In GERMANY the first inquisitor was Conrad of Marburg, who administered the office with great severity (1231-33). The sentences of death which lie pronounced were all approved by the emperor, Ferdinand II., but were so vigorously opposed by the nobil ity and people that very few of them could be executed. In 1233 the lower orders of people, taking the law into their own hands, attacked and killed Conrad in the streets of Strasburg. When the Beghards appeared, 1367, Urban V. appointed two Dominicans inquisitors, who, countenanced by the emperor, Charles IV., renewed in Germany the cruelties practiced by their order in France. Afterwards the number of inquisitors was increased to six for the n. of Germany alone. As the reformatory influences increased, the general work of the inquisition was diminished, but in the latter part of the 15th c. a special zeal against sorcery and witchcraft was awakened, under the transient power of which many persons were put to death. In the 16th c. the reformation overthrew the tribunal, and all subsequent efforts to set it up again in Germany proved vain.
In ITALY the inquisition, partially introduced under the Dominicans in 122.1, was fully established by Gregory IX. in 1285. Its power was first directed chiefly against the Waldenses, who, having fled from the s. of France to Piedmont, were filling Italy with their doctrine. Afterwards it took in hand other heresies also; but it was greatly weakened by the schism in the papacy and by political agitations in the free states of Italy. About the middle of the 14th c., notwithstanding the opposition and the censures of Clement VI., measures were generally adopted to restrain its exorbitant power. The inquisitors were compelled to associate the bishops with them in examining accused 1persons; they were restricted to the cognizance of heresy alone, and the power of imprisonment, confiscation, fine, and corporal punishment was remanded to the secular arm. But such procedure having proved insufficient for suppressing free inquiry and maintaining the authority of the church, Paul III. instituted a supreme and universal inquisition at Rome, consisting of six cardinals, and having authority on both sides of the Alps to try all causes of heresy, with the power of arresting and imprisoning sus pected persons and their abettors, of whatsoever estate, rank, or order. The grace of
reconciliation and absolution the pope retained in his'own hands. He assumed also the authority of tile judge, and arrogated the power of life and death even over the subjects of the different governments of the world. These cardinal inquisitors soon made them selves feared in Italy and all countries over which they had influence. In Rome they executed their victims with less publicity but more frequency than the Spanish inquisi tors. They were tyrannical also in their treatment of the press. Some books they destroyed, others they disfigured, and all printers they restrained from doing any work without a license front them. Opposition to them, however, everywhere arose. The republic.of Venice, refusing to receive a tribunal responsible only to the pope, insisted that with his officers a certain number of Venetian magistrates and lawyers should always be joined, and that the final sentence concerning lay persons should be submitted to the senate before it was announced. The Neapolitans at the beginning of the 10th e. had twice resisted successfully the establishment of the inquisition among them. In 1540 the emperor, Charles V., renewed the attempt to introduce it into Naples, and according to the Spanish model. But the people, rising in arms against it, refused to receive anything more than a tribunal of limited powers similar to that of Venice. In Spain supplied an inquisitor; and after the tribunal had been for a time abolished, it was restored in 1782, and was retained until 1808, when Napoleon; as king of Italy, abolished it. In Sardinia, having been restored by Gregory XVI. in 1833, it continued until the revolution of 1848. In Tuscany three commissioners, elected by the congre gation at Rome, in concert with the local inquisitor, handed over their sentence to the duke, who was bound to execute it. In addition to this provision the "holy office" everted its influence with the local authorities to send accused persons, especially ecclesiastics and strangers, to be tried at Rome. Since the abrogation of the pope's tem poral power the tribunal still exists at Rome, but its public action is greatly restrained.