leased from prison with crosses, six were pardoned, seven were condemned to perpetual imprisonment, together with four false witnesses, eight had arbitrary penances assigned them, four dead persons were sentenced, and a friar and a priest were degraded. As the see of Pamiers, to which this auto was confined, was a small one, the number of sentences uttered indicates active work. De- cember 12, of the same year, Henri de Chamay held another at Narbonne, where the fate of some forty delinquents was decided. Then, January 7, 1329, he held another at Pamiers; May 19, one at Béziers; September 8, one at Carcassonne, where six unfortu- nates were burned and twenty-one condemned to perpetual prison. Shortly afterwards he burned three at Albi, and towards the end of the year he held another auto at a place not named, where eight persons were sentenced to prison, three to prison in chains, and two were burned. Some collisions seem to have occurred about this time with the royal officials, for, in 1334, the inquisitors com- plained to Philippe de Valois that their functions were impeded, and Philippe issued orders to the seneschals of Nimes, Toulouse, and Carcassonne that the Inquisition must be maintained in the full enjoyment of its ancient privileges.[1]
Activity continued for some little time longer, but the records have perished which would supply the details. We happen to have the accounts of the Sénéchaussée of Toulouse, for 1337, which show that Pierre Bruni, the inquisitor, was by no means idle. The re- ceiver of confiscations enumerates the estates of thirty heretics from which collections are in hand; there was an auto de fé celebrated and paid for; the number of prisoners in the inquisitorial jail is stated at eighty-two, but as their maintenance during eleven months amounted to the sum of three hundred and sixty-five livres four- teen sols, the average number at three deniers per diem must have been ninety. The terrible vicissitudes of the English war doubt- less soon afterwards slackened the energy of the inquisitors, but we know that there were autos de fé celebrated at Carcassonne in 1346, 1357, and 1383, and one at Toulouse in 1374. The office of inquisitor continued to be filled, but its functions diminished greatly in importance, as we may guess from the fact that it is related of
- ↑ Coll. Doat, XXVII. 119, 132, 140, 146, 156, 178, 192, 198, 232.—Vaissette, IV. Pr. 23.
