Bernard of Cluny

Bernard of Cluny (or, of Morlaix or Morlay) was a twelfth-century French Benedictine monk, best known as the author of De contemptu mundi (On Contempt for the World), a long verse satire in Latin.

Bernard's family of origin and place of birth are not known for certain. Some medieval sources list Morlaàs in Béarn, as his birthplace. However, in some records from that period he is called Morlanensis, which would indicate that he was a native of Morlaix in Brittany. A writer in the Journal of Theological Studies (1907), Volume 8, pages 394-399, contended that he belonged to the family of the seigneurs of Montpellier in Languedoc, and was born at Murles. It is believed that he was at first a monk of Saint-Sauveur d'Aniane and that he entered the monastery of Cluny during the administration of Abbot Pons (1109–1122).

Bernard is best known as the author of De contemptu mundi (On Contempt for the World), a 3,000 verse poem of stinging satire directed against the secular and religious failings he observed in the world around him. He spares no one; priests, nuns, bishops, monks, and even Rome itself are mercilessly scourged for their shortcomings. For this reason it was first printed by Matthias Flacius in Varia poemata de corrupto ecclesiae statu (Basle, 1557) as one of his testes veritatis, or witnesses of the deep-seated corruption of medieval society and of the Church, and was often reprinted by Protestants in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Bernard of Cluny also wrote the twelfth century hymn "Omni die dic Mariae" (Daily, daily sing to Mary). Several of Bernard's sermons and a theological treatise, Dialogue (Colloquium) on the Trinity are extant, as is a c. 1140 poem which he dedicated to the monastery's abbot Peter the Venerable (1122–1156).