Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/62

 ^g LANGUEDOC. With the sentences of Pierre CeUa, that the fate of the victims who were sifted out of this mass of testimony must have been passed upon mth no proper or conscientious scrutmy. At least, however, they must have escaped the long and torturmg delays customary in the later and more leisurely stages of the Inqmsi- tion With such a record before us it is not easy to understand the complaint of the bishops of Languedoc, in 1245, that the In- quisition was too merciful, that heresy was increasmg, and that the inquisitors ought to be urged to greater exertions. It was possibly in consequence of the lack of harmony thus revealed be- tween the episcopate and the Inquisition that Innocent, m April of the same vear, ordered the Inquisitors of Languedoc to proceed as usual in cases of manifest heresy, and in those involving slight punishment, while he directed them to suspend proceedmgs m matters requiring imprisonment, crosses, long pilgrimages, and confiscation until definite rules should be laid down m the Council of Lyons, which he was about to open. These questions, however, were settled in that of Beziers, which met in 1246, and issued a new code of procedure.* „.^ -, • .1 „ Ooti. In all this Count Eaymond, now thoroughly fitted m the Cath- olic groove, was an earnest participant. As his stormy hfe drew to its close, harmony with the Church was too great an element of comfort and prosperity for him to hesitate in purchasing it with the blood of a few of his subjects, whom, indeed, he could scarce have saved had he so willed. He gave conspicuous evidence of his hatred of heresy. In 1247 he ordered his officials to compel the attendance of the inhabitants at the sermons of the frmrs m all towns and villages through which they passed, and in 1249, at Berlaiges, near Agen, he coldly ordered the burning of eighty be- lievers who had confessed their errors in his presence-a piece of cruelty far transcending that habitual with the inquisitors. About the same time King Jayme of Aragon effected a «bange m the Inquisition in the territories of Narbonne. Possibly this may have had some con nection with themurderj^y the citizens of two . Boat, XXII. 217. - MoUnier. L'lnquisition dans le midi de la France pp. 186-90.-See also Peyrat, Les Albigeols et I'Inq. III. 467-73.-Vaxssette, III. Pr. 446-8,— Teulet, Layettes, II. 566. M. l'Abb6 Douais (loo. cit. p. 419) tells us that the examinations m the in quest of Bernard de Caux number five thousand eight hundred and four.