months or a year in utter solitude, save when a dozen theologians and legists should be let in upon him to labor his conversion, or his wife and children be admitted to work upon his heart. It was not until all this had been tried and failed that he was to be relaxed. Even then the execution was postponed for a day to give further opportunity for recantation, which, we are told, rarely happened, for those who went thus far usually persevered to the end; but if his resolution gave way and he professed repentance, his conversion was presumed to be the work of fear rather than of grace, and he was to be strictly imprisoned for life. Even at the stake his offer to abjure ought not to be refused, though there was no absolute rule as to this, and there could be little hope of the genuineness of such conversion. Eymerich relates a case occurring at Barcelona when three heretics were burned, and one of them, a priest, after being scorched on one side, cried out that he would recant. He was removed and abjured, but fourteen years later was found to have persisted in heresy and to have infected many others, when he was despatched without more ado.[1]
The obstinate heretic who preferred martyrdom to apostasy was by no means the sole victim doomed to the stake. The secular lawgiver had provided this punishment for heresy, but had left to the Church its definition, and the definition was enlarged to serve as a gentle persuasive that should supplement all deficiencies in the inquisitorial process. Where testimony deemed sufficient existed, persisten denial only aggravated guilt, and the profession of orthodoxy was of no avail. If two witnesses swore to having seen a man "adore" a perfected heretic it was enough, and no declaration of readiness to subscribe to all the tenets of Rome availed him, without confession, abjuration, recantation, and acceptance of penance. Such a one was a heretic, to be pitilessly burned. It was the same with the contumacious who did not obey the summons to stand trial. Persisten refusal of the oath was likewise technical heresy, condemning the recalcitrant to the stake. Even when there was no proof, simple suspicion be-
- ↑ Conci. Arelatens, ann. 1234 c, G.-Concil. Tarraconens. ann. 1242.-Concil Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append. c. 17.-Bern. Guidon. Practica P. Iv. (Doat, XXX)-Eymoric. Dircct. Inquis. pp. 614-16.-Anon. Passaviens. c. ix. (Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 308).Zanchini Tract. de Hæret. c. xyii.-Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan.
