Nicholas IV., a minor friar, being exalted to the pontifical throne, got the Inquisition to be received by a public decree at Venice, A.D. 1289. Still, this court was established on different principles from those which govern it in other countries; for while the judgment concerning the doctrine for which a person may be pronounced an heretic, is determined by ecclesiastics, the judgment of the fact, or who maintains that doctrine, and the pronouncing of the sentence, are held to belong to the secular judges in Venice. So that they determine what books shall be prohibited, as well as who are heretics, and their court is far milder, and less under the influence of the Pope, than the other inquisitions in Italy. Among the heretics accused by the inquisitors, there were some forming a sect called _apostolics_, from their professing to imitate the zeal of the apostles of Christ. They attracted the notice of Pope Honorius, A.D. 1290. Sagarelli, their leader, was condemned by the Inquisition and burned. Dulcinus, another of their teachers, withdrew, with about six thousand adherents, to the valleys of the Alps; but Pope Clement V. sent inquisitors to seek them with an army of crusaders, by which many were driven among the mountains, and perished with cold and hunger. Some of them were captured, including Dulcinus and his wife, who were sacrificed at the stake, as victims to the cruelty of their antichristian persecutors. Clement V., jealous of the Knights Templars, who possessed large property in France, gladly listened to the accusations against them by the king. Their grand-master, De Molai, and many others, therefore, were arrested, A.D. 1307. The order was abolished in the council held at Vienne, A.D. 1311, and nearly sixty of the prisoners were condemned and burnt. Several others were brought to the stake in Paris, where they protested their innocence; but their property was shared by Pope Clement and Philip, king of France. Others of the reputed heretics were _Beghards_, so called from their ardour in prayer; _Beguins_, pious females of that society; and Lollards, so named from their singing psalms in social worship. These were hunted in several provinces, and punished in the usual manner by the officers of the Inquisition as enemies of the Pope. Some of the Beguins were patronised by persons of distinction; and a famous controversy arose respecting their opinions regarding the possession of property. Four of their leading men were burnt at Marseilles, A.D. 1318; and they were condemned as heretics and arch-heretics by the Pope, A.D. 1329. Lombardy received the Inquisition before A.D. 1233, when Pope Gregory IX. appointed, as chief-inquisitor, Pietro da Verona, a Dominican. He was the first that put heretics to death at Milan. In the course of his ministry he burnt many, but he was assassinated, A.D. 1252; and another fell a sacrifice to his own cruelty, Pagano da Lecco, A.D. 1277.