Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/199

 CASTILE. 283 what to do with them, so Gregory IX. was applied to, and he authorized the Bishop of Palencia to reconcile them. There is probably no truth in the statement of some historians that the king, on several occasions, was obliged to levy from his subjects a tribute of wood with which to burn the unrepentant, and the story only serves to show how utterly vague have been the cur- rent conceptions of the period.* We reach firmer ground with the codes known as El Fuero Real and Las Siete Partidas, the first issued by Alonso the Wise in 1255, and the second about ten years later. By this time the Inquisition was at its height. It was thoroughly organized, and wherever it existed the business of suppressing heresy Avas exclu- sively in its hands. Yet not only does Alonso take no count of it, but in his regulation by secular law of the relations between the heretic and the Church he shows how completely, up to this period, Spain had remained outside of the great movements of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Heresy, it is true, is one of the matters pertaining to the ecclesiastical tribunals, and any one can accuse a heretic before his bishop or vicar. If the ac- cused is found not to believe as the Church teaches, effort is to be made to convert him, and if he returns to the faith he is to be pardoned. If he proves obstinate, he is to be handed over to the secular judge. Then, however, his fate is decided without refer- ence to the laws which the Church had endeavored to introduce throughout Christendom. If the culprit had received the consola- mentum, or is a behever observing the rites, or one of those who deny the future life, he is to be burned ; but if a believer not ob- serving the rites, he is to be banished or imprisoned until ha returns to the faith. Any one learning heresy, but not yet a believer, is fined ten pounds of gold to the fisc, or, if unable to pay, to receive fifty lashes in public. In the case of those who die in heresy or are executed, their estates pass to CathoHc descendants, or, in default of these, to the next of kin ; if without such kindred, the property of laymen goes to the fisc, of ecclesiastics, to the Church, if claimed within a year, after which it inures to the fisc. Chil- dren disinherited for heresy recover their portions, but not the Verdadera do la Inquisicion, IL 10. *
 * Lucae Tudens. Lib. iir. c. 12.-Raynald. ann. 1236, No. GO.-Rodrico Hist