Knights of Christ, Chapter 3, Footnotes:
For additional information on Norbert, his life and times, please click here to view The Catholic Encyclopedia.<<Back to the Text>>
Click here to see a map of the area around Xanten, in the very westernmost part of present-day Germany.<<Back to the Text>>
The clergy of every large church in the Middle Ages were called Canons, because their names were entered on the List (canon is Greek for list) of ecclesiastics serving that Church. In order to revive a stricter discipline among the clergy, St. Chrodegang (Kroh-day-gahng) of Metz (8th century) formed them into a community, bound by a rule (canon is also Greek for rule). A council held at Aachen in 816 made this rule obligatory on all cathedral priests in the Frankish empire. But grave abuses crept in during the ninth and tenth centuries, and Popes Nicholas II and Alexander II, aided by Hildebrand and Peter Damian, tried to enforce the rule of St. Chrodegang by obligating all canons to live in community and to renounce private property. Those who followed this injunction were known as "regular canons" (regula is Latin for rule); those who did not were called "secular canons," or "secular priests" (from the Latin saeculum, world). The rule which the regular canons followed was also known as the Rule of St. Augustine, because it was made up chiefly from two letters of St. Augustine. These regular canons formed a new class of monks who, in order to distinguish them from the Benedictines, were called Augustinian monks, or canons. They were found not only at the cathedral churches, but also as independent societies. . .It was this Augustinian monasticism which St. Norbert undertook to reform at the beginning of the twelfth century. His Order was to the Augustinians what the Cistercians were to the Benedictines.<<Back to the Text>>
Reprinted with permission from Church History: A Complete History of the Catholic Church to the Present Day; Rev. John Laux, M.A.; Published by Benzinger Brothers, Cincinnati, 1930; pages 328-329.
St. Bernard wrote of visiting with his colleague and friend St. Norbert:
"I have had the happiness to see his face, and to drink in abundance from his lips, which are the channels of heaven."<<Back to the Text>>
Ibid., page 330.
". . . the Bishop of Laon, who wished to keep the holy preacher within his diocese, made over to him a lonely valley in the forest of Coucy. Several other sites had been offered to him in vain; but as soon as he saw this falley he said: 'Here is the place which the Lord has chosen.' and he called it Praemonstratum, or foreshown." <<Back to the Text>>
Ibid., page 329.
For additional information and background on this Rule, please click here to view The Catholic Encyclopedia. <<Back to the Text>>
A third order is a group of brethren associated with an abbey and following a modified version of their rule, even though they are still lay persons with secular responsibilities. Members of this Third Order are called Tertiaries (from the Latin for third).
This Third Order is still very active in many Norbertine abbeys. Here is the story of the formation of this first Third Order:
"Blessed Thibault of Champagne, known in history as Thibalt the Great was the first to be received into the Third Order. He was the grandson of William the Conqueror, and the brother of King Stephen of England. He was induced by the example of Count Godfrey of Cappenberg to seek entrance into the first Order (that is, to become a priest). Since many amateur historians are not well informed in regard to Third Orders, we refer them to authoritative books. Among these we find in Die Orden und Kongregationen der Katholischen Kirche by Max Heimbucher in the 1907 edition, Volume II, page 58 that Blessed Thibault received the white scapular in 1123. Ellen Scott Davidson in Forerunners of St. Francis (edition of 1928) set the date at 1122. It was near the end of 1122 or the beginning of 1123. Pope Benedict XIV, when he approved the revised rule, May 22, 1752, called it the oldest Third Order in the Church. Pope Pius XI, on March 30, 1923, the eight centenary of its founding wrote: 'The oldest of these bodies of Tertiaries is the one that flourished in connection with the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré'. Cardinal Gasquet in "Monastic Life in the Middle Ages" (page 244) wrote: 'It is worth remarking that the Prémontré Canons were the first to conceive the idea, afterwards so largely developed by the mendicants of the thirteenth century, of uniting to them by formal aggregation, laymen and women in what was known as a Third Order. These associated brethren, though not bound by the stricter obligations of religious life, still, while engaged in their ordinary secular employment, followed a mitigated observance somewhat akin to that of the Canons themselves.' The rules for these Tertiaries were first formally approved by Pope Honorius, February 16, 1126. They were revised and approved by Pope Benedict XIV, May 22, 1752. The second revision was approved by Pope Pius XI, March 30, 1923. The third revision was approved by Pope Pius XII, June 6, 1949. <<Back to the Text>>
From text of the Rule of the Third Order of St. Norbert, Third Revision, published by St. Norbert Abbey, De Pere, WI, 1950, pages 3-4.
The Heresy of Tanchelin (Tankelin):
" . . A vile heretic, named Tankelin, appeared at Antwerp, in the time of St. Norbert, and denied the reality of the priesthood, and especially blasphemed the Blessed Eucharist. The Sait was sent for to drive out the pest. By his burning words he exposed the impostor and rekindled the faith in the Blessed Sacrament. Many of the apostates had proved their contempt for the Blessed Sacrament by burying it in filthy places. Norbert bade them search for the Sacred Hosts. They found them entire and uninjured, and the Saint bore them back in triumph to the tabernacle. Hence he is generally painted with the monstrance in his hand. . . " <<Back to the Text>>
Reprinted with permission from Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints; L.E. Hostlot, Rector; Published by Benzinger Brothers, Cincinnati, 1925; page 315.
This is a Danish as well as a north-German tradition among Norbertines, who, at the height of the Order's first ascendancy (1150-1250), were numerous in northwestern Europe. There are several stories from the Archbishopric of Bremen specifically citing the departure of Canons from that location and Denmark (Dania) for Iceland, Greenland and "Vinland" with settling parties and commercial voyages. <<Back to the Text>>
Ibid., page 315.
Click here to see a complete listing of Norbertine Houses worldwide (accurate as of 1995). <<Back to the Text>>
