228 Chaucer's Knight and his Exploits in the South 



to say that the King of France and he had established a truce and 

 peace between themselves for three years,'- and that, with reference 

 to certain matters that they had to settle, power had been given from 

 the King of England to the Earl of Derby. Hence it was necessary 

 that he should be at the Court of Rome by a certain day, and that 

 God knew it grieved them much to depart at this time, for their 

 desire was to remain with the king until the Moors came to battle, 

 or till the king was able to recover the city of Algeciras. And when 

 the king had listened to them, he thanked them heartily for their 

 words, and for the service they had performed, adding that they 

 were at liberty to depart when they pleased. And so they took their 

 leave,' great friends of the king.' 



Belmarye. Froissart's Bellemarine, Belmarin, Bellemari. 

 Rather the name of a tribe, the Bene-Marin, than a territory. 

 This tribe flourished between 121 3 and 1524, so that this period 

 has been called the Marini, or Merinide period, succeeding to 

 that of the Almohades. Having already possessed Eastern 

 Morocco, or the kingdom of Fez, they annexed Western Morocco, 

 or the kingdom of Marrakesh, by 1258. They conquered Tlem- 

 <;en in 1337, under Ali V, or Abu-'l-Hassan (reigned 1331-1351), 

 and occupied it till 1359, when it reverted to the Beni Zeeyan, 

 from whom it had been wrested, and remained in their possession 



till 1553.' 



Of Yakub II (reigned 1258-1286) it is said that he had much 

 friendly intercourse with Europe.'* 



Abd-el-Aziz I (reigned 1366- 1372) 'entertained relations with 

 Edward the Black Prince, who then ruled at Bordeaux'® (hence 



*But this had been done on Jan. 19 (Diet. Nat. Biog. 17. 57). 



* Derby is said to have returned to England about Nov. i (Diet. Nat. 

 Biog. 26. 102). 



'Qf. Cronica, p. 571: 'And when the Moors came to Gibraltar (Sep- 

 tember ?), the Earl of Derby had been gone for some days, and the Earl 

 of Salisbury had remained ill at Seville.* 



*Meakin; Eneye. Brit., nth ed., 18. 856. 



' Meakin, p. 94. He adds : 'On one occasion the river at Salli was 

 so full of foreign ships that there were said to be more strange sailors 

 there than resident natives, so during Ramadan the foreigners seized the 

 town, entering by a breach in the wall, though after fourteen days the 

 Moors retook it.' He also tells of a descent made by foreigners on 

 Laraiche (a seaport on the Atlantic) in 1270 (ib., note). The wife of 

 Ali V seems to have been a Christian. She died in 1349-50, and a 

 beautiful tribute to her memory is printed by Meakin (pp. 104-5). 



"Meakin, pp. 105-6. 



