Bernard of Clairvaux

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) was a French abbot, theologian and the dominant churchman of his age. Born of a noble family near Dijon, he entered the new monastery of Cîteaux in 1113 with thirty companions and two years later was sent to found Clairvaux, from which the Cistercian order spread across Europe. He wrote treatises on the love of God and on grace and free will, sermons on the Song of Songs and hundreds of letters, opposed Abelard, secured the recognition of the Templars, preached the Second Crusade and composed the life of his friend Malachy of Armagh.