MEDIEVAL IMAGES OF SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX - GL37.jpg

Category Glass
Origin: artist/workshop Cologne workshop
Date 16C/1
Reference No
Size 68x81
Provenance Altenberg Cistercian Abbey, cloister
Present Location Cologne, Schnuetgen Museum
Bibliography VP3:7:23 & 25 (PL185:316-8); LA 213: Paffrath 1984, 147-8

Eckert 1953, 93
Illustration From Paffrath 1984, ill 40
Other illustrations Eckert 1953, pl 28

Country Germany
Description:
1505/32. Scene of two quite separate events in both of which Bernard's patience is being tried, on the right by the regular canon who wanted to enter Clairvaux and, on the left, by Bishop Joscelin of Soissons with whom he had an acrimonious exchange of letters. Bernard told the canon to return to his church, to which the canon replied that he could not understand why Bernard recommended the way of perfection of Clairvaux in his writings if he then refuses those who want to follow it. The canon's scroll has him saying: 'Si libros tuos tenerem, discerperem illos!' (If I had those books of yours with me I would tear them to shreds!). To which Bernard's reply: 'In nullo eorum legisti, non posse te in claustro esse perfectum!' (You have not read in any of my books that you cannot be perfect in the cloister), and he added that what he recommended was an amendment of life, not a change of scenery. On the left the bishop holds his letter in his hands in which he says that he greets Bernard in the name of the Lord and not in the spirit of blasphemy, to which Bernard's reply on his scroll is: 'Minime ego spiritum blasphemie habere me arbitror' . A monk behind Bernard holds his crozier.