The Great St Bernard Hospice is a hospice or hostel

Hostel

Hostels provide budget oriented, sociable accommodation where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed, in a dormitory and share a bathroom, lounge and sometimes a kitchen. Rooms can be mixed or single-sex, although private rooms may also be available...

 for travellers in Switzerland, at 2469m altitude at the Great St Bernard Pass in the Pennine Alps

Pennine Alps

The Pennine Alps are a mountain range in the western part of the Alps. They are located in Switzerland and Italy...

. The frontier with Italy is only a few hundred metres to the south.

History

The first hospice or monastery was the 9th century one at Bourg-Saint-Pierre

Bourg-Saint-Pierre

Bourg-Saint-Pierre is a municipality in the district of Entremont in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.-Geography:...

 mentioned for the first time around 812

812

Year 812 was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar.- Europe :* The second Battle of Roncevaux Pass is fought between the Basques and the Franks....

-820

820

Year 820 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar.- Asia :* Tahir, the son of a slave, is rewarded with the governorship of Khurasan for supporting the caliphate...

. This was destroyed by Saracen

Saracen

Saracen was a term used by the ancient Romans to refer to a people who lived in desert areas in and around the Roman province of Arabia, and who were distinguished from Arabs. In Europe during the Middle Ages the term was expanded to include Arabs, and then all who professed the religion of Islam...

 incursions in the mid 10th century, probably in 940, the date at which they also occupied Saint-Maurice. Around 1050 saint Bernard of Menthon

Bernard of Menthon

Saint Bernard of Menthon , Born in 923, probably in the Château de Menthon near Annecy, in Savoy; died at Novara, 1008. He was descended from a rich, noble family and received a thorough education. He refused an honorable marriage proposed by his father and decided to devote himself to the service...

, archdeacon of Aosta, regularly seeing travellers arriving terrorised and distressed, decided to put an end to mountain brigandage in the area. With this in mind he founded the hospice at the pass which later bore his name (it was originally dedicated to St Nicholas). The church's first textual mention is in a document of 1125. The hospice was placed under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Sion, prefect and count of Valais

Valais

The Valais is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland in the southwestern part of the country, around the valley of the Rhône from its headwaters to Lake Geneva, separating the Pennine Alps from the Bernese Alps. The canton is one of the drier parts of Switzerland in its central Rhône valley...

, thus explaining why the whole pass is now in Swiss territory.

The St. Bernard

St. Bernard (dog)

The St. Bernard is a breed of very large working dog from the Italian and Swiss Alps, originally bred for rescue. The breed has become famous through tales of alpine rescues, as well as for its large size.-Appearance:The St. Bernard is a large dog...

 dog breed was created at the hospice from cross-breeding dogs, probably those offered by families in Valais in the 1660s and 1670s. The first definite mention of the breed is in 1709. The breed was originally raised to provide guard dogs for the hospice, before they became mountain rescue dogs. (The raising was transferred to the Barry foundation at Martigny in 2004.) In June 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...

 ordered a monumental tomb to be built at the Hospice for Louis Desaix (killed at the battle of Marengo), even though Desaix had not crossed the Alps with the armée de réserve. His body rested at Milan from 1800 to 1805, when it was buried at the hospice in the presence of Berthier, representing the emperor. A commemorative monument set up there in a chapel was moved in 1829, so that Desaix now lies anonymous under an altar dedicated to Saint Faustina.

Sources

Jean-Luc Rouiller, Le Valais par les dates : une chronologie des origines à nos jours, dans Annales valaisannes, 1999, p. 105, 106, 109. Le Grand-Saint-Bernard (collectif), dans Les chanoines réguliers de Saint-Augustin en Valais, Bâle

Bale

- Places :* Bale , a small town in Croatia* Bale, California, in Napa County* Bale, Norfolk in England* Bale, Poland* Balé Province, Burkina Faso* Basel, the Swiss city, for which the French name is Bâle-Ethiopia:* Bale Mountains...

, 1997 (Helvetia sacra, IV/1) Lucien Quaglia, La maison du Grand-Saint-Bernard des origines aux temps actuels, Martigny, 1972.