Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/426

This page needs to be proofread.

,.^ GERMANY. 410 laid before Martin V. twenty-four articles to prove that aU such associations outside of the approved religious «'"ders ought to be abolished. To accomplish this, after the approved style of scho- lastic logic, he was obliged to assert such absurd general principles as that ft was equivalent to suicide, and therefore a mortal sin for any secular person to give away his property in chanty, and that the pope had no power to grant a dispensation xn such oas^. Grabon's propositions and conclusions ^-^^'•V*'^^ "-f ^l^J^ Cardinal of Verona, who submitted them to Cardinal Peter d AiUy and Chancellor Gerson. The former reported that the paper was heretical and should be burned, while the jurists should be called upon to decide what ought to be done to its writer. The a Uer that the doctrine was pestiferous and blasphemous, and hat ^^ author, if obstinate, should be arrested. G-bon was giad to es^ cape bv publicly abjuring some of his articles as heretical, others aferronJous, and others as scandalous and offensive to pKms ea^^ The triumph of the Beguines was decisive, and they might at last hope for a respite from persecution. The associations increased and flourished'accordingly, and under their shelter the Brethren of the Free Spirit continued to propagate their heresy From this time forward the attention of the Church was man. Iv directed to Hussitism, the most formidable en«ny that it had encountered since the Catharism of the twelfth centu y. This will be considered in a following chapter, and meanwh le I need only say that its secret but threatening progress throughout Ger- many c'alled for active means of repression and led to more thor- ough organization of the Inquisition. The bull of Martin V issL February 22, 1418, against Wicldiffltes and Hussites, s ad^ dressed not oniy to prelates but to inquisitors ~— d 'n t^^^ dioceses and cities of Salzburg, Prague, Gnesen «Imutz L tomysl Bamberg, Misnia, Passau, Breslau, Eatisbon ^f, 'hlral"; as Neutra. While of course this is not to be aken hteraUy as though there were an organized tribunal of the Holy Office in each'of these places, still it indicates that in the dis ricts m^ect d or exposed to infection the Church was arming itself with . cone, constant. De^t^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^ ^l^^^Z Hardt, I. 715-17).-Hemmerliii Glosa quarund. Bullar. (0pp. c. d.)- Matth'sei Grabon (Von der Hardt, III. 107-20).