elate entered cordially into the cause, and
launching forth his anathema against the Stedinger as heretics and
witches, encouraged all true believers to assist in their
extermination. A large body of thieves and fanatics broke into their
country in the year 1233, killing and burning wherever they went, and
not sparing either women or children, the sick or the aged, in their
rage. The Stedinger, however, rallied in great force, routed their
invaders, and killed in battle their leader, Count Burckhardt of
Oldenburg, with many inferior chieftains.

Again the pope was applied to, and a crusade against the Stedinger was
preached in all that part of Germany. The pope wrote to all the bishops
and leaders of the faithful an exhortation to arm, to root out from the
land those abominable witches and wizards. "The Stedinger," said his
Holiness, "seduced by the devil, have abjured all the laws of God and
man; slandered the Church--insulted the holy sacraments--consulted
witches to raise evil spirits--shed blood like water--taken the lives
of priests, and concocted an infernal scheme to propagate the worship
of the devil, whom they adore under the name of Asmodi. The devil
appears to them in different shapes; sometimes as a goose or a duck,
and at others in the figure of a pale, black-eyed youth, with a
melancholy aspect, whose embrace fills their hearts with eternal hatred
against the holy church of Christ. This devil presides at their
Sabbaths, when they all kiss him and dance around him. He then
envelopes them in total darkness, and they all, male and female, give
themselves up to the grossest and most disgusting debauchery."

In consequence of these letters of the pope, the Emperor of Germany,
Frederic II, also pronounced his ban against them. The Bishops of
Ratzebourg, Lubeck, Osnabruek, Munster, and Minden took up arms to
exterminate them, aided by the Duke of Brabant, the Counts of Holland,
of Cloves, of the Mark, of Oldenburg, of Egmond, of Diest, and many
other powerful nobles. An army of forty thousand men was soon
collected, which marched, under the command of the Duke of Brabant,
into the country of the Stedinger. The latter mustered vigorously in
defence of their lives and liberties, but could raise no greater force,
including every man capable of bearing arms, than eleven thousand men
to cope against the overwhelming numbers of their foe. They fought
with the energy of despair, but all in vain. Eight thousand of them