For many ages the method of proceeding against heretics was committed to the bishops, with whom the government and care of the churches were entrusted, according to the received decrees of the Romish church. But imagining that they did not proceed with sufficient severity against the opponents of the Romish faith, and especially against the Waldenses, the Pope had recourse to other methods for the purpose of more effectually extirpating heresy. With this view, Innocent, in the year 1204, instituted two orders of regulars, namely, those of St. Dominic and St. Francis. Dominic and his followers were sent into the country of Toulouse, where they preached with great vehemence against all who held opinions different from those of Rome; in consequence of which, the order of Dominic received the name of Predicants. Francis and his disciples acted a similar part in Italy. Both saints, as they are impiously called, were commanded by the Pope, "to excite the Catholic princes and people to extirpate heretics; in all places to inquire into their number and quality; and to transmit a faithful account to Rome." Hence they were called Inquisitors.
The erection of that extraordinary court, "the Inquisition," is, indeed, uniformly ascribed to Dominic, a man of the most blood-thirsty disposition, and whose deeds of cruelty may not unjustly be compared with those of the infamous Nero. Dominic was born at the village of Cabaroga, in Spain, in the year 1170. Previous to his birth, his mother, Joanna, is said to have dreamed that she was with child of a pup, carrying in its mouth a lighted torch; and after its birth, it put the world in an uproar by its fierce barkings, and at length set it on fire by the torch which it carried in its mouth. His followers have interpreted this dream, of his doctrine, by which he enlightened the world; while others, with far more reason, consider the torch to be an emblem of that fire and faggot by which an almost infinite multitude of persons were burnt to ashes. Dominic "was educated for the priesthood," says a modern writer, "and grew up the most fiery and the most bloody of mortals. Before his time, every bishop was a sort of Inquisitor in his own diocese; but Dominic contrived to incorporate a body of men, independent of every human being, except the Pope, for the express purpose of ensnaring and destroying Christians. He was well aware, that however loudly the priests declaimed against heresy, the lords of the soil would not suffer them to butcher their tenants under any such vain pretences. In Biscay, the priesthood was at a very low ebb in the eleventh century, and the clergy complained to the King of Navarre, that the nobility and gentry treated them very little better than their slaves, employing them chiefly only to breed up and feed their dogs. Nearly a century after that time in a neighbouring state, when the renowned St. Bernard began, in a sermon to a crowded audience to inveigh against heresy, the nobility and gentry all rose up and left the church, and the people followed them. The preacher came down and proceeded to the market-place, where he attempted to harangue on the same subject; but the populace, wiser than the preacher, refused to hear him, and raised such a clamour as drowned his voice, and compelled him to desist. Only one expedient remained. Bernard recollected that Jesus had ordered his apostles, in certain cases, to shake off the dust of their feet, and, as though he were an apostle, and had received the same command, he affected to imitate the example. He left the city, shook his feet, and exclaimed, "May the Almighty punish this city with a drought." Thus far went the rage of Catholicism at the beginning of the twelfth century, and here its proud waves were stayed; but at the commencement of the thirteenth, about the year 1215, [2] Dominic broke down the dam, and covered Toulouse with a tide of despotism stained with human blood. Posterity will scarcely believe that this enemy of mankind, after forming a race like himself, first called preaching, and then Dominican friars, died in his bed, was canonized as a saint, worshipped as a divinity, and proposed as a model of piety and virtue to succeeding generations."
The Inquisitors, at first, had no tribunals; they simply inquired after the number, strength, and riches of heretics, and gave information of all these particulars to the bishops, who at that time had the sole power of judging in ecclesiastical matters; urging them to anathematize, or otherwise to punish, such heretical persons as they brought before them. Sometimes they excited princes to arm their subjects against those whom they denounced as heretics, and at other times they inflamed the populace to take up arms and unite in extirpating them. Nay, in his zeal for the Popish faith, Dominic, amidst a vast concourse of people, in one of his sermons openly declared, "That he was raised to a new office by the Pope; that he was resolved to defend with all his power the doctrines of the faith; and that, if spiritual and ecclesiastical weapons were not sufficient for this purpose, it was his fixed determination to call on princes to take up arms against heretics, that their very memory might be entirely destroyed. Nor was this an empty threat. Instigated by this inhuman monk, and by his adherents, armies were raised, styled cross-bearers, or crusaders, who massacred thousands of the Albigenses, laid their cities in ruins, and compelled the few who escaped to seek refuge in other parts of the world."
In course of time the Inquisitors took cognizance of other crimes, from their being supposed to have some affinity with, or to bear suspicion of, heresy: such as heretical blasphemy, witchcraft, belief in omens, confessional seduction, and even polygamy. "The original simplicity of the Inquisition," says Dr. M'Crie, "soon gave place to a system of the most complicated and iniquitous circumvention. Inflamed with a passion for extirpating heresy, and persuading themselves that the end sanctified the means, they, (the Inquisitors) not only acted upon, but formally laid down as a rule for their conduct, maxims founded on the grossest deceit and artifice, according to which they sought in every way to ensnare their victims, and by means of false statements, delusory promises, and a tortuous course of examination, to betray them into confessions which proved fatal to their lives and fortunes. To this mental torture was soon after added the use of bodily tortures, together with the concealment of the names of witnesses."
Innocent died in 1216, and was succeeded by Honorius III. who used every effort to give permanency to the Inquisition; which was not, however, accomplished till 1227 under the pontificate of Gregory IX.
The growth of the Inquisition was very gradual, and not a few obstacles had to be surmounted previous to its complete establishment in the different popish countries of Europe. Two objections in particular were raised against its erection; the one, that it was an encroachment on the authority of the bishop of the place; the other, that it deprived the civil magistrate of the trial and punishment of heretics, a privilege which he formerly enjoyed. To remove the first of these difficulties, the Pope appointed the bishop of the place to act in concert with the Inquisitor: this, however, was but a name, the Inquisitor having the sole power lodged in his hands. To remedy the second, the civil magistrate was allowed to appoint the subordinate officers, and to inflict the legal punishment, after trial and condemnation by the Inquisitors. [3]
Notwithstanding the opposition of the people to this novel tribunal, therefore the Popes, aided by the sovereigns of Europe, not only obtained its erection, but additional authority to the Inquisitors. These hitherto unprecedented judges were soon afterwards empowered, as the representatives of the Pope, to sit and pronounce sentence on those whom they stigmatized by the name of heretics. Their efforts were greatly assisted by Frederick II., King of the Romans, who, in 1224, issued no fewer than four edicts against heresy, addressed "to his beloved princes, the venerable archbishops, bishops, and other prelates of the Church; to the dukes, marquises, earls, barons, governors, judges, ministers, and all other his faithful subjects throughout the empire." In these edicts "he takes the Inquisitors under his protection, imposes on obstinate heretics the punishment of being burnt to death, and of perpetual imprisonment