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
In Portugal, Affonso II., at the commencement of his reign, in 1211, had
manifested his zeal by inducing his Cortes to adopt severe laws for the
repression of heresy; but when Sueiro Gomes, the first Dominican
Provincial of Spain, endeavored to introduce in his kingdom inquisitors
of the order, Affonso refused to admit them, and successfully insisted
that heretics should be tried as heretofore by the ordinary episcopal
courts. This rebuff sufficed for nearly a century and a half, and there
must have been considerable freedom of thought, for, about 1325, Alvaro
Pelayo gives a long list of the errors publicly defended in the schools
of Lisbon by Thomas Scotus, a renegade friar. Their nature may be
appreciated from his Averrhoistic assertion that there had been three
deceivers--Moses who deceived the Jews, Christ the Christians, and
Mahomet the Saracens. He seems to have enjoyed immunity until he
declared that St. Antony of Padua kept concubines, when the Franciscan
prior had him incarcerated, and his trial followed. At last, by a bull,
dated January 17, 1376, Gregory XI. authorized Agapito Colonna, Bishop
of Lisbon, to appoint, for this time only, a Franciscan inquisitor, as
heresies were known to be spreading, and there were no inquisitors in
the kingdom. The nominee was to receive an annual salary of two hundred
gold florins assessed upon all the dioceses in the proportion of their
contributions to the apostolic chamber. Under this authority Agapito
appointed the first Portuguese inquisitor, Martino Vasquez. From what we
have seen elsewhere we may reasonably doubt his success in collecting
his stipend; but, small as his receipts may have been, they were the
equivalent of his service, for no trace of any labors performed by him
remains.[209]
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