Note 505 — XIII. MILAN.
Reading edition
Milan long retained its bad preeminence as a nest of heresy. When Frederic II., in 1236, delayed his promised crusade to subdue the rebellious Milanese, his excuse to the pope was that he ought not to leave behind him unbelievers worse than those whom he would seek across the seas. “Cum ... jam zizania segetes incipiant suffocare per civitates Italicas, præcipue Mediolanensium, transire ad Saracenos hostiliter expugnandos, et illos incorrectos pertransire, esset vulnus infixo ferro fomentis superficialibus delinire, et cicatricem deformam non medelam procurare,” and Matthew Paris calls Milan “omnium hæreticorum, Paterinorum, Luciferanorum, Publicanorum, Albigensium, Usurariorum refugium ac receptaculum.”—Hist. Angl. ann. 1236.