Inquisition in France—Pontifical decrees—Used by Princes—Arragon, Castile, Navarre and Portugal—Various countries—Sicily, Rome, Venice—Apostolics—Knights Templars—Beghards—Beguins—Lombardy—Milan.
Papal policy, by courts of inquisition, continued to prevail in many countries where they had been established. Raymond the younger recovered the dominions of his father, and banished the inquisitors from Thoulouse. But his chief city was besieged and taken by Amalric, son of Simon de Montfort. In the presence of two cardinals, therefore, he was led up before the high altar in the church, covered with only a linen garment, and there absolved; but it was on the hard condition of resigning the greater part of his dominions. The Inquisition was then restored, and laws still more severe than before were passed against heretics.
Louis, the French king, to oblige and gratify the Pope, made laws against the heretics, constituting every bishop in France a kind of inquisitor, with power to punish those whom he judged enemies of the Pope. Provincial councils were held at Thoulouse, A.D. 1229, and, A.D. 1230, at Rome, where several persons were burnt alive the following year; and at Narbonne, A.D. 1235, in which the prelates made severe laws against the heretics. These laws were collected by order of Pope Gregory IX.; and, with other decretals of Pope Boniface VIII., they formed the laws for the “Court of Holy Inquisition.”
Frederick II., emperor of Germany, issued severe edicts, ordaining that those who should be adjudged as heretics by the prelates of the church, should be put to death without mercy; and that his imperial protection should be enjoyed by the Predicant friars.
Louis, to ingratiate himself with Pope Alexander, as Innocent IV. had appointed the provincial of the Predicant friars inquisitor to extirpate heretics in Thoulouse, requested that pontiff to constitute the prior of the Predicant order at Paris inquisitor over the whole kingdom. The proposal was too pleasing to be refused by him; and he nominated him, therefore, to that office, with ample power. Besides, as many, who had excited the fury of the inquisitors, fled to the churches for the benefit of ecclesiastical immunity, the Pope abolished that privilege. With this he republished seven terrible laws, empowering magistrates to aid the inquisitors in punishing heretics, as ordained by the Emperor Frederick. These pontifical decrees, authorising inquisitors in their proceedings generally, exhibit the will of the Pope regarding those who rejected his religion for the doctrine of Christ in the Scriptures:—
“We being willing to prevent the danger of so many souls, entreat, admonish, and beseech your wisdom, and strictly command you, by these apostolical writings, as you have any regard for the Divine judgment, that you appoint some of the brethren committed to your care, men learned in the law of the Lord, and such as you know to be fit for this purpose, to be preachers generally to the clergy and people; and, in order the more effectually to execute their office, let them take into their assistance some discreet persons, and carefully inquire out heretics. And if they find out any, either really culpable, or such who are defamed, let them proceed against them according to our statutes. And that they may more freely and effectually execute the office committed to them, we, confiding in the mercy of God Almighty, and the authority of the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, remit, for three years, the penance enjoined them, to all who shall attend their preaching for twenty days. And as for those who shall be happy to die in the prosecution of this affair, we grant a plenary pardon of all their sins, for which they are contrite in their hearts, and which they confess with their mouths.”
This dreadful tribunal was found, by the sovereign princes, to be a convenient engine for revenging supposed or real injuries received by them; since it was necessary, for their purpose, only to bring against their victims the charge of heresy. By this means, a great number of individuals, known to be devoted Catholics, were prosecuted to death by the Emperor Frederick. Yet both he and Louis, as it suited their interests, made vigorous opposition to the proceedings of the Inquisition; for which, however, they paid dearly, as they were threatened and humbled by the haughty Antichrist. Hence arose a series of ruinous contests between the intolerant pontiff and the mightiest sovereign princes.
Spain, at this period, comprehended the four Christian kingdoms of Arragon, under James I.; Castile, under Ferdinand III.; Navarre, under Sancho VIII.; and Portugal, under Sancho II. Arragon was found, A.D. 1232, to contain some of the Waldenses; and the Pope commanded King James to proceed in the work of extirpating them as heretics. A synod was held against them, A.D. 1240, at Tarracon, when the archbishop, with his suffragans, and Peter Cadente, were appointed inquisitors for the province.
Castile and Leon also received this court, A.D. 1290, as it had been established in Arragon. And during the thirteenth century the Inquisition was set up in various other countries, where the Pope possessed influence, especially in Austria, Hungary, Poland, Dalmatia, Ragusia, Bosnia, Croatia, Istria, and several provinces of Germany. It was extended, also, to Syria and Palestine, for the purpose of proceeding against Jews as well as heretics. The policy of the inquisitors, however, differed in different places; but the Austrian Inquisition appears to have been, conducted with extreme cruelty; as Catholic historians testify, that many thousands of those deemed heretics were apprehended, and being condemned, were burnt, by the order of the sacred judges, in the city of Crema.
Sicily received the Inquisition about A.D. 1224. It was at first opposed, both in the town of St. Mark, and at Palermo; but the Emperor Frederick is said to have ordained, as a regulation of the profits arising from its proceedings, that “one-third part of the confiscated goods should be appropriated to the common treasury, another third be reserved for the Pope, and the remainder to be shared by the inquisitors; that the spiritual husbandmen should not be defrauded of their reward.” This privilege seemed to satisfy the ruling powers; it was renewed, A.D. 1452, by King Alphonsus, and confirmed, A.D. 1477, by Ferdinand and Elizabeth; and various other privileges were accorded to the inquisitors by the Emperor Charles V.