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Letter CCXI. To the Same

(Circa A.D. 1139.)

He recommends the cause of the Archbishop of Canterbury and of the Bishop of London.

My Lord of Canterbury,1 a good man, and one who has the testimony of good men, is unjustly dragged into a dispute, and violently held back from acting. He was pre paring to start (for in your presence the dispute was to be settled), when he was stopped by a hurricane and tempest of wars. Please excuse him, for the necessity of excusing himself is a trouble to him, not only because he is sure of getting justice at your hands, but also because he greatly desired to see your face. Your son adds also this, that if the venerable priest'2 should make any other request of you, please grant it the more quickly, as he who makes it is the more worthy. As I have begun, I venture to say one thing more to my lord. Your old friend, faithful servant, and devoted son, Robert, Bishop of London, appeals to you, because he who preceded him in the See3 to which God has called him has appropriated the goods and lands of his Church, and refuses to make restitution.4 And how injurious this is, and how it is to be corrected it ill would become my humility to dictate to so great wisdom.

Footnotes

  1. Theobald, formerly Abbot of Bec. ↩

  2. Bernard everywhere, as a loving student of antiquity, retains old names; as here, Sacerdos, by which name those even of the first Order were wont to be called in olden times (above, Letters 61 and 202). ↩

  3. This was apparently Anselm, Abbot of Bury, " elected A.D. 1 134, but afterwards set aside." Robert's accession to the See was not until A.D. 1141: and according to English accounts, it was in 1147 that Archbishop Theobald, being oppressed by Henry of Blois, the Papal Legate, was driven into exile. So that the date of this Letter must be somewhat later than stated in the text. — [E.] ↩

  4. I.e., as securities. ↩

Chapter 211 of 491