JUDGMENTS PRONOUNCED AT CESAREA

The king had given me for my battalion fifty knights Every time that I ate, I had ten knights at my table wit! my own ten knights; and they ate, one sonly the other according to the custom of the land, and sale upon mats 01 the ground. Every time that there was a call to arms, ‘ sent thither fifty-four knights, who were called douzeniers because each commanded ten men. Every time that w rode out armed, all the fifty knights ate in my quarters 01 their return. At all the annual festivals I asked to m; table all the men of note in the host, whereby it sometime; happened that the king had to borrow some of my guests.

SOME OF TINS JUDGMENTS PRONOUNCED AT CESAREA

Hereinafter you shall hear tell of the justice and judgments that I saw rendered at Caesarea while the king was sojourning there. First we will tell of a knight who was taken in a brothel, and to whom a certain choice was left according to the customs of the country. And the choice was this: that either the wanton woman should lead hirer through the camp, in his shirt, and shamefully bound with a rope, or that he should lose his horse and arms and tx driven from the host. The knight gave up his horse to the king, and his arms, and left the host. Then I went and asked the king to give me the horse for a poor gentleman who was in the host. And the king answered me that this re quest was not reasonable, seeing that the horse was still worth eighty livres. And I replied: “ Now have you broker our covenant, for you are wroth with me for my request.’ And he said to me, laughing merrily: “ Say what you like, I am not wroth with you.” Nevertheless I did not get the horse for the poor gentleman.

The second judgment was this: the knights of our battalion were hunting a wild animal that is called a gazelle, and is like a deer. The brethren of the Hospital leapt out upon our knights, and hustled them and drove them away. So I complained to the Master of the Hospital; and the Master of :he Hospital answered that he would do me right according to the customs of the Holy Land, which were such that he would cause the brethren who had committed the outrage o eat sitting on their mantles, until such time as those on thorn the outrage had been committed should raise them up.