Bruno, Saint
BRUNO, SAINT, founder of the Carthusians, was born in Cologne about 1030; he was educated there and afterwards at Reims and Tours, where he studied under Berengar. He was ordained at Cologne, and thence, in 1057, he was recalled to Reims to become scholasticus, or head of the cathedral school, and overseer of the schools of the diocese. He was made also canon and diocesan chancellor. Having protested against the misdoings of a new archbishop, he was deprived of all his offices and had to fly for safety (1076). On the deposition of the archbishop in 1080, Bruno was presented by the ecclesiastical authorities to the pope for the see, but Philip I. of France successfully opposed the appointment. After this Bruno left Reims and retired, with six companions, to a desert among the mountains near Grenoble, and there founded the Carthusian order (1084). After six years Urban II. called him to Rome and offered him the archbishopric of Reggio; but he refused it, and withdrew to a desert in Calabria, where he established two other monasteries, and died in 1101. He wrote Commentaries on the Psalms and the Pauline Epistles, to be found in Migne, Patr. Lat. clii. and cliii.; some works by namesakes have been attributed to him.
His Life will be found in the Bollandists' Acta Sanctorum (6th of October). The best study on St Bruno's life and works is Hermann Löbbel, Der Stifter des Karthäuser-Ordens, 1899 (vol. v. No. 1 of "Kirchengeschichtliche Studien," Münster).
(E. C. B.)
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
