Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/62

 INQUISITION

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INQUISITION

on the ground There was little regard for

cleanliness. In some cases there was no light or ventilation, and the food was meagre and very poor." Occa.sionally the popes had to put an end through their legates to similarly atrocious con- ditions. After inspecting the Carcassonne and Albi prisons in 1306, the legates Pierre de la Chapelle and Beninger dc Fredol dismissed the warders, re- moved the cliains from the captives, and rescued some from their underground dungeons. The local bishop was expected to provide food from the con- fiscated property of the prisoner. For those doomed to close confinement, it was meagre enough, scarcely more tlian bread and water. It was not long, how- ever, before prisoners were allowed other victuals, wine and money also from outside, and this was soon generally tolerated.

Officially it was not the Church that sentenced un- repenting heretics to death, more particularly to the stake. As legate of the Roman Church even Gregory IX never went farther tlian the penal ordinances of Innocent III required, nor ever inflicted a punish- ment more severe tlian excommunication. Not un- til four years after the commencement of his pontifi- cate did he admit the opinion, then prevalent among legists, that heresy should be punished with death, seeing that it was confessedly no less serious an offence tlian high treason. Nevertheless, ' he con- tinued to insist on the exclusive right of the Church to decide in authentic manner in matters of heresy; at the same time it was not her office to pronounce sentence of death. The Church, thenceforth, ex- pelled from her bosom the impenitent heretic, where- upon the state took over the duty of his temporal punishment. Frederick II was of the same opinion; in his Constitution of 1224 he says that heretics con- victed by an ecclesiastical court shall, on imperial authority, .suffer death by fire (auctoritate nostra ignis iudicio concremandos), and similarly in 1233: "prffisentis nostrse legis edicto damnatos mortem pati decernimus." In this way Gregory IX may be re- garded as having had no share, either directly or in- directly, in the death of condemned heretics. Not so the succeeding popes. In the Bull "Ad exstir- panda" (1252) Innocent IV says: "When those ad- judged guilty of heresy have been given up to the civil power Ijy the bishop or his representative, or the Inquisition, the podesta or chief magistrate of the city shall take them at once, and shall, within five days at the most, execute the laws made against them." Moreover, he directs that this Bull and the corresponding regulations of Frederick II be entered in every city among the municipal statutes under pain of excommunication, which was also visited on those who failed to execute both the papal and the imperial decrees. Nor could any doubt remain as to what civil regulations were meant, for the passages which ordered the burning of impenitent heretics were inserted in the papal decretals from the im- perial constitutions "Commissis nobis" and "Incon- sutibilem tunicam ". The aforesaid Bull "Ad exstirpanda " remained thenceforth a fundamental document of the Inquisition, renewed or reinforced by several popes, Alexander IV (12r)4-Gl), Clement IV (1265-68), Nicholas IV (1288-!I2), Boniface VIII (1294-1303), and others. The civil authorities, tlicie- fore, were enjoined by the popes, under pain of excom- miniication to execute the legal sentences that con- demned impenitent heretics to the stake. It is to be noted that excommunication itself was no trifle, for, if the person excommunicated did not free himself from excommunication within a year, he was held by the legislation of that period to be a heretic, and incurred all the penalties that affected licresy,

The Number of Victims, — How inaiiy victims were handed over to the civil power cannot ))e stated with even approximate accuracy. We have nevertheless

some valuable information about a few of the In- quisition tribunals, and their statistics are not with- out interest. At Pamiers, from 1318 to 1324, out of twenty-four persons convicted but five were de- livered to the civil power, and at Toulouse from 1308 to 1323, only forty-two out of nine hundred and thirty bear the ominous note "relictus curia? sscu- lari". Thus, at Pamiers one in thirteen, and at Toulouse one in forty-two, seem to have been burnt for heresy, although these places were hotbeds of heresy, and therefore principal centres of the In- quisition. We may add, also, that this was the most active period of the institution. These data and others of the same nature bear out the assertion that the Inquisition marks a substantial advance in the contemporary administration of justice, and there- fore in the general civilization of mankind. A more terrible fate awaited the heretic when judged by a secular court. In 1249 Count Raymund VII of Toulouse caused eighty confessed heretics to be burned in his presence without permitting them to recant. It is impossible to imagine any such trials before the Inquisition courts. The large numbers of burnings detailed in various histories are completely unauthenticated, and are either the deliberate inven- tion of pamphleteers, or are based on materials that pertain to the Spanish Inquisition of later times or the German witchcraft trials (Vacandard, op. cit., 237 sqq.).

Once the Roman Law touching the crimen Icesce majeslalis had been made to cover the case of heresy, it was only natural that the royal or imperial treasury should imitate the Roman fiscus, and lay claim to the property of persons condemned. It was fortunate, though inconsistent and certainly not strict justice, that this penalty did not affect every condemned person, but only those sentenced to per- petual confinement or the stake. Even so, this cir- cumstance adtied not a little to the penalty, especially as in this respect innocent people, the culprit's wife and children, were the chief sufferers. Confiscation was also decreed against persons deceased, and there is a relatively high number of such judgments. Of the six hundred and thirty-six cases that came before the inquisitor Bernard Gui, eighty-eight pertained to dead people.

(e) The Final Verdict. — The ultimate decision was usually pronounced with solemn ceremonial at the sermo generalis — or auto-da-fv (act of faith), as it was later called. One or two days prior to this sermo everyone concerned had the charges read to him again briefly, and in the vernacular; the evening be- fore he was told where and when to appear to hear the verdict. The sermo, a short discourse or ex- hortation, began very early in the morning; then fol- lowed the swearing in of the secular officials, who were made to vow obedience to the inquisitor in all things pertaining to the suppression of heresy. Then regularly followed the so-called "decrees of mercy" (i.e. commutations, mitigations, and remission of previously imposed penalties), and finally due pun- ishments were assigned to the guilty, after their offences hail been again enumerated. This an- nouncement began with the minor punishments, and went on to the most severe, i. e., jierpetual inijirison- ment or death. Thereupon the guilty were turned over to the civil power, and with this act the sermo generalis closed, and the inquisitional proceedings were at an end.

(3) The chief scene of the Inquisition's activity was Central and Southern Europe. The Scandi- navian countries were spared altogether. It appears in England only on the occasion of the trial of the Templars, nor was it known in (lastile and Portugal luitil the acco.ssion of Kcrdinaml and Isabella. It was introduced into the XctlicrlaiKls with the Span- ish domina ion, while in Northern France it was rela-