Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/254

 CHAPTER V. POLITICAL HERESY UTILIZED BY THE STATE. It was inevitable that secular potentates should follow the ex- ample of the Church in the employment of a weapon so efficient as the charge of heresy, when they chanced to be in the position of controlling the ecclesiastical organization. A typical illustration of this is seen when, during the anarchy which prevailed in Eome after the death of Innocent VII. in 1406, Basilio Ordelaffi incurred the enmity of the Colonnas and the Sa- velli, and they found that the easiest way to deal with him was through the Inquisition. Under their impulsion it seized him and two of his adherents, Matteo and Merenda. Through means pro- cured by his daughter, Ordelaffi escaped from prison and was con- demned in contumaciam. The others confessed — doubtless under torture — the heresies attributed to them, were handed over to the secular arm, and were duly burned. Their houses were torn down, and on their sites in time were erected two others, one of which afterwards became the dwelling of Michael Angelo and the other of Salvator Kosa.* Secular potentates, however, had not waited till the fifteenth century to appreciate the facilities afforded by heresy and the Inquisition for the accomplishment of their objects. Already a hundred years earlier the methods of the Inquisition had suggested to Philippe le Bel the great crime of the Middle Ages — the de- struction of the Order of the Temple. When, in 1119, Huomes de Paven and Geoffroi de Saint- Adhe- mar with seven companions devoted themselves to the pious task of keeping the roads to Jerusalem clear of robbers, that pilgrims might traverse them in safety, and when Kaymond du Puy about Inquis. II. 437-9.
 * Ripoll II. 566.— Wadding, ann. 1409, No. 12.— Tamburini, Storia Gen. dell'