A.D. 1196. LETTER OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. sea, at their own expense, to serve for one year or more at their will, there to serve in obedience to Jesus Christ. Given at the Lateran, on the second day before the ides of January, in the fifth year of our pontificate.' Therefore, inasmuch as it is a perilous thing to vow and not to perform, sinee the result of vows that have been solemnly made and not performed, is both the anger of the Lord, and the rise of offences in His house, we do, on the authority of the letter which we have transcribed, by our precept, eommand you forthwith to make diligent and anxious enquiry throughout each parochial ehurch of the archbishopric of York respecting those who, having assumed the cross for the purpose of repairing to the sepulchre of the Lord, have not performed their vow so made to the Lord ; forbidding universally under threat of excommunication, that through the insane taciturnity of any person the truth shall be suppressed to the prejudice of this scrutiny ; and after either their own admissions, or your unerring enquiries, shall have signified the names of each person, let the same, distinctly stated by a trusty messenger, be made known to us before the Lord's day on whieh is sung ' Latore Jerusalem.'45 In addition to which, wo do command and enjoin your discreetness, that, maintaining with constant zealousness the cause of Him who was crucified, you will try to prevail upon all such in the diocese of York, by means of eharitable exhortations and frequently conversing with them thereupon, persuading them, under the form of advice, that they should faithfully fulfil what they have liberally promised, and that what they have vowed unto the Lord in the sight of all His people, they should perform with His prophet in the midst of Jerusalem, in the courts of the house of the Lord. And thus, by their voluntary sacrifices may the most High be appeased, and, their payments duly made, may the annoyance of these offences be nullified. You are also to advise the persons aforesaid, all and each of them, that they shall, as a sign of true devotion, before the day of our Lord's Passion next ensuing, reassume the cross which they have laid aside, and, bearing the same with reverence and veneration, protest by this outward sign against the perverseness by whieh they are inwardly enthralled ; and let them not from poorness of spirit be ashamed of that from which they will obtain full and abundant fruit. But if they shaB rather despise warnings of this nature as vain, « " Rejoice, Ο Jerusalem." The beginning of the introit of the fourth Sunday in Lent. VOL. II. C C