11. To Pope Innocent II (1136/37)

Partial first draft.

Certainly it is superfluous that a father pleads for his son, a shepherd for his sheep, Peter for his Church, but since often the soul freely hears from others what also it desires to do by itself, and it is provoked more often by the suggestions of others to those things which it loves to do, on account of this I meet paternal piety for the Church of Orléans, even though I am merely the humble devout son of your sublimity. I ask, that with the love of the cross of Christ, in whose name in under whose standard the church is singularly glorified we are worthy to give succour to its calamities.