s views with incomparable vigor, without
seeming in the least to be preaching himself.

We must therefore neither isolate him from external influences nor show
him too dependent on them. During the period of his life at which we are
now arrived, 1205-1206, the religious situation of Italy must more than
at any other time have influenced his thought and urged him into the
path which he finally entered.

The morals of the clergy were as corrupt as ever, rendering any serious
reform impossible. If some among the heresies of the time were pure and
without reproach, many were trivial and impure. Here and there a few
voices were raised in protest, but the prophesyings of Gioacchino di
Fiore had no more power than those of St. Hildegarde to put a stop to
wickedness. Luke Wadding, the pious Franciscan annalist, begins his
chronicle with this appalling picture. The advance in historic research
permits us to retouch it somewhat more in detail, but the conclusion
remains the same; without Francis of Assisi the Church would perhaps
have foundered and the Cathari would have won the day. The _little poor
man_, driven away, cast out of doors by the creatures of Innocent III.,
saved Christianity.

We cannot here make a thorough study of the state of the Church at the
beginning of the thirteenth century; it will suffice to trace some of
its most prominent features.

The first glance at the secular clergy brings out into startling
prominence the ravages of simony; the traffic in ecclesiastical places
was carried on with boundless audacity; benefices were put up to the
highest bidder, and Innocent III. admitted that fire and sword alone
could heal this plague.[1] Prelates who declined to be bought by
_propinae_, fees, were held up as astounding exceptions![2]

"They are stones for understanding," it was said of the officers of the
Roman _curia_, "wood for justice, fire for wrath, iron for forgiveness;
deceitful as foxes, proud as bulls, greedy and insatiate as the
minotaur."[3] The praises showered upon Pope Eugenius III. for
rebuffing a priest who, at the beginning of a lawsuit, offered him a
golden mark, speak only too plainly as to the morals of Rome in this
respect.[4]

The bishops, on their part, found a thousand methods, often most out of
keeping with their calling, for extorting money from the simple
priests.[5] Violent, quarrelsome, contentious, they were held up to
ridicule in popular ballads from one end of Europe to the