Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/275

 I England in the Middle Ages 239 The King to the venerable father in Christ, Robert, by the 101. Sum- same grace Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all En- mons of a land, greeting: As a most just law, established by the careful providence of sacred princes, exhorts and decrees that what affects all by all should be approved, so also, very evidently, should common danger be met by means provided in common. You know sufficiently well, and it is now, as we believe, divulged through all regions of the world, how the king of France fraudulently and craftily deprives us of our land of Gascony by withholding it unjustly from us. Now, however, not satisfied with the before-mentioned fraud and injustice, having gathered together for the con- quest of our kingdom a very great fleet and an abounding multitude of warriors, with which he has made a hostile attack on our kingdom and the inhabitants of the same kingdom, he now proposes to destroy the English language altogether from the earth, if his power should correspond to the detestable proposition of the contemplated injustice, which God forbid. Because, therefore, darts seen beforehand do less injury, and your interest especially, as that of the rest of the citizens of the same realm, is concerned in this affair, we command you, strictly enjoining you in the fidelity and love in which you are bound to us, that on the Lord's day next after the feast of St. Martin, in the approaching winter, you be pres- ent in person at Westminster ; citing beforehand the dean and chapter of your church, the archdeacons and all the clergy of your diocese, causing the same dean and arch- deacons in their own persons, and the said chapter by one suitable proctor, and the said clergy by two, to be present along with you, having full and sufficient power from the same chapter and clergy, to consider, ordain, and provide, along with us and with the rest of the prelates and principal men and other inhabitants of our kingdom, how the dangers and threatened evils of this kind are to be met. Witness the king, at Wangham, the 3oth of September. 1 1 The other bishops and abbots received identical or similar sum- monses.