248 M ATTHEW OF WESTMTFSTEB. A.D. 1245. amount of punishment or favour. When the troubles of war had for a long time afflicted some of the provinces professing the Christian faith, we, wishing with all our hearts for the tranquillity and peace of the holy church of God, and generally of the people of Christendom, considered it best to send men of great authority, to wit, the venerable Peter, at that time archbishop of Rouen, and William, bishop of Sabionetta, and the bishop of Modena, and our beloved son William, cardinal priest of the church of the twelve apostles, and at that time abbot of Saint Facundus, who was jealous for his salvation, as especial ambassador to the principal secular prince, who was the author of all this tribulation and affliction, and who had already for his excesses had a sentence of anathema pronounced against him by our predecessor pope Gregory, of happy memory ; causing it to be announced to him by them that we and our brethren were anxious, as far as in us lay, to be at peace with him in all things, as we hope that we are prepared to be with all men, and that we were anxious to give tranquillity to him and the whole world. And because the release of the prelates, and secular clergy, and all the other persons whom he was detaining prisoners, and of all the clergy and laity whom he had taken in ships, was likely to be a very great inducement to peace, we caused him by the same ambassador to be requested and entreated to restore them, since both he himself and his ambassadors, before we had been called to the office of the apostleship, had promised to do so ; and we caused him also to be informed, that we on our part were ready to hear his proposals and to treat of peace, and even to hear what satisfaction the emperor was willing to make and to offer, for all the conduct on account of which he had been bound with the chain of excommunication. Moreover, that if in any respect the church had injured any one contrary to what was right, which we did not believe, the church was willing to make amends, and to restore things to their proper condition. And if he admitted that he had offended against justice in any particular, or asserted that we had injured him in a manner contrary to justice, we were prepared to summon all kings, prelates, and princes, both ecclesiastical and secular, to some safe place, where they might assemble by themselves or by formal representatives. And the church was prepared to satisfy him about the intentions of the council, if it had injured him in any particular,