Anyone might seize a heretic on the lands of another. Heretics who recanted were to be removed from their homes, and settled in Catholic cities; to wear two crosses of a different colour from their dress, one on the right side, one on the left. They were incapable of any public function unless reconciled by the pope or by his legate. Those who recanted from fear of death were to be immured forever. All persons, males of the age of fourteen, females of twelve, were to take an oath of abjuration of heresy, and of their Catholic faith; if absent, and not appearing within fifteen days, they were held suspected of heresy. All persons were to confess, and communicate three times a year, or were in like manner under suspicion of heresy. No layman was permitted to have any book of the Old or New Testament, especially in a translation, unless perhaps the Psalter, with a breviary, or the Hours of the Virgin. No one suspected of heresy could practise as a physician. Care was to be taken that no heretic had access to sick or dying persons. All wills were to be made in the presence of a priest. No office of trust was to be held by one in evil fame as a heretic. Those were in evil fame who were so by common report, or so declared by good and grave witnesses before the bishop.
But statutes of persecution always require new statutes rising above each other in regular gradations of rigour and cruelty. The legate found the canons of Toulouse to be eluded or inefficient. He summoned a council at Melun, attended by the archbishop of Narbonne and other prelates. The unhappy count of Toulouse was compelled to frame the edicts of this council into laws for his dominions. The first provision showed that persecution had wrought despair. It was directed against those who had murdered, or should murder, or conceal the murderers of persecutors of heretics. A reward of one mark was set on the head of every heretic, to be paid by the town, or village, or district to the captor.
It was evident that the heretics had now begun to seek concealment in cabins, in caves, and rocks, and forests; not merely was every house in which one should be seized to be razed to the ground, but all suspected caves or hiding-places were to be blocked up; with a penalty of twenty-five livres of Toulouse to the lord on whose estate such houses or places of concealment of evil report should be found. Those who did not assist in the capture of heretics were liable to punishment. If any one was detected after death to have been a heretic, his property was confiscated. Those who had made over their estates in trust, before they became heretics, nevertheless forfeited such estates. Those who attempted to elude the law by moving about, under pretence of trade or pilgrimage, were ordered to render an account of their absence. A council at Béziers (1233) enforced upon the clergy, under pain of suspension or of deprivation, the denunciation of all who should not attend divine service in their churches on the appointed days, especially those suspected of heresy.[g]
METHOD OF PROCEDURE WITH A SUSPECT
The method of proceeding in the courts of the Inquisition was at first simple, and not materially different from that in the ordinary courts. But gradually the Dominicans, guided by experience, rendered it far more complex; and so shaped their proceedings that the mode of trying heretical causes (if the phrase be allowable) became altogether different from that usually practised in judicial proceedings. For these good friars, being wholly unskilled in forensic affairs, and acquainted with no other tribunal than that which in the Romish church is called the penitentiary tribunal, regulated these new courts of the Inquisition, as far as possible, according to the plan of those religious proceedings. And hence arose that strange system of jurisprudence, bearing in many respects the most striking features of injustice and wrong. Whoever duly considers this history of their origin will be able to account for many things that seem unsuitable, absurd, and contrary to justice, in the mode of proceeding against offenders in the courts of the Inquisition.[e]
When the Inquisition discovered a transgressor of their laws, either by common report, or by their spies, or by an informer, he was cited three times to appear before them; and if he did not appear, he was forthwith condemned. It was safest to appear on the first citation; because the longer a man delayed the more guilty he would be; and the Inquisition had their spies, and a thousand concealed ways for getting an absconding heretic in their power.
When a supposed heretic was once in the hands of the Inquisition, no one dared to inquire after him, or write to him, or intercede for him. When everything belonging to the person seized was in their hands, then the process began; and it was protracted in the most tedious manner.
Costume of a condemned Person who confessed, after Conviction
(From Historia Inquisitionis, 1592)