Letter CCXIX. To Three Bishops of the Curia; Alberic of Ostia, Stephen of Pr^ENESTE, Igmarus of Tusculum, 3 and to the Chancellor Gerard

(A.D. 1143.)

Respecting the interdict laid on the realm of France on account of the Archbishop of Bourges.¹²

1. How great an evil is schism in the Church, and how it is to be detested and in every way avoided, is plainly shown by the well known dreadful death of those men whom the earth swallowed up and sent down alive into hell because of this very pest. It has been shown too by the persecution of Guibert,³ and the rashness of Bourdin, whom our times have seen separating between the kingdom and the priesthood, and so inflicting on them both an almost incurable wound and a cruel chastisement. It has been shown too by the mad schism of Leo, which after grievous and manifold trouble and loss to the Church has lately by the mercy of God received its death blow. Well then does the Saviour say in the Gospel: Woe to that man bv whom the offence cometh (S. Matt, xviii. 7). Woe to us who live bewailing what we have endured, grieving for what we feel, and fearing what we expect. And what is worse, human affairs are come to such an evil pass that the guilty are not willing to be humbled, nor the judges to show mercy. We say to the wicked: Deal not so wickedly; and to the sinners: Lift not up your horn (Ps. Ixxv. 5), and they will not listen to us, for it is a rebellious house (Ezek. ii. 5). We beseech those whose office it is to rebuke the sin to save the sinner, not to break the bruised reed, and not quench the smoking flax, and they all the more break the ships of Tarshish with a violent wind.⁴

2. When, with the Apostle, we bid sons obey their parents in all things, we may as well beat the air. When we tell parents not to provoke their children to anger, we only call down their anger on our own heads. Sinners no longer wrill consent to give satisfaction, nor those who bear the rule or the rod in any wise to condescend. All follow their own pride and passion; and, pulling a rope with all their might in different directions, they break it. Alas! the scar of the wound so recently given to the Church⁵ has hardly healed over, when they are again doing all they can to tear it open, to nail the Body of Christ to the cross, to pierce again His unoffending side, to divide His garments, and, though in vain, as far as in them lies, to rend asunder His robe which is woven without seam. If you have any feelings of piety, set yourselves against such evils, lest a schism take place on that soil where, as you well know, other schisms are wont to be healed. For if the author of a scandal is stricken specially by a tremendous curse from the mouth of his Judge, of what blessings may we suppose that they are worthy who conquer and put to flight this wickedness?

3. Of two wrongs I cannot acquit the King. For he both took an unlawful oath and perseveres in it contrary to justice.'⁶ But he does so not so much from his own will as from a sense of honour ill-directed. For it is reckoned disgraceful, as you know, among the French, to break an oath, how ever much the oath may be against the public good, although no wise man doubts that unlawful oaths ought not to be kept. But not even so can I admit that he is to be excused. For I have not undertaken to excuse him, but to ask pardon. See whether passion, his age, or his high rank can in any degree be his excuse. It will avail him, no doubt, if you decide that mercy is to be exalted above judgment, viz., in so far as such excuse is to be taken into consideration in the case of a king, who is but a lad; so that for this time perhaps he may be spared, but on this understanding, that he does not count on similar leniency for the future. I mean that he may be dealt lightly with, if it can be done with out endangering the liberty of the Church in any way; and if at the same time the honour that is due to an Archbishop consecrated by Apostolic hands is preserved. The King himself humbly asks this, this the whole Church on this side of the Alps suppliantly implores after her too long affliction. Otherwise we join hands with death, we pine and wither away for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the whole world. Indeed this has been my prayer since last year; and since my sins called for it, I received not a favourable answer but anger, and desolation over nearly the whole earth followed on the anger. If my zeal has caused anything to escape me which ought not to have been said, or ought to have been said otherwise than it was, let it be, I beg you, as if unsaid. But let not that be in vain which I have said as I ought, and when I ought.

Footnotes

1. Igmarus, or Ymarus, was a Cluniac monk of S. Martin des Champs, then Prior of La Charite sur Loire, then Abbot of the New Monastery in Poictiers (under which name he took part in drawing up an agreement made between Louis the younger and Argrimus, Archdeacon of Orleans: see Duchesne, Vol. iv. p. 764), and was finally created a Cardinal by Innocent. He was a man of great integrity, as appears from the Cluninc Chronicle under the Abbot Pontius. To these Cardinals Letter 230 and the two following were alsjp written. ↩

2. Alberic of Verdun in France was dead; Bernard is recorded to have offered the Sacrifice of praise at his tomb (Life, lib. iv. n. 21). He is men tioned in Letter 241; Stephen in Letter 224. ↩

3. So named from Guibert, Bishop of Ravenna, whom the Emperor Henry ↩

4. V. set up as antipope in opposition toj_ Gregory VII., and the three following legitimate Pontiffs. Maurice Burdin also, Archbishop of Braga, was intruded into the Roman See by Henry V., and was at last 'compelled by Calixtus II. to retire to the monastery of Cava. His life was written in a pleasing style by Stephen Baluze (Misc. Vol. iii). ↩

5. Viz., the schism of Anacletus. ↩

6. William of Nangis thus relates the affair in his Chronicle :— " In the year i r42 a dispute arose between Pope Innocent and Louis, King of the French, by which the Gallican Church was disturbed. For on the death of Alberic, Arch bishop of Bourges, Peter was consecrated and sent by the Pope to succeed him. But Louis rejected him, and refused to receive him because he had been consecrated without his consent. Now, King Louis had given permission to the Church of Bourges to choose whom they would, except Peter alone, and had taken an oath publicly that while he lived Peter should not be Archbishop. Yet for all that he was elected and went to Rome, and was consecrated by the Pope, who said, ' We must teach and curb this boy -king, lest he get used to such actions,' and he added, ' That is no true freedom of choice when an exception of any person is made by the King, unless he is proved before an ecclesiastical judge to be incapable of election. For then he has a hearing like anyone else.' But the King, as I said before, refused to receive the Archbishop on his return. Then Count Theobald welcomed him into his country, and he ruled the churches from there. This enraged the King, and he called together his vassals and made war on Theobald." This is William's account, and from it we must correct that of Matthew of Paris, who places the affair in the year 1146. This dispute reached such a point that not only did King Louis lay waste the territories of Theobald, but burnt to the ground Vitry, together with a large number of its inhabitants of both sexes; moreover, he forbade all elections and ordinations of Bishops within his realm, and handed over their estates to his brother Robert. S. Bernard bitterly complained of this in the case of Rheims, Paris, and Chalons, in his 222nd Letter to Joscelyn of Soissons, and again in his 224th to Stephen of Praeneste. At length he succeeded in quashing this unfortunate divorce on the accession of Eugenius III. to the Papal See. VOL. II. 41 ↩