CRUEL MODE OF INQUISITION OVER THE DOCTRINE OF THE WALDENSES, OR OF THOSE CALLED HERETICS, A. D. 1214.

In the year 1214, Conrad of Marpurg, a Dominican friar, was appointed by Pope Innocent III., grand inquisitor of the faith over all Germany, and sent by him closely to search out and examine such as were said to have strayed from the faith of the Roman church. This commission he carried out with such cruelty for full nineteen years, that an incredible number of persons, declared heretics by him, were put to death, partly by fire and partly with the sword.

Trithemius speaks of the manner of this inquisition, saying: “That this inquisitor, Conrad of Marpurg, used to try the heretics (the true Christians), by giving them a red-hot iron into their hands, and to deliver all those that were burnt by it as heretics unto the secular judge, to be sentenced to the fire.” Hence it came that only very few escaped, but that all who were once accused and brought to him for examination were, without mercy, condemned by him as heretics to be burned.

“There were some,” he writes, “who held that he condemned very many innocent persons, because the red-hot iron, finding none without sin, although they otherwise had never been tainted with any heresy, burned almost every one that took it.” Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug., A. D. 1214 and 1215. Also A. Mell., 2d book, fol. 459, col. 3; also fol. 466, col. 4.