Letter CCCXLVII. To the Same

(Circa A.D. 1141.)

He recommends to the Pope the deputies of the Diocese •of York, who are going to Rome on account of the matter of the Archbishop.¹

To his very dear lord and father, INNOCENT, supreme Pontiff, Brother BERNARD, called Abbot of Clairvaux, sends his humble duty.

These men whom you see before you are simple, honest, and God-fearing; it is the Spirit of God that sends them to the sight of your glory, and they have no other aim than to obtain justice. Cast your eyes, I pray you, upon these poor and wearied men,² who, not without cause, have come to you from far, not regarding the great distance by land, nor the peril of the sea, nor the snows of the Alps, nor the great cost of the journey, though they are poor. Let my lord then kindly see to it that neither the intrigue nor ambition of any one render such great fatigues useless; •especially since they do not seek their own advantage, but those things which are of Jesus Christ. For not even an -enemy, I suppose, can suspect them of being influenced in this matter by any private interest or by personal hatred, but only by the fear of God. Let, then, any one who is a servant of God, put himself on their side. If the barren tree shall encumber the ground any longer, to whom can I attach blame, except to him who holds the axe?

Footnotes

1. Formerly No. 378; the former No. 347 is now No. 391. ↩

2. Undoubtedly these were the Abbot and monks of Fountains, since they had shown themselves, like the monks of Rievaulx (of whom the two following-Letters speak, also Nos. 353 and 360), extremely opposed to the intruded •Bishop. ↩