De gratia et libero arbitrio (On Grace and Free Choice)
De gratia et libero arbitrio
Tolle liberum arbitrium, et non erit quod salvetur; tolle gratiam, et non erit unde salvetur.
Our renderingRemove free choice, and there is nothing to be saved; remove grace, and there is no means by which it is saved.
What it is
Written at the request of William of Saint-Thierry and dedicated to him, this treatise on the relationship between divine grace and human freedom was described by scholars as 'the most profound and influential of Bernard's dogmatic works.' It circulated in the same manuscript collections as De diligendo Deo and the Sermones, and would have been read in Cistercian houses endowed and frequented by Capetian and other noble patrons. A manuscript illuminated collection combining this work with De diligendo Deo and De gradibus is attested at TextManuscripts.
Why it still matters
Bernard's three freedoms — from necessity, from sin, from sorrow — offer a compact catechetical framework for discussing Christian anthropology and the work of sanctification in any formation context today.
Kept alongside
De diligendo Deo (On Loving God)
De diligendo Deo
Bernard of Clairvaux's treatise setting out four ascending degrees of love for God, dedicated to Haimeric, Cardinal Chancellor of the Roman Church and among the most powerful ecclesiastical figures of the 12th century. Composed between approximately 1132 and 1135, it was the first work in the Latin West to make the love of God its single explicit subject. Bernard's connections to the French royal court were direct — Louis VII, Queen Eleanor, and the princes of France prostrated themselves before him during Crusade preaching — and the text's elegant theological structure made it a model for lay noble reading. An anonymous French vernacular translation existed already by the late 12th century.
Sermones super Cantica Canticorum (Sermons on the Song of Songs)
Sermones super Cantica Canticorum
Bernard's eighty-six sermons on the Song of Songs, begun c. 1135 and left unfinished at his death in 1153, represent the summit of 12th-century mystical exegesis and became one of the most widely copied Latin texts of the medieval period. While addressed formally to his monks at Clairvaux, the sermons were circulated and read far beyond the cloister: Bernard was the central spiritual authority for royal and aristocratic Europe alike, and the courts of France, England, and the Empire received and debated his writings. The sermons teach the soul's ascent to union with the divine Bridegroom through humility, self-knowledge, and love, using the language of bridal mysticism in a way that resonated as much with court culture as with monastic life.
De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae (On the Steps of Humility and Pride)
De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae
Bernard's first major work, a commentary on Chapter 7 of the Rule of Saint Benedict, was the standard entry text for Cistercian formation across all houses. It describes twelve steps of pride (ascending) and twelve of humility (descending). University of Missouri Special Collections holds a medieval manuscript fragment; the text was standard novitiate reading in every Cistercian house patronized by Capetian, Plantagenet, and Hohenstaufen families. Noble oblates and heirs educated at or near Cistercian houses would have encountered this text as the primary formation manual.