Nicholas of Clairvaux generally receives a bad press – he has gone down in history as the black sheep of the Cistercian Order – but like many of those who receive a bad press, his story is considerably more interesting than that of others who lived out their lives in safe and secluded sanctity. A complete and balanced biography may be read at pages xiii–xxx of this excellent volume, but, very briefly, the first time he appears is when, in his youth, he entered the Benedictine monastery of Montiéramey near Troyes. Shortly after 1145/46 he transferred to Clairvaux, where Bernard was still abbot, and his learning and epistolary skills soon elevated him to the position of one of Bernard's secretaries. He dealt with Bernard's correspondence, copied and edited his works, and was frequently in and out of Clairvaux on abbatial business. We might note here that with regard to the importance and, indeed, creativity of Nicholas's secretarial activities, we now have a most interesting article published in 2017 (too late for inclusion in Wahlgren-Smith's volume) by Jeroen De Gussem (‘Bernard of Clairvaux and Nicholas of Montiéramey: tracing the secretarial trail with computational stylistics’, Speculum xcii [2017], 190–225, and freely available online).
Nicholas was at Clairvaux for about five years before being expelled from the abbey for certain misdemeanours, not least the unauthorised use of the abbot's seal. His steps then led him to Rome, where he was on good terms with Pope Adrian iv and the papal chancellor, Rolando Bandinelli, who succeeded Adrian as Alexander iii, then back to Montiéramey, and finally to Saint-Jean-en-Châtel, a priory of Montiéramey in Troyes, where he ended his days as prior not before 1175 and not after 1178.
His literary corpus consists of a number of sermons of mixed quality, some sequences, commentaries on the Psalms (almost entirely stolen from Hugh of Saint-Victor), the prologue to the Florilegium Angelicum, one of the prologues to the sixth book of the Vita prima S. Bernardi, and the letter collections which are the concern of this volume (see pp. xxx–xxxiv). Apart from a small group of uncollected letters, there are two major collections. Walhgren-Smith refers to them as the Clairvaux collection and the Champagne collection. The Clairvaux collection is the earliest and largest, consisting of fifty-three letters dating from Nicholas's time at Clairvaux and immediately before his entry. This collection was first edited by Jean Picard in the seventeenth century and then reprinted in 1855 (PL cxcvi). The Champagne collection (the prologue is addressed to Henry, count of Champagne [1152–81]) is very much smaller: just ten letters in total, of which only five have been preserved in full. Their content is very different from those in the Clairvaux collection, and they have clearly been selected to please a secular patron. ‘There is no theology, very little religion, but instead some juicy scandals, some abusive language, and a jocular request for wine’ (p. xxxviii).
As to Nicholas's Latin style, the most obvious aspect is ‘his almost cento-like use of quotations. It is as if he worked with a pair of scissors and a pot of glue permanently by his side’ (p. xliii). But the quotations come from a wide array of sources, from the Bible (the first and most common source) through the classics to the Church Fathers (see pp. xliii–xlix). The most heavily cited source after the Bible is Bernard himself, from whom Nicholas ‘lifts whole passages, but also lifts ideas and imitates stylistic features’ (p. xlvii). But as Wahlgren-Smith points out, given his role and work at Clairvaux, this is hardly surprising.
The long and rich introduction then ends with a discussion of the recipients and correspondents of the letters, the textual tradition and editorial principles, before moving on to the heart of the volume, the edition and translation of the letters themselves. The Clairvaux collection occupies pp. 2–257; the Champagne collection, pp. 260–79. We may say, quite simply, that the edition is excellent, the translation flowing and accurate, the annotations pertinent and helpful, and the identification of sources comprehensive. There are five brief appendices, a very good bibliography, an index of quotations and allusions, and the volume ends with a brief but sound general index.
So what do the letters reveal about Nicholas and his world? Wahlgrem-Smith summarises the matter accurately. He was a well-educated writer, ‘versed in the demands of fashionable prose rhythm’, and with a wider interest in books and a wider range of reading than we might ordinarily expect (p. xii). He was also ‘an unashamed plagiarist’, but fuses the excerpts that he has borrowed into a composite narrative very much his own.
He is also important for the light that he sheds on our understanding of medieval monastic culture, and the abbey of Clairvaux in particular. The Clairvaux collection offers us a view of the abbey ‘from an angle different from that seen in the letters of St Bernard, an unofficial view of aspects of monastic life which, as they are portrayed here, seem to differ to some extent from those described in the Rules or in the official correspondence of the monastery’ (p. xii). The letters are also of considerable human interest, depicting, as they do, a man who ‘never did manage to turn himself into the perfect Cistercian. He struggled with the concept of obedience, with the concept of stability, and not least with his inability to combine the two major trends of his milieu: monastic revival and personal amicitia. In conflict between the two, he always expected amicitia to prevail’ (p. xiii).
In short, what we have here is an excellent study of a fascinating and complex character – a grey sheep, if not an entirely black one – and a bilingual edition which is everything a bilingual edition should be. Wahlgren-Smith can only be congratulated and thanked for making this wealth of material available to us.
