Letters224 Letter CCXXIV. To Stephen, bishop of Praeneste. (A.D. 1143)

Bernard details the ill-doings of King Louis, and his injuries to the Church.

1. Jeremiah when addressing God for his enemies speaks in this way: Remember that I stood before Thee to speak good for them, and to turn away Thy wrath from them; and he goes on to say, therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them into the power of the sword (Jer. xviii. 20, 21}. And he calls down on them other imprecations of this sort, and quite as grievous. I thought that I might now remind your Reverence of this passage, because I find that I am in a condition like that of the Prophet. For you know how I too stood up for the King in the sight of my Lord, being, indeed, absent in body, but present in spirit, that I might speak good for him. He, indeed, promised well. But now that he returns evil for good I am compelled to write differently. I am ashamed of my mistake, and of the groundless hope which I entertained of him; and I am thankful that the prayer which I put up in my simplicity was not answered. I thought that I was serving a peaceful king, and I find that I was helping a bitter enemy to the Church. Our holy things are trodden under his feet, and the Church is shamefully enslaved. For not only is it forbidden to hold elections of Bishops, but if the clergy anywhere have ventured to do so, the prelate of their choice is not allowed to exercise his episcopal functions. In short, the Church of Paris is sitting in sadness, deprived of her own pastor, and no one dares so much as to whisper about finding another.

2. It is not enough for him that the episcopal residences are spoiled of the goods now in them; his sacrilegious hand is raging against men and lands everywhere, for he claims from each for himself the revenues of the whole year as well. The Church of Chalons has, indeed, held an election, but he who was elected has been now for a long time deprived of his honour, and you know that this cannot take place without grievous loss to the Lord's flock. The King has charged his brother Robert to administer the Bishopric, and he, exercising his power over all the lands and goods of the Church, and being not slothful in the execution of his office, is offering daily sacrifices to heaven, not, indeed, sacrifices of peace, but the cries of the poor, the tears of widows, the wailing of orphans, the groans of captives, and the blood of the slain. But that episcopate is too narrow for his wickedness, so he is now attacking Rheims, and carrying on his ill-deeds in the land of the saints, sparing neither clerks, nor monks nor nuns. In short, he has laid waste with the edge of the sword the fruitful fields and populous villages of S. Mary, S. Remigius, S. Nicasius, S. Thierry in such a way that he has reduced them all to almost a wilderness. The cry is frequently heard by all, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession (Ps. Ixxxiii. 12). So does the King improve upon the wrong he has done to the Church of Bourges under an oath like Herod's.

3. Moreover, when, after we had expended no little labour on the matter, he had made peace with Count Theobald, and as we thought, had entered on a treaty of firm friendship: but now he seeks occasion to withdraw from his friend. This is brought as a heinous charge against the Count, that he is making matrimonial alliances for his children with the King's barons. A loosening of friendship is suspected by the King in this, and he does not think himself a king if his chieftains love each other. Your wisdom may conjecture what kind of disposition he bears towards his subjects when he thinks himself the stronger, if there is hatred and discord between them. You may see and determine whether this man is of God, who trusts more in the mutual rivalry of his barons than their mutual love, when God is love (i S. John iv. 8). He would hold this if he had the wisdom of him who said, Love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave (Cant. viii. 6). Besides, he openly breaks his conventions and terms of peace agreed on, and does not hold himself to the promises which his own lips have uttered. Lastly, he has recalled to his palace and to his Council an adulterous and excommunicate man [Ralph whom he had agreed to banish, and in order to work greater wickedness, the King, and official guardian of the Church, is a second time leagued with many other like worthless characters, excommunicated and perjured men, incendiaries, murderers, and this against one of whose love for the Church and willingness to defend her there is no doubt, according to the saying of the Prophet, When thou sawest a thief thou consentedst unto him, and hast been partaker with the adulterers (Ps. 1. 18).

4. In addition to all this, he compels bishops, after his custom, to curse those who should be blessed, and to bless those who should be cursed. And since he sets no bounds to what it may please him to do, he compasses sea and land to find perjurers by whose means those whom God has joined together may be by man put asunder. With what face, I ask, can he endeavour so hard to lay down laws to others about consanguinity when, as is well known, he is living with his cousins within the third degree I do not know (for I have never to my knowledge praised, nor do I now, any forbidden marriages) whether there is any consanguinity between the son of Count Theobald and the daughter of the Count of Flanders, and also between the Count of Soissons and the daughter of Count Theobald: but you know, and my lord knows, that their nuptials are forbidden. If it is lawful for them to be united, then their being forbidden is the disarming of the Church, and the withdrawal of strength from her. Nor do I suppose that the object of those who oppose him is anything else but to prevent those who venture to withstand the schism which is threatened, from rinding refuge in the territories of the aforenamed princes. So far my zeal carries me. For I have no power to redress the faults which I have been able to point out. I have, however, been able to warn him who can. The zeal of my lord will do this. I thought it necessary that he should be informed of the great suffering and danger of the Church, and no one can do it so well as you, who share his counsels and spirit. And I pray you have me excused with him for writing with altered pen now that the King has altered, for you know that the Prophet of God said to God, With the innocent thou shall be innocent, and with the perverse man Thou shalt show Thyself perverse (Ps. xviii. 26).