The ‘De Consideratione’ of St. Bernard of Clairvaux and the Papacy in the Mid-Twelfth Century: A Review of Scholarship

Abstract

St. Bernard of Clairvaux is an unwilling enigma. No zealot in the Church's history has spoken more eloquently about right rule in the Church; none has been more fierce in his condemnation of the ecclesiastical truant. And yet, when this has been said, there remain the persistent questions of what Bernard actually conceived to be right rule in the Church, which truancy he would wholly exorcise and which merely prune. Oddly enough, in regard to his policies for reform, Bernard has become almost as well known among modern scholars for his ambiguities as for his doctrines. There now exists a rather bewildering garden of Bernardine studies from which a student can pluck an interpretation of his papal theory as Gregorian, anti-Gregorian, hierarchical, egalitarian, proto-Protestant, or any one of a variety of other hues. It will be the purpose of this paper to present the major interpretations of the De consideratione now extant and to attempt, where possible, to eliminate theories which are clearly specious, in the hope that future studies can proceed amicably and constructively.