The History of St. Norbert: Apostle of the Holy Eucharist

St. Norbert is perhaps one of the greatest yet today unknown saints of the middle ages. Above all he was a great reformer. Born of nobility and living in luxury with royal favor St. Norbert suddenly had a conversion and embarked to be a new St. Paul throwing away his rich garments and preaching to the faithful as a beggar.Led further and provided with papal approval Norbert makes a foundation in the valley of Prémontré whence his order gets its name. The preaching of St. Norbert and his order restored faith in the Eucharist badly shaken by heretics and for this he was long remembered in northern European cities badly affected by heresy such as Antwerp. His life dominated the 12th century where as a friend of St. Bernard he worked to reform Church life and to defend the independence of the Papacy.The great project of St. Norbert was to combine the active and the contemplative life by establishing canons who lived by the maxims of monastic life to both work in the world and retire for prayer. In this he anticipates Sts. Francis and Dominic by a century.Premonstratensian abbeys dotted the landscape of Europe until the revolutions of the 16th-18th centuries.Fr. Kirkfleet relying on the best histories and the most accurate primary sources provides the most complete biography of this great saint in English.