ecting Iria
likewise to Compostella. In the same council I, Turpin, Archbishop of
Rheims, together with forty other Bishops and Prelates, dedicated, by
the King's command, the church and altar of St. James, with extraordinary
splendour and magnificence. All Spain and Gallicia were made subject to
this holy place: it was moreover endowed with four pieces of money from
every house throughout the kingdom, and at the same time totally freed
from the royal jurisdiction; being from that hour styled the Apostolic
See, as the body of the holy Apostle laid entombed within it. Here
likewise the general councils of Spain are held; the Bishops ordained,
and the Kings crowned by the hand of the Metropolitan Bishop, to the
Apostle's honour. Here too, when any crying sin is committed, or
innovations made in the faith and precepts of our Lord, through the
meritoriousness of this venerable edifice the grievance is discovered,
and atonement made. As the Eastern Apostolic See was established by St.
John, the brother of St. James, at Ephesus, so was the Western
established by St. James.

And those Sees are undoubtedly the true Sees. Ephesus on the right hand
of Christ's earthly kingdom, and Compostella on the left, both which
fell to the share of the sons of Zebedee, according to their request.
There are, then, three Sees which are deservedly held pre-eminent, even
as our Lord gave the pre-eminence to the three Apostles, Peter, James,
and John, who first established them. And certainly these three places
should be deemed more sacred than others, where they preached, and
their bodies lie enshrined. Rome claims the superiority from Peter,
Prince of the Apostles. Compostella holds the second place from St.
James, the elder brother of St. John, and first inheritor of the crown of
martyrdom. He dignified it with his preaching, consecrated it with his
sepulchre, and ceases not to exalt it by miracles and dispensations of
mercy. The third See justly is Ephesus; for there St. John wrote his
gospel, "In the beginning was the Word," assembling there likewise the
bishops of the neighbouring cities, whom he calls Angels in the
Apocalypse. He established that church by his doctrines and miracles,
and there his body was entombed. If, therefore, any difficulty should
occur that cannot elsewhere be resolved, let it be brought before these
Sees, and it shall, by divine grace, be decided. As Gallicia was freed
in these early ages from the Saracen yoke, by t