Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/560

 544 THE HUSSITES. all the clergy would have been slain. Eugenius rewarded him by describing him as " a vigorous and most ruthless extirpator of heresy," and granting him the power of appointing subordinate inquisitors, thus rendering him an inquisitor-general in all the wide region confided to him. It was probably a result of the quarrel over the priestly concubines that led, in 1438, Simon of Bacska, Archdeacon of Fiinfkirchen, to excommunicate him ; but that official was speedily forced to withdraw the anathema by the Emperor Albert and the Archbishop of Gran. For a while his la- bors were interrupted by a call to attend the Council of Ferrara, held in 1438 by Eugenius lY., to offset the hostile assemblage at Basle, but he speedily returned to Hungary. It was doubtless owing to his efforts that in Poland the barons and cities entered into a solemn league and covenant to suppress heresy, April 25, 1438_just before Poland intervened in Bohemia to protect the Hussites from the Emperor Albert. In 1439 Giacomo's zeal re- ceived a check on the more immediate fields of his labors. In Sreim he delivered to the secular arm, as convicted heretics, a priest and three associates ; their friends assembled in force, broke open the prison and carried off the culprits, and, what is difficult to understand, unless the heresy was merely concubinage, the Arch- bishop of Kalocsa, when appealed to, protected the criminals. Giacomo had recourse to the Emperor Albert, who wrote sharply to the archbishop in June ; and this proving meffectual, again in August. What was the result of the affair is not known, but Al- bert, as we have seen, died in October, to the great detriment of religion; and in 1440 Giacomo left Hungary on account of ill- health. He seems not to have been immediately replaced, and, in the absence of organized persecution, the tares speedily began to multiply again among the wheat. In January, 1444, Eugenius lY., deploring the spread of Hussitism throughout the Danubian regions, appointed the Observantine'Yicar Fabiano of Bacs as in- quisitor for the whole Slavonian vicariate, which included Hun- gary, with power to appoint inquisitors under him. These were authorized to act in complete independence of the local prelates ; Holy Land indulgences were promised to all who would aid them, and excommunication, removable only by pope or inquisitor, against cill withholding assistance. In July, 1446, Eugenius again alludes to the flourishing condition of Hussitism in Hungary and