lls, where appeals to the court of Rome
against assassinations, violations, incests, adulteries, recur on
almost every page. It is easy to see that even an Innocent III. might
feel himself helpless and tempted to yield to discouragement, in the
face of so many ills.[10]

The best spirits were turning toward the Orient, asking themselves if
perchance the Greek Church might not suddenly come forward to purify all
these abuses, and receive for herself the inheritance of her sister.[11]

The clergy, though no longer respected, still overawed the people
through their superstitious terror of their power. Here and there might
have been perceived many a forewarning of direful revolts; the roads to
Rome were crowded with monks hastening to claim the protection of the
Holy See against the people among whom they lived. The Pope would
promptly declare an interdict, but it was not to be expected that such a
resource would avail forever.[12]

To maintain the privileges of the Church the papacy was often obliged to
spread the mantle of its protection over those who deserved it least.
Its clients were not always as interesting as the unfortunate
Ingelburge. It would be easier to give unreserved admiration to the
conduct of Innocent III. if in this matter one could feel certain that
his only interest was to maintain the cause of a poor abandoned woman.
But it is only too evident that he desired above all to keep up the
ecclesiastical immunities. This is very evident in his intervention in
favor of Waldemar, Bishop of Schleswig.

Yet we must not assume that all was corrupt in the bosom of the Church;
then, as always, the evil made more noise than the good, and the voices
of those who desired a reformation aroused only passing interest.

Among the populace there was superstition unimaginable; the pulpit,
which ought to have shed abroad some little light, was as yet open only
to the bishops, and the few pastors who did not neglect their duty in
this regard accomplished very little, being too much absorbed in other
duties. It was the birth of the mendicant orders which obliged the
entire body of secular clergy to take up the practice of preaching.

Public worship, reduced to liturgical ceremonies, no longer preserved
anything which appealed to the intelligence; it was more and more
becoming a sort of self-acting magic formula. Once upon this road, the
absurd was not far distant. Those who deemed themselves pious told of
miracles perfo