CHAP. II,]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

315

since we have it under his own hand in thedocument inserted in the bull: so that atall events they are a little in error who sustain hedied in the preceding June. 1 But be it permittedto add, for my own part, that he continued grand

master some days after March, 1377, date

j i * 1377

of the bull which still calls Heredia Cas-tellan d’Emposta; who, however, became elected tothe grand mastery before the 21st of August nextensuing, of which he is the jili Magister . 2

Gregory XI., as Vertot has it, with some notunusual want of exactitude 3 as to dates—to disdainwhich may in his time have passed for genius—sailed from Marseilles, reached Genoa on the 18thOctober, 1376, landed at Corneto, and spent theChristmas there, and entered the mouth of theTiber early in January, when Heredia, then GrandAdmiral of the order, Castellan d’Emposta, is de-cribed as a hale old man with a white beard, hold-ing the ship’s helm, 4 and, as ambassador of theorder, bearing its standard—real Gonfalon of theChurch—on the entrance into Rome on the 17th of

1 Seb. Paoli : Serie, ii. 466.

2 Cod. Dipl. Geros., ii., Hum. lxxxi.—Seb. Paoli: Osserva-zioni, ii. 541.—Appendix, cxli.

3 Yertot: v. 289.

4 Seb. Paoli : Serie, ii. 466.—Appendix, cxlii.