Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/281

 THE WALDENSES OF PIEDMONT. 265 moriaJ addressed in 1457 to Calixtus III., by the people of the neighbormg viUage of Bernez, who proceed to relate that after this exploit Fr4 Bertrando visited their town in company with his principal, Fr4 Ludovico da Soncino, and commenced an inqui- sition there, but abandoned it, to the scandal of the people with- out concluding the trials. Then Felix V. (Amadeo of Savoy) sent the Abbot of San-Piero of Savigliano to complete the unfinished business, who acquitted a number of the accused. Then recently there had come a new inquisitor who took up the cases agam and molested those who had been discharged, whereupon they peti- tioned the pope that he be restrained from further proceedings unt^l two experts in theology be appointed as assessors by the Bishop of Mondovi and the Abbot of Savigliano. The presenta- tion of such a request shows how much the Inquisition had lost of its power of inspiring awe, and this is emphasized by the action of Cahxtus m ordering the Bishop of Turin and" the inquisitor to as- sociate with themselves two experts and proceed with the cases It mdicates, moreover, that httle rest was aUowed to the Waldenses" WJiUe this affair was dragging its slow length along, Nicholas V m 1453, addressed to the Bishops of Turin and Nice and to the Inquisitor Giacomo di Buronzo, a bull reciting that Giacomo had found in the VaUey of Luserna a majority of the inhabitants in- fected with heresy, many of them having relapsed repeatedly Unable to convert them, he had placed an interdict on the vaUey • the people had repented and begged for readmission to the Church wherefore Nicholas orders the removal of the interdict, and that penitents, whether relapsed or not, be pardoned and restored to all their civil rights-a degree of lenity which indicates that sterner measures at the time were clearly inexpedient.* In 1475 a more serious war of extermination was commenced against them under the Duchess Tolande, Eegent of Savoy, in con- junction with the simultaneous action of the Inquisition in Dau- phine. By an edict of January 23, 1476, aU the officials in the in- fected districts were placed at the disposition of the Inquisition, and the podesta of Luserna was cited to appear on Febraary 10 to answer for his conduct, in refusing, at the instance of the In- ijt.ugno, 1»»^, p. 304. — Ripoll III. 359. '