unleavened bread (Azyme). John of Tranum reads his letter and then sends it on to Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, asking what he thinks of it. This Cardinal Humbert will be the chief defender of the Latins throughout the quarrel. He was a Burgundian, and had been a monk at one of the Cluniac houses in Lothringen. Lanfranc says that he was a great scholar.[1] The Pope brought him out of his monastery, made him Bishop of Silva Candida[2] and a cardinal, and kept him at Rome as one of his own advisers. Cardinal Humbert then (being a Greek scholar) translates the letter into Latin and shows it to the Pope.
Meanwhile Cerularius, having sent off this declaration of war,[3] proceeds to strengthen his position at home. It is most important to him to make sure that all the East is with him. To secure this he sends round to the other patriarchs and to various metropolitans a treatise written in Latin by a monk of Studium (the great Laura, once so faithful to Rome, pp. 65, 141, note 4), Niketas Stethatos (Pectoratus in Latin) against the Western Church.[4] Niketas asks in this treatise how the Romans, "wisest and noblest of all races," can have fallen into such "horrible infirmities." He answers that certain Jews at the time of the Apostles had, for the hope of wicked gain, corrupted the pure Gospel at Rome. The "horrible infirmities" are Azyme bread for Mass, fasting on Saturday, and celibacy. This last point was specially offensive to a Pope who was standing out for the celibacy of clerks with all his might. The politeness of his reference to the Romans as the wisest and noblest of races does not at all accord with the general tone of his writing, for he goes on to apply to them St. Paul's words: "dogs, bad workmen,
- ↑ De Corp. and Sang. Dñi (M.P.L. cl. p. 409): "All who know him personally say that he is very learned in the knowledge of both divine and profane letters."
- ↑ Silva Candida was one of the suburban sees of Rome. Calixtus III joined it to the see of the Portus Tiberis in 1138. Humbert was Bishop of Silva Candida from 1057–1063. Gams: Series episcoporum eccl. cath. (Regensburg, 1873), ix.
- ↑ There is no question but that Leo of Achrida sent his letter under orders from the Patriarch.
- ↑ The text in Will, o.c. pp. 127–136. Krumbacher: Byz. Litt. pp. 154–155.
