Letter XXXIX. To the Same

(A.D. 1127.)

He commends the causes of various people to Theobald; then he urges him to treat with honour and reverence the Bishops assembled at Troyes to be present at a Council.¹

1. Among the many signs of condescension which you are pleased to display towards me, which arouse my grateful affection, that which I feel most is that, although I know I have ventured to address your Highness on behalf of many people, I never remember to have experienced a repulse from you. Having naturally become more confident, therefore, I approach you without hesitation to recommend to you the Canons of Larzicourt.3 I do not ask any favour for them, because I have so much trust in your justice and observance of law that I think if your enemy came to plead a cause in your Court he need not fear that he would not receive justice; but this is the supplication which I from a distance unite with them, and for them, to make: both that you would accord to them a speedy and favourable access to the presence of your Serenity, which I know they greatly need, in order that² their neighbours may render them the respect which their piety deserves, and which they will do when they learn your good disposition towards them; and that if any of your soldiers or officials have acted unjustly towards them, they may understand that they must not henceforth trouble their Godly peace without incurring your displeasure.

2. I have another request respectfully to make. I met lately, when passing through Bar, a woman very much to be pitied; she was in great trouble, and my heart was moved on hearing her sufferings. She begged with tears and prayers that I would intercede for her with you. She is the wife of that man of yours, Belin, whom you were obliged to punish some time since for an offence which he had committed. Have mercy upon her, that God may have mercy also upon you.

3. Since I have once begun, I will continue to speak with my lord. In a duel which has lately been fought in the presence of the Prevot of Bar, the vanquished³ was condemned by your order to lose his eyes on the spot; but, besides this, as if it were not enough to be vanquished and to lose his sight, he was deprived of all his goods, as he complains, by your people. Your benevolence will find it just that they should restore to him sufficient to sustain his miserable life; and, besides, the offence of the father ought not to be imputed to his innocent children. Let them, then, at least succeed to the father's possessions if he has any.

4. In conclusion, I would beg you to treat with all the honour, of which they are well worthy, those holy Bishops who have assembled in your capital to consider together matters of religion. Deign also to show yourself devoted and obedient as far as you can in all things to the Legate himself, who has chosen to honour you and your capital by the holding of so important a Council.2 And be so kind as to give your support and assent to the measures and the reso lutions which he shall judge advisable for the promotion of good; but especially I beg you to receive with honour the Bishop of Langres, who is your Bishop as well as mine, and for the fief l which you hold of his Church you ought to render the due homage.⁴ With humble respect, farewell.

Footnotes

1. After having addressed other requests in this Letter to Count Theobald, Bernard intercedes for an unfortunate man named Humbert, who has been vanquished in a duel, and in consequence deprived by order of the prince, not only of his property, but also of sight, so that he had no means of sustaining his miserable existence. The penalty of his fault was cruel, and the charitable heart of Bernard was profoundly distressed; but so severe a remedy was called for by the great and inveterate evil of these single combats. Sirmund speaks of the great frequency and mischievous consequences of these in his notes to Geoffrey of Vendome, B. iii. ep. 38; Duchesne ad Bibli'thecam Cluniacensem, and others. Compare Lttter 376 of S. Bernard. ↩

2. These were Regular Canons of S. Augustine. Larzicourt is in the Deanery of Pertois, Diocese of Chalons-sur-Marne; the Jesuit Fathers possessed a Priory there in the time of Mabillon. ↩

3. This was Humbert, on whose behalf Bernard wrote this Letter before Letter 37- '2 This was the Council of Troyes in 1 128, which is referred to in Letter 21 to the Legate Matthew. ↩

4. Hominium or homagium. ↩