Excerpt from The Rhythm of Bernard De Morlaix: Monk of Cluny, on the Celestial Country In the xii. century, the Abbey of Cluny, under its celebrated head, Peter the Venerable, - (he held that dignity from 1122 to 1156, ) - was at the very height of monastic reputation. Its glorious church, the most magnificent in France, the fulness and exactness of its ritual, and the multitude of its brethren, raised it to a pitch of fame which, perhaps, no other house ever attained. At that time, one of its children was Bernard, born at Morlaix, in Bretagne; but of English parents. He occupied a portion of his leisure by the composition of a poem, De Contemptu Mundi, in about three thousand lines. The greater part is a bitter satire on the fearful corruptions of the age; and hence it was for the first time edited by Flacius Illyricus, the red-hot Reformer, in his "Varia poemata de Corrupto Ecclesi Statu," Basle, 1556. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."

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