212 ST. MARK’S REST

stern whether to undertake the siege of Tyre or Ascalon. The judgments of men being at pause, the matter was given to the judgment of God. They put the names of the two cities in an urn, on the altar of the Church of the Sepulchre. An orphan child was taken to draw the lots, who, putting his hand into the urn, drew out the name of TYRE.

Which name you may have heard before, and read perhaps words concerning her fall-careless always when the fall took place, or whose sword smote her.

She was still a glorious city, still queen of the treasures of the sea;* chiefly renowned for her work in glass and in purple; set in command of a rich plain, “irrigated with plentiful and perfect waters, famous for its sugar-canes;” “fortissima,”¹ she herself, upon her rock, double walled towards the sea, treble walled to the land; and, to all seeming, unconquerable but by famine.

7. For their help in this great siege, the Venetians made their conditions.

That in every city subject to the King of Jerusalem, the Venetians should have a street, a square, a bath, and a bakehouse;-that is to say, a place to live in, a place to meet in, and due command of water and bread, all free of tax; that they should use their own balances, weights, and measures (not by any means false ones, you will please to observe²); and that the King of Jerusalem should pay annually to the Doge of Venice, on the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, three hundred Saracen byzants.

* “Passava tuttavia per la più popolosa e commerciante di Siria.”-Romanin, Storia Documentata di Venezia, Venice, 1853, vol. ii. [p. 44], whence I take what else is said in the text; but see in the Gesta Dei, the older Marin Sanuto, lib. iii., pars. vi. cap. xii., and pars. xiv. cap. ii.³

¹ [“Da copiose e perfettissime acque irrigata, famosa specialmente per le sue canne da zucchero.... Fortissima ell’ era,” etc. (Romanin, vol. ii. p. 44).]

² [Compare the early Venetian inscription, below, p. 308.]

³ [See also p. 187 of Monticolo’s edition of Sanuto: “La qual cità erra forte e ben murada e spessa di torre, et erra dentro assaissima quantità di infidelli e altri che erano scampadi li dentro di tutte le terre de le marine, credendo star più seguri che in altro luogo, e questi si difendevano vigorosamente si per caxom di fioli come per il suo haver.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]