Clairvaux
A Cistercian abbey in the valley of the Aube, founded from Cîteaux about 1115 with Bernard as its first abbot. By his death in 1153 it was the head of a family of more than a hundred and sixty monasteries.
William of Saint-Thierry describes Clairvaux as a place in the territory of Langres, not far from the river Aube, which had been a den of robbers and was once called the Valley of Wormwood. There, he says, Bernard of Clairvaux and his monks settled in poverty and made of it a house of prayer (Vita Prima of Bernard 1.5.25 (PL 185, col. 241)). Geoffrey of Auxerre calls Bernard the first abbot of Clairvaux and the father of more than a hundred and sixty other monasteries (Vita Prima of Bernard 5.2.15 (PL 185, col. 360)).
What happened here
- 1098 to 1115, estimated dateThe Cistercians and Bernard of Clairvaux
In 1098 monks from Molesme found a “New Monastery” at Cîteaux to keep the Rule of Benedict to the letter, in poverty and by their own labour. Bernard joins with some thirty companions and becomes abbot of Clairvaux, and daughter houses multiply.