Godfrey employed the first six months of the year 1100 in regulating ecclesiastical affairs, the clergy being, as usual, almost incredibly greedy, and in concluding treaties with the governors of Ascalon, Acre, Cæsarea, Damascus, and Aleppo. He was showing himself as skilful in administration as he had been in war, and the Christian kingdom would doubtless have been put upon a solid and permanent footing, but for his sudden and premature death, which took place on July the 18th, 1100. His end was caused by an intermittent fever; finding that there was little hope, he caused himself to be transported from Jaffa to Jerusalem, where he breathed his last. He was buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where his epitaph might have been read up to the year 1808, when the church was destroyed by fire. “Hic jacet inclitus dux Godefridus de Bouillon, qui totam istam terram acquisivit cultui Christiano, cujus anima regnet cum Christo.” And here, too, were laid up his sword, more trenchant than Excalibur, and the knightly spurs with which he had won more honour than King Arthur. The _Assises de Jerusalem_, that most curious and instructive code of feudal law, does not belong properly to the reign of Godfrey. As it now exists it was drawn up in the fourteenth century. But it embodies, although it contains many additions and interpolations, the code which Godfrey first began, and the following kings finished. And it is based upon the idea which ruled Godfrey and his peers. It may therefore fairly be considered in this place. It was highly necessary to have strict and clearly defined laws for this new kingdom. Its subjects were either pious and fanatic pilgrims, or unscrupulous and ambitious adventurers. Bishops and vassals, among whom the conquered lands were freely distributed, were disposed to set their suzerain at defiance, and to exalt themselves into petty kings. The pilgrims were many of them criminals of the worst kind, ready enough, when the old score was wiped out by so many prayers at sacred places, to begin a new one. They were of all countries, and spoke all languages. Their presence, useful enough when the Egyptian army had to be defeated, was a source of the greatest danger in time of peace. It is true that the time of peace was never more than a few months in duration. The duties and rights of king, baron, and bourgeois were therefore strictly and carefully laid down in Godfrey’s _Assises_. Every law was written on parchment, in great letters, the first being illuminated in gold, and all the others in vermilion; on every sheet was the seal of the king; the whole was deposited in a great box in the sacred church, and called the “Letters of the Sepulchre.”