IV on the First Crusade had inaugurated a period of conflicting political claims, and, to a lesser extent, the Balkans, where Byzantine political power was never, in reality, quite as firmly entrenched as propagandists in Constantinople liked to believe.

The response of the western Church authorities to heresy was, at first, to mobilize the forces of persuasion. By the 1180s, the authorities of Languedoc were formally condemning heretical groups. Bernard Gaucelin, archbishop of Narbonne, after making an enquiry into Waldensian beliefs, issued an ineffectual condemnation of their practices; William VIII of Montpellier expressed his disapproval and in Aragon, both Alfonso II ( 1192) and Peter II ( 1194) issued edicts against them. In Milan, the archbishop destroyed a heretical school flourishing in the city in the 1190s. The papacy itself had finally taken the lead in 1184, when the bull Ad abolendarn insisted on the jurisdiction of bishops in all matters concerning heresy and ordered that they should institute enquiries in parishes where heresy was reported or suspected. The secular authorities were ordered to assist these measures. Of more lasting significance was the realization that a concerted effort of 're-education' by orthodox clergy was necessary. Cistercian monks, including St Bernard, were active in the south of France in the early twelfth century, but it was not until the Dominican and, to a lesser extent, Franciscan friars began their widespread preaching campaigns at the beginning of the thirteenth century that inroads began to be made into urban-based heresy. Its continued existence, especially in the country districts of Languedoc, was to call for more severe methods--inquisition and military repression--in the years after 1200.

The Expansion of Latin Christianity: Spain--a Frontier Society

Religious differences created tensions within Christian states, but the concept of Holy War--a just war against the enemies of the Faith--was increasingly drawn upon in the eleventh century to justify attacks on unbelievers. The expansion of Christian power into Muslim lands--from Spain to the Holy

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