Note 694 — XVII. NORMAN ENGLAND.

Matt. Paris ann. 1208.

Perhaps it is to John’s experience in this matter that may be attributed the fact that when, in 1214, he entered into a league with his knight-errant nephew, the Emperor Otho IV., against Philip Augustus, they also declared war against Innocent III., and proposed to carry out a gigantic scheme of spoliation by enriching, from ecclesiastical property, all who might rally to their standard. They proclaimed their intention of humbling the church, reducing the numbers of the clergy, stripping those who were left of all their temporalities, and leaving them only moderate stipends. Both John and Otho had been under excommunication, and could speak feelingly of the overweening power and abuses of the church, whose members they characterize as “genus hoc pigrum et fruges consumere natum, quod otia ducit, quodque sub tecto marcet et umbra, qui frustra vivunt, quorum omnis labor in hoc est, ut Baccho Venerique vacent, quibus crapula obesis poris colla inflat, ventresque abdomine onerat.” (Lünig. Cod. Diplom. Italiæ I. 34). A few weeks later the Bridge of Bouvines put a sudden end to this prosperous plan of reformation.