Peter Abelard’s Letter 10 to St. Bernard of Clairvaux

 

Peter Abelard’s Letter 10 to St. Bernard of Clairvaux

One of the most famous conflicts in the history of the medieval Church is that between Peter Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux, in fact a much larger conflict than just these two personalities, a conflict between the monastic tradition and the emerging scholasticism of the universities. What is perhaps less well known is their disagreement over the hymns of the Office. Indeed the only extant letter of Abelard to Bernard concerns this very matter.  This letter is one of the most important sources for the history of the Cistercian hymnology. Fr. Chrysogonus Waddell, OSCO in a long article, The Twelfth Century Cistercian Hymnal, summarizes Abelard’s letter 10:

He wrote it in something of a fit of pique. Bernard had paid a visit to the Paraclete (sometime probably around 1132) during one of Abelard’s absences for business affairs, and Bernard's reception, to hear Abelard tell it, had been nothing if not enthusiastic. Bernard, Heloise informed Abelard, had spoken more like an angel than a mere mortal. But like all mortals, even Bernard was capable of an occasional inopportune remark. Bernard could not have been more discreet in what he said. It was something said in confidence (intimavit) and privately (secreto) , Bernard had admitted to being somewhat taken aback when he heard, in the Lord s Prayer sung at Lauds and Vespers, the words "supersubstantial bread" substituted for the traditional "daily bread". Abelard's response in justification of this version of the text for which he stood responsible was the lengthy apologia contained in letter 10.

He begins calmly enough; but gradually he works himself up into quite a lather. By the time he arrives at his final paragraphs he is ringing the changes on the injustice of Bernard's deeming Abelard's liturgical initiative somewhat novel. '!he pot is calling the kettle black. Innovator? Novelty-monger? Let Bernard and the Cistercians consider themselves and their own novel liturgical practices -- practices not only novel, but absurd, really absurd. In his list of solemn nonsense perpetrated by the White Monks in the name of liturgical authenticity, he touches and even dwells on the bizarre Cistercian hymnal. He makes these explicit points with regard to Cistercian hymn-practice:

1- "You have rejected the customary hymns ••• " And we know, from the preceding pages of our discussion, how very true this was. The R I hymnal (first revised Cistercian hymnal) does reject, apart from a few hymns from the daily ordinary, the temporal  cycle and the common, almost all the staple hymn tunes and texts found in the average monastic hymnary of the period.

2- " ••• and you have introduced certain hymns we never heard before, hymns unknown to practically all the churches ••• " Abelard may be angry, but this is simply a statement of fact. 'The  Cistercians had done exactly what Abelard says they had done.

3- ••• and insufficient.”   Here the term refers to the extreme limitations of the R I hymnary, which, as Abelard implies, does not suffice to cover the needs of the liturgical cycle of feasts and fasts. And how right he is.  Where the Advent hymns? Hymns for Lent? Why is there no more than a single proper hymn available for a given feast? Particularly incongruous, by way of example, is the Vigils hymn, which Abelard singles out for more detailed comment:

4- " •.. And so it is that, at Vigils throughout the entire year, on ferial days as well as feast days, you content yourselves with one and the same hymn, even though  the Church makes use of hymns according to the diversity of ferias and feasts, even as she does in the case of the psalms and all the other things recognized as being proper to them (i.e., the ferias and feasts) -- which even manifest reason demands. 'This is why those who hear you for ever singing one and the same hymn, Aeterne rerum  eonditor, on Christmas.  on Easter,  on Pentecost and on all the other solemnities, are caught up short, astonished in utter amazement, and moved not so much by wonder as by derision ••• "

Having to chant the same Vigils hymn every day must have been a problem for many a Cistercian, too; but it was part of the logic consequent to their adoption of the Milanese hymnal. The Milanese (1) hymnal  assigns one and the same hymn to Vigils, just as it assigns one and the same hymn to Prime, to Sext, to None. But, complains, Abelard, if proper psalms, proper antiphons, proper responsories, and proper everything else are provided for particular celebrations with a proper character, why refuse to admit proper hymns? Here our dialectician exaggerates a bit. For the Cistercians did not reject proper hymns. Indeed, they used every proper hymn they could find in their Milanese hymnary -- apart from those for saints who had no place in the Cistercian kalendar. '!he problem was not their rejection of proper hymns, but the paucity of proper hymns at their disposal.

1. The Cistercians used the Milanese hymns because of St. Benedict's reference to 'ambrosian' hymns in the Office.