frail, and because evil was often recommended to him by those who had the court in their hands, promised, indeed, in words, from day to day, that he would most readily receive our warnings; but in fact, and by increasing his faults, he entirely trod them under foot.
In the mean while we called to repentance some of his associates by whose counsels and machinations he had, with simoniacal heresy, defiled bishoprics and many monasteries, introducing, for money, wolves instead of shepherds. For we wished both that, while there was yet time to make amends, they should restore to the venerable places where they belonged the goods of the church which they, through so shameful a traffic, had with sacrilegious hand received— and that they themselves, through the lamentations of penitence, should render satisfaction to God for the iniquity perpetrated. But when we learned that they had scorned the terms appointed for carrying out these things and were obstinately continuing in their accustomed iniquity, we justly separated them, as sacrilegious persons and ministers and members of the devil, from the communion and body of the whole church. And we warned the king to expel them, as excommunicate, from his palace and his counsels and from all intercourse with himself.
But meanwhile the cause of the Saxons gained the upper hand against the king. And when he saw that the forces and the protectors of the land were ready, for the most part, to abandon him, he once more directed to us a letter, supplicatory and full of all humility. In it he acknowledged his guilt towards God Almighty, St. Peter and ourselves; praying that, whatever faults he might have committed in ecclesiastical matters against the institutions of the canons and the decrees of the holy fathers, we, with our apostolic foresight and authority, should strive to correct. And in this matter he promised us, in every way, obedience, consent and faithful aid. Afterwards, being admitted to penance by our brothers and legates Humbert bishop of Praeneste and Gerald bishop of Ostia whom we sent to him, he renewed to them and confirmed this promise, swearing by the sacred stoles which they bore about their necks.
But when, after a time, a battle was fought with the
