98. to the same (1140)

To the highest pontiff and our special father, the lord pope Innocent, brother Peter, the humble abbot of the Cluniac gives obedience and love.

Master Peter recently stopped by Cluny, as I believe Your Wisdom well knows, on his way from France. We asked where he was making for. He responded that the Apostolic Majesty had summoned him and that he, oppressed by the attacks of certain individuals who were imposing on him the name of heretic –an idea he truly abhorred– wished to find safety with him. We praised this conduct and we urged that he find safety at a known and common refuge. We told him that apostolic justice –which does not ever lack to anyone, not even to foreigners and travelers – would not be lacking to him. We promised that mercy itself would hasten to meet him where reason was requesting.

In the meantime, [Rainald] the lord abbot of Cîteaux arrived and he spoke both with us and with[Peter] about making peace between [Peter] and the lord of Clairvaux, on whose behalf he was speaking. We gave ourselves in service to his peace and urged that [Rainald] go along with him to [Bernard]. We added these to our encouragements, that if he had written or said anything offending catholic ears, by the urging of him and other good and wise men, he might be moved by their words and cleansed by their books. And so it was done. He went, he returned and having come back, reported that, with the abbot of Cîteaux mediating, he had come to a peaceful agreement with the lord of Clairvaux to let their former quarrels slumber. Meanwhile, encouraged by us but more inspired by God, we believe, he chose for himself a perpetual dwelling in your Cluny, having cast off the tumults of the schools and studies. Thinking that he was well suited on account of his old age, his frailness, his religious way of life, and his wisdom not wholly unknown to you, and also believing that he was able to give profit to the large crowd of our brothers, we assented to his wish, and we granted, if such is pleasing to Your Benignity, that he may gladly and joyfully remain with us, who, as you know, are yours always. Therefore, to you I myself ask, the community of Cluny so devoted to you asks, and Peter himself asks through himself, through us, through your sons the lawmakers of this time, through this letter which he asked that I write, that you command that he spend the remaining days of his life and of his old age (which perhaps are not many) in your Cluny and that he could not be expelled or driven by anyone’s threats from his home and nest, which he like a sparrow and turtledove, rejoices to have discovered. Do so, in the accustomed way by which you nourish all good things, and you love yours and you protect them with the shield of apostolic defence.