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Biography

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Bernard of Clairvaux, the twelfth-century Cistercian most often meant by the title Abbot Bernard, was born in 1090 at Fontaine-lès-Dijon in the Duchy of Burgundy, the son of the Burgundian noble Tescelin and of Aleth of Montbard. He grew up in a devout aristocratic household and was educated at Châtillon-sur-Seine. His mother’s piety left a lasting mark; after her death he turned decisively toward the monastic life. In the early 1110s he entered the New Monastery at Cîteaux under Abbot Stephen Harding, bringing with him a large band of relatives and companions, including several of his own brothers. That influx is traditionally credited with helping to revive Cîteaux at a moment when the young reform was still fragile.

In 1115 Bernard was sent to found a daughter house in a remote valley of Champagne. The community took the name Clairvaux, and he remained its abbot until his death. From that base he directed an extraordinary expansion of the Cistercian Order across western Europe. Dozens of daughter abbeys were established in his lifetime, and he became the most influential monastic figure of his century. He insisted on austerity, simplicity of liturgy and architecture, and a strict reading of the Rule of Saint Benedict as the Cistercians interpreted it. Although he repeatedly sought a hidden life of contemplation, popes, kings, and bishops drew him into the public business of the Church.

Bernard played a decisive part in the papal schism that followed the death of Honorius II in 1130, traveling widely to secure recognition of Pope Innocent II against the rival claimant Anacletus II. He later opposed the teaching of Peter Abelard and helped obtain Abelard’s condemnation at the Council of Sens. At the request of Pope Eugene III, himself a former monk of Clairvaux, Bernard preached the Second Crusade in 1146, notably at Vézelay; the expedition’s failure weighed heavily on him afterward. His letters and treatises, including On Loving God, the sermons on the Song of Songs, and On Consideration addressed to Eugene III, made him a central voice in twelfth-century theology, especially on monastic spirituality, the love of God, and devotion to the Virgin Mary.

He died at Clairvaux on 20 August 1153 and was buried at the abbey. Pope Alexander III canonized him in 1174. In 1830 Pope Pius VIII declared him a Doctor of the Church, and he has long been known as the Doctor Mellifluus, the honey-sweet doctor, for the eloquence of his preaching and writing. His feast is kept on 20 August. He is venerated as patron of the Cistercian Order, of Burgundy, of Gibraltar, of Queens' College, Cambridge, and of beekeepers, candlemakers, and wax refiners, associations that grew from his cult and from the mellifluous epithet attached to his name.

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