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Document Type

Forum Theme 1

Abstract

The Cistercian Order was founded in Burgundy, France, in 1098 in a wake of the reform-enthusiasm related to the so-called Gregorian reform. The Order saw a rapid success in the 12th century and spread through most of Europe not least thanks to its main figure, Bernard Clairvaux (1090-1153). Bernard was an influential man. He corresponded with princes and popes and engaged in a wide array of ecclesiastical causes and politics. He was constantly on the watch for heresy or relapse in whichever guise and persistently sought to drive his contemporaries into soteriologically safer havens: Cistercian monasteries, crusades, orthodoxy, or, if so, simply god-fearing lives. First and foremost, he became the central figure of the Cistercian order and its endeavours to reform Benedictine monasticism. And he produced a large oeuvre of treatises, letters and sermons. Most renowned were his eighty-six sermons on the Song of Songs which employed the nuptial vocabulary of the Old Testament Song of Songs to describe the affectionate union between Christ and the Soul.

Publication Date

Spring 2006

Journal Title

UNIversitas

Volume

2

Issue

1

First Page

1

Last Page

4

Copyright

©2006 Mette B. Bruun

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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