SAINT AELRED OF RIEVAULX (1147)

Writer, historian, and outstanding Cistercian abbot who influenced monasticism in medieval England, Scotland, and FRance. Of noble birth, he was reared at the court of King David I of Scotland, whose life story he later wrote and for whom he was royal steward. He entered the Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx c. 1134, and from 1143 to 1147 he was abbot of Revesby in Lincoln-shire. In late 1147 he became abbot of Rievaulx, which flourished under his direction.


An adviser to kings as well as to ecclesiastics, Aelred in 1162 persuaded King Henry II of England to ally with King Louis VII of France in support of Pope Alexander III against the Holy Roman emperor Frederick I Barbarossa. Despite poor health, Aelred led a severely ascetic life and made numerous visits to Cistercian houses in England, Scotland, and France. His spiritually, his Christocentric doctrine, and, in particular, his writings -considered among the finest produced in England durin the Middle Ages -highly influenced the Cistercians and earned him the title of "the Bernard of the north" (after the celebrated reformer Bernard of Clairvaux). By 1166 illness halted his missions. His feast day is March 3.


Aelred surviving works deal with either devotion or history. 
Speculum caritatis ("Mirror of Charity") concerns monastic life. 
De Jesu puero duodenui (On Jesus at Twelve Years Old) is a treatise on the questioning of the 12-year-old Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2).
De spirituali amicitia ("On Spiritual Friendship"), considered to be his greatest work, is a Christian counterpart of Cicero´s De amicitia and designates Christ the source and ultimate impetus of spiritual friendship.


His historical works include the incomplete Genealogia regum Anglorum ("Genealogy of the English Kings") and Vita S. Eduardi Confessoris ("LIfe of St. Edward the Confessor"), written in honour of the translation of St. Edward the Confessor´s body in 1163, which he witnessed.


His last work is De Anima ("On the Soul").