The dawn of the thirteenth century witnessed the outbreak and the arrest of two most significant movements of the human mind, destined to exercise immense influence on the intellectual character and political destiny of Europe. The one appeared in Sicily; arose under the auspices and was supported by the power of the Emperor Frederick II.,--that prodigy of mediæval learning and diplomacy, great by birth, and, through the hereditary traditions of his line, still greater through the talents with which he was endowed and the accomplishments that adorned his character; a colossal figure among the pygmy soldiers and churchmen of his time; a combination of opposite and eccentric qualities; brave but treacherous, impetuous but crafty; a skeptic, and an unrelenting persecutor of heretics; at one time heading a crusade for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre; at another marshalling Saracen armies against the partisans of the Pope; a vassal of the Holy See, and an open ally and friend of the infidel; a professed champion of Christianity, while endeavoring to wrest from its acknowledged head that spiritual dominion which invested him with unlimited power over the lives, the fortunes, and the ultimate destiny of men; legislator, troubadour, author, naturalist; “a poet in an age of schoolmen, a philosopher in an age of monks, a statesman in an age of crusaders.” The other intellectual revolution against ecclesiastical traditions and Papal despotism originated in the sunny lands of Provence and Languedoc, between the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees. That region, early overrun and colonized by the Saracen, had long remained subject to the Mohammedan princes of Spain. Although nominally Christian, its population was deeply infected with heterodox and atheistical opinions. The country had never lost the characteristics peculiar to the Moslem conqueror,--the intelligent and persevering cultivation of the soil, the venturesome spirit of commercial enterprise, the development and profitable adaptation of every natural resource, the pride of ostentatious luxury, the profound distrust of the female sex, which condemns its members to the seclusion of the harem. Amidst the freedom and gayety of its semi-Oriental cities, sectaries of every creed lived unquestioned and undisturbed. Polygamy was practised without concealment or reproach; scarcely a castle of count or baron was without its numerous seraglio. Education was general, and remarkable in its scope and efficiency when contrasted with the ignorance of contemporaneous societies. The famous University of Montpellier, a manifestation of the intellectual ideas and spirit which pervaded the South of France, was for generations a monument of the progress and erudition of the inhabitants of Languedoc. Among the public teachers were many Jews and Mohammedans, who, in addition to the profound and varied learning of the schools of Cordova, brought to the notice of a curious and speculative race theories that boded