PREFACE. ίχ of the Latin language, and earnestly sought to be baptized, but that, tho Templars were bribed with sixty thousand pieces of gold to surrender him to his enemies in Egypt, where certain death awaited him ; and that they stood by to see hint bound hand and foot with chains, and placed in an iron cage, to be conducted across the desert to Cairo. Now the Arabian historians of that period tell us that Nassr-ed-deen and his father murdered the caliph and threw his body into a well, and then fled with their retainers and treasure into Palestine ; that the sister of the murdered caliph wrote immediately to the commandant at Gaza, which place was garrisoned by the Knighta Templars, offering a handsome reward for the capture of the fugitives ; that they were accordingly intercepted, and Nassr-ed-deen was sent to Cairo, where the female relations of the caliph caused his body to be cut into small pieces in the seraglio. The above act has constantly been made a matter of grave accusation against the Templars ; but what a different complexion does the ease assume on the testimony of the Arabian authorities ! It must be remembered that William archbishop of Tyre was hostile to the order on account of its vast powers and privileges, and carried his complaints to a general council of the church at Rome. He is abandoned, in everything that he says to the prejudice of the fraternity, by James of Vitry, bishop of Acre, a learned and most talented prelate, who wrote in Palestine subsequently to William of Tyre, and has copied largely from the history of the latter. The bishop of Acre speaks of the Templars in the highest terms, and declares that they were universally loved by all men for their piety and humility. " Nulli molesti erant Γ says he, " sed ab omnibus propter humilitatem el reiigionem amabantur." The celebrated orientalist Von Hammer bas recently brought forward various extraordinary and unfounded charges, desti