the Inquisitors of southern France, as Bernard
Gui tells us. The majority of the counsellors received a brief
summary of the case, the names being withheld. Only a very few of
them were deemed worthy to read the full text of all the
interrogatories."[1]

[1] Tanon, op. cit., p. 421.

We can readily see how the _periti_ or _boni viri_, who were called
upon to decide the guilt or innocence of the accused from evidence
considered in the abstract, without any knowledge of the prisoners'
names or motives, could easily make mistakes. In fact, they did not
have data enough to enable them to decide a concrete case. For
tribunals are to judge criminals and not crimes, just as physicians
treat sick people and not diseases in the abstract. We know that the
same disease calls for a different treatment in different
individuals; in like manner a crime must be judged with due reference
to the mentality of the one Who has committed it. The Inquisition did
not seem to understand this.[1]

[1] Even in our day the jury is bound to decide on the merits of the
case submitted to it, without regarding the consequences of its
verdict. The foreman reminds the jurymen in advance that "they will
be false to their oath if, in giving their decision, they are biased
by the consideration of the punishment their verdict will entail upon
the prisoner."

The assembly of experts, therefore, instituted by the Popes did not
obtain the good results that were expected. But we must, at least, in
justice admit that the Popes did their utmost to protect the
tribunals of the Inquisition from the arbitrary action of individual
judges, by requiring the Inquisitors to consult both the _boni viri_
and the Bishops.

Over the various penalties of the Inquisition, the Popes likewise
exercised a supervision which was always just and at times most
kindly.

The greatest penalties which the Inquisition could inflict were life
imprisonment, and abandonment of the prisoner to the secular arm. It
is only with regard to the first of these penalties that we see the
clemency of both Popes and Councils. Any one who considers the rough
manners of this period, must admit that the Church did a great deal
to mitigate the excessive cruelty of the medieval prisons.

The Council of Toulouse, in 1229, decreed that repentant heretics
"must be imprisoned, in such a way that they could not corrupt
others." It also declared that the Bishop was to provide for the
prisoners' needs