The provisions of this Bull were strictly enforced, and it is significant of the state of public opinion that it aroused no effective resistance. By a later Bull of 1265, Pope Urban IV confirmed its instructions, and made the Inquisition supreme in all countries. It became a maxim of law that all statutes which interfered with the Inquisition were void and their authors punishable. The Holy Office had a free hand, and was not liable to excommunication in the discharge of its sacred duties, or to suspicion by even a Papal Legate. Nicholas IV gave a finishing touch by making the Inquisitors’ commissions perpetual. Bishops were not liable to be judged by Inquisitors, but nevertheless had to obey them, and, though at times they tried cases of heresy in their own courts, they were compelled to allow an Inquisitor to take part in the sentence. Popular feeling, it is true, occasionally revolted against this tyranny; but, as any one who in any way opposed the Inquisition was thereby excommunicated, the resistance was easily and remorselessly crushed. The tenacious memory and sleepless vigilance of the Inquisition hunted out persons who years before had said a kind word to a heretic, or sent a copper to a sick person under suspicion. Public confidence was destroyed by the general dread that a careless word might ruin a man; that stories might, unknown to him, be circulated about him and come to the Inquisitors’ ears; that an enemy might secretly and safely gratify an old grudge, until at last poor wretches would inform against others rather than be themselves betrayed. It was a rule of the Inquisition that all testimony should be taken down in the presence of two impartial persons unconnected with the institution, but sworn to absolute secrecy. This precautionary act of justice was soon disregarded, and the bulky documents of the Inquisition were generally held to be unworthy of trust. In some of the revolts against its tyranny the populace were careful to destroy the records, for it was well known that the Inquisitors had an unpleasant habit of discovering among them facts damaging to those whom they desired to injure. As if the Inquisitors themselves were not dangerous enough, they were allowed to employ a swarm of hangers-on known as Familiars (by a pleasing fiction they became part of the family), who were permitted to carry the arms denied to ordinary civilians, and who enjoyed immunities and powers which they abused with the utmost freedom. For the most part they were a rabble of unruly ruffians, who squeezed money out of people under the threat of accusing them of heresy or of impeding the Inquisition in its beneficent duties. Any restriction in the number of these rascals was resented as unlawful; but the State did sometimes, as at Venice in 1450, succeed in reducing their numbers. They were wholly unnecessary, as the Holy Office could command the services of the State, as well as the assistance of the clergy and of the civil population.