XII ” The former agreement which I made with thy divinely crowned Majesty at the time when, with a very numerous army of Franks, I stayed in the Royal City on my way from Europe to Asia for the liberation of Jerusalem, has become invalid owing to various vicissitudes, therefore it must be annulled and not be held effective since it is condemned as invalid because of the change of circumstances.
And thy Majesty must not have any rights against me because of it nor contend with me about the points agreed upon and written down in the same. For since I declared war against thy divinely appointed Empire and broke the agreement, thereby the charges held by thy Majesty against me were cancelled as well.
But now as if moved by remorse and like a stricken fisherman I have recovered my sanity and, I might almost say, been rendered more discreet by thy spear, remembering too the defeat and the wars of former years, I come to make this, the second agreement with thy Majesty by which I will become the liegeman of thy sceptre, or to express it more clearly and plainly, thy menial and subject, as thou too hast determined to drag me under thy right hand and art willing to make me thy hegeman.
Therefore from now on according to this second agreement, which I intend to observe for ever and so swear by God and all His saints, since with them as witnesses these presents are being written and said, I shall be the faithful liegeman of thy Majesty and of thy dearly loved son and sovereign lord, John Porphyrogenitus.
And I will arm my right hand against any who oppose thy power, be he who lifts his hands against thee of the Christian race or a stranger to our court, one of those whom we call ‘pagans.’ So that a clause which was contained m the aforementioned pact and pleased both parties, your Majesties and myself, that clause alone of all the others which have been annulled, I wish to transfer here and I insist and cling fast to it, namely that I shall be the slave and liegeman of both your Majesties, thus renewing as it were what had been abolished.
Golden Bull from thy Majesty
And, no matter what may happen, never will I disregard this clause; nor shall there be any clause or any means, open or secret, by which I shall be proved to have transgressed this treaty and this present agreement.
But since I am to receive a region, expressly to be named herein, in some district of the East by a Golden Bull from thy Majesty, signed by thy Majesty with thy signature in red ink, and a copy of this same Golden Bull will also be given to me, I receive the countries given to me as a gift from your Majesties: and my right to this gift derives force from this Golden Bull, and in return for these certain countries and towns I pledge my faith to your Majesties, that is to say, to thee, the great Emperor and Lord, Alexius Conmenus, and to thy thrice-longed-for son, the Emperor and Lord John Porphyrogenitus, and this faith I promise to maintain, like a firm anchor, unshaken and unmoved.
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