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Bernard of Clairvaux

By: Brian Patrick McGuire
Narrated by: Todd Curless
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Summary

In this intimate portrait of one of the Middle Ages' most consequential men, Brian Patrick McGuire delves into the life of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux to offer a refreshing interpretation that finds within this grand historical figure a deeply spiritual human being who longed for the reflective quietude of the monastery even as he helped shape the destiny of a church and a continent. Heresy and crusade, politics and papacies, theology and disputation shaped this astonishing man's life, and McGuire presents it all in a deeply informed and clear-eyed biography.

Following Bernard from his birth in 1090 to his death in 1153 at the abbey he had founded four decades earlier, Bernard of Clairvaux reveals a life teeming with momentous events and spiritual contemplation, from Bernard's central roles in the first great medieval reformation of the Church and the Second Crusade, which he came to regret, to the crafting of his books, sermons, and letters. We see what brought Bernard to monastic life and how he founded Clairvaux Abbey, established a network of Cistercian monasteries across Europe, and helped his brethren monks and abbots in heresy trials, affairs of state, and the papal schism of the 1130s.

By reevaluating Bernard's life and legacy through his own words and those of the people closest to him, McGuire reveals how this often-challenging saint saw himself and conveyed his convictions to others. Above all, this fascinating biography depicts Saint Bernard of Clairvaux as a man guided by Christian revelation and open to the achievements of the human spirit.

The book is published by Cornell University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

"An excellent work. Brian McGuire's perspective reveals new things about Bernard and his role in the twelfth century." (Bernard McGinn, University of Chicago, Divinity School)

©2020 Cornell University (P)2022 Redwood Audiobooks
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

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At last! A well balanced account.

To describe Bernard as ‘marmite’ is a cliche, and there are none in this book.
Bernard was difficult, quarrelsome and self-willed; demanding, interfering and manipulative: and yet, read some of his sermons on the Song of Songs and you see another side of him completely.
Audible already publishes an entire book on the controversy between Bernard and Abelard but this author deals with it not only in detail with nuance, but sets the broader context that indicates that there were already issues of a personal nature that coloured their differences, and it is refreshing and reassuring to learn not to think of Bernard as the reactionary and Abelard as the progressive: according to this author both were exploring new ground but by different routes.
That Bernard was a monk in habit only was quite clear to me when writing a short pen portrait for my church on his saint’s day, but gratifying to read that he had admitted that for himself. Did Isleep through his enthusiasm for Hildagard or did it get lost on the editor’s Clearstream paper basket, but it should have had a mention somewhere, although I missed out on the fifteen questions because everything else was already in the text.
This is a wonderful and worthwhile read.

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