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The Problem of Papal Power in the Ecclesiology of St. Bernard1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

J. W. Gray
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Extract

Born in 1090, dying in 1153, Bernard Abbot of Clairvaux lived through the aftermath of that great ideological upheaval which is generally (though rather misleadingly) known as the ‘Investiture Contest’. As he played a leading part in the religious life and ecclesiastical politics of his age it is not surprising that his massive output of sermons, treatises and letters should have given rise to an even more massive output of historiographical comment and interpretation. It is equally understandable that modern Bernardine studies should have tended to concentrate on the question of Bernard's attitude to the basic ideas of the eleventh-century reform movement—and, in particular, to the expression which was given to these by Gregory VII during his stormy pontificate. Yet, as Dr Kennan has recently pointed out, so far from providing a clear answer to this question these studies confront us with a ‘bewildering garden … from which a student can pluck an interpretation of Bernard's … theory as Gregorian, anti-Gregorian,…proto-protestant or any one of a variety of other hues’. Can order be brought into this chaos, or do these various interpretations reflect an inherent ambiguity in Bernard's own thought?

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 24 , January 1974 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1974

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References

2 Kennan, E., ‘The “De consideratione” of St Bernard of Clairvaux and the papacy in the mid-twelfth century: a review of scholarship’, Traditio, 23 (1967), p. 73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Ullmann, W., The growth of papal government in the middle ages (London, 1955). PP. 426–37Google Scholar.

4 Kennan, E., art. cit., pp. 94–111Google Scholar.

5 Epp. clxxxiii, ccxliv, 1; see also the ‘dualist’ argument addressed to Henry of Sens, quoted on p. 9 below.

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11 White, H. V., ‘The Gregorian ideal and St Bernard of Clairvaux’, Journal of the history of ideas, 21 (1960), pp. 324–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Quod legatus ejus omnibus episcopis praesit in concilio, etiam inferioris gradus…; quod illius praecepto et licentia subjectis liceat accusare.

13 Monumenta Germaniae Historica, edd. Pertz, G. H. et al. , Legum IV, Constitutiones I, pp. 106–8Google Scholar.

14 The sentence was not (pace Ullmann, , op. cit., p. 350)Google Scholar a ‘deposition’, but a declaration of the legal invalidity of Gregory's election process.

15 Translation taken from Imperial lives and letters of the eleventh century, edd. Mommsen, T. E. and Morrison, K. F. (New York, 1962), p. 148Google Scholar.

16 Documents of the Christian Church, ed. Bettenson, H. S. (2nd edn, Oxford, 1963)Google Scholar, is the exception.

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19 PL 130, col. 72B-C; for the patristic tradition see Wilks, M. J., The problem of sovereignty in the later middle ages (Cambridge, 1963), p. 349Google Scholar.

20 For a useful summary see Dict. de Théol. Catholique, ad v. ‘Eglise’, pp. 2150–53.

21 See the texts assembled by Gratian in D. 96, cc. 9–16. Ullmann, (op. cit., pp. 180–84)Google Scholar emphasizes the papal bias of Pseudo-Isidore—but cf. Fornier and le Bras' comment (quoted ibid., p. 182 n. 8) that ‘on a dit bien à tort que l'idée dominante d'Isidore était l'exaltation de l'autorité du Saint-Siège. Ce qui est vrai est qu'il poursuit avant tout la restoration de l'indépendance, de l'autorité et du prestige de 1'épiscopat.’

22 Ullmann, ibid., p. 294.

23 PL 161, cols 321B and 1149A; Gratian, D. 21, c. 2.

24 Leclercq, J. (tr. Misrahi, K.), The love of learning and the desire for God (New York, 1961), pp. 146–48Google Scholar. See also ibid., pp. 215–20, 317–18, for the rhetorical tradition in general, and Bernard as representative of it.

25 I take this definition of the exordium from Alcuin's Dialogus de Rhetorica (PL 101, cols 929–30), which is a paraphrase of Isidore's, Etymologiae, ii, 7Google Scholar (PL 82, col. 128A).

26 Cf. Leclercq's, comment (op cit., pp. 326–27)Google Scholar that Bernard's ability to ‘achieve, in a period when rhetoric holds sway, a perfect literary mortification which mirrors his own detachment’ is most noticeable in his more purely spiritual and mystical writings.

27 For the general significance of the Canticles in medieval religious thought, and particular textual and stylistic questions relating to Bernard's sermons, see Leclercq, ibid., pp. 106–8, 208–14, C I, pp. xv-lxv, and C II, pp. ix-xxxiii.

28 Serm. in Cant. xlix, 5 (C ii, p. 76).

29 Serm. in Cant. xlvi, 2 (ibid., pp. 56–57).

30 Serm. in Cant. lxvi, (ibid., p. 186).

31 Serm. in Cant. lxix, 4–5 (ibid. pp. 204–5).

32 Serm. ad Abbat., 1 (C v, pp. 288–89).

33 Serm. in Sollemn. Apost. (ibid., pp. 189–90).

34 C iii pp. 253–94. Textual questions are discussed ibid., pp. 244–50.

35 PL 189, cols 112–59.

36 Loc. cit., pp. 257–58, and loc. cit., cols 148A–B.

37 Ibid., pp. 275–76, and ibid., col. 153C.

38 Ibid., p. 256.

39 Loc. cit., col. 153A–B.

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41 Ep. i, 7.

42 Ep. Vii, 20.

43 PL 182, cols 809–30.

44 …regni coelorum claves Deo auctore vobis traditas suscepistis (loc. cit., col. 812B).

45 Ite nunc ergo, resistite Christi Vicario…(ibid., col. 832C)

46 Ibid., col. 82A.

47 Ibid., col. 829B–C.

48 Ibid., col. 828B.

49 Ibid., col. 832C.

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51 Ep. cxxxi, 2.

52 For the circumstances of the dispute, and Bernard's part in resolving it, see Vacandard, E., Vie de St Bernard (2nd edn, Paris, 1927), pp. 375–90Google Scholar.

53 Ep. ccxxxix.

54 Ep. ccxliii, 3.

55 C iii, pp. 393–493. Textual questions are discussed ibid., pp. 381–91. Quotations in the text above are taken (with some modifications) from the translation by G. Lewis (Oxford, 1908).

56 Op. cit., Book ii, c. viii, 15–16. Though it is clear from the context that this passage refers to papal power in the Church only, Ullmann, (op. cit., p. 429 and n.3)Google Scholar follows Alexander III and Innocent III in giving it a wider interpretation. On this point, see Kennan, , op. cit., p. 97Google Scholar.

57 Ibid., Book iii, c. i.

58 Iniqua autem omnis appellatio, ad quam iustitiae inopia non coegit. Appellandum a sententia (ibid., Book iii, c. ii, 7).

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60 Op. cit., Book iii, iv, 14.

61 Ibid., Book iii, c. iv, 17.

62 For the use of this term to describe the Roman people, see Ullmann, , op. cit., p. 63Google Scholar.

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64 Op. cit., Book iv, c. vii, 23.

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66 Op. cit., Book i, c. ix.

67 Bernard's comments, ibid., Book ii, c. i, show how severely the failure of the second crusade had affected his position—but long before this his recruiting drive in Germany had run contrary to papal policy, which hoped for Conrad's assistance in Italy (see Vacandard, , op. cit., ii, p. 308 and n. 3)Google Scholar.

68 The most reliable account of this episode is in John, of Salisbury's Historia pontificalis, ed. Chibnall, M. (2nd edn, London, 1962), pp. 15–23Google Scholar.

69 Op. cit., Book iv, c. i.

70 Southern, R. W., The making of the middle ages (London, 1953), p. 136Google Scholar.

71 Ibid., p. 151.

72 Kennan, , art. cit., pp. 105–6Google Scholar.

73 Characteristic examples of this contrast can be found in Ep. xi, 5, and De consideratione papae, Book i, c. iv.

74 Op. cit., Book v, c. 1.

75 Ibid., Book ii, c. 2

76 Ibid., Book ii, c. 3.

77 Kennan, , art. cit., p. 114Google Scholar.

78 Ullmann, , op. cit., p. 426Google Scholar.

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82 Wilks, op. cit., chapter II.