The following brief notice of the statues against heresy, will give the reader some idea of the unrelenting cruelties of the Catholics, and the oppressed state of the feeble remnant in Languedoc. "The archbishops, bishops, and abbots, were to appoint in every parish one priest, and three or four lay inquisitors, to search all houses and buildings, in order to detect heretics, and to denounce them to the archbishop or bishop, the lord of his bailiff, so as to ensure their apprehension. The lords were to make the same inquisition in every part of their states. Whoever was convicted of harboring a heretic forfeited the land to his lord, and was reduced to personal slavery. Every house in which a heretic was found was to be razed to the ground, the farm confiscated, the bailiff who should not be active in detecting heretics was to lose his office, and be incapacitated from holding it in future. Heretics who recanted were to be removed from their homes, and settled in Catholic cities, to wear two crosses of a different color from their dress, one on the right side, one on the left. Those who recanted from fear of death were to be imprisoned for life. All persons, males of the age of fourteen, females of twelve, were to take an oath of abjuration of heresy, and of their catholic faith; if absent, and not appearing within fifteen days, they were held suspected of heresy."
The above extracts from a Catholic code of persecution are sufficient to show the reader what the spirit of popery was in those days, and what it would be today if it had the same power. And these laws were considered by the legate not strict enough; and so he summoned a Council at Melun, where new statutes were enacted more rigorous and efficient. But as the heretics could only be judged by a bishop or an ecclesiastic, and the work becoming so laborious from the number of apprehensions, Pope Gregory IX. in the year 1233, committed this formidable jurisdiction into the hands of the Dominicans, and the Inquisition was then erected into a distinct institution. Having said so much about the Inquisition as to its origin, it may be interesting to glance for a moment at the gradual expansion of the inquisitorial idea in the church from its commencement.