letter is, like his Apologia, a fi erce attack on the luxuri-
ousness of the Cluniac (or, more widely, Benedictine)
way of life. This critical attitude was based on Bernard’s
own Cistercian predilection for simplicity and austerity
in art. The lengthy Letter 190, to Innocent II, is directed
against Abélard on the occasion of the latter’s condem-
nation at the Council of Sens, depicting him as a danger-
ous innovator whose application of reason to matters of
faith threatens religious stability. In fact, it is Bernard’s
concern about the legitimacy of his own monastic way
of life in the light of the Christian tradition and culture,
rather than the motives of his opponent, that comes to
the fore. Yet in spite of his claim that he, unlike Abélard,
is staying within the bounds of the Christian tradition,
Bernard is to be seen as part of the general renaissance
of the 12th century. In defending the quality of his own
ascetic life, he cherished a sophistication that many of
his contemporaries sought in the further refi nement of
reasoning and art.
See also Abélard, Peter; Gilbert of Poitiers;
William of Saint-Thierry
Further Reading
Bernard of Clairvaux. Sancti Bemardi opera omnia, ed. Jean
Leclercq, Charles H. Talbot, and Henri Rochais. 8 vols. Rome:
Editiones Cistercienses, 1957–78.
——. Selected Works, trans. Gillian R. Evans. New York: Paulist,
1987.
Bredero, A.H. Études sur la Vita prima de S. Bernard. Rome,
1960.
Casey, M. Athirst for God: Spiritual Desire in Bernard of
Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Song of Songs. Kalamazoo:
Cistercian, 1988.
Duby, Georges. Bernard de Clairvaux et l’art cistercien. Paris:
Arts et Métiers Graphiques, 1976.
Evans, Gillian R. The Mind of Bernard of Clairvaux. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1983.
Gilson, Étienne. The Mystical Theology of St. Bernard, trans.
A.H.C. Downes. London: Sheed and Ward, 1940.
Leclercq, Jean. Recueil d’études sur saint Bernard et ses écrits. 3
vols. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1966–92.
——. Monks and Love in Twelfth-Century France: Psycho-His-
torical Essays. Oxford: Clarendon, 1979.
Pranger, M. Burcht. Bernard of Clairvaux and the Shape of Mo-
nastic Thought: Broken Dreams. Leiden: Brill, 1994.
Burcht Pranger
BERNARD SILVESTRIS (d. ca. 1159)
Bernard probably taught in the cathedral school at Tours
in the second third of the 12th century, where one of his
students was Matthieu de Vendôme. The dedication of
his longest and most important work, the Cosmographia,
to Thierry of Chartres, has led some scholars to confuse
him with John of Salisbury’s beloved teacher Bernard
of Chartres, who would have been a generation older
than Silvestris. If, as seems likely, Bernard was also
trained at Tours, he would have studied under Hildebert
of Lavardin.
Bernard’s earliest works are a commentary on the fi rst
six books of Virgil’s Aeneid and another, incomplete, on
Martianus Capella. The commentary on Plato’s Timæus
mentioned in the Martianus commentary has not been
identifi ed. In his elegiac poem Mathematicus, Bernard
discusses destiny and necessity in mathematical terms.
Also at least partly his is the Experimentarius, a work
taken from Arabic sources on cosmography. Two short
opuscules derived from problems in Quintilian and
Seneca are also usually attributed to him: respectively,
De gemellis and De paupere ingrato.
The Cosmographia (ca. 1147–48) has two parts,
Megacosmos and Microcosmos. In the fi rst part, Nature
approaches Nous, the personifi cation of the divine eter-
nal mind of God, whom she begs to improve the physical
universe. Nous separates the four elements, gives mat-
ter form from divine ideas, and shapes the world soul.
The new universe is described in detail. Microcosmos
depicts the formation of humankind. Nature encounters
Genius, and they set out to seek Urania and Physis, who
will guide them through the heavens to fi nd man’s soul
and bring it back to earth. The title is explained: man
is the world in little.
Though the work has multiple sources, including
Boethius, Martianus Capella, and ancient and Arabic sci-
entifi c sources, the basic concept is apparently original
with Bernard. His poem circulated widely—over fi fty
copies survive in European libraries—and infl uenced the
two most widely read 12th-century allegorical visions
of nature, the world, and humanity: Alain de Lille’s De
planctu Naturae and Anticlaudianus. In the rhetorical
work of Matthieu de Vendôme, he is frequently cited
for his excellence of style.
See also Alain de Lille; Martianus CapellaFurther Reading
Bernard Silvestris. Cosmographia, ed. Peter Dronke. Leiden:
Brill, 1978.
——. The Commentary on the First Six Books of the Aeneid of
Vergil Commonly Attributed to Bernardus Silvestris, ed. Julian
Ward Jones and Elizabeth Francis Jones. Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press, 1977.
——. “Il ‘Dictamen’ di Bernardo Silvestre,” ed. M. Brini Sa-
vorelli. Rivista critica di storia della fi losofi a 20 (1965):
182–230.
——. “Un manuale de geomanzia presentato da Bernardo
Silvestre de Tours (XII secolo): l’Experimentarius,” ed. M.
Brini Savorelli. Rivista critica di storia della fi losofi a 14
(1959): 283–341.
——. The Cosmographia, trans. Winthrop P. Wetherbee. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1973.
Stock, Brian. Myth and Science in the Twelfth Century: A Study
of Bernard Silvester. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1972.
Jeanne E. KrochalisBERNARD SILVESTRIS