264 ITALY. Pragelato, however, suffered more severely in 1400 when, about Christmas, it was attacked by an armed force from Susa. The m- habitants who escaped death or capture took refuge on the moun- tain-tops of the Yal San Martino, where many perished from ex- posure in the inclement season ; and the survivors, on returnmg after the departure of the troops, found their dwellings disman- tled. This cold-blooded cruelty shocked even Boniface IX., who ordered the inquisitor in charge of the foray to moderate his zeal in future.'^ Vicente Ferrer's visit of 1403 was of a more peaceful nature, but it is not likely that the conversions of which he boasted were more permanent than those which his eloquence effected with the Moors and Jews of his native land, where they eagerly clamored for baptism under the persuasion of massacre.f During the Great Schism persecution slackened, but already, in 1416 fresh decrees were issued against the Waldenses. Our knowl- edge' of details is but fragmentary at best, and it is impossible to construct a complete history of the conflict between them and the Inquisition, but we may fairly infer that the latter was at least spasmodically active. A petition addressed to the Duke of Savoy by the lords^f Luserna recites that the inhabitants of the vaUey were in full rebeUion, owing to repeated persecution; the docu- ment is without date, but must be posterior to 1417, when Sigis- mund erected the county into a duchy. Again, we know that, be- tween 1440 and 1450, Era Bertrando Piero, vicar of the inquisitor, in one raid burned at Coni twenty-two relapsed heretics, and con- fiscated their property. This happens to be aUuded to m a me- Gregory XL, in his letter of April 20, 1375, to Amade6 VL, speaks of the recent murder at - Bricherasio " of the inquisitor Antonius Salvianensis (Raynald. ann. 1375 No 26) According to the records of Antonio Secco, Antonio Pavo da Savi^liano received in 1384 the abjuration of Lorenzo Bandoria (loc. cit. p 23), and his murder must have taken place the same year, from the evidence of the son of one of his murderers, Giov. Gabriele of " Bricherasio " (lb. p. 31) . Rorengo places the martyrdom of Antonio Pavo in 1374, and tells us that he was honored fn Savigliano with a local cult as one of the blessed. Another Dominican, Fra Bartolomeo di Cervere was also slain, and his assistant Ricardo desperately wounded, but the date is not certain (Rorengo, Memorie Histonche. p 1 0-
- Chabrand, Vaudois et Protestants des Alpes, Grenoble, 1886, p. 39.
t Raynald. ann. 1403, No. 24.-Melgares Marin, Procedimientos de la Inqmsi- cion, Madrid, 1886, 1. 50.
