Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/133

 THE INQUISITION ESTABLISHED. II7 that of Conrad of Marburg, a wholesome warning. Unfortunately the spirit which he had aroused survived him, and for three or four years after his fall active persecution raged from the Ehine to the Loire, under the belief that the land was full of heretics.^ The unlucky termination of Eobert's career did not affect his coUeagues, and thenceforth the Inquisition was permanently estab- lished throughout France in Dominican hands. The prelates at first were stimulated to some show of rivalry in the performance of their neglected duties. Thus the provincial council of Tours, in 1239, endeavored to revive the forgotten system of synodal wit- nesses. Every bishop was instructed to appoint in each parish three clerks— or, if such could not be had, three laymen worthy of trust— who were to be sworn to reveal to the officials aU ecclesi- astical offences, especially those concerning the faith. Such de- vices, however, were too cumbrous and obsolete to be of any avail against a crime so sedulously and so easily concealed as heresy, even if the prelates had been zealous and earnest persecutors. The Dominicans remained undisputed masters of the field, always on the alert, travelling from place to place, scrutinizing and question- ing, searching the truth and dragging it from unwilling hearts. Yet scarce a trace of their strenuous labors has been left to us Heretics throughout the North were comparatively few and scat- tered ; the chroniclers of the period take no note of their discovery and punishment, nor even of the establishment of the Inquisition Itself. That a few friars should be deputed to the duty of hunt- ing heretics was too unimpressive a fact to be worthy of record We know, however, that the pious King Louis welcomed them in his old hereditary dominions, as he did in the newly-acquired ter- ritories of Languedoc, and stimulated their zeal by defraying their expenses. In the accounts of the royal baillis for 1248 we find en- ioqI ^^ZT'Jr ^""^^'^' Suessionens. (D'Achery, II. 491).-Conc. Trevirens. ann. 1.38, c 31 (Martene Ampl. Coll. VII. 130).-Wac1ding. Annal. ann. 1236 No 3 - Meyeri Annal. Flandrens. Lib. vm. ann. 1236.-Ravnald. ann. 1238, No 52 -Matt Paiis .mn. 1236, 1238, pp. 293, 326 (Ed. 1644).-Chron. Gaufridi de Collone ann' tltr^^'T ."• '^-^^^^"^- Trium Font. Chron. ann. 1239.-Chron. Rimee de Phil, de Mousket, v. 30525-34. Frfere Bremond endeavors to clear Robert's fame from the accusations brought against him by Matthew Paris, and states that he died in the convent of St Jacques in Paris in 1235.