A.I), llfj .j.] DKATII OF TI IΚ IJlIKK 01·' AI.STKIA. a time of peace, uni) when your protection was granted to all pilgrims fur a period of tliri'i! years, the same being enforeed and confirmed on penalty of excommunication, they made :i prisoner of him as he came from his pilgrimage, and unmaking arrangements to return again, and threw him into prison, compelling him to pay a heavy sum for his ran-oni. •May your excellency therefore give orders for that duke to permit the hostages for our lord the king, who are as yet detained as prisoners for the portion of the ransom which remains unpaid, to depart free, and also for him to restore entire the money which he, the excommunicated man, has received from our lord, as well as make a fitting atonement for the injury inflicted on him and his subjects." Of the excommunication if the duke on account of king Richard. After the messengers of the king had pleaded these and many other complaints before the supreme pontiff; our lord the pope then rose with his cardinals and excommunicated the duke himself by name, and in general all those wdio had laid violent hands on the king and his men ; he also put the whole of the duke's territory under an interdict, giving orders to the bishop of Verona to publish this sentence of excommunication throughout the whole duchy of Austria on every Sunday and feast-day, as follows: "That, if the said duke shall determine to obey our mandates, you enjoin him by the virtue of God, to release the whole of the king of England's hostages, to cancel all agreements, and restore the property taken from them by him and his followers, as well as what he has received as an unjust ransom for the said king himself, and also shall send the said hostages in security to their own country, and for the future never venture on such things again, but make due compensation for the injury and wrongs inflicted. Of the icrctehcd death of the duke if A nutria. All this was denounced against the duke by the bishop of Verona, but be persisted in contemning the apostolic mandate, ut a time too when his country was struck bv an lltlheard-of sterility its well as by famine and ili«ea-e ; the river Danube, too, at this time overflowed unusually in some part of the country, and by that unexpected event ten