Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/279

 THE WALDENSES OF PIEDMONT. 263 of Avegliana appealed to Count Amadeo, who ordered them re- leased, and Fra Antonio records the unwillingness with which he obeyed the command. He endeavored to turn his stay in Avegli- ana to account by publishing the customary monition for all per- sons to come forward and confess their own heresy or denounce those who were suspect. For nine days he waited, but not a soul appeared to accuse himself or his neighbors, and he departed, grieved at heart over the obduracy of the people, for it was com- mon fame that there were many heretics there and in the neigh- borhood, especially at Coazze and Yalgione. The final blow came when in December he issued a summons to all the officials of Yal Perosa, one of the recognized Waldensian valleys, reciting that their land was full of heretics and that they must appear before him in Pignerol to purge themselves and their communities of this infamy. They did not obey, but through the intervention of the Piedmontese Chancellor, Giovanni di Brayda, and other courtiers, they agreed to pay Count Amadeo five hundred florins a year, for w^iich he was to prevent the inquisitor from visiting Yal Perosa, and they were to be exempted from obeying his citations. This was too much to endure, and Fra Antonio shook the dust of Fig:- nerol from his feet for the more promising chase of the Cathari near Turin, first denouncing the officials of Yal Perosa as having incurred excommunication and the penalties of contumacy, the only result of which was to draw upon his head the wrath of Count Amadeo. It does not appear that he had any better success in endeavoring to obtain for his Inquisition the confiscations of the people of Pragelato condemned by the Provengal inquisitor, Fran- cois Borel. By a special privilege of Clement YII. the latter!s jurisdiction had been extended over some of the Piedmontese val- leys, and though Fra Antonio might abandon the persons of the heretics to bis Franciscan rival, he was resolved, if he could, to retain then- property. These mishaps of Fra Antonio have an in- terest, not only as a rare instance of difficulties thrown into the path of the Inquisition, but as explaining why the fierce persecu- tions of Borel had so httle effect in diminishing Waldensianism.* 18-52). There is some confusion as to the dates of these events which I cannot remove.
 * Processus contra Valdenses (Archivio Storico Italiano, 1865, No. 38, pp