In the Old French didactic poem, the _Roman de la Rose_, composed in the twelfth century, appear traces of the belief in the magic properties of precious stones. Chaucer translated this poem into English in the fourteenth century and we quote the following lines from his version. They describe the costume of the symbolical figure, Riches. Richesse a girdle hadde upon The bokel of it was of a stoon Of Vertue greet, and mochel of might. That stoon was greetly for to love, And til a riche mannes bihove Worth al the gold in Rome and Fryse. The mordaunt[30] wrought in noble wyse, Was of a stoon full precious, That was so fyn and vertuous, That hool a man it coude make Of palasye and of tooth-ake.[31] At the trial, in 1232, of Hubert de Burgh, chief justiciar, one of the charges brought against him was that he had surreptitiously removed from the English treasury an exceedingly valuable stone, possessing the virtue of rendering the wearer invincible in battle, and had given it to Llewellyn, King of Wales, the enemy of his own sovereign, Henry III of England (1207-1272).[32] This must have taken place about 1228, when Henry was engaged in a war with the Welsh. That precious stones could, under certain circumstances, lose the powers inherent in them was firmly believed in medieval times. If handled or even gazed upon by impure persons and sinners, some of the virtues of the stones departed from them. Indeed, there were those who held that precious stones, in common with all created things, were corrupted by the sin of Adam. Therefore, in order to restore their pristine virtue it might become necessary to sanctify and consecrate them, and a kind of ritual serving this purpose has been preserved in several old treatises. The subject is sufficiently curious to warrant here the repetition of one of these forms. The stones which required consecration were to be wrapped in a perfectly clean linen cloth and placed on the altar. Then three masses were to be said over them, and the priest who celebrated the third mass, clad in his sacred vestments, was to pronounce the following benediction:[33]