that they may be chained down to the bodies of
animals.[212] Certain souls, on attaining to perfect peace, return to
new worlds; some remain faithful, others degenerate to such a degree
that they become demons.[213]

Concerning bodies, he says:

"The soul, which is immaterial and invisible in its nature, exists in
no material place, without having a body suited to the nature of that
place; accordingly, it at one time puts off one body which was
necessary before, but which is no longer adequate in its changed
state, and it exchanges it for a second."[214]

Although _metensomatosis_ (re-embodiment of the soul), _i.e._, the
true teaching of Origen, was not clearly expounded, it considerably
influenced the early Christian philosophers, and was favourably
received up to the time of its condemnation by the Synod of
Constantinople. It appeared in most of the sects of that time and in
those of the following centuries: Simonians, Basilidians,
Valentinians, Marcionites, Gnostics, Manichaeans, Priscillianites,
Cathari, Patarins, Albigenses, Bogomiles, &c....

Chivalry, too, in these ages of darkness and persecution, was an
instrument for the dissemination of esoteric doctrines, including
Reincarnation. The heart of this noble institution consisted of
students of divine Wisdom, pure devoted souls who communicated with
one another by means of passwords.

The Troubadours were their messengers of the sacred Teaching, which
they skilfully concealed in their songs, carrying it from group to
group, from sect to sect, in their wanderings. "Sons of the teachings
of the Albigenses and of the Manichaean-Marcion tradition"[215] they
kept alive belief in the rebirths of the soul, "Izarn the Monk," in
his book _Historie d' un Heretique_,[216] apostrophised an Albigensian
bishop in the following terms:

"Tell me what school it was in which you learnt that the spirit of
man, after losing his body, passes into an ox, an ass, a sheep, or a
fowl, and transmigrates from one animal to another, until a new human
body is born for it?"

Izarn was acquainted with only so much of the teachings of the
Troubadours as had got abroad and been distorted and misrepresented by
ignorant or evil-minded persons; still, his criticism plainly shows
traces of the teachings of palingenesis in the darkest and most
blood-stained periods of the Middle Ages.

The Inquisition put an end to the Troubadours, though certain of them,
Dante and St. Francis of Assisi, f