BOOK VII.

FROM THE ELECTION OF INNOCENT III TO THE DEATH OF BONIFACE VIII, A.D. 1198-1303.

CHAPTER VI.

PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL.

1

THE TARTARS

 

WE have seen that the Christian kingdom of which the sovereign was known in Europe as Prester John, was overthrown in 1202 by the Tartars under Genghis Khan, who reigned till 1226. Yet it is said that the conqueror added to the number of his wives a daughter of the king whom he had dethroned, and that through her favour Christianity was still in some measure kept up in north-eastern Asia, although in connexion with the Nestorians. The kingdom of Prester John, as it disappeared from the knowledge of the western Christians, became more and more a theme for fable; it was said in romances that the holy grail—the cup which the Saviour had consecrated at the last supper, and in which Joseph of Arimathea had caught the blood which flowed from His wounds on the cross—had been withdrawn to that mysterious land. And vague rumours from time to time reached Europe—some representing the ancient line of the priestly kings as still in power; others, that the sovereigns of the nation by which they had been overthrown had been converted, and were eager for the propagation of the gospel among their subjects. In some cases, the persons who spread these stories were roving impostors, who wished to practise for their private advantage on the credulity of the western Christians, and perhaps on that of the orientals in their turn; in other cases, they were really commissioned by Tartar princes, who, in their desire to gain the alliance of the West against the Mussulmans, were fain to represent themselves as more favourable to the gospel than they really were. The Mongol system of doctrine appears to have been a vague monotheism, which, while admitting only one supreme God, left room for a popular religion consisting mainly in the worship of idols and other inferior objects. This indifference to definite religion was found politically useful, as the Mongol sovereigns were thus enabled to conciliate their subjects of different creeds; and the sight of the toleration so enjoyed by Christians under the Tartar yoke was enough to convince sanguine and uncritical monkish observers that the rulers must have embraced the true faith.

The invasion of Europe by the Tartars, about the year 1240, appeared to the emperor Frederick to call for a league of all Christian nations against them, and, in a letter addressed to the princes of the West, he forcibly complained that the popes, instead of preaching a crusade against these enemies of Christianity and civilization, directed all their efforts against the emperor himself. Innocent IV, however, preferred sending three parties of Dominican and Franciscan friars as missionaries respectively to the leader of the Tartars who had invaded Europe, to any chief of the nation whom they might first meet in Asia, and to the great khan himself. The first of these parties found the invaders in Russia, but were unable to effect anything towards their conversion; nor were those who proceeded to the court of the Mongol sovereign more successful, although they were received and treated with courtesy. The other party, which was under a Dominican named Anselm or Ascelin, appears by his own report to have failed chiefly through his assumption and want of tact. On reaching the camp of a Tartar general named Baiothnoi, in Persia, Ascelin required him to submit to the pope, as the highest in dignity among Christians, and revered by all as their father and lord. “Does the pope know,” asked the Tartars, “that the khan is the son of God, and that Baiothnoi and Batho are his princes, whose names are everywhere spread abroad?”. To which Ascelin replied that the pope knew nothing of the khan or his princes, and had never heard their names, but, having been informed that a barbarous people called Tartars were everywhere committing cruelties, had sent him and his companions to them. A discussion afterwards arose as to the ceremonies which should be observed at an audience of the general, when Ascelin refused to kneel, although one of his own brethren, who had already been in Asia, assured him that such was the custom of all ambassadors, and that no religious adoration was implied in it. This contumacy brought the missionaries into danger of their lives; but at last they were dismissed with letters from the general, as extravagant, at least, in their pretensions as those of the pope himself; and after an absence of three years and seven months, they returned to Europe without having effected anything.

In 1248, Lewis IX of France, while in Cyprus, was visited by two persons who professed to be ambassadors from a general of the great khan, and reported that both the general and his master had been baptized. In consequence of this, the pious king sent envoys and missionaries, charged with valuable gifts, into Asia; but they could nowhere discover the general, and found that the khan was already dead. In 1253, the missionaries returned to Lewis, who was then in Palestine, with a report which led him to request that the pope, Innocent IV, would send Christian teachers into Asia; and among those who were sent in consequence of this was William of Ruysbroek, or Rubruquis, a Franciscan, who seems to have been a sensible and observant man, and has left an account of his travels. Rubruquis found that the reports which had been brought to the West as to the progress of Christianity among the Tartars were greatly exaggerated, and, on the other hand, that pretended missionaries from the West had endeavoured to secure their own objects by representing the pope and the sovereigns of Europe as ready to submit to the khan, if he would conform to their religion. After many hardships, he reached the camp of Mangu Khan, the grandson of Genghis, who received him and his companions well, and afterwards took them in his company to his capital, Kara­korum. In many external respects, the religion of the Tartars bore so close a resemblance to the Christianity of the West as at first to impose on the missionaries. The principle of toleration was remarkably displayed at some festivals, where the ministers of Nestorian Christianity, of Mahometanism, and of Buddhist idolatry successively pronounced their benedictions, and the Tartar chiefs performed with impartial devotion the rites of each religion. The khan desired to hear the claims of the three religions argued before him; but when a disputation had been held, it was not followed by any conver­sions. Rubruquis found that the Nestorian clergy had great influence at court; but he reports that they were illiterate, avaricious, and drunken, and in some cases imitated the barbarians around them by marrying several wives. Christians, at confession, entreated that they might be excused in the practice of theft, on the ground that otherwise they could not live. After having spent half a year at the court of Mangu, who had repeatedly told them that it was time for them to depart, the missionaries set out on their return. At a parting audience, the khan gave Rubruquis a letter for the king of France, but would not invite him to revisit the country. “If I had had power to do wonders, as Moses did,” says the candid friar, “peradventure he had humbled himself”.

In 1256 Mangu’s general overthrew the caliphate of Bagdad, and the conquerors favoured the Nestorians whom they found there above other Christians. There were frequent overtures to the Christians of the West, with a view to a joint opposition to the Saracens in the Holy Land; and, as we have seen, some envoys from the great khan appeared at the council of Lyons in 1274, soliciting an alliance, and were baptized. But in 1303, after various fortunes, the apostasy to Islam of a khan who had been brought up as a Christian put an end to such favour as the Tartar princes had until then showed to Christians, and to the hopes of converting his people.

After the death of Mangu, the Tartars divided into two great bodies, and, while Kublai Khan gave up the West to Hulaku, he himself pushed his conquests as far as China. Kublai reigned in great splendour at Cambalu (Pekin) from 1280 to 1294. Among those who visited his court were two noble Venetians, Matthew and Nicolas Polo, who returned to Europe in 1269, with a charge to bring back to the great khan some oil from the holy sepulchre, and bearing a letter in which he requested the pope to send him a hundred learned men for the instruction of his people in Christianity. In consequence of the death of Clement IV, and the long delay in the election of a successor, it was not till 1271 that this request was very imperfectly answered by a mission of two Dominicans from Gregory X. With them were the brothers Polo, and Mark, the son of Nicolas, at that time in his seventeenth year. The party reached Cambalu in the spring of 1275, and Mark Polo, the most famous of mediaeval travellers, resided there many years. But from his narrative it would seem that Kublai, in inviting Christian missionaries, had intended rather to obtain assistance towards civilizing his people, and to improve his old religion by a mixture with the Christian system, than to adopt the gospel exclusively; and, although the khan treated the missionaries with kindness and respect, he did not (as was fondly believed in the West) himself receive baptism.

Among those who followed in the track of this mission was a Franciscan, John, who was styled after his native place, Monte Corvino, near Salerno. John laboured with zeal, judgment, and success. He converted the king of Kerait, a descendant of the family of Prester John, conferred minor orders upon him, and was assisted by him in the services of the church. It was even believed that the royal convert performed miracles after death. John of Monte Corvino proved that he was not satisfied with such achievements as the conversion of barbaric princes to a nominal Christianity, by translating the New Testament and the Psalms into the language of the country, and by instructing the younger native converts in Latin and Greek. For a time his labours were hindered by the arts of some Nestorians, who had established a patriarch of their sect at Cambalu; but he succeeded in exposing the calumnies by which these rivals had endeavoured to raise a prejudice against him, so that the khan expelled many of them from the country, while others affected for a time to embrace the orthodoxy of Rome. In 1307, John was appointed by Clement V archbishop of Cambalu, with seven suffragans under him; and he continued his labours until 1330, when he died at the age of eighty-three, and was succeeded by a Franciscan named Nicolas. During the same period many other members of the mendicant orders laboured in central and north-eastern Asia; indeed, those regions have never been so open as in that age to European visitors, and it is said that the grace of miracles, in which William of Rubruquis had lamented that he was wanting, was abundantly bestowed on his more favoured or less honest successors.

 

2

NESTORIANS. JACOBITES

 

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there were frequent communications between the Nestorians and Jacobites of the East and the Latin Christians, with a view to union, which their common opposition to the Mussulmans pointed out as a desirable object. But although in some cases these communications produced an approximation, or even a seeming union, they had no lasting result. The Latins, as was natural, were too ready to suppose the other parties more inclined than they really were to agree with them. Thus, they were ready to estimate any hyperbolical expressions of courtesy at far more than their real value; and on finding that the eastern sectaries stated their opinions in a manner different from the ordinary western representations of them, they were ready to believe that all heterodoxy and all differences had vanished. So, too, when the orientals allowed the pope of Rome a primacy among bishops, the Latins eagerly interpreted the words as admitting a supremacy to the fullest extent of the Roman claims. From such misunderstandings it is evident that no real reconciliation could be expected to follow.

 

3

ARMENIA.

 

The same causes which led the Nestorians to desire the alliance of the western church extended to the Armenians also. Intermarriages took place between the royal family of Armenia and those of the crusading princes or leaders. In the end of the twelfth century, Leo, king of Armenia, received a new royal title from the emperor Henry VI, and was crowned by the archbishop of Mayence, when he acknowledged the papal claims in their fullness, and promised that the catholic (or primate) of Armenia should submit to Rome. In 1239, Gregory IX sent the pall to the catholic but both before and after this time the Armenians are found corresponding with the Greek church, although without any success in the attempt at union. In 1292, under king Haithon II, the Armenian church was formally reconciled with that of Rome; but the movements which resulted in this appear to have proceeded throughout from a court party, whose acts, directed by political interests, were not supported by the general feeling of the nation.

 

4

LIVONIA.ESTHONIA.—LITHUANIA.

  

During this time, the conversion of the people on the south-east of the Baltic was effected, although as much by force as by persuasion. Some merchants of Bremen had formed a settlement on the Dwina in 1158, and in 1186 Meinhard, an Augustinian canon of Segeberg, in Holstein, undertook the conversion of the Livonians, a rude and idolatrous nation, whose language he did not understand. Through the favour of Wladimir, the Russian prince to whom Livonia was subject, he was allowed to build a church at Ykeskola (Yxküll or Uexküll on the Dwina), and he soon made some converts. He also taught the people to fortify themselves against the attacks of their neighbours, and brought workmen from Gothland to aid in the labour. But he found that he had to do with a faithless race of men, who, after having professed an eager desire for his continuance among them at times when any advantage was to be gained by it, turned on him with mockery and insult when their objects had been secured, and tried to wash off their baptism in the waters of the Dwina. Dietrich, a Cistercian, who was his companion, was often in great danger. During an eclipse, his life was threatened because he was charged with having swallowed the sun. At another time, he ran the risk of being sacrificed because his fields were in better condition than those of the natives. His fate was to be decided by the ordeal of the horse, which, as we have seen, was also practised in Pomerania. The horse at first put forward the foot which would have saved the missionary’s life; but the diviners objected that the God of Christians was sitting on the animal’s back, and guiding his motions. The back was therefore rubbed, in order to get rid of this influence; but the horse again stepped as before, and Dietrich was saved. In 1170 Meinhard was consecrated as bishop by Hartwig of Bremen, who had taken no part in his original mission. His labours were approved by Celestine III, who conferred a grant of privileges on him in 1193, and he died in 1196.

The next bishop, Berthold, formerly abbot of Loccum, a Cistercian monastery on the Weser, tried with some success the effects of hospitality as a means of conversion. But after a time the Livonians turned against him, and expelled him from their country. Berthold returned with a large force of soldiers, which he had gathered by the offer of crusading privileges from Celestine III, and a victory was gained over the natives; but the bishop, having been carried into the midst of the enemy by the impetuosity of his horse, was pierced by a lance, and was torn to pieces on his fall. By a pretence of submission to baptism, the Livonians persuaded the invading army to withdraw, leaving the clergy behind; but hardly had the last ship left the shore when they threw the crucifix into the sea, again washed off their baptism in the river, and persecuted the Christians cruelly, in some cases even to death.

Albert of Apeldern, a man of sense, energy, and perseverance, succeeded Berthold as bishop. He obtained feudal rights over Livonia from Philip of Swabia, and was authorized by Innocent III to associate any monks or clergy in his labours, and to raise an army for the northern crusade, which was allowed to reckon as a fullfillment of the vow for the holy war in the East; and by means of his high connections he was able to enlist a large force. In 1199 or 1200, the crusaders founded the city of Riga, to which the bishopric was transferred from Yxküll. In 1202, Albert established a military order, to which pope Innocent gave the statutes of the templars, and by the help of these “Brethren of the Sword”, with the crusaders whom Albert enlisted in Germany for each annual campaign, he carried on for many years the more forcible part of his mission. As another means of conveying scriptural knowledge to the Livonians, the bishop in 1204 got up a “prophetic play,” which had among its personages Gideon, David, and Herod. Heathens as well as converts were invited to the performance, and the scenes were explained by an interpreter. But when Gideon and his warriors began to fight the Midianites on the stage, the heathen spectators, supposing that some treachery was designed against them, ran off in alarm, and were not easily persuaded to return. During the following two years, most of the Livonians were baptized; but from time to time they treacherously rose in insurrection whenever the force of the settlers appeared to be weaker than usual.

Among the missionaries themselves, too, differences and jealousies broke out. The brethren of the sword quarrelled with the bishop as to the division of the conquered lands; and something like the old enmities between the templars and the patriarchs of Jerusalem was re-enacted by knights and prelates on the shores of the Baltic. In consequence of these disputes, bishop Albert, and Folcwin the second master of the order, went to Rome in 1210. The pope, according to the usual Roman policy, was more favourable to the order than to the bishop; but he refused in the following year to allow them a bishop of their own, and in 1212 he exempted Riga from all metropolitical jurisdiction, although it was not until 1246 that it was promoted to the dignity of an archbishopric, which was confirmed to it in 1255 by Alexander IV.

The labours of the military and of the ecclesiastical missionaries spread into Esthonia, where, at a somewhat earlier time, a bishop named Fulk, formerly a monk of La Celle, had preached. Dietrich, who has been mentioned as a companion of Meinhard in Livonia, became bishop of Esthonia; but after he had been killed, in 1218, a conflict as to jurisdiction arose between the archbishop of Lund and the bishop of Riga, as the Danes claimed a share in the conversion and its results. At length Reval was established by the pope as the seat of the Danish bishopric, and the Germans had their see at Leal, from which it was afterwards transferred to Dorpat.

In Lithuania also the gospel made progress. Its advance was aided by the circumstance that a priest named Aldobrand was asked to arbitrate in a question of property, as those who had been robbed before their conversion felt themselves forbidden by their new religion to use violence for the recovery of what they had lost. The equity of his decision made a great impression on the heathens, who until then had known no other principle than the law of force; and for a time the clergy were overwhelmed with such business. But unhappily some laymen, who had a view only to their own interest, undertook the office of arbitration, and the popular confidence in the justice of Christians was destroyed. In one Livonian province, the people, being disposed to embrace the gospel, casts lots in order to decide whether they should join the Latin church, like their neighbours in the West, or the Greek church, like the Russians; and the result was in favour of the Latin form of Christianity.

Albert of Apeldern died in 1229. In 1236 a junction took place between the brethren of the sword and the Teutonic order, who had many points in common with them—an origin from Bremen, a constitution on the model of the templars, the patronage of the blessed Virgin, the protection of the emperors, opposition to the Danish interest, and the duty of fighting for the cross in countries which bordered on each other. The union was brought about partly through the agency of William, formerly bishop of Modena, who, after having been employed as a legate in those regions, resigned his see in 1134, and received a fresh legatine commission from Gregory IX. The countries in which the two orders were employed were thus placed under a common authority, and the union was approved by Gregory IX in 1227. The order carried on the work of subjugation, and among the effects of the manner of conversion was the establishment of serfdom, which continued until our own time.

 

5

PRUSSIA.

 

The early attempts at the conversion of the Prussians by Adalbert of Prague and Bruno have been already noticed. In the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, some Polish kings, after having gained victories over their neighbours of Prussia, endeavoured to impose Christianity on them, but without any substantial or lasting success. But in 1207 an attempt of a different kind was made by Godfrey, abbot of Lukna, a Cistercian monastery in Poland, who was accompanied by a monk named Philip. These missionaries converted the duke Phiolet, and his brother king Sodrech; but their labours were checked by the opposition of the Cistercian communities in the neighbourhood, who were inclined to treat them as irregular adventurers, and hence Innocent III was induced to write to the archbishop of Gnesen and to the Cistercians in 1212, desiring them to be on their guard against real “acephali,” but to show kindness and cooperation to Godfrey and his associates. He also desired the king of Poland and the duke of Pomerania to refrain from imposing servile labours on the converts, as this was found a hindrance to the gospel. In 1215 a Cistercian monk of Oliva, near Danzig, named Christian, was consecrated as bishop, and the work of conversion was then actively carried on. But the oppression of the king and the duke provoked an insurrection, in which there was a general massacre of Christians, accompanied by the destruction of some monasteries and of two hundred and fifty churches. In order to guard against the recurrence of such disasters, the duke, by the bishop’s advice, endeavoured to form a military order, and Honorius III in 1218 allowed crusaders to serve against the heathens of Prussia instead of going to the Holy Land. At the same time the pope endeavoured to forward the work of conversion by other means—such as the purchase of female children, whom the custom of the country would have doomed to death, and the institution of schools for boys. It was, however, found that the effect of the crusade lasted only so long as the soldiers remained in the country. In 1226 it was resolved to call in the aid of the Teutonic order, and terms were made with the grand master, the famous Herman of Salza. In 1230 a hundred of the knights appeared in Prussia under Herman of Balka. Gregory IX and Innocent IV invested them with the privileges of crusaders, and the emperor bestowed on them the sovereignty of such territories as they had acquired by gift, or might conquer by their swords. The knights carried on the war with steady perseverance, recruiting their numbers and gathering followers from Germany, where the northern crusade now took the place of the longer and more perilous expeditions to Palestine. They founded fortresses which afterwards grew into towns—as Elbing, Thorn, and Konigsberg—the last of these being so called in honour of king Ottocar of Bohemia, who in 1254 took part in one of their campaigns. Like other military orders, they had serious differences with the bishops and clergy, to whom pope Gregory had assigned one-third of the conquered land. They were also involved in contests with their neighbours, the dukes of Poland and Pomerania; and in 1245 William of Modena, then cardinal-bishop of Sabina, was once more sent into the north with a commission to settle these quarrels. In 1249 an agreement was made, through the legate’s mediation, by which important liberties were secured for the converts. They were to enjoy the Polish law, with the exception of its sanction of ordeals. They were not to burn their dead, or to bury men or horses with them, and were to give up all other heathenish customs. Those who had not yet been baptized were to receive baptism within a certain time, under pain of being driven out of the country with only a single garment on them. Churches were to be built and endowed. Meat and milk were forbidden on Fridays and in Lent; and confession and communion were required once at least in the year.

But the severe rule of the knights produced a dangerous insurrection in 1260,and it was not until 1283 after a warfare which, with some intervals, had lasted fifty-three years, that their sovereignty was fully established. Baptism was enforced on the Prussians as a necessary condition of liberty and in this late conversion of a barbarous Slavonic people originated a kingdom which in later days has borne a very important part in the affairs of the world.

 

6

RUSSIA.

 

During the same time when the gospel was propagated by the sword in some neighbouring countries, its progress in Russia was advanced by gentler means. The attempt to bring over the Russians to the Latin church was renewed by the legate William of Modena, but with no better success than before. Russia suffered very severely from the great Mongol invasion. It is said that the barbarians, on reaching Kiev, were struck with astonishment by the beauty of the holy city, and offered to spare it if the inhabitants would submit to them. But the Russians were resolved to hold out, and fortified the cathedral and other churches, which were taken one by one after a long and obstinate resistance. The buildings were destroyed, their treasures plundered, the monks and clergy were slaughtered or driven to flight. It is supposed that the metropolitan, a Greek named Joseph, perished in the siege; and after the office had been ten years vacant, Innocent IV, thinking to take advantage of the Russian church’s distress, and of the removal of the Byzantine patriarch to Nicaea, sent ambassadors into Russia, with the offer of kingly crowns and titles for the princes, and with proposals for union with the Latin church. The prince of Novogorod, Alexander Newsky, one of the royal saints and heroes of Russia, refused to treat with the ambassadors; but David, prince of Galicia, took advantage of the proposals by accepting the crown and the royal title, while he deferred the question of reconciliation with Rome until a general council should meet. Finding, however, that his application for a crusade against the Tartars did not meet with immediate attention from Alexander IV, David broke off all communication with Rome, and he soon after obtained consecration for a metropolitan named Cyril from the patriarch at Nicaea.

Cyril (the second patriarch of that name) held his dignity for thirty years, and laboured indefatigably for the restoration of the Russian church. After his death, in 1280, another vacancy of two years occurred, in consequence of the unwillingness of the Russians to connect themselves with the Latinizing patriarch Veccus, who then occupied the see of Constantinople. The next metropolitan, a Greek named Maximus, removed his see from Kiev to Vladimir in 1299; and in the earlier part of the following century, it was again transferred to Moscow, which has since continued to be the seat of the primate of Russia.

 

7

JEWS AND MAHOMETANS. RAYMOND LULL.

 

While the conversion of rude pagan nations employed the energies of zealous missionaries, attempts were also made to bring over converts from Judaism and Mahometanism, and many controversial treatises were written for this purpose. In each case there was the difficulty that the champions of the rival religion possessed an elaborate learning of their own, which had too little in common with Christian learning to be assailable on principles which both parties would have consented to knowledge. The most famous treatise produced in this time against the Jews and Mahometans is the ‘Pugio Fidei’ of Raymond Martini, a Spanish Dominican, which even in our own day is consulted as a storehouse of rabbinical learning.

The preaching of St. Francis and his followers in Egypt and Morocco has been already noticed. The characters of literary controversialist and of missionary preacher were united in Raymond Lull, who was born in the island of Majorca about 1235. In his early years he frequented the court of his sovereign, James of Aragon; and his life was free and licentious until a change was suddenly produced in him by some circumstance of which various accounts are given. For a time Raymond meditated anxiously on the best way of devoting himself to the service of Christ; but it would seem that his zeal had begun to cool, when a sermon which he heard on the festival of St. Francis made him resolve to give up all. He sold his property, except so much as was enough for the maintenance of his wife and children, and resolved to employ himself in the conversion of the Mussulmans, both by written argument and by preaching. With a view to this, he bought a Saracen slave, from whom he learnt Arabic; and we are told that his knowledge of languages was increased by supernatural gift. He withdrew for some months into a solitude, and there, it is said, received by revelation his “art of arts” or “general art”—a method which would seem to have promised the acquisition of universal knowledge without the ordinary labour of study. Through Raymond's influence, king James was persuaded to establish in Majorca a monastery where thirteen Franciscans were to be trained for the work of preaching to the Mussulmans in their own language; but his attempts to procure from Honorius IV and other popes a decree that such study should be general in monasteries were unsuccessful.

In the winter of 1291-2, Raymond crossed the sea to Tunis, for the work to which he had devoted himself, taking with him an Arabic translation of his “Great Art,” which he had executed at Genoa. He invited the Mussulman teachers to dispute with him; but his daring endangered his life, and he was put on board a ship bound for Naples, with threats of death if he should ever return to Africa. For some years after this, he wandered about Italy and France, teaching his new art (although it was forbidden at Rome) and endeavouring to stir up popes, kings, and other persons of power and influence, to the general establishment of monastic schools for the study of eastern languages. Raymond also made his way to Cyprus, and even to Armenia, everywhere disputing with such opponents of the orthodox faith as he met—Mussulmans, Jacobites, and Nestorians. In 1306 or the following year, he made a second expedition to Africa, where he attempted to preach at Bougiah, and to confute the Mahometan doctors in disputation; but he was imprisoned and sentenced to death. This punishment, however, was commuted for expulsion from the country, but in his return to Europe he was ship­wrecked on the Tuscan coast.

The hopes which Raymond had conceived for his project of oriental schools from the election of Celestine V were disappointed by Boniface, who regarded such objects with indifference. But at the council of Vienne, in 1311, he obtained from Clement V the concession that such schools should be established in the place of the papal residence, wherever it might be, and in the universities of Paris, Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanca. The professors were not only to teach Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic, but were to translate books from those tongues into Latin.

In 1314, Raymond (who throughout his life remained a layman) separated from his wife, became a tertiary of the Franciscan order, and sailed once more for Africa, with the resolution of enduring martyrdom. Again he reached Bougiah, and his preaching was heard with attention, until he declared the circumstances of his former visit and banishment, and threatened his hearers with the vengeance of heaven unless they would forsake their misbelief. On this a furious tumult arose; stones were thrown at the old man, he was dragged out of the town, and, although he was able to reach a Genoese vessel, the injuries which he had received were so serious that he died when in sight of his native island.

 

 

CHAPTER VII.

SECTARIES.