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114 requiring all sheriffs to swear to the observance of the law, and to make all stewards of the barons and all knights and franc-tenants swear likewise — the first secular law on the subject in any statute-book since the fall of Kome. I have already mentioned the steadfastness with which the unfortunates endured their martyrdom. Stripped to the waist and soundly scourged, and branded on the forehead, they were sent adrift shelterless in the winter-time, and speedily, one by one, they miserably perished. England was not hospitable to heresy, and we hear little more of it there. Towards the close of the century some heretics were found in the province of York, and early in the next century a few were discovered in London, and one was burned ; but practically the orthodoxy of England was unsullied until the rise of Wickliffe.

Italy, as the channel through which the Bulgarian heresy passed to the West, was naturally deeply infected. Milan had the reputation of being its centre, whence missionaries were despatched to other lands, whither pilgrims resorted from the western kingdoms, and where originated the sinister term of Patarins, by which the Cathari became generally known to the people of Europe, Yet the popes, involved in a death-struggle