might be imposed upon them, and thereafter to obey implicitly the bishop and inquisitor. Then those present, together with the dead who had shown signs of penitence, were relieved from excommunication, the rest of the population being required to apply for absolution within a month. The announcement of the penances followed. The town was to make good all expenses and losses accruing to the episcopate and Inquisition by reason of the troubles; it was to build and complete within two years a chapel to the cathedral, and a portal to the Dominican church; to give fifty livres to the Carmelites to be expended on their church, and, finally, to construct marble tombs for Nicholas d' Abbeville, and Foulques de Saint-Georges at Lyons and Carcassonne, where those inquisitors had died in poverty and exile by reason of the rebellion of the inhabitants. Ten pilgrimages, moreover, were designated for the survivors of those who in 1301 had bound themselves to prosecute Bishop Bertrand and Nicholas d' Abbeville in the royal court, as well as for those who had served as consuls and councillors from 1302 to 1304. Jean de Beaune seems to have considered it a special grace when, in December, 1320, he postponed the performance of their pilgrimages during the year from Easter, 1321, to 1322. The town of Cordes, June 29, 1321, was "reconciled" with a similar humiliating ceremony and pledges of future obedience. Thus the Inquisition celebrated its triumph in the long struggle. It had won the victory, and its opponents could only save themselves by unconditional surrender.[1]
Whether the citizens of Albi whose arrest in 1299 gave rise to so many troubles were really heretics or not cannot now be determined. Their confessions were precise and detailed, but, as their defenders alleged, the Inquisition had ample means of extorting what It pleased from its victims, and the long delay in contacting them would seem to argue that the tribunal had good reason for not wishing its sentences to see the fight while there was chance of their being subjected to scrutiny under Clement Y. The inquisitors urged in justification a single case, that of Lambert de
- ↑ Isambert, Anc. Loix Frang. III. 133.—Arch. de I'lnq. de Care. (Doat, XXXII. 138).—MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 11847.—Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos pp 228 344–8, 266–7, 277–81.—Arch.de I'hotel-de-ville d'Albi (Doat, XXXIV 169 185).
