kingdoms beyond the Pyrenees had long predisposed them in favor of a race held in peculiar abhorrence by the See of Rome. The silks and gold of Syria and Egypt appealed far more eloquently to the passions of the multitude than the genuflexions of the priest or the rosary and cowl of the friar. Even the sacred profession was invaded by the prevailing spirit of toleration, itself dependent on material interests; the inferior clergy dealt as brokers in the money of the East, and from the mints of bishops and metropolitans were issued coins impressed with Mohammedan texts and symbols. In addition to this extraordinary partiality for infidel customs, and the practical renunciation of the vow of poverty, which were calculated to arouse, especially among the vulgar, a suspicion of heterodoxy, the entire body of the Provençal clergy had become thoroughly debased and profligate. Those of high rank vied with the nobles in prodigal and ostentatious luxury. Prelates constantly abandoned the duties of their office for the fascinations of the chase and the licentious pleasures of intrigue. They travelled in state with numerous trains of ladies and attendants, the richness of whose appointments rivalled that of a royal equipage. The Archbishop of Narbonne kept in his pay a band of foreign outlaws who levied blackmail on opulent citizens, and who, protected by their ecclesiastical patron, defied the weak and disorganized civil power of the land. In every gay assembly where the song of the troubadour recounted the triumphs of love and gallantry, or aimed its satirical shafts at the failings of the priesthood, the bishop was foremost in laughter and applause. It was a common saying among the people that while the apostles were poor, their successors, plunged in luxury, “loved fine horses and splendid garments, white women and red wine.” The vices of the higher class, confirmed by the possession of great wealth and secure from the censure of ecclesiastical tribunals, surpassed, in turpitude and effrontery, the excesses of any other society then existing in Christendom.