Bernard's immediate family underwent a remarkable collective conversion. His mother Alèth de Montbard had already died in 1107, after inspiring Bernard to undertake a religious life. Several of his brothers, Guy, Gerard, Andrew, Bartholomew, and later Nivard, joined him and a group of his friends when he entered Cîteaux Abbey in 1112, and went with him to found Clairvaux in 1115. Soon their father Tescelin joined monastic life late in his career, so before his death in 1117. Their sister Humbeline entered the Benedictine convent of Jully in 1133, later becoming prioress. This wholesale turn toward religion was remembered as both extraordinary and emblematic of the Cistercian ability to integrate secular elites, with men (and women) without clerical background or Latin training assuming essential positions within the abbey’s administration and estates.
Despite their lack of ecclesiastical training, Bernard’s brothers quickly assumed roles of considerable responsibility at Clairvaux after its foundation in 1115. They were all knights or knightly trainees before conversion, and sources often describe them as inexperienced or even illiterate by monastic standards. Yet the abbey placed them in critical estate offices, relying on their worldly skills.
Gerard became the most prominent: as cellarer, he managed the abbey’s lands, finances, food distribution, and commercial dealings. His role required authority, organizational skill, and daily oversight of both monks and lay brothers, making him a cornerstone of Clairvaux’s material success .
Guy, the eldest brother, and Gaudry of Touillon (an uncle by association) were landholders and fathers before conversion. They joined Bernard at Clairvaux and, despite cultural shortcomings, served as estate officials and supporters of the abbey’s expansion. Andrew, recently knighted, and Bartholomew, still unknighted, also entered. Nivard, the youngest brother, initially educated for a clerical career, later became a monk once of age. Each brother’s trajectory underscores how former knights, stripped of military prospects, could reinvent themselves as productive monastic officials.
The Tescelinid brothers should not be seen as marginal or peripheral members. Their practical skills, discipline, estate management, resilience, compensated for their lack of clerical education and allowed them to become integral to Clairvaux’s prosperity.
Over all, the category of monachi laici or “lay monks” was not invented by the Cistercians. In Benedictine communities they were called conversi, having been admitted as adults pro
converso or ad conversionem. Despite being functionally illiterate or lacking church training, these monks were neither rare nor insignificant, although there is little direct discussion of lay monks in Cistercian narrative and normative texts. Evidence for the role of lay brothers and conversi in medieval Benedictine life can be traced back to the Rule of Benedict in the sixth century. The Rule acknowledges that some monks lacked either the ability or the inclination to engage in reading and study, and it directs that such individuals should instead be given other forms of work during the time normally devoted to reading and meditation (RB 48:22–23).
"The introduction of lay monks at Cîteaux can be placed fairly specifically around 1113, with the entry of the younger Bernard and his kin and company. The first Cistercians under Abbot Stephen (r. ca. 1109–1133/†34) attracted many secular converts, particularly knights, for whom Cîteaux developed a vital and colourful monastic education programme very early in the New Monastery’s history.27 According to the 12th century Exordium Cistercii, this group of novices who were both secular and clerical recruits shared the same cell throughout their novitiate. The 14th century Ecclesiastica officia provided that, upon completing his novitiate, “if a lay novice [novicius laicus], not daring to receive the monk’s habit, asks to become a conversus [a laybrother], we can admit him.”"
The Vita of Bernard clearly indicates that the De Fontaine family took advantage of this possibility. With the introduction in 1112-1113 of the young Bernard and his kin and company, they introduced a large number of lay monks to Cîteaux, who took up important tasks based on their earlier experience in profane life. This highlights the Cistercians’ ability to incorporate secular converts into productive roles that advanced both the abbey’s spiritual and material missions. Thus this collective family conversion reshaped not only their fortunes but also the history of Clairvaux and the Cistercian Order in general, showing how noble and knightly backgrounds could be redirected into monastic service.
This blog is mainly based on the paper The Knightly Brothers of Bernard of Clairvaux and the Twelfth-Century Cistercian Lay Monk by Joseph Millan-Cole, Journal of Religious History Vol. 47, No. 2, June 2023, source consulted September 2025. The paragraph within quotes is a direct citation from page 301 if this paper (Fair Use). Additional information was derived from The Wikipedia entries on Humbeline of Jully and Tescelin le Roux. The illustration shows a stained glass window, originally from Cistercian abbey Mariawald, representing Saint Bernard de Clairvaux with his parents Aleth (Aleidis) and Tescelin (Tesselinus), source Wikipedia, Public Domain.
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