It seems as if Innocent and his advisers ought to have known enough of the political situation in Languedoc and the universal failure to enforce heretical legislation there to see that this would not do. And yet anyone who has been connected with the central offices of a large corporation, or the general headquarters of a modern army of millions, knows how hard it is, with the best will in the world, to get information on conditions in the field. In this case we may assume it was at first believed at Rome that local action, or at least local secular action, against heresy would be sufficient. Or, per contra, we may assume that such local action was never confidently relied upon, but that it was thought best to try all other means to the utmost before beginning religious war against an infected member of Christendom itself. At any rate, as in all her important decisions, Papal Rome moved slowly. Moreover, Innocent, over and above his legal training, had a fine sense of fairness and, Italian gentleman that he was, a vast deal of tact. In his dealings with the sporadic cases of heresy that sprang up here and there, weed fashion, outside Languedoc, he followed the papal precedent of curbing and moderating the sometimes excessive zeal of the lower clergy. In 1199 we find him gentle towards a group of Lorrainers in the diocese of Metz who had come under suspicion for reading translations of the Scriptures and for murmuring against their parish priests. He reproved them indeed for not preferring charges through regular channels to their bishop against the priests complained of. He warns them that the profundity of certain dogmas makes them difficult of comprehension by the laity. Nevertheless he assures them that the desire to understand the Scriptures is worthy, in itself, of praise rather than blame, and makes haste to take upon himself the conduct of the case, apparently because he fears that their bishop may be too strict. In the same year we find him protecting the “humiliati,” of Verona, a brotherhood who had bound themselves to voluntary poverty. An archpriest of their city had included them in the excommunication pronounced against the Manicheans, Waldensians and Arnoldists (the followers of Arnold of Brescia). Indeed, to judge from bits of heresy trials which have comedown to us, it seems as if mere eccentricity of life was reason enough for suspicion of heresy. In appeals to Rome, whenever it appeared that the charge of heresy had not been completely proved we find the Pope anxious to give the accused the benefit of every doubt. In the district of Nevers he twice interfered in this way in the case of priests, and twice in favour of the burghers of La-Charité-sur-Loire, although there, unfortunately, his leniency bore no fruit, so that he finally felt himself forced to proceed against them.