[3] Eymeric, ibid., 3a pars, quæst. 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 hæreticis, 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 Français, 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.