Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/328

 312 POLITICAL HERESY.— THE STATE. rived from the crown, and that he had made heavy outlays on the sieges ; the most that he would promise was that if the council should abolish the Order he would surrender the property, subject to the rights and claims of the crown. Clement seems to have sought a temporary compromise. In letters of January 5, 1309, he announces that the Templars of Aragon and Catalonia, like faithful sons of the Church, had written to him offering to surren- der their persons and property to the Holy See, and to obey his commands in every way ; he therefore sends his chaplain, Ber- tram!, Prior of Cessenon, to receive them and transfer them to the custody and care of the king, taking from him sealed letters that he holds them in the name of the Holy See. Whether Jayme as- sented to this arrangement as to the property does not appear, but he was not punctilious about the persons of the Templars, and on July 1-i he issued orders to the viguiers to deliver them to the in- quisitor and ordinaries when required. In 1310 Clement sent to Aragon, as elsewhere, special papal inquisitors to conduct the trials. They were met bv the same difficulties as in England : in Aragon torture was not recognized bv the law, and in 1325 we find the Cortes protesting against its use and against the inquisitorial pro- cess as infractions of the recognized liberties of the land, and the king admitting the protest and promising that such methods should not be employed except for counterfeiters, and then only in the case of strangers and vagabonds. Still the inquisitors did what they could. At their request the king, July 5, 1310, ordered his baillis to put the Templars in irons and to render their prison harsher. Then the Council of Tarragona interfered and asked that they be kept in safe but not afflictive custody, seeing that nothing had as yet proved their guilt, and their case was still un- decided. In accordance with this, on October 20, the king ordered that they should be free in the castles where they were confined, giving their parole not to escape under pain of being reputed her- etics. This was not the way to obtain the desired evidence, and Clement, March 18, 1311, ordered them to be tortured, and asked Jayme to lend his aid to it, seeing that the proceedings thus far had resulted only in "vehement suspicion." This cruel command was not at first obeyed. In May the Templars prayed the king to urge the Archbishop of Tarragona to have their case decided in the council then impending, and Jayme accordingly addressed the