Bruno discreetly avoided the cathedral city until in 1080 a definite sentence, confirmed by popular riot, compelled Manasses to withdraw[3] and take refuge with Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, the fierce opponent of Pope Gregory VII.

The bishop, according to the pious legend, had recently had a vision of these men, under a chaplet of seven stars, and he installed them himself in 1084 in a mountainous and uninhabited spot in the lower Alps of the Dauphiné, in a place named Chartreuse,[4] not far from Grenoble.

They built an oratory with small individual cells at a distance from each other where they lived isolated and in poverty,[4] entirely occupied in prayer and study, for these men had a reputation for learning, and were frequently honoured by the visits of Hugh of Châteauneuf who became like one of themselves.

Resolved to continue the work of reform commenced by Gregory VII and being obliged to struggle against Antipope Clement III and Emperor Henry IV, he was in dire need of competent and devoted allies and called his former master to Rome in 1090.

[3] It is difficult to assign the place which Bruno occupied in Rome, or his influence in contemporary events, because it remained entirely hidden and confidential.

Lodged in the Lateran with the pope himself, privy to his most private councils, he worked as an advisor but kept to the background, apart from the fiercely partisan rivalries in Rome and within the curia.

[6] 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.

The place for his new retreat, chosen in 1091 by Bruno and some followers who had joined him, was in the Diocese of Squillace, in a small forested high valley, where the band constructed a little wooden chapel and cabins.

Bruno went to the Guiscard court at Mileto to visit the count in his sickness (1098 and 1101), and to baptize his son, Roger (1097), the future King of Sicily.

[6] At the turn of the new century, the friends of Bruno died one after the other: Urban II in 1099; Landuin, the prior of the Grande Chartreuse, his first companion, in 1100; Count Roger in 1101.

His disciples praised his three chief virtues — his great spirit of prayer, extreme mortification, and devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

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.