Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/641

 SIMONY. 625 " Then the poor man went away and sold his cloak and his coat and all that he had, and gave it to the cardinals and gate-keepers and chamberlains. But they said : What is this among so many ? And they cast him beyond the gates, and he wept bitterly and could find nought to comfort him. Then came to the court a rich clerk, fat and broad and heavy, who in his wrath had slain a man. First he gave to the gate-keeper, then to the chamberlain, then to the cardinals ; and they thought they were about to receive more. But the lord pope, hearing that the cardinals and servants had many gifts from the clerk, fell sick unto death. Then unto him the rich man sent an electuary of gold and silver, and straightway he was cured. Then the lord pope called unto him the cardinals and servants, and said unto them : Brethren, take heed that no one seduce you with empty words. I set you an example ; even as I take, so shall ye take." * Yainly the intrepid energy and inflexible will of Ilildebrand in the eleventh century strove to extirpate the ineradicable curse. It only grew wider and deeper as the Church extended its powers and centralized them in the Holy See. Simony was recognized in the canon law as a heresy, punishable as heresy with perpetual seclusion, and as such was justiciable by the Inquisition. With that organization at the command of the Holy See the untiring energy which through so many generations pursued the Cathari and Waldenses could in time have cured this spreading ulcer and purified the Church, but the Inquisition was never instructed to the poetasters of the time — " Cardinales ut praedixi Petrus foris, intus Nero, novo jure crucifixi intus lupus, foris vero vendunt patrimoniam. sicut agni ovium " (lb. p. 18), and this pervaded the whole Church — 14 Veneunt altaria, venit eucharistia cum sit nugatoria gratia venalis." — (lb. p. 41). The honest Franciscan, John of Winterthur, attributed all the evils which op- pressed the Church to its venality — "Ecclesiam nummus vilem fecit meretricem, Nam pro mercede scortum dat se cupienti. Nummus cuncta facit nil bene justitia, Cunctis prostituens pro muuere seque venalem, Singula facta negat vel agit pro stipite solo ; Divino zelo nulla fere peragit." Vitodurani Chron. ann. 1343. III.— 40
 * Carmina Burana, Breslau, 1883, pp. 22-3. — This was a favorite theme with