There can be few men who have had a larger impact on civilisation with almost no fanfare than the great St Bernard of Clairvaux: a Doctor of the Church who is venerated not only by Catholics, Anglicans and Lutherans but was even loved by reformers such as Calvin. Bernard was a co-founder of the Knights Templar, a fundamental element of Christendom’s great defensive crusades; he was a major leader in the reform of the Benedictines which led to the foundation of the Cistercian order, and suggestive evidence indicates he may have had a hand in the spread of Gothic architecture.