A.D. 1249.] LANDINO AT DAMIETTA. 391 them, and continued advancing towards a large battalion of Saracens and Turks, consisting of 6,000 men, at least, on horseback. The moment they saw us on shore they spurred their horses full gallop toward us ; but we struck our spears and shields into the sand with their points against them, which as soon as they perceived, and that we were advancing inland, they suddenly wheeled about and fled. That discreet man Sir Baldwin de Rheims, as soon as I was landed, sent one of his squires to desire I would wait for him. I made answer, by his messenger, that I would cheer fully do so, for that so valiant a man as he was well deserved waiting for ; and he was thankful for this attention as long as he lived. He shortly after joined our company, with a thousand knights at least. You must know that when I first landed I had not any one person with me, neither friend nor servant, of all those I had brought from France. Not withstanding this, God always assisted me with his grace, for which I ever praise him. On our left the count de Japhe,* counsin-german to the count de Montbelial, and of the lineage of the house of Join ville, drew np his men. This count Japhe had disembarked in a most grand manner ; for his galley was all painted withinside and without with escutcheons of his arms, which were a cross pâtée gules on a field or. There were full three hundred sailors on board the galley, each bearing a target of defence of their rights, and to hear their standards in war : hence they have been called standard-bearers to the church, " Signiferi Ecclesiarum." The counts of Vezin and of Pontoise had this title in the monastery of St. Denis, of which they were the proxies and guardiana, and in this quality they bore the oriflamme in the wars which they undertook in the defence of its property. From this the banner has been by authors more commonly called the standard of St. Denis, not because it was preserved in the church of that monastery, but because it was the banner usually borne in the wars in which this abbey was concerned. W e may therefore conclude that it was not borne by our kings in their wars until they were become proprietors of the counties of Pontoise and Mante ; that is to say, of the Vexin, which happened during the reign of Philippes I. or of Louis le Gros, his son. * This count was the person who had succeeded Count Walter de Brienne, made prisoner by the sultan of Persia, about the year 1244. His name waa John d'Ibelin, and he was lord of Baruth, by descent from his father, Balian d'Ibelin. His mother was Eschive de Montbeliard, by reason of which alliance John d'Ibelin was a cousin, once removed, from Germain de Richard, count de Montbeliard, son of Peter.