Saint Aelred of Rievaulx

Saint Aelred of Rievaulx was a Cistercian abbot in the north of England and an esteemed spiritual writer of the twelfth century, known as the Bernard of the North. Before he entered the monastery, he served at the court of the king of Scotland. He is remembered as a gentle father to his monks and a teacher of friendship lived in Christ. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on January 12.

He was born around 1110 in Hexham in the north of England; the exact year is not certain. His father, Eilaf, was the priest of the church there, for married clergy were still found in England at that time. As a boy in his early teens Aelred came to the court of David I, king of Scotland and son of Saint Margaret. He grew up there alongside Prince Henry, and in time he became steward of the royal household.

In 1134, while on the king’s business with the archbishop of York, he visited Rievaulx Abbey. It had been founded two years earlier by monks whom Saint Bernard had sent from Clairvaux. The austere and simple life of the Cistercians moved Aelred so deeply that he asked to be received into the community. In 1142 Abbot William sent him to Rome on Church business, and on his return entrusted him with the formation of the novices.

In 1143 Aelred was placed at the head of the new foundation at Revesby, and in 1147 he became abbot of Rievaulx. He governed the abbey for twenty years. His disciple Walter Daniel recorded that at Rievaulx all, the weak and the strong, were to find a place of peace, and that toward the end of the abbot’s life the community numbered more than six hundred monks and lay brothers. Aelred visited the monasteries dependent on Rievaulx and gave counsel to bishops and rulers.

He began to write at the request of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. The result was The Mirror of Charity, his first work; the Church reads a passage from this book in the Liturgy of the Hours during Lent. His best-known work is Spiritual Friendship, a dialogue in which Aelred teaches that true friendship is born in Christ, grows in him, and leads to him. For his sister, who lived as a recluse, he drew up a rule for life in seclusion. He also left sermons, an abbot’s prayer for the brothers entrusted to him, and historical works, among them a life of Saint Edward the Confessor.

In the last years of his life he was gravely ill. He was allowed to live in separate quarters next to the infirmary, from which he continued to govern the abbey. He died at Rievaulx on January 12, 1167, and was buried in the chapter house, beside the first abbot, William. Soon afterward his disciple Walter Daniel wrote the abbot’s life, to this day the main source of what is known about the saint.

The monks venerated Aelred as a saint from the first, and in the early thirteenth century they moved his relics into the abbey church. There was no formal canonization, but in 1476 the general chapter of the Cistercians approved the celebration of his feast on January 12. The abbey was suppressed in 1538 under Henry VIII, and its imposing ruins remain. The Roman Martyrology lists Aelred on the date of his death.