Bernard of Cluny


Bernard of Cluny was a twelfth-century French Benedictine monk, best known as the author of De contemptu mundi, a long verse satire in Latin.

Life

Bernard's family of origin and place of birth are not known for certain. Some medieval sources list Morlaàs in Béarn, as his birthplace. However, in some records from that period he is called Morlanensis, which would indicate that he was a native of Morlaix in Brittany. A writer in the Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 8, pages 394-399, contended that he belonged to the family of the seigneurs of Montpellier in Languedoc, and was born at Murles. It is believed that he was at first a monk of Saint-Sauveur d'Aniane and that he entered the monastery of Cluny during the administration of Abbot Pons.

Works

Bernard is best known as the author of De contemptu mundi, a 3,000 verse poem of stinging satire directed against the secular and religious failings he observed in the world around him. He spares no one; priests, nuns, bishops, 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 as one of his testes veritatis, or witnesses of the deep-seated corruption of medieval society and of the Church, and was often reprinted by Protestants in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Bernard of Cluny also wrote the twelfth century hymn "Omni die dic Mariae". Several of Bernard's sermons and a theological treatise, Dialogue on the Trinity are extant, as is a c. 1140 poem which he dedicated to the monastery's abbot Peter the Venerable.