there and burned. In 1145 a number were discovered in Cologne, some of whom were tried ; but, during the examination, the impatient populace, fearing to be balked of their spectacle, broke in, carried off the culprits, and burned them out of hand — a fate which they bore not only with patience, but with joyfulness. There must have been a Catharan Church established by this time at Cologne, since one of the sufferers was called their bishop. In 1163 fugitives from the Flemish persecution were found at Cologne — eight men and three women, who had taken refuge in a barn. As they associated with no one, and did not frequent the churches, the Christian neighbors recognized them as heretics, seized them, and took them before the bishop, when they boldly avowed their faith, and suffered burning with the resolute gladness which distinguished the sect. We hear of others, about the same time, burned at Bonn, but this scanty catalogue exhausts the list of German heresies in the twelfth century. Missionaries penetrated the country from Hungary, Italy, and Flanders ; they are found in Switzerland, Bavaria, Suabia, and even as far as Saxony, but they made few converts.[1]
England was likewise little troubled with heresy. It was shortly after the persecutions in Flanders that in 1166 there were discovered thirty rustics — men and women — German in race and speech, probably Flemings, fleeing from the pious zeal of Henry of Reims, who had come and were endeavoring to propagate their errors. They made but one convert, a woman, who deserted them in the hour of trial. The rest stood firm when Henry II., then engaged in his quarrel with Becket, and anxious to prove his fidelity to the Church, called a council of bishops at Oxford, and presided over it, to determine their faith. They openly avowed it, and were condemned to be scourged, branded in the face with a key, and driven forth. The importance which Henry attached to the matter is shown by his devoting, soon after, in the Assizes of Clarendon, an article to the subject, forbidding any one to receive them under penalty of having his house torn down, and
- ↑ Histor. Trevirens. (D'Achery II. 221, 222).— Alberic. Trium Font. Chron. ann. 1200.— Evervini Stcinfeld. Epist. (S. Bernardi Epist. 472).— Trithem. Chron. Ilirsaug. ann. 1163. — Ecberti Schonaug. contra Catharos Serm. yui. — Schmidt, L 94-96.
