Why did Bernard of Clairvaux become the first abbot of Clairvaux?

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St. Bernard of Clairvaux St. Bernard of Clairvaux, detail of an altarpiece by the Florentine School, early 15th century; in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

Bernard of Clairvaux became the first abbot of Clairvaux because he was appointed to the position by St. Stephen Harding, the abbot of Cîteaux, in 1115.12

Harding tasked Bernard with leading a small group of monks—which included his own relatives and other companions—to establish a new monastery at Clairvaux, located on the borders of Burgundy and Champagne. This appointment followed Bernard's period of spiritual and theological study at Cîteaux, which he had entered in 1112 after deciding to pursue a life of renunciation and solitude.12