But stern measures of repression, first by bishops and clergy and then by the Inquisition (q.v.), prevented the general dif fusion of these doctrines. In southern France, indeed, about 1200, it was complained that the heretics outnumbered the Catholics; but Innocent III. exterminated them in a merciless crusade; and the new orders of friars, instituted soon afterwards, did almost as much as the sword and the Inquisition to crush movements which were necessarily sporadic and disorganized, since there was no chance of bringing that side of university scholar ship into quiet and steady co-operation with the less articulate impulses of the multitudes. Moreover, from the very first, there was naturally a good deal of base leaven in these revolts; and even the Waldensians, whose original tenets resembled modern Quaker ism in a good many respects, were gradually compelled, under persecution, to make common cause with other rebels whom they had begun by opposing.
From the mid 13th- century onwards, there was a tendency in official circles to look upon the intellectual and social equilibrium as complete; philosophers were less concerned to advance than to hold the positions already gained and to strengthen the out works from generation to generation. Roger Bacon, the slightly older contemporary of Aquinas, might indeed criticize this im posing philosophical structure in terms which almost anticipate Huxley; it rested (he said) upon a Bible misunderstood, and an Aristotle misunderstood, and upon an almost total neglect of the physical and mathematical sciences. But Bacon exaggerates so far as Aristotle is concerned; and he, like those few who thought with him, had no chance in face of the Inquisition; therefore, though a great deal of Averroism survived at the universities, and we have evidence throughout the later middle ages for groups of "intellectuals" who treated Christianity as an outworn super stition, it was improbable that these men would ever have led a revolt. The academic tendency was rather to evade serious issues under shelter of the theory of "double truth"; things (they said) might be theologically true even while they were philo sophically false. Far more important was the gradual change of
thought among the masses. These, as zealous teachers complained, had always looked too grossly for tangible and immediate results. Saints' images which refused to work expected miracles might be scorned or maltreated; the failure of St. Louis' crusade led common folk to say "nowadays, Mohammed is stronger than Christ." The Black Death inflicted a terrible shock, from which all vital things recovered rapidly, but which shook all mere conventions to their base; to that extent, it must certainly be counted among the hastening factors of the Reformation.
The popes, by their voluntary desertion of Rome for Avignon, did much to impair their prestige, especially in England, where they seemed necessarily partisans of France in the Hundred Years' War. This was expressed in popular rhymes : "The pope is a Frenchman now, but Jesus is English; let us see who will do most, Jesus or the pope!" Then came the Great Schism, with 39 years of struggle between rival popes upon whose claims, though historians are mostly in agreement, the Roman church has never pronounced so clearly and unequivocally as to render it a question settled for all time. Among contemporaries, St. Catharine of Siena was certain that Urban was true pope, and Clement a pretender. But the Spaniard, St. Vincent Ferrer, proves with every reinforcement of scholastic logic, not only that Clement is true pope, but that no man who, having heard the pleas in his favour, decides for Urban, can hope for heaven. The effect of this upon the masses can scarcely be exaggerated ; it was the schism, perhaps, which lent its greatest force to the heresy of Wycliffe. For, at the same time, popular devotions and a popular theology were growing up under the wing of the Church, yet in considerable independence of the priesthood.
Piers Plowman is only one of many books which show how pious and thoughtful folk, outside the hierarchy, were exercised by such problems as predestination, or the damnation of virtuous non-Christians, or the papal doctrine of indulgences (q.v.). The multiplication of books of popular piety in the last generations before the Reformation is enormous. For good or for evil, the people were beginning to outgrow clerical tutelage. Even in the foundation of schools and hospitals, the laity were beginning not only to pay their money, as they had done for long past, but to demand control of their own foundations. There was new life everywhere about 150o; but the gains were far more secular than sacerdotal.