THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. 267 abjure all heresies and errors, and praying them to impose on him a fitting penance, and then the hook of the holy gospels being placed in his hands, he abjured the aforesaid heresies in this form : " 1, brother Stephen de Stapelbrngge, of the order of the chivalry of the Temple, do solemnly confess," ite. &c. (he repeats his confession, makes his abjuration, and then proceeds;) " and if at any time hereafter I shall happen to relapse into the same errors, or deviate from any of the articles of the faith, I will account myself ipso facto excommunicated ; I will stand condemned as a manifest perjured heretic, and the punishment inflicted on perjured relapsed heretics shall be forthwith imposed upon me without further trial or judgment ! 1 " He was then sworn upon the holy gospels to stand to the sentence of the church in the matter, after which Brother Thomas Tocei de Thoroldeby was brought forward to go through the same monstrous ceremony, which being concluded, these two poor serving brothers of the order of the Temple, who were so ignorant that they could not write, were made to place their mark (loco subscriptionis) on the record of the abjuration. " And then our lord the archbishop of Canterbury, for the purpose of absolving and reconciling to the unity of the church the aforesaid Thomas and Stephen, conceded his authority and that of the whole council to the bishop of London, in the pre sence of me the notary, specially summoned for the occasion, in these words : ' VCe grant to you the authority of God, of the blessed Mary, of the blessed Thomas the Martyr our patron, and of all the saints of God (sanctorum atque sanctarum. Dei) to us conceded, and also the authority of the present council to us transferred, to the end that thou mayest reconcile to the unity of the church these misérables, separated from her by their repu