A.D. 1200. LETTER OF POPE INNOCENT. him ; the king of the Scots, however, did not come ; on which, the king of England returned to Normandy. In the same year, pope Innocent, on hearing of the tribulations of the Christians in the land of Jerusalem, which the Lord had brought upon them, our sins demanding the same, wrote to all the prelates of Holy Mother Church, to the following effect :— The Letter of pope Innocent on giving succour to the land of Jerusulem. " Innocent, the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to all the prelates of the Holy Mother Church to whom these letters shall come, health and the Apostolic benediction. The sad miseries of the lands of the East, and their urgent necessities, we now are, our sins demanding the same, compelled to lament rather than recount ; inasmuch as it is a matter of necessity that succour should be given thereto, in their present state, (if state, indeed, the train of calamities can be called, which with grief we recite), and that resistance should be offered to the attempts of the pagans. It may, indeed, be supposed, that but few of the Christians who had devoted themselves to the defence of the inheritance of the Lord, and to obedience to Him crucified, will make drunk the arrows of the enemy with the shedding of their blood, and expose their throats to the swords of the pagans, inasmuch, as by this, nearly all the pilgrims have returned from those parts, as so many remnants of the desolation of that land, to be totally lost without any hope of human aid, and to fall into the possession of the foe. Hitherto, indeed, our Lord Jesus Christ, to the end that He might the more strongly prove our faith, and might find who are His own, has, in His mercy, prevented this, by turning their hands against themselves, and allowing them, in their various dissensions, to vent their rage upon each other, in order that, in the meantime, the Christians being aroused to the aid of the said land, a more easy means might be granted them of recovering what was lost, and of triumphing over the foe. For we have received letters from our venerable brethren, the Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Antioch, and from the archbishops and bishops of both provinces, as also, in like manner, from our most dearly beloved sons in Christ, Aimeric, king of Jerusalem, and Leo, king of Armenia, and our own dearly beloved sons, the Masters of the Hospital and of the knights of the Temple, and many