Aelred of Rievaulx

Saint Aelred of Rievaulx
Abbot
Born 1110
Hexham, Northumberland, England
Died 12 January 1167(1167-01-12)
Rievaulx, Yorkshire, England
Honored in Roman Catholic Church;
Anglican Communion
Major shrine Rievaulx Abbey, Yorkshire, England
(destroyed)
Feast 12 January
Attributes Abbot holding a book
Patronage bladder stone sufferers

Aelred (1110 – 12 January 1167), also Aelred, Ælred, Æthelred, etc., was an English writer, abbot of Rievaulx (from 1147 until his death), and saint.

Contents

Life

Aelred was one of three sons of Eilaf, priest of St Andrew's at Hexham and himself a son of Eilaf, treasurer of Durham.[1] He was born in Hexham, Northumbria, in 1110.

Aelred spent several years at the court of King David I of Scotland, rising to the rank of Master of the Household before leaving the court at age twenty-four (in 1134) to enter the Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx in Yorkshire. He may have been partially educated by Lawrence of Durham, who sent him a hagiography of Saint Brigid.

Aelred became the abbot of a new house of his order at Revesby in Lincolnshire in 1142[2] and in 1147, abbot of Rievaulx itself, where he spent the remainder of his life. Under his administration, the abbey is said to have grown to some hundred monks and four hundred lay brothers. He made annual visitations to Rievaulx's daughterhouses in England and Scotland and to the French abbeys of Cîteaux and Clairvaux.

Aelred wrote several influential books on spirituality, among them Speculum caritatis ("The Mirror of Charity", reportedly written at the request of Bernard of Clairvaux) and De spiritali amicitia ("On 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 as a spiritual writer; for many centuries his most famous work was his Life of Saint Edward, King and Confessor.

Aelred's work, private letters, and his Life by Walter Daniel, another twelfth-century monk of Rievaulx, have led some writers to infer that he was homosexual. In writing to an anchoress in The Formation of Anchoresses, Aelred speaks of his youth as the time when she held on to her virtue and he lost his.[3] Nevertheless, all of his works encourage virginity among the unmarried and chastity in marriage and widowhood and warn against any sexual activity outside of marriage; in all his works he treats of extra-marital sexual relationships as forbidden and condemns "unnatural relations" as a rejection of charity and the law of God. He criticized the absence of pastoral care for a young nun who experienced rape, pregnancy, beating, and a miraculous delivery in the Gilbertine community of Watton.

Aelred died on January 12, 1167, at Rievaulx. He is recorded as suffering from the stone (hence his patronage) and arthritis in his later years (Patrologia Latina 195). He is listed for January 12 in the Roman Martyrology and the calendars of various churches.

Writings

For his efforts in writing and administration Aelred has been called by David Knowles the "St. Bernard of the North." Knowles, a historian of monasticism in England, also described him as "a singularly attractive figure … . No other English monk of the twelfth century so lingers in the memory."[4]

Extant works by Aelred include:

Histories and biographies
Spiritual treatises
many sermons

All of Aelred's works have appeared in translation, most in English, but all in French.

Patronage

There was a high school named after St. Aelred (the more modern spelling of his name) in Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside in the United Kingdom that closed in 2011, and also a primary school in York. Formerly there was also a High School in Glenburn, Paisley named after St Aelred on Gleniffer Road.

Several gay-friendly organisations have adopted Aelred as their patron saint, such as Integrity in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America,[5] National Anglican Catholic Church in the northeast United States, and the Order of St. Aelred[6] in the Philippines.

Notes

  1. ^ Bell, "Ailred of Rievaulx (1110–1167)"
  2. ^ The Lives of the Saints, Rev. S. Baring-Gould, Volume 1, Page 178, Edinburgh: John Grant, 1914
  3. ^ Boswell, John. Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality, University of Chicago Press, 1980.
  4. ^ Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints, 3rd edition. New York:Penguin Books, 1995. ISBN 0-14-051312-4.
  5. ^ "St. Aelred, patron saint of Integrity". The Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio. http://www.episcopal-dso.org/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=424. Retrieved 2008-06-02. 
  6. ^ "The Order of St. Aelred (O.S.Ae.) Web Site - WELCOME". Archived from the original on 2009-10-24. http://www.webcitation.org/5kmDcKliO. 

References

Primary sources

Further reading