Rose, Huntington Library and Gardens, Pasadena, California, USA (photo (c) Ulrike Boehm; all rights reserved)
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The wife of two kings and mother of two others (Louis VII of France and Henry II of England, as well as Henry's sons and successors Richard Lionheart and John Lackland), French-born Eleanor was as intelligent as she was strong-willed, and way too independent to content herself with the passive role that medieval society assigned to the wives even of powerful reigning kings. She joined her first husband's expedition to the Holy Land during the Second Crusade and, seeing how little she and Louis had in common, lost no time to press (and eventually obtain) the annulation of their marriage on formal grounds upon her return to France. But although she would bear her second husband, Henry II of England (the son of Empress Maud and the Count of Anjou) five children, that marriage likewise hade to weather plenty of rough waters: not least an almost successful 1173 rebellion, to which Eleanor also incited her sons, and which brought her years of detainment on Henry's orders. (This episode is the background of the movie "The Lion in Winter," starring Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn as Henry and Eleanor.) Her fortunes changed for the better with Henry's death and her favourite son Richard's ascension to the throne; however, she had reason to be anything but happy with the government of Richard's younger brother John, who became king when Richard joined yet another crusade. When on his return from Jerusalem Richard was taken prisoner in Germany, Eleanor herself campaigned ceaselessly for his release, not even shying from several letters to the pope, exhorting him to involve himself in the matter. – Due to her strong and free-spirited nature, Eleanor is often described as European history's first feminist ... less charitable voices see her as a ruthless, egotistical schemer.
[Probably written in response to a request by Peter's patron Rotrou, the Archbishop of Rouen, on the behest of King Henry II, in an attempt to stop Eleanor's rebellion.]
To Aleanor, Queen of England. From [Rotrou] the Archbishop of Rouen & his Suffragens:
Greetings in the search for peace –
Marriage is a firm and indissoluble union. This is public knowledge and no Christian can take the liberty to ignore it. From the beginning biblical truth has verified that marriage once entered into cannot be separated. Truth cannot deceive: it says, "What God has joined let us not put asunder." Truly, whoever separates a married couple becomes a transgressor of the divine commandment.
So the woman is at fault who leaves her husband and fails to keep the trust of this social bond. When a married couple becomes one flesh, it is necessary that the union of bodies be accompanied by a unity and equality of spirit through mutual consent. A woman who is not under the headship of the husband violates the condition of nature, the mandate of the Apostle, and the law of Scripture: "The head of the woman is the man." She is created from him, she is united to him, and she is subject to his power.
We deplore publicly and regretfully that, while you are a most prudent woman, you have left your husband. The body tears at itself. The body did not sever itself from the head, but what is worse, you have opened the way for the lord king's, and your own, children to rise up against the father. Deservedly the prophet says, "The sons I have nurtured and raised, they now have spurned me." As another prophet calls to mind, "If only the final hour of our life would come and the earth's surface crack open so that we might not see this evil"!
We know that unless you return to your husband, you will be the cause of widespread disaster. While you alone are now the delinquent one, your actions will result in ruin for everyone in the kingdom. Therefore, illustrious queen, return to your husband and our king. In your reconciliation, peace will be restored from distress, and in your return, joy may return to all. If our pleadings do not move you to this, at least let the affliction of the people, the imminent pressure of the church and the desolation of the kingdom stir you. For either truth deceives, or "every kingdom divided against itself will be destroyed." Truly, this desolation cannot be stopped by the lord king but by his sons and their allies.
Against all women and out of childish counsel, you provoke disaster for the lord king, to whom powerful kings bow the neck. And so, before this matter reaches a bad end, you should return with your sons to your husband, whom you have promised to obey and live with. Turn back so that neither you nor your sons become suspect. We are certain that he will show you every possible kindness and the surest guarantee of safety.
I beg you, advise your sons to be obedient and respectful to their father. He has suffered many anxieties, offences and grievances. Yet, so that imprudence might not demolish and scatter good will (which is acquired at such toil!), we say these things to you, most pious queen, in the zeal of God and the disposition of sincere love.
Truly, you are our parishioner as much as your husband. We cannot fall short in justice: Either you will return to your husband, or we must call upon canon law and use ecclesiastical censures against you. We say this reluctantly, but unless you come back to your senses, with sorrow and tears, we will do so.
Eleanor, queen of England, etc., to John, son of viscount Ralph of London, greetings. Monks of Reading have complained to me that they have been unjustly dispossessed of certain lands in London which Richard, son of B, gave them when he became a monk, namely from the holdings of the abbot of Westminster and of St. Augustine of Canterbury. I therefore order you to investigate without delay if it is so and if you find it to be true, to have the monks repossessed without delay, so that I hear no more complaint about the want of right and justice. And we wish also that they in no way lose anything unjustly that belongs to them. Fare well.
To her revered father and lord, Celestine, by the grace of God the highest pontiff, A[Eleanor], in the wrath of God queen of the English, duchess of Normandy and countess of Anjou, to show himself a father to her, a suffering mother. I had determined to be silent, lest I be accused of insolence and presumption if the overflowing of my heart and the violence of my grief evoked some less cautious word against the prince of priests. Grief is not very different from illness: in the impetus of its fire it does not recognise lords, it does not fear colleagues, it does not respect or spare anyone, not even itself. Let no one be surprised, then, if the power of grief makes the words more harsh, for I lament a public loss while the private grief is unconsolably rooted in the depths of my spirit. For the arrows of the Lord are in me, and the indignity of it drains my spirit. Peoples ripped apart, the lacerated multitude, desolated provinces, and the whole western church, consumed by laments, in contrite and humbled spirit beg you whom God set over peoples and kingdoms in every fullness of power. I beg that the clamour of the afflicted enter your ears; for our calamities are multiplied beyond number. You cannot pretend not to know of the crime and infamy, when you are the vicar of the crucified, the successor of Peter, the priest of Christ, the anointed of the Lord, the God even of Pharaoh. From your face, father, let judgement come forth, let your eyes see equity; on your decision and the mercy of your see hang the vows of the people and unless your hand seizes judgement early, the whole tragedy of this evil will redound on you, since you are the father of orphans and judge of widows, the consoler of the grieving and sorrowing, the city of refuge for all. In such a mass of misery, the only and common solace is awaited from the authority of your power. The sons of Israel in their difficulties consulted Moses, whose vicar you are, and fled to the tabernacle of the covenant in their distress. Our king is confined and on all sides anguish oppresses him. You see the state, indeed the fall of the kingdom, the malice of time, the cruelty of the tyrant who incessantly forges arms of iniquity from the furnace of avarice against the king whom, on his holy pilgrimage, under the protection of the God of heaven and the care of the Roman church, he captured and restrained by imprisoning chains and whom he is killing by prison/fear. For he scorns God and his terrible justice, broods over loot, and there is no one who can wrest [the king] from his hand. If the Roman church, with clasped hands, is silent to so many injuries of Christ, let God rise up and judge our cause and look on the face of his anointed. Where is the zeal of Elias against Achab, the zeal of John against Herod, the zeal of Ambrose against Valens, the zeal of Alexander III who, as we heard and saw, cut off the father of this prince, Frederick [Barbarossa, father of Henry VI], with the full authority of the apostolic see, solemnly and terribly, from the community of the faithful? Henceforth the tyrant holds the apostolic keys in derision and looks on the law of God as only words. But all the more constantly you must seize the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. For it is written: Who scorns you, scorns me. Therefore if you do not wish injury to yourself or the Roman church, you should not hide the shame to Peter nor the injury to Christ. Let the word of the Lord not be bound up in your mouth, nor human fear destroy the spirit of liberty in you. It is more acceptable to fall into the hands of men than to abandon the law of God. They now trust in his power and glory in the multitude of his riches, the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is ruin and whose glory is their confusion. The insatiable maw of greed devours whatever is drawn off from the needs of churches and the poor but the time nears when the hand of the Lord will exercise revenge and blessed Job will protest to the impious predator: the riches which he devoured he will vomit up and God will cast them from his belly; he will give back all that he made and will not consume it. For even if they evade human judgement within time, the divine that hangs over them is more terrible; their present joy is like a moment, but their punishment of fire and worms is without end. What persecutor of innocence has ever evaded the avenging hand of him who takes away the spirit of princes and powerfully punishes the powerful? Though I be silent about gehennal punishment, we have often read how the finger of God by his judgement transfers kingdoms and empires, powers which he raises as he wills and as he wills throws down. Let no secular pride deter you, I pray. Moab is proud and his pride is greater than his fortitude; but the name of the Lord is the greatest fortitude. It saddens the church publicly and excites the murmurs of the people not a little at the expense of their opinion of you that, in the face of such crime, of such tears, of the supplications of so many provinces, you have not sent one messenger to those princes. Often for insignificant causes your cardinals have been despatched in legations with great power even to barbarous regions; yet in such an arduous, lamentable, common cause, you have not yet sent one subdeacon or acolyte. Profit makes legates today, not respect for Christ, not the honour of the church, not the peace of kingdoms or salvation of the people. What profit or outcome could be more glorious to you than to exalt, in this liberation of the king, the peak of the highest pontificate, the priesthood of Aaron and Phineas? Certainly it/you would not have greatly humbled the dignity of the holy see if you had descended personally into Germany to free such a prince: one who had been received so courteously in prosperity should not be deserted so slothfully in adversity. Why do you not weigh in the scales of justice the benefits which the father of this king, Henry [II] of good memory, showed you as we witnessed at the point of your greatest need in contrast to the tyranny of Frederick which he exercised against you and the possessions of the Roman church and all who faithfully adhered to you? For when that same Frederick, promotor and author of schismatic dissension, conspired on the part of the apostate Octavian against Alexander III, canonically elected as you know, and the church laboured in all lands under the pressure of that schism, the kings of France and England were approached by various legations from both sides. When the king of France fluctuating with the variety of counsels vacillated in doubt over which side to favour, King Henry, grieving that the tunic of Christ had been rent so long, was the first to come over to Pope Alexander and with great care drawing the king of the Franks to apostolic consent, fortified with his counsels and strengthened with his help and set the ship of Peter which had been in danger of sinking safe on shore. We saw these things at Châteauroux where royal magnificence satisfied the wishes of the Romans who preached the miracle publicly with greater gifts of gold and silver. It is a notable dishonour to the glory of the apostolic see that ingratitude could ever abolish the memory of such benefit; whenever the ferment of schism is again brought forth from similar cause, God forbid, the memory of your present sloth and defects will cause some to sob. If that crafty old serpent, that tortuous snake, impedes the freeing of that king with deceptive machinations, we trust in the Lord that he will at the proper time look on the face of his anointed and give full power to his king. Our expectation grows stronger in certain hope and firm faith; let there be incessant prayer from the church to God for him. God, however, who heeds in good time and helps on the day of salvation, will look on the prayers of men and not spurn their pleas; the assiduous praying of the just has great value. The sun stood still at the prayer of Joshua and the moon did not move against the valley of Aijalon, for the prayers of the just keep the sun of justice from leaving the heart of sinners and the mind of man, though prone to defect, is nonetheless made firm in the stability of virtues. For not only is sin remitted by prayer, but the punishment of sin is reduced by the benefit of prayer. It is good for the king to stand ready to salute the Lord with silence for, if he is now purged in the furnace of tribulation by God, who disposes adversity and prosperity with very salutary moderation, his vexation will cross over into glory and for his present double confusion and shame he will possess doubly in his land. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and the Lord will be his assurance. Surely as there are now public sighs and general tears for him, so at the proper time what is desired by the people with common wishes will come to pass with the rejoicing of the whole earth. Lord, in your power the King will rejoice and the Roman church, which now is so culpably slow in his liberation, will blush, not without tears, that it did not help/ recognise such a son in such anguish.
To the most holy Father and lord C, highest pontiff by the grace of God, A, by the same grace queen of England, duchess of Normandy, and countess of Anjou, greetings and to abound in inner mercy. My soul wearies of life. Whatever I feared has happened, so the expectation of harsher events cuts off every grace of consolation. When did I not fear graver dangers? When I think of my labour and grief, I am undone by pusillanimity of spirit and misfortune. I am indeed weakened, and old age, hastened by sorrows, announces the scarcity of my days to me. Many times I have written to you and frequently offered the sacrifice of my heart in a contrite and humbled spirit. But since I once began, I shall speak further to my Lord, though I be dust and ashes. Release me, lord, that I may weep a little for my sorrow. For I do not know by what pact the impulse of anxiety relaxes from lament and the profusion of tears. Lost, I have long awaited one, if there be any, who would alleviate a mother's sorrow, who would say "your son Joseph lives, and he is saved from the well, wild beasts have not devoured him." O worst beast, more cruel than any other, tigers or demons, who sold my son, a soldier of Christ, anointed of the Lord, a pilgrim of the crucified, bound in chains, to the emperor and betrayed him. Thus he has become a harsher adversary, and moved him from a prison to a labyrinth, from Scylla to Charybdis. From the days of Judas Iscariot, there has been none like him, who so violated the law of the highest, so maliciously betrayed the just. And these deeds were done in secret, in darkness, for they are works of darkness. Father of mercy, I pray to the fame of the abundance of your goodness, that you free the innocent from the mouth of the lion and the hand of the beast. What advantage is there to you in his blood, who was sought precisely from your hand? When we believed that the lord disposed to show mercy to my son through you, we rejoiced. But now the thing is turned upside-down: the devil triumphs far and wide, wisdom conquers malice and when the capture of my son is heard among the heathens, the applause of the uncircumcised resounds in the highways of Geth and in the cross-roads of Ascalon. Alas, alas, the Lord pierced us with grave wounds and cruel castigation! The tyrant [Henry VI] tore out my entrails from me and committed iniquities despoiling churches in the land of the saints, destroyed many people with bitterness and sorrow. Against all these, his furor is not turned away, but his hand is still extended. He does not spare monks, recluses, hermits, nuns, or lepers. Law, human and divine, the fear of God, faith, religion and honour have perished. Awake, o Lord, why do you sleep, rise and do not cast us off forever. If the grief of this most unhappy sinner [Eleanor] does not, o highest pontiff, let at least the clamour of the poor, the sighs of the fettered, the blood of the murdered, the spoliation of churches and wide-spread oppression of the holy move you. See how the enemy reviles the holy. The enemies of the church thrive, they prolong their iniquity, they are comforted, adding prevarication, they pile iniquity on iniquity, so that blood touches blood, that their pride continuously ascends and the impiety of the young not only fills the measure of their fathers, but transcends it. Surely they were to be struck, even fulminated with terrifying anathema. Let the bishop of the world arise therefore, let your hand seize judgement like lightning, as Peter with one thrust annihilated Ananias and Sapphira, with one thrust Simon Magus, so you may kill the impious with the spirit of your lips. Otherwise you will seem to turn aside in your duty by consent to malice. For those who turn aside in duty the Lord will lead away with evildoers. Gird your sword on your thigh, o most powerful, the sword namely the spirit, which is the word of God. Let your hand seize judgement and with the power conferred on you by heaven take the staff of sinners from above the fate of the just, and with the shield of your good will protect my son. Do not let the son of iniquity harm the innocent any further. When the innocence of my son the king has witnesses near and far, you have no excuse from sin. What excuse could modify your sloth and lack of care, when it is clear to all that you have the power of freeing my son and lack the will? Was not every kingdom, all power of ruling, committed by God to the apostle Peter and through him to you? Blessed be the Lord who gave such power to men. No king, no emperor, no duke is exempted from the yoke of your jurisdiction. Where therefore is the zeal of Phineas? Where is the authority of Peter? Where is he who would say "the zeal for your house consumes me"? Let it not be in vain that you and your co-bishops were given the double swords. Say to the evil, do not do evil and to the wicked, do not lift up your horn. Do not allow the revered succession of apostolic dignity in the heritage of Peter degenerate. Recognise your sovreignty, prove your zeal, be girded to the work of fortitude, and honour your ministry. Let your glory pass to your successors and another generation recognise how foolishly that tyrant presumed and how powerfully the Roman see punished that presumption. The crime will be converted to danger for you if your hands slacken and impunity add horns to the sinner. For if these things are done in fertile times, what will happen in arid times? I ask your paternity to recall what a friend my husband the king [Henry II], father of this king was to you and how faithful; consider how benign to paternal devotion his successor has been. Do not cut out of your heart with how much solicitude I have always promoted the business of your legates with him. If my affection ever dulled towards you in your needs, I shall deservedly fall to my enemies. I shall now experience the promises of your cardinals to be words and pages; for trees are known not by their leaves or their flowers, but by their fruits and we indeed know them by their fruits. What the tyrant is ashamed to say he should be ashamed that they did; he held them accomplices in malice who should have shown themselves avengers of it. I loved you not with tongue and word but in deed and truth. Will evil now be returned for good and hatred for love? If I might say one thing, saving the peace of my lord, I say to him what one reads that Joab reproached king David: "You love those who hate you and hate those who love you." Alas, how justice is disarmed, how miserably the keys of the church have lost their office, and where the glorious principate of Peter ought to be eminent, there pontifical authority is shamefully oppressed and vilified. The wolf rushes into the sheeppen, the lion into the church of God; a single beast devours it, and there is no one who rises to fight for the house of the Lord. But what I grieve for is closer to me and more intolerable: the tyrant crucifies my son; the highest pontiff hides it; there is no one to redeem or save him. If there is any consolation in you, any power of charity in Christ, any mercy, any compassion in your entrails, if finally the affection of the father savours pontifical anointment, let all the people hear that there is wisdom in you to make justice. But why do I go on? I rush to uncertainty and beat the air and our groans vanish in the wind. The obstinacy of the tyrant is harder than adamant and I know that no one can correct one whom God neglects. My speech falls on the earth and comes back to me empty; it will not prosper among those to whom it was sent. So the horrifying tempest of tribulations sinks me, the depth of the terrible abyss absorbs me, the pit of desperation extends its mouth over me. All our people give their hands to death and strike a contract with hell, wasting away and drying up in the fear and expectation which have come over the whole western world. But you, Lord God Sabaoth, who judge justly, see what I suffer, judge my cause. And since I find no judge on earth, I, miserable, appeal to no earthly judge but to your terrible tribunal. I, unfortunate, why do I follow the impulse of my vehement sorrow and put my mouth to heaven? But with equanimity, I ask, father, that your benignity accept that it issued from sorrow, not from deliberation. I have sinned, and if I may use the word of blessed Job, "what I have said, would that I had not said, therefore I say no more, and I put my finger over my mouth." Fare well.
To her revered father and lord Celestine, highest pontiff by the grace of God, A., wretched and to be pitied – if only she were – queen of the English, duchess of Normandy, countess of Anjou, to show himself the father of mercy to the suffering mother. I am prevented by invidious distances, blessed father, from speaking to you in person, but I must lament my grief a little. And who will grant that my words be written? I am in such anguish within and without, that my words are filled with grief. Fears without, fights within. I am not free to breathe now from the tribulation of evils and grief, the excessive tribulations that have come upon us. I am wasted away by sorrow, my bone clings to the consumed flesh of my skin, my years decline in sighs – would that they might give out altogether, that the blood of my already dead body, the brain in my head, the marrow of my bones might dissolve in tears, that I might completely vanish in weeping. My entrails are torn from me, I have lost the staff of my old age and the light of my eyes; it would answer my prayers if God condemned my unfortunate eyes to perpetual blindness so they might no longer see the ills of my people. Who will let me die for you, my son? Mother of mercy, look on a mother of such misery, or if your son, an endless font of mercy, exacts the sins of the mother from the son, let him exact them only from the one who sinned, let him punish the impious, not laugh at the punishments of the innocent. Who began [my life], let him destroy me, let him take his hand and cut me off; and let this be my consolation, that afflicting me with pain, he not spare me. Pitiful and pitied by no one, why have I come to the ignominy of this detestable old age, who was ruler of two kingdoms, mother of two kings? My guts are torn from me, my family is carried off and removed from me. The young king [crown prince Henry, †1183] and the count of Britanny [prince Geoffrey, †1186] sleep in dust, and their most unhappy mother is compelled to be irremediably tormented by the memory of the dead. Two sons remain to my solace, who today survive to punish me, miserable and condemned. King Richard is held in chains. His brother, John, depletes his kingdom with iron [sword] and lays it waste with fire. In all things the Lord has turned cruel to me and attacked me with the harshness of his hand. Truly his wrath battles against me: my sons fight amongst themselves, if it is a fight where where one is restrained in chains, the other, adding sorrow to sorrow, undertakes to usurp the kingdom of the exile by cruel tyranny. Good Jesus, who will grant that you protect me in hell and hide me until your fury passes, until the arrows which are in me cease, by which my whole spirit is sucked out? Death is my wish, my life is loathsome, and since I die incessantly, I desire to die fully; I am compelled to live against my will so that life is to me the food of death and the matter of torture. Happy those who are blessedly aborted before they can experience the mockery of this life and the unexpected events of our uncertain condition! What am I doing? Why do I survive? Why do I, wretched, delay and not go to see the one whom my soul loves, conquered by poverty and iron? how could a mother forget the son of her womb for so long? Affection for their offspring softens even wild tigers and demons. But I waver in doubt. If I go, deserting my son's kingdom, that is laid waste on all sides with grave hostility, it will be deprived of all counsel and comfort in my absence. If I remain, I shall not see the face I most desire, of my son. There will be no one to zealously procure the freedom of my son and, what I fear even more, with the impossible quantity of money, that very delicate youth, impatient at such affliction, will be pressed by his torments and driven to death by his tortures. O impious, cruel, terrible tyrant, who did not fear to lay your sacrilegious hands on the anointed of the Lord; neither the royal unction, nor reverence for holy life, nor the fear of God kept you from such inhuman action. But the prince of apostles still reigns and rules in the apostolic see and judiciary rigour is established there. May it remain there so that you, Father, unsheath the sword of Peter which he set for this purpose over peoples and kingdoms. The cross of Christ preceded the eagles of Caesar, the sword of Peter the sword of Constantine, and the apostolic see passes sentence on imperial power. Is your power from God or from men? Did the God of Gods not speak to you, saying to the apostle Peter: "Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven?" Why, therefore, do you delay so long, so negligently, indeed so cruelly to free my son, or do you not dare? But you say this power was committed to you for souls not bodies. So be it: it is certainly sufficient for us if you bind the souls of those who hold my son bound in prison; it is easy for you to free my son while the fear of God overpowers human fear. Give my son back to me, man of God, if you are a man of God and not a man of blood. if you are sluggish in the freeing of my son, may the Highest exact his blood from your hand. Alas, alas, if the highest shepherd is perverted into a mercenary, if he flees before the wolf, if he abandons the little sheep committed to his care, indeed the ram, the chosen leader of the Lord's flock to the jaws of the cruel beast! A good shepherd instructs other shepherds, teaches them not to flee when they see the wolf coming but to offer their lives for their sheep. I ask that your life/soul be safe while you strive to procure with swift legations, with salutary admonitions, with thundering threats, with general interdictions, with terrible judgements, the freedom not of your sheep but of your son. Truly you should offer your life for him, you who until now have not wanted to say or write one word. The son of God, by the witness of the prophet, descended from heaven to lead the vanquished from the lake in which there was no water. Is not what was fitting for God fitting for the servant of God? My son is tormented in chains and you do not descend nor send to him; you are not moved by Joseph's grief. Christ sees this and is silent; but the work of God abundantly repays with the highest severity those who act negligently. Legates have now been promised to us three times but have not been sent; if I may speak truth, they are more "ligates" [bound] than legates. If my son were prospering, they would swiftly come at his simple call, because they would expect rich handouts to their legation from the magnificent munificence and from the public profit of the kingdom. And what more glorious request could they receive than to free a captive king, to give peace back to his people, tranquillity to the religious, and joy to all? Now, however, the sons of Ephraim are converted to war, bending and loosing their bows, and in a time of anguish, while the wolf broods over the prey, the mute dogs can not or do not wish to bark. Is this the promise that you made to us at Châteauroux with such love and protestation of faith? What benefit was it to you to give words to the simple, to delude the desires of the innocent with foolish faith? So king Achab is said to have once made a compact of friendship with Benadab, and we have heard what an inauspicious outcome their mutual love had. Heavenly dispensation favoured the battles of Judas, John, the brother of Simon Maccabee with happy omens; when their legation was sent confirming the friendship of the Romans, they lost the help of God, and not once but often their venal intercourse turned to sobs. You alone compel me to despair who alone after God are my hope, who were the confidence of our people. Cursed is he who trusts in man. Where is my expectation now? You are, Lord, my God. To you, Lord, who consider labour, the eyes of your handmaid are turned. King of kings and Lord of lords, look in the face of your Christ, give power to your child and save the son of your handmaid; do not punish in him the crimes of his father or the malice of his mother. We have learned from a reliable public account that after the death of the bishop of Liège, whom he is said to have killed with a long hand by deadly sword, the emperor constrained by wretched imprisonment the bishop of Ostia and four of his fellow provincial bishops, as well as the archbishops of Salerno and Trani and, what apostolic authority ought in no way to hide, occupied by tyrannical usurpation Sicily, which from the times of Constantine has been the patrimony of St. Peter, despite legations, supplications, and threats from the apostolic see. With all this his furor is not abated but his hand is still stretched forth. He has done serious things, but you can most certainly expect more serious soon. For those who ought to be the columns of the church are moved like light reeds in any wind. Would that they remembered that because of the negligence of Eli, the priest ministering in Shiloh, the glory of the Lord of Israel was transferred. This is not a parable of the past but of the present, since the lord rejected the tabernacle of Shiloh, his tabernacle where he lived among men, and gave their strength into captivity, their beauty into the hands of the enemy. It will be imputed to their pusillanimity that the church is trampled, the faith endangered, liberty oppressed, that deceit, suffering and iniquity are nourished with impunity. Where is what the lord promised his church: "you shall suck the milk of nations, you shall suck the breasts of kings, I will make you the proud in the world, a joy from age to age"? The church once trampled the necks of the proud and sublime with its own power, and the laws of emperors followed the sacred canons. Now, however, with order disrupted, I shall not say the canons, but the framers of canons are restricted by depraved laws and abominable customs. The scourges of the powerful that should be detested are tolerated and there is no one who dares to mumble; meanwhile canonical rigour is exercised against the sins of the poor. Not undeservedly does the philosopher Anacharsis compare laws and canons with the webs of spiders, which retain weaker animals but let the strong pass through. The kings of the earth stood by and princes came together as one against the anointed of the Lord, my son. One torments him with chains; another lays waste his lands with cruel hostility. And, if I may use a common expression, "one shaves, another pulls the hair, one holds the foot, another excoriates." The highest pontiff sees this and suppresses the sword of Peter which he has replaced in its sheath. So he adds horns to the sinner and his silence is taken for consent. For he seems to consent who, when he can and ought, does not reprove, and when patience, the concealer of hidden association, does not lack scruple. The time of dissension, as the apostle foretold, is imminent, when the son of perdition will be revealed and dangerous times draw near, when the seamless tunic of Christ will be cut, the net of Peter torn, and the solidity of Catholic unity will be dissolved. These are the beginnings of evils: we experience grave things, we fear more grave. I am not a prophetess, I am not a daughter of the prophet; yet grief gave me many things to say about future disturbances, but those words which it suggested, it snatches away. Sobs hinder my spirit, sorrow, sapping the strength of my soul/life cuts off the path of my words with anxiety.
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