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have been some at least who were adherents of 

 the Albigensian party. No religious opinion ever 

 made so striking a progress among the wealthy and 

 noble as this, and none was ever commended in a 

 way more fit to win the sympathy and interest of a 

 youthful monarch inclined to letters and gallantry. 

 The doctrine of the Albigenses was in fact a late 

 revival of the Gnosis of Alexandria. It flattered 

 the pride of those who desired distinction even in 

 their religion. Its representatives and advocates 

 were no repulsive monks or sour ascetics but men 

 of birth and breeding, who excelled in manly 

 exercises, and were famous for their success in the 

 courts of love and in the gay saber. It would not 

 have been wonderful if Frederick himself had 

 become an Albigensian. He is known to have 

 caught a taste for Provengal poetry if nothing 

 more, and it is certain that he remained, to the 

 close of his life, and even beyond it, a grateful 

 and sympathetic figure among those who, after the 

 great persecution, still represented Albigensian 

 doctrine.-^ Something of this may have been due 

 to the influence of his wife Constantia, whose father, 

 Don Pedro of Aragon, had fallen gallantly in 1213 

 under the walls of Murel, during an expedition in 

 which he led the Spanish chivalry to aid the 



^ Albertus Stadensis speaks of a heretical sect which appeared at 

 Halle in 1248. They abused the clergy, the monastic orders and the 

 Pope, but their preachers exhorted them to pray for the Emperor 

 Frederick and his son Conrad, qui j^^rfecti et justi sunt. Among the 

 Albigenses and Cathari generally the word ^^ej/ec^-t was used in a 

 technical sense to indicate those who had been received into complete 

 fellowship as opposed to the credentes who were still on probation. As 

 applied therefore to the Emperor and his son it would seem to indicate 

 at least certain leanings to these opinions on Frederick's part. This might 

 explain the action he certainly took in trying to detach the Sicilian 

 clergy from the see of Rome and to set up a national or imperial church 

 in which he pretended to the earthly headship. 



