Who can recall without tears the separations between friends, princes taking opposing sides, the spiritual and temporal arms put in antagonism, the neglect of the canons, the numberless scandals and losses of the Church, which would at that time have been threatened with absolute ruin, but that the gates of hell can never prevail against the unshakable edifice founded on the rock of Peter, which can never fail? The Church was at that time, moreover, filled with sorrow by the heresies of the Beguins, the Flagellants, the Adamites, the Waldensians, the Wickliffites, and others, and by the rapid successes of Amurath I., who, to the loss of the Christian name, took possession of Thessaly and Macedonia about the time of Rita's birth. Neither in the Eastern nor in the Western Church was there an Emperor either fitted to oppose a bulwark against the inrush of such evils or disposed to oppose them. John Paleologus in the East had lost heart through his frequent defeats, and was leagued against the powers of Christendom; and in the West, Wenceslaus, given to the wine-cup and to luxury, was become good for nothing. The republics of the time, amongst which was Cascia, were not much more fortunate than the kingdoms. Genoa and Venice, which only a short time previous might have been compared in their rivalry to Rome and Carthage in the ancient world, had now both become exhausted of all their strength through a long series of stubborn wars undertaken against one another, and although they were now mutually at peace and also with the other Powers, through the intervention of the Duke of Savoy, they were unable to show any opposition to the common enemy of Christendom. Nor did the avarice and ambition of these States fail to bring in their train a fruitful crop of all other vices. Florence, too, although happy in the cultivation of the fine arts, was infected with the general depravity. The city was torn by faction, and weakened by those other vices against which Blessed Simon of Cascia had so strenuously preached a few years earlier. And although these exhortations brought about a reform, it was but half-hearted and short-lived. Vicious practices increased in the city, and open rebellion against the Holy See was their eventual outcome. Of Cascia itself we read that in 1380 the Guelphs and the Ghibellines committed horrible atrocities throughout the city and its dependent territory. And although the opposing factions patched up a peace between them in that year, it was of no long duration, since, as we have said in the first chapter, the people of Cascia rebelled against the Holy See during the first years of the schism of the anti-Popes, just after the birth of Rita. Murder and robbery, pillage and incendiarism followed in the wake of rebellion, and brought ruin to many families in Cascia and destruction upon her religious places. A war soon broke out between Cascia and Leonessa, which lasted for twelve months, and would have continued much