Part 36

The inquisition was now regularly instituted, but its jurisprudence was elaborated by successive additions or limitations, by the force of custom and the detailed prescriptions added by the papal constitutions. The pope's commissioners "in the matter of heresy" at first travelled from place to place. On arriving in a district they addressed its inhabitants, called upon them to confess, if they were heretics, or to denounce those whom they knew to be heretics: a "time of grace" was opened, during which those who freely confessed were dispensed from all penalties, or only given a secret and very light penance; while those whose heresy had been openly manifested were exempted from the penalties of death and perpetual imprisonment. But this time could not exceed one month. After that began the inquisition. As soon as their mission was at an end, and heresy was considered to be stamped out, the inquisitors left the country. Later, inquisitorial districts were formed. The seat of the Inquisition in each district was the monastery of the order (Dominican or Franciscan) to which the inquisitors for that part belonged. There was never any special court or prison: the _murus_ (prison) was lent to the Inquisition by the ecclesiastical or secular authorities. The maintenance of the prisoners and the duty of providing the prison fell in principle upon the bishops (council of Toulouse, 1229), but they tried to evade it. The kings of France, and in

## particular Louis VIII., granted subsidies to the inquisitors. For each

district the inquisitors were chosen by the provincials of their order, approved or rejected by the pope, and removable by him only. Their discretionary powers were absolute. They conducted their interrogations before two persons (laymen or ecclesiastics) and only pronounced their sentence after consultation with leading men in the district (_communicato bonorum virorum consilio_). This was the only protection for the accused. It was in vain that the civil lawyers tried to prove that the secular authorities had a right to see the documents bearing on the case; the Inquisition always succeeded in setting aside these claims. The share taken in the proceedings by the bishops, the accused or their representatives, though admitted in principle, was as a rule merely illusory. The Inquisition had in addition to these _boni viri_ certain other lay assistant officials, its sworn notaries, messengers and familiars, all of whom were closely bound to it.

Procedure of the Inquisition.

Use of torture.

Punishments.

"Handing over to the secular arm."

Bernard Guy (Bernardus Guidonis),[2] one of the earliest and most complete exponents of the theory of the Inquisition, admits distinctly that in its procedure _multa sunt specialia_. The procedure was secret and in the highest degree arbitrary, proceeding _sine strepitu et figura judicii_, its object being to ascertain not so much particular offences as tendencies: the murderers of the inquisitor Peter Martyr[3] were tried, not as assassins, but as guilty of heresy and adversaries of the Inquisition; and on the other hand, external acts of piety and verbal professions of faith were held of no value. Moreover the Inquisition was not bound by the ordinary rules of procedure in its inquiries: the accused was surprised by a sudden summons, and as a rule imprisoned on suspicion. All the accused were presumed to be guilty, the judge being at the same time the accuser. Absence was naturally considered as contumacy, and only increased the presumption of guilt by seeming to admit it. The accused had the right to demand a written account of the offences attributed to him (_capitula accusationis_), but the names of the witnesses were withheld from him (Innocent IV.; bulls Cum negocium and _Licet sicut accepimus_), he did not know who had denounced him, nor what weight was attached by the judges to the denunciations made against him. The utmost that was allowed him was the unsatisfactory privilege of the _recusationes divinatrices_, i.e. at his first examination he was asked for the names of any enemies of whom he knew, and the causes of their enmity. Heretics or persons deprived of civil rights (_infames_) were admitted as witnesses in cases of heresy. Women, children or slaves could be witnesses for the prosecution, but not for the defence, and cases are even to be found in which the witnesses were only ten years of age. Langhino Ugolini states that a witness who should retract his hostile evidence should be punished for false witness, but that his evidence should be retained, and have its full effect on the sentence. No witness might refuse to give evidence, under pain of being considered guilty of heresy. The prosecution went on in the utmost secrecy. The accused swore that he would tell the whole truth, and was bound to denounce all those who were partners of his heresy, or whom he knew or suspected to be heretics. If he confessed, and denounced his accomplices, relatives or friends, he was "reconciled" with the Church, and had to suffer only the humiliating penalties prescribed by the canon law. If further examination proved necessary, it was continued by various methods. Bernardus Guidonis enumerates many ways of obtaining confessions, sometimes by means of moral subterfuges, but sometimes also by a process of weakening the physical strength. And as a last expedient torture was resorted to. The Church was originally opposed to torture, and the canon law did not admit confessions extorted by that means; but by the bull _Ad extirpanda_ (1252) Innocent IV. approved its use for the discovery of heresy, and Urban IV. confirmed this usage, which had its origin in secular legislation (cf. the Veronese Code of 1228, and Sicilian Constitution of Frederick II. in 1231). In 1312 excessive cruelty had to be suppressed by the council of Vienna. Canonically the torture could only be applied once, but it might be "continued." The next step was the torture of witnesses, a practice which was left to the discretion of the inquisitors. Moreover, all confessions or depositions extorted in the torture-chamber had subsequently to be "freely" confirmed. The confession was always considered as voluntary. The procedure was of course not litigious; any lawyer defending the accused would have been held guilty of heresy. The inquiry might last a long time, for it was interrupted or resumed according to the discretion of the judges, who disposed matters so as to obtain as many confessions or denunciations as possible. After the different phases of the examination, the accused were divided into two categories: (1) those who had confessed and abjured, (2) those who had not confessed and were consequently convicted of heresy. There was a third class, by no means the least numerous, namely, those who having previously confessed and abjured had relapsed into error. Next came the moment of the sentence: "there was never any case of an acquittal pure and simple" (H. C. Lea). The formula for full and complete acquittal given by Bernardus Guidonis in his _Practica_, should, he says, never or very rarely be employed. The sentences were solemnly pronounced on a Sunday, in a church or public place, in the presence of the inquisitors, their auxiliaries, the bishops, the secular magistrates and the people. This was the _sermo generalis_ (see AUTO DA FÉ). The accused who had confessed were reconciled, and the penalties were then pronounced; these were, in order of severity, penances, fasting, prayers, pilgrimages (Palestine, St James of Compostella, Canterbury, &c.), public scourging, the compulsory wearing on the breast or back of crosses of yellow felt sewn on to the clothes or sometimes of tongues of red, letters, &c. These were the _poenae confusibiles_ (humiliating). The inquisitors eventually acquired the right of inflicting fines at discretion. In 1244 and 1251 Innocent IV. reproved them for their exactions. All these minor penalties could be commuted for payments in money in the same way as absolution from the crusader's vow, and the council of Vienna tried to put an end to these extortions. Beyond these minor penalties came the severer ones of imprisonment for a period of time, perpetual imprisonment and imprisonment of various degrees of severity (_murus largus_, _murus strictus vel strictissimus_). The _murus strictus_ consisted in the deepest dungeon, with single or double fetters, and "the bread and water of affliction"; but the severity of the prison régime varied very much. The _murus largus_, especially for a rich prisoner, amounted to a fairly mild imprisonment, but the mortality among those confined in the _murus strictus_ became so high that Clement V. ordered an inquiry to be made into the prison régime in Languedoc, in spite of Bernard Guy's protest against the investigation as likely to diminish the prestige of the inquisitors. After the sentences had been pronounced, the obstinate heretics and renegades were for the last time called upon to submit and to confess and abjure. If they consented, they were received as penitents, and condemned on the spot to perpetual imprisonment; if they did not consent, they were handed over to the secular arm. When the heretic was handed over to the secular arm, the agents of the secular power were recommended to punish him _debita animadversione_, and the form of recommending him to mercy was gone through. But, as M. Vacandard says, "If the secular judges had thought fit to take this formula literally, they would soon have been brought back to a recognition of the true state of affairs by excommunication." In effect, handing over to the secular arm was equivalent to a sentence of death, and of death by fire. The Dominican Jacob Sprenger, provincial of his order in Germany (1494) and inquisitor, does not hesitate to speak of the victims _quas incinerari fecimus_ ("whom we [the inquisitors] caused to be burnt to ashes"). But we must accept the conclusions of H. C. Lea and Vacandard that comparatively few people suffered at the stake in the medieval Inquisition. Between 1308 and 1323, Bernard Guy, who cannot be accused of inactivity, only handed over to the secular arm 42 persons, out of 930 who were convicted of heresy.

Punishment by confiscation of goods.

Abuse of the system.

Economic and political importance of the system.

From the point of view of jurisprudence of the Inquisition, the confiscation of the condemned man's property by the ecclesiastical and secular powers is only the accompaniment to the more severe penalties of perpetual imprisonment or death; but from the point of view of its economic history the importance of the confiscation is supreme. The practice originated in the Roman law, and all secular princes had already, in their own interest, recognized it as lawful (Frederick Barbarossa, Decree of Verona; Louis VIII., ordinances of 1226, 1229; Louis IX., ordinance of 1234; Raymond VII. of Toulouse, &c.). In the kingdom of France there was a special official, the _procureur des encours_ (confiscation in the matter of heresy), whose duty it was to collect the personal property of the heretics, and to incorporate their landed estates in the royal domain; in Languedoc crying abuses arose, especially under the reign of Alphonse of Poitiers. Soon the papacy managed to gain a share of the spoils, even outside the states of the Church, as is shown by the bulls _ad extirpanda_ of Innocent IV. and Alexander IV., and henceforward the inquisitors had, in varying proportions, a direct interest in these spoliations. In Spain this division only applied to the property of the clergy and vassals of the Church, but in France, Italy and Germany, the property of all those convicted of heresy was shared between the lay and ecclesiastical authorities. Venice alone decided that all the receipts of the Holy Office should be handed over in full to the state. Clement V., in his attempted reform and regularization of inquisitorial procedure, endeavoured to reduce the confiscations to a fairly reasonable minimum, and in 1337-1338 a series of papal inquiries was held into this financial aspect of the matter. The Assize of Clarendon, the Constitutions of Frederick II. (1232) and of Count Raymond of Toulouse (1234) had also come to a joint decision with the councils on this question. King Charles V. of France prevailed upon the papacy to abolish this regulation (1378). Confiscation was, indeed, most profitable to the secular princes, and there is no doubt that the hope of considerable gain was what induced many princes to uphold the inquisitorial administration, especially in the days of the decay of faith. The resistance of the south of France to the Capetian monarchs was to a large extent broken owing to the decimation of the bourgeoisie by the Inquisition and their impoverishment by the extortions of the _encours_. The same was the case in certain of the Italian republics; while in districts such as the north of France, where heretics were both poor and few and far between, the Inquisition did not easily take root, nor did it prove very profitable. These confiscations, the importance of which in the political and economic history of the middle ages was first shown fully by H. C. Lea, were a constant source of uncertainty in transactions of all kinds; there was, for instance, always a risk in entering into a contract in a place where the existence of heretics was suspected, since any contract entered into with a heretic was void in itself. Nor was there any more security in the transmission of inheritances for posthumous trials were frequent; the _Liber sententiarum inquisitionis_ of Bernardus Guidonis (1307-1323) records sentences pronounced after death against 89 persons during a period of 15 years. But not only was their property confiscated and their heirs disinherited; they were subject to still further penalties. Frederick II. extended to heresy the application of the Roman law disqualifying from holding office, and even included under its operation the children and grandchildren of the guilty man. Alexander IV. and Boniface VIII. lightened the severity of this law, and removed certain disqualifications, notably in the case of ecclesiastical offices and property.

Condemnation of books.

Among other accessory penalties, we must notice the condemnation of books. There were many precedents for this: Constantine had had the Arian writings burnt, Theodosius II. and Valentinian III. those of the Nestorians and Manichaeans, Justinian the Talmud. In 1210 were burnt the books of David of Dinant and the Periphyseon of Aristotle. In 1255 the _De periculis novissimorum temporum_ of William of St Amour[4] was burnt by order of Pope Alexander IV., and from 1248 to 1319 was pronounced a series of condemnations of the Talmud. Nicholas Eymerich (c. 1320-1399), the Spanish inquisitor, demanded from Pope Gregory XI. the condemnation of Raymond Lully's books, and in 1376 obtained it, but before long the Lullists returned into favour with the pope and Eymerich was banished. This rebuff suffered by an inquisitor shows how uncertain the censure of books still was, even in a country where in less than two centuries' time it was to become one of the chief spheres of inquisitorial

## activity.

Sorcery and magic.

The definite object of the Inquisition was the prosecution of heresy; but its sphere of action was gradually extended by the theologians and casuists until sorcery and magic ranked with dogmatic heresy. The council of Valence (1248) dealt with sorcerers as well as sacrilegious persons, but did not treat them as heretics. Alexander IV. went further, declaring that divination and sorcery should only come within the competence of the inquisitor when they directly affected the unity or faith of the Church (9th December 1257; cf. bull _Quod super nonnullis_, 10th January 1260). Cases of simple sorcery were left to be dealt with by the ordinary judges. The distinction was very subtle, but it was not tampered with until 1451, at which date Nicholas V. gave the inquisitor Hugues Lenoir the cognizance of cases of divination, even when the crime did not savour of heresy. In dealing with such a subtle question, great variations had naturally arisen in practice, and the repression of sorcery was carried on jointly by the inquisitors, the bishops and the secular courts. John XXII., in consequence of a perfect epidemic of sorcery about 1320, handed over to the inquisitors for a time (1320-1333) all cases of crimes involving magic; but this measure was temporary and exceptional and only confirms the rule. There were various occasions during the middle ages when men's minds became infatuated, and it seemed as if the scourge of magic were likely entirely to destroy the Catholic faith; and during such times, morbidly infected with fear and the spirit of persecution, the ecclesiastical judges regained all their prestige. One of these crises culminated in the affair of the "Vauderie"[5] of Arras (1459), in which twelve unfortunates perished at the stake; and there were similar occurrences at the same period in Dauphiné and Gascony; of this nature again was the violent persecution in the Germanic countries begun by the bull _Summis desiderantes_ of Innocent VIII. (5th December 1484), in the course of which the two authors of the _Malleus maleficorum_, the inquisitors Sprenger and Institoris (Heinrich Krämer), distinguished themselves as much by their knowledge of theoretical demonology as by their zeal as persecutors. In France the secular authority was not long in claiming and obtaining jurisdiction over sorcerers (parlement of Paris, 1374), and as early as 1378 the university of Paris gave judgment in a case of demonology. Those unfortunates who were charged with sorcery gained, however, nothing by this change of jurisdiction, for they were invariably put to death.

The Inquisition and the Jews.

The inquisitors could not take proceedings against Jews as such. They might profess their religion and observe its rites without being in a state of heresy; they were only heretic when they attacked the Christian faith or community, made proselytes, or returned to Judaism after being converted. Further, those who practised usury were "suspected of not holding very orthodox doctrine as to theft" (Vacandard), and on this account the Inquisition gained a hold on them. Pope Martin V. (6th November 1419) authorized inquisitors to take proceedings against usurers.

Treatment of heresy in the various countries.

England.

Scotland.

Ireland.

But these are merely extensions of competence resulting from the works of the casuists; the Inquisition was primarily the instrument for the repression of all kinds of breaches of orthodoxy. Its work in this capacity we will now describe in outline for each of the great countries of medieval Christendom. England, whether before or after the establishment of the Inquisition, had but few trials for heresy and,

## particularist in this as in all her religious activity, judged them

according to her own discipline, without asking Rome for laws or special judges. In 1166, a few heretics having been apprehended, Henry II. called a council at Oxford and summoned them to appear before it; they all confessed, and were condemned to be scourged, branded on the face with the mark of a key, and expelled from the country, and by the 21st article of the Assize of Clarendon the king forbade any one to harbour on their lands or in the house any "of that sect of renegades who had been excommunicated at Oxford." Any one offending against this law was to be "at the king's mercy" and his house was to be "carried outside the town and burnt." The sheriffs were obliged to swear observance of this law and to require a similar oath from all barons' stewards, knights and free tenants. This was the first civil law against heresy since the end of the Roman empire, and preceded the famous rescripts of Frederick II. against sectaries in the 13th century. It should, however, be noted that the political acts of Henry II. and Frederick II. drew down the most explicit condemnation of the church. Orthodoxy remained almost unimpaired in England up till the time of Wycliffe. Apparently neither the Catharist, Waldensian nor Pantheistic heresies gained any footing in Great Britain. The affair of the Templars in France, which was quite political, was repeated in England: Clement V. having ordered their arrest, Edward II., after much hesitation, gave orders to the sheriffs to execute it and then decided that the _ecclesiastical law_ should be applied. The papal inquisitors sent to England met with a bad reception, and the pope was obliged to forbid them to use torture, which was contrary to the laws of the kingdom. It was found impossible to establish the Templars' guilt and only canonical penalties were inflicted on them. The rising of the Lollards having alarmed both the church and the state, the article _De haeretico comburendo_ was established by statute in 1401, and gained a melancholy notoriety during the religious struggles of the 16th century; it seems to have been not so much a measure for the safeguarding of dogma as a violent assertion of the secular absolutism. It was not till 1676 that Charles II. caused it to be abrogated, and obtained a decision that in cases of atheism, blasphemy, heresy, schism and other religious offences, the ecclesiastical courts should be confined to the penalties of excommunication, removal from office, degradation and other ecclesiastical means of censure, to the exclusion of the death penalty. Scotland was much later than England in giving up persecution and bloodshed; and so late as 1696 a student of medicine aged eighteen and named Aikenhead was accused of heresy and hanged at Edinburgh. In Ireland Richard de Lederede or Ledred, a Franciscan and bishop of Ossory, in 1324 prosecuted on suspicion of heresy and for sorcery a certain Dame Alice Kettle or Kyteler and her accomplices, Petronilla of Meath and her daughter Bassilla, who were accused of holding "nightly conference with a spirit called Robert Artisson, to whom she sacrificed in the high way nine red cocks and nine peacocks' eyes." The lady had powerful connexions, and her brother-in-law, Arnold le Powre, seneschal of Kilkenny, even went so far as to imprison the bishop. But in spite of the refusal of the secular authorities to co-operate with him, the bishop was strong enough to force them in 1325 to burn some of the accused. Dame Kettle herself, however, who had been cited to appear at Dublin before the dean of St Patrick's, escaped with the assistance of some of the nobles to England. Meanwhile the bishop, who had attempted to involve Arnold le Powre in the same charge, became involved in a quarrel with the administrators of the English government in Ireland; counter charges were brought against him, he was excommunicated by his metropolitan, Alexander de Bicknor, archbishop of Dublin; and in defiance of the king's commands, after publishing counter charges against the archbishop, he appealed to Rome and left the country. In 1335 Benedict XII. wrote to Edward III. deploring the absence of any inquisition in the king's dominions, and exhorting him to lend the aid of the secular arm in repressing heresy. Archbishop Alexander, who in 1347 was denounced as an abettor of heresy, died in 1349, and his successor was ordered to chastise those heretics who had taken refuge in the diocese from Richard de Lederede's violence, and whom his predecessor had protected. Finally, in 1354, Richard de Lederede himself was allowed to return to his diocese, where his zeal for persecution does not, however, seem to have found much further scope. He died in 1360.

France.