Some people fancy they see the original inquisition, in a constitution made by Pope Lucius, at the council of Verona, in 1184, where he orders the bishops to get information, either by themselves or by their commissaries, of all such persons as were suspected of heresy; and distinguishes the several degrees of suspected, convicted, penitent, relapsed, &c. However this may be, it is generally allowed, that Pope Innocent III., laid the first foundation of the _holy office_; and that the Vaudois and Albigenses were what gave the occasion to it. The pontiff sent several priests, with St. Dominic at their head, to Tholouse, in order to blow up a spirit of zeal and persecution amongst the prelates and princes. These missionaries were to give an account of the number of heretics in those parts, and the behaviour of the princes and persons in authority to them; and thence they acquired the names of inquisitors: but these original inquisitors had not any court, or any authority; they were only a kind of spiritual spies, who were to make report of their discoveries to the Pope. The Emperor Frederick II. at the beginning of the 13th century, extended their power very considerably: he committed the taking cognizances of the crime of heresy, to a set of ecclesiastical judges; and as fire was the punishment decreed to the obstinate, the inquisitors determined indirectly, with regard both to the persons and the crimes; by which means the laity was cut off from its own jurisdiction, and abandoned to the devout madness and zeal of the ecclesiastics. After the death of Frederick, who had long before repented the power he had given the churchmen, as having seen some of the fruits of it; Pope Innocent IV. erected a perpetual tribunal of inquisitors, and deprived the bishops and secular judges of the little power the Emperor Frederick had left them. And this jurisdiction, which depended immediately on himself, he took care to introduce into most of the states of Europe. But the inquisitors were so fiery hot, and made such horrid butchery among the reputed heretics, that they raised an universal detestation, even in some Catholic countries themselves. Hence it was that their reign proved very short both in France and Germany; nor was even Spain entirely subject to them till the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1448, when their power was increased, under the pretence of clearing the country of Judaism and Mahometanism. The power of the inquisition is very much limited in some countries, particularly at Venice, where it is received under such modifications as prove a great check on its authority. Indeed at Venice it seems rather a political than a religious contrivance, and serves rather for the security of the state, than that of the church. There are appeals from the subaltern inquisitions in Italy, to the congregation of the holy office at Rome.