Letters483 Letter CDLXXXIII. - To Pope Lucius II To his very dear father and lord, Lucius, by the grace of God, Supreme Pontiff, Bernard, called Abbot of Clairvaux, health, and his humble duty. (A. D. 1144)

We have rejoiced in the Lord and given thanks in every thing, being strengthened by the grace of Almighty God, who judges in equity, and by your efficacious cooperation, in this as in all things, and having great delight by that Curia so distinguished.

We were then expecting the hoped-for issue of the matter; we were expecting that the flowers of Roman wisdom should by a faithful administrator, be converted into fruits, that our joy might be fulfilled: since rejoicing over flowers must be with fear and is more full and perfect when the flowers come to the birth, wherefore it is said in the Canticles: Let us see if the flowers have brought forth fruit (Cant. vii. 12). We were expecting that this vine of Winchester, or rather of that which is commonly called in songs a second Rome, should form grapes, but changed into bitterness it became a wild vine, and brought forth wild grapes. O happy Winchester, chosen to be decked with the ornament of a great name, that it should be called a second Rome I O powerful one, who makest of none effect the commands of the powerful among the fathers, changest their opinion, pervertest their decisions, pourest disgrace on the truth, and sanctionest with loud and unhesitating voice, the judgment which Rome had pronounced should not be sanctioned, without consideration and weighing of the prescribed oath! For the Dean, having been invited to take the prescribed oath, not only declined the oath in public, but was prepared to swear to the contrary. Yet that Philistine was not ashamed in his wilfulness to raise up the idol Dagon beside the ark of the Lord. Was not this because his face was become as that of a harlot? He stands shamelessly, he offers himself for sale to every passer-by, he sits for the hire of a harlot. What does not the evil hunger for gold enforce? Winchester has usurped the worthy name of Rome, and nothing is suffered to be done without him. Absolution and the dignity of the Church are made matter of hire, and are thought to be voluntary. Not happy Winchester therefore, but unhappy; which debases costly pearls, which gives that which is holy to dogs, which does not drive out of, but introduces into, the temple the sellers and buyers of doves, and opposes (for shame!) in a marvellous way the Curia, the unconquered senate of Rome. O father, O glory of Rome, defender of righteousness, who alone sustainest so many and so great affairs, who guardest the state with the arms of righteousness, and adornest it by thy character, whom my dull mind may call the avenger of these infamies, who makest the scourge of cords, and with the strong hand of Roman power overturnest the table of those buying and selling! If the chiefs of Rome had cast lots, your discretion would have assigned the lot of this office to you beyond all others. O happy are we, in the first place, with so righteous a protector for so great a cause! Happy are we, again, in there being so powerful an avenger of such great presumption! If then the spear is in your hands, we call upon you to lift up this spear against those who resist the Roman power. For behold, behold I say, that man, that enemy, a forerunner of Satan, a son of perdition, an adversary of law and right, he lifts up on high his. head; and the judgment pronounced by the apostolic mouth which speaks in equity, which was spoken and promulgated, and lucidly determined and made firm by you in common audience all for the defence of righteousness alone; that judgment he has repudiated, blamed, blackened, unsettled and contemned: and has set up that pretender, that dullhead, a man such as the sins of the people have deserved. Rome is indignant and Phineas is fired with zeal, at seeing that which was planted and reared in common by the strong among her sons, destroyed and rooted up by one who trusts in mammon only. Which judgment, as if that unworthy one envied your authority alone, they say that attacker of the Roman diadem has resisted, and has set up that idol for the very reason, that your discretion saw that it should be opposed and broken down beyond others. In which how much appears to be detracted from the dignity of the Roman name, I leave to your prudence to be discussed: and would that that song may cease out of men’s mouths, in which Winchester is extolled as more powerful than Rome. Why, they say, do we, who have a legate, go to the Apostolic see? What the lord [Bishop of Rome orders and confirms, our legate, though a steward, perverts and weakens. Him whom the very wise Curia of S. Peter does not receive without a judgment, Winchester, evading that judgment, though promulgated, sets up and exalts. Let not then so patent an evasion pass into a precedent, lest the Roman dignity be torn by the hands of its assailants, and the authority of S. Peter absolutely fail before such injuries and new dis-graces. In order therefore that the cause of religion in the Diocese of York may not grow lukewarm, or rather that it may not be dispersed and disappear altogether, strike heavily at the continuance of that headstrong person with the hammer of your severity, and for the mere love of true righteousness, break into pieces that idol, or rather the seat in which he unlawfully seeks to sit.

And if any one should come to Rome on their behalf to ask for the pall, firmly resist them, and condemn both Ananias and Sapphira together with their money, as it becomes your Holiness to do.

Furthermore, I am apprehensive and fear, as do also the whole body of Religious in the realm, lest that ancient seducer [the Bishop of Winchester should in some way carry his point by the substitution of a new intermediary into the fnatter before disputed, or even into the fulness of power. Let your prudence therefore firmly resist this serpent who is working to bite both your heel and that of the whole kingdom; and bruise his head that the Church in that realm may not be entirely oppressed and fail altogether. May your Holiness have health and prosperity. 1 1 The date of this letter is fixed to A.D. 1144, by the fact that it is addressed to Pope Lucius II., whose brief pontificate began and ended in that year. The subject of it is rather indistinctly visible through the heated rhetoric of which it entirely consists; but is unquestionably the disputed election of William, nephew of King Stephen, to the Archbishopric of York, whose competitor was Henry Murdoch, Abbot of Fountains, and a former disciple of S. Bernard at Clairvaux. Respecting this dispute see Letters 235, 236, 238, 239, 240, 252; and note to the first named letter. The ‘Dean’ referred to was William (called ‘of S. Barbara’), the Dean of York: afterwards Bishop of Durham; the Bishop of Winchester at that time was Henry of Blois (A.D. 1120—1174), who was the most powerful supporter of his kinsman William, and in fact, consecrated him to the see of York. Hence the invectives against him in the letter. (E.)

To Pope Eugenius III. 1 On the same subject.

[I am importunate for the pronouncing of a judgment]. For you know that I speak with great confidence to the heart of Jerusalem, nay, more, to the heart of him whom the Lord hath set as the warden upon the walls of Jerusalem; you yourself know the offences of that man going before the judgment; nor is your prudence unaware what such a person, so intruded and so reintruded, deserves. If anyone should have suggested any other course to you, whether I myself or an Angel from heaven, let him be anathema from Him whom he does not fear to contradict, the Lord whom you hear speaking among you. For He speaks both unto His people and upon His saints (Ps. lxxxv. 8): I speak of your brethren, if you think fit so to speak of your own mother’s sons, whom, as you know so well, their zeal for Him makes to pine away, because they see fearful things in the house of God, execrable things in His sanctuary. For behold how long they are afflicted and groan; they pine and almost wither away for fear and expectation. We beheld, and 1 [The former half of this letter is identical with the well-known letter of Bernard, No. 239, in which Bernard presses for the deposition of William, Archbishop of York, as explained in the last note.

The transcript of this letter has been made by the kindness of Mr. Plummer, Librarian of Corpus Christi College, through the medium of Mr. Allnutt, of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. (Huffer's Note.) The same letter is also found in Cod. 314 of that Library. The text is not clear in some passages. (E.)]

there was no helper: we cried aloud, and there was no one to hear. But blessed be the Lord, who has given to us a Pontiff who compassionates our griefs, and who cannot but grieve over the affection of Joseph. To him therefore the poor cry out from the ends of the earth: but let him free his brethren from the hands of those who seek their lives, nor suffer them to be sold to Ishmaelite merchants. May the Lord be with your heart that yoil may not turn away your ear from our sobs and cries; that your bowels of mercy may be agitated by the sighs of the hearts of your brethren, and that you may set free their souls from so great a hazard and from a lot so extremely bitter. For it is not a temporal loss nor anything earthy that we deplore, but the souls which are under our care, which were once purchased with a great price, not of corruptible things, such as silver and gold, but with the Blood of Jesus Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot (i S. Peter i. 15) and which it is not safe to give over to a new and shameless buyer. We entreat you then for His sake by whom souls are redeemed; yea, indeed His Blood itself cries to you from Heaven, that you should not leave the rod of the wicked over the lot of the righteous lest the righteous put forth their hands unto iniquity (Ps. cxxv. 3). For He who cries out by us has bestowed power upon you, only let the will not be wanting. P'or even the Bishop of Tusculum, who, by the direction of your predecessor Pope Lucius, is acting as legate in that country, has already heard and ascertained (as we have been informed) of such great misdeeds committed by that man that, as it were, his nostrils are not able to endure their evil savour, if only the power to act was conferred upon him by his superior. This then is my request, my entreaty, this the desire of my heart, that you should bestow upon him plenary power to hurl down that idol without any subterfuge of appeal, if he shall find just and reasonable cause. I also supplicate your Excellency as before on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury, that he may be found worthy of your clemency in his just petitions, as well for the sake of his piety, as for your affection for me, in which he places great reliance. For he is a friend of our brethren, on whose behalf also I beg that his love for them may avail to obtain for him indulgence from you. Respecting other matters, how long will you hold our souls in suspense? We wait with quickened ears for your letters, but they do not come. I beg of you do not put off the matter from day to day. Make known to us both what you do and what you desire that we should do. May the Almighty God preserve you and multiply upon you His grace.