PROGRESS OF THE INQUISITION. 23 The Inquisition thus had overcome the popular horror which its proceedings had excited; it had braved the shock and tri- umphed over the opposition of the secular authorities, and had planted itself firmly in the soil. After the harvest had been gath- ered in Toulouse it was evident to the indefatigable activity of the inquisitors that they could best perform their functions by riding circuit and holding assizes in all the towns subject to their juris- diction, and this was represented as a concession to avert the com- plaints of those who deemed it a hardship to be summoned to dis- tant places. Their incessant labors began to tell. Heretics were leaving the lands of Raymond at last and seeking a refuge else- where. Possibly some of them found it in the domains which had fallen to the crown, for in this year we find Gregory scolding the royal officials for their slackness of zeal in executing sentences against powerful heretics. Elsewhere, however, there was no rest for them. In Provence this year Pons de I'Esparre made himself conspicuous for the energy and effectiveness with which he con- founded the enemies of the faith ; while Montpellier, alarmed at the influx of heretics and their success in propagating their errors, appealed to Gregory to favor them with some assistance that should effectively resist the rising tide, and Gregory at once or- dered his legate Jean de Yienne to go thither and take the neces- sary measures.* The progress of the Inquisition, however, was not destined to be uninterrupted. Count Raymond, apparently reckless of the nu- merous excommunications under which he lay, so far from saihng for Palestine in March, had seized Marseilles, which was in rebel- lion against its suzerain, the Count of Provence. This aroused anew the indignation of Gregory, not only because of its inter- ference with the war against the Saracens in Spain and the Holy Land, but because of the immunity which heretics would enjoy evidence of his being still alive and active in 1235 or 1236 (Doat, XXII. 222). He was ordained a "filius major" in Montsegur about 1229, by the Catharan bishop, Guillabert de Castres (Doat, XXII. 226), and his name as that of a re- vered teacher continues for many years to occur in the confessions of penitents.
- Guill. Pod. Laur. c. 43.— Arch, de r£v8che de BSziers (Doat, XXXI. 35).—
Bern. Guidon. Libell. de Magist. Ord. Praedic. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 422).— Raynald. ann. 1237, No. 32.
