sition was
exterminating Cathari and Albigenses, the sons of Dominic figured in
paintings in monasteries and chapels as great white hounds spotted
with black, biting at the throats of the wolves of heresy.[2031] In
France in the fifteenth century the Dominicans were always the dogs of
the Lord; they, jointly with the bishops, drove out the heretic. The
Grand Inquisitor or his Vicar was unable of his own initiative to set
on foot and prosecute any judicial action; the bishops maintained
their right to judge crimes committed against the Church. In matters
of faith trials were conducted by two judges, the Ordinary, who might
be the bishop himself or the Official, and the Inquisitor or his
Vicar. Inquisitorial forms were observed.[2032]

[Footnote 2030: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 3, 12; vol. iii, p. 378; vol. v,
p. 392.]

[Footnote 2031: _Domini canes._ Thus they are represented in the
frescoes of the Capella degli Spagnuoli in Santa-Maria-Novella at
Florence.]

[Footnote 2032: Tanon, _Histoire des tribuneaux de l'inquisition en
France_, ch. ii.]

In the Maid's case it was not the Bishop only who was prompting the
Holy Inquisition, but the Daughter of Kings, the Mother of Learning,
the Bright and Shining Sun of France and of Christendom, the
University of Paris. She arrogated to herself a peculiar jurisdiction
in cases of heresy or other matters of doctrine occurring in the city
or its neighbourhood; her advice was asked on every hand and regarded
as authoritative over the face of the whole world, wheresoever the
Cross had been set up. For a year her masters and doctors, many in
number and filled with sound learning, had been clamouring for the
Maid to be delivered up to the Inquisition, as being good for the
welfare of the Church and conducive to the interests of the faith; for
they had a deep-rooted suspicion that the damsel came not from God,
but was deceived and seduced by the machinations of the Devil; that
she acted not by divine power but by the aid of demons; that she was
addicted to witchcraft and practised idolatry.[2033]

[Footnote 2033: Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, _Chartularium
universitatis Parisiensis_, vol. iv, p. 510; _Le proces de Jeanne
d'Arc et l'universite de Paris_, Paris, 1897, in 8vo, 32 pp.]

Such knowledge as they possessed of things divine and methods of
reasoning corroborated this grave suspicion. They were Burgundians and
English by necessity and by inclination; they observed faithfully the
T