Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/44

 28 LANGUEDOC. fifteen days. In 1233 we hear of their having, not long before, laid waste with fire and sword the territories of Pierre Amiel, Archbishop of ISTarbonne, and they had assailed and wounded him while on his way to the Holy See, an exploit which led Gregory IX. to order the archbishop, in conjunction with the Bishop of Toulouse, to proceed against them energetically, while at the same time he invoked the secular arm by a pressing command to Count Eaymond. It was probably under this authority that Bishop Eaymond du Fauga and the Provost of Toulouse held an inquest on them, in which was taken the testimony of Pierre Amiel and of one hundred and seven other witnesses. The evidence was con- flicting. The archbishop swore at great length as to the misdeeds of his enemies. They were all heretics. At one time they kept in their Castle of Dourne no less than thirty perfected heretics, and they had procured the assassination of Andre Chaulet, Senes- chal of Carcassonne, because he had endeavored to obtain evidence against them. Other witnesses were equally emphatic. Bernard Otho on one occasion had silenced a priest in his own church, and had replaced him in the pulpit with a heretic, who had preached to the congregation. On the other hand, there were not wanting witnesses who boldly defended them. The preceptor of the Hos- pital at Puysegur swore to the orthodoxy of Bernard Otho, and declared that what he had done for the faith and for peace had caused the death of a thousand heretics. A priest swore to having seen him assist in capturing heretics, and an archdeacon declared that he would not have remained in the land but for the army which Bernard raised after the death of the late king, adding that he beheved the prosecution arose rather from hate than from charity. Nothing came of this attempt, and in 1234 we meet with Bernard Otho as a witness to a transaction between the royal Seneschal of Carcassonne and the Monastery of Alet ; but when the Inquisition was estabhshed it was promptly brought to bear on the nobles who persisted in maintaining their feudal indepen- dence in spite of the fact that their immediate suzerain Avas now the king. In 1235 GuiUem Arnaud, the inquisitor, while in Car- • cassonne, with the Archdeacon of Carcassonne as assistant, cited the three brothers and their mother to answer before him. Ber- nard Otho and GuiUem obeyed the summons, but would confess nothing. Then the seneschal seized them; under compulsion