Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/145

 divinity, as he is said to have done, at Exeter and Oxford. He is mentioned as Chancellor of the Apostolic See by the contemporary writer John of Hexham, who dates him in 1146. Anyhow, he was a man of great mark; that we know from S. Bernard and John of Salisbury, and from his extant works, Sentences, and Sermons. But there was another Robert, also connected with Rochester, also an Italian Chancellor, and mentioned as a distinct person by the same historian of Hexham. He was a native of 'Salesby,' whether Selby or Salisbury I shall not decide, who tried his fortunes in Sicily and became chancellor to King Roger about the same year 1146. Is it possible or probable that he has somehow become confounded with Robertus Pullus? Certain it is that Paris, Archdeacon of Rochester in Henry II's reign, was the nephew of Robertus Pullus; certain it is also that Paris had relations in Sicily, and was chosen as an envoy in 1176 to that court because of his connexions there: it is needless to add that archdeaconries went in those days very frequently from uncle to nephew, and not uncommonly from father to son. Whether, however, we have here two Roberts, or two Roberti Pulli, for the sojourn in Apulia might entitle the second Robert to the name of Pullanus, or only one, we have the starting-point of the usage according to which English ministers were domiciled at the Sicilian Court. Robert may have been the first; he was not the last.

Master Thomas Brown, with whose name the readers of Mr. Freeman's books must have become by this time familiar, was another Englishman, a great financial authority, who enjoyed the confidence of King Roger until the death of that king in 1154. Thomas Brown is the first modern Englishman, if not the first Englishman of any sort, whose name was written in Greek. In that language, as Thomas Brounos, it appears among the attestations of Greek Charters of King Roger. After Roger's death, when a new king arose, who, according to the Dialogus de Scaccario, knew not Thomas, he returned to his native land, and was immediately summoned by Henry II to his restored exchequer; he became the king's almoner, and kept at the exchequer a separate roll of the king's doings.