BERNARD OF ABBEVILLE, abbot of Tiron, a reformer who established foundations from Scotland to the Midi, was prominent in the early twelfth century. The most complete account of the personality and career of Tiron's founder is the Vita Bernardi by Geoffrey Grossus, written ca. 1147. Despite its inaccuracies and borrowings, Geoffrey Grossus's hagiography shows the strengths and difficulties of community and hermit life, particularly those of a reformed community. It gives the background to the difficulties Tiron faced with the papacy and Cluny. It explains the reasons for the placement of Tiron under the chapter of Chartres. It describes the long-standing support of royal and noble donors and their reverence for Bernard. It emphasizes the centralized structure of Tiron and its authority over its daughter foundations through the general chapter at a time when its Celtic abbeys were challenging that authority. It explains the important position of artisans and their presence in church and chapter. It acknowledges the presence of women in residence on the premises and suggests that some were dependants of the monks as well as of the donors. It deduces a lost monastic rule with simple precepts but close supervision. It defends Tiron's increasing prosperity through the heavenly intervention of its founder. At a time when Tiron was transitioning from love of poverty to desire for prosperity and from hospitality to exclusivity, the Vita Bernardi appeals to the past in an effort to slow the trend. The Vita Bernardi supports the canonization of Tiron's founder but also explains the background of its contemporary concerns. Its contextualization within the documentary sources shows a consistent portrait that supports the basic integrity of the hagiography.

The life and times of Bernard of Abbeville, abbot of Tiron, began with his birth in Abbeville in Picardy ca. 1050. His parents were unknown, but perhaps were related to the counts of Ponthieu, seigneurs of Abbeville. They ran a hospice, gave their scholarly son a liberal education in grammar, dialectical reasoning, the literary arts, and scripture, until age nineteen, and were sufficiently aristocratic for him to enter prestigious distant monasteries. Bernard's school is unnamed but was probably the school of the basilica church of Saint-Riquier, northeast of Abbevillle.