x, 11, ed. Beugnot, vol.
i, pp. 157, 413.

It is a question whether this legislation is merely the codification
of the custom introduced by popular uprisings against heresy and by
certain royal decrees, or whether it owes its origin to the law of
Frederic II which Gregory IX tried to enforce in France, as he had
done in Germany and Italy. This second hypothesis is hardly probable.
The tribunals of the Inquisition did not have to import into France
the penalty of the stake; they found it already established in both
central and northern France.

In fact, Gregory IX urged everywhere the enforcement of the existing
laws against heresy, and where none existed he introduced a very
severe system of prosecution. He was the first, moreover, to
establish an extraordinary and permanent tribunal for heresy
trials--an institution which afterwards became known as the monastic
Inquisition.

. . . . . . . .

The prosecution and the punishment of heretics in every diocese was
one of the chief duties of the bishops, the natural defenders of
orthodoxy. While heresy appeared at occasional intervals, they had
little or no difficulty in fulfilling their duty. But when the
Cathari and the Patazins had sprung up everywhere, especially in
southern Italy and France and northern Spain, the secrecy of their
movements made the task of the bishop extremely hard and complicated.
Rome soon perceived that they were not very zealous in prosecuting
heresy. To put an end to this neglect, Lucius III, jointly with the
Emperor Frederic Barbarossa and the bishops of his court, enacted a
decretal at Verona in 1184, regulating the _episcopal inquisition_.

All bishops and archbishops were commanded to visit personally once
or twice a year, or to empower their archdeacons or other clerics to
visit, every parish in which heresy was thought to exist. They were
to compel two or three trustworthy men, or, if need be, all the
inhabitants of the city, to swear that they would denounce every
suspect who attended secret assemblies, or whose manner of living
differed from that of the ordinary Catholic. After the bishop had
questioned all who had been brought before his tribunal, he was
empowered to punish them as he deemed fit, unless the accused
succeeded in establishing their innocence. All who superstitiously
refused to take the required oath (we have seen how the Cathari
considered it criminal to take an oath) were to be condemned and
punished as heretics, an