Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/334

 g-j^g GERMANY. It is not to be supposed that Strassburg was a solitary centre of heresy, and that this was the only case of contemporary persecu- tion. Fragmentary allusions to the detection and punishment of misbelief in other places during the next few years show that the population of the Ehinelands was deeply infected, and that when the ignorance and sloth of the clergy permitted detection, heretics were ruthlessly exterminated. The event at Strassburg, however, happens to have been reported with a fulness of detail which in- vests it with pecuUar importance as revealing the methods of the episcopal inquisition of the period, and the nature of existing re- ligious dissidence.* The Cathari appear to have virtually disappeared from (rer- many, where their foothold, at best, had been precarious. German soil seems to have been unpropitious to this essentially Southern growth. On the other hand, Waldenses were numerous, together with sectaries known as Ortlibenses or Ordibarii. We have already seen how rapidly Waldensianism extended from Burgundy to Tranche Comte and Lorraine, and how, in 1199, Innocent III., after vainly endeavoring to persuade the Waldenses of Metz to surrender their vernacular Scriptures, had sent thither the Abbot of Citeaux and two other abbots to repress their zeal. The abbots duly performed their mission, preached to the misguid- ed zealots, and burned all such copies of the forbidden books as they could lay their hands on, though it is fair to presume, from the silence of the chronicler, that no human victims expiated at the stake their unlawful studies. The consequence of this mis- placed lenity was the emboldenment of the heretics. Some years later when Bishop Bertrand was preaching in the cathedral he saw two whom he recognized, and pointed them out, saymg/'I see among you missionaries of the Devil ; there they are, who m my presence at MontpeUier were condemned for heresy and cast out" The unabashed Waldenses, with a companion, replied to him with insults, and, leaving the church, gathered a crowd to whom they preached their doctrines. The bishop was powerless to silence them, f or, whenheatt empted to use fo rce, he found them the idea of assembling a^^c^^i^iThiiiri^^^ half a dozen kindred spirits_ It was not until 1224 that the Dominican convent in Strassburg was founded (Kalt- ner, p. 45). ^^. ^nt r
 * Kaltner, p. 45. -Hoffmann, II. 371-2.-Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. ann. 1.15.