Letter CCXXXI. To the Same Three Bishops on Behalf of the Abbot of Lagny.1 he Asserts the Innocence of This Abbot

1. I dare to say to you whatever comes uppermost. For if it behoved you to bear a little with my folly, your good-will will, no doubt, bear with my manner, for you are debtor both to the wise and to the foolish. And I say this not .because I am thinking of thoughtlessly saying a word not pertinent to the matter, or of using levity, or taking pleasure in trifles, especially before you, who are seen to be pillars of the Church; but out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, and, when grief is urgent within, truth is. impatient of repression, and bursts out into speech. For my feet, I tell you, had almost gone, my treadings had well-nigh slipped, because by what appears an accursed inversion of things wickedness so often overcomes wisdom. The ungodly are lifting their horn higher, the zeal of righteousness is being disarmed, and there is no one who will or can do good. The proud do wickedly on every side, and no one dares whisper against them. And I would that innocence were safe, and that righteousness were enough for its own defence. What sin has the Abbot of Lagny committed? x Is it that he is both good as a monk, and better as an abbot — that he is of good report and of better life? Or is it that he has adorned by his pity, and enriched with worldly goods, and increased in numbers of good brothers, the monastery over which he presides? Behold, this crime is laid to his charge. If it is a crime to have been approved by God and men, let him be lifted up and crucified. For heaven and earth are witnesses that it cannot be denied that he has been. If it is a crime to be hospitable, kind, sober, chaste, humble, let him deservedly come empty out of the hands of his enemies. For he is really all these, and in these he cannot be accused; the sanctity of his life and the glory of his renown prove him to be these.

2. But it is alleged against him that he refused to receive the messenger of my lord. That would certainly be a grave offence if it were so. The Abbot does not deny that the man who was sent into England, after being honourably enter tained by him, asked to speak with him, but Humbert, the¹ Provost, interposed, since the Abbot was getting ready to go out, and said that he, in the Abbot's place, would see the man. I leave you to determine if any want of respect was shown to the man, and whose fault it was. He is also accused of having taken a letter of my lord the Pope from Humbert by force and of having opened it; but the letter exists, still unopened and sealed; he did not lay hands on it, but Humbert, by the advice of Count Theobald² and myself, handed it to him of his own accord. The charge, there fore, is false. He is said also to have imprisoned some monks. That, too, is false. But if he did divide into different cells some who were mutinous and conspirators, lest they should do more harm by being thrown together, who that can judge rightly can possibly blame this? Then as to the charge that he has squandered and alienated the lands and goods of the Church and given them to his rela tions, sufficient reply was given before in the presence of the venerable Bishops of Soissons and Auxerre, and of Count Theobald, who acted as advocate of the monastery; and I give it again, that he gave to his own as to others, i.e., according to the same scale and custom.

3. Moreover, since the beginning of the world, it was never heard that a mutinous, haughty, and ambitious monk merited from the apostolic See the privilege of his liberty. From the time of Judas Iscariot none has been found like him, to rise in this way against his master, and betray innocent blood. Happy is the master to whom the words of the prophet are common with the Master of all, Mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted, who did also eat of my bread, hath laid great wait for me (Ps. xli. 9). Before, indeed, you were lording it over the clergy against Peter the Apostle (1 S. Pet. v. 3), nay, against his coapostle Paul, you were lording it over the faith of the whole earth (2 Cor. i. 23). But now you have added" a new sin in taking upon you too much against religion itself. What remains but that you should proceed to lord it over the holy angels themselves? Except that in this, the last Judas seems to have surpassed the first in craftiness and cunning, inasmuch as while all his fellow-disciples shuddered at the infamous deed of the one, the other has had the craft to entrap, not any undistinguished person, but the very leaders of the Apostles, to connive at, nay, even to favour his wickedness. I do not impute sin to my lord, from whom, being but man, [a decision] could be snatched by fraud, and I pray that God will not impute it. But God forbid that, when he knows the truth, the accursed and sacrilegious attempts of this evil man should prevail. And I would have written about this to my lord himself (Innocent) with my usual venturesomeness, if I had not perceived that he receives with less than his wonted favour whatever I write to him.³ Do you, I beseech you, who are monks,⁴ mourn the fortune of your master of S. Benedict, who, as you see, is in danger of being opposed on all sides; so will all the vigour of monastic discipline perish, if monks are to use the strong hand, and to lift up their horns against their abbots.