Peter the Venerable

Peter of St. Maurice (Petrus Mauritius), also called Peter of Cluny (Petrus Cluniensis), or Peter the Venerable (Petrus Venerabilis), Abbot, was born 1092 or 1094 (Trench, Sacred Latin Poetry, 1874, p. 101) of a noble family (the Counts of St. Maurice) in Auvergtie ("Nobili genere natus fuit noster in Arvernia": Leyser, Hist. Poem. Med. Ævi, p. 425). Beginning life as a soldier, he afterwards became a Benedictine monk, and on the death of Hugh, Prior of Marcigny, who had but three months before been elected to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of the better known Pontius, Peter was elected Abbot of the celebrated monastery of his order at Cluny, in 1122. From this time much of his life was spent in controversy, a summary of which is an interesting piece of Ecclesiastical history.

Pontius, by his arrogance, in claiming, as Abbot of Cluny, the title of "Abbot of Abbots," had raised up a cloud of opponents to his pretensions, and the matter had ended for the moment in his resignation of his office. But Peter had scarcely been three years installed as Abbot, when Pontius established himself as head of an¬other religious community at Treviso, in Italy, whence he started with a train of monks, and, taking advantage of the temporary absence of Peter, again got possession of his old position at Cluny, and drove out the friends of Peter, with the Prior St. Bernard at their head. After great excesses had been committed by the usurper and his followers, and the villages and estates of the Abbey had been given up to fire and the sword, Pope Honorius II. summoned all parties to Rome, and, having heard both sides, decided in favour of Peter, excommunicated Pontius and imprisoned him in a dungeon, where he died a few months afterwards.

When this question had been settled, another dispute arose, in which the monks of Citeaux or Clairvaux accused those of Cluny of an undue relaxation of the rule of their order. Robert, a cousin of St. Bernard, had become a monk at Clairvaux, but, finding the rule there too galling, had migrated to Cluny, and, on an appeal to Rome, the Pope directed him to remain at Cluny, much to the chagrin of St. Bernard, who, as the Cistercian head of Clairvaux, vehemently attacked the milder discipline of the Benedictine Cluny. Robert, in consequence of his cousin's objections, was sent back by Peter to Clairvaux, but his monks, resenting such a tame surrender, got William, the Abbot of St. Thierry, near Rheims, to write a sharp letter of remonstrance to St. Bernard. The reply of the latter accusing the Cluniacs of all sorts of declensions from the needful strictness of monastic life, drew forth a rejoinder from Peter as characteristic of "that gentle forbearance and love of peace" of the latter, "which made him stand out conspicuous in his generation, when each man sought his own, or the things of his order, not the things of Jesus Christ " (S. Baring-Gould's Lives of the Saints, December, p. 284), as the attack on St. Bernard's part was of his fiery, yet not altogether unfriendly, vehemence of invective.

In a subsequent controversy between St. Bernard and Peter the former was more successful. He opposed the wish of Hugh, son of the Duke of Burgundy, to secure the see of Langres, when vacant in 1138, for a Cluniac monk. The Archbishop of Lyons consecrated Hugh's nominee in the teeth of St. Bernard's opposition, but notwithstanding all defence of the appointment of the new bishop which Peter could make, the Pope, who was wholly under the influence of St. Bernard, pronounced the Consecration of the Cluniac monk void, and the Prior of Clairvaux, a cousin of St. Bernard's, was consecrated in his stead.

Once more the gentle Peter came into collision with the fiery, domineering St. Bernard in the matter of Abelard. The latter had been condemned, if not altogether unheard, at any rate misunderstood, by the Council of Sens upon charges of heresy brought against him by St. Bernard, and the sentence upon him had been confirmed, upon appeal, by Pope Innocent II.—-a mere echo of the prosecutor. Abelard, silenced and broken down, took refuge at Cluny on his way to Rome, and remained there for some two years, during which Peter so far won upon the victorious Bernard as to bring about a reconciliation between him and Abelard, if such can be called a reconciliation, which allowed Bernard still to do his utmost to set the minds of men against his old adversary. The peaceful death of Abelard at Cluny in 1142 finally terminated this controversy.

The year 1143 saw a renewal of the correspondence between St. Bernard and Peter on the subject of the two reforms, in which the latter takes credit for a warm love for the Cistercians, and reminds his correspondent of the shocks that love had withstood in the question of the payment of tithes by a Cistercian monastery in the neighbourhood of Cluny to the Cluniac monks, which had led to a keen controversy and many appeals; as well as in the contest about the Bishop of Langres. It was at this time that Peter sent to St. Bernard a copy of the translation of the Koran, which Peter had caused to be made in Spain by Robert, an Englishman, but Archdeacon of Pampeluna.
Peter was in high favour with Popes Celestine II. and Lucius II., and in 1146, in common with St. Bernard, took an active part in discountenancing the slaughter of the Jews in France and Germany, which had resulted from the preaching of St. Bernard against the infidels. But though Peter appealed to Louis VII. to stay the massacre, it must be said that he made no effort to prevent the plunder of the Jews.

Another matter in which Peter was interested and engaged was that of Peter of Brueys, who founded a sect holding tenets strongly tinged with Manichævism, and was burnt alive by a zealous Catholic mob early in the twelfth century. A letter strongly condemning the heretic, his followers, and his opinions is still extant. Peter went to Rome for five months in 1150, when Eugenius III., a nominee of St. Bernard, was Pope, and gave an account of Eugenius to St. Bernard by letter.

The rest of Peter's life was spent at Cluny, where he died early in 1156 or 1157, leaving the impression behind him of "one of the most attractive figures which monastic and mediaeval history presents to us" (S. Baring-Gould's Lives of the Saints, Dec, p. 281). Lacking the fire and power of his great antagonist and correspondent, he succeeded by the gentleness and imperturbability of his disposition in gaining and retaining an influence in the religious world second only to that of St. Bernard. His writings were chiefly controversial, and the poetry which he wrote was great neither in quantity nor quality. Amongst his latter were (1) Some Rhythms, Proses, Verses, and Hymns contained in the Bibliotheca Cluniacensis, 1614 ; (2) A Hymn on the "Translation of St. Benedict"-—"Claris conjubila Gallia cantibus," in the Bibliotheca Floriacensis, 1605; and (3) An "Epitaph on Peter Abelard." From the first collection, Archbishop Trench gives two specimens: (a) On Christ's Nativity, "Coelum gaude, terra plaude," and (b) one on the Resurrection of our Lord, "Mortis portis fractis foitis" (Sacred Latin Poetry, 1874, p. 102), both of which have been translated. [Rev. Digby S. Wrangham, M.A.]

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)