ep servants.

Husband and wife, however, were allowed access to each other if
either or both were imprisoned; and late in the fourteenth century
Eymeric declared that zealous Catholics might be admitted to visit
prisoners, but not women and simple folk who might be perverted, for
converted prisoners, he added, were very liable to relapse, and to
infect others, and usually died at the stake.[1]

[1] Eymeric, _Directorium_, p. 507.

"In the milder form, or _murus largus_, the prisoners apparently
were, if well behaved, allowed to take exercise in the corridors,
where sometimes they had opportunities of converse with each other,
and with the outside world. This privilege was ordered to be given to
the aged and infirm by the cardinals who investigated the prison of
Carcassonne, and took measures to alleviate its rigors. In the
harsher confinement, or _murus strictus_, the prisoner was thrust
into the smallest, darkest, and most noisome of cells, with chains on
his feet,--in some cases chained to the wall. This penance was
inflicted on those whose offences had been conspicuous, or who had
perjured themselves by making incomplete confessions, the matter
being wholly at the discretion of the Inquisitor. I have met with one
case, in 1328, of aggravated false-witness, condemned to the _murus
strictissimus_, with chains on both hands and feet. When the culprits
were members of a religious order, to avoid scandal, the proceedings
were usually held in private, and the imprisonment would be ordered
to take place in a convent of their own order. As these buildings,
however, were unprovided with cells for the punishment of offenders,
this was probably of no great advantage to the victim. In the case of
Jeanne, widow of B. de la Tour, a nun of Lespinasse, in 1216, who had
committed acts of both Catharan and Waldensian heresy, and had
prevaricated in her confession, the sentence was confinement in a
separate cell in her own convent, where no one was to enter or see
her, her food being pushed in through an opening left for the
purpose--in fact, the living tomb known as the _in pace_."[1]

[1] Lea, op. cit., vol. i. p. 487.

In these wretched prisons the diet was most meager. But "while the
penance prescribed was a diet of bread and water, the Inquisition,
with unwonted kindness, did not object to its prisoners receiving
from their friends contributions of food, wine, money, and garments,
and among its documents are such frequent al