ined to interpret in this
sense the laws of Louis VIII (1226) and Louis IX (April, 1228), for
the south of France. The words referring to the punishment of
heretics are a little vague: "Let them be punished," says Louis VIII,
"with the punishment they deserve." "_Animadversione debita
puniantur_. The other penalties specified are infamy and
confiscation; in a word, all the consequences of banishment."[1]

[1] _Ordonnances des roys de France_, vol. xii, pp. 319, 320.

Louis IX re-enacted this law in the following terms: "We decree that
our barons and magistrates ... do their duty in prosecuting
heretics." "_De ipsis festinanter faciant quod debebunt_."[1] These
words in themselves are not very clear, and, if we were to interpret
them by the customs of a few years later, we might think that they
referred to the death penalty, even the stake; but comparing them
with similar expressions used by Lucius III and Innocent III, we see
that they imply merely the penalty of banishment.

[2] Ibid., vol. i, p. 51; Labbe, _Concilia_, vol. vii, col. 171.

However, a canon of the Council of Toulouse in 1229 seems to make the
meaning of these words clear, at least for the future. It decreed
that all heretics and their abettors are to be brought to the nobles
and the magistrates to receive due punishment, _ut animadversione
debita puniantur_. But it adds that "heretics, who, _through fear of
death_ or any other cause, except their own free will, return to the
faith, are to be imprisoned by the bishop of the city to do penance,
that they may not corrupt others;" the bishop is to provide for their
needs out of the property confiscated.[1] The fear of death here
seems to imply that the _animadversione debita_ meant the death
penalty. That would prove the elasticity of the formula. At first it
was a legal penalty which custom interpreted to mean banishment and
confiscation; later on it meant chiefly the death penalty; and
finally it meant solely the penalty of the stake. At any rate, this
canon of the Council of Toulouse must be kept in mind; for we will
soon see Pope Gregory IX quoting it.

[1] D'Achery, _Spicilegium_, in-fol., vol. i, p. 711.

In Italy, Frederic II promulgated on November 22, 1220, an imperial
law which, in accordance with the pontifical decree of March 25,
1199, and the Lateran Council of 1215, condemned heretics to every
form of banishment, to perpetual infamy, together with the
confiscation of their property, and