In Aragon[349] persecution was originally organized by the state, both Alfonso II and Pedro II promulgating severe legislation against heresy, though a sort of Inquisition, consisting partly of clergy, partly of laity, was established by a statute issued at Tarragona in 1233. The real beginnings of the Inquisition in Aragon are, however, to be traced from the intervention of the redoubtable Raymond of Peñaforte, a year or two after this. He was instrumental in introducing members of his own order to deal with heresy; and in 1238 Gregory IX entrusted the prosecution of heretics to the Mendicant orders in Aragon. In 1242 a very important Council held at Tarragona formulated rules of procedure for the guidance of inquisitors.[350] The Aragonese Inquisition did not, however, show great activity until the opening of the fourteenth century. Its activity then produced popular protest, and in 1325 the Cortes, with the royal assent, prohibited inquisitorial methods of torture. It is doubtful if this was intended to apply to ecclesiastical as well as lay courts. If it was, it had no lasting results, as can be seen from Eymeric’s ‘Directorium.’[351] This very remarkable inquisitor assumed office in Aragon about 1360. With the most genuine and most exalted conceptions of the dignity and importance of his position, he put forward the utmost claims for the Holy Office; yet from the internal evidence of his treatise itself, it does not seem to have flourished in Aragon in his day. He makes loud complaints of its poverty. But the fact that so little came into its exchequer from confiscations and that so ardent and active an inquisitor should apparently have accomplished so little seems mainly to prove that heresy was not a serious menace in Aragon at this time. In the next century the history of the Aragonese Inquisition is neither interesting nor important, and the end of that period brings us to the era of Torquemada and the organization of a great Inquisition for the united kingdoms of Spain.