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Letter CXXXIX. To the Emperor Lothaire

(Circa A.D. 1135.)

Bernard exhorts the Emperor to repress the schismatics. He recommends to him the cause of a certain Church at Toul.

To LOTHAIRE, by the grace of God Roman Emperor and AUGUSTUS, BERNARD, called Abbot of Clairvaux, sends greeting and prayer, if the prayer of a sinner be of any avail.

1. Blessed be God who has chosen you,1 and set you up as the horn of our salvation, to the praise and glory of His name, to the reparation of the Imperial honour, to the support of the Church in her evil hour, and lastly to work salvation in the midst of the earth. It is His work that the glory of your crown is being daily added to and raised on high, is wonderfully increasing and advancing in all honour and magnificence before God and men. Of His doing surely it was, and of His power that you lately accomplished so successfully2 such a laborious and dangerous journey, undertaken on behalf of the peace of the kingdom and the liberation of the Church. Indeed, you have most gloriously attained the full height of the Imperial dignity, and, what is still greater, you did so not by a mighty hand, that so the greatness of your mind and of your faith might the more clearly shine forth. But if the earth trembled and was still before so tiny an army, what dread may we suppose will seize upon the hearts of the enemy when the King shall proceed to show the power of his arm? More over, the goodness of his cause will animate him, nay, a double necessity will urge him forward. It becomes not me to exhort to battle; nevertheless, I say unhesitatingly that it is the duty of the Church's advocate to protect the Church from being attacked by the madness of schismatics, it is the prerogative of Caesar to uphold his own crown against the Sicilian usurper.3 For as a Jew by descent has seized upon the See of Peter to the injury of Christ, so without doubt everyone who makes himself a king in Sicily speaketh against Caesar.

2. But if it is incumbent upon Caesar both to render the things that are Caesar's to Caesar, and to God the things that are God's, why are the possessions of God at Toul diminished without Caesar getting any gain from them? It is to be feared that neglect of trifles may become a barrier to great matters. What I refer to is this. The church of S. Gengulphus4 in that city is being grievously oppressed, and unjustly, too, it is said; and they say that in some way or other your prudence has been beguiled into opposing my lord the Pope, when he was about to see justice done, by a request from you not to interfere. I implore and advise you to act more prudently, to recall the injurious request, to permit justice to be done before that Church is destroyed to the foundation. I am but a poor Religious, yet I am your devoted servant, and if I seem importunate, it is, perhaps, just because I am thus devoted. I salute the Lady Empress in the love of Christ.

Footnotes

  1. Lothaire, Duke of Saxony, was a man well-spoken of by all: Cf. William of Tyre (lib. xii. c. 16); Otto of Frisingen (lib. vu. c. 17); Sigonius, who praises him as well for his piety as for his valour; Conrad, Abbot of Ursperg, who sings his praises, as a brave general, a sagacious counsellor, and a terrible opponent to the enemies of God and of Holy Church; Peter the Deacon, who exalts him in wondrously magnificent terms. He says: " Who would not admire the greatness of the Emperor's mind? He would sit in the Chapter from prime to vespers endeavouring to appease the discussions of the brethren, going with out food and drink, while striving for peace and unity. Under the Imperial cloak he served his heavenly King. For, as I myself can testify, when he was engaged on any expedition he would at the early dawn hear mass first for the departed, then for the army, then either for himself, or else the ordinary mass of the day." It is not without reason, therefore, that Bernard praises God for giving the Empire such an Emperor. ↩

  2. This was the journey which, at Bernard's instigation, Lothaire undertook from Germany into Italy, as far as to Rome, although with but scanty forces, for the purpose of placing Innocent on the Papal throne, and of in turn receiving from him the Imperial crown. This last ceremony took place in the Lateran while the Antipope was occupying the Vatican, and holding the strongest positions of the city. Cf. Baronius (Annals, A.D. 1132); Sigonius (lib. xi. A.D. 1132); Life of S. Bernard (lib. ii. c. 2). For all this Ordericus (lib. xiii. p. 896), in describing the journey of Lothaire to Rome, A.D. 1133, says that he bade Peter either to give place to another or submit himself to the judgment of a Council in respect of his election, and that he said the same to Innocent. He says, too, that Peter agreed, but Innocent declined, and that, therefore, Lothaire was angry with the latter, and handed over to Peter the positions he was holding, and left Rome without finishing the business. ↩

  3. About the rights of the kingdom of Sicily there was at other times great discussion, with which, however, we have nothing to do now. It may be found described in the work of Baronius, if it is still extant, and in the works of those who wrote against him. Bernard rightly speaks of the " Sicilian usurper," inasmuch as he seized the duchies of Apulia and Calabria, committed to the charge of William, his cousin, and kept them from the Pontificate of Calixtus till the year 1 136, when Lothaire, on his second journey into Italy, according to Conrad of Ursperg, entered Apulia, and conquered Roger, having kindled the zeal of his soldiers chitfly by telling them that they were fighting against a foe of the Church, and an excommunicate. Cf. Otto of Frisingen (lib. vu. c. 16 and 20); Fazell (lib. 7, poster, decad). Roger, however, repented afterwards under the admonitions of Bernard, and Peter of Cluny, who urged him by letter to seek reconciliation. ↩

  4. For S. Gengulf, or Gangulf, or Jangulf, see Sigbert (A.D. 759): " S. Gengulf flourished in Burgundy, and there gloriously suffered martyrdom.'' In his honour a noble church was erected at Toul, in Lorraine, about the year 1065, by S. Gerard, bishop of that city, as I have been informed by a Letter from the illustrious and Reverend Andrew Saussay, Bishop and Count of Toul, a man distinguished not less by his learned writings than by his dignified position. So also we find in an ancient MS. in his possession: " An abbey of S. Gengulf was first founded at the southern entrance of the city by S. Gerard, who also gave it an arm of the saint." Udo, another Bishop of Toul, restored the church. This invocation of S. Gengulf was also given to several collegiate churches, as, e.g., in the case of S. Exuperius, at Corbeil, where the Prior, or head of the Chapter, is called abbot. Cf. ep. 178. ↩

Chapter 139 of 491