Page:A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages-Volume I .pdf/552

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532
CONFISCATION.

assigning to the inquisitor a yearly stipend — the same as that paid to the tribunals of Toulouse and Carcassonne — of one hundred and ninety livres Tournois, out of which all the expenses of the Inquisition were to be met ; with a proviso that if the allowance was not regularly paid then the inquisitor should be at liberty to detain a portion of the forfeitures. No doubt this agreement was observed for a time, but it lapsed in the terrible disorders which ensued on the insanity of Charles VI. In 1409 Alexander V. left to his legate to decide whether the Inquisitor of Dauphine should receive three hundred gold florins a year, to be levied on the Jews of Avignon, or ten florins a year from each of the bishops of his extensive district, or whether the bishops should be compelled to support him and his officials in his journeys through the country. These precarious resources disappeared in the confusion of the civil wars and invasion which so nearly wrecked the monarchy. In 1432, when Frere Pierre Fabri, Inquisitor of Embrun, was summoned to attend the Council of Basle, he excused himself on account of his preoccupation with the stubborn Waldenses, and also on the ground of his indescribable poverty, "for never have I had a penny from the Church of God, nor have I a stipend from any other source." [1]

Of course it would be unjust to say that greed and thirst for plunder were the impelling motives of the Inquisition, though, when complaints were made that the fisc was defrauded of its dues by the immunity promised to those who would come in and confess during the time of grace, and when Bernard Gui met this objection by pointing out that these penitents were obliged to betray their associates, and thus, in the long run, the fisc was the gainer, we see how largely the minds of those who urged on persecution were occupied by its profits.[2] We therefore are perfectly safe in asserting that but for the gains to be made out of fines and confiscations its work would have been much less thorough, and that it would have sunk into comparative insignifi-


  1. Vaissette, fid. Privat, X. Pr. 791-2, 802. — Raynald. ann. 1375, No. 26.— Wadding, ann. 1375, No. 21, 22; 1409, No. 13.— Isarabert, Anc. Loix Fran9aises, V. 491.— Martene Ampl. Collect. VIII. 161-3.
  2. Bernard. Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Boat, XXX.).