of the
Albigensian heterodoxy through Languedoc and Northern Italy alarmed the
chiefs of Christendom, and furnished the Papacy with a good pretext for
extending its prerogatives. Innocent III. in 1203 empowered two French
Cistercians, Pierre de Castelnau and Raoul, to preach against the
heretics of Provence. In the following year he ratified this commission
by a Bull, which censured the negligence and coldness of the bishops,
appointed the Abbot of Citeaux Papal delegate in matters of heresy, and
gave him authority to judge and punish misbelievers. This was the first
germ of the Holy Office as a separate Tribunal. In order to comprehend
the facility with which the Pope established so anomalous an
institution, we must bear in mind the intense horror which heresy
inspired in the Middle Ages. Being a distinct encroachment of the Papacy
upon the episcopal jurisdiction and prerogatives, the Inquisition met at
first with some opposition from the bishops. The people for whose
persecution it was designed, and at whose expense it carried on its
work, broke into rebellion; the first years of its annals were rendered
illustrious by the murder of one of its founders, Pierre de Castelnau.
He was canonized, and became the first Saint of the Inquisition. Two
other Peters obtained the like honor through their zeal for the Catholic
faith: Peter of Verona, commonly called Peter Martyr, the Italian saint
of the Dominican order; and Peter Arbues, the Spanish saint, who sealed
with his blood the charter of the Holy Office in Aragon.

In spite of opposition, the Papal institution took root and flourished.
Philip Augustus responded to the appeals of Innocent; and a crusade
began against the Albigenses, in which Simon de Montfort won his
sinister celebrity. During those bloody wars the Inquisition developed
itself as a force of formidable expansive energy. Material assistance to
the cause was rendered by a Spanish monk of the Augustine order, who
settled in Provence on his way back from Rome in 1206. Domenigo de
Guzman, known to universal history as S. Dominic, organized a new
militia for the service of the orthodox Church between the years 1215
and 1219. His order, called the Order of the Preachers, was originally
designed to repress heresy and confirm the faith by diffusing Catholic
doctrine and maintaining the creed in its purity. It consisted of three
sections: the Preaching Friars; nuns living in conventual retreat; and
laymen, entitled t