75. to John Comnenus, Emperor of Constantinople (likely 1138/9)

[this likely follows the expulsion of Cluniacs from Constantinople ca. 1138/9]

We give thanks to the omnipotent king of kings, whose kingdom is the kingdom of all ages, who raised up your imperial majesty above all the princes of a Christian name and he appointed you for watching over his Church throughout the whole world, equally in Middle East, the West, the North.

He wished, therefore, just as he transferred the power and name to you, and just as Rome is so called on account of the pagan Romulus, with the religion changed and the Empire shifted, so is your city named Constantinople on account of its Christian founder Constantine.

.. even if [God] allows some of your realm to be attacked, he has never suffered it to be conquered; but he transferred the glory and name of this great Roman Empire to you. He wished that just as the power migrated over to you, so should the name as well; and since the religion had been changed and the power transferred, so also, just as Rome had been named after the pagan Romulus, so your city of Constantinople was named after the Christian renovator Constantine. The all-seeing celestial eye has imposed, as Ι said, something like an impassable boundary, an unbreachable barrier, a fixed line which can never be crossed, on the pagan kings and barbarian nations, whereby the East is feared, the North subdued, the West defended.

[http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/Walter_Berschin_31.html]

you sustain them by your love of very Christ…

Among which he [Alexius] gave to the monastery of Cluny, very well known to all Latin kings and peoples, and to that great and religious place which is called La Charité, a monastery which is called Civitot next to the same royal city [Constantinople] and subjected it in perpetuity in obedience to the abbot of Cluny and the prior of La Charité. Which with ours either dead or withdrawing or expelled, foreign monks invaded and now, as we have heard, have taken it away for almost three years. O pray, therefore, and with me the entire congregation of Cluny beseeches your royal majesty and piety so that he make the lost monastery to be restored to us and our place, La Charité, through the bearers of these letters and that he defend from injury the inhabitant servants of God for the eternal salvation of his soul and that he preserve them in peace. And that something of a spiritual benefit we may repay to you doing such things, just as our predecessors and we also made the kings of France, England, Spain, Germany, the Roman Emperors and your neighbours, the kings of Hungary, confratres and co-participants of all the benefits of the congregation of Cluny, thus we raise you on the part of omnipotent God, a blessed Mary, the always virginal mother of God, and of the holy apostles and all the saints into the spiritual benefits openly and perfectly (as much as fitting) in order that the omnipotent Saviour also thus increase and preserve your temporal kingdom and in the future lead you to eternal life with other holy kings. Amen.