d if they refused to abjure they were handed
over to the secular arm.[1] This was an attempt to recall the bishops
to a sense of their duty. The Lateran Council of 1215 re-enacted the
laws of Lucius III; and to ensure their enforcement it decreed that
every bishop who neglected his duty should be deposed, and another
consecrated in his place.[2] The Council of Narbonne in 1227 likewise
ordered the bishop to appoint synodal witnesses (_testes synodales_)
in every parish to prosecute heretics.[3] But all these decrees,
although properly countersigned and placed in the archives, remained
practically a dead letter. In the first place it was very difficult
to obtain the synodal witnesses. And again, as a contemporary bishop,
Lunas de Tuy, assures us, the bishops for the most part were not at
all anxious to prosecute heresy. When reproached for their inaction
they replied: "How can we condemn those who are neither convicted nor
confessed?"[4]

[1] Lucius III, Ep. clxxl, Migne, P.L., vol. cci, col. 1297 and seq.

[2] The Bull _Excommunicamus_, Decretals, cap. xiii, in fine, _De
haereticis_, lib. v, tit. vii.

[3] Can. 14, Labbe, _Concilia_, vol. xi, pars i, col. 307, 308.

[4] Lucas Tudensis, _De altera vita fideique controversiis adversus
Albigensium errores_, cap. xix, in the _Bibliotheca Patrum_, 4 ed.
vol. iv, col. 575-714. Lucas was Bishop of Tuy in Galicia, from 1239
to 1249.

The Popes, as the rulers of Christendom, tried to make up for the
indifference of the bishops by sending their legates to hunt for the
Cathari in their most hidden retreats. But they soon realized that
this legatine inquisition was ineffective.[1]

[1] Cf. Lea, op. cit., vol. i, p. 315 and seq.

"Bishop and legate," writes Lea, "were alike unequal to the task of
discovering those who carefully shrouded themselves under the cloak
of the most orthodox observance; and when by chance a nest of
heretics was brought to light, the learning and skill of the average
Ordinary failed to elicit a confession from those who professed the
most entire accord with the teachings of Rome. In the absence of
overt acts, it was difficult to reach the secret thoughts of the
sectary. Trained experts were needed whose sole business it should be
to unearth the offenders, and extort a confession of their guilt."

At an opportune moment, therefore, two mendicant orders, the
Dominicans and the Franciscans, were instituted to meet the new needs
of the Church. Both ord