urope. While the popes at times were victorious, the
result of their course was to cause a feeling of contempt for their
conduct, as well as of fear of their power.

The quarrel of Henry IV and Gregory VII, of Innocent III and John of
England, of Boniface and Philip the Fair, the Babylonian captivity, and
many lesser difficulties, had placed the papacy in a disreputable
light. Distrust, fear, and contempt for the infallible assumptions
were growing. The papacy had been turned into a political engine to
maintain the temporal possessions of the church and to increase its
temporal power. The selfishness of the ruling prince became uppermost
in all papal affairs, which was so different from the teachings of the
Christ who founded his kingdom on love that the contrast became
observable, and even painful, to many devout people. Added to this,
the corruption of the members of religious orders, who had departed
from their vows of chastity, was so evident to the people with whom
they came in daily contact as to bring shame and disgrace upon the
cause of religion. Consequently, from these and other irregularities
there developed a strong belief that the church needed reforming from
the lowest to the highest offices.

_Signs of the Rising Storm_.--For several centuries before the
religious revolution broke out there were signs of its coming. In the
first place, the rise of the laical spirit was to be observed,
especially after the establishment of local self-government in the free
cities. The desire for representative government had extended to the
lay members of the church. There was a growing feeling that the
clergy, headed by the papacy, had {377} no right to usurp all the
governing power of the church. Many bold laymen asserted that the lay
members of the church should have a voice in its government, but every
such plea was silenced, every aspiration for democratic government
suppressed, by a jealous papacy.

There arose a number of religious sects which opposed the subordination
to dogma, and returned to the teachings of the Bible for authority.
Prominent among these were the Albigenses, who became the victims of
the cruel crusade instigated by the pope and led by Simon de Montfort.
They were a peaceable, religious people who dwelt far and wide in the
south of France, who refused to obey implicitly the harsh and arbitrary
mandates of the pope.

The Waldenses were another society, composed of the followers of Pet