The episcopal Inquisition was thus fairly re-established as part of the recognized organization of the Church. The Council of Paris in 1350 treats of the persecution of heresy as part of the recognized duties of the bishop, and instructs the Ordinaries as to their powers of arrest and authority to call upon the secular officials for assistance in precisely the same terms as the Inquisition might do. A brief of Urban V. in 1363 refers to a knight and five gentlemen suspected of heresy, then in the custody of the Bishop of Carcassonne, and orders their trial by the bishop or inquisitor, or by both conjointly, the result to be referred to the papal court. When a bishop had spirit to resist the invasion of his rights by an inquisitor, he was able to make them respected. In 1423 the Inquisitor of Carcassonne had gone to Albi, where he swore in two notaries and some other officials to act for him ; he had then taken certain evidence relating to a case before him, and had sworn the witnesses to secrecy in order that the accused might not receive warning. Of all this the Bishop of Albi complained as an invasion of his jurisdiction. The swearing in of the officials he claimed should only have been done in presence of his ordinary or of a deputy; the secrecy imposed on the witnesses was an impediment to his own inquisitorial procedure, as depriving him of evidence in the event of his prosecuting the case. The points were somewhat nice, and illustrate the friction and jealousy inseparable from the concurrent and competing jurisdictions; but in the present case, to avoid unseemly strife, the Bishop of Carcassonne was chosen as arbitrator, the inquisitor acknowledged himself in the wrong and annulled his acts, and a public instrument was drawn up in attesta-
eral. In 1479 Sixtus IV., by the golden bull Sacri prædicatorum, § 12, forbade all inquisitors from prosecuting members of the other Order (Mag. Bull. Roman. I. 420). Soon afterwards Innocent VIII. prohibited all inquisitors from trying Franciscan friars; but, with the rise of Lutheranism, this became inexpedient, and in 1530 Clement VII., in the bull Cum sicut, § 2, removed all exemptions, and again made all justiciable by the Inquisition (Mag. Bull. Rom. 1. 681), which was repeated by Pius IV. in the bull Pastoris æterni, in 1562 (Eymeric. Direct. Inq. Append, p. 127; Pegnæ Comment, p. 557).
Whether a bishop could proceed against an inquisitor for heresy was a debatable question, and one probably never practically tested. Eymerich holds that he could not, but must refer the matter to the pope; but Pegna, in his commentaries, quotes good authorities to the contrary (Eymeric. op. cit. pp. 558-9).
