How could so important a deed be recalled? Was the court of Rome so negligent? How could an instrument written at Canossa have been written at Rome? What do these contradictions mean? All that is clear is that the souls of the receivers fared better than the soul of the giver, who to save it was obliged to deprive herself of all she possessed in favor of her physicians. In short, in 1102, a sovereign was deprived of the power of disposing of an acre of land; yet after this deed, and to the time of her death, in 1115, there are still found considerable donations of lands made by this same Mathilda to canons and monks. She had not, therefore, given all. Finally, this deed was very likely made by some ingenious person after her death. The court of Rome still includes among its titles the testament of Mathilda, which confirmed her donations. The popes, however, never produce this testament. It should also be known whether this rich countess had the power to dispose of her possessions, which were most of them fiefs of the empire. The Emperor Henry V., her heir, possessed himself of all, and recognized neither testament, donation, deed, nor right. The popes, in temporizing, gained more than the emperors in exerting their authority; and in time these Cæsars became so weak that the popes finally obtained the succession of Mathilda, which is now called the patrimony of St. Peter. _Donation of the Sovereignty of Naples to the Popes._ The Norman gentlemen who were the first instruments of the conquests of Naples and Sicily achieved the finest exploit of chivalry that was ever heard of. From forty to fifty men only delivered Salerno at the moment it was taken by an army of Saracens. Seven other Norman gentlemen, all brothers, sufficed to chase these same Saracens from all the country, and to take prisoner the Greek emperor, who had treated them ungratefully. It was quite natural that the people, whom these heroes had inspired with valor, should be led to obey them through admiration and gratitude. Such were the first rights to the crown of the two Sicilies. The bishops of Rome could no more give those states in fief than the kingdoms of Boutan or Cachemire. They could not even grant the investiture which would have been demanded of them; for, in the time of the anarchy of the fiefs, when a lord would hold his free land as a fief for his protection, he could only address himself to the sovereign or the chief of the country in which it was situated. And certainly the pope was neither the sovereign of Naples, Apulia, nor Calabria.