freedom of Cluniac houses from visitation by the local bishop, he made
the Abbot of Cluny _ex officio_ a Cardinal of the Roman Church,
and allowed that when the rest of the land was under an interdict the
monks of Cluny might celebrate Mass within the closed doors of their
chapels. But as a consequence of these distinctions Pontius' conduct
became so unbearable as to cause loud complaints from ecclesiastics of
every rank. Ultimately the Pope intervened and persuaded Pontius to
resign the abbacy and to make a pilgrimage to Palestine. Meanwhile
another abbot was appointed. But Pontius returned, gathered an armed
band, and got forcible possession of Cluny, which he proceeded to
despoil. Again the Pope, Honorius II, interfered, and Pontius was
disposed of.

[Sidenote: Criticism of St. Bernard.]

But such an episode was only too characteristic of the decay which
seemed inevitably to fall on each of the monastic Orders. The wealth
and privileges of Cluny made its failure all the more conspicuous. A
few years after the expulsion of Pontius, St. Bernard wrote to the
Abbot of the Cluniac house of St. Thierry a so-called apology, which,
while professing a great regard for the Cluniacs Order and pretending
to criticise the deficiencies of his own Cistercians, is in reality a
scathing attack upon the lapse of the former from the Benedictine
rule. He attacks their neglect of manual work and of the rule of
silence; their elaborate cookery and nice taste in wines; their
interest in the cut and material of their clothes and the luxury of
their bed coverlets: the extravagance of the furniture in their
chapels, and even the grotesque architecture of their buildings. He
especially censures the magnificent state in which the abbots live and
with which they travel about, and he declares himself emphatically