IRREGULAR PERSECUTION. 7 beard of the insolent language of the consuls, and exclaimed that it was only a fresh incentive to preach against heresy more bit- terly than ever. He set the example in this, and was eagerly fol- lowed by many of the brethren. He soon, too, had an opportunity of proving the falsity of the consuls' disclaimer. It transpired that Jean Pierre Donat, a canon of the ancient Church of Saint Sernin, who had recently died and been buried in the cloister, had been secretly hereticated on his death -bed. Without authority, and apparently without legal investigation, Master Koland assembled some friars and clerks, exhumed the body from the cloister, dragged it through the streets, and pubhcly burned it. Soon afterwards he heard of the death of a prominent Waldensian minister named Galvan. After stirring up popular passion in a sermon, he marched at the head of a motley mob to the house where the heretic had died and levelled it to the ground ; then proceeding to the Ceme- tery of Yilleneuve, where the body was interred, he dug it up and dragged it through the city, accompanied by an immense proces- sion, to the pubhc place of execution beyond the walls, where it was solemnly burned.* All this was volunteer persecution. . The episcopal court was as yet the only tribunal having power to act in such matters, and it, as we have seen, could only authorize the secular arm to do its duty in the final execution. Yet the episcopal court seems to have been in no way invoked in these proceedings, and no protest is re- corded as having been uttered against such irregular enforcements of the law by the mob. There was, in fact, no organization for the steady repression of heresy. Bishop Eaymond appears to have satisfied himself vfith an occasional raid against heretics outside of the city, and to have allowed those within it virtual immunity under the protection of the consuls, though he had, in virtue of his office, all the powers requisite for the purpose, and the machinery for their effective use could have readily been developed. No per- manent results were to be expected from fitful bursts of zeal, and the suppression of heresy might well seem to be as far off as ever. Urgent as was evidently the need of some organized body de- voted exclusively to persecution, the appointment of the first
- Pelisso Chron. pp. 10- 11. — Preger, Vorarbeiten zu einer Geschichte der
deutschen Mystik, p. 17.
