Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/485

Rh of allegiance (Lib. v. Extra, VII. xiii. § 3). When thus the basis on which society itself was founded was destroyed by heresy all minor pledges were necessarily invalidated. The Church did not allow this to become obsolete. When, in 1327, John XXII. sentenced the Emperor Louis of Bavaria as a heretic, he not only released all his vassals from their oaths of allegiance, but declared void all compacts and agreements made with him (Martene Thesaur. II. 702, 775–6, 791). So, in 1463, when it pleased Pius II. to declare George Podiebrad a heretic, he released the communities of Breslau and Namslau from their allegiance, and excommunicated all who should lend their aid or service to their monarch (Æn. Sylvii Epist. 401); and when Frederic III. asked him to compel Breslau to submit to George, he replied by arguing that heresy dissolved compacts as effectually as death (Martene Ampl. Coll. I. 1598-99). When, in 1469, Paul II. again declared George a heretic he pronounced that each and every obligation, promise, and oath made to that heretic was null and void, for faith was not to be kept with him who kept not faith with God. Acting under this, when George released from prison Wenceslas of Biberstein, on bail of six thousand florins furnished by John and Ulric of Hazemburg, the papal legate Rudolph incontinently ordered the bailors neither to surrender the accused nor to pay the forfeit (Ludewig Reliq. MSS. VI. 77). The play upon the double meaning of the word faith by which this was epigrammatically justified was seriously accepted by Christendom. In April, 1415, Fernando of Aragon wrote to Sigismund earnestly remonstrating with him for the delay in judging Huss, and expressing the hope that the safe-conduct would not be allowed to protect him "quoniam non est frangere fidem in eo qui Deo fidem frangit."—Andreæ Ratisponens Chron. ann. 1414 (Pez Thesaur. Anecd. IV. III. 626.—Palacky Documenta, p. 540). All statutes and laws impeding the free action of the Inquisition, directly or indirectly, were null and void ipso jure, as we have repeatedly seen above (see also Farinaccii de Hæresi Quæst. 182 No. 76); and what Sigismund could not have done at the head of the Imperial Diet, he certainly could not do by a simple safe-conduct, and no ecclesiastical jurisdiction was bound to respect it. If the Church thus disregarded the pledges of laymen, it was equally unmindful of its own when heretics were concerned. Even late in the sixteenth century the bull Multiplices inter of Pius V. annulled all letters of absolution and decrees of acquittal for heresy issued by inquisitors, bishops, popes, and even by the Council of Trent, showing how scant was the ceremony customarily used in such cases, and how completely suspicion of heresy deprived a man of all rights (Lib. v. in Septimo III. X.). Even without this general principle, however, there would have been no difficulty in soothing Sigismund's scruples of conscience, if, perchance, he had any. The system of the medieval Church so completely confused the ideas of right The trial of Huss has been the subject of much indignant eloquence. It is the most conspicuous instance of an inquisitorial