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During the "Silver Age" of the Cistercians (the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries), pseudepigraphical compositions bearing the name Bernard flourished. Important for the history of monasticism and, more broadly, of Christian spiritual formation and practice, these little-studied writings interpret, appropriate, transform, and apply Saint Bernard of Clairvaux's authentic works, transmitting them to new audiences.

Under the direction of Ann Astell and Joseph Wawrykow, with the assistance of Thomas Clemmons, a talented team of young scholars from the University of Notre Dame (the Catena Scholarium) offers here a complete translation of three of these Pseudo-Bernardine essays, providing notes that identify sources, clarify allusions, highlight rhetorical strategies, and demonstrate overall a fascinating, intertextual complexity. The Bernard that emerges from these texts speaks with many voices to herald a living, Bernardine tradition.

Joseph Wawrykow is professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. An expert on thirteenth-century Scholastic theology, he is the author of God's Grace and Human Action: "Merit" in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (1996) and The Westminster Handbook to Thomas Aquinas (2005). He is currently preparing a volume of translations in high medieval Christology.

Elias Dietz has been a monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani since 1988. He has published studies on early Cistercian authors in various journals, including Cistercian Studies Quarterly, of which he was editor from 2003 to 2007. Since 2008 he has served as abbot of his community. With regard to Isaac of Stella, his main contributions have been a study of his biography (CSQ, 2006) and an edition and translation of his Letter on the Canon of the Mass (Cîteaux, 2014). He is currently collaborating with Sources Chrétiennes on a volume of Isaac's letters.

Ann W. Astell is professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. The author of six books on medieval literature and spirituality, she has published recently on Aelred of Rievaulx in Cistercian Studies Quarterly. She and Joseph Wawrykow directed the Catena Scholarium in its translation and annotation of the five sermons in the Lincoln Collection included in this volume.