Abbot of Ford, bishop of Worcester, archbishop of Canterbury–Baldwin remained a contemplative in a world of medieval intrigue. The acerbic Gerald the Welshman, who admired few people and accompanied Baldwin on visitation in Wales, considered him gullible and further out of his depth at each ecclesiastical promotion. the Benedictines of Canterbury cathedral found his unworldliness vexsome. But to the Cistercians of Ford, in Dorser, he was loved as a spiritual guide and teacher of prayers.

The Spiritual Tractates were written almost entirely during the decade Baldwin lived at Forde, probably as sermons which were then recast later. They reveal a man thoroughly and happily at home in cistercian spirituality, an acute theologian well aware of contemporary currents, and one of the last true representatives of the rich patristic-monastic tradition.