We are furthermore told in _Tirant lo Blanch_ that the king gave to every member of the Order a collar of gold covered with round S’s. Martorell undertakes in the following story to explain how the king happened to adopt these letters as a device: At a royal hunt, a deer, white as the snow because of its age, was slain, and a collar bearing S’s was found around its neck. On the collar were found words stating that when Julius Caesar left the island the collar was put on the deer, with the request that the king into whose hands the deer might fall should adopt the letter S as a device. The author explains the significance of this letter in these words: [71]“E lo collar era tots de esses redones. E perço com en tot lo A.B.C. no trobareu letra una per una de major auctoritat e perfectio que pugua significar mes altes coses que aquesta lettra S.... La primera, sanctedat; sauiesa; sapiencia; senyoria; e moltes altres coses que per S principien.” [71] And the collar was all covered with round S’s. Because in the whole alphabet you cannot find one letter of greater authority and perfection and which can signify more noble things than this letter S. The first thing it stands for is sanctity; then sapience; science; seigniory; and many other things that begin with S. _Tirant lo Blanch_, chaps. xcvi and xcvii. Martorell may have invented this story, but we are inclined to believe that he had heard or read an explanation of the kind. Perhaps the story was current at the time. Ashmole, too, had his curiosity aroused by the letters on the collars, and remembers that he had read or heard that there was once an organization called the “Society of Saint Simplicius” and that the members of that society used to wear collars with SS on them, and these letters stood for Saint Simplicius. This saint suffered martyrdom under Diocletian about 287 A.D. All that Martorell has to say about the rules, ceremonies, initiation, ladies of honor and their vows, reveals that he knew a great deal about the Order. Where did he obtain his information? Was it through reading or through hearsay? In some respects his account resembles that of an eye-witness, yet in giving the names of members of the Order, Martorell was obliged to invent some, for the reason that he did not have enough English names at his command. Some of the names are purely Catalan, and this fact indicates that the account was not written in England, nor in Portugal, but very probably in Valencia; another argument in favor of the contention that _Tirant lo Blanch_ was written originally in Catalan, and not in Portuguese. CHAPTER III TIRANT SUCCORS THE KNIGHTS OF RHODES