ABSTRACT
The Crusade of 1209-29 and the repression by the inquisitors through the decades prior to 1250 drove heresy out of the well-to-do, both rural and urban, and confined it to the humbler classes. The regional history of heresy or divergent belief, although rural populations rarely invented or developed it to its highest intellectual pitch, they were as much given to it as urban ones. Ecclesiastics were terrified or infuriated by divergence. In spite of this, from 1150 to 1300 no ecclesiastical intellectual was more than censured, rusticated or briefly imprisoned for deviant opinions. This contrasts sharply with the burning or perpetual immurement frequently meted out to the members of heretical sects. Although, therefore, the charge of heresy was thrown about loosely, ideological divergence on the part of single individuals or intellectual groups rarely invited serious repression. Inquisitorial brutality always excited opposition. But, once repression became habitual, bishops could be as harsh as the mendicant specialists.
