Note 1217 — Chapter VII · JOHN LACKLAND 1215–1216

Thorne, Gesta Abb. S. Aug. Cant. in Twysden, X Scriptt. cols. 1868–70. The letter as there given is addressed to the abbot and convent of S. Augustine’s, but it was evidently a manifesto of which copies were sent, or intended to be sent, to all the religious houses of note, probably also to the secular clergy, and perhaps to be distributed among the laity as well. The character of Louis’s “case” as set forth in this letter, and in the arguments of his envoys at Rome (R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 371–8), has been sufficiently exposed by M. Petit-Dutaillis, Louis VIII. pp. 75–87.