Bernard was born in 1090 at Fontaines, near Dijon in Burgundy, into a noble family. In 1113 he entered the poor new monastery of Cîteaux, bringing some thirty relatives and friends with him. Two years later he was sent with twelve monks to found Clairvaux, which he ruled as abbot for the rest of his life; from it dozens of new monasteries were founded across Europe in his lifetime.
His writings made him the voice of the Cistercian reform: the Apology on monastic simplicity, On Grace and Free Choice, On Loving God, and the eighty-six Sermons on the Song of Songs, begun in 1135 and left unfinished at his death. His is a theology of love: God himself is the reason for loving God, and the measure of loving him is to love without measure.
Bernard of Clairvaux in the library (3 works)
- Bernard of Clairvaux: On the Love of God — c. 1128; translation 1881, edition 1884
Why and how God is to be loved — without measure — and the four degrees of love, with fragments of his sermons on the Song of Songs. - Bernard of Clairvaux: Sermons on the Song of Songs — 1135–1153; translation 1896
The 86 sermons on the Song of Songs, Bernard's masterpiece on the love between Christ and the soul. - Bernard of Clairvaux: On Consideration — 1148–1153; translation 1908
Bernard's advice to his former monk Pope Eugenius III on how a busy leader must make time to consider himself, his office and God.