* * * * * While the common sense of mankind was gradually eliminating the practice from among the recognized procedures of secular tribunals, the immutable nature of ecclesiastical observances prolonged its vitality in the bosom of the church. We have seen above that Innocent III., about the commencement of the thirteenth century, altered the form of oath from an unqualified confirmation to a mere assertion of belief in the innocence of the accused. That this at once became the standard formula in ecclesiastical cases is probable when we find it adopted for the oaths of the compurgators who, during the Albigensian persecution, were required by the nascent Inquisition in all cases to assist in the purgation of such suspected heretics as were allowed to escape so easily.[248] And this is no doubt the “congruous purgation” to which Innocent III. and Gregory IX. alluded as that by which suspected heretics should clear themselves.[249] Zealous inquisitors, however, paid little attention to such forms which allowed their victims a chance of escape, for it is related of Conrad of Marburg, who for a short time spread terror and desolation throughout Germany, that when the accused confessed he subjected them to torture and the frightful penance provided by the church, but that when they denied their guilt he sent them at once to the stake. The compurgatorial process, however, vindicated itself in a notable manner when Conrad’s cruelties at length aroused effective opposition. Count Sayn, whom he had accused, was virtually acquitted at the Council of Mainz, July, 1233, soon after which Conrad was assassinated: the count, however, required formal vindication, and at the Diet of Frankfort, in February, 1234, he cleared himself of the charge of heresy in the most imposing manner with a train of compurgators comprising eight bishops, twelve Cistercian abbots, twelve Franciscan and three Dominican monks, and a number of Benedictine abbots, clergy, and noble laymen. After this, in April, the Council of Mainz declared him and others of Conrad’s victims to be innocent and to be restored to reputation and to their possessions.[250] The practice of compurgation thus introduced at the foundation of the Inquisition was maintained to the last by that terrible tribunal. “Our holy mother church,” says Simancas, Bishop of Badajos, a writer of the sixteenth century, “can in no way endure the suspicion of heresy, but seeks by various remedies to cure the suspect. Sometimes she forces them to abjure or to purge themselves; sometimes she elicits the truth by torture, and very often she coerces them with extraordinary punishments.” Therefore, any one whose orthodoxy was doubtful, if he was unwilling to clear himself, at the command of the judge, was held to be convicted of heresy. By the secular law he had a year’s grace before condemnation, but under the ecclesiastical law he was instantly punishable.[251]