§ 87. THE INQUISITION. PROCEDURE AND PENALTIES. 525
in Salem, together with the laws of Virginia and other colo nies, were the unfortunate survivals of the vicious history of the Middle Ages, which forgot Christ's example as he wept over Jerusalem, and the Apostle's words, " vengeance is mine, I will repay," saith the Lord.
So far as we know, the Roman Catholic Church has never officially revoked the theory and practice of the mediaeval popes and councils, but on the contrary the utterances of Piux IX. and Leo XIII. show the same spirit of vicious reprobation for Protestants and their agencies.
§ 87. The Inquisition. Its Mode of Procedure and Penalties.
The Inquisition was called the Holy Office — sanctum offidum — from the praiseworthy work it was regarded as being engaged in. Its chief officials, the Inquisitors, were exempted by Alexander IV., 1259, and Urban IV., 1262, from all ecclesiastical jurisdiction, whether bishops, archbishops, or papal legates, except the jurisdiction of the Apostolic l see, and from all interference by the secular power. They also enjoyed the right to excommunicate, lay the interdict, and to absolve their agents for acts of violence.2 The methods of procedure offend against all our modern ideas of civil justice. The testimony of wives and children was valid or required3 and also of persons known to be criminals. Suspicion and public rumor were sufficient grounds of com plaint, seizure, and formal proceedings, a principle clearly stated by the council of Toulouse, 1229, in its eighteenth canon, and recognized by the state. The Sicilian Constitu tions of 1231, ordered that heretics be diligently hunted out and, when there " was only the slightest suspicion of guilt," they were to be taken before the bishop.4 The intention, as opposed to the outward commission, was made a sufficient
1 See the presentation of Bernard Guy, pp. 209-211.
'2Ad exstirpanda, 1252, two bulls of Alexander IV., 1257, 1260, council of Vienne, 1312, etc.
3Eymericus II., 110, 199, etc., as quoted by Flade, p. 54. 4 Bre"holles, IV. 5 sqq.
526 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
ground of accusation. The Inquisitor might at the same time be police, prosecutor, and judge.
It is due to Innocent III. to say that he did not invent the inquisitorial mode of procedure, but drew it from the practice already in vogue in the state.1
A party, not answering a citation within a year, was declared a heretic even when no proofs were advanced. Like wise, one who harbored a heretic forty days after a warning was served was treated as a heretic.2 At the trials, the utmost secrecy was observed and names of the accusers were not divulged. In commending this measure of secrecy, Paramo declared that the example was set by God himself in carrying out the first inquisition, in the garden of Eden, to defeat the subtlety of Satan who otherwise might have communicated with Adam and Eve.
Penitent heretics, if there was any doubt of their sin cerity, were obliged to change their places of abode and, ac cording to the synod of Toulouse, if they belonged to the Perfect, had to do so in all cases. The penances imposed were fines, which were allowed by papal decree as early as 1237 and 1245, pilgrimages, and wearing of two crosses on the left and right side of the body called the poena confusibilis.
The pilgrimage to Jerusalem was forbidden by a synod of Narbonne. 1243, which referred to a recent papal deliverance prohibiting it, that the sacred places might be protected against the infection of heresy. Young women were often ex-
1 Schmidt, in his Herkunft d. Inquisitionsprocesses, finds the begin nings of the inquisitorial mode of procedure in the legislation of Charle magne. The element of inqitisitio came to dominate in the legal procedure of all Western F,urope, except England. Its leading feature was that public fame or suspicion — publicafama, malafama, clamor publicus, infamia, etc., — justifies magistrates in seizing the suspect and instituting trial. The Nor mans attempted in vain to introduce it into England, where the Magna Charta established a different principle. The Normans, however, carried the inquisition with them to Southern Italy, where Frederick II. found it in vogue. Innocent, a student of canon law, found it exactly to his purpose to adopt the inquisitorial mode of procedure.
'2 Physicians were forbidden to practise medicine on persons suspected of heresy and were forced to take oath not to defend it. Synods of Toulouse. 1229; Beziers, 1246 ; Albi, 1254.