We have here a method of enforced delation, the bishop proceeding upon the evidence so obtained (_diffamatio_) without the formalities of the _accusatio_. In other words the bishops are to make an _inquest_, so that from this date, 1184, we have in existence an episcopal inquisition.[290] The decree does not appear to have been very effective, and after the Albigensian Crusades—it being necessary to follow that success by the institution of systematic prosecution of heresy for fear of the recurrence of trouble[291]—similar regulations were made by Councils, sitting at Avignon in 1209 and at Montpellier in 1215, also in the Fourth Council of the Lateran of the latter year. There was a new feature in the introduction of a priest in addition to a trustworthy layman as informer against heretics.[292] The Council of Narbonne (1227) went a step further in ordering the bishops to appoint in each parish _testes synodales_, to make diligent enquiry concerning heresy and other matters and give information to their bishops.[293] The phrase ‘synodal witness’ is new, though it may easily designate the same persons as those nominated by the previous councils. However this may be, the ‘synodal witnesses’ are entrusted with a new duty. They are not merely to inform, but to search out. This advance was to be anticipated; the informer easily blossoms out into the detective. Here we have a system of local Inquisition, which is enjoined again by a Council sitting at Toulouse two years later, which requires the synodal witnesses to visit all suspected houses and hiding-places.[294] It is doubtful whether the orders of these two Councils were ever acted upon. In any case, not even the most well-intentioned reform of their procedure could make the episcopal courts satisfactory for the trial of heresy. The bishops are repeatedly urged to bestir themselves even on pain of deprivation.[295] The fact was that some special machinery had to be devised. On the other hand, the authorization of the system of Inquisition was of the utmost importance. It was fully recognized by Innocent III, who in his Decretals carefully distinguished it from the two other judicial methods of _accusatio_ and _denuntiatio_.[296] Innocent was not thinking only, or perhaps mainly, of heresy in introducing a new judicial method—but of clerical reform. Even when the offence of a prelate was a matter of common notoriety it was difficult to bring the crime home to him when the system of _accusatio_ required the concurrence of seventy-two witnesses. That system sheltered the high in office; and it was therefore, from the reformer’s point of view, defective. The greatest of the popes had given his imprimatur to a system, which beginning in the ecclesiastical courts, was, owing to its manifest advantages, destined to make a triumphal progress in the temporal courts also, eventually supplanting the system of _accusatio_ altogether.