Letter CCCXLII. To Joscelyn, Bishop of Soissoxs

1 (A.D. 1140.)

Bernard begs him to appease the King, who was displeased with the Archbishop of Bordeaux.

To the venerable lord and very dear father, JOSCELYN, by the grace of God Bishop of Soissons, BERNARD, Abbot of Clairvaux, sends greeting, and desires that he may find grace with the Lord.

1. It is an injury to the Realm and the nobles of it if the plans of the King are proclaimed of his own hasty motion, and made public without mature consideration. But it pleases me much to see that the King trusts you, and confides in you; for I know that you are zealous for the Sovereign and the realm with a godly zeal, and I know also that you have the qualities of a good adviser for him. Both order and reason require, in fact, that in a Royal counsellor should be united in a similar degree devotedness and prudence. Everything depends upon this for him; with these two qualities he cannot fail to be a sound adviser and to direct with wisdom the enterprises of the King. But if either his devotedness makes default in prudence, or his prudence in devotedness, when he performs his duty as counsellor, then woe to the land whose King shall be a child! May my soul never come into the counsel of those who, either though they love me, are not prudent; or being prudent, love me not. For so Adam, that unhappy one, fell from his rights of immortality, for having yielded to the counsel of the sinful; of Eve who, though she loved him, was not prudent; and of the serpent, who was prudent, but loved him not.

2. Why is it that my lord the King endeavours to draw the Archbishop of Bordeaux¹ into a dispute without any reason? Is that done by your advice? May God keep you from doing such a thing, and me from thinking it possible. For what harm has that man done? Is it that he consecrated, according as he was free to do, by the Canons, a Bishop² elected by those of Poictiers with a unanimous voice, without opposition? or that he did not snatch from the poor and from the Churches of Poictiers, from the mouths of the hungry, so to speak, the money which a dying man had left them? Lo, their blood is required at his hand. If it is a fault to have given a pastor to wandering sheep, to have refrained from despoiling the widow and the orphan, to have maintained intact the privileges of the Apostolic See, then he cannot be accused. O, ill-judged judgment, in which righteousness is taken for wrong and innocence is counted as guilt! Look to yourselves, you who are Bishops.

Your interests are in question when your neighbour's wall takes fire (Horace, Epist. i. 18, 84).

3. However this may be, since you, my lord, approach the King more nearly than others, and you count for much in the transaction of his business, it is your duty to use all your influence with the King on behalf of your brethren, so that his anger should not be altogether inflamed. I declare to you that you have to do with a resolute man, powerful in speech and action, who will not readily be driven from his right. He enjoys great influence in that district. If there should be any dispute, many would side with him in his grievances. See, then, to it, that no one throws oil on the fire. Let the flame be extinguished before it has had time to light up a conflagration:

For it is too late to use a remedy when by long delays the disease has grown strong (Ovid, de Remed. Amor, 91, 92).

Footnotes

1. It was Geoffrey Loratorio (de Loroux) to whom Letter 125 was written T when he was not yet Archbishop. ↩

2. This was Grimoard, elected in 1140, but Louis VII. refused for some time to ratify the choice. He had been Abbot of S. Mary des Allois. ↩