The texts of Bernard of Clairvaux are edited in the Sancti Bernardi Opera (SBO), Jean Leclercq’s edition published in 8 volumes. Perhaps Nicholas felt himself to be a rightful partaker in the composition of these works, a participation which might disclose itself stylistically. The temptation for historians to draw lines in between imitation and plagiarism in order to categorize writings and collate them in attributed editions, valuable as it is, can also be rather anachronistic or even unbefitting in a medieval context (Nichols, 1990 Cerquiglini, 1999). Nevertheless, Nicholas’ reputation as a fraud and a plagiarist has withheld 20th-century scholars such as Leclercq and Rochais to believe that his claim to authorship is any sense warranted, and has maintained the sermons’ authenticity as uncontested, even despite the fact that later scholars have seriously doubted their views on Nicholas of Montieramey’s alleged deceitfulness and falsification (Jaeger, 1980 Constable, 1996). Also De diversis 40, 41 and 42 have been found within Nicholas’ oeuvre (Rochais, 1962). For instance, Nicholas has been found sending out Bernard’s De diversis 6, 7, 21, 62, 83, 100 and 104 in a letter to count Henry the Liberal, claiming that they were “of invention, of style, aside from what was taken from others in a few places” (Leclercq, (1)1962). The scandal has for a long time upheld Nicholas' portrayal as a disreputable Judas by Bernard’s side, a condemnation which has shimmered through on a scholarly level as well, and has resulted in highly subjective and speculative attributions. Their friendship, however, knew an abrupt and painful ending in the final years of Bernard’s life, around 1151-2, when Nicholas must have severely breached his master’s trust by sending out letters without his permission. His literary qualities, likely to have been acquired through his education in the Benedictine abbey of Montieramey, enabled him to immediately enter the scriptorium and officially become Bernard’s closest secretary. Nicholas began serving Bernard as an emissary around 1138-41, carrying letters concerningĪbelard’s heresy to Rome (Turcan-Verkerk 2015). The influence of Nicholas’ mediation on several particular text instances within Bernard’s De diversis, and more generally on his entire oeuvre, has fallen subject to much debate. Amongst these amanuenses, Nicholas of Montieramey (t 1176 / 78) was as a focal figure, and a highly skilled imitator of his master’s writing style. Afterwards, the scribe reconstructed what he had heard to a text on parchment which could pass for Bernard of Clairvaux’s in its literary allure (Rassow, 1913 Leclercq, (2)1962 Constable, 1972). The cues, keywords and biblical references which Bernard had spoken aloud provided a framework that captured the gist of his diction. The reportatio, as it was called, entailed that the contents of Bernard’s letters or sermons were engraved on wax tablets in a tachygraphic fashion. These secretaries acted as Bernard’s stand-ins, and spared him the time and effort it would cost of having to take up the quill himself at every single occasion. By 1145, the abbot’s acclaim as the icon and figurehead of the Cistercian movement had brought along such a considerable administrative workload that the assistance of a group of secretaries was indispensable.
Since Bernard of Clairvaux usually collaborated with secretaries, the obscure context of the corpus’ composition and constitution has often made its sermons subject to some debate when it comes to Bernard’s authorship. Bernard never disseminated the De diversis sermons himself, they have been first assembled, enumerated and published by Jean Mabillon in the 17th century (Callerot, 2006). Bernard’s De diversis corpus comprises an assembly of unpolished and rudimentary sermons found in various, heterogeneous manuscripts. 1153) through computational stylistics.
This short paper revisits the authorship ofīernard of Clairvaux's Sermones de Diversis (c. For the most complete copy, refer to the original conference program. This plain text was ingested for the purpose of full-text search, not to preserve
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