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In the years to come at Clairvaux, he attacked the rigours of a monastic existence in the forests with the vigour of a knight on a military campaign. The men subsisted on a diet of barley and beech leaves, without much sleep, and with a regime of fasts and vigils of the type his mother had imposed.
Out of this cold crucible, impelled by his mother's inspiration, came the fire and passion of the great sermons by which Bernard inspired the second great crusade.3
Bernard also came under the influence of another remarkable woman, one who touched the lives of all those great ones who were direct or indirect participants in the Second Crusade.
This woman was Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), who is regarded as a saint in many parts of Europe, although she was never officially canonised.
Hildegard was in correspondence not only with Bernard during the formative period leading up to the Crusade, but also with Eleanor of Aquitaine and later with Frederick Barbarossa.
Hildegard's faith was fervent and mystical, and is most felt to this day in her remarkable music, which continues to be played and recorded.
She took the veil at the age of eight in order to join a Benedictine community founded by a noble woman named Jutta, who lived as a recluse in a building next to the church of St Disibod. From this time on, Hildegard began to have visions and prophecies, which she shared with kings and queens, emperors and popes. Much of her writing was about the current decline in the standards of church life, which she combined with contemporary beliefs about the coming of the anti Christ. Hildegard was a great leader of women as well, becoming the head of her community in 1136, and having to move to larger premises near Bingen in 1147-50.
Her writing was voluminous and all encompassing, starting with her visions of divine revelation by a fire from heaven, and continuing on to deal with moral decline and the causes of mental illness, which she noted could be sometimes caused by physical ills rather than a devil.
The Devil loomed large on the minds of medieval people, particularly during the twelfth century. They saw signs of his handiwork everywhere, believing that a sad decline in people's morality - as evidenced in Church and State corruption - heralded the coming of the Anti Christ. Hildegard's writings were full of such eschatological musings, and in turn St Bernard believed that opponents of Innocent III were servants of the Devil.4
Her letter written to Henry after he was crowned king of England is typical in its portents and remarkable in its direct and forthright comments to a powerful monarch:
Great gifts have been given to you so that governing, guiding and protecting your kingdom and providing for its needs you will achieve the kingdom of Heaven.
And yet I saw a bird of ill omen coming from Hell and it tells you have power to do anything you wish - do this, that or whatever you please:
"Give little heed to justice, for if you observe its precepts you are a mere slave and not a master."
Your Highness must beware of such desires...5
Hildegard had powerful visions on this theme, which she communicated to people such as Barbarossa, St Bernard and Eleanor: amongst her dreams was the horrifying image of a torn and bleeding woman - the Church - naked, bearing the head of the Antichrist in her lap.6
Without fear or favour she berated pope, emperor and kings about the corruption of their personal lives, of their state, and their religious practices, and these great rulers paid her honour and sought her advice.
"...in wise counsel and a consecrated spirit, (she) conquered the respect and allured the obedience, not of the retired and studious alone, but of the wild soldier, the martial baron, the imperious prince..."7
Bernard was heavily influenced by her, praising her gift of prophecy:
"For you are declared to search out heavenly secrets, and to discover things above human knowledge, by the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Wherefore I the more entreat and pray that you will have the remembrance of me before God..."8
In his preaching of the Crusade, with frequent references to the coming of the Anti Christ, there are strong echoes of Hildegard's sentiments.
In fact, many of the great ecclesiasts of the time had associations with women of great strength - usually their mother - who shaped their religious life. These include St Anselm, who was influenced by his mother Ermenberga; Eberhard Archbishop of Salzburg, whose mother (unnamed) built her own church, working barefoot; and an associate of Bernard, Peter the Venerable who was brought up under the control of his mother.
A similar pattern can be discerned in the life of Abbot Guibert of Nogent, as recorded in his psychologically tortured memoires.
Guibert was a chronicler of the First Crusade, and he was also the most reliable source that we have for the launching of the First Crusade at Clermont by Urban. It is largely through his eyes that our vision of that fatal moment is transmitted through the centuries.
In his autobiography, he explores at length the most important relationship of his life, his connection with his mother.
Guibert's father he names as Evrard, a knight, a warrior who amongst other distinctions was captured in the wars of the King of France against William the Conqueror.9
Evrard's influence on Guibert's life was to be powerful, yet indirect, for he died a mere eight months after the child was born. Thus, what Guibert remembers about his father are the details of his own conception, as passed on to him by his mother. Guibert's father and his (unnamed) mother entered into what might be considered an unusual conjugal relationship. Guibert's mother is remembered by him as beautiful, proud, intelligent and determined, able to hold her own against domineering relatives and the brutality of her husband. She told Guibert how as a girl she had received, as if with a blow, the understanding that she must dread the more carnal details of her marriage. The mysterious result was that her husband was struck with impotence and thus the marriage remained unconsummated for years. Some rich neighbours tried to seduce her, while others tried to arrange a divorce in order to seize the couple's property, but she remained obdurate in the face of their pressure, and also the knowledge of everyone hat she had bewitched her young husband. At last, the knight broke the enchantment by conceiving a child on another woman. After that, a fleshly relationship developed between the husband and wife.
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