Better success awaited Rainerio’s efforts with Roberto Patta da Giussano, a Milanese noble who for twenty years had been one of the most conspicuous defenders of heresy in Lombardy. At his castle of Gatta he publicly maintained heretic bishops, allowing them to build houses, and establish schools whence they spread their pernicious doctrines through the land. They had also there a cemetery where, among others, were buried their bishops, Nazario and Desiderio. The place was notorious, and it is related of San Piero-Martire, as an instance of his prophetic gifts, that once when passing it he had foretold its destruction and the exhumation of the heretic bones. Roberto had been cited by the archbishop and had abjured heresy, but no effective measures had been ventured upon to coerce him from his evil ways, and the heretics of Gatta had continued to enjoy his protection. It was otherwise when, in 1254, Rainerio and Guido summoned him again. On his failing to appear they summarily condemned him as a heretic, declared his property confiscated and his descendants subject to the usual disabilities. Roberto saw that the new officials were not to be trifled with. The prospects of the Ghibellines at the moment were apparently hopeless. He hastened to make his peace, binding himself to submit to any terms which the pope might dictate; and Innocent doubtless deemed himself merciful when, August 19, 1254, he ordered the castle of Gatta and all the heretic houses to be destroyed by fire, the bones in the cemetery to be dug up and burned, and the count to perform such salutary penance as Rainerio might prescribe.[244]
The papal power was now at its height. Conrad IV. had died May 20, 1254, not without suspicion of poison; Innocent IV. had seized his Sicilian kingdoms, and for a brief space, until Manfred’s romantic adventures and victory of Foggia, he might well imaginehimself on the eve of becoming the undisputed temporal as well as spiritual head of Italy. Every effort was made to perfect the Inquisition and to render it efficient both as a political instrument and as a means of bringing about the long-desired uniformity of belief. On March 8 Innocent had taken an important step in its organization by ordering the Franciscan Minister of Rome to appoint friars of his Order as inquisitors in all the provinces south of Lombardy. On May 20 he reissued his bullAd extirpanda; on the 22d he sent the constitutions of Frederic II. to all the Italian rulers, with orders to incorporate them in the local statutes, and informed them that the Mendicants were instructed to coerce them in case of disobedience. On the 29th he proceeded to reorganize the Lombard Inquisition by instructing the provincial to appoint four inquisitors whose power should extend from Bologna and Ferrara to Genoa. Under this impulsion and the restless energy of Rainerio no time was lost in extending the institution in every direction save where Ghibelline potentates such as Ezzelin and Uberto prevented its introduction. We chance to have an illustration of the process in the records of the little republic of Asti, on the confines of Savoy. It is recited that in 1254 two inquisitors, Frà Giovanni da Torino and Frà Paulo da Milano, with their associates, appeared before the council of the republic and announced to them that the pope enjoined them to admit the Inquisition within their territories. Thereupon the Astigiani made answer that they were ready to obey the pontiff, but they had no laws providing for persecution and it would be necessary to frame one. Accordingly anordenamentowas drawn up prescribing obedience to the constitutions of Innocent IV. and Frederic II., and it was forthwith added to the local statutes. Similar action was doubtless taking place in every quarter where the people had thus far remained in ignorance of the new doctrine that the suppression of heresy was the first duty of the government.[245]
The death of Innocent IV., December 7, 1254, whether it was the result of Dominican litanies or of mortification at Manfred’ssuccess, made no difference in the energy with which the progress of the Inquisition was pushed. The accession of Alexander IV. was signalized by a succession of bulls repeating and enforcing the regulations of his predecessor, and urging prelates and inquisitors to increased activity. To overcome the resistance of such cities as were slack in the duty of capturing and delivering all who were designated for arrest by the inquisitors, the latter were empowered to punish such delinquency with the heavy fine of two hundred silver marks. Under this impulsion Rainerio assembled the people of Milan, August 1, 1255, in the Piazza del Duomo, read to them his commission, and gave them notice that, although he had hitherto acted with great mildness, the time had passed for trifling. Many citizens, he said, openly derided the Inquisition in the public streets; others caused scandal by opposing and molesting it. He therefore gave three formal warnings, attested by a notarial instrument duly witnessed, that all who should continue to indulge in detraction or should in any way impede the Inquisition were excommunicate as fautors of heresy, and would be prosecuted to such penalties as their audacity deserved.[246]
As the Inquisition warmed to its work, the four inquisitors provided for Lombardy by Innocent IV. proved insufficient, and, March 20, 1256, Alexander IV. ordered the provincial to increase the number to eight. He appears to have been somewhat dilatory in obedience, for in 1260 he was sharply reminded of the command and enjoined no longer to postpone its fulfilment. Possibly the delay may have arisen from the fact that in January, 1257, Rainerio had risen to the position of supreme inquisitor over the whole of Lombardy and the Marches of Genoa and Treviso, with power to appoint deputies. He thus was doubtless practically emancipated from the control of the provincial, and was able to supply any deficiency in the working force with those who were absolutely dependent upon himself. In March, 1256, the prelates had been required in the most urgent terms to render all aid and support to the inquisitors; and in January, 1257, this was emphasized by informing them that those who manifested neglect should not escape punishment, while those who showed themselveszealous would find the Holy See benignant to them in their “opportunities.” The significance of this is not to be mistaken, and it would be difficult to set limits to the power thus concentrated in the hands of the ex-Catharan.[247]
Territorially, however, his authority was circumscribed by the possessions of Uberto and Ezzelin, within which no inquisitor dared venture. In this very year, 1257, Piacenza, which had fallen under control of Uberto, was placed in such complete hostility to the Church that it was deprived of its episcopate, and its bishop, Alberto, was transferred to Ferrara. In Vicenza, which was ruled by Ezzelin, matters were even worse. There the heretics had a recognized chief named Piero Gallo, of the Borgo di San Piero, whose name was adopted by them as a rallying cry, to which the Catholics responded with “viva Volpe!“—a member of the family of Volpe being the leader of their faction; and so thoroughly did this become encrusted in the habits of the people that we are told in the seventeenth century that the cry of the citizens of the Borgo (then corruptly called Porsampiero) was still ”viva Gallo!“ while that of the dwellers in the Piazza and Porta Nuova was ”viva Volpe!” Ezzelin would permit no persecution, and when the blessed Bortolamio di Breganze, one of the immediate disciples of St. Dominic, was made Bishop of Vicenza, in 1256, he was reduced to seeking conversions by persuasion. After preaching for a while with little effect he had a public discussion with Piero Gallo, and so impressed him by argument that the heretic was converted. We may reasonably doubt the assertion that Ezzelin’s displeasure at this feat was the cause of Bortolamio’s banishment from his see, but, whatever was the motive, he was consoled by Alexander IV., who sent him as nuncio to England. During his absence, in 1258, his archdeacon, Bernardo Nicelli, was bolder, and made a capture of importance in the person of the Catharan Bishop, Viviano Bogolo. He endeavored to convert his prisoner, but his powers of persuasion were insufficient, and Ezzelin interfered and set the heretic at liberty.[248]
So long as these Ghibelline chiefs retained power it was evidentthat the foothold of heresy was secure, and that the hopes based on the death of Frederic II. were not destined to fruition. Every motive had long conspired to render the Church eager for the destruction of Ezzelin, who was its most dreaded antagonist, and every expedient had been tried to reduce him to subjection. As far back as 1221 Gregory IX., then legate in Lombardy, had extorted from him assurances of his hatred of heresy. In 1231 his sons, Ezzelin and Alberico, were at the papal court expressing horror at his crimes and promising to deliver him up for trial as a heretic if he would not reform, in order to escape the disinheritance which they would otherwise incur under Frederic’s laws. They pledged themselves, moreover, to deliver to him letters from Gregory, dated September 1, in which he was bitterly reproached for his protection of heretics, and told that if he would humbly acknowledge his errors and expel all heretics from his lands he might come within two months to the Holy See, prepared to obey implicitly all commands laid upon him; otherwise heaven and earth would be invoked against him, his lands should be abandoned to seizure, and he, who was already a scandal and a horror to men, should become an eternal opprobrium.[249]
Whether the sons dutifully presented to their father this portentous epistle does not appear, nor is it of any importance save as showing how Ezzelin was already regarded as the mainstay of heresy, and how habitually zeal for the faith was made to cover the ambitious political designs of the Church. Ezzelin’s courage never wavered, and his adventurous career was pursued with scarce a check. When Frederic II. overcame the resistance of Lombardy, he gave, in 1238, his natural daughter Selvaggia to Ezzelin in marriage and created him imperial vicar. The unanimous testimony of the ecclesiastical chroniclers represents him as a monster whose crimes almost transcend the capacity for evil of human nature, but the unrelieved blackness of the picture defeats the object of the painter. Possibly he may have been among the worst of the Italian despots of the time, when faithlessness and contempt for human suffering were the rule, but the long unbroken success which attended him shows that he must have had qualities which attached men to him, and the report that he wastwice moved to tears by the eloquence of Frà Giovanni Schio indicates a degree of sensibility impossible in one utterly depraved. In fact, the anecdote related by Benvenuto da Imola, that he carried on his back his sister’s lover Sordello to and from the place of assignation, and then gave the frightened troubadour a friendly warning, presupposes a character wholly at variance with that currently attributed to him. Some of the stories circulated to excite odium against him are so absurdly exaggerated as to cast doubt upon all the accusations of the papalist writers.[250]
Gregory’s letters of September 1, 1231, were simply a ruse. So far was he from awaiting the two months’’ delay for Ezzelin to present himself, that three days later, on September 4, he executed his threat by ordering the Bishops of Reggio, Modena, Brescia, and Mantua to offer Ezzelin’s lands to the spoiler, and to preach the cross against him, with the same indulgences as for the Holy Land. This proved a failure, and when Frà Giovanni Schio was sent on his mission of peace, in 1233, Ezzelin’s absolution was included in the general pacification, though he had not abandoned the protection of heresy, which had been the ostensible reason for assailing him. While Frederic was at peace with the Church, Ezzelin appears to have been let alone; and when the quarrel broke out afresh, after the emperor’s subjugation of Lombardy, Ezzelin was again attacked. Frederic’s excommunication of April 7, 1239, was followed, November 20, by that of Ezzelin. This time there is no mention of fautorship of heresy, but only of his encroachments on the church of Treviso and of his remaining under excommunication for more than three years. A month is given to him to submit, after which he is to be proceeded against as a heretic, for the Church had already discovered the convenience of treating disobedience as heresy. Nothing came of this, and in 1244 Innocent IV. resolved to see whether the Inquisition could not be used to better effect. Frà Rolando da Cremona, whose dauntless energy we have witnessed, was commissioned to make inquest on him as on one suspected and publicly defamed for heresyby reason of his association with heretics; and as the accused was “terrible and powerful,” the inquisitor was empowered to publish the legal citations in any place where he could do so in safety. The result of this trialin absentiawas conclusive. It was found that he was the son of a heretic, that his kinsmen were heretics, that under his protection heresy had spread throughout the March of Treviso, and it was decided that he did not believe in the faith of Christ, and must be held suspect of heresy. In March, 1248, Innocent pronounced his condemnation as a manifest heretic to receive the reward of damnation incurred by damned heretics, but promised him that he would learn the abundant clemency of the Church if he would present himself in person by the next Ascension day (May 28). The wary old chief did not allow his curiosity as to the extent of papal clemency to overcome his caution, and abstained from placing his person in Innocent’s power. He sent envoys, however, who offered to purge him of the suspicion of heresy by swearing to his orthodoxy; but Innocent held that he must appear in person, and offered him a safe-conduct in coming and going. There was no security promised in staying, however, and Ezzelin was cautious. The term allowed him passed away, and he was duly excommunicated. After two years more he was notified that unless he appeared by August 1, 1250, he would be subjected to the statutes against heresy. The obdurate sinner was equally unmoved by this, and in June, 1251, the Bishop of Treviso and the Dominican Prior of Mantua were ordered to summon him personally again to appear by a given time, offering him ample security for his safety: if he disobeyed, his subjects of Treviso were commanded to coerce him, and if this failed a crusade was to be preached against him.[251]
To a pope desirous of extending his temporal sway it was exceedingly convenient to condemn his political opponents for heresy, and exceedingly economical to pay for their subjugation by lavishing the treasures of salvation. Thus, in April, 1253, Innocent IV., as an episode in his quarrel with Brancaleone, Senator of Rome, ordered the Dominicans of the Roman province to preacha crusade, with Holy-Land indulgences, against the so-called heretics of Tuscany. Preparations were similarly made, on a larger scale, to crush those of Lombardy, where heresy was described as being more rampant and aggressive than ever. For two years a succession of bulls was issued directing all prelates, and especially the inquisitors, to preach the cross against them, with a most liberal assortment of indulgences. In one of these absolution was actually offered to those who held property wrongfully acquired, provided they contributed its value in aid of the crusade, thus deliberately rendering the Church an accomplice in robbery. In another, all persons or communities neglecting to aid the crusade were ordered to be prosecuted by the inquisitors as fautors of heresy. As a formal preliminary, Ezzelin was again cited, April 9, 1254, to present himself for judgment by the next Ascension day (May 21), failing which he was sentenced as a manifest heretic, to be dealt with as such. In all these proceedings the curious travesty of an inquisitorial trial shows us the influence which the Inquisition was already exercising on the minds of churchmen, and the employment of inquisitors proves how useful the institution was becoming as a factor in advancing the power of the Holy See.[252]
The Neapolitan conquest and the death of Innocent IV. postponed the organization of the crusade, but at length, in June, 1256, it set out from Venice under the leadership of the Legate Filippo, Archbishop-elect of Ravenna. The capture by assault of Padua, Ezzelin’s most important city, was an encouraging commencement of the campaign, but the seven-days’’ sack, to which the unfortunate town was abandoned, showed that the soldiers of the cross were determined to make the most of the indulgences which they had earned. Under its incompetent captain the crusade dragged on without further result, in spite of reiterated bulls offering salvation, until, in 1258, the legate was utterly routed near Brescia and captured, together with his astrologer, the Dominican Everard. Brescia fell into Ezzelin’s hands, who, more powerful than ever, entertained designs upon Milan, where he had relations with the Ghibelline faction. When all danger seemed to him past,however, there was a sudden revulsion of fortune. The Ghibelline chiefs of Lombardy, Uberto Pallavicino and Buoso di Dovara, lords of Cremona, had been in alliance with him; they had aided in the capture of Brescia, with the understanding that they were to share in its possession, but he had monopolized the conquest, and they were resolved on revenge. June 11, 1259, they signed a treaty against Ezzelin with the Milanese and with Azzo d’Este, the head of the Lombard Guelfs. Ezzelin took the field with a heavy force, hoping to gain possession of Milan through the intelligences which he had within the walls, but on the march he was attacked by Uberto, Buoso, and Azzo, who by skilful strategy dispersed his troops and captured him, grievously wounded. His savage pride would not brook this degradation: he tore the bandages from his wound, refused all aid, and died in a few days.[253]
No greater service could have been rendered to the Church than that performed by Uberto, who had been in field and council the soul of the alliance that destroyed the dreaded Ezzelin and threw open, after thirty years of fruitless effort, the March of Treviso to the Inquisition. Some show of favor in return for such services would not have been amiss; would perhaps, indeed, have been wise, as it might have won over the powerful Ghibelline chief. In the treaty of June 11, however, the allies had alluded to Manfred as King of Sicily, and had pledged themselves to labor for his reconciliation with the pope. No service, especially after it had become irrevocable, could overbalance this recognition of the hated son of Frederic. Uberto, Buoso, and the Cremonese had been absolved from excommunication when they entered the alliance, but Alexander IV. wrote, December 13, 1259,to his legate in Lombardy that the absolution was worthless because it had not been administered by a Dominican or a Franciscan, who alone were empowered to grant it; if, however, the allies would repudiate Manfred and give sufficient security to obey the mandates of the Church and to restore all Church property, they might still be absolved.[254]
Apparently Alexander’s head had been turned by the triumph over Ezzelin, but he knew little of the man whom he thus treated with such supercilious ingratitude. By intrigues with the Torriani and other powerful nobles of Milan, Uberto created for himself a party in that city, and in 1260 he procured his election as podestà for five years. Rainerio Saccone vainly endeavored to prevent a consummation so deplorable. He assembled the citizens, denounced Uberto as vehemently suspected of heresy and as a manifest defender of heretics, and threatened that if it was persisted in he would ring all the church bells, and summon the people and clergy and Crocesegnati to oppose it by force. Unfortunately the citizens did not take in good part this somewhat insolent interference of a stranger with their internal affairs; or, as Alexander IV. describes it, “this wholesome counsel given in the spirit of humility and kindness.” In wrath they assembled and rushed to the Dominican convent, where they gave Rainerio the alternative of leaving the city or faring worse. He chose the wiser alternative and departed.[255]
It was in vain that Alexander, in the bull detailing these griefs, ordered Rainerio and the other inquisitors to prosecute the guilty parties. It was in vain also that he approved, October 14, 1260, the statutes of an association of Defenders of the Faith recently formed in Milan in honor of Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin, St. John the Baptist, and St. Peter Martyr, whose members pledged themselves to give assistance, armed or otherwise, to the Inquisition in its labors for the extermination of heresy. Uberto was now the most powerful man in Lombardy, and wherever his influence extended he prohibited inquisitors from performing their functions. Heretics were safe under his rule, and they flocked to his territories from other parts of Lombardy and from Languedocand Provence. One of his confidential servitors was a certain Berenger, who had been condemned for heresy. Alexander lost no time in repeating with him the comedy of an inquisitorial trial, which we have seen performed with Ezzelin. December 9, 1260, he addressed instructions to the inquisitors of Lombardy to cite him, from some safe place, to the papal presence within two months, offering him a safe-conduct for coming (but not for going), when if he can prove his innocence he will be admitted to swear obedience to the papal mandates. If he does not appear, he is to be proceeded against inquisitorially.[256]
Uberto cared as little as Ezzelin for the impotent papal thunder, and quietly went on strengthening his position and adding city after city to his dominions, in spite of Alexander’s instructions to Rainerio and his inquisitors to act vigorously and to preach a crusade. Between his success in the north, and the daily extending influence of Manfred’s wise and vigorous rule in the south, it looked for a while as though the ambitious designs of the papacy were permanently crushed, and that the Italian Inquisition might come to an untimely end. Inquisitors were no longer able to move around in safety, even in the Roman province, and prelates and cities were ordered to provide them with a sufficient guard in all their journeys. An indication of the popular feeling is afforded by the action taken in 1264 by the people of Bergamo, greatly to the indignation of the Roman curia, to defend themselves against the arbitrary methods of inquisitorial procedure. They enacted that any one cited or excommunicated for heresy or fautorship might take an oath before the prosecutor or bishop that he held the faith of the Church of Rome in all its details, and then another oath before the podestà binding himself to pay one hundred sols every time that he deviated from it; after this he could not be cited outside of the city, and was eligible to any municipal office within it, while the magistrates were to defend him at the public expense against any such citation or excommunication. Yet outside of Uberto’s territories and influence the business of the Inquisition in Lombardy went steadily on. In 1265 and 1266 Clement IV. is found issuing instructions as to the duties and appointment of inquisitors as vigorously as though there were noimpediments to their functions. It seemed only a question of time, however, when the districts yet open should be closed to them.[257]
There have been few revolutions more pregnant with results than that which occurred when the popes, renouncing the hope of acquiring for themselves the kingdom of Sicily, and vainly tempting Edmond, son of Henry III. of England, succeeded in arousing the ambition of Charles of Anjou, and caused a crusade to be preached everywhere in his behalf. The papacy fully recognized the supreme importance of the issue, and staked everything upon it. The treasures of salvation were poured forth with unstinted hand, and plenary indulgences were given to all who would contribute a fourth of their income or a tenth of their property. The temporal treasury of the Church was drawn upon with equal liberality. Three years’’ tithe of all ecclesiastical revenues in France and Flanders were granted to Charles, and when all this proved insufficient, Clement IV. sacrificed the property of the Roman churches without hesitation. An effort to raise one hundred thousand livres by pledging it brought in only thirty thousand, and then he pawned for fifty thousand more the plate and jewels of the Holy See. He could truly answer Charles’s increasing demands for money to support his naked and starving crusaders by declaring that he had done all he could, and that he was completely exhausted—he had no mountains and rivers of gold, and could not turn earth and stones into coin. So utter was his penury that the cardinals were reduced to living at the expense of the monasteries; and when the Abbot of Casa Dei complained of the number quartered on him, he was told that he would be relieved of the Cardinal of Ostia, but that he must support the rest. More permanent relief, however, was found at the expense of the foreigner by assigning tothem revenues on churches abroad on the liberal scale of three hundred marks a year apiece.[258]
Vainly Pallavicino sought to prevent the passage of the crusaders through Lombardy. The fate of Italy—one may almost say of the papacy—was decided, February 26, 1266, on the plain of Benevento, where Guelf and Ghibelline from all portions of the Peninsula faced each other. Had Charles been defeated it would have fared ill with the Holy See. Europe had looked with aversion on the prostitution of its spiritual power to advance its temporal interests, and success alone could serve as a justification, in an age when men looked on the battle ordeal as recording the judgment of God. In the previous August, Clement had despairingly answered Charles’s demands for money by declaring that he had none and could get none—that England was hostile, that Germany was almost openly in revolt, that France groaned and complained, that Spain scarce sufficed for her internal necessities, and that Italy did not furnish her own share of expenses. After the battle, however, he could exultingly write, in May, to Cardinal Ottoboni of San Adriano, his legate in England, that “Charles of Anjou holds in peace the whole kingdom of that pestilent man, obtaining his putrid body, his wife, his children, and his treasure,” adding that already the Mark of Ancona had returned to obedience, that Florence, Siena, Pistoja, and Pisa had submitted, that envoys had come from Uberto and Piacenza, and that others were expected from Cremona and Genoa; and on June 1 he announced the submission of Uberto and of Piacenza and Cremona.[259]
Although one by one Pallavicino’s cities revolted from him in the general terror, his submission was only to gain time, and in 1267 he risked another cast of the die by joining in the invitation to Italy of the young Conradin, but the defeat and capture of that prince at Tagliacozza, in August, 1268, followed by his barbarous execution in October, extinguished the house of Suabia and the hopes of the Ghibellines. Charles of Anjou was master of Italy; he was created imperial vicar in Tuscany; even in thenorth we find him this year appointing Adalberto de’’ Gamberti as podestà in Piacenza. Before the close of 1268 Pallavicino died, broken with age and in utter misery, while besieged in his castle of Gusaliggio by the Piacenzans and Parmesans. For a presumed heretic he made a good end, surrounded by Dominicans and Franciscans, confessing his sins and receiving the viaticum, so that, as a pious chronicler observes, we may humbly believe that his soul was saved. Despite the calumnies of the papalists, he left the reputation of a man of sterling worth, of lofty aims, and of great capacity. As for Rainerio Saccone, the last glimpse we have of him is in July, 1262, when Urban IV. orders him to come with all possible speed for consultation on a matter of moment, defraying, from the proceeds of the confiscations, all expenses for horses and other necessaries on the journey. His expulsion from Milan had evidently not diminished his importance.[260]
Under these circumstances, the long interregnum of nearly three years, which occurred after the death of Clement IV., in 1268, made little difference. Henceforth there was to be no refuge for heresy. The Inquisition could be organized everywhere, and could perform its functions unhampered. By this time, too, its powers, its duties, and its mode of procedure had become thoroughly defined and universally recognized, and neither prelate nor potentate dared to call them in question. As already stated, in 1254, Innocent IV. had divided the Peninsula between the two Orders, giving Genoa and Lombardy to the Dominicans, and central and southern Italy to the Franciscans. To the provinces of Rome and Tuscany were allotted two inquisitors each, while for that of St. Francis, or Spoleto, one was deemed sufficient, but in 1261 each inquisitor was furnished with two assistants, and the provincials were instructed to appoint as many more as might be asked for, so that the holy work might be prosecuted with full vigor. Lombardy, as we have seen, had eight inquisitors, and when the Dominicans divided that province, in 1304, the number was increased to ten, seven being assigned to Upper and three to Lower Lombardy. For a while the March of Treviso and Romagnolawere intrusted to the Franciscans, but, as stated above (Vol. I. p. 477), their extortions were so unendurable that, in 1302, Boniface VIII. transferred these districts to the Dominicans, without thereby relieving the people.[261]
No time had been lost in enforcing unity of belief in the territories redeemed from Ghibelline control. As early as February, 1259, the Franciscan Minister of Bologna was ordered to appoint two friars as inquisitors in Romagnola. At Vicenza, no sooner was quiet restored after the death of Ezzelin than Frà Giovanni Schio was sent thither to remove the excommunication incurred by the people in consequence of their subjection to Ezzelin. The ceremony was symbolic of the scourging inflicted on penitents. The podestà and council assembled at the usual place of meeting, whence they marched in pairs to the cathedral. At the south portal stood Giovanni with seven priests, and as the magistrates entered they touched each one lightly with rods, after which the rites of absolution were solemnly performed. The exiled bishop, Bortolamio, on his return from England had tarried with St. Louis, whose confessor he had been in Palestine, where he had served as papal legate during the saintly king’s crusade. As soon as he heard of the death of Ezzelin he hastened homeward, bearing with him the priceless treasures of a thorn of the crown and a piece of the cross which St. Louis had bestowed upon him in parting. At once he commenced to build the great Dominican church and convent of the Santa Corona. The site chosen was on the most elevated spot in the city, known as the Colle, and among the buildings destroyed to give place for it was the church of Santa Croce, which had been occupied by the heretics as their place of assembly and worship. We are told that the presence of the relics worked the miracle of relieving the city of its three leading sins—avarice, heresy, and discord. As for heresy, the miracle lay in the unlooked-for conversion of the chief heretic of the district, Gieremia, known as the Archbishop of the Mark, who, with his son Alticlero, made public recantation. The heretic bishop, Viviano Bogolo, fled to Pavia, where he was recognized and burned. His two deacons, Olderico da Marola and Tolomeo, with eight others,probably Perfects, were obstinate, and were promptly burned. These examples were sufficient. The “credentes” furnished no further martyrs, and heresy, at least in its outward manifestation, was extinguished.[262]
In some places, unblessed with such wonder-working relics, however, the Inquisition had much greater trouble in establishing orthodoxy. In Piacenza it is said to have found the burning of twenty-eight wagon loads of heretics necessary. At Sermione for sixteen years the inhabitants defiantly refused to allow persecution. Though Catholic themselves, they continued to afford protection to heretics, who naturally flocked thither as one refuge after another was rendered unsafe by the zeal of the inquisitors. It was in vain that Frà Timedeo, the inquisitor, obtained evidence by sending there a female spy, named Costanza da Bergamo, who pretended to be a heretic, received theconsolamentum, and was then unreservedly admitted to their secrets. At last the scandal of such ungodly toleration became unendurable, and the Bishop of Verona prevailed upon Mastino and Alberto della Scala of Verona, and Pinamonte de’’ Bonacolsi of Mantua, to reduce Sermione to obedience. It was obliged to submit in 1276, delivering up no less than one hundred and seventy-four perfected heretics, and humbly asking to be restored to Catholic unity, with a pledge to stand to the mandates of the Church. Frà Filippo Bonaccorso, the Inquisitor of Treviso, applied to John XXI. for instructions as to the treatment of the penitent community. The pope was a humane and cultured man who cared more for poetry than theology, and he was disposed to be lenient with repentant sinners. He instructed Frà Filippo to remove the interdict if the town would appoint a syndic to abjure heresy in its name, and to swear in future to seize all heretics and deliver them to the Inquisition, any infraction of the oath to work a renewal,ipso facto, of the interdict. Every inhabitant was then to appear personally before the inquisitor, and make full confession of everything relating to heresy, to abjure, and to accept such penance as might be assigned—all infamous penalties, disabilities, imprisonment, and confiscation being mercifully excluded. Full records were to be kept ofeach case, and any withholding of the truth or subsequent relapse was to expose the delinquent to the full rigor of the law. Obstinate heretics were to be dealt with according to the canons, and of these there were found seventy, whom Frà Filippo duly condemned, and had the satisfaction of seeing burned. To insure the future purity of the faith, in 1278 a Franciscan convent was built at Sermione with the proceeds of a fine of four thousand lire levied upon Verona as one of the conditions of removing the interdict incurred by its upholding the cause of the unfortunate Conradin; and in 1289 Ezzelin’s castle of Illasio was given to some of the nobles who had been conspicuous in the reduction of Sermione, as a reward for their service, and to stimulate them in the future to continue their support of the Inquisition.[263]
Thus heresy, deprived of all protection, was gradually stamped out, and the Inquisition established its power in every corner of the land. How that power was abused to oppress the faithful with ingeniously devised schemes of extortion we have already seen. In fact, in the territories which had once been Ghibelline, it was impossible for any man, no matter how rigid his orthodoxy, to be safe from prosecution if he chanced to provoke the ill-will of the officials, or possessed wealth to excite their cupidity. So successful had the Church been in confounding political opposition with heresy that the mere fact of having adhered of necessity to Ezzelin during the period of his unquestioned domination long continued sufficient to justify prosecution for heresy, entailing the desirable result of confiscation. When Ezzelin’s generation passed away, the memory of the dead was assailed and the descendants were disinherited. In all this there was no pretence of errors of faith, but the men to whom the Church intrusted the awful powers of the Inquisition seemed implacably determined to erase from the land every trace of those who had once dared to resist its authority. At last, in 1304, the authorities of Vicenza appealed to Benedict XI. no longer to allow the few survivors of Ezzelin’s party and their descendants to be thus cruelly wronged, and the pope graciously granted their petition. By this time the empire was but a shadow; Ghibellinism represented no living force thatthe papacy could reasonably dread, and its persecution had long been merely the gratification of greed or malice.[264]
The triumph of the Inquisition had not been effected wholly without resistance. In 1277 Frà Corrado Pagano undertook a raid against the heretics of the Valtelline. It was, doubtless, organized on an extended scale, for he took with him two associates and two notaries. This would indicate that heretics were numerous; the event showed that they did not lack protectors, for Corrado da Venosta, one of the most powerful nobles of the region, cut short the enterprise by slaughtering the whole party, on St. Stephen’s day, December 26. Pagano had been a most zealous persecutor of heresy, and when his body was brought to Como it lay there for eight days before interment, with wounds freshly bleeding, showing that he was a martyr of God, and justifying the title bestowed on him by his Dominican brethren of St. Pagano of Como. His relics are still preserved there and are the objects of a local cult. Nicholas III. made every effort to avenge the murder, even invoking the assistance of Rodolf of Hapsburg, and his joy was extreme when, in November, 1279, the podestà and people of Bergamo succeeded in capturing Corrado and his accomplices. He at once ordered their delivery, under safe escort, to the inquisitors, Anselmo da Alessandria, Daniele da Giussano, and Guidone da Coconate, who were instructed to inflict a punishment sufficient to intimidate others from imitating their wickedness, and all the potentates of Lombardy were commanded to co-operate in their safe conveyance.[265]
The same year that justice was thus vindicated, a popular ebullition in Parma shows how slender was the hold which the Inquisition possessed on the people. Frà Florio had been diligent in the exercise of his functions, and we are told that he had burned innumerable heretics, when, in 1279, he chanced at Parma to have before him a woman guilty of relapse. It was a matter of course to condemn her to relaxation, and she was duly burned. In place of being piously impressed by the spectacle the Parmesans wereinspired by Satan to indignation which expressed itself by sacking the Dominican convent, destroying the records of the Inquisition, and maltreating the friars so that one of them died within a few days. The Dominicans thereupon abandoned the ungrateful city, marching out in solemn procession. The magistrates showed singular indifference as to punishing this misdeed, and when summoned by the Cardinal Legate of Ostia, the representatives who presented themselves lacked the necessary authority, so that, after vainly waiting for satisfaction, he laid an interdict upon the city. This was not removed till 1282, and even then the guilty were not punished. In 1285 we find Honorius IV. taking up the matter afresh and summoning the Parmesans to send delegates to him within a month to receive sentence; what that sentence was does not appear, but in 1287 the humbled citizens petitioned the Dominicans to return, received them with great honor, and voted them one thousand lire, in annual instalments of two hundred lire, wherewith to build a church. So stubborn was the opposition elsewhere to the Inquisition and its ways, that in 1287 the Provincial Council of Milan still deemed it necessary to decree that any member of a municipal government in any city within the province who should urge measures favoring heretics should be deemed suspect of heresy, and should forfeit any fiefs or benefices held of the Church.[266]
Even in the Patrimony of St. Peter resistance was not wholly at an end. In 1254, when the papacy was triumphant, Innocent IV. urged the inquisitors of Orvieto and Anagni to take advantage of the propitious time and act with the utmost vigor. In 1258 Alexander IV. sounded the alarm that heresy was increasing even in Rome itself, and he pressingly urged increased activity on the inquisitors and greater zeal in their support by the bishops. Their efforts were not wholly successful. Twenty years later a knight named Pandolfo still made his stronghold of Castro Siriani, near Anagni, a receptacle of heretics. Frà Sinibaldo di Lago, the inquisitorof the Roman province, made various ineffectual attempts to prosecute him, and in 1278 Nicholas III. sent his notary, Master Benedict, with offers of pardon in return for obedience, but the heretics were obdurate, and Nicholas was forced to order Orso Orsini, Marshal of the Church in Tuscany, to levy troops and give Frà Sinibaldo armed assistance sufficient to enable him to coerce them to penitence. A similar enterprise against the Viterbian noble, Capello di Chia, in 1260, has already been described (Vol. I. p. 342). In this case the zeal of the Viterbians, who levied an army to assist the inquisitor, must have had some political motive, for their city was of evil repute in the matter of heresy. In 1265, encouraged by the assistance of Manfred, the people had risen against the Inquisition and had only been subdued after a bloody fight in which two friars were slain. In 1279 Nicholas expresses his regret that although, while he had been inquisitor-general, he had labored strenuously to purge Viterbo of heresy, his labors had been unsuccessful. Heretics were still concealed there, and the whole city was infected. Frà Sinibaldo was therefore ordered to go thither to make a thorough inquisition of the place.[267]
Earnest and unsparing as were the labors of the inquisitors, it seemed impossible to eradicate heresy. Its open manifestations were readily suppressed when the Ghibelline chiefs who protected it were destroyed, but in secret it still flourished and maintained its organization. In the inquest held on the memory of Armanno Pongilupo of Ferrara there is a good deal of testimony which shows not only the activity and success of the Inquisition of that city, but the continued existence of heresy throughout the whole region. There are allusions to numerous heretics in Vicenza, Bergamo, Rimini, and Verona. In the latter city a lady-in-waiting of the Marchesa d’Este, named Spera, was burned in 1270, and about the same time there were two Catharan bishops there, Alberto and Bonaventura Belesmagra. In 1273 Lorenzo was Bishop of Sermione, and Giovanni da Casaletto was Bishop of Mantua. There was a secret organization extending through all the Italian cities, with visitors andfilii majoresperforming their rounds, and messengerswere constantly passing to and fro, elaborate arrangements being made for secreting them. Those who were in prison were kept supplied with necessaries by their brethren at large, who never knew at what moment they might be incarcerated. From the sentences of Bernard Gui we know that until the fourteenth century was fairly advanced the Cathari of Languedoc still looked to Italy as to a haven of refuge; that pilgrims thither had no trouble in finding their fellow-believers in Lombardy, in Tuscany, and in the kingdom of Sicily; that when the French churches were broken up those who sought to be admitted to the circle of the Perfect, or to renew theirconsolamentum, resorted to Lombardy, where they could always find ministers authorized to perform the rites. When Amiel de Perles had forfeited his ordination a conference was held in which it was determined that he should be sent with an associate to “the Ancient of the Heretics,” Bernard Audoyn de Montaigu, in Lombardy for reconciliation; and on another occasion we hear of Bernard himself visiting Toulouse on business connected with the propagation of the faith.[268]
How difficult, indeed, was the task of the inquisitor in detecting heresy under the mask of orthodoxy is curiously illustrated by the case of Armanno Pongilupo himself. In Ferrara heretics were numerous. Armanno’s parents were both Cathari; he was a “consolatus” and his wife a “consolata.” In 1254 he was detected and imprisoned; he confessed and abjured, and was released. From his Catharan bishop he received absolution for his oath of abjuration, and was received back into the sect. From this time until his death, in 1269, he was unceasingly engaged in propagating Catharan doctrines and in ministering to the wants of his less fortunate brethren in the clutches of the Inquisition, which was exceedingly active and successful. Meanwhile be preserved an exterior of the strictest Catholicism; he was regular in attendance at the altar and confessional, and wholly devoted to piety and good works. He died in the odor of sanctity, was buried in the cathedral, and immediately he began to work miracles. He was soon reverenced as a saint. A magnificent tomb arose over his remains, an altar was erected, and, as the miraculous manifestations of hissanctity multiplied, his chapel became filled with images and ex-votos, to the no little profit of the church fortunate enough to possess him. Adored as a saint in the popular cult, there came a general demand for his canonization, in which the pride of the city was warmly enlisted, but which was steadfastly opposed by the Inquisition. In the confessions of heretics before it the name of Armanno constantly recurred as that of one of the most active and trusted members of the sect, and ample evidence accumulated as to his unrepentant heresy. Then arose a curious conflict, waged on both sides with unremitting vigor for thirty-two years. Hardly had the remains been committed to honorable sepulture in the cathedral when Frà Aldobrandini, the inquisitor who had tried him in 1254, ordered the archpriest and chapter to exhume and burn the corpse, and on their refusal excommunicated them and placed the cathedral under interdict. From this they appealed to Gregory X. and set to work to gather the evidence for canonization. For this purpose at different times five several inquests were held and superabundant testimony was forthcoming as to the success with which his suffrage was invoked, how the sick were healed, the blind made to see, and the halt to walk, while numerous priests bore emphatic witness to his pre-eminent piety during life. Gregory and Aldobrandini passed away leaving the matter unsettled. Frà Florio, the next inquisitor, sent to Rome expressly to urge Honorius IV. to come to a decision, but Honorius died without concluding the matter. On the accession of Boniface VIII., in 1294, Frà Guido da Vicenza, then inquisitor, again visited Rome to procure a termination of the affair. Still the contending forces were too evenly balanced for either to win. At length the Lord of Ferrara, Azzo X., interposed, for the contest between the inquisitor and the secular clergy seriously threatened the peace of the city. In 1300 Boniface appointed a commission to make a thorough investigation, with power to decide finally, and in 1301 sentence was rendered to the effect that Armanno had died a relapsed heretic; that no one should believe him to be anything but a heretic; that his bones should be exhumed and burned, the sarcophagus containing them and the altar erected before it be destroyed; that all statues, images, ex-votos, and other offerings set up in his honor in the cathedral and other Ferrarese churches should be removed within ten days; and that all his property, real and personal, wasconfiscated to the Inquisition, any sales or conveyances made of them during the thirty-two years which had elapsed since his death being void. Frà Guido’s triumph was complete, and on the death of the Bishop of Ferrara, in 1303, he was rewarded with the episcopate. Extraordinary as this case may seem, it was not unique. At Brescia a heresiarch named Guido Lacha was long adored as a saint by the people until the imposture was detected by the Inquisition, which caused his bones to be dug up and burned.[269]
This was the period of the greatest power and activity of the Inquisition, and the extent of its perfected organization is shown in a document of 1302, wherein Frà Guido da Tusis, Inquisitor of Romagnola, publishes in the communal council of Rimini the names of thirty-nine officials whom he has selected as his assistants. The expenses of such a body could not have been light, and to defray them there must have been a constant stream of fines and confiscations pouring into the inquisitorial treasury, showing an abundant harvest of heresy and active work in its suppression.[270]It was probably between 1320 and 1330 that was produced the treatise of Zanghino Ugolini, so often quoted above. Frà Donato da Sant’’ Agata had been appointed Inquisitor of Romagnola, and the learned jurisconsult of Rimini drew up for his instruction a summary of the rules governing inquisitorial procedure, which is one of the clearest and best manuals of practice that we possess.
A singular episode of lenity occurred not long before, which is not to be passed over, although inexplicable in itself and unproductive of consequences. Its importance, indeed, lies in the evidence which it affords that the extreme severity of the laws against heresy was recognized as really unnecessary, since its relaxation in favor of a single community as a matter of favor would otherwise have been a crime against the faith. In February, 1286, Honorius IV., in consideration of the fidelity manifested by the people ofTuscany to the Roman Church, and especially to him before his elevation, relieved them individually and universally from the penalties for heresy, including all disabilities decreed by his predecessors and by Frederic II., whether incurred by their own errors or by those of their ancestors. Catholic children of heretic parents were thusipso factorestored to all privileges and were no longer liable to disinheritance. In the case of existing heretics it was necessary for them to appear before the inquisitors within a time to be named by the latter—excepting absentees in foreign lands, to whom a term of five months was allowed—to abjure heresy and receive penance, which was to be a secret one, involving neither humiliation, disability, or loss of property. Cases of relapse, however, were to be treated with all the rigor of the law. As this bull abrogated in Tuscany the constitutions of Frederic II., it required confirmation by Rodolph of Hapsburg, which was duly procured. For a while this extraordinary privilege seems to have been observed, for, in 1289, Nicholas IV., when anathematizing heretics and stimulating the zeal of inquisitors throughout Genoa, Lombardy, Romagnola, Naples, and Sicily, pointedly omits Tuscany from his enumeration. In time, however, it was either repealed or disregarded. No case could come more completely within its purview than that already referred to of Gherardo of Florence, dying prior to 1250 and prosecuted in 1313. His numerous children and grandchildren were good Catholics, and yet they were all disinherited and subjected to the canonical disabilities.[271]
Together with this exhibition of papal indulgence may be classed the occasional interference of the Holy See to moderate the rigor of the canons, or to repress the undue zeal of an inquisitor, when the sufferer had influence or money enough to attract the papal attention. It is pleasant to record three instances of this kind on the part of the despotic Boniface VIII., when, in 1297, he declared that Rainerio Gatti, a noble of Viterbo, and his sons had been prosecuted by the inquisitors on perjured testimony, wherefore the process was to be annulled and the accused and their heirs relieved from all stain of heresy; when, in 1298, he ordered the Inquisition to restore to the innocent children of a hereticthe property confiscated by Frà Andrea the inquisitor, and when he ordered Frà Adamo da Como, the inquisitor of the Roman province, to desist from molesting Giovanni Ferraloco, a citizen of Orvieto, whom his predecessors, Angelo da Rieti and Leonardo da Tivoli, had declared absolved from heresy. This Frà Adamo apparently rendered his office a terror to the innocent. May 8, 1293, we find him compelling Pierre d’Aragon, a gentleman of Carcassonne who chanced to be in Rome, to give him security in the heavy sum of one hundred marks to present himself within three months to the Inquisition of Carcassonne and obey its mandates. Pierre accordingly appeared before Bertrand de Clermont on June 19, and was closely examined, and then again on August 16, but nothing was discovered against him. Whether or not he recovered his one hundred marks from Frà Adamo does not appear, but the incident affords an illustration at once of the perfected organization of the Holy Office, and of the dangers which surrounded travellers in the countries where it flourished.[272]
The Inquisition was thus thoroughly established and at work in northern and central Italy, and heresy was gradually disappearing before its remorseless and incessant energy. To escape it many had fled to Sardinia, but in 1258 that island was added to the inquisitorial province of Tuscany, and inquisitors were sent thither to track the fugitives in their retreats.[273]There were two regions, however, Venice and the Two Sicilies, which thus far we have not considered, as they were in some sort independent of the movement which we have traced in the rest of the Peninsula.
Naples, like the other portions of southern Europe, had been exposed to the infection of heresy. At an early period missionaries from Bulgaria had penetrated the passes of the southern Apennines, and, in that motley population of Greek and Saracen and Norman, proselytes had not been lacking. The Norman kings, usually at enmity with the Holy See, had not cared to inquire too closely into the orthodoxy of their subjects, and had they done so the independence of the feudal baronage would have renderedminute perquisition by no means easy. The allusions of the Abbot Joachim of Flora to the Cathari indicate that their existence and doctrines were familiar facts in Calabria, though as Rainerio makes no allusion to any Catharan church in Italy south of Florence it is presumable that the sectaries were widely scattered and unorganized. In 1235, when the Dominican convent in Naples was broken into by a mob and several of the friars were grievously wounded, Gregory IX. attributed the violence to friends of heretics.[274]
Frederic II., however much at times his policy might lead him to proclaim ferocious edicts of persecution, and even spasmodically to enforce them, had no convictions of his own to render him persistent in persecution, and his lifelong contest with the papacy gave him, secretly at least, a fellow-feeling with all who resisted the supremacy of the Holy See, whether in temporal or spiritual concerns. Occasional attacks such as that under the auspices of the Archbishop of Reggio, in 1231, or the form of secular inquisition which he instituted in 1233, had little permanent effect. Cathari driven from Languedoc, who perhaps found even Lombardy insecure, were tolerably sure of refuge in the wild and secluded valleys of Calabria and the Abruzzi, lying aside from the great routes of travel. The domination in Naples of Innocent IV. was too brief for the organization of any systematized persecution, and when Manfred reconquered the kingdom, although he seems to have felt his position too precarious to risk open toleration, and, under pressure from Jayme of Aragon, he ordered Bishop Vivian of Toulouse and his disciples, who had settled in Apulia, to leave his dominions, yet he went no further in active measures of repression.[275]
Charles of Anjou came as a crusader and as the champion of the Church. Scarce was his undisputed domination assured by the execution of Conradin, October 20, 1268, than we see him zealously employed in establishing the Inquisition throughout the kingdom. Numerous royal letters of 1269 show it actively at work, and manifest the solicitude of the king that the stipends andthe expenses of the inquisitors should be provided for, and that every assistance should be rendered by the public officials. Each inquisitor was furnished with a letter which placed all the forces of the State at his unreserved command. The Neapolitan Inquisition was fully manned. There was one inquisitor for Bari and the Capitanata, one for Otranto, and one for the Terra di Lavoro and the Abruzzi; and in 1271 one was added for Calabria and one for Sicily. Most of them were Dominicans, but we meet with at least one Franciscan, Frà Benvenuto. Yet no buildings or prisons seem to have been provided for them. The royal jails were placed at their disposal, and the keepers were instructed to torture prisoners on requisition from the inquisitors. Even as late as 1305 this arrangement appears to be in force.[276]
Charles’s zeal did not confine itself to thus organizing and promoting the Inquisition. He supplemented its labors by instituting raids on heretics conducted under his own auspices. Thus, although there was an inquisitor for the Abruzzi, we find him, December 13, 1269, sending thither the Cavaliere Berardo da Rajano with instructions to investigate and seize heretics and their fautors. The utmost diligence was enjoined on him, and the local officials were ordered to assist him in every way, but there is no allusion to his mission being in co-operation with the inquisitor. Another significant manifestation of Charles’s devotion is seen in his founding, in 1274, and richly endowing for the Dominicans the splendid church of San Piero Martire in Naples, and stimulating his nobles to follow his example in showering wealth upon it. Yet fifty years afterwards, in 1324, the building was still incomplete for lack of funds, when King Robert aided the construction with fifty ounces of gold, which he ordered the inquisitors to pay out of the royal third of the confiscations coming into their hands. This is interesting as showing how, in Naples, the profitable side of persecution was wholly under the control of the Holy Office.[277]
Few details have been preserved to us of the activity of the Inquisition in Naples. We know that heretics continued to exist there, but the wild and mountainous character of much of the country doubtless afforded them abundant opportunities of safe asylum. Already, in August, 1269, a letter of Charles ordering the seizure of sixty-eight heretics designated by Frà Benvenuto shows that the work was being energetically prosecuted, and in another letter of March 14, 1270, there is an allusion to three others whom Frà Matteo di Caetellamare had recently caused to be burned in Benevento. The inquisitors of Languedoc, moreover, made haste, as early as 1269, to send agents to Naples to hunt the refugees whom their severity had driven there, and Charles ordered every assistance to be rendered to them, which, perhaps, explains the success of Frà Benvenuto. Yet the perpetual necessity for royal interposition leads to the inference that the Inquisition was not nearly so effective in Naples as it proved in Languedoc and Lombardy. The royal authority seems to be required at every turn, partly because the king allowed little independent initiative to the inquisitors, and partly, perhaps, because the local officials did not lend as hearty a co-operation as they might have done. Thus the Neapolitan Inquisition, even under the Angevines, seems never to have attained the compact and effective organization of which we have seen the results elsewhere, though Charles II. was an eager persecutor who stimulated the zeal of his inquisitors, and his son Robert earned the name of the Pious. In 1305 we shall see Frà Tommaso di Aversa active in persecuting the Spiritual Franciscans, and in 1311, King Robert, at the instance of Frà Matteo da Ponza, ordered that all newly converted Jews should live scattered among Christians, so as not to be tempted back to Judaism.[278]
The ineffectiveness of the Neapolitan Inquisition is seen in the comparative security which attended an organized immigration of Waldenses from the valleys of the Cottian Alps. It was probably about 1315 that Zanino del Poggio, a Milanese noble, led forth the first band from Savoy, under specified guarantees of lands and privileges, after the intending emigrants had received the report of deputies sent in advance to survey the promised refuge. Freshbands came to join them and a group of villages sprang up—Guardia Piemontese, or Borgo degli Oltremontani, Argentina, La Rocca, Vaccarizzo, and San Vincenzo in Calabria, while in Apulia there were Monteleone, Montanto, Faito, La Cella, and Matta. These were regularly visited by the “barbes,” or missionary pastors, who spent their lives wandering around among the scattered churches, administering the consolations of religion and watching over the purity of the faith. The fierce persecutions conducted by François Borel led to further emigration on an enlarged scale, which naturally sought the Neapolitan territories as a haven of rest, until Apulia came to be regarded as the headquarters of the sect. That considerable bodies of heretics could thus establish themselves and flourish argues great negligence on the part of the Inquisition. In fact, its recognized inefficiency was shown as early as 1326, when John XXII. was in pursuit of some Fraticelli who had fled to Calabria; instead of calling upon the inquisitors he applied to King Robert and to the Duke of Calabria to capture them and hand them over to the episcopal tribunals.[279]
When, as the result of the Sicilian Vespers in 1282, the Island of Sicily passed into the hands of Pedro III. of Aragon, it was placed in the bitterest antagonism towards the Holy See, and no active persecution is to be looked for. In fact, in 1285, Martin IV., in ordering a crusade preached against Pedro, gives as one of the four reasons alleged in justification that heresy was multiplying in the island, and that inquisitors were prevented from visiting it. It was not till 1302 that Boniface VIII. was brought to accept the accomplished fact, and to acknowledge Frederic of Aragon as King of Trinacria. The Inquisition soon followed. In 1304 we find Benedict XI. ordering Frederic to receive and give all due assistance to Frà Tommaso di Aversa the inquisitor, and all other inquisitors who may be sent thither. The pope, however,did not erect it into a separate tribunal, but instructed the Holy Office of the mainland that its jurisdiction extended over both sides of the Faro. Yet the introduction of the Inquisition in the island was nominal rather than real except, as we shall see, with regard to the Templars, and Sicily long remained a safe refuge for the persecuted Fraticelli. Doubtless Arnaldo de Vilanova contributed to this by the picture which he presented to Frederic of the inquisitors of the day. They were a diabolical pest, trafficking in their offices, converting themselves into demons, never edifying the faithful, but rather making them infidels, as they abandoned themselves to hatred, greed, and lust, with no one to condemn them or to repress their fury. When, in 1328, the Archbishop of Palermo arrested a Fraticello, appeal was at once made to Frederic, and John XXII. wrote to the archbishop urgently commanding that the sect be extirpated, showing apparently that there was no Inquisition then at work.[280]
The Republic of Venice was always a law unto itself. Though forming part of the March of Treviso, its predominant interests in the thirteenth century lay to the east of the Adriatic, and it did not become a formidable power on the mainland until the acquisition of Treviso in 1339. That of Padua, in 1405, followed by Verona, Vicenza, Feltre, Belluno, and Brescia, greatly increased its strength, and in 1448 it wrenched Bergamo from the dukes of Milan. Thus its policy with regard to the Inquisition eventually controlled the whole of the March of Treviso, and a considerable portion of Lombardy.
That policy held at bay in all things the pretensions of the Holy See, and looked with extreme suspicion on whatever might give the popes an excuse for interference with either the domestic policy or the foreign enterprises of the Signoria. Fairly orthodox, though not bigoted, Venice held aloof from the strife between Guelf and Ghibelline, and was not involved in the anathemas lavished upon Ezzelin da Romano. Venice, in fact, was the basis of operations in the crusade against him, and it was a Venetian wholed the expedition up the Brenta which captured Padua. Yet the republic made no haste to join in the movement for the extermination of heresy so energetically pushed by Gregory IX. and his successors. The Constitutions of Frederic II. were never inscribed in its statute-books. In 1229 the official oath of the Doge Giacopo Tiepoli, which, as is customary, contains the criminal code of the day, embodies no allusion to heresy or its suppression, and the same is true of the criminal statute of 1232 published by the same doge.[281]
It was about this time that the Inquisition was developed with all the aggressive energy of which Gregory IX. was capable, but it found no foothold in Venice. Yet the duty to punish heresy was at length recognized, though the civil authorities would abate no jot of their right to control the administration of justice in spiritual as well as in temporal matters. The official oath taken in 1249 by the Doge Marino Morosini contains a promise that certain upright and discreet and Catholic men shall be appointed, with the advice of the Council, to inquire after heretics. All heretics, moreover, who shall be delivered to the secular arm by the Archbishop of Grado or other bishops of the Venetian territories shall be duly burned, under the advice of the Council, or of a majority of its members. Thus a kind of secular Inquisition was established to search after heretics. The ancient jurisdiction of the episcopal courts was alone recognized, but the judgment of the bishops was subject to revision by the Council before the death-penalty could be inflicted.[282]
This could by no means be satisfactory to the papacy, and when the death of Frederic II. led to an immediate effort to extend the Inquisition through the territories hitherto closed to it, Venice was not forgotten. By a bull of June 11, 1251, Innocent IV. ordered the Frati Vicenzo of Milan, and Giovanni of Vercelli, to proceed to Venice and persecute heretics there with the same powers as those exercised by inquisitors elsewhere in Lombardy. Whether the good friars made the attempt to exercise these powers is questionable; if they did so, their ill-success is unquestionable. There is a document of 1256 which contains an oath to pursueheretics and to denounce them, not to the ecclesiastical tribunals, but to the doge or to the magistrates—an oath presumably administered to the secular inquisitors established in 1249. The same document contains a clause which indicates that the death-penalty threatened in 1249 had already been abrogated. It classes Cathari and usurers together: it alludes to the punishment decreed for those convicted of relapse into either sin, and shows that this was not capital, by providing that if the convict is a foreigner he shall be banished from Venice, but if a citizen he shall not be banished. Yet the death-penalty seems to have been restored soon afterwards, for, in 1275, the oath of Giacomo Contarini is the same as that of 1249, with the unimportant addition that the judgment of an episcopal vicar during the vacancy of a see can be substituted for that of a bishop.[283]
As the pressure of the Inquisition extended throughout Lombardy and the Marches, the persecuted heretics naturally sought a refuge in Venetian territory, where supervision was so much more negligent. It was in vain that about 1286 Frà Filippo of Mantua, the Inquisitor of Treviso, was sent by Honorius IV. with a summons to the republic to inscribe in its laws the constitutions against heresy of Frederic and of the popes. Although the example of the other cities of the Marca Trivigiana was urged, and Venice was repeatedly required to do the same, obedience was persistently refused. At length, in 1288, Nicholas IV. lost patience with this persistent contumacy. He peremptorily ordered the Signoria to adopt the imperial and papal laws, and commanded that the doge should swear not only not to impede the Inquisitor of Treviso in his duties, but to assist him. In default of obedience he threatened to proceed against the city both spiritually and temporally.[284]
The position of the republic was already indefensible under the public law of the period. It was so administering its own laws as to afford an asylum to a class universally proscribed, and it was refusing to allow the Church to apply the only remedy deemed appropriate to this crying evil. It therefore yielded tothe inevitable, but in a manner to preserve its own autonomy and independence. It absolutely refused to incorporate in its own statutes the papal and imperial laws, but, August 4, 1289, it empowered the doge, Giovanni Dandolo, to give assistance to the inquisitor, when called upon, without referring each case to the Senate. A further wise provision decreed that all fines and confiscations should inure to the State, which in turn undertook to defray the expenses of the Holy Office. These were not light, as, in addition to the cost of making arrests and maintaining prisoners, the inquisitor received the liberal salary of twelve ducats a month. For this purpose the proceeds of the corn-tax were set aside, and the money was deposited with the Provveditore delle Viare, who disbursed it on the requisition of the inquisitor. This compromise was accepted by Nicholas IV., August 28, 1288, and was duly embodied in the official oath of the next doge, Piero Gradenigo. Thus, while the inquisitor had full opportunity of suppressing heresy, the temptation to abuse his office for purposes of extortion was reduced to a minimum, and the State, by retaining in its hands all the financial portion of the business, was able at any time to exercise control.[285]