HIST-308 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Cistercians
16 Nov 2020
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Document Summary
But then an extraordinary young man entered the community: st. bernard of clairvaux. He was a man of exceptional gifts: a mystic, a brilliant preacher, a talented writer, an effective administrator, and a skillful advisor to popes and princes. His reputation for sanctity was widespread. pilgrims flocked to his abbey in order to be healed of their ailments by his touch. People submitted their legal disputes to his judgment. Governments employed him as a diplomat. the papacy turned over the preaching of the second crusade to him. Bernard was the most admired churchman of his age. his personal popularity ensured the popularity of the cistercian order itself; by the end of the twelfth century its affiliate houses numbered over five hundred. Another factor in the rapid rise of the order was its admission of peasants to partial membership: these peasant recruits were called conversi, and it was their task to work the monasteries" fields.
