come Bishop of
Brescia, used his authority to enact for his episcopal city the most
severe laws against heresy. The podesta of the city had to swear that
he would prosecute heretics as Manicheans and traitors, according to
both the canon and the civil law, especially in view of Frederic's
law of 1224. Innocent III's comparison between heretics and traitors,
and between the Cathari and the Manicheans, now bore fruit. Traitors
deserved the death penalty, while the old Roman law sent the
Manicheans to the stake; accordingly Guala maintained that all
heretics deserved the stake.

Pope Gregory IX adopted this stern attitude, probably under the
influence of the Bishop of Brescia, with whom he was in frequent
correspondence.[1] The imperial law of 1224 was inscribed in 1230 or
1231 upon the papal register, where it figures as number 103 of the
fourth year of Gregory's pontificate. The Pope then tried to enforce
it, beginning with the city of Rome. He enacted a law in February,
1231, ordering, as the Council of Toulouse had done in 1229, heretics
condemned by the Church to be handed over to the secular arm, to
receive the punishment they deserved, _animadversio debita_. All who
abjured and accepted a fitting penance were to be imprisoned for
life, without prejudice to the other penalties for heresy, such as
confiscation.[2]

[1] Gregory IX was four years Pope before he enacted these new laws.

[2] Cap. ii, _Mon. Germ., Leges_, sect. iv, vol. ii, p. 196.

About the same time, Annibale, the Senator of Rome, established the
new jurisprudence of the Church in the eternal city. Every year, on
taking office, the Senator was to banish (_diffidare_) all heretics.
All who refused to leave the city were, eight days after their
condemnation, to receive the punishment they deserved. The penalty,
_animadversio debita_, is not specified, as if every one knew what
was meant.

Inasmuch as reluctant heretics were imprisoned for life, it seems
certain that the severer penalty reserved for obstinate heretics must
have been the death penalty of the stake, for that was the mode of
punishment decreed by the imperial law of 1224, which had just been
copied on the registers of the papal chancery. But we are not left to
mere conjecture. In February, 1231, a number of Patarins were
arrested in Rome; those who refused to abjure were sent to the stake,
while those who did abjure were sent to Monte Cassino and Cava to do
penance. This case tells us