And there, amid the dreadful
roar of the waves of the sea, where the land's end left me no
further refuge in flight, often in my prayers did I repeat over and
over again: "From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee, when
my heart is overwhelmed" (Ps. lxi, 2).
No one, methinks, could fail to understand how persistently that
undisciplined body of monks, the direction of which I had thus
undertaken, tortured my heart day and night, or how constantly I
was compelled to think of the danger alike to my body and to my
soul. I held it for certain that if I should try to force them to
live according to the principles they had themselves professed, I
should not survive. And yet, if I did not do this to the utmost of
my ability, I saw that my damnation was assured. Moreover, a
certain lord who was exceedingly powerful in that region had some
time previously brought the abbey under his control, taking
advantage of the state of disorder within the monastery to seize
all the lands adjacent thereto for his own use, and he ground down
the monks with taxes heavier than those which were extorted from
the Jews themselves.
The monks pressed me to supply them with their daily necessities,
but they held no property in common which I might administer in
their behalf, and each one, with such resources as he possessed,
supported himself and his concubines, as well as his sons and
daughters.
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