Frederick's legislation consecrated the stake as the proper punishment
for heresy. This
[59] cruel form of death for that crime seems to have been first
inflicted on heretics by a French king (1017). We must remember that in
the Middle Ages, and much later, crimes of all kinds were punished with
the utmost cruelty. In England in the reign of Henry VIII there is a
case of prisoners being boiled to death. Heresy was the foulest of all
crimes; and to prevail against it was to prevail against the legions of
hell. The cruel enactments against heretics were strongly supported by
the public opinion of the masses.
When the Inquisition was fully developed it covered Western Christendom
with a net from the meshes of which it was difficult for a heretic to
escape. The inquisitors in the various kingdoms co-operated, and
communicated information; there was "a chain of tribunals throughout
continental Europe." England stood outside the system, but from the age
of Henry IV and Henry V the government repressed heresy by the stake
under a special statute (A.D. 1400; repealed 1533; revived under Mary;
finally repealed in 1676).
In its task of imposing unity of belief the Inquisition was most
successful in Spain. Here towards the end of the fifteenth century a
system was instituted which had peculiarities of its own and was very
jealous of
[60] Roman interference. One of the achievements of the Spanish
Inquisition (which was not abolished till the nineteenth century) was to
expel the Moriscos or converted Moors, who retained many of their old
Mohammedan opinions and customs.
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