A.D. 1177. PROPOSED MARRIAGE OF THE EARL QV POITOU. 463 at our right hand to the door of the said church, and when wo mounted our palfrey which was there ready, held our stirrup and showed us all the honor and respect whieh his ancestors had been accustomed to show to our predecessors. It will, therefore, be your anxiety to congratulate ourselves and the Church upon our prosperity and suceess, and to impart the effects of peace to the other devoted sons of the Church, in order that those whoare influencedby zeal for the house of the Lord may rejoice and exult in the Lord for the gift of peace sent unto them from above. Given at Venice, at the Rialto, on the seventh day before the ealends of August." In the same year, Peter, eardinal priest, titular of Saint Chrysogonns, and legate from the Apostolie See, formerly bishop eleet of the see of Meaux, came into Prance and received a mandate from pope Alexander, that the whole of Normandy and all the lands of the king of England on both sides of the sea should be placed under interdict, unless he should allow his son Richard, earl of Poitou, to marry ARce, the daughter of Louis, king of Prance, whom the king of England had for a long time, and beyond the period that had been agreed upon between them, kept in his charge. "When this was understood by the king of England, he appealed to the presence of our lord the pope, in his own behalf and that of his territories, and shortly after crossed over from England to Normandy, where a conference was held between him and the king of Franee at Ivery, on the eleventh day before the calends of October, in the presence of the before-named cardinal and the chief men of both kingdoms. Here the king of England the father, by his people, plighted his faith and caused oath to be made on his soul,7 that his son Richard, earl of Poitou, should be married to the before-named Alice, if the king of France, the father of the young lady, would give to the before-named Richard, earl of Poitou, the city of Bourges with its appurtenanees as his daughter's marriage portion, according to the terms of the covenant that had been made thereon between them, and would give to his son king Henry the whole of the French portion of Veuilgesin,8 namely, the whole of the land that Bcs between Gisors and Pontoise, which he had promised that he would give him as a marriage portion with his daughter. But as the king of France declined 7 See the last note. 8 Now the Vexin.