Saint Norbert is one of the great reformers of the 12th century, that "century of saints" in which the Christian West covered itself with new orders. A great Rhenish lord, a wealthy canon, chaplain to Emperor Henry V, he first led a worldly and brilliant life — until the day when, around 1115, lightning struck him down on a road and woke him like a new Saint Paul. From that shock came a radical conversion: he sold his goods, became an itinerant preacher, walked barefoot through the Rhineland and northern France, then founded, in the deserted valley of Prémontré, the order of the Canons Regular of Prémontré — the Norbertines, or "White Canons".[1][2]
His spirituality rests on three traits: a burning love of the Eucharist, which he placed at the heart of his whole mission; a Marian devotion of which the white habit of his sons is the sign; and an uncompromising zeal for the liberty and purity of the Church — the libertas Ecclesiae which he would later defend as Archbishop of Magdeburg, at the cost of repeated attempts on his life. Counsellor to Emperor Lothair, ally of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, he played a decisive part in securing recognition for the legitimate Pope Innocent II during the schism of 1130.[3][4]
"Turn away from evil and do good." — Psalm 36 (37), 27, the words which tradition places at the heart of Norbert's conversion on the road to Vreden[5]
This article traces Norbert's life — the great lord, the convert, the preacher, the founder, the archbishop — then his spirituality (Eucharist, Marian habit, apostolic poverty, liberty of the Church), and finally his death, his relics and his canonization. It does not retell the full history of the Order of Prémontré, nor the biography of his contemporaries Bernard of Clairvaux and Pope Honorius II.
A great lord of the age (c. 1080-1115)
Birth at Xanten, into the high Rhenish nobility
Norbert was born around 1080 at Xanten, on the Rhine near Wesel, into a family of the high aristocracy of the Rhineland. The medieval Lives and tradition connect him with Count Heribert of Gennep and say he was related to the imperial house of the Salians and to the house of Lorraine.[6][7] A third son, destined for the Church according to custom, he received minor orders, became subdeacon and obtained a canonry at the collegiate church of Saint Victor in Xanten — a comfortable office, with income attached, which hardly obliged him to holiness.
For him at that time it was a matter neither of vocation nor of asceticism, but of a career. Handsome, cultured, rich, Norbert belonged to that lordly higher clergy denounced by the reformers of the 11th and 12th centuries: clerics who accumulated benefices, lived as great lords and did not even get themselves ordained priests, so as not to bind themselves.[8][9]
Chaplain at the court of Emperor Henry V
The young canon entered the service of the mighty: he became chaplain (capellanus) in the chapel of Emperor Henry V, whom he accompanied on his travels and even into Italy.[10][11] The imperial court, at the time of the Investiture Controversy, was a world of power, intrigue and luxury. Norbert shone there, prospered there, and acquired there the habit of honours.
The contrast with the penitent he would become made his conversion all the more striking in the eyes of his contemporaries: it was an accomplished man of the world, and not a poor man or a cloistered monk, whom grace came to seize.
Refusing the bishopric of Cambrai
His success was such that episcopal dignities were offered to him. According to hagiographic tradition, Norbert refused the bishopric of Cambrai — not yet out of humility, but because his court life suited him.[12] That refusal, which might have been an act of detachment, was at that moment only the sign of a man satisfied with his lot. God would expect something other than worldly calculation from him.
The conversion (c. 1115)
The lightning flash on the road to Vreden
Around 1115, Norbert was riding towards Vreden (in Westphalia) when a violent storm broke out. The Lives report that a thunderbolt struck at his horse's feet; the terrified beast unhorsed him, and he lay for nearly an hour stretched on the ground as though dead.[13][14] The episode, immediately read as a new road to Damascus, became the central motif of his iconography: Norbert struck down, in the image of Saint Paul thrown from his horse.
"A thunderbolt fell at his horse's feet; the frightened animal threw its rider, and for nearly an hour he lay stretched out as though dead." — Catholic Encyclopedia, art. "St. Norbert"[15]
"Turn away from evil": the inward awakening
Coming to himself, Norbert heard in his heart the words of the psalm: "Turn away from evil and do good" (Ps 36/37, 27).[16] The great lord understood that he had lived for himself and not for God. He then broke with his former life: he left the court, withdrew, gave himself to prayer, fasting and mortification, and began to preach against worldliness — first to his own brother canons of Xanten.[17][18]
This turning was total. The man who had refused Cambrai out of comfort would soon renounce all his benefices out of love for evangelical poverty. Norbert's conversion was no passing softening of heart: it was a revolution of his whole existence, like that of the Desert Fathers or of Saint Francis a century later.
Ordination at Cologne and retreat at Siegburg
Resolved to give himself entirely, Norbert had himself ordained priest by the Archbishop of Cologne.[19] Already subdeacon of Xanten, he then received, by dispensation, the diaconate and the priesthood on the same day (in December 1115), and celebrated his first Mass dressed not in silk but in a humble habit.[20] He withdrew for a time to the Benedictine abbey of Siegburg, a home of the reform, to learn the interior life there under Abbot Cuno.[21] The courtier made himself a disciple; the master of the world put himself to the school of the cloister.
The itinerant preacher (1118-1120)
Selling everything, walking barefoot
His conversion matured, Norbert took a radical decision: he sold all his goods and lands, distributed the proceeds to the poor, and set out on the roads as an itinerant preacher, barefoot, dressed in a rough woollen habit, after the manner of the apostles.[22][23] He travelled through the Rhineland, the Low Countries and northern France, preaching penance, peace and the reform of morals, in a Europe still wounded by baronial wars.
The authorization of Gelasius II at Saint-Gilles (1118)
To preach everywhere without a mandate exposed a cleric to suspicion. To place his mission under the authority of the Church, Norbert joined Pope Gelasius II at Saint-Gilles, in Provence, in 1118, and obtained from him the faculty to preach wherever he should see fit.[24][25] This concern to submit himself to Rome before acting was, from the beginning, a mark of Norbert: his reforming zeal was never separated from obedience to the Church. That is what distinguished him from the suspect or heretical wandering preachers of his time.
The council of Fritzlar: the "innovator" challenged
This novelty did not go unopposed. At the council of Fritzlar (1118), his adversaries — clerics shocked by his ostentatious poverty and his biting preaching — accused him of being a presumptuous innovator.[26][27] Norbert answered not with display but with self-stripping: he renounced all his remaining ecclesiastical offices and confirmed his choice of poverty. The "innovator" of Fritzlar would become, two years later, the founder of one of the greatest orders in Christendom.
Prémontré and the birth of the order (1120-1126)
The valley shaped like a cross
In 1119, at the council of Reims presided over by Pope Callistus II, the Bishop of Laon, Bartholomew of Jur, invited Norbert to found a community in his diocese.[28][29] The saint chose a deserted, marshy and lonely place, in the forest of Coucy, a valley which tradition says was shaped like a cross: Prémontré (Praemonstratum, "the place shown in advance").[30] There, in a small chapel dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, he is said to have had a vision of Christ on the cross revealing to him that this desert would become a great monastery.[31]
Christmas 1121: the profession of the first brethren
Norbert received the site around 1120 and gathered disciples there. On Christmas night 1121, some forty companions made their religious profession: this is the birth certificate of the Order of Prémontré.[32][33] Among the first were Hugh of Fosses, who would be the true organizer of the order and its first abbot general, and Evermode, a future bishop. Women also joined the movement, and as early as 1122 Norbert instituted a third order for lay people, which counted among its members Theobald, Count of Champagne.[34]
The white habit and the Rule of Saint Augustine
Norbert founded not monks but canons regular: priests living in community according to the Rule of Saint Augustine, uniting the contemplative life of the cloister with the apostolic ministry (preaching, care of souls, service of parishes).[35][36] To Augustinian rigour he added austere customs inspired by Cîteaux — fasts, silence, poverty, long liturgical prayer.[37]
The most visible trait is the white habit, of undyed wool, which earned the Premonstratensians the nickname of "White Canons". Tradition reports that the Virgin Mary herself is said to have shown Norbert this white habit, "like that of the angels who announced the Resurrection" on Easter morning.[38] The white speaks at once of poverty (undyed wool) and of paschal purity: a whole spiritual programme sewn into the garment.
"The habit shall be white, like that of the angels who, on Easter morning, announced the risen Christ." — Premonstratensian tradition on the white habit shown to Norbert[39]
The pontifical confirmation (Honorius II, 1126)
The order, organized by Hugh of Fosses, received pontifical confirmation from Pope Honorius II in February 1126.[40] Recognized by Rome, Prémontré spread with lightning speed: within a few decades, hundreds of abbeys sprang up throughout the West, from Spain to Hungary, from England to the Holy Land. For the full history of this expansion, see the article on the Order of Prémontré.
| Stage | Date | Place |
|---|---|---|
| Invitation of the Bishop of Laon | Council of Reims, 1119 | Reims |
| Choice of the valley of Prémontré | around 1120 | Forest of Coucy (Laon) |
| Profession of the first brethren | Christmas night 1121 | Prémontré |
| Institution of the third order | 1122 | Prémontré |
| Pontifical confirmation | February 1126 | by Honorius II |
The spirituality of Saint Norbert
The Eucharist, heart of the mission
Norbert's first fire is the Eucharist. The sources stress his ardent devotion to the Blessed Sacrament: he regarded the sacrifice of the Mass as the very heart of his mission.[41] This Eucharistic centrality would become a mark of the Premonstratensian order, devoted to the solemnity of the liturgy and, later, to adoration. Norbert is invoked today as an apostle of the Eucharist.
According to the Vatican notice, his devotion to the Eucharist was so deep that it made the sacrifice of the Mass the very heart of his mission (paraphrase).[42]
Tanchelm and the "Apostle of Antwerp"
This love of the Eucharist became combat when Norbert confronted at Antwerp, in 1124, the remaining disciples of Tanchelm: Tanchelm himself — an exalted preacher who denied the value of the sacraments and in particular the Real Presence in the Eucharist — had been killed as early as 1115, but his supporters perpetuated his error and were still having the Sacred Species profaned.[43][44][45] Invited by Bishop Burchard of Cambrai, Norbert preached, refuted the error, brought the people back to the Catholic faith and restored the worship of the Blessed Sacrament, then founded the abbey of Saint Michael in Antwerp, entrusted to its first abbot Waltman.[46][47] For this victory, tradition gives him the title of "Apostle of Antwerp".[48] His iconography often shows him holding a monstrance and trampling the heretic underfoot: Eucharistic truth crushing falsehood.
Marian devotion and the angelic habit
The second fire is Marian. From the beginning, Norbert placed his new-born order not under the strength of men alone but under the protection of the Virgin Mary, Queen of Angels, model of obedience.[49] The white habit, which tradition traces back to an apparition of Mary, seals this bond: the Premonstratensians aspire to be sons of the Virgin, clothed in the paschal whiteness of the angels. This practical Mariology — Mary as patroness, model and protectress — anticipates the great currents of Marian devotion of the Middle Ages which Saint Bernard would also carry.
The liberty of the Church (libertas Ecclesiae)
The third fire is reform. Like Thomas Becket and Bernard, Norbert belongs to the generation which defended the liberty of the Church (libertas Ecclesiae) against abuses of power and the corruption of the clergy. An emperor's chaplain turned poor man, he knows from within what he fights. Having become archbishop, he would always fight for the liberty and the rights of the Church, in fidelity and obedience to the Pope (according to the Vatican notice, paraphrase).[50] This zeal, faithful to Rome and not revolted against her, is exactly what the Church would canonize.
Apostolic poverty and common life
Finally, Norbert's whole spirituality is carried by apostolic poverty and common life. He did not content himself with preaching reform: he lived it, having sold everything and given everything away. The ideal he handed on to his sons — vita apostolica, the common life of clerics in imitation of the Apostles of Jerusalem (Acts 4:32) — lies at the heart of the great canonical renewal of the 12th century.[51] To preach only after having first practised: that is the coherence which gave his word its authority.
Archbishop of Magdeburg (1126-1134)
An unexpected appointment
In 1126, while accompanying Emperor Lothair to the diet of Speyer, Norbert was, against all expectation, designated Archbishop of Magdeburg and Primate of Germany.[52][53] The former court chaplain, turned poor preacher, found himself at the head of one of the greatest sees of the Empire. Legend has it that on his arrival, barefoot and miserably clad, the porter of the archbishop's palace did not recognize him and refused him entry.
Reforming a hostile clergy: the attempts on his life
Norbert immediately set about reforming his diocese: restoring the discipline of the clergy, recovering alienated Church property, imposing common life and poverty. This intransigence earned him bitter enemies: he escaped several assassination attempts and even had, for a time, to leave the city in the face of revolt.[54][55] Like Becket in England, Norbert learned that defending the liberty of the Church against established interests can cost one's life.
The schism of 1130: defending the legitimate pope
The summit of his public action was the schism of 1130. On the death of Honorius II, a double election set Innocent II against the antipope Anacletus II (Peter of Leon, Pierleoni). The Church was divided. Norbert firmly sided with Innocent II, the legitimate pope, and used all his credit to rally Emperor Lothair and Germany to his cause.[56][57] With Bernard of Clairvaux, he even tried — in vain — to persuade Anacletus to stand down. The two saints were, each in his own way, the great architects of Innocent II's victory.
"In the schism of 1130, Norbert supported Innocent II's claim to the papacy and helped persuade the emperor to adhere to Innocent's cause." — Encyclopædia Britannica, art. "Saint Norbert of Xanten"[58]
Counsellor to Lothair, the journey to Rome (1133)
Having become counsellor and almost chancellor to Emperor Lothair, Norbert persuaded him to lead an army to Rome in 1132-1133 to restore Innocent II there.[59] The expedition succeeded: Innocent was reinstated, Lothair crowned emperor (1133). But Norbert returned from Rome exhausted and undermined by fever (malaria, says tradition) contracted during that mission.[60] The poor preacher had ended by serving the Church even in the high politics of Christendom — without ever ceasing to be a man of God.
Death, cult and canonization
Death at Magdeburg (6 June 1134)
Back at Magdeburg, exhausted, Norbert died on 6 June 1134, the Wednesday after Pentecost.[61][62] At once there broke out a dispute revealing his reputation for holiness: the canons of the cathedral and the Premonstratensian abbey of Saint Mary quarrelled over his body. It was Emperor Lothair who decided, awarding the remains to the abbey of Saint Mary at Magdeburg, a house of his own sons.[63]
The relics: from Magdeburg to Strahov (1627)
The fate of the relics follows the dramas of German history. After the Protestant Reformation, Magdeburg became Lutheran and Norbert's tomb found itself in land now foreign to his faith. In the midst of the Thirty Years' War, on 2 May 1627, his relics were solemnly transferred to the Premonstratensian abbey of Strahov, at Prague, where they still rest.[64][65] Saint Norbert was then proclaimed patron and protector of Bohemia.
The canonization (Gregory XIII, 1582)
Norbert's cult, lively from his death within the order he had founded, was officially consecrated only late: he was canonized on 28 July 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII.[66][67] His cult was then extended to the whole Church by Pope Clement X in the 17th century.[68] His feast is fixed on 6 June, the day of his death. As a sign of his stature, a statue of Saint Norbert stands among the founders of orders on the colonnade of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.
Patronage and legacy
Beyond the still-living order he founded, Norbert leaves an exemplary figure: that of the total convert, of the reformer faithful to Rome, of the apostle of the Eucharist. He is invoked as patron of Bohemia, of Magdeburg, of the Premonstratensians, and for happy childbirths. His life sums up a whole spiritual programme: to let oneself be seized by God even to the point of leaving everything, then to give everything back to the Church.
The Vatican notice sums him up thus: as archbishop, he always fought for the liberty and the rights of the Church, in fidelity and obedience to the Pope (paraphrase).[69]
To go further
- Medieval sources: the two contemporary Lives, the Vita Norberti A and the Vita Norberti B (Vita Norberti archiepiscopi Magdeburgensis), composed shortly after his death in Premonstratensian circles and edited in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores XII (ed. Roger Wilmans, Hanover, 1856).[70]
- Historical studies: Bernard Ardura, Prémontré. Histoire et spiritualité (University of Saint-Étienne, 1995); François Petit, La spiritualité des Prémontrés aux XIIᵉ et XIIIᵉ siècles (Vrin, 1947); Charles Dereine, studies on the canons regular and the ordo monasterii; Catholic Encyclopedia, art. "St. Norbert" (New Advent).
- Related articles on Ignispedia: the Order of Prémontré (the Norbertines, their rule and their expansion); Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Norbert's ally during the schism of 1130; Pope Honorius II, who confirmed the order in 1126; Saint Thomas Becket, another champion of libertas Ecclesiae.
Notes and References
Catholic Encyclopedia, art. "St. Norbert", New Advent (newadvent.org/cathen/11100b.htm): the standard Catholic notice on his birth around 1080 at Xanten, the comital family of Gennep linked to the imperial house, the chaplaincy to Henry V, the refusal of Cambrai, the conversion on the road to Vreden, the ordination at Cologne, the council of Fritzlar, the authorization of Gelasius II, the foundation of Prémontré, the combat against Tanchelm at Antwerp ("Apostle of Antwerp"), the bishopric of Magdeburg (1126), the schism of 1130, death on 6 June 1134, canonization by Gregory XIII (1582) and the translation of the relics to Strahov (1627).
1 7 8 10 12 14 19 23 24 28 30 34 43 46 48 52 61 64 66 68Encyclopædia Britannica, art. "Saint Norbert of Xanten": summary on the foundation of the Order of Prémontré, the bishopric of Magdeburg (1126), the part played in the schism of 1130 in favour of Innocent II, death in 1134, canonization in 1582 and the feast of 6 June.
2 29 33 35 37 57 67Vatican notice, Saint of the Day — June 6: Saint Norbert of Xanten, Bishop and Founder of the Canons Regular of the Norbertines, vaticanstate.va: official account of the conversion (fall from his horse at about 35, the words "Turn away from evil and do good"), of the foundation of Prémontré (1121, vision of Christ on the cross, habit of undyed wool), of the Eucharistic devotion ("the sacrifice of the Mass as the heart of the mission"), of the Marian protection of the order, of the bishopric of Magdeburg (1126), of the support for Innocent II against the antipope Anacletus, of death on 6 June 1134 and of the translation of the relics to Strahov in 1627.
3 17 31 32 41 49 50 55 60 62 65New Catholic Encyclopedia / Encyclopedia.com, art. "Norbert of Xanten, St.": material on the court career, the refusal of Cambrai, the retreat at Siegburg, the itinerant preaching, the bishopric of Magdeburg, the assassination attempts, the alliance with Bernard of Clairvaux and Emperor Lothair during the schism of 1130, the journey to Rome (1132-1133) and death in 1134.
4 9 11 18 21 25 26 44 53 54 56 59 63Psalm 36 (37), 27: "Turn away from evil and do good" (Declina a malo et fac bonum, Vulgate). Hagiographic tradition and the Vatican notice attach these words to the moment of Norbert's conversion. Text: Jerusalem Bible / Vulgate (Hebrew numbering Ps 37; Graeco-Latin numbering Ps 36).
5 16Vita Norberti archiepiscopi Magdeburgensis (Vita A and Vita B), primary sources composed shortly after 1134 in Premonstratensian circles, edited by Roger Wilmans in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores (in folio), vol. XII, Hanover, 1856, pp. 663-706. These two Lives are the basis of all biography of Norbert: noble youth, conversion by lightning, preaching, foundation of Prémontré, bishopric of Magdeburg.
6 13 22 27 70Translation of the passage from the Catholic Encyclopedia, art. "St. Norbert" (New Advent, https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11100b.htm): "A thunderbolt fell at his horse's feet; the frightened animal threw its rider, and for nearly an hour he lay like one dead." The episode takes up the account of the Vita Norberti (Vita Norberti archiepiscopi Magdeburgensis, Vita A and B, ed. Roger Wilmans, MGH Scriptores XII, Hanover, 1856, pp. 663-706).
15Butler, Lives of the Saints, 6 June, St Norbert (repr. Bartleby.com): Norbert "received [the priesthood] from the hands of the archbishop of Cologne, together with the order of deacon, his fervour seeming a sufficient cause for such a dispensation"; notice of the Order of Prémontré, "St. Norbert (June 6)" (https://premontre.org/saints_and_blesseds/st-norbert-june-6/): "in December 1115, he was ordained deacon and priest on the same day". Norbert was already subdeacon of Xanten before his conversion (Catholic Encyclopedia, art. cited: "Ordained subdeacon, Norbert was appointed to a canonry at Xanten").
20François Petit, La spiritualité des Prémontrés aux XIIᵉ et XIIIᵉ siècles, Vrin, Paris, 1947; and Bernard Ardura, Prémontré. Histoire et spiritualité, Publications of the University of Saint-Étienne, 1995: reference studies on Norbert's canonical ideal — vita apostolica, the common life of clerics according to the Rule of Saint Augustine, the union of contemplation and ministry, austerities of Cistercian inspiration.
36 51Premonstratensian tradition on the white habit: according to several hagiographic accounts, the Virgin Mary is said to have shown Norbert the white habit his canons would wear, "like that of the angels" who announced the Resurrection on Easter morning. The undyed wool expresses both poverty and paschal purity. Cf. Vatican notice, art. cited, and the tradition of the "White Canons".
38 39Pontifical confirmation of the Order of Prémontré by Pope Honorius II in February 1126: Catholic Encyclopedia, art. "St. Norbert" (New Advent, https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11100b.htm): "The Bull of Confirmation is dated 27 February, 1126"; cf. art. "Pope Honorius II" (https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07456a.htm): approval of the order on 26 February 1126. The Ignispedia article on Honorius II further details this confirmation.
40Vatican notice, art. cited (paraphrase in English in the body; the exact text of the notice not having been pinned to an exact URL, the direct quotation was replaced by a paraphrase presented as such). Point taken up by Premonstratensian sources stressing the Eucharistic centrality of the order.
42Tanchelm, an itinerant preacher active in northern France and Flanders, was killed by a priest in 1115: Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. V, ch. 10 ("killed by a priest, 1115"; "Norbert himself preached in the Netherlands, 1124"); Encyclopedia.com, art. "Tanchelm": it was Tanchelm's creeping heresy which led Bishop Burchard of Cambrai to invite Norbert to Antwerp in 1124, where Norbert's preaching and the foundation of Saint Michael renewed devotion to the Eucharist.
45Butler, Lives of the Saints, 6 June, St Norbert (repr. Bartleby.com): the Bishop of Cambrai confirmed in 1124 the donation of Saint Michael to the saint; notice of the Order of Prémontré, "St. Norbert (June 6)" (https://premontre.org/saints_and_blesseds/st-norbert-june-6/): "At the request of Burchard of Cambray, Norbert went to Antwerp to preach against Tanchelm. There he founded the abbey of St. Michael."
47Encyclopædia Britannica, art. "Saint Norbert of Xanten": "In the schism of 1130, Norbert supported Innocent II's claim to the papacy and helped persuade the emperor to adhere to Innocent's cause". Britannica also notes that, with Bernard of Clairvaux, Norbert tried in vain to win Anacletus over by persuasion, and that he accompanied Lothair's expedition to Italy (1132-1133).
58Vatican notice, art. cited (paraphrase in English in the body; the exact text of the notice not having been pinned to an exact URL, the direct quotation was replaced by a paraphrase presented as such).
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