BERNARD of Brussels, a painter, who died in 1540. His portraits were copied by Jordaens. He painted whirlwinds of boar-hunters, and storms of spotted hounds. Margaret of the Netherlands made him design tapestries for her. He also painted in some of his field pieces, portraits of Charles V. and his attendants. His portraits of the Nassau family were thought excellent. In a picture of "The Last Judgment," he first covered the panel with leaf gold to add lustre to his colours, and prevent them changing. Sandrart praises the effect, particularly in the sky.—W. T.
BERNARD, Catherine, a literary lady, born at Rouen in 1662; died at Paris in 1712. She was related to Corneille, and it was probably this circumstance that first led her to a literary career. She composed two tragedies, "Léodamée," in 1690, which had but moderate success; and "Brutus" in 1691, which latter was better received, and it is said to have induced Voltaire to turn his attention to the same subject. She also wrote several romances—"Count d'Amboise" and "Inez d'Cordova"—remarkable for keen observation and knowledge of the human heart, at a time when psychology, as an element of romance, was in its infancy. Fontenelle was her admirer, and it has been alleged that he assisted her in her literary labours. Louis XIV. granted her a pension of five hundred crowns.—J. G.
BERNARD, a monk of Champagne, who visited Egypt and the Holy Land about the middle of the ninth century. He wrote an interesting account of his journey, which lay among the MSS. in the library of Rheims till 1672, when it was published by Mabillon in the Acta Sanct. ord. Bened.—W. B.
BERNARD, Charles, historiographer of France in the reign of Louis XIII., and king's counsellor; died in 1640. His principal work is entitled "Histoire des guerres de Louis XIII. contre les religionnaires rebelles."
BERNARD of Chartres, surnamed Sylvestris, taught in the schools of Chartres in the twelfth century, and was the most distinguished Platonist of his time. Two of his works, entitled "Megacosmus" and "Microcosmus," have been preserved. In the former he recognizes two elements, matter and ideas. Matter in itself is devoid of form, but capable of receiving impressions from ideas, which reside in the divine intelligence. These ideas are perfect models of that which ought to be, and all things result from their union with matter. The sensible world has all the perfection of its model; it is complete, beautiful, and eternal, because these qualities belong to the divine nature. These views are manifestly borrowed from Plato. The "Microcosmus" contains a theory of man, asserting the pre-existence of the soul, and seeming to adopt the hypothesis of reminiscence. Great part of the work is occupied with physiological details. Two other works, which have perished, are attributed to Bernard; one an attempt to reconcile Plato and Aristotle, the other treating of the eternity of ideas, and the destructibility of material things.—J. D. E.
BERNARD or BERNHARD, abbot of Clairvaux, and the most noted ecclesiastic of his time, was born of a knightly family in 1091 at Fontaines in Burgundy. His earliest youth was marked by deep religious feeling, fostered by the affectionate culture of his mother Aleth. At the age of twenty-two he entered, with thirty companions, the monastery of Citeaux (Cistertium), near Dijon. The Cistercian order of monks was famed at this period for its austerities, and Bernard's strictness was so eminent that he was selected to be the head of a new house or abbey at Clairvaux in Champagne. The valley of Clairvaux had been a notorious haunt of robbers, and was called Vallis absinthialis, but when it was cleared of them, it received the commemorative name of Clara vallis—Clairvaux. Bernard's fame as saint, writer, and orator, soon spread far and wide, and his monastery at once became a seminary renowned for its pupils—one pope, six cardinals, and thirty bishops, were educated in it during its founder's lifetime. But his ecclesiastical influence was yet more conspicuous, for he ruled the church with a power that few of the popes have possessed. His sanctity and his rhetoric gave him a loftier authority than the triple crown, and his utterances, whether counsels or fulminations, were regarded as those of an oracle. In 1128 he was chosen to draw up statutes for the famous order of the Templars, and he gave them a body of wise counsels—Exhortatio ad milites templi. He settled the dispute between the rival popes. Innocent II. and Anaclete, and secured the chair for the former by gaining Louis VI. of France and Henry I. of England to his side. he was at the same time an indomitable defender of orthodoxy. He condemned the opinions of Abelard, who, therefore, challenged him to a public discussion, but appealed to the pope ere the debate was nearly concluded. The combatants were not well matched. Bernard was profound in feeling; Abelard, subtle in thought—emotion was the sphere of the one, dialectics the province of the other. (See Abelard.) Abelard was the superior in intellectual power, but inclined to a critical rationalism, while Bernard excelled him in soundness of view, and thought his opponent a supporter of Pelagianism. When Raoul preached the extermination of the Jews, Bernard keenly opposed the fanatic; the followers of Arnold of Brescia were stoutly reprobated by him; and at the council of Rheims he secured the condemnation of the bishops of Poitiers and Eon de l'Etoile, for he judged them fallen aside from the pure faith of the church. At the council of Vezelai in 1146, Bernard's eloquence impelled the king and nobility of France to commence a new crusade. He was so far carried away by his warmth as to claim something like inspiration, and he threw abroad many bright and flattering predictions. Miracles and visions were supposed to signalize his progress as he went about rousing peers and peasantry to the great enterprise. The christian host under Louis VII. did no mighty achievement, were soon disorganized, and after no little folly and suffering a miserable remnant returned. Bernard's predictions were falsified, but he attempted to save his credit by ascribing the crusaders' failure to their sins; and he was right, if he meant by sins the absence of unity and warlike concert—the relaxation of discipline, and the loose and wanton misconduct of those European bands in an enemy's country, and under an Eastern sun. The mortification which this defeat occasioned seems to have preyed upon his mind, and he died at Clairvaux in 1153, in the sixty-third year of his age, and was canonized by Alexander III. in 1174. His last act was to mediate between the people of Mentz and some princes in their vicinity.
Bernard was a man of sincerity, and in his sincerity lay one main element of his strength. Conscientious and straightforward, he despised those little arts of finesse and intrigue by which so many churchmen have risen to eminence. His appeals to the religious passions of the people sprung from his own inmost persuasions, and were poured forth in letters, sermons, and harangues, with thrilling fervour and mighty result. He knew how to move the heart of his age, and he succeeded the better that no tiara adorned his furrowed brow, but that as a humble, self-denied abbot, reduced to a skeleton by his constant austerities, he spoke from his cell with equal dignity to pope, prince, and populace. While he strove hard to realize the ideal of a monastic life, and cherished a profound religious experience, he displayed at the same time a restless activity, and took a prime part in all the great questions of his time. He would not leave his retreat, though Milan, Rheims, Genoa, Langres, and other towns, sought him for their bishop. The free spirit of Bernard led him to rebuke such monks as contended about ceremonial, tonsure, dress, and order of service. His own soul longed to enjoy more of that seraphic love which his Lord enjoined, and which inner fellowship with Him fosters and developes. It would seem from some brief hints in his epistles that he believed in his own power to work miracles, though certainly, like many other enthusiasts, he was very unfortunate when he intruded into the field of prophecy. A so-called vision may dazzle into belief—a wondrous coincidence may be credulously constructed into a miracle, but a prophecy is patent to all, and all can judge of its failure or fulfilment. Bernard rose above the hard scholastic style of his period, and is both copious and vivacious in his diction. His works relate principally to experimental religion, such as his "Meditations," and his "Discourses on the Song of Solomon." Many of the Latin hymns usually ascribed to him, have great beauty and depth of feeling. The best edition of his works is that by Mabillon; and there is a full-length portrait of him as monk, abbot, counsellor, agitator, and saint, in Neander's Der Heil. Bernard, and Sein Zeitalter; Berlin, 1830.—J. E.
BERNARD, Claude, commonly called Le Pauvre Pretré, a celebrated French ecclesiastic, born of a noble family at Dijon in 1588; died in 1640. A legacy of 400,000f. which came to him unexpectedly was consecrated to charitable purposes, and he steadily refused the offers of Richelieu to confer on him a benefice suitable to his birth and talents. He preached several times a week, and laboured incessantly among the poor.
BERNARD de la Barthe, a troubadour of the 13th
