Activity and zeal for proselytism form another relation between the two reformations. Both began at a period when the human mind, eager for instruction, examined all that it had found established; demanded a reason for all obedience; and, at the same time that it overturned ancient civil dominations, to establish new ones, it also interrogated the ecclesiastical powers, to ascertain their foundation. The adoption of the reformed opinion did not immediately announce itself as a heresy; it was, in the eyes of the initiated, only a project of sanctification; it was an engagement to greater zeal, to severer morals, to higher sacrifices, to a more constant occupation with spiritual things. Since many prelates of the church had given the example of such reform, those who followed them did not consider themselves as going astray; and Rome herself had sometimes considered the paterins, the catharins, the poor of Lyon, and all those new religious societies, as so many orders of monks who were rousing the fervour of the public, and who never thought of shaking off her yoke. Innocent III, who, ascended the pontifical throne in the vigour of his age, was the first who appeared to feel the importance of that independent spirit which was already degenerating into revolt. His predecessors, engaged in a perilous struggle with the two Henrys, and Frederic Barbarossa, thought their

& Muratori Antiq. Ital. Dissert. 60, tom. v, p. 83.

entire force not too much to defend them against the emperors; and, in those times, had themselves accepted the name of paterins, which had been given to their most zealous partisans. But Innocent III, whose genius at once embraced and governed the universe, was as incapable of temporising as he was of pity. At the same time that he destroyed the political balance of Italy and Germany; that he menaced by turns the kings of Spain, of France, and of England; that he affected the tone of a master with the kings of Bohemia, of Hungary, of Bulgaria, of Norway, and of Armenia; in a word, that he directed or repressed at his will the Crusaders, who were occupied in overturning the Greek empire and in establishing that of the Latins at Constantinople;-Innocent III, as if he had had no other occupation, watched over, attacked, and punished, all opinions different from those of the Roman church, all independence of mind, every exercise of the faculty of thinking in the affairs of religion.R

Though it was in the countries where the provençal language was spoken, and especially in Languedoc, that the reformation of the Paterins had made the greatest progress, it had also spread rapidly in other parts of Christendom, in Italy, in

7 Arnulphi Hist. Mediol, lib. iv, c. xi, p. 39. Landulphi Senior. Hist, Mediol. Prolog. 57. In Muratori Script. Ital. tom. iv.

8 See the immense collection of the letters of Innocent III, in 16 books, of which each contains more than 100 letters: A Steph. Balusio edit. 2 vols. in fol. 1682: see also the most important in Raynaldi Annal. Eccles.

Flanders, in Lorraine, in Germany, and in Spain. Innocent III, both from character and policy, judged that the church ought to keep no measures with the sectaries; that, if it did not crush them, if it did not exterminate their race, and strike Christendom with terror, their example would soon be followed, and that the fermentation of mind, which was every where manifest, would shortly produce a conflagration throughout the Roman world. Instead therefore of making converts, he charged his ministers to burn the leaders, to disperse the flocks, and to confiscate the property of every one who would not think as he did. At first, he required of those provinces, where the reformation had made but small progress, to give the example of persecution; and, in reality, many leaders of the new church perished in the flames at Nevers, in 1198 and the following years. The emperor Otho IV, who regarded himself as a creature of Innocent III, granted him an edict for the destruction of the paterins, called also Gazari, in Italy. But there was a certain number of lords and high barons, who had themselves adopted the new opinions, and who, instead of consent

9 The Albigenses, about the year 1200, made proselytes at Metz; and circulated there the sacred Scriptures, translated from the Latin into the Roman language. Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine, tom. ii, liv. xxii, ch. cxxiv, p. 199.

1 Hist. de Languedoc, liv. xxi, p. 130. Pagi critica ad ann. 1179, § vi, p. 656.

2 Edictum Ferrariæ promulgatum, 1210; apud Muratorii Antiq. Ital. dissert. Ix, p. 89, 90.

ing to persecute, protected the sectaries. Others saw in them only industrious vassals, whom they could not destroy without affecting their own revenues and power. Innocent III, therefore, sought to arm a present interest, and brutal avarice, against this calculating economy of the barons. He abandoned to them the confiscation of all the heretics' property, and exhorted them to take possession of it, after they had banished those whom they had plundered, and threatened them with death if they returned to their homes. At the same time, Innocent III, laid under an anathema those of the lords who should refuse to seize upon the property of the heretics, and placed their dominions under an interdict.3

The province of Narbonne was more particularly the object of Innocent's attention. In the year 1193, the first of his pontificate, he sent into it two monks of Citeaux, brother Guy and brother Regnier, who may be considered as having laid the foundations of the Inquisition. Their commission was to discover and pursue heresy; being invested, for that purpose, with all the authority of the holy See. The following year the pope named brother Regnier his legate in the four provinces of Embrun, Aix, Arles, and Narbonne, and enjoined upon the four archbishops, and all the bishops, to execute scrupulously

3 Innocentii III Epistolæ, lib. i, epist. 81, 82. 95. 165. Raynaldi Ann. 1198. § 36, 37, p. 11.

the orders of this monk. Regnier having fallen sick, Innocent joined to him Peter of Castelnau, archdeacon of Maguelonne, whose zeal, more furious than that of his predecessors, is worthy of those sentiments which the very name of the inquisition inspires.*

The mission of the pope's commissaries, or inquisitors, was not however limited to scrutinizing the consciences of the heretics, confiscating their property, banishing, or sending them to the stake; they traversed the province, accompanied by a number of friars, who arrived successively to their aid; they preached and disputed against those who had wandered from the faith; and especially, when the lord of the place favoured the new opinions, not being able to employ force, they had recourse to the power of their disputations. They caused judges of these intellectual combats, to be named, beforehand, and, if we may believe their own relations, they always came off victorious. Accustomed to the subtilties of the schools, they pressed their adversaries with captious questions, or unlooked for conclusions, and not unfrequently led them to absurd declarations. Diego d'Azebez, bishop of Ozma, and his companion St. Dominic, under-prior of his cathedral, who, about the year 1204, fixed themselves in the province, to preach against the heretics, had much success in this kind of disputation; it even appears that

4 Hist. Gen. de Languedoc, liv. xxi, p. 131.