the castle of Briges,6' and the castle of Ludlow, having expeBed therefrom the keepers, who had long held charge of them, and gave them into the care of other keepers on behalf of the king. After this, the said archbishop came to Coventry, and by the mandate of Celestinus, the Supreme Pontiff, reinstated the monks in the cathedral church of that city, whom Hugh de Nunant, the bishop of that place, had expelled from the said church by violence and an armed hand, and had instituted in their places canons secular, and endowed them with the property of the church, which had been bestowed for the sustenance of the monks there serving God ; but the canons being now expeBed, the property of the church was restored for the use of the monks. The Letters Apostolic for the reinstatement of the monks in the church of Coventry. "Celestinus, the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his dearly beloved sons the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of Lincoba, and the abbat of Saint Edmund's, health and the Apostolic benediction. "Whereas it is our wish that such provisions as have been made by enactment by our predecessors with prudent deBberation, should in nowise be invaBdated or infringed, so also it is our desire that such things as have been surreptitiously obtained from them to the detriment of ecclesiastical propriety should be corrected, and brought into a better state. Wherefore, inasmuch as, according as we have heard, or rather indeed, as we weB know, the monastic order has been established in the church of Coventry, almost from the time of the first introduction of the Christian faith into England, and has performed therein with such weB-regulated observance all duties, that it has been deemed deserving to receive privBeges from the ApostoBc See, and to be endowed and enriched by kings of England of famous memory, we are greatly afflicted that our venerable brother, the bishop of Chester (on the pretext of certain letters, which, as it is said, but we can hardly believe, he obtained by means of a false suggestion from our predecessor pope Clement, of blessed memory, without our concurrence, and that of our brethren), has with violence expeBed our dearly beloved sons, the prior and community of monks, from the said monastery, and estab-Bshed canons secular therein. Now, inasmuch as the same 67 68 Bridgnorth. See p. 257.