Associate Professor, Department of Systematic Theology, Faculty of Theology, University of Aarhus.

Project: “Monastic spirituality as a cultural and political programme.”

After having collaborated on the renewal of Western Europe (c. 900-1054), the state power and the papal reform movement each, through their mutual enrichment, had become so powerful that the collaboration turned into a power struggle. The following period, the high Middle Ages, is strongly characterized by this power struggle between emperor and pope, between imperium and sacerdotium . The head of the rapidly growing and influential Cistercian order, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), stands as a mediating figure in this relation, since he is also a leading figure in European politics at different levels as, for example, his agitation for the second crusade (1147-49) shows.

This project aims at investigating the impact of Bernard’s theology and the Cistercian spirituality, with its expressed socializing love programme, on the formation of Europe. It has been claimed that Bernard wanted a papal world dominion. It is, however, important to stress that Cistercian spirituality was shaped in the dialectics of the individual and the community (common life) and that Bernard, based on this spirituality, could be a sharp critic of the papal institution. The question is, then, what role the relation among individual, community and socialization (culture) plays in Bernard’s theological and politically supranational programme. It will also be relevant to compare with today’s situation, both the relation between Christianity and Judaism/Islam and the influence of the papal institution on world politics.