20 LANGUEDOC. tie fashion, and the rebellious city was virtually left without eccle- siastics. Further excommunications followed, now including the count, and Prior Pons de Saint-Gilles hastened to Italy to pour the story of his woes into the sympathizing ears of the pope and the sacred college. Gregory assailed the count as the chief of- fender. A minatory brief of April 28, 1236, addressed to him, is couched in the severest language. He is held responsible for the audacious acts of the consuls ; he is significantly reminded of the unperformed voav of the crusade ; not only has he failed to extir- pate heresy according to his pledges, but he is a manifest fautor and protector of heretics ; his favorites and officers are suspect of heresy ; he protects those who have been condemned ; his lands are a place of refuge for those flying from persecution elsewhere, so that heresy is daily spreading and conversions from Catholicism, are frequent, while zealous churchmen seeking to restrain them are slain and abused with impunity. AU this he is peremptorily ordered to correct and to sail with his knights to the Holy Land in the " general passage " of the following March. It scarcely needed the reminder, which the pope did not spare him, of the labors which the Church and itg Crusaders had undergone to purge his lands of heresy. He had too keen a recollection of the abyss from which he had escaped to risk another plunge. He had gone as far as he dared in the effort to protect his subjects, and it were manifest folly to draw upon his head and theirs another inroad of the marauders whom the pope with a word could let loose upon him to earn salvation with the sword.* The epistle to Eaymond was accompanied with one to the le- gate, instructing him to compel the count to make amends and per- form the crusade. To Frederic II. he wrote forbidding liim to call on Eaymond for feudal services, as the count was under ex- communication and virtually a heretic, to which the emperor re- phed, reasonably enough, that, so long as Eaymond enjoyed posses- sion of fiefs held under the empire, excommunication should not
- Martene Thesaur. I. 992.-Epistt. Saeculi XIII. T. I. No. 688 (Mon. Germ.
Hist.).— Teulet, Layettes, IL 314. The subordination of the bishop to the inquisitors is further shown in the excommunication of the viguier and consuls of Toulouse, July 24, 1237, in which Bishop Raymond and other prelates are mentioned as assessors to the inquisitors (Doat, Xxi. 148).
