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The Chronicle and Historical Notes of Bernard Itier

The Chronicle and Historical Notes of Bernard ItierThe Chronicle and Historical Notes of Bernard Itier

Edited and translated by Andrew W. Lewis

Clarendon Press, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-19-954643-5

The only complete text of Bernard’s chronicle ever published, in Latin and in English translation, and the fullest edition of his historical notes from other manuscripts which complement the chronicle. An unpolished, unrevised, highly revealing primary source of the author and his milieu.

Born in 1163 in the French town of Limoges, Bernard Itier was sent by his father Peter to enter the monastery of Saint-Martial. By the year 1177 he became a monk, and by the age of 26 he was ordained a priest. He served in various positions in the abbey, but found his true calling when he was named assistant librarian in 1195. In 1204, he was promoted to head librarian, a position that he would hold until of his death on January 27, 1225

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He would be a prolific writer, working on many different documents, often writing little notes in the margins of his manuscripts. Andrew Lewis explains, “he usually wrote where he happened to find empty space on the pages. In some instances, for notes which he knew would be long, he chose manuscripts of large format, whereas short notes he might add in volumes of any size. Very often, no principle of organization is apparent…The lack of order is such that it seems likely that Bernard himself was the only person who could have known where most of these notes were to be found.”

He seems to be the first person from this abbey to write a chronicle, which runs from the days of Adam and Eve to his own. As he puts in entries for year after year his choice of what to include was very personal, including events from his personal life and what he found interesting.

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For example, in the year 1205 he writes:

A certain townsmen of the civitas of Limoges was named Peter Vitalis. One night, he threw his two sons from the bridge into the Vienne and threw himself in after them. Why he did this is as yet entirely unknown. In the castrum of Limoges a certain very rich man of advanced age who, although he had a wife, very often committed whoredom with a poor epileptic woman, finally died of a sudden death while next to her. He was named John deu Peirat the younger.

In the year 1210 he notes:

…we heard rumours from the abbots returning from the Cistercian chapter meeting that the lord pope had excommunicated the Emperor Otto in his own person and that the English kingdom lay under such anathema that even the Cistercian order did not celebrate divine offices in it. In addition, deceased bishops lay unburied.

The following year Bernard explains:

…we began to observe the Annunciation of the Blessed Mary more solemnly, that is, with a double responsory, and Raymond Gaucelm, who had recently been ordained a priest, celebrated the mass of the feast day. The offering was worth thirty libre. The taps of the fountain were remade; the cost was seventy solidi. Shoes were distributed to the brothers in the chapter; this custom had been allowed to lapse for twenty-four years…In the civitas of Limoges there was a certain woman of unsound mind. If anyone struck her hand, she would become crazy. it happened by chance that a certain man struck her, and she went insane, with the result that, setting fire to the straw in her house and getting into bed, she burned the house and herself, along with two other houses, in the month of August.

On 30 October, a Sunday, which dawned more brightly than usual, B[ernard], the head librarian, with respect and joyfully displayed the Apostle’s head to the entire populace of Limoges. On the next day we discovered thirteen and a half marks of gold and an equal amount of silver in the old reliquary. This year the hospital of the poor at Saint-Martial was completed. The cost wa 5,000 solidi. Lucy of Saint-Hiliare began that.

It happened this year in my father’s house that the two wives of my brothers, Elias and Audier, within fourteen days of each had  and gave birth to two sons at the same time. But Elias’ sons died after baptism in that house. The other two lived.

You can learn more about The Chronicle and Historical Notes of Bernard Itier from Oxford University Press

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