The conduct of St Bernard must be more closely examined. The opportunity of expressing his views was furnished by the circumstance that the Canons of Lyons commenced, about 1140, to celebrate the feast of our Lady’s conception, without having obtained the authority of the Holy See for this “novelty.” According to the then existing state of canon law, the bishops had the right of arranging by themselves the festivals to be celebrated within their respective dioceses. But St Bernard in his letter to the Canons makes no mention of the bishop. This is explained by the fact that the letter was written at a time when the Church of Lyons was without any recognised head, and when St Bernard was exerting himself with the Pope to obtain the confirmation of Fulco, the bishop elect.[550] It may well have been that in this matter the canons acted despotically. St Bernard, however, does not bring this charge formally against them in his letter, but lays all the stress upon objections to the inner significance of the feast. It was customary, he says,[551] to celebrate the day of our Lady’s birth, because she, like Jeremias and John the Baptist, had been sanctified before birth (fuit ante sancta quam nata). Mary could not be holy before she existed, but her existence began at her conception and that was not free from concupiscence. If her conception was to be regarded as holy, one must logically hold that her parents were already holy also. Christ our Lord was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and consequently His conception was holy and a feast of the Church (Annuntiatio). Before taking any steps in the matter, St Bernard concludes, the Apostolic See ought to have been consulted, to whose authority he commits the matter. The Roman Church, to which he appealed, was, however, in no hurry. More than three hundred years had to pass before she in any degree broke through her reserve on this question.