Bernard of Clairvaux born in Burgundy

1090

The future Cistercian abbot, preacher of the Second Crusade, and theological hammer of twelfth-century Europe was born to Burgundian nobility at Fontaine-les-Dijon. His eloquence would eventually reshape Western monasticism and drive Christendom into another mass migration east toward the Holy Land in his lifetime. He entered the monastery at Citeaux in 1113 with thirty companions, an act of collective renunciation that electrified pious Europe.