the annulment of all their civil
acts and powers. It is evident that the emperor was influenced by
Innocent III, for, having declared that the children of heretics
could not inherit their father's property, he adds a phrase borrowed
from the papal decree of 1199, viz., "that to offend the divine
majesty was a far greater crime than to offend the majesty of the
emperor."[1]

[1] _Monum. Germaniae, Leges_, sect. iv, vol. ii, pp. 107-109.

This at once put heresy on a par with treason, and consequently
called for a severer punishment than the law actually decreed. We
will soon see others draw the logical conclusion from the emperor's
comparison, and enact the death penalty for heresy.

The legates of Pope Honorius were empowered to introduce the
canonical and imperial legislation into the statutes of the Italian
cities, which hitherto had not been at all anxious to take any
measures whatever against heretics. They succeeded in Bergamo,
Piacenza, and Mantua in 1221; and in Brescia in 1225. In 1226, the
emperor himself ordered the podesta of Pavia to banish all heretics
from the city limits. About the year 1230, therefore, it was the
generally accepted law throughout all Italy (recall what we have said
above about Faenza, Florence, etc.) to banish all heretics,
confiscate their property, and demolish their houses.

Two years had hardly elapsed when, through the joint efforts of
Frederic II and Gregory IX, the death penalty of the stake was
substituted for banishment; Guala, a Dominican, seems to leave been
the prime mover in bringing about this change.

Frederic II, influenced by the jurists who were reviving the old
Roman law, prolmulgated a law for Lombardy in 1224, which condemned
heretics to the stake, or at least to have their tongues cut out.[1]
This penalty of the stake was common--if not legal--in Germany. For
instance, we read of the people of Strasburg burning about eighty
heretics about the year 1212[2], and we could easily cite other
similar executions.[3] The emperor, therefore, merely brought the use
of the stake from Germany into Italy. Indeed it is very doubtful
whether this law was in operation before 1230.

[1] A Constitution sent to the Archbishop of Magdeburg, in the _Mon.
Germ., Leges_, sect. iv, vol. ii, p. 126. [2] _Annales Marbacenses_,
ad ann. 1215, in the _Mon. Germ. SS_., vol. xvii, p. 174. . [3] Cf.
Julien Havet, op. cit., pp. 143, 144.

But in that year, Guala, the Dominican, who had be