BERNARDO di TIRON. — Benedictine abbot and reformer, born in the territory of Abbeville (hence also called B. d'Abbeville) around 1046 and died at Tiron on 14 or 25 April 1117. Having attained a high level of education while still young, at the age of twenty he embraced monastic life in the abbey of S. Cipriano of Poitiers. B. had been a monk only a short time when he became prior of S. Savino. In this office he showed particular zeal for the strict observance of the Rule and was even able to dissuade his abbot Gervasio from his slight simoniacal sympathies. At that abbot’s death, in order to avoid being elected abbot, he fled to the forests of the Maine, where he joined others who were already living an eremitical life; but obedience led him back to the abbey of S. Cipriano, of which he was elected abbot not long afterward.
During his administration as abbot, B. had much to suffer on behalf of the monastery, which he first had to defend against the duke of Aquitaine and then against the Cluniacs, who claimed ancient rights over S. Cipriano. This latter dispute had particularly painful episodes, and B. was compelled to leave the abbey by order of Pope Paschal II. He thus returned to the eremitical life, but remained there only a short time, since he allowed himself to be persuaded by his monks to plead the monastery’s cause in Rome. Having obtained justice, he was reinstated in his office. But a new trial came precisely from the monks of S. Cipriano, who found the discipline established by their abbot too rigorous. On a new journey to Rome B. won the case; indeed, the Pope offered him the cardinalate, which B. refused in order to return to monastic life, though no longer at S. Cipriano. After several further attempts to introduce his reform into existing monasteries, again encountering the hostility of the Cluniac milieu, in 1114 he founded the abbey of the Most Holy Trinity of Tiron (Eure-et-Loir). There he shaped monastic observance according to primitive austerity; many people hastened to place themselves under his guidance. The growing number of disciples required new foundations in France and England, while lords and princes made generous donations. The schools of Tiron, which lasted until the French Revolution, became highly renowned and well attended.
Through the impetus he gave to monastic life, calling it back to the best traditions of observance and discipline, the movement begun by B. was linked to the currents of his time that desired a return to the ancient spirit of solitude and recollection, renouncing participation in the political and ecclesiastical controversies that had caused much distraction in the life of the Cluniac monasteries. B.’s experiment succeeded; he therefore deserved the title of «reformer» of the Order of s. Benedict.
B. was distinguished not only by his activity, but also by his holy life, marked by a desire for solitude and austerity combined with great charity toward his disciples. In his abbey he welcomed not only zealous monks who had come from other monasteries, but also people with a most shameful past, and he knew how to show all of them the path of conversion. The Benedictine martyrology commemorates him on 14 April.