I shall be responsible here simply for a condensation and compilation of facts, a very different proceeding from that which is usually needed. In the case of almost all these hymn-writers the materials are so slight and meagre as to require large research; in this case one is overwhelmed with riches. I do not profess to say how many lives of Bernard have been written, but I know of a goodly number; and no history of his time has failed to give attention to so prominent a figure in religion and in statecraft.
He was singularly situated in point of time and place. Born in Burgundy, not far from Dijon, of a fighting family, who owned a castle and were well represented in the wars, he saw the light in 1091. His father Tesselin was a man who had learned in the school of Christ to be more careful not to wrong his neighbor than not to be wronged by him. His mother Alith was the model chatelaine of the times, full of kindness to the poor and helpfulness to the needy. He was born at the _omphalos_ and centre of the Middle Ages. Peter the Hermit whirled along his wild battalions almost beside his very cradle. The little lad of four years must have seen the strange excited throngs, with their red crosses and their banners, and in the dust of their passing and in the chants of their praise, he must have been conscious of a certain enthusiasm which was to run throughout his life.
For several years this news was to men the staple of all conversation. The body of their own duke was finally brought back from Palestine to his ancient heritage, and laid, by his own desire, in the cemetery of the poor monks of Citeaux. There, in this comparatively recent monastery near Dijon, he had selected his last home, in preference to many more opulent and renowned establishments. The son of Burgundy’s vassal Tesselin beheld this and other incidents. His brothers went to the wars with the next duke, but he himself grew less and less inclined toward such pursuits. Books formed his world. His cell was afterward said to be stored with them; and he obtained easily the credit of being the best instructed person of his time in the Bible and in the works of the fathers of the Church.
And already these tendencies were aroused in the youth of eighteen or nineteen years who had begun the old-fashioned austerities on his own account. We are not surprised to find him neck-deep in ice-water; stung into intellectual vigor by the recent victory of Abelard over William of Champeaux; aroused into an actual preaching fervor, in which he denounces the sins of the age; continually mindful of his dead mother Alith’s prayers, and finally resolved upon entering the monastic order and upon carrying all his friends and relations with him.
