Letter CLXXX. To the Same on Behalf of the Same

(Circa A.D. 1136.)

He commends to the Pontiff the cause of the Archbishop of Treves.

Again supplication and prayers, though ten times repeated, shall not cease. I desist not because I distrust not. I have a good cause and a just judge, who will not hesitate to annul whatever has been stealthily gained, when the truth is evident, so that he who wished to scoff will not be able to find cause for his malicious humour, but as it is written, His iniquity deceived himself (Ps. xxvi. 12, VULG.). The Apostolic See is wont to have this virtue especially, that it is not ashamed to recall a grant when it has discovered it to have been extracted by fraud, and not to be truly deserved. It is most just and praiseworthy that no one should benefit by a lie, especially at the hand of the supreme and holy See. Knowing this, your son supplicates without fear on behalf of the Archbishop of Treves, and is thus urgent, not as uncertainly. I certainly know his merits, his cause, his mind. For which of these do his monks wish to stone him? Because he has deserved ill of them? But he faithfully helped them, and served them greatly. For the injustice of his cause? But no one but an unjust man will speak of him as unjust. Because he freed them from a lay-hand? Nay, he recovered their monastery for tin-episcopal See, as though wringing his club out of the hand of Hercules with a stronger hand. Is it because of the wickedness of his intention? But it is a pious deed to do as he intended, viz., to reform religion in a monastery. The Lord help the heart of my lord, that it may not again be stolen away by monks, who are not so much, as they pretend, seeking liberty, but really flying from discipline.