So fared European heretics within the Church. Infidels of alien blood could hardly expect better treatment. The popular notion that the dispersion and sufferings of the Jews were a divine punishment for the crucifixion of Christ was raised by Innocent to the dignity of a dogma. It followed as a logical corollary that it was the sacred duty of Christ’s Vicar on earth to make the culprits feel the full rigour of the sentence. After the fashion of fanatics, Innocent mistook his own intolerance for holy enthusiasm, and, while indulging his own hatred, he imagined that he was only hating the enemies of Heaven. It was also currently believed that the example and the teaching of the Jews tended to pervert their Christian neighbours, and to encourage protest and heresy. The Albigensian sect in France, already mentioned, like the Hussite reform movement in Bohemia two centuries later, was attributed to Jewish influence. For both these reasons, their own infidelity and their tendency to foster infidelity in others, the Jews ought to be crushed. The times were propitious. In 1167 the assassination of Raymund, Viscount of Beziers, had deprived the Jews of their protector. ♦1170♦ His successor Roger, who favoured the Albigensian heretics, had Jewish sheriffs; but his partiality to these two classes of enemies of Catholicism had provoked the wrath of the Pope and led to the prince’s tragic death. At Montpellier William VIII. and his sons excluded the Jews from the office of Sheriff. ♦1178–1201♦ But these restrictions were not sufficient. Innocent began the attack methodically in 1205, when he wrote to Philip Augustus, King of France, complaining of the usurious extortions of the Jews in that country, of their being allowed to employ Christian servants and nurses, and of the fact that Christians were not admitted to depose against Jews--things which were contrary to the resolution of the Third Lateran Council held under Pope Alexander III. ♦1179♦ Moreover, Innocent complained that the Jewish community of Sens had built a new synagogue which rose to a greater height than the neighbouring Christian church, and disturbed the service in the latter by loud and insolent chanting; that they scoffed at Christianity, and that they murdered Christians; and he ended by exhorting Philip Augustus to oppress the enemies of Christ. A similar epistle was addressed to Alfonso, King of Castile, threatening him with St. Peter’s displeasure, should he continue to allow the Synagogue to thrive at the expense of the Church. Three years later a pastoral epistle to the same effect was sent to the Count of Nevers, urging him to coerce the Jews and condemn them to serfdom, for they, “like the fratricide Cain, are doomed to wander about the earth as fugitives and vagabonds, and their faces must be covered with insult.” The writer further pointed out that it is disgraceful for Christian princes to receive Jews into their towns and villages, to employ them as usurers