Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/355

 ACTION OF THE PRELATES. 339 safely could, and that well-grounded jealousy would lead them to seize the first safe opportunity of crushing the intruding up- starts.* Fortunately for the German people, Conrad's blind reckless- ness was not long in affording them the desired chance. Begin- ning with the lowly and helpless, his operations had rapidly ad- vanced to the higher classes. In his eyes the meanest peasant and the loftiest noble were on an equality, and he was as prompt to assail the one as the other, but his witnesses at first had not dared to accuse the high-born and powerful. It is quite possible, indeed, that, as the persecution became more dreadful, some of them may have felt that the surest mode of bringing on a crisis was to involve the magnates of the land. Eumors were spread impugning the faith of the Counts of Aneberg, Lotz, and Sayn. Conrad eagerly directed his interrogatories to obtaining evidence against them, and summoned them to appear before him. Count Sayn was an especially notable prey, as he was one of the most powerful nobles of the diocese, whose extensive possessions were guarded by castles renowned for strength, and whose reputation was that of a stern and cruel man. The crime of which he was accused was that of riding on a crab, and open defiance was ex- pected from him. Sigfried, the Archbishop of Mainz, to make a show of obedience to the papal commands, had called a provincial council to assemble March 13, 1233. When it met, it deplored the prevalence of heresy, from which scarce a village in the land was free ; it prayed the prelates to labor zealously for the suppression of the evil, commanded them to enforce in their respective dio- ceses the recent decrees of the pope and of the emperor, which were to be read and explained in the local synods, so that the heretics might be frightened to conversion ; it deprecated the practice of seizing the property of suspects before their guilt was determined ; it ordered the bishops to provide prisons for coiners and incorrigible clerks, without alluding to the imprisonment of heretics, although Gregory, but a few weeks before, had speciallv ordered them to employ perpetual incarceration in aU cases Jf relapse ; it endeavored to maintain episcopal jurisdiction by en- acting that inquisitors must obtain letters from the bishop before
 * Hist. Diplom. Frid. H. T. IV. pp. 285-7, 300-2.