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
Few details have been preserved to us of the activity of the Inquisition
in Naples. We know that heretics continued to exist there, but the wild
and mountainous character of much of the country doubtless afforded them
abundant opportunities of safe asylum. Already, in August, 1269, a
letter of Charles ordering the seizure of sixty-eight heretics
designated by Frà Benvenuto shows that the work was being energetically
prosecuted, and in another letter of March 14, 1270, there is an
allusion to three others whom Frà Matteo di Caetellamare had recently
caused to be burned in Benevento. The inquisitors of Languedoc,
moreover, made haste, as early as 1269, to send agents to Naples to hunt
the refugees whom their severity had driven there, and Charles ordered
every assistance to be rendered to them, which, perhaps, explains the
success of Frà Benvenuto. Yet the perpetual necessity for royal
interposition leads to the inference that the Inquisition was not nearly
so effective in Naples as it proved in Languedoc and Lombardy. The royal
authority seems to be required at every turn, partly because the king
allowed little independent initiative to the inquisitors, and partly,
perhaps, because the local officials did not lend as hearty a
co-operation as they might have done. Thus the Neapolitan Inquisition,
even under the Angevines, seems never to have attained the compact and
effective organization of which we have seen the results elsewhere,
though Charles II. was an eager persecutor who stimulated the zeal of
his inquisitors, and his son Robert earned the name of the Pious. In
1305 we shall see Frà Tommaso di Aversa active in persecuting the
Spiritual Franciscans, and in 1311, King Robert, at the instance of Frà
Matteo da Ponza, ordered that all newly converted Jews should live
scattered among Christians, so as not to be tempted back to
Judaism.[278]
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