heavily. His attempts to get a share of the proceeds of fines and confiscations to meet the expenses of prosecution were ineffectual. He was told that he and his officials had revenues for the functions of the Church, and these must suffice to pay him for the service. Ingenious dialecticians reasoned this away as far as regards the bishop when he acted personally, but it held good against his officials. To the latter it was not encouraging to be urged to work and pay their own costs, while the inquisitor, at least in Italy, had control of the confiscations, without accountability to the bishop.[1] Under the legislation of Boniface VIII. and Clement V. it was natural that the first quarter of the fourteenth century should witness a revival of the episcopal Inquisition. Even in Italy the provincial Council of Milan, held at Bergamo in 1311 under the Archbishop Gastone Torriani, organized a thorough system of inquisition on the model of the papal institution. The growing
- ↑ Vaissette, III. 515.— Archidiac. Gloss, sup. c. 17, 20 Sexto v. 2. — Harduin.
VIL 1017-19.— C. 17, 19 Sexto v. 2.— C. 1, Clement, v. 3.— Concil. Melodun. ann.
1300, No. 4.— Bernard. Guidon. Hist. Conv. Albiens. (Bouquet, XXI. 767).— Albert. Repert. Inquis. s. v. Episcopus. — Guid. Fulcod. Quasst. I. — Ripoll I. 512; VII. 53. — Joann. Andreae Gloss, sup. c. 13 § 8 Extra, v. vii. — Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 626, 637, 650.— C. 1 Extrav. commun. v. 3. — Bernard. Guidon. Practica P. IV. (Doat, XXX.). — Bernardi Comens. Lucerna Inquis, s. v. Bona hæreticorum.
As early as 1257 we find that the Inquisition had already extended its jurisdiction over usury as heresy (Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Quod super nonnullis [Arch. de rinq. de Carcass. Doat, XXXI. 244] — a bull which was repeatedly reissued. See Raynald. Annal. ann. 1258, No. 23 ; Potthast Regesta 17745, 18396 ; Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. Ed. Pegnae, p. 133. Cf. c. 8 § 5 Sexto v. 2). The Council of Lyons, in 1274 (can. 26, 27), in treating of usury, alludes only to its punishment by the Ordinaries. The Council of Vienne, in 1311, directed inquisitors to prosecute those who maintained that usury is not sinful (c. 1 § 2 Clementin. v. 5); but Eymerich (Direct. Inquis. p. 106) deprecates attention to such matters as an interference with the real business of the Inquisition. Zanghino lays down the rule that a man may be a public usurer, or blasphemer, or fornicator without being a heretic, but if he, in addition, manifests contempt for religion by not frequenting divine service, receiving the sacrament, observing the fasts and other ordinances of the Church, he becomes suspect of heresy, and can be prosecuted by the inquisitors (Zanchini Tract, de Haeres. c, xxxv.).
We shall see that usury became a very profitable subject of exploitation by the Inquisition when the diminution of heresy deprived it of its legitimate field of action. As the offence was one cognizant by the secular courts (see Vaissette, IV. 164), there was really no excuse for the exercise of spritual jurisdiction over it,
