Chapter IV · ITALY.

IN France we have seen the stubbornness of heresy in alliance with feudalism resisting the encroachments of monarchy. In Italy we meet with different and more complicated conditions, which gave additional stimulus to antagonism against the established Church, and rendered its suppression a work of much greater detail. Here heresy and politics are so inextricably intermingled that at times differentiation becomes virtually impossible, and the fate of heretics depends more on political vicissitudes than even on the zeal of men like St. Peter Martyr, or Rainerio Saccone.

For centuries the normal condition of Italy was not far removed from anarchy. Spasmodic attempts of the empire to make good its traditional claim to overlordship were met by the steady policy of the papacy to extend its temporal power over the Peninsula. During the century occupied by the reigns of the Hohenstaufens (1152-1254), when the empire seemed nearest to accomplishing its ends, the popes sought to erect a rampart by stimulating the attempts of the cities to establish their independence and form self-governing republics, and it thus created for itself a party in all of them. North of the Patrimony of St. Peter the soil of Italy thus became fractioned into petty states under institutions more or less democratic. For the most part they were torn with savage internal feuds between factions which, as Guelf or Ghibelline, hoisted the banner of pope or kaiser as an excuse for tearing each other to pieces. As a rule, they were involved in constant war with each other. Occasionally, indeed, some overmastering necessity might bring about a temporary union, as when the Lombard League, in 1177, broke the Barbarossa’s power on the field of Legnano, but, in general, the chronicles of that dismal period are a confused mass of murderous strife inside and outside the gates of every town.

Heresy could scarce ask conditions more favorable for its spread. The Church, worldly to the core, was immersed in temporal cares and pleasures, and during the strife between Alexander III. and the four antipopes successively set up by Frederic I.—Victor, Pascal, Calixtus, and Innocent—the enforcement of orthodoxy was out of the question. After the triumph of the papacy, stringent decrees, as we have seen, were issued by Lucius III., and edicts were promulgated by Henry VI. in 1194, and by Otho IV. in 1210, but they were practically inefficient. When every town was divided against itself heresy could bargain for toleration by holding the balance of power, and was frequently able, by throwing its weight on one side or the other, to obtain a share in the government. The larger struggles of city against city and of pope against emperor afforded a still wider field for the exercise of this diplomatic ability, of which full advantage was taken. When the formulas of persecution became defined under Honorius III., Gregory IX., and Frederic II., and fautorship was made equivalent to heresy, the factions and the nobles who tolerated or protected heretics became involved in the common anathema, and whole communities were stigmatized as given over to false idols. Yet although Ghibelline and heretic were frequently held by the popes to be almost convertible terms, there was in reality no test capable of universal application. Traditional hostility to the empire rendered Milan an intensely Guelf community, and yet it was everywhere recognized as the greatest centre of heresy.

Though heresy was by no means so universal as the papal anathemas would indicate, yet heretics were quite numerous enough to possess political importance, and to have some justification for their hopes of eventually becoming dominant. Little concealment was deemed necessary. When Otho IV. was in Rome for his coronation in 1209, under the vigilant rule of Innocent III., the ecclesiastics who accompanied him were scandalized at finding schools where Manichæan doctrines were openly taught, apparently without interference. The earlier Dominican persecutors are represented as constantly holding public disputations with heretics in the most populous cities of Italy, and the miracles related of them were mostly occasioned by the taunts and challenges of heretics. Otho, at Ferrara, in 1210, was obliged to order the magistrates to put to the ban the Cathari who refused, at the instance of the bishop, to return to the Church, and also those who publicly supported them.[212]

Although Stephen of Bourbon relates that a converted heretic informed him that in Milan there were no less than seventeen heterodox sects which bitterly disputed with each other, yet they can, as in France, be reduced to two main classes—Cathari, or Patarins, and Waldenses. The Cathari, it will be remembered, made their appearance in the first half of the eleventh century, at Monforte, in Lombardy, and they had continued to multiply since then. About the middle of the thirteenth century Rainerio Saccone gives us an enumeration of their churches. In Lombardy and the Marches there were about five hundred perfected Cathari of the Albanensian sect, more than fifteen hundred Concorrezenses, and about two hundred Bajolenses. The Church of Vicenza reckoned about a hundred; there were as many in Florence and Spoleto, and in addition about one hundred and fifty refugees from France in Lombardy. As he estimates the total number, from Constantinople to the Pyrenees, at four thousand, with a countless congregation of believers, it will be seen that nearly two thirds of the whole number were concentrated in northern Italy, chiefly in Lombardy, and that they constituted a notable portion of the population.[213]

Lombardy, in fact, was the centre whence Catharism was propagated throughout Europe. We have seen above how for more than half a century it served as a refuge to the persecuted saints of Languedoc, and as a source whence to draw missionaries and teachers. About 1240 a certain Yvo of Narbonne was falsely accused of heresy and fled to Italy, where he was received as a martyr, and had full opportunity of penetrating into the secrets of the sectaries. In a letter to Géraud, Archbishop of Bordeaux, he describes their thorough organization throughout Italy, with ramifications extending into all the neighboring lands. From all the cities of Lombardy and Tuscany their youth were sent to Paris to perfect themselves in logic and theology, so as to be able successfully to defend their errors. Catharan merchants frequented fairs and obtained entrance into houses where they lost no opportunity of scattering the seed of false doctrine. Full of zeal and courage, the Catharan believed his faith to be the religion of the future, and his ardor courted martyrdom in the effort to spread it everywhere. Milan was the headquarters whither every year delegates were sent from the churches throughout Christendom, bringing contributions for the support of the central organization, and receiving instructions as to the symbol, changed every twelvemonth, whereby the wandering Patarin could recognize the houses of his brethren and safely claim hospitality. It was in vain that, in 1212, Innocent III. warned the heretical city of the fate of Languedoc, and threatened to send a similar crusade for its extirpation. Fortunately for the Lombards he had no one to summon to their destruction, for Germany, however desirous of conquering Italy, was too distracted for such an enterprise, and the popes dreaded imperial domination quite as much as heresy. There was bitter irony in the reply of Frederic II., when, in 1236, he was subduing the rebellious Lombards, and he answered the clamor of Gregory IX., who called upon him to transfer his arms to Syria, by pointing out that the Milanese were much worse than Saracens, and their subjugation much more important.[214]

We have no means of obtaining an approximate estimate of the Waldenses, but in some districts they must have been almost as numerous as the Cathari. The remains of the Arnaldistæ and Umiliati had eagerly welcomed the missionaries of the Poor Men of Lyons, and had not only adopted their tenets, but had pushed them to a further development in antagonism to Rome. As early as 1206 we see Innocent III. alluding to Umiliati and Poor Men of Lyons as synonymous expressions, and endeavoring with little success to effect their expulsion from Faenza, where they were spreading and infecting the people. In Milan they had built a school where they publicly taught their doctrines; this was at length torn down by a zealous archbishop, and when, in 1209, Durán de Huesca sought to bring them back to the fold, a hundred or more of them consented to be reconciled if the building were restored to them. Evidently they had little to dread from active persecution, and subsequent letters of Innocent show them to be still flourishing there. The Waldenses who were burned at Strassburg in 1212 admitted that their chief resided in Milan, and that they were in the habit of collecting money and remitting it to him.[215]

It was, however, in the valleys of the Cottian Alps, to which they spread from Dauphiné, that they settled themselves most firmly. In those inhospitable regions, till then almost uninhabited, their marvellous and self-denying industry occupied every spot where incessant labor could support life. There they rapidly increased and filled the valleys of Luserna, Angrogna, San Martino, and Perosa. In 1210 Giacomo di Carisio, Bishop of Turin, alarmed at the constant growth of this heresy in his diocese, applied to Otho IV. for aid in its suppression, but the emperor in reply merely ordered him to use severity in their punishment and expulsion. Authority for this he already had in abundance under the canons, but he lacked the physical force to render it effective, and the imperial rescript went for naught. This shows that the local suzerains took no measures to enforce persecution, and the heretics continued to increase. The immediate sovereign of the district most deeply infected was the Abbey of Ripaille, which found itself unable to control them, and made over its temporal rights to Tommaso I., Count of Savoy. He issued an edict, to which I have already referred, imposing a fine of ten sols for giving refuge to heretics, which proved altogether ineffective. Thus, in the absence of efficient repression, were established those Alpine communities whose tenacity of belief supplied through centuries an unfailing succession of humble martyrs, and who ennobled human nature by their marvellous example of constancy and endurance.[216]

Although the Lombard Waldenses admitted their descent from the Poor Men of Lyons, their more rapid development gave rise to differences, and in 1218 a conference was held at Bergamo between delegates of both parties. This did not succeed in removing the points of dissidence, and about 1230 the Lombards sent to the brethren in Germany a statement of the discussion and of their views. It is not our province to enter into these minute details of faith and Church government, but the affair is worth alluding to as illustrating the flourishing condition of the Church, the practical toleration which it enjoyed, and the active communication which existed between its organizations throughout Europe.[217]

The aggressiveness of the heretics, the favor shown them by the people, and the impossibility of any systematic suppression by the Church under existing political conditions are well exhibited in the troubles which commenced at Piacenza in 1204. There the heretics were strong enough to provoke a quarrel between the authorities and Bishop Grimerio, which resulted in either the withdrawal or the expulsion of the prelate and all the clergy. The exiles transferred themselves to Cremona, but in 1205 that city likewise quarrelled with its pastors, and the wanderers were again driven forth, to find a refuge in Castell’’ Arquato. For three years and a half Piacenza remained without an orthodox priest, and deprived of all the observances and consolations of religion. So weak was the hold of the Church upon the people that this deprivation was acquiesced in with the utmost indifference. In October, 1206, Innocent III. sent three Apostolic Visitors to effect a reconciliation, with a threat of dividing the diocese and apportioning it among the neighboring sees, but the citizens cared nothing for this, and refused the terms demanded, which required them to compensate their bishop for the damage inflicted on him. After some six months wasted in fruitless negotiations the Visitors departed, and it was not till July, 1207, that another commission, offering more favorable conditions, succeeded in effecting a reconciliation which enabled the clergy to return from exile. About the same period Innocent found himself obliged to use persuasion and argument in the endeavor to urge the people of Treviso to expel their heretics. So far from threatening them, he begged them to have faith that their bishop would reform the excesses of the clergy whose evil example had disturbed them. It is easy thus to understand the exulting confidence with which the heretics anticipated the eventual triumph of their creeds, and the despair which led Abbot Joachim of Flora, in expounding the Apocalypse, to see in them the locusts with the power of scorpions who issue from the bottomless pit at the sounding of the fifth trumpet (Rev. IX. 3, 4). These heretics are the Antichrist; they are to grow in power and their king is already chosen, that king of the locusts “whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon” (Rev. IX. 11). Resistance to them will be in vain; they are to unite with the Saracens, with whom, in 1195, he says they are already entering into negotiations.[218]

When Honorius III., in 1220, obtained from Frederic II. the ferocious coronation-edict against heresy, he may well have imagined that the way was open for its immediate suppression. If so, he was not long in discovering his mistake. Whatever professions Frederic might make, or whatever rigor he might exercise in his Sicilian dominions, it was no part of his policy to estrange the Ghibelline leaders, or to strengthen the Guelfic factions in the turbulent little republics which he sought to reduce to subjection. His whole reign was an internecine conflict, open or concealed, with Rome, and he was too much of a free-thinker to have any scruples as to the sources whence he could draw strength for himself or annoyance for his enemy. In central and upper Italy, therefore, his laws were for the most part virtually a dead letter. Already, in 1221, Ezzelin da Romano, the most powerful Ghibelline in the March of Treviso, was complained of for the protection which he afforded to heretics, and his continuing to do so to the end shows that he found it to be good policy. When, in 1227, Ingheramo da Macerata, the late podestà of Rimini, was persecuted by the citizens because he had delivered for burning as heretics some of their daughters and sisters, and because he had wished to inscribe on their statute-books the constitutions of Frederic, it was not to the emperor that he applied for protection, but to Honorius III.[219]

Something more than imperial edicts was plainly necessary, and Honorius, in casting around for methods to check the spread of heresy, appointed, in 1224, the Bishops of Brescia and Modena as commissioners with special powers to exterminate the heretics of Lombardy—as inquisitors, in fact, this being one of the steps which gradually led to the establishment of the Inquisition, the usefulness of the Dominicans in this respect not having yet been divined. The Bishop of Modena, however, undertook a mission to convert the pagans of Prussia, and the Bishop of Rimini was substituted in his place. The prelates commenced with Brescia itself, whose prelate doubtless knew where to strike. They ordered the tearing down of certain houses where heretical preachers had been accustomed to hold forth. At once an armed insurrection broke out. The perennial factions of the city took sides. Several churches were burned, and the heretics parodied from them the anathema by casting lighted torches from the windows, and solemnly excommunicating all members of the Church of Rome. It was not until after a severe and prolonged conflict that the Catholics obtained the upper hand, and then the terms prescribed by Honorius were so mild as to indicate that it was not deemed politic to drive the defeated party to despair. All excommunicates were required to apply personally for absolution to the Holy See. The fortified houses of the lords of Gambara, of Ugona, of the Oriani, of the sons of Botatio, who had been the leader in the troubles, were ordered to be razed to the ground, never to be rebuilt, while other strongholds, which had been defended against the Catholics, were to be cut down one-third or one-half. Benificed clerks who were children of heretics or of fautors were to be suspended for three years or more as their individual participation in the troubles might indicate. A levy of three hundred and thirty lire was ordered on the clergy of Lombardy and the Trivigiana to recompense the Catholics for the losses endured in contending with the heretics. So unaccustomed as yet were the Lombards to persecution that even these conditions were deemed too harsh. The city of Milan interceded, and finally even the authorities of Brescia itself urged that moderation would be conducive to peace; and, May 1, 1226, Honorius authorized the bishops to use their discretion in diminishing the penalties. When, however, the Dominican Guala was elected Bishop of Brescia in 1230, he speedily succeeded in introducing in the local statutes the law of Frederic, of March, 1224, which decreed for heretics the stake or loss of the tongue, and he forced the podestà to swear to its execution.[220]

Gregory IX. was a man of sterner temper than Honorius, and, despite his octogenary age, his advent to the pontificate, in 1227, was the signal for unrelenting war on heresy. Within three weeks of his accession peace was signed, under the auspices of the papacy, between Frederic II. and the Lombard League, with provisions for the suppression of heresy. Gregory immediately, in the most imperious fashion, summoned the Lombards to perform their duty. Hitherto, he told them, all their pretended efforts had been fraudulent. No enforcement of the imperial constitutions had been attempted. If the heretics had at any time been driven away, it was with a secret understanding that they would be allowed to return and dwell in peace. If fines had been inflicted, the money had been covertly refunded. If statutes had been enacted, there was always a reservation by which they were rendered ineffective. Thus heresy had grown and strengthened while the liberties of the Church had been subverted. Heretics had been permitted to preach their doctrines publicly, while ecclesiastics had been outlawed and imprisoned. All this must cease, the provisions of the treaty of peace must be enforced, and, if they continued in their evil courses, the Holy See would find means to coerce them in their perversity.[221]

These were brave words, though the political condition of Lombardy rendered them ineffective. Nearer home, however, Gregory had fairer opportunity of enforcing his will, and we have already seen how promptly he recognized the utility of the Order of Dominic and laid the foundations of the Inquisition by his tentative action in Florence. While this was taking shape his zeal was stimulated by the discovery, in 1231, that in Rome itself heresy had become so bold that it ventured to assert itself openly, and that many priests and other ecclesiastics had been converted. Probably the first auto de fé on record was that held by the Senator Annibaldo at the portal of Santa Maria Maggiore, when these unfortunates were burned or condemned to perpetual prison, and Gregory took advantage of the occasion to issue the decretal which became the basis of inquisitorial procedure, and to procure the enactment of severe secular laws in the name of the senator. The details I have already given (Vol. I. p. 325), and they need not be repeated here; but Gregory did not content himself with what he thus accomplished in Rome. His aid just then was desirable to Frederic II. in his Lombard complications, and to Gregory’s urgency may doubtless be attributed the severe legislation of the Sicilian Constitutions, issued about this time, and the Ravenna decrees of 1232. Shortly afterwards, indeed, we find Frederic writing to him that they are like father and son; that they should sharpen the spiritual and temporal swords respectively committed to them against heretics and rebels, without wasting effort on sophistry, for if time be spent in disputation nature will succumb to disease. It is not probable that Gregory counted much on the zeal of the emperor, but he sent the edict of Annibaldo to Milan, with instructions that it be adopted and enforced there. Already, in 1228, his legate, Goffredo, Cardinal of San Marco, had obtained of the Milanese the enactment of a law by which the houses of heretics were to be destroyed, and the secular authorities were required to put to death within ten days all who were condemned by the Church; but thus far no executions seem to have taken place under it.[222]

It was now that Gregory, seeing the futility of all efforts thus far save those which the Dominicans were making in Florence, hit upon the final and successful experiment of confiding to the Order the suppression of heresy as part of their regular duties. A fresh impulse was felt all along the line. The Church suddenly found that it could count upon an unexpected reserve of enthusiasm, boundless and exhaustless, despising danger and reckless of consequences, which in the end could hardly fail to triumph. A new class of men now appears upon the scene—San Piero Martire, Giovanni da Vicenza, Rolando da Cremona, Rainerio Saccone—worthy to rank with their brethren in Languedoc, who devoted themselves to what they held to be their duty with a singleness of purpose which must command respect, however repulsive their labors may seem to us. On one hand these men had an easier task than their Western colleagues, for they had not to contend with the jealousy, or submit to the control, of the bishops. The independence of the Italian episcopate had been broken down in the eleventh century. Besides, the bishops naturally belonged to the Guelfic faction, and welcomed any allies who promised to aid them in crushing the antagonistic party in their turbulent cities. On the other hand, the political dissensions which raged everywhere with savage ferocity increased enormously the difficulties and dangers of the task.

In Italy, as in France, the organization of the Inquisition was gradual. It advanced step by step, the earlier proceedings, as we have seen both in Florence and Toulouse, being characterized by little regularity. As the tribunal by degrees assumed shape, a definite code of procedure was established which was virtually the same everywhere, except with regard to the power of confiscation, the application of the profits of persecution, and the acquittal of the innocent. To these attention has already been called, and they need not detain us further. The problems which the founders of the Inquisition had to meet in Italy, and the methods in which these were met, can best be illustrated by a rapid glance at what remains to us of the careers of some of the earnest men who undertook the apparently hopeless task.

The earliest name I have met with bearing the title of Inquisitor of Lombardy is that of a Frà Alberico in 1232. The Cardinal Legate Goffredo, whom we have seen busy in Milan, undertook to quiet civil strife in Bergamo, with the consent of all factions, by appointing as podestà Pier Torriani of Milan; and at the same time he seized the opportunity to make a raid on heretics, a number of whom he cast into prison. No sooner was his back turned than the citizens refused to receive his podestà, elected in his place a certain R. di Madello, and, what was worse, set at liberty the captive heretics. Thereupon the legate placed the city under interdict, which brought the people to their senses, and they agreed to stand to the mandate of the Church. Gregory accordingly, November 3, 1232, instructed Alberico, as Inquisitor of Lombardy, to reconcile the city on condition that the people refund to Pier Torriani all his expenses and give sufficient security to exterminate heresy. Here we see how intimate were the relations between politics and heresy, and what difficulties the alliance threw in the way of persecution.[223]

Frà Rolando da Cremona we have already met as professor in the inchoate University of Toulouse, and we have seen how rigid and unbending was his zeal. Hardly had he quitted Langueduc when we find him, in 1233, already actively at work in the congenial duty of suppressing heresy at Piacenza. The twenty-five years which had elapsed since the Piacenzans had shown themselves so indifferent to their spiritual privileges had not greatly increased their respect for orthodoxy. Rolando assembled them, preached to them, and then ordered the podestà to expel the heretics. The result did not correspond to his expectations. With the connivance of the podestà, the heretics and their friends arose and made a general onslaught on the clergy, including the bishop and the friars, in which a monk of San Sabino was slain and Rolando and some of his comrades were wounded. The Dominicans carried Rolando half-dead from the city, which was placed under interdict by the bishop. Then a revulsion of feeling occurred; Rolando was asked to return, and full satisfaction was promised. He prudently kept away, but ordered the imprisonment of the podestà and twenty-four others till the pleasure of the pope should be known. Gregory took advantage of the opportunity by sending thither the Archdeacon of Novara, with instructions to place the city under control of the orthodox party, taking ample security that the heretics should be suppressed; but this arrangement did not please the citizens, who rose again and liberated the prisoners. Sharp as was this experience, it did not dull the edge of Rolando’s zeal, for the next year we find him at work in the Milanese, where he received rough treatment at the hands of Lantelmo, a noble who sheltered heretics in his castle near Lodi. For this Lantelmo was condemned to be led through the streets, stripped and with a halter around his neck, to Rolando’s presence, and there to accept such penance as the friar, at command of the pope, might enjoin on him. A month later we hear of his seizing two Florentine merchants, Feriabente and Capso, with all their goods. They evidently were persons of importance, for Gregory ordered their release in view of having received bail for them in the enormous sum of two thousand silver marks.[224]

During this transition period, while the Inquisition was slowly taking shape, one of the most notable of the Dominicans engaged in the work of persecution was Giovanni Schio da Vicenza. I have alluded in a previous chapter to his marvellous career as a pacificator, and it may perhaps not be unjust to assume that his motive in employing his unequalled eloquence in harmonizing discordant factions was not only the Christian desire for peace, but also to remove the obstruction to persecution caused by perpetual strife, for in almost all these movements we may trace the connection between heresy and politics. After his wonderful success at Bologna, Gregory urged him to undertake a similar mission to Florence, where constant civic war was accompanied by recrudescence of heresy. In spite of the efforts of the embryonic Inquisition there, heresy was undisguised, and the ministers of Christ were openly opposed and ridiculed. Gregory assumed that Giovanni acted under the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and did not venture to send him orders, but only requests. He was, like all his colleagues, popularly regarded as a thaumaturgist, and stories were told of his crossing rivers dry-shod, and causing vultures to descend from on high at his simple command. The Bolognese were so loath to part with him that they used gentle violence to retain him, and only let him go after Gregory had ordered their city laid under interdict, and had threatened to deprive of its episcopal dignity any place which should detain him against his will. After completely succeeding in his mission to Florence he was despatched on a similar one to Lombardy. The League, which had been so efficient an instrument in curbing the imperial power, was breaking up. Fears were entertained that Frederic would soon return from Germany with an army, and a portion of the Lombard cities and nobles were disposed to invite him. Some countervailing influence was required, and nothing more effective than Giovanni’s eloquence could be resorted to. At Padua, Treviso, Conigliano, Ceneda, Oderzo, Belluno, and Feltre he preached on the text “Blessed are the feet of the bearers of peace” with such effect that even the terrible Ezzelin da Romano is said to have twice burst into tears. The whole land was pacified, save the ancestral quarrel between Ezzelin and the counts of Campo San Piero, which unpardonable wrongs had rendered implacable. After a visit to Mantua, the apostle of peace went to Verona, then besieged by an army of Mantuans, Bolognese, Brescians, and Faenzans, where he persuaded the assailants to withdraw, and the Veronese, in gratitude, proclaimed him podestà by acclamation. He promptly made use of the position to burn in the market-place some sixty heretics of both sexes, belonging to the noblest families of the city. Then he summoned to a great assembly in a plain hard by all the confederate cities and nobles. Obedient to his call there came the Patriarch of Aquileia, the Bishops of Mantua, Brescia, Bologna, Modena, Reggio, Treviso, Vicenza, Padua, and Ceneda, Ezzelin da Romano, the Marquis of Este, who was Lord of Mantua, the Count of San Bonifacio, who ruled Ferrara, and delegates from all the cities, with their carrochi. The multitude was diversely estimated at from forty thousand to five hundred thousand souls, who were wrought by his eloquence to the utmost enthusiasm of mutual forgiveness. After denouncing as rebels and enemies of the Church all who adhered to Frederic or invited him to Italy, Giovanni induced his auditors to swear to accept such settlement of their quarrels as he should dictate, and when he announced the terms they unanimously signed the treaty.[225]

So great became his reputation that Gregory IX. was seriously disturbed at a report that Giovanni contemplated making himself pope. A consistory was assembled to consider the advisability of excommunicating him, and that step would have been taken had not the Bishop of Modena sworn upon a missal that he had once seen an angel descend from heaven while Giovanni was speaking, and place a golden cross upon his brow. A confidential mission was sent to Bologna to investigate his career there, which returned with authentic accounts of numberless miracles performed by him, among them no less than ten resuscitations of the dead. So holy a man could not well be thrust from the pale of the Church, and the project was abandoned.[226]

Meanwhile he had visited his native place, Vicenza, on invitation of the bishop, and had so impressed the people that they gave him their statutes to revise at his pleasure, and proclaimed him duke, marquis, and count of the city—titles which belonged to the bishop, who also offered to make over the episcopate to him. As at Verona, he used his power to burn a number of heretics. During his absence at Verona, Uguccione Pileo, an enemy of the Schia family, induced the people to revolt, when Giovanni hastened back and suppressed the rebellion, putting to death, with torture, a number of citizens, who are charitably supposed to have been heretics. Uguccione brought up reinforcements; a fierce battle was fought in the streets, and Giovanni was worsted and taken prisoner. A letter of condolence, addressed to him in prison, by Gregory, under date of September 22, 1233, serves to fix the date of this, and to show how powerless was the papacy to protect its agents in the fierce dissensions of the period. Giovanni was obliged to ransom himself and return to Verona, and thence to Bologna. The peace which he had effected was of short duration. The chronic wars broke out afresh, and Giovanni, at the instance of Gregory, came again to pacify them. In this he succeeded, but no sooner was his back turned than hostilities were renewed. Gregory made a third attempt, through the Bishops of Reggio and Treviso, who induced the warring factions to lay down their arms for a while; but the main object, of presenting a united front and keeping Frederic out of Italy, was lost, Ezzelin and a number of the cities urged his coming, and the decisive victory of Cortenuova, in November, 1237, dissolved the Lombard League which had so long held the empire in check, and made him master of Lombardy.[227]

During all this time Gregory had been untiring in his efforts to subdue heresy in Lombardy, undeterred by the disheartening lack of result. All his legates to that province were duly instructed to regard this as one of their chief duties. In May, 1236, he had even attempted to establish there a rudimentary Inquisition, but, in the existing condition of the land, even he could hardly have expected to accomplish anything. Frederic came with professions that the extirpation of heresy was one of the motives impelling him to the enterprise; and when Gregory reproached him with suppressing the preaching of the friars and thus favoring heresy, he astutely retorted, with a reference to Giovanni, by alluding to those who, under pretext of making war on heresy, were busy in establishing themselves as potentates, and were taking castles as security from those suspect in faith. Gregory, in reply, could only disclaim all responsibility for the acts of the adventurous friar. Yet Gregory himself, when it suited his Lombard policy, did not hesitate to relax his severity against the heretics, and it became a popular cry in Germany that he had been bribed with their gold.[228]

For some years Giovanni Schio led a comparatively quiet existence in Bologna, but in 1247, by which time the Inquisition was fairly taking shape, Innocent IV. appointed him perpetual inquisitor throughout Lombardy, arming him with full powers and releasing him from all subjection or accountability to the Dominican general or provincial. In the existing condition of the north of Italy the commission was virtually inoperative, and its only interest lies in its terms, which show that up to this time there was no organized Inquisition there. We hear nothing further of his activity, even after the death of Frederic, in 1250, until, in 1256, the long-delayed crusade was undertaken against Ezzelin da Romano. By his fiery eloquence he raised in Bologna a considerable force of crusaders, at whose head he marched against the tyrant of the Trevisan, but, disgusted with the quarrels of the leaders, he returned to Bologna before the final catastrophe, and he is supposed to have perished, in 1265, in the crusade against Manfred, when there was a contingent of ten thousand Bolognese in the army of Charles of Anjou.[229]

Yet the most noteworthy in all respects of the dauntless zealots who fought the seemingly desperate battle against heresy was Piero da Verona, better known as St. Peter Martyr. Born at Verona in 1203 or 1206, of a heretic family, his legend relates that he was divinely led to recognize their errors. When a schoolboy of only seven years of age his uncle chanced to ask him what he learned, and he repeated the orthodox creed. His uncle thereupon told him he must not say that God created the heaven and the earth, for he was not the creator of the visible universe; but the child, filled with the Holy Ghost, overcame his elder in argument, who thereupon urged the parents to remove him from school, but the father, who hoped to see him become a leader of the sect, allowed him to complete his education. His orthodox zeal grew with his growth, and in 1221 he entered the Dominican Order. His confessor testified that he never committed a mortal sin, and the bull of his canonization bears emphatic evidence to his humility, his meek obedience, his sweet benignity, his exhaustless compassion, his unfailing patience, his wonderful charity, his passionate supplications to God for martyrdom, and the innumerable miracles which illustrated his life.[230]

Before the Dominicans were armed with the power of persecution Piero earnestly devoted himself to the original function of the Order, that of controverting heresy, and preaching against heretics. In this the success of the young apostle was marvellously aided by his thaumaturgic development. At Ravenna, Mantua, Venice, Milan, and other places, numerous wonders are related of his performance. Thus, at Cesena, the success of his efforts at conversion irritated the heretics, who, on one occasion, interrupted his preaching in the public square by volleys of filth and stones discharged from a house near by. He several times mildly entreated them to desist, but in vain, when, inspired by divine wrath, he launched a terrible imprecation against them. Instantly the house crumbled in ruin, burying the sacrilegious wretches, nor could it be rebuilt until long afterwards.[231]

When the Dominicans were charged with the duty of persecution his earnest zeal naturally caused him to be selected as one of the earliest laborers. In 1233 he was sent to Milan, where, thus far, all the efforts of papal missives and legates had proved ineffectual to rouse the authorities and the citizens to undertake the holy work. The laws which, in 1228, Cardinal Goffredo had inscribed on the statute-book had remained a dead letter. All this was changed when Piero da Verona made his influence felt. Not only did he cause Gregory’s legislation of 1231 to be adopted in the municipal law, but he stimulated the podestà, Oldrado da Tresseno, and the archbishop, Enrico da Settala, to work in earnest. A number of heretics were burned, who were probably the first victims of fanaticism which Milan had seen since the time of the Cathari of Monforte. So strong was the impression made by these executions that they earned for the podestà Oldrado the honor of an equestrian portrait in bas-relief, with the inscription, “Qui solium struxit, Catharos ut debuit uxit,” which is still to be seen adorning the wall of the Sala del Consiglio, now the Archivio pubblico. It fared worse with the archbishop, who was rendered so unpopular that he was banished, for which the magistracy was duly excommunicated; but he, too, had posthumous reward, for his tomb bore the legend “instituto inquisitore jugulavit hœreses.” Piero likewise founded in Milan a company, or association, for the suppression of heresy, which was taken under immediate papal protection—the model of that which ten years later did such bloody work in Florence. We may safely assume that his fiery activity continued unabated, though we hear nothing of him until 1242, when we again find him in Milan so vigorously at work that he is said to have caused a sedition which nearly ruined the city.[232]

Two years later we meet him fighting heresy in Florence. That city, it will be remembered, was the subject of the earliest inquisitorial experiments, Frà Giovanni di Salerno, Prior of Santa Maria Novella, having been commissioned to prosecute heretics in 1228, and being succeeded after his death, in 1230, by Frà Aldobrandini Cavalcante, and about 1241 by Frà Ruggieri Calcagni. The first two of these accomplished little, being, in fact, rather preachers than inquisitors. The heretics were protected by the Ghibelline faction and the partisans of Frederic II., and heresy, far from decreasing, spread rapidly in spite of occasional burnings. When the Catharan Bishop Paternon fled, his position was successively held by three others, Torsello, Brunnetto, and Giacopo da Montefiascone. Many of the most powerful families were heretics or open defenders of heresy—the Baroni, Pulci, Cipriani, Cavalcanti, Saraceni, and Malpresa. The Baroni built a stronghold at San Gaggio, beyond the walls, which served as a refuge for the Perfected, and there were plenty of houses in the town where they could hold their conventicles in safety. The Cipriani had two palaces, one at Mugnone and the other in Florence, where troops of Cathari assembled under the leadership of a heresiarch named Marchisiano, and there were great schools at Poggibonsi, Pian di Cascia, and Ponte a Sieve.[233]

The whole of central Italy, in fact, was almost as deeply infected with heresy as Lombardy, and little had as yet been done to purify it. That as late as 1235 no comprehensive attempt had been made to establish the Inquisition is shown by a papal brief addressed in that year to the Dominicans of Viterbo, empowering them, in all the dioceses of Tuscany, Viterbo, Orta, Balneoreggio, Castro, Soano, Amerino, and Narni, to absolve heretics not publicly defamed for heresy, who should spontaneously accuse themselves, provided the bishops assented and sufficient bail were given; and the bishops were ordered to co-operate. Heretics not thus voluntarily confessing were to be dealt with according to the papal statutes. At Viterbo dwelt Giovanni da Benevento, who was called the pope of the heretics, but it was not until Gregory went thither in 1237 and undertook the task of purifying the place himself that any efficient action was taken; he condemned Giovanni and many other heretics, and ordered the palaces of some of the noblest families of the city to be torn down, as having afforded refuge to heretics. At the same time the Bishop of Padua was urged to persevere in the good work, and at Parma the Knights of Jesus Christ were instituted with the same object by Jordan, the Dominican general. All this indicates the commencement of systematic operations, and the pressure grew stronger year by year. Under the energetic management of Ruggieri Calcagni the Florentine Inquisition rapidly took shape and executions became frequent, while in the confessions of the accused allusions are made to heretics burned elsewhere, showing that persecution was becoming active wherever political conditions rendered it possible. Thus in a confession of 1244 there is a reference to two, Maffeo and Martello, burned not long before at Pisa.[234]

In Florence Frà Ruggieri’s vigor was reducing the heretics to desperation. Each trial revealed fresh names, and as the circle spread the prosecutions became more numerous and terrible. The Signoria was coerced by papal letters to enforce the citations of the inquisitor, and as the prisoners multiplied and their depositions were taken, fully a third of the citizens, including many nobles, were found to be involved. Excited by the magnitude of the developments, Ruggieri determined to strike at the chiefs, and, invoking the aid of the Priors of the Arts, he seized a number of them and condemned to the stake those who proved contumacious. The time had evidently come when they must choose between open resistance and destruction. The Baroni assembled their followers, broke open the jails, and carried off the prisoners, who were distributed through various strongholds in the Florentine territory, where they continued to preach and spread their doctrines.

Matters were rapidly approaching a crisis. On the one hand it was impossible for so large a body as the heretics to permit themselves to be slaughtered in detail with impunity, to say nothing of the spoliation and gratification of private feuds which could not fail to involve the innocent with the guilty in a persecution of such extent so recklessly pursued. On the other hand, the persecutors were maddened with excitement and with the prospects of at last triumphing over the adversaries who had so long defied them. Innocent IV. wrote pressingly to the Signoria commanding energetic support for the inquisitor, and he summoned from Lombardy Piero da Verona to lend his aid in the approaching struggle. Towards the end of 1244 Piero hastened to the conflict, and his eloquence drew such crowds that the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella had to be enlarged to accommodate the multitude. He utilized the enthusiasm by enrolling the orthodox nobles in a guard to protect the Dominicans, and formed a military order under the name of the Società de’’ Capitani di Santa Maria, uniformed in a white doublet with a red cross, and these led the organization known as the Compagnia della Fede, sworn to defend the Inquisition at all hazards, under privileges granted by the Holy See. Thus encouraged and supported, Ruggieri pushed forward the trials, and numbers of victims were burned. This was a challenge which the heretics could only decline under pain of annihilation. They likewise organized under the lead of the Baroni, and it was not difficult to persuade the podestà, Ser Pace di Pesannola of Bergamo, recently appointed by Frederic II., that the interest of his master required him to protect them. Thus the perennial quarrel between the Church and the empire filled the streets of Florence with bloodshed under the banners of orthodoxy and heterodoxy.

Ruggieri provoked the conflict without flinching. He cited the Baroni before him, and when they contemptuously refused to appear he procured a special mandate from Innocent IV. This they obeyed with the utmost docility, about August 1, 1245, swearing to stand to the mandates of the Church, and depositing one thousand lire as security; but when they understood that he was about to render sentence against them, they appealed to the podestà. Ser Pace thereupon sent his officers, August 12, to Ruggieri, ordering him to annul the proceedings as contrary to the mandate of the emperor, to return the money taken as bail, and, in case of contumacy, to appear the next day before the podestà under penalty of a thousand marks. Ruggieri’s only notice of this was a summons the next day to Ser Pace to appear before the Inquisition as suspect of heresy and fautorship, under pain of forfeiture of office. The fervid rhetoric of Frà Piero poured oil upon the flames, and the city found itself divided into two factions, not unequally matched and eager to fly at each other. Taking advantage of the assembling of the faithful in the churches on a feast-day, the podestà sounded the tocsin, and many unarmed Catholics are said to have been slaughtered before the altars. Then on St. Bartholomew’s day (August 24) Ruggieri and Bishop Ardingho, in the Piazza di S. Maria Novella, publicly read a sentence condemning the Baroni, confiscating their possessions, and ordering their castles and palaces to be destroyed, which naturally led to a bloody collision between the factions. Piero then placed himself at the head of the Compagnia della Fede, carrying a standard like the other captains, among whom the de’’ Rossi were the most conspicuous. Under his leadership two murderous battles were fought, one at the Croce al Trebbio and the other in the Piazza di S. Felicità, in both of which the heretics were utterly routed. Monuments still mark the scene of these victories; and, until recent times, the banner which San Piero gave to the de’’ Rossi was still carried by the Compagnia di San Piero Martire on the celebration of his birthday, April 29, while the one which he bore himself is preserved among the relics of Santa Maria Novella and is publicly displayed on his feast-day.

Thus was destroyed in Florence the power of the heretics and of the Ghibellines. Ruggieri, for his steadfast courage, was rewarded, before the close of 1245, with the bishopric of Castro, and was succeeded as inquisitor by San Piero himself, whose indefatigable zeal allowed the heretics no rest. Many of them, recognizing the futility of further resistance, abandoned their errors; others fled, and when Piero left Florence he could boast that heresy was conquered and the Inquisition established on an impregnable basis; though Rainerio’s estimate of the Florentine Cathari, some years later, shows that it still had an ample harvest to reward its labors.[235]

While Ruggieri, in the summer of 1245, was precipitating the conflict in Florence, Innocent IV., in the Council of Lyons, was passing sentence of dethronement on Frederic II. and trying to find some aspirant hardy enough to accept the imperial crown. Frederic laughed the sentence to scorn and easily disposed of his would-be competitors, but he was obliged to struggle hard to maintain his Italian possessions, and his death, December 13, 1250, relieved the papacy from the most formidable antagonist which its ambitious designs had ever encountered. Skilled equally in the arts of war and peace, untiring in activity, dismayed by no reverses, intellectually far in advance of his age, and encumbered with few scruples, Frederic’s brilliant abilities and indomitable courage had been the one obstacle in the papal path towards domination over Italy and the foundation on that basis of a universal theocratic monarchy. His son, Conrad IV., a youth of twenty-one, was scarce to be dreaded in comparison, though Innocent cautiously waited for a while in Lyons before venturing into Italy. After reaching Genoa, June 8, 1251, he addressed to Piero da Verona and Viviano da Bergamo a brief which shows that the intervening six months had not sufficed to dull the sense of rejoicing at the death of his great opponent, and that no more time was to be lost in taking full advantage of the opportunity. A dithyrambic burst of exultation is followed by the declaration that thanks to God for this inestimable mercy are to be rendered not so much in words as in deeds, and of these the most acceptable is the purification of the faith. Frederic’s favor towards heretics had long impeded the operations of the Inquisition throughout Italy, and now that he is removed it is to be put into action everywhere with all possible vigor. Inquisitors are to be sent into all parts of Lombardy; Piero and Viviano are ordered to proceed forthwith to Cremona, armed with all necessary powers; rulers who do not zealously assist them will be coerced with the spiritual sword, and, if this proves insufficient, Christendom will be aroused to destroy them in a crusade. This bull was followed by a rapid succession of others addressed to the Dominican provincials and to potentates, ordering strenuous co-operation, and the inscription in all local statutes of the constitutions of the dead emperor and of the popes—bulls issued in such haste that, June 13, 1252, the pope was obliged to explain that the blunders and omissions arising from the hurried work of the scribes are not to invalidate them. The whole was crowned, May 15, 1252, by the issue of the bull Ad extirpanda, of which I have given an abstract in a former chapter. This sought to render the civil power completely subservient to the Inquisition, and prescribed the extirpation of heresy as the chief duty of the State.[236]

Innocent’s mandate probably found Piero at the convent of San Giovanni in Canali at Piacenza, of which he was prior in 1250, and where his austerities so impressed his brethren that they begged his friend, Matteo da Correggio, pretor of the city, to induce him to moderate them, lest the flesh which he so persistently macerated should give way under the ardent spirit within. If, in fact, we are to believe the statement that he habitually never broke his fast before sunset, and that he passed most of the night in prayer, restricting his sleep to the least that was compatible with life, his career becomes easily intelligible. Deficiency of nourishment, replaced by unceasing and unnatural nervous exaltation, must have rendered him virtually an irresponsible being.[237]

We have no details of what he accomplished as inquisitor at Cremona, or at Milan to which he was afterwards transferred. It is presumable, however, that his relentless activity fully responded to the expectations of those who had selected him as the fittest instrument to take advantage, in the headquarters of heresy, of the unexpected opportunity to visit the now defenceless heretics with the wrath of God. Within nine months after he had been summoned to action he had already become such an object of terror that in despair a plot was laid for his assassination. The matter was intrusted to Stefano Confaloniero, a noble of Aliate, and the hire of the assassins, twenty-five lire, was furnished by Guidotto Sachella. The week before Easter (March 23-30), 1252, Stefano proposed the murder to Manfredo Clitoro of Giussano, who agreed to do it, and associated with him Carino da Balsamo. At the same time Giacopo della Chiusa undertook to go to Pavia to slay Rainerio Saccone, and made the journey, but failed to accomplish his mission. The other conspirators were more successful. Frà Piero at that time was Prior of Como, and went thither to pass his Easter. He was obliged to return to Milan on Low Sunday, April 7, as on that day expired the term of fifteen days which he had assigned to a contumacious heretic. During Easter week Stefano, with Manfredo and Carino, went to Como and awaited Piero’s departure. It shows the fearlessness and the austerity of the man that he set out on foot, April 7, though weakened with a quartain fever, and accompanied only by a single friar, Domenico. Manfredo and Carino followed them as far as Barlassina, and set upon them in a lonely spot. Carino acted as executioner, laying open Piero’s head with a single blow, mortally wounding Domenico, and then, finding that Piero still breathed, plunging a dagger in his breast. Some passing travellers carried the body of the martyr to the convent of San Sempliciano, while Domenico was conveyed to Meda, where he died five days afterwards. As for the conspirators, I have already alluded to the strange delay which postponed for forty-three years the final sentence of Stefano Confaloniero, and to the repentance and beatification of Carino, who became St. Acerinus. Daniele da Giussano, another of the confederates, also repented and entered the Dominican Order. Giacopo della Chiusa seems to have escaped, and Manfredo and a certain Tommaso were captured and confessed. Manfredo admitted that he had been concerned in the murder of two other inquisitors, Frà Pier di Bracciano and Frà Catalano, both Franciscans, at Ombraida in Lombardy. He was simply ordered to present himself to the pope for judgment, but in place of obeying he very naturally fled, and there is no record of his subsequent fate. No one seems to have been put to death, and common report asserted that the assassins found a safe refuge among the Waldenses of the Alpine valleys, which is not improbable.[238]

In fact, the Church made much shrewder use of the martyrdom than the exaction of vulgar vengeance. Its whole machinery was set to work at once to impress the populations with the sanctity of the martyr. Miracles multiplied around him. When the General Chapter of the Order assembled at Bologna in May, Innocent wrote to them in terms of the most extravagant hyperbole respecting him, and urged them to fresh exertions in the cause of Christ. By August 31, he ordered the commencement of proceedings of canonization, and before a year had elapsed, March 25, 1253, the bull of canonization was issued—I believe the most speedy creation of a saint on record. It would be difficult to exaggerate the cult which developed itself around the martyr. Before the century was out, Giacopo di Voragine compared his martyrdom with that of Christ, establishing many similitudes between them, and he assures us that the disappearance of heresy in the Milanese was owing to the merits of the saint—indeed, already, in the bull of canonization it is asserted that many heretics had been converted by his death and miracles. It is true that when, in 1291, Frà Tommaso d’Aversa, a Dominican of Naples, in a sermon on the feast of San Piero dared to compare his wounds with the stigmata of St. Francis—saying that the former were the signs of the living God and not of the dead, while the latter were those of the dead God and not of the living—it is true that the expression was thought to savor of blasphemy. The existing pope, Nicholas IV., chanced to be a Franciscan, so Tommaso was summoned before him, forced to confess, and was sent back to his provincial with orders to subject him to a punishment that would prevent a repetition of the sacrilege. Yet successive popes encouraged the cult of San Piero until Sixtus V., in 1586, designated him as the second head of the Inquisition after St. Dominic, and as its first martyr, and in 1588 granted plenary indulgence to all who should visit for devotion the Dominican churches on the days of St. Dominic, Peter Martyr, and Catharine of Siena. In the seventeenth century an enthusiastic Spaniard declared that he was crowned with three crowns, “como Emperador de Martyres.” In 1373, Gregory XI. granted permission to erect a small oratory on the spot of the murder, which grew to be a magnificent church with a splendid convent, through the offerings of the innumerable pilgrims who flocked thither. The authenticity of the martyr’s sanctity was proved when, in 1340, eighty-seven years after death, the body was translated to a tomb of marvellous workmanship, and was found in a perfect state of preservation; and when the sepulchre was opened in 1736 it was still found uncorrupted, with wounds corresponding exactly to those described in the annals.[239]

The enthusiasm excited by the career of San Piero was turned to practical account by the organization in most of the Italian cities of Crocesegnati, composed of the principal cavaliers, who swore to defend and assist the inquisitors at peril of their lives, and to devote person and property to the extermination of heretics, for which service they received plenary remission of all their sins. These associations were wont to assemble on the feast of San Piero in the Dominican churches, which were the seats of the Inquisition, and hold aloft their drawn swords during the reading of the Gospel, in testimony of their readiness to crush heresy with force. They continued to exist until the last century, and Frà Pier-Tommaso Campana, who was inquisitor at Crema, relates with pride how, in 1738, he presided over such a ceremony in Milan. The Crocesegnati, moreover, furnished material support to the inquisitors, supplying them when necessary with both men and money for the performance of their functions. In fact, they were subject to excommunication if they refused to give money when called upon by the inquisitor. It can readily be conceived how greatly the effectiveness of the Inquisition was increased by such an organization.[240]

If the heretics had hoped to strike their persecutors with terror they were short-sighted. The fanaticism of the Order of Dominic furnished an unfailing supply of men eager for the crown of martyrdom and unsparing in their efforts to earn it. Hardly were the splendid obsequies of San Piero completed when his place was occupied by Guido da Sesto and Rainerio Saccone da Vicenza. The latter had been high in the Catharan Church, when, divinely illuminated as to his errors, he was converted and expiated his past life by entering the strict Dominican Order. It was possibly in his favor that in 1246 Innocent IV. authorized the Dominican prior at Milan to admit repentant heretics into the Order without requiring the year’s novitiate that was imposed on Catholics. Thoroughly acquainted with all the secrets of heresy, he could render invaluable aid in persecuting his old associates, whom he pursued with all the ruthless bigotry of an apostate. He was speedily made an inquisitor, and earned an enviable reputation among the faithful by his vigor and success in exterminating heresy. The fact that, as we have seen, he was singled out with San Piero by the conspirators to be slain shows how thoroughly he had earned the hate of the persecuted. We know nothing of the details of the attempt upon his life save that Giacopo della Chiusa returned from Pavia with his errand unaccomplished. Rainerio was at once transferred to Milan as the man best fitted to replace the martyr, and he justified the selection by the unbending firmness with which he vindicated the authority of his office. It was still a novelty in Lombardy, and a man of his keen intelligence, strength of purpose, and self-devotion was required to organize it and establish it among a recalcitrant population.[241]

Heretics, in fact, were more numerous than ever in Lombardy, for the active work carried on in Languedoc by Bernard de Caux and his colleagues had caused a wholesale emigration. Until the death of Frederic, Lombardy was regarded as a secure haven; colonies established themselves there, and even after the Lombard Inquisition was thoroughly organized the persecuted wretches continued for half a century to seek refuge there, nor do we often hear of their being detected.[242] All of Rainerio’s resolution and energy were required for the work before him. In the March of Treviso, Ezzelin da Romano, whose influence extended far to the west, continued openly to protect heresy, and even in Lombardy the hopes excited by Frederic’s death threatened to prove fallacious. In 1253, when Conrad IV. passed through Treviso to recover possession of his Sicilian kingdom, he appointed as his Lombard vicar-general Uberto Pallavicino, who soon became as obnoxious to the Church as Ezzelin himself; and, though Conrad died in 1254, and Innocent IV. seized Naples as a forfeited fief of the Church, Pallavicino’s power continued to increase, and he soon established relations with Manfred, Frederic’s illegitimate son, who wrested Naples from the papacy and became the chief of the Ghibelline faction. Even more threatening was the revulsion of feeling in Milan itself, when its ardent Guelfism was changed to indifference by Innocent’s indiscreet assertion of certain ecclesiastical immunities which touched the pride of the citizens. The heads of the hydra might well seem indestructible.

One of Rainerio’s first enterprises, in 1253, was summoning Egidio, Count of Cortenuova, before his tribunal, as a fautor and defender of heresy. The castle of Cortenuova, near Bergamo, had been razed as a nest of heretics, and its reconstruction prohibited, but the count had seized the castle of Mongano, which was claimed by the Bishop of Cremona, and had converted it into a den of heretics, who enjoyed immunity under his protection. He disdained to obey the citation and was duly excommunicated. He paid no attention to this, and on March 23, 1254, Innocent IV. ordered the authorities of Milan, under pain of ecclesiastical censures, to take the castle by force and deliver its inmates to the inquisitors for trial. The count, however, was in close alliance with Pallavicino, “that enemy of God and the Church,” and the Milanese appear to have had no appetite for the enterprise at the time. Mongano continued to be a place of refuge for the persecuted until 1269, when the Milanese were at last stimulated to undertake the siege, and on capturing it handed it over to the Dominicans.[243]

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 imagine himself 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 bull Ad 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 an ordenamento was 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’s success, 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 themselves zealous 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 evident that 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 was twice 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 heresy by 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 trial in absentia was 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 preach a 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 Languedoc and 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 no impediments 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 to them 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 the north 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 Romagnola were 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 the consolamentum, 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 of each 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]