was confiscated--in France, to the crown. When an accused person was found guilty, he was
handed over to the secular arm with a prayer that his life might be spared; but if the secular
authorities failed to burn him, they were liable to be themselves brought before the Inquisition. It
dealt not only with heresy in the ordinary sense, but with sorcery and witchcraft. In Spain, it was
mainly directed against crypto-Jews. Its work was performed mainly by Dominicans and
Franciscans. It never penetrated to Scandinavia or England, but the English were quite ready to
make use of it against Joan of Arc. On the whole, it was very successful; at the outset, it
completely stamped out the Albigensian heresy.
The Church, in the early thirteenth century, was in danger of a revolt scarcely less formidable than
that of the sixteenth. From this it was saved, very largely, by the rise of the mendicant orders;
Saint Francis and Saint Dominic did much more for orthodoxy than was done by even the most
vigorous popes.
Saint Francis of Assisi ( 1181 or 1182-1226) was one of the most lovable men known to history.
He was of a well-to-do family, and in his youth was not averse to ordinary gaieties. But one day,
as he was riding by a leper, a sudden impulse of pity led him to dismount and kiss the man. Soon
afterwards, he decided to forgo all worldly goods, and devote his life to preaching and good
works. His father, a respectable business man, was furious, but could not deter him. He soon
gathered a band of followers, all vowed to complete poverty. At first, the Church viewed the
movement with some suspicion; it seemed too like the "Poor Men of Lyons." The first
missionaries whom Saint Francis sent to distant places were taken for heretics, because they
practised poverty instead of (like the monks) only taking a vow which no one regarded as serious.
But Innocent III was shrewd enough to see the value of the movement, if it could be kept within
the bounds of orthodoxy, and in 1209 or 1210 he gave recognition to the new order. Gregory IX,
who was a personal friend of Saint Francis, continued to favour him, while imposing certain rules
which were irksome to the saint's enthusiastic and anarchic impulses. Francis wished to interpret
the vow of poverty in the strictest possible way; he objected to houses or churches for his
followers. They were to beg their bread, and to have no lodging but what chance hospitality
provided. In 1219, he travelled to the East and preached