Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/181

Rh tion, however, was desperate, and his lands liable to confiscation; he therefore expressed to Gregory IX. his desire to return to the bosom of the Church, and offered to serve with his followers against the Saracen as long as the pope might designate. Gregory there- fore wrote, February 8, 1237, to Raymond of Pennaforte, that if the count would for three years with his subjects assist in the conquest of Valencia, and give sufficient security that in case of relapse his territories should be forfeited to the crown, he could be absolved. On hearing this the good bishop hastened to the papal court and declared that if Robert was absolved he and his witnesses would be exposed to the imminent peril of death, and that heresy would triumph in his diocese; but, on receiving assurances that his fiefs and tithes would be taken care of, he quieted down and offered no further opposition.

Under the impulsion of Gregory and of Raymond of Penna- forte, Dominican inquisitors had at last been resorted to, and in this year, 1237, we first become cognizant of them. In right of his wife Ermessende, Roger Bernard the Great of Foix was Viz- conde of Castelbo, a fief held of the Bishop of Urgel, with whom he had had a bitter war. He gave Castelbo to his son Roger, who, by the advice of his father, in 1237, allowed the Inquisi- tion free scope there, placing the castle in the hands of Ramon Fulco, Vizconde of Cardona, in the name of the Archbishop of Tarragona and the bishops assembled at the Council of Lerida. That council thereupon appointed a number of inquisitors, includ- ing Dominicans and Franciscans, who made a descent on Castelbo. It had long been noted as a nest of Catharans. In 1225, under the protection of Arnaldo, then lord of the place, perfected heretics publicly preached their doctrines there. In 1234 we hear of a heretic of Mirepoix going thither to receive the consolamentum on his death-bed. The inquisitors, therefore, had no difficulty in finding victims. They ordered two houses to be destroyed, ex- humed and burned the bones of eighteen persons, condemned as heretics, and carried off as prisoners some forty-five men and women, condemned fifteen who fled, and were undecided about sundry others. Still, the Bishop of Urgel was not satisfied, and he gratified his rancor by condemning and excommunicating Roger