If it may still be felt that there is some doubt regarding the personal feeling of Gregory IX about Frederick II’s action, there can be no doubt at all as to his successor, Innocent IV, who gave complete pontifical sanction to the Constitutions by inscribing them _in extenso_ in a bull entitled _Cum adversus haereticam pravitatem_, issued in 1245.[323] The Church did more than simply give its formal approval to secular legislation against heresy: it saw to it that the lay authority put its legislation into practice. It was for the Church to seek out, arrest, examine and condemn the heretic; it was the function of the State to free the Church from the guilt of blood by arranging for the actual execution of the impenitents, the canon thus being reconciled with harsh necessity. Apportionment of its duties in the matter of heresy to the State by the Church was no new thing in the days of Gregory and Innocent. The resolutions of earlier councils had referred significantly to the danger of popular revolutions, did not the secular authority play its part, and had threatened that disobedient lords might find their lands and goods given away to others more zealous or more prudent.[324] The decree of Verona (1184) had claimed excommunication as the penalty for failure to execute the imperial laws (at that time those of Barbarossa) against heretics; and the Fourth Council of the Lateran, enjoining an oath upon all secular rulers that they will banish all heretics from their lands, declares their vassals to be absolved from fidelity in the case of non-compliance.[325]