first bringing of St. Romain's body to the Cathedral,
and says nothing either of the dragon or the privilege; nor, indeed,
could the essential part of the ceremony known as the "_Levee de la
Fierte_" have taken place before the jewelled shrine had been made
(see p. 98) to hold the sacred relics which the prisoner bore upon his
shoulders. Now it is not likely that Henry Plantagenet, when he came
into his kingdom in 1145, would have permitted so grave a limitation
of the royal prerogative to arise for the first time; and, on the
other hand, it is extremely probable that it should arise during the
years of his minority, when, as we have seen, experiments in
independence were quite the fashion. It is therefore practically
certain that the Privilege de St. Romain began soon after 1135,
though not so late as 1145.

The year 1210, already mentioned, is the first date on which an actual
record exists of the liberated prisoner's name. His crime is not
mentioned, though we know that it involved the penalty of death. But
the date is important because of the inquiry insisted on by the
governor of the Castle, when the Chapter of the Cathedral claimed his
release by exercising their famous Privilege. When the dispute was
referred to Philip Augustus, who was naturally anxious to conciliate
the powerful clergy in his new domains, the chevalier Richard (who was
the military protector of the abbey of St. Medard at Soissons), was
given to the canons, and in gratitude for this escape from mortal
peril,[22] he granted the Cathedral the perpetual rent upon his public
mill.

[Footnote 22: "Cum essem in periculo corporis mei in regio carcere
apud Rothomagum detentus," he says.]

From this case it is clear that so glaring a renunciation of the
incommunicable sovereign rights of life and death could only have been
successfully obtained by the regular intercession made to each duke
for the release of one prisoner every year; and the origin of that
intercession can be explained with perfect probability by the
persistent mediaeval custom of the "Mysteries" or Miracle Plays, which
came into fashion as soon as the confreries of various trades had been
consolidated, just about the time the craft guilds appeared in
England, in 1130, a date that fits in very well with the beginning of
St. Romain's "privilege." These Mysteries or Miracle Plays were, as
has been noticed, often performed in the Parvis of the Cathedral, and
their first object was to re