The New Tribunal

(a) Its essential characteristic

The pope did not establish the Inquisition as a distinct and separate tribunal; what he did was to appoint special but permanent judges, who executed their doctrinal functions In the name of the pope. Where they sat, there was the Inquisition. It must he carefully noted that the characteristic feature of the Inquisition was not its peculiar procedure, nor the secret examination of witnesses and consequent official indictment: this procedure was common to all courts from the time of Innocent III. Nor was it the pursuit of heretics in all places: this had been the rule since the Imperial Synod of Verona under Lucius III and Frederick Barbarossa. Nor again was it the torture, which was not prescribed or even allowed for decades after the beginning of the Inquisition, nor, finally, the various sanctions, imprisonment, confiscation, the stake, etc., all of which punishments were usual long before the Inquisition. The Inquisitor, strictly speaking, was a special but permanent judge, acting in the name of the pope and clothed by him with the right and the duty to deal legally with offences against the Faith; he had, however, to adhere to the established rules of canonical procedure and pronounce the customary penalties.

Many regarded it, as providential that just at this time sprang up two new orders, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, whose members, by their superior theological training and other characteristics, seemed eminently fitted to perform the inquisitorial task with entire success. It was safe to assume that they were not merely endowed with the requisite knowledge, but that they would also, quite unselfishly and uninfluenced by worldly motives, do solely what seemed their duty for the Good of the Church. In addition, there was reason to hope that, because of their great popularity, they would not encounter too much opposition. It seems, therefore, not unnatural that the inquisitors should have been chosen by the popes prevailingly from these orders, especially from that of the Dominicans. It is to he noted, however, that the inquisitors were not chosen exclusively from the mendicant orders, though the Senator of Rome no doubt meant such when in his oath of office (1231) he spoke of inquisitores datos ab ecclesia. In his decree of 1232 Frederick II calls them inquisitores ab apostolica sede datos. The Dominican Alberic, in November of 1232, went through Lombardy as inquisitor haereticae pravitatis. The prior and sub-prior of the Dominicans at Friesbach were given a similar commission as early as 27 November, 1231; on 2 December, 1232, the convent of Strasburg, and a little later the convents of Würzburg, Ratisbon, and Bremen, also received the commission. In 1233 a rescript of Gregory IX, touching these matters, was sent simultaneously to the bishops of Southern France and to the priors of the Dominican Order. We know that Dominicans were sent as inquisitors in 1232 to Germany along the Rhine, to the Diocese of Tarragona in Spain and to Lombardy; in 1233 to France, to the territory of Auxerre, the ecclesiastical provinces of Bourges, Bordeaux, Narbonne, and Auch, and to Burgundy; in 1235 to the ecclesiastical province of Sens. In fine, about 1255 we find the Inquisition in full activity in all the countries of Central and Western Europe in the county of Toulouse, in Sicily, Aragon, Lombardy, France, Burgundy, Brabant, and Germany (cf. Douais, op. cit., p. 36, and Fredericq, "Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, 1025-1520", 2 vols., Ghent, 1884-96).

That Gregory IX, through his appointment of Dominicans and Franciscans as inquisitors, withdrew the suppression of heresy from the proper courts (i.e. from the bishops), is a reproach that in so general a form cannot be sustained. So little did he think of displacing episcopal authority that, on the contrary he provided explicitly that no inquisitional tribunal was to work anywhere without the diocesan bishops co-operation. And if, on the strength of their papal jurisdiction, inquisitors occasionally manifested too great an inclination to act independently of episcopal authority it was precisely the popes who kept them within right bounds. As early as 1254 Innocent IV prohibited anew perpetual imprisonment or death at the stake without the episcopal consent. Similar orders were issued by Urban IV in 1262, Clement IV in 1265, and Gregory X in 1273, until at last Boniface VIII and Clement V solemnly declared null and void all judgments issued in trials concerning faith, unless delivered with the approval anti co-operation of the bishops. The popes always upheld with earnestness the episcopal authority, and sought to free the inquisitional tribunals from every kind of arbitrariness and caprice.

It was a heavy burden of responsibility -- almost too heavy for a common mortal -- which fell upon the shoulders of an inquisitor, who was obliged, at least indirectly, to decide between life and death. The Church was bound to insist that he should possess, in a pre-eminant degree, the qualities of a good judge; that he should be animated with a glowing zeal for the Faith, the salvation of souls, and the extirpation of heresy; that amid all difficulties and dangers he should never yield to anger or passion; that he should meet hostility fearlessly, but should not court it; that he should yield to no inducement or threat, and yet not be heartless; that, when circumstances permitted, he should observe mercy in allotting penalties; that he should listen to the counsel of others, and not trust too much to his own opinion or to appearances, since often the probable is untrue, and the truth improbable. Somewhat thus did Bernard Gui (or Guldonis) and Eymeric, both of them inquisitors for years, describe the ideal inquisitor. Of such an inquisitor also was Gregory IX doubtlessly thinking when he urged Conrad of Marburg: "ut puniatur sic temeritas perversorum quod innocentiae puritas non laedatur" -- i.e., "not to punish the wicked so as to hurt the innocent". History shows us how far the inquisitors answered to this ideal. Far from being inhuman, they were, as a rule, men of spotless character and sometimes of truly admirable sanctity, and not a few of them have been canonized by the Church. There is absolutely no reason to look on the medieval ecclesiastical judge as intellectually and morally inferior to the modern judge. No one would deny that the judges of today, despite occasional harsh decisions and the errors of a, few, pursue a highly honourable profession. Similarly, the medieval inquisitors should be judged as a whole Moreover, history does not justify the hypothesis that the medieval heretics were prodigies of virtue, deserving our sympathy in advance.

(b) Procedure

This regularly began with a months "term of grace", proclaimed by the inquisitor whenever he came to a heresy-ridden district. The inhabitants mere summoned to appear before the inquisitor. On those who confessed of their own accord a suitable penance (e.g. a pilgrimage) was imposed, but never a severe punishment like incarceration or surrender to the civil power. However, these relations with the residents of a, place often furnished important indications, pointed out the proper quarter for investigation, and sometimes much evidence was thus obtained against individuals. These mere then cited before the judges -- usually by the parish priest, although occasionally by the secular authorities -- and the trial began. If the accused at once made full and free confession, the affair was soon concluded, and not to the disadvantage of the accused. But in most instances the accused entered denial even after swearing on the Four Gospels, and this denial was stubborn in the measure that the testimony was incriminating. David of Augsburg (cf. Preger, "Der Traktat des David von Augshurg uber die Waldenser", Munich, 1878 pp. 43 sqq.) pointed out to the inquisitor four methods of extracting open acknowledgment:

• fear of death, i.e. by giving the accused to understand that the stake awaited him if he would not confess;
• more or less close confinement, possibly emphasized by curtailment of food;
• visits of tried men, who would attempt to induce free confession through friendly persuasion;
• torture, which will be discussed below.

(c) The Witnesses

When no voluntary admission was made, evidence was adduced. Legally, there had to be at least two witnesses, although conscientious judges rarely contended themselves with that number. The principle had hitherto been held by the Church that the testimony of a heretic, an excommunicated person, a perjurer, in short, of an "infamous", was worthless before the courts. But in its destination of unbelief the Church took the further step of abolishing this long established practice, and of accepting a heretics evidence at nearly full value in trials concerning faith. This appears as early as the twelfth century in the "Decretum Gratiani". While Frederick II readily assented to this new departure, the inquisitors seemed at first uncertain as to the value of the evidence of an "infamous" person. It was only in 1261, after Alexander IV had silenced their scruples, that the new principle was generally adopted both in theory and in practice. This grave modification seems to have been defended on the ground that the heretical conventicles took place secretly, and were shrouded in great obscurity, so that reliable information could be obtained from none but themselves. Even prior to the establishment of the Inquisition the names of the witnesses were sometimes withheld from the accused person, and this usage was legalized by Gregory IX, Innocent IV, and Alexander IV. Boniface VIII, however, set it aside by his Bull "Ut commissi vobis officii" (Sext. Decret., 1. V, tit. ii ); and commanded that at all trials, even inquisitorial, the witnesses must be named to the accused. There was no personal confrontation of witnesses, neither was there any cross-examination. Witnesses for the defence hardly ever appeared, as they would almost infallibly be suspected of being heretics or favourable to heresy. For the same reason those impeached rarely secured legal advisers, and mere therefore obliged to make personal response to the main points of a charge. This, however, was also no innovation, for in 1205 Innocent III, by the Bull "Si adversus vos" forbade any legal help for heretics: "We strictly prohibit you, lawyers and notaries, from assisting in any way, by council or support, all heretics and such as believe In them, adhere to them, render them any assistance or defend them in any way. But this severity soon relaxed, and even in Eymerics day it seems to have been the universal custom to grant heretics a legal adviser, who, however, had to be in every way beyond suspicion, "upright, of undoubted loyalty, skilled in civil and canon law, and zealous for the faith."

Meanwhile, even in those hard times, such legal severities were felt to be excessive, and attempts were made to mitigate them in various ways, so as to protect the natural rights of the accused. First he could make known to the judge the names of his enemies: should the charge originate with them, they would be quashed without further ado. Furthermore, it was undoubtedly to the advantage of the accused that false witnesses were punished without mercy. The aforesaid inquisitor, Bernard Gui, relates an instance of a father falsely accusing his son of heresy. The sons innocence quickly coming to light, the false accuser was apprehended, and sentenced to prison for life (solam vitam ei ex misericordia relinquentes). In addition he was pilloried for five consecutive Sundays before the church during service, with bare head and bound hands. Perjury in those days was accounted an enormous offence, particularly when committed by a false witness. Moreover, the accused had a considerable advantage in the fact that the inquisitor had to conduct the trial in co-operation with the diocesan bishop or his representatives, to whom all documents relating to the trial had to he remitted. Both together, inquisitor and bishop, were also made to summon and consult a number of upright and experienced men (boni viri), and to decide in agreement with their decision (vota). Innocent IV (11 July. 1254), Alexander IV (15 April, 1255, and 27 April, 1260), and Urban IV (2 August, 1264) strictly prescribed this institution of the boni viri -- i.e. the consultation in difficult cases of experienced men, well versed in theology and canon law, and in every way irreproachable. The documents of the trial were either in their entirety handed to them, or a least an abstract drawn up by a public notary was furnished; they were also made acquainted with the witnesses names, and their first duty was to decide whether or not the witnesses were credible.

The boni viri were very frequently called on. Thirty, fifty, eighty, or more persons -- laymen and priests; secular and regular -- would be summoned, all highly respected and independent men, and singly sworn to give verdict upon the cases before them accordingly to the best of their knowledge and belief. Substantially they were always called upon to decide two questions: whether and what guilt lay at hand, and what punishment was to be inflicted. That they might be influenced by no personal considerations, the case would be submitted to them somewhat in the abstract, i.e., the name of the person inculpated was not given. Although, strictly speaking, the boni viri were entitled only to an advisory vote, the final ruling was usually in accordance with their views, and, whether their decision was revised, it was always in the direction of clemency, the mitigation of the findings being indeed of frequent occurrence. The judges were also assisted by a consilium permanens, or standing council, composed of other sworn judges. In these dispositions surely lay the most valuable guarantees for all objective, impartial, and just operation of the inquisition courts. Apart from the conduct of his own defence the accused disposed of other legal means for safeguarding his rights: he could reject a judge who had shown prejudice, and at any stage of the trial could appeal to Rome. Eymeric leads one to infer that in Aragon appeals to the Holy See were not rare. He himself as inquisitor had on one occasion to go to Rome to defend in person his own position, but he advises other inquisitors against that step, as it simply meant the loss of much time and money; it were wiser, he says, to try a case in such a manner that no fault could be found. In the event of an appeal the documents of the case were to be sent to Rome under seal, and Rome not only scrutinized them, but itself gave the final verdict. Seemingly, appeals to Rome were in great favour; a milder sentence, it was hoped, would be forthcoming, or at least some time would be gained.

(d) Punishments

The present writer can find nothing to suggest that the accused were imprisoned during the period of inquiry. It was certainly customary to grant the accused person his freedom until the sermo generalis, were he ever so strongly inculpated through witnesses or confession; he was not yet supposed guilty, though he was compelled to promise under oath always to be ready to come before the inquisitor, and in the end to accept with good grace his sentence, whatever its tenor. The oath was assuredly a terrible weapon in the hands of the medieval judge. If the accused person kept it, the judge was favourably inclined; on the other hand, if the accused violated it, his credit grew worse. Many sects, it was known, repudiated oaths on principle; hence the violation of an oath caused the guilty party easily to incur suspicion of heresy. Besides the oath, the inquisitor might secure himself by demanding a sum of money as bail, or reliable bondsmen who would stand surety for the accused. It happened, too, that bondsmen undertook upon oath to deliver the accused "dead or alive" It was perhaps unpleasant to live under the burden of such an obligation, but, at any rate, it was more endurable than to await a final verdict in rigid confinement for months or longer.

Curiously enough torture was not regarded as a mode of punishment, but purely as a means of eliciting the truth. It was not of ecclesiastical origin, and was long prohibited in the ecclesiastical courts. Nor was it originally an important factor in the inquisitional procedure, being unauthorized until twenty years after the Inquisition had begun. It was first authorized by Innocent IV in his Bull "Ad exstirpanda" of 15 May, 1252, which was confirmed by Alexander IV on 30 November, 1259, and by Clement IV on 3 November, 1265. The limit placed upon torture was citra membri diminutionem et mortis periculum -- i.e, it was not to cause the loss of life or limb or imperil life. Torture was to applied only once, and not then unless the accused were uncertain in his statements, and seemed already virtually convicted by manifold and weighty proofs. In general, this violent testimony (quaestio) was to be deferred as long as possible, and recourse to it was permitted in only when all other expedients were exhausted. Conscientiousness and sensible judges quite properly attached no great importance to confessions extracted by torture. After long experience Eymeric declared: Quaestiones sunt fallaces et inefficaces -- i.e the torture is deceptive and ineffectual.

Had this papal legislation been adhered to in practice, the historian of the Inquisition would have fewer difficulties to satisfy. In the beginning, torture was held to be so odious that clerics were forbidden to be present under pain of irregularity. Sometimes it had to be interrupted so as to enable the inquisitor to continue his examination, which, of course, was attended by numerous inconveniences. Therefore on 27 April, 1260, Alexander IV authorized inquisitors to absolve one another of this irregularity. Urban IV on 2 August, 1262, renewed the permission, and this was soon interpreted as formal licence to continue the examination in the torture chamber itself. The inquisitors manuals faithfully noted and approved this usage. The general rule ran that torture was to be resorted to only once. But this was sometimes circumvented -- first, by assuming that with every new piece of evidence the rack could be utilized afresh, and secondly, by imposing fresh torments on the poor victim (often on different days), not by way of repetition, but as a continuation (non ad modum iterationis sed continuationis), as defended by Eymeric; "quia, iterari non debent [tormenta], nisi novis supervenitibus indiciis, continuari non prohibentur." But what was to be done when the accused, released from the rack, denied what he had just confessed? Some held with Eymeric that the accused should be set at liberty; others, however, like the author of the "Sacro Arsenale" held that the torture should be continued. because the accused had too seriously incriminated himself by his previous confession. When Clement V formulated his regulations for the employment of torture, he never imagined that eventually even witnesses would be put on the rack, although not their guilt, but that of the accused, was in question. From the popes silence it was concluded that a witness might be put upon the rack at the discretion of the inquisitor. Moreover, if the accused was convicted through witnesses, or had pleaded guilty, the torture might still he used to compel him to testify against his friends and fellow-culprits. It would be opposed to all Divine and human equity -- so one reads in the "SacroArsenale, ovvero Pratica dell Officio della Santa Inquisizione" (Bologna, 1665) -- to inflict torture unless the judge were personally persuaded of the guilt of the accused.

But one of the difficulties of the procedure is why torture was used as a means of learning the truth. On the one hand, the torture was continued until the accused confessed or intimated that he was willing to confess, On the other hand, it was not desired, as in fact it was not possible, to regard as freely made a confession wrung by torture.

It is at once apparent how little reliance may be placed upon the assertion so often repeated in the minutes of trials, "confessionem esse veram, non factam vi tormentorum" (the confession was true and free), even though one had not occasionally read in the preceding pages that, after being taken down from the rack (postquam depositus fuit de tormento), he freely confessed this or that. However, it is not of greater importance to say that torture is seldom mentioned in the records of inquisition trials -- but once, for example in 636 condemnations between 1309 and 1323; this does not prove that torture was rarely applied. Since torture was originally inflicted outside the court room by lay officials, and since only the voluntary confession was valid before the judges, there was no occasion to mention in the records the fact of torture. On the other hand it, is historically true that the popes not only always held that torture must not imperil life or but also tried to abolish particularly grievous abuses, when such became known to them. Thus Clement V ordained that inquisitors should not apply the torture without the consent of the diocesan bishop. From the middle of the thirteenth century, they did not disavow the principle itself, and, as their restrictions to its use were not always heeded, its severity, though of tell exaggerated, was in many cases extreme.

The consuls of Carcassonne in 1286 complained to the pope, the King of France, and the vicars of the local bishop against the inquisitor Jean Garland, whom they charged with inflicting torture in an absolutely inhuman manner, and this charge was no isolated one. The case of Savonarola has never been altogether cleared up in this respect. The official report says he had to suffer three and a half tratti da fune (a sort of strappado). When Alexander VI showed discontent with the delays of the trial, the Florentine government excused itself by urging that Savonarola was a man of extraordinary sturdiness and endurance, and that he had been vigorously tortured on many days (assidua quaestione multis diebus, the papal prothonotary, Burchard, says seven times) but with little effect. It is to be noted that torture was most cruelly used, where the inquisitors were most exposed to the pressure of civil authority. Frederick II, though always boasting of his zeal for the purity of the Faith, abused both rack and Inquisition to put out of the way his personal enemies. The tragical ruin of the Templars is ascribed to the abuse of torture by Philip the Fair and his henchmen. At Paris, for instance, thirty-six, and at Sens twenty-five, Templars died as the result of torture. Blessed Joan of Are could not have been sent to the stake as a heretic and a recalcitrant, if her judges had not been tools of English policy. And the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition are largely due to the fact that in its administration civil purposes overshadowed the ecclesiastical. Every reader of the "Cautio criminalis" of the Jesuit Father Friedrich Spee knows to whose account chiefly must be set down the horrors of the witchcraft trials. Most of the punishments that were properly speaking inquisitional were not inhuman, either by their nature or by the manner of their infliction. Most frequently certain good works were ordered, e.g. the building of a church, the visitation of a church, a pilgrimage more or less distant, the offering of a candle or a chalice, participation in a crusade, and the like. Other works partook more of the character of real and to some extent degrading punishments, e.g. fines, whose proceeds were devoted to such public purposes as church-building, road-making, and the like; whipping with rods during religious service; the pillory; the wearing of coloured crosses, and so on.

The hardest penalties were imprisonment in its various degrees exclusion from the communion of the Church, and the usually consequent surrender to the civil power. "Cum ecclesia" ran the regular expression, "ultra non habeat quod faciat pro suis demeritis contra ipsum, idcirco, eundum reliquimus brachio et iudicio saeculari" -- i.e. since the Church can no farther punish his misdeeds , she leaves him to the civil authority. Naturally enough, punishment as a legal sanction is always a hard and painful thing, whether decreed by civil of ecclesiastical justice. There is, however, always an essential distinction between civil and ecclesiastical punishment. While chastisement inflicted by secular authority aims chiefly at punishment violation of the law, the Church seeks primarily the correction of the delinquent; indeed his spiritual welfare frequently so much in view that the element of punishment is almost entirely lost sight of. Commands to hear Holy Mass on Sundays and holidays, to frequent religious services, to abstain from manual labour, to receive Communion at the chief festivals of the year, to forbear from soothsaying and usury, etc., can efficacious as helps toward the fulfillment of Christian duties. It being furthermore incumbent on the inquisitor to consider not merely the external sanction, but also the inner change of heart, his sentence lost the quasi-mechanical stiffness so often characteristic of civil condemnation. Moreover, the penalties incurred were on numberless occasions remitted, mitigated, or commuted. In the records of the Inquisition we very frequently read that because of old age, sickness, or poverty in the family, the in the family, the due punishment was materially reduced owing to the inquisitor sheer pity, or the petition of a good Catholic. Imprisonment for life was altered to a fine, and this to an alms; participation in a crusade was commuted into a pilgrimage, while a distant and costly pilgrimage became a visit to a neighboring shrine or church, and so on. If the inquisitors leniency were abused, he was authorized to revive in full the original punishment. On the whole, the Inquisition was humanely conducted. Thus we read that a son obtained his fathers release by merely asking for it, without putting forward any special reasons. Licence to leave risen for three weeks, three months, or an unlimited period-say until the recovery or decease of sick parents was not infrequent. Rome itself censured inquisitioners or deposed them because they were too harsh, but never because they mere too merciful.

Imprisonment was not always accounted punishment in the proper sense: it was rather looked on as an opportunity for repentance, a preventive against backsliding or the infection of others. It was known as immuration (from the Latin murus, a wall), or incarceration, and was inflicted for a definite time or for life. Immuration for life was the lot of those who had failed to profit by the aforesaid term of grace, or had perhaps recanted only from fear of death, or had once before abjured heresy. The murus strictus seu arctus, or carcer strictissimus, implied close and solitary confinement, occasionally aggravated by fasting or chains. In practice, however, these regulations were not always enforced literally. We read of immured persons receiving visits rather freely, playing games, or dining with their jailors. On the other hand, solitary confinement was at times deemed insufficient, and then the immured were put in irons or chained to the prison wall. Members of a religious order, when condemned for life, were immured in their own convent nor ever allowed to speak with any of their fraternity. The dungeon or cell was euphemistically called "In Pace" it was, indeed, the tomb of a man buried alive. It was looked upon as a remarkable favour when, in 1330, through the good offices of the Archbishop of Toulouse, the French king permitted a dignitary of a certain order to visit the "In Pace" twice a month and comfort his imprisoned brethren, against which favour the Dominicans lodged with Clement VI a fruitless protest. Though the prison cells were directed to be kept in such a way as to endanger neither the life nor the health of occupants, their true condition was sometimes deplorable, as we see from a document published by J. B. Vidal (Annales de St-Louis des Francais, 1905 P. 362):

In some cells the unfortunates were bound in stocks or chains, unable to move about, and forced to sleep on the ground . . . . There was little regard for cleanliness. In some cases there was no light or ventilation, and the food was meagre and very poor.

Occasionally the popes had to put an end through their legates to similarly atrocious conditions. After inspecting the Carcassonne and Albi prisons in 1306, the legates Pierre de la Chapelle and Béranger de Frédol dismissed the warden, removed the chains from the captives, and rescued some from their underground dungeons. The local bishop was expected to provide food from the confiscated property of the prisoner. For those doomed to close confinement, it was meagre enough, scarcely more than bread and water. It was, not long, however, before prisoners were allowed other victuals, wine and money also from outside, and this was soon generally tolerated.

Officially it was not the Church that sentenced unrepenting heretics to death, more particularly to the stake. As legate of the Roman Church even Gregory IV never went further than the penal ordinances of Innocent III required, nor ever inflicted a punishment more severe than excommunication. Not until four years after the commencement of his pontificate did he admit the opinion, then prevalent among legists, that heresy should be punished with death, seeing that it was confessedly no less serious an offence than high treason. Nevertheless he continued to insist on the exclusive right of the Church to decide in authentic manner in matters of heresy; at the same time it was not her office to pronounce sentence of death. The Church, thenceforth, expelled from her bosom the impenitent heretic, whereupon the state took over the duty of his temporal punishment. Frederick II was of the same opinion; in his Constitution of 1224 he says that heretics convicted by an ecclesiastical court shall, on imperial authority, suffer death by fire (auctoritate nostra ignis iudicio concremandos), and similarly in 1233 "praesentis nostrae legis edicto damnatos mortem pati decernimus." In this way Gregory IX may be regarded as having had no share either directly or indirectly in the death of condemned heretics. Not so the succeeding popes. In the Bull "Ad exstirpanda" (1252) Innocent IV says:

When those adjudged guilty of heresy have been given up to the civil power by the bishop or his representative, or the Inquisition, the podestà or chief magistrate of the city shall take them at once, and shall, within five days at the most, execute the laws made against them.

Moreover, he directs that this Bull and the corresponding regulations of Frederick II be entered in every city among the municipal statutes under pain of excommunication, which was also visited on those who failed to execute both the papal and the imperial decrees. Nor could any doubt remain as to what civil regulations were meant, for the passages which ordered the burning of impenitent heretics were inserted in the papal decretals from the imperial constitutions "Commissis nobis" and "Inconsutibilem tunicam". The aforesaid Bull "Ad exstirpanda" remained thenceforth a fundamental document of the Inquisition, renewed or reinforced by several popes, Alexander IV (1254-61), Clement IV (1265-68), Nicholas IV (1288-02), Boniface VIII (1294-1303), and others. The civil authorities, therefore, were enjoined by the popes, under pain of excommunication to execute the legal sentences that condemned impenitent heretics to the stake. It is to he noted that excommunication itself was no trifle, for, if the person excommunicated did not free himself from excommunication within a year, he was held by the legislation of that period to be a heretic, and incurred all the penalties that affected heresy.

The Number of Victims.

How many victims were handed over to the civil power cannot be stated with even approximate accuracy. We have nevertheless some valuable information about a few of the Inquisition tribunals, and their statistics are not without interest. At Pamiers, from 1318 to 1324, out of twenty-four persons convicted but five were delivered to the civil power, and at Toulouse from 1308 to 1323, only forty-two out of nine hundred and thirty bear the ominous note "relictus culiae saeculari". Thus, at Pamiers one in thirteen, and at Toulouse one in forty-two seem to have been burnt for heresy although these places were hotbeds of heresy and therefore principal centres of the Inquisition. We may add, also, that this was the most active period of the institution. These data and others of the same nature bear out the assertion that the Inquisition marks a substantial advance in the contemporary administration of justice, and therefore in the general civilization of mankind. A more terrible fate awaited the heretic when judged by a secular court. In 1249 Count Raylmund VII of Toulouse caused eighty confessed heretics to be burned in his presence without permitting them to recant. It is impossible to imagine any such trials before the Inquisition courts. The large numbers of burnings detailed in various histories are completely unauthenticated, and are either the deliberate invention of pamphleteers, or are based on materials that pertain to the Spanish Inquisition of later times or the German witchcraft trials (Vacandard, op. cit., 237 sqq.).

Once the Roman Law touching the crimen laesae majestatis had been made to cover the case of heresy, it was only natural that the royal or imperial treasury should imitate the Roman fiscus, and lay claim to the property of persons condemned. was fortunate, though inconsistent and certainly not strict justice, that this penalty did not affect every condemned person, but only those sentenced to perpetual confinement or the stake. Even so, this circumstance added not a little to the penalty, especially as in this respect innocent people, the culprits wife and children, were the chief sufferers. Confiscation was also decreed against persons deceased, and there is a relatively high number of such judgments. Of the six hundred and thirty-six cases that came before the inquisitor Bernard Gui, eighty-eight pertained to dead people.

(e) The Final Verdict

The ultimate decision was usually pronounced with solemn ceremonial at the sermo generalis -- or auto-da-fé (act of faith), as it was later called. One or two days prior to this sermo everyone concerned had the charges read to him again briefly, and in the vernacular; the evening before he was told where and when to appear to hear the verdict. The sermo, a short discourse or exhortation, began very early in the morning; then followed the swearing in of the secular officials, who were made to vow obedience to the inquisitor in all things pertaining to the suppression of heresy. Then regularly followed the so-called "decrees of mercy" (i.e. commutations, mitigations, and remission of previously imposed penalties), and finally due punishments were assigned to the guilty, after their offences had been again enumerated. This announcement began with the minor punishments, and went on to the most severe, i.e., perpetual imprisonment or death. Thereupon the guilty were turned over to the civil power, and with this act the sermo generalis closed, and the inquisitional proceedings were at an end.

(3) The chief scene of the Inquisitions activity was Central and Southern Europe. The Scandinavian countries were spared altogether. It appears in England only on the occasion of the trial of the Templars, nor was it known in Castile and Portugal until the accession of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was introduced into the Netherlands with the Spanish domination, while in Northern France it was relatively little known. On the other hand, the Inquisition, whether because of the particularly perilous sectarianism there prevalent or of the greater severity of ecclesiastical and civil rulers, weighed heavily on Italy (especially Lombardy), on Southern France (in particular the country of Toulouse and on Languedoc) and finally on the Kingdom of Aragon and on Germany. Honorius IV (1285-87) introduced it into Sardinia, and in the fifteenth century it displayed excessive zeal in Flanders and Bohemia. The inquisitors were, as a rule, irreproachable, not merely in personal conduct, but in the administration of their office. Some, however, like Robert le Bougre, a Bulgarian (Catharist) convert to Christianity and subsequently a Dominican, seem to have yielded to a blind fanaticism and deliberately to have provoked executions en masse. On 29 May, 1239, at Montwimer in Champagne, Robert consigned to the flames at one time about a hundred and eighty persons, whose trial had begun and ended within one week. Later, when Rome found that the complaints against him were justified, he was first deposed and then incarcerated for life.

(4) How are we to explain the Inquisition in the light of its own period? For the true office of the historian is not to defend facts and conditions, but to study and understand them in their natural course and connection. It is indisputable that in the past scarcely any community or nation vouchsafed perfect toleration to those who set up a creed different from that of the generality. A kind of iron law would seem to dispose mankind to religious intolerance. Even long before the Roman State tried to check with violence the rapid encroachments of Christianity, Plate had declared it one of the supreme duties of the governmental authority in his ideal state to show no toleration towards the "godless" -- that is, towards those who denied the state religion -- even though they were content to live quietly and without proselytizing; their very example, he said would be dangerous. They were to be kept in custody; "in a place where one grew wise" (sophronisterion), as the place of incarceration was euphemistically called; they should be relegated thither for five years, and during this time listen to religious instruction every day. The more active and proselytizing opponents of the state religion were to be imprisoned for life in dreadful dungeons, and after death to be deprived of burial. It is thus evident what little justification there is for regarding intolerance as a product of the Middle Ages. Everywhere and always in the past men believed that nothing disturbed the common weal and public peace so much as religious dissensions and conflicts, and that, on the other hand, a uniform public faith was the surest guarantee for the States stability and prosperity. The more thoroughly religion had become part of the national life, and the stronger the general conviction of its inviolability and Divine origin, the more disposed would men be to consider every attack on it as an intolerable crime against the Deity and a highly criminal menace to the public peace. The first Christian emperors believed that one of the chief duties of an imperial ruler was to place his sword at the service of the Church and orthodoxy, especially as their titles of "Pontifex Maximus" and "Bishop of the Exterior" seemed to argue in them Divinely appointed agents of Heaven.

Nevertheless the principal teachers of the Church held back for centuries from accepting in these matters the practice of the civil rulers; they shrank particularly from such stern measures against heresy as punishment, both of which they deemed inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity. But, in the Middle Ages, the Catholic Faith became alone dominant, and the welfare of the Commonwealth came to be closely bound up with the cause of religious unity. King Peter of Aragon, therefore, but voiced the universal conviction when he said: "The enemies of the Cross of Christ and violators of the Christian law are likewise our enemies and the enemies of our kingdom, and ought therefore to be dealt with as such." Emperor Frederick II emphasized this view more vigorously than any other prince, and enforced it in his Draconian enactments against heretics. The representative of the Church were also children of their own time, and in their conflict with heresy accepted the help that their age freely offered them, and indeed often forced upon them. Theologians and canonists, the highest and the saintliest, stood by the code of their day, and sought to explain and to justify it. The learned and holy Raymund of Pennafort, highly esteemed by Gregory IX, was content with the penalties that dated from Innocent III, viz.. the ban of the empire, confiscation of property-, confinement in prison, etc. But before the end of the century, St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theol., II-II:11:3 and II-II:11:4>) already advocated capital punishment for heresy though it cannot be said that his arguments altogether compel conviction. The Angelic Doctor, however speaks only in a general way of punishment by death, and does not specify more nearly the manner of its infliction. This the jurists did in a positive way that was truly terrible. The celebrated Henry of Segusia (Susa), named Hostiensis after his episcopal See of Ostia (d. 1271), and the no less eminent Joannes Andreae (d. 1345), when interpreting the Decree "Ad abolendam" of Lucius III, take debita animadversio (due punishment) as synonymous with ignis crematio (death by fire), a meaning which certainly did not attach to the original expression of 1184. Theologians and jurists based their attitude to some extent on the similarity between heresy and high treason (crimen laesae maiestatis), a suggestion that they owed to the Law of Ancient Rome. They argued, moreover, that if the death penalty could be rightly inflicted on thieves and forgers, who rob us only of worldly goods, how much more righteously on those who cheat us out of supernatural goods -- out of faith, the sacraments, the life of the soul. In the severe legislation of the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 13:6-9; 17:1-6) they found another argument. And lest some should urge that those ordinances were abrogated by Christianity, the words of Christ were recalled: "I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill" (Matt., v. 17); also His other saying (John 15:6): "If any one abide not in me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he burneth" (in ignem mittent, et ardet).

It is well known that belief in the justice of punishing heresy with death was so common among the sixteenth century reformers -- Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and their adherents -- that we may say their toleration began where their power ended. The Reformed theologian, Hieronymus Zanchi, declared in a lecture delivered at the University of Heidlelberg:

We do not now ask if the authorities may pronounce sentence of death upon heretics; of that there can be no doubt, and all learned and right-minded men acknowledge it. The only question is whether the authorities are bound to perform this duty.

And Zanchi answers this second question in the affirmative, especially on the authority of "all pious and learned men who have written on the subject in our day" [Historisch-politische Blatter, CXL, (1907), p. 364]. It may be that in modern times men judge more leniency the views of others, but does this forthwith make their opinions objectively more correct than those of their predecessors? Is there no longer any inclination to persecution? As late as 1871 Professor Friedberg wrote in Holtzendorffs "Jahrbuch fur Gesetzebung": "If a new religious society were to be established today with such principles as those which, according to the Vatican Council, the Catholic Church declares a matter of faith, we would undoubtedly consider it a duty of the state to suppress, destroy, and uproot it by force" (Kölnische Volkszeitung, no. 782, 15 Sept., 1909). Do these sentiments indicate an ability to appraise justly the institutions and opinions of former centuries, not according to modern feelings, but to the standards of their age?

In forming an estimate of the Inquisition, it is necessary to distinguish clearly between principles and historical fact on the one hand, and on the other those exaggerations or rhetorical descriptions which reveal bins and an obvious determination to injure Catholicism, rather than to encourage the spirit of tolerance and further its exercise. It is also essential to note that the Inquisition, in its establishment and procedure, pertained not to the sphere of belief, but to that of discipline. The dogmatic teaching of the Church is in no way affected by the question as to whether the Inquisition was justified in its scope, or wise in its methods, or extreme in its practice. The Church established by Christ, as a perfect society, is empowered to make laws and inflict penalties for their violation. Heresy not only violates her law but strikes at her very life, unity of belief; and from the beginning the heretic had incurred all the penalties of the ecclesiastical courts. When Christianity became the religion of the Empire, and still more when the peoples of Northern Europe became Christian nations, the close alliance of Church and State made unity of faith essential not only to the ecclesiastical organization, but also to civil society. Heresy, in consequence, was & crime which secular rulers were bound in duty to punish. It was regarded as worse than any other crime, even that of high treason; it was for society in those times what we call anarchy. Hence the severity with which heretics were treated by the secular power long before the Inquisition was established.

As regards the character of these punishments, it should be considered that they were the natural expression not only of the legislative power, but also of the popular hatred for heresy in an age that dealt both vigorously and roughly with criminals of every type. The heretic, in a word, was simply an outlaw whose offence, in the popular mind, deserved and sometimes received a punishment as summary as that which is often dealt out in our own day by an infuriated populace to the authors of justly detested crimes. That such intolerance was not peculiar to Catholicism, but was the natural accompaniment of deep religious conviction in those, also, who abandoned the Church, is evident from the measures taken by some of the Reformers against those who differed from them in matters of belief. As the learned Dr. Schaff declares in his "History of the Christian Church" (vol. V, New York, 1907, p. 524),

To the great humiliation of the Protestant churches, religious intolerance and even persecution unto death were continued long alter the Reformation. In Geneva the pernicious theory was put into practice by state and church, even to the use of torture and the admission of the testimony of children against their parents, and with the sanction of Calvin. Bullinger, in the second Helvetic Confession, announced the principle that heresy could be punished like murder or treason.

Moreover, the whole history of the Penal Laws against Catholics in England and Ireland, and the spirit of intolerance prevalent in many of the American colonies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries may be cited in proof thereof. It would obviously be absurd to make the Protestant religion as such responsible for these practices. But having set up the principle of private judgment, which, logically applied, made heresy impossible, the early Reformers proceeded to treat dissidents as the medieval heretics had been treated. To suggest that this was inconsistent is trivial in view of the deeper insight it affords into the meaning of a tolerance which is often only theoretical and the source of that intolerance which men rightly show towards error, and which they naturally though not rightly, transfer to the erring.