ncil of
Tours in 1163, renewed, at the Lateran Council in 1179, the decrees
already enacted against the heretics of central France. He considered
the Cathari, the Brabancons, etc., disturbers of the public welfare,
and therefore called upon the princes to protect by force of arms
their Christian subjects against the outrages of these heretics. The
princes were to imprison all heretics and confiscate their property.
The Pope granted indulgences to all who carried on this pious work.

In 1184, Pope Lucius III, in union with the Emperor Frederic
Barbarossa, adopted at Verona still more vigorous measures. Heretics
were to be excommunicated, and then handed over to the secular arm,
which was to inflict upon them the punishment they deserved
(_animadversio debita_).[1] The Emperor decreed the imperial ban
against them.

[1] Canon 27, inserted in the Decretals of Gregory IX, lib. v, tit.
vii, _De Haereticis_, cap. ix.

This imperial ban was, as Ficker has pointed out, a very severe
penalty in Italy; for it comprised banishment, the confiscation of
the property, and the destruction of the houses of the condemned,
public infamy, the inability to hold public office, etc. This is
beyond question the penalty the King of Aragon alluded to in his
enactment. The penalty of the stake which he added, although in
conformity with the Roman law, was an innovation.

The pontificate of Innocent III, which began in 1198, marks a pause
in the development of the Church's penal legislation against heresy.
Despite his prodigious activity, this Pope never dreamt of enacting
new laws, but did his best to enforce the laws then in vogue, and to
stimulate the zeal of both princes and magistrates in the suppression
of heresy.

Hardly had he ascended the pontifical throne when he sent legates to
southern France, and wrote urgent letters full of apostolic zeal to
the Archbishops of Auch and Aix, the Bishop of Narbonne, and the King
of France. These letters, as well as his instructions to the legates,
are similar in tone: "Use against heretics the spiritual sword of
excommunication, and if this does not prove effective, use the
material sword. The civil laws decree banishment and confiscation;
see that they are carried out."[1]

[1] Letters of Innocent III in Migne, P.L., vol. ccxiv-ccxvi.

At this time the Cathari were living not only in the cities of
Languedoc and Provence, but some had even entered the papal States,
e.g., at Orvieto and Viter