penal sentences are not nearly as severe as later ones; they are founded on the law in force before his time. He was very gentle with converted heretics, for instance Durand de Osca. He inculcated patience with the weakness of the newly converted. He knew that many are more touched by admonitions than by threats, and more likely to be converted by leniency than by severity. He would have wine and oil poured upon their wounds, and severe measures applied only when infection of parts still sound was threatened. He deeply grieved over those who persisted in their infatuation, and only extremest danger induced him to allow the rigour of the law to take its course. In his reign he certainly did not fail in giving every opportunity for instruction and information, and in earnestly admonishing bishops to a better discharge of the functions of their pastoral office; it was with him a subject of great solicitude that the innocent should not suffer, and that for this purpose the most careful investigations should be made.6 Even in the States of the Church the Pope had to combat artful heretics, with whose insolence he became later only too well acquainted.7

1 Huber, p. 18.

2 L. xv. Ep. 90, 93-96, p. 603, 608 seq. Cf. 1. xi. Ep. 198; 1. xii. Ep. 17; 1. xiii. Ep. 78.

3 L. xii. Ep. 67, p. 74.

Ib. Ep. 126, pp. 154, 155: Ad exterminationem suam rerumque publicationem suarum secundum constitutiones civiles et canonicas est processum ut quemadmodum scriptum est, impiorum spolia justi tollant et divitias thesaurizent eorum.'

5 L. vi. Ep. 239, pp. 269, 270; Ep. 242, 243, p. 272 seq.

L. ii. Ep. 228; Ep. Veronensi, p. 788 seq.

L. x. Ep. 130, p. 1220 seq.

§ 13.

Laws concerning spiritual things took precedence of all other laws in ancient codes, and in civil legislation laws against heretics ranked as the foremost and most important.1 The Emperor Frederick II., on the day of his coronation in Rome, A.D. 1220, proclaimed amongst others two laws against heretics, by which they were declared infamous and outlawed. They were

to be punished with confiscation of property, and the civil government was to dislodge them from their territory, which on the lapse of one year might be taken possession of by Catholics.?

1 Raumer, Gesch. der Hohenstaufen, vol. iii. p. 352.

2 Pope Honorius confirmed these laws, and in 1221 renewed the anathema over all heretics. Mansi, xxii. 1137. Pertz, Leg. t. ii. p. 243. Walter, Fontes, p. 84, § 5, 6, c. xlix. de Sent. Excom. v. 39. Vinc. Petra, Com. in Const. Apost. Venet. 1729, t. i. p. 196 seq. Fleury, Hist. Ecclés. t. xvi. 1. lxxviii. n. 40.

§14.

In France, after the death of Louis VIII. (1226), the Albigenses again became more powerful, and Gregory IX. summoned Louis VIII.'s son and successor to resist them by force of arms.1 Peace was at length (1229) concluded between Louis IX. and Count Raymond VII. of Toulouse, whereby the latter ceded to France a great portion of his territory, and promised to purify the remainder from heresy. In the territory that remained with Raymond, as well as in the provinces ceded to France, convicted heretics were to be punished without delay; the others were sought out and reported to the bishops or their officers, and the property of those who remained a year under excommunication was to be confiscated by the royal bailiffs. In the spring of 1233, Count Raymond VII. issued even more rigorous decrees against the Albigenses.

1 Raynald, a. 1227, n. 61; a. 1228, n. 20 seq.

PART II. THE INQUISITION AND WITCHCRAFT.

§ 1. Synod of Toulouse. § 2. Dominicans and Franciscans as inquisitors. § 3. Innocent IV. § 4. Classes of persons accused by the Inquisition. § 5, 6. Heresy and high treason. Mode of procedure. § 7. Further development of the Inquisition. § 8. The Inquisition and the Civil Power. § 9. Heretics of the thirteenth century. § 10. Crimes of the Albigenses. § 11. Grounds for interference. § 12. Waldenses and other sects. § 13. Canonisation of Peter Arbues. § 14. Testimony in favour of the inquisitors. § 15. Protestant persecutions of heretics. § 16. Estimate of the Inquisition. § 17. The Spanish State Inquisition. § 18. Magic and witchcraft. § 19. Are trials for witchcraft to be imputed to the Popes? § 20. Huss.

§ 1.

The episcopal Inquisition as it long existed received its complete formation at the Synod of Toulouse1 in 1229, according to which every bishop was to appoint to every parish a priest and two or three laymen, whose duty it should be to seek out heretics and denounce them to the civil and ecclesiastical authorities; the bailiffs also were to seek out heretics. In order that no innocent person might be punished and no false charges made, no one should be punished as a heretic before having been declared such by a bishop or by some properly authorised ecclesiastic (such as the Cistercian legates and future inquisitors).3 The case of a person publicly charged with, heresy should be subject to a judicial investigation (inquisitio). The rules of proceedings against heretics were, as time went on, more and more precisely regulated.

1 Mansi, xxiii. 191 seq. Hefele, v. p. 872 seq.

2 C. 1-3. This is quite in accordance with the Council of Avignon, 1209, and with many others (supra, Part I. § 11, note 3); amongst them the Council of Taracona, 1233, c. 8; Tours, 1239, c. 1; Albi, 1254, e. 13 (Hefele, v. pp. 918, 960; vi. p. 41). The latter has the addition: Neither from fear, nor hate, nor favour, shall they suffer themselves to be misled in their office.'

3 The Council of Taracona, 1233, c. 5, repeats this.

4 Innoc. III. c. xxxi. de Simon, v. 3. Cf. c. xxiv. de Accus. v. 1.

1

2

§ 2.

On account of the negligence and corruption of some inquisitors, as well as because the bishops were not sufficient, from the year 1232, Gregory IX. appointed the Dominicans as inquisitors, with whom Franciscans were often associated in the office. The institution found no favour in Germany, though Frederick II. took the inquisitors under his special protection, cast suspicions on the Pope of protecting heretics, and desired to extirpate them himself; it came to an end with the murder of the secular priest Conrad of Marburg in 1233. Many pious men took an active part in the office, but some of the Dominicans became obnoxious from over zeal and excessive severity. Several inquisitors were murdered, others grievously ill-treated or

expelled; wherefore in 1237 the Pope suspended the performance of their official duty in the territory of Toulouse.3 The Inquisition was introduced into the kingdom of Aragon in 12321234.4

Bull. Ord. Praed. i. 37, 38. Mansi, xxiii. 74.

2 Cf. Alex. IV. Const. 18, Cupientes, to the inquisitors of this order, Petra, t. iii. p. 149 seq.

Hefele, pp. 882, 978.

4 Bzovius, Annal. ad a. 1232, n. 8, 9.

$3.

The Inquisition was reëstablished in the south of France in the year 1241, after the death of Gregory IX., and whilst the Papal chair was vacant. The newly-elected Innocent IV. felt it his duty not to accede to the request of Raymond VII. of Toulouse, that the Inquisition should be resigned to the bishops; he desired that the bishops and the inquisitors should coöperate together, especially in delivering sentence; episcopal supervision of the purity of the Faith was, however, in no manner withdrawn.2 Innocent IV. in 1243 confirmed anew Frederick II.'s laws concerning heretics. It cannot be proved that Frederick's severe laws were first held binding in Germany and Italy after the Bull of Innocent IV.; the Pope specially enforced them in the parts of Italy most threatened.

Schmidt, 1.c. pp. 297-325. Hist. de Languedoc, iii. p. 446.

...

2 Boniface VIII. c. xvii. de Haer. v. 2, in 6: Per hoc, quod negotium haereticae pravitatis (inquirendae) . . . aliquibus ab Apostolica Sede generaliter... delegatur, dioecesanis episcopis, quin et ipsi auctoritate ordinaria vel delegata (si habent) in eodem procedere valeant, nolumus derogare.' Cf. Clem. V. c. i. de Haer. v. 3, in Clem.

3 Const. 1, Cum adversus. Petra, Comment. in Const. Ap. t. iii. p. 1 seq. c. i. 1. v. tit. 3, in 1. Sept. Bullar. et Taur. iii. p. 503. Cf. ib. p. 552, Const. a. 1252.

$ 4.

Heretics brought to trial and found guilty were divided into three classes: those who being truly penitent were reconciled to the Church; those who submitted to the Church but with doubtful sincerity and for form's sake; and those who remained impenitent and obstinate. The first class were only given some ordinary

and easy ecclesiastical penance. The second class were those who although outwardly renouncing heresy held to it inwardly, and after their release endeavoured with much craft to mislead others. Except the very worst of this class, they were condemned to perpetual imprisonment," but only after their sentence had received Papal confirmation. Those impenitent, amongst whom were included those who had relapsed after having renounced heresy, were delivered up to the civil tribunals. Those who refused to be converted were not to be sentenced forthwith, but were to be several times admonished by inquisitors and others, as the Synod of Beziers, for instance, ordained in 1246. After the laws enacted by Frederick II. in 1231 and 1238, death by fire was the usual sentence upon impenitent heretics.3 These laws, published during the reign of Gregory IX., at the time when the fresh struggle against this Pope was breaking out, were certainly not issued by his direction and with his concurrence; neither is it true that Frederick's terrible laws against heretics were but in accordance with contemporary and previous Papal ordinances. Until Innocent IV. there is no Papal law of the kind, and previously death by fire was by no means universally sanctioned.

1 Mansi, xxiii. 353 seq. Hefele, v. p. 979 seq.

2 Hefele, v. p. 919. Raumer, Gesch. der Hohenst. vi. p. 298.

3 Cf. Pertz, t. iv. p. 327; Land law of the Sachsenspiegel, Bk. ii. art. 14, § 7; Schwabenspiegel, § 313, p. 136, ed. Lassberg, 1840; Card. Albitius, de Inconstantia in Fide, c. xxi. n. 8; Card. Petra, Com. in Const. Ap. t. iii. p. 6, n. 11.

§ 5.

Formal heresy being, according to imperial law, not merely on a par with but a greater crime than high treason,1 this principle was carried out into its juridical consequences, and penalties made for the crime of high treason were applied to the crime of heresy. (a) In cases of high treason all citizens, without exception, were bound to inform against an offender, and those in other cases not allowed to be accusers were admitted; the same rule was decreed for heresy. Every one was bound to give information respecting heretics known to be such3 (they referred