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wooden bowl, as wcll as sonie pieces of vestments, all in the Treasury at the Cathedra], I enquired if there was any record of a sword having bcen found with him (as King John's sword was found on his body when his tomb in Worcester Cathedra! was opened, in 1742) but there was nonę. Even this left the theory still standing. It fell down only because of the wory casket bearing similar designs, as well as the sword in Finland. The theory was that thesc designs sym-bolised the trcaty which Hubert madę with Saladin, It is not possible that the Viking sword, or the stone of a century beforc the treaty was madę, could refer to the same thing. So it is not the sword of the great Hubert. Never mind - it is a splendid weapon, still in usable condition. It has three points of particular interest: its inlaid designs, the fact that the blade is a pattern-welded one which is unlikely to datę later than c. 850 (according to the present State of our knowledge), and thirdly that designs which, by analogy, are of a late llth century style had been added to the old blade. A word about these inlays will not be amiss. Mr. Shaffrey (who was responsible for the Hubert Walter theory) says that the arched figurę near the hilt repre-sents the main door of a church (he specifies the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, without giving any supporting evidence), that the lines parallel to the edges of the blade repre-sent the outer walls of the nave; that the two pairs of uprights signify the two priests and the two deacons who at that time (1195) administered that church; that the three stars (or suns?) between them represent the Trinity; and that the curious double conjoined cross - here is the bit most difficult to swallow - represents the treaty which Hubert madę with Saladin. One cross was supposed to be for the Christians who were allowed to worship in that church (for Saladin

Figurę 63. Pand from the ivory reliąuary ofSan Milian De La Cogolla, llth century.