Letter CCCLIX. The Community of Clairvaux to the Same Celestine

3((A.D. 1143.)

They ask that the Abbot of Morimond may be forbidden to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

To the sovereign Pontiff C., the little flock of Clairvaux offer the homage of a most devoted and humble obedience, and the assurance of their humble prayers.¹

Since we are happy to see you filling the place of Him who said that His daily charge was the care of all the Churches (2 Cor. xi. 28), notwithstanding that the ears of your piety are occupied with more important matters, our necessity obliges us to ask for a moment of your attention. Nor do we, though humble, fear that we shall be repulsed; He, too, will recompense you for listening to His poor, whom you will one day hear say respecting them, That which ye have done unto one of the least of the brethren ye have done unto Me (S. Matthew xxv. 40). For this is the cause, not of our community only, but of our entire Order. Certainly if your son, our superior and father, had been at home² at the time when this supplication is being addressed to you, he would either have come in person to your Majesty, or at least he would have written in his own name this deplorable complaint. But not to hold your charity longer in suspense, one of our brother Abbots, who is called of Morimond,³ has had the levity to quit the monastery over which he presided under pretext of making the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and it is said that it is his intention before he goes farther, to try to take your prudence by surprise, and to extort in some way from you the permission to do so. If you should give him any such license (which we trust will not happen) consider what disastrous conse quences would follow to our Order: for by this example any Abbot who shall feel himself burdened by his pastoral charge will throw it off, since he will suppose that he may not unlawfully do so, especially among us, with whom the post of Superior is a great burden, but has not a great amount of honour. Furthermore, in order to complete the destruction of the house committed to his charge, he has taken with him the best and most exemplary of the brethren who were under him, among whom is one" youth of good family, whom he had already (not without scandal) carried off from Cologne, as we believe you are aware, which scandal will be much increased by his carrying him off a second time. He will declare, perhaps, as we have heard, that he intends to observe in those countries all the rules of our Order, and that it is with this intention he has taken with him a certain number of Religious, but who does not perceive that in that land is more need of soldiers to fight than of monks to sing or pray? But our Order will receive the greatest detriment from this action of his: since it will be made easy for any Religious who takes it into his head to wander over the world, and he will have no scruple in pretending to undertake a pilgrimage to some country where lie will be able to observe his Rule. We shall not be so presumptuous as to suggest what you will be pleased to do, or what order you will give in this matter, which we commit to your judgment.

Footnotes

1. A new Letter; the former No. 359 is now No. 377. ↩

2. A gloss has crept into this passage to explain that " the Superior was then absent for some reason, and did not yet know what had happened." ↩

3. This was Raynauld, fourth Abbot after Abbot Arnold, who was the first Abbot, and who also abandoned his post (Let. 4). Raynauld had been Abbot fifteen years. ↩