There were similarities between the still-developing Templar ideal and the Cistercian movement into which Bernard had thrown himself as a young man. Both were new spiritual organizations that placed poverty and obedience at their heart, rejecting earthly vanities in favor of hard physical work in the service of the Lord. And the Order of the Temple had close links, through its first members, to Champagne, the region of France that housed Clairvaux Abbey and where Bernard had spent most of his adult life.
