disguise, who were sent, they say, by Pope Clement all over the kingdom to incite the people against the King Manfred, they went to the said castellan to persuade him to make the Queen and her children prisoners, as a deed which would give much pleasure to the Holy Father, and bring him great gifts from the King Charles. So well did they preach that at length the traitor did their bidding and shut up poor Helen and her children, and raised up the drawbridge of the castle. On the seventh of the same month much cavalry arrived, sent by King Charles, in search of the Queen, and they took her, with her four children and all the treasure they had, and by night they carried them none knew where.")

Apulian Cistern.

CHAPTER III.

ANDRIA.

ANDRIA is a full hour's drive from Trani, and the road goes up and down hill in a perfectly straight line through a rich but dull country, teeming with corn, almond trees and olives, the large fields divided by rough stone walls. It is singular to see such vast stretches of country without any cottages or farm-houses. The ground was splendidly tilled, seemingly by

invisible hands, for it was a holiday, so we saw no peasants about, and looked in vain for their houses. Large cisterns for collecting rain-water were dotted about, and the only living creatures we saw were the men engaged in hauling up water for their animals.

In former times all this country was subject to perpetual inroads from the Turks, and the general insecurity was so great that the peasants were forced to live in the large towns. This custom still prevails, and explains the size of the Apulian cities and the dirt of their

streets.

I was told that every morning, at daybreak, over ten thousand labourers leave Andria, many of them mounted on donkeys, mules, or horses, as their fields are miles away. The shepherds drive their flocks of goats and sheep and the herdsmen their cattle through the streets, making sleep impossible. After sunset the town is again filled with its peasant population, who are said to be quiet and orderly.

On approaching Andria we crossed a "Tratturo," one of the broad grass-grown highways which since time immemorial have served for the yearly emigration of the immense herds and

ANDRIA WELCOMES THE EMPEROR.

29

flocks of Apulia to their summer pastures in the mountains of Calabria and Abruzzi.

The walls of the town are in great measure destroyed and there are few ancient monuments left, as Andria underwent several sieges in the times of its Angevine and Aragonese rulers, and was finally sacked and burnt in 1799 by the Republican army, commanded by General Broussier and Count Caraffa, the feudal lord of the city. But her burghers are still proud of the preference shown by the great Emperor of the middle ages for his faithful town of Andria, which remained true to him when so many Apulian cities declared for the Pope during his absence in Jerusalem. On his return Andria sent five youths of good family to welcome him with the following verses :

Rex felix Federice veni dux noster amatus,
Est tuus adventus nobis super omnia gratus:
Obses quinque tene, nostri pignamiu amoris,
Esse tecum volumus omnibus diebus et horis."

The Emperor answered by granting certain privileges to the town, adding:

"Andria felix nostris affixa medullis,

Absit quod Federicus sit tui muneris iners ;
Andria vale felix, omnis que gravaminis expers."

Two of his wives are buried in the cathedral: Yolande of Jerusalem, who died at Andria in childbirth in 1228, and Isabella of England, who died at Foggia in 1241. I searched in vain for any monument or inscription to show where the remains of the Empresses lay, and was assured by the sacristan that their tombs were in an underground chapel, which was filled with bones and rubbish, and closed.

The cathedral is a stately Gothic building of three equal naves, with a fine choir; but it has been restored at different epochs, and is rather bare. Outside, facing the palace of the Dukes of Andria, stands the bronze statue of its patron saint, Richard, who is supposed to have come from England in 492 to "bring light to the people who were encompassed with darkness," as the first line of the inscription runs. As no Bishop of Andria can be traced further back than the thirteenth century, I should be inclined to place St. Richard in the same category as St. Cataldus of Taranto, the Irishman who is said to have come from Raphoe in 166.

In the street Corrado IV. di Svevia stands the ancient church of S. Domenico, with a very fine ruined cloister and convent behind. An old man who lived in the refectory of the