This curious farrago of accusations is worth reciting, as it shows what was regarded as heresy in an opponent of the temporal power of the papacy--that the simplest acts of self-defence against an enemy who was carrying on active war against him were gravely treated as heretical, and constituted valid reasons for inflicting all the tremendous penalties prescribed by the laws for lapses in faith. Politically, however, the portentous sentence was inoperative. Galeazzo maintained the field, and in February, 1324, inflicted a crushing defeat on the papal troops, the cardinal-legate barely escaping by flight, and his general, Raymondo di Cardona being carried a prisoner to Milan. Fresh comminations were necessary to stimulate the faithful, and March 23 John issued a bull condemning Matteo and his five sons, reciting their evil deeds for the most part in the words of the inquisitorial sentence, though the looseness of the whole incrimination is seen in the omission of the most serious charge of all--that of demon-worship--and the defence of Maifreda is replaced by a statement that Matteo had interfered to save Galeazzo, who was now stated to have been a Guglielmite. The bull concludes by offering Holy Land indulgences to all who would assail the Visconti. This was followed, April 12, by another, reciting that the sons of Matteo had been by competent judges duly convicted and sentenced for heresy, but in spite of this, Berthold of Nyffen, calling himself Imperial Vicar of Lombardy, and other representatives of Louis of Bavaria, had assisted the said heretics in resisting the faithful Catholics who had taken up arms against them. They are therefore allowed two months in which to lay down their pretended offices and submit, as they have rendered themselves excommunicate and subject to all the penalties, spiritual and temporal, of fautorship.[211]