Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/364

 348 GERMANY. mostly insignificant villages, the larger towns appear to be avoid- ed, and the heretics belong to the humbler classes— mostly peasants and mechanics. Their wonderful famHiarity with Scripture and their self -de voted earnestness in making converts have already been alluded to. From the writer's long description of the tenets of the Ordibarii and Ortlibenses it is evident that they formed a fair pro- portion of the heretics with whom the inquisitor had to deal, and their belief that the Day of Judgment would come when the pope and the emperor should be converted to their sect, indicates the hopefulness of a faith that is growing and spreading. Soon after- wards we hear of Waldenses captured in the diocese of Ratisbon, and their continued activity, in spite of persecution, through all the south German regions.* There was little on the part of the Inquisition or the bishops to prevent the growth and spread of heresy. During the Inter- regnum, in 1261, a council of Mainz seems suddenly to have awak- ened to' a sense of neglected duty in the premises; it vigorously anathematized all heretics after the fashion customary m the papal bulls, and it strictlv commanded the bishops of the provmce to labor zealously for the extermination of heresy in their respective dioceses, enforcing, with regard to the persons and property of heretics, the papal constitutions and the statutes of a former pro- vincial council. There is here no sign of the existence of a papal Inquisition, and the episcopal activity which was threatened ap- pears to have lain dormant, though the action of the council would seem to show that heretics were numerous enough to attract attention. It is true that, in the chancery of Rodolph of Haps- burg, whose reign extended from 1273 to 1292, there was a for- mula for acknowledging and confirming the papal commissions presented by inquisitors, showing that this must, at least occasion- aUy, have been done. The emperor calls God to witness that his chief object in accepting the crown was to be able to defend the faith ; he alludes to the exercise of inquisitorial jurisdiction over the descendants of heretics as well as over heretics themselves, but he carefuUy inserts a saving clause to the effect that the ac- - Anon. Passaviens. contra Waldens. c. 3, 6, 9, 10 (Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 299, 301-2,308-9).-W.Preger,Beitrage,pp. 9,49.-Ejusd. Der Tractat des David von Augsburg.