Chapter IV: Italy (2)

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]

Thus heresy, deprived of all protection, was gradually stamped out, and the Inquisition established its power in every corner of the land. How that power was abused to oppress the faithful with ingeniously devised schemes of extortion we have already seen. In fact, in the territories which had once been Ghibelline, it was impossible for any man, no matter how rigid his orthodoxy, to be safe from prosecution if he chanced to provoke the ill-will of the officials, or possessed wealth to excite their cupidity. So successful had the Church been in confounding political opposition with heresy that the mere fact of having adhered of necessity to Ezzelin during the period of his unquestioned domination long continued sufficient to justify prosecution for heresy, entailing the desirable result of confiscation. When Ezzelin's generation passed away, the memory of the dead was assailed and the descendants were disinherited. In all this there was no pretence of errors of faith, but the men to whom the Church intrusted the awful powers of the Inquisition seemed implacably determined to erase from the land every trace of those who had once dared to resist its authority. At last, in 1304, the authorities of Vicenza appealed to Benedict XI. no longer to allow the few survivors of Ezzelin's party and their descendants to be thus cruelly wronged, and the pope graciously granted their petition. By this time the empire was but a shadow; Ghibellinism represented no living force that the papacy could reasonably dread, and its persecution had long been merely the gratification of greed or malice.[264]

The triumph of the Inquisition had not been effected wholly without resistance. In 1277 Frà Corrado Pagano undertook a raid against the heretics of the Valtelline. It was, doubtless, organized on an extended scale, for he took with him two associates and two notaries. This would indicate that heretics were numerous; the event showed that they did not lack protectors, for Corrado da Venosta, one of the most powerful nobles of the region, cut short the enterprise by slaughtering the whole party, on St. Stephen's day, December 26. Pagano had been a most zealous persecutor of heresy, and when his body was brought to Como it lay there for eight days before interment, with wounds freshly bleeding, showing that he was a martyr of God, and justifying the title bestowed on him by his Dominican brethren of St. Pagano of Como. His relics are still preserved there and are the objects of a local cult. Nicholas III. made every effort to avenge the murder, even invoking the assistance of Rodolf of Hapsburg, and his joy was extreme when, in November, 1279, the podestà and people of Bergamo succeeded in capturing Corrado and his accomplices. He at once ordered their delivery, under safe escort, to the inquisitors, Anselmo da Alessandria, Daniele da Giussano, and Guidone da Coconate, who were instructed to inflict a punishment sufficient to intimidate others from imitating their wickedness, and all the potentates of Lombardy were commanded to co-operate in their safe conveyance.[265]

The same year that justice was thus vindicated, a popular ebullition in Parma shows how slender was the hold which the Inquisition possessed on the people. Frà Florio had been diligent in the exercise of his functions, and we are told that he had burned innumerable heretics, when, in 1279, he chanced at Parma to have before him a woman guilty of relapse. It was a matter of course to condemn her to relaxation, and she was duly burned. In place of being piously impressed by the spectacle the Parmesans were inspired by Satan to indignation which expressed itself by sacking the Dominican convent, destroying the records of the Inquisition, and maltreating the friars so that one of them died within a few days. The Dominicans thereupon abandoned the ungrateful city, marching out in solemn procession. The magistrates showed singular indifference as to punishing this misdeed, and when summoned by the Cardinal Legate of Ostia, the representatives who presented themselves lacked the necessary authority, so that, after vainly waiting for satisfaction, he laid an interdict upon the city. This was not removed till 1282, and even then the guilty were not punished. In 1285 we find Honorius IV. taking up the matter afresh and summoning the Parmesans to send delegates to him within a month to receive sentence; what that sentence was does not appear, but in 1287 the humbled citizens petitioned the Dominicans to return, received them with great honor, and voted them one thousand lire, in annual instalments of two hundred lire, wherewith to build a church. So stubborn was the opposition elsewhere to the Inquisition and its ways, that in 1287 the Provincial Council of Milan still deemed it necessary to decree that any member of a municipal government in any city within the province who should urge measures favoring heretics should be deemed suspect of heresy, and should forfeit any fiefs or benefices held of the Church.[266]

Even in the Patrimony of St. Peter resistance was not wholly at an end. In 1254, when the papacy was triumphant, Innocent IV. urged the inquisitors of Orvieto and Anagni to take advantage of the propitious time and act with the utmost vigor. In 1258 Alexander IV. sounded the alarm that heresy was increasing even in Rome itself, and he pressingly urged increased activity on the inquisitors and greater zeal in their support by the bishops. Their efforts were not wholly successful. Twenty years later a knight named Pandolfo still made his stronghold of Castro Siriani, near Anagni, a receptacle of heretics. Frà Sinibaldo di Lago, the inquisitor of the Roman province, made various ineffectual attempts to prosecute him, and in 1278 Nicholas III. sent his notary, Master Benedict, with offers of pardon in return for obedience, but the heretics were obdurate, and Nicholas was forced to order Orso Orsini, Marshal of the Church in Tuscany, to levy troops and give Frà Sinibaldo armed assistance sufficient to enable him to coerce them to penitence. A similar enterprise against the Viterbian noble, Capello di Chia, in 1260, has already been described (Vol. I. p. 342). In this case the zeal of the Viterbians, who levied an army to assist the inquisitor, must have had some political motive, for their city was of evil repute in the matter of heresy. In 1265, encouraged by the assistance of Manfred, the people had risen against the Inquisition and had only been subdued after a bloody fight in which two friars were slain. In 1279 Nicholas expresses his regret that although, while he had been inquisitor-general, he had labored strenuously to purge Viterbo of heresy, his labors had been unsuccessful. Heretics were still concealed there, and the whole city was infected. Frà Sinibaldo was therefore ordered to go thither to make a thorough inquisition of the place.[267]