Bernard of Cluny (or, of Morlaix or Morlay[1]) was a twelfth-century French Benedictine monk, best known as the author of De contemptu mundi (On Contempt for the World), a long verse satire in Latin.
A writer in the Journal of Theological Studies (1907), Volume 8, pages 394–399, contended that he belonged to the family of the seigneurs of Montpellier in Languedoc, and was born at Murles.
It is believed that he was at first a monk of Saint-Sauveur d'Aniane and that he entered the monastery of Cluny during the administration of Abbot Pons (1109–1122).
For this reason it was first printed by Matthias Flacius in Varia poemata de corrupto ecclesiae statu (Basle, 1557) as one of his testes veritatis, or witnesses of the deep-seated corruption of medieval society and of the Church, and was often reprinted by Protestants in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
[3] Several of Bernard's sermons and a theological treatise, Dialogue (Colloquium) on the Trinity are extant, as is a c. 1140 poem which he dedicated to the monastery's abbot Peter the Venerable (1122–1156).