In 1184, Pope Lucius III, in union with the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, adopted at Verona still more vigorous measures. Heretics were to be excommunicated, and then handed over to the secular arm, which was to inflict upon them the punishment they deserved (_animadversio debita_).[1] The Emperor decreed the imperial ban against them. [1] Canon 27, inserted in the Decretals of Gregory IX, lib. v, tit. vii, _De Hæreticis_, cap. ix. This imperial ban was, as Ficker has pointed out, a very severe penalty in Italy; for it comprised banishment, the confiscation of the property, and the destruction of the houses of the condemned, public infamy, the inability to hold public office, etc. This is beyond question the penalty the King of Aragon alluded to in his enactment. The penalty of the stake which he added, although in conformity with the Roman law, was an innovation. The pontificate of Innocent III, which began in 1198, marks a pause in the development of the Church's penal legislation against heresy. Despite his prodigious activity, this Pope never dreamt of enacting new laws, but did his best to enforce the laws then in vogue, and to stimulate the zeal of both princes and magistrates in the suppression of heresy. Hardly had he ascended the pontifical throne when he sent legates to southern France, and wrote urgent letters full of apostolic zeal to the Archbishops of Auch and Aix, the Bishop of Narbonne, and the King of France. These letters, as well as his instructions to the legates, are similar in tone: "Use against heretics the spiritual sword of excommunication, and if this does not prove effective, use the material sword. The civil laws decree banishment and confiscation; see that they are carried out."[1] [1] Letters of Innocent III in Migne, P.L., vol. ccxiv-ccxvi. At this time the Cathari were living not only in the cities of Languedoc and Provence, but some had even entered the papal States, e.g., at Orvieto and Viterbo. The Pope himself went to these cities to combat the evil, and at once saw the necessity of enacting special laws against them. They may be read in his letters of March 25, 1199, and September 22, 1207, which form a special code for the use of the princes and the podestà. Heretics were to be branded with infamy; they were forbidden to be electors, to hold public office, to be members of the city councils, to appear in court or testify, to make a will or to receive an inheritance; if officials, all their acts were declared null and void; and finally their property was to be confiscated. "In the territories subject to our temporal jurisdiction," adds the Pope, "we declare their property confiscated; in other places we order the podestà and the secular princes to do the same, and we desire and command this law enforced under penalty of ecclesiastical censures."[1] [1] Letter of March 25, 1199, to the magistrates and people of Viterbo; constitution of September 23, 1207, Ep. x, 130.