Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/20

4 between the Mendicants and the secular clergy was, moreover increased by the pretension of the inquisitors to supervise the priesthood and see that they performed their neglected duty in all that pertained to the extension of the faith. That under such circumstance the Dominicans employed in the pious work should suffer constant molestation scarce needs the explanation given by the pope that it was through the influence of the Arch Enemy.

Another serious impediment to the operations of the Inquisition lay in the absence of places of detention for those accused and of prisons for those condemned. We have already seen how the bishops shirked their duty in providing jails for the multitudes of prisoners until St. Louis was obliged to step in and construct them, and during this prolonged interval the sentences of the inquisitors show in the number of contumacious absentees after a preliminary hearing, how impossible it often was to retain hold of heretics who had been arrested.

To undertake, in such an environment, the apparently hopeless task of suppressing heresy required men of exceptional character, and they were not wanting. Repulsive as their acts must seem to us, we cannot refuse to them the tribute due to their fearless fanaticism. No labor was too arduous for their unflagging zeal no danger too great for their unshrinking courage. Regarding themselves as elected to perform God's work they set about it with a sublime self-confidence which lifted them above the weakness of humanity. As the mouthpiece of God, the mendicant friar, who lived on charity, spoke to prince and people with all the awful authority of the Church and exacted obedience or punished contumacy unhesitatingly and absolutely. Such men as