At the time, however, there seems to have been little thought of a permanent system which should take the place of the Bishops’ jurisdiction. The basis of the persecuting body was more thoroughly settled at the Council of Narbonne in 1244, when the control of heresy was surrendered by the Bishops to the Inquisition, with the prudent proviso that the prelates reserved to themselves the pecuniary results. This transfer was not everywhere made complete, for even after that date many Inquisitors recognized the authority of episcopal tribunals, and in 1273 Gregory X also admitted their supremacy. Evidently the Holy Office was long regarded as a temporary expedient, and every Pope had renewed its charter.
In May, 1252, Innocent IV issued his famous Bull Ad Extirpanda, which was a complete exposition of the laws against heresy, and set up the machinery for its detection. In addition to all the known regulations, it laid down further provisions binding all rulers to outlaw heretics and empowering any one to seize suspected persons and take possession of their goods (being thereby entitled to a share of the proceeds). This vigilance was rewarded by exemption from public services and by freedom of personal action. Every one, including all State officials, was bound to give assistance; men of good repute had to be sworn to reveal anything they knew, or suspected, of any person in their district. The State was responsible for the seizure of heretics; it was commanded to execute judgment against them and to torture those who would not confess and betray their accomplices. Lists of suspected persons were to be made out and read in public three times a year, and copies given to the Bishops, the Dominicans, and the Franciscans.
The provisions of this Bull were strictly enforced, and it is significant of the state of public opinion that it aroused no effective resistance. By a later Bull of 1265, Pope Urban IV confirmed its instructions, and made the Inquisition supreme in all countries. It became a maxim of law that all statutes which interfered with the Inquisition were void and their authors punishable. The Holy Office had a free hand, and was not liable to excommunication in the discharge of its sacred duties, or to suspicion by even a Papal Legate. Nicholas IV gave a finishing touch by making the Inquisitors’ commissions perpetual. Bishops were not liable to be judged by Inquisitors, but nevertheless had to obey them, and, though at times they tried cases of heresy in their own courts, they were compelled to allow an Inquisitor to take part in the sentence.
Popular feeling, it is true, occasionally revolted against this tyranny; but, as any one who in any way opposed the Inquisition was thereby excommunicated, the resistance was easily and remorselessly crushed. The tenacious memory and sleepless vigilance of the Inquisition hunted out persons who years before had said a kind word to a heretic, or sent a copper to a sick person under suspicion. Public confidence was destroyed by the general dread that a careless word might ruin a man; that stories might, unknown to him, be circulated about him and come to the Inquisitors’ ears; that an enemy might secretly and safely gratify an old grudge, until at last poor wretches would inform against others rather than be themselves betrayed.
It was a rule of the Inquisition that all testimony should be taken down in the presence of two impartial persons unconnected with the institution, but sworn to absolute secrecy. This precautionary act of justice was soon disregarded, and the bulky documents of the Inquisition were generally held to be unworthy of trust. In some of the revolts against its tyranny the populace were careful to destroy the records, for it was well known that the Inquisitors had an unpleasant habit of discovering among them facts damaging to those whom they desired to injure.
As if the Inquisitors themselves were not dangerous enough, they were allowed to employ a swarm of hangers-on known as Familiars (by a pleasing fiction they became part of the family), who were permitted to carry the arms denied to ordinary civilians, and who enjoyed immunities and powers which they abused with the utmost freedom. For the most part they were a rabble of unruly ruffians, who squeezed money out of people under the threat of accusing them of heresy or of impeding the Inquisition in its beneficent duties. Any restriction in the number of these rascals was resented as unlawful; but the State did sometimes, as at Venice in 1450, succeed in reducing their numbers. They were wholly unnecessary, as the Holy Office could command the services of the State, as well as the assistance of the clergy and of the civil population.
As a precaution against miscarriages of justice, there was held at irregular intervals an assembly which finally determined the fate of accused persons. At these gatherings learned Bishops were supposed to be present in order to give the Inquisitors the benefit of their advice, but they were so little zealous for popular rights that it became a practice for an Inquisitor to represent one or more Bishops. It was doubtful whether the Inquisition ought to obey the finding of the court, and the occasion became a mere form, from which the episcopal co-operation was frequently absent. Sometimes a number of sentenced persons remained in gaol, and were added to from time to time, so that the auto de fe could be made more impressive. At one of these ceremonies held in Toulouse in 1310, out of 108 persons sentenced 18 were burnt alive. In the previous year one unfortunate had hit upon the expedient of voluntary starvation. The Inquisition had a more effective retort than forcible feeding; its preparations were hurried on, and the solitary victim was burnt, a similar case occurring four years later. Very seldom did any one escape by flight from the clutches of the Holy Office. Its agents were everywhere, its jurisdiction had no limits, a complete network of private information existed, and flight was a sure presumption of guilt. A boy of fifteen, sentenced after two years’ imprisonment to wear the crosses which indicated his punishment, at length threw them off, and worked as a boatman on the Garonne. He was discovered, cited to appear, and in default was excommunicated and condemned as a heretic in an auto of 1319. Two years later he was arrested, escaped, was recaptured, and finally sentenced to imprisonment on a diet of bread and water. His original crime was that he, a mere boy, had “adored� a heretic at the command of his father.
The Inquisitorial Method.
The duty of the Inquisitor was the detection of heresy—that is, to ascertain the secret thoughts of the accused. External acts were of consequence only as they indicated a particular frame of mind. This was a task possible to omniscience only, but the Inquisitor willingly undertook it, preferring to sacrifice a hundred innocent persons rather than let one guilty person escape. The safeguards of justice were nominal; it was found convenient to assume guilt from the outset. In the secular courts there were a few provisions which gave an accused some faint chance of obtaining justice; but these, under the pressure of the Inquisition, gradually fell into abeyance. Even death was no escape so far as the culprit’s property was concerned. At Ferrara the Bishop and the Inquisitor squabbled for thirty-two years over the remains of a heretic, and in 1313 a Florentine family found themselves the victims of a prosecution brought against an ancestor who had died sixty-three years before.
Delation was an indispensable and certainly very useful feature of the Inquisition’s procedure. A woman of Toulouse in 1254 furnished a list of 169 persons incriminated by her, and all the names, with addresses, were carefully noted for later use. Each of these persons would be persuaded to supply further names, and so the Inquisition’s net was constantly growing larger. To give information against others was the truest sign of repentance, and the Inquisitors were untiring in their efforts to secure it. In order to elicit confession every conceivable means were employed: if kindness seemed to promise the best results, kindness would be shown; an emissary would visit the prisoner’s cell urging confession and promising mercy—with the mental reservation that severity was the truest mercy to a heretic. Sometimes a man’s wife and children were permitted in his dungeon that they might work upon his feelings. On occasion protracted delay was used to break the prisoner’s spirit; he would be tried, receive no definite sentence, and be left in gaol perhaps for many years. Thus a woman who was imprisoned and confessed in 1297 was not formally sentenced for thirteen years, while at Carcassonne a man made his confession in 1321 after an imprisonment of thirty years.