Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/197

 CASTILE. 181 Burgos, where three hundred apostates were burned, and the sec- ond auto in the presence of the saintly king, who himself carried on his shoulders fagots for the burning of his subjects, and the pertinacious wretches defiantly rejoiced in the flames which were consuming them ; how, after this, he established the Inquisition in Aragon, whence he journeyed to Paris and organized it through- out France ; how, in 1220, he sent Conrad of Marburg as inquisitor to Germany, and in 1221 finished his labors by founding it in all the parts of Italy. All this can rank in historical value with the vera,cious statement of an old chronicler — a compatriot of the Pied Piper of Hamehn— that St. Boniface was an inquisitor, and that, with the support of Pepin le Bref, he burned many heretics! Detailed fists, moreover, are given of the successive inquisitors- general of the Peninsula— Frailes Suero Gomes, B. Gil, Pedro de Huesca, Arnaldo Segarra, Garcia de Yalcos, etc., but these are simply the Dominican provincials of Spain, who were empowered by the popes to appoint inquisitors, and whose exercise of that power did not extend beyond Aragon. Even Paramo, although he tries to prove that there were inquisitors nominally in Castile, is forced to admit that practicaUy there was no Inquisition there.* Yet, even in the distant city of Leon, Catharism had obtained a foothold. Bishop Rodrigo, who died in 1232, expelled a number of Cathari, on his attention being called to them by their circulat- ing a story to excite hatred of the priesthood, relating hoAv a poor woman placed a candle on the altar in honor of the Yiro-in, and on her leaving it a priest took it for his own use. The foUowiug night the Yirgin appeared to her votary and cast burning wax into her eyes, saying, '^ Take the wages of your service. As soon as you went away a priest carried off the candle ; as you would have been, rewarded had the candle been consumed on my altar, so you must bear the punishment, since your carelessness gave me the light only for a moment." This diabofical story, says Lucas of Tuy, an eye-witness, so affected the minds of the simple that the devotion of offering candles ceased, and it required two genu- ine miracles to restore the faith of the people. During the fnter- Hamelens. (Scriptt. Rer. Brunsv. IL 508).— Herculano, I. 39.— Baluz. et Mansi, I. 208.— Paiamo de Orig. Offic. S. Inquis. p. 131.
 * Monteiro, P. i. Liv. i. c. 38, 44, 46, 48-51 ; Liv. ii. c. 5-12.-Chron. Eccles.