Medieval Heresy & the Inquisition

of ecclesiastical intolerance forcing a policy of persecution on an unwilling or indifferent laity in the Middle Ages is unhistorical, while, on the other hand, some recent Catholic apologists, in seeking to exculpate the Church, have tended to underestimate the power and influence of the Church and to read into the Middle Ages a humanitarianism that did not actually exist then. Heresy was persecuted because it was regarded as dangerous to society, and intolerance was therefore the reflection not only of the ecclesiastical authority but of public opinion. On the other hand, clerical instruction had a large formative influence in the creation of public opinion.

This book inevitably suffered a prolonged interruption owing to the World War I. War. That there was not a complete cessation at once, I owe to my father, who most ungrudgingly devoted valuable time to making transcriptions from needed authorities in the British Museum at a time when other duties debarred me from access to books. My friend and former colleague, Mr. W. Garmon Jones, Dean of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Liverpool, gave me the benefit of his ripe scholarship and fine judgment in reading through the greater part of the work in manuscript, though I need hardly say that any errors in statement or opinion are to be attributed to me alone. I have to thank the Rev. T. Shankland of this college for generously undertaking the thankless task of reading the proofs, and my wife for the compilation of the index and for other help besides.

A. S. TURBERVILLE.

BANGOR, April, 1920.