Bernard of Clairvaux, (1090 – 1153), venerated as Saint Bernard. Abbot, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templar, and major leader in the reformation of the Benedictine Order through the nascent Cistercian Order.
He was sent to found Clairvaux Abbey at an isolated clearing in a glen known as the Val d'Absinthe, about 15 kilometres (9 mi) southeast of Bar-sur-Aube. In the year 1128, Bernard attended the Council of Troyes, at which he traced the outlines of the Rule of the Knights Templar, which soon became an ideal of Christian nobility.
Bernard was canonized just 21 years after his death by Pope Alexander III. In 1830 Pope Pius VIII declared him a Doctor of the Church.
- "His body was so wasted and worn away, that he seemed to be nothing but skin and bones; his face was ruddie, his hair and beard red, and in his old age white, of a middle stature, rather tall then low." https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VO1BAQAAMAAJ&newbks=1...
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| San Bernardo by Juan Correa de Vivar |
