proceed to Bosnia, where, if they found any heretics, including the Ban himself, they were to be prosecuted according to the rigor of the canons. Giovanni successfully accomplished this mission in 1203. He reported to Innocent a pledge given by the Cathari to adopt the Latin faith, while, to insure the maintenance of religion, he recommended the erection of three or four additional bishoprics in the territory of the Ban, which were ten days' journey in ex- tent and which yet had but one see, of which the incumbent was dead. At the same time King Emeric wrote that Giovanni had brought to him the leaders of the heretics, and he had found them converted to orthodoxy. Culin's son had likewise presented him- self, and had entered into bonds of one thousand marks, to be forfeited in case he should hereafter protect heretics within his dominions. The triumph of the Church seemed assured, especially when, in the same year, Calo Johannes, the Emperor of the Bul- garians, applied to Innocent to have cardinals sent to crown him, and professed himself in all things obedient to the Holy See.[1]
All such hopes proved fallacious. With the development of the Albigensian troubles the attention of Innocent was directed from the Slavs. The conversions made under pressure were but temporary. The metropolitan of the province, Arringer, Arch- bishop of Ragusa, filled the vacant see of Bosnia with a Catharan, and, dying himself soon after, his episcopal city became a nest of heretics. The few Catholic priests scattered through the region abandoned their posts, and Catholicism grew virtually almost ex- tinct. In 1221 it is said that in the whole of Bosnia there was not a single orthodox preacher to be heard. Equally disheartening was the course of affairs among the Bulgarians. After Calo Jo- hannes had been crowned by a legate from Rome, his quarrels with the Latin Emperors of Constantinople led to a breach, and in the wide territories under his dominion the Cathari had full liberty of conscience.[2]
At length the papal attention was again directed to this de- plorable state of affairs. In 1221 Honorius III. sent his chaplain, Master Aconcio, as legate to Hungary, with orders to arouse the king and the prelates to a sense of their obligation to exterminate
