The Trial

The evil lead given in the fourth century by the fifteen ineffective edicts against heresy in order to weld the Empire into unity and protect it against those blind, scarcely conscious centrifugal forces which were apt to fight under the more legible ensigns of religious differences persisted throughout the Middle Ages. But it was not until the Thirteenth Century that an organised Inquisition was first instituted and the Church, holding the keys of heaven and hell at its girdle and conscious of the duty of maintaining its own supremacy and some sort of unity in Europe, acted with free authority and made a systematic attempt to fetter opinion. Its proceedings became secret and mysterious; the victim disappeared as if the earth had silently swallowed him, and the issue was only apparent when he was restored to the public gaze in a procession of priests and godly men conducting him to the stake. Written accusations were accepted of anyone, and, while the accused might demand a written account of the charges brought against him, the names of the accuser and of witnesses were with-held. ¹ After a period of greater tolerance, at the instigation of Don Inigo Lopez de Recalde, better known as Ignatius Loyola, founder of the order of Jesuits and a man wholly devoted to the service of God, Paul III yielded to the entreaties of Cardinal Carafa and instituted the Roman Inquisition, 21st July, 1542, on the improved, severe and searching Spanish model. It is noteworthy that within a few months of this event Copernicus published his subversive theory and set afoot the long war between Science and Orthodoxy, ¹ dedicating his book, with quite unconscious irony, to the Pope.