not do so. It took the lead of the popular
movement and encouraged it. This was its greatest crime, but it must be
fairly understood that it acted with public opinion and was fully
supported by the masses and by the culture classes. The Inquisition was
not unpopular and was not disapproved. It was thought to be the proper
and necessary means to deal with heresy, just as we now think police
courts necessary to deal with petty crimes (see sec. 247). The system of
persecution went on to extravagances. The masses disapproved. They could
not be held to any responsibility. They turned against the
ecclesiastical authorities and threw all the blame on them.

+254. The church uses the power for selfish aggrandizement.+ Things now
advanced, therefore, to the second stage. The church authorities
accepted the executive duty in respect to the defense of the church and
society against heresy. The popular idea was that heresy would bring
down the wrath of God on all Christendom, or on the whole of the small
group in which it occurred.[575] The church authorities formulated
doctrines, planned programmes, and appointed administrative officers. To
them the commission laid upon them meant more social power, and they
turned it into a measure of selfish aggrandizement. This alienated first
all competent judges, and at last the masses.

+255. The Inquisition took shape slowly.+ The Inquisition took shape
very gradually through the first half of the thirteenth century. "In the
proceedings of this period the rudimentary character of the Inquisition
is evident." The mendicant orders furnished the first agents. They were
admired and honored by the masses. Gregory IX, in his first bulls
(1233), making the Dominicans the official inquisitors, seemed to be
uncertain as to the probable attitude which the bishops would adopt to
this invasion of their jurisdiction, "while the character of his
instructions shows that he had no conception of what the innovation was
to lead to." "As yet there was no idea of superseding the episcopal
functions." In fact, the mendicant orders supplanted the military orders
as papal militia, just as they were later supplanted by the Jesuits, and
they very greatly assisted the reorganization of the church into an
absolute monarchy under the pope.[576] Frederick II died in 1250. He was
the first modern man on a throne. He had aimed to rule all Christendom
by despotic methods which he perhaps learned from the Mohammedans. He