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The Sultan retreated, and marched through the defenceless provinces of Antioch and Tripoli, but there too he left the capitals in peace upon the arrival of the Sicilian fleet in their waters. The following summer he spent in taking the Frankish fortresses in Arabia Petræa, the possession of which was important to him in order to secure freedom of communication between Egypt and Syria.
Circling, sweeping, silently, swiftly, with that rapid spring, that marvelous whirlwind of force, that is of Africa, and of Africa alone, the tribes had rushed down in the darkness of night, lightly as a kite rushes through the gloom of the dawn. For once the vigilance of the invader served him naught; for once the Frankish camp was surprised off its guard.
To enumerate to you the murders that he committed with his dagger or his axe would take too long. I shall only mention some of the leading ones. An old Frankish chief, a hunchback named Sigebert, was King of Cologne.
For Kent was the nearest kingdom to the continent; it contained the chief port of entry for continental travellers, Richborough the Dover of those days and its king, accustomed to continental connections, had married a Christian Frankish princess from Paris. Hence Kent was naturally the first Teutonic principality to receive the faith.
Persuaded at length to fight, he defeated the Franks and finally came to terms with Shawir, whereby the Franco-Egyptian alliance came to an end, and he then left Egypt on receiving an indemnity, Shawir still remaining its ruler. The peace, however, did not last long, and Nur ed-Din sent Shirkuh again with many Frankish free-lancers against the ill-fated country.
So much as they understood and approved they blended with principles drawn from the revived study of Roman law and with Frankish and Norman customs. The legal rules thus elaborated by the king's court were applied by the justices in eyre where-ever their circuits took them, and became in time the common law of England, common because it admitted no local bars and no provincial prejudices.
"It is unnecessary to inform you that when my property is taken from me I shall endeavour to regain it. I shall, before the year is out, lay waste whatever kingdom it is that harbours you. Meanwhile I warn you it is necessary to be speedy in this ransoming. My other wives abhor the Frankish woman who has supplanted them in my esteem. My son Orestes, who succeeds me, will be guided by his mother.
Bertha like her Frankish kindred was a Christian; a Christian bishop accompanied her from Gaul; and a ruined Christian church, the church of St. Martin beside the royal city of Canterbury, was given them for their worship.
Groups of shires had been placed under the government of earls who became dangerous rivals of the kings; and the habit of giving churchmen the right to govern, to a large extent, those who lived upon their vast estates recalls the conditions in the Frankish empire during the same period.
Alaric attempted to conciliate their good-will: in 506 a Council met at Agde; the thirty-four bishops of Aquitania attended in person or by delegate; the king protested that he had no design of persecuting the Catholics; the bishops, at the opening of the Council, offered prayers for the king; but Alaric did not forget that immediately after the conversion of Clovis, Volusian, bishop of Tours, had conspired in favor of the Frankish king, and the bishops of Aquitania regarded Volusian as a martyr, for he had been deposed, without trial, from his see, and taken as a prisoner first to Toulouse, and afterwards into Spain, where in a short time he had been put to death.
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