Author's Note:The researches leading to this translation began with my need to know about the verb exstirpo, exstirpare,and the way its meaning changed in the Middle Ages and the Seventeenth Century (on which see "How to Extirpate Popery" in this website). When I found that this papal bull had apparently never made an appearance in English, I decided to fulfil the need for that as well.

The following is divided in four parts: (1)Introduction (2) English Translation (3) Notes to English Translation (4) Latin Text.

The source is Bullarum Privilegiorum Romanorum Pontificum Amplissima Collectio Cui accessere Pontificum omnium Vitae, Notae, & Indices Opportuni. Opera et Studio Caroli Cocquelines. Tomus Tertius. A Lucio III. Ad Clementem IV., scilicet ab An. MCLXXXI ad An. MCCLXVIII, Romae, M. DCC. XL. Typis et Sumptibus Hieronymi Mainardi.

I found this book through the good offices of Anthony Bliss of the Bancroft Library, U. of California, Berkeley, and the staff of the Graduate Theological Union Library, to whom thanks are gratefully rendered.

A feature of this decree whose importance cannot be exaggerated is its immaculate freedom from any conception of heresy. The words Cathar, Waldensian, Albigensian, Sabellian, Arian, Amaurian,and the like never occur; though the Pope creates inquisitors and instructs them how to search for heretics,he gives them not the least hint how to identify their prey. Nor, negatively, do the inquisitors obtain tests of orthodoxy. There is no homoousion, no Athanasian creed, no delimiting of the two natures of Christ,no careful balancing of predestination with free-will; in brief, the bull proposes no standard whatever by means of which to decide whom to arrest and whom to leave alone. The bishop of a given diocese, omnipotent by this decree,can, without violating either its spirit or its letter, arrest and incarcerate anyone in his jurisdiction.

A curious idiom underscores this indeterminacy of the concept heretic: whenever it must be mentioned,the formula is haereticus vel haeretica ,"male or female heretic." As the designations Cathar, Waldensian, Albigensian are superfluous, so the only designation deemed necessary is the most elementary division of humanity possible: into male and female. All persons are male or female, so are all heretics; so the class heretic and the class person coincide. The NKVD also in the period of the great Stalinist purges developed a mystical belief that every human being contained treason against Stalin and sufficient interrogation would always bring it out.

Consistently with this, no way appears for an accused heretic to obtain a verdict of Not Guilty. The inquisitors determine guilt before they even arrest him. The lay officers of the state are empowered to arrest suspected heretics, after which they must turn them over to the bishop and the inquisitors for "examination of themselves and their heresy" (pro examinatione de ipsis et eorum haeresi facienda, Law 23). That is, the inquisition functions not as a grand jury to ascertain whether a crime probably exists; still less as a court to determine guilt or innocence; but to examine the guilty party and his crime.

Whoever says that a heretic in custody is not guilty creates a snare (dolum) and for this must forfeit all his property forever to the state (Law 22).

National Socialism was invented, not merely by Adolf Hitler, but by his collaboration with an impassioned amateur economist named Anton Drexler. This man being no murderer, and Hitler as yet unsure of himself, concocted the Twenty-five Points of National Socialism (1920), expressing an incoherent but touching liberalism, and real socialism, which, as time went on, had first little, then no relation to the Nazis' actual behavior. The Nazis earnestly besought their leader: Why not discard the Twenty-five points? He answered: Keep them. When asked what our program is, we can point to them and be free to do whatever we want. Happy the terrorist organization with no principles and no program.

As no one can define a heretic, so by the same token, anyone can,or rather, the task becomes ridiculously easy. What is wanted is not the ability,but the authority, to define a heretic. Law 2 requires the head of state (not an inquisitor) at the beginning of his term of office, to accuse all the heretics in his land of committing crimes, after which their property is to be confiscated, either by state-appointed agents or by anyone who can first get to it; in that case the looters shall own the property "with full right." No investigation, no trial, no verdict, no sentence; merely accusation followed immediately by punishment. In the 2005 film Casanova the inquisitor Pucci says, "Heresy is whatever I say it is." That may be the most historically accurate moment in the film.

Consistently with the ideological purity of Ad extirpanda--that is, its pure lack of any ideas--the ecclesiastics only, but not the laymen,in the inquisition are permitted to understand their own activities. Ad Extirpanda creates, in every diocese in Europe, a crew of persecutors headed (on behalf of the church) by the diocesan bishop, and under him, Dominicans and Franciscans; the state being represented by agents (servitores), two notaries and twelve laymen. These latter are expressly forbidden to form any theory about what they are doing or what their duties are, beyond what the bishop and monks tell them (Nec ipsi Officiales, vel eorum haeredes possint aliquo tempore conveniri, de his quae fecerint, vel pertinent ad eorum officium, Law 11). To make doubly sure they never reach a meeting of minds,it is decreed that they must be replaced every six months, preventing them from achieving a sense of having learned the job. One thinks of the invariable aria of the prisoner in the dock at the war-crimes trial: I was only a little man, I received orders and passed them on, I really knew nothing. And of a character in Shakespeare:

I am, in this, commanded to deliver

The noble Duke of Clarence to your hands.

I will not reason what is meant hereby,

Because I will be guiltless from the meaning (Richard III, I.iv.93-96).

State terrorism needs a supply of men imbued with the "banality of evil,"as Hannah Arendt calls it, a real or assumed incapacity for knowing or willing the wickedness they commit. Innocent IV took care to provide the inquisition with such men.

Even so, the sense of decency in human beings unpredictably erupts, threatening the terrorist hierarchy with subversion. Forseeing this, the pope commands that no reprieve from any punishment for heresy shall ever occur as a result of any public gathering,or any kind of popular outcry,or the innate humanity of those in authority (Omnes autem condemnationes, vel poenae,quae occasione haeresis factae fuerint, neque per concionem... neque ad vocem populi ullo modo, aut ingenio, aliquo tempori valeant relaxari, Law 32; the emphasis is added). In spite of the ingenium or merciful impulse of an inquisitor here or there, cruel executions became an acquired taste and a second nature. By the 18th Century,mass burnings of Jews and heretics were held in Spain to celebrate royal weddings.

Law 32 casts doubt on a statement of W.E.H.Lecky's at the end of his History of the Rise of Rationalism in Europe: that, while we deplore the evil perpetrated in the Christian centuries, we cannot deny the perpetrators a certain moral dignity in that they believed in what they were doing, as today's perpetrators often do not. Ad extirpanda, Law 32,suggests the reverse: the inquisitors were revolted by their own acts and the Pope had to order them to repress their feelings. The Pope's inability to say "torture"and "burning alive" when he meant them (see paragraphs 2-3 after this) makes the same point.

Ad extirpanda created the Inquisition in only a few provinces of northern Italy. However, it proposed a scheme appealing to the profit motive,that any given state should divide with the inquisitors the property of anyone convicted of heresy. Hence the scheme was expected to spread all over Europe, as indeed it did; in the wake of the conquistadores it spread even to Mexico and Peru. Accordingly, governments and regions are designated in these laws only by generic terms: for the government, potestas aut rector(head of state or ruler); for the region, civitas aut locus(state or district).

As the stipulation about lay members of the inquisition looks forward to the Twentieth-Century "banality of evil," so the euphemisms of Ad extirpanda look forward to those of totalitarian states in which mass-murder was "liquidation," a torture chamber was a Sonderbunker or "special bunker" and murder on a scale unequalled in previous history was "the final solution."

So in Ad extirpanda,Law 24, those convicted of heresy are to be taken in shackles (relictos) to the head of state who is to "apply the regulations promulgated against such persons" (circa eos Constitutiones contra tales editas serviturus). Innocent IV obeyed an injunction of his predecessor, Boniface VIII, to employ euphemisms in this case: the inquisitors were

"cautioned only to speak of executing the laws without specifically mentioning the penalty, in order to avoid falling into 'irregularity,' though the only punishment recognized by the church as sufficient for heresy was burning alive" (H.C. Lea, A History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages,New York: Macmillan, 1922, I, 537).

The infamous Law 25 fails to mention the words torqueo, tormentum, and says that the state officers shall force(cogere)accused heretics to confess, "citra membri diminutionem, aut mortis periculum" (short of lessening their limbs--an obscure idiom probably meaning breaking their arms and legs--or danger of death, i.e., killing them).

Ad extirpanda also provides that a heretic in custody, or about to be so, will be surrounded by a cloud of suspicion and fear large enough to envelop his family and friends. Whoever is caught (sic) giving counsel, help, or favor to a heretic (Quicumque vero fuerit deprehensus dare alicui haeretico, vel haereticae, consilium, vel auxilium, seu favorem) shall become infamous and lose his right to public office, participation in public affairs, and the vote; he shall be incapacitated to testify in any trial and shall neither inherit nor bequeath legacies. No one shall be obliged to answer his dun but he must answer all others'. In sum, "Those who give ear to the false doctrines of heretics shall be punished like heretics." Clearly, as soon as it became apparent, in any way, that a person was about to be arrested on a heresy charge, his family and friends would be frantic lest they seem to offer him consilium, vel auxilium, seu favorem.Both Alexander Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago and Olga Mandelstam in Hope Abandoned describe the appalling sense, when one is arrested in a totalitarian country, of being shunned by family and friends.

Law 26 provides that the house in which a heretic is arrested must be torn down,never to be rebuilt, unless the master of the house himself, by informing, causes the arrest. Moreover, unless the master of the house so anticipates, any other houses he may own in the neighborhood are also to be torn down, never to be rebuilt.

This punishes no heretics,but fills every landlord with fear lest any of his tenants be accused of heresy before he himself has done it. Arendt describes the manner in which coworkers and associates of a person under arrest rushed to the secret police, explaining that they had cultivated him only to gather evidence of his disloyalty with a view to denouncing him. Law 21 specifies that new prisons must be built for heretics, separate from those for thieves and ordinary outlaws, evidently to prevent the latter,on their release,from informing the outside world about the heretics' condition.

TLS for 8 September, 2006, in a review of God's War by Christopher Tyerman,remarks,"Even more surprisingly, the operations of the Inquisition against the Albigensians in the South of France attract praise from [Tyerman]. It was not 'the sinister bureaucratic institution of repression of legend,'but worked mainly by 'persuasion and reconciliation.'" And Gerard Bradley in "One Cheer for Inquisitions," an essay in Catholic.net, recommends at least some toleration and sympathy for the inquisition in that its mere existence vouched for an age of deeper faith than ours. But one need only read the Ad extirpanda to discover that the inquisition was not about faith and not even about heresy, but about wealth and power, and the crudest method of attaining these--terror.

Innocent, the Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God, to his beloved sons, the heads of state or rulers, ministers and citizens established in the states and districts of Lombardy, Riviera di Romagnola, and Marchia Tervisina, salvation and an apostolic benediction.

To root up from the midst of Christian people the weed {1} of heretical wickedness, which infests the healthy plants more than it formerly did, pouring out licentiousness through the offices of the enemy of mankind in this age the more eagerly (as we address ourselves to the sweated labor of the task assigned us) the more dangerously we overlook the manner in which this weed runs riot among the Catholic growth. {2} Desiring, then, that the sons of the church,and fervent adherents of the orthodox faith, rise up and make their stand against the artificers of this kind of evildoing, we hereby bring forth to be followed by you as by the loyal defenders of the faith, with exact care,these regulations, contained serially in the following document,for the rooting-up of the plague of heresy.

(1)In what we gave to your community in apostolical writings,amounting to regulations that we wrote for your legal codes, never at any time to be repealed, making war according to these regulations against all heresy, which rears its head above this holy church, you have gone forward without stint.{3} However, I have sent a letter to my beloved sons, the Dominican priors, provincials and inquisitors into heretical wickedness in Lombardy, Marchia Tervisina and Riviera di Romagnola, commanding each of you that you compel recalcitrant individuals by your excommunication and countries by your interdict to submit (sc. to the new regulations).

We decree that the head of state, whatever his rank or title, in each dominion, whether he is so situated at present,or to be so in the future, in Lombardy, Riviera di Romagnola, or Marchia Tervisina must unequivocally and unhesitatingly swear that he will inviolably preserve, and during his entire term of office see to it that everybody, both in his diocese or administrative domain and the lands subject to his power, shall observe, both what is written herein, and other regulations and laws both ecclesiastical and civil,that are published against heretical wickedness. And the oaths concerning these precisely-observed regulations and laws are to be accepted by whoever succeeds to the monarchical or gubernatorial dignity. Whoever defaults in this regard shall lose the character of head of state or governor. Heads of state and rulers so acting will lose absolutely all guarantees of non-aggression from other governments. No one is obliged to offer fealty to such persons, or ought to do so, even if, afterwards, they submit by swearing the oath. If any head of state or ruler refuses to obey, each and all, these statutes, or neglects them, besides the stigma of forswearing, and the disaster of eternal infamy, he shall undergo the penalty of seeing his country lose its borders,{4} which penalty shall be imposed on him irrecoverably; the country will be converted to common use,{5}because, specifically, a man forsworn and infamous, and, in effect, a protector of heretics, his faith compromised, has usurped the dignity and honor of governmental power; nor shall another head of state or ruler from anywhere replace him, or in any way, by any means, take to himself the vacated dignity or public office.

(3) At the commencement of his term of office,at the assembly of citizens convoked as is the custom, by the authority of the city or feudal domain, the head of state or ruler of the city or feudal domain shall accuse of criminal conduct all heretics of both sexes, no matter by what name they appear on the rolls of citizens. And he will confirm his right to the office inherited from his predecessor in this manner. And furthermore, that no heretical man or woman may dwell, sojourn, or maintain a bare subsistence in the country,or any kind of jurisdiction or district belonging to it,whoever shall find the heretical man or woman shall boldly seize, with impunity, all his or their goods, and freely carry them off, to belong to the remover with full right, unless this kind of removing is restricted to persons designated by law.

This head of state or ruler, by the third day of his term of office, must appoint twelve upright and Catholic men, and two notaries and two servants,or as many as may be needed,selected by the Diocesan bishop if there is one and he wishes to take part; and two Dominicans and two Franciscans selected for this work by their priors,if the region has religious houses of those orders.

Those who are thus appointed may and should seize the heretical men and women and carry off their possessions and cause these to be carried off by others,and take the heretics,or cause them to be taken, into the custody of the Diocesan bishop or his surrogates, and see to it that these things are fully accomplished as well in the diocese as in its entire jurisdiction and district.

(6)The head of state, or whatever ruler stands foremost in the public esteem,must cause the heretics who have been arrested in this manner to be taken to whatever jurisdiction the Diocesan, or his surrogate,is in, or whatever district, or city,or place the Diocesan bishop wishes to take them to.

(7)The utterances of the aforementioned officials are to be faithfully accepted in every matter that regards their office, specially in the aforementioned oath; arguments tending to the contrary are not allowed, where two, three, or more of those present are such officials.

(8)Moreover, when these officials are chosen, they shall swear to execute faithfully all these laws,and to the best of their ability, to tell nothing but the truth,in all those commitments, which as they belong to their office, they fully carry out.

(9) And both the aforesaid twelve men and their aforesaid servants and notaries, whether acting as a group, or singly, shall,in all that belongs to their office, have full command,backed by the executive and punitive power of the state.

(10) The head of state or ruler is obliged to treat as fixed and unrepealable all precepts which their office shall require them to utter, and to punish those who fail to conform to these precepts.

(11) If the said officials shall at any time receive any damage either in their persons or their goods as a result of the performance of their duties, they shall be saved harmless by means of a full restitution.

(12) Neither these officials, nor their successors, are permitted at any time to reach an agreement about what they are doing, or of what their duties consist, unless this agreement is dictated by the aforesaid Diocesan and religious orders.

(13)The term of office of these officials shall last only six months, which when they have completed,the head of state is obliged to substitute for them according to the prescribed form, an equal number of officials who shall serve the aforesaid term in the same form in the following six-month period.

(14)These officials shall receive out of the state treasury, or that of the district, when they leave them for the purpose of performing these duties, each of them 18 gold coins, which the head of state or ruler is obliged to give them or cause to be given them; if not then, before the third day after their return to the same city or district.

(15) And beyond that they shall seize one-third of the heretics' property; one-third of the fines to which the heretics shall be sentenced shall go to the lesser officials who must content themselves with this pay.

(16) But they shall not be, in any way, required to perform any other duty or work which interferes with, or might interfere with,this duty.

(17)No legislation, passed or yet to be passed, shall have force to interfere with any of these official functions.

(18)And if one of these officials, through incompetence, sloth, preoccupation with another task,or exceeding of the limits of his authority, is removed from office by the aforesaid Diocesan bishop and religious orders, the head of state or ruler must remove him by their command or word and, according to the prescribed form, substitute another.

(19)If one of these officials, faithlessly and falsely, exceeds the limits of his authority to give aid and comfort to persons in custody on heresy charges, besides everlasting infamy, which, as a protector of heretics, he shall incur,he shall be punished by the head of state or ruler according to the sentence of the aforesaid Diocesan and monastic orders of the place.

(20)When the Diocesan, or his surrogate, or the inquisitors commissioned by the Apostolic See, arrive on their missions, the head of state and his vassals and other assistants will lend aid and will faithfully perform their duty with them. Anyone, moreover, whether he is present in the country or sent for to obtain his assistance there, whether in the state or in its jurisdiction, or any district of any kind, will be bound to give the aforesaid officials and their assistants counsel and help when they are trying to arrest a male or female heretic, or seize such a person's belongings, or gather evidence; or enter a house, or a manor, or a hideaway to arrest heretics, on pain of paying 25 pounds in Imperials as a penalty or fine on their former loyalty changing, in whatever manner,to dereliction; the government of a city shall pay a hundred pounds, a manorial domain fifty imperials in coin.

(21)Whoever shall have the audacity to arrange the escape from custody of a male or female heretic,or shall try to prevent the arrest of such a person: or shall prevent the entry of an official into any house, or tower, or any place to hinder arrest, or prevent the gathering of evidence concerning such persons, shall have all his goods,according to the law at Padua when Frederick was emperor there,{6} consigned to the state in perpetuity,and the house that was barred against the official shall be levelled with the ground and its rebuilding prohibited, and the belongings found therein shall be awarded to the officials making the arrest; and if the heretics are found as a result of this prohibition or special preventive measure, the borough shall forfeit to the state two hundred pounds; localities both of the boroughs and the state fifty Imperials, unless within three days the would-be liberator or liberators of the heretics are brought before the head of state for a personal interview.

(22) Above all, the head of state or ruler must hold all male and female heretics who shall be arrested from this date,in the custody of Catholic men appointed by the Diocesan if there is one, and the abovementioned monastic orders, in a safe and secure prison set aside for them, in which only they will be held, away from thieves and violators of the secular criminal code, till their cases are decided; expenses to be paid by the state or the administrative district.

(23)If at any time a non-heretical man or woman state that heretics in custody, who have already confessed, are no heretics; or if perhaps the non-heretics demand that the aforesaid fraudulent persons should be released from life imprisonment,though they are nevertheless convicted heretics and must be acknowledged such; the persons who create this snare, accordingly to the aforesaid law shall resign all their property to the state in perpetuity.

(24) The head of state and ruler of whatever kind are especially obliged to present all male and female heretics,under whatever name they are accused,within fifteen days after their arrest,to the Diocesan or his surrogate, or to the inquisitors of heresy,to perform the examination of themselves and their heresies.

Those convicted of heresy by the aforesaid Diocesan Bishop,surrogate or inquisitors, shall be taken in shackles to the head of state or ruler or his special representative, instantly,or at least within five days, and the latter shall apply the regulations promulgated against such persons.{7}

(26)The head of state or ruler must force all the heretics whom he has in custody,{8} provided he does so without killing them or breaking their arms or legs,as actual robbers and murderers of souls and thieves of the sacraments of God and Christian faith, to confess their errors and accuse other heretics whom they know, and specify their motives, {9} and those whom they have seduced, and those who have lodged them and defended them,as thieves and robbers of material goods are made to accuse their accomplices and confess the crimes they have committed.

(27) And the house, in which a male or female heretic shall be discovered, shall be levelled with the ground, never to be rebuilt; unless it is the master of the house who shall have arranged the discovery of the heretics. And if the master of the house owns other houses in the same neighborhood,all of the other houses shall in like manner be destroyed, and the goods that shall be found in the house and the others related to it shall be dispersed to the populace, and shall belong to whoever carries them off, unless the removers shall be appointed by law. Above all, the master of the house,besides incurring eternal infamy, must pay the government or locality fifty pounds Imperial in coin; if unable to pay, he shall suffer life imprisonment. The borough where the heretics are arrested or discovered shall pay the government of the state a hundred pounds;and a manor shall pay fifty,and the regions adjoining manors and states, fifty.

(28)Whoever shall be caught giving any male or female heretic counsel, help, or favor, besides the other punishments mentioned duly in their logical places in other passages of this decree,shall become infamous by that same law, and shall be admitted neither to public office, nor public affairs, nor the election of persons to these, nor may he testify in a legal process; to that extent shall his incapacity to testify go,that he shall neither bequeath legacies to heirs nor inherit them himself. No one shall be compelled to respond to any business dealings initiated by him but he shall be so compelled by others. If he be by chance a judge, his sentence shall prove nothing, nor shall he hear any case. If he be an attorney, his defence in court will never be allowed to prevail. If he be a notary, the legal documents drawn up by him shall be utterly without validity. Those who give ear to the false doctrines of heretics shall be punished like heretics.

(29)The head of state or ruler must cause the names of all men rendered infamous by heresy, or under a statute of outlawry for it, to be written in a consistent form and manner in four books, of which one shall go to the state or local government,another to the Diocesan bishop, the third to the Dominican friars, and the fourth to the Franciscans, and the names of these persons are to be read aloud three times a year in a solemn public ceremony.

(30)The head of state or ruler must carefully investigate the sons and grandsons of heretics and those who have lodged them, defended them, and given them aid,and in the future admit them to no public affairs or public office.

(31) The head of state or ruler must send one of his aides, chosen by the Diocesan if there is one,with the aforesaid inquisitors obtained from the Apostolic See, as often as they shall wish, into the jurisdiction of the state and the district. This aide,as the aforesaid inquisitors shall have determined, will compel three men or more, reliable witnesses,or, if it seem good to them, the whole neighborhood, to testify to the aforesaid inquisitors if they have detected any heretics, or want to expose their motives,{9} whether the heretics celebrate rites in secret gatherings, or scoff at the common life of the faithful, and their customs; or if the witnesses want to expose those the heretics have seduced, or their defenders, or those who lodge them, or those who give the heretics help. The head of state shall proceed against the accused according to the laws of the Emperor Frederick when he governed Padua.

(32)The head of state or ruler must, within ten days after the accusation,complete the following tasks: the destruction of the houses, the imposition of the fines, the consigning and dividing-up of the valuables that have been found or seized, all of which have already been described in this decree. He must obtain all fines in coin within three months, and divide them up in the manner to be set forth hereafter, and convict of crime those who cannot pay, and hold them in prison until they can. However, he shall be subject to investigation for all and each of these things, as it shall be described hereunder, and moreover he must designate one of the assistants, chosen by the Diocesan bishop or his surrogate and the aforesaid inquisitors, to carefully complete all these tasks; another assistant shall be substituted if they so decide.

(33)None of these sentences or punishments imposed on account of heresy, shall,either by the motion of any public gathering, the advice of counselors, or any kind of popular outcry,or the innate humanity {10}of those in authority,be in any way waived or pardoned.

(34)The head of state or ruler must divide up all the property of the heretics that is seized or discovered by the aforesaid officials, and the fines exacted from these heretics, in the form and manner following: one-third shall go to the government of the state or district. The second as a reward of the industry of the office shall go to the officials who handled this particular case. The third shall be deposited in some secure place to be kept by the aforesaid Diocesan bishop and inquisitors,and spent as they shall think fit to promote the faith and extirpate{11} heretics, this policy prevailing in spite of any statute that has been or shall be enacted against this dividing-up of the heretics'property.

(35) If anyone tries to abolish, reduce or change any of these statutes, without particular authority from the Apostolic See, the head of state or ruler presiding at that time over the state or district, must, according to the prescribed form,render him infamous,as a public advocate and patron of heretics, and fine him fifty Imperials in coin,which if the head of state is unable to collect, he shall declare him an outlaw,a brand not to be removed till twice the sum is paid over.

(36)The head of state, or ruler,during the first ten days of his term of office,by employing three faithful Catholic men, chosen for this purpose by the Diocesan bishop, if there is one, and the Dominican and Franciscan friars,must investigate the most recent occupant of his post, and the latter's aides,concerning everything that is written in these statutes or regulations and laws against heretics and their accomplices, and punish those who have overstepped the bounds of their authority for each and every particular they have neglected to perform,and compel the present government to restore the lost function; nor shall any departure from the regular procedure cause anyone in the government to be exempted from the investigation.

(37)The aforesaid three men shall swear that they have acted in good faith in investigating the previous government concerning everything in these laws and regulations.

(38)In addition,the head of state or ruler of any city or district must delete or erase completely whatever,in any statute or legal code, is found to contradict or hinder, in any way, these regulations,statutes,or laws; and in the beginning and the middle of his term of office,he shall cause these statutes, regulations,and laws to be solemnly read aloud in a public assembly;and even in places outside his jurisdiction or district,they shall be set forth if it seem good to the aforesaid Diocesan, or inquisitors and friars aforementioned.

(39)Finally,all these statutes,regulations,and laws, and whatever shall be enacted at any time by the Apostolic See against heretics and their accomplices, must be written in a consistent format in four books, of which the first shall be deposited in the legal archives of the state,the second with the Diocesan bishop, the third with the Dominicans, the fourth with the Franciscans,all kept with the greatest care, that they may in no way be violated by forgers.

Given at Perusio, 15 May, in the ninth year of our pontificate.

{1}Zizania,literally "wild rice." An unclassical word for this Ciceronian decree,as the letter z is not in the Roman alphabet. The plant suits the meaning as spargere zizania,"to scatter wild rice" in Italian means "to sow discord."

{2}Not a prosperous beginning,as this heap of modifying phrases and clauses has no subject or verb and hence is not a sentence. Though in the "builded" style of prose it seems to have collapsed while under construction. The Pope's meaning can best be salvaged by making this whole first paragraph modify edidimus("we hereby bring forth").

{3}In thus commending the secular authorities for enforcing the preexisting laws against heresy,the Pope makes his only positive statement to or about them. Instantly, tactlessly,he says he has already alerted monks and inquisitors to punish them with excommunication and their countries with interdict in case of their failure to accept Ad extirpanda.The Pope switches confusingly from the third person (filiis... damus) to the second (vestrum...excommunicationem) in mentioning the monks. The threats to come are appalling.

{4} Ducentarum marcharum poenam incurrat, lit. "His country shall suffer the penalty of the withdrawal of its borders." Cf. the fate of the monarch who refused to persecute heretics, according to Lea; "his dominions were thrown open to the first hardy adventurer whom the church would supply with an army for his overthrow."---History of the Inquisition, I.225.

{5} When a country's borders have been overrun and its government destroyed, and the conqueror forbidden to establish his own, what does it mean to say that the country will be "converted to common use"? The Pope seems to imagine a punishment so total for a country rejecting Ad extirpanda that no government of any kind shall ever occupy its territory again,and the people will live as in Gonzalo's ideal commonwealth in The Tempest.

{6} Lea notes the priority of the Holy Roman Emperor,Frederick II, in asserting the duty of the state to back the church in persecuting heretics (History of the Inquisition,I.225). Ad extirpanda twice pays fond tribute to Frederick.

{7} I.e., he shall burn them alive. See Introduction.

{8} Omnes haereticos quos captos habuerit. All the male heretics the state has in custody must be tortured to make them confess their crimes and reveal their accomplices. The masculine inflection appears generic, cf. omnes haereticos utriusque sexus in Law 2; ad haereticos extirpandos in Law 33. So women too were tortured.

{9} Lea renders vel bona eorum as "or the property of such" in his paraphrase (Inquisition, p. 33); I translate "or...their motives." Bonum is "goods, property," or in the expression cui bono,"to whose profit or advantage." Hence a heretic's bonum could be the advantage he sought in his heresy; a more likely topic for an interrogation under torture than his property.

{10} Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary gives these examples of ingenium in the sense of one's "natural disposition, temper, mode of thinking, character, bent,inclination":

Feci ego ingenium meum,"I did as my instinct prompted me," Plautus,Mercator, 4,1,2.

Temperare ingenium suum,"to control one's temper."

Ingenium est omnium hominum ab labore proclive ad lubidinem,"the nature of all men inclines away from labor and towards sensual enjoyment," Terence,Andria,1.1.50.

{11} ad haereticos extirpandos.Earlier it was a thing, heresy, that was to be extirpated; now it is people.The pejoration of the word (see "How to Extirpate Popery" in this website) has begun.

Promulgatio Legum, & Constitutionum contra Haereticos, eorumque complices, & fautores, a Magistratibus, & Officialibus saecularibus observandarum.

Innocentius Episcopus Servus Servorum Dei. Dilectis filiis Potestatibus,sive Rectoribus, Consiliis, & Communitatibus Civitatum, aliorumque Locorum per Lombardiam, Romaniolam, & Marchiam Tervisinam constitutis, salutem, & Apostolicam Benedictionem.

Ad extirpanda de medio Populi Christiani haereticae pravitatis zizania, quae abundantius solito succreverunt, superseminante illa licentius his diebus hominis inimico tanto studiosius, juxta commissam nobis sollucitudinem insudare proponimus, quanto perniciosius negligeremus eadem in necem catholici seminis pervagari. Volentes autem, ut adversus hujusmodi nequitiae operarios consurgant, stentque nobiscum Ecclesiae filii, ac Orthodoxae fidei zelatores, Constitutiones quasdam extirpationem haereticae pestis edidimus, a vobis ut fidelibus ejusdem Fidei defensoribus exacta diligentia observandas, quae seriatim inferius continentur.

(1) Quo circa Universitati vestrae per Apostolica scripta mandamus, quatenus singuli Constitutiones easdem conscribi vestris Capitularibus facientes, nullis inde temporibus abolendas, secundum eas contra omnem haeresim, se adversus hanc sanctam Ecclesiam extollentem, sine omissione aliqua procedatis. Alioquin dilectis filiis Priori, Provinciali, & Fratribus Inquisitoribus haereticae pravitatis Ordinis Praedicatorum in Lombardia, Marchia Tervisina, & Romaniola, damus nostris litteris in mandatis, ut singulos vestrum ad id per excommunicationem in personas, & interdictum in terram appellatione remota compellant.

(2) Statuimus, ut Potestas, seu Rector, qui Civitati praeest, vel loco alii ad praesens, aut pro tempore praefuerit in futurum, in Lombardia, Romaniola, vel Marchia Tervisina, juret praecise, et sine timore aliquo, attendere inviolabiliter, & servare, et facere ab omnibus observari toto tempore sui regiminis, tam in Civitate, vel loco sui regiminis, quam in Terris suae ditioni subjectis, omnes, & singulas tam infrascriptas, quam alias Constitutiones, & Leges, tam canonicas, quam civiles, editas contra haereticam pravitatem. Et super his praecise observandis recipiant a quibuslibet sibi in Potestaria,vel regimine succedentibus, iuramenta. Quae qui praestare noluerint, pro Potestatibus, vel Rectoribus nullatenus habeantur. Et quae ut Potestates, vel Rectores fecerint, nullam penitus habeant firmitatem. Nec ullus teneatur, aut debeat sequi eos, etiamsi de sequela praestanda eis exhibuerint iuramentum. Quod si Potestas, vel Rector aliquis haec omnia, &singula; servare noluerit, vel neglexerit, praeter notam periurii, & perpetuae iacturam infamiae, ducentarum marcharum poenam incurrat, quae irremissibiliter exigantur ab eo, & in utilitatem Communis integra convertantur, & nihilominus ut perjurus, & infamis, & tamquam haereticorum fautor, de fide suspectus, officio, & honore sui regiminis spolietur; nec ulterius Potestas, seu Rector in aliquo habeatur, & de caetero ad aliquam dignitatem, vel officium publicum nullatenus assumatur.

(3)Idem quoque Potestas, seu Rector cujuslibet Civitatis, vel loci, in principio sui regiminis, in publica concione more solito congregata, banno Civitatis, vel loci supponat tamquam pro maleficio, omnes haereticos utriusque sexus,quocumque nomine censeantur.Et teneatur bannum hujusmodi a suis praedecessoribus positum confirmare. Praecipue autem, quod nullus haereticus, vel haeretica de caetero habitet, vel moretur, aut subsistat in Civitate, seu aliquo modo jurisdictionis, aut districtus ejusdem, & quicumque ipsum, vel ipsam invenerit, libere capiat, & capere possit impune, & omnes res ipsius, vel ipsorum eis licenter auferre, quae sint auferentium pleno jure, nisi auferenteshujusmodi sint in officio constituti.

(4)Idem quoque Potestas, seu Rector infra tertium diem post introitum regiminis sui, duodecim Viros probos, & catholicos, & duos Notarios, & duos Servitores, vel quotquot fuerint necessarii, instituere teneatur, quos Dioecesanus, si praesens extiterit, & interesse voluerit, & duo Fratres Praedicatores, & duo Minores ad hoc a suis Prioribus, si Conventus ibi fuerint eorumdem Ordinem, deputati, duxerint eligendos.

(5) Instituti autem hujusmodi,& electi possint, & debeant haereticos, & haereticas capere, & eorum bona illis auferre, & facere auferre per alios, & procurare haec tam in Civitate, quam in tota ejus jurisdictione, atque districtu, plenarie adimpleri, & eos ducere, & duci facere in in potestatem Dioecesani, vel Vicariorum eiusdem.

(6) Teneatur autem Potestas, seu Rector quilibet in expensis Communis, cui praeest, facere duci eosdem haereticos ita captos, quocumque Dioecesanos, vel ejus Vicarii in jurisdictione, vel districtu Dioecesani Episcopi, seu Civitatis, vel loci voluerit illos duci.

(7) Officialibus vero praedictis plena fides de his omnibus habeatur, quae ad eorum officium pertinere noscuntur, aliquo specialiter praestito juramento, probatione aliqua in contrarium non admissa, ubi duo, vel tres, vel plures praesentes fuerint ex eisdem.

(8)Porro cum Officiales hujusmodi eliguntur, jurent haec omnia exequi fideliter, & pro posse, ac super his semper meram dicere veritatem, quibus ab omnibus, in his, quae ad officium eorum pertinent, plenius pareatur.

(9) Et tam dicti duodecim,quam Servitores, & Notarii praetaxati, simul, vel divisim, plenarium praecipiendi sub poena, & banno, quae ad officium suum pertinent, habeant potestatem.

(10)Potestas autem, vel Rector teneatur habere firma, & rata omnia praecepta, quae occasione officii fecerint, & poenas exigere non servantium.

(11)Quod dictis Officialibus aliquo tempore aliquod damnum contigerit, in personis, vel rebus, pro suis officiis exequendis, a communi Civitatis, vel loci, per restitutionem plenariam serventur indemnes.

(12)Nec ipsi Officiales, vel eorum haeredes possint aliquo tempore conveniri, de his qui fecerint, vel pertinent ad eorum officium, nisi secundum quod eidem Dioecesano, & Fratribus videbitur expedire.

(13)Ipsorum autem officium duret tantummodo per sex menses, quibus completis Potestas teneatur totidem subrogare Officiales secundum formam praescriptam, qui praedictum officium secundum formam eamdem, in aliis sex mensibus sequentibus exequantur.

(14)Sane ipsis Officialibus dentur de Camera communis Civitatis, vel loci, quando exeunt Civitatem, aut locum pro hoc officio exequendo, unicuique pro qualibet decem & octo Imperiales in pecunia numerata, quos Potestas, vel Rector teneatur eis dare, vel dari facere infra diem tertium, postquam ad eamdem redierint Civitatem, vel locum.

(15) Et insuper habeant tertiam partem bonorum haereticorum quae occupaverunt, & mulctarum, ad quas fuerunt condemnati, secundum quod inferius continetur, & hoc salario sint contenti.

(16) Sed ad nullum aliud, quod istud officium impediat, vel impedire possit, ullo modo officium, vel etiam exercitium, compellantur.

(17) Nullum etiam Statutum, conditum, vel condendum, eorum officium ullo modo valeat impedire.

(18) Et si quis horum Officialium propter ineptitudinem, vel inertiam, vel occupationem aliquam, vel excessum, Dioecesano, & Fratribus supradictis visus fuerit amovendus, ipsum ad mandatum, vel dictum eorum teneatur amovere Potestas, aut Rector, & alium secundum formam praescriptam substituere loco ejus.

(19) Quod si quis eorum contra fidem,& sinceritatem officii sui in favorem haeresis fuerit excessisse, praeter notam infamiae perpetuae quam, tamquam fautor haereticorum incurrat,per Potestatem, vel Rectorem ad Dioecesani loci, & dictorum Fratrum arbitrium puniatur.

(20) Potestas praeterea Militem suum, vel alium Assessorem, si Dioecesanus, vel ejus Vicarius, aut Inquisitores a Sede Apostolica deputati, seu dicti Officiales petiverint, cum ipsis Officialibus mittere teneatur, & cum ipsis eorum officium fideliter exercere. Quilibet etiam si praesens in terra, vel requisitis fuerit, teneatur tam in Civitate, quam in jurisdictione, vel districtu quolibet, dare ipsis Officialibus, vel eorum sociis consilium, & juvamen, quando voluerint haereticum, vel haereticam capere, vel spoliare aut inquirere: seu domum, vel locum, aut aditum aliquem introire pro haereticis capiendis, sub vigintiquinque librarum Imperialium poena, vel banno. Universitas autem burgi, sub poena & banno librarum centum, Villa vero librarum quinquaginta Imperialium pro qualibet vice solvenda in pecunia numerata.

(21)Qui cumque autem haereticum, vel haereticam, captum, vel captam auferre de manibus capientium, vel capientis ausus fuerit, vel defendere ne capiatur: seu prohibere aliquem intrare domum aliquam, vel turrim, seu locum aliquem ne capiatur, & inquiratur ibidem, juxta Legem Paduae promulgatam per Fridericum tunc Imperatorem, publicatis bonis omnibus in perpetuum relegetur, & domus illa, a qua prohibiti fuerint sine spe reaedificandi funditus destruatur, & bona, quae ibi reperta fuerint, fiant capientium, ac si haeretici fuissent ibidem inventi, & tunc propter hanc prohibitionem, vel impeditionem specialem, Burgus componat Communi librarum ducentarum, & Villa librarum centum, & vicinia tam Burgi, quam Civitatis librarum quinquaginta Imperialium, nisi infra tertium diem ipsos defensores, vel defensorem haereticorum Potestati captos duxerint personaliter praesentandos.

(22)Teneatur insuper Potestas, seu Rector quilibet omnes haereticos, vel haereticas, qui capti amodo fuerint, per Viros Catholicos ad hoc electos a Dioecesano, si fuerit praesens,& Fratribus supradictis, in aliquo speciali carcere tuto & securo, in quo ipsi detineantur, seorsum a latronibus, & bannitis, donec de ipsis fuerit definitum, sub expensis communis Civitatis, vel Loci sui facere custodiri.

(23) Si quandoque aliqui, vel aliquae non haeretici pro captis haereticis, ipsis non contradicentibus, fuerint assignati, vel si forsitan assignaverint, praedicti suppositi perpetuo carceri mancipientur, & haeretici nihilominus reddi, & assignari cogantur, & qui hunc dolum fecerint, juxta legem praedictam bonis omnibus publicatis in perpetuum relegentur.

(24)Teneatur insuper Potestas, & Rector quilibet omnes haereticos,& haereticas, quocumque nomine censeatur,infra quindecim dies postquam fuerint capti, Dioecesano, vel ejus speciali Vicario, seu haereticorum Inquisitoribus praesentare, pro examinatione de ipsis,& eorum haeresi facienda.

(25) Damnatos vero de haeresi per Dioecesanum, vel ejus Vicarium, seu per Inquisitores praedictos, Potestas, vel Rector, vel ejus Nuncius specialis eos sibi relictos recipiat, statim, vel infra quinque dies ad minus, circa eos Constitutiones contra tales editas servaturus.

(26) Teneatur praeterea Potestas, seu Rector omnes haereticos,quos captos habuerit, cogere citra membri diminutionem, & mortis periculum, tamquam vere latrones, & homicidas animarum, & fures sacramentorum Dei, & Fidei Christianae, errores suos expresse fateri, & accusare alios haereticos, quos sciunt, & bona eorum, & credentes, & receptatores, & defensores eorum, sicut coguntur fures, & latrones rerum temporalium, accusare suos complices, & fateri maleficia, quae fecerunt.

(27) Domus autem, in qua repertus fuerit aliquis haereticus, vel haeretica, sine ulla spe reaedificandi funditus destruatur: nisi Dominus domus eos ibidem procuraverit reperiri. Et si Dominus illius domus, alias domus habuerit contiguas illi domui, omnes illae domus similiter destruantur, & bona, quae fuerint inventa in domo illa, & in domibus illis adhaerentibus, publicentur, & fiant auferentium, nisi auferentes fuerint in officio constituti. Et insuper Dominus Domus illius, praeter notam infamiae perpetuae, quam incurrat, componat Communi Civitatis, vel loci quinquaginta libras Imperiales in pecunia numerata, quam si non solverit, in perpetuo carcere detrudatur. Burgus autem ille, in quo haeretici capti fuerint, vel inventi, componat Communi Civitatis libras centum: &Villa; libras quinquaginta, & vicinia tam Burgi, quam Civitatis libras quinquaginta, & vicinia tam Burgi, quam Civitatis libras quinquaginta Imperialium in pecunia numerata.

(28) Quicumque vero fuerit deprehensus dare alicui haeretico, vel haereticae, consilium, vel auxilium, seu favorem, praeter aliam poenam superius, & inferius praetaxatam, ex tunc ipso iure in perpetuum sit factus infamis, nec in publica officia, seu consilia, vel ad eligendos aliquos ad hujusmodi, nec ad testimonium admittatur, sit etiam intestabilis, ut nec testamenti liberam habeat factionem, nec ad haereditatis successionem accedat. Nullus praeterea ei super quocumque negotio, sed ipse alii respondere cogatur. Quod si forte Judex extiterit, ejus sententia nullam obtineat firmitatem, nec causae aliquae ad ejus audientiam perferantur. Si fuerit Advocatus, ejus patrocinium nullatenus admittatur. Si Tabellio instrumenta confecta per ipsum, nullius penitus sint momenti. Credentes quoque erroribus haereticorum tamquam haeretici puniantur.

(29)Teneatur insuper Potestas, seu Rector, nomina Virorum omnium, qui de haeresi fuerint infamati, vel banniti,in quatuor libellis unius tenoris facere annotari: quorum unum commune Civitatis, vel Loci habeat, & alium Dioecesanus, & tertium Fratres Praedicatores, & quartum Fratres Minores, & ipsorum nomina ter in anno, & in concione publica solemniter faciat recitari.

(30)Teneatur quoque Potestas, seu Rector, filios, & nepotes haereticorum, & nepotes haereticorum, & receptatorum, defensorum, & fautorum diligenter investigare, eosque ad aliquod officium publicum, seu consilium nullatenus admittere futurum.

(31) Teneantur praeterea Potestas, seu Rector, unum de Assessoribus suis, quem elegerit Dioecesanus si fuerit praesens, & Inquisitores praedicti ab Apostolica sede dati, mittere cum eis quandocumque voluerint, et in jurisdictione Civitatis, atque districtu. Qui Assessor, secundum quod praedictis Inquisitoribus visum fuerit, ibi tres, aut plures, boni testimonii viros, vel totam viciniam, si eis videbitur, jurare compellat; quod si quos ibidem haereticos sciverint,vel bona eorum,quod si quos occulta conventicula celebrantes, seu a communi conversatione fidelium vita, & moribus diffidentes, vel credentes, aut defensores, seu receptatores, vel fautores haereticorum, eos dictis Inquisitoribus studeant indicare. Ipse autem Potestas contra accusatos procedat secudum Leges quondam Friderici tunc Imperatoris Paduae promulgatas.

(32)Teneatur Potestas, seu Rector in destructionem domorum, & condemnationibus faciendis, & in rebus inventis, vel occupatis consignandis, & dividendis, de quibus superius dicitur, infra decem dies, postquam accusatio facta fuerit, haec omnia exequi cum effectu; & condemnationes omnes in pecunia numerata infra tres menses exigere, & dividere illas, sicut inferius continentur, & eos qui solvere non poterint, banno maleficii supponere, & donec solvant, in carcere detinere; alioquin pro his omnibus, & singulis syndicetur, sicut inferius continetur, & insuper teneatur unum de Assessoribus, quemcumque Dioecesanus, vel ejus Vicarius, & dicti Inquisitores haereticorum voluerint, ad haec peragenda fideliter assignare, & mutare pro tempore, si eis visum fuerit opportunum.

(33) Omnes autem condemnationes, vel poenae, quae occasione haeresis factae fuerint,neque per concionem, neque per consilium, neque ad vocem populi ullo modo, aut ingenio, aliquo tempore valeant relaxari.

(34) Teneatur insuper Potestas, seu Rector omnia bona haereticorum, quae per dictos Officiales fuerint occupata, seu inventa, & condemnationes pro his exactas dividere tali modo. Una pars deveniat in Commune Civitatis, vel Loci: secunda in favorem, & expeditionem Officii detur Officialibus, qui tunc negotia ipsa peregerint: tertia ponatur in aliquo tuto loco, secundum quod dictis Dioecesano, & Inquisitoribus videbitur reservanda, & expendenda per consilium in favorem fidei, & ad haereticos extirpandos, non obstante hujusmodi divisioni Statuto aliquo, condito, aut condendo.

(35)Si quis autem de caetero aliquod istorum Statutorum aut Constitutionum attentaverit delere, diminuere, vel mutare, sine auctoritate Sedis Apostolicae speciali, Potestas, seu Rector, qui pro tempore fuerit in illa Civitate, vel Loco, teneatur eum tamquam defensorem haereticorum publicum, & fautorem, secundum formam praescriptam perpetuo publice infamare, atque punire in libris quinquaginta Imperialium in pecunia numerata, quam si exigere non potuerit, eum maleficii banno supponat, de quo eximi non valeat, nisi solverit duplam dictae pecuniae quantitatem.

(37) Jurabunt autem praedicti tres Viri bona fide syndicare praefatos de omnibus supradictis.

(38)Caeterum teneatur Potestas,seu Rector cujuslibet Civitatis, vel Loci, delere, seu abradere penitus de Statutis,vel Capitularibus communis, quodcumque Statutum, conditum vel condendum, inveniatur contradicere istis Constitutionibus, seu Statutis, & Legibus quomodolibet obviare: & in principio, & in medio sui regiminis, haec Statuta, seu Constitutiones, & Leges in publica concione solemniter facere recitari; & etiam in aliis locis extra Civitatem suam, vel Locum, sicut Dioecesano, seu Inquisitoribus, & Fratribus supradictis visum fuerit expedire.

Porro haec omnia Statuta, seu Constitutiones, & Leges, & si quae aliae contra haereticos, & eorum complices,tempore aliquo auctoritate Sedis Apostolicae conderentur, in quatuor voluminibus unius tenoris debeant contineri : quorum unum sit in Statuario communis cujuslibet Civitatis, secundum apud Dioecesanum, tertium Fratres Praedicatores, quartum apud Fratres Minores, cum omni sinceritate serventur,ne possint per falsarios in aliquo violari.

Datum Perusii Idibus Maji, Pontificatus nostri anno nono.