Letter XLVI. To the Lord Pope Honorius II., on the Same Subject

(A.D. 1127.)

They complain to the Pope that by the raising surreptitiously of the interdict, the King of France, before disposed to peace, was rendered more obstinate.

To the supreme Pontiff HONORIUS, the abbots of the poor of Christ, HUGO of Pontigny, and BERNARD of Clairvaux, health and all that the prayer of sinners can effect.

We are not able to conceal the tears and complaints of the Bishops, and, indeed, of the whole Church, of which we have the honour, however unworthy, to be sons. We speak of what we have seen. A great necessity has drawn us from our cloisters into public, and what we have seen there we report to you. We have seen and repeat sad things. In the time of Honorius the honour of the Church has been deeply wounded. Already the humility, or rather the constancy, of the bishops had bent down the anger of the King, when the supreme authority of the supreme pontiff intervening,¹ alas! threw down constancy and set up pride! We know, indeed, that that mandate must have been obtained from you by falsehood, as is quite evident from your letter, or you would not have ordered an interdict so just and so necessary to be put an end to. But should not the falsehood be at length detected — should not iniquity be made to feel that it has lied against itself, and not against dignity such as yours? For it is that which astonishes us, that judgment should have been given without hearing the two parties, and that the absent should have been condemned, which, indeed, we do not blame with rash presumption, but with the love of sons we suggest to the heart of our Father how greatly from this act the wicked triumphs and the poor is cast down; but how long he ought to suffer thus, and in what degree you ought to suffer with him, it is not for us, most holy Father, to prescribe to you; it is for you to consult your own heart. Farewell.

Footnotes

1. Viz., by relaxing the interdict which by the bishops of the province had been laid upon the Royal domain, because of the persecution of which the Bishop of Paris was the object. See the following Letter. ↩