A.D. 748. APPLICATION FOB THE BELICS ΟΪ BENEDICT. 359 rushing with strong battalions upon the enemy, pressed very hard upon them, and bore them down terribly, the Welch were put to.flight, and gave their backs to the smiters, and their spoils to the pursuers, and the kings returned victoriously to their own country. A.D. Γ45. Egbert, archbishop of York, reclaimed, in a praiseworthy manner, the pallium, which, ever since the time of Paulinus, first archbishop of York, had been passed over by eight bishops. A.D. 746. Daniel, bishop of Winchester, ended his days in the ferty-flfth year of his bishopric, and was succeeded by Humfrey. The same year, the emperor Constantine, who devoted all his attention to magic arts, and bloody sacrifices and luxury, caused many monks and clergy to be stoned for their adherence to the true faith. And the pretended patriarch of Constantinople agreed with him in all his measures, on account of his love of earthly dignities. On which account, indignation descended from heaven upon the citizens of that city, warning their wicked emperor to turn himself from the madness with which he was raging, but he continued unaltered. Therefore, pestilence and death visited them, beginning in Sicily and Calabria, till it reached the city of Rhegium, which it so completely desolated, that there were many houses in which there was not an inhabitant found. Anastasius himself was worn out with excessive sufferings, vomiting up all his bowels as it were, and at last he died miserably. A.D. 747. There were seen stars falling from heaven, so that all who beheld them thought that the end of the world was at hand. A.D. 748. Some monks of the Cassian brotherhood, at the instance of Charles the Great, procured letters from Pope Zachary to Pepin, king of the French, begging him to cause the monks of Floriacum to restore to its proper place the body of the most blessed Benedict, which they had stolen, in order that the aforesaid servants of God might rejoice in the restoration of this among them, and that they themselves might receive their reward from God. And when the pious king, Pepin, had read this letter, he gave a positive command to Remigius, archbishop of Rouen, to go with three other bishops to Floriacum, in order to restore the greatest portion of the holy Benedict to the Cassian monks, without, however, wholly depriving the monastery at Floriacum of it . But when the matter became