5. Arnold of Brescia, a pupil of Abelard, who travelled in various parts of Italy, France, and Germany, denouncing infant baptism, rejecting the Eucharist, assailing the wealth of the Church, lashing the vices of the clergy, and organising associations of "Poor Men" until he was finally hanged, then burnt, and his ashes thrown into the Tiber.[559:3]
6. Peter Waldo of Lyons, a rich but ignorant merchant, who from a study of the New Testament was led, after providing for his family, to give all his possessions to the poor.[559:4] He became an ardent preacher, won converts, and sent them out as proselyting missionaries. He and his followers refused obedience to Pope and prelates saying all good men were priests, permitted women to preach, declared God and not man should be obeyed, rejected masses and prayers for the
dead as useless, denied purgatory, assailed indulgences, advocated non-resistance, denounced war and homicide, attacked all the vices of the day, and organised "The Poor Men of Lyons" which order soon spread under the name Waldenses all over Europe.[560:1]
7. The Catharists who appeared during the Middle Ages in Lombardy in the eleventh century and soon spread over western Europe and became very powerful. They were dualists believing in God and Satan, the spiritual and the physical, the good and the bad. They held that Christ came to overthrow Satan and that the Roman Church was the latter's seat. They rejected the authority and doctrines of the Church and had a distinct ritual of their own. Soon they broke up into different sects with different names and were known in southern France as Albigenses.[560:2]
Innocent III.'s theory of the Papacy clearly indicated his duty about heresy and the co-operation which he might demand of the secular powers.[560:3] In the first year of his pontificate (1198) heretics were offered the choice of recantation or death.[560:4] The clergy were likewise ordered to mend their ways in order to remove the cause of heresy.[560:5] Two Inquisitors-General were sent to Spain and France where the clergy were directed to give them information about heresy, and the rulers and laity were asked to help the "Persecution."[560:6] As a result a number of heretics were put to death in Spain, southern France, and Italy. The following year (1199) the Pope appointed an additional Inquisitor-General
for Italy and added a third for France and Spain. They were all kept very busy.
In 1207 Innocent in person led a force against the heretics at Viterbo in Italy. The heretics fled but their houses were torn down, their property confiscated, and a search made for suspects. An edict was also passed decreeing that heretics should be treated as outcasts, that they should be seized and given up to secular rulers, that their property should be confiscated, that their hiding places should be razed to the ground, that their protectors or sympathisers should forfeit one fourth of their property and be outlawed, and that rulers refusing to execute the decree should be excommunicated.[561:1] The same year a similar edict was issued against the heretics in southern France. To all who executed the decree were offered indulgences like those given devout visitors to the shrines of the Apostles Peter and James. On the other hand those who aided heretics were to suffer the same punishment.[561:2]
Innocent appointed a fourth Inquisitor-General and sent him to the French King to urge him to help exterminate the heretics. The powers of the Inquisitors at the same time were enlarged. The Pope now decreed a general war against "the enemies of God and man." The King of France was called upon to draw the sword, while the nobles and people were summoned to the new crusade with promises of the same indulgences as given to those who went as soldiers to Palestine.[561:3] Count Raymond of Toulouse was harshly excommunicated and deposed. This new holy
war with Simon de Montfort as leader, was preached amidst much enthusiasm. A bloody war of extermination was carried on for some years in southern France until the Albigenses were all but extinct. As a result, the Pope's authority was greatly increased, Simon de Montfort was made Count of Toulouse, while Raymond was exiled to England, the precedent for using the crusading machinery against heretical regions was established, and the Inquisition was founded. The Lateran Council in 1215 defined heresy and formulated complete regulations for its suppression.[562:1]
Not only was Innocent III. a great defender of Church dogmas, a master-organiser of the hierarchy, and an administrator without a peer in Church history, but he was also a far-reaching and sincerely intelligent reformer. The judicial reforms were necessary to round out Innocent's theory of Church government. He claimed immediate, personal jurisdiction over all "causæ majores," such as disputes of the clergy, and all questions involving the interests of the Church or of churchmen. Consequently, the power of secular rulers over the clergy was curtailed. An appalling number of cases was sent for settlement to the curia at Rome and cases there were decided with a speed and punctuality hitherto unknown. Innocent III. personally "held court" three days each week, heard all important cases and rendered the decisions.[562:2] On the other hand unimportant cases were turned over to committees under his eye. He insisted upon having honest judges all over Christendom for minor cases and enforced his will by making an appeal to Rome simple, easy, and inexpensive.[562:3] All bribes and gifts to