But they recognize neither the emperor nor the church. Nor had they spared anyone or anything. They had devastated the land clear up to the walls of the church, and they had spared no Sicilian. In fact, they had left scarcely a Christian alive in all that territory. The emperor declares that with great difficulty and expense he has exterminated them from Sicily. If he has done the churches a wrong in this, it is at least his only one. Nor has he tried to injure them. In regard to the church at Cefalu, the emperor said that he had done no wrong, because the kings of Sicily have always held the castle of Cefalu, which is a strong citadel in the mark of the Saracens, and commands the sea. In the days of Innocent III the bishop of Cefalu had got possession of it, not legally but through an uprising. But Innocent ordered his legate who was then in Sicily caring for the interests of Frederick, who was still a child, to take the castle from the bishop and have it kept for Frederick until he should come of age. It has not been restored to the bishop nor should it be, because he has no right to it. Even if he had a right to it, it should not be restored to him, because, according to common report, he is a forger, a homicide, a traitor, and a schismatic. Therefore even if he had a right to it, it should not be restored to him. In the same way he said he was innocent of the charges about the church of Catania, unless he were held responsible for the conduct of some of the men from the imperial domain, who, in time of war, had gone to Catania to find a place that was secure and fertile. The emperor said that he had recalled them to his domains by a general edict of the realm, by which the counts, barons, and other men of the realm recalled the men belonging to their domains, no matter where they should find them, whether on the lands of the church or in the imperial cities. Besides, in regard to these things, the statute was passed and the time set at the request of the pope, as is clear from the letters of the patriarch of Antioch and the archbishops of Palermo and Messina. Likewise the emperor said that an equitable trade had been made with the churches of Mileto and Santa Eufemia, and with the abbot and monks of Terra Maggiore. This trade had been made with the permission of their clergy and their convents, according to the legal form, and they to-day hold and possess the things which they received in exchange. But the village of San Severo was not wholly the property of the abbot of Terra Maggiore, for another had certain rights there which he held as a fief from the empire. It was justly condemned and destroyed, because the men of that place in the time of an uprising had killed Paul de Logotheta, the bailiff of the emperor, and seized the cattle of the emperor. And yet the abbot and his monastery had received some land in exchange for their share of this village which had been destroyed. In accordance with