Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/153

Rh nard Gui or Nicholas d'Abbeville would have asked for no such warrant.

To what an extent the University in time replaced the Inquisition in its neglected and forgotten functions is shown in 1498, in the case of the Observantine Franciscan, Jean Vitrier. In the restlessness and insubordination which heralded the Reformation, this obscure friar anticipated Luther even more than did John of Wesel, although in the strictness of his asceticism he taught that a wife might better break her marriage-vow than her fasts. In his preaching at Tournay he counselled the people to drag the concubines and their priests from their houses with shame and de- rision; he affirmed that it was a mortal sin to listen to the masses of concubinary priests. Pardons and indulgences were the off- spring of hell: the faithful ought not to purchase them, for they were not intended for the maintenance of brothels. Even the intercession of the saints was not to be sought. These were old heresies for which any inquisitor would promptly offer the utterer the alternative of abjuration or the stake; but the prelates and magistrates of Tournay referred the matter to the University, which laboriously extracted from Vitrier's sermons sixteen propo- sitions for condemnation.

Even more significant of the growing authority of the Univer- sity and the waning power of the Papacy was a decision rendered in 1502. Alexander VI. had levied a tithe on the clergy of France, with the customary excuse of prosecuting the war against the Turks. The clergy, whose consent had not been asked, refused to pay. The pope rejoined by excommunicating them, and they ap- plied to the University to know whether such a papal excommuni- cation was valid, whether it was to be feared, and whether they should consequently abstain from the performance of divine ser- vice. On all these points the University replied in the negative, unanimously and without hesitation. Had circumstances permit- ted the same independence in Germany, a little more progress in this direction would have rendered Luther superfluous.

It is not to be supposed, however, that the Inquisition, though fallen from its former dignity, had ceased to exist or to perform