The Races of the Danube. 251 



they were generally democratic, with a leaning 

 toward communism quite in keeping with their 

 primitive Slavonic customs as well as with their 

 strictly literal interpretation of the New Testa- 

 ment. 



When we consider that these remarkable sec- 

 tarians not only set on foot the Albigensian revolt 

 which Innocent III. overcame with fire and sword, 

 but were also intimately associated with the later 

 Slavonic outbreak of which John Huss and Jerome 

 of Prague were the leaders, it becomes evident 

 that the part played in European history by the 

 southern Slavs is far from insignificant. As Mr. 

 Evans observes, it is not too much to regard 

 Bosnia as the religious Switzerland of mediaeval 

 Europe, in whose inaccessible mountain strong- 

 holds was prolonged the defiant resistance to 

 papal supremacy which in the West repeatedly 

 succumbed to the overwhelming power of the In- 

 quisition. The sudden change which followed on 

 the invasion of the Turks is instructive as show- 

 ing the political danger attendant upon excessive 

 persecution. As the armies of Muhamad IT. were 

 making their way toward Bosnia, King Stephen 

 of Hungary began cutting the throats of his 

 Bogomile subjects, some forty thousand of whom 

 are said to have fled into the Herzegovina, while 



