Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/622

 606 INTELLECT AND FAITH. insensible with a magic potion formed of blood from the navel of a new-born Jew and nineteen hairs from his eyelashes. The vic- tim was carefully prepared by a series of apparitions, commencing with an ordinary ghost and ending with the Virgin. According to his own account he believed in the visions till one day entering Bolshorst's room suddenly he found him in female attire like that of the Virgin, preparing for making an appearance. By threats and promises he had been prevailed upon to continue the impost- ure a while longer, till, fearing for his life, he escaped and told his tale. Letser was sent to the Bishop of Lausanne, who heard his story and authorized the magistrates of Berne to act. The four Do- minicans were confined separately in chains, and envoys were sent to Rome, where, only after the greatest difficulty, they obtained audience of the pope. A papal commission was sent, but with insufficient powers, and prolonged delays were experienced in pro- curing another, but finally it came, having at its head Achilles afterwards Cardinal of San Sesto, one of the most learned jurists of the age. Torture was freely used on both Letser and the ac- cused, and full confessions were obtained. These were so damag- ing that the commissioners desired to keep them secret even from the magistrates, and when the latter were dissatisfied it was deter- mined that they should be shown to a select committee of eight under pledge of secrecy, and that, to satisfy the people, only certain articles sufficient to justify burning should be publicly read. These were four, viz., renouncing God, painting and reddening the host, falsely representing the weeping Virgin, and counterfeiting the stigmata. The four culprits were abandoned to the secular arm, and eight days afterwards, as Nicholas Glassberger piously hopes, they were sent to heaven through fire, for they were burned in a meadow beyond the Arar, their ashes being thrown into the river to prevent their being reverenced as relics — not without reason, for the Order promptly pronounced them to be martyrs. It is worthy of note that in the published sentence the Immaculate Conception was kept wholly out of sight. In the existing tension between the Mendicant Orders the papal representatives evidently deemed it wise to keep this question in the background. Paulus Langius tells us that the story made an immense sensation, and that the " maculistce " endeavored in vain to suppress it, and circu-