[27] “John Lackland,” by Kate Norgate. Macmillan, N.Y., 1902, p. 21. [28] “Inquisition of the Middle Ages,” Henry C. Lea. Vol. i, pp. 125-6. CHAPTER III. THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE CRUSADE. The religious and political manœuvres leading up to the Albigensian Crusade extend over the space of ten years and divide naturally into three stages, the first of six years and the second and third of two years each. The first stage (1198-1204) begins with the accession of Innocent III to the Papacy, followed by his prompt dispatch of legates to work against the Albigensian heresy. It ends with the recognition of the failure of the means first used and determination to intensify them. The second stage (1204-1206) is marked by the investiture of the papal legates in Languedoc with extraordinary powers over the local clergy. Its first year, 1204, contains a political event of the highest importance: the conquest of the Angevin lands of Normandy, Maine, Anjou and Touraine, by the King of France, Philip Augustus. The period ends with the recognition of the insufficiency of even the extraordinary powers granted to the legates. The third stage (1206-1208) opens with the arrival of St. Dominic, the adoption of apostolic poverty by the legates, and the setting on foot by them of a regular campaign of preaching and debate. This method yielding only slight results: the period closes with the murder of de Castelnau and the mobilization of the crusading army. Lothario Conti, Innocent III, is one of the great figures of history. Few men, whether Churchmen or lay statesmen, have exerted a wider or more far-reaching influence. Learning and executive ability, energy and persistence, breadth of view, and, above all, the sense of a great purpose, combined with extraordinary fortune to make him great. We are here concerned with but one of his acts, the launching of the Albigensian Crusade, by which he preserved the moral unity of Europe so that it remained unbroken until the sixteenth century.