On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    which the modern Lombards are now repaid by the house of Atistria . The contemporary chroniclers are too much occupied with describing the political struggle in which the cities and towns forming the Lombard league were engaged , to take much notice of the religious sects , but we know that there were a great many Catari in Italy , and particularly at Milan , in 1176 . *

    This was just six years before the peace of Constance , and it should be observed , that Milan was by far the most powerful of the leagued cities , the most resolute enemy of the empire , and the most intrepid in the defence of liberty . Not only in this , but in the following century , was this town full of heretics ; and indeed the number , importance , and strength of the heretics in the thirteenth century , would alone argue their probable prevalence during the preceding century .

    The beginning of the thirteenth century marks the commencement of the zealous exertions of the Dominican friars , in suppDrt of the church , particularly against the Albigenses and Waldenses in the South of France , The papal power was everywhere exerted to increase their number throughout Italy , and chiefly in Lombardy , where the number of the sectarians had wonderfully increased . Whenever those worthy disciples of Dominiccould not make converts by their sermons , they had recourse to temporal punishments . Their credit and that of the Franciscans was immense ; and

    making use of the old tactics of the court of Rome , they had contrived to have even a share in the temporal government of the cities , chiefly where the Guelphs prevailed . Fra . Giovanni da Vicenza is recorded to have caused sixty persons , males and females , to be put to death in three days , at Verona , as heretics . Such an execution , however , awoke the suspicions of the citizens , who began to perceive that the plan of this friar would extend to destroy all the partisans of the Emperor Frederic II ., and to advance the temporal as well as the spiritual views of the Pope .

    Our M . Pans mentions the Patareni also as making progress , and says that the Emperor complained to the Pope of the town of Milan more than of any other , as it was the nurse of all heretics , as well as of all the rebels to the empire . Not long after , the same historian inserts a letter of Ivo Narbonensis , a priest , who wrote to Gerard , Archbishop of Bourdeaux , in order to obtain his absolution for having been among the heretics , and having conformed to their practices , and joined in their prayers , although , as this worthy reverend adds , he all the while heartily detested them and their

    errors . This Ivo relates , that from almost all the cities of Lombardy , and from many of Tuscany , these sectarians were accustomed to send scholars to the University of Paris , and merchants to the fairs , to spread their faitb- It would appear , too , that the heresy lay among the rich inhabitants ; for Ivo saya , that having been their guest he had abundantly enjoyed all the good things of this world in all the towns of Lombardy on the Po , and particularly at Milan and Cremona .

    To understand correctly the stale of religious opinion in Italy , about this time , it would be necessary that ajn historian should enter particularly into the political condition of that country , the characters of the Popes and of the Emperor Frederic II ., and the relation in which they stood towards each other . We are apt to fancy that the number of heretics , and of prosecutions for heresy , arose mainly from the policy of the Church of Rome in pursuing the imperial party under that pretence , which was by no means * r t—«—i i r i" - - ¦ ¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ - * r-i—*— »' r « 'ri" ¦ — ' "i' wi f i ¦ ¦¦ ¦ ¦ -. ¦ ¥ " - ii ¦!¦¦> — * i * ¦ "¦«''¦ w ¦* - * <¦¦•'¦¦ - ' j j - ^ ¦ ' ! . '„ ¦ t , , , . » - r > •¦« - ¦ ¦¦ ' " " ¦ ~* ¦ * Muratori , An troll d Italia ad an . 1176 , and Aufciq . Dks . 60 , Vol . TV . f « l . 97 .

    Untitled Article

    Review * —* M ' Cr&s Italian Reformation . $ {

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1828, page 31, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2556/page/31/