terpretation now given to the Decree, the subject might, notwithstanding his oath to the contrary, withdraw his allegiance without a crime, on the ground that the petty Prince himself was subject to a higher power!!! Thus is a Council, which professed to be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, made to authorize a disregard to the Law of God, and to violate one of its most solemn obligations.

During the Pontificate of Innocent III., the Order of the Cross, as well as the Dominican and Franciscan Orders, was established. The Dominicans were entitled PREACHERS, from their Founder being employed as such, with other Missionaries, in the conversion of heretics in the South of France. Where argument failed, they inflicted punishment, which acquired for them the title of Inquisitors; and deservedly so, since to them is to be traced the establishment of that terrific, and odious tribunal, the INQUISITION.

Siculi non invenere tyranni
Majus tormentum.'

One of its unholy objects was to support the Order of the Cross, which was commissioned by INNOCENT to exterminate the Albigenses; the Dominican Preachers having vainly endeavoured by their eloquence to reduce them to the Roman yoke. To the mendicant Friars of this period is to be ascribed the production of the

* Evangelium Eternum ;-a book, which they blasphemously pronounced better and more perfect than the Gospel of Christ!

*Evangelio Christi perfectius, melius, dignius fore Evan gelium Æternum, sive Evangelium Spiritus S. quo adveniente evacuabitur Evangelium Christi!!! GUL. DE S. AMORE, De periculis novissimi temporis. Cap. viii. p. 8.

1

THE

SCHOLASTIC AGE, OR THIRTEENTH

CENTURY.

CHAPTER XX.

THE THIRTEENTH GENERAL COUNCIL, OR FIRST OF LYONS, A. D. 1245.

FREDERIC II., Emperor of Germany, having violated a solemn promise to Pope Gregory IX., by which he bound himself to lead an expedition to Palestine in the cause of Christianity; subjected himself to the effects of a papal excommunication. He was deposed from the imperial dignity, and his subjects released from their allegiance. Although he was not backward at entering his protest against so severe a sentence, and in gaining over to his interest the British Monarch, Henry III., to whom he complained of the avarice, perfidy, and hypocrisy of the Roman Pontiff; yet inconsistently enough, he set out for the Holy Land, and thus showed, that he felt, while he affected to despise, the thunder of the Vatican. On his arrival in the

East, he relaxed the prosecution of the war, concluded a peace with the Sultan of Egypt, and acquired the Crown of Jerusalem by his marriage with Jolanda, the King's daughter; notwithstanding, that the object of the Crusades appeared to be retarded by such conduct as this, still his expedition turned out to be the most advantageous that had hitherto been undertaken against the Saracens.

After the death of Gregory IX., Innocent IV. having succeeded to the Papal Chair, retired to Lyons, where he convoked the THIRTEENTH GENERAL COUNCIL, A. D. 1245. He addressed circular Letters not only to the Episcopal order of the Clergy, but to different Potentates; and even cited thither the Emperor Frederic himself, against whom the Council was directed. The Prelates in attendance amounted only to one hundred and forty; a circumstance passed over in silence by both Bellarmine and Platina, although they are careful to make a display of the three, five, or eight hundred Bishops, which happened to be present at other General Councils. Yet is this Council, of which these writers seem unwilling to say much, styled a General Council. However, as if to give it a degree of dignity, we are told that it was headed by the three Latin Patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch and Venice; who, by the way, were the nominees of the Pope, and, consequently, his

creatures. Proxies of absent Bishops, and Deputies from Chapters, contributed to increase the number of the Council. Among them also appeared some English Monks belonging to the Abbot of St. Alban's.

Beside the affair of the Emperor, there were three principal subjects, which engrossed the attention of the Council. 1. To aid the Empire of Constantinople against the Greeks. 2. The Empire of Germany against the Tartars. 3. And the Holy Land against the Saracens. Towards the forwarding of these projects, the Pope laid the Church Revenues under contribution; while he granted Indulgences to such persons in particular, as afforded assistance to the Eastern Empire. The only effectual stop, which he could put to the incursions of the Tartars into Germany, was by intersecting the country with trenches, and constructing forts in it. But in order to uphold the Christian cause in Palestine, he increased the imposts on the Clergy; among whom, none were so loud in their complaints of such exactions, as those of England.

As Gregory IX. had previously thundered forth an excommunication against Frederic, so Innocent IV., regardless of the remonstrances of the Imperial Deputies, and of their appeal to

* Les Deputes d'Angleterre se plaignirent des exactions de la cour de Rome, au nom de tout le Roïaume d'Angleterre. SOMME de tous Conciles Generaux, p. 298.