Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/216

 200 "^^^^ already seen how promptly he recognized the utility of the Order of Dominic and laid the foundations of the Inquisition by his ten- tative action in Florence. While this was taking shape his zeal was stimulated by the discovery, in 1231, that in Rome itself her- esy had become so bold that it ventured to assert itself openly, and that many priests and other ecclesiastics had been converted. Probably the first auto defe on record was that held by the ben- ator Annibaldo at the portal of Santa Maria Maggiore, when these unfortunates were burned or condemned to perpetual pris- on, and Gregory took advantage of the occasion to issue the de- cretal which became the basis of inquisitorial procedure, and to procure the enactment of severe secular laws in the name ot the senator The details I have already given (Vol. I. p. 325), and they need not be repeated here ; but Gregory did not content himself with what he thus accomplished in Rome. His aid just then was desirable to Frederic IT. in his Lombard complications, and to Gregory's urgencv may doubtless be attributed the severe leo-islation of the Sicilian Constitutions, issued about this time, and the Ravenna decrees of 1232. Shortly afterwards indeed we find Frederic writing to him that they are bke father and son: that they should sharpen the spiritual and temporal swords respectively committed to them against heretics and rebels, with- out wasting effort on sophistry, for if time be spent m disputation nature will succumb to disease. It is not probable that Gregory counted much on the zeal of the emperor, but he sent the edict of Annibaldo to Milan, with instructions that it be adopted and en- forced there. Already, in 1228, his legate, Goffredo, Cardina of San Marco, had obtained of the Milanese the enactment of a law by which the houses of heretics were to be destroyed, and the secular authorities were required to put to death within ten days all who were condemned by the Church ; but thus far no execu- tions seem to have taken place under it.* ^ ,, ^, ,u„. It was now that Gregory, seeing the futility of all efforts thus far save those which the Dominicans were making m Florence, - Raynald. Annal. ann. 1231, No. 13-18.-Coustit. Sicular. Lib^i^m i - Rich. S. Germ. Chron. (Muratori, S. R. I. VII. 1026).- V.t. Gregor. PP^ X. (lb III. 578).-Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. T. IV. pp. 299-300, 409-1 1.- err, Stor.a d« Milano, I. 242.— Bern. Corio, Hist. Milanese, ann. 1228.