Ad extirpanda
A bull of Pope Innocent IV to the rulers and communes of the cities of northern Italy, setting out thirty-eight laws they must adopt against heretics. Its twenty-sixth paragraph orders that arrested heretics be forced, short of maiming or danger of death, to confess.
The bull is addressed to the podestàs, rectors, councils and communes of Lombardy, Romagna and the March of Treviso and is dated at Perugia on the ides of May in the ninth year of Innocent IV, which is 15 May 1252. It requires each city to write a set of laws against heresy into its statutes and binds each new podestà to swear to them.
The laws concern what the civil power must do: appoint officers to arrest heretics, hand those arrested to the bishop or the inquisitors within fifteen days, carry out the penalties on those the church has condemned, destroy the houses where heretics were found and keep registers of the condemned. The clause on forced confession is laid on the civil ruler, who is told to treat heretics as thieves and robbers are treated. The bull speaks to northern Italy only.
Cited in
- 1231, firm date