For centuries after the days of Leo I heresy almost ceased to be a problem for the Church at all. Western Christendom entered into the gloom of the Dark Ages, its history the arid record of barbarian invasions and the rivalries of Childerichs and Chilperichs. The human intelligence was dormant: consequently heresy ceased to be a force. When there is no mental activity, no education, no discussion, there may be faith, there can never be heresy. When the darkness lifted a little, heresy once more became a problem. In 1022 thirteen Cathari were burnt by order of, and in the presence of, King Robert II of France. The punishment of heresy by fire was an entire innovation. There was no existing law to sanction it. The stake had been used by Roman emperors to punish parricides, slaves who attempted their masters’ lives, and incendiaries, and it still existed as a punishment for sorcerers and witches. The stake may have been used on this occasion because it was an impressive and theatrical death and, a choice being demanded between abjuration and death, it was considered the latter should be specially terrifying.[250] Another execution of Cathari, this time by hanging, took place in 1051 at Goslar in Saxony in the presence of the Emperor Henry III. As in France, so in Germany, the law knew neither the offence nor the punishment. The Emperor was acting simply in the public defence.[251] It is important to note the part played in the treatment of heretics at this period by the populace. In both the cases just cited the secular prince had in his action the full approval of the people. It is particularly noticed by the chronicles of the first incident that the deed was ‘regis jussu et universae plebis consensu.’[252] And Henry strengthened his position in the absence of any written law by securing the agreement of his subjects.[253] Nothing could be better attested than the crowd’s hatred of the heretic in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as far as northern Europe was concerned.[254] In the south it was different. There are several instances of the feeling in the north in the late decades of the eleventh and early decades of the twelfth century. For example, in 1076 at Cambrai a Catharan who had been condemned by the bishop as a heretic (no sentence pronounced) was seized upon by the bishop’s officers and the mob, who placed him in some sort of cabin, which they burned with the prisoner inside it. It is said that the recantation of Roscellinus was due to the threat of death at the hands of the populace.[255] In 1114 certain heretics having been placed provisionally in prison by the Bishop of Strassburg were in the bishop’s absence forcibly seized upon by the crowd, who, the chronicler states, feared clerical lenience. They were led out of the town and there burnt alive.[256] A similar event happened in Cologne in 1143; whilst two years later at Liège the clergy only just succeeded in rescuing the crowd’s victims from its clutches. Lawless