The earliest name I have met with bearing the title of Inquisitor of Lombardy is that of a Frà Alberico in 1232. The Cardinal Legate Goffredo, whom we have seen busy in Milan, undertook to quiet civil strife in Bergamo, with the consent of all factions, by appointing as podestà Pier Torriani of Milan; and at the same time he seized the opportunity to make a raid on heretics, a number of whom he cast into prison. No sooner was his back turned than the citizens refused to receive his podestà, elected in his place a certain R. di Madello, and, what was worse, set at liberty the captive heretics. Thereupon the legate placed the city under interdict, which brought the people to their senses, and they agreed to stand to the mandate of the Church. Gregory accordingly, November 3, 1232, instructed Alberico, as Inquisitor of Lombardy, to reconcile the city on condition that the people refund to Pier Torriani all his expenses and give sufficient security to exterminate heresy. Here we see how intimate were the relations between politics and heresy, and what difficulties the alliance threw in the way of persecution.[223] Frà Rolando da Cremona we have already met as professor in the inchoate University of Toulouse, and we have seen how rigid and unbending was his zeal. Hardly had he quitted Langueduc when we find him, in 1233, already actively at work in the congenial duty of suppressing heresy at Piacenza. The twenty-five years which had elapsed since the Piacenzans had shown themselves so indifferent to their spiritual privileges had not greatly increased their respect for orthodoxy. Rolando assembled them, preached to them, and then ordered the podestà to expel the heretics. The result did not correspond to his expectations. With the connivance of the podestà, the heretics and their friends arose and made a general onslaught on the clergy, including the bishop and the friars, in which a monk of San Sabino was slain and Rolando and some of his comrades were wounded. The Dominicans carried Rolando half-dead from the city, which was placed under interdict by the bishop. Then a revulsion of feeling occurred; Rolando was asked to return, and full satisfaction was promised. He prudently kept away, but ordered the imprisonment of the podestà and twenty-four others till the pleasure of the pope should be known. Gregory took advantage of the opportunity by sending thither the Archdeacon of Novara, with instructions to place the city under control of the orthodox party, taking ample security that the heretics should be suppressed; but this arrangement did not please the citizens, who rose again and liberated the prisoners. Sharp as was this experience, it did not dull the edge of Rolando’s zeal, for the next year we find him at work in the Milanese, where he received rough treatment at the hands of Lantelmo, a noble who sheltered heretics in his castle near Lodi. For this Lantelmo was condemned to be led through