PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE
TO HUGH, KNIGHT OF CHRIST 1 AND MASTER
OF CHRIST'S MILITIA: BERNARD, ABBOT OF
CLAIRVAUX IN NAME ONLY, WISHES THAT
HE MAY FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT 2
I F I AM NOT MISTAKEN, my dear Hugh, you have asked me not once or twice, but three times to write a few words of exhortation for you and your comrades.3 You say that, while I am not permitted to wield the lance, I might at least brandish my pen against a tyrannical foe, and that this moral, rather than material, support of mine will be of no small help to you.4 I have put you off now for quite some time, not because I scorn your request, but for fear I may be blamed for accepting lightly and hastily, or that I may botch a task which might better be done by a more qualified hand and which might, because of me, still remain just as requisite and that much more difficult.
Having waited quite some time to no purpose, I have now done what I could, lest inability be mistaken for unwillingness. It is for the reader to judge the result. Although some may find my work unsatisfactory or short of the mark, I shall be nonetheless content, for I have not failed to give you my best.
