Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/471

 EXTENSION OF BELIEF. 455 a box in which was imprisoned a black cat, with some bread moistened with chrism, blessed oil, and holy water, two small tubes being arranged to reach the surface and supply the animal with air. All the carpenters in the village were summoned, and one identified the box, which he had made for a certain Jean Prevost. Torture promptly brought a confession inculpating the Cistercian abbot of Sarcelles, some canons, a sorcerer named Jean de Persant, and an apostate Cistercian monk, his disciple. The abbot, it seems, had lost a sum of money, and had employed the sorcerer to re- cover it and find the thief. The cat was to remain three days in the box, to be then killed, and its skin cut into strips, with which a circle was to be made. In this circle a man standing with the re- mains of the cat's food thrust into his rectum was to invoke the demon Berich, who would make the desired revelation. The In- quisitor of Paris and the episcopal Ordinary promptly tried the guilty parties. Prevost opportunely died, but his remains were burned with his accomplice de Persant, while the ecclesiastics escaped with degradation and perpetual imprisonment. It is evi- dent that de Persant was not allowed the benefit of abjuration, while the Cistercians were exposed to a penalty more severe than those imposed by the rules of their Order. These had been defined in the general chapter of 1290 to be merely incapacity for promo- tion, or for taking any part in the proceedings of the body, the lowest seat in choir and refectory, and Friday fasting on bread and water until released by the general chapter. The intervening quarter of a century had, however, wrought a most significant change in the attitude of the Church towards this class of offences.* The monastic orders evidently contributed their full share to this class of criminals. We happen to have the sentence, in 1329, by Henri de Chamay, of a Carmelite named Pierre Eecordi, which illustrates the effectiveness of inquisitorial methods in ob- taining avowals. The trial lasted for several years, and though the accused tergiversated and retracted repeatedly, his endurance finally gave way. He adhered at last to the confession that on five occasions, to obtain possession of women, he had made wax figurines with invocations of demons, mixing with them the blood Ord. Cisterc. ann. 1290 c. 2 (Martene Thesaur. IV. 1485).
 * Guill. Nangiac. Contin. aim. 1323.— Grandes Chroniques V. 269-73.— Statut