Heretics who confessed their errors during the time of grace were imprisoned only for a short time; those who confessed under torture or under threat of death were imprisoned for life; this was the usual punishment for the relapsed during most of the thirteenth century. It was the only penalty that Bernard of Caux (1244-1248) inflicted upon them.
"There were two kinds of imprisonment," writes Lea, "the milder or murus largus, and the harsher, known as murus strictus, or durus, or arctus. All were on bread and water, and the confinement, according to rule, was solitary, each penitent in a separate cell, with no access allowed to him, to prevent his being corrupted, or corrupting others; but this could not be strictly enforced, and about 1306 Geoffroi d'Ablis stigmatizes as an abuse the visits of clergy and the laity of both sexes, permitted to prisoners."[1]
[1] Lea, op. cit., vol. i, p. 486, 487.
As far back as 1282, Jean Galand had forbidden the jailer of the prison of Carcassonne to eat or take recreation with the prisoners, or to allow them to take recreation, or to keep servants.
Husband and wife, however, were allowed access to each other if either or both were imprisoned; and late in the fourteenth century Eymeric declared that zealous Catholics might be admitted to visit prisoners, but not women and simple folk who might be perverted, for converted prisoners, he added, were very liable to relapse, and to infect others, and usually died at the stake.[1]
[1] Eymeric, Directorium, p. 507.
"In the milder form, or murus largus, the prisoners apparently were, if well behaved, allowed to take exercise in the corridors, where sometimes they had opportunities of converse with each other, and with the outside world. This privilege was ordered to be given to the aged and infirm by the cardinals who investigated the prison of Carcassonne, and took measures to alleviate its rigors. In the harsher confinement, or murus strictus, the prisoner was thrust into the smallest, darkest, and most noisome of cells, with chains on his feet,—in some cases chained to the wall. This penance was inflicted on those whose offences had been conspicuous, or who had perjured themselves by making incomplete confessions, the matter being wholly at the discretion of the Inquisitor. I have met with one case, in 1328, of aggravated false-witness, condemned to the murus strictissimus, with chains on both hands and feet. When the culprits were members of a religious order, to avoid scandal, the proceedings were usually held in private, and the imprisonment would be ordered to take place in a convent of their own order. As these buildings, however, were unprovided with cells for the punishment of offenders, this was probably of no great advantage to the victim. In the case of Jeanne, widow of B. de la Tour, a nun of Lespinasse, in 1216, who had committed acts of both Catharan and Waldensian heresy, and had prevaricated in her confession, the sentence was confinement in a separate cell in her own convent, where no one was to enter or see her, her food being pushed in through an opening left for the purpose—in fact, the living tomb known as the in pace."[1]
[1] Lea, op. cit., vol. i. p. 487.
In these wretched prisons the diet was most meager. But "while the penance prescribed was a diet of bread and water, the Inquisition, with unwonted kindness, did not object to its prisoners receiving from their friends contributions of food, wine, money, and garments, and among its documents are such frequent allusions to this that it may be regarded as an established custom."[1]
[1] Lea, op. cit., vol. i, p. 491.