Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/444

 ^2g BOHEMIA. of Huno-ary to intervene, as those of Bohemia apparently were not to be depended upon, and there was evidently no inquisitorial ma- chinery which could be employed. Innocent describes the heresy as established so firmly and widely that it embraced not only the simple folk, but also princes and magnates, and it was so elabo^ rately organized that it had a chief who was reverenced as pope. These are aU declared excommunicate, their lands confiscated for the benefit of the first occupant, and any who shall relapse after recantation are to be abandoned to the secular arm without a hear- ing, in accordance with the canons.* We have no means of knowing whether any action was taken in consequence of this decree, but if efforts were made they did not succeed in eradicating the heresy. In 1257 King Premysl Otokar II. appUed to Alexander IV. for aid in its suppression, as it continued to spread, and to this request was due the first introduction of the Inquisition in Bohemia. Two Franciscans Lambert the German and Bartholomew lector in Briinn, received the papal commission as inquisitors throughout Bohemia and Mo- ravia It is fair to assume that they did their duty, but no traces of their activity have reached us, nor is there any evidence that their places were filled when they died or retired. The Inquisi- tion may be considered as non-existent, and when, after a long in- terval, we again hear of persecution, it is in a shape that shows that the Bishop of Prague, like his metropolitan of Mainz, was not disposed to invite papal encroachments on his jurisdiction in 1301 a synod of Prague deplored the spread of heresy and ordered every one cognizant of it to give information to the episcopa in- quisitors, from which we may infer that heretics were active that they had been little disturbed, and that the elaborate legislation • Palacky, Beziehungen der Waldenser, Pr'ag, 1869, p. lO.-Potthast No. 11818 Palacky (pp. 7-8) conjectures that these heretics were Cathari, but bis reason- ttg is quite inadequate to overcome the greater probability tl,at they were of Waldensian origin. He is, however, doubtless correct in suggesting that the al^ lusion to princes and magnates may properly connect the movement with the commencement of the conspiracy which finally dethroned King Wenceslas L n 1238 Wenceslas was a zealous adherent of the papacy and opponent of Fi edenc II, and the connection between antipapal politics and heresy was too close us to discriminate between them without more details than we possess.