The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

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HISTORY OF THE POPES.
no fear of such a bull remaining a dead letter. A number of
imprisonments for sodomy^ during July, 1566, filled Rome
with fear, especially the nobles, who well knew that the Pope
would apply his law in the case of great and small alike ;^
it is a fact that the punishment of burning was used in cases
of crimes against nature all through the reign of Pius V.^
In October, 1571, the complaint made by a preacher in the
Apostolic palace, that justice was only employed against the
poor and not against the rich, called forth a Papal edict ordering
the strict enforcement of the laws against sodomy.* A
brief had already been issued by which clerics who were guilty
of that offence lost all their benefices, dignities and revenues,
and, after degradation, were to be handed over to the secular
arm.^
Since the Inquisition had the power to deal with crimes
against nature, as giving ground for the suspicion of incredulity
and heresy, the same thing held good, and for the same reason,
of attempts to invoke the assistance of the evil spirits for any
1 Tiepolo, July 20, 1566, in Mutinelli, L, 50.
^ *' che fa giusticia anco per i grandi " (Arco, July 20, 1566,
State Archives, Vienna). An *Avviso di Roma of July 20, 156
(Urb. 1040, p. 255, Vatican Library) states : " Roma e quasi
tutta sbigottita per le gagliarde provisioni et essecutioni, che si
fanno contro li maledetti sodomiti ne si guarda in faccia a
persona."
^ Cf. the *Avvisi di Roma of April 2, 1569 :
burned," September 3, 1569 :
"
"a sodomite was
the servant of a sodomite was
May 13,
actually burned, and his master, who had fled, in effigy " ;
1570 : "a man was burned for bestiality " ; October 6, 1571 :
" to-day four sodomites were burned " (Urb. 1041, p. 51, 143,
274 ; 1042, p. 129, Vatican Library). Cf. Mutinelli, L, 50 ;
Bollett. Pavese, IV., 591 seq.
cit.
4 *Avviso of October 20, 1571, Urb. 1042, p. 135, loc.
^August 30, 1568, Bull. Rom., VII., 702 seq. A *brief of
March 15, 1569, to the vicar of the Archbishop of Tarragona,
which orders the carrying out of this edict, in Brevia Arm. 44,
t. 14, p. 33, Papal Secret Archives.