The Councils of Tours and Lateran also decreed confiscation, but for
banishment they substituted imprisonment, a penalty unknown to the
Roman law. The Council of Lateran appealed to the authority of St.
Leo the Great, to compel Christian princes to prosecute heresy.[1]
[1] Canon 27, Labbe, Concilia, vol. x, col. 1522; Leonis, Epist. xv, ad Turribium, Migne, Pat. Lat., vol. liv, col. 679-680.
From the time of Lucius III, owing to the influence of the lawyers, the two penalties of banishment and confiscation prevailed. Innocent III extended them to the universal Church.
This was undoubtedly a severer penal legislation than that of the preceding age. But, on the other hand, it was an effective barrier against the infliction of the death penalty, which had become so common in many parts of Christendom.
Besides, during this period, the Church used vigorous measures only against obdurate heretics, who were also disturbers of the public peace.[1] They alone were handed over to the secular arm; if they abjured their heresy, they were at once pardoned, provided they freely accepted the penance imposed upon them.[2] This kind treatment, it was true, was not to last. It, however, deserves special notice, for the honor of those who preached and practiced it.
[1] Innocent III merely condemned to prison in a monastery the heretical abbot of Nevers; cf. letter of June 19, 1199, to a cardinal and a bishop of Paris. Ep. ii, 99.
[2] Cf. Canon 27 of the Lateran Council (1179), which we have quoted above, and which is inserted in the Decretals of Gregory x, cap. ix, De hæreticis, lib. v, tit. vii.
CHAPTER V THE CATHARAN OR ALBIGENSIAN HERESY—ITS ANTI-CATHOLIC AND ANTI-SOCIAL CHARACTER
WHILE Popes Alexander III, Lucius III, and Innocent III, were adopting such vigorous measures, the Catharan heresy by its rapid increase caused widespread alarm throughout Christendom. Let us endeavor to obtain some insight into its character, before we describe the Inquisition, which was destined to destroy it.
The dominant heresy of the period was the Albigensian or Catharan heresy;[1] it was related to Oriental Manicheism[2] through the Paulicians and the Bogomiles, who professed a dualistic theory on the origin of the world.