Is it fair to have higher expectations of people who are professed Christians?

In 1192 bishop Otto of Toul ordered all Waldenses to be delivered up in chains to the episcopal tribunal. In 1194 Alphonso II of Aragon ordered their banishment from his dominion and forbade them shelter or food. The Council of Genoa (1197) affirmed these provisions and ordered death by burning against the Church. 

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06796a.htm  (3^rd paragraph from the bottom)

Gregory IX was very severe towards heretics, who in those times were universally looked upon as traitors and punished accordingly. Upon the request of King Louis IX of France, he sent Cardinal Romanus as legate to assist the king in his crusade against the Albigenses. At the synod which the papal legate convened at Toulouse in November, 1229, it was decreed that all heretics and their abettors should be delivered to the nobles and magistrates for their due punishment, which, in case of obstinacy, was usually death. When in 1224 Frederick II ordered that heretics in Lombardy should be burnt at the stake, Gregory IX, who was then papal legate for Lombardy, approved and published the imperial law. During his enforced absence from Rome (1228-1231) the heretics remained unmolested and became very numerous in the city. In February, 1231, therefore, the pope enacted a law for Rome that heretics condemned by an ecclesiastical court should be delivered to the secular power to receive their "due punishment". This "due punishment" was death by fire for the obstinate and imprisonment for life for the penitent. In pursuance of this law a number of Patarini were arrested in Rome in 1231, the obstinate were burned at the stake, the others were imprisoned in theBenedictine monasteries of Monte Cassino and Cava (Ryccardus de S. Germano, ad annum 1231, in Mon. Germ. SS., XIX, 363).It must not be thought, however, that Gregory IX dealt more severely with heretics than other rulers did. Death by fire was the common punishment for heretics and traitors in those times. Up to the time of Gregory IX, the duty of searching out heretics belonged to the bishops in their respective dioceses. The so-called Monastic Inquisition was established by Gregory IX, who in his Bulls of 13, 20, and 22 April, 1233, appointed the Dominicans as the official inquisitors for all dioceses of France (Ripoil and Bremond, "Bullarium Ordinia Fratrum Praedicatorum", Rome, 1729, I, 47).

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14761a.htm  (2^nd paragraph from the bottom)

With regard to the toleration of Christian heretics and schismatics the reader will do well to consult the article INQUISITION. No very systematic measures of repression seem to have come into practice before the twelfth century. The aggressive attitude adopted in the case of the Priscillianists (q.v.) and Donatists was owing less to the action of the bishops than to that of the emperor. On the other hand, it cannot be disputed that after the authority of the popes was firmly established, ecclesiastical campaigns were undertaken against the Cathari, the Waldenses, and Albigenses as well as later on against the followers of Wicklif andHus. Moreover isolated executions for heresy (burning at the stake being commonly employed for this purpose) were known before the twelfth century both in East and West; though at the same time the actual infliction of the punishment, then as after, must be regarded as an act of the civil power rather than that of any ecclesiastical tribunal. But though an Inquisition of heretical practices may be regarded as having been first formally set up, at any rate in embryo, about the second half of the thirteenth century no measures of extreme severity were in the beginning prescribed or generally adopted. The Fourth Council of Lateran in 1215 imposed as a penalty the deprivation of property and civil stakes. Convicted heretics even though repentant, were excluded from public offices and were compelled to wear a badge. If their retractation was insincere they were liable to be confined in a public prison. At the same time it must not be forgotten that all these medieval heresies, as such an historian as Gairdner has noticed (Lollardy, I, 46), struck at the foundations of social order. M. Guiraud's account of the extravagant teaching of the Cathari and Albigenses is conclusive upon the point. It cannot be doubted that the severities which then began to be exercised in the name of religion were prompted by no lust for blood. It seemed rather to orthodox churchmen that the Church was so menaced by these subversive doctrines that her very existence was at stake.

  https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04259b.htm

(2^nd paragraph from the bottom)

...From the beginning of the thirteenth century the German ecclesiastical authority, in union with the civil power, had proceeded vigorously against all heresies. The conflict in which Conrad had so large a share was waged according to the medieval views of public right and welfare. The first process in which he took part was that directedagainst Heinrich Minnike,Provost of Goslar. In 1224 after a trial that lasted two years, Minnike was declared guilty of heresy, delivered to the secular arm, and perished at the stake. In the following years Conrad preached with great vigour against the heretics and was warmly praised and encouraged to greater zeal by Gregory IX in a letter of 1227. The Archbishops of Trier and of Mainz both wrote to the pope in 1231 in praise of the extraordinary activity of Conrad and reported his triumphs over several heretical leaders. Thereupon Pope Gregory conferred on Conrad (11 October, 1231) the extensive authority of papal inquisitor, the first such officer appointed in Germany. At the same time the pope released Conrad from the obligation of following the ordinary canonical procedure (te a cognitionibus causarum habere volumus excusatum) and authorized him to proceed resolutely against heretics as he thought best, but with due observance of the papal decrees on the subject.

  https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06105c.htm

Lorenzo was succeeded by his son, Piero, but he did not long retain popularity, especially after he had ceded the fortresses of Pietra Santa and Pontremoli to Charles VIII of France, who entered Italy with the avowed purpose of overthrowing the Aragonese dominion in Naples. ...

.. The last had for chief the Dominican friar, Girolamo Savonarola of Ferrara, who hoped by their aid to restore in Florence piety and a Christian discipline of life, i.e. to establish in the city the Kingdom of Christ. In fact, Christ was publicly proclaimed Lord or Signore of Florence (Rex populi Florentini). (For the irreligious and rationalistic elements in the city at this period seeGUICCIARDINI and MACHIAVELLI). Savonarola's intemperate speeches were the occasion of his excommunication, and in 1498 he was publicly burned.The Arrabiatiwere then in power. In 1512 Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici purchased at a great price the support of the Spanish captain Cardona and sent him to Florence to demand the return of the Medici. Fearing worse evils the people consented, and Lorenzo II, son of Piero, was recalled as prince. Cardinal Giovanni, however, kept the reins of power in his own hands. As Leo X he sent thither Cardinal Giulio de' Medici (the natural son of Giuliano), afterwards Clement VII. The family had now reached the acme of its power and prestige. The sack of Rome (1527) and the misfortunes of Clement VII caused a third exile of the Medici. Ippolito andAlessandro, cousins of the pope, were driven out.

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02616a.htm

The Bohemian Brethren are a link in a chain of sects beginning with Wyclif (1324-84) and coming down to the present day. The ideas of the Englishman found favour with Hus, and Bohemia proved a better soil for their growth than England. Both Wyclif and Hus were moved by a sincere desire to reform the Church of their times; both failed and, without intending it, became the fathers of new heretical bodies — the Lollards and the Hussites. The former were persecuted out of existence in England by Catholic rulers;the latter prospered in Bohemia, thanks to royal and national support.The burning of John Hus at the stake for his stubborn adherence to the condemned doctrines of Wyclif (at Constance, 6 July, 1415) was considered an insult to the faith of the Bohemian nation, which, since its first conversion to Christianity, had never swerved from the truth. The University of Prague came boldly forward to vindicate the man and his doctrines; the party which hitherto had worked at reforming the Church from within now rejected the Church's authority and became the Hussite sect. Divisions at once arose amongst its members. Some completely set aside the authority of the Church and admitted no other rule than the Bible;others only demanded Communion under both kinds for the laity and free preaching of the Gospel, with some minor reforms. The former, who met for worship at "Mount Tabor", were called Taborites; the latter received the name of Calixtines, i.e., the party of the Chalice. As long as they had a common enemy to fight they fought together under the leadership of that extraordinary man, John Trocznowski, known as Zizka (the one-eyed), and for fully fifteen years proved more than a match for the imperial armies and papal crusaders sent to crush them. Peace was at length obtained, not by force of arms, but by skilful negotiations which resulted in the "Compactata of Basle" (30 November, 1433). The compact was chiefly due to the concessions made by the Calixtine party; it found little or no favour with the Taborites. The discontent led to a feud which terminated at the Battle of Lippau (30 May, 1434) with the death of Procopius, the Taborite leader, and the almost total extinction of this party. The small remnant, too insignificant to play a role in politics, withdrew into private life, devoting all their energies to religion. In 1457 one section formed itself into a separate body under the name of the "Brethren's Union" (Unitas Fratrum), which is now generally spoken of as the Bohemian Brethren. Their contemporaries coined for them several opprobrious designations, such as Jamnici (cave-dwellers) and Pivnicnici (beerhouse men), Bunzlau Brethren, Picards (corrupted toPickarts), etc.