Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/237

 EXTENSION OF THE INQUISITION. 221 himself on the eve of becoming the undisputed temporal as well as spiritual head of Italy. Every effort was made to perfect the Inquisition and to render it efficient both as a political instrument and as a means of bringing about the long-desired uniformity of belief. On March 8 Innocent had taken an important step in its organization by ordering the Franciscan Minister of Eome to ap- point friars of his Order as inquisitors in all the provinces south of Lombardy. On May 20 he reissued his bull Ad extirpanda ; on the 22d he sent the constitutions of Frederic II. to all the Italian rulers, with orders to incorporate them in the local statutes, and informed them that the Mendicants were instructed to coerce them in case of disobedience. On the 29th he proceeded to re- organize the Lombard Inquisition by instructing the provincial to appoint four inquisitors whose power should extend from Bo- logna and Ferrara to Genoa. Under this impulsion and the rest- less energy of Eainerio no time was lost in extending the institu- tion in every direction save where GhibeUine potentates such as Ezzelin and Uberto prevented its introduction. We chance to have an illustration of the process in the records of the Httle repubhc of Asti, on the confines of Savoy. It is recited that in 1254 two inquisitors, Fra Giovanni da Torino and Era Paulo da Milano, with their associates, appeared before the council of the republic and announced to them that the pope enjoined them to admit the Inquisition within their territories. Thereupon the Astigiani made answer that they were ready to obey the pontiff, but they had no laws providing for persecution and it would be necessary to frame one. Accordingly an ordenamento was drawn up prescribing obedience to the constitutions of Innocent lY. and Frederic II., and it was forthwith added to the local statutes. Similar action was doubtless taking place in every quarter where the people had thus far remained in ignorance of the new doc- trine that the suppression of heresy was the first duty of the gov- ernment.* The death of Innocent lY., December 7, 1254, whether it was the result of Dominican litanies or of mortification at Manfred's ann. 1254, No. 8.— Ripoll I. 246.— Sclopis, Antica Legislazione del Piemonte, p. 440.
 * Bern. Guidon. Vit. Innocent. PP. IV. (Muratori, S. R. I. III. 592).— Wadding,