A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume IILea, Henry Charles
History
A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume II
Lea, Henry Charles
Inquisition -- History
Still more emphatic as to the supreme authority of the Parlement was the
case of Marie du Canech of Cambrai, to which I have already had occasion
to refer. For maintaining that when under oath she was not bound to tell
the truth to the prejudice of her honor, she was prosecuted for heresy
by the Bishop of Cambrai and Frère Nicholas de Péronne, styling himself
deputy of the inquisitor-general or Provincial of Paris. Being severely
mulcted, she appealed to the Archbishop of Reims, as the metropolitan,
and he issued inhibitory letters. Then the bishop and inquisitor
appealed from the archbishop to the Parlement. The matter was
elaborately argued on both sides, the archbishop alleging that there was
at that time no inquisitor in France, and drawing a number of subtle
distinctions. The Parlement had no hesitation in accepting jurisdiction
over this purely spiritual question. It paid no attention to the
cautious arguments of the archbishop, but decided broadly that the
bishop and inquisitor had no grounds for disobeying the citation of the
archbishop evoking the case to his own court, and it condemned them in
costs. Thus the ancient supremacy of the episcopal jurisdiction was
reasserted over that of the Inquisition.[150]
The Great Schism, followed by the councils of Constance and Basle, did
much to shake the papal power on which that of the Inquisition was
founded. The position of Charles VII. towards Rome was consistently
insubordinate, and the Pragmatic Sanction which he published in 1438
secured the independence of the Gallican Church, and strengthened the
jurisdiction of the Parlement. When Louis XI. abrogated it, in 1461, the
remonstrances of his Parlement form a singularly free-spoken indictment
of papal vices, and that body continued to treat the instrument as
practically in force, while Louis himself, by successive measures of
1463, 1470, 1472, 1474, 1475, and 1479, gradually re-established its
principles. Had not the Concordat of Francis I., in 1516, swept it away,
when he conspired with Leo X. to divide the spoils of the Church, it
would eventually have rendered France independent of Rome. Francis knew
so well the opposition which it would excite that he hesitated for a
year to submit the measure to his Parlement for registration, and the
Parlement deferred the registration for another year, till at last the
negotiator of the concordat, Cardinal Duprat, brought to bear sufficient
pressure to accomplish the object. During the discussion the University
had the boldness to protest publicly against it, and to lodge with the
Parlement an appeal to the next general council.[151]
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