Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/209

 THE CATHARAN CHURCHES. I93 instance of the bishop, to return to the Church, and also those who publicly supported them."^ Although Stephen of Bourbon relates that a converted heretic informed him that in Milan there were no less than seventeen heterodox sects which bitterly disputed with each other, yet they can, as in France, be reduced to two main classes— Cat hari, or Pa- tarins, and Waldenses. The Cathari, it will be remembered, made their appearance in the first half of the eleventh century, at Mon- f orte, in Lombardy, and they had continued to multiply since then. About the middle of the thirteenth century Eainerio Sac- €one gives us an enumeration of their churches. In Lombardy and the Marches there were about five hundred perfected Cathari of the Albanensian sect, more than fifteen hundred Concorrezenses, and about two hundred Bajolenses. The Church of Yicenza reckoned about a hundred ; there were as many in Florence and Spoleto, and in addition about one hundred and fifty refugees from France in Lombardy. As he estimates the total number, from Constantinople to the Pyrenees, at four thousand, with a countless congregation of believers, it will be seen that nearly two thirds of the whole number were concentrated in northern Italy, chiefly in Lombardy, and that they constituted a notable portion of the population.f Lombardy, in fact, was the centre whence Catharism was propagated throughout Europe. We have seen above how for more than half a century it served as a refuge to the persecuted saints of Languedoc, and as a source whence to draw missionaries and teachers. About 1240 a certain Yvo of Narbonne was false- ly accused of heresy and fled to Italy, where he was received as a martyr, and had full opportunity of penetrating into the secrets of the sectaries. In a letter to Geraud, Archbishop of Bordeaux, he describes their thorough organization throughout Italy, with ramifications extending into all the neighboring lands. From all the cities of Lombardy and Tuscany their youth were sent to Paris to perfect themselves in logic and theology, so as to be able successfully to defend their errors. Catharan merchants LX. (T. XII. p. 447). t D'Argentrg, Coll. Judic. de novis Error. I. i. 86.— Reinerii Summa (Martene Thesaur. V. 1767). II.— 13
 * Caesar. Heisterbacens. Dial. Mirac. Dist. v. c. 25.— Muratori Antiq Ital Diss