13 - Bernard of Clairvaux

Summary

Life and work

There is no doubt that Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) is the most famous Cistercian, so much so that he is often mistakenly considered to be the Order’s founder. It is Bernard who expanded the modest beginnings of the Order under Robert of Molesme (1098) into universal fame. After a brief spell in the monastery of Cîteaux, Bernard moved to Clairvaux in Champagne, whence he organised and supervised, in the shape of an amalgam of intra- and extramural activities, both his own life and the life of the Cistercian Order. In themselves those activities amount to an ecclesiastic-political career that, in theory, does not betray any need of monastic underpinnings. Thus Bernard’s (in)famous interventions in the world of (Church) politics such as his manoeuvrings on behalf of Innocent II during the papal schism of 1130, his meddling in the theological controversy surrounding Abelard at the Council of Sens in 1140 and his preaching of the Second Crusade in 1147 could all have been the work of any politically minded cleric whosoever. His activist behaviour certainly does not seem to owe anything to a particular brand of Cistercian spirituality. At the same time, ever since founding Clairvaux Bernard held but one position: the abbacy of his monastery. Whether attending to his duties as an abbot inside that monastery or hitting the road on Church business, he acted on the assumption that his authority did not exceed the limits of his profession, even though, unsurprisingly, his opponents took a different view on this claim. As such there was nothing abnormal about an abbot reaching out beyond the walls of his monastery in matters political and ecclesiastical. In the case of the freshly established Cistercian Order, however, with its ambition of return to the letter of the Benedictine Rule – that is, to poverty, withdrawal and stabilitas loci – things looked different. In fact, no one was more vociferous than Bernard in denouncing monastic exhibitionism both intra- and extramurally.