deacon; not sent by an emperor or king but by the margrave Berengar; and I bought many more and more precious vestments, which were neither looked at nor viewed by the Greeks nor stamped with lead. Now, having become a bishop by the mercy of God, and being sent by the magnificent emperors Otto and Otto, father and son, I am so insulted that my vestments are marked after the manner of the Venetians; and, as they are being transported for the use of the church entrusted to me, whatever seems of any worth is taken away. Are you not weary of insulting me, or rather my masters, for whose sake I am derided r* Is it not enough that I am given into custody, that I am tortured by hunger and thirst, that I covild not return to them, being detained until now,—without, to fill the measure of their disrespect to them, my being robbed of my own things? Take away from me at least only what I have bought; leave me those things that have been given me as a gift by my friends!"
"The emperor Constantine," they said, "was a mild man, who always stayed in his palace, and by such means as this made the natives friendly to him; but the emperor Nicephorus, a man given to war, abhors the palace as if it were the plague. And he is called by us warlike and almost a lover of strife; nor does he make the nations friendly to him by paying them, but subjects them to his rule by terror and the sword. And in order that thou may'st see what is our opinion of thy royal masters, all that has been given to thee of this colour, and all that has been bought shall revert to us by the same process."
Having done and said these things they gave to me a letter written and sealed with gold to bring to ye; but it was not worthy of ye, as I thought. They brought also other letters sealed with silver and said: " We judge it unseemly that your pope should receive letters from the emperor;-but the marshal of the court, the emperor's brother, sends him an epistle which is good enough for him—not through his own poor envoys but through thee — to the effect that, unless he come to his senses, he shall know that he shall be utterly confounded."
When I had received this, they let me go, giving me kisses which were very sweet, very loving. But as I went
