A.o. 1188. PESTILENCE AT HOME. 97 brethren to enter the chapter-house, and make diligent enquiry as to the order and state of the church ; and if you shall find anything in the said church changed by the before-named Hugh, or enacted by him, you are, of our authority, to place it again in its proper state ; and if anything therein shall stand in need of correction, you are zealously to endeavour to change the same for the better. But if, and may it not be so, you shall find any of the canons reluctant to receive their beforenamed pastor humbly and devoutly, and contumaciouslyinclined, you are most earnestly to advise them to shew due respect and obedience to him, their father, and to cease to persist in their malignant and damnable purpose. And if they shall continue to be contumacious, you are to suspend them both from their duties and their benefices, and to check them by the ban of excommunication, under which you are to hold them, until they shall have listened to the mandates and advice of the Church. And if all of you shall not be able to take part in the performance hereof, then let the rest carry out the same. Given at Pisa, on the seventeenth day before the calends of February, in the sixth year of the indiction." On hearing these things, the king of Scotland, being prevailed upon by the counsels and entreaties of his people, received the before-named bishop John into his favour, and allowed him peaceably to hold the bishopric of Dunkeld, and all the revenues which he had held before his consecration, on condition, however, that the said John should give up all claim to the bishopric of Saint Andrew's. Accordingly, the bishop, though protected in the assertion of his claim by the beforementioned letters of our lord the pope, obeyed the king's will in all respects, and released the bishopric of Saint Andrew's from all claims of his, throwing himself upon the mercy of Godand of the king, well knowing that " Better is a dry morsel and quietness therewith, than a house full of sacrifices with strife."87 Hugh, however, who was formerly styled bishop of Saint Andrew's, on being degraded and excommunicated, proceeded to Borne. Here, having given security to abide by the decision of the Church, he was, in his clemency, absolved by our lord the pope, but only survived a few days. Por, in the month of August, there was such a great pestilence at Borne and in its territories, that many of the cardinals and most wealthy men in the city died, with a countless multitude of the lower classes : 8 7 Prov. xvii. 1. VOL. II. π