Pope Innocent III began the long process of countering dozens of new alternative faith movements that were taking control of Western Europe alongside increasing literacy and new urban classes, from the Waldensians. Though the Albigensian Crusade was the most prominent example of this, the most important action was Innocent reconciling groups like the Humiliati and creating the Franciscans and Dominicans, mendicant orders that both provided opportunities for people to live lives of religious poverty and traveling preaching and put forward a great deal of resistance against heretical movements.
But St. Francis wasn't too unlike Waldes, the founder of Waldensianism, who requested for permission to preach a few decades earlier only to get declined. What if Francis faced the same issue, but he still continued to grow his religious organization against the will of the Papacy? What if the Humiliati weren't reconciled due to tensions and theological questions around lay preaching?
If Innocent III's response to heresy is as bad as his previous popes, is there a chance we see a larger scale spurning of Catholic authority in the high Middle Ages? Could heretical movements have solidified into legitimate alternate faiths that last for centuries?
But St. Francis wasn't too unlike Waldes, the founder of Waldensianism, who requested for permission to preach a few decades earlier only to get declined. What if Francis faced the same issue, but he still continued to grow his religious organization against the will of the Papacy? What if the Humiliati weren't reconciled due to tensions and theological questions around lay preaching?
If Innocent III's response to heresy is as bad as his previous popes, is there a chance we see a larger scale spurning of Catholic authority in the high Middle Ages? Could heretical movements have solidified into legitimate alternate faiths that last for centuries?
