Churches in Europe competed with one another for the objects of adoration, which brought revenue to their coffers; prices went up, but Byzantine craft was able to make the supply equal the demand. A few years later (1215) the Lateran Council had, in the name of common sense, to caution the faithful against becoming the prey of their own credulity. Even the enormous aggrandizement of the Latins, and the advantages to be derived, in the estimate of Western piety, from the union of the Greek and Roman churches, could not subdue the general sense of shame at the atrocities which had been perpetrated. Pope Innocent III. wrote: “Since, in your obedience to the Crucified One, you took upon yourself the vow to deliver the Holy Land from the power of the pagans, and since you were forbidden, under pain of excommunication, to attack any Christian land or to damage it, unless its inhabitants opposed your passage or refused you what was necessary, and since you had neither right nor pretence of right over Greece, you have slighted your vow; you have preferred earthly to heavenly riches; but that which weighs more heavily upon you than all this is that you have spared nothing that is sacred, neither age nor sex. You have given yourselves up to debauchery in the face of all the world, you have glutted your guilty passions, and you have pillaged in such fashion that the Greek Church, although borne down by persecution, refuses obedience to the apostolical see, because it sees in the Latins only treason and the works of darkness, and loathes them like dogs.” CHAPTER XXXVIII. FOUNDING THE LATIN KINGDOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE. Having conquered Constantinople and presumably the empire hitherto ruled from its palaces, it now devolved upon the Latins to select an emperor from their own race. Twelve electors were chosen, six from the Venetians and six from the crusaders, to whom was delegated the responsibility of making the final choice. These met at the Church of our Lady the Illuminator, which was located within the walls of the palace of Bucolion. After celebration of mass the electors took a solemn oath upon the relics deposited in that church, that they would bestow the crown upon him whom they regarded as the ablest to defend and exalt their new possessions. To silence any popular opposition to their choice, the bravest of the guards were placed about the palace, pledged to maintain the election.