Note 272 — Chapter V · POLITICAL HERESY UTILIZED BY THE STATE.
Reading edition
Règle et Statuts secrets, §81, p. 314; §124, p. 448.—Wilkins Concilia II. 338.—Procès des Templiers, I. 186-7, 454; II. 139, 153, 195-6, 223, 440, 445, 471.—S. Damiani Lib. Gomorrhian.—Guillel. Nangiac. ann. 1120.—Alani de Insulis Lib. de Planctu Naturæ.—Gualt. Mapes de Nugis Curialium I. xxiv.—Prediche del B. Frà Giordano da Rivalto, Firenze, 1831, I. 230.—Regest. Clement. PP. V.T. V. p. 259 (Ed. Benedictin. Romæ, 1887).—Alvar. Pelag. de Planct. Eccles. Lib. II. Art. ii. fol. lxxxiii.—Mémoires de Jacques Du Clercq, Liv. III. ch. 42; Liv. IV. ch. 3.—Rogeri Bacon Compend. Studii Philosophiæ cap. ii. (M.R. Series I. 412).
Unnatural crime was subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction and the punishment was burning alive (Très Ancien Cout. de Bretagne, Art. 112, 142 ap. Bourdot de Richebourg, IV. 227, 232.—Statuta Criminalia Mediolani e tenebris in lucem edita, cap. 51, Bergomi, 1594). An instance of the infliction of the penalty by secular justice is recorded at Bourges in 1445 (Jean Chartier, Hist. de Charles VII. Ed. Godefroy, p. 72), and another at Zurich in 1482 (V. Anshelm, Die Berner Chronik, Bern, 1884, I. 221), though in 1451 Nicholas V. had subjected the crime to the Inquisition (Ripoll III. 301). D’Argentré says “Hæc pœna toto regno et vulgo statutis Italiæ indicitur per civitates, sed pene irritis legibus” (Comment. Consuetud. Duc. Britann. p. 1810). In England it was a secular crime, punishable by burning alive (Horne, Myrror of Justice, cap. IV. § 14) and in Spain by castration and lapidation (El Fuero real de España, Lib. IV. Tit. ix. l. 2).
The gossiping experiences in Syria and Italy of Antonio Sicci da Vercelli, as related before the papal commission in March, 1311, show the popular belief that there was a terrible secret in the Order which none of its members dared reveal (Procès, I. 644-5).
It is perhaps a coincidence that in 1307 the Teutonic Order was likewise accused of heresy by the Archbishop of Riga. Its Grand Master, Carl Beffart, was summoned by Clement, and with difficulty averted from his Order the fate of the Templars.—Wilcke, II. 118.