Italy.
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Italy was in such a state of anarchy, due to the constant wars between its petty States, that heresy found a congenial soil, though the work of the Inquisition was not made easier. Catharism flourished in Lombardy, and propagated itself all over Europe. Its openly taught doctrines were soon met by violent repression. The Waldensian refugees from the south of France settled in the Cottian Alps, where they supported themselves only by the most remarkable industry. The freethinking emperor, Frederick II, did not respond warmly to the urgent appeals made by the Popes to suppress the heretics, for he knew the value of an increasing body of well-conducted and hard-working citizens.
In 1224, however, Pope Honorius appointed two Bishops with special powers, which they at once proceeded to exercise. The first result was an insurrection at Brescia, in which several churches were burnt. These disturbances were repressed and the ringleaders lightly punished by fines, and it was not until Gregory IX placed the matter in the hands of the Dominicans that satisfactory progress was made. The power of the episcopate had waned, and the Inquisition was free to use its new authority almost as it pleased. It was not welcomed by the people, and its officials were at times roughly handled; but its grip was gradually tightened, largely owing to the zeal and eloquence of the Dominican Giovanni da Vicenza, who performed innumerable miracles, including the raising to life of ten dead persons. This man, whose burning of heretics did not imperil his great reputation as a peacemaker, was appointed Perpetual Inquisitor in 1247, and is believed to have perished in 1265 in a crusade against Manfred, King of Naples. The death in 1250 of Frederick II deprived the heretics of a certain measure of protection, and removed a powerful obstacle to the Inquisition’s activity. The power of bigotry to stifle humane feeling is exhibited by Fra Giovanni Schio, who, though personally one of the gentlest of men, could, after preaching a beautiful sermon on love, calmly have sixty people burnt alive.[28] A still more remarkable figure is that of Peter of Verona, commonly known as St. Peter Martyr, who was one of the most renowned of all Inquisitors. His great gifts of preaching and his wonder-working powers were employed in the suppression of heresy, then rapidly growing in the northern and central parts of Italy. At Milan, and later at Florence, he carried on the holy work of burning, headed an army of the faithful, and in two deadly battles broke the strength of heresy, and with it that of the Ghibelline party, which was opposed to the Papacy. It is said that Peter never broke his fast before sunset, and passed most of the night in prayer—habits which may have had something to do with his persecuting zeal. The murder of this godly man in 1252 by a band of heretics whom he had driven to extremities did not, strangely enough, result in any barbarous vengeance being inflicted on the assassins, who escaped very lightly. One of the perpetrators, after due repentance, was allowed to die peacefully as a beato of the Dominican Order. He even figures among the saints in the church erected to the memory of the man he helped to murder. None of the guilty men appears to have been executed; and one of them, though a notorious heretic, was only imprisoned after a lapse of forty-three years. In this the Church probably acted shrewdly, for the martyr’s halo and the saint’s wonderful miracles redounded to its credit in a striking degree, and one of the first results was the formation of a society, the Crocesegnati, or Knights of the Cross, by persons of station, who swore on the holy cross to devote their lives to the extermination of heresy and heretics. This society, which had branches in most of the Italian cities, greatly aided the Inquisition, and remained in existence until the nineteenth century.
Another energetic bigot, Rainerio Saccone, formerly a Catharian, extended the power of the Holy Office, supported by repeated Papal Bulls and the appointment of fresh Inquisitors. These efforts were impeded by Ezzelin da Romano, whose evil reputation has been, perhaps, somewhat exaggerated, and who, as a ruler, possessed at least one good quality—that he would permit no religious persecution. In 1241 he was condemned as a heretic—an operation several times repeated without result, until at length, in accordance with time-honoured custom, a crusade was organized against him, one of the Papal Bulls containing a provision that persons found in possession of stolen property might receive absolution if they applied it to the purposes of the Crusade. At the outset victorious, Ezzelin was at last defeated, and received wounds from which, refusing all aid, he died. The victor, Pallavicino, was, however, no friend of the Inquisition, and, being irritated by the Pope’s ungrateful treatment of him, he used every opportunity to prevent the Inquisitors from carrying on their work. Pallavicino was summoned to the Papal presence to answer for his heresy, and, disregarding the summons, became involved in war, and died in 1268, when besieged in one of his castles.
In spite of occasional but determined opposition, the Inquisition was by this time supreme all over the Peninsula; the temporal power of the Church grew with its triumph, and heretics were burnt in considerable numbers. It was hardly possible, says an Italian writer, for a man to be a Christian and die in his bed.[29] At one small town seventy persons, and at Piacenza, it is said, twenty-eight wagon loads of human beings, were thus put to death. It is curious that of one man who secretly propagated heretical opinions, while professing to be a devout Catholic, many miracles were recorded after his death. When the evidence of his heterodoxy was found to be conclusive, they ceased, and the quarrel which arose about his sanctity lasted for thirty-two years, until the Pope decreed that the charge of heresy was proved, that his bones should be burnt, all his property confiscated, and all sales or transfers of it declared void.
In the kingdom of Naples and Sicily, Charles of Anjou, whose ambition to dominate Italy had been fostered by the Papacy, established the Inquisition about 1268 or 1269. It looked sharply after the financial results, but, although its operations were at first carried on with vigour, it did not assume the compact and effective form which it possessed in the South of France. Heretics were occasionally burnt, but numbers remained unmolested—a fact which implies some inefficiency on the part of the Inquisitors. At Venice the success of the persecutors was still more meagre, for the Republic jealously kept them in subordination. Its lack of persecuting zeal aroused the ire of the Pope, but his peremptory orders were complied with only in such a way as to leave the supremacy of the State unimpaired. Reserving the right to control confiscations, it undertook only to defray the Inquisitors’ expenses. The Inquisition was becoming no longer a paying concern, and its decay in Italy, as in France, went on steadily during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Catharism had been virtually stamped out, but the Waldenses remained obstinate, strong in their simple faith and hopefulness, their incessant industry, and hardy virtues. In spite of the burning of some of their number in 1312, they flourished in their remote villages until a pitiless persecution by Gregory XI, in 1375, thinned their ranks and avenged the murder of two Inquisitors. About the middle of the fifteenth century a zealous priest in one raid burned twenty-two relapsed heretics, whose property was confiscated. A respite then ensued, but persecution was shortly recommenced, in the form of a crusade. On one occasion five heretics were sentenced to be burnt, but managed to escape. Determined not to be baulked of his prey, the Inquisitor burnt in their stead three other persons whose confessions had secured their pardon. The Waldenses fought bravely, and once nearly annihilated the crusading army, but in the end they were overpowered. Many emigrated to more peaceful districts, where they maintained a precarious existence till 1530, when, like their brethren in France, they were merged in the Calvinist body.
In the Sicilies the Jews were the chief objects of the Inquisition’s activities, but its power, although stimulated in the middle of the fifteenth century by an impudent forgery of the Inquisitor of Palermo, was not equal to its ambitions; its judgments continued to be subject to revision by the State, and were largely nullified by the opposition of the people until the Reformation gave a fresh impetus to the sacred duty of persecution.