he pleaded to be relieved from non-monastic duties, “may it please you to bid the noisy and importunate frogs keep to their holes and remain contented with their ponds.”4 In another letter, to the Carthusians of the Grande Chartreuse, he acknowledged his own complex character in these words: “I am not as I am believed or said to be” (Non sum talis qualis putor vel dicor).5 In yet another letter he referred to himself as the “chimaera of my age.”6 His choice of the title of the fire-eating monster of Greek mythology whose body was made up of three parts from different animals also reflects the great variety of ways the saint is portrayed in medieval art to serve monastic, cleri- cal, and lay audiences. The question arises, what can we learn from a closer look at the way Bernard was represented in medieval art? He was not originally a “popular saint” if this is defined as “those whose cult was born and 1 Jean Leclercq, “Toward a Sociological Interpretation of the Various Saint Bernards,” in Bernardus Magister, ed. John R. Sommerfeldt (Kalamazoo, 1992), pp. 19–33. 2 Adriaan H. Bredero, Bernard of Clairvaux. Between Cult and History (Edinburgh, 1996), p. 1. 3 The title of his book, Brian P. McGuire,The Difficult Saint: Bernard of Clairvaux and his Tradition (Kalamazoo, 1991). 4 Letters 12 and 48, in Sancti Bernardi Opera, 8 vols (Rome, 1957–77) [abbreviated henceforth as SBO], 7, pp. 62 and 139. C.H. Talbot is included as editor of the first two volumes, but afterwards the editors are Jean Leclercq and H.-M. Rochais alone. 5 Letter 11, in SBO 7, p. 60. 6 Letter 250, in SBO 8, p. 147. 306 james france developed at the lowest level of society.”7 His cult was not based on a spontaneous outburst of popular lay devotion subsequently endorsed by the official Church; instead it resulted from the initiative of his own monks. Most active was his friend and secretary Geoffrey of Auxerre, who, most telling of all, already eight years before Bernard’s death initiated the writing of his Life, the Vita prima. Bernard’s cult was of supreme importance within the Cistercian family, in the founda- tion of so many of whose houses Bernard had been either directly or indirectly involved. His saintliness was acknowledged by many of his contemporaries, even those who had not always agreed with him. Thus Orderic Vitalis gave him the accolade venerabilis as early as 1135.8 Otto of Freising, who, although himself a Cistercian, opposed Ber- nard’s stand against Gilbert de la Porrée and Abelard, nevertheless referred to Bernard as “venerable in life and character, conspicuous in his religious order, endowed with wisdom and a knowledge of letters, renowned for his signs and wonders . who was looked upon by all the peoples of France and Germany as a prophet and apostle.”9 Peter the Venerable, whose relationship with Bernard was also strained over their views of Abelard, referred to Bernard as the “fellow-citizen of the angels” (concivis angelorum).10 Although celebrated in the wider monastic and religious world, Bernard’s cult was at first minimal among the general populace, as witnessed by an analysis of Christian names and church dedications in Burgundy following his canonization in 1174.11 To his monks, many of whose monasteries owed their foundation to Bernard, his legacy was all-important. All three authors of the Vita prima described him as a “man of God” (vir Dei). The monks’ deci- sion to bury him in the church at Clairvaux was in itself testimony to the veneration in which he was held at his death, for, according to 7 André Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1997), p. 142. 8 Marjorie Chibnall, ed. and trans. The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, 6 vols (Oxford, 1969–80), 3:340. 9 Charles Mierow, trans. Otto of Freising. The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa (New York, 1953), pp. 70–71. 10 Giles Constable, ed. The Letters of Peter the Venerable, 2 vols (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1967), 1:416. 11 For this, see James France, The Cistercians in Medieval Art (Kalamazoo, 1998), pp. 333–334..
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