sts who after this ceremony placed themselves in
_endura_--that is to say, they starved themselves to death in order not
to descend from this state of grace.

In Languedoc, where this sect went by the name of Albigenses, they had
an organization which embraced all Central Europe, and everywhere
supported flourishing schools attended by the children of the nobles. In
Italy they were hardly less powerful; Concorrezo, near Monza in
Lombardy, and Bagnolo, gave their names to two congregations slightly
different from those in Languedoc.[24]

But it was especially from Milan[25] that they spread abroad over all
the Peninsula, making proselytes even in the most remote districts of
Calabria. The state of anarchy prevailing in the country was very
favorable to them. The papacy was too much occupied in baffling the
spasmodic efforts of the Hohenstaufen, to put the necessary perseverance
and system into its struggles against heresy. Thus the new ideas were
preached under the very shadow of the Lateran; in 1209, Otho IV., coming
to Rome to be crowned, found there a school in which Manicheism was
publicly taught.[26]

With all his energy Innocent III. had not been able to check this evil
in the States of the Church. The case of Viterbo tells much of the
difficulty of repressing it; in March, 1199, the pope wrote to the
clergy and people of this town to recall to their minds, and at the same
time to increase, the penalties pronounced against heresy. For all that,
the Patarini had the majority in 1205, and succeeded in naming one of
themselves consul.[27]

The wrath of the pontiff at this event was unbounded; he fulminated a
bull menacing the city with fire and sword, and commanding the
neighboring towns to throw themselves upon her if within a fortnight she
had not given satisfaction.[28] It was all in vain: the Patarini were
dealt with only as a matter of form; it needed the presence of the pope
himself to assure the execution of his orders and obtain the demolition
of the houses of the heretics and their abettors (autumn of 1207).[29]

But stifled at one point the revolt burst out at a hundred others; at
this moment it was triumphant on all sides; at Ferrara, Verona, Rimini,
Florence, Prato, Faenza, Treviso, Piacenza. The clergy were expelled
from this last town, which remained more than three years without a
priest.[30]

Viterbo is twenty leagues from Assisi, Orvieto only ten, and
disturbances in this town were equally grav