Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/224

 208 POLITICAL HERESY.— THE CHURCH. of Cologne refused to be placated, and for a year they continued to seek from the Council the condemnation of their enemy. Their deputies, however, warned them that the prosecution would be prolonged, difficult, and costly, and they finally came to the resolu- tion that the action of the Cardinal of Ragusa should be regarded as binding, so long as Malkaw kept away from the territory of Cologne, but should be disregarded if he ventured to return — a very sensible, if somewhat illogical, conclusion. The obstinacy with which Benedict XIII. and Clement VIII. maintained their position after the decision of the Council of Constance prolonged the struggle in southwestern Europe, and as late as 1428 the rem- nants of their adherents in Languedoc were proceeded against as heretics by a special papal commissioner.* When the schism was past the Inquisition could still be util- ized to quell insubordination. Thomas Connecte, a Carmelite of Britanny, seems to have been a character somewhat akin to John Malkaw. In 142 S we hear of him in Flanders, Artois, Picardy, and the neighboring provinces, preaching to crowds of fifteen or twenty thousand souls, denouncing the prevalent vices of the time. The hennins, or tall head-dresses worn by women of rank, were the object of special vituperation, and he used to give boys certain days of pardon for following ladies thus attired, and crying " au Jiennin" or even slyly pulling them off. Moved by the eloquence of his sermons, great piles would be made of dice, tables, chess- boards, cards, nine-pins, head-dresses, and other matters of vice and luxury, which were duly burned. The chief source, however, of the immense popular favor which he enjoyed was his bitter lashing of the corruption of all ranks of the clergy, particularly their public concubinage, which won him great applause and honor. He seems to have reached the conclusion that the only cure for this universal sin was the restoration of clerical marriage. In 1432 he went to Home in the train of the Venetian ambassa- dors, to declaim against the vices of the curia. Usually there was a good-natured indifference to these attacks — a toleration born of contempt — but the moment was unpropitious. The Hussite heresy had commenced in similar wise, and its persistence was a warning fid. Privat, X. Pr. 2089.
 * H. Haupt, Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte, 1883, pp. 323 sqq. — Vaissette,