A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages  

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{{Template}} A History of the Inquisition of the Middle AgesVol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, The Macmillan Company, 1906 [1st Pub. 1888] by American historian Henry Charles Lea.

Full text of volume 1

A HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION

Vol. I.


A HISTORY OF


THE INQUISITION


OF


THE MIDDLE AGES.


BY


HENRY CHARLES LEA,


AUTHOR OF

"an historical sketch of sacerdotal celibacy," "superstition and force, "studies in church history."


IN THREE VOLUMES.

Vol. L


Neto gork THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.

11)00

All ri(jht8 reserved


^f ST. M!C!-.A£L'3

V COLucGE


n72a


Copyright, 1887, by Harper & Brothers.


All rights reserved.


PREFACE


The history of the Inquisition naturally divides itself into two portions, each of which may be considered as a whole. The Eeformation is the boundary-Une between them, except in Spain, where the New Inquisition was founded by Ferdinand and Isa- bella. In the present work I have sought to present an impartial account of the institution as it existed during the earlier period. For the second portion I have made large collections of material, through which I hope in due time to continue the history to its end.

The Inquisition was not an organization arbitrarily devised and imposed upon the judicial system of Christendom by the ambition or fanaticism of the Church, It was rather a natural — one may almost say an inevitable — evolution of the forces at work in the thirteenth century, and no one can rightly appreciate the process of its development and the results of its activity with- out a somewhat minute consideration of the factors controlling the minds and souls of men during the ages which laid the founda- tion of modern civilization. To accomplish this it has been neces- sary to pass in review nearly all the spiritual and intellectual movements of the Middle Ages, and to glance at the condition of society in certain of its phases.

At the commencement of my historical studies I speedily be- came convinced that the surest basis of investigation for a given period lay in an examination of its jurisprudence, which presents without disguise its aspirations and the means regarded as best


iV PREFACE.

adapted for their realization. I have accordingly devoted much space to the origin and development of the inquisitorial process, foeUng convinced that in this manner only can we understand the operations of the Holy Office and the influence which it ex- ercised on successive generations. By the application of the re- sults thus obtained it has seemed to me that many points which have been misunderstood or imperfectly appreciated can be eluci- dated. If in this I have occasionally been led to conclusions dif- fering from those currently accepted, I beg the reader to believe that the views presented have not been hastily formed, but that they are the outcome of a conscientious survey of all the original sources accessible to me.

No serious historical work is worth the writing or the read- ing unless it conveys a moral, but to be useful the moral must develop itself in the mind of the reader without being obtruded upon him. Especially is this the case in a history treating of a subject which has called forth the fiercest passions of man, arous- ing alternately his highest and his basest impulses. I have not paused to moralize, but I have missed my aim if the events nar- rated are not so presented as to teach their appropriate lesson.

It only remains for me to express my thanks to the numerous friends and correspondents who have rendered me assistance in the arduous labor of collecting the very varied material, much of it inedited, on which the present work is based. Especially do I desire to record my grafcitude to the memory of that cultured gentleman and earnest scholar, the late Hon. George P. Marsh, who for so. many years worthily represented the United States at the Italian court. I never had the fortune to look upon his face, but the courteous readiness with which he aided my researches in Italy merit my warmest acknowledgments. To Professor Charles Molinier, of the University of Toulouse, moreover, my special thanks are due as to one who has always been ready to share with a fellow-student his own unrivalled knowledge of the In-


PREFACE. V

quisition of Languedoc. In the Florentine archives I owe much to Francis Phihp Nast, Esq., to Professor Felice Tocco, and to Doctor Giuseppe Papaleoni ; in those of Naples, to the Superin- tendent Cav. Minieri Riccio and to the Cav. Leopoldo Ovary ; in those of Venice to the Cav. Teodoro Toderini and Sig. Bartolomeo Cecchetti : in those of Brussels to M. Charles Rahlenbeck. In Paris I have to congratulate myself on the careful assiduity with which M. L. Sandret has exhausted for my benefit the rich col- lections of MSS., especially those of the Bibliotheque Rationale. To a student, separated by a thousand leagues of ocean from the repositories of the Old World, assistance of this nature is a necessity, and I esteem myself fortunate in having enlisted the co-operation of those who have removed for me some of the dis- abilities of time and space.

Should the remaining portion of my task be hereafter accom- plished, I hope to have the opportunity of acknowledging my ob- ligations to many other gentlemen of both hemispheres who have furnished me with unpublished material illustrating the later de- velopment of the Holy Office.

Philadelphia, August, 1887.


7«  z


cl. 1


CONTENTS.


BOOK L— ORIGIN AND ORGANIZATION OF THE INQUISITION. Chapter I. — The Church.

Paffe

Domination of the Cliurch in the Twelfth Century ' . . 1

Causes of Antagonism with the Laity 5

Election of Bishops 6

Simony and Favoritism 7

Martial Character of Prelates - . . • . 10

Difficulty of Punishing Offenders 13

Prostitution of the Episcopal Office 16

Abuse of Papal Jurisdiction 17

Abuse of Episcopal Jurisdiction 20

Oppression from the Building of Cathedrals 23

Neglect of Preaching 23

Abuses of Patronage 24

Pluralities 25

Tithes 26

Sale of the Sacraments 27

Extortion of Pious Legacies 28

Quarrels over Burials 30

Sexual Disorders 31

Clerical Immunity 32

The Monastic Orders 34

The Religion of the Middle Ages 39

Tendency to Fetishism 40

Indulgences 41

Magic Power of Formulas and Relics 47

Contemporary Opinion 51


\[U


C O N T E N T S.


Ohaptp:r II. — Hereby.

tug»

Awakening of the Hiinian Intellect in the Twelfth Century. ... 57

ropuUir Characteristics 69

Nature of Heresies ^ 60

Antisacerdotal Heresies * 62

Nullity of Sacraments in Polluted Hands. 62

Tanchelm * * . . 64

Eon de l':6toile 66

Peculiar Civilization of Southern France 6(5

Pierre de Bruys . . . i . . * . . . . 68

Henry of Lausanne 69

Arnaldo of Brescia 72

Peter Waldo and the Waldenses 76

Passagii, Joseppini, Siscidentes, Runcarii 88

Chapter III. — The Cathari.

Attractions of the Dualistic Theory 89

Derivation of Catharism from Manichacism . . . , 89

Belief and Organization of the Catharan Church 93

Missionary Zeal and Thirst for Martyrdom 102

Not Devil-v^orshippers 105

Spread of Catharism from Slavonia 107

Diffusion throughout Europe in the Eleventh Century 108

Increase in Twelfth Century 110

Comparative Exemption of Germany and England 112

Growth in Italy. Efforts of Innocent III 114

Its Stronghold in Southern France 117

Its Expected Triumph 121

Failure of Crusade of 1181 124

Period of Toleration and Growth 125

Chapter IV. — The Albigensian Crusader

Policy of the Church towards Heresy 129

Suppression of Heresy in the Nivernais 130

Translations of Scripture forbidden at Metz 131

Power of Raymond VI. of Toulouse 132

Condition of the Church in his Dominions 134

Innocent HI. Undertakes the Suppression of Heresy 136

The Prelates Refuse their Aid 137


  • /; ^ tOiSftENTS. ix

\rnau(l of Citeaux Sent as Chief Legate ....;. ■. •. . -. iS^

Fruitless EflEort to Organize a Crusade in 1204 139

The Bishop of Osma and St. Dominic Urge Fresh lililorts in 1206 . 141

Attempt to Organize a Crusade in 120*7 144

Murder of Pierre de Castelhau, Jan. 16, 1208 145

Crusade successfully Preached in 1208 147

Raymond's Efforts to Avert the Storm . 149

His Submission and Penance  ; Duplicity of Innocent III. . , . . 150

Raymond Directs the Crusade against the Vicomte de B^ziers. . . 153

Back of Beziers. — ^Surrender of Carcassonne. . . . . ■. . . . . 154

Pedro of Aragon and Simon de Montfort ........ ^ 15^

De Montford Accepts the Conquered Territories. — His Difficulties . 159

Raymond Attacked. — Deceit Practised by the Church ..... 162

His Desperate Efforts to Avert a Rupture .166

First Siege of Toulouse. — Raymond Gradually Overpowered . . . 167

Intervention of Pedro of Aragon 170

Raymond Prejudged. — Trial Denied him 173

Pedro Declares War.— Battle of Muret, Sept. 13, 1213 175

De Montfort's Vicissitudes. — Pious Fraud of the Legale . . . . 178

Raymond Deposed and Replaced by De Montfort 179

The Lateran Council. — It Decides in De Montfort's Favor . . . . 181

Rising of the People under the Younger Raymond 184

Second Siege of Toulouse in 1217. — Death of De Montfort. . . . 185

Crusade of Louis Coeur-de-Lion. — Third Siege of Toulouse. . . . 187

Raymond VII. Recovers his Lands. — Recrudescence of Heresy . . 189

Negotiations Opened. — Death of Philip Augustus 190

Louis VIII. Proposes a Crusade. — Raymond Makes Terms with the

Church 191

Duplicity of Honorius HI. — Council of Bourges, Nov. 1225 . . . 193

Louis Organizes the Crusade in 1226 197

His Conquering Advance. — His Retreat and Death 199

Desultory War in 1227. — Negotiations in 1228 . 201

Treaty of Paris, April, 1229. — Persecution Established 203

Chapter V. — Persecution.

Growth of Intolerance in the Early Church 209

Persecution Commences under Constantino 212

The Church Adopts the Death-penalty for Heresy. 213

Duty of the Ruler to Suppress Heresy 215

Decline of Persecuting Spirit under the Barbarians 216


X CON T E N T S.

Hesitation to Punish in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries . . . 218

Uncertainty as to Form of Punishment 220

Burning Alive Adopted in the Thirteenth Century 221

Evasion of Responsibility by the Church 223

The Temporal Authority Coerced to Persecute 224

Persecution of the Dead 230

Motives Impelling to Persecution 233

Cruelty of the Middle Ages 234

Exaggerated Detestation of Heresy 236

Influence of Asceticism 238

Conscientious" Motives 239

Chapter VI. — The Mendicant Orders.

Material for Reform within the Church 243

Foulques de Neuilly 244

Dur4n de Huesca anticipates Dominic and Francis 246

St. Dominic, his Career and Character 248

His Order founded in 1214. — Its Success 251

St. Francis of Assisi 256

His Order Founded. — Injunction of Poverty 257

He Realizes the Christian Ideal 260

Extravagant Laudation of Poverty 264

Influence of the Mendicant Orders 266

Emotional Character of the Age. — The Pastoureaux. — The Flagel- lants 268

The Mendicants Rendered Independent of the Prelates 273

Their Utility to the Papacy 274

Antagonism between them and the Secular Clergy 278

The Battle Fought out in the University of Paris 281

Victory of the Mendicants. — Unappeasable Hostility 289

Degeneracy of the Orders 294

Their Activity as Missionaries 297

Their Functions as Inquisitors 299

Inveterate Hostility between the Orders ' . . . 302

Chapter VII. — The Inquisition Founded.

Uncertainty in the Discovery and Punishment of Heretics .... 305

Growth of Episcopal Jurisdiction 308

Procedure in Episcopal Courts.— The Inquisitorial Process .... 309

System of Inquests 311


CONTENTS.


XI


Efforts to Establish an Episcopal Inquisition 313

Endeavor to Create a Legatine Inquisition 315

Fitness of the Mendicant Orders for the Work 318

Secular Legislation for Suppression of Heresy 319

Edict of Gregory XL in 1231. — Secular Inquisition Tried .... 324

Tentative Introduction of Papal Inquisitors 326

Dominicans Invested with Inquisitorial Functions 328

Episcopal Functions not Superseded 330

Struggle between Bishops and Inquisitors 332

Settlement when Inquisition Becomes Permanent 335

Control Given to Inquisitors in Italy  ; in France  ; in Aragon . . . 336

All Opposing Legislation Annulled 341

All Social Forces Placed at Command of Inquisition 342

Absence of Supervision and Accountability 343

Extent of Jurisdiction 347

Penalty of Impeding the Inquisition 349

Fruitless Rivalry of the Bishops 350

Limits of Extension of the Inquisition 351

The Northern Nations Virtually Exempt 362

Africa and the East 355

Vicissitudes of Episcopal Inquisition 356

Greater Efficiency of the Papal Inquisition 364

Bernard Gui's Model Inquisitor 367

Chapter VIII. — Organization.

Simplicity of the Inquisition 369

Inquisitorial Districts. — Itinerant Inquests 370

Time of Grace. — Its Efficiency 371

Buildings and Prisons 373

Personnel of the Tribunal 374

The Records. — Their Completeness and Importance 379

Familiars. — Question of Bearing Arms 381

Resources of the State at Command of Inquisitors 385

Episcopal Concurrence in Sentence 387

The Assembly of P^xperts 388

The Sermo or Auto defe 391

Co-operation of Tribunals o . . . . 394

Occasional Inquisitors-general 397


xii COlSTEiNTS.


CuAPTER IX. — The Inquisitorial Process.

Inquisitor both Jiuifre and Confessor 399

Difficulty of Proving Heresy 400

The Inquisitorial Process universally Employed 401

Age of Responsibility. — Proceedings in Absentia. — The Dead . . . 402

All Safeguards Withdrawn. — Secrecy of Procedure 405

Confession not Requisite for Conviction 407

Importance Attached to Confession 408

Interrogatory of the Accused 410

Resources for Extracting Confession. — Deceit 414

Irregular Tortures, Mental and Physical. — Delays 417

Formal Torture 421

Restricted by Clement V 424

Rules for its Employment 426

Retraction of Confessions 428

Chapter X. — Evidence.

Comparative Unimportance of Witnesses 430

Flimsiness of Evidence Admitted 431

The Crime Known as " Suspicion of Heresy " 433

Number of Witnesses. — No Restrictions as to Character or Age . . 434

Mortal Enmity the only Disability 436

Secrecy of Confessional Disregarded 437

Suppression of Names of Witnesses 437

Evidence sometimes Withheld 439

Frequency of False-witness. — Its Penalty 440

Chapter XL — The Defence.

Opportunity of Defence Reduced to a Minimum 443

Denial of Counsel 444

Malice of Witnesses the only Defence 446

Prosecution of the Dead '. . . . 448

Defence practically Impossible. — Appeals 449

Condemnation virtually Inevitable 453

Suspicion of Heresy. — Light, Vehement, and Violent 454

Purgation by Conjurators . 455

Abjuration 457


I


CONTENTS. xiii Chapter XII. — The Sentence.

Page

Penance not Punishment 459

Grades of Penance 462

Miscellaneous Penances 463

Flagellation 464

Pilgrimages 465

Crusades to Palestine 466

Wearing Crosses 468

Fines and Commutations 471

Unfultilled Penance 475

Bail 476

Abuses. — Bribery and Extortion 477

Destruction of Houses 481

Arbitrary Penalties 483

Imprisonment 484

Troubles about the Expenses 489

Treatment of Prisoners 491

Comparative Frequency of Different Penalties 494

Modification of Sentences 495

Penitents never Pardoned, although Reprieved 496

Penalties of Descendants 498

Inquisitorial Excommunication 500

Chapter XIII. — Confiscation.

Origin in the Roman Law 501

The Church Responsible for its Introduction 502

Varying Practice in Decreeing it 504

Degree of Criminality Entailing it 507

Question of the Dowers of Wives 509

The Church Shares the Spoils in Italy 510

In France they are Seized by the State 513

The Bishops Obtain a Share 514

Rapacity of Confiscation 517

Alienations and Obligations Void 522

Paralyzing Influence on Commercial Development. ...... 524

Expenses of Inquisition, how Defrayed 525

Persecution Dependent on Confiscation 529


Xiv CONTEiNTS.

Chapter XIV. — The Stake.

Pnff« 

Theoretical Irresponsibility of the Inquisition 534

The Church Coerces the Secuhir Power to Burn Heretics .... 536

Only Impenitent Heretics Burned 541

Relapse. — Hesitation as to its Penalty. — Burning Decided upon . . 543

Difficulty of Defining Relapse 547

Refusal to Submit to Penance 548

Probable Frequency of Burning 549

Details of Execution 551

Burning of Books 554

Influence of Inquisitorial Methods on the Church 557

Influence on Secular Jurisprudence 559

Appendix 563


THE INQUISITION


BOOK I.

ORIGIN AND ORGANIZATION.


CHAPTEK I.

THE CHURCH.

As the twelfth century drew to a close, the Church was ap- proaching a crisis in its career. The vicissitudes of a hundred and fifty years, skilfuUy improved, had rendered it the mistress of Christendom. History records no such triumph of intellect over brute strength as that which, in an age of turmoil and bat- tle, was wrested from the fierce warriors of the time by priests who had no material force at their command, and whose power was based alone on the souls and consciences of men. Over soul and conscience their empire was complete. No Christian could hope for salvation who was not in aU things an obedient son of the Church, and who was not ready to take up arms in its defence  ; and, in a time when faith was a determining factor of conduct, this belief created a spiritual despotism which placed aU things within reach of him who could wield it.

This could be accomplished only by a centralized organization such as that which had gradually developed itself within the ranks of the hierarchy. The ancient independence of the episcopate was no more. Step by step the supremacy of the Koman see had been asserted and enforced, until it enjoyed the universal jurisdiction which enabled it to bend to its wishes every prelate, under the naked alternative of submission or expulsion. The papal man-

I.— 1


g 'THE CHURCH.

date, just or unjust, reasonable or unreasonable, was to be received and implicitly obeyed, for there was no appeal from the repre- sentative of St. Peter. In a narrower sphere, and subject to the pope, the bishop held an authority which, at least in theory, was equally absolute ; while the humbler minister of the altar was the instrument by which the decrees of pope and bishop were en- forced among the people ; for the destiny of all men lay in the hands which could administer or withhold the sacraments essential to salvation.

Thus intrusted with responsibihty for the fate of mankind, it was necessary that the Church should possess the powers and the machinery requisite for the due discharge of a trust so unspeaka- bly important. For the internal regulation of the conscience it had erected the institution of auricular confession, which by this time had become almost the exclusive appanage of the priesthood. When this might fail to keep the behever in the path of righteous- ness, it could resort to the spiritual courts which had grown up around every episcopal seat, with an undefined jurisdiction capa- ble of almost unlimited extension. Besides supervision over mat- ters of faith and discipline, of marriage, of inheritance, and of usury, which belonged to them by general consent, there were comparatively few questions between man and man which could not be made to include some case of conscience involving the interpellation of spiritual interference, especially when agreements were customarily confirmed with the sanction of the oath ; and the cure of souls implied a perpetual inquest over the aberrations, positive or possible, of every member of the flock. It would be difficult to set bounds to the intrusion upon the concerns of every man which was thus rendered possible, or to the influence thence derivable.

'Not only did the humblest priest wield a supernatural power which marked him as one elevated above the common level of humanity, but his person and possessions were alike inviolable. No matter what crimes he might commit, secular justice could not take cognizance of them, and secular officials could not arrest him. He was amenable only to the tribunals of his own order, which were debarred from inflicting punishments involving the effusion of blood, and from whose decisions an appeal to the supreme juris- diction of distant Rome conferred too often virtual immunity.


SOURCES OF ITS POWER. g

The same privilege protected ecclesiastical property, conferred on the Church by the piety of successive generations, and covering no small portion of the most fertile lands of Europe. Moreover, the seignorial rights attaching to those lands often carried exten- sive temporal jurisdiction, which gave to their ghostly possessors the power over hfe and hmb enjoyed by feudal lords.

The hne of separation between the laity and the clergy was widened and deepened by the enforcement of the canon requiring cehbacy on the part of all concerned in the ministry of the altar. Kevived about the middle of the eleventh century, and enforced after an obstinate struggle of a hundred years, the compulsory cehbacy of the priesthood divided them from the people, preserved intact the vast acquisitions of the Church, and furnished it with an innumerable army whose aspirations and ambition were neces- sarily restricted within its circle. The man who entered the ser- vice of the Church was no longer a citizen. He owed no allegi- ance superior to that assumed in his ordination. He was released from the distraction of family cares and the seduction of family ties. The Church was his country and his home, and its interests were his own. The moral, intellectual, and physical forces which, throughout the laity, were divided between the claims of patriot- ism, the selfish struggle for advancement, the provision for wife and children, were in the Church consecrated to a common end, in the success of which all might hope to share, while all were as- sured of the necessities of existence, and were reheved of anxiety as to the future.

The Church, moreover, offered the only career open to men of all ranks and stations. In the sharply-defined class distinctions of the feudal system advancement was almost impossible to one not born within the charmed circle of gentle blood. In the Church, however much rank and family connections might assist in securing promotion to high place, yet talent and energy could always make themselves felt despite lowliness of birth. Urban II. and Adrian TV. sprang from the humblest origin ; Alexander V. had been a beggar-boy ; Gregory YII. was the son of a car- penter ; Benedict XII., of a baker ; Nicholas Y., of a poor phy- sician ; Sixtus lY., of a peasant ; Urban lY. and John XXII. were sons of cobblers, and Benedict XI. and Sixtus Y. of shepherds ; in fact, the annals of the hierarchy are full of those who rose from


4 THE CHURCH.

the lowest ranks of society to the most commanding positions. The Church thus constantly recruited its ranks with fresh blood. Free from the curse of hereditary descent, through which crowns and coronets frequently lapsed into weak and incapable hands, it called into its service an indefinite amount of restless vigor for which there was no other sphere of action, and which, when once enlisted, found itself perforce identified irrevocably with the body which it had joined. The character of the priest was indeUble ; the vows taken at ordination could not be thrown aside ; the monk, when once admitted to the cloister, could not abandon his order unless it were to enter another of more rigorous observance. The Church Militant was thus an army encamped on the soil of Christendom, with its outposts everywhere, subject to the most efficient disciphne, animated with a common purpose, every sol- dier panoplied with inviolability and armed with the tremendous weapons which slew the soul. There was little that could not be dared or done by the commander of such a force, whose orders were Hstened to as oracles of God, from Portugal to Palestine and from Sicily to Iceland. " Princes," says John of Salisbury, "derive their power from the Church, and are servants of the priesthood." " The least of the priestly order is worthier than any king," exclaims Honorius of Autun ; " prince and people are sub- jected to the clergy, which shines superior as the sun to the moon," Innocent III. used a more spiritual metaphor when he declared that the priestly power was as superior to the secular as the soul of man was to his body ; and he summed up his estimate of his ovm position by pronouncing himself to be the Yicar of Christ, the Christ of the Lord, the God of Pharaoh, placed midway between God and man, this side of God but beyond man, less than God but greater than man, who judges all, and is judged by none. That he was supreme over all the earth — over pagans and infidels as well as over Christians — was legally proved and universally taught by the mediaeval doctors.* Though the power thus vaingloriously asserted was fraught with evil in many ways, yet was it none the less a service to humanity that, in those rude ages, there existed a

  • Johann. Saresberiens. Polycrat. lib. iv. cap. iii. — Honor. Augustod. Sumra.

Glor. de Apost. cap. v., viii. —Innocent PP. III. Regest. de Negot. Rom. Imp. xviii. ; Ejusd. Serm. de Sanctis vii. ; Serm. de Diversis iii. — Eymerici Direct. Inquisit. Ed. Venet. 1607, p. 353.


SOURCES OF ITS DEMORALIZATION. 5

moral force superior to high descent and martial prowess, which could remind king and noble that they must obey the law of God even when uttered by a peasant's son ; as when Urban II., him- self a Frenchman of low birth, dared to excommunicate his mon- arch, Phihp I., for his adultery, thus upholding the moral order and enforcing the sanctions of eternal justice at a time when ev- erything seemed permissible to the recklessness of power.

Yet, in achieving this supremacy, much had been of necessity sacrificed. The Christian virtues of humihty and charity and self- abnegation had virtually disappeared in the contest which left the spiritual power dominant over the temporal. The affection of the populations was no longer attracted by the graces and loveliness of Christianity ; submission was purchased by the promise of sal- vation, to be acquired by faith and obedience, or was extorted by the threat of perdition or by the sharper terrors of earthly perse- cution. If the Church, by sundering itself completely from the laity, had acquired the services of a militia devoted wholly to itself, it had thereby created an antagonism between itself and the peo- ple. Practically, the whole body of Christians no longer consti- tuted the Church ; that body was divided into two essentially dis- tinct classes, the shepherds and the sheep ; and the lambs were often apt to think, not unreasonably, that they were tended only to be shorn. The worldly prizes offered to ambition by an ecclesi- astical career drew into the ranks of the Church able men, it is true, but men whose object was worldly ambition rather than spir- itual development. The immunities and privileges of the Church and the enlargement of its temporal acquisitions were objects held more at heart than the salvation of souls, and its high places were fiUed, for the most part, with men in whom worldliness was more conspicuous than the humbler virtues.

This was inevitable in the state of society which existed in the early Middle Ages. While angels would have been required to exercise becomingly the tremendous powers claimed and acquired by the Church, the methods by which clerical preferment and promo- tion were secured were such as to favor the unscrupulous rather than the deserving. To understand fully the causes which drove so many thousands into schism and heresy, leading to wars and persecutions, and the estabUshment of the Inquisition, it is neces-


6 THE CHURCH.

sary to cast a glance at the character of the men who represented the Church before the people, and at the use which they made, for good or for evil, of the absolute spiritual despotism which had become established. In wise and devout hands it might elevate incalculably the moral and material standards of European civili- zation ; in the hands of the selfish and depraved it could become the instrument of minute and all -pervading oppression, driving whole nations to despair.

As regards the methods of election to the episcopate there can- not be said at this period to have been any settled and invariable rule. The ancient form of election by the clergy, with the acqui- escence of the people of the diocese, was still preserved in theory, but in practice the electoral body consisted of the cathedral can- ons; while the confirmation required of the king, or semi-inde- pendent feudal noble, and of the pope, in a time of unsettled insti- tutions, frequently rendered the election an empty form, in which the royal or papal power might prevail, according to the tenden- cies of time and place. The constantly increasing appeals to Eome, as to the tribunal of last resort, by disappointed aspirants, under every imaginable pretext, gave to the Holy See a rapidly-growing influence, which, in many cases, amounted almost to the power of appointment ; and Innocent II., at the Lateran Council of 1139, apphed the feudal system to the Church by declaring that all ec- clesiastical dignities were received and held of the popes Like fiefs. Whatever rules, however, might be laid down, they could not op- erate in rendering the elect better than the electors. The stream wiU not rise above its source, and a corrupt electing or appointing power is not apt to be restrained from the selection of fitting rep- resentatives of itself by methods, however ingeniously devised, which have not the inherent ability of self-enforcement. The oath which cardinals were obliged to take on entering a con- clave— " I call God to witness that I choose him whom I judge according to God ought to be chosen" — was notoriously ineffica- cious in securing the election of pontiffs fitted to serve as the ^dce- gerents of God ; and so, from the humblest parish priest to the loftiest prelate, aU grades of the hierarchy were Ukely to be filled by worldly, ambitious, self-seeking, and licentious men. The ma- terial to be selected from, moreover, was of such a character that even the most exacting friends of the Church had to content them-


PREVALENCE OF SIMONY. 7

selves when the least worthless was successful. St. Peter Damiani, in asking of Gregory Y I. the confirmation of a bishop-elect of Fos- sombrone, admits that he is unfit, and that he ought to undergo pen- ance before undertaking the episcopate, but yet there is nothing bet- ter to be done, for in the whole diocese there was not a single eccle- siastic worthy of the office ; all were selfishly ambitious, too eager for preferment to think of rendering themselves worthy of it, in- flamed with desire for power, but utterly careless as to its duties.^ Under these circumstances simony, with all its attendant evils, was almost universal, and those evils made themselves everywhere felt on the character both of electors and elected. In the fruitless war waged by Gregory YII. and his successors against this all- pervading vice, the number of bishops assailed is the surest index of the means which had been found successful, and of the men who thus were enabled to represent the apostles. As Innocent III. declared, it was a disease of the Church immedicable by either soothing remedies or fire ; and Peter Cantor, who died in the odor of sanctity, relates with approval the story of a Cardinal Martin, who, on officiating in the Christmas solemnities at the Roman court, rejected a gift of twenty pounds sent him by the papal chancellor, for the reason that it was notoriously the product of rapine and simony. It was related as a supreme instance of the virtue of Peter, Cardinal of St. Chrysogono, formerly Bishop of Meaux, that he had, in a single election, refused the dazzUng bribe of five hundred marks of silver. Temporal princes were more ready to turn the power of confirmation to profitable account, and few imitated the example of Philip Augustus, who, when the ab- bacy of St. Denis became vacant, and the provost, the treasurer, and the ceUarer of the abbey each sought him secretly, and gave him five hundred Uvres for the succession, quietly went to the ab- bey, picked out a simple monk standing in a corner, conferred the dignity on him, and handed him the fifteen hundred Uvres. The Council of Rouen, in 1050, complains bitterly of the pernicious custom by which ambitious men accumulated, by every possible means, presents wherewith to gain the favor of the prince and his courtiers in order to obtain bishoprics, but it could suggest no rem-


  • Gratiani P. I. Dist. lxii. — Concil Lateran. IV. c. xxiii.-xxv. — Tsambert,

Ancienues Loix Fran9aises, I. 145. — P. Damiani Lib. i. Epist. ii.


8 THE CHURCH.

edy. The council was directly concerned only with the  !Norman dukes, but the contemporary King of France, Henry I., was noto- rious as a vendor of bishoprics. lie had commenced his reign with an edict prohibiting the purchase and sale of preferment under penalty of forfeiture of both purchase-money and benefice, and had boasted that, as God had given him the crown gratis, so he would take nothing for his right of confirmation, reproaching his prelates bitterly for the prevalence of the vice which was eating out the heart of the Church. Yet in time he yielded to the custom, and a single instance will illustrate the working of the system. A certain Helinand, a clerk of low extraction and deficient training, had found favor at the court of Edward the Confessor, where he had ample opportunities of amassing wealth. Happening to be sent on a mission to Henry, he made a bargain by which he pur- chased the reversion of the first vacant bishopric, which chanced in course of time to be Laon, where he was duly installed. Hen- ry's successor, Philip I., was known as the most venal of men, and from him, by a similar transaction, Helinand purchased, with the money acquired from the revenues of Laon, the primatial see of Eeims. Such jobbers in patronage were accustomed to enter into compacts with each other for mutual assistance, and to consult as- trologers as to expected vacancies. The manipulation of ecclesias- tical preferment was reduced to a system, calling forth the indig- nant remonstrance of all the better class of churchmen. Instances of these abuses might be multiplied indefinitely, and their influence on the character of the Church cannot easily be overestimated.*

Even where the consideration paid for preferment was not ac- tually money, the effect was equally deplorable. Peter Cantor assures us that, if those who were promoted for relationship were


• Innocent. PP. HI. Regest. i. 261. — P. Cantor. Verb, abbrev. cap. cv. — Alex. PP. ni. Epist. 395.— Caesar. Heisterb. Dial. Mirac. Dist. vi. c. 5.— Concil. Ro- tomag. ann. 1050 c. 2. — Rodolphi Glabri Hist. Lib. v. c. 5.— Guibert. Noviogent. de Vita sua Lib. iii. c. 2. — Joann. Saresberiens. Polycrat. Lib. vii. c. 19. — Hist. Monast. Andaginens. c. 81. — Ruperti Tuitens. Chron. S. Laurent, c. 28, 45. — Hist. Monast. S. Laurent. Leodiens. Lib. v. c. 62, 121-3. — Chron. Cornel. Zant- fliet ann. 1305.

A story very similar to that of Philip Augustus is told of the Chancellor of Roger of Sicily and three competitors for the see of Avellana — Joann. Saresbe- riens. ubi sup.


ABUSE OF THE APPOINTING POWER 9

required to resign, it would cause general destruction throughout the Church ; and worse motives were constantly at work. Though Phihp I., for his adultery with Bertrade of Anjou, was nominally deprived of the confirmation, or, rather, nomination, of bishops, there were none to prevent his exercise of the power. About the year 1100 the Archbishop of Tours, having gratified the king by disregarding the excommunication under which he lay, claimed his reward by demanding that the vacant see of Orleans should be given to a youth whom he loved not wisely but too well, and who was so notorious for the facility with which he granted his favors (the preceding Archbishop of Tours had likewise been one of his lovers) that he was popularly known as Flora, in allusion to a noted courtesan of the day, and ribald love-songs addressed to him were openly sung in the streets. Such of the Orleans clergy as threat- ened trouble were put out of the way by false accusations and ex- iled, and the remainder not only submitted, but even made a jest of the fact that the election took place on the Feast of the Inno- cents—

" Elegimus puerum, puerorum festa colentes, Non nostrum morem sed regis jussa sequentes." *

Under such influences it was in vain that the better class of men who occasionally appeared in the ranks of the hierarchy, such as Fulbert of Chartres, Hildebert of Le Mans, Ivo of Chartres, Lanfranc, Anselm, St. Bruno, St. Bernard, St. E'orbert, and others, struggled to enforce respect for religion and morality. The cur- rent against them was too strong, and they could do little but pro- test and offer an example which few were found to follow. In those days of violence the meek and humble had little chance, and the prizes were for those who could intrigue and chaffer, or whose martial tendencies offered promise that they would make the rights of their churches and vassals respected. In fact, the mihtary character of the mediaeval prelates is a subject which it would be interesting to consider in more detail than space will here admit. The wealthy abbeys and powerful bishoprics came to be largely regarded as appropriate means to provide for younger sons of noble houses, or to increase the influence of


  • P. Cantor. Verb, abbrev. cap. xxxvi. — Chron. Turon. ann. 1097. — I von.

Carnotens. Lib. i. Epp. Ixvi., Ixvii.


10 THE CHURCH.

leading families. By such methods as we have seen they passed into the hands of those whose training had been military rather than religious. The mitre and cross had no more scruple than the knightly pennon to be seen in the forefront of battle. When excommunication failed to bring to reason restless vassals or en- croaching neighbors, there was prompt recourse to the fleshly arm, and the plundered peasant could not distinguish between the rav- ages of the robber baron and of the representative of Christ. One of the early adventures of Kodolph of Hapsburg, by which, he won the reputation which elevated him to the imperial throne, was the war declared by Walter, Bishop of Strassburg, against his burghers, because they had refused to aid him in gratuitously interfering in a quarrel between the Bishop of Metz and a trouble- some noble. As they disregarded his excommnnication. Bishop Walter attacked them vigorously, when they placed themselves xmder the command of Kodolph, and utterly defeated their pastor, after a war which desolated every portion of Alsace. The chroni- cles of the period are full of details of this nature. Worldly and turbulent, there was little to differentiate the prelate from the baron, and the latter had no more scruple in making reprisals on Church property than on secular possessions. In the dissensions which reduced the wealthy Abbey of St. Tron to beggary, the pious Godfrey of Bouillon, shortly before the crusade which won for him the throne of Jerusalem, ravaged the abbey lands with fire and sword. The people, on whom fell the crushing weight of these conflicts, could only look upon the baron and priest as enemies both ; and whatever might be lacking in the military ability of the spiritual warriors, was compensated for by their seek- ing to kiU the souls as well as the bodies of their foes. This was especially the case in Germany, where the prelates were princes as well as priests, and where a great religious house like the Ab- bey of St. Gall was the temporal ruler of the Cantons of St. Gall and Appenzel, until the latter threw off the yoke after a long and devastating war. The historian of the abbey chronicles with pride the martial virtues of successive abbots, and in speaking of Ulric III., who died in 1117, he remarks that, worn out with many battles, he at last passed away in peace. AU this was in some sort a necessity of the incongruous union of feudal noble and Christian prelate, and though more marked in Germany than elsewhere, it


MILITARY BISHOPS. 1]

was to be seen everywhere. In 1224 the Bishops of Coutances, Avranches, and Lisieux withdrew from the army of Louis YIII. at Tours, under an agreement that the king should make legal in- vestigation to determine whether the bishops of Normandy were bound to serve personally in the royal armies ; if this was found to be the ease, they were to return and pay the amercement for deserting him. The decision apparently went against them, for in 1272 we find them serving personally under Philippe le Hardi. This indisposition to fight the battles of others was not often shown when the cause was their own. Geroch of Keichersperg inveighs bitterly against the warlike prelates who provoke unjust wars, attacking the peaceful and delighting in the slaughter which they cause and witness, giving no quarter, taking no prisoners, sparing neither clergy nor laity, and spending the revenues of the Church on soldiers, to the deprivation of the poor. Such a pre- late was Lupoid, Bishop of Worms, whose recklessness provoked his brother to say, " My lord bishop, you scandaUze us laymen greatly by your example. Before you were a bishop you feared God a httle, but now you care nothing for him," to which Bishop Lupoid flippantly retorted that when they both should be in hell he would exchange seats if his brother desired. During the wars between the emperors Philip and Otho TV. he personally led his troops in support of Philip, and when his soldiers hesitated about sacking churches, he would tell them that it was enough if they left the bones of the dead. The story is well known of Richard of England, and Philippe of Dreux, the warhke Bishop of Beau- vais, who had shown himself equally skilful and ruthless in the predatory warfare of the age, and who, when at last captured by Earl John, complained to Celestin III. of his imprisonment as a violation of ecclesiastical privileges. When Celestin, reproving him for his martial propensities, interceded for his release. King Richard sent to the pope the coat of mail in which the prelate had been captured, with the inquiry made to Jacob by his sons, " Know, whether it be thy son's coat  ?" to which the good pontiff responded by abandoning the appeal. A different result, not long afterwards, attended a similar experience of Theodore, Marquis of Montferrat, when he defeated and captured Aymon, Bishop of YerceUi. It happened that Cardinal Tagliaferro, papal legate to Aragon, was tarrying at Geneva, and, hearing of the sacrilege,


12 THE CHURCH.

wrote in threatening wise to the marquis, who responded with the same inquiry as King Richard, sending him the martial gear of the prelate, including his sword still stained with blood. Yet the proud noble felt his inability to cope with his spiritual foes, and not only liberated the bishop, but surrendered to him the fortress which had been the occasion of the war. Even more instructive is the case of the Bishop -elect of Yerona, who, in 1265, when marching at the head of an army, was taken prisoner by the troops of Manfred of Sicily. Although Urban lY. was busily urging forward the crusade which was to deprive Manfred of life and kingdom, he had the assurance to demand the liberation of his bishop, telling Manfred that if he had a spark left of the fear of God he would dismiss his prisoner. When Manfred replied, evading the demand with exuberant humility, Clement lY., who had meanwhile succeeded to the papacy, called upon Ja3ane I. of Aragon to intervene. Neither pope seemed to im- agine that there could be any hesitation in acceding to the pre- posterous claim, and King Jayme interposed so effectually that Manfred offered to release the bishop on his swearing not to bear arms against him in future. Even this condition was not accepted without difficulty. When the spiritual character thus only served to confer immunity for acts of violence, it is easy to understand the irresistible temptation to their commission.^

  • Chron. Senonens. Lib. v. cap. xiii.-xv. — Chron. S. Trudon. Lib. v. — Ful-

bert. Carnotens, Epist. 112. — Metzleri de Viris Illust. S. Gallens. Lib, ii. cap. 28, 30, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 45, 49, 53, 54, 56, 57, 60.— Martene Collect. Am- pliss. I. 1188-9.— Vaissette, Hist. Ggn. de Languedoc. T. IV. p. 7 (Ed. 1742).— Gerhohi Reichersperg. Exposit. in Psalm Ixiv. cap. 34.— Ejusd. Lib. de ^dificio Dei cap. 5. — Caesar. Heisterbac. Dial. Mirac. Dist. ii. cap. 9. — Matt. Paris. Hist. Angl. ann. 1196. — Rog. Hovedens. ann. 1197. — Benedicti Gesta Henrici H. ann 1188. — Baggiolini, Dolcino e i Patarini, p. 53 (Novara, 1838). — Martene Thesaur. n. 90-93,99, 100, 150, 151, 192.

A clerical rhymer of the thirteenth century describes the prelates of the day—

"Episcopi cornuti "sicut fortes incedunt

conticuere muti ; et a Deo discedunt.

ad praedam sunt parati ut leones feroces

et indecenter coronati, et ut aquilae veloces,

pro virga ferunt lanceam ut apri frendentes

pro infula galeam. exacuere dentes."

Carmina Burana, p. 15 (Breslau, 1883).


CONDITION OF THE EPISCOPATE. 13

The impression which these worldly and turbulent men made upon their quieter contemporaries was, that pious souls believed that no bishop could reach the kingdom of heaven. There was a story widely circulated of Geoffroi de Peronne, Prior of Clairvaux, who was elected Bishop of Tournay, and who was urged by St. Bernard and Eugenius III. to accept, but who cast himself on the ground, saying, " If you turn me out, I may become a vagrant monk, but a bishop never !" On his death-bed he promised a friend to return and report as to his condition in the other world, and did so as the latter was praying at the altar. He announced that he was among the blessed, but it had been revealed to him by the Trinity that if he had accepted the bishopric he would have been numbered with the damned. Peter of Blois, who relates this story, and Peter Cantor, who repeats it, both manifested their belief in it by persistently refusing bishoprics ; and not long after an eccle- siastic in Paris declared that he could believe all things except that any German bishop could be saved, because they bore the two swords, of the spirit and of the flesh. All this Caesarius of Heisterbach explains by the rarity of worthy prelates, and the su- perabounding multitude of wicked ones ; and he further points out that the tribulations to which they were exposed arose from the fact that the hand of God was not visible in their promotion. Lan- guage can scarce be stronger than that employed by Louis YIL in describing the worldliness and pomp of the bishops, when he vainly appealed to Alexander III. to utilize his triumph over Fred- eric Barbarossa by reforming the Church.*

In fact, the records ox the time bear ample testimony to the rapine and violence, the flagrant crimes and defiant immorality of these princes of the Church. The only tribunal to which they were amenable was that of Kome. It required the courage of des- peration to cause complaints to be made there against them, and when such complaints were made, the difficulty of proving charges, the length to which proceedings were drawn out, and the notorious venality of the Roman curia, afforded virtual immunity. When a resolute and incorruptible pontiff like Innocent HI. occupied the


  • P. Cantor. Verb, abbrev. cap. liv,— Pet. Blesens. Epist. ccxl. — Caesar. Heisterb.

Dial. Mirac. Dist. ii. c. 27, 28; Dist. vi. c. 20. — Varior. ad Alex. PP. III. Epist. xxi. (Migne, Patrolog. CC. 1879).— Pet. Blesens. Tract, quales sunt P. u. iv.


14 THE CHURCH.

papal chair, there was some chance for sufferers to make them- selves heard, and the number of such trials alluded to in his epis- tles show how wide-spread and deep-rooted was the evil. Yet, even untler him, the protraction of the proceedings, and the evi- dent slirinking from final condemnation, show how little encour- agement there was for prosecutions Mkely to react so dangerously on the prosecutor. Thus, in 1198, Gerard de Eougemont, Arch- bishop of Besangon, was accused by his chapter of perjury, simony, and incest. When summoned to Eome the accusers did not dare to prosecute the charges, though they did not Tvithdraw them, and Innocent, charitably quoting the woman taken in adultery, sent him back to purge himself and be absolved. Then followed a long course of undisturbed scandals, through which religion in his dio- cese became a mockery. He continued to live in incest with his relative, the Abbess of Eemiremont, and other concubines, one of whom was a nun, and another the daughter of a priest ; no church could be consecrated or preferment conferred without payment ; by his exactions and oppressions his clergy were reduced to live like peasants, and were exposed to the contempt of their parish- ioners ; and monks and nuns who could bribe him were allowed to abandon their convents and marry. At last another attempt w^as made, in 1211, to remove him, which, after more than a year, resulted in a sentence that he should undergo canonical purgation ; i. <?., find two bishops and three abbots to join him in an oath of disculpation, when negotiations as to the character of the oath ensued, lasting until 1214. Finally the citizens rose and drove him out ; he retired to the Abbey of Bellevaux, where he died in 1225. Maheu de Lorraine, Bishop of Toul, was a prelate of the same stamp. Consecrated in 1200, within two years his chapter applied to Innocent for his deposition, alleging that he had already re- duced the revenues of the see from a thousand livres to thirty. It was not until 1210 that his removal could be effected, after a most intricate series of commissions and appeals, interspersed with acts of violence. He was wholly abandoned to debauchery and the chase, and his favorite concubine was his daughter by a nun of Epinal, but he retained a valuable preferment, as Grand-prevot of Saint-Die. In 1217 he caused his successor Kenaud de Senlis to be murdered, soon after which his uncle, Thiebault, Duke of Lorraine, happening to meet him, slew him on the spot. Ordi-


DIFFICULTY OF PUNISHING BISHOPS. 15

nary justice, apparently, could do nothing with him. Very simi- lar was the case of the Bishop of Yence, whom Celestin III. had ordered suspended and sent to Eome to answer for his enormities, and who had defiantly continued in the exercise of his functions. On Innocent's accession, in 1198, his excommunication was ordered, which was equally ineffectual ; and at length, in 1204, Innocent sent peremptory orders to the Archbishop of Embrun to investi- gate the charges, and, if they were found correct, to depose him. Meanwhile the diocese had been brought to the verge of ruin, the churches were demolished, and divine service was performed in only a few parishes. So in ^NTarbonne, the headquarters of heresy, the Archbishop, Berenger II., natural son of Kaymond Berenger, Count of Barcelona, preferred to live in Aragon, where he held a rich abbey and the bishopric of Lerida, and never even visited his province. Consecrated in 1190, he had never seen it in 1204, though he drew large revenues from it, both in the regular way and by the sale of bishoprics and benefices, which were indiscrimi- nately bestowed on children or on men of the most abandoned lives. The condition of the province, the highest ecclesiastical dig- nity of France, was consequently shocking in the extreme, through the misconduct of the clergy, the boldness of the heretics, and the violence of the laity. As early as the year 1200, Innocent III. summoned Berenger to account. In 1204 he made another at- tempt, continued during the following years, as no amendment was visible, and as the farce of appeals from legate to pope was persistently kept up. At length, in 1210, we find Innocent still writing to his legate to investigate the archbishops of Nar bonne and Ausch and execute without appeal whatever the canons re- quire, but it was not until 1212 that Berenger was removed. It is probable that even then he might have escaped had not the legate, Arnaud of Citeaux, been desirous of the succession, which he obtained. We can readily believe the assertion of a writer of the thirteenth century, that the process of deposing a prelate was so cumbrous that even the most wicked had no dread of punish- ment.*

  • Innocent. PP. IH. Regest. i. 277; xiv. 125; xvi. 03, 158.— ii. 34; vii. 84.

— m. 24; VII. 75, 76; viii. 106; ix. 66; x. 68; xiii. 88; xv. 93. See also ii. 236; VI. 216; x. 182, 194; xi. 142; xii. 24, 25; xv. 186, 235; xvi. 12.—


16 THE CHURCH.

Even where the enormity of offences did not call for papal in- tervention, the episcopal office was prostituted in a thousand ways of oppression and exaction which were sufficiently within the law to afford the sufferers no opportunity of redress. How thoroughly its profitable nature was recognized, is shown by the case of a bishop who, when fallen in years, summoned together his nephews and relatives that they might agree among themselves as to his succession. They united upon one of their number, and conjointly borrowed the large sums requisite to purchase the election. Un- luckily the bishop-elect died before obtaining possession, and on his death-bed was heartily objurgated by his ruined kinsmen, who saw no means of repaying the borrowed capital which they had invested in the abortive episcopal partnership. As St. Bernard says, boys were inducted into the episcopate at an age when they rejoiced rather at escaping from the ferule of their teachers than at acquiring rule ; but, soon growing insolent, they learn to sell the altar and empty the pouches of their subjects. In thus exploit- ing their office the bishops only followed the example set them by the papacy, which, directly or through its agents, by its exac- tions, made itself the terror of the Christian churches. Arnold, who was Archbishop of Treves from 1169 to 1183, won great credit for his astuteness in saving his people from spoliation by papal nuncios, for whenever he heard of their expected arrival he used to go to meet them, and by heavy bribes induce them to bend their steps elsewhere, to the infinite rehef of his own flock. In 1160 the Templars complained to Alexander III. that their labors for the Holy Land were seriously impaired by the extortions of papal legates and nuncios, who were not content with the free quarters and supply of necessaries to which they were entitled, and Alexander graciously granted the Order special exemption from the abuse, except when the legate was a cardinal. It was


Gollut, R6publique Sgquanoise (Ed. Duvernoy, Arbois, 1846, pp. 80, 1734).— La Porte du Theil (Academie des Inscriptions, Notices des MSS. HI. 617 sqq.).— Opusc. Tripartiti P. in. cap. iv. (Fasciculi Rer. Expetendarum et Fugiendarum, n. 225, Ed. 1690).

In May, 1212, Legate Arnauld is addressed as Archbishop-elect of Narbonne (Innocent. PP. III. Regest. xv. 93, 101), but in the necrology of the Abbey of Saint- Just of Narbonne, Berenger, at his death, Aug. 11, 1213, is qualified as archbishop (Chron. de S. Just, Vaissette, Ed. Privat, VIIL 218).


ABUSES OF PAPAL PREROGATIVE. 17

worse when the pope came himself. Clement Y., after his conse- cration at Lyons, made a progress to Bordeaux, in which he and his retinue so effectually plundered the churches on the road that, after his departure from Bourges, Archbishop Gilles, in order to support life, was obliged to present himself daily among his can- ons for a share in the distribution of provisions ; and the papal residence at the wealthy Priory of Grammont so impoverished the house that the prior resigned in despair of being able to re- establish its affairs, and his successor was obliged to levy a heavy tax on all the houses of the order. England, after the ignominioug surrender of King John, was peculiarly subjected to papal extor- tion. Kich benefices were bestowed on foreigners, who made no pretext of residence, until the annual revenue thus withdrawn from the island was computed to amount to seventy thousand marks, or three times the income of the crown, and all resistance was sup- pressed by excommunications which disturbed the whole kingdom. At the general council of Lyons, held in 1245, an address was pre- sented in the name of the Anglican Church, complaining of these oppressions in terms more energetic than respectful, but it accom- plished nothing. Ten years later the papal legate, Kustand, made a demand in the name of Alexander TV. for an immense subsidy — the share of the Abbey of St. Albans was no less than six hundred marks — when Fulk, Bishop of London, declared that he would be decapitated, and Walter of Worcester that he would be hanged, sooner than submit ; but this resistance was broken down by the device of trumping up fictitious claims of debts due Italian bank- ers for moneys alleged to have been advanced to defray expenses before the Roman curia, and these claims were enforced by ex- communication. When Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln found that his efforts to reform his clergy were rendered nugatory by appeals to Rome, where the offenders could always purchase immunity, he visited Innocent IV. in hopes of obtaining some change for the better, and on utterly failing, he bluntly exclaimed to the pope, " Oh-, money, money, how much thou canst effect, especially in the Roman court !" This special abuse was one of old standing, and complaints of its demoralizing effect upon the priesthood date back from the time of the establishment of the appellate juris- diction of Rome under Charles le Chauve. Prelates like Ililde- bert of Le Mans, who honestly sought to better the depraved lives L— 2


18 THE CHURCH.

of their clerg}^, constantly found their efforts frustrated, and had scant reticence in remonstrating. Eemonstrances, however, were of little avail, though occasionally an upright pope hke Innocent III., w^hose biographer finds special cause of praise in his refusal of " propinas " — gifts or bribes for issuing letters — would sometimes recall a letter of remission avowedly issued in ignorance of the facts, or would even grant to a prelate the right to punish without appeal, while other popes were found who sought to neutralize the effects of their letters without diminish- ing the business and fees of the chancery. Even when papal letters were not of this demoralizing character, they were never issued without payment. When Luke, the holy Archbishop of Gran, w^as thrown in prison by the usurper Ladislas, in 1172, he refused to avail himself of letters of liberation procured from Alexander III., saying that he would not owe his freedom to simony.*

This was by no means the only mode in which the supreme jurisdiction of Eome worked inestimable evil throughout Christen- dom. While the feudal courts were strictly territorial and local, and the judicial functions of the bishops were limited to their own dioceses so that every man knew to whom he was responsible in a tolerably weU-settled system of justice, the universal jurisdiction of Eome gave ample opportunity for abuses of the worst kind. The pope, as supreme judge, could delegate to any one any por- tion of his authority, which was supreme everywhere; and the papal chancery was not too nice in its discrimination as to the character of the persons to whom it issued letters empowering them to exercise judicial functions and enforce them with the last dread sentence of excommunication — letters, indeed, which, if the papal


  • P. Cantor. Verb, abbrev. cap. 71.— S. Bernard! Tract, de Mor. et Offic.

Episc. c. vii. No. 35.— Gesta Treviror. Archiep. cap. 92.— Prutz, Malteser Ur- kunden und Registen, Miinchen, 1883, p. 38. — Guillel. Nangiac. Contin. ann. 1305.— HistPrior. Grandimont. (Martene Ampliss. Coll. VI. 122, 1-35-137).— Matt. Paris Hist. Angl. ann. 1245, 1248, 1250, 1252, 1255, 1256.— Hincmari Epist. xxxii. 20. — Hildeberti Cenoman. Epist. Lib. ii. No. 41, 47. — S. Bernard, de Consideratione Lib. i. cap. 4. — Innocent. PP. III. Gesta xli.— Ejusd. Regest. i. 330 ; II. 265  ; v. 33, 34 j x. 188.— Gregor. PP. IX. Bull. Desiderantes plurimum (Potthast Regesta, I. 673). — Chron. Augustan, ann. 1260. — Stephani Tornacens. Epist. 43. — Gualt. Mapes de Nugis Curialium Dist. ii. cap. vii.


FORGERY OF PAPAL LETTERS. 19

chancery is not wronged, were freely sold to all able to pay for them. Europe thus was traversed by multitudes of men armed with these weapons, which they used without remorse for extortion and oppression. Bishops, too, were not backward in thus farming out their more Umited jurisdictions, and, in the confusion thus aris- ing, it was not difficult for reckless adventurers to pretend to the possession of these delegated powers and use them likewise for the basest purposes, no one daring to risk the possible consequences of resistance. These letters thus afforded a ca/rte hlanche through Avhich injustice could be perpetrated and malignity gratified to the full- est extent. An additional complication which not unnaturally fol- lowed was the fabrication and falsification of these letters. It was not easy to refer to distant Eome to ascertain the genuineness of a papal brief confidently produced by its bearer, and the impunity with which powers so tremendous could be assumed was irresistibly attractive. When Innocent III. ascended the throne he found a factory of forged letters in full operation in Rome, and although this was suppressed, the business was too profitable to be broken up by even his vigilance. To the end of his pontificate the detec- tion of fraudulent briefs was a constant preoccupation. ]^or was this industry confined to Eome. About the same period Stephen, Bishop of Tournay, discovered in his episcopal city a similar nest of counterfeiters, who had invented an ingenious instrument for the fabrication of the papal seals. To the people, however, it mat- tered httle whether they were genuine or fictitious ; the suffering was the same whether the papal chancery had received its fee or not.*

  • Can. 43, Extra Lib. i. tit. iii.— Petri Exoniens. Summula Exigendi Confes-

sionis (Harduin. VIL1126). — Concil. Herbipolens. ann. 1187 c. 37.— Concil. apud Campinacum ann. 1238 c. 1, 2, 7. — Concil. apud Castrum Gonterii ann. 1253 can. unic. — C. Nugariolens. ann. 1290 c. 3. — C. Avenionens. ann. 1326 c. 49; ann. 1337 c. 59. — C. Bituricens. ann. 1336 c. 5. — C. Vaurens. ann. 1368 c. 10, 11. — Lucii. PP. in. Epist. 252.— Innocent. PP. III. Regest. Lib. i. Epist. 235, 349, 405, 456, 536, 540 ; ii. 29 ; iir. 37  ; vi. 120, 233, 234  ; vii. 26  ; x. 15, 79, 93  ; xi. 144, 161, 275'; XV. 218, 223; Supplem. 234.— Bergcr, Registre d'lnnocent IV. pp. Ixxvi- Ixxvii., No. 2591, 3214, 3812, 4086.~Theiner Vet. Monument. Iliberu. et Sector. No. 196, p. 75.— De Reiffenberg, Chron. de Ph. Mouskes, I. ccxxv.

When the comprehensive annual curse, known us tlie Bull in Ctena Domini, came in fasliion, falsifiers of papal letters were included in its anathemas, until the abrogation of the custom in 1773.


20 THE CHURCH.

Thus the Roman curia was a terror to all who were brought in contact with it. Ilildebert of le Mans pictures its officials as sell- ing justice, delaying decisions on every pretext, and, finally, ob- livious when bribes were exhausted. They were stone as to under- standing, wood as to rendering judgment, fire as to wrath, iron as to forgiveness, foxes in deceit, bulls in pride, and minotaurs in consuming everything. In the next century Robert Grosseteste boldly told Innocent IV. and his cardinals that the curia was the source of aU the vileness which rendered the priesthood a hissing and a reproach to Christianity, and, after another century and a half, those who knew it best described it as unaltered.*

When such was the example set by the head of the Church, it would have been a marvel had not too many bishops used aU their abundant opportunities for the fleecing of their flocks. Peter Can- tor, an unexceptionable witness, describes them as fishers for money and not for souls, with a thousand frauds to empty the pockets of the poor. They have, he says, three hooks with which to catch their prey in the depths — the confessor, to whom is committed the hearing of confessions and the cure of souls ; the dean, archdeacon, and other officials, who advance the interest of the prelate by fair means or foul ; and the rural provost, who is chosen solely with re- gard to his skiU in squeezing the pockets of the poor and carrying the spoil to his master. These places were frequently farmed out, and the right to torture and despoil the people was sold to the highest bidder. The general detestation in which these gentry were held is illustrated by the stor}^ of an ecclesiastic who, having by an unlucky run of the dice lost aU his money but five sols, ex- claimed in blasphemous madness that he would give them to any one who would teach him how most greatly to offend God, and a bystander was adjudged to have won the money when he said, " If you wish to offend God beyond aU other sinners, become an epis- copal official or coUector." Formerly, continues Peter Cantor, there was some decent concealment in absorbing the property of rich and poor, but now it is publicly and boldly seized through infinite de- vices and frauds and novelties of extortion. The olficials of the prelates are not only their leeches, who suck and are squeezed, but


  • Fascic. Rerum Expetendarum et Fugiendarum H. 7, 254-255 (Ed. 1690).


EXTORTIONS OF THE BISHOPS. 21

are strainers of the milk of their rapine, retaining for themselves the dregs of sin.*

From this honest burst of indignation we see that the main in- strument of exaction and oppression was the judicial functions of the episcopate. Considerable revenues, it is true, were derived from the sale of benefices and the exaction of fees for all official acts, and many prelates did not blush to derive a filthy gain from the licentiousness universal among a celibate clergy by exacting a tribute known as " cullagium," on payment of which the priest was allowed to keep his concubine in peace, but the spiritual jurisdic- tion was the soilrce of the greatest profit to the prelate and of the greatest misery to the people. Even in the temporal courts, the fines arising from litigation formed no mean portion of the income of the seigneurs ; and in the Courts Christian, embracing the whole of spiritual jurisprudence and much of temporal, there was an ample harvest to be gathered. Thus, as Peter Cantor says, the most holy sacrament of matrimony, owing to the remote consan- guinity coming within the prohibited degrees, was made a subject of derision to the laity by the venahty with which marriages were made and unmade to fiU the pouches of the episcopal ofiicials. Ex- communication was another fruitful source of extortion. If an un- just demand was resisted, the recalcitrant was excommunicated, and then had to pay for reconciliation in addition to the original sum. Any delay in obeying a summons to the court of the Ofii- ciahty entailed excommunication with the same result of extor- tion. When Utigation was so profitable, it was encouraged to the utmost, to the infinite wretchedness of the people. When a priest was inducted into a benefice, it was customary to exact of him an oath that he would not overlook any offences committed by his parishioners, but would report them to the Ordinary that the of- fenders might be prosecuted and fined, and that he would not allow any quarrels to be settled amicably ; and though Alexander III. issued a decretal pronouncing aLL such oaths void, yet they con- tinued to be required. As an illustration of the system a case is recorded where a boy in play accidentally kiUed a comrade with an arrow. The father of the slayer chanced to be wealthy, and


  • P. Cantor. Verb, abbrev. cap. 24.— Cf. Petri. Blesensis Epist. 23; Johann.

Saresberiens. Polycrat. Lib. vii. cap. 21, Lib. viii. cap. 17.


22 THE CHURCH.

tlie two parents were not permitted to be reconciled gratuitously. Peter of Blois, Archdeacon of Bath, was probably not far wrong when he described the episcopal Ordinaries as vipers of iniquity transcending in malice all serpents and basilisks, as shepherds, not of lambs, but of wolves, and as devoting themselves wholly to malice and rapine.*

Even more efficient as a cause of misery to the people and hos- tiUty towards the Church was the venality of many of the episcopal courts. The character of the transactions and of the clerical law- yers who pleaded before them is visible in an attempted reforma- tion by the Council of Eouen, in 1231, requiring the counsel who practised in these courts to swear that they would not steal the papers of the other side or produce forgeries or perjured testimony in support of their cases. The judges were well fitted to preside over such a bar. They are described as extortioners who sought by every device to filch the money of suitors to the last farthing, and when any fi^aud was too glaring for their own performance they had subordinate officials ever ready to play into their hands, rendering their occupation more base than that of a pimp with his bawds. That money was supreme in aU judicial matters was clearly assumed when the Abbey of Andres quarrelled with the mother-house of Charroux, and the latter assured the former that it could spend in any court one hundred marks of silver against every ten Hvres that the other could afford ; and in effect, when the ten years' litigation was over, including three appeals to Eome, Andres found itself oppressed with the enormous debt of fourteen hundred hvres parisis, while the details of the transaction show the most unblushing bribery. The Roman court set the example to the rest, and its current reputation is visible in the praise bestowed on Eugenius III. for rebuking a prior who commenced a suit be- fore him by offering a mark of gold to win his favor.f


  • Concil. Juliobonens. ann. 1080 c. 3, 5. — Concil. Bremens. aim. 1266. — Ead-

mer. Hist. Novor. Lib. iv. — Concil. Melfitan. ann. 1284 c. 5. — P. Cantor. Verb, abbrev. cap. 24, 79. — Innocent. PP. III. Regest. x. 85 ; xii. 37. — Pet. Blesensis Epist. 209.

t Concil. Rotomag. ann. 1231 c. 48. — P. Cantor. Verb, abbrev. cap. 23. — Inno- cent. PP. III. Regest. I. 376. — Chron. Andres. Monast. — Narrat. Restaur. Abbat. S. Mart. Tornacens. cap. 113, 114. — Joann. Saresberiens. Polycrat. Lib. v. cap. 15. C£ Lib. VI. cap. 24.


i


NEGLECT OF PREACHING. 23

There was another source of oppression which had a loftier motive and better results, but which was none the less grinding upon the mass of the people. It was about this time that the fash- ion set in of building magnificent churches and abbeys, and the invention of stained glass and its rapid introduction show the lux- ury of ornamentation which was sought. While these structures were in some degree the expression of ardent faith, yet more were they the manifestation of the pride of the prelates who erected them, and in our admiration of these sublime rehcs of the past, in whatever reverential spirit we may view the towering spire, the long-arched nave, and the glorious window, we must not lose sight of the supreme effort which they cost — an effort which inevitably fell upon suffering serf and peasant. Peter Cantor assures us that they were built out of exactions on the poor, out of the unhallowed gains of usury, and out of the lies and deceits of the qucBstuarii or pardoners ; and the vast sums lavished upon them, he assures us, would be much better spent in redeeming captives and relieving the necessities of the helpless.*

It was hardly to be expected that prelates such as filled most of the sees of Christendom should devote themselves to the real duties of their position. Foremost among these duties was that of preaching the word of God and instructing their flocks in faith and morals. The office of preacher, indeed, was especially an episcopal function ; he was the only man in the diocese authorized to exercise it ; it formed no part of the duty or training of the parish priest, who could not presume to deliver a sermon without a special license from his superior. It need not surprise us, therefore, to see this portion of Christian teaching and devotion utterly neg- lected, for the turbulent and martial prelates of the day were too wholly engrossed in worldly cares to bestow a thought upon a matter for which their unfitness was complete. In 1031 the Coun- cil of Limoges expressed a wish that preaching should be done, not only at the episcopal seat, but in other churches, when the will of God inspires a competent doctor to the task ; but the Church slumbered on until the spread of heresy aroused it to a sense of its unwisdom in neglecting so powerful a source of influence. In 1209 the Council of Avignon ordered the bishops to preach more


  • P. Cantor. Veilx abbrev. cap. 86.


24 THE CHURCH.

frequently and diligently than heretofore, and, when opportunity offered, to cause preaching to be done by honest and discreet per- sons. In 1215 the great Council of Lateran admitted the imprac- ticability of bisho])s attending to this among so many more press- ing avocations, and directed them to provide and pay proper per- sons to visit their parishes and edify the people by word and example. Yet little improvement could be expected from exhor- tations such as these, and the heretics had the field virtually to themselves until the Preaching Friars arose and were steadily re- buffed by those whose negligence they replaced. The Troubadour Inquisitor Izarn does not hesitate to declare that heresy never could have spread had there been good preachers to oppose it, and that it never could have been subdued but for the Dominicans."^

The character of the lower orders of ecclesiastics could not be reasonably expected to be better than that of their prelates. Bene- fices were mostly in the gift of the bishops, though, of course, advowsons were frequently held by the laity; special rights of patronage were held by religious bodies, and many of these latter fiUed vacancies in their own ranks by co-optation. Whatever was the nominating power, however, the result was apt to be the same. It is the universal complaint of the age that benefices were openly sold, or were bestowed through favor, without examination into the qualifications of the appointee, or the slightest regard as to his fitness. Even the rigid virtue of St. Bernard did not prevent him, in 1151, iTom soliciting a provostship for a graceless youth, the nephew of his friend the Bishop of Auxerre, though repentance induced by cooller reflection led him to withdraw his application, which he could the more easily do on learning that his friend, in dying, had left no less than seven churches to his beloved nephew. In the same year he was more cautious in refusing Count Thibaut of Champagne some preferment which he had asked for his son, a child of tender years ; but the mere request for it sho;ws how bene- fices, when not sold, were wont to be distributed ; and it is safe to say that there were few like St. Bernard, with courage and convic- tion to reject the solicitations of the powerful. It is true that the


  • Concil. Lemovicens. ann. 1031.— Concil. Avenionens. ann. 1209 c. 1. — Con-

cil. Lateranens. ann. 1215 c. 10. — Millot, Hist. Litt. des Troubadours, H. 61.


<


PLURALITIES. 25

canon law was full of admirable precepts respecting the virtues and qualifications requisite for incumbents, but in practice they were a dead letter. Alexander III. was moved to indignation when he learned tliat the Bishop of Coventry was in the habit of giving churches to boys under ten years of age, but he could only order that the cures should be intrusted to competent vicars until the nominees reached a proper age, and this age he himself fixed at fourteen ; while other popes charitably reduced to seven the minimum age for holding simple benefices or prebends. No efi'ect- ual check for abuses of patronage, of course, could be expected of Kome, when the curia itself was the most eager recipient of benefit from the ^\T:"ong. Its army of pimps and parasites was ever on the watch to obtain fat preferments in all the lands of Europe, and the popes were constantly writing to bishops and chapters demanding places for their friends.*

That pluralities, with all their attendant evils and abuses, should be habitual under such a system follows as a matter of course. In vain reforming popes and councils issued constitutions prohibiting them ; in vain indignant moralists inveighed against the scandals and injuries which they occasioned, the ruin of the temporalities, the sacrifice of souls, and the general contempt ex- cited for the Church. Forbidden by the canon law, like aU other abuses they were a source of profit to the Eoman curia, which was always ready to issue dispensations when the holders of pluralities found themselves likely to be disturbed in their sin ; or they could be used for purposes of statecraft, as when Innocent lY., in 1246, by skilful use of such dispensations broke up the menacing com- bination of the nobles of France. In fact, learned doctors of the- ology were found to defend the lawfulness of the abuse, as was done in a public disputation about the year 1238 by Master Phihp, Chancellor of the University of Paris, who was a notorious plural- ist himself. His fate, however, was a solemn warning to others. On his death-bed his friend, WiUiam of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris,


  • S. Bernard. Epistt. 271, 274, 276.— Can. 2, 3, Extra Lib. i. Tit. xiii.— Thomas-

sin, Discip. de T^^glise. P. iv. Lib. ii. cap. 38. — Gaufridi Vosiensis Chron. ann. 1181. — Concil. Turon. ann. 1231. c. 16. — Concil. Lugdun. ann. 1274 c. 12. — P. Cantor. Verb, abbrev. cap. 55, 60, 61.— Innocent. PP. IIL Regest. xi. 142.— Even a pontiff such as Innocent III. was not above intruding his dependants upon the churches everywhere. His registers are full of such missives.


26 THE CHURCH.

urged him to resign all his benefices but one, promising to make good the sacrifice if he should recover, but Philip refused, on the ground that he wished to experience whether he should be sub- jected to damnation on that account. The disputatious ardor of the schoolman was gratified. Soon after his death a dusky shade appeared to the good bishop at his prayers, announced itself to be the chancellor's soul, and declared that it Avas damned to eternity ; though it must be admitted that habitual licentiousness was super- added to plurahsm as a cause of hopeless perdition.*

A clergy recruited in such a manner and subjected to such in- fluences could only, for the most part, be a curse to the people under their spiritual direction. A purchased benefice was natural- ly regarded as a business investment, to be exploited to the utmost profit, and there was httle scruple in turning to account every de- vice for extorting money from parishioners, while the duties of the Christian pastorate received little attention.

One of the most fruitful sources of quarrel and discontent was the tithe. This most harassing and oppressive form of taxation had long been the cause of incurable trouble, aggravated by the rapacity with which it was enforced, even to the pitiful collections of the gleaner. It had proved the greatest of the obstacles to Charlemagne's proselyting efforts among the Saxons, and, as we shall see, in the thirteenth century it led to a most devastating crusade against the Frisians. The resistance of the people to its exaction in some places was such that its non-payment was stig- matized as heresy, and everywhere we see it the cause of scandal-


  • Concil. Lateran. HI. ann. 1179 c. 13, 14; IV. ann. 1215 c. 29.— Innocent.

PP. III. Regest. I. 82, 191, 471.— P. Cantor. Verb, abbrev. cap. 31, 32, 34, 80.— Honor. PP. III. Epist. ad Archiep. Bituricens. ann. 1219. — Urbani. PP. V. Con- stit. 1367 (Harduin. Concil. VII. 1767).— Isambert. Anc. Loix Fran9. I. 252.— Matt. Paris. Hist. Angl. ann. 1246 (Ed. 1644 p. 483)— Wadding. Annal. Minor, ann. 1238, No. 8.— D'Argentrg, Collect. Judicior. de Nov. Error. 1. 1. 143.

The correspondence of the papal chancery under Innocent IV., as preserved in the official register, for the first three months of 1245, embraces three hun- dred and thirty-two letters, and of these about one fifth are dispensations to sixty-five persons to hold pluralities (Berger, Registres d'lnnoc. IV. t. I.). A considerable proportion of the remainder are licenses for violations of canon law, showing how exhaustless were the vices of the clergy as a source of profit to the curia. For the rapacity with which the benefices of the dying were sought and disputed, see ibid. No. 1611,


TITHES.— SALE OF SACRAMENTS. 27

ous altercation between pastor and flock, and between rival claim- ants, giving rise to a very intricate branch of canon law. Carlyle states that at the outbreak of the French Kevolution there were no less than sixty thousand cases arising from tithes then pending before the courts, and though the statement may be exaggerated, it is by no means improbable. Anciently the tithe had been di- vided into four parts, of which one went to the bishop, one to the parish priest, one to the fabric of the Church, and one to the poor, but in the prevaihng acquisitiveness of the period, bishop and priest each seized and held all they could get, the Church received little, and the poor none at all."^

The portion of the tithe which the priest could retain in this scramble was rarely sufficient for his wants, addicted as he fre- quently was to dissolute living, and exposed to the rapacity of his superiors. The form of simony which consists in selling his sacred ministrations therefore became general. Thus confession, which was now becoming obligatory on the faithful and the exclusive function of the priest, afforded a wide field for perverse ingenuity. Some confessors rated the sacrament of penitence so low that for a chicken or a pint of wine they would grant absolution for any sin, but others understood its productiveness far better. It is re- lated of Einhardt, the priest of Soest, by a contemporary, that he sharply reproved a parishioner who, in preparation for Easter, con- fessed incontinence during Lent, and demanded of him eighteen deniers that he might say eighteen masses for his soul. Another came who said that during Lent he had abstained from his wife, and he was fined the same amount for masses because he had lost the chance of begetting a child, as was his duty. Both men had to sell their harvests prematurely to raise money to pay the fine, and, happening to meet upon the market-place, compared notes, when


  • Clement. PP. IV. Epist. 456. (Martene Thesaur. II. 461).— Alcuini Epist

i. ad Arnon. Salisburg. (Pez Thesaur. II. i. 4). — Decreti P. II. Cans. xiii. Gra tiani Comment, in Q. i. cap. i ; Cans. xvi. Q. i. cap. 42, 43, 45-47, 56, 57 ; Cans, XVI. Q. vii. cap. 1-8. — Extra Lib. in. tit. xxx. — Concil. Rotomag. ann. 1189 c. 23 — Concil. Wigorn. ann. 1240 c. 44, 45. — Concil Mertonens. ann. 1300.— Concil apud Pennam Fidelem ann. 1302 c. 7. — Concil. Maghfeldens. ann. 1332. — Con cil. Londin. ann. 1342 c. 4, 5. — Concil. Nimociens. ann. 1298 c. 16. — Concil Nicosiens. ann. 1340 c. 1. — Concil. Marciac. ann. 1326 c. 30. — Concil. Vaurcns ann. 1368 c. 68-70.— Gerhohi Rciclicrsperg. Lib. dc iEdificio Dei c. 46.


28 THE CHURCH.

they complained to the Dean and Chapter of St. Patroclus, and the story came out, to the scandal of the faithful, but Einhardt was permitted to continue his speculative career. Every function of the priest was thus turned to account, and the complaints of the practice are too frequent and sweeping for us to doubt that it was a general custom. Marriage and funeral ceremonies were refused until the fees demanded were paid in advance, and the Eucharist was withheld from the communicant unless he offered an oblation. To the believer in Transubstantiation nothing could be more in- expressibly shocking, and Peter Cantor well describes the priests of his day as worse than Judas Iscariot. who sold the body of the Lord for thirty pieces of silver, while they do it daily for a denier. Not content with this, many of them transgressed the vvles which forbade, except on special occasions, the celebration by a priest of more than one mass a day, and it was almost impossible to enforce its observance ; while those who obeyed the rule invented an in- genious evasion through which, by repeating the Introit, they would split a single mass up into half a dozen, and coUect an obla- tion for each.^

If the faithful Christian thus was mulcted throughout hfe at every turn, the pursuit of gain was continued to his death-bed, and even his body had a speculative value which was turned to account by the ghouls who quarrelled over it. The necessity of the final sacraments for salvation gave rise to an occasional abuse by which they were refused unless an illegal fee or perquisite was paid, such as the sheet on which the dying sinner lay, but this we may weU believe was not usual. More profitable was the custom by which the fears of approaching judgment were exploited and legacies for pious uses were suggested as an appropriate atonement for a life of wickedness or cruelty. It is weU known how large a portion of the temporal possessions of the Church was procured in this man- ner, and already in the ninth century it had become a subject of


  • Caesar. Heisterbac. Dial. Mirac. Dist. iii. cap. 40, 41. — Hist. Monast. S. Lau-

rent. Leodiens. Lib. v. cap. 39.— Innocent. PP. HI. Eegest. i. 220 ; ii. 104.— Pet. Cantor. Verb, abbrev. cap. 27-29, 38-40. — Grandjean, Registre de Benoit XL No. 975. — Concil. Lateran. IV. ann. 1215, c. 63- 66. — Concil. Rotomag. ann. 1231, c. 14.— Teulet, Layettes II. 306, No. 2428.— Const. Provin. S. Edmund. Cantuar. ann. 1236, c. 8.— Synod. Wigorn. ann. 1240, c. 16, 26, 29.— Concil. Turon. ann. 1339, c. 4, 17.


LEGACIES FOR PIOUS USES. 29

complaint. In 811 Charlemagne, in summoning provincial coun- cils throughout his empire, asks them whether that man can be truly said to have renounced the world who unceasingly seeks to augment his possessions, and by promises of heaven and threats of hell persuades the simple and unlearned to disinherit their heirs, who are thus compelled by poverty to robbery and crime. To this pregnant question the Council of Chalons, in 813, responded by a canon forbidding such practices, and reminding the clergy that the Church should succor the needy rather than despoil them ; that of Tours replied that it had made inquiry and could find no one complaining of exheredation ; that of Keims prudently passed the matter over in silence ; and that of Mainz promised restoration in such cases. This check was but temporary ; the Church con- tinued to urge its claims on the fears of the dying, and finally Alexander III., about llYO, decreed that no one could make a valid will except in the presence of his parish priest. In some places the notary drawing a will in the absence of the priest was excommuni- cated and the body of the testator was refused Christian burial. The reason sometimes alleged for this was the preventing of a here- tic from leaving his property to heretics, but the flimsiness of this is shown by the repeated promulgation of the rule in regions where heresy was unknown, and the loud remonstrances against local customs which sought to defeat this development of ecclesiastical greed. Complaints were also sometimes made that the parish priest converted to his personal use legacies which were left for the benefit of pious foundations.*

Even after death the control which the Church exercised over the living and the profit to be derived from him were not aban- doned. So general was the custom of leaving considerable sums for the pious ministrations by which the Church lightened the

  • Synod. Andegav. ann. 1294, c. 3. — Capit. Car. Mag. ii. ann, 811, cap. 5. —

Concil. Cabillon. II. ann. 813, c. 6. — Concil. Turonens. III. ann. 813, c. 51.— Concil. Remens. ann. 813.— Concil. Mogunt. ann. 813, c. 6.— Can. 10, Extra Lib. m. tit. xxvi. — Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1227, c. 5. — Concil. Tolosan. ann. 1228, c, 5  ; ann. 1229, c. 16. — Concil. Rotomag. ann. 1231, c. 23. — Concil. Arelatens. ann. 1234, c. 21 ; ann. 1275, c. 8. — Constit. Provin. S. Edmund. Cantuar. ann. 1236, c. 33.— Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254, c. 11.— Concil. Andegav. ann. 1266; 1300.— Respons. Episc. Carcassonn. ann. 1275 (Martene Thesaur. I. 1151). — Concil. Ne- mausiens. ann. 1284, c. 8.— Concil. Reatinens. ann. 1303, c. 8.— Concil. Cameracens. ann. 1317.


30 I'HE CflURCH.

torments of purgatory, and so usual was the bestowal of oblations at the funeral, that the custody of the corpse became a source of gain not to be despised, and the parish in which the sinner had lived and died claimed to have a reversionary right in the ashes which Avere thus so profitable. Occasionally intruders would trespass upon their preserves, and some monastery would prevail upon the dying to bequeath his fertilizing remains to its care, giving rise to unseemly squabbles over the corpse and the privilege of burying it and saying mortuary masses for its soul. As early as the fifth century Leo the Great did not hesitate to condemn in the severest terms the rapacity which led the monasteries to invite the living to their retreats for the sake of the possessions which they would bring with them, to the manifest detriment of the parish priest, thus deprived of his legitimate expectations. Leo therefore or- dered a compromise, by which one haK of the goods and chattels thus acquired should be transferred to the church of the deceased, whether he had entered the monastery dead or alive. The parish churches at last came to claim the bodies of their parishioners as a matter of right, and to deny to the dying the privilege of electing a place of sepulture. It required repeated papal decis- ions to set aside claims so persistently urged, but these decisions invariably conceded to the churches a portion of one fourth, one third, or one half the sum the deceased had set apart for the care of his soul. In some places the parish church asserted a right by custom to certain payments on the death of a parishioner, and the Council of Worcester, in 1240, decided that when this claim would reduce the widow and orphans to beggary, the Church should mercifully content itself with one third of the estate and reUnquish the other two thirds to the family of the defunct ; while in Lisbon the last consolations of religion were denied to any one who refused to leave a portion, usually one third, of his property to the Church. Under other local customs, the priest claimed as a perquisite the bier on which a corpse was brought to his church, leading, in case of resistance, to quarrels more lively than edify- ing. In Navarre the law stepped in to define the amount which the poorer classes should give as an offering in the mortuary mass, being two measures of corn for a peasant. Among the cabaUeros the usual offering was the incongruous one of a war-horse, a suit of armor^ and jewels ; and the cost of this was frequently defrayed


i


SEXUAL DISORDERS. 3l

by the king to honor the memory of some distinguished knight. That the amounts were not small is e^^dent when we see that, in 1372, Charles II. of Navarre paid to the Franciscan Guardian of Pampeluna thirty livres to redeem the charger, armor, etc., offered at the funeral of Masen Seguin de Badostal. With the rise of the mendicant orders and their enormous popularity, the rivalry be- tween them and the secular clergy for the possession of corpses and the accompan3ring fees became more intense than ever, cre- ating scandals of which we shall have more to say hereafter.*

On no point were the relations between the clergy and the people more delicate than on that of sexual purity. I have treated this subject fully in another work, and can be spared further ref- erence to it, except to say that at the period under consideration the enforced celibacy of the priesthood had become generally rec- ognized in most of the countries owing obedience to the Latin Church. It had not been accompanied, however, by the gift of chastity so confidently promised by its promoters. Deprived as was the priesthood of the gratification afforded by marriage to the natural instincts of man, the wife at best was succeeded by the concubine  ; at worst by a succession of paramours, for which the functions of priest and confessor gave peculiar opportunity. So thoroughly was this recognized that a man confessing an illicit amour was forbidden to name the partner of his guilt for fear it might lead the confessor into the temptation of abusing his knowl- edge of her frailty. No sooner had the Church, indeed, succeeded in suppressing the wedlock of its ministers, than we find it every- where and incessantly busied in the apparently impossible task of compelling their chastity — an effort the futiUty of which is suffi- ciently demonstrated by its continuance to modern times. The age was not particularly sensitive on the subject of female virtue, but yet the spectacle of a priesthood professing ascetic purity as


  • Decreti. II. Caus. xiii. Q. 2.— Can. 1-10, Sexto Lib. iii. Tit. xxviii. — Anon

Zwetlens. Hist. Rom. Pontif. No. 155 (Fez Thesaur. I. iii. 383).— Narrat. Restaur. Abbat. S. Martini Tornacens. cap. 86-89. — Synod. Wigorn. ann. 1240, c. 50. — Ripoll BuUar. Ord. Praedic. VII. 5.— Grandjean, Registre de Benoit XL No. 974. — Innocent. PP. III. Regest. vii. 165.— G. B. de Lagr^ze, La Navarre, t. II. p. 165. — Concil. Avenion. ann. 1326, c. 27 ; ann. 1237, c. 32.— Teulet, Layettes IL 306, No. 2428. — Concil. Nimociens. ann. 1296, c. 17, — Constit. Joann. Arch. Nicosiens, ann. 1321, c. 10.— Concil. Vaurens. ann. 1368, c. 63, 64.


32 THE CHURCH.

an essential prerequisite to its functions, 'and practising a dissolute- ness more cynical than that of the average layman, was not adapted to raise it in popular esteem  ; while the individual cases in which the peace and honor of families were sacrificed to the lusts of the pastor necessarily tended to rouse the deepest antagonism. As for darker and more deplorable crimes, they were sufficiently fre- quent, not alone in monasteries from which women were rigorous- ly excluded ; and, moreover, they were committed with virtual immunity. Not the least of the evils involved in the artificial asceticism ostensibly imposed on the priesthood was the erection of a false standard of morality which did infinite harm to the laity as well as to the Church. So long as the priest did not defy the canons by marrying, everything could be forgiven. Alexander II., who labored so strenuously to restore the rule of celibacy, in 1064 decided that a priest of Orange who had committed adultery with the wife of his father was not to be deprived of communion for fear of driving him to desperation  ; and, in view of the f ragihty of the flesh, he was to be allowed to remain in holy orders, though in the lower grades. Two years later the same pope charitably diminished the penance imposed on a priest of Padua who had committed incest with his mother, and left it to his bishop wheth- er he should be retained in the priesthood. It would be difficult to exaggerate the disastrous influence on the people of such ex- amples.*

Yet perhaps the most efficient cause of demoralization in the clergy, and of hostihty between them and the laity, was the per- sonal inviolability and the immunity from secular jurisdiction which they succeeded in establishing as a recognized principle of public law. "While this was doubtless necessary for the indepen- dence, and even for the safety of a presumably peaceful class in an age of violence, it worked unhappily in a double sense. The readiness with which acquittal was obtainable in ecclesiastical procedure by canonical purgation, or the " wager of law," and the comparative mildness of the penalties in case of conviction, re- Heved the ecclesiastic in great measure from the terrors of the law, and removed from him the necessity of restraining his evil

  • Caesar. Heisterbac. Dial. Mirac. Dist. iii. cap. 27. — P. Cantor. Verb, abbrev.

cap. 138.— Lowenfeld Epistt. Pont. Rom. ined. No. 92, 114 (Lipsiae, 1885).— See the Author's " Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy," 2d edition, 1884.


IMMUNITY OF THE CLERGY. 33

propensities. At the same time it attracted to the Church vast numbers of worthless men, who, without abandoning their world- ly pursuits, entered the lower grades and enjoyed the irrespon- sibility of their position, to the injury of its character and the detriment of all who came in contact with them. How, in main- taining its pri\aleges, the Church habitually threw its aegis over those least deserving of s}niipathy, is well illustrated by the inter- vention of Innocent III. in favor of Waldemar, Bishop of Sles- wick. He was the natural son of Cnut Y. of Denmark, and had Leaded an armed insurrection against Waldemar II., the reigning king, on the suppression of which he was cast into prison. In- nocent demanded his Uberation, as his incarceration was a viola- tion of the immunities of the Church. Waldemar naturally hes- itated thus to expose his kingdom to the repetition of revolt, and Innocent at first modified his command in so far as to order the offender conveyed to Hungary and liberated there, promising that he should not be permitted again to disturb the realm; but he subsequently evoked the case to Kome, where, in spite of the bishop being the offspring of a double adultery and thus ineligible to holy orders, and in spite of the representations of the Danish envoys that he had been guilty of perjury, adultery, apostasy, and dilapidation. Innocent, in behalf of the liberties of the Church, re- stored him to his bishopric and patrimony, with the special privi- lege of administering it by deputy if he feared that residence would endanger his personal safety. When requested to decide whether laymen could arrest and bring before the episcopal court a clerk caught red-handed in the commission of gross wickedness. Innocent replied that they could only do so under the special command of a prelate — which was tantamount to granting virtual impunity in such cases. A sacerdotal body, whose class-privileges of wrong-doing were so tenderly guarded, was not likely to prove itself a desirable element of society; and when the orderly en- forcement of law gradually established itseK throughout Christen- dom, the courts of justice found in the immunity of the ecclesiastic a more formidable enemy to order than in the pretensions of the feudal seigniory. Indeed, when malefactors were arrested, their first effort habitually was to prove their clergy, that they wore the tonsure, and that they were not subject to the jurisdiction of the secular courts, while zeal for ecclesiastical rights, and possibly L— 3


34 THE CHURCH.

for fees, always prompted the episcopal officials to support their claims and demand their release. The Church thus became re- sponsible for crowds of unprincipled men, clerks only in name, who used the immunity of their position as a stalking-horse in preying upon the community.*

The similar immunity attaching to ecclesiastical property gave rise to abuses equally flagrant. The cleric, whether plaintiff or defendant, was entitled in civil cases to be heard before the spir- itual courts, which were naturally partial in his favor, even when not venal, so that justice was scarce to be obtained by the laity. That such, in fact, was the experience is shown by the practice which grew up of clerks purchasing doubtful claims from laymen and then enforcing them before the Courts Christian — a speculative proceeding, forbidden, indeed, by the councils, but too profitable to be suppressed. Another abuse which excited loud complaint consisted in harassing unfortunate laymen by citing them to an- swer in the same case in several spiritual courts simultaneously, each of which enforced its process remorselessly by the expedient of excommunication, with consequent fines for reconcihation, on all who by neglect placed themselves in an apparent attitude of contumacy, frequently without even pausing to ascertain whether the parties thus amerced had actually been cited. To estimate properly the amount of wrong and suffering thus inflicted on the community, we must bear in mind that culture and training were almost exclusively confined to the ecclesiastical class, whose sharp- ened intelligence thus enabled them to take the utmost advantage of the ignorant and defenceless.f

The monastic orders formed too large and important a class not to share fully in the responsibility of the Church for good or for evil. Great as were their unquestioned services to rehgion and culture, they were peculiarly exposed to the degrading tendencies

  • Stephani Tomacens. Epist. xii. — Innocent. PP. III. Regest. vi. 183; vin.

192-193; X. 209-210, 215  ; xv. 202. For the subsequent career of V^aldemar of Sleswick, see Regest. xi. 10, 173; xii. 63; xiii. 158; xv. 3; Supplement. 187, 224, 228, 243. Cf. Arnold. Lubecens. vi. 18; vii. 12, 13; and Vaissette, Hist. G6n. de Languedoc, IV. 80 (ed. 1742). For details of clerical immunity, see the author's " Studies in Church History," 2d edition, 1883.

t Concil. ap. Campinacum ann. 1238, c. 1, 6.


THE MONASTIC ORDERS. 35

of the age, and their virtues suffered proportionally. At this pe- riod they were rapidly obtaining exemption from episcopal juris- diction and subjecting themselves immediately to Kome. This in- evitably stimulated conventual degeneracy. Kichard, Archbishop of Canterbury, complained bitterly to Alexander III. of the fatal relaxation thus induced in monastic discipHne, but to no purpose. It abased the episcopate ; it increased the authority of the Holy See, both directly and indirectly, through the important aUies thus acquired in its struggles with the bishops ; and it was, moreover, a source of revenue, if we may beheve the Abbot of Malmesbury, who boasted that for an ounce of gold per year paid to Rome he could obtain exemption from the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Sahsbury. In too many cases the abbeys thus became centres of corruption and disturbance, the nunneries scarce better than houses of prosti- tution, and the monasteries feudal castles where the monks lived riotously and waged war upon their neighbors as ferociously as the turbulent barons, with the added disadvantage that, as there was no hereditary succession, the death of an abbot was apt to be followed by a disputed election producing internal broils and out- side interference. Thus in a quarrel of this kind occurring in 1182, the rich abbey of St. Tron was attacked by the Bishops of Metz and Liege, the town and abbey were burned, and the inhabitants put to the sword. The trouble lasted until the end of the century, and when it was temporarily patched up by a pecuniary transac- tion, the wretched vassals and serfs were reduced to starvation to raise the funds which bought the elevation of an ambitious monk. It is true that aU establishments were not lost to the duties for which they had received so abundantly of the benefactions of the faithful. In the famine of 1197, though the monastery of Heister^ bach was stiU young and poor, the Abbot Gebhardt distributed alms so lavishly that sometimes he fed fifteen hundred people a day, while the mother-house of Hemmenrode was even more lib- eral, and supported aU the poor of its district till harvest-time. At the same time a Cistercian abbey in Westphalia slaughtered all its flocks and herds and pledged its books and sacred vessels to feed the starving. It is satisfactory to be assured that in each case the expenditures were more than made up by the donations which the estabUshments received in consequence of their charity. Such instances go far to redeem the institution of monachism, but


36 THE CHURCH.

for the most part the abbeys were sources of evil rather than of good.*

This is scarce to be wondered at if we consider the material from which their inmates were drawn. It is the severest reproach upon their discipline to find so enthusiastic an admirer of the strict Cistercian rule as Caesarius of Heisterbach asserting as an admitted fact that boys bred in monasteries made bad monks and frequent- ly became apostates. As for those who took the vows in advanced life, he enumerates their motives as sickness, poverty, captivity, infamy, mortal danger, dread of hell or desire of heaven, among which the predominance of selfish impulses was not likely to secure a desirable class of devotees. In fact, he assures us that criminals frequently escaped punishment by agreeing to enter monasteries, which thus in some sort became penal settlements, or prisons, and he illustrates this with the case of a robber baron in 1209, con- demned to death for his crimes by the Count Palatine Henry, who was rescued by Daniel, Abbot of Schonau, on condition of his en- tering the Cistercian order. Scarcely less desirable inmates were those who, moved by a sudden revulsion of conscience, would turn from a hfe stained with crime and violence to bury themselves in the cloister while yet in the fuU vigor of strength and with pas- sions unexhausted, finding, perhaps, at last their fierce and un- tamed natures unfitted to bear the unaccustomed restraint. The chronicles are full of illustrations of this passionate religious en- ergy in natures wholly untrained in self-control, and they explain much that otherwise would seem incredible to the calmer and more self-contained world of to-day. For instance when, in 1071, Ar- noul III. of Flanders, fell at Montcassel in defending his domin- ions against his uncle, Robert the Frisian, Gerbald, the knight who slew his suzerain, was seized with remorse for his act and wandered to Rome, where he presented himself before Gregory YII. with the request that his hands be stricken off as a fitting

  • Varior. ad Alex. PP. III. Epist. xcv. (Migne, Patrolog. CC. 1457). Cf. Pet.

^ Blesens. Epist. xc— Innocent. PP. III. Regest. i. 386, 476, 483, 499  ; v. 159  ; viii. 12; IX. 209; xiii. 132; xv. 105.— Pet. Cantor. Verb, abbrev. cap. 44.— Gerhohi Lib. de ^dificio Dei cap. 33; Ejusd. Exposit. in Psalm. Ixiv. cap. 35. — Chron. S. Trudon. Libb. iii., iv.,v. — Hist.Vezeliacens. Libb. ii.-iv.— Chron. Senoniens. Libb. rv., V. — Caesar. Heisterbac. Dial. Mirac. Dist. iv. cap. 65-67. For ample details as to the immorality of the monasteries, see the author's "History of Celibacy."


J


DEMORALIZATION OF MONACHISM. 37

penance. Gregory assented, and ordered his chief cook to do the service, secretly instructing him that if, when the axe was raised, Gerbald shrank or wavered, he was to strike without mercy, but if the penitent was firm, then he was to announce that he was spared. Gerbald did not blench, and the pope declared to him that the hands thus preserved were no longer his but the Lord's, and sent him to Cluny to be placed under the charge of the holy Abbot Hugh, where the fierce warrior peacefully ended his days. If, as sometimes happened, these untamable souls chafed under the irrevocable vow, after the fit of repentance had passed, they of- fered ample material for internal sedition and external \dolence.*

Among these ill-assorted crowds it was impossible to maintain the community of property which was the essence of the rule of Benedict. Gregory the Great, when Abbot of St. Andreas, denied the last consolations of religion to a dying brother, and kept his soul for sixty days in the torments of purgatory, because three pieces of gold had been found among his garments. Yet the good monks of St. Andreas, of Yienne, found it necessary to adopt a formal constitution segregating as a sacrilegious thief any of the brethren detected in steahng clothing from the dormitory, or cups or plates from the refectory, and threatening to call in the inter- vention of the bishop if the offence could not be otherwise sup- pressed. So it is mentioned that in the Abbey of St. Tron, about the year 1200, each monk had a locked cupboard behind his seat in the refectory, wherein he carefully secured his napkin, spoon, cup, and dish, to preserve them from his brethren. In the dormi- tory matters were even worse. Those who could procure chests threw into them their bed-clothes on rising, and those who could not were constantly complaining of the thievish propensities of their fellows. f

The name of monk was rendered still more despicable by the crowds of " gyrovagi " and " sarabaitae " and " stertzer " — wander- ers and vagrants, bearded and tonsured and wearing the rehgious habit, who traversed every corner of Christendom, hving by beg-


  • Caesar. Heisterbac. Dial. Mirac. Dist. i. cap. 3, 24, 31. — Hist. Monast. An-

daginens. cap. 34.

t Gregor. PP. I. Dialog, iv. 55.— D'Achery Spicileg. III. 382.— Chron. S. Trudon. Lab. vi.


38 THE CHURCH.

ging and imposture, peddling false relics and false miracles. This was a pest which had afflicted the Church ever since the rise of monachism in the fourth century, and it continued unabated. Though there were holy and saintly men among these ghostly tramps, yet were they all subjected to common abhorrence. They were often detected in crime and slain without mercy ; and in a vain effort to suppress the evil, the Synod of Cologne, early in the thirteenth century, absolutely forbade that any of them should be received to hospitality throughout that extensive province.*

It was not that earnest efforts were lacking to restore the neg- lected monastic discipline. Individual monasteries were constant- ly being reformed, to sink back after a time into relaxation and in- dulgence. Ingenuity was taxed to frame new and severer rules, such as the Premonstratensian, the Carthusian, the Cistercian, which should repel aU but the most ardent souls in search of as- cetic self -mortification, but as each order grew in repute for hoH- ness, the liberality of the faithful showered wealth upon it, and with wealth came corruption. Or the humble hermitage founded by a few self-denying anchorites, whose only thought was to secure salvation by macerating the flesh and eluding temptation, would become possessed of the relics of some saint, whose wonder-work- ing powers drew flocks of pious pilgrims and sufferers in search of relief. Offerings in abundance would flow in, and the fame and riches thus showered on the modest retreat of the hermits speedily changed it to a splendid structure where the severe virtues of the founders disappeared amid a crowd of self-indulgent monks, indo- lent in all good works and active only in evil. Few communities had the cautious wisdom of the early denizens in the celebrated Priory of Grammont, before it became the head of a powerful or- der. When its founder and first prior, St. Stephen of Thiern, after his death in 1124, commenced to show his sanctity by curing a paralytic knight and restoring sight to a blind man, his single- minded followers took alarm at the prospect of wealth and noto-

  • Augustin. de Op. Monachor. ii. 3. — Cassiani. de Coenob. Instit. ii. 3. — Hieron.

Epistt. XXXIX. ; cxxv. 16. — Regul. S. Benedict! cap. 1. — S. Isidor. Hispal. de Ec- cles. Offic. II. xvi. 3, 7. — Ludov. Pii de Reform. Eccles. cap. 100. — Smaragd. Com- ment, in Regul. Benedict, c. 1.— Ripoll Bull. Ord. FF. Praedic. I. 38.— Caesar. Heisterbac. Dial. Mirac. Dist. vi. cap. 20. — Catalog. Varior. Haereticor. (Bib. Max. Patrum. Ed. 1618, t. XIH. p. 309).


FRUITLESS MONASTIC REFORMS. 39

riety thus about to be forced upon them. His successor, Prior Peter of Limoges, accordingly repaired to his tomb and reproach- fully addressed him : " O servant of God, thou hast shown us the path of poverty and hast earnestly striven to teach us to walk therein. IS^ow thou wishest to lead us from the straight and nar- row way of salvation to the broad road of eternal death. Thou hast preached the sohtude, and now thou seekest to convert the sohtude into a market-place and a fair. We already believe suffi- ciently in thy sainthness. Then work no more miracles to prove it and at the same time to destroy our humility. Be not so soHc- itous for thy own fame as to neglect our salvation ; this we enjoin on thee, this we ask of thy charity. If thou dost otherwise, we declare, by the obedience which we have vowed to thee, that we will dig up thy bones and cast them into the river." This min- gled supplication and threat proved sufficient, and until St. Stephen was formally canonized he ceased to perform the miracles so dan- gerous to the souls of his followers. The canonization, which oc- curred in 1189, was the result of the first official act of Prior Girard, in applying for it to Clement III., and as Girard had been elected in place of two contestants set aside by papal authority, after dissensions which had almost ruined the monastery, it shows that worldly passions and ambition had invaded the holy seclusion of Grammont, to work out their inevitable result.*

In the failure of aU these partial efforts at reform to rescue the monastic orders from their degradation, we hardly need the em- phatic testimony of the venerable Gilbert, Abbot of Gemblours, about 1190, when he confesses with shame that monachism had become an oppression and a scandal, a hissing and reproach to aU men.f

The religion which was thus exploited by priest and monk


  • Brevis Hist, Prior. Grandimont. — Stephani Tornacens. Epistt. 115, 152, 153,

156, 162.

Prior Peter's fear that the convent would be converted into a market-place and a fair is illustrated by the complaint of the Council of BSziers in 1233, that many religious houses were in the habit of retailing their wine within the sacred enclosure, and attracting consumers by having jugglers, actors, gamblers, and strumpets there. — Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1233, c. 23.

t Giberti Gemblac. Epistt. v. vi. ^^


40 THE CHURCH.

had necessarily become a very different creed from that taught by Christ and Paul. Doctrines are beyond my province, but a brief reference is requisite to certain phases of belief and observance to render clear the relation between clergy and people, and to explain the religious revolt of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

The theory of justification by works, to which the Church owed so much of its power and wealth, had, in its development, to a great extent deprived religion of all spiritual vitality, replacing its essentials with a dry and meaningless formalism. It was not that men were becoming indifferent to the destiny of their souls, for never, perhaps, have the terrors of perdition, the bliss of salvation, and the never-ending efforts of the arch-fiend possessed a more burning reahty for man, but religion had become in many respects a f etichism. Teachers might still inculcate that pious and charita- ble works to be efficient must be accompanied with a change of heart, with repentance, with amendment, with an earnest seeking after Christ and a higher life ; but in a gross and hardened gener- ation it was far easier for the sinner to fall into the practices ha- bitual around him, which taught that absolution could be had by the repetition of a certain number of Pater Fosters or Ave Marias accompanied by the magical sacrament of penitence ; nay, even that if the penitent himself were unable to perform the penance enjoined, it could be undertaken by his friends, whose merits were transferred to him by some kind of sacred jugglery. When a con- gregation, in preparation for Easter, was confessed and absolved as a whole, or in squads and batches, as was customary with some careless priests, the lesson taught was that the sacrament of peni- tence was a magic ceremony or incantation, in which the internal condition of the soul was a matter of virtual indifference.^

More serviceable to the Church, and quite as disastrous in its influence on faith and morals, was the current belief that the post- humous liberality of the death-bed, which founded a monastery or enriched a cathedral out of the spoils for which, the sinner had no further use, would atone for a lifelong course of cruelty and rapine; and that a few weeks' service against the enemies of a


  • Petri Exoniens. Summ. Exigendi Confess, ann. 1287 (Harduin. Yll. 1128).

— Caesar. Heisterbac. Dial. Mirac. Dist. in. cap. 45. — Martene Ampliss. Coll. I. 357.


INDULGENCES. 41

pope would wipe out all the sins of him who assumed the cross to exterminate his fellow-Christians. The use, or abuse, of indul- gences, indeed, is a subject which would repay extended investiga- tion, and a brief reference to it may be pardoned here, in view of the frequent allusions to it which will occur hereafter.

That sin, confessed and repented, could be remitted through penance, was a doctrine dating back to primitive times. That pen- ance could be redeemed by sacrifices made for the Church was a corollary of later origin, but yet well established at this period. Thus, in 1059, we see Guido, Archbishop of Milan, imposing on him- self a penance of one hundred years, to atone for rebellion against Eome, and redeeming it at a certain sum for each year — a transac- tion which satisfied even so stern a moralist as St. Peter Damiani. Then the schoolmen invented the theory of the treasure of salva- tion, accumulated through the merits of the Crucifixion and of the saints, and the pope, as the vicar of God, had the unlimited dis- pensation of that treasure. It was for him to prescribe the meth- ods by which the faithful could partake of it, and no theologian before Wickliffe was hardy enough to question.his decisions. In the administration of this treasure the pope issued "pardons," either plenary or partial, the former releasing the soul absolutely from the purgatorial punishment of its sins after their guilt had been wiped out in the sacrament of penitence, the latter shortening the punishment by the equivalent of the penance remitted by the terms of the concession. At first this partial indulgence was grant- ed in return for pious works, pilgrimages to shrines, contributions towards the building of churches, bridges, etc. — for a spiritual pun- ishment could be commuted to a corporal or to a pecuniary one, and the power to grant such indulgence was a valuable franchise to the church which obtained it, for it served as a constant attrac- tion to pilgrims. Abuses, of course, crept in, denounced by Abe- lard, who vents his indignation at the covetousness which habitu- ally made a traffic of salvation. Alexander III., about 1175, ex- pressed his disapproval of these corruptions, and the great Council of Lateran, in 1215, sought to check the destruction of discipline and the contempt felt for the Church by limiting to one year the amount of penance released by any one episcopal indulgence. At length St. Francis of Assisi was said to have procured, in 1223, from Honorius III. the celebrated " Portiuncula " indulgence,


42 THE CHURCH.

whereby all who visited the Church of Santa Maria de Portiim- cula, at Assisi, from the vespers of August 1st to the vespers of August 2d, obtained complete and entire remission of all sins com- mitted since baptism ; and even the fact that St. Francis had been directed by God to apply to Ilonorius for it, and the admission of Satan that this indulgence was depopulating hell, did not serve to reconcile the Dominicans to so great an advantage given to the Franciscans. Boniface YIII., when he conceived the fruitful idea of the jubilee, carried this out still further by promising to all who should perfomi certain devotions in the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul, during the year 1300, not only '-^ plena venia,^'^ but ^'ple- nissima,^^ of aU their sins. By this time the idea that an indul- gence might avert the entire penalty of all sins had become famil- iar to the Christian mind. When the Church sought to arouse Europe to supreme exertion for the redemption of the Holy Sep- ulchre some infinite reward was requisite to excite the enthusias- tic fanaticism requisite for the crusades. If Mahomet could stim- ulate his followers to court death by the promise of immediate and eternal bliss to him who fell fighting for the Crescent, the vice- gerent of the true God must not be behindhand in his promises to the martyrs of the Cross. It was to be a death-struggle between the two faiths, and Christianity must not be less liberal than Islam in its bounty to its recruits. Accordingly when Urban II. held the great Council of Clermont, which resolved on the first crusade, and where thirteen archbishops, two hundred and fifteen bishops, and ninety mitred abbots represented the universal Church Mili- tant, the device of plenary indulgence was introduced, and the military pilgrims were exhorted to have full faith that those who fell repentant would gain the completest fruit of eternal mercy. The device was so successful that it became an established rule in aU the holy wars in which the Church engaged ; aU the more at- tractive, perhaps, because of the demoralizing character of the ser- vice, for it was a commonplace of the jongleurs of the period that the crusader, if he escaped the perils of sea and land, was tolerably sure to return home a lawless bandit, even as the pilgrim who went to Rome to secure pardon came back much worse than he started. As the novelty of crusading wore off, stiU greater promises were necessary. Thus, in 1291, JS^icholas lY. promised full remission of sins to every one who would send a crusader or go at another'g


INDULGENCES. 43

expense ; while he who went at his own expense was vaguely told that in addition he would have an increase of salvation — a term w^hich the Decretalists perhaps could not find it easy to explain. Finally, forgotten sins were included in the pardon, as well as those confessed and repented.^


  • P. Damiani Opusc. V. — Concil. Trident. Sess, vi. Decret. de Justific. c. 16,

30. — Migne, Encyclopgdie Theologique. t. XXVII. pp. 59-63, 118. — Abeelardi Ethica, cap. 25. — Cap. 14 Extra Lib. v. tit. iii. — Concil. Lateran. IV. c. 72. — Alani delnsulis contra Haeret. Lib. ii. cap. xi. — Gregor. PP. IX. Bull. 29 Apr. 1228 ; 18 Jul. 1237 (Potthast Regesta, I. 705, 884).— Addis and Arnold's Catholic Diet. 8. V. Portiuncula. — Lib. Conformitatum S. Fran. Lib. ii. tract, ii. (fol. 135-138. Ed. 1513). — Bonifacii PP. VIII. Bull. Antiquorum habet. — Concil. Claromont. aun. 1195, c. 2. — Urbani PP. II. Synodalis Concio. — Concil. Lateran. IV. can. ult.— Le Grand d'Aussy, Fabliaux, I. 379, 392.— Prediche del B. Fra Giordano da Rivalto (Firenze, 1831, L 253).— Nicolai PP. IV. Bull. lUuminit, ann. 1291.— Gregor. PP. XL Bull JDudum, 23 Apr. 1372.

The mediaeval doctrine of indulgence is truly expressed by Alonso, Bishop of Avila, in 1443, when disculpating himself to Eugenius IV. from an accusation of doubting the papal power: " Papa etiam potest absolvere ab omnibus pecca- tis et potest dare plenariam indulgentiam, liberando homine a tota poena Purga- torii, scilicet faciendo quod non veniet in ilium etiamsi multa poena (peccata) commiserit" (D'Argentr^, Collect. Judic. de novis Error. I. ii. 241). Yet when an enthusiastic Franciscan taught at Tournay, in 1482, that the pope at will could empty purgatory, the University of Paris qualified the proposition as doubt- ful and scandalous (Ibid. I. ii. 305). The same year the University again inter- fered, when the church of Saintes, having procured a bull of indulgence from Sixtus IV., announced publicly that, no matter how long a period of punishment had been assigned by divine justice to a soul, it would fly from purgatory to heaven as soon as three sols were paid in its behalf to be expended in repairing the church (Ibid. 307). In 1518 the university was obliged to repeat its condem- nation of the same promises made to those who would contribute a teston for the crusade which was always under way and never attempted (lb. 355). Yet the doctrine thus condemned by the university was pronounced to be unquestion- able Catholic truth by the Dominican Silvestro Mozzolino, in his refutation of Luther's Theses, dedicated to Leo X. (F, Silvest. Prieriatis Dialogus, No. 27). As Silvestro was made general of his order and master of the sacred palace, it is evident that no exceptions to his teaching were taken at Rome. Those who doubt that the abuses of the system were the proximate cause of the Reforma- tion can consult Van Espen, Jur. Eccles. Universi P. ii. tit. vii. cap. 3 No. 9-13. Cf. Ibid. P. II. tit. xxxvii. cap. 6 No. 43-46, for their continuance into the eigh- teenth century.

The modern commercial spirit has not failed to take advantage of the indul- gence. The Libreria Religiosa of Barcelona is enabled to advertise that various


44 THE CHURCH.

As an additional inducement to crusaders they were, moreover, released from earthly as well as heavenly justice, by being classed with clerks and subjected only to spiritual jurisdiction. When accused, the ecclesiastical judge was directed to take them from the secular courts by the use of excommunication, if necessary, and w^hen found guilty of enormous crime, such as murder, they w^ere merely divested of the cross, and punished with the same leniency as ecclesiastics. This became embodied in secular jurisprudence, and its attraction to the reckless adventurers who formed so large a portion of the papal armies is readily conceivable. When, in 1246, those who had taken the cross in France were indulging themselves in robbery, murder, and rape, St. Louis was obliged to appeal to Innocent lY., and the pope responded by instructing his legate that such malefactors were not to be protected.^

Still further rewards were offered when personal ambition and vindictiveness were to be gratified in the crusade preached by In- nocent lY. against the Emperor Conrad lY., after the death of Frederic II., when he granted a larger remission of sins than for the voyage to the Holy Land, and included the father and mother of the crusader as beneficiaries in the assurance of heaven. A profitable device had also been introduced by which crusaders, un- willing or unable to perform their vow, were absolved from it on a money payment proportioned to their ability, and very large sums were raised in this manner, which were expended, nominally at least, for the furtherance of the holy cause. The development of the system continued until it came to be employed in the pet- tiest private quarrels of the popes as masters of the patrimony of St. Peter. If Alexander lY. could use it successfully against Eccelin da Romano, the next century saw John XXII. have re- course to it, not only in making war against a formidable antago- nist like Matteo Yisconti or the Marquis of Montefeltre, but even when he wished to reduce the rebellious citizens of little places like Osimo and Eecanati, in the March of Ancona, or the turbulent


Spanish prelates have granted an indulgence of 2320 days (fifty-eight quaran- taines) to every one who will read or hear read a chapter or even a single page of any of its publications.

  • Concil. Turon. ann. 1236, c. 1. — fitablissements de S. Louis, Liv. i, cap. 84.

— Berger, Les Registres d'Innocent IV. No. 2230.


i


INDULGENCES. 45

people of Kome itself. The ingenious method of granting indul- gences to those who took the cross, and then releasing them from service for a sum of money, had become too cumbrous, and the purchase of salvation simplified itself into a direct payment, so that John was able to raise funds for his private wars by thus dis- tributing the treasures of salvation over Christendom, and order- ing the prelates everywhere to establish coffers in the churches by which the pious could help the Church while they saved their souls. The prelates who saw with regret the coins of their parish- ioners disappear into the never-satisfied maelstrom of the Holy See, in vain endeavored to resist. They were no longer independent, and the slender barriers which they sought to erect were easily swept away.*

These money payments were doubtless more practically eflBca- cious than an indulgence, remitting a certain number of days of penance, offered to all who would earnestly pray to God, especially during the solemnity of the mass, for the success of the same pope in his death-struggle with Louis of Bavaria. This is a specimen of the minor indulgences which were frequently granted as a stimu- lus to acts of devotion, such as visiting cathedrals on the anniver- saries of their patron saints ; reciting, for the peace and prosperity of the Church, on bended knees, the Pater Foster five times, in honor of the five wounds of Christ ; the Ave Maria seven times, in honor of the seven joys of the Yirgin, and other similar practices, t

  • Matt. Paris. Hist. Angl. ann. 1251 (p. 553, Ed. 1644).— Chron. Turon. ann.

1226.— Joannis PP. XXII. Regest. iv. 73, 74, 76, 77, 95, 97, 99.— Baluz. et Mansi Miscell. III. 242.— Concil. Ravennat. ann. 1314, c. 20.

t Concil. Avenion. ann. 1326, c. 3. — Concil. Marciacens. ann. 1326, c. 45. — Concil. Vaurens. ann. 1368, c. 127. — Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1374, c. 27.

The magic character attributed to these formulas of devotion is well illus- trated by the story of Thierry d'Avesnes, who, during a raid into the territories of Baldwin of Mons, burned the convents of St. Waltruda of Mons, and St. Alde- gondu of Maubeuge. Thereupon a holy hermit had a vision in which he saw the two angry saints demanding from the Virgin satisfaction for their injuries. This the Virgin refused, because Ada, the wife of Thierry, rendered to her the most grateful service by repeating the Ave Maria sixty times a day — twenty stand- ing, twenty on her knees, and twenty i)rostratc. The saints still insisted on their wrongs, and the Virgin at length promised them revenge, when it could be in- flicted without injury to Ada. Some years afterwards Thierry incautiously pro-


46 THE CHURCH.

A more demoralizing system of indulgences was that of send- ing out " quaestuarii," or pardoners, sometimes furnished with relics, by a church or hospital in need of money, and sometimes merely carrying papal or episcopal letters, by which they were authorized to issue pardons for sin in return for contributions. Though these letters were cautiously framed, yet they were am- biguous enough to enable the pardoners to promise, not only the salvation of the living, but the liberation of the damned from hell for a few small coins. Already, in 1215, the Council of Lateran inveighs bitterly against these practices, and prohibits the removal of relics from the churches ; but the abuse was too profitable to be suppressed. Needy bishops and popes were constantly issuing such letters, and the business of the pardoner became a regular profession, in which the most impudent and shameless were the most successful, so that we can readily beheve the pseudo Peter of Pihchdorf , when he sorrowfully admits that the " indiscreet " but profitable granting of indulgences to all sorts of men weakened the faith of many CathoHcs in the whole system. As early as 1261 the Council of Mainz can hardly find words strong enough to denounce the pestilent sellers of indulgences, whose knavish tricks excite the hatred of aU men, who spend their filthy gains in vile debauchery, and who so mislead the faithful that confession is neglected on the ground that sinners have purchased forgiveness of their sins. Complaint was useless, however, and the lucrative abuse continued unchecked until it aroused the indignation which


cured a divorce from her on the plea of consanguinity, because she remained bar- ren after twenty years of marriage, and in a short time, while hunting, he was ambushed and slain by an enemy. His nephew and successor, Joscelin, took warning by this, and was very particular in constantly repeating the Ave Maria, and forcing his troopers to do likewise, so that, although he wrought much evil, yet he made a good ending. — Narrat. Restaur. S. Martini Tornacens. cap. 57.

Somewhat similar is the story of the knight, who, though cruel and revenge- ful, had such veneration for the cross that he never passed one without descend- ing from his horse and adoring it. Once, when riding alone through^ a dense forest, he was assailed by the kinsmen of a noble whom he had slain, and was forced to seek safety in flight. Coming to a cross-road, where stood a cross, he dismounted and knelt before it, when his enemies, coming up, were struck with sudden blindness, and groped vainly around, while he rode quietly away. — Lucae Tudensis de Altera Vita Lib. in. cap. 6.


FETICHISM. 47

found a mouthpiece in Luther. Subsequent councils are full of complaints of the lies and frauds of these peddlers of salvation, who continued to flourish until the Reformation; and Tassoni fairly represents the popular conviction that this was an unfailing resort of the Church in its secular aims —

" Le cose della guerra andavan zoppe ;

I Bolognesi richiedean danari Al Papa, ad egli rispondeva coppe,

E mandava indulgenze per gli altari." *

The sale of indulgences illustrates effectively the sacerdotalism which formed the distinguishing feature of mediaeval religion. The believer did not deal directly with his Creator — scarce even with the Virgin or hosts of intercessory saints. The supernatural powers claimed for the priest interposed him as the mediator be- tween God and man ; his bestowal or withholding of the sacra- ments decided the fate of immortal souls ; his performance of the mass diminished or shortened the pains of purgatory ; his decision in the confessional determined the very nature of sin itself. The implements which he wielded — the Eucharist, the relics, the holy water, the chrism, the exorcism, the prayer — became in some sort fetiches which had a power of their own entirely irrespective of the moral or spiritual condition of him who employed them or of him for whom they were employed ; and in the popular view the rites of religion could hardly be more than magic formulas which in some mysterious way worked to the advantage, temporal and spiritual, of those for whom they were performed.

How sedulously this fetichism was inculcated by those who profited from the control of the fetiches is shown by a thousand stories and incidents of the time. Thus a twelfth-century chroni- cler piously narrates that when, in 887, the relics of St. Martin of Tours were brought home from Auxerre, whither they had been


  • Concil. Lateran. IV. c. 62. — P. de Pilicbdorf contr. Waldenses cap. xxx.

— Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, c. 5. — Concil. Cenomanens. ann. 1248. — Concil. Burdegalens. ann. 1255, c. 2. — Concil. Vienn. ann. 1311 (Cleraentin. Lib. v. tit. ix. c. 2). — Concil. Remens. ann. 1303. — Concil. Carnotens. ann. 1325, c. 18. — Mar- tene Thesaur. IV. 858. — Martene Ampliss. Collect. VII. 197, etc. — Concil. Mogun- tin. ann. 1261, c. 48. — La Secchia Rapita, xii. 1. For the repression of these abuses after the Reformation see cap. 1,2 in Septimo iii. 15.


48 THE CHURCH.

carried to escape the Danish incursions, two cripples of Touraine, who earned an easy livelihood by beggary, on hearing of the ap- proach of the saintly bones, counselled together to escape from the territory as quickly as possible, lest the returning saint should cure them and thus deprive them of claims on the alms of the charitable. Their fears were well founded, but their means of locomotion were insufficient, for the relics arrived in Touraine before they could get beyond the bounds of the province, and they were cured in spite of themselves. The eagerness with which rival princes and republics disputed with each other the posses- sion of these wonder-working fetiches, and the manner in which the holy objects were obtained by force or fraud and defended by the same methods, form a curious chapter in the history of human credulity^ and show how completely the miraculous virtue was held to reside in the reUc itself, wholly irrespective of the crimes through which it was acquired or the frame of mind of the pos- sessor. Thus in the above case, Ingelger of Anjou was obliged to reclaim from the Auxerrois the bones of St. Martin at the head of an armed force, more peaceful means of recovering the venerated relics having failed ; and in 1177 we see a certain Martin, canon of the Breton church of Bomigny, stealing the body of St. Petroo from his own church for the benefit of the Abbey of St. Mevennes, which would not surrender it until the intervention of King Henry II. was brought to bear. Two years after the capture of Constan- tinople the Venetian leaders, in 1206, forcibly broke into the Church of St. Sophia and carried off a picture of the Virgin, said to have been painted by St. Luke, in which popular superstition imagined her to reside, and kept it in spite of excommunication and interdict launched against them by the patriarch and con- firmed by the papal legate. Fairly illustrative of this belief is a story told of a merchant of Groningen who in one of his voyages coveted the arm of St. John the Baptist belonging to a hospital, and obtained it by bribing heavily the mistress of the guardian, who induced him to steal it. On his return the merchant built a house and secretly encased the rehc in a pillar forming part of the structure. Under its protection he prospered mightily and grew wealthy, tiU once in a conflagration he refused to take measures to save the house, saying that it was under good guardianship. The house was not burned, and public curiosity was so much ex-


FETICHISM. 49

cited that he was forced to reveal his talisman, when the people carried it off and deposited it in a church, where it worked many miracles, wliile the merchant was reduced to poverty. It was a superstition even less rational than that which led the Komans to conjure into their camp the tutelary deity of a city which they were besieging ; and the universal wearing of relics as charms or amulets had in it nothing to distinguish it from the similar prac- tices of paganism. Even the images and portraits of saints and martyrs had equal virtue. A single glance at the representation of St. Christopher, for instance, was held to preserve one from dis- ease or sudden death for the rest of the day —

" Christophori sancti speciem quicumque tuetur lUo namque die miUo languore tenetur —

and a huge image of the gigantic saint was often painted on the outside of churches for the preservation of the population. The custom of selecting a patron saint by lot at the altar is another manifestation of the same bhndness of superstition.*

The Eucharist was particularly efficacious as a fetich. During the persecution of heresy in the Khinelands by the inquisitor Con- rad of Marburg, in 1233, one obstinate culprit refused to burn in spite of all the efforts of his zealous executioners, until a thought- ful priest brought to the roaring pile a consecrated host. This at once dissolved the spell by a mightier magic, and the luckless her- etic was speedily reduced to ashes. A conventicle of these same heretics possessed an image of Satan which gave forth oracular responses, until a priest entering the room produced from his bosom a pyx containing the body of Christ, when Satan at once acknowledged his inferiority by falling down. Not long after- wards St. Peter Martyr overcame, by the same means, the impos- ture of a Milanese heretic in whose behalf a demon was wont to appear in a heterodox church in the shape of the Virgin, resplen- dent and holding in her arms the holy Child. The evidence in favor of heresy seemed to be overwhelming, until St. Peter dis- pelled it by presenting to the demon a host, and saying, " If thou


  • Gesta. Consulum. Andegavens. iii. 23. — Roger. Ilovedcn. ann. 1177. — Inno-

cent. PP. III. Regest. IX. 243. — Cajsar. Heisterbac. Dial. Mirac. Dist. viii. cap. 53. — Muratori. Antiq. Med. ^vi Dissert. Iviii. — Anon. Passaviens. adv. Waldens. cap. 5 (Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 301). I.-


50 THE CHURCH.

art the true Mother of God, adore this thy Son," whereupon the demon disappeared in a flash of Hghtning, leaving an intolera- ble stench behind him. The consecrated wafer was popularly be- heved to possess a magic efficacy of incomparable power, and sto- ries are numerous of the punishment inflicted on those who sacri- legiously sought thus to use it. A priest who retained it in his mouth for the purpose of using it to overcome the virtue of a woman of whom he was enamoured, was afflicted with the halluci- nation that he had swelled to the point that he could not pass through a doorway ; and on burying the sacred object in his gar- den it was changed into a small crucifix bearing a man of flesh and freshly bleeding. So when a woman kept the wafer and placed it in her beehive to stop an epidemic among the bees, the pious insects built around it a complete chapel, with walls, win- dows, roof, and bell-tower, and inside an altar on which they rev- erently placed it. Another woman, to preserve her cabbages from the ravages of caterpillars, crumbled a holy wafer and sprinkled it over the vegetables, when she was at once afflicted with incurable paralysis. This particular form of fetichism was evidently not regarded with favor, but it was the direct evolution of orthodox teaching. It was the same in respect to the water in which a priest washed his hands after handling the Eucharist, to which su- pernatural virtues were ascribed, but the use of which was con- demned as savoring of sorcery.^

The power of these magic formulas, as I have said, was wholly disconnected with any devotional feeling on the part of those who employed them. Thus the efficacy of St. Thomas of Canterbury was illustrated by a story of a matron whose veneration for him led her to invoke him on all occasions, and even to teach her pet bird to repeat the formula " Sancte Thoma adjuva me  !" Once a hawk seized the bird and flew away with it, but on the bird ut- tering the accustomed phrase, the hawk fell dead and the bird returned unhurt to its mistress. So little, indeed, of sanctity was requisite, that wicked priests employed the mass as an incantation and execration, mentally cursing their enemies while engaged in its solemnization, and expecting that in some way the malediction


  • Hartzheim. Concil. German. III. 543.— Campana, Storia di San Piero Martire

Lib. u. cap. 3. — Caesar. Heisterbac. Dial. Mirac. Dist. ix. cap. 6, 8, 24, 25.


SACRED MAGIC. 51

would work evil on the person against whom it was directed. Nay, it was even used in connection with the immemorial super- stition of the wax figurine which represented the enemy to be destroyed, and mass celebrated ten times over such an image was supposed to insure his death within ten days.*

Even confession could be used as a magic formula to escape the detection of guilt. As demons professed a knowledge of every crime committed, and would reveal them through the mouth of those whom they possessed, demoniacs were frequently used as detectives in case of suspected persons. Yet when sins were con- fessed with due contrition, the absolution wiped them forever from the demon's memory, and he would deny all knowledge of them — a fact which was regularly acted on by those afraid of ex- posure ; for even after the demon had revealed the guilt, the per- petrator could go at once and confess, and then confidently, re turn and challenge a repetition of the denunciation.f

Examples such as these could be multiplied almost indefinite- ly, but they would only serve to weary the reader. What I have given will probably suffice to illustrate the degeneracy of the Christianity superimposed upon paganism and wielded by a sacer- dotal body so worldly in its aspirations as that of the Middle Ages.

The picture which I have drawn of the Church in its relations with the people is perhaps too unrelieved in its blackness. AU popes were not like Innocent lY. and John XXII. ; all bishops were not cruel and licentious  ; all priests were not intent solely on impoverishing men and dishonoring women. In many sees and abbeys, and in thousands of parishes, doubtless, there were prel- ates and pastors earnestly seeking to do God's work, and illumi- nate the darkened souls of their flocks with such gospel light as the superstition of the time would permit. Yet the evil was more apparent than the good ; the humble workers passed away unob- trusively, while pride and cruelty and lust and avarice were de- monstrative and far-reaching in their influence. Such as I have


• Caesar. Heisterbac. Dial. Mirac. Dist. x. cap. 56. — Wibaldi Abbat. Cor- beiens. Epist. 157. — P. Cantor. Verb, abbrev. cap. 29.

t Caesar. Heisterbac. Dial. Mirac. Dist. iii. cap. 2, 3, 6  ; Dist. v. cap. 3.


52 THE CHURCH.

depicted the Church it appeared to all the men of the time who had the clearest insight and the loftiest aspirations ; and its repul- siveness must be understood by those who would understand the movements that agitated Christendom.

No more unexceptionable witness as to the Church of the twelfth century can be had than St. Bernard, and he is never weary of denouncing the pride, the wickedness, the ambition, and the lust that reigned everywhere. When fornication, adultery, incest, palled upon the exhausted senses, a zest was sought in deeper depths of degradation. In vain the cities of the plain were destroyed by the avenging fire of heaven ; the enemy has scattered their remains everywhere, and the Church is infected with their accursed ashes. The Church is left poor and bare and miserable, neglected and bloodless. Her children seek not to bedeck, but to spoil her ; not to guard her, but to destroy her ; not to defend, but to expose ; not to institute, but to prostitute ; not to feed the flock, but to slay and devour it. They exact the price of sins and give no thought to sinners. Whom can you show me among the prelates who does not seek rather to empty the pockets of his flock than to subdue their vices?" St. Bernard's contemporary, Pot ho of Pruhm, in 1152, voices the same complaints. The Church is rushing to ruin, and not a hand is raised to stay its downward progress  ; there is not a single priest fitted to rise up as a media- tor between God and man and approach the divine throne with an appeal for mercy.*

The papal legate. Cardinal Henry of Albano, in his Encyclical letter of 1188 to the prelates of Germany, is equally emphatic though less eloquent. The triumph of the Prince of Darkness is to be expected in view of the depravity of the clergy — their luxury, their gluttony, their disregard of the fasts, their holding of plurah- ties, their hunting, hawking, and gambling, their trading and their quarrels, and, chief of aU, their incontinence, whence the wrath of God is provoked to the highest degree and the worst scandals are created between the clergy and the people. Peter Cantor, about


  • S. Bernard! Serm. de Conversione cap. 19,30, — Ejusd. Serm. 77 in Cantica

cap. 1. — Cf. Ejusd. Serm. 33 in Cantica cap. 16  ; Tract, de Moribus et OfRc. Episc. cap. vii. No. 25, 27, 28.— De Consideratione Lib. iii. cap. 4, 5. — Fothon. Prumiens. de Statu Domus Dei Lib. i.


CONTEMPORARY OPINION. 53

the same time, describes the Church as filled to the mouth with the filth of temporalities, of avarice, and of negUgence, so that in these points it far surpasses the laity ; and he points out that nothing is more damaging to the Church than to see laymen superior, as a class, to the clergy. Gilbert of Gemblours tells the same tale. The prelates for the most part enter the Church not by election, but by the use of money and the favor of princes ; they enter, not to feed, but to be fed ; not to minister, but to be ministered to ; not to sow, but to reap ; not to labor, but to rest ; not to guard the sheep from the wolves, but, fiercer than wolves, themselves to tear the sheep. St. Hildegarda, in her prophecies, espouses the cause of the people against the clergy. " The prelates are ravishers of the churches ; their avarice consumes all that it can acquire. With their oppres- sions they make us paupers and contaminate us and themselves. . . . Is it fitting that wearers of the tonsure should have greater store of soldiers and arms than we  ? Is it becoming that a clerk should be a soldier and a soldier a clerk? . . . God did not command that one son should have both coat and cloak and that the other should go naked, but ordered the cloak to be given to one and the coat to the other. Let the laity then have the cloak on account of the cares of the world, and let the clergy have the coat that they may not lack that which is necessary." *

One of the main objects in convoking the great Council of Lateran, in 1215, was the correction of the prevailing vices of the clergy, and it adopted numerous canons looking to the suppression of the chief abuses, but in vain. Those abuses were too deeply rooted, and four years later Honorius III., in an Encyclical ad- dressed to aU the prelates of Christendom, says that he has waited to see the result. He finds the evils of the Church increasing rather than diminishing. The ministers of the altar, worse than beasts wallowing in their dung, glory in their sins, as in Sodom. They are a snare and a destruction to the people. Many prelates con- sume the property committed to their trust and scatter the stores of the sanctuary throughout the public places ; they promote the unworthy, waste the revenues of the Church on the wicked, and con- vert the churches into conventicles of their kindred. Monks and


  • Cod. Diplom. Viennens. No. 163,— P. Cantor, Verb, abbrcv. cap. 57, 59.—

Guiberti Abbat. Gemblaccns, Epist. 1.— S. Hildcgardao Revelat. Vis. x. cap. 16.


54 THE CHURCH.

nuns throw oif the yoke, break their chains, and render themselves contemptible as dung. " Thus it is that heresies flourish. Let each of you gird his sword to his thigh and spare not his brother and his nearest kindred." What was accomplished by this earnest exhortation may be estimated from the description which Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, gave of the Church in the presence of Innocent lY. and his cardinals in 1250. The details can well be spared, but they are summed up in his assertion that the clergy were a source of pollution to the whole earth ; they were antichrists and de^als masquerading as angels of light, who made the house of prayer a den of robbers. When the earnest inquisitor of Passau, about 1260, undertook to explain the stubbornness of the heresy which he was vainly endeavoring to suppress, he did so by drawing up a list of the crimes prevalent among the clergy, which is awful in the completeness of its details. A church such as he describes was an unmitigated curse, politically, socially, and morally.*

This is all ecclesiastical testimony. How the clergy were re- garded by the laity is illustrated in a remark by William of Puy- Laurens, that it was a common phrase " I had rather be a priest than do that," just as one might say I had rather be a Jew." It is true that the priests had the same contempt for the monks, for Emeric, Abbot of Anchin, tells us that a clerk would never associ- ate with any one whom he had once seen wearing the black Bene- dictine habit. But priest and monk were both comprehended in the general detestation of the people. Walther von der Yogel- weide sums up the popular appreciation of the whole ecclesiastical body, from pope downward :

" St. Peter's chair is filled to-day as well

As when 'twas fouled by Gerbert's sorcery; For he consigned himself alone to hell,

While this pope thither drags all Christentie. Why are the chastisements of Heaven delayed?

How long wilt thou in slumber lie, O Lord  ? Thy work is hindered and thy word gainsaid,

Thy treasurer steals the wealth that thou hast stored.


  • Honor. PP. IH. Epist. ad Archiep. Bituricens. (Martene Collect. Amplis. L

1149-1151 ; Thesaur. Anecdot. I. 875-877).— Fascic. Rer. Expetendarum et FugU endarum, H. 251 (Ed. 1690). — W. Preger, Beitrage zur Geschichte der Waldesier^ Munchen, 1875, pp. 64-67.


CONTEMPORARY OPINION. 66

Thy ministers rob here and murder there,

And o'er thy sheep a wolf has shepherd's care."*

Walther's echo is heard from the other end of Europe in the Troubadour Pierre Cardinal, who enlarges on the same theme in a manner to show how popular were these invectives and how com- pletely they expressed the general f eehng :

"I see the pope his sacred trust betray, For, while the rich his grace can gain alway,

His favors from the poor are aye withholden. He strives to gather wealth as best he may, Forcing Christ's people blindly to obey.

So that he may repose in garments golden. The vilest traffickers in souls are all His chapmen, and for gold a prebend's stall

He'll sell them, or an abbacy or mitre. And to us he sends clowns and tramps who crawl Vending his pardon briefs from cot to hall—

Letters and pardons worthy of the writer.

Which leave our pokes, if not our souls, the lighter.

"No better is each honored cardinal. From early morning's dawn to evening's fall.

Their time is passed in eagerly contriving To drive some bargain foul with each and all. So, if you feel a want, or great or small,

Or if for some preferment you are striving, The more you please to give the more 'twill bring, Be it a purple cap or bishop's ring.

And it need ne'er in any way alarm you That you are ignorant of everything To which a minister of Christ should cling,

You will have revenue enough to warm you —

And, bear in mind, that lesser gifts won't harm you.

" Our bishops, too, are plunged in similar sin, For pitilessly they flay the very skin

From all their priests who chance to have fat livings. For gold their seal official you can win To any writ, no matter what's therein.

Sure God alone can make them stop their thievings.


  • Guill. Pod. Laurent. Chron. Prooem. — Narrat. Restaur. Abbai S. Martini

Tomacens. cap. 38. — Panniers Walthers von der Vogelweide sammtliche Qe- dichte, No. 110, p. 118. Cf. No. 85, 111-113.


56 THE CIIUllCH.

'Twere hard, in full, their evil works to tell,

As when, for a few pence, they greedily sell The tonsure to some mountebank or jester,

Whereby the temporal courts are wronged as well,

For then these tonsured rogues they cannot quell, Howe'er their scampish doings may us pester, While round the church still growing evils fester.

    • Then as for all the priests and minor clerks,

There are, God knows, too many of them whose works

And daily life belie their daily preaching. Scarce better are they than so many Turks, Though they, no doubt, may be well taught — it irks

Me not to own the fulness of their teaching — For, learned or ignorant, they're ever bent To make a traffic of each sacrament.

The Mass's holy sacrifice included  ; And when they shrive an honest penitent, Who will not bribe, his penance they augment,

For honesty should never be obtruded —

But this, by sinners fair, is easily eluded.

"Tis true the monks and friars make ample show Of rules austere which they all undergo,

But this the vainest is of all pretences. In sooth, they live full twice as well, we know, As e'er they did at home, despite their vow,

And all their mock parade of abstinences. No jollier life than theirs can be, indeed ; And specially the begging friars exceed.

Whose frock grants license as abroad they wander. These motives 'tis which to the Orders lead So many worthless men, in sorest need

Of pelf, which on their vices they may squander,

And then, the frock protects them in their plunder." •

It was inevitable that such a rehgion should breed dissidence and such a priesthood provoke revolt.


  • From " La Gesta de Fra Peyre Cardinal," Raynouard, Lexique Eoman, I.

464. See also pp. 446, 451. Cardinal was of noble birth and high consideration at the courts of Aragon and Toulouse; he was born in 1206, and is said to have lived until 1306. He was no heretic, although "los fals clerques reprendia molt." — (Miquel de la Tor, Vie de Peire Cardinal, ap. Meyer, Anciens Textes p. 100.) — See also his Sirvente, " Un sirventes vuelh far dels autz glotos" (Ray- nouard, Lexique Roman, L 447).


CHAPTEK II.

HERESY.

The Church, which we have seen so far removed from its ideal and so derelict in its duties, found itself, somewhat unexpectedly, confronted by new dangers and threatened in the very citadel of its power. Just as its triumph over king and kaiser was complete a new enemy arose in the awakened consciousness of man. The dense ignorance of the tenth century, which followed the evanes- cent Carlovingian civilization, had begun in the eleventh to yield to the first faint pulsations of intellectual movement. Early in the twelfth century that movement already shows in its gathering force the promise of the development which was to render Europe the home of art and science, of learning, culture, and civilization. The stagnation of the human mind could not be thus broken with- out leading to inquiry and to doubt. When men began to reason and to ask questions, to criticise and to speculate on forbidden top- ics, it was not possible for them to avoid seeing how wof ul was the contrast between the teaching and the practice of the Church, and how Httle correspondence existed between religion and ritual, be- tween the lives of monk and priest and the profession of their vows. Even the blind reverence which for generations had been felt for the utterances of the Church began to be shaken. Such a book as Abelard's Sic et Non," in which the contradictions of tradition and decretal were pitilessly set forth, was not only an indication of mental disquiet ripening to rebellion, but a fruitful source of future trouble in sowing the seeds of further investiga- tion and irreverence. Yainly, at the command of the Koman curia, might Gratian seek to show, in his famous " Concordantia Dis- cordantium Canonum," that the contradictions might be recon- ciled, and that the canon law was not merely a mass of clashing rules called forth by special exigencies, but an harmonious body of spiritual law. The fatal word had been spoken, and the efforts of


58 HERESY.

the Glossators, of Masters of Sentences, of Angelic Doctors, and of the innumerable crowd of scholastic theologians and canon lawyers, with all their skilful dialectics, could never restore to the minds of men the placid and unbroken trust in the divine inspiration of the Church Mihtant. Few as were the assailants as yet, and inter- mittent as were their attacks, the very number of the defenders and the vigor of the defence show the danger which was recog- nized as dwelling in the spirit of inquiry which had at last been partially aroused from its long slumber.

That spirit had received a powerful impulse from the school of Toledo, whither adventurous scholars flocked as to the fountain where they could take long draughts of Arabic and Grecian and Jewish lore. Even in the darkness of the tenth century Sylvester II., while yet plain Gerbert of Aurillac, had acquired a sinister reputation as a magician, owing to his asserted studies of forbid- den science at that centre of intellectual activity. Towards the middle of the twelfth century Eobert de Ketines, at the instance of Peter the Venerable of Cluny, laid aside for a while his stud- ies in astronomy and geometry, in order to translate the Koran, and enable his patron to controvert the errors of Islam. The works of Aristotle and Ptolemy, of Abubekr, Avicenna, and Alfa- rabi, and finally those of Averrhoes, were rendered into Latin, and were copied with incredible zeal in all the lands of Christendom. The Crusaders, too, brought home with them fragmentary remains of ancient thought which met with an equally warm reception. It is true that judicial astrology was the chief subject of study and speculation among these new-found treasures, but the earnestness with which more fruitful topics were investigated and the danger which lurked in them are evidenced by the repeated prohibitions of the works of Aristotle and the denunciations of their use in the University of Paris. Even more menacing to the Church was the revival of the Civil Law. Whether or not this was caused by the discovery of the Pandects of Amalfi, the ardor with which it came, by the middle of the twelfth century, to be studied in all the great centres of learning is incontestable, and men found, to tlieir sur- prise, that there was a system of jurisprudence of wonderful sym- metry and subtle adjustment of right, immeasurably superior to the clumsy and confused canon law and the barbarous feudal cus- toms, while drawing its authority from immutable justice as rep-


SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS. 59

resented by the sovereign, and not from canon or decretal, from pope or council, or even from Holy Writ. The clearsightedness of St. Bernard was not in fault when, as early as 1149, he recog- nized the danger to the Church, and complained that the courts rang with the laws of Justinian rather than with those of God.*

To understand fully the effect of this intellectual movement upon the popular mind and heart, we must picture to ourselves a state of society in many respects wholly unlike our own. It is not only that in civilized lands settled institutions have rendered men more submissive to law and custom, but the diffusion of intelli- gence and the training of generations have brought them more under the control of reason and rendered them less susceptible to impulse and emotion. Even in modern times we have seen, in outbursts like the Ke volution of '89, the possibilities of popular frenzy when reason is dethroned by passion. Yet the madness of the Keign of Terror is no unapt illustration of the violent emo- tions to which mediaBval populations were subject, for good or for evil, giving occasion to the startling contrasts which render the period so picturesque, and relieve the sordidness of its daily life with splendid exhibitions of the loftiest enthusiasm or with hide- ous deeds of brutality. Unaccustomed to restraint, vigorous man- hood asserted itself in all its greatness and its littleness, whether in wreaking cruel vengeance upon the defenceless or in offering itself joyfully as a sacrifice to humanity. Thrills of delirious emo- tion spread from land to land, arousing the populations from their lethargy in blind attempts to achieve they scarcely knew what — in crusades which bleached the sands of Palestine with Christian bones, in wild excesses of flagellation, in purposeless wanderings of the Pastoureaux. In the deep and hopeless misery which op- pressed the mass of the people there was an ever-present feeling of unrest which constantly saw in the near future the coming of Antichrist, the end of the world, and the Day of Judgment. In the deplorable condition of society, torn with unceasing and sav-


  • Pelayo, Heterodoxos Espanoles 1.405 (Madrid, 1880). — Petri Venerab. 0pp.

pp. 650 sqq. (Ed. Migne). — F. Francisci Pipini Chron. cap. 16. — Rigord. de Gest. Phil. Aug. ann. 1210.— Concil. Paris, ann. 1210.— Gregor. PP. IX. Bull. Cum sa- lutem, 29 Apr. 1231. — S. Bemardi de Consideratione Lib. i. cap. 4.

For the adoration paid to Aristotle by the schoolmen of the twelfth century see John of Salisbury's Metalogicus Lib. ii. c. 16.


60 HERESY.

age neighborhood-war and ground under the iron heel of feudal- ism, the common man might indeed well imagine that the reign of Antichrist was ever imminent, or might welcome any change which possibly might benefit, and scarce could injure, his condi- tion. The invisible world, moreover, with its mysterious attrac- tion and horrible fascination, was ever present and real to every one. Demons were always around him, to smite him with sick- ness, to ruin his pitiful little cornfield or vineyard, or to lure his soul to perdition ; while angels and saints were similarly ready to help him, to listen to his invocations, and to intercede for him at the throne of mercy, which he dared not to address directly. It was among a population thus impressionable, emotional, and su- perstitious, slowly awakening in the intellectual dawn, that ortho- doxy and heterodoxy — the forces of conservatism and progress — were to fight the battle in which neither could win permanent victory.

It is a noteworthy fact, presaging the new form which modern civilization and enlightenment were to assume, that the heresies which were to shake the Church to its foundations were no longer, as of old, mere speculative subtleties propounded by learned theo- logians and prelates in the gradual evolution of Christian doctrine. We have not to deal with men like Arius or Priscillian, or Nesto- rius or Eutyches, scholars and prelates who filled the Church with the disputatious wrangles of their learning. Hierarchical organiza- tion was too perfect, and theological dogma too thoroughly pet- rified, to admit of this; and the occasional deviations, real or assumed, of the schoolmen from orthodoxy, as in the case of Be- renger of Tours, of Abelard, of Gilbert de la Poree, of Peter Lom- bard, of Folkmar von Trieffenstein, were readily suppressed by the machinery of the establishment. Nor have we, for the most part, to deal with the governing classes, for the alliance between Church and State to keep the people in subjection had been handed down from the Koman Empire, and however much monarchs like John of England or Frederic II. had to complain of ecclesiastical preten- sions, they never dared to loosen the foundations on which rested their own prerogatives. As a rule, heresy had to be thoroughly disseminated among the people before those of gentle blood would meddle with it, as we shall see in Languedoc and Lombardy. The blows which brought real danger to the hierarchy came from ob-


ITS CHARACTER AND CAUSE. 61

scure men, laboring among the poor and oppressed, who, in their misery and degradation, felt that the Church had failed in its mis- sion, whether through the worldliness of its ministers or through defects in its doctrine. Among these lost sheep of Israel, like the Goim, whom, neglected and despised by the rabbis, it was Christ's mission to bring into the fold, they found ready and eager listen- ers, and the heresies which they taught divide themselves natu- rally into two classes. On the one hand we have sectaries holding fast to all the essentials of Christianity, with antisacerdotahsm as their mainspring, and on the other hand we have Manichaeans.

In briefly reviewing these and their vicissitudes, it must be borne in mind that, mth scarce an exception, the authorities are exclusively their antagonists and persecutors. Saving a few Wal- densian tracts and a single Catharan ritual, their hterature has wholly perished. We are left, for the most part, to gather their doctrines from those who wrote to confute them or to excite pop- ular odium against them, and we can only learn their struggles and their fate from their ruthless exterminators. I shall say no word in their praise that is not based upon the admissions or accu- sations of their enemies ; and if I reject some of the abuse lavished upon them, it is because that abuse is so manifestly conscious or unconscious exaggeration that it is deprived of all historical value. In general, ih^ prima facie case may be assumed to be in favor of those who were ready to endure persecution and face death for the sake of what they believed to be truth ; nor, in the existing corrup- tion of the Church, can it be imagined, as the orthodox controver- sialists assumed, that any one would place himself outside of the pale for the purpose of more freely indulging disorderly appetites.

The fact is, as we have seen, that the highest authorities in the Church admitted that its scandals were the cause, if not the justi- fication, of heresy. An inquisitor who was actively engaged in its suppression enumerates among the efficient agents in its dissemi- nation the depraved lives of the clergy, their ignorance, leading to the preaching of false and frivolous things, their irreverence for the sacraments, and the hatred commonly entertained for them. Another informs us that the leading arguments of the heretics were drawn from the pride, the avarice, and the unclean lives of clerks and prelates. AU this, according to Lucas, Bishop of Tuy, who laboriously confuted heterodoxy, was exaggerated by false


62 HERESY.

stories of miracles skilfully directed against the observances of the Church and the weaknesses of its ministers ; but if so this was a work of surplusage, for nothing that the heretics could invent was likely to be more appalling than the reality as stated by the most resolute champions of the Church. Not many controversialists, indeed, were capable of the frank assurance of the learned author of the tract which passes under the name of Peter of Pilichdorf, in answering the arguments of the heretics, that the Catholic priests were fornicators and usurers and drunkards and dicers and forgers, by boldly saying, " What then  ? They are none the less priests, and the worst of men who is a priest is worthier than the most holy la3rman. Was not Judas Iscariot, on account of his apostleship, worthier than N^athaniel, though less holy?" The Troubadour Inquisitor Isarn only uttered a truth generally recog- nized when he said that no believer would be misled into Cath- arism or Waldensianism if he had a good pastor :

"Ja no fara crezens heretje ni baudes Si agues bon pastor que lur contradisses." *

The antisacerdotal heresies were directed against the abuses in doctrine and practice which priestcraft had invented to enslave the souls of men. One feature common to them all was a revival of the Donatist tenet that the sacraments are polluted in polluted hands, so that a priest living in mortal sin is incapable of ad- ministering them. In the existing condition of ecclesiastical mor- als this was destructive to the functions of nearly the whole body of the priesthood, and its readiness as a means of attack had been facilitated by the policy of the Holy See in its efforts to suppress clerical marriage and concubinage. In 1059 the Synod of Rome, under the impulsion of Nicholas II., had adopted a canon forbid- ding any one to be present at the mass of a priest known to keep a concubine or wife. This was inviting the flock to sit in judg- ment on the pastor ; and though it remained virtually a dead let- ter for fifteen years, when it was revived and effectually put in


  • Reinerii contra Waldenses cap. 3. — Tractatus de Modo procedendi contra

H8ereticos(MSS. Bib. Nat. Coll. Doat XXX. 185 sqq.).— Lucse Tudensis de Altera Vita Lib. iii. cap. 7-10. — P. de Pilichdorf contra Waldenses cap. 16. — Passaviens. Anon. (Preger, Beitrage, pp. 64-67).— Raynouard, Lexique Roman, V. 471.


THE SACRAMENTS IN POLLUTED HANDS. 63

force by Gregory VII., in 1074, it produced immense confusion, for continent priests were rare exceptions. So violent was the con- test excited that, in 1077, at Cambrai, the married or concubinary priesthood actually burned at the stake an unfortunate who reso- lutely maintained the orthodoxy of the papal rescripts. The orders of Gregory were reiterated by Innocent II. as late as the Council of Keims, in 1131, and in that of Lateran, in 1139, and Gra- tian embodied the whole series in the canon law, where they still remain. Although Urban II. had endeavored to point out that it was merely a matter of discipline, and that the virtue of the sacra- ments remained unaltered in the hands of the worst of men, still it was difficult for the popular mind to recognize so subtle a distinction. A learned theologian like Geroch of Reichersperg might safely de- clare that he paid no more attention to the masses of concubinary priests than if they were those of so many pagans, and yet be un- impeached in his orthodoxy, but to minds less robust in faith the question presented insoluble difficulties. Albero, a priest of Mercke, near Cologne, shortly afterwards, when he taught that the consecration of the host was imperfect in sinful hands, was forced, by the unanimous testimony of the Fathers, to recant ; but he adopted the theory that such sacraments were profitable to those who took them in ignorance of the wickedness of the cele- brant, while they were useless to the dead and to those who were cognizant of the sin. This was likewise heretical, and Albero's offer to prove its orthodoxy by undergoing the ordeal of fire was rejected on the logical ground that sorcery might thus enable false doctrine to triumph. The question continued to plague the Church until, about 1230, Gregory IX. abandoned the position of his pred- ecessors, and undertook to settle it by an authoritative decision that every priest in mortal sin is suspended, as far as concerns himself, until he repents and is absolved, yet his offices are not to be avoided, because he is not suspended as regards others, unless the sin is notorious by judicial confession or sentence, or by evi- dence so clear that no tergiversation is possible. To the Church it was, of course, impossible to admit that the virtue of the sacra- ment depended upon the virtue of the ministrant, but these fine- drawn distinctions show how the question troubled the minds of the faithful, and how readily the heresy could suggest itself that transubstantiation might fail in the hands of the wicked. In fact,


64 HERESY.

even without the suggestive commands of Gregory and Innocent, to a thoughtful and pious mind there was a grievous incompatibility between the awful powers vested by the Church in her ministers and the flagitious lives which disgraced so many of them. That the error should be stubborn was unavoidable. As late as 1396 it was taught by Jean de Yarennes, a priest of the Remois, who was forced to recant, and in 1458 we find Alonso de Spina declaring it to be common to the Waldenses, the Wickliffites, and the Hussites.*

One or two of the earlier antisacerdotal heresies may be men- tioned which were local and temporary in their character, but which yet have interest as showing how ready were the lower ranks of the people to rise in revolt against the Church, and how contagious was the enthusiasm excited by any leader bold enough to voice the general feeling of unrest and discontent. About 1108, in the Zeeland Isles, there appeared a preacher named Tan- chelm, who seems to have been an apostate monk, subtle and skilled in disputation. He taught the nullity of aU hierarchical dignities, from pope to simple clerk, that the Eucharist was pol- luted in unworthy hands, and that tithes were not to be paid. The people listened eagerly, and after fiUing aU Flanders with his heresy, he found in Antwerp an appropriate centre of influence. Although that city was already populous and wealthy through commerce, it had but a single priest, and he, involved in an inces- tuous union with a near relative, had neither leisure nor inclination for his duties. A people thus destitute of orthodox instruction feU an easy prey to the tempter and eagerly followed him, rever- encing him to that degree that the water in which he bathed was distributed and preserved as a reHc. He readily raised a force of three thousand fighting men, with which he dominated the land,


  • Concil. Roman, ann. 1059, can. 3. — Lambert. Hersfeld. ann. 1074. — Gregor.

PP. VII. Epist. Extrav. 4; Regist. Lib. iv. Ep. 20. — Concil. Remens. ann. 1131, c. 5. — Concil. Lateran. IL ann. 1139, c. 7. — c. 5, 6, Deciet. L xxxii. ; c. 15; L Ixxxi. — Gerhohi Dial, de Different. Cleri. Cf. Ejusd. Lib. contr. duas Haereses c. 3, 6 ; Dialogus de Clericis Saecul. et Regular. — Anon. Libell. adv. Errores Al- beronis (Martene Ampliss. Collect. IX. 1251-1270).— Can. 10 Extra Lib. ni. tit. ii. — D'Argentrg, Collect. Judic. de novis Erroribus, I. ii. 154.— Fortalicium Fidei, fol. 62 5 (Ed. 1494). The importance of the question in the twelfth century is shown by the number of canons devoted to it by Gratian.


TANCHELM. 65

nor was there duke or bishop who dared withstand him. The stories that he pretended to be God and the equal of Jesus Christ, and that he celebrated his marriage with the Virgin Mary, may safely be rejected as the embroideries of frightened clerks ; nor could Tanchelm have really considered himself as a heretic, for we find him visiting Eome with a few followers for the purpose of obtaining a division of the extensive see of Utrecht and the al- lotment of a portion of it to the episcopate of Terouane. On his return from Eome, in 1112, while passing through Cologne, he and his retinue were thrown in prison by the archbishop, who the next year summoned a synod to sit in judgment on them. Several of them purged themselves by the water-ordeal, while others suc- ceeded in escaping by flight. Of these, three were burned at Bonn, preferring a frightful death to abandoning their faith, while Tanchelm himself reached Bruges in safety. The anathema which had been pronounced against him, however, had impaired his credit, and the clergy of Bruges had little difficulty in procuring his ejectment. Yet Antwerp remained faithful, and he continued his missionary career until 1115, when, being in a boat with but few followers, a zealous priest piously knocked him on the head, and his soul went to rejoin its master, Satan. Even this did not suppress the effect of his teaching and his heresy continued to flourish. In vain the bishop gave twelve assistants to the lonely priest of St. Michael's in Antwerp ; it was not until 1126, when St. Norbert, the ardent ascetic who founded the Premonstratensian order, was placed in charge of the city with his followers, and undertook to evangehze it with his burning eloquence, that the people could be brought back to the faith. St. JS'orbert built other churches and filled them with disciples zealous as himself, and the stubborn heretics were docile enough to pastors who taught by example as well as by words their sympathy for those who had so long been neglected. Consecrated hosts which had lain hidden for fifteen years in chinks and corners were brought forth by pious souls, and the heresy vanished without leaving a trace.*


  • Hartzheim Concil. German. III. 763-766. — Meyeri Annal. Flandriae Lib. iv.

ann. 1113-1115. — Sigeberti Gemblacens. Contin. Valcellens. ann. 1115.— P. Abae- lardi Introd. ad Theolog. Lib. ii. cap. 4. — Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. ann. 1127. — Vit. S. Norbert. Archiep. Magdeburg, cap. iii. No. 79, 80. I.— 5


66 HERESY.

Somewhat similar was the heresy propagated not long after- wards in Brittany by £on de Pfitoile, except that in this case the heresiarch was unquestionably insane. Sprung from a noble fam- ily, he had gained a reputation for sanctity by the hf e of a hermit in the wilderness, when, from the words of the collect, " per eum qui venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos," he conceived the idea that he was the Son of God. It was not difficult to find sharers in this belief who adored him as the Deity incarnate, and he soon had a numerous band of followers, with whose aid he pillaged the churches of their ill-used treasures, and distributed them to the poor. The heresy became sufficiently formidable to induce the legate, Cardinal Alberic of Ostia, to preach against it at ]S"antes in 1145, and Hugues, Archbishop of Rouen, to combat it with dreary polemics; but the most convincing argument used was the sol- diery despatched against the heretics, many of whom were cap- tured and burned at Alet, refusing obstinately to recant, fion re- tired to Aquitaine for a season, but in 1148 he ventured to appear in Champagne, where he was seized with his followers by Samson, Archbishop of Eeims, and brought before Eugenius III. at the Council of Eouen. Here his insanity was so manifest that he was charitably consigned to the care of Suger, Abbot of St. Denis, where he soon after died, but many of his disciples were stubborn, and preferred the stake to recantation.*

More durable and more formidable were the heresies which about the same time took stubborn root in the south of France, where the condition of society was especially favorable for their propagation. There the population and civihzation were whoUy different from those of the north. The first wave of the Aryan invasion of Europe had driven to the Mediterranean littoral the ancient Ligurian inhabitants, who had left abundant traces of their race in the swarthy skins and black hair of their descendants. Greek and Phoenician colonies had still further crossed the blood. Gothic domination had been long continued, and the Merovingian conquest had scarce given to the Frank a foothold in the soil.

  • Sigibert. Gemblac. Continuat. Gemblac. ann. 1146. — Ejusd. Continuat.

Praemonstrat. ann. 1148. — Robert! de Monte Chron. ann. 1148. — Guilliel. de Newburg. Lib. i. cap. 19. — Otton. Frising. de Gest. Frid. I. Lib. i. cap. 54, 55. — Ha- gon. Rothomag. contr. Haeret. Lib. iii. cap. 6. — Schmidt,Histoiredes Cathares, 1. 49,


CIVILIZATION OF SOUTHERN FRANCE. 67

Even Saracenic elements were not wanting to make up the strange admixture of races which rendered the citizen of Narbonne or Mar- seilles so different a being from the inhabitant of Paris — quite as different as the Langue d'Oc from the Langue d'Oyl. The feudal tie which bound the Count of Toulouse, or the Marquis of Pro- vence, or the Duke of Aquitaine to the King of Paris or the Em- peror was but feeble, and when the last named fief was carried by Eleanor to Henry II., the rival pretensions of England and France preserved the virtual independence of the great feudato- ries of the South, leading to antagonisms of which we shall see the full fruits in the Albigensian crusades.

The contrast of civilization was as marked as that of race. 'No- where in Europe had culture and luxury made such progress as in the south of France. Chivalry and poetry were assiduously culti- vated by the nobles ; and, even in the cities, which had acquired for themselves a large measure of freedom, and which were en- riched by trade and commerce, the citizens boasted a degree of education and enlightenment unknown elsewhere. Nowhere in Europe, moreover, were the clergy more neghgent of their duties or more despised by the people. There was little earnestness of religious conviction among either prelates or nobles to stimulate persecution, so that there was considerable freedom of belief. In no other Christian land did the despised Jew enjoy such privi- leges. His right to hold land in frano-alleu was similar to that of the Christian ; he was admitted to public office, and his adminis- trative abihty rendered him a favorite in such capacity with both prelate and noble  ; his synagogues were undisturbed  ; and the He- brew school of Narbonne was renowned in Israel as the home of the Kimchis. Under such influences, those who reaUy possessed rehgious convictions were but little deterred by prejudice or the fear of persecution from criticising the shortcomings of the Church, or from seeking what might more nearly respond to their aspirations.*

  • Saige, Les Juifs du Languedoc. P. i. ch. ii. ; P. ii. ch. ii. (Paris, 1881), The

same causes were at work in Spain, where the faithful complained that they were lot allowed to persecute the Jew (Lucse Tudens. de altera Vita Lib. iii. cap. 3), md missionary work among the slaves of Jews was rendered costly by forcing

he bishop of the diocese to pay to the master an extortionate price for every

elftve converted to Christianity and thus set free, for Jews could not hold Chris-


68 HERESY.

It was in such a population as this that the first antisacerdotal heresy was preached in Vallonise about 1106, by Pierre de Bruys, a native of the diocese of Embrun. The prelates of Embrun, Gap, and Die endeavored in vain to stay his progress until they pro- cured assistance from the king, when he was driven out and took refuge in Gascony. For twenty years he continued his mission, and the openness and success with which he taught is shown by the story that in one place, to show his contempt for the objects of sacerdotal veneration, he caused a great pile of consecrated crosses to be accumulated, and then, setting fire to them, deliberately roasted meat at the flames. Persecution at length became more active, and about the year 1126 he was seized and burned at St. Gilles.

His teaching was simply antisacerdotal — to some extent a re- vival of the errors of Claudius of Turin. Paedo-baptism was use- less, for the faith of another cannot help him who cannot use his own — a far-reaching proposition, fraught with immeasurable con- sequences. For the same reason offerings, alms, masses, prayers and other good works for the dead are useless and each will be judged on his own merits. Churches are unnecessary and should be destroyed, for holy places are not wanted for Christian prayer, since God listens to those who deserve it, whether invoked in church or tavern, in temple or market-place, before the altar or before the stable ; and the Church of God does not consist of a multitude of stones piled together, but in the united congregation of the faithful. As for the cross, as a senseless thing it is not to be invoked with foohsh prayers, but is rather to be destroyed as the instrument on which Christ was cruelly tortured to death. His most serious error, however, was his rejection of the Eucharist. Transubstantiation had not yet had time to become immovably fixed in the perceptions of all men, and Pierre de Bruys went even further than Berenger of Tours. His only recorded utterance is his vigorous rejection of the sacrament : " O people, beheve not the bishops, the priests, and the clerks, who, as in much else, seek to deceive you as to the office


tian slaves. They were also relieved from the oppressive tax of the tithe (Inno- cent. III. Regest. VIII. 50 ; ix. 150). Even until late in the thirteenth century we find Jews freely holding real estate in Languedoc. See MSS. Bib. Nat. Coll. Doat. T. XXXVII. fol. 20, 146, 148, 149, 151, 153.

For the independence of the communes, see Fauriel's edition of William of Tudela, Introd. pp. Iv. sq., and Mazure et Hatoulet, Fors de B^arn, p. xliii.


PETROBRUSIANS AND HENRICIANS. 69

of the altar, where they lyingly pretend to make the body of Christ and give it to you for the salvation of your souls. They plainly lie, for the body of Christ was but once made by Christ in the supper before the Passion, and but once given to the disciples. Since then it has been never made and never given." *

There was evidently nothing to do with such a man but to burn him, but even this did not suffice to suppress his heresy. The Pe- trobrusians continued to diffuse his doctrines, secretly or openly, and, some five or six years after his death, Peter the Venerable of Cluny considered them still so formidable as to require his contro- versial tract, to which we are indebted for almost all we know about the sect. This is dedicated to the bishops of Embrun, Aries, Die, and Gap, and urges them to renewed efforts for the suppression of the heresy by preaching and by the arms of the laity.

All their efforts might well be needed, for Peter was succeeded by a yet more formidable heresiarch. Little is known of the earher life of Henry, the Monk of Lausanne, except that he left his con- vent there under circumstances for which St. Bernard afterwards reproached him, but which may well have been but the first ebul- lition of the reformatory spirit to which he finally fell a victim. We next hear of him at Le Mans, perhaps as early as 1116, but the dates are uncertain. Here his austerities gained him the venera- tion of the people, which he turned with disastrous effect upon the clergy. We know little of his doctrines at this time, except that he rejected the invocation of saints, but we are told that his elo- quence was so persuasive that under its influence women abandoned their jewels and sumptuous apparel, and young men married cour- tesans to reclaim them. While thus teaching asceticism and char- ity, he so lashed the vices of the Church that the clergy throughout the diocese would have been destroyed but for the active protection of the nobles. Henry had taken advantage of the absence in Eome of the bishop, the celebrated Hildebert of Le Mans, who, on his re- turn, overcame the heretic in disputation and forced him to abandon the -field, but could not punish him. We have glimpses of his ac- tivity in Poitiers and Bordeaux, and then lose sight of him till we

  • Jonae. Aureliens. de Cultu Imaginum. — Petri Venerab. Tract, contra Petro-

brusianos. — P. Abajhirdi Introd. ad Theolog. Lib. ii. cap. 4. — Alphonsi a Castro adv. Haereses Lib. in. p. 168 (Ed. 1571).— Fisquet,La France Pontificale, Embrun, p. 848.


^


YO HERESY.

find him a prisoner of the Archbishop of Aries, who took him to the presence of Innocent II. at the Council of Pisa, in 1134. Here he was convicted of heresy and condemned to imprisonment, but was subsequently released and sent back to his convent, whence he departed with the intention of entering the strict Cistercian order at Clairvaux. What led to his resuming his heretical mission we do not know, but we meet him again, bolder than before, adopting substantially the Petrobrusian tenets, rejecting the Eucharist, refus- ing all reverence for the priesthood, all tithes, oblations, and other sources of ecclesiastical revenue, and all attendance at church.

The scene of this activity was southern France, where the em- bers of Petrobrusianism were ready to be kindled into flame. His success was immense. In 1147 St. Bernard despairingly describes the condition of religion in the extensive territories of the Count of Toulouse : " The churches are without people, the people with- out priests, the priests without the reverence due them, and Chris- tians without Christ. The churches are regarded as synagogues, the sanctuary of the Lord is no longer holy ; the sacraments are no more held sacred ; feast days are without solemnities ; men die in their sins, and their souls are hurried to the dread tribunal, nei- ther reconciled by penance nor fortified by the holy communion. The little ones of Christ are debarred from life since baptism is denied them. The voice of a single heretic silences all those apos- tolic and prophetic voices which have united in calling all the na- tions into the Church of Christ." The prelates of southern France were powerless to arrest the progress of the bold heresiarch, and imploringly appealed for assistance. The nobles would not aid them, for, like the people, they hated the clergy and were glad of the excuses which Henrj^'s doctrines gave them for spoiling and oppressing the Church. The papal legate, Alberic, was summoned, and he prevailed upon St. Bernard to accompany him with Geof- frey, Bishop of Chartres, and other men of mark. Though St. Bernard was sick, the perilous condition of the tottering establish- ment aroused all his zeal, and he unflinchingly undertook the mis- sion. What was the condition of popular feeling and how .boldly it dared to express itself may be gathered from the reception of the legate at Albi, where the people went forth to meet him with asses and drums in sign of derision, and when they were convoked to be present at his celebration of mass scarcely thirty attended.


THE HENRICIANS. 71

If we may believe the accounts of his disciples, the success of Ber- nard was immense. His reputation had preceded him, and it was heightened by the stories of miracles which he daily performed, no less than by his burning eloquence and skill in disputation. Crowds flocked to hear him preach, and were converted. At Albi, two days after the miserable failure of the legate, St. Bernard arrived, and the cathedral was scarcely able to hold the multitude which assembled to listen to him. On the conclusion of his discourse he adjured them : ^' Repent, then, all ye who have been contaminated. Return to the Church ; and that we may know who repents, let each penitent raise his right hand" — and every hand was raised. Scarce less effective was his rejoinder when, after preaching to an immense assemblage, he mounted his horse to depart and a hard- ened heretic, thinking to confuse him, said, " My lord abbot, our heretic, of whom you think so ill, has not a horse so fat and spirited as yours." " Friend," replied the saint, " I deny it not. The horse eats and grows fat for itself, for it is but a brute and by nature given to its appetites, whereby it offends not God. But before the judgment seat of God I and your master will not be judged by horse's necks, but each by his own neck, JSTow, then, look at my neck and see if it is fatter than your master's, and if you can justly reprehend me." Then he threw down his cowl and displayed his neck, long and thin and wasted by maceration and austerities, to the confusion of the misbehevers. If he failed to make converts at Yerfeil, where a hundred knights refused to listen to him, he at least had the satisfaction of cursing them, which we are assured caused them all to perish miserably.

St. Bernard challenged Henry to a disputation, which the pru- dent heretic declined, whether through fear of his antagonist's eloquence or a reasonable regard for the safety of his own person. It mattered little which, for his refusal discredited him in the eyes of many of the nobles who had hitherto protected him, and thence- forth he was obhged to lie in hiding. Orthodoxy took heart and was soon on his track : he was captured the next year and brought in chains before his bishop. His end is not known, but he is pre- sumed to have died in prison.*


  • S. Bcrnardi Epistt. 241, 242.— Gesta Pontif. Ccnomanens. (D. Bouquet T. XII.

pp. 547-551, 554).— Ilildebcrt. Cenoman. Epistt. 23, 24.— S. Bcruardi Vit. Prim.


72 HERESY.

We hear no more of the Ilenricians as a definite sect, though in 1151 a young girl, miraculously inspired by the Virgin Mary, is said to have converted many of them, and they probably continued to exist throughout Languedoc, furnishing material in the next gen- eration for the spread of the Waldenses. We have scanty indica- tions, however, in widely separated places, of the existence of sec- taries probably Henrician, showing how, in spite of persecution, the antisacerdotal spirit continued to manifest itself. Contempo- rary with St. Bernard's mission to Languedoc is a letter addressed to him by Evervin, Provost of Steinfeld, imploring his aid against heretics recently discovered at Cologne — some Manichaeans and others, evidently Henricians, who had betrayed themselves by their mutual quarrels. These Henricians boasted that their sect was numerously scattered throughout all the lands of Christendom, and their zeal is shown by an allusion to those among their number who perished at the stake. Probably Henrician, too, were heretics who infested Perigord under a teacher named Pons, whose austerities and external holiness drew to them numerous adherents, including nobles and priests, monks and nuns. Besides the antisacerdotal tenets described above, these enthusiasts anticipated St. Francis in proclaiming poverty to be essential to salvation and in refusing to receive money. The impression which they produced upon a worldly generation is shown by the marvellous legends which grew around them. They courted persecution and sought for persecutors who should slay them, yet they could not be punished, for their master, Satan, liberated them from chains and prison. Thus if one should be fettered hand and foot and placed under an inverted hogs- head watched by guards, he would disappear until it pleased him to return. We know nothing as to the fate of Pons and his dis- ciples, but their numbers and activity were a manifestation of the pervading disquiet and yearning for a change.^

Arnald of Brescia's heresy was much more limited in its scope. A pupil of Abelard, he was accused of sharing his master's errors.


Lib. ni. cap. 6 ; Lib. vii. p. iii. ad calcem ; Lib. vii. cap. 17.— Guill. de Podio- Laurent. cap. 1. — Alberic. Trium Font. Chron. ann. 1148.

  • Matt. Paris. Hist. Angl. ann. 1151.— S. Bernardi Epist. 472.— Hereberti

Monachi Epist. (D. Bouquet. XH. 550-551).


ARNALD OF BRESCIA. 73

and incorrect notions respecting pasdo-baptism and the Eucharist were attributed to him. Whatever may have been his theological aberrations, his real offence was the energetic way in which he lashed the vices of the clergy and stimulated the laity to repossess the ample wealth and extended privileges which the Church had acquired. Profoundly convinced that the evils of Christendom arose from the worldliness of the ecclesiastical body, he taught that the Church should hold neither temporal possessions nor juris- diction, and should confine itself rigidly to its spiritual functions. Of austere and commanding virtue, irreproachable in his self-deny- ing life, trained in all the learning of the schools, and gifted with rare persuasive eloquence, he became the terror of the hierarchy, and found the laity ready enough to listen and to act upon doc- trines which satisfied their worldly aspirations as well as their spiritual longings. The second Lateran Council, in 1139, endeav- ored to suppress the revolt which he excited in the Lombard cities by condemning and imposing silence on him ; he refused obedi- ence, and the next year Innocent II., in approving the proceed- ings of the Council of Sens, included him in the condemnation of Abelard, and ordered both to be imprisoned and their writings burned. Arnald had fled from Italy to France, and now he was driven to Switzerland, where we find his restless activity at work in Constance and then in Zurich, pursued by the sleepless watch- fulness of St. Bernard. According to the latter, his conquests over souls in Switzerland were rapid, for his teeth were arms and arrows, and his tongue was a sharp sword. After the death of Innocent II. he returned to Rome, where he seems to have been reconciled to Eugenius III. in 1146 or 1146. The new pope, speedily wearied with the turbulence of the city which had ex- hausted his predecessors, abandoned it and finally sought refuge in France. Arnald was not idle in these movements, and was generally held responsible for them. Yain were the remonstrances of St. Bernard to the Roman commonalty, and equally vain his appeals to the Emperor Conrad to restore the papal power by force. At the same time Conrad treated with disdain envoys sent by the Roman republic, protesting that their object was to restore the imperial supremacy as it had existed under the Caesars, and inviting him to come and assume tlie empire of Italy. Eugenius, on his return to Italy, in 1148, issued from Brescia a cond-^mna-


74 HERESY.

tion of Arnald, directed especially to his supporters among the Eoman clergy, who were threatened with deprivation of prefer- ment ; but the citizens stood firm, and the pope was only allowed to return to his city on condition of allowing Arnald to remain there. After the death of Conrad III., in 1152, Eugenius III. hastened to mn the support of the new King of the Eomans, Fred- eric Barbarossa, by intimating that Arnald and his partisans were conspiring to elect another emperor and make the empire Roman in fact as well as in name. The papal favor seemed necessary to Frederic to secure his coveted coronation and recognition. Blind- ly overlooking the irreconcilable antagonism between the temporal and spiritual swords, he cast his fortunes with the pope, swore to subdue for him the rebellious city and regain for him the territory of which he had been deprived ; while Eugenius, on his side, prom- ised to crown him when he should invade Italy, and to use freely the artillery of excommunication for the abasement of his enemies. The domination of the Roman populace has not been wholly mod- erate and peaceful. In more than one emeute the palaces of noble and cardinal had been sacked and destroyed and their persons maltreated, and at length, in 1154, in some popular uprising, the cardinal of Santa Pudenziana was slain. Adrian lY., the master- ful Englishman who had recently ascended the papal throne, took advantage of the opportunity and set the novel example of laying an interdict on the capital of Christianity until Arnald should be expelled from the city ; the fickle populace, dismayed at the de- privation of the sacrament, indispensable to all Christians at the approaching Easter solemnities, were withdrawn from his support, and he retired to the castle of a friendly baron of the Campagna. The next year Frederic reached Rome, after entering into engage- ments with Adrian which included the sacrifice of Arnald, and he lost no time in performing his share of the bargain. Arnald's protectors were summoned to surrender him, and were obliged to obey. For the cruel ending the Church sought to shirk the re- sponsibility, but there would seem to be no reasonable doubt that he was regularly condemned by a spiritual tribunal as a heretic, for he was in holy orders, and could be tried only by the Church, after which he was handed over to the secular arm for punishment. He was offered pardon if he would recant his erroneous doctrines, but he persistently refused, and passed his last moments in silent


ARNALDISTAS. Y5

prayer. Whether or not he was mercifully hanged before being reduced to ashes is perhaps doubtful, but those ashes were cast into the Tiber to prevent the people of Kome from preserving them as relics and honoring him as a martyr. It was not long before Frederic had ample cause to repent the loss of an ally who might have saved him from the bitter humiliation of his surrender to Alexander III.*

Though the immediate influence of Arnald of Brescia was evanescent, his career has its importance as a manifestation of the temper with which the more spiritually minded received the en- croachments and corruption of the Church. Yet, though he failed in his attempt to revolutionize society, and perished through mis- calculating the tremendous forces arrayed against him, his sacri- fice was not wholly in vain. His teachings left a deep impress in the minds of the population, and his followers in secret cherished his memory and his principles for centuries. It was not without a full knowledge of the position that the Koman curia scattered his ashes in the Tiber, dreading the effect of the veneration which the people felt for their martyr. Secret associations of Arnaldistas were formed who called themselves " Poor Men," and adopted the tenet that the sacraments could only be administered by virtuous men. In 1184 we find them condemned by Lucius III. at the so- called Council of Yerona ; about 1190 they are alluded to by Bonac- corsi, and even until the sixteenth century their name occurs in the lists of heresies proscribed in successive bulls and edicts. Yet the complete oblivion into which they fell is seen in the learned glossa- tor Johannes Andreas, who died in 1348, remarking that perhaps the name of the sect may be derived from some one who founded it. When Peter Waldo of Lyons endeavored, in more pacific wise, to carry out the same views, and his followers grew into the Poor


  • S. Bernard! Epistt. 189, 195, 196, 243, 244.— Gualt. Mapes de Nugis Curia-

lium Dist. i. cap. xxiv.— Otton. Frisingens. de Gestis Fiid. I. Lib. i. cap. 27 ; Lib. ii. cap. 20.— Harduin. Concil. YI. ii. 1224.— Martene Ampliss. Collect. II. 554-558.— Guntheri Ligurin. Lib. iii. 262-348.— Gerhohi Reichersperg. de Investigat. Anti- christi I.— Baroiiii Annal. ami. 1148, No. 38.— Jafie Regesta, No. 6445. — Vit. Adri- ani PP. m. (Muratori IIL 441, 442).— Sachsische Weltchronik, No. 301.— Can- tii, Eretici d'ltalia, I. 61-63.— Tocco, L'Eresia nel Medio Evo, pp. 242, 243.— Comba, La Riforma in Italia, I. 193, 194.— Bonghi, Arnaldo da Brescia, Citttt di Castello, 1885.


76 HERESY.

Men of Lyons," the Italian brethren were ready to welcome the new reformers and to co-operate with them. Though there were some unimportant points of difference between the two schools, yet their resemblance was so great that they virtually coalesced ; they were usually confounded by the Church, and were enveloped in a common anathema. Closely connected with them were the Umili- ati, described as wandering laymen who preached and heard con- fessions, to the great scandal of the priesthood, but who were yet not strictly heretics.*

Far greater in importance and more durable in results was the antisacerdotal movement unconsciously set on foot by Peter Waldo of Lyons, in the second half of the twelfth century. He was a rich merchant, unlearned, but eager to acquire the truths of Script- ure, to which end he caused the translation into Romance of the New Testament and a collection of extracts from the Fathers, known as "Sentences." Diligently studying these, he learned them by heart, and arrived at the conviction that nowhere was the apostolic life observed as commanded by Christ. Striving for evangelical perfection, he gave his wife the choice between his real estate and his movables. On her selecting the former, he sold the latter  ; portioned his two daughters, and placed them in the Abbey of Fontevraud, and distributed the rest of the proceeds among the poor then suffering from a famine. It is related that after this he begged for bread of an acquaintance who promised to support him during his life, and this coming to the ears of his wife, she appealed to the archbishop, who ordered him in future

  • Lucii PP. III. Epist. 171.— Bonacursi Vit. Hsereticor. (D'Achery T. I. 214,

215). — Constit. General. Frid. II. ann. 1220 § 5. — Ejusd. Constit. Ravennat. ann. 1232. — Conrad. Urspergens. ann. 1210. — Pauli ^milii de Rebus. Gest. Fran. Lib. VI. p. 316 (Ed. 1569).— Nicolai PP. III. Bull. Noverit Universitas, 5 Mart. 1280.— Julii PP. II. Bull Consueverunt, 1 Mart. 1511.— Innocent. PP. III. Regest. ii. 228. — Joann. Andreae Gloss, super cap, Excoramunicamus (Eymerici Direct. Inquisit. p. 182). The name of the Poor Men of Lyons was likewise forgotten, for An- dreas's only remark with respect to them is that poverty is not a crime-in itself.

The differences between the Italian and French Waldenses are set forth in a very interesting letter from tlie former to the German brethren, subsequently to a conference held at Bergamo in 1218. This was discovered about twelve years ago by Wilhelm Preger in a MS. of the Royal Library of Munich, and is printed in his Beitrage zur Geschichte der Waldesier im Mittelalter, 1875.


PETER WALDO. 77

to accept food only from her. Devoting himself to preaching the gospel through the streets and by the wayside, admiring imitators of both sexes sprang up around him, whom he despatched as mis- sionaries to the neighboring towns. They entered houses, an- nouncing the gospel to the inmates  ; they preached in the church- es, they discoursed in the public places, and everywhere they found eager listeners, for, as we have seen, the negligence and indolence of the clergy had rendered the function of preaching almost a for- gotten duty. According to the fashion of the time, they speed- ily adopted a peculiar form of dress, including, in imitation of the apostles, a sandal with a kind of plate upon it, whence they ac- quired the name of the " Shoed," Insabbatati, or Zaptati — though the appellation which they bestowed upon themselves was that of Li Poure de Lyod, or Poor Men of Lyons.*

  • Chron. Canon. Lauclunens. ann. 1173 (Bouquet XIII. 680). — Steph. de Bor-

bone s. Bellavilla Lib. de Sept. Donis Spiritus, P. iv. Tit. vii. cap. 3 (D'Argentrg Coll. Judicior. de Nov. Error. I. i. 85 sqq.). — Richard. Cluniacens. Vit. Alex. PP. III. (Muratori IIL 447). — David Augustens. Tract, de Paup. de Lugd. (Mar- tene Thesaur. V. 1778).— Monetae adv. Catb. et Waldens. Lib. v. cap. 1 § 4.— Pet. Sarnens. cap. 2. — Passaviens. Anon. ap. Gretser (Mag. Bib. Pat. Ed. 1618, T. XIII. p. 300). — Petri de Pilichdorf contr. Haeres. Waldens. cap. 1. — Pegnae Com- ment. 39 in Eymerici Direct. Inquis. p. 280.

The pretension of the Waldenses to descend from the primitive Church through the Leonistae and Claudius of Turin is, I believe, now generally aban- doned. See Edouard Montet, Histoire Litt. des Vaudois, Paris, 1885, pp. 32, 33; Prof. Emilio Comba, in the Rivista Christiana, Giugno, 1882, pp. 200-206, and his Riforma in Italia, I. 233 sqq. — Bernard Gui, in his Practica, P. v. (MSS. Bib. Nat. Coll. Doat, T. XXX. fol. 185 sqq.), following Richard of Cluny and Stephen of Bourbon, places the rise of Peter Waldo about 1170, and the Canon of Laon gives the date of 1173.

The time and place of Peter Waldo's death are unknown. His French disci- ples affectionately revered his memory and that of his assistant Vivet, to the ex- tent of asserting, as a point of belief, that they were in Paradise with God ; the Lombard branch, however, would only prudently admit that they might be saved if they had satisfied God before death ; both sides were obstinate, and at the Conference of Bergamo, in 1218, this promised to make a schism (Rescript. Paup. Lombard. 15. — W. Preger, Beitrage zur Geschichte der Waldesier, pp. 58, 59).

Waldensian literature long retained the impress given to it by Waldo of stringing together extracts from the Fathers of the Church. The slavishness with which these were followed is curiously exemplified in an exposition of Canticles analyzed by M. Moutet (op. cit. p. 66). The verse " Take us the little


78 HERESY.

It Wtos not possible that ignorant zeal could thus undertake the office of religious instruction without committing errors which acute theologians could detect. It is not likely, moreover, that it would spare the vices and crimes of the clergy in summoning the faithful to repentance and salvation. Complaint speedily arose of the scandals which the new evangelists disseminated, and the Arch- bishop of Lyons, Jean aux Bellesmains, summoned them before him, and prohibited them from further preaching. They diso- beyed and were excommunicated. Peter Waldo then appealed to the pope (probably Alexander III.), who approved his vow of pov- erty and authorized him to preach when permitted by the priests — a restriction which was observed for a time and then disregard- ed. The obstinate Poor Men gradually put forward one danger- ous tenet after another, while their attacks upon the clergy became sharper and sharper  ; yet as late as the year 1179 they came before the Council of Lateran, submitted their version of the Scriptures, and asked for license to preach. Walter Mapes, who was present, ridicules their ignorant simplicity, and chuckles over his own shrewdness in confusing them when he was delegated to examine their theological acquirements, yet he bears emphatic testimony to their holy poverty and zeal in imitating the apostles and following Christ. Again they applied to Eome for authority to found an order of preachers, but Lucius III. objected to their sandals, to their monkish copes, and to the companionship of men and women in their wandering life. Finding them obstinate, he finally anathe- matized them at the Council of Verona in 1184, but they stiU re- fused to abandon their mission, or even to consider themselves as separated from the Church. Though again condemned in a coun- cil held at Narbonne, they agreed, about 1190, to take the chances of a disputation held in the Cathedral of Narbonne, with Kaymond of Daventer, a religious and God-fearing Cathohc, as judge. Of


foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines " (Cant. ii. 15) in mediseval exegesis was traditionally explained by the ravages of heretics in the Church. In the papal bulls urging the Inquisition to redoubled activity the heretics are habitually alluded to as the foxes vs^hich ravage the vineyard of the Lord. If any original- ity could be looked for in Waldensian exposition, we might expect it in this passage, and yet Angelomus, Bruno, and Bernard are duly quoted by the Wal- densian teacher to show that the foxes are heretics and the vines are the Church.


THE WALDENSES. 79

course the decision went against them, and of course they were as little inclined as before to submit, but the colloquy has an interest as showing what progress at that period they had made in dissi- dence from Rome. The six points on which the argument was held were, 1st. That they refused obedience to the authority of pope and prelate ; 2d. That all, even laymen, can preach  ; 3d. That, according to the apostles, God is to be obeyed rather than man ; 4th. That women may preach ; 5th. That masses, prayers, and alms for the dead are of no avail, with the addition that some of them denied the existence of purgatory ; and 6th. That prayer in bed, or in a chamber, or in a stable, is as efficacious as in a church."^ All this was rebellion against sacerdotahsm rather than actual heresy ; but we learn, about the same period, from the " Universal Doctor," Alain de Tlsle, who, at the request of Lucius III., wrote a tract for their refutation, that they were prepared to carry these principles to their legitimate but dangerous conclusions, and that they added various other doctrines at variance with the teachings of the Church.

Good prelates, they held, who led apostohc lives, were to be obeyed, and to them alone was granted the power to bind and loose — which was striking a mortal blow at the whole organiza- tion of the Church. Merit, and not ordination, conferred the power to consecrate and bless, to bind and to loose ; every one, therefore, who led an apostolic life had this power, and as they assumed that they all led such a life, it followed that they, al- though la3niien, could execute all the functions of the priesthood. It Hkewise followed that the ministrations of sinful priests were invalid, though at first the French Waldenses were not willing to admit this, while the Italians boldly affirmed it. A further error was, that confession to a layman was as efficacious as to a priest, which was a serious attack upon the sacrament of penitence ; though, as yet, the Fourth Council of Lateran had not made priestly confession indispensable, and Alain is wilhng to admit that in the absence of a priest, confession to a layman is sufficient. The sys-


  • Chron. Canon. Laudunens. ann. 1177, 1178 (Bouquet XIII. 682). — Stephanide

Borbone 1. c. — Richard. Cluniac. 1. c. — David Augustcns. 1. c. — Monetai 1. c. — Gualt. Mapes de Nugis Curialiuni Dist. i. cap. xxxi. — Lucii PP. III. Epist. 171. — Conrad. Ursperg. ann. 1210— Bernard! Fontis Calidi adv. Waldenses Liber.


80 HERESY.

tern of indulgences was another of the sacerdotal devices which they rejected; and they added three specific rules of morality which became distinctive characteristics of the sect. Every lie is a mortal sin ; every oath, even in a court of justice, is unlawful ; and homicide is under no circumstances to be permitted, whether in war or in execution of judicial sentences. This necessarily in- volved non-resistance, rendering the Waldenses dangerous only from such moral influence as they could acquire. Even as late as 1217, a well-informed contemporary assures us that the four chief errors of the Waldenses Avere, their wearing sandals after the fashion of the apostles, their prohibition of oaths and of homi- cide, and their assertion that any member of the sect, if he wore sandals, could in case of necessity consecrate the Eucharist."^

All this was a simple-hearted endeavor to obey the commands of Christ and make the gospel an actual standard for the conduct of daily life ; but these principles, if universally adopted, would have reduced the Church to a condition of apostolic poverty, and would have swept away much of the distinction between priest and layman. Besides, the sectaries were inspired with the true missionary spirit ; their proselyting zeal knew no bounds ; they wandered from land to land promulgating their doctrines, and finding everywhere a cordial response, especially among the lower classes, who were ready enough to embrace a dogma that prom- ised to release them from the vices and oppression of the clergy. "We are told that one of their chief apostles carried with him va- rious disguises, appearing now as a cobbler, then as a barber, and again as a peasant, and though this may have been, as alleged, for the purpose of eluding capture, it shows the social stratum

  • Alani de Insulis contra Haereticos Lib. ii. — Disputat. inter Cathol. et Pate-

rin. (Martene Thesaur. V. 1754). — Rescript. Pauperum Lombard. 31, 22 (W. Pre- ger, Beitrage, pp. 60, 61).— Eymerici Direct. Inquis. p. ii. q. 14. (pp. 278, 279).— Petri Sarnaii Hist. Albigens. cap. 2.— In 1321, a man and wife brought before the Inquisition of Toulouse both refused to swear, and they alleged as a reason, in addition to the sinful nature of the oath, the man that it would subject him to falling sickness, the woman that she would have an abortion (Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. Ed. Limborch, p. 289).

In the persecution of the Waldenses of Piedmont towards the close of the fourteenth century, one of the crucial questions of the inquisitors was as to belief in the validity of the sacraments of sinful priests.— Processus contra Valdenses (Archivio Storico Italiano, 1865, No. 39, p. 48).


THE WALDENSEa gl

to which their missions were addressed. The Poor Men of Ly- ons multiplied with incredible rapidity throughout Europe ; the Church became seriously alarmed, and not without reason, for an ancient document of the sectaries shows a tradition among them that under Waldo, or immediately afterwards, their councils had an average attendance of about seven hundred members present. Not long after the Colloquy of Narbonne, in 1194, the note of persecution was sounded by Alonso II. of Aragon, in an edict which is worthy of note as the first secular legislation, with the exception of the Assizes of Clarendon, in the modern world against heresy. The Waldenses and all other heretics anathematized by the Church are ordered, as public enemies, to quit his dominions by the day after All-Saints'. Any one who receives them on his lands, listens to their preaching, or gives them food shall incur the penalties of treason, with confiscation of all his goods and pos- sessions. The decree is to be published by all pastors on Sundays, and all public officials are ordered to enforce it. Any heretic re- maining after three days' notice of the law can be despoiled by any one, and any injury inflicted on him, short of death or muti- lation, so far from being an offence, shall be regarded as meriting the royal favor. The ferocious atrocity of these provisions, which rendered the heretic an outlaw, which condemned him in advance, and which exposed him without a trial to the cupidity or malice of every man, was exceeded three years later by Alonso's son, Pedro 11. In a national council of Girona, in 1197, he renewed his fa- ther's legislation, adding the penalty of the stake for the heretic. If any noble failed to eject these enemies of the Church, the officials and people of the diocese were ordered to proceed to his castle and seize them without responsibility for any damages com- mitted, and any one failing to join in the foray was subjected to the heavy fine of twenty pieces of gold to the royal fisc. More- over, all officials were commanded, within eight days after sum- mons, to present themselves before their bishop, or his represen- tative, and take an oath to enforce the law.*

The character of this legislation reveals the spirit in which


• Rivista Cristiana, Marzo, 1887, p. 92— Pegnae Comment. 39 in Eymerici Di- rector, p. 281.— Steph. de Borbone 1. c— Concil. Gerundens. ann. 1197 (Aguirre, V. 102, 103). — Marca Hispunica, p. lotji. I.— 6


82 HERESY.

Church and State were prepared to deal with the intellectual and spiritual movement of the time. Harmless as the Waldenses might seem to be, they were recognized as most dangerous enemies, to be mercilessly persecuted. In southern France they were devoted to common destruction with the Albigenses, though the distinc- tion between the sects was clearly recognized. The documents ot the Inquisition constantly refer to " heresy and Waldensianism," designating Catharism by the former term as the heresy jpar ex- cellence. The Waldenses themselves regarded the Cathari as here- tics to be combated intellectually, though the persecution which they shared forced them to associate freely together.*

In a sect so widely scattered, from Aragon to Bohemia, con- sisting mostly of poor and simple folk, hiding their belief in the lowlands, or dwelling in separate communities among the moun- tain fastnesses of the Cottian Alps or of Calabria, it was inevita^ ble that differences of organization and doctrine should arise, and that there should be variations in the rapidity of independent de- velopment. The labors of Dieckhoff, Herzog, and especially of Montet in recent times, have shown that the early Waldenses were not Protestants in our modern sense, and that, in spite of perse- cution, many of them long continued to regard themselves as mem- bers of the Church of Rome, with a persistence proving how real were the abuses which had forced them to schism, and finally to heresy. Yet, in others, the spirit of revolt ripened much more rapidly, and it is impossible, within our limited space, to present a definite scheme of a doctrine which differed in so many points according to time and circumstance.

In the crucial test of belief in transubstantiation, for instance, as early as the thirteenth century, an experienced inquisitor, in drawing up instructions for the examination of Waldenses, as- sumes disbelief in the existence of the body and blood in the Eucharist as one of the points whereby to detect them, and in 1332 we hear of such a denial among the Waldenses of Savoy. Yet about this latter date Bernard Gui assures us that they believed in it, and M. Montet has shown from their successive waitings how their views on the subject changed. The inquisitor who


  • See the Sentences of Pierre Cella in Doat, XXIL— Montet, Hist. Litt. des

Vaudois, pp. 116 sq.


THE WALDENSES. 83

burned the Waldenses of Cologne in 1302 tells us that they denied transubstantiation, but they added, that if it occurred it could not be wrought in the hands of a sinful priest. So it was with regard to purgatory — which for a long while was regarded as an open question, to be definitely decided in the negative by the close of the fourteenth century — together with the suffrages of the saints, the invocation of the Virgin, and the other devices of which it was the excuse. The antisacerdotalism in which the sect took its rise, naturally, in its development, tended to do away with all that in- terposed mediators between God and man, although this progress was by no means uniform. The Waldenses burned in Strassburg, in 1212, rejected all distinction between the laity and the priest- hood. In Lombardy, about the same time, the community elected ministers either temporary or for life. Both the French and Lom- bard Waldenses of this period held that the Eucharist could only be made by an ordained priest, though they differed as to the ne- cessity of his not being in mortal sin. Bernard Gui speaks of three orders among them — deacons, priests, and bishops ; M. Mon- tet has found in a MS. of 1404 a form of Waldensian ordination ; and when the Unitas Fratrum of Bohemia was organized in 146Y, it had recourse, as we shall see hereafter, to the Waldensian Bishop Stephen to consecrate its first bishops. Yet the antisacer- dotal tendencies were so strong that the difference between the laity and priesthood was greatly diminished, and the power of the keys was wholly rejected. About 1400, the Nobla Leyczon declares that all the popes, cardinals, bishops, and abbots since the days of Silvester could not pardon a single mortal sin, for God alone has the power of pardon. As the soul thus dealt directly with God, the whole machinery of indulgences and so-called pious works was thrown aside. It is true that faith without works was idle — " lafe es ociosa sensa las obras* — but good works were piety, repentance, charity, justice, not pilgrimages and formal ex- ercises, the founding of churches and the honoring of saints."*


  • Tract, de Paup. de Lugd. (Martene Thesanr. V. 1792).— Wadding. Aniial.

Minor. Ann. 1332, No. 6.— Bern. Guidon. Practica P. v. (Doat, XXX.).— Montet Hist. Litt. pp. 38, 44, 45, 89, 142.— Ilaupt, Zeitsclirift fur Kircliengescliiclite, 1885 p. 551.— Pet. Coelcst. (Preger, Beitnige, pp. (58, 09).- Kallncr, Koniad von Marburg, pp. 69-71.— Rescript. Paup. Lombard. §§ 4, 5, 17, 19, 22, 23.— Nobla Leyczon, 409-413; cf. Montet. pp. 49, 50, 103, 104, 143.— Passaviens. Anon. cap. 5


84 HERESY.

The Waldensian system thus created a simple church organi- zation with a tendency ever to grow simpler. As a general prop- osition it may be stated that the distinction between the clergy and laity was reduced to a minimum, especially when transub- stantiation was rejected. The layman could hear confessions, baptize, and preach. In some places it was the custom for each head of a family on Holy Thursday to administer communion in a simple fashion, consecrating the elements and distributing them himself. Yet of necessity there was a recognized priesthood, known as the Perfected, or Majorales, who taught the faithful and con- verted the unbeliever, who renounced all property and separated themselves from their wives, or Avho had observed strict chastity from youth, who wandered around hearing confessions and mak- ing converts, and were supported by the voluntary contributions of those who labored for their bread. The Pomeranian Waldenses believed that every seven years two of these were transported to the gate of Paradise, that they might understand the wisdom of God. One marked distinction between them and the laity was that, when on trial before the Inquisition, the prohibition of swearing was relaxed in favor of the latter, who might take an oath under com- pulsion, while the Perfects would die rather than violate the precept. The inquisitors, while complaining of the ingenuity with which the heretics evaded their examination, admitted that all were much more solicitous to save their friends and kindred than themselves.*

With this tendency towards a restoration of evangelical simplici- ty, it followed that the special religious teaching of the Waldenses


(Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 300).— Disput. inter Cath. et Paterin. (Martene Tliesaur. V. 1754).— David Augustens. (ibid. p. 1778).— Lucae Tudens. de altera Vita Lib. i. cap. 4-7. — Tract, de modo procedendi contra Haeret. (Doat XXX.)- — Index Error. Wal- dens. (Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 340).— P. de Pilichdorf contra Waldens. cap. 34.— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 200, 301.— Nobla Leyczon, 17-24, 387-405, 416-423.

Yet it was impossible to resist the contagion of superstition. The Pomera- nian Waldenses, in 1394, are described as believing that if a man died within a year after confession and absolution, he went directly to heaven. Even speak- ing with a minister preserved one from damnation for a year. There is eren a case of a legacy of eight marks for prayers for the soul of the deceased. — Wat- tenbach, Sitzungsberichte der Preuss. Akad. 1886, pp. 51, 52.

  • Passaviens. Anon. cap. 5. — Bernard. Guidon. Practica P. v. — David Augus-

tens. (Marteue Thesaur. V. 1786).— Steph. de Borbone, 1. c— Wattenbach, ubi sup. — Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. p. 352.


THE WALDENSES. 85

was to a great extent ethical. The reply of an unfortunate before the Inquisition of Toulouse, when questioned as to what his instruc- tors had taught him, was " that he should neither speak nor do evil, that he should do nothing to others that he would not have done to himself, and that he should not lie or swear" — a simple formula enough, but one which practically leaves little to be desired ; and a similar statement was made to the Celestinian Peter in his inquisi- tion of the Pomeranian Waldenses in 1394. A persecuted Church is almost inevitably a pure Church, and the men who through those dreary centuries lay in hiding, with the stake ever before their eyes, to spread what they believed to be the unadulterated truths of the gospel in obedience to the commands of Christ, were not Hkely to contaminate their high and holy mission with vulgar vices. In fact, the unanimous testimony of their persecutors is that their external virtues were worthy of all praise, and the contrast between the puri- ty of their lives and the depravity which pervaded the clergy of the dominant Church is more than once deplored by their antagonists as a most effective factor in the dissemination of heresy. An in- quisitor who knew them weE describes them : *' Heretics are recog- nizable by their customs and speech, for they are modest and well regulated. They take no pride in their garments, which are neither costly nor vile. They do not engage in trade, to avoid lies and oaths and frauds, but live by their labor as mechanics — their teachers are cobblers. They do not accumulate wealth, but are content with necessaries. They are chaste and temperate in meat and drink. They do not frequent taverns or dances or other vanities. They re- strain themselves from anger. They are always at work ; they teach and learn and consequently pray but little. They are to be known by their modesty and precision of speech, avoiding scurrility and detraction and light words and lies and oaths. They do not even say vere or certe^ regarding them as oathj." Such is the general testimony, and the tales which were told as to the sexual abomi- nations customary among them may safely be set down as devices to excite popular detestation, grounded possibly on extravagances of asceticism, such as were common among the early Christians, for the Waldenses held that connubial intercourse was only lawful for the procurement of offspring. An inquisitor admits his disbe- Hef as to these stories, for which he had never found a basis wor- thy of credence, nor does anything of the kind make its appear-


86 HERESY.

ance in the examinations of the sectaries under the skilful hand- ling of their persecutors, until in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- turies the inquisitors of Piedmont and Provence found it expedi- ent to extract such confessions from their victims.*

There was also objected to them the hypocrisy which led them to conceal their belief under assiduous attendance at mass and confession, and punctual observance of orthodox externalities ; but this, like the ingenious evasions under examination, which so irri- tated their inquisitorial critics, may readily be pardoned to those with whom it was the necessity of self-preservation, and who, at least during the earlier period, had often no other means of en- joying the sacraments which they deemed essential to salvation. They were also ridiculed for their humble condition in life, being almost wholly peasants, mechanics, and the ]ike — poor and despised folk of whom the Church took little count, except to tax when orthodox and burn when heretic. But their crowning offence was their love and reverence for Scripture, and their burning zeal in making converts. The Inquisitor of Passau informs us that they had translations of the w^hole Bible in the vulgar tongue, which the Church vainly sought to suppress, and which they studied with incredible assiduity. He knew a peasant who could recite the Book of Job word for word ; many of them had the whole of the New Testament by heart, and, simple as they were, were danger- ous disputants. As for the missionary spirit, he tells of one who, on a winter night, swam the river Ips in order to gain a chance of converting a Catholic ; and all, men and w^omen, old and young, were ceaseless in learning and teaching. After a hard day's labor they would devote the night to instruction ; they sought the lazar-


  • Wattenbach, Sitzungsbericlite der Preuss. Akad. 1886, p. 51.--Lib. Sentt. Inq.

Tolosan. p. 367. — Anon. Passaviens. cap. 7, 8. — Refutat. Error. Waldens. (Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 336).— David Augustens. (Martene Thesaur. V. 1771-1772).— Ar- chivio Storico Italian©, 1865, No. 38, pp. 39, 40. — Rorengo, Memorie Istoriche, Torino, 1649, p. 12. — Even as late as the end of the fourteenth century, in the extensive inquisitions of the Celestinian Peter, from Styria to Pomerania^ there is no allusion to immoral practices. (Preger, Beitrage, pp. 68-72 ; Wattenbach, ubi sup.).

For the ascetic tendency of the Waldenses, recognizing vows of chastity, and the seduction of nuns as incest, see Montet, pp. 97, 98, 108-110. For the merit of fasting, see p. 99.


THE WALDENSES. 87

houses to carry salvation to the leper ; a disciple of ten days' stand- ing would seek out another whom he could instruct, and when the dull and untrained brain would fain abandon the task in despair they would speak words of encouragement : " Learn a single word a day, in a year you will know three hundred, and thus you will gain in the end." Surely if ever there was a God-fearing people it was these unfortunates under the ban of Church and State, whose secret passwords were, ^' Ce dit sainct Pol, Ne mentir^ " Oe dit samct Jacques, Ne jurer^^ " Ce dit sainct Pierre, Ne rendre mal four mal, mais Mens contr aires. ^ The '* Nobla Leyczon " scarce says more than the inquisitors, when it bitterly declares that the sign of a Yaudois, deemed worthy of death, was that he followed Christ and sought to obey the commandments of God.

" Que si n'i a alcun bon que ame e tema Yeshu Xrist, Que non volha inaudire ni jurar ni mentir, Ni avoutrar ni aucir ni penre de F altruy, Ni venjar se de li seo onemis, Ilh dion qu'es Vaudes e degne de punir, E li troban cayson en meczonja e engan."

In fact, amid the license of the Middle Ages ascetic virtue was apt to be regarded as a sign of heresy. About 1220 a clerk of Spire, whose austerity subsequently led him to join the Francis- cans, was only saved by the interposition of Conrad, afterwards Bishop of Hildesheim, from being burned as a heretic, because his preaching led certain women to lay aside their vanities of apparel and behave with humility.*

The sincerity with which the Waldenses adhered to their beliefs is shown by the thousands who cheerfully endured the horrors of the prison, the torture-chamber, and the stake, rather than return to a faith which they believed to be corrupt. I have met with a case in 1320, in which a poor old woman at Pamiers submitted to the dreadful sentence for heresy simply because she would not take an oath. She answered all interrogations on points of faith


  • Lib. Sententt. Inquis. Tolosan. p. 367. — Anon. Passaviens. cap. 1, 3, 7, 8.

— Refutat. Error. Waldens. (Mag. Bib. Pat. XITI. 336).— David Augustens. (Mar- tene Tliesaur. V. 1771, 1773, 1782, 1794).— P. de Pih-chdorf contra Error. Wal- dens. cap. 1. — Innocent. PP. III. Regest. rr. 141. — La Nobla Leyczon, 368-373.

Frat. Jordani Chron. (Analecta Franciscana, T. I. p. 4. Quaracchi, 1885).


88 HERESY.

in orthodox fashion, but though offered her life if she would swear on the Gospels, she refused to burden her soul with the sin, and for this she was condemned as a heretic*

That all antisacerdotahsts should agree, even under persecu- \/ tion, in a common creed, is not to be expected. In the decrees against heretics and in the writings of controversialists we meet the names of other sects, but they are of too little importance in numbers and duration to require more than a passing notice. The Passagii ( " all-holy " or '^ vagabond " ) or Circumcisi were Judaiz- ing Christians, who sought to escape the domination of Rome by a recourse to the old law and denying the equality of Christ with God. The Joseppini were still more obscure, and their errors ap- pear mostly to lie in the region of artificial and unclean sexual asceticism. The Siscidentes were virtually the same as the Wal- denses, the only difference being as to the administration of the Eucharist. The Ordibarii and Ortlibenses, followers of Ortlieb of Strassburg, who flourished about the year 1216, were likewise ex- ternally akin to the Waldenses, but indulged in doctrinal errors to which we shall have to recur hereafter. The Runcarii appear to have been a connecting Hnk between the Poor Men of Lyons and the Albigenses or Manichaeans ; an intermediate sect whose existence might be presupposed as an almost necessary result of the common interests and common sufferings of the two leading branches of heresy, f


  • MS8. Bib. Nat. Coll. Moreau, 1274, fol. 72.

t Bonacursi Vit. Hsereticorum (D'Achery I. 211, 212).— Lucii PP. III. Eplst. 171. — Muratori Antiquitat. Dissert, lx.— Constit. General. Frid. II. ann. 1220, § 5. — Lucae Tudens. de altera Vita Lib. in. cap. 3. — Anon. Passaviens. contra Waldens. cap. 6. — P. de Pilichdorf contra Waldens. cap. 12. — Hoffman, Geschichte der Inquisition, II. 371. — Schmidt, Hist, des Cathares, II. 284.


CHAPTEE III.

THE CATHARI.

The movements described above were the natural outcome of ant i sacerdotalism seeking to renew the simplicity of the Apostolic Church. It is a singular feature of the religious sentiment of the time that the most formidable development of hostility to Rome was based on a faith that can scarce be classed as Christian, and that this hybrid doctrine spread so rapidly and resisted so stub- bornly the sternest efforts at suppression that at one time it may fairly be said to have threatened the permanent existence of Christianity itself. The explanation of this may perhaps be found in the fascination which the duahstic theory — the antagonism of co-equal good and evil principles — offers to those who regard the existence of evil as incompatible with the supremacy of an aU-wise and beneficent God. When to Dualism is added the doctrine of transmigration as a means of reward and retribution, the suffer- ings of man seem to be fully accounted for ; and in a period when those sufferings were so universal and so hopeless as in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, it is possible to understand that many might be predisposed to adopt so ready an explanation. Yet this will not account for the fact that the Manichaeism of the Cathari, Patarins, or Albigenses, was not a mere speculative dogma of the schools, but a faith which aroused fanaticism so enthusiastic that its devotees shrank from no sacrifices in its propagation and mounted the blazing pyre with steadfast joy. A profound con- viction of the emptiness of sacerdotal Christianity, of its failure and approaching extinction, and of the speedy triumph of their own faith may partially explain the unselfish fervor which it ex- cited among the poor and illiterate.

Of aU the heresies with which the early Church had to contend, none had excited such mingled fear and loathing as Manichaiism. Manes had so skilfully compounded Mazdean Dualism with Chris-


90 THE CATIIAIII.

tianity and with Gnostic and Buddhist elements, that his doctrine found favor with high and low, with the subtle intellects of the schools and with the toiling masses. Instinctively recognizing it as the most dangerous of rivals, the Church, as soon as it could com- mand the resources of the State, persecuted it relentlessly. Among the numerous edicts of both Pagan and Christian emperors, re- pressing freedom of thought, those directed against the Manichaeans were the sharpest and most cruel. Persecution attained its end, after prolonged struggle, in suppressing all outward manifesta- tions of Manichaeism within the confines of the imperial power, though it long afterwards maintained a secret existence, even in the West. In the East it withdrew ostensibly to the boundaries of the empire, still keeping up hidden relations with its sectaries scattered throughout the provinces, and even in Constantinople itself. It abandoned its reverence for Manes as the paraclete and transferred its allegiance to two others of its leaders, Paul and John of Samosata, from the first of whom it acquired the name of Paulicianism. Under the Emperor Constans, in 653, a certain Constantine perfected its doctrine, and it maintained itself under repeated and cruel persecutions, which it endured with the un- flinching willingness of martyrdom and persistent missionary zeal that we shall see characterize its European descendants. Sometimes driven across the border to the Saracens and then driven back, the Pauhcians at times maintained an independent existence among the mountains of Armenia and carried on a predatory warfare with the empire. Leo the Isaurian, Michael Curopalates, Leo the Armenian, and the Pegent Empress Theodora in vain sought their extermination in the eighth and ninth centuries, until at length, in the latter half of the tenth century, John Zimiskes tried the ex- periment of toleration, and transplanted a large number of them to Thrace, where they multiplied greatly, showing equal vigor in industry and in war. In 1115 we hear of Alexis Comnenus spend- ing a summer at Philippopolis and amusing himself in disputation with them, resulting in the conversion of many of the heretics."^


  • Mosaic, et Roman. Legg. Collat. tit. xv. § 3 (Hugo, 1465). — Const. 11, 12,

Cod. I. V. — P. Siculi Hist, de Manichaeis. — Zonarae Annal. torn. IH. pp. 126, 241, 242 (Ed. 1557).— Findlay's Hist, of Greece, 2d Ed. HI. 65.

The Bogomili (Friends of God), another Manichaean sect, whose name betrays their Slav or Bulgarian origin, have been cited as a link connecting the Pauli-


THEIR DUALISTIC CREED. 91

It was almost immediately after their transfer to Europe by Zi- miskes that we meet with traces of them in the West, showing that the activity of their propagandism was unabated.

In all essentials the doctrine of the Paulicians was identical with that of the Albigenses. The simple Dualism of Mazdeism, which regards the universe as the mingled creations of Hormazd and Ahriman, each seeking to neutraUze the labors of the other, and carrying on interminable warfare in every detail of Hfe and nat- ure, explains the existence of evil in a manner to enlist man to contribute his assistance to Hormazd in the eternal conflict, by good thoughts, good words, and good deeds. Enticed by Gnostic speculation. Manes modified this by identifying spirit with the good and matter with the evil principle — perhaps a more refined and philosophical conception, but one which led directly to pessi- mistic consequences and to excesses of asceticism, since the soul of man could only fulfil its duty by trampling on the flesh. Thus in the Pauhcian faith we find two coequal principles, God and Satan, of whom the former created the invisible, spiritual, and eternal universe, the latter the material and temporal, which he governs. Satan is the Jehovah of the Old Testament ; the prophets and patriarchs are robbers, and, consequently, all Scripture anterior to the Gospels is to be rejected. The New Testament, however, is Holy Writ, but Christ was not a man, but a phantasm — the Son of God who appeared to be born of the Virgin Mary and came from Heaven to overthrow the worship of Satan. Transmigration pro- vides for the future reward or punishment of deeds done in fife. The sacraments are rejected, and the priests and elders of the

cians and the Cathari, but incorrectly, although they may have had some influ- ence in producing the moderated Dualism of a portion of the latter. Their leader, Demetrius, was burned alive by Alexis Comnenus in 1118 after a series of investigations more creditable to the zeal of the emperor than to his good faith. They continued to enjoy a limited toleration until the thirteenth century, when they disappeared. — See Annae Comnense Alexiados Lib. xv. — Georgii Cedreni Hist. Comp. sub ann. 20 Constant.— Zonarae Annal. t. III. p. 238. — Balsamon. Schol. in Nomocanon tit. x. cap. 8. — Schmidt, Hist, des Cathares, 1. 13-15 ; H. 265. About the middle of the eleventh century Psellus describes another Mani- chgean sect named Euchitse, who believed in a father ruling the supramundane regions and committing to the younger of his two sons the heavens and to tlie elder the earth. The latter was worshipped under the name of Satanaki — (Pselli de Operat. Damon. Dial.).


92 THE CATHARI.

Church are only teachers without authority over the faithful. Such are the outlines of Paulicianism as they have reached us, and their identity with the belief of the Cathari is too marked for us to accept the theory of Schmidt, which assigns to the latter an origin among the dreamers of the Bulgarian convents. A further irrefragable evidence of the derivation of Catharism from Mani- chaeism is furnished by the sacred thread and garment which Avere worn by all the Perfect among the Cathari. This custom is too peculiar to have had an independent origin, and is manifest- ly the Mazdean Icosti and saddarah, the sacred thread and shirt, the wearing of which was essential to all believers, and the use of which by both Zends and Brahmans shows that its origin is to be traced to the prehistoric period anterior to the separation of those branches of the Aryan family. Among the Cathari the wearer of the thread and vestment was what was known among the inquisitors as the " hsereticus indutus " or " vestitus," initiated into all the mysteries of the heresy.*

  • P. Siculi op. cit. — Bleek's Avesta, III. 4. — Haug's Essays, 2d ed. pp. 244,

249, 286, 367.— Yajnavalkya, i. 37.

For the corresponding tenets of the Cathari, see Radulf, Ardent. T. I. p. ii. Horn, xix. — Ermengaudi contra Haeret. Opusc. — Epist, Leodiens. ad Lucium PP. III. (Martene. Ampl. Collect. I. 776-778). — Ecberti Schonaug. Serm. contra Catharos, Serm. I. viii. xi. — Gregor. Episc. Fanens. Disput. Catholic! contra Haeret, — Mone- tae adv. Catharos Lib. i. cap. 1. — Arch, de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Coll. Doat, XXXH. f. 93). — Rainerii Saccon. Summa. — Caesar. Heisterbac. Dial. Mirac. Dist. v. cap. 21.— Lib. Sentt. Inquis. Tolosan. pp. 92, 93, 249 (Limborch).— Lib. Confess. Inq. Albiens. (MSS. Bib. Nat. fonds latin 11847).— Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. ann. 1163.

In a MS. controversial tract against the Cathari, dating from the end of the thirteenth century, the writer, following Moneta, states that their objections to the Old Testament sprang from four roots: first, the contradiction which seemed to exist between the Old and New Testaments ; second, the changefulness of God himself, manifest in Scripture ; third, the cruel attributes of God in Scripture ; fourth, the falsehood ascribed to God. A single example will suffice of the arguments which the heretics advanced in support of their position. " They quote Genesis iii. 'Behold, Adam has become as one of us.' Now God says this of Adam after he had sinned, and he must have spoken truth or falsehood. If truth, then Adam had become like him who spoke and those to whom he spoke ; but Adam after the fall had become a sinner, and therefore evil. If falsehood, then he is a liar; he sinned in so saying and thus was evil." To this logic the orthodox polemic contents himself with the answer that God spoke ironically. Throughout the tract the reasoning ascribed to the Cathari shows them to possess a thorough acquaintance with Scripture, and the use which they


THEIR ORGANIZATION. 93

Catharism thus was a thoroughly antisacerdotal form of be- lief. It cast aside all the machinery of the Church. The Eoman Church indeed was the synagogue of Satan, in which salvation was impossible. Consequently the sacraments, the sacrifices of the altar, the suffrages and interposition of the Virgin and saints, purgatory, relics, images, crosses, holy water, indulgences, and the other devices by which the priest procured salvation for the faith- ful were rejected, as well as the tithes and oblations which ren- dered the procuring of salvation so profitable. Yet the Catharan Church, as the Church of Christ, inherited the power to bind and to loose bestowed by Christ on his disciples ; the Consolamentum, or Baptism of the Spirit, wiped out all sin, but no prayers were of use for the sinner who persisted in wrong-doing. Curiously enough, though Catharism translated the Scripture, it retained the Latin language in its prayers, which were thus unintelligible to most of the disciples, and it had its consecrated class who conducted its simple services. Some regular form of organization, indeed, was necessary for the government of its rapidly increasing communi- ties and for the missionary work which was so zealously carried forward. Thus there came to be four orders selected from among the " Perfected," who were distinguished from the mass of believ- ers, or simple " Christians " — the Bishop, the Filius Major, the Filius Minor, and the Deacon. Each of the three higher grades had a deacon as an assistant, or to replace him ; for the functions of all were the same, though the Filii were mostly employed in visiting the members of the church. The Filius Major was elected by the congregation and promotions were made to the episcopate as va- cancies occurred. Ordination was conferred by the imposition of hands or Consolamentum, which was the equivalent of baptism, administered to all who were admitted to the Church. The belief that sacraments were vitiated in sinful hands gave rise to con- siderable anxiety, and to guard against it the Consolamentum was generally repeated a second and a third time. It was generally, though not universally, held that the lower in grade could not con- secrate the higher, and therefore in many cities there were habitu-

made of it explains the prohibition of the Bible to the laity by the Church. — Archives de Tlnq. de Carcassonne, Coll. Doat, XXXVI. 91. (See Appendix.)

Yet the Catharan ritual published by Cunitz quotes Isaiah and Solomon. (Bcitrage zu den theolog. Wissenschaften, B. IV. 1852, pp. 16,26.)


04 THE CATIIARI

ally two bishops, so that in the case of death consecration should not be sought at the hands of a fihus major. "^

The Catharan ritual was severe in its simplicity. The Catho- |/' lie Eucharist was replaced by the benediction of bread, which was performed daily at table. He who was senior by profession or position took the bread and wine, while all stood up and recited the Lord's Prayer. The senior then saying, " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us," broke the bread, and distributed it to all present. This blessed bread was regarded with special rev- erence by the great mass of the Cathari, who were, as a rule, mere- ly " crezentz," credent es," or believers, and not fully received or "perfected" in the Church. These would sometimes procure a piece of this bread and keep it for years, occasionally taking a morsel. Every act of eating or drinking was preceded by prayer ; when a " perfected " minister was at the table, the first drink and every new dish that was tasted was accompanied by the guests with " Benedicite," to which he responded " Diaus vos 'henesigaP There was a monthly ceremony of confession, which, however, was general in its character and was performed by the assembled faithful. The great ceremony was the " Cossolament," " Consola- mentum," or Baptism of the Holy Ghost, which reunited the soul to the Holy Spirit, and which, like the Christian baptism, worked absolution of all sin. It consisted in the imposition of hands, it required two ministrants, and could be performed by any one of the Perfected not in mortal sin — even by a woman. It was ineffi- cacious, however, when one of these was involved in sin. This was the process of " heretication," as the inquisitors termed the admission into the Church, and except in the case of those who proposed to become ministers was, as a rule, postponed until the death-bed, probably for fear of persecution; but the "credens" frequently entered into an agreement, known as "la covenansa," binding himself to undergo it at the last moment, and this engage- ment authorized its performance even though he had lost the power of speech and was unable to make the responses. In form it was exceedingly simple, though it was generally preceded by


  • Tract, de Modo Procedendi contra Haereticos (MSS. Bib. Nat. Coll. Doat,

XXX. fol. 185 sqq.). — Rainerii Saccon. Summa. — E. Cunitz in Beitrage zu den theol. Wissenschaften, 1852, B. IV. pp. 30, 36, 85.


THEIR CEREMONIES. §5

preparation, including a prolonged fast. The mini st rant addressed the postulant, " Brother, dost thou wish to give thyself to our faith?" The neophyte, after several genuflexions and blessings, said, '^ Ask God for this sinner, that he may lead me to a good end and make me a good Christian," to which the ministrant rejoined, " Let God be asked to make thee a good Christian and to bring thee to a good end. Dost thou give thyself to God and to the gospel  ?" and after an affirmative response, " Dost thou promise that in future thou wilt eat no meat, nor eggs, nor cheese, nor any victual except from water and wood; that thou wilt not lie or swear or do any lust with thy body, or go alone when thou canst have a comrade, or abandon the faith for fear of water or fire or any other form of death  ?" These promises being duly made, the bystanders knelt, while the minister placed on the head of the postulant the Gospel of St. John and recited the text : " In the beginning was the Word," etc., and invested him with the sacred thread. Then the kiss of peace went round, the women receiving it by a touch of the elbow. The ceremony was held to symbolize the abandonment of the Evil Spirit, and the return of the soul to God, with the resolve to lead henceforth a pure and sinless life. With the married, the assent of the spouse was of course a con- dition precedent. When this heretication occurred on the death- bed, it was commonly followed by the " Endura " or " privation." The ministrant asked the neophyte whether he desired to be a confessor or a martyr ; if the latter, a pillow or a towel (known among the German Cathari as Untertuch) was placed over his mouth while certain prayers were recited ; if he chose the former he remained without food or drink, except a little water, for three days ; and in either case, if he survived, he became one of the Per- fected. This Endura was also sometimes used as a mode of sui- cide, which was frequent in the sect. Torture at the end of life relieved them of torment in the next world, and suicide by volun- tary starvation, by swallowing pounded glass or poisonous potions, or opening the veins in a bath, was not uncommon — and, failing this, it was a kind office for the next of kin to extinguish life when death was near. The ceremony known to the sectaries as " Me- horamentum," and described by the inquisitors as " veneration," was important as affording to them a proof of heresy. When a "credens" approached or took leave of a minister of the sect, he


96 THE CATHARI.

bent the knee thrice, saying " benedicite, to which the minister replied, " Diaus vos henesiga^ It was a mark of respect to the Holy Ghost assumed to dwell in the minister, and in the records of trials we find it eagerly inquired into, as it served to convict those who performed it.*

These customs, and the precepts embodied in the formula of heretication, illustrate the strong ascetic tendency of the faith. This was the inevitable consequence of its peculiar form of Dual- ism. As all matter was the handiwork of Satan, it was in its nat- ure evil ; the spirit was engaged in a perpetual conflict with it, and the Catharan's earnest prayer to God was not to spare the flesh sprung from corruption, but to have mercy on the imprisoned spirit — '^ 710 aias merce de la earn nada de corrujptio^ mais aias merce de I esperit pausat en career.^ Consequently, whatever

  • Rainerii Saccon. Summa. — Lib. Confess. Inquis. Albiens. (MSS. Bib. Nat. fonds

latin, 11847).— Coll. Doat, XXII. 208, 209; XXIV. 174; XXVI. 197,259,272.— Lib. Sentt. Inquis. Tolosan. pp. 10, 33, 37, 70, 71, 76, 84, 94, 125, 126, 137-139, 143, 160, 173, 179, 199.— Bern. Guidon. Practica P. IV. V. (MSS. Bib. Nat. Collect. Doat. T. XXX.). — Landulf. Senior Hist. Mediolan. ii. 27. — Anon. Passaviens. contra Waldens. cap. 7. — Processus contra Valdenses (Archivio Storico Italiano, 1865, No. 39, p. 57). The description in the text of the form of heretication, by Rai- nerio Saccone, is confirmed in its details by the depositions of witnesses before the Inquisition of Toulouse, showing that the form was essentially the same throughout the churches.— Doat, XXII. 224, 237 sqq.; XXIII. 272, 344; XXIV. 71. See also Vaissette III. Preuves, 386, and Cunitz, Beitrage zu den theolog. Wissenschaften, 1852, B. IV. pp. 12-14, 21-28, 33, 60.

The practice of the Endura among the Cathari of Languedoc has been in- vestigated with his customary thoroughness by M. Charles Molinier (Annales de la Faculty des Lettres de Bordeaux, 1881, No. 3). It was not always limited to three days, and its rigor may be guessed by a single example. Blanche, the mother of Vital Gilbert, caused her infant grandchild to be " consoled " while sick, and then prevented the mother, Guillelma, from giving it milk till it died (Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. p. 104). Molinier's theory that the custom was of comparatively late introduction is confirmed by the absence of any allusion to it in the ritual published by Cunitz (loc. cit.), but that it was not confined to Lan- guedoc is shown by the Anon. Passaviens. and the evidence in the Piedmontese trials of 1388 (Arch. Storico, ubi sup.).

A case in which the Consolamentum was administered to an insensible pa- tient who subsequently recovered is recorded in the sentences of Pierre Cella (Doat, XXI. 295), and also several instances in which young girls were " per- fected " at a very early age, and wore the vestments for limited periods of two or three years (ibid. 241. 244).


THEIR ASCETICISM. 97

tended to the reproduction of animal life was to be shunned. To mortify the flesh the Catharan fasted on bread and water three days in each week, except when travelhng, and in addition there were in the year three fasts of forty days each. Marriage was also forbidden except among a few, who permitted it between virgins provided they separated as soon as a child was born, and the miti- gated Dualists who confined the prohibition to the Perfect and permitted marriage to the believers. Among the rigid, carnal mat- rimony was replaced by the spiritual union between the soul and God effected by the rite of Consolamentum. Sexual passion, in fact, was the original sin of Adam and Eve, the forbidden fruit whereby Satan has continued his empire over man. In a confession before the Inquisition of Toulouse in 1310, it is said of one heretic teach- er that he would not touch a woman for the whole world; in an- other case a woman relates of her father that after he was hereti- cated he told her she must never touch him again, and she obeyed the command even when he was on the death-bed. So far was this carried that the use of meat, of eggs, of milk, of everything, in short, which was the result of animal propagation, was inhib- ited, except fish, which by a strange inconsistency seems to have been regarded as having some different origin. The condemnation of marriage and the rejection of meat constituted, with the pro- hibition of oaths, the chief external characteristics of Catharism, by which the sectaries were marked and known. In 1229 two leading Tuscan Cathari, Pietro and Andrea, performed public ab- juration before Gregory IX. in Perugia, and two days later, June 26th, they gave solemn assurance of the sincerity of their conver- sion by eating flesh in the presence of a number of prelates, which was duly recorded in an instrument drawn up for the purpose.*


^ * S. Bernardi Serm. Ixvi. in Cantica, cap. 3-7. — Ecberti Schonaug. Serm. i. v. vi. contra Catharos. — Bonacursi Vit, Hsereticor.— Gregor. Fanens. Disput. Cathol. contra Ha^reticos cap. 1, 2, 11, 14. — Monetae adv. Catharos Lib. i. cap. 1. — Cu- nitz (Beitrage zu den theol. Wissenschaften, 1852, p. 14). — Radulf. Coggeshall.< Chrou. Anglic. (D. Bouquet, XVIIL 92, 93).— Evervini Steinfeldens. Epist. ad S. Bernard, cap. 3. — Concil. Lombariens. ann. 1165. — Radulf. Ardent. T. I. p. ii. Horn, xix, — Ermengaudi contra Ha^ret. Opusc. — Bonacursus contra Catharos iBaluz. etMansi,!!. 581-586). — Alani de Insulis contra Haeret. Lib. i. — Monet, adv. Catharos. Lib. rv. cap. vii. § 3. — Rainerii Saccon. Summa. — Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. Ill, 115.— Coll. Doat, T. XXX. fol. 185 sqq.; XXXIL fol. 93 sqq.-

I.— 7


98 THE CATHARI.

It was inevitable that, in process of time, diversities should spring up in a sect so widely scattered, and accordingly we find among the Italian Cathari two minor divisions known as Concor- rezenses (from Concorrezo, near Monza, in Lombardy) and Bajo- lenses (from Bagnolo in Piedmont), who held a modified form of Dualism in which Satan was inferior to God, by whose permission he created and ruled the world, and formed man. The Concor- rezenses taught that Satan infused in Adam an angel who had sinned a little, and they revived the old Traducian heresy in main- taining that aU human souls are derived from that spirit. The Bajolenses differed from this in saying that aU human souls were created by God before the world was formed, and that even then they had sinned. These speculations were expanded into a myth relating that Satan was the steward of heaven, charged with the duty of collecting the daily amount of praise and psalmody due by the angels to God. Desiring to become like the Highest, he abstracted and retained for himself a portion of the praise, when God, detecting the fraud, replaced him by Michael and ejected him and his accompUces. Satan thereupon uncovered the earth from water and created Adam and Eve, but labored in vain for thirty years to infuse souls into them, until he procured from heaven two angels who favored him, and who subsequently passed through the bodies of Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and aU the patri- archs and prophets, wandering and vainly seeking salvation until, as Simeon and Anna, at the advent of Christ (Luke iii. 25-38), they accomplished their redemption and were permitted to return to heaven. Human souls are similarly all fallen spirits passing through probation, and this was very generally the belief of aU the sects of Cathari, leading to a theory of transmigration very similar to that of Buddhism, though modified by the belief that Christ's earthly mission was the redemption of these faUen spirits.


Stephan. de Borbone (D'Argentrg, Coll. Judic. de novis Error, 1. 1. 91). — Archiv. Fiorent. Prov. S. Maria Novella, Giugno 26, 1229.

In the early days of the Inquisition a certain Jean Teisseire, summoned he- fore the tribunal of Toulouse, defended himself by exclaiming, I am not a her- etic, for I have a wife and I lie with her, and have children, and I eat flesh, and lie, and swear, and am a faithful Christian." — (Guillel. Pelisso Chron. Ed. Mo- linier, Anicii 1880, p. 17). See also the Sentences of Pierre Cella, Coll. Doat, XXI. 223.


VARIETIES OF DOCTRINE. 99

Until the perfected soul could return to its Creator, as in the moJcsha or absorption in Brahma of the Hindu, it was forced to undergo repeated existence. As it could be still further punished for evil deeds by transmission into the lower animal forms, there naturally followed the Buddhistic and Brahmanical prohibi- tion of slaying any created thing, except reptiles and fish. The Cathari who were hanged at Goslar in 1052 refused to kill a pul- let, even with the gallows before their eyes, and in the thirteenth century this test was regarded as a ready means of identifying them.*

There were a few philosophic spirits in the sect, moreover, who emerged from these vain speculations and curiously anticipated the theories of modern Kationalism. With these Nature took the place of Satan; God, after forming the universe, abandoned its conduct to Nature, which has the power of creating all things and regulating them. Even the production of individual species is not the act of divine Providence, but is a process of nature — in fact, of evolution, in modern parlance. These Naturalists, as they called themselves, denied the existence of miracles \ they explained, by an exegesis not much more strained than that of orthodoxy, all those in the Gospels ; and they held that it was useless to pray to God for good weather, for Nature alone controlled the elements. They wrote much, and a Catholic antagonist admits the attraction of their writings, especially the work known ias " Perpendiculum Scientiarum," or the " Plummet of Science," which he says was well adapted to make a deep impression on the reader through its array of philosophy and happily-chosen texts of Scripture.f


  • Rainerii Saccon. Summa. — Tocco, L'Eresia nel Medio Evo, p. 75. — Gregor.

Fanens. Disput. cap. iv. — Monetae adv. Catharos Lib. i. cap. 1, 2, 4, 6. — Alani de Insulis contra Hasret. Lib. i. — Ecberti Schonaug. Serm. i., xiii. contra Catharos. — Ermengaudi contra Hseret. Opusc. cap. 14. — Millot, Hist. Litt. des Trouba- dours, 11. 64. — Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. p. 84.— Gest. Episcop. Leodiens. Lib. II. cap. 60, 61. — Stephan. de Borbone (D'Argentrg, Collect. Judic. de nov. Error. 1. 1. 90). — Muratori Antiq. Ital. Diss. Ix.

Among the early Christians there was a strong tendency to adopt the theory of transmigration as an explanation of the apparent injustice of the judgments of God. See Hieron. Epist. exxx. ad Demetriadem, 16.

t Lucae Tudens. de altera Vita Lib, iii. cap. ii.

Before ridiculing the Catharan theory of Dualism, we must bear in mind how


100 THE CATHARI.

There was nothing in such a faith to attract the sensual and carnal-minded. In fact, it was far more repellant than attractive, and nothing but the discontent excited by the pervading corrup- tion and oppression of the Church can explain its rapid diffusion and the deep hold which it obtained upon the veneration of its converts. Although the asceticism which it inculcated was be- yond the reach of average humanity, its ethical teachings were


strong is the tendency in this direction of sensitive and ardent souls, who keenly feel the imperfections of man's nature and its contrast with the possibilities of an ideal. Thus Flacius Illyricus, the fervid reformer, about 1560, came perilous- ly near to the Catharan myths, and gave rise to a warm controversy by main- taining that original sin was not an accident, but the substance in man  ; that the original image of God was, through the Fall, not replaced, but metamorphosed into an image of Satan, a transformation of absolute good into absolute evil ; a theory which, as he was warned by his friends Musaeus and Judex, must nec- essarily lead to Manichaeism. — See Herzog, Abriss der gesammten Kirchenge- schichte, III. 313. ^

Orthodox asceticism also trenches closely on Manichgeism in its denunciation of the flesh, which it treats as the antagonist and enemy of the soul. Thus, St. Francis of Assisi says, "Many, when they sin or are injured, blame their enemy or neighbor. This should not be so, for every one has his enemy in his power, namely, the body through which he sins. Thus blessed is that servant who al- ways holds captive and guards himself against that enemy delivered to him, for when he does thus no other visible enemy can hurt him " (8. Francisci Admonit. ad Fratres No. 9). And in another passage (Apoph. xxvii.) he describes his body as the most cruel enemy and worst adversary, whom he would willingly abandon to the demon.

According to the Dominican Tauler, the leader of the German mystics in the fourteenth century, man in himself is but a mass of impurity, a being sprung from evil and corrupt matter, only fit to inspire horror; and this opinion was fully shared by his followers even though they were overflowing with love and charity (Jundt, les Amis de Dieu, Paris, 1879, pp. 77, 229).

Jean-Jacques Olier, the founder of the great theological seminary of St. Sul- pice, in his " Catechisme Chr6tien pour la vie interieure," which I believe is still in use there as a text-book, goes as far as Manes or Buddha in his detestation of the flesh as the cause of man's sinful nature — " Je ne m' gtonne plus si vous dites qu'il faut hair sa chair, que I'on doit avoir horreur de soi m^me, et que I'homme, dans son 6tat actuel, doit 6tre maudit. ... En verity, il n'y*a aucune sorte de maux et de malheurs qui ne doivent tomber sur lui a cause de sa chair." — See Renan, Souvenirs de I'enfance et de jeunesse, p. 206.

With such views it is simply a question of words whether the creator of such an abomination as the crowning work of the terrestrial universe is to be called God or Satan ; he certainly cannot be the Good Principle.


THEIR MORALITY. 101

admirable. As a rule they were reasonably obeyed, and the or- thodox admitted with regret and shame the contrast between the heretics and the faithful. It is true that the exaggerated con- demnation of marriage expressed in the formula, that relations with a wife were as sinful as incest with mother or sister, was naturally enough perverted into the statement that such incest was permissible and was practised. Wild stories, moreover, were told of the nightly orgies in which the hghts were extin- guished and promiscuous intercourse took place; and the stub- bornness of heresy was explained by telling how, when a child was born of these foul excesses, it was tossed from hand to hand through a fire until it expired ; and that from its body was made an infernal eucharist of such power that whoever partook of it was thereafter incapable of abandoning the sect. There is ample store of such tales, but however useful they might be in exciting a wholesome popular detestation of heresy, the candid and intelli- gent inquisitors who had the best means of knowing the truth ad- mit that they have no foundation in fact ; and in the many hun- dreds of examinations and sentences which I have read there is no allusion to anything of the kind, except in some proceedings of Fra Antonio Secco among the Alpine valleys in 1387. As a rule, the inquisitors wasted no time in searching for what they knew was non-existent. As St. Bernard says, " If you interrogate them, nothing can be more Christian; as to their conversation, nothing can be less reprehensible, and what they speak they prove by deeds. As for the morals of the heretic, he cheats no one, he oppresses no one, he strikes no one ; his cheeks are pale with fast- ing, he eats not the bread of idleness, his hands labor for his Uve- hhood." This last assertion is especially true, for they were most- ly simple folk, industrious peasants and mechanics, who felt the evils around them and welcomed any change. The theologians who combated them ridiculed them as ignorant churls, and in France they were popularly known by the name of Texerant (Tis- serands), on account of the prevalence of the heresy among the weavers, whose monotonous occupation doubtless gave ample op- portunity for thought. Eude and ignorant they might be for the most part, but they had skilled theologians for teachers, and an ex- tensive popular literature which has utterly perished, saving a Cath- aran version of the New Testament in Eomance and a book of rit-


102 THE CATHARI.

ual. Their familiarity with Scripture is vouched for by the warn- ing of Lucas, Bishop of Tuy, that the Christian should dread their conversation as he would a tempest, unless he is deeply skilled in the law of God, so that he can overcome them in argument. Their strict morality was never corrupted, and a hundred years after St. Bernard the same testimony is rendered to the virtues of those who were persecuted in Florence in the middle of the thirteenth century. In fact the formula of confession used in their assem- bhes shows how strict a guard was maintained over every idle thought and careless Avord.^

Their proselyting zeal was especially dreaded. No labor was too severe, no risks too great, to deter them from spreading the faith which they deemed essential to salvation. Missionaries wan- dered over Europe through strange lands to carry the glad tidings to benighted populations, regardless of hardship, and undeterred by the fate of their brethren, whom they saw expiate at the stake the hardihood of their revolt. Externally they professed to be Catholics, and were exemplary in the performance of their relig- ious duties till they had won the confidence of their new neigh- bors, and could venture on the attempt of secret conversion when- ever they saw opportunity. They scattered by the wayside writ- ings in which the poison of their doctrine was skilfully conveyed

  • Processus contra Valdenses (Archivio Storico Italiano, 1865, Nos. 38, 39). —

'i S. Bernard! Serm. in Cantica Ixv. cap. 5; Ixvi. cap. 1. — Gregor. Fanens Dispu- tat. cap. 17. — Anon. Passaviens. contra Waldens. cap. 7. — Radulf. Coggeshall. ~- Chron. Anglic. (D. Bouquet, XVIII. 93).— Concil. Remens. ann. 1157, c. 1.— Ec- berti Schonaug. contra Catharos Serm. i. cap. 1. — Cunitz, Beitrage zu den theol. Wissenschaften, 1852, B. IV. pp. 4, 12-14. — Lucse Tudens.de altera Vita Lib. ii. cap. 9 ; Lib. iii. cap. 5. — Lami, Antichita Toscane, p. 550.

The Cathari probably had Romance versions of the New Testament as early as 1178, when we find the cardinal legate disputing at Toulouse with two Cath- aran bishops whose ignorance of Latin was a subject of ridicule, while they seem to have been ready enough with Scripture. — Roger. Hoveden. Annal. ann. 1178. See also Molinier, Annales de la Facultg des lettres de Bordeaux, 1883, No. 3.

Abbot Joachim bears testimony to the external virtues of the Cathari of Ca- labria, and the advantage which they derived from the vices of the clergy. — Tocco, L'Eresia nel Medio Evo, p. 403.

The story of the sacrament made from the bodies of children born of pro- miscuous intercourse was widely circulated and variously applied. It was re- lated in the eleventh century of the Euchitae by Psellus (De Operat. Daemon.) and continued to be told of successive heretics — even of the Templars,


STEADFASTNESS UNDER PERSECUTION. 103

without being obtrusive, and sometimes they had no scruple in calling to their aid the superstitions of orthodoxy, as when such writings would promise indulgences to those who would read them carefully and circulate them among their neighbors, or when they purported to come from Jesus Christ and be conveyed by angels. It does not say much for the intelligence of the clergy when we are told that many priests were corrupted by such papers, picked up by shepherds and carried to them to be deciphered. Even more reprehensible was the device of the Cathari of Moncoul in France, who made an image of the Virgin, deformed and ugly and one-eyed, saying that Christ, to show his humihty, had select- ed such a woman for a mother. Then they proceeded to work mir- acles with it, feigning to be sick and to be cured by it, until it ac- quired such reputation that many similar ones were made and placed in churches or oratories, until the heretics divulged the se- cret, to the great confusion of the faithful. The same device was carried out with a crucifix having no upper arm, the feet of Christ crossed, and only three nails — an unconventional form which was imitated and caused great scandal when the mockery was discov- ered. Even bolder frauds were attempted in Leon, and not with- out success, as we shall see hereafter.*

The zeal for the faith, which prompted these eccentric mission- ary efforts, manifested itself in a resolute adherence to the precepts enjoined on the neophyte when admitted into the circle of the Per- fects. As in the case of the Waldenses, while the Inquisition com- plained bitterly of the difficulty of obtaining an avowal from the simple "credens," whose rustic astuteness eluded the practised skill of the interrogator, it was the general testimony that the perfected heretic refused to lie, or to take an oath ; and one mem- ber of the Holy Office warns his brethren not to begin by asking " Are you truly a Catharan  ?" for the answer wiU simply be " Yes," and then nothing more can be extracted ; but if the Perfect is ex- horted by the God in whom he believes to tell aU about his hfe, he wiU faithfully detail it without falsehood. When we consider that this frankness led inevitably to the torture of death by burn-


  • Ecberti Schonaug. contra Catharos Serm. i. cap. 2. — Caesar. Heisterbac.

Dial. Mirac. Dist. v. cap. 18. — Lucae Tudensis de altera Vita Lib. ii. cap. 9; Lib. III. cap. 9, 18.


104 THE CATHARI.

ing, it is curious to observe that the inquisitor seems utterly uncon- scious of the emphatic testimony which he renders to the super- human conscientiousness of his victims.*

It is not easy for us to reahze what there was in the faith of the Cathari to inspire men with the enthusiastic zeal of martyr- dom, but no religion can show a more unbroken roll of those who unshrinkingly and joyfully sought death in its most abhorrent form in preference to apostasy. If the blood of the martyrs were really the seed of the Church, Manichaeism would now be the dominant religion of Europe. It may be partially explained by the belief that a painful death for the faith insured the return of the soul to God ; but human weakness does not often permit such habitual triumph of the spirit over the flesh as that which ren- dered the Cathari a proverb in their thirst for martyrdom. The hostile testimony to this effect is virtually unanimous. In the earliest persecution on record, at Orleans, about 1017, out of fifteen, thirteen remained steadfast in the face of the fire kindled for their destruction; they refused to recant though pardon was offered, and their constancy was the wonderment of the spectators. When, about 1040, the heretics of Monforte were discovered, and Eriberto, Archbishop of Milan, sent for Gherardo, their leader, he came at once and voluntarily set forth his belief, rejoicing in the oppor- tunity of sealing his faith with torment. Those who were burned 1 at Cologne in 1163 produced a profound impression by the cheer- ' ful alacrity with which they endured their fearful punishment ; and while they were in their agony it is related that their leader, Arnold, half roasted to death, placed a liberated arm on the heads of his disciples, calmly saying, " Be ye constant in your faith, for this day shaU ye be with Lawrence !" Among this group of her- etics was a beautiful girl whose modesty moved the compassion of even the brutal executioners. She was withdrawn from the flames and promises were made to find her a husband or place her in a convent. Seeming to assent, she remained quiet till the rest were dead, and then asked her guards to show her the seducer of souls. In pointing out the body of Arnold they loosened their hold, when she suddenly broke from them, and, covering her face with her


  • Anon. Passaviens. c. 6. — Processus contra Valdenses (Arch. Storico Ital.

1865, No. 39, p. 57).


THEIR CONSTANCY. 105

dress, threw herself upon the remains of her teacher, and, burning to death, descended with him into hell for eternity. Those who about the same time were detected at Oxford, rejected all offers of mercy, with the words of Christ, " Blessed are they which are perse- cuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven ;" and when they w^ere led forth after a sentence which virtually consigned them to a shameful and lingering death, they went re- joicing to the punishment, their leader Gerhard preceding them, singing " Blessed are ye w^lien men shall revile you." In the Al- bigensian Crusade, at the capture of the Castle of Minerve, the Cru- saders piously offered their prisoners the alternative of recantation or the stake, and a hundred and eighty preferred the stake, when, as the monkish chronicler quietly remarks, " no doubt all these mart3rrs of the devil passed from temporal to eternal flames." An experienced inquisitor of the fourteenth century tells us that the Cathari usually were either truly converted by the efforts of the Holy Office or else were ready to die for their faith  ; while the "Waldenses were apt to feign conversion in order to escape. This obdurate zeal, we are assured by the orthodox writers, had in it nothing of the constancy of Christian martyrdom, but was simply hardness of heart inspired by Satan ; and Frederic II. enumerated among their evil traits the obstinacy which led the survivors to be in no way dismayed or deterred by the ruthless example made of those who were punished.*

It was, perhaps, natural that these ManichaBans should be accused of worshipping the devil. To men bred in the current orthodox practices of purchasing by prayer, or money, or other good works whatever blessings they desired, and expecting nothing


y * Radulphi Glabri Lib. iii. c. 8.— Landulf. Senior. Mediolan. Hist. ii. 27. — Caesar. Heisterbac. Dial. Mirac. Dist. v. c. 19. — Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. ann. 1163. — Guill. de Newburg. Hist. Anglic. Lib. ii. c. 13. — Guillel. Nangiac. ann. 1210.— Chron. Turon. ann. 1210.— Radulf. Coggcsliall Chron. Anglic. (D. Bou- quet: XVin. 93).— Bernard. Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).— S. Bernard! Serm. in Cantic. lxv. c. 13. — Lucae Tudens. de altera Vita Lib. iii. c. 21. — Con- stitt. Sicular. Lib. i. tit. i.

The story of the young girl of Cologne assumes a somewhat mythical air when we find it repeated by Moneta as occurring in Lombardy (Cantu, Eretici d'ltalia, I. 88) ; but this only enforces the universal tribute to the marvellous constancy of the heretics.


106 THE CATHARI.

without such pa}Tnent, it seemed inevitable that the Manichaean, re- garding all matter to be the work of Satan, should invoke him for worldly prosperity. The husbandman, for instance, could not pray to God for a plentiful harvest, but must do so to Satan, who was the creator of corn. It is true that there was a sect, known as Luciferani, who were said to worship Satan, regarding him as the brother of God, unjustly banished from heaven, and the dispenser of worldly good, but these, as we shall see hereafter, were a branch of the Brethren of the Free Spirit, probably descended from the Ortlibenses, and there is absolutely no evidence that the Cathari ever wavered in their trust in Christ or diverted their aspirations from the hope of reunion with God.*

Such was the faith whose rapid spread throughout the south of Europe filled the Church with well-grounded dismay ; and, how- ever much we may deprecate the means used for its suppression and commiserate those who suffered for conscience' sake, we cannot but admit that the cause of orthodoxy was in this case the cause of progress and civilization. Had Catharism become dominant, or even had it been allowed to exist on equal terms, its influence could not have failed to prove disastrous. Its asceticism with regard to commerce between the sexes, if strictly enforced, could only have led to the extinction of the race, and as this involves a contradic- tion of nature, it would have probably resulted in lawless concu- binage and the destruction of the institution of the family, rather than in the disappearance of the human race and the return of exiled souls to their Creator, which was the summum honum of the true Catharan. Its condemnation of the visible universe and of matter in general as the work of Satan rendered sinful all striv- ing after material improvement, and the conscientious belief in such a creed could only lead man back, in time, to his original con- dition of savagism. It was not only a revolt against the Church, but a renunciation of man's domination over nature. As such it was doomed from the start, and our only wonder must be that it maintained itself so long and so stubbornly even against a .Church which had earned so much of popular detestation. Yet though


4- * Radulf. Coggeshall 1. c— Pauli Carnotens. Vet. Aganon. Lib. vi. c. iii. — Campana, Storia di San Piero Martire, Lib. ii. c. 2, p. 57.— Fragment, ady. Haeret. (Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 341).— Cf. Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. ann. 1315.


THEIR RAPID DEVELOPMENT. 107

the exaltation caused by persecution might keep it aHve among the enthusiastic and the discontented, had it obtained the upper hand and maintained its purity it must surely have perished through its fundamental errors. Had it become a dominant faith, moreover, it would have bred a sacerdotal class as privileged as the Catholic priesthood, for the " veneration " offered to the consecrated min- isters as the tabernacles of the Holy Ghost shows us what vantage ground they would have had when persecution had given place to power, and carnal human nature had asserted itself in the ambi- tious men who would have sought its high places.

The soil was probably prepared for its reception by remains of the older Manichaeism which, with strange pertinacity, long main- tained itself in secret after its public manifestation had been com- pletely suppressed. Muratori has printed a Latin anathema of its doctrines, probably dating about the year 800, which shows that even so late as the ninth century it was still an object of persecu- tion. It was about 970 that John Zimiski transplanted the Pauli- cians to Thrace, whence they spread with great rapidity through the Balkan peninsula. When the Crusaders under Bohemond of Tarento, in 1097, arrived in Macedonia they learned that the city of Pelagonia was inhabited wholly by heretics, whereupon they paused in their pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre long enough to capture the town, to raze it to the earth, and to put all the citizens to the sword. In Dalmatia the Paulicians founded the seaport of Dugunthia (Trau), which became the seat of one of their leading episcopates ; and in the time of Innocent III. we find them in great numbers throughout the whole Slav territory, making extensive conversions with their customary missionary zeal, and giving that pontiff much concern, in unavailing efforts for their suppression. Numerous as the Cathari of Western Europe became, they always looked to the east of the Adriatic as to the headquarters of their sect. It was there that arose the form of modified Dualism known as Concorrezan, under the influence of the Bogomili, and reHgiousf questions were wont to be referred thither for solution.*


  • Schmidt, Hist, des Cathares, 1. 15-21. — Muratori Anecdota Ambrosiana, II.

112.— Guillel. Tyrii Lib. ii. c. 13.— Innocent. PP. III. Regest. ii. 176; iii. 3; v. 103,110; VI. 140, 141,212.— See also the curious letter of a Patarin in Matt. Paris, Hist. Angl. ann. 1243 (Ed. 1644 p. 413).


108 THE CATHARl.

Their missionary activity made itself felt in the West in n mar- vellously short period after their settlement in Bulgaria. Our ma- terials for an intimate acquaintance with that age are very scanty, and we must content ourselves with occasional vague indications, but when we see that Gerbert of Aurillac, on his election to the archiepiscopate of Eeims in 991, was obliged to utter a profession of faith in which he declared his belief that Satan was wicked of free-will, that the Old and 'New Testaments were of equal authority, and that marriage and the use of meat were allowable, it shows that Paulician opinions were already well understood and dreaded as far north as Champagne. There seems, indeed, to have been a centre of Catharism there, for in 1000 a peasant named Leutard, at Yertus, was convicted of teaching antisacerdotal doctrines which were evidently of Manichaean origin, and he is discreetly said to have drowned himself in a well when overcome in argument by Bishop Liburnius. The Chateau of Mont Wimer, in the neigh- borhood of Yertus, retained its evil reputation as a centre of the heresy. About the same period we have a misty account of a Eavennatese grammarian named Yilgardus who, inspired by de- mons in the shape of Yirgil, Horace, and Juvenal, erected the Latin poets into infallible guides and taught much that was contrary to the faith. His heresy was probably Manichasan ; it could not have been simply bhnd worship of classic writers, for culture was too rare in that age for such belief to become popular, and we are told that Yilgardus had numerous disciples in all the cities in Italy, who, after his condemnation by Peter, Archbishop of Eavenna, were put to death by the sword or at the stake. His heresy likewise spread to Sardinia and Spain, where it was ruthlessly exterminated.*

Shortly after this Cathari were discovered in Aquitaine, where they made many converts, and ttieir heresy spread secretly through- out southern France in spite of the free use of the fagot. Even j as far north as Orleans it was discovered, in 1017, under circum- stances which aroused general attention. A female missionary from Italy had carried the infection there, and a number of the most prominent clergy of the city fell victims to it. In their pros- elyting zeal they sent out emissaries, and were discovered. On


  • Gerberti Epist. 187.— Radulphi Glabri Lib. ii. c. 11, 12.— Epist. Leodiens.

ad Lucium PP. II. (Martene Ampliss. Collect. I. 776-8).


IN THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. 109

hearing of it, King Robert the Pious hastened to Orleans with Queen Constance, and summoned a council of bishops to deter- mine what should be done to meet the novel and threatening dan- ger. The heretics, on being questioned, made no secret of their faith, and boldly declared themselves ready to die rather than to abandon it. The popular feeling was so bitter against them that Robert stationed his queen at the door of the church in which the assembly was held, to preserve them from being torn to pieces by the mob when they were led forth ; but Constance shared the pas- sions of her subjects, and as they passed her she smote with a rod one who had been her confessor, and put out his eye. They were taken beyond the walls, and again, in the presence of the blazing pyre, were entreated to recant, but they preferred death, and their unshrinking firmness was the wonder of all spectators. Such converts as they had made elsewhere were diligently hunted up and mercilessly despatched. In 1025 there was a further discov- ery of the heresy at Liege, but the sectaries proved less stubborn, and were pardoned on professing conversion. About the same time we hear of others, in Lombardy, in the Castle of Monforte, near Asti, who were the objects of active persecution by the neigh- boring nobles and bishops, and who were burned whenever they could be captured. At length, about 1040, Eriberto, Archbishop of Milan, in visiting his province, came to Asti, and, hearing of these heretics, sent for them. They came willingly enough, including their teacher, Gherardo, and the Countess of Monforte who was of their sect ; all boldly professed their faith, and were carried by Eriberto back to Milan, where he hoped to convert them. In place of this, they labored to spread their heresy among those who crowded to see them in prison, until the enraged people, against tho will of the archbishop, forcibly dragged them out, and gave them the choice between the cross and the stake. A few of them yield- ed, but the most part, covering their faces with their hands, bold- ly leaped into the flames, and sealed their faith with martyrdom. In 1045 we find them in Chalons, when Bishop Roger apphed to Bishop AVazo of Liege, asking what he should do Avith them, and whetlier the secular arm should be called in to prevent the leaven from corrupting the whole people, to Avhich the good Wazo replied that they should be left to God, " for those whom tlie world now regards as tares may be garnered by him as wheat when comes the


/


110 THE CATHARI.

harvest-time. Those whom we deem the adversaries of God he may make superior to us in heaven." Wazo, indeed, had heard that her- etics were commonly detected by their pallor, and, under the delu- sion that those who were pale must necessarily be heretics, many good Cathohcs had been slain. By the year 1052 the heresy had extended to Germany, where the pious emperor, Henry the Black, caused a number to be hanged at Goslar. During the rest of the century we hear Uttle more of them, though traces of them occur at Toulouse in 1056 and Beziers in 1062, and about the year 1200 they are described as infecting the whole diocese of Agen.'^

In the twelfth century the evil continued unabated in north- ern France. Count John of Soissons was noted as a protector of heretics, but, in spite of his favor, Lisiard, the bishop, captured several, and gave the first example of what subsequently became common enough — the use of the ordeal to determine heretical guilt. One, at least, of the accused, floated when thrown into ex- orcised water, and the bishop, not knowing w^hat to do with them, held them in prison while he went to the Council of Beauvais, in 1114, to consult his episcopal brethren. The populace, however, felt no doubts on the subject, and, fearing that they would be deprived of their prey, broke open the jail and burned them during the bishop's absence — a manifestation of holy zeal which greatly pleased the pious chronicler. About the same time Flanders was the scene of another discovery of Catharism. The heresiarch, on being summoned before the Bishop of Cambrai, made no secret of his


  • Ademari S. Cibardi Hist. Lib. iii. c. 49, 59. — Pauli Carnot. Vet. Aganon.

Lib. VI. c. 3. — Frag. Hist. Aquitan. et Frag. Hist. Franc. (Pithoei Hist. Franc. Scriptt. xi. pp. 83, 84). — Radulf. Glabri Hist. iii. 8, iv. 2. — Gesta Synod. Aurel. circa 1017 (D'Achery L 604-6).— Chron. S. Petri Vivi.— Synod. Atrebat. ann. 1025 (Labbe et Coleti XI. 1177, 1178; Hartzheim. Concil. German. HL 68).— Lan- dulf. Sen. Mediol. Hist. H. 27. — Gesta Episcop, Leodiens. cap. 60, 61. — Hermann. Contract, ann. 1052. — Lambert. Hersfeldens. Annal. ann. 1053. — Schmidt, Hist, des Cathares, I. 37.— Radulf. Ardent. T. I. P. ii. Hom. 19.

Bishop Wazo's complaint that pallor was considered a positive proof of her- esy was by no means a new one. In the fourth century it was regarded as suffi- cient to betray the Gnostic and Manichgean asceticism of the Priscillianists'(Sulpic. Severi Dial. iii. cap. xi.), and Jerome tells us that the orthodox who were pale with fasting and maceration were stigmatized as Manichseans (Hieron. Epist. ad Eustoch. c. 5). To the end of the twelfth century pallor continued to be regarded as a diagnostic symptom of Catharism (P. Cantor. Verb, abbrev. c. 78).


IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY. m

crime ; he was stubborn, and was shut up in a hut, which was fired, and he died in prayer. The people must, in this case, have been rather favorably incUned to him, for they allowed his friends to collect his remains, and he was found to have many followers, especially among the craft of weavers. When, about the same period, we see Paschal II. advising the Bishop of Constance that converted heretics were to be welcomed back, we may conclude that error had penetrated even into Smtzerland."^

As the century wore on the manifestations of heresy became more numerous. In 1144 at Liege again ; in 1153 again in Artois ; in 1157 at Keims ; in 1163 at Yezelai, where there was a significant concomitant attempt to throw off the temporal jurisdiction of the Abbey of St. Madelaine ; about 1170 at Besangon ; and in 1180 at Keims again. This latter case has picturesque features recited for us by one of the actors in the drama, Gervais of Tilbury, at that time a young man and a canon of Eeims. Riding out one after- noon as part of the retinue of his archbishop, WiUiam, his fancy was caught by a pretty girl laboring alone in a vineyard. He lost no time in pressing his suit, but was repulsed with the assertion that if she listened to his addresses she would be irretrievably damned. Virtue so severe as this was a manifest sign of heresy, and the arch- bishop, coming up, ordered her at once into custody, for he recog- nized her as necessarily belonging to the Cathari, whom Philip of Flanders had for some time been mercilessly persecuting. Under examination, she gave the name of her instructress, who was forth- vnth arrested, and who manifested such thorough familiarity with Scripture and such consummate dexterity in defending her faith, that no doubt was felt of her being inspired by Satan. The de- feated theologians respited the pair till the next day, when they obstinately refused to yield to threats or promises, and were unan- imously condemned to the stake. At this the elder woman laughed, saying, " Foolish and unjust judges, think you to burn me in your fire  ? I fear not your sentence, and dread not your stake." With that she pulled from her bosom a ball of thread and tossed it out of the window, retaining one end, and calling out, " Take it !" The ball arose in the air, and the old woman followed it through


• Guiliert. Noviogent. de Vita sua Lib. iii. c. 17. — Schmidt, op. cit. I. 47.~ Martene Tbesaur. I. 336.


112 THE CATIIARI.

the window, and was seen no more. The girl was left, and as she was insensible alike to offers of wealth and threats of punishment, she was duly burned, suffering her torment cheerfully and without a groan. Even in distant Britanny Catharism appeared in 1208, at Nantes and St. Malo.*

In Flandei^ the heresy seems to have taken deep root among the industrious craftsmen wiio were already making their cities centres of wealth and progress. In 1162 Henry, Archbishop of Keims, m a visitation of Flanders, which formed part of his prov- ince, found Manichaeism prevailing there to an alarming extent. In the existing confusion and uncertainty of the canon law as re- spects the treatment of heresy, he allowed the appeal of those whom he captured to Alexander III., then in Touraine. The pope incUned to mercy, much to the disgust of the archbishop and of his brother, Louis YII., who urged the adoption of rigorous meas- ures, and asserted that the enormous bribe of six hundred marks had been offered for their liberation. If this were sO, the heresy must have penetrated to the upper ranks of society. In spite of Alex- ander's humanity the persecution was sharp enough, however, to drive many of the heretics away, and we shall meet with some of them at Cologne. Tw^enty years later we find the evil still growing, and Philip I., Count of Flanders, whose zeal for the faith was manifested subsequently by his death in Palestine, busily en- gaged in persecuting them with the aid of William, Archbishop of Keims. They are described as comprising all classes, nobles and peasants, clerks, soldiers,- and mechanics, maids, wives, and widows, and numbers of them were burned without putting an end to the pestilence, t

The Teutonic peoples were comparatively free from the infec- tion, although the propinquity of the Rhinelands to France led to occasional visitations. About 1110 we hear of some heretics at Treves, who seem to have escaped without punishment, though two among them were priests, and in 1200 eight more were found

  • Epist. Leodiens. ad Lucium PP. II. (Martene Ampl. Coll. I. 776-778).—

Alex. PP. III. Epist. 2 (ibid. II. 628).— Concil. Remens. ann. 1157.— Hist. Mo- nast. Vezeliacens. Lib. rv. ann. 1167.— Csesar. Heisterbac. Dial. Mirac. Dist. v. c. 18.— Radulf. Coggeshall ubi sup.— Innocent. PP. III. Regest. ix. 208.

t Alex. PP. III. Epist. 118, 122.— Varior. ad Alex. PP. III. Epist. No. 16.— Annal. Aquicinctens. Monast. ann. 1182, 1183.— Guillel. Nangiac. ann. 1183.


IN GERMANY AND ENGLAND. II3

there and burned. In 1145 a number Avere discovered in Cologne, some of whom were tried ; but, during the examination, the im- patient populace, fearing to be balked of their spectacle, broke in, carried off the culprits, and burned them out of hand — a fate which they bore not only with patience, but with joyfulness. There must have been a Catharan Church established by this time at Cologne, since one of the sufferers was called their bishop. In 1163 fugi- tives from the Flemish persecution were found at Cologne — eight men and three women, who had taken refuge in a barn. As they associated with no one, and did not frequent the churches, the Christian neighbors recognized them as heretics, seized them, and took them before the bishop, when they boldly avowed their faith, and suffered burning with the resolute gladness which distinguished the sect. We hear of others, about the same time, burned at Bonn, but this scanty catalogue exhausts the list of German heresies in the twelfth century. Missionaries penetrated the country from Hungary, Italy, and Flanders ; they are found in Switzerland, Ba- varia, Suabia, and even as far as Saxony, but they made few con- verts.^

England was likewise little troubled with heresy. It was shortly after the persecutions in Flanders that in 1166 there were discovered thirty rustics — men and women — German in race and speech, probably Flemings, fleeing from the pious zeal of Henry of Keims, who had come and were endeavoring to propagate their errors. They made but one convert, a woman, who deserted them in the hour of trial. The rest stood firm when Henry II., then en- gaged in his quarrel with Becket, and anxious to prove his fidel- ity to the Church, called a council of bishops at Oxford, and pre- sided over it, to determine their faith. They openly avowed it, and were condemned to be scourged, branded in the face with a key, and driven forth. The importance which Henry attached to the matter is shown by his devoting, soon after, in the Assizes of Clarendon, an article to the subject, forbidding any one to re- ceive them under penalty of having his house torn down, and


  • Histor. Trevirens. (D'Achery II. 221, 222).— Alberic. Trium Font. Chron.

ann. 1200.— Evervini Stcinfeld. Epist. (S. Bernardi Epist. 472).— Trithem. Chron. Ilirsaug. ann. 1163. — Ecberti Schonaug. contra Catharos Serm. yui. — Schmidt, L 94-96.

L— 8


114 THE CATHARI.

requiring all sheriffs to swear to the observance of the law, and to make all stewards of the barons and all knights and franc-tenants swear likewise — the first secular law on the subject in any statute- book since the fall of Kome. I have already mentioned the stead- fastness with which the unfortunates endured their martyrdom. Stripped to the waist and soundly scourged, and branded on the forehead, they were sent adrift shelterless in the winter-time, and speedily, one by one, they miserably perished. England was not hospitable to heresy, and we hear little more of it there. Towards the close of the century some heretics were found in the province of York, and early in the next century a few were discovered in London, and one was burned ; but practically the orthodoxy of England was unsullied until the rise of Wickliffe.*

Italy, as the channel through which the Bulgarian heresy passed to the West, was naturally deeply infected. Milan had the reputation of being its centre, whence missionaries were despatched to other lands, whither pilgrims resorted from the western kingdoms, and where originated the sinister term of Patarins, by which the Cathari became generally known to the people of Europe, t Yet the popes, involved in a death-struggle


  • Guillel. de Newburg Hist. Anglic. Lib. ii. c. 13. — Matt. Paris. Hist. Anglic,

ann. 1166 (p. 74).— Radulf. de Diceto ann. 1166.— Radulf. Coggeshall (D. Bouquet. XVm. 92).— Assize of Clarendon, Art. 21.— Petri Blesens. Epist. 113.— Schmidt, 1.99.

t The nomenclature of the heresy is quite extensive. The sectaries called themselves Cathari, or the pure. The origin of the term Patarin has been the subject of considerable dispute, but there would seem to be no doubt that it arose in Milan about the middle of the eleventh century, during the civil wars result- ing from the papal efforts to enforce celibacy on the Milanese married clergy. In the Romance dialects pates signifies old linen ; rag-pickers in Lombardy were called Patari, and the quarter inhabited by them in Milan was known, even up to the last century, as Pattaria, or Contrada de' Pattari. Even to-day there are in Italian cities quarters or streets of that name (Schmidt, II. 279). In the eleventh- century quarrels the papalists held secret meetings in the Pattaria, and were contemptuously designated by their antagonists as Patarins — a name whicJi was finally recognized and accepted by them (Arnulf Mediolanens. Lib. in. cap. 11; Lib. IV. c. 6, 11.— Landulf Jun. c. 1. — Willelmi Clusiens. vita Benedict! Abbat. Clusiens. c. 33. — Benzon. Coram, de Reb. Henrici IV. Lib. vii. c. 2). As the papal condemnation of clerical marriage was stigmatized as Manichaean, and as the papalists were supported by the secret heretics, followers of Gherardo


IN ITALY. 115

with the empire, and frequently wanderers abroad, paid little at- tention to them during the first half of the twelfth century, and the indications which have reached us of their existence are but scanty, though sufiicient to show that they were numerous and aggressive in the consciousness of growing strength. Thus at Orvieto, in 1125, they actually obtained the mastery for a while, but after a bloody struggle were subdued by the Catholics. In 1150 the effort was resumed by Diotesalvi of Florence and Ghe- rardo of Massano; but the bishop succeeded in expelling them, when they were replaced by two women missionaries — MiHta of Monte-Meano, and Giulitta of Florence — whose piety and charity won the esteem of the clergy and sympathy of the people, until the heresy was discovered, in 1163, when many heretics were burned and hanged, and the rest exiled. Yet soon afterwards Peter the Lombard undertook to propagate it again, and formed


di Monforte, the name was not unnaturally transferred to the Cathari in Lom- bardy, when they became publicly known, and it spread from there throughout Europe. In Italy the word Cathari, vulgarized into Gazzari, was also commonly used, and came gradually to designate all heretics; the officials of the Inquisi- tion were nicknamed Cazzagazzari (Cathari hunters), and even accepted the des- ignation (Muratori Antiq. Diss. lx. Tom. XII. pp. 510, 516), and the word is still seen in the German Ketzer. The Cathari, from their Bulgarian origin, were also known as Bulgari, Bugari, Bulgri, Bugres (Matt. Paris, ann. 1238) — a word which has been retained with an infamous signification in the English, French, and Italian vernaculars. We have seen above that from the number of weavers among them they were also known in France as Texerant, or Textores (cf Doat, XXIII. 209-10). The term SperonistaB was derived from Robert de Sperone, bishop of the French Cathari in Italy (Schmidt, II. 282). The Crusaders who met the Paulicians (UavXiKuvoi) in the East brought home the word and called them Publicani, or Popelicans. More local designations were Piphili or Pifres (Ecbert. Schonaug. Serm. i. c. 1), Telonarii or Deonarii (D'Achery, II. 560), and Boni Homines, or Bonshommes. The term Albigenses, from the district of Albi, where they were numerous, was first employed by Geofiroy of Vigeois, in 1181 (Gaufridi Vosens. Chron. ann. 1181), and became generally used during the crusades against Raymond of Toulouse.

The various sects into which the Cathari were divided were further known by special names, as Albanenses, Concorrezenses, Bajolenses, etc. (Rainerii Saccon. Summa. Cf Muratori Dissert. LX.).

In the official language of the Inquisition of the thirteenth century, "heretic" always means Catharan, while the Vaudois are specifically designated as such. The accused was interrogated " Super facto hoeresis vel Valdesiae."


lie THE CATHARi.

a numerous community, 6m1braciiig many noi3les, and towards the close of the century San Pietro di Parenzo earned his canonization by hm Sevei'e measures of repression, in retaliation for which the li^relics took his life in 1199. This may be regarded as an exam- ple of the struggle which was going on in many Italian cities, showing the stubborn vitality of the heresy. In the pohtical con- dition of Italy, subdivided into innumerable virtually self-govern- ing communities, torn by mutual quarrels and civic strife, general measures of repression were almost impossible. Heresy, suppressed by spasmodic exertion in one city, was always flourishing else- Vrher6) aiid ready to furnish new missionaries and new martyrs as feoon as the storm had passed. Through all these vicissitudes its growth was conetant. All the northern half of the peninsula, from the Alps to the Patrimony of St. Peter, was honeycombed with it, and even as far south as Calabria it was to be found. When Innocent III., in 1198, ascended the papal throne he at once commenced active proceedings for its extermination, and the obstinacy of the heretics may be estimated by the struggle in Vi- terbo, a city subject to the temporal as well as spiritual jurisdic- tion of the papacy. In March, 1199, Innocent, stimulated by the increase of heresy and the audacity of its pubUc display, wrote to the Yiterbians, renewing and sharpening the penalties against all who received or favored heretics. Yet, in spite of this, in 1205, the heretics carried the municipal election and elected as chamber- lain a heretic under excommunication. Innocent's indignation was boundless. If the elements, he told the citizens, should conspire to destroy them, without sparing age or sex, leaving their memory an eternal shame, the punishment would be inadequate. He or- dered obedience to be refused to the newly-elected municipahty, which Avas to be deposed ; that the bishop, who had been ejected, should be received back, that the laws against heresy should be enforced, and that if aU this was not done within fifteen days the people of the surrounding towns and castles were commanded to take up arms and make active war upon the rebellious city. Even this was insufficient. Two years later, in February, 1207, there were fresh troubles, and it was not until June of that year, when Innocent himself came to Yiterbo, and all the Patarins fled at liis a])i)roach, that he was able to purify the town by tearing down all the houses of the heretics and confiscating aU their property. This


IN SOUTHERN FRANCE. 117

he followed up in September with a decree addressed to all the faithful in the Patrimony of St. Peter, ordering measures of in- creasing severity to be inscribed in the local laws of every com- munity, and all podesta and other oiRcials to be sworn to their enforcement under heavy penalties. Proceedings of more or less rigor commanded in Milan, Ferrara, Yerona, Kimini, Florence, Prato, Faenza, Piacenza, and Treviso show the extent of the evil, the difficulty of restraining it, and the encouragement given to heresy by the scandals of the clergy."^

It was in southern France, however, that the struggle was dead- f[ liest and the battle was fought to its bitter end. There the soil, as we have seen, was the most favorable, and the growth of heresy the rankest. Early in the century we find open resistance at Albi, when the bishop, Sicard, aided by the Abbot of Castres, endeavored to imprison obstinate heretics and was baffled by the people, lead- ing to a dangerous quarrel between the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions. About the same time, Amelius of Toulouse tried milder methods by calling in the aid of the celebrated Eobert d' Arbrissel, whose preaching, we are told, was rewarded with many conversions. In 1119 Calixtus II. presided over a council at Tou- louse which condemned the Manichaean heresy, but was forced to content itself with sentencing the heretics to expulsion from the Church. It is perhaps remarkable that when Innocent II., driven from Kome by the antipope Pier-Leone, was wandering through France and held a great council at Reims in 1131, no measures were taken for the repression of heresy; but when restored to Rome he seems to have awakened to the necessity of action, and in the Second General Lateran Council, in 1139, he issued a de- cisive decree which is interesting as the earliest example of the interpellation of the secular arm. ]^ot only were the Cathari con- demned and expellod from the Church, but the temporal authori- ties were ordered to coerce them and all those who favored or de- fended them. This pohcy was followed up in 1148 by the Council


  • Schmidt, I. 63-5.— Muratori Antiq. Dissert, lx. (p. 463-3).— Raynald. An*

nal. ann. 1199 No. 23-5; aim. 1205 No. 67  ; 1207 No. 3.— Lami, Antichita Tos- cane, p. 491.— Innocent. PP. III. Regest. i. 298; ii. 1, 50; v. 33; vn. 37; vra. 85, 105 ; IX. 7, 8, 18, 19, 166-9, 204, 213, 258; x. 54, 105, 130; xv. 189; Gesta cxxiii.


118 THE CATHARI.

of Reims, which forbade any one to receive or maintain on his lands the heretics dwelling in Gascony, Provence, and elsewhere, and not to afford them shelter in passing or give them a refuge, under pain of excommunication and interdict.*

AVhen Alexander III. was exiled from Rome by Frederic Bar- barossa and his antipope Victor, and came to France, he called, in 1163, a great council at Tours. It was an imposing assemblage, comprising seventeen cardinals, one hundred and twenty-four bishops (including Thomas Becket) and hundreds of abbots, be- sides hosts of other ecclesiastics and a vast number of laymen. This august body, after performing its first duty of anathematiz- ing the rival pope, proceeded to deplore the heresy which, arising ( in the Toulousain, had spread like a cancer throughout Gascony, /deeply infecting the faithful everywhere. The prelates of those regions were ordered to be vigilant in suppressing it by anathe- matizing all who should permit heretics to dwell on their lands or should hold intercourse with them, in buying or selling, so that, being cut off from human society, they might be compelled to abandon their errors. All secular princes moreover were com- manded to imprison them and to confiscate their property. By this time, it is evident that heresy was no longer concealed, but displayed I' itself openly and defiantly ; and the futility of the papal commands at Tours to cut heretics off from human intercourse was shown two years later at the council, or rather colloquy, of Lombers near Albi. This was a public disputation between representatives of ortho- doxy and the hos homes, hos Crestias, or " good men," as they styled themselves, before judges agreed upon by both sides, in the pres- ence of Pons, Archbishop of ISTarbonne, and sundry bishops, besides the most powerful nobles of the region — Constance, sister of King Louis YII. and wife of Raymond of Toulouse, Trencavel of Be- ziers, Sicard of Lautrec, and others. Nearly all of the population of Lombers and Albi assembled, and the proceedings were evident- ly regarded as of the greatest public interest and importance. A full report of the discussion, including the decision against the Cathari, has reached us from several orthodox sources, but the


  • Schmidt I. 38.— Chron. Episc. Albigens. (D'Achery III. 572).— Udalr. Bab-

enb. Cod. II. 303. — Concil. Tolosan. ann. 1119 c. 3. — Concil. Lateran. II. ann. 1139 c. 23.— Concil. Remens. ann. 1148 c. 18.


IN SOUTHERN FRANCE. 119

only interest which the affair has is its marked significance in showing that heresy had fairly outgrown all the means of repres- sion at command of the local churches, that reason had to be ap- pealed to in place of force, that heretics had no scruple in mani- / festing and declaring themselves, and that the Catholic disputants had to submit to their demands in citing only the New Testament as an authority. The powerlessaess of the Church was still further exhibited in the fact that the council, after its argumentative triumph, was obliged to content itself with simply ordering the nobles of Lombers no longer to protect the heretics. What satis- faction Pons of J^arbonne found the next year in confirming the conclusions of the Council of Lombers, in a council held at Cabes- taing, it would be difficult to define. So great was the prevailing demoralization that when some monks of the strict Cistercian or- der left their monastery of Yillemagne near Agde, and publicly took wives, he was unable to punish this gross infraction of their vows, and the interposition of Alexander III. was invoked — prob- ably without result.*

Evidently the Church was powerless. When it could condemn the doctrines and not the persons of heretics it confessed to the world that it possessed no machinery capable of dealing with op- position on a scale of such magnitude. The nobles and the people were indisposed to do its bidding, and without their aid the ful- mination of its anathema was an empty ceremony. The Cathari saw this plainly, and within two years of the Council of Lombers they dared, in 1167, to hold a council of their own at St. Felix de Caraman near Toulouse. Their highest dignitary. Bishop Nicetas, came from Constantinople to preside, with deputies from Lom- bardy ; the French Church was strengthened against the modified Dualism of the Concorrezan school; bishops were elected for the vacant sees of Toulouse, Yal d'Aran, Carcassonne, Albi, and France north of the Loire, the latter being Eobert de Sperone, sub- sequently a refugee in Lombardy, where he gave his name to the sect of the Speronistae ; commissioners were named to settle a dis- puted boundary between the sees of Toulouse and Carcassonne ; in


'>^ * Concil. Turon. ann. 1163 c. 4. — Concil. Lombariense ann. 1165 (Harduin. VI. n. 1643-52).— Roger de Hoveden. ann. 1176.— D. Vaissette, Hist. G6n. de Languedoc, III. 4 — Lowenfeld, Epistt. Pont. Roman, inedd. No. 247 (Lipsiae, 1885).


120 THE CATHARI.

sliort, the business was that of an established and independent Church, which looked upon itself as destined to supersede the Church of Rome. Based upon the affection and reverence of the people, which Eome had forfeited, it might well look forward to ultimate supremacy.*

In fact, its progress during the next ten years was such as to justify the most enthusiastic hopes. Raymond of Toulouse, whose power was virtually that of an independent sovereign, adhered to Frederic Barbarossa, acknowledged the antipope Victor and his successors, and cared nothing for Alexander III., who was received by the rest of France ; and the Church, distracted by the schism, could offer little opposition to the development of heresy. In 1177, however, Alexander triumphed and received the submission of Frederic. Raymond necessarily followed his suzerain (a large portion of his territories was subject to the empire) and suddenly awoke to the necessity of arresting the progress of heresy. Pow- erful as he was, he felt himself unequal to the task. The burgesses of his cities, independent and intractable, were for the most part Cathari. A large portion of his knights and gentlemen were se- cretly or avowedly protectors of heresy; the common people throughout his dominions despised the clergy and honored the heretics. When a heretic preached they crowded to listen and applaud ; when a Catholic assumed the rare function of religious instruction they jeered at him and asked him what he had to do with proclaiming the Word of God. In a state of chronic war with powerful vassals and more powerful neighbors, like the kings of Aragon and England, it was manifestly impossible for Ray- mond to undertake the extermination of a half or more than half of his subjects. Whether he was sincere in his desire to suppress heresy is doubtful, but in any case his situation is interesting, as an illustration of the difficulties which surrounded his son and grand- son, and led to the Crusades and the extinction of his house. What- ever his motives, however, Raymond Y. craftily placed himself on the right side. He called upon the king, Louis YII., to come to his assistance, and, remembering how St. Bernard had, in the pre- vious generation, aided to suppress the Henricians, he applied to Bernard's successor, Henry of Clairvaux, head of the great Cis-


D. Bouquet, XIV. 448-50.— D. Vaissette, III. 4, 537.


IN SOUTHERN FRANCE. 121

tercian order, to support his appeal. He described the condition of religion in his dominions as desperate. The priesthood had al-,: lowed itself to be seduced ; the churches were abandoned and fall- ing into ruin ; the sacraments were despised and no longer in use ; Duahsm had prevailed over Trinitarianism. Anxious as he was to be the minister of the vengeance of God, he was powerless, for his principal subjects had embraced the false faith, together with the better part of his people. Spiritual punishment no longer had any terror, and force alone would be of service. If the king would come, Raymond promised personally to conduct him through the land and point out the heretics to be chastised, and with their united efforts success could hardly fail to crown the good work.*

Henry II. of England, who as Duke of Aquitaine was nearly concerned in the matter, had just concluded a peace withXouis of France, and, free from the preoccupation of mutual war, the mon- archs conferred together with the intention of proceeding in per- son with a heavy force in response to Raymond's appeal. The Abbot of Clairvaux also wrote to Alexander III., with more ear- nestness than courtesy, stimulating him to do his duty and put down heresy as he had quelled schism ; the two kings, he said, were debating as to the measures to be taken, and no remissness of the spiritual power must serve as excuse for lack of energy on the part of the temporal : in Languedoc, priest and people were ahke infected, or rather the contagion proceeded from the shep- herds to the flock ; the least the pope could do was to instruct his legate. Cardinal Peter of St. Chrysogono, to remain longer in France and to attack the heretics. During these preliminaries the zeal of the monarchs had cooled, and in place of marching at the head of armies they contented themselves with sending a mis- sion consisting of the cardinal legate, the archbishops of ]^ar- bonne and Bo urges, Henry of Clairvaux and other prelates, at the same time urging the Count of Toulouse, the Viscount of Turenne, and other nobles to aid them.f

If Raymond was sincere, this was not the assistance he re- quired. The kings had resolved to depend upon the spiritual


\* Roger. Hoveden. Annal. ann. 1178.— D. Vaissette, III, 46-7. t Benedict. Petroburg. Vit. Henrici. II. ann. 1178. — Alexander. PP. HI. Epist. k 395 (D. Bouquet, XV. 959-960).


122 THE CATHARI.

sword, and he was too shrewd to exhaust his strength in an unaid- ed struggle with his subjects, especially as a menacing league was then forming against him by Alonso II. of Aragon with the nobles of Narbonne, Nimes, Montpellier, and Carcassonne. While, therefore, he protected the missionary prelates, he made no pre- tence of dra^ving the carnal sword. When they entered Toulouse the heretics crowded around them jeering and calling them hyp- ocrites, apostates, and other opprobrious names ; and Henry of Clairvaux consoles himself for the insignificant positive results of the mission with the reflection that if it had been postponed until three years later, they would not have found a single Catholic in the city. Lists of heretics, interminable in length, were made out for them, at the head of w^hich stood Pierre Mauran, an old man of great wealth and influence, and so universally respected by his co-rehgionists that he was popularly known as John the Evange- list. He was selected to be made an example. After many ter- giversations he was convicted of heresy, when, to save his confis- cated property, he agreed to recant and undergo such penance as might be assigned to him. Stripped to the waist, with the Bishop of Toulouse and the Abbot of St. Sernin busily scourging him on either side, he was led through an immense crowed to the high al- tar of the Cathedral of St. Stephen, where, for the good of his soul, he was ordered to undertake a three years' pilgrimage to the Holy Land, to be daily scourged through the streets of Toulouse until his departure, to make restitution of all Church lands occupied by him and of all moneys acquired by usury, and to pay to the count five hundred pounds of silver in redemption of his forfeited prop- erty. This resolute beginning produced the desired effect, and multitudes of Cathari hastened to make their peace with the Church ; but how little real result it had is shown by the fact that when Mauran returned from Palestine his fellow-citizens thrice honored him with election to the office of capitoul, and his family remained bitterly anti-Catholic. In 1234 an old man named Mauran was condemned as a perfected " heretic, and in 1235 ^another Mauran, one of the capitouls, was excommunicated for impeding the introduction of the Inquisition. The enormous fine for the benefit of the Count of Toulouse was weU calculated to excite the religious fervor of that potentate, but even that stimulus failed to arouse him to the decisive action which he doubtless felt to be im-


IN SOUTHERN FRANCE. 123

practicable. When the legate desired to confute two heresiarchs, Kaymond de Baimiac and Bernard Eaymond, the Catharan bish- ops of Yal d'Aran and Toulouse, he was obliged to give them a safe-conduct before they would present themselves before him, and to content himself afterwards mth excommunicating them ; and when proceedings were had against the powerful Roger Trencavel, Yiscount of Beziers, for keeping the Bishop of Albi in prison, ex- communication was likewise the only penalty, nor do we read that the captured prelate was liberated. The mission so pompously heralded returned to France, and we can readily believe the state- ment of contemporary chroniclers that it had accomplished little or nothing. It is true that Raymond of Toulouse and his nobles had been induced to issue an edict banishing aU heretics, but this remained a dead letter.*

It was in September of the same year, 1178, that Alexander III. published the call for the assembling of the Third Council of Lateran, and an ominous allusion in it to the tares which choke the wheat and must be pulled up by the roots shows that he rec- ognized the futility of all measures heretofore adopted to check the daily grooving power of heresy. Accordingly, when the coun- cil met, in 1179, it bemoaned the damnable perversity of the Pat- arins, who pubhcly seduced the faithful throughout Gascony, the Albigeois, and the Toulousain  ; it commended the employment of force by the secular power to compel men to their own salvation ; it anathematized, as usual, the heretics and those who sheltered and protected them, and it included among heretics the Cotereaux, Braban^ons, Aragonese, Navarrese, Basques, and Triaverdins, of whom more anon. It then proceeded to take a step of much sig- nificance in proclaiming a crusade against all these enemies of the Church — the first experiment of a resort to this weapon against Christians, which afterwards became so common, and gave the Church in its private quarrels the services of a warhke militia in every land, ever ready to be mobilized. Two years' indulgence

  • Roger. Hovedens. Annal. ann. 1178. — Schmidt, I. 78. — Martene Thesaur.

I. 992. — Rob. de Monte Chron. ann. 1178. — Benedict. Petroburg. Vit. Henrici

II. ann. 1178.

Roger Trencavel of B6ziers was no heretic (see Vaissette, III. 49) and his treatment of the Bishop of Albi and disregard of the missionary bishops shows the complete contempt into which the Church had fallen, even among the faithful,


124 THE CATHARI.

was promised to all who should take up arms in the holy cause ; they were received under the protection of the Church, and those who should fall were assured of eternal salvation. Among the restless and sinful warriors of the time it was not difficult to raise an army, serving without pay, on terms like these.*

Immediately on his return from the council Pons, Archbishop of Narbonne, made haste to publish this decree, with all its anath- emas and interdicts, and he included in its terms those who exact- ed new and unaccustomed tolls from travellers — a rapidly growing extortion of the feudal nobles which we shall constantly see reap- pear, like the Cotereaux, in the Albigensian quarrels. Henry of Clairvaux had refused the troublesome see of Toulouse, which had become vacant shortly after his mission thither in 11Y8, but had accepted the cardinalate of Albano, and he was forthwith sent as papal legate to preach and lead the crusade. His eloquence ena- bled him to raise a considerable force of horse and foot, with which, in 1181, he fell upon the territories of the Yiscount of Bdziers and laid siege to the stronghold of Lavaur where the Viscountess Ade- laide, daughter of Raymond of Toulouse, and the leading Patarins had taken refuge. We are told that Lavaur was captured through a miracle, and that in various parts of France consecrated wafers dropping blood announced the success of the Christian arms. Roger of Beziers hastened to make his submission and swear no longer to protect heresy. Raymond de Baimiac and Bernard Ray- mond, the Catharan bishops, who were taken prisoners, renounced their heresy and were rewarded with prebends in two churches of Toulouse. Many other heretics gave in their submission, but re- turned to the false faith as soon as the danger was past. The short term for which the Crusaders had enlisted expired; the army disbanded itself, and the next year the cardinal-legate went back to Rome, having accomphshed, virtually, nothing except to increase the mutual exasperation by the devastation of the coun- try through which his troops had passed. Raymond of Toulouse, involved in desperate war with the King of Aragon, seems to have preserved complete indifference as to this expedition^ taking no part in it on either side.f


  • Concil. Lateran. III. aun. 1179 c. 27.

t Gaufridi Vosiens. Chron. ann. 1181. — Robert! Autissiodor. Chron. ann.


THE COTEREAUX. 125

The Cotereaux and Brabangons, whom we have seen included with the Patarins in the denunciations of the Council of Lateran, are a feature of the period whose significance deserves a passing notice. We shall find them constantly reappearing, and their maintenance was one of the sins which gained for Raymond YI. of Toulouse almost as much hostihty from the Church as the sup- port of heresy which was imputed to him. They were freeboot- ers, the precursors of the dreaded Free Companies which, espe- cially during the fourteenth century, were the terror of all peace- able men, inflicting incalculable damage to the advancement of eivihzation. Their various names of Braban9ons, Hainaulters, Catalans, Aragonese, IS'avarrese, Basques, etc., show how wide- spread was the evil and how every province ascribed the hated bands to its neighbors ; while the more familiar terms of Brigandi, Pilardi, Euptarii, Mainatae (mesnie), etc., express their function and occupation ; and the names of CotareUi, Palearii, Triaverdins, Asperes, Yales, have afforded ample field for fanciful etymology. The}^ consisted of the idle and dissipated, peasants who had been hopelessly ruined in the increasing desolation of war, fugitives from serfdom, outlaws, escaped criminals, worthless ecclesiastics, outcast monks, and in general the scum which society threw upon the surface in its constant turmoil. They preyed upon the com- munity in bands of varying size, and their swords were ever at the service of the nobles who would grant them pay or plunder when a military force was needed for a longer term than the short cam- paign prescribed as due from the vassal to his feudal lord. The chronicles of the time are full of lamentations over their incessant devastations; and it is significant of the relations between the Church and the community that the ecclesiastical annalists insist that their blows ever fell heavier on church and monastery than on the castle of the seigneur or the cottage of the peasant. They ridiculed the priests as singers, and it was one of their sav- age sports to beat them to death while mockingly begging their intercession — " Sing for us, you singer, sing for us ;" and the cul- mination of their irreverent sacrilege was seen in their casting out and trampling on the holy wafers whose precious pyxes they


1181.— Alberic. Trium Font. Chron. ann. 1181.— Guillcl. Nangiac. ann. 1181.— Chron. Turonens. ann. 1181. — D.Vaissette, III. 57. — Guillel. de Pod.-Laurent. c. 2.


126 THE CATHARI.

eagerly seized. They were popularly classed as heretics, and were accused of openly denying the existence of God. In 1181 Bishop Stephen of Tournay feelingly describes his terror while traversing, on a mission from the king, through the Toulousain, then recently the seat of war between the Count of Toulouse and the King of Aragon, where deserted solitudes revealed nothing but ruined churches and desolated villages, and where he was ever in expec- tation of attack, from robbers or from the more dreaded bands of Cotereaux. It was probably a result of the crusade decreed against them, in common with the Patarins, that a concerted attack was soon after made upon the bandits in central France. They were driven together, and in July, 1183, at Chateaudun, a signal victory over them was won, the number of the slain brigands being vari- ously estimated at from six thousand to ten thousand five hundred and twenty-five. An immense booty was obtained, among which may perhaps be reckoned fifteen hundred strumpets, who accom- panied the robber host. The victors, who had assumed the name of Paciferi in token of their peaceful object, were not merciful. Fifteen days later we hear of the capture of one of the routier cap- tains with fifteen hundred men, who were all summarily hanged ; and about the same time of eighty more, Avho were caught and bhnded. In spite of these ruthless measures, the evil continued unabated. The causes which produced it remained as active as ever, and the services of the reckless and Godless mercenaries con- tinued useful to the great feudatories involved in endless war with their neighbors.*

The admitted failure of the crusade of 1181 seems to have ren- dered the Church hopeless, for the time, of making headway against heresy. For a quarter of a century it was allowed to develop in comparative toleration throughout the territories of Gascony, Lan- guedoc, and Provence. It is true that the decree of Lucius III., issued at Yerona in 1184, is important as attempting the founda- tion of an organized Inquisition, but it worked no immediate effect.

  • StephaniTornacens. Epist. 92. — Gaufridi Vosiens. Cbron. ann. 1183. — Gualt.

Mapes de Nugis Curialium Dist. i. c. xxix.— Guillel. Nangiac. ann. 1183. — Rigord. de Gest. Phil. Aug. ann. 1183.— Guillel. Brito de Gest. Phil. Aug. ann. 1183.— Ejusd. Philippidos Lib. i. 726-45.— Gran des Chroniques, ann. 1183.— Du Cange s. vv. Cotarellus, Palearii.


RAPID DEVELOPMENT OF HERESY. 12?

It is true that in 1195 another papal legate, Michael, held a pro- vincial council at Montpellier, where he commanded the enforce- ment of the Lateran canons on all heretics and Mainatae, or brig- ands, whose property was to be confiscated and whose persons reduced to slavery ; * but all this fell dead upon the indifference of the nobles, who, involved in perpetual war with each other, pre- ferred to risk the anathemas of the Church rather than to com^pli- cate their troubles by attempting the extermination of a majority of their subjects at the behest of a hierarchy which no longer in- spired respect or reverence. Perhaps, also, the fall of Jerusalem, in 1186, in arousing an unprecedented fervor of fanaticism, directed it towards Palestine, and left little for the vindication of the faith nearer home. Be this as it may, no effective persecution was un- dertaken until the vigorous ability of Innocent III., after vainly trying milder measures, organized overwhelming war against her- esy. During this interval the Poor Men of Lyons arose, and were forced to make common cause with the Cathari ; the proselyting zeal which had been so successful in secrecy and tribulation had free scope for its development, and had no effective antagonism to dread from a negligent and disheartened clergy. The heretics preached and made converts, while the priests were glad if they could save a fraction of their tithes and revenues from rapacious nobles and rebellious or indifferent parishioners. Heresy throve accordingly. Innocent III. admitted the humiliating fact that the heretics were allowed to preach and teach and make converts in public, and that unless speedy measures were taken for their sup- pression there was danger that the infection would spread to the whole Church. William of Tudela says that the heretics possessed the Albigeois, the Carcasses, and the Lauragais, and that to describe them as numerous throughout the whole district from Beziers to Bordeaux is not saying enough. Walter Mapes asserts that there were none of them in Britanny, but that they abounded in Anjou, while in Aquitaine and Burgundy their number was infinite. Will- iam of Puy-Laurens assures us that Satan possessed in peace the greater part of southern France ; the clergy were so despised that they were accustomed to conceal the tonsure through very shame, and the bishops were obliged to admit to holy orders whoever was


  • Lucii PP. III. Epist. 171.— Concil. Monspeliens. ann. 1195.


12S THE CATHARL

willing to assume them ; the whole land, under a curse, produced nothing but thorns and thistles, ravishers and bandits, robbers, murderers, adulterers, and usurers. Caesarius of Heisterbach de- clares that the Albigensian errors increased so rapidly that they soon infected a thousand cities, and he believes that if they had not been repressed by the sword of the faithful the whole of Europe would have been corrupted. A German inquisitor informs us that in Lombardy, Provence, and other regions there were more schools of heresy than of orthodox theology, with more scholars ; that they disputed publicly, and summoned the people to public debates; that they preached in the market-places, the fields, the houses ; and that there were none who dared to interfere with them, owing to the multitude and power of their protectors. As we have seen, they were regularly organized in dioceses ; they had their educa- tional estabhshments for the training of women as well as men; and, at least in one instance, all the nuns of a convent embraced Catharism without quitting the house or the habit of their order.* Such was the position to which corruption had reduced the Church. Intent upon the acquisition of temporal power, it had well-nigh abandoned its spiritual duties ; and its empire, which rested on spir- itual foundations, was crumbling with their decay, and threaten- ing to pass away like an unsubstantial vision. There have been few crises in the history of the Church more dangerous than that which Lothario Conti, when he assumed the triple crown at the early age of thirty-eight, was called upon to meet. In his consecration sermon he announced that one of his principal duties would be the destruction of heresy, and of this he never lost sight to the end, amid his endless conflicts with emperors and princes. f It is fortu- nate for civilization that he possessed the qualifications which ena- bled him to guide the shattered bark of St. Peter through the tem- pest and among the rocks — if not always wisely, yet with a reso- lute spirit, an unswerving purpose, and an unfailing trust that accomplished his mission in the end.


  • Innocent. PP. III. Serm. de Tempore xii. — Guillem. de Tudela, c. ii.— Gualt.

Mapes de Nugis Curialium Dist. i. c. xxx. — Guillel. de Pod.-Laurent. Procsm. ; cf. cap. 3, 4. — Csesar. Heisterbac. Dist. v. c. 21.— Stephani Tornacens. Epist. 92.— Anon. Passaviens. (Bib. Mag. Pat. XIII. 299).— Schmidt, I. 200.

t Innocent. PP. III. Serm. de Diversis in.


CHAPTEE lY.

THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

The Church admitted that it had brought upon itself the dan- gers which threatened it — that the alarming progress of heresy was caused and fostered by clerical negligence and corruption. In his opening address to the great Lateran Council, Innocent III. had no scruple in declaring to the assembled fathers : " The cor- ruption of the people has its chief source in the clergy. From this arise the evils of Christendom: faith perishes, religion is defaced, liberty is restricted, justice is trodden under foot, the heretics multiply, the schismatics are emboldened, the faithless grow strong, the Saracens are victorious ;" and after the futile attempt of the council to strike at the root of the evil, Honorius III., in admitting its failure, repeated the assertion. In fact this was an axiom which none were so hardy as to deny, yet when, in 1204, the legates whom Innocent had sent to oppose the Albi- genses appealed to him for aid against prelates whom they had failed to coerce, and whose infamy of life gave scandal to the faithful and an irresistible argument to the heretic. Innocent curtly bade them attend to the object of their mission and not aUow themselves to be diverted by less important matters. The reply fairly indicates the policy of the Church. Thoroughly to cleanse the Augean stable was a task from which even Innocent's fearless spirit might well shrink. It seemed an easier and more hopeful plan to crush revolt with fire and sword.*

We have seen how promptly and persistently Innocent took in- hand the heretics of Italy, nor were his dealings with those

  • Innocent. PP. III. Serm. de Diversis vi. ; Regest. vii. 165, x. 54. — Honor.

PP. III. Epist. ad Arcliiep. Bituricens. (Martene Ampl. Collect. I. 1149-51).

In 1250 Eobert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, told Innocent IV. at Lyons that the corruption of the priesthood was the cause of the heresies which af- flicted the Church (Fascic. Rer. Expetend. et Fugiend. IL 251. Ed. 1690). I.— 9


130 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

beyond the Alps less active and decisive, though they manifest an evident desire to do exact justice, and not to confound the in- nocent with the guilty. The Nivernois had long been noted as a deeply infected district. The troubles occasioned by Catharism at Vezelai in 1167 have already been alluded to, and the sharp repression of heresy then had put an end to its outward mani- festation without destroying its germs. Towards the end of the century Bishop Hugues of Auxerre earned the title of the Hammer of Heretics by his energy and success in persecution ; and though he was likewise noted for avarice, usurpation of il- legal rights, oppression of his flock, and ferocity in ruining those who had offended him, his zeal for the faith covered the multi- tude of sins, hardly needing the urgency with which, in 1204, Inno- cent commanded him to clear his diocese of heresy. By the piti- less employment of confiscation, exile, and the stake he labored to purify it, but the evil was stubborn and constantly reappeared. The chief propagator was an anchorite named Terric who dwelt in a cavern near Corbigny, where he was finally surprised and burned, through the exertions of Foulques de J^euilly, but the in- fection was not confined to the poor and humble. In 1199 we find the Dean of l^evers and the Abbot of St. Martin of Nevers appealing to Innocent from prosecutions commenced against them, and the answers of the pope show both his anxious desire that they should have f uU opportunity to prove their innocence, and the un- certainty and cumbrous nature of the ecclesiastical procedure of the time. In 1201 Bishop Hugues was more successful with a criminal of equal importance, the knight, Everard of Chateauneuf, to whom Count Hervey of JSTevers had intrusted the stewardship of his territories. In this case, the Legate Octavian caUed a coun- cil in Paris, comprising many bishops and theologians, for his trial ; he was convicted principally on the testimony of Bishop Hugues and was handed over to the secular arm and burned, after a respite for the purpose of rendering an account of his office to Count Hervey. His nephew, Thierry, an equally hard- ened heretic, escaped to Toulouse, where five years later we find him a bishop among the Albigenses, who were gratified in having a Frenchman as an accomplice. La Charite was an especially active centre of heresy in the Kivernois, and from 1202 to 1208 there are frequent appeals to Innocent from its citizens, show-


POPULAR VERSIONS OP SCRIPTURE. 131

ing that Kome was regarded as more indulgent than the local courts ; and the papal decisions continue to manifest a laudable desire to prevent injustice. All this proved inefficient, and it was one of the first places to which, in 1233, an inquisitor was sent. At Troyes, in 1200, five male and three female Catharans were burned ; and at Braisne, in 1204, a number were similarly put to death, among whom was Nicholas, the most renowned painter in France.^

In 1199 another danger threatened the Church in Metz, where Waldensian sectaries were found in possession of French transla- tions of the New Testament, the Psalter, Job, and other portions of Scripture, which they contumaciously studied with unwearied perseverance and refused to abandon at the command of their parish priests ; nay, they were hardy enough to assert that they knew more of Holy Writ than their pastors, and that they had a right to the consolation which they found in its perusal. The case was somewhat puzzling, since the Church as yet had had no occasion to interdict formally the popular reading of the Bible, and these poor folk were not accused of any definite heretical tenets. Innocent, therefore, when applied to, admitted that there was nothing condemnable in the desire to understand Scripture, but he added that such is its profundity that even the learned and wise are unequal to its comprehension, and consequently it is far beyond the grasp of the simple and illiterate. The people of Metz were therefore exhorted to abandon these reprehensible practices and return to a proper degree of respect for their pastors if they wished pardon for their sins, with a significant threat of compul- sion in case of further obstinacy ; and when the simple and illiter- ate folk proved deaf to this command, a commission was sent to the Abbot of Citeaux and two others, to proceed to Metz and put a stop, without appeal, to these unlawful studies — with what success we may infer from the fact that in 1231 the heretics of Treves were found in possession of German versions of Holy Writ.f

  • Robert! Autissiodor.Chron. ann. 1198-1201. — Hist. Episcopp.Autissiodor.(D.

Bouquet, XVIII. 725-6, 729).— Petri Sarnens. Hist. Albigens. c. 3.— Innoc. PP. III. Regest. II. 63, 99  ; v. 36 ; vi. 63, 239  ; ix. 110  ; x. 206.— Potthast, No. 9152.— Alberic. Trium Font. Chron. ann. 1200. — Chron. Canon. Laudunens. ann. 1204 (D. Bouquet, XVIII. 713).

t Regest. II. 141, 142, 235.— Gesta Treviror. c. 104.


132 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

It was the stronghold of heresy in southern France, however, which rightly gave rise to chief concern in Kome, and to this In- nocent resolutely bent his energies. Eaymond VI. of Toulouse, in the full vigor of mature manhood, at the age of thirty-eight, had, in January, 1195, succeeded his father in the possession of territories which rendered him the most powerful feudatory of the monarchy and almost an independent sovereign. Besides the county of Toulouse, the duchy of Narbonne conferred on him the dignity of first lay peer of France. He was likewise suzerain, with more or less direct authority, of the Marquisate of Provence, the Comtat Venaissin and the counties of St. Gilles, Foix, Comminges, and Kodez, and of the Albigeois, Yivarais, Gevaudan, Velai, Eou- ergue, Querci, and Agenois. Even in distant Italy he was known as the greatest count on earth, with fourteen counts as his vas- sals, and his troubadour flatterers assured him that he was the equal of emperors —

Car il val tan qu'en la soa valor Auri' assatz ad un emperador.

Even after the sacrifice of a major part of the possessions of the house, his son, Kaymond YII., at his splendid Christmas court of 1244, conferred the honor of knighthood on no less than two hun- dred nobles. So far as matrimonial alliances can have weight, Kaymond YI. was strengthened with them on every side, for he was of close kindred to the royal houses of Castile, Aragon, Na- varre, France, and England. His fourth wife was Joan of Eng- land, whom he married in 1196 in pursuance of a favorable treaty with her brother Richard, thus relieving him of the enmity of that redoubtable warrior, who, as Duke of Aquitaine, had pressed his father hard. Yet that treaty with Eichard gave secret offence to Philip Augustus, destined to bear bitter fruit thereafter. Almost at the same time he was liberated from another formidable hered- itary foe by the death of Alonso II. of Aragon, whose large pos- sessions and still larger pretensions in southern France had at times almost threatened the extinction of the house of Toulouse. With his successor, Pedro II., Eaymond's relations were most friendly, cemented in 1200 by his marriage with Pedro's sister Eleanor, and in 1205 by the engagement of his young son, Eay- mond YII., with Pedro's infant daughter. Though the distant


POSITION OF RAYMOND OF TOULOUSE. I33

sovereignty of France troubled him but little, yet the friendli- ness manifested to him on his accession by Philip Augustus was a not unimportant element in the prosperity which on every side seemed to give him assurance of a peaceful and fortunate reign. Thus secured against external aggression and confident of the fut- ure, he recked little of an excommunication which had been fulmi- nated against him in 1195 by Celestin III. on account of the in- vasion of the rights of the Abbey of St. Gilles — an excommunica- tion which Innocent III. removed shortly after his accession, but not without words of reproof and warning which Eaymond defi- antly disregarded, thus laying the foundation of a quarrel des- tined to result so disastrously. Though not a heretic, his indif- ference on religious questions led him to tolerate the heresy of his subjects. Most of his barons were either heretics or favorably in- clined to a faith which, by denying the pretensions of the Church, justified its spoliation or, at least, liberated them from its domina- tion. Eaymond himself was doubtless influenced by the same mo- tive, and when, in 1195, the Council of Montpellier anathematized all princes who neglected to enforce the Lateran canons against heretics and mercenaries, he paid no attention to its utterances. It would, in fact, have required the most ardent fanaticism to lead a prince so circumstanced to provoke his-^ vassals, to lay waste his territories, to massacre his subjects, and to invite assault from wa,tchful rivals, for the purpose of enforcing uniformity in relig- ion and subjugation to a Church known only by its rapacity and corruption. Toleration had endured for nearly a generation ; the land was blessed with peace after almost interminable war, and all the dictates of worldly prudence counselled him to follow in his father's footsteps. Surrounded by one of the gayest and most cultured courts in Christendom, fond of women, a patron of poets, somewhat irresolute of purpose, and enjoying the love of his sub- jects, nothing could have appeared to him more objectless than a persecution such as Kome held to be the most indispensable of his duties.^

The condition of the Church in his dominions might well ex-


  • Villani Cronica, Lib. v. c. 90. — Diez, Leben und Werke der Troubadours,

424.— Guill. Pod. Laur. cap. 47.— Vaissette, ^d. Privat, VIII. 558.— Petri Sar- nensis Hist. Albigens. c. 1.— Vaissette, fid. 1730, IIL 101.


134 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

cite the indignation of a pontiff like Innocent III., who conscien- tiously believed in the full measure of its awful authority and im- prescriptible rights. A chronicler assures us that among many thousands of the people there were but few Catholics to be found ; and although this is doubtless an exaggeration, we have seen in the preceding chapter what rapid strides heresy had made. How utterly discredited the Church had become, and how loss of respect for the spirituality had led to spoliation of the temporality is shown by the condition of the episcopate of the capital, Toulouse. Bishop Fulcrand, who died in 1200, is described as living per- force in apostolical poverty like a private citizen. His tithes had been seized by the knights and the monasteries ; his first-fruits by the parish priests, and his only revenue was derived from a few farms and from the public baking-oven over which he retained a feudal right. In his extremity he brought suit against his own chapter to compel them to assign to him the income of a single prebend as a means of livelihood. When he visited the parishes, he was obliged to beg an escort from the lords of the lands over which he passed. "When Fulcrand's wretched life came to an end, uninviting as the episcopate seemed to be, it was the subject of a bitter and disgraceful contest which ended in the success of Eay- mond de Kabastens, Archdeacon of Agen, w^hose career was even more miserable than that of his predecessor. Perhaps his poverty might excuse the unblushing simony with which he sought to aug- ment his revenues ; but when he had pledged or parted with all the remaining possessions of his see to defray the expenses of a fruitless htigation with Kaymond de Beaupuy, one of his vassals, he was rightly adjudged a wicked and slothful servant, and was deposed with an annual assignment of thirty livres toulousains to keep him from beggary. His successor, Foulques of Marseilles, a distinguished troubadour who had renounced the world and be- come Abbot of rioreges, used to relate that when he took posses- sion of the see he was obliged to water his mules at home, having no one to send with them to the common watering-place on the Garonne. Foulques was a man of different temper, whose ruth- less bigotry in time carried fire and sword throughout his dio- cese.*

  • Guillel. Nangiac. ann. 1207.— Vaissette, III. 128, 132.— Guillel. Pod. Lau-


CONDITION OF THE CHURCH. 135

The evil was constantly increasing, and unless checked it seemed only a question of time when the Church would disappear throughout all the Mediterranean provinces of France. Yet it must be said for the credit of the heretics that there was no man- ifestation of a persecuting spirit on their part. The rapacity of the barons, it is true, was rapidly depriving the ecclesiastics of their revenues and possessions  ; as they neglected their duties, and as the law of the strongest was all-prevailing, the invader of Church property had small scruple in despoihng lazy monks and worldly priests whose numbers were constantly diminishing ; but the Cathari, however much they may have deemed themselves the Church of the future, seem never to have thought of extending their faith by force. They reasoned and argued and disputed when they found a CathoUc zealous enough to contend with them, and they preached to the people, who had no other source of in- struction; but, content with peaceable conversions and zealous missionary work, they dwelt in perfect amity with their orthodox neighbors. To the Church this state of affairs was unbearable. It has always held the toleration of others to be persecution of itself. By the very law of its being it can brook no rivalry in its domination over the human soul ; and, in the present case, as tol- eration was slowly but surely leading to its destruction, it was bound by its sense of duty no less than of self-preservation to put an end to a situation so abhorrent. Yet, before it could re- sort effectually to force it was compelled to make what efforts


rent. c. 6, 7. — Regest. viii. 115-6. — For the condition of other sees — Carcas- sonne, Vence, Agde, Ausch, Narbonne, Bordeaux— see Regest. 1. 194; iii. 34 ; vi. 216; VII. 84; viii. 76; xvi. 5.

For the biography of Foulques, or Folquet, of Marseilles, who, after being fa- vored by Raymond V., became the most bitter enemy of Raymond VI., see Paul Meyer ap. Vaissette, £d. Privat, VII. 444. Dante places him in the heaven of Venus, together with Cunizza, the lascivious sister of Ezzelin da Romano (Para- diso, IX.). It is related of him that once when preaching against the heretics he conipared them to wolves and the faithful to sheep. A heretic whose eyes had been torn out and his nose and lips cut off by Simon de Montfort, arose and said, " Did you ever see sheep bite a wolf thus  ?" to which Foulques rejoined that de Montfort was a good dog who had thus bitten the wolf A more pleas- ing trait is seen in the story that he gave alms to a poor heretic beggar-woman, saying that he gave it to poverty and not to heresy. — Chabaneau (Vaissette, fid. I'rivat, X. 292).


136 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

it could at persuasion — not of heretics, indeed, but of their pro- tectors.

Innocent was consecrated February 22, 1198, and already by April 1st we find him writing to the Archbishop of Ausch, de- ploring the spread of heresy and the danger of its becoming uni- versal. The prelate and his brethren are ordered to extirpate it by the utmost rigor of ecclesiastical censures, and if necessary by bringing the secular arm to bear through the assistance of princes and people. Not only are heretics themselves to be punished, but all who have any dealings with them, or who are suspect by rea- son of undue familiarity with them. In the existing posture of affairs, the prelates to whom these commands were addressed can only have regarded them with mingled derision and despair ; and we can readily imagine the rephes in which they declared their zeal and lamented their powerlessness. Innocent probably was aware of this in advance and did not await the response. By April 21st he had two commissioners ready to represent the Holy See on the spot — Kainier and Gui — whom he sent armed with letters to all the prelates, princes, nobles, and people of southern France, empowering them to enforce whatever regulations they might see fit to employ to avert the imminent peril to the Church arising from the countless increase of Cathari and Waldenses, who corrupted the people by simulated works of justice and charity. Those heretics who wiU not return to the true faith are to be ban- ished and their property confiscated ; these provisions are to be enforced by the secular authorities under penalty of interdict for refusal or negligence, and with the reward for obedience of the same indulgences as those granted for a pilgrimage to Rome or Compostella ; and all who consort or deal with heretics or show them favor or protection are to share their punishment. It was apparently an after-thought when Rainier, six months later, was empowered to remove the source of the evil by reforming the churches and restoring discipline. Rainier's powers evidently proved insufficient, and in July, 1199, they were enlarged, both as a reformer and a persecutor, and he was appointed legate, *to be received and obeyed with as much reverence as the pope himself. About this time there appeared to be a gleam of success in the ap- pHcation of William, Lord of Montpellier, for a legate to assist him in suppressing heresy ; but though William was a good Cath-


FRUITLESS EFFORTS OF PERSECUTION. 137

olic this special manifestation of zeal was due to his anxiety to obtain the legitimation of the children of a second wife whom he had married without legally divorcing a pre\ious one, and as In- nocent refused to sanction the wrong, no great results were to be anticipated for religion. A vigorous show of reform was also commenced by attacking two high-placed and notorious offenders, the archbishops of Narbonne and Ausch, whose personal wicked- ness, neghgence, and toleration of heresy had reduced the Church in their pro\dnces to a most deplorable state ; but as these pro- ceedings dragged on for ten or twelve years before the removal of the sinners could be effected, no immediate purification could be hoped for by the most sanguine.*

In fact, for a time at least, these spasmodic efforts at reform only rendered matters worse. Angered and humiliated by the powers conferred on the representatives of Kome, and alarmed at the attempts to punish their evil lives, the local prelates were in no mood to second the exertions put forth for the eradication of heresy, and at one time it would even seem as though they might be driven to make common cause with the heretics, in opposition to the Holy See, in order to protect themselves and their clergy. Rainier had fallen sick in the summer of 1202 and had been re- placed by Pierre de Castelnau and Eaoul, two Cistercian monks of Fontfroide, who succeeded, after infinite trouble, by threats of the royal vengeance, in persuading the magistracy of Toulouse to swear to abjure heresy and expel heretics, in return for an oath pledging immunity and the preservation of the liberties of the city ; but no sooner were their backs turned than heresy was as flagrant as before. Encouraged by this apparent success, they un- dertook the task of obtaining a similar oath from Count Raymond. This they finally accomplished, with equally slender result, but the process showed what assistance they might expect from the hierarchy. When they summoned the Archbishop of l^arbonne to accompany them to the Count of Toulouse for the purpose, he not only refused, but declined to aid them in any way, and it was only after long entreaty that he would even furnish them a horse for the journey. With the Bishop of Beziers their success was no


  • Regest. I. 92, 93, 94, 165, 395 ; ii. 122, 123, 298  ; iii. 24  ; v. 96; vii. 17, 75 ;

VIII. 75, 106; IX. 66; x. 68; xiii. 88; xiv. 32; xvi. 5.— Vaissette, III. 117,


138 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

better. lie likewise declined to go with them to Raymond  ; and when they asked his co-operation in summoning the consuls of Beziei*s to abjure heresy and defend the Church against heretics, he not only withheld it, but impeded their efforts ; and though he linally promised to excommunicate the magistrates for contumacy, he never did so, in spite of the fact that heresy so predominated in the town that the viscount was obhged to authorize the cathe- dral canons to fortify the Church of St. Peter for fear that the heretics would seize it Possibly he was deterred by the example made of liis neighbor, Berenger, Bishop of Carcassonne, who, in consequence of threatening his flock for heresy, was expelled the city and a heavy fine imposed on any one who should have deal- ings with him.*

Evidently pope and legate were of small account in the chaos which reigned in Languedoc. The prelates refused to be re- formed, and yet the legates, in their disputations with the here- tics, were so continually answered with references to the evil lives of the clergy that they recognized reformation as a condition pre- cedent to any peaceable conversion of the people. The heretics were daily growing bolder, as if to show their scorn of the futile efforts of Innocent. About this very time Esclairmonde, sister of the powerful Count of Foix, with five other ladies of rank, was " hereticated " in a public assemblage of Cathari, where many knights and nobles were present, and it was remarked that the count was the only one who did not give the heretical salute or " veneration " to the ministrants. Even Pedro the Catholic of Aragon presided over a public debate at Carcassonne, between the legates and a number of leading heretics, which had no result. The situation was desperate, and Innocent may be pardoned if he reached the conclusion that a deluge was needed to cleanse the land of sin and prepare it for a new race.f

Enough time had been lost in half -measures while the evil was daily increasing in magnitude, and Innocent proceeded to put


  • Petri Sarnens. c. 1, 17.— Vaissette, III. 129, 134-5; Preuves, 197.— Regest.

VI. 242-3.

t Pet. Sarnens. c. 3,— Vaissette, III. 133, 135— Guillem de Tudela iv. My ref- erences to the poem which passes under the name of Guillem de Tudela are to Fauriel's edition (1837). A metrical version by Mary-Lafon appeared in 1868, since when M. Paul Meyer has issued a critical edition with abundant apparatus.


CKCSADE THREATENED IN VAIN. 139

forth the whole strength of the Church. To the monks of Font- froide he adjoined as chief legate the " Abbot of abbots," Arnaud of Citeaux, head of the great Cistercian Order, a stern, resolute, and implacable man, full of zeal for the cause and gifted with rare persistency. Since the time of St. Bernard the abbots of Citeaux had seemed to feel a personal responsibility for the suppression of heresy in Languedoc, and Arnaud was better fitted for the work before him than any of his predecessors. To the legation thus constituted, at the end of May, 1204, Innocent issued a fresh com- mission of extraordinary powers. The prelates of the infected provinces were bitterly reproached for the negligence and timidity which had permitted heresy to assume its alarming proportions. They were ordered to obey humbly whatever the legates might see fit to command, and the vengeance of the Holy See was threatened for slackness or contumacy. Wherever heresy ex- isted, the legates were armed with authority " to destroy, throw down, or pluck up whatever is to be destroyed, thrown down, or plucked up, and to plant and build whatever is to be built or planted." "With one blow the independence of the local churches was destroyed and an absolute dictatorship was created. Kecog- nizing, moreover, of how little worth were ecclesiastical censures, Innocent proceeded to appeal to force, which was evidently the only possible cure for the trouble. Not only were the legates directed to dehver aU impenitent heretics to the secular arm for perpetual proscription and confiscation of property, but they were empowered to offer complete remission of sins, the same as for a crusade to the Holy Land, to Philip Augustus and his son, Louis Coeur-de-Lion, and to all nobles who should aid in the suppression of heresy. The dangerous classes were also stimulated by the prospect of pardon and plunder, through a special clause author- izing the legates to absolve all under excommunication for crimes of violence who would join in persecuting heretics — an offer which subsequent correspondence shows was not unfruitful. To Philip Augustus, also. Innocent wrote at the same time, earnestly exhorting him to draw the sword and slay the wolves who had thus far found no one to withstand their ravages in the fold of the Lord. If he could not proceed in person, let him send his son, or some experienced leader, and exercise the power conferred on him for the purpose by Heaven. Not only was remission of sins


UO THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

promised him, as for a voyage to Palestine, but he was empowered to seize and add to his dominions the territories of all nobles who might not join in persecution and expel the hated heretic.*

Innocent might well feel disheartened at the failure of this vigorous move. He had played his last card and lost. The prel- ates of the infected provinces, indignant at the usurpation of their rights, were less disposed than ever to second the efforts of the legates. Philip Augustus was unmoved by the dazzling bribes, spiritual and temporal, offered to him. He had already had the benefit of an indulgence for a crusade to the Holy Land, and had probably not found his spiritual estate much benefited thereby ; while his recent acquisitions in Normandy, Anjou, Poitou, and Aquitaine, at the expense of John of England, required his whole attention, and might .be endangered by creating fresh enmities in too sudden a renewal of conquest. He took no steps, therefore, in response to the impassioned arguments of Innocent, and the legates found the heretics more obdurate than ever. Pierre de Castelnau grew so discouraged that he begged the pope to permit him to re- turn to his abbey ; but Innocent refused permission, assuring him that God would reward him according to the labor rather than to the result. A second urgent appeal to Philip in February, 1205, was equally fruitless ; and a concession in the following June, to Pedro of Aragon, of all the lands that he could acquire from heretics, and a year later of aU their goods, was similarly without result, except that Pedro seized the Castle of Escure, belonging to the papacy, which had been occupied by Cathari. If something appeared to be gained when at Toulouse, in 1205, some dead heretics were prose- cuted and their bones exhumed, it was speedily lost, for the mu- nicipality promptly adopted a law forbidding trials of the dead who had not been accused during life, unless they had been heret- icated on the death-bed. f

The work might weU seem hopeless, and all three legates were on the point of abandoning it peremptorily in despair, even Ar- naud's iron will yielding to the insurmountable passive resistance of a people among whom the heretics would not be converted and


  • Regest. VII. 76, 77, 79, 165.

tRegest. VII. 210, 212; viii. 94, 97; ix. 103.— Havet, L'H6r6sie et le bras seculier (Bibliothfeque de FiEcole des Charles, 1880, 582).


FRUITLESS MISSION WORK. 141

the orthodox could not be stimulated to persecution. Bishop Foulques of Toulouse used to relate that in a disputation at which he was present the Cathari were, as usual, vanquished, when he asked Pons de Kodelle, a knight renowned for wisdom and a good Catholic, why he did not drive from his lands those who were so manifestly in error. " How can we do it  ?" replied the knight. " We have been brought up with these people, we have kindred among them, and we see them live righteously." Dogmatic zeal fell powerless before such kindliness ; and we can readily believe the monk of Yaux-Cernay, when he tells us that the barons of the land were nearly all protectors and receivers of heretics, loving them fervently and defending them against God and the Church.*

The case seemed desperate, when a new light fell as though from heaven upon those groping blindly in the darkness. About mid-summer in 1206 the three legates met at Montpellier, and the result of their conference was a determination to withdraw from the thankless labor. By chance, a Spanish prelate, Diego de Azevedo, Bishop of Osma, arrived there on his return from Rome, where he had vainly supplicated Innocent to permit his resigna- tion of his bishopric in order that he might devote his life to mis- sionary work among the infidel. On learning the decision of the legates, he earnestly dissuaded them, and suggested their dismiss- ing their splendid retinues and worldly pomp and going among the people, barefooted and poor like the apostles, to preach the Word of God. The idea was so novel that the legates hesitated, but finally assented, if an example were set them by one in au- thority. Diego offered himself for the purpose and was accepted, whereupon he sent his servitors home, retaining only his sub-prior, Domingo de Guzman, who had already, on the voyage towards Rome, converted a heretic in Toulouse. Arnaud returned to Citeaux to hold a general chapter of the order and to obtain re- cruits for the missionary work, while the other two legates with Diego and Dominic commenced their experiment at Caraman, where for eight days they disputed with the heresiarchs Baldwin and Thierry, the latter of whom we have seen driven from the Nivernois some years before. We are told that they converted


  • Guillel. de Pod. Laurent, c. 8. — Pet. Sarnens. c. 1.


U2 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

all the simple folk, but that the lord of the castle would not allow the two disputants to be expelled.*

Further colloquies of similar character are recorded, occupying the autumn and winter, and, with the opening of spring, in 1207, Arnaud had held his chapter and obtained numerous volunteers for the pious work, among them no less than twelve abbots. Tak- ing boats, they descended the Saone to the Khone, without horses or retinue, and proceeded to their field of labor, where they sep- arated into twos and threes, wandering barefoot among the towns and villages and seeking to gather in the lost sheep of Israel. For three months they thus labored diligently, like real evangelists, finding thousands of heretics and few orthodox, but the harvest was scanty and conversions rarely rewarded their pains — in fact, the only practical result was to excite the heretics to renewed mis- sionary zeal. It speaks well for the tolerant temper of the Cathari that men who had been invoking the most powerful sovereigns of Christendom to exterminate them with fire and sword, should have incurred no real danger in a task apparently so full of risk. The missionaries had to complain of occasional insult, but never were even threatened with injury, except perhaps, at Beziers, Pierre de Castelnau, who seems to have attracted to himself the special dis- like of the sectaries. It shows, moreover, the zealous care with which the Church restricted the oflRce of preaching that the legates, in spite of the extraordinary powers with which they were clothed, felt obliged to apply to Innocent for special authority to confer the license to teach in public on those whom they deemed worthy. The favorable answer of the pope was in reality one of the im- portant events of the century, for it gave the impulsion out of which eventually grew the great Dominican Order.f

Pierre de Castelnau left his colleagues and visited Provence to make peace among the nobles, in the hope of uniting them for the expulsion of heretics. Kajrmond of Toulouse refused to lay down his arms untH the intrepid monk excommunicated him and laid his dominions under interdict, finally reproaching him bitterly to his


  • Pet. Sarnens. c. 3.

t Pet. Sarnens. c. 3, 5. — Rob. Autissiodor. ann. 1207.— Guillel. Nangiac. ann. 1207.— Guillel. de Pod. Laurent, c. 8.— Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1208.— Regest. K. 185.


COUNT RAYMOND EXCOMMUNICATED. 143

face for his perjuries and other misdeeds. Eaymond submitted in patience to this reproof, while Pierre applied to Innocent for con- firmation of the sentence. By this time, in fact, Raymond had acquired the special hatred of the papaUsts, through his obstinate neglect to persecute his heretical subjects, in spite of his readiness to take what oaths were required of him. Notwithstanding his outward conformity to orthodoxy, they accused him of being at heart a heretic, and stories were circulated that he always carried with him " perfected " heretics, disguised in ordinary vestments, together with a New Testament, that he might be " hereticated " in case of sudden death ; that he had declared that he would rather be Hke a certain crippled heretic living in poverty at Castres than be a king or an emperor ; that he knew that he would in the end be disinherited for the sake of the " Good Men," but that he was ready to suffer even beheading for them. All this and niuch more, including exaggerated gossip as to his undoubted frailties, was diligently published in order to render him odious, but there is no proof that his religious indifference ever led him to deviate from the faith, and no accusation that he had ever interfered with the legates in their mission. They were free to make what converts they could by persuasion or argument, but he committed the un- pardonable crime of refusing at their bidding to plunge his do- minions in blood.*

Innocent promptly confirmed the sentence of his legate. May 29, 1207, in an epistle to Raymond which was an unreserved ex- pression of the passions accumulated through long years of zeal- ous effort frustrated in its results. In the harshest vituperation of ecclesiastical rhetoric, Raymond was threatened with the ven- geance of God here and hereafter. The excommunication and in- terdict were to be strictly observed until due satisfaction and obedi- ence were rendered ; and he was warned that these must be speedy, or he would be deprived of certain territories which he held of the Church, and if this did not suflBce, the princes of Christendom would be summoned to seize and partition his dominions so that the land might be forever freed from heresy. Yet in the recital of misdeeds which were held to justify this rigorous sentence there was nothing that had not been for two generations so universal in


  • Pet. Sarnens. c. 3, 4.


144 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

Languedoc that it might almost be regarded as a part of the public law of the land. He had continued to wage war when desired by the legates to make peace, and had refused to suspend operations on feast-days or holidays ; he had violated his oaths to purge his land of heresy, and had shoAvn such favor to heretics as to render his o^vn faith vehemently suspected ; in derision of the Christian religion he had bestowed public office on Jews ; he had despoiled the Church and ill-treated certain bishops ; he had continued to employ the robber bands of mercenaries and had increased the tolls. Such is the summary of crime alleged against him, which we may reasonably assume to cover everything possibly suscepti- ble of proof. '^

Innocent waited awhile to prove the effect of this threat and the results of the missionary effort so auspiciously started by Bishop Azevedo. Both were null. Baymond, indeed, made peace with the Proven§al nobles, and was released from excommunica- tion, but he showed no signs of awakening from his exasperating indifference on the religious question, while the Cistercian abbots, disheartened by the obstinacy of the heretics, dropped off one by one, and retired to their monasteries. Legate Baoul died, and Ar- naud of Citeaux was called elsewhere by important affairs. Bish- op Azevedo went to Spain to set his diocese in order and return to devote his life to the work ; but he, too, died when on the point of setting out. He had left behind him the saintly Dominic, who was quietly bringing together a few ardent souls, the germs of the great Order of Preachers, and Pierre de Castelnau remained as the sole representative of Kome until Eaoul was replaced by the Bish- op of Conserans. Everything thus had been tried and had failed, except the appeal to the sword, and to this Innocent again recurred with aU the energy of despair. A milder tone towards Philip Augustus with regard to his matrimonial complications between Ingeburga of Denmark and Agnes of Meran might predispose him to vindicate energetically the wrongs of the Church; but, while condescending to this, Innocent now addressed, not only the king, but all the faithful throughout France, and the leadings mag- nates were honored with special missives. November 17, 1207, the letters were sent out, pathetically representing the incessant and


  • Regest. X. 69.


MURDER OF THE LEGATE PIERRE. I45

alarming growth of heresy and the failure of all endeavors to bring the heretics to reason, to frighten them with threats, or to allure them with blandishments. Nothing was left but an appeal to arms ; and to all who would embark in this good work the same indulgences were offered as for a crusade to Palestine. The lands of all engaged in it were taken under the special protection of holy Church, and those of the heretics were abandoned to the spoiler. All creditors of Crusaders were obliged to postpone their claims without interest, and clerks taking part were empowered to pledge their revenues in advance for two years.*

Earnest and impassioned as was this appeal, it fell, like the previous one, upon deaf ears. Innocent had for years been invok- ing the religious martial ardor of Europe in aid of the Latin king- doms of the East, and that ardor seemed for a time exhausted. Philip Augustus coolly responded that his relations with England did not allow him to let the forces of his kingdom be divided, but that, if he could be assured of a two years' truce, then, if the bar- ons and knights of France wanted to undertake a crusade, he would permit them, and aid it with fifty livres a day for a year. Apparently the present eifort was destined to prove as inefiicient as the former one had been, when a startling incident suddenly changed the whole aspect of affairs. The murder of the legate Pierre de Castelnau sent a thrill of horror throughout Christen- dom like that caused by the assassination of Becket thirty-eight years before. Of its details, however, the accounts are so contra- dictory that it is impossible to speak of it with precision. This much we know, that Pierre had greatly angered Kajrmond by the bitterness of his personal reproaches ; that the count, aroused by the sense of impending danger in the fresh call for a crusade, had invited the legates to an interview at St. Gilles, promising to show himself in all things an obedient son of the Church ; that diffi- culties arose in the conference, the demands of the legates being greater than Raymond was willing to concede. The Romance version of the catastrophe is simply that, during the conference, Pierre became entangled in an angry religious dispute with one of the gentlemen of the court, who drew his dagger and slew him ; that the count was greatly concerned at an event so deplorable,


  • Pet. Sarnens. c. 3, G, 7.— Regest. x. 149, 176; xi. 11.

L— 10


146 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

and would have taken summary vengeance on the murderer but for his escape and hiding with friends at Beaucaire. The story carried to Eome by the Bishops of Conserans and Toulouse, who hastened thither to inflame Innocent against Raymond, was that, wearied with the count's tergiversations, the legates announced their intentions to withdraw, when he was heard to threaten them with death, saying that he would track them by land and water. That the Abbot of St. Gilles and the citizens, unable to appease his wrath, furnished the legates with an escort, and they reached the Rhone in safety, where they passed the night. While prepar- ing to cross the river in the morning (January 16, 1208), two stran- gers, who had joined the party, approached the legates, and one of them suddenly thrust his lance through Pierre, who, turning on his murderer, said, " May God forgive thee, for I forgive thee !" and speedily breathed his last ; and that Raymond, so far from punishing the crime, protected and rewarded the perpetrator, even honoring him with a seat at his own table. The papal account, it must be owned, is somewhat impaired in effect by the remark that Pierre, as a martyr, would certainly have shone forth in miracles but for the incredulity of the people. It may well be that a proud and powerful prince, exasperated by continued objurgation and menace, may have uttered some angry expression, which an over- zealous servitor hastened to translate into action, and Raymond, certainly, never was able to clear himself of suspicion of comphcity ; but there are not wanting indications to show that Innocent event- ually regarded his exculpation as satisfactory.*

The crime gave the Church an enormous advantage, of which Innocent hastened to make the most. On March 10 he issued letters to all the prelates in the infected provinces commanding that, in all churches, on every Sunday and feast-day, the murder- ers and their abettors, including Raymond, be excommunicated with bell, book, and candle, and every place cursed with their presence was declared under interdict. As no faith was to be kept with him who kept not faith with God, all of Raymond's


  • Vaissette, ]Ed. Privat, VIII. 557.— Hist, du Comte de Toulouse (Vaissette,

HI. Pr. 3, 4).— Guill. de Pod. Laurent, c. 9.— Pet. Saruens. c. 9.— Rob. Autissi- odor. ann. 1209.— GuilL Nangiac. ann. 1208.— Regest. xi. 26; xii. 106.— Guillein de Tudela, v.


CRUSADE UNDERTAKEN AT LAST. 147

vassals were released, from their oaths of allegiance, and his lands were declared the prey of any Catholic who might assail them, while, if he applied for pardon, his first sign of repentance must be the extermination of heresy throughout his dominions. These letters were hkewise sent to Philip Augustus and his chief barons, with eloquent adjurations to assume the cross, and rescue the im- perilled Church from the assaults of the emboldened heretics; commissioners were sent to negotiate and enforce a truce for two years between France and England, that nothing might interfere with the projected crusade, and every effort was made to trans- mute into warlike zeal the horror which the sacrilegious murder was so well fitted to arouse. Arnaud of Citeaux hastened to call a general chapter of his Order, where it was unanimously resolved to devote all its energies to preaching the crusade, and soon mul- titudes of fiery monks were inflaming the passions of the people, and offering redemption in every church and on every market- place in Europe.*

The flame which had been so long kindling burst forth at last. To estimate fully the force of these popular ebullitions in the Mid- dle Ages, we must bear in mind the susceptibility of the people to contagious emotions and enthusiasms of which we know httle in our colder day. A trifle might start a movement which the wisest could not explain nor the most powerful restrain. It was during the preaching of this crusade that villages and towns in Germany were filled with women who, unable to expend their religious ardor in taking the cross, stripped themselves naked and ran silently through the roads and streets. Still more sjonptomatic of the diseased spirituality of the time was the Crusade of the Children, which desolated thousands of homes. From vast districts of ter- ritory, incited apparently by a simultaneous and spontaneous im- pulse, crowds of children set forth, without leaders or guides, in search of the Holy Land ; and their only answer, when questioned as to their object, was that they were going to Jerusalem. Yainly did parents lock their children up ; they would break loose and dis- appear; and the few who eventually found their way home again could give no reason for the overmastering longing which had car-


  • Regest. XI. 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33.— Archives Nationales de France J, 430,

No. 2.— Hist, du C. de Toul. (Vaissette, III. Pr. 4).


148 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

ried them away. Nor must we lose sight of other and less credit- able springs of action which brought to all crusades the vile, who came for license and spoil, and the base, who sought the immunity conferred by the quality of Crusader. This is illustrated by the case of a knave who took the cross to evade the payment of a debt contracted at the fair of Lille, and was on the point of escaping when he w^as arrested and delivered to his creditor. For this inva- sion of immunity the Archbishop of Reims excommunicated the Countess Matilda of Flanders, and placed her whole land under in- terdict in order to compel his release. How this principle worked to secure the higher order of recruits was shown when Gui, Count of Auvergne, who had been excommunicated for the unpardona- ble offence of imprisoning his brother, the Bishop of Clermont, was absolved on condition of joining the Host of the Lord.*

Other special motives contributed in this case to render the crusade attractive. There was antagonism of race, jealousy of the w^ealth and more advanced civilization of the South, and a natural desire to complete the Frankish conquest so often begun and never yet accomplished. More than all, the pardon to be gained was the same as that for the prolonged and dangerous and costly expedi- tion to Palestine, while here the distance was short and the term of service limited to forty days. Paradise, surely, could not be gained on easier terms, and the preachers did not fail to point out that the labor was small and the reward illimitable. With Chris- tendom fairly aroused by the murder of the legate, there could be no doubt, therefore, as to the result. Whether Philip Augustus contributed, in men or money, is more than doubtful, but he made no opposition to the service of his barons, and endeavored to turn his acquiescence to account in the affair of his divorce, while he declined personal participation on the ground of the threatening aspect of his relations with King John and the Emperor Otho. He significantly w^arned the pope, however, that Raymond's terri- tories could not be exposed to seizure until he had been condemned for heresy, which had not yet been done, and that when such con- demnation should be pronounced it would be for the suzerain,* and not for the Holy See, to proclaim the penalty. This was strictly


  • Alberti Stadens. Chron, ann. 1212. — Chronik des Jacob v. Konigshofen

(Chron. der deutschen Stadte IX. 649).— Regest. xi. 234 ; xv. 199.


TERROR OF COUNT RAYMOND. 149

in accordance with existing law, for the principle had not yet been introduced into European jurisprudence that suspicion of heresy annulled all rights — a principle which the case of Eaymond went far to establish, for the Church without a trial stripped him of his possessions and then decided that he had forfeited them, after which the king could only acquiesce in the decision. Scruples of this kind, however, did not dampen the zeal of those whom the Church summoned to defend the faith. Many great nobles as- sumed the cross — the Duke of Burgundy and the Counts of Sev- ers, St. Pol, Auxerre, Montfort, Geneva, Poitiers, Forez, and oth- ers, with numerous bishops. With time there came large contin- gents from Germany, under the Dukes of Austria and Saxony, the Counts of Bar, of Juliers, and of Berg. Kecruits were drawn from distant Bremen on the one hand, and Lombardy on the other, and we even hear of Slavonian barons leaving the original home of Catharism to combat it in its seat of latest development. There was salvation to be had for the pious, knightly fame for the war- rior, and spoil for the worldly ; and the army of the Cross, recruited from the chivalry and the scum of Europe, promised to be strong enough to settle decisively the question which had now for three generations defied all the efforts of the faithful.*

All this was, necessarily, a work of time, and Raymond sought in the interval to conjure the coming storm. Roused at last from his dream of security, he recognized the fatal position in which the murder of the legate had placed him, and if he could save his dignities he was ready to sacrifice his honor and his subjects. He hastened to his uncle, Philip Augustus, who received him kindly and counselled submission, but forbade an appeal to his enemy, the Emperor Otho. Raymond, however, in his despair, sought the emperor, whose vassal he was for his territories beyond the Rhone, obtaining no help, and incurring the ill-will of Philip, which was of much greater moment. On his return, learning that Arnaud was about to hold a council at Aubinas, Raymond hurried thither


  • Guillel. Briton. Philippidos viii. 490-529.— Regest. xi. 156, 157, 158, 159,

180, 181, 182, 231, 234.— Vaissette, III. Pr. 4, 96.— Vaissette, ^d. Privat, VIII. 559, 563.— Pet. Sarnens. c. 10, 14.— Guill. de Tudela viii., Ivi., cliv.— Alberti Sta- dens. Chron. ann. 1210. — Csesar. Heisterb. Dial. Mirac. Dist. v, c. 21. — Reineri Monach. Leodiens. Chron. ann. 1210, 1213.— Chron. Engelhusii (Leibnitz Script. Rer. Brunsv. II. 1113).


150 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

with his nephew, the young Ivayniond Eoger, Yiscount of Beziers, and endeavored to prove his innocence and make his peace, but was coklly refused a hearing, and was referred to Eome. Return- ing much disconcerted, he took counsel with his nephew, who ad- vised resisting the invasion to the death ; but Raymond's courage was unequal to the manly part. They quarrelled, whereupon the hot-headed youth commenced to make war on his uncle, while the latter sent envoys to Rome for terms of submission, and asked for new and impartial legates to replace those who were irrevocably prejudiced against him. Innocent demanded that, as security for his good faith, he should place in the hands of the Church his seven most important strongholds, after which he should be heard, and, if he could prove his innocence, be absolved. Raymond gladly ratified the conditions, and earnestly welcomed Milo and Theo- disius, the new representatives of the Church, who treated him with such apparent friendliness that, when Milo subsequently died at Aries, he mourned greatly, believing that he had lost a protector who would have saved him from his misfortunes. He did not know that the legates had secret instructions from Innocent to amuse him with fair promises, to detach him from the heretics, and when they should be disposed of by the Crusaders, to deal with him as they should see fit.*

He was played with accordingly, skilfully, cruelly, and re- morselessly. The seven castles were duly delivered to Master Theodisius, thus f ataUy crippUng him for resistance ; the consuls of Avignon, Mmes, and St. Gilles were sworn to renounce their allegiance to him if he did not obey implicitly the future com- mands of the pope, and he was reconciled to the Church by the most humiliating of ceremonies. The new legate, Milo, with some twenty archbishops and bishops, went to St. Gilles, the scene of his alleged crime, and there, June 18, 1209, arrayed themselves before the portal of the Church of St. Gilles. Stripped to the waist, Raymond was brought before them as a penitent, and swore on the relics of St. GiUes to obey the Church in aU matters whereof he was accused. Then the legate placed a stole around his neck, in the fashion of a halter, and led him into the Church, while he was industriously scourged on his naked back and shoulders up to the altar, where he was absolved. The curious crowd assem-

  • GuiU. de Pod. Laurent, c. 13.— Vaissette, III. Pr. 4, 5.— Regest. xi. 232.


RAYMOND ABSOLVED AND DECEIVED. 151

bled to witness the degradation of their lord was so great that return through the entrance was impossible, and Raymond was carried down to the crypt where the martyred Pierre de Castelnau lay buried, whose spirit was granted the satisfaction of seeing his humbled enemy led past his tomb with shoulders dropping blood. From a churchman's point of view the conditions of absolution laid upon him were not excessive, though well known to be im- possible of fulfilment. Besides the extirpation of heresy, he was to dismiss all Jews from ofiice and all his mercenary bands from his service ; he was to restore all property of which the churches had been despoiled, to keep the roads safe, to abohsh all arbitrary tolls, and to observe strictly the Truce of God.*

All that Eaymond had gained by these sacrifices was the privi- lege of joining the crusade and assisting in the subjugation of his country. Four days after the absolution he solemnly assumed the cross at the hands of the legate Milo and took the oath — " In the name of God, I, Eaymond, Duke of Narbonne, Count of Toulouse, and Marquis of Provence, swear with hand upon the Holy Gospels of God that when the crusading princes shall reach my territories I will obey their commands in all things, as well as regards secu- rity as whatever they may see fit to enjoin for their benefit and that of the whole army." It is true that in July, Innocent, faith- ful to his prearranged duplicity, wrote to Raymond benignantly congratulating him on his purgation and submission, and prom- ising him that it should redound to his worldly as well as spirit- ual benefit ; but the same courier carried a letter to Milo urging him to continue as he had begun ; and Milo, on whom Raymond was basing his hopes, soon after, hearing a report that the count had gone to Rome, warned his master, with superabundant cau- tion, not to spoil the game. As for the Count of Toulouse," writes the legate, that enemy of truth and justice, if he has sought your presence to recover the castles in my hands, as he boasts that he can easily do, be not moved by his tongue, skilful only in his slanders, but let him, as he deserves, feel the hand of the Church heavier day by day. After I had received security for his oath on at least fifteen heads, he has perjured himself on them aU. Thus he has manifestly forfeited his rights on Melgueil as well as the seven castles which I hold. They are so strong by

• Pet. Sarncns. c. 11, 12. — Regest. xii. post Epistt. 85, 107.


152 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

nature and art that, with the assistance of the barons and people who are devoted to the Church, it will be easy to drive him from the land w^hich he has polluted with his vileness." Already the absolution which had cost so much was withdrawn, and Eaymond w^as again excommunicated and his dominions laid under a fresh interdict, because he had not, within sixty days, during which he was with the Crusaders, performed the impossible task of expel- ling all heretics, and the city of Toulouse lay under a special anathema because it had not delivered to the Crusaders all the heretics among its citizens. It is true that subsequently a delay until All-Saints' (Nov. 1) was mercifully granted to Eaymond to perform all the duties imposed on him ; but he was evidently pre- judged and foredoomed, and nothing but his destruction would satisfy the implacable legates.*

Meanwhile the Crusaders had assembled in numbers such as never before, according to the delighted Abbot of Citeaux, had been gathered together in Christendom ; and it is quite possible that there is but slight exaggeration in the enumeration of twenty thousand cavaliers and more than two hundred thousand foot, in- cluding villeins and peasants, besides two subsidiary contingents which advanced from the West. The legates had been empowered to levy what sums they saw fit from all the ecclesiastics in the kingdom, and to enforce the payment by excommunication. As for the laity, their revenues were likewise subjected to the legatine discretion, with the proviso that they were not to be coerced into payment without the consent of their seigneurs. With all the wealth of the realm thus under contribution, backed by the ex- haustless treasures of salvation, it was not difficult to provide for the motley host whose campaign opened under the spirit-stirring adjuration of the vicegerent of God — Forward, then, most val- iant soldiers of Christ ! Go to meet the forerunners of Antichrist and strike down the ministers of the Old Serpent ! Perhaps you have hitherto fought for transitory glory ; fight now for everlast- ing glory ; you have fought for the world ; fight now for God ! We do not exhort you to perform this great service to God for any earthly reward, but for the kingdom of Christ, which we most confidently promise you !" f

  • Regest. ubi sup ; xii. 89, 90, 106, 107.

t Regest. XI. 230; xii. 97, 98, 99.— Guillemde Tudela,xiii.~Vaissette,III.Pr. 10.


NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE WAR. 153

Under this inspiration the Crusaders assembled at Lyons about St. John's day (June 24, 1209), and Kaymond hastened from the scene of his humiliation at St. Gilles to complete his infamy by leading them against his countrymen, offering them his son as a hostage in pledge of his good faith. He was welcomed by them at Yalence, and, under the supreme command of Legate Arnaud, guided them against his nephew of Beziers. The latter, after a vain attempt at composition with the legate, who sternly refused his submission, had hurriedly placed his strongholds in condition of defence and levied what forces he could to resist the onset.*

The war, it should be observed, despite its religious origin, was already assuming a national character. The position taken by Eaymond and the rejected submission of the Viscount of Beziers, in fact, deprived the Church of all colorable excuse for fui-ther ac- tion ; but the men of the North were eager to complete the con- quest commenced seven centuries before by Clovis, and the men of the South, Catholics as well as heretics, were virtually unani- mous in resisting the invasion, notwithstanding the many pledges given by nobles and cities at the commencement. We hear noth- ing of rehgious dissensions among them, and comparatively little of assistance rendered to the invaders by the orthodox, who might be presumed to welcome the Crusaders as Uberators from the domi- nation or the presence of a hated antagonistic faith. Toleration had become habitual and race-instinct was too strong for rehgious feeling, presenting almost the sohtary example of the kind during the Middle Ages, when nationality had not yet been developed out of feudalism and religious interests were universally regarded as dominant. This explains the remarkable fact that the pusil- lanimous course of Kaymond was distasteful to his own subjects, w^ho w^ere constantly urging him to resistance, and who clung to him and his son with a fidelity that no misfortune or selfishness could shake, until the extinction of the House of Toulouse left them without a leader.

Kaymond Koger of Beziers had fortified and garrisoned his capital, and then, to the great discouragement of his people, had withdrawn to the safer stronghold of Carcassonne. Keginald, Bishop of Beziers, was with the crusading forces, and when they


  • Pet. Sarnens. c. 15.— Guillem de Tudela, xi., xiv. — Vaissctte, III. Pr. 7,


154 THE ALBIGEJSSIAN CRUSADES.

arrived before the city, humanely desiring to save it from destruc- tion, he obtained from the legate authority to offer it full exemp- tion if the heretics, of whom he had a list, were delivered up or expelled. Nothing could be more moderate, from the crusading standpoint, but when he entered the town and called the chief in- habitants together the offer was unanimously spurned. Catholic and Catharan were too firmly united in the bonds of common citi- zenship for one to betray the other. They would, as they mag- nanimously declared, although abandoned by their lord, rather defend themselves to such extremity that they should be reduced to eat their children. This unexpected answer stirred the legate to such wrath that he swore to destroy the place with fire and sword — to spare neither age nor sex, and not to leave one stone upon another. While the chiefs of the army were debating as to the next step, suddenly the camp-followers, a vile and unarmed folk as the legates reported, inspired by God, made a rush for the walls and carried them, without orders from the leaders and with- out their knowledge. The army followed, and the legate's oath was fulfilled by a massacre almost without parallel in European history. From infancy in arms to tottering age, not one was spared — seven thousand, it is said, were slaughtered in the Church of Mary Magdalen to which they had fled for asylum — and the total number of slain is set down by the legates at nearly twenty thousand, which is more probable than the sixty thousand or one hundred thousand reported by less trustworthy chroniclers. A fervent Cistercian contemporary informs us that when Arnaud was asked whether the Catholics should be spared, he feared the heretics would escape by feigning orthodoxy, and fiercely repHed, ^' Kill them all, for God knows his own 1" In the mad carnage and pillage the town was set on fire, and the sun of that awful July day closed on a mass of smouldering ruins and blackened corpses — a holocaust to a deity of mercy and love whom the Ca- thari might well be pardoned for regarding as the Principle of Evil. To the orthodox the whole was so manifestly the work of God that the Crusaders did not doubt that the blessing of Heaven at- tended their arms. Indeed, other miracles were not wanting to encourage them. Although in their senseless havoc they destroyed all the mills within their reach, bread was always miraculously plentiful and cheap in the camp — thirty loaves for a denier was


SIEGE OF CARCASSONNE. 155

the ordinary price ; and during the whole campaign it was noted as an encouragement from heaven that no vulture, or crow, or other bird ever flew over the host."^

Similar good-fortune had attended the smaller crusading ar- mies on their way to join the main body. One, under the Yiscount of Turenne and Gui d'Auvergne, had captured the almost impreg- nable castle of Chasseneuil after a short siege. The garrison ob- tained terms and were allowed to depart, but the inhabitants were left to the discretion of the conquerors. The choice between con- version and the stake was offered them, and, proving obstinate in their errors, they were pitilessly burned — an example which was generally followed. The other force, under the Bishop of Puy, had put to ransom Caussade and St. Antonin, and was generally censured for this misplaced avaricious mercy. Such terror per- vaded the land that when a fugitive came to the Castle of Yillemur falsely reporting that the Crusaders were coming and would treat it like the rest, the inhabitants abandoned it under cover of the night and themselves set it on fire. Innumerable strongholds, in fact, were surrendered without a blow, or were found vacant, though amply provisioned and strengthened for a siege, and a mountainous region bristhng with castles, which would have cost years to conquer if obstinately defended, was occupied in a cam- paign of a month or two. The populous and mutinous town of IS'arbonne, to save itself, adopted the severest laws against heresy, raised a large subvention in aid of the crusade, and surrendered sundry castles as security, f

Without dallying over the ruins of Beziers, the Crusaders, still under the guidance of Raymond, moved swiftly to Carcassonne, a place regarded as impregnable, where Raymond Roger had elected to make his final stand. The wiser heads among the in- vaders, looking to a permanent occupation of the country, had no desire to repeat the example already given, and have on their hands a land without defences. Arriving before the walls on Au- gust 1st, only nine days after the sack of Beziers, a regular siege was commenced. The outer suburb, which was scarce defensible,

  • Regest. XII. 108.— Pet. Sarnens. c. 16.— Vaissette, III. 168 ; Pr. 10, 11.— Guill.

de Pod. Laurent, c. 13. — Guillem de Tudela xvi. — xxiii., xxv. — Roberti Autis- siodor. Chron. ann. 1209. — Caesar. Heisterb. Dial. Mirac: v. 21.

t Guillem de Tudela, xiii., xiv.— Vaissette, III. 169, 170; Pr. 9, 10.


156 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

was carried and burned after a desperate resistance. The second suburb, strongly fortified, cost a prolonged effort, in which all the resources of the inihtary art of the day were brought into play on both sides, and when it was no longer tenable the besieged evacu- ated and burned it. There remained the city itself, the capture of which seemed hopeless. Tradition related that Charlemagne had vainly besieged it for seven years and had finally become its mas- ter only by a miracle. Terms were offered to the viscount ; he was free to depart with eleven of his own choosing, if the city and its people were abandoned to the discretion of the Crusaders, but he rejected the proposal with manly indignation. Still, the situa- tion was becoming insupportable; the town was crowded with refugees from the surrounding country; the summer had been cursed with drought, and the water supply had given out, causing a pestilence under which the wretched people were daily dying by scores. In his anxiety for peace the young viscount allowed himself to be decoyed into the besieging camp, where he was treacherously detained as a prisoner — dying shortly after, it was said, of dysentery, but not without well-grounded suspicions of foul play. Deprived of their chief, the people lost heart ; but to avoid the destruction of the city, they were allowed to depart, car- rying with them nothing but their sins — the men in their breeches and the women in their chemises — and the place was occupied without further struggle. Curiously enough, we hear nothing of any investigation into their faith, or any burning of heretics.*

The siege of Carcassonne brings before us two men, with whom we shall have much to do hereafter, representing so tjrpically the opposing elements in the contest that we may well pause for a moment to give them consideration. These are Pedro II. of Ara- gon and Simon de Montfort.


  • Regest. XII. 108; xv. 212.— Pet. Sarnens. c. 17.— Vaissette, III. Pr. 11-18.

— Guillem de Tudela, xxiv.-xxxiii., xl. — Guillel. Nangiac. ann. 1209. — Guill. de Pod. Laurent, c. 14. — A. Molinier, ap. Vaissette, fid. Privat, VI. 296.

Dom Vaissette (III. 172) cites Caesarius of Heisterbach as authority tor the statement that four hundred and fifty of the inhabitants of Carcassonne refused to abjure heresy, of whom four hundred were burned and the rest hanged. The silence of better-informed contemporaries may well render this doubtful, espe- cially as Caesarius assigns the incident to a city which he terms Pulchravallis (Dial. Mirac. Dist. v, c. 21),


PEDRO II. OF ARAGON. 157

Pedro was the suzerain of Beziers, and the young viscount was bound to him with ties of close friendship. Though when appealed to in advance for aid he had declined, yet when he heard of the sack of Beziers he hurried to Carcassonne to mediate if possible for his vassal, though his efforts were fruitless. He was every- where regarded as a model for the chivalry of the South. He- roic in stature and trained in every knightly accompUshment, he was ever in the front of battle ; and on the tremendous day of Las Navas de Tolosa, which broke the Moorish power in Spain, it was he, by common consent, among all the kings and nobles present, who won the loftiest renown. In the bower he was no less dan- gerous than in the field. His gallantries were countless, and his Ucentiousness notorious, even in that age of easy morals. He was munificent to prodigality, fond of magnificent display, courteous to all comers, and magnanimous to all enemies. Like his father, Alonso 11. , moreover, he was a troubadour, and his songs won ap- plause, none the less hearty, perhaps, that he was a hberal patron of rival poets. With all this his religious zeal was ardent, and he gloried in the title of el CatoHco. This he manifested not only in the savage edict against the Waldenses, referred to in a previous chapter, but by an extraordinary act of devotion to the Holy See. In 1085 his ancestor, Sancho L, had placed the kingdom of Aragon under the special protection of the popes, from whom his succes- sors were to receive it on their accession and to pay an annual tribute of five hundred mancuses. In 1204 Pedro 11. resolved to perform this act of fealty in person. With a splendid retinue he sailed for Rome, where he took an oath of allegiance to Innocent, including a pledge to persecute heresy. He was crowned with a crown of unleavened bread, and received from the pope the sceptre, mantle, and other royal insignia, which he reverently laid upon the altar of St. Peter, to whom he offered his kingdom, taking in heu his sword from Innocent, subjecting his realm to an annual tribute, and renouncing all rights of patronage over churches and benefices. As an equivalent for aU this he was satisfied with the title of First Alferez or Standard-bearer of the Church and the privilege for his successors of being crowned by the Archbishop of Tarragona in his cathedral church. The nobles of Aragon, however, regarded this as an inadequate return for the taxes occasioned by his ex- travagance and for the loss of Church patronage, and their dissatis-


158 THE ALBIGENSIAN CIIUSADES.

faction was expressed in forming the confederation known as La Union, Avhich for generations was of dangerous import to his suc- cessors. Impulsive and generous, Pedro's career reads Uke a ro- mance of chivalry, and, with such a character, it was impossible for him to avoid participating in the Albigensian wars, in which he had a direct interest, owing to his claims upon Provence, Mont- peUier, Beam, Koussillon, Gascony, Comminges, and Beziers.*

In marked contrast with this splendid knight-errantry was the sohd and earnest character of de Montfort, who had distinguished himself, as Avas his wont, at the siege of Carcassonne. He was the first to lead in the assault on the outer suburb ; and when an at- tack upon the second had been repulsed and a Crusader was left writhing in the ditch with a broken thigh, de Montfort with a single squire leaped back into it, under a shower of missiles, and bore him off in safety. The younger son of the Count of Evreux, a descendant of RoUo the Norman, he was Earl of Leicester by right of his mother the heiress, and had won a distinguished name for prowess in the field and wisdom and eloquence in the council. Rehgious to bigotry, he never passed a day without hearing mass ; and the true-hearted affection which his wife, Ahce of Montmo- rency, bore him, shows that his reputation for chastity — a rare virtue in those days — was probably not undeserved. In 1201 he had joined the crusade of Baldwin of Flanders ; and when, during the long detention in Venice, the Crusaders sold their services to the Venetians for the destruction of Zara, de Montfort alone re- fused, saying that he had come to fight the infidel and not to make war on Christians. He left the host in consequence, made his way to ApuHa, and with a few friends took ship to Palestine, where he served the cross with honor. It is curious to speculate what change there might have been in the destiny of both France and England had he remained with the crusade to the capture of Constantinople, when he, and his yet greater son, Simon of Leicester, might have founded principahties in Greece or Thessaly and have worn out their lives in obscure and forgotten conflicts. When the Albigensian


  • Reo-est. VII. 229 ; xv. 212  ; xvi. 87.— Fran. Tarafae de Reg. Hisp. — Lowenfeld,

Epistt. Pontif. ined. p. 63.— Lafuente, Hist, de Esp. V. 492-5.— Mariana, Hist, de Esp. XII. 2.— L. Marinsei Siculi de Reb. Hisp. Lib. x.— Diez, Leben und Werke der Troubadours, 424.— Vaissette, HI. 124.— Gest. Com. Barcenon. c. 24.


SIMON DE MONTFORT. 159

crusade was preached, one of the Cistercian abbots who devoted himself most earnestly to the work was Gui of Yaux-Cernay, who had been a Crusader with de Montfort at Venice. It was owing to his persuasion that the Duke of Burgundy took the cross on the present occasion, and he was the bearer of letters from the duke to de Montfort making him splendid offers if he would likewise take up arms. At de Montfort's castle of Eochefort, Gui found the pious count in his oratory, and set forth the object of his mis- sion. De Montfort hesitated, and then, taking up a psalter, opened it at random and placed his finger on a verse which he asked the abbot to translate for him. It read  :

" For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee in their hands, that thou hurt not thy foot against a stone" (Ps.xci. 11, 12).

The divine encouragement was manifest. De Montfort took the cross, w^hich was to be his life's work, and the brilliant valor of the Catalan knight proved no match for the deep earnestness of the N'orman, who felt himself an instrument in the hand of God.^

With the capture of Carcassonne the Crusaders seem to have felt that their mission was accomplished ; at least, the brief service of forty days which sufficed to earn the pardon was rendered, and they were eager to return home. The legate naturally held that the conquered territory was to be so occupied and organized that heresy should have no further foothold there, and it was offered first to the Duke of Burgundy and then successively to the Counts of Severs and St. Pol, but all were too wary to be tempted, and alleged in refusal that the Viscount of Beziers had already been sufficiently punished. Then two bishops and four knights, with Arnaud at their head, were appointed to select the one on whom the confiscated land should be bestowed ; and these seven, under the manifest influence of the Holy Ghost, unanimously selected de Montfort. We may well believe, from his reputation for sagacity, that -his unwillingness to accept the offer was unfeigned, and that after prayers had proved unavaihng, he yielded only to the abso- lute commands of the legate, speaking with all the authority of


  • Pet, Sarnens. c. 16-18. — Joann. Iperii. Chron. ann. 1201. — GeolT. de Ville-

hardouin, c. 55. — Alberic. Trium Font. ann. 1202.— Guillem de Tudehi, xxxv.


160 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

the Holy See. He made it a condition, however, that the con- tinued and efficient support which he foresaw would be requisite should be given him. This was duly promised, with little inten- tion of fulfilment. The Count of Nevers, between whom and the Duke of Burgundy a mortal quarrel had arisen, withdrew almost immediately after the capture of Carcassonne, and with him the great body of the Crusaders. The duke remained for a short time, when he hkewise turned his face homewards, and de Montfort was left with but about forty-five hundred men, mostly Burgundians and Germans, for whose services he was obliged to offer double pay.*

De Montfort's position was perilous in the extreme. It mat- tered httle that in August, during the full flush of success, the leg- ates had held a council in Avignon which ordered all bishops to swear every knight, noble, and magistrate in their dioceses to ex- terminate heresy, or that such an oath had already been forced upon Montpellier and other cities which were trembhng before the wrath to come. Such oaths, extorted by fear, were but an empty form, and the homage which de Montfort received from his new vassals was equally hollow. It is true that he regulated his boundaries with Raymond, who promised to marry his son with de Montfort's daughter, and he styled himself Yiscount of Beziers and Carcassonne, but Pedro of Aragon refused to receive his hom- age, and secretly comforted the castellans who stiU held out with promises of early assistance, while others who had submitted re- volted, and castles which had been occupied were recaptured. The country was recovering from its terror. An annoying partisan warfare sprang up ; small parties of his men were cut off, and his rule extended no farther than the reach of his lance. At one time it was with difficulty that he restrained those who were with him in Carcassonne from flight; and when he set forth to besiege Termes it was almost impossible to find a knight willing to assume command of Carcassonne, so dangerous was the post considered. Yet with aU this he succeeded in subduing additional strongholds, and extended his dominion over the Albigeois and into the territory


  • Pet. Sarnens. c. 17Us. — Vaissette, III. Pr. 19.— Regest. xn. 108. — Pierre de

Vaux-Cernay asserts that de Montfort was able to retain but thirty knights, but this is manifestly an exaggeration.


FURTHER AID NEEDED. 161

of the Count of Foix. He hastened, moreover, to acquire the good graces of Innocent, whose confirmation of his new dignity was requisite, and whose influence for further succor he earnestly im- plored. All tithes and first-fruits were to be rigorously paid to the churches ; any one remaining under excommunication for forty days was to be heavily fined according to his station ; Rome, in return for the treasures of salvation so lavishly expended, was to receive from a devastated land an annual tax of three deniers on every hearth, while a yearly tribute from the count himself was vaguely promised. To this, in I^ovember, Innocent rephed, fuU of joy at the wonderful success which had wrested five hundred cities and castles from the grasp of heretics. He graciously accepted the offered tribute, and confirmed de Montfort's title to both Be- ziers and Albi, with an adjuration to be sleepless in the extirpation of heresy; but he could scarce have appreciated the Crusader's perilous position, for he excused himself from efficient aid on the score of complaints which reached him from Palestine that the succor sorely needed there had been diverted to subdue heretics nearer home. He therefore only caUed upon the Emperor Otho, the Kings of Aragon and Castile, and sundry cities and nobles from whom no real aid could be expected. The archbishops of the whole infected region were directed to persuade their clergy to contribute to him a portion of their revenues, and his troops were exhorted to be patient and to ask no pay until the following Easter; neither of which requests were likely to yield results. Somewhat more fruitful was the release of all Crusaders from any obligations which they might have assumed to pay interest on sums borrowed ; but the most practical measure was one which forcibly illustrates the friendly and confidential intercourse which had existed between the heretics and the clergy in southern France, for all abbots and prelates throughout Narbonne, Beziers, Toulouse, and Albi were directed to confiscate for de Montfort's benefit aU deposits placed by obstinate heretics for safe-keeping in their hands, the amount of which was said to be considerable.*

  • Concil. Avenion. ann. 1209.— D'Achery Spicileg I. 706. — Pet. Sarnens, c.

20-26, 34.— Vaissette, III. Pr. 20.— Guillem de Tudela, xxxvi.— Regest. xii. 108, 109, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 129, 132, 136, 137; xiii. 86.— Teulet, Layettes, I. 340, No. 899.

By a very curious exegetical effort, the Dominicans succeed in convincing I.— 11


162 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

After losing most of his conquests, de Montfort's position be- came more hopeful towards the spring of 1210, as his forces were swelled by the arrival of successive bands of " pilgrims " — as these peaceful folk were accustomed to style themselves — and his ambi- tious ^iews expanded. The short term for which the cross was assumed rendered it necessary to turn the new-comers to immedi- ate account, and de Montfort was unceasingly active in recovering his ground and in reducing the castles which still held out. It is not worth our while to follow in detail these exploits of military religious ardor, which, when successful, were usually crowned by putting the garrison to the sword and offering the non-combatants the choice between obedience to Eome and the stake — a choice which gave occasion to zealous martyrdom on the part of hundreds of obscure and forgotten enthusiasts. Lavaur, Minerve, Casser, Termes, are names which suggest all that man can inflict and man can suffer for the glory of God. The spirit of the respective parties was weU exhibited at the capitulation of Minerve, where Robert Mauvoisin, de Montfort's most faithful follower, objected to the clause which spared the heretics who should recant, and was told by Legate Arnaud that he need not fear the conversion of many, as ample experience had shown their prevailing obstinacy. Ar- naud was right ; for, with the exception of three women, they unanimously refused to secure safety by apostasy, and saved their captors the trouble of casting them on the blazing pyre by leaping exultingly into the flames. If the playful zeal of the pilgrims sometimes manifested itself in eccentric fashion, as when they blinded the monks of Bolbonne and cut off their noses and ears till there was scarce a trace of the human visage left, we must remem- ber the sources whence the Church drew her recruits, and the im- munity which she secured for them, here and hereafter.*

If Raymond had fancied that he had skilfully saved himself at the expense of his nephew of Beziers, he had at last discovered his


themselves that Innocent's letter confirming Albi to de Montfort (xni. 86) is an approbation of the Dominican Order and a proof that de Montfort was a mem- ber of it (Ripoll Bullar. Ord. FF. Praedicat. T. VII. p. 1).

  • Guill. de Pod. Laurent, c. 17, 18.— Gnillel. Nangiac. ann. 1210.— Rob. Autis-

siodor. Chron. ann. 1211. — Vaissette, III. Pr. 29, 35. — Guillem de Tudela, xlix., Ixviii.— Ixxi., Ixxxiv. — Regest. xvi. 41.— Chron. Turon. ann. 1210. — Pet. Sarnens. c. 37, 52, 53.— Teulet, Layettes, I. 371, No. 968.


RAYMOND DEMANDS A HEARING. 163

mistake. Arnaud of Citeaux had fully resolved upon his ruin, and de Montf ort was eager to extend his lordship and the purity of the faith. Already, in the autumn of 1209, the citizens of Toulouse had been startled by a demand from the legate to surrender all whom his envoys might select as heretics, under pain of excom- munication and interdict. They protested that there were no heretics among them ; that all who were named were ready to purge themselves of heresy ; that Kaymond Y. had, at their in- stance, passed laws against heretics, under which they had burned many and were burning all who could be found. Therefore they appealed to the pope, naming January 29, 1210, as the day for the hearing. At the same time de Montf ort had notified Kaymond that unless the legate's demands were conceded he would assail him and enforce obedience. Kaymond replied that he would set- tle the matter with the pope, and lost no time in appeahng in per- son to Philip Augustus and the Emperor Otho, from whom he received only fair words. On reaching Kome he was apparently more fortunate. He had a strong case. He had never been con- victed, or even tried, for the crimes whereof he was accused ; he had always professed obedience to the Church and readiness to prove his innocence, according to the legal methods of the age, by canon- ical purgation ; he had undergone cruel penance as though con- victed, and had been absolved as though forgiven, since when he had rendered faithful and valuable service against his friends and had made what reparation he could to the churches which he had despoiled. He boldly asserted his innocence, demanded a trial, and claimed the restoration of his castles. Innocent seems at first to have been touched by the wrongs inflicted on him and the ruin impending over him ; but if so the impression was but momentary, and he returned to the duplicity which thus far had worked so weU. The citizens of Toulouse he pronounced to have justified themselves, and ordered their excommunication removed. As re- gards Kaymond, he instructed the Archbishops of Narbonne and Aries to assemble a council of prelates and nobles for the trial which Kaymond so earnestly demanded. If there an accuser should assert his heresy and responsibility for the murder of Pierre de Castelnau, both sides should be heard and judgment be rendered and sent to Kome for final decision  ; if no formal accuser appeared, then fitting purgation should be assigned to him, on performance


164 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

of which he should be declared a good Catholic and his castles be restored. All this was fair seeming enough, yet it is impossible not to see the purposed deceit in an accompanying letter to the legate Arnaud, praising him warmly for what had been done and explain- ing that the conduct of the matter had been ostensibly intrusted to the new commissioner, Master Theodisius, merely as a lure for Kay- mond ; or, to use the pope's own words, that the legate was to be the hook of which Theodisius was the bait. Instructions were also given as to some minor matters, and to lull Raymond to a more complete sense of security, on his final audience Innocent presented him with a rich mantle and with a ring which he drew from his own finger.*

Joy reigned in Toulouse when the count returned, bringing with him the removal of the interdict and the promise of a speedy settlement of the troubles. Legate Arnaud entered fully into the spirit of his instructions and suddenly became friendly and affec- tionate. We even hear of a visit paid by him and de Montfort to Raymond in Toulouse, where they were magnificently received ; and Raymond, it is said, was persuaded to give the citadel of the town, known as the Chateau Narbonnois, as a residence to the legate, from whose hands it passed into those of de Montfort, cost- ing eventually the lives of a thousand men for its recapture. Ar- naud, moreover, exacted a promise of one thousand livres toulousains from the citizens before he Avould give effect to the papal letters remo\ang the interdict ; when one half was paid, he gave them his benediction, but a delay in raising the other half caused him to re- new the interdict, which cost them much trouble to remove. f

Master Theodisius joined the legate at Toulouse, as we are told by a fiercely orthodox eye-witness, for the purpose of consulting with him as to the most plausible excuse for eluding Innocent's promise to Raymond of an opportunity of purgation, for they fore- saw that he would purge himself and that the destruction of the faith would follow. The readiest method of attaining this pious object lay in Raymond's failure to perform the impossible task as- signed him of clearing his lands of heresy ; but in order to avoid


  • Vaissette, III. Pr. 20, 23, 232-3.— Pet. Sarnens. c. 33, 34.— Guillem de Tudela,

il., xlii., xliii.— Regest. xii. 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 168, 169, 170, 171, 173, 174, 175, 176.— Teulet, Layettes, I. 368, No. 968.

t Vaissette, III. Pr. 24-5, 234.— Guillem de Tudela, xliv.— Teulet, loc. cit.


DECEPTION OF RAYMOND. 165

the appearance of premeditated unfairness, the solemn mockery was arranged of assigning him a day three months distant, to ap- pear at St. Gilles and offer his purgation as to heresy and the mur- der of the legate — a warning being added about his slackness in persecution. At the appointed time, in September, 1210, a number of prelates and nobles were assembled at St. Gilles, and Raymond presented himself with his compurgators in the full confidence of a final reconciliation with the Church. He was coolly informed that his purgation would not be received ; that he was manifestly a perjurer in not having executed the promises to which he had re- peatedly sworn, and his oath being worthless in minor matters, it could not be accepted in charges so weighty as those of heresy and legate-murder, nor were those of his accomplices any better. A man of stronger character would have been roused to fiery indig- nation at this contemptuous revelation of the deception practised on him ; but Eaymond, overwhelmed with the sudden destruction of his illusions, simply burst into tears — which was duly recorded by his judges as an additional proof of his innate depravity, and he was promptly again placed under the excommunication which it had cost him such infinite pains to remove. For form's sake, how- ever, he was told that when he should clear the land of heresy and otherwise show himself worthy of mercy, the papal commands in his favor would be fulfilled. The Provengal was evidently no match for the wily Italians ; and Innocent's approbation of this cruel comedy is seen in a letter addressed by him to Raymond, in December, 1210, expressing his grief that the count had not yet per- formed his promises as to the extermination of heretics, and warning him that if he did not do so his lands would be delivered to the Cru- saders. Another epistle by the same courier to de Montfort, com- plaining of the scanty returns of the three-denier hearth- tax, shows that even Innocent kept an eye on the profitable side of persecution ; while exhortations addressed to the Counts of Toulouse, Comminges, and Foix, and Gaston of Beam, requiring them to help de Montfort, with threats of holding them to be fautors of heresy in case they re- sisted him, showed how completely all questions were prejudged and that they were doomed to be delivered up to the spoiler.*


  • Pet. Sarncns. c. 39.— Regest. xiir. 188, 189 ; xvi. 39.— Guillem de Tudela,

Iviii,— Teulet, Layettes, I. 3G0, No. 948.


166 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

Eaymond at length began to see what all clear-visioned men must long before have recognized, that his ruin was the deliberate purpose of the legates. Had the nobles of Languedoc been united at the beginning, they could probably have offered successful re- sistance to the spasmodic attacks of the Crusaders, but they were being devoured one by one, while Eaymond, their natural leader, was kept idle with delusive hopes of reconciliation. The restora- tion of his castles was hopeless, and it was time for him to prepare himself as best he could for the inevitable war. With this object, to unite his subjects, he circulated a hst of conditions which he said had been proposed to him at a conference in Aries, in February, 1211 — conditions which were onerous and degrading to the last de- gree to the people as weU as to himself — which would have placed the whole territory and its population under the control of the legates and of de Montf ort, would have branded every inhabitant, CathoHc as weU as heretic, noble as well as villein, with the mark of servitude, and would have banished Raymond to the Holy Land virtually for life. "Whether such demands were really made or not, their effect was great upon the people, who ralhed around their sovereign and were ready for any self-sacrifice."*

That the hst of conditions was supposititious is rendered prob- able by other negotiations in which Raymond desperately strove to avert the inevitable rupture. In December, 1210, we find him at IN'arbonne in conference with the legates, de Montfort, and Pedro of Aragon, where impracticable terms were offered him, and where Pedro finally consented to receive de Montfort's hom- age for Beziers. Shortly afterwards another meeting was held at Montpellier, equally fruitless, except for de Montfort, who made a treaty with Pedro and received from him his infant son Jayme, to be held as a hostage. Even in the spring of 1211 Raymond again visited de Montfort at the siege of Lavaur and allowed provisions to be supphed for a while to the Crusaders from Toulouse, although he had fruitlessly endeavored to prevent the marching of a con-

  • The sole authority for this extraordinary document is Guillem dfe Tudela

(lix., Ix., Ixi.), followed by the Historien du Comte de Toulouse (Vaissette, III. Pr. 30. Cf. Text p. 204 and notes p. 561, also Hardouin VI. ii. 1998). Though gen- erally accepted by historians, I cannot regard it as genuine, and its only explana- tion seems to me that it was manufactured by Raymond to arouse the indignation of his people.


FIRST SIEGE OF TOULOUSE. 167

tingent which the Toulousains furnished to the besiegers. Almost as soon as Lavaur was taken, May 3, 1211, de Montfort fell upon his territories and captured some of his castles, apparently without defiance or declaration of war, when he made a last miserable effort of submission by offering his whole possessions except the city of Toulouse, to be held by the legate and de Montfort as security for the performance of what might be demanded of him, reserv- ing only his life and his son's right of inheritance. Even these terms were contemptuously rejected. He had so abased himself that he seems to have been regarded as no longer an element of weight in the situation. Besides, the Count of Bar was speedily expected with a large force of Crusaders, whose forty-days' term was to be utilized to the utmost, and the siege of Toulouse was re- solved on.*

As soon as the citizens heard of this design they sent an em- bassy to the Crusaders to deprecate it. They had been reconciled to the Church, and had assisted at the siege of Lavaur, but they were sternly told that they would not be spared unless they would eject Raymond from the city and renounce their allegiance to him. This they refused unanimously. All the old civic quarrels were forgotten, and as one man they prepared for resistance. It is a noteworthy illustration of the strength of the republican institu- tion of the civic commune, that the siege of Toulouse was the first considerable check received by the Crusaders. The town was well fortified and garrisoned ; the Counts of Foix and Comminges had come at the summons of their suzerain, and the citizens were earn- est in defence. They not only kept their gates open, but made breaches in the walls to facilitate the furious sallies which cost the besiegers heavily. The latter retired, June 29th, under cover of the night, so hastily that they abandoned their sick and wounded, having accomplished nothing except the complete devastation of the land — dwelhngs, vineyards, orchards, women and children were alike indiscriminately destroyed in their wrath — and de Montfort turned from the scene of his defeat to carry the same ravage into Foix. This final effort of self-defence was naturally construed as fautorship of heresy and drew from Innocent a fresh excommuni-


  • Guill. de Pod. Laurent, c. IG, 17.— Pet. Sarnens. c. 43, 47, 49, 53, 54, 55.

Yaissette, III. Pr. 234.


1G8 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

cation of Eaymond and of the city for " persecuting " de Montfort and the Crusaders.*

Encoui^iged by his escape, Kaymond now took the offensive, but Avith httle result. The siege of Castelnaudary was a failure, and a good deal of desultory fighting occurred, mostly to the ad- vantage of de Montfort, whose mihtary skiU was exhibited to the best advantage in his difficult position. The crusade was still in- dustriously preached throughout Christendom, and his forces were irregularly renewed with fresh swarms of " pilgrims " for forty- days' service, so that he would frequently find himself at the head of a considerable army, which again would soon melt away to a handful. To utilize this varying stream of strangers of all nation- alities in a difficult country which was bitterly hostile required ca- pacity of a high order, and de Montfort proved himself thorough- ly equal to it. His opponents, though frequently greatly superior in numbers, never ventured on a pitched battle, and the war was one of sieges and devastations, conducted on both sides with sav- age ferocity. Prisoners were frequently hanged, or less mercifully bUnded or mutilated, and mutual hate grew stronger and fiercer as de Montfort gradually extended his boundaries and Eaymond's territories grew less and less. The defection of his natural brother Baldwin, whom he had always treated with suspicion, and who had been won over by de Montfort when captured at Montf errand, before the siege of Toulouse, had been a severe blow to the national cause ; how deeply felt was seen when, in 1214, he was treacher- ously given up and Kaymond hanged him, with difficulty granting his last prayer for the consolations of religion.f

Early in 1212 the Abbot of Yaux-Cernay received in the bishopric of Carcassonne the reward of his zeal in furthering the crusade, and Legate Arnaud obtained the great archbishopric of IS'arbonne on the death or degradation of the negligent Berenger. 'Not content with the ecclesiastical dignity, Arnaud claimed to be likewise duke, giving rise to a vigorous quarrel with de Montfort, who, notwithstanding his devotion to the Church, had no intention of surrendering to it his temporal possessions. Possibly it was the


  • Vaissette, III. Pr. 38-40, 234-5.— Guill. de Pod. Laurent, c. 18.— Guillem de

Tudela, Ixxx.-lxxxiii.— Teulet, Layettes, I. 370, No. 968; 372, No. 975. t Pet. Sarnens. c. 75. — Guill. de Pod. Laurent, c. 23.


DE MONTFORT'S SUCCESSES. 169

commencement of coolness between them that induced Arnaud to favor the crusade preached at the request of Alonso IX. of Castile, at that time threatened by a desperate ejffort of the Moors, largely reinforced from Africa, to regain their Spanish possessions. Much as de Montfort needed every man, the new Archbishop of Nar- bonne marched into Spain at the head of a large force of Crusaders to swell the army with which the kings of Aragon, Castile, and ISTavarre advanced against the Saracen. It is characteristic of the tenacity of the man that, when the French contingent grew weary of the service and refused to advance after the capture of Calatrava, returning ingloriously home, Arnaud remained with those whom he could persuade to stay, and shared in the glory of Las Navas de Tolosa, where a cross in the sky encouraged the Christians, and two hundred thousand Moors were slain.*

The spring and summer of 1212 saw an almost unbroken series of successes for de Montfort, until Raymond's territories were reduced to Montauban and Toulouse, and the latter city, crowded with refugees from the neighboring districts, was virtually be- leaguered, as the Crusaders from their surrounding strongholds made forays up to the very gates. De Montfort desired the papal confirmation of his new acquisitions, and for this application was made to Rome by the legates. Innocent seems to have been aroused to a sense of the scandal created by the faithful carrying out of his pohcy, for Raymond, though constantly claiming a trial, had never been heard or convicted, and yet had been punished by the seizure of nearly all his dominions. Innocent accordingly assumed a tone of grave surprise. It is true, he said, that the count had been found guilty of many offences against the Church, for which he had been excommunicated and his lands exposed to the first comer ; but the loss of most of them had served as a punishment, and it must be remembered that, although suspected of heresy and of the murder of the legate, he had never been convicted, nor did the pope know why his commands to afford him an opportunity of .purging himself had never been carried out. In the absence of a formal trial and conviction his lands could not be adjudged to another. The proper forms must be observed, or the Church


  • Pet. Sarnens. c. 60.— Vaissette, III. 271-2.— Rod. Tolet. de Reb. Hispan.

vin. 2, 6, 11.— Rod. Santii Hist. Hispan. iii. 35.


170 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

might be deemed guilty of fraud in continuing to hold the castles made over to it in pledge. Innocent evidently felt that his repre- sentatives, involved in the passions and ambitions of the strife, had done what could not be justified, and he wound up by ordering them to report to him the full and simple truth. Another letter, in the same sense, to Master Theodisius and the Bishop of Riez, cautioned them not to be remiss in their duty, as they were said to have thus far been, which undoubtedly refers to their withholding from Ray- mond the opportunity of justification. At the same time, a pro- longed correspondence on the subject of the hearth-tax, and the acceptance of an opportune donation of a thousand marks from de Montf ort, place Innocent in an unfortunate light as an upright and impartial judge.*

To this Theodisius and the Bishop of Riez replied with the transparent falsehood that they had not been remiss, but had re- peatedly summoned Raymond to justify himself, and that Ray- mond had neglected to make reparation to certain prelates and churches, which was quite likely, seeing that de Montf ort had been giving him ample occupation. They proceeded, however, to make a bustling show of activity in compliance with Innocent's present commands, and they called a council at Avignon to give a color- able pretext for pushing Raymond to the wall. Avignon, how- ever, was fortunately unhealthy, so that many prelates refused to attend, and Theodisius had a timely sickness, rendering a postpone- ment necessary. Another council was therefore summoned to convene at Lavaur, a castle not far from Toulouse, in the hands of de Montf ort, who, at the request of Pedro of Aragon, graciously granted an eight days' suspension of hostilities for the purpose. f

The matter, in fact, had assumed a shape which could no longer be eluded. Pedro of Aragon, fresh from the triumph of Las Navas, was a champion of the faith who was not to be treated with con- tempt, and he had finally come forward as the protector of Ray- mond and of his own vassals. As overlord he could not passively see the latter stripped of their lands, and his interests in the whole region were too great for him to view with indifference the estab- lishment of so overmastering a power as de Montfort was rapidly


  • Pet. Sarnens. c. 59-64.— Regest. xv. 103, 103, 167-76.

t Pet. Sarnens. c. 66. — Regest. xvi. 39.


INTERVENTION OF KING PEDRO. 171

consolidating. The conquered fiefs were being filled with French- men ; a parliament had just been held at Pamiers to organize the institutions of the country on a French basis, and everything looked to an overturning of the old order. It was full time for him to act. He had already sent a mission to Innocent to complain of the proceedings of the legates as arbitrary, unjust, and subversive of the true interests of religion, and he came to Toulouse for the avowed purpose of interceding for his ruined brother-in-law. By assuming this position he was assuring the supremacy of the House of Aragon over that of Toulouse, with which it had had so many fruitless struggles in the past.*

Pedro's envoys drew from Innocent a command to de Mont- fort to give up all lands seized from those who were not heretics, and instructions to Arnaud not to interfere with the crusade against the Saracens by using indulgences to prolong the war in the Toulousain. This action of Innocent, coupled with the power- ful intercession of Pedro, created a profound impression, and aU the ecclesiastical organization of Languedoc was summoned to meet the crisis. When the council assembled at Lavaur, in January, 1213, a petition was presented by King Pedro, humbly asking mercy rather than justice for the despoiled nobles. He produced a formal cession executed by Kaymond and his son and confirmed by the city of Toulouse, together with similar cessions made by the Counts of Foix and Comminges and by Gaston of Beam, of all their lands, rights, and jurisdictions to him, to do with as he might see fit in compelUng them to obey the commands of the pope in case they should prove recalcitrant. He asked restitution of the lands con- quered from them, on their rendering due satisfaction to the Church for aU misdeeds ; and if Raymond could not be heard, the proposal was made that he should retire in favor of his young son — the father serving with his knights against the infidel in Spain or Palestine, and the youth being retained in careful guardianship until he should show himself worthy the confidence of the Church. All this, in fact, was virtually the same as the offers already trans- mitted by Pedro to Innocent.f

No submission could be more complete ; no guarantees more

  • Pet. Saraens. c. 65.— Regest. xv. 212.— A. Molinier (Vaissette, ^d Priyat,

VT. 407).

t Regest. XV. 212  ; xvi. 42, 47.


172 TUE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

absolute could be donianded. There was no pretence of sliielding heretics, who couhl, under such a settlement, be securely exter- minated ; but the prelates assembled at Lavaur were under the domination of passions and ambitions and hatreds, the memory of Avrong-s suffered and inflicted, and the dread of reprisals, which rendered them deaf to everything that might interfere with the predetermined purpose. The ruin of the house of Toulouse was essential to their comfort — they might well believe even to their personal safety — and it was pressed unswervingly. As legates, Master Theodisius and the Bishop of Eiez presided, while the assembled prelates of the land were led by the intractable Arnaud of Narbonne. All forms were duly observed. The legates, as judges, asked the opinion of the prelates as assessors, whether Raymond should be admitted to purgation. A written answer w^as returned in the negative, not only for the reason previously alleged, that he was too notorious a perjurer to be listened to, but also because of fresh offences committed during the war, the slaying of Crusaders who were attacking him being seriously included among his sins. As a further subterfuge it was agreed that the excommunication under which he lay could only be removed by the pope. Shielding themselves behind this answer, the legates notified Raymond that they could proceed no further without special license from the pope — a repetition of the eternal shifting of responsibihty, like a shuttlecock from one player in the game to another — and when Raymond implored for mercy and begged an interview, he was coldly told that it would be useless trouble and expense for both parties. There remained the appeal of King Pedro to be disposed of, and this was treated with the same disingenuous evasion. The prelates undertook to answer this without the legates, so as to be able to say that Raymond's affairs were out of their hands, as he had himself comniitted them to the legates ; and, besides, his excesses had rendered him unworthy of all mercy or kindness. As for the other three nobles, their crimes were recited, especially their self-defence against the Crusaders, and it was added that if they would satisfy the Church and ob- tain absolution, their complaints would be listened to; but no method was indicated by which absolution could be obtained, and no notice was deigned to the guarantees offered in Pedro's petition. Indeed, Arnaud of Narbonne, in his capacity of legate, wrote to


PEDRO'S GUARANTEES REJECTED. 173

him in violent terms, threatening him with excommunication for consorting with excommunicants and accused heretics, and his request for a truce until Pentecost, or at least until Easter, was refused on the ground that it would interfere with the success of the crusade, which was still preached in France with a vigor justifying doubts of the sincerity of Innocent's orders to the contrary.*

The whole proceedings were so defiant a mockery of justice that there was a very manifest alarm lest Innocent should repudi- ate them and yield to the powerful intercession of King Pedro. Master Theodisius and several bishops were despatched to Rome with the documents so as to bring personal influence to bear. The prelates of the council addressed him, adjuring him by the bowels of the mercy of God not to draw back from the good work which he had commenced, but to lay his axe to the root of the tree and cut it down forever. Raymond was painted in the blackest colors. The effort he had made to obtain succor from the Emperor Otho, and the assistance at one time rendered him by Savary de Mau- leon, lieutenant of King John in Aquitaine, were skilfully used to excite odium, as both these monarchs were hostile to Rome ; and he was even accused of having implored help from the Emperor of Morocco, to the subversion of Christianity itself. Fearing that this might be insufficient, letters were showered on Innocent by bishops from every part of the troubled region, assuring him that peace and prosperity had followed on the footsteps of the Crusad- ers, that the land which had been ravaged by heretics and bandits was restored to rehgion and safety, that if but one more supreme effort were made and the city of Toulouse were wiped out, with its villainous brood, wicked as the children of Sodom and Gomor- rah, the faithful could enjoy the Land of Promise ; but that if Ra}Tiiond were allowed to raise his head, chaos would come again, and it would be better for the Church to take refuge among the barbarians. Yet in all this nothing was said to the pope of the guarantees offered through King Pedro, who was obliged, in March, 1213, to transmit to Rome copies of the cessions executed by the inculpated nobles, duly authenticated by the Archbishop of Tarra- gona and his suffragans. f


  • Regest. XVI. 39, 42, 43.— Pet. Sarnens. c. 66.

t Regest. XVI. 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47.


174 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

Master Theodisius and liis colleagues found the task harder than they had anticipated. Innocent had solemnly declared that Kaymond should have the opportunity of vindication, and that condemnation should only follow trial. He was now required to eat his words, while the persistent refusal to allow a trial must have shown him that the charges so industriously made were des- titute of proof. The struggle was hard for a proud man, but he finally yielded to the pressure, though the delay of the decision until May 21, 1213, shows what effort it cost. When the de- cree came, however, its decisiveness proved that pride and con- sistency had been overcome. Innocent's letters to his legates have not reached us — perhaps a prudent reticence kept them out of the Regesta — but to Pedro he wrote sternly, commanding him to abandon the protection of heretics unless he was ready to be in- cluded in the objects of the new crusade which was threatened if further resistance was attempted. The orders which Pedro had obtained for the restoration of non-heretical lands were withdrawn as granted through misrepresentation, and the lords of Foix, Com- minges, and Kavarre were remitted to the discretion of Arnaud of Narbonne. The city of Toulouse could obtain reconciliation by banishment and confiscation inflicted on all whom Foulques, its fanatic bishop, might point out, and no peace or truce or other en- gagement entered into with heretics was to be observed. As to Raymond, the complete silence preserved with respect to him was more significant than could have been the severest animadversions. He was simply ignored, as though no further account was to be taken of him.^

Meanwhile both parties had proceeded without waiting the event in Rome. In France the crusade had been vigorously preached ; Louis Coeur-de-Lion, son of Philip Augustus, had taken the cross with many barons, and great hopes were entertained of the overwhelming force which would put an end to further re- sistance, when Philip's preparations for the invasion of England caused him to intervene and stop the movement which threatened seriously to interfere with his designs. On the other hand,* King Pedro entered into still closer alliance with Raymond and the ex- communicated nobles, and received an oath of fidelity from the


  • Pet. Sarneus. c. 66, 70.— Regest. xvi. 48.


PEDRO DECLARES WAR. 175

magistracy of Toulouse. When the papal mandate was received, he made a pretence of obeying it, but continued, nevertheless, his preparations for the war, among which the one which best illus- trates the man and the age was his procuring from Innocent the renewal of Urban's bull of 1095, placing his kingdom under the special protection of the Holy See, with the privilege that it should not be subjected to interdict except by the pope himself. A sirvente by an anonymous troubadour shows how anxiously he was expected in Languedoc. He is reproached with his delays, and urged to come to collect his revenues from the Carcasses like a good king, and to suppress the insolence of the French, whom may God confound.*

The rupture came with a formal declaration of war from Pe- dro, accepted by de Montfort, though he had but few troops and the hoped-for reinforcements from France were not forthcoming ; indeed, a legate sent by Innocent to preach the crusade for the Holy Land had turned in that direction all the effort which Philip would permit to be made. Pedro had left in Toulouse his repre- sentatives and had gone to his own dominions to raise forces, with which he recrossed the Pyrenees and was received enthusiastically by aU those who had submitted to de Montfort. He advanced to the castle of Muret, within ten miles of Toulouse, where de Mont- fort had left a slender garrison, and was joined by the Counts of Toulouse, Foix, and Comminges, their united forces amounting to a considerable army, though far from the hundred thousand men represented by the eulogists of de Montfort. Pedro had brought about a thousand horsemen with him ; the three counts, stripped of most of their dominions, can scarce have furnished a larger force of cavahers, and the great mass of their array consisted of the militia of Toulouse, on foot and untrained in arms.f

The siege of Muret commenced September 10, 1213. Word was immediately carried to de Montfort, who lay about twenty- five miles distant at Fanjeaux, with a small force, including seven bishops and three abbots sent by Arnaud of I^arbonne to treat


  • Pet. Sarnens. c. 66-8.— Regest. xvi. 87.— Raynouard, Lexique Roman, I.

512-3.

t Pet. Sarnens. c. 69, 70.— Vaissette, III. Note xvii.— A. Molinier (Vaissette, td. Privat, VII. 256).


176 THE ALBIGENSIA^ CRUSADES.

with Pedro. Notwithstanding the disparity of numbers, he did not hesitate a moment to advance and succor his people. Send- ing back the Countess AHce, who was with him, to Carcassonne, where she persuaded some retiring Crusaders to return to his aid, he set forth at once, hastily collecting such troops as were within reach. At Bolbonne, near Saverdun, where he halted to hear mass, Maurin, the sacristan, afterwards Abbot of Pamiers, ex- pressed wonder at his risking with a mere handful of men an en- counter with a warrior so renowned as the King of Aragon. De Montfort in reply drew from his pouch an intercepted letter to a lady in Toulouse, in which Pedro assured her that he was coming out of love for her to drive the Frenchman from her land, and when Maurin asked him what he meant by it, he exclaimed, " What do I mean  ? God help me as much as I httle fear him who comes for the sake of a woman to undo the work of God !" It was the God-trusting Norman against the chivalrous Catalan gallant, and he never doubted the result.

The next day de Montfort entered Muret, which was besieged only on one side, the enemy interposing no obstacle, as they hoped to capture the chief of the Crusaders. The bishops sought to ne- gotiate with Pedro, but no terms could be reached, and the follow- ing morning, Thursday, September 13, the Crusaders, numbering perhaps a thousand cavaUers, sallied forth for the attack. As they passed, the Bishop of Comminges comforted them greatly by as- suring them that on the Day of Judgment he would be their wit- ness, and that none who might be slain would have to undergo the fires of purgatory for any sins which they had confessed or might intend to confess after the battle. The holy men then gathered in the church, praying fervently to God for the success of his warriors ; and here we get a traditional gUmpse of Domi- nic, who is said to have been one of the httle band ; indeed, we are gravely told by his followers that the ensuing victory was due to the devotion of the Eosary, which he invented and assiduously practised.

As de Montfort drew away in the opposite direction, the be- siegers at first thought that he was abandoning the town, and they were only undeceived when he wheeled and they saw he had made a circuit to obtain a level field for the attack. Count Ray- mond counselled awaiting the onset behind the rampart of wagons


THE BATTLE OF MURET. I77

and exhausting the Crusaders with missiles, but the fiery Catalan rejected the advice as pusillanimous. Then armor was donned in hot haste, and the horsemen rushed forth in a confused mass, leav- ing the footmen to continue the labors of the siege. Emulous rather of the fame of a good knight than of a general, Pedro was immediately behind the vanguard, as two squadrons of the Cru- saders came on in solid order, and was readily found by two re- nowned French knights, Alain de Eoucy and Florent de Yille, who had concerted to set upon him. He was speedily thrown from his horse and slain. The confusion into which his followers were thrown was converted into a panic as de Montfort, at the head of a third squadron, charged them in flank. They turned and fled, followed by the Frenchmen, who slew them without mercy, and then, returning from the pursuit, fell upon the camp where the in- fantry had remained unconscious of the evil-fortune of the field. Here the slaughter was tremendous, until the flying wretches suc- ceeded in crossing the Garonne, in which many were drowned. The loss of the Crusaders was less than twenty, that of the aUies from fifteen to twenty thousand, and no one was hardy enough to doubt that the hand of God was visible in a triumph so miracu- lous, especially as on the last Sunday in August a great procession had been held in Rome with solemn ceremonies, followed by a two days' fast, for the success of the Catholic arms. Yet King Jayme tells us that his father's death, and the consequent loss of the battle, arose from his prevailing vice. The Albigensian no- bles, to ingratiate themselves with him, had placed their wives and daughters at his disposal, and he was so exhausted by his excesses that on the morning of the battle he could not stand at the celebration of the mass.*


  • Pet. Sarnens. c. 70-3.— Guillel. de Pod. Laurent, c. 21-22.— Guillel. Nan-

giac. ann. 1213. — Vaissette, III. Pr. 52-4.— Guillem de Tudela, cxxv.-cxL — Zurita, Anales de Aragon, Lib. 11, c. C3. — De Gestis Com. Barcenon. ann. 1213. — Ber- nard d'Esclot, Cronica del Rey en Pere, c. 6. — Campana, Storia di San Piero Martire p. 44. — Tamburini, 1st. dell' Inquisizione,I.351-2. — Comentarios del Rey en Jacme c. 8 (Mariana, IV. 267-8).

Don Jayme himself, then a child in his sixth year, was still in the hands of de Montfort as a hostage, and if the Catalan chroniclers speak truth, it was with difficulty that the young king was recovered, even after Innocent III. had or- dered his release. — L. Marinaei Siculi de Reb. Hispan. Lib. x. — Regest. xvi. 171.

I.— 12


178 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

With the few men at his command de Montfort was unable to follow up his advantage, and the immediate effect of the mi- raculous victory was scarcely perceptible. The citizens of Tou- louse professed a desire for reconciliation, but when their bishop, Foulques, demanded two hundred hostages as security, they refused to give more than sixty, and when the bishop assented to this, they withdrew the offer. De Montfort made a foray into Foix, carry- ing desolation in his track, and showed himself before Toulouse, but was soon put on the defensive. When he came peaceably to the city of Narbonne, of which he claimed the overlordship, he was refused entrance ; the same thing happened to him at Mont- pellier, and he was obliged to digest these affronts in silence. His condition, indeed, was almost desperate in the winter of 1214, when affairs suddenly took a different turn. The prohibition to preach the crusade in France was removed, and news came that an army of one hundred thousand fresh pilgrims might be expected after Easter. Besides this a new legate. Cardinal Peter of Bene- vento, arrived with full powers from the pope, and at ]N^arbonne re- ceived the unqualified submission of the Counts of Toulouse, Foix, and Comminges, of Aimeric, Viscount of Narbonne, and of the city of Toulouse. All these agreed to expel heretics and to comply ex- phcitly with all demands of the Church, furnishing whatever se- curity might be demanded. Raymond, moreover, placed his do- minions in the hands of the legate, at whose command he engaged to absent himself, either at the English court or elsewhere, un- til he could go to Rome ; and in effect, on his return to Toulouse he and his son lived as private citizens with their wives, in the house of David de Roaix. Rome having thus obtained everything that she had ever demanded, the legate absolved all the penitents and reconciled them to the Church.

If the land expected peace with submission it was cruelly de- ceived. The whole affair had been but another act in the comedy which Innocent and his agents had so long played, another juggle with the despair of whole populations. The legate had merely desired to tide de Montfort over the time during which 4n his weakness he might have been overwhelmed, and to amuse the threatened provinces until the arrival of the fresh swarm of pil- grims. The trick was perfectly successful, and the monkish chron- icler is delighted with the pious fraud so astutely conceived and


RAYMOND CONDEMNED. 179

SO dexterously managed. His admiring ejaculation, " O pious fraud of the legate ! O fraudulent piety !" is the key which unlocks to us the secrets of ItaUan diplomacy with the Albigenses.*

In spite of King Philip's war with John of England and the Emperor Otho, the expected hordes of Crusaders, eager to win par- don so easily, poured down upon the unhappy southern provinces. Their initial exploit was the capture of Maurillac, notable to us as conveying the first distinct reference to the Waldenses in the his- tory of the war. Of these sectaries, seven were found among the captives ; they boldly affirmed their faith before the legate, and were burned, as we are told, with immense rejoicings by the sol- diers of Christ. With his wonted ability de Montfort made use of his reinforcements to extend his authority over the Agenois, Quercy, Limousin, Kouergue, and Perigord. Resistance being now at an end, the legate, in January, 1215, assembled a council of prelates at Montpellier. The jealous citizens would not allow de Montfort to enter the town, though he directed the deliberations from the house of the Templars beyond the walls ; and once, when he had been secretly introduced to attend a session, the people dis- covered it, and would have set upon him, had he not been conveyed away through back streets. The council fulfilled its functions by deposing Raymond and electing de Montfort as lord over the whole land ; and, as the confirmation of Innocent was required, an em- bassy was sent to Rome, which obtained his assent. He declared that Raymond, who had never yet had the trial so often demand- ed, was deposed on account of heresy ; his wife was to have her dower, and one hundred and fifty marks were assigned to her, se- cured by the Castle of Beaucaire. The final disposition of the territory was postponed for the decision of the general council of Lateran, called for the ensuing November ; and meanwhile it was confided to the custody of de Montfort, whom the bishops were exhorted to assist and the inhabitants to obey, while from its rev- enues some provision was contemptuously ordered to be made for the .support of Raymond. Bishop Foulques returned to his city of Toulouse, of which he was virtually master, under the legate


  • Pet. Sarnens. c. 74-8.— Regest. xvi. 167, 170, 171, 172.— Guill. de Pod. Lau-

rent, c. 24, 25.— Vaissette, III. 260-2; Pr. 239-42.— Teulet, Layettes, L 399-402, No. 1068-9, 1073.


ISO THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

who continued to hold it and Narbonne, to keep them out of the liands of Louis Coeur-de-Lion, who was shortly expected in fulfil- ment of his Crusader's vow, taken three years previously ; and the '^faidits," as the dispossessed knights and gentlemen were called, were graciously permitted to seek a liveUhood throughout the coun- try, provided they never entered castles or walled towns, and trav- elled on ponies, with but one spur, and without arms.*

The battle of Bouvines had released France from the danger's which had been so threatening, and the heir-apparent could be spared for the performance of his vow. Louis came with a noble and gallant company, who earned the pardon of their sins by a peaceful pilgrimage of forty days. The fears which had been felt as to his intentions proved groundless. He showed no disposition to demand for the crown the acquisitions made by previous cru- sades, and advantage was taken of his presence to obtain tempo- rary investiture for de Montfort, and to order the dismantling of the two chief centres of discontent — Toulouse and Narbonne. De Montfort's brother Gui took possession of the former city, and saw to the levelling of its walls. As for Narbonne, Archbishop Arnaud, mindful rather of his pretensions as duke than of the interests of religion, vainly protested against its being rendered defenceless. In making over Eaymond's territories to de Mont- fort, however. Innocent had excepted the county of Melgueil, over which the Church had a sort of claim, and this he sold to the Bishop of Maguelonne, costing the latter, including gratifications to the creatures of the papal camera, no less a sum than thirty-three thousand marks. The transaction held good, in spite of the claims of the crown as the eventual heir of the Count of Toulouse, and, until the Kevolution, the Bishops of Maguelonne or Montpellier had the satisfaction of styling themselves Counts of Melgueil. It was but a small share of the gigantic plunder, and Innocent would have best consulted his dignity by abstention.f

Meanwhile the two Eaymonds had withdrawn — possibly to the English court, where King John is said to have given them


  • Pet. Sarnens. c. 80, 81, 82.— Harduin. Concil. VII. ii. 2052.— Innocent. PP.

III. Rubricella.- Teulet, Layettes, I. 410-16, Nos. 1099, 1113-16.— Guill. de Pod. Laurent, c. 24, 25.

t Pet. Sarnens. c. 82.— Vaissette, III. 269 ; Pr. 56.


THE FOURTH COUNCIL OF LATERAN. 181

ten thousand marks in return for the rendering of a worthless homage, to which is perhaps attributable the permission given by Philip Augustus to his son to perform the crusade and grant in- vestiture to de Montfort of the lands thus transferred to Enghsh sovereignty.^ Foreign humiliations and domestic revolt, however, rendered John useless as an ally or a suzerain, and Kaymond await- ed, with what patience he might, the assembling of the great coun- cil to which the final decision of his fate had been referred. Here, at least, he would have a last chance of being heard, and of appeal- ing for the justice so long and so steadily denied him.

In April, 1213, had gone forth the call for the Parhament of Christendom, the Twelfth General Council, where the assembled wisdom and piety of the Church were to deliberate on the recovery of the Holy Land, the reformation of the Church, the correction of excesses, the rehabilitation of morals, the extirpation of heresy, the strengthening of faith, and the quieting of discord. All these were specified as the objects of the convocation, and two years and a half had been allowed for preparation. By the appointed day, JS'ovember 1, 1215, the prelates had gathered together, and Inno- cent's pardonable ambition was gratified in opening and presiding over the most august assemblage that Latin Christianity had ever seen. The Prankish occupation of Constantinople gave opportu- nity for the reunion, nominal at least, of the Eastern and the West- ern churches, and Patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem were there in humble obedience to St. Peter. All that was foremost in Church and State had come, in person or by representative. Ev- ery monarch had his ambassador there, to see that his interests suffered no detriment from a body which, acting under the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and under the principle that tem- poral concerns were wholly subordinate to spiritual, might have little respect for the rights of sovereigns. The most learned the- ologians and doctors were at hand to give counsel as to points of faith and intricate questions of canon law. The princes of the Church were present in numbers wholly unprecedented. Besides patriarchs, there were seventy-one primates and metropolitans, four hundred and twelve bishops, more than eight hundred abbots and priors, and the countless delegates of those prelates who were un-


  • Radulph. Coggeshall ann. 1213.


182 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

able to attend in person.* Two centuries were to pass away be- fore Eui'ope was again to show its collective strength in a body such as now crowded the ample dimensions of the Basilica of Con- stantine ; and it is a weighty illustration of the service which the Church has rendered in counteracting the centrifugal tendencies of the nations, that such a federative council of Christendom, at- tainable in no other way, was brought together at the summons of the Roman pontiff. Without some such cohesive power modern civilization would have worn a very different aspect.

The Counts of Toulouse, Folx, and Comminges had reached Rome in advance, where they were joined by the younger Raymond, coming tlirough France from England disguised as the servitor of a merchant, to escape the emissaries of de Montfort. In repeated interviews with Innocent they pleaded their cause, and produced no little hnpression on him. Arnaud of I^arbonne, embittered by his quarrel with de Montfort, is said to have aided them, but the other prelates, to whom it was almost a question of life or death, were so ^dolent in their denunciations of Raymond, and drew so fearful a picture of the destruction impending over religion, that Innocent, after a short period of irresolution, was deterred from action. De Montfort had sent his brother Gui to represent him, and when the council met both parties pressed their claims before it. Its decision was prompt, and, as might be expected, was in favor of the champion of the Church. The verdict, as promul- gated by Innocent, December 15, 1215, recited the labors of the Church to free the province of Narbonne from heresy, and the peace and tranquillity with which its success had been crowned. It assumed that Raymond had been found guilty of heresy and spoliation, and therefore deprived him of the dominion which he had abused, and sentenced him to dwell elsewhere in penance for his sins, promising him four hundred marks a year so long as he proved obedient. His wife was to retain the lands of her dower, or to receive a competent equivalent for them. AU the territories won by the Crusaders, together with Toulouse, the centre of her- es}^ and Montauban, were granted to de Montfort, who viras ex- tolled as the chief instrument in the triumph of the faith. The other possessions of Raymond, not as yet conquered, were to be


  • Chron. Fossae Novse ann. 1215.


THE YOUNGER RAYMOND. 183

held by the Church for the benefit of the younger Kaymond, to be delivered to him when he should reach the proper age, in whole or in part, as might be found expedient, provided he should mani- fest himself worthy. So far as Count Eaymond was concerned, the verdict was final ; thereafter the Church always spoke of him as " the former count," " quondcmi comes. ^ Subsequent decisions as to Foix and Comminges at least arrested the arms of de Mont- fort in that direction, although they proved far less favorable to the native nobles than they appeared on the surface."^

The highest tribunal of the Church Universal had spoken, and in no uncertain tone ; and we may see a significant illustration of the forfeiture of its hold on popular veneration in the fact that this, in place of meeting with acquiescence, was the signal of revolt. Apparently the decision had been awaited in the confidence that it would repair the long course of wrong and injustice perpetrated in the name of religion ; and, with the frustration of that hope, there was no hesitation in resorting to resistance, with the national spirit inflamed to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. If de Montfort thought that his conquests were secured by the voice of the Lat- eran fathers, and by King Philip's reception of the homage which he lost no time in rendering, he only showed how little he had learned of the temper of the race with which he had to deal. Yet in France he was naturally the hero of the hour, and the journey on his way to tender allegiance was a triumphal progress. Crowds flocked to see the champion of the Church ; the clergy marched forth in solemn procession to welcome him to every town, and those thought themselves happy who could touch the hem of his garment, t

The younger Raymond, at this time a youth of eighteen, har- dened by years of adversity, was winning in manner, and is said to have made a most favorable impression on Innocent, who dis- missed him with a benediction and good advice ; not to take what belonged to another, but to defend his own — " res de I'autrui non pregas ; lo teu, se degun lo te vol hostar, deffendas " — and he made


  • Guillem de Tudela, cxlii.-clii.— Vaissette, III. 280-1 ; Pr. 57-63.— Teulet,

Layettes, I. 420, No. 1132.— Pet. Sarnens. c. 83.— D'Achery I. 707.— Molinier, L'Ensevelissement du Comte de Toulouse, Angers, 1885, p. 6.

t Pet. Sarnens. c. 83.


IS4 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

haste to follow the counsel, according to his own interpretation. The part of his inheritance which had been reserved for him under custody of the Church lay to the east of the Ehone, and thither, on their return from Italy, early in 1216, father and son took their way, to find a basis of operations. The outlook was encouraging, and after a short stay the elder Eaymond proceeded to Spain to raise what troops he could. Marseilles, Avignon, Tarascon — the whole country, in fact — rose as one man to welcome their lord, and demanded to be led against the Frenchmen, reckless of the fulminations of the Church, and placing life and property at his disposal. The part which the cities and the people play in the conflict becomes henceforth even more noticeable than heretofore — the semi-republican communes fighting for life against the rigid feudalism of the North. How subordinated was the religious ques- tion, and how confused were religious notions, is manifested by the fact that, while thus warring against the Church, at the siege of the castle of Beaucaire, when entrenchments were necessary against the relieving army of de Montfort, Eaymond's chaplain offered sal- vation to any one who would labor on the ramparts, and the towns- folk set eagerly to work to obtain the promised pardons. The peo- ple apparently reasoned little as to the source from whence indul- gences came, nor the object for which they were granted.*

De Montfort met this unexpected turn of fortune with his wonted activity, but his hour of prosperity was past, and one might almost say, with the Church historians, that he was weighed down by the excommunication launched at him by the implacable Arnaud of Narbonne, whom he had treated harshly in their quar- rel over the dukedom — an excommunication which he wholly dis- regarded, not even interniitting his attendance at mass, though he had looked upon the censures of the Church with such veneration when they were directed against his antagonists. Obliged, after hard fighting, to leave Beaucaire to its fate, he marched in angry mood to Toulouse, which was preparing to recall its old lord. He set fire to the town in several places, but the citizens barricaded the streets, and resisted his troops step by step, till accommoda- tion was made, and he agreed to spare the city for the immense


  • Guillem de Tudela, cliii.-viii.— Guill. de Pod. Laurent c. 27-8.— Vaissette,

m. Pr. 64-66.— Pet. Sarnens. c. 83.


SECOND SIEGE OF TOULOUSE. 185

sum of thirty thousand marks ; but he destroyed what was left of the fortifications, filled up the ditches, rendered the place as de- fenceless as possible, and disarmed the inhabitants. Despite his excommunication, he still had the earnest support of the Church. Innocent died July 20, 1216, but his successor, Honorius III., in- herited his policy, and a new legate. Cardinal Bertrand of St. John and St. Paul, was, if possible, more bitter than his predecessors in the determination to suppress the revolt against Eome. The preaching of the crusade had been resumed, and in the beginning of 1217, with fresh reinforcements of Crusaders and a smaU con- tingent furnished by Philip Augustus, de Montfort crossed the Rhone, and made rapid progress in subduing the territories left to young Raymond.

He was suddenly recalled by the news that Toulouse was in rebellion ; that Raymond YI. had been received there with rejoic- ings, bringing with him auxiliaries from Spain; that Foix and Comminges, and all the nobles of the land, had flocked thither to welcome their lord, and that the Countess of Montfort was in peril in the Chateau l^arbonnais, the citadel outside of the town, which he had left to bridle the citizens. Abandoning his conquests, he hastened back. In September, 1217, commenced the second siege of the heroic city, in which the burghers displayed unflinching resolve to preserve themselves from the yoke of the stranger — or perhaps, rather, the courage of desperation, if the account is to be believed that the cardinal-legate ordered the Crusaders to slay all the inhabitants, without distinction of age or sex. In spite of the defenceless condition of the town, which men and women unitedly worked night and day to repair ; in spite of the threatening and beseeching letters which Honorius wrote to the Kings of Aragon and France, to the younger Raymond, the Count of Foix, the cit- izens of Toulouse, Avignon, Marseilles, and aU whom he thought to deter or excite ; in spite of heavy reinforcements brought by a vigorous renewal of preaching the crusade, for nine weary months the siege dragged on, in furious assaults and yet more furious sal- lies, with intervals of suspended operations as the crusading army swelled or decreased. De Montfort's brother Gui and his eldest son Amauri were seriously wounded. The baffled chieftain's troubles were rendered sorer by the legate, who taunted him with his Hi-success, and accused him of ignorance or slackness in his


186 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

work. Sick at heart, and praying for death as a welcome release, on the morrow of St. John's day, 1218, he was superintending the reconstruction of his machines, after repelling a sally, when a stone from a mangonel, worked, as Toulousain tradition says, by women, went straight to the right spot — E venc tot dret la peira lai on era mestiers " — it crushed in his helmet, and he never more spoke word. Great was the sorrow of the faithful through all the lands of Europe when the tidings spread that the glorious cham- pion of Clirist, the new Maccabee, the bulwark of the faith, had fallen as a martyr in the cause of religion. He was buried at Haute-Bruy^re, a ceU of the Monastery of Dol, and the miracles worked at his tomb showed how acceptable to God had been his life and death, though there were not wanting those who drew the moral that his sudden downfall, just as his success seemed to be firmly established, was the punishment of neglecting the persecu- tion of heresy in his eagerness to gratify his ambition.*

If proof were lacking of de Montfort's pre-eminent capacity it would be furnished by the rapid undoing of all that he had ac- complished, in the hands of his son and successor Amauri. Even during the siege his prestige was yet such that, December 18, 1217, the powerful Jourdain de I'lsle-Jourdain made submission to him as Duke of Narbonne and Count of Toulouse and furnished as securi- ties Geraud, Count of Armagnac and Fezenzac, Eoger, Yiscount of Fezenzaquet, and other nobles ; and in February, 1218, the citizens of Narbonne abandoned their rebellious attitude. His death was re- garded as the signal of liberation, and wherever the French garri- sons were not too strong, the people arose, massacred the invaders, and gave themselves back to their ancient lords. Yainly did Hono- rius recognize Amauri as the successor to his father's lordships, put the two Kaymonds to the ban, and grant Phihp Augustus a twentieth of ecclesiastical revenues as an incentive to another cru-


  • Pet. Sarnens. c. 83-6.~Guill. de Pod. Laurent, c. 28-30.— Vaissette, III.

271-2; Pr. 66-93.— Guillem de Tudela, clviii.-ccv.— Raynald. Airnal. ann. 1217 No. 52, 55-62; ann. 1218 No. 55.— Martene Ampliss. Collect. I. 1129.— Annal. Waverliens. ann. 1218. — Bernard! Iterii Chron. ann. 1218. — Chron. Lemovicens. ann. 1218. — Guillel. Nangiac. ann. 1218. — Chron. Turonens. ann. 1218. — Robert! Aut!ss!odor. Chron. ann. 1218. — Chron. S. Taurin. Ebroicens. ann. 1218. — Chron. Joan Iper!i ann. 1218. — Chron. Laudunens. ann. 1218. — Chron. S. Petr! V!v! Se- nonens. Append, ann. 1218. — Alberici Triura Font. Chron. ann. 1218.


REACTION. 18Y

sade, while plenary indulgence was offered to all who would serve. Yainly did Louis Coeur-de-Lion, with his father's sanction, and ac- companied by the Cardinal-Legate Bertrand, lead a gallant army of pilgrims which numbered in its ranks no less than thirty-three counts and twenty bishops. They penetrated, indeed, to Toulouse, but the third siege of the unyielding city was no more successful than its predecessors, and Louis was obliged to withdraw inglori- ously, having accomphshed nothing but the massacre of Marmande, where five thousand souls were put to the sword, without distinc- tion of age or sex. Indeed, the pitiless cruelty and brutal hcen- tiousness habitual among the Crusaders, who spared no man in their wrath, and no woman in their lust, aided no little in inflam- ing the resistance to foreign domination. One by one the strong- holds still held by the French were wrested from their grasp, and but very few of the invaders founded families who kept their place among the gentry of the land. In 1220 a new legate, Conrad, tried the experiment of founding a military order under the name of the Knights of the Faith of Jesus Christ, but it proved useless. Equally vain was the papal sentence of excommunication and exheredation fulminated in 1221 ; and when, in the same year, Louis undertook a new crusade and received from Honorius a twentieth of the Church revenues to defray the expenses, he turned the army thus raised against the Enghsh possessions and captured La RocheUe, in spite of the protests of king and pope.^

Early in 1222, Amauri, reduced to desperation, offered to Phihp Augustus all his possessions and claims, urging Honorius to sup- port the proposal. The pope welcomed it as the only feasible mode of accomphshing the result for which years of effort had been fruitlessly spent, and he wrote to the king. May 14, representing that in this way alone could the Church be saved. The heretics who had hid themselves in caverns and mountain fastnesses where French


  • Teulet, Layettes, I. 454, No. 1271 ; pp. 461-2, No. 1279-80 ; p. 466, No. 1301 ;

p. 475, No. 1331 ; p. 511, No. 1435  ; p. 518, No. 1656.— Vaissette, III. 307, 316-17, 568 ; Pr. 98-102.— Raynald. Annal. ann. 1218, No. 54-57 ; ann. 1221, No. 44, 45.— Archives Nationales de France J. 430, No. 15, 16. — Guillel. de Pod. Laurent, c. 31-33.— Guillel. Nangiac. ann. 1219-1220.— Bernard! Iterii Chron. ann. 1219.— Robert. Autissiodor. Chron. ann. 1219. — Chron. Landunens. ann, 1219. — Chron. Andrens. ann. 1219. — Alberici Trium Font. Chron. ann. 1219. — Martene Thesaur. I. 884.— Rymer, Foedera, L 239.


188 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

domination prevailed, came forth again as soon as the invaders were driven out, and their unceasing missionary efforts were aided by the common detestation in which the foreigner was held by all. The Church had made itself the national enemy, and we can easily beheve the description which Ilonorius gives of the lamentable concUtion of orthodoxy in Languedoc. Heresy was openly prac- tised and taught ; the heretic bishops set themselves up defiantly against the Cathohc prelates, and there was danger that the pesti- lence would spread throughout the land. In spite of all this, how- ever, and of an offer of a twentieth of the church revenues and un- hmited indulgences for a crusade, Philip turned a deaf ear to the entreaty ; and when Amauri's offer was transferred to Thibaut of Champagne, and the latter apphed to the king for encouragement, he was coldly told that if, after due consideration, he resolved on the undertaking, the king wished him all success, but could render him no aid nor release him from his obhgations of service in view of the threatening relations with England. Possibly encouraged by this, the younger Kaymond in June appealed to PhiUp as his lord, and, if he dared so to call him, as his kinsman, imploring his pity, and begging in the humblest terms his intervention to procure his reconciliation to the Church, and thus remove the incapacity of inheritance to which he was subjected.*

This must have been suggested by the expectation of the death of Raymond YI., which occurred shortly after, in August, 1222. It made no change in the political or rehgious situation, but is not without interest in view of the charge of heresy so persistently made and used as an excuse for his destruction. In 1218 he had executed his will, in which he left pious legacies to the Templars and Hospitallers of Toulouse, declared his intention of entering the latter order, and desired to be buried with them. On the morning of his sudden death he had twice visited for prayer the church of la Daurade, but his agony was short and he was speechless when the Abbot of St. Sernin, who had been hurriedly sent for, reached his bedside, to administer to him the consolations of religion. A Hospitaller who was present cast over him his cloak with the* cross, to secure the burial of the body for his house ; but a zealous pa-


  • Vaissette, III. 319; Pr. 275, 276.— Raynald. Annal. ann. 1222, No. 44-47,—

Guill. de Pod. Laurent, c. 47.— Teulet, Layettes, I. 546, No. 1537,


SETTLEMENT EXPECTEt). 189

rishioner of St. Sernin pulled it off, and a disgraceful squabble arose over the dying man, for the abbot claimed the sepulture, as the death chanced to take place in his parish, and he summoned the people not to allow the corpse to be removed beyond its precincts. This ghastly struggle over the remains has its ludicrous aspect, from the fact that the Church would never permit the inhumation of its enemy, and the body remained unburied in spite of the re- iterated pious efforts of Kaymond YII., after his reconciUation, to secure the repose of his father's soul. It was in vain that the in- quest ordered by Innocent lY., in 1247, gathered evidence from a hundred and twenty witnesses to prove that Kaymond YI. had been the most pious and charitable of men and most obedient to the Church. His remains lay for a century and a half the sport of rats in the house of the Hospitallers, and when they disappeared piece-meal, the skull was stiU kept as an object of curiosity, at least until the end of the seventeenth century.*

After his father's death Ra}Tnond YII. pursued his advantage, and in December Amauri was reduced to offering again his claims to Phihp Augustus, only to be exposed to another refusal. In May, 1223, there seem to have been hopes that Philip would undertake a crusade, and the Legate Conrad of Porto, with the bishops of Nimes, Agde, and Lodeve wrote to him urgently from Beziers de- scribing the deplorable state of the land in which the cities and castles were daily opening their gates to the heretics and inviting them to take possession. Negotiations with Eaymond foUowed, and matters went so far that we find Honorius writing to his leg- ate to look after the interest of the Bishop of Yiviers in the ex- pected settlement. There was fresh urgency felt for the paci- fication in the absence of any hope of assistance from the king, since the progress of the Catharan heresy was ever more alarm- ing. Additional energy had been infused into it by the activity of its Bulgarian antipope. Heretics from Languedoc were re- sorting to him in increasing numbers and returning with fresh- ened zeal ; and his representative, Bartholomew, Bishop of Carcas- sonne, who styled himself, in imitation of the popes. Servant of the servants of the Holy Faith, was making successful efforts to


  • Guill. de Pod. Laurent, c. 34.— Vaissette, III. 306, 321-4.— Molinier, L'En-

sevelissement de Raimond VI.


190 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

spread the belief. Truces between Amauri and Kaymond were therefore made and conferences held, and finally the legate called a council to assemble at Sens, July 6, 1223, where a final paci- fication was expected. It was transferred to Paris, because Philip Augustus desired to be present, and its importance in his eyes must have been great, since he set out on his journey thither in spite of a raging fever, to which he succumbed on the road, at Meudon, July 14. Kaymond's well-grounded hopes were shat- tered on the eve of reahzation, for Philip's death rendered the council useless and changed in a moment the whole face of aifairs."'^

Though PhiUp showed his practical sympathy with de Montfort by leaving him a legacy of thirty thousand livres to assist him in his Albigensian troubles, his prudence had avoided all entanglements, and he had steadily rejected the proffer of the de Montfort claims. Yet his sagacity led him to prophesy truly that after his death the clergy would use every effort to involve Louis, whose feeble health would prove unequal to the strain, and the kingdom would be left in the hands of a woman and a child. It was probably the desire to avert this by a settlement which led him to make the fatal ef- fort to attend the council, and his prediction did not long await its fulfilment. Louis, on the very day of his coronation, promised the legate that he would undertake the matter; Honorius urged it with vehemence, and in February, 1224, Louis accepted a condi- tional cession from Amauri of all his rights over Languedoc. Kaymond thus found himself confronted by the King of France as his adversary.f

The situation was fuU of new and unexpected peril. But a month before, Amauri, in utter penury, had been obliged to sur- render what few strongholds he yet retained, and had quitted for- ever the land which he and his father had cursed, a portion of Philip's legacy being used to extricate his garrisons. The triumph, so long hoped for and won by so many years of persistent struggle, was a Dead-Sea apple, full of ashes and bitterness. The discom- fited adversary was now replaced by one who was rash and enter-

  • Vaissette, III. Pr. 276, 282.— Teulet, Layettes, I. 561, No. 1577.— Raynald.

Annal. ann. 1222, No. 48.— Matt. Paris ann. 1223, p. 219.

t Alberici Trium Font. Chron. ann. 1223. — Guill. de Pod. Laurent, c. 34. — Vaissette, III. Pr. 290.— Raynald. Annal. ann. 1223, No. 41-45.— Teulet, Layettes, XL 24, No. 1631.


CRUSADE PROPOSED AND ABANDONED. 191

prising, who wielded all the power gained by PhiUp's long and fortunate reign, and whose pride was enlisted in avenging the check which he had received five years before under the walls of Tou- louse. Already in February he wrote to the citizens of ISTarbonne, praising their loyalty and promising to lead a crusade three weeks after Easter, which should restore to the crown all the lands for- feited by the house of Toulouse. Zealous as he was, however, he felt that the eagerness of the Church warranted him in driving the best bargain he could for his services to the faith, and he demanded as conditions of taking up arms that peace abroad and at home should be assured to him, that a crusade should be preached with the same indulgences as for the Holy Land, that all his vassals not joining in it should be excommunicated, that the Archbishop of Bourges should be legate in place of the Cardinal of Porto, that all the lands of Raymond, of his allies, and of all who resisted the crusade should be his prize, that he should have a subsidy of sixty thousand hvres parisis a year from the Church, and that he should be free to return as ^oon or remain as long as he might see fit.*

Louis asserted that these conditions were accepted, and went on with his preparations, while Raymond made desperate efforts to conjure the coming storm. Henry III. of England used his good offices with Honorius, and Raymond was encouraged to make offers of obedience through envoys to Rome, whose liberalities among the officials of the curia are said to have produced a most favorable impression. Honorius repHed in a most gracious letter, promising to send Romano, Cardinal of Sant' Angelo, as legate to arrange a settlement, and he followed this by informing Louis that the offers of Frederic 11. to recover the Holy Land were so favorable that everything else must be postponed to that great object, and all indulgences must be used solely for that purpose ; but that if he will continue to threaten Raymond, that prince will be forced to submit. Instructions were at the same time sent to Arnaud of ISTarbonne to act with other prelates in leading Ray- mond to offer acceptable terms. Louis, justly indignant at being thus played with, made pubhc protestation that he washed his hands of the whole business, and told the pope the curia might come to what terms it pleased with Rajrmond, that he had noth-


Vaissette, III. Pr. 285, 291-3.— Gesta Ludovici Vm. aim. 1324.


192 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE.

ing to do with points of faith, but that his rights must be respected and no new tributes be imposed. At a parliament held in Paris, Ma}^ 5, 1224, the legate withdrew the indulgences granted against the Albigenses and approved of Kayraond as a good Catholic, while Louis made a statement of the whole transaction in terms which showed how completely he felt himself to be duped. He turned his military preparations to account, however, by wrenching from Henry III. a considerable portion of the remaining English pos- sessions in France.*

The storm seemed to be successfully conjured. Nothing re- mained but to settle the terms, and Kaymond's escape had been too narrow for him to raise dif&culties on this score. At Pente- cost (June 2) with his chief vassals, he met Arnaud and the bish- ops at Montpellier, where he agreed to observe and maintain the Catholic faith throughout his dominions, and expel all heretics pointed out by the Church, confiscate their property and punish their bodies, to maintain peace and dismiss the bandit mercena- ries, to restore all rights and privileges to the churches, to pay twenty thousand marks for reparation of ecclesiastical losses and for Amauri's compensation, on condition that the pope would cause Amauri to renounce his claims and deliver up all docu- ments attesting them. If this would not suffice, he would submit himself entirely to the Church, saving his allegiance to the king. His signature to this was accompanied by those of the Count of Foix and the Viscount of Beziers. As an evidence of good faith he reinstated his father's old enemy, Theodisius, in the bishopric of Agde, which the quondam legate had obtained and from which he had been driven, and in addition he restored various other church properties. These conditions were transmitted to Eome for approbation with notice that a council would be held August 20 for their ratification, and Honorius returned an equivocal answer which might be construed as accepting them. On the appointed day the council met at Montpellier. Amauri sent a protest begging the bishops desperately not to throw away the fruits of victory within their grasp. The King of France, ]ie said,

  • Rymer, Foedera I. 271.— Vaissette, III. 339-40; Pr. 283.— Raynald. Annal.

ann. 1224, No. 40.— Gesta Ludovici VIII. ann.1224.— Chron.Turonens. ann. 1224. — Guillel. Nangiac. ann. 1324.— Epistolss Seculi XIII. Tom. I. No. 249 (Monu- ment. Hist. German.).


RAYMOND'S SUBMISSION REJECTED. 193

was on the point of making the cause his own, and to abandon it now would be a scandal and a humiliation to the Church Universal. N'ot withstanding this, the bishops received the oaths of Eaymond and his vassals to the conditions previously agreed, with the ad- dition that the decision of the pope should be followed as to the composition with Amauri, and that any further commands of the Church should be obeyed, saving the supremacy of the king and the emperor, for all of which satisfactory security was offered.*

What more the Church could ask it is hard to see. Raymond had triumphed over it and all the Crusaders whom it could muster, and yet he offered submission as complete as could reasonably have been exacted of his father in the hour of his deepest abasement. At this very time, moreover, a pubhc disputation held at Castel- Sarrasin between some Cathohc priests and Catharan ministers shows the growing confidence of heresy and the necessity of an accommodation if its progress was to be checked. Not less sig- nificant was a Catharan council held not long after at Pieussan, where, with the consent of Guillabert of Castres, heretic bishop of Toulouse, the new episcopate of Easez was carved out of his see and that of Carcasses. Yet the vicissitudes and surprises in this business were not yet exhausted. In October, when Ray- mond's envoys reached Rome to obtain the papal confirmation of the settlement, they were opposed by Gui de Montfort, sent by Louis to prevent it. There were not wanting Languedocian bish- ops who feared that with peace they would be forced to restore possessions usurped during the troubles, and who consequently busied themselves with proving that Raymond was at heart a heretic. Honorius shufiled with the negotiation until the com- mencement of 1225, when he sent Cardinal Romano again to France with full powers as legate, and with instructions to threat- en Raymond and to bring about a truce between France and Eng- land so as to free Louis's hands. He wrote to Louis in the same sense, while to Amauri he sent money and words of encourage- ment. His description of Languedoc, as a land of iron and brass


• Vaissette, III. Pr. 284, 296.— Vaissette, ^d. Privat, VIII. 804.— Baluz. Concil. Narbonn. pp. 60-64. — Gesta Ludovici VIII. ann. 1224. — Concil. Montispessulan. ann. 1224 (Ilarduin. VII. 131-33).— Grandes Chroniques, ann. 1224.— Guillel. Nangiac. ann. 1224. L— 13


194: THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

of which the rust could only be removed by fire, shows the side which he had finally determined to take.*

After several conferences with Louis and the leading bishops and nobles, the legate convened a national council at Bourges in November, 1225, for the final settlement of the question. Eay- mond appeared before it, humbly seeking absolution and recon- ciliation ; he offered his purgation and whatever amends might be required by the churches, promising to render his lands peace- ful and secure and obedient to Eome. As for heresy, he not only engaged to suppress it, but urged the legate to visit every city in his dominions and make inquisition into the faith of the people, pledging himseK to punish rigorously all delinquents and to coerce any town offering opposition. For himself, he was ready to ren- der full satisfaction for any derelictions, and to undergo an exami- nation as to his faith. On the other hand, Amauri exhibited the decrees of Innocent condemning Raymond YI. and bestowing his lands on Simon, and Philip's recognition of the latter. There was much wrangling in the council until the legate ordered each archbishop to deliberate separately with his suffragans and deliver to him the result in writing, to be submitted to the king and pope, under the seal of secrecy, enforced by excommunication. f

There is an episode in the proceedings of this council worth attention as an illustration of the relations between Rome and the local churches and the character of the establishment to which the heretics were invited to return with the gentle inducements of the stake and gibbet. After the ostensible business of the as- semblage was over, the legate craftily gave to the delegates of

  • Vaissette, III. Pr. 284-5.— Schmidt I. 291.— Coll. Doat, XXIII. 269-70.—

Rymer, Feed. I. 273, 274, 281.— Raynald. Annal. ann. 1225, No. 28-34.— Teulet, Layettes, II. 47, No. 1694.

t Chron. Turonens. ann. 1225.— Matt. Paris ann. 1225, pp. 227-9. A poetaster of the period, in describing the council, depicts Raymond's dis- comfiture with emphasis :

" Et s'i vint li quens de St. Gille, Ki n'i fist valiant une tille De sa besougne, quant vint 1^, Qu' escum^niies s'en r'ala, Ausi' com il i fu venus. Voire plus, s'il pot estre plus."

— Chronique de Philippe Mousket, 25885-90.


THE COUNCIL OF BOUHGES. 195

the chapters permission to depart, while retaining the bishops. The delegates thus dismissed were keen to scent some mischief in the wind ; they consulted together and sent to the legate a com- mittee from all the metropolitan chapters to say that they under- stood him to have special letters from the Koman curia demand- ing for the pope in perpetuity the fruits of two prebends in every episcopal and abbatial chapter and one in every conventual church. They adjured him, for the sake of God, not to cause so great a scan- dal, assuring him that the king and the barons, would be ready to resist at the peril of life and dignity, and that it would cause a general subversion of the Church. Under this pressure the legate exhibited the letters and argued that the grant would relieve the Eoman Church of the scandal of concupiscence, as it would put an end to the necessity of demanding and receiving presents. On this the delegate from Lyons quietly observed that they did not wish to be without friends in the Roman court, and were perfectly willing to bribe them ; others represented that the fountain of cu- pidity never would run dry, and that the added wealth would only render the Romans more madly eager, leading to mutual quarrels which would end in the destruction of the city ; others, again, pointed out that the revenues thus accruing to the curia, computed to be greater than those of the crown, would render its members so rich that justice would be more costly than ever ; moreover, it was evident that the host of officials in each church, whom the pope would be entitled to appoint to look after the collections, would not only lead to infinite additional exactions, but would be used to control the elections of the chapters, and end by bringing them all under subjection to Rome. They wound up by assuring him that it was for the interest of Rome itself to abandon the project, for if oppression thus became universal it would be fol- lowed by universal revolt. The legate, unable to face the storm, agreed to suppress the letters, saying that he disapproved of them, but had had no opportunity of remonstrance, as they had only reached him after his arrival in France. An equally audacious proposition, by which the curia hoped to obtain control over all the abbeys in the kingdom, was frustrated by the active opposi- tion of the archbishops. Heresy might well hold itself justifiable in keeping aloof from such a Church as this.*

  • Chron. Turonens. ann. 1225.— Matt. Paris ann. 1225, pp. 227-8. — Possi-


196 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

What were really the conclusions reached in the Albigensian matter by the archiepiscopal caucuses no one might reveal, but with pope and king resolved on intervention there could be little doubt as to the practical result. Moreover, the stars in their courses had fought against Raymond, for in this critical juncture death had carried off Archbishop Arnaud of Narbonne, who had become his vigorous friend, and who was succeeded by Pierre Amiel, his bitter enemy. There could be no effective resistance to royal and papal wishes ; it was announced that no peace hon- orable to the Church could be reached with Eaymond, and that a tithe of ecclesiastical revenues for five years was offered to Louis if he would undertake the holy war. Eeckless as was Louis, how- ever, and eager to clutch at the tempting prize, he shrank from the encounter with the obstinate patriotism of the South while involved in hostilities with England. He demanded therefore that Honorius should prohibit Henry III. from disturbing the French territories during the crusade. When Henry received the papal letters he was eagerly preparing an expedition to reheve his brother, Richard of Cornwall, but his counsellors urged him not to prevent Louis from entangling himself in so difficult and costly an enterprise, and one of them, William Pierrepont, a skilled astrologer, confidently predicted that Louis would either lose his life or be overwhelmed with misfortune. In the nick of time, news arrived from Richard giving good accounts of his success ; Henry's anxieties were calmed, and he gave the required assurances, in spite of an alliance into which he had shortly before entered with Raymond. As a further precaution to insure the success of the crusade, all private wars were forbidden during its continuance.*

bly the chroniclers may be guilty of exaggeration, for the letters of Honorius only ask for a single prebend in each cathedral and collegiate church (Martene Thesaur. I. 929). In either case the encroachments of Rome were only post- poned, for in 1385 Charles le Sage complained that nearly all the benefices of France were practically held by the cardinals, who carried the revenue to Italy, so that the churches were falling to ruin, the abbeys deserted, the orphanages and hospitals diverted from their purpose, divine service had ceased- in many places, and the lands of the Church were uncultivated. To remedy this, he seized all such revenues and ordered them to be expended on the objects for which they had been given to the Church (Ibid. I. 1612).

  • Matt. Paris ann. 1226, p. 229.— Vaissette, III. 349.— Rymer, Feed. I. 281.—

Martene Collect. Nova, p. 104; Thesaur. I. 931.


THE CKUSADE ORGANIZED. 197

The question of religion had practically disappeared by this time, except as an excuse for indulgences and ecclesiastical subsi- dies and as a cloak for dynastic expansion. If Rajrmond had not yet actively persecuted his heretic subjects it was merely because of the impoHcy, under constant threats of foreign aggression, of alienating so large a portion of the population on which he relied for support. He had shown himself quite ready to do so in ex- change for reconciliation to the Church, and he had urged the legate to establish an organized inquisition throughout his domin- ions. Amid all the troubles the Dominicans had been allowed to grow and establish themselves in his territories ; and when their rivals in persecution, the Franciscans, had come to Toulouse, he had welcomed them and assisted them in taking root. In this very year, 1225, St. Antony of Padua, who stands next to St. Francis in the veneration of the order, came to France to preach against heresy, and in the Toulousain his eloquence excited such a storm of persecution as to earn for him the honorable title of the Tire- less Hammer of Heretics. The coming struggle thus, even more than its predecessors, was to be a war of races, with the whole power of the North, led by the king and the Church, against the exhausted provinces which clung to Eaymond as their suzerain. We cannot wonder that he was wiUing to submit to any terms to avert it, for he was left to breast the tempest alone. His greatest vassal, the Count of Foix, it is true, stood by him, but the next in importance, the Count of Comminges, made his peace, and is found acting for the king ; the Count of Provence entered into the alli- ance against him, while, at a warning from Louis, Jayme of Ara- gon and Nunez Sancho of EoussiUon forbade their subjects from lending aid to the heretic*

Meanwhile the crusade was organized on the largest scale. At a great parliament held in Paris, January 28, 1226, the nobles presented an address urging the king to undertake it and pledging their assistance to the end. He assumed the cross under condition that he should lay it aside when he pleased, and his example was- followed by nearly all the bishops and barons, though we are told that many did so unwillingly, holding it an abuse to assail a faith-


  • Wadding! Annal. Minorum ann. 1225, No. 14.— Vaissette, III. Pr. 305, 318.

-Teulet, Lay'ettes, II. 75, No. 1758; p. 79, No. 1768; p. 90, No. 1794.


198 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

f ul Christian who, at the Council of Bourges, had offered all possible satisfaction. Amauri and his uncle Gui executed a renunciation of all their claims in favor of the crown ; the cross was diligently preached throughout the kingdom, with the customary offer of in- dulgences, and the legate guaranteed that the ecclesiastical tithe granted for five years should amount to at least one hundred thou- sand livres per annum. The only cloud to mar the prospect was the discovery that Honorius had sent letters and legates to the barons of Poitou and Aquitaine, ordering them within a month to return to their allegiance to England in spite of any oaths taken to the contrary. This curious piece of treachery can only be ex- plained by persuasive bribes from Kaymond or from Henry III., and Louis promptly met it with liberal payments to the pope, by which he procured the suspension of the letters. This being got out of the way, another council was held March 29, where Louis commanded his lieges to assemble on May 17, at Bourges, fully equipped and prepared to remain with him as long as he should stay in the South. The forty day's service which had so repeatedly snatched from de Montf ort the fruits of his victories was no longer to arrest the tide of a permanent conquest.*

On the appointed day the chivalry of the kingdom gathered around their monarch at Bourges, but before setting forth there was much to be done. Innumerable abbots and delegates from chapters besieged the king, imploring him not to reduce the na- tional Church to servitude by exacting the tithe bestowed on him, and promising to make ample provision for his needs ; but he was unrelenting, and they departed, secretly cursing both crusade and king. The legate was busy dismissing the boys, women, old men, paupers, and cripples who had assumed the cross. These he forced to swear as to the amount of money which they possessed ; of this he took the major part and let them go after granting them ab- solution from the vow — an indirect way of selling indulgences which became habitual and produced large sums. Louis drove a thriving trade of the same kind from a higher class of Crusaders by accepting heavy payments from those who owed him service and were not ambitious of the glory or the perils of the expedition.


  • Vaissette, III. Pr. 300, 308-14.— Teulet, Layettes, II. 68-9, No. 1742-3.—

Matt. Paris aim. 1226, p. 229.— Chron, Turonens. ann. 1225, 1226.


THE SIEGE OF AVIGNON. 199

He also forced the Count of La Marche to send back to Raymond his young daughter Jeanne, betrothed to La Marche's son, and re- served, as we shall see, for loftier nuptials. To Bourges likewise flocked many of the nobles of IS^arbonne, eager to show their loy- alty by doing homage to the king and to advise him not to advance through their district, which was devastated by war, but to march by way of the Rhone to Avignon — disinterested counsel which he adopted.*

Louis set forth from Lyons with a magnificent army consist- ing, it is said, of fifty thousand horse and innumerable foot. The terror of his coming preceded him ; many of Raymond's vassals and cities made haste to offer their submission — Nimes, l^arbonne, Carcassonne, Albi, Beziers, Marseilles, Castres, Puylaurens, Avig- non— and he seemed reduced to the last extremity. When the host reached Avignon, however, and Louis proposed to march through the city, the inhabitants, with sudden fear, shut their gates in his face, and though they offered him unmolested passage around it, he resolved on a siege, in spite of its being a fief of the empire. It had lain for ten years under excommunication, and was noted as a nest of Waldenses, so the Cardinal-Legate Romano ordered the Crusaders to purge it of heresy by force of arms. The task proved no easy one. From June 10 till about September 10 the citi- zens resisted desperately, inflicting heavy loss upon the besiegers. Raymond had devastated the surrounding country and was ever on the watch to cut off foraging-parties, so that supphes were scanty. An epidemic set in, and a plague of flies carried infection from the dead to the Mving. Disaffection in the camp aggravated the trou- ble. Pierre Mauclerc of Britanny was offended with Louis for traversing his plot of marriage with Jeanne of Flanders, whose divorce from her husband he had procured from the pope, and he entered into a league with Thibaut of Champagne and the Count of La Marche, who were all suspected of entertaining secret rela- tions with the enemy. Thibaut even left the army without leave, after forty days of service, returned home and commenced strength- ening his castles. The crusade, so brilliantly begun, was on the point of abandoning its first serious enterprise, when the Avignon- ese, reduced to the utmost straits, unexpectedly offered to capit-


Chron. Turonens. ann. 1226.— Teulet, Layettes, II. 72, No. 1751.


200 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

ulate. Considering the customs of the age, the terms were not hard. They agreed to satisfy the king and Church, they paid a considerable ransom, their walls were thrown down and three hun- dred fortified houses in the town were dismantled, and they re- ceived as bishop, at the hands of the legate, Nicholas de Corbie, who instituted laws for the suppression of heresy. It was fortunate for Louis that the submission came when it did, for a few days later there occurred an inundation of the Durance which would have drowned his camp.*

From Avignon Louis marched westward, everywhere receiving the submission of nobles and cities until within a few leagues of Toulouse. The reduction of that obstinate focus of heresy was apparently all that remained to complete the ruin of Kaymond and the success of the crusade, when Louis suddenly turned his face homeward. No explanation of this unlooked-for termination of the campaign is furnished by any of the chroniclers, but it is prob- ably to be sought in the sickness which pursued the Crusaders, and possibly in the commencement of the disease which terminated the march and the life of the king at Montpensier on November 8 — fulfilling the prophecy of Merlin, " In ventris monte morietur leo pacificus " — and not without suspicion of poisoning by Thibaut of Champagne. Throughout Europe, however, the retreat was re- garded as the result of serious military reverses. Louis had de- signed to return the following year, and had left garrisons in the places which had submitted to him, with Humbert de Beaujeu, a renowned captain, in supreme command, and Gui de Montfort un- der him, but their feats of arms were few, though the burning of heretics was not neglected, when occasion offered, if only to main- tain the sacred character of the war.f

Saved as by a miracle from the ruin which had seemed inevita- ble, Raymond lost no time in recovering a portion of his dominions. The death of Louis had worked a complete revolution in the situa-


  • Matt. Paris ann. 1226.— Teulet, Layettes, II. 71, 78, 81, 84, 85, 87, 89, 90, 91,

648-9.— Guillel. de Pod. Laurent, c. 35.— Vaissette, IIL 354, 364.— Chron..Turo- nens. ann. 1226. — Guillel. Nangiac. ann. 1226. — Gesta Ludovici VIIL ann. 1226.

The city of Agen seems to have remained faithful to Raymond (Teulet, 11. 82).

t Gesta Ludovici \^II. ann. 1226.— Matt. Paris ann. 1226.— Chron. Turonens. ann. 1226. — Guillel. de Pod. Laurent, c. 36, 38.— Alberti Stadens. Chron. ann. 1226.— Vaissette, IIL 363,


RAYMOND MAINTAINS HIMSELF. 201

tion, and , for a time at least, he had little to fear. It is true that Louis IX., a child of thirteen, was crowned without delay at Keims, and the regency was confided to his mother, Blanche of Castile, but the great barons were restive, and the conspiracy, hatched before the walls of Avignon, was yet in existence. Britanny, Champagne, and La Marche ostentatiously kept awaj^ from the coronation, de- layed offering their homage, and intrigued with England. Early in 1227, however, they quarrelled, when a show of force and favor- able terms brought them in one by one ; short truces were made with Henry III. and the Viscount of Thouars, and a temporary res- pite was obtained. Gregory IX., who mounted the papal throne March 19, 1227, took the regent and the boy-king under the papal protection, on the ground of their being engaged in war against heresy ; but the succors which they sent from time to time to de Beaujeu were probably only enough to give color to a continuance of the ecclesiastical tithe, which the four great provinces of Keims, Rouen, Sens, and Tours resisted till the legate authorized the re- gent to seize church property and compel the payment. Raymond thus was enabled to continue the struggle with varying fortune. The Council of Narbonne, held during Lent, 1227, in excommuni- cating those who had proved faithless to the oaths given to Louis shows that the people had returned to their ancient allegiance where they safely could ; and in commanding a strict perquisition of heretics by the bishops and their punishment by the secular au- thorities, it indicates that even in territories held by the French the duties of persecution were slackly performed.*

The war dragged on through 1227 with varying result. De Beaujeu, assisted by Pierre Amiel of Narbonne and Foulques of Toulouse, captured, after a desperate siege, the castle of Becede, when the garrison was slaughtered and the heretic deacon Geraud de Motte and his comrades were burned, the castellan, Pagan de


  • Chron. Turonens. ann. 1226, 1227.— Martene Ampliss. Collect. I. 1210-13.—

Potthast Regesta, 7897, 7920.— Vaissette, III. Pr. 323-5.— Guill el. Nangiac. ann. 1227.— Guillel. de Pod. Laurent, c. 38.— Matt. Paris ann. 1228.— Martene Thesaur. I. 940.— Concil. Narbonnens. ann. 1227 can. 13-17 —Vaissette, Ed. Privat, VIII. 265.

Letters of the Archbishop of Sens and Bishop of Chartres, in 1227, promising to pay to the king a subsidy for the crusade against the Albigenses are preserved in the Archives Nationales de France, J. 428, No. 8.


202 THE ALBIGEKSIAN CRUSADES.

Becede, becoming a " faidit " and a leader among the proscribed heretics, to be burned at last in 1233. Raymond recovered Cas- tel-Sarrasin, but could not prevent the Crusaders from devastat- ing the land up to the walls of Toulouse. The following year found both parties inclined for peace. We have seen that Ray- mond was eager to make sacrifices for it, even before the last crusade had stripped him of most of his possessions. The regent Blanche had ample motives to come to terms. With all her firm- ness and capacity the task before her was no easy one. The nobles of Aquitaine were corresponding with Henry III. who always cher- ished the hope of reconquering the ample territories wrenched from the English crown by Philip Augustus. The great barons, despis- ing the rule of a woman, were quarrelling between themselves and involving a large portion of the kingdom in war. The hope of completing the conquest of the South could scarce repay the con- stant drain on the royal resources, while chronic warfare there was highly dangerous in the explosive condition of the realm. The difficulty of collecting the tithe from the recalcitrant churches was increasing, and it could not be continued permanently. Every mo- tive of policy would therefore incline Queen Blanche to listen to the humble prayers for reconcihation which Raymond and his fa- ther had never ceased to utter, and a way of securing for the royal line the rich inheritance of the house of Toulouse seemed to offer itself in the fact that Raymond had but one child, Jeanne, still un- married. A union between her and one of the younger brothers of St. Louis, with a reversion of the territories to them and to their heirs, would attain peaceably all the political advantages of the cru- sade, while, as to its religious objects, Raymond had left no doubts of his vnlhngness to secure them.

Gregory IX. was quite content thus to close the war which Innocent had commenced twenty years before. Already, in March, 1228, he wrote to Louis IX., urging him to make peace according to the judgment of the legate. Cardinal Romano, who had full powers in the premises, and it was in the name of the legate that the first overtures were made to Raymond through the Abbot of Grandselve. That the marriage was the pivot upon which from the beginning the negotiations turned is shown by another letter of June 25, authorizing Romano to dispense with the impedi- ment of consanguinity if the union between Jeanne and one of


THE TREATY OF PARIS, IN 1229. 203

ike king's brothers Avould lead to peace. Another epistle of Oc- tober 21) aiinouncing td dll the prelates of France that he had renewed the indulgences for a crusade against the Albigenses, would seem to show that the terms offered to Eaymond were hard of acceptance, and that renewed pressure on him was necessary. This was enforced b}^ extensive devastations in his territories, and in December, 1228, he gave the abbot full power to assent to what- ever might be agreed upon by Thibaut of Champagne, who acted as mediator for him. A conference was held at Meaux, where we find the consuls of Toulouse also represented, and preliminaries Avere signed in January, 1229. Finally, on Holy Thursday, April 12, 1229, the long war came to an end. Before the portal of Notre Dame de Paris Raymond humbly approached the legate and begged for reconciliation to the Church ; barefooted and in his shirt he was conducted to the altar as a penitent, received ab- solution in the presence of the dignitaries of Church and State, and his followers were relieved from excommunication. After this he constituted himself a prisoner in the Louvre until his daughter and five of his castles should be in the hands of the king, and five hundred toises of the walls of Toulouse should be demolished.*

The terms to which he had agreed were hard and humihating. In the royal proclamation of the treaty, he is represented as act- ing at the command of the legate, and humbly praying Church and king for mercy and not for justice. He swore to persecute heresy with his whole strength, including heretics and believers, their protectors and receivers, and not sparing his nearest kindred, friends, and vassals. On all these speedy punishment was to be inflicted, and an inquisition for their detection was to be insti- tuted in such form as the legate might dictate, while in its aid Eaymond agreed to offer the large reward of two marks per head for every manifest ("perfected") heretic captured during two years, and one mark forever thereafter. As for other heretics, believers, receivers, and defenders, he agreed to do whatever the legate or pope should command. His haillis, or local officers,

  • Bernard. Guidon. Vit. Gregor. PP. IX. (Muratori, S. R. I. III. 570-1).— Guillel.

de Pod. Laurent, c. 38, 39.— Teulet, Layettes, II. 144, No. 1980.— Pottliast Regesta, 8150, 8216, 8207.— Raynald. Annal. ann. 1228, No. 20-4.— Martene Thesaur. L 943. — Vaissette, III. 377-8 ; Pr. 326-9, 335.


204: THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

moreover, were to be good Catholics, free of all suspicion. He was to defend the Church and all its members and privileges ; to enforce its censures by seizing the property of all who should re- main for a year under excommunication; to restore all church lands and lands of ecclesiastics occupied since the commencement of the troubles, and to pay as damages for personal property taken the sum of ten thousand silver marks ; to enforce for the future the payment of tithes, and, as a special fine, to pay five thousand marks to five religious houses named, besides six thou- sand marks to be expended in fortifying certain strongholds to be held by the king as security for the Church, and between three thousand and four thousand marks to support for ten years at Toulouse two masters in theology, two decretalists, and six mas- ters in grammar and the Uberal arts. Moreover, as penance, he agreed to assume the cross immediately on receiving absolution, and to proceed within two years to Palestine, to serve there for five years — a penance which he never performed, though repeat- edly summoned to do so, until in 1247 he made preparations for a departure which was arrested by death. An oath was further to be administered to his people, renewable every five years, bind- ing them to make active war upon all heretics, their believers, receivers, and fautors, and to help the Church and king in sub- duing heresy.

The interests of the Church and of religion being thus provided for, the marriage of Jeanne with one of the king's brothers was treated as a favor bestowed on Eaymond. It was tacitly assumed that all his dominions had been forfeited, and the king graciously granted him all the lands comprised within the ancient bishopric of Toulouse, subject to their reversion after his death to his daughter and her husband, in such wise that whether there was issue of the marriage or not, or whether she survived her husband or not, they passed irrevocably to the royal family, Agen, Kou- ergue, Quercy, except Cahors, and part of Albi were likewise granted to Eaymond, with reversion to his daughter in default of lawful heirs ; but the king retained the extensive territories com- prised within the duchy of Narbonne and the counties of Velay, Gevaudan, Yiviers, and Lod5ve. The marquisate of Provence, beyond the Rhone, a dependency of the empire, was given to the Church. Raymond thus lost two thirds of his vast dominions.


THE TREATY OF PARIS, IN 1229. 205

In addition to this he was obliged to destroy the fortifications of Toulouse and of thirty other strongholds, and was prohibited from strengthening any in their stead ; he was to deliver to the king eight other specified places for ten years, and to pay fifteen hun- dred marks per annum for five years for their maintenance ; and he was to take active measures to reduce to subjection any re- calcitrant vassals, especially the Count of Foix, who, being thus abandoned, came in the same year and made a humiliating peace. A general amnesty was proclaimed, and the " faidits," or ejected knights and gentlemen, were restored, excluding, of course, all who were heretics. Raymond, moreover, engaged to maintain peace throughout the land, and the routiers^ or bandit mercenaries, who for fifty years had been the special objects of animadversion by the Church, were to be expelled forever. To all these condi- tions his vassals and people were to be sworn, obligating them- selves to assist him in the performance ; and if, after forty days' notice, he continued derelict on any point, all the lands granted him reverted to the king, his subjects' allegiance was transferred, and he fell back into his present condition of an excommunicate.* The king's assumed right to the territories thus disposed of arose partly from the conquests of his father, and partly from Amauri, who a few days later executed a third cession of all his claims without reserve or consideration, other than what the king in his bounty might see fit to grant. The reward he obtained was the reversion of the dignity of Constable of France, which fell in the next year on the death of Matthieu de Montmorency. In 1237 he foolishly revived his claims, again styled himself Duke of Is'ar- bonne, made an unsuccessful effort to seize Dauphine in right of his wife, and invaded the county of Melgueil, thereby incurring the wrath of Gregory IX., who ordered him as a penance to join the crusade then preparing to start for the Holy Land. In effect he did so, and Gregory generously granted him, to be paid after he was beyond seas, the large sum of three thousand marks out of the fund arising from the redemption of their vows by Crusaders staying at home — by this time a customary mode of selling indul-


  • Harduin. Concil. VII. 165-72.— Vaissette, III. 375 ; Pr. 329-35, 340-3.— Teulet,

Layettes, II. 147-52, No. 1991-4; pp. 154-57, No. 1998-99, 2003-4.— Guill. de Pod. Laurent, c. 47.


206 tHE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADJfiS.

gences, and one exceedingly lucrative, for this pa3nnent was as- signed simply on the province of Sens and the lands of Amauri himself. In 1238 he sailed, and his customary ill-luck pursued him, for in 121:1 we hear of him as a prisoner of the Saracens, and Gregory again came to his aid by contributing to his ransom four thousand marks from the same redemption fund. His death oc- curred the same year at Otranto, on his return from Palestine, thus closing a life of strange vicissitudes and almost uninterrupted misfortune.*

The house of Toulouse was thus reduced from the position of the most powerful feudatory, with possessions greater than those of the crown, to a condition in which it was to be no longer dreaded, though Gregory IX. and Frederic II., in 1234, at the reiterated request of Louis IX., restored to it the Marquisate of Provence, probably as a reward for increased zeal in persecution. Eaymond no longer, as Duke of JSTarbonne, held the first rank among the six lay peers of France, but was relegated to the fourth place. The treaty resulted as its framers intended. In 1229 Jeanne of Toulouse and her destined husband Alphonse, brother of Louis, were children in their ninth year. Their marriage was deferred until 1237, and when Eaymond, in 1249, closed his un- quiet career, they succeeded to his territories. They both died without issue in 1271, when Philip III. took possession, not only of the county of Toulouse, as provided for in the settlement, but also of the other possessions which Jeanne had vainly attempted to dispose of by will, thus rendering the crown supreme through- out southern France, and preparing it for the rude shocks of the wars with Edward III. and Henry Y. It is fairly question- able, indeed, whether, during those convulsions, the house of Tou- louse might not have become independently royal, governing a weU- defined territory of homogeneous population, had not the rehgious enthusiasm excited by heresy enabled the Capets, with


  • Martene Ampliss. Collect. 1. 1225.— Vaissette, III. 375, 412.— Teulet, Layettes,

II. 155, No. 2000.— Raynald. ann. 1237, No. 31.— Rob. de Monte Chron. ann. 1238. — Potthast Regest. 10469, 10516-17,10563, 10579, 10666, 10670, 10996.— Cf. Ber- ger, Les Registres dlnnoc. IV. No. 2763-69.

For the sums raised in England in 1234 by selling releases of Crusaders* vows see Matt. Paris ann. 1234, p. 276.


RAYMOND'S POSITION. 207

the assistance of the papacy, to destroy it in the thirteenth cen- tury.

That a monarchy so distracted and weakened as that of France during the minority of Louis IX. could demand and exact terms so humihating as those which Raymond was glad to accept, shows the helpless isolation to which the reUgious question had reduced him, despite the fideUty of his subjects and the repeated failure of the assaults upon him. Those assaults he had met with the cour- age of a gallant knight and the resources of a skilful leader, but his neglect to persecute heresy deprived him of sympathy and of allies, and the anathema of the Church hung over him as an ever- present curse. To the pubhc law of the period he was an outlaw, without even the right of seK-defence against the first-comer, for his very self-defence was rated among his crimes ; in the popular faith of the age he was an accursed thing, without hope, here or hereafter. The only way of readmission into human fellowship, the only hope of salvation, lay in reconciUation with the Church through the removal of the awful ban which had formed part of his inheritance. To obtain this he had repeatedly offered to sac- rifice his honor and his subjects, and the offer had been contempt- uously spurned. ]^ow that the necessities of the royal court had rendered the regent and her counsellors unwilling to risk the drain and the dangers of prolonged war, he was too eager to escape from his cruel position to hesitate long in accepting the hard con- ditions which were exacted of him, although, as Bernard Gui says, the single provision which assured the reversion of Toulouse to the royal house would have been sufficiently hard if the king had capt- ured Count Raymond on a stricken field.*

There was much that he could allege in justification, had he imagined that justification was needed. Born in 1197, he was yet a child when the storm had broken over his father's head. Ever since he could observe and reason he had seen his land the prey of the ruthless chivalry of the North, at the head of vagabond hordes, as eager for spoil as for the redemption of their sins. As soon as one host had melted away it had been succeeded by an- other, and for twenty years the wretched people who clung to him had known no peace, lie and they had barely escaped as by


  • Bern. Guidon. Vit. Grcj^or. PP. IX. (Muratori S. R. I. III. 572).


208 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADES.

a miracle from destruction in the last crusade, and there was no prospect of better days in the future, so long as Rome's implacable enmity to heresy, acting upon the ambition of the restless Franks, could always call forth fresh swarms of marauders and dignify them with the Cross. Though he could not be a fervent disciple of a Church which had been to him so stern a stepmother, he was yet no Catharan ; and while perfectly ready to tolerate the heresy of a large portion of his subjects, he might well ask himself whether their toleration was to be purchased at the cost of the whole population, who could never look for peace so long as heresy was endured among them. The choice lay between sacrificing one side or both sides ; and what well might seem the lesser evil coin- cided with his own selfish instincts of self-preservation. He never hesitated as to the choice ; and, after he had accompUshed his ob- ject, he faithfully adhered to his promise of uprooting heresy, though more than once he interfered when the excessive rigor of the Inquisition threatened trouble. Perhaps the task at first was a distasteful one, but he had no alternative. He was but a man of his time ; had he been more he might have played a martyr's part without better securing the happiness of his people.

The battle of toleration against persecution had been fought and lost ; nor, with such a warning as the fate of the two Raymonds, was there risk that other potentates would disregard the public opinion of Christendom by ill-advised mercy to the heretic. Call- ing upon the state for its assured support, the Church made haste to reap the fruits of victory, and the Inquisition was soon at work among those who had so long bidden her defiance. That this was unanimously regarded by Europe as necessary and righteous, in spite of the vices and corruption of the ecclesiastical body, is so strange a development of the religion of Christ as to render the process of its evolution an indispensable subject for our considera- tion.


CHAPTEH V.

PERSECUTION.

The Church had not always been an organization which consid- ered its highest duty to be the forcible suppression of dissidence at any cost. In the simplicity of apostolic times its members were held together by the bond of love, and the spirit with which disci- pline was enforced is expressed in St. Paul's precept to the Gala- tians (vi. 1, 2) —

" Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

"Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ."

Christ had commanded his disciples to forgive their brethren seventy times seven, and as yet his teachings had been too recent to be buried beneath a mass of observances and doctrines in which the letter which kills overpowered the spirit which saves. The great primal principles of Christianity were enough for the fervor of the faithful. Dogmatic theology, with its endless complexities and metaphysical subtleties, as yet was not. Even its vocabulary had still to be created and its innumerable points of faith to be evolved out of the chance expressions of writers on other topics, and by the literal interpretation of the imagery of poetical diction.

It is an inexpressible relief to turn from the heated wranglings over questions scarce appreciable by the average human intellect to St. Paul's reproof to the Ephesians for giving heed to fables and endless genealogies, and questions which had in them little of godly edification, for " the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith un- feigned " (I. Tim. I. 4, 5). Those who indulged in these vain jang- lings he denounces as men " desiring to be teachers of the law, un- derstanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm " (lb. I.— 14


210 PERSECUTION.

7), and he commands his chosen disciple, " But foohsh and un- learned questions avoid, knowing that they engender strife" (II. Tim. II. 23). The Ebionitic section of the Church agreed with the Pauline branch in this simplicity of teaching — " Pure rehgion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fa- therless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself un- spotted from the world " (James, i. 27).

Yet already was the seed scattered which was to bear so abound- ing a harvest of wrong and misery. St. Paul will hsten to no deviation from the strictness of his teachings — " But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached, let him be accursed " (Galat. i. 8) ; and he boasts of delivering unto Satan Hymenaeus and Alexander " that they may learn not to blaspheme " (I. Tim. i. 20). How this spirit increased as time wore on may be seen in the apocalyp- tic threats with which the backsliders and heretics of the seven churches are assailed (Kev. ii., iii.). The process went on with accelerating rapidity. Theology could not form itself without starting a cloud of questions unsettled by the gospel : earnest dis- putants arose who, in the heat of controversy, magnified the points at issue till they assumed an importance rendering them the vital tests of Christianity, and men believed with the most fervid con- viction that their adversaries were not Christians because they differed on some unimportant fragment of ritual or discipline, or on some infinitesimal dogma which only the mind trained in the dialectics of the schools could comprehend. When QuintiUa taught that water was not necessary in baptism, Tertullian shrieks to her that there is nothing in common between them, not even the same God or the same Christ. The Donatist heresy with its deplorable results arose on the question of the eligibihty of an individual bishop. When Eutyches, in his zeal against the doctrines of N'es- torius, was led to confuse in some degree the double nature of Christ, thinking that he was only defending the dogmas of his friend St. Cyril, he suddenly found himself convicted of a heresy as damnable as Nestorianism ; while his defence against the prac- tised rhetoric of Eusebius of Dorylaeum shows that he was not able to grasp the subtle distinction between suhstantia and sitbsistentia — a fatal faihng w^hich proved the ruin of thousands. Thus, dur- ing the first six centuries, as men explored the infinite problems of


SUPREME GUILT OF HERESY. 211

existence here and hereafter, new questions constantly arose and were disputed with merciless vehemence. Those who held com- manding positions in the Church and could enforce their opinions were necessarily orthodox ; those who were weaker became hetero- dox, and the distinction between the faithful and the heretic be- came year by year more marked.*

Nor was it merely the odium theologicum that raised these pas- sions ; not only pride of opinion and zeal for the purity of faith. Wealth and power have charms even for bishop and priest, and in the Church, as it grew through the centuries, wealth and power depended upon the obedience of the flock. A hardy disputant who questioned the dogmatic accuracy of his ecclesiastical superior was a mutineer of the worst kind ; and if he succeeded in attract- ing followers they became the nucleus of a rebellion which threat- ened revolution, and every motive, good or evil, prompted the sup- pression of such sedition at all hazards and by every available means. If the sectaries became sufficiently numerous to form a community of their own, cutting them off from the communion of the Church was of no avail; the keenest shafts of ecclesiastical censure rebounded harmless from their armor of conscientious be- lief. This naturally led to an animosity against them greater than that \asited on the worst of criminals. No matter how triv- ial may have been the original cause of schism, nor how pure and fervent might be the faith of the schismatics, the fact that they had refused to bend to authority, and had thus sought to divide the seamless garment of Christ, became an offence in comparison with which aU other sins dwindled into insignificance, neutralizing all the virtues and all the devotion which men could possess. Even Augustin could see nothing to soften his heart in the enthu- siastic ardor with which the Donatists endured, and even courted, martyrdom. Had they carried Christ in their hearts their self- abnegation might have merited praise, but as it was they acted only under the promptings of Satan, like the swine who were driven into the sea by the unclean spirit. Martyrdom, even for Christ's sake, could not save heretic or schismatic from sharing eternal fire with Satan and his angels. f

  • Tertull. de Baptism, c. 15.— Concil. Clialced. Act. I.

t Augustiu. Epist. 185 ad Bonifac. c. iii. § 12. — Cf. Cypriani de Unit. Eccles. — C. 3 Extra, v. 7.


212 PERSECUTION.

Yet the spirit of persecution was too repugnant to the spirit of Christ for its triumph to come without a struggle, which can be traced in the writings of the early fathers. Tertullian warmly de- fends the freedom of conscience ; it is irreligious to enforce relig- ion ; no one wishes to be venerated unwillingly, so that God may be assumed to desire only the worship which comes from the heart. Still, when the combative energy of the man was aroused in disputation with the Gnostics, it was not difficult for him to find in Deuteronomy and Numbers ample warrant for the maxim that obstinacy is to be conquered, not persuaded. Cyprian says that it is for us to endeavor to become wheat, leaving the tares to God, and he qualifies as sacrilegious presumption the spirit which as- sumes the function of God in seeking to separate and destroy the tares ; yet C3q)rian had no hesitation in cutting off from the Church all who differed from him, and consigning them to perdi- tion, which was the only form of persecution at that time within reach. It was, indeed, natural that a persecuted Church should plead for toleration, and the fact that, even in this early period, there should be these flashes of intolerance gives ample warning of what was to come with the power of enforcing dogma on the recalcitrant. Lactantius was the last of the fathers of the perse- cuted Church, and he could feelingly argue that befief is not to be enjoined by force, that slaughter and piety are in no sense con- nected, and he boasts that none are coerced into remaining in the Church, for he who lacks piety is useless to God.*

The triumph of intolerance was inevitable when Christianity be- came the religion of the State, yet the slowness of its progress shows the difficulty of overcoming the incongruity between perse- cution and the gospel. Hardly had orthodoxy been defined by the Council of Nicaea when Constantine brought the power of the State to bear to enforce uniformity. All heretic and schismatic priests were deprived of the privileges and immunities bestowed on the clergy and were subjected to the burdens of the State; their meeting-places were confiscated for the benefit of the Church, and their assembfies, whether pubhc or private, were prohibited.


  • Tertull. Apologet. c. xxiv. ; Lib. ad Scapulam ii. ; adv. Gnosticos Scorpiaces

ii., iii. — Cypriani Epist. 54 ad Maximum  ; de Unitate Ecclesia; Epist. 4 ad Pom- ponium c. 4, 5. — Firm. Lactant. Div. Instit. v. 20.


ITS COMMENCEMENT. 2l;>

There is an instructive illustration of theological perversity in the watchful energy with which these provisions were enforced to the suppression of heresy while yet the pagan temples and ceremonies remained undisturbed. Yet while the churchmen might feel it to be a duty thus to obstruct the development and dissemination of teachings which they regarded as destructive to rehgion, they still shrank from pushing mtolerance to extremity and enforcing uni- formity with blood, although the Emperor Juhan declared that he had found no wild beasts so cruel to men as most of the Chris- tians were to each other. Constantine, it is true, commanded the surrender of all copies of the writings of Arius under penalty of death, but it does not appear that any executions actually took place in consequence ; and at last, tired of the endless strife, he ordered Athanasius to admit all Christians to the churches with- out distinction. No effort of the sovereign, however, could soothe the bitterness of doctrinal strife, which grew fiercer and fiercer. In 3Y0 Yalens is said to have put to death eighty orthodox eccle- siastics who had complained to him of the violence of the Arians, but this was not a judicial execution, but in pursuance of a secret order to the Prefect Modestus, who decoyed them on board of a vessel and caused it to be burned at sea.*

It was in 385 that the first instance was given of judicial capi- tal punishment for heresy, and the horror which it excited shows that it was regarded everywhere as a hideous innovation. The Gnostic and Manichaean speculations of Priscillian were looked upon with the peculiar detestation which that group of heresies ever caUed forth ; but when he was tried by the tyrant Maximus, at Treves, with the use of torture, and was put to death with six of his disciples, while others were banished to a barbarous island beyond Britain, there was a most righteous burst of indignation. Of the two prosecuting bishops, Ithacius and Idacius, one was ex- pelled from the episcopate and the other resigned. The saintly Martin of Tours, who had done all in his power to prevent the atrocity, refused to join in communion with them, or with any who communed with them. If he finally yielded, in order to save the fives of some men for whom he had come to Maximus to beg


  • Lib. XVI. Cod. Theod. Tit. v. 11. 1, 2.— Sozomen H. E. i. 21 ; ii. 20, 22, 30;

HI. 5. — Socrat. H. E. i. 9  ; iv. 16.— Ammian. Marcell. xxii. 5.


214 PERSECUTION.

mercy, and also to prevent the tyrant from persecuting the Pris- cillianists of Spain (where, like the subsequent Cathari, they were detected by their pallor), yet, in spite of the consoling visit of an angel, he was overcome with grief at what he had done, and he found that he had lost for some time the power to expel devils and heal the sick.*

If the Church thus still shrank from shedding blood, it had by this time reached the point of using all other means without scruple to enforce conformity. Early in the fifth century we find Chrysos- tom teaching that heresy must be suppressed, heretics silenced and prevented from ensnaring others, and their conventicles broken up, but that the death-penalty is unlawful. About the same time St. Augustm entreats the Prefect of Africa not to put any Dona- tists to death because, if he does so, no ecclesiastic can make com- plaint of them, for they will prefer to suffer death themselves rather than be the cause of it to others. Yet Augustin approved of the imperial laws which banished and fined them and deprived them of their churches and of testamentary power, and he consoled them by telhng them that God did not wish them to perish in antagonism to Cathohc unity. To constrain any one from evil to good, he argued, was not oppression, but charity ; and when the unlucky schismatics urged that no one ought to be coerced in his faith, he freely admitted it as a general principle, but added that sin and infidelity must be punished.f

Step by step the inevitable progress was made, and men easily found specious arguments to justify the indulgence of their pas- sions. The fiery Jerome, when his w^rath was excited by Yigilan- tius forbidding the adoration of rehcs, expressed his wonder that the bishop of the hardy heretic had not destroyed him in the flesh for the benefit of his soul, and argued that piety and zeal for God


  • Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacrae ii. 47-51 ; Ejusd.Dial. in. 11-13.— Prosp. Aquitan.

Chron.ann. 385-6.— St. Martin could hardly have anticipated that a time would come when a pope would cite the murder of Priscillian as an example to be fol- lowed in the case of Luther; and, in spite of Maximus's excommunication S^y St. Ambrose, characterize him as one of the " veteres ac pii imperatores." (Epist. Adriani PP. VI. Nov. 15, 1522 ap. Lutheri 0pp. T. II. fol. 538 a.)

t Chrysostomi in Matthseum Homil. xlvi. c. 2. Cf. Homil. de Anatbemate c. 4.— Augustini Epist. 100 ad Donatum c. 2; Epist. 139 ad Marcellinum; Epist. 105 0. 13 ; Enchirid. c. 72 ; Contra Litt. Petiliani Lib. ii. c. 83.


THE DEATH-PENALTY ADOPTED. 215

could not be cruelty ; rigor, in fact, he argues in another place, is the most genuine mercy, since temporal punishment may avert eternal perdition. It was only sixty-two years after the slaughter of Priscillian and his followers had excited so much horror, that Leo. I., when the heresy seemed to be reviving, in 447, not only justified the act, but declared that if the followers of heresy so damnable were allowed to live there would be an end of human and divine law. The final step had been taken, and the Church was definitely pledged to the suppression of heresy at whatever cost. It is impossible not to attribute to ecclesiastical influence the successive edicts by which, from the time of Theodosius the Great, persistence in heresy was punished with death.*

A powerful impulse to this development is to be found in the responsibility which grew upon the Church from its connection with the State. When it could influence the monarch and pro- cure from him edicts condemning heretics to exile, deportation, to the mines, and even to death, it felt that God had put into its hands powers to be exercised and not to be neglected. At the same time, with natural human inconsistency, it could argue that it was not responsible for the execution of the laws, and that its own hands were unstained with blood. Even Ithacius, in the case of Priscillian, had shrunk from the function of prosecutor and had put forward a layman in his place. Similar devices, as we shaU see, were practised by the Inquisition, and in either case they were transparently false. In the vast body of imperial edicts inflicting upon heretics every variety of disability and punishment, the most ardent churchmen might find conviction that the State recog- nized the preservation of the purity of the faith as its first duty. Yet whenever the State or any of its officials lagged in the en- forcement of these laws, the churchman was at hand to goad them on. Thus the African Church repeatedly asked the inter- vention of the secular power to suppress the Donatists ; Leo the Great insisted with the Empress Pulcheria that the destruction of the Eutychians should be her highest care; and Pelagius I., in


  • Hicron. Epist. 109 ad Ripar. ; Comment, in Naum i. 9.— Leonis PP. I. Epist.

15 ad Turribium. — Lib. xvi. Cod. Theodos. Tit. v. 11. 9, 15, 34, 36, 51, 56, 64.— Constt. 11, 12 Cod. Lib. i. Tit. v.— Novell. Theod. H. Tit. vi.— Pauli Diac. His- tor. Lib. XVI.— Basilicon Lib. i. Tit. 1-33.


216 PERSECUTION.

urging Narses to suppress heresy by force, sought to quiet the scruples of the soldier by assuring him that to prevent or to punish evW was not persecution, but love. It became the general doctrine of the Church, as expressed by St. Isidor of Seville, that princes are bound not only to be orthodox themselves, but to preserve the purity of the faith by the fullest exercise of their power against heretics. How abundantly these assiduous teachings bore their bitter fruit is shown in the deplorable history of the Church dur- ing those centuries, consisting as it does of heresy after heresy relentlessly exterminated, until the Council of Constantinople, un- der the Patriarch Michael Oxista, introduced the penalty of burn- ing alive as the punishment of the Bogomili. Nor were the heretics always behindhand, when they gained opportunity, in improving the lesson which had been taught them so effectually. The persecution of the Catholics by the Arian Yandals in Africa under Genseric was quite worthy of orthodoxy ; and when Hun- neric succeeded his father, and his proposition to the Emperor Zeno of mutual toleration was refused, his barbarous zeal was inflamed to pitiless wrath. Under King Euric the Wisigoth, also, there was a spasmodic persecution in Aquitaine. Yet, as a rule, the Arian Goths and Burgundians set an example of toleration worthy of imitation, and their conversion to Catholicism was attended with but httle cruelty on either side, except a passing ebullition in Spain at the crisis under Leuvigild, about 585, followed by disturbances which were rather political than religious. Later CathoKc mon- archs, however, enacted laws punishing with exile and confiscation any deviations from orthodoxy, which are notable as the only examples of the kind under the Barbarians. The Catholic Mero- vingians in France seem never to have troubled their Arian subjects, who were numerous in Burgundy and Aquitaine. The conversion of these latter was gradual and apparently peaceful.*

  • Cod. Eccles. African, c. 67, 93. — Augustin. Epist. 185 ad Bonifac. c. 7. —

Ejusd. contra Cresconium Lib. iii. c. 47.— Possidii Vit. Augustini c. 12. — Leouis PP. I. Epist. 60. — Pelagii PP. I. Epistt. 1,2. — Isidori Hispalens. Sententt. Lib. III. c. li. 3-6. — Balsamon. in Photii Nomocanon Tit. ix. c. 25. — Victor. Vitens. de Persecutione Vandalica Lib. lii. — Victor. Tunenens. Chron. ann. 479. — Sidon. Apollin. Epistt. vii. 6.— Isidor. Hist, de Regg. Gothor. c. 50. — Pelayo, Heterodoxos Espanoles, 1. 195 sqq. — Legg. Wisigoth. Lib. xii. Tit. ii. 1. 2 ; Tit. iii. 11. 1, 2 (of. Fuero Juzgo eod. loc).


CARLOVINGIAN TOLERATION. 217

The Latin Church through all this had taken httle part in actual persecution, for the Western mind lacked the perverse in- genuity of the East in originating and adopting heresy. With the downfall of the Western Empire it commenced the great task which absorbed its energies and by which it earned the thanks of all succeeding generations — the conversion and civili- zation of the Barbarians. Its new converts were not hkely to indulge in abstruse speculations ; they accepted the faith which was taught them, acquiesced for the most part in the estabUshed discipline, and Avhile oft unruly and turbulent, gave little trouble on the score of orthodoxy. Under these influences the persecut- ing spirit died out. Claudius of Turin, whose iconoclastic zeal destroyed all the images in his diocese, escaped without punish- ment. Felix of Urgel was forgiven his Adoptianism, and was wel- comed back into the Church in spite of his repeated tergiversa- tions, and though not restored to his see, his residence for fifteen or twenty years at Lyons does not seem to have been an im- prisonment, for he secretly maintained his doctrines, and an hereti- cal declaration was found among his papers after his death. I^o force is alluded to when Archbishop Leidrad converted twenty thousand of the Catalan followers of Felix, whose principal dis- ciple, Elipandus, Archbishop of Toledo, retained his primatial seat although there is no evidence that he ever recanted his errors. In the case of the monk Gottschalc, who disseminated his predes- tinarian heresy in extensive wanderings throughout Italy, Dal- matia, Austria, and Bavaria, apparently without opposition, Baba- nus of Mainz finally summoned a council which condemned his doctrine in the presence of Louis le Germanique. Yet it did not venture to punish him, but sent him to his prelate, Hincmar of Reims, who, with the authority of Charles le Chauve, declared him an incorrigible heretic in the Council of Chiersy in 849. So little disposition was there to inflict penalties for heresy, though his theories struck at the root of the mediatory power of the Church, that the scourging ordered for him was carefully stated to be merely the discipline provided by the Council of Agde for the infraction of the Benedictine rule prohibiting monks from travelling without commendatory letters from their bishops ; and if he was imprisoned, we are told that this was simply to prevent him from continuing to contaminate others. The Carlo vingian


218 PERSECUTION.

legislation was exceedingly moderate as to heretics, merely class- ing them with Pagans, Jews, and infamous persons, and subjecting them to certain disabilities.'^

The stupor of the tenth century was too profound for heresy, which presupposes a certain amount of healthy mental activity. The Church, ruhng unquestioned over the slumbering consciences of men, laid aside the rusted weapons of persecution and forgot their use. When, about 1018, Bishop Burchard compiled his col- lection of canon law he made no reference to heretical opinions or their punishment save a couple of regulations exhumed from the forgotten Council of Elvira in 305, respecting the treatment of apostates to idolatry. Even the introduction of the doctrine of transubstantiation was received submissively until, two centuries after Gottschalc, Berenger of Tours called it in question ; but he had not in him the stuff of martyrdom, and yielded to moderate pressure. The warmer faith of the Cathari, who commenced to disturb the stagnation of orthodoxy in the eleventh century, called for energetic measures, but even with those abhorred sectaries the Church was wonderfully slow to resort to extremities. It hesi- tated before the unaccustomed task ; it shrank from contradicting its teachings of charity and was driven forward by popular fanat- icism. The persecution of Orleans in 1017 was the work of King Eobert the Pious ; the burning at Milan soon after was done by the people against the will of the archbishop. So unfamihar was the Church with its duty that when, about 1045, some Manichaeans were discovered at Chalons, Bishop Eoger apphed to Bishop Wazo of Liege for advice as to what he should do with them, and whether he should hand them over to the secular arm for punishment ; to which the good Wazo repUed, urging that their hves should not be for-


♦Mag.Biblioth. Pat. IX. ii. 875.— Chron. Turonens. ann. 878.— Concil. Ratis- pon. ann. 792. — C. Francfortiens. ann. 794. — C. Romanum ann. 799. — C. Aquis- gran. ann. 799. — Alcuini Epistt. 108, 117. — Agobardi Lib. adv. Felicem c. 5. 6,— Nic. Anton. Bib. Vet. Hispan. Lib, vi. c. ii. No. 42-3 (cf. Pelayo, Heterod. Espaii. I. 297, 673 sqq.). — Hincraari Remens. de Praedestinat. ii. c. 2. — Annal.*Bertin. ann. 849.— Concil. Carisiacens. ann. 849 (cf. C. Agathens. ann. 506 c. 38).— Cap. Car. Mag. ann. 789 c. 44.— Capitul. Add. iii. c. 90.

For the slenderness of the disabilities inflicted on Jews under the Carlo- vingians see Reginald Lane Poole's " Illustrations of the History of Medieva/ Thought," London, 1884, p. 47,


UNCERTAINTY. 219

felted to the secular sword, as God, their Creator and Kedeemer, showed them patience and mercy; and Canon Anselm, Wazo's biographer, strongly condemns the executions under Henry III., at Goslar, in 1052, saying that if our Wazo had been there he would have acted as did St. Martin in the case of Priscillian. The same lenity was manifested by St. Anno of Cologne about 1060, when some of his flock refused, after repeated commands, to aban- don the use of milk, eggs, and cheese during Lent, and the arch- bishop at length allowed them to have their own way, saying that those who were firm in the faith could not be much harmed by a difference in food. Even as late as 1144 the Church of Liege congratulated itself on having, by the mercy of God, saved the greater part of a number of confessed and convicted Cathari from the turbulent mob which strove to burn them. Those who were thus preserved were distributed among the religious houses while awaiting the response of Lucius II., to whom application was made for advice as to what should be done with them."^

It is not worth while to repeat in detail the cases related in a former chapter which show how uncertain was the position of the Church towards heresy at this period. There was no definite policy, no fixed rule, and heretics continued to be treated with rigor or with mercy according to the temper of the prelate con- cerned. Theodwin, Wazo's successor in the see of Liege, writes in 1050 to King Henry I. of France, urging him to punish the fol- lowers of Berenger of Tours without even giving them a hearing. This uncertainty is well reflected by St. Bernard in his remarks on the occurrence at Cologne in 1145, when the zealous populace seized the Cathari and burned them despite the resistance of the ecclesiastical authorities. He argues that heretics should be won over by reason rather than by coercion, and if they will not be converted they are to be avoided ; he approves the zeal of the people, but not of their action, for faith is to be spread by persua- sion and not by force ; yet he assumes the duty of the secular power to avenge the wrong done to God by heresy, and, bhnd to the danger of man's assuming himself to be the minister of the wrath of God, he quotes St. Paul, " For he beareth not the sword


  • Burchardi Decret. Lib. xix. c. 133-4. — Gesta Episcopp. Leodiens. Lib. ii. c.

60, 61.— Hist. Andaginens. Monast. c. 18.— Martcne Ampliss. Collect. I. 776-8,


220 PERSECUTION.

in vain ; for he is the minister of God, and revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil " (Eom. xiii. 4). Alexander III. leaned decidedly to the side of mercy when, in 1162, he refused to pass judgment on the Cathari sent to him by the Archbishop of Reims, saying that it was better to pardon the guilty than to take the lives of the innocent. Even at the close of the century Peter Cantor dared to argue that the apostle ordered the heretic to be avoided, not slain, and he dwelt upon the inconsistency of the severity shown to the slightest deviation from faith, while the grossest sins and immorahties were allowed to go unpunished.*

This hesitation and uncertainty extended to the punishment appropriate to heresy. "We have seen numerous cases of burning alive interspersed with sentences of imprisonment, and it was long before a definite formula was reached. Even when Alexander III., at the Council of Tours, in 1163, sought to check the alarming progress of Manichaeism in Languedoc, he only commanded the secular princes to imprison the heretics and confiscate their prop- erty ; though in the same year the Cathari detected in Cologne were sentenced to be burned by judges appointed for the purpose. In 1157 the punishment inflicted by the Council of Reims was branding in the face ; and the same expedient was resorted to by that of Oxford in 1166. Even as late as 1199, the first measures of Innocent III. against the Albigenses only threaten exile and confiscation ; there is no allusion to any duty on the part of the secular power beyond enforcing these penalties, and their enforce- ment is rewarded by the same indulgences as those to be gained by pilgrimage to Rome or to ComposteUa. As the struggle in- creased in bitterness, we have seen how stronger measures were adopted ; yet even Simon de Montf ort, in the code promulgated at Pamiers, December 1, 1212, while stimulating persecution to the utmost, and rendering it the duty of every man, does not for- mally adjudge the heretic to the stake, although in this very year eighty heretics were burned in Strassburg. This form of punish- ment had been enacted for the first time in positive law, as al- ready stated, by Pedro II. of Aragon, in his edict of 1197, but the example was not speedily followed. Otho lY., in his constitution


  • Dom Bouquet, XL 497-8. — Bernardi Serm. in Cantica Lxrv, c. 8; Lxvi. c.

13.— Alex. PP. III. Epistt. 118, 132.— Pet. Cantor. Verb, abbrev. c. 78, 80.


BURNING ALIVE. 221

of 1210, simply places heretics under the imperial ban, orders their property confiscated and their houses torn down. Frederic XL, in his famous statute of November 22, 1220, which made the persecution of heresy a part of the pubUc law of Europe, only threatened confiscation and outlawry, although this, it must be added, placed their lives at the mercy of the first comer. In his constitution of March, 1224:, he went further and decreed death by fire or loss of the tongue, at the discretion of the judge ; and the contemporary practice in Germany left the penalty to be similar- ly decided. It was not until 1231, in the Sicihan Constitutions, that Frederic rendered the punishment by cremation absolute. This was in force merely in his Neapolitan dominions, and the edict of Kavenna, in March, 1232, while inflicting the death pen- alty does not prescribe the method ; but that of Cremona, in May, 1238, embodied the Sicilian law and thus rendered the fagot and stake the recognized punishment for heresy throughout the empire, as we find it subsequently embodied in both the Sachsen- spiegel and the Schwabenspiegel, or municipal laws of northern and southern Germany. In Venice, after 1249, the ducal oath of ofiice contained a pledge to burn all heretics. In 1255 Alonso the Wise of Castile decreed the stake for all Christians who apos- tatized to Islam or to Judaism. In France the legislation adopted by both Louis IX. and Kaymond of Toulouse, for carrying out the provisions of the settlement of 1229, is discreetly silent with re- gard to the penalty of heresy, though under it the use of the stake was universal, and it is not until Louis issued his Etahlissements, in 1270, that we find the heretic formally condemned to be burned alive, thus rendering it part of the recognized law of the land, al- though the terms in which Beaumanoir alludes to it show that it had long been a settled custom. England, which was free from heresy, was even later in adopting it, and it was not until the rise of the Lollards caused fear in both Church and State that the writ " de hmretico comburendo " was created by statute in 1401.^

  • Concil. Turonens. ann. 1163 c. 4. — Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. ann. 1163.—

Concil. Remens. ann. 1157 c. 1. — Guillel. de Newbiirg Hist. Angl. ii. 15. — Innoc. III. Regest. I. 94, 165.— Centre le Franc-Alleu sans Tiltre, Paris, 1629, pp. 215 sqq. — H. Mutii Chron. Lib. xix. ann. 1212. — Bohmer, Regesta Imperii V. 110. — Muratori Antiq. Ital. Diss. lx. (T. XII. p. 447).— Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. T. II. pp. 6-8, 422^-3; IV. 301 ; V. 201.— Constitt. Sicular. Lib. i. Tit. 1.— Treuga Hen-


^O^ PERSECUTION.

Tlie practice of burning the heretic alive was thus not the creat- ure of positive law, but arose generally and spontaneously, and its adoption by the legislator was only the recognition of a popu- lar custom. We have seen numerous instances of this in a former chapter, and even as late as 1219, at Troyes, an insane enthusiast who maintained that he was the Holy Ghost was seized by the ])eople, placed in a wicker crate surrounded by combustibles, and promptly reduced to ashes. The origin of this punishment is not easily traced, unless it is to the pagan legislation of Diocletian, who decreed this penalty for Manichaeism. The torturing deaths to which the martyrs were exposed in times of persecution seem to suggest, and in some sort to justify, a similar infliction on heretics ; sorcerers were sometimes burned under the imperial jurisprudence, and Gregory the Great mentions a case in which one was thus put to death by the Christian zeal of the people. As heresy was re- garded as the greatest of crimes, the desire which was felt alike by laity and clergy to render its punishment as severe and as im- pressive as possible found in the stake its appropriate instrument. With the system of exegesis then in vogue, it was not difficult to discover an emphatic command to this effect in John, xv. 6. "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered ; and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned." The literal interpretation of Scriptural metaphor has

rici (Bohlau, Nove Constit. Dom. Alberti, Weimar, 1858, p. 78, cf. Bohmer Re- gest. V. 700).— Saclisenspiegel, II. xiii.— Schwabenspiegel, cap. 116 No. 29; cap. 351 No. 3 (Ed. Senckenb.). — Archivio di Venezia, Codice ex Brera No. 277.— El Fuero real de Espana, Lib. rv. Tit. I. ley 1. — Isambert, Anc. Loix Fraii9aises I. 230-33, 257.— Harduin. Concil. VII. 203-8.— Etablissements, Lib. i. ch. 85.— Livres de Jostice et de Plet, Liv, i. Tit. iii. § 7. — Beaumanoir, Cout. du Beau- voisis, XI. 2, XXX. 11.— 2 Henry IV. c. 15 (cf. Pike, History of Crime in Eng- land I. 343-4, 489).

It is true that both Bracton (De Legibus Angliae Lib. iii. Tract ii. cap. 9 § 2) and Home (Myrror of Justice, cap. i. § 4, cap. ii. § 22, cap. iv. § 14) describe the punishment of burning for apostasy, heresy, and sorcery, and the former al- ludes to a case in which a clerk who embraced Judaism was burned by a council of Oxford, but the penalty substantially had no place in the common law,*save under the systematizing efforts of legal writers, enamoured of the Roman juris- prudence, and seeking to complete their work by the comparison of treason against God with that against the king. The silence of Britton (chap, viii.) and of the Fleta (Lib. i. cap. 21) shows that the question had no practical im- portance.


DUTY OF THE SECULAR POWER. 223

been too frequent a source of error for us to wonder at this ap- plication of the text. An authoritative commentary on the decree of Lucius III. in 1184, ordering heretics to be deUvered to the secular arm for due punishment, quotes the text of John and the imperial jurisprudence, and thence triumphantly concludes that death by fire is the penalty due to heretics, not only by divine but also by human law and by universal custom. ISTor was the heretic mercifully strangled in advance; the authorities of the Inquisition assure us that he must be burned alive before the people, nay, even a whole city may be burned if heretics dwell there. "^*

Whatever scruples the Church had, during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as to its duty towards heresy, it had none as to that of the secular power, though it kept its own hands free from blood. A decent usage from early times forbade any ecclesiastic from being concerned in judgments involving death or mutilation, and even from being present in the torture-chamber where crim- inals were placed on the rack. This sensitiveness continued, and even was exaggerated in the time of the bloodiest persecution. While thousands were being slaughtered in Languedoc the Coun- cil of Lateran, in 1215, revived the ancient canons prohibiting clerks from uttering a judgment of blood or being present at an ex- ecution. In 1255 the Council of Bordeaux added to this a pro- hibition of dictating or writing letters connected with such judg- ments ; and that of Buda, in 1279, in repeating this canon, ap- pended to it a clause forbidding clerks to practise any surgery requiring burning or cutting. The pollution of blood was so seriously felt that a church or cemetery in which blood chanced to be shed could not be used until it had been reconciled, and this was carried so far that priests were forbidden to allow judges to administer justice in churches, because cases involving corporal punishment might be tried before them. Had this shrinking from participation in the infliction of human suffering


  • Caesar. Heisterbac. Dial. Miracular. Dist. v. c. 33. — Mosaic, et Roman. Legg.

Collat. Tit. XV. § 3 (Hugo, 1465). — Const. 3 Cod. ix. 18. — Cassiodor. Variar. iv., XXII., XXIII. — Gregor. PP. I. Dial. i. 4. — Gloss. Hostieusis in Cap. ad aholendam, No. 11, 13 (Eymerici Direct. Inquisit. pp. 149-150); cf. Gloss. Joan. Andrea? (Ibid, p. 170-1).— Repertorium Inquisitorum s. v. Comburi (Ed. Valent. 1494 ; Ed. Venet, 1588, pp. 127-8).


224 PERSECUTION.

been genuine, it would have been worthy of all respect ; but it was merely a device to avoid responsibility for its own acts. In prosecutions for heresy the ecclesiastical tribunal passed no judg- ments of blood. It merely found the defendant to be a heretic and "relaxed him, or relinquished him to the secular authorities with the hypocritical adjuration to be merciful to him, to spare his life and not to spill his blood. What was the real import of this plea for mercy is easily seen from the theory of the Church as to the duty of the temporal power, when inquisitors enforced as a legal rule that the mere belief that persecution for con- science' sake was sinful was in itself a heresy, to be visited with the full penalties of that unpardonable crime.*

The early teachings of Leo and Pelagius were revived as soon as heresy became alarming. Early in the twelfth century Ho- norius of Autun proclaimed that the rebels against God who were obdurate to the voice of the Church must be coerced with the material sword. In the compilations of canon law by Ivo and Gratian the allusions to the treatment of heretics by the Church are singularly few, but there are abundant citations to show the duty of the sovereign to extirpate heresy and to obey the mandates of the Church to that end. Frederic Barbarossa gave the imperial sanction to the theory that the sword had been intrusted to him for the purpose of smiting the enemies of Christ, when he alleged this in 1159 as a reason for persecuting Alexander III. and sup- porting his antipope, Victor lY. The second Lateran Council, in 1139, orders all potentates to coerce heretics into obedience ; the tliird, in 1179, sanctimoniously says that the Church does not seek blood, but it is helped by the secular laws, for men wiU seek the salutary remedy to escape bodily punishment. We have seen how inefficacious all this proved ; and in despair of voluntary assistance from the temporal princes the Church took a further step by which it assumed for itseK the responsibility for the material as well as the spiritual punishment of heretics. The decree of Lucius III. at the so-caUed Council of Yerona, in 1184, commanded that aU poten-

» Concil. Autissiodor. ann. 578 c. 33. — C. Matiscon. II. ann. 585 c. 19. — C. 30 Decreti P. II. Caus. xxiii. Qusest. 8.— C. Lateran. IV. ann. 1315 c. 18. — C. Burdega- lens. ann. 1255 c. 10. —C. Budens. ann. 1268 c. 11. — C. Nugaroliens. ann. 1303 c. 13. — C. Baiocens. ann. 1300 c. 34. — Lib. Sentt. Inq. Tolosan. p. 208. — Bernard. Guidonis Practica (MSS. Bib. Nat., Coll. Doat, T. XXX. fol. 1. sqq.).


COERCION OF THE SECULAR POWER. 225

tates should take an oath before their bishops to enforce the eccle- siastical and secular laws against heresy fully and efficaciously. Any refusal or neglect was to be punished by excommunication, deprivation of rank, and incapacity to hold other station, while in the case of cities they were to be segregated and debarred from all commerce with other places.*

The Church thus undertook to coerce the sovereign to persecu- tion. It would not listen to mercy, it would not hear of expedi- ency. The monarch held his crown by the tenure of extirpating heresy, of seeing that the laws were sharp and were pitilessly enforced. Any hesitation was visited with excommunication, and if this proved inefficacious, his dominions were thrown open to the first hardy adventurer whom the Church would supply with an army for his overthrow. Whether this new feature in the pubHc law of Europe could estabhsh itseK was the question at issue in the Albigensian crusades. Raymond's lands were forfeited simply because he would not punish heretics, and those which his son retained were treated as a fresh gift from the crown. The triumph of the new principle was complete, and it never was sub- sequently questioned.

It was applied from the highest to the lowest, and the Church made every dignitary feel that his station was an office in a uni- versal theocracy wherein all interests were subordinate to the great duty of maintaining the purity of the faith. The hegemony of Europe was vested in the Holy Roman Empire, and its corona- tion was a strangely solemn religious ceremony in which the emperor was admitted to the lower orders of the priesthood, and was made to anathematize all heresy raising itself against the holy Catholic Church. In handing him the ring, the pope told him that it was a symbol that he was to destroy heresy ; and in girding him with the sword, that with it he was to strike do^vn the enemies of the Church. Frederic II. declared that he had received the imperial dignity for the maintenance and propagation of the faith. In the bull of Clement YI. recognizing Charles

  • Honor. Augustod. Summ, Glor. de Apost. c. 5. — Ivon. Decret, ix. 70-79. —

Gratiani Decret. P. ii. Cans, xxiii. q. 5.— Radevic. de Gest. Frid. I. Lib, ii. c. 56.— Concil. Lateran. H. ann. 1139 c. 23. — Concil. Lateran. HI. ann. 1179 c. 27 (of. C. Tolosan. ann. 1119 c. 3; C. Remens. ann. 1148 c. 18; C. Turonens. ann. 1103 c. 4).— Lucii. PP. HI. Epist. 171. I.— 15


226 PERSECUTION.

TV. the first named of the imperial duties enumerated are the extension of the faith and the extirpation of heretics ; and the neglect of the Emperor Wenceslas to suppress Wickliffitism was regarded as a satisfactory reason for his deposition. In fact, ac- cording to the high churchmen, the only reason of the transfer of the empire from the Greeks to the Germans was that the Church might have an efficient agent. The principles applied to Eaymond of Toulouse were embodied in the canon law, and every prince and noble was made to understand that his lands would be ex- posed to the spoiler if, after due notice, he hesitated in trampHng out heresy. Minor officials were subjected to the same discipline. According to the Council of Toulouse in 1229, any bailli not dili- gent in persecuting heresy forfeited his property and was ineligible to pubhc employment, while by the Council of Narbonne in 1244, any one holding temporal jurisdiction who delayed in exterminat- ing heretics was held guilty of fautorship of heresy, became an accomplice of heretics, and thus was subjected to the penalties of heresy ; this was extended to all who should neglect a favorable opportunity of capturing a heretic, or of helping those seeking to capture him. From the emperor to the meanest peasant the duty of persecution was enforced with aU the sanctions, spiritual and temporal, which the Church could command. ]S"ot only must the ruler enact rigorous laws to punish heretics, but he and his sub- jects must see them strenuously executed, for any slackness of per- secution was, in the canon law, construed as fautorship of heresy, putting a man on his purgation.*

These principles were tacitly or explicitly received into the

  • Bohmer, Regest. Imp. V. 86. — Innocent. PP. III. Regest. de Negot. Rom.

Imp. 189. — Muratori Antiq. Ital. Dissert^ iii. — Hartzheim Concil. German. III. 540. —Cod. Epist. Rodolphi I. Auct. ii. pp. 375-7 (Lipsise 1806). — Theod. Vrie, Hist. Concil. Constant. Lib. in. Dist. 8  ; Lib. vii. Dist. 7.— Thom. Aquin. de Prin- cipum Regimine Lib. i. c. xiv. ; Lib. in. c. x., xiii.-xviii. — Lib. v. Extra. Tit. vii. c. 13 § 3.— Concil. Tolosan. ann. 1229 c. 5. — Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 15, 16. — Zanchini de Haeret. c. v. — Beaumanoir, Contumes du Beauvoisis, xi. 27. — See also the sermon of the Bishop of Lodi at the condemnation of Huss, Von der Hardt,

nL5.

The treatise "De principum regimine," though not wholly by St. Thomas Aquinas, was the authoritative exponent of the ecclesiastical theory as to the structure and duties of government. See Poole's " Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought," p. 240.


COERCION OF THE SECULAR POWER. 227

public law of Europe. Frederic II. accepted them in his cruel edicts against heresy, whence they passed into the general compilations of civil and feudal law, and even into bodies of local jurisprudence. Thus we see in the statutes of Yerona, in 1228, the Podesta swear- ing, on taking office, to expel all heretics from the city  ; and in the Schwabenspiegel, or code in force throughout southern Germany, it is laid down that a ruler who neglects to persecute heresy is to be stripped of all possessions, and if he does not burn those who are deUvered to him as heretics by the ecclesiastical courts he is to be punished as a heretic himself. The Church took care that this legislation should not remain a dead letter. Frederic's decrees in all their atrocity were required to be read and taught in the great law-school of Bologna as a fundamental portion of jurisprudence, and were even embodied in the canon law itself. We shall see that they were repeatedly ordered by the popes to be inscribed irrev- ocably among the laws of all the cities and states which they could control, and the inquisitor was commanded to coerce all officials to their rigid enforcement, by excommunicating those who were negligent in the good work. Even excommunication, which rendered a magistrate incompetent to perform his official functions, did not relieve him from the duty of punishing heretics when called upon by bishop or inquisitor. In view of this earnest- ness to embody in the statute-books the sharpest laws for the ex- termination of heretics and to oblige the secular officials to execute those laws, under the alternative of being themselves condemned and punished as heretics, the adjuration for mercy with which the inquisitors handed over their victims to be burned was evidently, as we shall see hereafter, a mere technical formula to avoid the "irregularity" of being concerned in judgments of blood. In process of time the moral responsibility was freely admitted, as when in February, 1418, the Council of Constance decreed that all who should defend Hussitism, or regard Huss or Je- rome of Prague as holy men, should be treated as relapsed her- etics and be punished with fire — puniantur ad ignemP It is altogether a modern perversion of history to assume, as apolo- gists do, that the request for mercy was sincere, and that the secular magistrate and not the Inquisition was responsible for the death of the heretic. We can imagine the smile of amused surprise with which Gregory IX. or Gregory XI. would have


228 PERSECUTION.

listened to the dialectics with which the Comte Joseph de Maistre proves that it is an error to suppose, and much more to assert, that Catholic priests can in any manner be instrumental in compassing the death of a fellow-creature.*

Not only were all Christians thus made to feel that it was their highest duty to aid in the extermination of heretics, but they were taught that they must denounce them to the authorities regard- less of all considerations, human or divine. No tie of kindred served as an excuse for concealing heresy. The son must de- nounce the father, and the husband was guilty if he did not deliver his wife to a frightful death. Every human bond was severed by the guilt of heresy ; children were taught to desert their parents, and even the sacrament of matrimony could not unite an orthodox wife to a misbelieving husband. No pledge was to remain un- broken. It was an old rule that faith was not to be kept with heretics — as Innocent III. emphatically phrased it, " according to the canons, faith is not to be kept with him who keeps not faith with God." No oath of secrecy, therefore, was binding in a mat- ter of heresy, for if one is faithful to a heretic he is unfaithful to


  • Post. Const. 4, Cod. Lib. i. Tit. v. — Post. Libb. Feudorum. — Lib. Juris

Civilis Veronae c. 156. — Schwabenspiegel, Ed. Senckenb. cap. 351 ; Ed. Scliilteri c. 308.— Potthast Regesta No. 6593.— Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Gum adversus, 5 Jun. 1252; Bull. Ad nures, 2 Apr. 1253; 31 Oct. 1243; 7 Julii 1254. — Bull. Cum fratres, Mali 9 1252.— Urbani. IV. Bull. Licet ex omnibus, 1262 § 12.— Wadding Annal. Minor ann. 1258, No. 7 ; ann. 1260, No. 1 ; ann. 1261, No. 3.— c. 6 Sexto v. 2 c. 1, 2 in Septimo v. 3.— Von der Hardt, T. IV. p. 1519.— Campana, Vita di San Piero Martire, p. 124.— De Maistre, Lettres a un Gentilhomme Russe sur I'ln- quisition Espagnole, Ed. 1864, pp. 17-18, 28, 34.

A thirteenth-century writer argued the matter more directly than De Maistre — " Papa noster non occidit, nee praecipit aliquem occidi, sed lex occidit quos papa permittit occidi, et ipsi se occidunt qui ea faciunt unde debeant occidi." — Gregor. Fanens. Disput. Cathol. et Patar. (Martene Thesaur. V. 1741).

More historically true is the assertion of an enthusiastic Dominican in 1782, who, after quoting Deut. xiii. 6-10, declares that its command to slay without mercy all who entice the faithful from the true religion is almost literally the law of the holy Inquisition; and who proceeds to prove from Scripture*that fire is the peculiar delight of God, and the proper means of purifying the wheat from the tares. — Lob u. Ehrenrede auf die heilige Inquisition, Wien, 1782, pp. 19-21.

The hypocritical plea for mercy was commenced in good faith by Innocent ni. in the case of clerks guilty of forgery who were degraded and delivered to the secular courts. — c. 27 Extra v. 40.


DEFINITE POLICY ADOPTED. 229

God. Apostasy from the faith is the greatest of all sins, says Bishop Lucas of Tuy ; therefore if any one has bound himself by oath to keep the secret of such inexpUcable wickedness, he must reveal the heresy and perform penance for the perjury, with the comfortable assurance that, as charity covereth a multitude of sins, he will be gently dealt with in consideration of his zeal.^

Thus the hesitation as to the treatment of heretics which marked the eleventh and twelfth centuries disappeared in the thir- teenth, when the Church was involved in mortal struggle with the sectaries. There was no pretence of moderation, and, save in the technical adjuration for mercy, no attempt to evade the responsi- bility. St. Eaymond of Pennaforte, the compiler of the decretals of Gregory IX., who was the highest authority in his generation, lays it down as a principle of ecclesiastical law that the heretic is to be coerced by excommunication and confiscation, and if they fail, by the extreme exercise of the secular power. The man Avho was doubtful in faith was to be held a heretic, and so also was the schismatic who, while believing all the articles of religion, re- fused the obedience due to the Eoman Church. All alike were to be forced into the Roman fold, and the fate of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram was invoked for the destruction of the obstinate.f

St. Thomas Aquinas, whose overshadowing authority super- seded all his predecessors, and who brought canon and dogma into a permanent system still in force, lays down the rules with mer- ciless precision. Heretics, he tells us, are not to be tolerated. The tenderness of the Church allows them to have two warnings, after which, if pertinacious, they are to be abandoned to the secular power, to be removed from the world by death. This, he argues, shows the abounding charity of the Church, for it is much more


  • Urbani PP. II. Epist. 256. — Zanchini de Hasret. c. xviii. — Innoc. PP. III.

Regest. XI. 26. — Lucae Tudens. de altera Vita ii. 9.

t S. Raymundi Summse Lib. i. Tit. v. §§ 2, 4, 8 ; Tit. vi. § 1. — This continued to be the doctrine of the Church. Zanghino Ugolini includes in his enumera- tion of heresies neglect to observe the papal decretals, being an apparent con- tempt for the power of the keys (Tract, de Haeret. c. ii.). This authoritative work was printed in Rome, 1568, at the expense of Pius V., with a commentary by Cardinal Campeggi, and was reprinted with additions by Simancas in 1579. My references are made to a transcript from a fifteenth - century MS. of the original in the Biblioth?i(iue Nationale, fonds latin, 12533,


230 PERSECUTION.

wicked to corrupt the faith on which depends the life of the soul than to debase the coinage which provides merely for temporal life ; wherefore, if coiners and other malefactors are justly doomed at once to death, much more may heretics be justly slain as soon as they are convicted. Yet in its mercy the Church will always receive the heretic back into its bosom, no matter how often he may have relapsed, and will kindly give him penance whereby he may win eternal life ; but charity to one must not be allowed to work evil to others. Therefore for once the heretic who repents and recants will be received and his life be spared ; but if he re- lapses, though he may be received to penance for his soul's salva- tion, he will not be released from the death-penalty. This is the definite expression of the policy of the Church, which, as we shall see, became its unalterable rule of practice.*

Nor was the Church content to exercise its power over the living only ; the dead must feel its chastening hand. It seemed intoler- able that one who had successfully concealed his iniquity and had died in communion should be left to lie in consecrated ground and should be remembered in the prayers of the faithful. I^ot only had he escaped the penalty due to his sins, but his property, which was forfeit to Church and State, had unlawfully descended to his heirs, and must be recovered from them. Ample reason therefore existed for the trial of those who had passed to the judgment-seat of God. It had been a debatable question in the earlier Church whether excommunication, with aU its tremendous penalties, here and hereafter, could be directed against departed souls. As early as the time of Cyprian the custom of excommunicating the dead had come into fashion ; and about 382 St. John Chrysostom had denounced the frequency of such sentences as an interference at- tempted with the judgment of God. Leo I., in 432, took the same position, and it was confirmed by Gelasius I. and a council of Rome towards the end of the century. At the fifth general council, how- ever, held in Constantinople in 553, the question came up as to the power of the Church to anathematize Theodoret of Cjrrus, Ibas of Edessa, and Theodore of Mopsuestia, who had been dead for a hun- dred years. Many of the fathers of the council doubted it, when Eutychius, a man well versed in Scripture, pointed out that the


  • S. Thorn, Aquinat. Summae Sec. Sec. Q. xi. art. 3, 4.


CONDEMNATION OF THE DEAD. 231

pious King Josiah had not only put to death the priests of pagan- dom, but had dug up the remains of those who were deceased. The argument was irrefragable, and the anathema was pronounced in spite of the protests of Pope Yigilius, who stubbornly refused to be convinced. The ingenuity of Eutychius, till then an obscure man, was rewarded with the patriarchate of Constantinople, and Yigilius was compelled, by means not the most gentle, to subscribe to the anathema. In 618 the Council of Seville denied the power of condemning the dead ; but in 680 the sixth general council, held at Constantinople, exercised the largest liberty in anthematizing all whom it regarded as heretical, both living and dead. In 897 Stephen YII. accordingly held himself authorized to dig up the body of his predecessor. Pope Formosus, then seven months in the tomb, drag it by the feet and seat it in the synod which he had assem- bled in judgment, and, after condemning it, to cut off two fingers of the right hand and throw it into the Tiber, whence it chanced to be rescued and buried. The next year, however, a new pope, John IX., annulled these proceedings and caused a synod to declare that no one should be condemned after death, for the accused must have the opportunity of defence. This did not prevent Sergius III., in 905, from again exhuming the body, when it was clothed in pontifical robes, seated on a throne, and once more solemnly con- demned, beheaded, three more fingers cut off, and thrown in the Tiber. Yet the iniquity of these proceedings was proved when the restless remains were dragged from the river by some fisher- men, and, on being carried to the church of St. Peter, the images of saints there bowed before them and saluted them reverently. About the year 1100, St. Ivo of Chartres, the foremost canonist of his day, pronounced unhesitatingly that the power of the Church to bind and to loose was confined to things on earth ; that the dead had passed beyond human judgment, they could not be condemned, and burial must not be refused to those who had not been tried while living. Yet as heresy multiplied and its obstinacy seemed to- justify the passionate hatred which it excited, the churchman might well feel himself unable to endure the thought that the bones of heretics polluted the sacred precincts of church and cemetery, and that unconsciously he was including them in his prayers for the dead. It was easy to find a method of reaching them. The Council of Yerona in 1184, and subsequent popes and


232 PERSECUTION.

councils, repeatedly and formally excommunicated all heretics. It was an old rule of the Church that all excommunicates who did not within a year apply for absolution were condemned. All heretics who died without confession or recantation were thus self -condemned, and Avere ineligible to sepulture in consecrated ground. Though they could not be excommunicated, being already under ij)so facto excommunication, they could be anath- ematized. If mistakenly they had received Christian burial, as soon as the fact was discovered they were to be dug up and burned  ; the inquisition which established their guilt was merely an exami- nation into the facts, not a condemnation, and the penalties fol- lowed of themselves. That it required some effort to establish the rule is shown by an epistle of Innocent III., in 1207, to the abbot and monks of St. Hippolytus of Faenza, who had refused, at the order of a legate, to exhume the body of Otto of damnable memory, a heretic buried in their cemetery, or to observe the interdict pro- nounced against them in consequence, and Innocent is obhged to threaten the most energetic measures to compel them to obedience. With time, however, the principle became firmly established ; it was recognized as a grievous offence knowingly to bury the body of a heretic or a fautor of heretics — an offence only to be pardoned on condition of the offender exhuming the remains with his own hands, while the grave was accursed forever. We shall see that the business of investigating the record of the dead became no small or unimportant part of the duties of the Inquisition.*

The influence which these teachings and practices had in guid- ing the actions and policy of the age is well exemplified in the career of Frederic II. Half Italian in blood, and wholly ItaUan


  • Cypriani Epist. i. — Chrysost. Horn, de Anathemate. — Leon PP. I. Epist.

108 c. 2. — Gelasii PP. I. Epistt. 4, 11.— Concil. Roman. II. ann. 494. — Evagrii H. E. Lib. IV. c. 38. — Vigilii Coustit. de Tribus Capitulis. — Facundi Epist. in Defens. Trium Capitt. — Concil. Constautinop. II. ann. 553 Collat. vii. — Concil. Hispalens. II. ann. 618 c. 5. — Concil. Constantinop. III. ann. 680 Tom. xii.— Jaffe Regesta, 303. — Synod. Roman, ann. 898 c. 1. — Chron. Turonens. (Martene Ainpliss. Collect. V. 978-80).— I von. Carnotens. Epist. 96; Ejusd. Panorm. Lib. v. c. 115- 123.— Lucii PP. III. Epist. 171.— Lib. v. Extra Tit. vii. c. 13.— Gratian. Decret. II. Caus. XI. Q. iii. c. 36, 37, 38. — F. Pegnae Comment, in Eymerici Direct. In- quis. p. 95. — Innocent. PP. III. Regest. ix. 213. — Lib. iii. Extra Tit. xxviii. c. 12. — Lib. V. in Sexto Tit. i. c. 2. — Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. p. 104.


MOTIVES. 233

in training, he was a philosophical free-thinker. The accusations of Gregory IX., that he was secretly a disciple of Mahomet, and the tradition that he was privately in the habit of calling Moses, Christ, and Mahomet the three impostors, contradict each other, but show what ground he gave for such imputations. Yet this man, whom Gregory declared to take the sacrament only to show his contempt for excommunication, was too sagacious not to rec- ognize that he could only reign over a Christian people by at least pretending zeal in the work of exterminating heresy. He ob- tained his coronation in St. Peter's, November 22, 1220, by issuing the edict which is memorable in the history of persecution ; and, as part of the solemnities, Honorius paused in the ineffable mys- teries of the mass to fulminate an anathema in the name of Al- mighty God against all heresies and heretics, including those rulers whose laws interfered with their extermination. To the function thus assumed Frederic was ever true, perhaps even more so because, in his recognition of the necessity of ecclesiastical reform, he in- dulged in dreams of a caliphate in which he would wield both the temporal and spiritual swords. However this may be, his lifelong quarrel with the papacy only rendered him the more merciless in his extirpation of heresy ; and just when Gregory IX. was en- grossed in laying the foundation of the Inquisition we find Fred- eric audaciously urging him to greater zeal in defence of the faith, and suggesting his own example as one which the pope would do well to foUow.*

The cruel ferocity of barbarous zeal which, through so many centuries, wrought misery on mankind in the name of Christ, has been explained in many ways. Fanatics on the other side have denounced it as mere bloodthirstiness or selfish lust of power. Philosophers have traced it to the doctrine of exclusive salvation, through which it seemed the duty of those in authority to coerce the recalcitrant for their own benefit, and prevent them from lead- ing other souls to perdition. Another school has taught that it


  • Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. Introd. pp. cdlxxxviii., cdxcvi. ; II. 6-8, 422-3; IV.

409-11, 435-6  ; V. 459-60.— Fazelli de Reb. Siculis Decad. ii. Lib. viii.— Alberic. T. Font. Chron. ann. 1228.— Raynald. Annal. ann. 1220, No. 23.— Richard de S. Germano Chron. ann. 1233.


234 PERSECUTION.

arose from the survival of the atavistic notion of tribal solidarity, expanded into that of Christendom, making all share the guilt of sin offensive to God which they neglected to exterminate. Human impulses and motives, however, are too complex to be analyzed by a single solvent, even in the case of an individual, while here we have to deal with the whole Church, in its broadest acceptation, embracing the laity as well as the clergy. There is no doubt that the people were as eager as their pastors to send the heretic to the stake. There is no doubt that men of the kindliest tempers, the prof oundest intelligence, the noblest aspirations, the purest zeal for righteousness, professing a rehgion founded on love and charity, were ruthless when heresy was concerned, and were ready to tram- ple it out at the cost of any suffering. Dominic and Francis, Bonar Ventura and Thomas Aquinas, Innocent III. and St. Louis, were t3rpes, in their several ways, of which humanity, in any age, might well feel proud, and yet they were as unsparing of the heretic as Ezzelin da Komano was of his enemies. With such men it was not hope of gain or lust of blood or pride of opinion or wanton exercise of power, but sense of duty, and they but represented what was universal public opinion from the thirteenth to the sev- enteenth century.

To comprehend it, we must picture to ourselves a stage of civ- ilization in many respects wholly unlike our own. Passions were fiercer, convictions stronger, virtues and vices more exaggerated, than in our colder and more self-contained time. The age, more- over, was a cruel one. The military spirit was everywhere domi- nant ; men were accustomed to rely upon force rather than on per- suasion, and habitually looked on human suffering with indiffer- ence. The industrial spirit, which has so softened modern man- ners and modes of thought, was as yet hardly known.* We have only to look upon the atrocities of the criminal law of the Middle Ages to see how pitiless men were in their dealings with each other. The wheel, the caldron of boiling oil, burning ahve, burying ahve,


  • Mr. John Fiske has developed the contrast between the military and' indus-

trial spirit and the theory of corporate responsibility with his accustomed admi- rable clearness in his " Excursions of an Evolutionist," Essays viii. and ix.

The theory of solidarity is clearly expressed in Zanghino's remark " Quia in omnes fert injuriam quod in divinain religionem committatur " (Tract. deHaeres. c. xi.).


CRUELTY OF CRIMINAL LAW. 235

flaying alive, tearing apart with wild horses, were the ordinary expedients by which the criminal jurist sought to deter crime by frightful examples which would make a profound impression on a not over-sensitive population. An Anglo-Saxon law punishes a female slave convicted of theft by making eighty other female slaves each bring three pieces of wood and burn her to death, while each contributes a fine besides ; and in mediaeval England burning was the customary penalty for attempts on the life of the feudal lord. In the Customs of Arques, granted by the Abbey of St. Bertin in 1231, there is a provision that, if a thief have a concu- bine who is his accomplice, she is to be buried alive ; though, if pregnant, a respite is given till after childbirth. Frederic II., the most enlightened prince of his time, burned captive rebels to death in his presence, and is even said to have encased them in lead in order to roast them slowly. In 1261 St. Louis humanely abolished a custom of Touraine by which the theft of a loaf of bread or a pot of wine by a servant from his master was punished by the loss of a limb. In Frisia arson committed at night was visited with burn- ing alive ; and, by the old German law, the penalty of both mur- der and arson was breaking on the wheel. In France women were customarily burned or buried alive for simple felonies, and Jews were hung by the feet between two savage dogs, while men were boiled to death for coining. In Milan Italian ingenuity exhausted itself in devising deaths of lingering torture for criminals of all descriptions. The Carolina, or criminal code of Charles Y., issued in 1530, is a hideous catalogue of bhnding, mutilation, tearing with hot pincers, burning alive, and breaking on the wheel. In Eng- land poisoners were boiled to death even as lately as 1542, as in the cases of Eouse and Margaret Davie ; the barbarous penalty for high treason — of hanging, drawing, and quartering — is well known, while that for petty treason was enforced no longer ago than 1726, on Catharine Hayes, who was burned at Tyburn for murdering her husband. By the laws of Christian Y. of Denmark, in -1683, blasphemers were beheaded after having the tongue cut out. As recently as 1706, in Hanover, a pastor named Zacharie Georg Flagge was burned alive for coining. Modern tenderness for the criminal is evidently a matter of very recent date. So careless were legislators of human suffering in general that, in England, to cut out a man's tongue, or to pluck out his eyes with


236 PERSECUTION.

malice prepense, was not made a felony until the fifteenth century, in a criminal law so severe that, even in the reign of Elizabeth, the robbing of a hawk's nest was similarly a felony ; and as re- cently as 1833 a child of nine was sentenced to be hanged for breaking a patched pane of glass and stealing twopence worth of paint. ^

The nations thus habituated to the most savage cruelty, more- over, regarded the propagation of heresy with peculiar detestation, as not merely a sin, but as the worst of crimes. Heresy itself, says Bishop Lucas of Tuy, justifies, by comparison, the infidelity of the Jews ; its pollution cleanses the filthy madness of Mahomet ; its vileness renders pure even Sodom and Gomorrah. Whatever is worst in other sin becomes holy in comparison with the turpitude of heresy. Less rhetorical, but equally emphatic, is Thomas Aqui- nas, when his merciless logic demonstrates that the sin of heresy separates man from God more than all other sins, and therefore it is the worst of sins, and is to be punished more severely. Of all kinds of infidehty, that of heresy is the worst. So sensitive did the clerical mind become on the subject that Stephen Palecz of Prague declared, in a sermon before the Council of Constance, that if a behef was Catholic in a thousand points, and false in one, the whole was heretical. The heretic, therefore, who labored, as all earnest heretics necessarily did, to convert others to his way of


  • Ademari S. Cibardi Hist. Lib, iii. c. 36. — Dooms of ^thelstan, in. vi.

(Thorpe, I. 219).— Bracton. Lib. in. Tract, i. c. 6.— Legg. Villae de Arkes § 26. (D'Achery III. 608).— Hist. Diplom. Frid. H. Introd. p. cxcvi. ; IV. 444.— Gode- frid. S. Pantal. Annal. ann. 1233.— Fazelli de Reb. Siculis Decad. ii. Lib. viii. p. 442. — Isambert. Anc. Loix Fran9. I. 295. — Legg. Opstalbom. §§ 3, 4.— Treuga Henrici c. 1224 (Bohlau, Nove Constitut. Dom. Alberti, Weimar, 1858, pp. 76- 77). — Registre Criminel du Chatelet de Paris, passim (Paris, 1861).— Beauma- noir, Coutumes du Beauvoisis, c. 30, No. 12.— Antiqua Ducum Mediolan. Decreta, pp. 187-88 (Mediolani, 1654).— Legg. Capital. Caroli V. c. 103-197 (Goldast. Coii- stitt. Imp. III. 537-55).— London Athenaeum, Mar. 15, 1873, p. 338.— R. Christian. V. Jur. Danic. art. 7.— Willenburgii de Except, et Poenis Cleric, p. 41 (Jense, 1740). — 5 Henry IV. c. 5. — Description of Britaine, Bk. iii. c. 6 (Holinshed'5 Chron- icles Ed. 1577 I. 106).— London Athenaeum, 1885 No. 3024, p. 466.

It has seemed to me, however, that a sensible increase in the severity of pun- ishment is traceable after the thirteenth century, and I am inclined to attribute this to the influence exercised by the Inquisition over the criminal jurisprudence of Europe.


MOTIVES. 237

thinking, was inevitably regarded as a demon, striving to win souls to share his own damnation, and none of the orthodox doubted that he was the direct and efficient instrument of Satan in his war- fare with God. The intensity of the abhorrence thus awakened can only be realized by those who recognize the vividness of me- diaeval eschatology, the living horror which all men felt as to the possibilities of the dread hereafter.*

That this view of heresy and of the duty of its suppression was not reached at once by the mediaeval Church and peoples we have seen in the hesitation and vacillation which characterized the pro- ceedings of the eleventh and twelfth centuries; and this shows that the idea of solidarity in the responsibility before God, while it undoubtedly had a share in exaggerating the persecuting spirit, cannot by any means wholly account for it. It stimulated the masses, who snatched the sectaries from the hands of protecting priests, but had less influence on the educated clergy. As heresies increased and grew more threatening, and milder means seemed only to aggravate the evil, the minds of earnest and enlightened men brooding over it, and contemplating the awful possibilities of the future, when the Church of God might be overthrown by the conventicles of Satan, grew inflamed, and fanaticism inevitably followed. When this point was reached, when people and pastor ahke felt that the Church Militant must strike without pity if it would prevafl against the legions of hell, no firm believer in the doctrine of exclusive salvation could doubt that the truest mercy lay in sweeping away the emissaries of Satan with fire and sword. God had wonderfully raised the Church to fight his battle. It had become supreme over temporal princes, and could command their imphcit obedience. It had full power over the sword of the flesh, and with that power came responsibility. It was responsible not only in the present, but also for the souls of the faithful yet un- born through countless generations, and, if weakly untrue to its trust, it could not plead inability in extenuation. In view of the awful possibilities of neglected duty, what were the sufferings of a few thousand hardened wretches who, deaf to the solicitations of


  • Lucae Tudens. de altera Vita Lib. in. c. 15. — T. Aquinat, Summ. Sec.

Sec. Q. X. Artt. 3, 6.— Von der Ilardt, T. I. P. xvi. p. 829.— Nic. Eymerici Direct. Inquis. Prajfat.


238 PERSECUTION.

repentance, were hurried, but a few years before their time, to their master the Devil  ?

We must also bear in mind the character which Christianity had assumed in the gradual development of its theology, and its consequent influence on those who guided the policy of the Church. They knew that Christ had said " I am not come to destroy the law but to fumi" (Matt. v. lY). They also knew from Holy Writ that Jehovah was a God dehghting in the extermination of his enemies. They read how Saul, the chosen King of Israel, had been di\anely punished for sparing Agag of Amalek, and how the prophet Samuel had hewn him in pieces ; how the wholesale slaugh- ter of the unbelieving Canaanites had been ruthlessly commanded and enforced ; how Elijah had been commended for slaying four hundred and fifty priests of Baal ; and they could not conceive how mercy to those who rejected the true faith could be aught but disobedience to God. Moreover, Jehovah w^as a God who was only to be placated by the continual sacrifice of victims. The very doctrine of the Atonement assumed that the human race could only be rendered eligible to salvation by the most awful sacrifice that the human mind could conceive — that of one of the members of the Trinity. The Christian worshipped a God who had sub- jected himself to the most painful and humiliating of sacrifices, and the salvation of souls was dependent on the daily repetition of this sacrifice in the mass, throughout Christendom. To minds moulded in such a belief, it might well seem that the extremity of punishment inflicted on the enemies of the Church of God was nothing in itself, and that it was an acceptable offering to him who had commanded that neither age nor sex should be spared in the land of Canaan.

These tendencies had been fostered and exaggerated by the growth of asceticism. That mortal life was a thing to be despised and that heaven was to be purchased by shunning the pleasures of existence and extinguishing all human affections, was a lesson taught broadly throughout the hagiology of the Church. Mace- ration and mortification were the surest roads to Paradise, and sin was to be redeemed by self-inflicted penance. This theory worked in a double sense. On the one hand, the practices of the zealot — strict celibacy, fasting, solitude, are direct incentives to insanity, as is shown by the epidemics of diabolical possession and


MOTIVES. 239

suicide which were so frequent in the stricter monastic establish- ments '* and without assuming that such a man as St. Peter Mart3rr was mad, it is impossible to read the extremity of ascetic maceration which he habitually practised — fasts, vigils, scourgings, and every device which perverse ingenuity could suggest — without recogniz- ing morbid mental conditions which could readily render him a monomaniac on any subject which greatly engrossed his feelings. On the other hand, the men who thus tamed their own strong pas- sions and mastered the rebellious flesh by these means, were not likely to feel for the suffering of those who had abandoned them- selves to Satan, and who might be saved by temporal fire from eternal flame. Or if, perchance, they had softer hearts and com- passionated the agonies of their victims, they might well regard the repression of their own emotions at the spectacle as part of the penance which they were called upon to endure. In any case, life was but an infinitesimal point in eternity, and all human interests shrank into nothingness in comparison with the one overmaster- ing duty of keeping the flock from straying and of preventing an infected sheep from communicating his poison to his fellows. Charity itself could not hesitate over whatever methods might be requisite to accomplish this.

That the men who conducted the Inquisition and who toiled sedulously in its arduous, repulsive, and often dangerous labor, were thoroughly convinced that they were furthering the king- dom of God, is shown by the habitual practice of encouraging them with the remission of sins, similar to that offered for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Besides the consciousness of duty performed, it was the only recognized reward of their joyless lives, and it was considered enough, f How, moreover, cruelty to the heretic could be conjoined with boundless love and good-will to men is well exemphfied in the career of the Dominican, Fra Giovanni Schio


  • Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty, pp. 66-68. — Caesar. Heisterbac.

Dial. Mirac. Dist. rv.

As early as the fourth century the tendency of exaggerated asceticism to af- fect the mind was noted, and St. Jerome had the common-sense to point out that such cases required a physician rather than a priest (Hieron. Epist. cxxv. c. 16).

t Martene Thesaur. V. 1817, 1820.— Urbani PP. IV. Bull. Licet ex omnibus, 20 Mart. 1262, § 13.— Clem. PP. IV. Bull. Pjcb cunctis mentis, 23 Feb. 1266 (Arch, de rinq. de Care, Doat, XXXII. 32).


240 PERSECUTION.

da Yicenza. Profoundly moved by the condition of northern Italy, filled with dissensions which raged, not only between city and city, and burgher and noble, but which divided families in the factions of Guelf and Ghibelline, he devoted himself to the mission of an Apostle of Peace. In 1233 his eloquence at Bologna induced the opposing parties to lay aside their arms, and led ene- mies to swear mutual forgiveness in a delirium of joyful reconcil- iation. So great was the enthusiasm which he excited that the magistrates submitted to him the statutes of the city and allowed him to revise them at discretion. The same success attended him at Padua, Treviso, Feltro, and Belluno. The lords of Camino, Eo- mano, Conighano, and San Bonifacio, and the republics of Brescia, Yicenza, Yerona, and Mantua made him the arbiter of their differ- ences and urged him to alter their political organization as he saw fit. On the plain of Paquara, near Yerona, he called a great as- sembly of the Lombard peoples, and that innumerable multitude, swayed by his fervor as by a voice from heaven, proclaimed a gen- eral pacification. Yet this man, so worthy a disciple of the Great Teacher of divine love, when installed in power in Yerona, pro- ceeded to burn in the pubhc square sixty men and women of the principal families of the town, whom he had condemned as here- tics; and twenty years later he reappears as the leader of a Bolognese contingent in the crusade preached by Alexander lY. against Ezzelin de Komano.*

In fact the zealot, however loving and charitable he might otherwise be, was taught and believed that compassion for the sufferings of the heretic was not only a weakness but a sin. As weU might he sympathize with Satan and his demons writhing in the endless torment of hell. If a just and omnipotent God wreaked divine vengeance on those of his creatures who offended him, it was not for man to question the righteousness of his ways, but humbly to imitate his example and rejoice when the opportunity to do so was vouchsafed to him. The stern morahsts of the age held it to be a Christian duty to find pleasure in contemplating the anguish of the sinner. Gregory the Great, five centuries be- fore, had argued that the bhss of the elect in heaven would not


  • Tamburini, Storia Generale delP Inquisizione, I. 362-5, 561. — Chron. Ve-

ronens. ann. 1233 (Muratori S. R. I. VIII. 626, 627).


MOTIVES. 241

be perfect unless they were able to look across the abyss and enjoy the agonies of their brethren in eternal fire. This idea was a pop- ular one and was not allowed to grow obsolete. Peter Lombard, the great " Master of Sentences," whose " Sentences," produced about the middle of the twelfth century, was the leading author- ity in the schools, quotes St. Gregory with approbation, and en- larges upon the satisfaction which the just will feel in the ineflFa- ble misery of the damned. Even the mystic tenderness of Bona- ventura does not prevent him from echoing the same terrible ex- ultation. When such were the sentiments in which all thinking men were trained, and such were the views which they dissemi- nated among the people, it is not to be supposed that any feehngs of compassion for the sufferers would deter the most charitable from the rigid exercise of justice. The ruthless extermination of heresy was a work which could only be pleasing to the righteous, whether simply as spectators or whether they were called by con- science or by station to the higher duties of active persecution. If, notwithstanding this, any scruple remained, the schoolmen easily removed it by proving that persecution was a work of char- ity, for the benefit of the persecuted.*

It is true that aU popes were not like Innocent III. nor aU in- quisitors like Fra Giovanni. Selfish and interested motives were at work, as they are in all human institutions, and the actions even of the best may doubtless have unconsciously been stimulated by pride of opinion and by ambition as well as by a sense of duty to God and man. The religious revolt threatened the temporal pos- sessions of the Church and the privileges of its members, and the desire to preserve these had its share in the resistance which was organized against innovation. Selfish as this desire may have been, we must not forget that, in the thirteenth century, the power and wealth of the hierarchy, however much abused, had yet long been recognized by the pubhc law of Europe. The rulers of the Church could only regard as a sacred duty the maintenance of


  • Gregor. PP. I. Homil. in Evangel, xl. 8. — Pet. Lomb. Sententt. Lib. iv.

Dist. 50 §§ 6, 7. Peter Lombard even presses into service a passage from St. Jerome whicli had no such significance (Ilieron. Comment, in Isaiam Lib. xviii. c. Ixvi. vers. 24). — St. Bonaventurae Pharetrae iv. 50. — S. Thomaj Aquinat. contra Impugn. Kelig. cap. xvi. §§ 3, 3.

L— 16


242 PERSECUTION.

rights which they had inherited, against audacious assailants whose doctrines threatened the overthrow of what they regarded as the basis of social order. Sjrmpathize as we must with the Waldenses and the Cathari in their hideous martyrdom, we cannot but feel that the treatment which they endured was inevitable, and we should pity the blindness of the persecutor as well as the suffer- ings of the persecuted.

Man is seldom wholly consistent in the practical application of his principles, and the persecutors of the thirteenth century made one concession to humanity and common-sense which was fatal to the completeness of the theory on which they acted. To carry it out fully, they should have proselyted with the sword among all non-Christians whom fate threw in their power ; but from this they abstained. Infidels who had never received the faith, such as Jews and Saracens, were not to be compelled to Christian- ity. Even their children were not to be baptized without parental consent, as this would be contrary to natural justice, as well as dangerous to the purity of the faith. It was necessary that the misbeliever should have been united with the Church by baptism in order to give her jurisdiction over him.*


  • S. Thomae Aquinat. Summ. Sec. Sec. Q. x. art. 8, 12. — Zanchini de Haere.

c. iJL


CHAPTER VI.

THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

In the struggle which the Church was making to regain its for- feited hold upon the veneration of Christendom its most efficient instrument was not force. It is true that the dignitaries at its head relied solely on persecution, and by skilful use of popular superstition and princely ambition they succeeded in crushing the open revolt which threatened its supremacy. Something more was required to render that success permanent by arousing anew the trust and confidence of the people, and that something could not be supplied by a worldly and ambitious prelacy. Far down in the ranks of the Church, however, were men with truer insight and nobler aspirations, who saw its fatal omissions and who sought in their humble spheres to do the work which lay immediately around them. They builded better than they knew, and to them rather than to the Innocents and the de Montforts did the hie- rarchy owe the restoration of the tottering edifice. The response which they met showed how deep was the popular longing for a church which should in some degree fitly reflect the precepts of its Founder.

It is not to be supposed that the corruption of the ecclesiastical body was allowed to pass unnoticed and unreproved by the pious among the orthodox, and that occasional efforts at reform were not made by those who would have shrunk with horror from open opposition or even secret dissidence. The free speaking of St. Ber- nard, Geroch of Reichersberg, and Peter Cantor show how deeply the offences of priest and prelate were felt and how sharply they were criticised. The self-imposed mission of Peter Waldo was an effort to evangelize the Church, which in its inception had no thought of antagonizing the existing order, and was forced into schism by the obstinacy of the disciples in recurring to Scripture, and the natural dread which conservatism feels of all enthusiasm


244: THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

that may become dangerous. As the twelfth century drew to an end there appeared another apostle whose brief career for a space seemed to give assurance that both clergy and people might be aroused to a practical sense of the changes requisite to enable the Church to fulfil its bright promises to mankind.

Foulques de Neuilly was an obscure priest, with little educa- tion or training and with profound contempt for the dialectics of the schools, but whose conviction of the sins of Church and people led him to abandon the cure of souls for the more arduous duties of a missionary. Moved by his enthusiasm, Peter Cantor procured for him from Innocent III. a license to preach, but at first his suc- cess was disheartening. He had not discovered the secret of reach- ing the hearts of his hearers, but the experience gained by earnest work acquired it for him, and his legend explains it in the cus- tomary shape of a special revelation from God, accompanied with the gift of working miracles. He caused, it is said, the deaf to hear, the bhnd to see, and the crippled to walk, but he selected his subjects and ofttimes refused to work cures, telling the applicant that his time had not yet come, and that health would but give him fresh opportunity to sin. Though popularly known as ^^le sainct homme,^ he was no ascetic, and at a time when maceration was popularly deemed an indispensable accompaniment of holiness, it was remarked with wonder that he would eat thankfully what- ever was set before him, and that he was not observant of vigils. Yet he was irascible, and was wont to give over to Satan those who refused to listen to him, when it was observed that they would shortly perish through the divine vengeance. Thousands of sin- ners flocked to hear him and were converted to repentance, though few of them persevered in the path of righteousness, and he was so successful in reclaiming women of evil life who became nuns that the Convent of St. Antoine in Paris was founded to receive them. Many Cathari, also, were won over by him to the faith, and it was through his exertions that Terric, the heresiarch of the Nivernois, was discovered in his cave at Corbigny and was burned. He was especially severe on the licentiousness of the clergy, and at Lisieux he so angered them with his invectives that they seized and threw him in a dungeon and loaded him with chains, when his miraculous powers stood him in good stead and he walked forth without dif- ficulty. The same thing occurred at Caen, when the officials of


POULQUES DE NEUILLY. 245

Richard of England imprisoned him, thinking to gratify their master, who was supposed to be offended by the preacher's plain speaking. Foulques Avarned him to marry off his three daughters lest worse should befall him; and when the king retorted that Foulques was a hypocrite who knew that he had no daughters, the monitor rejoined that the first daughter was pride, the second avarice, and the third lust. Richard, however, was too keen-witted to be overcome in a war of words ; he assembled his court, and solemnly repeating what Foulques had said, added, " My pride I give to the Templars, my avarice to the Cistercians, and my lust to the prelates in general."

Foulques suffered somewhat in public estimation from the back- sUding of Pierre de Roissi, whom he had taken as an associate, and who in preaching poverty amassed wealth and obtained a canonry at Chartres, where he rose to be chancellor. Yet he might have accomphshed much had not Innocent III., who thought more of the recovery of the Holy Land than of the spiritual awakening of souls, sent him, in 1198, an urgent request to preach the crusade. Into this w^ork Foulques threw himself with all his enthusiasm. It was owing to his eloquence that Baldwin of Flanders and other magnates undertook the crusade ; he is said with his own ha,nd to have imposed the cross upon two hundred thousand pilgrims, tak- ing the poor by preference, as he deemed the rich unworthy of it, and the Latin Empire of Constantinople, which was the outcome of the crusade, was his work. Scandal said that of the immense sum w^hich he raised he kept a portion, but this may be safely set to the account of malice ; certain it is that never was money more joyfully received by the struggling Christians in Palestine than the large remittances from him which enabled them to rebuild the walls of Tyre and Ptolemais, recently overthrown by an earth- quake. As the crusade was about to set out, which he proposed to accompany, he died at Neuilly, in May, 1202, leaving whatever he possessed to the pilgrims. Had his life been lengthened and had he not been diverted from his true career, he might possibly have accomplished permanent results.*

  • Chron. Laudunens. ann. 1198. — Ottonis de S. Blasio Chron. (Urstisius I.

223 sq.).— Joann. de Flissicuria (D. Bouquet, XVIII. 800).— Rob. Autissiodor. Chron. ann. 1198, 1202.— Kog. Hoveden. Annal. ann. 1198, 1202.— Rigord. de Gest. Phil. Aug. ann. 1195, 1198.— Guillel. Brit, de Gest. Phil. Aug. ann. 1195.— Grandes


246 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

Wholly different from Foulques was Durdn de Huesca the Cata- lan. Despite the persecuting edicts of Alonso and Pedro, the Wal- densian heresy had taken deep root in Aragon. Duran was one of its leaders, who took part in the disputation held at Pamiers about 1207 between the Waldenses and the Bishops of Osma, Tou- louse, and Conserans, in the presence of the Count of Foix. It is probable that Dominic also took part in it, and as the two men had so much in common, one is tempted to beUeve that to Dominic's eloquence was due the conversion of Duran, which was the only substantial result of the colloquy. Duran was too earnest a man to remain satisfied with assuring his own salvation, and sought thenceforth to win over other erring souls. ' He not only wrote various tracts against his recent heresy, but he conceived the idea of founding an order which should serve as a model of poverty and self-abnegation, and be devoted to preaching and missionary work, thus fighting the heretics with the very weapons which they had found so efiicacious in obtaining converts from the wealthy and worldly Church. FiUed with this inspiration, he labored among his brethren and brought many of them over to his way of think- ing, from Spain to Italy. In Milan a hundred of them agreed to return to the Church if a building erected by them for a school, which the archbishop had torn down, were restored to them. Duran, with three companions, presented himself before Innocent, who was satisfied with his profession of faith and ap- proved of his plan. Most of the associates were clerks, who had already given away all their possessions in charity. Kenouncing the world, they proposed to live in the strictest chastity, to sleep on boards, except in case of sickness, praying seven times a day and observing specified fasts in addition to those prescribed by the Church. Absolute poverty was to be enforced ; no thought was to be taken of the morrow, all gifts of gold and silver were to be refused, and only the necessaries of food and clothing were to be accepted. A habit of white or gray was adopted, with sandals to distinguish them from the Waldenses. Those of them who were learned and fit for the work were to devote themselves to preach-

Chroniques, ann. 1195, 1198. — Jacob. Vitriens. Hist. Occident, c. 8. — Radulph. de Coggeshall ann. 1198, 1201. — Chron. Cluniacens. ann. 1198.— Chron. Leodiens. ann. 1198, 1199.— Alberic. T. Font. Chron. ann. 1198.— Geoff, de Villehardouin c. 1. — Annal. Aquicinctin. Monast. ann. 1198. — Joann. Iperii Chron. ann. 1201-2.


THE POOR CATHOLICS. 247

ing to the faithful and converting the heretic, pledging themselves not to attack the vices of the clergy. Laymen unable to serve in this capacity were to Uve in houses and labor with their hands, giving due tithes, oblations, and first-fruits to the Church. The care of the poor, moreover, was to be a special duty, and a rich lay- man in the diocese of Elne proposed to build for them a hospital with fifty beds, to erect a church, and to distribute garments to the naked. They were to elect their own superior, but were to be in no wise exempt from the regular jurisdiction of the prelates.*

In this institution of the " Pauperes Cathohci," or Poor Cathohcs — as they called themselves in contradistinction to the " Pauperes de Lugduno " or Waldenses — there lay the possibilities of all that Dominic and Francis afterwards conceived and executed. It was the origin, or at least the precursor, of the great Mendicant Orders, the germ of the great fructifying idea which accomplished results so marvellous ; and while it is not hkely that Francis in Italy bor- rowed his conception from Duran, it is more than probable that Dominic in France, where he must have been famihar with the movement, was led by the plan of the Poor Catholics to that of the Preaching Friars, which was so closely modelled on it. Yet though at the start Duran had apparently far better prospects of success than either Dominic or Francis, his project was foredoomed from the beginning. Already in 1209 he had communities planted in Aragon, JSTarbonne, Beziers, Usez, Carcassonne, and Nimes, but the prelates of Languedoc were universally suspicious of the project and secretly or actively hostile. Cavils were raised as to the rec- onciliation of converted heretics ; complaints were made that the conversions were feigned and that the converts were lacking in respect for the Church and its observances. The crusade was on foot ; it seemed easier to crush than to persuade, and in the tu- multuous passions of that fierce time the humble methods of Durdn and his brethren were laughed to scorn. In vain he appealed to Innocent. In vain Innocent, who viewed the project with the in- tuition of a Christian statesman, assured him of the papal protec- tion, and wrote agam and again to the prelates commanding them to favor the Poor Cathohcs, reminding them that wandering sheep


  • Pet. Sarnens. c. 6.— Guillel. Pod. Laur. c. 8.— Innoc. PP. HI. Regest. XL 196,

197; xn. 17.


248 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

were to be welcomed back to the fold, that souls were to be Won by gentleness and mercy, and commanding them not to insist on trifles. In vain he even conceded to Duran that secular members of his society should not be required to join in war against Chris- tians, or to take oaths in secular matters, in so far as was compati- ble with justice and with the rights of their suzerains. The pas- sions and the prejudices which he had unchained in Languedoc had grown beyond his control, and the Poor Catholics disappeared in the tumult. After 1212 we hear httle more of them. We find Gregory IX., in 1237, ordering the Dominican Provincial of Tar- ragona to reform them and let them select one of the approved Rules under which to live. A mandate of Innocent lY., in 124Y, to the Archbishop of Narbonne and Bishop of Elne to restrain them from preaching shows that when they attempted to perform the function for which the order had been established they were promptly silenced. It was left to other hands to develop the enormous possibilities of the scheme w^hich Duran had devised.*

Far different were the results achieved by Domingo de Guz- man, whom the Latin Church reverences as the greatest and most successful of its champions.

" Delia fede Christiana santo atleta, Benigno a' suoi, et a' nemici crudo — — E negli sterpi eretici percosse L'impeto suo piii vivamente quivi Dove le resistenze eran piu grosse."

— Paradiso, xn.

Born at Calaruega, in Old Castile, in IIYO, of a stock which his brethren love to connect with the royal house, his saintliness was so penetrating that it reflected back upon his mother, who is rev- erenced as St. Juana de Aga, and at one time there was danger that even his father might be drawn into the saintly circle. Both pa- rents were buried in the convent of San Pedro de Gumiel, until, about 1320, the Infante Juan Manuel of Castile obtained the body of Juana to enrich the Dominican convent of San Pablo de Pena- fiel which he had founded ; when Fray Geronymo Orozco, the Ab- bot of Gumiel, prudently transferred the remains of Don Felix de

  • Innocent. PP. III. Regest. xi. 98 ; xii. 67, 69 ; xm. 63, 78, 94 ; xv. 90, 91,

92, 93, 96, 137, 146.— Ripoll. Bull. Ord. FF. Praedic. I. 96.— Berger, Registres d'ln- noc.IV.No.2752.


ST. DOMINIC. 249

Guzman to an unknown spot in order to preserve it from an exten- sion of acquisitive veneration. Even the font of white stone, fash- ioned like a shell, in which Dominic was baptized could not escape. In 1605 Philip III. transported it with much pomp from Calaruega to Yalladolid. Thence it was translated to the royal Convent of San Domingo in Madrid, where it has since been used for the bap- tism of the royal children.*

Ten years of training in the University of Palencia made of Dominic an accomplished theologian and equipped him thoroughly for the missionary work to which his life was devoted. Entering the Chapter of Osma, he was speedily made sub-prior, and in this capacity we have seen him accompany his bishop, who from 1203 onward for some years was employed on missions that carried him through Languedoc. Dominic's biographers relate that his career was determined by an incident in this first voyage, when he chanced to lodge in the house of a heretic of Toulouse and spent the night in converting him. This success, and the sight of the wide extent of heresy, led him to devote his life to its extirpation. "When in 1206 Bishop Diego dismissed his retinue and remained to evangel- ize the land, Dominic alone was retained ; when Diego returned to Spain to die, Dominic remained behind and continued to make Languedoc the scene of his activity.f

The legend which has grown around Dominic represents him as one of the chief causes of the overthrow of the Albigensian heresies. Doubtless he did all that an earnest and single-hearted man could do in a cause to which he had surrendered himself, but historically his influence was imperceptible. The monk of Yaux- Cernay alludes to him but once, as a follower of Bishop Diego, and the epithet there applied to him of " vir totius sam^ctitatis " is but one of the customary meaningless civilities of the day. That he was one of the preachers licensed by the legates under the author- ity granted by Innocent, in 1207, is shown by an absolution issued by him which has chanced to be preserved, in which he styles him- self canon of Osma and " prcBdicator minimus /" but his subordinate


  • Bremond de Guzmana Stirpe S. Dominici, Romae, 1740, pp. 11, 12, 127, 133,

288.

t Bern. Guidon. Tract. Magist. Ord. Praedicat. ann. 1203-6.— Nic. de Trivetti Chron. ann. 1203-9.


250 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

position is indicated by the absolution being subject to the pleasure of Legate Arnaud, from whom his authority was derived. This and a dispensation to a burgher of Toulouse to lodge a heretic in his house are the only extant evidences of his activity as a mission- ary. Yet already his talent for organization had been shown by his founding the Monastery of Prouille. One of the most efficient means by which the heretics propagated their belief was by estab- lishments in which poor girls of gentle blood could obtain gratu- itous education. To meet them on their own ground, Dominic, about 1206, conceived the idea of a similar foundation for Catholics, and with the aid of Bishop Foulques of Toulouse he carried it out. Prouille became a large and wealthy convent, which boasted of being the germ of the great Dominican Order.*

For the next eight years the life of Dominic is a blank. That he labored strenuously in his self-imposed mission we cannot doubt, gaining, if not souls, at least skill in disputation, knowledge of men, and the force which comes from the concentration of energies on a task of conscience ; but of results there is not a trace in the wild tumult of the crusades. We may safely dismiss as a fable the tra- dition that he refused successively the bishoprics of Beziers, Con- serans, and Comminges, and the legends of the miracles which he wrought in vain among hard-hearted Cathari. He emerges again to view after the battle of Muret had destroyed the hopes of Count Raymond, when the cause of orthodoxy seemed triumphant and the field was unobstructed for conversions. In 1214 he was in his forty-fifth year, in the full strength of mature manhood, yet having thus far accomplished nothing that gave promise of what was to foUow. Divested of their supernatural adornments, the accounts which we have of him show him to us as a man of earnest, resolute purpose, deep and unalterable convictions, fuU of burning zeal for the propagation of the faith, yet kindly in heart, cheerful in tem- per, and winning in manner. It is significant of the impression produced on his contemporaries that with scarce an exception the miracles related of him are beneficent ones — raising the dead^ heal-


  • Pet. Sarnens. c. 7.— Innoc. PP. III. Regest. ix. 185.— Paramo de Orig. Offic.

S.Inquis. Lib. ii. Tit. 1, c. 2, §§ 6, 7.— Nic. do Trivetti Chron. ann. 1205.— Chron. Magist. Ord. Praedic. c. 1. — Bern. Guidon. Hist. Fundat. Convent. (Martene AmpL Collect. VI. 439).


ST. DOMINIC. 251

ing the sick and converting heretics, not by punishment, but by showing that he spoke by command of the Almighty. The ac- counts of his habitual austerities may be exaggerated, but no one who is familiar with the self-inflicted macerations of the hagiology need hesitate to believe that Dominic was as severe with himself as with his fellows, even though we may not place faith in the legend that his constant falling out of bed when an infant was caused by an early ascetic development which led him to prefer mortifpng the flesh on a hard floor to the luxury of a soft couch. His endless scourgings, his tireless vigils, and, when exhausted nature could bear them no longer, his short repose on a board, or in the corner of a church where he had passed the night, his almost uninterrupted prayer, his superhuman fasts, are probably only harm- less exaggerations of the truth. So, too, may be the legends which tell of his boundless charity and his love for his fellows ; how, when a student, in a time of dearth he sold all his books to reheve the distress around him, and would, unless divinely prevented, have sold himself to redeem from the Moors a captive whose sister he saw overwhelmed with grief. Whether these stories be true or not, they at least show us the ideal which his immediate disciples thought to realize in him.*

The brief remaining years of Dominic's hfe witnessed the rapid garnering of the harvest sowed in the period of humble but zeal- ous obscurity. In 1214 Pierre Cella, a rich citizen of Toulouse, moved by his earnestness, resolved to join him in his mission-work, and gave for the purpose a stately house near the Chateau IS^arbon- nais, which for more than a hundred years remained the home of the Inquisition. A few other zealous souls gathered around him, and the little fraternity commenced to live like monks. Foulques, the fanatic Bishop of Toulouse, assigned to them a sixth of the


  • Lacordaire, Vie de S. Dominique, p. 124. — Nic. de Trivetti Chron. ann. 1203.

— Jac. de Voragine Legenda Aurea, Ed. 1480, fol. 88&, 90a.

As St. Francis had the distinguishing peculiarity of the Stigmata, so the Do- minicans boasted that their founder had the special characteristic that when his tomb was opened the odor of sanctity exhaled from it was a delicious scent from paradise hitherto unknown, so penetrating in quality that it pervaded the whole land, and so persistent that those who touched the holy relics had their hands perfumed for years. — Prediche del Beato Fra Giordano da Rivalto, Firenze, 1831, 1.47.


262 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

tithes, to provide them with books and other necessaries, that they might not lack the means of training themselves and others for the work of preaching, which was the main object of the community. By this time Duran de Huesca's attempt had proved a failure, and Dominic, who must have been familiar with it, doubtless saw the causes of its ill-success and the means to avoid them. Yet it is noteworthy that in the inception of the plan there was no thought of employing force. The heretics of Languedoc lay defenceless at the feet of de Montf ort, an easy prey to the spoiler, but Dominic's project only looked to their peaceful conversion and to performing the duties of instruction and exhortation of which the Church had been so wholly neglectful.*

All eyes were now bent on the Lateran Council which was to decide the fate of the land. Foulques of Toulouse on his voyage thither took with him Dominic to obtain from the pope his ap- proval of the new community. Tradition relates that Innocent hesitated ; his experience with Duran de Huesca had not taught him to expect much from the irregular action of enthusiasts ; the coun- cil had forbidden the formation of new orders of monkhood, and had commanded that zeal for the future should satisfy itself with those already established. Yet Innocent's doubts were removed by a dream in which he saw the Lateran Basilica tottering and ready to fall, and a man in whom he recognized the humble Dominic sup- porting it on his shoulders. Thus divinely warned that the crum- bling church edifice was to be restored by the man whose zeal he had despised, he approved the project on condition that Dominic and his brethren should adopt the Bule of some established order.f

Dominic returned and assembled his brethren at Prouille. They were by this time sixteen in number, and it is a curious illus- tration of the denationalizing influence of the Church to observe in this little gathering of earnest men in that remote spot that Castile, Xavarre, Normandy, France, Languedoc, England, and Ger- many were represented. This self -devoted band adopted the rule of the Canons Kegular of St. Augustin, which was Dominic's^ own,


  • Nic. de Trivetti Chron. ann. 1215. — Bernard! Guidonis Tract, de Magist.

Ord. Praedic. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 400).— Hist. Ordin. Prsedic. c. 1 (lb. 332).

t Nic. de Trivetti loc. cit. — Chron. Magist. Ord. Prsedic. c. 1. — Bernard. Gui- donis loc. cit.— Concil. Lateran. IV. c. xiii. — Harduin. Concil. VII. 83.


THE DOMINICANS. 253

and elected Matthieu le Gaulois as their abbot. lie was the first and hist who bore this title, for as the Order grew its organization was modified to secure greater unity and at the same time greater freedom of action. It was divided into provinces, the head of each being a provincial prior. Supreme over all was the general mas- ter. These offices were filled by election, with tenure during good behavior, and provisions were made for stated assembUes, or chap- ters, both provincial and general. Each brother, or friar, was held to implicit obedience. Like a soldier on duty, he was Uable at any moment to be despatched on any mission that the interest of re- ligion or of the Order might demand. They deemed themselves, in fact, soldiers of Christ, not devoted, like the monks, to a life of con- templation, but trained to mix with the world, exercised in all the arts of persuasion, skilled in theology and rhetoric, and ready to dare and suffer all things in the interest of the ChurcH Militant. The name of Preaching Friars, which acquired such world-wide significance, was the result of accident. During the Lateran Coun- cil, while Dominic was in Rome, Innocent had occasion to address a note to him and ordered his secretary to begin, " To brother Dominic and his companions ;" then, correcting himself, he said, " To brother Dominic and the preachers with him," and finally, considering further, " to Master Dominic and the brethren preach- ers." This greatly pleased them, and they at once commenced call- ing themselves Friar Preachers.*

Curiously enough, poverty formed no part of the original de- sign. The impulse to found the order was given by CeUa's dona- tion of his property and the share of the tithes offered by Bishop Foulques ; and, as soon as it was organized, Dominic had no scruple in accepting three churches from Foulques — one in Toulouse, one in Pamiers, and one in Puylaurens. The historians of the Order en- deavor to explain this by saying that its founders desired to make poverty a feature of the Rule, but were deterred for fear that so novel an idea would prevent the papal confirmation. As Innocent had already approved of poverty in Duran de Huesca's scheme, the futility of this excuse is apparent, and we may weU doubt the


  • Hist. Ordin. Praedicat. c. 1, 2, 3. — Chron. Magist. Ordin. PraBdicat. c. 1. — •

Bernard. Guidouis Tract, de Magist. Ord. Prycdic. (Martene Ampliss. Coll. VL 332-4, 400).


254 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

legends about Dominic's rigidity in requiring his brethren to dis- pense absolutely with the use of money. Certain it is that as early as 1217 we find the friars quarrelling with the agents of Bishop Foulques over the grant of tithes, and demanding that churches with only half a dozen communicants should be reckoned as parish churches and subject to their claim on- the tithes. It was not until the success of the Franciscans had shown the attractive power of poverty that it was adopted by the Dominicans in the General Chapter of 1220. It was finally embodied in the constitution adopted by the Chapter of 1228, which prohibited that lands or revenues should be acquired, ordered preachers not to solicit money, and classed among the graver offences the retention by a brother of any of the things forbidden to be received. The Order speedily outgrew these restrictions, but Dominic himself set an example of the utmost rigidity in this respect, and when he died in Bologna, in 1221, it was in the bed of Friar Moneta, as he had none of his own, and in Moneta's gown, for his own was worn out and he had not another to replace it ; and when the Rule was adopted in 1220 such property as was not essential for the needs of the Order was made over to the Convent of Prouille.*

All that now was lacking was the papal confirmation of the Order and its statutes. Before Dominic could reach Rome on the errand to obtain this. Innocent had died, but his successor, Hono- rius III., entered fully into his views, and the sanction of the Holy See was given on December 21, 1216. Returning to Toulouse in 1217, Dominic lost no time in dispersing his followers. It was not for them to practise the strenuous idleness of conventual life, in a ceaseless round of barren liturgies. They were the leaven which was to leaven Christianity, the soldiers of Christ who were to carry the banner of salvation to the farthest corners of the earth, and for them there was no pause or rest. The httle band seemed ab- surdly inadequate for the task, but Dominic never hesitated. Some were sent to Spain, others to Paris, others again to Bologna, while


  • Bernard. Guidon. Tract de Ordin. Praedic. (Martene Ampl. Collect. VI. 400,

402-3).— Ejusd. Hist. Fund. Convent. Praedic. (lb. 446-7).— Hist. Ordin. Praedic. c. 9.— Nic. de Trivetti Chron. ann. 1220, 1228. — Chron. Magist. Ordin. Praedic. c, 3. — Constit. Frat. Praedic. ann. 1228, Dist. i. c. 22 ; n. 26, 34 (Archiv fiir Literatuy und Kirchengeschichte, 1886, pp. 209, 222, 225).


THE DOMINICANS. 255

Dominic himself went to Rome, where, under the favor of the pa- pal court, his enthusiasm was rewarded with an abundance of dis- ciples. Those who went to Paris were warmly received, and were granted the house of St. Jacques, where they founded the famous convent of the Jacobins, which endured until the Order was swept away in the Eevolution. The state of mental exaltation in which laymen and ecclesiastics of all ranks hastened to join the new Or- der is shown by the persecutions which the early brethren of St. Jacques endured from Satan. Frightful or sensual visions were constant with them, so that they were obhged by turns to keep watch at night over each other. Many of them were diabohcally possessed and became mad. Their only refuge was the Virgin, and to the gracious assistance which she rendered them in their trials is attributed the Dominican custom of singing "Salve Regina" af- ter compHns, during which pious exercise she was frequently seen hovering over them in a sphere of hght. Men in such a frame of mind were ready to suffer and to inflict all things for the sake of salvation.*

It is not worth while to follow further in detail the marvellous growth of the Order in all the lands of Europe. Already in 1221, when Dominic as General Master held the second General Chap- ter in Bologna, four years after the sixteen disciples had parted in Toulouse, the Order already had sixty convents, and was organized into eight provinces — Spain, Provence, France, England, Germany, Hungary, Lombardy, and Romagnuola. The same year witnessed the death of Dominic, but his work was done and his removal from the scene made no change in the mighty machine which he had built and set in motion. Everywhere the strongest intellects of the age were donning the Dominican scapular, and everywhere they were earning the respect and veneration of the people. Their ser- vices to the papacy were fully recognized, and they are speedily found filling important ofl&ces in the curia. In 1243 the learned Hugh of Yienne became the first Dominican cardinal, and in 1276 the Dominicans rejoiced to see Brother Peter of Tarentaise raised


  • Nic. de Trivetti Chron. ann. 1215, 1217, 1218.— Chron. Magist. Ord.Praedia

c. 2. — Hist. Ordin. Praedic. c, 1, 5. — Bern. Guidon. Tract, de Magist. Ord. Praedic. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 401).— Hist. Convent. Parisians. Frat. Praedic. (Ihi 549-50).


25B THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

to the chair of St. Peter as Innocent Y. Yet the delay in Domi- nic's canonization would seem to show that personally he made less impression on his contemporaries than his followers would have us believe. Dying in 1221, the bull enrolling him in the cal- endar of saints only bears date July 3, 1234. His great colleague, or rival, Francis, who died in 1226, was canonized within two years, in 1228 ; the young Franciscan, Antony of Padua, who died in 1231, was recognized as a saint in 1233 ; and when the great Do- minican martyr, St. Peter Martyr, was slain, April 12, 1252, pro- ceedings for his canonization were commenced August 31 of the same year and were completed by March 25, 1253, less than a twelvemonth after his death. That thirteen years should have elapsed in the case of Dominic shows that his merits were recog- nized but slowly.*

If the Franciscans were in the end closely assimilated to the Dominicans, it was through the overmastering demands of the work to be accomplished by both, for in their origin the Orders were destined to objects as diverse as the characters of their founders. If St. Dominic was the type of the active practical missionary, St. Francis was the ideal of the contemplative ascetic, modified by boundless love and charity for his fellows.

Born in 1182, Giovanni Bernardone was the son of a prosper- ous trader of Assisi, who trained him in his business. Accom- panying his father on a voyage to France, he came back with the accomplishment of speaking French, which gained for him among his companions the nickname of Francesco, a name which he adopted as his own. A dissipated youth was brought to a sud- den close in his twentieth year by a dangerous illness which re- sulted in his conversion, and thereafter he devoted himself to works of mercy and charity, earning for himself with no little verisimilitude the reputation of insanity. In order to restore the dilapidated church of St. Damiani he stole a quantity of his fa-

  • Bern. Guidon. Tract, de Magist. (Martene VI. 403-4). — Ejusd. Hist.'Convent.

Praedic. (lb. 459).— Nic. de Trivetti Chron. ann. 1221, 1243, 1276.— Hist. Ordin. Praedie. c. 7.— Mag. Bull. Roman. I., 73, 74, 77, 94.

An enumeration of the Dominican Order made in 1337, at the request of Bene- dict XII., showed about twelve thousand members. Preger, Vorarbeiten zu einer Geschichte der deutschen Mystik (Zeitschrift fiir die hist. Theol. 1869, p. 12).


ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI. 257

ther's cloths, which he sold at Foligno, together with the horse that carried them. Finding him irrevocably bent on following his own devices, the exasperated parent took him before the bishop to make him renounce all claim on his inheritance, which Francis willingly did, and to render the renunciation more complete stripped off all his clothes, save a hair shirt worn to mortify the flesh, when the bishop, to cover his nakedness, gave him the worn-out cloak of a peasant serving-man.*

Francis was now fairly embarked on a life of wandering beg- gary, which he used to so good an account that he was able to restore four churches which were sinking to ruin. He had no thought other than to work out his own salvation in poverty and acts of loving charity, especially to lepers ; but the fame of his holiness spread, and the Blessed Bernard of Quintavalle asked to be associated with him. The solitary ascetic at first was indis- posed to companionship, but to learn the will of God he thrice opened the Gospels at random, and his finger lit on the three texts on which the great Franciscan order was founded :

" And Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven : and come and fol- low me " (Matt. xix. 21).

" Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him" (Matt. vi. 8).

" Then said Jesus unto his disciples. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me " (Matt. xvi. 24).

The command was obeyed and the recruit accepted. Others joined from time to time, till the little band numbered eight. Then Francis announced that the time had come for them to evangelize the world, and dispersed them in pairs to the four points of the com- pass. On their reuniting, four more volunteers were added, when Francis drew up a Rule for their governance, and the twelve pro- ceeded to Rome, according to the Franciscan legend, at the time of the Lateran Council, to procure the papal confirmation. When Francis presented himself to the pope in the aspect of a beggar the pontiff indignantly ordered him away, but tradition relates that a vision that night induced him to send for the mendicant. There was much hesitation among the papal advisers, but the earnestness


  • BonaventurfE Vit. S. Fran. c. i., c. ii. No. 1-4.

I.-17


258 THE MENDlOANT ORDERB.

and eloquence of Francis won the day, and finally the Rule was approved and the brethren were authorized to preach the Word of God.*

Even yet were they undecided whether to abandon themselves to the contemplative life of anchorites or to undertake the great work of evangelization which lay before them in its immensity. They withdrew to Spoleto and counselled earnestly together with- out being able to reach a conclusion, until a revelation from God, which we can readily beheve as actual to a mind such as that of Francis, turned the scale, and the Franciscan Order, in place of dying out in a few scattered hermitages, became one of the most powerful organizations of Christendom, though the abandoned hovel to which they resorted on their return to Assisi gave little promise of future splendor. The rapidity of the growth of the Order may be measured by the fact that when Francis called to- gether his first General Chapter in 1221, it was attended by breth- ren variously reported as from three thousand to five thousand, in- cluding a cardinal and several bishops ; and when, in the General Chapter of 1260, under Bonaventura, the Order was redistributed to accord with its growth, it was partitioned into thirty-three prov- inces and three vicariates, comprehending in all one hundred and eighty-two guardianships. This organization can be understood by the example of England, which formed a province divided into seven guardianships, containing, as we learn from another source, in 1256, forty-nine houses with twelve hundred and forty-two friars. The Order then extended into every corner of what was regarded as the civilized world and its contiguous regions. f

The Minorites, as in humility they caUed themselves, were so different in their inception from any existing organization of the


  • S. Bonavent. c. ii., in.

This account is doubtless colored by the result and adapted unconsciously to the successive stages of a formal religious organization. At first, however, the brethren were not expected to abandon their ordinary pursuits. They were re- quired to follow their regular handicraft, earning their livelihood, and not living on alms except in case of necessity. See the First Rule, as reconstructed by Prof. Karl Miiller, Die Anfange des Minoritenordeus, Freiburg, i. B., 1885, p. 186.

t Bonavent. Vit. Franc, c. iv. No. 10. — Frat. Jordani Chron. (Analecta Fran- ciscana I. 6. Quaracchi, 1885). — Waddingi Annal. Minorum ann. 1260, No. 14. — Th. de Eccleston de Adventu Minorum CoUat. 2.


THE FRANCISCANS. 259

Church that when, in 1219, St. Francis made the first dispersion and sent his disciples to evangelize Europe, those who went to Germany and Hungary were regarded as heretics, and were roughly handled and expelled. In France they were taken for Cathari, to whose wandering perfected missionaries their auster- ity doubtless gave them close resemblance. They were asked if they were Albigenses, and, not knowing the meaning of the term, knew not what to say, and it was only after the authorities had consulted Honorius III. that they were relieved from suspicion. In Spain five of them endured martyrdom. Innocent had only given a verbal approbation of the Kule ; he was dead, and some- thing more formal was requisite to protect the brethren from per- secution. Francis accordingly drew up a second Kule, more con- cise and less rigid than the first, which he submitted to Honorius. The pope approved it, though not without objecting to some of the clauses ; but Francis refused to modify them, saying that it was not his but Christ's, and that he could not change the words of Christ. From this his followers assumed that the Kule had been divinely revealed to him. This beUef passed into the tradi- tions of the Order, and the Kule has been maintained unaltered in letter, though, as we shall see, its spirit has been more than once explained away by ingenious papal casuists.*

It is simple enough, amounting hardly to more than a gloss on the entrance-oath required of each friar, to live according to the gospel, in obedience, chastity, and without possessing property. The applicant for admission was required to sell all he had and give it to the poor, and if this were impossible the will so to do suificed. Each one was permitted to have two gowns, but they must be vile in texture, and were to be patched and repaired as long as they could be made to hang together. Shoes were al- lowed to those who found it impossible to forego them. All were to go on foot, except in case of sickness or necessity. No one was to receive money, either directly or through a third party, except

  • Frat. Jordani Chron. (Analccta Franciscana I. 3). — S. Francisci CoUoq. ix.

— Liber Conformitatum, Lib. i. Fruct. 9 (Ed. 1513, fol. 77a). — Potthast Re- gesta No. 7108.

The dates and details of the successive Rules drawn up by Francis are involved in considerable obscurity. The subject has been discussed with much acuteness by Karl Miiller, op. cit.


260 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

that the ministers (as the provincial superiors were called) could do so for the care of the sick and for provision of clothing, especially in rigorous cUmates. Labor was strenuously enjoined on all those able to perform it, but wages were not to be in money, but in necessaries for themselves and their brethren. The clause requir- ing absolute poverty caused, as we shall see, a schism in the order, and therefore is worth giving textually : " The brethren shall ap- propriate to themselves nothing, neither house, nor place, nor other thing, but shall Uve in the world as strangers and pilgrims, and shall go confidently after alms. In this they shall feel no shame, since the Lord for our sake made himself poor in the world. It is this perfection of poverty which has made you, dearest brethren, heirs and kings of the kingdom of heaven. Hav- ing this, you should wish to have naught else under heaven." The head of the Order, or General Minister, was chosen by the Provincial Ministers, who could at any time depose him when the general good required it. Faculties for preaching were to be is- sued by the General, but no brother was to preach in any diocese without the assent of the bishop.*

This is all ; and there is nothing in it to give promise of the immense results achieved under it. "What gave it an enduring hold on the affections of the world was the spirit which the founder infused in it and in his brethren. No human creature since Christ has more fully incarnated the ideal of Christianity than Francis. Amid the extravagance, amounting at times almost to insanity, of his asceticism, there shines forth the Christian love and humility with which he devoted himself to the wretched and ' neglected — the outcasts for whom, in that rude time, there were few indeed to care. The Church, absorbed in worldliness, had outgrown the duties on which was founded its control over the souls and hearts of men, and there was need of the exaggeration of self-sacrifice taught by Francis to recall humanity to a sense of its obligations. Thus, of aU the miseries of that age of misery, the hardest lot was that of the leper — the being afflicted by God with a loathsome, incurable, and contagious disease, who was cut off from all intercourse with fellow-men, and who, when he wan- dered abroad for alms from the lazar-house in which he was herd-


B. Francisci Regul. il


THE FRANCISCANS. 261

ed, was obliged, by clattering sticks, to give notice of his approach, that all might shun his pestiferous neighborhood. It was to these, the most helpless and hopeless and abhorred of mankind, that the boundless charity and love of Francis was especially directed. The example which he set in his own person he required to be fol- lowed by his brethren ; and when noble or simple appUed for ad- mission to the Order he was told that prominent among the obh- gations which he assumed was that of humbly serving the lepers in their hospitals. Francis did not hesitate to sleep in the lazar- houses, to handle the dangerous sores of the afflicted, to apply medicaments, and to minister to the sufferings of the body as well as of the soul. For the sake of the leper he relaxed the rule as to receiving alms in money. Yet his humility led him to forbid his disciples from leading in pubUc the " Christian brethren," as he called them. Once, when Friar James had taken with him to church a leper who was shockingly eaten by disease, Francis re- proved him  ; then, reproaching himself for what the sufferer might regard as a slight, he asked Friar Peter of Catania, at that time the minister-general of the Order, to confirm the penance which he had appointed for himself, and when Peter, who looked upon him with too much reverence to deny him anything, had assented, he announced that he would eat out of the same dish as the sick man. At the next simple meal, therefore, the leper was seated among them, and the brethren were terrified to see a single dish set between the two, and the leper dipping his fingers, dripping with blood and purulent discharge, into the food com- mon to both.*

It would perhaps be too much to assert one's faith in the abso- lute veracity of such stories, but that makes little difference. If they be but legendary, the very growth of the legend shows the impression which Francis left on those who followed him; and the value of such an ideal on an age so hard and cruel can scarce be exaggerated. We know as a fact that the Franciscans were ever foremost in the cure of the sick, that they tended the hospitals in the midst of pestilence, and that to their intelligent devotion is due whatever progress the science of heaUng made in the dark ages. We are told, moreover, that the tender love of


  • Lib. Conformitatum Lib. n. Fruct. 5, fol. 1556.


THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

Francis lavished itself on the brute creation as well as on man — on insects, birds, and beasts, whom he was wont to call his breth- ren and sisters, and for whom he was never weary in caring. All the stories related of him and his immediate disciples, in fact, are instinct with infinite love and self-sacrifice, with the perfection of humility and patience and long-suffering, with the control of the passions, and with endless striving to subdue all that renders hu- man nature imperfect, and to realize the standard which Christ had erected for the guidance of man. Viewed in this aspect, even the semi-blasphemy of the " Book of Conformities of Christ and Francis " loses its grotesqueness. We may, indeed, smile at the absurdity of some of its parallels, and they may seem shocking enough when cleverly presented, stripped of all that softens them, in the " Alcoran des Cordeliers." We may doubt the verity of the Stigmata which it took so long and so many miracles, and repetition of papal bulls, to impose upon the increduhty of a hard- hearted generation. We may think that Satan showed less than his usual shrewdness when he so repeatedly wasted his energies in seeking to tempt or to terrify the saint in the crude form of a lion or of a dragon. Yet, in spite of all the absurdities of the cult of St. Francis, we recognize the profound impression which his vir- tues made on his followers in the vision which showed the heav- enly throne of Lucifer, next to the Highest, kept vacant to be filled by Francis.*

To the pride and cruelty of the age he opposed patience and humihty. " The perfection of gladness," he says, " consists not in working miracles, in curing the sick, expelling devils, or raising

  • Bonavent. Vit. Francis, c. 8.— Lib. Conformitatum Lib. i. Fruct. 1, fol. 13a;

Lib. III. Fruct. 3, fol. 210a. — Thomae de Eccleston de Adventu Minorum Collat. xn. — Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Quia longum ann. 1259 — Wadding, ann. 1256, No. 19.— Mag. Bull. Roman. I. 79, 108.— Potthast Regesta No. 10308.— See also Mr. J. S. Brewer's eloquent tribute to the Franciscans in his preface to the Monu- menta Franciscana (M. R. Series).

In 1496 the University of Paris condemned as scandalous and savoring of heresy the attempts of the Franciscans to assimilate their patron to Christ. — (D'Argentrg, Coll. Judic. de nov. Error. L ii. 318.)

When the Dominicans claimed for St. Catharine of Siena the honor of the Stigmata, Sixtus IV., in 1475, issued a bull prohibiting her being represented with them, as they were reserved for St. Francis (Martene Ampliss. Collect. VI. 1386). They had not as yet been vulgarized by La Cadi^re and Louise Lateau,


THE FRANCISCANS. 263

the dead; nor in learning and knowledge of all things; nor in eloquence to convert the world, but in bearing all ills and injuries and injustice and despiteful treatment with patience and humil- ity." So far from valuing himself on his virtues, he humbly con- fesses that he had himself not hved up to the Kule, and apologizes for it through his infirmity and ignorance. To what extravagant lengths his disciples carried this striving for humility is shown by Giacomo Benedettone, better known as Jacopone da Todi, the au- thor of the Stabat Mater, an active and successful lawyer, who, crushed by the death of a lovely wife, entered the Order, and for ten years feigned idiocy in order to revel in the abuse and ill- treatment that were showered upon him.*

Obedience was taught and enforced to the utter renunciation of the will, and many are the stories related to show how com- pletely the earher disciples subjected themselves to each other and to their superiors. When, in 1224, the Franciscans were first sent to England, Gregory, the Provincial Minister of France, asked Friar William of Esseby if he wished to go. WilHam replied that he cUd not know whether he wished it or not, because his will was not his own, but the minister's, and therefore he wished what- ever the minister wished him to wish. Somewhat similar is a story told of two brethren of Salzburg in 1222. This blindness of obedience produced a disciphne in the Order which increased in- calculably its importance to the Church when it grew to be an instrument in the hands of the papacy. St. Francis was espe- cially emphatic in urging upon the brethren the most imphcit devo- tion to Kome, and the Franciscans became an army which played in the thirteenth century the part filled by the Jesuits in the sixteenth.f

It was no part of Francis's design that the friars should live by idle mendicancy, and we have seen that the Rule expresses the obligation to labor. This was obeyed by the stricter members. Thus his third disciple, the blessed Giles, earned his subsistence by the rudest work, such as that of carrying wood, and he always


  • S. Francis, de Perfecta Laetitia; Ejusd. Epistt. xi., xv.— Waddingi Annal.

ann. 1298, No. 24-40.— Cantu, Eretici d'ltalia, I. 128.

t Lib. Conform. Lib. i. Fruct. 8, fol. 47.— Thorn, de Eccleston Collat. i.— Frat. Jordani Chron. c. 27 (Analecta Franciscana I. 10). — S. Francis. Collat. Mona- sticae, Collat. 20.


264 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

adhered to the precept not to take wages m money, but in neces- saries for his support. When he had earned more than enough for the scanty subsistence of the day, he would give away the sur- plus in charity, and trust to God for the morrow. It was well that, in an age of class distinctions so rigid, there should be some to teach practically the dignity of labor as a Christian doctrine. When St. Bonaventura was elevated to the cardinalate, in 1273, he had for seventeen years been the head of what by that time was the most powerful organization in Christendom, yet the mes- sengers sent to announce to him his promotion arrived while he was engaged in his daily task of washing the dishes used in the frugal dinner of his convent. He refused to see them till his work was finished, and meanwhile the hat which they had brought was hung upon the branch of a tree.*

Thus the aim of St. Francis and his followers was to realize the simplicity of Christ and the apostles, and in nothing was this manifested with so much fervor as in their seeking after poverty. They argued that Jesus and his disciples owned nothing, and that the perfect Christian must likewise divest himself of all property. Of food and clothing and shelter he might have the use, as like- wise of books requisite for his religious needs, but property of all kinds was absolutely prohibited, and the Christian's trust in God rendered forethought for the morrow a sin. As a protest against the avarice and worldliness of the Church, this was of exceeding value, but it was pushed to an extravagance which idealized pov- erty as an intrinsic good, and the greatest of all goods. " Breth- ren," said St. Francis, " know that poverty is the special path to salvation, the inciter to humility, and the root of perfection. . . . He who seeks to attain the height of poverty must, in a sense, re- nounce not only worldly prudence, but the knowledge of letters, so that, divesting himself of these possessions, he may offer him- self naked to the arms of the Crucified. . . . Wherefore, hke beg- gars, build little hovels in which to live, not as in your own, but as strangers and pilgrims in the houses of others." His prayer to Christ for poverty is a curiously earnest rhapsody. She is Lady Poverty, the Queen of virtues, for whose sake Christ descended unto earth, to marry her and beget on her aU the children of per-


  • Waddingi Annal ann. 1262, No. 3, 4, 8 ; ann. 1273, No. 12.


THE FRANCISCANS. 265

fection. She clung to him with inseparable fidelity, and in her arms he died upon the cross. She alone possesses the seal with which to mark the elect who choose the way of perfection. " Grant me, O Jesus, that I may never possess under heaven anything of my own, and sustain the flesh sparely by the use of the things of others !" This exaggerated lust of poverty he carried out to the last, and on his death-bed stripped himself naked that he might die possessing absolutely nothing. Poverty thus was the corner- stone on Avhich he founded the Order, and, as we shall see, the effort to maintain this superhuman perfection led to a schism and gave to the Inquisition an ample store of victims whose heresy consisted in fidelity to the precepts of their founder.*

With all this there was too much kindliness in his nature for gloom, and cheerfulness was a virtue which he constantly incul- cated. Sadness he held to be one of the most deadly weapons of Satan, while cheerfulness was the Christian's thankful acknowl- edgment of the blessings bestowed by God upon his creatures. This was consequently a distinguishing characteristic of the Friars in the early days of the Order. In Eccleston's simple and quiet narration of their advent to England, in 1224, when nine of them crossed to Dover without knowing what their fate might be from day to day, there is something singularly beautiful in the picture of their zeal, their trustfulness, their patience, their unfailing cheer- fulness under privation and disappointment, and in their tireless activity in ministering to the spiritual and corporeal wants of the neglected children of the Church. Such men were real apostles, and had the Order continued to foUow the lines laid down by its founder its services to humanity would have been incalculable.f

The Mendicant Orders were a startling innovation upon the monastic theory. In its essence monachisra was the selfish effort of the individual to secure his own salvation by repudiating all the duties and responsibilities of life. It is true that at one time it liad earned the gratitude of the world by leaving its retreats and carrying civilization and Christianity into barbarous regions,


  • S. Francis. CoUat. Monast. Collat. 5. — Ejusd. pro Paupertate obtinenda

Oratio. — Lib. Conform. Lib. iii. Fruct. 4, fol. 215«.

t S. Francis. CoUoq. 27. — Th. de Eccleston de Adventu Minorum Collat. 1, 2.


566 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

under such men <as St. Columba, St. Gall, and St. Willibrod, but that time had long past, and for ages it had sunk into worse than its primitive selfishness. The Mendicants came upon Christendom like a revelation — men w^ho had abandoned all that was enticing in life to imitate the apostles, to convert the sinner and unbeliever, to arouse the slumbering moral sense of mankind, to instruct the ignorant, to offer salvation to all ; in short, to do what the Church was paid so enormously in wealth and privileges and power for neglecting. Wandering on foot over the face of Europe, under burning suns or chilling blasts, rejecting alms in money but re- ceiving thankfully whatever coarse food might be set before the wayfarer, or enduring hunger in silent resignation, taking no thought for the morrow, but busied eternally in the work of snatch- ing souls from Satan, and lifting men up from the sordid cares of daily hfe, of ministering to their infirmities and of bringing to their darkened souls a glimpse of heavenly light — such was the aspect in which the earliest Dominicans and Franciscans present- ed themselves to the eyes of men who had been accustomed to see in the ecclesiastic only the sensual worldling intent solely upon the indulgence of his appetites. It is no wonder that such an ap- parition accomplished much in restoring to the populations the faith in Christianity which had begun to be so sorely shaken, or that it spread through Christendom the hope of an approaching regeneration in the Church which greatly lessened popular impa- tience under its exactions, and doubtless staved off a rebellion which would have altered the aspect of modern civilization.

It is no wonder, moreover, that the love and veneration of the people followed the Mendicants ; that the charita^ble showered their gifts upon them, to the destruction of the primal obligation of poverty ; that the men of earnest convictions pressed forward to join their ranks. The purest and noblest intellects might well see in such a career the realization of their loftiest aspirations ; and whenever in the thirteenth century we find a man towering above his fellows, we are almost sure to trace him to one of the Mendicant Orders. Eaymond of Pennaforte, Alexander Hales, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, Koger Bacon, Duns Scotus, are names which show how irresistibly the men of highest gifts were led to seek among the Dominicans or Fran- ciscans their ideal of Hfe. That they failed to find it goes with-


THE TERTlARIES. 267

out saying, but their presence in the Orders is at once an evidence of the impression which the Mendicants made upon all that was worthiest in the age, and an explanation of the enormous influence which the Orders obtained with such marvellous rapidity. Even Dante cannot refuse to them the tribute of his admiration —

"L'un fu tutto serafico in ardore, L' altro per sapienza in terra fue Di cherubica luce uno splendore."

(Paradiso, XI.)

There was another instrumentality of vast importance, in utiliz- ing which both Francis and Dominic manifested their organizing abihty — the Tertiary Orders through which laymen, without aban- doning the world, were assimilated to the respective brotherhoods, aided in their labors, shared in their glory, and added to their in- fluence, thus stimulating and utilizing the zeal of the community at large. There is a trace of an order of Crucigeri or Cross-bear- ers, laymen organized for the defence of the Church, claiming to date back to the time of Helena, mother of Constantine, and re- vived in 1215 by the Lateran Council, but there is no evidence of its activity or usefulness. Francis, however, who, though un- learned in scholastic theology and untrained in rhetoric, excelled his contemporaries in insight into the gospel and possessed a sim- ple, earnest eloquence which carried the hearts of his hearers, on one occasion produced by his preaching so profound an impres- sion that aU the inhabitants of the town, men, women, and chil- dren, begged admission to his Order. This was manifestly impos- sible, and he bethought him of framing a Eule by which persons of both sexes, while remaining in the world, could be subjected to wholesome discipline and be connected with the fraternity, which in turn promised them its protection. Of the restrictions placed on them perhaps the most significant was that they should carry no weapons of offence except for the defence of the Roman Church, the Christian faith, and their own lands. The project and the Rule were approved by the pope in 1221, and the official name of the organization was " The Brothers and Sisters of Penitence," though it became popularly known as the Tertiary Order of Mi- norites, or Franciscans. Under the more aggressive name of " Mihtia Jesu Christi," or Soldiery of Christ, Dominic founded a


268 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

similar association of laymen connected with his Order. The idea proved a most fruitful one. It reorganized to some degree the Church by removing a portion of the barrier which separated the layman from the ecclesiastic. It brought immense support to the Mendicant Orders by enlisting with them multitudes of the earn- est and zealous, as well as those w^ho from less worthy motives sought to share their protection and enjoy the benefit of their influence. T3^pes of both classes may be found in the royal house of France, for both St. Louis and Catherine de Medicis were Ter- tiaries of St. Francis.*

To comprehend fully the magnitude and influence of these movements we must bear in mind the impressionable character of the populations and their readiness to yield to contagious emo- tion. When we are told that the Franciscan Berthold of Ratis- bon frequently preached to crowds of sixty thousand souls we reaUze what power was lodged in the hands of those who could reach masses so easily swayed and so full of blind yearnings to escape from the ignoble life to which they were condemned. How the slumbering souls were awakened is shown by the successive waves of excitement which swept over one portion of Europe after another about the middle of the century. The dumb, untutored minds began to ask ^vhether an existence of hopeless and brutal misery was all that w^as to be reaUzed from the promises of the gospel. The Church had made no real effort at internal reform ; it w^as still grasping, covetous, licentious, and a strange desire for something — they knew not exactly what — began to take posses- sion of men's hearts and spread like an epidemic from village to village and from land to land. In Germany and France there is another Crusade of the Children, earning from Gregory IX. the declaration that they gave a fitting rebuke to their elders, who were basely abandoning the birth-place of humanity.f

But the most formidable and significant manifestation of this universal restlessness and gregarious enthusiasm is seen in the up- rising of the peasantry — the first of the wandering bands known

  • Philip. Bergomat. Supplem. Chronic. Lib. xiii. ann. 1215. — Bonavent. Vit.

S. Fran. c. iv. No. 5 ; c. xi. — Regula Fratrum Sororumque de Poenitentia. — Pott- hast Regest. No. 6736, 7503, 13073.— Chron. Magist. Ordin. Praedicat. c. 2, 9.— Raynald. Annal. ann. 1233, No.40.— Nicolai PP. IV. Bull. Supra montem, ann. 1289.

t Chron. Augustens. ann. 1250. — Matt. Paris, ann. 1252.


THE PASTOUREAUX. 269

as Pastoureaux. The helpless and hopeless state of the lower classes of society in those dreary ages has probably never been exceeded in any period of the world's history. The terrible maxim of the feudal law, that the villein's only appeal from his lord was to God — " Mes par notre usage n'a-il entre toi et ton vilein juge fors Deu " — condenses in a word the abject defencelessness of the major part of the population, and human degradation has never, perhaps, been more forcibly expressed than in the infamous jus prirnce noctis or " droit de marquette." The bitter humor of the trouvere Kuteboeuf describes how Satan considered the soul of the villein too despicable to be received in hell ; there was no place for it in heaven, so that, after a life of misery on earth, it had no refuge in the hereafter. It is noteworthy in many ways that the Church, which should have been the mediator between the villein and his lord, and which, in teaching the common brotherhood of man, should have earned the gratitude of the miserable serf, was always the special object of aversion and attack in the brief satur- nalia of the self -enfranchised wretches.*

Suddenly, about Easter, 1251, there appeared a mysterious preacher, known as the Hungarian, advanced in years, and clothed with the attributes which most excite popular awe and veneration. In his clenched hand, which never was opened, he carried a paper given to him by the Virgin Mary herself, which was his mandate and commission. Yet men said that he had from his youth been an apostate from Christ to Mahomet, that he had drunk deeply of the poisonous wells of magic flowing at Toledo, and that he had received from Satan the mission of carrying the unarmed popula- tions of Europe to the East, so that the Soldan of Babylon should find Christendom an easy prey. Kemembering the Crusade of the Children, people leaped to the conclusion that it was he who had devastated so many houses with his magic arts, leading forth the tender youth to perish of starvation and exposure. Tall and pale, gifted with eloquence to win the hearts of the multitude, speaking like- a native in French and German and Latin, he set forth, preach- ing from town to town the supineness of the rich and powerful

  • Pierre de Fontaines, Conseil, eh. xxi. art. 8.— Le Grand d'Aussy, Fabliaux,

II. 112-3. — The existence of the " droit de marquette" has been questioned, but without reasonable ground. Tlie authorities may be found in the author's "Sacerdotal Celibacy;' 2d Ed. p. 354.


2T0 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

wlio allowed the Holy Land to remain in the grasp of the Infidel and the good King Louis to languish in his Egyptian dungeon. God had tired of the selfishness and ambition of the nobles, and he called the poor and humble, without arms and captains, to res- cue the Holy Places and the Good King. All this found ready re- sponse, but even greater applause followed his attacks upon the clergy. The Mendicant Orders were vagrants and hypocrites ; the Cistercians ^vere greedy of money and lands ; the Benedictines proud and gluttonous ; the canons wholly given to secular aims and the lusts of the flesh; the bishops and their ofiicials were money-seekers, who shrank from no trickery to accomplish their aims. As for Kome, no terms of objurgation were too strong for the papal court. The people, whose hate and contempt for the clergy were unbounded, listened to this rhetoric with delight, and eagerly joined a movement which promised a reform in some un- seen way. Shepherds left their sheep, husbandmen their ploughs, deaf to the commands of their lords, and followed him unarmed, taking no thought of the morrow, nor asking how they were to be fed.

There were not lacking those high in station who, carried away with the general enthusiasm, imagined that God was about to work miracles with the poor and helpless after the great ones of the earth had failed. Even Queen Blanche, eager for any means that promised to liberate her son, looked upon the movement for a while with favor, and lent it her countenance. It swelled and grew till the wandering multitudes amounted to more than a hundred thou- sand men, bearing fifty banners as an emblem of victory. It was impossible, of course, to confine such an uprising to the peaceful and humble. No sooner did it assume proportions promising im- munity than it inevitably drew to itself aU the disorderly elements inseparable from the society of the time — the " ruptarii " and " ri- baldi," whom we have seen figure so largely in the Albigensian troubles. These flocked to it from all sides, bringing knife and dagger, sword and axe, and giving to the immense procession a still more menacing aspect. That outrages were committed we can well believe, for the wrongs of class against class were too fla- grant to remain unavenged when opportunity offered for reprisals.

On June 11, 1251, they entered Orleans, against the com- mands of the bishop, but welcomed by the people, though the


THE PASTOUREAUX. 271

richer citizens prudently locked their doors. All might have passed peaceably there as elsewhere but for a hot-headed student of the flourishing university of the city, who interrupted the preach- ing of the Hungarian to denounce him as a Uar, and was promptly brained by a zealous follower. A tumult followed, in which the Pastoureaux made short work of the Orleans clergy, breaking into their houses, burning their books, and slaying many, or tossing them into the Loire ; and, what is most significant, the people are described as looking on approvingly. The bishop, and all who could hide themselves from the fury of the mob, escaped during the night, and valiantly laid the city under interdict for the guilty complicity of the citizens.

On hearing this the Kegent Blanche said, " God knows I thought they would recover the Holy Land in simplicity and holiness. But since they are deceivers, let them be excommunicated and de- stroyed." Accordingly they were excommunicated, but before the anathema could be published they had reached Bourges, where, in a tumult, the Hungarian was slain, and they broke up into bands. The authorities, recovering from their stupor, pursued the luckless wretches everywhere, who were slain Hke mad dogs. Some emissaries who penetrated to England, and succeeded in rais- ing a revolt of some five hundred peasants, met the same fate ; and it was reported that the second in command under the Hun- garian was captured in a vessel on the Garonne, while endeavor- ing to escape, and on his person were found magic powders and strange letters in Arabic and Chaldee characters from the Soldan of Babylon promising his co-operation.

The quasi-religious nature of the uprising is shown in the func- tions exercised by the leaders, who acted the part of bishops, bless- ing the people, sprinkling holy water, and even celebrating mar- riages. The favor which the people everywhere showed them was attributed principally to their spoiling, beating, and slaying the clergy, thus indicating the deep-seated popular antagonism to the Church, and justifying the declaration made by prelates high in station that so great a danger had never threatened Christendom since the time of Maiiomet.*


  • Matt. Paris ann. 1251 (pp. 550-2).— Guillcl. Nangiac. ann. 1251. — Amalrici

Augerii Vit. Pontif. ann. 1251.— Bern. Guidon. Flor. Chronic. (Bouquet, XXI. 697).


272 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

Even more remarkable, as a manifestation of popular emotion, was the first apparition of the Flagellants. Suddenly, in 1259, in Perugia, no one knew why, the population was seized with a, fury of devotional penitence, without incitement by friar or priest. The contagion spread, and soon the whole of upper Italy was filled with tens of thousands of penitents. Nobles and peasants, old and young, even to children five years of age, walked solemnly in procession, two by two, naked except a loin-cloth, weeping and praying God for mercy, and scourging themselves with leather thongs to the dramng of blood. The women decently inflicted the penance on themselves in their chambers, but the men marched through the cities by day and night, in the sharpest winter, preceded by priests with crosses and banners, to the churches, where they prostrated themselves before the altars. A contemporary tells us that the fields and mountains echoed with the voices of the sinners calling to God, while music and love-songs were heard no more. A gen- eral fever of repentance and amendment seized the people. Usu- rers and robbers restored their ill-gotten gain ; criminals confessed their sins and renounced their vices ; the prison doors were thrown open, and the captives walked forth ; homicides offered themselves on their knees, with drawn swords, to the kindred of their victims, and were embraced with tears ; old enmities were forgiven, and exiles were permitted to return to their homes. Everywhere was seen the operation of divine grace, and men seemed to be consumed Avith heavenly fire. The movement even spread to the Ehinelands and throughout Germany and Bohemia ; but whatever hopes were aroused of the regeneration of man vanished wdth the subsidence of the excitement, which disappeared as rapidly as it came, and was even denounced as a heresy. Uberto Pallavicino took effect- ual means of keeping the Flagellants out of his city of Milan ; for when he heard of their approach he erected three hundred gibbets by the roadside, at sight of which they abruptly retraced their steps.*

A similar extraordinary movement took place in 1309 (Chron. Corn. Zanfliet ann. 1309), and another, on a larger scale, in 1320 (Guill. Nangiac. Contin.ann. 1320.— Grandes Chroniques V. 245-6.— Amal. Auger. Vit. Pontif. ann. 1320).

  • Monach. Paduan. Lib. iii. ann. 1260.— Chron. F. Francisci Pipini ann. 1260.

— Gesta Treviror. Archiep. c. 268.-^Closener's Chronik (Chron. der deutschen Stadte, Vin. 73, 104).— Lami, Antichita Toscane, p. 617.— Verri, Storia di Milano, I. 264.


THEIR INDEPENDENCE. 273

It was in a population subject to such tempests of emotion, and groping thus blindly for something higher and better than the hopeless degradation around them, that the Mendicant Orders came to gather to themselves the potential religious exaltation of the time. That they should develop with unexampled rapidity was inevitable.

Everything favored them. The papal court early recognized in them an instrument more efficient than had yet been devised to bring the power of the Holy See to bear directly upon the Church and the people in every corner of Christendom ; to break down the independeiice of the local prelates ; to combat the temporal enemies of the papacy, and to lead the people into direct relations with the successor of St. Peter. Privileges and exemptions of all kinds were showered upon them, until, by a series of bulls issued, between 1240 and 1244, by Gregory IX. and Innocent IV., they were rendered completely independent of the regular ecclesiastical organization. A time-honored rule of the Church required that any excommunication or anathema could only be removed by him "vvho had pronounced it, but this was revolutionized in their favor. Xot only were the bishops required to give absolution to any Do- minican or Franciscan who should apply for it, except in cases of such enormity that the Holy See alone could act, but the Mendi- cant priors and ministers were authorized to absolve their friars from any censures inflicted on them. These extraordinary meas- ures removed them entirely from the regular jurisdiction of the establishment ; the members of each Order became responsible only to their own superiors, and in their all-pervading activity throughout Europe they could secretly undermine the power and influence of the local hierarchy, and replace it with that of Rome, which they so directly represented. This independent position, however, had only been reached by degrees. Papal briefs of 1229 and 1234, enjoining them to show proper respect and obedience to the bishops, and empowering the bishops to condemn any friars who abuse their privileges of preaching for purposes of gain, show that complaints of their aggressions had commenced thus early, and that Rome was not yet prepared to render them independent of the hierarchy ; but when the policy had once been adopted it was carried to its fullest development, and the cycle of legislation was completed by Boniface VIII., in 1295 and 1296, by a series of L— 18


274 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

bulls in which, folloAving his predecessors, the Mendicants were formally released from all episcopal jurisdiction, and the statutes of the Orders were declared to be the only laws by which they were to be judged, all provisions of the canon law to the con- trary notwithstanding. At the same time, by a new issue of the bull Virtute cmispicuos, commonly known as the Mare Magnum^ he codified and confirmed all the privileges conferred by his pred- ecessors.*

The Holy See was thus provided with a militia, recruited and sustained at the expense of the faithful, panoplied in invulnerabil- ity, and devoted to its exclusive service. In order that its useful- ness might suffer no limitation, in 1241 Gregory IX. granted to the friars the privilege of freely living in the lands of excommuni- cates, and of asking and receiving assistance and food from them. They could, therefore, penetrate everywhere, and serve as secret emissaries in the dominions of those hostile to Eome. Human ingenuity could have devised no more efficient army, for, not only were they full of zeal and inspired with profound convictions, but the reputation for superior sanctity which they everywhere ac-


  • Potthast Regest. No. 8334, 8326, 9775, 10905, 11169, 11296, 11319, 11399,

11415.— RipoU. I. 99.— Matt. Paris ann. 1234 (pp. 274-6).— Wadding. Annal. ann. 1295, No. 18.— Mag. Bull. Roman. I. 174.— Ripoll II. 40.

The exemption of the Mendicants from all local jurisdiction save that of their own Orders was a source of almost inconceivable trouble in every portion of Christendom. When, for instance, in 1435, the legates of the Council of Basle were on their way to Briinn to settle the terms of pacification with the Hussites, they were called upon in Vienna to silence a Franciscan whose abusive sermons created disorder, and it was with much trouble that they forced him to admit that, as representing a general council, they had authority to discipline him. On their arrival at Briinn they found the public agitated over a dreadful scan- dal, the Dominican provincial having seduced a nun of his own order. The woman had borne a child to him, and no steps had been taken against him. The ordinary judicial machinery of the Church was utterly powerless to deal with him, and the precautions which the legates deemed it prudent to take be- fore they ventured to commence proceedings show how arduous and daagerous they felt the task to be, though when they got to work they sentenced him to deposition and imprisonment for life on bread and water. — ^gidii Carlerii Liber de Legationibus (Monument. Concil. General. Ssec. XV. T. I. pp. 544-8, 553, 555, 557, 563-6, 572, 577, 587, 590, 595). This, however, seems to have been a mere Irutum fuhnen^ as there is no allusion to any attempt to execute the sentence.


AS POLITICAL AGENTS. 275

quired secured for them popular sympathy and support, and gave them an enormous advantage in any contest with local churches.* Their efficiency, when directed against temporal opponents, was thoroughly tried in the long and mortal struggle of the pa- pacy with Frederic II., the most powerful and dangerous enemy whom Eome has ever had. As early as the year 1229 we hear of the banishment of all the Franciscans from the kingdom of Na- ples, as papal emissaries seeking to withdraw from the emperor the allegiance of his subjects. In 1234 we find them raising money in England to enable the pope to carry on the struggle, and using every device of persuasion and menace with a success which real- ized immense sums and reduced numbers to beggary. When, in the solemnities of Easter, 1239, Gregory fulminated an excommu- nication against the emperor, it was to the Franciscan priors that he communicated it, with a full recital of the imperial misdeeds, and ordered them to publish it with ringing of bells on every Sun- day and feast-day. It was the most effective method that could be devised to create public opinion against his adversary, and Fred- eric retorted with another edict of expulsion. When Frederic was deposed by the Council of Lyons, in 1244, it was the Dominicans who were selected to announce the sentence in all accessible public places, with an indulgence of forty days for all who would gather to listen to them, and plenary remission of sins to the friars who might suffer persecution in consequence. Soon afterwards we find them playing the part, which the Jesuits filled in Jacobean Eng- land, of secret emissaries engaged in hidden plots and fomenting disturbances. Frederic always declared that the conspiracy against his life in 1244 was the work of Franciscans who had been com- missioned to preach a secret crusade against him in his own do- minions, and who encouraged his enemies with prophecies of his speedy death. When, as the result of papal intrigues, Henry Kaspe of Thuringia was elected, in 1246, as King of the Komans,

  • Potthast No. 11040, 11041. — The usefulness of the Mendicants in aiding the

papacy to unlimited domination is seen in the condemnation, by the University of Paris, in 1429, of the Franciscan Jean Sarrasin for publicly teachini^ that the whole jurisdiction of the Church is derived from the pope. He was forced to admit that it was bestowed by God on the several classes of the hierarchy, and tJiat the authority of councils rested, not on the pope, but on the Holy Ghost and the Church (D'Argentr6, Coll. Judic. de nov. Error. I. ii. 227).


276 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

to supersede Frederic, Innocent lY. sent a circular brief of instruc- tions to the Franciscans to use every opportunity, public or secret, to advocate his cause, and to promise remission of sins to those who should aid him. Again, in 12-18, we find friars of both orders sent as secret emissaries to stir up disaffection in Frederic's territories, lie comj)lained bitterly of it, as he had always cherished and pro- tected the Mendicants, and he met the attempt with savage feroc- ity. The Dominican Simon de Montesarculo, who was caught, was subjected to eighteen successive tortures ; and Frederic instruct- ed his son-in-law, the Count of Caserta, that all friars showing signs of disaffection, or contravening the strict regulations which he prescribes, shall not be exiled as heretofore, but shall be prompt- ly burned. The shrewd and experienced prince evidently recog- nized them as the most dangerous enemies to whom he was ex- posed. They continued to earn his hostility by the zeal with which they preached the crusade against him, and, after his death, against his son Conrad ; and we can regard as not improbable the statement that Ezzelin da Komano, his vicar in the March of Tre- viso, put to death no less than sixty Franciscans during his thirty years of power.*

The Mendicants gradually superseded the bishops, when papal commands were to be communicated to the people or papal man- dates enforced. Even when fugitives were to be tracked, they formed an invisible network of police, spread over Europe and available in a thousand ways. Formerly, when a complaint reached Rome of an abuse to be rectified or of a prelate whose conduct required investigation or trial, a commission would be issued to two or three neighboring bishops or abbots to make an examination and report, or to reform churches and monasteries neglectful of discipline. Gradually this changed, and the Mendi- cants alone were charged with these duties, which made the papal power felt so directly in every episcopal palace and every abbey in Europe. They complained repeatedly of the amount of this extra work thrown upon them, and they were promised relief, but


  • Richard, de S. Germano Chron. ann. 1229, 1239, — Potthast Regesta No.

10725, 13360.— Ripoll I. 158, 172.— Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. T. VI. pp. 405, 699- 701, 710-11. Wadding! Aunal. ann. 1246, No. 4  ; ann. 1253, No. 35-6.— Martene Ampliss. Coll. II. 1192. — Barbarano de' Mironi, Hist. Eccles. di Vicenza, II. 73.


AS PAPAL COMMISSIONERS. 277

they were too useful to be dispensed with in thus subjecting the Church to the Apostolic See. How disagreeable and even danger- ous these duties might be is visible in a case which shows how little the condition of the Church in the middle of the thirteenth century had changed from what we had seen it in the previous age. The great electoral archiepiscopate of Treves, in 1259, was claimed by two rivals who Utigated with each other for two years in Kome, to the great profit of the curia, till Alexander TV. set them both aside. The Dean of Metz, Henry of Fistigen, went on some pretext to Rome, where, by promising to pay the enormous debts left behind by the two litigants, he obtained the appointment from Alexander. On his return the pallium was withheld as se- curity for the debts which he had incurred, but without waiting for it he assumed archiepiscopal functions, consecrated his suf- fragan Bishop of Metz, and commenced a series of military enter- prises, in the course of which he devastated the Abbey of St. Mat- thias and nearly burned to death the unhappy monks. These mis- deeds, and his neglect to pay his debts, led Urban lY., in 1261, to commission the Bishops of Worms and Spires and the Abbot of Eodenkirk to investigate the charges against him of simony, per- jury, homicide, sacrilege, and other sins, but the archbishop bribed them, and they did nothing. Then, in 1262, Urban sent another commission to William and Eoric, two Franciscans of the province of Treves, ordering them to investigate and report under pain of excommunication. This frightened all the Mendicants of the province. The Franciscan guardian and the Dominican prior, more worldly-wise than righteous, forbade them under pain of dungeon from exercising the functions imposed on them, and the two un- lucky commissioners were glad to escape with their lives by flying from Treves to Metz. The Franciscan provincial had the effron- tery to send envoys to Rome asking that the investigation be post- poned or committed to others. They were heard in full consistory, in presence of Urban himself and of Bonaventura, the general of the Order, when Urban bitterly retorted, " If I had sent bishoprics to two of your brethren they would have been accepted with avidity. You shall not refuse to do what is necessary for the honor of God and the Church." It is not worth while to pursue the intricate details of the dreary quarrel, which lasted until 1272 and presented in its successive phases every variety of fraud,


278 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

forgery, i-obbory, and outrage. It is sufficient to say that when William and Roric were forced to work, they seem to have per- formed their duty with independence and fidelity, and that the Roman curia, in the course of the proceedings, managed to extort from the unfortunate diocese the enormous sum of thirty-three thousand sterling marks — in spite of which Archbishop Henry at- tended the coronation of Rodolph of Hapsburg, in 1273, with a splendid retinue of eighteen hundred armed men.*

It is easy to imagine that such functions as these produced an- tagonism between the new orders and the old organization which they were undermining and supplanting. Yet this was, perhaps, the least of the causes of bitterness between them. A far more fruitful source of discord was the intrusion of the Mendicants in the office of preaching and hearing confessions. We have seen how jealously the former had always been reserved by the bishops and how utterly it had been neglected until the primary object of St. Dominic had been to supply the deficiency, which Honorius III. lamented as one of the pressing wants of the age. The Church was scarce better prepared to discharge the duty of the confessional, which the Lateran Council had rendered obligatory and had con- fined to the priesthood. Lazy and sensual priests, intent only on maintaining their revenues, neglected the souls of their flocks and permitted no intrusion which might diminish their gains. In the populous town of Montpellier there was only one church in which the sacrament of penitence could be administered, and the consuls, in 1213, petitioned Innocent III., in view of the multitude of perish- ing souls, to empower four or five of the other churches of the town to divide the duty. As late as 1247, Ypres, with two hundred thou- sand inhabitants, had but four parish churches. If the Church MiHtant was to perform its duty, and if it was to regain the ven- eration of the people, these deficiencies must be supplied. f

The first efforts of Dominic had been based on the power


  • Potthast Regesta No. 7380, 8027, 8028, 10343, 10363, 10364, 10365, 10804,

10807, 10906, 10956, 10964, 11008, 11159.— Martene Thesaur. V. 1812.— Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. T. III. p. 416.— Gest. Arcliiep. Trevirens. c. 190-271.

t Martene Ampliss. Collect. I. 1146-9.— Innoc. PP. III. Regest. xv. 240.— Beiger, Registres d'Innocent IV. No. 2712.


ANTAGONISM WITH THE CLERGY. 279

granted to the legates of Languedoc to issue licenses for preach- ing, and these were, of course, at the time independent of episcopal permission, but in the Kule of 1228 it was especially provided that no friar should preach in a diocese without first obtaining permis- sion of the bishop, and in no case was he to declaim against the vices of the secular priesthood. Francis professed the humblest reverence for the established clergy ; he declared that if he were to meet simultaneously a priest and an angel, he would first turn to kiss the hands of the priest, saying to the angel, " Wait, for these hands handle the Word of Life and possess something more than human;", and in his Rule it was also provided that no friar should preach in any diocese against the will of the bishop. The bishops were not particularly disposed to welcome the intruders, and Honorius III. condescended to entreaty in asking them to per- mit the Dominicans to preach, while he also took steps to provide preachers from among the secular clergy by stimulating their study of theology. The intrusion of the Mendicants on the functions of the parish priests was gradual, and was commenced with the priv- ilege granted them of celebrating mass everywhere on portable altars. Some resistance was made to this, but it was broken down ; and when Gregory IX., in 1227, signalized his accession by em- powering both Orders to preach, hear confessions, and grant abso- lution everywhere, the wandering friars, in spite of the prohibitions of the Rules, gradually invaded every parish and performed all the duties of the cure of souls, to the immense discomfort of the local priesthood, who had always guarded with extreme jealousy the rights which were the main source of their influence and revenue. Complaints were loud and reiterated, and were sometimes hstened to, but were more frequently answered by an emphatic confirma- tion of the innovation.*


  • Constit. Frat. Prgedic. ann. 1228, Dist. ii. cap. 32, 33 (Archiv. fiir Litt. und

Kirch engeschichte, 1886, p. 224).— Innoc. PP. III. Regest. ix. 185.— S. Francis. Orac. XXII. — Ejusd. Regul. Sec. c. 9. — Stephan. de Borbone (D'Argentrg, Collect. Judic. de nov. Error. I. i. 90-1). — Bern. Guidon. (Martene Ampl. Collect. VI. 530).— Potthast Regest. No. G508, 6542, 6654, 6660, 7325, 7467, 7468, 7480, 7890, 1031G, 10332, 10386, 10629, 10630, 10657, 10990, 10999, 11006, 11299, 15355, 16926, 16933.— Martene Thesaur. I. 954.— Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1227 c. 19.— Baluz. Concil. Gall. Narbon. App. pp. 156-9.

There were not many prelates like Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln, who wrote


280 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

The matter was made worse by the fact that everywhere the hiity welcomed the intruders and preferred them to their own curates. Tlie fervor of their preaching and their reputation for superior sanctity brought crowds to the sermon and the confes- sional. Training and experience rendered them far more skilful directors of conscience than the indolent incumbents, and there arose a natural popular feeling that the penance which they im- posed was more holy and their absolution more efficacious. If the beneficed clergy complained that this was because they soothed and indulged their penitents, they were able to retort with justice that the laymen preferred them for themselves and their wives rather than the drunken and unchaste priests who filled most of the parishes. A friar would come and set up his portable altar, as he said, for a day. His preaching was attractive ; penitents aroused to a sense of their sins would hasten to confess ; his stay was pro- longed and he became a fixture. If the place was populous, he would be joined by others. The gifts of the charitable would flow in. A modest chapel and cloisters would be provided, which grew till it overshadowed the parish church and was filled at its expense. Worse than all, the dying sinner would assume the robe of the Mendicant on his death-bed, bequeath his body to the friars, and make them the recipient of his legacies, leading to a prolonged and embittered renewal of the old ghoul-like quarrels over corpses. In 1247, at Pamplona, some bodies long lay unburied owing to a fierce contention between the canons and the Franciscans ; and a division of the spoils, by which a share varying from a half to a quarter, was allotted to the parish priests, only gave rise to new disputes. Whenever an open conflict arose, however much the pope might deprecate scandal, the decision would be almost certainly in favor of the friars, and the clergy saw with dismay and hatred that the upstarts were supplanting them in aU their functions, in the ven- eration of the people, and in the profitable results of that venera- tion. When, in 1268, a popular uprising against tyranny occurred in Holland and Guelderland, and, encouraged by success, the rebels formulated a policy for the reformation of society, they proposed


to both Jordan and Elias, the generals of the two Orders, to let him have friars, as his diocese was large and he required help in the duties of preaching and hearing confessions. — Fascic. Rer. Expetend. et Fugiend. II. 334-5. (Ed. 1690).


STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY. 281

to slay all nobles and prelates and monks, but to spare the Men- dicants and such few parish priests as might be necessary to ad- minister the sacraments. Some feeble efforts were made by the clergy to emulate the services and activity of the new-comers, but the sloth and self-indulgence of ages could not be overcome. It was inevitable that the strongest antagonism between the old order and the new should spring up, heightened by the duty which the friars felt of denouncing publicly the vices and corruption of the clergy. Already in the previous century the secular priesthood had complained bitterly of the impulse given to monachism by the founding and development of the Cistercians. They had even dared to make vigorous representations to the third Council of Lateran, in 1179, alleging that they were threatened with pauperization. Here was a new and vastly more dangerous inroad, and it w^as im- possible that they should submit without an effort of self-preser- vation. There must be a struggle for supremacy between the local churches on the one hand and the papacy with its new militia on the other, and the conservatives manifested skiU in their selection of the field of battle.*

The University of Paris was the centre of scholastic theology. CosmopoUtan in its character, a long line of great teachers had lectured to immense masses of students from every land, until its reputation was European and it was looked upon as the bulwark of orthodoxy. In every episcopate it could count its graduates


  • Brev. Hist. Ord. Praedic. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 357). — Extrav. Commun.

Lib. III. Tit. vi. c. 8. — Concil. Nimociens. ann. 1298, c. 17. — Constit. Joann. Arcbiep. Nicos. ann. 1321, c. 10. — C. Avenionens. ann. 1326, c. 27; ann. 1337, c. 32.— C. Vaurens. ann. 1368, c. 63, 64.— Epistt. Saeculi XIII. T. I. No. 437 (Monu- ment. Germ. Hist.). — Berger, Les Registres d'Innoc. IV. No. 1875-8, 3252-5, 3413.— Ripoll I. 25, 132-33, 153-4; II. 61, 173; VII. 18.— Matt. Paris ann. 1234, p. 276; ann. 1235, pp. 286-7; ann. 1255, p. 616.— Potthast Regesta No. 8786a, 8787-9, 10052.— Trithem. Annal. Hirsaug. ann. 1268.— Cone. Biterrens. ann. 1233, c. 9.— C. Arelatens. ann. 1234, c. 2.— C. Albiens. ann. 1254, c. 17, 18.— S. Bona- venturae Libell. Apologet. Quaest. 1. — Abbat. Joachimi ConcordiaB v. 49.

The details of tlie disgusting quarrels over the dying and dead are impres- sively set forth in a composition attempted by Boniface VIII., in 1303, between the clergy of Rome and the Mendicants (Ripoll II. 70). The constant litigation on the subject was one of the chief grievances of the spiritual section of the Fran- ciscans (Hist. Tribulationum, ap. Archiv fiir Litteratur- u. Kirchengeschichte, 1886, p. 297).


282 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

and the holders of its degrees, who looked back upon it with filial affection as to their alma mater. It had welcomed Dominic's first missionaries when they came to Paris to found a house of the Order, and it had admitted Dominicans to its corps of teachers. Suddenly there arose a quarrel, the insignificance of its cause showing the tension which existed and the eagerness of all classes of the clergy to repress the growing influence of the Mendicants. The Univer- sity had always been jealous of its privileges, among which not the least was the jurisdiction which it enjoyed over its students. One of these was slain and several were wounded by the Paris watch in a disturbance, and the reparation tendered for the offence was deemed insuflBlcient. The University closed its doors, but the Dominican teachers, Bonushomo and Elias, continued their lectures. To punish this contumacy they were ordered to be silent, and stu- dents were forbidden to listen to them. They appealed to the pope, but their appeal was disregarded ; and when the University resumed its functions, they were required to take an oath to ob- serve its statutes, provided there was nothing therein to conflict with the Kule of the Order. This they refused unless they were allowed two teachers of theology, and after a delay of a fortnight they were expelled. The provincials of both Orders at Paris took up the quarrel and appealed to Eome, and Innocent lY. demanded the repeal of the obnoxious rules.*

The gage of battle was thrown and the university was resolved on no haK-measures. It would reduce the Mendicants to the con- dition of the other religious orders and earn the gratitude of all the prelates and clergy by stripping them of the privileges which rendered them so dangerous. For this purpose it was necessary to win the favor of Kome, and the students enthusiastically assessed themselves, economizing in their expenses that they might con- tribute to the fund which was necessary if anything was to be done with the curia. The leader of the faculty in the quarrel was WiUiam of St. Amour, noted both as a preacher and a teacher,

  • Alex. PP. Bull, Quasi lignum mtce. — Waddingi Annal. ann. 1255, Ifo. 2. —

Dupin, Bib. des Auteurs ^&ccles. T. X. ch. vii.

For the exemption of students from secular jurisdiction see Berger, Registres d'Innocent IV. No. 1515. — Molinier (Guillem Bernard de Gaillac, Paris, 1884, pp. 26 sqq.) gives a good account of the educational organization of the Dominicans at this period.


QUARREL WITH THE UNIVERSITY. 283

learned, eloquent, and inflexible of purpose. lie was sent to the Holy See, where he found Innocent I Y. in a frame of mind adapted to listen to his arguments that the Mendicant Rules were fitted only to lead souls to perdition. The pope had been the friend of the Orders, and had confirmed and enlarged their privileges, but just now was out of humor. The Dominicans asserted that this arose from their having secretly received into the Order one of his cousins whom he loved greatly and intended to advance in the world ; and also from the malevolence of another cousin, who pro- posed to build at Genoa a fortress-palace to dominate the city, and had been prevented by the Dominicans refusing to sell a piece of ground essential to his purpose. Innocent's mind must indeed have been receptive of William of St. Amour's arguments. In July and August, 1254, he had issued repeated briefs in favor of the Men- dicants and against the University. On ]^ovember 21 he promul- gated the bull Etsi Animarum, known among the Mendicants as the " terrible " bull, by which the members of all religious orders were forbidden to receive in their churches on Sundays and feast- days the parishioners of others ; they were not to hear confessions without the special license of the parish priests, they were not to preach in their own churches before mass, so that parishioners should not be drawn away from their parish churches, nor were they to preach in the parish churches, nor when bishops preached or caused preaching to be done.*

The bull was in reality a terrible one, for it shattered at a blow the edifice erected with such infinite labor and self-sacrifice. To meet it, the Dominicans not only summoned their greatest and wisest members, but appealed to Heaven. Every friar was ordered daily after matins to recite seven psalms and the litanies of the Virgin and St. Dominic. A brother, during this exercise, was en- couraged with a vision of the Virgin pleading with the Son and saying " Listen to them, my Son, listen to them !" He did listen


  • Waddingi Annal. ann. 1254, No. 4, 5 ; aim. 1255, No. 3. — Brev. Hist. Ord.

Praed. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 356-7).— Potthast Regesta No. 15562.— Matt. Paris, ann. 1253, p. 590.

William of St. Amour was a pluralist. Not satisfied with a canonry of Beau- vais and a church with a cure of souls, we find him, in 1247, obtaining of Innocent IV. a dispensation to hold another cure. — Berger, Les Registres d'Innoc. IV. No. 3188.


284 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

to them, for though we may doubt the Dominican story that In- nocent was stricken with paralysis the very day that he signed the " cncdelissimiim edictum^^ he certainly did die on December 7, within sixteen days after it, and a pious Roman had a vision of his soul handed over to the two wrathful saints, Dominic and Francis. Moreover the Cardinal of Albano, whose hostility to the Orders had led him to take an active part in advising Innocent to the measure, was imprudent enough to boast that he had caused the subjugation of the Mendicants to the bishops and would place them under the feet of the lowest priests. The same day a beam in his house gave way ; he fell and broke his neck. It would perhaps be unjust to accuse the Dominicans of having assisted nature in these catas- trophes ; but, strange as it seems to hear them boast of having prayed a pope to death, they certainly do relate with pride that " Beware of the Dominican litanies, for they work miracles," be- came a common phrase.*

The death of Innocent saved the Mendicant Orders. That his successor was elected after an interval of only fourteen days was due to the provident care of the Prefect of Rome, who, distrust- ing the operation of the Holy Ghost, put the fathers of the Con- clave on short rations, resulting in the election of Alexander lY. The new pope was specially favorable to the Mendicants. When John of Parma, the Franciscan general, came to him with the cus- tomary request that he would appoint a cardinal as " Protector " of the Order, he refused, saying that so long as he lived it should need no other protector than himself; and his selection of the Dominican Ra^Tnond of Pennaforte and the Franciscan RuflBno as papal chaplains showed how wiUingly he subjected himself to their influence. On December 31, ten days after his elevation, he ad- dressed letters to both Orders asking their suffrages and interces- sion with God, and the same day he issued an encyclical, revoking the terrible bull of Innocent and pronouncing it void.f

Before such a judge the case of the University was evidently lost. On April 14, 1255, appeared the buU Quasi lignum vitcB, deciding the quarrel in favor of the Dominicans. Yet William of


  • Waddingi Annal. ann. 1254, No. 3; ann. 1255, No. 5. — Brevis Historia

(Martene YC. 357).— Martene Thesaur. I. 1059.

t Waddingi Annal. ann. 1254, No. 20; ann. 1255, No. 1.— Ripoll I. 266-7.


WILLIAM OF ST. AMOUR. 285

St. Amour returned to Paris resolved to carry on the war. In the pulpit he and his friends thundered forth against the Mendicants. TJiey were not specifically named, but there was no mistaking the ingenious application to them of the signs foretold by the prophets of those who should usher in the days of Antichrist, nor the de- scription of the Pharisees and Publicans made to fit them. New and unimagined perils threatened the Church in the last times. The devil has found that he gained nothing in sending heretics who were easily confuted, so now he has sent the Pale Horse of the Apocalypse — the h3rpocrites and false brethren who, under an external guise of sanctity, convulse the Church. The persecution of the hypocrites will be more disastrous than all previous per- secutions. Another weapon which lay to his hand was eagerly grasped. In 1254 there appeared a work under the name of " In- troduction to the Everlasting Gospel," of which the authorship was ascribed to John of Parma, the Franciscan general. We shall have occasion to recur to this, and need only say here that a section of the Franciscans were strongly inclined to the mysticism which now began to show itself, and that the writings of Abbot Joachim of Fiore, now revived and hardily developed, predicted the down- fall, in 1260, of the existing order of things in Church and State, the substitution of a new evangel for that of Christ, and the replace- ment of the hierarchy by mendicant monachism. The Introduc- tion to the Everlasting Gospel " attracted universal attention and offered too tempting an opening for attack to be neglected.

The University suUenly held out, while Alexander fulminated bull after bull against the recalcitrants, threatening them with varied penalties, and finally calling in the assistance of the secular arm by an appeal to St. Louis. The clergy of Paris, dehghted with the opportunity afforded by the temporary unpopularity of the Mendicants, reviled them from the pulpit, and even attacked them personally with blows and threats of worse treatment, till they scarce ventured to appear in the streets and beg their daily bread. The controversy raged wilder as the indomitable St. Amour, undeterred by Alexander's request to the king to throw him into jail, issued a tract entitled ^'De Periculis novissimorum Temjporum'^'* in which he boldly set forth aU the arguments of his discourses against the Mendicants. He proved that the pope had no right to contravene the commands of the prophets and apostles, and that


286 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

they were convicted of error when they upturned the estabHshed order of the Church in permitting these wandering hypocrites and false prophets to preach and hear confessions. Those who live by beggary are flatterers and liars and detractors and thieves and avoiders of justice. Whoever asserts that Christ w^as a beggar denies that he was the Messiah, and thus is a heresiarch who de- stroys the foundation of all Christian faith. An able-bodied man commits sacrilege if he receives the alms of the poor for his own use, and if the Church has permitted this for the monks it has been in error and should be corrected. It rests with the bishops to purge their dioceses of these hypocrites ; they have the power, and if they neglect their duty the blood of those who perish will be upon their heads. This was answered by Aquinas and Bona- ventura. The former, in his tract " Contra Impugnantes Religi- onem^ proved in the most finished style of scholastic logic that the friars have a right to teach, to preach and hear confessions, and to live without labor ; in the same mode he rebutted the charges as to their morals and influence, showing that they were not pre- cursors of Antichrist. He also demonstrated the more suggestive theorems that they had a right to resist their def amers, to use the courts in their defence, to secure their safety if necessary by resort to arms, and to punish their persecutors. That his dialectics were equal to bringing out any desired conclusion when once his prem- ises were granted is well known, and they did not fail him on this occasion. Bonaventura also replied in several treatises — " De Pau- pertate CJiristi^^ in which he earnestly pleaded the example of Christ as an argument for poverty and mendicancy ; the " Lihellus Ajpologeticus' and the '^Tractatus quia Fratres Minores prcedicent,^^ in which he carried the war into the enemy's territory with a vigor- ous and plain-spoken onslaught on the shortcomings and defects and sins and corruption and vileness of the clergy. Heretics might well feel justified in seeing the two parties into which the Church was divided thus expose each other ; and the faithful might well doubt whether salvation was assured with either.

Yet this wordy war was mere surplusage. On the appearance of St. Amour's book, St. Louis had hastened to send copies to Alex- ander for judgment. The University likewise sent St. Amour at the head of a delegation to demand the condemnation of the Everlasting Gospel. Albertus Magnus and Bonaventura came


THEIR VICTORY. 28?

to defend their Orders, and a hot disputation was held before the consistory. The Everlasting Gospel and its Introduction were con- demned with decent reserve by a special commission assembled at Anagni, in July, 1255, but St. Amour's book was declared by the bull Eomanus Fontifex^ October 5, 1256, to be lying, scandalous, deceptive, wicked, and execrable. It was ordered to be burned before the curia and the University ; every copy was to be sur- rendered within eight days to be burned, and any one presuming to defend it was pronounced a rebel. The envoys of St. Louis and the University were obliged to subscribe to a declaration assenting to this and to the right of the Mendicants to preach and hear con- fessions and to live on alms without labor, William of St. Amour alone resolutely refusing. Alexander moreover ordered all teach- ers and preachers to abstain from reviling the Mendicants and to retract the abuse they had uttered under pain of loss of preferment — a command which was but slackly obeyed.*

The victory was won for the Mendicants. The University sub- mitted ungraciously to the irresistible power of the papacy, and the unconquerable William of St. Amour alone held out. He would make no acknowledgments, no concessions. He had sworn to abide by the mandates of the Church, but he refused to recant hke his comrades. When about to return, in August, 1257, Al- exander forbade him to go to France and perpetually interdicted him from teaching, and so great was the dread which he inspired that the pope wrote to St. Louis asking him to prevent the inflexi- ble theologian from entering his kingdom. Yet from abroad he maintained an active correspondence with his old colleagues, and the University continued in a state of disquiet. It was in vain that Alexander prohibited all intercourse with him. Though the Mendicants were allowed to teach, they were ridiculed in indecent rhymes and lampoons, which were eagerly circulated; and, on Palm Sunday of 1259 the beadle of the University, Guillot of Pic- ardy, interrupted the preaching of Thomas Aquinas by publishing


  • RipoU I. 289, 291, 296, 298, 301, 306, 308, 311, 312, 320, 322, 324, 333, 334,

336, 342, 345, 350.— Matt. Paris ann. 1255, pp. 611, 616.— Wadding. Annal. ann. 1255, No. 4 ; ann. 1256, No. 20-37.— Fasciculus Rer. Expetend. II. 18 sqq. Ed. 1690.— Mag. Bull. Roman. 1. 112. — D'Argentre Collect. Judicior. de nov. Error. I. 1. 170 sqq.— Guill. Nangiac. Gesta S. Ludov. ann. 1255. — Graudes Chroniques, IV. 373-4.— Bern. Guidon. Flor. Chron. (Bouquet, XXI.


288 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

a scandalous and libellous book against the Mendicants. Yet this gradually died out, and the final act of the quarrel is seen in an epistle of Alexander's, December 3, 1260, authorizing the Bishop of Paris to absolve those who had incurred excommunication by keeping copies of St. Amour's book, on their surrendering them to be burned, the number of these " rebels " apparently being quite large. Still St. Amour remained steadfast in exile. He was al- lowed to return to Paris by Clement TV. who ascended the papal throne in 1264, and in 1266 he sent to the pontiff another book on the same theme. Clement had hastened, in 1265, to proclaim his good-will to the Mendicant Orders by a bull in which he confirmed in the amplest manner their independence of the bishops, and, as w^as inevitable, he rejected St. Amour's new book as filled with the old virus. WiUiam died in 1272, obstinate and unrepentant, and was honorably buried in his native village of St. Amour, though he is reputed as a heretic by all good Dominicans and Francis- cans.*

The embers of the controversy had been rekindled in 1269 by an anonymous Franciscan who assailed St. Amour's book. Gerald of AbbeviUe, who is ranked with Aquinas, Bonaventura, and Eobert of Sorbonne, as one of the four chief theologians of the age, replied with an attack on the doctrine of poverty and a defence of the ownership of property. Bonaventura rejoined with his " Apologia Pauperum,^ an eloquent defence of poverty, and the Franciscan annahsts relate with natural glee how Gerard was so overcome by his adversary's logic that, under the vengeance of God, he lost the


  • Ripoll I. 346, 348, 349, 352-3, 372, 375-9.— Waddingi Annal. ann. 1256, No.

38; ann. 1257, No. 1-4, 6; ann. 1259, No. 3-6; ann. 1260, No. 10.— Clement. PP. IV. Bull. Virtute conspicuos, ann. 1265. — Dupin, Bib. des Auteurs iSccles. T. X. eh. vii.

When, in 1632, an edition ot St. Amour's works was published in Constance (Paris) the Dominicans had sufficient influence with Louis XIII. to obtain its suppression in a savage edict. All the copies were seized  : to retain one was punishable with a fine of three thousand livres, and it was declared a capital of- fence for a bookseller to have a single copy for sale (Mosheim de Beghardis, p. 27). The " Pericula Novissimorum Temporum " had, however, been printed, with two of St. Amour's sermons, by Wolfgang of Weissenburg in his " Antilogia Papae," Basle, 1555, and this was reprinted in London in 1688, and embodied by Brown in his edition of the " Fasciculus Rerum Expetendarum et Fugiendarum " in 1690.


CONTINUED ANTAGONISM. 289

faculty of reasoning, sank into paralysis, and ended with a horri- ble death by leprosy.*

Though an occasional outbreak like this might occur, the vic- tory was won. The aggressions of the Mendicants had raised a deep and widespread hostility against them in all ranks of the clergy, who recognized not only that their privileges and wealth were impaired, that the reverence of the people was intercepted, but, what was even more important, that this new papal militia was subjecting them to Kome with a force that would deprive them of what little independence had been left by former encroach- ments. When, therefore, the upstarts had dared a combat with the honored and powerful University of Paris — the shining sun, to use the words of Alexander lY., which pours the light of pure doc- trine through the whole world, the body from which, as from the bosom of a parent, are born the noble race of doctors who enlighten Christendom and uphold the Catholic faith — it might well be thought that the rash interlopers had provoked their fate. Every- thing had been tried — learning and wit, reverence for established institutions, popular favor, the long-enjoyed right of the governing faculty to regulate its internal affairs — yet everything had failed against the steadfastness of the Mendicants supported by the un- wavering favor of Alexander. When the University of Paris had been worsted in the struggle, though aided with the sympathy of all the prelates of Christendom, there was little hope in further op- position to those whom the pope, in forbidding the prelates to side with the University, described as Golden vials filled with sweet odors." t

Yet spasmodic resistance, however hopeless, still continued. A bull of Clement TV., in 1268, forbidding the archbishops and bishops from even interpreting the privileges conferred on the Mendicants, shows that the hostility was as bitter as ever. The clergy would also still occasionally endeavor to prevent the establishment of new Mendicant houses, or seek to drive them away by ill-treatment, with the inevitable result of calling forth the papal vengeance. They had a gleam of hope when the wise and learned John XXI. ascended the papal throne, but his antagonism to the Mendicants,


  • Bonavent. Apol. Pauperuin Resp. I. c. 1. — Waddingi Annal. ann. 1269, No.

6-8. t RipoU I. 338.

I.— 19


290 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

like that of Innocent TV., was not conducive to longevity. The roof of his palace fell in upon him after a pontilicate of but eight months, and the pious chroniclers of the Orders handed down his memory as that of a heretic and magician. About 1284 the in- terpretation put on some fresh concessions by Martin lY. aroused the antagonism anew. The whole Galilean Church uprose. In 1287 the Archbishop of Keims called a provincial council to con- sider the subject. He pathetically described his futile efforts to reach a peaceful solution, the unbearable encroachments of the friars, the intolerable injuries inflicted on both clergy and laity, and the necessity of an appeal to Rome, The expenses of such an appeal were known to be heavy, and all the bishops agreed to contribute five per cent, of their revenues, while a levy of one per cent, was made on all abbots, priors, deans, chapters, and parochial churches of the province. The pious Franciscan Salimbene in- forms us that a hundred thousand livres tournois were raised and Honorius TV. was won over. On Good Friday of 1287 he was to issue a bull depriving the Mendicants of the right to preach and hear confessions. They were in despair, but this time it was the prayers of the Franciscans which prevailed, as those of the Domini- cans had done in the case of Innocent lY. The hand of God fell upon Honorius in the night of Wednesday, he died on Thursday, and the Orders were saved. Yet the struggle continued till the buU of Martin lY. was withdrawn in 1298 by Boniface YIII., who in vain attempted to put an end to the quarrel which distracted the Church. Benedict XI. was no more successful, and complained that the trouble was a hydra, putting forth seven heads for every one which was cut off. In 1323 John XXII. pronounced heretical the doctrine of Jean de Poilly, who held that confession to the friars was void and that every one must confess to his parish priest. In 1351 the clergy again took heart for another attack. Possibly the devotion shown by the Mendicants during the Black Death, when twenty-five million human beings were swept away, when the priests abandoned their posts, and the friars alone were found to tend the sick and console the dying, may have led to fresh progress by them and have enkindled antagonism anew. Be this as it may, a vast deputation, embracing cardinals, bishops, and minor clergy, waited on Clement YI. and petitioned for the abolition of the Orders, or at least the prohibition of their preaching and hearing


QUARRELS WITH THE SECULAR CLERGY. 291

confessions, and enjoying the burial profits, by which they were enormously enriched at the expense of the parish priests. The Mendicants deigned no reply, but Clement spoke for them, denying the allegation of the petition that they were useless to the Church, and asserting that, on the contrary, they were most valuable. " And if," he continued, " their preaching be stopped, about what can you preach to the people  ? If on humility, you yourselves are the proudest of the world, arrogant and given to pomp. If on poverty, you are the most grasping and most covetous, so that all the benefices in the world will not satisfy you. If on chastity — but we will be silent on this, for God knoweth what each man does and how many of you satisfy your lusts. You hate the Mendi- cants and shut your doors on them lest they should see your mode of life, while you waste your temporal wealth on pimps and swin- dlers. You should not complain if the Mendicants receive some temporal possessions from the dying to whom they minister when you have fled, nor that they spend it in buildings where every- thing is ordered for the honor of God and the Church, in place of wasting it in pleasure and licentiousness. And because you do not likewise, you accuse the Mendicants, for most of you give your- selves up to vain and worldly lives." Under this fierce rebuke, even though uttered by a pope whom St. Birgitta denounced as himself a follower of the lusts of the flesh, there was evidently nothing practicable but submission. Yet the prelates were not silenced, for a few years later Kichard, Archbishop of Armagh, preached in London some sermons against the Mendicants, for which they accused him of heresy before Innocent YI. In 1357 he defended himself in a discourse wherein he handled them un- sparingly, but his case dragged on, and he died in Avignon, in 1360, before it reached an end. This was not reassuring for the secular clergy, but still the quarrel went on. Thus in 1373 the Franciscan Guardian of Syracuse applied to Gregory XI. for an authentic copy of the buLL of John XXII. against the errors of Jean de Poilly, showing that in Sicily the secular clergy were contesting the right of the Mendicants to hear confessions. In 1386 the Council of Salzburg forcibly described the scandals wrought by the intrusion in all parishes, uninvited and irrepressible, of those hcentious wan- dering friars, who kindled discord and set an example of evil, and it proceeded to decree that in future they should not be allowed


THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

to preiicli and bear confessions without the license of the bishop and the invitation of the pastor. In 1393 Conrad II., Archbishop of Mainz, varied his pereecution of the Waldenses by an edict in which he described the Mendicants as wolves in sheep's clothing, and prohibited them from hearing confessions. On the other hand, Maitre Jean de Gorelle, a Franciscan, in 1408, publicly argued that curates were not competent to preach and hear confessions, which was the business of the friars — a proposition which the University of Paris promptly compelled him to retract.*

The quarrel seemed endless. In 1409 the Mendicants com- plained that the clergy stigmatized them as robbers and wolves, and insisted that all sins confessed to them must be confessed again to the parish curates, thus reviving the error of Jean de Poilly condemned by John XXII. Alexander Y., himself a Franciscan, responded to their request by issuing the buU Regnans in excelsis, which threatened with the pains of heresy aU who should uphold such doctrines, or that the consent of the priest was requisite be- fore the parishioner could confess to the friars. During the great schism the papacy was no longer an object of terror. The Uni- versity of Paris boldly took up the quarrel, and under the leader- ship of John Gerson refused to receive this bull, compelling the Dominicans and CarmeUtes publicly to renounce it, and expeUing

  • Clement PP. IV. Bull. Promdentia, ann. 1268.— Ripoll I. 341, 344.— Ptol.

Lucens. Hist. Eccles. Lib. xxiii. c. 21, 24-5. — Henr. Steronis Annal. ann. 1287, 1299. — Annal. Dominican. Colmariens. ann. 1277. — Waddingi Annal. ann. 1291, No. 97  ; ann. 1303, No. 32. — Concil. Valentin, ann. 1255. — Concil. Ravennat. ann. 1259.— Martene Ampliss. Collect. II. 1291. — Concil. Remens. ann. 1287.— Salim- bene Chronica, pp. 371, 378-9. — Guillel. Nangiac. ann. 1298; Ejusd. Continuat. ann. 1351. — Revelat. S. Brigittge Lib. vi. c. 63  ; cf. Lib. i. c. 41.— c. 2 Extravagant. Commun. in. vi. — c. 1. Ejusd. v. 7. — Ripoll II. 92-3. — P. de Herenthals Vit. Joann. XXII. ann. 1233. — Martene Thesaur. 1. 1368.— c. 2 Extravagant. Commun. v. iii. — Alph. de Spina Fortalicium Fidei, fol. 61a (Ed. 1494). — liecker, Epidemics of the Middle Ages, p. 30 (Babington's Transl.). — Fascic. Rer. Expetend. et Fugiend.II. 466 (Ed. 1690).— Theiner Monument. Hibern. et Scotor. No. 634, p. 313.— Cosentino, Archivio Storico Siciliano, 1886, p. 336. — Concil. Salisburgens. ann. 1386, c. 8. — Gudeni Cod. Diplom. III. 603.— D'Argentrg, Collect. Judic. de No vis Error, L ii. 178.

During the Black Death, of one hundred and forty Dominicans at Montpellier, but seven survived ; in Marseilles, of a hundred and sixty, not one. The mortality in the Franciscan Order was reckoned at one hundred and twenty-four thousand four hundred and thirty-four members, which is a manifest exaggeration. — Hoflf- man, Geschichte der Inquisition, II. 374-5.


QUARRELS WITH THE SECULAR CLERGY. 293

the Franciscans and Augustinians, who refused to do Hkewise. Gerson did not hesitate to preach pubhcly against it in a sermon, in which he enumerated the four persecutions of the Church in the order of their severity — tyrants, heretics, the Mendicants, and Anti- christ. This unflattering collocation was not likely to promote harmony, but the matter seems to have slept for a while in the greater questions raised by the councils of Constance and Basle, though the latter assembly took occasion to decide against the Mendicants on the points at issue, as well as to condemn the wide- spread popular belief that any one dying in a Franciscan habit would not spend more than a year at most in purgatory, since St. Francis made an annual visit there and carried off all his followers to heaven. When the papacy regained its strength it renewed the struggle for its favorites. In 1446 Eugenius lY. put forth a new bull, Gregis nobis Gredit% condemning the doctrines of Jean de Poilly, which attracted little attention, and was followed in 1453 by Nicholas Y. with another, Provisionis nostrcB, of similar import. This was brought in 1456 to the notice of the University, which denounced it as surreptitious, destructive to peace, and subversive of hierarchial subordination. Calixtus III. continued the struggle, and, finding the University unyielding, appealed to Louis XI. for secular interposition, but in vain ; the University refused to admit into its body any friars who would not pledge themselves not to make use of these buUs. It is true that in 1458 a priest of YaUa- doUd who denied the authority of the Mendicants to supersede the parish priests was forced to recant publicly in his own church ; but the trouble continued, leading in Germany to such scandals that the archbishops of Mainz and Treves, with other bishops, and the Duke of Bavaria, were obliged to appeal to the Holy See. A com- mission of two cardinals and two bishops was appointed to deter- mine upon a compromise, which was accepted by both parties and approved by Sixtus lY. about 1480. The priests were not to teach that the Orders were fruitful of heresies, the friars were not to teacH that parishioners need not hear mass on Sundays and feast days in their parish churches, or confess to their curates at Easter, though they were not to be deprived of hearing confessions and granting absolutions. Neither priests nor friars were to endeavor to get the laity to choose sepulture with either ; and neither party was to assail or detract from the other in their sermons. The in-


294 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

sertion of this compromise in the canon law shows the importance attaclied to it, and that it was regarded as a lasting settlement, ap- plicable throughout Latin Christendom. Its effect is seen in the inclusion, among the heresies of Jean Lallier condemned in Paris in 1484, of those which revived the doctrine of Jean de Poilly and declared that John XXII. had no power to pronounce it heretical. Yet, at the Lateran Council, in 1515, a determined effort was made by the bishops to obtain the revocation of the special privileges of the Mendicants. By refusing to vote for any measures they ob- tained a promise of this, but skilful delay enabled Leo X. to elude performance till the following year, when a compromise was ef- fected, which merely shows by what it forbade to the Mendicants how contemptuous had been their defiance of episcopal authority. They lost little by this, for in 1519 Erasmus complains in a letter to Albert, Cardinal - Archbishop of Mainz, " The world is over- burdened with the tyranny of the Mendicants, who, though they are the satellites of the Koman See, are yet so numerous and pow- erful that they are formidable to the pope himself and even to kings. To them, when the pope aids them, he is more than God, when he displeases them he is worthless as a dream." "^

It must be confessed that both Dominicans and Franciscans had greatly fallen away from the virtues of their founders. Scarce had the Orders commenced to spread when false brethren were found who, contrary to their vow of poverty, made use of their faculty of preaching for purposes of filthy gain ; and as early as 1233 we find Gregory IX. sharply reminding the Dominican chap- ter-general that the poverty professed by the Order should be gen- uine and not fictitious. The wide employment of the friars by the popes as political emissaries necessarily diverted them from their spiritual functions, attracted ambitious and restless men into their ranks, and gave the institutions a worldly character thor-


  • D'Argentr6, Collect. Judic. de nov. Error. I. ii. 180-4, 243, 251, 340, 347, 352,

354, 356.— Religieux de S. Denis, Hist, de Charles VI., Liv. xxix. ch. 10. — Gersoni Sermo contra Bullam Mendicantium.— Alph. de Spina Fortalicium Fidei. fol. 61 (Ed. 1494).— C. 2 Extravagant, i. 9.— Ripoll III. 206, 256, 268.— Wadding, ann. 1457, No. 61.— H. Cornel. Agrippae Epistt. ii. 49.— Raynald. Annal. ann. 1515, No. 1. — Concil. Lateran. Sess. xi. (Harduin. IX. 1832). — Erasmi Epist. 10 Lib. xij. (Ed. 1642, pp. 585-6).


THEIR DEMORALIZATION. 295

oughly in opposition to their original design. Their members, moreover, were peculiarly subject to temptation. "Wanderers by profession, they were relieved from supervision, and were subject only to the jurisdiction of their own superiors and to the laws of their own Orders, thus intensifying and rendering peculiarly dan- gerous the immunity common to all ecclesiastics."^

The " Seraphic Religion" of the Franciscans, as it was based" on a lofty ideal, was especially subject to the reaction of human imperfection. This was manifest even in the Hfetime of St. Fran- cis, who resigned the generalate on account of the abuses which were creeping in, and offered to resume it if the brethren would walk according to his will. It was inevitable that trouble should come between those who conscientiously adhered to the Eule In all its strictness and the worldlings who saw in the Order the in- strument of their ambition ; and it did not need the prophetic spirit to lead Francis to predict on his death-bed future scandals and di- visions and the persecution of those who would not consent to er- ror— a forecast which we will see abundantly verified, as well as that in which he foretold that the Order would become so defamed that it would be ashamed to be seen in public. His successor in the mastership, Elias, gave the Order a powerful impetus on its downward path. Reckoned the shrewdest and most skilful politi- cal manager in Italy, he greatly increased its influence and public activity, till his relaxation of the strictness of the Rule gave such offence to the more rigid brethren that, after a hard struggle, they compelled Gregory IX. to remove him, whereupon he went over to the party of Frederic II., and was duly excommunicated. As the Order spread it was not in human nature to reject the wealth which came pouring in upon it from aU sides, and ingenious dia- lectics were resorted to to reconcile its ample possessions with the absolute rejection of property prescribed by the Rule. The hum- ble hovels which Francis had enjoined became stately palaces which arose in every city, rivalling or putting to shame the lofti- est cathedrals and most sumptuous abbeys. In 1257 St. Bona Ven- tura, who had just succeeded John of Parma as General of the Order, varied his controversy with William of St. Amour by an encyclical to his provincials in which he bewailed the contempt


^ Potthast Regest. No. 8326, 9172, 11209.— Martene Thesaur. V. 1816, 1830.


THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

and dislike felt universally for the Order, caused by its greedy seek- ing after money ; the idleness of so many of its members, leading them into all manner of vices ; the excesses of the vagabond friars, who oppress those who receive them and leave behind them the memory of scandals rather than examples of virtue ; the importu- nate beggary which renders the friar more terrible than a robber to the wayfarer ; the construction of magnificent palaces, which oppress friends and give occasion to attacks from enemies; the intrusting of preaching and confession to those wholly unfit ; the greedy grasping after legacies and burial fees, to the great dis- turbance of the clergy, and in general the extravagance which would inevitably cause the chilling of charity. Evidently the as- saults of St. Amour and the complaints of the clergy were not with- out foundation ; but this vigorous rebuke was ineffective, and ten years later Bonaventura was obliged to repeat it in even stronger terms. This time he expressed his special horror at the shame- less audacity of those brethren who, in their sermons to the laity, attacked the vices of the clergy, and gave rise to scandals, quar- rels, and hatreds  ; and he wound up by declaring, " It is a foul and profane he to assert one's self the voluntary professor of absolute poverty and then refuse to submit to the lack of anything ; to beg abroad Hke a pauper and to roll in wealth at home." Bonaven- tura's declamations were in vain, and the struggle in the Order con- tinued, until it ejected its stricter members as heretics, as we shall see when we come to consider the Spiritual Franciscans and the Fraticelli. In the succeeding century both Orders gave free rein to their worldly propensities. St. Birgitta, in her Revelations, which were sanctioned by the Church as inspired, declares that " although founded upon vows of poverty they have amassed riches, place their whole aim in increasing their wealth, dress as richly as bish- ops, and many of them are more extravagant in their jewelry and ornaments than laymen who are reputed wealthy." *

Such was the development of the Mendicant Orders and their

  • S. Francis. Collat. Monast. Collat. xxi., xxv. — Ejusd. Prophet, xiv., xv. —

Ejusd. Epist. 6, 7.— Pet. Rodulphii Hist. Seraph. Relig. Lib. i. fol. 177-8.— Th. de Eccleston de Adv. Minorum Collat. xii.— Waddingi Annal. ann. 1253, No. 30. — S. Bonavent. 0pp. Ed. 1584, T. I. pp. 485-6.— Matt. Paris, ann. 1243 (p. 414).— S. Brigittae Revelat. Lib. iv. c. 33.


THEIR MISSIONARY LABORS. 297

complicated relations with the Church. Yet their activity was too great to be confined to the defence of the Holy See and to the religious revival by which they, for a time, reacquired for Eome the veneration of the people. One of the collateral objects to which they devoted a portion of their energies was missionary work, and in this they set a worthy example to their successors, the Jesuits of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Among the incessant labors of St. Francis his efforts to convert the infidel were conspicuous. He proposed to visit Morocco, in the hope of converting King MiramoUn, and had reached Spain on his voyage thither, when compelled by sickness to return. In the thirteenth year of his conversion he travelled to Syria for the purpose of bringing over the Soldan of Babylon to the Christian faith, al- though war was then raging with the Saracens. Captured be- tween the hostile lines, he was carried with his companion in chains to the soldan, when he offered to undergo the ordeal of fire to prove the truth of his faith ; he was offered magnificent presents, but spurned them, and was allowed to depart. His followers were true to his example. No distance and no danger deterred them from the task of winning souls to Christianity, and in these ardu- ous labors there was a noble emulation between them and the Do- minicans, for Dominic had Hkewise proposed an extended scheme of missions in which to close his life's work. As early as 1225 we find missionaries of both orders laboring in Morocco. In 1233 Franciscans were despatched to convert Miramolin, the Sultan of Damascus, the caliph, and Asia in general. In 1237 the Eastern Jacobites were brought back to Catholic unity by the zeal of Do- minicans, and they were at work among I^^estorians, Georgians, Greeks, and other Eastern schismatics. Indulgences, the same as for a crusade, were offered to all who engaged in these enterprises, which were perilous enough, for soon after we hear of ninety Do- minicans suffering martyrdom among the Cumans in eastern Hun- gary, when the hordes of Genghis Khan swept over the land. After the retirement of the Tartars they returned and converted the Cumans by wholesale, besides laboring among the Cathari of Bosnia and Dalmatia, where several of them were slain and two of their convents were burned by the heretics. The extent of the Franciscan missions may be judged by a bull of Alexander IV., in 1258, addressed to all the brethren in the lands of the Saracens,


298 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

Pagans, Greeks, Bulgarians, Cumans, Ethiopians, Syrians, Ibe- rians, Alans, Cathari, Goths, Zichori, Kussians, Jacobites, Nubians, Nestorians, Georgians, Armenians, Indians, Muscovites, Tartars, Hungarians, and the missionaries to the Christian captives among the Turks ; and however hazy may be the geography of this enu- meration, the extent of the ground sought to be covered shows the activity and self-sacrificing energy of the good brethren. Among the Tartars their success was for a while encouraging. The great khan himself was baptized, and the converts were so numerous that a bishop became necessary for their organization ; but the khan apostatized and the missionaries paid with their lives the forfeit of their zeal, nor were they by any means the only martyrs who suffered in the cause. The efficacy of their Armenian mission may be seen in the renunciation of King Haito of Armenia, who en- tered the Order and assumed the name of Friar John, though the vicissitudes of his subsequent career were not encouraging to fut- ure imitators. He was not, however, the only royal Franciscan, for St. Louis of Toulouse, son of Charles the Lame of Naples and Provence, resisted his father's offer of a crown to become a Fran- ciscan. Less authentic, perhaps, are the Dominican accounts of eight missionaries of their Order who, in 1316, penetrated to the empire of Prester John in Abyssinia, where they founded so dura- ble a Church that in half a century they had the Inquisition or- ganized there, with Friar Philip, son of one of Prester John's sub- ject kings, as inquisitor-general. His zeal led him to attack with both spiritual and fleshly weapons another king who indulged in bigamy, and by whom he was treacherously seized and put to death, November 4, 1366, his martyrdom and sanctity being attested by numerous miracles. Be this as it may, the Franciscans record with pardonable pride that members of their Order accompanied Colum- bus on his second voyage to America, eager to commence the con- version of the New World.*


  • Bonavent. Vit. S. Francis, c. 9. — Lacordaire, Vie de S. Dominique, pp. 182-3.

— Potthast Regest. No. 7429, 7490, 7537, 7550, 9130, 9139, 9141, 10350, 10383, 10421, 11297.— Raynald. ann. 1233, No. 22, 23; ann. 1237, No. 88.— Hist. Ordin. Praedicat. c. 8 (Martene Ampliss. Coll. VI. 338). — Chron. Magist. Ordin. Praedicat. c. 3 (Ibid. 350-1).— Waddingi Annal. ann. 1258, No. 1 ; ann. 1278, No. 10, 11, 12; ann. 1284, No. 2 ; ann. 1288, No. 3, 36 ; ann. 1289, No. 1 ; ann. 1294, No. 10-12 ; ann.


AS INQUISITORS. 299

The special field of activity of the Mendicants, however, which more particularly concerns us, was that of the conversion and per- secution of heretics — of the Inquisition, which they made their own. It was inevitable that this should fall into their hands as soon as the inadequacy of the ancient episcopal courts required the organization of a new system. The discovery and conviction of the heretic was no easy task. It required special training, and that training was exactly what the Orders sought to give their neophytes to fit them for the work of preaching and conversion. With no ties of locality, soldiers of the Cross ready to march to any point at the word of command, they could be despatched at a moment's notice whenever their services were required. More- over, their peculiar devotion to the Holy See rendered them spe- cially useful in organizing the papal Inquisition which was to supersede by degrees the episcopal jurisdiction, and prove so effi- cient an instrument in reducing the local churches to subjection.

That Dominic was the founder of the Inquisition and the first inquisitor - general has become a part of Roman tradition. It is affirmed by all the historians of the Order, and by all the pane- gyrists of the Inquisition; it has the sanction of infallibility in the bull Invictarum of Sixtus Y., and it is confirmed by quot- ing a bull of Innocent III. appointing him inquisitor - general. Yet it is safe to say that no tradition of the Church rests on a slenderer basis. That Dominic devoted the best years of his life to combating heresy there is no doubt, and as little that, when a heretic was deaf to argument or persuasion, he would cheerfuUy stand by the pyre and see him burned, like any other zealous mis- sionary of the time ; but in this he was no more prominent than hundreds of others, and of organized work in this direction he was utterly guiltless. Indeed, from the year 1215, when he laid the foundation of his Order, he was engrossed in it to the exclusion of all other objects, and was obliged to forego his cherished design of ending his days as a missionary to Persia. We shall see that it


1492, No. 2  ; ann. 1493, No. 2-8.— Rodulphii Hist. Seraph. Relig. Lib. i. fol. 120.— Paramo de Orig. Offic. S. Inquisit. p. 238.

In 1246 Innocent IV. received a very civil letter from Melik el-Mansur Nassir, the ruler of Edessa, expressing his regret that mutual ignorance of each others' language prevented his engaging in tlieological disputation with the Domini- cans sent for liis conversion. — Berger, Registres d'Innoc. IV. No. 3031.


300 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

was not until more than ten years after liis death, in 1221, that such an institution as the papal Inquisition can be said to have existed. The prominent part assigned in it to his successors easily explains the legend which has grown around his name, a legend which may safely be classed with the enthusiastic declaration of an historian of the Order that more than a hundred thousand her- etics had been converted by his teaching, his merits, and his mir- acles.*

A similar legendary halo exaggerates the exclusive glory, claimed by the Order, of organizing and perfecting the Inquisition. The bulls of Gregory IX. alleged in support of the assertion are simply special orders to individual Dominican provincials to depute brethren fitted for the purpose to the duty of preach- ing against heresy and examining heretics, and prosecuting their defenders. Sometimes Dominicans are sent to special districts to proceed against heretics, with an apology to the bishops and an explanation that the friars are skilful in convincing heretics, and that the other episcopal duties are too engrossing to enable the prelates to give proper attention to this. The fact simply is that there was no formal confiding of the Inquisition to the Domini- cans any more than there was any formal founding of the Inquisi- tion itself. As the institution gradually assumed shape and organ- ization in the effort to find some effectual means to ferret out concealed heretics, the Dominicans were the readiest instrument


  • Campana, Vita di San Piero Martire, p. 257.— Juan de Mata, Santoral de

San Domingo y San Francisco, fol. 13. — Zurita, Aiiales de Aragon, Lib. ii. c, 63. — Ricchinii Prooem. ad. Monetam, Dissert, i. p. xxxi. — Paramo de Orig. OflF. S. Inquis. Lib. ii. Tit. ii. c. 1. — Pegnse Comment, in Eymeric. p. 461. — Chron. Ma- gist. Ord. Prsedic. c. 2 (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 348). — Monteiro, Historia da Santo Inquisi9ao P. 1. Liv. i. c. xxv., xlviii.

It is an interesting illustration of the softened temper of the nineteenth cen- tury to see, in 1842, the learned and zealous Dominican, Lacordaire, writing his " Vie de S. Dominique " to prove the impossibility of Dominic's participation in the cruelty of the Inquisition exactly one hundred years after an equally learned and zealous Dominican, Ricchini, had claimed the Inquisition as the glorious work of the saint. Yet since the time of Lacordaire there has been a reaction, and M. I'Abbg Douais does not hesitate to state, on the authority of Sixtus V., that " Saint Dominique aurait aiusi re9u une delegation pontificale pour I'ln- quisition apr^s I'annee 1209" (Sources de THistoire de PInquisition, Revue des C^uestions Historiques, 1 Oct. 1881, p. 400).


AS INQUISITORS. 301

at hand, especially as they professed the function of preaching and converting as their primary business. As conversion became less the object, and persecution the main business of the Inquisi- tion, the Franciscans were equally useful, and the honors of the oi'ganization were divided between them. Indeed, there was no hesitation in confiding inquisitorial functions to clerics of any de- nomination when occasion required. As early as 1258 we find two canons of Lodeve acting under papal commissions as inquisi- tors of Albi, and we shall meet hereafter, at the close of the four- teenth century, Peter the Celestinian discharging the duties of papal inquisitor Avith abundant energy from the Baltic to Styria.* Yet the earhest inquisitors, properly so called, were unques- tionably Dominicans. When, after the settlement between Ray- mond of Toulouse and St. Louis, the extirpation of heresy in the Albigensian territories was seriously undertaken, and the episcopal organization proved unequal to the task, it was Dominicans who were sent thither to work under the direction of the bishops. In northern France the business gradually fell almost exclusively into the hands of Dominicans. In Aragon, as early as 1232, they are recommended to the Archbishop of Tarragona as fitting instru- ments, and in 1249 the institution was confided to them. Eventu- ally southern France was divided between them and the Francis- cans, the western portion being given to the Dominicans, while the Comtat Yenaissin, Provence, Forcalquier, and the states of the empire in the provinces of Aries, Aix, and Embrun were under charge of the Franciscans. As for Italy, after some confusion arising from the conflicting pretensions of the two Orders, it was, in 1254, formally divided between them by Innocent lY., the Do- minicans being assigned to Lombardy, Romagnola, Tarvesina, and Genoa, while the central portion of the peninsula fell to the Fran- ciscans; Naples, as yet, being free from the institution. This division, however, was not always strictly observed, for at times we find Franciscan inquisitors in Milan, Romagnola, and Tarve- sina. In Germany and Austria the Inquisition, as we shall see, never took deep root, but, in so far as it was organized there, it

  • Grcgor. PP. IX. Bull. Ille hmnani generis. Ap. 22, 1233.— Potthast Regesta,

No. 9143, 9152, 9153, 9155, 9386, 9388, 9995, 10362.— Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Inter alia, 20 Oct. 1248 (Baluze ct Mansi I. 208). — Archives de Tlnq. dc Carcassonne (Coll. Doat, XXXI. fol. 21).— Archives de VtvecM d'Albi (lb. XXXI. 255).


302 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

was in Dominican hands, while Bohemia and Dahnatia were under the care of Franciscans.*

Sometimes the two orders were conjoined. In 1237 the Fran- ciscan Etienne de Saint Thibery was associated with the Domini- can Guillem Arnaud in Toulouse, in hopes that the reputation of his Order for greater mildness might diminish the popular aver- sion for the new institution. In April, 1238, Gregory IX. ap- pointed the provincials of the two Orders in Aragon as inquisitors for that kingdom, and in the same year the same policy was pur- sued in Navarre. In 1255 the Franciscan Guardian of Paris was associated with the Dominican prior as the heads of the Inquisi- tion in France; in 1267 we find both Orders furnishing inquis- itors for Burgundy and Lorraine; and in 1311 we hear of two Dominicans and one Franciscan as inquisitors in the province of Ravenna. It was found the wisest course, however, to define sharply the boundaries of their respective jurisdictions, for the active and incessant jealousy between the two bodies rendered any concurrence or competition between them an explosive mine hable to be started by a spark. Their mutual hatreds began early, and the unscrupulous means by which they were gratified were a per- petual scandal and danger to the Church. In 1266, for instance, a lively quarrel arose between the Dominicans of Marseilles and the Franciscan inquisitor of that city. The dissension spread until the two Orders were embroiled throughout Provence, For- calquier, Avignon, Aries, Beaucaire, MontpeUier, and Carcassonne, and everywhere they were preaching against and insulting each other in public. Several briefs of Clement lY. show that the pope was obliged to intervene, and his command that in future inquisi- tors shall forbear to use their powers to prosecute each other, no matter how guilty the offending party may apparently be, indi- cates that the sharpest weapons of the Holy Office had been used in the strife. When, as late as 1479, Sixtus TV. forbade inquisi-


  • Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1235. — Concil. Biterrens. aun. 1233; ann. 1246. —

Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 17, 18.— Martene Thesaur. V. 1806, 1808-10, 1817, 1819-20.~Ripoll I. 38.— Aguirre Concil. Hispan. VI. 155-6.— Raynald. Annal. ann. 1233, No. 40, 59 sqq.— Waddingi Annal. aun. 1246, No. 2; ann. 1254, No. 7, 8; ann. 1257, No. 17; ann. 1259, No. 3; ann. 1277, No. 10 ; ann. 1286, No. 4; ann. 1288, No. 14-16.— Rodulphii Hist. Seraph. Relig. Lib. i. fol. 1265.— Potthast Re- gesta,No. 9386, 9388, 9762, 9766, 9993, 10052, 11245, 15304, 15330, 15069.


THEIR MUTUAL QUARRELS. 393

tors of either Order to sit in judgment on brethren of the other, it would indicate that the intervening two centuries had not dimin- ished the tendency. The jealousy with which their respective lim- its were defended is illustrated by troubles which occurred in 1290 about the Tarvesina. This was Dominican territory, but for many years the office of inquisitor at Treviso was filled by the Francis- can FiUppo Bonaccorso. When, in 1289, he accepted the episco- pate of Trent, the Dominicans expected the office to be restored to them, and were indignant at seeing it given to another Francis- can, Fra Bonajuncta. The Dominican inquisitor of Lombardy Fra Pagano, and his vicar, Fra Yiviano, went so far in their re- sistance that serious disturbances were excited in Yerona, and it became necessary for Mcholas lY. to intervene in 1291, when he punished the recalcitrants by perpetual deprivation of their func- tions. To the heretics it must have offered excusable delight to see their persecutors persecuting each other. So ineradicable was the hostihty between the two Orders that Clement lY. established the rule that there should be a distance of at least three thousand feet between their respective possessions — a regulation which only led to new and more intricate disputes. They even quarrelled as to the right of precedence in processions and funerals, which was claimed by the Dominicans, and settled in their favor by Martin Y. in 1423. We shall see hereafter how important in the devel- opment of the mediaeval Church was this implacable rivalry.*


• MSS. Bib. Nat. Coll. Doat, XXI. 143 ; XXXII. 15.— Matt. Paris Hist. Angl. ann. 1243 (p. 414). — Guill. Pod. Laur. c. 43. — Raynald. ann. 1238, No. 51.— Harduin. Concil. VII, 1319. — Paramo de Orig. Inq. p. 244. — Wadding Anna!, ann. 1238, No. 6, 7; ann. 1266, No. 8  ; ann. 1277, No. 10 ; ann. 1291, No. 14.— Pott- hast No. 16132.— Sixti PP. IV. Bull. Sacri Prmdicatorum, 26 Jul. 1479.— Martene Thesaur. II. 346, 353, 359, 451.— Ripoll II. 82, 164, 617, 695.

The disturbances at Marseilles show the favoritism always manifested tow- ards the Mendicants. Two clerks, whom the Dominicans had procured to depose falsely against the inquisitor, were punished with perpetual prison, degradation, and inability to hold benefices ; the bishop who had listened to them was sus- pended from his office and jurisdiction, while the friars who had suborned the perjury and caused the whole trouble were let off with rendering humiliating apologies and transferred to another province. (Martene ubi sup.)

There has been some dispute as to whether Fra Filippo Bonaccorso was a Franciscan or a Dominican. Wadding (1. c.) prints a bull of 1277 in which he


304 THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

In the busy world of the thirteenth century there was thus no agency more active than that of the Mendicant Orders, for good and for evil. On the whole perhaps the good preponderated, for they undoubtedly aided in postponing a revolution for which the world was not yet ready. Though the self-abnegation of their earher days was a quality too rare and perishable to be long pre- served, and though they soon sank to the level of the social order around them, yet had their work not been altogether lost. They had brought afresh to men's minds some of the forgotten truths of the gospel, and had taught them to view their duties to their fellows from a higher plane. How well they recognized and ap- preciated their own services is shown by the story, common to the legend of both Orders, which tells that while Dominic and Francis were waiting the approval of Innocent III. a holy man had a vis- ion in which he saw Christ brandishing three darts with which to destroy the w^orld, and the Yirgin inquiring his purpose. Then said Christ, " The world is full of pride, avarice, and lust ; I have borne with it too long, and with these darts wiU I consume it." The Virgin fell on her knees and interceded for man, but in vain, until she revealed to him that she had two faithful servants who would reduce it to his dominion. Then Christ desired to see the champions; she showed him Dominic and Francis, and he was content. The pious author of the story could hardly have fore- seen that in 1627 Urban YIII. would be obliged to deprive the Mendicant Friars of Cordova of their dearly prized immunity, and to subject them to episcopal jurisdiction, in the hope of restraining them from seducing their spiritual daughters in the confessional.*


is addressed as a Franciscan, but one in the Coll. Doat, T. XXXII. fol. 155, char- acterizes him as a Dominican.

  • Anon. Cartus. de Relig. Orig. c. 309 (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 68). — Lib.

Conformitatum, Lib. i. Fruct. ii. fol. 166.— MSS. Bib. Bodleian., Arch. S. 130.


CHAPTER YII.

THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

The gradual organization of the Inquisition was simply a proc- ess of evolution arising from the mutual reaction of the social forces which we have described. The Albigensian Crusades had put an end to open resistance, yet the heretics were none the less numerous, and, if less defiant, were only the more difficult to dis- cover. The triumph of force had increased the responsibility of the Church, while the imperfection of its means of discharging that responsibility was self-confessed in the enormous spread of heresy during the twelfth century. We have seen the confused and uncertain manner in which the local prelates had sought to meet the new demands upon them. When the existence of hidden crime is suspected there are three stages in the process of its sup- pression— the discovery of the criminal, the proof of his guilt, and finally his punishment. Of all others the crime of heresy was the most difficult to discover and to prove, and when its progress be- came threatening the ecclesiastics on whom fell the responsibiUty of its eradication were equally at a loss in each of the three steps to be taken for its extermination.

Immersed, for the most part, in the multiplied troubles con- nected with the overgrown temporalities of their sees, the bishops would await popular rumor to designate some man or group of men as heretical. On seizing the suspected persons, there was rarely any external evidence to prove their guilt, for except where numbers rendered repression impossible, the sectaries were as- siduous in outward conformity to orthodox observance, and the slender theological training of episcopal officials was generally unequal to the task of extracting confessions from thoughtful and keen-witted men, or of convicting them out of their own mouths. The judicial use of torture was as yet happily unknown, and the current substitute of a barbarous age, the Ordeal, was resorted to I.— 20


306 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

"vrith a frequency which shows how ludicrously helpless were the ecclesiastics called upon to perform functions so novel. Even St. Bernard approved of this expedient, and in 115Y the Council of Keims prescribed it as the rule in all cases of suspected heresy. More enlightened churchmen viewed its results with well-grounded disbelief, and Peter Cantor mentions several cases to prove its in- justice. A poor woman accused of Catharism was abandoned to die of hunger, till in confession to a religious dean she protested her innocence and was advised by him to offer the hot-iron ordeal in proof, which she did with the result of being burned first by the iron and then at the stake. A good Catholic, against whom the only suspicious evidence was his poverty and his pallor, was or- dered by an assembly of bishops to undergo the same ordeal, which he refused to do unless the prelates would prove to him that this would not be a mortal sin in tempting God. This tenderness of conscience was sufiicient, so without further parley they unani- mously handed him over to the secular authorities, and he was promptly burned. With the study of the Koman law, however, this mode of procedure gradually fell into disfavor with the Church, and the enlightenment of Innocent III. peremptorily for- bade its use in 1212, when it was extensively employed by Henry of Yehringen, Bishop of Strassburg, to convict a number of heretics ; while in 1215 the Council of Lateran, following the example of Alexander III. and Lucius III., formally prohibited all ecclesias^ tics from taking part in the administration of ordeals of any kind. How great was the perplexity of ignorant prelates, debarred from this ready method of seeking the judgment of God, may be guessed by the expedient which had, in 1170, been adopted by the good Bishop of Besan§on, when the religious repose of his diocese was troubled by some miracle-working heretics. He is described as a learned man, and yet to solve his doubts as to whether the strangers were saints or heretics, he summoned the assistance of an ecclesiastic deeply skilled in necromancy and ordered him to ascertain the truth by consulting Satan. The cunning clerk de- ceived the devil into a confidential mood and learned that the strangers were his servants; they were deprived of the satanic amulets which were their protection, and the populace, which had previously sustained them, cast them pitilessly into the flames.*

  • S. Bernard. Serm. lxvi. in Caatic. c. 12.— Hist. Vizeliacens. Lib. rv. — Concil.


UNCERTAINTY OF PUOCEDURE. 307

When supernatural means were not resorted to, the proceed- ings were far too cumbrous and uncertain to be efficient against an evil so widely spread and against malefactors so numerous. In 1204 Gui, Archbishop of Keims, summoned Count Robert, cousin of Philip Augustus, the Countess Yolande, and many other laymen and ecclesiastics to sit in judgment on some heretics discovered at Brienne, with the result of burning the unfortunate wretches. In 1201, when the Knight Everard of Chateauneuf was accused of Catharism by Bishop Hugues of Nevers, the Legate Octavian sum- moned for his trial at Paris a council composed of archbishops, bishops, and masters of the university, who condemned him. All this was complicated by the supreme universal jurisdiction of Pome, which enabled those who were skilful and rich to protract indefinitely the proceedings and perhaps at last to escape. Thus in 1211 a canon of Langres, accused of heresy, was summoned by his bishop to appear before a council of theologians assembled to ex- amine him. Though he had sworn to do so and had given bail, he failed to come forward, and was, after three days' waiting, con- demned in default. His absence was accounted for when he turned up in Pome and asserted to Innocent that he had been forced to take the oath and give security after he had appealed to the Holy See. The pope sent him back to the Archbishop of Sens, to the Bishop of IS^evers, and Master Pobert de Corzon, with instructions to examine into his orthodoxy. Two years later, in 1213, he is again seen in Pome, explaining that he had feared to come before his judges at the appointed time, because the popular f eehng against heresy was so strong that not only were all heretics burned, but all who were even suspected, wherefore he craved papal protection and permission to perform due purgation at Pome. In- nocent again sent him back with orders to the prelates to give him a safe -conduct and protection until his case should be decided. "Whether he was innocent or guilty, whether absolved or con- demned, is of Httle moment. The case sufficiently shows the im-


Remens. ann. 1137 c. 1. — Caesar. Heisterb. Dial. Mirac. iii. 16, 17; v. 18.— Gui- bert. Noviogent. de Vita sua Lib. iii, c. 18. — Pet. Cantor, Verb, abbrev. c. 78. — Iniioc. PP. III. Regest. xiv. 138.— Alex. PP. III. Epist. 74.— C. 8 Extra v. xxxiv — C. Lateran. IV. c. 18.


308 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

possibility of efficient suppression of heresy under the existing system.*

Even after conviction had been obtained there was the same uncertainty as to penalties. In the case of the Cathari who con- fessed at Liege in 1144, and were with difficulty rescued from the mob who sought to burn them, the church authorities applied to Lucius 11. for instructions as to what disposition should be made of them. Those who were captured in Flanders in 1162 were sent to Alexander III., then in France, for judgment, and he sent them back to the Archbishop of Reims. William Abbot of Yezelai pos- sessed full jurisdiction, but when, in 1167, he had some confessed heretics on his hands, in his embarrassment he asked the assembled crowd what he should do with them, and the ready sentence was found in the unanimous shout, " Burn them ! burn them !" which was duly executed, although one who recanted and was yet con- demned by the water ordeal was publicly scourged and ban- ished by the abbot in spite of a popular demand for concrema- tion. In 1114 the Bishop of Soissons, after convicting some heretics by the water ordeal, went to the Council of Beauvais to consult as to their punishment ; but during his absence the people, fearing the lenity of the bishops, broke into the jail and burned them.f

It was not that the Church was absolutely devoid of the ma- chinery for discharging its admitted function of suppressing heresy. It is true that in the early days of the Carlovingian revival, Zach- ary's instructions to St. Boniface show that the only recognized method at that time of disposing of heretics was by summoning a council, and sending the convicted culprits to Rome for final judg- ment. Charlemagne's civihzing pohcy, however, made efficient use of all instrumentalities capable of maintaining order and se- curity in his empire, and the bishops assumed an important posi- tion in his system. They were ordered, in conjunction with the secular officials, zealously to prohibit all superstitious observances and remnants of paganism ; to travel assiduously throughout their


  • Chron. Laudunens. Canon, ann. 1204 (D. Bouquet, XVIII. 713). — Chronolog.

Robert! Autissiodor. ann. 1201. — Innocent PP. III. Regest. xiv. 15; xvi. 17.

t Martene Ampl. Collect. I. 776-8. -Alex. PP. III. Epist. 118, 122 ; Varior. ad Alex. III. Epist. 16. — Hist. Vizeliacens. Lib. iv. — Guibert. Noviogent. 1. c.


ISPISCOPAL JURISDICTION. 309

dioceses making strict inquiry as to all sins abhorred of God, and thus a considerable jurisdiction was placed in their hands, although strictly subordinated to the State. During the troubles which fol- lowed the division of the empire, as the feudal system arose on the ruins of the monarchy, gradually the bishops threw off not only dependence on the crown, but acquired extensive rights and powers in the administration of the canon law, which now no longer de- pended on the civil or municipal law, but assumed to be its supe- rior. Thus came to be founded the spiritual courts which were attached to every episcopate and which exercised exclusive ju- risdiction over a constantly widening field of jurisprudence. Of course all errors of faith necessarily came within their pur- view.*

The organization and functions of these courts received a pow- erful impetus through the study of the Roman law after the mid- dle of the twelfth century. Ecclesiastics, in fact, monopolized to such an extent the educated intelligence of the age that at first there were few besides themselves to penetrate into the mysteries of the Code and Digest. Even in the second half of the thirteenth century Eoger Bacon complains that a civil lawyer, even if wholly untrained in canon law and theology, had a much better chance of high preferment than a theologian, and he exclaims in bitterness that the Church is governed by lawyers to the great injury of all Christian folk. Thus long before the feudal and seignorial courts felt the influence of the imperial jurisprudence, it had profoundly modified the principles and practice of ecclesiastical procedure. The old archdeacon gave way, not without vituperation, before the formal episcopal judge, known as the Official or Ordinary, who was usually a doctor of both laws — an LL.D. in fact — learned in both civil and canon law ; and the effect of this was soon seen in a systematizing of ecclesiastical jurisprudence which gave it an immense advantage over the rude processes of the feudal and cus- tomary law. These episcopal courts, moreover, were soon sur-


  • Hartzheim Concil. German. I. 76, 85-6.— Capit. Car. Mag. ann. 769, c. 6 ;

Capit. II. ann. 813, c. 1.— Gratiani Decret. P. I. Dist. x. I have elsewhere con- sidered in some detail the growth of the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church, through the False Decretals, in the anarchy accompanying the fall of the Car- lovingian empire. See " Studies in Church History," 2(1 Ed. pp. 81-7, 326-39.


JUO THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

rounded by a crowd of clerkly advocates, whose zeal for their cli- ents often outran their discretion, furnishing the first mediaeval representatives of the legal profession.*

Following in the traces of the civil law, there were three forms of action in criminal cases — accusatio^ denunciation and inquisitio. In accusatio there was an accuser who formally inscribed himself as responsible and was subject to the talio in case of failure. De- nunciatio was the official act of the public officer, such as the testis synodalis or archdeacon, who summoned the court to take action against offenders coming within his official knowledge. In inqui- sitio the Ordinary cited the suspected criminal, imprisoning him if necessary ; the indictment, or capitula inquisitionis, was commu- nicated to him, and he was interrogated thereupon, with the pro- viso that nothing extraneous to the indictment could be subse- quently brought into the case to aggravate it. If the defendant could not be made to confess, the Ordinary proceeded to take tes- timony, and though the examination of witnesses was not con- ducted in the defendant's presence, their names and evidence were communicated to him, he could summon witnesses in rebuttal, and his advocate had full opportunity to defend him by argument, ex- ception, and appeal. The Ordinary finally gave the verdict; if uncertain as to guilt, he prescribed the purgatio canonica, or oath of denial shared by a given number of peers of the accused, more or less, according to the nature of the charge and degree of suspi- cion. In all cases of conviction by the inquisitorial process, the penalty inflicted was lighter than in accusation or denunciation. The danger was recognized of a procedure in which the judge was also the accuser  ; a man must be popularly reputed as guilty be- fore the Ordinary could commence inquisition against him, and this not by merely a few men or by his enemies, or those unworthy of beUef. There must be ample ground for esteeming him guilty before this extraordinary power vested in the judge could be exer- cised. It is important to bear in mind the equitable provisions of all this episcopal jurisdiction when we come to consider- the


  • S. Bernardi de Consideratione Lib. i. c. 4. — Rogeri Bacon Op. Tert. c.

xxiv.— Pet. Blesens. Epist. 202.— Concil. Rotomag. ann. 1231 c. 48. For the rapidity with which the Church assimilated the Roman law see the collection of decretals by Alexander III. post Concil. Lateran.


ITINERANT INQUESTS. 311

methods of what we call the Inquisition, erected on these foun- dations.*

Theoretically there also existed a thorough system of general inquisition or inquest for the detection of all offences, including heresy ; and as it was only an application of this which gave rise to the Inquisition, it is worth our brief attention. The idea of a systematic investigation into infractions of the law was familiar to secular as well as to ecclesiastical jurisprudence. In the Roman law, although there was no public prosecutor, it was part of the duty of the ruler or proconsul to make perquisition after all crim- inals with a view to their detection and punishment, and Septimius Severus, in the year 202, had made the persecution of Christians an especial feature of this official inquisition. The Missi Dominici of Charlemagne were officials commissioned to traverse the. empire, making diligent inquisition into all cases of disorder, crime, and injustice, with jurisdiction over clerk and layman alike. They held their assizes four times a year, listened to all complaints and accusations, and were empowered to redress all wrongs and to punish aU offenders of whatever rank. The institution was main- tained by the successors of Charlemagne so long as the royal power could assert itself; and after the Capetian revolution, as soon as the new dynasty found itself established with a jurisdic- tion that could be enforced beyond the narrow bounds set by feu- dalism, it adopted a similar expedient of " inquisitors," with a view of keeping the royal officials under control and insuring a due en- forcement of the law. The same device is seen in the itinerant justiciaries of England, at least as early as the Assizes of Claren- don in 1166, when, utilizing the Anglo-Saxon organization, they made an inquest in every hundred and tithing by the lawful men of the vicinage to try and punish all who were publicly suspected of crime, giving rise to the time-honored system of the grand-jury — in itself a prototype of the incipient papal Inquisition. Similar in character were the " Inquisitors and Manifestors " whom we find in Verona in 1228, employed by the State for the detection and punishment of blasphemy; and a stiU stronger resemblance is seen in the Jurados of Sardinia in the fourteenth century — inhabi-


  • Fournier, Les Officialit6s du moyen Sge, Paris, 1880, pp. 256 sqq., 27^-4.-^

Cap. 19, 21, §§ 1, 2, Extra v. 1.


312 tHE INQUISITION F^OUNDeD.

tants selected in each district and sworn to investigate all cages of crime, to capture the malefactor, and to bring him before court for trial. "^

The Church naturally fell into the same system. We have just seen tliat Charlemagne ordered his bishops to make diligent visita- tions throughout their dioceses, investigating all offences ; and with the growth of ecclesiastical jurisdiction this inquisitorial duty was, nominally at least, perfected and organized. Already at the com- mencement of the tenth century we find in use a method (falsely attributed to Pope Eutychianus) which was subsequently imitated by the Inquisition. As the bishop reached each parish in his visi- tation, the whole body of the people was assembled in a local synod. From among these he selected seven men of mature age and approved integrity who were then sworn on relics to reveal without fear or favor whatever they might know or hear, then or subsequently, of any offence requiring investigation. These testes synodales, or synodal witnesses, became an institution established, theoretically at least, in the Church, and long lists of interrogato- ries were draw^n up to guide the bishops in examining them so that no possible sin or immorality might escape the searching inquisi- tion. Yet how completely these well-devised measures fell into desuetude, under the negligence of the bishops, is seen in the sur- prise awakened when, in 1246, Kobert Grosseteste, the reform- ing Bishop of Lincoln, ordered, at the suggestion of the Fran- ciscans, such a general inquisition into the morals of the people throughout his extensive diocese. His archdeacons and deans summoned both noble and commoner before them and examined them under oath, as required by the canons  ; but the proceeding was so unusual and brought to light so many scandals that Henry


  • Fr. 13, Dig. I. (Ulpian.).— Allard, Histoire des Persecutions, Paris, 1885,

p. ill. — Capit. Car. Mag. i. ann. 802; iii. ann. 810; in. ann. 812.— Capit. Ludov. Pii v., VI. ann. 819 ; ann. 823, c. 28; Capit. Wormatiens. ann. 829.— Caroli Calvi Capit. apud Carisiacum ann. 857; Edict. Pistens. ann. 864. — Carolomanni Capit. ann. 884.— Guillel. Nangiac. Gest. S. Ludov. ann. 1255 ( D. Bouquet, XX. 394, 400).— Ducange, s. v. Inquisitores.—Les Olim, T. III. pp. 169, 181, 211, 231, 358, 471, 501, 522, 529, 616.— Assisae de Clarendon $ 1 (Stubbs's Select Charters, p. 137, cf. p. 25).— Stubbs's Constitutional History, I. 99-100, 313, 530, 695-6.— Lib. Ju- ris Civilis Veronse c. 171 (Ed. 1728, p. 130).— Carta de Logu cap. xvi. (Ed. 1805, pp. 30-2).


THE DECREE OF VERONA. 313

III. was induced to interfere and ordered the sheriffs to put an end to it.^

The Church thus possessed an organization well adapted for the discovery and investigation of heretics. All that it lacked were the men who should put that organization to its destined use ; and the progress of heresy up to the date of the Albigensian Crusades manifests how utterly neglectful were the ignorant prelates of the day, immersed in worldly cares, for the most part, and thinking only of the methods by which their temporalities could be de- fended and their revenues increased. Successive popes made fruit- less efforts to arouse them to a sense of duty and induce them to use the means at their disposal for a systematic and vigorous on- slaught on the sectaries, who daily grew more alarming. From the assembly of prelates who attended, in 1184, the meeting at Ye- rona between Lucius III. and Frederic Barbarossa, the pope issued a decretal at the instance of the emperor and with the assent of the bishops, which if strictly and energetically obeyed might have esta.blished an episcopal instead of a papal Inquisition. In addi- tion to the oath — referred to in a previous chapter — prescribed to every ruler, to assist the Church in persecuting heresy, aU arch- bishops and bishops were ordered, either personally or by their archdeacons or other fitting persons, once or twice a year to visit every parish where there was suspicion of heresy, and compel two or three men of good character, or the whole vicinage if necessary, to swear to reveal any reputed heretic, or any person holding se- cret conventicles, or in any way differing in mode of life from the faithful in general. The prelate was to summon to his presence those designated, who, unless they could purge themselves at his discretion, or in accordance with local custom, were to be punished as the bishop might see fit. Similarly, any who refused to swear, through superstition, were to be condemned and punished as here- tics ipso facto. Obstinate heretics, refusing to abjure and return to the Church with due penance, and those who after abjuration relapsed, were to be abandoned to the secular arm for fitting pun- ishment. There was nothing organically new in aU this — only a


  • Reginon. de Eccles. Discip. Lib. ii. c. 1-3. — Burcliardi Decrct. Lib. i. c.

91-4.— Gratiani Decret. P. IL c. xxxv. Q. vi. c. 7.— C. 7 Extra ii. xxi. — Matt. Paris ann. 1246 (Ed. 1644, p. 480).


314 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

utilizincr of existing; institutions and an endeavor to recall the bishops to a sense of their duties ; but a further important step was taken in removing all exemptions from episcopal jurisdiction in the matter of heresy and subjecting to their bishops the privi- leged monastic orders which depended directly on Kome. Fautors of heresy were, moreover, declared incapable of acting as advo- cates or witnesses or of filling any public office.^

We have already seen how utterly this effort failed to arouse the hierarchy from their sloth. The weapons rusted in the care- less hands of the bishops, and the heretics became ever more nu- merous and more enterprising, until their gathering strength showed clearly that if Kome would retain her domination she must summon the faithful to the arbitrament of arms. She did not shrink from the alternative, but she recognized that even the triumph of her crusading hosts would be comparatively a barren victory in the absence of an organized system of persecution. Thus while de Montfort and his bands were slaying the abettors of heresy who dared to resist in the field, a council assembled in Avignon, in 1209, under the presidency of the papal legate, Hugues, and enacted a series of regulations which are little more than a repetition of those so fruitlessly promulgated twenty-five years be- fore by Lucius III., the principal change being that in every parish a priest should be adjoined to the laymen who were to act as syn- odal witnesses or local inquisitors of heresy. Under this arrange- ment, repeated by the Council of Montpellier in 1215, there was considerable persecution and not a few burnings. In the same spirit, when the Council of Lateran met in 1215 to consoHdate the conquests which then seemed secure to the Church, it again re- peated the orders of Lucius. No other device suggested itself, no further means seemed either available or requisite, if only this could be carried out, and its enforcement was sought by decreeing the deposition of any bishop neglecting this paramount duty, and his replacement by one wiUing and able to confound heresy, f

This utterance of the supreme council of Christendom was as


  • Lucii PP. m. Epist. 171.

t Concil. Avenionens. ann. 1209 c. 2.— Concil. Monspessulan. ann. 1215 c. 46. — Douais, Les sources de Thistoire de I'lnquisition (Revue des Questions Histo- riques, 1 Oct. 1881, p. 401).— C. Lateran. IV. c. 2,


LEGATINE INQUISITION. 315

ineffectual as its predecessors. An occasional earnest fanatic was found, like Foulques of Toulouse or Henry of Strassburg, who labored vigorously in the suppression of heresy, but for the most part the prelates were as negligent as ever, and there is no trace of any sustained and systematic endeavor to put in practice the peri- odical inquisition so strenuously enjoined. The Council of Nar- bonne, in 1227, imperatively commanded all bishops to institute in every parish testes synodales who should investigate heresy and other offences, and report them to the episcopal officials, but the good prelates who composed the assembly, satisfied with this ex- hibition of vigor, separated and allowed matters to run on their usual course. We hardly need the assurance of the contemporary Lucas of Tuy, that bishops for the most part were indifferent as to the matter of heresy, while some even protected heretics for filthy gain, saying, when reproached, " How can we condemn those who are neither convicted nor confessed  ?" No better success followed the device of the Council of Beziers in 1234, which earnestly or- dered the parish priests to make out lists of all suspected of heresy and keep a strict watch upon them.*

The popes had endeavored to overcome this episcopal indiffer- ence by a sort of irregular and spasmodic Legatine Inquisition. As the papal jurisdiction extended itself under the system of Gregory YII. the legate had become a very useful instrument to bring the papal power to bear upon the internal affairs of the dio- ceses. As the direct representatives and plenipotentiaries of the vicegerent of God the legates carried and exercised the supreme authority of the Holy See into the remotest corners of Christen- dom. That they should be employed in stimulating languid per- secution was inevitable. We have already seen the part they played in the affairs of the Albigenses, from the time of Henry of Citeaux to that of Cardinal Komano. In the absence of any sys- tematic method of procedure they were even used in special cases to supplement the ignorance of local prelates, as when, in 1224, Honorius III. ordered Conrad, Bishop of Hildesheim, to bring be- fore the Legate Cinthio, Cardinal of Porto, for judgment Henry Minneke, Provost of St. Maria of Goslar, whom he held in prison


  • Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1227 c. 14. — Lucae Tudens. de altera Vitac. 19. — Coi;-

cil. Biterrens. ann. 1234 c. 5.


316 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

on suspicion of lieres}^ It was, however, in Toulouse, after the treaty of Paris, in 1229, that we find the most noteworthy case of the concurrence of legatine and episcopal action, showing how crude as yet were the conceptions of the nascent Inquisition. Af- ter Count Raymond had been reconciled to the Church, he returned in July to his dominions, followed by the Cardinal-Legate Romano, to see to the execution of the treaty and to turn back the armed " pilgrims " who were swarming to fight for the Cross, and who revenged themselves for their disappointment by wantonly de- stroying the harvests and creating a famine in the land. In Sep- tember a council was assembled at Toulouse, consisting of all the prelates of Languedoc, and most of the leading barons. This adopted a canon ordering anew all archbishops, bishops, and ex- empted abbots to put in force the device of the synodal witnesses, who were charged with the duty of making constant inquisition for heretics and examining all suspected houses, subterranean rooms, and other hiding-places ; but there is no trace of any obedience to this command or of any results arising from it. Under the im- pulsion of the legate and of Foulques of Toulouse, however, the council itself was turned into an inquisition. A converted "per- fected " Catharan, named Guillem de Solier, was found and was re- stored to his legal rights in order to enable him to give evidence against his former brethren, while Bishop Foulques industriously hunted up other witnesses. Each bishop present took his share in examining these, sending to Foulques the evidence reduced to writing, and thus, we are told, a vast amount of business was ac- complished in a short time. It was found that the heretics had mostly pledged each other to secrecy, and that it was virtually impossible to extract anything from them, but a few of the more timid came forward voluntarily and confessed, and of course each one of these, under the rules in force, was obliged to teU all he knew about others, as the condition of reconciliation. A vast amount of evidence was thus collected, which was taken by the legate for the purpose of deciding the fate of the accused, and with it he left Toulouse for Montpellier. A few of the more hardy of- fenders endeavored to defend themselves judicially, and demanded to see the names of the witnesses, even following the legate to Montpellier for that purpose ; but he, under the pretext that this demand was for the purpose of slaying those who had testified


LEGATINE INQUISITION. 317

against them, adroitly eluded it by exhibiting a combined list of all the witnesses, so that the culprits were forced to submit with- out defence. He then held another council at Orange, and sent to Foulques the sentences, which were duly communicated to the ac- cused assembled for the purpose in the church of St. Jacques. All the papers of the inquisition were carried to Rome by the legate for fear that if they should fall into the hands of the evil-minded they would be the cause of many murders — and, in fact, a number of the witnesses were slain on simple suspicion.*

All this shows how crude and cumbrous an implement was the episcopal and legatine Inquisition even in the most energetic hands, and how formless and tentative was its procedure. A few in- stances of the use of synodal witnesses are subsequently to be found, as in the Council of Aries, in 1234, that of Tours, in 1239, that of Beziers, in 1246, of Albi, in 1254, and in a letter of Alphonse of Poitiers in 1257, urging his bishops to appoint them as required by the Council of Toulouse. An occasional example of the lega- tine Inquisition may also be met with. In 1237 the inquisitors of Toulouse were acting under legatine powers, as sub- delegates to the Legate Jean de Yienne ; and in the same year, when the people of MontpeUier asked the pope for assistance to suppress the growth of heresy, their bishop apparently being supine, he sent Jean de Yienne there with instructions to act vigorously. The episcopal office was similarly disregarded in 1239, when Gregory IX. sent orders to the inquisitors of Toulouse to obey the instructions of his legate. Yet this legatine function in time passed so completely out of remembrance that in 1351 the Signiory of Florence asked the papal legate to desist from a charge of heresy on which he had cited the Camaldulensian abbot, because the republic had never permitted its citizens to be judged for such an offence except by the inquisitors ; and as early as 1257, when the inquisitors of Lan- guedoc complained of the zeal of the Legate Zoen, Bishop of Avi- gnon, in carrying on inquisitorial work, Alexander lY. promptly tiecided that he had no such power outside of his own diocese.f

  • Potthast No. 7260.— Concil. Tolosan. ann. 1329 c. 1, 2.— Guill. de Pod. Laur.

c. 40,— Guill. Pelisso Chron. Ed. Molinier, p. 18.

t Concil. Arelatens. ann. 1234 c. 5. — Concil. Turonens. ann. 1239 c. 1. — Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246 c. 1. — Concil. Albicns. ann. 1254 c. 1. — Archives de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Coll. Boat, XXX. 250).— Vaissette, III. Pr. pp. 385-6.— Raynald An-


318 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

The public opinion of the ruling classes of Europe demanded that heresy should be exterminated at whatever cost, and yet with the suppression of open resistance the desired end seemed as far off as ever. Bishop and legate were alike unequal to the task of discovering those who carefully shrouded themselves under the cloak of the most orthodox observance ; and when by chance a nest of heretics was brought to light, the learning and skill of the average Ordinary failed to elicit a confession from those who pro- fessed the most entire accord with the teachings of Kome. In the absence of overt acts it was difficult to reach the secret thoughts of the sectary. Trained experts were needed whose sole business it should be to unearth the offenders and extort a confession of their guilt. As this necessity became more and more apparent two new factors contributed to the solution of the long-vexed problem.

The first of these was the organization of the Mendicant Or- ders, whose peculiar fitness for the work which had outgrown the capacity of the episcopal courts might well make their establish- ment seem a providential interposition to supply the Church of Christ with what it most sorely needed. As the necessity grew apparent of special and permanent tribunals devoted exclusively to the widespread sin of heresy, there was every reason why they should be wholly free from the local jealousies and enmities which might tend to the prejudice of the innocent, or the local favoritism which might connive at the escape of the guilty. If, in addition to this freedom from local partialities, the examiners and judges were men specially trained to the detection and conversion of the heretic ; if, also, they had by irrevocable vows renounced the world  ; if they could acquire no wealth and were dead to the enticements of pleasure, every guarantee seemed to be afforded that their mo- mentous duties would be fulfilled with the strictest justice — that while the purity of the faith would be protected, there would be no unnecessary oppression or cruelty or persecution dictated by private interests and personal revenge. Their unlimited popularity was also a warrant that they would receive far more efficient as- sistance in their arduous labors than could be expected by the

nal. ann. 1237, No. 33. — Archives de France, J. 430, No. 19-20. — Archivio di Firenze, Riformagioni, Classe v. fol. 80.— Archives de Tlnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXI. 239).


SECULAR LEGISLATION. 319

bishops, whose position was generally that of antagonism to their flocks and to the petty seigneurs and powerful barons whose aid was indispensable. That the Mendicant Orders, to which this duty tiius naturally fell, were peculiarly devoted to the papacy, and that they made the Inquisition a powerful instrument to extend the in- fluence of Eome and destroy what little independence was left to the local churches, became subsequently doubtless an additional reason for their employment, but could scarce have been a motive in the early tentative efforts. Thus to the pubhc of the thirteenth century the organization of the Inquisition and its commitment to the children of St. Dominic and St. Francis appeared a perfectly natural or rather inevitable development arising from the admitted necessities of the time and the instrumentalities at hand.

The other factor which promised success to the Church, in an organized effort to discharge the duty of persecution, was the secu- lar legislation against heresy which at this period took form and shape. We have seen the spasmodic edicts of England and Ara- gon in the twelfth century, which have interest only as showing the absence of anterior penal laws. Frederic Barbarossa took no effective steps to give validity to the regulations which Lucius III. issued from Yerona in 1184, though they purported to be drawn up with the emperor's sanction. The body of customary law which de Montfort adopted at Pamiers in 1212 of course disap- peared with his short-lived domination. There had been, it is true, some fragmentary attempts at legislation, as when the Emperor Henry YI., in 1194, prescribed confiscation of property, severe per- sonal punishment, and destruction of houses for heretics, and heavy fines for persons or communities omitting to arrest them ; and this was virtually repeated in 1210 by Otho lY., showing how soon it had been forgotten. How little uniformity, indeed, there was in the treatment of heresy is proved by such stray edicts of the period as chance to have reached us. Thus in 1217 Nunez Sancho of Kosellon decreed outlawry for heretics, and in 1228 Jayme I. of Aragon followed his example, showing that this could not have previously been customary. On the other hand, the statutes of Pignerol in 1220 only inflict a fine of ten sols for knowingly giving shelter to Yaudois. Louis YIII. of France, just before Ms death, issued an ordonnoMce punishing this same crime with confiscation and deprivation of all legal rights, while the royal oflficials were


320 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

ordered to inflict proper and immediate punishment on all who were convicted of heresy by the ecclesiastical judges. The statutes in force in Florence in 1227 required the bishop to act in conjunc- tion with the podestA in all prosecutions for heresy, which was a serious limitation on the episcopal courts. In 1228 we hear of new laws adopted in Milan, at the instance of the papal legate, Goffredo, by which all heretics were banished from the territory of the republic, their houses torn down, the contents confiscated, their persons outlawed, with graduated fines for harboring them. A mixed secular and ecclesiastical inquisition was established for the discovery of heretics, and the archbishop and podesta were to co-operate in their examination and sentence ; while the latter was bound to put to death within ten days all convicts. In Germany, as late as 1231, it required the decision of King Henry YII. to de- termine the disposition of property confiscated on heretics, and al- lodial lands were allowed to descend to the heirs, in contradiction, as w^e shall see, to all subsequent ruling.*

To put in action any comprehensive system of persecution, it evidently was requisite to overcome the centrifugal tendency of mediaeval legislation, which finds its ultimate expression in free Navarre, where every town of importance had its special fuero, and almost every house its individual custom. Innocent III. endeavored, at the Lateran Council of 1215, to secure uniformity by a series of severe regulations defining the attitude of the Church to heretics, and the duties which the secular power owed to exterminate them under pain of forfeiture, and this became a recognized part of canon law ; but in the absence of active secular co-operation its provisions for a while remained practically a dead letter. It was reserved for the arch-enemy of the Church, Frederic II., to break down, through- out the greater part of Europe, the particularism of local statutes, and place the population at the mercy of such emissaries as the popes might send to represent them. It was requisite for him to acquire the favor of Honorius III. to secure his coronation in 1220 ; and when the inevitable rupture took place, it was still necessary for him to meet the charge of heresy so freely brought against

  • Lami, Antichit^ Toscane, pp. 484, 504, 524. — Muratori Antiq. Ital. Diss. lx.

(T. XII. p. 447).— D'Achery Spicileg. III. 588, 598.— Charvaz, Origine dei Valdesi, Torino, 1838, App. No, xxii. — Isambert, Anc. Loix Fran. I. 228. — Corio, Hist, Milanese, ann. 1228-9.— Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. T. III. p. 466.


LEGISLATION OF FREDERIC IL 321

him by manifesting special zeal in the persecution of heretics, though doubtless, if left to himself, philosophic indifference would have led him to tolerate any form of belief that did not threaten disobedience to the ruler.*

In a series of edicts dating from 1220 to 1239 he thus enacted a complete and pitiless code of persecution, based upon the Lat- eran canons. Those who were merely suspected of heresy were required to purge themselves at command of the Church, under penalty of being deprived of civil rights and placed under the im- perial ban ; while, if they remained in this condition for a year, they were to be condemed as heretics. Heretics of all sects were outlawed ; and when condemned as such by the Church they were to be deUvered to the secular arm to be burned. If, through fear of death, they recanted, they were to be thrust in prison for life, there to perform penance. If they relapsed into error, thus show- ing that their conversion had been fictitious, they were to be put to death. All the property of the heretic was confiscated and his heirs disinherited. His children, to the second generation, were declared ineligible to any positions of emolument or dignity, un- less they should win mercy by betraying their father or some other heretic. ALL credentes," fautors, defenders, receivers, or advocates of heretics were banished forever, their property confis- cated, and their descendants subjected to the same disabilities as those of heretics. Those who defended the errors of heretics were to be treated as heretics unless, on admonition, they mended their ways. The houses of heretics and their receivers were to be de- stroyed, never to be rebuilt. Although the evidence of a heretic was not receivable in court, yet an exception was made in favor of the faith, and it was to be held good against another heretic. AU rulers and magistrates, present or future, were required to swear to exterminate with their utmost ability all whom the Church might designate as heretics, under pain of forfeiture of ofiice. The lands of any temporal lord who neglected, for a year after sum- mons by the Church, to clear them of heresy, were exposed to the occupancy of any Catholics who, after extirpating the heretics, were to possess them in peace without prejudice to the rights of


  • De Lagr^ze, La Navarre Fran9aise, I. xxi; II. 6.— Concil. Lateran. IV. c. 8

(C. 13 Extra v. vii.). I.— 21


322 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

the suzerain, provided he had offered no opposition. When the papal Inquisition Avas commenced, Frederic hastened, in 1232, to place the whole machinery of the State at the command of the in- quisitors, who were authorized to call upon any official to capture whomsoever they might designate as a heretic, and hold him in prison until the Church should condemn him, when he was to be put to death.*

This fiendish legislation was hailed by the Church with accla- mation, and was not allowed to remain, like its predecessors, a dead letter. The coronation-edict of 1220 was sent by Honorius to the University of Bologna to be read and taught as a part of practical law. It was consequently embodied in the authoritative compilation of the feudal customs, and its most stringent enact- ments were incorporated in the Civil Code. The whole series of edicts was subsequently promulgated by successive popes in re- peated bulls, commanding all states and cities to inscribe these laws irrevocably in their local statute-books. It became the duty of the inquisitors to see that this was done, to swear all magis- trates and officials to enforce them, and to compel their obedience by the free use of excommunication. In 1222, when the magis- trates of Rieti adopted laws conflicting with them, Honorius at once ordered the offenders removed from office; in 1227 the people of Rimini resisted, but were coerced to submission ; in 1253, when some of the Lombard cities demurred. Innocent TV. prompt- ly ordered the inquisitors to subdue them ; in 1254 Asti peacefully accepted them as part of its local laws ; Como foUowed the exam-

  • Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. T. II. pp. 4-6, 422; T. IV. pp. 6-8, 299-302; T. V.

pp. 201, 279-80. The coronation-edict, which formed the basis of all subsequent legislation against heresy, was drawn up by the papal curia, and sent, a fortnight before the ceremony, to the Legate Bishop of Tusculum, with orders to procure the imperial signature and return it, so that it could be published under the em- peror's name in the church of St. Peter (Raynald. ann. 1220, No. 19.— Hist. Dipl. I. II. 880). Nothing could seem a plainer duty to an ecclesiastic of the time than that the Church should stimulate the temporal ruler to the sharpest perse- cution of heresy.

It was doubtless the outlawry of heretics pronounced by the edicts of Fred- eric which enabled the Inquisition to establish the settled principle that the heretic could be captured and despoiled at any time and by any person, and that the spoiler could retain his goods — provided always that he was not an official of the Holy Office (Tract, de Inquisitione, Doat, XXXVI.).


SECULAR LEGISLATION. 323

pie, September 10, 1255 ; and in the recension of the laws of Florence made as late as 1355, they still appear as an integral part. Finally, they were incorporated in the latest additions to the Corpus Juris as part of the canon law itself, and, technically speaking, they may be regarded as in force to the present day.*

This virtually provided for a very large portion of Europe, ex- tending from Sicily to the North Sea. The western regions made haste to follow the pious example. Coincident with the Treaty of Paris, in 1229, was an ordonnance issued in the name of the boy-king, Louis IX., giving efficient assistance by the royal offi- cials to the Church in its efforts to purge the land of heresy. In the territories which remained to Count Eaymond his vacillating course gave rise to much dissatisfaction, until, in 1234, he was compelled to enact, with the consent of his prelates and barons, a statute drawn up by the fanatic Eaymond du Fauga of Toulouse, which embodied all the practical points of Frederic's legislation, and decreed confiscation against every one who failed, when called upon, to aid the Church in the capture and detention of heretics. In the compilations and law books of the latter half of the century we see the system thoroughly established as the law of the whole land, and in 1315 Louis Hutin formally adopted the edicts of Frederic and made them valid throughout France, f

In Aragon Don Jayme I., in 1226, issued an edict prohibiting all heretics from entering his dominions, probably on account of the fugitives driven out of Languedoc by the crusade of Louis yill. In 1234, in conjunction with his prelates, he drew up a

  • Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. T. II. p. 7.— Post Libb. Feudorum.— Post constt. iv.

xix. Cod. L v. — Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Gum adversus, 1243, 1252, 1254; Bull. Or- thod(xcce, 27 Apr., 14 Mali, 1252.— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Cum adversus, 1258.— Ejusd. Bull. Cupientes, 1260. — Clement. PP. IV. Bull. Cum adversus, 1265.— Wadding. Annal. Minor, ann. 1261, No. 3; ann. 1289, No. 20.— Urbani PP. lY. Bull. Licet ex omnibus, 1262, § 12. — Epistt. Saeculi XIII. No. 191 (Monument. Hist. German.).— Eymerici Direct. Inquis. Ed. Pegnae, 1607, p. 392. — Innoc. PP. IV. -Bull. Ad aures, 2 Apr. 1253. — Sclopis, Antica Legislazione del Piemonte, p. 440. — Bernard! Comens. Lucerna Inquisit. s. v. Executw, No. 3. — Archivio di Firenze, Riformagioni, Classe II. Distinz. 1, No. 14.— Potthast No. 7672.— C. 2 in Septimo, v. 3.

t Isambert, Anc. Loix Fran. I. 230-33  ; III. 126.— Harduin. Concil. VII. 203-8. — Guill. de. Pod. Laur. c. 42. — fitablissements, Liv. I. cb. 85, 123. — Livres de Jostice et de Plet, Liv. I. Tit. iii. § 7.


•^24 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

series of laws instituting an episcopal Inquisition of the severest character, to be supported by the royal officials ; in this appears for the first time a secular prohibition of the Bible in the vernac- ular. All possessing any books of the Old or New Testament, " in Komancio," are summoned to deliver them within eight days to their bishops to be burned, under pain of being held suspect of heresy. Thus, with the exception of farther Spain and the North- ern nations, where heresy had never taken root, throughout Chris- tendom the State was rendered completely subservient to the Church in the great task of exterminating heresy. And, when the Inquisition had been established, the enforcing of this legisla- tion was the peculiar privilege of the inquisitors, whose ceaseless vigilance and unlimited powers gave fuU assurance that it would be relentlessly carried into effect.*

Meanwhile zeal or jealousy led, in the confusion and uncertain- ty of this transition period, to the experiment, in several parts of Italy, of a secular Inquisition. In Kome, in 1231, Gregory IX. drew up a series of regulations which was issued by the Senator Annibaldo in the name of the Roman people. Under this the senator was bound to capture all who were designated to him as heretics, whether by inquisitors appointed by the Church or other good Catholics, and to punish them within eight days after con- demnation. Of their confiscated property one third went to the detector, one third to the senator, and one third to repairing the city walls. Any house in which a heretic was received was to be destroyed, and converted forever into a receptacle of filth. " Cre- dentes " were treated as heretics, while fautors, receivers, etc., for- feited one third of their possessions, applicable to the city walls. A fine of twenty Hre was imposed on any one cognizant of heresy and not denouncing it ; while the senator who neglected to en- force the law was subject to a mulct of two hundred marks and perpetual disability to office. To appreciate the magnitude of these fines we must consider the rude poverty of the Italy of the period as described by a contemporary — the squalor of daily fife

  • Archives Nat. de France, J. 436, No. 4. — Martene Ampliss. Collect. VII.

123-4.— Bernard. Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Coll. Doat, XXX.).— Clem. PP. IV. Bull. Pr(2 cunctis, 23 Feb. 1266.

In 1229 the Council of Toulouse had already prohibited all laymen from pos- sessing any of the Scriptures, even in Latin (Concil. Tolosan. ann. 1229, c. 14).


SECULAR INQUISITION. 325

and the scarcity of the precious metals, as indicated by the absence of gold and silver ornaments in the dress of the period. Not sat- isfied with the local enforcement of these regulations, Gregory sent them to the archbishops and princes throughout Europe, with orders to put them in execution in their respective territories, and for some time they formed the basis of inquisitorial proceedings. In Kome the perquisition was successful, and the faithful were re- warded with the spectacle of a considerable number of burnings ; while Gregory, encouraged by success, proceeded to issue a decre- tal, forming the basis of all subsequent inquisitorial legislation, by which condemned heretics were to be abandoned to the secular arm for exemplary punishment, those who returned to the Church were to be perpetually imprisoned, and every one cognizant of heresy was bound to denounce it to the ecclesiastical authorities under pain of excommunication."^

At the same time Frederic II., who desired to give Kome as little foothold as possible in his Neapohtan dominions, placed the business of persecution there in the hands of the royal officials. In his Sicilian Constitutions, issued in 1231, he ordered his repre- sentatives to make diligent inquisition into the heretics who walk in darkness. All, however slightly suspected, are to be arrested and subjected to examination by ecclesiastics, and those who devi- ate ever so little from the faith, if obstinate, are to be gratified with the fiery martyrdom to which they aspire, while any one daring to intercede for them shall feel the full weight of the im- perial displeasure. As the legislation of a freethinker, this shows the irresistible weight of public opinion, to which Frederic dared not run counter. Nor did he allow this to remain a dead letter. A number of executions under it took place forthwith, and two years later we find him writing to Gregory deploring that this had not been sufficient, for heresy was reviving, and that he there- fore had ordered the justiciary of each district, in conjunction with some prelate, to renew the inquisition with all activity ; the bishops were required to traverse their dioceses thoroughly, in company, when necessary, of judges delegated for the purpose ; in

  • Raynald. Annal. ann. 1231, No. 13, 18.— RipoU 1. 38.— Ricobaldi Ferrar. Hist.

Impp. ann. 1234. — Paramo de Orig. Offic. S. Inq. p. 177. — Richardi di S. Ger- mano Chron. ann. 1231. — C. 15 Extra v. vii. (In this canon "nolueriut" is evi- dently an error lor " voluerint").— Ilartzheim Concil. German. III. 540.


THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

each province the General Court held two assizes a year, when heresy was punished like any other crime. Yet, so far from prais- ing this systematized persecution, Gregory replied that Frederic was using pretended zeal to punish his personal enemies, and was burning good Catholics rather than heretics.*

In this confused and irregular striving to accompHsh the extir- pation of heresy, it was inevitable that the Holy See should inter- vene, and through the exercise of its supreme apostolic authority seek to provide some general system for the efficient performance of the indispensable duty. The only wonder, indeed, is that this should have been postponed so long and have been at last com- menced so tentatively and apologetically.

In 1226 an effort was made to check the rapid spread of Cath- arism in Florence by the arrest of the heretic bishop Filippo Pa- ternon, whose diocese extended from Pisa to Arezzo. He was tried, in accordance with the existing Florentine statutes, by the bishop and podesta conjointly, when he cut short the proceedings by abjuration, and was released ; but he speedily relapsed, and be- came more odious than ever to the orthodox. In 1227 a converted heretic complained of this backsliding to Gregory IX., and the pontiff, who had just ascended the papal throne, made haste to remedy the evil by issuing a commission, which may be regarded as the foundation of the papal Inquisition. Yet it was exceed- ingly unobtrusive, though the church of Florence was so directly under papal control. Bearing date June 20, 1227, it simply au- thorizes Giovanni di Salerno, prior of the Dominican house of Santa Maria Novella, with one of his frati and Canon Bernardo, to proceed judicially against Paternon and his followers and force them to abjuration ; acting, in case of obstinacy, under the canons of the Lateran Council, and, if necessary, calling upon the clerks and laymen of the sees of Florence and Fiesole for aid. Thus, while there was no scruple in invading the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Florence, there was no legislation other than the Lat- eran canons to guide the proceedings. What the commissioners


» Constit. Sicular. Lib. i. Tit. 1.— Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. T. IV. pp. 435, 444. — Rich, de S. Germano Cbron. ann. 1233. — Giannone, Istoria Civile di Napoli, Lib. XVII. c. 6 ; xix. 5,


DOMINICANS TRIED. 327

accomplished with regard to the inferior heretics is not known. They succeeded in capturing Bishop Paternon and cast him in prison, but he was forcibly rescued by his friends and disappeared, leaving his episcopate to his successor, Torsello.*

Fra Giovanni retained his commission until his death in 1230, when a successor was appointed in the person of another Domini- can, Aldobrandino Cavalcanti. Still, their jurisdiction was as yet wholly undetermined, for in June, 1229, we hear of the Abbot of San Miniato carrying to Gregory IX., in Perugia, two leading her- etics, Andrea and Pietro, who were forced to a public abjuration in presence of the papal court ; and in several cases in 1234 we find Gregory IX. intervening, taking bail of the accused and send- ing special instructions to the inquisitor in charge. Yet the In- quisition was gradually taking shape, for shortly afterwards there were numerous heretics discovered, some of whom were burned, their trials being still preserved in the archives of Santa Maria NoveUa. Yet how httle thought there could have been of found- ing a permanent institution is shown, in 1233, by the persecuting statutes drawn up by Bishop Ardingho, approved by Gregory, and ordered by him to be irrevocably inscribed in the statute-book of Florence. In these the bishop is still the persecuting representa- tive of the Church, and there is no allusion to inquisitors. The podesta is bound to arrest any one pointed out to him by the bishop, and to punish him within eight days after the episcopal condemnation, with other provisions borrowed from the edicts of Frederic II. Fra Aldobrandino seems to have relied rather on preaching than on persecution ; in fact he nowhere in the docu- ments signed by him quahfies himself as inquisitor, and neither his efforts nor those of Bishop Ardingho were able to prevent the rapid growth of heresy. In 1235, when the project of an organ- ized Inquisition throughout Europe was taking shape, Gregory ap- pointed the Dominican Provincial of Pome inquisitor throughout his extensive province, which embraced both Sicily and Tuscany ; but this seems to have proved too large a district, and about 1240 we find the city of Florence under the charge of Fra Kuggieri Cal- cagni. He was of a temper well fitted to extend the prerogatives of his office and to render it effective : but it was not until 1243 that


Lami, Antichita Tosciine, pp. 493-4, 509-10, 546.


328 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

he qualified himself as " Inqicisitor Domini Po/poe in Tuscia^^ and in a sentence rendered in 1245 he is careful to call himself inquis- itor of Bishop Ardingho as well as of the pope, and recites the episco])al commission given him as authority to act. In the pro- ceedings of this period the rudimentary character of the Inquisi- tion is evident. One confession in 1244 bears only the names of two frati, the inquisitor not being even present. In 1245 there are sentences signed by Kuggieri alone, while other proceedings show him to be acting conjointly with Ardingho. He may be said, indeed, to have given the Inquisition in Florence form and shape when, about 1243, he opened for the first time his indepen- dent tribunal in Santa Maria Novella, taking as assessors two or three prominent friars of the convent and employing public notar ries to make record of his proceedings.*

This is a, fair illustration of the gradual development of the In- quisition. It Avas not an institution definitely projected and found- ed, but was moulded step by step out of the materials which lay nearest to hand fitted for the object to be attained. In fact, when Gregory, recognizing the futility of further dependence on episco- pal zeal, sought to take advantage of the favorable secular legis- lation against heresy, the preaching friars were the readiest instru- ments within reach for the accomplishment of his object. We shall see hereafter how, as in Florence, the experiment was tried in Aragon and Languedoc and Germany, and the success which on the whole attended it and led to an extended and permanent or- ganization.

The Inquisition has sometimes been said to have been founded April 20, 1233, the day on which Gregory issued two bulls mak- ing the persecution of heresy the special function of the Domini- cans ; but the apologetic tone in which he addresses the prelates shows how uncertain he felt as to their enduring this invasion of their jurisdiction, while the character of his instructions proves that he had no conception of what the innovation was to lead to. In fact, his immediate object seems rather the punishment of priests and other ecclesiastics, concerning whom there was a stand-


  • Lami op. cit. 511, 519-22, 528, 531, 543-4, 546-7, 554, 557, 559.— Archiv.

di Firenze. Prov. S. Maria Novella 1227, Giiign. 20  ; 1229, Giugn. 24 ; 1235, Agost. 23.— Ughelli, Italia Sacra, III. 146-7.— Ripoll I. 69, 71.


COMMENCEMENT OF ORGANIZATION. 329

ing complaint that they favored heretics by instructing them how to evade examination by concealing their beliefs and feigning ortho- doxy. After reciting the necessity of subduing heresy and the raising up by God of the preaching friars, who devote themselves in voluntary poverty to spreading the Word and extirpating mis- behef, Gregory proceeds to tell the bishops  : " We, seeing you en- grossed in the whirlwind of cares and scarce able to breathe in the pressure of overwhelming anxieties, think it well to divide your burdens that they may be more easily borne. We have there- fore determined to send preaching friars against the heretics of France and the adjoining provinces, and we beg, warn, and exhort you, ordering you as you reverence the Holy See, to receive them kindly and treat them well, giving them in this, as in all else, favor, counsel, and aid, that they may fulfil their office." The other bull is addressed " to the Priors and Friars of the Order of Preach- ers, Inquisitors," and after alluding to the sons of perdition who defend heresy, it proceeds : " Therefore you, or any of you, wher- ever you may happen to preach, are empowered, unless they de- sist from such defence (of heretics) on monition, to deprive clerks of their benefices forever, and to proceed against them and all others, without appeal, calling in the aid of the secular arm, if necessary, and coercing opposition, if requisite, with the censures of the Church, without appeal." *

This experiment of investing all the Dominican preachers with legatine authority to condemn without appeal was inconsiderate. It could only lead to exasperation, as we shall see hereafter in Germany, and Gregory soon adopted a more practical expedient. Shortly after the issue of the above bulls w^e find him ordering the Provincial Prior of Toulouse to select some learned friars who should be commissioned to preach the cross in the diocese, and to proceed against heretics in accordance with the recent statutes. Though here there is still some incongruous mingling of duties, yet Gregory had finally hit upon the device which remained the permanent basis of the Inquisition — the selection by the provin- cial of certain fitting brethren, who exercised within their prov-


  • Ripoll I. 45, 47.— C. 8 § 8, Sexto v. 2.-Gregor. PP. XI. Bull. UU humani

generis; Licet ad capiendos. — F otthRst No. 9143, 9153, 9235. — Arch, de ITnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXI. 21, 25).


330 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

ince the delegated authority of the Holy See in searching out and examining heretics with a view to the ascertainment of their guilt. Under this bull the provincial appointed Friars Pierre Cella and Guillem Arnaud, whose labors will be detailed in a subsequent chapter. Thus the Inquisition, as an organized 'system, may be considered as fairly commenced, though it is noteworthy that these early inquisitors in their official papers qualify themselves as act- ing under legatine and not under papal authority. How little idea there was as yet of creating a general and permanent institu- tion is seen when the Archbishop of Sens complained of the intru- sion of inquisitors in his province, and Gregory, by a brief of Feb- ruary 4, 1234, apologetically revoked all commissions issued for it, adding a suggestion that the archbishop should call in the as- sistance of the Dominicans if he thought that their superior skill in confuting heretics was hkely to prove useful.*

As yet there was no idea of superseding the episcopal functions. About this time we find Gregory writing to the bishops of the province of Narbonne, threatening them if they shaU not inflict due chastisement on heretics, and making no allusion to the new expedient; and as late as October 1, 1234, Pierre Amiel, Arch- bishop of Narbonne, exacted an oath from his people to denounce aU heretics to him or to his officials, apparently in ignorance of the existence of special inquisitors. Even where the latter were com- missioned, their duties and functions, their powers and responsi- bflities, were wholly undefined and remained to be determined. As they were regarded simply in the fight of assistants to the bishops in the exercise of the immemorial episcopal jurisdiction over heresy, it was naturally to the bishops that were referred the questions which immediately arose. Many points as to the treat- ment of heretics had been settled, not only by Gregory's Roman


  • Potthast No. 9263; cf. No. 9386, 9388.— Guill. de Pod. Laur. c. 43.— Coll.

Doat, XXI. 143, 153.— Ripoll I. 66.

Guillem Arnaud generally qualifies himself as acting under commissioa from the legate, but sometimes as appointed by the Dominican provincial. In sev- eral sentences on the Seigneurs de Niort, in February and March, 1236, he acts with the Archdeacon of Carcassonne, both under legatine authority. As yet there was evidently no settled organization (Coll. Doat, XXI. 160, 163, 165, 106).


RELATIONS WITH THE EPISCOPATE. 331

statutes of 1231, but by the Council of Toulouse in 1229, and those of Beziers and Aries in 1234, which were solely occupied with stimulating and organizing the episcopal Inquisition, yet matters of detail constantly suggested themselves in practice, and a new code of some kind was evidently required to render persecution effective. The suspension of the Inquisition for some years at the request of Count Raymond postponed this, but when the Holy Office resumed its functions in 1241 the necessity became pressing, and the bishops were looked to as the authority from which such a code should emanate. Sentences rendered in 1241 by GuiUem Arnaud recite not only that Bisliop Raymond of Toulouse acted as assessor, but that the special advice of the Archbishop of Nar- bonne had been asked. It was evident that general principles for the guidance of the Inquisition must be laid down, and according- ly a great council of the three provinces of Narbonne, Aries, and Aix was assembled at Narbonne in 1243 or 1244, where an elab- orate series of canons were framed, which remained the basis of inquisitorial action. These were addressed to " Our cherished and faithful children in Christ the Preaching Friars Inquisitors ;" and though the bishops discreetly say, " We write this to you, not that we wish to bind you down by our counsels, as it would not be fit- ting to limit the liberty accorded to your discretion by other forms and rules than those of the Holy See, to the prejudice of the busi- ness ; but we wish to help your devotion as we are commanded to do by the Holy See, since you, who bear our burdens, ought to be, through mutual charity, assisted with help and advice in our own business," yet the tone of the whole is that of absolute com- mand, both in the definition of jurisdiction and the instructions as to dealing with heretics. It is highly significant that, in surren- dering control over the bodies of their flocks, these good shepherds strictly reserved to themselves the profits to be expected from per- secution, for they straitly enjoined upon the new officials, " You are to abstain from these pecuniary penances and exactions, both for the sake of the honor of your Order, and because you wiU have fully enough other work to attend to." While thus carefully pre- serving their financial interests, they abandoned Avhat was vastly more important, the right of passing judgment and imposing sentence. Sentences of this period are rendered in the name of the inquisitors, though if the bisliop or other notable per-


332 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

son took part, as was frequently the case, he is mentioned as an assessor.*

The transfer of the old episcopal jurisdiction over heresy to the Inquisition naturally rendered the connection between bishop and inquisitor a matter of exceeding delicacy, and the new insti- tution could not establish itself without considerable friction, re- vealed in the varying and contradictory policy adopted at succes- sive periods in adjusting their mutual relations. This renders itself especially noticeable in the development of the Inquisition in the different lands of Europe. In Italy the independence of the episcopate had long since been broken down, and it could offer no efficient opposition to the encroachment on its jurisdiction. In Germany, on the other hand, the lordly prince-bishops looked with jealous eyes on the intruder, and, as we shall see hereafter, never allowed it to obtain a permanent foothold. In France, and more especially in Languedoc, although the prelates were far more independent than those of Italy, the prevalence of heresy required for its suppression a vigilance and an activity far beyond their ability, and they found themselves obliged to sacrifice a portion of their prerogatives in order to escape the more painful sacrifice of performing their long-neglected duties. Yet they did not sub- mit to this without a struggle which may be dimly traced in the successive efforts to establish a modus vwendi between the respec- tive tribunals.

We have just seen that at an early period the inquisitors as- sumed to render sentences in their own names, without reference to the bishops. This invasion of the latter's jurisdiction was evi- dently too great an innovation to be permanent ; indeed, almost immediately we find the Cardinal Legate of Albano instructing the Archbishop of Narbonne to order the inquisitors not to con- demn heretics or impose penances without the concurrence of the bishops. This order had to be repeated and rendered more abso- lute ; and the question was settled in this sense by the Council of Beziers in 1246, where the bishops, on the other hand, surrendered the fines to be used for the expenses of the Inquisition, and drew


  • Vaissette, III. Pr. 364, 370-1.— Concil. Tolosan. ann. 1229.-Concil. Biter-

rens. ann. 1234. — Concil. Arelatens. ann. 1234. — Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244. — Coll. Doat, XXI. 143, 155, 158.


RELATIONS WITH THE EPISCOPATE. 333

up another elaborate series of instructions for the inquisitors, " wiUiDgly yielding to your devout requests which you have humbly made to us." For a while the popes continued to treat the bishops as responsible for the suppression of heresy in their respective dioceses, and consequently as the real source of juris- diction. In 1245 Innocent lY., in permitting inquisitors to mod- ify or commute previous sentences, specified that this must be done with the advice of the bishop. In 1246 he orders the Bishop of Agen to make diligent inquisition against heresy under the rules prescribed by the Cardinal Legate of Albano, and with the same power as the inquisitor to grant indulgences. In 1247 he treats the bishops as the real judges of heresy in instructing them to labor sedulously for the conversion of the convict, before passing sentence involving death, perpetual imprisonment, or pilgrimages beyond seas ; even with obstinate heretics they are to consult diligently with the inquisitor or other discreet persons whether to pass sentence or to postpone it, as may best subserve the sal- vation of the sinner and the interest of the faith. Still, in spite of all this, the sentences of Bernard de Caux, from 1246 to 1248, bear no trace of episcopal concurrence. There evidently was jealousy and antagonism. In 1248 the Council of Valence was obliged to coerce the bishops into publishing and observing the sentences of the inquisitors, by interdicting the entry into their own churches to those who refused to do so, showing that the bishops were not consulted as to the sentences and were indisposed to enforce them. In 1249 we find the Archbishop of Narbonne complaining to the pope that the inquisitor Pierre Durant and his colleagues had, without his knowledge, absolved the Chevalier Pierre de Cugun- ham, who had been convicted of heresy, whereupon Innocent forthwith annulled their proceedings. In fact the pardoning power seems to have been considered as specially vested in the Holy See, and about this period we find several instances in which it is conferred by Innocent on bishops, sometimes with and some- times without injunctions to confer with the inquisitors. Finally this question of practice was settled by adopting the habit of re- serving in every sentence the right to modify, increase, diminish, or abrogate it.*

  • Vaissette, HI. 452.— Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246.— Berger, Les Registres


334 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

Inasmuch as the inquisitors in 1246 still expected the bishops to defray their expenses, they recognized themselves, at least iri theory, as merely an adjunct to the episcopal tribunals. The bish- ops, moreover, were expected to build the prisons for the confine- ment of converts, and though they eluded this and the king was obliged to do it, the Council of Albi, held in 1254 by the papal legate, Zoen of Avignon, assumes that the prisons are under epis- copal control. The same council drew up an elaborate series of instructions for the treatment of heretics, which marks the termina- tion of episcopal control of such matters, for all subsequent regula- tions were issued by the Holy See. Even so experienced a perse- cutor as Bernard de Caux, notwithstanding his neglect of episcopal jurisdiction in his sentences, admitted in 1248 his subordination to the episcopate by applying for advice to Guillem of JSTarbonne, and the archbishop replied, not only with directions as to special cases, but with general instructions. Indeed, in 1250 and 1251 the arch- bishop was actively employed in making an inquisition of his own and in punishing heretics without the intervention of papal inquisi- tors ; and a brief of Innocent lY. in 1251 alludes to a previous in- tention, subsequently abandoned, of restoring the whole business to the bishops. In spite of these indications of reaction the in- truders continued to win their way, with struggles, bitter enough, no doubt, in many places, and intensified by the hostility between the secular clergy and the Mendicants, but only to be conjectured from the scattered indications visible in the fragmentary remains of the period. There is an effort to retain vanishing authority in the offer made in 1252 by the bishops of Toulouse, Albi, Agen, and Carpentras to give full authority as inquisitors to any Dominicans who might be selected by the commissioners of Alphonse of Poi- tiers, only stipulating that their assent must be asked to all sen-


d'lnnocent IV. No. 2043, 3867, 3868.— Arch, de I'lnq. de Carcass. (Doat, XXXI. 68, 74, 75, 77, 80, 152, 182).— Potthast No. 12744, 15805.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latm, No. 9992. — Concil. Valentin, ann. 1248 c. 10. — Baluz. Cone. Narbonn. "App. p. 100.

The system devised by the councils of Languedoc became generally current. In 1248 Innocent IV. ordered the Archbishop and Inquisitor of Narbonne to send a copy of their rules of procedure to the Provincial of Spain and Raymond of Pennaforte, to be followed in the Peninsula (Baluz. et Mansi I. 208) ; and their canons are frequently cited in the manuals of the mediaeval Inquisition,


RELATIONS WITH THE EPISCOPATE. 335

tences, and promising to observe in all cases the rules established by the Inquisition. This question of episcopal concurrence in con- demnations evidently excited strong feehng and was long con- tested with varying success. If previous orders requiring it had not been treated with contempt. Innocent lY. would not have been obhged, in 1254, to reiterate the instructions that no condemnations to death or hfe-imprisonment should be uttered without consulting the bishops ; and in 1255 he conjoined bishop and inquisitor to in- terpret in consultation any obscurities in the laws against heresy and to administer the lighter penalties of deprivation of office and preferment. This recognition of episcopal jurisdiction was annulled by Alexander lY,, who, after some vacillation, in 1257 rendered the Inquisition independent by releasing it from the necessity of con- sulting with the bishops even in cases of obstinate arid confessed heretics, and this he repeated in 1260. Then there was a reaction. In 1262 Urban lY., in an elaborate code of instructions, formally revived the consultation in all cases involving the death-penalty or perpetual imprisonment ; and this was repeated by Clement lY. in 1265. Either these instructions, however, were revoked in some subsequent enactment or they soon fell into desuetude, for in 1273 Gregory X., after alluding to the action of Alexander lY. in an- nulling consultation, proceeds to direct that inquisitors in deciding upon sentences shall proceed in accordance with the counsel of the bishops or their delegates, so that the episcopal authority may share in decisions of such moment. Up to this period the Inquisi- tion seems to have been regarded as merely a temporary expedient to meet a special exigency, and every pope on his accession had issued a series of bulls renewing its provisions. Heresy, however, was apparently ineradicable; the populations had accepted the new institution, and its usefulness had been proved in many ways besides that of preserving the purity of the faith. Henceforth it was considered a permanent part of the machinery of the Church, and its rules were definitely settled. Gregory's decision in favor of concurrent episcopal and inquisitorial action in all cases of con- demnation consequently remained unaltered, and we shall see here- after that when Clement Y. endeavored to check the more scan- dalous abuses of inquisitorial power, he sought the remedy, insuffi- cient enough, in some slight increase of episcopal supervision and responsibihty, following in this an effort in the same direction


836 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

which had been essayed by Philippe le Bel. Yet when bishop and inquisitor chanced to be on good terms, the slender safeguard thus afforded for the accused was eluded by one of them giving to the other power to act for him, and cases are on record in which the bishop acts as the inquisitor's deputy, or the inquisitor as the bishop's. The question as to whether either of them could render without the other a valid sentence of absolution was one which greatly vexed the canonists, and names of high repute are ranged on either side, with the weight of authority inchning to the af- firmative.^

The control of the bishops was vastly increased, at least in Italy, over the vital question of expenditures, when Nicholas lY., in 1288, ordered that all moneys arising from fines and confisca- tions should be deposited with men selected jointly by the inquisi- tor and bishop, to be expended only with the advice of the latter, to whom accounts were to be rendered regularly. This was a se- rious limitation of inquisitorial independence, and it was not of long duration. The bishops soon made use of their supervisory power to demand a share of the spoils under pretext of conducting inquisitions of their own. The quarrel was an unseemly one, and Benedict XI., in 1304, put an end to it by annulling the regulations of his predecessor. The bishops were prohibited from requiring accounts, and these were ordered to be rendered to the papal camera or to special papal deputies.f

If there was this not unnatural vacillation in regulating the delicate relations of these competing jurisdictions, there was none whatever in regard to those between the Inquisition and society at large. Even in its early years of tentative existence and uncertain


  • Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246. — Arch, de Flnq, de Carcass. (Doat, XXVII. 7,

156; XXX. 107-9; XXXI. 149, 180, 216).— Vaissette, III. Pr. 479, 496-7.— Mar- tene Thesaur. I. 1045.— Ripoll I. 194.— Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Licet ex omnibus^ 30 Mai, 1254. — Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 24.— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Licet ex omni- bus, 20 Jan. 1257 ; Ejusd. Bull. Ad capiendum, ann. 1257. — Clement. PP. IV.*Bull. Licet ex omnibus, 17 Sept. 1265. — Gregor. PP. X. Bull. Prm cunctis mentis, 20 Apr. 1273. — Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. passim. — C. 17 Sexto v. 2. — Eymeric. Direct. Inq. p. 580. — Albert. Repert. Inq. s. v. Episcopus.—Z2iiic\nm Tract, de Haeret. xv. — Isambert, II. 747. — Pegnse Comment, in Eymeric. p. 578.

t Wadding. Annal. Minorum ann. 1288, No. 17. — C. 1 Extrav. Commun. v. iii.


THE BULL "AD EXTIRPANDA." 337

organization it developed such abundant promise of usefulness in bringing the secular laws to bear upon heresy that means were sought to give it a fixed organization which should render it still more efficient in its functions both of detection and punishment. The death of Frederic II., in 1250, in removing the principal an- tagonist of the papacy, offered the opportunity of giving practical enforcement to his edicts, and accordingly. May 15, 1252, Innocent ly. issued to all the potentates and rulers of Italy his famous buU, Ad extirjpanda^ a carefully considered and elaborate law which should establish machinery for systematic persecution as an in- tegral part of the social edifice in every city and every state, though the uncertain way in which bishop, inquisitor, and friar are alternately referred to in it shows how indefinite were stiU their respective relations and duties in the matter. All rulers were or- dered in public assembly to put heretics to the ban, as though they were sorcerers. Any one finding a heretic could seize him, and take possession of his goods. Each chief magistrate, within three days after assuming office, Avas to appoint, on the nomination of his bishop and of two friars of each of the Mendicant Orders, twelve good Cathohcs with two notaries and two or more servitors whose sole business was to arrest heretics, seize their goods, and deliver them to the bishop or his vicars. Their wages and expenses w^ere to be defrayed by the State, their evidence was receivable without oaths, and no testimony was good against the concurrent state- ment of any three of them. They held office for six months, to be reappointed or replaced then, or at any time, on demand of the bishop and friars ; they were entitled to one third of the proceeds of all fines and confiscations inflicted on heretics ; they were ex- empt from aU public duties and services incompatible with their functions, and no statutes were to be passed interfering with their actions. The ruler was bound when required to send his assessor or a knight to aid them, and every inhabitant when called upon was obliged to assist them, under a heavy penalty. When the in- quisitors visited any portion of the jurisdiction they were accom- panied by a deputy of the ruler elected by themselves or by the bishop. In each place visited, this official was to summon under oath three men of good repute, or even the whole vicinage, to re- veal any heretics within their knowledge, or the property of such, or of any persons holding secret conventicles or differing in life or I.— 22


338 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

manners from the ordinary faithful. The State was bound to ar- rest all accused, to hold them in prison, to dehver them to the bishop or inquisitor under safe escort, and to execute within fif- teen days, in accordance with Frederic's decrees, all judgments pronounced against them. The ruler was further required, when called upon, to inflict torture on those who would not confess and betray all the heretics of their acquaintance. If resistance was made to an arrest, the community where it occurred was hable to an enormous fine unless it delivered up to justice within three days all who were implicated. The ruler was required to have four fists made out of afi who were defamed or banned for heresy ; this was to be read in pubfic thrice a year and a copy given to the bishop, one to the Dominicans and one to the Franciscans ; he was likewise to execute the destruction of houses within ten days of sentence, and tlie exaction of fines within three months, throwing in prison those who could not pay and keeping them until they should pay. The proceeds of fines, commutations, and confiscations were divisi- ble into three parts, one enuring to the city, one to those concerned in the business, and the remainder to the bishop and inquisitors to be expended in persecuting heresy.

The enforcement of this stupendous measure was provided for with equally careful elaboration. It was to be inscribed ineffacea- bly in all the local statute-books, together with all subsequent laws which the popes might issue, under penalty of excommunication for recalcitrant ofiicials, and interdict upon the city. Any attempt to alter these laws consigned the offender to perpetual infamy and fine, enforced by the ban. The rulers and their officials were to swear to their observance under pain of loss of office ; and any neglect in their enforcement was punishable as perjury with per- petual infamy, a fine of two hundred marks, and suspicion of heresy involving loss of office and disability for all official position in future. Every ruler, within ten days after assuming office, was re- quired to appoint, on the nomination of the bishop or the Mendi- cants, three good CathoHcs, who under oath were to investigate the acts of his predecessor and prosecute him for any failure of obedi- ence. Moreover each podesta at the beginning and end of his term was required to have the buU read in aU places that might be designated by the bishop and inquisitors, and to erase from the statute-books aU laws in conflict with them. At the same time


THE BULLS "AD EXTIRPANDA." 339

Innocent issued instructions to the inquisitors to enforce by ex- communication the embodiment of this and of the edicts of Frede- tic in the statutes of all cities and states, and he soon after con- ferred on them the dangerous power of interpreting, in conjunction with the bishops, all doubtful points in local laws on the subject of heresy.

These provisions are not the wild imaginings of a nightmare, but sober matter-of-fact legislation shrewdly and carefully devised to accomplish a settled policy, and it affords us a valuable insight into the public opinion of the day to find that there was no effective resistance to its acceptance. Before the death of Innocent lY., in 1254, he made one or two slight modifications suggested by experi- ence in its Avorking. In 1255, 1256, and 1257 Alexander lY. re- vised the bull, explaining some doubts which had arisen, and pro- viding for the enforcement in aU cases of the appointment of ex- aminers of rulers o^oino" out of office, and in 1259 he reissued the bull as a whole. In 1265 Clement lY. again went over it carefully, making some changes, principally in adding the words " inquisi- tors" in passages where Innocent had only designated the bishops and friars, thus showing that the Inquisition had during the in- terval estabhshed itself as the recognized instrumentality in the persecution of heresy ; and the next year he repeated Innocent's emphatic order to the inquisitors to enforce the insertion of his legislation and that of his predecessors upon the statute-books everywhere, with the free use of excommunication and interdict. This shows that it had not been universally accepted with alac- rity, but the few instances which we find recorded of refusal show how generaUy it was submitted to. Thus in 1256 Alexander lY. learned that the authorities of Genoa were recalcitrant, and he promptly ordered the censure and interdict if they did not comply within fifteen days ; and in 1258 a similar course was observed with those of Mantua ; while the retention of the bull in the stat- utes of Florence as late as the recension of 1355, even in the midst of incongruou 3 legislation, shows how literally the papal mandates had been obeyed for a century.*


  • Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Ad extlrpanda, ann. 1352 (Mag. Bull. Roman. L 91).—

Ejusd. Bull. Orthodoxm, 1252 (Ripoll L 208, cf. VIL 28).— Ejusd. Bull, [ft com- rmssuvi, 1254 (Ibid. L 250).— Ejusd. Bull. Volmtes, 1254 (lb. L 251).— Ejusd. Bull.


340 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

In Italy this furnished the Inquisition with a completely or- ganized persminel paid and sustained by the State, rendering it a substantive institution armed with all the means and appliances necessary for the thorough performance of its work. Whether the popes ever endeavored to render the bulls operative elsewhere does not appear, but if they did so they failed, for the measure was not recognized as in force beyond the Alps. Yet this was scarce neces- sary so long as public law and the conservative spirit of the ruling class everywhere rendered it the highest duty of the citizen of every degree to aid in every way the business of the inquisitor, and pious monarchs hastened to enforce the obMgation of their subjects. By the terms of the Treaty of Paris all pubUc officials w^ere obliged to aid in the inquisition and capture of heretics, and all inhabitants, males over fourteen years of age and females over twelve, w^ere to be sworn to reveal all offenders to the bishops. The Council of Narbonne in 1229 put these provisions in force ; that of Albi in 1254 included inquisitors among those to whom the heretic was to be denounced, and it freely threatened with the censures of the Church all temporal seigneurs who neglected the duty of aiding the Inquisition and of executing its sentences of death or confiscation. The aid demanded was freely given, and every inquisitor was armed with royal letters empowering him to caU upon aU officials for safe-conduct, escort, and assistance in the discharge of his functions. In a memorial dated about 1317 Ber- nard Gui says that the inquisitors make under these letters fuU use of the baillis, sergeants, and othei* officials, both of the king and of the seigneurs, without which they would accomphsh little. This w^as not confined to France, for Eymerich, writing in Aragon, in-

Gum veneraMlis, 1253 (Mag. Bull. Roman. I. 93-4). — Ejusd. Bull. Cum in constitu- tionibus, 1254 (Pegnse App. p. 19). — Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Gum secundum, 1255 (M. B. R. I. 106).— Ejusd. Bull. Exortis in agro, 1256 (Pegnae App. p. 20). — Ejusd. Bull. Exortis in agris, 1256 (RipoU I. 297).— Ejusd. Bull. Belecti Jilii, 1256 (Ripoll I. 312).— Ejusd. Bull. Cum vos, 1256 (Ripoll I. 314).— Ejusd. Bull. Fcelicis recarda- tionis, 1257 (M. B. R. I. 106).— Ejusd. Bull. Implacida, 1257 (M. B. R. I. 113).— Ejusd. Bull. Tmplacida, 1258 (Potthast No. 17302).— Ejusd. Bull. Ad extirpanda, 1259 (Pegnae App. p. 30).— Clement. PP. IV. Bull. Ad extirpanda, 1265 (M. B. R. I. 148-51).— Ejusd. Bull. Jd extirpanda, 1266 (Pegnae App. p. 43,. — Archivio di Firenze, Riforraagioni, Classe II. Distinzione, 1, No. 14.

About 1330 Bernard Gui (Practica P. iv,— Coll. Doat, XXX.) qaotes the pro- visions of the bull as still among the privileges of the Italian inquidtors.


SUBJECTION OF THE STATE. 341

forms us that the first act of the inquisitor on receiving his com- mission was to exhibit it to the king or ruler, and ask and exhort him for these letters, explaining to him that he is bound by the canons to give them if he desires to avoid the numerous penalties decreed in the bulls Ad abolendam and Ut inquisionis. His next step is to exhibit these letters to the ofiicials and swear them to obey him in his official duties to the utmost of their power. Thus the whole force of the State was unreservedly at command of the Holy Office. Not only this, indeed, but every individual was bound to lend his aid when called upon, and any slackness of zeal exposed him to excommunication as a fautor of heresy, leading after twelve months, if neglected, to conviction as a heretic, with all its tremen- dous penalties.*

The right to abrogate any laws which impeded the freest exer- cise of the powers of the Inquisition was likewise arrogated on both sides of the Alps. When, in 1257, Alexander lY. heard with indignant emotion that Mantua had adopted certain damnable stat- utes interfering with the absolutism of the Inquisition, he straight- way ordered the Bishop of Mantua to investigate the matter, and to annul anything which should impede or delay its operations, enforcing his action by excommunicating the authorities and lay- ing an interdict on the city. This was simply in furtherance of the buU Ad extirjpcmda^ but in 1265 Urban lY. repeated the order and made it universally applicable, and it was carried into the canon law as the expression of the undoubted rights of the Church. This rendered the Inquisition virtually supreme in all lands, and it be- came an accepted maxim of law that all statutes interfering with the free action of the Inquisition were void, and those who enacted them were to be punished ; where such laws existed the inquisitor

  • Bernard. Guidon. Gravamina (Coll. Doat, XXX. 90 sqq.). — Concil. Narbonn.

ann. 1229 c. 1, 2. — Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 3, 5, 8. — Archives de Tlnq. de Carcass. (Doat, XXX. 110-11, 127 ; XXXI. 250).— Vaissette, III. Pr. 528-9, 536.— Archivio di Napoli, Registro 6, Lett. D. fol. 180. — Eymerici Direct. Inquis. pp. 390-1, 560-1.— Bernardi Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).

It vpas sometimes a work of some labor and time for the inquisitor to obtain his royal letters-patent. When, in 1269, the Franciscans Bertrand de Roche and Ponce des Rives were appointed inquisitors of Forcalquier, they were obliged to travel to Palermo, where Charles of Anjou happened to be residing, and whence he gave them letters, August 4, 1209, to his seneschal and other officials, — Archivio di Napoli, Registro 6, Lett. D, fol. 180.— Cf. Regist. 20, Lett. B, fol. 91.


342 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

was instructed to liave them submitted to him, and if he found them objectionable the authorities were obliged to repeal or modify them. It was not the fault of the Church if a bold monarch like Phihppe le Bel occasionally ventured to incur divine vengeance by protecting his subjects.*

Beyond the Alps there was no legal responsibility admitted, as in Italy, to defray the expenses of the Inquisition by the State. This is a subject which will be treated more fully hereafter, and meanwhile I may briefly state that royal generosity was amply sufiicient to keep the organization in effective condition. Its nec- essary expenses were exceedingly small. The Dominican convents furnished buildings in which to hold its tribunals. The pubhc of- ficials were bound under royal order and the tremendous penalties involved in suspicion of heresy to render service whenever called upon. If the bishops had neglected the duty of establishing and maintaining prisons, the royal zeal had stepped in, had built them and had kept them up. In 131 Y we learn that during the past eight years the king had spent the large sum of six hundred and thirty livres tournois on that of Toulouse alone, and lie also regu- larly paid the jailers. Besides this, the inquisitors, whenever they needed aid and counsel, were empowered to summon experts to at- tend them and to enforce obedience to the summons. There was no exception of dignity or station. All the learning and wisdom of the land were made subservient to the supreme duty of sup- pressing heresy and were placed gratuitously at the service of the Inquisition ; and any prelate who hesitated to render assistance of an}^ kind when called upon was threatened in no gentle terms with the fuU force of the papal vengeance. f

That the powers thus conferred on the inquisitors were real and not merely theoretical we see in 1260 in the case of Capello di Chia, a powerful noble of the Roman province, who incurred the suspicion of heresy, was condemned, proscribed, and his lands confiscated. He refused to submit, when Fra Andrea, the inquisi- tor, called for assistance on the citizens of the neighboring town of


  • Mag. Bull. Eomau. I. 118.— C. 9 Sexto v. 1. — Zanchini Tract, de Hgeret. c.

xxxi. — Cf. Eymerici Direct. Inq. p. 561. — Bernard! Comens. Lucerna Inquisit. s. v. Statutum.

t Bernard. Guidon. Gravam. (Doat, XXX. 107-9).— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Gupi- entes^ 15 Apr. 1255 ; Ejusd. Bull. Exortis in agro^ 15 Mar. 1256.


IRRESPONSIBILITY OF INQUISITORS. 34,3

Viterbo, and they obeyed him by raising an army with which he marched to besiege CapeUo in his castle of CoUe-Casale. Capello had craftily conveyed his lands to a Roman noble named Pietro Giacomo Surdi, and the pious enterprise of the Yiterbians was ar- rested by a command from the senator of Rome forbidding violence to the property of a good Catholic Roman citizen. Then Alexan- der TV. intervened, ordering Surdi to withdraw from the quarrel, as his claim to the castle was null and void. He likewise com- manded the senator to abandon his indefensible position, and warm- ly thanked the Yiterbians for the zeal and alacrity with which they had obeyed the summons of Fra Andrea. Fra Andrea, in fact, had only exercised the power which Zanghino declares to be inherent in the office of inquisitor, of levying open war against heretics and heresy.*

In the exercise of this almost limitless authority, inquisitors were practically relieved from all supervision and responsibihty. Even a papal legate was not to interfere with them or inquire into heresy within their inquisitorial districts. They were not hable to excommunication while in discharge of their duties, nor could they be suspended by any delegate of the Holy See. If such a thing were attempted, the excommunication or suspension was pronounced void, unless, indeed, it was issued by special command of the pope. Already, in 1245, they were empowered to absolve their famihars for any excesses, and in 1261 they were authorized to absolve each other from excommunication for any cause ; which, as each inquisitor usually had a subordinate associate ready to perform this office for him, rendered them virtually invulnerable. Moreover, they were released from all obedience to their provincials and generals, whom they were even forbidden to obey in anything relating to the business of their office, and they were secured from any attempt to undermine them with the curia by the enormous privilege of being able to go to Rome at any time and to stay there as long as they might see fit, even in spite of prohibition by provincial or general chapters. At first their commissions were thought to expire with the death of the pope who issued them, but in 1267 they were declared to be continuously valid.f

  • Pegnse Append, ad Eymeric. pp. 37-8.— Zunchini Tract, de Haeret. c. xxxvii.

t Arch. Nat. de France, J. 431, No. 23.— Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Devotianis, 2 Mai.


344 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

The question of the removability of inquisitors was one which bore directly upon their subordination or independence, and was the subject of much conflicting legislation. When the power of appointment was first conferred upon the provincials it carried with it authority to remove and replace them after consultation with discreet brethren; and in 1244 Innocent lY. declared that the provincials and generals of the Mendicant Orders had full power to remove, revoke, supersede, and transfer all members of their orders serving as inquisitors, even when commissioned by the pope. Some ten years later the vacillating policy of Alexander lY. indicates an earnest effort on the part of the inquisitors to ob- tain independence. In 1256 he asserted the removing power of the provincials ; July 5, 1257, he withdrew their power, and De- cember 9, of the same year, he reaffirmed it in his bull Quod super nonnullis^ which was repeatedly reissued by himself and his suc- cessors. Later popes issued conflicting orders, until at length Boni- face YIII. decided in favor of the removing power ; but the in- quisitors claimed that it could only be exercised for cause and after due trial, which practically reduced it to a nullity. It is true that in the reformatory effort of Clement Y. ipso facto excommunica- tion, removable only by the pope, was provided for three crimes of inquisitors — falsely prosecuting or neglecting to prosecute for favor, enmity, or profit, for extorting money, and for confiscating church property for the offence of a clerk — but these provisions, although they called forth the earnest protest of Bernard Gui, only amounted to a declaration of what was desirable, and were of no practical effect.* ,

1245 (Coll. Doat, XXXI. 70).— Berger, Registres d'Innoc. IV. No. 1963.— Ripoll 1. 132 ; II. 594, 610, 644.— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. TJt negotium, 5 Mart. 1261.— Urbani PP. IV. Bull, m negotium, 4 Aug. 1262.— Mag. Bull. Roman. 1. 116, 120, 126, 139, 267, 420.— C. 10 Sexto v. 2.— Potthast No. 13057, 183&9, 18419, 19559.— Bern. Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).— Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 136, 137.

It is curious that the question whether the commission of an inquisitor did not expire with the death of the appointing pope was still considered in doubt as late as 1290, when it was settled in favor of permanence by Nicholas IV. in the bull We aliqui (Potthast No. 23302). In the earlier period Alexander IV. shortly after his accession, in 1255, considered it necessary to renew the com- mission of even so distinguished an inquisitor as Rainerio Saccone (Ripoll I. 275).

  • Coll. Doat, XXXI. 73 ; XXXH. 15, 105.— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Odare suam, 13


REMOVABILITY OF INQUISITORS. 345

The Franciscans endeavored to reduce their inquisitors to sub- jection by the expedient of issuing commissions for a limited term. Thus in 1320 the General Michele da Cesena adopted the term of five years, which seems to have long continued the rule, for in 1375 we see Gregory XI. requesting the Franciscan general to keep in office as inquisitor of Rome Fra Gabriele da Yiterbo on account *of his eminent merits. In 1439 a commission as inquisi- tor of Florence, issued to Fra Francesco da Michele, to take effect on the expiration of the term of the incumbent, Fra Jacopo della Biada, indicates that appointments were still for specified times, although in 1432 Eugenius lY. had conferred on the Franciscan general, Guglielmo di Casale, fuU power of appointment and re- moval. The Dominicans do not seem to have adopted this expe- dient, and no precautions of any kind were available to enforce subordination and discipline in view of the constant interference of the Holy See, which doubtless could always be obtained by those who knew how to approach it. Commissions were continually is- sued directly by the pope, and those who held them seem not to have been removable by any one else. Even when this was not done, it mattered little that the popes admitted the power of the provincials to remove, when they interposed to nullify its exercise. In 1323 John XXII. gave to Fra Piero da Perugia, inquisitor of Assisi, letters which protected him from suspension and removal. In 1339 we happen to hear of Giovanni di Borgo removed by the Franciscan general and replaced by Benedict XII. Even more sub- versive of discipline was the case of Francisco de Sala, appointed by the provincial of Aragon, removed by his successor, and rein- stated by Martin Y. in 1419, with a provision of inamovability by any superior of his Order. Yet in 1439 Eugenius lY., and in 1474 Sixtus lY. renewed the provisions of Clement lY. rendering inquisitors removable at will by both generals and provincials ; and in 1479, Sixtus lY., to impress them with some sense of re- sponsibihty, adopted the expedient of requiring all complaints against them to be brought before the general of the Order to


Mai. 1256 ; Eju8d. Bull. CatholicoB Jidei, 15 Jul. 1257 ; Ejusd. Bull. Qiu)d super nannullis, 9 Dec. 1257 ; Ejusd. Bull. Meminimus, 13 Apr. 1258.— -Clem. PP. IV. Bull. Licet ex omnibus, 30 Sept. 1265. — C. 1, 2, Clementin, v. 2.— Bern. Guidon, Gravam. (Doat, XXX. 1 14).


346 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

which they belonged, to whom was confided power of punishment up to removal.*

The natural result of this conflicting legislation was that the inquisitors held themselves accountable to their superiors only for their actions as friars and not as inquisitors ; in the latter capacity they acknowledged responsibility only to the pope, and they as- serted that the power of removal could only be exercised' in cases of inabihty to act through sickness, age, or ignorance. Their vicars and commissioners they held to be completely beyond any jurisdiction but their own, and any attempt on the part of a pro- vincial to remove such a subordinate was to be met with a prose- cution for suspicion of heresy, as an impeding of the Inquisition, to be followed by excommunication, when, if this was endured for a year, it was to be ended by condemnation for heresy. Men armed with these tremendous powers, and animated with this res- olute spirit, were not lightly to be meddled with. The warmth with which Eymerich argues the subject suggests the character of the struggle continually going on between the provincials and their appointees, and the conclusions to which he arrives indicate the temper in which the latter vindicated their independence. The grave abuses and disorders to which this led obliged John XXIII. to intervene and declare that the inquisitors should in all things be subject and obedient to their superiors. The Great Schism, however, had weakened the papal authority, and this in- junction met with scant respect, so that one of the first utterances of Martin Y., in 1418, when the Church was reunited at Constance, was to repeat the order, and to prescribe implicit obedience to it. Yet, as in the matter of removals, the insatiable greed of the curia was a fatal obstacle to the enforcement of subordination, for those who were commissioned directly by the pope could not be expected to endure subjection to the officials of their Orders.f

From Eymerich's remarks we see that an inquisitor was bound


  • Wadding, ann. 1323, No. 17  ; ann. 1327, No. 5  ; ann. 1339, No. 1 ; ann. 1347,

No. 10, 11; ann. 1375, No. 30; ann. 1432, No. 10, 11; ann. 1474, No. 17-19.— Archivio di Firenze, Prov. del Convento di S. Croce 26 Ott. 1439.— Ripoll II. 324, 421, 570-1. —Sixti PP. IV. Bull. Sacri, 16 Jul. 1479, § 11.

t Eymeric. pp. 540-9, 553. — Archivio di Firenze, Prov. del. Conv. di. S. Croce, 16 Apr. 1418.


UNIVERSAL JURISDICTION. 347

to have little hesitation in prosecuting his superior. His jurisdic- tion, in fact, was almost unlimited, for the dread suspicion of her- esy brought, with few exceptions, all mankind to a common level, and suspicion of heresy was to be technically inferred from any- thing which affected the dignity or crossed the purposes of those who carried on the Inquisition. Even the jealously-guarded riglit of asylum in the churches was waived in its favor, and the im- munities of the Mendicant Orders gave them no exemption from its jurisdiction. Kings, themselves, were subject to this jurisdic- tion, though Eymerich discreetly observes that in their case it is more prudent to inform the pope and await his instructions. Yet one exception there was. The episcopal office still retained enough of its earlier dignity to render its possessor exempt unless the inquisitor was furnished with special papal letters. It was his duty, however, in case a bishop was suspected of vacillating in the faith, to collect with diligence all the evidence procurable, and to forward it to Rome for examination and decision — a duty in the exercise of which he could render himself abundantly disagree- able, and even dangerous. The choleric John XXII., in 132Y, intro- duced another exemption when provoked by the arrogance of the Sicihan inquisitor, Matthieu de Pontigny, who dared to excom- municate Guillaume de Balet, archdeacon of Frejus, papal chap- lain and representative of the Avignonese papacy in the Cam- pagna and Maritima. The angry pope issued a decretal forbid- ding aU judges and inquisitors to attack in any way the officials and nuncios of the Holy See without special letters of authority — but the mere audacity of the attempt shows the height of pre- sumption to which the members of the Holy Office had attained. That laymen learned to address them as " your religious majesty '■ shows the impression made on the popular mind by their irre- sponsible supremacy.*

If bishops were exempt from judgment by the Inquisition they were not released from obedience to the inquisitors. In the ordi- nary papal commission issued to the latter, archbishops, bishops,


  • Eymerici Direct. Inquis. p. 559.— Greg. PP. X. Bull. 20 Apr. 1273 (Martene

Thes. V. 1821).— Zanchini de Haeret. c. viii.— Johann. PP. XXII. Bull. Ex parte vestra, 3 Jul. 1322 (Wadding. HI. 291).— C. 16 Sexto v. 2.— C. 3 Extrav. Com- muri. V. 3. — Arch, de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXVII. 204).


34:8 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

abbots, and other prelates are commanded to obey them in all con- cerning their office, under pain of excommunication, suspension, and interdict. That this was not a mere idle form is manifest by the tone of arrogant domination in which the inquisitors issued their commands to episcopal officials. Though the papal super- scription to the bishop was " venerable brother " and to the in- quisitor " cherished son," yet the inquisitors held that they were superior to the bishops, as being direct delegates of the Holy See, and that if any one were cited simultaneously by a bishop and an inquisitor he must first attend to the summons of the latter. The inquisitor was to be obeyed as the pope himself, and this suprem- acy included the bishop. This formed part of the papal policy, for the inquisitor was a convenient instrument to reduce the episco- pate to subjection. Thus in 1296 Boniface YIII., in giving direc- tions to the bishops to suppress certain irregular and unauthorized hermits and mendicants, enclosed copies of the bull to the inquis- itors with instructions to stimulate the bishops to their duty and to report to him all who showed themselves negligent. In spite of the assumed superiority of the inquisitor, however, the Inqui- sition was very commonly used as a stepping-stone to the episco- pate. It is not easy to set bounds to the sources of influence which the office placed within reach of an ambitious man, and this influence was constantly employed to procure promotion into the ranks of the hierarchy. Instances of this are too frequent to be specified, commencing with the earliest inquisitors, Fra Aldobran- dino Cavalcanti of Florence, who became Bishop of Yiterbo, while his successor, Fra Ruggieri Calcagni, in 1245, was rewarded with the bishopric of Castro in the Maremma. I need only refer to the case of Florence, in 1343, where the inquisitor, Fra Andrea da Pe- rugia was advanced to the episcopate and was succeeded by Fra Pietro di Aquila, who in 1346 was made Bishop of Santangelo dei Lombardi. His successor was Fra Michele di Lapo, and in 1350 we find the Signiory writing to the pope with the request that he be placed in the bishopric of Florence, which had becorne va- cant. The office also afforded opportunities of promotion within the Orders which were not neglected. Thus in a list of Domini- can provincials of Saxony in the latter half of the fourteenth century, three who occupied that post in succession from 1369 to 1382, Walther KerMnger, Hermann Helstede, and Heinrich


INEFFECTUAL OPPOSITION. 3.^9

von Albrecht, are all described as having been previously inquis- itors.*


It is not to be imagined that this gigantic structure which overshadowed Christendom was allowed to establish itself wholly without opposition, despite the favor of popes and kings. When we come to consider the details of its history we shall find numer- ous cases of popular resistance, desperate and isolated struggles, crushed remorselessly before revolt could so extend as to become dangerous. It required, indeed, courage to foolhardiness for any one to raise hand or voice against an inquisitor, no matter how cruel or nefarious were his actions. Under the canon law, any one, from the meanest to the highest, who opposed or impeded in any way the functions of an inquisitor, or gave aid or counsel to those who did so, became at once ijpso facto excommunicate. After the lapse of a year in this condition he was legally a heretic to be handed over without further ceremony to the secular arm for burn- ing, without trial and without forgiveness. The awful authority which thus shrouded the inquisitor was rendered yet more terri- ble by the elasticity of definition given to the crime of impeding the Holy Ofiice and the tireless tenacity with which those guilt}^ of it were pursued. If friendly death came to shield them, the In- quisition attacked their memories, and visited their offences upon their children and grandchildren. f

All unorganized efforts of insubordination were easily repressed. Had the bishops united in resistance, they could readily have pre- vented the serious encroachment on their jurisdiction and influence, and have saved their flocks from the horrors in store for them. There was no unity of action, however, among the prelates. Some


  • Pegnae App. ad. Eymeric. pp. 66-7. — Arch, de Tlnq. de Carcass. (Doat,

XXXII. 143, 147).— Eymeric. Direct. Inq. pp. 537-8.— Albert. Repert. Inq. Ed. 1494, s. V. Delegatus. — Franz Ehrle, Archiv fiir Litteratur- u. Kirchengeschichte, 1886, p. 158. — Lami, Antichita Toscane, p. 583. — Archivio di Firenze, Riform- agioni, Classe V. No. 129, fol. 46, 62-70.— Martene Ampl. Collect. VI. 344.

t MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin. No. 4270, fol. 146. In the trial of Friar Bernard D61icieux, in 1319, it was held that he was guilty of "impeding" the Inquisition because, among otiier acts, he had been concerned in enlarging somewhat the powers of the agents appointed by the city of Albi to prosecute their appeal to Pope Clement V. against their bishop and inquisitor (lb. fol. 165).


S50 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

of them were honest fanatics who welcomed the Holy Office and assisted it in every way. Others were indifferent. Multitudes, engrossed in worldly cares and quarrels, were rather glad to be relieved of duties which were onerous and for which they had neither learning nor leisure. If any foresaw the end from the humble beginning, none dared to raise a voice against what was everywhere regarded by pious souls as supplying the most urgent need of the time. Still, that the episcopate at large looked with disfavor on these new functions and activities of the upstart Mendicants there can be no doubt, although jealousy could only manifest itself through a futile pretence to discharge the neglected duties in which the Mendicants had been summoned to replace them. Accordingly we find a certain bustling show of activity in ordering perquisition against heretics by the old device of the synodal witnesses, in the Council of Tours in 1239, that of Be- ziers in 1246, that of Albi in 1254 ; while that of Lille (Yenaissin) in 1251 made a bolder effort to recover lost ground by not only ordering the bishops to make searching inquisition in their dio- ceses, but by demanding from the Inquisition the surrender of all its records to the Ordinaries ; and when this failed the Council of Albi, in 1254, made a fruitless effort to obtain duplicate copies. The spirit in which the rival tribunals regarded each other is seen in the complaint of an inquisitor, not long after 1250, that heretics were encouraged and rendered audacious by the constant attacks and detraction to which the inquisitors were exposed, as being fools, and negligent and slow, and incapable of bringing any af- fair to a termination, as punishing the innocent and allowing the guilty to escape. These slanders, he says, proceed from judges, both secular and ecclesiastical, who profess great zeal for the ex- termination of heresy, but who are really impelled by covetous- ness for bribes, or who are secretly inclined to heresy, or have friends or relatives who are heretics or suspected of heresy. Evi- dently there was little love lost between the old organization and the new.*

If any thought existed of combined opposition, outside of Ger-


  • Concil. Turonens. ann. 1239 c. 1. — C. Biterrens. ann. 1246 c. 1.— C. Albiens.

ann. 1254 c. 1, 21. — C. Insulan. ann. 1251 c. 2.— Tract, de Paup. de Lugduno (Martene Thesaur. V. 1793).


FRUITLESS EPISCOPAL ANTAGONISM. 35I

many, it might well be thrown aside as impracticable after the spectacle of the defeat of the University of Paris on its own ground by the Mendicants. The jealousy perpetually fed by the constant encroachments of the inquisitors could only find vent in obscure squabbles wherein the final decision of the Holy See could always be confidently reckoned upon as against the episcopate. In 1330 we see the inquisitor, Henri de Chamay, complaining to John XXII. that the Bishop of Maguelonne was interfering with the free exercise of his office in Montpellier, on the ground of cer- tain papal privileges granted him, when the pope at once instructs him to proceed without hesitation and to disregard the bishop's pretensions. Such a decision was a foregone conclusion, as the Archbishop of IS^arbonne and all his suffragans found in 1441, when they united in addressing Eugenius lY., complaining of the exorbitant pretensions of the Inquisition, and asking him to delay action till they should send him full details. Without waiting to hear their specific charges, he replied that the inquisitor had already accused them of impeding him in his office and with vexing him with proceedings and suits at law. There is no business, he added, of greater importance to the Church than the destruction of heresy, and no way to win his favor more efficacious than by aiding the Inquisition. It had been organized for the purpose of reheving bishops of a portion of their cares, and any interference with it would be visited with his displeasure. In the present case, for the sake of concord, the inquisitor would revoke the grievances com- plained of, and the pope pronounced all suits against him quashed and extinguished. Evidently in any contest the odds were too great against the episcopate, and the danger of systematic opposi- tion too real, to render any organized antagonism feasible. How completely the papacy regarded the Inquisition as an instrumental- ity for furthering its schemes of aggrandizement is seen when, on the outbreak of the Great Schism, inquisitors were required to take a formal feudal oath of fidelity to the pope appointing him and to ills successors."^

With so little to check and so much to stimulate, the spread of


  • Arch, de I'Inq. de Carcass. (Boat, XXXV. 85, 184).— RipoU II. 299, 311;

m. 135.


352 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

the Inquisition was rapid throughout most of the lands of Chris- tendom. I shall have occasion hereafter to trace its vicissitudes in the principal centres of its activity, and need here only indicate the limits of its extension.

The northern nations were too far removed from the focus of heresy to be exposed to aberrations from the faith at the time w^hen papal supremacy found its most useful instruments in the Mendicant inquisitors. Consequently the papal Inquisition cannot be said to have had an existence in the British Islands, Denmark, or Scandinavia. The edicts of Frederic II. had no currency there ; and when, in 1277, Robert Kilwarby, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the masters of Oxford denounced certain errors springing from the Averrhoist doctrines ; when, in 1286, Archbishop Peckham condemned the heresy of Friar Richard Crapewell, and in 1368 Archbishop Langham denounced as heretical thirty articles of scholastic speculation, even had there been martjnrs ready there Avere no law^s under which to punish them, although lawyers had sought to introduce the penalty of the stake, and it had once been inflicted by a council of Oxford, in 1222, on a clerk who had apos- tatized to Judaism. We shaU see hereafter that in the affair of the Templars the papal Inquisition was found necessary to procure condemnation, but even then it was so opposed to the character of English institutions that it worked defectively and disappeared as soon as the occasion for its temporary introduction passed away. When Wickliff came and w^as followed by LoUardry, the English conceptions of the relations between Church and State had already become such that there was no thought of applying to Rome for a special tribunal with which to meet the threatened danger. The statute of May 25, 1382, directs the king to issue to his sheriffs commissions to arrest Wickliff's travelling preachers, and aiders and abettors of heresy, and to hold them till they justify them- selves " selonc reson et la ley de seinte esglise  ;" and, in the follow- ing July, royal letters ordered the authorities of Oxford to make inquisition for heresy throughout the university. The weakness of Richard II. allowed the Lollards to become a powerful political as well as rehgious party, but their chances disappeared with the revolution which placed Henry lY. on the throne. The support of the Church was a necessity to the new dynasty, which lost no time in earning its gratitude. After the burning of Sawtre by a


PERSECUTION IN ENGLAND. 353

royal warrant confirmed by Parliament, in 1400, the statute " de hcBretico comburendo^^ for the first time inflicted in England the death-penalty as a settled punishment for heresy. It restricted preaching to the beneficed curates and those ex officio privileged, it forbade the dissemination of heretical opinions and books, em- powered the bishops to seize all offenders and hold them in prison until they should purge themselves or abjure, and ordered the bishops to proceed against them within three months after arrest. For minor offences the bishops were empowered to imprison dur- ing pleasure and fine at discretion — the fine enuring to the royal exchequer. For obstinate heresy or relapse, involving under the canon law abandonment to the secular arm, the bishops and their commissioners were the sole judges, and, on their delivery of such convicts, the sheriff of the county or the mayor and bailiffs of the nearest town were obliged to burn them before the people on an eminence. Henry Y. followed this up, and the statute of 1414: established throughout the kingdom a sort of mixed secular and ecclesiastical inquisition for which the English system of grand in- quests gave especial faciUties. Under this legislation burning for heresy became a not unfamiliar sight to English eyes, and Lol- lardry was readily suppressed. In 1533 Henry YIII. repealed the statute of 1400, while retaining those of 1382 and 1414, and also the penalty of burning alive for contumacious heresy and relapse, and the dangerous admixture of politics and religion rendered the stake a favorite instrument of statecraft. One of the earliest measures of the reign of Edward YI. was the repeal of this law, as well as of those of 1382 and 1414, together with all the atrocious legisla- tion of the Six Articles. With the reaction under PhiHp and Mary came a revival of the sharp laws against heresy. Scarce had the Spanish marriage been concluded when an obedient Parliament re- enacted the legislation of 1382, 1400, and 1414, which afforded ample machinery for the numerous burnings which followed. The earUest act of the first Parliament of Elizabeth was the repeal of the legislation of PhiUp and Mary and of the old statutes which it had revived ; but the writ de hoeretico comburendo had become an integral part of English law and survived until the desire of Charles II. for Catholic toleration caused him, in 1676, to procure its abroga- tion and the restraint of the ecclesiastical courts " in cases of athe- ism, biasphertiy, heresy, and schism and other damnable doctrines I.— 23


cr


354 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

and opinions " to the ecclesiastical remedies of " excommunication, deprivation, degradation, and other ecclesiastical censures not ex- tending to death." Scotland was more tardy than England in humanitarian development, but the last execution for heresy in the British Islands was that of a youth of eighteen, a medical student named Aikenhead, who was hanged in Edinburgh in 1696.*

In Ireland the fiery temper of the Franciscan, Eichard Ledred, Bishop of Ossory, led him into a prolonged struggle with presumed heretics — the Lady Alice Kyteler, accused of sorcery, and her ac- complices. So little was known in Ireland of the laws concerning heresy that at first the secular officials refused contemptuously to take the oath prescribed by the canons to aid inquisitors in their persecuting duties, but Ledred finally obliged them to do so and had the satisfaction of burning some of the accused in 1325. He incurred, however, the enmity of the chief personages of the island, leading to a counter-charge of heresy against himself. For years he was obhged to live in exile, and it was not till 1354 that he was able to reside quietly in his diocese, though in 1335 we find Bene- dict XII. writing to Edward HI., deploring the absence in England of so useful an institution as the Inquisition, and urging him to order the secular officials to lend efficient aid to the pious Bishop of Ossory in his struggles with the heretics, of whom the most ex- aggerated description is given. Even Alexander, Archbishop of Dublin, in 1347, was declared to have been a fautor of heresy be- cause he interfered with Ledred's violent proceedings ; and, in 1351, his successor, Archbishop John, was directed to take active meas- ures to punish those who had escaped from Ossory and had taken refuge in his see.f

It is true that when the Hussite troubles became alarming and


  • D'Argentrg, Collect. Judic. I. i. 185, 234.— Harduin. Concil. VII. 1065-8,

1864. — Capgrave's Chronicle, ann. 1286. — Nic. Trivetti Chron. ann. 1222 (D'Achery III. 188). — Bracton. Lib. iii. Tit. ii. cap. 9, § 2. — Myrror of Justice, cap. I. § 4, cap. ii. § 22; cap. iv. § 14. — 5 Rich. II. c. 5.— Rymer's Foedera, VII. 363, 447, 458.-2 Henr. IV. c. 15.— Concil. Oxoniens. ann. 1408 c. 13.^2 Henr. V. c. 7.-25 Henr. VIII. c. 14.— 1 Edw. VI. c. 12, § 3.— 1 Eliz. c. 1, § 15.— 29 Car. II. c. 9.— London Athenaeum, May 31, 1873; Nov. 29, 1884.

t Wright, Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler, Camden Soc. 1843. — Wadding. Annal. ann. 1317, No. 56; ann. 1335, No. 5, 6.— Theiner Monument. Hibern. et Scotor. No. 531-2, p. 269; No. 570-1, p. 286; No. 599, p. 299.


EXTENDED TO THE EAST. 355

there was danger that the disaffection might spread to the North, Martin Y., in 1421, authorized the Bishop of Sleswick to appoint a Franciscan, Friar Nicholas John, as inquisitor for Denmark, Nor- way, and Sweden, but there is no trace of his activity in those re- gions, and the Inquisition may be considered as non-existent there.*

As the mediaeval missions for the conversion of schismatics and heathen were exclusively Dominican and Franciscan, the churches which they built up, however slender in membership, were never- theless completely equipped with apparatus for preserving the orthodoxy of converts, and thus we read of Inquisitions in Africa and Asia. Friar Eaymond Martins is honored as the founder of the Inquisition in Tunis and Morocco. About 1370 Gregory XI. appointed the Dominican Friar John Gallus as inquisitor in the East, who in conjunction with Friar Elias Petit planted the in- stitution, as we are told, in Armenia, Eussia, Georgia, and "Wal- lachia, while Upper Armenia was similarly provided by Friar Bar- tolomeo Ponco. On the death of Friar Gallus, Urban YI., about 1378, applied to the Dominican general to select three brethren to serve as inquisitors, one in Armenia and Georgia, one in Greece and Tartary, and one in Eussia and the two Wallachias ; and in 1389 one of these. Friar Andreas of Caff a, obtained the privilege of appointing an associate in his extensive province of Greece and Tartary. In the fourteenth century an inquisitor seems to have been regarded as a necessary portion of the missionary outfit. Even in the fabled Ethiopian empire of Prester John we hear of an Inquisition founded in Abyssinia by the Dominican Friar, St. Pantaleone, and another in Nubia by Friar Bartolomeo de TybuU, who was also honored as a saint in those regions. Grotesque as all this sounds, one cannot help honoring the unselfish zeal of the men who thus devoted themselves to the diffusion of the gospel among barbarous Gentiles, and one can find comfort in the convic- tion that their Inquisitions were comparatively harmless so long as they were not backed by the terrible laws of a Frederic II. or of a St. Louis.f

Even the decaying fragments of the Ejngdom of Jerusalem


  • Wadding. Annal. ann. 1421, No. 1.

t Paramo, pp. 252-3.— Monteiro, Historia da Santo Inquisi^ao, P. I. Lib. i. c. 69.— RipoU II. 299, 310; III. 9, 110.


356 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

could not be allowed burial without an inquisitor to attend the obsequies. The misfortunes of war, according to Nicholas lY., the first Franciscan pope, gave opportunity for the growth of her- esy and Judaism. Therefore, in 1290, he granted full powers to his legate, Nicholas, Patriarch of Jerusalem, to appoint inquisi- tors, with the advice of the Mendicant provincials. This was ac- cordingly done, but the fatherly care of Nicholas was a trifle tar- dy. The capture of Acre, May 19, 1291, drove the Christians finally from the Holy Land, and the career of the Syrian Inquisi- tion was therefore of the briefest. It was revived, however, in 1375, by Gregory XI., who empowered the Franciscan provincial of the Holy Land to act as inquisitor in Palestine, Syria, and Egypt, to check the too prevalent apostasy of the Christian piL grims who continued to flock to those regions.*

It is not to be supposed that the triumph of the Inquisition over the bishops gave to it a monopoly of persecution. The ordi- nary episcopal jurisdiction remained intact. About 1240 we see the Bishop of Toulouse and his provost conducting, without the aid of an inquisitor, an inquest for heresy upon the powerful seigneurs de Niort. Bishops who were zealous were frequently seen co-op- erating with inquisitors in the examination of heretics, as well as holding their own inquisitions. Thus, in a number of cases occur- ring at Albi in 1299, we find the trials held in the episcopal pal- ace before the bishop, assisted sometimes by Nicholas d' Abbeville, inquisitor of Carcassonne, and sometimes by Bertrand de Cler- mont, inquisitor of Toulouse, and sometimes by both. At first, as we have seen, the inquisitor was only the assistant of the bish- op, and the latter was by no means relieved of his duties and re- sponsibilities in the extermination of heresy. In fact the bishops themselves sometimes appointed inquisitors of their ow^n in order to operate more efiiciently ; and the names of such functionaries acting for the archbishops of Narbonne appear in documents of 1251 and 1325. There was nothing, moreover, to prevent a zeal-

  • Wadding, ann. 1290, No. 2  ; ami. 1375, No. 27, 28.

It is worthy of note that in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem heresy seems to have been justiciable by the lay court, and the heretic knight was entitled to be judged by his peers. — Assises de Jerusalem, Haute Court, c. 318 (Ed. Kausler, Stuttgart, 1838, p. 367-8).


EPISCOPAL INQUISITION. 357

ous prelate, who thought less of the dignity of his order than the suppression of heresy, from accepting a commission as inquisitor from the pope, as was the case with Guillem Arnaud, Bishop of Carcassonne, who, during his episcopate, lasting from 1249 to 1255, presided over the tribunal of Carcassonne with an energy that Dominicans might have envied.*

Yet, as the Inquisition achieved its independence of the epis- copate, two concurrent jurisdictions could hardly coexist without jarring, even when both were animated by the desire of harmony : when jealousy and rivalry were strong, quarrels were inevitable. It was even hinted that bishops, desiring to preserve friends from the zeal of the inquisitors, would prosecute them in their own courts to preserve them from the rigorous impartiality of the Holy Office. To settle the questions which thus were constantly aris^ ing, Urban lY., in 1262, empowered the inquisitors to proceed in all cases at their discretion, whether or not these were also under examination by the bishops ; and this was repeated in 1265 and 1266 by Clement lY., with strong injunctions to the inquisitors that they were not to allow their processes to be impeded by con- current action of the bishops. In 1273 Gregory X. laid down the same rule ; and it became the settled practice of the Church, em^ bodied in the canon law, that both courts could simultaneously try the same case, communicating at intervals their proceedings to each other. Mutual conference, moreover, was necessary at the final sentence, and when they could not agree a full statement had to be submitted to the pope for decision. Even w^hen proceeding alone and by his ordinary authority, the bishop was obliged to call in the concurrence of an inquisitor when he rendered sen- tence.t


  • Tr6sor dcs Chartes du Roi en Carcassonne (Doat, XXI. 34-49).— Lib. Conv

fess. Inquis. Albiae (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, 11847).— Archives Nat. de France, J. 431, No. 22-29.— Vaissette, III. 446.— Coll. Doat, XXVII. 161.— Molinier, L'ln- quisition dans le midi de la France, Paris, 1880, pp. 275-6.

t Mag. Bull. Roman. I. 122.— Wadding. Annal. ann. 1265, No. 3.— Arch, de rinq. de Carcassonne (Coll. Doat, XXXII. 32).— Martene Thesaur. V. 1818.— C. 17 Sexto V. 2. — C. 1 Extrav. Comm. v. 3. — Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 539, 580-1.— C. 1, § 1, Clement, v. 3.

Urban\s bull of 12C2 is virtually the same as his "Prtc cunctia^^ of 1264, printed by Boutaric, Saint-Louis et Alph. de Toulouse, pp. 443 sqq.


358 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

During this period, at one time, it became a question whether the episcopal jurisdiction over heresy was not completely super- seded by the papal commission given to an inquisitor to act in his diocese. Gui Foucoix, the foremost jurist of his day, in his QucBstlones,^ which long remained an authority in the inquisi- torial tribunals, answered this question in the affirmative, and ar- gued that the bishop was debarred from action by the special del- egation of papal powers to the inquisitor. Yet, when Gui became pope, under the name of Clement lY., his bulls of 1265 and 1266, quoted above, show that he abandoned this position, and Gregory X. also expressly declared that the diocesan jurisdiction was not interfered with. Still the question was regarded as doubtful by canon lawyers, and for a period the episcopal jurisdiction sank al- most into abeyance. There were few more active prelates in his day than Simon, Archbishop of Bourges, who, from 1284 to 1291, made repeated visitations of his southern dioceses, such as Albi, Kodez, Cahors, etc. Yet, in the records of these visitations, there is no allusion to his taking any cognizance of heresy, unless, in- deed, his forcing, in 1285, a number of usurers of Gourdon to ab- jure be assumed as such, though usury was not justiciable by the Inquisition unless it became heresy by the assertion of its legahty. About 1298, however, Boniface YIII. reasserted the jurisdiction of the episcopate, and we see Bernard de Castanet, Bishop of Albi, stirring up a revolt among his flock by the energy with which he scourged the heretics of Albi. Soon afterwards Clement Y. enlarged the functions of the episcopate as a means of curbing the atrocities of the Inquisition, and the glossators argued that the appointment of inquisitors in no way relieved the bishop from the duty of investigating and suppressing heresy in his diocese — ^in- deed, he was liable to deposition by the pope for negligence in this respect, though he was shielded by his position from prosecu- tion by the inquisitor. Yet, even after the Clementines, Bernard Gui asserts it to be improper for the episcopal ordinary to cite any one who is already before the Inquisition. StiU, if the potver of the bishop had been limited by requiring him to consult with the inquisitor before rendering sentence, it had been enlarged in an- other direction by authorizing him to summon witnesses as well as offenders who had fled to other dioceses. There was one dis- crimination, however, against the bishop which handicapped him


EPISCOPAL INQUISITION. 359

heavily. His attempts to get a share of the proceeds of fines and confiscations to meet the expenses of prosecution were ineffectual. He was told that he and his officials had revenues for the functions of the Church, and these must suffice to pay him for the service. Ingenious dialecticians reasoned this away as far as regards the bishop when he acted personally, but it held good against his offi- cials. To the latter it was not encouraging to be urged to work and pay their own costs, while the inquisitor, at least in Italy, had control of the confiscations, Avithout accountability to the bishop.* Under the legislation of Boniface YIII. and Clement Y. it was natural that the first quarter of the fourteenth century should witness a revival of the episcopal Inquisition. Even in Italy the provincial Council of Milan, held at Bergamo in 1311 under the Archbishop Gastone Torriani, organized a thorough system of in- quisition on the model of the papal institution. The growing

  • Vaissette, III. 515.— Archidiac. Gloss, sup. c. 17, 20 Sexto v. 2. — Harduin.

VIL 1017-19.— C. 17, 19 Sexto v. 2.— C. 1, Clement, v. 3.— Concil. Melodun. ann. 1300, No. 4.— Bernard. Guidon. Hist. Conv. Albiens. (Bouquet, XXI. 767).— Al- bert. Repert. Inquis. s. v. Episcopus. — Guid. Fulcod. Quasst. I. — Ripoll I. 512; VII. 53. — Joann. Andreae Gloss, sup. c. 13 § 8 Extra, v. vii. — Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 626, 637, 650.— C. 1 Extrav. commun. v. 3. — Bernard. Guidon. Prac- tica P. lY. (Doat, XXX.). — Bernardi Comens. Lucerna Inquis, s. v. Bona hceret- icorum.

As early as 1257 we find that the Inquisition had already extended its juris- diction over usury as heresy (Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Quod super nonnullis [Arch. de rinq. de Carcass. Doat, XXXI. 244] — a bull which was repeatedly reissued. See Raynald. Annal. ann. 1258, No. 23 ; Potthast Regesta 17745, 18396 ; Ey- meric. Direct. Inquis. Ed. Pegnae, p. 133. Cf. c. 8 § 5 Sexto v. 2). The Council of Lyons, in 1274 (can. 26, 27), in treating of usury, alludes only to its punishment by the Ordinaries. The Council of Vienne, in 1311, directed inquisitors to prosecute those who maintained that usury is not sinful (c. 1 § 2 Clementin. v. 5); but Eymerich (Direct. Inquis. p. 106) deprecates attention to such matters as an interference with the real business of the Inquisition. Zanghino lays down the rule that a man may be a public usurer, or blasphemer, or fornicator without being a heretic, but if he, in addition, manifests contempt for religion by not fioquenting divine service, receiving the sacrament, observing the fasts and other ordinances of the Church, he becomes suspect of heresy, and can be prosecuted by the inquisitors (Zanchini Tract, de Haeres. c, xxxv.).

We shall see that usury became a very profitable subject of exploitation by the Inquisition when the diminution of heresy deprived it of its legitimate field of action. As tlie off*cnce was one cognizant by the secular courts (see Vaissette, IV. 164), tlieie was really no excuse for the exercise of sj)! ritual jurisdiction over it,


360 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

power of the Yisconti, hostile to the papacy, had greatly crippled the Dominicans, and a vigorous effort was made to replace them. In every town the arch-priest or provost was instructed to raise an armed guard, whose duty was the ceaseless perquisition of her- esy, and whose privileges and immunities were the same as those of the familiars of the Dominican inquisitors; and all citizens, from the noble to the peasant, were summoned to lend assistance, when called upon, under significant threats. In France some pro- ceedings, in 1319 and 1320, at Beziers, Pamiers, and Montpellier show the episcopal courts in fuU activity, with the occasional ap- pearance of an inquisitor in a subordinate capacity as assistant, or of an episcopal inquisitor as a colleague of equal rank with those who acted under papal authority. In fact we find one such, in 1322, representing the see of Ausch, contending with the great Bernard Gui himself over a prisoner whom they both claimed. When, also, in 1319, the great opponent of the Inquisition, Friar Bernard Delicieux, was to be tried for impeding it, John XXII. ap- pointed a special commission for the work, consisting of the Arch- bishop of Toulouse and the Bishops of Pamiers and St. Papoul, while one of the most experienced inquisitors of the time, Jean de Beaune of Carcassonne, acted as prosecutor, and not as judge.* In Germany, about the same time, there was a sudden develop- ment of episcopal activity in the prosecutions of the Beghards by the Bishop of Strassburg and the Archbishop of Cologne, leading to a fair trial of strength between the hierarchy and the Domini- cans in the case of Master Eckhart, the teacher of Suso and Tau- ler and the founder of the German mystics. He was looked upon with pride by the whole Order as one of its most prominent mem- bers. He had taught theology with applause in the great Univer- sity of Paris ; in 1303, when Germany was divided into two prov- inces, he had been made the first provincial Prior of Saxony ; in 1307 the general had appointed him Yicar of Bohemia. In 1326 we find him, as teacher of theology in the Dominican school of Cologne, falling under suspicion of complicity with the heresy of the Beghards, against whom a sharp persecution was raging. His


  • Coll. Doat, XXVII. 7 ; XXXIV. 87.— Concil. Bergamens. ann. 1311, Rubr. 1.

— MSS. Bib. Nat. Coll. Moreau. 1374, fol. 72.— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan, pp.


268, 282, 351-2.


CASE OF MASTER ECKHART. 361

lofty mysticism trenched dangerously on their pantheism, and possibly they may have sought to shelter themselves behind his great name. At the general chapter of 1325 complaints had been made that in Germany members of the Order preached to the people in the vulgar tongue doctrines that might lead to error, and Gervaise, Prior of Angers, was ordered to investigate them ; while, about the same time, John XXII., in concurrence with the wishes of the Order, appointed Nicholas of Strassburg, lector or teacher of the Cologne Dominicans, as his inquisitor for the prov- ince of Germany, to inquire into the faith and life of the brethren. Thus far everything had been kept within the precincts of the Order, but the archbishop was growing hot in his pursuit of the Beghards. He evidently was dissatisfied with what was on foot, and he appointed two episcopal commissioners or inquisitors to look after Master Eckhart. E'icholas of Strassburg was himself inchned to mysticism ; every motive conspired to lead him to deal tenderly with the accused, and Eckhart was accordingly acquitted, in July, 1326. The episcopal inquisitors were not content with this (one of them was a Franciscan), and proceeded to take evi- dence against Eckhart. After six months, on January 14, 1327, they summoned Mcholas, as was their right, to communicate to them his proceedings. He came, accompanied by ten friars, not to obey the command, but to enter a solemn protest against the whole business, demanding his " Apostoh," or letters of appeal to the pope, on the ground that Dominicans were not subject to the epis- copal Inquisition, and that he in especial was an inquisitor ap- pointed by the pope with full jurisdiction. As early as 1184 Lu- cius III. had abolished all immunities of monastic orders in cases of heresy, but the Dominicans were of later origin, they had been strengthened with special privileges, and they claimed this exemp- tion although they could not prove it. The episcopal inquisitors promptly answered this by commencing the same day an action against Nicholas himself, who on the morrow interjected an appeal to the Holy See. They further summoned Master Eckhart to ap- pear before them on January 31, but on the 24th he came with numerous supporters and filed an indignant protest, in which he complained bitterly of their protracting the proceedings for the purpose of ruining his reputation, in place of pushing them to an end, as they could readily have done six months before ; besides,


362 I^HE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

they were using for the same purpose certain vile Dominicans who were notorious for their crimes. He demanded his "ApostoH," and named May 4 as the term for prosecuting the appeal in the Koman court. To this the archiepiscopal inquisitors had by law thirty days to reply, and during the interval, on February 13, he took an extra-judicial step, which seems to show how greatly his reputation had suffered by these proceedings, and which has given rise to the assertion that he recanted his errors. After preaching in the Dominican church he caused a paper to be read in which he exculpated himself to the people from the erroneous doctrines attributed to him — denying that he had said that his httle finger had created all things, or that there was in the soul something uncreated and uncreatable. At the expiration of the thirty days, on February 22, the archiepiscopal inquisitors rejected Eckhart's appeal as frivolous. Worn out with the controversy, he died soon after, but his Order had sufficient influence with John XXII. to obtain an evocation of the case to Avignon. There the regularity of the archbishop's action was recognized, and on March 27, 1329, judgment was rendered, defining in Eckhart's teachings seventeen heretical articles and eleven suspect of heresy. Although his as- sumed recantation saved his bones from exhumation and increma- tion, the result was none the less a fuU justification of the arch- bishop's proceedings. For once the old order had triumphed over the new. The episcopal jurisdiction was confirmed, for Eckhart's heresy was declared to have been proved both by the inquisition held by the archbishop under his ordinary authority, and by the investigation subsequently made in Avignon by papal command, and the decision was the more emphatic, since John XXII. had at the moment every motive to soothe the Dominicans, involved as he was in mortal struggle at once with Louis of Bavaria and with the whole puritanic section of the Franciscans.*


  • W. Preger, Meister Eckart und die Inquisition, Miinchen, 1869. — Denifle,

Archiv fiir Litteratur- und Kirchengeschichte, 1886, pp. 616, 640. — Raynald. ann. 1329, No. 70-2. — Gustav Schmidt, Pabstliche Urkunden und Regesten, Halle, 1886, p. 223.— Cf. Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 453 sqq.

The power of the Inquisition over the specially exempted orders of the Men- dicants varied at times. Jurisdiction was conferred by Innocent IV., in 1254, by the bull Ne comissum whis (RipoU I. 252). About two hundred years later, Pius II. placed the Franciscans under the jurisdiction of their own minister-geu-


EPISCOPAL INQUISITION. 363

The episcopal Inquisition was thus fairly re-established as part of the recognized organization of the Church. The Council of Paris in 1350 treats of the persecution of heresy as part of the recognized duties of the bishop, and instructs the Ordinaries as to their powers of arrest and authority to call upon the secular offi- cials for assistance in precisely the same terms as the Inquisition might do. A brief of Urban Y. in 1363 refers to a knight and five gentlemen suspected of heresy, then in the custody of the Bishop of Carcassonne, and orders their trial by the bishop or inquisitor, or by both conjointly, the result to be referred to the papal court. AVhen a bishop had spirit to resist the invasion of his rights by an inquisitor, he was able to make them respected. In 1423 the In- quisitor of Carcassonne had gone to Albi, where he swore in two notaries and some other officials to act for him ; he had then taken certain evidence relating to a case before him, and had sworn the witnesses to secrecy in order that the accused might not receive warning. Of all this the Bishop of Albi complained as an invasion of his jurisdiction. The swearing in of the officials he claimed should only have been done in presence of his ordinary or of a deputy ; the secrecy imposed on the witnesses was an impediment to his own inquisitorial procedure, as depriving him of evidence in the event of his prosecuting the case. The points were somewhat nice, and illustrate the friction and jealousy inseparable from the concurrent and competing jurisdictions ; but in the present case, to avoid unseemly strife, the Bishop of Carcassonne was chosen as arbitrator, the inquisitor acknowledged himself in the wrong and annulled his acts, and a public instrument was drawn up in attesta-

eral. In 1479 Sixtus IV., by the golden bull Sacri prmdicatorum^ § 12, forbade all inquisitors from prosecuting members of the other Order (Mag. Bull. Roman. I. 420). Soon afterwards Innocent VIII. prohibited all inquisitors from trying Franciscan friars; but, with the rise of Lutheranism, this became inexpedient, and in 1530 Clement VII., in the bull Cum sicut, § 2, removed all exemptions, and again made all justiciable by the Inquisition (Mag. Bull. Rom. 1. 681), which was repeated by Pius IV. in the bull Pastoris cBterni, in 1562 (Eymeric. Direct. Inq. Append, p. 127; Pegnae Comment, p. 557).

Whether a bishop could proceed against an inquisitor for heresy was a de- batable question, and one probably never practically tested. Eymerich holds that he could not, but must refer the matter to the pope ; but Pegna, in his commentaries, quotes good authorities to the contrary (Eymeric. op. cit. pp. 558-9).


^CA THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

tion of the settlement. Yet in spite of these inevitable quarrels a 7?iodiu^ viuefidi was practically established. Eyraerich, writing about 1375, almost always represents the bishop and inquisitor as co-operating together, not only in the final sentence, but in the preliminary proceedings ; he evidently seeks to represent the two powers as working harmoniously for a common end, and that the Inquisition in no w^ay superseded the episcopal jurisdiction or re- heved the bishop from the responsibility inherent in his office. A century later Sprenger, in discussing the jurisdiction of the In- quisition from the standpoint of an inquisitor, takes virtually the same position ; and the commissions issued to inquisitors usually contained a clause to the effect that no prejudice w^as intended to the inquisitorial jurisdiction of the Ordinaries. In the habitual negligence of the episcopal officials, however, the inquisitors found little difficulty in trespassing upon their functions, and complaints of this interference continued until the eve of the Eeformation.*

Technically there was no difference between the episcopal and papal Inquisitions. The equitable system of procedure borrowed from the Eoman law by the courts of the Ordinaries was cast aside, and the bishops were permitted and even instructed to follow the inquisitorial system, which was a standing mockery of justice — perhaps the most iniquitous that the arbitrary cruelty of man has ever devised. In tracing the history of the institution, therefore, there is no distinction to be drawn between its two branches, and the exploits of both are to be recorded as springing from the same impulses, using the same methods, and leading to the same ends.f

Yet the papal Inquisition was an instrument of infinitely greater efficiency for the work in hand. How^ever zealous an episcopal of- ficial might be, his efforts were necessarily isolated, temporary, and spasmodic. The papal Inquisition, on the other hand, constituted


  • Concil. Parisiens. ann. 1350 c. 3, 4. — Arch, de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Doat,

XXXV. 132).— Archives der:evechg d'Albi (Doat, XXXV. 187).— Eymerici Direct. Inquis. p. 529.— Sprengeri Mall. Maleficar. P. iii. Q. 1.— Ripoll II. 311, 324, 351.— Cornel. Agrippse de Vanitate Scientiarum, cap. xcvi. Yet a bull of Nicholas V. to the inquisitor of France in 1451 seems to render him independent of episcopal co-operation (Ripoll III. 301).

t C. 17 Sexto V. 2. — See the "Modus examinandi haereticos" printed by Gretser (Mag. Bib. Patrum XIII. 341) prepared for a German episcopal Inquisi- tion.


ITS EFFICIENCY. 365

a chain of tribunals throughout Continental Europe perpetually manned by those who had no other work to attend to. Not only, therefore, did persecution in their hands assume the aspect of part of the endless and inevitable operations of nature, which was neces- sary to accomplish its end, and which rendered the heretic hope- less that time would bring relief, but by constant interchange of documents and mutual co-operation they covered Christendom with a network rendering escape almost hopeless. This, combined with the most careful preservation and indexing of records, produced a system of police singularly perfect for a period when international communication was so imperfect. The Inquisition had a long arm, a sleepless memory, and we can well understand the mysterious terror inspired by the secrecy of its operations and its almost super- natural vigilance. If public proclamation was desired, it summoned all the faithful, with promises of eternal life and reasonable tem- poral reward, to seize some designated heresiarch, and every parish priest where he Avas suspected to be in hiding was bound to spread the call before the whole population. If secret information was required, there were spies and famihars trained to the work. The record of every heretical family for generations could be traced out from the papers of one tribunal or another. A single lucky capture and extorted confession would put the sleuth-hounds on the track of hundreds who deemed themselves secure, and each new victim added his circle of denunciations. The heretic Uved over a volcano which might burst forth at any moment. During the fierce persecution of the Spiritual Franciscans in 1317 and 1318 a number of pitying souls had assisted fugitives, had stood by the pyres of their martyrs and had comforted them in various ways. Some had been suspected, had fled and changed their names: others had remained in favoring obscurity ; all might well have fancied that the affair was forgotten. Suddenly, in 1325, some chance — probably the confession of a prisoner — placed the Inquisi- tion on their track. Twenty or more were traced out and seized. Kept in prison for a year or two, their resolution broke down one by one ; they successively confessed their half -forgotten guilt and were duly penanced. Even more significant was the case of Guil- lelma Maza of Castrcs, who lost her husband in 1302. In the first grief of her widowhood she was induced to listen to the teachings of two Waldensian missionaries whose exhortations brought her


366 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

comfort. They visited her but twice, in the darkness of the night ; she never saw their faces nor those of others. After twenty-five yeare of orthodox observance, in 1327, she is brought before the Inquisition of Carcassonne, confesses this single aberration from the faith, and repents. Unforgiving and unforgetting, no trifle was beneath the minute vigilance of the Holy Office. Thus in the case of Manenta Kosa, who, in 1325, was called before it at Carcas- sonne on the mortal charge of relapse, the prosecution was because, after having abjured the heresy of the Spirituals, she had been seen talking with a man who was under suspicion and had sent by him two sols to a sick woman hkewise suspect.*

Flight was of little avail. Descriptions of heretics who disap- peared were sent throughout Europe, to every spot where they could be supposed to seek refuge, putting the authorities on the alert to search for every stranger who wore the air of one differ- ing in life and conversation from the ordinary run of the faithful. IsTews of captures was transmitted from one tribunal to another, evidence of guilt was furnished, or the hapless victim was returned to the spot where his extorted evidence would be most effective in implicating others. In 1287 an arrest of heretics at Treviso in- cluded some from France. Immediately the French inquisitors request that they be sent to them, especially one w^ho ranked as bishop among the Cathari, for they may be induced to reveal the names of many others ; and Nicholas lY. forthwith sends instruc- tions to Friar Philip of Treviso to deliver them, after extracting all he can from them, to the messenger of the French Inquisition. WeU might the orthodox imagine that only the hand of God, the heretic that only the inspiration of Satan, could produce such results as would follow the return of these poor wretches. To human ap- prehension the papal Inquisition was weU-nigh ubiquitous, omni- scient, and omnipotent.f

Occasionally, it is true, the efficiency of the organization was marred with quarrels. Antagonisms could not always be avoided, and the jealousy and mutual dishke of the Dominican and Fran- ciscan Orders would sometimes interfere with the harmony essen- tial to mutual co-operation. I have already alluded to the troubles arising from this cause at Marseilles in 1266 and at Yerona in 1291.


  • Coll. Doat, XXXVII. 7 ; XXIX. 5. f Coll. Doat, XXX. 132 ; XXXII. 155.


THE MODEL INQUISITOR. 367

A further symptom of lack of unity is seen in 1327, when Pierre Trencavel, a noted Spiritual, who had escaped from the prison of Carcassonne, was captured in Provence with his daughter Andree, likewise a fugitive. There could be no question as to their be- longing to those from whom they had fled, yet Friar Michel, the Franciscan inquisitor of Provence, refused to surrender them, and the Carcassonne tribunal was obliged to appeal to John XXII., who intervened with a peremptory command to Friar Michel to lay aside all opposition and surrender the prisoners at once. Yet, considering the imperfections of human nature, these quarrels seem to have been few.*

Properly to govern and direct an engine of such infinite power, deahng with the Ufe and happiness of countless thousands, would require more than human wisdom and virtue ; and it may be worth a moment's attention to see what was the ideal of those to whom the practical working of the Holy Office was confided. Bernard Gui, the most experienced inquisitor of his day, concludes his elabo- rate instructions as to procedure mth some general directions as to conduct and character. The inquisitor, he teUs us, should be dihgent and fervent in his zeal for the truth of rehgion, for the sal- vation of souls, and for the extirpation of heresy. Amid troubles and opposing accidents he should grow earnest, without allowing himself to be inflamed with the fury of wrath and indignation. He must not be sluggish of body, for sloth destroys the vigor of action. He must be intrepid, persisting through danger to death, laboring for religious truth, neither precipitating peril by audacity nor shrinking from it through timidity. He must be unmoved by the prayers and blandishments of those who seek to influence him, yet not be, through hardness of heart, so obstinate that he wiU yield nothing to entreaty, whether in granting delays or in miti- gating punishment, according to place and circumstance, for this implies stubbornness ; nor must he be weak and yielding through too great a desire to please, for this will destroy the vigor and value of his work — he who is weak in his work is brother to him who destroys his work. In doubtful matters he must be circumspect and not readily yield credence to what seems probable, for such is not always true ; nor should he obstinately reject the opposite, for


Coll. Doat, XXXV. 18.


3G8 THE INQUISITION FOUNDED.

tliat which seems improbable often turns out to be fact. He must listen, discuss, and examine with all zeal, that the truth may be reached at the end. Like a just judge let him so bear himself in passing sentence of corporal punishment that his face may show compassion, while his inward purpose remains unshaken, and thus will he avoid the appearance of indignation and wrath leading to the charge of cruelty. In imposing pecuniary penalties, let his face preserve the severity of justice as though he were compelled by necessity and not allured by cupidity. Let truth and mercy, which should never leave the heart of a judge, shine forth from his countenance, that his decisions may be free from all suspicion of covetousness or cruelty.*

To appreciate rightly the career and influence of the Inquisi- tion will require a somewhat minute examination into its methods and procedure. In no other w^ay can we fuUy understand its ac- tion ; and the lessons to be drawn from such an investigation are perhaps the most important that it has to teach.


  • Bern. Guidon, Practica P. IV. ad finem (Doat, XXX.). This sketch of the

model inquisitor seems to have been a favorite. I find it in another MS. Tractor tus de Inquisitione (Doat, XXXVI.).


CHAPTER VIII.

ORGANIZATION.

We have seen how the Church had found persuasion powerless to arrest the spread of heresy. St. Bernard, Foulques de IS'euilly, Duran de Huesca, St. Dominic, St. Francis, had successively tried the rarest eloquence to convince, and the example of the subhmest self-abnegation to convert. Only force remained, and it had been pitilessly employed. It had subjected the populations, only to render heresy hidden in place of public; and, in order to reap the fruits of victory, it became apparent that organized, ceaseless persecution continued to perpetuity was the only hope of preserv- ing Catholic unity, and of preventing the garment of the Lord from being permanently rent. To this end the Inquisition was developed into a settled institution manned by the Mendicant Or- ders, which had been formed to persuade by argument and exam- ple, and which now were utilized to suppress by force.

The organization of the Inquisition was simple, yet effective. It did not care to impress the minds of men with magnificence, but rather to paralyze them with terror. To the secular prelacy it left the gorgeous vestments and the imposing splendors of wor- ship, the picturesque processions and the showy retinues of re- tainers. The inquisitor wore the simple habits of his Order. When he appeared abroad he was at most accompanied by a few armed famiUars, partly as a guard, partly to execute his orders. His principal scene of activity was in the recesses of the dreaded Holy Office, whence he issued his commands and decided the fate of whole populations in a silence and secrecy which impressed upon the people a mysterious awe a thousand times more potent than the external magnificence of the bishop. Every detail in the Inquisition was intended for work and not for show. It was built up by resolute, earnest men of one idea who knew what they

I.— 24


370 ORGANIZATION.

wanted, who rendered everything subservient to the one object, and who sternly rejected all that might embarrass with superflu-- ities the unerring and ruthless justice which it was their mission to enforce.

The previous chapter has shown us the simplicity which marked the beginnings of the institution, consisting virtually of the individual friars selected to hunt up heretics and determine their guilt. Their districts were naturally coterminous with the provinces of the Mendicant Orders, whose provincials were charged with the duty of appointment, and these provinces each comprised many bishoprics. Though the chief town of each province came to be regarded as the seat of the Inquisition, with its building and prisons, yet it was the duty of the inquisitor to go in pursuit of the heretics, to visit all places where heresy might be suspected to exist, and to summon the people to assemble, exactly as the bishops for- merly did in their visitations, with the added inducement of an in- dulgence of twenty or forty days for all who attended. It is true that at first the inquisitors of Toulouse established themselves in that city and cited before them all whom they wished to appear, but such complaints arose as to the intolerable hardship of this that, in 1237, the Legate Jean de Yienne ordered them to trans- port themselves to the places where they wished to make inquest. In obedience to this we see them going to Castelnaudari, where they were bafiied by the people, who had entered into a common understanding not to betray each other, so they turned unexpect- edly to Puy Laurens, where they took the population by surprise and gathered an ample harvest. The murders of Avignonet, in 1242, gave warning that these itinerant inquests were not with- out risk, yet they continued to be prescribed by the Cardinal of Albano, about 1244, and by the Council of Beziers, in 1246. Al- though, in 1247, Innocent TV. authorized inquisitors, when there was danger, to summon heretics and witnesses to some place of safety, yet the theory of personal visitation remained un- changed. In Italy we see it in the bulls Ad extirpanda ; - a contemporary German inquisitor describes it as the customary practice ; in northern France we have the formulas used in 1278 by Friar Simon Duval for summoning the people on such occa- sions ; about 1330 Bernard Gui alludes to it as one of the special privileges of the Inquisition ; and, about 1375, Eymerich describes


ITINERANT INQUESTS. 371

the method of conducting these inquests as part of the estabhshed routine.*

Nothing could well be devised more effective than these visita- tions, and though they may have become neglected when the ma- chinery of spies and familiars was perfected, or when the heretics had been nearly weeded out, during the busy times of the Inquisi- tion they must have formed an important portion of its functions. A few days in advance of his visit to a city, the inquisitor would send notice to the ecclesiastical authorities requiring them to sum- mon the people to assemble at a specified time, with an announce- ment of the indulgence given to all who should attend. To the populace thus brought together he preached on the faith, urging them to its defence with such eloquence as he could command, summoning every one within a certain radius to come forward withm SIX or twelve days and reveal to him whatever they may have known or heard of any one leading to the belief or suspicion that he might be a heretic, or defamed for heresy, or that he had spoken against any article of faith, or that he differed in hfe and morals from the common conversation of the faithful. Neglect to comply with this command incurred ipso facto excommunication, removable only by the inquisitor himself ; compUance with it was rewarded with an indulgence of three years. At the same time he proclaimed a " time of grace," varying from fifteen to thirty days, during which any heretic coming forward spontaneously, confess- ing his guilt, abjuring, and giving full information about his fel- low-sectaries, was promised mercy. This mercy varied at different times from complete immunity to exemption from the severer penalties of death, imprisonment, exile, or confiscation. The lat- ter Is the grace promised m the earliest allusion to the practice in


  • Gregor. PP. IX. Bull. Ille humani generis, 20 Mai. 1336 (Eymeric. App. p.

3).— Vaissette, III. 410-11.— Guill. Pod. Laur. c 43. — Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 1 —Arch, de ITnq. de Carcassonue (Doat, XXXI. 5). — Raynald. ann. 1243, No. 31.— Innoc PP. IV. Bull. Quia sicut, 19 Nov. 1247 (Potthast 12766.— Doat, XXXI. 112) — Ejusd. Bull. Ad extirpanda § 31— Anon. Passaviens. (Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 308). — Doctrina de modo procedendi (Martene Thesaur. V. 1809-11).— Alex. PP. IV. Bull Cupientes, 4 Mart. 1260 (Mag. Bull. Rom. I. 119). — Ripoll I. 128.— Guill. Pelisso Chron. Ed. Molinier, p. 27.— Bernard! Guidoa Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).— Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 407-9.— MSS. Bib Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 220.


372 ORGANIZATION.

1235, and in a sentence of 1237 on such an occasion the offender escaped with a penance consisting of two of the shorter pilgrim- ages, tlie finding of a beggar daily during life, and a fine of ten li\Tes Morlaas given "for the love of God" to the Inquisition. After the expiration of the term they were told that no mercy would be shown ; while it lasted, the inquisitor was instructed to keep himself housed, so as to be ready at any moment to receive denunciations and confessions ; and long series of interrogatories, most searching and suggestive, were drawn up to prompt him in the examination of those who should present themselves. Even as late as 1387 when Fra Antonio Secco attacked the heretics of the Waldensian valleys, he commenced by publishing in the church of Pignerol a summons giving a week of grace during which all who should confess as to themselves and others should escape public punishment except for perjury committed before the Inquisition, and all who did not come forward were denounced as excommuni- cates.*

Bernard Gui assures us that this device was exceedingly fruit- ful, not only m causing numerous happy conversions, but also in furnishing information of many heretics who would not otherwise have been thought of, as each penitent was forced to denounce all whom he knew or suspected ; and he particularly dwells upon its utility m securing the capture of the " perfected " Catharans who habitually lay in hiding and who thus were betrayed by those in whom they trusted. It is easy, in fact, to imagine the terror into which a community would be thrown when an inquisitor suddenly descended upon it and made his proclamation. No one could know what stories might be circulating about himself which zealous fanat- icism or personal enmity might exaggerate and carry to the inquis- itor, and in this the orthodox and the heretic would suffer ahke. All scandals passing from mouth to mouth would be brought to hght. AU confidence between man and man would disappear.


  • Guill. Pod. Laur. c. 43.-^Vaissette, III. 402, 403, 404 ; Pr. 386.— Raynald.

ann. 1243, No, 31. — Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 1. — Concil Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 2, 5.— Arch, de I'lnq. de Care, circa 1245 (Doat, XXXI. 5).— Guid. Fulcod. Qusest. ii. — Bern. Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.). — Eymerici Direct. Inquis. pp. 407-9.— Practica super Inquisit. (MSS Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 227-8).— Archivio Storico Italiano, 1865, No. 38, pp. 16-17.


BUILDINGS AND PRISONS. 373

Old grudges would be gratified in safety. To him who had been heretically inclined the terrible suspense would grow day by day more insupportable, with the thought that some careless word might have been treasured up to be now revealed by those who ought to be nearest and dearest to him, until at last he would yield and betray others rather than be betrayed himself. Gregory IX. boasted that, on at least one such occasion, parents were led to de- nounce their children, and children their parents, husbands their wives, and wives their husbands. We may well believe Bernard Gui when he says that each revelation led to others, until the in- visible net extended far and wide, and that not the least of the benefits thence arising were the extensive confiscations which were sure to follow."^

These preliminary proceedings were commonly held in the con- vent of the Order to which the inquisitor belonged, if such there were, or in the episcopal palace if it were a cathedral town. In other cases the church or municipal buildings would afford the necessary accommodation, for the authorities, both lay and clerical, were bound to afford all assistance demanded. Each inquisitor, however, necessarily had his headquarters to which he would re- turn after these forays, carrying with him the depositions of ac- cusers and confessions of accused, and such prisoners as he deemed it important to secure, the secular authorities being bound to fur- nish him the necessary transportation and guards. Others he would cite to appear before him at a specified time, taking sufficient bail lo secure their punctuality. In the earlier period, the seat of his tribunal was the Mendicant convent, while the episcopal or pubhc prison was at his disposal for the detention of his captives ; but in time special buildings were provided, amply furnished with the necessary appliances and dungeons — cells built along the walls and thence known as ^^ murns^^ in contradistinction to the '^ career' or prison — where the unfortunates awaiting sentence were under the immediate supervision of their judge. It was here, for the most part, that the judicial proceedings were carried on, though we oc- casionally hear of the episcopal palace being used, especially when the bishop was zealous and co-operated with the Inquisition.

During the earlier period there was no Umitation as to the age

  • B. Guidon, loc. cit.— RipoU I. 46.


374 ORGANIZATION.

of the inquisitor ; the provincial who held the appointing power could select any member of his Order. That this frequently led to the nomination of young and inexperienced men is presumable from the language in which Clement Y., when reforming the Holy Of- fice, prescribed forty years as the minimum age in future. Ber- nard Gui remonstrated against this, not only because younger men were often thoroughly capable of the duties, but also because bish- ops and their ordinaries who exercised inquisitorial power were not required to be so old. The rule, however, held good. In 1422 the Provincial of Toulouse appointed an inquisitor of Carcassonne, Friar Kaymond du Tille, who was only thirty-two years of age. Though he was confirmed by the general of the Order, it was held that the office was vacant until an appeal was made to Martin Y., who ordered the Official of Alet to investigate his fitness, and, if found worthy, the Clementine canon might be suspended in his favor.*

The trials were usually conducted by a single inquisitor, though sometimes two would work together. One, however, sufficed, but he generally had subordinate assistants, who prepared the cases for him, and took the preliminary examinations. He had a right to call upon the provincial to assign to him as many of these as- sistants as he deemed necessary, but he could not select them for himself. Sometimes, when the bishop was eager for persecution and careless of the episcopal dignity, he would accept the posi- tion ; and it was frequently filled by the Dominican prior of the local convent. When the state defrayed the expenses of the In- quisition, it seems to have exercised some control over the number of officials. Thus in Naples Charles of Anjou, in 1269, only pro- vides for one assistant. f

These assistants represented the inquisitor during his absence, and thus were closely assimilated to the commissioners who came


  • C. 2 Clement, v. iii.— Bern. Guidon Gravam. (Boat, XXX. 117, 128).— RipoU

II. 610. — In 1431 Eugenius IV. dispensed with the rule in the case of an in- quisitor appointed in his thirty-sixth year (RipoU III. 9).

t Concil. Biterrens. aun. 1246 c. 4.— Molinier, pp. 129, 131, 281-2.— Haurgau, Bernard Dglicieux, p. 20.— V^adding. Annal. ann. 1261, No. 2.— Urbani PP. IV. Bull. Ne catholiccejidei, 26 Oct. 1262.— Bernardi Guidonis Practica, P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).— Eymerici Direct. Inq. p. 557, 577.— Archivio di Napoli, MSS. Chiocca- rello T. VIII. ; Ibid. Registro 6, Lett. D. f. 35.


COMMISSIONERS AND VICARS. 375

to be a permanent feature of the Holy Office. Even in the twelfth century it was determined that a judicial delegate of the Holy See could delegate his powers  ; and in 1246 the Council of Beziers au- thorized the inquisitor to appoint a deputy whenever he wished to have an inquest made in any place to which he could not himself proceed. Special commissions were sometimes issued, as when, in 1276, Pons de Pornac, Inquisitor of Toulouse, authorized the Domin- ican Prior of Montauban to take testimony against Bernard de Solhac and forward it to him under seal. In the extensive dis- tricts of the Inquisition the work must necessarily have been di- vided in this manner, especially during the earher period, when the harvest of heresy was abundant and numerous laborers were requisite. Yet the formal authority to appoint commissioners with full powers does not seem to have been granted to inquisitors until 1262 by Urban lY., and this had to be confirmed by Boni- face YIII. towards the close of the century. These commissioners, or vicars, differed from the assistants, inasmuch as they were ap- pointed and discharged at the discretion of the inquisitor. They became a permanent feature of the institution, and conducted its business in places remote from the main tribunal ; or, in case of the absence or incapacity of the inquisitor, one of them might be summoned to replace him temporarily, or the inquisitor could ap- point a vicar -general. Like their principal, they had, after the Clementine reforms in 1317, to be at least forty years of age, and they wielded full inquisitorial powers, in the citation, arrest, and examination of witnesses and prisoners, even to the infliction of torture and condemnation to imprisonment. Whether they could proceed to final sentence in capital cases was a disputed question, and Eymerich recommends that such authority should always be reserved to the inquisitor himself; but, as we shaU see, the cases of Joan of Arc and of the Yaudois of Arras show that this reser- vation was rarely observed. A further limitation on their powers was the inabihty to appoint deputies.*

  • C. 11, 19, 20 Extra i. 29.— Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246 c. 3.— Coll. Doat,

XXV. 230.— Urbani PP. IV. Bull. Licet ex omnibus, 20 Mart. 1262.— Quid. Fulcod. Quaest. iv. — C. 11 Sexto v. 2.— C. 2 Clement, v. 3. — Bernard! Guidon. Practica P. IV. (Doat, XXX.).— Eymerici Direct, pp. 403-6. — Zanchini Tract, de Hasret.

C. XXX.

It is not easy to understand why, in 1276, the Lombard Inquisitors Fri Niccold


376 ORGANIZATION.

In the later period there seems to have been occasionally an- other official with the title of "counsellor." In 1370 the Inquisi- tion of Carcassonne claimed the right to appoint three, who should be exempt from all local taxation. In a document of 1423 the person filling this position is not a Dominican, but is qualified as a licentiate in law  ; and doubtless such a functionary was a useful and usual member of the tribunal, though with no precise official status. Zanghino informs us that in general inquisitors were ut- terly ignorant of law. In most cases this made no difference, for, as we shall see, they enjoyed the widest latitude of arbitrary procedure, with little danger that any one would dare to complain, but occasionally they had to deal with victims not entirely unre- sisting, and then some adviser as to their legal duties and respon- sibihties was desirable. Eymerich, in fact, recommends that a commissioner should always associate with himself some discreet lawyer to save him from mistakes which may redound to the dis- advantage of the Inquisition, call for papal interposition, and per- haps cost him his place. ^

As absolute secrecy became a main feature of all the proceed- ings of the Inquisition after its earlier tentative period, it was a universal rule that testimony, whether of witnesses or of accused, should only be taken in the presence of two impartial men, not connected with the institution, but sworn to silence. The inquisi- tor was empowered to compel the attendance of any one whom he might summon to perform this duty. These representatives of the public were preferably clerics, and usually Dominicans, " dis- creet and rehgious men," who were expected to sign with the no- tary the written report of the testimony in attestation of its fidel- ity. Though not alluded to in the instructions of the Council of Beziers in 1246, a deposition taken in 1244 shows that already the practice had become customary ; and the frequent repetitions of the rule by successive popes and its embodiment in the canon law show what importance was attached to it as a means of prevent-


da Cremona and Fra Daniele Giussano assembled experts in Piacenza to deter- mine whether they had power to appoint delegates, when the question was de- cided in the negative (Campi, Dell' Historia Ecclesiastica di Piacenza, P. ii. p. 308-9).

  • Archives de I'fivgche d'Albi (Boat, XXXV. 136, 187).— Zanchini Tract, de

Haeret. c. xv. — Eymerici Direct, p. 407.


WITNESSES OF PROCEEDINGS. 377

iiig injustice, and giving at least a color of impartiality to the pro- ceedings. Yet in this, as in everything else, the inquisitors were a law unto themselves, and disregarded at pleasure the very slen- der restrictions imposed on them. One of the rare cases in which the Inquisition lost a victim turned upon the neglect of this rule. In 1325 a priest named Pierre de Tornamire, accused of Spiritual Franciscanism, was brought to the Inquisition of Carcassonne in a dying state. The inquisitor was absent. His deputy and notary took the deposition in the presence of three laymen who chanced to be present, and the priest died before it was well concluded. Two Dominicans came, after he was speechless, and, without making any inquiry as to its correctness, signed their names to the deposi- tion in attestation. On this irregular evidence a prosecution against Pierre's memory was based, and was contested by his heirs to save his property from confiscation. Thirty-two years the struggle lasted, and when the inquisitor came, in 1357, to ask assent to his sentence of condemnation in the customary assembly of experts, twenty -five jurists unanimously voted against it on the ground of irregularity, and only two, both Dominicans, ventured to uphold it. It was not long after this that Eymerich instructed his brethren how the rule could be evaded, when it was incon- venient, by at least having two honest persons present at the close of the examination, when the testimony was read over to the deponent. No one else was allowed to be present at the trial, except at Avignon for a brief period, about the middle of the thir- teenth century, when the magistrates temporarily secured the right of attendance for themselves and a certain number of seign- eurs. With this exception, the unfortunates who were wrestling for their lives with their judges were wholly at the discretion of the inquisitor and his creatures.*

The personnel of the tribunal was completed by the notary — an official of considerable standing and dignity in the Middle Ages. All the proceedings of the Inquisition were taken down in writing —


  • Coll. Doat, XXII. 237 sqq.— Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Licet ex omnihis, 30 Mai.

1254.— Bernardi Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).— Clement PP. IV. Bull. Prmcunctis, 23 Feb. 1266.— C. 11, § 1 Sexto v. 2.— Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246 c. 4.— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Prce cunctis, 9 Nov. 1256. — Archives de I'lnq. de Carcas- sonne (Doat, XXXIV. 11).— Molinier, L'Inquis. dans le midi de la France, pp. 219, 287.— Eymcric. Direct. Inq. p. 426.


378 ORGANIZATION.

every question and every answer — each witness and each defend- ant being obliged to confirm his testimony when read over to him at the close of the interrogatory, and judgment was finally ren- dered on an inspection of the evidence thus recorded. The func- tion of the notary was no light one, and occasionally scriveners were called in to his assistance, but he formally attested every document. Not only was there the fearful multiplication of pa- pers accumulating in the current business of the tribunal, and their careful transcription for preservation, but the several Inquisitions were continually furnishing each other with copies of their records, so that a considerable force must have been necessarily employed. As in everything else, the inquisitor was empowered to call for gratuitous service on the part of any one whom he might summon, but the continuous business of the office required undivided atten- tion, and its proper despatch rendered desirable the pecuhar train- ing acquired by experience. In the earlier periods, the authoriza- tion to impress any notary to serve, and the advice to select if possible Dominicans who had been notaries, with the power, if none such could be had, to replace him with two discreet persons, shows that the itinerant tribunals depended for the most part on this chance conscription ; but in the permanent seats of the Inqui- sition the notary was a regular official, in receipt of a salary. In the attempted reform of Clement Y. it was provided that he should take his official oath before the bishop as well as before the in- quisitor, and to this Bernard Gui objected on the ground that the exigencies of business sometimes required the force to be sudden- ly increased to two or three or four, and that in places where no pubhc notaries were to be had, other competent persons were necessarily employed on the spur of the moment, as it often hap- pens that the guilty will confess when in the mood, and if their confession is not promptly taken they draw back, and they are always more given to concealment than to truth. Curiously enough, the power to appoint notaries was regarded with so much jealousy that it was denied to the inquisitor. He may if he choose, says Eymerich, send three or four names to the pope, who wiU ap- point them for him, but this leads to such bad feeling on the part of the local authorities that he had better content himself with the notaries of the bishops or of the secular rulers.*

♦ Bern. Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Boat, XXX.).— Urbani PP. IV. Bull. Licet


RECORDS OF THE INQUISITION. 379

The enormous mass of documents produced by these innumer- able busy hands was the object of well-deserved solicitude. At the very inception of the work its value was recognized. In 1235 we hear of the confessions of penitents being sedulously recorded in books kept for the purpose. This speedily became the univer- sal custom, and the inquisitors were instructed to preserve careful records of all their proceedings, from the first summons to the final sentence in every case, together with lists of all who took the oath enforced on every one to defend the faith and persecute heresy. The importance attached to this is shown by the frequent iteration of the command, and by the further precaution that all the papers should be duplicated, and a copy lodged in a safe place or with the bishop. With what elaborate care they were rendered practically useful is shown by the Book of Sentences of the Inqui- sition of Toulouse, from 1308 to 1323, printed by Limborch, where at the end there is an index of the 636 culprits sentenced, grouped under their places of residence alphabetically arranged, with ref- erence to the pages on which their names occur and brief mention of the several punishments inflicted on each, and of any subse- quent modifications of the penalty, thus enabling the official who wished information as to the people of any hamlet to see at a glance who among them had been suspected and what had been done. One case in the same book wiU illustrate the completeness and the exactitude of the previous records. In 1316 an old woman was brought before the tribunal; on examination it was found that in 1268, nearly fifty years before, she had confessed and ab- jured heresy and had been reconciled, and as this aggravated her guilt the miserable wretch was condemned to perpetual imprison- ment in chains. Thus in process of time the Inquisition accumu-

ex omnilmg, ann. 1262, §§ 6, 7, 8 (Mag. Bull. Roman. I. 122).— C. 1 § 3 Clement v. 3._Coll. Doat, XXX. 109-10.— Eyraeric. Direct. Inq. p. 550.

The peculiar importance attached to the notariate and the limitations imposed on its- membership are seen in the papal privileges issued for the appointment of notaries. Thus there is one of November 27, 1295, by Boniface VIII. to the Arch- bishop of Lyons authorizing him to create five; one of January 28, 1296, to the Bishop of Arras to create three, and one of January 22, 1296, to the Bishop of Amiens to create two. (Thomas, Registres de Boniface VIII., I. No. 640 bis, 660, 678 Ms.)

In 1286 the Provincial of France complained to Honorius IV. of the scarcity of notaries in that kingdom, and was authorized to create two (Ripoll II. 16).


380 ORGANIZATION.

lated a store of information which not only increased greatly its efficiency, but which rendered it an object of terror to every man. The confiscations and disabilities which, as we shall see hereafter, were inflicted on descendants, rendered the secrets of family his- tory so carefully preserved in its archives the means by which a crushing blow might at any moment fall on the head of any one ; and the Inquisition had an awkward way of discovering disagree- able facts about the ancestry of those who provoked its ill-will, and possibly its cupidity. Thus, in 1306, during the troubles at Albi, when the royal viguier, or governor, supported the cause of the people, the inquisitor, Geoff roi d'Ablis, issued letters declaring that he had found among the records that the grandfather of the viguier had been a heretic, and his grandson consequently was in- capable of holding office. The whole population was thus at the mercy of the Holy Office.*

The temptation to falsify the records when an enemy was to be struck down was exceedingly strong, and the opponents of the Inquisition had no hesitation in declaring that it was freely yield- ed to. Friar Bernard Delicieux, speaking for the whole Francis- can Order of Languedoc, in a formal document of the year 1300, not only declared that the records were unworthy of trust, but that they were generally believed to be so. "We shaU see here- after facts which fully justified this assertion, and the popular mis- trust was intensified by the jealous secrecy which rendered it an offence punishable with excommunication for any one to possess any papers relating to the proceedings of the Inquisition or to prosecutions against heretics. On the other hand, the tempta- tion on the part of those who were endangered to destroy the ar- chives was equally strong, and the attempts to effect this show the importance attached to their possession. As early as 1235 we find the citizens of Narbonne, in an insurrection against the Inqui- sition, carefully destroying all the books and records. The order of the Council of Albi in 1254, to make duplicates and lodge them in some safe place was doubtless caused by another successful

  • Guill. Pelisso Chron. Ed. Molinier p. 28.— Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 6.

— Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246 c. 31, 37. — Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 21. — Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Licet vodis, 7 Dec. 1255 ; Ejusd. Bull. Prm cunctis, 9 Nov. 1255, 13 Dec. 1255.— Lib. Sentt. Inq. Tolosau. pp. 198-9.— Coll. Doat, XXXIV. 104.


FAMILIARS. 381

effort made in 1248 by the heretics of Narbonne. On the occasion of an assembly of bishops in that city a clerk and a messenger bearing records with the names of heretics were slain and the books burned, giving rise to a good many troublesome questions with regard to existing and future prosecutions. About 1285, at Carcassonne, a plot Avas entered into by the consuls of the town and several of its leading ecclesiastics to destroy the inquisitorial records. They bribed one of the familiars, Bernard Garric, to burn them, but the conspiracy was discovered and its authors punished. One of these, a lawyer named Guillem Garric, languished in prison for about thirty years before his final sentence in 1321.*

l^ot the least important among the functionaries of the Inqui- sition were the lowest class — the apparitors, messengers, spies, and bravos, known generally by the name of famihars, which came to have so ill-omened a significance in the popular ear. The service was not without risk, and it had few attractions for the honest and peaceable, but it was full of promise for the reckless and evil-minded. Not only did they enjoy the immunity from secular jurisdiction attaching to all in the service of the Church, but the special authority granted by Innocent lY., in 1245, to the inquisitors to absolve their familiars for acts of violence rendered them independent even of the ecclesiastical tribunals. Besides, as any molestation of the servants of the Inquisition was qualified as impeding its operations and thus savoring of heresy, any one who dared to resist aggression rendered himself hable to prosecution before the tribunal of the aggressor. Thus panoplied, they could tyrannize at will over the defenceless population, and it is easy to imagine the amount of extortion which they could practise with virtual impunity by threatening arrest or accusation at a time when falling into the hands of the Inquisition was about the heav- iest misfortune which could befall any man, whether orthodox or heretic.f

  • Arch, cle I'lnq. de Carcass. (Boat, XXXIV. 123).— Ripoll 1. 356, 396.— Vais-

sette, III. 406; Pr. 467.— Coll. Boat, XXXI. 105, 149.— Molinier, p. 35.— Bern. Guidon. Hist. Conv. Carcass. (D. Bouquet, XXI. 743).— Lib. Sententt. Inquis. Tolos. p. 282.

t Paramo dc Orig. Offic. S. Inquis. p. 102.— Pegnae Comment, in Eymeric. p. 584.— Arch, de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Boat, XXXI. 70; XXXII. 143).


382 ORGANIZATION.

All that was needed to render this social scourge complete was devised when the familiars were authorized to carry arms. The murders at Avignonet, in 1242, with that of Peter Martyr, and other similar events, seemed to justify the inquisitors in desiring an armed guard ; and the service of tracking and capturing here- tics was frequently one of peril, yet the privilege was a dangerous one to bestow on such men as could be got for the work, while releasing them from the restraints of law. In the turbulence of the age the carrying of weapons was rigidly repressed in all peace-loving communities. As early as the eleventh century we find it prohibited in the city of Pistoja, and in 1228 in Verona. In Bologna knights and doctors only were allowed to bear arms, and to have one armed servant. In Milan, a statute of Gian-Ga- leazzo, in 1386, forbids the carrying of weapons, but allows the bishops to arm the retainers living under their roofs. In Paris an ordonnance of 1288 inhibits the citizens from carrying pointed knives, swords, bucklers, or other similar weapons. In Beaucaire, an edict of 1320 prescribes various penalties, including the loss of a hand, for bearing arms, except in the case of travellers, who are restricted simply to swords and knives. Such regulations were of inestimable value in the progress of civilization, but they amount- ed to little when the inquisitor could arm any one he pleased, and invest him with the privileges and immunities of the Holy Office.*

As early as 1249 the scandals and abuses arising from the un- limited employment of scriveners and familiars who oppressed the people with their extortions called forth the indignant rebuke of Innocent lY., who comm.anded that their numbers should be re- duced to correspond with the bare exigencies of duty. In those countries in which the Inquisition was supported by the State there was not much opportunity for the development of overgrown abuses of this nature. Thus, in Naples, Charles of Anjou, in per- mitting the carrying of arms, specifies three as the number of famiUars for each inquisitor; and when Bernard Gui protested

  • Statuta Pistoriensia, c. 109 (Zacharise Anect. Med. iEvi, p. 23). — Lib. Juris

civilis Veronse, anu. 1328, c. 104, 183 (Veronae, 1728).— Statut. criminal. Commu- nis Bononiae, £d. 1525, fol. 36 (cf. Barbarano de' Mironi, Hist. Eccles. di Vi- cenza, II. 69). — Antiqua Ducum Mediolan. Decreta (Ed. 1654, p. 95). — Statuta Criminalia Mediolani, Bergomi, 1594, cap. 127. — Actes du Pari, de Paris, I. 257. — Vaissette, fid. Privat, X. Pr. 610.


ABUSE OF ARMED FAMILIARS. 383

against the reforms of Clement Y. he pointed out the contrast be- tween France, where the inquisitors relied upon the secular offi- cials, and were forced to be content with few retainers, and Italy, where they had almost unlimited opportunities. There, in fact, as we shall see, the Inquisition was self-supporting and indepen- dent by reason of its share in the fines and confiscations, and re- straint of any kind was difficult. Clement Y. forbade the useless multiplication of officials and the abuse of the right to bear arms, but his well-meant efforts availed little. In 1321 we find John XXII. reproving the inquisitors of Lombardy for creating scan- dals and tumults in Bologna by their armed familiars of depraved character and perverse habits, who committed murders and other outrages. In 1337 the papal nuncio, Bertrand, Archbishop of Embrun, seeing by personal observation the troubles which ex- isted in Florence, owing to the practice of the inquisitor issuing licenses to carry arms, which was abused to the frequent injury of defenceless citizens, restricted him to twelve armed familiars, informing him that the secular authorities would furnish what- ever additional armed assistance might be necessary for the cap- ture of heretics. Yet within nine years one of the accusations brought against a new inquisitor, Fra Piero di Aquila, was that he had sold licenses to carry arms to more than two hundred and fifty men, bringing him in an annual revenue of about one thou- sand gold florins, and proving sadly detrimental to the peace of the city. Accordingly a law was passed restricting the inquisitor to six familiars bearing arms, the Bishop of Florence to twelve, and the Bishop of Fiesole to six, aU of whom were required to wear the insignia of their masters. Still, the profit arising from the sale of such licenses was too great a temptation, and in the Florentine code of 1355 we find general regulations intended to check it in another way. Any one caught bearing arms and plead- ing a Ucense was deported beyond the territory of the republic, to a distance of at least fifty miles from the city, and had to give a bond to remain there for a year. Even the podesta was prohib- ited from issuing such licenses under the penalties of perjury and a fine of five hundred lire. All this was an infraction of the lib- erties of the Church, and formed the substance of one of the com- plaints of Gregory XI., when, in 1376, he excommunicated the republic ; and when, in 1378, Florence was forced to submit, one


384 ORGANIZATION.

of the conditions was that a papal commissioner should expunge from the statute-book all the obnoxious laws. Yet the excesses of these braAvling ruffians were too great to be long submitted to, and in 13S() another device was tried. The two bishops and the inquisitor were forbidden to have armed familiars who were tax- able or inscribed on the roll of citizens ; those to whom they issued hcenses had to be declared their familiars by the priors of the arts, and this declaration had to be renewed yearly by a public instrument deUvered to them. Some restraint thus was exercised, and this provision was retained in the recension of the code in 1415. This same struggle was doubtless going on in all the Ital- ian cities which had independence enough to seek a remedy for the daily outrages inflicted by these licensed bravos, though the record of the troubles may not be accessible to history. Even in Yenice, which kept the Inquisition in so subordinate a position, and wisely maintained its rights by defraying the expenses of the institution — even Yenice felt the necessity of restraining the mul- tiplication of pretended armed retainers. In August, 1450, the Great Council, by a vote of fourteen to two, denounced the abuse by which the inquisitor had sold to twelve persons the license to bear arms ; such a force, it is said, was wholly unnecessary, as he could always invoke the assistance of the secular power, and there- fore he should, in accordance with ancient custom, be restricted to four armed familiars. Six months later, in February, 1451, at the earnest request of the Franciscan general minister, this regulation was rescinded ; the inquisitor was allowed to increase the num- ber to twelve, but the police were directed to observe and report whether they were really engaged in the duties of the Inquisition. Yet Eymerich assures us that all such interference is unlawful, and that any secular ruler who endeavors to prevent the familiars of the Holy Office from bearing arms is impeding the Inquisition and is a fautor of heresy, while Bernard Gui characterizes in simi- lar terms any limitation of the number of officials below what the inquisitor may deem requisite, all of which, according to Zanghi- no, is punishable at the discretion of the inquisitor.*

  • Arcb. de I'lnq. de Carcass. (Boat, XXXI. 81). — Archivio di Napoli, MSS.

Chioccarello T. VIII. ; Registro 3, Lett. A, fol. 64 ; Registro 6, Lett. D, fol. 35.— Coll. Doat, XXX. 119-20.— C. 3 Clement, v. 3.— Johann. PP. XXII. Bull. Exegit (yrdinis, 2 Mai. 1331.— Archivio di Firenze, Riformagioni, Archiv. Diplom. XXVIL,


SUBJECTION OF THE STATE. 385

In the preceding chapter I have alluded to the power claimed and often exercised of abrogating all local statutes obnoxious to the Holy Office, and of the duty of every secular official to lend aid whenever called upon. This duty was recognized and en- forced so that the organization of the Inquisition may be said to have embraced that of the State, whose whole resources were placed at its disposition. The oath of obedience which the inquis- itor was empowered and directed to exact of all holding official station was no mere form. Eefusal to take it was visited with excommunication, leading to prosecution for heresy in case of ob- duracy, and humiliating penance on submission. At times it was neglected by careless inquisitors, but the earnest ones made a point of it. Bernard Gui, at all his autos defe, solemnly adminis- tered it to aU the royal officials and local magistrates, and when, in May, 1309, Jean de Maucochin, the royal seneschal of the To- losain and Albigeois declined to take it, he was speedily brought to see his error, and submitted within a month. Bernard himself, as we have seen, admits that the help thus promised was efficiently rendered, and when, in 1329, Henri de Chamay, Inquisitor of Car- cassonne, applied to Philippe de Yalois for a reaffirmation of the privileges of the Inquisition, the monarch promptly responded in an edict in which he proclaimed that " each and aU, dukes, counts, barons, seneschals, baillis, provosts, viguiers, castellans, sergeants, and other justiciaries of the kingdom of France are bound to obey the inquisitors and their commissioners m seizing, holding, guard- ing, and taking to prison all heretics and suspects of heresy, and to execute dihgently the sentences of the inquisitors, and to give to the inquisitors, their commissioners and messengers, safe-con- duct, prompt help and favor, through all the lands of their ju- risdictions, in all that concerns the business of the Inquisition, whenever and how often soever they may be called upon." Any

LXXVIII. - IX. ; Riform. Classe ii. Distinz. 1, No. 14. — Villani, Cronica, Lib. xn. e. 58. — Archivio di Venezia, Misti, Cons. X. Vol. XIII. p. 192; Vol. XIV. p. 29.— Eymeric. Direct. Inq. pp. 374-5.— Bernard. Guidonis Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).— Zanchini Tract, de Haeret. c. xxxi.— Urbani PP. IV. Bull. Licet ex omni- bu3, 1262 (Mag. Bull. Rom. I. 123).— Bernard! Comens. Lucema Inquisit. s. v. In- quisitores, No. 14.

For further authorities on the subject, see Farinacii de Haeresi Qusest. 182, No. 89-94. I.— 25


S86 ORGANIZATION.

hesitation on the part of public officials to grant assistance when summoned was promptly punished. Thus, in 1303, when Bonrico di Busca, vicar of the podesta of Mandrisio, refused to furnish men to the representatives of the Milanese Inquisition, he was forthwith condemned to a fine of a hundred imperial sohdi, to be paid within live days. Even the condition of an excommunicate, which rendered an official incapable of performing any other func- tion, did not relieve him from this duty ; he could be called upon to execute the commands of the inquisitor, but he was warned that he must not imagine himself competent therefore to do any- thing else.*

In addition to this the Inquisition had, to a greater or less ex- tent, at its service the whole orthodox population, and especially the clergy. It was the duty of every man to give information as to all cases of heresy with which he might become acquainted un- der pain of incurring the guilt of fautorship. It was further his duty to arrest all heretics, as Bernard de St. Genais found in 1242, when he was tried by the Inquisition of Toulouse for the offence of not capturing certain heretics when it was in his power to do so, and was condemned to the penance of pilgrimages to the shrines of Puy, St. Gilles, and Compostella. The parish priests, moreover, were required, whenever called upon, to cite their parishioners for appearance, either publicly from the pulpit or secretly as the case might require, and to publish all sentences of excommunication. They were likewise held to the duty of surveillance over penitents to see that the penances enjoined were duly performed, and to re- port any cases of neglect. A very thorough system of local pohce, framed upon the model of the old sjmodal witnesses, was devised by the Council of Beziers in 1246, under which the inquisitor was


  • Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 7. — Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. 392-403.— Gloss.

Hostiens. super. Cap Excommunicamus, § Moneamus. — Gloss. Joan. Andreas sup. eod. loc— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 1, 7, 36, 39, 292. — Archives de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXVII. 118). — Isambert, Anc. Loix Fran9aises, lY- 364-5. — Ogniben Andrea, I Guglielmiti del Secolo XIII., Perugia, 1867, p. 111. — Alex. PP. IV. Bull. QucBsivistis, 28 Mai. 1260.

As in France the office of bailli was a purchasable one, while the incumbent was forbidden to sell it, it is evident that he would be loath to endanger its ten- ure by risking disobedience to inquisitorial demands. — Statuta Ludov. IX. ann, 1254, c. xxv.-vii. (Vaissette, td. Privat, VIII. 1349).


EPISCOPAL CO-OPERATION. 387

empowered to appoint in every parish a priest and one or two lay- men, whose duty it should be to search for heretics, examining all houses, inside and out, and especially all secret hiding-places. In addition to this they were instructed to watch over penitents and enforce the faithful observance of the sentences of the Inquisi- tion, and a manual of practice of the period instructs inquisitors to see that this system is thoroughly carried out. In fact, the whole resources of the land, public and private, were freely placed at the disposal of the Holy Office, so that nothing should be want- ing in its sacred mission of extirpating heresy."^

An important feature in the organization of the Inquisition was the assembly in which the fate of the accused was finally de- termined. The inquisitor had technically no power to pass sen- tence by himself. We have seen how, after various fluctuations of policy, the co-operation of the bishops was established as indispensa- ble. As in everything else, the inquisitors contemptuously neglected this limitation on their powers, and when Clement Y. endeavored to reform abuses he pronounced null and void any sentences ren- dered independently, yet to avert delays he permitted consent to be expressed in writing if after eight days a meeting could not be arranged. If, indeed, we may judge from some specimens of these written consultations which Jaave reached us, they were perfunc- tory to the last degree and placed no real check upon the discre- tion of the inquisitor. StiU Bernard Gui complained bitterly even of this restriction in terms which show how little respect had pre- viously been paid to the rule, and he adds, in justification, that one bishop kept the trials of some persons of his diocese from being finished for two years and more, while another delayed the cele- bration of an auto defe for six months. He himself observed the regulation scrupulously, both before and after the publication of the Clementines, and in the reports of the autos held by him in Toulouse the participation of the bishops of the prisoners, or of episcopal delegates, is always carefully specified. Yet how easy was the evasion of this, as of all other regulations for the protec-

  • Zanchini Tract, de Haeret. c. 5.— Coll. Doat, XXI. 226, 308.— Bern. Guidon.

Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).— Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 8.— Concil. Bitcr- rens. ann. 1246 c. 34.— Practica super luquisit. (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin^ No. 14930, fol. 223-4).


388 ORGANIZATION.

tion of the accused, is seen when even Bernard Gui accepted com- missions from three bishops — those of Cahors, St. Papoul, and Montauban — to act for them in the auto of September 30, 1319. This device became frequent, and inquisitors constantly rendered sentence on their individual responsibility imder power granted them by the bishops, as in the persecutions of the Waldenses of Piedmont in 138Y, and that of the witches of Canavese in 1474. Sometimes, however, the bishops were not altogether free agents, as when, in the early persecution of the Spiritual Franciscans, about 1318, those of the province of Narbonne were coerced to consent to the burning of some unfortunates by the inquisitor threatening them with the pope, who was known to have the prosecutions much at heart. "^

This episcopal concurrence in the sentence was reached in con- sultation with the assembly of experts. As the inquisitors from the beginning were chosen rather with regard to zeal than learn- ing, and as they maintamed a reputation for ignorance, it was soon found requisite to associate with them in the rendering of sentences men versed in the civil and canon law, which had by this time be- come an intricate study requiring the devotion of a lifetime. Ac- cordingly they were empowered to call in experts to deliberate with them over the evidence and advise with them on the sentence to be rendered, and those who were thus summoned could not re- fuse to serve gratuitously, though it is intimated that the inquisitor can pay them if he feels so incHned. At first it would seem as though notables were assembled at the condemnation of prominent heretics rather to give solemnity to the occasion than for actual consultation, as when, in 1237, at the sentence passed on Alaman de Roaix in Toulouse, the presence is recorded of the Bishop of Toulouse, the Abbot of Moissac, the Dominican and Franciscan provincials, and a number of other notables. The amount of work, in fact, performed by the Inquisition of Languedoc in the early years of its existence would seem to preclude the idea of any serious deliberation by counsellors thus called in, who would have to consider the interminable reports of examinations and interro-

  • C. 1, § 1, Clement v. 3.— Eymeric. Direct. Inq. p. 580.— Coll. Doat, XXXI.

57.— Bernardi Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).— Coll. Doat, XXX. 104.— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. passim, especially pp. 208-10. — Ibid. p. 300. — Archivio Storico Italiano, No. 38, p. 26 sqq. — Curiosita di Storia Subalpina, 1874, p. 215.


ASSEMBLIES OF EXPERTS. 389

gations ; especially as, at a comparatively early date, the practice was adopted of allowing a number of culprits to accumulate whose fate was determined and announced in a solemn " Sermo " or auto defe. Still, the form was kept up, and in 1247 a sentence rendered by Bernard de Caux and Jean de St. Pierre on seven relapsed here- tics is specified as being " with the counsel of many prelates and other good men." In the final shape which the assembly of coun- sellors assumed, we find it summoned to meet on Fridays, the

  • ' Sermo " always taking place on Sundays. When the number of

criminals was large there was thus not much time for deliberation on special cases. The assessors were always to be jurists and Men- dicant friars, selected by the inquisitor in such numbers as he saw fit. They were severally sworn on the Gospels to secrecy, and to give good and wise counsel, each one according to his conscience and the knowledge vouchsafed him by God. The inquisitor then read over to them his summary of each case, sometimes withhold- ing the name of the accused, and they voted the sentence — " Pen- ance at the discretion of the inquisitor " — " That person is to be imprisoned, or abandoned to the secular arm," while the Gospels lay on the table in their midst, so that our judgment may come from the face of God and our eyes may see justice." ^

As a rule it is safe to assume that these proceedings were scarcely more than formal. Not only was the inquisitor at Hberty to present each case in such aspect as he saw fit, but it became the custom to call in such numbers of experts that in the press of busi- ness deliberation was scarce possible. Thus the Inquisitor of Car- cassonne, Henri de Chamay, assembled at Narbonne, December 10, 1328, besides himself and the episcopal Ordinary, forty-two counsel- lors, consisting of canons, jurisconsults, and lay experts. In the two days allotted to them this unwieldly assemblage despatched thirty- four cases, which would show that little consideration could have been given to each. In only two cases, indeed, was there any dif-


' * Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Cupientes, 15 Apr. 1255.— Ejusd. Bull. Prw cunctis, 9 Nov. 1256.— Urbani PP. IV. Bull. Lic^t ex omnihus, § 10, 1262 (Mag. Bull. Rom. I. 122). — Bern. Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.). — Zanchini de Haeret. c. xv. — Bernard! Comens. Lucerna Inquisitor, s. v. Advocatus. — Coll. Doat, XXI. 143 ; XXVII. 156-62, 232; XXXI. 139. — Doctrina de modo proccdendi (Martenc Thesaur. V. 1795).— Tractatus de Inquis. (Doat, XXXVI.).— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonda latin, No. 14930, fol. 205.


390 ORGANIZATION.

ference of opinion expressed, and these were of no special impor- tance. On September 8, 1329, he held another assembly at Car- cassonne, attended by forty-seven experts, which in its two days' session acted upon forty cases. Yet these assemblies were not al- Avays so expeditious and self-effacing. From Narbonne Henri de Chamay passed to Pamiers, where, January 7, 1329, he called to- gether thirty-five experts besides the Bishop of Toulouse. On the fii^t day several cases were postponed for greater deliberation, and . of these some were acted upon and others were not. Considerable debate took place, each individual expressing his opinion, and the result was apparently settled by the majority vote. They evi- dently felt and assumed the responsibility of the decision ; and yet the impossibihty of deliberate action by so cumbrous a body is seen in their bunching together aU the cases of ^'believing" here- tics, condemning them en masse to prison, and leaving it with the inquisitor to determine the character of the imprisonment for each individual. Curiously enough, this assembly also assumed legisla- tive functions in laying down general rules of punishment for false- witness. A still more notable instance of deliberation occurred at an assembly convoked by Henri de Chamay at Beziers, May 19, 1329, where there were thirty-five experts present. In the case of a Franciscan friar, Pierre Julien, all agreed that, strictly speaking, he was a " relapsed," but many were anxious to show him mercy. After long debate, the inquisitor told them to meet again in the evening, and in the meanwhile consider whether they could devise some means of grace. At the evening session there was again earnest discussion, and postponement was agreed to on the excuse that no bishop could be had in time for his degradation. The ex- perts were finally summoned, under pain of excommunication, to give their opinions, which were taken down in writing and ranged from simple purgation to abandonment to the secular arm. The assembly then was dismissed and consultation was held with some of the more prominent members, when it was agreed either to send to Avignon, Toulouse, or Montpellier for advice or to await an OAito defe at Carcassonne for further counsel.*

Yet, while the forms were thus preserved, the inquisitors, with their customary arbitrary disregard of all that limited their dis-


  • Coll. Doat, XXVII. 118, 140, 156, 162.


THE AUTO DE FE. 391

cretion, paid attention or not to the decisions of the experts, as best suited them. In the sentences which follow the reports of these assemblies it is by no means unusual to find names which had never been laid before them. After the assembly of Pamiers, for instance, which showed so much disposition to act for itself, there is a sentence condemning five defuncts, only two of whom are named in the proceedings. On the same occasion, another culprit, Ermessende, daughter of Kaymond Monier, was condemned by the assembly for f alse-^dtness to the " murus largus^ or simple prison, and was sentenced by the inquisitor to " murus strictus^^ or im- prisonment in chains, which was a very different penalty. In fact, it was a disputed point whether the inquisitor was bound to obey the counsel of the assembly, and though Eymerich decides in the affirmative, Bernardo di Como positively asserts the negative.*

From the necessity of these consultations with bishops and ex- perts it is easy to understand the origin of the " Sermo generalis^'* or omto defe. It was evidently impossible to bring all parties to- gether to consult over each individual case, and convenience was not only served by allowing the cases to accumulate, but oppor- tunity was also afforded of arranging an impressive solemnity which should strike terror on the heretic and comfort the hearts of the faithful. In the rudimentary Inquisition of Florence, in 1245, where the inquisitor Euggieri Calcagni and Bishop Ardingho were zealously co-operating, and no assembly of experts was re- quired, we find the heretics sentenced and executed day by day, singly or in twos or threes, but the form was already adopted of assembling the people in the cathedral and reading the sentence to them, when doubtless the occasion was improved of delivering a discourse upon the wickedness of dissent and the duty of all citi- zens to persecute the children of Satan. In Toulouse the frag- ment of the register of sentences of Bernard de Caux and Jean de Saint-Pierre, from March, 1246, to June, 1248, shows a similar dis- regard of form. The autos or Sermones are sometimes held every few days — there are five in May, 1246 — and often there are only one or two heretics to be sentenced, rendering it exceedingly proba-


• Coll. Doat, XXVII. 118, 131, 133.— Eymerici Direct. Inq. p. 630.— Bernard. Comcns. Lucerna Inquisitor, s. v. Advocatiis.


392 ORGANIZATION.

ble that the co-operation of the bishop was not asked for, especially as he is never mentioned as joining in the condemnation. There are always present, however, a certain number of local magistrates, civil and ecclesiastical, and the ceremony is usually performed in the cloister of the church of St. Sernin, though other places are sometimes mentioned, and among them the Hotel-de-Yille twice, showing that divine service as yet formed no part of the solemnity.^ With time the ceremony grew in stateliness and impressive- ness. Sunday became prescribed for it, and as no other sermons were allowed on that day in the city, it was forbidden to be held on Quadragesima or Advent Sunday, or any other of the principal feast-days. Notice was given in advance from all the pulpits summoning all the people to be present and obtain the in- dulgence of forty days. A staging was erected in the centre of the church, on which the " penitents " were placed, surrounded by the secular and clerical officials. The sermon was delivered by the inquisitor, after which the oath of obedience was administered to the representatives of the civil power, and a solemn decree of excommunication was fulminated against all who should in any manner impede the operations of the Holy Office. Then the no- tary commenced reading the confessions one by one in the vulgar tongue, and as each was finished the culprit was asked if he ac- knowledged it to be true — care being taken, however, only to do this when he was known to be truly penitent and not likely to create scandal by a denial. On his replying in the affirmative he was asked whether he would repent, or lose body and soul by per- severing in heresy ; and on his expressing a desire to abjure, the form of abjuration was read and he repeated it, sentence by sen- tence. Then the inquisitor absolved him from the ijpso facto ex- communication which he had incurred by heresy, and promised him mercy if he behaved well under the sentence about to be im- posed. The sentence followed, and thus the penitents were brought foward successively, commencing with the least guilty and pro- ceeding with those incurring severer penalties. Those whq were to be " relaxed," or abandoned to the secular arm, were reserved to the last, and for them the ceremony was adjourned to the pub-


  • Lami, Antichita Toscane, pp. 557-9.— Coll. Doat, XXXT. 139.— MSS. Bib.

Nat., fonds latin, No. 9992,— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Pr(E cunctis, § 15, 9 Nov. 125^.


THE AUTO DE F£. 393

lie square, where a platform had been constructed for the purpose, in order that the holy precincts of the church might not be polluted by a sentence leading to blood. For the same reason it was not to be performed on a holy day. The execution, however, was not to take place on the same day, but on the following, so as to afford the convicts time for conversion, that their souls might not pass from temporal to eternal flame, and care was enjoined not to per- mit them to address the people, lest sympathy should be aroused by their assertions of innocence.^

We can readily picture to ourselves the effect produced on the popular mind by these awful celebrations, when, at the bidding of the Inquisition, all that was great and powerful in the land was called together humbly to take the oath of obedience and witness its exercise of the highest expression of human authority, regu- lating the destinies of fellow-creatures here and hereafter. In the great auto defe held by Bernard Gui at Toulouse, in April, 1310, the solemnities lasted from Sunday the 5th until Thursday the 9th. After the preliminary work of mitigating the penances of some deserving penitents, twenty persons were condemned to wear crosses and perform pilgrimages, sixty -five were consigned to per- petual imprisonment, three of them in chains, and eighteen were delivered to the secuk^ justice and were duly burned. In that of April, 1312, fifty-one were sentenced to crosses, eighty-six to im- prisonment, ten defunct persons were pronounced worthy of prison and their estates confiscated, the bones of thirty-six were ordered to be exhumed and burned, five living ones were handed over to the secular court to be burned, and five more condemned for con- tumacy in absenting themselves. The faith which could thus vin- dicate itself might certainly inspire the respect of fear if not the attraction of love. Sometimes, however, a godless heretic would interfere with the prescribed order of solemnities, as when, in October, 1309, Amiel de Perles, a noted Catharan teacher, who defiantly avowed his heterodoxy, immediately on his capture com- menced the endura and refused all food and drink. Unwilling thus to be robbed of his victim, Bernard hastened the usual dila-


  • Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 503-12. — Doctrina de modo Procedendi (Mar-

tene Thesaur. V. 1795-6).— Tract, de Paup. de Lugduno (lb. 1792).-^Lib. Sententt. Inquis. Tolosan. pp. 1, 6, 39, 98.


394 ORGANIZATION.

tory proceedings, and gave to Amiel the honor of a special auto in which he was the only victim. A similar case occurred in 1313, when a certain Pierre Eaymond, who as a Catharan " credens " had been led to abjure and seek reconciliation in the auto of 1310, and had been condemned to imprisonment, repented of his weak- ness in his sohtary cell. The mental tortures of the poor wretch grew so strong that at last he defiantly proclaimed his relapse into heresy, in which he declared he would hve and die, only re- gretting that he could not have access to some minister of his faith in order to be " perfected " or " hereticated." He likewise placed himself in endura, and after six days of starvation, as he was evi- dently nearing the end which he so resolutely sought, he was hur- riedly sentenced, and a small auto was arranged with a few other culprits in order that the stake might not be cheated of its prey.*

With such an organization as this, in the hands of able, vigor- ous, and earnest men, it shows the marvellous constancy of the heretics that the Cathari for a hundred years opposed to it the simple resistance of inertia, and that the Waldenses were never trampled out. The effectiveness of the organization was unham- pered by any limits of jurisdiction, and was multiplied by the co- operation of the tribunals everywhere, so that there was no rest- ing-place, no harbor of refuge for the heretic in any land where the Inquisition existed. Vainly might he change his abode, it was ever on his track. A suspicious stranger would be observed and arrested ; his birthplace would be ascertained, and as soon as swift messengers could traverse the intervening distance, full official documents as to his antecedents would be received from the Holy Office of his former home. It was a mere matter of convenience whether he should be tried where he was caught or sent back, for every tribunal had fuU jurisdiction over all offences committed within its district, and over aU such offenders wherever they should stray. When Jacopo deUa Chiusa, one of the assassins of St. Peter Martyr, discreetly absented himself, notices commanding his cap- ture were sent as far as the Inquisition of Carcassonne. Of course, questions sometimes arose which seemed likely to give trouble. Before the Inquisition was thoroughly organized, Jayme I. of Ara-


  • Lib. Sententt. Inquis. Tolosan. pp. 37, 39-93, 99-175, 178-9.


CO OPERATION OF TRIBUNALS. 395

gon, in 1248, complained of the Tolosan inquisitor, Bernard de Caux, for citing his subjects to appear, and Innocent lY. com- manded that the abuse should cease, an order which received but slack obedience ; and with the growth of the Holy Office such reclamations were not likely to be repeated. Cases, of course, oc- curred, in Avhich two tribunals would claim the same culprit, and in this the rule of the Council of Narbonne, in 1244, was generally observed, that he should be tried by the inquisitor who had first commenced prosecution. Considering, indeed, the abundant causes of jealousy, and especially the bitter rivalry between the Domini- can and Franciscan Orders, the cases of quarrel seem to have been singularly few. Whatever there were, they were hushed up with prudent reserve, and with occasional exceptions we find a hearty and zealous co-operation in the holy work to which all were alike devoted.*

The implacable energy with which the resources of this organiza- tion were employed may be understood from one or two instances. Under the Hohenstaufens the two Sicihes had served as a refuge for many heretics self -exiled by the rigor of the Inquisition of Languedoc, and merciless as was Frederic when it suited him, his system was by no means so searching and unintermittent as that of the Holy Office. After his death, the active warfare between Manfred and the papacy doubtless left the heretics in comparative peace, but when Charles of Anjou conquered the kingdom as the vassal of Eome, it was at once thrown open and the French inquis- itors made haste to pursue those who had eluded them. But seven months after the execution of Conradin, Charles issued his letters- patent. May 31, 1269, to all the nobles and magistrates of the realm, setting forth that the inquisitors of France were about com- ing or sending agents to track and seize the fugitive heretics who had sought refuge in Italy, and ordering his subjects to give them safe-conduct and assistance whenever they might require it. In


  • -Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 252-4.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, 11847

ad Jinem. — Arch, de I'lnquis. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXI. 83, 94-5). — Quid. Fulcod. QuoDst. v.— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Cupientes, 4 Mart. 1260.— Urbani PP. IV. Bull. Licet ex omnibus, § 11, 12G2.— Ejusd. Bull. Prm cunctis, 2 Aug. 1264.— C. 2 Sexto V. 2. — Bern. Guidon Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX,). — Zanchini Tract, de Haeret. c. viii. — Coucil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 20. — Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 461-5.


39(> ORGANIZATION.

fact, the inquisitor's jurisdiction was personal as well as local, and it accompanied him. When, in 1359, some renegade converted Jews escaped from Provence to Spain, Innocent YI. authorized the Provencal inquisitor, Bernard du Puy, to follow them, arrest, try, condemn, and punish them wherever he might find them, with power to coerce the aid of the secular authorities everywhere ; and he wrote at the same time to the kings of Aragon and Castile, instructing them to give to Bernard all necessary assistance.*

How the same tireless and unforgiving zeal was habitually brought to bear upon the humblest objects is seen in the case of Arnaud Ysarn, who, when a youth of fifteen, was condemned at Toulouse in 1309, after an imprisonment of two years, to wear crosses and perform certain pilgrimages, his sole offence being that he had once " adored " a heretic at the command of his father. He wore the insignia of his shame for more than a year, when, finding that they prevented him from earning a livelihood, he threw them off and obtained employment as a boatman on the Garonne between Moissac and Bordeaux. In his obscurity he might weU fancy himself safe ; but the inquisitorial police was too well organized, and he was discovered. Cited in 1312 to appear, he was afraid to do so, though urged by his father to take the chance of mercy. In 1315 he was excommunicated for contumacy, and, remaining under the censure for a year, he was finally declared a heretic, and was condemned as such in the auto de fe of 1319. In June, 1321, by command of Bernard Gui, he was captured at Moissac, but escaped on the road to be recaptured and taken to Toulouse. He had been guilty of no act of heresy during the interval, but his contumacious rejection of the parental chastise- ment of the Inquisition was an offence worthy of death, and he was mercifully treated in being condemned, in 1322, to imprison- ment for life on bread and water. The net of the Inquisition ex- tended everywhere, and no prey was too smaU to elude its meshes.f

The whole organization of the Church was at its service. In 1255 a Dominican of Alessandria, Fra Mccolo da Yercelli, confessed voluntarily some heretical beliefs to his sub-prior, who thereupon


♦ Archivio di Napoli, Registro 3, Lett. A, fol. 64. — Wadding, ann. 1359, No. 1-3.

t Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 350-1.


INQUISITORSGENERAL. 397

promptly ejected him. He entered a neighboring Cistercian con- vent, and then, fearing the pursuit of the Inquisition, quietly dis- appeared to some other convent beyond the Alps. There would not seem much to be feared from a heretic who would bury him- self in the rigid Cistercian Order, and yet at once Alexander lY. issued letters to all Cistercian abbots and to all archbishops and bishops everywhere, commanding them to seize him and send him to Kainerio Saccone, the Lombard inquisitor.*

To render it an instrumentality perfect for the work assigned to it, all that was wanting to the Inquisition was its subjection to a chief who should command the implicit obedience of its mem- bers and weld the organization into an organic whole. This func- tion the pope could perform but imperfectly amid the overwhelm- ing diversity of his cares, and he needed a minister who, as in- quisitor-general, could devote his undivided attention to the in- numerable questions arising from the conflict between orthodoxy and heresy, and between papal supremacy and local episcopal in- dependence. The importance of such a measure seems to have made itself felt at a comparatively early period, and in 1262 Urban lY. created a virtual inquisitor-general when he ordered all inquis- itors to report, either in person or by letter, to Caietano Orsini, Cardinal of S. Niccolo in carcere TuUiano, aU. impediments to the due performance of their functions, and to obey the instructions which he might give. Cardinal Orsini speaks of himself as inquisi- tor-general, and he labored to bring the several tribunals into the closest relations with each other and subjection to himself. May 19, 1273, we find him ordering the Italian inquisitors to furnish to the inquisitors of France facilities for the transcription of all the depositions of witnesses already on record in their archives, as well as of all future ones. The perpetual migration of Catharans and Waldenses between France and Italy rendered this information most valuable, and the French inquisitors had requested it of him, but the excessive diffuseness of the inquisitorial documents made the task appalling in magnitude and cost, and the terms of the cardinal's missive show that it was not expected to be welcome. Whether any further attempt was made to carry out this gigantic


  • Ripoll I. 285.


398 ORGANIZATION.

plan, which would have so greatly multiplied the effectiveness of the Inquisition, does not appear, but its conception shows the view entei'tained by Orsini of the powers of his office and of the pos- sibilities of what the Inquisition might become under energetic supervision. Another letter of his, dated May 24, 1273, to the in- quisitors of France, indicates that for a time at least the general instructions to the functionaries of the Holy Office were issued through him.*

We have no further evidence of his activity, but his elevation to the papacy in 1277, as Nicholas III., may possibly indicate that the position Avas one which afforded abundant opportunities of in- fluence, perhaps rendering its possessor disagreeably, if not dan- gerously powerful, and when Nicholas appointed his nephew. Car- dinal Latino Malebranca, as his successor in the office vacated by his elevation, he may have felt it necessary to secure himself by keeping the position in his family. Malebranca was Dean of the Sacred College, and his influence was shown when, in 1294, he ended the weary conflict of the conclave by procuring the election of the hermit, Pietro Morrone, as pope, under the name of Celes- tin Y. He did not survive the short pontificate of Celestin, and the proud and vigorous Boniface YIII. regarded it as impolitic or unnecessary to continue the office. It remained in abeyance under the Avignonese popes, until Clement YI. revived it for William, Cardinal of S. Stefano in Monte Celio, who signalized his zeal by burning several heretics, and in other ways. After his death the post remained vacant, and at no time does it appear to have exer- cised any special influence over the development and activity of the Inquisition.f

  • Ripoll I. 434. — Pegnas Comment, in Eymeric. pp. 406-7. — Wadding. Annal.

Regest. Nich. PP. III. No. 10.— Arch, de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXII. 101) —Raynald. ann. 1278, No. 78.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 218.

t Paramo de Orig. Offic. S. Inquis. pp. 124-5. — Wadding. Annal. ann. 1294, No. 1. — Milman, Latin Christianity, IV. 487.


CHAPTEK IX.

THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS.

The procedure of the episcopal courts, as described in a former chapter, was based on the principles of the Roman law, and what- ever may have been its abuses in practice, it was equitable in the- ory, and its processes were limited by strictly defined rules. In the Inquisition all this was changed, and if we would rightly ap- preciate its methods we must understand the relations which the inquisitor conceived to exist between himself and the offenders brought before his tribunal. As a judge, he was vindicating the faith and avenging God for the wrongs inflicted on him by misbe- lief. He was more than a judge, however, he was a father-con- fessor striving for the salvation of the wretched souls perversely bent on perdition. In both capacities he acted with an authority far higher than that of an earthly judge. If his sacred mission was accomplished, it mattered little what methods were used. If the offender asked mercy for his unpardonable crime it must be through the most unreserved submission to the spiritual father who was seeking to save him from the endless torment of hell. The first thing demanded of him when he appeared before the tribunal was an oath to stand to the mandates of the Church, to answer truly aU questions asked of him, to betray all heretics known to him, and to perform whatever penance might be imposed on him ; and refusal to take this oath was to proclaim himself at once a defiant and obstinate heretic*


- * Arch, dc I'lnquis. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXI. 5, 103). — Zanchini Tract, de Ha; ret. c. ix.

In the Cismontanc Inquisition the preliminary oath seems only to pledge the accused to tell the truth as to himself and others (Eymeric. p. 421). In Italy, however, it was the more elaborate affair described in the text. In the trials of the Guglielmites at Milan, in 1300, the accused were, in addition, made to impose


400 THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS.

The duty of the inquisitor, moreover, was distinguished from that of the ordinary judge by the fact that the task assigned to him was the impossible one of ascertaining the secret thoughts and opinions of the prisoner. External acts were to him only of value as indications of belief, to be accepted or rejected as he might deem them conclusive or illusory. The crime he sought to suppress by punishment was purely a mental one — acts, however criminal, were beyond his jurisdiction. The murderers of St. Peter Martyr were prosecuted, not as assassins, but as fautors of heresy and impeders of the Inquisition. The usurer only came within his purview when he asserted or showed by his acts that he consid- ered usury no sin  ; the sorcerer when his incantations proved that he preferred to rely on the powers of demons rather than those of God, or that he entertained wrongful notions upon the sacraments. Zanghino tells us that he witnessed the condemnation of a concu- binary priest by the Inquisition, who was punished not for his licentiousness, but because while thus polluted he celebrated daily mass and urged in excuse that he considered himself purified by putting on the sacred vestments. Then, too, even doubt was her- esy; the believer must have fixed and unwavering faith, and it was the inquisitor's business to ascertain this condition of his mind. * External acts and verbal professions were as naught. The accused might be regular in his attendance at mass ; he might be liberal in his oblations, punctual in confession and communion, and yet be a heretic at heart. When brought before the tribunal he might profess the most unbounded submission to the decisions of the Holy See, the strictest adherence to orthodox doctrine, the freest readiness to subscribe to whatever was demanded of him,


on themselves, in case of violating its pledges, a forfeit varying from ten to fifty imperial lire, to secure which they pledged to the inquisitor all their property, real and personal, and renounced all legal defence. Moreover, this pecuniary penalty was not to relieve them from the canonical punishment attendant upon the non-fulfilment of the obligations assumed. This, I presume, was the official formula customary in the Lombard Inquisition. — Ogniben Andrea, I Gugliel- miti del Secolo XIII., Perugia, 1867, pp. 5-6, 13, 27, 35, 37, etc.

In some witch trials of 1474 in Piedmont the oath to tell the truth was en- forced with excommunication and " tratti di oorde^ or infliction of the torture known as the strappado, varying from ten to twenty-five times — and also with pecuniary forfeits. — P. Vayra (Curiosita di Storia Subalpina, 1875, pp. 682, 693).

  • Zanchini Tract, de Haeret. c. ii.


OTHER FORMS OF ACTION DISCOURAGED. 401

and jet be secretly a Catharan or a Yaudois, fit only for the stake. Few, indeed, were there who courageously admitted their heresy when brought before the tribunal, and to the conscientious judge, eager to destroy the foxes which ravaged the vineyard of the Lord, the task of exploring the secret heart of man was no easy one. We cannot wonder that he speedily emancipated himself from the trammels of recognized judicial procedure which, in pre- venting him from committing injustice, would have rendered his labors futile. Still less can we be surprised that fanatic zeal, ar- bitrary cruelty, and insatiable cupidity rivalled each other in build- ing up a system unspeakably atrocious. Omniscience alone was capable of solving with justice the problems which were the daily routine of the inquisitor ; human frailty, resolved to accomplish a predetermined end, inevitably reached the practical conclusion that the sacrifice of a hundred innocent men were better than the es- cape of one guilty.

Thus of the three forms of criminal actions, accusation, denun- ciation, and inquisition, the latter necessarily became, in place of an exception, the invariable rule, and at the same time it was stripped of the safeguards by which its dangerous tendencies had been in some degree neutralized. If a formal accuser presented himself, the inquisitor was instructed to discourage him by point- ing out the danger of the talio to which he was exposed by in- scribing himself ; and by general consent this form of action was rejected in consequence of its being " litigious " — that is, because it afforded the accused some opportunities of defence. That there was danger to the accuser, and that the Inquisition practically dis- couraged the process, was shown in 1304, when an inquisitor, Fra Landulfo, imposed a fine of one hundred and fifty ounces of gold on the town of Theate because it had officially accused a man of heresy and had failed in the proof. The action by denun- ciation was less objectionable, because in it the inquisitor acted ex officio  ; but it was unusual, and the inquisitorial process at an early period became substantially the only one followed.*

  • Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 413-17.— Archivio di Napoli, Reg. 138, Lett. F,

f(.l. 105.

To appreciate the contrast between the processes of the Inquisition and of the secular courts, it will suffice to allude to the practice of the latter in Milan in the first half of the fourteenth century. An accuser bringing a criminal action was I.— 26


402 THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS.

Not only, as we shall see, Avere its safeguards withdrawn, but virtually the presumption of guilt was assumed in advance. About 1278 an experienced inquisitor lays down the rule as one generally received, that in places much suspected of heresy every inhabitant must be cited to appear, must be forced to abjure heresy and to tell the truth, and be subjected to a detailed interrogatory about himself and others, in which any lack of frankness will subject him hereafter to the dreadful penalties of relapse. That this was not a mere theoretical proposition appears from the great inquests held by Bernard de Caux and Jean de Saint-Pierre in 1245 and 1246, when there are recorded two hundred and thirty interrogatories of inhabitants of the little town of Avignonet, one hundred of those of Fanjeaux, and four hundred and twenty of Mas-Saintes- Puelles.*

From this responsibility there was no escape for any one who had reached the age at which the Church held him able to answer for his own acts. What this age was, however, was a subject of dispute. The Councils of Toulouse, Beziers, and Albi assumed it to be fourteen for males and twelve for females, when they prescribed the oath of abjuration to be taken by the whole population, and

obliged to inscribe himself and to furnish ample security that in case of failure he would undergo the fitting penalty and indemnify the accused for all expenses ; in default of security he was to remain in jail until the end of the trial. The judge was, moreover, bound to render his decision within three months.

If the judge proceeded by inquisition he was obliged to give the accused no- tice in advance. The latter was entitled to counsel and to have the names and testimony of the witnesses communicated to him, and the judge was required, under a penalty of fifty lire, to complete the matter within thirty days. — Statuta Criminalia Mediolani, e tenebris in lucem edita, Bergami, 1594, c. 1-3, 153.

It is true that, under the influence of the Inquisition, the lay courts outgrew these wholesome provisions against injustice, but meanwhile it is important to bear them in mind when considering the secrecy, the delays, and the practical denial of justice in every way which characterized the proceedings against here- tics. The gradual demoralization of the secular courts under these influences was a subject of complaint. In 1329 the consuls of Beziers represented to Phil- ippe de Valois that his judges were neglecting to take from accusers proper se- curity to indemnify the accused in case of the failure of the prosecution, and the king promptly ordered the abuse to be corrected. — Vaissette, £d. Privat, X. Pr. 687.

  • Doctrina de modo procedendi (Martene Thesaur. V. 1805). — Molinier, L' In-

quisition dans le midi de la France, pp. 186-7.


MINORS AND ABSENTEES. 403

this rule was adopted by some authorities. Others contented themselves with the definition that the child must be old enough to understand the purport of an oath, while there were not want- ing high authorities who reduced the age of responsibility to seven years, and those who more charitably fixed it at nine and a half for girls and ten and a half for boys. It is true that in Latin countries, where minority did not cease until the age of twenty-five, no one beneath that age had a standing in court, but this was readily evaded by appointing for him a " curator," under whose shadow he could be tortured and condemned ; and when we are told that no one below the age of fourteen should be tortured, we are left to conjecture the minimum age of responsibility for heresy.^

Nor could the offender escape by absenting himself. Absence was contumacy and only increased his guilt, by adding a fresh and unpardonable offence, besides being technically tantamount to con- fession. In fact, before the Inquisition was thought of, the inquis- itorial process was rendered absolute in ecclesiastical jurisprudence precisely to meet such cases, as when Innocent III. degraded the Bishop of Coire on evidence taken ex parte by his commissioners, after the bishop had repeatedly refused to appear before them ; and the importance of this decision is shown by the fact that Eaymond of Pennaforte embodied it in the canon law to prove that in cases of contumacy the testimony taken in an inquisitio was valid ground for condemnation without a litis contestatio or contest between the prosecution and the defence. Accordingly, when a party failed to appear, after due citation pubHshed in his parish church and proper delay, there was no hesitation in proceeding against him to conviction in absentia — the absence of the culprit being piously supplied by "the presence of God and the Gospels" when the sentence was rendered. Contumacious absence, in fact, was in it- self enough. Frederic II. in his earliest edict, in 1220, following the Lateran Council of 1215, had declared that the suspect who


  • Concil. Tolosan. ann. 1229 c. 10.— Concil. Riterrcns. ann. 1244 c. 31. — Con-

cil. Albiens. aiin. 1254 c. 5. — Modus examinaiuli ha^rcticos (Mag. Bib. Patrum XIII. 341). — Joan. Andrcaj Gloss, sup. c. 13 Sexto v. 2. — Pcgiui; Comment, in Eymeric. p. 490. — Bernardi Comens. Luccrna Inquis. s. vv. Minor ^ Tortura No. 33.


404 THE KN'QUISITORIAL PKOCESS.

did not clear himself within twelve months was to be condemned as a heretic, and this was applied to the absent, who were ordered to be sentenced after a year's excommunication, whether anything was proved against them or not. Enduring excommunication for a year without seeking its removal was evidence of heresy as to the sacraments and the power of the keys, if as to nothing else ; and some authorities were so rigid with regard to this that the Council of Beziers denounced the punishment of heresy for all Avlio remained excommunicate for forty days. Even the delay of a twelvemonth, however, Avas evaded, for inquisitors were in- structed when citing the absent to summon them, not only to ap- pear, but to purge themselves within a given time, and then as soon as it had elapsed the accused was held to be convicted. Yet the extreme penalty of relaxation was rarely enforced in such cases, and the Inquisition contented itself generally with imprisomng for life those against whom no offence was proved save contumacy, unless, indeed, when caught they refused to submit and abjure.*

As little was there any escape by death. It mattered not that the sinner had been called to the judgment-seat of God, the faith must be vindicated by his condemnation and the faithful be edified by his punishment. If he had incurred only imprisonment or the lighter penalties, his bones were simply dug up and cast out. If his heresy had deserved the stake, they were solemnly burned. A simulacrum of defence was allowed to heirs and descendants, on whom were visited the heavy penalties of confiscation and per- sonal disabihties. How unflagging was the zeal with which these mortuary prosecutions were sometimes carried on is visible in the case of Armanno Pongilupo of Ferrara, over whose remains war was waged between the Bishop and the Inquisitor of Ferrara for


  • C. 8 Extra n. 14.— Concil. Narbonn, ann. 1244 c. 19. — Concil. Biterrens.

aim. 1246 c. 8 ; Append, c. 14.— Guid. Fulcod. Quaest. vi.— Coll. Doat, XXI. 143. — Eymeric. Direct. Inq. pp. 382, 495, 528-31.— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 175, 367-74. — Zanchini Tract, de Hseret. c. ii., viii., ix. — MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14030, fol. 221. — Bernardi Comens. Lucerna Inquisit. s. vv. Contumax^ Con- «iwa^Mr.— Concil. Lateran. IV. ann. 1215 c. 28.— Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. T. II. p. 4. — Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 28. — Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Gonsultationi 'Destrm^ 28 Mai. 1260.— C. 13 Extra, v. 38 (cf. Concil. Trident. Sess. 25 de Reform, c. 3). — Arcli. de ITnq. de Carcass. (Doat, XXXI. 83). — Bernardi Comens. Lucema Inquisit. s. v. Procedere, No. 10. ,


DISREGARD OF FORMS. 405

thirty-two years after his death, in 1269, ending with the triumph of the Inquisition in 1301. No prescription of time barred the Church in these matters, as the heirs and descendants of Gherardo of Florence found when, in 1313, Fra Grimaldo the inquisitor commenced a successful prosecution against their ancestor who had died prior to 1250.^

At best the inquisitorial process was a dangerous one in its conjunction of prosecutor with judge, and when it was first intro- duced in ecclesiastical jurisprudence careful limitations to prevent abuse were felt to be absolutely essential. The danger was doubled when the prosecuting judge was an earnest zealot bent on uphold- ing the faith and predetermined on seeing in every prisoner before him a heretic to be convicted at any cost ; nor was the danger lessened when he was merely rapacious and eager for fines and confiscations. Yet the theory of the Church was that the inquisi- tor was an impartial spiritual father whose functions in the salva- tion of souls should be fettered by no rules. All the safeguards which human experience had shown to be necessary in judicial proceedings of the most trivial character were deliberately cast aside in these cases, where life and reputation and property through three generations were involved. Every doubtful point was de- cided " in favor of the faith." The inquisitor, with endless itera- tion, was empowered and instructed to proceed summarily, to dis- regard forms, to permit no impediments arising from judicial rules or the wrangling of advocates, to shorten the proceedings as much as possible by depriving the accused of the ordinary facilities of defence, and by rejecting all appeals and dilatory exceptions. The vaHdity of the result was not to be vitiated by the omission at any stage of the trial of the forms which had been devised to prevent injustice and subject the judge to responsibility.!


  • Muraton, Antiquitat. Ital. Dissert. 60. — Zanchini Tract, de Haeret, c. xxiv.,

xl.. — Lami, Antichita Toscane, p. 497.

t Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Prce cunctis, § 11, 9 Nov. 1256.— Ejusd. Bull. Cupientes, 10 Dec. 1257 ; 4 Mart. 1264.— Urbani PP. IV. Bull. Licet ex omnibus, 1262 (Mag. Bull. Rom. I. 122).— Ejusd. Bull. Prm cunctis, 2 Aug. 1264.— Clement. PP. IV. Bull. PrcB cunctis, 23 Feb. 1266.— C. 20 Sexto v. 2.— Joan. Andreae Gloss, sup. cod.— C. 2 Clement, v. 11. — Bernard! Guidonis Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.). — Eymeric. Direct. Inq. p. 583.


406 THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS.

Had {he proceedings been public, there might luive been some check upon this hideous system, but the Inquisition shrouded it- self in tlie awful mystery of secrecy until after sentence had been awarded and it was ready to impress the multitude with the fear- ful solemnities of the auto defe. Unless proclamation were to be made for an absentee, the citation of a suspected heretic was made in secret. All knowledge of what took place after he presented himself was confined to the few discreet men selected by his judge, who were sworn to inviolable silence, and even the experts assem- bled to consult over his fate were subjected to similar oaths. The secrets of that dismal tribunal were guarded with the same caution, and we are told by Bernard Gui that extracts from the records were to be furnished rarely and only with the most careful discre- tion. Paramo, in the quaint pedantry with which he ingeniously proves that God was the first inquisitor and the condemnation of Adam and Eve the first model of the inquisitorial process, tri- umphantly points out that he judged them in secret, thus setting the example which the Inquisition is bound to foUow, and avoid- ing the subtleties which the criminals would have raised in their defence, especially at the suggestion of the crafty serpent. That he called no witnesses is explained by the confession of the accused, and ample legal authority is cited to show that these confessions were sufficient to justify the conviction and punishment. If this blasphemous absurdity raises a smile, it has also its melancholy side, for it reveals to us the view which the inquisitors themselves took of their functions, assimilating themselves to God and wield- ing an irresponsible power which nothing short of divine wisdom could prevent from being turned by human passions into an engine of the most deadly injustice. Keleased from all the restraint of publicity and unrestricted by the formalities of law, the procedure of the Inquisition, as Zanghino tells us, was purely arbitrary. How the inquisitors construed their powers and what use they made of their discretion we shall have abundant opportunity of seeing hereafter.*


  • Doctrina de modo proccdendi (Martene Thesaur.V. 1811-12). — Concil. Biter-

rens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 16. — Arch, de Flnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXVII. 156, 162, 178).— Bern. Guidon. Gravamina (Doat, XXX. 102).— Ejusd. Practica (Doat, XXIX. 94). — Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 0ol-33. — Jacob. Laudens. Orat. ad


trSUAL COURSE OF TRIAL. 40Y

The ordinary course of a trial by the Inquisition was this. A man would be reported to the inquisitor as of ill-repute for heresy, or his name would occur in the confessions of other prisoners. A secret inquisition would be made and all accessible evidence against him would be collected. He would then be secretly cited to ap- pear at a given time, and bail taken to secure his obedience, or if he were suspected of flight, he would be suddenly arrested and confined until the tribunal was ready to give him a hearing. Legal- ly there required to be three citations, but this was eluded by making the summons " one for three ;" when the prosecution was based on common report the witnesses were called apparently at random, making a sort of drag-net, and when the mass of surmises and gos- sip, exaggerated and distorted by the natural fear of the witnesses, eager to save themselves from suspicion of favoring heretics, grew sufficient for action, the blow would fall. The accused was thus prejudged. He was assumed to be guilty, or he would not have been put on trial, and virtually his only mode of escape was by confessing the charges made against him, abjuring heresy, and ac- cepting whatever punishment might be imposed on him in the shape of penance. Persistent denial of guilt and assertion of or- thodoxy, when there was evidence against him, rendered him an impenitent, obstinate heretic, to be abandoned to the secular arm and consigned to the stake. The process thus was an exceedingly simple one, and is aptly summarized by an inquisitor of the fifteenth century in an argument against admitting the accused to bail. If one is caught in heresy, by his own confession, and is impenitent, he is to be delivered to the secular arm to be put to death ; if penitent, he is to be thrust in prison for life, and therefore is not to be let loose on bail ; if he denies, and is legitimately convicted by witnesses, he is, as an impenitent, to be deUvered to the secular court to be executed.*


Concil. Constant. (Von clcr Hardt. III. CO). — Paramo de Orig. Offic. S. Inquis. pp. 32-33. — Zanchini Tract, dc Ilairet. c. ix.

  • Eymcric. Direct. Inq. pp. 413, 418, 423-4, 461-5, 521-4.— Zanchini Tract. i]o

Hajret. c. ix. — Bernardi Comcns. Luccrna Inquisit. s. v. Impcenitens. — Albortin. Repert. Inquis. s. v. CaiUlo.

The contrast between this and the secular jurisprudence of the thirteenth century is illustrated in the charter granted by Alphonse of Poitiers to the town of Auzon (Auvcrgne), about 12G0. Any one accused of crime by common report


408 'I'iH'^ INCiUI^lTOUIAL PROCESS.

Yet many reasons led the inquisitor earnestly to desire to se- cure confession. In numerous cases — indeed, no doubt in a ma- jorit}^ — the evidence, while possibly justifying suspicion, was of too loose and undefined a character to justify condemnation, for every idle rumor was taken up, and any flimsy pretext which led to pros- ecution assumed importance when the inquisitor found himself bound to show that he had not acted unadvisedly, or when he had in prospect fines and confiscations for the benefit of the faith. Even when the evidence was sufficient, there were motives equally strong to induce the inquisitor to labor with his prisoner in the hope of leading him to withdraw his denial and throw himself upon the mercy of the tribunal. Except in the somewhat rare cases of defiant heretics, confession was always accompanied with professions of conversion and repentance. Not only thus was a soul snatched from Satan, but the new convert was bound to prove his sincerity by denouncing all whom he knew or might suspect to be heretic, thus opening fresh avenues for the extirpation of heresy.

Bernard Gui, copying an earlier inquisitor, tells us eloquently that when the external evidence was insufficient for conviction, the mind of the inquisitor was torn with anxious cares. On the one side, his conscience pained him if he punished one who was neither confessed nor convicted ; but he suffered still more, knowing by constant experience the falsity and cunning and malice of these men, if he allowed them to escape through their vulpine astute- ness, to the damage of the faith. In such case they were strength- ened and multiplied, and rendered keener than ever, while the laity were scandalized at seeing the inefficiency of the Inquisition, baffled in its undertakings, and its most learned men played with and de- fied by rude and illiterate persons, for they believed the inquisitors to have all the proofs and arguments of the faith so ready at hand that no heretic could elude them or prevent their converting him. From this it is easy to see how the self-conceit of the inquisitor led him inevitably to conviction. In another passage he points out


could clear himself by his own oath and that of a single legal conjurator, unless there was a legitimate plaintiff or accuser; and no one could be tried by the in- quisitorial process without his own consent. — Chassaing, Spicilegium Briva- tense, Paris, 1886, p. 92.


DELATION INDISPENSABLE. 409

how greatly profitable to the faith was the conversion of such per- sons, because not only were they obliged to betray their fellows and the hiding-places and conventicles of darkness, but those whom they had influenced were more ready to acknowledge their errors and seek in turn to be converted. As early as 1246 the Council of Beziers had pointed out the utility of such conversions, and had in- structed the inquisitors to spare no pains in procuring them, and all subsequent authorities evidently regarded this as the first of their duties. They all agree, moreover, in holding delation of ac- complices as the indispensable evidence of true conversion. With- out this the repentant heretic in vain might ask for reconciliation and mercy  ; his refusal to betray his friends and kindred was proof that he was unrepentant, and he was forthwith handed over to the secular arm, exactly as in the Koman law a converted Manichaean who consorted with Manich^eans without denouncing them to the authorities was punishable with death. How useful this was is seen in the case of Saurine Eigaud, whose confession is recorded at Toulouse in 1254, where it is followed by a list of one hundred and sixty-nine persons incriminated by her, their names being care- fully tabulated with their places of residence for immediate action. How strictly, moreover, the duty of the reconciled heretic was con- strued is seen in the fate of Guillem Sicrede at Toulouse in 1312. He had abjured and been reconciled in 1262. Fifty years after- wards, in 1311, he had been present at the death-bed of his brother, where heretication had been performed, and he had failed to be- tray it, though he had vainly objected to it. When asked for his reasons, he simply said that he had not wished to injure his neph- ews, and for this, in 1312, he was imprisoned for life. Delation was so indispensable to the Inquisition that it was to be secured by rewards as well as by punishments. Bernard Gui teUs us that those who voluntarily come forward and prove their zeal by con- fession and by betraying all their associates are not only to be par- doned, but their livelihood must be secured at the hands of princes and'prelates ; while betraying a single " perfected" heretic insured immunity and perhaps additional reward.*


  • Bernard. Guidon. Practica P. iv., v. (Doat, XXX.). — Concil. Biterrens. ann.

1246, Append, c. 16.— Tractat. de Paup. de Liigdun. (Martene Thesaur. V. 1791-4). — Anon. Paasaviens. (Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 308). — Const, xvi. Cod. i., v. — Molinier,


410 THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS.

The inquisitor's anxiety to secure confession was well grounded, not only through the advantages thus secured, but to satisfy his own conscience. In ordinary crimes, a judge was usually certain that an offence had been committed before he undertook to pros- ecute a prisoner accused of murder or theft. In many cases, how- ever, the inquisitor could have no assurance that there had been any crime. A man might be reasonably suspected, he might have been seen conversing with those subsequently proved to be heretics, he might have given them alms or other assistance, he might even have attended a meeting of heretics, and yet be thoroughly ortho- dox at heart ; or he might be a bitter heretic and yet have given no outward sign. His own assertion of orthodoxy, his willingness to subscribe to the faith of Kome, went for nothing, for experience had proved that most heretics were wiUing to subscribe to any- thing, and that they had been trained by persecution to conceal their beUefs under the mask of rigid orthodoxy. Confession of heresy thus became a matter of vital importance, and no effort was deemed too great, no means too repulsive, to secure it. This be- came the centre of the inquisitorial process, and it is deserving of detailed consideration, not only because it formed the basis of pro- cedure in the Holy Office, but also because of the vast and deplora- ble influence which it exercised for five centuries on the whole judicial system of Continental Europe.

The first and readiest means was, of course, the examination of the accused. For this the inquisitor prepared himself by collecting and studying all the adverse evidence that could be procured, while the prisoner was kept in sedulous ignorance of the charges against him. Skill in interrogation was the one pre-eminent requisite of the inquisitor, and manuals prepared by experienced brethren for the benefit of the younger officials are full of details with regard to it and of carefully prepared forms of interrogations suited for every heretical sect. Constant training developed a class of acute and subtle minds, practised to read the thoughts of the ac- cused, skilled to lay pitfaUs for the incautious, versed in every art to confuse, prompt to detect ambiguities, and quick to take advan-


L'lnquisition dans le midi de la France, p. 240. — Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. p. 147.— Epist. Petri Card. Alban. (Doat, XXXI. 5).— Bernard. Guidon. Gravamina (Doat, XXX. 114).


THE INTERROGATORY. 411

tage of hesitation or contradiction. Even in the infancy of the institution the consuls of Narbonne complained to those of Nimes that the inquisitors, in their efforts to entrap the unwary, did not hesitate to make use of dialectics as sophistical as those with which students encountered each other in scholastic diversion. ^N'othing more ludicrous can well be imagined than the complaints of these veteran examiners, restricted by no rules, of the shrewd dupUcity of their victims, who struggled, occasionally with success, to avoid criminating themselves, and they sought to explain it by asserting that wicked and shameless priests instructed them how to equivo- cate on points of faith.*

An experienced inquisitor drew up for the guidance of his suc- cessors a specimen examination of a heretic, to show them the quib- bles and tergiversations for which they must be prepared when dealing with those who shrank from boldly denying their faith. Its fidehty is attested by Bernard Gui reproducing it fifty years later in his " Practica," and it is too characteristic an illustration of the encounter between the trained intellect of the inquisitor and the untutored shrewdness of the peasant struggling to save his life and his conscience, to be omitted.

"When a heretic is first brought up for examination, he assumes a confident air, as though secure in his innocence. I ask him why he has been brought before me. He replies, smil- ing and courteous, ^ Sir, I would be glad to learn the cause from you.'

" I. ' You are accused as a heretic, and that you believe and teach otherwise than Holy Church believes.'

" A. (Raising his eyes to heaven, with an air of the greatest faith) ' Lord, thou knowest that I am innocent of this, and that I never held any faith other than that of true Christianity.'

" I. ^ You call your faith Christian, for you consider ours as false and heretical. But I ask whether you have ever believed as true another faith than that which the Roman Church holds to bo true?'

  • Bernard. Guidon. Practica P. v. (Doat, XXX.). — Modus examinandi Haereti-

cos (Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 342).— Tractat. de Paup. de Lugd. (Martene Thesaur. V. 1793-4). — MS. Vatican, No. 86G8 (Riccbini, Prolog, ad Monetam, p. xxiii.). — Anon. Passav. (Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 301).— Molinicr, L'Inq. dans Ic midi dc la France, p. 234.— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Quod mper nmnullis, § 10, 15 Dec. 1258.


412 THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS.

"A. 'I believe the true faith which the Eoman Church believes, and which you openly preach to us.'

I. ' Perhaps you have some of your sect at Kome whom you call the Koman Church. I, when I preach, say many things, some of which are common to us both, as that God liveth, and you believe some of what I preach. Nevertheless you may be a heretic in not believing other matters which are to be be- lieved.'

"A. 'I believe all things that a Christian should believe.'

"I. 'I know your tricks. What the members of your sect be- lieve you hold to be that which a Christian should believe. But we waste time in this fencing. Say simply. Do you believe in one God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost V

"A. 'I beheve.'

" I. ' Do you believe in Christ born of the Virgin, suffered, risen, and ascended to heaven V

" A. (Briskly) ' I believe.'

" I. ' Do you believe the bread and wine in the mass performed by the priests to be changed into the body and blood of Christ by divine virtue V

" A. ' Ought I not to believe this V

"I. 'I don't ask if you ought to believe, but if you do believe.'

"A. 'I believe whatever you and other good doctors order me to believe.'

" I. ' Those good doctors are the masters of your sect ; if I ac- cord with them you believe with me ; if not, not.'

"A. 'I willingly believe with you if you teach what is good to me.'

"I. ' You consider it good to you if I teach what your other masters teach. Say, then, do you believe the body of our Lord Jesus Christ to be in the altar V

" A. (Promptly) ' I believe.'

" I. ' You know that a body is there, and that all bodies are of our Lord. I ask whether the body there is of the Lord who was born of the Virgin, hung on the cross, arose from the dead, as- cended, etc.  ?'

" A. ' And you, sir, do you not believe it V

"I. 'I believe it wholly.'

"A. 'I believe likewise.'


THE INTERROGATORY. 413

^' I. ' You believe that I believe it, which is not what I ask, but whether you believe it.'

A. ' If you wish to interpret all that I say otherwise than simply and plainly, then I don't know what to say. I am a simple and ignorant man. Pray don't catch me in my words.'

" I. ' If you are simple, answer simply, without evasions.'

"A. 'Willingly.'

" I. ' Will you then swear that you have never learned anything contrary to the faith which we hold to be true V

"A. (Growing pale) 'If I ought to swear, I will willingly swear.'

"I. 'I don't ask whether you ought, but whether you wiU swear.'

A. 'If you order me to swear, I will swear.'

"I. 'I don't force you to swear, because as you believe oaths to be unlawful, you will transfer the sin to me who forced you ; but if you will swear, I will hear it.'

" A. ' Why should I swear if you do not order me to V

"I. 'So that you may remove the suspicion of being a her- etic'

" A. ' Sir, I do not know how unless you teach me.'

"I. ' If I had to swear, I would raise my hand and spread my fingers and say, " So help me God, I have never learned heresy or believed what is contrary to the true faith." '

" Then trembling as if he cannot repeat the form, he will stum- ble along as though speaking for himself or for another, so that there is not an absolute form of oath and yet he may be thought to have sworn. If the words are there, they are so turned around that he does not swear and yet appears to have sworn. Or he con- verts the oath into a form of prayer, as ' God help me that I am not a heretic or the hke ;' and when asked whether he had sworn, he will say : ' Did you not hear me swear V And when further hard pressed he will appeal, saying ' Sir, if I have done amiss in aught, I will willingly bear the penance, only help me to avoid the infamy of which I am accused through malice and without fault of mine.' But a vigorous inquisitor must not allow himself to be worked upon in this way, but proceed firmly till he makes these people confess their error, or at least publicly abjure heresy, so that if they are subsequently found to have sworn falsely, he can, with-


4U THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS.

out f urtlier heaving, abandon them to the secular arm. If one con- sents to swear that he is not a heretic, I say to him, ' If you wish to swear so as to escape the stake, one oath will not suffice for me, nor ten, nor a hundred, nor a thousand, because you dispense each other for a certain number of oaths taken under necessity, but I will require a countless number. Moreover, if I have, as I pre- sume, adverse Avitnesses against you, your oaths will not save you from being burned. You will only stain your conscience without es- caping death. But if you will simply confess your error, you may find mercy.' Under this anxiety, I have seen some confess." *

The same inquisitor illustrates the ease with which the cunning of these simple follv fenced and played with the best-trained men of the Holy Office by a case in which he saw a serving-wench elude the questions of picked examiners for several days together, and she would have escaped had there not by chance been found in her chest the fragment of a bone of a heretic recently burned, which she had preserved as a relic, according to one of her companions Avho had collected the bones with her. But the inquisitor does not tell us how many thousand good Catholics, confused by the awful game which they were playing, mystified with the intrica- cies of scholastic theology, ignorant how to answer the dangerous questions put to them so searchingly, and terrified with the threats of burning for persistent denial, despairingly confessed the crime of which they were so confidently assumed to be guilty, and rati- fied their conversion by inventing tales about their neighbors, while expiating the wTong by suffering confiscation and lifelong imprisonment.

Yet the inquisitor was frequently baffled in this intellectual digladiation by the innocence or astuteness of the accused. His resources, however, were by no means exhausted, and here we ap- proach one of the darkest and most repulsive aspects of our theme. Human inconsistency, in its manifold development, has never exhib- ited itself in more deplorable fashion than in the instructions on this subject transmitted to their younger brethren by the veterans of the Holy Office — instructions intended for none but official. eyes, and therefore framed with the utmost unreserve. Trained through long experience in an accurate knowledge of all that can move

  • Tract, de Paup. de Lugduno (Martene Thes. V. 1792). — Of. Bernard. Guidon.

Practica P. v. (Doat, XXX.).


EXTORTION OF CONFESSIONS. 415

the human breast ; skilled not only to detect the subtle evasions of the intellect, but to seek and find the tenderest point through which to assail the conscience and the heart ; relentless in inflict- ing agony on body and brain, whether through the mouldering wretchedness of the hopeless dungeon protracted through un- counted years, the sharper pain of the torture-chamber, or by coldly playing on the affections ; using without scruple the most violent alternatives of hope and fear; employing with cynical open- ness every resource of guile and fraud on wretches purposely starved to render them incapable of self-defence, the counsels which these men utter plight well seem the promptings of fiends exult- ing in the unlimited power to wreak their evil passions on helpless mortals. Yet through all this there shines the evident conviction that they are doing the work of God. ISTo labor is too great if they can win a soul from perdition ; no toil too repulsive, if they can bring a fellow-creature to an acknowledgment of his wrong- doing and a genuine repentance that will wipe out his sins ; no patience too prolonged if it will avoid the unjust conviction of the innocent. All the cunning fence between judge and culprit, all the fraud, all the torture of body and mind so ruthlessly employed to extort unwilling confessions, were not necessarily used for the mere purpose of securing a victim, for the inquisitor was taught to be as earnest with the recalcitrants against whom he had suffi- cient testimony as with the cases in which evidence was deficient. With the former he was seeking to save a soul from immolating itself in the pride of obstinacy ; with the latter he was laboring to preserve the sheep by not liberating an infected one to spread pestilence among the flock. It mattered little to the victim what were the motives actuating his persecutor, for conscientious cruel- ty is apt to be more cold-blooded and calculating, more relentless and effective, than passionate wrath, but the impartial student must needs recognize that while many inquisitors were doubtless dullards who followed unthinkingly a prescribed routine as a vo- cation, and others were covetous or sanguinary tyrants actuated only by self-interest or ambition, yet among them were not a few who beUeved themselves to be discharging a high and holy duty, whether they abandoned the impenitent to the flames, or by methods of unspeakable baseness rescued from Satan a soul which he had reckoned as his own. They were instructed that


416 THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS.

it was better to let the guilty escape than to condemn the inno- cent, and, therefore, that they must have either clear proofs or confession. In the absence of absolute evidence, therefore, the very conscientiousness of the judge, under such a system, led him to resort to any means to satisfy himself by wringing an acknowl- edgment from his victim.*

The resources for procuring unwilling confession, at command of the inquisitor, may be roughly divided into two classes — deceit and torture, the latter comprehending both mental and physical pain, however administered. Both classes Avere resorted to freely and without scruple, and there was ample variety to suit the idio- syncrasies of all judges and prisoners.

Perhaps the mildest form of the devices to entrap an unwary prisoner w^as the recommendation that the examiner should al- ways assume the fact of w^hich he was in quest and ask about the details, as, for instance, " How often have you confessed as a heretic?" "In what chamber of yours did they lie?" Going a step further, the inquisitor is advised during the examination to turn over the pages of evidence as though referring to it, and then boldly inform the prisoner that he is not telling the truth, for it is thus and thus ; or to pick up a paper and pretend to read from it w^hatever is necessary to deceive him ; or he can be told circumstantially that some of the masters of the sect have in- criminated him in their revelations. To render these devices more effective, the jailer was instructed to worm himself into the confidence of the prisoners, with feigned interest and compassion, and urge them to confess at once, because the inquisitor is a mer- ciful man who wiU take pity on them. Then the inquisitor w^as to pretend that he had conclusive evidence, and that if the accused would confess and point out those who had led him astray, he should be allowed to go home forthwith, with any other blandish- ments likely to prove effective. A more elaborate trap was that of treating the prisoner with kindness in place of rigor ; sending trusty agents to his cell to gain his confidence, and then urge him to confess, with promises of mercy and that they would intercede for him. When everything was ripe, the inquisitor himself would appear and confirm these promises, with the mental reservation


Practica super Inquisitione (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 231).


EXTORTION OF CONFESSIONS. 417

that all which is done for the conversion of heretics is merciful, that penances are mercies and spiritual remedies, so that when the unlucky ^vretch was prevailed upon to ask for mercy in return for his revelations, he was to be led on with the general expression that more would be done for him than he asked.*

That spies should play a prominent part in such a system was inevitable. The trusty agents who were admitted to the prisoner's cell were instructed to lead him gradually on from one confession to another until they should gain sufScient evidence to incrimi- nate him, without his realizing it. Converted heretics, we are told, were very useful in this business. One would be sent to visit him and say that he had only pretended conversion through fear, and after repeated visits overstay his time and be locked up. Con- fidential talk would follow in the darkness, while witnesses with a notary were crouching within earshot to take down, all that might fall from the lips of the unconscious victim. Fellow-pris- oners were utilized whenever possible, and were duly rewarded for treachery. In the sentence of a Carmelite monk, January 17, 1329, guilty of the most infamous sorceries, it is recorded in ex* tenuation of his black catalogue of guilt, that while in prison with sundry heretics he had aided greatly in making them con- fess and had revealed many important matters which they had confided to him, from which the Inquisition had derived great ad- vantage and hoped to gain more, f

These artifices were diversified with appeals to force. The heretic, whether acknowledged or suspected, had no rights. His body was at the mercy of the Church, and if through tribulation of the flesh he could be led to see the error of his ways, there was no hesitation in employing whatever means were readiest to save his soul and advance the faith. Among the miracles for which St. Francis was canonized it is related that a certain Pietro of Assist was captured in Eome on an accusation of heresy, and confided for conversion to the Bishop of Todi, who loaded him with chains and fed him on measured quantities of bread and water in a dark dungeon. Thus brought through suffering to repentance, on the

  • Tract, de Paup. de Lugduno (Martenc Thesaur. V. 1793).— Eymeric. Direct,

Inq. pp. 433-4.— Modus examinandi Haereticos (Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 341).

t Tract, de Paup. de Lugduno (Martenc Thesaur. V. 1787-88). — Eymeric. p. 434.— Archives de I'Inq. de Carcass. (Doat, XXVII. 150).

I.— 27


418 THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS.

vigil of St. Francis he invoked the saint for help with passionate teai-s. Moved by his zeal, St. Francis appeared to him and ordered him forth. His chains fell off and the doors flew open, but the poor wretch was so crazed by the sudden answer to his prayer that he clung to the doorpost with cries which brought the jailers running to him. The pious bishop hastened to the prison, and reverently acknowledging the power of God, sent the shivered fetters to the pope in token of the miracle. Even more illustra- tive and better authenticated is a case related with much gratu- lation by Nider as occurring when he was teaching in the Univer- sity of Vienna. A heretic priest, thrown into prison by his bishop, proved obstinate, and the most eminent theologians who labored for his conversion found him their match in disputation. Believ- ing that vexation brings understanding, they at length ordered him to be bound tightly to a pillar. The cords eating into the swelling flesh caused such exquisite torture that when they visited him the next day he begged piteously to be taken out and burned. Cold- ly refusing, they left him for another twenty-four hours, by which time physical pain and exhaustion had broken his spirit. He humbly recanted, retired to a Paulite monastery, and lived an ex- emplary life."^

It will readily be believed that there was scant hesitation in employing any methods likely to crush the obduracy of the pris- oner who refused the confession and recantation demanded of him. If he were likely to be reached through the affections, his wife and children were admitted to his cell in hopes that their tears and pleadings might work on his feelings and overcome his convictions. Alternate threats and blandishments were tried ; he would be re- moved from his foul and dismal dungeon to commodious quarters, with liberal diet and a show of kindness, to see if his resolution would be weakened by alternations of hope and despair. Master of the art of playing upon the human heart, the trained inquisitor left no method untried which promised victory in the struggle be- tween him and the helpless wretch abandoned to his experiments. Among these, one of the most efficient was the slow torture of delay. The prisoner who refused to confess, or whose confession was deemed imperfect, was remanded to his cell, and left to pon-


  • Wadding. Annal. arm. 1328, No. 45. — Nideri Formicar. Lib. in.c. 10.


EFFECTIVENESS OF DELAY. 419

der in solitude and darkness. Except in rare cases time was no object with the Inquisition, and it could afford to wait. Perhaps in a few weeks his resolution might break down, and he might ask to be heard. If not, six months might elapse before he was again called up for hearing. If still obstinate he would be again sent back. Months would lengthen into years, perhaps years into decades, and find him still unconvicted and still a prisoner, hope- less and despairing. Should friendly death not intervene, the terrible patience of the Inquisition was nearly certain to tri- umph in the end, and the authorities all agree upon the effective- ness of delay. This explains what otherwise would be hard to understand — the immense protraction of so many of the inquisito- rial trials whose records have reached us. Three, five, or ten years are common enough as intervals between the first audience of a prisoner and his final conviction, nor are instances wanting of even greater delays. Bernalde, wife of Guillem de Montaigu, was imprisoned at Toulouse in 129Y, and made a confession the same year, yet she was not formally sentenced to imprisonment until the auto of 1310. I have already alluded to the case of Guillem Garric, brought to confess at Carcassonne in 1321 after a detention of nearly thirty years. In the auto defe of 1319, at Tou- louse, Guillem Salavert was sentenced, who had made an unsatis- factory confession in 1299 and another in 1316 ; to the latter he had unwaveringly adhered, and at last Bernard Gui, overcome by his obstinacy, let him off with the penance of wearing crosses, in consideration of his twenty years' imprisonment without convic- tion. At the same auto were sentenced six wretches who had re- cently died in prison, two of whom had made their first confession in 1305, one in 1306, two in 1311, and one in 1315. ISTor was this hideous torture of suspense peculiar to any special tribunal. Guil- lem Salavert was one of those implicated in the troubles of Albi in 1299, when many of the accused were speedily tried and sen- tenced by the bishop, Bernard de Castenet, and Nicholas d' Abbe- ville, inquisitor of Carcassonne, but some were reserved for the harder fate of detention without trial. The intervention of the pope was sought, and in 1310 Clement Y. wrote to the bishop and the inquisitor, giving the names of ten of them, including some of the most respectable citizens of Albi, who had lain for eight years or more in jail awaiting judgment, many of them in


420 THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS.

chains and all in narrow, dark cells. His order for their immedi- ate trial was disobeyed, and in a subsequent letter he speaks of several of them having died before his previous epistle, and reiter- ated his command for the prompt disposal of the survivors. The Inquisition was a laAV unto itself, however, and again his mandate was disregarded. In 1319, besides Guillem Salavert, two others, Guillem Calverie and Isarn CoUi, were brought from their dungeon and retracted their confessions which had been extorted from them by torture. Calverie figured with Salavert in the auto of Toulouse in the same year. When Colli was sentenced we do not know, but in the accounts of Arnaud Assalit, royal steward of confiscations, for 1322-3, there appears the property of " Isarnus Colli condemnatus," showing his ultimate fate. In the auto of 1319, moreover, occur the names of two citizens of Cordes, Durand Boissa and Bernard Ouvrier (then deceased), whose confessions date respectively from 1301 and 1300, doubtless belonging to the same unfortunate group, who had eaten their hearts in despair and misery for a score of years.*

When it was desired to hasten this slow torture, the object was easily accomplished by rendering the imprisonment unendurably harsh. As we shall see hereafter, the dungeons of the Inquisition at best were abodes of fearful misery, but when there was reason for increasing their terrors there was no difficulty in increasing the hardships. The " durus career et a/rcta mta " — chains and starvation in a stifling hole — was a favorite device for extracting confession from unwilling lips. We shall meet hereafter an atro- cious instance of this inflicted on a witness, as early as 1263, when the ruin of the great house of Foix was sought. It was pointed out that judicious restriction of diet not only reduced the body but weakened the will, and rendered the prisoner less able


  • Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. 514, 521. — Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c.

17.— Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. IlUus mcis, 12 Nov. 1247.— Lib. Confess. Inq. Albiens. (MSS. Bib, Nat., fonds latin, 11847).— Bernard. Guidon. Practica P. v. (Boat, XXX.). — Doctrina de modo procedendi (Martene Thesaur. V. 1795).— Molinier, rinq. dans le midi de la France, p. 330. — Archives de I'Inq. de Carcass. (Doat, XXVII. 7 sqq.).— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 22, 76,102,118-50,158-62, 184, 216-18, 220-1, 228, 244-8, 266-7, 282-5.— Archives de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXIV. 89).— Archives de I'hotel-de-ville d'Albi (Doat, XXXIV. 45).— Coll. Doat, XXXIV. 189.


INTRODUCTION OF TORTURE. 421

to resist alternate threats of death and promises of mercy. Star- vation, in fact, was reckoned as one of the regular and most effi- cient methods to subdue unwilling witnesses and defendants. In 1306 Clement Y. declared, after an official investigation, that at Carcassonne prisoners were habitually constrained to confession by the harshness of the prison, the lack of beds, and the deficiency of food, as well as by torture.*

With all these resources at their command, it might seem su- perfluous for inquisitors to have recourse to the vulgar and ruder implements of the torture-chamber. The rack and strappado, in fact, were in such violent antagonism, not only with the princi- ples of Christianity, but with the practices of the Church, that their use by the Inquisition, as a means of furthering the faith, is one of the saddest anomaUes of that dismal period. I have else- where show^n how consistently the Church opposed the use of torture, so that, in the barbarism of the twelfth century, Gratian lays it down as an accepted rule of the canon law that no confes- sion is to be extorted by torment. Torture, moreover, except among the Wisigoths, had been unknown among the barbarians who founded the commonwealths of Europe, and their system of jurisprudence had grown up free from its contamination. It was not until the study of the revived Koman law, and the prohibition of ordeals by the Lateran Council of 1215, which was gradually enforced during the first half of the thirteenth century, that jurists began to feel the need of torture and accustom themselves to the idea of its introduction. The earliest instances with which I have met occur in the Veronese Code of 1228 and the Sicilian Constitu- tions of Frederic II. in 1231, and in both of these the references to it show how sparingly and hesitatingly it was employed. Even Frederic, in his ruthless edicts, from 1220 to 1239, makes no allu- sion to it, but, in accordance with the Yerona decree of Lucius III., prescribes the recognized form of canonical purgation for the trial of all suspected heretics. Yet it rapidly won its way in Ita- ly, and when Innocent lY., in 1252, published his buU Ad extir- poMda^ he adopted it, and authorized its use for the discovery of

  • Archives de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXI. 57). — Vaissette, III. Pr.

551-3. — Tract, de Paup. de Lugd. (Martene Thesaur. V. 1787).— Joann. Andreae Gloss, sup. c. 1, Clement, v. 3. — Bernard. Guidon. Practica P. v. (Doat. XXX.). —Arch, de I'Inq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXIV. 45).


422 THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS.

heresy. A decent respect for the old-time prejudices of the Church, however, forbade him to allow its administration by the inquisitors themselves or their servitors. It was the secular au- thorities who were ordered to force all captured heretics to con- fess and accuse their accomplices, by torture which should not imperil Ufe or injure limb, just as thieves and robbers are forced to confess their crimes and accuse their accomplices." The unre- pealed canons of the Church, in fact, prohibited all ecclesiastics from being concerned in such acts, and even from being present where torture was administered, so that the inquisitor whose zeal should lead him to take part in it was thereby rendered " irregu- lar " and unfit for sacred functions until he could be " dispensed " or purified. This did not suit the policy of the institution. Pos- sibly outside of Italy, where torture was as yet virtually unknown, it found difficulty in securing the co-operation of the public offi- cials ; everywhere it complained that this cumbrous mode of ad- ministration interfered with the profound secrecy which was an essential characteristic of its operations. But four years after the bull of Innocent lY., Alexander lY., in 1256, removed the diffi- culty with characteristic indirection by authorizing inquisitors and their associates to absolve each other, and mutually grant dispen- sations for irregularities — a permission which was repeatedly reit- erated, and which was held to remove all impediment to the use of torture under the direct supervision of the inquisitor and his ministers. In ^N^aples, where the Inquisition was but slenderly or- ganized, we find the public officials used by it as torturers until the end of the century, but elsewhere it speedily arrogated the administration of torment to its own officials. Even in l^aples, however, Fra Tomaso d'Aversa is seen, in 1305, personally in- flicting the most brutal tortures on the Spiritual Franciscans ; and when he found it impossible in this manner to make them convict themselves, he employed the ingenious expedient of starving for a few days one of the younger brethren, and then giving him strong wine to drink ; when the poor wretch was fuddled there was no difficulty in getting him to admit that he and his twoscor^ com- rades were all heretics.*


  • Superstition and Force, 3d Ed. 1878, pp. 419-20. —Lib. Jur. Civ. Veronae,

ann. 1228, c. 75. — Constit. Sicular. Lib. i. Tit. 27.-~Frid. IL Edict. 1220, § 5.—


INTRODUCTION OF TORTURE. 423

Torture saved the trouble and expense of prolonged imprison- ment; it was a speedy and effective method of obtaining what revelations might be desired, and it grew rapidly in favor with the Inquisition, while its extension throughout secular jurispru- dence was remarkably slow. In 1260 the charter granted by Al- phonse of Poitiers to the town of Auzon specially exempts the accused from torture, no matter what the crime involved. This shows that its use was gradually spreading, and already, in 1291, Phihppe le Bel felt himself called upon to restrain its abuses ; in letters to the seneschal of Carcassonne he alludes to the newly-in- troduced methods of torture in the Inquisition, whereby the inno- cent Avere convicted and scandal and desolation pervaded the land. He could not interfere with the internal management of the Holy Office, but he sought a corrective in forbidding indiscriminate ar- rests at the sole bidding of the inquisitors. As might be expected, this was only a palliative ; caUous indiif erence to human suffering grows by habit, and the misuse of this terrible method of coercion continued to increase. When the despairing cry of the population induced Clement Y. to order an investigation into the iniquities of the Inquisition of Carcassonne, the commission issued to the cardinals sent thither in 1306 recites that confessions were extort- ed by torture so severe that the unfortunates subjected to it had only the alternative of death ; and in the proceedings before the commissioners the use of torture is so frequently alluded to as to leave no doubt of its habitual employment. It is a noteworthy fact, however, that in the fragmentary documents of inquisitorial proceedings which have reached us the references to torture are singularly few. Apparently it was felt that to record its use


Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Ad extirpanda, § 26.— Concil. Autissiodor. ann. 578 c. 33.-^ Concil. Matiscon. II. ami. 585 c. 19. — Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Ut negotium, 7 Julii, 1256 (Boat, XXXI. 196); Ejusd. Bull. We inquisitionis, 19 Apr. 1259. — Urban. PP. IV. Bull. Ut negotium, 1260, 1262 (Ripoll, I. 430; Mag. Bull. Rom. I. 132).— Clement. PP. IV. Bull. Ne inquisitionis, 13 Jan. 1266. — Bern. Guidon. Pract. P. IV. (Doat. XXX.). — Pegnae Comment, in Eymeric. p. 593. — Archivio di Napoli, MSS. Chioccarello, T. VIII. — Historia Tribulationum (Archiv fiir Litt. u. Kirch- engeschichte, 1886, p. 324).

The earliest allusion to the use of torture in Languedoc is in 1254, when St. Louis forbade its use on the testimony of a single witness, even in the case of poor persons. — Vaissette, fA. Privat, VIII. 1348.


4:24: THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS.

would in some sort invalidate the force of the testimony. Thus, in the cases of Isarn Colli and Guillem Calverie, mentioned above, it happens to be stated that they retracted their confessions made under torture, but in the confessions themselves there is nothing to indicate that it had been used. In the six hundred and thirty- six sentences borne upon the register of Toulouse from 1309 to 1323 the only allusion to torture is in the recital of the case of Calverie, but there are numerous instances in which the informa- tion wrung from the convicts who had no hope of escape could scarce have been procured in any other manner. Bernard Gui, who conducted the Inquisition of Toulouse during this period, has too emphatically expressed his sense of the utility of torture on both principals and witnesses for us to doubt his readiness in its employment.*

The result of Clement's investigation in 1306 led to an effort at reform which was agreed to in the Council of Yienne in 1311, but with customary indecision Clement delayed the publication of the considerable body of legislation adopted by the council until his death, and it was not issued till October, 1317, by his successor John XXII. Among the abuses which he sought to limit was that of torture, and to this end he ordered that it should not be administered without the concurrent action of bishop and inquisi- tor if this could be had within the space of eight days. Bernard Gui emphatically remonstrated against this as seriously cripphng the efficiency of the Inquisition, and he proposed to substitute for it the meaningless phrase that torture should only be used with mature and careful deliberation, but his suggestion was unheeded, and the Clementine regulation remained the law of the Church, f

The inquisitors, however, were too little accustomed to restraint in any form to submit long to this infringement on their privileges. It is true that disobedience rendered the proceedings void, and the unhappy wretch who was unlawfully tortured without episcopal

  • Chassaing, Spicilegium Brivatense, p. 92. — Vaissette, IV. Pr. 97-8. — Ar-

chives de I'hotel-de-ville d'Albi (Doat, XXXIV. 45 sqq.). — Lib. Confess. Inq. Albiens. (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, 11847). — Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 46-78, 133, 169-74, 180-2, 266-7. — Bern. Guidon. Practica P. iv. v. (Doat, XXX.).

t C. 1, § 1, Clement, v. 3.— Bern. Guidon. Gravamina (Doat, XXX. 100, 120). ■ — Eymeric. Direct. Inq. p. 422. — Zanchini Tract, de Hseret. c. xv,


USE OF TORTURE. 425

consultation could appeal to the pope, but this did not undo the work ; Kome was distant, and the victims of the Inquisition for the most part were too friendless and too helpless to protect them- selves in such illusory fashion. In Bernard Gui's " Practica," writ- ten probably about 1328 or 1330, he only speaks of consultation with experts, making no allusions to bishops ; Eymerich adheres to the Clementines, but his instructions as to what is to be done in case of their disregard shows how frequent was such action ; while Zanghino boldly affirms that the canon is to be construed as per- mitting torture by either bishop or inquisitor. In some proceed- ings against the Waldenses of Piedmont in 1387, if the accused did not confess freely on a first examination an entry was made that the inquisitor was not content, and twenty-four hours were given the prisoner to amend his statements ; he would be tortured and brought back next morning in a more complying frame of mind, when a careful record would be made that his confession was with- out torture and aloof from the torture-chamber. Cunning casuists, moreover, discovered that Clement had only spoken of torture in general and had not specifically aUuded to witnesses, whence they concluded that one of the most shocking abuses of the system, the torture of witnesses, was left to the sole discretion of the inquisitor, and this became the accepted rule. It only required an additional step to show that after the accused had been convicted by evidence or had confessed as to himself, he became a witness as to the guilt of his friends and thus could be arbitrarily tortured to betray them. Even when the Clementines were observed, the limit of eight days enabled the inquisitor to proceed independently after waiting for that length of time.*

While witnesses who were supposed to be concealing the truth

  • Eymeric. Direct. Inq. pp. 453-5. — Bern. Guidon. Practica P. v. (Doat, XXX.).

— Zanchini Tract, de Haeret. c. ix., xiv.— Processus contra Waldenses (Archivio Storico Italiano, No. 38, pp. 20, 22, 24, etc.). — Pauli de Leazariis Gloss, sup. c. 1, Clem. V. 3. — Silvest. Prieriat. de Strigimagar. Mirand. Lib. iii. c. 1. — Bernard. Comens. Lucerna Inquisit. s. vv. Jejunia, Torturm.

That the Clementines had practically fallen into desuetude is shown by Carlo III. of Savoy, in 1506, procuring from Julius II. as a special privilege that in his territories the inquisitors should not send to prison or pronounce sentence with- out the concurrence of the episcopal ordinaries, and this was enlarged in 1515 by Leo X. by requiring their assent for all arrests. — Sclopis, Antica Legislazione del Piemont, p. 484.


426 THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS.

could be tortured as a matter of course, there was some discussion among jurists as to the amount of adverse evidence that would justify placing the accused on the rack. Unless there was some colorable reason to believe that the crime of heresy had been com- mitted, e\^dently there was no excuse for the employment of such means of investigation. Eymerich tells us that when there are two incriminating witnesses, a man of good reputation can be tor- tured to ascertain the truth, while if he is of evil repute he can be condemned without it or can be tortured on the evidence of a sin- gle witness. Zanghino, on the other hand, asserts that the evi- dence of a single witness of good character is sufficient for the au- thorization of torture, without distinction of persons, while Ber- nardo di Como says that common report is enough. In time elabo- rate instructions were drawn up for the guidance of inquisitors in this matter, but their uselessness was confessed in the admission that, after all, the decision was to be left to the discretion of the judge. How little sufficed to justify the exercise of this discretion is seen when jurists held it to be sufficient if the accused, on ex- amination, was frightened and stammered and varied in his an- swers, without any external evidence against him.*

In the administration of torture the rules adopted by the In- quisition became those of the secular courts of Christendom at large, and therefore are worth brief attention. Eymerich, whose instruc- tions on the subject are the fullest we have, admits the grave dif- ficulties which surrounded the question, and the notorious uncer- tainty of the result. Torture should be moderate, and effusion of blood be scrupulously avoided, but then, what was moderation? Some prisoners were so weak that at the first turn of the pulleys they would concede anything asked them ; others so obstinate that they would endure aU things rather than confess the truth. Those who had previously undergone the experience might be either the stronger or the weaker for it, for with some the arms were hardened, while with others they were permanently weakened. In short, the discretion of the judge was the only rule.

Both bishop and inquisitor ought rightfully to be present. The prisoner was shown the implements of torment and urged to con-


  • Eymeric. pp. 480, 592, 614. — Zanchini Tract, de Hseret. c. ix. — Bernardi

Comens. Lucerna Inquis. s. vv. Indicium^ Torturm No. 19, 25.


APPLICATION OF TORTUKE. 427

fess. On his refusal he was stripped and bound by the execu- tioners and again entreated to speak, with promises of mercy in all cases in which mercy could be shown. This frequently pro- duced the desired result, and we may be assured that the efficacy of torture lay not so much in what was extracted by its use as in the innumerable cases in which its dread, near or remote, paralyzed the resolution with agonizing expectations. If this proved inef- fectual, the torture was applied with gradually increased severity. In the case of continued obstinacy additional implements of tor- ment were exhibited and the sufferer was told that he would be subjected to them all in turn. If still undaunted, he was unbound, and the next or third day was appointed for renewal of the inflic- tion. According to rule, torture could be applied but once, but this, like all other rules for the protection of the accused, was easily eluded. It was only necessary to order, not a repetitipn, but a " continuance " of the torture, and no matter how long the interval, the holy casuists were able to continue it indefinitely ; or a further excuse would be found in alleging that additional evidence had been discovered, which required a second torturmg to purge it away. During the interval fresh solicitations were made to elicit confession, and these being unavailing, the accused was again sub- jected to torment either of the same kind as before or to others likely to prove more efficacious. If he remained silent after tor- ture, deemed sufficient by his judges, some authorities say that he should be discharged and that a declaration was to be given him that nothing had been proved against him ; others, however, order that he should be remanded to prison and be kept there. The trial of Bernard Delicieux, in 1319, reveals another device to elude the prohibition of repeated torture, for the examiners could at any moment order the torture to satisfy their curiosity about a single point, and thus could go on indefinitely with others.

Any confession made under torture required to be confirmed after removal from the torture-chamber. Usually the procedure appears to be that the torture was continued until the accused signified his readiness to confess, when he was unbound and car- ried into another room where his confession was made. If, how- ever, the confession was extracted during the torture, it was read over subsequently to the prisoner and he was asked if it were true : there was, indeed, a rule that there should be an interval of twentv-


42S THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS.

four hours between the torture and the confession, or its confirma- tion, but this was commonly disregarded. Silence indicated as- sent, and the length of silence to be allowed for was, as usual, left to the discretion of the judge, with warning to consider the condi- tion of the prisoner, whether young or old, male or female, simple or learned. In any case the record was carefully made that the confession was free and spontaneous, without the pressure of force or fear. If the confession was retracted, the accused could be taken back for a continuance of the torture — not, as we are care- fully told, for a repetition — provided always that he had not been " sufficiently " tortured before.*

The question as to the retraction of confession was one which exercised to no small degree the inquisitorial jurists, and practice was not wholly uniform. It placed the inquisitor in a disagreea- ble position, and, in view of the methods adopted to secure confes- sion, it was so likely to occur that naturally stringent measures were adopted to prevent it. Some authorities draw a distinction between confessions made "spontaneously" and those extorted by torture or its threat, but in practice the difference was disregarded. The most merciful view taken of revocation is that of Eymerich, who says that if the torture had been sufficient, the accused who persistently revokes is entitled to a discharge. In this Eymerich is alone. Some authorities recommend that the accused be forced to withdraw his revocation by repetition of torture. Others con- tent themselves with regarding it as impeding the Inquisition, and as such including it in the excommunication regularly published by parish priests and at the opening of every auto defS, and this ex- communication included notaries who might wickedly aid in draw- ing up such revocations. The general presumption of law, how-

  • Eymeric. Direct. Inq. pp. 480-2.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4270, fol.

101, 146. — Responsa prudentum (Doat, XXXVII. 88 sqq.). — Bernardi Comens. Lucerna Inquis. s. vv. Confessio^ Torturce.

The care with which the inquisitors concealed the means by which confes- sions were procured is illustrated in the ratification obtained from Guillem Sala- vert in 1303, of his confession made three years before. He is made to^ declare it " esse veram, non factam vi tormentorum, amore, gratia, odio, timore, vel favore alicujus, non subornatus nee inductus minis vel blauditiis, seu seductus per ali- quem, non amens nee stultus sed bona mente," etc. (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 11847). Yet Salavert belonged to a group of victims on whom, as we shall see hereafter, torture was unsparingly used.


RETRACTION OF CONFESSIONS. 429

ever, was that the confession was true and the retraction a perjury, and the view taken of such cases was that the retraction proved the accused to be an impenitent heretic, who had relapsed after confession and asking for penance. As such there was nothing to be done with him but to hand him over to the secular arm for punishment without a hearing. It is true, that in the case of Guil- lem Calverie, thus condemned in 1319 by Bernard Gui for with- drawing his confession, the culprit was mercifully allowed fifteen days in which to revoke his revocation, but this was a mere exer- cise of the discretion customarily lodged with the inquisitor. How strictly the rulq was construed which regarded revocation as re- lapse is seen in the remark of Zanghino, that if a man had con- fessed and abjured and been set free under penance, and if he sub- sequently remarked in public that he had confessed under fear of expense or to avoid heavier punishment, he was to be regarded as an impenitent heretic, liable to be burned as a relapsed. We shall see hereafter the full significance of this point in its application to the Templars. There was an additional question of some nicety which arose when the retracted confession incriminated others be- sides the accused ; in this case the most merciful view taken was that, if it was not to be held good against them, the one who con- fessed was liable to punishment for false-witness. As no confes- sion was sufficient which did not reveal the names of partners in guilt, those inquisitors who did not regard revocation as relapse could at least imprison the accused for life as a false witness."^

The inquisitorial process as thus perfected was sure of its vic- tim. ISTo one whom a judge wished to condemn could escape. The form in which it became naturalized in secular jurisprudence was less arbitrary and effective, yet Sir John Fortescue, the chan- cellor of Henry YL, who in his exile had ample opportunity to ob- serve its working, declares that it placed every man's life or limb at the mercy of any enemy who could suborn two unknown wit- nesses to swear against him.f

  • Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. p. 481. — Bcrnardi Comcns. Luccrna Inquis. s. vv.

Confessio^ Impmnitens, Torturm No. 48.— Responsa prudentum (Doat, XXXVII. -83 sqci.)-— Arch. <lc I'Iikj. de Carcass. (Doat, XXVII. 12G; XXXIL 251).— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 2GG-7.— Zancliini Tract, de Haeret. c. xxiii. t Fortescue de Laudibus Legum Angliac, c. xxvii.


CHAPTER X.

EVIDENCE.

We have seen in the foregoing chapter the inevitable tendency of the inquisitorial process to assume the character of a duel be- tween the judge and the accused with the former as the assailant. This deplorable result was the necessary outcome of the system and of the task imposed upon the inquisitor. He was required to penetrate the inscrutable heart of man, and professional pride per- haps contributed as much as zeal for the faith in stimulating him to prove that he was not to be baffled by the unfortunates brought before him in judgment.

In such a struggle as this the testimony of witnesses, for the most part, counted for little except as a basis for arrest and prose- cution, and for threatening the accused with the unknown mass of evidence against him, and for this the slightest breath of scandal, even from a single person notoriously foul-mouthed, sufficed, with- out calling witnesses.* The real battlefield was the prisoner's con- science, and his confession the prize of victory. Yet the subject of evidence as treated by the Inquisition is not wholly to be passed over, for it affords fresh illustration of the manner in which the practice of construing everything " in favor of the faith " led to the development of the worst body of jurisprudence invented by man, and to the habitual perpetration of the foulest injustice. The matter-of-course way in which rules destructive, of every principle of fairness are laid down by men presumably correct in the ordi- nary affairs of life affords a wholesome lesson as to the power of fanaticism to warp the mteUect of the most acute.

This did not arise from any peculiar laxity of practice in the ordinary ecclesiastical courts. Their procedure, based upon the civil law, accepted and enforced its rules as to the admission of


Bernard! Comens. Lucerna Inquisit. s. vv. Infamia^ Inquisit&res No, 7.


VAGUENESS OF TESTIMONY. 431

evidence, and the onus of proof lay upon the assertor of a fact. Innocent III., in his instructions as to the Cathari of La Charite, reminded the local authorities that even violent presumptions were not proof, and were insufficient for condemnation in a matter so heinous — a rule which was embodied in the canon law, where it became for the inquisitors merely an excuse for obtaining certitude by extorting confession. How completely they felt themselves emancipated from all wholesome restraint is shown by the re- marks of Bernard Gui — " The accused are not to be condemned unless they confess or are convicted by witnesses, though not ac- cording to the ordinary laws, as in other crimes, but according to the private laws or privileges conceded to the inquisitors by the Holy See, for there is much that is peculiar to the Inquisition." *

From almost the inception of the Holy Office there was an effort to lay down rules as to what constituted evidence of heresy ; but the Council of Narbonne, in 1244, winds up an enumeration of the various indications by saying that it is sufficient if the accused can be shown to have manifested by any word or sign that he had faith or behef in heretics or considered them to be "good men" {hos homes). The kind of testimony received was as flimsy and impalpable as the facts, or supposed facts, sought to be proved. In the voluminous examinations and depositions which have reached us from the archives of the Inquisition we find the witnesses al- lowed and encouraged to say ever^^thing that may occur to them. Great weight was attached to popular report or belief, and to as- certain this the opinion of the witness was freely received, whether based on knowledge or prejudice, hearsay evidence, vague rumors, general impressions, or idle gossip. Everything, in fact, that could affect the accused injuriously was eagerly sought and scrupulously written down. In the determined effort to ruin the seigneurs de JS'iort, in 1240, of the one hundred and eight witnesses examined scarce one was able to speak of his own knowledge as to any act of the accused. In 1254 Arnaud Baud of Montreal was quaUfied as " suspect " of heresy because he continued to visit his mother and" aided her in her need after she had been hereticated, though there was absolutely nothing else against him  ; only delivering her


  • Fournier, Les officialitGs an raoyen age, pp. 177-8. — C. 14 Extra Ji. 23.

Bern. Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).


432 EVIDENCE.

up to be burned would have cleared him. It became, in fact, a settled principle of law that either husband or wife knowing the other to be a heretic and not giving information within a twelve- month was hekl to be a consenting party without further evidence, and was punishable as a heretic*

Naturally the conscientious inquisitor recognized the vicious circle in Avliich he moved and sought to satisfy himself that he could designate infallible signs which would justify the conclusion of heresy. There is ample store of such enumerated. Thus for the Cathari it sufficed to show that the accused had venerated one of the perfected, had asked a blessing, had eaten of the blessed bread or had kept it, had been voluntarily present at an heretica- tion, had entered into the covenansa to be hereticated on the death- bed, etc. For the Waldenses such indications were considered to be the confessing of sins to and accepting penance from those known not to be regularly ordained by an orthodox bishop, praying with them according to their rites by bending the knees with them on a bench or other incHned object, being present with them when they pretended to make the Host, receiving "peace" from them, or blessed bread. All this was easily catalogued, but beyond it lay a region of doubt concerning which authorities differed. The Council of Albi, in 1264, declared that entering a house, in which a heretic was known to be, converted simple suspicion into vehement ; and Bernard Gui mentions that some inquisitors held that visiting heretics, giving them alms, guiding them in their journeys, and the hke was sufficient for condemnation, but he agrees with Gui Fou- coix in not so considering it, as all this might be done through carnal affection or for hire. The heart of man, he adds, is deep and inscrutable, but he seeks to satisfy himself for attempting the impossible by arguing that all which cannot be explained favorably must be admitted as adverse proof. It is a noteworthy fact that in long series of interrogations there wiU frequently be not a sin- gle question as to the belief of the party making confession. The whole energy of the inquisitor was directed to obtaining statements of external acts. The upshot of it all necessarily was that^ almost


  • Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 29. — Tr6sor des chartes du roi en Carcassonne

(Doat, XXI. 34). — Molinier, L'Inquisition dans le midi de la France, p. 342. — Livres de Jostice et de Plet, Liv. i. Tit. ill. § 7.


SUSPICION OF HERESY. 433

everything was left to the discretion of the inquisitor, whose tem- per had more to do with the result than the proof of guilt or its absence. IIow insignificant were the tokens on which a man's fate might depend may be understood by a single instance. In 123-1: Accursio Aldobrandini, a Florentine merchant in Paris, made the acquaintance of some strangers with whom he conversed several times, giving their servant on one occasion ten sols, and bowing to them when they met, out of politeness. This latter act was equivalent to the "veneration" which was the crucial test of heresy, and when he chanced to learn that his new acquaintances were heretics he felt himself lost. Hastening to Rome, he laid the matter before Gregory IX., who exacted bail of him and sent a commission to the Bishop of Florence to investigate the antece- dents of Accursio. The report was examined by the cardinals of Ostia and Preneste and found to be emphatic in commending his orthodoxy, so he escaped with a penance prescribed by Eaymond of Pennaforte, the papal penitentiary, and Gregory wrote to the inquisitors of Paris not to molest him. Under such a system the most devout Catholic could never feel safe for a moment.*

Yet in spite of all these efforts to define the indefinable, it was in the very nature of things that absolute certitude could not, in a vast range of cases, be reached except through confession. In order, therefore, to avert the misfortune of acquitting those who could not be brought to confess, it became necessary to invent a new crime — that known as " suspicion of heresy." This opened a wide field for the endless subtleties and refinements in which the jurists of the schools delighted, rendering their so-called science of law a worthy rival of scholastic theology. Suspicion thus was pri- marily divided into three grades, designated as light, vehement, and violent, and the glossators revel in defining the amount and quality of evidence which renders the accused guilty of either of these, with the usual result that practically the matter was left to the discretion of the tribunal. That a man against whom nothing substantial was proved should be punished merely because he was suspected of guilt may seem to modern eyes a scant measure of jus-


  • Concil. Albicns. ann. 1254 c. 27,— Guid. Fulcod. Quacst. ix.— Bern. Guidon.

Piactica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).— Lib. Confess. Inq. Albiens. (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, 11847).-Ripoll, I. 72. I.— 28


434 EVIDENCE.

tice ; but to the inquisitor it appeared a wrong to God and man that any one should escape against whose orthodoxy there rested a shadow of a doubt. Like much else taught by the Inquisition, this found its way into general criminal law, which it perverted for centuries.*

Two witnesses were usually assumed to be necessary for the condemnation of a man of good repute, though some authorities demanded more. Yet when a case threatened to fail for lack of testimony, the discretion of the inquisitor was the ultimate arbitra- tor ; and it was agreed that if two witnesses to the same fact could not be had, single witnesses to two separate facts of the same gen- eral character would suffice. When there was only one witness in all, the accused was still put on his purgation. With the same de- termination to remove all obstacles in the way of conviction, if a witness revoked his testimony it was held that if his evidence had been favorable to the accused, the revocation annulled it ; if ad- verse, the revocation was null.f

The same disposition to construe everything in favor of the faith governed the admissibility of witnesses of evil character. The Koman law rejected the evidence of accomplices, and the Church had adopted the rule. In the False Decretals it had or- dered that no one should be admitted as an accuser who was a heretic or suspected of heresy, was excommunicate, a homicide, a thief, a sorcerer, a diviner, a ravisher, an adulterer, a bearer of false witness, or a consulter of diviners and soothsayers. Yet when it came to prosecuting heresy all these prohibitions were thrown to the winds. As early as the time of Gratian, infamous and heret- ical witnesses were receivable against heretics. The edicts of Frederic II. rendered heretics incapable of giving testimony, but this disability was removed when they testified against heretics.

  • Eymeric. Direct. Inq. pp. 376-81.— Zanchini Tract, de Hseret. c. iii.

t Archidiaconi Gloss, super c. xi. § 1 Sexto v. 2. — Joann. Andreae Gloss, sup. c. xiii. § 7 Extra V. 7.— Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 445, 615-16.— Guid. Fulcodii Quaest. xrv. — Zanchini Tract, de Hseret. c. xiii., xiv. — Bern. Guidon. Practica P. IV. (Doat, XXX.).

In the lay courts, if a witness swore to the innocence of the accused and sub- sequently changed his testimony, the first statement was held good and the sec- ond was rejected, but in cases of heresy the incriminating evidence was always received. — Ponzinibii de Lamiis c. 84.


CHARACTER AND AGE OF WITNESSES. 435

That there was some hesitation on this point we see in the Lega- tine Inquisition held in Toulouse in 1229, where it is recorded that Guillera Solier, a converted heretic, was restored in fame in order to enable him to bear witness against his former associates, and even as late as 1260 Alexander lY. was obliged to reassure the French inquisitors that they could safely use the evidence of her- etics ; but the principle became a settled one, adopted in the canon law, and constantly enforced in practice. Without it, in fact, the Inquisition would have been deprived of its most fruitful means of tracking heretics. It was the same with excommunicates, perjur- ers, infamous persons, usurers, harlots, and all those who, in the ordinary criminal jurisprudence of the age, were regarded as in- capable of bearing witness, yet whose evidence was receivable against heretics. All legal exceptions were declared inoperative except that of mortal enmity.*

In the ordinary criminal law of Italy no evidence was received from a witness under twenty, but in cases of heresy such testimony was taken, and, though not legal, it suiRced to justify torture. In France the distinction seems to have been less rigidly defined, and the matter probably was left, hke so much else, to the discretion of the inquisitors. As the Council of Albi specifies seven years as the period at which all children were ordered to be made to attend church and learn the Creed, Paternoster, and Salutation to the Virgin, it may be safely assumed that below that age they would hardly be admitted to give testimony. In the records of the In- quisition the age of the witness is rarely stated, but I have met with one case, in 1244, after the capture of the pestilent nest of heretics at Montsegur, where the Inquisition gathered so goodly a


  • C. 17 Cod. IX. ii. (Honor. 423). — Pseudo-Julii Epist. 11. c. 18 (Gratiani Decret.

P. II. caus. V. Q. 3, c. 5. — Pseudo-Eutychiani Epist. ad Episcopp. Siciliae. — Gra- tiani Comment, in Decret. P. 11. caus. 11. Q. 7, c, 22 ; caus. vi. Q. 1, c. 19. — Hist. Diplom. Frid. H. T. IV. pp. 299-300.— Guill. Pod. Laur. c. 40.— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Consuluit, 6 Mai. 1260 (Doat, XXXI. 205) ; Ejusd. Bull. Quod super nonnvllis, 9 Dec. 1257  ; 15 Dec. 1258.— C. 5 Sexto v. 2.— C. 8 § 3 Sexto v. 2.— Concil. Biter- rens. ann. 1246 c. 12. — Jacob. Laudun. Orat. in Cone. Constant. (Von dcr Hardt III. 60).— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 221.— Zanchini Tract, de Heeret. c, xi., xiii. — E3^meric. Direct. Inq. pp. 602-0.

Under the contemporary English law, criminals and accomplicea were re- jected as accusers, even in high-treason (Bracton, Lib. iii. Tract, ii. cap. 3, No. 1).


436 EVIDENCE.

harvest, when the age of a ^yitness, Arnaud Ohvier, happens to be mentioned as ten years. He admitted having been a Catharan " believer " since he had reached the age of discretion, and thus was responsible for himself and others. His evidence is gravely recorded against his father, his sister, and nearly seventy others ; and in it he is made to give the names of sixty-six persons who were present about a year before at the sermon of a Catharan bishop. The wonderful exercise of so young a memory does not seem to have excited any doubts as to the vahdity of his testi- mony, which must have been held conclusive against the unfortu- nates enumerated, as he stated that they all " venerated " their prel- ate.*

"Wives and children and servants were not admitted to give ev- idence in favor of the accused, but their testimony if adverse to him was welcomed, and was considered peculiarly strong. It was the same with the heretic, who, as we have seen, was freely ad- mitted as an adverse witness, but who was rejected if appearing for the defence. In short, the only exception which could be taken to an accusing witness was malignity. If he was a mortal enemy of the prisoner it was presumed that his testimony was rather the prompting of hate than zeal for the faith, and it was required to be thrown out. In the case of the dead, the evidence of a priest that he had shriven the defunct and administered the maticum went for nothing ; but if he testified that the departed had con- fessed to being a heretic, had recanted, and had received absolu- tion, then his bones were not exhumed and burned, but the heirs had to endure such penance of fine or confiscation as would have been inflicted on him if alive. f

Of course no witness could refuse to give evidence. No priv- ilege or vow or oath released him from the duty. If he was un- willing and paltered or prevaricated and equivocated, there was the gentle persuasion of the torture-chamber, which, as we have seen,


  • Bernardi Comens. Lucerna Inquisit. s. v. Testis^ No. 14. — Concil Albiens.

ann. 1254 c. 18.— Coll. Doat, XXII. 237 sqq.

In the German feudal law of the period no witness was admitted below the age of eighteen.— Sachsisches Lehenrechtbuch, c. 49 (Daniels, Berlin, 1863, p. 113).

t Eymeric. Direct. Inq. pp. 611-13. — Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 25. — Con- cil. Biterrens. ann. 1246 c. 14. — Arch, de I'lnq. de Carcass. (Doat, XXXI. 149).


NAMES OF WITNESSES WITHHELD. 437

was even more freely used on witnesses than on principals. It was the ready instrument by which any doubts as to the testimony could be cleared up ; and it is fair to attribute to the sanction of this terrible abuse by the Inquisition the currency which it so long enjoyed in European criminal law. Even the secrecy of the con- fessional was not respected in the frenzied effort to obtain all pos- sible information against heretics. All priests were enjoined to make strict inquiries of their penitents as to their knowledge of heretics and fautors of heresy. The seal of sacramental confession could not be openly and habitually violated, but the result was reached by indirection. When the confessor succeeded in learn- ing anything he was told to write it down and then endeavor to induce his penitent to reveal it to the proper authorities. Failing in this, he was, without mentioning names, to consult God-fearing experts as to what he ought to do — with what effect can readily be conjectured, since the very fact of consulting as to his duty shows that the obligation of secrecy was not to be deemed abso- lute.*

After this glimpse at the inquisitorial system of evidence, we hardly need the assurance of the legists that less was required for conviction in heresy than in any other crime, and inquisitors were instructed that slender testimony was sufficient to prove it — '^prohatur quis hoBreticus ex lem causaP Yet evil as was all this, the crowning infamy of the Inquisition in its treatment of testi- mony was withholding from the accused all knowledge of the names of the witnesses against him. In the ordinary courts, even in the inquisitorial process, their names were communicated to him along with the evidence which they had given, and it wall be remembered that w^hen the Legate Romano held his inquest at Toulouse, in 1229, the accused followed him to Montpellier with de-


  • Guid. Fulcod. Qusest. viii. — Pegnac Comment, in Eymcric. p. GOl,— Zanchini

Tract, de Ilaeret. c. xiii. — Doctrina de modo procedendi (Martene Thesaur. V. 1802).

- Heresy, of course, was a " reserved " case for which the ordinary confessor could not give absolution. Thus a man of Realmont in Albigeois who repented of having been present at a Catharan conventicle went to a Franciscan and con- fessed, accepting the penance imposed of the minor pilgrimages and some other penitential acts. On his return from their performance, however, he was seized by the Inquisition, tried and imprisoned. — Vaissette, IV. 41.


4ns EVIDENCE.

mands to see the names of those who had testified against them, when the cardinal recognized their right to this, but eluded it by showing merely a long list of all the witnesses who had appeared during the whole inquest, giving as an excuse the danger to which they were exposed from the malevolence of those who had suffered by their evidence. That there was some risk incurred by those who destroyed their neighbors is true ; the inquisitors and chroni- clers mention that assassinations from this cause sometimes oc- curred— six being reported in Toulouse between 1301 and 1310. It Avould have been strange had this not been the case, nor was the chance of such wild justice altogether an unwholesome check upon the security of malevolence. Yet that so flimsy an excuse should have been systematically put forward shows merely that the Church recognized and was ashamed of its plain denial of jus- tice, since no such precaution was deemed necessary in other crim- inal affairs. Already in 1244 and 1246 the councils of ISTarbonne and Beziers order the inquisitors not to indicate in any manner the names of the witnesses, alleging as a reason the " prudent wish " of the Holy See, although in the instructions of the Cardinal of Albano the saving clause of risk is expressed. When Innocent lY. and his successors regulated the inquisitorial procedure, the same limitation to cases in which divulging the names would expose the witnesses to danger was sometimes omitted and sometimes re- peated, and when Boniface YIII. embodied in the canon law the rule of withholding the names he expressly cautioned bishops and inquisitors to act with pure intentions, not to withhold the names when there was no peril in communicating them, and if the peril ceased they were to be revealed. Yet it is impossible to regard all this as more than a decent veil of hypocrisy to cover recognized injustice, for it was a flagrant fact that inquisitors everywhere treated these exhortations as the councils of ISTarbonne and Be- ziers had treated the limitations prescribed by the Cardinal of Al- bano. Although in the inquisitorial manuals the limitation of risk is usually mentioned, the instructions with regard to the conduct of the trials always assume as a matter of course that the prisoner is kept in ignorance of the names of the witnesses against him. As early as the time of Gui Foucoix that jurist treats it as the universal practice ; a nearly contemporary MS. manual lays it down as an invariable rule ; and in the later periods we are cooUy


NAMES OF WITNESSES WITHHELD. 439

mformed by both Eymerich and Bernardo di Come that cases were rare in which risk did not exist ; that it was great when the ac- cused was rich and powerful, but greater still when he was poor and had friends who had nothing to lose. Eymerich evidently considers it much more decent to refuse the names than to adopt the expedients of some over-conscientious inquisitors who furnished, like Cardinal Romano, the names Avritten on a different piece of paper and so arranged that their identification with their evidence was impossible, or who mixed up other names with those of the witnesses so as to confuse hopelessly the defence. Occasionally a less disreputable but almost equally confusing plan was adopted, in swearing a portion of the witnesses in the presence of the ac- cused, while examining them in his absence. Thus in the trial of Bernard Delicieux, in 1319, out of forty-eight witnesses whose de- positions are recorded, sixteen were sworn in his presence  ; in that of Huss, in 1414, it is mentioned that fifteen witnesses at one time were taken to his cell that he might see them sworn.*

From this withholding of names it was but a step to withhold- ing the evidence altogether, and that step was sometimes taken. In truth the whole process was so completely at the arbitrary dis- cretion of the inquisitor, and the accused was so wholly without rights, that whatever seemed good in the eyes of the former was allowable in the interest of the faith. Thus we are told that if a witness retracted his evidence, the fact should not be made known to the defendant lest it should encourage him in his defence, but the judge is recommended to bear it in mind when rendering


♦Bernard! Comens. Lucerna Inquisit s. v. Probatio, No. 3. — Archidiac. Gloss, sup. c. xi. § 1 Sexto v. 2. — Guill. Pod. Laur. c. 40.— Bern. Guidon. Gravamina (Doat, XXX. 102).— Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 22.— Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246 c. 4, 10.— Arch, de Tlnq. de Care. (Doat, XXXI. 5).— Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Cum negotium, 9 Mart. 1254; Ejusd. Bull. Ut commissum, 21 Jun. 1254. — Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Licet mhis, 7 Dec. 1255 ; Ejusd. Bull. PrcB cvnctis, § 6, 9 Nov. 1256; Ejusd. Bull. Super extirpatione, § 9, 1258.— Clem. PP. IV. Bull. Licet ex omnibus, 17 Sep. 1265.— Ejusd. Bull. Pm cunctis, 23 Feb. 1266.— Guid. Fulcod. Qusest. XT.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 221.— C. 20 Sexto v. 2.— Bern. Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.). — Responsa Prudentum (Doat, XXXVII.). — Eymeric. Direct. Inq. pp. 450, 610, 614, 626, 627. Cf. Pegnae Comment, pp. 027-8. — MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4270. — Bernard! Comens, Lucerna Inquisit. s. v. Nomina. — Mladenovic Relatio (Palacky Documenta Joannis Hus, pp. 252-3).


440 EVIDENCE.

judg-meiit. The tender care for the safety of witnesses even went so far that it was left to the conscience of the inquisitor whether or not to give the accused a copy of the evidence itself if there ap- peared to be danger to be apprehended from doing so. Kelieved from all supervision, and practically not subject to appeals, it may be said that there w^ere no rules which the inquisitor might not suspend or abrogate at pleasure when the exigencies of the faith seemed to require it.*

Among the many evils springing from this concealment, which released witnesses and accusers from all responsibility, not the least was the stimulus which it afforded to delation and the temp- tation created to gratify malice by reckless perjury. Even with- out any special desire to do mischief, an unfortunate, whose reso- lution had been broken down by suffering and torture, when brought at last to confess, might readily be led to make his story as satisfactory as possible to his tormentors by mentioning all names that might occur to him as being present at conventicles and heretications. There can be no question that the business of the Inquisition was greatly increased by the protection which it thus afforded to informers and enemies, and that it was made the instrument of an immense amount of false-witness. The inquisi- tors felt this danger and frequently took such precautions as they could without trouble, by warning a witness of the penalties in- curred by perjury, making him obligate himself in advance to en- dure them, and rigidly questioning him as to whether he had been suborned. Occasionally, also, we find a conscientious judge like Bernard Gui carefully sifting evidence, comparing the testimony of different witnesses, and tracing out incompatibilities which proved that one at least was false. He accomplished this twice, once in 1312 and again in 1316, the earlier case presenting some peculiar features. A man named Pons Arnaud came forward spontaneously and accused his son Pierre of having endeavored to have him hereticated when laboring under apparently mortal sick- ness. The son denied it. Bernard, on investigation, found that Pons had not been sick at the date specified, and that there had been no heretics at the place named. Armed with this informa-


  • Responsa Prudentum (Doat, XXXVII.). —Bernardi Comens. Lucerna In-

quis. s. V. Tradere.—Za.nchm{ Tract, de Hseret. c. ix.


FALSE WITNESS. 441

tion he speedily forced the accuser to confess that he had fabri- cated the story to injure his son. Creditable as is this case to the inquisitor, it is hideously suggestive of the pitfalls which lay around the feet of every man ; and no less so is an instance in which Henri de Chamay, Inquisitor of Carcassonne, in 1329, reso- lutely traced out a conspiracy to ruin an innocent man, and had the satisfaction of forcing five false- witnesses to confess their guilt. Eare instances such as these, however, offered but a feeble pallia- tion for the inherent vices of the s^^stem, and in spite of the se- vere punishment meted out to those who were discovered, the crime was of very frequent occurrence. The security with which it could be committed renders it safe to assume that detection oc- curred in a very small proportion of the cases ; so when among the scanty documents that have reached us we see six false-wit- nesses (of whom two were priests and one a clerk), sentenced at an auto defe held at Pamiers in 1323 ; four at Narbonne in December, 1328 ; one, a few weeks after, at Pamiers ; four more at Pamiers in January, 1329, and seven (one of whom was a notary) at Car- cassonne in September, 1329, we may conclude that if the full records of the Inquisition were accessible, the list would be a frightful one, and would suggest an incalculable amount of injus- tice which remained undiscovered. We do not need the admis- sion of Eymerich that witnesses are found frequently to conspire together to ruin an innocent man, and we may weU doubt his as- surance that persistent scrutiny by the inquisitor will detect the wrong. There is, perhaps, only a consistent exhibition of inquisi- torial logic in the dictum of Zanghino, that a witness who with- draws testimony adverse to a prisoner is to be punished for false- witness, while his testimony is to stand, and to receive full weight in rendering judgment.*

A false-witness, Avhen detected, was treated with as little mercy as a heretic. As a symbol of his crime two pieces of red cloth in the shape of tongues were affixed to his breast and two to his back, to be worn through life. He was exhibited at the church- doors on a scaffolding during divine service on Sundays, and was

  • Lib. Confess. Inq. Albiens. (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, 11847).— Lib. Sen-

tentt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 96-7, 180, 393.— Arch, do I'lnq. do Carcass. (Doat, XXVIL 118, 133, 140, 149, 178, 204-16).— Ey merle. Direct. Inq. p. 521.— Zancliini Tract de Haeret. c. xiv,


442 EVIDENCE.

usually imprisoned for life. The symbol was changed to that of a letter in the case of Guillem Maurs, condemned in 1322 for con- spiring ^\"itn others to forge letters of the Inquisition whereby some parties were to be cited for heresy with the view of extort- ing hush-money from them. As the degree of criminality varied, so there were differences in tb's severity of punishment. Those condemned in Pamiers in 1B23 were let off without incarceration. The four at Narbonne, in 1328, were regarded as peculiarly culpa- ble, having been suborned by enemies of the accused, and they were accordingly condemned to the severest form of imprison- ment, on bread and water, with chains on hands and feet. The assembly of experts held at Pamiers for the auto of January, 1329, decided that, in addition to imprisonment, either lenient or harsh, according to the gravity of the offence, the offenders should make good any damage accruing to the accused. This was an approach to the talio^ and the principle was fully carried out in 1518 by Leo X. in a rescript to the Spanish Inquisition, authorizing the abandonment to the secular arm of false witnesses who had suc- ceeded in inflicting any notable injury on their victims. The ex- pressions used by the pope justify the conclusion that the crime was still frequent. Zanghino tells us that in his time there was no defined legal penalty, and that the false witness was to be pun- ished at the discretion of the inquisitor — another instance of the tendency which pervades the whole inquisitorial jurisprudence, to fetter the tribunals with as few rules as possible, to clothe them with arbitrary power, and trust to God, in whose name and for whose glory they professed to act, to inspire them with the wis- dom necessary for the discharge of their irresponsible trust.*


  • Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 297, 393. — Arch, de I'lnq. de Carcassonne

Poat, XXVII. 119, 188, 140, 241).— Pegnas Comment, in Eymeric. p. 625.— Zan- chini Tract, de Hseret. c. xiv.


CHAPTER XI.

THE DEFENCE.

From the preceding sketch of the inquisitorial process it may readily be inferred that scant opportunities for defence were al- lowed by the Holy Office. It was in the very nature of the proc- ess that all the preliminary proceedings were taken in secrecy and without the knowledge of the accused. The case against him was made up before his arrest, and he was examined, urged to confess, and perhaps imprisoned for years and tortured, before he was al- lowed to know what were the charges against him. It was only after a confession had been extorted from him, or the inquisitor despaired of extorting one, that he was furnished with the evi- dence against him, and even then the names of the witnesses were habitually suppressed. All this is in cruel contrast with the righteous care to avoid injustice prescribed for the ordinary epis- copal courts. In them the Council of Lateran orders that the accused shall be present at the inquisition against him, unless he contumaciously absents himself ; the charges are to be explained to him, that he may have the opportunity of defending himself ; the witnesses' names, with their respective evidence, are to be made public, and all legitimate exceptions and answers be admitted, for suppression of names would invite slander, and rejection of excep- tions would admit false testimony.* The suspected heretic, how- ever, was prejudged. The effort of the inquisitor was not to avoid injustice, but to force him to admit his guilt and seek reconciha- tion with the Church. To accomplish this effectually the facilities for defence were systematically reduced to a minimum.


  • Concil. Lateran IV. ann. 1215 c. 8.

So, in 1254, St. Louis orders that in all criminal cases where the inquisitorial process is used, the whole proceedings shall be submitted to the accused. — Vais- sette, M. Privat, VHI. 1348.


444 THE DEFENCE.

It is true that, in 12-1:6, the Council of Beziers lays down the rule that tlie accused shall have proper opportunities for defence, inchuling necessary delays and the admission of exceptions and legitimate replies; but if this were intended as a check on the arbitrary operations which already characterized the Inquisition, it was Avholly disregarded. In the first place, the secrecy of the tribunal enabled the judge to do as he might think best. In the second place, the only possible remaining check to arbitrary ac- tion was removed by denying to the accused the advantage of counsel. Then, as now, the intricacy of legal forms rendered the trained advocate a necessity to every man on trial ; the layman, ignorant of his rights, and of the method of enforcing them, was utterly helpless. So thoroughly was this understood that in the ecclesiastical courts it was frequently a custom to furnish advo- cates gratuitously to poor men unable to employ them, and in the charter granted by Simon de Montfort, in 1212, to his newly-ac- quired territories, it was provided that justice should always be gratuitous, and that counsel should be provided by the court for pleaders too poor to retain them. When this right thus was rec- ognized in the most trifling cases, to refuse it to those who were batthng for their lives before a tribunal in which the judge was also prosecutor, was more than the Church at first dared openly to do, but it practically reached the result by indirection. In- nocent III., in a decretal embodied in the canon law, had ordered advocates and scriveners to lend no aid or counsel to heretics and their defenders, or to undertake their causes in litigation. This, which was presumably intended as one of the disabilities inflicted on defiant and acknowledged heretics, was readily applied to the suspect who were not yet convicted, and who were struggling to prove their innocence, for their guilt was always assumed in ad- vance. The councils of Yalence and Albi, in 1248 and 1254, while ordering inquisitors not to embarrass themselves with the vain jangling of lawyers in the conduct of the prosecution, signifi- cantly make reference to this provision of the canon law as appli- cable to counsel who might be so hardy as to aid the defence. That this became a settled and recognized principle is shown by Bernard Gui's assertion that advocates who excuse and defend heretics are to be held guilty of fautorship of heresy — a crime which became heresy itself if satisfaction at the discretion of the


REFUSAL OP COUNSEL. 445

inquisitor was not rendered within a twelvemonth. When to this we add the perpetually reiterated commands to the inquisitors to proceed without regard to legal forms or the wrangHng of advo- cates, and the notice to notaries that he who drew up the revoca- tion of a confession was excommunicated as an impeder of the In- quisition, it will readily be seen that there was no need of formally refusing counsel to the accused, and that there was no practical benefit permitted from the admission of the barren generality that one who beheved a heretic to be innocent and endeavored to prove him so was not on that account liable to punishment. Eymerich is careful to specify that the accused has the right to employ coun- sel, and that a denial of this justifies an appeal, but then he Uke- wise states that the inquisitor can prosecute any advocate or no- tary who undertakes the cause of heretics ; and a century earlier a manuscript manual for inquisitors directs them to prosecute as defenders of heresy any advocates who take such cases, with the addition that if they are clerks they are to be perpetually de- prived of their benefices. It is no wonder, therefore, that finally inquisitors adopted the rule that advocates were not to be allowed in inquisitorial trials. This injustice had its compensation, how- ever, for the employment of counsel, in fact, was likely to prove as dangerous to the defendant as to his advocate, for the Inquisi- tion was entitled to aU accessible information, and could summon the latter as a witness, force him to surrender any papers in his hands, and reveal what had passed between him and his client. Such considerations, however, are rather theoretical than practi- cal, for it may well be doubted whether, in the ordinary course of the Inquisition, counsel for the defence ever appeared before it. The terror that it inspired is well illustrated by the circumstance that when, in 1300, Friar Bernard Delicieux was commissioned by his Franciscan provincial to defend the memory of Castel Fabri, and Nicholas d' Abbeville, the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, rudely refused him even an audience, he could find no notary in the city who dared to assist him in drawing up a legal protest ; every one feared arrest and prosecution if he took the least part in an oppo- sition to the dreaded inquisitor, and Bernard had to wait ten or twelve days until he could bring a notary from a distance to per- form the simplest formahty. The local ofiicials might well hesi- tate to incur the wrath of Nicholas, for a few years before he had


44B THE DEFENCE.

cast in jail a notary who had ventured to draw up an appeal of the inhabitants of Carcassonne to the king.*

All this is interesting as an illustration of the spirit which per- vaded every act of the Inquisition, but in reality no advocate could be of material service to the accused, save in the most exceptional cases. The men who organized the Holy Office knew too well what they wanted to leave open any possibilities of which even the shrewdest advocate could take advantage, and it was admitted on all hands as a recognized fact that there was no method of defence save disabling the witnesses for the prosecution. It has been seen that enmity was the only source of disability in a witness, and this had to be mortal — there must have been bloodshed between the parties, or other cause sufficient to induce one to seek the life of the other. If, therefore, the case rested on witnesses of this kind, their testimony had to be rejected and the prosecution fell. As this was the only possible mode of escape, the cruelty of withhold- ing from the prisoner the names of the adverse witnesses becomes doubly conspicuous. He was forced to grope around in the dark and blindly name such persons as he imagined might have a hand in his misfortunes. If he failed to hit upon any who appeared in the case, the evidence against him was conclusive, as far as it went. If he chanced to name some of the witnesses, he was interrogated as to the causes of enmity ; the inquisitor examined into the facts of the alleged quarrel, and decided as he saw fit as to the retention or the rejection of their testimony. Conscientious jurists hke Gui Foucoix and inquisitors like Eymerich warned their brethren that as the accused had so slender a chance of guessing the sources of evidence, the judge ought to investigate for himself and discard any that seemed to be the product of malice ; but there were others who sought rather to deprive the poor wretch of every straw that might postpone his sinking. One device was to ask him, as though


  • Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 8. — Concil. Campinacens. ann.

1238 c. 14. — Contre le Franc- Allen sans Tiltre, Paris, 1629, p. 216. — Fournier, Les Oflacialitgs, etc. p. 289. — C. 11, Extra v. 7.— Concil. Valentin, ann. 1248 c. 11. — Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 23. — Bernard. Guidon. Practica. P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).— Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 446, 452, 565, 568.— MSS. Bib. Nat, fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 220. — Bernardi Comens. Lucerna Inquisitor, s. vv. Advoca- tus, Defen»(yr. — Q. 13, § 7, Extra v. 7. —Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Cupientes, 4 Mart. 1260.— Arch, de Flnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXIV. 123).— Vaissette, IV. 72.


REFUSAL TO PLEAD. 447

casually, at the end of his examination, whether he had any enemies who would so disregard the fear of God as to accuse him falsely, and if, thus taken unawares, he replied in the negative, he debarred himself from any subsequent defence ; or the most damaging wit- ness would be selected and the prisoner be asked if he knew him, when a denial would estop him from claiming enmity. It is easy to imagine other tricks by which shrewd and experienced inquis- itors could save themselves the trouble of admitting the accused to even the nugatory form of defence to which alone he was entitled. As to allowing him to call witnesses in his favor, except to prove enmity of the accusers, it was never thought of in ordinary cases. By a legal fiction, the inquisitor was supposed to look at both sides of the case, and to take care of the defence as well as of the prose- cution. If the accused failed to guess the names of enemies among the witnesses and to disable their testimony, he was condemned.* In England, under the barbarous custom of th^ peine forte et dure^ a prisoner who refused to plead either guilty or not guilty was pressed to death, because the trial could not go on without either confession or defence. Cruel as was this expedient, it was the outcome of a manly sense of justice, which based its procedure on the rule that the worst felon should have a fair opportunity to prove his innocence. Far worse was the system of the Inquisition, which was equally resolved that its culprits should have no such easy method of escape as a refusal to plead. It had no scruples as to proceeding in such cases, and the obstinacy of the accused only simplijied matters. The refusal was an act of contumacy, equivalent to disobeying a summons to appear, or it was held to be tantamount to a confession, and the obdurate prisoner was forthwith handed over to the secular arm as an impenitent heretic, fit only for the stake. The use of torture, however, rendered such cases rare.f

  • Guid. Fulcod. Quasst. xv.— Eymeric. Direct. Inq. pp. 446, 450, 607, 610, 614.

— Zanchini Tract, de Hseret. c. ix., xli. — Litt. Petri Albanens. (Doat, XXXL 5).

In the register of the Inquisition of Carcassonne from 1249 to 1258 M. Moli- nier has found two cases in which the accused was allowed to introduce evidence in his favor. In one of these G. Vilani^re called two witnesses to prove an alibi; in the other Guillem Nfegre brought forward a letter of reconciliation and pen- itence. In neither case was the defendant successful (L'Inq. dans le midi de la France, p. 346).

t Coll. Doat, XXXI. 149.— Bernardi Comens. Lucerna Inquisit. s. v. Tacitur- nitas.


us THE DEFENCE.

The enviable simplicity which the inquisitorial process thus as- sumed in the absence of counsel and of all practical opportunities for defence can perhaps best be illustrated by one or two cases. Thus in the Inquisition of Carcassonne, June 19, 1252, P. Morret is called up and asked if he wishes to defend himself against the matters found in the instructio or indictment against him. He has nothing to allege except that he has enemies, of whom he names five. Apparently he did not happen to guess any of the witnesses, for the case proceeded by reading the evidence to him, after which he is again asked thrice if he has anything further to say. To this he replies in the negative, and the case ends by as- signing January 29 for the rendering of sentence. Two years later, in 1254, at Carcassonne, a certain Bernard Pons was more lucky, for he happened to guess aright in naming his wife as an inimical witness, and we have the proceedings of the inquest held to determine whether the enmity was mortal. Three witnesses are examined, all of whom swear that she is a woman of loose character ; one deposes that she had been taken in adultery by her husband ; another that he had beaten her for it, and the third that he had recently heard her say that she wished her husband dead that she might marry a certain Pug Oler, and that she would will- ingly become a leper if that would bring it about. This would certainly seem sufficient, but Pons appears nevertheless not to have escaped. So thoroughly hopeless, indeed, was the prospect of any effort at defence, that it frequently was not even attempted, and the accused, like Arnaud Fabri at Carcassonne, August 26, 1252, when asked if he wished a copy of the evidence against him, would despairingly decline it. It was a customary formula in a sentence to state that the convict had been offered opportunity for defence and had not availed himself of it, showing how frequently this was the case.^

In the case of prosecution of the dead, the children or the heirs were scrupulously cited to appear and defend his memory, as they were necessarily parties to the case through the disabilities and con- fiscation following upon condemnation. Proclamation was also


  • Registre de Tlnq. de Carcassonne (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, Nouv. Acquis.

139, f. 33, 44, 62).— Practica super Inquisitione (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 212).


PROSECUTIONS OP THE DEAD. 449

made publicly in the churches inviting any one else who chose to appear or who had any interest in the matter by reason of holding property of the deceased ; and then a third public notice was given that if no one came forward on the day named, definitive sentence would be rendered. Thus in a case occurring in 1327, Jean Duprat, Inquisitor of Carcassonne, orders the priests of all the churches in the dioceses of Carcassonne, Narbonne, and Alet to publish the notice during divine service on every Sunday and feast-day till the day of hearing, and to send him a notarial attestation of their ac- tion. The sentences in these cases are careful to recite these notices so sedulously served on all concerned ; but notwithstanding this dis- play of a desire to do exact justice, the proceedings were quite as hollow a mockery as those against the living. That it was so rec- ognized is seen at the auto of 1309 at Toulouse, where there were four dead persons sentenced, and it is stated that in one case no one appeared, and in the other three the heirs obeyed the citation but renounced aU defence. In the case of Castel Fabri, before al- luded to, at Carcassonne, in 1300, where the estate was very large, the heirs appeared, but were denied all opportunity of defence by Nicholas d' AbbeviUe, the inquisitor ; and in that of Pierre de Tor- namire, though the heirs, as we have seen, succeeded in reversing the judgment through the gross informality of the proceedings, it was not until after a struggle which lasted for thirty-two years, during which time the estate must have been sequestrated. Some- times, when death-bed heretications had occurred, the children put in the plea of non comjpos, which was admitted to be good, but as none of the family were allowed to testify, and only disinterested witnesses of approved orthodoxy were received, instances of suc- cess must have been rare indeed.^

Practically every avenue of escape was closed to those who fell into the hands of the inquisitor. Technically the accused had a right, as in other cases, to recuse his judge, but this was a danger- ous experiment, and we hardly need the assurance of Bernardo di

  • Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 18. — Doctrina de modo procedendi

(Martene Thesaur. V. 1813).— Coll. Doat, XXVII. 97-8; XXIX. 27; XXXIV. 123; XXXV. 61; XXXVIII. 166.— Lib. Sententt. Inquis. Tolosan. pp. 33-4.— Molinier, L'Inquis. dans le midi de la France, p. 287.— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Olim exparU, 24 Sept. ; 13 Oct. 1258  ; Urbani PP. IV. Bull. Idem, 21 Aug. 1262 (Mag. Bull. Rom. I. 117). I.— 29


450 THE DEFENCE.

Como that it was virtually unknown. Ignorance was no defence, and its mere assertion, according to Bernard Gui, only rendered a man worthy of condemnation along with his master, the father of lies. Persistent denial of the offence charged, even when accom- panied with profession of faith and readiness to submit to the mandates of the Church, Avas obstinacy and impenitence which precluded all hope of mercy. Even suicide in prison was equiv- alent to confession of guilt without repentance. It is true that in- sanity or drunkenness might be urged in extenuation of the utter- ance of heretical words, and this might mitigate the sentence, if there were due contrition and seeking for reconciliation, but ad- mission of the conclusion at which the inquisitor had arrived from his ex parte inquest was the predetermined result, and the only alternative to this was abandonment to the secular arm.*

That plain-spoken friar, Bernard Delicieux, uttered the literal truth when he declared, in the presence of PhiUppe le Bel and all his court, that if St. Peter and St. Paul were accused of " adoring " heretics and were prosecuted after the fashion of the Inquisition, there would be no defence open for them. Questioned as to their faith, they would answer like masters in theology and doctors of the Church, but when told that they had adored heretics, and they asked what heretics, some names, common in those parts, would be mentioned, but no particulars would be given. When they would ask for statements as to time and place, no facts would be fur- nished, and when they would demand the names of the witnesses these would be withheld. How, then, asked Bernard, could the holy apostles defend themselves, especially when any one who wished to aid them would himself be attacked as a fautor of heresy. It was so. The victim was enveloped in a net from which there was no escape, and his frantic struggles only twisted it more tightly around him.f

Theoretically, indeed, an appeal lay to the pope from the Holy Office, and to the metropolitan from the bishop, for denial of jus-


  • Bernard! Comens. Lucema Inquisit. s. v. Recusatio. — Bern, Guidon. Prac-

tica P. IV. (Doat, XXX.). — Zanchini Tract, de Hseret. c. ii., vii. — Concil. Nar- bonn. ann. 1344 c. 26. — Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246 c. 9. — Eymeric. Direct. Inq. p. 572.

t MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4270, fol. 139.


APPEALS TO THE HOLY SEE. 451

tice or irregularity of procedure, but it had to be made before sen- tence was rendered, as condemnation was final. Possibly this may have held out some prospect of benefit in the case of bishops exer- cising their inquisitorial jurisdiction. In that of inquisitors, when " ajpostoli^^ or letters remanding the case to the Holy See, were de- manded, it rested with them to grant affirmative (" reverential ") ones, or negative ones. The former admitted the transfer of the case ; the latter kept it in the inquisitor's hands unless it was for- mally taken from him by the pope. This, it is safe to say, could rarely happen, and, as the proceeding was an intricate one, it could only be resorted to by experts. A man like Master Eckart, sup- ported by the whole Dominican Order, could undertake it, even though in the end he fared no better at the hands of John XXII. than he would have done at those of the Archbishop of Cologne. So when, in 1323, the Sire de Partenay, one of the most powerful nobles of Poitou, was cited for heresy by Friar Maurice, the In- quisitor of Paris, and was thrown into the Temple by Charles le Bel, he appealed from Maurice as a judge prejudiced by personal hatred. Charles sent him under guard to John XXII. at A^^gnon, who at first refused to entertain the appeal, but at length, by the influential intercession of Partenay's friends, was induced to ap- point several bishops as assessors to the inquisitor, and after long- protracted proceedings the interest of Partenay was sufficient to obtain his liberation. Cases like these, however, are wholly ex- ceptional and have no bearing upon the thousands of humble folk and petite noblesse " who filled the prisons of the Inquisition and figured in its autos de fe. The manuals for inquisitors, indeed, make no scruple in instructing them as to the devices and deceits by which they can elude aU attempts to appeal when through dis- regard of rules they have exposed themselves to it.*

There was another class of cases, however, in which the inter- ference of the pope occasionally gave relief, for the Holy See was autocratic and could set aside all rules. The curia was always greedy for money, and, outside of Italy, had no share in the con- fiscations. It can, therefore, readily be imagined that men of

  • Pegnae Comment, in Eymeric. p. 675.— Zanchini Tract, de Haeret. c. xxix. —

Eymeric. Direct. Inq. pp. 453-55.— Grandes Chronicjues. ann, 1323. — Guill. Nan- giac. Contin. ann. 1323. — Chron. de Jean de S. Victor. Contin. ann. 1323. — Ber- nard! Comens. Lucerna Inquisitor, s. vv. Appellatio^ Exceptio No. 3,


452 THE DEFENCE.

wealth whose whole property was at stake might well consent to divide it with the papal court, whose all-powerful intervention would thereby be secured. As early as 1245 the bishops of Lan- guedoc are found complaining to Innocent lY. of the number of heretics who thus obtain exemption. Not only those undergoing trial, but those fearing to be cited, those excommunicated for con- tumacy, or legitimately sentenced, escape the jurisdiction of the In- quisition and enjoy immunity on the strength of letters granted by the papal penitentiaries. I have met with a number of special cases of this interference of the Holy See with the Holy Office, one at least of which indicates the means of persuasion employed. In letters of December 28, 1248, the papal penitentiary Algisius or- ders the release, without confiscation, of six prisoners of the In- quisition who had confessed to heresy, one of the reasons assigned bjging the liberal contributions which they had made to the cause of the Holy Land. It is no wonder that the inquisitors sometimes grew mutinous under this aggravating interference, of which they could so readily guess the motive, and, on one occasion at least, they gave the curia a lesson. Some inhabitants of Limoux, in 1249, con- demned to wear crosses and perform heavy penances, obtained from Innocent lY. an order for their mitigation, whereupon the inquisitors, in their irritation, went a step further and absolved the penitents without reserve. Accepting this rebuke. Innocent com- manded the original sentence to be reim posed, and the unlucky culprits gained nothing by their effort. Less questionable was the interference, in 1255, of Alexander lY. in the case of Aimeric de Bressols of Castel-Sarrazin, who had been condemned for hereti- cal acts committed thirty years before. He represented that he had performed most of the penance enjoined on him and that he was unable, through old age and poverty, to accomplish the rest, whereupon the pope mercifully authorized the Inquisitors to com- mute it into other pious works. A somewhat remarkable case oc- curred in 1371, when Gregory XL authorized the Inquisitor of Car- cassonne to release Bidon de Puy-Guillem, condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and repentant, the reason given for papal intervention being that there existed no other power to commute the sentence.*

  • Vaissette, III. 462; Pr. 447.— Coll. Doat, XXXI. 152, 169, 283; XXXII. 69;

XXXV. 134.— Potthast No. 10292, 10311, 10317, 18723, 18895.— RipoU, I. 287.— Coll. Doat, XXXV. 134.


ACQUITTAL PROHIBITED. 453

This kind of papal intervention, however, was in contravention of the law and not in its fulfilment, and need not be weighed in considering the results of the inquisitorial process. That result, as might be expected, was condemnation in some form or other so uniformly that it may be regarded as inevitable. In the register of Carcassonne from 1249 to 1258, comprising about two hundred cases, there does not occur a single instance of a prisoner discharged as innocent. It is true that the interrogatory of Alizais Debax, March 27, 1249, is followed by the note "she was not heard a second time because she was considered innocent," but this ap- parent exception is nulhfied by a second memorandum " crucesig- nata est'^ — she was condemned to the public infamy of wearing crosses, probably to confirm the popular impression that the In- quisition never missed its mark. A man against whom there was no e\4dence to justify conviction and who yet would not confess himself guilty, was kept in prison indefinitely at the discretion of the inquisitor ; at length, if the proof against him was only inci- dental and not direct, and the suspicion was light, he might be mercifully discharged under bail, with orders to stand at the door of the Inquisition from breakfast-time until dinner, and from din- ner until supper, until some further testimony should turn up against him, and the inquisitor be able to prove the guilt so confi- dently assumed. On this side of the Alps it was a recognized rule that no one should be acquitted. The utmost stretch of justice, when the accusation failed entirely, was a sentence of not proven. The charges were simply declared not to be substantiated, and the inquisitors were carefully warned never to pronounce a man inno- cent, so that there might be no bar to subsequent proceedings in case of further evidence. Possibly in Italy, in the fourteenth cen- tury, this rule may have been neglected, for Zanghino gives a for- mula of acquittal, based, significantly enough, on the evidence be- ing proved to be malicious.*

Clement Y. recognized the injustice wrought under this system when he embodied in the canon law a declaration that inquisitors abused to the injury of the faithful the wise provisions made for the defence of the faith ; when he forbade them from falsely con-

  • Molinier, L'Inquisition dans le midi de la France, pp. 332-33.— Responsa

Prudentum (Dont, XXXVII.).— Bern. Guidon. Practica P. v. (Doat, XXX.).— Ey- meric. Direct. In(|Liis. p. 474. — Zanchini Tract, de Haeret. c. xli.


454 THE DEFENCE.

yicting any one, or acting either for or against the accused through love, hate, or the hopes of gain, under penalty of ipso facto excom- munication, removable only by the Holy See. Bernard Gui hotly denied these assertions, which he declared to be precisely those with which the heretics defamed the Holy Office to its great dam- age. To impute heresy to the innocent, he said, is worthy of dam- nation, but none the less so is it to slander the Inquisition. In spite, he adds, of the refutation of the accusations brought against it, this canon assumes their truth and the heretics exult over its disgrace. If the heretics exulted, their rejoicings were premature. The Inquisition went its way in the accustomed paths, and Clem- ent's well-meant effort at reform proved wholly unavailing.*

The erection of suspicion into a crime gave ample opportunity for the habitual avoidance of acquittal. This took its origin in the customs of the barbarian and mediaeval codes, which required the accused, against whom a probable case was made out, to demon- strate his innocence either by the ordeal, or by the form of purga- tion known in England as the Wager of Law, in which he pro- duced a prescribed number of his friends to share with him the oath of denial. In the coronation-edict of Frederic II. those who were suspected of heresy were required to purge themselves in this manner, as the Church might demand, under pain of being out- lawed, and, if they remained so for a year, of being condemned as heretics. This gave a peculiar and sinister significance to suspicion of heresy which was carefuUy elaborated and turned to account. Suspicion might arise from many causes, the chief of which was popular rumor and belief. Omission to take the oath abjuring heresy imposed on aU the inhabitants of Languedoc, within the term prescribed, was sufficient, or neglect to reveal heretics, or the possession of heretical books. The intricate questions to which this extension of criminality gave rise are fairly illustrated in the discussion of an inquisitor whether those who listened to the in- structions of the Waldenses, " Do not lie, nor swear, nor commit fornication, but give to every man his due ; go to church, pay your tithes, and the perquisites of the priests," and, knowing this to be good advice, conclude the utterers to be good men — whether such


  • C. 1 Clement, v. 3.— Bern. Guidon. Gravamina (Doat, XXX. 112),


SUSPICION OF HERESY. 465

are to be considered suspect of heresy ; and he tells us that after diligent consideration he must decide in the affirmative, and order them to purgation. The difficulty of reducing to practice these intangible speculations was realized by Chancellor Gerson, who ad- mits that due allowance should be made for variations of habits and manners in different places and times, but the ordinary in- quisitor was troubled with few such scruples. It was easier to treat the suspect as criminals ; to classify suspicion into its three grades of light, vehement, and violent ; to prescribe punishment for it, and to inflict the disabilities of heresy on the suspect and their descendants. , Even the definition of the three grades of suspicion was abandoned as impossible, and it was left to the arbitrary dis- cretion of the inquisitor to classify each individual case which came before him. I^othing more condemnatory of the whole sys- tem can weU be imagined than the explanation of Eymerich that suspects are not heretics ; that they are not to be condemned for heresy, and that therefore their punishment should be Hghter, ex- cept in the case of violent suspicion. Against this there was no defence possible, and no evidence to be admitted. The culprit might not be a heretic or entertain any error of belief, but if he would not abjure and give satisfaction (and abjuration included confession), he was to be handed over to the secular arm ; if he confessed and sought reconciliation, he was to be imprisoned for life.*

For Hght and vehement suspicion the accused was ordered to furnish con jurat or s in his oath of denial. These were to be men


  • Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. T. II. p. 4.— Concil. Tolosan. ann. 1229 c. 18.— Concil.

Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 16. — Concil. Tarraconens. ann. 1242. — Eymeric. Direct. In- quis. pp. 376-8, 380-4, 494-5, 500.— Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 31, 36. — Zanchini Tract, de Haeret. v., vii., xx.— Doctrina de modo procedendi (Martene Thesaur. V. 1802). — Gersonis de Protestatione consid. xii. — Bernardi Comens. Lucerna Inquisit. s. v. PrcBsumptio, No. 5.— Isambert, Anc. Loix Fran9aises, IV. 364.

It is somewhat remarkable that Cornelius Agrippa maintains that the law expressly forbade the Inquisition from meddling with cases involving mere sus- picion, or the defending, reception, and favoring of heretics (De Vanitate Sci- entiarum, cap. xcvi.). — His contemporary, the learned jurist Ponzinibio, calls special attention to the fact that mere suspicion, even when not accompanied by evil report, is sufficient to justify ])rocecdings in case of heresy, though not in other crimes. — (Ponzinihii dc Lauiiis c. 88).


456 THE DEFENCE.

of his own rank in life, who knew him personally and who swore to their behef in his orthodoxy and in the truth of his exculpatory oath. Their number varied, at the discretion of the inquisitor, with the degree of suspicion to be purged away, from three to twenty or thirty, and even more. In the case of strangers, how- ever, who had no acquaintances, the inquisitor was advised to be moderate. It was no mere idle ceremony, and, as usual, aU the chances were thrown against the defendant. If he was unable to procure the required number of compurgators, or neglected to do so within a year, the law of Frederic II. was enforced, and he was usually condemned as a heretic to burning alive ; although some inquisitors argued that this was only presumptive, not absolute, proof, and that he could escape the stake by confessing and ab- juring— of course being subject to the penance of perpetual prison. If he succeeded and performed his purgation duly, he was by no means acquitted. If the suspicion against him was vehement he could still be punished ; even if it was light the fact that he had been suspected was an ineradicable blot. With the curious logical inconsequence characteristic of inquisitorial procedure, in addition to the purgation, he was obliged to abjure the heresy of which he had cleared himself; this abjuration remained of record against him, and in case of a second accusation his escape from the pre- vious one was not reckoned as having proved his innocence, but as an evidence of guilt. If the purgation had been for light suspicion, his punishment now was increased ; and if it had been for vehe- ment suspicion, he was now regarded as a relapsed, to whom no mercy could be shown, but who was handed over to the secular arm without a hearing. Practically, however, this injustice is im- portant chiefly as a manifestation of the spirit of the Inquisition ; its methods were too thorough to render frequent a recourse to purgation, and Zanghino, when he treats of it, feels obliged to ex- plain it as a custom little known. One case, however, at least, is on record at Angermiinde, where the inquisitor Friar Jordan, in 1336, tried by this method a number of persons accused of the mysterious Lucif eran heresy, when fourteen men and women who were unable to procure the requisite number of compurgators were duly burned.*


  • Concil Tarraconens. ann. 1242. — Eymeric. Direct. Inq. pp. 376-8, 475-6.-^


ABJURATION. 457

An indispensable formality in all cases in which the culprit was admitted to reconciliation with the Church was abjuration of heresy. Of this there were various forms adapted to the different occasions of its use — whether for suspicion, light, vehement, or vio- lent, or after confession and repentance. It was performed in public, at the autos de fe^ except in rare cases, such as those of ec- clesiastics likely to cause scandal, and it frequently embodied a pecuniary penalty for infraction of its promises, and security for their performance. The principal point to be observed in all was to see that the penitent abjured heresy in general as well as the special heresy with which he had been charged. If this were duly attended to, he could always be handed over to the secular arm without a hearing in case of relapse, except when the abjuration had been for light suspicion. If it were neglected, and he had, for instance, abjured Catharism only, he might subsequently indulge in some other form of heresy, such as Waldensianism or usury, and have the benefit of another chance. The case was one not likely to occur, but the point is interesting as showing how the Inquisi- tion could manifest the most scrupulous attention to form, while discarding in its practice aU that entitles the administration of justice to respect. The importance attached to the abjuration is illustrated by a case in the Inquisition of Toulouse in 1310. Si- bylla, wife of Bernard Borell, had been forced to confession and abjuration in 1305. Continuing her heretical practices, she was ar- rested in 1309 and again obliged to confess. As a relapsed heretic she was doomed irrevocably to the stake, but, luckily for her, the abjuration could not be found among the papers of the Holy Office, and though the rest of the record seems to have been accessible, she could only be prosecuted as though for a first offence, and she escaped with imprisonment for life."^

In the case of suspects of heresy who cleared themselves by compurgation, abjuration, of course, did not include confession.


Bernardi Comens. Lucerna Inquis. s. vv. Practica, Purgatw. — Albertini Repertor. Inquisit. s. v. Deficiens. — Gregor. PP. XI. Bull. Excommunicamus, 20 Aug. 1239. — Zanchini Tract, de Haeret. c. vii., xvii. — Martini App. ad Mosheim de Beghardis, p. 537.

  • Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 6, 12.— Muratori Antiq. Ital. Dissert, lx. —

Doctrina de modo procedendi (Martene Tbesaur. V. 1800-1). — Eymeric. Direct. Inq. pp. 376, 486-7, 492-8.— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 67, 215.


458 THE DEFENCE.

In accusations of heresy, supported by evidence, however, no one could be admitted to abjuration who did not confess that of which he was accused. Denial, as we have seen, was obduracy, punished by the stake, and confession was a condition precedent to admission to abjuration. In ordinary cases, where torture was freely used, confession was almost a matter of course. There were extraordinary cases, however, like that of Huss at Con- stance, where torture was spared and where the accused denied the doctrines attributed to him. In such cases the necessity of confession prior to abjuration must be borne in mind if we are to understand the inevitable consequences.


CHAPTER XII.

THE SENTENCE.

The penal functions of the Inquisition were based upon a fiction which must be comprehended in order rightly to appreciate much of its action. Theoretically it had no power to inflict punishment. Its mission was to save men's souls ; to recall them to the way of salvation, and to assign salutary penance to those who sought it, like a father-confessor with his penitents. Its sentences, there- fore, were not, hke those of an earthly judge, the retaliation of society on the wrong-doer, or deterrent examples to prevent the spread of crime ; they were simply imposed for the benefit of the erring soul, to wash away its sin. The inquisitors themselves ha- bitually speak of their ministrations in this sense. When they con- demned a poor wretch to Hfelong imprisonment, the formula in use, after the procedure of the Holy Ofiice had become systema- tized, was a simple injunction on him to betake himself to the jail and confine himself there, performing penance on bread and wa- ter, with a warning that he was not to leave it under pain of excommunication, and of being regarded as a perjured and impen- itent heretic. If he broke jail and escaped, the requisition for his recapture under a foreign jurisdiction describes him, with a singu- lar lack of humor, as one insanely led to reject the salutary medi- cine offered for his cure, and to spurn the wine and oil which were soothing his wounds.*

Technically, therefore, the list of penalties available to the in-


  • Guid. Fulcod. Quaestt. xiii., xv. — Ripoll,!. 254. —Archives de I'lnq. de Car-

cassonne (Doat, XXXI. 139).— Archives de Vtv(ich6 d'Albi (Doat, XXXV. G9). — Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. p. 32. — Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 4G5, 643, — Zanchini Tract, de Hacrct. c. xx.

In the sentences of Bernard de Caux, 1246-8, though imprisonment is treated as a ])enance, the expression is more mandatory than in later proceedings (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, 9902).


4-60 THE SENTENCE.

quisitor was limited. lie never condemned to death, but merely withdrew the protection of the Church from the hardened and impenitent sinner who afforded no hope of conversion, or from him who showed by relapse that there was no trust to be placed in his pretended repentance. Except in Italy, he never confiscated the heretic's property  ; he merely declared the existence of a crime which, under the secular law, rendered the culprit incapable of possession. At most he could impose a fine, as a penance, to be expended in good works. His tribunal was a spiritual one, and dealt only with the sins and remedies of the spirit, under the inspiration of the Gospels, which always lay open before it. Such, at least, was the theory of the Church, and this must be borne in mind if we would understand what may occasionally seem to be inconsistencies and incongruities — especially in view of the arbi- trary discretion which left to the individual inquisitor such oppor- tunity to display his personal characteristics in dealing with the penitents before him. He was a judge in the forum of conscience, bound by no statutes and limited by no rules, with his penitents at his mercy, and no power save that of the Holy See itself could alter one jot of his decrees."^

This sometimes led to a lenity which would be otherwise in- explicable, as in the case of the murderers of St. Peter Martyr. Pietro Balsamo, known as Carino, one of the hired assassins, was caught red-handed, and his escape by bribery from prison created a popular excitement leading to a revolution in Milan. Yet, when recaptured, he repented, was forgiven, and alloTved to enter the Dominican Order, in which he peacefully died, with the repute of a " heato /" and though the Church never formally recognized his right to the public worship paid to him in some places, stiU, in one of the stalls of the martyr's own great church of Sant' Eus- torgio, he appears, with the title of the blessed Acerinus, in a chi- aroscuro of 1505, among the Dominican saints. Not one, indeed, of those concerned in the assassination appears to have been put to death, and the leading instigator of the crime, Stefano Confalo-


  • Arch, de I'l^vgchg d'Albi (Doat, XXXV. 69). — Arch, de Tlnq. de Carcas-

sonne (Doat, XXVII. 232). — Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1234 c. 5. — Concil. Biter- rens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 29. — Eymeric. Direct. Inq. pp. 506-7. — Zauchini Tract, de Hseret. c. xvi. — Guid. Fulcod. Qusest. xv.


THEORY OF THE INQUISITION. 461

niere of Aliate, a notorious heretic and fautor of heretics, after repeated abjurations, releases, and relapses, was not fairly impris- oned until 1295, forty-three years after the murder. It was the same when, soon afterwards, the Franciscan inquisitor, Pier da Bracciano, was assassinated, and Manfredo di Sesto, who had hired the assassins, was brought before Rainerio Saccone, the Inquisitor of Milan. He confessed the crime and other offences in aid of heresy, but was only ordered to present himself to the pope and receive penance. Contumaciously neglecting to do this, Innocent IV. merely ordered the magistrates of Italy to arrest and detain him if he should be found.*

Yet the theory which held the Church to be a loving mother unwillingly inflicting wholesome chastisement on her unruly chil- dren only lent a sharper rigor to most of the operations of the Inquisition. Those who were obdurate to its kindly efforts were ungrateful and disobedient when ingratitude and disobedience were offences of the most heinous nature. They were parricides whom it was mercy to reduce to subjection, and whose sin only the severest suffering could expiate. We have seen how little the inquisitor recked of human misery in his efforts to detect and convert the heretic, and it is not to be supposed that he would be more tender in his ministrations to the diseased souls asking for absolution and penance — and it was only the penitent who had confessed and abjured his sin who came before the judgment-seat for punishment. All others were left to the secular arm.

The fiimsiness of this theory, hoAvever, is manifest from, the fact that it was not only heretics — those who consciously erred in matters of faith — who were subjected to the jurisdiction and chas- tisement of the Inquisition. Fautors, receivers, and defenders — those who showed hospitality, gave alms, or sheltered or assisted heretics in any way, or neglected to denounce them to the author- ities, or to capture them when occasion offered, also rulers who omitted to execute the laws against heresy, however orthodox thenaselves, incurred suspicion of heresy, simple, vehement, or vio- lent. If violent, it was tantamount to heresy ; if simple or vehe-


  • Tanibnrini, Istoriadeir Inquisizione, I. 492-502. — Bern. Corio, Hist, di Mi-

lano, ann. 1252.— Arch, de ITnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXI. 201).— Bipoll, I. 244, 280, 389.


462 THE SENTENCE.

ment, we have seen how readily it might, by failure of purgation, or by repetition, grow into technical heresy and relapse, incurring the gravest penalties, including relaxation to the secular arm. Not less conclusive to the real import of the inquisitorial organi- zation is the argument of Zanghino, that if a heretic repents, con- fesses to his priest, accepts and performs penance and receives ab- solution, however he may be relieved from hell and pardoned in the sight of God, he is not released from temporal punishment, and is still subject to prosecution by the Inquisition. It would not abandon its prey, while yet it could not impugn the efficacy of the sacrament of penitence, and such difficulties were eluded by forbidding priests to take cognizance of heresy, which was reserved for bishops and inquisitors.^

The penances customarily imposed by the Inquisition were comparatively few in number. They consisted, firstly, of pious observances — recitation of prayers, frequenting of churches, the discipline, fasting, pilgrimages, and fines nominally for pious uses, such as a confessor might impose on his ordinary penitents. These were for offences of trifling import. Next in grade are the "pmncB confusihiles^ — the humiliating and degrading penances, of which the most important was the wearing of yellow crosses sewed upon the garments ; and, finally, the severest punishment among those strictly within the competence of the Holy Office, the ^'murus^^ or prison. Confiscation, as I have said, was an incident, and the stake, like it, was the affair of the secular power ; and though both were really controlled by the inquisitor, they will be more con- veniently considered separately. The Councils of Narbonne and Beziers, in addition, prescribe a purely temporal punishment — banishment, either temporary or perpetual — but this would appear to have been so rarely employed that it may be disregarded, al- though in the earlier period it occasionally occurs in sentences, or is found among the penances to which repentant heretics pledged themselves to submit. f

  • Concil. Tarraconens, ann. 1242. — Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Noverit universitas^

1254 (Mag. Bull. Rom. 1. 103). — Bern. Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).— Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 368-72, 376-8. — Zanchini Tract, de Haeret. c. xxxiii.

t Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 3. — Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 28.— ColL Doat, XXI. 200.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 9992.


FORMS OF PENANCE. 463

The sin of heresy was too grave to be expiated simply by con- trition and amendment. While the Church professed to welcome back to her bosom all her erring and repentant children, the way of the transgressor was made hard, and his offence could only be washed away by penances severe enough to prove the robustness of his convictions. Before the Inquisition was founded, about 1208, St. Dominic, while acting under the authority of the Legate Arnaud, converted a Catharan named Pons Koger, and prescribed for him a penance which has chanced to be preserved. It will give us an insight into what were considered reasonable terms of readmission to the Church, at a time when it was straining every nerve to win the heretics back, and before it had fairly resorted to the use of force. On three Sundays the penitent is to be stripped to the waist and scourged by the priest from the entrance of the town of Treville to the church -door. He is to abstain forever from meat and eggs and cheese, except on Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas, when he is to eat of them in sign of his abnegation of his Manichaean errors. For twoscore days, twice a year, he is to forego the use of fish, and for three days in each week that of fish, wine, and oil, fasting, if his health and labors will permit. He is to wear monastic vestments, with a small cross sewed on each breast. If possible, he is to hear mass daily, and on feast- days to attend church at vespers. Seven times a day he is to recite the canonical hours, and, in addition, the Paternoster ten times each day and twenty times each night. He is to observe the strictest chastity. Every month he is to show this paper to the priest, who is to watch its observance closely, and this mode of fife is to be maintained until the legate shall see fit to alter it, while for infraction of the penance he is to be held as a perjurer and a heretic, and be segregated from the society of the faithful.*

This shows how the various forms of penance were mingled together at the discretion of the ghostly father. The same is seen in an exceedingly lenient sentence imposed in 1258 by the inquisi- tors of Carcassonne on Kaymond Maria, who had confessed to various acts of heresy committed twenty or thirty years before, and who, for other reasons, had strong claims for merciful treat- ment. It further illustrates the practice of compounding pious

  • Paramo de Orig. OfRc. S. Inquis. Lib. ii. Tit. i. c. 2, $ 6.— Martcne Tbcsaur.

I. 802.— Coll. Doat, XXXI. 1.


464 THE SENTENCE.

observances for money. Raymond is ordered to fast from the Friday after Michaelmas until Easter, and to eat no meat on Sat- urdays, but he can redeem the fast by giving a denier to a poor man. Every day he is to recite seven times the Paternoster and Ave Maria. Within three years he is to visit the shrines of St. Mary of Roche-amour, St. Rufus of Aliscamp, St. Gilles of Yau- verte, St. Wilham of the Desert, and Santiago de Compostella, bringing home testimonial letters from the rector of each church ; and in lieu of other penances he is to give six livres Tournois to the Bishop of Albi to aid in building a cliapel. lie is to hear mass at least every Sunday and feast-day, and to abstain from all work on those days. Another penance belonging to the same general category is that inflicted on a Carthusian monk of la Loubatiere who was guilty of Spiritual Franciscanism. He was ordered not to leave the abbey for three years, and during that time not to speak except in extreme necessity. For a year he was to confess daily in the presence of his brethren that John XXII. was the true pope and entitled to obedience ; and, in addition, he was to undergo certain fasts and perform certain recitations of the liturgy and psalter. Penances of this character could be varied ad in- jmitum at the caprice of the inquisitor."^

In all this there is no mention of flagellation, but that was so general a feature of penance that it is frequently taken for granted in prescribing pilgrimages and attendance at church. We have seen Raymond of Toulouse submitting to it, and however abhor- rent it may be to our modern ideas, it did not carry with it that sense of humiliation which to us appears inseparable from it. In the lightest penalties provided for voluntary converts, coming for- ward within the time of grace, the Councils of Narbonne and Be- ziers, in 1244 and 1246, and that of Tarragona, in 1242, order the discipline. It was no light matter. Stripped as much as decency and the inclemency of the weather would permit, the penitent pre- sented himself every Sunday, between the Epistle and the Gospel, with a rod in his hand, to the priest engaged in celebrating mass, who soundly scourged him in the presence of the congregation, as a fitting interlude in the mysteries of divine service. On the first Sunday in every month, after mass, he was to visit, similarly


Archives de I'Inq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXI. 355).— Coll. Doat, XXVII. 136.


THE DISCIPLINE. — PILGRIMAGES. 465

equipped, every house in which he had seen heretics, and receive the same infliction; and on the occasion of every solemn proces- sion he was to accompany it in the same guise, to be beaten at every station and at the end. Even when the town happened to be placed under interdict, or himself to be excommunicated, there was to be no cessation of the penance, and apparently it lasted as long as the wretched life of the penitent, or at least until it pleased the inquisitor to remember him and hberate him. That this was no idle threat is shown by these precise details occurring in a for- mula given by Bernard Gui, about 1330, for the release from prison of penitents who by patience and humility in their captivity have earned a mitigation of their punishment, and virtually the same formula was employed immediately after the organization of the Inquisition.*

The pilgrimages, which were regarded as among the lightest of penances, w^ere also mercies only by comparison. Performed on foot, the number commonly enjoined might well consume several years of a man's life, during which his family might perish. A frequent injunction by Pierre Cella, one of the most moderate of inquisitors, comprehended Compostella and Canterbury, with per- haps several intermediate shrines, and in one case a man over ninety years of age was ordered to perform the weary tramp to Compos- tella simply for having consorted with heretics. These pilgrimages were not without peril and hardship, although the hospitality ex- ercised by the numerous convents on the road enabled the poorest pilgrim to sustain life. Still, pilgrimages were so habitual a feat- ure of mediaeval habits, and entered so frequently into ordinary ]>enance, that their use by the Inquisition was inevitable. When the yearning for salvation was so strong that two hundred thou- sand pilgrims arriving in Rome in a single day is said to have been no uncommon occurrence during the Jubilee of 1300, the penitent who escaped with the performance of such pious observ- ances might well regard himself as mercifully treated. f

The penitential pilgrimages of the Inquisition were divided

  • Concil. Tarraconens. ann. 1242. — Concil. Narbonnens. ann. 1244 c. 1. — Con-

cil. Biterrena. ann. 1246, Append, c. 6.— Bern. Guidon. Practica (Doat, XXIX. 54). — MSS. Bib. Nat, fouds latin, No. 14930, fol. 214.

t Coll. Doat, XXI. 222.— Wadding. Annal. ann. 1300, No. 1.— Cf. Molinier, L'Inq. dans le midi de la France, pp. 400-1. I.— 30


466 THE SENTENCE.

into two classes — the greater and the less. In Languedoc the greater pilgrimages were customarily four — to Rome, Compos- tella, St. Thomas of Canterbury, and the Three Kings of Cologne. The smaller were nineteen in number, extending from shrines of local celebrity to Paris and Boulogne-sur-mer. The cases in which they were employed may be estimated by the sentence passed by Bernard Gui, in 1322, on three culprits whose only offence was that, some fifteen or twenty years before, they had seen Walden- sian teachers in their fathers' houses without knowing what they were. Commencing within three months, the penitents were re- quired to perform seventeen of the minor pilgrimages, reaching from Bordeaux to Yienne, bringing back, as usual, from each shrine testimonial letters of the visit. In this case it is specified that they were not obliged to wear the crosses, and I think it probable that this exempted them from scourging at each of the shrines, to which penitents with crosses would naturally be subjected. In one case, occurring in 1308, a culprit was excused from pilgrimages on ac- count of his age and weakness, and was only required to make two visitations a year in the city of Toulouse. Considerate humanity such as this is not sufficiently common in the annals of the Inqui- sition for an example of it to be passed in silence.*

At the inception of the Inquisition the pilgrimage universally ordered for men was that to Palestine, as a crusader. Indeed, the legate, Cardinal Romano, commanded this for all who were sus- pect of heresy. It seems to have been felt that the best use to which a heretic could be put, if he was to escape the fagot, was to make him aid in the defence of the Holy Land — a service of in- finite hardship and peril. In the wholesale persecutions in Lan- guedoc the numbers of these unwilling crusaders were so great that alarm was excited lest they should pervert the faith in the land of its origin, and about 1242 or 1243 a papal prohibition was issued, forbidding it for the future. The Council of Beziers, in 1246, commits to the discretion of the inquisitors whether penitents shall serve beyond seas, or send a man-at-arms to represent them, or fight the battles of the faith nearer home, against heretics or Saracens. The term of service was also left to the inquisitors, but


  • Arch, de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXVII. 11).— Lib. Sententt. Inq.

Tolosan. pp. 1, 340-1.


CRUSADES AS PENITENCE. 467

was usually for two or three years, though sometimes for seven or eight, and those who went to Palestine, if they were so fortunate as to return, were obliged to bring back testimonial letters from the Patriarch of Jerusalem or Acre. When Count Kaymond was preparing to fulfil his long-delayed vow of a crusade, in his eager- ness for recruits he procured in 124:7, from Innocent lY., a bull em- powering the Archbishop of Ausch and Bishop of Agen, within Raymond's dominions, to commute into a pilgrimage beyond seas the penance of temporary crosses and prison, and even when these were perpetual, if the consent could be had of the inquisitor who had uttered the sentence ; and the following year this was extended to those in the territories of the Counts of Montfort. Under this impulsion, the penance of crusading became common again. There is extant a notice given by the inquisitors of Carcassonne, October 5, 1251, in the church of St. Michael, to those wearing crosses and those relieved from them, that they must without fail sail for the Holy Land, as they had pledged themselves to do, in the next fleet ; and in the Register of Carcassonne the injunction of the crusade is of frequent occurrence. With the disastrous result of the ventures of St. Louis and the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusa- lem this form of penance gradually diminished, but it continued to be occasionally prescribed. As late as 1321 we find Guillem Garric condemned to go beyond seas with the next convoy and remain until recalled by the inquisitor; if legitimately impeded (which was hkely, as he was an old man who had rotted in a dun- geon for thirty years) he could replace himself with a competent fighting-man, and if he neglected to do so, he was condemned to perpetual prison. This sentence, moreover, affords one of the rare instances of banishment, for Guillem, besides furnishing a substi- tute, is ordered to expatriate himself to such place as shall be des- ignated, during the pleasure of the inquisitor.*

These penances did not interfere with the social position and self-respect of the penitent. Far heavier was the apparently sim-

  • Wadding. Annal. ann. 1238, No. 7.— Concil. Narhoun. ann, 1244 c. 2. —

Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 26, 29.— Bcrgcr, Les Rcgistrcs d'Innocent IV. No. 3508, 3677, 3806— Coll. Doat, XXXI. 17.— Vaissette, III. Pr. 468.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds lutin, nouv. acq. 139, fol. 8.— Molinicr, L'In(|. dans lo niidi dc la France, pp. 408-9.— Lib. Seutentt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 284-5.— Coll. Doat, XXI. 185, 186, 217.


4«S THE SENTENCE.

pie penalty of wearing the crosses, which was known as sl poena CO nf us lb Ills, or humiliating punishment. We have seen that al- ready, in 1208, St. Dominic orders his converted heretic to wear two small crosses on the breast in sign of his sin and repentance. It seems a contradiction that the emblem of the Redemption, so })roudly worn by the crusader and the military orders, should be to the convert an infliction almost unbearable, but when it became the sign of his sin and disgrace there were few inflictions which might not more readily be borne. The two little crosses of St. Dominic grew to conspicuous pieces of saffron-colored cloth, of which the arms were two and a half fingers in breadth, two and a half palms in height, and two palms in width, one sewed on the breast and the other on the back, though occasionally one on the breast sufficed. If the convert during his trial had committed per- jury, a second transverse arm was added at the top ; and if he had been a " perfected" heretic, a third cross was placed upon the cap. Another form w^as that of a hammer, worn by prisoners tempora- rily Uberated on bail ; and we have seen the red tongues fastened on false-witnesses, and the symbol of a letter inflicted on a forger, while other emblematical forms were prescribed, as the fancy of the inquisitor might dictate. They were never to be laid aside, in doors or out, and when worn out the penitent was obliged to re- new them. During the latter half of the thirteenth century those who went beyond seas might abandon their crosses during their crusade, but were obliged to reassume them on returning. In the earlier days of the Inquisition a term ranging from one year to seven or eight w^as usually prescribed, but in the later period it was always for life, unless the inquisitor saw fit, as a reward of good behavior, to remit it. Thus in the aitto defe of 1309 Ber- nard Gui permitted Raymonde, wife of Etienne Got, to remove the crosses which she had been condemned to wear, some forty years before, by Pons de Poyet and fitienne de Gatine.*


  • C. Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 36. — Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 8,

13, 130, 228.

In Italy the crosses appear to be of red cloth (Archiv. di Firenze, Pro v. S. Maria Novella, 31 Ott. 1327).

At an early period there is a single allusion to another ^^ poena confusibilis^^ in the shape of a wooden collar or yoke worn by the penitent. This occurs at La Charity, in 1233, and I have not met with it elsewhere (Ripoll, I. 46).


THE CROSSES. 4^,9

The Council of Xarbonne, in 1229, prescribed the wearing of these crosses by all converts who voluntarily abandoned heresy and returned to the faith of their own free w^ll, as an evidence of their detestation of their former errors. Apparently the penance w^as found hard to bear, and efforts Avere made to escape it, for the statutes of Kaymond, in 1234, and the Council of Beziers of the same year, threaten confiscation for all who refuse to wear them, or endeavor to conceal them. Subsequent councils renewed and extended the obligation on all who were reconciled to the Church  ; and that of Yalence, in 1248, decreed that all who disobeyed should be forced without mercy to resume them, and that abandoning them after due monition should be visited, like jail-breaking, with the full penalties of impenitent heresy. In a case recorded in 1251, a penitent preparing for a crusade seems to have thought himself authorized to abandon the crosses before starting, and, was sen- tenced to come to Carcassonne on the first Sunday of every month until his departure, barefooted and in shirt and drawers, and visit every church in the city, with a rod, to undergo scourging.*

Though this penance w^as regarded as merciful in comparison with imprisonment, it was not easily endurable, and we can readi- ly understand the sharp penalties required to enforce obedience. In the sentences of Pierre Cella it is only prescribed in aggravated cases, and then merely for from one to five years, though subse- quently it grew to be universal, and without a limit of time. The unfortunate penitent w^as exposed to the ridicule and derision of all whom he met, and was heavily handicapped in every effort to earn a livelihood. Even in the earlier time, when a majority of the population of Languedoc were heretics, and the cross-wearers were so numerous that their presence in Palestine was dreaded, the Council of Beziers, in 1246, feels obliged to warn the people that penitents should be welcomed and their cheerful endurance of penance should be a subject of gratulation for all the faithful, and therefore it strictly forbids ridicule of those who wear crosses, or refusal to transact business with them. Though penitents were


  • Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1229 c. 10. — Statut. Raymond! ann. 1234 (Harduin.

VII. 205). — Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1234 c. 4. — Concil. Tarraconens, ann. 1242. — Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 1. — Concil. Valentin, ann. 1248 c. 13. — Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 4.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, nouv. acq. 139, fol. 2.


470 tHE SENTENCE.

under the special protection of the Church, it had too zealously preached detestation of heresy to be able to control the feelings of the population towards those whom it thus saw fit to stigma- tize. A slight indication of this is seen in the case of Kaymonde Manifacier, who, in 1252, was cited before the Inquisition of Car- cassone for abandoning the crosses, when she urged in extenua- tion that the one on her cloak had been torn and she was too poor to replace it, while as regards that on her cape, her mistress, whom she served as nurse, had forbidden her to wear it and had given her a cape Avithout one. A stronger case is tliat already cited of Arnaud Isarn, who found, after a year's experience, that he could not earn a living while thus bearing the marks of his degrada- tion.*

The Inquisition recognized the intolerable hardships to which its penitents were exposed, and sometimes in mercy mitigated them. Thus, in 1250, at Carcassonne, Pierre Pelha receives per- mission to lay aside the crosses temporarily during a voyage which he is obliged to make to France. Bernard Gui assures us that young women were frequently excused from wearing them, because with them they would be unable to find husbands ; and among the formulas of his " Practica " one which exempts the penitent from crosses enumerates the various reasons usually assigned, such as the age or infirmity of the wearer (presumably rendering him a safe object of insult) or on account of his chil- dren, whom he may not otherwise be able to support, or for the sake of his daughters, whom he cannot marry. Still more sugges- tive are formulas of proclamations threatening to prosecute as impeders of the Inquisition and to impose crosses on those who ridicule such penitents or drive them away or prevent them from following their callings ; and the insufficiency of this is shown by still other formulas of orders addressed to the secular officials, who are required to see that no such outrages are perpetrated. Sometimes monitions of this kind formed part of the regular pro- ceedings of the autos de fL The wearing of the symbol of Chris- tianity was evidently a punishment of no slight character.^ The weU-known sanbenito of the modern Spanish Inquisition was de-


  • Coll. Doat, XXI. 185 sqq. — Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246 c. 6. — Molinier,

L'Inquis. dans le midi de la France, p. 412.— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. p. 350.


FINES. 471

rived from the scapular with saffron-colored crosses which was worn by those condemned to imprisonment, when on certain feast-days they were exposed at the church doors, that their misery and humiliation might serve as a warning to the people.*

It will be remembered that at the outset there was some dis- cussion as to whether it should be competent for the inquisitors to inflict the pecuniary penance of fines. The voluntary poverty and renunciation of money of the Mendicants, to whom the Holy OflBce was confided, had not yet become so obsolete that the incon- gruity could be overlooked of their using their almost hmitless discretion in levying fines and handling the money thence ac- cruing. That they commenced it early is shown by a sentence of 1237, already quoted, in which Pons Grimoardi, a voluntary con- vert, is required to pay to the order of the inquisitor ten hvres Morlaas, while in 1245, in Florence, one rendered by the indefati- gable inquisitor, Ruggieri Calcagni, shows that already fines were habitual there. It was not without cause, therefore, that the Coun- cil of Narbonne, in 1244, in its instructions to inquisitors, ordered them to abstain from pecuniary penances both for the sake of the honor of their Order and because they would have ample other work to do. The Order itself felt this to be the case, and as in- quisitors were not yet, at least in theory, emancipated from the control of their superiors, already, in 1242, the Provincial Chapter of Montpelher had endeavored to enforce the rules of the Order by strictly prohibiting them from inflicting pecuniary penances for the future, or from collecting those which had already been imposed. How httle respect was shown to these injunctions is visible from a buU of Innocent IV., in 1245, in which, to preserve the reputation of the inquisitors, he orders all fines paid over to two persons selected by the bishop and inquisitor, to be expended in building prisons and in supporting prisoners, in compliance with which the Council of Beziers, in 1246, abandoned the position taken by the Council of Narbonne, and agreed that the fines should be employed on the prisons, and in defraying the neces-


  • Molinier, op. cit. p. 404, 414-15. — Bernard. Guidon. Gravamina (Doat, XXX.

115). — Ejusd. Practica P. ii. (Doat, XXIX. 75).— Arch, de Tlnq. de Care. (Doat, XXXVII. 107, 135, 149).— Eyraeric. Direct. Inq. pp. 496-99.


4V2 THE SENTENCE.

sarv expenses of the Inquisition, possiWy because the good bishops found that tliey themselves were expected to meet these demands as appertaining to the episcopal jurisdiction. In an inquisitorial manual of the period this is specified as the destination of the fines, but the power was speedily abused, and in 1249 Innocent lY. sternly rebuked the inquisitors in general for the heavy exactions which they wrung from their converts, to the disgrace of the Holy See and the scandal of the faithful at large. This apparent- ly had no effect, and in 1251 he prohibited them whoUy from levying fines if any other form of penance could be employed. Yet the inquisitors finally triumphed and won the right to inflict pecuniary penances at discretion. These were understood to be for pious uses, in which term were included the expenses of the Inquisition  ; and as they were payable to the inquisitors themselves, they doubtless were so expended — it is to be hoped in accordance w^th the caution of Eymerich, " decently and without scandal to the laity." In the sentences of Fra Antonio Secco on the peas- ants of the Waldensian valleys in 1387, the penance of crosses is usually accompanied with a fine of five or ten florins of pure gold, payable to the Inquisition, nominally to defray the expenses of the trial. An attempt of the State to secure a share was defeated by a council of experts assembled at Piacenza in 1276 by the Lom- bard inquisitors, Fra Niccolo da Cremona and Fra Daniele da Gius- sano. A more decent use of the power to inflict money payments was one Avhich Pierre Cella, the first inquisitor of Toulouse, fre- quently employed, by adding to the pilgrimages or other penances imposed the obligation of maintaining a priest or a poor man for a term of years or for life.*

In the later period of the Inquisition it was argued that fines were inadmissible, because if the accused were a heretic aU his property disappeared in confiscation, while if he were not he


  • Vaissette, III. Pr. 386.— Lami, Antichitst Toscane, p. 560. — Concil. Narbonn.

ann. 1244 c. 17. — Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Quia te, 19 Jan. 1245 (Doat,XXXL 71).— Molinier, op. cit. pp. 23, 390. — Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 27. — Prac- tica super Inquisit. (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 222).— Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Gum a quibusdam, 14 Mai. 1249 (Boat, XXXI. 81, 116). — Coll. Boat, XXXIII. 198. — RipoU, 1. 194. — Eymeric. Direct. Inq. pp. 648-9, 653. — Zancbini Tract, de Haeret. c. xix., xx., xli.— Arcbivio Storico Italian©, No. 38, pp. 27, 42. — Campi, Dell' Hist. Eccles. di Piacenza, P. ii. p. 309.— Coll. Doat, XXI. 185 sqq.


COMMUTATIONS FOR MONEY. 473

should not be punished, but the inquisitors responded that, al- though this was true, there were fautors and defenders of heresy, and those whose heresy consisted merely in a thoughtless word, all of whom could legitimately be fined ; and the profitable abuse went on.*

Scarcely separable from the practice of fines was that of com- muting penances for money. When we remember how extensive and lucrative was the custom of commuting the vows of crusaders, it was inevitable that a similar abuse should flourish in the Church's dealings with the penitents whom the Inquisition had placed with- in its power. A ready excuse w^as found in the proviso that the sums thence arising should be spent in pious uses — and no use could be more pious than that of ministering to the wants of those who were zealously laboring for the purity of the faith. In this the Holy See set the example. We have seen how,in 1248, Algisius, the papal penitentiary, ordered the release, by authority of Innocent lY., of six prisoners who had confessed heresy, alleging as a reason the satisfactory contributions which they had made to the Holy Land. The same year Innocent formally authorized Algisius to commute the penalties of certain heretics, without re- gard to the inquisitors, and he fui:ther empowered the Archbishop of Ausch to transmute into subsidies the penances imposed on reconciled heretics. Raymond was preparing for his crusade, and the excuse was a good one. The heretics were eager to escape by sacrificing their substance, and the project promised to be profita- ble. In 1249, accordingly, Algisius was sent to Languedoc armed with power to commute aU inquisitorial penances into fines to be devoted to the needs of the Church and of the Holy Land, and to issue all necessary dispensations notwithstanding the privileges of the Inquisition. It is not to be supposed that the example was lost upon the inquisitors. Naturally enough, the cases which have reached us usually specify some pious work to which the funds were to be devoted, as when, in 1255, the inquisitors of Toulouse allowed twelve of the principal citizens of Lavaur to commute their penances into money to be contributed to building the church which was afterwards the Cathedral of Lavaur; and in 1258 they assisted the church of Najac in the same way by


  • Beniardi Comens. Lucerna Inquiait. s. y. Pcmam.


474: THE SENTENCE.

allowing a number of the iniiabitants to redeem their penalties for its benefit. The pubhc utility of bridges caused them to be in- cluded in the somewhat elastic term of pious uses. Thus, in 1310, at Toulouse, Mathieu Ay chard is released from wearing crosses and })erforming certain pilgrimages on condition of contributing forty livres Tournois to a new bridge then under construction at Tonneins ; and in a formula for such transactions given by Ber- nard Gui, absolution and dispensation from pilgrimages and other penances are said to be granted in consideration of the pay- ment of fifty livres for the building of a certain bridge, or of a certain church, or " to be spent in pious uses at our discretion." This last clause shows that commutations were by no means al- ways thus liberally disposed of, and in fact they often inured to the benefit of those imposing them. We have a specimen of this in letters of the Inquisitor of JSTarbonne in 1264, granting absolu- tion to Guillem du Puy in consideration of his giving one hundred and fifty livres Tournois to the Inquisition. The magnitude of these sums shows the eagerness of the penitents to escape, and the enormous power of extortion wielded by the inquisitor. If he was a man of integrity he could doubtless resist the temptation, but to the covetous and self-indulgent the opportunity of oppress- ing the helpless was almost unlimited. The system was kept up to the end. Under IN^icholas Y. Fray Miguel, the Inquisitor of Ara- gon, gave mortal offence to some high dignitaries in following cer- tain papal instructions, whereupon they maltreated him and kept him in prison for nine months. It was a flagrant case of imped- ing the Inquisition, and in 1458 Pius II. ordered the Archbishop of Tarragona to dig up the bones of one of the offenders who had died, and to send the rest to the Holy See for judgment — but he added that the archbishop might, at his discretion, substitute a mulct for the war against the Turks, to be transmitted to the papal camera. It goes without saying that the death-penalty could never legally be commuted."^

  • Arch, de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXI. 152). — Archives Nationales de

France, J. 430, No. 1 . — Berger, Les Registres d'Innoc. IV. No. 4093. — Vaissette, III. 460, 462. — Molinier, op. cit. pp. 173, 283-4, 391, 396, 397. —Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. p. 40.— Bern. Guidon. Practica (Doat, XXIX. 83).— Coll. Doat, XXXI. 292. — Arch. del'Inq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXV. 192).— Zanchini Tract, de Haeret, c, xix.


UNFULFILLED PENANCE. 475

Penitents who died before fulfilling their penance afforded a specially favorable opportunity for such transactions as these. Death, as we have seen, afforded no immunity from the jurisdic- tion of the Inquisition and in no wise abated its energy of prose- cution. There might be a distinction drawn in practice between those who were taken off while humbly performing the penance assigned to them, but before its completion, and those who had wil- fully neglected its commencement ; but legally the non-fulfilment of penance entailed condemnation for heresy whether in the dead or living. In 1329, for instance, the Inquisition of Carcassonne ordered the exhumation and cremation of the bones of seven per- sons declared to have died in heresy for not having fulfilled the penance enjoined on them, which of course carried with it the con- fiscation of their property and the subjection of their descendants to the usual disabilities. The Councils of Narbonne and Albi di- rected the inquisitors to exact satisfaction at discretion from the heirs of those who had died before judgment, if they would have been condemned to wear crosses, as well as those who had con- fessed and been sentenced, and who had not lived, whether to com- mence or to complete their penance. Gui Foucoix expresses his beUef that in these cases the penitent is admitted to purgatory, and he decides that nothing should be demanded from his heirs ; but even his authority did not overcome the more palatable doc- trine of the councils, and a contemporary manual directs the in- quisitor to exact a " congruous satisfaction.-' There is something peculiarly repulsive in the rapacity which thus followed beyond the grave those who had humbly confessed and repented and were received into the bosom of the Church, but the Inquisition was un- relenting and exacted the last penny. For instance, the Inquisitor of Carcassonne had prescribed five years' pilgrimage to the Holy Land for Jean Yidal, who died before performing it. March 21, 1252, his heirs, under citation, swore that his whole estate was worth twenty livres, and gave security to obey the decision of the inquisitor, which was announced the following August, and proved to be a demand for twenty livres — the entire value of his property. In another case, Raymonde Barbaira had died before accomplish- ing some pilgrimages with crosses to which she had been sen- tenced. An inventory of her property showed it to consist of some bedding, clothing, a chest, a few cattle, and four sous in


476 THE SENTENCE.

money, which had been divided up among her kindred, and from this pitiful inheritance the inquisitor, on March 7, 1256, de- manded forty sous, for the payment of which by Easter the heirs had to give security. Such petty and vulgar details as these give us a clearer insight into the spirit and working of the Inquisition, and of the grinding oppression which it exercised on the subject populations. Even in the case of fautors w^ho were not heretics, the heirs were obliged to perform any pecuniary penance which had been inflicted upon them.*

A more legitimate source of income, but yet one which opened the door to grave abuses, was the custom of taking bail, which of course was liable to forfeiture, serving, in such cases, as an irregu- lar form of commutation. This custom dated from the inception of the Inquisition, and was practised at every stage of the pro- ceedings, from the first citation to the final sentence, and even afterwards, when prisoners were sometimes liberated temporarily on giving security for their return. The convert who was ab- solved on abjuring was also required to give security that he would not relapse. Thus, in 1234, w^e see Lantelmo, a Milanese noble, ordered to give bail in two thousand lire, and two Florentine mer- chants bailed by their friends in two thousand silver marks. So, in 1244, the Baroni, of Florence, gave bail in one thousand fire to obey the mandates of the Church  ; and in 1252 a certain GuiUem Roger pledged one hundred livres that he would go beyond seas by the next fleet and serve there for two years. The security was always to be pecuniary, and the inquisitor was warned not to take it of heretics, for their offence implied confiscation, but this was not strictly observed, as in special cases friends were found who furnished the necessary pledges. Forfeited bail was pa^^able to the inquisitor, sometimes directly, and sometimes through the hands of the bishops, and was to be used for the expenses of the Inquisition. The usual form of bond pledged all the property of the principal and that of two sureties, jointly and severally ; and as a general rule bail may be said to have been universal, except

  • Arch, de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXVII. 236). — Concil. Narbonn. ann.

1244 c. 19. — Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 25. — Guid. Fulcod. Quaest. vii.— Practica super Inquisit. (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930 fol. 221-2).— Molinier, op. cit. pp. 365, 392. — Bernardi Comens. Lucerna Inquisit. s. v. Inqui»- itores, No. 18,


EXTORTIONATE ABUSES. 477

in cases where the offence was regarded as too serious to admit of it, or when the offender could not procure it.*

It was impossible that these methods of converting the sen- tences of the Inquisition into current coin could flourish without introducing widespread corruption. Admission to bail might be the result of favoritism or degenerate into covert bribery. The dis- cretion of the inquisitor ^vas so wide that bribery itself could be safely indulged in. A crime necessarily so secret as this form of ex- tortion cannot be expected to leave traces behind it, except in those cases in which it proved a failure, but sufficient instances of the latter are on record to show that the tribunals were surrounded by men who made a trade of their influence, real or presumed, with the judges. When these were incorruptible the business was sup- pressed with more or less success, but when they were acquisitive, they had ample fleld for unhallowed gain, to be wrung without stint or check from the subject populations both by bribery and extortion. Considering that ever}^ one above the age of seven was liable to the indelible suspicion of heresy by the mere fact of cita- tion, it will be seen what an opportunity lay before the inquisitor and his spies and familiars to practise upon the fears of aU, to sell exemptions from arrest, as well as to bargain for liberation. That these fruitful sources of gain were not abundantly worked would be incredible even in the absence of proof, but proof sufficient ex- ists. In 1302 Boniface YIII. ^vrote to the Dominican Provincial of Lombardy that the papal ears had been lacerated with com- plaints of the Franciscan inquisitors of Padua and Yicenza, whose malicious cupidity had wronged many men and women by exact- ing from them immense sums and inflicting on them all manner of injuries. When the pope naively adduces in cumulation of their


  • Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 17. — C. Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 15. —

Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Cum venerabilis, 29 Jan. 1253 ; Bull. Cum per Twstras, 30 Jan. 1253; Bull. Super extirpatione, 30 Mai. 1254.— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Super extirpatione, 13 Nov. 1258, 20 Sept. 1259; Bull. Ad audientiam, 23 Jan. 1260. — Berger, Les Registres (rinnoc. IV. No. 3904.— Ripoll, I. 69, 71, 223-4, 247.— Lami, Antichita Toscane, p. 576. — MS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, nouv. acquis. 139 fol. 43.— Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. p. 638. — Zanchini Tract, de Haeret. c. xix.— Bern. Guidon. Practica P. v. (Doat, XXX.).— Albert. Repert. Inq. s. v. Cautlo.

The riglit to offer bail, except in capital offences, was one thoroughly recog- nized by the secular law. See, for instance, Isambert, Anc. Loix Fran9. III. 57.


478 THE SENTENCE.

villainy that tliese wrong-doers had not employed the illicit gains for the benelit of the Holy Ollice, or of the Roman Church, or even of their own Order, he affords ground for the suspicion that a judicious distribution of the spoils secured silent condonation of such offences in many cases. He had sent Gui, Bishop of Saintes, to investigate these complaints, who reported them well founded, and he orders the provincial to replace the delinquents with Do- minicans. The change brought little relief, for the very next year Mascate de' Mosceri, a jurist of Padua, appealed to Benedict from the new Dominican inquisitor, Fra Benigno, who was vexing him with prosecutions in order to extort money from him ; and in 1304 Benedict was obliged to address to the inquisitors of Padua and Yicenza a grave warning as to the official complaints which still arose about their fraudulent prosecution of good Catholics by means of false witnesses. It is easy to understand the complaint made by the stricter Franciscans that the inquisitors of their Or- der rode around in state in place of walking barefoot as was pre- scribed by the rule. At this very time, moreover, the Dominicans of Languedoc w^ere the subject of precisely similar arraignment on the part of the communities subjected to them. Pedress in this case was long in coming, but at last the investigation set on foot by Clement Y. convinced him of the truth of the facts alleged, and at the Council of Yienne, in 1311, he caused the adoption of canons, embodied in the Corpus Juris, which placed on record con- spicuously his conviction that the inquisitorial office was frequent- ly abused by the extortion of money from the innocent and the escape of the guilty through bribery. The remedy which he de- vised, of ijpso facto excommunication in such cases, was complained of by Bernard Gui on the ground that it would invahdate the rightful acts, as well as the evil ones, of the wrong-doer ; which only serves to show the vicious circle in which the whole business moved. Yet neither the hopes of Clement nor the fears of Ber- nard were justified by the result. The inquisitors continued to en- rich themselves and the people to suffer untold miseries. In 1338 a papal investigation was made of a transaction by which tiie city of Albi purchased, by the payment of a sum of money to the In- quisitor of Carcassonne, the liberation of some citizens accused of heresy. In 1337 Benedict XII. ordered his nuncio in Italy, Ber- trand, Archbishop of Embrun, to investigate the complaints which


EXTORTIONATE ABUSES. 479

came from all parts of Italy that the inquisitors extorted money, received presents, allowed the guilty to escape, and punished the innocent, through hatred or avarice, and empowered him to make removals in consequence  ; and the exercise of this power shows that the complaints were well founded. The effects of the meas- ure, however, were evanescent. In 1346 the whole republic of Florence rose against their inquisitor, Piero di Aquila, for various abuses, among which figured extortion. He fled and refused to return during the investigation which followed, in spite of the of- fer of a safe-conduct. A single witness swore to sixty-six cases of extortion, and in a partial list of them which has been preserved the sums exacted vary from twenty-five to seventeen hundred gold florins, showing how unlimited were the profits which tempted the unscrupulous. Yillani tells us that in two years he had thus amassed more than seven thousand florins, an enormous sum in those days ; that there were no heretics in Florence at the time, and that the offences which thus proved so lucrative to Mm con- sisted of usury and thoughtless blasphemy. As for usury, Alvaro Pelayo tells us that at that time the bishops of Tuscany set the example by habitually so employing the church funds, but the in- quisitors did not meddle with the prelates. As for blasphemy, the subtle refinements which converted simple blasphemous expres- sions into heresy, as set forth by Eymerich, show how readily a skiKul inquisitor could speculate on idle oaths. Boccaccio doubtless had Fra Piero in memory when he described the recent inquisitor of Florence who, like all his brethren, had an eye as keen to dis- cover a rich man as a heretic, and who extracted a heavy doucev/r from a citizen for boasting in his cups that he had wine so good that Christ would drink it. The keenness which thus made profit- able business for the Holy Office, when heresy was declining, is illustrated by the case of Marie du Canech, a money-changer of Cambrai, in 1403. In a case before the Ordinary she incautiously- expressed the opinion that when under oath she was not bound to give. evidence against her own honor and interest. For this the deputy inquisitor, Frere Nicholas de Peronne, prosecuted her and condemned her to various penances, including nine years' absten- tion from business and eighty gold crowns for expenses."'^


Molinier, op. cit. pp. 299-302. — Arch, de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Do«it,


480 THE SENTENCE.

These abuses continued to the last. Cornelius Agrippa tells us that it was customary for inquisitors to convert corporal punish- ments into pecuniary ones and even to exact annual payments as the price of forbearance. When he was in the Milanese, about 1515, there was a disturbance caused by their secretly extorting lai'ge sums from women of noble birth, whose husbands at length discovered it, and the inquisitors were glad to escape with their lives.*

I have dwelt at some length upon this feature of the Inquisi- tion because it is one which has rarely received attention, although it inflicted misery and wrong to an almost unlimited extent. The stake consumed comparatively few victims. While the horrors of the crowded dungeon can scarce be exaggerated, yet more ef- fective for evil and more widely exasperating was the sleepless w^atchfulness which was ever on the alert to plunder the rich and to wrench from the poor the hard-earned gains on which a family


XXXIV. 5. It is perhaps worthy of note that Ripoll, in printing this bull of Boniface VIII., T. II. p. 61, discreetly suppresses the details of inquisitorial wrong-doing).— Grandjean, Registres de Benoit XI. No. 169, 509.— Chron. Girar- di de Fracheto Contin. ann. 1303 (D. Bouquet, XXL 22-3).— Articuli Trans- gressionum (Archiv. fiir Litt.- u. Kircliengeschichte, 1887, p. 104). — C. 1, § 4, c. 2 Clement, v. 3.— Bernard. Guidon. Gravamina (Doat, XXX. 118-19).— Coll. Doat, XXXV. 113.— Ripoll, VII. 61.— Archivio di Firenze, Riformagioni, Classe XI. Distinz. I. No. 39. — Villani, Cronica, xii. 58.— Alvar. Pelag. de Planet. Ec- cles. Lib. ii. art. vii.— Eymeric. Direct. Inq. p. 332. — Decamerone, Giom. I. Nov. 6. — Archives administratives de Reims, III. 641.

The strictness with which the canons against usury were construed is illus- trated in a case decided by the University of Paris in 1490. The Faculty of Theology was consulted as to the righteousness of a contract under which a cer- tain church had bought for three hundred livres an annual rent of twenty livres arising from certain lands, with the right of recalling the purchase-money after two months' notice; while by a separate agreement the land-owner had the right of redemption for nine years. This is doubtless a specimen of the means adopted of evading the prohibition of interest payment, which must have grown frequent with the development of commerce and industry. The contract ran for twenty-six years before it was questioned and referred to the University. A commission of twelve doctors of theology was appointed, who discussed the su])ject thoroughly, and reported, eleven to one, that the contract was usurious, and that the annual payments must be computed as partial payments on account of the purchase-money (D'Argentrg, Collect. Judic. de no v. Error. I. n. 323).

  • ♦ Cornel. Agrippa de Vanitate Scientiar. cap. xcvi.


DESTRUCTION OF HOUSES. 481

depended for support. It was only in rare cases that the victims dared to raise a cry, and rarer still were those in which that cry was heard ; but sufficient instances have reached us to prove what a scourge was the institution, in this aspect alone, on all the pop- ulations cursed by its presence. At a very early period the wealthy already recognized that well-timed hberahty was advisable towards those who held such power in the hollow of their hands. In 1244 the Dominican Chapter of Cahors lifted a warning voice and or- dered inquisitors not to aUow their brethren to receive presents which would expose the whole Order to disrepute ; but this scru- pulousness wore off, and even a man of high character like Ey- merich could argue that inquisitors may properly be the recipients of gifts, though he dubiously adds that they ought to be refused from those under trial, except in special circumstances. As the accounts of the Inquisition were rendered only to the papal camera, it will be seen how little the officials had to dread investigation and ex- posure. As little had they to fear the divine wrath, for their very functions, while thus engaged, insured them plenary indulgence for aU sins confessed and repented. Thus secure, here and hereafter, they were virtually reUeved from all restraint.*

There was one purely temporal penalty which came within the competence of the Inquisition — the designation of the houses which were to be destroyed in consequence of the contamination of heresy. The origin of this curious practice is not readily traced. Under the Koman law, buildings in which heretics held their conventicles with the owner's consent were not torn down, but were forfeited to the Church. Yet as soon as heresy began to be formidable we find their destruction commanded by secular rulers with singular unanimity. The earhest provision I have met with occurs in the assizes of Clarendon in 1166, which order the razing of all houses in which heretics were received. The example was followed by the Emperor Henry YI. in the edict of Prato, in 1194, by Otho lY. in 1210, and by Frederic II. in the edict of Kavenna, in 1232, as an addition to his coronation - edict of 1220, from which it had been omitted. It had already been adopted in the code of Yerona in 1228 in aU cases in which the owner, after eight days' notice,


  • Molinier, op. cit. p. 307.— Eymeric. Direct. Inq. p. 650, 685.

I.— 31


482 THE SENTENCii.

neglected to expel heretic occupants  ; it is found in the statutes of Florence a few years later, and is included in the papal bulls de- fining the procedure of the Inquisition. In France the Council of Toulouse, in 1229, decreed that any house in which a heretic was found was to be destroyed, and this was given the force of secular law by Count Kaymond in 1234. It naturally forms a feature of the legislation of the succeeding councils which regu- lated the inquisitorial proceedings, and was adopted by St. Louis. Castile, in fact, seems to be the only land in which the regulation was not observed, owing doubtless to the direct derivation of its legislation from the Koman law, for, in the Partidas, houses in which heretics were sheltered are ordered to be given to the Church. Elsewhere such dwellings were razed to the ground, and the site, as accursed, was to remain forever a receptacle for filth and unfit for human habitation ; yet the materials could be em- ployed for pious uses unless they were ordered to be burned by the inquisitor who rendered the sentence. This sentence was ad- dressed to the parish priest, with directions to pubhsh it for three successive Sundays during divine service.*

In France the royal officials in charge of the confiscations came at length to object to this destruction of property, which, was sometimes considerable, as the castle of the seigneur was as Uable to it as the cabin of the peasant. In 1329 it forms one of the points for which the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, Henri de Chamay, asked and obtained the confirmation of Philippe de Yalois, and the same year he had the satisfaction, in an auto held in September, to order the destruction of four houses, and a farm, whose owners had been hereticated in them on their death-beds. Some fifty years later, however, a quarrel on the subject between the king's repre- sentatives and the inquisitors of Dauphine resulted differently. Charles le Sage, after consulting with the pope, issued letters of


  • Constt, v., vin. § 3, Cod. I. v. — Assis. Clarendon. Art. 21. — Lami, Antichitit

Toscane, p. 124.— Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. T. IV. pp. 299-300.— Lib. Juris Civilis Veronse c. 156 (Ed. 1728, p. 117).— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Ad extirpanda, § 21.— Con- cil. Tolosan. ann. 1229 c. 6.— Statut. Raymondi ann. 1234 (Harduin. Vlt. 203).— Vaissette, HI. Pr. 370-1. — Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 35. — Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 6. — ]^tablissements, Liv. i. c. 36. — Siete Partidas, P. vii. Tit. xxvi. 1. 5.— Bern. Guidon. Practica (Doat, XXIX. 89).— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolo' san. pp. 4, 80-1, 168.


DISCRETIONARY PENALTIES. 483

October 19, 1378, ordering that the penalty should no longer be enforced. The independent spirit of northern Germany mani- fested itself in the same manner, and in the Sachsenspiegel there is a peremptory command that no houses shall be destroyed except for rape committed within them. In Italy the custom continued, as there the confiscations did not inure to the sovereign, but it was held that if the owner had no guilty knowledge of the use made of his house he was entitled to keep it. Lawyers disputed, how- ever, as to the perpetuity of the prohibition to build on the spot, some holding that possession by a Catholic for forty years con- ferred a right to erect a new house, which others denied, arguing that a perpetual and imprescriptible servitude had been created. The inquisitors, in process of time, arrogated to themselves the power to issue licenses to build anew on these sites, and this right they exercised, doubtless, to their own profit, though they might not have found it easy to cite authority for it.*

Another temporal penalty may be alluded to as illustrating the unlimited discretion enjoyed by the inquisitors in imposing penance. When, in 1321, the town of Cordes made humble submission for its long-continued insubordination to its bishop and inquisitor, the penance assigned to the community by Bernard Gui and Jean de Beaune was the construction of a chapel of such size as might be ordered, in honor of St. Peter Martyr, St. Cecilia, St. Louis, and St. Dominic, with the statues of those saints in wood or stone above the altar ; and, to complete the humiliation of the community, the portal was to be adorned with statues of the bishop and of the two inquisitors, the whole to be finished within two years, under a pen- alty of five hundred livres Tournois, which was to be doubled for a delay of another two years. Doubtless the people of Cordes built the chapel without delay, but they hesitated at this glorifying of their oppressors, for, twenty-seven years afterwards, in 13'48, we find the municipal authorities summoned before the Inquisition of Toulouse and compelled to give pledges that the portal shall forthwith be completed and the inquisitorial effigies be erected.f

  • Isambert, Anc. Loix Fran9aises, IV. 364 ; V. 491.— Ripoll, I. 252.— Arch, de

rinq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXVII. 248). — Sachsenspiegel, Buch iii. Art. I.— Zanchini Tract, de Ilaeret. c. xxxix., xl.

t Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. 280.— Arch, de Tlnq. de Care. (Doat, XXXV. 122).


484 THE SENTENCE.

The severest penance the inquisitor coukl impose was incarcera- tion. It was, according to the theory of the inquisitors, not a pun- ishment, but a means by which the penitent could obtain, on the bread of tribulation and Avater of affliction, pardon from God for his sins, while at the same time he was closely supervised to see that he persevered in the right path and was segregated from the rest of the flock, thus removing all danger of infection. Of course it Avas only used for converts. The defiant heretic who persisted in disobedience, or who pertinaciously refused to confess his heresy and asserted his innocence, could not be admitted to penance, and was handed over to the secular arm.*

In the bull Excommunicamus of Gregory IX., in 1229, all who after arrest were converted to the faith through fear of death were ordered to be incarcerated for life, thus to perform appropriate penance. The Council of Toulouse almost simultaneously made the same regulation, and manifested its sense of the real value of the involuntary conversions by adding the caution that they be prevented from corrupting others. The Ravenna decree of Fred- eric II., in 1332, adopted the same rule and made it settled legal practice. The Council of Aries, in 1234, called attention to the perpetual backsliding of those converted by force, and ordered the bishops to enforce strictly the penance of perpetual prison in all such cases. As yet the relapsed were not considered as hopeless, and were not abandoned to the secular court, or " relaxed," but were similarly imprisoned for life.f

The Inquisition at its inception thus found the rule established, and enforced it with the relentless vigor which it manifested in aU its functions. It was represented as a special mercy shown to those who had forfeited all claims on human compassion. There were to be no exemptions. The Council of Narbonne, in 1244,

  • Zanchini Tract, de Haeret. c. x.

t Gregor. PP. IX. Bull. Excommunicamus^ 20 Aug. 1229. — Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1229 c. 9.— Hist. Diplom. Frid. H. T. IV. p. 300.— Concil. Arelatens. ann. 1234 c. 6.— Vaissette, III. Pr. 314.

Gregory's bull, as inserted in the canon law, provides perpetual imprisonment for those who " redire noluerint " (C. 15, § 1, Extra v. vii.), which is self-evidently an error for " voluerint,^ as the previous section directs that persistent heretics are to be handed over to the secular arm. Besides, Frederic's Ravenna decree, issued soon after, in prescribing lifelong imprisonment for converts, speaks of this being in accordance with the canons.


PENANCE OF IMPRISONMENT. 485

specifically declared that, except when special indulgence could be procured from the Holy See, no husband was to be spared on ac- count of his wife, or wife on account of her husband, or parent in consideration of helpless children; neither sickness nor old age should claim mitigation. Every one who did not come forward within the time of grace and confess and denounce his acquaint- ances was liable to this penance, which in all cases was to be hfe- long ; but the prevalence of heresy in Languedoc was so great, and the terror inspired by the activity of the inquisitors grew so strong, that those who had allowed the allotted period to elapse flocked in, begging for reconciUation, in such multitudes that the good bishops declare not only that funds for the support of such crowds of prisoners were lacking, but even that it would be impossible to find stones and mortar sufficient to build prisons for them. The inquisitors are therefore instructed to delay incarceration in these cases, unless impenitence, relapse, or flight, is to be apprehended, until the pleasure of the pope can be learned. Apparently Inno- cent lY. was not disposed to leniency, for in 1246 the Council of Beziers sternly orders the imprisonment of all who have overstayed the time of grace, while counselling commutation when it Avould entail evident peril of death on parents or children. Imprison- ment thus became the usual punishment, except of obstinate heretics, who were burned. In a single sentence of Feburary 19, 1237, at Toulouse, some twenty or thirty penitents are thus con- demned, and are ordered to confine themselves in a house until prisons can be built. In a fragment which has been preserved of the register of sentences in the Inquisition of Toulouse from 121:6 to 1248, comprising one hundred and ninety-two cases, with the exception of forty -three contumacious absentees, the sentence is in- variably imprisonment. Of these, one hundred and twenty-seven are perpetual, six are for ten years, and sixteen for an indefinite period, as may seem expedient to the Church. It apparently was not till a later period that the order of the Council of Narbonne was obeyed, and the sentence always was for life. In the later periods this proportion will not hold good, for all inquisitors were not like the fierce Bernard de Caux, who then ruled the Holy Office in Toulouse ; but perpetual imprisonment remained to the last the principal penance indicted on penitents, although the decrees of Frederic and the canons of the councils of Toulouse and Narbonne


486 THE SENTENCE.

were not held to apply to those who abjured heartily after ar- rest.*

In the later sentences which have reached us it is often not easy to guess why one prisoner is incarcerated and another let off with crosses, when the offences enumerated as to each would seem to be indistinguishable. The test between the two probably was one which does not appear on the record. All alike were converts, but he whose conversion appeared to be hearty and spontaneous was considered to be entitled to the easier penance, while the harsher one was inflicted when the conversion seemed to be en- forced and the result of fear. Yet how relentlessly a man like Bernard Gui, who represents the better class of inquisitors, could enforce the strict measure of the law is seen in the case of Pierre Raymond Dominique, who had been cited to appear in 1309, had fled and incurred excommunication, had consequently, in 1315, been condemned as a contumacious heretic, and in 1321 had voluntarily come forward and surrendered himself on a promise that his life should be spared. His acts of heresy had not been flagrant, and he pleaded as an excuse for his contumacy his wife and seven chil- dren, who would have starved had they been deprived of his labor, but in spite of this he was incarcerated for life. Even the stern Bernard de Caux was not always so merciless. In 1246, we find him, in sentencing Bernard Sabbatier, a relapsed heretic, to per- petual imprisonment, adding that as the culprit's father is a good Catholic and old and sick, the son may remain with him and sup- port him as long as he lives, meanwhile wearing the crosses.f

There were two kinds of imprisonment, the milder, or " murua la/rgus^ and the harsher, known as murus strictus^^ or durus'^'* or " a/rctusy AU were on bread and water, and the confinement, according to rule, was solitary, each penitent in a separate ceU, with no access allowed to him, to prevent his being corrupted or corrupting others ; but this could not be strictly enforced, and about 1306 Geoff roi d'Ablis stigmatizes as an abuse the visits of


  • Concil. Tarraconens. ann. 1242.— Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 9, 1^. — Con-

cil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 20.— Coll. Doat, XXI. 152.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 9992.— Bern. Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).

t Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. passim^ pp. 347-9. — Eymeric. Direct. Inq. p. 507. — MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 9992.— Practica super Inquisit. (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 222).


PENANCE OF IMPRISONMENT. 487

clergy, and laity of both sexes, permitted to prisoners. Husband and wife, however, were allowed access to each other if either or both were imprisoned ; and late in the fourteenth century Eyme- rich agrees that zealous Cathohcs may be admitted to visit prisoners, but not women and simple folk who might be perverted, for con- verted prisoners, he adds, are very liable to relapse, and to infect others, and usually end with the stake.*

In the milder form, or " murus largus^'* the prisoners apparently were, if well behaved, allowed to take exercise in the corridors, where sometimes they had opportunities of converse with each other and with the outside world. This privilege was ordered to be given to the aged and infirm by the cardinals who investigated the prison of Carcassonne and took measures to alleviate its rigors. In the harsher confinement, or " murus strictus^'^ the prisoner was thrust into the smallest, darkest, and most noisome of cells, with chains on his feet — in some cases chained to the wall. This pen- ance was inflicted on those whose offences had been conspicuous, or who had perjured themselves by making incomplete confessions, the matter being wholly at the discretion of the inquisitor. I have met with one case, in 1328, of aggravated false- witness, condemned to ^ murus strictissimus^ with chains on both hands and feet. When the culprits were members of a religious order, to avoid scandal the proceedings were usually held hi private, and the im- prisonment would be ordered to take place in a convent of their own Order. As these buildings, however, usually were provided with cells for the punishment of offenders, this was probably of no great advantage to the victim. In the case of Jeanne, widow of B. de la Tour, a nun of Lespenasse, in 1246, who had committed acts of both Catharan and Waldensian heresy, and had prevari- cated in her confession, the sentence was confinement in a separate cell in her own convent, where no one was to enter or see her, her food being pushed in through an opening left for the purpose — in fact, the hving tomb known as the " in j^ace^ \

  • Arch, de Tlnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXIII. 143). — Concil. Biterrens. ann.

1246 c. 23, 25.— Eymeric. Direct. Inq. p. 507.

t Arch, de I'hotel-de-ville d'Albi (Doat, XXXIV. 45).— Bern. Guidon. Gravam. (Doat, XXX. 100).— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 32, 200, 287.— Arch, de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXVII. 13G, 150).— MS8. Bib. Nat., fonds hitin, No. 9992.

The cruelty of the monastic system of imprisonment known as in pace^ or


488 THE SENTENCE.

I have already alluded to the varying treatment designedly practised in the detentive imprisonment of those who were under trial. When there was no special object to be attained by cru- elty, this probably was as mild as could reasonably be expected. From occasional indications in the trials, it would seem that con- siderable intercourse was allowed with the outside world, as well as between the prisoners themselves, though watchful care was enjoined to prevent communication of any kind which might tend to harden the prisoner against a full confession of his sins.^

The prisons themselves were not designed to lighten the pen- ance of confinement. At best the jails of the Middle Ages were frightful abodes of misery. The seigneurs - justiciers and cities obliged to maintain them looked upon the support of prisoners as a heavy charge of which they would gladly relieve themselves. If a debtor was thrust into a dungeon, although the law limited his confinement to forty days and ordered him to be comfortably fed, these prescriptions were customarily eluded, for the worse he was treated the greater effort he would make to release himself. As for criminals, bread and water were their sole diet, and if they perished through neglect and starvation it was a saving of ex- pense. The prisoner who had money and friends could naturally obtain better treatment by liberal payment ; but this alleviation was not often to be looked for in the case of heretics whose prop- erty had been confiscated, and with whom sympathy was danger- ous, f

vade inpacem^ was such that those subjected to it speedily died in all the agonies of despair. In 1350 the Archbishop of Toulouse appealed to King John to in- terfere for its mitigation, and he issued an Ordonnance that the superior of the convent should twice a month visit and console the prisoner, who, moreover, should have the right twice a month to ask for the company of one of the monks. Even this slender innovation provoked the bitterest resistance of the Dominicans and Franciscans, who appealed to Pope Clement VI., but in vain. — Chron. Bardin, ann. 1350 (Vaissette, IV. Pr. 29).

The hideous abuse of keeping a prisoner in chains was forbidden by the con- temporary English law (Bracton, Lib. iii. Tract, i. cap. 6).

  • Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 102, 153, 231, 252-4, 301. — Muratori Antiq.

Dissert, lx. (T. XIL p. 519).— Bern. Guidon. Practica P. v. (Doat, XXX.).— Arch, de rinq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXVII. 7).

t Beaumanoir, Coutumes du Beauvoisis, cap. 51, No. 7. — G. B. de Lagr^ze, La Navarre Fran9aise, 11. 339.


PENANCE OF IMPRISONMENT. 489

The enormous number of captives resulting from the vigorous operations of the Inquisition in Languedoc had rendered the ques- tion as to the duty of building and maintaining prisons one of no httle magnitude. It unquestionably rested with the bishops, whose laches in persecuting heresy were only made good by the inquisitors, and the bishops, at the Council of Toulouse, in 1229, had admitted this, only excepting that when the heretic had prop- erty those to whom the confiscations inured should provide for him. The burden, however, proved unexpectedly large, and we find them, in the Council of Narbonne, in 1244, trying to shift their responsibility by suggesting that the penitents who, but for the recent papal command, would be sent on crusades, should be utiUzed in building prisons and furnishing them with necessaries, " lest the prelates be overburdened with the poor converts, and be unable to provide for them on account of their multitude." Two years later, at Beziers, they declared that provision for both con- struction and maintenance ought to be made by those who prof- ited by the confiscations, to which might be added the fines im- posed by the inquisitors, which was not unreasonable ; but in 1249 Innocent lY. still asserted that it was their business, and scolded them for not attending to it, and ordered that they be compelled to do it. At length, in 1254, the Council of Albi definitely de- cided that the holders of confiscated property should make provi- sion for the imprisonment and maintenance of its former owners, and that, when heretics had nothing to confiscate, the cities or lords on whose lands they were captured should be responsible for them, and should be compelled by excommunication to attend to it. Still, the responsibility of the bishops was so self-evident that some zealous inquisitors talked of prosecuting them as fautors of heresy for neglecting to provide prisons, but Gui Foucoix discreet- ly advises against this, and recommends that such cases should be referred to the Holy See.*


In the accounts of the S6n6chausse6 of Toulouse for 1337 there is an item of twenty sols expended in Nov., 1333, for straw for the prisoners to lie on, lest they should perish with cold during the winter. Other items, amounting to eighty- three sols eleven deniers, for the repairs of the fetters and shackles which they wore shows the rigor of their confinement— Vaissette, fid. Privat, X. Pr. 798-99.

  • Concil. Tolosan. ann. 1229 c. 11. — Concil. Valentin, ann. 1234 c. 5.— Con-

cil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 4. — Coll. Doat, XXXI. 157. — Concil. Biterrcns. ann.


400 THE SENTENCE.

The fate of the unfortunate captives was evidently most pre- carious while their oppressors and despoilers were thus squabbling as to the cost of keeping them in jail and providing them with bread and water. There was evident fitness that those who prof- ited by the enormous confiscations resulting from persecution should at least provide prisons and maintenance for the unhappy victims of fanaticism and greed ; and St. Louis, to whom the chief profits came as suzerain of the territories ceded at the Treaty of Paris, recognized in part his responsibihty. In 1233 he undertook to provide prisons in Toulouse, Carcassonne, and Beziers. In 1246 he ordered his seneschal to provide for the inquisitors competent prisons in Carcassonne and Beziers, and to furnish daily bread and water for the prisoners. In 1258 we find him ordering his seneschal of Carcassonne to bring to speedy completion those which had been commenced ; he assumes that the prelates and barons on whose lands heretics are captured should provide for their maintenance; but, in order to avoid trouble, he is wiUing that expenditures for this purpose shall be made from the royal funds, to be subsequently collected from the seigneurs. "With the death of Alfonse and Jeanne of Toulouse, in 1272, all the territo- ries lapsed to the crown, and, with insignificant exceptions, all the confiscations fell to the king. Henceforth the maintenance of prisons and prisoners, and the wages of jailers and attendants, were defrayed by the crown, except perhaps at Albi, where the bishop shared in the spoils, and seems to have been held to a por- tion of the expenses. Among the requests of Henri de Chamay, granted in 1329 by Philippe de Yalois, is that the inquisitorial prison at Carcassonne shall be repaired by the king, and that all who have shared in the confiscations shall be made to contribute j^To rata. Thereupon the seneschal assessed the Count of Foix to the extent of three hundred and two livres eleven sols nine deniers, which the latter refused to pay, and appealed to the king, with what result is not known. From a decision of the Parle- ment of Paris in 1304 it appears that the royal allowance for main- tenance was three deniers per diem for each convicted prisoner, which would seem liberal enough, though Jacques de Pohgnac,


1246, Append, c. 23, 27. — Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Cum sicut, 1 Mart. 1249 (Doat, XXXI. 114).— Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 24.— Guid. Fulcod. Quaest. x.


PENANCE OF IMPRISONMENT. 491

who had charge of the prison at Carcassonne, and who was pun- ished for his frauds, made out his accounts at the rate of eight deniers. This extravagance was not a precedent, and in 1337 we find the accounts still made out at the old rate of three deniers. For the accused detained and awaiting trial the Inquisition itself presumably had to provide. In Italy, where the confiscations, as we shall see, were divided into thirds, the Inquisition was self-sup- porting. In Naples the royal prisons were employed, and a royal order was required for incarceration.^

While the penance prescribed was a diet of bread and water, the Inquisition, with unwonted kindness, did not object to its prisoners receiving from their friends contributions of food, wine, money, and garments, and among its documents are such frequent allusions to this that it may be regarded as an established custom. Collections were made among those secretly incMned to heresy to alleviate the condition of their incarcerated brethren, and it argues much in favor of the disinterested zeal of the persecuted that they were willing to incur the risk attendant on this benevolence, for any interest shown towards these poor wretches exposed them to accusation to fautorship.f

The prisons were naturally built with a view to economy of construction and space rather than to the health and comfort of the captives. In fact the papal orders were that they should be constructed of small, dark cells for solitary confinement, only tak- ing care that the " enormis rigor " of the incarceration should not extinguish life. M. Molinier's description of the Tour de T Inqui- sition at Carcassonne, which was used as the inquisitorial prison^ shows how literally these instructions were obeyed. It was a hor- rible place, consisting of small cells, deprived of all light and ven- tilation, where through long years the miserable inmates endured


  • Molinier, op. cit. p. 435. — Vaissette, III. Pr. 536.— Vaissette, fid. Privat,

VIII. 1206.-Arch. de I'hotel-de-ville d'Albi (Doat, XXXIV. 45).— Bern. Guidon. Gravam. (Doat, XXX. 109). — Isambert. Anc. Loix Fran9aises, IV. 3G4. — Vais- sette, tj(\. Privat, X. Pr. 693-4, 813-14.— Les Olim, III. 148.— HaurCau, Bernard D61icieux, p. 19.— Arcliivio di Napoli, Reg. 113, Lett. A, fol. 385  ; Reg. 154, Lett. C, fol. 81  ; MSS. Chioccorello, T. VIII.

t Arch, de I'lnq. do Carcassonne (Doat, XXVII. 14, 16). — Muratori Antiq. Dissert, lx. (T. XII. pp. 500, 507, 529, 535).— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 252- 4, 307.— Tract, de Heeres. Paup. dc Lugd. (Martene Thesaur. V. 1786).


492 THE SENTENCE.

a living deatli far worse tlian the short agony of the stake. In tliese abodes of cles})air they were completely at the mercy of the jailers and their servants. Complaints were not listened to ; if a prisoner alleged violence pr ill-treatment his oath was contemptu- ously refused, while that of the prison officials was received. A glimpse into the discipline of these establishments is afforded by the instructions given, in 1282, by Frere Jean Galande, Inquisitor of Carcassonne, to the jailer Raoul and his wife Bertrande, whose management had been rather lax. Under pain of irrevocable dis- missal he is prohibited in future from keeping scriveners or horses in the prison ; from borrowing money or accepting gifts from the prisoners ; from retaining the money or effects of those who die ; from releasing prisoners or allowing them to go beyond the first door, or to eat with him ; from employing the servants on any other work or sending them anywhere, or gambling with them, or permitting them to gamble with each other. "^

Evidently a prisoner who had money could obtain ilhcit favors from the honest Raoul ; but these injunctions make no allusion to one of the most crying abuses which disgraced the establishments — the retention by the jailers of the moneys and provisions placed in their hands by the friends of the imprisoned. Frauds of all kinds naturally grew up among aU who were concerned in dealing with these helpless creatures. In 1304 Hugolin de Polignac, the custodian of the royal prison at Carcassonne, was tried on charges of embezzling a part of the king's allowance, of carrying the names of prisoners on the rolls for years after their death, and of retain- ing the moneys contributed for them by their friends; but the evidence was insufficient to convict him. The cardinals whom Clement Y. commissioned soon after to investigate the abuses of the Inquisition of Languedoc intimate broadly the nature of the frauds habitually practised, when they required the new jailers whom they appointed to swear to deliver to each captive without diminution the provisions supplied by the king, as well as those furnished by friends — an intimation confirmed by the decretals of Clement Y. Their report shows that they were horror-struck with what they saw. At Carcassonne they took the control of

  • Practica super Inquisit. (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 222).—

Molinier, op. cit. p. 449. — Arch, de Flnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXII. 125; XXXVII. 83).


PENANCE OF IMPRISONMENT. 493

the prison wholly from tlie inquisitor, Geoffroi (rA])lis, and placed it in the hands of tlie bishop, ordering the upper cells to be re- paired at once, in order that the aged and sick should be trans- ferred to them ; at Albi they struck the chains off the prisoners, commanded the cells to be lighted and new and better ones built within a month; at Toulouse things Avere equally bad. Every- where there was complaint of lack of food and of beds, as well as of frequent torture. Their measures for reformation consisted in dividing the responsibility between bishop and inquisitor, whose concurrence was requisite to a sentence of imprisonment, and each of whom should appoint a jailer, while each jailer should have a key to each cell, and swear never to speak to a prisoner except in presence of his colleague. This insufficient remedy was adopted by Clement, and can hardly be imagined to have worked much improvement. Bernard Gui bitterly complained of the infamy cast on the Inquisition by the papal assertion of fraud and ill- treatment in the management of its prisons, and he pronounced the new regulations impracticable. Slender as was the restraint which they imposed on the inquisitors, we may feel sure that it was not long submitted to. In a few years Bernard Gui, in his Practica, assumes that the power of imprisoning lies wholly with the inquisitor ; he contemptuously cites the Clementine canon by its title only, and proceeds to quote a bull of Clement lY. as if stiU in force, giving the authority to the inquisitor, and making no mention of the bishop. In fact, before the century was out, Eymerich considered the Clementine canons on this subject not worth inserting in his work, because, as he teUs us, they were no- where observed in consequence of their cost and inconvemence. About 1500, however, Bernardo di Como admits that the Clemen- tine rule may be observed in punitive confinement after sentence, but holds that the inquisitor has sole control of the detentive pris- ons used before and during trial.*


  • Les Olim, III. 148.— Archives de rhotel-de-ville d'Albi (Doat, XXXIV. 45).

— Bern. Guidon. Gravam. (Doat, XXX. 105-8). —Ejusd. Practica P. iv. c. 1.— Eymeric. Direct. Inq. p. 587. — Bcrnardi Comeiis. Lucerna Inquisit. s. v. Career.

The passage in the Practica alluded to occurs in MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No, 14570, fol. 258. The allusion to the Clementines is not in the MS. printed by Douais, Paris, 1885, p. 179.

In 1325 Bishop Richard Ledred of Ossory availed himself of the Clementine


494 THE SENTENCE.

AVith such jailers it is probably rather to their corruption than to any lack of strength in the buildings that we may attrib- ute the occasional escape of the inmates, which appears to have been by no means an infrequent occurrence. Even those who were confined in chains sometimes effected their liberation. More sufficient, however, as a means of release from the horrors of these foul dungeons was the excessive mortality caused by their filthy and unventilated squalor. Occasionally, as we have seen, the un- fortunate were unlucky enough to live through protracted con- finement, and there is one case in which a woman was graciously discharged, with crosses, in \dew of her having been for thirty- three years in the prison of Toulouse. As a rule, however, we may conclude that the expectation of life was very short. No records remain, if any were kept, to show the average term of those condemned to lifelong penance ; but in the autos de fe there occur sentences pronounced upon prisoners who had died before their cases were ended, which show how large was the death-rate. These cases were despatched in batches. In the auto of 1310, at Toulouse, there are ten, who had died after confessing their heresy and before receiving sentence; in that of 1319 there are eight. The prison of Carcassonne seems to have been almost as deadly. In the auto of 1325 we find a lot of four similar cases, and in that of 1328 there are ^ve. It is only under these peculiar cir- cumstances that we have any chance of guessing at the deaths Avhich occurred in prison, and from these scattered indications we can assume that the insanitary condition of the jails worked its inevitable result without human interference.*

Imprisonment was naturally the most frequent penance in- flicted by the inquisitors. In Bernard Gui's Kegister of Sen- tences, comprising his operations between 1308 and 1322, there are six hundred and thirty-six condemnations recorded, which may be thus classified :

canon to claim supervision over the imprisonment of William Outlaw, whom he threw into the Castle of Kilkenny on a charge of fautorship of sorcerers— there being, apparently, no episcopal jail. — Wright's Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler, Camden Soc. 1843, p. 31.

  • Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 8, 13, 14, 19, 25, 26, 29, 158-62, 246-8, 255-61.—

Arch, de Tlnq. de Carcassonne (Boat, XXVII. 7, 131 ; XXVIH. 164).


MODIFICATION OF SENTENCE. 495

Delivered to the secular court and burned 40

Bones exhumed and burned 67

Imprisoned 300

Bones exhumed of those who would have been imprisoned .... 21

Condemned to wear crosses 138

Condemned to perform pilgrimages 16

Banished to Holy Land 1

Fugitives 36

Condemnation of the Talmud 1

Houses to be destroyed 16

"636"

and this may presumably be taken as a fair measm-e of the com- parative frequency of the several punishments in use.

One peculiarity of the inquisitorial sentence remains to be noted. It always ended with a reservation of power to modify, to mitigate, to increase, and to reimpose at discretion. As early as 1244 the Council of Narbonne instructed the inquisitors always to reserve this power, and it became established as an invariable custom. Even without its formal expression. Innocent lY., in 1245, conferred on the inquisitors, acting with the advice and con- sent of the bishop of the penitent, authority to modify the pen- ance imposed. The bishop, in fact, usually concurred in these al- terations of sentences, but Zanchini informs us that though his assent should be asked, it was not essential, except in the case of clerks. The inquisitor, however, had no power to grant absolute pardons, which was reserved exclusively to the pope. The sin of heresy was so indelible that no authority short of the vicegerent of God could wash it out completely.*

This power to mitigate sentences was frequently exercised. It served as a stimulus to the penitents to give evidence by their de- portment of the sincerity of their conversion, and, perhaps, also, it was occasionally of benefit as a means of depleting overcrowded jails. Thus in Bernard Gui's Register of Sentences there occur one hundred and nineteen cases of release from prison, with the obligation to wear the crosses, and of these fifty-one were subse-


  • Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 7. — Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Ut commissum, 20

Jan. 1245 (Doat, XXXI. 68). — Vaissette, III. Pr. 468. —Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 20. — Zanchini, Tract, de Haeret. c. xxi., xxxviii.


496 THE SENTENCE.

quently relieved from the crosses. Besides these latter, there are also eighty-seven cases in w^hich those originally condemned to crosses were permitted to lay them aside. This mercy was not peculiar to the Inquisition of Toulouse. In 1328, in a single sen- tence, twenty -three persons were released from the prison of Car- cassone, their penance being commuted to crosses, pilgrimages, and other observances. What the measure of mercy was in such cases may be guessed from another sentence of commutation at Carcas- sonne in 1329, liberating ten penitents, among them the Baroness of Montreal. They were required to wear the yellow crosses for life and to perform twenty-one pilgrimages, embracing shrines as distant as Kome, Compostella, Canterbury, and Cologne. They were to hear mass every Sunday and feast-day during life, and present themselves with rods to the officiating priest and receive the disciphne in the face of the congregation ; and also to accom- pany all processions and be similarly disciplined at the final station. Existence under such conditions might weU be regarded as a doubt- ful blessing.^

These mitigatory sentences, moreover, like the original one», strictly reserved the power of alteration and reimposition, with or without cause. When the Inquisition once laid hands upon a man it never released its hold, and its utmost mercy was merely a ticket-of -leave. Just as no verdict of acquittal ever was issued, so the Council of Beziers, in 1246, and Innocent lY., in 1247, told the inquisitors that when they liberated a prisoner he was to be warned that the slightest cause of suspicion would lead him to be punished without mercy, and that they must retain the right to incarcerate him again without the formality of a fresh trial or sen- tence if the interest of the faith required. These conditions were observed in the formularies and enjoined in the manuals of prac- tice. The penitent was made to understand fully that whatever liberty he enjoyed was subject to the arbitrary discretion of his judge, who could recall him to dungeon or fetters at any moment, and in his oath of abjuration he pledged his person and aU his property to appear at once whenever he might be summoned. If Bernard Gui in his Formulary gives a draft of pardon for person and property and disabilities of heirs, he adds a caution that it is


'Arch, de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Doat,XXVn. 2, 192).


SUPERVISION OVER PENITENTS. 497

never, or most rarely, to be used. When some great object was to be attained, such as the capture of a prominent heretic teacher, the inquisitors might stretch their authority and hold out promises of this kind to his disciples to induce them to betray him — prom- ises which, it is pleasant to say, were almost universally spurned. If special penances had been imposed, on their fulfilment the in- quisitor, if he saw fit, might declare the penitent to be a man of good character, but this did not alter the reservation in the origi- nal sentence. The mercy of the Inquisition did not extend to a pardon, but only to a reprieve, dum hene se gesserit, and the man who had once undergone a sentence never knew at what moment he might not be summoned to hear of its reimposition or even of a harsher one. Once a dehnquent, his fate forever after was in the hands of the silent and mysterious judge who need not hear him nor give any reason for his destruction. He lived forever on the verge of ruin, never knowing when the blow might f aU, and utter- ly powerless to avert it. He was always a subject to be watched by the universal police of the Inquisition — the parish priest, the monks, the clergy, nay, the whole population — who were strictly enjoined to report any neglect of penance or suspicious conduct, when he was at once liable to the awful penalties of relapse. Nothing was easier for a secret enemy than to destroy him, safe that his name would never be mentioned. We may pity the vic- tims of the stake and the dungeon, but their fate was scarce harder than that of the multitudes who were the objects of the Inquisi- tion's apparent mercy, but whose existence from that hour was one of endless, hopeless anxiety.*

The same implacability manifested itself after death. Allusion has frequently been made to the exhumation of the bones of those who by opportunely dying had seemed to exchange the vengeance of man for that of God, and it is only necessary to mention here that the fate of the dead was harder than that of the hving. If he had died after confession and repentance, it is true, his punish-


• Lib. Scntentt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 40, 118, 122, 137, 139, 146, 147.— Bern. Gui- don. Practica (Doat, XXIX. 85).— Ejusd. P. v. (Doat, XXX.).— Concil. Bitcrrcns. ann. 124G, Append, c. 21, 22. — Vaissettc, III. Pr. 4G7. — Practica super Inquisit. (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 222, 224). — PegnaB Comment, in Eymeric. p. 509. — Zancbiui Tract, de Ha;ret. c. xx. I.— 32


498 THE SENTENCE.

ment was only that which he would have received if alive, the dig- ging up replacing imprisonment, and his heirs being forced to per- form or compound for any lighter penance; but if he had not confessed and there was evidence of heresy he was classed with the impenitent heretics, his remains were delivered to the secular arm, and his property hopelessly confiscated. This wiU account for the large number of these executions as shown in the records quoted above. If the secular authorities hesitated to perform the taisk of exhumation, they were coerced with excommunica- tion.*

The same spirit pursued the descendants. In the Roman law the crime of treason was pursued with merciless vindictiveness, and its provisions are constantly quoted by the canon lawyers as precedents for the punishment of heresy, with the addition that treason to God is far more heinous than that to an earthly sover- eign. It was, perhaps, natural that the churchman, in his eager- ness to defend the kingdom of God, should follow and surpass the example of the emperors, and this will explain, if it may not justi- fy, much that is abhorrent in the inquisitorial procedure. In the Code of Justinian, treason is made especially odious by inflicting on the sons disability to hold office and to succeed to collateral estates. By the Council of Toulouse, in 1229, even spontaneously converted heretics were declared inehgible to public office. It was natural, therefore, that Frederic II. should apply the Eoman practice to heresy, and should extend its provision to grandchil- dren. This, like the rest of his legislation, was eagerly adopted and enforced by the Church. Alexander lY., however, in a bull of 1257, repeatedly reissued by his successors, explained that this did not apply in cases where the culprit had made amends and performed penance, and this was still further lightened by Boni- face YIIL, who removed the incapacity from grandchildren by the female line of those who had died in heresy. In this form it re- mained permanently in the canon law.f

  • Concil. Arelateus. ann. 1234 c. 11. — Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 26. — Lib.

Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 162-7, 203, 246-7, 251-2.— Zanchini Tract. de^Hssret. c. xxvii.

t Const. 5 Cod. ix. viii. — Concil. Tolosan. ann. 1229 c. 10. — Hist. Diplom. Frid. n. T. IV. pp. 8, 302. — Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Ut commissum, 21 Juu. 1254.— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Quod super nonnuUis, 9. Dec. 1257 (Boat, XXXI. 244).— Ray-


DISABILITIES OF DESCENDANTS. 499

The Inquisition depended so much upon secular officials for assistance that there was some justification in its seeking to pre- vent those who might be suspected of sympathizing with heresy from holding office in which they could thwart its plans and aid the offender. Yet as there was no prescription of time as to pro- ceedings against the dead, so was there none in invoking disabili- ties against their descendants, and the records of the Inquisition were an inexhaustible treasury of torment for those who were in any way connected with heresy. No one, in fact, could feel sure that evidence might not at any moment be discovered or manu- factured against, some long-deceased parent or grandparent, which would ruin his career, and that some industrious searcher into the archives might not find some blot on his genealogical tree. In 1288 Philippe le Bel writes to the Seneschal of Carcassonne that Eaymond Yitalis of Avignon is exercising the office of notary in Carcassonne, though his maternal grandfather, Roger Isarn, is said to have been burned for heresy. If this is the fact, the seneschal is ordered to deprive him of the position. In 1292 Guiraud d'Au- terive, a sergeant-at-arms of the king, was proceeded against on the same grounds, and we find Guillem de S. Seine, the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, furnishing to the royal procureur evidence that, in 1256, Guiraud's father and mother had confessed to acts of heresy, and that, in 1276, his uncle, Eaymond Carbonnel, had been burned as a perfected heretic. In these cases we see the royal power in- voked for the dismissal of the official, but in the perfected theory of the Inquisition the inquisitor had the power to deprive of office any one whose father or grandfather had been a heretic or defender of heretics. In order to avoid questions like these, when a pen- itent had fulfilled his penance, prudent children would take out letters declaratory of the fact, so as to have evidence of capacity to hold office. In special cases the inquisitor had power to re- lieve descendants of these disabihties, and this was occasionally done ; but, like the remission of penance, this relief was only a sus- pension, hable at any moment to forfeiture on the slightest mani festation of heretical tendencies.*


nald. ann. 1258, No. 23. — Potthast No. 17745, 18396. — Eymciic. Direct. Inq. p. 123.— C. 15, Sexto V. ii.

  • Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. p. 571. — Arch, de ITaq. de Carcassonne (Doat,


500 THE SENTENCE.

Undei'lying all these sentences was another on which they, and, indeed, the whole power of the Inquisition, were based in last resort — the sentence of excommunication. Theoretically the censures of the Inquisition miglit be the same as those of any other ecclesi- astics authorized to cut men off from salvation, but the latter had so habitually abused their functions that the anathema, in the mouth of priests who were neither feared nor respected, lost, at times at least, its awe-inspiring authority. The censures of the Inquisition were in the hands of a smaller body of men, selected for their implacable vigor, and no one ever disregarded them with impunity. The secular authorities, moreover, were bound to put to the ban and confiscate the property of any one whom the in- quisitor might excommunicate for heresy or fautorship. In fact, as the inquisitors were fond of boasting, their curse was stronger in four ways than that of the secular clergy. They could coerce the temporal government to outlaw the excommunicate; they could force it to confiscate his property  ; they could condemn any one remaining under excommunication for a year ; and they could inflict the major excommunication upon any one communicating with their excommunicates.* Thus they enforced obedience to their citations and submission to their penances. Thus they made the secular power execute their sentences ; thus they swept aside the statutes that interfered with their proceedings; thus they proved that the kingdom of God which they represented was superior to the kingdoms of earth. Of aU excommunications that of the inquisitor worked the speediest vengeance and inspired the sharpest terror, and the boldest shrank from provoking it.  ;,


XXXII. 156).— Regist. Curise Francise de Carcassonne (Boat, XXXII. 241).— Bernardi Comens, Lucerna Inquisit. s. v. Inquisitores, No. 19. — Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. Index.— Wadding. Regest. Nich. PP. III. No. 10.

  • Ripoll, I. 208, 394. — Tractatus de Inquisitione (Boat, XXXVI.). — Bern.

Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).— Ey merle. Direct. Inquis. 360-1.


CHAPTER XIII.

CONFISCATION.

ALTHoiJGn, for the most part, as we shall see, confiscation was technically not the work of the Inquisition, the distinction was rather nominal than real. Even in times and places in which the inquisitor did not pronounce the sentence of confiscation, it was the accompaniment of the sentence which he did pronounce. It was, therefore, one of the most serious of the penalties at his dis- posal, and the largeness of the results effected by it give it an im- portance worthy a somewhat minute examination.

For the source of this, as of so much else, we must look to the Roman law. It is true that, cruel as were the imperial edicts against heresy, they did not go to the length of thus indirectly punishing the innocent. Even when the detested Manichaeans were mercilessly condemned to death, their property was confis- cated only when their heirs were likewise heretics. If the chil- dren were orthodox they succeeded to the estate of the heretic parent, who could not execute a will and disinherit them. It was otherwise with crime. Any conviction involving deportation or the mines carried with it confiscation, though the wife could re- claim her dower and any gifts made to her before the commission of the offence, and so could children emancipated from thepatria potestas. All else inured to the fisc. In majestas^ or treason, the offender was liable to condemnation after death, involving the con- fiscation of his estate, which was held to have lapsed to the fisc at the time when he first conceived the crime. These provisions fur- nished the armory whence pope and king drew the weapons which rendered the pursuit of heresy attractive and profitable.*

King Roger, who occupied the throne of the Two Sicilies dur- ing the first half of the twelfth century, seems to have been the


Constt. 13, 15, 17 Cod. i. v. ; 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9 Cod. ix. xlix. ; 5, 6 Cod. ix. viii.


502 CONPMSCATION.

first to apply the Roman practice by decreeing confiscation for all who apostatized from the Catholic faith — whether to the Greek Church, to Islam, or to Judaism does not appear. Yet the Church cannot escape the responsibility of naturalizing this penalty in European law as a punishment for spiritual transgressions. The great Council of Tours, held by Alexander III., in 1163, com- manded all secular princes to imprison heretics and confiscate their property. Lucius III., in his Yerona decretal of 1184, sought to obtain for the Church the benefit of the confiscation which he again declared to be incurred by heresy. One of the earliest acts of Innocent III., in his double capacity of temporal prince and head of Christianity, was to address a decretal to his subjects of Yiterbo, in which he says,

" In the lands subject to our temporal jurisdiction we order the property of heretics to be confiscated ; in other lands we command this to be done by the temporal princes and powers, who, if they show themselves negligent therein, shall be compelled to do it by ecclesiastical censures. Nor shall the property of heretics who withdraw from heresy revert to them, unless some one pleases to take pity on them. For as, according to the legal sanctions, in addition to capi- tal punishment, the property of those guilty of majestas is confiscated, and life simply is allowed to their children through mercy alone, so much the more should those who wander from the faith and offend the Son of God be cut off from Christ and be despoiled of their temporal goods, since it is a far greater crime to assail spiritual than temporal majesty." *

This decretal, which was adopted into the canon law, is impor- tant as embodying the whole theory of the subject. In imitation of the Roman law of majestas, the property of the heretic was for- feited from the moment he became a heretic or committed an act


  • Constt. Sicular. Lib. i. Tit. 3.— Concil. Turon. ann. 1163 c. 4.— Lucii PP.

III. Epist. 171.— Innoc. PP. III. Regest. ii. 1.— Cap. 10 Extra v. 7.

It was probably in obedience to the canon of Tours that, in 1178, the prop- erty of Pierre Mauran of Toulouse was declared forfeited to the count, and he was allowed to redeem it with a fine of five hundred pounds of silver (Roger. Hoveden. Annal. ann. 1178).

Tlie decree of Alonso II. of Aragon against the Waldenses, in 1194, referred to above (p. 81) (Pegn» Comment. 39 in Eymeric. p. 281), inflicts confiscation on all who favor the heretics, but there are no traces of its enforcement, or of the subsequent canons of the Council of Girona in 1197 (Aguirre V. 103-3). The same may be said of the edicts of Henry VI., in 1194, repeated by Otho IV. in 1310 (Lami, Antichita Toscane, p. 484).


ENFORCED BY THE CHURCH. 503

of heresy. If he recanted, it might be restored to him purely in mercy. When the ecclesiastical tribunals declared him to be, or to have been, a heretic, confiscation operated itself; the act of seizing the property was a matter for the secular power to whom it inured, and the mercy which might spare it could only be shown by that power. All this it is requisite to keep in mind if we would correctly appreciate some points which have frequently been mis- understood.

Innocent's decretal further illustrates the fact that at the com- mencement of the struggle with heresy the chief difiiculty encoun- tered by the Church in relation to confiscation was to persuade or coerce the temporal rulers to do what it held to be their duty in taking possession of heretical property. This was one of the prin- cipal offences which Kaymond YI. of Toulouse expiated so bitterly, as explained to him by Innocent in 1210. His son proclaimed it as the law in his statutes of 1234, and included in its provisions, in accordance with the Ordonnance of Louis YIII., in 1226, and that of Louis IX., in 1229, all who favored heretics in any way or re- fused to aid in their capture ; but his policy did not always com- port with its enforcement, and he sometimes had to be sternly re- buked for non-feasance. After all danger of armed resistance had disappeared, however, sovereigns, as a rule, eagerly welcomed the opportunity of recruiting their slender revenues, and the confisca- tion of the property of heretics and of fautors of heresy was gen- erally recognized in European law, although the Church was occa- sionally obliged to repeat its injunctions and threats, and though there were some regions in which they were slackly obeyed.*


  • Innoc. PP. in. Regest. xii. 154 (Cap. 26 Extra v. xl. ). — Isambert, Anc. Loir

Fran^aises I. 328, 232.— Harduin. VII. 203-8.— Vaissette, III. Pr. 385.— Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 26.— Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Cum fratres, ann. 1252 (Mag. Bull. Roman. I. 90).

Confiscation was an ordinary resource of mediaeval law. In England, from the time of Alfred, property, as well as life, was forfeited for treason (Alfred's Dooms 4— Thorpe I. 63), a penalty which remained until 1870 (Low and Pulling'a Dictionary of English History, p. 409). In France murder, false-witness, treach- ery, homicide, and rape were all punished with death and confiscation (Beau- manoir, Coutumes du Beauvoisis xxx. 2-5). By the German feudal law the fief might be forfeited for a vast number of offences, but the distinction was drawn that, if the offence was against the lord, the fief reverted to him; if simply a


504 CONFISCATION.

The relation of the Inquisition to confiscation varied essentially with time and place. In France the principle derived from the Roman law was generally recognized, that the title to property devolved to the fisc as soon as the crime had been committed. There Avas therefore nothing for the inquisitor to do with regard to it. He simply ascertained and announced the guilt of the ac- cused and left the State to take action. Thus Gui Foucoix treats the subject as one wholly outside of the functions of the inquisitor, who at most can only advise the secular ruler or intercede for mercy ; while he holds that those only are legally exempt from forfeiture who come forward spontaneously and confess before any evidence has been taken against them. In accordance with this, there is, as a rule, no allusion to confiscation in the sentences of the French Inquisition, though in one or two instances chance has preserved for us, in the accounts of the proctireurs des encours^ or royal stewards of the confiscations, evidence that estates were sold and covered into the fisc in cases in which the forfeiture is not specified in the sentence. In condemnations of absentees and of the dead, confiscation is occasionally declared, as though in these the State might need some guidance, but even here the practice is not uniform. In a sentence issued by Guillem Arnaud and Etienne de S. Thibery, November 24, 1241, on two absentees, their estates are adjudged to whom it may concern. In the Register of Ber- nard de Caux (1246-1248), in thirty-two cases of contumacious ab- sentees confiscation is included in the sentence, and in nine similar ones it is omitted, as well as in one hundred and fifty-nine con- demnations to prison in which it was undoubtedly operative. In the Inquisition of Carcassonne, a sentence of December 12, 1328, on five deceased persons, who would have been imprisoned had they lived, ends with " et eonsequenter hona ipsorum dicimus con- fisGOMda^^ while a previous sentence, February 24, 1325, identical in character, on four defunct culprits, has no such corollary ap- pended. In fact, strictly speaking, it was recognized that the in-

crime, it descended to the heirs (Feudor. Lib. i. Tit. xxiii.-iv.). In Navarre, confiscation formed part of the penalties of suicide, murder, treason, and even of blows or wounds inflicted where the queen or royal children were dwelling. There is a case in which confiscation was enforced on a man because he struck another at Olite, which was within a league of Tafalla, where the queen chanced to be staying at the time (G. B. de Lagr^ze, La Navarre Fran^aise II. 335).


VARIATIONS IN PRACTICE. 505

quisitor had no power to remit confiscations without permission from the fisc, and the custom of extending mercy to those who came forward voluntarily and confessed was founded upon a spe- cial concession to that effect granted by Raymond of Toulouse to the Inquisition in 1235. As soon as a suspected heretic was cited or arrested the secular officials sequestrated his property and noti- fied his debtors by proclamation. No doubt, when condemnation took place, the inquisitor communicated the result to the proper officials, but as a rule no record of the fact seems to have been kept in the archives of the Holy Office, although an early manual of practice specifies it as part of his duty to see that the confisca- tion was enforced. At a later period, in 1328, in a record of an assembly of experts held at Pamiers, the presence is specified of Arnaud Assalit, royal procureur des encours of Carcassonne, so that probably by this time it had become customary for that offi- cial to attend these deliberations and thus obtain early notice of the sentences to be passed.*

In Italy it was long before any settled practice was established. In 1252 a bull of Innocent lY. directs the rulers of Lombardy, Tarvisina, and Romagna to confiscate without fail the property of all who were excommunicated as heretics, or as receivers, defend- ers, or fautors of heretics, thus recognizing confiscation as a mat- ter belonging to the secular poAver. Yet soon the papal authority succeeded in obtaining a share of the spoils, even beyond the limits of the States of the Church, as is seen in the bulls Ad extirjpanda of Innocent lY. and Alexander lY., and the matter thus- became one in which the Inquisition had a direct interest. The indiffer- ence which so well became the French tribunals was therefore not readily maintained, and the share of the inquisitor in the results led him to participate in the process of securing them. Yet there


  • Guid. Fulcod. Quscst. xv.— Coll. Boat, XXI. 154; XXXIII. 207; XXXIV.

189; XXXV. G8.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 9992.— Coll. Doat, XXVIII. 131, 164. — Responsa Prudentum (Doat, XXXVII. 83). — Grandes Chroniqucs, aim. 1323.— Lcs Olim, T. I. p. 556.— Guill. Pelisse Chron. Ed. Molinier, p. 27.— Prac- tica super IiKpiisit. (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 224).— Coll. Doat, XXVII. fol. 118.

In 1460, when the nearly extinct French Inquisition was resuscitated to pun- ish the sorcerers of Arras, confiscation formed part of the sentence. — Memoires de Jacques du Clercq, Liv. iv. ch. 4.


506 CONFISCATION.

were variations in practice. Zanghino tells us that formerly con- fiscations were decreed in the States of the Church by the eccle- siastical judges and elsewhere by the secular power, but that in his time (circa 1320) they Avere everywhere (in Italy) included in the jurisdiction of the episcopal and inquisitorial courts, and the secular authorities had nothing to do with them  ; but he adds that confiscation is prescribed by law for heresy, and that the inquisi- tor has no discretion to remit it, except in the case of voluntary converts with the assent of the bishop. Yet though the forfeiture occurs ijpso facto by the commission of the crime, it requires a de- claratory sentence of confiscation. This consequently was expressed in the most formal manner in the condemnation of the accused by the Italian Inquisition, and the secular authorities were told not to interfere unless called upon.*

At a very early period in some places the Italian inquisitors seem to have undertaken not only to decree but to control the con- fiscations. About 1245 we find the Florentine inquisitor, Euggieri Calcagni, sentencing a Catharan named Diotaiuti, for relapse, with a fine of one hundred lire. Euggieri acknowledges the receipt of this, to be applied to the pope, or to the furtherance of the faith, and formally concedes the rest of the heretic's estate to his wife Jacoba, thus exercising ownership over the whole. Yet this was not maintained, for in 1283 there is a sentence of the Podesta of Florence, reciting that the inquisitor Fra Salomone da Lucca had notified him that the widow Euvinosa, lately deceased, had died a heretic, and that her property was to be confiscated ; whereupon he orders it to be seized and sold, and the proceeds divided accord- ing to the papal constitutions. At length, however, the inquisitors assumed and exercised full control over the handling of the con- fiscations. In the conveyance of a confiscated house by the mu- nicipal authorities of Florence, in 1327, to the Dominicans, the deed is careful to assert that it is made with the assent of the inquisi- tor. Even in Naples we see King Eobert, in 1324, ordering the in- quisitors to pay out of the royal share of the confiscations fifty ounces of gold to the Prior of the Church of San Dom^nico of Naples, to aid in its completion.f

  • Coll. Doat, XXXI. 175. — Zanchini Tract, de Hseret. c. xviii., xxv., xxvi., xli.

— Archivio Storico Italiano, No. 38, p. 29.

fLami, Antichita Toscane, 560, 588-9. — Zanchini Tract, de Haeret. c. xxvi. —


DEGREE OF GUILT. 607

In Germany the Diet of Worms, in 1231, indicates the confu- sion existing in the feudal mind between heresy and treason by allowing the allodial lands and personal property of the con- demned to descend to the heirs, while fiefs were confiscated to the suzerain. If he was a serf, his goods inured to his master ; but from all personal property was deducted the cost of burning its owner and the droits de justice of the seigneur-justicier. Two years later, in 1233, the Council of Mainz protested against the injustice, which quickly showed itself in Germany as elsewhere, of assum- ing guilt as soon as a man was accused, and treating his property as though he were convicted. It directed that the estates of those on trial should remain untouched until sentence was rendered, and any one who meanwhile should plunder or partition them should be excommunicated until he made restitution and rendered satisfaction. Finally, however, when the Emperor Charles lY. endeavored to introduce the Inquisition into Germany, in 1369, he adopted the Italian custom and ordered one third of the confisca- tions to be made over to the inquisitors.*

The exact degree of criminality which entailed confiscation is not capable of very rigid definition. Even in states where the inquisitor nominally had no control over it, the arbitrary discretion lodged with him as to the fate of the accused placed the matter practically in his hands, and his notification to the secular au- thorities would be a virtual sentence. It is probable that custom varied with time and with the temper of the inquisitor. We have seen that Innocent III. commanded it for all heretics, but what constituted technical heresy was not so easily determined. The statutes of Raymond decreed it not only for heretics, but for those who showed them favor. The Council of Beziers, in 1233, de- manded it for aU reconciled converts not condemned to wear crosses, and those of Beziers, in 1246, and Albi, in 1254, prescribed it for all whom the inquisitors should penance with imprisonment. Still, in a sentence of February 19, 1237, in which the inquisitors


Archiv. di Firenze, Prov. S. Maria Novella, Nov. 18, 1327. — Archivio di Napoli, Regist. 253, Lett. A, fol. 63.

  • Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. T. III. p. 466.— Kaltner, Konrad v. Marburg u. die In-

quisition, Prag, 1882, p. 147. — Mosheim de Beghardis, p. 347.


50S CONFISCATION.

of Toulouse condemn some twenty or thirty penitents to perpetual im})risonment, confiscation is only threatened as an additional pun- ishment in case they do not perform the penance. Imprisonment, however, finally was admitted by legists as the invariable test ; although St. Louis, when in 1259 he mitigated his Ordonnance of 1229, ordered confiscation not only for those who were condemned to prison, but for those who contumaciously refused obedience to citations and those in Avhose houses heretics were found, his officials being instructed to ascertain from the inquisitors in all cases, while pending, whether the accused deserved imprisonment, and if so, to retain the sequestrated property. When he further provided, as a special grace, that the heirs should be restored to possession in cases where the heretic had offered himself for conversion before citation, had entered a religious order, and had worthily died there, he shows how universal confiscation had previously been and how ruthlessly the principle had been enforced that a single act of heresy forfeited all OAvnership. In fact, even at the close of the fifteenth century, the rule was laid down that confiscation was a matter of course, while restoration of property to a reconciled penitent required an express declaration.*

According to the most lenient construction of the law, there- fore, the imprisonment of a reconciled convert carried with it the confiscation of his property, and as imprisonment was the ordinary penance, confiscation was general. There may possibly have been exceptions. The six prisoners released in 1248 by Innocent lY. had been in jail for some time — some of them for four years and more after confessing heresy — and yet the liberal contributions to the Holy Land which purchased their pardon show that they or their friends must have had control of property — unless, indeed, the money was raised on a pledge of the estates to be restored. So when Alaman de Koaix was condemned to imprisonment by Ber- nard de Caux, in 1248, the sentence provided for an annuity to be paid to a person designated, and for compensation to be made for the rapine which he had committed, which would look as though


» Harduin. VII. 203. — Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1233 c. 4  ; ann. 1246, Append, c. 35._Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 26. — Coll. Doat, XXI. 151. — Guid. Fulcod. Quaest. xv. — Isambert Anc. Loix Fran9aises, I. 257. — Arch, de Tlnq. de Carcas- sonne (Doat, XXXI. 263). — Bernard! Comens. Lucerna Inquisit. s. v. Filii.


APPARENT EXCEPTIONS. 509

])roperty were left to him  ; but as he had for ten years been a con- tumacious and proscribed fugitive, these fines must have been taken out of his estate in the hands of the State. Apparent exception» such as these can be accounted for, and the proceedings of the In- quisition as a whole indicate that imprisonment and confiscation were inseparable. Sometimes, even, it is stated in sentences passed upon the dead that they are pronounced worthy of imprisonment in order to deprive the heirs of succession to the estates. At a later date, indeed, Eymerich, who dismisses the whole matter brief- ly as one with which the inquisitor has no concern, speaks as though confiscation only took place when a heretic did not repent and recant before sentence, but his commentator, Pegna, easily proves this to be an error. Zanghino assumes as a matter of course that property is forfeited by the act of heresy ; and he points out that pecuniary penances cannot be imposed because the whole estate is gone, although there may be mercy shown at discretion with the assent of the bishop, and simple suspicion is not subject to confiscation.*

In the early zeal of persecution everything was swept away in wholesale seizure, but, in 1237, Gregory IX. assumed that the dowers of Catholic wives ought to be exempt in certain cases, and in 1247 Innocent TV. erected it into a rule that such dowers should be restored to the wives and should not be included in future for- feitures, although heresy would not justify divorce, and, in 1258, St. Louis accepted this rule. It was subject to serious limitations, however, since under the canon law the wife could not claim it if she had been cognizant of the husband's heresy when she married, and, according to some authorities, if she had lived with him after ascertaining it, or even if she had failed to inform against him within forty days after discovering it. As the children were in- capable of inheritance, she only held the dower for life, after which it fell into the fisc.f


  • Archives dc I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXI. 152). — Berger, Registres

d'Innoc. IV. No. 1844.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 9992.— Lib. Sentcntt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 158-62. — Arch, dc I'lnq. dc Carcassonne (Doat, XXVII. 98).— Eymcric. Direct. Inquis. pp. G63-5. — Zanchini Tract, de Hajret. c. xviii., xix., xxv.

t Archives de Tfiveche de Beziers (Doat, XXXI. 35).— Potthast No. 12743.— Isambert, I. 257.— C. 14 Sexto v. 2.— Zanchini Tract, de Ha^ret. c. xxv. — Livres de Jostice et de Plot, Liv. I. Tit. iii. § 7.


510 CONFISCATION.

Although in principle confiscation was an affair of the State, the division of the spoils did not follow any invariable rule. Be- fore the organization of the Inquisition, when the Waldenses of Strassburg were burned, it is mentioned that their forfeited prop- erty was equally divided between the Church and the secular au- thorities. Lucius III., as we have just seen, endeavored to turn the forfeitures to the benefit of the Church. In the papal terri- tory there could be little question as to this, and Innocent lY., in his bull Ad extirpanda of 1252, showed disinterestedness in devot- ing the whole proceeds to the stimulation of persecution. One third w^as given to the local authorities, one third to the officials of the Inquisition, and one third to the bishop and inquisitor, to be expended in the assault on heresy — provisions which were re- tained in the subsequent recensions of the bull by Alexander lY. and Clement lY., while forfeited bail went exclusively to the in- quisitor. Yet this was speedily held to refer only to the indepen- dent states of Italy, for, in 1260, we find Alexander lY. ordering the inquisitors of Rome and Spoleto to sell the confiscated estates of heretics and pay over the proceeds to the pope himself ; and a transaction of 1261 shows Urban lY. collecting three hundred and twenty lire from some confiscations at Spoleto.*

At length, both in the Eoman province and elsewhere through- out Italy, the custom settled down to a tripartite division between the local community, the Inquisition, and the papal camera, the reason for the latter, as given by Benedict XI., being that the bishops appropriated to themselves the share intrusted to them for the persecution of heresy. In Florence a transaction of 1283 shows this to be the received regulation ; and documents of various dates during the next half -century indicate that it was the custom of the republic to appoint attorneys or trustees to take seisin of confis- cated property in the name of the city, which in 1319 liberally granted its share for the next ten years to the construction of the church of Santa Beparata. That the amounts were not small may be guessed from a ^i-etition of the inquisitors to the republic in 1299, setting forth that the Holy Office must have funds wherewith

  • Hofiinann, Geschichte der Inquisition, II. 370. — Lucii PP. III. Epist. 171. —

Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Ad extirpanda^ % 34. — Ejusd. Bull, ^per extirpatione, 30 Mai. 1254 (Ripoll, I. 247). — Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Discretioni (Mag. Bull. Rom. 1. 120). — Potthast No. 18200.


EMBEZZLEMENT BY INQUISITORS. 511

to pa.y its stipendiary oiRcials, and therefore praying leave to in- vest in real estate the sums accruing to the Inquisition from this source — showing accumulations prudently garnered for the future. The request was granted to the extent of one thousand lire, with the proviso that none of the city's share be taken. This latter pre- caution would seem to argue no great confidence in the integrity of the inquisitors, nor was the insinuation uncalled for. By this time the money-changers had fairly occupied the Temple, and, as we have seen in the last chapter, it seemed almost impossible to preserve official honesty when persecution had become almost as much a financial speculation as a matter of faith. That plain- spoken Franciscan, Alvaro Pelayo, Bishop of Silva, writing about the year 1335, bitterly reproaches those of his brethren who act as inquisitors with their abuse of the funds accruing to the Holy Office. The papal division into thirds he declares was generally disregarded ; the inquisitors monopolized the whole and spent it on themselves or enriched their kindred at their pleasure. Chance has preserved in the Florentine archives some documents confirmatory of this accusation. It seems that in 1343 Clement YI. obtained evidence that the inquisitors of both Florence and Lucca were habitually defrauding the papal camera of its third of the fines and confiscar tions, and accordingly he sent to Pietro di Yitale, Primicerio of Lucca, authority to collect the sums in arrears and to prosecute the embezzlers. How it fared w^ith them we have no means of know- ing, but the camera seems not to have gained much. In fiUing the vacancies thus occasioned Pietro di Aquila, a Franciscan of high standing, w^as appointed in Florence, who fell at once into the same evil ways, and within two years was obliged to fly from a prosecution by the primicerio, in addition to the charges of extor- tion brought against him by the republic*

In Naples, under the Angevines, when the Inquisition was first introduced, Charles of Anjou monopoUzed the confiscations with the same rapacity that was customary in France. As early as March, 1270, we find him writing to his representatives in the Principato Ultra that three heretics had recently been burned at

  • Nich. PP. IV. Bull. Hdbet vesirce, 3 Oct. 1290.— Raynald. ann. 1438, No. 24.—

Lami, Antichita Toscane, pp. 588-9.— Alv. Pelag. de Planctu Eccles. Lib. ii. art. 67.— Archivio di Firenze, Riformagioni, Classe v. No. 110; Classe xi. Distinz. 1, No. 39.


512 CONFISCATION".

Eenevento, ^vhose estates he orders looked after and accounted for in detail. In 1290, however, Charles II. ordered the fines and con- fiscations to be divided into thirds, of which one should inure to the royal fisc, one be used for the promotion of the faith, and one be given to the Inquisition. Feudal lands, however, were to revert to the crown or to the immediate lord as the case might require.*

In Yenice the compromise reached in 1289 between the signiory and Nicholas lY., whereby the republic permitted the introduction of the Inquisition, provided that all receipts of the Holy Office should be for the benefit of the State, and this arrangement seems to have been maintained. In Piedmont the confiscations were di- vided between the State and the Inquisition until, in the latter half of the fifteenth century, Amedeo IX. took the whole, allowing to the Holy Office only the expenses of the proceedings. f

In the other Italian states the papal curia grew dissatisfied with its share, when there was no longer a necessity of purchasing the co-operation of the civil power with a third of the spoils. It is a disputed point with the jurists when and how the change was ef- fected, but in the first quarter of the fourteenth century the Church succeeded in grasping the whole of the confiscations, which were divided equally between the Inquisition and the papal camera. The rapacity with which this source of income was exploited is illustrated in a case occurring at Pisa in 1304. The inquisitor An- gelo da Reggio had condemned the memory of a deceased citizen, Loterio Bonamici, and confiscated his property, part of which he then gave away and part he sold at prices which the papal curia esteemed too low. Benedict XI. thereupon ordered the Bishop of Ostia not to punish the inquisitor, but to use freely the censures of the Church in hunting up the assets in the hands of the holders and to take it from them. Finally, in 1438, Eugenius JY. gener- ously handed back to the bishops the share of the papal camera in order to stimulate their slackness in persecution, and, where the bishop was also the temporal lord of his see, the confiscations were to be equally divided between him and the Inquisition. Bernardo di Como, however, writing about the year 1500, asserts^ that the

  • Archivio di Napoli, Registro 9, Lett. C, fol. 90; Regist. 51, Lett. A, fol. 9;

Reg. 98, Lett. B, fol. 13 ; Reg. 113, Lett. A, fol. 194 ; MSS. Chioccorelli, T. VIIL

t Albizio, Risposto al P. Paolo Sarpi, p. 25.— Sclopis, Antica Legislazione del Piemont, p. 485.


QUARRELS OVER THE SPOILS. 513

whole coniiscations inure to the inquisitor to be expended at his discretion ; but he subsequently admits that the subject is confused and uncertain, owing to contradictory papal decisions and conflict- ing jurisdictions in different territories.*

In Spain the rule was laid down that if the heretic were a clerk, or a lay vassal of the Church, the confiscation went to the Church ; if otherwise, to the temporal seigneur.f

This greed for the plunder of the wretched victims of persecu- tion is pecuharly repulsive as exhibited by the Church, and may to some extent palhate the similar action by the State in countries where the latter was strong enough to seize and retain it. The threats of coercion, which at first were necessary to induce the temporal princes to confiscate the property of their heretical sub- jects, soon became superfluous, and history has few displays of man's eagerness to profit by his fellow's misfortunes more deplora- ble than that of the vultures which followed in the wake of the Inquisition to batten on the ruin which it wrought.

In Languedoc at first the Inquisition endeavored to control the confiscations for the purpose of building prisons and maintaining prisoners, but these pretensions received no attention. Under the feudal system, the confiscations were for the benefit of the seigneur haut-justicier. The rapid extension of the royal jurisdiction, in the second half of the thirteenth century in France, ended by practically placing them in the hands of the king, but during the earlier and more profitable period there were quarrels over the spoils. After the treaty of Paris, in 1229, St. Louis, in granting fiefs in the newly- acquired territories, seems to have endeavored to provide for these questions by reserving the confiscations for heresy. The prudence

  • Zanchini Tract, de Haeret. c. xix., xxvi., xli. Cf. Pegnae Comment, in Eymeric.

p. 659.— Grandjean, Registre de Benoit XL No. 299.— Raynald. ann. 1438, No. 24. — Bernard! Comens. Lucerna Inquis. s. v. Bona hcereticorum^ No. 6, 8. As early as 1387, in the sentences of Antonio Secco on the Waldenses of the Alpine val- leys, the confiscations are declared to be solely for the benefit of the Inquisition (Archivio Storico Italiano, No. 38, pp. 29, 36, 50).

It must be placed to the credit of Benedict XL that, in 1304, he authorized Fra; Simone, Inquisitor of Rome, to restore confiscations unjustly made by his predecessors and to moderate punishments inflicted by them if he considered them too severe (Grandjean, No. 474).

t Alonsi de Spina Fortalicii Fidei, Lib. ii. Consid. xi. (fol. 74 Ed. 1594). I.— 33


514 CONFISCATION.

of this is shown by the suit brought by the Marechaux de Mirepoix — one of the few famihes founded by the adventurers who accom- panied de Montfort — who claimed the movables of all heretics cap- tured in their lands, even if the goods were in the lands of the king — a demand which was rejected by the Parlement of Paris, in 1269. The bishops put in a claim to the confiscations of all real and personal property of heretics living under their jurisdiction, and at the Council of Lille (Comtat Yenaissin) in 1251, they threatened with excommunication any one who should dispute it. The groundlessness of this claim is seen in an agreement made un- der the auspices of the Legate Komano in December, 1229, between the Bishop of Beziers and the king, in which the royal right to the confiscations is recognized as incontestable, and the bishop only stipulates that in case of fiefs they shall, if granted, be held subject to his seignorial rights, or if the king retains them some compen- sation shall be made for the loss of the suzerainty. This indicates a source of reasonable complaint, for, in the annexation of fiefs to the crown, the bishops found themselves losing in place of profiting by persecution. Yarious efforts were made to adjust these con- flicting claims over the spoil. By a transaction of 1234 we see that the king had subjected himself to the stipulation of parting with all confiscated property within a year and a day. The Coun- cil of Beziers, in 1246, adopted a canon on the subject, but it could not be enforced, and at length, about 1255, St. Louis agreed upon a compromise, whereby all confiscated lands subject to the bishops were equally divided, with a right on the part of the prelates to buy out, within two months, the royal share at a price fixed by arbitration ; if this right was not exercised the king was bound, within a year and a day, to pass the lands out of his hands into those of a person of the same condition as the former owner, to be held under the same terms of service or villeinage ; but all mova- bles were declared to belong unreservedly to the crown. Under this arrangement the temporalities of the sees grew rapidly. We have seen the apostolic poverty which afflicted the bishops of Tou- louse prior to the crusades : during the succeeding century the whole land was impoverished and the cities suffered especially, yet when, in 1317, John XXII. carved six new bishoprics out of the see of Toulouse, his reason was found in the excessive revenues of the bishop, amounting to forty thousand livres Tournois per annum, al-


THE BISHOPS OP ALBI. 515

though it had already been shorn of nearly half of its territory by Boniface YIII. to form the see of Pamiers.*

The bishops of Albi Avere especially active and fortunate in this saturnalia of plunder. During the confusion of the wars and the settlement they assumed rights, including haute justice and the confiscations, which led to contests with the representatives of the crown, lasting for thirty years. They were specially active in the pursuit of heretics, which they thus found profitable as well as praiseworthy. In 1247 Bishop Bertrand procured from Inno- cent lY. a special deputation of inquisitorial power, probably to strengthen his claims, and the next year he drove a thriving busi- ness in selling commutations for confiscation to condemned and repentant heretics — an expedient more lucrative than regular, for when Alphonse of Poitiers, in 1253, endeavored to speculate in the confiscations in the same way, he was compelled to desist by the Archbishop of IS'arbonne and the Bishop of Toulouse, who declared that it would lead to the scandal of the faithful and the destruc- tion of religion. Finally, to settle the claims of the bishop on the confiscations, St. Louis, in December, 1264, made with Bernard de Combret, the incumbent of the see, a convention, promptly con- firmed by Urban lY., by which the prelate was entitled to one half of all confiscations of realty and personalty within the diocese, with the further advantage that the king's share of the real estate passed into possession of the bishop if it was not sold within a twelvemonth, and became his absolute property if not sold within


  • MSS. Bib. Nat, fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 224.— Livres de Jostice et de

Plet, Liv. I. Tit. iii. § 7.— Vaissette, HI. 391.— Les Olim, I. 317.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 11847. — Concil. Insulan. ann. 1251 c. 3.— Teulet, Layettes, II. 1G5.— Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246 c. 4.— Vaissette, Jfid. Privat, VIH. 975.— Baluz. Concil.Narbonn. Append, pp. 96-99.— Coll. Doat, XXXV. 48. Cf. Bcrger, Registres dTnnoc. IV. No. 1543^, 1547-8.— Vaissette, IV. 170.— Baudouin, Lettres in^dites de Philippe le Bel, Paris, 1886, p. xl.

In spite of the general sense of equity manifested by St. Louis, he was by no means indifferent to acquisitions justified by the spirit of the age. In 1246 there seems to have been a raid made upon the Jews of Carcassonne, who were thrown into prison. In July St. Louis writes to his seneschal that he wants to get from them all that he can ; they are, therefore, to be held in strict duress, while the amount which they can be made to pay is to be reported to him. In August he writes that the sum proposed is not satisfactory, and the seneschal is in- structed to extort all that he can. — Vaissette, ]&d. Privat, VIII. 1191-3.


516 CONFISCATION.

three years. Accordingly in the accounts of the royal procureurs des encours of Carcassonne we constantly find the confiscations in Albi shared with the bishop. Although between St. John's day 1322 and 1323 this share in money amounted only to one hundred and sixty li\Tes, there were times when it was much greater. About the year 1300 Bishop Bernard de Castanet generously gave to the Dominican Church of Albi his portion of the estates of two citizens, Guillem Aymeric and Jean de Castanet, condemned after death, which amounted to more than one thousand livres. It can readily be imagined that this arrangement with the crown gave rise to constant quarrels. In vain Philippe le Bel, in 1307, ordered the observance of the agreement with restitution for any infrac- tions. In 1316 we find the bishop claiming properties which had not been sold within the three years, and Arnaud Assalit, the jpro- cureur, arguing that he had been prevented from effecting sales by just and legitimate causes, when the seneschal, Aymeric de Croso, decided that the impediments had been legitimate, and that the rights of the king were not forfeited."^

These were not the only questions arising from this wholesale spoliation which afforded an ample harvest to the legal profession. A suit brought by the bishops of Kodez for some lands held by the crown as heretic confiscations dragged on for thirty years until it reached the Parlement of Paris, which cooUy annulled all the pro- ceedings on the ground that those who had acted for the crown had lacked the requisite authority. Almost equally protracted and confused was a suit between Eleanor de Montfort, Countess of Yendome, and the king over the lands of Jean Baudier and Ray- mond Calverie. The confiscations occurred in 1300 ; in 1327 the suit was still pursuing its weary way, to be finally compromised in 1335.t

All prelates were not as rapacious as those of Albi, one of whom we find still, in 1328, complaining of the evasions resorted to by the victims to save a fragment of their property for their

  • A. Molinier (Vaissette, td. Privat, VII. 284-94; VIII. 919).— ColL Doat,

XXXIV. 131, 135, 189 ; XXXV. 93.— Urbani PP. IV. Epist. 62 (Martene Thesaur. II. 94).— Bern. Guidon. Hist. Conv. Albiens.— Vaissette, III. Pr. 467, 500.— Arch, de rinq. de Carcass. (Doat, XXXI. 143, 146).

t C. Molinier, L'Inquisition dans le midi de la France, p. 101. — Les Olim, III. 1126-9, 1440-2. See also I. 920.


RAPACITY OF THE PRINCES. 517

families  ; but the princes and their representatives were relentless in grasping all that they could lay their hands on. I have men- tioned that as soon as a suspect was cited before the Inquisition his property was sequestrated to await the result, and proclamation was made to all his debtors and those who held his effects to bring everything to the king. Charles of Anjou carried this practice to Naples, where a royal order, in 1269, to arrest sixty-nine heretics contains instructions to seize simultaneously their goods, which are to be held for the king. So assured were the officials that con- demnation would follow trial that they frequently did not await the result, but carried out the confiscation in advance. This abuse was coeval with the founding of the Inquisition. In 1237 Greg- ory IX. complained of it and forbade it, but to Httle purpose, for in 1246 the Council of Beziers again prohibited it, unless, indeed, the offender had knowingly adhered to those who were known to be heretics, in which case, apparently, it was sanctioned. When, in 1259, St. Louis mitigated the rigors of confiscation, he indirectly forbade this wrong by instructing his officials that, when the ac- cused was not condemned to imprisonment, they should give him or his heirs a hearing to reclaim the property ; but, if there was any suspicion of heresy, it was not to be restored without taldng security that it should be surrendered if anything was proved within five years, during which period it was not to be alienated. Yet still the outrage of confiscation before conviction continued with sufficient frequency to induce Boniface YIII. to embody its prohibition in the canon law. Even this did not put a stop to it. The Inquisition had so habituated men's minds to the belief that no one escaped who had once fallen into its hands, that the officials considered themselves safe in acting upon the presumption. By an unusual coincidence we have the data from various sources in a single case of this kind which is doubtless the type of many others. In the prosecutions at Albi in 1300, a certain Jean Bau- dier was first examined January 20, when he acknowledged noth- ing. At a second hearing, February 5, he confessed to acts of heresy, and he was condemned March 7. Yet his confiscated property was sold January 29, not only before his sentence, but before his confession. Guillem Garric, charged with complicity in the plot to destroy the inquisitorial records of Carcassonne in 1284, was not sentenced until 1319, but in 1301 we find the Count of Foix


518 CONFISCATION.

and tlie roval officials quarrelling over his confiscated castle of Monteirat.'^

The ferocious rapacity with which this process of confiscation was carried on may be conceived from a report made by Jean d' Arsis, Seneschal of Eouergue, to Alphonse of Poitiers, about 1253, as an evidence of the zeal Avith which he was guarding the inter- ests of his suzerain. The Bishop of Kodez was conducting a vigor- ous episcopal inquisition, and at JS'ajac had handed over a certain Kugues Paraire as a heretic, whom the seneschal burned " incon- tinently " and collected over one thousand livres Tournois from his estate. Hearing, subsequently, that the bishop had cited before him at Kodez six other citizens of Najac, d' Arsis hastened thither to see that no fraud was practised on the count. The bishop told him that these men were all heretics, and that he would make the count gain one hundred thousand sols from their confiscations, but both he and his assessors begged the seneschal to forego a portion to the culprits or their children, which that loyal servitor bluntly refused. Then the bishop, following evil counsel, and in fraud of the rights of the count, endeavored to elude the forfeiture by con- demning the heretics to some lighter penance. The seneschal, however, knew his master's rights and seized the property, after which he allowed some pittance to the penitents and their children, reporting that in addition to this he was in possession of about one thousand livres; and he winds up by advising the count, if he wishes not to be defrauded, to appoint some one to watch and su- pervise the further inquisitions of the bishop. On the other hand the bishops complained that the officials of Alphonse permitted her- etics, for a pecuniary consideration, to retain a part or the whole of their confiscated property, or else condemned to the flames those who did not deserve it in order to seize their estates. These frightful abuses grew so unbearable that, in 1254, the officials of Alphonse, including Gui Foucoix, endeavored to reform them by issuing general regulations on the subject, but the matter was one

  • Archives de I'J^vgchg d'Albi (Doat, XXXV. 83).— Les Olim, I. 55B.— Ar-

chivio di Napoli, Regist. 4, Lett. B, fol. 47. — Archives de r:Evgch6 de B6ziers (Doat, XXXI. 35). — Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246 c. 3. — Isambert, Anc. Loix Fran9aises, L 257.— C. 19 Sexto v. 2.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 11847.— Collect. Doat, XXXV. 68.— Molinier, L'Inq. dans de midi de la France, p. 102. — Vaissette, ]Sd. Privat, X. Pr. 370 sqq.


RAPACITY OF THE PRINCES. 519

which in its inherent nature scarce admitted of reform. Yet Al- phonse, with all his greed, was not unwiUing to share the plunder with those who secured it for him, and several of his not wholly disinterested liberalities of this kind are on record. In 1268 we have a letter of his assigning to the Inquisition a revenue of one hundred livres per annum on the confiscated estate of a heretic ; and in 1270 another, confirming the foundation of a chapel from a similar source.*

Nothing could exceed the minute thoroughness with which every fragment of a confiscated estate was f oUowed up and seized. The account of the collections of confiscated property from 1302 to 1313 by the procureitrs des encours of Carcassone is extant in MS., and shows how carefully the debts due to the condemned were looked after, even to a few pence for a measure of corn. In the case of one wealthy prisoner, Guillem de Fenasse, the estate was not wound up for eight or ten years, and the whole number of debts collected foots up to eight hundred and fifty-nine, in amounts ranging from fiNQ deniers upward. As the collectors never credit themselves with amounts paid in discharge of debts due by these estates, it is evident that the rule that a heretic could give no valid obhgations was strictly construed and that creditors were shame- lessly cheated. In this seizure of debts the nobles asserted a right to claim any sums due by debtors who were their vassals, but Phi- lippe de Yalois, in 1329, decided that when the debts were payable at the domicile of the heretic they inured to the royal fisc, irre- spective of the allegiance of the debtor. Another illustration of the remorseless greed which seized everything is found in a suit decided by the Parlement of Paris in 1302. On the death of the Chevalier Gruillem Prunele and his wife Isabelle, the guardianship of their orphans would legally vest in the next of kin, the Cheva- lier Bernard de Montesquieu, but he had been burned some years before for heresy, and his estate, of course, confiscated. The Sene- schal of Carcassonne insisted that the guardianship which thus subsequently fell in formed part of the assets of the estate, and he accordingly assumed it, but a nephew, an Esquire Bernard de


  • Boutaric, Saint Louis etAlphonse de Poitiers, Paris, 1870, pp. 455-6. —Douais,

Les sources de Thistoire de Inquisition (Revue des Questions Historiques, Oct. 1881, p. 436).-Col). Doat, XXXII. 51, G4.


520 CONFISCATION.

Montesquieu, contested the matter and finally obtained a decision in his favor.*

Equal care was exercised in recovering alienated property. As, in obedience to the Roman law of majestas^ forfeiture occurred ipso facto as soon as the crime of heresy was committed, the heretic could convey no legal title, and any assignments which he might have made were void, no matter through how many hands the property might have passed. The holder was forced to surrender it, nor could he demand restitution of what he had paid, unless the money or other consideration were found among the goods of the heretic. The eagerness with which, in such cases, the rigor of the law was enforced may be estimated from one occurring in 1272. Charles of Anjou had written from Naples to his viguier and sous- viguier at Marseilles telling them that a certain Maria Roberta, before condemnation to prison for heresy, had sold a house which was subject to confiscation ; this he ordered them to seize, to seU by auction, and to report the proceeds ; but they neglected to do so. The viguiers were changed, and now the unforgetf ul Charles writes to the new oflicials, repeating his orders and holding them person- ally responsible for obedience. At the same time he writes to his seneschal with instructions to look after the matter, as it lies very near to his heart.f

The cruelty of the process of confiscation was enhanced by the pitiless methods employed. As soon as a man was arrested for suspicion of heresy his property was sequestrated and seized by the officials, to be returned to him in the rare cases in which his guilt might be declared not proven. This rule was enforced in the most rigorous manner, every article of his household gear and provisions being inventoried, as well as his real estate.:]: Thus, whether innocent or guilty, his family were turned out-of-doors to starve or to depend upon the precarious charity of others — a charity


  • Archives de I'f^vgchg d'Albi (Doat, XXXIII. 207-72).— Coll. Doat, XXXV.

93.— Les Olim, II. 111.

t Bernard! Comens. Lucerna Inquis. s. v. Bona hoereticor. — Archidiac* Gloss, sup. c. 19 Sexto V. 2.— Archivio di Napoli, Regist. 15, Lett. C, fol. 77, 78.

The English law of felony was also retroactive, and all alienations subsequent to the commission of the crime were void (Bracton, Lib. iii. Tract, ii. cap. 13, No. 8).

X Coll. Doat, XXXII. 309, 316.


SECULAR CO-OPERATION. 537

calcitrant, while they were at the same time cautioned only to speak of executing the laws without specifically mentioning the penalty, in order to avoid falling into " irregularity," though the only punishment recognized by the Church as sufficient for heresy was burning alive. Even if the ruler was excommunicated and incapable of legally performing any other function, he was not relieved from the obligation of this supreme duty, with which nothing was allowed to interfere. Indeed, authorities were found to argue that if an inquisitor were obliged to execute the sentence himself he would not thereby incur irregularity.*

We are not to imagine, however, from these reduplicated com- mands that the secular power, as a rule, showed itself in the shghtest degree disinchned to perform the duty. The teachings of the Church had made too profound an impression for any doubt in the premises to exist. As has been seen above, the laws of all the states of Europe prescribed concremation as the appropriate penalty for heresy, and even the free commonwealths of Italy rec- ognized the Inquisition as the judge whose sentences were to be bhndly executed. Raymond of Toulouse himself, in the fit of piety which preceded his death in 1249, caused eighty believers in heresy to be burned at Berlaiges, near Agen, after they had confessed in his presence, apparently without giving them the opportunity of recanting. From the contemporary sentences of Bernard de Caux, it is probable that, had these unfortunates been tried before that ardent champion of the faith, not one of them would have been condemned to the stake as impenitent. Quite as significant was the suit brought by the Marechal de Mirepoix against the Senes- chal of Carcassonne, because the latter had invaded his right to burn for himself all his subjects condemned as heretics by the In- quisition. In 1269 the Parlement of Paris decided the case in his favor, after which, on March 18, 1270, the seneschal acceded to his demand that the bones of seven men and three women of his ter-


  • C. 18 Sexto V. 2.— Concil. Albicns. ann. 1254 c. 22.— Eymeric. Direct. Inq. pp.

372, 562.— Pegnae Comment, in Eymeric. p. 5G4. — Guid. Fulcod. Qujcst. x.— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Ad audientiam,^ 12G0 (Eymeric. Append, p. 34). — Bern. Guidon. Prac- tica P. IV. (Doat, XXX.).— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Qumivisti, 1260 (RipoU I. 393).— Wadding. Annal. ann. 1288, No. 20. — Zanchini Tract, de Ilaeret. c. xviii. — For- talicii Fidei fol. 74&. — Bcrnardi Comcns. Luccrna luquisit. s, v. Ejcecutio^ No. 1, 8.


538 THE STAKE.

ritories, recently burned at Carcassonne, should be solemnly sur- rendered to him in recognition of his right ; or, if they could not be found and identified, then, as substitutes, ten canvas bags filled with straw — a ghastly S3mibolic ceremony which was actually per- formed two days later, and a formal notarial act executed in at- testation of it. Yet, though the De Levis of Mirepoix rejoiced in the title of Marechaux de la Foi, it is not to be assumed that this eagerness arose wholly from bloodthirsty fanaticism, for there was nothing to which the seigneur-justicier clung more jealously than to every detail of his jurisdiction. A similar dispute arose in 1309, when the Count of Foix claimed the right to burn the Catharan heresiarch, Jacques Autier, and a woman named Guillelma Cristola, condemned by Bernard Gui, because they were his subjects, but the royal oflBcials maintained their master's privileges in the prem- ises, and the suit thence arising was still pending in 1326. So at Narbonne, where there was a long-standing dispute between the archbishop and the viscount as to the jurisdiction, and where, in 1319, the former in conjunction with the inquisitor Jean de Beaune relaxed three heretics, he claimed for his court the right to burn them. The commune, as representing the viscount, resisted this, and the hideous quarrel was only settled by the representative of the king stepping in and performing the act. In so doing, how- ever, he carefully specified that it was not to work prejudice to either party, while to the end the archbishop protested against the intrusion upon his rights.^

If, however, from any cause, the secular authorities were re- luctant to execute the death-sentence, the Church had httle cere- mony in putting forth its powers to coerce obedience. When, for instance, the first resistance in Toulouse had been broken down and the Holy Office had been reinstated there, the inquisitors, in 1237, condemned six men and women as heretics ; but the viguier and consuls refused to receive the convicts, to confiscate their property, and "to do with them what was customary to be done with heretics " — that is, to burn them alive. Thereupon the in- quisitors, after counselling with the bishop, the Abbot du Mas, the Provost of St. fitienne, and the Prior of La Daurade, proceeded to


  • Guill. Pod. Laur. cap. 48.— Les Olim, I. 317,— Vaissette, td. Privat, VIII.

J674 • X. Pr. 484, 659.— Baluz. et Mansi, II. 257.


COERCION OF THE STATE. 539

excommunicate solemnly the recalcitrant officials in the Cathedral of St. Etienne. In 1288 Nicholas lY. lamented the neglect and covert opposition with which in many places the secular authori- ties evaded the execution of the inquisitorial sentences, and directed that they should be punished with excommunication and depriva- tion of office and their communities be subjected to interdict. In 1458, at Strassburg, the Burgermeister, Hans Drachenfels, and his colleagues refused at first to burn the Hussite missionary Frederic Eeiser and his servant Anna Weiler, but their resistance was over- come and they were finally forced to execute the sentence. Thirty years later, in 1486, the magistrates of Brescia objected to burning certain witches of both sexes condemned by the Inquisition, unless they should be permitted to examine the proceedings. This was held to be flat rebellion. Civil lawyers, it is true, had endeavored to prove that the secular authorities had a right to see the papers, but the inquisitors had succeeded in having this claim rejected. Innocent YIII. promptly declared the Venetian demands to be a scandal to the faith, and he ordered the excommunication of the magistrates if within six days they did not execute the convicts, any municipal statutes to the contrary being pronounced null and void — a decision which was held to give the secular courts six days in which to carry out the sentence of condemnation. A more stubborn contest arose in 1521, when the Inquisition endeavored to purge the dioceses of both Brescia and Bergamo of the witches who still infested them. The inquisitor and episcopal ordinaries proceeded against them vigorously, but the Signiory of Venice interposed and appealed to Leo X., who appointed his nuncio at Venice to revise the trials. The latter delegated his power to the Bishop of Justinopolis, who proceeded with the inquisitor and ordi- naries to the Valcamonica of Brescia, where the so-called heretics were numerous, and condemned some of them to be relaxed to the secular arm. Still dissatisfied, the Venetian Senate ordered the Governor of Brescia not to execute the sentences or to permit them to be executed, or to pay the expenses of the proceedings, but to send the papers to Venice for revision, and to compel the Bishop of Justinopolis to appear before them, which he was obliged to do. This inflamed the papal indignation to the highest pitch. Leo X. warmly assured the inquisitor and the episcopal officials that they had full jurisdiction over the culprits, that their sentences were to


540 THE STAKE.

be executed witliout revision or examination, and that they must enforce these rights with the free use of ecclesiastical censures. The spirit of the age, however, was insubordinate, and Venice had always been peculiarly so in all matters connected with the Holy Office. We shall see hereafter how the Council of Ten undaunt- edly held its position and asserted the superiority of its jurisdic- tion in a manner previously unexampled.*

In view of this unvarying policy of the Church during the three centuries under consideration, and for a century and a hs\lt later, there is a typical instance of the manner in which history is written to order, in the quiet assertion of the latest CathoHc his- torian of the Inquisition that " the Church took no part in the corporal punishment of heretics. Those who perished miserably were only chastised for their crimes, sentenced by judges invested with the royal jurisdiction. The record of the excesses commit- ted by the heretics of Bulgaria, by the Gnostics and Manichseans, is historical, and capital punishment was only inflicted on crimi- nals confessing to robbery, assassination, and violence. The Albi- genses were treated with equal benignity ; . . . the Catholic Church deplored all acts of vengeance, however great was the provocation given by the ferocity of those factious masses." So completely, in truth, was the Church convinced of its duty to see that all heretics were burned that, at the Council of Constance, the eigh- teenth article of heresy charged against John Huss was that, in his treatise de Ecclesia^ he had taught that no heretic ought to be abandoned to secular judgment to be punished with death. In his defence even Huss admitted that a heretic who could not be mildly led from error ought to suffer bodily punishment; and when a passage was read from his book in which those who de- hver an unconvicted heretic to the secular arm are compared to the Scribes and Pharisees who delivered Christ to Pilate, the as- sembly broke out into a storm of objurgation, during which even the sturdy reformer. Cardinal Pierre d' Ailly, was heard to exclaim,


  • Vaissette, III. 410. — Wadding. Annal. ann. 1288, No. xix. — Hoflfmann, Ge-

schichte der Inquisition, II. 391. — Bernardi Comens. Lucerna Inquisit. s. v. Eose- cutio.l^o. 6.— Innoc. PP. VIII. Bull. Bilectus films, 1486 (Pegnge App. ad Eymeric. p. 84).— Leo. PP. X. Bull. Honestis, 1521 (Mag. Bull. Rom. I. 617).— Albizio, Ri- sposto al P. Paolo Sarpi. pp. 64-70,


DISINTERESTEDNESS OF PHILIPPE LE BON. 521

chilled by the fact that any manifestation of sympathy was dan- gerous. It would be difficult to estimate the amount of human misery arising from this source alone.

In this chaos of plunder we may readily imagine that those who were engaged in such work were not over-nice as to securing a share of the spoliations. In 1304 Jacques de Polignac, who had been for twenty years keeper of the inquisitorial jail at Carcas- sonne, and several of the officials employed on the confiscations, were found to have converted and detained a large amount of val- uable property, including a castle, several farms and other lands, vineyards, orchards, and movables, all of which they were com- pelled to disgorge and to suffer punishment at the king's pleasure.*

It is pleasant to turn from this cruel greed to a case which ex- cited much interest in Flanders at a time when in that region the Inquisition had become so nearly dormant that the usages of con- fiscation were almost forgotten. The Bishop of Tournay and the Vicar of the Inquisition condemned at Lille a number of heretics, who were duly burned. They confiscated the property, claiming the movables for the Church and the inquisitor, and the realty for the fisc. The magistrates of LiUe boldly interposed, declaring that among the liberties of their town was the privilege that no burgher could forfeit both body and goods ; and, acting for the children of one of the victims, they took out ajpostoli and appealed to the pope. The counsellors of the suzerain, Philippe le Bon of Bur- gundy, with a clearer perception of the law, claimed that the whole confiscations inured to him, while the ecclesiastics declared the rule to be invariable that the personalty went to the Church and only the real estate to the fisc. The triangular quarrel threat- ened long and costly litigation, and finally all parties agreed to leave the decision to the duke himself. With rare wisdom, in 1430, he settled the matter, with general consent, by deciding that the sen- tence of confiscation should be treated as not rendered, and the property be left to the heirs, at the same time expressly declaring that the rights of Church, Inquisition, city, and state, were re- served without prejudice, in any case that might arise in future, which was, he said, not likely to occur. He did not manifest the same disinterestedness in 1460, however, in the terrible persecution


Les Olim, II. 147.— Doat, XXVI. 253.


522 CONFISCATION.

of the sorcerers of Arras, when the movables were confiscated to the episcopal treasury, and he seized the landed property in spite of the privileges alleged by the city.*

In addition to the misery inflicted by these wholesale confis- cations on the thousands of innocent and helpless women and chil- dren thus stripped of everything, it would be almost impossible to exaggerate the evil which they entailed upon all classes in the business of daily life. All safeguards were withdrawn from every transaction. No creditor or purchaser could be sure of the ortho- doxy of him with whom he was dealing; and, even more than the principle that ownership was forfeited as soon as heresy had been committed by the living, the practice of proceeding against the memory of the dead after an interval virtually unhmited, rendered it impossible for any man to feel secure in the posses- sion of property, whether it had descended in his family for gen- erations, or had been acquired within an ordinary lifetime.

The prescription of time against the Church had to be at least forty years — against the Roman Church, a hundred, and this pre- scription ran, not from the commission of the crime, but from its detection. Though some legists held that proceedings against the deceased had to be commenced within five years after death, others asserted that there was no limit, and the practice of the Inquisition shows that the latter opinion was followed. The prescription of forty years' possession by good Catholics was fur- ther hmited by the conditions that they must at no time have had a knowledge that the former owner was a heretic, and, moreover, he must have died with an unsullied reputation for orthodoxy — both points which might cast a grave doubt on titles. f


  • Archives G^nferales de Belgique, Papiers d'iiitat, v. 405. — M6moires de

Jacques du Clercq, Liv. iv. ch. 4, 14.

In Arras a charter of 1335, confirmed by Charles V. in 1369, protected the burghers from confiscation when condemned for crime by any competent tribu- nal.— Duverger, La Vauderie dans les ^tltats de Philippe le Bon, Al-ras, 1885, p. 60.

t C. 6, 8, 9, 14, Sexto xii. 26.— Bernardi Comensis Lucerna Inquis. s. v. Bona hmreticorum. — Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 570-2.— Zanchini Tract, de Haeret, c. xxiv. — J. F. Ponzinib. de Lamiis c. 76.

Severe as was the contemporary English law against felony, it had at least


ESTATES OF THE DEAD. 523

Prosecution of the dead, as we have seen, was a mockery in which virtually defence was impossible and confiscation inevita- ble. How unexpectedly the blow might fall is seen in the case of Gherardo of Florence. He was rich and powerful, a member of one of the noblest and oldest houses, and was consul of the city in 1218. Secretly a heretic, he was hereticated on his death-bed between 1246 and 1250, but the matter lay dormant until 1313, when Fra Grimaldo, the Inquisitor of Florence, brought a success- ful prosecution against his memory. In the condemnation were included his children Ugolino, Cante, Nerlo, and Bertuccio, and his grandchildren, Goccia, Coppo, Fra Giovanni, Gherardo, prior of S. Quirico, Goccino, Baldino, and Marco — not that they were heretics, but that they were disinherited and subjected to the dis- abilities of descendants of heretics. When such proceedings were hailed as pre-eminent exhibitions of holy zeal, no man could feel secure in his possessions, whether derived from descent or pur- chase.*

An instance of a different character, but equally illustrative, is furnished by the case of Geraud de Puy-Germer. His father had been condemned for heresy in the times of Eaymond YII. of Tou- louse, who generously restored the confiscated estates. Yet, twenty years after the death of the count, in 1268, the zealous agents of Alphonse seized them as still liable to forfeiture. Geraud there-


this concession to justice, that a felon had to be convicted in his lifetime ; his death before conviction thus prevented confiscation (Bracton, Lib. iii. Tract, ii. cap. 13, No. 17).

  • Lami, Antichita Toscane, pp. 497, 536-7. — It is true that when, in 1335,

Henri de Chamay, Inquisitor of Carcassonne, sent to the papal court the deposi- tions against the memory of eighteen persons accused of heretical acts commit- ted between 1284 and 1290, and asked for instructions, the decision was that no reliance was to be placed on the testimony of witnesses who mostly contradicted themselves, and who only swore to what they had heard long before. Three previous investigations against the same persons had been held without reach- ing a conclusion, and the papal advisers assumed that there had been good rea- sons for dropping the matter. — Vaissette, 'kd. Privat, IX. 401.

How the system worked is seen in the complaint made in 1247 to St. Louis, by Guillem Pierre de Vintrou, that the royal seneschal of Carcassonne had seized his property derived through his mother, because his grandfather, seventeen years after death, had been accused of heresy. St. Louis thereupon ordered an examination and report. — Vaissette, fid. Privat, VIII. 1190.


524 CONFISCATION.

upon appealed to Alphonsc, who ordered an investigation, but with wliat result does not appear.*

Not only were all alienations made by heretics set aside and the property wrested from the purchasers, but all debts contract- ed by them, and all hypothecations and liens given to secure loans, were void. Thus doubt was cast upon every obligation that a man could enter into. Even when St. Louis softened the rigor of confiscation in Languedoc, the utmost concession he would make was that creditors should be paid for debts contracted by culprits before they became heretics, while all claims arising subsequently to an act of heresy were rejected. As no man could be certain of the orthodoxy of another, it will be evident how much distrust must have been thrown upon every bargain and every sale in the commonest transactions of life. The blighting influence of this upon the development of commerce and industry can readily be perceived, coming as it did at a time when the commercial and industrial movement of Europe was beginning to usher in the dawn of modern culture. It was not merely the spiritual striving of the thirteenth century that was repressed by the Inquisition ; the progress of material improvement was seriously retarded. It was this, among other incidents of persecution, which arrested the promising civihzation of the south of France and transferred to England and the Netherlands, where the Inquisition was compar- atively unknown, the predominance in commerce and industry which brought freedom and wealth and power and progress in its train.f

The quick-witted Italian commonwealths, then rising into mer- cantile importance, were keen to recognize the disabilities thus inflicted upon them. In Florence a remedy was sought by re- quiring the seller of real estate always to give security against possible future sentences of confiscation by the Inquisition — the security in general being that of a third party, although there must have been no little difficulty in obtaining it, and though it might likewise be invalidated at any moment by the same cause.

'^ Vaissette, -^d. Privat, VIII. 1641.

t Zanchini Tract, de Hseret. c. xxvii. — Isambert, Anc. Loix Fran9aises, I. 257.

Yet there is a case in 1269 in which a creditor of two condemned heretics ap- plies to Alphonse of Poitiers to be paid out of the confiscations, and Alphonse orders an inquiry into the circumstances. — Vaissette, Ed. Privat, VIII. 1682.


EXPENSES OF THE INQUISITION. 525

Even in contracts for personalty, security was also often demanded and given. This was, at least, only replacing one evil by another of scarcely less magnitude, and the trouble grew so intolerable that a remedy was sought for one of its worst features. The re- public solemnly represented to Martin lY. the scandals which had occurred and the yet greater ones threatened, in consequence of the confiscation of the real estate of heretics in the hands of honci- fide purchasers, and by a special bull of I^ov. 22, 1283, the pontiff graciously ordered the Florentine inquisitors in future not to seize such property.*

The princes who enjoyed the results of confiscations recognized that they carried with them the correlative duty of defraying the expenses of the Inquisition ; indeed, self-interest alone would have prompted them to maintain in a state of the highest efficiency an instrumentality so profitable. Theoretically, it could not be de- nied that the bishops were liable for these expenses, and at first the inquisitors of Languedoc sought to obtain funds from them, suggesting that at least pecuniary penances inflicted for pious uses should be devoted to paying their notaries and clerks. This was fruitless, for, as Gui Foucoix (Clement lY.) remarks, their hands were tenacious and their purses constipated, and as it was useless to look to them for resources, he advises that the pecuniary pen- ances be used for the purpose, providing it be done decently and without scandalizing the people. Throughout central and north- ern Italy, as we have seen, the fines and confiscations rendered the Inquisition fully self-supporting, and the inquisitors were eager to make business out of which they could reap a pecuniary har- vest. In Yenice the State defrayed aU expenses and took all profits. In Naples the same pohcy was at first pursued by the Angevine monarchs, who took the confiscations and, in addition to maintaining prisoners, paid to each inquisitor one augustale (one quarter ounce of gold) per diem for the expenses of himself and his associate, his notary, and three familiars, with their horses. These stipends were assigned upon the Naples customs on iron, pitch, and salt ; the orders for their payment ran usually for six


  • Lami, Antichita Toscanc, p. 593. — Arcliivio di Firenze, Riformagioni,

Classe V. No. 110.


526 CONFISCATION.

months at a time and had to be renewed ; there was considerable dehiy in the settlements, and the inquisitors had substantial cause of complaint, although the officials were threatened with fines for lack of pi'omptness. In 12Y2, however, I find a letter issued to the inquisitor, Fra Matteo di Castellamare, providing him with a year's salary, payable six months in advance. When, as men- tioned above, Charles II., in 1290, divided the proceeds according to the papal prescription, he liberally continued to contribute to the expenses, though on a somewhat reduced scale. In letters of May 16, 1294, he orders the payment to Fra Bartolomeo di Aquila of four tareni per diem (the tareno was one thirtieth of an ounce of gold), and July 7 of the same year he provides that five ounces per month be paid to him for the expenses of his official family.* In France there was at first some question as to the responsi- bility for the charges attendant upon persecution. The duty of the bishops to suppress heresy was so plain that they could not refuse to meet the expenses, at least in part. Before the estab- lishment of the Inquisition this consisted almost w^holly in the maintenance of imprisoned converts, and at the Council of Tou- louse they agreed to defray this in the case of those who had no money, while those who had property to be confiscated they claimed should be supported by the princes who obtained it. This proposition, like the subsequent one of the Council of Albi, in 1254, was altogether too cumbrous to work. The statutes of Ka3niiond, in 1234, while dwelling elaborately on the subject of confiscation, made no provision for meeting the cost of the new Inquisition, and the matter remained unsettled. In 1237 we find Gregory IX. complaining that the royal officials contributed nothing for the support of the prisoners whose property they had confiscated. When, in 1246, the Council of Beziers was assembled, the Cardinal Legate of Albano reminded the bishops that it was their business to provide for it, according to the instructions of the Council of MontpeUier, whose proceedings have not reached us. The good bishops were not disposed to do this. As we have seen, they

  • MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 228.— Guid. Fulcod. Quaest. iii.

— Archivio di Napoli, Regist. 6, Lett. B, fol. 35 ; Reg. 10, Lett. B, fol. 6, 7, 96 ; Reg. 11, Lett. C, fol. 40; Reg. 13, Lett. A, fol. 212; Reg. 51, Lett. A, fol. 9; Reg. 71, Lett. M, fol. 382, 385, 440; Reg. 98, Lett. B, fol. 13; Reg. 113, Lett. A, fol. 194 ; Reg. 253, Lett. A, fol. 63 ; MSS. Chioccorello, T. VIII.


EXPENSES OF THE INQUISITION. 527

claimed that prisons should be built at the expense of the recipi- ents of the confiscations, and suggested that the fines should be used for their maintenance and for that of the inquisitors. The piety of St. Louis, however, would not see the good work halt for lack of the necessary means; with a more worldly prince we might assume that he recognized the money spent on inquisitors as profitably invested. In 1248 we find him defraying their ex- penses in all the domains of the crown, and we have shown above how he assumed the cost of prisons and prisoners ; in addition to which, in 1246, he ordered his Seneschal of Carcassonne to pay out of the confiscations ten sols per diem to the inquisitors for their expenses. It may fairly be presumed that Count Raymond con- tributed with a grudging hand to the support of an institution Avhich he had opposed so long as he dared ; but when he was suc- ceeded, in 1249, by Jeanne and Alphonse of Poitiers, the latter pol- itic and avaricious prince saw his account in stimulating the zeal of those to whom he owed his harvest of confiscations. Not only did he defray the cost of the fixed tribunals, but his seneschals had orders to pay the expenses of the inquisitors and their famil- iars in their movements throughout his territories. He paid close attention to detail. In 1268 we find Guillem de Montreuil, In- quisitor of Toulouse, reporting to him the engagement of a notary at six deniers per diem and of a servitor at four, and Alphonse graciously ordering the payment of their wages. Charles of An- jou, who was equally greedy, found time amid his ItaHan distrac- tions to see that his Seneschal of Provence and Forcalquier kept the Inquisition supphed on the same basis as did the king in the royal dominions.*

Large as were the returns to the fisc from the industry of the Inquisition, the inquisitors were sometimes disposed to presume upon their usefulness, and to spend money with a freedom which


  • Concil. Tolosan. ann. 1229 c. 9. — Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 24. — Har-

duin. VII. 415. — Archives de L':Ev6che de Bezicrs (Doat, XXXI. 35). — Concil. BitciTcns. ann. 1246 c. 22. — D. Bouquet, T. XXI. pp. 262, 264, 266, 278, etc.— Vaissette, £d. Privat, VIII. 1206, 1573.— Archives de ITnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXI. 250).— Arcliivio di Napoli, Regist. 20, Lett. B, fol. 91.

Tlie care with which Alphonse looked after the proceeds of the confiscations is seen in his demand for an account from his seneschal, Jacques du Bois, March 25, 1268 (Vaissette, td. Privat, VIII. 1274).


528 CONFISCATION.

seemed unnecessary to those who paid the bills. Even in the fresh zeal of 1242 and 1244, before the princes had made provision for the Holy Office, and while the bishops were yet zealously maintaining their claims to the fines, the luxury and extravagance of the inquisitors called down upon them the reproof of their own Order as expressed in the Dominican provincial chapters of Mont- pellier and Avignon. It would be, of course, unjust to cast such reproach upon all inquisitors, but no doubt many deserved it, and we have seen that there were numerous ways in which they could supply their wants, legitimate or otherwise. It might, indeed, be a curious question to determine the source whence Bernard de Caux, who presided over the tribunal of Toulouse until his death, in 1252, and who, as a Dominican, could have ow^ned no property, obtained the means which enabled him to be a great benefactor to the convent of Agen, founded in 1249. Even Alphonse of Poi- tiers sometimes grew tired of ministering to the wishes of those who served him so well. In a confidential letter of 1268 he com- plains of the vast expenditures of Pons de Poyet and Etienne de Gatine, the inquisitors of Toulouse, and instructs his agent to try to persuade them to remove to Lavaur, where less extravagance might be hoped for. He offered to put at their disposal the castle of Lavaur, or any other that might be fit to serve as a prison ; and at the same time he craftily wrote to them direct, explaining that, in order to enable them to extend their operations, he would place an enormous castle in their hands.*

Some very curious details as to the expenses of the Inquisition, thus defrayed from the confiscations, from St. John's day, 1322, to 1323, are afforded by the accounts of Arnaud Assaht, procureur des encours of Carcassonne and Beziers, which have fortunately been preserved. From the sums thus coming into his hands the proGureur met the outlays of the Inquisition to the minutest item — the cost of maintaining prisoners, the hunting up of witnesses, the tracking of fugitives, and the charges for an auto defe^ includ- ing the banquets for the assembly of experts and the saffron-col- ored cloth for the crosses of the penitents. We learn frbm this


  • Molinier, L'Inquisition dans le midi de la France, p. 308. — Bern. Guidon.

Pundat. Convent. Prsedicat. (Martene Tbesaur. VI. 481). — Boutaric, Saint Louis et Alphonse de Poitiers, pp. 456-7.


PERSECUTION DEPENDENT ON CONFISCATION. 529

that the wages of the inquisitor himself were one hundred and fifty livres per annum, and also that they were very irregularly paid. Frere Otbert had been appointed in Lent, 1316, and thus far had received nothing of his stipend, but now, in consequence of a special letter from King Charles le Bel, the whole accumula- tion for six years, amounting to nine hundred livres, is paid in a lump. Although by this time persecution was slackening for lack of material, the confiscations were still quite profitable. Assalit charges himself with two thousand two hundred and nineteen livres seven sols ten deniers collected during the year, while his outlays, including heavy legal expenses and the extraordinary pay- ment to Frere Otbert, amounted to one thousand one hundred and sixty-eight livres eleven sols four deniers, leaving about one thou- sand and fifty livres of profit to the crown.*

Persecution, as a steady and continuous policy, rested, after all, upon confiscation. It was this which supplied the fuel to keep up the fires of zeal, and when it was lacking the business of defend- ing the faith languished lamentably. When Catharism disappeared under the brilliant aggressiveness of Bernard Gui, the culminating point of the Inquisition was passed, and thenceforth it steadily de- cUned, although still there were occasional confiscated estates over which king, prelate, and noble quarrelled for some years to come. The Spirituals, Dulcinists, and Fraticelh were Mendicants, who held property to be an abomination ; the Waldenses were poor folk — mountain shepherds and lowland peasants — and the only prizes were an occasional sorcerer or usurer. Still, as late as 1337 the ofiice of baiUi of the confiscations for heresy in Toulouse was suf- ficiently lucrative to be worth purchasing under the prevailing cus- tom of selling all such positions, and the collections for the preced- ing fiscal year amounted to six hundred and forty livres six sols.f

The intimate connection between the activity of persecuting zeal and the material results to be derived from it is well iUus-


  • Coll. Doat, XXXIV. 189.— In 1317 the result had been much less. We

have the receipt of the royal treasurer of Carcassonne, Lothaire Blanc, to Arnaud Assalit, dated Sept. 24, 1317, for collections during the year ending the previous St. John's day, amounting to four hundred and ninety-five livres six sols eleven deniers, being the balance after deducting wages and expenses (Doat, XXXIV. 141).

t Doat, XXXV. 79, 100.— Vaissette, fid. Privat, X. Pr. 705, 777, 783. 1.-34


530 CONFISCATION.

trated in the failure of the first attempt to extend the Inquisition into Tranche Comte. John, Count of Burgundy, in 1248, repre- sented to Innocent lY. the alarming spread of Waldensianism throughout the province of Besangon and begged for its repres- sion. Apparently the zeal of Count John did not lead him to pay for the purgation of his dominions, and the plunder to be gained was inconsiderable, for, in 1255, Alexander TV. granted the peti- tion of the friars to be relieved from the duty, in which they averred that they had exhausted themselves fruitlessly for lack of money. The same lesson is taught by the want of success which attended all attempts to establish the Inquisition in Portugal. When, in 1376, Gregory XI. ordered the Bishop of Lisbon to ap- point a Franciscan inquisitor for the kingdom, recognizing appar- ently that there would be small receipts from confiscations, he provided that the incumbent should be paid a salary of two hun- dred gold florins per annum, assessed upon the various sees in the proportion of their forced contributions to the papal camera. The resistance of inertia, which rendered this command resultless, doubtless arose from the objection of the prelates to being thus taxed ; and the same may be said of the effort of Boniface IX., when he appointed Fray Yicente de Lisboa as Inquisitor of Spain and ordered his expenses defrayed by the bishops.*

Perhaps the most unscrupulous attempt to provide for the maintenance of the Inquisition was that made by the Emperor Charles lY. when, in 1369, he endeavored to establish it in Ger- many on a permanent basis. Heretics were neither numerous nor rich, and little could be gained from their confiscations to sustain the zeal of Kerlinger and his brethren ; and we shaU see hereafter how the houses of the orthodox and inoffensive Beghards and Beguines were summarily confiscated in order to provide domiciles and prisons for the inquisitors, while the cities were invited to share in the spoils in order to enlist popular support for the odious measure; we shall see also how it failed in consequence of the steady repugnance of prelates and people for the Holy Office. f

Eymerich, writing in Aragon, about 1375, says that the source


  • Potthast No. 13000, 15995. — Monteiro, Historia da Santo Inquisi9ao, P. I.

Lib. II. c. 34, 35.

t Mosheiin de Beghardis pp. 356-63.


DISPUTES OVER THE EXPENSES. 531

whence the expenses of the Inquisition should be met is a question which has been long debated and never settled. The most popu- lar view among churchmen was that the burden should fall on the temporal princes, since they obtained the confiscations and should accept the charge with the benefit ; but in these times, he sorrow- fully adds, there are few obstinate heretics, fewer still relapsed, and scarce any rich ones, so that, as there is little to be gained, the princes are not willing to defray the expenses. Some other means ought to be found, but of all the devices which have been proposed each has its insuperable objection ; and he concludes by regretting that an institution so wholesome and so necessary to Christendom should be so badly provided. *

It was probably while Eymerich was saddened with these un- palatable truths that the question was raising itself in the most practical shape elsewhere. As late as 1337 in the accounts of the Senechaussee of Toulouse there are expenditures for an auto defe and for repairs to the buildings and prison of the Inquisition, the salaries of the inquisitor and his officials, and the maintenance of prisoners, but the confusion and bankruptcy entailed by the Eng- lish war doubtless soon afterwards caused this duty to be neglected. In 1375 Gregor}^ XL persuaded King Frederic of Sicily to allow the confiscations to inure to the benefit of the Inquisition, so that funds might not be lacking for the prosecution of the good work. At the same time he made a vigorous effort to exterminate the Waldenses who were multiplying in Dauphine. There were pris- ons to be built and crowds of prisoners to be supported, and he di- rected that the expenses should be defrayed by the prelates whose negligence had given opportunity for the growth of heresy. Al- though he ordered this to be enforced by excommunication, it would seem that the constipated purses of the bishops could not be relaxed, for soon after we find the inquisitor laying claim to a share in the confiscations, on the reasonable ground of his having no other source whence to defray the necessary expenses of his tribunal. The royal officials insisted on keeping the whole, and a lively contest arose, which was referred to King Charles le Sage. The monarch dutifully conferred with the Holy See, and, in 1378, issued an Ordonndnce retaining the whole of the confiscations and


Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 652-3.


532 CONFISCATION.

assigning to the inquisitor a yearly stipend — the same as that paid to the tribunals of Toulouse and Carcassonne — of one hundred and ninety livres Tournois, out of which all the expenses of the Inqui- sition were to be met ; with a proviso that if the allowance was not regularly paid then the inquisitor should be at liberty to de- tain a portion of the forfeitures. No doubt this agreement was observed for a time, but it lapsed in the terrible disorders which ensued on the insanity of Charles YI. In 1409 Alexander Y. left to his legate to decide whether the Inquisitor of Dauphine should receive three hundred gold florins a year, to be levied on the Jews of Avignon, or ten florins a year from each of the bish- ops of his extensive district, or whether the bishops should be com- pelled to support him and his officials in his journeys through the country. These precarious resources disappeared in the confusion of the civil wars and invasion which so nearly wrecked the mon- archy. In 1432, when Frere Pierre Fabri, Inquisitor of Embrun, was summoned to attend the Council of Basle, he excused himself on account of his preoccupation with the stubborn Waldenses, and also on the ground of his indescribable poverty, " for never have I had a penny from the Church of God, nor have I a stipend from any other source." ^

Of course it would be unjust to say that greed and thirst for plunder were the impelling motives of the Inquisition, though, when complaints were made that the fisc was defrauded of its dues by the immunity promised to those who would come in and confess during the time of grace, and when Bernard Gui met this objection by pointing out that these penitents were obhged to betray their associates, and thus, in the long run, the fisc was the gainer, we see how largely the minds of those who urged on persecution were occupied by its profits. f We therefore are perfectly safe in asserting that but for the gains to be made out of fines and confiscations its work would have been much less thorough, and that it would have sunk into comparative insignifi-


  • Vaissette, fid. Privat, X. Pr. 791-2, 802. — Raynald. ann. 1375, No. 26.—

Wadding, ann. 1375, No. 21, 22; 1409, No. 13.— Isarabert, Anc. Loix Fran9aises, V. 491.— Martene Ampl. Collect. VIII. lGl-3.

t Bernard. Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Boat, XXX.).


ITS EFFICIENCY. 533

cance as soon as the first frantic zeal of bigotry had exhausted it- self. This zeal might have lasted for a generation, to be followed by a period of comparative inaction, until a fresh onslaught would have been excited by the recrudescence of heresy. Under a suc- cession of such spasmodic attacks Catharism might perhaps have never been completely rooted out. By confiscation the heretics were forced to furnish the means for their own destruction. Av- arice joined hands with fanaticism, and between them they sup- plied motive power for a hundred years of fierce, unremitting, unrelenting persecution, which in the end accomplished its main purpose.


CHAPTEE XIY.

THE STAKE.

Like conJSscation, the death-penalty was a matter with which the Inquisition had theoretically no concern. It exhausted every effort to bring the heretic back to the bosom of the Church. If he proved obdurate, or if his conversion was evidently feigned, it could do no more. As a non-Catholic, he was no longer amenable to the spiritual jurisdiction of a Church which he did not recog- nize, and all that it could do was to declare him a heretic and with- draw its protection. In the earlier periods the sentence thus is simply a condemnation as a heretic, accompanied by excommuni- cation, or it merely states that the offender is no longer considered as subject to the jurisdiction of the Church. Sometimes there is the addition that he is abandoned to secular judgment — " relaxed," according to the terrible euphemism which assumed that he was simply discharged from custody. "When the formulas had become more perfected there is frequently the explanatory remark that the Church has nothing left to do to him for his demerits ; and the relinquishment to the secular arm is accompanied with the significant addition " dehita animadversione puniendum " — that he is to be duly punished by it. The adjuration that this punish- ment, in accordance with the canonical sanctions, shaU not imperil life or limb, or shall not cause death or effusion of blood, does not appear in the earlier sentences, and was not universal even at a later period.*

That this appeal for mercy was the merest form is admitted by Pegna, who explains that it was used only that the inquisitors might seem not to consent to the effusion of blood, and thus avoid

  • Coll. Doat, XXI. 143. — MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 9992. — Doctrina

de modo procedendi (Martene Thesaur. V. 1807). — Lami, Antichit^ Toscane, pp. 557, 559. — Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 2, 4, 36, 208, 254, 265, 289, 380. — Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 510-12. .


RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CHURCH. 535

incurring irregularity."" The Church took good care that the nature of the request should not be misapprehended. It taught that in such cases all mercy was misplaced unless the heretic be- came a convert, and proved his sincerity by denouncing all his fellows. The remorseless logic of St. Thomas Aquinas rendered it self-evident that the secular power could not escape the duty of putting the heretic to death, and that it was only the exceeding kindness of the Church that led it to give the criminal two warn- ings before handing him over to meet his fate. The inquisitors themselves had no scruples on the subject, and condescended to no subterfuges respecting it, but always held that their condemnation of a heretic was a sentence of death. They showed this in avert- ing the pollution of a Church by not uttering these sentences with- in the sacred precincts, this portion of the ceremony of an aiito de fe being performed in the public square. One of their teachers in the thirteenth century, copied by Bernard Gui in the fourteenth, argues : " The object of the Inquisition is the destruction of her- esy. Heresy cannot be destroyed unless heretics are destroyed : heretics cannot be destroyed unless their defenders and fautors are destroyed, and this is effected in two ways, viz., when they are converted to the true Catholic faith, or when, on being abandoned to the secular arm, they are corporally burned." In the next cen- tury, Fray Alonso de Spina points out that they are not to be delivered up to extermination without warning once and again, unless, indeed, their growth threatens trouble to the Church, when they are to be extirpated without delay or examination. Under these teachings the secular powers naturally recognized that in burning heretics they were only obeying the commands of the In- quisition. In a commission issued by Philippe le Bon of Burgundy, November 9, 1431, ordering his officials to render obedience to Friar Kaleyser, recently appointed Inquisitor of LiUe and Cam- brai, among the duties enumerated is that of inflicting due punishment on heretics " as he shall decree, and as is customary." In the accounts of the royal procureurs des encours^ the cost of these executions in Languedoc was charged against the pro- ceeds of the confiscations as part of the expenses of the Inquisi- tion, thus showing that they were not regarded as ordinary inci- dents of criminal justice, to be defrayed out of the ordinary rev- enues, but as peculiarly connected with and dependent upon tho


536 THE STAKE.

o[Kn'ations of the Inquisition, of which the royal officials only acted as ministers. The Inquisitor Sprenger had no hesitation in al- luding to the victims whom he caused to be burned — ^'quas ineinerari fecimusP In fact, how modern is the pretension that the Church was not responsible for the atrocity is apparent when, as late as the seventeenth century, the learned Cardinal Albizio, in controverting Fra Paolo as to the control of the Inquisition by the State in Venice, had no scru})]e in asserting that " the inquis- itors in conducting the trials, regularly came to the sentence, and if it was one of death it was immediately and necessarily put into execution by the doge and the senate." *

We have already seen that the Church was responsible for the enactment of the ferocious laws punishmg heresy with death, and that she intervened authoritatively to annul any secular statutes which should interfere with the prompt and effective application of the penalties. In the same way, as we have also seen, she pro- vided against any neghgence or laxity on the part of the magis- trates in executing the sentences pronounced by the inquisitors. According to the universal belief of the period, this was her plain- est and highest duty, and she did not shrink from it. Boniface Y III. only recorded the current practice when he embodied in the canon law the provision whereby the secular authorities were command- ed to punish duly and promptly all who were handed over to them by the inquisitors, under pain of excommunication, which became heresy if endured for a twelvemonth, and the inquisitors were rigid- ly instructed to proceed against all magistrates who proved re-


  • Pegnae Comment, xx. in Eymeric. p. 124. — Tract, de Paup. de Lugd. (Martene

Thesaur. V. 1792). — S. Thom. Aquinat. Summ. Sec. Sec. Q. xi. Art. 3. — Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 510-12. — Tract, de Inqinsit. (Doat, XXX.). — Bern. Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).— A. de Spina Fortalic. Fidei Ed. 1494 fol. 76a.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds Moreau, No. 444, fol. 10. Cf. Archiv, di Napoli, Reg. 6, Lett. D, fol. 39; Reg. 13, Lett. A, fol. 139.— Coll. Doat, XXXIV. 189.— Malleus Maleficarum P. ii. Q. i. c. 2. — Albizio, Risposto al P. Paolo Sarpi, p. 30.

Gregory IX. had no scruple in asserting the duty of the Church to shed the blood ot heretics. In a brief of 1234 to the Archbishop of Sens he says, " nee enim decuit Apostolieam Sedem in oculis suis, cum Madianita coeunte Judeo^ manum suam a sanguine prohibere, ne si secus ageret non custodire populum Israel. , , . videretur.' — Ripoll I. 66.

Friar Heinrich Kaleyser was a celebrated doctor of theology, and was subse- quently Inquisitor of Cologne (Nider. Formicar. v. viii.).


IMPENITENT HERETICS. 541

" Yerily those who drew up the articles were most moderate, for his writings are much more atrocious." *

The continuous teachings of the Church led its best men to re- gard no act as more self -evidently just than the burning of the heretic, and no heresy less defensible than a demand for tolera- tion. Even Chancellor Gerson himself could see nothing else to be done with those who pertinaciously adhered to error, even in matters not at present exphcitly articles necessary to the faith, f The fact is, the Church not only defined the guilt and forced its punishment, but created the crime itself. As we shall see, under Nicholas lY. and Celestine Y., the strict Franciscans were pre- eminently orthodox ; but when John XXII. stigmatized as heret- ical the behef that Christ hved in absolute poverty, he trans- formed them into unpardonable criminals whom the temporal officials w^ere bound to send to the stake, under pain of being themselves treated as heretics.

There was thus a universal consensus of opinion that there was nothing to do with a heretic but to burn him. The heretic as known to the laws, both secular and ecclesiastical, was he who not only admitted his heretical belief, but defended it and refused to recant. He was obstinate and impenitent ; the Church could do nothing with him, and as soon as the secular lawgivers had provided for his guilt the awful punishment of the stake, there was no hesitation in handing him over to the temporal jurisdic- tion to endure it. All authorities unite in this, and the annals of the Inquisition can vainly be searched for an exception. Yet this was regarded by the inquisitor as a last resort. To say nothing of the saving of a soul, a convert who would betray his friends was more useful than a roasted corpse, and, as we have seen, no effort was spared to obtain recantation. Experience had shown that such zealots were often eager for martyrdom and desired to be speedily burned, and it was no part of the inquisitor's pleasure to gratify them. He w^as advised that this ardor frequently gave way under time and suffering, and therefore he was told to keep the obstinate and defiant heretic chained in a dungeon for six

  • Rodrigo, Ilistoria Vcrdadera dc la Inquisition, Madrid, 1876, 1. 176-77,—

Von der Hardt, IV. 317-18. t Von der Hardt, III, 50-1.


542 ' I'ilE STAKE.

months or a year in utter solitude, save when a dozen theologians and legists should be let in upon him to labor for his conversion, or his wife and children be admitted to work upon his heart. It was not until all this had been tried and failed that he was to be relaxed. Even then the execution was postponed for a day to give further opportunity for recantation, which, we are told, rarely happened, for those who went thus far usually persevered to the end ; but if his resolution gave way and he professed repentance, his conversion was presumed to be the work of fear rather than of grace, and he was to be strictly imprisoned for life. Even at the stake his offer to abjure ought not to be refused, though there was no absolute rule as to this, and there could be little hope of the gen- uineness of such conversion. Eymerich relates a case occurring at Barcelona when three heretics were burned, and one of them, a priest, after being scorched on one side, cried out that he would recant. He was removed and abjured, but fourteen years later was found to have persisted in heresy and to have infected many others, when he was despatched without more ado.*

The obstinate heretic who preferred martyrdom to apostasy was by no means the sole victim doomed to the stake. The secu- lar lawgiver had provided this punishment for heresy, but had left to the Church its definition, and the definition was enlarged to serve as a gentle persuasive that should supplement all deficien- cies in the inquisitorial process. Where testimony deemed suffi- cient existed, persistent denial only aggravated guilt, and the pro- fession of orthodoxy was of no avail. If two witnesses swore to having seen a man "adore" a perfected heretic it was enough, and no declaration of readiness to subscribe to all the tenets of Eome availed him, without confession, abjuration, recantation, and acceptance of penance. Such a one was a heretic, to be piti- lessly burned. It was the same with the contumacious who did not obey the summons to stand trial. Persistent refusal of the oath was likewise technical heresy, condemning the recalcitrant to the stake. Even when there was no proof, simple suspicion be-

  • Concil. Arelatens. ann. 1234 c. 6. — Concil. Tarraconens. ann. 1242. — Concil.

Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c. 17. — Bern. Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.). — Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 514-16. — Anon. Passaviens. c. ix. (Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 308). — Zanchini Tract, de Haeret. c. xviii. — Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. p. 6.


RELAPSE. 543

came heresy if the suspect failed to purge himself with conjura- tors and remained so for a year. In violent suspicion, refusal to abjure Avorked the same result in a twelvemonth. A retracted confession was similarly regarded. In short, the stake supplied all defects. It was the ultima ratio^ and although not many cases have reached us in which executions actually occurred on these grounds, there is no doubt that such provisions were of the utmost utility in practice, and that the terror which they inspired extorted many a confession, true or false, from unwilling lips.*

There was another class of cases, however, which gave the in- quisitors much trouble, and in which they were long in settling upon a definite and uniform course of procedure. The innumera- ble forced conversions wrought by the dungeon and stake filled the prisons and the land with those whose outward conformity left them at heart no less heretics than before. I have elsewhere spoken of the all-pervading police of the Holy Office and of the watchfulness exercised over the converts whose liberation at best was but a ticket-of -leave. That cases of relapse into heresy should be constant was therefore a matter of course. Even in the jails it was impossible to segregate all the prisoners, and complaints are frequent of these wolves in sheep's clothing who infected their more innocent fellow-captives. A man whose solemn conversion had once been proved fraudulent could never again be trusted. He was an incorrigible heretic whom the Church could no longer hope to win over. On him mercy was wasted, and the stake was the only resource. Yet it is creditable to the Inquisition that it was so long in reducing to practice this self-evident proposition.

As early as 1184 the Verona decree of Lucius III. provides that those who, after abjuration, relapse into the abjured heresy shall be delivered to the secular courts, without even the opportu- nity of being heard. The Eavenna edict of Frederic II., in 1232, prescribed death for all who, by relapse, showed that their conver- sion had been a pretext to escape the penalty of heresy. In 1244 the Council of ISTarbonne alludes to the great multitude of such cases, and, following Lucius III., orders them to be relaxed Avith-


  • Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 26. — Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, App. c. 9.—

Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 376-77, 521-4. — MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No 9992.— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 379-80.— Zancliini Tract, de llaeret. c. xxiii.


644- THE STAKE.

out a hearing. Yet tliese stern mandates were not enforced. In 1233 we find Gregory IX. contenting himself with prescribing perpetual imprisonment for such cases, which he speaks of as be- ing ah'eady numerous. In a single sentence of February 19, 1237, the inquisitors of Toulouse condemn seventeen relapsed heretics to perpetual imprisonment. Kaymond de Pennaforte, at the Coun- cil of Tarragona, in 1242, alludes to the diversity of opinion on the subject, and pronounces in favor of imprisonment ; and, in 1246, the Council of Beziers, in giving similar instructions, speaks of them as being in accordance with the apostolic mandates. Even this degree of severity was not always inflicted. In 1242 Pierre Cella only prescribes pilgrimages and crosses for such offenders, and, in a case occurring in Florence in 1245, Fra Ruggieri Cal- cagni lets off the culprit with a not extravagant fine."^

What to do with these multitudes of false converts was evi- dently a question which perplexed the Church no little, and, as usual, a solution, at least for the time, was found in leaving the matter to the discretion of the inquisitors. In answer to the in- quiries of the Lombard Holy Office, the Cardinal of Albano, about 1245, tells the officials to make use of such penalties as they shall deem appropriate. In 1248 Bernard de Caux asked the same question of the Archbishop of J^arbonne, and was told that, ac- cording to the " apostolic mandates," those who returned to the Church a second time, humbly and obediently, might be let off with perpetual imprisonment, while those who were disobedient should be abandoned to the secular arm. Under these instructions the practice varied, though it is pleasant to be able to say that, in the vast majority of cases, the inquisitors leaned to the side of mercy. Even the ardent zeal of Bernard de Caux allowed him to use his discretion gently. In his register of sentences, from 1246 to 1248, there are sixty cases of relapse, none of which are pun- ished more severely than by imprisonment, and in some of them the confinement is not perpetual. The same lenity is observable

  • Lucii PP. III. Epist. 171. — Hist. Diplom. Frid. H. T. IV. p. 300. — Concil.

Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 11. — Gregor. PP. IX. Bull. Ad capiendas (Vaissette, III. Pr. 364). — Epistt. ScTcul. XIII. No. 514 (Mon. Germ. Hist.). — Ripoll I. 55. — Concil. Tarraconens, aim. 1242. — Doctrina de modo procedendi (Martene Thesaur. V. 1800). —Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, App. c. 20. — Coll. Doat, XXI. 148, 292,— Lami, Antichita Toscane, p. 560.


HELAPSE. 54r5

in various sentences rendered during the next ten years, both by him and by other inquisitors. Yet, with one exception, the codes of instruction which date about this period assume that relapse is always to be visited with relaxation, and that the offender is to have no hearing in his defence. In the exceptional instance the compiler illustrates the uncertainty which existed by sometimes treating relapse as punishable with imprisonment and sometimes as entailing the stake. Relapse into usury, however, was let off with the lighter alternative. The fact is that in Languedoc, under the Treaty of Paris, as stated above, an oath of abjuration was ad- ministered every two years to all males over fourteen and all females over twelve, and any subsequent act of heresy was techni- cally a relapse. This, perhaps, explains the indecision of the in- quisitors of Toulouse. It was impossible to burn all such cases.*

Whatever be the cause, there evidently was considerable doubt in the minds of inquisitors as to the penalty of relapse, and it must be recorded to their credit that in this they were more merciful than the current public opinion of the age. Jean de Saint-Pierre, the colleague and successor of Bernard de Caux, followed his ex- ample in always condemning the relapsed to imprisonment, and when, after Bernard's death, in 1252, Frere Renaud de Chartres was adjoined to him, the same rule continued to be observed. Frere Renaud found, however, to his horror, that the secular judges disregarded the sentence and mercilessly burned the un- happy victims, and that this had been going on under his prede- cessors. The civil authorities defended their course by arguing that in no other way could the land be purged of heresy, which was acquiring new force under the mistaken lenity of the inquisi- tors. Frere Renaud felt that he could not overlook this cruelty in silence as his predecessors had done. He therefore reported the facts to Alphonse of Poitiers, and informed him that he proposed to refer the matter to the pope, pending whose answer he would keep


  • Arch, de Tlnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXI. 5, 139, 149).— MSS. Bib. Nat,

fonds latin, No. 9992.— Martene Thesaur. 1. 1045.— Vaissette, III. Pr. 479.— Moli- nier, L'Inq. dans le midi dc la France, pp. 387-8, 418. — Anon. Passaviens. (Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 308).— Tract, de Paup. de Lugd. (Martene Thesaur. V.1791).— Doc- trina de modo procedendi (Ibid. 1807).— Practica super Inquisit. (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin. No. 14930, fol. 206, 212, 213, 222, 223).— Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, App. c. 33. I.— 35


546 'THE STAKE.

his prisoners secure from the brutal violence of the secular offi- cials.*

What was the papal response we can only conjecture, but it doubtless leaned rather to the rigorous zeal of Alphonse's ofl&cials than to the milder methods of Frere Renaud, for it was about this time that Rome definitely decided for the unconditional relax- ation of all who were guilty of relapsing into heresy which had once been abjured. The precise date of this I have not been able to determine. In 1254 Innocent lY. contents himself, in a very aggravated case of double relapse occurring in Milan, with order- ing destruction of houses and pubhc penance, but in 1258 relaxa- tion for relapse is alluded to by Alexander IV. as a matter previ- ously irrevocably settled — possibly by the very appeal of Frere Renaud. It seems to have taken the inquisitors somewhat by sur- prise, and for several years they continued to trouble the Holy See with the pertinent question of how such a rule was to be reconciled with the universally received maxim that the Church never closes her bosom to her wayward children seeking to return. To this the characteristic explanation was given that the Church was not closed to them, for if they showed signs of penitence they might receive the Eucharist, even at the stake, but without escap- ing death. In this shape the decision was embodied in the canon law, and made a part of orthodox doctrine in the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas. The promise of the Eucharist frequently formed part of the sentence in these cases, and the victim was al- ways accompanied to execution by holy men striving to save his soul until the last — though it is shrewdly advised that the inquis- itor himself had better not exhibit his zeal in this way, as his ap- pearance will be more likely to excite hardening than softening of the heart.f

Although inquisitors continued to assume discretion in these cases and did not by any means invariably send the relapsed to the stake, still relapse became the main cause of capital punish- ment. Defiant heretics courting martyrdom were comparatively


  • Boutaric, Saint Louis et Alphonse de Poitiers, pp. 453-4.

t Ripoll I. 254. — C. 4 Sexto v. 3. — Potthast No. 17845. — S. Thorn. Aquin. Sec. Sec. Q. xi. Art. 4. — Eymeric. Direct. Inq. p. 331, 513. — Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. p. 36. — Zandiini Tract, de Hgeret. c. xvi.


RELAPSE IN SUSPICION. 54T

rare, but there were many poor souls who could not abandon con- scientiously the errors which they had cherished, and who vainly hoped, after escaping once, to be able to hide their guilt more ef- fectually.* All this gave a fresh importance to the question of what legally constituted relapse, and led to endless definitions and subtleties. It became necessary to determine with some precision, when the offender was refused a hearing, the exact amount of criminality in both the first and second offences, which would justify condemnation for impenitent heresy. Where guilt was ofttimes so shadowy and impalpable, this was evidently no easy matter.

There were cases in which a first trial had only developed sus- picion without proof, and it seemed hard to condemn a man to death for an assumed second offence when he had not been proved guilty of the first. Hesitating to do so, the inquisitors applied to Alexander TV. to resolve their doubts, and he answered in the most positive manner. When the suspicion had been "violent" he said, it was "by a sort of legal fiction" to be held as legal proof of guilt, and the accused was to be condemned. When it was " light " he was to be punished more heavily than for a first offence, but not with the full penalty of relapse. Moreover, the evidence required to prove the second offence was of the slightest ; any communication with or kindness shown to heretics sufficed. This decision was repeated by Alexander and his successors with a frequency which shows how doubtful and puzzling were the points which came up for discussion, but the rule of condemnation was finally carried into the canon law and became the unalterable poUcy of the Church. The authorities, except Zanghino, agree that in such cases there was no room for mercy. f

Besides these enigmas there were others respecting forms of guilt which might reasonably be regarded as less deserving of the last resort. Thus relapse into fautorship gave rise to considerable


  • Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 2-4, 22, 48, 63, 76, 81-90, 122, 142, 149, 150,

198-99, 230, 232, 287-88.

t Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Quod super nonnullis, 9 Dec. 1257, 15 Dec. 1258, 10 Jan. 1260.— Urban. PP. IV. Bull. Quod super nonnullis, 21 Aug. 1262.— Can. 8 Sexto V. 2. — Bern. Guidon. Practica P. iv.(Doat,XXX.).— Eymeric. Direct. Inq. p. 331.— Bernardi Comens. Lucerna Inquis. s. v. lielapsus. — Zancliini Tract, de Haeret. c, xvi.


548 THE STAKE.

divergence of vieAvs. The Council of Narbonne, in 1244, was of opinion that those guilty of this offence should be sent to the pope for absolution and the imposition of penance — a cumbrous pro- cedure, not likely to find favor. During the middle period of the Inquisition, the authorities, including Bernard Gui, while not pre- scribing relaxation to the secular arm, suggest that penance be imposed sufficiently severe to inspire wholesome fear in others ; while, towards the end of the fourteenth century, Eymerich holds that a relapsed fautor is to be abandoned to secular justice with- out a hearing. Even those defamed for heresy, if after due purga- tion they again incur defamation, are strictly liable to the same fate, though this was so hard a measure that Eymerich proposes that such cases should be referred to the pope.*

There was another class of offenders who gave the inquisitors endless trouble, and for whom it was difficult to frame rigid and invariable rules — those who escaped from prison or omitted to ful- fil the penances assigned to them. According to theory, all peni- tents were converts to the true faith who eagerly accepted penance as their sole hope of salvation. To reject it subsequently was therefore an evidence that the conversion had been feigned or that the inconstant soul had reverted to its former errors, as other- wise the loving and wholesome discipline of the benignant Mother Church would not be spurned. From the beginning, therefore, these culprits were classed with the relapsed. In 1248 the Coun- cil of Valence ordered them to have the benefit of a warning, after which further persistence in disobedience rendered them liable to the fuU penalty of obstinate heresy ; and this was sometimes pro- vided for in the sentence itself, by a clause which warned them that any disregard of the observances enjoined would expose them to the fate of perjured and impenitent heretics. Yet as late as 1260 Alexander lY. seems at a loss what rule to prescribe in such cases, and merely talks vaguely of excommunication and reimposi- tion of the penalties, with the assistance, if necessary, of the secular authorities. Yet about the same period Gui Foucoix pronounced in favor of the death-penalty for these offenders, arguing that the offence proved impenitent heresy ; but Bernard Gui held this to

  • Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 13. — Doctrina de modo procedendi (Martene

Thesaur. V. 1802, 1808).— Bern. Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).— Eymeric. Direct. Inq. p. 386.


UNFULFILLED PENANCE. 549

be too severe, and advised leaving them to the discretion of the in- quisitor— a discretion which he himself had no hesitation in exer- cising. The two most frequent varieties of the offence were lay- ing aside the yellow crosses and prison-breaking. The former was never, so far as I have seen, punished with death, though visited with penalties sufficiently sharp to serve as a deterrent. The lat- ter, according to the later inquisitors, was capital — the escaped prisoner was a relapsed heretic, to be burned without a hearing. Some jurists argued that a failure fully to betray all heretics of whom the convert had knowledge — a pledge to do so forming a necessary part of the oath of abjuration — constituted relapse, but Bernard Gui regards this as unduly harsh. Absolute refusal to perform the penance enjoined was, of course, evidence of obstinate heresy, leading inevitably to the stake. Such cases were naturally rare, for penance was only prescribed for those who had confessed, had professed conversion, and had asked for reconciliation ; but there is one on record of a woman, in the latter half of the fif- teenth century, before the Inquisition of Cartagena, who was duly abandoned to the secular arm.*

Notwithstanding these extensions of the death-penalty, I am convinced that the number of victims who actually perished at the stake is considerably less than has ordinarily been imagined. The dehberate burning alive of a human being, simply for difference of belief, is an atrocity so dramatic and appeals so strongly to the imagination that it has come to be regarded as the leading feature in the activity of the Inquisition. Yet, frequent as recourse to the stake undoubtedly was, it formed but a comparatively smaU part of the instrumentahties of repression. The records of those evil days have mostly disappeared, and there is now no possibiUty of recon-


  • Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1244 c. 13.— Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, Append, c.

33._Concil. Valentin, ann. 1248 c. 13. — Archives dc r]&vech6 d'Albi (Doat, XXXV. 69).— Alex. PP. IV. Bull. Ad audientiam, 1260 (Mag. Bull. Rom. 1. 118).— Guidon. Fulcod. Quaest. xiii.— Bern. Guidon. Practica P. iv. (Doat, XXX.).— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 177, 199, 350, 393.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, nouv. acquis. No. 139, fol. 2. — Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. p. 643. — Zancbini Tract, de Hseret. c. x.— Bern. Comens. Lucerna Inquisit. s. v. Fuga^ No. 5.— Albertini Re- pertor. Inquisit. s. vv. Dcficiens^ Impcenitens.


550 TUE STAKE.

struct ing tlieir statistics, but if this could be done I have no doubt that the actual executions by fire would excite surprise by falling far short of the popular estimate. Imagination has grown in- flamed at the manifold iniquities of the Holy Office, and has been ready to accept without examination exaggerations which have become habitual. No one can suspect the learned Dom Brial of prejudice or of ordinary lack of accuracy, and yet in his Preface to Yol. XXI. of the " Kecueil des Historiens des Gaules " (p. xxiii.), he quotes as trustworthy an assertion that Bernard Gui, during his service as Inquisitor of Toulouse from 1308 to 1323, put to death no less than six hundred and thirty-seven heretics. Now that, as we have seen, was the total number of sentences uttered by the tribunal during those years, and of these sentences only forty were capital — in addition to sixty-seven dead heretics condemned to be exhumed and burned, for the most part because they were not ahve to recant. Again, no inquisitor left behind him a more enviable record for zeal and activity in the relentless persecution of heresy than Bernard de Caux, who labored in the earlier period when the land was yet full of heresy, and heretics had not yet been cowed into submissiveness. Bernard Gui characterizes him as " a perse- cutor and hammer of heretics, a holy man and full of God, . . . wonderful in his life, wonderful in doctrine, wonderful in extirpat- ing heresy ;" he wrought miracles while alive, and in 1281, twenty- eight years after his death, his body was found uncorrupted and perfect, except part of the nose. Such a man is not to be accused of undue tenderness towards heretics, and yet, in his register of sentences from 1246 to 1248, there is not a single case of abandon- ment to the secular arm, unless we may reckon as such the con- demnations of contumacious absentees, who were necessarily de- clared to be heretics. These, indeed, were liable to be burned by the secular justice, but, in fact, they could always save themselves by submission, and this very register affords a very striking in- stance in point. There was no more obnoxious heretic in Toulouse than Alaman de Eoaix. He belonged to one of the noblest fami- lies in the city, and one which furnished many members to the heretic church, of which he himself was suspected of being a bishop. In 1229 the Legate Eomano had condemned him and had imposed on him the penance of a crusade to the Holy Land, which he had sworn to perform and never fulfilled. In 1237 the earliest inquisi-


FREQUENCY OF BURNING. 551

tors, Guillem Arnaud and Etienne de Saint-Thibery, again took up his case, finding him unremittingly active in protecting heretics and disseminating heresy, spoiling, ransomiQg, wounding, and slay- ing priests and clerks, and this time they condemned him in ab- sentia. He became a faydit, or proscribed man, hving sword in hand and plundering the orthodox to support himself and his friends. ]^o more aggravated case of obstinate heresy and per- sistent contumacy can well be imagined, and yet when he acknowl- edged his errors, January 16, 1248, professed conversion, and asked for penance, a score of years after his first conversion, he was only condemned to imprisonment.*

In fact, as we have already seen, the earnest endeavors of the inquisitors were directed much more to obtaining conversions with confiscations and betrayal of friends than to provoking martyr- doms. An occasional burning only was required to maintain a wholesome terror in the minds of the population. With his forty cases of concremation in fifteen years, Bernard Gui managed to crush the last convulsive struggle of Catharism, to keep the Wal- denses in check, and repress the zealous ardor of the Spiritual Franciscans. The really effective weapons of the Holy Office, the real curses with which it afflicted the people, can be looked for in its dungeons and its confiscations, in the humihating penances of the saffron crosses, and in the invisible poUce with which it be- numbed the heart and soul of every man who had once f aUen into its hands.

A few words will suffice as to the repulsive subject of the exe- cution itself. When the populace was called together to view the last agonies of the martyrs of heresy, its pious zeal was not mocked by any ill-advised devices of mercy. The culprit was not, as in the later Spanish Inquisition, strangled before the lighting of the fagots ; nor had the invention of gunpowder suggested the some- what less humane expedient of hanging a bag of that explosive around his neck to shorten his torture when the flames should reach it. He was tied living to a post set high enough over a pile


  • Bern. Guidon. Fund. Conv. Pra3dicat. (Martene Tliesaur. VI. 481-3).— Coll.

Doat, XXI. 143, 146.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 9992.-Molinier, L'Inq. dans le midi dc la Franco, pp. 73-4.


552 THE STAKE.

of combustibles to enable the faithful to watch every act of the tragedy to its awful end. Holy men accompanied him to the last, to snatch his soul if possible from Satan  ; and, if he were not a re- lapsed, he could, as we have seen, save also his body at the last moment. Yet even in these final ministrations we see a fresh il- lustration of the curious inconsistency with which the Church im- agined that it could shirk the responsibility of putting a human creature to death, for the friars who accompanied the victim were strictly warned not to exhort him to meet death promptly or to ascend firmly the ladder leading to the stake, or to submit cheer- fully to the manipulations of the executioner, for if they did so they would be hastening his end and thus fall into " irregularity " — a tender scruple, it must be confessed, and one singularly out of place in those who had accomplished the judicial murder. For these occasions a holiday was usually selected, in order that the crowd might be larger and the lesson more effective ; while, to prevent scandal, the sufferer was silenced, lest he might provoke the people to pity and sympathy.*

As for minor details, we happen to have them preserved in an account by an eye-witness of the execution of John Huss at Con- stance, in 1415. He was made to stand upon a couple of fagots and tightly bound to a thick post with ropes, around the ankles, below the knee, above the knee, at the groin, the waist, and under the arms. A chain was also secured around the neck. Then it was observed that he faced the east, which was not fitting for a heretic, and he was shifted to the west ; fagots mixed with straw were piled around him to the chin. Then the Count Palatine Louis, who superintended the execution, approached with the Mar- shal of Constance, and asked him for the last time to recant. On his refusal they withdrew and clapped their hands, which was the signal for the executioners to light the pile. After it had burned away there followed the revolting process requisite to utterly de- stroy the half-burned body — separating it in pieces, breaking up the bones and throwing the fragments and the viscera on a fresh fire of logs. When, as in the cases of Arnaldo of Brescia, some of the Spiritual Franciscans, Huss, Savonarola, and others, it was


  • Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. p. 512. — Tract, de Paup. de Lugd. (Martene The-

saur. V. 1793).


THE EXECUTION. 553

feared that relics of the martyr would be preserved, especial care was taken, after the fire was extinguished, to gather up the ashes and cast them in a running stream.^

There is something grotesquely horrible in the contrast between this crowning exhibition of human perversity and the cool busi- ness calculation of the cost of thus sending a human soul through flame to its Creator. In the accounts of Arnaud Assalit we have a statement of the expenses of burning four heretics at Carcas- sonne, April 24, 1323. It runs thus :

For large wood 55 sols 6 deniers.

For vine - branches 21 sols 3 deniers.

For straw 2 sols 6 deniers.

For four stakes 10 sols 9 deniers.

For ropes to tie the convicts 4 sols 7 deniers.

For the executioner, each 20 sols 80 sols.

In all ..8 livres 14 sols 7 deniers.

or, a little more than two hvres apiece, f

When the heretic had eluded his tormentors by death and his body or skeleton was dug up and burned, the ceremony was neces- sarily less impressive, but nevertheless the most was made of it. As early as 1237 Guillem Pelisson, a contemporary, describes how at Toulouse a number of nobles and others were exhumed, when ^' their bones and stinking corpses " were dragged through the streets, preceded by a trumpeter proclaiming " Qui aytal fara, aytal perira " — who does so shall perish so — and at length were duly burned " in honor of God and of the blessed Mary His moth- er, and the blessed Dominic His servant." This formula was pre- served to the end, and it was not economical from a pecuniary point of view. In Assalit's accounts we find that it cost five livres nineteen sols and six deniers, in 1323, for labor to dig up the bones of three dead heretics, a sack and cord in which to stow them, and two horses to drag them to the Greve, where they were burned the next day.:j:

The agency of fire was also invoked by the Inquisition to rid


  • Mladenowic Narrat. (Palacky Monument. J. Huss II. pp. 321^).— Landucci,

Diar. Fiorent. p. 178.

t Coll. Doat, XXXIV. 189.

X Guillel. Pelisso Chron. Ed. Molinicr p. 45.— Coll. Doat, XXXIV 189.


554 THE STAKE.

the land of pestilent and lieretical writings, a matter not without interest as signalizing the commencement of its activity in what subsequently became the censorship of the press. The burning of books displeasing to the authorities was a custom respectable by its antiquity. Constantine, as we have seen, demanded the sur- render of all Arian works under penalty of death. In 435 Theo- dosius II. and Yalentinian III. ordered all Nestorian books to be burned, and another law threatens punishment on all who will not deliver up Manichaean writings for the same fate. Justinian condemned the secunda editio, in which the glossators agree in recognizing the Talmud. During the ages of barbarism which fol- lowed there was little to call forth this method of repressing the human mind, but with the revival of speculation the ancient measures were speedily again called into use. When, in 1210, the University of Paris was agitated with the heresy of Amaury, the writings of his colleague, David de Dinant, together with the Phys- ics and Metaphysics of Aristotle, to which it was attributed, were ordered to be burned. Allusion has already been made to the burning of Romance versions of the Scriptures by Jayme I. of Ar- agon and to the commands of the Council of E^arbonne, in 1229, against the possession of any portion of Holy Writ by laymen, as well as to the burning of William of St. Amour's book, Deperi- cuUs.^^ Jewish books, however, and particularly the Talmud, on account of its blasphemous allusions to the Saviour and the Vir- gin, were the objects of special detestation, in the suppression of which the Church was unwearying. In the middle of the twelfth century Peter the Venerable contented himself with studying the Talmud and holding up to contempt some of the wild imaginings which abound in that curious compound of the sublime and the ridiculous. His argumentative methods were not suited to the im- patience of the thirteenth century, which had committed itseK to sterner dealings with misbelievers, and the persecution of Jewish literature followed swiftly on that of Albigenses and Waldenses. It was started by a converted Jew named ISTicholas de RupeUa, who, about 1236, called the attention of Gregory IX. to the blas- phemies with which the Hebrew books were filled, and especially the Talmud. In June, 1239, Gregory issued letters to the Kings of England, France, Navarre, Aragon, Castile, and Portugal, and to the prelates in those kmgdoms, ordering that on a Sabbath in


BURNING OF BOOKS. 665

the following Lent, when the Jews would be in their synagogues, all their books should be seized and delivered to the Mendicant Friars. A report of the examination which ensued in Paris has been preserved, and shows that there was no difficulty in finding in the Jewish writings abundant matter offensive to pious ears, though the Rabbis w^ho ventured to appear in their defence en- deavored to explain away the blasphemous allusions to the Chris- tian Messiah, the Virgin, and the saints. The proceedings dragged on for years, and sentence was not finally rendered until May 13, 1248, after which Paris was edified with the spectacle of the burn- ing of fourteen Wagon-loads at one time and of six at another. Like the luz or os coccygis, which the Rabbis held to be inde- structible, the Talmud could not be wiped out of existence, and, in 1255, St. Louis, in his instructions to his seneschals in the Nar- bonnais, again orders all copies to be burned, together with all other books containing blasphemies ; while in 1267 Clement lY. (Gui Foucoix) instructed the Archbishop of Tarragona to coerce by excommunication the King of Aragon and his nobles to force the Jews to defiver up their Talmuds and other books to the in- quisitors for examination, when, if they contain no blasphemies, they may be returned, but if otherwise they are to be sealed up and securely kept. Alonso the Wise of Castile was wiser, if, as reported, he caused the Talmud to be translated, in order that its errors might be exposed to the public. The passive resistance of the faithful was not to be overcome, and in 1299 Phihppe le Bel felt obliged to denounce the persistent multiplication of the Tal- mud, and to order his judges to aid the Inquisition in its extermi- nation. Ten years later, in 1309, we hear of three large wagon- loads of Jewish books publicly burned in Paris. How fruitless were all these efforts is seen in a formal sentence recited by Ber- nard Gui in the auto defe of 1319. Under the impulsion of the Inquisition the royal officials had again made diligent perquisition and had collected all the copies of the Talmud on which they could lay their hands. Experts in the Hebrew tongue had then been employed to examine them carefully, and after mature counsel be- tween the inquisitors and the jurists called in to assist, the books were condemned to be carried in two carts through the streets of Toulouse, while the royal officers proclaimed in loud voice that their fate was due to their blas[)heinies against the Lord Jesus


556 Tn^ STAKE.

Christ and his mother the most holy Virgin and the Cliristian name, after which they were to be solemnly burned. This is the only case of execution occurring during Bernard Gui's term of service as inquisitor, and, from two carts being required to accom- modate the obnoxious books, it was probable the result of search continued for a considerable time. That he deemed the matter to require constant vigilance is shown by his including in his collec- tion of forms one which orders all priests for three Sundays to pub- lish an injunction commanding the delivery to the Inquisition, for examination, of all Jewish books, including " Talamuz," under pain of excommunication. The warfare against this specially obnox- ious work continued. In the very next year, 1320, John XXII. is- sued orders that aU copies of it should be seized and burned. In 1409 Alexander Y. paused in his denunciation of rival popes to order its destruction. The contest is well known which arose over it at the revival of letters, with Pfefferkorn and Reuchlin as the rival champions, and not all the efforts of the humanists availed to save it from proscription. Even as late as 1554 Julius III. repeat- ed the command to the Inquisition to burn it without mercy, and all Jews were ordered, under pain of death, to surrender all books blaspheming Christ — a provision which was embodied in the canon law and remains there to this day. The censorship of the Inqui- sition was not confined to Jewish errors, but its activity in this direction will be more conveniently considered hereafter.*


  • Sozomen. H. E. II. 20.— Constt. vi. ; xvi. § 1, Cod. i. 5.— Auth. Novell.

cxLvi. c. 1. — Rigord. de Gest. Phil. Aug. ann, 1210. — Petri Venerab. Tract, con- tra Judaeos c. iv. — D'Argentre, Collect. Judicior. de nov. Erroribus 1. 1. 132, 146- 56, 349.— Potthast. No. 10759, 10767, 11376.— RipoU, I. 487-88.— Pelayo, Hetero- doxos Espanoles, I. 509.— Coll. Doat, XXXVII. 125, 246.— Harduin. Concil. VII. 485.— S. Martial. Chron. ann. 1309 (Bouquet, XXI. 813).— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 273-4.— Bern. Guidon. Practica (Doat, XXIX. 246).— Raynald. ann. 1320, No. 23.— Wadding, ann. 1409, No. 12.— C. 1 in Septimo v. 4.

In the Paris condemnation of 1248 the Talmud only is specified, though in the examination mention is made of the Gloss of Solomon of Troyes, and of a work which from its description would seem to be the Toldos Jeschu,"or history of Jesus, which so excited the ire of the Carthusian, Ramon Marti, in his Pitgio Fidei^ and of all subsequent Christians (cf. Wagenseilii Tela Ignea Satanse, Alt- dorfi, 1681). No one can read its curious account of the career of Christ from a Jewish standpoint without wondering that a single copy of it was allowed to reach modern times.


INFLUENCE ON THE CHURCH. 557

This is not the place for us to consider the influence of the In- quisition in all its breadth, but while yet we have its procedure in view it may not be amiss to glance cursorily at some of the effects immediately resulting from its mode of dealing with those whom it tried and condemned or absolved.

On the Church the processes invented and recommended to respect by the Inquisition had a most unfortunate effect. The ordinary episcopal courts employed them in dealing with heretics, and found their arbitrary violence too efficient not to extend it over other matters coming within their jurisdiction. Thus the spiritual tribunals rapidly came to employ inquisitorial methods. Already, in 1317, Bernard Gui speaks of the use of torture being habitual in them ; and in complaining of the Clementine restric- tions, he asks why the bishops should be Hmited in applying torture to heretics, while they could employ it without Hmit in everything else.*

Thus habituated to the harshest measures, the Church grew harder and crueller and more unchristian. The worst popes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries could scarce have dared to shock the world with such an exhibition as that with which John XXII. glutted his hatred of Hugues Gerold, Bishop of Cahors. John was the son of an humble mechanic of Cahors, and possibly some ancient grudge may have existed between him and Hugues. Certain it is that no sooner did he mount the pontifical throne than he lost no time in assaifing his enemy. May 4, 1317, the un- fortunate prelate was solemnly degraded at Avignon and con- demned to perpetual imprisonment. This was not enough. On a charge of conspiring against the life of the pope he was de- hvered to the secular arm, and in July of the same year he was partially flayed alive and then dragged to the stake and burned. f

This hardening process went on until the quarrels of the lofti- est prelates were conducted with a savage ferocity which would have shamed a band of buccaneers. When, in 1385, six cardinals were accused of conspiring against Urban YI. the angry pontiff had them seized as they left the consistory and thrust into an


  • Bern. Guidon. Gravam. (Boat, XXX. 101).

t Extrav. Commun. Lib. v. Tit. viii. c. 1. — Amalrici Augerii Vit. Pontif. ann. 1316-17.— Bern. Guidon. Vit. Joann. XXH.


558 THE STAKE.

abandoned cistern in the castle of Nocera, where he was staying, so restricted in dimensions that the Cardinal di Sangro, who was tall and portly, could not stretch himself at full length. The methods taught by the inquisitors were brought into play. Sub- jected to hunger, cold, and vermin, the accused were plied by the creatures of the pope with promises of mercy if they would con- fess. This failing, torture was used on the Bishop of Aquila and a confession was procured implicating the others. They still re- fused to admit their guilt, and they were tortured on successive days. All that could be obtained from the Cardinal di Sangro was the despairing self -accusation that he suffered justly in view of the evil which he had wrought on archbishops, bishops, and other prelates at Urban's command. When it came to the turn of the Cardinal of Venice, Urban intrusted the work to an ancient pirate, whom he had created Prior of the Order of St. John in Sicily, with instructions to apply the torture till he could hear the victim howl ; the infliction lasted from early morning till the din- ner-hour, while the pope paced the garden under the window of the torture-chamber, reading his breviary aloud that the sound of his voice might keep the executioner reminded of the instructions. The strappado and rack were applied by turns, but though the victim was old and sickly, nothing could be wrenched from him save the ejaculation, " Christ suffered for us !" The accused were kept in their foul dungeon until Urban, besieged in IS'ocera by Charles of Durazzo, managed to escape and dragged them with him. In the flight the Bishop of Aquila, weakened by torture and mounted on a miserable hack, could not keep up with the party, when Urban ordered him despatched and left his corpse unburied by the wayside. The six cardinals, less fortunate, were carried by sea to Genoa, and kept in so vile a dungeon that the authorities were moved to pity and vainly begged mercy for them. Cardinal Adam Aston, an Englishman, was released on the vigorous inter- cession of Kichard II., but the other &Ye were never seen again. Some said that Urban had them beheaded ; others that when he sailed for Sicily he carried them to sea and cast them overboard ; others, again, that a trench was dug in his stable in which they were buried alive with a quantity of quicklime, to hasten the dis- appearance of their bodies. Urban's competitor, known as Clem- ent YII.j was no less sanguinary. When, as Cardinal Robert of


INFLUENCE ON SECULAR LAW. 559

Geneva, he exercised legatine functions for Gregory XI., he led a band of Free Companions to vindicate the papal territorial claims. The terrible cold-blooded massacre of Cesena was his most con- spicuous exploit, but equally characteristic of the man was his threat to the citizens of Bologna that he would wash his hands and feet in their blood. Such was the retroactive influence of the inquisitorial methods on the Church which had invented them to plague the heretic. If Bernabo and Galeazzo Yisconti caused ecclesiastics to be tortured and burned to death over slow fires, they were merely improving on the lessons which the Church itself had taught.*

On secular jurisprudence the example of the Inquisition worked even more deplorably. It came at a time when the old order of things was giving way to the new — when the ancient customs of the barbarians, the ordeal, the wager of law, the wer-gild, were growing obsolete in the increasing intelligence of the age, when a new system was springing into life under the revived study of the Koman law, and when the administration of justice by the local feudal lord was becoming swallowed up in the widening jurisdic- tion of the crown. The whole judicial system of the European monarchies was undergoing reconstruction, and the happiness of future generations depended on the character of the new institu- tions. That in this reorganization the worst features of the im- perial jurisprudence — the use of torture and the inquisitorial process — should be eagerly, nay, almost exclusively, adopted, should be divested of the safeguards which in Rome had restricted their abuse, should be exaggerated in all their evil tendencies, and should, for five centuries, become the prominent characteristic of the criminal jurisprudence of Europe, may safely be ascribed to the fact that they received the sanction of the Church. Thus recommended, they penetrated everywhere along with the Inquisi- tion ; while most of the nations to whom the Holy Office was un- known maintained their ancestral customs, developing into various


  • Theocl. a Niem dc Schismatc Lib. i. c. 42, 45, 48, 50, 51, 52, 56, 57, 60.—

Gobelin. Pcrsonsc Cosmodrom. Act. vi. c. 78.— Clironik des J. v. Konigsliofen (Chron. dcr Deutschcn Stiidte, IX. 598). — Raynald. ann. 1362, No. 13 ; 1372, No. 10.— Poggii Hist. Florentiu. Lib. 11. ann. 1376.


500 THE STAKE.

forms of criminal practice, harsh enough, indeed, to modern eyes, but wholly divested of the more hideous atrocities which charac- tei'ized the habitual investigation into crime in other regions.*

Of all the curses which the Inquisition brought in its train this, perhaps, was the greatest — that, until the closing years of the eighteenth century, throughout the greater part of Europe, the inquisitorial process, as developed for the destruction of heresy, became the customary method of dealing with all who were under accusation ; that the accused was treated as one having no rights, whose guilt was assumed in advance, and from whom confession was to be extorted by guile or force. Even witnesses were treated in the same fashion ; and the prisoner who acknowledged guilt under torture was tortured again to obtain information about any other evil-doers of whom he perchance might have knowledge. So, also, the crime of " suspicion " was imported from the Inquisition into ordinary practice, and the accused who could not be convicted of the crime laid to his door could be punished for being suspected of it, not with the penalty legally provided for the offence, but with some other, at the fancy and discretion of the judge. It would be impossible to compute the amount of misery and wrong, inflicted on the defenceless up to the present century, which may be directly traced to the arbitrary and unrestricted methods in- troduced by the Inquisition and adopted by the jurists who fash-


  • I have treated this subject at some length in an essay on torture (Supersti-

tion and Force, 3d Edition, 1878), and need not here dwell further on its details. The student who desires to see the shape which the inquisitorial process as- sumed in later times can consult Brunnemann (Tractatus Juridicus de Inquisi- tionis Processu, Ed. octava, Francof. 1704), who attributes its origin to the Mosaic law (Deut. xiii. 12; xvii. 4), and vastly prefers it to the proceeding 'per accusationem. Indeed, a case in which accusatio failed or threatened to fail could be resumed or continued by inquisitio (op. cit. Cap. i. No. 2, 15-18). It supplied all deficiencies and gave the judge almost unlimited power to convict.

The manner in which the civil power was led to adopt the abuses of the In- quisition is well illustrated in a Milanese edict of 1393, where the magistrates, in proceedings against malefactors, are ordered to employ the inquisitorial process ^*" summarie et de piano sine sfrepitu et Jigura juditii,^ and to supply all defects of fact"ea; certa scientia^ (Antiq, Ducum Mediolan. Decreta. Mediolani, 1654, p. 188). A comparison of this with the Milanese jurisprudence of sixty years earlier, quoted above (p. 401), will show how rapidly in the interval force had usurped the place of justice.


INFLUENCE OF SECULAR LAW. 561

ioned the criminal jurisprudence of the Continent. It was a system which might well seem the invention of demons, and was fitly characterized by Sir John Fortescue as the Koad to Hell.*


  • Fortescue de Laudibus Legiim Angliae cap. xxii. — As late as 1823 there is

a case in which a court in Martinique condemned a man to the galleys for life for " vehement suspicion " of being a sorcerer (Isambert. Anc. Loix Fran9aises, XI. 253). I.— 36


APPENDIX.


Catharan Arguments to Justify the Attribution of the Old Testament to the Evil Principle.

(Archives de I'lnquisition de Carcassonne.— Doat, XXXVI. 91.)

The literature of the Cathari has been so successfully exterminated that anything attributable to the sect is of interest. The following, from a controversial tract, dating probably about the close of the thir- teenth century, may be regarded as a fair summary of the reasons al- leged by the sect to prove that the Creator, Jehovah, was Satan. There is sufficient identity between them and those given by Moneta (adver- sus Catharos, Lib. ii. c. vi.) to show that they are in some sort the of- ficial and customary arguments of the heretics. I omit the counter- argumeots of the writer, who generally follows Moneta, though he often reasons independently.

Primo igitur objicitur illud, Geneseos tertio : Ecce Adam quasi unus ex nobis /actus est. Hoc dicit Deus de Adam postquam peccavit, et constat quod dicit verum aut falsum  : si verum, ergo Adam factus erat similis ei qui loquebatur et eis cum quibus loquebatur. Sed Adam post peccatum factus erat peccator; ergo malus : si dixit falsum, ergo est mendax, ergo sic dicendo peccavit, et sic fuit malus.

Item ad idem. Deus ille dicit, Geneseos primo : Videte ne forte sumat de ligno vitm etc. Deus autem novi testamenti dicit, Apocalipsis primo : Vincenti dabo edere de ligno vitw. Ille prohibet, iste promittit, ergo contrarii sunt ad invicem.

Item ad idem, Geneseos primo  : Tenebrce erant super facie ah/ssi, dixitqu£ Deus : Fiat lux. Ergo Deus veteri testamenti incepit a tenebris et finivit in lucem ; ergo est tenebrosus; ergo est malus, qui prius fecit tcnebras quam lucem.

Item ad idem, Geneseos tertio : Inimicitias ponam inter te et rmdierem, et in- ter semen tuum et semen mulieris. Eccc Deus votcris testamenti seminator est discordiaj et inimicitias. Deus autem novi testamenti dator est pacis et solutor inimicitiarum, sicut legitur Coloss. primo : Quoniam in i2)so placuit omnem ple?ii- tudinem deitatis habitare, et per ipsum reconciliari omnia in ipsum, sive quxjs in


564 APPENDIX.

ccelis, sire quce in terris sunt. Ecce ille scminat inimicitias, iste vult omnia recon- ciliare et pacificare in se ; Ergo sunt contrarii sibi.

Item, Geneseos tertio : MalecUcta terra in opere tuo. Ecce Deus veteri tes- tamenti maledicit terram quam Deus novi testaraenti benedicit, psalmo  : Benedix- isti domijie terrain tuarn : Ergo suut coutrarii.

Item, Genesi : Omnis anima quopulum suum. Ecce quod mutatus est Deus veteris testamenti; Deus autem novi testamenti (non) immutatur, juxta illud Jacobi primo: Omne datum est etc.; et infra; Apud quern  ?ion est immutatio etc.

Item ad idem, Exodi vicesimo, Deus veteris testamenti dicit : Non moschaheris, et idem Deus dicit Numerorum duodecimo : Ecce ego suscitdbo super te malum de domo tuo^et tollam uxorem tuam et dabo proximo tuo, id est,Jilio tuo. Ecce non solum moechationis quam ibi prohibuit, sed etiam incestus est procurator ; ille Deus ergo malus et mutabilis.

Item ad idem, Exodi vicesimo primo : non fades tibi sculptile nee aliquxim similitudinem, et infra, vicesimo quinto : Fades duo cherubim aurea. Ecce quanta mutabilitas,/ac^es et non fades.

Qualis est Deus ille qui tot millia hominum submersit in diluvio etc. ; habe- tur Geneseos sexto ; et in mare rubro, Exodi decimo quinto ; et in deserto, et in multis aliis locis. Si dicis quod non est crudelitas punire malos etc. quasro, si erat omnipotens et omnisciens, sciebat omnes peccaturos et futuros malos, et propter hoc damnandos, quare ergo fecierat eos  ? Nonne crudelis est qui homines ad hoc facit ut perdat  ?

Item ad idem, Exodi tricesimo secundo: Hoc dicit Dominus; et infra: Ponat vir gladium super femur suum; et infra: Et occiderunt in ilia die mginti tria millia. Ecce qualis Deus quos habet clericos et ministros siquidem totius cru- delitatis. Deus autem novi testamenti ministros pietatis ; unde Joannes in ca- nonica : Qui diligit Deum diligit et fratrem suum. Iste praecipit fratrem diligi, ille occidi.

Item ad idem, Numeror. tricesimo quarto ; Deus veteris testamenti dixit filiis Israel de gentibus illis qui erant in terra Cham : Si nolueritis occidere eos, erunt clavi in oculis nostris et lancem in lateribus. Ecce crudelis Deus qui non vult injurias dimitti. Deus autem novi testamenti dicit Matthsei sexto. Si non dimiseritis Twminibus, nee pater tester ccdestis dimittet voMs peccata nestra.

Item ad idem, Geneseos decimo nono, ubi Deus veteris testamenti justum si- mul et impium occidit, sicut patet in submersione Sodomse et Gomorrhse, ubi parvulos et adultos simul extinxit.

Item ad idem, Judicum vicesimo legitur quod cum filii Israel vellent pugnare contra filios Benjamin proper scelus quod commiserant in uxorem cujusdam fratris sui, consuluerunt Doniinum si pugnandum esset contra eos, et quis esset dux belli, et expressit illis Judas, et quod pugnandum esset; unde sub hac fiducia inierunt bellum et occiderunt ex eis in primo conflictu viginti duo millia, in secundo octodecim millia, in tertio pauciores. Ecce quam crudelis et deceptor Deus, qui sic eos decepit ut perirent.

Item, Exodi quinto dicit Deus veteris testamenti : Indurdbo cor Pharaonis et non dimittet populum  ; ecce crudelis Deus qui indurat ut occidat. Item, mendax Deus qui dicit non dimittet^ et postea dimisit.

Item ad idem, Numerorum decimo quinto : Deus ille lapidare praecepit quem- dam colligendum ligna in Sabbato, consultus super hoc a Moysi et Aaron. Deus


APPENDIX. 667

autem novi testamenti excusat discipulos fricantes spicas Sabbato ; Ecce quam contrarii iste et ille !

In Genesi promisit Dcus ille se daturum terrain Chanaan Abrahae, nee tamen dedit, ergo fuit mendax. . . . Quod autem objiciunt de illis qui egressi sunt de ^gypto, quibus et promisit per Moysen terram illam, et tamen omnes prostrati sunt in deserto.

Ad idem, Exodi tricesimo secundo : Domine ostende mihi faciem tuam et Dominus respondit : Ego ostendam tibi omne honum, et postea ostendit ei omnia posteriora, id est, turpitudinem. Ecce qualis Deus !

Ad idem, Geneseos undecimo de Gigantibus qui aedificabant turrim, dixit ille Deus: non desistent a cogitationibus suis donee eas opere compleverint ; et tamen sequitur ibidem  : Et c^ssaverunt cedijicare. Ecce quam mendax Deus !

Ad idem, Geneseos XXXII. dicit angelus Dei ad Jacob: Nequaquamwcaheris ultra Jacob^ sed Israel erit nomen tuum. Et postea dicit in Exodo : Ego sum Deus Ah'aham, Isaac, et Jacob ; et ita sibi contradicit; mendax igitur est ille Deus.

Dicit ille Deus : Quis decipiet nobis Achdb  ? . . . Ego ero spiritus mendax in ore omnium prophetarum . . . Egredere et fac, decipies enim et prcevalebis . . . Dedit Deus spiritum mendacii in ore omnium prophetarum. Ecce qualis Deus: si esset Deus veritatis constat quod non diceret : quis decipiet etc.


IL

Bull of Gregory IX. Ordering an Episcopal Inquisition. (Archives de I'lnquisition de Carcassonne. — Doat, XXXII. fol. 103.)

Gregorius episcopus servus servorum Dei venerabilibus fratribus suflfraganeis ecclesise Bisuntinensis salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. Ad capiendas vulpes parvulas, haereticos videlicet qui moliuntur in partibus Burgundiaj tortu- osis anfractibus vineam Domini demoliri, et penitus eliminandas ab ipsa suscepti cura regiminis nos hortatur. Ad nostram siquidem audientiam noveritis per- venisse quod quidam haeretici in vestris diocesibus constituti, qui metu mortis falso ad ecclesiam catbolicam revertentes necnon et plures alii de haeretica pra- vitate convicti, ad errorem pravitatis ejusdem, quam a se abdicasse penitus vide- bantur, ut gravius scindere valeant catholicam unitatem saepius revertuntur. Ne igitur per tales sub falsa conversionis specie catholicae fidei professores corrumpere contingat, universitati vestrae per apostolica scripta praecipiendo mandamus, quatinus hujusmodi pestilentes, postquam fucrint de jam dicta pravitate convicti, si aliter puniti non fuerint, ita quod quilibet vestrum in suo diocesi ut ipsis det vexatio intellectum, in perpetuo carccre recludatis, de bonis ipsorum, si qua for- tassis habent, sibi vitae necessaria prout consuevit talil)us ministrantes ; alioquin noveritis nos venerabili fratri nostro Archiepiscopo Bisuntino nostris dedisse litteris in mandatis ut vos ad id auctoritate nostra, sublato cujuslibet appellatio- nis impedimento, compellat. Datum Laterani, sexto Kalendas Junii, pontificatus nostri anno septimo (27 Mai. 1234).


568 APPENDIX.

III. Bull Relieving Inquisitors from Obedience to their Superiors. (Archives de I'lnquisition de Carcassonne. — Doat, XXXII. fol. 15.) Clemens episcopus servus servorum Dei dilectis filiis fratribus ordinum prse- dicatorum et minorum inquisitoribus haereticae pravitatis per diversas Burgondiae et Lotharingioe partes auctoritate apostolica deputatis et in posterum deputandis, salutem et apostoUcam benedictionem. Catholicae fidei negotiura quod pluri- mum insidet cordi nostro in vestris prosperari manibus et de bono in melius pro- cedere cupientes, ac volentes omne ab eo impedimentum et omne obstaculntn removeri, praesentium vobis auctoritate mandamus quatinus in eodem negotio de divino et apostolico favore et omni humano timore postposito constanter ac intrepide procedentes circa extirpandam haereticam pravitatem, tarn de Burgon- dia quam de Lotharingia cum omni vigilantia omnique studio laboretis, et si forsitan inagister et minister generalis, aliique priores et ministri provinciales, ac custodes sen guardiani aliquorum locorum vestrorum ordinum praetextu quo- rumcumque privilegiorum seu indulgentiarum ejusdem sedis dictis ordinibus con- cessorum ac concedendorum in posterum, vobis vel vestrum alicui seu aliquibus injunxerint seu quoquo modo praeceperint ut quoad tempus et quoad certos ar- ticulos certasve personas negotio supersedeatis eidem, nos vobis universis et singulis auctoritate apostolica districtius inhibemus ne ipsis obedire in hac parte vel intendere quomodolibet praesumatis. Nos etiam privilegia seu indulgentias hujusmodi ad hunc articulum tenore praesentium revocantes, omnes excommuni- cationis, interdicti et suspensionis sententias, si quas in vos vel vestrum aliquos hac occasione ferri contingent, irritas prorsus decerniraus et inanes. . . . Non enim aliqua eis super hujuscemodi inquisitionis negotio vobis immediate a prae- dicta sede commisso et committendo facultas vel jurisdictio attribuitur seu po- testas. Datum Viterbii, Idus Julii, pontificatus nostri anno tertio (15 Jul. 1267).


TV,

EUGENIUS IV. TO THE ArCHBISHOP OF NaRBONNE.

(Archives de I'lnquisition de Carcassonne. — Doat, XXXV. fol. 184.) Eugenius episcopus, servus servorum Dei, venerabilibus fratribus Archiepis- copo Narbonensi et ejus suffraganeis Carcassonae, Saucti Pontii Thomeriarum, Agathensi et Aletensi episcopis, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. Scripsit nobis vestra fraternitas dilectum filium fratrem Petrum de Turelule, inquisitorem haereticae pravitatis in provincia Narbonensi, intendere a nobis aliqua suum offi- cium Inquisitionis et jurisdictionem vestram tangentia petere et impetrare, sup- plicastisque ut eum in brevi de eo et exorbitantiis suis a jure intenderetis sedem apostolicam informare, nollemus interea quicquam praedicto in vestrum et prae- latorum provinciae praejudicium facere aut concedere ; ad quae respondentes fate- mur praedictum Inquisitorem aliquando significasse justam sibi fore q^uaerimoniam.


APPENDIX. 5G9

adversus nomiullos vestnim sc in suo Inquisitionis ofRcio injustc perturbantes, atque etiam pro viribus impedientes, petens sibi per nos viam et modum ostendi quibus taliter in posterum exercere possit ofRcium, ut cum honore Dei et sui officii integritati valeret lites, jurgia, et contentiones ordinariorum eflfugere et declinare. Cum itaque sit nostras intentionis prout ex officio pastoralis curae nobis incumbere non ignoratis, et vos et ipsum Inquisitorem in vestris et suis juribus confovere, et lites ac controversias qua? fortassis inter vos vigerent cum justitia tollere acterminare, hortamur in Domino vestram fraternitatem ut attente considerantes quod hujusmodi Inquisi tores ab ecclesia fuerint instituti ad rele- vandum ordinarios parte sollicitudinis incumbente illis in favorem et augmentum fidei catholicae, enervationemque ct extirpationem haereticas pravitatis, contenti esse velitis in hac materia dispositionibus et institutis sacrorum canonum, et ad negotium hoc haeresum quo nullum in ecclesia habetur majus, praedictis Inquisi- toribus assistere favoribus opportunis. Nam sic gratum erit nobis et summe ac- ceptum quicquid favoris, commodi et adjumeuti praedictis a fraternitatibus vestris juxta spem nostram praestabitur, ita molestias et illata eorum laudabili exercitio disturbia cum displicentia audiremus ; pro bono autem concordiae vo- lumus ut gravaminibus propter quae ab ipso Inquisitore per vos extitit appella- tum ab eodem revocatis, lites quae hodie inter vos pendent indecisae sopiantur penitus et extinguantur, prout nos illas auctoritate apostolica in eventum revo- cationis antedictae ad nos advocantes, tenore praesentium extinguimus, cassamus, et pro extinctis et cassatis baberi volumus et mandamus. Datum Florentiae anno Incarnationis Dominicae MCCCC quadragesimo primo Kalendas Julii pon- tificatus nostri anno undecimo.


Y.

Disabilities of Descendants of Heretics. (Registrum curiaj Franciae Carcassonae. — Doat, XXXII. fol. 241.) Noverint universi praesentes litteras inspecturi quod nos frater Guillelmus de Sancto Sequano ordinis fratrum praedicatorum, inquisitor haereticae pravitatis in regno Franciae authoritate apostolica deputatus attendentes quod secundum merita personarum debent distribui officia dignitatum, et quia expedit crimina nocentium esse nota, praesertim ilia per quae extenditur ultio non solum in auto- res scelerum sed in progeniem dampnatorum, ideo nos ad instantiam procuratoris domini regis in seneschallia Carcassonae de infrascriptis sibi copiam fieri postu- lantis, ad honorem Dei et fidei munimentum per nos ipsos exquisivimus et per discretum- virum dominum Raimundum rectorem ecclesiae dc Monteclaro publi- cum notarium Inquisitionis nostras pcrquiri et inspici fecimus diligenter in libris et actis publicis Inquisitionis praedictae, et invenimus quod anno Domini MCC quinquagesimo sexto Guiraldus dc Altarippa quondam de Graoleto qui dicitur fuisse pater Guiraldi dc Altarippa servicntis armorum domini regis, confcssus fuit in judicio coram Domino Bernardo de Monte-Atono tunc inquisitore hae- reticae pravitatis, quod viderat hacrctioos et verba eorum audiverat. Item inve-


670 APPENDIX.

nimus quod Lombarda uxor dicti Guiraldi, quae dicitur fuisse mater prajfati Gui- raldi de Altarippa servicntis armorum domini regis, coram eodem inquisitore et codem tempore coufessa fuerit quod multotiens in diversis locis vidit haereticos et eos pluries adoravit misitque eis panem et poma et credidit eos esse bonos homines et quod posset salvari in fide eorum. Item invenimus in eisdem libris quod Raimundus Carbonelli de Graoleto, qui dicitur fuisse avunculus dicti Gui- raldi servientis domini regis fuit baereticus perfectus et per fratrem Stephanum Gastinensem et Hugonem de Boniolis tunc inquisitores baereticae pravitatis, et tanquam baereticus curiae saeculari relictus et per ministros curiae domini regis Carcassone publice, ut baereticus et relapsus, combustus anno Domini MCC septuagesimo sexto. De quibus omnibus de nostris libris et actis publicis ex- tractis fideliter dicto procuratori domini regis copiam fecimus, et omnibus quo- rum interest per ipsum fieri volumus, non ad suggilationem vel injuriam alicujus sed propter bona quae agit vel excipit, vel propter posteros in quos parentum praefati criminis sceleratorum proserpit inftimia, ne contra constitutiones domini regis vel sanctiones canonicas ad honores vel officia publica ullatenus admittan- tur. In cujus rei testimonium sigillum nostrum praesentibus duximus apponen- dum. Datum Carcassonae decimo septimo Kalendas Julii, anno Domini MCC nonagesimo secundo.


YI.

Minutes of an Assembly of Experts.

(Doat, XXVII. fol. 118.)

Anno Domini MCCC vicesimo octavo, indictione undecima, die Veneris in festo Stae. Leocadiae virginis, intitulata quinto Idus Decembris pontificatus SSmi. domini nostri Domini Joannis divina providentia papae XXII. anno deci- mo tertio, venerabiles religiosi et discreti viri frater Henricus de Chamayo or- dinis praedicatorum in regno Franciae auctoritate regia et Germanus de Alan- hano archipresbyter Narbonesii, rector ecclesiae Capitistagni in civitate et dio- cesi Narbonensi auctoritate ordinaria, inquisitores pravitatis baereticae deputati, volentes in negotio fidei de consilio discretorum et peritorum procedere, convo- carunt in aula seu palatio majori archiepiscopali Narbonae dominos canonicos, jurisconsultos, peritos saeculares et religiosos infrascriptos (sequuntur nomina 42) qui omnes superius nominati juraverunt ad sancta Dei evangelia dare bonum et sanum consilium in agendis, unusquisque secundum Deum et conscientiam suam, prout ipsis a Domino fuerit ministratum et tenere omnia sub secreto donee fuerint publicata, et ibidem praestito juramento, lectis et recitatis culpis perso- narum infrascriptarum, petierunt praefati domini inquisitores consilium ab eisdem consiliariis quid agendum de personis praedictis, et divisim et singulariter de qualibet, ut sequitur :

Super culpa fratris P. de Arris ordinis Cartusiensis monasterii de Lupateria diocesis Carcassonensis omnes et singuli consiliarii supradicti, tam saeculares quam religiosi consilium dando concorditer dixerunt, contemplatione ordinis


APPENDIX. 571

sui, quod assignetur sibi pro carcere perpetuo claustrum et ecclesia monasterii supradicti, et etiam camera una, necnon et injungantur sibi certaj poenitentiae, sicut orationes et jejunia et alia quae non repugnant observantise sui ordinis et regulse supradictae, et quod non puniatur in sermone publico sed in secreto, prae- sentibus paucis personis.

Item de personis infra proximo nominatis, auditis eorura culpis dixerunt eas judicandas fore ut sequitur :

Richardum de Narbona, nulla poena puniendum.

Guillelmum Mariae de Honosio arbitrarie puniendum, cruces simplices, pere- grinationes minores.

Favressam matrem praedicti Guillelmi arbitrarie puniendam, sine crucibus, poenitentias minores.

Guillelmum Cathalani seniorem, Guillelmum ejus filium, Raymundum Vey- siani, Bernardum Baronis, P. Lunatii, tanquam impeditores officii, cruces et poenitentias minores.

Guillelmum Espulgue de Capitestagno immurandum.

Perretam de Flassacho valdensem impoenitentem fore exhumandam.

P. Guillelmi Canorgue de Capitestagno immurandum,

Vincentium Rayses de Caberia mortuum, si viveret, immurandum.

Gregorium Bellonis apostatam monachum, mortuum impoenitentem, exbu- mandum.

Guillelmum Bocardi Bourserium de Agenno babitatorem Narbonae, mortuum, si viveret, immurandum.

Arnaudam uxorem Pontii de Biterris de Capitestagno immurandam.

Amicam uxorem P. Gaycons, ad murum,

Habitum fuit hoc consilium anno, indictione, die, loco, et pontificatu prae- dictis, praesentibus Arnaldo Assaliti procuratore incursuum haeresis domini regis, testibus et notariis qui hoc praedictum consilium scripserunt, etc.


YII. Innocent IV. Oeders Inquisitors to Diminish their Retinue and

Avoid Exactions. (Archives de I'lnquisition de Carcassonne. — Doat, XXXI. fol. 116.) Innocentius episcopus servus servorum Dei dilectis filiis inquisitoribus hae- reticae pravitatis in terris nobilis viri domini Comitis Tholosani et Albiensis con- stitutis sahitem et apostolicam benedictionem. Cum a quibusdam intellexeri- mus fidedignis quod vos occasione inquisitionis vobis commissae contra haereti- cam pravitatem superfluos scriptores aliosque familiarcs babetis pro vcstrae libito voluntatis, et graves exactiones fiunt a conversis ab eadcm ad fidcm ct convcrti volentibus pravitate ad infamiam apostolicaj sedis et scandalum plurimorum, praesentium vobis auctoritate praecipiendo mandamus quatinus scriptorum et aliorum familiarium multitudincm onerosam ad neccssarium numerum protinus


572 APPENDIX.

reducentes, a gravibus exactionibus per qnas infamia potest et scandalum genc- rari, vos et familiam veatram taliter compcscatis quod honestatis vcstrae titulua conservetur illa^sus, et nos discretionis vestrae prudentiam merito comraendare possumus. — Datum Lugduni sccundo Idus Mali, pontificatus nostri anno sexto (14 Mail, 1249).


YIII. Abuse of the Number of Armed Familiars in Florence.

(Arch, di Fireuze, Rif ormagioni, Arcli. Diplom. XXVII.)

Bertrandus miseratione divina archiepiscopus Ebredunensis apostolicgs sedis nuncius circumspectis et religiosis viris inquisitoribus haereticae pravitatis qui in civitate et dioc. florentin. sunt et fuerint in futurum salutem in salutis autore. Quia quidani potestate sibi tradita abutentes et concessis a jure forma et modis debitis non utentes interdum favore seu alias concedunt aliqua ex quibus dampna proveniunt et scandala generantur, oportet talium abusus debito juris limitibus coartari. Cum igitur fidedigna relatione ad nostram audientiam sit deductum et nos fide probavimus oculata quod quidam inquisitores qui in civitate et dioc. florentin. prsedictis vos in inquisitionis officio precesserint immoderatum et ex- cessivum numerum consiliariorum notariorum et aliorum officialium ac famili- arium licet non indigerunt eisdem sibi assumere curaverunt passim eisdem et aliis sub familiaritatis vel officii titulo diversis qusesitis coloribus portandi arma offensibilia et defensibilia licentiam concedendo ex quibus multa provenerunt scandala et multis data fuit occasio aliis qui arma portare non poterant offendendi. Nos juxta commissam nobis circa reformationem officii inquisitionis sollicitudi- nem hujusmodi scandalis et quibusvis fraudibus occurrere cupientes et volentes praefatum inquisitionis officium sic laudabiliter et feliciter servatis eidem suis privileges gubernari quod propterea non offendatur justitia nee ex abusu privi- legiorum aliis praejudicium generetur, autoritate apostolica qua in hac parte fungimur decernimus et statuendo tenore prsesentium ordinamus quod inquis- itor florentinus qui est vel pro tempore fuerit possit duntaxat quatuor consiiia- rios seu assessores, duos notarios, et duos custodes carcerum et duodecim alios inter officiales et familiares sibi eligere et assumere et non ultra quibus possit dare licentiam arma prout consuetum est deferendi, hoc salvo quod si urgens ne- cessitas pro inquisitionis officio immineret, possit in hujusmodi necessitatis ar- ticulo arma portandi licentiam impertiri. Illud autem praesenti ordinationi ex superhabundanti duximus inserendum quod ne ex limitatione praedicta inquisi- tionis detrahatur officio et in executione ipsius dispendium patiatur potestas ac priores artium florentini teneantur prout etiam sunt de jure stricti inquisitori qui est vel erit pro tempore fideles et diligentes existere et familiarios et etiam alios cum armis omni difficultate sublata tradere quoties pro capiendis malefactoribus et suspectis et aliis officium inquisitionis tangentibus exequendis per inquisito- rem hujusmodi fuerint requisiti. In quorum testimonium prsesentes literas fieri fecimus et nostri sigilli appensione muniri. Dat. in Castro Scarparie florentin.


APPENDIX. 573

dioc. die secunda Mali sub anno Domini MCCCXXXVTI. Indict. V. Pontificatus III. Domini nostri summi pontificis.


IX.

Regulations of Armed Familiars by the Council op Venice.

(Archivio di Venezia, Misti Consiglio X. Vol. XIII. p. 192; Vol. XIV. p. 29.)

1450, 19 Augusti.

Cum facta sit conscientia quod inquisitor hajreticorum qui stat Venetiis dat licentiam XII. personis portandi arma et illam vendit per pecuniam, quod non est bene factum quod XII persone pro inquisitore portent arma per civitatem quum ad capiendos hereticos datur super talibus inquisitoribus auxilium brachii secularis, videlicet per dominos de nocte et per capita, Et propterea vadit pars quod inquisitores de cetero non possint dare licentiam nisi quatuor personis tan- tum sicut per consuetudinem antiquam solebant, quos quatuor quilibet inquisi- tor faciat presentari capitibus hujus concilii ut cognita condictione personarum possint provvidere sicut fuerit opus.

De parte — 14. De non — 2. Non sinceri — 0.


1450 (1451), 17 Februarii.

Quod ad complacentiam Generalis minorum qui supplicavit ne inquisitor! heretice pravitatis in civitate Venetiarum in suo tempore fiat novitas super cus- todibus et oflficialibus suis quos antiquitus inquisitores habuerunt. Vadit pars quod concedatur eidem quod non obstante parte capta in isto concilio die 9 Au- gusti 1450 mandetur officialibus de nocte quod pro honore officii observet in- quisitori consuetudinem antiquam cum hoc conditione videlicet. Quod ipsi officiales associent inquisitorem ad officium faciendum et aliter sicut fuerit opua et sicut antiquitus faciebant; et propterea dentur in nota officio de nocte et capitibus sexteriorum ut videatur si actualiter faciant officium vel non,ita tamen quod non excedant numerum XII.

De parte — 10. De non — 5. Non sinceri — 1.


X.

Transfer of Prisoners from Italy to France.

(Archives de I'lnquisition de Carcassonne. — Doat, XXXII. fol. 155.)

Nicholaus episcopus servus servorum Dei dilccto filio fratri Philippo ordinia fratrum praedicatorum inquisitori ha^reticae pravitatis in Marchia Trevisina auc- toritate sedis apostolica) dcputato salutcm et apostolicam benedictionem. Sl^- nificarunt nobis dilecti filii Hugo de Bouiolis et Petrus Arsini ordinis fratrum


674 APPENDIX.

praBdicatorum, inquisitores haereticae pravitatis in regno Franciae auctoritate sedis apostolicae deputati, quod dudum in diocesi Veronensi quamplures haeretici de mandato tuo capti fucrimt et adhiic eos facis detineri captivos, quorum aliqui fore dicuntur de regno Franciae oriundi, et unus eo in dicto regno pro episcopo haereticorum ipsorum, secundum eorumdem haereticorum usum habetur. Cum autem, sicut habeat eorumdem inquisitorum assertio, firma spes habeatur quod eorumdem haereticorum dicti regni praesentia in illis partibus erit plurimum orthodoxaB fidei fructuosa, pro eo quod si contingat eorum aliquos divina gratia operante redire ad ipsius fidei unitatem, per ipsos multorum qui sunt in eodem regno praedictae pravitatis fermento aspersi, occultata nequitia detegi poterit, et haberi plena notitia eorumdem. Nos qui tenemur exaltationem ipsius fidei totis viribus procurare, discretioni tuae per apostolica scripta mandamus, qua- tinus tarn ilium qui, ut praedictum est, episcopus reputatur, quam alios haereticos supradictos ejusdem regni praefatis inquisitoribus per eorum certum nuncium ad te propter hoc specialiter destinandum, qui sumptibus ministrandis ab inquisi- toribus supradictis sub fida custodia haereticos ducat eosdem, deinceps sub ipso- rum inquisitorum cura et jurisdictione mansuros, prius tamen diligentius inquisitis ab eisdem haereticis ad praefatos fratres inquisitores ut praemittitur destinandis, quae ad utilitatem ejusdem fidei et utiliorem executionem commissi tibi oflicii videris inquirenda transmittas. Nos enim praedictis inquisitoribus nostris damns litteris in mandatis, ut eosdem haereticos ad ipsos per te taliter destinandos dili- genter et fideliter faciant custodiri, facturi nihilominus circa illos libere in eos commissum sibi contra haereticos officium exequendo, prout secundum Dei honori et commodo ejusdem orthodoxae fidei viderint expedire. Datum Romae apud Sanctum Petrum quarto Idus Februarii, pontificatus nostri anno primo (10 Feb. 1289).


XI.

Order of Inquisitor-General to Make Transcript of Records.

(Archives de I'lnquisition de Carcassonne. — Doat, XXXII. fol. 101.)

Joannes miseratione divina Sancti Nicolai in carcere TuUiano diaconus cardi- nalis, religiosis viris in Christo sibi dilectis fratribus ordinis praedicatorum et minorum inquisitoribus pravitatis haereticae in Citramontanis partibus auctori- tate sedis apostolicae deputatis, salutem in Domino nostro. Nil majus accedit aflfectui quam quod fidei catholicae puritas ubique terrarum ad Dei gloriam valeat ampliari, et macula pravitatis haereticae de locis illis quae infecisse dinos- citur virtutis divinae cooperante subsidio per nostrae ac vestrae sollicitudinis ministerium penitus deleatur. Cum igitur hujusmodi cura negotii sit nobis ab apostolicae sede commissa nos dilectorum nobis in Domino inquisitorum pravi- tatis ejusdem in regno Franciae condignis desideriis annuentes, universitati vestrae auctoritate qua in hac parte fungimur, in virtute obedientiae districte praecipiendo mandamus quatenus depositiones testium super pravitate ipsa jam receptorum a vobis vel recipiendorum in posterum, quia negotium Inquisitionis


APPENDIX. 575

in praedicto regno Franciae inquisitoribus commissum eosdcm contingcre dinos- citur, in eo scilicet quod dcpositioncs hujusmodi faciunt ad instructionem sibi commissi negotii ut per eas de statu personarum pra^fati regni habere possunt notitiam pleniorem, eisdem vel ipsorum certo et fido nuntio ad transcribendum sine difficultatis obstaculo assignetis, ut iidem inquisitores depositionibus ipsis pro loco et tempore uti possint contra personas pra^dicti regni, quae per deposi- tiones ipsas apparebunt de beresi culpabiles vel suspectas. Datum apud Urbem veterem, decimo quarto Kalendas Junii, anno Domini MCC septuagesima tertio, pontificatus Domini Gregorii papae decimi anno secundo.


XII.

Bull of Alexander IV. Authorizing Inquisitors to Absolve

Each Other.* (Archives de I'lnquisition de Carcassonne. — Doat, XXXI. fol. 196.) Alexander episcopus, servus servorum Dei dilectis filiis fratribus ordinis prae- dicatorum, inquisitoribus hsereticse pravitatis in Tholosa et aliis terris nobilis viri A. comitis Pictavensis, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. Ut negotium fidei valeatis liberius promovere, vobis auctoritate praesentium indulgemus ut si vos excommunicationis sententiam et irregularitatem incurrere aliquibus casibus ex humana fragilitate contingat vel recolatis etiam incurrisse, quia propter vobis injunctum officium ad priores vestros super hoc recurrere non potestis, mutuo vobis super hiis absolvere juxta formam ecclesiae, ac vobiscum auctoritate vestra dispensare possitis, prout in hoc parte prioribus ab apostolica sede concessum est. Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat etc. . . . Datum Anagniae Nonis Julii pontificatus nostri anno secundo (7 Jul. 1256).


XIII.

Case of False Witness. (Doat, XXVII. fol. 204.) Bemardus Pastoris de Marcelhano mercator, habitator Pedenacii diocesis Agathensis, sicut per ipsius confessionem, sub anno Domini MCCCXXIX., mense Mail XIX die factam et processum inde habitum apparet, veniens spontanea voluntate, non vocatus nee citatus per episcopum nee inquisitorem, sed per ali- quos complices suos inductus, in domo episcopali Biterris, ubi tunc nos, frater Henricus de Chamayo, ordinis predicatorum, inquisitor Carcassonne, eramus, quamdam papiri cedulam scriptam nobis presentari et tradi per aliquos de familiaribus dicti Domini Episcopi procuravit et fecit, cujus tenor sequitur in


  • It was this bull which enabled inquisitors to admiuister torture. A date several

years later has usually been assigned to it.


576 APPENDIX.

hcc verba: Significatur religiose majcstati domini iuquisitoris liefetlce pravi ta- lis in seueschallia Carcassonne, sen ejus locumtenentis, quod cum eo anno Beg- guini beretici et de heresi dampnati fuissent combusti juxta castrum de Pede- naco, mandato domini nostri regis et domini Inquisitoris, mandate summi Ponti- ficis et domini Episcopi Agathensis ; hinc est quod quidam perverso spiritu im- butus, adherens heretice pravitati, perversum animum suum ad fidem heresis perversis operibus ac bereticis et dampnosis suasionibus immittens, eorum per- versa opera sequendo, quadam die post combustionem bereticorum et specialiter post combustionem cujusdam vocati Formayro et ejus sociorum, Raimundua Barseti, notarius, catbolice fidei spernens doctrinam, et mandata Apostolica et domini nostri regis, et dicti domini Agatbensis Episcopi, si potuisset, impug- nando, et, quod deterius est, si adherentes babuisset, contra fidem Catbolicam infringendo, accessit ad locum ubi dictus Formayro et alii superius nominati sunt combusti, et flexis genibus tanquam adoraret eorum nequitiam, accepit de ossi- bus dictorum combustorum bereticorum et de beresi dampnatorum et pro beresi, justo mandato domini nostri summi pontificis ac domini nostri regis legitime combustorum, et ipsa ossa in pallio sive sindone involvens cum multa reverentia ac si essent reliquie sanctorum, accepit ac secum asportavit, et cum per quos- dam supervenientes peteretur quid faciebat ibi ipse Raimundus respondit : " Ego colligo de ossibus istorum combustorum, vere martirum, quia pro certo ipsi erant sanioris fidei quam illi qui eos fecerant comburi, et de boc babeo fidem meam, et ipsi erant optimi Cbristiani, et cum magno prejudicio et contra jus sunt combusti, et credo eos martires et eorum fidem laudo et credo quod sunt in Paradiso." Sic tunc testes infrascripti ejus vesaniam et incredulitatem ac etiam bereticam pravitatem increpantes, dixerunt dicto Raimundo : "Ut quid talia facitis et talia dicitis ac asseritis rebellionem Catbolice fidei, quia certe nos credimus quod quidquid per sanctam Ecclesiam fit, digne et juste fiat, quia si non essent reperti beretici et pro beresi dampnati, jam non devinissent ad taliam sententiam." Ad quod respondens dictus Raimundus Barseti dixit bee verba vel similia ; " Deberent teneri pro bonos cbristianos et veros martires, et bic non possem non credere quod non sint boni cbristiani," et nibil aliud posset sibi dari intellegi contra suam opinionem predictam. Quare supplicatur vestre Magnifice Dignitati ut ex vestro officio super premissis per vos adbibeatur remedium op- portunum, et ad informandum vos nominantur testes, Imbertus de Ruppefixa, domicellus, Joannes Maurendi. Qua quidem cedula ut premittitur presentata et per nos recepta, dictum Bernardum ad nostram presentiam fecimus evocari, qui in judicio constitutus, juratus de veritate dicenda postmodum recognovit se fecisse fieri et dictari eamdem per magistrum Guillelmum Lombardi clericum et procuratorem Pedenacii babitatorem et scribi per Petrum clericum magistri Ar- naudi Vasconis notarii dicti loci ad instantiam et instructionem G^illelmi Mas- conis de Pedenacio apotecarii, qui ipsam cedulam sen substantiam facti super quo formata fuit, conscientibus aliquibus aliis complicibus inferius nominandis primitus scripsit manu propria in vulgari, et postmodum cam sic in vulgari scriptam fecerunt formari et transcribi in forma predicta. Vocatis autem Joanne Maurendi, Guillelmo Masconis, Imberto de Ruppefixa, Durando de Podio, Gyil-


APPENDIX 577

lelmo de Casulis, a quibus idem Bernardus primo asserebat se audivisse narrari factum predictum, in dicta cedula expressum, et quod a principio, ut dixit, cre- debat esse verum, et coram nobis, Inquisitore predicto, uno post alium singular- iter in judicio constitutis ac medio juramento interrogatis, si sciebant factum, prout in ipsa cedula continebatur fuisse verum, et primo respondentibus se nihil scire de ipso facto, nisi per auditum dici alienum, excepto dicto Joanne Mau- rendi, qui asseruit ipsum factum fore verum et deposuit de scieutia et de visu, tandem prefatis Joanne Maurendi et Imberto de Ruppefixa in dicti Bernard! pre- sentia aflfrontatis, et in judicio constitutis, et de veritate dicenda juratis, negave- runt unus post alium se dixisse predicto Bernardo factum predictum, et aliquid scire de ipso facto, excepto dicto Imberto qui, cum dicto Joanne Maurendi, finaliter asseruit se scire et vidisse, prout in culpa sua inferius postea recitanda plenius est expressum. Quibus omnibus pre missis sic actis, liabita suspicione per nos, Inquisitorem predictum, ex verisimilibus conjecturis et circumstantiis in eisdem tunc notatis, de consilio discretorum ibi presentium, eosdem Bernar- dum, Joannem, Guillelmum et Imbertum in carcere fecimus detineri ; qui omnes sic detenti et in carcere reclusi, per paucos dies, apud Biterrim fuerunt auditi, interrogati et super premissa cedula plenius examinati, tandemque post multas exhortaciones, interrogationes et requisitiones eis factas, falsitatem et machina- tionem per eos factam inimicabiliter et dolose contra dictum Raimundum aper- uerunt, unus post alium, non tamen ex toto nee clare donee fuerunt in dicto car- cere per dies multos detenti et apud Carcassonam adducti. Dictus tamen Im- bertus fuit primus qui predictam falsitatem et machinationem apperuit et de- texit, non tamen ex integro donee omnes predicti quatuor, scilicet Bernardus Pastoris, Joannes Maurendi, Imbertus et Guillelmus fuerunt apud Carcassonam adducti et in ipso muro detenti. Demum vero dictus Bernardus post multas exhortaciones, inductiones et deductiones, efifusis lacrymis, modum et seriem totius tractatus et machinationis predicte, falsitatis et cedule fabricationis et consentie in eis, corde gemebundo, detexit ac confeesus fuit, quod, licet a prin- cipio dixisset se credere contenta in ipsa cedula fore vera, prout ab ipsis Joanne Maurendi, Guillelmo Masconis, et Imberto predictis se audivisse asseruerat, final- iter tamen bene perpendit ex dictis predictorum et ex circumstanciis in dicto tractatu habitis, et firmiter credidit quod predicta omnia in ipsa cedula contenta prout contra dictum Raimundum Berseti proposita erant non essent vera sed falsa et eidem Raimundo imposita falso et mendaciter, per malevolentiam et in- imicitiam quam ipse et alii predicti et quidam alii de Pedenacio quos nominat, querebant vel habebant contra vel apud istum Raimundum Berseti ex causas quas in sua confessione expressit, et hoc etiam credebat et perpendebat ante- quam redderet cedulam predictam, sicut dixit, quodque in itinere dum ipse qui loquitur et dictus Joannes Maurendi ibant apud Biterrim ad redendam cedulam predictam dixit ipse loquens dicto Joanni  : "■ Pectus multum me sollicitat non reddere istam cedulam," et dictus Joannes Maurendi respondit quod bene red- deret eam nisi esset ibi pro teste scriptus ; et hoc audito ipse Bernardus respon- dit : " Melius est quod estis testes et ego ipsam presentabo, quia quando sunt plures testes melius probabitur factum predictum." Item, quando fuerunt Bi- 1—37


578 APPENDIX.

terriui, ipse Bcrnardus Pastoris fecit dictum Joannem Maurendi recederc et re- verti postmodiiin, nc, si vidcrctur per dominuin inquisitorem esset suspectus quod se ingereret in testetn, non vocatus nee citatus, et postea fecit eum cum aliis citari, et eisdem citatis, ministravit expensas in cena, non tamen de pecunia sua aliorum consentientium in prcdictis. Item, quamdam informationem seu inquestam que fiebat in curia regia seu vicarii regii Bitterris contra dictum Rai- mundum Berseti super quibusdam casibus officium Inquisitionis minime tangeu- tibus, tam ad expensas proprias quam aliorum, prosequebatur pro viribus et ducebat in odium et malum dicti Raimundi Berseti, non obstanti quod crederet contenta in ipsa cedula non esse vera, et quod etiam dixisset Joanni Maurendi et Guillelmo Mascon predictis se non credere ea fore vera nee adhibere fidem dictis eorumdem, et quod etiam sibi respondissent : " Vos, si est verum aut non, solus debetis ferre testimonium." Interrogatus quare ergo reddebat dictam cedulam ex quo sciebat cam continere falsitatem, respondit quod propter suum malum et suam ruinam et quod volebat quod propter ilia ipse Raimundus Berseti haberet inde malum et dampnum. Interrogatus quare credebat inde malum eventurum dicto Raimundo Berseti, si ipsa cedula vel contenta in ea probaren- tur, respondit se nescire modum curie domini Inquisitoris, tamen sciebat, ut dixit, eadem contenta in ipsa cedula esse hereticalia, et quod dictus Raimundus propter hoc caperetur et in carcere poueretur et detineretur et postmodum re- mitteretur domino Episcopo Biterrensi et quod ipse episcopus posset de ipso Raimundo facere inquestam, sciens turn, ut dixit, quod dictus dominus Epis- copus portabat tunc eidem Raimundo Berseti malam voluntatem, et quod non fecisset illi nisi malum et dampnum, credens tunc, ut dixit et desiderans quod ipse Raimundus condempnaretur ad perdendum officium suum, scilicet notaria- tus, et quod perderet magnam vel majorem partem bonorum suorum, et quod hoc sibi dixerant aliqui de complicibus predictis et aliis, quod talia erant in dicta cedula que, si probarentur, et causa bene duceretur, dictus Raimundus perderet magnam partem bonorum suorum committens predicta. Dixit se penitere de predictis.


XIY.

Hopelessness of Defence. (MSS. Bibl. Nat,, fonds latin, nouvelles acquisitions, 139, fol. 33.) Anno quo supra XIIII Kal. Februarii (19 Jan. 1252) P. Morret comparuit co- ram magistris inquisitoribus apud Carcassonam et requisitus si volebat se def- fendere de hiis que in instructione inventa sunt contra eum et si volebat ea recipere dixit quod non. Item requisitus dixit quod habebat inimjcos, videlicet B. de Beo et sorores ejus pro eo quod habuit causam cum eis, tamen postmodum pacificatum fuit inter eos. Item B. Seguini est inimicus suus. Item Savrina est inimica sua quia ipsa dicebat quod rem habuerat cum filia sua. Et requisitus si aliud volebat dicere vel proponere ad deffensionem suam dixit se nichil aliud scire, et fuerunt sibi publicata dicta testium in inquisitione contra ipsum inita in


APPENDIX. 579

praesentia domini cpiscopi et dictorum inqiiisitoium. Et facta publicatione ite- rum fuit requisitus semel, secundo et teitio si volebat aliquid aliud dicere ad deffensionem suani vel aliquas legitimas exceptiones proponere, dixit quod non, nisi sicut dixerat; et fuit sibi assignata dies super liiis (iiie inventa sunt contra eum in inquisitione et sibi publicatis in presentia prajdictorum ... ad audien- dam deffinitionem suam in octava Sti Vincentii (29 Jan.) in burgo. (Registre de rinquisition de Carcassonne.)


XY.

Bull of Gregory XL Releasing a "Pexariach."

(Doat, XXXV. fol. 134.) Gregorius episcopus servus servorum Dei dilecto filio inquisitori lieretice pravitatis in partibus Carcassonensibus, auctoritate apostolica deputato, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. Humilibus supplicum votis libenter anivuimus eaque favore prosequimur opportuno ; sane petitio pro parte Bidonis de Podio Guillermi, laici, Burdegalensis diocesis, nobis nuper exhibita, continebat quod ipse qui dudum cum nonnullis dampnatis societatibus per regnum Francie dis- currentibus, qui de Pexariacho nuncupabantur, et de heresi fuerunt veliementer suspecte, per lieresim hujusmodi quam secundum quod testes contra eum super hoc producti deposuerunt, confessus, extiterat ad perpetuum carcerem condemp- natus et in eo ex tunc continue stetit, suam penitentiam humiliter faciendo, et vere penitens et a predicta heresi discedens ad gremium et unitatem sancte ma- tris ecclesie redire desiderat quamphirimum et affectat ; quodque illi qui eum propter hujusmodi heresim auctoritate apostolica condemnarunt, liberandi eum ab hujusmodi carceribus, quamvis sit contritus et redire velit, ut perfertur, nul- 1am habent potestatem, quare pro parte dicti Bidonis nobis fuit humiliter sup- plicatum ut providere ei in premissis de benignitate apostolica dignaremur; nos, hujusmodi supplicationibus incRnati, discretioni tue prefatum Bidonem si in ju- dicio conscientie tue tibi videatur, quod ad hoc ipsius Bidonis merita suffragan- tur, liberandi a predicto carcere et sibi alias pcnitentias salutares auctoritate apostolica imponendi, hujusmodi heresi per eum primitus abjurata, tibi tcnore presentium concedimus facultatem. Datum apud Pontcm-sorgie, Avenionensis diocesis, secundo Idus Mali, Pontificatus nostri anno primo (14 Maii, 1371).


XYI.

Monition of the Archbishop of Narbonne in 1329 to Protect

Penitents wearing Crosses.

(Doat, XXVII. fol. 107.)

Quoniam illis qui poenitentiam sibi impositam proper crimen hacresis ngunt

improperia obloquentium vcl detrahentium quandoque dant materiam retrahendi


580 APPENDIX.

a via veritatis et poenitentias facere omittendi, potissime quando de crucibus vel de poenitentiis aliis sibi impositis irrisiones et detractiones eis inferuntur, idcirco nos Archiepiscopus, Episcopi, Inquisitores et Commissarii antedicti volentes tali- ura obloquentium detrahentium et deridentium verbositatibus et malitiis obvi- are, et cos poenitentiatos in suo bono proposito confovere, raonemus canonice semel secundo et tertio ac peremptorie omnes et singulos utriusque sexus cujus- cumque conditionis aut status existant et nihilominus in virtute sanctae obedi- eutise eisdem auctoritate apostolica inhibemus ne quis cujuscumque conditioniB aut status existat audcat vel praesumat dictis persouis poenitentiatis vel cruce- signatis occasione praedicti criminis improperium dicere vel dictum crimen retra- here vel quomodolibet imputare, intimantes omnibus tenore praesentis edicti quod eisdem detractoribus improperatoribus irrisoribus et oblocutoribus, si qui fuerint et de transgressione bujus edicti nostri legitime constiterit, cruces similes imponemus et alias procedemus contra eos secundum quod de jure et provinci- alibus conciliis praelatorum extiterit procedendum. Monemus insuper dictos crucesignatos et poenitentiatos ut dictas cruces eis impositas humiliter continuo infra domum et extra portent, et sine ipsis crucibus infra domum vel extra ulla- tenus incedant, intimantes eisdem quod si eorum aliqui sine dictis crucibus pro- minentibus et apparentibus infra domum vel extra incedere praesumpserint ipsos tanquam haereticos et impoenitentes reputabimus et eos puniemus animadversi- one debita prout in Valentino et Biterrensibus conciliis est ordinatum.


XYII Oath Administered to Jailor of Inquisition. (Archives de I'lnquisition de Carcassonne. — Doat, XXXII. fol. 125.) Anno Domini MCC octuagesimo secundo, sexta feria (vel) Sabbato infra oc- tavas Apostolorum Petri et Pauli (3 Julii, 1282), ftiit injunctum et districte man- datum et per juramentum Radulpho custodi immuratorum et Bernardae uxori suae per fratrem Joannem Galandi inquisitorem, in praesentia fratris P regis pri- oris, fratris Joannis de Falgosio et fratris Archembaudi quod de caetero non teneat scriptorem aliquem in muro nee equos, nee ab aliquo immuratorum mu- tuum recipiant nee donum aliquod. Item nee pecuniam illorum qui in muro decedunt, retineant, nee aliquid aliud, sed statim inquisitoribus denuncient et reportent. Item quod nullum incarceratum et inclusum extrahat de carcere. Item quod immuratos pro aliqua causa extra primam portam muri nuUo modo extrahat, nee domos intrent nee cum eo comedant. Item nee servitores qui de- putati sunt ad serviendum aliis occupent in operibus suis, nee eos nee alios mit- tant ad aliquem locum sine special! licentia inquisitorum. Item quod dictus Radulphus non ludat cum eis ad aliquem ludum, nee sustineat quod ipsi inter se ludant, et si in aliquo de praedictis inveniantur culpabiles ipso facto incontinenter de custodia muri perpetuo sint expulsi. Actum coram praedicto inquisitore in testimonio praedictorum et mei Pontii praepositi notarii, qui haec scripsi.


APPENDIX. 581


XYIII.

Royal Letters Concerning the Confiscations at Albi.

(Doat, XXXIV fol. 131.)

Universis presentes litteras inspecturis, Petrus Textor, notarius Domini Regis, tenens locum nobilis viri domini Raynaldi de Nusiacho, domini nostri regis mili- tis, ejiisque vicarii Alhie et Albigesii, salutem ct presentibus dare fidem. No- veritis nos vidisse, tenuisse et diligenter inspexisse quosdam patentes litteras ex- cellentissimi principis et domini clare memorie Sancti Ludovici Dei gratia Fran- corum regis, ejus sigillo cereo viridi et fills sericis viridibus et rubeis in pendenti sigillatas, inter cetera continentes quoddam capitulum cujus de verbo ad verbum tenor sequitur : "In hunc modum est sciendum quod immobilia que nobis et suc- cessoribus nostris advenient de heresibus et faidamentis hereticorum debemus nos et successores nostri et tenemur vendere vel alienare infra annum, talibus personis que facient episcopo et ecclesie Albiensi et successoribus suis servicium et alia que tenebantur facere eis veteres possessores pro rebus iisdem ; si vero nos vel successores nostri non vendiderimus vel alienaverimus infra annum im- mobilia hujusmodi, episcopus Albiensis vel successores suiin secundo anno et in tertio accipiet auctoritate propria ilia immobilia et possidebit et faciet fructus suos, et si nos vel successores nostri infra tertium annum non vendiderimus vel alienaverimus predicta ut dictum est, episcopus Albiensis et successores sui ex tunc habeant et retineant auctoritate propria possessionem et proprietatem om- nium predictorum pleno jure/' In cujus visionis et inspectionis testimonium, nos dictus locumtenens dicti domini vicarii sigillum autenticum curie Albie domini nostri regis huic presenti vidimus in pendenti duximus apponendum. Datum Albie, die Veneris post festum beati Vincentii Martyris, anno Domini MCCCIII. (23 Januarii, 1304).

Philippus Dei gratia Francorum rex seneschallo Tholosano vel ejus locura- tenenti salutem. Ex parte dilecti et fidelis noster episcopi Albiensis nobis fuit expositum quod super incursibus et faidimentis condemnatorum de heresi, inter Sanctum Ludovicum avum nostrum et dictum episcopum quedam ordinatio facta fuit, quod nos medietatem bonorum immobilium ipsorum condemnatorum ad manum nostram devenientium tenemur extra manum nostram ponere infra an- num, et SI infra primum et secundum annum dicta bona non fuerint vendita, idem episcopus in tertio anno dictorum bonorum fructus facit suos, et si bona hujusmodi condemnatorum in tertio anno vendita non fuerint, in quarto anno tam in possessione quam in proprietate dictus episcopus bonorum ipsorum efRci- tur dominus in solidum, et habet idem episcopus electioncra dicta bona retincndi pro pretio pro quo alii venderentur, prout in littcris inde confectis et sigillo re- gie in cera viridi sigillatis dicitur plenius contincri, et quod gcntes et nonnulli officiarii vestri seneschallic vestre ct quidam alii dictam ordinationem que retro- actis temporibus servata fuit, infringunt et infringcre ac corttra cam venire ni- tuntur indebite et de novo , quare mandamus vobis quatinus si, vocatis procu- ratore nostro et aliis evocandis, vobis constiterit ita esse, dictam ordinationem


582 APPENDIX.

juxtii (iic'tarum littcrariini contincntiam faciatis rationc previa firmiter observari, ea que contra ipsius ordinationis tenorem in dicti episcopi prejudicium indebite et do novo facta fuissc invcneritis ad statum debitam taliter reducentes quod super hoc ad nos non reperitur querela. Actum apud Novum Mercatum, die decima septima Augusti, anno Domini MCCCVI.


(Doat, XXXV. fol. 94.) Philippus Dei gratia Francorum rex, Tholose et Carcassone Seneschallis aut eorum locumtenentibus salutem. Exposuerunt nobis nostri super incursibus heresis senescalli Carcassone et episcopi Albieusis procuratores quod, cum incur- sus heresis civitatis Albie et districtus ejusdem ad nos et ad dictum episcopum equis partibus pertineant, nonnullique dicte civitatis pro heresis crimine fiierint condempnati, et per hujusmodi condempnationem bona ipsorum nobis et dicto episcopo confiscata ; nihilominus tamen nostri et episcopi procuratores predicti debita que per nonnullas personas diversorum locorum dictis condempnatis de- bebantur, quorum obligationes in dicta civitate celebrate fuerunt et ibidem ex- solvi proraisse, voluerunt exigere et nostris et episcopi, ut decet, rationibus ap- plicare, quidam barones, nobiles et prelati quibus dicti debitores sunt subditi, nitentes dicta debita per dictos suos subditos contracta, sibi applicare, dicentes quod ad eos pertinet confiscatio ipsorum debitorum, dictos procuratores in exac- tione debitorum hujusmodi impedire nituntur indebite, cum in dicta civitate contracta et solvi promissa, ut predicitur, fuerint, sicut dicunt : quare mandamus vobis et vestrum cuilibet, ut pertinebit ad eum, quatinus, si vocatis evocandis, summarie et de piano constiterit de premissis, dictos barones nobiles et prelatos ab impedimento predicto opportunis remediis desistere compellentes, predicta talia debita per dictos procuratores pro nobis et dicto episcopo levari et exigi, et debitores ad ea solvendum compelli permittatis et faciatis, ac ipsa exacta nobis et dicti episcopi rationibus applicari ; et cum vos propter debatum hujusmodi de predictis debitis plura per manum nostram ut superiorem, levari et exigi fecisse dicamini, de quibus ipse episcopus partem ipsum contingentem non ha- buit, ut dicit ; si premissa vera sint, de hac parte episcopum ipsum contingente, eidem expeditionem fieri faciatis. Datum Parisius, decima sexta die Martii, anno Domini MCCCXXIX.


XIX.

Gift to Inquisitor from the Confiscations.

(Doat, XXXI. fol. 171.)

Alfonsus filius regis Francise, Pictavensis et Tholosanus comes, universis pre-

sentes litteras inspecturis salutem in Domino. Notum facimus quod nos libere

et pie concedimus et donamus Egidio clerico, inquisitori de heresi in partibus

Tholose de cujus servitio nos laudamus, intuitu pietatis, centum solidos Tholosa-


APPENDIX. 583

nos annul redditus, in terra Raimundi de Vaure, militis, diocesis tholosanc, sita in territorio Sancti Felicis et in feodo, que terra dcvenit ad nos incursa pro criralne heretice pravitatis, tenenda ab eodem ct etiam possidenda quamdiu vixerit pacifice et qniete ita taraen quod post ejus decessum ad nos seu succes- sores nostros libere revertatur, et si inveniretur quod plus valeret tempore date presentium litterarum, illud non intelligimus concessisse nee donasse, ita tamen quod illarh terram vel redditum alienare non possit sine nostra licentia speciali. In cujus rei testimonium presentibus litteris sigillum nostrum duximus apponen- dum, salvo jure quolibet alieno. Actum apud hospitale juxta Corbolium, anno Domini MCCLL, mense Julii,


XX.

Charles of Anjou's Insistence as to Confiscated Property!

(Archivio di Napoli, Anno 1272, Reg. 15, Lettera C, fol. 77.)

Scriptum est seneschallo Provincie etc. Olim vicario et subvicario quandam Massilie dedisse dicimur in mandatis ut cum maria Roberta de Massilia mulier ac- cusata de crimine heresis antequam ad carcerem occasione predicte criminis fina- liter condempnaretur quamdam domum suam predicti criminis occasione ad nos- tram curiam legitime devolvendam vendiderit fraudulenter, ipsi vel eorum alter inquirerent de premissis diligentius veritatem, et si rem invenirent ita esse dictam domum ad opus nostre curie revocantes facerent ipsam publice subastari, re- scripturi nobis quantum de ea poterat inveniri : ipsi vero mandatum nostrum in hac parte ducentes penitus in contemptum id facere non curarunt. Unde nos presenti vicario et subvicario Massilie sub obtentu gratie nostre districte precipi- mus ut ipsi vel alter eorum super premissis inquisita diligenter veritate si eam- dem domum invenerint ad nostram curiam occasione bujusmodi pertinere ipsam ad opus ipsius curie nostre revocantes ipsam subastari faciant rescripturi nobis quantum de ea poterit inveniri. Quia tamen ipsum negotium plurimum nobis cordi existit, volumus et fidelitati tue precipiendo mandamus quatenus in pre- missis committi non patiatis negligentiam vel defectum, et si forsan procurator curie nostre in provincia occupatus aliis hiis interesse nequiverit alium qui degat Massilie statuas ut executioni predictorum omnium intersit prout de jure fuerit et utilitati nostre curie videatur expedire. Datum Capue XIIII. Januarii prime indictionis.

(On the next following folio is a similar letter addressed to the viguier and sous-viguier. )


End of Vol. I.


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THE INSTITUTE OF t/lEDlAEVAL STUDIES

fc9 QUEEN'S PARK CRESCENT - -?NTO - 5, CANADA




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