Bruno of Cologne (; ; – 6 October 1101), venerated as Saint Bruno, was the founder of the Carthusians. He personally founded the order's first two communities. He was a celebrated teacher at Reims and a close advisor of his former pupil, Pope Urban II. His feast day is 6 October.
Life
Bruno was born in Cologne about the year 1030. According to tradition, he belonged to the family of Hartenfaust, or Hardebüst, one of the principal families of the city. Among his students were Eudes of Châtillon, afterwards Pope Urban II, Rangier, Cardinal and Bishop of Reggio, Robert, Bishop of Langres, and a large number of prelates and abbots.
Chancellor of the Diocese of Reims
In 1075, Bruno was appointed chancellor of the Archdiocese of Reims, which involved him in the daily administration of the diocese. Meanwhile, the pious Bishop Gervais de Château-du-Loir, a friend to Bruno, had been succeeded by Manasses de Gournai, a violent aristocrat with no real vocation for the Church. In 1077, at the urging of Bruno and the clergy at Reims, de Gournai was suspended at a council at Autun. Manasses responded, in typical eleventh-century fashion, by having his retainers pull down the houses of his accusers. He confiscated their goods, sold their benefices, and even appealed to the pope. Bruno discreetly avoided the cathedral city until, in 1080, a definite sentence, confirmed by popular riot, compelled Manasses to withdraw
Bruno and his companions spent time in religious community with Robert of Molesme, who had in 1075 settled at Sèche-Fontaine, near Molesme in the Diocese of Langres, together with other hermits who would become the first Cistercians in 1098. After a short stay, Bruno went with six of his companions to Hugh of Châteauneuf, Bishop of Grenoble. The bishop installed them in 1084 in a mountainous and uninhabited spot in the lower Alps of the Dauphiné, in a place named Chartreuse,
thumb|upright=0.6|left|Bruno of Cologne
Bruno resisted efforts to name him Archbishop of Reggio Calabria, deferring instead in favour of one of his former pupils nearby in a Benedictine abbey near Salerno. Instead, Bruno begged to return again to his solitary life. His intention was to rejoin his brethren in Dauphiné, as a letter addressed to them makes clear.
Saint Bruno has long been regarded as the patron saint of Calabria and one of the patron saints of Germany.
A writer as well as founder of his order, Bruno composed commentaries on the Psalms and on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle. Two letters of his also remain, his profession of faith, and a short elegy on contempt for the world, which shows that he cultivated poetry. Bruno's Commentaries reveal that he knew a little Hebrew and Greek; he was familiar with the Church Fathers, especially Augustine of Hippo and Ambrose. "His style", said Dom Rivet, "is concise, clear, nervous and simple, and his Latin as good as could be expected of that century: it would be difficult to find a composition of this kind at once more solid and more luminous, more concise and more clear."