Author(s):
Köpf, Ulrich
[German Version] (1090/1091, Fontaines-lès-Dijon – Aug 20, 1153, Clairvaux). I. Life – II. Work – III. Influence
I. Life Bernard, son of the Burgundian nobleman Tescelin le Saur and of Aleth of Montbard, was educated by the secular canons of St. Vorles in Châtillon. In 1113, along with 30 young noblemen, he entered the abbey of Cîteaux, whose abbot was Stephan Harding. In 1115, he was commissioned to found Clairvaux; he remained its abbot until his death. He decisively influenced the institutional development and spiritual formation of the Cistercians, establishing new monasteries and reforming existing ones: in 1153, there were approximately 170 daughter houses of Clairvaux, including some 70 new foundations. He quickly extended his work beyond his own monastery and order; he mediated in secular and ecclesiastical conflicts, criticized Cluny (expulsion of Pontius as abbot) and Cluniac monasticism, served as consultant to new orders (Carthusians; Knights, Orders of), intervened in at least 16 episcopal elections in French, English, upper Italian, and Spanish dioceses, and undertook many journeys through France, Italy, and Germany in pursuit of his political goals within the church. In the schism of 1130–1138, he successfully supported Innocent II against Anacletus II. At the provincial council of Sens in 1140/1141, he engineered the condemnation of P. Abelard, who then took refuge at Cluny; shortly before Abelard's death (1142), he and Bernard were reconciled. In 1144/1145, Bernard opposed Arnold of Brescia and urged emperor Conrad III to go to Rome. In 1145, with the cardinal legate Alberich of Ostia, he campaigned against heretics in southern France; the Cistercians became the agents of the Inquisition. At the Court Day of Vézelay on Mar 31, 1146, Bernard began his spectacular preaching campaign for a new crusade, which took him through Flanders, along the Rhine to Constance, and on to Zürich (Dec 15/16, 1146). The failure of the crusade (1147–1149) placed him on the defensive and…