Great St Bernard Hospice

The Great St Bernard Hospice, named after Bernard of Menthon, is a hospice and hostel for travelers at the Great St Bernard Pass in Switzerland. At an elevation of in the Pennine Alps, it is located a few hundred metres north from the border with Italy. It is part of the municipality of Bourg-Saint-Pierre in the Swiss canton of Valais. History The first hospice or monastery was built in the 9th century at Bourg-Saint-Pierre, which was mentioned for the first time around 812-820. This was destroyed by Saracen incursions in the mid-10th century, probably in 940, the date at which they also occupied Saint-Maurice. Around 1050, Saint Bernard of Menthon, archdeacon of Aosta, regularly saw travellers arriving terrorised and distressed, so he 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, thus explaining why the whole pass is now in Swiss territory. St. Bernard dog The St Bernard 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 St Bernards were specially bred and trained for the role of mountain rescue because they were sufficiently strong to cross deep snow drifts and had the capacity to track lost travellers by scent. The first evidence that the dogs were in use at the monastery is in two paintings dating to 1690 by Salvator Rosa. The dogs are often depicted as carrying a small flask of brandy around their necks to revive travellers. While this appears to have generally been a 19th-century myth, there was apparently at least one dog that really did. In The Percy Anecdotes, by Thomas Byerley, published in 1823, the following anecdote appears, and was often quoted in other books in the 19th century: