When they appeared before the King,
their spokesman said, "Sire, these lords who are here, archbishops and
bishops, have asked me to tell you that Christianity is perishing at your
hands." The King signed himself with the cross, and said, "Tell me how can
that be?" "Sire," he said, "it is because people care so little nowadays
for excommunication that they would rather die excommunicated than have
themselves absolved and give satisfaction to the Church. Now, we pray you,
Sire, for the sake of God, and because it is your duty, that you command
your provosts and bailiffs that by seizing the goods of those who allow
themselves to be excommunicated for the space of one year, they may force
them to come and be absolved." Then the King replied that he would do this
willingly with all those of whom it could be _proved_ that they were in
the wrong (which would, in fact, have given the King jurisdiction in
ecclesiastical matters). The bishops said that they could not do this at
any price; they would never bring their causes before his court. Then the
King said he could not do it otherwise, for it would be against God and
against reason. He reminded them of the case of the Comte de Bretagne, who
had been excommunicated by the prelates of Brittany for the space of seven
years, and who, when he appealed to the Pope, gained his cause, while the
prelates were condemned. "Now then," the King said, "if I had forced the
Comte de Bretagne to get absolution from the prelates after the first
year, should I not have sinned against God and against him?"

This is not the language of a bigoted man; and if we find in the life of
St. Louis traces of what in our age we might feel inclined to call bigotry
or credulity, we must consider that the religious and intellectual
atmosphere of the reign of St. Louis was very different from our own.
There are, no doubt, some of the sayings and doings recorded by Joinville
of his beloved King which at present would be unanimously condemned even
by the most orthodox and narrow-minded. Think of an assembly of
theologians in the monastery of Cluny who had invited a distinguished
rabbi to discuss certain points of Christian doctrine with them. A knight,
who happened to be staying with the abbot, asked for leave to open the
discussion, and he addressed the Jew in the following words: "Do you
believe that the Virgin Mary was a virgin and Mother of God?" When the Jew
replied, "No!" the knight took his crutch and fell