God at Orleans which at that time was under an interdict. Immediately Fulbert takes up his pen and writes to the king: "Amidst the numerous occupations which demand my attention, my anxiety touching thy person, my lord, holds an important place. Thus when I learn that thou dost act wisely I rejoice; when I learn that thou doest ill I am grieved and in fear." He is glad that the king should be thinking on peace, but that with this object he should convoke an assembly at Orleans, "a city ravaged by fire, profaned by sacrilege, and above all, condemned to excommunication," this astonishes and confounds him. To hold an assembly in a town where, legally, neither the king nor the bishops could communicate, was at that time nothing short of a scandal! And the pious bishop concludes his letter with wise and firm advice.
A few years earlier, in 1008, the Count of the Palace, Hugh of Beauvais, the bosom friend of King Robert, had been killed, as we have related, under the very eyes of the sovereign, by assassins placed in ambush by Fulk Nerra, Count of Anjou, who immediately gave them asylum in his dominions. Such was the scandal, that Fulk was near being proceeded against for high treason, while a synod of bishops sitting at Chelles wished at all events to pronounce him excommunicate on the spot. Here again Fulbert intervenes, he enjoins clemency upon all, obtains a delay of three weeks, and of his own accord writes to Fulk, though he is neither his diocesan nor his relation, a letter full of kindness, but also of firmness, summoning him to give up the assassins within a fixed time and to come himself at once and make humble submission.
In the days of Ivo the good understanding between the king and the Bishop of Chartres was broken. But amidst all the religious and political difficulties in which Philip was involved, and with him the whole kingdom, the bishop's influence is only the more evident. In personal correspondence with the Popes, who consult him, or to whom on his own initiative he sends opinions always listened to with deference, in correspondence with the papal legates whom he informs by his counsels, Ivo seems the real head of the Church in France. In the question so hotly debated on both sides as to the king's marriage with Bertrada of Montfort[1], Ivo did not hesitate to speak his mind to the king without circumlocution, he sharply rebuked the over-complaisant bishops, acted as leader of the rest, and personally came to an agreement with the Pope and his legates as to the course to be pursued. He writes in 1092 to the king who had summoned him to be present at the solemnisation of his marriage with Bertrada: "I neither can nor will go, so long as no general council has pronounced a divorce between you and your lawful wife, and declared the marriage which you wish to contract canonical." The king succeeded in getting this adulterous union celebrated, and in spite of warnings he refused to put an end to it. Pope Urban II
- ↑ See supra, p. 113
