Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/259

 PAPAL INTERFERENCE. 243 Tuscany to the Eoman Church, and especially to him before his eleva ion relieved them individually and universally from the penalties for heresy, including aU disabilities decreed" by his pre decesso,^ and by Frederic IL, whether incurred by their own er rors or by those of their ancestors. Catholic children of heretic parents were thus ipso facto restored to all privileges and were no longer hable to disinheritance. In the case of exfsting hertics"t was necessary for them to appear before the inquisitors within a me to be named by the latter-excepting absentees in foreign lands, to whom a term of five months was allowed-to abjure hS- esy and receive penance, which was to be a secret one, involving neither humibation, disability, or loss of property, clses of re A^rv r^T' '"*" "^" ^^''^'^ ^"'^ ^^ ti>« rigor of the law As this bull abrogated m Tuscany the constitutions of Frederic II p. ocured. For a while this extraordinary privilege seems to have been observed, for, in 1289, Nicholas IV., when anathematizL' heretics and stimulating the zeal of inquisitors througtu Gnoa frZ ht£ T^'- f P.^"' ^'^' '^'^"^' P'^^^^^'^^y ^^^^ Tuscany disiegarded No case could come more completely within its pur prior to 2o0 and prosecuted in 1313. His numerous children an! grandchildren were good Catholics, and yet they were all ditn herited and subjected to the canonical disabihties * Together with this exhibition of papal indulgence may be tt rt o'f ::~^' ^*"'^'^ "' *^^ ^^^^ «- *« -de'rate the rigor of the canons, or to repress the undue zeal of an inquisi- tt' pill 1' T ""^' "'~ "^^ '--^' --^^^ ^o at" the papal attention. It is pleasant to record three instances of this kind on the part of the despotic Boniface VIII., whenTl297 he declared that Rainerio Gatti, a noble of Viterbo, and Ws sons' had been prosecuted by the inquisitors on perjm- d testimony wherefore the process was to be annulled and the accused and their heirs relieved from all stain of heresy; when, in 1298, he or dered the Inquisition to restore to the innocent chUdren of a her- 20.-Lami, Antichiti Toscane, pp. 497, 536-7. '