Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV THE ALBIGENSES SIEGE OF AVIGNON BY LOUIS VIII END OF THE REPUBLIC OF AVIGNON But evil days were in store for the proud republic ] of Avignon and the fair lands of the South. In 1165 a council was held under the presidency of the Archbishop of Narbonnc at the little town of Lombers, near Albi, to try certain sectaries known as the Boni homines, who were accused of heresy : the " Good Men " were convicted and ordered to return to the unity of the Church ; and since the Latin form of Albi was Albigesium, the term Albigenses became applied to these and other sectaries. The Poor Men of Lyons, the Waldenses, the Cathari, revivals of the smoulderingArian and Manichaean hcrcsiesof southern Gaul, rapidly assumed alarming proportions, and neither the preaching nor the miracles of St. BernardJ availed to stem the tide of advancing schism.jThe social atmosphere, the culture, the intellectual freedom, the wealth and luxury of Provence ; the artistic and emotional temperament of the Proven9al race and their intimate relation with Arab and Jewish thought, formed a fertile soil whereon the seeds of heresy rapidly germinated. The vices, too, of the southern ecclesiastics, many of whom had lost all moral influence over the people, formed a striking contrast with the simple lives and austere characters of the sectaries, and helped not a little to foster that " inconceivable obstinacy " which the zealous Catholic Missionaries never ceased to deplore in their letters to Rome. Daring attacks on the prelates and clergy were made by the Troubadours. The ignorance of the secular clergy ; the luxurious lives of the prelates, their fcmmcs tfo,Kftfs, tKcnTrTcK apparel, their red wine and the wealth of those who styled themselves servants of a God that chose to live a life of poverty, b...