Note 51 — BOOK XV. (continued 2)

For the siege of Ptolemaïs we have consulted Sanuti, Herman, and a manuscript relation. This relation, written in the French of the time, appears to have been drawn from a letter from John de Vile, marshal of the hospital of St. John, who wrote to his brother, William de Vile, prior of St. Gilles, in Provence. Either John de Vile was at Ptolemaïs, or he wrote from the evidence of some Hospitallers who had escaped the swords of the Mussulmans, and had retired to the isle of Cyprus. This manuscript chronicle, which we often use, is divided into twenty-two chapters It is in the King’s Library, No. 1290.