Bernard

The given name Bernard, from the Germanic Bernhard (roughly “brave as a bear”), was extremely common among clergy and religious in the medieval Latin West. Liturgical calendars and legendaries record many saints, blesseds, and locally venerated figures of this name: Cistercian, Benedictine, Vallombrosan, and Tironensian monks, bishops, and founders of Alpine hospices. Without a toponym (Clairvaux, Menthon, Thiron), a religious order, a feast day, a century, or a catalogue identifier, the subject cannot be treated as a single historical person, and fields that require unique identification cannot be filled. The two most widely known cults are those of Bernard of Clairvaux in the twelfth century and Bernard of Menthon in the western Alps; several other medieval abbots and bishops named Bernard also received order-wide or diocesan veneration.

Bernard of Clairvaux, the figure most often meant by “Saint Bernard” in Catholic tradition, was born about 1090 at Fontaine-lès-Dijon in Burgundy and died on 20 August 1153 at the abbey of Clairvaux, which he had founded and ruled. He entered Cîteaux with a large company of relatives around 1112 or 1113 and was sent in 1115 to establish Clairvaux in the diocese of Langres. As abbot he became the leading voice of the Cistercian reform, a counsellor of popes including Innocent II and Eugenius III (the latter a former monk of Clairvaux), and a preacher of the Second Crusade. His surviving works include sermons on the Song of Songs, treatises on humility, consideration, and the love of God, and a large correspondence. He lived under monastic vows and is not recorded as having married or fathered children. Pope Alexander III canonized him in 1174; he was later declared a Doctor of the Church. His principal feast is 20 August. He was buried at Clairvaux; after the French Revolution his remains were translated and are associated with Troyes cathedral.

A second major devotion is that of Bernard of Menthon, also called Bernard of Aosta or of Montjoux, an Augustinian or secular cleric of the eleventh century traditionally credited with founding the hospices on the Great and Little Saint Bernard passes. Later legend placed his birth at the castle of Menthon in Savoy; the documentary basis for his life is thinner than for Bernard of Clairvaux, and birth years proposed in older literature are not securely established. He is invoked as patron of mountaineers, skiers, and travellers in the Alps, and the famous hospice dogs take their name from the pass rather than from a proven personal connection in his lifetime. His feast has been kept on 28 May in many calendars, with other local dates attested. Confirmation of cult by the Holy See is associated with the seventeenth century.

Other historical figures include Bernard of Thiron, a Benedictine reformer who died in 1117 and founded the Tironensian congregation in Maine; Bernard degli Uberti, a Vallombrosan abbot, cardinal, and bishop of Parma who died in 1133; and various diocesan saints whose acts survive mainly in late medieval legendaries. None of these men was Bishop of Rome or Coptic Pope of Alexandria; the name Bernard does not appear in the papal lists. Whether any held an Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Coptic, or Church of the East patriarchal see is not established from the bare name. Patronages, feast days, and the names of those who beatified or canonized them differ by individual and cannot be listed for an unspecified Bernard.

Accordingly, birth and death years and places, burial, religious order, spouse, marriage and children, feast day, patronages, and the names of those who beatified or canonized the subject are left blank. Gender is recorded as male from the given name. The papal office is recorded as not held, because no pope has borne the name Bernard. The account above summarizes the principal candidates rather than asserting that the unidentified subject is identical with any one of them.