Skip to the text
Ember
PT

Letter CCLXXVIII. To the Same, for the Bishop of Beauvais

(A.D. 1150.)

There is no need that one should teach you how worthy is the Bishop of Beauvais, your son, to obtain his petitions. He himself will easily enough persuade your fatherly affection what it is meet and right to do. Still I plead for him. He is a devoted young man, fit to be honoured by his lather's favour, and the righteous zeal which he displays for his church should be not only approved, but also assisted. So will he daily become more devoted, more fervent, and •more strong, as he feels that the vexations and tribulations which are always harassing his church1 from evil men arc-directly lessened by the unfailing help of your right hand. J ask, too, that the petition of Arnulph of Mai'ole be granted. Master G. —, this is the messenger's name, will tell you what it is. As to the petition of the Abbess of the Paraclete,'2 you can ascertain for yourself if it is a Fitting one, and if it is fitting to grant it.3

Footnotes

  1. This comes out in two Letters of Anselm to Urban II. (lib. ii., epp. 33 and ^4). See also ep. 87 for what Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, says of the state of the <Jhurch of Beauvais. Me says: "The said Church of Beauvais has so long given up the practice of having good pastors that it seems the proper thing for it to have bad ones, and wrong to choose good ones," etc. ↩

  2. This was Heloise, once the wife of Peter Abaelard, then a nun, then Abbess of the nunnery at Argenteuil on the Seine, which flows through the Diocese of Paris. In the year 1127 the monks of S. Denys, after a long interval, resumed possession of this house, having proved their right from an old charter, which gave it them under the gift of Hermenric, and Numma, his wife. For Theodrada, wife of Charlemagne, had placed there a Sisterhood, which was ejected on its rejecting the monastic discipline. Shortly before, as was said above, Peter Abaelard, with the consent of the Abbot of S. Denys, had retired into solitude in the environs of Troyes, where he had built and dedicated, first of all to the I loly Trinity, an oratory made of reeds, rushes, straw, and flags interwoven. He afterwards gave it the invocation of the Paraclete, because there at last he thought, after his many troubles, he had found some comfort. This place he afterwards handed over to Heloise. Some call Heloise Helwida, and Hugh Metellus wrote her two Letters under this name. "To Helwida, venerable Abbess of the Paraclete. Rumour tells me that you have surpassed your sex, by your words and verses, and, what is better than all, how you have overcome the weakness of woman," etc. Bernard once visited her, and gave her some exhortation (Abaci., ep. v.). ↩

  3. Henry, brother of Louis the Younger, and afterwards Archbishop of Rheims. Cf. epp. 269, 305, and 307. Honorius II. took him at the hand of his father Louis for the service of God, for which see his Letter (in Spicil., Vol. iii. p. 150), where there is another following it of King Louis' to the Apostolic Legate about giving this same Henry a prebend in the Church of Pontoise. He was Abbot of S. Mary at Etampes, and also Archdeacon of Orleans. ↩

Chapter 278 of 491