In spite of the Arab conquest, Sinai, like Jerusalem and Rome, continued to stand out as a goal of Christian pilgrimage. According to the account of a monk of Redon in Brittany, a certain Fromont and his brother, men of high standing, went there. They had murdered their uncle, an ecclesiastic, and repented, and went before King Lothair (855-859). His bishops decreed that the brothers should be chained and bound together and should do penance by going to Rome, Jerusalem and Sinai. In Rome they were received by Pope Benedict III (858-888), who gave them his blessing, and they took boat for Jerusalem, where they spent several years. From there they went into the Thebaid, where they fasted with the monks, and they finally reached Sinai, where they spent three years. Still wearing the chains that bound them together, they returned by way of Rome to Rennes, where the one brother died. Fromont then went to Redon, and once more started for Rome. But he returned to Redon where, his penance being at an end, his chain was taken from him, and where he died.[219] Bishop Pococke was shown a cell some way up the Gebel Musa where two brothers dwelt who were chained together.[220] The brothers from Rennes are probably meant. Another account which seems to date from the first half of the ninth century described the Houses of God, and thus described Sinai. “In holy Mount Sina there are four churches, one where the Lord spoke to Moses on the summit of the mountain; one dedicated to St. Elijah; another dedicated to St. Elisæus; and a fourth in the monastery of St. Mary. The abbot is Elias, who has under him thirty monks. The steps that lead up and down the mountain are 7700 in number.”[221] A list of the “archbishops” of Sinai was compiled at the convent in the seventeenth century, which begins with Marcus, whose date is given as 869.[222] But the official report of the Fourth Synod held at Constantinople, in 869-870, contains the signature of Constantine, bishop of Syna.[223] Another bishop was Jorius, who died and was enshrined in Bethune in Belgium in the year 1033. A hymn there written in his honour described him as “bishop of Sinai.”[224] He was probably travelling for the purpose of collecting alms for his convent. From the historian Rodolfus Glaber (_c._ 900-1044) we hear that the dukes of Normandy, more especially Duke William (927-942) and his successors, were liberal in their gifts to churches and convents, and that monks from Mount Sinai came every year to Rouen, from where they departed loaded with gifts (_exenia_) in gold and silver.[225] It was in connection with these grants that the fame of St. Katherine of Alexandria spread to Europe in the course of the eleventh century.