in cases where the offence was regarded as too serious to admit of it, or when the offender could not procure it.[1]
It was impossible that these methods of converting the sentences of the Inquisition into current coin could flourish without introducing widespread corruption. Admission to bail might be the result of favoritism or degenerate into covert bribery. The discretion of the inquisitor was so wide that bribery itself could be safely indulged in. A crime necessarily so secret as this form of extortion cannot be expected to leave traces behind it, except in those cases in which it proved a failure, but sufficient instances of the latter are on record to show that the tribunals were surrounded by men who made a trade of their influence, real or presumed, with the judges. When these were incorruptible the business was suppressed with more or less success, but when they were acquisitive, they had ample field for unhallowed gain, to be wrung without stint or check from the subject populations both by bribery and extortion. Considering that every one above the age of seven was liable to the indelible suspicion of heresy by the mere fact of citation, it will be seen what an opportunity lay before the inquisitor and his spies and familiars to practise upon the fears of all, to sell exemptions from arrest, as well as to bargain for liberation. That these fruitful sources of gain were not abundantly worked would be incredible even in the absence of proof, but proof sufficient exists. In 1302 Boniface VIII. wrote to the Dominican Provincial of Lombardy that the papal ears had been lacerated with complaints of the Franciscan inquisitors of Padua and Vicenza, whose malicious cupidity had wronged many men and women by exacting from them immense sums and inflicting on them all manner of injuries. When the pope naively adduces in cumulation of their
- ↑ Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 17. — C. Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 15. — Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Cum venerabilis, 29 Jan. 1253 ; Bull. Cum per Twstras, 30 Jan. 1253; Bull. Super extirpatione, 30 Mai. 1254.— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Super extirpatione, 13 Nov. 1258, 20 Sept. 1259; Bull. Ad audientiam, 23 Jan. 1260. — Berger, Les Registres (rinnoc. IV. No. 3904.— Ripoll, I. 69, 71, 223-4, 247.— Lami, Antichita Toscane, p. 576. — MS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, nouv. acquis. 139 fol. 43.— Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. p. 638. — Zanchini Tract, de Haeret. c. xix.— Bern. Guidon. Practica P. v. (Doat, XXX.).— Albert. Repert. Inq. s. v. Cautlo.
The right to offer bail, except in capital offences, was one thoroughly recognized by the secular law. See, for instance, Isambert, Anc. Loix Fran9. III. 57.
