Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/378

 362 POLITICAL HERESY.— THE STATE. the notaries, unfamiliar with inquisitorial practice, pronounced the whole proceeding to be unlawful, and courageously refused to act. Then Jean Estivet, the prosecutor and canon of Beauvais, tried the same expedient, but without success.* It was not until February 19 that the articles of accusation were ready for submission to the assessors, and then a new diffi- culty arose. Thus far the tribunal had contained no representa- tive of the Inquisition, and this was recognized as a fatal defect. Frere Jean Graveran was Inquisitor of France, and had appointed Frere Jean le Maitre, in 1421, as his vicar or deputy for Eouen. Le Maitre seems to have had no stomach for the work, and to have kept aloof, but he was not to be let off, and at the meeting of February 19 it was resolved to summon him, in the presence of two notaries, to take part in the proceedings and to hear read the accusation and the depositions of witnesses. Threats are said to have been freely employed, and his repugnance was overcome. Another session was held in the afternoon, at which he appeared, and on being summoned to act professed himself willing to do so, if the commission which he held was sufficient authorization. The scruple which he alleged was ingenious. He was Inquisitor of Rouen, but Cauchon was bishop in a different province, and. as he was exercising jurisdiction belonging to Beauvais in the " bor- rowed territory." le Maitre doubted his powers to take part in it. It was not till the 22d that his doubts were overcome, and, while awaiting enlarged powers from Graveran, he consented to assist, for the discharge of his conscience and to prevent the whole pro- ceedings from being null and void, which bv common consent seems to have been assumed would be the case if carried on without the participation of the Inquisition. It was not until 201-7. 210-12. 215. 224-6.— Proces. pp. 465-7, 477,— L'Averdy, pp. 391, 475, 499. At least one of the assessors, Thomas de Courcelles, was a man of the highest character and of distinguished learning. Immediately after the trial of Joan he played a distinguished part at the Council of Basle, in opposing the claims of the papacy. iEneas Sylvius says of him, " Inter sacrarum literarum doctores in- signis. quo nemo plura ex decretis sacri concilii dictavit. vir juxta doctrinam mirabilis et amabilis, sed modesta quadam verocundia semper intuens terrain" (JEn. Sylv. Comment, de Gestis Concil. Basil. Lib. i. p. 7, Ed. 1571). — He died in 1469 as Dean of Notre Dame (Le Brun, III. 235).
 * Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris, an 1429. — Le Brun de Charmettes, III.