Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/165

 THE INQUISITION AT TODI. 149 The settlement of the question depended much more upon political than upon religious considerations. Louis had abandoned Rome and established himself in Pisa with his pope, his cardinals, and his Franciscans, but the Italians were becoming tired of their kaiser. It mattered little that in January, 1329, he indulged in the childish triumph of solemnly burning John XXII. in effigy ; he was obliged soon after to leave the city, and towards the end of the year he returned to Germany, carrying with him the men who were to defend his cause with all the learning of the schools, and abandoning to their fate those of his partisans who were unable to follow him.* The proceedings which ensued at Todi will serve to show how promptly the Inquisition tracked his re- treating footsteps, and how useful it was as a political agency in reducing rebellious communities to submission. The Todini were Ghibelline. In 1327, when John XXII. had ordered Francisco Damiani, Inquisitor of Spoleto, to proceed vigor- ously against Mucio Canistrario of Todi as a rebel against the Church, and Mucio had accordingly been imprisoned, the people had risen in insurrection and liberated the captive, while the inquisitor had been forced to fly for his life. In August, 1328, they had welcomed Louis as emperor and Pier di Corbario as pope, and had ordered their notaries to use the regnal years of the latter in their instruments ; they had, moreover, attacked and taken the Guelf city of Orvieto and, like all the cities which adhered to Louis, they had expelled the Dominicans. In August, 1329, aban- doned by Louis, proceedings were commenced against them by the Franciscan, Fra Bartolino da Perugia, the inquisitor, who an- nounced his intention of making a thorough inquest of the whole district of Assisi against all Patarins and heretics, against those who assert things not to be sins which the Church teaches to be sins, or are minor sins which the Church holds to be greater, against those who understand the Scriptures in a sense different from what the Holy Spirit demands, against those who talk against the state and observance of the Roman Church and its convictions, and was now engaged in persecuting those who adhered to the belief which lie had prescribed for them. — Tocco, Un Codice della Marciana, pp. 40,43,45. 126, 144.
 * Chron. Cornel. Zantfliet (Martene Ainpl. Coll. V. 187).— Villani, Lib. x. c.