“If there be anyone stained with crime, and driven headlong by despair to the pit of destruction, let him call upon this life-giving name, and he will speedily be restored to hope and salvation. Is there anyone amongst you in hardness of heart, in sloth, or tepidity, in bitterness of mind, if he will but invoke the name of Jesus his heart will be softened, and tears of contrition will flow gently and abundantly. In dangers and distress, in fears and anxieties, let him call on this name of power, and his confidence will return, his peace of mind will be restored. Doubts and embarrassments will be dispelled and give place to certainty. There is no ill of life, no adversity or misfortune, in which this adorable name will not bring help and fortitude. It is a remedy whose virtue our dear Saviour invites us to test” – St. Bernard of Clairvaux
Throughout the history of the Church there have been great orthodox teachers of the faith, and great heresiarchs. Quoted extensively by both Luther and Calvin, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) was a Cistercian abbot and medieval reformer. His sermons contain many phrases and teachings which would later be condemned by the Roman hierarchy in the Council of Trent, and in 1854 (when his, Aquinas’, and Bonaventure’s arguments against the Immaculate Conception were ruled out).
In any case, I’d always known that Bernard was a great source for what I like to call: Gracious, or Evangelical Catholicism. One thing I only recently learned though, was that he not only would be justly considered a ‘proto-Lutheran’ but his opponents could be described as ‘proto-Anabaptists’. While we tend to think of the Catholic Church as intensely domineering and hierarchical, in reality there were many different heretical groups that existed, especially in England and France during this time. 
One such group were the followers of Peter of Bruys. These folks denied the meaningfulness of the Old Testament, based their lives on Gospel narratives, denied that children could/should be baptized, denied the presence of Christ in Holy Communion (and that it conferred grace), and enforced iconoclasm in a more extreme form than even the Reformed (Bruys thought crosses ought to be destroyed). One of his arguments against the manufacture and use of devotional crosses, I actually heard my old Anabaptist housemate reiterate in exactly the same form.
St. Bernard knew that Jesus alone was the one who saved us (as the first quotation evinces), and was fond of saying “His [Christ’s] mercies are my merits”. After all, St. Bernard lived in the days when the liturgy confessed: “To us also, sinners, thy servants, hoping from the multitude of thy mercies, vouchsafe to grant some part and fellowship with … all thy saints; into whose fellowship admit us, we beseech thee, not as the weigher of our merit but as the bestower of pardon. Through Christ our Lord.” (Sarum Rite, 11th century Missal) However, unlike the Anabaptists, this grace and salvation was tied to the Word and Sacraments. Men ate and drank salvation, just as they heard the words of Christ and believed unto salvation. For when they heard: “he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of thecovenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”, it was just as much the blood of Christ in the cup that they received for the forgiveness of sins, as it was his shed blood on the cross. They were one and the same.
And for the Anabaptists or even Zwinglians reading, if you disagree with my exegesis – which you’re free to do – then take heart in the fact that your faith was fought for by men like Peter of Bruys even in the periods of history like the Middle Ages, which you might’ve thought were the ‘darkest’ for the church. So hopefully this little historical anecdote has something for everyone to enjoy.