We have, unfortunately, no records of the history of these convents, as in the case of many Western abbeys, and the old chronicles of wars and pestilences seldom mention this quiet life. We should fain, says M. Henri Belle, have followed the fortunes of these monks who left some fair abbey in Burgundy to catechise schismatics in this distant land, and bring their preaching to aid the sword of the Crusaders; but these Crusaders were generally intent on changing their cross for a crown, and were therefore not at all likely to favor the rigid proselytism of the Cistercians. It is very interesting to know that Innocent III., that great pope, who from the outset disapproved of the violent overthrow of the Christian Empire of the East, was the first to recommend, both to the conquerors and their clergy, such moderation as might serve to bring back the schismatic Greeks to the Roman fold. There are still extant several of his letters to the abbeys of the Morea, and to this abbey of the duchy of Athens, showing that even his authority and zeal in this matter were unable to restrain the bigotry of the Latin monks. There were frequent quarrels, too, between these monks of Daphne and their Duke, and frequent appeals to the sovran pontiff to regulate the relations between the civil authority, which claimed the right of suzerain, and the religious orders, which claimed absolute independence and immunity from all feudal obligations. Still, in spite of all disputes, the abbey was the last resting-place of the Frankish Dukes of Athens, and in a vault beneath the narthex were found several of their rude stone coffins, without inscription or ornament. One only has carved upon it the arms of the second Guy de la Roche, third Duke of Athens—two entwined serpents surmounted with two fleurs-de-lis. Guy II., says the chronicle, behaved as a gallant lord, beloved of all, and attained great renown in every kingdom. He sleeps here, not in the darkness of oblivion, but obscured by greater monuments of the greater dead. Yet I cannot but dally over this interesting piece of mediæval history, the more so as it explains the strange title of Theseus, Duke of Athens, in Shakespeare’s immortal _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, as well as the curious fact, at least to classical readers, that the poet should have chosen mediæval Athens as a court of gracious manners, and suitable for the background of his fairy drama. Neglecting geography, I shall carry the reader next to the very analogous ruins of Mistra, where, however, it was rather the Greek that supplanted the Latin, than the Latin the Greek ecclesiastic.