Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/202

 186 POLITICAL HERESY.— THE CHURCH. his aid with bulls addressed to the Bishops of Minden, Lubeck, and Yerden, ordering them to preach the cross against the rebels. In these there is nothing said about tithes, but the Stedingers are de- scribed as heretics of the worst description, who deny God, wor- ship demons, consult seeresses, abuse the sacrament, make wax figurines to destroy their enemies, and commit the foulest excesses on the clergy, sometimes nailing priests to the wall with arms and legs spread out, in derision of the Crucified. Gregory's long pon- tificate was devoted to two paramount objects — the destruction of Frederic II. and the suppression of heresy. The very name of heretic seemed to awake in him a wrath which deprived him of all reasoning powers, and he threw himself into the contest with the unhappy peasants of the Weser marshes as unreservedly as he did into that which Conrad of Marburg was contemporaneously wag- ing with the powers of darkness in the Rhinelands. In January, 1233, he wrote to the Bishops of Paderborn, Hildesheim, Yerden, Miinster, and Osnabriick, ordering them to assist their brethren of Ratzeburg, Minden, and Lubeck, whom he had commissioned to preach a crusade, with full pardons, against the heretics called Stedingers, who were destroying the faithful people of those re- gions. An army had meanwhile been collected which accom- plished nothing during the winter against the steadfast resolution of the peasants, and dispersed on the expiration of its short term of service. In a papal epistle of June 17, 1233, to the Bishops of Minden, Lubeck, and Ratzeburg, this lack of success is represented as resulting from a mistaken belief on the part of the crusaders that they were not getting the same indulgences as those granted for the Holy Land, leading them to withdraw after gaining decisive advantages. The bishops are therefore ordered to preach a new crusade in which there shall be no error as to the pardons to be earned, unless meanwhile the Stedingers shall submit to the arch- bishop and abandon their heresies. Already, however, another band of crusaders had been organized, which, towards the end of June, 1233, penetrated eastern Steding, on the right bank of the Weser. This district had hitherto kept aloof from the strife, and was defenceless. The crusaders devastated the land with fire and sword, slaying without distinction of age or sex, and manifesting their religious zeal by burning all the men who were captured. The crusade came to an inglorious end, however ; for, encouraged