Page:A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages-Volume I .pdf/558

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538
THE STAKE.

ritories, recently burned at Carcassonne, should be solemnly surrendered to him in recognition of his right; or, if they could not be found and identified, then, as substitutes, ten canvas bags filled with straw - a ghastly symbolic ceremony which was actually performed two days later, and a formal notarial act executed in attestation of it. Yet, though the De Levis of Mirepoix rejoiced in the title of Maréchaux de la Foi, it is not to be assumed that this eagerness arose wholly from bloodthirsty fanaticism, for there was nothing to which the seigneur-justicier clung more jealously than to every detail of his jurisdiction. A similar dispute arose in 1309, when the Count of Foix claimed the right to burn the Catharan heresiarch, Jackques Autier, and a woman named Guillelma Cristola, condemned by Bernard Gui, because they were his subjects, but the royal officials maintained their master's privileges in the premises, and the suit thence arising was still pending in 1326. So at Narbonne, where there was a long-standing dispute between the archbishop and the viscount as to the jurisdiction, and where, in 1319, the former in conjunction with the inquisitor Jean de Beaune relaxed three heretics, he claimed for his court the right to burn them. The commune, as representing the viscount, resisted this, and the hideous quarrel was only settled by the representative of the king stepping in and performing the act. In so doing, however, he carefully specified that it was not to work prejudice to either party, while to the end the archbishop protested against the intrusion upon his rights.[1]

If, however, from any cause, the secular authorities were reluctant to execute the death-sentence, the Church had little ceremony in putting forth its powers to coerce obedience. When, for instance, the first resistance in Toulouse had been broken down and the Holy Office had been reinstated there, the inquisitors, in 1237, condemned six men and women as heretics; but the viguier and consuls refused to receive the convicts, to confiscate their property, and "to do with them what was customary to be done with heretics" - that is, to burn them alive. Thereupon the inquisitors, after counselling with the bishop, the Abbot du Mas, the Provost of St. Étienne, and the Prior of La Daurade, proceeded to

  1. Guill. Pod. Laur. cap. 48-Les Olim, I. 317.-Vaissette, Ed. Privat, VIII 1674; X. Pr. 484, 659.-Baluz. et Mansi, II. 237