A letter from Hildebert, bishop of Lavardin (1100-18)

Translated letter:

To Matilda queen of the English. I rejoice in your honor and your good reputation, which is better known to me each day. I rejoice, I say, and give thanks to the Lord God for your goodness, since your goodness is nothing other than his gift. For what do you have that you did not receive? And we all, the evangelist says, have received from his fullness. From that fullness from which you have what you are, you have that you are good, but you also have that you may be better. Be attentive therefore to what you have from your good creator and understand that you owe him for his great kindness. Be attentive, I say, to how your artificer labored over you and labor so that his labor not deteriorate. I speak of temporal and fallen things; but temporal and fallen things are also gifts of your Lord God. You did not deserve to be born noble, and you were born of royal blood; you did not labor, and you were made rich. You produced nothing of your own power, but you were placed over the heads of the sons of men. You implored no one for the glory of your form, and you were made beautiful to the delight of a king. The Lord God did these things. God is good, his works are good; the highest good, he made all things very good. Men are not good by these goods but they may become good by using them well. That you may therefore become good before your Lord God, use his good favor/gift well. If you use it well, it is his favor and your good, if badly his favor is still good but by using the good favor of God badly you make yours bad: for nothing is good for man unless he is good. But for the good and those loving God, all things work together for good. Moreover the favors of God are harmful to idle possessors who do not turn [trade] them to gain, but to punishment. Understand what I say for God gave you understanding.1. Our God is a great lender. I say this in his presence. This creditor of ours importunately demands usury. This creditor of ours is hard; he is a man who goes abroad and returns in the full moon. When he returns, he asks double from you, but when he receives it, he will reward you a hundredfold. O blessed commerce, in which asking usury is not criminal, paying it is not a burden. O happy trade in which the creditor is opportunely importunate and owes the debtor more than he is owed. One should fear coming to judgment without mercy, if, let it not be so, you dream that negligence in this commerce will go unpunished and forgotten. Understand what I say: this creditor of ours has a long memory. You are punishably forgetful if you think he will forget the debt. He forgets no time, no occupation. He collects equally what he lends today and what he lent yesterday because his today is also yesterday. Days and days, years and years pass, but a thousand days and a thousand years are before his eyes, like yesterday. Will he not number how much he lent you who alone reckons the sand of the sea and the drops of water and the days of the world. Will he not divide in detail your talents, who divides waters from waters in his wisdom? Perhaps you will take your creditor to law when he asks for what he committed to you? Understand what I say: he is a good advocate who will argue with you. He refers before the angels, he defers to truth, he proffers terrible things, he infers horrible things. But you say to me: if offended, he promises [promittit] to be merciful, he puts by [praetermittit] punishment, he admits the penitent, he remits threats, he dismisses [dimittit] debts, he commits more. That is so, I say. I confess it. The earth is filled with the mercy of the Lord. Many strive for themelves who, though they have rejected any zeal for doing well, still hope for mercy from God when they deserve judgment, as if mercy were to be well-disposed to iniquity rather than to religion, as we believe. But it is not so. For the evil do not earn the mercy of God which even the good can not promise themelves except timidly. To hope for it is very salutary advice, but to depend on it completely is a dangerous refuge. For it is fitting that some good things mitigate judgment if we want many bad things to be judged mercifully. Partial guilt may cause mercy, not total. Virtue which accompanies the beloved to judgment intervenes. They experience a judgment of mercy who give themselves to justice. Who will act for you if he — let it not be so — pleads against you and adverse to you? It is a serious matter to fall into the hands of the living God. Fare well, and use your delights for the queen, not for yourself.

Original letter:

Gratulor honori tuo, atque bonae opinioni tuae, quae mihi melior in dies innotescit. Gratulor, inquam, et Domino Deo gratias ago de bono tuo, quoniam bonum tuum nihil aliud est quam donum suum. Quid enim habes, quod non accepisti? (I Cor. IV, 13.) Et nos omnes, ait evangelista, de plenitudine ejus accepimus (Joan. I, 16). De ejus scilicet plenitudine, de qua tu habes ut sis, habes ut bona sis, habes etiam ut melior esse possis. Attende ergo quid habeas ex tam bono factore tuo, et intende quid debeas ei ex tam magno beneficio suo. Attende, inquam, qualem te laboraverit artifex tuus, et labora ne degeneret labor suus. De temporalibus loquor et caducis; sed temporalia etiam et caduca dona sunt Domini Dei tui. Non meruisti nobilis nasci, et regius sanguis nata es; non laborasti, et dives facta es. De potentia nihil movebaris, et ecce super capita filiorum hominum posita es. Nulli pro gloria formae supplicasti, et usque ad regis delicias formosa facta es. Haec opera operatus est Dominus Deus; Deus bonus, opera bona, quoniam ipse summe bonus fecit omnia valde bona. His autem bonis, non sunt homines boni, sed eis bene utendo faciunt, ut et ipsi fiant boni. Ut igitur et tu sis bona coram Domino Deo tuo, utere bene bono munere suo. Si bene uteris, et ejus munus est, et tuum bonum; si vero male, ejus quidem munus est et bonum, sed bono munere Dei male utendo, facis tuum malum: nihil est enim homini bonum, nisi se bono. Bonis autem et diligentibus Deum omnia cooperantur in bonum (Rom. VIII, 18). Porro munera Dei damno sunt possessoribus otiosis, quibus nolle negotiari ad lucrum, probe negotiatur ad supplicium. Intellige quae dico; dedit enim tibi Dominus intellectum. Magnus fenerator est hic Deus noster. Coram eo loquor. Importune usuras exigit iste creditor noster. Creditor noster est et durus; creditor est ille quidam homo, qui peregre profectus est. Ipse plenilunio revertetur; cum redierit, duplum requiret a te. Cum susceperit, centuplo munerabit te. O beatum commercium, in quo nec usuras exigens criminis arguitur, nec solvens in aliquo gravatur! O felicem negotiationem, in qua creditor est opportune importunus, et debitori, plus quam debeat, debetur. Proinde timendum est ut ad judicium sine venia venias, si, quod absit, negotiandi negligentiam somnias oblivione fore impunitam. Intellige quae dico; magnae memoriae est iste creditor noster; poenaliter oblita est tui, si eum putas oblitum debiti sui. Nihil obliviscitur tempore, nihil occupatione. Aeque recolit et quod hodie praestat et quod praestitit heri, quoniam hodie suum est et heri. Abeunt dies et dies, anni et anni, sed mille dies et mille anni ante oculos suos tanquam dies hesterna quae praeteriit (Psal. LXXXIX). Nunquid ergo non numerabit quantum tibi praestiterit, qui solus dinumerat arenam maris, et pluviae guttas, et dies saeculi? (Eccli. I, 2.) Nunquid non dividet usque in minutias talenta tua, qui divisit aquas ab aquis in sapientia sua? Fortassis autem trahes in jus creditorem tuum, dum repetet a te commendatum suum? Intellige quae dico; bonus causidicus est, qui tecum rationem positurus est. Coram angelis referet, veritati deferet, terribilia proferet, horribilia inferet. Sed dicis mihi: Idem offensus clementem se promittit, punire praetermittit, poenitentem admittit, minas remittit, debita dimittit, ampliora committit. Ita est, inquam. Confiteor. Misericordia Domini plena est terra (Psal. CXVIII, 54). Caeterum plures eam sibi infructuose aucupantur, qui licet abjurato bene agendi studio, Deum tamen, quem merentur judicem, sperant misericordem, quasi eum invenire propitium merces sit iniquitatis, quod credimus esse religionis. Verum non est ita. Neque enim misericordiam Dei lucrantur mali, quam sibi, non nisi timide, pollicentur etiam boni. In eam sperare saluberrimum est consilium, sed de ea totum pendere, periculosum est refugium. Oportet enim ut judicem mitigent aliqua bona, si volumus misericorditer judicari multa mala. Proxima est veniae causa, non tota rea. Virtus quae cum dilecto ad judicem venit, intervenit. Hi vero judicem sentiunt expertem misericordiae, qui se justitiae. Quis igitur aget pro te, si ille, quod absit! perorabit adversus te et aversus a te? Grave est incidere in manus Dei viventis (Hebr. X, 31). Vale, atque deliciis pro regina utere, non pro te.

Historical context:

Hildebert offers the queen a moral lesson written in a style that compliments her intellect/education with rhetorical figures and conceits aimed at a trained mind, which I have translated as literally as possible. For the dating, I follow Peter von Moos, rather than the PL, Hildebert von Lavardin (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1965), 365-67.

Scholarly notes:

1. “Understand what I say,” “intellige quae dico,” is a refrain through the letter, not condescending but a compliment to her gifts of intellect and education which he calls on her to use, “because God gave you understanding/intelligence (“dedit enim tibi Dominus intellectum”).

Printed source:

PL171 ep.1.7, c153-55.

Date:

1100-18