Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/638

 622 CONCLUSION. Tetzel, who stirred the indignation of Luther to rebellion, was only a representative of a horde of vagabonds who for centuries had fleeced the populations and had done all in their power to render religion contemptible in the eyes of thinking men. The Dominican Thomas of Cantimpre bitterly compares the trifling sums which purchased salvation from papal emissaries collecting funds for the Italian wars of the Holy See with the endless labors and austerities of his brethren and of the Franciscans — the sleep- less vigils and the days spent in ministering to the spiritual needs of fellow-creatures, without obtaining assured pardon for their sins. The character of these peddlers of salvation is summed up in a tract presented to the Council of Lyons in 1274 by Lambert o de' Romani, who had resigned the generalate of the Dominican Order in 12G3. He declares that they expose the Church to derision by their lies and filthiness ; they bribe the prelates and thus obtain what privi- leges they want ; the frauds of their letters of pardon are almost incredible ; they find a fruitful source of gain in false relics, and though they collect large sums from the people, but little inures to the ostensible objects for which the collections are made.* These creatures were not to be reached bv the ordinarv iuris- diction, for they either bore papal commissions or those of the bishop of the diocese : their trade was too profitable to all parties to be suppressed, and the only way of curbing their worst excesses seemed through the Inquisition. Accordingly the Inquisition had hardlv been fullv organized when Alexander IV. had recourse to it for this purpose, and included in the powers conferred on in- quisitors that of restraining the rp/mtuarii and of forbidding their in Concil. Lugdun. P. in. c. 8. (Martene Ampl. Coll.VII. 197). Cf. Opusc. Tripart. P. in. c. viii. (Fascic. Rer. Expetend. et Fugiend. II. 227). William Langland sets forth the popular appreciation of the Qu<Z8tua7 x ii with sufficient distinctness — " Here preched a Pardonere as he a prest were, Broughte forth a bulle with bishopes seles, And seide that hym-selfe myghte asoilen hem alle Of falshed of fastyng of vowes ybroken. Lewed men leued hym well and lyked his wordes . . . . . . Were the bischop yblissed and worth bothe his eares His seel shulde not be sent to deceyue the peple." Piers Plowman, Prologue, 68-79.
 * Th. Cantimprat. Bonum Universale. Lib. n. c. 2. — Humb. de Roman. Tract,