Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/363

 WALDENSIANISM. 347 from the complaints of the Count of Salins, in 1248, and the fruit- less efforts of Innocent IV. to establish the Inquisition in Besan- 5on, that the western borders of Germany were full of Waldenses who had little to dread. At the same period there was a demon- stration m the neighborhood of Halle which may be reasonably regarded as Waldensian. The papacy had succeeded in raisin., a rival to Frederic in the person of Wilham of Holland, and a cru- sade was on foot in his favor against Conrad, Frederic's son The imperialists would naturally regard with favor the Waldensian doctrines denying the power of the keys and the obedience due to interdicts, and they might not object further to the tenet that sin- ful priests cannot administer the sacraments. Such were the doe- mas attributed to the heretics of Halle, who came boldly forward m 1248, were eagerly listened to by the nobles, and were favored by Kmg Conrad, but they speedily disappeared from sight in the changeful circumstances of that tumultuous time * We have much more distinct indications of the existence both of heresy^ and of the Inquisition in the writings of David of Augs- burg, and of the author now generally known as the Passauer Anonymus. The date of the latter is not absolutely certain, but It cannot vary much from 1260. His field of action was the ex- tensive diocese of Passau, stretching from the Iser to the Leitha and from Bohemia to Styria, embracing eastern Bavaria and northern Austria. His instructions seem to take for granted the existence of an organized Inquisition with its fully developed code of procedure, but his description of the prevalence of Waldensian- ism would indicate that it was almost inoperative. He tells us that he had often been concerned in the inquisition and examina- tion of the schools," or communities, of Waldenses, of which there were forty-one in the diocese, ten of them being in the single town of Clamme, where the heretics slew the parish priest without any one being punished for it. There were also forty-one Waldensian churches organized under a bishop residing in Empenbach, and there was a school for lepers at Newenhoffen. All this shows a prosper- IblTT'i^ ^""'"^ ""^"^ '^'^*"'^^'' "^y persecution. It is obsery- able that the places enumerated as the seats of these churches are Hist irr" 7T-Z'-~'^"""'- °°"""'^-- Col--, ann. 1233 (Urstisii Germ. Hist. II. 6).-Potthast No. 13000, lo995._Albert. Stadens. Chro,,. ann. 1248.