order of the Empress Irene in 783. The Emperor Michael III. (842-67) sent an army against the Slavonians of the Peloponnesus, which conquered them all with the exception of the Melugi and Eseritoe, who inhabited Lacedaemonia and Elis, and they were all finally subjugated by the Emperor Basilicus I., or the Macedonian (867-86), after which the Christian religion and Greek civilisation completely Hellenised them, as their brethren on the Baltic were Germanised.[E] That the Latin faith subsequently obtained a permanent footing in these provinces, is due to the influence of the Kings of Hungary, who took the Bosnian Bans under their special protection; and thus it happened that the Bosnian nobles almost universally adopted the religion of their benefactors,--not so much from conviction, it is surmised, as from an appreciation of the many feudal privileges which it conferred, since they afterwards renounced Christianity entirely, rather than relinquish the rights which they had begun to regard as hereditary. The remote position of these countries, however, and the antagonism of the Eastern and Western Churches, combined to retard the development of the Papal doctrines, while a still more important counterpoise presented itself, in the appearance of the sect of Patarenes, towards the close of the twelfth century. The sect was founded by an Armenian doctor, named Basil, who was burnt for his opinions by the Emperor Alexius Comnenus, and whose followers, being banished, retired into Bulgaria, where they made many converts, and took the name of Bogomili--'chosen of God,' or 'implorers of God's mercy.' They thence spread their tenets into France by means of pilgrims and traders, who were on their return to that country, and by degrees laid the seeds of doctrines subsequently taken up by Peter Bruysius, and afterwards by Henry and by Peter Valdo, the founder of the Waldenses, and by others in other places. Availing themselves of the various Caliphs' tolerance of all Christian sects, they carried their opinions with their commerce into Africa, Spain, and finally into Languedoc, a neighbouring province, to Moorish Iberia, where Raymond, Count of Toulouse, gave them shelter and protection.[F] The same opinions were held by the Paulicians of Spain, who, having received much encouragement from the Kings of Arragon and Castile, also disseminated their doctrines throughout France, in the southern provinces of which they met with great success. There they received the name of Albigenses, from the town of Albiga or Alby. They afterwards spread into Italy, where they received the name of 'Patarenes,' as some suppose from the 'sufferings' which they endured, though other fanciful reasons are assigned for the bestowal of the name. The tenets of these early reformers 'have been transmitted through various sects under the different denominations of Vallenses, Paulicians, Patarenes, Cathari (Puritans), Bogomili, Albigenses, Waldenses, Lollards, Bohemian Brethren or Hussites, Lutherans, Calvinists, and other Protestants to the present day.' No very lucid account of their articles of faith has been handed down to our times, and some suppose that they entertained the Manichaean doctrines of the existence of the two principles, and of the creation of the spiritual world by the good, and of matter by the evil One. Krasinski appears to favour this supposition; but it is far more probable that, with the name indiscriminately bestowed as a term of