ve,
passionate, fantastic movements which were born, shot upward, and fell
to earth again, at the caprice of a thousand incomprehensible
circumstances. In certain counties of England there are at the present
day villages having as many as eight and ten places of worship for a few
hundreds of inhabitants. Many of these people change their denomination
every three or four years, returning to that they first quitted, leaving
it again only to enter it anew, and so on as long as they live. Their
leaders set the example, throwing themselves enthusiastically into each
new movement only to leave it before long. They would all alike find it
difficult to give an intelligible reason for these changes. They say
that the Spirit guides them, and it would be unfair to disbelieve them,
but the historian who should investigate conditions like these would
lose his head in the labyrinth unless he made a separate study of each
of these Protean movements. They are surely not worth the trouble.

In a somewhat similar condition was a great part of Christendom under
Innocent III.; but while the sects of which I have just spoken move in a
very narrow circle of dogmas and ideas, in the thirteenth century every
sort of excess followed in rapid succession. Without the slightest
pause of transition men passed through the most contradictory systems of
belief. Still, a few general characteristics may be observed; in the
first place, heresies are no longer metaphysical subtleties as in
earlier days; Arius and Priscillian, Nestorius and Eutychus are dead
indeed. In the second place, they no longer arise in the upper and
governing class, but proceed especially from the inferior clergy and the
common people. The blows which actually threatened the Church of the
Middle Ages were struck by obscure laboring men, by the poor and the
oppressed, who in their wretchedness and degradation felt that she had
failed in her mission.

No sooner was a voice uplifted, preaching austerity and simplicity, than
it drew together not the laity only, but members of the clergy as well.
Toward the close of the twelfth century we find a certain Pons rousing
all Perigord, preaching evangelical poverty before the coming of St.
Francis.[14]

Two great currents are apparent: on one side the Cathari, on the other,
innumerable sects revolting from the Church by very fidelity to
Christianity and the desire to return to the primitive Church.

Among the sects of the second category