Saint Bernard of Menthon (1020–1081)

The Richardine: a late and legendary Life

Almost everything popular devotion recounts about Bernard comes from one late and fragile text: the Vita known as the Richardine, attributed to a certain Richard of the Val d’Isère and composed in the late 14th or early 15th century — nearly three centuries after the saint’s death.^[11][12] This Life introduced most of the familiar episodes: his birth into the noble Menthon family, the abandoned marriage, the escape through a window and the struggle against the idol of the pass.

“This saint is wrongly called ‘Bernard of Menthon’ because of a Life written in the 15th century by Richard of the Val d’Isère, who made him a member of the noble Menthon family.” — Diocese of Annecy, notice on Saint Bernard^[13]

Despite its legendary character, this account became the basis of almost all later writings, including modern encyclopaedic notices.^[14] It fixed the traditional chronology repeated by the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia: birth in 923, appointment as archdeacon in 966, and death in 1008.^[15]

Historical criticism: a life shifted by one century

In the 20th century, Canon André Donnet’s thesis, Saint Bernard et les origines de l’hospice du Mont-Joux (1942), dismantled the inconsistencies of the Richardine point by point.^[16][17] Several clues converge against the legend:

• the Menthon family did not use the name Bernard before 1462, and no medieval church on its lands was dedicated to him;^[18]
• the hospice is attested at the summit of Mont-Joux only around 1100, which is difficult to reconcile with a death in 1008;^[19]
• according to the critical reconstruction, the legendary dates (923–1008) were moved one century earlier; the historical Bernard was probably born around 1020 and died in 1081 or 1086.^[20][21]

This article adopts the critical chronology (c. 1020–1081), in keeping with its title, while honestly noting the traditional chronology where it differs. The decisive fact is not the exact year but the historically secure existence of an Archdeacon of Aosta named Bernard who founded the two hospices bearing his name in the 11th century.^[34][35]

The Menthon family and the marriage legend

Tradition says that Bernard was born into a great Savoyard noble family and received a sound education, extending as far as Paris in some versions.^[36] Destined by his family for an advantageous marriage, the young man instead heard God’s call. On the very night appointed for his wedding, he is said to have fled:

“During his flight from the castle, he threw himself from his window, only to be caught by angels and lowered gently to the ground,” twelve metres below — legendary account in the Richardine Vita^[37]

The marvellous character of the episode reveals its nature: it is a hagiographic topos, meant to express the radical character of a vocation that breaks with worldly ambition. Whether or not the detail is historical, it expresses a recurring spiritual truth in the lives of the saints: God’s call takes precedence over calculations of birth and blood.

Peter’s disciple and Archdeacon of Aosta

After reaching the Aosta Valley at the foot of the great pass, Bernard studied under Peter, archdeacon of the cathedral, becoming first his disciple and then his successor.^[38] Aosta, capital of the Dora Baltea Valley, became the centre of his entire life; the Diocese of Annecy states that he “always lived there.”^[39]

Most sources describe him as a deacon rather than a priest. In the medieval Church, the archdeacon was the bishop’s principal collaborator in the temporal government and discipline of the diocese, without necessarily being ordained to the priesthood.^[40] At Aosta, his office also included a work of charity: he was “charged with distributing alms to the poor and to pilgrims.”^[41] His great work grew out of this responsibility, at once administrative and charitable.

As archdeacon, Bernard exercised a role comparable to that of a vicar general: he governed the diocese under the bishop’s authority and tirelessly visited its mountain parishes.^[42][43]

“For forty-two years he continued to preach the Gospel [...], effecting numerous conversions and working many miracles.” — Catholic Encyclopedia, “St. Bernard of Menthon”^[44]

The Alpine communities he evangelised were poor, scattered across nearly inaccessible valleys, and sometimes still marked by ancient superstitions.^[45] Bernard became the apostle of these heights, bringing the faith and a practical concern for the most exposed of all: travellers.

“He travelled through the mountain parishes, caring for travellers and pilgrims, for whom he founded two hospices on the passes that bear his name.” — Diocese of Annecy^[46]

A crossing feared throughout Christendom

The Mont-Joux Pass — from the Latin Mons Jovis, “Mount Jupiter” — was one of the main crossings of the Western Alps in the 11th century. The Via Francigena, used by pilgrims, merchants and bishops travelling from Gaul towards Rome, passed through it.^[47][48] At more than 2,400 metres, however, the pass could be deadly: snowstorms, avalanches, fog and extreme cold. According to the sources, these natural dangers were compounded by bands of robbers who preyed upon exhausted travellers. Bernard was troubled by those threatened by “the double peril of bandits and the harshness of the roads.”^[49][50][51]

Exorcising the mountain: from Mons Jovis to Mont-Joux

The pass’s very name preserves the memory of a pagan past: in Roman times, a temple dedicated to Jupiter Poeninus stood at the summit, and the mountain remained associated in the imagination with a fearsome, hostile power.^[52] Legend transformed that memory into a spiritual battle: Bernard supposedly destroyed the idol and chained the demon that terrorised the crossing — hence his iconographic attribute, the demon bound at his feet.^[53][54]

“Saint Bernard of the Alps is ordinarily represented with the demon in chains.” — Diocese of Annecy, iconography of the saint^[55]

Beyond the marvellous imagery, the episode conveys a historical and spiritual reality. By planting a Christian house at the summit of the “Mount of Jupiter”, Bernard Christianised a place burdened with sacred terror. Everything threatening in the mountain — cold, death and the ancient idol — was now confronted by prayer, hospitality and the cross. In the most literal sense, this was to exorcise the mountain.^[56]

A house of God at the summit

The work that made Bernard immortal was the foundation, around 1045–1050, of a monastery-hospice at the highest point of Mont-Joux, “for the convenience and protection of travellers.”^[57][58] A few years later he established another on the Little St Bernard Pass, the Colonne-Joux, in the Graian Alps at more than 2,100 metres.^[59][60] Both houses were placed under the patronage of Saint Nicholas of Myra, patron saint of travellers.^[61]

These hospices were not mere shelters. They were permanent religious communities dedicated to welcoming, feeding, warming and, when necessary, burying travellers caught by the mountain. In the congregation's own words, the community "has never ceased to offer refuge, aid and hospitality to those who cross the mountain"^[62].

The Canons of Saint Augustine

To ensure that these houses would be served permanently, Bernard did not merely station a few attendants there: he founded a congregation.^[63] The Canons Regular of the Great St Bernard lived at the summit under the Rule of Saint Augustine.^[64][65]

“He built the hospices of the Great and Little St Bernard and founded a congregation to serve them [...] according to the Rule of Saint Augustine.” — Nominis, French Bishops’ Conference^[66]

The congregation still exists — the hospice is still kept today by its canons^[67] — and itself presents its history as "a thousand years" old: since the 11th century, "the community has never ceased to offer refuge, aid and hospitality to those who cross the mountain"^[68]. For the detailed history of the hospice and its canons, see the Great St Bernard Hospice; this article concerns only the saint’s founding act.

The charity of the pass

The heart of Bernard’s holiness is charity embodied in danger. While other reformers of his century — Odilo of Cluny, Peter Damian and the future Gregory VII — laboured to reform the Church and monasteries, Bernard brought reform to the level of the person in peril: he saved bodies in order to save souls.^[69][70] His devotion was never abstract; it was measured in lives pulled from the snow.

He thus belonged to the great spiritual movement of his age — the same Europe that, under Odilo, promoted the Peace of God and prayed for the dead — but applied it in the most concrete way: turning the road to Rome into a path on which no pilgrim need die alone.

Missionary zeal

Bernard was also a tireless preacher. For more than forty years he evangelised the valleys, fought religious ignorance and superstition and, according to his biographers, gained great popular authority through his preaching and the miracles attributed to him.^[71][72] His reputation as a wonder-worker, like that of all medieval saints, must be read with the discernment proper to hagiography; it nevertheless expresses the mountain people’s trust in this man of God who came to them.

Old and exhausted by a lifetime of travel, Bernard made one final journey into Lombardy. Falling ill, he stopped at the monastery of Saint Lawrence outside the Walls in Novara.^[73][74] He died there on 12 June — in 1081 according to the most widely accepted chronology, 1086 according to other sources, and 1008 according to the legend.^[75][76] He was buried on 15 June, which became his principal feast day.^[77] The Annecy diocesan notice, for its part, gives 15 June as the very day of his death^[78]; and it is 15 June, the date given for his burial, that the Roman Martyrology retains^[79].

His relics, initially kept at the monastery — which was destroyed in 1552 — were transferred to Novara Cathedral, where they are still venerated; portions were also distributed among several Alpine dioceses.^[80][81]

From local veneration to Innocent XI (1681)

Bernard was venerated as a saint from the 12th century, especially in Piedmont, the Aosta Valley, Tarentaise and Maurienne.^[82][83] The Diocese of Annecy notes the age and density of this mountain cult: “27 [dedications] in the Aosta Valley, 16 in Tarentaise and 12 in Maurienne.”^[84]

But Roman recognition came only much later: Pope Innocent XI canonised Bernard in 1681^[85], thereby inscribing him in the Roman calendar.^[86] As with many saints of the early Middle Ages — such as Odilo of Cluny, canonised under an older procedure — popular devotion had preceded Roman recognition by several centuries.

Patron of the Alps and mountaineers (Pius XI, 1923)

On the occasion of the millenary then being celebrated according to the traditional chronology, Pope Pius XI — himself a keen former mountaineer who had climbed Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa before his pontificate — proclaimed Saint Bernard on 20 August 1923 as patron of the inhabitants of the Alps, mountaineers and mountain travellers.^[87][88]

“Pius XI declared Saint Bernard patron of the inhabitants of the Alps and of all mountaineers.” — after the Nominis notice^[89]

In 1993, Bishop Dubost, Bishop of the Armed Forces, further declared him patron of the Alpine troops.^[90][91] The Church thus made the humble Archdeacon of Aosta the heavenly protector of all who face the high mountains — guides, soldiers, rescuers and pilgrims.

The St Bernard dogs

Through the hospice, the saint’s name became known throughout the world as that of a dog breed. From the 17th century onwards, the Canons of the Great St Bernard bred large rescue dogs with an exceptional sense of smell to find travellers buried under snow and avalanches.^[92][93] These St Bernard dogs — of which the most famous, Barry, is said to have saved about forty people — continue the saint’s work in their own way: leaving no one to perish in the mountains. Bernard of Menthon’s name thus survives even in everyday speech.

Iconography

Art usually depicts Saint Bernard in the habit of a canon, with the chained demon at his feet — a reminder of the legend of the exorcised pass.^[94] He is sometimes accompanied by an ice axe, sign of the mountains, or a hospice dog carrying the small rescue barrel. The bound demon summarises his whole struggle: the victory of charity and faith over the powers of death that once reigned at the summit of Mons Jovis.

A common confusion must be cleared up. Saint Bernard of Menthon (c. 1020–1081), Archdeacon of Aosta and founder of the Alpine hospices, is not Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), the great Cistercian abbot, Doctor of the Church and preacher of the Second Crusade. The two saints lived in neighbouring centuries and share the same name, but they are two different men with distinct vocations and works: one is the apostle of the passes, the other the soul of Cîteaux. In the context of mountains or rescue dogs, the simple name “Saint Bernard” always refers to Bernard of Menthon.

A thousand years later, Saint Bernard remains the image of the Christian who never closes his door. Where the world sees an unknown traveller, a stranger or a lost person, he learned to see Christ passing by — “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Mt 25:35). His hospice, open day and night without asking name or religion, is a living parable of Christian charity in an age of closed doors.

He also teaches practical charity. His holiness was spent not in speeches but in stone shelters, burning fires, shared bread and bodies pulled from the snow. He reminds us that love of God is proven by works, especially where another person’s life is in danger.

Finally, he teaches the victory of faith over fear. By planting the cross at the summit of the “Mount of Jupiter”, where people once climbed only in dread, he showed that no place is too hostile, too high or too accursed for God to be served there. Mountaineers, guides, rescuers and mountain soldiers still pray to him because he is the saint of those who climb where others die.

“Patron of the Alps and of all mountaineers” — by this proclamation, the Church entrusted to a humble Archdeacon of Aosta all those who still face the high mountains today.^[111]

• The Great St Bernard Hospice — the thousand-year history of the house founded by the saint and of its canons regular.
• Saint Odilo of Cluny (960–1049) — another great 11th-century reformer and contemporary of Bernard who promoted the Peace of God and instituted the commemoration of the faithful departed.
• Saint Peter Damian (1007–1072) — hermit and reformer, a major figure of the Gregorian Reform and Bernard’s contemporary.
• Saint Gregory VII (c. 1015–1085) — pope of the great reform and an exact contemporary of the Archdeacon of Aosta.
• Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) — the other great “Saint Bernard”, a Cistercian abbot and Doctor of the Church, not to be confused with Bernard of Menthon.
• Benedictine monasticism — the great monastic tradition of the medieval West, alongside the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine.