d you--as I behold you to-day!

Jacob of Vitry, a cultured French prelate, took a different view. He
inveighed against the "foolish poems, the lies of the poets, the
sing-song of the women, the coarse innuendoes of the jesters." "Such
vermin flourishes on the stream of temporal abundance; it literally
crawls over all food, for, as a rule, the meal is followed by a deluge
of idle talk." A reconciliation of the two worlds was impossible.

While the Waldenses flourished in Provence, various heretical sects
arose in the west of Germany and in the Netherlands; prominent among
them were the Apostolics, who took the Gospels literally, and introduced
communism and polygamy, and the communities of the Beghards and
Beguines, which roused little public attention, and did not aim at
reform, but advocated a life of contemplation. They found supporters in
all ranks of the community, and were connected with the later German
mystics. An indictment preserved for us proves the religious originality
of one of those sects, "The Brethren of the Free Spirit," who upheld the
heretical view that it were better that one man should attain to
spiritual perfection than that a hundred monasteries should be founded.
At the same time the inspired seer and hysterical nun, Hildegarde of
Bingen, wrote wild letters to the popes, denouncing the vice existing in
the Church and the degradation of religion. "But thou, oh Rome, who art
well-nigh at the point of death, thou wilt be shaken so that the
strength of thy feet shall forsake thee, because thou hast not loved the
royal maiden righteousness with an ardent love, but with the torpor of
sleep, and thou hast become a stranger to her. Therefore she will desert
thee if thou do not call her back." Pope Adrian IV. replied, almost
humbly: "We long to hear words of warning from you, because men say that
you are endowed with the spirit of the divine miracles." St. Bernard
craved Hildegarde's prayer, two emperors, popes, bishops and abbots
corresponded with her, requesting her prayer and advice, and the
interpretation of difficult passages of the Scriptures. Hildegarde
replied in an obscure, apocalyptical language: "In the mysteries of the
true wisdom have I seen and heard this."

Prophets predicting the revival of the Gospel of Christ and the
regeneration of the world appeared in the north and south. The Italian
monk and fanatic, Joachim of Floris (about A.D. 1200), preached that
this regeneration was predestin