the necessary documents *. The rapid succession of the Popes was the cause which retarded it; and it may seem as if in

mockery of his holy character, that the performance and Canonization. of this office did at last devolve upon Boniface VIII.

It was Boniface who preached the panegyrical sermon, and enlarged on those various virtues which had no counterpart in his own bosom. It was the genius of arrogance which paid homage to the spirit of humility, and exalted it even to the thrones of heaven. Let the hosts of heaven rejoice at the arrival of so noble and glorious an inhabitant—an approved and eminent husbandman of the Christian faith is added to their multitudes. Let the glorious nobility of the celestial citizens sound the jubilee of joy, for an honoured stranger is adscribed to their ranks. Let the venerable assembly of the Saints arise with gladness and exultation to receive a compeer who well deserves such dignity. Arise, thou innumerable council of faith; zealots of the faith arise, and sing the hymn of praise in concert with the Church which is your own. He offered offence to

no one, to no one violence or injury. He carefully observed the boundaries of justice, without deserting the path of equity. He punished with the sword the daring and lawless enterprises of the wicked. An ardent lover of peace and concord-an anxious promoter of unity-hostile to scandals and dissensions †,' &c. &c. We may remark that this last topic, in the mouth of Boniface VIII., was at best an equivocal eulogy. A zeal for 'unity,' and an abhorrence of scandals and dissensions,' is a praise which, when proceeding from pontifical lips, conveys the necessary suspicion of intolerance. Louis has been accused of that crime-the ruling iniquity of his age-and we shall now examine on what facts that charge is really founded.

SECTION II.

On the Inquisition."

It is asserted, and with truth, that the Inquisition was permanently established in France during the reign of St. Louis; that he never ceased to manifest great partiality for the Dominicans and Franciscans, and all invested with the inquisitorial office; and that it was even at the particular solicitation of the king §, that Alexander IV. confirmed, in 1255, the

* In the first of the two sermons delivered by Boniface on that occasion, he expressly asserts, that after the fullest examination into the evidence for the miracles, he has ascertained that sixty-three miracles were assuredly performed, besides others which God evidently vouchsafed to him-(sexaginta tria, inter cætera quæ Dominus evidenter ostendit, certitudinaliter facta cognovimus.) Respecting the tedious duration of the investigation Boniface remarks, in the same discourse, with great simplicity-' Et ita per tot et totiens examinatum est, rubricatum et discussum negocium, quod de hoc plus facta est descriptura, quam unus asinus posset portare.'

It is difficult to conceive a more turgid and tautologous composition than this celebrated bull. The merits which Louis really possessed are enumerated without taste or feeling; and the author of the panegyric seems to have been wholly incapable of estimating the character which he pretended to eulogize.

It appears that he intended to educate two of his sons in monasteries, and that by his Testament he consigned one to Dominican, the other to Franciscan tuition.—Gaufridus, Vita et Conversat. chap. 14.

§ See Limborch, Hist. Inquisit. lib. i. cap. 16. The annalist Raynaldus has expressed his pious regret, that the admirable institution of the Saint was feebly supported, and even entirely overthrown by his degenerate successors! We should observe that the domains of the Count of Poitiers and Toulouse, who was then Alphonso, brother of the king, were excepted from the jurisdiction of the prior, as being already subject to a special commis

institution of that tribunal, and appointed the Prior of the Dominican Convent at Paris to be Inquisitor-general in France. That we may be able to estimate the real weight of these assertions, and (what is more important than the reputation of any individual) that we may understand on what ground that frightful structure was erected, we must trace as shortly as possible the causes which led to its foundation.

The itinerant emissaries of Innocent III., among whom Dominic is the name most celebrated, first obtained the title of Inquisitors-that is to say, they were invested by the Pope with authority to discover, to convert, or to arraign before the ecclesiastical courts all guilty or suspected of heresy. But this was the limit of their commission. They did not constitute an independent tribunal, nor were they clothed with any judicial power. The process was still carried on, according to the practice then prevailing, before the bishop of the diocese, and the secular arm was invited, when necessary, to enforce his sentence. But this form of proceeding was not found sufficiently rapid to satisfy the eagerness of the Pope and his missionaries. The work of extirpation was sometimes retarded by the compunctions of a merciful prelate, sometimes by the reluctance of the civil authorities to execute a barbarous or unpopular sentence *. And to remove these impediments to the course of destruction, there was no resource, except to institute in the infected provinces, with the direct cooperation of the ruling powers, a separate tribunal for causes of heresy. This object was not immediately accomplished. In the meantime the Dominicans and Franciscans were spreading their numbers and influence in every country. And as they were the faithful myrmidons of the Roman See, and more devoted in their allegiance than either the secular or the regular clergy, thus arose an additional reason for investing them with a distinct jurisdiction. By the council held at Toulouse in 1229, (of which the decrees have been noticed in a former chapter,) a canon was published which united one priest with three laymen,' in a sort of council of inquisition. It is this regulation which is reasonably considered as the foundation of the Court of Inquisition †.

To Pope Gregory IX. be ascribed the honour of this success! Still the court thus established continued to be a court of bishops. Its object was indeed exclusively such as the most zealous pontiff could have desired; but it was composed of materials neither wholly destitute of human feeling, nor blindly subservient to the papal will. A further change was, therefore, necessary; and, accordingly, about three years afterwards, Gregory found means to transfer the authority in the new court to the Dominican order. It was thus that the Inquisition, properly so called-that is, a court for the trial of heretics, erected by papal authority, and administered

sion on matters of faith.-Fleury, liv. lxxxiv. § lxxxxv. The act of St. Louis was to establish that generally throughout his kingdom, which had hitherto been confined to the most infected province.

*It should be remarked on the other hand, that it was sometimes (especially in the beginning of the persecutions) precipitated by the agency of popular fury, excited by the preachers against the heretics. Their favourite text is said to have been (Psalm xciv. v. 16.) Who will rise up for me against the evil-doers? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? Many of them were eloquent-the people were superstitious-the preachers were fanatics. In fact, when the ecclesiastical censures were despised, and the secular power refused its aid, popular madness was their only remaining instrument.

By the Council of Narbonne, held two years before, it was enacted, 'that the bishops should establish in each parish synodal witnesses to inquire into heresy, and other notorious crimes, and to make their report. These were trul stablished inquisitors ;—still

their office was to report, not to judge.

by papal dependents-was indeed instituted. . . Some popular commotions* followed its first proceedings;—the persons of the judges were exposed to insult, and the whole body was, for a short time, expelled from the city. But the spirit of Rome was yet too powerful,-the fugitives were presently restored. And though the inquisitorial system never reached in France those refinements in barbarity which some other countries have endured-though it obtained, in truth, no very permanent footing among a humane and generous people-it continued to subsist there for several years; and if there was any sceptre under which it can be said to have flourished, it was assuredly the sceptre of St. Louis. Still we must not forget that it was established in his boyhood; so that the guilt of that act is unjustly cast upon him. He perpetuated the evil which he found; and in the religious code of those days, the unity of the Church' was so carefully identified with the glory of Christ, that an ardent desire for the one might easily degenerate into a misguided zeal for the other and thus, without intending to exculpate the royal persecutor, we are bound to distinguish between the crime of those who created that ecclesiastical system, and of him who blindly supported it ;-of the churchmen who artfully confounded the essence of religion with the maintenance of their own power, and of the pious laymen, who adopted with reverence the undisputed and consecrated maxims.

The brutal edicts § of Frederic II., published about 1144, and not exceeded by the most barbarous emanations of the Vatican,

were not palliated by any motive of misdirected piety: Progress of the yet were they much more effectual than the encourage- Inquisition. ment of Louis in arming the fury of the Dominicans,

at least within the limits of his empire. But the intolerant zeal of Frederic neither softened the hostility of Innocent IV., nor preserved himself from the anathemas of the Church |. After his triumph, Innocent pursued and exceeded the footsteps of his predecessors. He established the Tribunal of the Inquisition in the north of Italy, and in that form which

Besides the indignation excited by the object of this institution, there was a general objection among laymen to the establishment of any new ecclesiastical tribunal, to which all classes were alike amenable. And this was not diminished when, to the original offences of heresy, those of Judaism, Mahometanism, sodomy, sacrilege, and even polygamy, were added. But we have not observed that this wide extension of the objects of that court was ever made in France.

We must notice the injustice which has hastily been offered to the character of Louis IX. by Mosheim. That writer having asserted (on the authority of the Benedictine compilers of the history of Languedoc) that Louis published a barbarous edict against heretics, in the year 1229, proceeds thus:- A great part of the sanctity of good King Louis consisted in his furious and implacable aversion to heretics.' Now,

that this aversion formed, at any age, a prominent part of his character, will be asserted by no one who has studied the whole of his life. But in respect to this particular edict, was Mosheim ignorant that it was published under the regency of Queen Blanche, when the prince was not yet fifteen years old?

In 1239, one hundred and eighty heretics were burnt in Champagne, in the same flames, and in the presence of eighteen bishops. It is a holocaust agreeable to God!' exclaimed a monk who witnessed the execution. Was it to be expected that a woman and a child should rise up against an ecclesiastical practice, which was sanctioned by the concurrent zeal of monks, of prelates, of popes, and of councils?

Four of them are cited by Limborch, Hist. of Inquisit., lib. i. cap. 12.

He was accused of having favoured and fostered heresies. His edicts may have had that tendency; but he was assuredly innocent of the intention.

Giannone (lib. xix., chap. v. sec. iv.) seems to ascribe the establishment of the court virtually administered by the Mendicants, to Innocent IV., and with truth, so far as Italy was concerned. Two circumstances (he remarks) were opposed to it. (1.) The judicial rights of the episcopal courts. (2.) The executive rights of the secular magistrates. The

made it most effectually the engine of the Vatican. It is true, that in this court the bishop was nominally appointed as coadjutor to the papal inquisitor; but all substantial judicial authority was placed in the hands of the latter*. The civil magistrate was likewise admitted to a seat among the members of the court; but in reality his power was ministerial only. The whole effective power, both judicial and executive, was vested in the Dominicans and Franciscans. From Italy, the pestilence rapidly spread to the island of Sardinia, to Syria, and to Servia †. On the other hand into Spain, the field of its most destructive ravages, it was introduced so late as the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella-a reign more renowned, more panegyrised, than any other in the history of that country. But from Spain even the despotism of Charles V. was insufficient to communicate it to the rest of his subjects; the natural humanity of the Germans perseveringly repelled that pestilence; and the inhabitants of Naples on one side, and of the Low Countries on the other, resisted and rejected it with equal constancy.

We shall not enter more deeply into the records of the Inquisition, nor particularize the combinations of its machinery, and the exquisite harmony of its movements, because it did not reach that fatal perfection until a time posterior to the conclusion of this History . It is with no trifling satisfaction that we dispense with this labour; for the details of ingenious barbarity, though they may awaken a transient attention, convey little that is instructive to a reasonable mind; and the feelings of horror and indignation which they excite, do they not sometimes miss their true object, and exceed their just limits?-do they not sometimes rise into a detestation too general and too unqualified against the Church which permitted such iniquities ?-do they not sometimes close our charities against fellowChristians and fellow-Catholics, who perhaps abominate, as intensely as we do, the crimes of their ancestors? To expose the deviations from the precepts of the Gospel and the principles of philanthropy, into which the Church of Rome, in different ages, has fallen, is a painful task so commonly obtruded upon the historian, that he may well be spared the gratuitous denunciation of those which do not lie within the boundaries prescribed to his work.

first was obviated by the nominal association of bishops in the inquisitorial office. The second, by permitting the magistrate to have his minister in the court, though at the appointment of the grand inquisitor. There was much art in this concession; for thus, while the ecclesiastics really held the whole power, the secular authorities, by being united with them in name, were associated in hatred. They were tools,—they were mistaken for accomplices.

*We learn from Bzovius at a later period, (ann. 1302, sect. x.,) that Boniface VIII. transferred the inquisitorial office from the Franciscans to the Dominicans, publishing at the same time some severe constitutions against heretics. There is one feature in them which we have not remarked in the earliest edicts. Not only were their defensores, receptatores, &c., included in the penalties, but also their filii et nepotes—children and grandchildren. The bishop of the diocese was permitted to act in concert with the inquisitors; and the investigation was ordered to proceed simpliciter et de plano, absque advocatorum et judiciorum strepitu et figura!' The accusers were allowed to give evidence secretly, if there should seem to be any danger to them from the publication of their names.

Limborch, lib. i., cap. xvi. The Liber Sententiarum Inquisitionis Tholosanæ,' published at the end of his work, is of great value, not only as it faithfully represents the spirit of the ruling party in the Church at that time, (there were no doubt many individuals of greater moderation and humanity), but also as the best storehouse of the opinions with. which the heretics were charged, and for which they suffered.

It was indeed introduced into Spain under Pope Sixtus IV., before the close of the fifteenth century; but its first efforts, which were directed against the Jews, were merely characterized by savage barbarity.

SECTION III.

On the Gallican Liberties.

St. Louis and

his Clergy.

A difference which took place between St. Louis and his clergy, in the year 1263, throws some light both on his own character, and on the ecclesiastical history of the age. The bishops were desirous to make to the king a remonstrance from their whole body; and when they were admitted into his presence, the bishop of Auxerre spoke in their name as follows: Sire, all these prelates here assembled desire me to say, that you are permitting the Christian religion to fall to ruins, and to crumble in your hands.' On which the good king* made the sign of the Cross, and said, Now tell me, bishop, how that is, and for what reason?' 'Sire,' continued the bishop, 'the evil is, that no regard is any longer paid to excommunication. In these days, a man would rather die under the sentence, than obtain absolution by making the necessary satisfaction to the Church. Wherefore, Sire, all these here present request, with one voice, that, for the honour of God, and in the discharge of your own duty †, it may please you to command all your bailiffs, provosts, and other administrators of justice, as follows:-that, if any one be found in your kingdon who shall have lain under a sentence of excommunication for a year and a day continuous, he be compelled, by seizure of his goods, to reconcile himself to the Church.' The holy man (le saint homme) answered, that he would issue such order in respect to those who should be proved guilty of injustice either to the Church, or to their neighbour. The bishop pressed, in reply, the exclusive privileges of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; but the king firmly refused the secular aid, unless the nature of the offence, and the justice of the censure, should be such as required its interference. This was the endeavour of a wise prince to distinguish the boundaries of ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction, and to restrain the former within its just limits; and it shows at least, that, on matters which were still left open to the exercise of reason, Louis, how much soever he might love the religion, was not at all disposed to be overreached or overawed by its ministers.

We may relate another anecdote of the same monarch, which will suggest one or two instructive reflections to the intelligent reader. St. Louis had promised to be present at a chapter-general of the Cistertian order, to be held in the year 1244 with unusual solemnity. Innocent IV. received information of his intention; and as the contest with Frederic involved him at that moment in some difficulties, he took measures to profit by the pious disposition of the king of France. The monarch arrived, attended by his mother, his brothers, and some nobles; and all the abbots and the monks of the community, consisting of five hundred, went forth in procession to meet and welcome the royal visitor. Immediately, while he was seated in the chapter, surrounded by his court, the abbots and the monks fell on their knees before him, with their hands in the attitude of

* Joinville, who tells the story, was present. Prem. Partie Vie de St. Louis, p. 24. Pour Dieu, et pour ce qu' ainsi le devez faire.' We should observe that the demand on the part of the prelates was not new, and that it had even been granted by the predecessor of Louis. The first canon of the Council of Narbonne, held in 1227, mentions, as the law then in force, that whoever remained under the sentence, after three admonitions, should pay a fine of nine livres and a denier; but that whoever remained so for a whole year, should suffer the confiscation of all his property. Fleury, liv, lxxix, sec, xxxii.