The decree of Alonso II. of Aragon against the Waldenses, in 1194, referred to above (p. 81) (Pegnæ Comment. 39 in Eymeric. p. 281), inflicts confiscation on all who favor the heretics, but there are no traces of its enforcement, or of the subsequent canons of the Council of Girona in 1197 (Aguirre V. 102-3). The same may be said of the edicts of Henry VI., in 1194, repeated by Otho IV. in 1310 (Lami, Antichità Toscane, p. 484).
[462] Innoc. PP. III. Regest. XII. 154 (Cap. 20 Extra v. xl.).—Isambert, Anc. Loix Françaises I. 228, 232.—Harduin. VII. 203-8.—Vaissette, III. Pr. 385.—Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 26.—Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Cum fratres, ann. 1252 (Mag. Bull. Roman. I. 90).
Confiscation was an ordinary resource of mediæval law. In England, from the time of Alfred, property, as well as life, was forfeited for treason (Alfred’s Dooms 4—Thorpe I. 63), a penalty which, remained until 1870 (Low and Pulling’s Dictionary of English History, p. 469). In France murder, false-witness, treachery, homicide, and rape were all punished with death and confiscation (Beaumanoir, Coutumes du Beauvoisis XXX. 2-5). By the German feudal law the fief might be forfeited for a vast number of offences, but the distinction was drawn that, if the offence was against the lord, the fief reverted to him; if simply a crime, it descended to the heirs (Feudor. Lib. I. Tit. xxiii.-iv.). In Navarre, confiscation formed part of the penalties of suicide, murder, treason, and even of blows or wounds inflicted where the queen or royal children were dwelling. There is a case in which confiscation was enforced on a man because he struck another at Olite, which was within a league of Tafalla, where the queen chanced to be staying at the time (G.B. de Lagrèze, La Navarre Française II. 335).
[463] Guid. Fulcod. Quæst. XV.—Coll. Doat, XXI. 154; XXXIII. 207; XXXIV. 189; XXXV. 68.—MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 9992.—Coll. Doat, XXVIII. 131, 164.—Responsa Prudentum (Doat, XXXVII. 83).—Grandes Chroniques, ann. 1323.—Les Olim, T. I. p. 556.—Guill. Pelisso Chron. Ed. Molinier, p. 27.—Practica super Inquisit. (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 224).—Coll. Doat, XXVII. fol. 118.
In 1460, when the nearly extinct French Inquisition was resuscitated to punish the sorcerers of Arras, confiscation formed part of the sentence.—Mémoires de Jacques du Clercq, Liv. IV. ch. 4.
[464] Coll. Doat, XXXI. 175.—Zanchini Tract. de Hæret. c. xviii., xxv., xxvi., xli.—Archivio Storico Italiano, No. 38, p. 29.
[465] Lami, Antichità Toscane, 560, 588-9.—Zanchini Tract. de Hæret. c. xxvi.—Archiv. di Firenze, Prov. S. Maria Novella, Nov. 18, 1327.—Archivio di Napoli, Regist. 253, Lett. A, fol. 63.
[466] Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. T. III. p. 466.—Kaltner, Konrad v. Marburg u. die Inquisition, Prag, 1882, p. 147.—Mosheim de Beghardis, p. 347.
[467] Harduin. VII. 203.—Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1233 c. 4; ann. 1246, Append. c. 35.—Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 26.—Coll. Doat, XXI. 151.—Guid. Fulcod. Quæst. xv.—Isambert Anc. Loix Françaises, I. 257.—Arch. de l’Inq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXI. 263).—Bernardi Comens. Lucerna Inquisit. s. v. Filii.
[468] Archives de l’Inq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXI. 152).—Berger, Registres d’Innoc. IV. No. 1844.—MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 9992.—Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 158-62.—Arch. de l’Inq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXVII. 98).—Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 663-5.—Zanchini Tract. de Hæret. c. xviii., xix., xxv.