to the end that the king, for God's sake, should be obeyed; but by the royal one to the end that the enemies of Christ without should be expelled, and that the priesthood within should be obeyed. And He taught that every man should be constrained so to extend his love from one to the other that the kingdom should neither lack the honour due to the priesthood, nor the priesthood the honour due to the kingdom. In what way the madness of Hildebrand confounded this ordinance of God thou thyself dost know, if thou hast been ready or willing to know. For in his judgment no one is rightfully priest save him who has bought permission from his own capricious self. Me also whom God called to the kingdom—not, however, having called him to the priesthood—he strove to deprive of my royal power, threatening to take away my kingdom and my soul, neither of which he had granted, because he saw me wishing to hold my rule from God and not from him—because he himself had not constituted me king. Although he had often, as thou dost know, thrown out these and similar things to shame us, he was not as yet satisfied with that but needs must inflict upon us from day to day new and ingenious kinds of confusion—as he recently proved in the case of our envoys. For a page will not suffice to tell how he treated those same envoys of ours, how cruelly he imprisoned them and afflicted them, when captive, with nakedness, cold, hunger and thirst and blows; and how at length he ordered them to be led like martyrs through the midst of the city, furnishing a spectacle for all; so that one would call him and believe him as mad as Decius the tyrant, and a burner of saints. Wherefore, beloved, be not tardy—may all in common not be tardy— to give ear to my request, and to that of thy fellow-bishops, that thou do come to Worms at Pentecost; and that thou there, with the other princes, do listen to many things a few of which are mentioned in this letter; and that thou do show what is to be done. Thou art asked to do this for love of thy fellow-bishops, warned to for the good of the church, bound to for the honour of our life and of the whole land.
