Eugene III

Pope Eugene III, born Bernardo at Pisa in Tuscany in the late eleventh century, was the first Cistercian to occupy the papal throne. Contemporary sources do not record a precise year of birth, and later claims that he belonged to the Neapolitan Pignatelli family are regarded by historians as unsubstantiated. He served as a canon of the cathedral chapter of Pisa before coming under the influence of Bernard of Clairvaux. Entering the Cistercian Order, he spent a period of formation at Clairvaux in Burgundy and was later sent back to Italy. Around 1140 he was appointed abbot of the monastery of Saints Vincent and Anastasius at Tre Fontane outside Rome, a house recently transferred to the Cistercians.

On 15 February 1145 the cardinals elected the abbot as successor to Pope Lucius II, who had died after street fighting against the Roman commune. Taking the name Eugene III, he was consecrated shortly afterward. He was not a cardinal at the time of his election. The Roman Senate and the preacher Arnold of Brescia refused to accept papal temporal rule, and Eugene was forced to leave Rome almost immediately. He was crowned at Farfa Abbey and thereafter spent much of his pontificate in exile, residing at Viterbo, Siena, and other Italian towns, and from 1147 to 1149 in France. Throughout these years he remained in close correspondence with Bernard of Clairvaux, who composed for him the treatise De consideratione on the spiritual and administrative responsibilities of the papacy.

The most consequential act of his reign was the proclamation of the Second Crusade. After the fall of Edessa in 1144, Eugene issued the bull Quantum praedecessores in December 1145, granting crusading privileges, and entrusted the preaching of the expedition to Bernard of Clairvaux. Kings Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany took the cross; the campaign, launched in 1147, ended in failure before Damascus in 1148. Eugene also convened synods at Paris in 1147 and Reims in 1148, which addressed clerical discipline, condemned certain theological propositions associated with Gilbert of Poitiers, and furthered reform of religious life. He confirmed the Knights Templar and continued papal support for the new religious orders of the twelfth century.

Eugene returned to Italy in 1149 and, after further negotiations, was able to reside more securely in Rome toward the end of his life. He died at Tivoli on 8 July 1153 and was buried in St Peter's Basilica. His eight-year pontificate, conducted largely away from Rome, nonetheless advanced the administrative development of the Roman Curia and the Cistercian presence in the Church. He was never formally canonized; Pope Pius IX confirmed his cult in 1872, and he is venerated as Blessed Eugene III, with liturgical commemoration on 8 July.