Bernard of Clairvaux

Abbot of Clairvaux

The little community of reformed Benedictines at Cîteaux grew rapidly. Three years after entering, Bernard was sent with a group of twelve monks to found a new house at Vallée d'Absinthe, in the Diocese of Langres. This Bernard named Claire Vallée, or Clairvaux, on 25 June 1115, and the names of Bernard and Clairvaux soon became inseparable. Bernard was made abbot by William of Champeaux, Bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne. From then on, a strong friendship grew between the abbot and the bishop, who was professor of theology at Notre Dame of Paris and the founder of St. Victor Abbey in Paris.

The beginnings of Clairvaux Abbey were austere, and Bernard even more so. He had often been ill since his noviciate, due to extreme fasting. Nonetheless, candidates for the monastic life flocked to him in great numbers. Clairvaux soon started founding new communities. In 1118 Trois-Fontaines Abbey was founded in the diocese of Châlons; in 1119 Fontenay Abbey in the Diocese of Autun; and in 1121 Foigny Abbey near Vervins. In Bernard's lifetime, more than sixty abbeys followed, though some were not new foundations but transferrals to the Cistercians.

Bernard spent extended time outside of the abbey as a preacher and a diplomat in the service of the pope. Described by Jean-Baptiste Chautard as "the most contemplative and yet at the same time the most active man of his age", Bernard described the disparate parts of his personality when he called himself the "chimera of his age".

In addition to successes, Bernard also had his trials. Once, when he was absent from Clairvaux, the prior of the rival Abbey of Cluny went to Clairvaux and convinced Bernard's cousin, Robert of Châtillon, to become a Benedictine. This was the occasion of the longest and most emotional of Bernard's letters. When his brother Gerard died, Bernard was devastated, and his deep mourning was the inspiration for one of his most moving sermons.

The Cluny Benedictines were unhappy to see Cîteaux gain such prominence so quickly, particularly since many Benedictines were becoming Cistercians. They criticized the Cistercian way of life. At the solicitation of William of St.-Thierry, Bernard defended the Cistercians with his Apology. Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, answered Bernard and assured him of his admiration and friendship. In the meantime, Cluny launched a reform and Bernard befriended Abbot Suger.

Doctor of the Church

Although acknowledged as "a difficult saint", Bernard has remained influential in the centuries since his death and was named a Doctor of the Church in 1830. In 1953, on the 800th anniversary of his death, Pope Pius XII devoted the encyclical Doctor Mellifluus to him. He labeled the abbot "the last of the Fathers".

In opposition to the rational approach to understanding God used by the scholastics, Bernard preached poetically, using appeals to emotion and conversion to foster a more immediate experience of faith. He is considered to be a master of Christian rhetoric: "His use of language remains perhaps his most universal legacy." He contributed lyrics to the Cistercian Hymnal.

As a master of prayer, the abbot emphasized the value of personal, experiential friendship with Christ.

Mariology

As a mariologist, Bernard was not original but exceptionally effective at spreading devotion to Jesus' mother, since his preaching attracted a large audience. He emphasized Mary's humility and insisted on her central role in Christian theology. He developed the theology of her role as Co-Redemptrix and mediator. He famously called Mary an "aquaeduct of grace". Dante has Bernard speak a profound Marian prayer at the beginning of the thirty-third canto of the Paradiso. In Goethe's Faust, Bernard appears as a "Doctor Marianus", a committed devoté of the Virgin Mary.

Schism

Bernard made a self-confident impression and had an undeniable charisma in the eyes of his contemporaries; the historian Holdsworth wrote that "his first and greatest miracle was himself". He defended the rights of the church against the encroachments of kings and princes, and recalled to their duty Henri Sanglier, archbishop of Sens and Stephen of Senlis, bishop of Paris. When Honorius II died in 1130, a schism broke out in the Church by the election of two popes, Pope Innocent II and Antipope Anacletus II. Innocent, having been banished from Rome by Anacletus, took refuge in France. King Louis VI convened a national council of the French bishops at Étampes, and Bernard, summoned there by the bishops, was chosen to judge between the rival popes. He decided in favour of Innocent.

Bernard travelled on to Italy and reconciled Pisa with Genoa, and Milan with the pope. The same year Bernard was again at the Council of Reims at the side of Innocent II. He then went to Aquitaine, where he succeeded for the time in detaching William X, Duke of Aquitaine from the cause of Anacletus.

Germany had decided to support Innocent through Norbert of Xanten, who was a friend of Bernard's. Pope Innocent, however, insisted on Bernard's company when he met with Lothair II, Holy Roman Emperor. Lothair II became Innocent's strongest ally among the nobility. Although the councils of Étampes, Würzburg, Clermont, and Rheims all supported Innocent, large portions of the Christian world still supported Anacletus.

In a letter by Bernard to German Emperor Lothair regarding Antipope Anacletus, Bernard wrote, "It is a disgrace for Christ that a Jew sits on the throne of St. Peter's" and "Anacletus has not even a good reputation with his friends, while Innocent is illustrious beyond all doubt." (One of Anacletus' great-great-grandparents, Benedictus, maybe Baruch in Hebrew, was a Jew who had converted to Christianity – but Anacletus himself was not a Jew, and his family had been Christians for three generations.)

Bernard wrote to Gerard of Angoulême (a letter known as Letter 126), which questioned Gerard's reasons for supporting Anacletus. Bernard later commented that Gerard was his most formidable opponent during the whole schism. After persuading Gerard, Bernard travelled to visit William X, Duke of Aquitaine. He was the hardest for Bernard to convince. He did not pledge allegiance to Innocent until 1135. After that, Bernard spent most of his time in Italy persuading the Italians to pledge allegiance to Innocent.

In 1132, Bernard accompanied Innocent II into Italy, and at Cluny, the pope abolished the dues that Clairvaux had paid to that abbey. This action gave rise to a quarrel between the White Monks and the Black Monks, which lasted 20 years. In May of that year, the pope, supported by the army of Lothair III, entered Rome, but Lothair III, feeling himself too weak to resist the partisans of Anacletus, retired beyond the Alps, and Innocent sought refuge in Pisa in September 1133. Bernard had returned to France in June and was continuing the work of peacemaking which he had commenced in 1130.

Towards the end of 1134, he made a second journey into Aquitaine, where William X had relapsed into schism. Bernard invited William to the Mass, which he celebrated in the Church of La Coudre. At the Eucharist, he "admonished the Duke not to despise God as he did His servants". William yielded, and the schism ended.

Bernard went again to Italy, where Roger II of Sicily was endeavouring to withdraw the Pisans from their allegiance to Innocent. He recalled the city of Milan's obedience to the pope, as they had followed the deposed Anselm V, Archbishop of Milan. For this, he was offered, and he refused, the see of Milan. He then returned to Clairvaux. Believing himself at last secure in his cloister, Bernard devoted himself to the composition of the works which won him the title of "Doctor of the Church". He wrote his sermons on the Song of Songs at this time.

In 1137, he was again forced to leave the abbey by order of the pope to put an end to the quarrel between Lothair and Roger of Sicily. At the conference in Palermo, Bernard convinced Roger of Innocent II's rights. He also silenced the final supporters who sustained the schism. Anacletus died of "grief and disappointment" in 1138, and with him, the schism ended.

In 1139, Bernard assisted at the Second Council of the Lateran, in which the surviving adherents of the schism were definitively condemned. About the same time, Bernard was visited at Clairvaux by Malachy, Primate of All Ireland, and a very close friendship formed between them. Malachy wanted to become a Cistercian, but the pope would not give his permission. Malachy died at Clairvaux in 1148.

Conflict with Abelard

Towards the close of the 11th century, a spirit of independence flourished within schools of philosophy and theology. The movement found an ardent and powerful advocate in Peter Abelard. Abelard's treatise on the Trinity had been condemned as heretical in 1121, and he was compelled to throw his own book into a fire. However, Abelard continued to develop his controversial teachings. Bernard is said to have held a meeting with Abelard, intending to persuade him to amend his writings, during which Abelard repented and promised to do so. But once out of Bernard's presence, he reneged.

Bernard then denounced Abelard to the pope and cardinals of the Curia. Abelard sought a debate with Bernard, but Bernard initially declined, saying that matters of such importance should not be settled by logical analysis. Bernard's letters to William of St-Thierry also express his apprehension about confronting the preeminent logician. Abelard continued to press for a public debate and publicized his challenge, making it hard for Bernard to decline. In 1141, at the urgings of Abelard, the archbishop of Sens called a council of bishops, where Abelard and Bernard were to put their respective cases so Abelard would have a chance to clear his name.

Bernard lobbied the prelates on the evening before the debate, swaying many of them to his view. The next day, after Bernard made his opening statement, Abelard decided to retire without attempting to answer. The council found in favour of Bernard, and the pope confirmed their judgment. Abelard submitted without resistance, and he retired to Cluny to live under the protection of Peter the Venerable, where he died in 1142.

The challenge of heresy

Bernard had occupied himself in sending bands of monks from his overcrowded monastery into Germany, Sweden, England, Ireland, Portugal, Switzerland, and Italy. Some of these, at the command of Innocent II, took possession of Tre Fontane Abbey, from which Eugene III was chosen in 1145. Pope Innocent II died in the year 1143. His two successors, Pope Celestine II and Pope Lucius II, reigned only a short time, and then Bernard saw one of his disciples, Bernard of Pisa, known thereafter as Eugene III, raised to the Chair of Saint Peter. Bernard sent him, at the pope's own request, various instructions which comprise the often-quoted De consideratione. Its main argument is that church reform ought to start with the pope. Temporal matters are merely accessories; Bernard insists that piety and meditation were to precede action.

Having previously helped end the schism within the Church, Bernard was now called upon to combat heresy. Henry of Lausanne, a former Cluniac monk, had adopted the teachings of the Petrobrusians, followers of Peter of Bruys, and spread them in a modified form after Peter's death. Henry of Lausanne's followers became known as Henricians. In June 1145, at the invitation of Cardinal Alberic of Ostia, Bernard travelled in southern France. His preaching, aided by his ascetic looks and simple attire, helped doom the new sects. Both the Henrician and the Petrobrusian faiths began to die out by the end of that year. Soon afterwards, Henry of Lausanne was arrested, brought before the bishop of Toulouse, and probably imprisoned for life. In a letter to the people of Toulouse, undoubtedly written at the end of 1146, Bernard calls upon them to extirpate the last remnants of the heresy. He also preached against Catharism. Before the second hearing of Gilbert of Poitiers at the Council of Reims 1148, Bernard held a private meeting with a number of the attendees, attempting to pressure them to condemn Gilbert. This offended the cardinals in attendance, who insisted that they were the only ones who could judge the case, and no verdict of heresy was rendered against Gilbert.

Monastic and clerical preaching

As abbot, Bernard often addressed his community, but he also spoke to other monastics and, in one particularly famous case, to theology students in Paris. He gave the sermon Ad clericos de conversione (to clerics on conversion) in 1139 or early 1140, to a group of scholars and student clerics. His many sermons on the Song of Songs belong to the often-studied sermons he addressed to the monks at Clairvaux.

Crusade preaching

Second Crusade (1146–1149)

News came at this time from the Holy Land that alarmed Christendom. Christians had been defeated at the Siege of Edessa, and most of the county had fallen into the hands of the Seljuk Turks. The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the other Crusader states were threatened with similar disaster. Deputations of the bishops of Armenia solicited aid from the pope, and the King of France also sent ambassadors. In 1144 Eugene III commissioned Bernard to preach the Second Crusade and granted the same indulgences for it which Pope Urban II had accorded to the First Crusade.

There was, at first, virtually no popular enthusiasm for the crusade, as there had been in 1095. Bernard found it expedient to dwell upon taking the cross as a potent means of gaining absolution for sin and attaining grace. On 31 March, with King Louis VII of France present, he preached to an enormous crowd in a field at Vézelay, making "the speech of his life". When he had finished, many of his listeners enlisted; they supposedly ran out of the cloth used to make crosses for the recruits.

Unlike the First Crusade, the new venture attracted royalty, such as the French queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and scores of high aristocrats and bishops. But an even greater show of support came from the common people. Bernard wrote Pope Eugene a few days afterwards, "Cities and castles are now empty. There is not one man left to seven women, and everywhere there are widows to still-living husbands."

Bernard then passed into Germany, with reported miracles contributing to the success of his mission. King Conrad III of Germany and his nephew Frederick Barbarossa received the cross from the hand of Bernard. Pope Eugenius came in person to France to encourage the enterprise. As in the First Crusade, the preaching led to attacks on Jews; a fanatical French monk named Radulf was apparently inspiring massacres of Jews in the Rhineland, Cologne, Mainz, Worms, and Speyer, with Radulf claiming Jews were not contributing financially to the rescue of the Holy Land. The archbishop of Cologne and the archbishop of Mainz were vehemently opposed to these attacks and asked Bernard to denounce them. He did so, but when the campaign continued, Bernard travelled from Flanders to Germany to address the problems in person. He then found Radulf in Mainz and was able to silence him, returning him to his monastery.

The last years of Bernard's life were saddened by the failure of the Second Crusade he had preached and by the entire responsibility that was thrown upon him. Bernard sent an apology to the Pope, and it is included in the second part of his "Book of Considerations". There, he explains that the sins of the crusaders caused their misfortune and failure.

Wendish Crusade (1147)

Bernard did not actually preach the Wendish Crusade. Still, he did write a letter advocating subduing this group of Western Slavs so they would not be an obstacle to the Second Crusade. He was for battling them "until such a time as, by God's help, they shall either be converted or deleted". A decree issued in Frankfurt stated that the letter should be proclaimed widely and read aloud, so that "the letter functioned as a sermon."

Final years (1149–1153)

The death of his contemporaries served as a warning to Bernard of his own approaching end. The first to die was Suger in 1152, of whom Bernard wrote to Eugene III, "If there is any precious vase adorning the palace of the King of Kings, it is the soul of the venerable Suger." Conrad III and his son Henry died the same year. Bernard died at age sixty-three on 20 August 1153, after forty years of monastic life. He was buried at Clairvaux Abbey. After his remains were destroyed in 1792 by the French Revolutionary government, they were transferred to Troyes Cathedral.

Legacy

Bernard helped found 163 monasteries across Europe. Cistercians honour him as one of the greatest early Cistercians. His feast day is 20 August.

Bernard is Dante Alighieri's last guide, in Divine Comedy, as he travels through the Empyrean.

Bernard introduced a major shift, a "fundamental reorientation" into medieval theology.

The Couvent et Basilique Saint-Bernard, a collection of buildings dating from the 12th, 17th, and 19th centuries, is dedicated to Bernard and stands in his birthplace of Fontaine-lès-Dijon. Countless churches and chapels have St. Bernard as their patron saint.