e, _Pat. Lat_., vol. liv, col. 679-680.

From the time of Lucius III, owing to the influence of the lawyers,
the two penalties of banishment and confiscation prevailed. Innocent
III extended them to the universal Church.

This was undoubtedly a severer penal legislation than that of the
preceding age. But, on the other hand, it was an effective barrier
against the infliction of the death penalty, which had become so
common in many parts of Christendom.

Besides, during this period, the Church used vigorous measures only
against obdurate heretics, who were also disturbers of the public
peace.[1] They alone were handed over to the secular arm; if they
abjured their heresy, they were at once pardoned, provided they
freely accepted the penance imposed upon them.[2] This kind
treatment, it was true, was not to last. It, however, deserves
special notice, for the honor of those who preached and practiced it.

[1] Innocent III merely condemned to prison in a monastery the
heretical abbot of Nevers; cf. letter of June 19, 1199, to a cardinal
and a bishop of Paris. Ep. ii, 99.

[2] Cf. Canon 27 of the Lateran Council (1179), which we have quoted
above, and which is inserted in the Decretals of Gregory x, cap. ix,
_De haereticis_, lib. v, tit. vii.

CHAPTER V
THE CATHARAN OR ALBIGENSIAN HERESY--ITS ANTI-CATHOLIC AND
ANTI-SOCIAL CHARACTER

WHILE Popes Alexander III, Lucius III, and Innocent III, were
adopting such vigorous measures, the Catharan heresy by its rapid
increase caused widespread alarm throughout Christendom. Let us
endeavor to obtain some insight into its character, before we
describe the Inquisition, which was destined to destroy it.

The dominant heresy of the period was the Albigensian or Catharan
heresy;[1] it was related to Oriental Manicheism[2] through the
Paulicians and the Bogomiles, who professed a dualistic theory on the
origin of the world.

[1] The heretics called themselves "_Cathari_," or "_the Pure_." They
wished thereby to denote especially their horror of all sexual
relations, says the monk Egbert: _Sermones contra Catharos_, in
Migne, P.L., cxcv, col. 13.

[2] On the origin of the Manichean heresy, cf. Duchesne, _Histoire
ancienne de l'Eglise_, pp. 555, 556.

In the tenth century, the Empress Theodora, who detested the
Paulicians, had one hundred thousand of them massacred; the Emperor
Alexis Commenus (about 1118), persecuted the Bogomiles in like
manner. Many, therefore, of both