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Merdon Castle, of which some few scanty ruins remain, was built by the Bishop Henry of Blois about 1138, and no doubt it served its purpose in the anarchy of Stephen's time, but thereafter it seems to have become rather a palace than a fortress. The manor of Merdon had always belonged to the See of Winchester, it is said, since 636, when it was granted to the Bishop by King Kinegils.

Wace in the twelfth century wrote in French his "Brut d'Angleterre." Brutus was the mythical son of Aeneas, and the founder of Britain. The Britons were settled in Cornwall, Wales and Bretagne, and were distinguished for traditionary legends, which had been collected by Godfrey of Monmouth in 1138.

On the 1st of November, 1138, Stephen was set at liberty, and Robert of Gloucester, being exchanged for him, rejoined his sister the Empress at Gloucester; and during this time of quiet her fierce nature seems to have somewhat softened.

Moses, the older of the two, was born at Granada about 1070 and died after 1138. Abraham, who travelled all over the world, was born at Toledo in 1092 and died in 1167. Neither is particularly famous as a philosopher. Moses's celebrity rests on his poetic productions, secular as well as religious, which are highly praised by Harizi, above even those of Halevi.

This sect is first mentioned in the person of a certain Adrian, a monk, who came to Russia about the year 1001. In 1041, l090 to 1096, 1138 to 1147, 1326, they are noticed, and in 1721 to 1724 they are prominent.

The Chronicle says, as to the extent of the damage done by this fire, "Civitas pene tota conflagravit." Anonymous, but probably by the Rev. S. Denne and W. Shrubsole. Published in 1772; second edition, 1817. The Rochester chronicler, Edmund de Hadenham, records two great fires under the years 1138 and 1177; Gervase also mentions these, but gives their dates as 1137 and 1179.

Lothair died in 1138. His son-in-law, the Wolf or Welf nobleman, Henry the Proud, Duke of Bavaria, whom Lothair had nominated as his successor, was opposed by the Swabian faction also known as the Waiblingen faction from the Franconian village in which the Swabian duke Frederick was born.

A plot which Robert of Gloucester had been weaving from the outset of his reign came indeed to a head in 1138, and the Earl's revolt stripped Stephen of Caen and half Normandy.

But in 1138, when Conrad III became Emperor of Germany, his accession was followed by the Crusades, which spread a flame of enthusiasm and chivalry among the Germans. In 1149 Conrad and Louis VII of France joined forces to lead a Crusade to the Holy Land, and thus the German and French nobility became intimately acquainted, and Provencal poetry soon began to have an effect on German literature.

Folquet of Marseilles is a troubadour whose life belongs to these years of turmoil. He was the son of a Genoese merchant by name Anfos, who apparently settled in Marseilles for business reasons: Genoa was in close commercial relations with the South of France during the twelfth century, as is attested by treaties concluded with Marseilles in 1138 and with Raimon of Toulouse in 1174.