The world is slippery, full of slime. A man cannot long remain steadfast within it, and once he falls, rarely if ever does he rise. You have risen in this world as if it were a high mountain, and for this reason you have turned the eyes and tongues of men toward you. But standing on your mountain, beware that you do not fall, nor, practicing a form of martyrdom virtually unknown to the holy martyrs, that you bequeath a stain of infamy to the beginning of a religious life.
Geoffrey of Vendôme, Letter to Robert of Arbrissel
Vendôme, c. 1099