Saint Bruno, Priest

Bruno was born in Cologne about 1030 and for some twenty years headed the cathedral school of Reims, where one of his pupils became Pope Urban II. After a conflict with the archbishop of Reims, Manasses, who was accused of buying his office, he left to seek a life of solitude. In 1084, with six companions and with the help of Bishop Hugh of Grenoble, he settled in a remote Alpine valley called the Chartreuse: so began the Carthusians, monks who live as hermits in separate cells yet as one community. In 1090 Urban II called him to Rome as an adviser; he soon withdrew to Calabria and founded a hermitage at La Torre, where he died on 6 October 1101. He was never formally canonized; his cult was approved in 1514.