Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/218

 202 POLITICAL HERESY.— THE CHURCH. and the cities of Milan, Como, Bergamo, Cremona, Yercelli, Trino, Yailate, Piacenza, Parma, Brescia, Alessandria, Tortona, Albenga, Pisa, Aretino, etc. We have a specimen of Fra Lamberto's opera- tions in a sentence pronounced by him, February 28, 1328, against Bernardino, Count of Cona. He had already condemned for heresy Bainaldo and Oppizo d' Este, in spite of which Bernardino had visited them in Ferrara, had eaten and drunk with them, and was said to have entered into a league with them. For these offences Lamberto summoned him to stand trial before the Inquisition. He duly appeared, and admitted the visit and banquet, but denied the alliance. Lamberto proceeded to take testimony, called an assembly of experts, and in due form pronounced him a fautor of heretics, condemning him, as such, to degradation from his rank and knighthood, and incapacity to hold any honors ; his estates were confiscated to the Church, his person was to be seized and delivered to the Cardinal-legate Bertrand or to the Inquisition, and his descendants for two generations were declared incapable of holding any office or benefice. All this was for the greater glory of God, for when, in 1326, John begged the clergy of Ireland to send him money, it was, he said, for the purpose of defending the faith against the heretics of Italy. Yet the Holy See was per- fectly ready, when occasion suited, to admit that this wholesale distribution of damnation 'was a mere prostitution of its control over the salvation of mankind. After the Yisconti had been rec- onciled with the papacy, in 1337, Lucchino, who was anxious to have Christian burial for his father, applied to Benedict XII. to reopen the process. In February of that year, accordingly, Bene- dict wrote to Pace da Yedano, who had conducted the proceedings against the Yisconti and against the citizens of Milan, Xovara, Bergamo, Cremona, Como, Yercelli, and other places for adhering to them, and who had been rewarded with the bishopric of Trieste, requiring him to send by Pentecost all the documents concerning the trial. The affair was protracted, doubtless owing to political vicissitudes, but at length, in May, 1341, Benedict took no shame in pronouncing the whole proceedings null and void for irregularity and injustice. Still the same machinery was used against Bernabo Yisconti, who was summoned by Innocent YI. to appear at Avignon on March 1, 1363, for trial as a heretic, and as he only sent a pro- curator, he was promptly condemned by Urban Y. on March 3,