Thus the new ideas were preached under the very shadow of the Lateran; in 1209, Otho IV., coming to Rome to be crowned, found there a school in which Manicheism was publicly taught.[26] With all his energy Innocent III.

had not been able to check this evil in the States of the Church.

The case of Viterbo tells much of the difficulty of repressing it; in March, 1199, the pope wrote to the clergy and people of this town to recall to their minds, and at the same time to increase, the penalties pronounced against heresy.

For all that, the Patarini had the majority in 1205, and succeeded in naming one of themselves consul.[27] The wrath of the pontiff at this event was unbounded; he fulminated a bull menacing the city with fire and sword, and commanding the neighboring towns to throw themselves upon her if within a fortnight she had not given satisfaction.[28] It was all in vain: the Patarini were dealt with only as a matter of form; it needed the presence of the pope himself to assure the execution of his orders and obtain the demolition of the houses of the heretics and their abettors (autumn of 1207).[29] But stifled at one point the revolt burst out at a hundred others; at this moment it was triumphant on all sides; at Ferrara, Verona, Rimini, Florence, Prato, Faenza, Treviso, Piacenza.

The clergy were expelled from this last town, which remained more than three years without a priest.[30] Viterbo is twenty leagues from Assisi, Orvieto only ten, and disturbances in this town were equally grave.