Note 3 — INTRODUCTION
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The court before which Jeanne was brought to trial at Rouen was not a court of the Holy Office or Inquisition, neither was it, as the English courts for the trial of heresy were in Lancastrian times, a statutable court of ecclesiastical jurisdiction on whose decision, certified by the bishop, the sheriff was bound to act. It was a composite tribunal. The Bishop of Beauvais claimed and exercised jurisdiction as Ordinary. But the Deputy Inquisitor was joined with him as co-ordinate judge with officers of his own.
The Inquisition arose out of the troubles in Spain and South France, where heresy was to some extent necessarily a kind of treason to the polity of Christian Europe. Men were punished for heretical opinions, but these heretical opinions were in most cases lapses from allegiance at a time of national peril. The later Inquisition has no such excuse.