THE THRONE OF THE WORLD
some elements of society might separate themselves inwardly from the Papacy, view it with indifference, worldliness, scepticism, criticism and contempt, or might, having adopted a heretical point of view, fight a violent, bitter, and despairing struggle with it to the death, the religious energies of the Church and her faithful really grew stronger. New Orders gained ground, took a part in pastoral labour, stiffened discipline, did missionary and colonization work, battled against heresy and heretics, laboured to effect the social reconstruction of society, delved into the sciences, fostered the arts, and as protectors of the re- ligious ideal influenced also the political outlook of the Papacy.
One single monk of the twelfth century, Bernard of Clairvaux, gave his whole era its name; and from the dawn of the reign of Lothar III of Saxony, who had succeeded the last Salian monarch, to the days of Barbarossa, his shadow lay on all the Emperors and Popes. When, after the death of Calixtus II, the Frangipani Pope Honorius II ascended the Roman throne in 1124, the young Abbot Bernard was already deemed the "light of France." Six years later, when states and peoples were in an uproar by reason of the schism between In- nocent II, candidate of the Frangipani, and Anaclete II, the anti-Pope sprung from the once Jewish banker family of Pierleoni, Bernard be- came the main actor on the European stage and he dominated the scene for two decades. If one were to narrate his life one should have to recount in detail the drama of a whole epoch the vivid, virile drama of the whole Middle Ages. This Burgundian came from near Dijon, was born in 1 190, was of knightly blood, and doubtless inherited a Celtic temperament from his mother. Already as a child he com- bined traits of shyness and violence. To his own time and the times which followed him he was known as the "teacher from whom honey flowed" (Doctor Mellifittus) but also as a "man of iron will" (Ze- lotypus) . To himself he seemed the chimera of his century. As he neared maturity his youth witnessed the departure and homecoming of the first Crusaders. The dreams, the feverish activity, the deeds and misdeeds of the knights aroused his feelings. Meanwhile, however, the new science taught at the French schools had fascinated his mind. Soon his natural religious bent presented both ideals, knighthood and theology, to him from their religious side; and he buried them in his own soul. As a novice of the new monastery in Qsterce, which a
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