The monk and the knight 'the two quintessentially medieval European heroes 'were combined in the Knights Templar, men who took the monastic vows and defended the holy places and pilgrims. With characteristic eloquence, Bernard of Clairvaux voices the cleric's view of the knights, warfare, and the conquest of the Holy Land in five chapters on the knight's vocation. Then, in another eight chapters the abbot who never visited the Holy Land provides a spiritual tour of the pilgrimage sites guarded by this 'new kind of knighthood.'
Piety and mysticism of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux as widely known instrumental French monastic reformer and political figure condemned Peter Abélard and rallied support for the second Crusade.
This doctor of the Church, an abbot, primarily built the Cistercian order. After the death of mother, Bernard sought admission into the Cistercian order in 1112. Three years later, people sent Bernard found a new house, named Claire Vallée, "of Clairvaux," on 25 June 1115. Bernard preached that the Virgin Mary interceded in an immediate faith.
In 1128, Bernard assisted at the council of Troyes and traced the outlines of the rule of the Knights Templar, who quickly the ideal of Christian nobility.
An incredibly important source text in the history sexuality and Christianity. Here, Bernard provides a new model of masculinity that unites monastic practices with forms of militarism; all so that the knight is no longer a feudal aggressor but a disciplined spiritual subject whose violence is sanctified, body controlled, and devotion transferred from worldly glory to God.
An interesting little treatise from the Middle Ages by Bernard of Clairvaux on combining spiritual and not so spiritual warfare especially in the Holy Land to liberate the holy sites from the Muslims. One might think there are many books arguing to the same effect but there are not, which makes this one something of a pearl.