24 LANGUEDOC. during the quarrel of the Christian princes. He peremptorily or- dered Eaymond to desist from his enterprise on Marseilles, and to perform his Crusader's vow. An appeal was made to King Louis and Queen Blanche, whose intervention procured for Eaymond not only a postponement of the crusade for another year, but an order to the legate empowering him to grant the count's request to take the Inquisition entirely out of the hands of the Domini- cans, if, on investigation, he should find justification for Eaymond's assertion that they were actuated by hatred towards hunself. Fresh troubles had arisen at Toulouse. July 24, 1237, the inquis- itors had again excommunicated the viguier and consuls, because they had not arrested and burned Alaman de Eoaix and some other heretics, condemned i7i absentia, and Eaymond was resolved, if possible, to relieve himself and his subjects from the cruel op- pression to which they were exposed.'^ In this his efforts were crowned with most unlooked-for suc- cess. May 13, 1238, he obtained a suspension for three months of all inquisitorial proceedings, during which time his envoys sent to Gregory were to be heard. They seem to have used most persua- sive arguments, for Gregory wrote to the Bishop of Toulouse to continue the suspension until the new legate, the Cardinal-bishop of Palestrina, should examine into the complaints against the Dominicans and consider the advisability of granting Eaymond's request that the business of persecution should be confined, as for- merly, to the bishops. Eaymond's crusade was also reduced to three years, to be performed voluntarily, provided he would give to King Louis sufficient security that he would sail the following year : by performing this, and making amends for the wrongs in- flicted on the Church, he was to earn absolution from his numer- ous excommunications.! The temporary suspension was unexpectedly prolonged, for,
- Epistt. Sgeculi XIII. T. I. No. 706 (Mon. Qerm. Hist.).— Potthast No. 10357,
10361.— Raynald. ann. 1237, No. 33, 37.— Teulet, Layettes, 11. 339, No. 2514.— Vaissette, III. 410.— Coll. Doat, XXI. 146. A deposition of Raymond Jean of Albi, April 30, 1238 (Doat, XXIII. 273), probably marks the term of the activity of the Inquisition before its suspension. t Teulet, Layettes, II. 377, 386.-Epistt. Sseculi XIII. T. I. No. 731 (Mon. Germ. Hist.).-Raynald. ann. 1239, No. 71-3.-Arch. du Vatican T. XIX. (Ber- ger, Actes d 'Innocent IV. p. xix.).
