112

THE HISTORY OP THE ORDER OP

[BOOK II.

master-at-arms does his . 1 2 3 If ever Acre is lost, itwill be lost by a renegade! ” And hardly had theMahometan passed the threshold, when in thecorridor was heard the noise of a heavy fall, as ofa corpse, and the rolling of, as it were, a head,which sank on the silence of that meeting; andsilently, as if in mourning, they broke up.

Though old and severely wounded, the grandmaster assisted when the Pope (Honorius III.)met the Emperor, Frederick II., at Ferentino, inItaly, in 12 23, 2 and thence hastening back, was

1227 certainl y a ^ ve an< ^ a ^ Acre in May of 1227, aswe find by a Frenchman, who came thither toimplore his protection for his father, who had falleninto Saracen hands, where the poor man died inslavery, just as the Grand Master Montacute was onthe point of obtaining his liberation; so the son, seeingthat as much as depended on the Hospitallers hadbeen done, testified his gratitude by presentingthem with this deed, obliging himself and his heirsto pay a certain annual rent into the hand of theprior of the order in France. But the documentshall tell its own story, for the substance shall bein the Appendix . 8

1 See Note 48, page 15.

2 l’latina, iii. 66. Note F.

3 Cod. Dipl. Grcros. i.—Num. elxxvii.—Appendix, lxii.