It was natural that the successive decrees of the Popes from Clement II. (1046-1047) onwards against simony and marriage should have been disregarded in Milan. The renunciation of the benefices which provided them with a livelihood, and the putting away of the wives and children to whom they were bound by the ties of innocent and natural affection, were sacrifices too hard for men whose vocation was rather worldly than spiritual. Nothing less than a social revolution could overthrow the rooted customs of the Ambrosian Church. Such a revolution, in the heaving and unstable eleventh century, was, however, easily excited. The discontent of the lower orders with the aristocracy increased as their lately-won privileges generated the desire for a further share of power, and their particular animus against the ecclesiastical nobles was strengthened by a deep and widespread aspiration for religious purity and truth among many of the humblest people. The agitation against the real and supposed scandals in the lives of the clergy was taken up with fury in the poorest parts of the city. A revolutionary party grew up, which became known among its opponents by the opprobrious name of _Patarini_, a term used in Milan to denote heretics, and derived perhaps from _Patari_, rag-sellers, who with their customers represented the lowest class of the people. And though the aim of the revolutionists was a social and moral, not a doctrinal, reform, there probably prevailed much freedom of thought and religious opinion among them. The heresy of the Catharists—better known under the name of Albigenses, by which they were called later in the south of France—was taking wide hold in North Italy at this time. The strange Manichean ideas of these sectaries, who believed in a dual principle of good and evil governing the world, must have found ready acceptance in pessimistic souls who saw the pride and luxury of the great on one side, and the misery of the oppressed and enslaved masses on the other. Their ideal of extreme bodily purity, rising to an asceticism which, by denying the flesh even the mere satisfaction of its needs aimed at the liberation of the spirit from its thraldom to the Devil by the self-extinction of the human race, contrasted their lives sharply with the luxurious habits of the majority of the orthodox clergy, and by sanctifying hunger and privation, gave a new dignity and self-respect to the down-trodden poor. Moreover, their stern rejection of all pleasure and selfish ambition gave them leisure and courage to devote themselves to the sick and suffering, so that many joined themselves to their company from the impulse of gratitude. They led in fact the evangelic life, though their dark and despairing tenets were utterly alien to the spirit of Christianity. They clung to their peculiar faith with a lofty enthusiasm which persecution could not subdue.