BERLIÈRE, URSMER. — Benedictine, born 3 Sept. 1861 at Gosselies, died 28 Aug. 1932 in the abbey of Maredsous. After attending the Collège du Sacré-Cœur at Charleroi and the seminary of Bonne-Espérance, he entered Maredsous and on 15 Aug. 1882 made his monastic profession.
In 1890 he began the publication of the Monasticon belge, completed in 1928–29. In this monumental work, divided into four parts, he indicates for every abbey and priory the historical sources as well as the names of abbots and priors with biographical data; in it B. proves himself a worthy successor of the Maurists for the Belgian provinces and completes and corrects the Gallia Christiana. He was an assiduous contributor to the Revue bénédictine, which he long directed, and for which he compiled the Bulletin d’histoire bénédictine. Founder and first director of the Belgian Historical Institute in Rome, he worked with passionate zeal on the documents of the Vatican archives. Among his works based on Vatican sources, the most important is certainly that on the supplications of Pope Clement VI, with a valuable introduction on the organization of the Roman Curia. The volume L’ordre monastique des origines au XIIe siècle (Maredsous 1912), which met with special favour for the importance of its synthesis and the clarity of its exposition, was reprinted and translated into Italian and presented as Conférences, though it is far more than a collection of lectures. Another volume, L’ascèse bénédictine des origines à la fin du XIIe siècle (Paris 1927), sheds much light on the spirit that animated monastic life.