A.D.1181. LETTER OF POPE ALEXANDER. and the breastplate of justice than with worldly arms, and to defend those places in which the Redeemer of mankind has been willing to die for us and has undergone atemporal death, with powerful might, so that in our times Christianity may suffer no detriment in those parts. For inasmuch as Christ for our salvation endured many insults, and, last of all, suspension on the cross, that He might make an offering of us to God, mortified in the flesh and justified in the spirit, it is most conducive to the salvation of the faithful that on His behalf we should expose our bodies to perils and to labours, that so we may not seem to be forgetful of the price of His blood which He shed for us. Give heed therefore, my beloved sons in Christ, and eonsider how disgraceful it would be, and how deserving of the grief of all Christians, if at last the enemies of the cross of Christ should prevail against the dwellers in that land ; and that they will prevail we have no small dread, unless assistance is brought in all haste from the different parts of Christendom to those who dwell there. Therefore, take precaution and exert all your endeavours that Christianity may not succumb to heathenism, inasmuch as it is better to meet an impending evil before it comes, than to seek a remedy after the cause has been injured. To those also, who in behalf of Christ shall undertake the labours of this expedition, we do, by the Apostolic authority, grant and confirm that remission of sins, which the fathers, our predecessors, Urban and Eugenius, the Eoman Pontiffs, gave by their enactments. The wives also, and children of such persons, and their goods and possessions, we do decree, to be under the protection of Saint Peter and of ourselves, as also of the archbishops and bishops and other prelates of the Church ; strictly forbidding, that after the assumption of the cross, any claim shall be entertained with reference to the things of which they are in peaceable possession, until such time as they shall return, or certain information shall have been brought of their death. Let it also be lawful for them, after their relations, or even their superior lords, to whom the fee belongs, have shown themselves unwilling or unable to lend them money thereon, to pledge their lands or other possessions to churches or to ecclesiastics or others of the faithful, freely and without any challenge thereof, in order to defray the expenses of the said expedition. Moreover, such men, accustomed to arms and fitted for the defence of that land, as shall, in the fervour of their devotion,