em styled Cathari, or Pure Ones. Then we come on
their third name of Albigenses, derived from the neighbouring town of
Alby, where a Council was held which condemned them. But by whatever
name they are called they are the same people, living in the same
valleys, and holding unwaveringly and unadulterated the same faith.

It was by their fourth name of Boni-Homines, or Good Men, that they took
advantage of the preaching movement set up by the Dominicans in the
thirteenth century. They permeated their ranks, however, very gradually
and quietly--perhaps all the more surely. For shortly after the date of
this story, in the early part of the fourteenth century, it is said that
of every three Predicant Friars, two were Bonihomines.

The Boni-Homines were rife in France before they ever crept into
England; and the first man to introduce them into England was Edmund,
Earl of Cornwall. A hundred years later, when the Boni-Homines had
shown what they really were, and the leaven with which they had
saturated society had evolved itself in Lollardism, the monks of other
Orders did their best to bring both the movement and the men into
disrepute, and to paint in the blackest colours the name of the Prince
who had first introduced them into this country. In no monkish
chronicle, unless written by a Bonus Homo, will the name of Earl Edmund
be found recorded without some word of condemnation. And the
Boni-Homines, unfortunately for history, were not much given to writing
chronicles. Their business was saving souls.

Most important is it to remember, in forming just estimates of the
character of things--whether men or events--in the Middle Ages, that
with few exceptions monks were the only historians. Before we can
truthfully set down this man as good, or that man as bad, we must,
therefore, consult other sources--the chronicles of those few writers
who were not monks, the State papers, but above all, where accessible,
the personal accounts and private letters of the individuals in
question. It is pitiable to see well-meaning Protestant writers, even
in our _own_ day, repeating after each other the old monkish calumnies,
and never so much as pausing to inquire, Are these things so?

Late on the evening of the following day the Prior and monks of Ashridge
stood at the gate ready to receive their founder. The circumstances of
his coming were unknown to them, and they were prepared to make it a
triumphal occasion. But the fir