Saint Alberic of Cîteaux

Nothing is known of his birth or his early years, says Balduino Bedini, who wrote his life for santiebeati.it. ⁶ As a young man he put himself under Robert, then the head of a group of hermits at Colan, near Tonnerre. ⁶ When that place proved too small for a community, Robert, Alberic and the others moved in 1075 to Molesme, in the diocese of Langres, where Robert was abbot and Alberic prior. ⁶

Molesme grew rich on gifts, and its discipline went with its poverty. ⁶ Marie Gildas, writing on Robert in the Catholic Encyclopedia, says the abbot met such resistance that he gave up and "left the care of his community to his prior, Alberic, who retired in 1093," and that the following year Alberic came back to Molesme with Robert. ⁹ Bedini says that in Robert's absence Alberic, with the English monk Stephen Harding beside him, tried to restore the discipline himself and was met with insults and even prison. ⁶ The Exordium Parvum, the early Cistercian account of the founding, says the same in a line: he "had to endure many insults, imprisonment, and stripes" so that the brethren could leave for Cîteaux. ¹

Robert went with six of his monks, Alberic and Stephen among them, to Hugh, archbishop of Lyons and legate of the Holy See, who authorized a reform. ³ The legate's letter, which the Exordium copies, names those who came to him: "Abbot Robert, and also Brothers Alberic, Odo, John, Stephen, Letald, and Peter." ¹ Twenty-one monks in all left Molesme for Cîteaux, in the diocese of Chalon, a place the Exordium says was "inhabited only by wild beasts." ¹³

They began to build on the feast of Saint Benedict, March 21, 1098, which that year fell on Palm Sunday. ³ Odo, Duke of Burgundy, finished the wooden monastery at his own expense. ¹ The Exordium explains why they had come: they had promised by solemn profession to keep the Rule of Saint Benedict and, at Molesme, had not kept it. ¹

The monks left at Molesme asked Pope Urban II to send them back their abbot, and after governing Cîteaux for a year Robert went. ³ Huddleston dates his recall to 1099. ⁵ The community then elected Alberic. The Exordium describes him as "a learned man, that is to say, well versed in things divine and human, a lover of the Rule and of the brethren," who had long been prior both at Molesme and at Cîteaux. ¹ He accepted, it says, "albeit with much resistance." ¹ Bedini says he could not escape the unanimous vote of his companions. ⁶ Stephen Harding became his prior. ⁵

He saw trouble coming. The Exordium says he sent two monks, John and Ilbodus, to Rome to ask Pope Paschal II that their church might "sit beneath the wings of apostolic protection." ¹ They carried letters from Archbishop Hugh, from two cardinals and from Walter, bishop of Chalon, and brought back a privilege addressed "to the venerable Alberic, abbot of the New Monastery in the diocese of Chalon." ¹ Gildas dates it at Troia in Campania on April 18, 1100; Bedini gives October 15, 1100. ³⁶

From that day, Gildas writes, "Alberic and his religious established at Cîteaux the exact observance of the Rule of St. Benedict." ³ His article on the abbey says it was Alberic "who gave the monks the white habit and placed the monastery immediately under the protection of the Holy See." ⁴ The Dallas abbey says that under him the small community grew, built its first church, and began setting down the practical details of its way of life. ⁷

The Exordium records the statutes "that abbot and his brethren" made in those years. ¹ They gave up whatever went against the Rule: furs, linen shirts, hoods and drawers, combs, coverlets and mattresses, a variety of dishes, and lard. ¹ Finding no mention in the Rule or in the life of Saint Benedict that he had owned churches and altars, tithes, ovens and mills, or manors and serfs, they gave all those up too. ¹

Then, the Exordium says, "the new soldiers of Christ, poor with the poor Christ," had to work out how they would live and how they would receive the guests the Rule told them to welcome as Christ. ¹ They decided to take bearded lay brothers, with their bishop's permission, and to treat them as themselves in life and death, though not as monks; to accept land far from settlements; and to found new houses as Benedict had, with twelve monks and an abbot. ¹ Gildas says the lay brothers were taken on to carry the manual labor and the business of the house, "the better to observe the rule in regard to the Divine Office day and night." ³

Few came to join them. The Exordium says it caused "some little dejection" to Alberic and his monks, because those who heard of their harsh life "hastened less to approach them than to distance themselves." ¹

Bedini says Alberic was deeply devoted to the Virgin Mary and dedicated his monastery to her, and that the Cistercians' devotion to Mary began in the order with him. ⁶ He says it was after a vision that Alberic changed his monks' habit from black to white. ⁶

The Exordium gives his death in one sentence: he went to the Lord after "nine and a half years" in the school of Christ, "glorious in faith and virtues." ¹ Gildas gives the year as 1109 and Huddleston as 1110; Bedini says he died on January 26, 1108, worn out by penance, work and night prayer, his face lighting up at the invocation of Holy Mary in the litany of the saints. ³⁵⁶ Stephen Harding, elected after him while away from the monastery, was later buried in Alberic's tomb in the cloister of Cîteaux. ⁵

Bedini says that the Cistercian breviary, slow to admit saints' feasts, took his in late, though he was called a saint from the time of his death by everyone who wrote on Cîteaux's beginnings. ⁶

None of the sources consulted for this page names a patronage for Saint Alberic, and none is given here. ³⁶⁷ He is honored as one of the founders of the Cistercians. ⁷⁸

Saint Alberic's feast is January 26. The current Roman Martyrology lists him on that day. ² Bedini says it is also the day he died, and that the Cistercian Menology of Henriquez praised him at length under January 26. ⁶ The Cistercians keep a single solemnity of the founders of Cîteaux, Robert, Alberic and Stephen, on January 26, as the Dallas abbey and New Melleray Abbey both print it. ⁷⁸

He was second in charge for most of his life. He was prior at Molesme and at Cîteaux, and when he was elected abbot he took it, by his own order's account, unwillingly. ¹⁶

The reform cost him something before it was a success. At Molesme he was insulted and imprisoned for it. ¹⁶ At Cîteaux almost nobody came. ¹

What he left was a set of decisions about ordinary things: what to wear, what to eat, what to own, and who would do the farm work. ¹ The Exordium sums up the spirit of them in a phrase, "poor with the poor Christ." ¹

The Martyrology's one line on him calls him, in translation, "a true lover of the rule and of the brethren," nearly the words the Exordium used of him at his election. ¹² Of everything that could be said about a founder, that is the line the Church kept.