The same intrepidity is shown in Bernard's controversy with the monks of Cluny, an abbey of pre-eminent power and moral authority, so that Louis had called it the "noblest member of his kingdom." Pontius, its abbot, having fallen into ways of pride and extortion, had been induced from Rome to resign his abbacy, and to promise a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; but soon afterwards he fell upon the monastery with an armed force, and ruled there like a robber chieftain. This scandalous outrage was soon reported at Rome, and the sacrilegious usurper was excommunicated and banished. Bernard seized the moment when laxity of observance of the rule had produced its bitterest fruit to break out in remonstrances and warnings, as well to his own Cistercians as to the Cluniacs, on the decline of the genuine monastic spirit. The invective of what he calls his "Apology" spares neither the softness, nor the ostentation, nor the avarice, of religious houses. It condemns even their stately sanctuaries. "The walls of your church are resplendent, but the poor are not there." It recalls the erring monasteries to real mortification. In another early treatise, "The Degrees of Humility and of Pride," the modes of pride are exhibited forcibly, and with not a little humour. Curiosity, thoughtless mirth, mock humility, and other symptoms of the protean vice are painted by a master.
But Bernard's period of retirement was drawing to a close; he was becoming indispensable to his contemporaries. In 1128 he was called to the Council of Troyes, at which the Order of Knights Templars was founded, and wrote a treatise in praise of the "new warfare," called the "Exhortation to the Knights of the Temple." He was brought, again, to the council convened by Louis VI. at Étampes to decide between the claims of the rival Popes in the Papal schism. The council opened by unanimous consent that Bernard's judgement should decide their views; and without hesitation he pronounced Innocent II. the lawful Pope, and Peter Leonis, or Anacletus II., a vain pretender. He bore the same testimony, in the presence of Innocent, before Henry I. of England, at Chartres, and before Lotharius, the German Emperor, at Liège. The Pope visited Clairvaux, where he was moved to tears at the sight of the tattered flock of "Christ's poor," then presided at the Council of Rheims, 1131, and continued his journey into Italy, still accompanied by the Abbot of Clairvaux. Bernard, convinced that the cause of Innocent was the cause of justice and religion, set no bounds to his advocacy of it in letters to kings, bishops and cities. Such was now the fame of his sanctity that on his approach to Milan the whole population came out to meet him.