Letters283 Letter CCLXXXIII. To pope Eugenius, on behalf of the monks of (A.D. 1150)

Moiremont. He begs the Pope to intervene to settle a dispute which had arisen.

At Cluny I met the monks of Gigny in the hope of peace, for which we have worked hard, but without success, for the only result of our four days' labour was the destruction of our hopes. According to the instructions contained in your letters, the reparation of the losses and the restitution of the goods removed were demanded, but in vain. It seemed a great demand to them, because they had done great injury, inasmuch as the worth of the losses was reckoned at more than 30,000 solidi. Indeed, not to go into details, our abbey was totally destroyed. Since the loss had been so heavy I was prepared to forego much of it, but they offered so little that the venerable Abbot of Cluny, who was labouring with more zeal than success for the purpose of peace, did not think it worthy of acceptance. And so no agreement was come to, because so ridiculously small an amount was offered in reparation. What they said was this: "Some evil-disposed persons amongst us have done this evil. What is that to us? Let them see to it." But this is absurd. It was well known in the whole neighbourhood that this great misdeed had been perpetrated by men belonging to the Church, that some monks also had been present, and that all had consented to to the Cistercians exemption from paying tithes he greatly incensed the Cluniacs (as was said in the notes to ep. 228), and especially theCluniac house of Gigny, in the county of Burgundy, against their neighbours, the Cistercians of Moiremont, both of whom were in the province of Lyons. To such a pitch did their resentment go that they did not hesitate to destroy the house of the brethren of Moiremont, and when Eugenius heard of this he wrote a stern Letter to Peter the Venerable, bidding him see that as soon as possible satisfaction was given to the Cistercians for their losses, and denouncing severe punishment against the guilty monks if this were not done. Me also gave the Archbishop of Lyons power to use ecclesiastical censures against them if the losses were not made good within twenty days. S. Bernard and Peter the Venerable met at Cluny to settle the matter. For four days they discussed it, and found the loss to be computed at more than 30,000 solidi. But as the monks of Gigny were tardy in obeying the sentence Bernard signified their tardiness to Eugenius in this Letter. After the death of Bernard an arrangement about the tithes was come to between the monks of both places, A.D. 1155. But though we have no record of compensation having been given by the monks of Gigny, yet the munificence of Peter the Venerable is recorded in giving to the Cistercians what had been left at Cluny by Baroni, a sub-deacon of Rome. See epp. 388 and 389.

it. For up to the present I have not heard of even one who has opposed the evil-doers. Lastly, the Abbot of the Order himself openly rebuked and condemned shufflers of this sort by declaring that what was known to have been lost through the Church was with justice demanded at the Church's hand. Your decision is now awaited in this matter, which, as it has been sufficiently proved, cannot be set right except by a strong hand.