VI.] THOMAS BROWN. 153 possible or probable that he has somehow become confounded with Robertus Pullus ? Certain it is that Paris, Archdeacon of Rochester in Henry IPs reign, was the nephew of Robertus Pullus ; certain it is also that Paris had relations in Sicily, and was chosen as an envoy in 1176 to that court because of his connexions there : it is needless to add that archdeaconries went in those days very frequently from uncle to nephew, and not uncommonly from father to son. Whether, however, we have here two Roberts, or two Roberti Pulii, for the sojourn in Apulia might entitle the second Robert to the name of Pullanus, or only one, we have the starting-point of the usage according to which English ministers were domiciled at the Sicilian Court. Robert may have been the first; he was not the last. Master Thomas Brown, with whose name the readers of Mr. Freeman's books must have become by this time familiar, was another Englishman, a great financial authority, who enjoyed the confidence of King Roger until the death of that king in 1154. Thomas Brown is the first modern Englishman, if not the first Englishman of any sort, whose name was written in Greek. In that language, as Thomas Brounos, it appears among the attestations of Greek charters of King Roger. After Roger's death, when a new king arose, who, according to the Dialogue de Scaccario, knew not Thomas, he returned to his native land, and was immediately summoned by Henry II to his restored exchequer ; he became the king's almoner, and kept at the exchequer a separate roll of the king's doings. He had a handsome pension, too, £36 a year, if not more, and an allowance for his nephew Ralph. Madox goes so far as to conjecture that the special duties which were assigned to him were the basis of the later office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Another Englishman in Sicily was Herbert, a man of Middlesex, who was Archbishop of Compsa between the