Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/192

 176 THE FRATICELLI. Capistrano, and the blessed Giacomo da Monteprandone, gener- ally known as della Marca — both full of zeal and energy, who richly earned their respective canonization and beatification by lifelong devotion and by services which can scarce be overestimated. It is true that Giacomo was commissioned only as a missionary, to preach to the heretics and reconcile them, but the difference was practically undiscoverable, and when, a quarter of a century later, he fondly looked back over the exploits of his youth, he related with pride how the heretics fled from before his face, abandoned their strongholds, and left their flocks to his mercy. Their head- quarters seem to have been in the Mark of Ancona, and chiefly in the dioceses of Fabriano and Jesi. There the new inquisitors boldly attacked them. There was no resistance. Such of the teachers as could do so sought safety in flight, and the fate of the rest may be guessed from the instructions of Martin in 1128 to Astorgio, Bishop of Ancona, his lieutenant in the Mark, with re- spect to the village of Magnalata. As it hacl been a receptacle of heretics, it is to be levelled with the earth, never to be rebuilt. Stubborn heretics are to be dealt with according to the law — that is, of course, to be burned, as Giacomo della Marca tells us was the case with many of them. Those who repent may be reconciled, but their leaders are to be imprisoned for life, and are to be tort- ured, if necessary, to force them to reveal the names of their fel- lows elsewhere. The simple folk who have been misled are to be scattered around in the vicinage where they can cultivate their lands, and are to be recompensed by dividing among them the property confiscated from the rest. The children of heretic parents are to be taken away and sent to a distance, where they can be brought up in the faith. Heretic books are to be diligently searched for throughout the province ; and all magistrates and communities are to be warned that any favor or protection shown to heretics will be visited with forfeiture of municipal rights." Such measures ought to have been effective, as well as the de- vice of Capistrano, who, after driving the Fraticelli out of Massacio and Palestrina, founded Observantine houses there to serve as citadels of the faith, but the heretics were stubborn and enduring. Dial. (Baluz. et Mansi II. 597, 609).
 * Wadding, ann. 1426, No. 1-4. — Raynald. arm. 1428, No. 7.— Jac. tie Marchia