In the same way heresy was the easiest charge to bring against Cola di Rienzo when he disregarded the papal sovereignty over Rome. When he failed to obey the summons to appear he was duly excommunicated for contumacy; the legate Giovanni, Bishop of Spoleto, held an inquisition on him, and in 1350 he was formally declared a heretic. The decision was sent to the Emperor Charles IV., who held him at that time prisoner in Prague, and who dutifully despatched him to Avignon. There, on a first examination, he was condemned to death, but he made his peace, and there appeared to be an opportunity of using him to advantage; he was therefore finally pronounced a good Christian, and was sent back to Rome with a legate.[213]
The Maffredi of Faenza afford a case very similar to that of the Visconti. In 1345 we find them in high favor with Clement VI. In 1350 they are opposing the papal policy of aggrandizement in Romagnuola. Cited to appear in answer to charges of heresy, they refuse to do so, and in July, 1352, are excommunicated for contumacy. In June, 1354, Innocent VI. recites their persistent endurance of this excommunication, and gives them until October 10 to put in an appearance. On that day he condemns them as contumacious heretics, declares them deprived of all lands and honors, and subject to the canonical and civil penalties of heresy. To execute the sentence was not so easy, but in 1356 Innocent offered Louis, King of Hungary, who had shown his zeal against the Cathari of Bosnia, three years' tithe of the Hungarian churches if he would put down those sons of damnation, the Maffredi, who have been sentenced as heretics, and other adversaries of the Church, including the Ordelaffi of Friuli. Frà Fortanerio, Patriarch of Grado, was also commissioned to preach a crusade against them, and succeeded in raising an army under Malatesta of Rimini. The appearance of forty thousand Hungarians in the Tarvisina frightened all Italy; the Maffredi succumbed, and in the same year Innocent ordered their absolution and reconciliation.[214]
It would be easy to multiply instances, but these will probably suffice to show the use made by the Church of heresy as a political agent, and of the Inquisition as a convenient instrumentality for its application. When the Great Schism arose it was natural that the same methods should be employed by the rival popes against each other. As early as 1382 we find Charles III. of Naples confiscating the property of the Bishop of Trivento, just dead, as that of a heretic because he had adhered to Clement VII. In the commission issued in 1409 by Alexander V. to Pons Feugeyron, as Inquisitor of Provence, the adherents of Gregory XII. and of Benedict XIII. are enumerated among the heretics whom he is to exterminate. It happened that Frère Étienne de Combes, Inquisitor of Toulouse, held to the party of Benedict XIII., and he retaliated by imprisoning a number of otherwise unimpeachable Dominicans and Franciscans, including the Provincial of Toulouse and the Prior of Carcassonne, for which the provincial, as soon as he had an opportunity, removed him and appointed a successor, giving rise to no little trouble.[215]