were at their height, when the south of France was agitated by the opinions of the Albigenses, and the provinces on the Rhine by those of the Waldenses.  It was a turbulent age, full of tumults, insurrections, wars, and theological dissensions.  The old monastic orders had degenerated and lost influence through idleness and self-indulgence, while the secular clergy were scarcely any better.  Innocent cast his eagle eye into all the abuses which disgraced the age and Church, and made fearless war upon those princes who usurped his prerogatives.  He excommunicated princes, humbled the Emperor of Germany and the King of England, put kingdoms under interdict, exempted abbots from the jurisdiction of bishops, punished heretics, formed crusades, laid down new canons, regulated taxes, and directed all ecclesiastical movements.  His activity was ceaseless, and his ambition was boundless.  He instituted important changes, and added new orders of monks to the Church.  It was this Pope who made auricular confession obligatory, thus laying the foundation of an imperious spiritual sway in the form of inquisitions.

A firm guardian of public morals, his private life was above reproach.  His habits were simple and his tastes were cultivated.  He was charitable and kind to the poor and unfortunate.  He spent his enormous revenues in building churches, endowing hospitals, and rewarding learned men; and otherwise showed himself the friend of scholars, and the patron of benevolent movements.  He was a reformer of abuses, publishing the most severe acts against venality, and deciding quarrels on principles of justice.  He had no dramatic conflicts like Hildebrand, for his authority was established.  As the supreme guardian of the interests of the Church he seldom made demands which he had not the power to enforce.  John of England attempted resistance, but was compelled to submit.  Innocent even gave the arch-bishopric of Canterbury to one of his cardinals, Stephen Langton, against the wishes of a Norman king.  He made Philip II take back his lawful wife; he nominated an emperor to the throne of Constantine; he compelled France to make war on England, and incited the barons to rebellion against John.  Ten years’ civil war in Germany was the fruit of his astute policy, and the only great failure of his administration was that he could not exempt Italy from the dominion of the Emperors of Germany, thus giving rise to the two great political parties of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,—­the Guelphs and Ghibellines.

To cement his vast spiritual power and to add to the usefulness and glory of the Church, he not only countenanced but encouraged the Mendicant Friars, established by Saint Francis of Assisi, and Saint Dominic of the great family of the Guzmans in Spain.  These men made substantially the same offers to the Pope that Ignatius Loyola did in after times,—­to go where they were sent as teachers, preachers, and missionaries without condition or reward.  They