Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/637

 SELLERS OF INDULGENCES. 021 Efforts so spasmodic were of course unavailing. So far from suppressing the Greek Church it was found that many Catholics living in a schismatic population became perverts. To this, in 1449, Nicholas V. called the attention of the inquisitor of the Greek province, telling him that although the Oriental rite was praiseworthy, it must be kept distinct from the Latin, and that all such cases must be coerced, even if the assistance of the secular arm was necessary. There was scant encouragement for the Inquisition in those lands, however, for when, in 1490, Innocent YIII. appointed Fra Vincenzo de' Eeboni as Inquisitor of Cyprus, where there were many heretics, and ordered the Bishops of Ni- cosia, Famagosta, and Baffo each to give him a prebend for his support, there w T as so energetic a remonstrance from the prelates that Innocent withdrew the demand. From all this it is evident that in its relations with the Greek Church Borne was governed by policy ; that it could exercise toleration whenever the occasion demanded, and that the Inquisition was practically quiescent in its dealings with these heretic populations, although their heresy was of a dye so much deeper than that of many sectaries who were ruthlessly exterminated.* During the Middle Ages there were few greater pests of society than the qucestuarii, or pardoners — the sellers of indulgences and pardons, who wandered over the face of Europe with relics and commissions, with brazen faces and stout lungs, vending exemp- tions from penance and purgatory, and prospective admission to paradise ; telling all manner of lies, and at once disgracing the Church and impoverishing the credulous. Sometimes they were the authorized agents of Borne or of a bishop of a diocese ; some- times they farmed out a district for a fixed price or for a portion of the spoils ; sometimes they merely bought from the curia or a local prelate the letters which authorized them to ply their trade. In 1718 the congregation of the Propaganda permitted the erection of a Greek episcopate in Calabria, to supply the spiritual needs of the Greek popula- tion. The Greeks in the Island of Sicily complained of the expense of sending their youths to Calabria or to Rome for ordination, and in 1784, at the instance of Ferdinand III., Pius VI. authorized the establishment of another Greek bishop in Palermo.— Gallo, Codice Ecclesiastico Siculo, IV. 47 (Palermo, 1852).
 * Raynald. ann. 1449, No. 10.— Ripoll IV. 72.