Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/211

 THE WALDENSES. -^gg were restored to them. Evidently they had Httle to dread from active persecution, and subsequent letters of Innocent show them to be stiU flourishing there. The Waldenses who were burned at Strassburg m 1212 admitted that their chief resided in Milan, and that they were in the habit of collecting money and remittin.. it to mm.'^ ^ It was, however, in the valleys of the Cottian Alps, to which they spread from Dauphin^, that they settled themselves most lirmly In those inhospitable regions, tiU then almost uninhab- ited their marvellous and self-denying industry occupied every spot where incessant labor could support life. There they rapid- y increased and filled the vaUeys of Luserna, Angrogna, San Mar- tmo, and Perosa. In 1210 Giacomo di Carisio, Bishop of Turin B ieTto ^*,f « -f -^.growth of this heresy in his diocese, ap: phed to O ho IV. for aid in its suppression, but the emperor in reply merely ordered him to use severity in their punishment and expulsion. Authority for this he already had in abundance under the canons, but he la«ked the physical force to render it effective and the imperial rescript went for naught. This shows that the local suzerains took no measures to enforce persecution, and the heretics continued to increase. The immediate sovereign of the district most deeply infected was the Abbey of RipaiUe, which found Itself unable to control them, and made over its temporal rights to Tommaso I, Count of Savoy. He issued an edict, to which I have already referred, imposing a fine of ten sols for giving refuge to heretics, which proved altogether ineffective Thus, m the absence of efficient repression, were established those Alpme communities whose tenacity of belief supplied through centuries an unfailing succession of humble martyrs and who ennobled human natm-e by their marvellous example ot constancy and endurance.f .est TTi^lt ""• -'f,^^— ^l^^pi^»^^^^^ PP. III. Re. ff M, ' ' ^'^" ^•«^-^^'taer.Konradv. Marburg, pp. 42 44- Anna). Marbacens. aon. 1231 (Urstisii Germ. Hist. Scriptt II 90) ' + Bolin,er, Regest. Imp. V. llO.-Comba, La Riforma in Italia I 254-57- Torf "3 ^^T"^ '^' ^- *^'°^"""' <U"' ^P'«°*^ <1^"« Storia del Piemonte Tonne, 1874, pp. 15-21) argues that the letter of Otho IV. is only the drafHf one