Preface to Peter the Venerable's work against the Saracens

To his one and singular Father and Lord, the lord abbot Peter of Cluny, Peter, the least of your sons, wishes to rejoice forever in Christ.

Though you always undertake everything philosophically in your manner, you so suitably sent to me, one both suffering and fit for many sufferings, a “passion” to be read. I give thanks to Your Sweetness because at least at this time, I hold your letter and the favour of your paternal salutation, by which I bear more easily the difficulty of your absence which is always very hard for me. But even so, I understood that you intend afterwards to sail to England, with the lord leading you, truly I am made more solicitous for you and for your companions and for your whole journey, and may you be offered prayers and vows of supplication for a favourable return to us by God, as he bestows. But also I strive to entreat those whom I know more devout and zealous in sacred prayers, that they do the same, and more and more, with Christ providing, I may strive. The Holy Spirit directs your path and your counsel, and establishes our joy by your return to us. I send to you the chapters which you commanded John to destroy, and I believe that they are arranged more lucidly than before. Accordingly, they were written thusly in the manner just as you began to undertake, even if, however, it seems to you hereafter you had been about to undertake against those truly inimical to Christ’s cross. And indeed the great trust with which I accept your talent, if I presumed to add or change something, and this will have been pleasing to you, let it remain, but if otherwise, it is yours to correct where I have erred. Also, the chapter which is there about the women shamelessly abused, may it not scandalize you in any way, since truly I heard [it] thusly in Al-chorano [the Koran?] and likewise in Spain for sure and from Peter of Toledo, whose companion I was while traveling and from Robert of Pampilano, now an archdeacon; all Saracens do this freely, as if following the precept of Mohammed. But I wish that thusly these are confounded by you, just as the Jews and the Provençal heretics were confounded. For in our times, you alone , who have decapitated the three chief enemies of Sacred Christianity –I name the Jews, the heretics and the Saracens– with the sword of the divine word, and you have shown that mother Church (neither bereft nor lacking in good sons) still has, with Christ favorably inclined, such men who are able to render a reason to any asking about those that hope and faith which is in use, and are able to humiliate all arrogance and pride of the devil raising himself against the elevation of God. Health and prosperity and every good primarily is in you, also in your and our companions: lord Hugh the Englishman, and John who lost the chapter, our Bartholomew, the lord Constable Godfrey, Girard the German, if he is with you, with the others. Ignore, I ask, my slowness and my weakness, since God knows, though I have greatly wished it, I have not been able to send these to you before now on account of that I am constrained by a grave infirmity of the whole body, and especially the normal infirmity of my feet. For I wrote all these also in the large book, fearing lest also they are lost during the journey, just as the chapter was lost, because truly it was laborious.