Part 40

His mother, during the time she was pregnant with him, dreamed she had a white dog in her womb, which in all probability was the reason the Cistertian monks dressed in white, in the same manner as Benedict’s raven might have suggested the colour to the vestments of the Benedictines.

During his infancy Bernard was much troubled with head-ach; and an old woman having been sent for to cure him, he would not suffer her to come near him, from the belief that she made use of charms. One Christmas-day, when he was at church, during his boyhood, he prayed that the very hour in which Christ was born might be revealed to him; and when that hour came, he saw a new-born infant. What a pity it is that Bernard, who has written so much, did not record that hour, the day, the month, and the year, about which chronologers are still so much divided.

During a hard frosty night, Bernard was seized with a violent paroxysm of satyriasis, or strong carnal inclination: he precipitated himself into a pond of water, and remained there until he was almost frozen to death.

On another occasion, during the time he was preaching to a very numerous congregation, who were listening to him, a temptation of vain glory invaded him, and he heard a voice within him saying, see, how all the people do attend unto your words. He was just going to leave off preaching to mortify this temptation, but perceiving it was the Devil who had addressed him, for the purpose of interrupting his sermon, he turned about his head to the tempter, and thus coolly spoke to him—As I did not begin this sermon for thee, so neither will I end it for thee, and so went on preaching as before. He was always very sickly, and not only rejoiced that he was so himself, but he judged it fit that all monks ought to be so: for which reason he built Claraval, and all his other monasteries, in low damp places.

Bernard laboured hard to bring all his monks to an uninterrupted attention to their devotions; and having one day, as he was riding, been told by a peasant, “that he found that to be an easy thing;” he promised him the mule he rode upon, if he would but say the Lord’s prayer without any distraction of thought. The peasant began the prayer, but before he got half through it, he confessed that “it came into his mind, whether with the mule he was to have the saddle and bridle also.”

Being at Pavia, a woman possessed of a devil was brought before him; but before Bernard had time to utter a word to the woman, the devil cried out, “do you think that such an onion and leek carrier as this, is able to throw me out of possession?” Upon which Bernard ordered the woman to be carried to St. Sirus’ church, in which, though Sirus had previously dispossessed all that had ever come before him, he would not do it at this time, that Bernard might have the honour of it himself. The devil, however, set them both at defiance, and in a scoffing manner told them, that neither little Siry nor little Barny should turn him out. But the devil was mistaken for once in his life; little Barny, as he styled him, soon served an ejectment upon him. To another woman in the same city, on whom the devil had lain in a very dishonest manner, he gave a stick, with which she so belaboured him, that he never troubled her any more.

After Bernard had persuaded the kings of England and France to submit to the Pope; but not being able to prevail upon the Duke of Aquitaine, he went one day to him with the sacrament in his hand, when the Duke threw himself down at his feet; on which Bernard gave him a lusty kick, and bade him rise and acknowledge the true Pope. The Duke rose immediately, and being thus kicked into it, made his submission, and acknowledged the Vicegerent of Heaven.

The seventh order of monks is the Cælestine, instituted by Petrus Moronus, who having afterwards become Pope, took the name of Cælestine. This poor monk was persuaded by Cardinal Cagestan, who took the name of Boniface the 8th, to abdicate the Roman chair, that he might spend his whole time in devotion. But his successor, Boniface, fearing that were he at liberty in his monastery, it might come into his head to return to the pontifical chair, kept him a close prisoner as long as he lived.

The eighth order of monks is the Williamite, called also the order of Montes Virginis, and of Montis Oliveti, instituted by one William, a noble Italian, which at one time possessed 47 monasteries. There were Hermits who were likewise called Williamites, from William, Duke of Aquitaine, but they were amalgamated with the mendicant order of the monks of St. Austin.

The ninth order was the Sylvestern. There was also another instituted by the nobles of Milan, called the Humiliate, who having quarrelled with Cardinal Borromeus, Archbishop of Milan, dissolved the order and seized all their revenues, which were immense.

All the preceding orders, besides the Carthusians, were all under the Benedictine rule, whose monks were both the oldest and richest pertaining to the Roman church, in which the monastic rules are four in number—namely, the rule of St. Bazil, St. Austin, and St. Benedict.

The order of monks under St. Austin’s rule, as it was called, were the canons regular, the Premonstratenses; the Dominicans; the Hieronomites, in various shapes; the Servites; the Jesuits; the Crucigeri; the Boni Jesu; the Trinitarians; the Eremites of St. Augustin; the Theatines; the Pautestæ; the military orders of St. John of Jerusalem, of St. James of Compostella, of the Teutonick order, of St. Lazarus, and of St. Mauritius.

The Dominican order, of which only we shall here allude, is the third under the rule of St. Austin, was instituted about the beginning of the 13th century, and is both the first mendicant order and the first order that had a solemn confirmation from the Pope. They are very numerous, and have still many convents in Spain and Portugal.

Dominick, the founder of this order, was born in Spain, in 1170. His mother, when she was with child with him, dreamed that she was delivered of a hog, with a flaming torch in his mouth, an emblem appropriate enough for an inquisitor; and when he was baptized, his god mother, although it was visible to no one else, saw a star that illuminated all the world; and as he lay in his cradle, a swarm of bees pitched upon his lips. And, although from the day of his baptism to the day of his death, he is said never to have committed one mortal sin, he would, nevertheless, before he was seven years old, rise out of his costly bed, for his parents were said to have been very rich, and lie upon the ground. When he was a boy he would never play or use any pastimes; and when he arrived at man’s estate, he gave all that had been left him by his father, with the exception of his books, among the poor; and having nothing else left to give, he gave them his books also.

Seeing a woman one day weeping bitterly for the loss of her brother, who had been taken captive by the Moors, he begged her to take him, and to sell him to those infidels, and with the money he should fetch, redeem her brother; but, to his extreme mortification, the woman refused to comply with his desire.

One day, when Dominick was in his study, the devil so pestered him in the shape of a flea, leaping and frisking about on the leaves of his book, that he found it impossible to continue his reading: irritated at length by such unhandsome treatment, he fixed him on the very spot where he finished reading, and in this shape made use of him to find the place again. Having at last, however, released old nick from this demonological dilemma, he appeared to him again in his study in the guise of a monkey, and grinned so “horribly a ghastly grin,” and skipped about so, that he was more annoyed now than before. To put a stop to these monkey tricks, Dominick forthwith commanded him, the said monkey, to take the candlestick and hold it for him; this the monkey did, and Dominick made him continue holding it, until it was burnt down to the bottom of the wick, and although the monkey made a horrid noise at burning his fingers, he was forced to hold it until it was burnt out, which it did until it had burnt the devil’s monkey fingers to the bone.

Having gone into France with the bishop of Osma, of whose church Dominick was a canon, though by preaching and working miracles he converted the Albigenses about Toulouse by thousands in a day, he, nevertheless, so roused Simon de Montford, who was general of the Pope’s cruzado against those christians, by which Montfort, and his cruzado, to which Dominick was the chief chaplain, that many thousands of those poor christians were butchered.

That part of France must necessarily, at that time, have been very populous, otherwise there could not have been so many of those christians left for Montfort to murder, after Dominick had made such extensive conversions among them, for assuredly Montfort would not lay violent hands on any of his proselytes. The greatest conversion ever made by Dominick was after he had the rosary given him by the blessed virgin, whose virtues Dominick successfully eulogized with all the eloquence he was master of. There was one, however, desperate enough to ridicule both the rosary and the mountebank oratory upon its virtues; but he was soon punished for his audacity, by a great number of devils getting into him; but Dominick relenting at the sufferings of the demoniac, although he did not deserve such commiseration at his hands, called the devils to an account for the uproarious noise they made; when the following colloquy passed between them.

DOMINICK.—How came you to enter this man, and how many are you in number?

DEVILS.—(After tremendous howlings.) We came into him for having spoken disrespectfully of the rosary; and for his having laughed and made “merry game” of your sermons. We are 15,000 in number, and have been forced much against our inclination to enter one who might have done us infinite services.

DOM.—Why did so many as 15,000 of you enter him?

DEV.—Because there are 15 decads in the rosary which he derided.

DOM.—Why did you suffer this man to be brought to me?

DEV.—(All together roaring out.) It was done to our great confusion: we could not prevent it.

DOM.—Is not all true I have said of the virtues of the rosary?

DEV.—(After the most hideous bellowing.) Cursed be the hour in which we entered into this statue? Woe be unto us for ever! Why did we not suffocate him before he was brought hither? But it is now too late and we cannot do it, for thou holdest us in burning flames and chains of fire, so that we are forced to declare the truth to thee, to our great prejudice. O yes! O yes! Know all christian men and women, that this cruel Dominick, this implacable enemy of ours, has never said one word concerning the virtues of the rosary that is not most true; and know ye further, that if you do not believe him, great calamities will befall you.

DOM.—Who was the man in the world the devil hated the most?

DEV. (All of them.) Thou art the very man, who, by thy prayers, and by thy severe ways of penance, and by thy sermons, hast shown the way to Paradise to every one, and hast snatched our prey. But know thou, that our dark congregation and infernal troop are so enraged against thee, that a brigade of the strongest and most mischievous spirits have a commission to fall upon thee and them.