All that can and ought to be said in the defence and to the honor of the Roman pontiffs is that they endeavored to remedy the abuses of the Inquisition. With this in view, Innocent IV and Alexander IV obliged the Inquisitors to consult a number of _boni viri_ and _periti_; Clement V forbade them to render any grave decision without first consulting the bishops, the natural judges of the faith;[1] and Boniface VIII recommended them to reveal the names of the witnesses to the prisoners if they thought that this revelation would not be prejudicial to any one.[2] In a word, they wished the laws of justice to be scrupulously observed, and at times mitigated.[3] But, examined in detail, these laws were far from being perfect. [1] Clementinæ, _De Hæreticis_, Decretal _Multorum Querela_, cap. i, sect. i. [2] Sexto, _De Hæreticis_, cap. xx; cf. Tanon, op. cit., p. 391. [3] Döllinger is very unjust when he says: "From 1200 to 1500 there is a long uninterrupted series of papal decrees on the Inquisition; these decrees increase continually in severity and cruelty." _La Papauté_, p. 102. Tanon (op. cit, p. 138) writes more impartially: "Clement V, instead of increasing the powers of the Holy Office, tried rather to suppress its abuses." . . . . . . . . Antecedent imprisonment and torture, which played so important a part in the procedure of the Inquisition, were undoubtedly very barbarous methods of judicial prosecution. Antecedent imprisonment may be justified in certain cases; but the manner in which the Inquisitors conceived it was far from just. No one would dare defend to-day the punishment known as the _carcer durus_, whereby the Inquisitors tried to extort confessions from their prisoners. They rendered it, moreover, all the more odious by arbitrarily prolonging its horrors and its cruelty.