Violante had been accompanied from Palestine by a female cousin, possessed of powerful charms and many graceful accomplishments. The emperor became captivated with her beauty, he dishonoured her, and treated his young wife, who was a mere child in years, with coldness and neglect. He then, in the middle of August, A. D. 1227, set sail for Acre with a powerful army, and was at sea three days, when he became sea-sick, and returned to land on a plea of ill health. He was consequently publicly excommunicated by the pope in the great church of Anagni. Without troubling himself to obtain a reconciliation with the holy see, he again embarked with his forces, and arrived in the port of St. Jean d’Acre on the 8th of September, A. D. 1228. The pope then sent letters to Palestine denouncing him as publicly excommunicated, and commanded the Templars not to join his standard. They accordingly refused to take the field, and as the forces under the command of the emperor did not amount to ten thousand men, he was obliged to remain inactive during the winter. He, however, carried on friendly negotiations with the infidels, and a treaty was entered into whereby Jerusalem was nominally surrendered to him. It was stipulated that the Christian and Mussulman religion should meet with equal toleration in the Holy City; that the followers of Mahomet should possess the Mosque of Omar, and the Christians the great church of the Resurrection; that the Moslems should be governed by their own laws, and that the court of judicature in the forum of Al Rostak should be under the direction of a Moslem governor.[107]