AIGLERIO (Aiglerius and Ayglerius; in French d’Aiglerie and Ayglier; in the history of the Benedictines known as BERNARD I AIGLERIO or AYGLERIO). — Abbot of Montecassino (1263–82), born, it seems, at Lyons of a noble Burgundian family, died 4 April 1282. The early years of his life were spent in the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Vigile in the diocese of Lyons. There, after completing his studies, he held the important office of “porter,” when in 1256 he was called to the abbacy of Lérins. Urban IV, by a bull of 29 March 1263, appointed Bernard to the government of Montecassino.
The famous monastery was in a wretched state of decline. Involved in political strife, it had been stripped of its goods by the Swabian princes Frederick II, Conrad IV, and Manfred, and the monks, among whom was the pupil Thomas Aquinas, had been driven out and the place turned into a fortress. Urban IV, a Frenchman by birth, sought in France a new abbot for Montecassino, aiming to give the archi-coenobium a vigorous and prudent man, capable not only of restoring religious discipline but also of reclaiming its possessions and furthering the interests of the House of Anjou, which then coincided with those of the Papacy.
For the first three years Bernard could do nothing; but with the favour of Charles of Anjou, after the latter took San Germano, he set about the restoration of Montecassino, which he repopulated with monks. The work he carried out in reorganizing the immense patrimony, the minute inquiry he made into the feudal rights of the abbot, is preserved in history in three volumes entitled Regestum Bernardi I abbatis, whose surviving fragments manifest his dignity and religious zeal. The work was later republished at San Germano in 1891, pp. 143–44.
Alongside the material interests of the abbey, Bernard especially cared for those of a spiritual nature, firmly restoring monastic discipline: famous is the chapter he held for this purpose on 2 October 1273, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament solemnly exposed.
To instruct his religious concerning the nature of their obligations, he wrote the Speculum monachorum, a work highly esteemed, which later had several editions (Venice 1595, Paris 1597, Cologne 1520, Freiburg in Br. 1901), and he composed an erudite commentary on the Rule, In Regulam s. Benedicti expositio, published by Dom Anselm Castelet from a Cassinese manuscript contemporary with the author (Montecassino 1894).
A. rendered many services to the Apostolic See, even by accepting the burden of numerous legations: in France, to organize the struggle against the Albigensians; in Venice in 1269, to negotiate an alliance against the Turks; in Hungary the same year, to arrange a marriage between the son of Charles of Anjou and Maria, sister of King Ladislaus. Gregory X sent him to Constantinople in the hope that negotiations with Michael Palaeologus would lead to the union of the Churches. But Charles of Anjou, eager to extend his dominion in the East, viewed with disfavour the prospect of good relations between Byzantium and Rome, and took revenge on the abbot of Montecassino by seizing one of his domains and depriving him of the right of high justice. This act wounded the noble spirit of A., who had laboured so long for the prestige of the monastery and had striven so much for the success of the Angevins.
A friend of St Thomas Aquinas, he acceded to his request for the opening of a Dominican house at San Germano (1269). He had a distinguished brother, Ayglerius, abbot of Ainay and from 1265 archbishop of Naples. To him he entrusted the Cassinese monastery when, on account of long diplomatic missions, he was obliged to absent himself (cf. P. Paschini, s.V. in DHG, V, col. 1281).
It has been said and continues to be said that Bernard was raised to the dignity of cardinal by Urban IV, but the editor of his Regestum (p. cxiv sqq.) rightly points out this error.