Page:A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages-Volume I .pdf/546

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526
CONFISCATION.

months at a time and had to be renewed ; there was considerable dehiy in the settlements, and the inquisitors had substantial cause of complaint, although the officials were threatened with fines for lack of pi'omptness. In 1272, however, I find a letter issued to the inquisitor, Fra Matteo di Castellamare, providing him with a year's salary, payable six months in advance. When, as mentioned above, Charles II., in 1290, divided the proceeds according to the papal prescription, he liberally continued to contribute to the expenses, though on a somewhat reduced scale. In letters of May 16, 1294, he orders the payment to Fra Bartolomeo di Aquila of four tareni per diem (the tareno was one thirtieth of an ounce of gold), and July 7 of the same year he provides that five ounces per month be paid to him for the expenses of his official family.[1]

In France there was at first some question as to the responsibility for the charges attendant upon persecution. The duty of the bishops to suppress heresy was so plain that they could not refuse to meet the expenses, at least in part. Before the establishment of the Inquisition this consisted almost w^holly in the maintenance of imprisoned converts, and at the Council of Toulouse they agreed to defray this in the case of those who had no money, while those who had property to be confiscated they claimed should be supported by the princes who obtained it. This proposition, like the subsequent one of the Council of Albi, in 1254, was altogether too cumbrous to work. The statutes of Raymond, in 1234, while dwelling elaborately on the subject of confiscation, made no provision for meeting the cost of the new Inquisition, and the matter remained unsettled. In 1237 we find Gregory IX. complaining that the royal officials contributed nothing for the support of the prisoners whose property they had confiscated. When, in 1246, the Council of Béziers was assembled, the Cardinal Legate of Albano reminded the bishops that it was their business to provide for it, according to the instructions of the Council of Montpellier, whose proceedings have not reached us. The good bishops were not disposed to do this. As we have seen, they


  1. MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 228.— Guid. Fulcod. Quaest. iii. — Archivio di Napoli, Regist. 6, Lett. B, fol. 35 ; Reg. 10, Lett. B, fol. 6, 7, 96; Reg. 11, Lett. C, fol. 40; Reg. 13, Lett. A, fol. 212; Reg. 51, Lett. A, fol. 9; Reg. 71, Lett. M, fol. 382, 385, 440; Reg. 98, Lett. B, fol. 13; Reg. 113, Lett. A, fol. 194 ; Reg. 253, Lett. A, fol. 63 ; MSS. Chioccorello, T. VIII.