Note 284 — Chapter VII · THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. T. II. pp. 4-6, 422; T. IV. pp. 6-8, 299-302; T. V. pp. 201, 279-80. The coronation-edict, which formed the basis of all subsequent legislation against heresy, was drawn up by the papal curia, and sent, a fortnight before the ceremony, to the Legate Bishop of Tusculum, with orders to procure the imperial signature and return it, so that it could be published under the emperor’s name in the church of St. Peter (Raynald. ann. 1220, No. 19.—Hist. Dipl. I. II. 880). Nothing could seem a plainer duty to an ecclesiastic of the time than that the Church should stimulate the temporal ruler to the sharpest persecution of heresy.

It was doubtless the outlawry of heretics pronounced by the edicts of Frederic which enabled the Inquisition to establish the settled principle that the heretic could be captured and despoiled at any time and by any person, and that the spoiler could retain his goods—provided always that he was not an official of the Holy Office (Tract. de Inquisitione, Doat, XXXVI.).