Letter CDX. To Gilduin, Abbot of S. Victor. Bernard recommends Peter Lombard to him
[Formerly No. 366].
To the reverend lords and fathers, his very dear friends, G., by the grace of God, the venerable Abbot of S. Victor at Pans, and to the entire community of the same, Brother Bernard, called Abbot of Clairvaux, health and the assurance of his humble prayers.1
I am forced to ask much of others, since much is asked of me: nor am I able to refrain from putting my friends under contribution, as I am myself made to contribute by other friends. The Lord Bishop of Lucca, my father and friend, has recommended to me the venerable Peter Lom2 bard and begged me to provide, by means of my friends, for his subsistence, during the brief time that he is pursuing his studies in France. This I have done while he was at Rheims. Now he is at Paris, and proposes to remain there until the Nativity of the B. V. Mary,3 2 so that I venture to commend him to you, because I rely more on your friendship than on others, and to entreat that you will provide for his subsistence during this time. Farewell.
Footnotes
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The Abbey of S. Victor extra-mnros (of Paris) was for Regular Canons of the order of S, Augustine. Gilduin was abbot of it from 1133 to 1155. Bernard recommends it to Abbot Jiuger in his letter 369. The Abbey possessed the cowl o S. Bernard, as a proof of the attachment which he always elt towards it. This abbey was founded by Louis le Gros in 1113 and first organized by William de Champeaux, who was removed from it to be Bishop of Chalons. The Abbot of this house was nominated by the King. The Abbey became so flourishing that it had thirty other Abbeys, and more than eighty Priories, in dependance upon it. James de Vitry praises it thus in his History of the West C. 24; “This is a holy house, filled with Religious worthy in all respects to be called soldiers of the Lord: it is a refuge for the poor and a consolation for the unhappy, a place of retreat for sinners and a peaceful refuge of scholars .... There have adorned it since its foundation, like stars shining in the sky, or like the precious pearls of a rich coronet, many doctors of the University of Paris, learned and honourable men; at the head of whom is to be named the celebrated Hugh of S. Victor, the lute player (as it were) of the Lord and organ of the Holy ↩
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September 8. ↩
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Peter, called by theologians the ' Master of the Sentences4, was born in Lombardy, and thence called ‘the Lombard’. Leaving the school of Bologna he went to study in France. The Bishop of Lucca was Uberto or Gregory, to whom was written Letter 3 of Nicholas of Clairvaux in the person of Bernard. ↩
Chapter 410 of 491