Letter CDLXI. To Cardinal U. [Humbald.]

(A. D. 1138).

He entreats his help in the matter of the disputed election to the See of Langres.¹

To his very dear lord and friend M agister U., by the grace of God, Cardinal, Deacon of the Apostolic See, Brother Bernard, called Abbot of Clairvaux, wishes health, and that he may hunger and thirst after righteousness.

If you truly love me, let your love be not in word nor in tongue, but in deed and truth (1 S. John iii. 18). Or rather I should say, if you are a lover of justice, as you have hitherto either shown yourself or appeared to be, have pity upon the melancholy position of the Lord Christ, who in the church of Langres, is being at the present time unworthily treated by the wicked, and who cries out to you: ‘ Help me, O Humbald, for wicked men have persecuted me.’ There, in short, He suffers and is oppressed in His members, to whom a man is given for a Bishop, not rightly nor orderly, but by fraud and force. That man too, is neither of worthy life, nor of honourable character, nor has he the qualities requisite to be of use to the Church. Lastly, he was neither canonically elected nor lawfully consecrated. Therefore if you can do anything, have pity upon us and help us.²

Footnotes

1. For a full account of this dispute, see Letters 164, 166 — 170 of S. Bernard: and for the arguments used in favour of the other claimant, who was a Cluniac monk, see Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, Letters B. i. No. 29, B. ii. No. 28. S. Bernard succeeded in having the election annulled, and a relation of Bernard, Geoffrey, Prior of Clairvaux, was made Bishop of Langres. ↩

2. This letter is found in the Chapter Library of Toledo (MS. IX. 21, i2mo) and the Real Academie de la Historia of Madrid (Div. of S. Pedro de Cardena: Codex x. F. 249). The latter MS. belongs to the beginning of the thirteenth century. The person to whom this letter is written, Cardinal Humbald or Hubald, cannot be identified quite certainly. There were two of that name: the one, Tituli S. Adriani mentioned in Bullen, Feb. 13, 1139 to May 21, 1 141: the other, Tituli S Maries in Via lata, Jan. 7, 1135 to Dec. 9, 1143. The former letters on the same subject were written in A.D. 1138,- and this was in all probability carried to Rome by the same messenger. It was probably therefore the latter Cardinal to whom it was addressed. ↩