of the nobles, from the power of the priests, and from the power of the proprietors of the soil, who claimed, also, a property in the persons of their villains. But in this state of universal suffering, the people of France, as well as those of the rest of Europe, appeared to resign themselves to the ills which were inflicted on their bodies, and only demanded liberty for their souls. The sanctuary of conscience was the only one the entrance to which they still endeavoured to defend, surrounded as they were by such a host of tyrannies. We cannot reflect without emotion, that tormented by necessities, by cares, and by sorrows, the independence of the mind was the only boon they demanded, and that this was refused them by their suspicious masters, with the same unfeeling cruelty as the rest.

1231-1236. The reform which had commenced in Albigeois had been extinguished there by the arms of half Europe. Blood never ceased to flow, nor the flames to devour their victims in these provinces now abandoned to the dark fanaticism of the inquisitors. But that terror which had dispersed the heretics, had also scattered sparks through all Europe, by which the torch of reason might be again rekindled. No voice, no outward appearance announced the preaching of reform, or troubled the public tranquillity. Yet, the proscribed Albigenses, who, far from their country, had found an asylum in the cottage of the peasant, or the poor artisan, whose labours they shared in profound obscurity, had taught. their hosts to read the gospel in common, to pray in their native tongue without the ministry of

priests, to praise God, and gratefully submit to the chastisements which his hand inflicted, as the means of their sanctification. In vain did the inquisition believe that it had compelled human reason to submission, and established an invariable rule of faith. In the midst of the darkness which it had created, it saw, all at once, some luminous points appear where it would least have expected them. Its efforts to extinguish, served only to scatter them, and no sooner had it conquered, than it was compelled to renew the combat.

Gregory IX, who had deemed the very soil of Languedoc polluted, by its having produced so many sectaries, and that the count of Toulouse could not be innocent, whilst he had so many heretics amongst his subjects, all at once discovered, with alarm, that even at Rome he was surrounded with heretics. To give an example to Christendom, he caused a great number of them to be burned before the gates of Santa Maria Majora; he afterwards imprisoned, in the convents of la Cava, and of the Monte Cassino, those who were priests or clerks, and who had been publicly degraded, with those that had given signs of penitence.* At the same time, he caused the senator of Rome to promulgate an edict, which determined the different punishments to be assigned to the heretics, to those who encouraged them, to those who should give them an asylum, and to those who neglected to accuse them; always dividing the confiscations between the spy

* Raynaldi Annal. Eccles. A. 1231, xiii et xiv, p. 415. Richardi de Sanc. Germano Chr. t. vii, p. 1206. Vita Gregorii IX, Car dinala. Aragonio. t. iii, p. 578.

who denounces, and the judge who condemns, that the scaffolds might never be left without victims; a combination which the Roman court has not renounced to this day.* He sent the senators' edict and his own bull to the archbishop of Milan, to engage him to follow his example. He afterwards profited by his recent reconciliation with Frederic II, to announce to him, that Catharins, Paterins, Poor of Lyons, and other heretics, formed in the school of the Albigenses, had, at the same time, appeared in Lombardy and in the two Sicilies, and to obtain from his friendship an edict which has gained him the eulogium of the annalist of the church, and has been deposited in the pontifical archives. By this edict, the emperor commanded all podestats and other judges, immediately to deliver to the flames every man who should be convicted of heresy by the bishop of his diocese, and to pull out the tongue of those to whom the bishop should think it proper to show favour, that they might not corrupt others, by attempting to justify themselves.† After having thus raged in Italy against the fugitive Albigenses and their disciples, Gregory IX did not forget to pursue them in France. He wrote to the archbishop of Bourges, and to the bishop of Auxerre, to exhort them to show themselves worthy of the sacred ordination they had received, by committing to the flames all the heretics that had been discovered at la Charité upon the Loire.‡

Capitula Annibaldi Senatoris ap. Raynaldi. Ann. Eccles. 1231, 16 et 17.

Raynaldi Annal, Eccles. 1231, § 18.

Ibid, § 23.

The pope might have concluded, from seeing the apostles of the Albigensian reformation spread through a great part of Europe, that he had but ill served his church, by granting them no respite in their own country. He did not, however, reason thus, but on the contrary, endeavoured to redouble the ardour of the persecutions in the countship of Toulouse, by giving Raymond VII to expect that he would, on this condition, restore to him the marquisate of Provence. Raymond, either converted or terrified, no longer refused any act of inquisition or of cruelty against his unhappy subjects. In 1232 he consented to associate himself with the new bishop of Toulouse, to surprise by night a house in which they discovered nineteen relapsed men and women, whom they caused to perish in the flames.* Notwithstanding this shameful condescension, the condition of count Raymond was scarcely ameliorated. Sometimes he was suspected by the bishops of his states, of not seconding them sincerely in their persecutions. Sometimes it pleased them to humble him, only to imitate their predecessors, or perhaps, to enrich themselves with his spoils. Gregory IX was himself obliged to recommend him to the bishop of Tournay, his legate in the province, inviting him to water him kindly, as a young plant, and to nourish him with the milk of the church.'

6

Others of the Albigenses had found a refuge in the province of Gascony, which depended on

*Hist. de Languedoc, liv. xxiv, ch. lxxxi, p. 392.

+ Gregorii IX epistola in tom. XI. Concil. Labbei ep. xxiii, p. 361. ep. xxvii, p. 363.

the king of England, but where the authority of the government was almost absolutely disregarded, so that the heretics, masters of the strong castles, defended themselves by open force. Gregory IX wrote to the knights of Saint James of Galicia, to exterminate them with fire and sword, and he charged the archbishops of Auch and of Bourdeaux, to give every kind of succour to these knights.*

Rome was soon after alarmed by the news, that the same reform, which had been so often extinguished, yet was always breaking out afresh, had first appeared in the centre of Germany, and that the city of Stettin was subjected to those same heretics, who, as they thought, had been extirpated in Languedoc. Gregory addressed bulls to the bishops of Minden, of Lubeck, and of Rachhasbourg in Styria, to induce them to preach up a crusade against the heretics. In order to excite greater horror against these sectaries, the most fearful things were related concerning them, which excited as much astonishment as they did abomination. A hideous toad, said the pope, was presented at once to the adoration and the caresses of the initiated. The same being, who was no other than the devil, afterwards took, successively, different forms, all equally revolting, and all offered to the salutations of his worshippers. Such an accusation could not fail of success. The fanatics took arms in crowds, under

* Raynaldi Ann. Eccles. 1232, § xxvi, p. 430.

+ Raynaldi Ann. Eccles. 1232, § viii, 427.

Epistolæ Gregorii IX apud Raynald. Ann. Eccles.1233, § xlii,

p. 447.