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
the contest between the inquisitor and the secular clergy seriously
threatened the peace of the city. In 1300 Boniface appointed a
commission to make a thorough investigation, with power to decide
finally, and in 1301 sentence was rendered to the effect that Armanno
had died a relapsed heretic; that no one should believe him to be
anything but a heretic; that his bones should be exhumed and burned, the
sarcophagus containing them and the altar erected before it be
destroyed; that all statues, images, ex-votos, and other offerings set
up in his honor in the cathedral and other Ferrarese churches should be
removed within ten days; and that all his property, real and personal,
was confiscated to the Inquisition, any sales or conveyances made of
them during the thirty-two years which had elapsed since his death being
void. Frà Guido’s triumph was complete, and on the death of the Bishop
of Ferrara, in 1303, he was rewarded with the episcopate. Extraordinary
as this case may seem, it was not unique. At Brescia a heresiarch named
Guido Lacha was long adored as a saint by the people until the imposture
was detected by the Inquisition, which caused his bones to be dug up and
burned.[269]
This was the period of the greatest power and activity of the
Inquisition, and the extent of its perfected organization is shown in a
document of 1302, wherein Frà Guido da Tusis, Inquisitor of Romagnola,
publishes in the communal council of Rimini the names of thirty-nine
officials whom he has selected as his assistants. The expenses of such a
body could not have been light, and to defray them there must have been
a constant stream of fines and confiscations pouring into the
inquisitorial treasury, showing an abundant harvest of heresy and active
work in its suppression.[270] It was probably between 1320 and 1330 that
was produced the treatise of Zanghino Ugolini, so often quoted above.
Frà Donato da Sant’ Agata had been appointed Inquisitor of Romagnola,
and the learned jurisconsult of Rimini drew up for his instruction a
summary of the rules governing inquisitorial procedure, which is one of
the clearest and best manuals of practice that we possess.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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