A.D. 1187. THE KING OP POBTUGAL BESISTS THE POPE'S LEGATE. 77 albeit our merits are but deficient, has willed that we should be one of them, we are bound and are willing to use all due care, that no person through fortuitous circumstances, in consequence of a visit to the Church of Rome, should be deprived of the due results of the labour which he has expended in coming to us. "Wherefore, it has come to pass, that we, wishing to have due regard for the expense which many have incurred, and to alleviate their labours, have, in conformity with the customary clemency of the Apostolic See, thought fit to enact that the letters of our predecessor pope "Urban, sent at any time previous to three months before his decease, for the purpose of pronouncing judgment and putting an end to litigation, (supposing always that they do not contain anything to the manifest prejudice of any person, or any breach of equity), shall have the same effect in the time of our administration, which they would have had if he had been still living. "Wherefore, waiving all exceptions as to the death of him who so directs, do what he has directed to be done, and let no one for an excuse of this sort, be compelled to have recourse to us in his disappointment, after having placed full confidence in obtaining justice by these means. Given at Ferrara, on the sixth day before the calends of September." In the same year died pope Gregory the Eighth, in the month of December, after having held the papacy hardly two months, and was buried at Pisa. He was succeeded by Paulinus, bishop of Palestrina, who was called pope Clement the Third. In the same year, nearly the whole of the city of Chichester was burnt, together with the cathedral of the see, and the houses of the bishop and canons. In the same year, Saladin laid siege to Jerusalem, and offered the people of that city a truce till the middle of the month of May, if they would permit him to plant his standard in the Tower of David, and remain there eight days. This being accordingly done, many of the Christians who had before stoutly resisted the Saracens, surrendered their castles and houses to Saladin. In the same year died Gilbert, bishop of London. In the same year, cardinal Jacinto, at this time legate of tho whole of Spain, degraded many abbate, either because they deserved it, or prompted by his own determination. But on his attempting to degrade the bishop of Coimbra, Alphonso, king of Portugal, would not allow that bishop to be degraded, but im