timately bound up with our literary history that it may be adduced to illustrate almost every sort of distinction. John of Poictiers was a native of Kent, probably of Canterbury itself; he was one of the fellow-scholars with Becket and Roger of Pont l'Evêque in the household of Archbishop Theobald, which, as I shall have to note presently, was at that time a substitute in England for the as yet undeveloped Universities; he ran neck and neck with those great candidates for promotion, and managed, by the adroitness and moderation of his conduct, to steer clear of the difficulties in which they were constantly embroiled with either one another or some third party. Promoted early in the reign of Henry to the rich stall of treasurer at York, John became in 1162 Bishop of Poictiers, and in 1181 Archbishop of Lyons ; that great and semi-independent see he held until 1193, when he resigned and fell back on his minor preferments and the company of the Cistercians of Clairvaux ; but to the day of his death he retained the living of Eynesford in Kent, and kept up a close correspondence with the Canterbury clergy and with the learned men of England, especially Ralph de Diceto, Dean of S. Paul's, with whom he had in his youth competed for the archdeaconry of Middlesex. The letters of John of Poictiers are among the less important contributions to the Becket literature, but they are worth reading as the composition of a man of mark, of sound learning and prudent character, and an eminent canonist. The career of John of Salisbury I shall recur to more particularly further on; he also was a son of the Church of Canterbury, and retained the closest relations with his Alma Mater as long as he lived. Another Canterbury man was Ralph de Serris, or Ralph of Sarr in Thanet, who was Dean of Rheims from 1176 to 1194 ; who was a most dutiful son of the Church to which he owed his education, and no doubt a faithful agent of the