Cruelty

had marked the rule of Churches since the pious Empre Theodora, in the 9th century, had offered up 100,000 lives to her deity: or a queen of the Netherlands a holocaust of 18,000 souls, According to Buckle upwards of 50,000 were slain about the same time for their heresies in other parts of Europe. Basil II, after a bloody conquest of the Bulgarians, “gouged out the eyes of 15,000 captives.” Richard I practised similar cruelties on Moslems at Acre, and Edward the Black Prince butchered 3000 prisoners when he took Limoges.