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But in 1209 it became clear to him by an inward vision in which the Christ came to him as a shepherd, that great numbers would flock to follow him; and, though he had not thought of founding an Order, he now saw that it would be necessary.
It was the last of May in the north of England, in the year 1209. A very different England from what any boy of to-day has seen. A chilly east wind was blowing. The trees of the vast forests were all in leaf but the ash trees, and they were unfolding their buds. And along a bridle-path a few miles southwest of York a lad of fourteen was riding, while behind him followed a handsome deerhound.
In 1209 one woman accused another of sorcery in the king's court and the defendant cleared herself by the ordeal. In 1279 a man accused of killing a witch who assaulted him in his house was fined, but only because he had fled away. Walter Langton, Bishop of Lichfield and treasurer of Edward I, was accused of sorcery and homage to Satan and cleared himself with the compurgators.
His father, Louis VIII., was a man of weak character, whose reign was chiefly signalized by the horrible persecution of the Protestant Albigenses of Provence, which, under the sanction of Innocent III., and later Popes, had been carried on by Simon de Montfort and other fanatics, since 1209. Louis himself had died of fever when about to commence the siege of Toulouse.
The love of temporal dominion was ruining the Church of Rome. Kings of England. 1199. John. 1216. Henry III. King of Scotland. 1214. Alexander II. King of France. 1180. Philippe II. Emperor of Germany. 1209. Friedrich II. Popes. 1198. Innocent III. 1216. Honorius III. The first table of English laws were those of Ina, King of Wessex.
William had difficulties with John; in 1209, an outbreak of hostilities seemed almost certain, but the two kings came to terms. The long reign of William came to an end in 1214. His son and successor, Alexander II, joined the French party in England which was defeated at Lincoln in 1216.
The writer makes a jump to the year 1209, when Carcassonne, then forming part of the realm of the viscounts of Béziers and infected by the Albigensian heresy, was besieged, in the name of the Pope, by the terrible Simon de Montfort and his army of crusaders. Simon was accustomed to success, and the town succumbed in the course of a fortnight.
While he was listening to the Gospel there, one day in February, 1209, these words were read from the altar: "Do not possess gold nor silver, nor money in your purses; nor scrip for your journey, nor two coats, nor shoes, nor a staff." That precept decided him. He saw his vocation as a devotee of holy poverty.
John left two legitimate sons behind him; Henry, born on the first of October, 1207, and now nine years of age; and Richard, born on the sixth of January, 1209; and three daughters; Jane, afterwards married to Alexander King of Scots; Eleanor, married first to William Mareschal the younger, Earl of Pembroke, and then to Simon Mountfort, Earl of Leicester; and Isabella, married to the Emperor Frederic II. All these children were born to him by Isabella of Angoulesme, his second wife.
The beginning of the whole affair was the quarrel with the town, which, in 1209, had hanged two clerks, "in contempt of clerical liberty." The matter was taken up by the Legate in those bad years of King John the Pope's viceroy in England and out of the humiliation of the town the University gained money, privileges, and halls at low rental.
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