Bernard of Menthon

Bernard of Menthon, also known as Bernard of Aosta and Bernard of Montjoux, was an eleventh-century Catholic priest and archdeacon who organized hospitality and rescue on the high alpine passes between the Aosta Valley and the lands to the north. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church. Older legendary accounts placed his life in the tenth century, but historical study has long associated the founder of the St Bernard hospices with the mid-to-late eleventh century. He is not to be confused with Bernard of Clairvaux or other medieval saints of the same name.

According to the traditional hagiographical account, he was born at the castle of Menthon, overlooking Lake Annecy in Savoy, into a noble family headed by Richard of Menthon. His parents intended him for a secular career and arranged a marriage. Bernard, who had already resolved to enter the clerical life, left home and went to Aosta. There he was received by the archdeacon Peter, under whom he was formed and ordained. In time he himself became archdeacon of Aosta. That office gave him pastoral charge over a vast and difficult mountain territory, including the principal routes used by pilgrims and merchants travelling between Italy and northern Europe. The story of his flight from an arranged marriage belongs to the legend of his youth; what is secure is that he lived as a celibate cleric and never married.

The Great St Bernard Pass and the Little St Bernard Pass were vital corridors and, in winter especially, extremely dangerous. Sudden storms, deep snow, exposure, and robbery made the crossings lethal for many travellers. In the middle decades of the eleventh century Bernard established a hospice at each pass and placed them in the care of communities of canons living under the Rule of Saint Augustine. The houses offered shelter, food, and organized search for those lost in the snow. This work, rather than any later romantic image, is the core of his historical achievement. The large rescue dogs popularly called St Bernards were developed at the Great St Bernard Hospice only in the seventeenth century, long after his death, and should not be read back into his own lifetime.

Bernard spent his later years in preaching, the reform of local clergy, and the administration of the alpine hospices. He died at Novara in northern Italy in 1081, while travelling, and was buried in the monastery of Saint Lawrence there. Devotion to him spread through Savoy, the Valais, and the Aosta Valley. In 1681 Pope Innocent XI confirmed his public cult for the universal Church. His feast is kept on 28 May. In 1923 Pope Pius XI, himself a mountaineer, declared him patron of the Alps. He is invoked by mountaineers, skiers, hikers, and others who travel or work in high mountains.

The communities he founded endured. Canons of the Great Saint Bernard continued to staff the hospice on the pass that bears his name, maintaining a living tradition of alpine hospitality. The hospice itself remains one of the most tangible monuments to an eleventh-century pastoral initiative that joined clerical reform with practical care for strangers in a lethal landscape.