BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX (1090–1153), monastic reformer, abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Clairvaux, France. Bernard is known principally through four biographical accounts written in his own century (which contain more legend than fact), through other writings of his contemporaries, and through his own works. Born to a noble family at the château of Fontaine, near Dijon, Bernard was educated by the canons of Saint-Vorles, Châtillon. At about the age of twenty he decided to commit himself to monastic life at the recently founded abbey of Cïteaux, which he entered in 1113. In 1115 he was sent to found the abbey of Clairvaux. So many recruits came that in 1118 he founded another abbey, and he continued to found one or more each year for a total of about seventy monasteries.

By 1125 Bernard had written three treatises: The Steps of Humility, In Praise of the Virgin...