Bernard of Vienne

Bernard of Vienne, also known as Barnard and as Bernard of Romans, was a Carolingian noble, Benedictine monk, and archbishop of Vienne in the Rhône valley. He was born in 778 into a family of the Lyonnais nobility during the reign of Charlemagne. Traditional accounts of his life state that he married and had three children. After the deaths of his parents and of his wife, he gave his inheritance to the poor and withdrew from secular life.

He entered the Benedictine monastery of Ambronay in the Bugey and in time became its abbot, an office associated with him from about 805. In 810 he was appointed archbishop of Vienne, an ancient metropolitan see that claimed extensive rights in Gaul. He held the archbishopric for some three decades, through the last years of Charlemagne and the reign of Louis the Pious.

As bishop he was remembered for charity, the defense of his church's privileges, and monastic patronage. He founded or richly endowed the monastery on the Isère that became the abbey and later collegiate church of Saint-Barnard at Romans, around which the town of Romans-sur-Isère grew. He is also credited with establishing hospitals and aiding the poor. Later devotion invoked him against drought, flood, and storm; individual miracle stories attached to his name are characteristic of medieval hagiography and cannot be independently verified.

Bernard died in January 842, the date of his feast being 23 January, though some calendars note 22 January. Tradition places his death and burial at Romans, in the church of the house he had founded. He was venerated as a saint from the early Middle Ages without a formal canonization of the later papal type. He remains associated with Vienne and Romans-sur-Isère and with protection against drought, floods, and storms.