A.D . 1200.] ClIUHCIIES OV TOURS AND DOL. holy church, retreated to places of greater safety, agreeing unanimously, that it was wiser to avoid the rage of tlio barbarians l'or a time, than to dwell fruitlessly amongst those wdio rebelled against the Christian faith. Amongst these, St. Sampson, archbishop of York, a man of unparalleled sanctity, tied to his fellow countrymen in Lesser Brittany (for they were of the same extraction and country), and carried with him the pail, which he had received from the Roman pontiff'; and on his arrival in that country, he was received with honour by his fellow citizens, and by the common consent of all, was elected to the bishopric of the church of Do), which had been lately deprived of its pastor, and the king's permission having been obtained, he was enthroned in that office, although much against his will ; and in that church he, as long as he lived, and after him, many of his successors always wore that pall, which he had brought from the monastery of York. But afterwards, the kings of that province, when they had had an archbishop in their own kingdom, did not allow their bishops, although they had always been formerly suffragans of the church of Tours, to pay due obedience to the before-mentioned archbishop of Tours; ami they determined that the bishops of Lesser Brittany should not again have any other metropolitan than the archbishop of Dol. After the lapse, however, of three hundred years or more from that time, pope Nicholas, at the' instance of the archbishop of Tours, endeavoured to revoke this error, and wrote a letter to Sitiamoli king of the Britons, which is contained in the decretals of Grattati, CALS . 3, QUKST. 6', as follows :— Letter of pope Xirholas on the same matter. " This is the decree of your said father, and this is the law of the church your mother, to wit, that you send till the bishops of your kingdom to the archbishop of Tours, and ask his judgment ; for he is the metropolitan, and all the bishop., of your kingdom are his suffragans, as the writings of my predecessors plainly show ; and they strongly rebuked your predecessors for having withdrawn themselves from thejrrisdiction of that archbishop, although our own letters also to von on this matter seem not to be deficient." And in another part, " But whereas there is a great contention amongst the