To this Mestoc and Karakois made answer, "These exorbitant demands we cannot comply with, except with the assent and will of our lord Saladin, and our other principal men. But give us a truce of three days, and allow us to go to our principal men, that we may confer with them on the nature of your demands." Accordingly, giving hostages as a security for their return, they went to Saladin, but, on informing him of the demands of the Christians, could not prevail upon him to give anything for their ransom; and so, in confusion, they took their departure and entered the city. On the following night, at about midnight, Saladin made an assault upon the guards of the outer trenches, with the intention that while the Christians were giving their attention to the defence of the trenches, the pagans who were in the city might more easily escape by flight. But the kings, forewarned of this by a message from the man of God before-mentioned, who was in the city, placed guards around the walls, so that there was no safe egress for any of the pagans.

Upon this, a great alarm was raised throughout the army of the Christians, who, on being aroused from their sleep, quickly snatching up their arms, hastened to the trenches, and, making an attack upon the pagans, slew multitudes of them, and put the rest to flight. On the fifth day of the month of July, being the sixth day of the week, a breach in the walls was again set fire to, which had been made by the men of the king of England; and, on the following night, the bastions fell, with a great part of the walls, leaving a wide gap. On the day after this, the king of England and his army, having armed, approached with the view of making an assault on the city; on which the pagans immediately made a signal that they wished to make peace with them: whereupon, laying aside their arms, the Christians returned to their camp, and Mestoc, Karakois, Hessedin, and Ordich came out of the city for the purpose of having an interview with the kings, and offered them the city, with all the other articles abovementioned.

After the kings and they had conferred upon the matter for a considerable time, leave was given them to go to Saladin and return. Accordingly they went, and prevailed upon Saladin to offer to the kings the city of Jerusalem, and the Holy Cross, and all the cities and castles which he had taken after the capture of king Guido, and to repair and place them in the same state

in which they then were; on condition, however, that the said kings should either go with him, or send with him six thousand knights and twenty thousand foot soldiers, to defend his territories against the lord Musse and the sons of Noureddin, who had conquered his uncle Thekedin in battle, and taken possession of all his territory, although they had permitted them to depart uninjured. However, the kings declined to do this, and the pagans before-named entered the city disconsolate and in confusion; their friends, however, deserting Saladin, loaded him with censures.

On the seventh day of the month of July, being the Lord's day, the king of France and his army made an assault upon the city, near the tower called Maledetta, at the same spot at which they had previously so done, but lost forty men, and were able to effect nothing whatever. On the eighth day of the month of July, Saladin burned Caiaphas, and destroyed the vineyards in its vicinity. On the following night, when many of the knights and men-at-arms of the Christian army were watching before the tower of Maledetta, a light from heaven shone around them, in which appeared to them the blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of Christ; on which, from fear, the guards were exceedingly alarmed, and became as though dead men. But the blessed Virgin benignantly comforted them, saying, "Be not terrified, for the Lord has sent me hither for your safety. As soon as the day shall have dawned, go and tell your kings, in the name of Jesus Christ my Son and Lord, and in my name, to cease levelling the walls of this city, as, on the fourth day from this, the Lord shall deliver it into their hands." At the same hour also at which the Mother of Christ was speaking to the guards, a great earthquake took place in the city, and so terrified the pagans, that they wished rather to die than to live. In like manner shall the Lord, when He shall come to judgment, appear gentle to the good, and terrible to the wicked. After the Virgin Mary had thus spoken, she was severed from before their eyes, and with her the light departed which had shone around them.

Accordingly, in the morning the guards related to the kings and the chief men of the army the vision which they had seen and the words which the Mother of the Lord had spoken unto them; and immediately all the words which she had spoken were spread throughout the army, and there was great rejoicing among the people of God. Moreover, on the ninth and tenth

days of July, Saladin caused all the vines and fruit-bearing trees to be rooted up which were in the vicinity of Acre, and all the cities and castles to be destroyed in which he felt no confidence as being able to resist the attacks of the Christians. On the eleventh day of the month of July, the Pisans and the army of the king of England made an assault on the city of Acre, and, having mounted the walls, a Pisan, Leonardus by name, was slain; immediately after which the pagans made a signal that they would surrender the city, and make peace with the kings on their own terms. Accordingly, the chief men of the pagans above-named came to confer with the kings as to making peace, and, immediately after the conference, returned to the city.

On the twelfth day of the month of July, being the sixth day of the week, Philip, king of France, Richard, king of England, and all the principal men of the Christians, assembled in the morning at the tent of the Templars, where they were met by the principal men of the pagans besieged in the city; and, with the sanction of the army of the Christians, the said kings made peace with the pagans on the following terms-The pagans were to surrender to the said kings the city of Acre, with everything therein, and to set at liberty five hundred Christian captives who were there. They also covenanted with the kings that they would deliver up to them the Holy Cross, and one thousand Christian captives, and two hundred Christian knights who were in captivity, according as the said kings should make choice from among all the captives who should be found in the possession of Saladin; and that they would give for the use of the kings two hundred thousand besants.25 They were also to remain as hostages in the hands of the kings, upon the understanding that, if they should not within forty days then next ensuing comply with the terms above-mentioned, they should be at the mercy of the kings for life and limb.

These covenants being made, and these terms being agreed to by both sides, and confirmed by oath, the kings sent their knights and men-at-arms into the city, and selected one hundred of the richest and most noble of the pagans, and placed them in a tower under a strong guard; while the rest they caused to be guarded in the houses and streets of the city, and supplied them with necessaries, making it a rule that all who should receive baptism and embrace the Christian faith should be set at liberty. Being influenced, accordingly, by their apprehen25 Roger of Wendover says 66 seven thousand."

sion of death, many of the pagans received baptism; but, as soon as they possibly could, they forsook the Christian religion and betook themselves to Saladin; on which the kings gave orders that, from that time forward, no one should receive baptism. On Saladin hearing of the peace which had been made with the Christians, he pretended that it had not been made with his sanction. On the thirteenth day of the month of July, the king of France and the king of England divided between themselves the city of Acre, and everything that was in it, both the pagans as well as the gold and silver, and all other articles of property; on which Drogo de Merlou and a hundred knights were named on behalf of the king of France to receive his share; and Hugh de Gurnay and a hundred knights were appointed on behalf of the king of England to receive his proportion.

On the fourteenth day of the month of July, Saladin withdrew himself and his army, and pitched his tents at a place called Saphora, and messengers on his part went and returned to the kings, with fruits and other presents; by whom Saladin made offer to the kings of the whole of the land of Judea, with the exception of the Crag of Montreal, which was beyond the river Jordan, on condition, however, that they would lend him two thousand knights and five thousand men-at-arms, for one year, for the purpose of defending his territories against the lord Musse and the sons of Noureddin. However, the kings declined to accept these proposals on his part.

On the fifteenth day of the month of July, the kings ordered their stone engines and other engines of war to be taken down. On the sixteenth day of July, messengers came to the kings, on behalf of the lord Musse and the sons of Noureddin, and made the kings many and ample offers for the assistance of their subjects against Saladin. On the same day, Alardus, cardinal-bishop of Verona and legate of the Apostolic See, and the archbishops of Tours, Pisa, and Aire, Hubert, bishop of Salisbury, John, bishop of Evreux, Bernard, bishop of Bayonne, the bishop of Tripolis, Philip of Chartres, and the bishop of Beauvais, and other bishops of dioceses, consecrated the principal churches of the city of Acre, which the pagans had polluted, and built altars to the Lord, and celebrated mass thereon. In the meantime the kings and the people gave due attention to the repair of the walls. On the seventeenth and eighteenth days of the month of July, the Pisans, and money-dealers," and 26 Probably the Lombards.

others who followed mercantile pursuits, received dwellings within the city, in the open market, which the kings' servants allotted to them, on the understanding that they were to pay, yearly, the customary and proper rents for the same.

On the nineteenth day of the month of July, the earls and barons, who had been now staying there nearly two years besieging Acre, seeing that the kings had put every thing that had been taken upon the surrender of the city into their own purses, and were willing to give them no share thereof, had a meeting beyond the outer trenches, and holding a conference there, sent word to the kings that they would no longer continue with them, unless they were sharers in the gain as they had been in the labour; on which the kings made answer, that they would satisfy their wishes; but as they delayed so doing, many, being compelled by poverty so to do, left them. On the twentieth day of the month of July, being the feast of Saint Margaret the Virgin, Richard, king of England, made a proposal to the king of France that they should both make oath that they would remain with their armies three years in the land of Jerusalem, for the purpose of subjugating the land; to which the king of France made answer, that he would make no oath about the matter.

On the twenty-first day of the month of July, the king of England first entered the city of Acre; on which he and his wife and sister took up their abode in the king's palace, while the king of France was lodged in the mansion of the Templars. On the twenty-second day of the month of July, being the feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, the king of France sent to the king of England Robert, bishop of Beauvais, Hugh, duke of Burgundy, Drogo de Amiens, and William de Merlou, and through them asked his sanction to his return to his own country; on which the king of England made this answer to them: "It will be a shame and a disgrace for my lord if he goes away without having completed the business on which he came hither. But still, if he finds himself ailing, or in bad health, and is afraid lest he should die here, his will be done." On the twenty-third day of the month, when it was spread through the army that the king of France was about to depart, the principal men of his army came to him, and besought him with tears not in this shameless manner to desert the service of God. On the twenty-sixth day of the month of July, by the advice of the king of France, Conrad came to the king