114. To Countess Ida.
The Letters of St. Anselm
114. TO COUNTESS IDA.
Anselm thanks Countess Ida of Boulogne for her many substantial gifts. He asks for her encouragement and help for Dom Richard who promised to become a monk at Bee. He extends greetings to her husband and children.
TO HIS MOST BELOVED LADY, COUNTESS IDA,1 OUTSTANDING IN
NOBILITY OF BIRTH AND CONDUCT: BROTHER ANSELM, SERVANT OF
THE SERVANTS OF GOD LIVING AT BEC, TOGETHER WITH HIS
FELLOW-MONKS, WISHING SHE MAY BE STEADFAST TO THE END IN
THE BURNING DESIRE FOR GOD, THAT SHE MAY REJOICE WITHOUT
END IN THE LONGED-FOR SIGHT OF GOD.
WE WOULD WISH TO GIVE THANKS to your reverend highness with our whole mind, but in relation to the mag nitude of the kindness and good deeds you have lavished on us and on many for our sake, we cannot in any way ade quately do so. Therefore we pray to him, for whose sake you did so many good deeds for us and for anyone else you could, that he may himself repay you according to the mul titude of his riches, as we desire. Out of the abundance of such charity we exhort you not to grow weak in doing good,2 that in due time you may reap boundlessly.
Dom Richard,3 the bearer of this letter, promised us he would return to us, if God granted him this and from then on remain with us. We implore your reverence, therefore, to strengthen him, according to the understanding of your prudence, and in all things in which he may have need of your help to assist him for the sake of God's love and our own.
Greetings to our lord the Count, your husband, and to your children, and to yourself on our behalf, since we have no more trusty messenger from us to them than your fidelity.
Not later than 1093.