[1] The Middle Ages believed firmly in the donation of Constantine. It was, however questioned by Wetzel, a disciple of Arnold of Brescia, in 1152, in a letter to Frederic Barbarossa, Martene and Durand, Veterum scriptorunt ... amplissima collectio, Paris, 1724, vol. ii, col. 554-557.

And yet, withal, they dared persecute humble souls who, by their pure life, tried to realize the perfect ideal proposed by Christ! These persecutors were not the true disciples of Jesus. The Roman Church was the woman of the apocalypse,[1] drunk with the blood of the Saints, and the Pope was Antichrist.

[1] Apoc. vii, 3, 18.

The sacraments of the Church were a mere figment of the imagination. The Cathari made one sacrament out of Baptism, Confirmation, Penance and Eucharist, which they called the consolamentum; they denied the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, and they repudiated marriage.

Baptism of water was to them an empty ceremony, as valueless as the baptism of John. Christ had undoubtedly said: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God."[1] But the acts of the Apostles proved that baptism was a mere ceremony, for they declared that the Samaritans, although baptized, had not thereby received the Holy Spirit, by Whom alone the soul is purified from sin.[2]

[1] John iii, 5.

[2] Acts i. 5; viii. 14-17.

The Catholic Church also erred greatly in teaching infant baptism. As their faculties were undeveloped, infants could not receive the Holy Spirit. The Cathari—at least to the middle of the thirteenth century—did not confer the consolamentum upon newly born infants. According to them, the Church could only abandon these little ones to their unhappy destiny. If they died, they were either forever lost, or, as others taught, condemned to undergo successive incarnations, until they received the consolamentum, which classed them with "the Perfected."

It was preposterous to imagine that Christ wished to change bread and wine into His Body in the Eucharist. The Cathari considered transubstantiation as the worst of abominations, since matter, in every form, was the work of the Evil Spirit. They interpreted the Gospel texts in a figurative sense: at "This is My Body," they said, simply means: "This represents My Body," thus anticipating the teaching of Carlstadt and Zwingli. They all agreed in denouncing Catholics for daring to claim that they really partook of the Body of Christ, as if Christ could enter a man's stomach, to say nothing worse; or as if Christ would expose Himself to be devoured by rats and mice.

The Cathari, defying the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, rejected the sacrifice of the Mass. God, according to them, repudiated all sacrifices. Did He not teach us through His prophet Osee: "I desire mercy and not sacrifice."[1]

[1] Osee vi. 6.

The Lord's Supper which the Apostles ate so often was something altogether different from the Roman Mass. They knew nothing of sacerdotal vestments, stone altars with shining candelabra, incense, hymns, and chantings. They did not worship in an immense building called a church—a word which should be applied exclusively to the assembly of the saints.

The Cathari, in their hatred of Catholic piety, railed in the most abusive language against the veneration of images, and especially of the cross. The images and statues of the saints were to them nothing but idols, which ought to be destroyed. The cross on which Jesus died should be hated rather than reverenced. Some of them, moreover, denied that Jesus had been really crucified; they held that a demon died, or feigned to die in His stead. Even those who believed in the reality of the Saviour's crucifixion made this very belief a reason for condemning the veneration of the cross. What man is there, they said, who could see a loved one, for example a father, die upon a cross, and not feel ever after a deep hatred of this instrument of torture? The cross, therefore, should not be reverenced, but despised, insulted and spat upon. One of them even said: "I would gladly hew the cross to pieces with an axe, and throw it into the fire to make the pot boil."

Not only were the Cathari hostile to the Church and her divine worship, but they were also in open revolt against the State, and its rights.

The feudal society rested entirely upon the oath of fealty (jusjurandum), which was the bond of its strength and solidity.

According to the Cathari, Christ taught that it was sinful to take an oath, and that the speech of every Christian should be yes, yes; no, no.[1] Nothing, therefore, could induce them to take an oath.

[1] Matt. v. 37; James v. 12.

The authority of the State, even when Christian, appeared to them, in certain respects, very doubtful. Had not Christ questioned Peter, saying: "What is thy opinion, Simon? The kings of the earth, of whom do they receive tribute or custody? of their own children, or of strangers?" Peter replied: "Of strangers." Jesus saith to him: "Then are the children free (of every obligation)."[1]

[1] Matt. xvii. 24, 25.

The Cathari quoted these words to justify their refusal of allegiance to princes. Were they not disciples of Christ, whom the truth had made free? Some of them not only disputed the lawfulness of taxation, but went so far as to condone stealing, provided the thief had done no injury to "Believers."[1]

[1] Contrary to the Catholic teaching, the Cathari absolved those who stole from "non-believers," without obliging them to make restitution. Doellinger, Beitraege, vol. ii, pp. 248, 249, cf. pp. 245, 246.

Some of the Cathari admitted the authority of the State, but denied its right to inflict capital punishment. "It is not God's will," said Pierre Garsias, "that human justice condemn any one to death;" and when one of the Cathari became consul of Toulouse, he wrote to remind him of this absolute law. But the Summa contra haereticos asserts: "all the Catharan sects taught that the public prosecution of crime was unjust, and that no man had a right to administer justice;"[1] a teaching which denied the State's right to punish.

[1] Summa contra haereticos, ed. Douais, p. 133, Moneta, op. cit., p. 513.

The Cathari interpreted literally the words of Christ to Peter: "All that take the sword shall perish with the sword,"[1] and applied the commandment Non occides absolutely. "In no instance," they said, "has one the right to kill another;"[2] neither the internal welfare of a country, nor its external interests can justify murder. War is never lawful. The soldier defending his country is just as much a murderer as the most common criminal. It was not any special aversion to the crusades, but their horror of war in general, that made the Cathari declare the preachers of the crusades murderers.

[1] Matt. xxvi. 52.

[2] Cf. Doellinger, Beitraege, vol. ii, p. 199.

These anti-Catholic, anti-patriotic, and anti-social theories were only the negative side of Catharism. Let us now ascertain what they substituted for the Catholic doctrines they denied.

Catharism, as we have already hinted, was a hodgepodge of pagan dualism and Gospel teaching, given to the world as a sort of reformed Christianity.

Human souls, spirits fallen from heaven into a material body which is the work of the Evil Spirit, were subject on this earth to a probation, which was ended by Christ, or rather by the Holy Spirit. They were set free by the imposition of hands, the secret of which had been committed to the true Church by the disciples of Jesus.

This Church had its rulers, the Bishops, and its members who are called "the Perfected," "the Consoled," and "the Believers."

We need not dwell upon the episcopate of the Catharan hierarchy. Suffice it to say that the Bishop was always surrounded by three dignitaries, the Filius Major, the Filius Minor, and the Deacon. The Bishop had charge of the most important religious ceremonies: the imposition of hands for the initiation or consolamentum, the breaking of bread which replaced the Eucharist, and the liturgical prayers such as the recitation of the Lord's Prayer. When he was absent, the Filius Major, the Filius Minor, or the Deacon took his place. It was seldom, however, that these dignitaries traveled alone; the Bishop was always accompanied by his Deacon, who served as his socius.

One joined the Church by promising (the Convenenza) to renounce the Catholic faith, and to receive the Catharan initiation (the consolamentum), at least at the hour of death. This was the first step on the road to perfection. Those who agreed to make it were called "the Believers." Their obligations were few. They were not bound to observe the severe Catharan fasts, which we will mention later on. They could live in the world like other mortals, and were even allowed to eat meat and to marry. Their chief duty was "to venerate" "the Perfected," each time they entered their presence. They genuflected, and prostrated themselves three times, saying each time as they rose, "Give us your blessing;" the third time they added: "Good Christians, give us God's blessing and yours; pray God that He preserve us from an evil death, and bring us to a good end!" The Perfected replied: "Receive God's blessing and ours; may God bless you, preserve you from an evil death, and bring you to a good end." If these heretics were asked why they made others venerate them in this manner, they replied that the Holy Spirit dwelling within them gave them the right to such homage. The Believers were always required to pay this extraordinary mark of respect. In fact it was a sine qua non of their being admitted to the Convenenza.

The Convenenza was not merely an external bond, uniting "the Believers" and "the Perfected," but it was also an earnest of eternal salvation. It assured the future destiny of "the Believers;" it gave them the right to receive the consolamentum on their death-bed. This remitted all the sins of their life. Only one thing could deprive them of "this good end," viz., the absence of one of the Perfected, who alone could lay hands upon them.

Those who died without the Catharan consolamentum were either eternally lost, or condemned to begin life anew with another chance of becoming one of "the good men." These transmigrations of the soul were rather numerous. The human soul did not always pass directly from the body of a man into the body of another man. It occasionally entered into the bodies of animals, like the ox and the ass. The Cathari were wont to tell the story of "a good Christian," one of "the Perfected," who remembered, in a previous existence as a horse, having lost his shoe in a certain place between two stones, as he was running swiftly under his master's spur. When he became a man he was curious enough to hunt for it, and he found it, in the self-same spot. Such humiliating transmigrations were undoubtedly rather rare. A woman named Sybil, "a Believer" and later on one of "the Perfected," remembered having been a queen in a prior existence.

What the Convenenza promised, the Catharan initiation or consolamentum gave; the first made "Believers," and predisposed souls to sanctity; the second made "the Perfected," and conferred sanctity with all its rights and prerogatives.

The consolamentum required a preparation which we may rightly compare with the catechumenate of the early Christians.

This probation usually lasted one year. It consisted in an honest attempt to lead the life of "the Perfected," and chiefly in keeping their three "lents," abstaining from meat, milk-food and eggs. It was therefore called the time of abstinence (abstinentia). One of "the Perfected" was appointed by the Church to report upon the life of the postulant, who daily had to venerate his superior, according to the Catharan rite.

After this probation, came the ceremony of "the delivery" (traditio) of the Lord's Prayer. A number of "the Perfected" were always present. The highest dignitary, the Bishop or "the Ancient," made the candidate a lengthy speech, which has come down to us:

"Understand," he said, "that when you appear before the Church of God you are in the presence of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, as the Scriptures prove," etc. Then, having repeated the Lord's Prayer to "the Believer" word for word, and having explained its meaning, he continued: "We deliver to you this holy prayer, that you may receive it from us, from God, and from the Church, that you may have the right to say it all your life, day and night, alone and in company, and that you may never eat or drink without first saying it. If you omit it, you must do penance." The Believer replied "I receive it from you and from the Church."[1]

[1] Cledat, Rituel Cathare, pp. xi-xv.

After these words came the Abrenuntiatio. At the Catholic baptism, the catechumen renounced Satan, with his works and pomps. According to the Catharan ritual, the Catholic Church was Satan.

"The Perfected" said to the Believer: "Friend, if you wish to be one of us, you must renounce all the doctrines of the Church of Rome," and he replied: "I do renounce them."

—Do you renounce that cross made with chrism upon your breast, head, and shoulders?

—I do renounce it.

—Do you believe that the water of Baptism is efficacious for salvation?

—No, I do not believe it.

—Do you renounce the veil, which the priest placed upon your head, after you were baptized?

—I do renounce it.[1]

Again the Bishop addressed "the Believer" to impress upon him the new duties involved in his receiving the Holy Spirit. Those who were present prayed God to pardon the candidate's sins, and then venerated "the Perfected" (the ceremony of the Parcia). After the Bishop's prayer, "May God bless thee, make thee a good Christian, and grant thee a good end," the candidate made a solemn promise faithfully to fulfill the duties he had learned during his probatio. The words of his promise are to be found in Sacconi: "I promise to devote my life to God and to the Gospel, never to lie or swear, never to touch a woman, never to kill an animal, never to eat meat, eggs or milk-food; never to eat anything but fish and vegetables, never to do anything without first saying the Lord's Prayer, never to eat, travel, or pass the night without a socius. If I fall into the hands of my enemies or happen to be separated from my socius, I promise to spend three days without food or drink. I will never take off my clothes on retiring, nor will I deny my faith even when threatened with death." The ceremony of the Parcia was then repeated.

[1] Sacconi, Summa de Catharis, in Martens and Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, vol. v, p. 1776.

Then, according to the ritual, "the Bishop takes the book (the New Testament), and places it upon the head of the candidate," while the other "good men" present impose hands upon him, saying: "Holy Father, accept this servant of yours in all righteousness, and send your grace and your Spirit upon him." The Holy Spirit was then supposed to descend, and the ceremony of the consolamentum was finished; "the Believer" had become one of "the Perfected."

However, before the assembly disposed, "the Perfected" proceeded to carry out two other ceremonies: the vesting and the kiss of peace.

"While their worship was tolerated," writes an historian, "they gave their new brother a black garment; but in times of persecution they did not wear it, for fear of betraying themselves to the officials of the Inquisition. In the thirteenth century, in southern France, they were known by the linen or flaxen belt, which the men wore over their shirts, and the women wore cordulam cinctam ad carnem nudam subtus mamillas. They resembled the cord or scapular that the Catholic tertiaries wore to represent the habit of the monastic order to which they belonged. They were therefore called haeretici vestiti, which became a common term for 'the Perfected.'"

[1] Jean Guiraud, Le consolamentum ou initiation cathare, loc. cit., p. 134.

The last ceremony was the kiss of peace, which "the Perfected" gave their new brother, by kissing him twice (on the mouth), bis in ore ex transverso. He in turn kissed the one nearest him, who passed on the pax to all present. If the recipient was a woman, the minister gave her the pax by touching her shoulder with the book of the gospels, and his elbow with hers. She transmitted this symbolic kiss in the same manner to the one next to her, if he was a man. After a last fraternal embrace, they all congratulated the new brother, and the assembly dispersed.

The promises made by this new member of "the Perfected" were not all equally hard to keep. As far as positive duties were concerned, there were but three: the daily recitation of the Lord's Prayer, the breaking of bread, and the Apparellamentum.

Only "the Perfected" were allowed to recite the Lord's Prayer. The Cathari explained the esoteric character of this prayer by that passage in the Apocalypse which speaks of the one hundred and forty-four thousand elect who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, and who sing a hymn which only virgins can sing.[1] This hymn was the Pater Noster. Married people, therefore, and consequently "the Believers," could not repeat it without profanation. But "the Perfected" were obliged to say it every day, especially before meals.[2]

[1] Apoc. xiv. 1-4.

[2] The Perfected had to live with a socius who blessed his food, while he in turn had to bless the food of his companion. If he separated from his socius, he had to do without food and drink for three days. This frequently happened when they were arrested and cast into prison.

They blessed the bread without making the sign of the cross.

This "breaking of bread" replaced the Eucharist. They thought in this way to reproduce the Lord's Supper, while they repudiated all the ceremonies of the Catholic Mass. "The Believers" partook of this blessed bread when they sat at the table with "the Perfected," and they were wont to carry some of it home to eat from time to time.

Some attributed to it a wonderful sanctifying power, and believed that if at their death none of "the Perfected" were present to administer the consolamentum, this "bread of the holy prayer" would itself ensure their salvation. They were therefore very anxious to keep some of it on hand; and we read of "the Believers" of Languedoc having some sent them from Lombardy, when they were no longer able to communicate with their persecuted brethren.

It was usually distributed to all present during the Apparellamentum. This was the solemn monthly reunion of all the Cathari, "the Believers" and "the Perfected." All present confessed their sins, no matter how slight, although only a general confession was required. As a rule the Deacon addressed the assembly, which closed with the Parcia and the kiss of peace: osculantes sese invicem ex transverso.

There was nothing very hard in this; on the contrary, it was the consoling side of their life. But their rigorous laws of fasting and abstinence constituted a most severe form of mortification.

"The Perfected" kept three Lents a year; the first from St. Brice's day (November 13) till Christmas; the second from Quinquagesima Sunday till Easter; the third from Pentecost to the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. They called the first and last weeks of these Lents the strict weeks (septimana stricta), because during them they fasted on bread and water every day, whereas the rest of the time they fasted only three days out of the seven. Besides these special penitential seasons, they observed the same rigorous fast three days a week all during the year, unless they were sick or were traveling.[1]

[1] Bernard Gui, Practica inquisitionis, p. 239.

These heretics were known everywhere by their fasting and abstinence. "They are good men," it was said, "who live holy lives, fasting three days a week and never eating meat."[1]

[1] Douais, Les manuscrits du chateau de Merville, in the Annales du Midi, 1890, p. 185.

They never ate, meat, in fact, and this law of abstinence extended, as we have seen, to eggs, cheese, and everything which was the result of animal propagation. They were allowed, however, to eat cold-blooded animals like fish, because of the strange idea they had of their method of propagation.

One of the results, or rather one of the causes of their abstinence from meat, was the absolute respect they had for animal life in general. We have seen that they admitted metempsychosis. According to their belief, the body of an ox or an ass might be the dwelling place of a human soul. To kill these animals, therefore, was a crime equivalent to murder. "For that reason," says Bernard Gui, "they never kill an animal or a bird; for they believe that in animals and birds dwell the souls of men, who died without having been received into their sect by the imposition of hands."[1] This was also one of the signs by which they could be known as heretics. We read of them being condemned at Goslar and elsewhere for having refused to kill and eat a chicken.

[1] Practica inquisitionis, p. 240.

Their most extraordinary mortification was the law of chastity, as they understood and practiced it. They had a great horror of Christian marriage, and endeavored to defend their views by the Scriptures. Had not Christ said: "Whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart;"[1] i.e., was he not guilty of a crime? "The children of this world marry," He says again, "and are given in marriage; but they that shall be accounted worthy of that world and of the resurrection from the dead, shall neither be married, nor take wives."[2] "It is good," says St. Paul, "for a man not to touch a woman."[3]

[1] Matt. v. 28.

[2] Luke xx. 34, 35.

[3] I Corinth. vii. 1, 7.

The Cathari interpreted these texts literally, and when their opponents cited other texts of Scripture which plainly taught the sacred character of Christian marriage, they at once interpreted them in a spiritual or symbolic sense. The only legitimate marriage in their eyes was the union of the Bishop with the Church, or the union of the soul with the Holy Spirit by the ceremony of the consolamentum.

They condemned absolutely all marital relations. That was the sin of Adam and Eve. Pierre Garsias taught at Toulouse that the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden was simply carnal pleasure.

One of the purposes of marriage is the begetting of children. But the propagation of the human species is plainly the work of the Evil Spirit. A woman with child is a woman possessed of the devil. "Pray God," said one of "the Perfected" to the wife of a Toulouse lumber merchant, "pray God that He deliver you from the devil within you." The greatest evil that could befall a woman was to die enceinte; for being in the state of impurity and in the power of Satan, she could not be saved. We read of the Cathari saying this to Peirona de la Caustra: quod si decederet praegnans non posset salvari.

Marriage, because it made such a condition possible, was absolutely condemned. Bernard Gui thus resumes the teaching of the Cathari on this point: "They condemn marriage absolutely; they maintain that it is a perpetual state of sin; they deny that a good God can institute it. They declare the marital relation as great a sin as incest with one's mother, daughter, or sister." And this is by no means a calumnious charge. The language which Bernard Gui attributes to these heretics was used by them on every possible occasion. They were unable to find words strong enough to express their contempt for marriage. "Marriage," they said, "is nothing but licentiousness; marriage is merely prostitution." In their extreme hatred, they even went so far as to prefer open licentiousness to it, saying: "Cohabitation with one's wife is a worse crime than adultery." One might be inclined to think that this was merely an extravagant outburst; but, on the contrary, they tried to defend this view by reason. Licentiousness, they argued, was a temporary thing, to which a man gave himself up only in secret; he might in time become ashamed of it, repent and renounce it entirely. The married state, on the contrary, caused no shame whatever; men never thought of renouncing it, because they did not dream of the wickedness it entailed: quia magis publice et sine verecundia peccatum fiebat.

No one, therefore, was admitted to the consolamentum unless he had renounced all marital relations. In this case, the woman "gave her husband to God, and to the good men." It often happened, too, that women, moved by the preaching of "the Perfected," condemned their unconverted husbands to an enforced celibacy. This was one of the results of the neo-Manichean teachings.

Moreover, they carried their principles so far as to consider it a crime even to touch a woman.

They forbade a man to sit next to a woman except in case of necessity. "If a woman touches you," said Pierre Autier, "you must fast three days on bread and water; and if you touch a woman, you must fast nine days on the same diet." At the ceremony of the consolamentum, the Bishop who imposed hands on the future sister took great care not to touch her, even with the end of his finger; to avoid doing so, he always covered the postulant with a veil.

But in times of persecution, this over-scrupulous caution was calculated to attract public attention. "The Perfected" (men and women) lived together, pretending that they were married, so that they would not be known as heretics. It was their constant care, however, to avoid the slightest contact. This caused them at times great inconvenience. While traveling, they shared the same bed, the better to avoid suspicion. But they slept with their clothes on, and thus managed to follow out the letter of the law: tamen induti quod unus alium in nuda carne non tangebat.

Many Catholics were fully persuaded that this pretended love of purity was merely a cloak to hide the grossest immorality. But while we may admit that many of "the Perfected" did actually violate their promise of absolute chastity, we must acknowledge that, as a general rule, they did resist temptation, and preferred death to what they considered impurity.

Many who feared that they might give way in a moment of weakness to the temptations of a corrupt nature, sought relief in suicide, which was called the endura. There were two forms for the sick heretic, suffocation and fasting. The candidate for death was asked whether he desired to be a martyr or a confessor. If he chose to be a martyr, they placed a handkerchief or a pillow over his mouth, until he died of suffocation. If he preferred to be a confessor, he remained without food or drink, until he died of starvation.

The Cathari believed that "the Believers," who asked for the consolamentum during sickness, would not keep the laws of their new faith, if they happened to get well. Therefore, to safeguard them against apostasy, they were strongly urged to make their salvation certain by the endura. A manuscript of the Register of the Inquisition of Carcassonne, for instance, tells us of a Catharan minister who compelled a sick woman to undergo the endura, after he had conferred upon her the Holy Spirit. He forbade any one "to give her the least nourishment"... and as a matter of fact no food or drink was given her that night or the following day, lest perchance she might be deprived of the benefit of the consolamentum.

One of "the Perfected," named Raymond Belhot, congratulated a mother whose daughter he had just "consoled," and ordered her not to give the sick girl anything to eat or drink until he returned, even though she requested it. "If she asks me for it," said the mother, "I will not have the heart to refuse her." "You must refuse her," said "the good man," "or else cause great injury to her soul." From that moment the girl neither ate nor drank; in fact she did not ask for any nourishment. She died the next Saturday.

About the middle of the thirteenth century, when the Cathari began to give the consolamentum to infants, they were often cruel enough to make them undergo the endura. "One would think," says an historian of the time, "that the world had gone back to those hateful days when unnatural mothers sacrificed their children to Moloch."

It sometimes happened that the parents of "the consoled" withstood more or less openly the cruelty of "the Perfected."

When this happened, some of "the Perfected" remained in the house of the sick person, to see that their murderous prescriptions were obeyed to the letter. Or if this was impossible, they had "the consoled" taken to the house of some friend, where they could readily carry out their policy of starvation.

But as a general rule the "heretics" submitted to the endura of their own free will. Raymond Isaure tells us of a certain Guillaume Sabatier who began the endura in a retired villa, immediately after his initiation; he starved himself to death in seven weeks. A woman named Gentilis died of the endura in six or seven days. A woman of Coustaussa, who had separated from her husband, went to Saverdum to receive the consolamentum. She at once began the endura at Ax, and died after an absolute fast of about twelve weeks. A certain woman named Montaliva submitted to the endura; during it "she ate nothing whatever, but drank some water; she died in six weeks."[1] This case gives us some idea of this terrible practice; we see that they were sometimes allowed to drink water, which explains the extraordinary duration of some of these suicidal fasts.

[1] Ms. 609, of the library of Toulouse, fol. 28.

Some of the Cathari committed suicide in other ways. A woman of Toulouse named Guillemette first began to subject herself to the endura by frequent blood letting; then she tried to weaken herself more by taking long baths; finally she drank poison, and as death did not come quickly enough, she swallowed pounded glass to perforate her intestines.[1] Another woman opened her veins in the bath.2

[1] Ms. 609, of Toulouse, fol. 33.

[2] Ibid., fol. 70.

Such methods of suicide were exceptional, although the endura itself was common, at least among the Cathari of Languedoc. "Every one," says a trustworthy historian, "who reads the acts of the tribunals of the Inquisition of Toulouse and Carcassonne must admit that the endura, voluntary or forced, put to death more victims than the stake or the Inquisition."

Catharism, therefore, was a serious menace to the Church, to the State, and to society.

Without being precisely a Christian heresy, its customs, its hierarchy, and above all its rites of initiation—which we have purposely explained in detail—gave it all the appearance of one. It was really an imitation and a caricature of Christianity. Some of its practices were borrowed from the primitive Christians, as some historians have proved.[1] That in itself would justify the Church in treating its followers as heretics.

[1] Jean Guirard, Le consolamentum ou initiation cathare, in Questions d'histoire, p. 145 seq.

Besides, the Church merely acted in self-defense. The Cathari tried their best to destroy her by attacking her doctrines, her hierarchy, and her apostolic character. If their false teachings had prevailed, disturbing as they did the minds of the people, the Church would have perished.

The princes, who did not concern themselves with these heretics while they merely denied the teachings of the Church, at last found themselves attacked just as vigorously. The Catharan absolute rejection of the oath of fealty was calculated to break the bond that united subjects to their suzerain lords, and at one blow to destroy the whole edifice of feudalism. And even granting that the feudal system could cease to exist without dragging down in its fall all form of government, how could the State provide for the public welfare, if she did not possess the power to punish criminals, as the Cathari maintained?

But the great unpardonable crime of Catharism was its attempt to destroy the future of humanity by its endura, and its abolition of marriage. It taught that the sooner life was destroyed the better. Suicide, instead of being considered a crime, was a means of perfection. To beget children was considered the height of immorality. To become one of "the Perfected," which was the only way of salvation, the husband must leave his wife, and the wife her husband. The family must cease to exist, and all men were urged to form a great religious community, vowed to the most rigorous chastity. If this ideal had been realized, the human race would have disappeared from the earth in a few years. Can any one imagine more immoral and more anti-social teaching?

The Catholic Church has been accused of setting up a similar ideal. This is a gross calumny. For while Catharism made chastity a sine qua non of salvation, and denounced marriage as something infamous and criminal, the Church merely counsels virginity to an elite body of men and women in whom she recognizes the marks of a special vocation, according to the teaching of the Savior, "He that can take, let him take it." Qui potest capiare capiat.[1] She endeavors at the same time to uphold the sacrament of marriage, declaring it a holy state, in which the majority of mankind is to work out its salvation.

[1] Matt. xix. 11, 12.

There is consequently no parity whatever between the two societies and their teachings. In bitterly prosecuting the Cathari, the Church truly acted for the public good. The State was bound to aid her by force, unless it wished to perish herself with all the social order. This explains and to a certain degree Justifies the combined action of Church and State in suppressing the Catharan heresy.



CHAPTER VI FIFTH PERIOD GREGORY IX AND FREDERIC II THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MONASTIC INQUISITION

THE penal system codified by Innocent III was rather liberally interpreted in France and Italy. In order to make the French law agree with it, an oath was added to the coronation service from the time of Louis IX, whereby the King swore to exterminate, i.e., banish all heretics from his kingdom. We are inclined to interpret in this sense the laws of Louis VIII (1226) and Louis IX (April, 1228), for the south of France. The words referring to the punishment of heretics are a little vague: "Let them be punished," says Louis VIII, "with the punishment they deserve." "Animadversione debita puniantur. The other penalties specified are infamy and confiscation; in a word, all the consequences of banishment."[1]

[1] Ordonnances des roys de France, vol. xii, pp. 319, 320.

Louis IX re-enacted this law in the following terms: "We decree that our barons and magistrates ... do their duty in prosecuting heretics." "De ipsis festinanter faciant quod debebunt."[1] These words in themselves are not very clear, and, if we were to interpret them by the customs of a few years later, we might think that they referred to the death penalty, even the stake; but comparing them with similar expressions used by Lucius III and Innocent III, we see that they imply merely the penalty of banishment.

[2] Ibid., vol. i, p. 51; Labbe, Concilia, vol. vii, col. 171.

However, a canon of the Council of Toulouse in 1229 seems to make the meaning of these words clear, at least for the future. It decreed that all heretics and their abettors are to be brought to the nobles and the magistrates to receive due punishment, ut animadversione debita puniantur. But it adds that "heretics, who, through fear of death or any other cause, except their own free will, return to the faith, are to be imprisoned by the bishop of the city to do penance, that they may not corrupt others;" the bishop is to provide for their needs out of the property confiscated.[1] The fear of death here seems to imply that the animadversione debita meant the death penalty. That would prove the elasticity of the formula. At first it was a legal penalty which custom interpreted to mean banishment and confiscation; later on it meant chiefly the death penalty; and finally it meant solely the penalty of the stake. At any rate, this canon of the Council of Toulouse must be kept in mind; for we will soon see Pope Gregory IX quoting it.

[1] D'Achery, Spicilegium, in-fol., vol. i, p. 711.

In Italy, Frederic II promulgated on November 22, 1220, an imperial law which, in accordance with the pontifical decree of March 25, 1199, and the Lateran Council of 1215, condemned heretics to every form of banishment, to perpetual infamy, together with the confiscation of their property, and the annulment of all their civil acts and powers. It is evident that the emperor was influenced by Innocent III, for, having declared that the children of heretics could not inherit their father's property, he adds a phrase borrowed from the papal decree of 1199, viz., "that to offend the divine majesty was a far greater crime than to offend the majesty of the emperor."[1]

[1] Monum. Germaniae, Leges, sect. iv, vol. ii, pp. 107-109.

This at once put heresy on a par with treason, and consequently called for a severer punishment than the law actually decreed. We will soon see others draw the logical conclusion from the emperor's comparison, and enact the death penalty for heresy.

The legates of Pope Honorius were empowered to introduce the canonical and imperial legislation into the statutes of the Italian cities, which hitherto had not been at all anxious to take any measures whatever against heretics. They succeeded in Bergamo, Piacenza, and Mantua in 1221; and in Brescia in 1225. In 1226, the emperor himself ordered the podesta of Pavia to banish all heretics from the city limits. About the year 1230, therefore, it was the generally accepted law throughout all Italy (recall what we have said above about Faenza, Florence, etc.) to banish all heretics, confiscate their property, and demolish their houses.

Two years had hardly elapsed when, through the joint efforts of Frederic II and Gregory IX, the death penalty of the stake was substituted for banishment; Guala, a Dominican, seems to leave been the prime mover in bringing about this change.

Frederic II, influenced by the jurists who were reviving the old Roman law, prolmulgated a law for Lombardy in 1224, which condemned heretics to the stake, or at least to have their tongues cut out.[1] This penalty of the stake was common—if not legal—in Germany. For instance, we read of the people of Strasburg burning about eighty heretics about the year 1212[2], and we could easily cite other similar executions.[3] The emperor, therefore, merely brought the use of the stake from Germany into Italy. Indeed it is very doubtful whether this law was in operation before 1230.

[1] A Constitution sent to the Archbishop of Magdeburg, in the Mon. Germ., Leges, sect. iv, vol. ii, p. 126. [2] Annales Marbacenses, ad ann. 1215, in the Mon. Germ. SS., vol. xvii, p. 174. . [3] Cf. Julien Havet, op. cit., pp. 143, 144.

But in that year, Guala, the Dominican, who had become Bishop of Brescia, used his authority to enact for his episcopal city the most severe laws against heresy. The podesta of the city had to swear that he would prosecute heretics as Manicheans and traitors, according to both the canon and the civil law, especially in view of Frederic's law of 1224. Innocent III's comparison between heretics and traitors, and between the Cathari and the Manicheans, now bore fruit. Traitors deserved the death penalty, while the old Roman law sent the Manicheans to the stake; accordingly Guala maintained that all heretics deserved the stake.

Pope Gregory IX adopted this stern attitude, probably under the influence of the Bishop of Brescia, with whom he was in frequent correspondence.[1] The imperial law of 1224 was inscribed in 1230 or 1231 upon the papal register, where it figures as number 103 of the fourth year of Gregory's pontificate. The Pope then tried to enforce it, beginning with the city of Rome. He enacted a law in February, 1231, ordering, as the Council of Toulouse had done in 1229, heretics condemned by the Church to be handed over to the secular arm, to receive the punishment they deserved, animadversio debita. All who abjured and accepted a fitting penance were to be imprisoned for life, without prejudice to the other penalties for heresy, such as confiscation.[2]

[1] Gregory IX was four years Pope before he enacted these new laws.

[2] Cap. ii, Mon. Germ., Leges, sect. iv, vol. ii, p. 196.

About the same time, Annibale, the Senator of Rome, established the new jurisprudence of the Church in the eternal city. Every year, on taking office, the Senator was to banish (diffidare) all heretics. All who refused to leave the city were, eight days after their condemnation, to receive the punishment they deserved. The penalty, animadversio debita, is not specified, as if every one knew what was meant.

Inasmuch as reluctant heretics were imprisoned for life, it seems certain that the severer penalty reserved for obstinate heretics must have been the death penalty of the stake, for that was the mode of punishment decreed by the imperial law of 1224, which had just been copied on the registers of the papal chancery. But we are not left to mere conjecture. In February, 1231, a number of Patarins were arrested in Rome; those who refused to abjure were sent to the stake, while those who did abjure were sent to Monte Cassino and Cava to do penance. This case tells us instantly how we are to interpret the animadversio debita of contemporary documents.

Frederic II exercised an undeniable influence over Gregory IX, and the Pope in turn influenced the emperor. Gregory wrote denouncing the many heretics who swarmed throughout the kingdom of Sicily (the two Sicilies), especially in Naples and Aversa, urging him to prosecute them with vigor. Frederic obeyed. He was then preparing his Sicilian Code, which appeared at Amalfi in August, 1231. The first law, Inconsutilem tunicam, was against heretics. The emperor did not have to consult any one about the penalty to be decreed against heresy; he had merely to copy his own law, enacted in Lombardy in 1224. This new law declared heresy a crime against society on a par with treason, and liable to the same penalty. And that the law might not be a dead letter for lack of accusers, the state officials were commanded to prosecute it just as they would any other crime. This was in reality the beginning of the Inquisition. All suspects were to be tried by an ecclesiastical tribunal, and if, being declared guilty, they refuse to abjure, they were to be burned in the presence of the people.[1]

[1] Constitut. Sicil., i, 3, in Eymeric, Directorium inquisitorum, Appendix, p. 14.

Once started on the road to severity, Frederic II did not stop. To aid Gregory IX in suppressing heresy, he enacted at Ravenna, in 1237, an imperial law condemning all heretics to death.[1] The kind of death was not indicated. But every one knew that the common German custom of burning heretics at the stake had now become the law. For by three previous laws, May 14, 1238, June 26, 1238, and February 22, 1239, the emperor had declared that the Sicilian Code and the law of Ravenna were binding upon all his subjects; the law of June 26, 1238, merely promulgated these other laws throughout the kingdom of Arles and Vienne. Henceforth all uncertainty was at an end. The legal punishment for heretics throughout the empire was death at the stake.

[1] Mon. Germ., Leges, sect. iv, vol. ii, pp. 196.

Gregory IX did not wait for these laws to be enacted to carry out his intentions.

As early as 1231 he tried to have the cities of Italy and Germany adopt the civil and canonical laws in vogue at Rome against heresy, and he was the first to inaugurate that particular method of prosecution, the permanent tribunal of the Inquisition.

We possess some of the letters which he wrote in June, 1231, urging the bishops and archbishops to further his plans. He did not meet with much success, however, although the Dominicans and the Friars Minor did their best to help him. Still some cities like Milan, Verona, Piacenza and Vercelli adopted the measures of persecution which he proposed. At Milan, Peter of Verona, a Dominican, on September 15, 1233, had the laws of the Pope and the Senator of Rome inscribed in the city's statutes. The animadversio debita was henceforth interpreted to mean the penalty of the stake. "In this year," writes a chronicler of the time, "the people of Milan began to burn heretics." In the month of July, sixty heretics were sent to the stake at Verona. The podesta of Piacenza sent to the Pope the heretics he had arrested. Vercelli, at the instance of the Franciscan, Henry of Milan, incorporated in 1233 into its statutes the law of the Senator of Rome and the imperial law of 1224; it, however, omitted in the last named law the clause which decreed the penalty of cutting out the tongue. In Germany, the Dominican, Conrad of Marburg, was particularly active, in virtue of his commission from Gregory IX. In accordance with the imperial law, we find him sentencing to the stake a great number of heretics.

It may be admitted, however, that in his excessive zeal he even went beyond the desires of the sovereign pontiff. Gregory IX did not find everywhere so marked an eagerness to carry out his wishes. A number of the cities of Italy for a long time continued to punish obstinate heretics according to the penal code of Innocent III, i.e., by banishment and confiscation.

That the penalty of the stake was used at this time in France is proved by the burning of one hundred and eighty-three Bulgarians or Bugres at Mont-Wimer in 1239 and by two important documents, the Etablissements de Saint Louis and the Coutumes de Beauvaisis.

"As soon as the ecclesiastical judge has discovered, after due examination, that the suspect is a heretic, he must hand him over to the secular arm; and the secular judge must send him to the stake."[1] Beaumanoir says the same thing: "In such a case, the secular court must aid the Church; for when the Church condemns any one as a heretic, she is obliged to hand him over to the secular arm to be sent to the stake; for she herself cannot put any one to death."[2]

[1] Etablissements de Saint Louis, ch. cxxiii.

[2] Coutumes de Beauvaisis, xi, 2; cf. xxx, 11, ed. Beugnot, vol. i, pp. 157, 413.

It is a question whether this legislation is merely the codification of the custom introduced by popular uprisings against heresy and by certain royal decrees, or whether it owes its origin to the law of Frederic II which Gregory IX tried to enforce in France, as he had done in Germany and Italy. This second hypothesis is hardly probable. The tribunals of the Inquisition did not have to import into France the penalty of the stake; they found it already established in both central and northern France.

In fact, Gregory IX urged everywhere the enforcement of the existing laws against heresy, and where none existed he introduced a very severe system of prosecution. He was the first, moreover, to establish an extraordinary and permanent tribunal for heresy trials—an institution which afterwards became known as the monastic Inquisition.

. . . . . . . .

The prosecution and the punishment of heretics in every diocese was one of the chief duties of the bishops, the natural defenders of orthodoxy. While heresy appeared at occasional intervals, they had little or no difficulty in fulfilling their duty. But when the Cathari and the Patazins had sprung up everywhere, especially in southern Italy and France and northern Spain, the secrecy of their movements made the task of the bishop extremely hard and complicated. Rome soon perceived that they were not very zealous in prosecuting heresy. To put an end to this neglect, Lucius III, jointly with the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa and the bishops of his court, enacted a decretal at Verona in 1184, regulating the episcopal inquisition.

All bishops and archbishops were commanded to visit personally once or twice a year, or to empower their archdeacons or other clerics to visit, every parish in which heresy was thought to exist. They were to compel two or three trustworthy men, or, if need be, all the inhabitants of the city, to swear that they would denounce every suspect who attended secret assemblies, or whose manner of living differed from that of the ordinary Catholic. After the bishop had questioned all who had been brought before his tribunal, he was empowered to punish them as he deemed fit, unless the accused succeeded in establishing their innocence. All who superstitiously refused to take the required oath (we have seen how the Cathari considered it criminal to take an oath) were to be condemned and punished as heretics, and if they refused to abjure they were handed over to the secular arm.[1] This was an attempt to recall the bishops to a sense of their duty. The Lateran Council of 1215 re-enacted the laws of Lucius III; and to ensure their enforcement it decreed that every bishop who neglected his duty should be deposed, and another consecrated in his place.[2] The Council of Narbonne in 1227 likewise ordered the bishop to appoint synodal witnesses (testes synodales) in every parish to prosecute heretics.[3] But all these decrees, although properly countersigned and placed in the archives, remained practically a dead letter. In the first place it was very difficult to obtain the synodal witnesses. And again, as a contemporary bishop, Lunas de Tuy, assures us, the bishops for the most part were not at all anxious to prosecute heresy. When reproached for their inaction they replied: "How can we condemn those who are neither convicted nor confessed?"[4]

[1] Lucius III, Ep. clxxl, Migne, P.L., vol. cci, col. 1297 and seq.

[2] The Bull Excommunicamus, Decretals, cap. xiii, in fine, De haereticis, lib. v, tit. vii.

[3] Can. 14, Labbe, Concilia, vol. xi, pars i, col. 307, 308.

[4] Lucas Tudensis, De altera vita fideique controversiis adversus Albigensium errores, cap. xix, in the Bibliotheca Patrum, 4 ed. vol. iv, col. 575-714. Lucas was Bishop of Tuy in Galicia, from 1239 to 1249.

The Popes, as the rulers of Christendom, tried to make up for the indifference of the bishops by sending their legates to hunt for the Cathari in their most hidden retreats. But they soon realized that this legatine inquisition was ineffective.[1]

[1] Cf. Lea, op. cit., vol. i, p. 315 and seq.

"Bishop and legate," writes Lea, "were alike unequal to the task of discovering those who carefully shrouded themselves under the cloak of the most orthodox observance; and when by chance a nest of heretics was brought to light, the learning and skill of the average Ordinary failed to elicit a confession from those who professed the most entire accord with the teachings of Rome. In the absence of overt acts, it was difficult to reach the secret thoughts of the sectary. Trained experts were needed whose sole business it should be to unearth the offenders, and extort a confession of their guilt."

At an opportune moment, therefore, two mendicant orders, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, were instituted to meet the new needs of the Church. Both orders devoted themselves to preaching; the Dominicans were especially learned in the ecclesiastical sciences, i.e., canon law and theology.

"The establishment of these orders," continues Lea, "seemed a providential interposition to supply the Church of Christ with what it most sorely needed. As the necessity grew apparent of special and permanent tribunals, devoted exclusively to the widespread sin of heresy, there was every reason why they should be wholly free from the local jealousies and enmities which might tend to the prejudice of the innocent, or the local favoritism which might connive at the escape of the guilty. If, in addition to this freedom from local partialities, the examiners and judges were men specially trained to the detection and conversion of the heretics; if also, they had by irrevocable vows renounced the world; if they could acquire no wealth, and were dead to the enticement of pleasure, every guarantee seemed to be afforded that their momentous duties would be fulfilled with the strictest justice—that while the purity of the faith would be protected, there would be no unnecessary oppression or cruelty or persecution dictated by private interests and personal revenge. Their unlimited popularity was also a warrant that they would receive far more efficient assistance in their arduous labors than could be expected by the bishops, whose position was generally that of antagonism to their flocks, and to the petty seigneurs and powerful barons whose aid was indispensable."[1]

[1] Lea, op. cit., pp. 318, 319.

Gregory IX fully understood the help that the Dominicans and Franciscans could render him as agents of the Inquisition throughout Christendom.

It is probable that, the Senator of Rome refers to them in his oath in 1231, when he speaks of the Inquisitores datos ab Ecclesia.[1] Frederic II, in his law of 1232, also mentions the Inquisitores ab apostolica sede datos.[2] The Dominican Alberic traveled through Lombardy in November, 1232, with the title of Inquisitor hereticae pravitatis.[3] In 1231 a similar commission was entrusted to the Dominicans of Freisach and to the famous Conrad of Marburg. Finally, to quote but one more instance, Gregory IX, in 1233, wrote an eloquent letter to the bishops of southern France in which he said: "We, seeing you engrossed in the whirlwind of cares, and scarce able to breathe in the pressure of overwhelming anxieties, think it well to divide your burdens, that they may be more easily borne. We have therefore determined to send preaching friars against the heretics of France and the adjoining provinces, and we beg, warn, and exhort you, ordering you, as you reverence the Holy See, to receive them kindly, and to treat them well, giving them in this as in all else, favor, counsel, and aid, that they may fulfill their office."

[1] Raynaldi, Annales, ad ann. 1231, sect. 16, 17.

[2] Cap. iii, in the Mon. Germ., Leges, sect. iv, vol. ii, p. 196.

[3] Potthast, Regesta Roman. Pontif., no. 904, 1.

Their duties are outlined in a letter of Gregory IX to Conrad of Marburg, October 11, 1231: "When you arrive in a city, summon the bishops, clergy and people, and preach a solemn sermon on faith; then select certain men of good repute to help you in trying the heretics and suspects denounced before your tribunal. All who on examination are found guilty or suspected of heresy must promise to absolutely obey the commands of the Church; if they refuse, you must prosecute them, according to the statutes which we have recently promulgated." We have in these instructions all the procedure of the Inquisition: the time of grace; the call for witnesses and their testimony; the Interrogation of the Accused; the reconciliation of repentant heretics; the condemnation of obdurate heretics.

Each detail of this procedure calls for a few words of explanation.

The Inquisitor first summoned every heretic of the city to appear before him within a certain fixed time, which as a rule did not exceed thirty days. This period was called "the time of grace" (tempus gratiae). The heretics who abjured during this period were treated with leniency. If secret heretics, they were dismissed with only a slight secret penance; if public heretics, they were exempted from the penalties of death and life imprisonment, and sentenced either to make a short pilgrimage, or to undergo one of the ordinary canonical penances.

If the heretics failed to come forward of their own accord, they were to be denounced by the Catholic people. At first the number of witnesses required to make an accusation valid was not determined; later on two were declared necessary. In the beginning, the Inquisition could only accept the testimony of men and women of good repute; and the Church for a long time maintained that no one should be admitted as an accuser who was a heretic, was excommunicated, a homicide, a thief, a sorcerer, a diviner, or the bearer of false witness. But her hatred of heresy led her later on to set aside this law, when the faith was in question. As early as the twelfth century, Gratian had declared that the testimony of infamous and heretical witnesses might be accepted in trials for heresy.[1]

[1] Pars ii, Causa ii, quaest. vii, cap. xxii; Causa vi, quaest. i, cap. xix.

The edicts of Frederic II declared that heretics could not testify in the courts, but this disability was removed when they were called upon to testify against other suspects.[1] In the beginning, the Inquisitors were loath to accept such testimony. But in 1261 Alexander IV assured them that it was lawful to do so.[2] Henceforth the testimony of a heretic was considered valid, although it was always left to the discretion of the Inquisition to reject it at will. This principle was finally incorporated into the canon law, and was enforced by constant practice. All legal exceptions were henceforth declared inoperative except that of moral enmity.[3]

[1] Historia diplomatica Frederici II, vol. iv, pp. 299, 300.

[2] Bull Consuluit, of January 23, 1261, in Eymeric, Directorium inquisitorum, Appendix, p. 40.

[3] Eymeric, ibid., 3a pars, quaest. lxvii, pp. 606, 607. Pegna, ibid., pp. 607, 609, declares that great cruelty or even insulting words—e.g., to call a man cornutus or a woman meretrix—might come under the head of enmity, and invalidate a man's testimony.

Witnesses for the defence rarely presented themselves. Very seldom do we come across any mention of them. This is readily understood, for they would almost inevitably have been suspected as accomplices and abettors of heresy. For the same reason, the accused were practically denied the help of counsel. Innocent III had forbidden advocates and scriveners to lend aid or counsel to heretics and their abettors.[1] This prohibition, which in the mind of the Pope was intended only for defiant and acknowledged heretics, was gradually extended to every suspect who was striving to prove his innocence.[2]

[1] Decretals, cap. xi, De haereticis, lib.. v, tit. vii.

[2] Eymeric, Directorium inquisitorum, 3a pars, quaest. xxxix, p. 565; cf. 446. Sometimes, however, the accused was granted counsel, but juxta juris formam ac stylum et usum officii Inquisitionis; cf. Vidal, Le tribunal d'Inquisition, in the Annales de Saint Louis des Francais, vol. ix (1905), p. 299, note. Eymeric himself grants one (Directorium, pp. 451-453). But this lawyer was merely to persuade his client to confess his heresy; he was rather the lawyer of the court than of the accused. Vidal, op. cit., pp. 302, 303. Pegna, however, says (in Eymeric Directorium, 2a pars, ch. xi, Comm. 10) that in his time the accused was allowed counsel, if he were only suspected of heresy. Cf. Tanon, op. cit., pp. 400, 401.

Heretics or suspects, therefore, denounced to the Inquisition generally found themselves without counsel before their judges.

They personally had to answer the various charges of the indictment (capitula) made against them. It certainly would have been a great help to them, to have known 'the names of their accusers. But the fear—well-founded it was true[1]—that the accused or their friends would revenge themselves on their accusers, induced the Inquisitors to withhold the names of the witnesses.[2] The only way in which the prisoner could invalidate the testimony against him was to name all his mortal enemies. If his accusers happened to be among them, their testimony was thrown out of court.[3] But otherwise, he was obliged to prove the falsity of the accusations against him—a practically impossible undertaking. For if two witnesses, considered of good repute by the Inquisitor, agreed in accusing the prisoner, his fate was at once settled; whether he confessed or not, he was declared a heretic.

[1] Guillem Pelhisse tells us that the Cathari sometimes killed those who had denounced their brethren. Chronique, ed. Douai, p. 90. A certain Arnold Dominici, who had denounced seven heretics, was killed at night in his bed by "the Believers." Ibid., pp. 98, 99.

[2] Eymeric, Directorium, 3a pars, q. 72. The law on this point varied from time to time. When Boniface VIII incorporated into the canon law the rule of withholding the names of witnesses, he expressly said that they might be produced, if there was no danger in doing so. Cap. 20, Sexto v, 2.

[3] Eymeric, Directorium, 3a pars, De defensionibus reorum, p. 446 and seq.

After the prisoner had been found guilty, he could choose one of two things; he could abjure his heresy and manifest his repentance by accepting the penance imposed by his judge, or he could obstinately persist either in his denial or profession of heresy, accepting resolutely all the consequences of such an attitude.

If the heretic abjured he knelt before the Inquisitor as a penitent before his confessor. He had no reason to fear his judge. For, properly speaking, he did not inflict punishment.

"The mission of the Inquisition," writes Lea, "was to save men's souls; to recall them to the way of salvation, and to assign salutary penance to those who sought it, like a father-confessor with his penitent. Its sentences, therefore, were not like those of an earthly judge, the retaliation of society on the wrongdoer, or deterrent examples to prevent the spread of crime; they were simply imposed for the benefit of the erring soul, to wash away its sin. The Inquisitors themselves habitually speak of their ministrations in this sense."[1]

[1] Lea, op. cit., p. 459.

But "the sin of heresy was too grave to be expiated simply by contrition and amendment."[1] The Inquisitor, therefore, pointed out other means of expiation: "The penances customarily imposed by the Inquisition were comparatively few in number. They consisted, firstly, of pious observances—recitation of prayers, frequenting of churches, the discipline, fasting, pilgrimages, and fines nominally for pious uses,—such as a confessor might impose on his ordinary penitents." These were for offences of trifling import. "Next in grade are the poenae confusibiles,—the humiliating and degrading penances, of which the most important was the wearing of yellow crosses sewed upon the garments; and, finally, the severest punishment among those strictly within the competence of the Holy Office, the murus or prison."[2]

[1] Lea, ibid., p. 463.

[2] Lea, ibid., p. 462.

If the heretic refused to abjure, his obduracy put an end to the judge's leniency, and withdrew him at once from his jurisdiction.

"The Inquisitor never condemned to death, but merely withdrew the protection of the Church from the hardened and impenitent sinner who afforded no hope of conversion, or from him who showed by relapse that there was no trust to be placed in his pretended repentance."[1]

[1] Lea, ibid., p. 460.

It was at this juncture that the State intervened. The ecclesiastical judge handed over the heretic to the secular arm, which simply enforced the legal penalty of the stake. However, the law allowed the heretic to abjure even at the foot of the stake; in that case his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

It is hard to conceive of a greater responsibility than that of a mediaeval Inquisitor. The life or death of the heretic was practically at his disposal. The Church, therefore, required him to possess in a pre-eminent degree the qualities of an impartial judge. Bernard Gui, the most experienced Inquisitor of his time (1308-1323), thus paints for us the portrait of the ideal Inquisitor: "He should be diligent and fervent in his zeal for religious truth, for the salvation of souls, and for the destruction of heresy. He should always be calm in times of trial and difficulty, and never give way to outbursts of anger or temper. He should be a brave man, ready to face death if necessary, but while never cowardly running from danger, he should never be foolhardy rushing into it. He should be unmoved by the entreaties or the bribes of those who appear before his tribunal; still he must not harden his heart to the point of refusing to delay or mitigate punishment, as circumstances may require from time to time.

"In doubtful cases, he should be very careful not to believe too easily what may appear probable, and yet in reality is false; nor, on the other hand, should he stubbornly refuse to believe what may appear improbable, and yet is frequently true. He should zealously discuss and examine every case, so as to be sure to make a just decision.... Let the love of truth and mercy, the special qualities of every good judge, shine in his countenance, and let his sentences never be prompted by avarice or cruelty."[1]

[1] Practica Inquisitionis, pars 6a, ed. Douais, 1886, pp. 231-233.

This portrait corresponds to the idea that Gregory IX had of the true Inquisitor. In the instructions which he gave to the terrible Conrad of Marburg, October 21, 1223, he took good care to warn him to be prudent as well as zealous: "Punish if you will," he said, "the wicked and perverse, but see that no innocent person suffers a your hands:" ut puniatur sic temeritas perversorum, quod innocentiae puritas non laedatur. Gregory IX cannot be accused of injustice, but he will ever be remembered as the Pope who established the Inquisition as a permanent tribunal, and did his utmost to enforce everywhere the death penalty for heresy.

This Pope was, in certain respects, a very slave to the letter of the law. The protests of St. Augustine and many other early Fathers did not affect him in the least. In the beginning, while he was legate, he merely insisted upon the enforcement of the penal code of Innocent III, which did not decree any punishment severer than banishment, but he soon began to regard heresy as a crime similar to treason, and therefore subject to the same penalty, death. Certain ecclesiastics of his court with extremely logical minds, and rulers like Pedro II of Aragon and Frederic II, had reached the same conclusion, even before he did. Finally, in the fourth year of his pontificate, and undoubtedly after mature deliberation, he decided to compel the princes and the podesta to enforce the law condemning heretics to the stake.

He did his utmost to bring this about. He did not forget, however, that the Church could not concern herself in sentences of death. In fact, his law of 1231 decrees that: "Heretics condemned by the Church are to be handed over to the secular courts to receive due punishment (animadversio debita)."[1] The emperor Frederic II had the same notion of the distinction between the two powers. His law of 1224 points out carefully that heretics convicted by an ecclesiastical trial are to be burned in the name of the civil authority: auctoritate nostra ignis judicio concremandus.[2] The imperial law of 1232 likewise declares that heretics condemned by the Church are to be brought before a secular tribunal to receive the punishment they deserve.[3] This explains why Gregory IX did not believe that in handing over heretics to the secular arm he participated directly or indirectly in a death sentence.[4] The tribunals of the Inquisition which he established in no way modified this concept of ecclesiastical justice. The Papacy, the guardian of orthodoxy for the universal Church, simply found that the Dominicans and the Franciscans were more docile instruments than the episcopate for the suppresion of heresy. But whether the Inquisition was under the direction of the bishops or the monks, it could have been conducted on the same lines.

[1] Decretales, cap. xv, De Haereticis, lib. v, tit. vii.

[2] Mon. Germ., Leges, sect. iv, vol. ii, p. 126.

[3] Ibid., p. 196.

[4] Lea writes (op. cit., vol. i, p. 536, note): "Gregory IX had no scruple in asserting the duty of the Church to shed the blood of heretics." In a brief of 1234 to the Archbishop of Sens, he says: Nec enim decuit Apostolicam Sedem, in oculis suis cum Madianita coeunte Judaeo, manum suam a sanguine prohibere, ne si secus ageret non custodire populum Israel ... videretur. Ripoll, i, 66. This is certainly a serious charge, but the citation he gives implies something altogether different. Lea has been deceived himself, and in turn has misled his readers, by a comparison which he mistook for a doctrinal document. The context, we think, clearly shows that the Pope was making a comparison between the Holy See and the Jewish leader Phinees, who had slain an Israelite and a harlot of Madian, in the very act of their crime (Num. xxv. 6, 7). That does not imply that the Church use the same weapons. Even if the comparison is not a very happy one, still we must not exaggerate its import. The Pope's letter did not even mention the execution of heretics. Ripoll, Bullarium ord. FF. Praedicatorum, vol. 1, p. 66.

But, as a matter of fact, it unfortunately changed completely under the direction of the monks. The change effected by them in the ecclesiastical procedure resulted wholly to the detriment of the accused. The safeguards for their defense were in part done away with. A pretense was made to satisfy the demands of justice by requiring that the Inquisitors be prudent and impartial judges. But this made everything depend upon individuals, whereas the law itself should have been just and impartial. In this respect, the criminal procedure of the Inquisition is markedly inferior to the criminal procedure of the Middle Ages.



CHAPTER VI SIXTH PERIOD DEVELOPMENT OF THE INQUISITION INNOCENT IV AND THE USE OF TORTURE

The successors of Gregory IX were not long in perceiving certain defects in the system of the Inquisition. They tried their best to remedy them, although their efforts were not always directed with the view of mitigating its rigor. We will indicate briefly their various decrees pertaining to the tribunals, the penalties and the procedure of the Inquisition.

In appointing the Dominicans and the Franciscans to suppress heresy, Gregory IX did not dream of abolishing the episcopal Inquisition. This was still occasionally carried on with its rival, whose procedure it finally adopted. Indeed no tribunal of the Inquisition could operate in a diocese without the permission of the Bishop, whom it was supposed to aid. But it was inevitable that the Inquisitors would in time encroach upon the episcopal authority, and relying upon their papal commission proceed to act as independent judges. This abuse frequently attracted the attention of the Popes, who, after some hesitation, finally settled the law on this point.

"If previous orders requiring it" (episcopal concurrence), writes Lea, "had not been treated with contempt, Innocent IV would not have been obliged, in 1254, to reiterate the instructions that no condemnations to death or life imprisonment should be uttered without consulting the Bishops; and in 1255 he enjoined Bishop and Inquisitor to interpret in consultation any obscurities in the laws against heresy, and to administer the lighter penalties of deprivation of office and preferment. This recognition of episcopal jurisdiction was annulled by Alexander IV, who, after some vacillation, in 1257 rendered the Inquisition independent by releasing it from the necessity of consulting with the Bishops even in cases of obstinate and confessed heretics, and this he repeated in 1260. Then there was a reaction. In 1262, Urban IV, in an elaborate code of instructions, formally revived the consultation in all cases involving the death penalty or perpetual imprisonment; and this was repeated by Clement IV in 1265. Either these instructions, however, were revoked in some subsequent enactment, or they soon fell into desuetude, for in 1273, Gregory X, after alluding to the action of Alexander IV in annulling consultation, proceeds to direct that Inquisitors in deciding upon sentences shall proceed in accordance with the counsel of the Bishops or their delegates, so that the episcopal authority might share in decisions of such moment."[1]

[1] Lea, op. cit., p. 335.

This decretal remained henceforth the law. But as the Inquisitors at times seemed to act as if it did not exist, Boniface VIII and Clement IV strengthened it by declaring null and void all grave sentences in which the Bishop had not been consulted.[1] The consultation, however, between the Bishop and Inquisitor could be conducted through delegates. In insisting upon this, the Popes proved that they were anxious to give the sentences of the Inquisition every possible guarantee of perfect justice.

[1] Sexto, lib. v, tit. ii, cap. 17, Per hoc; Clementin. lib v. tit. iii, cap. i, Multorum querela.

Another way in which the Popes labored to render the sentences of the Inquisition just, was the institution of experts. As the questions which arose before the tribunals in matters of heresy were often very complex, "it was soon found requisite to associate with the Inquisitors in the rendering of sentences men versed in the civil and canon law, which had by this time become an intricate study, requiring the devotion of a lifetime. Accordingly they were empowered to call in experts to deliberate with them over the evidence, and advise with them on the sentence to be rendered."[1]

[1] Lea, op. cit., vol. i. p. 388.

The official records of the sentences of the Inquisition frequently mention the presence of these experts, periti and boni viri. Their number, which varied according to circumstances, was generally large. At a consultation called by the Inquisitors in January, 1329, at the Bishop's palace in Pamiers, there were thirty-five present, nine of whom were jurisconsults; and at another in September, 1329, there were fifty-one present, twenty of whom were civil lawyers.

"At a comparatively early date, the practice was adopted of allowing a number of culprits to accumulate, whose fate was determined and announced in a solemn Sermo or auto-da-fe. In the final shape which the assembly of counsellors assumed, we find it summoned to meet on Fridays, the Sermo always taking place on Sundays. When the number of criminals was large, there was not much time for deliberation in special cases. The assessors were always to be jurists and Mendicant Friars, selected by the Inquisitor in such numbers as he saw fit. They were severally sworn on the Gospels to secrecy, and to give good and wise counsel, each one according to his conscience, and to the knowledge vouchsafed him by God. The Inquisitor then read over his summary of each case, sometimes withholding the name of the accused, and they voted the sentence, "Penance at the discretion of the Inquisitor"—"that person is to be imprisoned, or abandoned to the secular arm"—while the Gospels lay on the table to so that our judgment might come from the face of God, and our eyes might see justice."[1]

[1] Lea, op. cit., vol. i, p. 389.

We have here the beginnings of our modern jury. As a rule, the Inquisitors followed the advice of their counsellors, save when they themselves favored a less severe sentence. The labor of these experts was considerable, and often lasted several days. "A brief summary of each case was submitted to them. Eymeric maintained that the whole case ought to be submitted to them; and that was undoubtedly the common practice. But Pegna, on the other hand, thought it was better to withhold from the assessors the names of both the witnesses and the prisoners. He declares that this was the common practice of the Inquisition, at least as far as the names were concerned. This was also the practice of the Inquisitors of southern France, as Bernard Gui tells us. The majority of the counsellors received a brief summary of the case, the names being withheld. Only a very few of them were deemed worthy to read the full text of all the interrogatories."[1]

[1] Tanon, op. cit., p. 421.

We can readily see how the periti or boni viri, who were called upon to decide the guilt or innocence of the accused from evidence considered in the abstract, without any knowledge of the prisoners' names or motives, could easily make mistakes. In fact, they did not have data enough to enable them to decide a concrete case. For tribunals are to judge criminals and not crimes, just as physicians treat sick people and not diseases in the abstract. We know that the same disease calls for a different treatment in different individuals; in like manner a crime must be judged with due reference to the mentality of the one Who has committed it. The Inquisition did not seem to understand this.[1]

[1] Even in our day the jury is bound to decide on the merits of the case submitted to it, without regarding the consequences of its verdict. The foreman reminds the jurymen in advance that "they will be false to their oath if, in giving their decision, they are biased by the consideration of the punishment their verdict will entail upon the prisoner."

The assembly of experts, therefore, instituted by the Popes did not obtain the good results that were expected. But we must, at least, in justice admit that the Popes did their utmost to protect the tribunals of the Inquisition from the arbitrary action of individual judges, by requiring the Inquisitors to consult both the boni viri and the Bishops.

Over the various penalties of the Inquisition, the Popes likewise exercised a supervision which was always just and at times most kindly.

The greatest penalties which the Inquisition could inflict were life imprisonment, and abandonment of the prisoner to the secular arm. It is only with regard to the first of these penalties that we see the clemency of both Popes and Councils. Any one who considers the rough manners of this period, must admit that the Church did a great deal to mitigate the excessive cruelty of the medieval prisons.

The Council of Toulouse, in 1229, decreed that repentant heretics "must be imprisoned, in such a way that they could not corrupt others." It also declared that the Bishop was to provide for the prisoners' needs out of their confiscated property. Such measures betoken an earnest desire to safeguard the health, and to a certain degree the liberty of the prisoners. In fact, the documents we possess prove that the condemned sometimes enjoyed a great deal of freedom, and were allowed to receive from their friends an additional supply of food, even when the prison fare was ample.

But in many places the prisoners, even before their trial, were treated with great cruelty. "The papal orders were that they (the prisons) should be constructed of small, dark cells for solitary confinement, only taking care that the enormis rigor of the incarceration should not extinguish life."[1] But this last provision was not always carried out. Too often the prisoners were confined in narrow cells full of disease, and totally unfit for human habitation. The Popes, learning this sad state of affairs, tried to remedy it. Clement V was particularly zealous in his attempts at prison reform.[2] That he succeeded in bettering, at least for a time, the lot of these unfortunates, in whom he interested himself, cannot be denied.[3]

[1] Lea, op. cit., vol. i, p. 491.

[2] He ordered that the prisons be kept in good condition, that they be looked after by both Bishop and Inquisitor, each of whom was to appoint a jailer who would keep the prison keys, that all provisions sent to the prisoners should be faithfully given them, etc. Cf. Decretal Multorum querela in Eymeric, Directorium, p. 112.

[3] His legates Pierre de la Chapelle and Beranger fr Fredol visited in April, 1306, the prisons of Carcassonne and Albi, changed the jailers, removed the irons from the prisoners, and made others leave the subterranean cells in which they had been confined. Douais, Documents, vol. ii, p. 304 seq. Cf. Compayre, Etudes historiques sur l'Albigeois, pp. 240-245.

If the reforms he decreed were not all carried out, the blame must be laid to the door of those appointed to enforce them. History frees him from all responsibility.

The part played by the Popes, the Councils, and the Inquisitors in the infliction of the death penalty does not appear in so favorable a light. While not directly participating in the death sentences, they were still very eager for the executions of the heretics they abandoned to the secular arm. This is well attested by both documents and facts.

Lucius III, at the Council of Verona in 1184, ordered sovereigns to swear, in the presence of their Bishops, to execute fully and conscientiously the ecclesiastical and civil laws against heresy. If they refused or neglected to do this, they themselves were liable to excommunication and their rebellious cities to interdict.[1]

[1] Decretal Ad abolendam, in the Decretals, cap. ix, De Haereticis, lib. v, tit. vii. Cf. Sexto, lib. v, tit. ii, c. 2. Ut Officium; Council of Arles, 1254, can. iii; Council of Beziers, 1246, can. ix.

Innocent IV, in 1252, enacted a law still more severe, insisting on the infliction of the death penalty upon heretics. "When," he says, "heretics condemned by the Bishop, his Vicar, or the Inquisitors, have been abandoned to the secular arm, the podesta or ruler of the city must take charge of them at once, and within five days enforce the laws against them."[1]

[1] Eymeric, Directorium, Appendix. p. 8.

This law, or rather the bull Ad Extirpanda, which contains it, was to be inscribed in perpetuity in all the local statute books. Any attempt to modify it was a crime, which condemned the offender to perpetual infamy, and a fine enforced by the ban. Moreover, each podesta, at the beginning and end of his term, was required to have this bull read in all places designated by the Bishop and the Inquisitors, and to erase from the statute books all laws to the contrary.

At the same time, Innocent IV issued instructions to the Inquisitors of upper Italy, urging them to have this bull and the edicts of Frederic II inserted in the statutes of the various cities.[1] And to prevent mistakes being made as to which imperial edicts he wished enforced, he repeated these instructions in 1254, and inserted in one of his bulls the cruel laws of Frederic II, viz., the edict of Ravenna, Commissis nobis, which decreed the death of obdurate heretics; and the Sicilian law, Inconsutilem tunicam, which expressly decreed that such heretics be sent to the stake.

[1] Cf. the bulls Cum adversus, Tunc potissime, Ex Commissis nobis, etc., in Eymeric, ibid., pp. 9-12.

These decrees remained the law as long as the Inquisition lasted. The bull Ad Extirpanda was, however, slightly modified from time to time. "In 1265, Clement IV again went over it, carefully making some changes, principally in adding the word 'Inquisitors' in passages where Innocent had only designated the Bishops and Friars, thus, showing that the Inquisition had, during the interval, established itself as the recognized instrumentality in the prosecution of heresy, and the next year he repeated Innocent's emphatic order to the Inquisitors to enforce the insertion of his legislation and that of his predecessors upon the statute books everywhere, with the free use of excommunication and interdict."[1]

[1] Lea, op. cit., vol. i, p. 339.

A little later, Nicholas IV, who during his short pontificate (1288-1292), greatly favored the Inquisition in its work, re-enacted the bulls of Innocent IV and Clement IV, and ordered the enforcement of the laws of Frederic II, lest, perchance, they might fall into desuetude.[1]

[1] Registers, published by Langlois, no. 4253.

It is therefore proved beyond question that the Church, in the person of the Popes, used every means at her disposal, especially excommunication, to compel the State to enforce the infliction of the death penalty upon heretics. This excommunication, moreover, was all the more dreaded, because, according to the canons, the one excommunicated, unless absolved front the censure, was regarded as a heretic himself within a year's time, and was liable therefore to the death penalty.[1] The princes of the day, therefore, had no other way of escaping this penalty, except by faithfully carrying out the sentence of the Church.

[1] Alexander IV decreed this penalty against the contumacious. Sexto, De Haereticis, cap. vii. Boniface VIII extended it to those princes and magistrates who did not enforce the sentences of the Inquisition. Sexto, De Haereticis, cap. xviii in Eymeric, 2a pars, p. 110.

. . . . . . . .

The Church is also responsible for having introduced torture into the proceedings of the Inquisition. This cruel practice was introduced by Innocent IV in 1252.

Torture had left too terrible an impression upon the minds of the early Christians to permit of their employing it in their own tribunals. The barbarians who founded the commonwealths of Europe, with the exception of the Visigoths, knew nothing of this brutal method of extorting confessions. The only thing of the kind which they allowed was flogging, which, according to St. Augustine, was rather akin to the correction of children by their parents. Gratian, who recommends it in his Decretum,[1] lays it down as an "accepted rule of canon law that no confession is to be extorted by torture."[2] Besides, Nicholas I, in his instructions to the Bulgarians, had formally denounced the torturing of prisoners.[3] He advised that the testimony of three persons be required for conviction; if these could not be obtained, the prisoner's oath upon the Gospels was to be considered sufficient.

[1] Causa v, quaest. v, Illi qui, cap. iv.

[2] Causa xv, quaest, vi, cap. i.

[3] Responsa ad Consulta Bulgarorum, cap. lxxxvi, Labbe, Concilia, vol. viii, col. 544.

The ecclesiastical tribunals borrowed from Germany another method of proving crime, viz., the ordeals, or judgments of God.

There was the duel, the ordeal of the cross, the ordeal of boiling water, the ordeal of fire, and the ordeal of cold water. They had a great vogue in nearly all the Latin countries, especially in Germany and France. But about the twelfth century they deservedly fell into great disfavor, until at last the Popes, particularly Innocent III, Honorius III, and Gregory IX, legislated them out of existence.[1]

[1] Decretals, lib. v, tit. xxxv, cap. i-iii. Cf. Vacandard, L'Eglise et les Ordalies in Etudes de critique et d'histoire, 3d ed., Paris, 1906, pp. 191-215.

At the very moment the popes were condemning the ordeals, the revival of the Roman law throughout the West was introducing the customs of antiquity. It was then "that jurists began to feel the need of torture, and accustom themselves to the idea of its introduction." "The earliest instances with which I have met," writes Lea, "occur in the Veronese code of 1228, and the Sicilian constitutions of Frederic II in 1231, and in both of these the references to it show how sparingly and hesitatingly it was employed. Even Frederic, in his ruthless edicts, from 1220 to 1239, makes no allusion to it, but in accordance with the Verona decree of Lucius III, prescribes the recognized form of canonical purgation for the trial of all suspected heretics."[1]

[1] Lea, op. cit., vol. i, p. 421.

The use of torture, as Tanon has pointed out, had perhaps never been altogether discontinued. Some ecclesiastical tribunals, at least in Paris, made use of it in extremely grave cases, at the close of the twelfth andd beginning of the thirteenth centuries.[1] But this was exceptional: in Italy, apparently, it had never been used.

[1] Tanon, op. cit., pp. 362-373.

Gregory IX ignored all references to torture made in the Veronese code, and the constitutions of Frederic II. But Innocent IV, feeling undoubtedly that it was a quick and effective method for detecting criminals, authorized the tribunals of the Inquisition to employ it. In his bull Ad Extirpanda, he says: "The podesta or ruler (of the city) is hereby ordered to force all captured heretics to confess and accuse their accomplices by torture which will not imperil life or injure limb, just as thieves and robbers are forced to accuse their accomplices, and to confess their crimes; for these heretics are true thieves, murderers of souls, and robbers of the sacraments of God."[1] The Pope here tries to defend the use of torture, by classing heretics with thieves and murderers. A mere comparison is his only argument.

[1] Bull Ad Extirpanda, in Eymeric, Directorium, Appendix, p. 8.

This law of Innocent IV was renewed and confirmed November 30, 1259, by Alexander IV,[1] and again on November 3, 1265, by Clement IV.[2] The restriction of Innocent III to use torture "which should not imperil life or injure limb" (Cogere citra membri diminutionem et mortis periculum), left a great deal to the discretion of the Inquisitors. Besides flogging, the other punishments inflicted upon those who refused to confess the crime of which they were accused were antecedent imprisonment, the rack, the strappado, and the burning coals.

[1] Potthast, Regesta, no. 17714.

[2] Ibid., no. 19433.

When after the first interrogatory the prisoner denied what the Inquisitors believed to be very probable or certain, he was thrown into prison. The durus carcer et arcta vita was deemed an excellent method of extorting confessions.

"It was pointed out," says Lea, "that judicious restriction of diet not only reduced the body, but weakened the will, and rendered the prisoner less able to resist alternate threats of death and promises of mercy. Starvation, in fact, was reckoned one of the regular and most efficient methods to subdue unwilling witnesses and defendants."[1] This was the usual method employed in Languedoc. "It is the only method," writes Mgr. Douais,[2] "to to extort confessions mentioned either in the records of the notary of the Inquisition of Carcassonne[3] or in the sentences of Bernard Gui. It was also the practice of the Inquisitors across the Rhine."

[1] Lea, op. cit., vol. i, p. 421.

[2] Douais, Documents, vol. i, p. ccxl.

[3] Douais, Documents, vol. ii, p. 115 and seq.

Still the use of torture, especially of the rack and the strappado, was not unknown in southern Europe, even before the promulgation of Innocent's bull Ad Extirpanda.

The rack was a triangular frame, on which the prisoner was stretched and bound, so that he could not move. Cords were attached to his arms and legs, and then connected with a windlass, which, when turned, dislocated the joints of the wrists and ankles.

The strappado or vertical rack was no less painful. The prisoner with his hands tied behind his back was raised by a rope attached to a pulley and windlass to the top of a gallows, or to the ceiling of the torture chamber; he was then let fall with a jerk to within a few inches of the ground. This was repeated several times. The cruel torturers sometimes tied weights to the victim's feet to increase the shock of the fall.

The punishment of burning, "although a very dangerous punishment," as an Inquisitor informs us, was occasionally used. We read of an official of Poitiers, who, following a Toulousain custom, tortured a sorceress by placing her feet on burning coals (juxta carbones accensos). This punishment is described by Marsollier in his Histoire de l'Inquisition. First a good fire was started; then the victim was stretched out on the ground, his feet manacled, and turned toward the flame. Grease, fat, or some other combustible substance was rubbed upon them, so that they were horribly burned. From time to time a screen was placed between the victim's feet and the brazier, that the Inquisitor might have an opportunity to resume his interrogatory.

Such methods of torturing the accused were so detestable, that in the beginning the torturer was always a civil official, as we read in the bull of Innocent IV. The canons of the Church, moreover, prohibited all ecclesiastics from taking part in these tortures, so that the Inquisitor who, for whatever reason, accompanied the victim into the torture chamber, was thereby rendered irregular, and could not exercise his office again, until he had obtained the necessary dispensation. The tribunals complained of this cumbrous mode of administration, and declared that it hindered them from properly interrogating the accused. Every effort was made to have the prohibition against clerics being present in the torture chamber removed. Their object was at last obtained indirectly. On April 27, 1260, Alexander IV authorized the Inquisitors and their associates to mutually grant all the needed dispensations for irregularities that might be incurred.[1] This permission was granted a second time by Urban IV, August 4, 1262;[2] it was practically an authorization to assist at the interrogatories at which torture was employed. From this time the Inquisitors did not scruple to appear in person in the torture chamber. The manuals of the Inquisition record this practice and approve it.[3]