hesitation on the part of public officials to grant assistance when summoned was promptly punished. Thus, in 1303, when Bonrico di Busca, vicar of the podesta of Mandrisio, refused to furnish men to the representatives of the Milanese Inquisition, he was forthwith condemned to a fine of a hundred imperial solidi, to be paid within live days. Even the condition of an excommunicate, which rendered an official incapable of performing any other function, did not relieve him from this duty ; he could be called upon to execute the commands of the inquisitor, but he was warned that he must not imagine himself competent therefore to do anything else.[1]
In addition to this the Inquisition had, to a greater or less extent, at its service the whole orthodox population, and especially the clergy. It was the duty of every man to give information as to all cases of heresy with which he might become acquainted under pain of incurring the guilt of fautorship. It was further his duty to arrest all heretics, as Bernard de St. Genais found in 1242, when he was tried by the Inquisition of Toulouse for the offence of not capturing certain heretics when it was in his power to do so, and was condemned to the penance of pilgrimages to the shrines of Puy, St. Gilles, and Compostella. The parish priests, moreover, were required, whenever called upon, to cite their parishioners for appearance, either publicly from the pulpit or secretly as the case might require, and to publish all sentences of excommunication. They were likewise held to the duty of surveillance over penitents to see that the penances enjoined were duly performed, and to report any cases of neglect. A very thorough system of local police, framed upon the model of the old sjmodal witnesses, was devised by the Council of Beziers in 1246, under which the inquisitor was
- ↑ Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 7. — Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. 392-403.— Gloss. Hostiens. super. Cap Excommunicamus, § Moneamus. — Gloss. Joan. Andreas sup. eod. loc— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 1, 7, 36, 39, 292. — Archives de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXVII. 118). — Isambert, Anc. Loix Françaises, IV- 364-5. — Ogniben Andrea, I Guglielmiti del Secolo XIII., Perugia, 1867, p. 111. — Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Quæsivistis, 28 Mai. 1260.
As in France the office of bailli was a purchasable one, while the incumbent was forbidden to sell it, it is evident that he would be loath to endanger its tenure by risking disobedience to inquisitorial demands. — Statuta Ludov. IX. ann, 1254, c. xxv.-vii. (Vaissette, Éd. Privat, VIII. 1349).
