conspicuous for their religion and prudence and honesty. And we most urgently request thy Highness to receive them honourably as well as kindly, to treat them fairly and to receive without hesitation, as though proceeding from our lips, whatever they say on our part to thy imperial Majesty concerning this matter and concerning other things which pertain to the honour of God and of the holy Roman church, and also to the glory and exaltation of the empire. And do not doubt to lend faith to their words as though we ourselves had happened to utter them.
(b.) Manifesto of the Emperor, Oct. 1157.
Inasmuch as the divine power, from which is every power in Heaven and on earth, has committed to us, his anointed, the kingdom and the empire to be ruled over, and has ordained that the peace of the church shall be preserved by the arms of the empire,—not without extreme grief of heart are we compelled to complain to you, beloved, that, from the head of the holy church on which Christ impressed the character of his peace and love, causes of dissension, seeds of evil, the poison of a pestiferous disease seem to emanate. Through these, unless God avert it, we fear that the whole body of the church will be tainted, the unity riven, a schism be brought about between the kingdom and the priesthood. For recently, while we were holding court at Vesançon and with due watchfulness were treating of the honour of the empire and of the safety of the church, there came apostolic legates asserting that they brought such message to our majesty that from it the honour of our empire should receive no little increase. When, on the first day of their coming, we had honourably received them, and, on the second, as is the custom, we sat together with our princes to listen to their report,—they, as if inflated with the mammon of unrighteousness, out of the height of their pride, from the summit of their arrogance, in the execrable elation of their swelling hearts, did present to us a message in the form of an apostolic letter, the tenor of which was that we should always keep it before our mind's eye how
