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 jurisdiction, they have also liberated from the East, from Thrace, from Bulgaria, Constantinople, Dalmatia, Bosnia, and even from Asia Minor, a flood of hitherto concealed or imperfectly announced doctrines, dogmas, and communities that have spread far more widely and acceptably than we openly admit. Since the tenth century these doctrines have claimed attention and have kept the stake fires active everywhere, and although thousands have suffered by the fagot, the sword, and the dungeon, yet the pestilence has continually spread until it has reached from the western ocean to the holy see itself. The heretics have bishops and popes, churches and castles. They are as numerous as the sands. They hold great councils and infect provinces and cities.

“Our clergy have grown wealthy, and in too many cases, proud and immoral. The heretics have adopted that simple earnestness of preaching, and that air of sympathy with the poor that have wholly supplanted the church in the hearts of multitudes.

“The combined strength of the empire and of the hierarchy is imperatively necessary, or this perilous invasion will overwhelm us.”

“I fear that commendable zeal surpasses dutiful discretion, Brother Primus,” interposed Bruno with a severe look. “A century ago such apprehensions were justifiable. But the illustrious Innocent, of divine memory, gathered the forces of the church, and the chief power of the heretics in Albigensium fell utterly before them. Rulers have taken warning by these merited punishments to eradicate heresy