ANNALS OP BOGEB BE HOVEBEN. A.D . 1201. inasmuch as we have made it our care to revoke the said letters, as being surreptitiously obtained, and directed to judges who lie under our suspicion, we do, by these Apostolic writings, command and enjoin your discreetness, to make it your care to defend and maintain the said Master Honorius in his rights; and so to assist him as your fellow-brother and companion, that for so doing, you may merit our commendation, and he himself may, as a matter of duty, be rendered still more attached to you." The Letter of pope Innocent to the bishop of Ely and the archdeacon of Northampton. " Innocent, the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his venerable brother, the bishop of Ely, and to his dearly-beloved son, the archdeacon of Northampton, health and the Apostolical benediction. When our dearly beloved sons, Master Honorius, archdeacon of Richmond, and Master Columbus, our subdean, and the delegates of our venerable brother, the archbishop of York, came to the Apostolic See, we thought proper considerately to give them audience in our consistory. On part of the said archbishop it was alleged, that the institution of ecclesiastical personages and the care of vacant churches in his diocese belongs to him both by common law, as also by general custom ; but that, some of his predecessors had entrusted to some of the archdeacons personally, both the institution as well as the care [of churches], though they still retained the same for some time-in their own hands, and freely enjoyed the same, as was their right ; just as the archbishop, who is now set over the church of York, by special favour formerly granted the same to the archdeacon of Richmond, at the prayer of Richard, king of the English, of famous memory, who having been afterwards elected bishop, the archbishop then retained possession of them as his own ; and that, when it was his intention to confer the said archdeaconry on the before-named master, both before he conferred the same, as also on the conferring thereof, he expressly stated that he reserved in his own hands the right of institution as also the care [of vacant churches] ; on which, the archdeacon made answer, that he should be acting against God, and in derogation of canonical rights, if he should presume to usurp the right of institution to churches, which belonged to the archbishop alone. And that, then renounc ing those rights, he reduced his renunciation thereof to writ