Sermones super Cantica Canticorum (Sermons on the Song of Songs)
Sermones super Cantica Canticorum
Catalogue updated 2026-06-08
Full Sub Rosa translationRead the full translationOpen reader →Open the chapter reader with the full English translation, source text, notes, and scripture echoes.What is Sermones super Cantica Canticorum (Sermons on the Song of Songs)?
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.
Hodie legimus in libro experientiae. Convertimini ad vos ipsos, et attendite quomodo miseretur Dominus timentibus se.
Our renderingToday we read in the book of experience. Turn to yourselves and attend to how the Lord has mercy on those who fear him.
What it is
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.
Why it still matters
A contemporary Christian can profitably read Bernard's early sermons (1–24) as a guided meditation on humility, self-knowledge, and the pursuit of God; the Cistercian Publications four-volume translation is the standard edition.
Common questions
What is Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs about?
Answer-first notes for readers and search engines
What is Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs?
The Sermones super Cantica Canticorum (Sermons on the Song of Songs) is a series of eighty-six Latin sermons by Bernard of Clairvaux, the twelfth-century Cistercian abbot. Begun around 1135 and left unfinished at his death in 1153, it reads the biblical Song of Songs as the story of the soul's love for God.
Who wrote the Sermons on the Song of Songs, and when?
Bernard of Clairvaux, the Cistercian abbot and leading spiritual authority of twelfth-century Europe, wrote the Sermons on the Song of Songs. He began the eighty-six sermons around 1135 and was still working on them when he died in 1153, leaving the series unfinished. Though addressed to his monks at Clairvaux, they circulated among the royal and noble courts of France, England, and the Empire.
How do you read the Sermons on the Song of Songs today?
Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs traces the soul's ascent toward union with God, the divine Bridegroom, through humility, self-knowledge, and love. A modern reader can approach the early sermons as a guided meditation, taking one slowly at a time. Sub Rosa publishes a complete modern English translation readable free online.
Sermones super Cantica Canticorum (Sermons on the Song of Songs) companion
Practice Bernard's method every morning
The free course teaches the method; the Chosen Portion app gives you a fresh historic portion to practice it on each day.
Bernard built his monks' devotion around a short daily portion of one text taken slowly; Chosen Portion serves the same daily-portion practice on your phone.
- Learn Bernard's one-verse meditation method in 7 daily emails, about 5 minutes each
- Get 7 curated excerpts from the actual sermons, in readable modern English
- Finish with a repeatable 10-minute daily meditation routine you can run in the free app
Kept alongside
Penitential Psalms and Litany of Saints (as compiled in Ottonian royal use)
Psalmi poenitentiales cum litania sanctorum
The seven Penitential Psalms (Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143) combined with the Litany of Saints form the core private prayer structure documented directly in the Prayerbook of Otto III (BSB Clm 30111), where Archbishop Bernward of Hildesheim employed them in the young emperor's spiritual formation. This pairing — penitential self-examination before God followed by intercession from the whole company of heaven — was used by Christian teachers as early as Origen and Augustine, ordered for Lenten use by Pope Innocent III, and embedded in the Use of Sarum and successive Books of Common Prayer. Its place in the weekly devotional rhythm of the Salian and Hohenstaufen courts via their breviary traditions makes it the single most broadly transmitted prayer form in this dataset, extending across all dynasties and centuries. The sequence remains structurally unchanged in the Roman Rite today.
Orationes sive Meditationes (Prayers and Meditations)
Orationes sive Meditationes
A collection of nineteen prayers and three meditations composed by Anselm of Bec between c. 1070 and 1085, representing the founding documents of western affective devotion. Anselm sent a personalised copy to Princess Adelaide of Normandy (daughter of William the Conqueror) in 1081 in response to her request for psalms, adding long intimate prayers addressed to individual saints. He later sent a 'Matildan recension' of twenty-two prayers and meditations to Countess Matilda of Tuscany during his second exile (1103–6), composing at least one prayer (Oratio 1) expressly for her use. The prayers are cast in a new mode of intense psychological self-examination, designed to arouse compunction, love, and fear of God in private reading.
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.