Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/406

 oQQ GERMANY. many heretics remain unpunished and the seed of evil is scat- tered. Therefore the houses of the Beghards are given to the Inquisition to be converted into prisons ; those of the Beguines are ordered to be sold and the proceeds divided into thirds, one part being assigned to repairing roads and the walls of the towns, another to be given to inquisitors, to be expended on pious uses, among which is included the maintenance of prisoners. But three days' notice is given to the victims prior to expulsion from their homes.* If the Inquisition could have been permanently established m Germany this unscrupulous measure would have accomplished the object What between the imperial favor and Kerlinger's energy it at last had a fair start. The last edict alludes to two additional inquisitors whom Kerlinger was authorized to appoint and to his successful labors, bv which the heretic Brethren of the Free Spirit had been completely destroyed in the provinces of Magdeburg and Bremen, and in Thuringia, Hesse, Saxony, and elsewhere. Proba- blv this is exaggerated, but we learn from other sources that Ker- lino-er was zealously active and that his labors were rewarded with success. In Magdeburg and Erfurt he burned a number of here- tics and forced the rest to outward conformity or to flight. We hear of him at Nordhausen in 1369, where he captured forty Beg- hards • of these seven were obdurate and were burned, and the rest abjured and accepted penance. This is probably a fair example of his work, and we mav beheve Gregory XI. when, m 13 < 2, he says that the Inquisition had destroyed heresy and heretics m the central provinces and driven them to the outlying districts of Brabant, Holland, Stettin, Breslau, and Silesia, where they are gathered in such multitudes that they hope to be able to maintain themselves ; wherefore he earnestly calls upon the prelates and nobles to bring the good work to an end by efficiently supporting the Holy Office in its final labors. Apparently Kerhnger had not been anxious to divide his authority by exercising his power to appoint two additional colleagues, and Gregory now intervened to reheve him of thisjbity_and place the Germa n Inquisition on a • Mosheim de Begh^rfi^W^SSelca^Mosheim suggests that the di«tinction between the houses of the Beghards and the Beguines probably arose from the former being larger and situated in the cities, the latter smaller, more numerous, and scattered among the towns and villages.