SOURCE: Renna, Thomas. “Bernard and Bede.” The American Benedictine Review 44, no. 3 (September 1993): 223-35.

[In the following essay, Renna compares and contrasts the ideas of Bede and Bernard.]

Bede and Bernard. The one, the great monastic illuminary from Anglo-Saxon England; the other, from twelfth-century France. They lived at two important junctures in the development of Western monasticism. Modern historians have generally emphasized Bede's place in the Northumbrian renaissance, and Bernard's role in the monastic reforms after 1100. Bernard is sometimes contrasted with Benedict of Nursia, Benedict of Aniane, Cluniacs, or thirteenth-century Franciscans in order to discern his distinctive qualities. How do Bede and Bernard reflect their respective monastic environments? Is there something peculiarly English about Bede or French about Bernard? It will be argued here that their respective goals for the function of monks were shaped by the state of monasticism at the time.

Bernard's idea of monastic renewal was largely outside of, and in some sense in opposition to, some then current notions of reform. The progressive interiorization of traditional monastic terms from the sixth down to the twelfth century can be seen in Bernard's objectives for monastic reform. What indeed was Bernard's idea of the Church? He wrote no De ecclesia and only sporadic advice directed to individual churchmen. He did not explain the assumptions behind his interventions on behalf of individual clerics and laymen. It is often difficult to reconcile these actions with his abstract or allegorical allusions to the Church in his sermons and treatises. Nevertheless, three observations pertain to the present study.

I. THE ROLE OF MONKS

Bernard is plain enough on the purpose of monks in the Church, although he virtually ignores the beneficial effects contemplative monks may have on the Church Militant. The impact the presence these holy monks has on the Body of Christ is, to be sure, strongly implied, but rarely stated. Bernard is more concerned with the how of monastic living than with its raison d'être. Bede, however, is not in the least reserved about the social and spiritual results holy men and women have had and continue to have on the Britain of his day. Monks are teachers, preachers, pastors, scholars, missionaries, seers, advisors, miracle-workers, demon-fighters, defenders of the oppressed, and intercessors before the throne of heaven.¹ They are indispensable to the cultural and spiritual life of the nation then being integrated into English secular and ecclesiastical currents. Bernard of Clairvaux no doubt would have considered Bede's roving monks to be no better than the busybodies who emanated from Cluny.

II. THE ROLE OF BISHOPS

Bernard often reprimands bishops individually and collectively for becoming overly concerned with the details of their daily responsibilities.² Bernard reacts to specific abuses; he proposes no episcopal program. While he seems supportive of Gregorian reforms, Bernard accepts ecclesiastical structures as they are. He simply takes for granted the bishops' functions as disciplinarians and dispensers of sacraments. He lectures prelates on personal matters, rarely on policy or larger institutional questions.

Bede is another matter. His bishops have been instrumental in the formation of the English Church. Their function is to preserve Roman organization and rites, and the progress made among the Britons and the English.³ Bishops should view their offices not as positions to be enjoyed, but as opportunities for service, taking a page out of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care. Bede's good bishops complain about their episcopal “burdens,” and long for solitude.⁴ Following the example of the two Augustines (Hippo and Canterbury) and Gregory the Great, Aidan turns his episcopal house into a quasi-monastery.⁵ This is conventional enough, but Bede's point is subtle and polemic: a good English bishop strives to retain the best of the Celtic tradition, with its bishop-abbots and heroic asceticism.

Bede and Bernard both wrote vitae sancti, Cuthbert and Malachy, which converge at many places. They use the broad outlines of hagiography, complete with miracles, virtues, and intercessory powers. Bede's Cuthbert, however, behaves much the same after he becomes bishop. Cuthbert continues to live like a monk, even while he preaches to the rural populace and ministers to the poor.⁶ He treats his flock with respect, whether they be Picts, Scots, or Britons, however misguided they may be on their dating of Easter. Cuthbert hastens the integration of Celtic piety and Roman customs. He stands within the society he serves.

Malachy, however, towers above the “foreigners” around him. Ireland is mission territory, inhabited by rustic barbarians.⁷ The terrible Malachy has little in common with the gentle Cuthbert. Bernard's Malachy is a self-appointed Jeremiah who displays little sympathy with local usages. He challenges prelates, princes, abbots, and evildoers in his unrelenting drive to fashion an Irish Church. His very way of life is a rebuke to the other bishops in this semi-pagan land. In a little noticed, but revealing, passage in the Vita Bernard tells, with approval, how Malachy berates a lay advocate of a monastery at Bangor, who had protested that the new buildings were too extravagant, too “French.”⁸ Infuriated, Malachy threatens the unfortunate man with a bad end, which of course soon follows. What an opportunity for Bernard to insert here a justification for the elaborate French-like abbeys then being constructed in Ireland!⁹ Malachy, however, is silent. Why then did Bernard include this incident, which seems incompatible with his renowned attacks on Cluny and even Malachy's own attack on “towering churches”?¹⁰ Malachy's contempt for his critics, it is suggested here, mirrors Bernard's opinion of his own detractors. Just as Cuthbert ridiculed the funny tonsure of Celtic monks, Malachy dismisses the layman's nostalgia for a nice traditional community, such as Clonmacnois or Glendalough. No doubt Bernard encountered similar criticisms on the Continent. It might be added, parenthetically, that Bernard's portrait of Malachy may well be partly autobiographical. Bernard may have been weary of criticism of Cistercian architecture. His fondness for the prophet of Ireland was based on his own self-image as the pioneering John the Baptist who was called to restore wayward monasticism to the Lord.

Cuthbert and Malachy founded monasteries and, in their own lives, never entirely abandoned the Benedictine way. They both surrounded themselves with monks in order to elevate their own spiritual lives. But Malachy is not a monk, whatever his zeal for establishing monasteries and maintaining contact with French Cistercians across the Channel. By praising Malachy, Bernard was also indirectly chastising French bishops for failing to promote Cistercian interests in their own dioceses. Yet Malachy is always the outsider who finally leaves his see to enter the cloister, which turns out to be Clairvaux.

In Bede's brief vitae of bishops the words monk and bishop seem almost interchangeable. Presumably Bede's idealization of Cuthbert and Aidan, both eminent leaders, did not extend to the ordinary monk praying quietly in his cell. Bede wanted contemporary English bishops to preserve the monastic attributes of the great Celtic abbots.

In Bernard's writings, on the contrary, the line between bishops and monks is firmly drawn. Certain activities open to bishops are closed to monks, for example, secular learning.¹¹ Prelates travel, admonish, defend the helpless. Bede's monks make pilgrimages and preach, invited or uninvited. Bernard's monks have no need of books, statues, relics, and objects d'art. Can one imagine Bernard praising Benedict Biscop (as Bede does in his Lives of the Abbots) for making a pilgrimage to Rome to obtain paintings and illuminated manuscripts? Bernard does not urge Pope Eugene to remain a Cistercian in the Lateran. Rather, he attempts to clarify the pointiff's proper duties. To be sure, the pope resides with holy men who act as anchors to the vita monastica.¹² Pope Eugene's periodic retreats into contemplation are intended to keep him sufficiently detached. It should be added that Bernard often tries to define a spirituality for bishops. In his sermons to monks Bernard repeatedly contrasts the way of monks with the way of prelates.¹³ The monk is “at rest” in the “center” of the Church.¹⁴ He weeps, while the prelates “watch.”¹⁵ Bernard points to the types of knowledge, prayer, and love which relate specifically to monks. To drive home his message he sometimes projects these categories on to prelates in order to illustrate the difference.

III. CHURCH, SOCIETY, AND BIBLICAL EXEGESIS

No such divergences appear in the pages of Bede. The Anglo-Saxon scholar sees himself as living at a critical point in the history of his country. Although the English Church has indeed emerged victorious, its position is still tenuous. Thus Bede, the English Eusebius, always placed monastic developments into the wider national picture.

Bernard views forces outside the monasteries as potential threats. Most of his correspondence to prelates and princes refers to direct or indirect encroachments upon monastic affairs.¹⁶ Bernard's pursuit for order and harmony in the monastery and in the Church at large is not the application of some preconceived theory. His appeals to order are after-the-fact rationalizations for actions aimed at those who endanger the peace of the cloister. Bernard is a monastic reformer. Bede is a national visionary, who imagined himself less a reformer than a recorder of providential happenings. The role of monks is for Bede only a part, albeit a major part, of the whole.

The disparity between our two sons of Saint Benedict can be seen in their handling of the primitive Church. In his Ecclesiastical History Bede refers to the idea four times (and once in his Life of Cuthbert).¹⁷ In every case the primitive Church is the apostolic life, the holding of material goods in common. Most of Bede's references to the ecclesia primitiva are to the monks who dwell in the house of a bishop; the apostles go out daily to preach. The conventional usage of the primitive Church as ownership of possessions in common, is closely tied to pastoral care. Interestingly Bede's exegesis of the “monastic” citation in Acts 2:44 (“they held everything in common,” one of the classic proof-texts exploited by medieval monks) makes no mention of monks!¹⁸ He notes only that the practice illustrated the brotherly love of the apostles. Bede the monk does not need to justify a practice which was self-evident at the time.

Surely, then, Bernard would have jumped at the chance to defend a monastic custom then in much dispute. The term vita apostolica was commonly used by monastic reformers, such as Peter Damian, and by canon lawyers to mean common property.¹⁹ The new mixed orders, such as the canons regular, sometimes used the apostolic life to mean the evangelical life, a combination of preaching and communal living.²⁰ But—surprise!—Bernard circumvents the primitive Church! In the entire Bernardine corpus the ecclesia primitiva occurs just ten times, without explanation of any one of these.²¹ In view of the widespread use of the term in canonist and monastic writings we must conclude that Bernard consciously chooses to sidestep the idea. Perhaps he wishes to suggest that the life of the Spirit has no need of ancient precedent, scriptural or otherwise. Violation of the practice of poverty conflicted with the inner life. Bernard's appeals to the New Testament Church are generally mystical or personal, usually with no immediate application of specific monastic practice. The apostolic life reminds Bernard of the soul's encounter with the Holy Spirit. He appears uninterested in the Jerusalem community as a prototype monastery, even though such an interpretation had long been a commonplace in monastic biblical exegesis.

In his commentary on Acts Bede refers to the Jews as the counterparts of the Gentiles.²² Perhaps Bede was attracted to the Book of Acts because he saw in Luke's book grounds for a reconciliation between Celts and English. Hence his conciliatory attitude toward the Jews. While Bernard wrote no commentary on Acts, he does refer to Jews occasionally in his sermons.²³ In almost every instance he refers to Jews (or Jewish Law) negatively in order to clarify by way of contrast some aspect of monastic behavior.

A comparison of the commentaries of Bede and Bernard on the Song of Songs exhibits a difference in emphasis typical of both writers. Whereas Bede generally prefers the ecclesia symbolism of the Bride,²⁴ Bernard prefers the anima. Both immediately mark the parameters of the discussion; Bede straightaway sets the Church off against the synagogue.²⁵ Bernard announces to his monastic audience that he will give instruction on contemplation.²⁶ For Bede, the kiss of the mouth—the Song's opening line—refers to Christ's doctrine.²⁷ For Bernard too, the kiss of the mouth is the word of God, but this is only the surface meaning. The inner sense of the passage signifies the union of God and the holy soul.²⁸ The kiss means Christ, grace, and the various stages in the soul's ascent to union.²⁹ Whereas Bede devotes barely eighty lines to this verse,³⁰ Bernard expounds for eight full sermons,³¹ with frequent references back to the quotation in subsequent sermons. Whereas Bede's exegesis is largely a catena of citations from Gregory the Great, Origen, and Scripture, Bernard produces a mini-treatise on the vita contemplativa, a tour de force which centers on the literary image of the kiss of the mouth.

In the next verse—“Your name is like oil poured out”—Bede typically refers to the effects of the apostles and their episcopal successors on the Church.³² Bernard explains—in twelve sermons—how the “oil” of the Holy Spirit works in the secret recesses of the soul. He builds the idea on the interior/exterior antithesis with applications for the monk, while noting the dangers of active charity.³³

Both Bede and Bernard take the passages on shepherds and flocks (1:6-7) to mean true leaders and false ones. Bede takes the occasion to assail certain unnamed heresies which threaten the peace of the Church.³⁴ Bernard, instead, attacks unworthy prelates and misguided philosophers in the present time.³⁵ This diatribe is but the preface to a discourse on the kinds of knowledge appropriate for a monk, and the method by which the latter might attain such wisdom.³⁶

Bede generally favors patristic interpretations, as in his commentaries on Luke and Matthew. Even when writing of Christ's birth, Bede brings in the true pastors (bishops) of the faithful. Bethlehem, the earthly city, is a type of the heavenly Bethlehem, the house of bread which stands for the Incarnation.³⁷

Bernard, as one might expect, turns the image into a metaphor for some inner experience. He internalizes Bethlehem to mean Christ's birth in the individual, an ongoing occurrence. “So we too must become a Bethlehem in Judea” when Christ is “born in faith in our hearts.”³⁸ Bernard's six sermons for Christmas Eve³⁹ focus on this theme, which might be compared with contemporary treatments of this same idea, such as those of the Carthusian Adam of Dryburgh.⁴⁰

Bede's homily for the dedication of a church (based on John 10:22-30) stresses the notion of the Temple of Solomon as a topos of the Church of Christ which superseded and completed it.⁴¹ Bernard's sermons for church dedications typically spiritualize the ancient Temple.⁴² Each aspect of the biblical regulations for Temple sacrifice is identified with some phase of the monk's spiritual progress. Every day each of us “builds” a temple “to the Lord in ourselves.”⁴³ The walls of the temple are our virtues.⁴⁴ Mystically the Temple is simultaneously Christ and the celestial Jerusalem in our souls.⁴⁵

Historians used to speak of a “crisis” in twelfth-century monasticism, a crisis the Cistercians tried to resolve. If there were a crisis outside the monastic context, Bernard of Clairvaux was not aware of it. There are of course the usual dire warnings about these “evil days,” rampant with heresy and hypocrisy. But Bernard seems to have seen nothing unique about the moral ills which characterize the world outside the cloister. If there was anything peculiar in his time it was the unworthiness of the bishops, who were immersed with temporal affairs. Bernard is oblivious (or pretends to be) to the economic and political changes occurring in his own Burgundy and in the French monarchy. He seems to view temptations for monks as something perennial. Stephen of Garland may have been a scandal to those influenced by the Gregorian reforms, but France was not then experiencing a Gallic version of the investiture controversy. Our sources from early twelfth-century France rarely indicate any monumental changes, except perhaps the founding of new monastic orders and the first crusade. Thus Bernard was not subject to non-monastic pressures to marshall the forces of the monks in some noble cause.

Bede, however, is disposed to press the monastery into service for Church and nation. Historical circumstances are such that monastic reforms imply a contribution to the common good of Britain as well as of the universal Church. Hence the Bedan paradox: we English are the new chosen people because we are joined to the Roman Church. Bede seeks to impose purpose on the monastic movement in his island. It is pointless to spiritualize the past as well as commonplace monastic terms.

Finally, the contrast between Bede and Bernard in their private lives is manifest. Despite his cloistered seclusion Bede developed an amazingly sweeping vision of the role of monks in Church and society. Yet Bernard, who seemed to be everywhere but at Clairvaux, promoted the monastic ideals of silence and solitude. How are we to account for this paradox in Bernard? He himself appears to have been troubled by his double life, at least when he was apologizing for his absences to his monks.⁴⁶ The answer perhaps is that he saw himself as an indispensable leader at a time of acute peril for the survival of true monasticism. While he may have criticized wanderlust in some monks, he doubtless would have seen a difference in motive between himself and them (love vs. self-aggrandizement or curiosity). Prophets need not bow to human approval.⁴⁷ (Even Peter Damian, that champion of the eremitic way, felt no compulsion to defend his visits to cities and courts.) Certain responsibilities, after all, fall to an abbot, a fortiori to a founder of monasteries and defender of the ancient Rule of Benedict. Nowhere in his writings does he suggest that his own manner of living should serve as a model for Cistercians. His trips are ad hoc. His rare admissions of having had contemplative experiences should perhaps be interpreted as teaching devices.⁴⁸ If it be objected that monastic professions of humility in medieval texts are simply rhetorical commonplaces, it must be affirmed that Bernard's intentions on so personal a matter (as his own justification for being both an active and a contemplative) are beyond the reach of the historian. What is historically significant is not the sincerity of his excuses for his travels, but the very fact that he felt obligated to make such justifications at all. This reflects the depth of his conviction (and others who shared his notions of monastic expectations) that cenobitic monks should stay home.

CONCLUSION

It has long been recognized that the early Cistercians sought to purify the monastic life. What has not been fully recognized is that political and economic conditions in early twelfth-century France were favorable for precisely this type of effort.⁴⁹ Bernard's concept of monasticism had the result, intended or not, of divorcing the vita monastica from both national and ecclesiastical tendencies. Bernard was scornful of any attempt to assess monks in terms of their immediate effects on the Church. This is not to deny that early Cistercian monasteries were mingled with external institutions, particularly in matters affecting land use. But this interplay was regional, not national or Church-wide. Certainly monks after Bernard, responding to criticism, attempted to cast the Cistercian order into a broader perspective which involved the Church universal. When Bernard did condescend to speak of the monks' place in the larger Church, his language drifts into the mystical or the eschatological. Bernard's sermons are generally closed-circuit conferences. He clears away the secondary functions of monks to get at the essential, namely, that which makes a monk a monk. Not so Bede, who shifts back and forth from the monk's private devotions (usually in solitude, with less mention of monastic practices) to his direct involvement in nation-building and Church-building. The historical circumstances in Britain discouraged attempts to define the monastic life in strictly spiritual and personal terms. It is ironic that Bede the bookworm could never take his eyes off doings outside monastery walls; Bernard the protagonist always gravitated back to the cloister—and then apologized when he ventured out to do God's work.

Bede and Bernard. Two giants in the evolution of European monasticism. The former was a product of the springtime of the English experience, when a young institution needed a clearer goal. The latter was a product of the summer of the continental movement, when a mature structure was in danger of abandoning its original aim. The French abbot sought to extract monasteries from excessive involvement in the world. Bede found his answer in history. Bernard, outside and beyond history, in the stillness of the swamp.

Notes

1. See B. Colgrave, Two Lives of Cuthbert (New York 1969). Numerous examples in his Ecclesiastical History, e.g. Cuthbert and contemporary monks: B. Colgrave, R. Mynors, eds., Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford 1969) Book IV, chaps. 25-30 (chaps. 27-32 in the J. King edition, Cambridge, MA: 1930; rpt. 1962), hence HE in this article. The Colgrave ed. supersedes the Plummer ed. of 1896. The L. Shirley-Price English tr. (New York: Penguin 1988, 2nd ed.) is from the Plummer text.

2. E.g. letters 25, 27, Sancti Bernardi Opera (= SBO) 7, pp. 78-80.

3. Bede particularly emphasizes the roles of Bishops Augustine of Canterbury, Aidan, Theodore and Cuthbert in HE. He occasionally makes asides on the proper duties of bishops. See HE IV.3 and 5.

4. See Cuthbert, HE IV.28.

5. HE IV.27. Aidan periodically retreats to places of solitude; HE III.14-17. Cuthbert and Aidan—and all subsequent Bishops of Lindisfarne—were bishops who lived like monks in a sort of monastery community. See Colgrave, Two Lives of Cuthbert (note 1 above) chaps. 16, 26, pp. 206-13 (Latin and English tr.).

6. HE IV.27-29; Colgrave, Two Lives of Cuthbert, chaps. 25-36, pp. 240-71.

7. See Vita Sancti Malachiae (= VM), eds. J. Leclercq, H. Rochais (Rome 1963) vol. 3, par. 6, p. 315; par. 19, pp. 329 ff. English tr. by R. Meyer, The Life and Death of Saint Malachy the Irishman Cistercian Fathers (= CF) 10 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian 1978).

8. VM par. 61, pp. 365 ff. “Scoti sumus, non Galli” (365.20-21).

9. See R. Stalley, The Cistercian Monasteries of Ireland (London-New Haven 1987) pp. 11-14; Colmcille, The Story of Mellifont (Dublin 1958) chaps. 1, 2; A. Gwynn, The Twelfth-Century Reform (Dublin 1968).

10. VM, par. 44, pp. 349 ff.

11. E.g., Sermones in Cantica (= SC) 36; SBO 2 (Rome 1958) pp. 3-8.

12. De consideratione, SBO 3, IV.14-15, pp. 459-60; CF 13 (Kalamazoo 1976) pp. 127-29. Bernard's sermon On Conversion (SBO 4.69-116), often misinterpreted as an exhortation for clerics to become monks, is actually an attempt to define a spirituality suitable for the pastoral clergy.

13. E.g. SC 33; SBO 1.233-45, and SC 36, 37, 46; SBO 2.

14. SC 46; SBO 2.56-61.

15. SC 76, 77; SBO 2.254-66.

16. Letters 8, 9, 21, 23-28, 64, 95, etc.; SBO 7 (Rome 1974); Letters 231, 307, 341 (to Malachy), 363, etc.; SBO 8 (Rome 1977).

17. HE. 1.26, 27; IV.23, 27; Colgrave, Two Lives (note 1) chap. 16, pp. 206-09. See the use of ecclesia primitiva in Bede's Commentary on Matthew (PL 92.13) and On the Song of Songs; Bedae Opera II; CCSL 119B (Turnholt 1983) pp. 197-98.

18. Bede, Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, L. Martin tr., Cistercian Studies (= CS) 117 (Kalamazoo 1989) p. 37. See 4.32 (p. 52). Translated from CC 121 (Turnholt 1983).

19. See G. Olsen, “The Idea of the Ecclesia Primitiva in the Writings of the Twelfth-Century Canonists,” Traditio 25 (1969) 61-86; G. Miccoli, “Ecclesiae primitivae forma,” Chiesa Gregoriana (Florence 1966) chap. 7.

20. See M. D. Chenu, Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century, ed. and tr. J. Taylor, L. Little (Chicago 1968) chaps. 6 and 7.

21. SBO 1.37,8; 243,16; SBO 2.40,5; SBO 4.243,20; 352,4; SBO 5.149,3; 365,15; SBO 6A.245,6; SBO 6B.80,3; 105,21; 293,10. See Apologia to William, SBO 3.10,24, p. 101.

22. E.g., Bede's exegesis of Acts 19:7. Bede does, to be sure, repeat patristic commonplaces on the deceitfulness of the Jews (as in his remarks on Acts 17:3 and 19:14). But on the whole, his allusions to Jews are neutral. His mild attitude towards Jews is significant, since many of the texts he used from Augustine, Gregory, Isidore and Jerome were replete with anti-Jewish interpretations. Bede probably did not use any specific patristic commentary on Acts.

23. SC 14, 73, 79; SBO 1, 2. Bernard refers to good monks as good Jews; In Vit. Nat. Dom. 2; SBO 4.203-11.

24. In Cant. Cant., CCSL 119B, pp. 193-98, 202-05, etc.

25. CCSL 119B, 193-95.

26. SC 1; SBO 1.3-8.

27. CCSL 119B 191.45.

28. SC 2.10,7: “Deus homini unitur.”

29. “Sunt ergo hi tres animarum affectus sive profectus” (forgiveness of sins, good deeds, contemplation): SC 4.1,1-5 (p. 19); CF 4, p. 22.

30. CCSL 119B, pp. 190-92.

31. SC 1.1-8.

32. CCSL 119B, p. 192.83-98.

33. Particularly in Sermon 18 on the operations of the Holy Spirit. Here Bernard seems to criticize both monks who engage, or want to engage, in active charity, and prelates who lack “interior virtues” (SC 1.18,2, p. 104).

34. CCSL 119B, pp. 199-201.

35. Prelates and philosophers, meaning schoolmen and probably including Abelard, lack the right kinds of knowledge and virtue (Sermons 32-34). Rhetorically these chapters are the prelude to the right kinds of knowledge for monks.

36. Modern scholars have often analyzed these sermons on monastic knowledge. My point here is that Bernard moves this lengthy discussion on scientia towards the specific kinds of knowledge proper for monks: that which leads to weeping for one's sins (SBO 2; SC 36.2, p. 4); to increase one's love (SC 36.3); to increase one's humility and to use self-knowledge to attain the notitiam of God (SC 36.6). Typically Bernard puts these types of monastic knowledge in the structure of a progressive series of steps in the spiritual life.

37. Commentary on Luke, PL 92.334; Homily 7: In nativitate Domini, CCSL 122, p. 47. See Bede's Itineraria, CC 175, 264-65. See also Rupert of Deutz on Bethlehem, PL 168.1135-36.

38. In vigilia nativitatis 6, par. 8.1; SBO 4.240. Discussed in my forthcoming “Cistercians and Bethlehem: A Historical View.”

39. SBO 4, pp. 197-244.

40. The journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem symbolizes stages in the contemplative ascent; Adam of Dryburgh, Six Christmas Sermons, tr. M. Hamilton, Analecta Cartusiana 16 (Salzburg 1974) Sermons 102, pp. 140-78.

41. Homily 24, CCSL 122.358-67 at 364.

42. SBO 5, Sermons 1-5, pp. 370-98. See T. Renna, “Bernard of Clairvaux and the Temple of Solomon,” in Law, Custom and Social Fabric in Medieval Europe: Essays in Honor of Bryce Lyon, ed. B. Bachrach and D. Nicholas (Kalamazoo 1990) pp. 73-88.

43. Sermon 2.2-4, pp. 376-78.

44. Sermon 3, pp. 379-82.

45. Sermon 5, pp. 388-98.

46. Letters 143, 144; SBO 2.342-46.

47. For Bernard as prophet, see T. Renna, “Abelard versus Bernard: An Event in Monastic History,” Cîteaux 27 (1976) 189-202 at 199-202.

48. See John R. Sommerfeldt, The Spiritual Teachings of Bernard of Clairvaux, CF 125 (Kalamazoo 1991) pp. 215-17.

49. See C. Bouchard, Sword, Miter and Cloister: Nobility and the Church in Burgundy, 980-1198 (Ithaca 1987).