[1530] Synod. Roman. ann. 384, can. 10.
[1531] Innocent PP. I. Epist. III. cap. iii.
[1532] De Civ. Dei Lib. XIX. cap. vi.
[1533] Gregor. PP. I. Lib. VIII. Epist. xxx.
[1534] Nicolai PP. I. Epist. xcvii. § 86.
[1535] Pseudo-Alexand. decret. “Omnibus orthodoxis.”
[1536] Ministrorum confessio non sit extorta sed spontanea.—Ivon. Panorm. IV. cxvii.
[1537] Quod vero confessio cruciatibus extorquenda non est.—C. I. Decreti Caus. XV. q. vi.
[1538] Cæsarius of Heisterbach, writing in 1221, gives a story of an occurrence happening in 1184 which, if not embellished by some later transcriber, would seem to indicate that the judicial use of torture was known at an earlier period than is stated in the text. A young girl, in the disguise of a man, was despatched with letters to Lucius III. by the partisans of Wolmar in his struggle with Rudolph for the bishopric of Trèves. Near Augsburg she was joined by a robber, who, hearing his pursuers approaching, gave her his bag to hold while he retired on some pretext to a thicket. Captured with the stolen property she was condemned, but she told her story to a priest in confession, the wood was surrounded and the robber captured. He was tortured until he confessed the crime. Then he retracted, and the question between the two was settled, at the suggestion of the priest, by the ordeal of hot iron, when the robber’s hand was burnt, and the girl’s uninjured. The tale is a long one, very romantic in its details, and may very probably have been ornamented by successive scribes.—Cæsar. Heisterb. Dial. Mirac. Dist. I. c. xl.
[1539] Assises de Jerusalem, Baisse Court, cap. cclix.