[1] Alexander IV decreed this penalty against the contumacious. Sexto, _De Hæreticis_, cap. vii. Boniface VIII extended it to those princes and magistrates who did not enforce the sentences of the Inquisition. Sexto, _De Hæreticis_, cap. xviii in Eymeric, 2a pars, p. 110. . . . . . . . . The Church is also responsible for having introduced torture into the proceedings of the Inquisition. This cruel practice was introduced by Innocent IV in 1252. Torture had left too terrible an impression upon the minds of the early Christians to permit of their employing it in their own tribunals. The barbarians who founded the commonwealths of Europe, with the exception of the Visigoths, knew nothing of this brutal method of extorting confessions. The only thing of the kind which they allowed was flogging, which, according to St. Augustine, was rather akin to the correction of children by their parents. Gratian, who recommends it in his _Decretum_,[1] lays it down as an "accepted rule of canon law that no confession is to be extorted by torture."[2] Besides, Nicholas I, in his instructions to the Bulgarians, had formally denounced the torturing of prisoners.[3] He advised that the testimony of three persons be required for conviction; if these could not be obtained, the prisoner's oath upon the Gospels was to be considered sufficient. [1] _Causa_ v, quæst. v, Illi qui, cap. iv. [2] _Causa_ xv, quæst, vi, cap. i. [3] _Responsa ad Consulta Bulgarorum_, cap. lxxxvi, Labbe, _Concilia_, vol. viii, col. 544. The ecclesiastical tribunals borrowed from Germany another method of proving crime, viz., the ordeals, or judgments of God. There was the duel, the ordeal of the cross, the ordeal of boiling water, the ordeal of fire, and the ordeal of cold water. They had a great vogue in nearly all the Latin countries, especially in Germany and France. But about the twelfth century they deservedly fell into great disfavor, until at last the Popes, particularly Innocent III, Honorius III, and Gregory IX, legislated them out of existence.[1] [1] _Decretals_, lib. v, tit. xxxv, cap. i-iii. Cf. Vacandard, _L'Église et les Ordalies_ in _Études de critique et d'histoire_, 3d ed., Paris, 1906, pp. 191-215. At the very moment the popes were condemning the ordeals, the revival of the Roman law throughout the West was introducing the customs of antiquity. It was then "that jurists began to feel the need of torture, and accustom themselves to the idea of its introduction." "The earliest instances with which I have met," writes Lea, "occur in the Veronese code of 1228, and the Sicilian constitutions of Frederic II in 1231, and in both of these the references to it show how sparingly and hesitatingly it was employed. Even Frederic, in his ruthless edicts, from 1220 to 1239, makes no allusion to it, but in accordance with the Verona decree of Lucius III, prescribes the recognized form of canonical purgation for the trial of all suspected heretics."[1]