Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/334

 318 POLITICAL HERESY.- THE STATE. ate were ordered to obtain confessions by torture ; in some places. he said, it had been negligently and imprudently omitted, and the omission must be repaired. The canons required that in such cases those who refused to confess must be submitted to a " re ligious torturer" and the truth thus be forced from them. So st was he that he wrote to his legate in Rhodes to go to rus and p rtly see it was done. The result in such cases was to be sent to him as speedily as poss How much of human agony these inhuman orders caused can never be known. It was not merely that those who had hitherto l 8] rack were now subjected to it. but. in the eager- i 58 to supplement the evidence nd. those who had already under^one torture were brought from their >ns and again subjected to it with enhanced severity, in order to obtain from them still more extravagant admissions of guilt. Thus at Flor- ence thirteen Templars had been duly -itioned in 1310, and some of them had confessed. Under the fresh papal urgency the inquisitors again - 1 in September, 1811. and put ti through a fresh series xaminations. Six of them vielded testi- mony in every way s I sfactory — the adoration of idols and cats and the res:. Seven of them, however, were obstinate, and testi- fied to the inn tader. The inquisitors showed their I >n of what Clement wanted by sending him only the six ooi >. The other seven brethren, they reported, had d duly tortured, but had stated nothing that was worth the sending, s were serving brethren or newlv initiated mem- bers who. presumably, were ignorant — although e the most damaging 1 been oed from such brethren and utilized. Clement evidently knew his man when he selected Arehb> Pis - the head of this inquisition. "We hap- pen : .lustration of the results of Clement's urgency
 * preparix.: : r the council. In the Chateau d'Alais the Bishop

of Ximes held thirty-three T rs who had already been ex- amined and confessions extorted fr me of them, which had i stly been retracted. Under Clement's orders for fresh tortures nty-nine survivors of these four having meanwhile died in prison were brought out in August. 1311. Some of them had
 * B .vnald. ann. 1311. Nc : ■: — Raynooard, pp 166-7— Schottmuller, I. 395.