Ailred (or Aelred), Abbot of Rievaulx (1110-12 January 1167), was a Christian saint and writer.
Life
Ailred was an Anglo-Saxon, born in Hexham, Northumbria, in 1110. His father, a married priest, sent him to spend several years at the court of King
David I of Scotland. Aelred rose to be Master of the Household before leaving the court to enter a Cistercian monastery at Rievaulx Abbey, in Yorkshire, around the year 1134.
He became the abbot of a new house of his order at Revesby in Lincolnshire, and later,
abbot of Rievaulx itself in 1147. He would spend the remainder of his life in the monastery. Under his administration the size of
the abbey rose to some six hundred monks. He also made annual visits to several other Cistercian houses in England and Scotland,
with other visits to places as far as Citeaux and Clairvaux. These visits may have compromised his health, for he is recorded as suffering from a very
painful, unspecified disease in his later years.
He wrote several influential books on spirituality, among them The Mirror of
Charity (perhaps at the request of Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux) and
Spiritual Friendship. He also wrote seven works of history, addressing two of them to Henry II of England, advising him how to be a good king and declaring him to be the true descendent
of Anglo-Saxon kings. Until the twentieth century Aelred was generally known as a historian rather than a spiritual writer; for
many centuries his most famous work was his "Life of Saint Edward, King and
Confessor."
Ailred died on January 12, 1167, at Rievaulx. He is listed
for January 12 in the Roman Martyrology and the calendars of various other churches.
Writings
For his efforts in writing and administration he has been called the "St.
Bernard of the north". He has also been described by David Knowles, a historian of
monasticism in England, as "a singularly attractive figure... No other English monk of the twelfth century so lingers in the
memory.[1]
Most of Aelred's works have appeared in translation from Cistercian Publications, including
Mirror of Charity, Spiritual Friendship, Rule of Life for a Recluse, Jesus
as a Boy of Twelve, Pastoral Prayer, On the Soul, Genealogy of the Kings of the English,
Battle of the Standard, Lament for the Death of King David of Scotland, The Life of Saint Edward, King and
Confessor, and twenty sermons. The other historical works (Life of Saint Ninian,
On the Saints of Hexham, and A Certain Wonderful Miracle) will appear in mid-2006.
Sexuality
Ailred's works, private letters and his Life by Walter Daniel, another twelfth-century monk of Rievaulx, have led some scholars to infer from that he was homosexual. In De institutione inclusarum, he writes "While I was still a schoolboy, the charm of
my friends greatly captivated me, so that among the foibles and failings with which that age is fraught, my mind surrendered
itself completely to emotion and devoted itself to love. Nothing seemed sweeter or nicer or more worthwhile than to love and be
loved." In writing to his sister Aelred speaks of this as the time when she held on to her virtue and he lost his[2].
Several of his works however encouraged virginity among the unmarried and chastity (not abstinence) in marriage and widowhood, and warn against any sexual activity outside of marriage;
in all his works he treats same-sex and opposite-sex attraction as equally possible and equally dangerous to one's oath to
celibacy. At the same time, he was compassionate about human failings, criticised the absence of pastoral care for the
Nun of Watton and her case of pregnancy while within a Gilbertine convent and allowed monks to hold hands in the monastery.
Patronage
Saint Ailred is the patro saint of those suffering from bladder stones.
There is a high school named after St. Aelred in Newton-le-Willows,
Lancashire in the United Kingdom.
Several homosexual-friendly organisations have adopted Ailred as their patron saint, such as Integrity in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, National Anglican Catholic Church in the northeast United States, and the Order of
St. Aelred in the Philippines.
Notes
- ^ Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dicionary of
Saints, 3rd edition. New York:Penguin Books, 1995. ISBN 0-140-51312-4.
- ^ Boswell, John. "Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality",
University of Chicago Press, 1980.
Literature
Works
- Aelred of Rievaulx, "Opera." Corpus Christianorum Continuatio
Mediaevalis 2, 2A, 2B. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 1971, 1983, 2001.
Secondary literature
- Boquet, Damien, L'ordre de l'affect au Moyen Âge: Autour de l'anthropologie affective d'Aelred de Rievaulx. Caen:
CRAHM, 2005.
- Dutton, Marsha L., "Sancto Dunstano Cooperante: Aelred of Rievaulx’s Advice to the Heir to the English Throne in Genealogy of
the Kings of the English", in: Emilia Jamroziak and Janet Burton (ed.), Religious and Laity in Northern Europe 1000-1400:
Interaction, Negotiation, and Power.. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007, p. 183–195.
- Dutton, Marsha L., "Friendship and the Love of God: Augustine's Teaching in the Confessions and Aelred of Rievaulx's Response
in Spiritual Friendship". in: American Benedictine Review 56 (2005), p. 3–40.
- Dutton, Marsha L., "A Historian's Historian: The Place of Bede in Aelred's Contributions to the New History of his Age", in:
Marsha L. Dutton, Daniel M. La Corte, and Paul Lockey (ed.), Truth as Gift: Studies in Cistercian History in Honor of John R.
Sommerfeldt (Cistercian Studies Series 204). Kalamazoo: Cistercian, 2004, p. 407–48.
- Freeman, Elizabeth, "Aelred of Rievaulx’s De Bello Standardii: Cistercian Historiography and the Creation of Community
Memories", in: Cîteaux 49 (1998), p. 5–28.
- Freeman, Elizabeth, "The Many Functions of Cistercian Histories Using Aelred of Rievaulx’s Relatio de Standardo as a Case
Study", in: Erik Kooper (ed.) The Medieval Chronicle: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on the Medieval
Chronicle. Amsterdam, Atlanta: Rodopi, 1999, p. 124–32.
- Freeman, Elizabeth, Narratives of a New Order: Cistercian Historical Writing in England, 1150–1220. Turnhout: Brepols,
2002.
- Freeman, Elizabeth, "Nuns in the Public Sphere: Aelred of Rievaulx's De Sanctimoniali de Wattun and the Gendering of
Authority", in: Comitatus 17 (1996), p. 55–80.
- La Corte, Daniel M., "Abbot as Magister and [[Pater in the Thought of Bernard of Clairvaux and Aelred of Rievaulx", in: in:
Marsha L. Dutton, Daniel M. La Corte, and Paul Lockey (ed.), Truth as Gift: Studies in Cistercian History in Honor of John R.
Sommerfeldt (Cistercian Studies Series 204). Kalamazoo: Cistercian, 2004, p. 389–406.
- Mayeski, Marie Anne, "Secundam naturam: The Inheritance of Virtue in Ælred’s Genealogy of the English Kings", in:
Cistercian Studies Quarterly 37 (2002), p. 221–28.
- Nouzille, Philippe, Expérience de Dieu et Théologie Monastique au XIIe Siècle: Étude sur les sermons d'Aelred de
Rievaulx. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1999.
- Powicke, Frederick M., "Ailred of Rievaulx", in Ways of Medieval Life and Thought. London, 1949.
- Raciti, Gaetano. "The Preferential Option for the Weak in the Ælredian Community Model", in: CSQ 32 (1997), p.
3–23.
- Ransford, Rosalind, "A Kind of Noah's Ark: Aelred of Rievaulx and National Identity", in: Stuart Mews (ed.), Studies in Church History 18 (1982), p. 137–46.
- Sommerfeldt, John R., Aelred of Rievaulx On Love and Order in the World and the Church. Mahwah, NJ: Newman Press,
2006.
- Sommerfeldt, John R., Pursuing Perfect Happiness. Mahwah, NJ: Newman Press, 2005.
- Squire, Aelred, "Aelred and King David", in: Collectanea Cisterciensia 22 (1960), p. 356–77.
- Squire, Aelred, "Aelred and the Northern Saints.", in: Collectanea Cisterciensia 23 (1961), p. 58–69.
- Squire, Aelred, "Aelred of Rievaulx: A Study" (1960), in: Cistercian Studies series 50. Kalamazoo: Cistercian
Publications, 1981.
- Squire, Aelred, "Historical Factors in the Formation of Aelred of Rievaulx", in: Collectanea Cisterciensia 22 (1960),
p. 262–82.
- Yohe, Katherine, "Aelred’s Recrafting of the Life of Edward the Confessor", in: CSQ 38 (2003): p. 177–89.
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