Ailredus, Aelredus

Ailredus, Aelredus an English historian, born in 1109, and said to have died in 1166. According to Cave, he was an Englishman, educated in Scotland, having been educated together with Henry, son of David, king of Scotland. When he was of the proper age a bishopric was offered to him, but he refused it; and, returning to England, he took the monastic vows among the Cistercians of Revesby Abbey, in Lincolnshire. He became abbot of this monastery, and afterward of Rievaux, and made Bernard of Clairvaux his model both as to his life and style of writing. His works include Historia de Vita et Miraculis S. Edwardi R. et Confess. (among the "Decem Scriptores" of England, edited by Twisden, Lond. 1652); Genealogia Regum Anglorum; De Bello Standardi; Historia de Sanctimoniali de Watthun (all in Twisden); Sermones de Tempore et de Sanctis (in Bibl. Clarae Vallis); In Isaiam Prophetam Sermones 31; Speculum Charitatis, libris 3; Tractatus de puero Jesu duodecenni (ed. by David Camerarius, de Scot. fortitud, Paris, 1631); De Spirituali Amicitia, libri 3. The latter four treatises were edited by Gibbon, a Jesuit, and printed at Douay in 1631; also in the Biblioth. Cistercien. tom. verse 16, and Bibl. Patr. tom. 23:1. — Cave, Hist. Lit. sec. 12, vol. 2, 227; Dupin, Hist. Eccl. Writers, cent. 12; Landon, Eccl. Dictionary, 1, 170; Clarke, Sacred Literature, 2, 696.