Flanders, monastic ingenuity had invented another most painful punishment
for Waldenses and similar malefactors. A criminal whose guilt had been
established by the hot iron, hot ploughshare, boiling kettle, or other
logical proof, was stripped and bound to the stake:--he was then flayed,
from the neck to the navel, while swarms of bees were let loose to fasten
upon his bleeding flesh and torture him to a death of exquisite agony.

Nevertheless heresy increased in the face of oppression The Scriptures,
translated by Waldo into French, were rendered into Netherland rhyme, and
the converts to the Vaudois doctrine increased in numbers and boldness.
At the same time the power and luxury of the clergy was waxing daily.
The bishops of Utrecht, no longer the defenders of the people against
arbitrary power, conducted themselves like little popes. Yielding in
dignity neither to king nor kaiser, they exacted homage from the most
powerful princes of the Netherlands. The clerical order became the most
privileged of all. The accused priest refused to acknowledge the
temporal tribunals. The protection of ecclesiastical edifices was
extended over all criminals and fugitives from justice--a beneficent
result in those sanguinary ages, even if its roots were sacerdotal pride.
To establish an accusation against a bishop, seventy-two witnesses were
necessary; against a deacon, twenty-seven; against an inferior dignitary,
seven; while two were sufficient to convict a layman. The power to read
and write helped the clergy to much wealth. Privileges and charters from
petty princes, gifts and devises from private persons, were documents
which few, save ecclesiastics, could draw or dispute. Not content,
moreover, with their territories and their tithings, the churchmen
perpetually devised new burthens upon the peasantry. Ploughs, sickles,
horses, oxen, all implements of husbandry, were taxed for the benefit of
those who toiled not, but who gathered into barns. In the course of the
twelfth century, many religious houses, richly endowed with lands and