[800] Innoc. III. _Epp._ l. xvi. No. 77; R. Wendover, vol. iii. pp. 252–4; _Foedera_, vol. i. pt. i. pp. 111, 112. The oath of fealty is given by R. Wendover, p. 255, and in _Foedera_, p. 112. Roger makes the date Ascension Eve, but it was really the Wednesday in the week before Rogation Sunday. [801] R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 252. [802] “Addidit autem hoc ex suo,” W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 210. [803] In a private letter which he wrote to the Pope on the same day, John says he did it “inspirante gratia Sancti Spiritus, ad perpetuam Ecclesiae pacem et exaltationem,” Innoc. III. _Epp._ l. xvi. No. 78. [804] Innoc. III. _Epp._ l. xvi. No. 79. [805] “Salvis nobis et haeredibus nostris justitiis, libertatibus et regalibus nostris,” R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 254. [806] If we may believe Matthew Paris, the Pope was not the only potentate to whom John about this time offered homage and tribute. In Matthew’s _Gesta Abbatum S. Albani_, vol. i. pp. 236–40, and in his _Chronica Majora_, vol. ii. pp. 559–62, is a long account of an embassy which John is said to have sent to the emir of Morocco, Al Moumenim (Mohammed al Nassir), “significans eidem quod se et regnum suum libenter redderet eidem et dederet, et deditum teneret ab ipso, si placeret ei, sub tributum. Necnon et legem Christianam, quam vanam censuit, relinquens, legi Machomet fideliter adhaereret.” Matthew proceeds to give a lively account of the ambassadors’ adventures, and of the rebuke which the emir administered, through them, to the sovereign who had sent them on so shameful an errand; all of which Matthew professes to have heard from one of the envoys themselves. Unluckily for him, he has given two contradictory dates for the embassy. In the _Gesta Abbatum_ he represents it as taking place during the Interdict; and Dr. Lingard has shown, by evidence drawn from Matthew himself, that if it was sent at all, it must have been sent in 1212 (Lingard, _Hist. England_, vol. ii. p. 325; cf. M. Paris, _Chron. Maj._ vol. ii. p. 566). But in _Chron. Maj._ Matthew puts it after the reconciliation with Rome, representing it as despatched by John in his disappointment at finding that transaction profit him less than he had expected. The story of the interview between the envoys and the emir, as Matthew tells it, has therefore a very strong appearance of having been invented by that writer, as a kind of satire on John’s submission to the Pope; though the mere fact of some overture on John’s part for an alliance with the emir is neither impossible nor unlikely.