(1) King Richard, in a letter to the Abbot of Clairvaux, R. Howden, iii. 131.
(2) Bohadin, Rec. Hist. Orient., iii. 237; Schultens’s edition, 179.
(3) Estoire de la Guerre Sainte, ll. 5199-224, and Itin. Reg. Ric., 231, 232; these two are here practically identical and may be counted as one.
(4) Gesta Ric., 178, 179.
(5) R. Howden, iii. 120, 121.
(6) R. Diceto, ii. 94.
(7) R. Coggeshall, 32.
(8) R. Devizes (ed. Stevenson), 51, 52.
(9) Ibn Alathyr, Rec. Hist. Orient., II. 46.
All these writers mention, among the conditions promised by the Moslems, the restoration of the relic of the Cross; and all except one—R. Devizes—mention also the release of a number of Christian prisoners: the king and R. Diceto say fifteen hundred; R. Coggeshall says seven hundred, some of whom the kings were to select; Ambrose and the Itinerarium say two thousand prisoners of distinction and five hundred of lower rank; the Gesta say fifteen hundred ordinary prisoners and two hundred knights, these latter to be specially selected by the kings; R. Howden follows this latter account, but reduces the first number to a thousand; Ibn Alathyr mentions only the “selected” prisoners, whose number he gives as five hundred. The earlier of the two extant redactions of Bohadin (Recueil, iii. 237) has “five hundred prisoners of ordinary condition, and one hundred others of rank, whom the Franks might ask for by name”; but in the later redaction (represented by Schultens’s edition) the figures are fifteen hundred and one thousand. This later redaction, of which the only known MS. was written in the year after Bohadin’s death, is considered not to be his own work (Recueil, iii. 374); but its variations from the earlier recension seem entitled to some consideration, as they are so nearly contemporary and may have the force of corrections; this may be the case in the passage under consideration here.