promoted all improvements. Though once laid under an interdict by Pope
Innocent III. for an unlawful marriage, Philip usually followed the
policy which gained for the Kings of France the title of "Most Christian
King." The real meaning of this was that he should always support the
Pope against the Emperor, and in return be allowed more than ordinary
power over his clergy. The great feudal vassals of eastern France, with
a strong instinct that he was their enemy, made a league with the
Emperor Otto IV. and his uncle King John, against Philip Augustus. John
attacked him in the south, and was repulsed by Philip's son, Louis,
called the "Lion;" while the king himself, backed by the burghers of his
chief cities, gained at Bouvines, over Otto, the first real French
victory, in 1214, thus establishing the power of the crown. Two years
later, Louis the Lion, who had married John's niece, Blanche of Castile,
was invited by the English barons to become their king on John's
refusing to be bound by the Great Charter; and Philip saw his son
actually in possession of London at the time of the death of the last
of the sons of his enemy, Henry II. On John's death, however, the barons
preferred his child to the French prince, and fell away from Louis, who
was forced to return to France.


8. The Albigenses (1203--1240).--The next great step in the building
up of the French kingdom was made by taking advantage of a religious
strife in the south. The lands near the Mediterranean still had much of
the old Roman cultivation, and also of the old corruption, and here
arose a sect called the Albigenses, who held opinions other than those
of the Church on the origin of evil. Pope Innocent III., after sending
some of the order of friars freshly established by the Spaniard,
Dominic, to preach to them in vain, declared them as great enemies of
the faith as Mahometans, and proclaimed a crusade against them and their