ABSTRACT
Many within the Church were sympathetic to the emphasis placedon preaching by Valdes or the early Humiliati and also wished to improve the quality of pastoral care provided by parish priests. At the same time there was concern about the degree of active participation by the laity in their own salvation and genuine fear of the alternative Church offered by the Cathars. The policies of successive popes in the early thirteenth century reflect this ambivalent attitude, even as they accepted responsibility for co-ordinating the response of the Church to the crisis. Whether organising crusades or educational facilities, they brought unprecedented resources and influence to bear. The problem was that often these were dissipated at local level where there was still a heavy reliance on bishops whose quality varied. In the end the crucial skill demanded of popes was to work with the grain of popular piety. From within the Church, Dominic Gusman evolved an order of antiheretical preachers, while the laity, represented by a merchant’s son from Assisi, set about devising a ministry for themselves which prided itself on its orthodoxy.
