Their faith rested upon the credible report of a shuddering Inquisitor: and who shall doubt an Inquisitor's veracity, when he is dealing with an obstinate Heretic? But let us hear the report, that nought may be extenuated and nought set down in malice.

When they wish to go to the said Vaulderie, they anoint themselves with an ointment which the devil has given them. They then rub it with a very small rod of wood: and, with palms in their hands, they place the rod between their legs. Thus prepared and equipped, they fly away wherever they please: and the devil carries them to the place, where they ought to hold the said assembly. In that place, they find tables ready set out, charged with wine and victuals and a devil gives them the meeting, in the shape of a he-goat, with the tail of an ape, or in some form of a man. There, to the said devil,

tolorum in mundo de loco ad locum ambulare, prædicare, et confessiones audire ? Modus examin. hæret. in Biblioth. Patr. vol. xiii. p. 342.

Interrogavit Episcopus, quid vellet fieri de seipso? An in cœnobio Galliaci, an Candelii, an in ecclesia Albiensi, eligeret sepeliri? Qui respondit: Non oportet Episcopum curam habere super his; cum ipse deliberasset, quid esset facturus. Episcopus nihilominus insistebat, quo trium istorum locorum eligeret sepeliri. Ille tandem respondit, se velle ad Bonomios deportari. Pontifice vero in contrarium asserente, quod super hoc licentiam non haberet: ille inquit; Non ad hoc laboretis, quoniam, si secus non possem, ad eos reptando quadrupedaliter festinarem. Bertrand. de gest. Tholoson. fol. 31.

they offer oblation and homage :-and there they commit crimes so fetid and enormous, as well against God as against nature, that the said Inquisitor declared that he did not dare to name them*.

The result of the investigation will readily be anticipated but, as to the poor victims of popish intolerance themselves, when they were brought out to be burned, they declared, that they had never had any thing to do with Vaulderie, and that they did not even know what idea was annexed to the term. Nevertheless, the districts in France, through which these reputed sorcerers were scattered, acquired so evil an odour, that merchants scarcely dared to visit them, lest they should be branded with the hateful name of Vauldois t.

III. Among the people of Vercelli and its diocese, the great success of the Vallensic Missionaries may be readily gathered from the very lamentations of Atto: and his angry peradventure, in regard to the possibility of some even among his Clergy adopting their theological sentiments, shews not obscurely, that many of the Priesthood were already in that unsatisfactory predicament.

* Memoires de Jacques Du-Clercq, in suppl. vol. ix. de la Collection des memoires relatifs à l'histoire de France, cited by Muston. Hist. des Vaud. vol. i. p. 507, 508. This Jacques Du-Clercq was born in the year 1424.

Memoires de Jacques Du-Clercq, in Muston's Hist. des Vaud. vol. i. p. 509.

These were, I suppose, the most exemplary, the most religiously disposed, and the best informed, of the Order and it is highly probable, that the notorious profligacy and the gross ignorance of their brethren may have led them to seek pure faith and consistent practice among the despised and hated Vallenses.

Accordingly, on the one hand, a chapter of Atto's own Capitularè strictly inhibits, under pain of an anathema, all his Suffragan Bishops and Priests and Deacons and Clerks of every description, from resorting to those whom he stigmatises under the aspect of sorcerers and magicians: while, on the other hand, he addresses two admonitory Epistles to his Clergy on the fruitful subject of their scandalous concubinage, which led them rapaciously to rob the Church in order to decorate and enrich their spurious offspring and their acknowledged harlots *.

Si quis Episcopus aut Presbyter sive Diaconus, vel quilibet ex Ordine Clericorum, magos, aut aruspices, aut ariolos, aut certè augures, vel sortilegos, vel eos qui profitentur artem magicam, aut aliquos eorum similia exercentes, consuluisse fuerit deprehensus: ab honore dignitatis suæ depositus, monasterium ingressus, pœnam accipiat; ibique, perpetuæ pœnitentiæ deditus, scelus admissum sacrilegii solvat. Item: si quis, post hanc cognitionem, ecclesiasticam contemnens doctrinam, ad prophetas aut angelos vel aliquos sanctorum defunctorum quos æquivocos falso vocant abierit, eorumque pravis doctrinis inhæserit, anathema sit. Atton. Vercell. Capitular. c. 48. in Dacher. Spicil. vol. viii. p. 18, 19. Vide etiam

The reprehensions of the Bishop are just and praiseworthy but what must have been the state

Atton. Vercell. Epist. ix., x. in Dacher. Spicil. vol. viii. p. 126–132. I subjoin a brief extract, that the Bishop may speak in his own proper person.

Præterea, quod dicere pudet, tacere autem periculum, quidam in tantum libidini municipantur, ut obscœnas meretriculas sua simul in domo secum habitare, una cibum sumere ac publicè degere, permittant.-Ecclesiæ gremio sunt recepti. Inde quidquid postmodum subtrahere valent, ipsis non desinunt erogare. Et unde meretrices ornantur, Ecclesiæ vastantur, pauperes tribulantur. Hac occasione Publicani Clericorum domos irrumpunt non ipsos, sed commanentes mulieres, cum ipsis quos genuerant spuriis, quasi sibi commissos, extrahere simulantes. Id trepidant miseri, et munera quæque promittunt: et, qui adorari poterant, cunctos adorare coguntur; et, qui omnium viriliter vitia declamare debuerant, de suis apud judicem quærunt licentiam. Sic sacræ ædes publicantur, et a vulgo deridentur et nomen Domini blasphematur. Solent etiam, tali pro scelere, vicinorum vicinarumque odium incurrere. Quoties namque hujuscemodi mulieres vel earum spurii cum aliquibus litigant, ipsi, abjecta omni sacerdotali reverentia, sese opponunt; injurias et contumelias, quas possunt, inferre, et deteriora, minantur. Insuper, ut talis ditetur familia, ipsi cupidi, rapaces, usurarii, avari, et invidi, ac fraudulenti, efficiuntur. Unde non modicum Christi Ecclesia patitur detrimentum. Atton. Vercell. Epist. ix. in Dacher. Spicil. vol. viii. p. 127, 128.

Let not the incautious reader imagine, that the Publicans, mentioned in this passage, were those persecuted Publicans or Paulicians whom their immaculate enemies charged with Manichèism and with every evil word and work. As Dacherius justly observes, they were either the public judges themselves or else their serjeants. Publicani hic, aut judices publici, aut certè eorum ministri vulgo servientes dicti.

of the Priesthood to require them? Atto admits: that, through the vices of the Clerical Order, the derision of the vulgar was excited and the name of the Lord was blasphemed; for these depraved men were actually not ashamed to play the part of judicial bullies on behalf of their strumpets and bastards*. Yet does he complain: that the Vallenses taught his flock to doubt, whether such pastors were the surest guides to eternal salvation!

* See the preceding note.