Nor did it confine itself to religious affairs; it engaged in the suppression of political discontent.

Nicolas Eymeric, who was inquisitor-general of the kingdom of Aragon for nearly fifty years, and who died in 1399, has left a frightful statement of its conduct and appalling cruelties in his "Directorium Inquisitorum." This disgrace of Christianity, and indeed of the human race, had different constitutions in different countries.

The papal Inquisition continued the tyranny, and eventually superseded the old episcopal inquisitions.

The authority of the bishops was unceremoniously put aside by the officers of the pope.
By the action of the fourth Lateran Council, A.D.1215, the power of the Inquisition was frightfully increased, the necessity of private confession to a priest--auricular confession--being at that time formally established.

This, so far as domestic life was concerned, gave omnipresence and omniscience to the Inquisition.