Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/639

 SELLERS OF INDULGENCES. 623 preaching. This was repeated by successive popes; it came to be embodied in the canon law, and was customarily included in the enumeration of duties recited in the commissions issued to inquisi- tors. A tithe of the energy shown in hunting down Waldenses and Spirituals would have effectually suppressed the worst features of this shameful traffic, but that energy was wholly lacking. In all the annals of the Inquisition I have met with but a single case, occurring in 1289, when Berenger Pomilli was brought before the inquisitor Guillaume de Saint-Seine. He was a married clerk of Narbonne, who stated that for thirty years he had followed the trade of quoestuarius in the dioceses of Narbonne, Carcassonne, and elsewhere, collecting the alms of the pious for the building of churches, bridges, and other objects. He was wont to preach to the people during the celebration of mass, and confessed to telling the most outrageous lies — that the cross which Christ carried to the place of crucifixion was so heavy that it would be a burden for ten men; that when the Virgin stood at the foot of the cross it bent over so that she kissed the Saviour's hands and feet, after which it arose again, and many fables concerning purgatory and the liberation of souls — the latter, which were the real frauds of his trade, being prudently suppressed in the official report of his confession. A question as to his belief in these stories revealed to him his danger, for to admit it would have been to stamp him- self a heretic. He humbly replied that he knew that he had been habitually uttering lies, but he told them to move the hearts of his hearers to liberality, and he at once begged to be penanced. What penance was awarded him does not appear. * That trials of this sort were rare is evident from the complaint of the Council of Yienne, in 1311, that these vagabonds were in the habit of granting plenary indulgences to those who made donations to the churches which they represented, of dispensing from vows, of absolving for perjury, homicide, and other crimes, of relieving their benefactors from a portion of any penance assigned them, or the souls of their relations from purgatory, and granting immedi- ate admission to paradise. All this was forbidden for the future, but the Inquisition was no longer relied upon to coerce the par- Eymeric. pp. 107, 564.— Coll. Doat, XXVI. 314.
 * 1) C. xi. § 2 Sexto v. ii.— Bern. Guidon. Practica P. v. (Ed. Douais, p. 199).—