A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages Volume II Part 10

In Venice, as we have seen, the Inquisition never succeeded in shaking off the trammels of state supervision and interference. In what spirit the State regarded its relations with the Holy Office was exhibited in 1356, when Fra Michele da Pisa, the Inquisitor of Treviso, imprisoned some Jewish converts who had apostatized. This was strictly within his functions, but the secular officials interposed, forbade his proceeding to try his prisoners, seized his familiars, and tortured them on the charge of pilfering the property of the accused. These high-handed measures provoked the liveliest indignation on the part of Innocent VI., but the republic stood firm, and nothing seems to have been gained. In the correspondence which ensued, moreover, there are allusions to former troubles which show that this was by no means the first time that Fra Michele's labors had been impeded by the secular power. Sometimes, indeed, the Signoria completely ignored the Inquisition. In 1365 a case in which a prisoner had blasphemed the Virgin was brought before the Great Council, which ordered him to be tried by the vicar of the Bishop of Castello, and on conviction to be banished, thus prescribing the punishment, and recognizing only the episcopal jurisdiction.[306]

In 1373 Venice was honored with the appointment of a special inquisitor, Fra Ludovico da San-Martino, while Fra Niccol Mucio of Venice was made Inquisitor of Treviso. This led to some debate about their part.i.tion of the great Patriarchate of Aquileia, which extended from the province of Spalatro to that of Milan. The Patriarchate of Grado (which was not transferred to Venice till 1451) was adjudged to Ludovico, together with the see of Jesol. This latter place, though close to Venice, was then, we are told, in ruins, with a roofless cathedral serving as a place of refuge for heretics, who there felt safe from persecution. This part.i.tion did not improve the position of the inquisitor, whose importance was reduced to a minimum. He seems, in fact, to be regarded only as a functionary of the state police. In 1412 the Great Council orders him, April 17, to put an end to the performance of divine service by a Greek priest named Michael, whose celebrations attract great crowds, and also to banish him, taking care to so manage the affair that the interposition of the council may not be suspected; and a month later, May 26, the order of banishment is revoked, but the prohibition of celebration is maintained. In all his proper functions the inquisitor was overslaughed and disregarded. In 1422 the Council of Ten appointed a commission to examine some Franciscans charged with sacrificing to demons and other abominable practices, and a month later they sent to Martin V., requesting powers to terminate the matter, in view of the immunities enjoyed by the Mendicants. When, in the following year, 1423, the Senate withdrew the pecuniary provision with which the State had always defrayed the expenses of the Inquisition, they marked their sense of its inutility and their indifference to its power. This may possibly have led to the reunion of the districts of Venice and Treviso, for, in 1433 and 1434, we find single inquisitors appointed to both. In the latter year the lack of power of the inc.u.mbent, Fra Luca Cioni, is shown by the fact that when he desired to proceed against Ruggieri da Bertona, accused of heresy, he was forced to get Eugenius IV. to order the Bishop of Castello (Venice) to a.s.sist him. A further recognition of the inefficiency of the Inquisition is seen in the sending of Fra Giovanni da Capistrano to Venice in 1437, when the Jesuats were accused of heresy, and he acquitted them, and again, about 1450, when heretical notions spread there concerning the origin and nature of the soul, which he suppressed.[307]

Allusion has been made in a former chapter to the limitation imposed in 1450 by the Council of Ten on the number of armed familiars whom the inquisitor might retain, reducing them to four, and in 1451 increasing them to twelve, with instructions to the police to see that they were really engaged in the duties of the Holy Office. In so large and populous a district this sufficiently shows how purely nominal were the functions of the Inquisition, and how close was the supervision exercised by the State. Yet inquisitors continued to be appointed, but when they attempted to exercise any independent jurisdiction we have seen, in the case of the sorcerers of 1521, that even the most energetic interference of Leo X. could not induce the Signoria to waive its right of final decision.[308]

In Mantua, which formed part of the Patriarchate of Aquileia, we hear, in 1494, of an inquisitor who, for lack of heresies to suppress, a.s.sailed the _monts de piete_, or public p.a.w.ning establishments, and all who favored them. These inst.i.tutions were founded about this period as a charitable work for the purpose of rescuing the poor from the exactions of the usurers and the Jews. Fra Bernardino da Feltre, a celebrated Observantine Franciscan, made this a special object of his mission-work in the Italian cities, and on his coming to Mantua he completely silenced his adversaries. The decline of visible heresy at this period, in fact, is ill.u.s.trated in the very diffuse account which Luke Wadding gives, year after year, of Bernardino's triumphant progress throughout Italy to call the people to repentance, when cities eagerly disputed with each other the blessing of his presence. In all this there is no allusion to any attacks by him on heresy; had there been any to a.s.sail, his burning zeal would not have suffered it to enjoy impunity.[309]

In Tuscany the growing insubordination felt towards the Inquisition was manifested at Siena, in 1340, by the enactment of laws checking some of its abuses. Fra Simone Filippo, the inquisitor, complained to Benedict XII., who at once p.r.o.nounced them null and void, and ordered them erased from the statute-book. The relations between the Holy Office and the people at this period, however, are more significantly displayed in a series of events occurring at Florence, of which the details chance to have been preserved. In Tuscany the triumph of orthodoxy had been complete. A sermon of Fra Giordano da Rivalto, in 1304, a.s.serts that heresy was virtually exterminated: scarce any heretics remained, and they were in strict hiding. This is confirmed by Villani, who tells us that, by the middle of the century, there were no heretics in Florence.

This is doubtless too absolute an a.s.sertion, but the existence of a few scattered Waldenses and Fraticelli offered scant excuse for such an establishment as the inquisitor was accustomed to maintain. In 1337 the papal nuncio, Bertrand, Archbishop of Embrun, took the inc.u.mbent of the office severely to task for the abuse of appointing an excessive number of a.s.sistants, and ordered him in future to restrict himself to four counsellors and a.s.sessors, two notaries, two jailers, and twelve ministers or familiars. This was by no means a small or inexpensive body of officials; the Inquisition's share of confiscations from the few poverty-stricken heretics who could occasionally be picked up evidently was insufficient to maintain such a corps, and means, either fair or foul, must be found to render the income of the office adequate to the wants of those who depended upon it for their fortunes. How this was done, on the one hand by cheating the papal camera, and on the other by extorting money on false charges of heresy and by selling to bravoes licenses to carry arms, has already been pointed out. The former device was one which, when detected, was difficult to condone, and its discovery caused, in the commencement of 1344, a sudden vacancy in the Florentine Inquisition. The republic was in the habit of suggesting names to the Franciscan General for appointment, and sometimes its requests were respected. In the present case it asked, February 26, that the Tuscan inquisitor, Fra Giovanni da Casale, be permitted to exercise his functions within the city, but the suggestion was unheeded, and in March the post was given to Fra Piero di Aquila.[310]

Fra Piero was a distinguished member of the Franciscan Order. But two months earlier he had been appointed chaplain to Queen Joanna of Naples, and his Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard were highly esteemed, receiving, in 1480, the honor of an edition printed at Speier. A man so gifted was warmly welcomed, and the republic thanked the Franciscan General for the selection. I have already detailed how he fell into the same courses as his predecessor in cheating the papal camera, how he was prosecuted for this, and for what the republic officially denounced as "_estorsioni nefande_" committed on the people, and how, within two years after his appointment, he was a fugitive, not daring to stand trial. There is another phase of his activity, however, which is worth recounting in some detail, as it ill.u.s.trates perfectly how useful an instrument was the Inquisition in carrying out the wishes of the Roman curia in matters wholly disconnected with the purity of the faith.[311]

The Cardinal of Santa Sabina, while visiting various courts in the capacity of papal legate, had had occasion to collect large sums. In charity to him we may a.s.sume, what doubtless was the truth, that the money belonged to the pope, although it stood in the cardinal's name on the books of his bankers, the great Florentine company of the Acciajuoli. In receiving it the members of the company had bound themselves jointly and severally for its repayment, agreeing to subject themselves to the judgment of the Court of Auditors of the Apostolic Chamber. In 1343 there was due the cardinal some twelve thousand florins, which the Acciajuoli were unable to pay. A commercial and financial crisis had paralyzed the commerce and industries of the city.

Its bankers had advanced vast sums to Edward III. of England and to Robert the Good of Naples, and clamored in vain for repayment. The Lombard war had exhausted the public treasury and the whole community was bankrupt. Not only the Acciajuoli, but the Bardi, the Peruzzi, and other great banking-houses closed their doors, and ruin stared the Florentines in the face. There was at least one creditor, however, who was resolved to have his money.[312]

On October 9, 1343, Clement VI. wrote to the republic, stating the claim of the cardinal and ordering the Signoria to compel the Acciajuoli to pay it. Under the circ.u.mstances this was clearly impossible, but judgment against the debtors had been rendered by the auditors of the papal camera. This was enough to bring the affair within the sphere of spiritual jurisdiction, and authority was sent to the inquisitor to execute the sentence, calling in the aid of the secular arm, and, if necessary, laying an interdict on the city. The matter dragged on until, November 23, 1345, Fra Piero appeared before the Gonfaloniero and the Priors of the Arts, and summoned them to imprison the debtors until payment, under pain of excommunication and interdict; whereupon the magistrates responded that, out of reverence for the pope and respect for the inquisitor and to oblige the cardinal, they would lend the aid of the secular arm. Still the money was not forthcoming, and although such a.s.sets of the Acciajuoli as could be seized were delivered to Fra Piero, and security was given for the balance, he held the whole community responsible for the debt of a few of the citizens. The discussion became angry, and when the inquisitor, in violation of a law of the republic, committed the indiscretion of arresting Salvestro Baroncelli, a member of the bankrupt company, as he was leaving the palace of the Priors of the Arts, his three familiars who had committed the offence were, in compliance with a savage statute, punished with banishment and the loss of the right hand.

All this did not extract the money from the bankrupts, and Fra Piero laid the city under interdict, but both the clergy and people refused to observe it. The churches remained open and the rites of religion continued to be celebrated, leading to a fresh series of prosecutions against the bishop and priests. Inside the walls the Florentines might disregard the censures of the Church, but a commercial community could not afford to be cut off from intercourse with the world. Her citizens and their goods were scattered in every trade-centre in Christendom, and were virtually outlawed by the interdict. This was the reason alleged by the priors when, June 14, 1346, they humbled their pride and sent commissioners to Clement authorized to bind the republic to pay the debt of the Acciajuoli to the cardinal, not exceeding seven thousand florins, in eight months. Their submission was graciously received, and, February 28, 1347, the pope ordered the interdict removed, cautiously providing, however, for its _ipso facto_ renewal in case the obligation for six thousand six hundred florins was not met at maturity.[313]

Meanwhile another scene of the comedy was developing itself. In its contest with Fra Piero the republic had not stood solely on the defensive. Piero, papal nuncio at Lucca, who had in charge the prosecutions against the inquisitors for embezzling the sums due to the camera, had appointed as his deputy in Florence, Niccol, Abbot of Santa Maria, who proceeded against Fra Piero on that charge, to which the Signoria added the accusation, sustained by abundant testimony, of extorting from citizens large sums of money by fraudulent prosecutions for heresy. By March 10, 1346, the Signoria was asking the appointment of Fra Michele di Lapo as his successor. Fra Piero was a fugitive, and refused to return and stand his trial when legally cited and tendered a safe-conduct. After due delay, in 1347, the Abate Niccol, being armed with papal authority, declared him in default and contumacious, and then proceeded to excommunicate him. The excommunication was published in all the churches of Florence, and Fra Piero was thus cut off from the faithful and abandoned to Satan. He could afford to regard all this with calm philosophy. His success in collecting the cardinal's money ent.i.tled him to reward, and the booty of seven thousand florins which he had personally carried off from Florence as the results of his two years'

inquisitorial career, could doubtless be used to advantage. While Niccol was vainly citing him, he was promoted, February 12, 1347, to the episcopate of Sant-Angeli de' Lombardi, and his excommunication was answered, June 29, 1348, by his translation to the presumably preferable see of Trivento. All that the Florentines could do was to pet.i.tion repeatedly that in future inquisitors should be selected from among their own citizens, who would be less likely than strangers to be guilty of extortions and scandals. Their request was respected at least in 1354, when a Florentine, Fra Bernardo de' Guastoni, was appointed Inquisitor of Tuscany.[314]

This was not likely to be effective, and the Signoria made a more promising effort at self-protection by pa.s.sing various laws imitated from those adopted not long before at Perugia. To limit the abuse of selling licenses to bear arms, the inquisitor, as we have seen, was restricted to employing six armed familiars. Moreover, it was decreed that no citizen could be arrested without the partic.i.p.ation of the podesta, who was required to seize all persons designated to him by the bishop--the inquisitor not being alluded to--which would seem to leave small opportunity for independent action by the latter, especially as he was deprived of his private jail and was ordered to send all prisoners to the public prison. He was further prohibited from inflicting pecuniary punishments, and all whom he condemned as heretics were to be burned. This was revolutionary in a high degree, and did not tend to harmonize the relations between the republic and the papacy. The desperate quarrel between them which arose in 1375 was caused by political questions, but it was embittered by troubles arising from the Inquisition, especially as a demand made by Innocent VI., in 1355, for a revision of their statutes remained unheeded. In 1372 efforts were made to obtain the removal of Fra Tolomeo da Siena, the Inquisitor of Tuscany, who was exceedingly unpopular, but Gregory XI. expressed the fullest confidence in him and ordered him to be protected by the Vicar-general, Filippo, Bishop of Sabina. Yet the pope probably yielded, for I find in 1373 that Fra Piero di Ser Lippo, who had already served as Tuscan inquisitor in 1371, was again appointed to replace a certain Fra Andrea di Ricco. With some intervals Fra Piero served until at least 1384, and he proved no more disposed than his predecessors to yield to the resistance which the methods of the Inquisition inevitably provoked in the free Italian cities. Pistoia had followed the example of Florence in endeavoring to protect its citizens by munic.i.p.al statutes, and in 1375 it was duly placed under interdict and its citizens were excommunicated. At the same time Fra Piero complained of Florence as impeding the free action of the Inquisition, and Gregory at once ordered the Signoria to abrogate the obnoxious statutes. No attention was paid to these commands by Florence, and when the rupture came the Florentine mob expressed its feelings by destroying the inquisitorial prison and driving the inquisitor from the city. It was also alleged that in the disturbances a monk named Niccol was tortured and buried alive. These misdeeds, although denied by the Signoria, were alleged as a justification of the terrible bull of March 31, 1376, fulminated against Florence by Gregory. In this he not only excommunicated and interdicted the city, but specially outlawed the citizens, exposing their property wherever found to seizure, and their persons to slavery. This shocking abuse was the direct outgrowth of the long series of legislation against heresy, and was sanctioned by the public law of the period; everywhere throughout Christendom the goods of Florentines were seized and the merchants were glad to beg their way home, stripped of all they possessed. Not all were so fortunate, as some pious monarchs, like Edward III., in addition reduced them to servitude. No commercial community could long endure a contest waged after this fashion, and, as before, Florence was compelled to submit. In the peace signed July 28, 1378, the republic agreed to annul all laws restricting the Inquisition and interfering with the liberties of the Church, and it authorized a papal commissioner to expunge them from the statute-book. The Great Schism, however, weakened for a time the aggressive energy of the papacy, and much of the obnoxious legislation reappears in the revised code of 1415.[315]

The career of Tommasino da Foligno, who died in 1377, has interest for us, not only as ill.u.s.trating the activity of the Inquisition of the period, but also from the curious parallelism which it affords with that of Savonarola. He was one of the prophets, like St. Birgitta of Sweden, St. Catharine of Siena, and the Friends of G.o.d in the Rhinelands, who were called forth by the untold miseries then afflicting mankind. A tertiary of St. Francis, he had practised for three years the greatest austerities as an anchorite, when G.o.d summoned him forth to preach repentance to the warring factions whose savage quarrels filled every city in the land with wretchedness. Like the other contemporary prophets, he spared neither clerk nor layman; and his bitter animadversions at Perugia on the evil life of Gerald, Abbot of Marmoutiers, papal vicar for the States of the Church, may perhaps account for his subsequent rough handling by the Inquisition. Gifted with miraculous power, as well as with the spirit of prophecy, he wandered from town to town, proclaiming the wrath of G.o.d, and foretelling misfortunes which, in the existing state of society, were almost sure to come to pa.s.s. To convince the incredulous at Siena, on a midsummer day he predicted a frost for the morrow. When it duly came he was accused of sorcery, seized by the Inquisition, and tortured nearly to death, but he was discharged when a miracle established his innocence and healed the wounds of the torture-chamber. After an intermediate pilgrimage to far-off Compostella, his preaching at Florence excited so much antagonism that again he was arrested by the Inquisition, cast into a dungeon, and kept three days without food or drink, to be finally discharged as insane. After his death at Foligno, unsuccessful attempts were made to procure his canonization, and he long remained an object of local veneration and worship.[316]

During the fifteenth century the Inquisition in central Italy subsided into the same unimportance that we have witnessed elsewhere. The effect of the Great Schism in reducing the respect felt for the papacy was especially felt in Italy, and the papal officials lost nearly all power of enforcing obedience, although the Inquisition at Pisa, when it was strengthened by the presence of the council held there in 1409, took its revenge on a man named Andreani, whom it burned for the crime of habitually and publicly ridiculing it. When the schism was healed at Constance, one of the earliest efforts of Martin V. was directed against the Fraticelli, whose increase in the Roman province he especially deprecated. In his bull on the subject, November 14, 1418, he complained that when inquisitors endeavored to exercise their office against the heretics the latter would claim the jurisdiction of some temporal lord and then threaten and insult their persecutors, so that the latter were afraid to perform their functions. Martin's only remedy was practically to supersede the inquisitors by special appointments, and this naturally sank the inst.i.tution to a deeper degradation. Thus in 1424, when there were three Fraticelli to be tried in Florence, Martin placed the matter in the hands of Fra Leonardo, a Dominican professor of theology. Still the office of inquisitor continued to be sought and appointments to be made with more or less regularity, from motives which can easily be conjectured; but of activity against heresy there is scarce a trace. How unimportant its functions had become in Bologna may be gathered from the fact that in 1461 the inquisitor, Gabriele of Barcelona, was sent to Rome by his superiors to teach theology in the convent of Minerva, when Pius II. authorized him to appoint a vicar to discharge his duties during his absence. Ten years afterwards the Bolognese inquisitor, Fra Simone da Novara, was fortunate enough to lay hands on a man named Guizardo da Sa.s.suolo, who was suspected of heresy. So completely were such proceedings forgotten that he felt obliged to apply for instructions to Paul II., who congratulated him on the capture, ordered him to proceed according to the canons, and desired the episcopal vicar to co-operate. Heretics evidently had grown scarce, and the inquisitorial functions had fallen into desuetude.[317]

In Rome, when there really was a heresiarch to condemn, there was no Inquisition at hand to perform the duty. In the proceedings against Luther there is no trace of its intervention. The bull _Exsurge Domine_, June 15, 1520, contains no allusion to his doctrines having been examined by it; when they were publicly condemned, June 12, 1521, the ceremony was performed by the Bishop of Ascoli, Auditor of the Rota, and Silvestro Prierias, Master of the Sacred Palace, while the sentence which consigned his effigy and his books to the flames was p.r.o.nounced by Fra Cipriano, professor in the College of Sacred Theology. It was perhaps the most momentous _auto de fe_ that has ever been celebrated, but the Inquisition can boast of no partic.i.p.ation in it.[318]

In the Two Sicilies the Inquisition dragged on a moribund existence.

Letters of King Robert in 1334 and 1335 and of Joanna I. in 1342 and 1343 show that inquisitors continued to be appointed and to receive the royal exequatur, but they were limited to making fifty arrests each, and record of these was required to be entered in the royal courts; they had no jails, and the royal officials received their prisoners and tortured them when called upon. The Jews appear to be the main object of inquisitorial activity, and this can only have been halting, for in 1344 Clement VI. orders his legate at Naples, Aymerico, Cardinal of S.

Martino, to punish condignly all apostate Jews, as though there were no Inquisition at work there. Yet in 1362 there were three inquisitors in Naples, Francesco da Messina, Angelo Cicerello da Monopoli, and Ludovico da Napoli, who took part in the trial of the rebellious Luigi di Durazzo. Still, when efforts were to be made against the Fraticelli, Urban V., in 1368, deemed it necessary to send a special inquisitor, Fra Simone del Pozzo, to Naples. Although his jurisdiction extended over the island of Sicily, Gregory XI., in 1372, when informed that the relics of the Fraticelli were venerated there as those of saints, ordered the prelates to put a stop to it, as though he had no inquisitor to call upon. Yet Fra Simone was there in that year, and had a theological disputation with Fra Niccol di Girgenti, a learned Franciscan who had been provincial of his Order. The question turned upon some scholastic subtleties respecting the three persons of the Trinity, and as each disputant claimed the victory, Simone proceeded to settle the matter by secretly prosecuting his antagonist for heresy. Niccol got wind of this and at once appealed to Rome, before the Archbishop of Palermo, demanding his _apostoli_--an appeal which Simone p.r.o.nounced frivolous.

The revelations made by Niccol as to his antagonists present a most dismal picture of the internal condition of the Church at the time, although Fra Simone's learning and ascetic life won him the popular reputation of a saint, and he obtained the bishopric of Catania, becoming an important political personage. In 1373 Frederic III. issued letters to all the royal officials ordering them to lend all aid to him and to his familiars, and the Inquisition seems to have been firmly established, with prisons of its own. In 1375 we find Gregory applying to the king for the confiscations, and procuring from the revenues of Palermo an appropriation of twelve ounces of gold, to be applied to the extermination of heresy. In this recrudescence of persecution the Jews appear to have been the princ.i.p.al victims. They appealed to Frederic, who in the same year, 1375, issued letters severely blaming the inquisitors and ordering that in future their prisoners should be confined only in the royal jails; that civil judges should a.s.sist in their decisions, and that an appeal should lie to the High Court. This was imposing serious limitations on inquisitorial jurisdiction, but no reclamation against it appears to have been made. In Naples, letters of Charles III., issued in 1382 to Fra Domenico di Astragola and Fra Leonardo di Napoli, show that inquisitors continued to be appointed. In 1389 Boniface IX. seems to unite Naples with Sicily by appointing Fra Antonio Traverso di Aversa as inquisitor on both sides of the Faro; but in 1391 another brief of the same pope alludes to the Inquisition of Sicily having become vacant by the death of Fra Francesco da Messina, and as there is customarily but one inquisitor there he fills the vacancy by the appointment of Fra Simone da Amatore. Fra Simone had a somewhat stormy career. Already, in 1392, he was replaced by Fra Giuliano di Mileto, afterwards Bishop of Cefalu, but seems to have regained his position, for in 1393 he was obliged by King Martin to refund moneys extorted from some Jews whom he had prosecuted for holding illicit relations with Christian women, and was told not to interfere with matters beyond his jurisdiction. Engaging in treasonable intrigues, he was driven from the island, and in 1397 we find him acting as papal legate and provincial in Germany. In 1400 he obtained his pardon from King Martin, and was allowed to reside in Syracuse, but was strictly forbidden from exercising the office of inquisitor. Meanwhile, in 1395, we hear of Guglielmo di Girgenti as inquisitor, and in 1397, of Matteo di Catania, a sentence by whom in that year, fining a Jew and his wife in forty ounces, was confirmed by the king, showing that the Inquisition continued to be subordinated to the civil power. Fra Matteo was inquisitor on both sides of the Faro, for a royal letter of 1399 describes him as such, and orders obedience rendered to his vicar, while another of 1403 shows that he still retained the position. A royal decree of 1402 specially provides for Jews an appeal to the king from all inquisitorial sentences, thus continuing what had long been the practice. In 1415 royal letters confirming the appointment of Fra Antonio de Pontecorona, others of 1427 in favor of Fra Benedetto da Perino, and of 1446, in favor of Fra Andrea de la Pascena, show that the organization was maintained, but all sentences were required to be transmitted to the viceroy, who submitted them to a royal judge before they were valid. Thus, in 1451, King Alfonso confirmed a fine of ten thousand florins, levied upon the Jews as a punishment for their usuries and other offences.[319]

On the mainland we have seen proof of the decay of the Inquisition in the undisturbed growth of the Waldensian communities, and the complete breaking-down of its machinery is fairly ill.u.s.trated in 1427, when Joanna II. undertook to enforce certain measures against the Jews of her kingdom. Had there been an effective and organized Inquisition she would have required no better instrument for her purpose; and it could only have been the absence of this that led her to call in the indefatigable persecutor, Fra Giovanni da Capistrano, to whom she issued a commission to coerce the Jews to abandon usury and to wear the sign Tau, as provided by law. He was empowered to decree such punishments as he might deem fit, which were to be mercilessly inflicted by all judges and other officials, and he was moreover to constrain, under pain of confiscation, the Jews to surrender to him for cancellation all letters and privileges granted to them by former monarchs. Yet there was still a simulacrum of the Inquisition maintained, for in the following year, 1428, we find Martin V. confirming the appointment of Fra Niccol di Camisio as Inquisitor of Benevento, Bari, and the Capitanata.[320]

Whatever vitality the Inquisition retained was still more reduced when, in 1442, the House of Aragon obtained the throne of Naples. Giannone tells us that the Aragonese princes rarely admitted inquisitors, and, when they did so, required minute reports as to their every official act, never permitting any conviction without the partic.i.p.ation of the secular magistrates, followed by royal confirmation, as we have seen to have been the case in Sicily. When, in 1449, Nicholas V. appointed Fra Matteo da Reggio as inquisitor to exterminate the apostate Jews who were said to be numerous throughout the kingdom, the terms employed would seem to indicate that for some time the Inquisition had been practically extinct, although but two years before he had given a commission to Fra Giovanni da Napoli, and although subsequent inquisitors were occasionally appointed.[321]

In Sicily, however, in 1451, the Inquisition obtained fresh vitality by means of an ingenious device. Fra Enrico Lugardi, Inquisitor of Palermo, produced a most impudent forgery in the shape of a long and elaborate privilege purporting to have been issued by the Emperor Frederic II. in 1224, ordering all his Sicilian subjects to give aid and comfort to the "inquisitors of heretical pravity," and stating that, as it was unfitting that all confiscations should inure to the royal fisc without rewarding the inquisitors for their toils and perils, the confiscations henceforth should be divided equally between the fisc, the Inquisition, and the Holy See; moreover, all Jews and infidels were required once a year to supply inquisitors and their attendants, when in prosecution of their duty, with all necessaries for man and beast. Though the fraudulent character of this doc.u.ment was conspicuous on its face, to say nothing of a blunder in the regnal year of its date, the age was not a critical one; Fra Enrico seems to have had no trouble in inducing King Alonso to confirm it, and it was subsequently confirmed again in 1477 by Ferdinand and Isabella. The privileges which it conferred were substantial, and gave fresh importance to the Inquisition, although its judgments were still subjected to revision by the civil power. When, in 1474, famine led Sixtus IV. to request of the Viceroy Ximenes the shipment of a large supply of corn from Sicily to Rome, he wrote to the inquisitor, Fra Salvo di Ca.s.setta, ordering him to strain every nerve to secure the granting of the favor. The inquisitor at that time was evidently a personage of influence, for Fra Salvo in fact was also confessor of the viceroy. The central tribunal of the Inquisition sat in Palermo, and there were three commissioners or deputies in charge of the three "valleys" of the island.[322]

Ferdinand the Catholic, in founding the New Spanish Inquisition, obtained for his grand inquisitor the power of nominating deputies in all the dependencies of Castile and Aragon. About 1487 Fray Antonio de la Pena was sent to Sicily in that capacity, who speedily organized the Holy Office on its new basis throughout the island; and in 1492 an edict of banishment was issued against the Jews, who, as of old, were the chief objects of persecution. On the mainland there was more trouble.

When, in 1503, Ferdinand acquired the kingdom of Naples, the Great Captain, Gonsalvo of Cordova, finding the people excited with the fear that the Spanish Inquisition might be introduced, made a solemn compact that no inquisitors should be sent thither. The old rules were kept in force; no one was allowed to be arrested without a special royal warrant, and no inquisitor could exercise any functions without the confirmation of his commission by the royal representative.

Notwithstanding this, in 1504, Diego Deza, the Spanish inquisitor-general, sent to Naples an inquisitor and a receiver of confiscated property, with royal letters ordering them to have free exercise of their authority, but Gonsalvo, who knew by how slender a tenure the new dynasty held the allegiance of the people, seems not to have admitted them. Under the excuse that the Jews and New Christians expelled from Spain found refuge in Naples, the attempt was again made in 1510, and Andres Palacio was sent there as inquisitor, but the populace rose in arms and made demonstrations so threatening that even Ferdinand's fanaticism was forced to give way. The movements of the French in the north of Italy were disquieting, the loyalty of the Neapolitans was not to be relied upon, and the inquisitor was withdrawn with a promise that no further effort would be made to force upon the people the dreaded tribunal. Even Julius II. recognized the necessity of this and a.s.sented to the understanding. The Calabrian and Apulian Waldenses thus had a respite until the progress of the Reformation in Italy aroused the Church to renewed efforts and to a complete reorganization of its machinery of persecution.[323]

CHAPTER V.

THE SLAVIC CATHARI.

When Innocent III. found himself confronted with the alarming progress of the Catharan heresy, his vigilant activity did not confine itself to Italy and Languedoc. The home of the belief lay to the east of the Adriatic among the Slavic races. Thence came the missionaries who never ceased to stimulate the zeal of their converts, and every motive of piety and of policy led him to combat the error at its source. Thus the field of battle stretched from the Balkans to the Pyrenees along a front of over a thousand miles, and the result might have been doubtful but for the concentration of moral and material forces resulting from the centralized theocracy founded by Hildebrand.

The contest in the regions south of Hungary is instructive as an ill.u.s.tration of the unconquerable persistence of Rome in conducting for centuries an apparently resultless struggle, undeterred by defeat, taking advantage of every opening for a renewal of the strife, and using for its ends the ambition of monarchs and the self-sacrificing devotion of zealots. A condensed review of the rapid vicissitudes of such a contest is therefore not out of place, although the scene of action lay too far from the centres of European life to have decisive influence upon the development of European thought and belief, except as it served as a refuge for the persecuted and a centre of orthodoxy to which neophytes could be sent.

The vast regions east of the Adriatic scarce paid more than a nominal spiritual allegiance to Rome. A savage and turbulent population, conquered by Hungary towards the end of the eleventh century, and always endeavoring to throw off the yoke, was Christian in little more than name. Such Christianity as it boasted, moreover, was not Latin. The national ritual was Slavic, in spite of its prohibition by Gregory VII., and the Roman observance was detested, from its foreign origin, as the badge of subjugation. The few Latin prelates and priests and monks were encamped amid a hostile population to whom they were strangers in language and manners, and the dissoluteness of their lives gave them no opportunity of acquiring a moral influence that might disarm national and race antipathies. Under such circ.u.mstances there was nothing to hinder the spread of Catharism, and when the devastating wars of the Hungarians came to be dignified as crusades for the extermination of heresy, heresy might well claim to be identified with patriotism. From the Danube to Macedonia, and from the Adriatic to the Euxine, the Catharan Church was well organized, divided into dioceses with their bishops, and actively engaged in mission work. Its most flourishing province was Bosnia, where, at the end of the twelfth century, it counted some ten thousand devoted partisans. Culin, the Ban who held it under the suzerainty of Hungary, was a Catharan, and so were his wife and the rest of his family. Even Catholic prelates were suspected, not without cause, of leaning secretly to the heretic belief.[324]

The earliest interference with heresy occurs at the end of the twelfth century, when the Archbishop of Spalatro, doubtless under impulsion from Innocent, drove out a number of Cathari from Trieste and Spalatro. They found ready refuge in Bosnia, where Culin welcomed them. Vulcan, King of Dalmatia, who had designs upon Bosnia, in 1199 represented to Innocent the deplorable prevalence of heresy there, and suggested that Emeric, King of Hungary, should be urged to expel the heretics. Innocent thereupon wrote to Emeric, sending him the severe papal decretal against the Patarins of Viterbo as a guide for his action, and ordering him to cleanse his territories of heresy and to confiscate all heretical property. Culin seems to have taken the initiative by attacking Hungary, but at the same time he tried to make his peace with Rome by a.s.serting that the alleged heretics were good Catholics. He sent some of them, with two of his prelates, to Innocent for examination, and asked for legates to investigate the matter on the spot. In 1202 the pope accordingly ordered his chaplain, Giovanni da Casemario, and the Archbishop of Spalatro, to proceed to Bosnia, where, if they found any heretics, including the Ban himself, they were to be prosecuted according to the rigor of the canons. Giovanni successfully accomplished this mission in 1203. He reported to Innocent a pledge given by the Cathari to adopt the Latin faith, while, to insure the maintenance of religion, he recommended the erection of three or four additional bishoprics in the territory of the Ban, which were ten days' journey in extent and which yet had but one see, of which the inc.u.mbent was dead.

At the same time King Emeric wrote that Giovanni had brought to him the leaders of the heretics, and he had found them converted to orthodoxy.

Culin's son had likewise presented himself, and had entered into bonds of one thousand marks, to be forfeited in case he should hereafter protect heretics within his dominions. The triumph of the Church seemed a.s.sured, especially when, in the same year, Calo Johannes, the Emperor of the Bulgarians, applied to Innocent to have cardinals sent to crown him, and professed himself in all things obedient to the Holy See.[325]

All such hopes proved fallacious. With the development of the Albigensian troubles the attention of Innocent was directed from the Slavs. The conversions made under pressure were but temporary. The metropolitan of the province, Arringer, Archbishop of Ragusa, filled the vacant see of Bosnia with a Catharan, and, dying himself soon after, his episcopal city became a nest of heretics. The few Catholic priests scattered through the region abandoned their posts, and Catholicism grew virtually almost extinct. In 1221 it is said that in the whole of Bosnia there was not a single orthodox preacher to be heard. Equally disheartening was the course of affairs among the Bulgarians. After Calo Johannes had been crowned by a legate from Rome, his quarrels with the Latin Emperors of Constantinople led to a breach, and in the wide territories under his dominion the Cathari had full liberty of conscience.[326]

At length the papal attention was again directed to this deplorable state of affairs. In 1221 Honorius III. sent his chaplain, Master Aconcio, as legate to Hungary, with orders to arouse the king and the prelates to a sense of their obligation to exterminate the heretics who were thus openly defiant. On his way the legate paused at Ragusa to superintend the election of an orthodox archbishop, after which he ordered all Dalmatia and Croatia to join in a crusade, but no one followed him, and he went alone to Bosnia, where he died the same year.

Better results were promised by the ambition of Ugolin, Archbishop of Kalocsa, who desired to extend his province; he proposed to Andreas II.

of Hungary that he would lead a crusade at his own cost, and king and pope promised him all the territories which he should clear of heretics, but Ugolin overrated his powers, and adopted the expedient of subsidizing with two hundred silver marks the ruler of Syrmia, Prince John, son of Margaret, widow of the Emperor Isaac Angelus. John took the money without performing his promise, though reminded of it by Honorius in 1227. Relieved from apprehension, the Bosnians deposed their Ban Stephen and replaced him with a Catharan, Ninoslav, one of the most notable personages in Bosnian history, who maintained himself from 1232 to 1250.[327]

The scale at length seemed to turn with the advent on the scene of the Mendicant Orders, full of the irrepressible enthusiasm, the disregard of toil and hardship, and the thirst for martyrdom of which we have already seen so many examples. Behind them now, moreover, was Gregory IX., the implacable and indefatigable persecutor of heresy, who urged them forward unceasingly. The Dominicans were first upon the ground. As early as 1221 the Order formed establishments in Hungary, developing its proselyting energy from that centre, and thus taking the heretics in flank. The Dominican legend relates that the Inquisition was founded in Hungary by Friar Jackzo (St. Hyacinth), an early member of the Order, who died in 1257, and that it could soon boast of two martyred inquisitors, Friar Nicholas, who was flayed alive, and Friar John, who was lapidated by the heretics. In 1233 we hear of the ma.s.sacre of ninety Dominican missionaries among the c.u.mans, and it was perhaps somewhat earlier than this that thirty-two were drowned by the Bosnian heretics, whom they were seeking to convert; but Dominican ardor was only inflamed by such incidents. Preparations were made for systematic work. In 1232 Gregory ordered his legate in Hungary, Giacopo, Bishop of Palestrina, to convert the Bosnians. King Andreas gave the Banate to his son Coloman, Duke of Croatia and Dalmatia, and ordered him to a.s.sist. Results soon followed. The Catholic Bishop of Bosnia was himself infected with heresy, and excused himself on the ground that he had ignorantly supposed the Cathari to be orthodox. The Archbishop of Ragusa was cognizant of this, and had paid no attention to it, so Giacopo transferred Bosnia to Kalocsa--a transfer, however, which was for the present inoperative. More important was the conversion of Ninoslav, who abandoned the religion of his fathers in order to avert the attacks of Coloman, which were rapidly dismembering his territories. He was effusively welcomed by Gregory; he gave money to the Dominicans for the building of a cathedral; many of his magnates followed his example, and his kinsman, Uban Prijesda, handed his son to the Dominicans as a hostage for the sincerity of his conversion. Gregory was overjoyed at this apparent success. In 1233 he ordered the boy restored to his father; he took Bosnia under the special protection of the Holy See, and ordered Coloman to defend Ninoslav from the attacks of disaffected heretics; he deposed the heretic bishop, and instructed his legate to divide the territory into two or three sees, appointing proper inc.u.mbents. The latter measure was not carried out, however, and a German Dominican, John of Wildeshausen, was consecrated Bishop of all Bosnia.[328]

The Legate Giacopo returned to Hungary satisfied that the land was converted, but success proved fleeting. Either Ninoslav's conversion was feigned or he was unable to control his heretic subjects, for in the next year, 1234, we find Gregory complaining that heresy was increasing and rendering Bosnia a desert of the faith, a nest of dragons and a home of ostriches. In conjunction with Andreas he ordered a crusade, and Coloman was instructed to attack the heretics. The Carthusian Prior of St. Bartholomew was sent thither to preach it with Holy Land indulgences, and by the end of 1234 Coloman laid Bosnia waste with fire and sword. Ninoslav threw himself heart and soul with the Cathari, and the struggle was b.l.o.o.d.y and prolonged. The Legate Giacopo induced Bela IV. to take an oath to extirpate all heretics from every land under his jurisdiction, and the Franciscans hastened to take a hand in the good work. They commenced with the city of Zara, but the Archbishop of Zara, instead of seconding their labors, impeded them, which earned for him the emphatic rebuke of Gregory. Indeed, from the account which Yvo of Narbonne gives about this time of the Cathari of the maritime districts, they could not have been much disturbed by these proceedings.[329]

In 1235 the crusaders were unlucky. Bishop John lost all hope of recovering his see and asked Gregory to relieve him of it, as the labors of war were too severe for him; but Gregory reproved his faintheartedness, telling him that if he disliked war the love of G.o.d should urge him on.[330] In 1236 the aspect of affairs improved, probably because Bela IV. had replaced Andreas on the throne of Hungary, and because the crusaders were energetically aided by Sebislav, Duke of Usora, the son of the former Ban Stephen, who hoped to recover the succession. He was rewarded by Gregory calling him a lily among thorns and the sole representative of orthodoxy among the Bosnian chiefs, who were all heretics. At last, in 1237, Coloman triumphed, but heresy was not eradicated, in spite of his efforts through the following years. In fulfilment of his request, Gregory ordered the consecration of the Dominican Ponsa as Bishop of Bosnia, and soon afterwards appointed Ponsa as legate for three years in order that he might exterminate the remnant of heresy. It must have been a tolerably large remnant, for in the same breath he promised the protection of the Holy See to all who would take the cross to extirpate it. In 1239 the Provincial Prior of Hungary was ordered to send to the heretic districts a number of friars, powerful in speech and action, to consummate the work. Ponsa, though bishop and legate, had no revenues and no resources, so Gregory ordered paid over to him the moneys collected from crusaders in redemption of vows, and the sum which Ninoslav, during his interval of orthodoxy, had given to found a cathedral. By the end of 1239 heresy seemed to be exterminated, but scarce had Coloman and his crusaders left the land when his work was undone and heresy was as vigorous as ever. In 1240 Ninoslav appears again as Ban, visiting Ragusa with a splendid retinue to renew the old treaty of trade and alliance. King Bela's energies, in fact, were just then turned in another direction, for a.s.san, the Bulgarian prince, had declared in favor of the Greeks; his people therefore were denounced as heretics and schismatics, and Bela was stimulated to undertake a crusade against him, for which, as usual, Holy Land indulgences were promised.

It was hard to make head at once against so many enemies of the faith, and in the confusion the Cathari of Bosnia had a respite. Still more important for them as a preventive of persecution was the Tartar invasion which, in 1241, reduced Hungary to a desert. In the b.l.o.o.d.y day of Flusse Sajo the Hungarian army was destroyed, Bela barely escaped with his life, and Coloman was slain. The respite was but temporary, however, for in 1244 Bela again overran Bosnia. Ninoslav made his peace and the heretics were persecuted, until 1246, when Hungary was involved in war with Austria, and promptly they rose again with Ninoslav at their head.[331]

All these endeavors to diffuse the blessings of Christianity had not been made without bloodshed. We have few details of these obscure struggles in a land little removed from barbarism, but there is one doc.u.ment extant which shows that the Albigensian crusades, with all their horrors, had been repeated to no purpose. In 1247 Innocent IV., in making over the see of Bosnia to the Archbishop of Kalocsa, alludes to the labors performed by him and his predecessors in the effort to redeem it from heresy. They had meritoriously devastated the greater part of the land; they had carried away into captivity many thousands of heretics, with great effusion of blood, and no little slaughter of their own men and waste of their substance. In spite of these sacrifices, as the churches and castles which they had built were not strong enough to resist siege, the land could not be retained in the faith; it had wholly relapsed into heresy, and there was no hope of its voluntary redemption.

The church of Kalocsa had been thoroughly exhausted, and it was now rewarded by placing the recalcitrant region under its jurisdiction, in the expectation that some future crusade might be more fortunate.

Innocent IV. had, a few months earlier, ordered Bela to undertake a decisive struggle with the Cathari, but Ninoslav appealed to him, protesting that he had been since his conversion a faithful son of the Church, and had only accepted the aid of the heretics because it was necessary to preserve the independence of the Banate. Moved by this, Innocent instructed the Archbishop of Kalocsa to abstain from further persecution. He ordered an investigation into the faith and actions of Ninoslav, and gave permission to use the Glagolitic writing and the Slavic tongue in the celebration of Catholic service, recognizing that this would remove an obstacle to the propagation of the faith.

Ninoslav's last years were peaceful, but after his death, about 1250, there were civil wars stimulated by the antagonism between Catharan and Catholic. He was succeeded by Prijesda, who had remained Catholic since his conversion in 1233. Under pretence of supporting Prijesda, Bela intervened, and by 1254 he had again reduced Bosnia to subjection, leading, doubtless, to active persecution of heresy, although the transfer of the see of Bosnia to Kalocsa was not carried into effect.[332]

It was about this time that Rainerio Saccone gives us his computation of the Perfects in many of the Catharan churches. In Constantinople there were two churches, a Latin and a Greek, the former comprising fifty Perfects. The latter, together with those of Bulgaria, Roumania, Slavonia, and Dalmatia, he estimates at about five hundred. This would indicate a very large number of believers, and shows how unfruitful had been the labors and the wars which had continued for more than a generation. In fact, although Bela's long reign lasted until 1270, he failed utterly in his efforts to extirpate heresy. On the contrary, the Cathari grew ever stronger and the Church sank lower and lower. Even the Bosnian bishops dared no longer to remain in their see, but resided in Djakovar. So little reverence was there felt in those regions for the Holy See that so near as Trieste, when, in 1264, two Dominicans commissioned to preach the crusade against the Turks endeavored to perform their duty, the dean and canons hustled them violently out of the church, and would not even allow them to address the crowd in the public square, while the archdeacon publicly declared that any one who listened to them was excommunicate.[333]

Things grew worse with the accession, in 1272, of Bela's grandson, Ladislas IV., known as the c.u.man, from his mother Elizabeth, a member of that pagan tribe. Ladislas lived with the c.u.mans and shared their religion until his contempt for the Holy See manifested itself in the most offensive manner. The papal legate, Filippo, Bishop of Fermo, had called a council to meet at Buda, when Ladislas ordered the magistrates of the city not to permit the entrance of any prelates, or the supplying of any food to the legate, who was thus forced to depart ignominiously.

This called down upon him the anger of Rodolph of Hapsburg and of Charles of Anjou, and he was fain, in 1280, to make reparation, not only by a humble apology and a grant of one hundred marks per annum for the founding of a hospital, but by adopting and publishing as the law of the land all the papal statutes against heresy, and swearing to enforce them vigorously, while his mother Elizabeth did the same as d.u.c.h.ess of Bosnia. Something was gained by this, and still more, when, in 1282, Ladislas appointed as ruler of Bosnia his brother-in-law, Stephen Dragutin, the exiled King of Servia. The latter, although a Greek, persecuted the Cathari; and when, about 1290, he was converted to Catholicism, his zeal increased, He sent to Rome Marino, Bishop of Antivari, to report the predominance of heresy and to ask for aid.

Nicholas IV. promptly responded by commissioning a legate to Andreas III., the new King of Hungary, to preach a crusade, and the Emperor Rodolph was ordered to a.s.sist, but the effort was bootless. Equally vain was his command to the Franciscan Minister of Slavonia to select two friars acquainted with the language, and send them to Bosnia to extirpate heresy. The request at the same time made to Stephen to support them with the secular arm shows that the missionaries were in fact inquisitors. Unluckily, Nicholas in his zeal also employed Dominicans in the business. Inspired by the traditional hatred between the Orders, the inquisitors, or missionaries, employed all their energies in quarrelling with each other, and became objects of ridicule instead of terror to the heretics.[334]

In 1298 Boniface VIII. undertook finally to organize the Inquisition in the Franciscan province of Slavonia, which comprised all the territory south of Hungary, from the Danube to Macedonia. The provincial minister was ordered to appoint two friars as inquisitors for this immense region, and was intrusted as usual with the power of removing and replacing them. This slender organization he endeavored to supplement by ordering the Archbishop of Kalocsa to preach a crusade, but there was no response, and the proposed Inquisition effected nothing. When Stephen Dragutin died, in 1314, Bosnia was conquered by Mladen Subic, son of the Ban of Croatia, under whom it was virtually independent of Hungary.

Mladen made some show of persecuting heresy--at least when he had a request to make at Avignon--but as the vast majority of his subjects were Cathari, whose support was absolutely necessary to him, it is safe to say that he made no serious effort. In 1319 John XXII. describes the condition of Bosnia as deplorable. There were no Catholic ecclesiastics, no reverence for the sacraments; communion was not administered, and in many places the rite of baptism was not even known or understood. When such a pontiff as John felt obliged to appeal to Mladen himself to put an end to this reproach, it shows that he had no means of effective coercion at hand.[335]

Mladen was overthrown by Stephen Kostromanic, and when he fled to Hungary, Charles Robert cast him in prison, leaving undisturbed possession to Stephen, who styled himself Ban by the grace of G.o.d.

Stephen, in 1322, seems to have abandoned Catholicism, joining either the Greeks or the Cathari, but in spite of this affairs commenced to look more favorable. Hungary began to emerge from the disorders and disasters which had so long crippled it, and King Charles Robert was inclined to listen to exhortations as to his duty towards the Bosnian heretics. In 1323, therefore, John XXII. made another attempt, sending Fra Fabiano thither and ordering Charles Robert and Stephen to give him effective support. The latter was obdurate, though the former seems to have manifested some zeal, if one may believe the praises bestowed on him in 1327 by John. Fabiano was indefatigable, but his duty proved no easy one. At the very outset he met with unexpected resistance in a city so near at hand as Trieste. When he endeavored there to enforce the decrees against heresy, and to arouse the people to a sense of their duty, the bells were rung, a mob was a.s.sembled, he was dragged from the pulpit and beaten, the leaders in the disturbance being two canons of the Cathedral, Michele da Padua, and Raimondo da Cremona, who were promptly ordered by the pope to be prosecuted as suspects of heresy.

Hardly had he settled this question when he was involved in a controversy with the rival Dominicans, whom he found to be poaching on his preserves. A zealous Dominican, Matteo of Agram, by suppressing the fact that Slavonia was Franciscan territory, had obtained from John letters authorizing the Dominican provincial to appoint inquisitors, commissioned to preach a crusade with Holy Land indulgences, and these inquisitors had been urgently recommended by the pope to the King of Hungary and other potentates. It was impossible that the Orders could co-operate in harmony, and Fabiano made haste to represent to John the trap into which he had been led. The pope was now at the height of his controversy with the greater part of the Franciscans over the question of poverty, and it was impolitic to give just grounds of complaint to those who remained faithful; he therefore promptly recalled the letters given to the Dominicans, and scolded them roundly for deceiving him.

Even yet it seemed impossible for Fabiano to penetrate beyond the borders of his district, or to work without impediment, for in 1329 he was occupied with prosecuting for heresy the Abbot of SS. Cosmas and Damiani of Zara and one of his monks, when John, the Archbishop of Zara, intervened forcibly and stopped the proceedings. The difficulties thrown in Fabiano's way must have been great, for he felt compelled to visit Avignon for their removal, but his usual ill-luck accompanied him. The contest between the papacy on the one side, and the Visconti and Louis of Bavaria on the other, rendered parts of Lombardy unsafe for papalists, and a son of Belial named Franceschino da Pavia had no scruple in laying hands on the inquisitor and despoiling him of his horses, books, and papers. During all this time the Inquisition must have been at a standstill, but at last Fabiano overcame all obstacles.

In 1330 he returned to the scene of action; Charles Robert and Stephen lent him their a.s.sistance, and the work of suppressing the Cathari commenced under favorable auspices, and by the methods which we have seen so successful elsewhere. The condition of the Bosnian Church may be guessed from the fear felt by John XXII. that the bishops would be heretics, leading him, in 1331, to reserve their appointment to the Holy See. Yet on the death of Bishop Peter, in 1334, the chapter elected a successor, and Charles Robert endeavored to force a layman on the Church, causing a disgraceful quarrel which was not settled until Benedict XII., in 1336, p.r.o.nounced in favor of the candidate of the chapter.[336]