XL] THE RACES OF THE DANUBE. ^ 235 



" If any man slew the son of a king with a bit of 

 wood, how could this piece of wood be dear to the 

 king ? " l Their aversion to the worship of the Virgin 

 was equally pronounced, and they despised the inter- 

 cession of saints. They wore long faces, abstained from 

 the use of wine, and commended celibacy. Some 

 went so far as to refuse animal food, and in general 

 their belief in the vileness of matter led them to the 

 extremes of asceticism. Their ecclesiastical govern- 

 ment was in many respects presbyterian ; in politics 

 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 Testament. 



When we consider that these remarkable sectarians 

 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 out- 

 break 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 Swit- 

 zerland of mediaeval Europe, in whose inaccessible 

 mountain strongholds was prolonged the defiant 

 1 Evans, op. cit. p. xxx. 



