A.D. 1261. THE ΚΠΓβ ACCEPTS THE POPE*θ LETTER, 393 recall from the men of religions orders, and especially from those who had exemptions, all the churches which had been appropriated to them ; and, for the purpose of obtaining power to carry out this design, to send, with the sanction of their whole * body, and maintain procurators to the Roman court, to solicit its countenance. And they made little doubt that they should prevail, because they assigned various and plausible grounds for their request (as they said), and because, too, they spared no expense to procure the permission that they prayed for ; so that great fears were entertained that as a corporeal war was maintained among the laity, so too, a spiritual discord would arise among the scholars, in consequence of the diminution of the incomes of some of them. About the same time, though the lord the pope had lately determined to hold his general council at Rome, in the fortnight after Easter, having (as it was said) already informed the archbishop of Canterbury of this intention, afterwards, when he heard of the invasion of Christendom, by the Tartars coming nearer, he postponed the fulfilment of this decree, and sent brother Walter de Reigate into England, to make wise arrangements as to this and other matters. But afterwards, when the pope heard that fifty-two thousand of these Tartars above mentioned had been slain in Hungary, fearing that the remainder would soon do him and the rest of the Christians much injury, he caused all the Transalpine prelates, and all, too, who were nearer Rome, to be summoned to meet at Rome before the feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul, to consider how they might offer the most effectual resistance to the aforesaid enemies. Accordingly, when the aforesaid brother Walter arrived, he caused all the prelates of England to be summoned to meet in London in his presence, in the fortnight after Easter, and, when they had heard the papal message, not to be slack in framing a proper answer. About this time, that is, about Easter, a letter from the pope, respecting the absolution of the king and his son Edward, from the oaths before mentioned, was obtained ; but though the king accepted it, Edward voluntarily bound himself again by a repetition of the oath. And when the nobles heard this, thçy persevered firmly in their original design, and sending mediators to the king, they earnestly demanded that he should inviolably keep the oath which had been administered to him in accordance with their unanimous decision.