Letter CCCXL. To the Same Pope Innocent

(Circa A.D. 1140.)

On behalf of the Bishop of Angers.¹

To his very dear father and lord, INNOCENT, by the grace of God supreme Pontiff, BERNARD, Abbot of Clairvaux, sends his respectful homage.

The Bishop of Angers2 is worn out by his age as also by the labours and perils he has endured: who can look upon him with an indifferent eye, that is not destitute of sensibility, and even of any human feeling? As for me, I am not able, without feeling myself deeply moved, to look at this aged man, to whom but a single reproach could be addressed, whose life and whose learning render him venerable. 1 am ignorant of what has passed between him and the Abbey with which he is at variance, and I do not presume to write anything respecting a matter I am not acquainted with. But if it shall appear that he has ful filled his engagements, I suppose that there is no other course to be taken than to restore him to your favour and to the exercise of his functions.

Footnotes

1. A new Letter; the former No. 340 is now No. 403. Ulger, to whom Letter 200 is written. ↩