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 244 General History of Europe the Church and cast off its authority were regarded as guilty of heresy, which was the supreme crime in the Middle Ages. It is very difficult for us who live in a time of religious tolera- tion to understand the universal and deep-rooted horror of heresy which long prevailed in Europe. But we must recollect that to the orthodox believer in the Church nothing could exceed the guilt of one who committed treason against God by rejecting the religion which had been handed down in the Roman Church from the im- mediate followers of his Son. Moreover, doubt and unbelief were not merely sin ; they were revolt against the most powerful social institution of the time, which continued to be venerated by people at large throughout western Europe. 396. The Waldensians. Among those who continued to accept the Christian faith but refused to obey the clefgy the most im- portant sect was that of the Waldensians, which took its rise about 1175. These were followers of Peter Waldo of Lyons, who gave up all their property and lived a life of apostolic poverty. They went about preaching the gospel and explaining the Scrip- tures, which they translated from Latin into the language of the people. 397. The Albigensians. On the other hand, there were popular leaders who taught that the Christian religion itself was false. They held that there were two principles in the universe, the good and the evil, which were forever fighting for the victory. They asserted that the Jehovah of the Old Testament was really the evil power, and that it was, therefore, the evil power whom the Catholic Church worshiped. These heretics were often called Albigensians, a name derived from the town of Albi in southern France, where they were very numerous. 398. The Albigensian Crusade (izos). In southern France there were many adherents of both the Albigensians and the Waldensians, especially in the county of Toulouse. Against the people of this flourishing land Pope Innocent III preached a cru- sade in 1208. An army marched from northern France into the doomed region and, after a bloody war, suppressed the heresy by wholesale slaughter. At the same time the war checked the