not plead." As for his belief, he admitted two grand directing principles, independent and uncreated ; good and evil; light and darkness. He did not consider almsgiving a means of salvation ; and life should not be an incessant commerce. He did not admit that a priest could, by a few words, transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, and persisted in see- ing in the mass and sacrifice only a commemoration, a symbol. He rejected all the ceremonial service of the Church as an abuse which should be destroyed. He led, moreover, a most regular and sober life, prayed on his knees seven times a day and seven times each night. He did not acknowledge the remission of sins on the earth, not being able to believe that a mere mortal, a priest " all covered with the leprosy of vice," could ab- solve that of which he was himself knowingly guilty each day. As for the members of the clergy, he called them not pastors, but ravishing wolves, etc. The court of Rome was not slow in being roused, and the number of heretics multiplied so prodigiously that an appeal was made to the secular arm. After having condemned the sectarians in several synods, the archbishops of Nar- bonne and Lyons made some arrests, and burned alive those who would not recant. After the action of the Council of Albi in 1176, pope Alexander III himself in- augurated a crusade against the heretics, who were par- ticularly strong in the dominion of Raymond V of Tou- louse. The legate and the bishops entered Toulouse in the midst of the insulting clamors of the people. One of the prelates however preached, and attempted to re- fute the doctrines of the Albigenses; the latter, appa- renth' convmced not so much by his reasoning as by fear of the count of Toulouse, did not dare to be seen or to speak in public. The legate, not contented with this success, caused the Roman Catholics to promise with an oath to denounce and deliver up aU the heretics they knew. Pierre Maiu'and was one of the first reached by this measure. They induced him by caresses and prom- ises to appear before the legate. In the examination to which he was obliged to submit, he declared that the bread was not the body of Christ. The inquisitors asked nothing more ; they delivered him to the count of Toulouse, who immediately imprisoned him, order- ing that his goods should be forthwith confiscated and his mansions demolished, whilst other punislimont was j'et to follow. Pierre Mauraud, seeing himself on the verge of an ignominious death, promised to abjure his faith. They then brought him out of prison, and on the public square, before the assembled people, he kneeled to the legate and his colleagues ; begged their pardon, and promised to submit to their orders. The next day the bishop of Toulouse and the abbot of Saint- Sernin took Maurand from his prison, naked and bare- footed, and led him through the city, fiogging him from time to time. Arriving at the cathedral, he paid a heavy fine, renewed the abjuration of his faith, and heard the sentence which condemned him to start with- in forty days for Jerusalem, and remain there three years in the service of the poor; his goods were confiscated, half to the profit of Raymond V, half to the profit of the clergy. He ■was also obliged to pay a fine of five hun- dred pounds' weight of silver to the count of Toulouse, to make numerous gifts to religious establishments, to the poor, etc. However, when IMaurand returned from Palestine, he recovered the greater part of liis estates. See Dom Vaissette, Histoire de Languedoc, t. iii, chap. xix ; Diet, des Heresies, article Albigeois, in the Ency- clopedie theologique of the abbe IMigne; Benoit, Hist, des Albigeois, t. 1; Langlois, Histoire des C7-oisades con- tre les A Ibigeois ; Basnage de Beauval, Hist, de VEglise,
t. ii, chap, xxix Hoefer, Nouv. Biogr. Ghierale, vol.
xxxiv, s. V.
Maurice, St. See Mauritius.
Maurice (dulce and afterwards elector') of Saxony, one of the most prominent characters in the historj- of the Reformation in the Church of Germany, a celebrated
MAURICE
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MAURICE