[78] Juan de la Concepcion, _Historia general de Philipinas_, Manila, 1788-92, II, pp. 45-6. Schilling, p. 203n, maintains that the early writers were mistaken in believing that the Synod was held in 1581. On October 16, 1581 the Bishop called a meeting of ten priests at the Convent of Tondo to discuss the execution of the decree about slaves, Torres, II, pp. cxliv-v. No laymen were present and no other topic was discussed. The decisions of this meeting were sent in a letter from Salazar to the King, dated from Tondo, October 17, 1581, translated in B. & R., XXXIV, pp. 325-31, from the original MS. in the A. of I. (68-1-42), Torres, II, no. 2686, p. 95. The following year a real Synod was held, this time including lay government officials as well as priests, at which was discussed a variety of subjects. Robert Streit, _Bibliotheca Missionum_, Aachen, 1928, IV, pp. 327-31, cites a MS. account of it by the Jesuit father Sanchez who was present; and Valentin Marin, _Ensayo de una Sintesis de los trabajos realizados por las Corporaciones Religiosas Espanoles de Filipinas_, Manila, 1901, I, pp. 192 et seqq., cites another MS., then in the Archives of the Archiepiscopal Palace of Manila, _Memoria de una junta que se hizo a manera de concilio el ano de 1582, para dar asiento a las cosas tocantes al aumento de la fe, y justificacion de las conquistas hechas y que adelante se hicieron por los espanoles_, from which he quotes extensively. With reference to the Synod see further Lorenzo Perez, _Origen de las Misiones Franciscanas en el extremo oriente_, in Archivo Ibero-Americano, 1915, III, pp. 386-400. [79] Santa Ines, p. 212. Again similar accounts are to be found in San Antonio, I, pp. 563-6, in far more detail and phrased in even more laudatory terms, and the fullest early biography of Plasencia is given by San Antonio, II, pp. 512-79. Modern surveys appear in Marin, _op. cit._, II, pp. 573-82, and Lorenzo Perez, _op. cit._, pp. 378 et seqq. [80] Chirino, _Primera parte_, quoted by Retana, col. 24, implied that Quinones and Plasencia wrote at about the same time: "The first who wrote in these languages were, in Visayan, P. Fr. Martin de Rada, and in Tagalog, Fr. Juan de Quinones, both of the Order of St. Augustine, and at the same time Fr. Juan de Oliver and Fr. Juan de Plasencia of the Order of St. Francis, of whom the latter began first, but the former [wrote] many more things and very useful ones." However, San Antonio, I, p. 532, wrote perhaps with bias in favor of his own order, "Although the Augustinian fathers had come earlier and did not lack priests fluent in the idiom, the language had not yet been reduced to a grammar, so that it could be learned by common grammatical rules, nor was there a general vocabulary of speech; except that each one had his own notes, to make himself understood, and everything was unsystematized."