MEDIEVAL IMAGES OF SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX - GL08.jpg

Category Glass
Origin: artist/workshop Cologne workshop
Date 16C/1
Reference No
Size 65x73
Provenance Altenberg Cistercian Abbey, cloister
Present Location Shrewsbury, England, St Mary's Church, north window
Bibliography VP1:4:19 -20 (PL185:237-8); Paffrath 1984, 52-4

Eckert 1953, 66; France 1998, 22-3; Paris 1990, 286; Hunt 1951, 17
Illustration From Paffrath 1984, ill 9
Other illustrations France 1998, ill 10; Eckert 1953, pl 8

Paris 1990, ill 232
Country Germany
Description:
1505/32. Three scenes from 1113/4 on one panel and depicting Bernard during his novitiate being reprimanded by St Stephen Harding for having neglected to say the prayers he had promised to say for the repose of the soul of his mother. In the centre Bernard is seen kneeling in a dark church before the altar, the scroll with the opening words of Psalm 6:2: 'Domine, ne in furore tuo...' ('O Lord, do not reprove me in your anger'). On the left he sits with a closed psalter on his knees, his thoughts revealed by the scroll: 'Bernard, Bernard, why have you come here!'. One of his fellow monks, hand on heart, sits next to him. On the right is the climax when Stephen Harding asks him, 'Brother Bernard, what are you doing leaving aside those psalms you should have said yesterday, or whom have you delegated to say them?' Bernard kneels down before his abbot, his hands over his face in shame and begging for pardon. He exclaims, 'O, Lord, my God, how has this matter come out in the open which was known to my conscience alone?' Compare this with the same scene from St Apern, very differently treated (see GL60).