tion of the settlement. Yet in spite of these inevitable quarrels a modus vivendi was practically established. Eyraerich, writing about 1375, almost always represents the bishop and inquisitor as co-operating together, not only in the final sentence, but in the preliminary proceedings; he evidently seeks to represent the two powers as working harmoniously for a common end, and that the Inquisition in no way superseded the episcopal jurisdiction or relieved the bishop from the responsibility inherent in his office. A century later Sprenger, in discussing the jurisdiction of the Inquisition from the standpoint of an inquisitor, takes virtually the same position; and the commissions issued to inquisitors usually contained a clause to the effect that no prejudice was intended to the inquisitorial jurisdiction of the Ordinaries. In the habitual negligence of the episcopal officials, however, the inquisitors found little difficulty in trespassing upon their functions, and complaints of this interference continued until the eve of the Reformation.[1]
Technically there was no difference between the episcopal and papal Inquisitions. The equitable system of procedure borrowed from the Roman law by the courts of the Ordinaries was cast aside, and the bishops were permitted and even instructed to follow the inquisitorial system, which was a standing mockery of justice — perhaps the most iniquitous that the arbitrary cruelty of man has ever devised. In tracing the history of the institution, therefore, there is no distinction to be drawn between its two branches, and the exploits of both are to be recorded as springing from the same impulses, using the same methods, and leading to the same ends.[2]
Yet the papal Inquisition was an instrument of infinitely greater efficiency for the work in hand. How^ever zealous an episcopal official might be, his efforts were necessarily isolated, temporary, and spasmodic. The papal Inquisition, on the other hand, constituted
- ↑ Concil. Parisiens. ann. 1350 c. 3, 4. — Arch, de I'Inq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXV. 132).— Archives der:evechg d'Albi (Doat, XXXV. 187).— Eymerici Direct. Inquis. p. 529.— Sprengeri Mall. Maleficar. P. iii. Q. 1.— Ripoll II. 311, 324, 351.— Cornel. Agrippse de Vanitate Scientiarum, cap. xcvi. Yet a bull of Nicholas V. to the inquisitor of France in 1451 seems to render him independent of episcopal co-operation (Ripoll III. 301).
- ↑ C. 17 Sexto V. 2. — See the "Modus examinandi haereticos" printed by Gretser (Mag. Bib. Patrum XIII. 341) prepared for a German episcopal Inquisition.
