Medieval Inquisition

The Inquisition properly so called did not come into existence until 1231, with the constitution Excommunicamus of Pope Gregory IX....
Copyright © Encarta 98 Encyclopedia, Microsoft Corporation, Inquisition

... Pope Gregory IX in 1231 instituted the papal Inquisition for the apprehension and trial of heretics.
Copyright © 1994-2000 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., Inquisition

... In Italy Emperor Frederick II, as early as 22 November, 1220 (Mon. Germ., II, 243), issued a rescript against heretics, conceived, however quite in the spirit of Innocent III, and Honorius III commissioned his legates to see to the enforcement in Italian cities of both the canonical decrees of 1215 and the imperial legislation of 1220. From the foregoing it cannot be doubted that up to 1224 there was no imperial law ordering, or presupposing as legal, the burning of heretics. The rescript for Lombardy of 1224 (Mon. Germ., II, 252; cf. ibid., 288) is accordingly the first law in which death by fire is contemplated (cf. Ficker, op. cit., 196).... The imperial rescripts of 1220 and 1224 were adopted into ecclesiastical criminal law in 1231, and were soon applied at Rome. It was then that the Inquisition of the Middle Ages came into being.
New Advent (Roman) Catholic Encyclopedia, Inquisition

The principle of toleration was unknown, or at best only here and there a voice was raised against the death penalty ... . The opinion came to prevail, that what disease is to the body that heresy is to the Church, and the most merciful procedure was to cut off the heretic. No distinction was made between the man and the error. The popes were chiefly responsible for the policy which acted upon this view.... § 79
¶ ... From the latter part of the twelfth century, councils advocated the death penalty, popes insisted upon it, and Thomas Aquinas elaborately defended it. Heresy ... was a crime the Church could not tolerate....§ 86
History of the Christian Church, by Philip Schaff, Volume V, Chapter 10, §§ 79, 86

It wasn't long after the papacy authorized the Inquisition that it authorized torture as a method of carrying it out. 'Pope' Innocent IV, in his bull ad extirpanda (1252) ordered the civil magistrates to extort from all heretics by torture a confession of their own guilt and a betrayal of all their accomplices.

... The use of torture to obtain confessions and the names of other heretics was at first rejected but was authorized in 1252 by Innocent IV....
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., Inquisition, Copyright © 1994-2000

... Soon after the Inquisition was instituted, Pope Innocent IV, influenced by the revival of Roman law, issued a decree (in 1252) that called on civil magistrates to have persons accused of heresy tortured to elicit confessions against themselves and others; this was probably the earliest instance of ecclesiastical sanction of this mode of examination.
Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia, torture, Copyright © 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation

Ad Extirpanda effectively established a police state in Italy and is noteworthy for having introduced the use of torture into inquisitorial procedure, and for explicitly condoning burning alive at the stake for relapsed heretics. Resistance amongst secular lords was overcome by a brilliant diplomatic manoeuvre: Innocent incorporated the Sicilian Constitutions of 1239 into a subsidiary Bull, Cum adversus haereticam, thus turning Frederick's legislation against the heretics and Ghibellines that the Emperor had previously protected....
¶ Later Bulls served to refine this legislation, and it is interesting to see amendments being made constantly in response to specific demands or problems that arose in the work of inquisitors: personal letters written by the Pope carry the force of Bulls. But Innocent IV had, with this single stroke, instituted a system of repression that was then honed by Alexander IV (1254-1261), Urban IV (1261-1265), and Clement IV (1265-1268), himself an ex-inquisitor, and finally codified by Boniface VIII in the Liber Sextus of 1298. The provisions of the Bull were accorded theological respectability by St Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica.
The Inquisition - Hammer of Heresy, pp. 41-42, by Edward Burman, Copyright © 1984

... torture ... . was first authorized by Innocent IV in his Bull Ad exstirpanda of 15 May, 1252, which was confirmed by Alexander IV on 30 November, 1259, and by Clement IV on 3 November, 1265. The limit placed upon torture was citra membri diminutionem et mortis periculum—i.e, it was not to cause the loss of life or limb or imperil life....
New Advent (Roman) Catholic Encyclopedia, Inquisition

However, the inquisitors were given such untrammeled license in the pursuit of their goals that they paid little heed to such formalities. Lea's A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages includes a description of the plight of the populace in those times:

"... When the despairing cry of the population induced Clement V to order an investigation into the iniquities of the Inquisition of Carcassonne, the commission issued to the cardinals sent thither in 1306 recites that confessions were extorted by torture so severe that the unfortunates subjected to it had only the alternative of death; and in the proceedings before the commissioners the use of torture is so frequently alluded to as to leave no doubt of its habitual employment. It is a noteworthy fact, however, that in the fragmentary documents of inquisitorial proceedings which have reached us the references to torture are singularly few. Apparently it was felt that to record its use would in some sort invalidate the force of the testimony."
A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (Vol 1, 1888), pp. 423-424, Henry Charles Lea, Harbor Press 1955

In offering here some example of the enormity of the depravity of the methods of torture used, I have chosen one of the more discreet sources available on the internet—though I must caution that it is still graphic. The following description is taken from The History of Protestantism, Volume Second, Book Fifteenth, Chapter 11, by James A. Wylie (1808-1890). The account has been shortened in an attempt at brevity. The entire chapter can be accessed via the link:

Turn we now to the town of Nuremberg, in Bavaria. The zeal with which Duke Albert, the sovereign of Bavaria, entered into the restoration of Roman Catholicism, we have already narrated. To further the movement, he provided every one of the chief towns of his dominions with a Holy Office ... . We shall first describe the Chamber of Torture.

... It derives its name, the Torture-chamber, not from the fact that the torture was here inflicted, but because into this one chamber has been collected a complete set of the instruments of torture gleaned from the various Inquisitions that formerly existed in Bavaria. A glance suffices to show the whole dreadful apparatus by which the adherents of Rome sought to maintain her dogmas. Placed next to the door, and greeting the sight as one enters, is a collection of hideous masks. These represent creatures monstrous of shape, and malignant and fiendish of nature, It is in beholding them that we begin to perceive how subtle was the genius that devised this system of coercion, and that it took the mind as well as the body of the victim into account.... The persecutor had calculated, doubtless, that the effect produced upon the mind of his victim by these dreadfid apparitions, would be that he would become morally relaxed, and less able to sustain his cause.... Yourself accursed, with accursed beings are you henceforth to dwell—such was the silent language of these abhorred images.

We pass on into the chamber, where more dreadful sights meet our gaze. It is hung round and round with instruments of torture, so numerous that it would take a long while even to name them, and so diverse that it would take a much longer time to describe them.... There were instruments for compressing the fingers till the bones should be squeezed to splinters. There were instruments for probing below the finger-nails till an exquisite pain, like a burning fire, would run along the nerves. There were instruments for tearing out the tongue, for scooping out the eyes, for grubbing-up the ears. There were bunches of iron cords, with a spiked circle at the end of every whip, for tearing the flesh from the back till bone and sinew were laid bare. There were iron cases for the legs, which were tightened upon the limb placed in them by means of a screw, till flesh and bone were reduced to a jelly. There were cradles set full of sharp spikes, in which victims were laid and rolled from side to side, the wretched occupant being pierced at each movement of the machine with innumerable sharp points. There were iron ladles with long handles, for holding molten lead or boiling pitch, to be poured down the throat of the victim, and convert his body into a burning cauldron. There were frames with holes to admit the hands and feet, so contrived that the person put into them had his body bent into unnatural and painful positions, and the agony grew greater and greater by moments, and yet the man did not die. There were chestfuls of small but most ingeniously constructed instruments for pinching, probing, or tearing the more sensitive parts of the body, and continuing the pain up to the very verge where reason or life gives way. On the floor and walls of the apartment were other and larger instruments for the same fearful end - lacerating, mangling, and agonizing living men; but these we shall meet in other dungeons we are yet to visit.

The things we have been surveying are not the mere models of the instruments made use of in the Holy Office; they are the veritable instruments themselves. We see before us the actual implements by which hundreds and thousands of men and women, many of them saints and confessors of the Lord Jesus, were torn, and mangled, and slain....

We leave the Torture-chamber to visit the Inquisition proper.... The cicerone appears, carrying a bunch of keys, a lantern, and some half-dozen candles.... We begin to descend. We go down one flight of steps; we go down a second flight; we descend yet a third. And now we pause a moment. The darkness is intense, for here never came the faintest glimmer of day; but a gleam thrown forward from the lantern showed us that we were arrived at the entrance of a horizontal, narrow passage....

Passing in, the corridor continued, and we went forward other three paces or so, when we found ourselves before a second door. We opened and shut it behind us as we did the first. Again we began to thread our way: a third door stopped us. We opened and closed it in like manner. Every step was carrying us deeper into the heart of the rock, and multiplying the barriers between us and the upper world. We were shut in with the thick darkness and the awful silence. We began to realize what must have been the feelings of some unhappy disciple of the Gospel, surprised by the familiars of the Holy Office, led through the midnight streets of Nuremberg, conducted to Max Tower, led down flight after flight of stairs, and along this horizontal shaft in the rock, and at every few paces a massy door, with its locks and bolts, closing behind him! He must have felt how utterly he was beyond the reach of human pity and human aid. No cry, however piercing, could reach the ear of man through these roofs of rock. He was entirely in the power of those who had brought him thither.

At last we came to a side-door in the narrow passage. We halted, applied the key, and the door, with its ancient mould, creaking harshly as if moving on a hinge long disused, opened to let us in.... This was the Chamber of Question. Along one side of the apartment ran a low platform. There sat of old the inquisitors, three in number—the first a divine, the second a casuist, and the third a civilian. The only occupant of that platform was the crucifix, or image of the Savior on the cross, which still remained.... In the middle was the horizontal rack or bed of torture, on which the victim was stretched till bone started from bone, and his dislocated frame became the seat of agony, which was suspended only when it had reached a pitch that threatened death.

Leaning against the wall of the chamber was the upright rack, which is simpler, but as an instrument of torture not less effectual, than the horizontal one. There was the iron chain which wound over a pulley, and hauled up the victim to the vaulted roof; and there were the two great stone weights which, tied to his feet, and the iron cord let go, brought him down with a jerk that dislocated his limbs, while the spiky rollers, which he grazed in his descent, cut into and excoriated his back, leaving his body a bloody, dislocated mass.

Here, too, was the cradle of which we have made mention above, amply garnished within with cruel knobs, on which the sufferer, tied hand and foot, was thrown at every movement of the machine, to be bruised all over, and brought forth discoloured, swollen, bleeding, but still living. All round, ready to hand, were hung the minor instruments of torture. There were screws and thumbkins for the fingers, spiked collars for the neck, iron boots for the legs, gags for the mouth, cloths to cover the face, and permit the slow percolation of water, drop by drop, down the throat of the person undergoing this form of torture. There were rollers set round with spikes, for bruising the arms and back; there were iron scourges, pincers, and tongs for tearing out the tongue, slitting the nose and ears, and otherwise disfiguring and mangling the body till it was horrible and horrifying to look upon it....

We shall suppose that all this has been gone through; that the confessor has been stretched on the bed of torture; has been gashed, broken, mangled, and yet, by power given him from above, has not denied his Savior: he has been "tortured not accepting deliverance:" what further punishment has the Holy Office in reserve ... ?

We return to the narrow passage, and go forward a little way.... Here there is a vaulted chamber, entirely dug out of the living rock, except the roof, which is formed of hewn stone. It contains an iron image of the Virgin; and on the opposite wall, suspended by an iron hook, is a lamp, which when lighted shows the goodly proportions of "Our Lady." On the instant of touching a spring the image flings open its arms, which resemble the doors of a cupboard, and which are seen to be stuck full on the inside with poignards, cach about a foot in length. Some of these knives are so placed as to enter the eyes of those whom the image enfolded in its embrace, others are set so as to penetrate the ears and brain, others to pierce the breast, and others again to gore the abdomen.

The person who had passed through the terrible ordeal of the Question-chamber, but had made no recantation, would be led along the tortuous passage by which we had come, and ushered into this vault, where the first object that would greet his eye, the pale light of the lamp falling on it, would be the iron Virgin. He would be bidden to stand right in front of the image. The spring would be touched by the executioner—the Virgin would fling open her arms, and the wretched victim would straightway be forced within them. Another spring was then touched—the Virgin closed upon her victim; a strong wooden beam, fastened at one end to the wall by a movable joint, the other placed against the doors of the iron image, was worked by a screw, and as the beam was pushed out, the spiky arms of the Virgin slowly but irresistibly closed upon the man, cruelly goring him.

... A canal had been made to flow underneath the vault where stood the iron Virgin, and when she had done her work upon those who were delivered over to her tender mercies, she let them fall, with quick descent and sullen plunge, into the canal underneath, where they were floated to the Pegnitz, and from the Pegnitz to the Rhine, and by the Rhine to the ocean ... .

Llorente, secretary of the Inquisition at Madrid from 1789 - 1791 and historian of the Inquisition, verifies that the many historical accounts of the methods of torture are not exaggerations:

I shall not describe the different modes of torture employed by the Inquisition, as it has been already done by many historians: I shall only say that none of them can be accused of exaggeration.
The History of the Inquisition of Spain, by Juan Antonio Llorente (Second Edition, 1827); p. 65

David A. Plaisted thoroughly researches the estimates of historiaan, and makes a compelling argument that the true numbers exceed 50 million.

There are any number of Roman 'catholic' apologist websites that attempt to whitewash this history, which they refer to as the 'black legend'. They mostly all refer to the same revisionist authors and the same set of records and attempt to say, "see, it wasn't all that bad". However, lets take a look at the numbers in perspective. Here is a quote from New Advent (Roman) Catholic Encyclopedia, Inquisition:

How many victims were handed over to the civil power cannot be stated with even approximate accuracy. We have nevertheless some valuable information about a few of the Inquisition tribunals, and their statistics are not without interest. At Pamiers, from 1318 to 1324, out of twenty-four persons convicted but five were delivered to the civil power, and at Toulouse from 1308 to 1323, only forty-two out of nine hundred and thirty bear the ominous note "relictus culiae saeculari". Thus, at Pamiers one in thirteen, and at Toulouse one in forty-two seem to have been burnt for heresy although these places were hotbeds of heresy and therefore principal centres of the Inquisition. We may add, also, that this was the most active period of the institution....

It most certainly was not "the most active period of the institution". The Spanish Inquisition was yet to come, to be followed by the Roman Inquisition.

First, a note on the poor math: (5/24 ≠ 1/13, and 42/930 ≠ 1/42), 5 burnt out of 24 'convicted' is over 20%, or 1 in 5; and 42 burnt out of 930 'convicted' is about 4.5% or 1 in 22. And remember, these were not criminals, murderers, thieves—but people who didn't step to the cadence of the thought police of the day. Imagine the outrage if 4.5% of the convictions at your local courthouse were to be executed next year. How about 20%? And remember, these numbers are the ones that the Roman catholic apologists are using—so they are likely the most favorable.

The centres of heresy in Germany were Strassburg, as early as 1212, Cologne, and Erfurt. The number of victims is said to have been very large and at least five hundred can be accounted for definitely in reported burnings. Banishment, hanging, and drowning were other forms of punishment practised. In 1368 the Inquisitor, Walter Kerlinger, banished two hundred families from Erfurt alone....
History of the Christian Church, by Philip Schaff, Volume V, Chapter 10, § 87

Here are more details of the 42/930 burned under Bernard Gui, taken from a now defunct webpage which had been available on the "Keeping Catholics Catholic" website. Notice that in addition to the 42 burned, there were 3 more who would have been burned, had they lived. The question naturally arises whether or not they may have died during torture. Also, see that 69 had their bones exhumed and burned. This tactic was known to be used by the inquisitors because it allowed them to confiscate the goods of the exhumed 'heretic'—even from the heirs.

Released from the obligation to wear crosses 132
Sentenced to pilgrimages, without wearing crosses 9
Released from prison 139
Sentenced to wear crosses 143
Imprisoned 307
Dead persons who would have been imprisoned 17
Abandoned to the secular Arm and burned at the stack (sic) 42
Dead persons, who would have been abandoned 3
Bones exhumed and burned 69
Fugitives, declared excommunicate 40
Sentenced to he exposed in the stocks or pillary 2
Priests sentenced to be degraded. 2
Exiled 1
Houses ordered demolished 22
Copies of the Talmud condemned and burned (2 cartloads) 1
Interdict removed 1
Total 930

It seems likely that the author of that webpage (no longer available) got the data from the same source as the New Advent Encyclopedia, quoted above. H. C. Lea gives a list that is quite similar, but the numbers are different:

In Bernard Gui's Register of Sentences, comprising his operations between 1308 and 1322, there are six hundred and thirty-six condemnations recorded, which may be thus classified:

Delivered to the secular court and burned 40
Bones exhumed and burned 67
Imprisoned 300
Bones exhumed of those who would have been imprisoned 21
Condemned to wear crosses 138
Condemned to perform pilgrimages 16
Banished to Holy Land 1
Fugitives 36
Condemnation of the Talmud 1
Houses to be destroyed 16
Total 636
A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, (Vol 1, 1888), pp. 494 - 495, Henry Charles Lea, Harbor Press 1955

This webpage says that the numbers were 45 (this may include the 42 + 3 mentioned above) burned at the stake by Bernard Gui out of 615, or 7.3%, and gives a reference.

Bernard Gui (or Bernard Guidonis) was a Dominican monk and inquisitor in the early 14th century, as well as a prolific writer in his day. Perhaps his best known work is his inquisitors' manual Practica inquisitionis heretice pravitatis (The Conduct of Inquiry Concerning Heretical Depravity). A portion of it here, translated by David Burr, offers detail of some of the methods of inquisition in his day:

The sect of Beguines, who call themselves "poor brothers" and say they observe and profess the third rule of Saint Francis ... . During the following years, in the provinces of Narbonne, Toulouse and Catalonia, many of them were seized, held in custody and, their errors having been detected, many of both sexes were judged heretical and burned. This occurred from the year of our Lord 1317 on ... .

Again, they say that those four Friars Minor who, in the year of our Lord 1318, were burned at Marseilles by the inquisitor of heretical depravity (himself a member of the order of Friars Minor), were condemned as heretics because, as the beguins say, they wished to observe the aforesaid rule of Saint Francis, preserving its purity, truth and poverty ... . They say that these brothers were condemned unjustly because they defended the truth of the evangelical rule. Thus they say that the brothers were not heretics, but rather catholics and glorious martyrs....

Again, they say that the aforementioned Lord Pope commanded or consented or still consents that the aforesaid four Friars Minor should have been condemned as heretics by the inquisitor. Through this he has become a heretic himself, the greatest one of all, since as head of the church he should defend evangelical perfection....
{note: it is the opinion of the compiler of this website that the bishop of Rome is not, and never was, the 'head of the Church'. Only Christ is the Head of the Church.}

According to Encarta, the Beguines were women, and their male counterparts were Beghards.

... By the late 13th century, many members were suspected of heresy, primarily because of their association with the Spiritual Franciscans, a rigoristic community that had been condemned by church officials. As a result, numerous groups were closed in the 14th century, and many members were burned at the stake. The Beghards disappeared altogether; some of the Beguines were assimilated into other religious orders ... .
Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia, Beguines and Beghards, © 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

A study of the Beguines.

An interesting aside here is that one of the methods used by the inquisitors was to 'excommunicate' those who refused to swear or to take the oath demanded of them. This is from the same translation of Bernard Gui's Inquisitors' Manual quoted above:

If, however, they pertinaciously refuse to swear ... refuse, that is, when they are ordered by the court to swear ... a written sentence of excommunication should be pronounced against the one who, required to swear, has refused ... .

Now contrast this with the teaching of Christ in Matthew 5.33-37, and ask "who were the 'heretics'? Those who followed the teachings of Christ, or those who excommunicated them for doing so?"

In the late 14th century, the voice of John Wyclif against the papacy began to be heard in England.

In that year (1366) he appears as one of the king's chaplains and as opposed to the papal supremacy in the ecclesiastial affairs of the realm....
¶ In the summer of 1374, Wyclif went to Bruges as a member of the commission appointed by the king to negotiate peace with France and to treat with the pope's agents on the filling of ecclesiastical appointments in England....
¶ On his return to England, he began to speak as a religious reformer. He preached in Oxford and London against the pope's secular sovereignty ... . It was soon after this that, in one of his tracts, he styled the bishop of Rome "the anti-Christ, the proud, worldly priest of Rome, and the most cursed of clippers and cut-purses."...
History of the Christian Church, by Philip Schaff, Volume VI, Chapter 5, §39

Gregory XI issued a document condemning 19 sentences from Wyclif's writings as erroneous and dangerous to Church and state. Gregory ordered the archbishop to imprison Wyclif in bonds until the papal court would pass final sentence, whereupon the vice-chancellor of Oxford, where Wyclif was employed, consigned him to Black Hall under nominal imprisonment, giving an appearance of complying with the papal order. Wyclif's court appearance before the archbishop was broken up by the citizens of London. The 19 condemned heretical sentences were pronounced true by the theologians at Oxford, though they sounded badly to the ear. A few weeks later Gregory died in March, 1378, and a papal schism ensued.

Wyclif, and a body of itinerant evangelists he began—graduates of Oxford and some laymen and called the 'pore priests'—continued to speak out against papal and clerical errors. When Wyclif began to speak out against the dogma of transubstantiation, at the insistence of the clergy a trial was convened at Oxford, at which the dogma was upheld. Upon his appeal to the king's council, even the duke of Lancaster, formerly his ally, sided against him. Wyclif, believing that truth would eventually prevail, continued to speak out against the dogma, though forbidden to speak any more on the subject at Oxford.

Former bishop Courtenay, now elevated to the archbishopric of Canterbury, convened a synod at which were condemned 24 articles ascribed to Wyclif. When Courtenay sought to impose the decisions of the synod on Oxford, Wyclif received the support of both the faculty and students. Nevertheless, King Richard II sided with the bishop, Wyclif was condemned, and he was relieved of his preaching/teaching duties at Oxford. He retired to his rectory at Lutterworth, where he continued his work on Bible translation—one of the first into the English language—and he continued to spread his message through polemic tracts. Wyclif passed away Dec 29, 1384 after "having lit a fire which shall never be put out."

His books were ordered burnt by the Lateran decree of February, 1413. At the Council of Constance he was posthumously excommunicated, his memory condemned, and his bones ordered disinterred and burnt "as one who died an obstinate heretic." In 1429, on the order of 'pope' Martin V, this was carried out by Flemmying, bishop of London.

In 1409, the Council of Pisa deposed both of two rival popes as heretics, Gregory XII and Benedict XIII, and elected a third, Alexander V, in their place. Alexander issued a bull that prohibited preaching in unauthorized places. Jan Hus, a Bohemian defender of Wyclif's teachings, refused to obey the papal order and was excommunicated as a heretic by archbishop Zbynek—a charge that was dropped after Zbynek's death. However, in 1412, the charge against Hus was revived owing to a dispute over the sale of papal indulgences by John XXIII to finance his campaign against Gregory XII.

In 1414 John XXIII convoked the Council of Constance, which deposed him. This same Council of Constance, in 1415, condemned Hus as a Wycliffite heretic and he was burned at the stake. Thereupon, at the Bohemian diet, Sept 2, 1415, 452 nobles signed an indignant manifesto addressed to the council in which they defended Hus as a righteous and good man who had lived an exemplary life among them for many years, and who had been an honest and good preacher and teacher of the Gospel. They advised the council that they would defend, if necessary, to the point of bloodshed the freedom of their preachers to preach the Gospel.

Jerome of Prague, another critic of the sale of papal indulgences, and a friend of Hus and a supporter of Wyclif, was condemned by the Council of Constance in 1416 and also burned at the stake.

Martin V was elected 'pope' at the Council of Constance. After the council, on Feb. 22, 1418, he issued his bull Inter cunctos in which he ordered all who followed "the pestilential doctrine of the heresiarchs, John Wyclif, John Huss and Jerome of Prag" to be punished as heretics. Further, Martin called Europe to a crusade against Bohemia, promising indugences to the 150,000 participants. However, these invaders were driven back 5 times by the Bohemian Hussites. The issue was eventually resolved by negotiation at the ecumenical Council of Basel in 1431, attended by 300 Bohemian delegates. The Bohemians at the council praised the memories of Wyclif and Hus, and all ecclesiastical censures against the Bohemians were lifted. A primary article conceded to the Bohemians the partaking of the cup by the laity. In 1462, this concession was declared void by Pius II, who threatened to excommunicate priests who offered the cup to the laity. Upon the resistance of the King of Bohemia, Pius called on the King of Hungary to take away his crown, which he set out to do. However, the Bohemians maintained their right to the cup until it was taken away in 1629 by Ferdinand II of Austria.

It is known that the Bohemian Bretheren had some measure of relationship with the Waldenses. At the synod of 1467 they sent Michael, pastor of Senftenburg, "presbyter and bishop", to the Waldensian bishop Stephen for sanction or consecration. Frederick Reiser, a leader of the Waldenses, attended the Council of Basel in 1435 as "the bishop of the faithful in the Romish church, who reject the donation of Constantine." He was burned at the stake, with Anna Weiler, at Strassburg, in 1458.

Source of the material for the preceding nine paragraphs is History of the Christian Church, by Philip Schaff, Volume VI, Chapter 5, §§ 40-47

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