Saint Bruno of Cologne

Life story

Bruno was born in Cologne around 1030. He studied at Reims and then taught at its cathedral school. By the middle of the century he headed the school and trained many pupils, among them the future Pope Urban II. He also held a senior office in the diocese of Reims.

He came into sharp conflict with Archbishop Manasses I of Reims, whom many clergy accused of simony. The dispute dragged on and Manasses was finally deposed. Bruno was proposed as a successor but declined. He chose instead to leave public life and pursue a hermit's existence.

In 1084 he and six companions came to the diocese of Grenoble, where Bishop Hugh granted them a remote valley in the Chartreuse mountains. They built separate cells around a shared chapel and lived by prayer, manual work and copying books in silence. From this settlement grew the Carthusian Order, its name taken from the Chartreuse region. The order's written customs were later set down by Guigo, its fifth prior.

Around 1090 Pope Urban II, once his student, summoned Bruno to Rome as an adviser. He was offered the archbishopric of Reggio in southern Italy and refused it. He asked leave to return to solitude and founded a new hermitage in Calabria, near Squillace. He died there on 6 October 1101. In 1514 Pope Leo X allowed the order to honour him, and his feast was extended to the whole Latin Church in 1623.

Works and witness

• Taught at and headed the cathedral school of Reims
• Declined the archbishopric of Reims and later of Reggio
• Founded a hermit community at Chartreuse in 1084 with six companions, the start of the Carthusians
• Advised Pope Urban II, his former pupil
• Founded a hermitage in Calabria, where he died in 1101

Saints from the same country

Saint Ambrose, Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), Saint Norbert of Xanten

References

• Martyrologium Romanum
• Dicastery for the Causes of Saints – biographical profile
• Guigo I, Consuetudines (Carthusian customs)

Written by Anawim from documented history. Some details about ancient saints rest on tradition and are marked as such.