Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/221

 JOHN MALKAW. 205 tor of Toulouse, held to the party of Benedict XIII. , and he retali- ated by imprisoning a number of otherwise unimpeachable Domin- icans and Franciscans, including the Provincial of Toulouse and the Prior of Carcassonne, for which the provincial, as soon as he had an opportunity, removed him and appointed a successor, giv- ing rise to no little trouble.* The manner in which the Inquisition was used as an instrument by the contending factions in the Church is fairly illustrated by the adventures of John Malkaw, of Prussian Strassburg (Brodnitz). He was a secular priest and master of theology, deeply learned, skilful in debate, singularly eloquent, and unflinching even to rash- ness. Espousing the cause of the Roman popes against their Avignonese rivals with all the enthusiasm of his fiery nature, he came to the Phinelands in 1390, where his sermons stirred the pop- ular heart and proved an effective agency in the strife. After some severe experiences in Mainz at the hands of the opposite fac- tion, he undertook a pilgrimage to Pome, but tarried at Strassburg, where he found a congenial field. The city had adhered to Urban VI. and his successors, but the bishop, Frederic of Blankenheim, had alienated a portion of his clergy by his oppressions. In the quarrel he excommunicated them; they appealed to Pome and had the excommunication set aside, whereupon he went over, with his following, to Clement VII., the Avignonese antipope, giving rise to inextricable confusion. The situation was exactly suited to Malkaw's temperament ; he threw himself into the turmoil, and his fiery eloquence soon threatened to deprive the antipapalists of their preponderance. According to his own statement he quickly won over some sixteen thousand schismatics and neutrals, and the nature of his appeals to the passions of the hour may be guessed by his own report of a sermon in which he denounced Clement VII. as less than a man, as worse than the devil, whose portion was with Antichrist, while his followers were all condemned schismatics and heretics ; neutrals, moreover, were the worst of men and were deprived of all sacraments. Besides this he assailed with the same unsparing vehemence the deplorable morals of the Strassburg clergy, both regular and secular, and in a few weeks he 522, 566.
 * MSS. Chioccarello T. VIIL— Wadding, ann. 1409, No. 12.— Ripoll II. 510,