Ego N. annuente Domino Francorum rex Abbas et canonicus huius ecclesie Beati Martini Turonensis iuro Deo et Beato Martino me de cetero protectorem et defensorem fore huius Ecclesie in omnibus necessitatibus et utilitatibus suis custodiendo et conservando possessiones honores iura privilegia libertates franchisias et immunitates eiusdem Ecclesie quantum divino fultus adiutorio secundum posse meum recta et pura fide sic me Deus adiuvet et hec sancta verba. The first king who held the secular abbacy of St. Martin of Tours was Charles the Bald, Charlemagne’s grandson, who became king of France (Neustria) in 843, about thirty years after Charlemagne’s death. There were ecclesiastical abbats till the year 845, when the Count Vivian became the first lay abbat. After Charles the Bald it is probable that the kings held the abbacy. Hugh Capet (987-996) united the title of Abbat of St. Martin to that of King of France. The fifteen kings from Louis VII in 1137 to Louis XIV in 1630 took the oath on this book on admission to the abbacy. The status of the abbat and of the brethren of St. Martin was long in uncertainty. Charlemagne refers to the vague status of the brethren in his letter of rebuke to them, which is given on p. 237; they called themselves canons, or monks, as best suited the necessities of an occasion. Probably there had been a time when the monastery included both secular and regular inmates. It is uncertain also whether the brethren elected the bishop (or archbishop) of Tours, and, indeed, whether they had not a bishop of their own. Hadrian I, addressing the abbat Itherius, who was the first founder of Cormery as a place of residence for regular monks of St. Benedict, writes thus[205] of St. Martin’s—“we decree that it be lawful to have a bishop there as has been from ancient times up to now, by whose preaching the people who come from various parts with devoted mind to the holy thresholds of the said confessor of Christ may receive remedial help from the Creator of souls.” Urban II, in 1096, at the Council of Tours, recognized this, and “united the Martinensian bishopric to the Apostolic See”, a very honourable extinction. We have the names of eight abbats before Itherius. The seventh of them, Wicterbus, was bishop and abbat; the eighth, the immediate predecessor of Itherius, Wulfhard I, was abbat only. It is supposed that the appointment of Alcuin, one of the secular clergy and in deacon’s orders, was a decided step in the secularization of the Abbey, and that his policy was in the same direction. It may be suggested that already in the time of Itherius that abbat was conscious of a secularizing tendency, and on that account founded Cormery; and that Alcuin found the existence of the regular abbey at Cormery a convenient outlet for the remnant of regular brethren at St. Martin’s, and handed St. Martin’s over to his successor, Wulfhard II, as a purely secular foundation. The step to a lay abbacy was