The Inquisition Founded
THE gradual organization of the Inquisition was simply a process of evolution arising from the mutual reaction of the social forces of the church and the secular powers. The Albigensian Crusades had put an end to open resistance, yet the heretics were none the less numerous, and, if less defiant, were only the more difficult to discover. There was an enormous spread of heresy during the twelfth century. Upon the Conquest of the Albigenses, and the taking their Countries and Cities, the Pope caused the Inquisition to proceed with greater Success. In the Year of our Lord, 1229, there was a Council at Tholouse, where many Statutes were made ; which were published there by Eamanus, Cardinal Deacon of St. Angelus, Legate of the Apostolic See. In the year, 1235, another Council was held at Narbonne, in which this affair was more fully discussed than at Tholouse. Afterwards, An. 1246. there was another Provincial Council at Birerre, when these things were more particularly settled.
And now the Pope labored with all his Might, to confer a greater Power on the Inquisitors, and to establish for them a Tribunal, in which they might sit, and pronounce Sentence of Heresy and Heretics, as Judges delegated from himself, and representing his Person.
Even the Emperor Frederick II himself, put forth many Laws against Heretics, their Accomplices and Favorers, by which he greatly promoted the Inquisition. In the first, which begins Commission Noblis, he ordains that those Heretics who were committed by the Church to the secular Court, Should be put to Death without Mercy: That Converts through Fear of Death, should be imprisoned. That Heretics, with their Abettors, wherever they were found, should be kept in Custody till they were punished according to the Sentence of the Church : That Persons convicted of Heresy, who had fled to other Places, should be taken up: That such as were relapsed should be punished with Death: That Heretics and their Favorers, Should be deprived of the Benefit of Appeal ; that their Posterity, to the second Generations, Should be incapable of all Benefices and Offices; but that their Heirs should be indemnified if they discovered their Parents Wickedness, And lastly, he takes under his imperial and special Protection, the predicate Friars, deputed for the Faith against Heretics, in all the Parts of the Empire, and all others who were sent for, and Should come for the Judgment of Heretics, commanding the Magistrates severely to punish all convicted Heretics, after Condemnation, by the Ecclesiastical Sentence.
In his second Edict, after expressing great Abhorrence of the Crime of Heresy, he commands all impenitent Heretics to be burned with Fire, and the Favorers of the Patarenes to be banished.
In his third, he deprives the Children of Heretics of their Honors, unless any of them should discover one of the Sect of the Patarenes; and puts Heretics themselves under the Ban, confiscating their Estates.
In his forth, he condemns all suspected Persons as Heretics, if they do not purge themselves within a Year ; commands his Officials to exterminate Heretics from all Places subject to them ; orders that the Lands of the Barons shall be seized by the Catholics, if they do not purge them from Heretics, within a Year after proper Admonition, and ordains many Punishments against the Favorers of Heretics, and the most severe ones against all who apostatizes from the Faith: But as the Office of the Inquisition was very much promoted by these Laws, ’tis worth while to give them entire.
—The following Presented here are meaningful and remarkable excerpts from the four Edicts made by Emperor Frederick II.
The first is this; The Care of the Imperial Government, committed to us from Heaven, and over which we preside, by the Gift of God, and the Height of our Dignity, demand the material Sword, which is given to us separately from the Priesthood, against the Enemies of the Faith, and for the Extirpation of heretical Pravity, that we shou1d pursue, with Judgment and Justice, those Vipers and perfidious Children, who insult the Lord and his Church, as though they would tear out the very Bowels of their Mother, We shall not suffer these Wretches to live, who infect the World by their seducing Doctrines, and being themselves corrupted, more grievously taint the Flock of The Faithful.
The Second edict of the Emperor Frederick: The Heretics are Endeavoring to rent the seamless Coat of our God, and raging with deceitful Words, which declare their schismatical intention, strive to divide the Unity of the indivisible Faith itself, and to separate the Sheep from The Care of Peter, to whom they were committed, by the Good Shepherd to be fed. These are the ravenous Wolves within who put on the Meekness of the Sheep, that they may the better enter into the Lord’s Sheepfold. Dated at Padua, Feb. 22.
The third Law is this: We condemn the Receivers, Accomplices, and Abettors of the Patarenes, to Forfeiture of their Goods and perpetual Banishment ; who by their Care to save others from Punishment have no Fear or Regard for the themselves.
The fourth Edict of the Emperor Frederick: We condemn to perpetual Infamy, withdraw our Protection from, and put under our Ban, the Puritans, Patarenes, Speromists, Leonists, Arnaldists, Circumcised, Passagines, Josepines, Garatenses, Albigenses, Francisci, Begardi, Commissi, Valdenses, Romanuli, Communelli, Varini, Ortuleni, those of Black Water, and all other Heretics of both Sexes, and of whatever.
Whatever was the Year of their [the four Edicts] Publication, ‘it is certain that the Inquisition was greatly promoted by them ; and that they were approved and confirmed, by some of the Popes Bulls in which they were inserted.
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