A két Szent Bernát pusztasága és Paradicsoma

The purpose of the article is the comparison of two hagiographical sources: The Sancti Bernardi Vita Prima from Guillaume of Saint-Thierry (1085–1148?) and the Vita Bernardi Tironensis from Geoff rey Grossus. The two vitae are similar in many details. Both of them write about the life of a founder of a reform order of the twelfth century: Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) and Bernard of Tiron (1046?–1117). The article concentrates on the narration of the foundation of the main monasteries of the two orders: the Tironians and the Cistercians. The description of the landscape is a very crucial motive in both vitae. The research demonstrates the differences and the similarities of the hagiographical landscape in the lives of the two Bernards. Both founders had divine inspiration for the foundation in the form of vision. Both communities had to move into a more spacious location. The hagiographers describe both landscapes in the terms of the locus horribilis (the horrible desert) and they use the motive of locus amoenus (the beautiful Paradise) as well. Besides the similarities there are a lot of differences in the hagiographical landscape of the two sources. In the Life of Bernard of Clairvaux there are very few references to the physical landscape, Bernard and his companions transform the spiritual desert to a heavenly landscape, the description is exclusively spiritual. The landscape of Clairvaux is much more the allegory of the Cistercian monastic life than the description of an earthly place, while the other vita depicts both the physical and the spiritual landscape. There are references to the topography of the mentioned places. Geoffrey describes the natural and the human made features of the landscape, mentioning rivers, an oratory, mills, orchards and a deer park. Bernard of Tiron and his disciples do not transform the landscape as the Cistercians. The vita describes the hagiographical landscape from different points of view. The disciples saw the landscape of Tiron as a horrible desert, while Bernard, the leader of the community, the holy man saw an earthly Paradise in it. The comparison between the two lives demonstrates how complex the landscape perception was in 12th century monastic hagiography.