brethren to enter the chapter-house, and make diligent enquiry as to the order and state of the church; and if you shall find anything in the said church changed by the before-named Hugh, or enacted by him, you are, of our authority, to place it again in its proper state; and if anything therein shall stand in need of correction, you are zealously to endeavour to change the same for the better. But if, and may it not be so, you shall find any of the canons reluctant to receive their beforenamed pastor humbly and devoutly, and contumaciously inclined, you are most earnestly to advise them to shew due respect and obedience to him, their father, and to cease to persist in their malignant and damnable purpose. And if they shall continue to be contumacious, you are to suspend them both from their duties and their benefices, and to check them by the ban of excommunication, under which you are to hold them, until they shall have listened to the mandates and advice of the Church. And if all of you shall not be able to take part in the performance hereof, then let the rest carry out the same. Given at Pisa, on the seventeenth day before the calends of February, in the sixth year of the indiction."

On hearing these things, the king of Scotland, being prevailed upon by the counsels and entreaties of his people, received the before-named bishop John into his favour, and allowed him peaceably to hold the bishopric of Dunkeld, and all the revenues which he had held before his consecration, on condition, however, that the said John should give up all claim to the bishopric of Saint Andrew's. Accordingly, the bishop, though protected in the assertion of his claim by the beforementioned letters of our lord the pope, obeyed the king's will in all respects, and released the bishopric of Saint Andrew's from all claims of his, throwing himself upon the mercy of God and of the king, well knowing that "Better is a dry morsel and quietness therewith, than a house full of sacrifices with strife."587

Hugh, however, who was formerly styled bishop of Saint Andrew's, on being degraded and excommunicated, proceeded to Rome. Here, having given security to abide by the decision of the Church, he was, in his clemency, absolved by our lord the pope, but only survived a few days. For, in the month of August, there was such a great pestilence at Rome and in its territories, that many of the cardinals and most wealthy men in the city died, with a countless multitude of the lower classes: 87 Prov. xvii. 1.

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on which occasion this Hugh, with nearly the whole of his household, and Henry, the bishop elect of Dol, with his household, died there. On this, the king of Scotland gave the bishopric of Saint Andrew's to Roger, son of the earl of Leicester, his chancellor, John, bishop of Dunkeld, being present, and making no objection thereto. The king of Scotland also gave his chancellorship to Hugh de Roxburgh, his clerk.

In the same year, on the twelfth day before the calends of October, being the third day of the week, and the vigil of Saint Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist, nearly the whole of the town of Beverley, with the noble church of Saint John the Archbishop, was burnt. In the same year, master John Gilbert, of Sempringham,88 first founder and pastor of the order which is called the order of Sempringham, departed this life, and was buried in his church at Sempringham, among the nuns. In the same year, Gilbert de Ogleston, a brother of the Temple, who had been elected and appointed by our lord the king of England, together with some others, clerks and laymen, to collect the tenths, was detected in the mal-appropriation thereof; but as the king could not, by the ordinary mode of trial, pass sentence upon him, he handed him over to the Master of the Temple, at London, in order that he might be dealt with according to the statutes of his order. On this the master of the Temple placed him in irons, and inflicted on him various punishments; but as to what those various punishments were, it is for you to enquire, who feel an interest in the concerns of that order.

In the same year, a thing took place at Dunstable, in England, very wonderful to be mentioned and glorious to be seen, on the vigil of Saint Lawrence the Martyr, being the second day of the week; for, about the ninth hour of the day, the heavens opened, and, in the sight of many, both clergy and laity, a cross appeared, very long and of wonderful magnitude, and it appeared as though Jesus Christ was fastened thereto with nails, and crowned with thorns; His hands also were stretched out on the cross, and the wounds of His hands, and feet, and sides were bloody, and His blood was flowing down, but did not fall upon the earth. This appearance lasted from the ninth hour of the day till twilight.

88 In Lincolnshire-called " Semplingham" in the text. This order was, from its founder, called "the Gilbertines." Both men and women lived in their houses, but separated by high walls.

In the same year, the king of England and the king of France held a conference, between Bonimolt and Sulenne, on the fourteenth day before the calends of September, being the sixth day of the week. At this conference the king of France offered to restore to the king of England whatever he had taken from him in war, upon the following conditions: That he should give his sister Alice in marriage to his son Richard, and should allow homage and fealty to be done to the said Richard, his heir, by the people of his territories. But the king of England, not forgetful of the injuries which the king, his son, had done to him in return for a similar promotion, made answer that he would on no account do so. At this, earl Richard being greatly indignant, without the advice and wish of his father, did homage to the king of France for all the possessions of his father beyond sea, and, swearing fealty to him against all men, became his adherent: on which, the king of France gave to him Chateau Raoul, and Yssoudun, with the whole honor thereof, in return for his homage and fealty. However, the before-named kings made a truce between them until the feast of Saint Hilary; but Henry, the cardinal-bishop of Albano, whom our lord the pope had sent to put an end to the dispute between the before-named kings, excommunicated earl Richard, because he had broken the peace, and then, returning to Flanders, he died at Arras.

In the same year, the envoys of the king of France, whom he had sent to Isaac, the emperor of Constantinople, on their return home, reported that the sultan of Iconium had given his daughter in marriage to the son of Saladin, and that Saladin had given his daughter to the son of the sultan; and that Daniel, a prophet of Constantinople, had prophesied that in the same year in which the Annunciation of our Lord should be on Easter day, the Franks should recover the Land of Promise, and should stall their horses in the palm groves of Baldack,89 and should pitch their tents beyond the trees of the desert, and that the tares should be separated from the wheat. They also reported that in the palace of the emperor of Constantinople more honor was paid to the envoys of Saladin than to any other persons of the very highest dignity; and that, with the consent of the emperor of Constantinople, Saladin had sent his idol to Constantinople, in order that it might there be publicly worshipped; but, by the grace of God, before it arrived 88 The latter being a moveable feast.

89 Probably meaning either Baalbec or Bagdad.

there the Venetians captured it at sea; on which, together with the ship, it was taken to Tyre. They also reported that a certain old man, a Greek by birth, from Astralix, had informed them that the prophecy was about to be fulfilled which was written on the Golden Gate, which had not been opened for two hundred years past; which was this, "When the Yellow-haired King of the West shall come, then shall I open of my own accord, and then shall the Latins reign, and hold rule in the city of Constantinople." They also stated that the emperor had promised Saladin a hundred galleys, and that Saladin had promised him the whole of the land of promise, if he should impede the passage of the Franks; and that, in consequence of this, the emperor had forbidden any one throughout all his territories to assume the cross; and if by chance any one in his territories did assume the cross, he was immediately arrested and thrown into prison. There was also a prophecy and astrological prediction among the Greeks and Turks, that within the next three years one third of the Turks should perish by the sword, another third should fly beyond the trees of the desert,90 and the remaining third be baptized.

In the same year, a certain monk, of the Cistercian order, a religious man and one who feared God, beheld a vision of this nature relative to Henry, king of England. There appeared to him in his sleep a man of wonderful magnitude and noble features, and clothed in white garments, who said to him, "Observe and read these things about the king: 'I have set my seal upon him; the womb of his wife shall swell against him, and in torments he shall suffer torments, and among the veiled women he shall be as one wearing the veil.""

In the same year, Frederic, emperor of the Romans, having assumed the cross at the hands of Henry, the cardinal-bishop of Albano, as befitted a prudent and circumspect man, made all necessary provisions for himself and his journey; for, in the first place, he reconciled himself to God and the Holy Church, and then wrote to Saladin to the following effect:The Letter of Frederic, emperor of the Romans, to Saladin, ruler of the Saracens.

"Frederic, by the grace of God, emperor of the Romans, ever august, and the mighty triumpher over the enemies of the

90 "Arborem siccam;" perhaps in allusion to the oases of Baalbec or Palmyra, on the north-eastern side of Syria.

empire, to Saladin, ruler over the Saracens; may he take warning from Pharaoh, and flee from Jerusalem. The letters which your devoted services addressed to us a long time since, on matters of importance to yourself, and which would have benefitted you, if reliance could have been placed on your words, we received, as became the mightiness of our majesty, and deemed it proper to communicate, through the medium of our letters, with your mightiness. But now, inasmuch as you have profaned the Holy Land, over which we, by the authority of the Eternal King, bear rule, solicitude for our imperial office admonishes us to proceed with due rigour against audacity so rash, so criminal, and so presumptuous. Wherefore, unless before all things you restore the land of Judæa, Samaria, and Palestine, which you have seized, with the addition thereto of due satisfaction to be adjudged for excesses so nefarious according to the Holy Constitutions, that we may not appear to wage an unlawful war against you, we give you the space of the revolution of one year from the beginning of the calends of November, in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord one thousand one hundred and eighty-eight, after which time you must make trial of the fortune of war on the plains of Tanis,90 by virtue of the vivifying Cross and in the name of the true Joseph. For we can scarcely believe that you are ignorant of what, being testified by the writings of the ancients and the histories of antiquity, we are to presume is to be the course of events in our time. Do you pretend not to know that both the Æthiopias, Mauritania, Persia, Syria," Parthia, where our 92 dictator Marcus Crassus met with a premature death, Judæa, maritime Samaria, Arabia, Chaldæa, Egypt itself as well, where, shameful to repeat! a Roman citizen, Antony, a man endowed with distinguished virtues, passing the limits of propriety and temperance, and, acting otherwise than as became a soldier sent from the mistress of the world, became enslaved by his sensual passion for Cleopatra-do you pretend not to know that all these and Armenia and innumerable other lands

90 Roger of Wendover says, "the field of Zoan," which, if correct, may possibly allude to Psalm lxxviii. 12. It is more probable, however, that he alludes to the city of Tanais, or Tanis, in Saladin's kingdom of Egypt, which was situate at the Tanaitic mouth of the Nile, and was rebuilt by the Caliphs of the line of the Ommiades.

91 More probably "Scythia," with Roger of Wendover

He speaks in his capacity of emperor of Rome.