until the reformation the chief offices in the church and in the ftate. The popes, whose policy had long been accustomed to favour the monks, in order to prefs down into due fubordination the influence and authority of bishops; warmly patronised the Dominicans and the Francifcans. The protection was abundantly repaid by ceaseless exertions for the extension of the papal Thefe exertions came very oppower. portunely. Heretics, that is to say, opponents of Rome, confifting partly of the Albigenfes and fimilar fects, partly of blind or criminal fanaties, fwarmed on all fides. Against these enemies the Dominicans in particular, whofe avowed object was to extirpate error and to destroy heretics, declared war, This expreffion was by no means figurative. Innocent III., exafperated at the unwillingness or the incapacity of the bishops to reprefs the numerous adversaries of popery in Savoy, Dauphinè, and the reft of the dominions

of

of Raymond earl of Thoulouse, dispatched thither special legates for the extirpation of herefy. They were joined, A. D. 1206, by Dominic; and by the fole authority of the pope inflicted capital punishment on those whom they could not reclaim. They were speedily distinguished by the appellation of inquifitors. Senfible of the value of their fervices, fucceeding pontiffs eftablifhed fimilar officers in every fufpected city, and reduced the fyftem into form. Gregory IX., however, A. D. 1233, committed the inquifitorial office and jurisdiction exclusively to the Dominicans. Thus arofe the tremendous tribunal of the inquifition; which foon renouncing the common forms of trial borrowed at first from courts of justice, arrayed itself in darkness, and let loofe its merciless tortures on the flighteft fufpicion of guilt. But with respect to the heretics of Thoulouse, Innocent waited not for the tardy operations of these minifters of vengeance. The extirpation by fire and fword of the de

voted victims he committed, A. D. 1207, to the king of France and his armies, under the promife of the most ample indulgences: and fhortly afterwards commiffioned the Ciftercian monks to proclaim, as from himself, throughout France, this crufade against Christians. A formidable army of cross-bearers took the field, A.D. 1209, under the eye of a papal legate, and the command of Simon earl of Montfort. Raymond, at one time trembling under excommunication, at another provoked to defperation by the ambitious defigns of Montfort, was alternately the destroyer and the defender of his fubjects. The war, in which Louis IX. ultimately embarked with the utmoft ardour, continued many years with various fuccefs, but with unrelenting barbarity againft the oppofers of the pontiff. Victory at length crowned the fupporters of the church. And the earl of Thoulouse faw the pious labours of the pope and the French king re

warded

warded with no fmall portions of his dominions (7).

(n) In this century Robert Greathead, bishop of Lincoln, distinguished himself by his exertions against papal tyranny and the vices of ecclefiaftics. Matthew Paris,

a cotemporary monk of St. Albans, relates his dying. difcourfes, in which the prelate ftigmatifed the pope as an heretic and antichrift; and concludes with ftyling him "the refuter of the pope, reprover of prelates, corrector "of monks, director of priests, inftructor of the clergy, " and the hammer to beat down the Romans into con"tempt." When excommunicated by the pope, he appealed to the tribunal of Chrift. See bithop Newton's Differtations, vol. iii. p. 181.

CHAP. XI.

CONTINUATION

OF CHRISTIAN

TORY TO THE PRESENT TIME.

HIS

THOUGH the Christian world had ftill continued, during the two preceding centuries, overwhelmed with the darknefs of papal night; fome glimmerings of twilight had begun to appear. We now advance to times in which the indications of approaching dawn continually grew ftronger; until at length it broke forth and brightened into the radiance of perfect day.

During the fourteenth century feveral pontiffs laboured to rekindle the flame of the crufades against the Saracens. But, after feveral antecedent difappointments, they had the mortification to see the last of the armies about to be embarked for Palestine difperfed, A. D. 1363, by the death of its leader John, king of France.