INTRODUCTION. 25 
He was king de jure, if not defacto. And it is 
plain from the ancient writers that he was so styled 
and considered 46, Peter Diaconus, whose work was 
taken from the records of the abbey of mount 
Casino, expressly calls him king of England, Rod- 
bertus rex Anglorum, and relates, that he sent 
ambassadors to the monastery, with the present of a 
golden cup to saint Benedict, requesting the monks 
to pray for the good estate of his kingdom. 
3. There is the internal evidence arising from the 
recipe for the cure of a fistula, the only prescription 
of a very professional nature contained in the poem, 
and for which it would be difficult to assign a reason 
unless it were written for the use of a person who 
laboured under that complaint. 
In some of the copies of the Regimen Sanitatis it 
is dedicated to a king of France : 
© Pagi in Ann. — vol. vi. p. 298, follows Muratori, 
without assigning any re 
Regnum Anglia ipsi sy we duci ate 2 tam jure 
esaurarius. 
ut — se atque pro statu regni sui domini oe exorarent, 
to Benedicto = 
- dirigere studuit. Pet. Diaconus, lib, iv. cap. Ixiii. p. 
D 
