Turberville. Mediæval Heresy & Inquisition. 1920.

IV
CX UIBRIS
BERTRAM C.A WINOLE" K' K
. S.G. TRS F.S.A.
MEDIAEVAL HERESY
& THE INQUISITION
BT THE SAME AUTHOR
THE HOUSE OF LORDS IN
THE REIGN OF WILLIAM III
(Oxford Historical and Literary Studies

Volume III)
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book to the consideration of students of con-
stitutional history. It is a work of a very high
order." Westminster Gazette.
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supplement to Hallam and Macaulay and their
modern successors.' A thenceum.
THE MAKING OF BLAISE

'A first novel of great distinction.' Spectator.
'
He has written and imagined well. 1

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'
Every scene and episode and person pulsates

with the red blood of actual and recent ex-
perience . 'Times .
MEDIAEVAL HERESY
THE INQUISITION
BY
A. S. TURBERVILLE, M.C., M.A., B.Litt.

LECTURER IN MODERN HISTORY IN THE
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF NORTH WALES, BANGOR
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PREFACE
THE aim of this book is to provide, within a short
space, and primarily
for the general reader, an account
of the heresies of the Middle Ages and of the attitude of
the Church towards them. The book is, therefore, a brief
essay in the history not only of dogma, but, inasmuch
as it is concerned with the repression of heresy by means
of the Inquisition, of judicature also. The ground
covered is the terrain of H. C. Lea's immense work,
'
A
History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages but
'
that was published more than thirty years ago, and since
then much has been written, though not indeed much
in English, on the mediaeval Inquisition and cognate
subjects. As the present work has been undertaken
in the light of some of these more recent investigations,
it is hoped that it may be of utility to rather closer
students, as well as to the general reader, as a review of
the subject suggested by the writings of Lea's successors,
both partizans and critics. At the same time this book
does not profess to be a history, even the briefest, of
the mediaeval Inquisition. Its main concern is with
doctrine, and for that reason chapters on Averrhoi'sm
and on Wyclifitism and Husitism have been included,
though they have little bearing on the Inquisition.
The entire subject, on both its sides, is complex and
highly controversial. Probably no conceivable treat-
ment of it could commend itself to all tastes, be accepted
as impartial by the adherents of all types of religious
belief. It can, however, at least be claimed that this
work was begun with no other object in view than honest
enquiry, with no desire whatever to demonstrate a
preconceived thesis or draw attention to a particular
aspect of truth. The conclusion arrived at in these
pages is, that the traditional ultra-Protestant conception
vi PREFACE
of ecclesiastical intolerance forcing a policy of persecution
on an unwilling or indifferent laity in the Middle Ages
is unhistorical, while, on the other hand, some recent
Catholic apologists, in seeking to exculpate the Church,
have tended to underestimate the power and influence
of the Church, and to read into the Middle Ages a humani-
tarianism which did not actually then exist. Heresy
was persecuted because it was regarded as dangerous
to society, and intolerance was therefore the reflection,
not only of the ecclesiastical authority, but of public
opinion. On the other hand, clerical instruction had a
large formative influence in the creation of public opinion.
This book inevitably suffered a prolonged inter-
ruption owing to the War. That there was not a
complete cessation at once I owe to my Father, who
most ungrudgingly devoted valuable time to making
transcriptions from needed authorities in the British
Museum, at a time when other duties debarred me from
access to books. My friend and former colleague,
Mr. W. Garmon Jones, Dean of the Faculty of Arts
of the University of Liverpool, gave me the benefit
of his ripe scholarship and fine judgment in reading
through the greater part of the work in manuscript,
though I need hardly say that any errors in statement
or opinion are to be attributed to me alone. I have to
thank the Rev. T. Shanklandof this College for generously
undertaking the thankless task of reading the proofs,
and my Wife for the compilation of the Index and for
other help besides.
A. S. TURBERVILLE.
BANGOR, April, 1920.

CONTENTS
PREFACE ........ PAOE
v
PART I
HERESY
CHAP.
I. ORIGINS OF MEDIAEVAL HERESY i
WALDENSES AND CATHARI

II.
.... 14
. . . . .
'
III.
'
THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL 34
IV. AVERRHOIST INFLUENCES 55
V. REFORM MOVEMENTS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
AND THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE ... 77
VI. THE MAGIC ARTS 105
PART II
THE INQUISITION
I. ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH TOWARDS HERESY PRIOR
TO THE INSTITUTION OF THE INQUISITION . .
123
II. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE INQUISITION . .
;
.
140
III. THE SPREAD OF THE INQUISITION THROUGH EUROPE 159
IV. THE COMPOSITION AND PROCEDURE OF THE TRIBUNAL 178
V. INQUISITORIAL PENALTIES
'
.
.'
206
VI. CONCLUSION . . . . . . .
229
NOTE ON AUTHORITIES . . . . . .
244
INDEX 255
69*
MEDIEVAL HERESY AND
THE INQUISITION
PART I
H ERESY
CHAPTER I
ORIGINS OF MEDIAEVAL HERESY

AGES of Faith the term has often enough been applied
to the long era that separates the days of the Carolingian
empire from those of the Italian Renaissance. Like
most of the other generalizations that it is customary to
make of the Middle Ages the statement is true only with
important qualifications. It is with the qualifications

that this book is concerned. But to appreciate the excep-
tions, it is first necessary to realize the full significance of
the rule the very pregnant reality concerning Church
and State upon which the general statement is based.
That reality, the understanding of which is essential to
a grasp, not only of the ecclesiastical, but of any aspect
of mediaeval history, is the magnificent conception of
the Civitas Dei. The Kingdom of God on earth was
conceived, not as a vision of the future, but as a living
and present reality the Visible Church, Christendom.
Church and Christendom were one, for the Church was
catholic. The distinction which we of the modern
world, as the Renaissance and Reformation have made
it,are wont to make between Church and State, spiritual
and temporal, was wholly foreign to mediaeval thought.
There was but one society, not two parallel societies.
2 ORIGINS OF MEDIEVAL HERESY
Society had indeed two aspects one which looked to
things mundane and transient, the other which looked
to things heavenly and eternal. To safeguard its
earthly interests the world had its secular rulers and

administrators to aid its spiritual life it had as guides
;
and mediators the sacred hierarchy. But the secular

rulers, on the one hand, and the priesthood, on the other,
were officers in the same polity. The secular authority
of the Empire was in the days of Frederick Barbarossa
acknowledged to be derived from the Pope by consecra-
tion later, as in Dante, it was conceived as collateral
;
with that of the Pope. But always the two authorities

were regarded as essentially related. It is true that
the reality never corresponded with the august theory,
that the Respublica Christiana never was universal,
that there were always those who disputed the authority
of Emperor or Pontiff or both worse still, that
;
Christendom was distracted by bitter strife between

Emperor and Pontiff. But always such warfare was
regarded as domestic, not one between two different
states, but between two officers in one state.
It is important to bear in mind that the conception
of the universal church and empire was not regarded
simply as an idea which the philosopher and the publicist
wrote and disputed about, but as manifest in facts,
which every eye could see and every mind realize. There
actually existed an empire, an imperial crown and corona-
tion there actually existed a Holy See and a ministering
;
priesthood. And the authority of the rulers of the

universal state was not simply vague and theoretical ;
it was discernible in crusades, in pilgrimages, in the
Truce of God/ Men realized themselves no doubt in

'
an ever increasing degree through the Middle Ages,

national characteristics becoming more and more pro-
nounced, as Englishmen, Frenchmen or Spaniards but ;
they also thought of themselves quite naturally as

members together of the common society of Christendom.
1
1 See O.
Gierke, Political Theories of the Middle Ages (trans., \vitb
ntrod. by. F. W. Maitland, 1900), p. 10.
ORIGINS OF MEDIAEVAL HERESY 3
If we comprehend the oneness of human society in the

Middle Ages, as actively believed in by the average
thinking man and unquestioningly accepted as a patent
fact by the average uneducated man, we can realize what
' '
ismeant by the phrase ages of faith and at the same
time avoid some of the pitfalls that lie in the path of
any one seeking to study the exceptions to the rule,
namely, the heresies of these ages of faith.
What were the conditions that generated heresy ?
First, there were psychological conditions. In contrast

to the bustling and multiform activity of the modern
world the Middle Ages may at a first glance give an
impression of inactivity and sameness. Such an im-
pression, if it is encouraged by the intellectual dormancy
of the ninth in some degree, of the eleventh
and tenth and,
centuries, completely at variance with the facts of
is
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in which the mind

of Western Christendom was very much awake indeed.
The impression also ignores what is one of the most
marked characteristics of mediaeval history as a whole
the clash and conflict and the dissonances of it. While -
the idea of the universal empire still held sway, secular

princes, pursuing purely separatist ambitions, made
war one upon another and the nations of Europe were
in the throes of parturition. Typical of the incongruities
of mediaeval life was the glaring contrast between the
glorious minster and the mean and filthy hovels round

it to be seen in every city but that there was incon-
;
gruity in spending immense wealth, time and labour

on building a house for God to dwell in, while housing
themselves in dwellings rude and insanitary was not
apparent to the occupants. There was another incon-
gruity inside the churches themselves. Together with
images that were sacred and beautiful there were hideous
gargoyles, grotesque figures, whose inspiration was not
Christian but pagan. Congregated together were saints
and satyrs, and Pan is found in company with Christ.
Art was made the handmaiden of religion that did
:
not mean that she was wholly consecrated. St. Bernard

4 ORIGINS OF MEDIEVAL HERESY
complained that the eyes of monks as they walked round
their cloisters were too often assailed by pictures which
could only awaken thoughts unsanctified. If the first
of these two discords is eloquent of the faith which set
the worship of God far before the common needs of
men, the second is indicative of that alien spirit, un-
tamed and powerful, which fights against the higher
nature and the devoted life. From rebellious nature
sprang all manner of unholy lusts and ambitions, pro-
ductive of wars and enmities and other kinds of evil,
which rendered the reality of human existence so
divergent from the Christian ideal. But Christianity
accepted these inevitable consequences of original sin,
providing through repentance and penance recon-
ciliation and the possibility of amendment. In the
elemental passions, however, the Church found itself
faced by a problem which presents one of the most
interesting features of the ecclesiastical history of the
Middle Ages.
It is ever a hard task to expel nature, and often,
where she has been renounced and thwarted, she has her
revenge by returning, clothed in her grossest forms. The
literature of the Thebaid and of mediaeval hagiology is
eloquent testimony to the fact that extreme asceticism

and extreme profligacy are often found in close proximity.
The fugitive from the insurgent passions of his own being,
seeking to overcome the temptations of the flesh by
severe macerations and scourgings, has only too often
found his voluntary existence of self-discipline intolerable
without the relief of an occasional wild debauch or has
found that in his savage attempt to subdue the senses
he has come to take a sensual delight in self-torture and
that he is falling into the lowest depths of bestiality. The
very fervour of religious zeal in the Middle Ages is a token
of the fierceness of the passionate fires that tortured
men's hearts. It was always doubtful what outlet these
fires would find. Would they glorify God in the
martyrdom of the lower nature or would they rage un-
tamed, flames solely of desire, destroying the soul ? Was
ORIGINS OF MEDIEVAL HERESY 5
it a pure religious passion or a depraved sensual passion
that, when the Albigensian Crusade was being preached
in Germany, drove women who could not take the cross
to run naked through the streets in ecstasy ? Which
was it that was really evidenced by the practices of the
Flagellants, who at one time obtained considerable
influence in different parts of Europe ? They were simply
doing in public what the monk did in seclusion and in
the perfect odour of sanctity. The idea of bringing the
soul nearer to God by the wounding of the sinful flesh
had the Church's fullest sanction. Yet the Flagellants
were eventually declared heretics. Why ? Because it
became plain after a time that the motive of some
of those who joined the sect was unholy not a desire
to seek salvation, but only a perverted lust. Secondly,
because alike the genuine and the false devotee were
moved in the excess of their strange enthusiasm to build
upon it a theory of the efficacy of flagellation which made
it the only means to salvation, a sacrament, indeed the
essential sacrament.
In yet another way the unregenerate part of man's
nature might breed heresy. The lust not perhaps of the
flesh so much as of the eye and the pride of life led men
to take a delight in pleasure, in the sensuous pagan world,
that was not a wholly hallowed delight. Such super-
abundant joy in lifewas apt to produce over-confidence
in the individual's powers unaided by religion, leading
to presumption and disobedience. The phenomenon of
such rebelliousness in the later Middle Ages is sometimes
forgotten. Yet the legends of the blossoming pastoral
staff and of the Holy Grail pictured also the Venusberg
and the garden of Kundry's flower-maidens. In remem-
bering the figures of the anchorite and the knight-
errant one must not lose sight of the troubadour and the
courtesan. Eloquent of the movement of revolt is the
' '
famous passage in Aucassin et Nicolette in which
Aucassin, threatened with the pains of hell if he persists
in his love for the mysterious southern maid, exclaims
that in that case to hell he will go.
6 ORIGINS OF MEDIAEVAL HERESY
For none go to Paradise but I'll tell you who. Your
old priests and your old cripples, and the halt and maimed,
who are down on their knees day and night, before altars
and in old crypts ; these also that wear mangy old cloaks,
or go in rags and tatters, shivering and shoeless and showing
their sores, and who die of hunger and want and misery.
Such are they who go to Paradise ; and what have I to do
with them ? Hell is the place for me. For to Hell go the
fine churchmen, and the fine knights, killed in the tourney
or in some grand war, the brave soldiers and the gallant
gentlemen. With them will I go. There go also the fair
gracious ladies who have lovers two or three beside their
lord. There go the gold and silver, the sables and the ermines.
There go the harpers and the minstrels and the kings of the
earth. With them will I go, so I have Nicolette my most
sweet friend with me. 1
Comparable with the fearless scepticism of this

romance is the outspoken unorthodoxy produced by the
intellectual ferment of the twelfth century. That epoch
which saw the new movement of monastic reform which
gave birth to the order of Grammont, of the Carthusians
and the Cistercians, is most notable in the history of the
universities of Paris, Oxford, Bologna. From one to
another, from the feet of one learned doctor and teacher
to another, flocked wandering scholars athirst for pure
knowledge which, if it had a theological bias and a religious
garb, nevertheless inevitably tended to produce a spirit
of rationalism, to substitute freedom for discipline, the
individual consciousness for authority. The philosophy
of the day the Scholastic Philosophy sprang from
the concentration of the thought of theologians trained
in logic on the question of the relation between the
individual unit and the universal, the eZSos for if the :
Middle Ages knew little of Plato they were conversant

with his doctrine of ideas. The scholastic philosophers
are remarkable for their great erudition within the
limitation of contemporary knowledge but still more :
for the extreme acuteness and subtlety which came from

their dialectical training. Such subtlety might at times
1
F. W. Bourdillon's translation.
be no better than verbal juggling but it always indicated
;
alertness of mind. Such intellectual nimbleness was

generally at the service of the Church, to elucidate doctrine,
uphold and defend the Catholic faith. On the other

hand, the curious mind, even when starting with the
most innocent, most orthodox intent, was sometimes
beguiled into surmises and speculations of a dangerous
nature. Logic, if untrammelled, has a way of leading to
untraditional conclusions. When this happened it was
possible to escape from an awkward dilemma by sub-
mitting that philosophy was one thing, theology another, ~.
and that there could be two truths, in the two different

planes, subsisting together though mutually contradictory.
But this convenient compromise was obviously only a
pious subterfuge and grotesquely illogical. Unfortunately
both of the two principal schools of thought were prone
to lead to error. Realism, which found reality in the
universal substance, subordinating the individual to
humanity and humanity to the Godhead, logically led
to Pantheism while Nominalism, finding reality solely
;
in each disjointed unit, if applied to theology, left no

choice except between Unitarianism and Tritheism. In
the year 1092 a nominalist philosopher Roscellinus was
condemned at Soissons for teaching Tritheism and denying
the Trinity. Another nominalist, Berengar of Tours,
skilfully dissected the doctrine of Transubstantiation,
which had grown up in its grossest form during the Dark
Ages and was first really developed in an answer to
Berengar by Anselm of Bee. There was a greater than
either Roscellinus or Berengar, who was neither a nomina-
list nor a realist, but a conceptualist, the greatest of all
the wandering scholars of his time, gifted with extra-

ordinary vividness of personality and brilliance of intellect.
Abelard's love story in the world of actual fact is as
wonderful as that of Aucassin in the world of romance.
His teaching has the same note of freedom and fearlessness
as that which sounds so clear in the old French story.
There was nothing very alarming in his doctrines his;
conclusions were generally orthodox enough. It was

the methods by which he arrived at those conclusions
that aroused the fear and the wrath of his adversaries.
For he put Christian dogma to the touchstone of reason,
accepting it because it was reasonable, not following
reason just as far as it was Christian. To St. Bernard,
Abelard appeared as a virulent plague-spot, a second
Arius. But there were coming other heresies of a more
disturbing nature, for the source of whose influence if
not inspiration we must seek among facts of a different
character.
Though their extent is certainly a matter of dispute,
there no doubt about the fact of serious clerical abuses
is
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. There is no need

here to trench upon contentious ground ;
and it should
be said that when a catalogue of offences is produced as
a picture of the mediaeval church without giving the
other side of the picture, only a most erroneous impression
can be created. There was extraordinary greatness in
a church that could produce a St. Bernard, a St. Francis,
an Anselm, a Grosseteste. Yet even if we leave out of
account the invectives of professed enemies altogether
and only rely upon the unimpeachable authority of the
Church's leaders themselves, we are left with rather
a dark picture. We must remember that would-be
reformers are prone to indulge in highly coloured language
with reference to the evils they seek to eradicate. Yet,
simony must have been a crying abuse, or it would not
have received so much attention from zealous pontiffs.
We know too of many bishops who neglected their spiritual
duties and were nothing more than feudal barons, some-
times fattening upon riches amassed by extortion. It
cannot be denied that there were numerous instances of
absenteeism and pluralities ; while for the sexual im-
morality to be found among both regular and secular
clergy we have the excellent authority of great men who
were scandalized by it and sought to produce amendment,
such as Honorius III, St. Bernard and Bishop Grosseteste.
Monastic reforms had been tried, the Cluniac being
followed by the Cistercian and others of a like severity.
A fine attempt had been made to assist the endeavour
of the parish priest to strive after personal holiness by
the institution of the orders of the Praemonstratensians
and the Austin Friars. And much good was unquestion-
ably accomplished ; yet order after order eventually fell
away from its pristine purity and the seed of corruption
remained uneradicated. At the very least, we can say
that most men must have had from personal experience
knowledge of some glaring contrast between clerical
profession and accomplishment. That some such contrast
should at all times in greater or less degree exist is only
the inevitable result of the weaknesses of human nature.
It has invariably been the case, however, that when the
ministers of a religion have failed to proclaim their gospel
in their lives as well as in their preaching, they have
sowed doubt and distrust and lost adherents.
Bishop Grosseteste told Pope Innocent IV that the
corruption of the priesthood was the source of the heresies
which troubled the Church. 1 We may feel sure that
it was one source at all events when we note in the twelfth
century a most marked revival of the Donatist doctrine

that the sacrament is polluted in sinful hands. By
similar reasoning the score of a great composer might
be regarded as tainted for our hearing because the members
of the orchestra performing it were not all high-minded
men. That would be similar reasoning but it would :
not be the same. Skill in his art is what we expect from

the musician without it he cannot mediate between
;
the composer and his audience, he cannot interpret the

music, he can only jar and lacerate the feelings of his
hearers. There is the skill also of the priest. He has
to interpret spiritual things and needs therefore to be
spiritually-minded. God may not be dependent upon
the worthiness of His interpreters none the less their
;
unworthiness may jar upon and lacerate the feelings of

worshippers, conscious of the scandal of such unworthiness.
When, for example, priests are found abusing the con-
1
See Compendium of Ecclesiastical History, by G. C. E. Gieseler
(English ed... Edinburgh, 1853), vol. iii, p. 388.
io ORIGINS OF MEDIEVAL HERESY
fessional by actually soliciting their female penitents to
sin, a moral revulsion against such a practice is inevit-
able. Such a revulsion may in some cases generate an
attack upon the whole system of confession and that is
1
heresy.
An intense dissatisfaction with the moral condition
of the world,more especially as revealed in the Church,
is one of the dominant features of the neo-Manichaean
heresy, known as Catharism or Paulicinianism, of Wal-
densianism, of Joachitism. The last actually postu-
lated that Christianity had failed and that mankind
stood in need of a new revelation and a new Saviour,
Corruption in the Church was, then, one of the contri-
butory causes of mediaeval heresy, and anti-sacerdotalism
was one of its features.
It must not be assumed, however, that because
heretical sects protested against scandals in the Church,
they necessarily exhibited a higher standard of morality
themselves. The reverse is in some cases the truth.
Among the heresiarchs and their followers are found
men who were mere half-crazed fanatics, others whose
passion was more of lust than for righteousness. We
have to bear in mind that our knowledge of the heretics
is almost entirely derived from their adversaries ;
unbiased contemporary testimony there is none. Yet,

even remembering this, we can appreciate the repugnance
which many heretical sects inspired in their own day.
In the second place, the Church was itself alive to the
'
need of reform. The best minds always were and to ;
all the outbreak of heresies in the twelfth and thirteenth

centuries, though it was so ruthlessly and thoroughly
suppressed, was a significant warning. Unhappily the
abuses actually the fourteenth
tended to increase in
century, and the papacy in particular lost heavily in
moral and spiritual authority when it allowed itself to
become the mere catspaw of the French monarchy at
1 See
H. C. Lea, History of Auricular Confession (1896), vol. i,
pp. 380 et, seq. ; History of Sacerdotal Celibacy (yd ed., 1907), vol. ii,
'
chapter on Solicitation/ pp. 25196.

ORIGINS OF MEDIEVAL HERESY n
Avignon, when it became rent asunder by the even
greater disaster of the Schism.
But the task of the Church in reforming itself was ;
one of very great difficulty. It was essential in purify-

ing conduct to take the utmost precautions against
adulterating the purity of the faith, in reforming the
papacy to maintain the fundamental continuity of
the Church, of its orders, its sacraments, its traditions.
Individual would-be reformers were carried away by
their perfervid zeal, led into proposing the most unheard-
of innovations. Wycliffe actually demanded the sweep-
ing away of the higher orders of the priesthood and
the monastic orders as a condition of the suppression
of corruption. Such theories were clearly heretical,
and it was no solvent of the spiritual troubles of the
Church to weaken it still further by making con-
cessions to revolutionaries, by invalidating sound
doctrine. Such was the point of view of moderate
reformers like Gerson, D'Ailly, Niem men perhaps
just as earnest as Wycliffe and Hus in their desire for
purity, but anxious, as these were not, for the preser-
vation of the Catholic faith untouched. And it is
easy to understand the position they adopted. The
general conditions of their time, political and social
as well as religious, made a strong appeal to the con-
servative instinct. England and France were both {
suffering from the havoc of the Hundred Years War.

There was schism in the empire as well as in the papacy.
The terrible scourge of the Black Death laid all countries
low. Social unrest was widespread and alarming.
Vagrant, masterless men devoured with avidity any
doctrines of a communist saviour, and to such the
Wycliffite of dominion founded on grace had
thesis
an obvious and dangerous attractiveness. Just as in
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, so now in the case
of Wyclimtism and Husitism, heresy was regarded not
as a purely religious matter, but also as a social danger.
Another phenomenon which conservatives naturally
viewed with misgiving was early translations of the
Scriptures into the vernacular. Parallel to the peril
of revolution from social ideas among the servile classes
' '
of the community was that open Bible among
of the
the ignorant, uninstructed laity. For many reasons,
then, the conservatives were prompted to be cautious.
Their heroic attempt to secure reform from within
made in the great Conciliar movement definitely
failed. It failed in the main because it was not
sufficiently drastic, and because, while it healed the
Schism, it did not secure the moral elevation of the
papacy. The Council of Basel proposed the most
elaborate measures for reform but they were never
;
confirmed by the papacy. The loftiest aspirations were

represented within the Church. They had always been.
The Canon law had been clear and unequivocal enough
on the subject of clerical conduct. The difficulty lay in
making these aspirations, reflected alike in the Canon
law and in the proposals of the Councils, thoroughly
effective.
The history of mediaeval heresy takes us as far as
the Conciliar movement. There we stand on the thres-
hold of the modern world, the scene changes, with new
actors and a new atmosphere. The Protestant Refor-
mation is much more familiar than the earlier move-
ments. Yet the subject of these is one of great and
manifold interest. For the heresies of the Middle Ages
were of various types and arose from a variety of causes.
Broadly speaking, we may say that any circumstances
which tended to break up the unity of the Civitas Dei,
whether in the sphere of action or of theory, might be
productive of heresy. That is obviously a very rough
generalization indeed ; but only broad generalization can
include such diverse sources of heresy as the obsessions of
fanatics like Eon de 1'Etoile and Dolcino, the dialectical
disputations of theologians like Roscellinus and philo-

sophers like Siger, the anti-sacerdotalism of Waldenses
and Cathari, the profounder searchings of heart and
mind that inspired the revolts of Wycliffe and Hus.
Nor must we forget the influence of the political factor,
ORIGINS OF MEDIAEVAL HERESY 13
the contention between papacy and secular princes

regarding rights and jurisdiction, which was a potent
encouragement to controversy. Such strife, where in
theory there should have been complete harmony, was
in itselfproductive of doubt and unsettlement. The
very heinousness of heresy to the mediaeval mind lay
largely in its challenge to the essential social, eccle :
siastical, doctrinal unity of Christendom. Whether
the springs of its being were an emotional afflatus, a
moral revulsion, or an intellectual ferment, heresy was
in any case a challenge to the existing order. Its
adherents were always a comparatively small and
unpopular minority. Society as a whole regarded it
as dangerous and was convinced of the necessity of
its repression.By far the most important, as it is the
most notorious, instrument devised for the repression
of heresy in the Middle Ages was the tribunal of the
1
Inquisition.
1
On the subject-matter of this chapter see H. O. Taylor, The
Medieval Mind (2 vols., 1911), especially on the influence of the Latin
Fathers and the transmission into the Middle Ages of patristic thought,
vol. i, pp. 61-109 o n the effects of Christianity on the character of
mediaeval emotion, pp. 330-52 ; and on the scholastic philosophy,
vol. ii, pp. 283 et seq.
CHAPTER II
WALDENSES AND CATHARI

IN the year 1108 there appeared in Antwerp a certain
eloquent zealot named Tanchelm. Apparently there
existed in Antwerp only one priest, and he was living
in concubinage. In these circumstances the enthusiast
easily obtained a remarkable influence in the city, as he
had already done in the surrounding Flanders country.
His preaching was anti-sacerdotal, and he maintained
the Donatist doctrine concerning the Sacrament. He
declared indeed that owing to the degeneracy of the
clergy the sacraments had become useless, even harmful,
the authority of the Church had vanished. He is also
credited with having given himself out to be of divine
nature, the equal of Christ, with having celebrated his
nuptials with the Virgin Mary, with having been guilty
of vile promiscuous excesses, with having made such
claims as that the ground on which he trod was holy
and that if sick persons drank of water in which he had
bathed they would be cured. We need not necessarily

take these stories seriously. Our knowledge of Tanchelm
and his followers is derived mainly from St. Norbert,
Archbishop of Magdeburg and founder of the Prae-
monstratensian order, who after the leader's death
undertook the task of winning back his followers to the
true faith. The evidence comes, as usual in these cases,
entirely from hostile sources, and may easily be based on
credulous gossip. Certain it does, however, appear to
be that the man succeeded in obtaining a remarkable
influence, surrounding himself with a bodyguard of 300
men and making himself a power and even a terror
throughout the neighbourhood. That he cannot have
regarded himself as an apostate is clear from his having
paid a visit to Rome in 1112 on the question of the
division of the bishopric of Utrecht. On the way back
WALDENSES AND CATHARI 15
he was, together with his followers, seized by the Arch-

bishop of Cologne. Three of the disciples were burned
at Bonn he himself escaped, to be killed three years
;
later by a clout on the head administered by an avenging

1
priest.
Somewhat similar to Tanchelm,
indubitably but
a madman, was Eudo or Eon decreated
1'Etoile, who
trouble a little later on in Brittany, declaring himself
to be the son of God. The madman had convinced
himself of his divine origin from reading a special reference
*
to himself in the words : Per eum qui venturus est
judicare vivos et mortuos.' Eon, in virtue of this high
claim, plundered churches and monasteries, giving their
property to the poor, nominated angels and apostles
and ordained bishops. It is not easy to be certain as
to the extent of his influence ; for it is not possible to
tell whether there was any direct connection between
him and a sect who were spread abroad in Brittany

about the same time, 1145-8, but were connected with
others 'calling themselves Apostolic Brethren who, having
their headquarters within the diocese of Chalons, were
found in most of the northern provinces of France, their
main tenets being that baptism before the age of thirty,
at which Christ Himself was baptized, was useless, that
there was no resurrection of the body, that property,
meat and wine were to be adjured. 2
Of much more serious consequence than either of
these two fanatics was Arnold of Brescia, who, a pupil
of the errant Abelard and accused of sharing his master's
heterodoxies, was proclaiming a much more inconvenient
heresy when he invoked the ancient republican ideals of
the city of Rome, maintaining that the papal authority
1 For Tanchelm see the following P Fredericq, Corpus docu-
:
mentorum Inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Ncerlandicae (Ghent,

1889-96), vol. i, pp. 22-9, nos. 14-29 J. J. Dollinger, Beitrdge zur
;
Sektensgeschichte (Munich, 1890), vol. i, pp. 105-9; H. C. Lea, A

History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (New York, 1887), vol. i,
pp. 64-5.
1
For Eon de 1'Etoile see Dollinger, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 98-103 C. ;
Schmidt, Histoire et Doctrine de la secte des Cathares ou Albigeois

(Paris, 1848), vol. i, pp. 48-9.
16 WALDENSES AND CATHARI
within the city was an usurpation and indeed that the
;
whole temporal power of the papacy and all the temporal

concerns of the Church as a whole were an usurpation
so that his crusade in Rome involved a larger crusade
against the alleged secularism, wealth and worldliness
of the clergy. 1 After his death, there remained a certain
'
obscure sect of Arnoldists, calling themselves Poor Men/
a devoted unworldliness their gospel, who no doubt
provided a receptive organism in which the later culture
of Waldensianism might thrive.
But it was neither Low Countries and northern
in the
France nor in Italy that heresy was first recognized as
a formidable menace. The danger came from southern
France, particularly from Provence, from the country
of the langue d'oc. In the fertile and beautiful territories
of the Counts of Toulouse, between the Rhone and the
Pyrenees, a land altogether distinct from the rest of

France, where there was a vernacular language and
literature much earlier than elsewhere in Europe, there
existed a civilization unique, vivid and luxuriant. It
was distinctive in that it was not in inspiration and
essential character Catholic, for it owed much to inter-
course with the Moors from across the Pyrenees, whose
trade,whose special knowledge and skill, in particular
medical skill, were welcomed there. The population
was itself of mixed origin, having in it even Sara-
cenic elements. This Provencal country, peculiar in
Christendom, was pre-eminently the land of chivalry,
of the troubadour, of romance and poetry and the
adventures of love, of all the grace and mirth and
joyousness that were in the Middle Ages. Clearly the
atmosphere was not religious, the Church had little
influence and the priesthood were disliked and despised.
It was an atmosphere in which any anti-sacerdotal
heresy might flourish.
In this country there was preaching early in the
1 See T. de
Cauzons, Histoire de I' Inquisition en France (Paris,
1909, 1913), vol. i, p. 259.
'
On voit done la lutte fortement engagee
entre 1'figlise et 1'esprit revolutionnaire.'
twelfth century a certain Pierre de Bruys, denouncing
infant baptism, image-worship, the Real Presence in the
Sacrament, the veneration of the Cross. He declared
indeed that the Cross simply the piece of wood on which
the Saviour was tortured should be regarded as an
object rather of execration than of veneration. As
nothing save the individual's own faith could help him,
vain and useless were churches and prayers and masses
for the dead. No symbol had efficacy only personal ;
righteousness. Pierre de Bruys was burnt, but a small

sect of Petrobrusians survived him for several years,
their heresies being dissected by Peter the Venerable
of Cluny. 1
Much more numerous and more troublesome than the
Petrobrusians were the followers of Henry, a monk of
Lausanne, of whose original doctrines little is known save
that he rejected the invocation of saints and preached
an ascetic doctrine, with which was inevitably associated
a denunciation of worldiness among the clergy. Later
on he became more venturesome, rejecting the Sacrament
and avowing many of the tenets of Pierre de Bruys. So
successful was his teaching in the south of France that
St. Bernard was wellnigh in despair. Christianity seemed
almost banished out of Languedoc. With fiery zeal
Bernard threw himself into the work of reclamation,
and apparently met with much success, the refusal of
Henry of Lausanne to meet him in a disputation going
a long way to discredit his influence. His sect survived
his death, the nature of which is uncertain. It is possible
that the Apostolic Brethren found in Brittany ard else-
where in France, if they were not connected with Eon
de 1'Etoile, were really Henricians. 2
1 '
See Gieseler, vol. iii, pp. 390-1, n.
Dollinger, vol. ii, p. 29.
; Quod
Deus passus mortem et nunquam dedecus, et ponebant exem-
est ibi
phim, si aliquis homo suspendebatur in aliquo arbore, semper ilia
arbor amicis suspensi et parentibus esset odiosa et earn vitupefarent,
et nunquam illam arborem videre vellent, a simili locum in quo Deus,
quern diligere debemus, suspensus fuit, odio habere debeamus et
nunquam deberemus ejus presenciam affectare.'
2
See Lea, vol. i, p. 72.
G
i8 WALDENSES AND CATHARI
The chief interest of the heresies so far mentioned
isthe indication they afford of the potential popularity
of any anti-sacerdotal propaganda. Apart from the
crusade of Arnold of Brescia, which had a special signifi-
cance of its own belonging less to the history of dogma
than of politics, none of the movements had within
them the power of inspiration and sincerity to make them
of permanent influence and importance. It was other-
wise with the movement set on foot by Peter Waldo, a
wealthy merchant of Lyons, uncultured and unlearned,
but filled with an intense zeal for the Scriptures and for
the rule of genuine godliness. From diligent study
of the New Testament and the Fathers he came to the
conclusion that the laws of Christ were nowhere strictly
obeyed. Resolved to live a Christ-like life himself, he
gave part of his property to his wife and distributed the
proceeds of the remainder among the poor. He then
started to preach the gospel in the streets, and soon
attracted admirers and adherents, who joined him in
preaching in private houses, public places and churches.
As priests had been very neglectful of that part of their
duty, the preaching apparently had something of the
charm of novelty.
The small band, adopting the garb as well as the
reality of poverty, came to be known as the Poor Men
of Lyons. At first their ministrations were approved,
and even when the Archbishop of Lyons prohibited
their preaching and excommunicated them, the Pope,
Alexander III, appealed to by Waldo, gave his bene-
diction to his vow of poverty and expressly sanctioned
the preaching of himself and his followers, provided
they had the permission of the priests. This proviso,
however, in time came to be disregarded, and the Poor
Men, becoming more and more embittered in their
denunciation of clerical abuses, began to mingle erroneous
doctrines with their anti-sacerdotalism. The clergy,
who naturally resented the onslaught upon their alleged
shortcomings, resented also the usurpation of the function
of preaching. It was not difficult to maintain that such
usurpation was itself indicative of heresy. Richard,

monk of Cluny, writing against the Waldenses near the
close of the century, while admitting the merit of the
rich man in voluntarily embracing poverty, on the
other hand found that Waldo read the Scriptures with
little understanding, that he was
proud in his own conceit, and possessing a little learning

assumed to himself and usurped the office of the Apostles,
preaching the Gospel in the streets and squares. He caused
many men and women to become his accomplices in a like
presumption, whom he sent to preach as his disciples. They
being simple and illiterate people, traversing the village
and entering into the houses spread, everywhere many
errors. 1
That they were a heretical sect and no part of the true

Church is demonstrated by Moneta, the chief authority on
Waldensianism, from the question of orders. Who gave
the Poor Men of Lyons their orders, without which there
can be no Christian Church ? No one but Waldo himself !
From whom did Waldo obtain them ? No Waldo

one.
'
glorified himself to be a bishop ;

in consequence he was
2
an antichrist, against Christ and His Church.' From ''
preaching it was an easy transition to hearing confessions,

absolving sins, enjoining penances. The Poor Men came
eventually to undertake all these offices. By the time
of the Council of Verona of 1184, when the attitude that
the Church ought to adopt towards the new organization
was first seriously discussed as a matter of urgent moment,
the points of importance were that the Waldenses
refused obedience to the clergy, held that laymen and
even women had the right to preach, that masses for the
1
Pius Melia, The Origin, Persecutions and Doctrines of the Waldenses,
from Documents (London, 1870), p. i. Other origins of the term
Waldenses have been suggested :
(i) Vaux or valleys of Piedmont,
where the sect came to flourish most, (2) Peter of Vaux, a predecessor
of Waldo.
2
Melia, quoting Venerabilis Patris Monetae Cremonensis Ordinis
Praedicatorum adversus Catharos et Waldenses, Libri quinque* (1244),
p. 6.
dead were useless, and that God was to be obeyed rather
than man. 1
The a butting against sacerdotal
last article is clearly
authority. In fact, anti-sacerdotalism is still the real
sum and substance of the teaching. There was no

explicit doctrinal, intellectual error of the first magnitude.
Implicitly, however, there was for underlying the ;
whole Waldensian propaganda lay a heretical principle :
that which bestows authority to exercise priestly functions

is not ordination at all, but merit and the individual's
consciousness of vocation. 2
The Church felt Waldensianism to be a serious
menace because it speedily became popular and spread
rapidly. The Poor Men later came to believe them-
selves the true Church, from which Catholicism had
in its corruption fallen away. And in support of this
they were wont to point to their own personal purity.
To secure godliness was ever their main concern. A
simple adherent of the Waldensian creed, interrogated
as to precepts his instructors had inculcated,
the
'
explained that they had taught him that he should

neither speak nor do evil, that he should do nothing to
others that he would not have done to himself, and
8
that he should not lie or swear.'
It would be difficult to find an apter summary of
the ideals of Christian conduct ! On certain points of
1
See Dollinger, vol. ii, pp. 306-11, for list of eighty-nine errors
alleged against the Waldenses.
a
Bernard Gui, Pvactica Inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis (ed.
'
C. Douais, Paris, 1 886) p. 1 34. , Item, circa sacramentum vere penitentie
et clavis ecclesie perniciosius aberrantes, tenent et docent se habere
potestatem a Deo, sicut sancti apostoli habuerunt, audiendi con-
fessiones peccatorum sibi volentium confiteri, et absolvendi, et peni-
tentias injungendi confessiones talium audiant et injungant sibi
;
confitentibus penitentias pro peccatis, quamvis non sunt clerici, nee

sacerdotales per aliquem episcopum Romane ecclesie ordinati, nee
sunt layci simpliciter talemque potestatem nee confitentur se habere
;
a Romana ecclesia, sed pocius difntentur, et revera nee a Deo nee ab

ejus ecclesia ipsam habent, cum sint extra ecclesiam
et ab ipsa ecclesia
precisi, extra quam non est vera penitentia neque

salus.' Cf.
jam
ibid., pp. 244 et seq.
Quoted in Lea, vol. i, p. 85.

f
behaviour the Waldenses laid particular stress perhaps {
most of all upon the necessity of scrupulous truth-

fulness and like many people who have a keen sense
;
of the compelling beauty of truth for its own sake, they,
strongly disapproved of the taking of oaths.

Simple goodness and high-mindedness have rarely
at any time of history failed to make their appeal to
men's hearts and it is clear that in the Middle Ages
;
especially a strict rule of life, particularly if it had some-
thing austere and ascetic in it, held a remarkable attrac-

tion and influence. A writer, inveighing against the
Waldenses towards the end of the fourteenth century,
admits the efficacy of their purity in promoting their
'
teaching. Because their followers saw and daily see

them endowed with exterior godliness, and a good many
priests of the Church (O shame !) entangled with vice,
chiefly of lust, they believed that they are better absolved
from sins through them than through the priests of the
Church.' *
An
inquisitor bears testimony and no
testimony could be less biased in their favour to the
moral excellence of the sect, j' Heretics/ he goes so far
'
as to say, are recognized 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 labours 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
restrain 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 de-
words and lies and oaths.'
traction, light That the M
Waldenses should sometimes have been accused of
hypocrisy and have met with ridicule from sophisticated
1
Peter de Pilichdorff, quoted in Melia, p. 25.
z
Quoted in Lea, vol. i, p. 85.
enemies is not surprising but generally there is striking
;
evidence as to their simple piety. There were some stories

told at times of sexual immorality among them. These
we need not take very seriously. Similar stories were
told against all heretical sects and they can be accounted
;
for easily in this case by a confusion found frequently

between the Waldenses and the Cathari. The prepon-
derating evidence in favour of the moral excellence of
the former is strong. It is not perhaps too much to
say that the distinctive dangerousness of the former
lay in the fact of such excellence, such fruits of the spirit
being brought forth among a sect which arrogated to
itself apostolic functions without lawful authority.
The other great contemporary heresy Catharism
has some striking points of resemblance with
Waldensianism, but more important points of contrast.
The new Manichaeism emanated from the East, being
found in the Balkans in the tenth century tolerated
and flourishing under John Zimiskes, especially in Thrace
and Bulgaria, after a period of attempted extirpation
under Leo the Isaurian and Theodora. The Manichaean
belief appeared in Italy about 1030, and speedily made
its way into France, first entering Aquitaine, then
spreading over the whole country south of the Loire.

Early in the twelfth century it penetrated further north
into Champagne, Picardy, Flanders and at the same
;
time in one form or another it was found in Hungary,

Bohemia, Germany. It was so far-spread indeed that
its existence presented a very serious problem for the
Church. 1
There were several varieties of Manichaean doctrine,
corresponding with the different sects of Bogomiles,
as they were called in Bulgaria and other Slavic lands,
Paulicians among the Greeks, Cathari in Western
Europe but the different varieties were united in their
;
fundamental dualism. The Manichaean idea started in

an attempt to find a solution for the problem of good
and evil presented by the assumption that God the
1
See Schmidt, vol. i, pp. 7-24.
1
Creator is all-good and all-wise. Could such a Creator
be the author of all the evil abroad in the world ? Yet
evil could not be fortuitous the material universe ;
presented too much evidence of purpose and design.

A creator of the evil there must have been but an ;
evil person or principle. To this creator call him

Satan or Lucifer, what you will must be due sin and
2
such disasters as famines, wars and tempests.
For such a dualism two creators, one beneficent,
the other malign the Catharan discovered abundant
evidence in the Scriptures. In the Temptation Satan
offers Christ all the glories of the earth, which must
mean that they, constituting the material world, belong
3
to Satan. There were numerous passages descriptive
of the discrepancy between the earthly and the heavenly.
'
Christ said, My Kingdom is not of this world.' One
Catharan tenet was that Jehovah, the God of the Old
Testament, was the malign creator. For he was a
sanguinary deity, dealing in curses and violence, wars
and massacres. What single point in common, urged
the Catharan, was there between this deity and that
of the New
Testament, who desired mercy and for-
giveness The
? Catharan dubbed Jehovah a deceiver,
a thief, a vulgar juggler. He strongly condemned the
Mosaic law, declaring it radically evil. Had it not
been entirely abrogated by the law of Christ, according
4
to Christ's own statement ?
1 The Paulicians had

originally, in the seventh century, in Armenia,
been anti-Manichaean. They became definitely Manichaean in the
ninth. The French bougre-heretic means Bulgar. For Catharan
doctrines and manners of life generally, see Bernard Gui, Practica,
pp. 235 et seq. for its theology see Dollinger, vol. i, pp. 34-50 vol. ii
; ;
(Documents), pp. 282-96. The errors of the Cathari are summarised

in Nicolas Eymeric, Directorium Inquisitorum (Rome, 1585), part ii,
question xiii, pp. 290-2.

2
See Schmidt, vol. ii, pp. 9, n, 16.
3
Ibid., pp. 21-2 ; also C. Douais, Documents pour servir &
I'histoire Inquisition dans le Languedoc (Paris, 1900), vol. ii, pp.
de I'
'
95-6. Examination of a Catharan, Pierre Garcia. Garcia said, quod

erat unus Deus benignus qui creavit incorruptibilia et permansura,
et alius Deus erat malignus qui creavit corruptibilia et transitoria.'
4 '
Ibid., p. 91. Lex Moysi non erat nisi umbra et vanitas.' Cf.
Dollinger, vol. i, p. 40.
There were differences among the Manichseans as
to whether the evil deity was equal to the other or
not. The Bogomiles believed that God had two sons,
the younger Jesus, the elder Satan, who was entrusted
with the administration of the celestial kingdom and
the creative power. Satan revolted, was turned out
of heaven, and thereupon created a new world and,
with Adam and Eve, a new race of beings. Another
Manichaean system saw in Lucifer, not a son of God,
but an angel, expelled from heaven. Two other
angels Adam and Eve agreed to share his exile.
In order to secure their permanent allegiance to him-
self Satan created Paradise to drive the idea of heaven
from their minds. Not satisfied with this device he
hit upon another the union of the sexes. He
accordingly entered into the serpent and tempted Eve,
awakening the carnal appetite, which is original sin,
and has ever since been the main source of the con-
tinuance of the Devil's power. 1
The Manichaeans of all sections regarded Jesus as
having been sent by the good God to destroy the power
of the evil one by bringing back the seed of Adam to
heaven. In their view Jesus was inferior to God,
not God Himself, but rather the highest of the angels. 2
Denying His divinity, they also denied His humanity.
For holding Satan to be essentially the lord of the
material world and the originator of the propagation
of the human race, they could not allow that Christ's
body was of the same substance as of the ordinary

man. According to them, the transfiguration was
Christ's revelation of His celestial body to the
3
disciples. The Passion and Crucifixion had no
significance for the Cathari. Indeed Christ's death
was a delusion. The Devil tried to kill Jesus, under
the impression that His body was vulnerable whereas;
in reality it was as invulnerable as His spirit.

1
Schmidt, vol. ii, pp. 37-68.
2
Ibid., p. 73.
8
Ibid., p. 36.
There was, therefore, no death, and of course no

resurrection. 1
The dogma of the expiatory character of Christ's
lifethe Cathari necessarily rejected. He came, according
to them, solely to teach the duty of penitence and to
show the way to salvation, which lay only through
membership of the Catharan church.
The Virgin Mary possessed the same form of celestial
body as Christ though apparently a woman, she was
;
actually sexless. Some Cathari held that the Virgin

was only symbolical of the Catharan church. 2 Some,
too, held that John the Baptist was one of the demons
of the evil god, who acted as an obstacle to the beneficent
God, by preaching the material baptism of water instead
of the true baptism which is purely spiritual. 3
Such were some of the main doctrinal features of
Catharism. Its ethical teaching was intimately con-
nected with its theology. Refusing to credit that the
good God could predestine any to perdition, they held
that salvation ultimately awaited all. What gain, in
these circumstances, had the Catharan over his uncon-
verted neighbours ? Only a gain in point of time. Life
on earth, the Devil's domain, was thought of as a dwelling
in and with corruption, a penance, a probation. The
aim was to have done with such life, such probation, as
soon as might be. The unbeliever, though he eventually
reached heaven, did not do so immediately after death,
but had to continue his penance in another material
form. One of the essential ideas of Catharism, then, )
was the transmigration of souls. 4 But for the Catharan,

death meant the instant discarding of the filthy garment
of the decadent flesh, the entrance at once into glory.
It was in the ability to cast aside the bondage of the
material world that there consisted the Catharan's
supreme advantage over other people. The feeling
1
Schmidt, vol. ii, pp. 38-9.
2
Ibid., p. 40, and Douais, Documents, vol. ii, p. 40 ; Dollinger,
vol. ii, p. 155.
3
Schmidt, vol. ii, pp. 39-40 j Dollinger, vol. ii, p. 34.
*
Schmidt, ibid., pp. 44-8.
that this was an advantage clearly depended on one's
attitude towards human life. To the Catharan the
essential sinwas worldliness. The Catharan made no
distinctionbetween mortal and venial sins for this reason.
All concern and pleasure in the affairs of the world was
mortal sin. Money-making was of course depraved ;
but so also was devotion to parents, children, friends.

Had not Christ said as much ? 1 The Catharan must
give up everything he held dear in life for the sake of
the truth, which was the Catharan faith. 2 While the
Bogomiles sanctioned prevarication in order to escape
persecution, the stricter adherents of the creed com-
bined together with a Waldensian devotion to strict
truthfulness without oaths, a conviction that to deny
the smallest article of their faith was a heinous offence. 3
His belief in metempsychosis meant that the Catharan
was a vegetarian. He abjured cheese, milk and eggs
as well as meat ;
but flesh was worst of all, because all
But the human spirit was regarded
flesh is of the Devil. 4
with the greatest sanctity. The effusion of blood was
always wrong, the circumstances made no difference
it was always murder. The parricide was no wickeder
than the soldier in battle or the judge condemning the
criminal to death. 5No human being was ever justified
in preventing his fellow men from following out their
own course to salvation. It may seem at first sight
curious that the Catharan, so strongly condemning the
taking of another's life, should in certain cases condone
and even encourage suicide. The explanation is, how-
ever, simple enough. Once granted the conception of
the radically evil nature of the world and, secondly, of
entrance into the Catharan fold as ensuring immediate
entrance into glory without further probation after
death, it was legitimate for a believer, conscious of his
having accomplished the object of his earthly penance
S. Matt., x. 37.
See Schmidt, vol. ii, p. 82.
Dollinger, vol. ii, pp. 3, 83-4.
Ibid., p. 4 ; Schmidt, vol. ii, p. 84.
Schmidt, ibid.
and made his salvation secure, to hasten the time of his
departure into heaven. Hence the initiated would

sometimes escape the sufferings of illness, or the recent
convert from the temptation of the desire for the
flee
temporal things he had renounced, by suicide. Such

Catharan suicide was known as the Endura.
Yet more remarkable than the sanction of suicide
was another consequence of the Manichaean creed the
condemnation of matrimony. 1 The connection of thought
was logical and the conclusion perhaps logically inevitable.
If it be accepted that the carnal body is the invention
of the Devil and the propagation of the species his device
for prolonging his power, the love of the sexes original
sin, then it is clear that marriage is service of Satan.
So the Cathari enjoined the severest possible chastity. 2
As usual they found evidence of their belief in the Bible.
But for them there was no difference between one form
of sexual intercourse and another. Adultery, even
incest, was not one whit more iniquitous than marriage.
On the whole they were rather less evil. For adultery
was only temporary and produced a feeling of shame ;
whereas marriage was permanent, a lasting living in sin,
contemplated without shame. The bearing of children was
regarded with horror. Every birth was a new triumph for
the evil one a pregnant woman was possessed of the Devil,
;
and if she died pregnant, could not at once be saved. 3

Catharan beliefs inevitably involved the denuncia-
tion of Catholicism. 4 It was the Catholic that was the
Dollinger, vol. ii, pp. 30-4, 56. This was a survival of the
1
Marcionite heresy. The continuity of the same fundamental types

of heresy which had vexed the early Church into the Middle Ages is
remarkable.
mainly fromAeta inquisitionis
2
Dollinger, vol. ii, pp. 30 et seq., 56
;
Carcassonensis contra Albigenses, 1308-9.

3
Ibid., vol. ii, p. 33. See also E. Vacandard, The Inquisition, a
Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Powers of the Church (trans,
by B. L. Conway, 1908), pp. 90-4.
4
Dollinger, vol. ii, pp. 25, 44. Catholic churches were the dwellings
of evil spirits. Satan's first home on earth had been the temple of
Jerusalem, ibid., p. 45. Whenever one of their children by some
chance was baptized in a Catholic church, they washed off the taint
with dirty water.
heretic the wearer of the pontifical tiara could not
;
possibly be even a disciple of Him who wore a crown

of thorns, was indeed antichrist. The clergy from the
highest to the lowest were pharisees; the sacraments
infant baptism, the sacrificial mass were declared to
have no warrant in Scripture, to be mere figments of
the imagination. 1
The Cathari, it has to be remembered, were a church.
They had an organization, held services with a certain
very simple ritual, for example substituting for the
mass a simple blessing of bread at table, the Catharan
meal bearing a close resemblance to the early Christian
ayaTrrj. Confessions were made to elders of the church
once a month. But the most distinctive ceremony
of the sect was the Consolamentum, an imposition of
hands whereby the ordinary believer was admitted
into the select ranks of the Perfected. The number of
the latter was always small, and consisted principally
of the avowed ministers of the faith. The Consola-
mentum, which meant re-entrance into communion
with the spiritual world, was the desire of all true
Cathari, but was apt to be postponed until late in life,
often until the death-bed. The actual ritual of the
Consolamentum or haeretication, as Catholics termed
it was very brief. The candidate, after a series of
genuflections and blessings, asked the minister to pray
God that he might be made a good Christian. 2 Such
prayer having been offered, the candidate was then
asked if he was willing to abjure prohibited foods and
unchastity, and to endure persecution if necessary.
When the Consolamentum was given to a man on his
1
See Vacandard, pp. 73-6. Also Douais, Documents, vol. ii,
'
p. 94. Audivit dictum Petrum Garcia(m) dicentem quod non erat

missa celebrata in ecclesia usque ad tempus beati Sylvestri ; nee
ecclesia habuerat possessiones usque ad illud tempus ; et quod ecclesia
deficiet citra xx annos ; et quod missa nostra nihil valet ; et quod
omnes praedicatores crucis sunt homicide ; et quod crux quam illi
praedicatores dant nihil aliud est nisi parum de pella super humerum j
idem cordula cum qua ligantur capilli.'
2
Douais, Documents, vol. ii, pp. 2501, 263, 291, where the ceremony
is described in confessions before inquisitors.
death-bed, it was frequently followed by the Endura,
which commonly took the form of suffocation or self-
starvation.
The Perfected consisted of four orders bishop, films
major, films minor, deacon their duties being to preside
at services and missionary work, in which the Cathari
were Outside their ranks were the simple
zealous.
adherents, the Believers or, as they were sometimes
called, Christians. These bound themselves eventually
to receive the Consolamentum ; but, generally speaking,
they were under no obligations save to venerate the
Perfected who, in the strictest sense, composed the
true Catharan Church, and to live the pure life their
faith enjoined. But they were under no coercive
authority, and were even permitted to marry.
Wherein lay the attraction of the Catharan doctrine
and system ? For evidently they were attractive, as
their great and rapid spread over Europe shows. It
is at first difficult to discern anything attractive in
teaching so austere and if the Catharan promised
;
a reward in heaven, so also did the Catholic. In his

case purgatory had first to be faced, but then the ordeal
on earth was less exacting. There would appear to
be two explanations, the one high-minded, the other
the reverse. In its early days the gospel of Catharism
probably made to some a lofty appeal. It denounced
palpable clerical abuses, repugnant to the moral con-
sciousness. The austerity of its ethical principles
seemed to point to a higher standard of living in days
when any outstanding examples of asceticism, whether
in the Church or outside it, evoked admiration. In
its hatred for the evil spirit of materialism, in its detes-
tation that worst of human passions,
particularly of
cruelty, there was an element of nobility which finds
a response in the instinct which we to-day call humani-
tarian. 1 In so far as its appeal was of this nature, it
1 '
Douais, Documents, vol. ii, p. 100. Dixit etiam idem Petrus
quod si teneret ilium Deum qui de mille hominibus ab eo factis unurn
salvaret et omnes alios damnaret, ipsum dimmperet et dilaceraret

3o WALDENSES AND CATHARI
sincere and fine.
was Unhappily, however, Catharism
unquestionably developed another appeal of a wholly
different character, which resulted almost inevitably
from the complete impracticableness of its ideal. A
creed that approved of suicide and denounced marriage
/stands self-condemned. It was at war with the very/
I
principles The ascetic rule it enjoined
of life itself.
'
was one more honoured in the breach than the
observance/ There was taint of unhealthiness and
corruption in a rule so hopelessly at variance with
nature while a creed which, if it meant anything, held
;
as its highest hope the speediest possible destruction

of all human life, was devoid of the balance and sanity
which is essential in any doctrine that is to be of any
practical service in the world. Such a religion as
Catharism could not harmonize with the most elementary
facts of life and human nature. The consequence was
and herein lies the greatest condemnation of the sect
that it went on proclaiming an impracticable ideal
while admitting that it was impracticable, sanctioning
a compromise, itself antithetical to its essential dogma,
whereby alone the heresy was able to continue at all.
The compromise is seen in two practices the distinc-
tion made between the Perfected and the Believers and
the postponement of the Consolamentum, or complete
initiation, until the end of life. The Believers the
great bulk of the adherents of the creed might do
pretty well as they liked, in fact ignore all the Catharan
precepts of conduct, might marry, have riches, make
war, eat what they chose, provided only they were
prepared to receive the Consolamentum before they
died. Such an arrangement is merely the apotheosis
of the system of the death-bed repentance, it is an
encouragement to insincerity and hypocrisy. This does
unguibus et dentibus tanquam perfidum et reputaret ipsum esse falsum

et perfidum, et spueret in faciem ejus, addens " de gutta cadet ipse."
'
Such language, which is typical of many Catharan utterances, is

simply that of a saeva indignatio, aroused by the ascription to the
Deity of the cruelty and injustice which conscience reprobates in
human beings.
not mean that most, or necessarily even many, Cathari

were hypocrites. Most of them, probably, were originally
simple-minded labourers and artisans, attracted by a
novel gospel, which discerned the evils of the times,
gave hopes of heaven and was marked by the ascetic
and missionary enthusiasms which were then regarded as
the hall-mark of a spiritual origin and divine inspiration.
Nevertheless, the temptation to insincerity was
'
clearly present. Believe in the Catharan creed,

venerate the Perfected, receive the Consolamentum
before death,' made a simple and an attractive faith
for one who wished to enjoy the pleasures of life to the
full, yet to whom the tortures of a material hell were
painfully vivid. We are the only true Christians, the

*
Catholic church is but an usurpation, utterly corrupt,'
made a convenient excuse for the feudal lord, by whom

only the excuse was wanted, to harry the clergy and
make inroads on their property. Nor need we wonder
that these holders of a doctrine of ultra-asceticism, of
a complete celibacy, were credited with even the foulest
of sexual orgies. The distinction between Perfected
and Believers was an antinomian arrangement. Intense
asceticism among the very select number of the former
was made compatible with excesses among the latter.
Was not the very rigour of existence among the com-
pletely initiated an invitation positively to extreme
indulgence prior to such initiation ? It would be highly
uncritical to place a great deal of credence in the many
stories told of immoral practices among Cathari. Such
stories were bound to be told. We find them in con-
nection with practically every mediaeval heresy it was ;
such an obvious device for the discrediting of unholy

beliefs to demonstrate that they involved unholy lives.
But it would also be uncritical to reject the stories
altogether. There is an inherent probability that a
certain percentage it may be only a small percentage
of those told of the Cathari were true. The critic's
'
objection, what abomination may one not expect of

those who hold incest no worse a crime than marriage ?
'
1
is pertinent and sound. What results are likely, once
given the impossibility of complete continence, from
such a perverted teaching ?
Indeed, notwithstanding its better qualities, its
still better possibilities, Catharism was
essentially per-
verted and the antagonism it aroused and the efforts
:
made to suppress it are in no way surprising. It has

'
been termed a hodge-podge of pagan dualism and gospel
teaching, given to the world as a sort of reformed
Christianity.'
2
A hodge-podge it undoubtedly was, an
amalgam of ancient Manichaeism and elements of eastern
origin, which were not Christian at all but Mazdeist,
together with certain features of pure Christianity.
It is no wonder that the Catholic Church viewed with
alarm the challenge made by a faith so compounded
when it claimed to be the only true Christianity.
Catharism was not an antagonist to be despised. Its
missionary enterprise, its anti-social tendencies and the
evident popularity of its anti-sacerdotal features made
it undeniably dangerous. Moreover, it did not stand
alone. Taken together, the different anti-sacerdotal
heresies, of which Waldensianism and Catharism were
the chief, which were abroad in Europe before the end
of the twelfth century, presented a serious problem
and indeed a menace. Was not the widespread pheno-
menon of organized heresy a challenge to the whole
conception of the Civitas Dei alike on its spiritual and

its secular side ? If only in self-defence must not the
Church society on its spiritual side take special
measures to counteract the influence of rebels, who
had deliberately made war upon it by declaring them-
selves alone to be the true repositories of the sacred

truths upon which God's Kingdom here upon earth was
1 '
Eymeric, Directorium, part ii, question xiv, p. 196. Quod
melius est satisfieri libidini, quocunque actu turpi, quam carnis stimulis
fatigari :
(ut dicunt, & ipsi faciunt) in tenebris licitum,
sed est
quemlibet cum
qualibet indistincte carnaliter commisceri, quando-
cunque & quotiescunque carnalibus desideriis stimulentur.' Cf.
Schmidt, p. 151 n., on the Cathari of Orleans in 1012.
2
Vacandard, p. 80.
founded ? There were three possible methods of answer-

ing the challenge of heresy. The first was reform, the
weeding out of those abuses which gave anti-sacer-
dotalism its case and its opportunity, reform whereby
all might be enabled to recognize incontestably that
Christ was plainly revealed in the life of His Church.

The second was missionary propaganda, the utilization
of the same weapon which the enemy so trenchantly
wielded that of persuasion. The third possible method
was constraint.
CHAPTER III
'
THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL '
IN 1196 Pope Celestine III gave his sanction to a new

order, of which the mother-house was in Fiore. From
this place its founder derived his name, and he is generally
known as Joachim^ of Flora. Born of a noble family
and intended foFa couHierrhe had joined the Cistercians
in the desire for a life of austere discipline, but finding
its severities insufficient to satisfy his zeal had retired
into a hermitage, where however would-be disciples
sought him out, so that he had to put himself at their
'
head. Joachim, who has been described as the founder
of modern mysticism/ 1 regarded himself as inspired, and
in his own life-time obtained the reputation of a prophet.
As a prophet he is recognized in Dante. 2 There is no
question that Joachim was much under Greek influences.
Calabria itself, the scene of most of his labours, was half-
Greek he paid more than one visit to Greece, came in
;
contact with the Greek Church and also almost certainly

with the Cathari, for Greece was a hotbed of their
doctrines.There is some common ground between
Catharism and the peculiar teachings with which the
name of Abbot Joachim is associated. Except for a
few unimportant pamphlets against the Jews and other
adversaries of the Christian faith there are only three
works of which he was the undoubted author a con-
cordance, a psalter and a commentary on the book of
the Revelation. The authenticity of two epistles ascribed
to him is probable, but many other works put down to
3
his authorship after his death are certainly spurious.
1
Lea, vol. iii, p. 10.
2
Paradiso, xii, 139-41.
3
On
Joachim's writings, the problem of The Everlasting Gospel
and Joachitism generally, see J. J. Dollinger, Prophecy and the Prophetic
Spirit in the Christian Era (tr. A. Plummet, 1873), ch. vii E. Renan,
;
Nouvelles Etudes d' histoire religieuse (Paris, 1884; English ed., 1886);
,
'
35
The contemporary reputation of Joachim would appear

to have been derived as much from his spoken utterances
as from his writings but Adam Marsh prized the smallest
:
fragments of his works, sending them whenever he

could obtain them from Italy to Bishop Grosseteste.
On the other hand, however interesting and indeed
startling they may have been, they were not during their
author's lifetime regarded as in any way injurious.
His reputation as a seer was wholly orthodox and un-
exceptionable. In 1200 he submitted his books to the
Holy See for its approval, and the verdict was that they
were undoubtedly of divine inspiration. Thirteen years
later, indeed, certain speculations concerning the Trinity
in one of his minor tracts were condemned by the Council
of the Lateran. But the author was not personally con-
demned, and his order was definitely approved while ;
in 1220 Honorius III issued a bull declaring Joachim

1
to have been a good catholic.
It is doubtful if the name of Joachim of Flora would
ever have been of any more than very transitory im-
portance had it not been for the appearance in 1254 f
'
a work entitled The Eternal Gospel/ of which he was
stated to be the author. No book of that title figures
among the authentic works of Joachim, nor did he give
that name to any collection of them. It seems that the
book which appeared in Paris in 1254 consisted of
Joachim's three principal works which had none of
them been hitherto deemed heretical with explanatory
notes and a lengthy and all-important introduction
(Introductoriits in Evangelium Aeternum). It must have
been rather in the notes and introduction than in the
the Essay on Joachim in Franciscan Essays (1912), by E. G. Gardner,
pp. 50-70 ; also E. Gebhart, L'ltalie mystique ; la renaissance religieuse
au moyen age (1908), esp. pp. 49-84, 183-253. The whole story of
the Spiritual Franciscans, so far as it affected Italy, is told in this
admirable work.
1
J. a Royas, De Haereticts, eorum que impia intentione et creduli-
tate, cum quinquaginta analyticis assertionibus, quibus universae fidei
causae facile definiri valeant, in F. Zilettus, Tractatus Universi Juris
(Venice, 1633), vol. xi, pt. ii, p. 211. The fact of the submission of his
works in 1200 is disputed, Franciscan Essays, p. 56.
36
'
text that the heresy lay, in the interpretations put upon

Joachim's apocalyptic effusions rather than in the
effusions themselves. The true author, therefore, of
' '
the heresies associated with The Everlasting Gospel
would appear to be the commentator, not the originator.
The authorship of the introduction and the glosses was
early ascribed to one of two persons to a certain
Gherardo da Borgo San Donnino by the contemporary
chronicler Salimbene, to John of Parma by the inquisitor
'
Eymeric in his Direct orium Inquisitorum,' written

more than a century later. In any case the author was
a Franciscan. 1 And between the conceptions contained
' '
in The Everlasting Gospel and the Franciscan Order,
it will be seen, there was a very close and a very significant
connection.
We may take it that the compiler of the work which
startled the world in 1254 whether it was Gherardo
or John of Parma is to be regarded less as an expounder
of the teaching of Joachim of Flora than as an original
thinker, either honestly finding a preceptor and a kindred
soul in the prophet and simply elaborating his thesis,
or else utilizing the apocalyptic utterances of a man who
had died in the full odour of sanctity in order to build
up a thesis essentially his own on esoteric writings easily
susceptible of a new construction. It is sufficient that

' '
The Everlasting Gospel has direct reference to that
which was at the time led by
section of the Franciscans
John of Parma, and that in the new religion which the
1
See Renan, op. cit., p. 248 ; Lea, vol. iii, pp. 22-3 and notes ;
F. H. Reusch, Index der verbotenen Biicher (Bonn, 1883). Bucherverbote
im Mittelalter, pp. 1821 ; Chronicle of Salimbene in Monumenta
Historica ad provincias Parmensem et Placentiam pertinentia (Parma,
l8 5?) PP- 2 35~6 - See Directorium, part ii, question ix, pp. 269-72,
'
on the heresies of John of Parma. It is ... the substitution of
the idea of the Everlasting Gospel as a written book to supersede
the Gospel of Christ, for the original one of the Everlasting Gospel as
an unwritten spiritual interpretation based upon that Gospel that
separates Gherardo of Borgo San Donnino and the Joachists from the
authentic creed of Joachim himself.' Franciscan Essays, p. 63. The
prophecies of Joachim himself were esteemed by the Church it ;
was the subsequent gloss upon them that was suspect. See Db'llinger
Prophecy and the Prophetic Spirit (London, 1873), pp. 121 et seq.
'
37
work predicts the Friars are to play the leading part

as inaugurators. The work is indeed astoundingly
revolutionary. In much the same way that Mazzini in
'
his From the Council to God proclaimed the emergence
'
of a new religion of Humanity superseding Christianity

did The Everlasting Gospel proclaim a new religion,
' '
that of the Holy Ghost. But whereas condemnation

of the Catholic Church was commonplace in the nine-
teenth century and humanitarian ideas familiar in ;
the thirteenth century it is rather astonishing to find

an admission that Christianity has failed and that a
new dispensation is necessary for the salvation of man-
' '
kind. The text of The Everlasting Gospel is the

the Revelation, And I saw another
'
words in the book of
angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting

gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth,
and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and
people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give
glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come/
5
' '
Joachim had foretold in his Concordia that the world

would go through three cycles, those of the Father or
the circumcision or the law ;
of the Son, crucifixion,
grace ;
of the Holy Ghost, peace and love. The first
had been the era of Judaism, of the Old Testament.
It had led on to that of the New Testament and the
Christian Church. The second period was very shortly to
reach its accomplishment, and the third and last era, that
of The Everlasting Gospel/ to be inaugurated by a new
'
religious order. By mystic computations the date of the

commencement of the final era was found to be 1260.
Fundamental to such a mystic conception of human
history the assumption that Christianity is not the
is
whole and the sole truth, that it is not complete in itself,
but only a partial revelation of God to man, destined to
be superseded by a fuller, ampler revelation in the same
way in which it had superseded Judaism. Such an assump-
tion could only rest pessimistic view of contempo-
upon a
rary life and society, a feeling that it urgently needed a
1
Rev. xiv, 6.
38
'
new saviour. Joachim strongly denounced the evils of his

day, especially those evinced by the Church, which was
given up to carnal appetites and neglected its duties,
to the advantage of proselytizing heresies, for which
it was thus itself
indirectly responsible. The author
' '
or authors of The Everlasting Gospel illustrated this
very conception by elaborating a thesis really more
destructive of the Catholic faith than Catharism itself.
The ending of the second era was to be accompanied

by great tribulations, but these grievous troubles would
usher in the millennium, days of perfect justice, peace and
happiness, in which God would be worshipped every-
where and in which the Eucharist and indeed all other
sacraments would be needless, mankind being liberated
from such burdens, so complete would be the knowledge
of God in the heart of the individual man. The con-
version of the world to this new dispensation, in which
each man would live the devoted life of a monk, was to
be brought about by the new mendicant order, in which
would be manifested all the highest powers of man.
What order could this be but the Franciscan ?
The personality and career of St. Francis of Assisi
are of profound significance in the history of mediaeval
Christianity. Their sanctity and spiritual power gave
other men, such as Peter Damiani, Bruno, Stephen
Harding, Norbert, Bernard, Dominic, a great reputation
and authority even in their own lifetime. But Francis
stood apart from and above all of them, even Bernard.
His intense sincerity, his absolute, unconditional renun-
ciation of all worldly things, the charm and beauty
of his character made the man, upon .whose body the
o-Tty/iara of Christ were said to have been seen, appear

to his own day as one different from all other men
indeed so miraculously near to the spirit of his Master
as to be hailed by some even as a second Christ. Simple,
unlearned, not interested in intellectual matters, making
religion an inward matter of spiritual experience, intense
conviction of sin and of repentance together with un-
reserved devotion of life and soul to God in personal
39
service, St. Francis was no organizer, and when the

nucleus of an order gathered round him viewed the
future with the utmost disquietude, fearing in the very
fact of organization a falling away from those ideas
of strictest poverty and personal holiness which marked
out the Minorites from all other religious associations.
Yet if the influence of St. Francis was to survive his
death, organization, whatever its drawbacks, was an
imperative necessity. This work was carried out by
a man of rare energy and constructive powers, Elias
of Cortona, with the active support of Gregory IX.
Elias did for the Franciscans what St. Paul did for
primitive Christianity. But between the spirit of Elias
and that of Francis there was a difference equivalent
to that between the zeal of a prophet and the skill of
a statesman. The Franciscan Order as it came to be,
if it gained something by its organization, lost also,
as the founder had foreseen. With organization there
came indeed recruitment from the ranks of scholarship,
and the followers of the unlearned saint of Assisi included
in Alexander of Hales, Bonaventura and Roger Bacon
men who could take stand with Albertus Magnus and
Thomas Aquinas himself among the followers of the
learned Dominic de Guzman. But there came also
with organization temporal influence and worldly wealth,
entirely out of harmony with the mind and ideals of
Francis, and proving indeed a snare and a temptation
to those very clerical abuses against which the whole
life of Francis had been a protest.
Accordingly, there came about a very serious and

indeed irreconcilable cleavage among the Grey Friars.
There were on the one side the followers of Elias who
came to be known as the Conventuals, arguing that a
strict compliance with the principles of Francis was
impracticable, indeed fanatical, that compromise in-

volving the abandonment of the mendicant ideal and
the acceptance of property was not only justifiable
but unavoidable for the continued existence of their
society. On the other side were the Spirituals, arguing
40 'THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL*
that the policy of compromise meant nothing less than
the repudiation of the distinctive characteristics of
the order which had led to its creation and justified
its and urging to the full the strictest
continuation,
conformity with all their uncompromising sincerity.
The dispute between the two parties had been some
' '
years in progress when The Everlasting Gospel was

published, the J9hn of Parma to whom the authorship
of the work was by some attributed being at that time
General of the order and a most perfervid Spiritual.
St. Francis himself had indeed been orthodox enough,
for the most part accepting the articles of faith in a
spirit of unquestioning obedience, though the bent of

his mind and his marriage to the Lady Poverty caused
him to attach more importance to some dogmas than
to others, and in particular to shorten and to simplify all
forms and ritual. But in the beautiful fancifulness
of Francis there was a strong element of mysticism,
and this element was a marked characteristic of those
who sought to retain his ideal of asceticism in the order,
To such the mystical outpourings of the Abbot Joachim
made a powerful appeal. For they perceived in his
predictions a clear reference to themselves, found in
Francis the forerunner and in themselves, his true
followers, the destined preachers of the new era of the
Holy Ghost in which the carnal-mindedness of a decadent
Church and the corruption and indeed the worldliness
of the whole human race were to be known no more.
To some extremists Francis figured not as a great saint
and servant of Christ seeking to reclaim the world
to His truth, but as an equal with Christ not as the
restorer of an existent religion, but as the creator of a
new religion. So completely heterodox a construction
was it possible to place upon the mission of St. Francis,
in the light of Joachite prophecy. 1
1 '
See Lea, vol. iii, pp. 18-19. Unless the universe were a failure,
and the promises of God were lies, there must be a term to human
wickedness and as the Gospel of Christ and the Rule of Francis
;
had not accomplished the salvation of mankind, a new gospel was

'
41
Itcan easily be understood that the taint of Joachi-
tism among the Spirituals gave a splendid opportunity
to their adversaries, which the latter were not slow
to take. The Pope, Alexander IV, was appealed to ;
John Parma was forced to resign, and his successor,

of
Bonaventura, who belonged to neither party, was made,
however unwillingly, to take action against John himself
and his most outstanding adherents. Already evidence
was accumulating of heretical dangers which might
accrue from the wedding together of Franciscan ideas of
poverty with Joachitic myticism, and Spirituals began
to be looked upon askance. Already Languedoc,
abundant source of all manner of onslaughts upon the
faith, was beginning to welcome the ideas of Joachim, and
it was possible for the Conventuals to argue that their
opponents were no better than a heretical sect, another

form of Cathari. Later on there came successors to the
'
author of The Everlasting Gospel/ in the Franciscan
Pierre Jean Olivi in France, in Italy Arnaldo da Villanova,
who pronounced the vices of the clergy to be eloquent
signs of the presence of Antichrist.
To begin with the Spirituals were in the ascendant.
Bonaventura, in controversy with William of Saint Amour,
a virulent enemy of the whole Franciscan order,
maintained that poverty was an essential feature of
indispensable. Besides, Joachim had predicted that there would arise

a new religious Order which would rule the world and the Church
in the halcyon age of the Holy Ghost. They could not doubt that
this referred to the Franciscans as represented by the Spiritual group,
which was striving to uphold in all its strictness the Rule of the
venerated founder.' Salimbene was not a very spiritually-minded
Franciscan. That most entertaining chronicler took a not entirely
holy delight in the bright and frivolous things of life, and even the
gross. But he was very much impressed by the prophecies of the
Abbot Joachim. All prophecies appealed to his curious and
inquisitive mind, those of Merlin as well as Joachim ;but he was
genuinely interested in their spiritual signifiance also, and for a time
a professed Joachite. See his Chronicle, especially relating to the
testimony of one, Brother Hugo of Montpellier, concerning Joachim,
op. eit., pp. 97 et seq. There is a summary in Taylor, op. cit., vol. i,
pp. 494-517. The place of poverty in the Franciscan Rule is dis-
cussed in St. Francis and Poverty Franciscan Essays, pp. 18-30.
42 'THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL'
Christianityand that neither Christ Himself nor His
disciplesowned property of any kind. Pope Nicholas III
by the bull Exiit qui seminat gave the sanction of the
Holy See to the view that St. Francis had been inspired
in his creation of the Rule by the Holy Ghost ; that
Christ had completely renounced the ownership of
property and that such renunciation was most laudable
and Christian. At the same time he drew a distinction
no new one, because it had already been put into practice
by Innocent IV and Alexander IV between ownership
and use, and laid down as a rule always to be followed
that the ownership of Franciscan property was vested
in the Holy See, the Franciscans themselves simply
having the usufruct. This bull did not, as might have

been anticipated, settle the dispute between the two
Franciscan factions. Laxity increased among the Con-
ventuals, and Joachite tendencies still subsisted among
their opponents. The pontificate of Boniface VIII, which
began in 1294, brought upon the scene a man most
eminently practical, essentially worldly. To the Pope,
who had designs on the temporal power and eventually
I am Caesar, I am Emperor/
'
announced categorically,
the ascetic ideal of the Spirituals was a ridiculous fanati-
cism, which was also a positive nuisance. The mendicant
orders had been especially the servants of the papacy ;
the Spirituals were apt to refer to it as Antichrist. More-
over, the existence of wandering friars, actually beggars,
under no proper discipline and supervision as some of
the Spirituals had become outraged his sense of order
and decency. Boniface decided that these lawless bands
must be hunted down, and utilized the Inquisition for
this purpose. Under Clement V the lot of the Spirituals
considerably improved, and inveighing against the abuses
of their false brethren they very nearly succeeded in
securing a permanent separation into an order of their
own. Instead of this Clement, while declaring in favour
of the ascetic party and favouring them generally during
his pontificate, endeavoured to induce the rival factions
to drop their quarrels and live together in amity. His
'
43
efforts at settlement were defeated by the action of
Spirituals in Italy, who at the very time when a Council
at Vienne, sitting in 1311-12, was declaring in favour
of the Spirituals and prohibiting their enemies from
referring to them as heretics, proclaimed themselves a
separate community and brought down the Pope's
wrath upon them as rebels and schismatics and indeed
founders of a pestilential sect.
The controversy came to a head under Clement's
successor, the resoluteand aggressive John XXII, to
whom the pauper ideal was particularly obnoxious. He
was extremely avaricious and full of worldly ambitions
which involved him in frequent wars in Italy. This
pontiff possessing in his nature not one single feature
in common with St. Francis determined on restoring
order within the Franciscan fold and bringing the
1
Spirituals to obedience. The firstattack on the ascetic
party was made in Languedoc. One of the minor dis-
tinctive features of the Spirituals was their wearing
smaller gowns and hoods than the Conventuals. The
Spirituals in the province of Aquitaine, in Beziers,
Nar bonne and Carcassonne, were forbidden to wear this
distinctive garb. Twenty-five, to whom the wearing of
their habit was symbolical
of the whole principle for
which they stood, refused to submit and were delivered
to the Inquisition at Marseilles. Already the Pope had
declared that all the wandering Spirituals in Languedoc
who styled themselves Fratres de paupere vita or Frati- \
celli were heretics, and had stated very significantly

in the bull Quorundam that however praiseworthy
poverty might be, more praiseworthy was obedience.
Four of the twenty-five remained obdurate to the
last, were handed over to the secular arm, and burnt.
This proved to be but the beginning of a persecution
carried out most rigorously by means of the Holy Office,
1
For the persecution of the Spirituals generally see Lea, vol. iii,
pp. 23-89, 129-80 ; also Dollinger, Beitrdge, vol. ii, pp. 417-526, a
Chronicle of the Persecution of the Brothers Minor, also p. 606. See also
Directorium, on Arnaldo da Villanova, p. 282, Fraticelli, pp. 313-22.
44
'
particularly in the south of France, but also in Spain

and Italy.
The rebel Franciscans were persecuted because they
were heretical, and it is important to note in what their
heresy consisted. It was not because of Joachite
tendencies these might or might not exist, they were
not a criterion it was because of disobedience pure
and simple. To disobey the constitution Quorundam,

to dispute its ruling as to the wearing of a habit and
the question of ownership of property that was heresy.
It is true that the motive which induced the recalcitrant
to refuse obedience to the bull was a repudiation of papal
authority to lay down such aregulation regarding the

Franciscan Rule, and that such repudiation was connected
with Joachite views as to the degeneracy of the Church
and the unique reforming role of the Franciscan order.
None the less the fact remained that in running directly
counter to the ruling of the bull Exiit qui seminal and
the decisions of the Council of Vienne John XXII had
actually created a new heresy, had asserted that what
had seemed most Christian and laudable to Nicholas III
and Clement V was an error in the faith. The persecution
'
had the result of actually encouraging Joachitism. As
'
well to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb is a proverb
of very general validity. If it was heresy to disobey a
papal bull granted that that had to be disobeyed

why not go to the full length of rejecting the papacy
and declaring it superseded by the era of St. Francis and
the Holy Ghost ? The papal pronouncement made the
fanatical Spirituals more and more convinced that the
'
Roman Church was indeed the whore of Babylon/ the
Pope veritable Antichrist. And certainly we may regard
the extremists latterly, under the goad of persecution,
as having developed into a sect, definitely believing itself
to be the true Church that of St. Francis and the Holy
Ghost. But such fanatical Spirituals were exceedingly
small in numbers, their influence very restricted, and
their extinction was brought about without very much
difficulty.
'
45
But it was not only the extremists that were made
victims. On November 12, 1323, John XXII, to whom
the Spirituals' conception of the place of poverty in the
Christian Church was definitely anathema, so irrecon-
cilable was it with his papal policy, issued the bull, Cum
inter nonnullos, in which it was authoritatively denied
that Christ and His Apostles possessed no property.
To assert that they held none was error and heresy. 1
This question of dogma became involved with secular
politics, when Lewis of Bavaria, being claimant to the
imperial crown and at enmity with Pope John, found it
convenient to adopt the cause of the Franciscans and to
denounce the Pope himself as a heretic for not believing
in the absolute poverty of Christ, as he did in a formal
indictment of John known as the Protest of Sachsen-
hausen. A controversy between Empire and Papacy was
thus started which is of great interest because it evoked
* '
the Defensor Pacis of Marsiglio of Padua and the
numerous polemical works of William of Ockham on
the imperial side. This controversy is of much greater
interest and significance than the story of the persecutions
of the Fmtres de paupere vita, or Fraticelli, which con-
tinued as the result of John XXI I 's action, more especially
in Italy, into the later decades of the fourteenth century.
The significance of the persecutions lies in the virtual
creation of a heresy by a papal bull. That it should be
possible for any individual wearer of the papal tiara to
declare heretical what his predecessors had held to be
praiseworthy and to stigmatize as heretics his opponents
in secular politics revealed a great danger. To hold fast
to an immutable faith is easy, but what if the immutable
faith does as a matter of fact change ! The bull Cum
inter nonnullos made possible that a
might be
it man
condemned as a heretic because he held a certain view
1
The formula from the heresy denned by John
of abjuration
XXII's bulls was
'
swear that I believe in my heart and profess
: I
that our Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles while in the mortal life
held in common the things which Scripture declares them to have had,
and that they had the right of giving, selling and alienating them,'
Eymeric, Directorium, p. 486.
46
'
as to Christ's poverty, although perfectly able and will-

ing to subscribe to every article in the Christian creed
as defined in the great councils of the early Church.
Catharism may have been a real peril to the Church ;
but to maintain that men who had no other wish but to
preserve the strict Rule of St. Francis in the order con-
stituted such a peril is impossible. And men might well
be bewildered by the fact that whereas the revolutionary
teachings of Joachitism were not at first proscribed, the
wearing of a particular type of hood became heretical
not many years later.
' '
The importance of The Everlasting Gospel lies
principally in its influence on the Franciscan order, but

it had several other developments which are of dis-
tinct interest as remarkable illustrations of the strange

fanaticisms and superstitious credulities possible in the
thirteenth century. The Joachite idea of a new era and
new religion led to the astonishing discovery of incarna-
tions of the divine. One was found in a certain woman,
a native of Milan, called Guglielma, who seemed to have
been in no way remarkable save for her piety. 1 Yet the
little band of followers who gathered round her came
to venerate her as a saint and a miracle worker. The

biographies of mediaeval worthies are full of tales of the
miraculous, and there was nothing strange in this. But
the extraordinary absurdity followed of finding her to
be the Holy Ghost in female form. The woman herself
never countenanced such fantastic ideas and expressly
repudiated any supernatural powers. But after her
death a small circle of fanatic devotees established her
worship in Milan with a certain Maifreda at their head,
performing high sacerdotal functions and destined in
the eyes of her associates to succeed to the papal
throne when the corrupt Roman Church should have
passed away.
The Guglielmites were a very insignificant sect,
easily extinguished. Potentially more dangerous were
the followers of one Gherardo Segarelli, a very ignorant
1
For Guglielma see Lea, vol. iii, pp. 90-100,
'
47
and very demented enthusiast of Parma, who, being
rejected on his seeking admission into the Franciscan
order, determined to outdo St. Francis in the exact
1
reproduction of the life of Christ. His method of
accomplishing this purpose was to have himself circum-
cised, wrapped in swaddling clothes and suckled by a
woman after which preliminaries he stalked into the
streets of his native town, a wild, uncouth figure, calling
all men to repentance. In time the madman succeeded
in attracting devotees from among herdsmen as ignorant
and almost as foolish as himself. The movement began
to be formidable when it spread beyond Parma, even
beyond Italy, being found in 1287 in Germany and ;
it appeared that Segarelli aimed at proselytizing the

world. The papacy was roused, the Inquisition put
into action, Segarelli himself in 1300 burnt in Parma,
his disciples, known as Apostolic Brethren, energetically
persecuted.
They were not, however, entirely eradicated. Some
remained men of more intellect than the lunatic
heresiarch and his half-witted herdsmen and among
them a certain Fra Dolcino, who saw in the appearance
of Segarelli in the all-fateful year 1260 a fulfilment of
'
the prophecies in The Everlasting Gospel/

2
He chose
to regard himself as a heaven-appointed messenger of
the new dispensation. As fanatical as Segarelli himself,
he was more dangerous because apparently gifted with
the capacity of leadership and of inspiring even enthusi-
astic loyalty. Beginning in Milan, Bergamo, Brescia,
Vercelli, he had by 1304 created a distinct religious
community among the Italian Alps. It appears that
in order to maintain their supplies of provisions they
were wont to resort to robbery, and must have become
a public But they were also
nuisance. dangerous
heretics a remarkable tribute to the
; it is mark made
by Dolcino's personality that Dante makes Mohammed
1
See Bernard Gui, Practica, pp. 340 et seq. ; also Salimbene,
op. cit., pp. 112 et seq. Directorium, pp. 286-8.
;
*
For Dolcino see ibid, and Practica, pp. 340-55.
48
'
send a warning message to Dolcino, as to a kindred false

1
prophet, lest he fall into the same ill-case as himself.
In June, 1305, Clement V resolved upon drastic measures
'
to wipe out this son of Belial who had been polluting

Lombardy.'
2
A crusade was organized against the
Dolcinists in their mountain fastnesses, and after a
desperate defence against no fewer than four different

expeditions, in which there was much bloodshed and
ferocity and in which the heretics were so reduced as to
have recourse to cannibalism, they were forced to sur-
3
render. The punishment of Dolcino for the nature of
which, it should be remembered, the state and in no
way the Inquisition was responsible was terrible in the
extreme. He was gradually torn to pieces by red-hot
pincers an appalling torment which he bore with an
almost incredible fortitude.
Indirectly connected with the ascetic and mendicant
enthusiasm of the Spiritual Franciscans were certain
heretical movements in Germany those of the Beghards
or Beguines. The names are used somewhat indis-
criminately to denote Fraticelli, who w ere simply
r
wandering Spirituals asserting the supreme virtues of

poverty, and other sectaries, much more extravagant,
whose only likeness to the Spirituals lay in their
mendicancy. The indiscriminacy of nomenclature un-
doubtedly denotes a very comprehensible failure at times
to distinguish between vagrants outwardly alike and all
of them at least under the suspicion of heretical ten-
dencies. 4 Among the extravagants to whom this title
was given were followers of two teachers of a crude
Inferno, Canto xxviii.

1
2
Practica, p. 340.
8 found difficulty in proceeding against Dolcinists,
Inquisitors
Est autem valde difficile ipsos examinare et veritatem
'
ibid., p. 343.
contra eos invenire pro eo maxime quod, quantuscumque juraverint
in juditio se veritatem dicturos, nolunt tarn en manifeste suam detegere
falsitatem, nee sups errores publice confiteri, nee directe respondere
ad interrogata, set palliate et per astucias et tergiversationes multas
deviant et mendaciis se juvant, et se ipsos contegunt, et ideo inultum
est ars necessaria contra ipsos et industria inquirentis.'
4
See Lea, vol. ii, pp. 351-2, 355.
'THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL' 49
1
mysticism and pantheism one Amaury de B&ne, whose
doctrine had a very marked antinomian tinge, for he
maintained that no one filled with the Holy Ghost and
the spirit of love could commit sin the other, Ortlieb ;
of Strassburg, whose pantheism caused him to include

Satan in the divine essence, so that his followers, generally
known as Brethren of the Free Spirit, were also sometimes
known as Luciferans and credited with devil-worship and
the perpetration of the most disgusting obscenities at the
initiation of novices into the faith.The Brethren of the
Free Spirit were never numerous, but in spite of constant
persecution they appear to have existed right up to the
days of Lutheranism. Their doctrines were not without
significance, because together with an exalted claim to im-
peccability which prescribed the severest tests of sexual
purity they combined a mystic belief, which under
the term Illuminism, a name they themselves adopted,
had a considerable influence on the theological thought
of Germany. The most remarkable of these was the
distinguished Dominican, Master Eckhart, who appears
1
to have maintained that man shared the divinity of

God and that in the eyes of God virtue and sin
were alike. 2
The existence of such venturesome pantheistic specu-
lations as these broad-cast in Germany reacted very
unfavourably on unrecognized, and particularly on
all
migratory, religious associations, which became involved

in the persecutions set on foot in consequence of the
undoubted heresies of the pantheists. Such associations
tended to increase in the thirteenth century. They
were not necessarily connected with the Spiritual Fran-
ciscans or Fraticelli but they certainly owed their
;
1
Lea, vol. ii, p. 320. E. Renan, Averroes et I'Averroisme (Paris,
1861, 2nd ed.), p. 222.
2
See Lea, vol.
i, p. 360 vol. ii, p. 359. ;For views ascribed to
Beghards see
Dollinger, Beitrdge, vol. ii, pp. 378-401 (passim).
se esse vel aliquos ex istis perfectos et sic unites Deo,
. . .
quod
sint realiter et veraciter ipse Deus,
quia dicunt se esse illud idem
et unum esse quod est ipse Deus
absque distinctione.' See also
Directorium, pt. ii, question xv, pp. 299-308.
E
50
'
origin to the popularity of the mendicant idea as practised

by the friars, in particular the Minorites. They are
found in France, Germany, Italy and the Low Countries ;
and to such voluntary fellowships there could be no

legitimate objection in themselves they might be the
;
most laudable instruments for the exploitation of

religious zeal. Only they called for thorough super-
vision. Beguinages, therefore large permanent houses
were established in such towns as Cologne, Ghent, and
Paris, such establishments being under careful manage-
ment, the special protection of the popes and secular
princes, and enjoying often the highest reputation for
sanctity. But with wanderers it was different. They
could not be supervised, and to distinguish between the
orthodox and the schismatic mendicant was difficult.
Undisciplined vagrancy was in itself an invitation to
temptation. The Inquisition in Germany represented
to Boniface IX in 1396 that for a hundred years all
manner of heresies had lurked under the outward fair-
seeming of the Beghards and that their suppression was
impeded by certain papal constitutions urged in their
1 It is true that at times, owing to the extent
protection.
to which the innocent were wont to suffer with the guilty,
the papacy had ere that come to the rescue of the former,
as for example Benedict XIV in 1336 and Gregory XI
in 1374. It had in particular been necessary to protect
women, large numbers of whom joined themselves not

only to the permanent mendicant communities, but to
the wandering mendicants. In times that were hard
and wild and disordered, when there was no system of
poor-relief save through the Church, the lot of widows
and of women and girls who had no male protectors
was exceedingly hard, and for such the mendicant
associations had a clear attraction as a means of asylum
and refuge. The war upon the Beghards in many cases
led to many respectable women being led into a life
of misery and want and sometimes prostitution, until

1
For proceedings against Beguines, modes of interrogation and
sentences, etc., see Bernard Gui, Practica, pp. 141-4, 277 et seq.
'
51
Benedict XIV intervened on their behalf.
1
At the
Council of Constance certain rules were drawn up for
the regulation of beguinages, but beguines did not thereby
escape persecution. In 1431 we find Eugenius IV inter-
vening for their protection. Ever in danger of persecu-
tion, wanderers over the face of the land, these mendicant
communities, whether remaining within the Church's
fold or not, were a source of religious unrest, of
dissatisfaction with the hierarchy, of aspiration for
new doctrines which would attune with the intense
individualism of a mystic illuminism. By such men
and women Lutheranism might well be welcomed and
2
its progress materially assisted.
One
of the strangest of the fanatical outbursts of
the Middle Ages, especially in Germany, is indirectly
connected with the Brethren of the Free Spirit, some
of whom joined themselves with the Flagellants. The
made their appearance in Europe in 1259
latter first
whence the movement spread to Bohemia and
in Italy,
Germany. A more important outbreak occurred in
the middle of the next century, when the appalling
ravages of the Black Death had no doubt brought home
to many thousands of the survivors the awful fragility
and insecurity of human life and the need for repentance
and godliness. It was the consciousness of the im-
potence of man probably that gave popularity to the
abasement and self-torture of the scourge. There was
a positive luxury of misery in the suggestion of so drastic
a means of grace for a polluted people, smitten by the
heavy hand of an angry God. Through Hungary,
Germany, Flanders, Holland marched these penitents,
proclaiming complete regeneration for all who should
persevere in flagellation for thirty-three days and a
half, chanting weird prayers in which this creed was
1
Fredericq, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 93. Verum quia in multis mundi
partibus sunt plurime mulieres similiter Beghine vulge vocate, quarum
alique in propriis, alique in conductis, alique in communibus sibi
domibus habitantes vitam ducunt honestam * . . .
proceeds to rule
that these must on no account be molested.
2
Lea, vol. ii, pp. 413-14.
52 THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL'
1
enshrined. Theirs was a new gospel the all-sufficient
2
efficacy of the voluntary effusion of blood.
It is no wonder that the authorities became alarmed.
Legitimate exception was taken to the enthusiasts' in-

decency men went virtually naked, women insufficiently
3
clad, all were under a temptation to sexual excesses.
Worse was the doctrinal error involved the attack upon
sacraments and priesthood contained in the preaching
of the strange means of grace by these new priests
of Baal. 4 In 1349 Clement VI, condemning the move-
ment on the ground of the contempt of the Church
implied in the formation of such an unlicensed fellow-
ship, ordered the suppression of the Flagellants, who
thereafter came under the purview of the Inquisition.
The heretical doctrine inherent in the Flagellant mania
was enunciated in its most extravagant form by .a native
of Thuringia, named Conrad Schmidt, who in 1414
was maintaining that all spiritual authority had passed
1
For example,
*
En commencant no penitence
Soit la Vierge et la Trinit6,
Et, tout en parfaicte puissance,
Des cieulx, le hault divin secret,
? cessiez. Sire Dieu, croissiez vo venjeance,
Les fruits des ventres respitez,
Car est6 a en grant balance,
Longtemps toute crestient6.
'
Or, avant, entre nous tait frere.
Batons nos charoinges bien fort,
En remembrant la grant misere
Du Dieu et sa piteuse mort,
Qui fut prins de la gent amere
Et vendus et trahis a tort,
Et battu sa char vierge et clere ;
En nom de ce, batons plus fort.'
See Fredericq, Corpus, vol. iii, No. 25, pp. 23-4.
8
Ibid., vol. ii, p. 101. See also No. 61.
5
Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 100-1.
'
4
Ibid., vol. p. 35.
iii, See also p. 31 : ... yperbolice loquendo,
qua locutione solet frequenter uti scriptura ad exprimendum eius
magnam quantitatem seu multitudinem, congrue dici possit per omnes
christianitatis provinciasjam esse diffusa.' From a sermon preached
before Clement VI, descanting upon the seriousness and extent of the
attraction of the Flagellant mania for the ignorant crowd.
'
53
from the Catholic Church to the Flagellants, that not
only were the sacraments useless, but they had been
proscribed by God and it was mortal sin to partake of
them, so that, for example, the ceremony of marriage
polluted the union.
The fundamentally anti-sacerdotal character of the
Flagellant movement was shared by another con-
temporary mania in Flanders and the Rhinelands a
dancing mania, under whose impulse fanatics would
leap and convulse themselves in the most violent con-
1
tortions in fierce ecstasies of religious frenzy.
It is a most curious and remarkable story that is
made by these interconnected heresies, more especially
of the thirteenth century, and by others like them. In
the midst of the Ages of Faith individual emotional
outpourings or intellectual speculations would lead to
strange results of fanaticism or dogma. There were
indeed some that were mainly sensual in origin, but
others betokened an earnest desire for a new heaven
and a new earth and demanded a moral progression in
human affairs not visible in existing human society.
Such an aspiration is implicit in all the strange theories
' '
connected with The Everlasting Gospel and in all
the ideas of the Spiritual Franciscans, their offshoots
and their companion sects. How much of such aspira-
tion, such opinions could the mediaeval Church absorb
within herself ? It was ever doubtful. It would have
been impossible to predict beforehand upon which side
would eventually be found many of the remarkable
men referred to in this chapter Francis, John of Parma,
Bonaventura, Marsiglio of Padua, William of Ockham,
Roger Bacon, Amaury, Master Eckhart. The pope
who condemned the Spiritual Franciscans might easily
have regarded Francis himself as a heretic. Fortunately
1
These acrobatic performances were of course of a convulsive
nature and were by contemporaries ascribed to demoniac possession.
But the idea of dancing and leaping as a form of religious devotion
suggests the very charming story, Our Lady's Tumbler, which has
been rewritten by Anatole France and is included in Aucassin et
Nicolette and other Medieval Romances in Everyman's Library.
54
'
for herself the Church, while repudiating doctrines

which were obviously unchristian, those that were the
mere frenzies of the ignorant and the demented, suc-
ceeded in absorbing a large measure of the enthusiasm
and the thought of the age, incorporated the mendicant
orders, produced the scholastic philosophy. Neverthe-
less there were abroad in the mediaeval world moral
and intellectual ferments, yearnings for regeneration
and guesses at truth which found within her fold no
satisfaction.
Note. In O. Holder-Egger's (complete) edition of Salimbene

(Monumenta Germaniae Historica, vol. xxxii, Hanover and Leipzig,
1905-13) the most important references to Joachitism are on
pp. 231-41, 292-4, 455-8.
CHAPTER IV
AVERRHOIST INFLUENCES
THE great intellectual achievement of the Middle Ages
was the recovery of the learning of the world that had
vanished before the onset of the Hun, the Vandal and
the Lombard. 1 That learning was in part classical,
in part patristic. But as the process of absorption
was the achievement of the Church, the emphasis was
on theology, and the works of the Fathers bulked very
much more largely than the profane literatures of Greece
and Rome. There was much in the teaching of Augustine
that was Neoplatonic, that was akin to the speculations
of Plato himself. But the whole point of view, method
and cast of mind of the mediaeval thinker were radically
different from those of the pagan philosopher. The
latter set out upon the search for abstract truth without
any preconceptions the former started from the postu-

;
late of a divine revelation. His primary object was not

to investigate, but to justify the ways of God to man.
For him all
knowledge must be a theodicaea. He was
not, therefore, an original thinker for the founda-
;
tions of his scholarship being revealed truth, his most

marked characteristic was a sincere deference to
authority. He was, moreover, ever conscious that the
salvation of the soul was a matter of greater cogency
than even the exposition of God's dealings with the
world. At the same time mediaeval philosophy was
of a peculiarly formal pattern and to the modern
;
'
world apt to appear pedantic indeed,
it is cabined,
cribbed, confined/ It rested upon the tripod of grammar,
1
On
the Scholastic Philosophy generally, see Taylor, The Medieval
Mind, ii, book vii, passim j
vol. M. de Wulf, History of Mediceval
Philosophy (tr. P. Coffey, London, 1909), pp. 240-410 (passim] ; B,
Haureau, Histoire de la Philosophic Scolastique (Paris, 1880).
56 AVERRHOIST INFLUENCES
rhetoric, logic. It was a matter very largely of dialectic,
and it may seem to us of mere verbal juggling. The
Trivium was an introduction to metaphysics, but the
metaphysics were strongly theological in bias and nakedly
logical in form. Their clue to the processes of thought
being logic, not psychology, mediaeval thinkers did
not clearly distinguish between problems of the human
mind and problems of reality, assuming an exact corre-
spondence between mental conceptions and the ultimate
facts of the universe.
Yet whatever the defects of the scholastic philosophy,
it holds a great and significant
place in the history of
the intellectual development of western Europe, since
it was the means
whereby the learning of the ancient
world was recovered and preserved and an intellectual
continuity rendered possible. Such is one out of many
of the great contributions made by the mediaeval Church
to the cause of civilization. Secular knowledge was not
proscribed, but on the contrary adopted and utilized, by
the Church ;enquiry and research not looked askance
upon, but encouraged. The universities of the Middle
Ages were ecclesiastical in origin ; their teachers and
scholars were clerks. The great University of Paris,
the very centre of the intellectual life of Christendom
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, was an object
of very special solicitude to the Holy See. The two
great mendicant orders, the Praedicants and the
Minorites, taking the lead in the schools and universities
only a few years after their own inception, speedily pro-
duced some of the most erudite and the most brilliant
minds of the Middle Ages.
In the twelfth century the leading scholastics were
Augustinians in the middle of the thirteenth the
;
dominant philosophy was still of a Neoplatonic character.

The great Franciscans Alexander of Hales, Bonaventura,
Peckham belonged to that school of thought. In many
of them, notably in Bonaventura, there was a marked
strain of mysticism. The mystic note in Plato, his
insistence on moral and spiritual values had made his
AVERRHOIST INFLUENCES 57
doctrine harmonize easily with Christian dogma. The
appropriation of pagan thought and secular science had
not so far produced any discord with the truths of the
Christian faith, or any serious tendency to question
them. It is indeed significant that the pupils of Anselm
of Bee should have asked him for a rational justification
of Christian dogma but that had not betokened any
;
doubt as to the possibility of reconciling faith with

reason, but only an appreciation of the desirability
of being able to demonstrate that, however superfluous,
such justification was perfectly possible. Again, in
the vast compendious treatises of such encyclopaedic
scholars as Vincent of Beauvais, Hugo of St. Victor
and Peter Lombard, there was the explicit recognition
that, while secular learning is a thing to be desired for
its own sake, yet its stages of cogitatio and meditatio
are only the threshold before the portal of the shrine,
wherein the divine nature may be contemplated. Reason
cannot unaided explain the ineffable the visible world;
is but the simulacrum of the unseen. 1 Once or twice

indeed there had been hints of danger. Right back
in the ninth century a certain very self-confident Irish-
man, by name John Scotus Eriugena, had declared
the supremacy of reason over authority ; for while
authority sometimes proceeded from reason, reason
never proceeded from authority. In the eleventh
century there had been the aberrations of Berengar
of Tours and Roscellinus. In the next century a new
and more brilliant Eriugena arose in the person of
Abelard, a man even more self-opinionated and self-
confident, one who treated the seeming contradictions
of the Fathers as opportunity merely for mental
calisthenics, whose whole method of thought appeared

to enthrone reason at the expense of authority. But
the potential danger was never realized. The trained
dialectician trembled before the unlearned spiritual
dictator of Christendom ; the man who exalted him-
self in his own
eyes dared not face Bernard, to whom
1
Taylor, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 358-64.
God was all in all and man as nothing : and at the last
Abelard, a monk of Cluny, died humbled, in the odour

of sanctity. Up to the end of the twelfth century,
then, the free play of enquiry and discussion in the
schools had not threatened defilement of the purity
of the Christian faith. Heresy had indeed been a
serious danger ; but not among the learned, not in the
precincts of the university, had it been bred.
The succeeding did bring with
century, however,
it an anxious problem. There came a large influx of
new learning out of the pagan past the encyclopaedic
knowledge of Aristotle. Aristotle had been introduced
into the world of Latin Christianity long ere this through
the medium of Boethius in the days of Theodoric. 1
The Dark Ages had intervened since then. Now came
a second and a much more significant advent of Aristotle.
This time he came through a non-Christian medium,
'
through the interpretations of the great commentator/

the Moslem Ibn-Roschd, Averrhoes. Could the
Stagirite be won for Christ could his
; teachings be
enlisted for the Christian theodicaea ? The Church
could not but be alive to the risks involved in any con-
verse with Aristotelianism. There were radical contrasts
between the Platonic and Aristotelian methods. The
latter was inductive, non-committal, denoted an im-
partial examination of natural phenomena, the range

of which was infinitely more comprehensive than any-
thing which any other human mind had ever attempted.
Aristotle seemed intent rather upon coldly collecting
evidence from the operations of a soulless Nature than
extolling the wonders of God in a beatific vision. The
extent of secular knowledge opened up in the writings
of Aristotle was, then, vast and their attraction to
the alert and curious mind correspondingly vivid ;
but the attractiveness had to be viewed with caution.
1
P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et I'Averroisme latin au XIIP
Slide (Fribourg, 1899), pp. xxiii-xxvi j C. Douais, Essai sur I' orga-
nisation des Etudes dans I'ordre des Frtres-Precheurs (Paris, 1884),
pp. 62 et seq.
The Church perceived that there were in the Peripatetic
philosophy elements which must be repugnant to truly
devout minds. This would have been true even had
the pure unadulterated text of Aristotle been in question ;
it was the more cogently true seeing that Aristotle was
presented to the Christian world through the voice of

Averrhoes and the commentary was more familiar
than the original.
During the tenth and eleventh centuries when
Christendom was for the most part wrapped in a barbarous
ignorance, Saracen culture, in the caliphates of Bagdad
and Cordova, had kept alive the sciences mathematics,
astronomy, medicine and speculative thinkers had
preserved, not indeed uncorrupted, yet always as a
vital influence, the ancient philosophy of Greece, when
to the Christian world it was lost in oblivion. Side by
side with an orthodox philosophy in consonance with
the teachings of the Koran, Islam had produced a heretic
philosophy, which though written in a Semitic language
and modified by an oriental environment, was essentially
1
Greek, essentially Aristotelian. To the Arabian thinkers
the Stagirite represented the utmost limit of the human
intelligence ; they could not conceive that there could
ever be improvement upon knowledge so catholic,
synthesis so complete.
The first of the great Arabian philosophers, Alfarabi,
had been Neoplatonist in thought, Aristotelian in
method. 2 His great successor, Avicenna, was Aristo-
telian both in the content and the logical scheme of his
work. 3 The distinctive teachings of Avicenna were, /
"
first, the nominalist doctrine that universality exists
'
not in reality, but in thought only ; secondly, that
1
For Arabian Philosophy see the following T. J. De Boer, History
:
of Philosophy in Islam (tr. E. R. Jones, 1903) De Wulf, op. cit., pp.

;
22 5~39 Haureau, Histoire de la Philosophie Scolastique, vol. ii,

I
PP- I 5~53 Carra de Vaux, Avicenne (Paris, 1900), Gazali (Paris,

.'
1902) ; S. Munk, Melanges de la philosophic juive et arabe (Paris,

l8 59), pt. iii, especially pp. 352-83, 418-58.
2
Alfarabi's work belonged to the first half of the tenth century.
8
Avicenna, 980-1036.
matter is uncreated and eternal ; thirdly, that the first
and only direct emanation from God or the First Cause
is Intelligence, z/ou?, but that this communication of
intelligence to lesser beings is not a single act in time,

but a constant process or an everlasting act. While in
the eastern caliphate these bold speculations were
strongly denounced by the later philosopher of Bagdad,
Ghazali, and were repudiated in a powerful orthodox
reaction ; 1 in Spain at the beginning of the twelfth
century Avempace and Abubacer were teaching that
the life of the soul is a progress from a purely instinctive
existence shared with the lower animals to a spiritual
absorption in the divine essence and intellect while ;
the latter philosopher added the contention that religious

creeds were but types of, or approximations to, absolute
truth, which the philosopher, but never the mere theo-
logian, may attain. The greatest of all the Arabian
thinkers, Averrhoes, whose life extended over the greater
part of the twelfth century was, in even greater degree
than Avicenna, a worshipper of Aristotle. 2 While
Avicenna occasionally questioned his great original,
Averrhoes never did. He laid no claim to originality.
To him the substance of human wisdom could never
being
alter, enshrined for ever in Aristotle's pages. If
Averrhoism differs from Aristotelianism, it does not
differ consciously. Averrhoism is simply and solely
the undiluted gospel of Aristotle, as Averrhoes con-
ceived it.
principal theses
Its the Averrhoi'st version of
Aristotle are the eternity of matter and the unity of
the intellect. 8 Matter is uncreated. God did not create ;
He is Himself the primordial element in things, the
1
Ghazali, 1059-1111.
2
Ibn Roschd, or Averrhoes, was born in 1126 at Cordova; was
entrusted by the Caliph, Abu Jacub Jusuf, with the task of making
an analysis of Aristotle in 1182 became physician at the court but
; ;
in 1195 was deprived of his office by the succeeding Caliph, Jacub

Almansur, presumably owing to a fit of orthodoxy on the Caliph's
part, and banished from Cordova. He died in Morocco in 1198.
3
See Renan, Averroes ft I'Averroisme, pp. 107 et seq.
latent force or impulse in the universe, which gives

it both its being and continuance. Emanating from
the First Cause is the active intellect. For Averrhoes
makes an important distinction between vovs TTO^TI/CO^
and vovs TraOrjriKos the latter
, being the human
intellect. Averrhoes explains the difference by the
analogy of the sun and the human vision. Just as by
the light which it sheds the sun produces the capacity
to see, so the active intellect produces the capacity to
understand. But the human intellect has no individual
immortality, being at death absorbed in the universal
mind. Man, indeed, possesses no personal immortality.
Only in man's power of reproducing his species can
there be said to be any human immortality. The
human race is permanent. In the fullest sense, however,
only the active intellect is eternal.
The attitude of Averrhoes to Islam, and indeed
to all religion,
is important. It may be summed up by
saying that he was the friend of religion, the enemy

of theology, for which he could see no excuse. There
could be no compromise between faith and philosophy.
The theologian was at the outset hopelessly hampered
in the search for truth, because he had to premise all
the articles of his creed. His system, thus conditioned,
became a mere hodge-podge of sophistic quibblings,
groundless distinctions, allegories, which did
fanciful
but serve to obscure and distort the religion which it
pretended to expound. The sincere and exact thinker
could accept no such postulates, start with no precon-
ceptions. Philosophy and religion must be kept com-
pletely apart ; the attempt to suffuse them made
in theology did but corrupt both. They were not,
however, mutually subversive. Religion was no branch
of knowledge, no matter of arid formularies it was ;
an inward power, an inspiration. It was indispensable,

because it was the basis of morality for the multitude
who could not aspire to philosophy. But while Averrhoes
thus discountenanced any attempt to instil religious
doubts into the popular mind, his attitude towards
religion was exclusively utilitarian, and he obviously
regarded as the inferior of philosophy. The special
it
religion of philosophers, he declared, was to study

what exists, for the noblest worship of God was in the
contemplation of his works. Philosophy, in short, the
pursuit of wisdom, was the highest form of religion,
1
higher than that which is based upon prophecy.
Averrhoi'sm speedily penetrated into Christendom.
Aragon and Castile naturally received it early. In
Languedoc, at the schools of Montpellier, Narbonne,
Perpignan, Arabian medicine and philosophy both
flourished. Scholars from central and western Europe,
visiting the medical schools of the Moors, no doubt
brought back with them the current views of the Saracen
philosopher as well as the Saracen physician. The
first Latin version of Averrhoes' commentaries is attri-
buted to Michael Scot, who came fresh from Toledo

to the court of Frederick II ; while there is a tradition
that the son of Averrhoes lived for a time in the palace
of that most eclectic potentate. 2 From Saracen Toledo
from Christians and Jews in Spain and Provence,
itself,
came translations of Averrhoes. It was probably with
extraordinary rapidity that the ideas of the Arabian

philosopher became the common property of the
!
Christian schoolmen. 3 Quite certainly Latin Averrhoism
was a force to be reckoned with by the middle of the
thirteenth century. 4
The Averrhoist was not the only Latin version of
Aristotle current in western Christendom in the twelfth
century. The capture of Constantinople by the crusaders
in 1204 had brought Catholic Europe directly into
1 See Renan, op. cit., pp. 133-53 (passim) ; J. Owen, Skeptics of the
Italian Renaissance (1893), pp. 67-72.
2
Renan, op. cit., pp. 209 et seq., p. 291 De Wulf, op. cit., p. 248.
;
3
By the middle of the thirteenth century the University of Paris
was in possession of practically all the Commentaries of Averrhoes,
ibid. See also Renan, pp. 201-2, Un des phe"nomenes les plus
'
singuliers de 1'histoire litteraire du moyen age, c'est 1'activite du

commerce intellectuel et la rapidite avec laquelle les livres se repan-
daient d'un bout a 1'autre de 1'Europe.'
4
Mandonnet, pp. Ixix et seq.
contact with Greek philosophy, and translations direct

from the Greek into Latin had been attempted, one
of the earliest being made by Bishop Grosseteste.
Various translations of Aristotle were, then, available.
Were they to be regarded as open without restriction
to the curious eye of scholarship ? The Church decided
against such freedom. In 1210 a council of the eccle-
siastical province of Sens, held at Paris, having publicly
condemned the heresies of Amaury de Bene, went on
to protect the unwary from another source of possible
contamination by commanding that neither the works
of Aristotle nor the commentaries upon him should
be read in Paris under pain of excommunication. 1 The
commentaries referred to must be either those of
Averrhoes or similar Arabian treatises. In 1215 this pro-
hibition was renewed by the papal legate, under whose
supervision the schools of Paris came. Gregory IX, in
a regulation addressed to the masters and students
of Paris on April 13, 1231, made the prohibition pro-
visional, until such time as the books of Aristotle could
be examined and expurgated. At the same time he
entrusted this important task to William of Auxerre
and two others. The project is very much to the credit
of the Pope, a genuine supporter of learning who, how-
ever, had probably not realized how great an undertaking
it was. At all events it came to nothing and the ;
prohibition, although renewed by Urban IV, in January

1263, would appear to have remained a dead-letter.
' ' ' '
In 1255 the Physics and Metaphysics of Aristotle
were prescribed for the course in the Arts' faculty in
the University. In fact the Aristotelian impulse in
the vivid and vigorous atmosphere of the youthful
Parisian schools was too strong. Neither Aristotle
'
1
Nee de natural! philosophia nee commenta
'
libri Aristotelis
legantur Parisiis publice et secreto, et hoc sub pena excommunicationis
inhibemus.' This, and the subsequent prohibition of 1215 referred
of course only to Paris. See Directorium on the errors of Aristotle
and his Arabian commentators, pt. ii, question iv, pp. 253-5. See
Haureau, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 83-107. On action of Gregory IX, ibid.,
pp. 108-19.
nor Averrhoes could be got rid of by papal inhibition.
The keenest interest had been aroused in them. It
were better, as it was simpler, to utilize such keenness
rather than to attempt to combat it. Of all the great
services rendered to the Church by the Dominican
order none was greater than its capture of profane
learning for orthodox Christianity. The great
Franciscans were expounding the current theology of
the day with its tinge of Platonism the Dominicans
;
now came forward to adapt Aristotle for the service

of Christianity. In 1256 Alexander IV commissioned
'
Albertus Magnus to write his De unitate intellectus
'
contra Averroem a fact that is proof positive of the
:
headway that had already been made not only by

'
Aristotelianism but by the tenets of the great com-
mentator/ The tractate is indeed written against
Averrhoes himself, not Averrhoi'sts, but the fact that
the Pope entrusted Albert of Cologne with the task of
answering the former is evidence of the activity of the
1
latter. Fifteen years later Thomas Aquinas produced
another work on the same subject but this one definitely
:
'
contra Averroistas.' Between the years 1261 and
1269 Aquinas was, together with William of Moerbeke,
at the court of Rome engaged upon the great task, now
at length undertaken under the auspices of the Holy
See, of making a translation and commentary on
Aristotle. In the latter year he appeared at Paris on
the occasion of the assembly there of a chapter-general
of the Dominican order. It has been maintained that
the real reason of his presence was to clear the Predicants
2
of the suspicion of Averrhoism.
The middle and the latter half of the thirteenth cen-
tury were years of violent controversy in the University
of Paris. Fundamentally the source of this was the
1 The tract was
written against Averrhoes, not the Averrhoi'sts.
When, however, it was incorporated in his Summa Theologica, Albertus
Magnus made mention of the fact that Averrhoism had made con-
siderable progress and boasted a number of advocates. Mandonnet,
p. Ixxiii.
2
Ibid., pp. xcvii-ix.
jealousy of the secular clergy against the Mendicant

orders, which had succeeded in establishing themselves
in the University earlier in the century, the Dominicans
securing their first chair in 1217, the Franciscans theirs
in 1219. Apprehensive lest the Friars should achieve a
complete predominance, the seculars under the leadership
of Gerard of Abbeville and the acrimonious William of
Saint-Amour led a heated attack upon them, first only
on the practical question of university privileges. But
it was not long before matters of doctrine were involved,
and regulars and seculars were soon denouncing each
other as heretics and antichrist. 1 It is not easy to
discover what was the doctrinal position of the seculars,
but they seem to have reproached the Dominicans at all
events with overfondness for philosophy as distinct
from theology. 2 Together with the contest between
seculars and regulars in the University there went also
one between the two great Mendicant orders. The
same charge seems to have been preferred against the
Predicants by their rivals. They cared too much for
knowledge that was not wholly sacred they were too
;
3
scientific, too intellectualist. Such is the gist of the
diatribes launched against the Dominicans, especially
Thomas Aquinas, by Archbishop Peckham. 4 There is
no doubt that he deliberately tried to involve Aquinas
in the suspicion of Averrhoi'sm. A
certain Gilles de
Lessines, sending to Albertus Magnus a list of fifteen
errors current in Paris, includes in the number thirteen
definitely Averrhoist doctrines together with two theories
of Aquinas, not Averrhoist, to which, however, the
1
See Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera quaedam hactenus inedita (ed. J. S.
Brewer, 1859), p. 429. There are several contemporary poems on
the troubles in the University of Paris, especially on the part played
by William de Saint-Amour, in Rutebeuf, (Euvres Completes (Paris,
1874), vol. i, pp. 178-213.
2
See Mandonnet, p. ex.
3 '
Salimbene, op. cit., p. 108. Isti boni homines semper de scientia
gloriantur, et dicunt quod in ordine eorum fons sapientiae invenitur.'
*
Registrum epistolarum fratris Johannis Peckham (Rolls series,
London, 1882-5), vo 1 i". P- 842. See also A. Little,
ed. C. T. Martin, -
The Grey Friars in Oxford (1892), pp. 72-5.

F
66 AVERRHOlST INFLUENCES
1
Augustinians took exception. Clearly the Franciscans
were endeavouring to discredit not only the Averrhoi'sts,
but the Aristotelians. In the year 1270 there appeared
two important treatises the one by a certain Siger of
:
'
Brabant, entitled De anima intellect iva,' the other by

'
Aquinas, De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas.'

The latter is defending himself vigorously against the
charge of Averrhoi'sm by himself vigorously attacking
the Averrhoists. In a sermon preached before the
University of Paris St. Thomas vehemently denounced
the self-confidence and self-sufficiency of the Averrhoists,
and contrasted the contradictions and the uncertainties
of philosophy with the clearness and certitude of revealed
2
religion. In this same year 1270 the Bishop of Paris,
Etienne Tempier, solemnly condemned the thirteen
propositions mentioned in Gilles de Lessines' letter to
Albertus of Cologne. They were the doctrines being
taught at the time by the two leaders of Averrhoi'sm
in the University, the Siger of Brabant just mentioned
and Boethius of Dacia.
Of Siger 's works a number are extant. Two or three
are concerned with the sort of logical conundrums popular
among mediaeval dialecticians or with theories of Aquinas
' '
and are orthodox enough, but the De aeternitate mundi
' '
and the De anima intellectiva contain the whole gospel
3
of Averrhoes. Their contentions are so completely a
transcription of the 'great commentator' that it is
unnecessary to do more than summarize them briefly.
For Siger, as for the Arabian, Aristotle is the one and
only philosopher. Like Averrhoes too, Siger makes
no attempt to reconcile Aristotle with revealed religion,
but carries his teaching to its supposed logical conclusion.
Both Albertus and Aquinas, Siger maintained, had
4
perverted Aristotle. Not they, but Averrhoes, was
1 See Alberti
Magni De Quindecim Problematicis in appendix to
Mandonnet, pp. 13-36.
8
See Mandonnet, p. cxxvi.
3
In appendix to Mandonnet, pp. 69-83, 83-115 respectively.
4
In his tract Contra praecipuos viros in philosophia Albevtum ei
Thomam. On Siger and St. Thomas, see Haureau, vol. iii, pp. 131-7.
the true exponent of the Stagirite. He proclaimed, then,
in all boldness the doctrine of the unity of the intellect
together with its inevitable corollary, the denial of personal
immortality the doctrine of the eternity of matter,
;
which involved the negation of the Biblical story of

creation, the intervention of providence, the free will and
moral responsibility of the individual. 1
Such were the fundamental conceptions of Siger's
teaching and of the propositions condemned by the Bishop
of Paris in 1270. The condemnation did not silence the
Averrho'ist champion and his friends. For six or seven
more years they continued to be possibly a small, but
apparently an energetic and defiant, body among the
masters of arts in the University. Between 1272 and
1275 Siger was in open revolt against the authority of the
rector, Amaury of Rheims. The Averrhoi'sts separated
themselves from the rest of the faculty but the force ;
and skill, perhaps the very audacity, of their leader

attracted a Targe number of students to his lectures. 2
The doctrinal controversy continued. It was one not
so much concerning the truth or erroneousness of the
Averrho'ist position as on the question of fact was
Averrhoes or Aquinas the more faithful interpreter of
Aristotle? Aegidius Romanus triumphantly vindicated the
3
Stagirite from the Averrhoi'st deductions. On the other
hand, there continued to be those to whom Aristotelianism
and the expositions of Albertus Magnus and Aquinas
were anathema. 4 In the end the latter triumphed over
their adversaries Aquinas was canonized, Aristotle was
]
vindicated, and the Alberto-Thomist principle tended to

take the place of Platonic Augustinianism as the most
j
authoritative philosophy of the schools. It was far
otherwise with the anti-scholastic faction of Siger.
They, the literal slaves of Aristotle, accepting the
1
See, passim, De Wulf, op. cit., pp. 379-85 ; Mandonnet, pp.
cxxviii-ccvi.
2
De Wulf, p. 384 ; Mandonnet, p. ccxxi.
3
The tractate, De Erroribus Philosophorum, is attributed to him.
It is printed in appendix to Mandonnet, pp. 2-11.
4
Ibid., p. clxxvii.
Averrhoist interpretations of him without emendation,
refusing to accept the idea of any compromising adapta-
tion to suit the requirements of revealed truth, were
accused of maintaining that the Christian faith, in com-
mon with all other religious creeds with their fables and
errors,was an obstacle to scientific enquiry leading to
the acquirement of exact truth. 1 Here was Averrhoi'sm
naked and unashamed indeed but it is difficult to believe
;
that this accusation can be true. However that may be,

the Paris Averrhoists and Siger very outspokenly
asserted the collateral existence of two distinct truths,
the religious and the philosophical.
It is remarkable that principles of this type should
have been tolerated so long. In 1277 there came a change.
In January of that year Pope John XXI addressed a
letter to Etienne Tempier in which he bids him search
out notable errors in doctrine, since it is deplorable to
find the pure streams of Catholic faith, which it is the
special function of the University to send forth, being

2
grievously polluted. Thus commanded, Tempier set to
work once more, and this time no fewer
produced a list of
than 219 errors. 3 Again an attempt was made to confound
the Thomists with the Averrhoists, and the long list
included many very petty points. But the principal
errors enumerated are Averrhoist and the list is obviously
aimed chiefly against Siger and Boethius. The Bishop
not only produced the catalogue, but he fulminated a
decree pronouncing excommunication against all those
who harboured the opinions therein condemned. Hence-
'
forward such persons were suspect of heresy and it is

'
;
not surprising that either in November 1277 or 1278 -
probably the former Siger and Boethius were cited to

appear before the inquisitor of France, Simon du Val, in
4
the diocese of Noyon. The two Averrhoists seem to
have appealed against the inquisitor direct to the court
1
Mandonnet, p. ccvi.
2
Ibid., p. ccxxvi.
3
Ibid., pp. ccxxviii et seq.
4
Ibid., pp. cclxiv et seq.
of Rome, probably on the grounds of the special privileges

of the University of Paris, the peculiar solicitude of the
papacy for the University, their own intrinsic importance
as teachers of great reputation and their persistent
declaration that they were true Catholics. The circum-
stances of their latter days are obscure ; but the strong
probability is that they made their way to Rome to purge
themselves from the suspicion of heresy, were tried before
the inquisition of Tuscany, abjured their errors, were
duly reconciled and then penanced with perpetual
1
imprisonment. Siger died at Orvieto, certainly before
1300, since in that year Dante imagines a meeting with
him in his journey through Paradise. How comes it
that Dante places this heretic in Paradise ? Two possible

conjectures have been put forward. The first that Dante
did so in ignorance of Siger's true character, not being
sufficiently well versed in the current philosophy of the
time ;
the other, that he wanted to place in Paradise
some one who should represent the philosopher par
excellence as distinct from the theologian. It was not
easy to find such a one and of the

; possible candidates,
2
Siger of Brabant was the most distinguished.
Parisian Averrhoi'sm, despite the condemnation of
its chief exponents, did not die with Siger, Boethius and
the thirteenth century. In the next century a certain
John of Ghent was preaching Averrhoist
Landun or of
doctrine in the University and attacking the reputation
3
of St. Thomas and he had numerous followers.
;
But
by this time the chief centre of Averrhoi'sm was tending
to be Padua rather than Paris. Here the Averrhoist
school was founded by Peter of Abano, equally famous
1
Mandonnet, pp. cclxx et seq. Mandonnet sees a reference to Siger
and Boethius in the words of Peckham : Nam earn (opinionem) credimus
'
non a religiosis personis, sed saecularibus quibusdam duxisse originem,

cuius duo praecipui defensores vel forsitan inventores miserabiliter
dicuntur concluisse dies suos in partibus transalpinis, cum tamen
non essent de illis partibus oriundi.' Registrant, vol. iii, p. 842.
*
For the former view, see Baeumker, Die Impossibilia d. Siger
von Brabant (Munster, 1898), pp. 97 et seq. for latter, see Mandonnet,
;
pp. ccxciii-cccxx.
8
De Wulf, pp. 441-4.
as physician, magician, astrologer and Averrhoi'st, who
only escaped the clutches of the Inquisition by dying an
1
opportune natural death in I3I6. The school there
also admitted its direct indebtedness to the Parisian,
John of Landun. From his days right down to the
seventeenth century speculations of an Averrho'ist
character continued to be discussed in northern Italy,
especially in Padua. In the late fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries there were two rival Aristotelian
parties in Padua and
Bologna, Averrhoi'sts and
Alexandrists (so-called after the Greek commentator,
Alexander of Aphrodistias), who disputed academic-wise
concerning the personal or impersonal nature of im-
mortality. Of the Averrhoi'sts the most distinguished
were Achellini, Augustino Nifo and Zimara ; of the
Alexandrists, Pomponazzi. Although an Alexandrist,
this bold and lively thinker owed much to Averrhoes ;
while it is an indication of the very academic nature of

Italian Averrhoi'sm that Nifo, it is true after somewhat
modifying his views, was commissioned by Leo X to prove
as against Pomponazzi that Aristotle believed in the
2
immortality of the soul.
The most perfervid opponent of Latin Averrhoism in
the Middle Ages was Raymond Lully, who made it his
dominant object in life to combat Islam in all its shapes
and forms. His schemes embraced the recovery of the
Holy Sepulchre and the conversion of all Jews and
Saracens but he desired to attack not only the Koran,
;
but Moslem heterodoxy also, and to rescue the truths

of Christianity from the contaminations of the 'great
commentator/ To these ends he laboured untiringly and
with an intense zeal. We find him approaching the
Council of Vienne in 1311, with projects for the amal-
gamation of the great military orders, a new crusade
against the infidel, the foundation of colleges for the
study of Arabic so that Moslem errors may be the more
easily confuted. Lully also desired the suppression of
1
Lea, vol. iii, pp. 440-1.
2
See DeWulf, pp. 470-3; Owen, op. cit., pp. 57-151, esp. 132-51.
the works of Averrhoes in all schools, and the prohibition

1
of all Christians from reading them. It is remarkable
that the works of this great antagonist of Averrhoi'sm
should have themselves come under suspicion of heresy.
It is probable that his followers, rather than Lully himself ,
were responsible for the damaging of his reputation,

since some of them held opinions of a Joachite character.
But it is clear that in his animosity to Averrhoi'sm Lully
went to the opposite extreme. Condemning the tenet
of the incompatibility of philosophy and revealed truth,
he was moved to maintain that there was no difference
between them, that there was no dividing line between
the rational and the supernatural. 2 Therein was perhaps
as great error as in the contrary opinion. However that
may Eymeric determined to have Lully 's
be, Nicholas
' '
memory condemned, and in the Directorium is parti-

cularly venomous against him. In 1376 he exhibited a
papal bull condemning no fewer than 500 Lullist opinions
as heretical. The results were curious. These were in
the days of the Schism and the Aragonese acknowledged
;
neither pope. Declaring the bull a forgery, perpetrated

by the inquisitor himself, the Lullists secured his banish-
3
ment, and Eymeric died in exile.
A better known enemy ofAverrhoism than Raymond
Lully was Petrarch, who like Lully hated everything
that savoured of Islam. He hated its medicine and its
astronomy, but above all its philosophy. He makes the
Averrhoists of whom it is clear he must have known
a number an indignant irony. They are
targets of
men who make a point of honour to deny Christ and
it
the supernatural. Petrarch, his inspiration drawn from

the classics of paganism, a man who had witnessed and
loathed the abominations of Avignon, who regarded Rome
'
as the temple of heresy/ had no brief to defend the
orthodox creed. But to him Christianity was endeared
1
Renan, op. cit., pp. 255-9 ; Lea, vol. iii, pp. 578-89.
2
De Wulf, pp. 403-6.
3
Lea, vol. iii, pp. 585-6 ;Directorium, pp. 272-8, 331-2. The
text of the bull is given in the latter pages.
because of its humility, Averrhoism abhorrent because it
1
was dogmatic, self-confident, pedantic.
This to the mediaeval mind is the outstanding charac-
teristic of Averrhoism. It is insolent in the assurance
of its denials. In the fourteenth century Averrhoes
himself stands as the unique personification of the spirit
of unbelief and as such is bracketed with Antichrist
;
2
and Mohammed. In this light he figures in the paintings
of Orcagna and others. To Gerson he is the most abomin-
able of all enemies of Christianity, to Petrarch a rabid
3
dog ever raging against the Catholic faith. The famous
'
phrase the three impostors/ which had first been
attributed by Gregory IX to Frederick II, and the

essential conception ofwhich in book form was destined
to be attributed to many others from Boccaccio to
Erasmus, Rabelais to Milton, was fathered upon Aver-
rhoes. 4 He had declared so it was believed that Moses,
Christ and Mohammed were three impostors who had de-
luded the world also that of the three religions, Judaism,
;
Christianity, Mohammedanism, the first was a religion

for babes, the second a sheer impossibility, the third fit
only for hogs. The Eucharist was the impossible feature
of Christianity, and Christians were especially hateful
because they ate the flesh of the God whom they professed
to adore. 5
Perhaps the most interesting fact connected with
the story of the Islamic philosophy in Europe is the
fact that it helped to familiarize Christendom with
some of the features of another religion. It was not, of
course, the sole agency to do that ; the Crusades played
their part. It is significant that many of the mediaeval
stories and mystery plays have as their central idea
apostasy, which as a rule takes the form of conver-
sion to Mohammedanism. Even the religious wars in
1
Renan, pp. 328 et seq. ; Owen, pp. 115-21 ; Petrarch, Liber sine
Titulo, Epist. xviii.
*
Renan, pp. 301-5.
*
Lea, vol. iii, p. 565.
4
De Tribus Impostoribus (ed. Philomneste Junior, i.e. G. Brunet,
Paris, 1861).
5
Renan, pp. 295 et seq.
Palestine did not breed exclusively antagonism to the
and friendly intercourse with Saracen
faith of the infidel,
Spain and academic interest in Islamic philosophy

produced a knowledge that was less critical than sym-
pathetic. Such familiarity with the main conceptions
of other creeds rendered feasible the comparative
study of religion. That was to be an achievement
for a future age. Yet it needed no exact science of
the subject to encourage the spirit of toleration.
When other religions were discussed, were it only for
the sake of attacking and refuting them, still the curious
eye could not fail to be aware of their common elements.
Not even in Marsiglio is the principle of religious toler-
ation more notably set forth than in one of the tales
' '
of the Decameron/ the pithy parable of The Three
'
Rings/ which inspired Lessing's Nathan the Wise/ l

Melchizedek in Boccaccio's tale emphasizes in his analogue
the common elements in the three religions of Jew,
Moslem and Christian, each claiming to be the sole truth,
and no doubt one of them being in fact the truth, yet
so alike that none can tell which that one is. Boccaccio's
attitude is one of sceptical indifference, and it is no far
'
cry from that to the attitude of Pulci in the Morgante

Maggiore/ in which the mood is one of complete levity
and all the forces of ridicule are brought against the
quips and quiddities of the theologian and the superiority
of Orlando's God over Morgante's original deity is made
to look exceedingly equivocal.
We must not allow ourselves to discover an Averrhoi'st
origin for all the outspoken language used in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in which Christianity
2
is regarded critically, objectively. no doubt true
It is
that Averrhoi'sm was principally an academic force
belonging to the universities, and that even there its
1
Day I, Novel 3.
Decameron,
1
Renan traced Averrhoist influence in the Pantheism of the
Spiritual Franciscans and the Illuminism of such German mystics
as Ortlieband Eckhart, op. cit., pp. 259 et seq. whereas the truth is
;
that therewas never the slightest sympathy between the Franciscans

and Averrhoi'sm, and German Illuminism had quite other origins.
adherents were never numerous. On the other hand,
there must inevitably have been some infiltration of
Averrhoi'st ideas through the general community. There
must have been some dispersal through the agency
of the scholars who thronged the seats of learning, who
were more often than not wanderers from one school
to another, from Spain to France, from France to
England, from England to Italy, and who must have
scattered abroad the influences under which they them-
selves were brought. There were from the point of
view of the Church two obviously dangerous features
in Averrhoism. First there was its anti-scholastic
nature, its determination to follow philosophy where-
soever it might lead, regardless of whether it could be
reconciled with Christian dogma or not, a determination
which was accompanied by a bold insistence upon their
incompatibility in point of fact. In the resolution to
follow truth, untrammelled by religious dogma, there
might at the surface appear to be something of that
critical spirit which produced another anti-scholastic
revolt, that of Roger Bacon. But whereas in his case

the inductive method gave promise of progress in know-
ledge, the possibility scarcely existed with philosophers
who were just as completely persuaded as was the most
orthodox mediaeval saint that the truth had once and
for ever been vouchsafed to mankind, with the sole
difference that whereas the saint found the truth in the
Bible, the Averrhoi'st found it in the treatises of Aristotle.
But the fact that he did so find it in pagan and not
in sacred writ was, one would have thought, radical
enough and dangerous enough while the actual doctrines
;
he professed were as divorced from Christian belief,

as wildly heretical as any that the most fiercely perse-
cuted mediaeval sect ever expressed. Nevertheless as
a rule the Averrhoi'st was not persecuted.
At first glance this appears very surprising. Yet
the explanation is in reality simple enough. In the
first place, the Church was no enemy of speculative
thinking as such. The doctors, the masters and the

students who debated so earnestly, so vehemently,
abstract questions in philosophy as well as in theology
were themselves clerics the universities were eccle-
;
siastical foundations studies were essentially

; their
sacred, not profane. It was no part of the policy of the
mediaeval Church to stifle enquiry and discussion by
those properly qualified concerning the ultimate truths
of existence. Such work might well be to the glory of
God and the permanent enrichment of the Church. And if
the Averrhoists did not, like Albertus Magnus and Aquinas
and the great Franciscan Augustinians, convert their learn-
ing into Christian apologetics on the other hand, they
;
were not like the wandering whom the Church

sectaries,
did persecute, irresponsible unlearned laity, who spoke
of mysteries they were not fit to understand, but they
were themselves clergy under proper academic discipline
and supervision. Moreover, they did not attack the
Church on the contrary, they professed themselves the
;
most devout true Catholics. Their interest in philosophy

was purely abstract they had no ulterior motives,
;
no remotest idea of propaganda with a view to shaking

the authority of the Church or the filial allegiance to
her of a single one of her children. On the contrary,
they repeatedly and most emphatically asserted that
their philosophical tenets were exclusively academic
and not intended to have any bearing upon life and
conduct. Thus the Averrhoist postulate of a double
truth, one philosophic, the other religious, stood its
adherents in good stead. We cannot to-day see into
the minds of these Latin Averrhoists, cannot tell whether
they persuaded themselves that they really were
Christians, were sincere in their conception of two irre-
concilable truths or adopted it merely as a convenient
subterfuge and were flippantly cynical or sardonically
insolent in their hypocrisy. The subterfuge served the
Averrhoists whether its acquiescence in the subterfuge
;
served the Church is another matter. While the obviously

honest Waldensian and Beghard were harried to the
stake, the obviously dishonest Averrhoist was usually
left at large. Was not the tendency of such discrepancy
of treatment to place a premium upon merelip-service
and religious insincerity From the fourteenth-century
?
Averrhoi'st, with his idea of the double truth, it is but

one step to the fifteenth-century humanist, openly
indifferent to religion altogether, not troubling to con-
sider whether such a thing as religious truth exists
at all, seeking and discerning truth in the pagan world
only.
CHAPTER V
REFORM MOVEMENTS OF THE FOURTEENTH CEN-
TURY AND THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE
THE earlier heresies of the Middle Ages were of im-
portance for their own day and generation only, leaving
no permanent imprint on history. The Church was on
the whole very successful in combating them, actually
securing the destruction of the Albigenses and throughout
western Europe generally keeping the danger well in
check by the activities of the Holy Office. The story
of the Spiritual Franciscans, on the other hand, has a
deeper significance, for it is intimately connected with

momentous events which betokened the overthrow
of the mediaeval order, the rooting up of certain funda-
mental ideas associated with the matured conception
of the Civitas Dei. The one feature common to Walden-
sianism, Catharism and the other early mediaeval heresies,
which gives them any lasting importance, was their anti-
sacerdotalism. Clerical, and in particular papal, pre-
tensions tended to increase after the fall of the Hohen-
staufen, which left the papacy triumphant as the result
of its long struggle with the empire. The high-water
mark of those assertions was reached in 1300, when
Boniface VIII declared himself to be not only Pope
but also Caesar. 1 By two most important bulls Boniface
sought to put his claims into practice, Clericis laicos,
which denned the rights of the clergy to immunity
from secular taxation, Unam sanctam, which declared
unequivocally the absolute supremacy of the pope over
the lay power, over every human creature in all respects.
The same uncompromising spirit was shown a little
later on by John XXII, the oppressor of the Spirituals,
an old man of immense vigour and a range of view
1
J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire (1903), p. 109.
78 FOURTEENTH-CENTURY MOVEMENTS
which embraced even the minute concerns of the secular
states of Europe. 1
Unhappily for itself, the setting forth of the papacy's
highest pretensions was coincident with the maturing of
certain forces which tended to render those pretensions
null and void. The most important of these was the
force of the growth of nation-states, in
nationality,
particular under the strong royal houses of the Capets
and the Angevins respectively in France and England.
In such nation-states the papacy was to find a more
formidable obstacle to the realization of its temporal
ambitions than the Empire had ever presented, especially
as they had no such tradition of alliance with the papacy
as was the heritage and indeed the technical origin and
2
justification of the Holy Roman Empire. The dis-
tinction between the relation of the Pope to the Emperor
and the relation of the Pope to the King of France is
brought out forcibly in a work entitled An Enquiry
'
touching the Power of the Pope/ by Peter du Bois, who

in the year 1300 published a very remarkable treatise
which advocated a modest proposal for uniting the whole
of Europe under French sovereignty. The Emperor
was dependent upon the Pope, because he had to be
confirmed in his office and crowned by the Pope. No
such necessity existed in the case of the French King. 3
Certainly the conduct of Philip IV showed plenty of
independence in his relations with the Roman pontiff.
When Boniface in 1301 asserted that Philip held his
crown of him and summoned him to appear at a council
about to be assembled at Rome, the papal bull was
solemnly burnt in the French capital. The States-
General was then convened to give national expression
1
See H. B. Workman, The Dawn of the Reformation (1901, 1902),
'
vol. i The Age of Wyclif, p. 71
; Some seventy thousand documents
:
in the papal archives bear witness to his world-wide labours. Few

subjects escaped his notice from the habit of the French King of
talking in church, the misrule of Edward II of England, or the devices
of sorcerers, to the weightier matters of theology and law.'
*
R. L. Poole, Illustrations of the History of Mediaval Thought
(1884), p. 247.
3
Ibid., pp. 256 et seq.
FOURTEENTH-CENTURY MOVEMENTS 79
to a protest against the action of Boniface and bishops
;
and lesser clergy united with the people as a body, and

most important with the lawyers, to address letters of
remonstrance to Rome. The civil law directly challenged
the canon law.
In England the national feeling against papal exactions
and interference was extremely bitter and vociferous
under Henry III. Edward I gave a blunt answer to
the claims of Clericis laicos in ruling that if the clergy
were to be free of the law in respect of its duties they
should be free of it also as regards its privileges and its
protection, should be outlaws in fact. The stand taken
by the French and English kings on the subject of clerical
taxation was so firm that Boniface was forced to nullify
the bull Clericis laicos by the bull Etsi de statu. Not
only the royal will, but popular feeling is evidenced
under Edward III by the statutes of Provisors and
Praemunire.
While in Germany the imperial dignity had much
sunk in credit since the days of the Hofrenstaufen, on
the other hand the importance of a national sentiment
there was revealed in the general support given to Lewis
of Bavaria. It is true that he failed in his expedition
to Italy, whither the German king journeyed in order
to establish his imperial dignity, despite his excommuni-
cation by John XXII, by coronation at Rome, but in
Italy his forces were recruited by adherents more valuable
than armies in the General of the Franciscan Order,
Michael of Cesena, and a yet greater Franciscan, William
of Ockham. The issue that had been joined was in
reality one between papal and national sovereignty ;
but in the lengthy war of words that ensued upon Lewis's

failure in Italy the controversy appeared to be concerned
with the theological question of the poverty of Christ,
so that the feud between Spiritual and Conventual
became a European question. It now possessed a
significance extraneous from, and much wider than,
the original cause of quarrel for in the doctrine of
:
apostolic poverty could be focussed all the widespread

8o FOURTEENTH-CENTURY MOVEMENTS
anti-sacerdotal feeling which revolted at the secular
preoccupations and ambitions of the clergy.
A heavy blow was struck at the overweening claims
of the papacy by Philip IV's attack upon Boniface VIII,
'
and, as it has been said, the drama of Anagni is to be

I
set against the drama of Canossa/ But worse humilia-
tions were to follow, when the papacy was brought
' '
under French tutelage by the Babylonish Captivity
of Avignon. Worse still, to the humiliation was added
infamy. The corruption at the new papal court speedily
became notorious. It surpassed all previous bounds,
and the and prodigality was defrayed
cost of its luxury
2
by unparalleled extortion and simony. More powerful
than ever, therefore, became the denunciation of the
ugly materialism and spiritual decadence of the papacy.
The scandal of Avignon was followed by one more
deplorable still the Schism. Christendom was pre-
sented with the unedifying sight of successive rival
pontiffs, each anathematizing the other and reviling him
in terms of vulgar scurrility. 3 No mystic halo could
remain undimmed, no sense of reverence unimpaired
by a spectacle so profane. The resistance of princely
prerogative, the emotion of national resentment against
caste privilege and exemption were reinforced by a
general consciousness of the violence done to men's
ordinary sense of fitness, a consciousness mirrored in
the literature, and particularly the polemics, of the day.
If disgust with the papacy led Dante in his De '
1
M. Creighton, History of the Papacy (1903), vol. i, p. 32.
2
For Avignon, see E. Baluze, Vitae Paparum Avenionensium (1693).
See works cited in Workman, The Dawn of the Reformation, vol. i,
Append. A., p. 291 also Pierre D'Ailly, De Necessitate Reformationis
;
Ecclesiae, in Joannis Gersonii Opera Omnia (Antwerp. 1706), vol. ii,

'
pp. 885-902, esp. p. 889. Poole, op. cit., p. 248, The universal authority
of Rome became confined within the narrow territory of Avignon :
the means by which it was exerted became more and more secular,
diplomatic, mercantile. . ..'
3
The extent of the feeling aroused by the schism in Christendom
can be illustrated by the fact that contemporary miracle-plays repre-
sented Pope and anti-Pope burning in hell (see Workman, The Dawn
of the Reformation, vol. ii, The Age of Hus, p. 41), and by the life-work
of a simple uneducated girl, St. Catherine of Siena.
'
Monarchia to find a solution of the world's troubles in

a revival of the universal empire, of an effective imperial
authority, his vision being one of a golden age in the
past, in this respect he stood alone, and other writers
looked forward to a radical alteration and amendment
in the ecclesiastical polity. It was indeed a radical
innovation, but it was not so conceived by its authors,

who regarded it as the true practice of the Church and
were in some cases ready to denounce the Pope as a
heretic for disregarding it. The pulpits of the Grey
Friars resounded to denunciations of John XXII as
a heretic because he clave to earthly possessions and
repudiated the doctrine of the poverty of Christ and
His Disciples. But indeed the arguments of John's
opponents were often so startling that it is in no way
surprising that he with all honesty perceived in them
the heretics. Michael of Cesena, in a tract against the
errors of the Pope, treated John as a mere heretic, and
appealed from him to a General Council representative

of the Catholic Church, since a Pope might err both in
faith and in conduct, as indeed many had erred before,
while the Catholic Church was infallible, and its repre-
sentative, a General Council, was necessarily endowed
with the like infallibility. 1
Of far greater weight than that of the Franciscan
leader was the authority of William of Ockham in recom-
mending the device of a General Council. Only, unlike
the former, William of Ockham discerned infallibility
in neither Pope nor General Council. All human beings
are liable to err, whether individually or collectively,
but the ultimate power in the Church must be the Church
2
itself, the whole body of the faithful. In his enormous
'
work, his Dialogus,' there are contradictions and

1
Melchior Goldast, Monarchia S. Romani Imp. (Hanover and
Frankfort, 1611-14), v l- iii, p. 1360.
2
Goldast, op. cit., vol. ii, Opera Omnia de Potestate Ecclesiastica
& Politico,, G. Ockham, esp. Dialogus, pp. 822-30. The chief con-
clusions of Ockham are summarized on pp. 396-7 ; also in S. Riezler,
Die literarischen Widersacher der Pdpste zur Zeit Ludwig aes Baitrs
(1874), pp. 258-71. But see generally pp. 241-77.
qualifications which indicate that the author was per-
plexed bymanifold practical difficulties of the
the
problem of how
to reunite Christendom. 1 But as a
Spiritual Franciscan he was clear that the Pope had
no right to secular property, and as a philosopher pre-
ferred the Church Universal itself to its pontiff as the
repository of truth.
Of much less influence and reputation in his own
lifetime thanOckham, yet of infinitely greater originality,
penetration and width of view, astonishingly far seeing and
modern in his standpoint, was Marsiglio of Padua. The
' '
central argument Defensor Pacis is that the
of his
cause of all the turmoil and disturbance of the world has
been the bid for temporal power made by the clergy, and
2
especially the papacy. Christ had definitely stated,
' '
My Kingdom is not of this world yet the clergy ;
had become utterly immersed in affairs of the earth.

Marsiglio equally combatted two sacerdotal contentions
the right to intervene in secular matters in despite of the
spiritual office, on the one hand ; on the other hand,
the right of exemption from the ordinary payments
and obligations of citizens in virtue of the same spiritual
office. He held that the clergy had one duty only,
and that a spiritual duty to attend to the welfare of
the souls of their flock. They had no legitimate claim
whatever, in his opinion, to special treatment from the
3
lay authority. Their spiritual character was relative
only to their performance of spiritual functions in ;
so far as they performed any others they were on exactly

the same footing as laymen. Their tenure of land should
be on precisely the same conditions as that of the laity ;
the civil obligations of the layman were incumbent upon
them also. they had no right to special
Similarly,
jurisdiction, involving the infliction of the same sort of
penalties fines and imprisonments for example as
1
See Poole, op. cit., p. 277, note.
2
Defensor Pacis, Lib. i, cap. xviii ; in Goldast, op. cit., vol. ii, pp.
86-9.
3
Ibid., Lib. n, cap. viii, p. 212.
appertained to the secular courts. Such jurisdiction was

abhorrent to the spirit of the Gospel. 1 To counsel
and to warn was within their province to go beyond ;
that was not. This, according to Marsiglio, applied

even to heresy. If a heresy were dangerous to society,
it was for the civil authority to deal with it. Merely
as wrong opinion it was not punishable at all in this
world. 2 While he thus restricted and narrowly defined
the functions of the priesthood, Marsiglio in no wise
narrowed the conception of the Catholic Church, but
rather broadened it. For his outstanding argument
is that the clergy have been narrowing that conception
by arrogating to themselves a position and powers which

belong to the whole community. While perniciously
' '
extending the meaning of the word spiritual to cover

such essentially secular things as property and political
power, they have as falsely contracted it to exclude from
all control of the Church's destinies the mass of the laity.
They also, although not in orders, are religious men,

members of the Church ; numerically they are by far
the greater part of the Church. Consequently, in a
General Council, which is a representative of the entire
Christian communion, and not merely a part the fact
of ordination not making the clergy any the less a
fragment in a General Council resides the ultimate

3
authority of the Church.
In these remarkable pronouncements of Marsiglio of
Padua are contained the doctrines of democracy and of
toleration so also in the careful allocation of the
:
clergy to purely spiritual functions is contained the

suggestion ot that precise differentiation between Church
and State which perhaps more than anything else marks
off modern from mediaeval society. The whole concep-
tion of the
'
Defensor Pacis
'
was revolutionary. No
1
Defensor Pacis, Lib. n, cap. ix, p. 213.
2
Ibid., cap. x, pp. 216-19, es P- P- 2I 7-
'
Nemo quantumcunque
peccans contra disciplinas speculativas aut operativas quascunque
punitur vel arcetur in hoc seculo practise inquantum-hujusmodi, sed
inquantum peccat contra praeceptum humanae legis.'
3
Ibid., Lib. I, cap. xii, pp. 169-71.
heresy of the Middle Ages had been more dangerously
subversive of the whole system of the Catholic Church
as it then existed. The perverse absurdities of Catharism
and other such half-crazed cults were abhorrent to all
sane and healthily-minded men. But the doctrines
taught by Marsiglio have commended themselves to
many of the most sincere, the most devout and religious
of men from his own day to this. 1
Were these opinions heretical or not ? They were
declared to be so by John XXII but amid the warring
;
religious factions of the period it was no easy matter to

say what was orthodox and what was not. The con-
troversy regarding mendicancy raged. The Minorites
declared Pope John a heretic because he would not agree
that mendicancy was enjoined by Scripture. The view
of the Pope was shared and soberly argued by Fitzralph,
Archbishop of Armagh. It was not only the worldly

cleric necessarily that failed to find warrant for the
contentions of the Spirituals in the Bible. 2 A second
new tenet of the time the dogma of the Beatific Vision
John XXII, after first inclining to believe, latterly decided
to reject and in 1331 a certain English Dominican, for
;
daring to assert that the souls of the righteous were

immediately wafted into the presence of God and beheld
Him without having to wait for the Day of Resurrection,
was by the Pope's orders brought before the Inquisition,
and was thrown into gaol. John's political opponents
in Germany and France, together with the Spiritual
Franciscans, immediately asserted the truth of the
doctrine he had denounced, the French King writing
to point out that the Pope's ruling must seriously in-
validate the belief in the invocation of saints and also
all pardons and indulgences. John was forced to give
1 '
Workman, op. cit., vol. i. Wyclif has been called the Morning
Star of the Reformation, but the author of the Defensor Pads might
more justly claim the title.' C/., on modernity of Marsiglio's thought,
B. Labanca, Marsilio da Padova (Padua, 1882), pp. 219 et seq.
Fitzralph's treatise, De Pauperie Salvatoris, is printed as an
a
appendix to Wycliffe's De Dominio Divino (Wyclif Society, 1890),

pp. 259-476.
way, and on his death-bed affirmed his adhesion to the

doctrine of the Beatific Vision. As he did not make a
formal recantation, however, of his previous error, Michael
of Cesena held him to have died a contumacious heretic. 1
A third new doctrine, a little later on, after considerable
and powerful opposition, gained a great triumph mainly
through the instrumentality of the University of Paris,
which forced Pope Clement VII to acknowledge its truth.
This was the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
It had been resolutely condemned by St. Bernard, Peter
Lombard, and later by Thomas Aquinas. But the appeal
to the popular imagination of Mariolatry was too strong,
strong enough even to defeat the decision of the great
Doctor. It became inconceivable to the popular imagina-
tion, which ever tended to prefer the sweetness and

gentleness of the Virgin to the awfulness of the Trinity,
to believe that she could have had any connection
whatever with sin. In 1387, when a certain Dominican
professor at Paris preached a sermon maintaining that
the Virgin was conceived in sin, there was a violent ti
^
uproar, leading to Clement VII's consenting to declare
all those who held this view to be heretics.
2
The con-
fusion as to the definition of orthodoxy and heresy,
inevitably produced by the introduction of such new
tenets as those just enumerated, was heightened by the
decadent unreality of philosophy, when it permitted of
v
the idea of a double truth, one theological, the other

philosophical, and rendered it possible for a scholar to
assert that even such cardinal doctrines as those of the
Trinity, immortality, the resurrection, the efficacy of

prayer might be true in theology, yet quite untrue in
3
philosophy. Such a disingenuous compromise put a
premium at once upon scepticism and insincerity.
There was one great schoolman living against whom,
despite the prolixity and barrenness of much of his logi
no charge of unreality or insincerity can be brought-
1 For this whole subject, see Lea, vol. iii, pp. 590-4.
a
Ibid.,pp. 596-9.
3
See supra, pp. 68, 75.
John Wycliffe. Beneath the dialectical subtleties and
sophistries common to the works of the scholastic
all
philosophers there was in his case a profound sense of

the obligation to seek, and a zealous desire to discover,
the absolute truth. As with all great thinkers who have
left a permanent mark on the history of religious and
political opinion, there was in Wycliffe a great moral

earnestness, an honest hatred of shams and impurities
and all that is ignoble. The scandals of Avignon and
the Schism helped to form the creed of Wycliffe, as they
did that of the most religiously-minded men of the
fourteenth century. His teaching was the moral reper-
cussion of a sensitive and powerful mind flung back from
impact against the clerical abuses of the Church. Indeed,
as in the case of Marsiglio, so in that of Wycliffe, his
attack was primarily on the polity of the Church, only
secondly on doctrine. Many of his writings are per-
fervid denunciations, in the violent language common
to mediaeval controversialists, of the ill-living, laxity and
ostentation of the clergy. His diatribes against suc-
cessive popes and the institution of the papacy became
more and more unmeasured in the choice of epithets.
The writings of Wycliffe cannot be taken as a true
description of the Church of his time, so great is the
allowance that has to be made for the hyperbolical
language of furious partizanship.
The is derived from
constructive doctrine of Wycliffe
his idea of Lordship. His theology is given a feudal
structure, which cumbrously overweights it with techni-
calities and analogies of interest only to a feudal age.
The whole of human society is conceived as holding
from God, the suzerain of all creation. The essential
characteristic which Wycliffe ascribed to it brings out
of this feudal nomenclature no mere analogy but a
pregnant idea. Wycliffe postulated a fundamental dis-
tinction between spiritual and earthly tenure. The
feudal system on earth was one of many gradations
between the supreme overlord, the king, and the humblest
holder of land. But between God and His subjects
there were no such gradations : each man
held directly
of God. 1
The consequences of statement were
this
radical. For one thing it was reinforced by the con-
tention that dominion was founded in grace only (there
was no other lawful claim to rule or possession) and that
no man living in sin had any right to any gift of God,
whether that gift be spiritual or secular in nature. For
all other persons the right to such gifts was equal. Thus
the only test to a man's right to possession was a moral
test. 2 These principles and their applications, elaborated
'
in a work of immense length, Of Civil Lordship/ lead
logically, on their political side, to Communism while, ;
on the religious side, they involve a democratic theory

of the spiritual equality of all Christians, which was
subversive of the claims of the priesthood, for whom the
' '
belief inthe absence of any mediation between God
and man no function. 3
left
On the one hand, community of goods was regarded

as essential to Christians on the other even more
;
notably than in Marsiglio the laity were accorded a

novel and prominent place in the Christian fellowship.
Clerical property was an abuse and the clergy ought to
live on alms, tithes being recognized as such. 4 Wycliffe
did not exaggerate the theory of clerical poverty ; he
did insist that the clergy must live simply and possess
5
nothing superfluous to ordinary needs. In accordance
' '
with the theory of grace or merit it was laid down that
such wealth as the clergy did enjoy should be taken away
from the undeserving. Such money could with greater
profit be given to the poor. It was for the secular power
'
De Dominio Divino (Wyclif Society, 1890), p. 33.
1 Ideo Deus
non mediate per regimen vasallorum subserviencium, ut reges ceteri,
dominatur, cum immediate et per se facit, sustentat, et gubernat
omne quod possidet, juvatque ad perficiendum opera secundum usus
alios quos requirit.'
2
See Poole, op. cit., p. 293.
3 See
Workman, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 173-8.
4
See Fasciculi Zizaniorum Magistri Johannis Wyclif (Rolls'series,
ed. W. W. Shirley, 1858), pp. 280-1.
Wycliffe's De Potestate Pape (Wyclif Society, ed. J. Loserth,
5
1907), p. 84.
to deprive the unworthy clerk of his possessions. 1 This
teaching regarding ecclesiastical property, the disposal
of which he virtually assigned to the laity, was perhaps
the most obnoxious element in Wycliffe's general scheme
Church in his day. 2
in the eyes of the
For the regeneration of the Church Wycliffe turned
from the hierarchy to the laity That which makes
a man member of the Church is his own personal
a
sanctity, and the Church therefore consists of those
3
predestined to salvation, of none others. The mere
fact of being a pope or a cardinal,
for example, is
nothing. The Church can

dispense with bad popes. 4
They are antichrist. Per contra, a layman might be
pope, however unlearned, even if unordained, so long
as God had chosen him. 5 It is not man's appointment,
but God's choosing that is to say, spiritual excellence
that matters.
The extraordinarily radical character of these theories
is obvious. They were subversive of the whole con-
temporary conception of the character of the Church.
For a universal society Wycliffe substituted a small
body of the elect. In all this he was emphasizing the
spiritual nature of religion, as an inward force, the
possession of the individual soul. Confession, he declared,
was superfluous for the contrite 6 no man could be ;
excommunicated unless he had first been excommuni-

cated by himself, and no prelate ought ever to
excommunicate anyone unless he knew that he had
7
already been excommunicated by God.
1
De Civili Dominio (Wyclif Society, ed. R. L. Poole, 1885), vol. i,
pp. 335-42 ; 265-74, ch. xxxvii. See also Select English

also pp.
Works (ed. T. Arnold, 1869-71), vol. iii, pp. 216-17.
*
See De Potestate Pape, pp. 84, 238 et seq., 378-9.
8 This idea is either explicitly or implicitly
Ibid., pp. 145-6, 154-5.
in all Wycliffe's later teachings.
4
Ibid., pp. 120 et seq., 148, 212, 266 et seq. The whole book is
indeed on this theme. Wycliffe does not scruple to call a bad pope
'
horribilius monstrum.' Cf. Fasciculi Zizaniorutn, p. 278.
De Potestate Pape, p. 272.
6
6
Fasciculi Zizaniorum, p. 278.
7
Ibid., p. 279 ; D. Wilkins, Concilia M. Britanniae et Hiberniae
(1737). vo1 ^
P- J 57-
-
Like Luther after him, then, cliff e insisted upon Wy
the inner reality of religion, of which the individual is
conscious in the depths of his own being. Like Luther
also he insisted on the necessity of appeal direct to the
Scriptures, as to the supreme authority for the Christian
life. As he looked to the laity to reform the Church,
so it was necessary that they should be well acquainted
with its text. The translation of the Bible into the
vulgar tongue became, therefore, an integral part of
Wycliffe's scheme. There were extant in Wycliffe's
day portions of the Scriptures in the vernacular.
1
He
conceived the idea of translating all. Probably he
himself translated only the Gospels, or perhaps the whole
of the New Testament one of his disciples did the
;
translation of the Old Testament, and may have com-

pleted most of it before Wycliffe's own death. 2 The
significance of this great undertaking lies partly in its
completeness ; but even more in the intention with
which it was adopted. The laity must be able to read
the actual text of the Scriptures for themselves without
the glosses of traditional interpretation and theologians'
exegesis, so that they may know the gospel in its simplicity
and view the realities of religion clearly for themselves.
To the Bible in the vernacular as such the Church had
no objection, but there must be proper safeguards. The
people must be taught how to read the Scriptures with
understanding by their spiritual masters. The gospel
of Christ had been entrusted to the clergy for them to
4 '
administer gently to the laity. Wycliffe's method
' ' '
meant that the gospel pearl was cast forth and
trodden down by swine/ 3
Wycliffe was an idealist, and confessedly his entire
conception of the Church and Society is an ideal con-
ception. In spite of its curiously matter-of-fact feudal
foundations, Wycliffe's structure is not of the earth, but
1
Works of Thomas Cranmer (ed. J. E. Cox, Parker Society), vol. ii,
Misc. Writings, p. 119.
2
See Wilkins, vol. iii, p. 350 ; Chronicon H. Knighton (Rolls series,
ed. J. R. Lumby, 1889-95), vol. ii, p. 152.
Ibid.
Utopian. His conclusions were indeed whittled down
by certain important qualifications. Thus, although
all men were ideally equal, mode of
the existing
society and government was sanctioned by God and ;
it was therefore unlawful to seek to gain by force

the equality of possession which flagrantly did not
exist so that Wycliffe's communism, in so far as it
was not spiritual only, was purely anticipatory of a
new order in the future so also it was unlawful to
;
challenge the right to rule of the civil lord on the ground

of personal unworthiness, for his power also is sanctioned.
'
As Wycliffe put it in a celebrated phrase, God ought
1
to obey the Devil.' Thus while the ideal theory of
' '
dominion founded in grace is suggestive of anti-
nomianism and revolution, Wycliffe's practical teachings
were marked by devotion to the existing temporal
order. On the other hand, it is not surprising that
both opponents and followers should have tended to
fasten upon the former aspects of his tenets and give
to them a revolutionary interpretation. And indeed
the truly significant part of Wyclifnte doctrine is revolu-
tionary in the emphasis that it lays upon the individual ;
and as time went on both the logic of events and the

logic of the beliefs to which controversy drove him
rendered Wycliffe more and more unequivocal in the
essential radicalism of his attitude.
Anti-sacerdotalism led Wycliffe later on to attack
a doctrine to which the clergy owed much of their hold
upon the popular mind, whence largely came the peculiar
veneration in which they were held the doctrine of
I Transubstantiation. The miracle of the mass obtained
a special note of awesome mystery from that doctrine ;
and to the ignorant or superstitious mind it was natural

to regard those who by the simple pronunciation of
the prayer of consecration could transform bread and
1 See Fasciculi
Zizaniorum, p. 278, from Epistola Willelmi Cantu-
anensis super condemnatione haeresutn Wycclyff in synodo. See also
extract from a sermon by Wycliffe on this subject, ibid., introd.,
pp. Ixiv-lxv.
wine into the body and blood of the Blessed Lord

as For the orthodox philosophy of
miracle-workers.
Wycliffe's day, Nominalism, there was little difficulty
in believing in such a transformation. Wycliffe was
a realist, and to him^ the nominalist position seemed
untenable altogether. In the days of Abelard, and again
in those of Thomas Aquinas, Realism had been the
orthodox philosophy, and Aquinas in demonstrating
that the abstract and general truths of Christianity
were acceptable to the reason did the Church of his day
a great service. But another realist had come after
him, who had most trenchantly attacked St. Thomas,
destroying the reasonableness of the great Doctor's
all
philosophic and emphatically ousting the

structure,
reason and substituting the authority of the Church as
the only sure guide in the sacred mysteries of religion,
the only sure foundation of faith. There were action
and reaction in the abstract thought of the Middle Ages,
as indeed there have ever been in history. The reaction
against the Realism of St. Thomas, apparent in Duns
Scotus, grew intenser when the principles of Ockham
became the popular, and were recognized as the orthodox,
principles of Christian theology. It could easily be
shown that Realism was apt to lead to exaggerations
either heretical or absurd, very apt to end in Pantheism. 1
The fact of the matter was that either school of the
scholastic philosophy might be productive of heresy, by
laying especial emphasis on one particular aspect of truth
to the exclusion of others ;
that different generations,
changing subtly in mental outlook and spiritual tempera-
ment, are susceptible to different phases of truth. It is
not a matter of Yea or Nay, but simply a varying stress
of mode or fashion. But we do not look for recognition
of such a fact on the part of any mediaeval controver-
sialist. There are no half lights and compromises with
them they have each his own vision of truth, and
;
bitterly assail their opponents as enemies of the light.

1
There was a tendency to Pantheism in Wycliffe. See Workman,
op. cit. t vol. i, p. 13711:
So Wycliffe, beginning with a standpoint which could
be shared, and in fact was shared, by many of the most
orthodox catholics of his time, growing as he went on
more profoundly conscious and convinced of, the
of,
Tightness of hisprinciples, became less and

essential
less compromising, more and more the opponent not
only of practices but of the doctrines with which such

practices were associated. He became urgent against the
reigning nominalist creed, but most especially against
its theories of the Sacrament. For him space arid time,
matter and form were objective realities. The bread and
wine were not a part of Christ and could not become
so ;they remained bread and wine in substance and
could never be anything else, only Christ was present
in them. 1 The doctrine of identification between the
bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ was
2
pernicious. Nothing could be more horrible than the
' '
notion that a priest had the ability to make God
3
daily. The language of the service of the Eucharist
was not literal, but figurative. 4 The literal interpreta-
tion was an invitation to mere idolatry, an encourage-
ment to the ignorant to worship the Host itself. 5 Christ
indeed was present in the Sacrament, and the bread and
wine were not merely commemorative symbols on ;
the other hand, there was no miraculous transformation

of the elements. This is very much the same theory as
Luther's doctrine of Consubstantiation. Wycliffe united
with it the tenet that a priest living in mortal sin could
not consecrate. 6
The extent and nature of the influence of Wyclifntism
in England is a difficult and somewhat controversial
question.
7
The translation of the Bible certainly had
1
De
Eucharistia (Wyclif Society, 1892), p. 109, cap. iv.
189-232, cap. viii.
Ibid., pp.
'
Ibid., cap. i, pp. 15-16. Nichil enim horribilius quam quod
qui ibet sacerdos celebrans facit vel consecrat cotidie corpus Christ!.'
Ibid., cap. iv, p. 109.
Ibid., Introd., p.liii ; cap. iv,
pp. no-n.
Fasciculi Zizaniorum, p. 278.
See Foxe's Acts and Monuments, iv and v.
its permanent influence ; and the device of the Poor
Preachers spread the new doctrines further afield than
would have been possible in those days only with the aid
of lecture, sermon and treatise. Wycliffe's character
does not appear to have been such as to have enabled
him to become the leader of a great popular movement.
He was too much of a schoolman his method was too ;
academic. 1 But the preachers not to be thought of as

crude, semi-educated men, for they were mostly clerks
of Oxford, who had studied under Wycliffe touched a
wider public than their master himself reached. Clearly
in popularizing, they also exaggerated his doctrines,
making them more downright, more practical, more
mundane, emphasizing their social tendencies, those com-
munistic elements which had a natural popular appeal.
The Lollards prospered greatly at the first, being
particularly successful in the capital itself, Norwich,
Bristol, Leicester, Northampton and the larger towns
generally. The protection of John of Gaunt and other
nobles helped them, while Wycliffe's denunciation of the
friars met with the support of public opinion generally. 2
There seemed a prospect of Wycliffitism becoming really
widespead. But separatist tendencies soon showed
themselves, and already in 1392 Lollards in the diocese
of Salisbury were undertaking ordinations. The Lollards,
then, soon showed a tendency to develop into a separate
sect, and their hold on the country and their national
influence decayed with extraordinary suddenness. This
was partly due to the fact that the movement had owed
much to the purely ephemeral factor of John of Gaunt's
support partly to the fact that the favour that its
;
social teachings had won among the peasants was more

than counterbalanced by the conservative apprehensions
of the larger population who viewed the activities of such
men as John Ball with dismay ; partly to the fact that
1 '
Workman, op. cit., vol. i, p. 229. Of the scholastic Lollards it
may be written that logic makes no martyrs.' Cf. pp. 213-90,
* See
popular ballads in J. S. Brewer, Monumenta Franciscana
(1858), pp. 591-608.
the movement produced sharp divisions in families,
between father and son, master and servant, and this
sort of thing could not last beyond a generation. 1
Extremists took possession of Lollardy and it began to
betray a distinct iconoclastic character. But the orthodox
zeal of Henry IV and Henry V forced it very much
2
underground, and there were a number of recantations.
Lollardy survived into the days of the Tudors, in small
communities in country districts, such as the Chilterns,
and there was certainly a measure of Wycliffite leaven in
the nation ; but it is going too far to discover in Lollardy
a direct and potent influence in bringing about the
English Reformation.
The influence of deeper and more
Wycliffe was
lasting and England than within it for
vital outside
there is a clear and very important connection between
Wyclifntism and Husitism in Bohemia. On the other
hand, it would be a mistake to regard Wycliffe as the
sole parent of the movement inaugurated by Hus for ;
Hus had Bohemia itself, earnest reformers,

forerunners in
such as Conrad Waldhauser, John Militz Kremsier, and
Matthias of Janow. 3 The two former were never accused
of harbouring heretical opinions they were simply
;
protestants against clerical abuses. Matthias of Janow,

on the other hand, was definitely interested in dogma, a
professed theologian. He was notable in appealing directly
to the simple people of Christ in his denunciation of the
invocation of Saints and his insistence on the adminis-
4
tration of the Communion in both kinds to the laity.
The beginnings of the religious movement in Bohemia
centre in the drama of the University of Prague, the
struggle between the German and native parties a
national struggle which had its significant philosophic
1
cit., vol. ii, pp. 184-7.
Knighton, op.
2
De
Haeretico Comburendo being frequently enforced from 1401.
3
See Count Liitzow, The Life and Times of Master John Hus
(1909), pp. 17-62 J. Loserth, Wyclif and Hus (trans. M. J. Evans,
;
1884) A. H. Wratislaw, Native Literature of Bohemia in the Fourteenth

;
Century (1878), esp. book ii, pp. 181-291.

4
See Liitzow, op. cit., pp. 47-62.
counterpart, for Teutonic Nominalism warred against

Czech Realism. The struggle was decided in favour of
the native party by the famous proclamation of Wenzel,
which led German exodus from the University.
to the
The departure German scholars from Prague was
of the
a momentous event. Hus and Jerome of Prague had
been expounding the doctrines of Wycliffe the German ;
majority had pronounced these heretical. Wenzel's

decision was therefore a triumph at once for Bohemian
nationalism and for the reforming Kusite party, a victory
for Realism for heresy. Hus's satisfaction was great. 1
It was not only the religious issue that appealed to him
strongly he was an intense patriot as well as a religious

:
reformer. The spread of the Husite doctrines, however,

naturally received a considerable impetus. The asso-
ciation of certain religious opinions with those national
aspirations, to which the revolution at the University
had given so marked an encouragement, inevitably con-
verted Husitism into a popular movement. The cause
of Husitism and the cause of Bohemian nationalism
became so completely dovetailed the one into the other
that they were inseparable.
Hus received a papal summons to appear at Bologna
to answer for his heretical opinions, which were making
Husitism an European question, a dangerous problem to
the Church, as serious as Waldensianism and Catharism
had been. 2 Hus did not go, appealing from the Pope to
Christ. The opinions of the great Bohemian leader were
not original and indeed his greatness is much more
;
moral than intellectual. Starting his career solely as

a protestant against sacerdotal abuses, he was led by
the influence of the doctrines of Wycliffe, which the
1
Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus (ed. F. Palacky, Prague, 1869),
PP- 347-9. See Liitzow, op. cit., pp. 106-9.
355-63. Wenzel's
reasoned answer to the objections made by the Germans may have
been Hus's work. For the contest at the University, see also H.
Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, vol. ii, pp. 212-32.
2
Liitzow, op. cit., pp. 130-3, 159-60 ; Palacky, Documenta,
pp. 464-6 The Letters of John Hus (ed. Workman and Pope, 1904),
;
pp. 422-5.
close association between England and Bohemia at the
time made familiar in the latter country, into adopting
many of the tenets of the Oxford heresiarch. 1 His De
'
'
Ecclesia is little more than a translation of Wycliffe.
On the whole, he remained distinctly more orthodox
than his master. His writings abound in denunciations
of the worldliness of the clergy, in particular of the
papacy ; denunciations of simony (which is heresy), of

the claim of the papacy to overlordship of the Church,
based on no better foundation than the death of
St. Peter in Rome. 2 Heresy, he also declared, was not
triable by the Church. 3 But the really fundamental
article of his questionable doctrines was his conception
of Predestination. Here he was following Augustine ;
but he was under the influence of Wycliffe 's idea of

'dominion founded in grace,' which gave the right of
4
lordship and possession only to the elect. This principle,
' '
involving the position that only the rule of the saints

is legitimate, had clearly a dangerous tendency, sub-
versive of law and order in an imperfect world, both
in the secular and the ecclesiastical spheres. Yet the
principal element of danger in Husitism was the simple
fact of its success. So serious was this that when the
remarkable attempt was made to heal the wounds of
Christendom by means of General Councils, the fathers
aimed at dealing with the problem of heresy together
with those of the restoration of the unity, which had been
broken by the Schism, and the reform of clerical abuses.
The Conciliar movement a serious and important
attempt to reform the Church from within was brought
about by the labours of certain moderate reformers, of
whom Gerson, Peter D'Ailly and Zabarella are the most
notable. Dietrich Niem represents a German influence ;
but the main source of inspiration was the University

1
Due to the marriage of Wenzel's sister, Anne, to Richard II.
a
Palacky, Documenta, pp. 289, 292.
3
Ibid., p. 293.
4
Ibid., p. 287 ; Letters of Hus, p. 217. Hus does not seem to have
regarded the
Utraquist question as of great consequence. See
Creighton, Papacy, vol. ii, p. 86.
of Paris, firmly orthodox and nominalist and immensely
influential. In 1394 the University invited its members
to send in opinions as to the best means of ending the
Schism. Thousands of answers were received but the ;
most outstanding members of the University were con-

vinced that the summoning of a General Council was
the only expedient that gave any hope of success. The
ideas of Marsiglio and Ockham more especially the
latter had borne fruit, and an age in which the idea of
' '
representation was in the air decided to apply the

principle to the Church for the urgent practical purpose
of removing a notorious scandal. The apologia for the
scheme is to be found in the writings of Gerson and D'Ailly,
and of Niem, if Niem is indeed the author of the tractate,
'
De modis uniendi et refoimandi Ecclesiam.' x The
plenitudo potestatis of the Church resided in its whole
2
body, as represented in a General Council. With the
assent of such a council, the Church could even dispense
with a pope. 3 It was legitimate for the civil authority
to summon a General Council. It was easy to cite the
practice of Roman Emperors to that effect. 4 Christ,

urged representatives of the University of Paris to the
French king, had submitted to the authority of His
mother and Joseph. Was the Pope greater than Christ
that he should not submit to the authority of his mother,
the Church ? 5 The proposition, so worded, seemed
mildly reasonable, certainly most orthodox. In truth it
was a democratic innovation of the utmost significance.
'
Pisa/ wrote Gregorovius, referring to the first of the

series of councils which provide the chief interest of the
'
opening years of the fifteenth century, was the first real

step towards the deliverance of the world from the papal
1
See J. B. Schwab, /. Gerson (Wiirzburg, 1858), pp. 482-9 ; also
Creighton, vol. i, appendix 2, pp. 365-8.
2
D'Ailly in Gerson's Works, vol. ii, pp. 949 et seq.
3
Gerson, ibid., p. 72.
See also, generally, Gerson's De Unitate Ecclesi-
'
4
Ibid., p. 178.
astica,' Works, vol. ii, pp. 113-14; Niem, Theodoricus de, De Schismate
(1890). For full list of tracts, see Cambridge Modern History, vol. iii,
pp. 867-8.
1
See Creighton's Papacy, vol. i, p. 143.
B
'
hierarchy ; it was already the Reformation ; while

the decree of the second and most important of the
councils, that of Constance, in which it declared its
superiority to the Pope, has been pronounced to be
1
probably the most revolutionary official document in

the history of the world.' 1 When brought up against
the glaring abuse of the papal schism it was not only
Wycliffe and Hus and their followers that became revo-
lutionaries Gerson, D'Ailly, Niem and their adherents
;
became revolutionaries also. In the reforming pro-

grammes of Wycliffe and Hus there was much that might
have been expected to gain the sympathies of the fathers
who met at Constance yet they condemned both as
:
heretics and consigned Hus and Jerome of Prague to the

flames.
The explanation is easy enough. It was precisely
because their scheme was revolutionary that the cardinals
and other clergy assembled at Constance were so anxious
to make it clear to Christendom that such revolutionary
practice was perfectly compatible with strict orthodoxy
regarding the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith,
that they were the guardians of the unity and continuity
of the essential life and identity of the Church. A proof
of this was urgently needed to safeguard a position which
had precarious elements. The opportunity of dealing
with Hus would probably have been welcomed for that
reason alone. As to the fact of Wycliffe and Hus being
dangerous heretics the fathers assembled at Constance
had no doubt whatever. Zealous for the reform of clerical
abuses as many of them were, they could only see in
the invectives against the hierarchy and the doctrines
concerning Predestination and the Eucharist, in which
the English and the Bohemian teachers indulged, an
attack upon the whole edifice of the Catholic Church. 2
Reconstruction they might desire but the specific of
;
1
F. Gregorovius, Hist, of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages (trans.
A. Hamilton, 1894-1902), vol. vi, p. 606 ; J. N. Figgis, From Gerson
to Grotius (1907), p. 35.
*
See Gerson 's exhortation to the Archbishop of Prague to extirpate
the heresy in Bohemia, Palacky, Documenta, pp. 523-6.
Wycliffe and Hus seemed to be extensive demolition

preparatory to the creation of a new structure. Hus,
'
therefore, came to Constance as one suspect of heresy/

virtually pre-condemned.
He answered the Council's summons, relying upon
the security Sigismund's celebrated safe-conduct,
of
expecting to take part in a public debate, to receive a

fair and courteous hearing for his defence of his theo-
logical views. Instead he found himself treated as a

criminal, thrown into prison, to answer a formidable
indictment before judges who were also prosecutors.
The Council virtually resolved itself into an inquisi-
torial court and followed inquisitorial methods of
procedure. Compared indeed with an ordinary trial
by the Inquisition that of Hus was remarkably lenient.
He had powerful friends and the undertaking of
Sigismund counted for something, although certainly
not very much.
Sigismund has been arraigned as a monster of
turpitude for allowing Hus to be tried, condemned and
executed after he had granted him a safe-conduct. It
is certain that Hus, while clearly apprehensive of what
might ensue from his bold step of entering the stronghold
of his enemies, had implicit confidence in Sigismund's
protection, and when despite the security promised by

the man who was both Emperor and president of the V
Council, Hus was consigned to the stake, at first sight
unmitigated baseness on the part of Sigismund would
1
appear to be the only explanation. If he cannot be
entirely exonerated, on the other hand, it is quite clear

he never had any idea of protecting a heretic, and that
he was overruled by the Council, who, arguing from the
customary rules regarding heretics, could legitimately
maintain that no guarantee could have any validity
whatever in the case of one suspected of heresy, that
Sigismund's safe-conduct might certainly apply to the
1 Letters
of Hus, pp. 146-9, 149-51. These are letters written
by Hus at the time of his setting out for Constance. One of them,
he instructs, is only to be opened in the event of his death.
ioo FOURTEENTH-CENTURY MOVEMENTS
empire and secular states, might be valid while Hus
was on his journey, but had no validity as regards the
Church. The heretic or a man suspect of heresy could
enjoy neither rights nor privileges. This was good law,
both ecclesiastical and civil and once granted that the
;
Council must regard Hus as suspect of heresy, it was

1
legally unanswerable.
The trial resolved itself into a dialectical duel between
Hus and Cardinal D'Ailly, with divers interruptions
and at times uproar. Against the uproar, with which
his statements were sometimes greeted, Hus strongly
protested and the proceedings would appear to have
;
been more seemly subsequently. 2 He was accused of a

large number of doctrinal errors and of such absurdities
as that of claiming to be a person of the Trinity. 8
Generally speaking, the object of his prosecutors was to
show that his opinions were identical with those of
Wycliffe, whichhad already been condemned as heretical
by the Council. It was easy enough to show that Hus
had inveighed against the organization and practices
of the Church as then existing it was not so easy to
;
convict him of heretical dogma. From the first Hus's

attitude was perfectly consistent. He wished to argue
his thesis but that not being allowed, he declared
;
himself perfectly willing to abjure all tenets which he

had at any time avowed if the Council proved them
from Scripture to have been erroneous, but he strongly
protested against the ascription to him of statements he
had never made and interpretations that he had never
1 See
Gerson, Works, vol. ii, p. 572 H. v. der Hardt, Magnum
;
oecumenicum Constantiense concilium (Frankfort, 1697-1742), vol. iv,

p. 521 Palacky, Documenta, p. 284
; Lea, vol. ii, pp. 467-8.
;
'
The
explanation of the controversy over the violation of the safe-conduct
is simple.
perfectly Germany, and especially Bohemia, knew so
littleabout the Inquisition and the systematic persecution of heresy
that surprise and indignation were excited by the application to the
case of Hus of the recognized principles of the canon law. The Council
could not have done otherwise than it did without surrendering those
principles.'
*
Letters of Hus, p. 216.
*
Liitzow, p. 249.
intended. 1 The Council, on the other hand, contended

that was the duty of the suspect heretic to put himself
it
unreservedly in the hands of the Council, making an

entire submission to their ruling and a complete abjuration
of all the heresies with which he was charged. One
doctor told him that if the Council told him he had only
one eye, though he knew he had two, he ought to agree
'
that it was so. Hus replied :If the whole world told
me so, so long as I have the use of my reason, I could
not say so without resisting my conscience/ It is right
to add that the doctor subsequently withdrew his remark,
2
agreeing that he had not used a very good illustration.
Where Hus gave his enemies their best opportunity
was in his teaching with regard to the predestined.
He had declared that no man living in a state of mortal
sin had any right to exercise authority. By this ruling
Sigismund himself would have been excluded. Apart

from that, as has been said already, the doctrine was
undeniably of perilous implication. The King of the
Romans could appreciate the seriousness of the political
application at all events. He pertinently reminded
Hus of the truth that no man lives without sin. 3 But
the decisive factor in the trial of Hus proved eventually
to be his absolute sincerity. He refused to be false
to himself, to commit perjury in order to save his life.
' '
Serene Prince/ said he to Sigismund, I do not want
to cling to any error, and I am
perfectly willing to
submit to the determination the Council. But I
of
may not offend God and my conscience by saying that
I hold heresies that I have never held.' 4 As he put
it again in a letter written shortly before his death,
Assuredly it is fitting for me rather to die than to flee

'
a momentary penalty to fall into the Lord's hand and
1
Palacky, Documenta, pp. 308, 310. Like Wycliffe before and
Luther after him, Hus would acknowledge no other authority than
Scripture. The Council wanted him to acknowledge the authority
of the Church and of itself as the Church's representative.
2
Letters of Hus, p. 226.
3
Ibid., p. 217.
4
Ibid. p. 224.
;
afterwards, perchance, into everlasting fire and shame.
And because I have appealed to Christ Jesus, the most
potent and just of all judges, committing my cause to
Him, therefore I stand by His judgment and sentence,
knowing that He will judge every man not on false
and erroneous evidence but on the true facts and merits
of his case.' l Hus died a martyr for no specific theo-
logical dogma, heretical or otherwise, but for the noblest
cause for which a man can ever die sincerity to the
truth that is in him.
After the condemnation and burning of Hus, the
Council proceeded to +he trial of Jerome of Prague, who
after a recantation repented of it and elected to die
like his greater comrade. The proceedings against
him were marked by great heat and acrimony, for he
had made many personal enemies. Moreover, con-
troversialist passions, which had indeed been apparent
in the trial of Hus for Hus was condemned as much
because he was a realist as anything flared up with
still greater violence. the interested spectators
Among
of the death at the stake of of Prague was the
Jerome
great Italian humanist, Poggio. Much struck by the
martyr's eloquence and genius, he thought it was a
great pity that he should have turned his attention to
heretical ideas, and half pityingly, half uncomprehend-
ingly, wondered that a man should be willing to die
merely for the sake of an opinion.
This chance connection between Jerome, the ardent
scholastic reformer, and Poggio, the cynical forerunner
of the New Learning between the old order and the
new, is remarkable and prophetic. The movement
towards change, which Jerome of Prague represented,
whether it was a conservative movement as interpreted
by Gerson and D'Ailly, or radical as it became in the
1
Letters of Hus, p. 239. See also his letter addressed to all the people
of Bohemia, pp. 230-3 also pp. 275-6, and Palacky, Documenta, p.
;
'
323. See Creighton, Papacy, vol. ii, p. 51 : . It is the glory of
. .
Hus that he first deliberately asserted the right of the individual

conscience against ecclesiastical authority, and sealed his assertion
by his own life-blood.'
hands of Wycliffe and Hus, definitely failed. The
mediaeval system had indeed been challenged by that
movement, which had resulted from the glaring scandals
of Avignon and the papal Schism but the system,
;
though severely shaken, yet remained and pontiffs ;
such as Martin V, Eugenius IV and Pius II were able

by politic means to bolster it up through a restoration
of influence, mainly of a temporal nature, to the Papacy.
The Conciliar method of reform failed
ecclesiastical
for a variety of reasons partly because of defects in
organization and policy, still more because of a natural

failure to recognize the great significance of national
differences and the need, or at least the demand, for
variety of states, which produced

treatment as between
the Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges and Mainz, of the
years 1438 and 1439 respectively; yet more, precisely
because the attempted reforms were not sufficiently far-
reaching and thorough in character, a tinkering, not a
renewal.
The movements of Wycliffe and Hus were also
abortive of
really direct results.
Lollardy certainly
lived on, but, as has been already noted, probably did
not have any considerable influence among the various
forces which brought about the English Reformation.
The influence of Hus in Bohemian history is far greater
and the triumphs of Ziska and Prokop in the wars that
are known after the name of the great heresiarch won
national and religious independence for the Czechs up
to the time of the battle of the White Mountain in the
Thirty Years War. It is true also that Luther expressed
his own indebtedness to Hus, declaring, 'W e have all 7
been Husites without knowing it/ Nevertheless, the

decisive influences which brought about the complete
overthrow of the mediaeval system and the substitution
of the modern belong to the later fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries. These influences were the humanism,
which in its Italian form became critical, pagan, drawing
its influence from the Greek world to which all the
' '
ages of faith had been as an opaque curtain ; which in

itsGerman form had a theological bias and a moral aim,
as interpreted by Reuchlin and the school of Deventer.
The other influence was the apotheosis of a cynical
nationalism, whose exponent is Machiavelli, which pro-
duced the secularization of politics and the segregation
of Church and State.
is, therefore, fanciful and erroneous to trace back
It
the causes of the Reformation and the break-down of
the mediaeval world-state to the mediaeval heresies and
movements of reform. 1 On the other hand, to ignore
them would be equally mistaken. They had a minor
effect, but it was not insignificant. It may be the
violence of the storm that rends and tears away the
structure yet its havoc has been aided by the almost
;
unseen, unheeded shifting of the sands.

1
See, however, J. A History of Modern Liberty (1906),
Mackinnon,
vol. i, p. 162 :
'
The
defiance of the Council was the prelude of the
modern Reformation. It was a distinct intimation not merely of a
solitary reformer like Wiclif or Hus, but of a body of men who claimed
to speak in the name of a whole people, that they would not submit
to traditional authority per se. It was a plea for fair discussion of
matters of controversy, and a protest against the principle of stifling
inquiry and dissent by such authority. Otherwise the reason and
intelligence of the inquirer will revolt in the name of conscience, justice
and religion.'
CHAPTER VI
THE MAGIC ARTS
(i) Sorcery
IF such phenomena as the Flagellant and dancing manias,
the acceptance of such persons as Guglielma and Segarelli
as divine incarnations is evidence of the depth of credulous
superstition among the ignorant lower orders, the great
witchcraft and sorcery craze, especially in the fifteenth
century, is proof of a much wider diffusion of such a
spirit in mediaeval society. Christianity early accepted
the belief in magic arts unquestioningly. The story of
the Witch of Endor would have been sufficient evidence,
even had it stood alone : which it was far from doing,
for the Bible was full of references to magicians,
demoniacs, and soothsayers. Thus it was in disbelief in
such things, not in belief, that heresy lay. Incredulity
challenged the authority of Scripture. Nor was it to be
argued that the existence of evil spirits in Old Testa-
ment history was no warrant of their existence now.
The mediaeval world was profoundly conscious of the
powers of Satan being abroad in the earth. It discerned
the clear sign of their presence in the frequent occurrence
of disaster to the undeserving, in the fits of the epileptic ;
it discerned them in the wizened features of the shrivelled
old woman who muttered inarticulately as she gathered

her herbs. Given the combination of an ignorant and
wondering fear of the bewildering riddles of nature and
the cold strangeness of the stars with a sincere con-
viction of the reality of that evil potentate who is at
war with God, causing disaster among men and having
subtle communion with the human heart, inspiring to
wicked deeds and hideous thoughts, it is small wonder
that imagination peopled the world with sorcerers,
magicians and witches.
106 THE MAGIC ARTS
And the evidence was so extraordinarily sound. No
reasonable man could resist the force of it. It was
not only the proverbially superstitious Middle Ages that
believed in occult arts ;
no one had a more wholesome
faith in these matters than Luther, and no country
surpassed Protestant Scotland in the savage cruelty of
'
its witch-trials. Richard Baxter, in his The Certainty

of the World of Spirits/ was able to give numerous well
authenticated cases from his own lifetime and the
;
sceptical man of science, Glanvill, showed that unreason,

not reason, rejected the evidence for witchcraft. All
history was full of the exploits of these instruments of
'
darkness, and not the easily deceivable vulgar only/

' '
but wise and grave discerners were first-hand wit-
'
nesses, who had no interest to agree together in a

common lie/ *
The magicians and witches being almost
universally
believed followed as a corollary that they were
in, it
punished for their nefarious practices but whereas ;
in the pagan Roman world they had been punished

simply on politic grounds, the magician being punished
because he injured man, not because he offended God/ 2
'
in the Christian era the offence was regarded as a much

more heinous sin. In days of polytheism the state could
be tolerant of certain magic practices not so Christi- ;
anity, which regarded all pagan deities as emanations of

the Devil. The punishments, save under the apostate
Julian, were usually of a most ferocious character,
Glanvill, A Blow at Sadducism (1688), p. 5.
1
J. Cf. pp. 32-3 :
to reserve all the clear circumstances of Fact, which we find in

'
But
well attested and confirmed Relations of this kind into the power of
deceivable imagination, is to make fancy the greater Prodigy ; and
to suppose, that it can do stranger feats than are believed of any other
kind of function. And to think that Pins and Nails, for instance,
can by the power of imagination be conveyed within the skin or ;
that imagination should deceive so many as have been witnesses in

objects of sense, in all the circumstances of discovery this, I say, is
;
to be infinitely more credulous than the assertors of sorcery and

Demoniack Contracts. And by the same reason it may be believed
that all the Battels and strange events of the world, which our selves
have not seen, are but dreams and fond imaginations.'
*
W. E. H. Lecky, Rationalism in Europe (1904), vol. i, p. 18.
THE MAGIC ARTS 107
1
reputed magicians being crucified or flung to wild beasts.
But while thus zealous in punishing the magician, there
isno doubt that Christianity itself became contaminated,
and in the Dark Ages thaumaturgy became rife within
the Church. On the other hand, while in the Eastern
Empire sorcery continued to be punished with severity,
the Teutonic tribes in the west, who in their pagan
days had been thoroughly imbued with magic beliefs,
were more or less tolerant. During the epoch of the
Carolingian empire ecclesiastical lenience, tempered by
occasional mob violence, was the rule and such lenience
;
or indifference continued in western Europe till the end

of the twelfth century. 2 Roger Bacon, unlike learned ;
philosophers of later and presumably more enlightened ;
periods, gave it as his opinion that reputed sorcery was {
either fraudulent or a delusion. There are instances of

severity on the part
of the secular authority in Spain,
and the mediaeval legislation against sorcery was
first
introduced in Venice in the twelfth century yet the ;
Church remained apparently indifferent. And when the

j
Inquisition came into being, it was not given authority J
in cases of witchcraft and sorcery. A

change is to be
traced from Alexander IV's bull, Quod super nonnullis,
issued in 1257, which laid it down that inquisitors were
not to be distracted from their all-important duties by
other business and were to leave cases of simple sorcery
to the ordinary ecclesiastical tribunals on the other ;
hand, in sorcery cases where heresy was clearly involved,

they were to take cognizance. This became the Canon
law under Boniface VIII. 3
Now, when did sorcery clearly involve heresy ?
It was not difficult to argue that it invariably did.
Sorcery was invoking demons, trafficking with Satan,

and to do this a man must surely entertain heretical ideas
about Satan and demons. Certainly, if a man dealt
in such trafficking, holding it to be not sinful, he was
1
See W. E. H. Lecky, Rationalism in Europe (1904), vol. i, pp. 34-5.
2
See Lea, vol. iii, pp. 422-9.
3
See ibid., p. 434.
io8 THE MAGIC ARTS
a manifest heretic. 1 Again, to seek to acquire knowledge
of the future from Satan, the future depending solely
on the Almighty, involved heresy. Under the title,
sorcery, there came to be included astronomy's parent,
astrology.
2
Some men of unquestioned orthodoxy gave
their sanction and support to it, notably Cardinal D'Ailly ;
and was not apparently definitely forbidden during
it
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in ecclesiastical

formularies. But clearly, although there was no question
of invoking demons in connection with astrology, on
the other hand, the astrologer by maintaining that a
man's destiny was controlled by the conjunction of
stars and planets at his birth was denying the freedom
of the will, questioning the omnipotence of God, conse-
quently being guilty of manifest blasphemy and heresy.

Accordingly, the astrologer was always liable to prosecu-
tion by the
Inquisition. The best security lay in the
fact that belief in astrology was extremely widespread
among classes of society, among clergy as well as
all
laity, of whatever degree of education.

In the fourteenth
century there was a marked increase in sorcery. This
was probably the direct consequence of persecution on
the grounds of heresy such persecution being in a
way the highest possible testimony to its genuineness.
For the Inquisition never dealt with a reputed magician
as a charlatan it dealt with him as one really in league
;
with Satan. Otherwise there would have been no

heresy involved. The attitude of the Church towards
sorcery its attribution of heresy to the magician
1
Sprenger, Malleus Maleficarum (Frankfort ed., 1582), vol. i,
pp. 488-9 : Et eodem modo de adorantibus Daemone & sacrifi-
'
cantibus ei quia si hoc faciunt, credentes Divinitatem esse in Daemon-

ibus, vel credentes quod cultus latriae sit ei exhibendus, vel quod
omnino ex exhibitione talis cultus, assequantur quod requirunt a
Diabolo, non obstate Dei prohibitione, seu etiam permissione, tales
essent haeretici. Sed si ista faciunt non ita sentientes de Daemone ;
sed ut aliquo pacto cum Daemone facilius per ista exequantur ab ipso
quod intendunt, tales non sunt haeretici natura rei, licet gravissime
peccent.'
2
A. Albertini, De Agnoscendis assertionibus Catholicis in Zilettus,
Tractatus Universi Juris, vol. xi, pt. ii, pp. 65-6. Cf. J. Simancas,
De Catholicis Institutionibus in Zilettus, ibid., p. 144 (Tit. xxi).
THE MAGIC ARTS 109
actually put a premium upon sorcery. The sorcerer

was the more in request because people were more
than ever convinced that his claims were well founded,
and he was able to make more out of his calling because
it had become precarious. For these reasons the extreme
zeal of Pope John XXII against all workers of magic
failed in its object. In 1317 he satisfied himself, on
grounds good or bad, that several persons in his house-
hold had been plotting to take his life. Under torture
they stated that they had first had recourse to poison,
but that that ordinary humdrum method having failed,
they had next invoked the assistance of demons to
accomplish their purpose. The Pope was roused to
thorough and energetic action, and started a resolute
campaign against the accursed race of magicians. Dis-
satisfied with the ambiguous terms of Alexander IV's
directions to the Inquisition in matters of sorcery, he
gave it direct authority in such cases and urged it to
1
earnest Ten years later, however, for some
efforts.
reason or other, he withdrew this jurisdiction from the
Inquisition and it is to be gathered that there ensued
;
a period of comparative immunity for sorcery until ^
1374, when Gregory XI once more entrusted the task

of prosecuting magicians to the Holy Office.
The two most remarkable men to fall into the hands
of the Inquisition as sorcerers were Peter of Abano and
the Marechal Gilles de Rais. 2 The former, an astro-
loger, undoubtedly harboured speculations which were
flagrantly heretical but he escaped the stake by dying
;
a natural death before his trial was concluded. The

latter the original of the Blue-beard of the fairy-tale
had been the constant and intimate companion of
Jeanne d'Arc during her leadership of the French
armies. Of such military distinction as to be made a
1 '
Lea, vol. iii, p. 454 Inquisitors
:
began to insert a clause
. . .
renouncing sorcery in all abjurations administered to repentant heretics,

so that in case they should become addicted to it they could be promptly
burned for relapse.'
2
For Peter of Abano, see supra, pp. 69, 70, and Lea, vol. iii,
p. 440 for Gilles de Rais, ibid., pp. 468-89.

;
no THE MAGIC ARTS
Marshal of France at the age of twenty-five, he was
also a man of culture, of a restless curiosity and an
intense love of things brilliant and beautiful, of rich
colours and ornaments, of all that was costly, magnificent
and ornate. But beneath all the gorgeous external
trappings of this aesthete was something much more
pernicious than mere vulgar ostentation. A depraved
voluptuary, he found that the ordinary modes of
satisfying his sensuality soon palled, and they were
succeeded by the most horrible unnatural lusts and
the slow torture leading to murder of his victims, in
the watching of which this monster eventually came
to find his chief delight. While he indulged himself
in such enormities, de Rais' other great interest in life
was the practice of the necromantic art, by which he
hoped eventually to discover the philosopher's stone,
which would place him in command of all the wealth
of the world. Notwithstanding the character of his
favourite pursuits, the Marshal was at the same time
particularly devout, showing an even perfervid faith,
and now and again resolving to make atonement for
his sins by going on crusade, never doubting that by
this means he would wipe out all the stain of his mis-
deeds and eventually attain to salvation. In spite of
all this outward appearance of devotion, it is remarkable
that de Rais succeeded in maintaining his abominable
way so long without question. But secrecy and im-
munity could not last indefinitely. Stories came to be
bruited about of strange and loathsome happenings
within the castle of Tiffanges, of children being slain
in order that with their blood the sensualist magician
might write a book of necromantic art. Even then,
owing to the Marshal's high position, it was difficult
to strike. But eventually the Bishop of Nantes took
action, citing de Rais to appear before him on the
charges of having gratified his lust on children, whom
he had subsequently butchered, of having invoked
a familiar spirit with atrocious rites, and of having
committed other crimes also suggestive of heresy. The
THE MAGIC ARTS in
trial that ensued was abnormal in several respects,
the most notable being its publicity, public opinion
being deliberately called into play, the fathers and
mothers of the children, who had been spirited away
into the monster's castle, being allowed to let loose their
1
clamourings against the villain. Action was taken in
a court contemporaneously with the ecclesiastical
civil
proceedings before bishop and inquisitors. In the

ecclesiastical court he was found guilty on both counts
unnatural lust and sacrilege
first, second, heresy ;
and the invocation of demons but his death-sentence ;
was pronounced in the civil court. The extraordinary

man underwent the final penalty with a contrition,
an assurance of salvation and an enthusiasm for God
which must have been strangely edifying. 2
(ii) Witchcraft
The great witchcraft craze did not seize upon Europe

until the beginning of the fifteenth century. It is true
that for hundreds of years before this crimes, which
became associated with the name of witchcraft, had
been known and punished, but until the twelfth century
we do not find the precise well-defined conception of
the witch as a woman who has entered into an unholy
compact with Satan, is in possession of certain miraculous
powers and in particular that of transporting herself
through the air to the so-called Sabbath, or rather
Sabbat, where she and her kind meet together to renew
Ordinarily inquisitorial trials were secret. Another abnormal

1
feature in this case was the presence of a prosecutor the third was ;
that the court was really a joint one, being in part the bishop and
inquisitors sitting together as a tribunal of the Holy Office to hear
the charge of heresy, in part the bishop sitting as president of the
ordinary episcopal court, the inquisitors not included, to hear the
charge of unnatural lust with which the Inquisition was not competent
to deal.
2
Cf. Lea, vol. iii, p. 486 :
'
The morning saw the extraordinary
spectacle of the clergy, followed by the whole population of Nantes,
who had been clamouring for his death, marching through the streets
and singing and praying for his salvation.'
ii2 THE MAGIC ARTS
their allegiance to the Prince of Darkness. It is very
likely that the idea of the omnipresence of the powerful

and maleficent force of Satan took greater hold of western
Europe than ever before in the twelfth century, that
marvellous period of the earlier Renaissance, when men's
minds were quickened to a new realization of the splendour
and beauty of things of the earth, when heresy took
a firm root, and doubt and hesitation sometimes usurped
the place of a faith which had been childlike and un-
questioning, a period of clashing between intellectual
aspiration and the inflexibility of dogma, such that the
timid and the ignorant were assailed by a vivid con-
sciousness of the dangers pressing around the Ark of the
Lord upon every side, of the sinister might of the dark
powers arrayed against the Redeemer. In such cir-
cumstances more insistent, more clearly defined became
trieconception of those evil beings going about in the
world, who had sold themselves to the Devil and were
assisting him in his fell purposes. 1
first the Church refused its sanction to the popular
At
tales about witches, more especially to the tale of the
Sabbat and the transportation of witches through the
air, often over immense distances. The canonists, Ivo
of Chartres and Gratian, dismiss this as a fiction which :
to believe is pagan, an error in the faith in short heresy.

But popular credence triumphed over the canonists.
The reports of the witches became so
activities of
numerous, so determined and so circumstantial that it

was wellnigh impossible to disbelieve. It became
simply a question of how to reconcile well-authenticated
facts with the canonists. A way out of the dilemma
was discovered in the fifteenth century, at a time when
the craze had almost reached its height. The witches
meant by the canonists must have been a different order
of being from those referred to by a later generation
when they spoke of witches. It was merely a matter
of nomenclature after all. Those responsible not only
for guarding the purity of the faith but also for pro-
1
Lecky, Rationalism in Europe, vol. i, pp. 47-53.
THE MAGIC ARTS 113
tecting the faithful from the assaults of the Evil One as

delivered by witches could no longer allow their freedom
of action to be curtailed, the powers of the Devil actuali ^
aggrandized by the misinterpreted ruling that belief

in witches was error. Accordingly, when a certain
eminent lawyer named Ponzinibio dared to maintain
the accuracy of the canonists and to assert that all belief
in witchcraft and sorcery was a delusion, the master of
the Sacred Palace, Bartholomew de Spina, wrote a
vehement and momentous reply, in which he turned the
vials of a righteous indignation against Ponzinibio and
called upon the Inquisition to proceed against the lawyer
1
as himself a fautor of heretics. The attitude of the
Church had indeed made a complete reversal. What
previously it had been heresy to assert it now became
heresy to deny. The divine law was now discovered
clearly to prove the existence of witches, and the
2
Scriptures were reinforced by the civil code. There no
longer remained any room for doubt or equivocation.
Before the end of the century there appeared Sprenger's
'
celebrated Malleus Maleficarum/ the most authoritative
work in existence on witchcraft from the standpoint
3
of credulity. Sprenger was an inquisitor, so that in
his compendium, as in other similar treatises, we have
the conclusions regarding the nature and the practices
of witches, as ascertained by the examination of
supposedly authentic cases. We learn in the first place
the fundamental fact which explains the existence
of witches the inherent inferiority of the female sex
to the male. Women are discontented, impatient
creatures, who have a natural proclivity to evil. Woman
is at the best a necessary evil. St. Chrysostom is
quoted with approval on the subject of marriage. Quid

'
est mulier nisi amicitiae inimica, ineffugabilis poena,
1
See Bart. Spin, in Ponzinibium de lamiis Apologia prima in
Malleorum quorundam Maleficarum tarn veterum quam recentiorum
aufh rum
tomi duo (Frankfort, 1582), vol. ii, pp. 623 et seq.
2
Ibid., vol.
i, pp. 1-8 in Sprenger's Malleus Maleficarum.
8
For a critique of Sprenger's work, see J. Michelet, La Sorciere in
(Euvres Completes (Paris, 1893-9), pp. 481-96.
I
ii4 THE MAGIC ARTS
necessarium malum, naturalis tentatio, desirabilis
calamitas, domesticum periculum, delect abile detri-
1
mentum ? . . .'
Everything considered, it was not
at all strange that women should be particularly prone
to yielding to the corrupt wiles and solicitations of the
Devil. Once bought by him, they received the sustenance
for their infamous activities in the Sabbat, the great
nocturnal assembly of the powers of darkness, held some-
times in the Brocken, sometimes in some unidentified
spot east of Jordan, or indeed it might be in any spot
chosen by Satan. To the try sting-place, however distant
it might be, the witches flew through the air. This aerial
transportation to the Sabbat was in the opinion of
Sprenger and other first-rate authorities certainly no
illusion, it was a reality only, according to Sprenger,
the witch travelled in an aerial body, a vaporous part
of herself, which issued out of her mouth and by the
existence of which she was enabled to be in two places
at one and the same time. 2 At the nocturnal assemblage
there took place the offering of unqualified allegiance
to the Devil, feasting, dancing and sexual intercourse,
either with Satan himself or some of his demons. 3 Foul
details occur in plenty in all the fifteenth-century treatises
on witchcraft concerning the sexual abominations
' ' '
practised by succubi
incubi and '
at the Sabbat.
From such horrid intercourse, we are informed by our
authors, proceed giants and wizards, such as Merlin, but
4
never an ordinary human being.
1
Sprenger, vol. 94 ; also Michelet, op. cit., p. 321.
i, p.
2
Albertini, op. in Zilettus, vol. xi, pt. ii, p. 85 also Sprenger,
cit., ;
etc., vol. ii, pp. 262-4, and, generally, pp. 250 et seq., De modoquo localiter
transferuntur de loco ad locum.
'
3
Fr6d6ricq, Documents, vol. i, p. 371. Et illecq leur remontra
comment ils avoient este" en ladite vaulderie, et fait tout ce que dessus
mesme que aulcunes d'icelles, qui estoient la presentes, avoient
ai dit, et
este cognues carnellement du diable d'enfer, 1'une en forme de lievre,
1'autre en forme de renard, 1'autre en forme de thor, 1'aultre en forme
d'homme et autant en forme de quelques bestes
'
from Memoires de
Jacques du Clercq.
4
Sprenger, pp. 40 et seq., p. 773. See also in vol. ii. of Malleorum
. .tomi duo, Tractatus utilis et necessarius per viam Dialogi, de
.
Pythonicis mulieribus, pp. 56-7.

THE MAGIC ARTS 115
Bartholomew de Spina gives us a variety of cir-
cumstantial stories about women who had taken part
in the witches' gathering. One or two may be taken
as samples of a large class. A respected burgomaster
studied in his youth at Parma. Returning to his
lodgings one night late, he knocked in vain at the
door. He by the window and
therefore let himself in
went upstairs, where he found the maid-servant lying
prone on the floor, naked and so inert as to appear
dead. When she at last came to herself, she acknow-
ledged that she had been to the Sabbat. This case,
comments Spina, proves that in the transportation to
the Sabbat no corporal transference is involved. The
body of the girl had lain all the time on the floor,
1
only her aerial spirit had been absent. Again, a man
one day finds his wife lying in an outhouse insen-
sible, and on recovery she confesses to having been to
the concourse. He is horrified, and, determined to rid
himself of his atrocious spouse, gives information against
her to the Inquisition, so that she may be burnt. The
woman apparently escaped this fate by drowning herself.
2
One suspects a somewhat simpler explanation than

witchcraft of this tale of conjugal infelicity. Another
similar account is of a citizen of Ferrara, whose wife
was in the habit of attending the Sabbat. One night he,
pretending to be asleep, saw his wife rise, anoint herself
and fly out of the window. As soon as she was gone
he got up, and apparently succeeded in tracking her to
the wine-cellar of a noble of the town, where he found
her together with a number of witches. Directly he
was seen, they all disappeared. The unfortunate husband,
however, could not get away and was there discovered
by the servants of the house, who very naturally took
him for a burglar. Happily he succeeded in giving
satisfactory explanations to the owner of the house.
At the earliest possible opportunity he gave information
against his wife, whom he handed over to the punishment
1
Sprenger, etc., pp/458-g in Bartholomew de Spina's De Strigibus.
2
Ibid., pp.459-60.
n6 THE MAGIC ARTS
she had deserved. 1 Here again we get the hint that the
charge of witchcraft might be a useful weapon in the
armoury of a husband, should he desire for one reason or
another to separate from his wife for good. Another
tale is of a girl who saw her mother rise out of bed,
anoint herself and fly out of the window. The girl
did likewise, acquiring apparently the power of flight
on the instant, and she found herself transported into
her mother's presence. Then, being frightened, she
called upon the names of Jesus and the Virgin, and there-
upon found herself back in her bed. 2
The witches, who entered into their unholy compact
with Satan at the Sabbat, were there invested with
various tremendous and abominable powers. Unlike
sorcerers and magicians, who occasionally used their
black art to good purposes, witches could work nothing
else but evil. They were particularly fond of interfering
with procreation, where both men and women, because of
the connection with original sin, were most vulnerable.
They produced sterility in the one sex, impotence in the
other. 3 Indeed it could be taken practically for certain
that these two evils were invariably due to witchcraft.
Witches also produced abortion and interfered with the
flow of the mother's milk. 4 They sometimes offered
up infants at their birth to demons were vampires
;
and sustained themselves by sucking children's blood. 5

They were able to transform men and women into beasts,
to create tempests and thunder-storms. 6 Indeed they
went about the world doing all manner of noxious damage,
ranging in seriousness from the breaking of crucifixes
to the destruction of human life. In their peregrinations
they were much assisted by their being able to transform
Sprenger, p. 546.
de Spina, pp. 544-5.
Sprenger, pp. 103-25, 267 et seq. ; also in vol. ii of Malleorum
. . tomi duo, De Pythonicis mulieribus, pp. 42-3.
Sprenger, pp. 152 et seq. and 354.
Ibid., pp. 152 et seq., 341 et seq. ; de Spina, in vol. ii, p. 502.
Sprenger, pp. 141 et seq., 296-301, 360 et seq. ; De Pythonicis
mulieribus, in vol. ii, pp. 65 et seq.
THE MAGIC ARTS 117
themselves into the likeness of animals, particularly of
cats, so that it was very difficult to keep them out of
1
any dwelling-house they cared to visit. Indeed so
powerful and versatile were witches supposed to be,
not only by vulgar report, but according to authoritative
statement, that it may seem difficult to understand how
it could be imagined that
any human agency could ever
get the better of them.
But something had to be done. The evil tended to
grow so disastrously, in this helped as a matter of fact
as in the case of sorcery by the Church's decision that
the magic arts were no mere delusion but reality, and
that while the practiser of them was a heretic, to believe
that he or she was no charlatan but genuinely in league
with the Devil was sound doctrine. In this way were
men and women encouraged, whenever ill-fortune befell
them, to find a facile explanation for unmerited calamity
in such an intrinsically innocent incident, for example,
as that of a sinister-looking old woman with a hooked
nose having peered in at their cottage window. The
simple fact of being found wandering alone in fields or
woods after nightfall constituted legitimate evidence
before the Inquisition. Or again, if an old woman said
to someone who had injured her, You will repent of this,'
'
and some misfortune subsequently occurred to the latter,

the old woman might easily on such trivial grounds be
2
suspect.
One of the most interesting and remarkable pheno-
mena of the history of witchcraft is that of the self-
confessed witch, the woman who deliberately and of her
own accord gave herself out to be possessed of super-
natural powers in spite of the terrible peril incurred by
such an announcement. The explanation of this is
partly economic the law of supply and demand operat-
ing in the case of the occult arts as a marketable
commodity, just as in any other partly psychological.
Particularly when there was such unimpeachable
Sprenger, p. 310 ; De Pythonicis mulieribus, in vol.
1
ii, p. 75.
8
See Sprenger, p. 581. Cf. Lea, vol. iii, p. 508.
u8 THE MAGIC ARTS
authority for the reality and potency of the black arts,
there were always people quite anxious to avail themselves
of the means of fore-knowledge of, or avenging an injury,
or discomfiting a rival, and to pay handsomely for the
privilege. The demand existing, there were not wanting
those willing to satisfy it, to accept the risk in view of
the generosity of the remuneration. Sometimes the
reputed witch succeeded in persuading herself that she
was one in very deed. Some curious coincidence, the
desired object actually occurring after the utterance of
spells and incantations, persuaded the superstitious mind,
'
arguing post hoc ergo propter hoc/ that the spells and
incantations held in them a miraculous power. The
wretched woman wouldthen with a vain pride or a
trembling apprehensive awe perceive in herself a being
1
supernatural. But clearly the greater proportion of
witchcraft lore is founded upon confessions wrung by
means of the rack from the supposed culprit when brought
before a civil or inquisitorial tribunal.
We do not know definitely when the Inquisition was
first employed against witchcraft but certainly in 1374
;
, it was determined by the papacy that the Holy Office
was competent to try such cases. 2 In 1437 Eugenius IV

called upon inquisitors everywhere to exert themselves
3
against the And there is no question that through-
evil.
out the fifteenth century the tribunal carried on a crusade
against witchcraft with great assiduity. Although
Sprenger was moved to confess that the extirpation
of the pest seemed an impossibility, being inclined to
1
A very effective play based upon this idea is that of H. Wiers-
Jenssen, of which the English version is The Witch, by John Masefield.
2
It was so decided by Gregory XI, when the right of the French
inquisition in the matter was challenged. Papal commissions issued
to inquisitors early in the fifteenth century specifically enumerate
sorcery and witchcraft among offences with which they are to deal.
3
See Sprenger, pp. 492-3. Innocent VIII gave a great impetus
to persecution of witches in 1485 by his bull, Summis desider antes,
in which all the malignant powers of the witch were enumerated. It
was this bull that gave authority to Jacob Sprenger, the author of
Malleus Maleficarum. It was supplemented by others of a similar
character issued by Julius II and Alexander VI.
THE MAGIC ARTS 119
lay the blame on the carelessness and inactivity of the

secular authority, 1 nevertheless the number of execu-
tions was terrible. We
are told that in a single year the
Bishop of Bamberg destroyed six hundred witches, the
Bishop of Wiirzburg nine hundred.
2
A thousand perished
in the same space of time in the diocese of Como. 3 The
execution of witches, then, both in this century and the
next, assumed great proportions, largely owing to the
thoroughness of inquisitorial proceedings, though it must
be added despite Sprenger's animadversions upon its
slackness that actually the civil authority was respon-
sible for many. The Inquisition, therefore, must bear
much blame for the spread of witchcraft, or rather
of the
for it amounted to the same thing for the witchcraft
craze. Largely in its records were collected the great
stores of indisputable evidence of the reality of that
heresy which it had become one of the functions of the
tribunal to eradicate. reason of its constitution and
By
its methods of procedure the Inquisition was always
a very effective court but it was especially so in the
;
case of witches, because in dealing with them the inquisitor

felt that he was engaged in a personal combat with
Satan himself, and that he had to exert all his powers in
order to withstand, still more to overcome, so formidable
an adversary. Indeed it was very fortunate that he
was able to comfort himself with the knowledge that he
was impervious to the attacks of witchcraft. Never-
theless it was felt necessary to take special precautions. 4
Torture was used thoroughly where witches were /
concerned, and no doubt the delirium thus occasioned,

I
1
Sprenger, pp. 172-82.
2
See Lecky, op. cit., vol. i, p. 3 Michelet, op. cit., p. 10.
;
3
Malleorumtomi duo, vol. ii, p. 520.
*
Sprenger, p. 214. Inquisitoribus Maleficae non possunt nocere.
In oppido nempe Ravenspurg, cum a consulibus Maleficae incinerandae
*
interrogarentur, cur nobis inquisitoribus aliqua maleficia, sicut aliia

hominibus, non intulissent, Responderunt Licet pluries hoc facere
:
attentassent, non tamen potuerunt. Et de causa inquirentibus,

respondebant se nescire, nisi quod a Daemonibus informatae fuissent.'
Nevertheless, ibid., p. 559, inquisitors should be careful not to allow
themselves to be touched by wizards and witches.
120 THE MAGIC ARTS
the victim being willing to put an end to her torments by
saying what she knew her judge wanted her to say or
imagined he would like to hear, was productive of many
of the most marvellous witch stories to be found in
inquisitorial archives. But the severity of the torture
administered in these cases was due to the extraordinary
obduracy frequently shown by the victims. Such
obstinacy was taken as proof positive of Satanic assis-
tance afforded to these servants of hell, and the inquisitor
was therefore goaded to greater and greater cruelty,
because he felt himself put upon his mettle. The silence
of the accused thus became positive evidence of guilt, as
damning as confession under the pains of rack or pulley
1
perhaps even more so. The gift of taciturnity, it
was conjectured, might be due to the wearing of a charm
somewhere on the person, so that as a preliminary to
the application the alleged witch had to be divested of
all her clothing for thorough investigation to be made. 2
It was held that a witch was unable to shed tears under

torment, whereas as Sprenger urges sententiously it is
natural for women to weep. It was desirable therefore
to adjure the accused to shed tears. 3 If this solemn
exhortation was successful and the victim did cry and
lament under torture, she was not necessarily the better
off for this might well be a device to deceive, a wile of
;
the Devil's to defeat the ends of justice. The inquisitor,

ever on the alert to discover such signs of Satanic inter-
vention, was apt to disbelieve in the genuineness of the
witch's tears accordingly. Thus, whether it produced
confession or only obduracy, lamentation or silence,
torture was in any event practically certain to be success-
ful. Indeed anyone defamed of witchcraft before the
Inquisition became so inextricably enmeshed in the toils
that escape from conviction was hardly possible save in
the event of being able to prove that the accuser was
1
Sprenger, p. 549.
8
Ibid., pp. 552-3.
3
Ibid., p. 557. The adjuration was by the bitter tears of Christ
shed on the Cross for the sins of the world, by the tears shed by the
glorious Virgin Mary, by those shed by all the saints and elect of God
on earth.
THE MAGIC ARTS 121
actuated by mortal enmity. 1 And even the most per-

sistent silence must, one imagines, practically always in
the end have been overborne. A sufficiently prolonged
continuance of torture must have produced the desired
result answers to leading questions about the Sabbat,
detailed descriptions culled from the imagination of
demon orgies, confessions as to the invocation of evil
spiritsand malpractices carried on by their help, finally
the incrimination of others. So the witchcraft legend
grewin substance, in precision, in lurid picturesqueness.
From the lips of the witches themselves came the authentic
particulars of the Sabbat, the Sittings through the air
on broomsticks, the blasting of human lives by foul
spells, the inculpation of ever-increasing numbers in the
guilt and the heresy of witchcraft.
There is a most striking illustration of the astonishing
efficacy of inquisitorial methods in effectively defeating
their purpose, and actually producing the spread of the
witchcraft craze, in the famous case of the Vaudois or
witches of Arras in the years 1459-1460, when the
arrest of a single alleged witch led to the inculpation of
one after another, each new victim in her torments
naming others, including many of the wealthiest and
most important as well as the humblest citizens, so
that at length a positive panic was created. 2 Not a
single member of the community in Arras could feel
himself or herself secure. No one dared leave the city
for fear that that innocent act might be seized upon as
a confession of guilt, and no one cared to enter for fear
of falling into the hands of the tribunal, thus busily
engaged in investigating an outburst of heresy of such
alarming proportions. To such a pass did things come
that the material prosperity of Arras was seriously
prejudiced, as people became afraid of having any
dealings with the
city. One dangerous source of economic
disturbance was that all creditors demanded instant
1
Such enmity had to be really mortal and well authenticated ;
view was that of necessity a witch always

for the inquisitorial point of
would excite a great deal of enmity. Allegations of enmity must,
therefore, always be carefully sifted. See Sprenger, pp. 542 et seq.
8
For the whole remarkable story, see Lea, vol. iii, pp. 519-34.
122 THE MAGIC ARTS
payment of their dues, fearing that their debtors might be
among those arrested, seeing that conviction involved the
confiscation of the victim's property, and in such a case
the creditor was held to have no claim on any part of it.
In producing such results as these the inquisitor
was no doubt ever most sincere and disinterested,
genuinely aghast at the magnitude of the evil he was
charged to suppress, wholly blind to the fact that its
magnitude was mainly of his own creation. And in

the feeling that there could be no security so long as
the witch remained alive, he only shared the popular
view. It was simply the universal conviction that the
appropriate punishment of witchcraft and the only sure
remedy against it was death by fire. Nor was the
inquisitor alone in bringing offenders to the stake. The
civil courts and the ordinary episcopal courts were no
more lenient than the Holy Office. Even in Protestant
countries, where there was no Inquisition, the lot of
the supposed witch in the sixteenth century was no
more tolerable than in those countries where the
Inquisition still continued to flourish. The belief in the
realityof witchcraft had taken firm root everywhere,
and Catholic and Protestant were alike in their literal
'
interpretation of the terrible words of Scripture, Thou

shalt not suffer a witch to live/ which seemed to afford
all-sufficient sanction for the inexorable judgments of
all tribunals, whether clerical or lay. At the same time
the part played by the Inquisition forms one of the most
important chapters in the history of witchcraft, as it
was the most efficient and energetic tribunal engaged in
the prosecution of the heresy in its earlier days, inasmuch
especially as it contributed so much to the spread of the
belief by the convinced fanaticism of its members and
those methods of obtaining evidence, which not only led to
sure conviction and constant incriminations, but actually
provided the raw material of supposed fact on which
credulity was based. The voluminous records of the holy
tribunal, the learned treatises of its members are the
great repositories of the true and indisputable facts con-
cerning the abominable heresies of sorcery and witchcraft.
PART II
THE INQUISITION
CHAPTER I
ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH TOWARDS HERESY

PRIOR TO THE INSTITUTION OF THE INQUISITION
THE literal and fundamental meaning of the word Heresy
is choosing. The heretic is the man who selects certain
doctrines, discards others, giving rein to individual
preference in the realm of religious belief. Such an
attitude is essentially incompatible with the conception
that the truth has once and for all been delivered to the
saints, that the faith is indivisible and unalterable, to
be accepted in its entirety. It is easily understood that
eclecticism should be regarded as a danger in the earliest
days of a new religion by its adherents. The first proselytes
are anxious to define those distinctive features which
mark it off from other religions for all religions have
:
certain elements in common. It was thus

in the early
stages of Christianity, which shared certain characteristics
with such beliefs as Mithraism, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism.
The idea of man's need of a mediator with heaven was
abroad in the Roman world before the Messiah was
proclaimed to it. There thus existed a danger of con-
fusion, that alien shoots of dogma might be grafted upon
the pure and original stock of Christianity. The influence
of such extraneous sources is apparent in the fourth
gospel. Even in the very earliest days when the body

of Christian belief consisted of little more than the
disciples' recollections of the sayings and actions of their

Founder, when the simplest conception of pure and
undefiled religion was being taught, 1 even then the
' '
faithful were warned to beware of false prophets/ false
1
James, i, 3.
124 ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH TO HERESY
'
teachers
'
who
privily shall bring in damnable heresies/
1
As the fabric of dogma began to be woven, the note

'
became vehement. St. Paul denounces false apostles,
deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the
Christ/ 2 In another place he declares, But
'
apostles of
though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other

gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto
3
you, let him be accursed/ So far, however, even the
idea of what constitutes heresy is vague, and the spirit
of tolerance and of broth erliness is strong. The offender
is not to be counted as an enemy, but admonished as a
brother. 4 The fact is that the flock is so small and the

pagan world outside so powerful that internal dissensions
cannot be permitted. But the new faith surviving,
doctrine becomes more stereotyped, the feeling of later
generations more confident. Poly carp finds the heretic
to be antichrist, who belongs to the Devil and is the oldest
son of Satan, 5 and Tertullian in one passage recommends
the employment of compulsion against the heretic. 6
Such language is not common among the early Fathers.
They are themselves members of a society liable to per-
secution, and they do not preach coercion. Lactantius
urges that the only weapon for Christians to use is their
reason they
; must defend their faith not by violence,
but persuasion. 7 The Church in those days had not the
opportunity to use force, even if it had wished to and :
this fact must be borne in mind in connection with

TertuUian's enunciation of the principle of tolerance,
when he declares that the selection of his mode of worship
is a man's natural right, the exercise of which cannot be
either harmful or profitable to his neighbour, and that

1 2 Peter, ii, i.
a
2 Corinth., xi, 13.
8
Galat., i, 8. See also ibid., iii, i, 3.
* 2
Thessal., iii, 15. Cf. Galat., iii, 1,3.
5
Polycarp, Epist. 7, in The Apostolic Fathers (ed. J. B. Lightfoot,
pp. 171, 179.
1891)^,
' ' Ad
officium haereticos compelli, non illici dignum est. Duritia
'
vincenda, non suadenda. Tertullian, Opera omnia (ed. Migne, Patrologia
latina), vol. ii, col. 125.
7
Lactantius, Divin. Instit., lib. v, cap. 20 (ed. Migne), vol. i, p. 615.
ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH TO HERESY 125
it isnot the part of a religion to compel men to embrace
1
it. In the (only apparent) contradiction between this
ruling and the counsel given regarding the treatment of
heretics, Tertullian laid down a principle of momentous
consequence for the future, namely, that while force
should not be applied to the unbeliever, its use is legitimate
in the case of the man who has once accepted the faith
and erred in it.
With the accession of Constantine, there dawned a
new era for the Christian Church. Till then the Roman
state had been neutral, when not actively hostile from ;
this time onwards, with one brief interval, it was an

active supporter. The Church became possessed of all
the enormous power of the imperial authority. The
civil order is definitely Christian, and one of the prime
duties of the Emperor, lord of the world, is the protection
of the Church. Constantine speedily showed himself
anxious to take a leading part in ecclesiastical matters.
He had recourse to torture, confiscation of property,
exile and possibly the death penalty also in harrying
the Donatists. 2
Donatism was a small thing in comparison with
Arianism, which shook the Christian Church to its
!
foundations. When the fathers of Nicaea decided the

'
intricate metaphysical question of consubstantial,' the
Emperor proclaimed exile for all who did not accept the
Council's decision. Against this determination to root
out their enemies, to establish one interpretation of truth
by force, the Fathers made no protest, but accepted the
intervention of the secular authority on their behalf.
There was no thought of the possible consequence of such
a pact in the future. 3 The triumph of the orthodox
was short-lived. The Arians were victorious later on
and in their turn persecuted the Trinitarians. The
Christians, said Julian the Apostate, treated each other
1
Tertullian, Opera omnia, vol. i, col. 699. Liber ad Scapulam,
cap. 2.
s
See De Cauzons, op. cit., vol. i, p. 150.
Ibid., p. 154.
like wild beasts. The punishments inflicted by one party
upon the other included imprisonment, flogging, torture,
death. To such a pass had doctrinal differences already
brought the adherents of a religion which proclaimed
peace and goodwill among men. The tradition of
persecution had been thoroughly established. The laws
of Theodosius II and Valentinian II enumerate as many
as thirty-two different heresies, all punishable, the
penalties being such as deprivation of civil rights, exile,
corporal punishment and death. But the heresies are
carefully differentiated, the severest penalties being
reserved for Manichaeism, which had been punished by
the Roman state in its pagan, polytheistic and tolerant
1
days, because of its anti-social tendencies. But now
orthodox emperors persecuted Arians, Arian emperors
persecuted followers of Athanasius, simply because they
had taken sides in a theological controversy.
What view did the Church take of the activities of
the lay power ? Was it actively approving or disapprov-
ing, or passively acquiescent ? We find some of the
Fathers still preaching the old doctrines of tolerance.
Athanasius, himself at the time persecuted, declared
that persecution was an invention of the Devil. To
Chrysostom heretics are as persons diseased, nearly blind,
assuredly to be led, not forced. He comments on the
parable of the tares, and urges the necessity of being very
2
careful, lest the godly be destroyed together with heretics.
Jerome remembers that the Church was founded upon
persecutions and martyrdoms and on the whole seems
to inculcate lenience in treatment of heretics, though a
remark to the effect that Arius, at first only a single spark,
not being immediately extinguished, set the whole world
1 See Philippe & Limborch, History of the Inquisition (trans. S.

Chandler, London, 1731), vol. i, p. 8 ; L. Tanon, Histoire des Tribunaux
de I' Inquisition en France (Paris, 1893), pp. 12733 ; De Cauzons,
vol. i, pp. 163-8; Cod. Theod., i, xvi, leges 3, 8, 12, 30, 33, 34, 35;
C. Moeller in Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique (Lou vain, 1913), vol. xiv,
pp. 728-9, Les buchers et les autos-da-fe depuis le moyen age.
* The Homilies
of St. John Chrysostom (Oxford ed., Pusey), Homily
xlvi, on Matt, xiii, pp. 630 et seq.
on fire, and that corrupted flesh must be cut off, points
to a different opinion. 1
The most significant of the later Fathers is St. Augustine.
In his case there is a notable change of front with regard
to the treatment of heretics. By temperament he was
an advocate of toleration, and at first, like Chrysostom,
he appeals to the parable of the tares in justification of
tolerance. Heretics should be allowed the opportunity
to correct themselves and to repent. They are to be
regarded as lost sheep. He is afraid that persecution
might lead to those who were in reality heretics becom-
2
ing hypocritical Catholics. But later on he altered his
opinions. He had found that the weapons of persuasion
and eloquence were not strong enough to break down the
obduracy of his enemies the Donatists. He had been
too optimistic. The methods of force employed by the
secular power were after all salutary and necessary.
'
He who refuses to obey the imperial laws,
therefore,
when made against the truth of God, acquires a great
reward he who refuses to obey, when they are
;
made for support of the divine truth, exposes himself

to most grievous punishment/ 3 He rejoices, therefore,
in a Christianized state. The death penalty he indeed
strongly reprobates as contrary to Christian charity, but
he approves both banishment and confiscation of
4
property. These later opinions of St. Augustine were
largely accepted after him.
An important episode in the history of the Church's
attitude to heresy is the execution of the Spanish heretic,
Priscillian, by the Emperor Maximus. Priscillian's teach-
ings, akin to Manichaeism, were denounced by several

bishops, and it was upon their complaint that the Spaniard
1
Letter 82 to Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, in Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers (ed. P. Schaff), 2nd series, vol. vi, pp. 170 et seq.
See Limborch (Chandler's ed.), pp. 29-30. It has been averred that
St. Jerome was in favour of the death penalty, on the score of
Epist.
log^ad Ripar. See Lea, vol. i, pp. 214-15, and rejoinder of H. Maillet,
L'Eglise et la repression sanglante de Ihtresie (1909), p. 15.
*
48th Epistle to Vincentius.
8
5oth Epistle to Boniface.
*
Epistle 185, n. 26. Also Epistle 93, n. 10.
was brought before the imperial tyrant. The action of
the bishops, who had thus involved themselves in the
guilt of blood, wittingly or unwittingly, was severely
condemned by St. Ambrose and still more by Martin of
Tours, who refused to have any communion with them.
This happened in 385 .* In 447 it seemed that heresy
was reviving in Spain, and Pope Leo I expressly com-
mended the act of Maximus. He feared lest, if such
damnable error was not crushed, there should be an end
to all human and divine law and if he did not ask for the
;
death sentence, he was quite willing that the Church

should acquiesce in the state's severity and reap the
2
advantages resulting from it. Thus to welcome the
results of the shedding of blood in cases of heresy, while
refusing to accept the responsibility for it, constituted

a most dangerous attitude.
For centuries after the days of Leo I heresy almost
ceased to be a problem for the Church at all. Western
Christendom entered into the gloom of the Dark Ages,
its history the arid record of barbarian invasions and
the rivalries of Childerichs and Chilperichs. The human
intelligence was dormant consequently heresy ceased
:
to be a force. When there is no mental activity, no

education, no discussion, there may be faith, there can
never be heresy. When the darkness lifted a little, heresy
once more became a problem. In 1022 thirteen Cathari
were burnt by order of, and in the presence of, King
Robert II of France. The punishment of heresy by fire
was an entire innovation. There was no existing law to
sanction it. The stake had been used by Roman emperors
to punish parricides, slaves who attempted their masters'
lives, and incendiaries, and it still existed as a punishment
p. 17, and De Cauzons, vol. i,
1
See Lea, vol. i, p. 213 ; Maillet,
pp. 186-8.
8 See
Lea, vol. i, p. 215; Maillet, pp. 17 et seq.; Vacandard, pp.
'
27-30. Nor were they [the bishops] content with merely accepting
it[the aid of the secular arm]. They declared that the State had not
only the right to help the Church in suppressing heresy, but that she
was in duty bound to do so.' See also De Cauzons, vol. i, p. 189 n.,
and P. Fred6ricq, Les rtcents historians catholiques de I' inquisition en
France, in Revue historique (vol. cix, Jan. -April, 1912), p. 314.
for sorcerers The stake may have been
and witches.
used on this occasion because it was an impressive and
theatrical death and, a choice being demanded between
abjuration and death, it was considered the latter should
be specially terrifying. 1 Another execution of Cathari,
this time by hanging, took place in 1051 at Goslar in
Saxony in the presence of the Emperor Henry III. As
in France, so in Germany, the law knew neither the offence
nor the punishment. The Emperor was acting simply in
the public defence. 2
It is important to note the part played in the treat-
ment of heretics at this period by the populace. In
both the cases just cited the secular prince had in his
action the full approval of the people. It is particularly
noticed by the chronicles of the first incident that the
'
3
deed was regis jussu et universae plebis consensu.'
And Henry strengthened his position in the absence
of any written law by securing the agreement of his
4
subjects. Nothing could be better attested than the
crowd's hatred of the heretic in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, as far as northern Europe was concerned. 5
In the south it was different. There are several in-
stances of the feeling in the north in the late decades of
the eleventh and early decades of the twelfth century.
For example, in 1076 at Cambrai a Catharan who had
been condemned by the bishop as a heretic (no sentence
pronounced) was seized upon by the bishop's officers
and the mob, who placed him in some sort of cabin,
which they burned with the prisoner inside it. It is
said that the recantation of Roscellinus was due to the
threat of death at the hands of the populace. 6 In 1114
certain heretics having been;| placed provisionally in
1 This suggestion is made by J. Havet in his L'H&visie el IB Bras
stculier au Moyen Age in (Euvres (Paris, 1896), vol. ii, p. 131.
2
See ibid., p. 138.
3
Vacandard, op. cit., p. 33.
4
Havet, pp. 129-34.
8
I.e. in the langue d'oil of France, in Flanders, Germany, Bur-
gundy.
' De Cauzons, vol. i, p. 235.
K
prison by the Bishop of Strassburg were in the bishop's
absence forcibly seized upon by the crowd, who, the
chronicler states, feared clerical lenience. They were
led out of the town and there burnt alive. 1 A similar
event happened in Cologne in 1143 whilst two years
;
later at Liege the clergy only just succeeded in rescuing

the crowd's victims from its clutches. Lawless violence
against heretics continued to evince itself in France
into the following century, there being instances of it
in Troyes, Nevers, Besancon, Paris, even at a time when
the secular power, under Philip Augustus, was active in
bringing heretics to the stake.
What was the attitude of the clergy in this period,
during which itseems evident that in northern Europe
secular princesand public opinion were united in thinking
heresy deserving of death, even by burning ? There is the
evidence of the mob fearing clerical lenience in one case
cited, of the clergy actually intervening against the
<
crowd in another. When the heretics were burnt at
Cambrai in 1076 Gregory VII protested and ordered the
excommunication of the inhabitants. 2 And there is a
very notable protest against the use of force by Wazon,
Bishop of Liege (1042-8), who in answer to a query of
the Bishop of Chalons as to whether he should yield up
heretics to the secular arm
or not, referred to the parable
of the tares in support of lenience. 3 His successor,
Theoduin, on the other hand, is found counselling Henry I
of France to mete out punishment to the followers of
4
Berengar of Tours, and about the same time we find
1
See Havet, p. 135.
See De Cauzons, vol. i, pp. 233-4.
1
Fredericq, Corpus, vol. i, pp. 6-7, No. 3, gives Wazon's letter.

3
See also Fr6d6ricq in Revue historique, already cited, p. 320 also

;
Maillet, op. cit. p. 34.

t On the strength of this instance he declares :
'
Nous voyons assez souvent les e"ve"ques s'opposer aux executions '
;
whereas this episcopal protest is unique.

4
Havet, op. cit., p. 133. See Maillet on the whole subject in
op. cit., chapter ii. He argues that Theoduin had no particular
punishment in view and that, therefore, one cannot say he approved
the execution of heretics. But as the Bishop must have known very
well the sort of punishment customarily inflicted by the State at this
time, the argument is not very sound.
the Archbishop of Milan giving some supposed

Manichaeans the choice between abjuration and the
1
stake.
The fact that most clearly emerges from the con-
sideration of rather conflicting evidence in this period
is the absence of any law regarding heretics. The mob,
secular princes and clergy are all
acting irregularly,
taking measures in self-defence in the absence of written
rulings. Generally speaking, it would appear that there
is a prevailing idea that heresy merits the extreme
penalty. At the same time some attempt was made

at
various ecclesiastical councils to standardize procedure
against heresy.
A
Council at Rheims in 1049 spoke only of excom-
munication as a punishment ; one at Toulouse in 1119
did the same, but also called upon the secular arm to
render aid. 2 The middle of the twelfth century saw a
great revival of both Roman and Canon law and the
publication of the Decree of Gratian. ,
The Decree did
not put all uncertainty at an end. It certainly laid
down a clear ruling regarding the confiscation of property.
The heretic, being outside both human and divine law,
could not hold property. But regarding the death
penalty there could be no plain direction, because on
this subject Gratian's authorities were contradictory
and remained so despite his efforts to reconcile them. 3
Further efforts at definition were made by ecclesiastical
councils One sitting at Rheims
during the century.
in 1157 demanded banishment and branding for those
who simply professed Catharism, for proselytizers per-
petual imprisonment but it seems to hint at the
;
'
death penalty in the veiled phrase carcere perpetuo,:
nisi gravius aliquid fieri debet visum, recludentur.' 4

Another Council at Tours in 1163, presided over by
1 See De Cauzons, vol. i, p. 260.
J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova
a et amplissima Collectio
(Paris, 1901-13), vol. xxi, p. 718, and Fr6dericq, Corpus, vol. i, No. 31.
8
See De Cauzons, vol. ii, pp. 271-2 ; Tanon, p. 454.
4
Fredericq, Corpus, vol. i, No. 34 j Maillet, p. 55 ; Fre"de"ricq,
in criticism of Maillet in Revue historique, p. 321.
Alexander III, reiterated the demand for incarcera-
tion and also ordered the confiscation of goods. 1 The
second Council of the Lateran of 1179, lamenting
the marked spread of heresy, commended the use of
force by the secular arm and proclaimed a two
years' indulgence to all who should take up arms
2
against heretics.
The first secular law in the Middle Ages dealing with
heresy is English. In 1166 two Cathari were brought
before Henry II at Oxford, whipped and branded with
a red key and banished. 3 Shortly afterwards in the
same year appeared the clause in the Assize of Clarendon,
forbidding the sheltering of heretics on the pain of
4
having one's house destroyed. Other severe secular
legislation soon appeared in other countries. In 1194
the Emperor Henry VI ordered the confiscation of the
property, and the destruction of the houses, of heretics
and inforced fines on communities and individuals who
neglected to assist, when they had the opportunity,
in the arrest of heretics. 5 The same year Alfonso II
of Aragon, aiming at expelling all Manichaeans and
Waldenses from his dominions, issued an edict declaring
6
all heretics public enemies and banishing them. The
ineffectiveness of this edict is demonstrated by the
appearance of a severer one three years later issued

by Alfonso's successor, Pedro II, famous as the victor
over the Moors at Las Navas de Tolosa, equally
notorious for his warlike prowess, his religious zeal,
his prodigality and licentiousness. Once again banish-
ment is decreed, but it is added that if any heretics
remain in defiance of the edict after a specified date
1
Fred6ricq, Corpus, vol. i, No. 39; Mansi, vol. xxi, p. 1177;
Ha vet, pp. 151-2.
2
Mansi, vol. xxii, p. '231 Fr6d6ricq, Corpus, vol. i, No. 47.
;
8 See De Cauzons, vol. i, p. 269.

*
Stubbs, Select Charters of English Constitutional History (Oxford,
1890), pp. 145-6, 21 of the Assize.
5 See De
Cauzons, vol. i, p. 277.
6
J. A. Llorente, Histoire critique de V Inquisition d'Espagne (Fr.
trans, from the Spanish, Paris, 1818), vol. i, p. 30 ; Eymeric, Direc-
torium, p. 298.
they shall perish at the stake and their effects be

confiscated. 1
Whatever may have been the caseearlier, there seems
good evidence of the zeal of the clergy against heretics

in the latter part of the twelfth century, which saw so
much more precision in the declarations of ecclesiastical
councils and secular laws on the subject. In 1167 we
find the Abbot of Vezelai, when several heretics were
before him, appealing to the people to give sentence,
and accepting their demand for a death of torture.
Some years later at Rheims we find the Archbishop and
clergy in agreement with the nobles that two Catharan
women should be burnt. 2 Hugh, Bishop of Auxerre
(1183-1206), is a busy prosecutor of heretics, causing
many to be burnt or exiled. More notable than such
isolated instances of clerical activity is the co-operation
between Pope and Emperor which led to the important
bull entitled Ad abolendam. 3 In 1184, Lucius III and
Frederick Barbarossa met at Verona, and as the result
of their conference this bull was promulgated, which
(among other provisions) fixed rules for the prosecution
of suspected heretics, the visitation of infected areas and
the assistance of all civil authorities. The Emperor for
his part placed heretics under the ban of the empire. 4
The decree of Henry VI, already referred to, was plainly
based on this action of his predecessor's.
Towards the end of the twelfth century, then, we have
clear evidence of secular and ecclesiastical authorities
1
Ludovico a Paramo, De Origine et Progressu Officii Sanctae Inquisi-
tionis eiusque dignitate et utilitate (Madrid, 1598), p. 90 ; Havet, p. 167;
De Cauzons, vol. i, p. 283. This is the first secular law of the Middle
Ages prescribing the penalty of the stake. But it only refers to Wal-
denses in a particular country, and the stake is only to be had recourse
to in the event of banishment (the penalty primarily enjoined) being
incomplete. The legislation of general significance is that of the
Emperor Frederick II, between 1220 and 1239.
* For
particulars of a rather interesting case see Lea, vol. i, pp.
ni-12. The charge of heresy was mainly based on the obduracy of
a young girl in repelling the licentious advances of a young canon of
Rheims.
8 No. 56.
Mansi, vol. xx, p. 476 ; Fredericq, Corpus, vol. i,
*
See Havet, p. 154.
working hand in hand for the suppression of heresy.
To the former, heresy seemed equivalent to rebellion to ;
the latter, equivalent to murder, being the murder of

the soul. When Pedro II issued his harsh edict against
the Cathari of Aragon, he claimed that he was actuated
by zeal for the public welfare and a desire to obey the
canons of the Church. 1 There was no order in the canons
that heretics should be burnt to death but otherwise,
;
Pedro's appeal to Canon law was justified and besides :
the canons, there were the various edicts of ecclesiastical

councils during the century, all of them calling upon
the secular authority to use its utmost efforts towards
the eradication of heresy.
It has been urged that the attitude adopted by the
Church was a most unwilling attitude, forced upon it
by influences too powerful to resist, that the main motive
power of persecution came not from the Church, but
from the lay authority and from public opinion. The
theory is advanced that during the period, roughly
from 1000 to 1150, when the position of the heretic
was a matter of legal uncertainty, the clergy opposed
the violence evinced against heretics, and in eventually
yielding they submitted to the strength of a custom
which constituted a sort of jus non scriptum? But
there is not much force in this plea. To acquiesce in a
jus non scriptum argues either indifference or impotence :
and the Church in the eleventh and twelfth centuries

was neither indifferent nor impotent. Nor is the
opposition of the clergy to mob violence an argument
to the point. A dislike for mob law and lynching does
not necessarily betoken disapproval of capital punish-
ment. 3 It is true and this is very important that
spontaneously, without any direct incitement from the
clergy, the people regarded the heretic with intense
abhorrence. We ought probably to add that in the
absence of written law on the subject there was a rather
1
Vacandard, p. 56.
2
This is the argument of Maillet, op. cit. p. 49.
t
8
See Fred6ricq, Revue historique, p. 320.
vague idea, shared by the mob and their rulers, that not
only death, but a particularly terrible kind of death,
was an appropriate punishment for the heretic this
idea being perhaps derived from the fact that Roman
law had at different times meted out this doom for
certain kinds of heretics, particularly Manichaeans, and
other offenders, such as sorcerers and witches. It is true
also that the heretics upon whom the mob turned were
generally Manichaean. Yet no one who has any know-
ledge of the position of the mediaeval Church can honestly
maintain on these grounds that the Church had no respon-
sibility for the rigour displayed towards the heretic.
The heretic was regarded as an offender against society,
because it was a Christian society. Heresy, being error in
the faith, was investigated and recognized by the Church.
The clergy, not the mob, discovered the heresy and the
heretic ; for such discovery could not be made without
theological knowledge, of which the mob were ignorant.
And such knowledge as they possessed, were it reasoned
understanding or merely half-assimilated fragments of
doctrine, was derived solely from clerical instruction.
It was difficult for any sort of knowledge to come from
any other source. Heresy was regarded as dangerous
to the community, because, to begin with, the Church
had found it dangerous to itself. The intellectual
and spiritual atmosphere with which Christendom was
permeated was of the Church's making. The attempt,
therefore, to absolve the Church from responsibility
for the measures taken against heresy in these centuries
by whomsoever they were taken involves a wholly
erroneous, indeed an absurd, under-estimate of the
authority of the Church.
In 1198 there came to the papal throne perhaps the
greatest of the whole pontifical line, Lothario Conti,
Innocent III. High in resolve to strengthen Church
and Papacy, he at once gave his attention to the problem
of heresy. But though zealous, in some respects he
showed a commendable moderation. He was anxious
that the innocent should not be confounded with the
guilty in the impetuosity of the perfervid clerk or the
impatience of the mob ; and for the first ten years of
his pontificate he made trial of a pacific programme. 1
But in one part of Christendom the problem of heresy
had by this time become acute. In the lands of the
Count of Toulouse, Catharism was as rampant as were
clerical abuses. The pleasure-loving, prosperous in-
habitants of Provence, of Narbonne, of Albi felt the
authority of the Church to be an obnoxious incubus
upon their worldliness, their careless independence.
The clergy were hated and despised. The troubadour
made pleasant ridicule of the sacraments and every
doctrine of the Church, however sacred. The death-bed
repentance scheme of the Catharan system, its denial
of a purgatory and a hell, were popular. Still more so
was the pretext afforded by its anti-sacerdotal precepts
for despoiling the Church. 2 So the nobles and the rich
bourgeoisie and merchants received heretics into their
houses, clothed them and fed them, while they were
exempted from taxes. So great was the hold of heresy
in his lands, that Count Raymond V
of Toulouse declared
himself to be wholly unable to resist it. 3 His successor,
Raymond VI, had no wish to resist it, being of the same
stuff as his people and seeing no call to disturb them
at the bidding of priests. Thus when a Council at
Montpellier in 1195 anathematized all princes failing
to enforce the Church's decrees against heretics, he
paid no heed.
A couple of months after his accession Innocent III
sent two commissioners into Languedoc, one of them
being subsequently entrusted with legatine powers, to
tackle a situation so serious that the whole of that
country seemed on the point of slipping away from its
allegiance to the Catholic faith and communion. They
were instructed that obdurate heretics were to be
1
A. Luchaire, Innocent III ; la croisade des Albigeois (Paris, 1905),
pp. 58-9.
2
Ibid., pp. 17, 27.
8
Ibid., pp. 7-8 ; Tanon, p. 21.
banished, their property confiscated and the secular

;
authority was to see to it that their measures were carried

out under pain of interdict. The efforts of these two
commissioners were entirely fruitless. 1204In their
successors were entrusted with increased authority,
which gave them a complete dictatorship over the
ecclesiastical dignitaries of Languedoc, who were bitterly
reviled for their incapacity. Yet neither these measures
nor lavish bribes to secular rulers proved efficacious,
and even the iron resolution of the commissioners, Pierre
de Castelnau and Arnaud of Citeaux, was breaking down
beneath the weight of persistent failure, when a certain
Spaniard, Diego de Arzevedo, Bishop of Osma, suggested
to the legates the scheme of an evangelistic enterprise.
This was adopted, and bare-footed missionaries were
sent forth to re-convert the erring by simple preaching
and exhortation. Among the preachers was St. Dominic
himself. This laudable scheme also failed. There is a
legend that Dominic, stung by his ill-success, predicted
what the upshot of such deplorable obduracy must
eventually be. There was a saying in Spain, he quoted,
that a beating may work where a blessing won't. The
towers of the cities of the fair land would have to be
laid low, its people reduced to servitude. 1 The actual
signal for a complete reversal of policy was the murder
of Pierre de Castelnau in circumstances which recall
the murder of Becket. The legate had exasperated the
Count of Toulouse one of the latter's knights slew
;
the priest. Innocent called for vengeance upon the

blood-guilty Count ; and the Albigensian Crusade, which
Innocent had ere this been preaching in vain to
Philip Augustus of France, was the immediate con-
sequence. The first crusading army, an international
2
force, assembled at Lyons in June I2og. The ensuing
wars are memorable for the men who took part in them
Pedro of Aragon, the zealous catholic, now intervening
1
Luchaire, op. cit., p. 103.
2
J. C. L. Sismondi, History of the Crusades against the Albigenses
(Eng. trans.), p. 53.
on behalf ofCount Raymond and perishing on the field
' '
of Muret, Simon de Montfort, the athlete of Christ !
Never was there Christian warrior purer in his motives

than Simon, more whole-hearted in his enthusiasm,
or more utterly inhuman in his fanaticism. These
wars are also memorable for their political issues and
consequences. From the outset purely political interests
were intermixed with the religious. The great nobles
who led the forces of the Cross united with their pious
zeal an at least equally genuine and powerful hatred
and jealousy of the rich and bountiful southern land
which harboured a culture so different from their own,
more Saracen than European. The wars were wars of
the north against the south, of one civilization against
another. The astute and calculating Philip Augustus
seized with avidity the opportunity of bringing under
his direct control a province of France, which had been
practically an independent kingdom ;

and the crusade
is, therefore, of first-rate importance as a big contribution
to the unification of the French kingdom.
If to many who took part in them the original purpose
of these religious wars was altogether subsidiary, that
purpose was none the less most horribly accomplished.

The peculiar civilization of Languedoc was blotted out,
itsbeauty and fragrance being utterly extinguished by
the onslaught of the crusaders. With the civilization
went the heresy that it had harboured. Catharism
indeed continued to exist in the devastated region, but
power of expansion had been destroyed when
all its vital
the conditions that fostered it vanished. The Albigensian
wars were the most successful attempt to extirpate heresy
known in history. They were successful because they
were utterly ruthless and included wholesale massacres.
When the town of Beziers fell, it is said that twenty
thousand of its inhabitants were slaughtered. There
were good catholics as well as Cathari among the populace
of the place ; but the story goes that when Arnaud of
Citeaux was asked whether the catholics were to be
spared, in his anxiety lest a single heretic should escape
'
by pretending orthodoxy, he replied, Kill them all, for

God knows His own/ 1
When the crusaders appeared in Languedoc, toleration
vanished out of western Christendom. There was no
asylum left where the heretic could feel assured of safety
from the persecutor. The power of the Church against
the disobedient had been mightily asserted. The ruler
who had dared to disregard her order to purify his land
of its contaminators had been brought low. From
every country the papacy had been able to bring together
doughty warriors to uphold the unity of the faith by
spilling the blood of the perverse wanderers from the fold.
The policy of force had been triumphantly vindicated
by the amplitude of its success.
1
See, however, Lord Acton in his review of
'
Lea, vol. i, p. 154.

Lea's work in The History of Freedom of Thought and other Essays
(1909), p. 567. The chronicler, Caesarius Heisterbach, does not relate \
a fact, but tells a story, which may or may not be fact.

CHAPTER II
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE INQUISITION

ORIGINALLY jurisdiction over heresy belonged to the
ordinary ecclesiastical courts, heresy being classed with
such other offences as adultery and breach of contract,
which came under ecclesiastical purview. 1 The special
tribunal of the Inquisition came into being because these
courts proved defective for the trial of heresy. In the
first place, the new offence became so frequent that
the ordinary courts were unable to support the large
additional burden without impairing their efficiency
in the performance of their original duties.
How, then, did it happen that whereas heresy had
become a formidable danger in the twelfth century,
the institution of the special tribunal did not take place
until the thirteenth ? The suggestion appears plausible
that there must have been some other cause besides
the mere spread of heresy to account for the birth of
the Inquisition at that date. 2 The answer is that it
took time for heresy to be recognized as sufficiently
serious to warrant the creation of an entirely new
organization, and before the magnitude of the task
3
was fully apprehended.
of repressing religious error In
the second place, the papacy during this period was
much preoccupied with more pressing concerns,
particularly the investiture question, which involved
the supreme issue as to the pre-eminence of secular or
spiritual authority in Christendom.
1 The potestas inquirendi handed down from Christ to St. Peter

has been annexed to the episcopal dignity. See Ludovico a Paramo,
op. cit., book ii, p. 89.
*
C. Douais, L' Inquisition; ses engines, sa procedure (Paris, 1906),
pp. 45-6.
8
Sometimes a new heresy was not at once recognized as one at all.
Gregory VII was indulgent to Berengar of Tours and Alexander III
congratulated Peter Waldo. See Luchaire, op. cit., p. 38.
BEGINNINGS OF THE INQUISITION 141
When once attention had been thoroughly arrested

by the problem, the deficiencies of the existing spiritual
courts for the new work became apparent. Overwork
was by no means the only drawback. The character
of the judges was at fault. Even after the Hildebrandine
reforms, bishops still remained feudal barons with many
inevitable secular distractions ; archdeacons and other
1
lesser officials were often venal and incapable. In
any case the very nature of diocesan authority militated
against success. It was too purely local to be effective
against offenders who could easily migrate from one
part of the country to another. Even more serious
was the lack on the part of the existing officials of special
training and knowledge, especially in theology, which
were found necessary, since heretics often evinced
2
diabolical familiarity with the text of Scripture.
Lacking such special equipment and being badly pressed
for time on a diocesan visitation, the bishop was apt to
come to a hurried and arbitrary judgment, frequently
falling back upon the device of the ordeal when the
'
defendant pleaded not guilty/ Both the Councils
of Rheims of 1157 and of Verona of 1184 ordered
that suspects of heresy should be submitted to this
test. But the method was never felt to be satisfac-
tory, was strongly condemned by Ivo of Chartres and
Alexander III, and so emphatically denounced by
the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215 that it
disappeared from the practice of lay as well as spiritual
courts.
Another disadvantage under which the episcopal
courts laboured in dealing with heresy was their pro-
cedure, that of Roman Law. There were two systems
those of denuntiatio and accusatio. In the former
some person in authority in cases the
ecclesiastical
archdeacon brought forward a charge founded upon
his own personal knowledge. In the latter the charge
was based on information tendered by a private
1 See De Cauzons, op. cit., vol. i, p. 333.
Simancas, op. cit., Tit. xxv, p. 150, De Episcopis,'
* '
142 BEGINNINGS OF THE INQUISITION
individual to the authorities. Owing to the fact that
the archdeacon was a very busy man, the Church was
largely dependent on the second method in the prosecu-
tion of heresy. But the average person had no induce-
ment to lodge a charge. He was in danger of private
vengeance if he did so equally important, by Roman
;
Law he was expected to prove his case, being in the

event of failure liable to the same penalty which he
had himself alleged against the accused. Seeing that,
should he prove his case, he was entitled to the property
of the prisoner either in whole or in part, this stipula-
tion was a salutary and indeed necessary check, not
1
only on malice but cupidity. This mode of procedure,
which though indicative of its origin in the rudimentary
idea of private justice was certainly equitable, did not
commend itself to the Church, once it had become
determined upon the extirpation of heresy. The
difficulty of obtaining convictions greatly increased
when, instead of small isolated communities, the Church
was faced by a great organization like Catharism, wide-
spread and secret in its movements. It was clear that
episcopal jurisdiction must be strengthened. The Edict
of Verona was an attempt in this direction. It was
resolved to use for prosecution of common report,
make
the public opinion of the locality. Archbishops and
bishops were to visit in person, or through their arch-
deacons, once or even twice a year every parish in which
heresy was supposed to exist, and were to compel men
whom they thought of trustworthy character or, if they
thought fit, all the inhabitants of the neighbourhood,
to denounce those whose manner of living differed from
that of good catholics. Such bad characters w ere to r
purge themselves by a solemn oath on the gospels before

the bishop (purgatio canonica) if they refused
;
and
Cathari were likely to be unwilling owing to their views
1
See Lea, vol. i, p. 310 De Cauzons, vol. i, pp. 378-80. See also
;
A. Esmein, Histoire de la Procedure Criminelle en France, et specialement

de la Procedure inquisitoire (Paris, 1882), pp. 66-78 in English version,
;
A History of Continental Criminal Procedure, Continental Legal History

Series, vol. v (Boston, 1913), pp. 3-11, 78-94.
regarding oaths their refusal was to be construed as

tantamount to a confession of heresy. 1
We have here a method of enforced delation, the bishop
proceeding upon the evidence so obtained (diffamatio)
without the formalities of the accusatio. In other words
make an inquest, so that from this date,
the bishops are to
2
1184, we have in existence an episcopal inquisition.
The decree does not appear to have been very effective,
and after the Albigensian Crusades it being necessary to
follow that success by the institution of systematic prose-
3
cution of heresy for fear of the recurrence of trouble
similar regulations were made by Councils, sitting at
Avignon in 1209 and at Montpellier in 1215, also in the
Fourth Council of the Lateran of the latter year. There
was a new feature in the introduction of a priest in addition
to a trustworthy layman as informer against heretics. 4
The Council of Narbonne (1227) went a step further in
ordering the bishops to appoint in each parish testes
synodales, to make diligent enquiry concerning heresy and
other matters and give information to their bishops. 5
' '
The phrase synodal witness is new, though it may
easily designate the same persons as those nominated
by the previous councils. However this may be, the
' '
synodal witnesses are entrusted with a new duty. They

are not merely to inform, but to search out. This advance
was to be anticipated the informer easily blossoms
;
out into the detective. Here we have a system of local

inquisition, which is enjoined again by a Council sitting
at Toulouse two years later, which requires the synodal
witnesses to visit all suspected houses and hiding-places. 6
1
Mansi, op. cit., vol. xxii, pp. 476-8.
2
See De Cauzons, vol. i, p. 393.
3 At first
sight it may appear as though the completeness of the
success of the Albigensian Crusade rendered further action unnecessary.
This would appear to be the implication in Douais' L' Inquisition,
pp. 45-6. As a matter of fact it was rather a case of following up an
initial advantage.
4
Mansi, vol. xxii, p. 785.
6 '
Ibid., vol. xxiii, p. 24, xiv. Ut sint in omnibus parochiis, qui
de haeresi 6- manifestis criminibus inquirant.'
Ibid. p. 194, i.
It is doubtful whether the orders of these two Councils
were ever acted upon. In any case, not even the most
well-intentioned reform of their procedure could make
the episcopal courts satisfactory for the trial of heresy.
The bishops are repeatedly urged to bestir themselves
even on pain of deprivation. 1 The fact was that some
special machinery had to be devised. On the other hand,
the authorization of the system of inquisition was of the
utmost importance. It was fully recognized by Innocent
III, who in his Decretals carefully distinguished it from
the two other judicial methods of accusatio and denuntiatio. 2
Innocent was not thinking only, or perhaps mainly, of
heresy in introducing a new judicial method but of
clerical reform. Even when the offence of a prelate was
a matter ofcommon notoriety it was difficult to bring
the crime home to him when the system of accusatio
required the concurrence of seventy- two witnesses, That
system sheltered the high in office ; and it was therefore,
from the reformer's point of view, defective. The greatest
of the popes had given his imprimatur to a system, which
beginning in the ecclesiastical courts, was, owing to its

manifest advantages, destined to make a triumphal
progress in the temporal courts also, eventually sup-
planting the system of accusatio altogether.
The definite starting-point of the Inquisition has been
attributed to many dates. One enthusiast went as far back
as Creation, finding the first inquisitor in the Almighty
Himself, and successors to Him in Jacob, Saul, David,
Eli, Jesus Christ, John the Baptist and St. Peter among
others. 3 Less, ambitious authorities, content to go no
further back than the Middle Ages, have discovered the
starting-point in the legatine commission entrusted by
Innocent III to Pierre de Castelnau, Arnaud of Citeaux
and their colleagues. 4 Whether they, with their lieutenant
1
Mansi, vol. xxii, pp. 989-90.
*
See De Cauzons, vol. i, p. 395 ; P. Fournier, Les OfficialiUs au
Moyen Age (Paris, 1880), pp. 266-9.
8
Ludovico a Paramo, pp. 27, 31, 49.
4
Luchaire, op. p. 71.
cit.,
'
En 1204, il enleva aux evgques, pour
la donner aux 16gats, la juridiction ordinaire en matiere d'heresie,
St. Dominic, were inquisitors or not turns on the inter-
1
pretation of the word. In the loose general sense of
searchers out, certainly they were as others had been
before them. The plain fact is, there were inquisitors
before the Inquisition existed. But in the strict technical
sense of officers of a tribunal specifically set apart for
2
jurisdiction over heresy, they clearly were not. The
tribunal of the Inquisition was not in existence in the
pontificate of Innocent III. On the other hand, we have
by time advanced a considerable distance on the road
this
to the formation of a new tribunal. Heresy has been
recognized as so dangerous as to justify the organization
of a crusade against it. The bishops' courts have been
found so defective in dealing with heresy that the device
has been adopted of sending special commissioners to
try to do what they have failed to do. The method of
judicial procedure by inquisitio in place of accusatio has
been officially approved. It wants but one other step
to bring us to the foundation of the permanent delegacy
for the prosecution of heretical pravity, which is the
Inquisition.
This step was taken by Pope Gregory IX, who may
therefore legitimately be said to have founded the Inquisi-
tion. Both the episcopal courts and the experiment of
premiere esquisse du proc6d6 d'ou sortira 1' Inquisition.' To which

'
M. Douais rightly retorts : II n'est pas exact de dire que le Pape
enleva aux eVgques la juridiction ordinaire en matiere d'h6re"sie. II
ne leur enleva rien.' L' Inquisition, p. 67. See, however, De Cauzons,
'
vol. i, p. 414. Sans enlever done aux 6veques le droit de juger les
h6retiques, les rescrits romains constituaient, a cot6 de leur tribunal,
un pouvoir, pouvant juger lui aussi, avec des juges d'une juridiction
plus 6tendue que le leur, ayant le droit d'exiger des chefs des dioceses
1'obeissance a leur autoritS. II suffisait d'assurer a ce tribunal nouveau
les moyens d'ex6cuter ses sentences et de le rendre permanent, pour
avoir 1'
Inquisition.'
1 For claim that Dominic was the first inquisitor, see Ludovico a
Paramo, pp. 95-6 Douais, L' Inquisition, pp. 25-6 De Cauzons, vol. i,
; ;
p. 421 n. Dominic was certainly more than a missionary preacher;

he examined and condemned heretics. See Acton, op. cit., p. 554
2
It has been said, truly, that it is neither the crime, nor the pro-
cedure, nor the penalty that makes the inquisitor in the strict sense ;
but his character as a permanent

judge-delegate for the cause of heresy.
Douais, L' Inquisition, pp. 37-8,
L
the occasional legate had been insufficient. Gregory
made use of a powerful weapon which came readily to
hand in the two great Mendicant Orders. Recognizing
their potential utility, Gregory, herein followed by
Innocent IV, showered upon them all manner of special
privileges and exemptions and bound them by this means
peculiarly to the service of the papacy. They were pre-
eminently fitted, as it happened, for the special service
of prosecuting heresy. They were still young in the first
white heat of a new enthusiasm, while their zeal and their
purity made them both influential and popular. They
were also often endowed especially the Dominicans
with high intellectual gifts and early acquired a great
reputation as subtle and learned theologians. Thus
while their poverty, their single-mindedness and their
good works were an answer to anti-sacerdotal attacks,
their theological attainments enabled them to combat the
dialectical arguments of the heterodox. The uniformity
and permanence of inquisitorial practice came largely
from the selection of the two orders of the Friars to under-
take the jurisdiction over heresy. In so far, therefore,
as the choice of a particular date or incident for the
commencement of an institution can be otherwise than
arbitrary, it is legitimate to fix upon the delegation by
Gregory IXof jurisdictional powers almost exclusively
to the members of the Franciscan and Dominican orders
as marking the beginning of the Inquisition as an
organized tribunal.
Actually the first delegation made by Pope Gregory
in regard to heresy was made neither to a Franciscan nor
a Dominican, but to a man notorious for his extraordinary
relations with Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, namely
Conrad of Marburg. Whatever his status to begin with,
he certainly became a delegate possessed of very wide
powers eventually. He was in fact an inquisitor in
precisely the same sense as Pierre de Castelnau and
Arnaud of Citeaux had been inquisitors and the
;
question of his precise authority has exactly the same

bearing on the question of the beginnings of the tribunal
of the Inquisition as the question of their authority
no more. 1
Eight days after the bestowal of the commission upon
Conrad, namely on June 20, 1227, Gregory entrusted
another inquisitorial commission to a Dominican. This,
however, is not the significant date. The decisive event
is the addressing of two bulls to France in April 1233,
the first to the bishops, the second to the Preaching

'
Friars. The first explains that owing to the whirlwind
' '
of cares and the presence of overwhelming anxieties/
under which the bishops labour, the Pope has thought
it well to divide their burdens and has decided to send
the Preaching Friars against the heretics of France. The

bishops are earnestly exhorted to treat the Brothers
kindly and lend them all assistance in the fulfilment of
their office. The second, and by far the more important
bull,addressed to the Friars, empowers them to deprive '
clerks of their benefices for ever, and to proceed against

them and all others without appeal, calling in the aid of
the secular arm if necessary, and coercing opposition,
if needful, with the censures of the Church, without
a
appeal.' Some have detected in these bulls an apologetic
tone indicating uncertainty on Gregory's part as to
whether the bishops would acquiesce in this invasion of
'
their powers, and it is also no doubt true that the
character of his instructions proves that he had no con-
3
ception of what the invasion was to lead to/ On the
1
For text of commission to Conrad, see Fr6d6ricq, Corpus, vol. i,
'
p. 7 1, No. 72. diligenter et vigilanter inquiras heretica pravitate
. . .
infectos in partibus memoratis, ut per illos, ad quos pertinet, zizania

valeat de agro Domini extirpari.' Douais on this comments (op. cit.,
'
p. 53 n.), Si Conrad eut 6te inquisiteur, c'est & lui que ce soin efit
d'abord incombe comme juge.' The argument is invalid. The appeal to
the assistance of the secular arm is normal and certainly does not prove
Conrad not to have been an inquisitor. See Lea, vol. ii, p. 319,
'
This was in effect an informal commission as inquisitor-general for
Germany and De Cauzons, vol. i, p. 449.
'
;
2
For text of the bull, Ille humani generis, see Mansi, vol. xxiii,
PP- 74-5 Fredericq, Corpus, vol. i, No. 83, pp. 82-3. The Friars are
urged to demolish the heretics who sicut cancer serperent in occulto,
'
& velut vulpes latentes niterentur vineam Domini Sabaoth demoliri.'

8
Lea, vol. i, p. 328. C/. Tanon, op. cit., p. 175, who considers that
Lea does not attach sufficient importance to these bulls.
other hand, there is here the clear evidence of a matured
conception, based upon the experience of the multiplica-

tion of special commissions to individual legates, of
a permanent delegation. 1 By 1235 this system had
penetrated not only through France, Toulouse and
Burgundy, but also Lombardy, Sicily, Aragon, Brabant,
2
Germany.
The inquisitorial commissions entrusted to the Friars,
it is important to note, did not involve the extinction of
episcopal jurisdiction in matters of heresy. In 1234
Gregory is found threatening the bishops of the province
of Narbonne, if they do not show due energy against
heretics, and making no mention of the new authority. 3

As yet the friars-inquisitor are regarded only as a
more efficient supplement to the ordinary ecclesiastical
tribunals. Gregory intended that bishops and inquisitors
should work together, and bishops had to concur in the
friars' sentences. Plainly there was not unnatural
antagonism, bishops wishing to treat inquisitors simply as
expert advisers, inquisitors aiming at becoming the real
judges. In 1247 Innocent IV treats the bishops as the real
judges yet in the numerous sentences of the celebrated
:
inquisitor, Bernard de Caux, recorded between 1246 and

4
1248, there is no trace of episcopal concurrence. In 1248
the Council of Valence had to bring pressure upon bishops
to observe the sentences of inquisitors. 5 Between 1250 and
1254 the director of the proceedings of the Carcassonne
inquisitionwho makes the interrogations and imposes
the sentences is a bishop but it is not certain whether
:
1 The bull delegating inquisitorial powers to the Brothers

first
Minor in collective fashion is apparently one issued by Innocent IV,
Jan. 13, 1246. See Fr6dericq, Corpus, vol. i, No. 122.
2
See De Cauzons, op. cit., vol. i, p. 446 n. '
La transformation
des inquisitions episcopaux en juges pontificaux, a et6 la vraie fondation
de 1'Inquisition telle qu'elle est connue et Iou6e par certains, abhorree
;
par d'autres. Or, cette transformation s'est faite progressivement,

par tatonnements autour des annees 1230-1233, non par edit general,
plutot par resents speciaux. Les dominicains ont ete 1'occasion d'un
bon nombre de ces resents, mais non d tous.'
8
Ibid., p. 339-
'
Ibid.
he was acting in his episcopal capacity or as a special
papal commissioner. Such commissions were rarely given
to bishops, as the popes much preferred, as a rule, to
use the friars. The root fact was that to perform his
special duties efficiently an inquisitor needed to devote
his entire time and attention to them and thus, as it
:
became more and more apparent that heresy was no

mere ephemeral menace which could be stamped out
once for all, but a lasting trouble which had constantly
to be met, so the Inquisition, first regarded as a temporary
expedient to deal with an emergency, developed into a
permanent institution. So also the efforts of the bishops,
either to retain the jurisdiction over heresy in their own
ordinary courts or to superimpose their authority over
the inquisitor in his extraordinary court, were alike
doomed to failure. As a matter of fact, probably the
average bishop was too much immersed in other cares
and interests to trouble to secure his prerogative in the
matter of heresy. 1 Thus it was that before the end of
the thirteenth century the Inquisition had come to
be an intrinsic part of the judicial organization of the
Church.
The pontificate of Gregory IX is in more ways than
one a critical period in the history of the repression of
heresy. It saw the first clear authorization of the death
penalty for the obdurate heretic. Capital punishment

had at times been shown to be the popular remedy for
heresy ;
it had sometimes been adopted by the secular
arm, sometimes approved by the clergy. But it had not

been legalized in the empire, formally sanctioned by the
temporal law of the world, as the general rule of Christen-
dom. The first public law of Europe enjoining it was
the work of the Emperor Frederick II. That the most
extraordinary member of the house of Hohenstaufen,
being a man who despite a curious strain of superstition
in him was a rationalist and a sceptic, should have been
responsible for this legislation may at first sight appear
astonishing. An Italian, not a German, brought up
1
Tanon, op. cit., pp. 177-80.
among the half Greek, half Saracen influences of Sicily,
drawing his inspiration rather from Averrhoes and Arab

free-thought than from any Christian source, amazingly
versatile, poet, lover of learning, statesman, diplomatist,
his outlook upon the world was altogether individual,
his intellect powerful and singular, untrammelled by
convention. He was a medley of strange contradictions :
he protected Jews and Mussulmans he persecuted

;
heretics. The Averrhoist heretics from Islam interested

him, the heretics from Catholicism not at all.
On November 22, 1220, Frederick produced his first
1
constitution for Lombardy. This repealed the penalties
of Frederick Barbarossa in his edict of 1184, confiscation
property and outlawry, penalties severe enough,
of
because outlawry in the Middle Ages was a terrible
punishment, putting the culprit at any man's mercy.
This first constitution appears to have been inspired by
Honorius III. 2 A second constitution of March 1224,
published at' Catania for the whole of Lombardy, first
introduced the death penalty death at the stake but ;
at the discretion of the judge, the loss of the tongue

3
might be substituted. In 1231 in the Constitutions of
Melfi, which applied indeed only to Sicily, this element of
1 Historia Diplomatica Friderici Secundi, Huillard-Breholles (Paris,
1852-61), vol. ii, pt. i, pp. 4-6 ; Monumenta Germaniae historica,
G. A. Pertz (Hanover and Berlin), vol. iv, pp. 242-5 ; Fredericq,
Corpus, vol. i, pp. 70-1, No. 71.
* See
Maillet, op. cit., ch. ii ; Fredericq in Revue historique, p. 310.
This edict was drawn up five days before the coronation ceremony by
the Curia and sent to receive the imperial signature, so that it might
be published in the Emperor's name in St. Peter's. For Frederick's
promise to assist the Pope against heresy, see Fredericq, Corpus, vol. i,
p. 70, No. 70.
3 G. A. Pertz, vol. iv, p. 252.
Huillard-Breholles, vol. ii, pp. 421-3 ;
'
Presenti edictuli constitutione nostra in tota Lombardia inviolabiliter
de cetero valitura duximus sanciendum ut quicumque per civitatis
antistitem vel diocesanum in qua degit post condignam examinationem
fuerit de haeresi manifeste convictus et hereticus judicatus, per potes-
tatem, consilium et catholicos viros civitatis et diocesis earumdem
ad requisitionem antistitis illico capiatur, auctoritate nostra ignis
judicio concremandus, ut vel ultricibus flammis pereat, aut si miser-
abili vite ad coercitionem aliorum degerint reservandum, eum lingue
plectro deprivent, quo non est veritas contra ecclesiasticam fidem

invehi et nomen Domini blasphemari.'
choice was no longer included, and the penalty was made
absolutely death by fire. In 1238 this regulation was
extended to the empire, being afterwards introduced
into the Sachenspiegel and Schwabenspiegel of Germany. 1
Thus death by fire became the recognized punishment
for heresy the empire. In 1226 Louis IX issued
in
ordinances prescribing severe punishments for heretics ;
but at the time the use of the stake was general in France,
and it was formally accepted as the legal punishment in
the EtaUissements of Louis IX in 1270. 2
In view of what Frederick II did in his Constitutions,
some historians have placed upon his shoulders the full
responsibility for the horrors of the stake. This is both
unfair and unhistorical. The blame attaches to no
single man. The law
fact of first giving sanction in civil
to death by burning is certainly important, but the im-
portance can easily be exaggerated. Frederick was only
giving legal recognition to the actual practice of France
and Germany only introducing what was customary
;
elsewhere into Italy, where tolerance had on the whole

been general. Some importance should also be attached
to the revival of the study of Roman Law, which showed
that Manichaeans had suffered death in days before
Constantine. In the part played by Frederick II we shall
be wise to recognize not something catastrophic but
rather a link among very many in a lengthy chain of
3
development. Nor must we forget the significance of
1
Huillard-Breholles, vol. i, pp. 5-8 ; Pertz, vol. ii, p. 242 ; Mansi,
vol. xxiv. pp. 586-8.
a
Havet, op. cit., pp. 169-70.
3 For arguments ascribing the responsibility to Frederick, see Havet
(passim) and J. Ficker, Die Gesetzliche Einfiihrung der Todesstrafe fur
Ketzerei in Mittheilungen des Instituts fur oesterreichische Geschichts-
forschung (1880), pp. 177-226, 430-1. See also C. Moeller in Revue
d'histoire ecclesiastique (Louvain, vol. xiv, 1913) ; Les Buchers et les
Autos-da-f& de I' Inquisition depuis le Moyen Age (pp. 720-51), esp.
pp. 725-6 ; Maillet, op. cit., p. 87, and De Cauzons, op. cit., vol. i,
pp. 293-7 : La theorie qui met sur le dos de Frederic II la responsa-
'
bilit6 des mesures de repression sanglante, du bucher en particulier,

est nee de tendances apologtiques mal comprises, car vouloir con-
cilier 1* Inquisition avec nos idees modernes est une chimere.' Also
'
Tanon, op. cit., p. 462, These laws n'en sont pas moins en une grand
'
the order that burnings are to take place in conspectu

populi.' This is surely an answer to a popular demand
that the execution of heretics should be made a public
example, a salutary spectacle ? The examination of the
force of public opinion is almost always more fruitful
than that of the motives of individuals, however powerful.
What was the attitude of the Church in its crusade
against heresy towards the action of Frederick ? Being
crucial, the question is exceedingly controversial. There
have been apologists for the Church who have argued that
the whole blame for the burning of heretics rests with
the secular power, that Gregory IX had a positive aversion
to the idea, that Frederick II's laws against heretics
are to be regarded as an attempt to humiliate the Pope
and wrest from the Church jurisdiction which properly
belonged to it. This argument makes the establishment
of the Inquisition a measure of self-defence, a strategic
blow delivered in the great war between the secular and
1
ecclesiastical authorities.
This ingenious theory will not stand close examination.
There is in the first place the prima facie probability that
an unorthodox emperor, anxious to utilize the question
of heresy in a conflict with the papacy, would rather
protect than prosecute it. In the second place, there is

really no evidence for discovering in Frederick's action
an elaborate Machiavellian device while we have
;
sufficient evidence that Gregory did approve the burning

of heretics. 2 There seems clearly to have been clerical
importance pour le temps ou elles ont et6 rendues, en presence des

dimcultes que 1'Eglise rencontrait, en Italic aussi bien qu'en France,
de la part des autorites laiques, pour assurer la repression de 1'heresie,
en donnant a cette repression la sanction nouvelle de 1'autorite impe-
riale elles devaient aider puissamment 1'Eglise a vaincre ces resistances.'
1 See
Maillet, op. cit. in ch. ii ; Douais, L' Inquisition, ch. 5, esp.
t
pp. 141-2 ; also De Cauzons, vol. i, pp. 296-7 n., and Moeller, op. cit.,
pp. 727-8.
2
Lea, vol. i, pp. 227-8.
'
We can imagine the smile of amused
surprise with which Gregory IX or Gregory XI would have 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.'
influence behind the constitutions. The constitution of
1224 has been ascribed to the influence of a certain Ger-
man prelate, Albert, Archbishop of Magdeburg, imperial
legate in Italy, who wanted to see heretics treated in
Italy as they were in his own country, and who therefore
induced the emperor to give legal sanction to the death
1
penalty. Even more significant would appear to have
been the part played by the Spanish Dominicans, Guala
and Raymond of Penaforte. Guala was Bishop of
Brescia in 1230, and Brescia was the first town to place
among its municipal laws the Lombard Constitution of
1224. The Bishop was in constant communication with

Gregory, and when Rome followed the example of
Brescia,it is surmised, though it cannot be proved, that
Guala was responsible for this, as also for the Constitution

2
of 1231. This is conjecture, and so is the alternative
theory which attributes the legal establishment of the
death sentence not so much to Guala as to Raymond. 3
Whatever may be the truth concerning clerical influence
prior to the promulgation of the Constitutions, the
question of the subsequent attitude of the Church towards
them is not a matter of conjecture.
In his bull, Excommunicamus, Gregory orders that
1
Havet, p. 174 Douais, L' Inquisition, p. 122.
;
2
Havet, p. 176 Acton, op. cit., p. 555.
;
*
Acton, op. cit., p. 557. The five years of his abode in Rome
'
changed the face of the Church. Very soon after Saint Raymond
. . .
appeared at the Papal court, the use of the stake became law, and the
inquisitorial machinery had been devised and the management given
to the priors of the order. When he departed he left behind him
instructions for the treatment of heresy, which the Pope adopted and
sent out whenever they were wanted. Until he came, in spite of
. . .
much violence and many laws, the popes had imagined no permanent
security against religious error, and were not formally committed to
death by burning. Gregory himself, excelling all the priesthood in
vigour and experience, had for four years laboured, vaguely and in vain,
with the transmitted implements. Of a sudden, in these successive
measures, he finds his way, and builds up the institution which is to
last for That this mighty change in the conditions of
centuries.
religious thought and life, and in the functions of the order was
supported by Dominicans, is probable. And it is reasonable to suppose
that it was the work of the foremost Dominican then living, who at
that very moment had risen to power and predominance at Rome.'
heretics, condemned by the Church, shall be handed over
to the secular arm and punished by the merited penalty
(' puniantur animadversione debita '). What this punish-
ment is, is not expressly mentioned, but inasmuch as
all other possible penalties are mentioned by name

imprisonment, excommunication, infamy, deprivation of
civil rights etc., we are left by a process of elimination
with the death penalty as the only conceivable end for
the obdurate heretic abandoned to the secular arm. 1
Only wilful blindness can misinterpret the phrase
*
animadversione debita/ especially as its meaning seems
to be forcibly illustrated by the practice of the Senator
Annibaldi who ruled Rome in Gregory's name. In 1231
he issued a decree, introducing the imperial constitution
into the city and establishing that each senator, on
admission into office, must pronounce the ban of the city
against all heretics in it, seize upon all who are pointed
out as heretics by the inquisitors and punish them within
eight days from the passing of sentence. Here Annibaldi
'
used the Pope's euphemism, merited penalty.' The
same year several heretics were seized in Rome, some
2
imprisoned, but the obdurate burnt.
If it may still be felt that there is some doubt regarding
the personal feeling of Gregory IX about Frederick H's
action, there can be no doubt at all as to his successor,
Innocent IV, who gave complete pontifical sanction to
the Constitutions by inscribing them in extenso in a bull
entitled Cum adversus haereticam pravitatem, issued in
8
I245-
The Church did more than simply give its formal
to secular legislation against heresy it saw to
approval :
it that the lay authority put its legislation into practice.
See De Cauzons, vol. i, pp. 301-3.

1
Fred6ricq, Corpus, vol. i, pp. 78-80, No. 80, Capitula Senatoris

8
Annibaldi et populi Romani edicta contra Patarenos. See Gregorovius,

City of Rome, vol. vi, pt. i, pp. 156-61. Heretics were at this time
numerous in the States of the Church, Viterbo, Perugia and Orvieto ;
also in Lombardy. Some of these, the Arnoldists at any rate, were

also Ghibellines.
'
The Inquisition now became another instrument
in the hands of the Pope for the subjection of the people.'
*
Mansi, vol. xxiii, pp. 586 et seq.
It was Church to seek out, arrest, examine and

for the
condemn the it was the function of the State to
heretic ;
free the Church from the guilt of blood by arranging

for the actual execution of the impenitents, the canon
thus being reconciled with harsh necessity. Apportion-
ment of itsduties in the matter of heresy to the State by
the Church was no new thing in the days of Gregory and
Innocent. The resolutions of earlier councils had referred
significantly to the danger of popular revolutions, did not

the secular authority play its part, and had threatened
that disobedient lords might find their lands and goods
1
given away to other more zealous or more prudent.
The decree of Verona (1184) had claimed excommunica-
tion as the penalty for failure to execute the imperial
laws (at that time those of Barbarossa) against heretics ;
and the Fourth Council of the Lateran, enjoining an oath
upon secular
all rulers that they will banish all heretics
from their lands, declares their vassals to be absolved
from fidelity in the case of non-compliance. 2
Already, before the days of Innocent IV, it had been
made perfectly plain that the Church not only desired
and expected the execution by the secular authority of its
own laws against heretics, but that it was prepared to use
all available means to compel it to do so. Innocent IV
placed the coping-stone upon this system by his famous
bull issued to all the lay rulers of Italy in 1252, known as
Ad extirpanda. 3 This bull is remarkable for the thorough
and systematic nature of its provisions. To the end
that the pest of heresy may be uprooted, all lay rulers
are to swear to carry out the laws against heresy on
pain of fine and of being held an infamous perjuror and
4
fautor of heretics. Every civil magistrate within three
days of his entrance into office is to appoint twelve
1 Council of
Rheims, 1148, Fredericq, Corpus, vol. i, No. 31 ;
Montpellier, 1162, ibid., No. 35 ; Lateran, 1179, ibid., No. 47.
2
Verona, 1184, FredSricq, Corpus, No. 56; Montpellier, 1195,
ibid., No. 58 Fourth Lateran, 1215, ibid., No. 68. See also Mansi,
;
vol. xxii, pp. 987-8 ; Eymeric, Directorium, pt. ii, question 46, p. 378.
3 In Mansi, vol. xxiii, pp. 569 et seq.
good catholics, two notaries, two senators, two friars from
the Predicants, two from the Brothers Minor, whose
duties are to search out heretics, seize their goods and
hand them on to the bishop. These officials are to enjoy
a variety of privileges and to be free from all interference
in their work. The civil magistrate is to hand over all
heretics within a fortnight of their capture either to the
1
bishop or the inquisitors. Those condemned are within
five days of sentence to be dealt with by the secular arm
in accordance with the Constitutions (of Frederick II).
The secular authority is also required to inflict torture
on those heretics who refused to confess or inculpate their
confederates, to see to the exaction of fines and destruction
of heretics' houses, to keep lists of those defamed of heresy. 2
These statutes, and all others which might subsequently
be added against heresy, are to be religiously preserved
in the statute-books of every city, on pain of excommuni-
cation for any non-compliant official, of interdict for any
recalcitrant city. No
attempt must be made to alter
these laws or to observe any other laws which may be
found to be in contradiction to them. 3
Various slight alterations and modifications were
subsequently made in the terms of this all-important
fulmination. But with only insignificant revisions it
was reissued by Alexander IV in 1259, an d in 1265 by
' '
Clement V, who, however, inserted the word inquisitor
in places where previously only bishops and friars had
been designated. In the main the bull remained unaltered,
a lasting monument both to the Church's power in that
age and of its attitude towards secular action with regard
to heresy. It was for the Church to command where
her interests were concerned she expected to be obeyed
;
and, in case of defiance, had the necessary force to compel

obedience. Excommunication and interdict in those days
were no empty words. To be placed outside the com-
munion of the Church was even more than being outlawed
1
3, 5. 12-15.
2
24, 25, 31.
1
37.
from the Empire, equivalent to being placed outside
civilization ;
it was to be deprived of all rights, made any
man's legitimate prey. And if excommunication was
more injurious to the simple citizen than to the prince
or noble, still the latter had much to fear. The ban of
the Church relieved his vassals from their allegiance and
was an invitation to his enemies to march to his despoil.
In the eyes of the believer excommunication entailed
something very much worse than even such material
trouble and loss it meant the exclusion from the greatest
;
of means to salvation on earth, the imperilling of salvation

in eternity.
There was, as a matter of fact, no reluctance on the
part of the state to the task of persecuting heretics, as
the secular legislation of Henry II of England, Barbarossa,
Alfonso II and Pedro II of Aragon abundantly testifies.
But few secular magistrates would be willing to incur so
great a material and spiritual risk as excommunication
merely for the sake of a few fanatical schismatics.
The argued justification of the now well-established
system of persecution, of which Ad extirpanda is the
coping-stone, we find in Thomas Aquinas. In the
Church's procedure in respect of heretics he sees proof of
her deep mercy and charity. Her aim is the retrievement
of the prodigal, his penitence and return to the fold.
She aims not at punishment, but forgiveness. For the
penitent all is well, only for the obdurate and those who
have relapsed after reconciliation is there punishment.
It is meet that these should suffer, for in her kindness to
the individual the Church must not jeopardize the welfare
of the whole community. Heresy is the most terrible
of all offences. To corrupt the faith is a far worse crime
than to corrupt the coinage. 1 The latter is an aid to our
'
1
Summa, 2, 2, qu. n, arts. 3and 4. Multo enim gravius cor-
rumpere fidem, per quam est animae vita, quam falsare pecuniam, per
quam temporal! vitae subvenitur. Unde si falsarii pecuniae vel alii
malefactores statim per saeculares principes juste morti traduntur,
multo magis haeretici statim ex quo de haeresi convincuntur, possunt
non solum excommunicari, sed et juste occidi.' Vacandard (p. 176)
'
answers : Such reasoning is not very convincing. Why should not the
temporal existence, the former an absolute necessity for
the eternal life of the soul. If then the coiner be deemed
worthy of death, how much more the heretic! The
argument of analogy is fortified by the text of Scripture.
The methods of the Inquisition are found to be justified
If a man abide not in me, he is cast
'
by Christ's words :
forth as a branch, and is withered, and they shall gather

them and cast them into the fire and they are burned/
Thus the sayings of the Founder of Christianity were
made to sanction a system of cruelty utterly abhorrent
to the whole tenor of His teaching. 1
life-imprisonment of the heretic safeguard the faithful as well as his

death ? Will you answer that this penalty is too trivial to prevent the
faithful from falling into heresy ? If that be so, why not at once con-
demn all heretics to death, even when repentant ? That would terrorize
the wavering ones all the more. But St. Thomas evidently was not
thinking of the logical consequences of his reasoning. His one aim
was to defend the criminal code in vogue at the time. That is his
only excuse. For we must admit that rarely has his reasoning been
so faulty and so weak as in his thesis upon the coercive power of the
Church and the punishment of heresy.' St. Thomas's logic is sounder
than his apologist's, his humanity is less
if ! It is not St. Thomas's
logic that is at fault, but the standpoint of mediaeval Christianity,
which it is vain to seek to harmonize with modern humanitarianism.
1
St. John, xv, 6. Vacandard, p. 177. 'To regard our Saviour
as the precursor or rather the author of the criminal code of the
Inquisition evidences, one must admit, a very peculiar temper of mind.'
So judged, again by modern humanitarianism.
CHAPTER III
THE SPREAD OF THE INQUISITION

THROUGH EUROPE
BY the willing labours of the two Mendicant orders the
Inquisition was introduced into most of the countries
of Europe during the course of the thirteenth cen-
tury. Sometimes the two co-operated, as for example
in Aragon, Navarre, Burgundy and Lorraine. But there
was a good deal of jealousy between them, and sometimes
friction, so that it was generally found expedient to assign
Franciscans and Dominicans to different areas. Thus
the former were given the eastern portion of France south
of the Loire ;
the latter the western. Italy was also
divided, each order being allotted carefully defined districts
by Innocent IV in 1254. Northern France, Germany
and Austria were entrusted to Dominicans eastern ;
countries, Bohemia and Dalmatia, to Franciscans.

The tribunal met with varying measures of success
in the different countries of Europe, and in early days
encountered considerable opposition and other difficulties
in each.
In Languedoc the way for the Inquisition had been
well prepared by the Albigensian Crusade yet even :
so it was far from smooth. The zealous proceedings

of Guillem Arnaud and his assistants provoked the
bitterest popular resistance. 1 An assistant, Ferrer, was
expelled from Narbonne Arnaud himself from Toulouse.
;
But his unconquerable spirit, assisted by Gregory IX's

support, triumphed over popular hatred. Particularly
in 1241 and 1242 the inquisitors were exceedingly active,
so much so that in desperation certain Cathari set upon
Arnaud and several others and did them to death. Not
by such means could the Inquisition be worsted. The
Tanon, pp. 52-3. To be carefully distinguished from Arnaud of
1
Citeaux, Archbishop of Narbonne, the former papal legate in Languedoc,

160 SPREAD OF THE INQUISITION
Count of Toulouse, who had been planning to reassert
his independence, was forced to become completely
reconciled to the papacy, and as an outward and visible
sign of submission to take up arms against his own subjects
by besieging the last fortress of Catharism in the land,

the fortress of Montsegur. The fall of Montsegur and
the holocaust of heretics which followed it, together
with improved organization, enabled the Inquisition
to make better headway. A new difficulty, however,
arose in 1290 in the shape of strong protests against
the alleged cruelties and injustices of two inquisitors,
Nicholas d' Abbeville and Fulk de Saint -Georges. The
complaint that Nicholas had condemned the innocent
and wrung false confessions by cruelty was laid before
Philip IV. There was particularly strong feeling aroused
by the posthumous proceedings taken against a noted
citizen of Carcassonne, a great friend of the Franciscans,
named Fabri, who was accused of having been hereticated
on his death-bed. The defence of Fabri's memory
was undertaken by a remarkable man, a Franciscan,
named Bernard Delicieux. The inquisitors represented
Delicieux as a deliberate adversary of their tribunal ;
but when in 1301 Philip sent two representatives into

Languedoc to inquire into the causes of trouble, they
called to their assistance the resolute Franciscan, who
suggested the suspension of the inquisitors pending
investigation. The case was argued out before the King,
who came to the conclusion that the complaint had been
justified,that the inquisitors had been guilty of grave
excesses, of lawless exactions and the manipulation of
evidence, and took the unprecedented step of removing
both Nicholas d' Abbeville and Fulk de Saint -Georges.
At the same time he deprived the inquisitors of the right
to make arbitrary arrests. Philip's attitude towards
the activities of the tribunal in Languedoc was not based
upon principle, but was dependent upon the varying
circumstances of his quarrel with Boniface VIII. Thus
when, as at this time, French king and pontiff were
quarrelling, it was demonstrated that the Inquisition
SPREAD OF THE INQUISITION 161
in France existed only on sufferance and that its pecu-

derived from the papacy, automatically
liar privileges,
ceased during such disagreement. On the other hand,
in 1304, when a reconciliation between the combatants
had been effected, a compromise was arranged whereby :
it was settled that royal officials should give every

assistance to the inquisitors, when called upon to do
so but on the other hand these officials were to visit
;
the inquisitorial prisons, and to prevent abuses, and

independent action on the part of inquisitors without the
co-operation of the bishops was to cease.
It was not long before complaints against the
Inquisition were renewed the most important charge

being that good catholics were forced into pleading
1
guilty to heresy by the use of torture and imprisonment.
This time an appeal was made to the Pope, Clement V,
who sent two cardinals to investigate at Carcassonne
and Bordeaux. 2 They seem to have discovered many
abuses in the management of the prisons and to have
become satisfied of the genuineness of some at any rate
of the allegations against the tribunal and Clement ;
made a praiseworthy attempt at reform. In 1312

3
the Council of Vienne issued a number of canons to
this end, known as Clementines, which required that
in the infliction of torture the inquisitors must have
the concurrence of the bishop, also in the supervision
of prisons. Excommunication was threatened against
any who should abuse his power in order to satisfy
personal animus or greed. The restrictions imposed
on inquisitorial action by the Clementines were most
4
bitterly resented by the great inquisitor Bernard Gui.
1
Vaissete & Devic, op. cit., vol. iv, p. 118. 'Clamor validus et
insinuatio luctuosa fidelium subditorum, processus suos inquisitionis
negotio a captionibus, quaestionibus, et excogitatis tormentis incipiens
personas quas pro libito asserit haeretica labe notatas, abnegare
Christum . . . vi vel motu tormentorum fateri compellit.'
2
See Douais, Documents, vol. ii, pp. 303-27, for particulars of this
commission.
8 The bull,Multorum querela, incorporated in the decrees of this
Council. See Fred6ricq, Corpus, vol. i, No. 170.
4
Practica, p. 188.
M
With the death of Clement such vexation disappeared.
The Clementines were indeed republished by John XXII,
but it was at once clear that he had no desire to interfere
with the Inquisition. The feeling of freedom enjoyed
by the Languedoc is evidenced by its
Inquisition in
triumph over former enemy, Delicieux. During the
its
days of Pope Clement he had been suffered to live in

peace ;
now he was charged with having impeded justice
and with having compassed the death of Benedict XI
by poison. Overcome by repeated tortures, he threw
himself upon the mercy of the court found guilty
;
on the first charge, he was condemned to perpetual

imprisonment. This event in 1319 marked the victory
of the Inquisition in Languedoc. Now without fear
of opposition it could prosecute its labours in perse-
cution, systematized, unremitting, relentless. Heresy
was extirpated, the finishing touch to the Albigensian
Crusades supplied, and the distinctive features of south-
eastern France, as far as possible, blotted out. The irony
of the situation is that in accelerating this process the
Inquisition was unconsciously assisting the aggrandize-

ment of the royal power of France, with whose centralizing
policy the existence of so powerful an independent
tribunal was eventually found to be incompatible.
The beginnings of the attempt to extirpate heresy
north of the Loire are associated with the hated name
of Robert le Bugre who, armed with a somewhat vague
authority from Gregory IX, is found active from the
year 1233 in La Charite, Peronne, Cambrai, Douai, Lille,
'
his aim it has been said not to convert but to burn.' l
He aroused the jealousy of the bishops, who informed
the Pope that heresy was non-existent in their provinces.
The results of Robert's enthusiastic labours convinced
Gregory that the episcopal assurances had been mis-
leading, that heresy was in reality rampant, so that he
entrusted his delegate with a special commission and
ordered the bishops to support him. Thus fully
recognized, the inquisitor traversed Flanders, Champagne,
1
Tanon, p. 116.
Burgundy in a passion of religious energy, finding many

victims and producing widespread consternation. But his
career was a short one found guilty of numerous excesses,
:
he was deprived of his commission and relegated to prison.

After this we do not hear of holocausts. There
was, in reality, little heresy in northern France, and
the Dominicans, to whom the scouring of heretics in
the country was entrusted, had not a great deal to do.
Their labours, however, received the whole-hearted
support of Louis IX, who liberally supplied them with
money ;
their tribunal was well organized, the officers
vigilant. The first auto-da-fe recorded to have taken
place in Paris occurred in May, 1310, when a woman
called Marguerite la Porete was the principal victim.
She had written a book, the thesis of which was that
the sanctified soul could without sin satisfy all the
cravings of the flesh. Her followers would appear to

have been the chief prey of French inquisitors in the
latter part of the century.
There are illustrations during this period of the
efficacy of the Inquisition even against powerful per-
sonages, most notably perhaps Hugh Aubryot, prevot
of Paris 1 and builder of the Bastille, who, incurring the
animosity of the University of Paris, found himself
brought up on a flimsy charge and condemned to per-
petual imprisonment but in France the Inquisition
;
did not rest on very secure foundations. It might be

useful when heresy was rife and the proceedings of
inquisitorial confiscations brought money into the royal
exchequer ; but success in coping with heresy, that is
to say efficiency on the part of the tribunal, rendered
2
it no longer an object of solicitude to the crown.
By most notable fact concerning the Inquisi-

far the
tion in France was its dependence on the crown. An
interesting illustration of its subordination was given
in 1322, when the tribunal absolved a certain abbot
1 See
Tanon, p. 119. Also the case of the Sieur de Partenay, the
most powerful noble of Poitou. Lea, vol. ii, p. 124.
2
Lea, vol. ii, p. 130.
from the charge of heresy. The procureur-general was
not satisfied with this finding and appealed against it,
not to the Pope, but to the Parlement. The matter was
one clearly coming within the province of a spiritual,
not a temporal court, yet the Parlement calmly assumed
jurisdiction at the instance of the royal officer. yet A
more outstanding case arose in 1330, when Philip sent
a representative, de Villars, to redress encroachments
by ecclesiastical courts upon royal courts in Toulouse.
Being ordered to produce his registers by de Villars,
the inquisitor of Toulouse appealed not to the Pope
but to the King. In 1334 Philip, making known his
royal pleasure that inquisitors shall enjoy their ancient
privileges, makes it clear that they are to be regarded
as derivative from the crown. The inquisitor is looked
1
upon as a royal official. The two most noteworthy
inquisitorial trials in France were both of a political
nature, the state making use of inquisitorial machinery
for its own ends, those of the Templars and Jeanne
d'Arc. The great Schism, and still more the Pragmatic
Sanction of Bourges, by weakening the hold of the papacy,
enlarging the independence of the Gallican Church, and
aggrandizing the Parlement still further weakened the
position of the Inquisition. Not only the Parlement
but the University of Paris was a formidable antagonist
and rival. The latter arrogating to itself a supremacy
in theological matters, regarding itself as arbiter in all
matters of doctrinal speculation, acquired the authority
which the Inquisition lost. The tribunal was still active
in the fifteenth century, but it was finding the question
of expenses a difficult problem, and the growth of in-
difference to the penalty of excommunication made its
task harder. An effort was made by Nicholas V in 1451
to restore the former powers of the Inquisition and a
wide definition was given to its authority. In France,
however, it had lost too much in prestige to allow of
its being revivified.
2
When Protestantism entered the
1
Lea, vol. ii, pp. 130-2.
*
Ibid., p. 140.
country in the sixteenth century it was not the Inquisition

that was employed against it, but the University of Paris
and the so-called chambre ardente of the Parlement
national institutions under royal control. The days of
the Inquisition in France were over.
The history of the Inquisition in Germany opens

with the careers of Conrad of Marburg and Conrad Tors,
who carried on a fanatical crusade against Waldenses
and different pantheist sects, of which the Amaurians
and Luciferans were the chief, the methods of their per-
secution being purely arbitrary and leaving the accused
practically no opportunity of defence. Conrad of
Marburg's execrated existence was terminated by his
murder in 1233 .* That inquisitors were working in
Germany through the latter part of the thirteenth century
we know but they do not appear to have accomplished
;
much. After the publication of the Clementines, how-

ever, new efforts were made to suppress the Beghards
and similar unauthorized associations, but the work
seems to have been carried out rather by episcopal courts
than by friars specially deputed by the pope. It was
not until 1367 that, with the appointment by Urban V
of two Dominicans, a thorough attempt was made to
organize the papal inquisition in Germany. Pressure
was brought to bear upon the Emperor Charles IV,
and in 1369 he issued edicts extending the fullest possible
authority to the papal delegates with a view to the
eradication of the Beghards. Under threat of severe
punishment all prelates were enjoined to obey the orders
of the inquisitors with a good grace, while in order that
their privileges might be secured certain high nobles
were appointed to protect the inquisitors and to deal with
any complaints they might make. Later on, Charles IV
entrusted the Inquisition with a new power, that of
censorship, for the Beghards derived much of their
influence from the circulation of pamphlets in the
vernacular.
1
Lea, vol. ii. p. 341.
Fortified by the imperial favour, Kerlinger, the
principal delegate, displayed great energy at Magdeburg,
Erfurt, Muhlhausen, etc. ; and notwithstanding the
occasional opposition of a jealous episcopate the
Inquisition had made such good progress by 1372
that it had apparently succeeded in driving its enemies
out of northern and central Germany. These were the
days of the Flagellants and of the dancing mania as well
as of Beghards and the Brethren of the Free Spirit.
There certainly seemed to be no less need of organized
repression ; nevertheless theInquisition in Germany
after the days of Kerlinger tended to lose ground. Com-
plaintsmade against its recent proceedings were found
on investigation by Gregory XI to be well founded,
and the papal disapprobation armed the episcopate
against their rivals. As in France, so in Germany, the
Schism had the effect of still further reducing the influence
of the Inquisition. Persecution of Brethren of the Free
Spirit continued late into the fifteenth century but
:
heresies more formidable than the mystic anti-

far
nomianism which had been the characteristic heresy
of Germany were about to dawn. The intellectual
force in men such as Johann Wessel, Reuchlin and
Erasmus had infinitely greater power than a perverted
pantheism. And when Lutheranism took hold upon
Germany, there was no powerful Inquisition to check
it. Had there existed in Germany such a tribunal as
had stamped out Catharism in Languedoc, it might,
so far as we can
tell, have succeeded in silencing Luther,
while he was still an unknown monk of Wittenberg,
before he had come to apprehend the full significance
and the ultimate developments of his famous theses.
But when the hour came of the Church's greatest danger
from heresy in Germany, the weapon which it had used
with such tremendous effect in earlier days had been
hopelessly blunted.
The publication of Frederick II's Constitutions

and the activities of Gregory IX introduced a new era
of intolerance into Italy, where apparently tolerance
had hitherto been the rule. Inquisitorial activity
started in Florence and in Rome ; it was carried further
afield by several perfervid champions, of whom the

best known was Peter Martyr, the scene of whose labours
was first Milan, then Florence. In Florence persecution
had become so menacing that a formidable rising was
provoked. This was the occasion of Piero's coming to
Florence, where he at once formed a company on the
model of one he had created in Milan for the protection
of Dominicans, giving it the title of the Compagnia della
Fede. The Florentine with this protection,
inquisitor,
proceeded with his persecutions and a bloody conflict
was provoked, which was as much one between Guelph
and Ghibelline as between orthodox and heretic. Peter
Martyr led the banners of the faith with such good effect
that the forces of heresy were badly beaten and the
city reclaimed for Pope and Inquisition. He was next
engaged as inquisitor in Cremona and again in Milan.
Though there is no record of his proceedings there, that
he was as ardent a persecutor as before seems proved
by his assassination at Milan in 1252.
As a practical memorial of the martyr's enthusiasm
a voluntary association similar to those which Piero
had himself founded in Milan and Florence was formed
among the upper classes of the principal Italian cities,
the name crocesegnati being given to them, for the
protection and assistance of inquisitors. As devoted
and determined a champion as even Peter Martyr had
been was found in Rainerio Saccone of Vicenza, who
undertook the task of combatting heresy in Lombardy,
where it was very strong owing to large migrations
from Languedoc. Reorganizing and strengthening the
Lombard Inquisition, he achieved considerable success
with the assistance of Innocent IV, who at this time
issued the bull Ad extirpanda.
1
With the accession
of Alexander IV activity in Lombardy was still further
1
Lea, vol. ii, p. 221. For Peter Martyr, see Ludovico a Paramo,
pp. 108-9.
increased. The number of inquisitors was doubled,
and Rainerio announced that hitherto he had shown
incomparable mildness, henceforth he would be rigorous.
The chief obstacle a formidable one to the complete
success of the tribunal in Lombardy was the power
of the two great Ghibelline nobles, Eccelin da Romano
and Uberto da Pallavicino, into whose territories not
even a determined inquisitor dared enter. A crusade
against the former, organized by Alexander, after varying
fortunes proved successful, and the March of Treviso,
hitherto closed to the Inquisition, was laid completely
open.
A yet greater success was achieved by the Holy
See in 1266, when Charles of Anjou triumphed over
the Ghibellines at Benevento and the kingdom of Sicily
passed into full obedience to the papacy. Two years
later the last of the Hohenstaufen in a futile attempt
to regain Italy for his house perished on the field of
Tagliacozzo, and with him the last chance of the imperial
faction. Uberto had espoused the cause of Conradin
and the young prince's failure involved the downfall
of the Lombard noble. The story of the fortunes of
the Inquisition in Italy being largely that of the fortunes
of Guelph in the strife with Ghibelline, this Guelph
triumph naturally gave a great impetus to the Inquisition.

It had now no political obstacle to face, and
practically
it immediately extended its operations into all Ghibelline
territories, and although there were occasional outbursts

against it, as in Parma in 1279, when the populace
attacked the convent of the Dominicans and burned the
registers of the Inquisition, still the setbacks were not
serious. Ghibelline districts were particularly attacked,
and it was said that in such centres it was impossible to
feel safe, as in the eyes of the Church Ghibelline was apt
to mean heretic. 1 It should, on the other hand, be noted
that even during the period of the Inquisition's greatest
ascendancy in Italy, there are instances of papal
lenity in mitigation of the full rigour of the tribunal's
1
Lea, vol. ii, p. 236.
1
practice. In certain parts of Italy the Inquisition
did not thrive as in Lombardy and the Papal States.
When Charles of Anjou established himself in the Nea-
politan kingdom, one of his first proceedings was to
plant the Inquisition there, and he gave it his own
personal assistance in prosecuting its labours. On the
other hand, it remained somewhat dependent on the
crown and did not enjoy the whole-hearted support of
the local magistrates. Perhaps more serious was the
natural obstacle presented by the mountainous character
of the country. In the island of Sicily the Inquisition
had at no time much influence.
In another Italian state the Inquisition never
succeeded in obtaining a thorough hold Venice, ever
zealous for its independence of outside control. When
Gregory IX started his campaign against heresy, the
republic held aloof the Constitutions of Frederick II
;
were not incorporated in its laws. Persecution indeed

existed and the ordinary bishop's court existed as else-
where in Christendom but the Council, a secular body,
;
maintained a supervision in cases of heresy. The

Inquisition was not permitted to enter, and in consequence
Venice became an asylum of refuge for heretics from
other parts of Italy. But in 1288 Nicholas V ordered
the signoria to respect the laws of Pope and Emperor
and facilitate the work of the Inquisitor of Treviso in
whose province Venice ought to come. 2 According
to the recognized principles of the age the attitude of
the republic was indefensible. Venice, accordingly, gave
way, but was able to effect a compromise, whereby the
Inquisition was admitted, but on the other hand the
edicts, imperial and ecclesiastical, were still not placed
among the statutes of the city and the republic super-
vised the financial arrangements, defraying the expenses
1
Lea, vol. ii. p. 236. Notably Honorius III in 1286, who, in
consideration of the fidelity of the people of Tuscany, relieved them
of the penalties of heresy, save in the case of the relapsed, so that
the children of heretics could enjoy the property confiscated from their
parents.
*
Ibid., p. 251.
of the inquisitors, but at the same time receiving the
profits of confiscations. Thus one of the most prolific

sources of inquisitorial abuses was cut off, and at the
same time the power of the purse retained supreme
control for the state, the imposition of such important
restrictions allowed the Inquisition no such prestige
in Venice as it enjoyed in Lombardy. We find it at
times being deliberately ignored by the signoria, and
by the middle of the fifteenth century it had almost
entirely lost such influence as it had possessed after
the compromise of 1288.
In spite of its obtaining only partial ascendancy
in certain states, the Inquisition achieved its purpose
in Italy with marked success. Catharism lasted longer
there than in Languedoc, being found in Piedmont
in the late years of the fourteenth century but it was ;
harried energetically, and early in the next century it

was to all intents and purposes extinct. Waldensianism
lasted longer, having a much greater hold over the
country. In 1352 we find that the Waldensian Church
in Turin is flourishing and its numbers so great that
no attempt is made at concealment. Gregory XI made
special efforts to suppress the sect in Piedmont, but
without complete success. The next century saw another
strenuous effortmade by Yolande, the regent of Savoy,
who with the co-operation of the inquisitor of Dauphine
undertook a campaign for the extermination of the
Waldenses, all her officials being by the Duchess's
orders placed at the disposal of the inquisitors. For a
time the persecuted in Savoy were under the aegis of
Louis XFs protection but on his death persecution was
;
carried on assiduously. In 1488 an attempt was made

to put down the Waldenses by force of arms, but the
18,000 men to whom the task was entrusted met with
a crushing defeat. The respite thus secured did not,
however, last long, and in 1510 we find the Inquisition
strengthened by the loan of troops by the secular power

and using every means in its power against the heretics.
In the Alpine valleys the sect was never stamped out
by the Inquisition and remained in existence there until

the terrible Vaudois massacres of 1655. But as a result
of the persistent persecution, emigration on a considerable
scale was continually taking place, the majority of those
who took flight finding a refuge in Calabria and Apulia,
where the arm of the tribunal scarcely ever extended.
The great Schism was disastrous in weakening the
respect felt in Italy not only for the papacy, but the
Church as a whole, and the Inquisition inevitably suffered
in consequence.
The fame of the Inquisition in the Spanish peninsula

has been so great that it has almost wholly eclipsed its
fame anywhere else in Europe, and its history has been
in every way peculiar. It acquired an altogether unique
position there ; enjoyed an extraordinary prestige and

unexampled success. It earned an undying notoriety.
It became, as nowhere else in Europe, a national in-
stitution, closely identified with the monarchy, but also
popular, a possession of which the people were proud.
It was a terror to the foreigner ; it made the name of
Spaniard feared all over the world. It had played a

great part in welding the Peninsula together, in driving
out alien elements, producing national homogeneity.
It played, then, a large part in Spanish history, and
obtained a very marked influence on the national mind
and character. But the Inquisition which is so famous
or infamous in Spain was the creation of Ferdinand and
Isabella. It was a quite distinctive institution, much
more monarchical than papal, and it was not directly
the offspring of the tribunals that had existed in the
Peninsula in the Middle Ages.
The most remarkable fact concerning the Spanish
Inquisition is that this country in which the Inquisition
most abundantly flourished, the country which won
for itself easy pre-eminence for its close fidelity to the
Church, its zealous and implacable intolerance of any
sort of dissent, was originally equally pre-eminent for
its tolerance. The ardour of persecution in Spain was
not due to something ingrained in the national character ;
it was to a very large extent the offspring of the methods
pursued by the Holy Office and the deep implanting

;
of the Holy Office was due to deliberate policy on the

part of the Spanish monarchy from the days of Ferdinand
the Catholic and Isabella. 1 In the Middle Ages the
civilization of Spain was very largely Saracen. From
such sources south of the Pyrenees came that distinctive
culture of Languedoc, out of which heresy had so luxu-
riantly sprung. From a non-Christian people came the
philosophy, the mediaeval, astronomical, botanical know-
ledge, the art and fancy and the industrial skill and
trading enterprise of the country. Moreover Jew and
Christian met and did business together. So long as such
intermingling of different races, religions, civilizations
continued the soil was not favourable to the success of
such an institution as the Holy Office. Heterogeneity
is productive of tolerance. The Inquisition's day could
only come with the determination to drive out the other
elements and to make the Peninsula European in race,
Christian in religion and ideas. The success of that
policy had to wait for the union of the two crowns of
Aragon and Castile. Prior to that, the Inquisition
obtained success in Aragon only, being unknown in
Castile and Leon, while in Portugal, though there were
inquisitors in the country from 1576 onwards, they

appear to have been singularly inactive.
In Aragon 2 persecution was originally organized by
the state, both Alfonso II and Pedro II promulgating
severe legislation against heresy, though a sort of in-
quisition, consisting partly of clergy, partly of laity,
was established by a statute issued at Tarragona in
1233. The real beginnings of the Inquisition in Aragon
are, however, to be traced from the intervention of the
redoubtable Raymond of Penaforte, a year or two after
this. He was instrumental in introducing members of his
1
Ludovico a Paramo attributes the tranquillity of Spain to the
beneficent influence of the Inquisition, op. cit., p. 290.
2
Llorente, vol. i, pp. 66-97.
own order to deal with heresy and in 1238 Gregory IX
;
entrusted the prosecution of heretics to the Mendicant

orders in Aragon. In 1242 a very important Council
held at Tarragona formulated rules of procedure for
the guidance of inquisitors. 1 The Aragonese inquisition
did not, however, show great activity until the opening
of the fourteenth century. Its activity then produced
popular protest, and in 1325 the Cortes, with the royal

assent, prohibited inquisitorial methods of torture. It is
doubtful if this was intended to apply to ecclesiastical
as well as lay courts. If it was, it had no lasting results,
'
2
as can be seen from Eymeric's Directorium.'
This very remarkable inquisitor assumed office in
Aragon about 1360. With the most genuine and most
exalted conceptions of the dignity and importance of
his position, he put forward the utmost claims for the
Holy Office ; yet from the internal evidence of his treatise
itself, it does not seem to have flourished in Aragon in
his day. He makes loud complaints of its poverty.
But the came into its exchequer from
fact that so little
and that so ardent and active an inquisitor
confiscations
should apparently have accomplished so little seems
mainly to prove that heresy was not a serious menace
in Aragon at this time.
'
In the next century the history of the Aragonese

inquisition is neither interesting nor important, and the
end of that period brings us to the era of Torquemada
and the organization of a great inquisition for the united
kingdoms of Spain.
In Eastern Europe 3 the Inquisition never succeeded

in obtaining much of a foothold. The main stronghold
of Catharism was in lands east of the Adriatic, but here
the papacy possessed but scant authority. A practically
abortive attempt was made to deal with the heretics
in 1202 but in the twenties the Mendicants in their
;
1
Mansi, vol. xxiii, pp. 553-8.
*
See eulogy of Eymeric in Ludovico a Paramo, p. no.
8
See Lea, vol. ii, pp. 290-315. For Bohemia, see pp. 427-505.
I 74 SPREAD OF THE INQUISITION
untiring zeal, using Hungary as their base and with the
armed support of Calomar, Duke of Croatia and Dalmatia,
waged successful warfare against the Bosnian Cathari
until the retirement of the crusaders in 1239. Their
withdrawal meant that no effectual result was achieved,
and Catharism remained powerful not only in Bosnia,
but Dalmatia, Bulgaria, and Roumania. The bishops
of Bosnia found themselves compelled to leave the
country. In 1298 an attempt made by Boniface VIII,

to establish an inquisition in the lands south of Hungary
from the Danube to Macedonia, came to nothing. But
in 1320 an inquisitor named Fabiano, with the assistance
of the king of Hungary, made some progress against
the heretics, and a further effort was made in 1336
by Dominicans with the co-operation of the Hungarian
king. Though in 1378 Urban V congratulated Louis of
Hungary and the friars on having restored two thousand
heretics to the fold, four years later that monarch himself
complains .that practically all his subjects are Cathari,
good Catholics being very sparse in numbers.
In 1407 Sigismund made an attempt to establish
himself in Bosnia, his cause obtaining papal recognition
as a crusade against Turks and Manichaeans but his
;
attempt ended in failure. In 1432 an Observative

Franciscan, Giacomo della Marca, already well known
as a stalwart persecutor of heretics in Italy, embarked
upon a missionary enterprise in Slavonia, and is said by
his eloquence to have made numerous converts but his ;
success was short-lived, as he was recalled by Sigismund

to help in the religious troubles of Bohemia. After the
days of Sigismund there was chance of success for
little
missionary or inquisitorbeyond the Adriatic. The flow

of the Ottoman advance swept over the Balkans, and
the Cathari were converted not to Catholicism but to
the faith of Islam.
The Inquisition did not make its appearance in
Bohemia until late, the first inquisitors being appointed
in 1318, when they were also appointed for Poland,
Cracow and Breslau. There is hardly any record of what
they did. In 1335 Benedict XII made fresh efforts,

and between 1350 and 1380 there was considerable
activity against heretics, but it was the activity of the
ordinary episcopal courts, not of a papal inquisition.
There was a large diffusion of Waldensianism in the
country apparently early in the century there had been
;
a certain number of Luciferans. With the Church in

Bohemia in a low state of efficiency and the rise of the
anti-sacerdotal movement which led to Husitism, the
task of repression was a difficult one, and there was no
inquisition. One of the causes of the indignation of the
Czechs at the treatment of Hus at Constance was the
fact that Bohemia had had virtually no experience of
the Inquisition and was ignorant of its methods and
procedure.
After the silencing of the two great heresiarchs, the
Council commissioned the Bishop of Litomysl with
inquisitorial powers for the extirpation of heresy in
Bohemia ;
but as the Czechs were ravaging the Bishop's
territories at the time he dared not show face. The next
expedient of the Council was the arrangement that
Husite heretics should appear before special inquisitors
in the Roman Curia. As it was in the highest degree
unlikely that any Husites, particularly after the fate of
Hus and Jerome, would quit their own country to answer
charges of heresy, this was a futile proceeding, as was
the next a formal citation to 450 nobles, who had signed
a protest against the burning of Hus, to appear before the
Council on the charge of heresy. It was evident that no
inquisition could exist in Bohemia as long as the country
remained rebellious, predominantly schismatic. The suc-
cess of the Inquisition invariably required the support
of popular opinion, magisterial acquiescence, or armed
force. Neither of the first two being forthcoming, the
last expedient had to be tried. A crusade was preached
against the heretic people, to which only one upshot was
anticipated. But the anti-Husite crusade ignominiously
failed, and the Czech people kept the Inquisition from
entering their borders.
InScandinavian lands the Inquisition never pene-
trated, and it only once, for a very brief period, made its
appearance in the British Isles. This was in connection
with the suppression of the Templars. At first when the
horrible accusations which led to the undoing of the great
military order were bruited about, Edward II refused to
credit them, the record of the order in England giving
no colour to the charges. When, however, Clement V
issued his bull, Pastoralis praeeminentiae, in which he
stated that the heads of the order had made confession
of the crimes imputed to the iniquitous knights, and
called upon the potentates of Europe to take action for
their suppression, the English king ordered the apprehen-
sion of the Templars in England and the sequestration of
their property. No
further action was taken. But in
September 1309 two papal commissioners, who had
been appointed more than a year previously, made their
appearance. Instructions were issued that all Templars
not yet seized should be brought to London, York, or
Lincoln, where the commissioners with the co-opera-
tion of the bishops of the respective dioceses were
to hold inquiries. Similar orders were also dispatched
to Scotland and Ireland, where the inquisitors appointed
delegates. The proceedings in London began on Oc-
tober 20, 1309. The Templars, on examination, one
and all protested the innocence of the order ; outside
witnesses, as a whole, gave the same testimony. The
object of the inquisitors being conviction, this was most
unsatisfactory. Progress was much better on the
Continent, where torture was employed ; torture they
must use also in England, therefore. They obtained
from the King an order to the custodians of the prisons
to allow the inquisitors to do with the bodies of the
Templars what they pleased, in accordance with eccle-
siastical law.
Still only meagre results were obtained and Clement
became indignant. He wrote to Edward saying that he
had heard that he had refused the use of torture as being
contrary to the laws of his kingdom. No law could be
permitted to over-ride the canon law, and in interfering

with the work of the Inquisition the King had been
guilty of a very serious offence. He was offered remission
of sins if he would withdraw his prohibition of torture.
'
Thus urged, Edward again sanctioned the use of eccle-
siasticallaw/ but this time mentioned torture expressly,
explaining that he gave his sanction in deference to the
wishes of the Pope. Even thus the inquisitors could
not make headway. They were on alien soil in England ;
the country took ill to the special tribunal and its

methods. All that they achieved was that the knights
' '
eventually confessed themselves so defamed for heresy

'
as to make it impossible for them to make the canonical
purgation/ and therefore undertook to perform any
penances enjoined upon them. Such were the total
results attained by the Inquisition in England.
Persecution of heretics there had been before, under
the Assize of Clarendon ; persecution in plenty there
was after, under De Haeretico Comburendo and in the
days of the Tudors but the persecuting authority was
;
always the State no such international, papally-con-

trolled tribunal as the Holy Office. Mary Tudor might
have achieved a large measure of success in her Romanist
policy had she been able to make more use of those
international agencies, of which Jesuit propaganda and
the Holy Office were the two chief, which provided the
sinews of the Counter-Reformation movement. As it
was, the British Isles remained free from inquisitorial
influence ; their judicial customs and principles of justice
being uncontaminated by those methods of procedure
by inquisitio, by the use of torture, which the example
of the Holy Office introduced into so many civil courts
on the Continent.
CHAPTER IV
THE COMPOSITION AND PROCEDURE
OF THE TRIBUNAL
THE popular fame that the Inquisition has gained is due

to the terror which it aroused in the days of its greatness ;
its terror was the result of the thoroughness and efficiency

of its methods. It was efficient, in the first place, because
it was the product of experience. Its characteristics
were those that had been proved to be necessary. The
ordinary ecclesiastical courts had been found unsatis-
factory for dealing with heresy because their business
was too multifarious ; the Inquisition was devoted to
the trial of one offence and one only. The bishops had
failed in part because they were not specially qualified
for their task ;
the inquisitors were trained specialists.
In the second place, the tribunal was strong in having
the support of the secular authority as well as of the
papacy behind it. Thirdly, it became widespread in
western Christendom, so that flight was a doubtful
salvation. It seemed ubiquitous, because the mutual
co-operation between inquisitors of different districts,

and indeed countries, was highly organized. It seemed
all-pervading because of its apparent omniscience, due
to the extensiveness of its records and the thoroughness
of its spy system. victim, in short, was made to
The
feel hishelplessness before a power which seemed as
strong and inexorable as fate.
The Inquisition owed much to the character of its
judges. They were, at any rate, enthusiastic and hard-
working. The half-hearted inquisitor was of rare occur-
rence. They were often ardent with the fiery and
formidable zeal of fanaticism, believing themselves ser-
vants of God and surrounded by that aureole of sanctity,
COMPOSITION AND PROCEDURE 179
which gave their court the name and reputation of the
Holy Office. Often, beyond question they were cruel ;
but, on the other hand, it is necessary to beware against

accepting the traditional idea of the inquisitor as typical.
In the Middle Ages, when he flourished, the inquisitor
was not popularly regarded as a man destitute of human
sympathy, an ogre he was regarded, on the contrary,
;
with veneration. Often he was a man of high intellectual

attainments practically always he must have been
;
educated and learned much beyond the ordinary he ;
had studied in school and university and was a theologian,

if not also something of a philosopher and a lawyer.
Often too he was the most upright and honourable of

men and it is plain that men like Bernard Gui and
;
Nicholas Eymeric had the highest sense of their respon-

sibilities and the loftiest ideals for their fulfilment.
Bernard Gui gives us a sketch of the ideal inquisitor.
He is a man never slothful, yet not
ardent in the faith ;
precipitate never timid, but always cautious

; never ;
credulous, but ever ready to listen resolute for truth ;
and justice, yet merciful and compassionate careful in ;
his sentences that no ground shall be given for the charge

of cruelty or rapacity. 1
The inquisitor was a much privileged person, enjoying
a plenary indulgence during the whole period of office,
and he could only be excommunicated by the direct
authority of the Pope. In every way he was under the
panoply of special papal favour and protection. He had
the right of granting indulgences this being mainly
used to encourage or reward witnesses and informants
2
against heretics. Privilege was also extended to all
assistants of the Holy Office.

1 *
Practica, pp. 232-3, Diligens ac fervens zelo veritatis fidei et
salubris animarum ad detestationem et extirpationem heretice pravi-
tatis. . . .
Inquisitor sit constans :
persistat inter pericula et adversa
usque ad mortem, pro justitia fidei agonizans, ut non temerarie praesumat
per audaciam que periculose precipiat.' Cf. Eymeric, Directonum, p. 575,
'Inquisitor debet esse conversation honestus, prudentia circumspectus,
constantia firmus, sacra doctrina fidei eminenter eruditus et virtutibus
circumfultus.' See also Fredericq, Corpus, vol. i, Nos. 215, 243.
2
Ibid., pp. 594, 602 Ludorico & Paramo, p. 106.
;
i8o COMPOSITION AND PROCEDURE
The assistants were numerous, consisting of delegates,
often called vicars, socii, familiars, notaries, councillors,
prison officials and simple messengers and other servants.

To this list should be added the ordinary cures, whose
services might be utilized to publish citations, make
known the sentences of the tribunal, give testimony
for or against theirown parishioners.
The delegates were assistants of the inquisitors to ;
them was generally entrusted the task of asking pre-

liminary questions and hearing witnesses, the role of a j uge
a" instruction. They thus relieved the inquisitors of most
of the burden of the initial and formal proceedings but ;
they were strictly subordinates, their

powers being care-
fully stated in their commissions, and they were, as a
rule, appointed only for a particular cause and definite
period. On the other hand, they might take the

inquisitor's place in case of his illness or absence from
any other unavoidable cause.
The socius was not, as his name seems to imply, a
colleague, but only a companion, who merely accom-
panied the inquisitor on his journeyings in that capacity,
and discharged no official functions, save that he might
occasionally give informal advice.
The familiar, a most important and distinctive per-
sonage of the tribunal, might come from any class of
societyand usually came from men who lived in the
world. A recluse was of no use for the duties the familiar
had to perform. But once having adopted the calling
(valued on account of its ecclesiastical privileges), the
familiar became a member of a quasi-religious brother-
hood. His duties were various. A personal guard for
the inquisitor had to be provided. The inquisitors had
the right of arming familiars for this purpose, though
the Council of Vienne of 1311 recommended that the
number of familiars should be kept down to the minimum
and that the right of arming them should not be abused. 1
Familiars also visited prisons, and at autos-da-fe had to
1
Limborch, Historia Inquisitionis, p. 124, cap. ix ; Directorium,
pp. 631-2.
accompany the condemned and the penitent, exhorting

them to unfeigned repentance, and encouraging them to
submit to the punishments inflicted upon them. Lastly,
and most important, the familiars were secret agents,
and were as a rule remarkably efficient spies.
Another important officer was the notary. He was
quite indispensable. The number of men qualified to fill
the post, in days when writing was not a widely diffused
accomplishment, was far from large and the position ;
grew to be one held in high esteem and much sought

after. The notary's main duty was to take down
interrogatories and answers, and to keep the register of
them. First of all he would take down rough notes and
afterwards he would make a fair copy on a parchment
for permanency. As the questions were put in the
vernacular and the register kept in Latin, he had to be
a translator as well as a clerk. His task was so heavy
that in some cases he was given the help of scriveners ;
but every document had to bear his signature. It

would be impossible to exaggerate the significance of
this careful recording of evidence in the work of the
Inquisition. All the papers were sedulously kept often ;
they were carefully indexed and annotated. In course

of time the registers came to form a wonderful repository
of information, which was of immense assistance to the
tribunal.
As an illustration of how
the careful preservation
of exact and minute particulars of cases promoted the
success of the Holy Office may be taken the case of an
old woman apprehended in 1316. From the records it
was ascertained that the same woman had as far back
as 1268 confessed heresy and been reconciled. This
discovery showed that the prisoner was already a relapsed
heretic. 1 The meticulous transcription of some casual
and apparently irrelevant remark made by a witness in
one case might lead to the arrest of an unsuspecting
citizen on the charge of heresy in quite a different part
of the world years afterwards.
1
182 COMPOSITION AND PROCEDURE
The councillors or experts viri boni or periti were
usually chosen from the ranks of the clergy, priests,
abbe's, bishops but they might also be laymen, and
were often civil lawyers. Thus, at Panders in 1329 we
find that out of fifty-one experts twenty are civil lawyers. 1
The number of experts varied. Fifty is an exceptionally
large number but twenty or twenty-five quite common. 2
;
To what extent the councillors had a practical influence

in the inquisitorial process must remain doubtful. The
idea was that they should act as a check on irresponsible
inquisitors, as well as give professional legal opinion when
such was needed and from the frequent references to
;
the system in papal bulls it certainly seems true that the

popes showed anxiety to encourage the system of expert
assistance as a restraint upon arbitrary action.
On the other hand, it is by no means clear that the
system had much practical effect, since inquisitors were
not bound to accept the advice tendered, and the number
of the periti being so large, the volume of business
transacted usually so great, it is doubtful whether any
serious deliberation with the councillors took place in
the majority of cases. Probably their presence was
often purely formal, for the sake of giving additional
3
solemnity to the condemnation of heretics. Still, it
remains true that a place was provided in the inquisitorial
organization for the experts that the means of competent
;
legal advice was forthcoming that if the inquisitor was a

;
reasonable man he would no doubt pay due heed to such

advice on the purely legal aspect at all events of his
cases, and also that the experts, being often men of
importance, probably did have the power of making
their influence tell upon occasion. The system was at
allevents a potential safeguard.
Finally, there must be mentioned, among the members
of the tribunal, one of the most important the bishop.
The relations between bishops and inquisitors, frankly
1
See Vacandard, op. cit., p. 139.
2
Douais, L* Inquisition, p. 246 De Cauzons, vol.
; ii, p. 134.
8
Vacandard, p. 142 ; Lea, vol. i, pp. 388-9.
antagonistic in the early days of the Inquisition, probably

always tended to be unfriendly. If the bishop, for his
part, resented the new jurisdiction, which was a rival to
his own, the inquisitor in his own court aspired to be
supreme and to arrogate to himself a superiority over

the bishop, which the latter was not likely to allow.
The bishop's position was not altogether easy. Required
to take cognizance of heresy in his own court, he yet
had also to officiate in the special court where the
inquisitor, whatever his ecclesiastical status and whatever
his pretensions, was bound to be always prime mover in
the proceedings. We know that the inquisitors often
acted without the co-operation of the bishop. The
relations between them remained none too clear until
they were regulated by the Council of Vienne. They

were to work together and to concur in the sentence. 1
As a matter of fact, the concurrence of the bishop was
apt to be a mere formality and his position in practice
was bound to be subordinate, the inquisitor being a delegate
expressly charged by the Pope with the duty of trying
heretics.
Such being the composition of the Inquisition, what
was the extent of its province ? What, technically
speaking, was a heretic ? According to Raymond of
Penaforte, he was simply one who denied the faith. St.
Thomas Aquinas maintained that no one was a heretic,
unless he obstinately maintained an error after its
erroneousness had been pointed out to him by an
ecclesiastical authority. One teaching, therefore, was
that no one in ignorance could be a heretic. 2 Proof of
previous instruction in the truth had to be forthcoming
to show that a man was a heretic. But a broader
interpretation tended to prevail, and the heretic to be
considered as one who, on any grounds whatever, separated
3
himself from the traditional faith of the Church. The
1 In sentences the name of the bishop preceded that of the
nquisitor. Bernard Gui, Practica, p. 93.
2
Arnaldo Albertini, Tractatus de Agnoscendis Assertionibus Catho*
lids et haereticis, in F. Zilettus, op. cit. t vol. xi, pt. ii, pp. 52 et seq.
3
See Tanon, p. 218
jt84 COMPOSITION AND PROCEDURE
mere fact of separation did not in itself constitute
heresy but every schism must end in heresy, because
;
separation argues an error in belief touching the nature

of the Church. Lack of respect for ecclesiastical, and
1
especially papal, authority suggests denial of the faith.
To assert anything against the Scriptures, to add to them
or subtract from them would be heresy. Certain forms
of blasphemy and profanity would make a man at least
2
suspect of heresy.
Obviously the matter of interpretation gave abundant
' '
scope for casuistry. Bernard Gui's Practica is an

illustration of this. There was an obvious temptation
for the inquisitor to discover heresy in all manner of
3
disguises. Heresy was conceived as a most insidious
as well as a most pernicious enemy, to be ferreted out
in all sorts of strange lurking-places. The indefiniteness
of the term the inquisitor's definition is always a
catalogue was as a matter of fact unavoidable, seeing
that the offence consisted, not in an overt act, but in an
intention. It was a crime of the intellect, a matter of
state of a man's mind and disposition. Sometimes
^the
the heresy might be revealed in an act, but very often
there would be no formal act at all. The inquisitor must
be a searcher of the heart and a prober into the obscure
4
workings of the mind. It is necessary to add one
simpler but important point. No one could be a heretic

unless he had been baptized, unless he was a member of
the Christian Church. 5 The infidel, the Turk, the Jew,
did not come within the Inquisition's purview unless
he had at one time received the Christian religion. By
1
Vacandard, p. 162.
8
Simancas in Zilettus, vol. xi, pt. ii, pp. 96-7, 104, 122.
'
8
Moeller, op. p. 740.
cit., The spirit of the inquisitors is another
matter. There is room for distrust of their propensity to discover
heresies everywhere. Their amour propre was engaged to discover
it under the most puzzling appearances.'
4
See J. a Royas, De Haereticis, in Zilettus, vol. xi, pt.ii,pp. 212-24
(passim) Albertini, op. cit., p. 53 ; Ludovico a Paramo, p. 544.
;
See
both Royas and Albertini passim on the general question of how to
recognize a heretic, also Simancas in tit. xxxi.
*
Simancas, p. 155.
birth or adoption the heretic must have been a Christian :
for the heinousness of his crime consists in its being a
repudiation, a rebellion.
The Inquisition formulated a number of classifi-
cations of heretics. In the first place, they used
to distinguish between affirmative and negative heretics.
The former was one who deliberately avowed some
opinion contrary to the faith before the tribunal ; the
latter was one who either denied being guilty of the
incriminating word or act or else, while acknowledging

it, protested that he had no culpable intention.
1
In the
second place, a distinction was drawn between the
perfected heretic and the
imperfect. The first not only
held an error, but also practised the rites appertaining
to it, modelled his life on its dogma the latter merely
;
believed the error without being guilty of the evil

practices.
The
inquisitors also recognized a class consisting of
people who were not really heretics at all, perfect or
imperfect, but merely people who gave evidence of
heretical disposition or of tendencies which might lead
them into heresy. In the fact of its taking cognisance
of such a class lies one of the distinguishing features of
the Inquisition. 2 The tribunal deliberately dealt with,
and had a specific treatment for, those who were merely
suspected of crime. Suspicion was classified as light,
1
Eymeric, Directorium, p. 343. 'Haeretici affirmativi dicti
sunt, qui habent eorum quae sunt fidei, errorem in mente, et verbo
vel facto ostendunt, se modis praedictis habere pertinaciam in volun-
'
tate.' Negativi vero haeretici dicti sunt, qui coram judice fidei
per testes legitimos de aliqua haeresi, vel errore, quos nolunt vel non
possunt repellere, rite sive juste convicti sunt, sed non confessi, immo
in negativa constanter perseverant verbo fidem catholicam
profitentur et detestantur etiam verbo haereticam pravitatem.'
Cf. p. 561-
2
Lea, vol. i, pp. 433-4. 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 justice ;
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 doubt. Like much else taught by the Inquisition, this found its
way into general criminal laws, which it perverted for centuries.*
i86 COMPOSITION AND PROCEDURE
vehement or violent. There was no precise definition
ofwhat was meant by each of these it was generally ;
left to the inquisitor to decide in each particular case

what degree of suspicion existed. It was most essential
to avoid all contact with heretics.
1
A man proved to
have saluted a heretic or listened to his preaching on a
if he
single occasion was regarded as lightly suspect ;
had done so more than once, he was vehemently suspect ;
2
if he had done so frequently, he was violently suspect.
But such an offence as this, even if often repeated, was not

regarded as in itself sufficient evidence of actual heresy.
It only made the of ender a marked man. In such cases
the Inquisition did not dismiss the accused as not guilty ;
it would not absolutely dismiss a case, unless satisfied
that there was no proof whatever. This was due to the

intangible nature of an offence which consisted in an
intention.
The consequence was that the Inquisition, in order
to be on the safe side, virtually created a minor offence
of allowing oneself to be suspected of heresy. For every
good catholic must realize that any connection with heresy,
however remote, is contamination and therefore take the
most elaborate precautions to avoid all contact. To become
an object of suspicion, therefore, meant either that the
suspicion was after all well-founded (on the principle that
there is no smoke without fire), or that the conduct which
led to suspicion was inadvertent. Was it, then, unreason-
able to require that the suspect should make a formal
abjuration, to prove that in fact he had no sympathy
whatever with heresy, that the suspicion was unfounded ?
Nor, surely, was it unjust to record such cases of suspicion
in view of the possibility that the suspect might at some
later date come up once more before the tribunal, when
naturally his former offence would be legitimate evidence

against him ? Such is the line of argument in justifi-
cation of the penalizing of the suspected, as well as the
1
Simancas in Zilettus, vol. xi, pt. ii, pp. 133-5. See Tanon, p. 334.
8
See Douais, L' Inquisition, Appendix, p. 276, Raymond of Pefia
forte's ruling.
convicted. The suspect is indeed guilty, not of the
major offence of actual heresy, but of a minor offence
of misdemeanour, improper or at least imprudent be-
haviour, unbecoming to a good catholic an offence
legitimately dealt with by the tribunal concerned with
heresy.
Another class of offenders were fautors or defenders
of heretics. To
place any obstruction in the way of the
inquisitors was an act of fautorship. A lord who neg-
lected to pursue heretics out of his lands ; anyone giving
ecclesiastical burial to a heretic ;
one who in conversa-
tion excused a heretic or conferred any sort of favour,
however slight, upon one all these were fautors. For
a doctor to attend a heretic patient, a lawyer to plead
a heretic client's case, was exceedingly dangerous, unless
they could prove beyond all doubt that they did so in
ignorance. The simplest deed of common humanity
done to a heretic was in the view of the Church a sin. 1
Certain crimes were triable by the Inquisition, not for
themselves, but because they were indicative of false
doctrine. Thus a usurer might be tried and punished
by the Inquisition, 'not because he was a sinner, but
because he showed that he did not regard himself as
such. Similarly, a bigamist might be tried by the In-
quisition, not because bigamy was an immoral thing
if he could prove that he acted under the stress of simple
unreflecting passion the Inquisition would dismiss the

case as not coming under its purview but because his
act evinced erroneous belief regarding the sacrament
of marriage. 2
It was thesame with a number of other moral offences.
Adultery did not in itself come under the cognizance of
the tribunal but if the adulterer maintained that his
;
transgression was not a sin, it did. There is, for instance,

the case of a licentious priest living in concubinage being
1
See Mansi, vol. xxiii,p. 360. Council of Narbonne, 1235.
'
Quinam existimandi fautores haereticorum.' A sin in the eyes of

the Church and, it should be added, highly improper and dangerous
;
conduct probably in the eyes of the average man in those days.

8
Albertini in Zilettus, vol. xi, pt. ii, p. 82.
i88 COMPOSITION AND PROCEDURE
punished by the Inquisition, because he asserted that he
was purified of his ill-living by the simple act of putting
on his vestments. In a word, an error in morals is triable
only if it is also an error in belief. Otherwise, it is dealt
with by the ordinary ecclesiastical courts. As it is
arguable that a large number of crimes are indicative of
doctrinal error, the Holy Office could put forward a
rather sweeping claim to judicature over all manner of
wrong-doing but in practice there was probably not
;
much trouble as a rule, the tribunal being kept sufficiently

well occupied with offences in intelledu. Only when
the implication of heresy was the significant feature of
a crime was the Inquisition likely to be interested.
The list of offences coming within the sphere of
inquisitorial judicature is completed with the mention
of sorcery and witchcraft, practices essentially implying
heresy.
II
The ingenious Ludovico a Paramo, ever anxious to

discover warranty for all that the Inquisition was and
did in the Bible, and particularly in the infancy of the
human race, discovered the beginnings of the inquisitorial
process in the Book of Genesis. Thus God was the first
' '
inquisitor ; the call, Adam, where art thou ? was a

citation to a heretic the coats of skins made for Adam
;
and Eve were special garb for heretics, the original of

the special garb, the saribenitos, with which the Holy
Office clad its culprits ; and the deprivation of Adam
and Eve of paradise was equivalent to the confiscation
of the heretic's goods. 1
We shall find a more practically helpful explanation
of the procedure of the Inquisition if we content our-
selves by remembering the origins of the tribunal in the
Middle Ages. The fundamental fact* which shaped the
whole character of its judicature, giving it its essential
distinctiveness apart from other judicatures, was the
function of the inquisitor. Originally he had been, not
1 Ludovico a Paramo, op, cit., pp. 37, 45.
a judge, but a missionary he never became a judge
;
simply and solely, he never entirely ceased to be a

missionary. His primary object was not so much to
pronounce a judgment as to guard the faith his ambi- ;
tion not to condemn a heretic, but to reconcile him to

the Church. Every impenitent heretic was in a sense
a witness to inquisitorial failure, every penitent was a
triumph. The inquisitor, even when sitting in his
tribunal, was not solely a judicial functionary he was ;
still a confessor, a spiritual guide. This fact is the key-

note to the procedure of the Inquisition, because it
meant that the procedure was not simply and wholly
judicial.The Inquisition aimed at being something
more than a court. Its ultimate object was not secured
by the simple judicial process of deciding the guilt or
innocence of the accused it sought the spiritual end of
;
1
bringing the accused to a right state of mind and soul.
Consequently, the inquisitor is always actuated by
the desire to secure confession. That does not by any
means necessarily involve conviction. What is wanted
is that everyone arraigned before the tribunal should
publicly in the proceedings acknowledge his acceptance

of the Catholic faith. If he is not guilty, not a heretic
at all, the inquisitor has reason for personal rejoicing
there is one scandal less to the Church and the faith.
Or if the accused is guilty, but acknowledges his guilt
and is of his own accord, without compulsion, willing
to recant, again so much the better. It was preferable
that the lost sheep should voluntarily return, or allow
itself quietly to be led back, into the fold than that it
should have to be forcibly driven in. What the Church
least desired was that the sheep should be lost altogether.
Only if all means to secure reconciliation had failed, was

it possible to acquiesce in such defeat. But the Church,
in giving the most earnest solicitude to the errant in-
dividual, had to think also, and yet more earnestly, of
the whole community, and of the sanctity and majesty
of the truth which the obdurate heretic had spurned.
1
Cf. De Cauzons, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 203.
igo COMPOSITION AND PROCEDURE
Consequently, a salutary example must be made, the
penalty being duly solemn and impressive. But the mild
methods first.
The second distinctive feature of the Inquisition was

the methods of originating proceedings before it. Where-
as, under Roman law, either the accusation by an in-
dividual or the denunciation by an official was necessary
before proceedings could be initiated, an inquisitio could
be instituted as the result of a diffamatio, the general
report of the inhabitants of any community, a parish,
a seigneur ie, a town. It was indeed laid down that the
must be apud bonos
diffamatio graves, people of stand-
et
ing and gravity of character. This stipulation was no

doubt something of a safeguard nevertheless it remains :
true that, as no individual had to take upon himself the

onus of showing that he had good cause for preferring
a charge, the simple fact of unpopularity with his neigh-
bours might be quite sufficient for the institution of
proceedings against a man who was for any reason, just
or unjust, taboo among them. This method of justice
belonged to Canon law there was no trace of it in
;
Roman law but it has to be remembered that it was not

;
instituted specifically against heretics, but rather against

clericalwrong-doers in high places, who passed unchecked
because the necessary number of accusers willing to
take upon themselves the responsibility, and also possibly
1
danger, of prosecution could not readily be found.
Simple rumour by itself was not of great practical
value. It had to be organized. Hence the ruling of
Innocent Ill's decretal, Licet Heli (1199), relating to
clerical abuses, that superiors are to keep diligent watch
over their subordinates, so as to bring their misdoings
before judicial authority hence, as regards heresy, the
;
'
system of synodal witnesses,' whose specific duty it

was to vocalize local public opinion or knowledge. The
general vague diffamatio of the neighbourhood is by
them so crystallized as to become of practical value in
1
See Fournier, op. cit., pp. 235-7, 262-73. See also Esmein, op.
9
cit., pp. 66-134 (passim) English version, pp. 8-16, 78-94.
a court of law. But while this system of using the
depositions of the synodal witnesses and the village clergy,
accomplished much, further organization was needed.
The additional device necessary was provided by the
institution of the special papal delegates, who were
inquisitors in two different senses judicial officers,
examining charges brought before them as members of a

tribunal ; but also procurators making the preliminary
investigations prior to trial. They had two distinct
functions, two distinct inquisitions to make. These are
technicaUy inquisitio generalis and inquisitio specialis.
As the system became elaborated, the inquisitors
had at their command a formidable spy system, carried
on by their agents, the familiars. At the same time
much encouragement was given to wholesale delation.
The inquisitor or his vicar would make a sudden dramatic
descent upon town or village, and deliver a solemn,
perhaps menacing, exhortation to the inhabitants to
proffer information against heretics. By thus appealing
to the religious zeal or the apprehensions of the populace
many accusations would be obtained, often from husbands
and wives, parents and children. But to reinforce such
voluntary incriminations it was customary to proclaim
'
a time of grace/ which lasted from a fortnight to a
month. If within that period the heretic came forward,
acknowledged his own guilt and gave any information
he possessed against others, he would obtain either
complete exemption or considerable alleviation from
the penalties merited by heresy. This method, Bernard
Gui assures us, was remarkably satisfactory. 1
The inquisitio generalis being concluded, and prisoners
obtained either by voluntary self-denunciations or on
the information of others, the judge, according to
canonical usage, had a choice of expedients. He could
either proceed to an inquisitio specialis or make use of
the method of purgatio canonica. The second method
had been solemnly adopted by the Church in 803. 2 It
1
Practica, p. 182.
2
Fournier, op. cit., p. 265 ; Tanon, pp. 272-6.
I 92 COMPOSITION AND PROCEDURE
was an appeal to God. The accused solemnly swore
by the Gospels that he was innocent, while those of his
friends or neighbours willing to support him acted as
his compurgatores and gave similar solemn testimony
to his innocence, their number, from two or three to forty,
varying in accordance with the degree of suspicion existing
against him. The device was obviously defective. Its
only advantage lay in the impressiveness of its appeal
to the devout mind, persuaded of the heinousness of the
sin of perjury, while it allowed the innocent man to
suffer, if he happened to be unpopular and could not
prevail upon the necessary number of compurgators
to assist him, and also allowed the guilty to go free, so
long as he was not over-scrupulous as regards perjury
and had the necessary popularity to persuade, or power
to compel, others to act as his compurgators. Thus,
while the system of canonical purgation was never
abolished, it had fallen into virtual desuetude before the
end of the thirteenth century. 1 In practice the inquisitio
generally was followed automatically by the inquisitio
specialis. The accused was served with a citation to
appear before the tribunal and kept in prison pending
his trial. 2
In the case of thosewho had yielded themselves up
of their ownaccord, the voluntary act constituted the
confession, which it was the inquisitor's object to obtain.
For those accused who refused to confess there followed
the interrogatory. Here the inquisitor acted as prose-
cutor and cross-examiner, as a sort of juge d' instruction*
Only the inquisitor's office, unlike that of the juge
d' instruction, did not end with the completion of the
interrogatory having conducted the examination, he

;
would also pronounce the sentence. The

afterwards
interrogatory resolved itself into an unequal contest
between inquisitor and accused. It was unequal, in
1
Fournier, pp. 266-7,
2
For forms of citation, see Bernard Gui, Practica, pp. 3 et seq. ;
Tanon, pp. 339 et seq.

*
Fournier, p. 273. The inquisitor, or his delegate. Supra, p. 180.
the first place, because there was always a presumption
against anyone charged with heresy. As we have seen,
it was an offence for anyone to be so criminally negligent in
vitally important matters as to allow his conduct to

give rise to the slightest rumour of heresy. It was an
excellent characteristic of both Roman and Canon law
that the accused was held to be innocent until actually
proved to be guilty. This characteristic was not shewn, in
actual practice, in dealing with one accused of heresy. The
mere fact of defamation tainted a man. It was, there-
fore, a matter of very great difficulty for the defendant
to demonstrate his innocence. He had to demonstrate
it;
for the mere fact of the diffamatio, whether well-
grounded or not, was good evidence against him and ;
to free himself, he must rebut this evidence. The

process was indeed so difficult that it was much safer
to confess guilt at the outset than to labour to prove
innocence.
In the second place, the duel was unequal because
the inquisitor considered it perfectly legitimate to dis-
concert his adversary by means of disingenuous subtleties
and subterfuges. It is only fair to add that the inquisi-
tor adopted such devices because he believed that the
heretic was apt to indulge in them and might save himself
by clever equivocations unless dealt with astutely and ;
the inquisitor had a lively sense of the extreme undesira-

bility of permitting a heretic to get the better of him in a
duel of wits. Such a thing would be ignominious for
the inquisitor a blow to the Church and the truth. We
;
are told of some

of the artifices practised by Waldenses.
*
In answer to the question What is Holy Church ?
:
'
'
they will say, What you consider to be such/ or assert

that they are simple illiterate men standing in need of
instruction, and must leave it to the judge to express
their beliefs in words. That the inquisitors may have
found the rejoinders even of illiterate men at times
1
disconcerting is likely. But it is certain that they
1
Bernard Gui, Practica, pp. 235 et seq. ; Eymeric, pp. 465 et seq.
Cautelae inquisitorum contra haereticorum cavillationes et fraudes.
I 94 COMPOSITION AND PROCEDURE
practised their subtleties on many who
had not the wits
to cope with them and, in any case, the inquisitor,
:
being both examiner and judge, had an enormous initial

advantage. As a rule, the inquisitor or his vicar was
extremely well equipped to conduct the interrogatory
skilfully and successfully, even against the most re-
doubtable antagonists. They possessed, moreover, a
rich repository of ready-made devices in the treatises
written by the great masters of the inquisitorial art.
The escaping from the tentacles of the
difficulty of
inquisitorial process inspired Bernard Delicieux to say
that even the orthodoxy of St. Peter and St. Paul
would not have been sufficient to satisfy the tribunal. 1
It was held to be legitimate to surprise and confuse
the defendant by a multiplicity of questions, which
would involve him in contradictions. 2
Altogether the dice were heavily loaded against the
accused. Dismayed to begin with very likely by the
simple shock of finding himself accused of the terrible
crime of heresy, 3 confronted by a formidable examiner,
who was clearly bent upon securing a confession if at all
possible, he had also to
face the great obstacle presented by
the close secrecy of all the proceedings. There was none
of the security that comes from the open trial, none of
the encouragement to make a good fight for freedom,
for honour, for life that comes from publicity. Again,
the chances of acquittal were very small when the agree-
ment two of the witnesses against him was sufficient
of only
for the condemnation of the accused, whether he confessed
or not especially as the delicate question of what con-
:
stituted sufficient agreement was left to the discretion

of the judge. It was laid down that agreement in sub-
stance was sufficient and even when there was discord in
;
the evidence of the two witnesses, this was not sufficient

1
B. Haur6au, Bernard Dtticieux et V inquisition albigeoise (Paris,
1877), p. 89.
2
Cf. Tanon, p. 357.
8
On ' '
the shock of accusation, see Langlois, op. cit., p. 56. On
methods of interrogatories generally, see Molinier, op. cit. t pp. 328 et
seq.
to secure acquittal. Moreover, evidence, not good
enough to procure conviction, would be good enough to
serve as the basis of a prolonged, searching and perplexing
examination, in which the accused was more likely to
incriminate than to clear himself. 1
A further heavy obstacle to the making of a defence
was insufficiency of information. While the resume or
capitula of the charges preferred against him was com-
municated to the defendant, on the other hand, the
names of the witnesses were withheld from him, and he
was not allowed to read their evidence in extenso. This
practice of secrecy commenced early in the thirteenth
century in Languedoc, and the rule soon came to apply
in most other countries. Occasionally the names were
2
given, though in an incomplete or confusing fashion ;
but the inquisitors themselves were in favour of not

3
disclosing names at all. This was owing to the cir-
cumstances in which the Inquisition had originated,
amid an unfriendly populace. 4 There had been cases
of the assassination of witnesses by the friends of the
acccused and undoubtedly there was always a certain
;
element of risk in giving evidence against a heretic in a

country where heresy flourished and was popular. In
those early days the inquisitor was very likely endanger-
ing his life in the prosecution of his labours in such:
circumstances, if the indispensable evidence was to be

collected,some sort of safeguard for voluntary witnesses
was reasonable.
But an arrangement, which was justified, and perhaps
rendered imperative, by the conditions prevailing when the
Inquisition began, was continued indefinitely, and main-
tained when not the witnesses but the defendant belonged
to an unpopular minority and stood in urgent need of
1
See Tanon, pp. 388-9.
390 et seq.', Limborch (Eng. tr.), vol. i, p. 179.
2
Ibid., pp.
3
Bernard Gui's Practica, pp. 189-90, 243.
'
Non . .
expedit
.
quod omnes interrogationes scribantur, sed tantum ille que magis

tangunt substantiam vel naturam facti.' Cf. Ludovico Paramo,
P. 523-
*
See Molinier, pp. 155, 327.
some protection. How could anyone put on trial make an
effective answer to the charges brought against him when
he was never allowed to confront the witnesses, did not
even know their identity, and was permitted to see only
a precis of their testimony ? It is obvious that the system,
whatever its origin, became in course of time a positive
encouragement to delation and a temptation to perjury.
But it is only right to add that the Inquisition, both in
the Middle Ages and later on, showed itself at times
extremely severe in punishing proved cases of false
1
witness.
Nevertheless, as a rule, the Inquisition was not at all
nice in its selection of evidence, and certainly not im-
partial. It accepted the evidence of persons who were
debarred from bearing testimony in the secular courts.
It even accepted the evidence of one heretic against
another, though it never admitted that the evidence of
one heretic in favour of another had the slightest validity. 2
Similarly the Inquisition permitted, indeed encouraged,
husbands to testify against their wives, children against
parents, servants against masters ; though their favour-
able testimony was rejected. 8 The rules as regards age
seem to have varied in different countries but certainly
;
generally speaking, true that persons were permitted

it is,
to give evidence before the Holy Office at an age when

their testimony would not have been received in a lay
court. We even hear of a case at Montsegur of a child of
six incriminating members of his own family and many
others. The ordinary rules regarding the status and
character of witnesses were similarly in abeyance.
Criminals and men of infamous reputation, homicides,
1 See Simancas in
Zilettus, vol. xi, pt. ii, pp. 103-8, 121-2, 202 ;
Lea, vol. i, pp. 441-2.
*
Eymeric, Directorium, p. 662.
Familiares &
'
3
Ibid., p. 663, Pena's comment, No. 119.
domesticos non admitti in hoc crimine ad defendendum reum, & ratio
non inepta haec potest, nam quemadmodum nemo unquam carnem
suam odio habuit, eodem modo nemo putandus est consanguineos
suos odio habere, turn etiam quia cum ex hoc crimine infamia in filios
descendat, si filii ad testimonium dicendum pro parentibus admit-
terentur, facile ut infamiam vitarent, mentirentur.'
harlots, proved perjurers and excommunicates were none
of them debarred from giving evidence against heretics.
Information might be forthcoming from the confes-
sional. What were the duties of a father-confessor in
such a case ? There was, on the one hand, the fact of the
extraordinary heinousness of this offence which had
necessitated the creation of a special court for its sup-
pression but, on the other hand, the institution of the
;
confessional had to be safeguarded and a feeling of security

be assured to the penitent, without which he could not
be expected to make a full and free confession of all his
sins, whatever their magnitude. The solution was that
the granting of absolution, upon an avowal of heresy, lay
outside the powers of an ordinary confessor he must;
refer the matter to his superiors. The question coming

up before the Council of Tarragona in 1242, it was indeed
decided that, although a confessor granting absolution
for heresy without consulting his bishop merited censure,
nevertheless his grant of absolution, if duly certified
by himself, should entitle the penitent to a limited

protection, i.e. immunity from temporal penalties.
This, however, was an isolated ruling, and it was generally
' '
recognized that heresy was a reserved case.

Absolution by an ordinary confessor was invalid and
could be no safeguard from the institution of inquisitorial
proceedings against a penitent, should evidence of heresy
be preferred against him. But what if, in spite of his
knowledge that he could not obtain absolution from his
confessor, a penitent incriminated himself what if he,
;
inadvertently perhaps, incriminated others ? Was in-

formation derived by a confessor in such a way sacrosanct,
because obtained in the confessional ? Not apparently
in Toulouse and Carcassonne at all events. There
priests were positively enjoined to utilize the hearing of
confessions to make
diligent enquiry concerning heretics,
their believers fautors, and also to confide carefully
and
to writing anything they learnt. They were also to take
the penitent before the bishop or his vicar, so that he
might there repeat his testimony. But if the penitent
'
was unwilling to do this, the priest was notwithstanding
'
this to seek advice from expert and God-fearing persons,
as to how he should proceed further. What this must
involve is not specified ; but clearly the only conceivable
further proceedings are either to bring more pressure to
bear upon the penitent, or else to use his ev'dence without
his consent. Even if the latter never happened, the
former course is not in strict accordance with the rules
that should regulate the confessional. 1
Yet another most serious disability, under which the
accused laboured, was that he was not allowed the assist-
ance of an advocate, he was thrown entirely on his own
resources in making his defence. Innocent III expressly
forbade advocates and notaries to lend any aid to heretics
or their abettors. The prohibition at first applied only
to the case of open and avowed heretics. Eymeric ruled
that counsel were in no wise to be denied to the accused,
but he followed this up by the qualification, that advo-
cates espousing the cause of a heretic rendered them-
selves liable to prosecution before the Inquisition, as
2
suspect of heresy themselves for doing so. In actual
practice what happened probably was that when
the evidence against the accused was clear, he need
expect no advocate but when it was weak, then an
;
advocate might be forthcoming. For if the evidence in

support of the charge of heresy was strong, then assist-
1
On the question of the confessional, see De Cauzons, vol. ii, pp.
214-7 Douais, L' Inquisition, p. 279, in treatise ascribed to Raymond
;
of Penaforte Lea, vol. i, p. 437 and note. For decree of Council

;
of Tarragona, see Mansi, vol. xxiii, pp. 555-6. See also E. Martene and
U. Durand, Thesaurus novus Anecdotorum (Paris, 1717), vol. v, p.
1802. Doctrina de Modo Procedendi contra Haereticos, the section
'
Qualiter sacerdos debet inquirere in confessione de facto haeresis. Item,

injungitur sacerdotibus quod in poenitentiis diligenter inquirant de
haereticis & Insabbatis, credentibus, & fautoribus eorumdem, & si
quid invenerint, fideliter conscribant, & mox cum illo vel cum illis
qui hoc confessi fuerint, episcopo, vel ejus vicario, quid super hoc
invenerint manifestent. Si vero confessus noluerit consentire, ut
quod dictum est reveletur episcopo vel ejus vicario, Ipse nihilominus
sacerdos requirat consilium non specificando personam a peritis &
Deum timentibus, qualiter sit ulterius procedendum.'
2
Directorium, p. 480.
ance given to the accused was tantamount to fautorship
of heresy, which was in itself a very serious offence. In
any case the role of advocate was dangerous and there
was no inducement to compensate for so grave a risk.
That such assistance was seldom, if ever, actually
given seems proved by the absence of any indication of
the practice even in the early inquisitorial registers. 1
Very soon, however, it was decided absolutely that the
use of advocates was to be prohibited. Such was the
ruling of the Council of Albi in 1254 an<^ the regulation
>
soon became general. 2 This was the really inevitable

consequence of the view which made the suspect a
marked, a tainted man even before he had stood his
trial. But certainly one consideration which weighed
heavily against the use of advocates was the possibility
of the practice encouraging the spread of heresy, though
the chances of an advocate's allowing himself to be
infected by his client's erroneous doctrines were remote.
In its attitude towards this question we are once more
reminded of the fundamental fact of the Inquisition's
twofold nature. If the inquisitor be considered as a
confessor, the accused as a penitent paternally exhorted,
lovingly urged to reconciliation, pardon being assured
for the truly repentant, what possible need can there
be for an advocate? 3 The tribunal gave every facility
for the escape of the prisoner from all the possible unhappy
consequences of his defamation, down one avenue con-

fession,penance, reinstatement.
If the defendant was obstinately determined on
defending himself, instead of throwing himself upon the
mercy of the inquisitor, as representative of the infinite
compassion of the Church, he was very much limited in
his choice of pleadings.Ignorance was a possible plea
morelikely to be accepted in the case of a woman than
a man but inquisitors were on their guard against
feigned ignorance. That words complained of were only
1
See Tanon, p. 401.
2
Mansi, vol. xxiii, p. 838.
8 De Cauzons, vol. ii, p. 188
a lapsus linguae, or an idle jest uttered on the spur of
the moment, or in drunkenness, might be accepted as
a legitimate excuse. The plea of great perturbation of
mind mortal terror, for instance might also possibly
be accepted but not the madness of love or the sudden
;
1
grief of bereavement. To make out a case on these lines
was in any event very difficult, and the only device that
promised any really good prospect of success was to
challenge a witness on the ground that he was actuated
by personal malice. But as the witnesses' names were
not disclosed, this was no easy matter. All that the
accused could do, was to mention the names of any of
his neighbours who might bear him a grudge, on the
chance that they might be included among the authors
of his defamation. 2 But it was not sufficient to indicate
simple ill-will. The charge of heresy was so terrible that
it was assumed that little short of mortal enmity would
induce anyone to prefer it maliciously. The accused
would, therefore, be carefully examined as to the nature
of any quarrel with his neighbours that he might allege
in his defence. The only purpose for which he was
allowed the use of witnesses was to prove the facts of
such a quarrel.
It must be clear that even when the presiding judge
was a fair-minded, conscientious man, not too fanatical,
the chances of effective defence were small. And the
prosecution was
exceedingly strong. preliminary If
inducements, the subtleties of the interrogatory, the

absence of means of defence, all proved insufficient to
1
See Ludovico a Paramo, p. 550 ; Simancas in Zilettus, vol. xi,
pt. ii, pp. 138-40.
'
2
See Douais, Documents, vol. ii, p. 136. Arnaldus Pagesii, de
Mossoleux, comparuit apud Carcassonam coram domino episcopo
Carcassone et requisites si vult se deffendere de hiis qui in inquisitione
;
inventa sunt contra eum, respondit quod nullus pro vero potest aliquid
dicere de ipso. Requisitus si velit ea de scriptis recipere, dixit quod
non et aliter non vult se deffendere.
; Item, requisitus si habet
inimicos, dixit quod sic, Ber. Gausbert et Martinum Montanerii, sed
nullam legitimam causam inimicitiarum assignavit et alios inimicos
;
noluit nominare.' Cf. ibid., p. 178. See also Lea, vol. i, pp. 578-9,
appendix.
produce the desired confession, was possible severely

it
to shake the moral of the defendant by subjecting his

case to prolonged delay, which was calculated to impose
a great strain upon the nerves. Except in rare instances
time was no consideration to the Inquisition. Its invin-
cible patience was one of the most terrible of its weapons.
It was willing relentlessly to wait, not merely weeks and
months, but years and many years. It was quite common
for an interval of anything up to ten years to elapse
between the date of the first interrogatory and that of
the final condemnation. The period might be con-
siderably longer. We hear of a man, first brought to
1
trial in 1301, being sentenced to death in I3IQ. This
slow torture of suspense was generally endured in prison,
where the recalcitrant would probably receive frequent
visits from the inquisitor or his assistants, who would
instruct him and exhort him to make confession. If
simple incarceration proved insufficient to overcome the

victim's fortitude, great additional hardships could be
introduced insufficiency of food, comfort, rest.
Finally, the most weapon which the
celebrated
was torture
Inquisition possessed for procuring confession
itself. Torture had been known to both Roman and
barbarian law, being used even for such minor offences
as theft. 2 On the other hand, according to all the best
authorities, it was strange to Canon law. It did indeed
recognize flogging, but only as a punishment or penance.

Gratian laid it down categorically that torture was not
to be used as a means of extorting confession. It was
not until after the condemnation of the ordeal by the
Lateran Council of 1215 that the Church sanctioned its
use for this purpose. In the bull, Ad extirpanda, pub-
lished in 1252 by Innocent IV, the employment of torture
was not merely permitted, but enjoined. 3 The rule was
1
Tanon, p. 402.
2
Ibid., p. 362.
3
Mansi, vol. xxiii, p. 573, 23. 'Teneatur praeterea Potestas,
seu rector, omnes haereticos quos captos habuerit, cogere, citra membri
diminution em & mortis periculum, tanquam vere latrones & homicidas
animarum, & fures sacramentorum Dei & fidei Christianae, errores
thereby laid down, that any sort of torment short of
mutilation was to be utilized in order to obtain confessions
and information. But the actual infliction of the torture
was to be carried out by the secular arm. The idea of
the clergy's personally superintending the infliction of
cruelty was very properly repugnant.
The sense of repugnance did not last long, how-
ever. 1 The inquisitors of the thirteenth century found
Innocent IV's proviso irksome. The employment of
a secular official to assist them in carrying through the
inquisitorial process was no doubt inconvenient, and in
1256 Alexander IV overcame the difficulty by granting

inquisitors and their assistants the privilege of absolving
one another, or giving one another dispensations, for any
canonical irregularities they might commit in the pur-
suance of their duties. 2 This was an oblique reference to
torture. This rule was reinforced by Urban IV in 1262. 3
The subterfuge satisfied the scruples of the inquisitors.
The extent to which torture was used no doubt
varied in accordance with the character of the inquisitor.
In the sentences of Bernard de Caux there is only one
passing mention of the practice there is only one mention
;
of it also in Bernard Gui. Though it is frequently

referred to by Geoffrey d'Ablis, this is in a negative
4
way only. It is stated that so and so confessed freely,
no torture having to be used. But that torture was being
used and with great severity is proved by the intervention
of Philip the Fair in 1291 and 1301, and of Clement V in

1306 ; while in 1311 the Pope endeavoured to moderate
suos expresse fateri, & accusare alios haereticos quos sciunt, & bona
eorum, & credentes & receptatores, & defensores eorum, sicut coguntur
fures & latrones bonorum temporalium accusare suos complices, &
fateri maleficia quae fecerunt.' Cf. David of Augsburg, quoted by
Douais, L' Inquisition, pp. 171-2 note.
1
By the time of the Spanish Inquisition of Ferdinand and Isabella
torture had come to be accepted as a most praiseworthy and Christian
institution. Cf. Simancas in Zilettus, vol. xi, pt. ii, p. 204.
2
Potthast, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum (Berlin, 1874 et seq.},
No. 18057.
3
Ibid., No. 18390.
4
Tanon, p. 379.
the practice by the requirement that torture should not
be inflicted save with the concurrence of the bishop of the
diocese. 1 Bernard Gui very much resented the restriction,
and though in his sentences there is only the one mention
of torture, it is clear from his treatise that he thoroughly
approved of it, on account of its great utility. 2
Certainly torture was regarded by inquisitors of the
best type, not as a habitual practice, but only as a final
measure, to be used solely when other means had failed.
Eymeric lays it down that the circumstances justifying
itsapplication are that the case against the accused
has been half-proved already or that the accused has
contradicted himself. 3
It was a very salutary rule that no prisoner might be
tortured more than once ; but this humane regulation
became a dead-letter. The inquisitors found it galling
and surmounted the obstacle with an utterly disgraceful
quibble. Torture, they agreed, could not be repeated ;
but it might be continued*

They used this patent
sophistry to justify the application of torture an indefinite
number of times at indefinite intervals. Thus some
of the witches of Arras were tortured forty times, twice
in a day. 5 In such cavalier fashion could rules and
1
See supra, p. 161.
Lea, vol. i, pp. 423-4, with reference to the infrequent mention
2
'
of torture in inquisitorial registers. Apparently it was felt that to
record its use would in some way invalidate the force of the testimony.'
'
Cf. Tanon, p. 377. Cette particularity (silence) n'est pas speciale

aux registres de 1' Inquisition. La plupart des registres criminels des
" "
juridictions laiques, pour les epoques auxquelles la question 6tait
d'une application constante, la presentent pareillement. La question
etait un incident de procedure qui donnait lieu d'abord a un inter-
locutoire, puis a un proces-verbal special, dont la transcription dans
les registres n'etait nullement necessaire. Le greffier qui redigeait
la sentence, lorsqu'il relatait les aveux de 1'accuse", etait beaucoup
moins preoccupe de constater les moyens de contrainte a 1'aide desquels
ils avaient ete obtenus que la reiteration de ces mgrnes aveux, repute's
alors volontiers, hors de la chambre de torture.'
3
Eymeric, Directorium, p. 640 ; Pefia's comment, no, p. 643.
4
Ibid., comment 39, p. 520.
'
Cum reus fuit leviter et molliter
tortus, repeti potest in tormentis, ita ut sufficienter torqueatur, . . .
et haec non tarn dicitur repetitio torturae quam continuatio.'

5
Fredericq, Corpus, vol. i, No. 318.
regulations be treated. The requirement that confessions
must be freely made without restraint was satisfied by
another similar subterfuge. A
confession, which had
actually been wrung from the defendant or witness in
the physical anguish of torture, was confirmed some two
or three days later in some other place than the torture
chamber and this confirmation of the actual confession
;
was officially regarded as the true confession. 1

There were no exemptions from the administration
of torture on the ground of youth, old age or infirmity,
except for pregnant women. Old men and women, young
children might all be subjected to the process, only in
their case the infliction must be light. 2
Eymeric laid it down that at all times the application
must be moderate and that there must never be any
' '
effusion of blood. The term moderate is vague ;
and it is clear that there was no strict general rule, the

determining factor here, as so often with the Inquisition,
3
being the discretion of the judge. The unhappy victim,
on being brought into the chamber, was first of all shown
the instruments of torment and urged to confess without
recourse being had to them. In some cases this alone
was sufficient. But if a confession was not immediately
forthcoming, the prisoner male or female, it made no
difference was stripped naked and bound by the exe-
cutioners. A second exhortation to confess followed.
If still there was no confession, the victim was then
actually subjected to the pain of the rack, the pulleys, the

strappado and the other devices of calculated cruelty,
which were regarded as appropriate for the coercion of
recalcitrant suspect or unwilling witness. Continued
refusal to speak led to increase in the severity of the
application ; further obduracy with increase in the
severity of the type of torture. The refinements of
cruelty in the machines and devices at the inquisitor's
disposal were so exquisite that it is marvellous with what
1
Eymeric, Pefia's comment, p. 521.
2
Ibid., p. 519.
3
Ibid., pp. 480, 592, 614.
constancy they were often endured. There were many,

no doubt, who submitted at the simple threat of torture
or at the first turn of the screw ; others who with almost
superhuman endurance bore frightful extremities of pain.
Note. The important subject of the influence exerted by the

procedure of the Inquisition upon the civil courts of Europe has
never been thoroughly worked out. There is partial treatment of
it in Esmein's Histoire de la Procedure Criminelle en France English
;
version, A History of Continental Criminal Procedure H. Brunner,

;
Die Entstehung der Schwurgerichte (1872) C. V. Langlois, L' Inquisition

;
apres des travaux recents P. Fournier, Les Officialites au Moyen Age

; ;
H. C. Lea, Superstition and Force, esp. pp. 428-590. Vol. v of the

Continental Legal History Series, published by the Association of
American Law Schools, while mainly based on Esmein's study of
Criminal Procedure in France, is of wider scope and traces the inquisi-
torial system in Europe generally. While the system of inquisitio,
derived from the later Roman Empire, was not passed on to the civil
courts of Europe solely through the inquisitio haereticae pravitatis,
it is the case that The Church was able to furnish the secular courts
'
with a lesson and a model. .

By its example it paved the way
. .
for the substitution, consummated in the 1 500*3, of the inquisitorial

'
procedure for the accusatory procedure in every country of Europe.
'
Again : This system, originally employed for prosecutions for heresy,

"
afterwards for all crimes, became, under the name of procedure
a 1' extraordinaire," the system of common law in force in the royal
jurisdictions for the prosecution of serious crimes until 1789.' A
History of Continental Criminal Procedure, p. 10 and pp. 10-11, note.
CHAPTER V
INQUISITORIAL PENALTIES
1
ACQUITTALS being virtually unknown, nearly every case
brought before the Holy Office involved the sentence of
' '
one penalty or another. The word penalty is not
technically exact. Strictly speaking, the Inquisition was
concerned not with crimes and punishments, but with
2
spiritual errors and penances. Thus, when the tribunal
consigned some one to prison, its formula ran that the
man in question shall betake himself to prison and there
penance himself on a diet of bread and water. No con-
fessor will regard the mere expression of contrition as
sufficient in itself nor will the genuine penitent be
;
satisfied. Penance is the outward and visible sign of

sincere repentance, and an earnest of future amendment
of life. All the penalties inflicted by the Inquisition had
3
this expiatory character. Some of them were of quite a
'
trivial description. The '
penitent suspect might simply

be enjoined to hear Mass on so many Sundays and festivals,
or if his commercial practice suggested unsoundness of
doctrine on the subject of interest to undertake not to
exact usury in the future or to promise to restore ill-gotten
4
gains. But, as a rule, the penance was a much more
serious matter. One of the most frequent was that of
5
pilgrimages. These were of various kinds. In the
6
earlierdays of the Inquisition the penitent was often
sent to Palestine on crusade against the infidel. But
1 See Tanon, p. 433. Out of 200 cases before the Carcassonne
tribunal there was only one acquittal.
2
Ludovico a Paramo, p. 269.
8
They were also, of course, a warning.
'
The punishment of one is
the fear of many,' remarks Simancas sententiously, Zilettus, vol. xi, pt. ii,
p. 179. But the main object is repentance and conversion. Ibid.,
p. 181.
4 Bernard Gui, Practica, p. 38.
5
Ibid., pp. 94-8.
6
See Douais, Documents, vol. ii, p. 181.
PENALTIES 207
after the failure of St. Louis' expedition and the fall of
the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the crusade ceased to find a
place among inquisitorial penances. Ordinary pilgrim-
ages were classified as greater or less. The former took
the penitent out of his own country and involved long
travelling the latter were to shrines in his own country.
;
Thus for a Frenchman Rome, the shrine of St. Thomas

at Canterbury, Cologne, St. James of Compostella,
Constantinople would come under the first category ;
Paris, Boulogne, Bordeaux, Vienne under the latter. The

undertaking of the longer journeys might be a most
severe imposition. The penitent had to abandon his
work and set out upon travels which might well occupy
many months and even years. He probably had to endure
much real suffering, fatigue, and privation. In the case
of the crusade, and probably in other pilgrimages as well,
there was an element of personal danger. In the pilgrim's
absence what happened to his family and dependents ?
In many instances one supposes that on his return after
a long absence he must have found his occupation gone.
Those condemned to make pilgrimages received from the
inquisitor letters which explained their itinerary and
might give instructions as to certain additional penances
they had to undergo, while they at the same time
served as safe-conducts, of which there might be much
need in localities where popular feeling was strong against
heretics. Pilgrims were required to bring back with them
written attestations, signed by the chaplains at shrines
they were ordered to visit, in proof that they had actually
carried out the prescribed programme. 1
The penance of pilgrimage was often united with two
1 Bernard
Gui, Practica, p. 95 Liber Sententiarum in Limborch,
;
Historia Inquisitionis, pp. 218, 347. For an instance of this sort of

'
sentence, see Douais, Documents, vol. ii, pp. 116-17. Injunctum fuit
Ullixi in penitentia per inquisitores pro perjurio, quia non resumpsit
cruces sicut juraverat, quod dominica post instantem dominicam in
lxxa veniat Carcassonam visitaturus omnes ecclesias Burgi Carcas-
sonensis nudis pedibus in camesis et braceis, cum virgis in manu, eundo
de una ecclesia ad aliam ;
et idem faciet in prima dominica mensium
singulorum quousque transeat ultra mare. Et hoc fuit ei injunctum
in virtu te praestiti juramenti.'
208 PENALTIES
others scourging and the wearing of crosses, or other
mark on the clothing, indicative of the penitent heretic.
Flagellation by itself was regarded as one of the lightest
of penances. The Councils of Tarragona (1242) and of
Narbonne (1243) fixed as the penance to be undergone
it
by those who voluntarily made confession during the

term of grace that is, by the least culpable of all possible
kinds of heretic. The custom was for the flogging to be
inflicted in public and in ceremonious fashion. The
penitent was obliged to present himself on the appointed
days stripped to the waist, and to bring the rod with him.
As a general rule the day appointed was Sunday, and
the priest performed the operation of scourging upon the
penitent between the reading of the Epistle and of the
Gospel during Mass. Whether the operation was painful
or not is disputed. One commentator supposes that it
was no light matter and that the penitent was soundly
whipped another argues that, as the whipping was done
;
at the altar by inexperienced hands and the sufferer was

in a position to cry out and resist during divine service,
the humiliation was the most severe part of the penance. 1
One may perhaps conclude that the severity of the
flagellation depended very much upon the intention of
the inquisitors and the strength of arm of the ministering
priest. Sometimes the sufferer might have to submit
to the scourging in processions through the streets or in
every house in which he had been seen in company with
heretics; or, in the case of the pilgrim, at the various
shrines visited. Such repeated floggings may or may
not have been very painful, but even in days when
they would not produce such a sense of shame as now,
they must have been very humiliating.
In this respect the wearing of crosses was even worse.
The origin of this penance was that during his missionary
labours St. Dominic had ordered penitents to wear two
small crosses, sewn on the breast of their clothing in token
of contrition. The Inquisition adopted the practice and
it was very frequently inflicted, being prescribed, like
1
Lea, vol. i, p. 464 ; De Cauzons, vol. ii, p. 303.
PENALTIES 209
flagellation, for those who voluntarily made confession
of heresy. Next to imprisonment this penance figures
most often in the sentences of Bernard Gui ;
it was rather
less extensively used latterly. The small marks which
St. Dominic had required became under the Inquisition
very large ones as a rule two-and-a-half palms in height,

two in breadth. They were saffron in colour and had to
be worn one on the breast, the other on the back. Other
symbols besides crosses were sometimes used. Thus
false witnesses had to wear the symbol of red tongues,
prisoners liberated on bail hammers, sorcerers the

representation of demons. The wearing of distinguishing
marks was designed to be, and was to be, a less toler-
felt
able penalty than flogging. The shameful garb had to be
worn continuously indoors and out, exposing the wearer
at all times to the jeers, if not the fanatical hostility, of
the crowd. The penance was enjoined sometimes for
an indefinite period, and so long as he had to wear it, it
would be difficult for the penitent to obtain employment.
It is plain that evasion was frequently attempted. The
Council of Beziers (1233) prescribed confiscation of goods
for those who either refused to wear the crosses or tried
to conceal them. 1 The Council of Valence (1248) went
further and decreed that evasion should be regarded as
a sign of impenitent heresy. But evidently the hard-
ships attendant upon this penance were so great that
the Church felt it must do something to mitigate their
severity, and the Council of Beziers (1246) commanded
that penitents wearing crosses should not be subjected
to ridicule or excluded from the transaction of business. 2
1 Bernard Gui's sentences are full
Mansi, vol. xxiii, p. 271, iv.
of the infliction of this penance. Cf. Liber Sententiarum, pp. 40-5,
100-17, 185-91, 218-28.
1
Mansi, vol. xxiii, p. 693.
'
Cum peccatores sint ad poenitentiam
invitandi juxta Dominicam vocem, gaudere oportet si poenitentiam
impositam libenter suscipiunt et supportant. Quocirca statuimus,
& in virtute sancti Spiritus inhibemus, ne poenitentibus, quibus cruces
pro crimine haeresis impommtur, irrisio ulla fiat, nee a locis propriis seu
communibus commerciis excludantur, ne retardetur conversio pecca-
torum, & ne conversi propter scandalum abjecta poenitentia relabantur.
Et simoniti desistere ndluerint, per censuram ecclesiasticam com-
pellantur.' Cf. Bernard Gui, Practica, pp. 101-2.
p
210 PENALTIES
There were penalties of a pecuniary nature the
exaction of fines, the confiscation of property. In earlier
days, when it was yet thought of as contrary to the
principles of their origin that the Friars should receive
money on any pretext, it was felt to be repugnant that
inquisitors,being friars, should exact fines. On the
other hand, from of old it had been regarded as a normal
and praiseworthy form of showing genuine contrition to
give alms and it would have been surprising had this
;
sort of penance been found absent from Inquisitorial

practice. From the time of the Council of Beziers (1246)
onwards, it seems to have been recognized that the
exaction of a fine was a perfectly legitimate form of
penance, the proceeds to be used for the maintenance of
inquisitorial prisons and similar necessary expenses.
Eymeric laid it down that this penance should be used
'
decently and in such a way as not to give offence to

the laity.' l A broader interpretation came to be made
' '
of the pious purposes for which the proceeds of fines
might properly be utilized ; they might even include
public work of general utility, such as the building of
2
bridges. In moderation, the payment of a fine was a
form penance much more easily borne than those
of
already mentioned and if the money was used for such

;
objects as the erection of a church or chapel or hospital,

the maintenance of the poor or other such philanthropic
work, it seems an eminently justifiable sort of penalty.
It had, however, one serious drawback namely, that
the profits might be used for ends much less worthy, for the
personal enrichment of the judges, and might be a tempta-
tion to extortion. Innocent IV, who in 1245 had directed
that fines must be utilized solely for the building and
upkeep of prisons, is found in 1249 strongly inveighing
against inquisitors for the enormity of their exactions,
and in 1251 prohibiting the imposition of fines where any
other form of penance would serve. Despite this injunc-
tion, the penance was still employed but the papal ;
1
Eymeric, Directovium, pp. 702-4 ; Molinier, op. cit., pp. 23, 390.
8
Practica, pp. 165, 169.
PENALTIES 211
pronouncement is evidence, not only of the obvious
temptation to extortion, but also of the fact of inquisitors'

yielding to it.
A fine was the customary penalty

for such a minor
offence the thoughtless utterance of blasphemous
as
words it was also frequently exacted in commutation
;
of other forms of penance, as for example that of pilgrim-
age, when the penitent was too old or infirm to perform it,
or again in the case of a young girl not fit to undergo the
ardours of a journey across Europe. 1 So also when the
death of a heretic left his prescribed penance uncompleted,
the rule was that his heirs had to make compensation in
the form of money, which might be heavy in amount. 2
The provocation to extortion in both these instances is
obvious. The accounts of the Inquisition were unchecked,
except bythe papal camera,and there was no public opinion
3
able, or as a rule desirous, to prevent abuse.
any authority
A more serious matter than the exaction of fines
was the confiscation of property. This, strictly speaking,
was not a penalty, and technically also the Inquisition
was not responsible. The goods of the heretic were
simply sequestrated by the State automatically. So it
had been in the case of the Manichaeans under the Roman
empire. It should, however, be noted that if the children
of a heretic were not themselves heretics, they were able
to succeed to his estate. It was otherwise in the case of
crimes, and in particular of treason, which involved the

complete, unconditional confiscation of the delinquent's
estate. As the mediaeval Church very plausibly reasoned
that heresy was a crime analogous to majestas, only more
heinous as being treason against the King of Kings, the
inference was obvious that heresy involved confiscation.
In his Decree of 1184, following the example of Alexan-
der III in 1163, who had enjoined on secular princes the
duty of imprisoning heretics and taking their property,
1
Douais, Documents, vol. ii, pp. 213, 237.
'
2
Filios haereticorum, etiam natos ante crimen commissum, sub
poenis, & prohibitionibus canonicis comprehent.' J. a Royas in Zilettus,
vol. xi, pt. ii, p. 231.
3
See Lea, vol. i, pp. 471-81.
212 PENALTIES
Lucius III again declared confiscation of property to be
appropriate to heresy, but sought to obtain the benefit for
the Church. The practice as to the sharing of the spoils
of confiscation varied in different countries. Invariably,
as soon as anyone had been declared a heretic by the
1
Inquisition, the State at once sequestrated his property.
In the south of France indeed the confiscation took place
even before as soon as the suspect had been arrested or
cited. If the prisoner recanted or, in the latter case, if
the suspect were found guiltless, the property was then
restored. Innocent Ill's fulmination regarding confiscation
had been vague in its terminology. What constituted the
degree of criminality punishable by confiscation ? Did
the term heretics mean only the obdurate, those who
' '
had to be handed over to the State, or did it include

' '
fautors ? The interpretation seems to have varied.
But the most common interpretation was that all those
' '
whose offence was sufficiently heinous as to be penanced
by imprisonment, the contumacious who failed to answer
to citation and all those in whose houses heretics were
found, were liable to the confiscation of their property.
This seizing of estate before the termination of judicial
proceedings was obviously a heavy hardship, not only
upon the accused, but more especially upon his family.
In France the rules regarding confiscation were carried
out most remorselessly. Even before the accused had
been found guilty his wife and children might find
themselves turned adrift, dependent upon a charity which
it was dangerous to extend to those even indirectly
connected with heresy. 2 In France, also, the whole of

the confiscated property, once the royal power was strong
enough to insist upon this, went to the State. Confisca-
tion meant the entire loss of property, movable and
immovable, but there were certain exceptions. A wife
could claim to retain her dowry, but only on condition
1 While in France the Inquisition took no official record of con-
fiscation it was automatically carried out by the State in Italy the
tribunal gave a formal declaratory sentence of confiscation. Zanchino,
Tractatus de Haereticis, chs. xxiii, xxv, xxvi.
2
See Lea, vol. i, pp. 520-1.
PENALTIES 213
that she had not been cognizant of her husband's heresy
when she married him.
Elsewhere it was otherwise. In A d extirpanda, Innocent
IV laid down the rule that the proceeds were to be divided
into three equal portions, a third to go to the local autho-
rities, a third to the officials of the Inquisition, a third
1
to bishop and Latterly, in Italy, a different
inquisitor.
tripartite division was made, the third which had originally
gone to bishop and inquisitor having to be paid to the
pope. The question of distribution was complicated by
feudal considerations, the ferdal lord being able to put
forward a claim to any forfeited possessions of his vassal.
But, however much the allocation of these revenues might
vary, it was always understood that they were to be utilized
for the prosecution of the war against heresy, and in
particular the defraying of the expenses of the Inquisition.
The secular princes no doubt played their part.
They had every inducement to do so. It is always good
policy, not to stimulate, at all events to preserve, the
if
2
goose that lays the golden eggs. But, neither with
regard to the action of the secular princes nor of the
Inquisition, is it desirable to over-estimate the significance
of the pecuniary penances and penalties suffered by the
heretic. It is no doubt true that their importance used
to be under-estimated, when the tendency was to rivet
attention on the stake and torture-chamber in dealing
with the Inquisition. It is also true that the opportunity
of reaping mercenary profit from the prosecution of heresy
was an encouragement to cupidity. It is only in human
nature that should be so. It may be true to say that
it
'
persecution, as a steady and continuous policy, rested,

3
after all, upon confiscation/ But that is not
1
Mansi, vol. xxiii, pp. 574-5.
2
See Lea, vol. iii, p. 525. On whole question of confiscation, see
also Tanon, op. cit. pp. 523-38.
t
3
Lea, vol. i, p. 529. Lea was the first historian to go into the
financial aspect of the Inquisition at all thoroughly. He devotes a
'
whole chapter, book i, ch. xiii, to the subject of confiscation. It
'
was this,' in his view, which supplied the fuel which kept up the fires
of zeal, and when it was lacking, the business of defending the faith
languished lamentably.'
214 PENALTIES
necessarily to saymore than that the Inquisition had to
meet expenses in some way or other
its and it was
;
not unnatural to put to those expenses the proceeds of

pecuniary penalties imposed directly by, or indirectly
resulting from, the sentences of the tribunal. Confisca-
tion was a very customary expedient in the Middle Ages,
and once granted the Church's reasonable analogy, on
its own premises, between heresy and treason, it was
an inevitable accompaniment of inquisitorial practice.
That extortion and avarice were likely to be excited by
the scheme is true but to suggest avarice as a prime
;
motive in the prosecution of heresy is quite to overshoot

the mark. 1 The Church did not embark upon the
destruction of Catharism because it coveted the wealth of
Cathari, but because it felt it must preserve itself against
a movement, which it regarded as anti-religious, anti-
social and immoral. 2 In the second place, it must be
remembered that the majority of mediaeval heretical sects
consisted of poor men. Only rarely was a rich man a
heretic, and Fraticelli, Beguines, Dolcinists and most of
the later sects, ardently persecuted by the Inquisition
as they were, were certainly not worth pursuing from the
point of view of the material profit to be derived thereby.
Eymeric, lamenting the dearth of heretics of substance in
Spain in his day to help the tribunal to pay its way,
deals cursorily with the subject of confiscation as one
3
scarcely affecting the inquisitor at all.
The most severe of the inquisitorial penances was
that of imprisonment but it is a penance. The idea is
:
where he is out of reach of heretical

that, left in solitude,
contamination and has time to reflect on his offence,
1
Cf. Langlois, op. cit., p. 74.
8
See De Cauzons, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 48-53. P. 53.
'
Ce n'est
pas ambition ni cupidite c'est instinct de preservation.'
: But see
'
Vacandard, op. cit., pp. 202-3. But would the ecclesiastical and lay
princes, who, in varying proportion, shared with the Holy Office in
these confiscations, and who in some countries appropriated them all,
have accorded to the Inquisition that continual good-will and help,
which was the condition of its prosperity without what Lea calls " the
"
stimulant of pillage ? We may well doubt it.'
3
Director ium, pp. 709-22.
PENALTIES 215
where in the simple life sustained on bread and water
there are no worldly distractions, the penitent may be
enabled by the aid of ghostly counsel to make a sincere
return to the bosom of the Church. Bernard de Caux
used this penance frequently ;
it would appear that he
enjoined it upon all who did not voluntarily surrender
within the time of grace. 1 This was the ruling laid down
by the Council of Narbonne (1244), which ruthlessly
declared that no arguments of mercy against the infliction
were to be considered, such as the dependence of his
family upon the heretic, nor illness, nor old age. The
Council of Beziers, two years later, reiterated this principle,
but recommended lenience where the penance might
involve death to dependents. Imprisonment was also
frequently the penalty for failure to carry out penances
previously imposed. In the sentences of Bernard de
Caux a large percentage are for perpetual imprisonment.
In Languedoc, to meet the necessities of the battle with
Catharism, the Council of Narbonne ruled that imprison-
ment should always be for life. The tribunal did not at
the time possess the resources to render the execution
of this order practicable. At a later period it appears
to have been carried out.
There were different degrees in the severity of the
imprisonment. The most lenient form, known as murus
largus, allowed of the prisoner's leaving his cell, taking
exercise in the corridors and holding conversation with
other prisoners, similarly privileged, possibly also with
friendsfrom outside the prison. Much less desirable was
the lot of the penitent consigned to murus strictus.
Placed in a cell of the smallest size and worst description,
dark and unsavoury, in some cases chained by both
hands and feet, he was not permitted ever to leave his
cell. This severer form of imprisonment was reserved
for those whose offence had been especially conspicuous
1
See Douais, Documents, vol. ii, pp. 6, 7, 15, 18, 20, 23, 26,
29, Tanon, op. cit., p. 482 Vacandard, op. cit., p. 193.
30, 34 ; ;
Eymeric imposed this penance on the violently suspect, Directorium,

PP. 530-1.
216 PENALTIES
and therefore especially scandalous and dangerous to
the faith and for those whose confessions had not been
1
wholly satisfactory, complete and open.
Mediaeval prisons were all of them apt to be horrible
places, and it does not appear that those used by the
Inquisition were more noisome than others. That they
were terrible enough we know as for example from the
:
report, as to the conditions in the Cour de I' Inquisition in

2
Carcassonne, made by the papal commissioners in 1305 .
From other evidence it appears that harsh severity was

laid down as a rule for the treatment by gaolers of their
3
charges. And, as a general rule, there was little super-
vision of the prisons, and their inmates had small chance
of redress against ill-treatment. Only the strong ventila-
tion of an alert public opinion can find its way into the
dark recesses of prison life there was no public opinion
:
in the Middle Ages interested in the wrongs of the heretic.

It does not appear that there was separate accommoda-
tion provided for those awaiting trial apart from the
condemned. It is only right to add, however, that
the Inquisition sanctioned the giving of presents of food
and drink, clothing and cash from outside friends to
the prisoners, so that they were not wholly dependent
upon the diet of bread and water, which was all that
the prisons provided.
The Inquisition was apt to find itself in difficulties
with regard to the funds necessary for the maintenance of
its prisoners. The prisons the tribunal itself built were
of the cheapest, and consequently of the most insani-
tary, description. In France there were few specifically

inquisitorial prisons, those belonging to the secular and
episcopal authorities being utilized. Prior to the
absorption of Languedoc into the French monarchy
at the Peace of Paris, the cost of building and
maintaining prisons in that country had been borne
partly by the bishops, partly by the holders of confiscated
1
2
See supra, p. 161 ; Molinier, op. cit. t p. 449.
8
PENALTIES 217
1
property. Probably 1230 the lot of heretic
after
prisoners in Languedoc sensibly improved. In Italy the
Inquisition seems to have been able to meet such expenses
out of the proceeds of confiscation.
A penalty frequently met with in the early days
of the Inquisition is that of banishment. Originally
used in the Roman empire by the civil authority against
Arians, Nestorians, Manichaeans, it was ordered by the
Council of Rheims in 1157 against heretics, incorporated
in the Assize of Clarendon, in the edict of Verona,
and in those of Alfonso II and Pedro II of Aragon.
On the surface it appeared an excellent method of ridding
a country of the contamination of heresy. But to
banish from one country was merely to introduce the
virus of the scourge into another. The effect was simply
to spread the epidemic. In the second place, banish-
ment was a confession of failure, as it gave no promise
of amendment upon the part of the individual which :
was ever the inquisitor's object. Hence he preferred

imprisonment of the heretic to his banishment, holding
him fast to getting rid of him.
Heresy, being regarded as essentially anti-social,
involved exclusion from civil rights. The heretic could
hold no office in Church and State, could hold no title or
honour of any kind. If a father, his natural authority
over his children was rendered invalid ; if a husband,
he no longer had legal authority over his wife ; if a king,
he forfeited the obedience of his subjects ; if a baron,
the vassalage of his tenants. He
could not succeed
to property or, having it, leave by will. His debtors
it
need pay him nothing. The incapacity to hold office

in the State affected not only the offender himself, but
descendants of the second generation in the paternal,
the first generation in the maternal, line. 2
The idea of the taint of heresy is apparent in another
penalty which the inquisitor was competent to inflict
1
See provisions of the decrees of the Council of Toulouse (1229), in
Mansi, vol. xxiii, p. 196 and of the Council of Albi (1244), ibid., p. 840.
;
8
See Tanon, op. cit. p. 544.
t
218 PENALTIES
the destruction of houses which had harboured here-
ticalinmates or been the scene of heretical meetings. 1
This penalty is less a punishment than a symbolical
act, expressive of the Church's horror of heresy ; an
attempt to blot out the very memory of the offence.
This practice, sanctioned in Roman law, was enjoined
by the Assize of Clarendon, by the Emperor Henry VI
in the edict of Prato of 1195, by Frederick II in
1232. It was consecrated by the Church in the days of
Innocent III. Innocent IV actually demanded the demo-
lition, not only of the house in which the heretic had been
found, but also of neighbouring houses, if they belonged
to the same property ; a stringent rule modified by
Alexander IV. The houses must never be rebuilt, and
more, the places where they had stood must remain
unused for other building. There was just one saving
clause the stones of the demolished houses might be
:
used for pious purposes. 2 Had these regulations been

literally carried out, it is obvious that whole towns might
have been devastated and remained waste. But it is
evident that the rules were not fulfilled to the letter.
They were made to apply in Languedoc to houses in
which definite heretical acts had taken place, such as
the Catharan heretication. Even so, the secular arm
was not disposed to approve of a penalty which not
only did material damage, but diminished the yield of
confiscations. Both France and Germany protested ;
and eventually the inquisitors agreed to issue licences

to build on the sites of the demolished houses. 3
So far we have dealt, on the whole, with penalties
incurred by those who, in the end, became reconciled
to the Church those who confessed, performed their
1
Tanon, p. 519 ; Simancas, op. cit. p. 133. For form of sentence,
t
'
Practica, p. 59. . . . Dirui ac moliri funditus ita quod de cetero in
.
loco seu solo ejus nulla humana habitatio seu reedificatio aut clausio
seu locus inhabitabilis et incultus et inclausus semper existat,
ibi fiat,
et sicut fuitreceptaculum perfidorum, sic deinceps ex nunc perpetuo
sordium locus fiat.'
8
Ibid.
8
Lea, vol. i, p. 483.
PENALTIES 219
penance in token of contrition and promised amend-

ment. But there were also those who did not become
reconciled. They fall under three headings the
contumacious, the impenitent, the relapsed.
"As regards the first, the Inquisition adopted the
rule of Roman law. If the accused, being cited three
times or given one peremptory summons to appear,
failed to do so, he was reckoned as contumacious. The
penalty was excommunication and forfeiture of goods.
This sentence would be annulled in the event of the
accused's surrendering himself to the tribunal within the
1
space of a year from the date of the citation. Otherwise,
he was liable, on falling into the hands of the Inquisition,
as an excommunicate, to be handed over to the secular
arm.
With the stubborn impenitent, resisting up to the
last all efforts of the Church to bring him back to her
bosom, there was obviously nothing to be done. But

the inquisitor, to whom relaxation to the secular arm
was an admission of defeat, left no means untried, of
persuasion, admonition, force, to avoid such failure.
His reluctance to hand over the heretic as a hopeless
recalcitrant, was in most cases perfectly genuine. Even
after the sentence of relaxation had been pronounced,
indeed after the culprit had actually been handed over,
the slightest sign of willingness to repent might suffice
to save the victim. 2 Eymeric mentions one case in
which a heretic, consigned to the flames at Barcelona,
being scorched on one side, cried out in his agony
that he would recant, and was at once removed from
the fire. 3
The relapsed were those who, having once erred and
been received back into communion, sinned in the same
way again. These were incorrigible. Their former
repentance had manifestly been a mere sham, and the
1
Tanon, op. cit., pp. 404-7.
8
Bernard Gui, Practica, pp. 129, 144 ; Liber Sententiarum, pp,
93, 208 ; Douais, U Inquisition, pp. 297, 298, 324.
3
Directonum, pp. 514-16.
220 PENALTIES
outrage cried to heaven. Repetition of the sin of heresy
1
could not be suffered. Accordingly the relapsed were
the only class of offenders coming before the Holy Office
who could not save themselves by penitence. Relapse
came to involve relaxation automatically. But it had
not been so at first, perpetual imprisonment being the
penalty originally enjoined, for example by the Councils
of Tarragona and Beziers. By 1258, however, relaxation
had come to be recognized as the sole possible reward
2
for relapse.
Relaxation to the secular arm meant death, and death
by burning. The inquisitor himself, who did not and
could not pronounce a death sentence, knew, on the
other hand, that a sentence of relaxation was tantamount
to one of death.
3
It is true that he made use of a formula, expressing
a desire that lenience might be shown to the victim;
and that some apologists have based upon this the
contention that the ecclesiastical tribunal was in no
way responsible for the death penalty; urging, on the
one hand, that the desire that the relaxed heretic might
not suffer either death or mutilation was perfectly genuine,
on the other that the lay authority was entirely inde-
pendent in the matter, pronouncing and executing its
own sentence, based on a decision of its own, not the
Inquisition's relaxation and that, should it decide to
;
spare the life of the heretic, the Church would make

no complaint, but quite the contrary. 4
The theory cannot be accepted. The attitude of
Gregory IX and Innocent IV towards Frederick II's
Constitutions, and the bulls, Cum adversus haereticam and
1
Practica, pp. 124, 127.
'
Cum
ecclesia ultra non habet quod faciat
pro suis dementis contra ipsum, idcirco eundem relinquimus brachio
et judicio curie secularist
8
Lea, vol. i, pp. 544-6.
8 The formula
ran, Eundem N. tanquam haereticum relinquimus
'
brachio et judicio curie saecularis, eandem afifectuose rogantes prout

canonice sanctiones, quatenus citra mortem et membrorum ejus mutila-
tionem circa judicium et suam sententiam moderetur.' Practica, p. 127.
Cf. Divectorium, pp. 554, 559.
4
Douais, L' Inquisition, pp. 264-8 ; Maillet, op. cit., ch. iv.
PENALTIES 221
Ad extirpanda, are really decisive in the matter.

1
But
there is additional clear proof that the formula of leniency
was an empty formula, intended merely to preserve
technical conformity with the Canon. 2 In the first place,
what appropriate punishment for the contumacious,
the impenitent, the relapsed could there be short of
death ? Even the contrite heretic, received back into
the fold, may have to undergo so severe a penance as
perpetual imprisonment. If the Church metes out to
the contrite punishment as severe as the impeniten
has to face, she is putting a premium upon impenitence.
The simple fact that perpetual imprisonment is numbered
among the penances inflicted by the Inquisition is proof
positive that the Inquisition desired and anticipated
from the secular arm the death penalty for those re-
laxed to it. For careless as to the ultimate fate of the
impenitent the Church cannot possibly be. She cannot
be willing that he should go free to rejoice in the triumph
of his obduracy among confederates and to spread con-
tagion among the faithful. Shall he be banished by

the secular authority ? To what end ? Banishment
only means the spread of infection. Shall he, then, be
imprisoned by the secular authority ? Again, to what
end ? The Inquisition can imprison as well as the
State. It is a strange obtuseness that does not see
that the whole attitude of the Inquisition to the heretic
points logically, and indeed inevitably, to death as the
fate of the obdurate. The tribunal had been created,
and it existed, to the end that heresy might be exter-
minated. To have failed to secure that those who to
the last resisted all its most strenuous efforts to obtain
confession and reconciliation must expect a worse fate
than those who .proved compliant would have stultified
its very existence.
As a matter of fact, the Church saw to it, that the
penalty meted out by the secular arm to the relaxed
was death. Hardly ever did the secular ruler show any
1
Supra, pp. 152-6.
*
Admitted candidly by Pefia. See Directovium, p. 131, comm. 20.
222 PENALTIES
reluctance to inflictit. But if he forbore, he would
1
probably be excommunicated. Ever after the Fourth
Council of the Lateran the Church made it incumbent
upon the lay power to carry out the imperial edicts
against heresy. The formula of mercy, then, may be
' ' ' '
called either a legal fiction or bluntly, a hypocrisy :
it was never intended be taken literally. 2 The

to
scrupulous regard of the Church for regularity in accor-

dance with the Canon showed susceptibility to decorum ;
as a repudiation of moral responsibility it would have
been contemptible.
But the mediaeval Church did not repudiate such
responsibility, as some of its modern apologists have
sought to do. Had it disapproved of the penalty of
death for the obdurate heretic, it both could and would
have said so. Nay, more. It possessed the authority
and practical power to have prevented it. To doubt
that is to attribute to the mediaeval Church infinitely
less influence than it actually possessed. A papacy,
claiming and at times exercising authority in matters
temporal as well as spiritual, could have brought pressure
to bear upon the secular power in a matter peculiarly
the Church's concern. The fact that it never made
any attempt to do so is proof that it never desired to.
As a matter of fact, the Church in the Middle Ages
felt no such squeamishness, as is natural in these modern
days of religious toleration, regarding the drastic punish-

ment of errors in intellects,. Once granted the point of
view that heresy is a more heinous offence than coining
1
See Simancas, p. 147. See Vacandard, op. cit., on the Church's
use of secular aid, pp. 27-8. Nor were they content with merely
'
accepting it. They declared that the State had not only the right to
help the Church in suppressing heresy, but that she was in duty bound
to do so.'
* '
A legal fiction,' is Vacandard's way of putting it
a hypocrisy,'
;
'
'
Lea's. Langlois a miserable equivocation.' See Vacandard,
calls it
op. cit., pp. 178-9. We regret to state, however, that the civil judges
'
were not supposed to take these words literally. If they were at all
inclined to do so, they would have been quickly called to a sense of
their duty by being excommunicated. The clause inserted by the
canonists was a mere legal fiction, which did not change matters a
particle,'
PENALTIES 223
to use St. Thomas' analogy or than treason, to use
a commoner and more comparison, and the
forcible
penalty of death for heresy appears not shocking and
horrible, but something eminently just and proper.
We may take St. Thomas as representative of the best
thought of the Church on the subject in the Middle
Ages. Later inquisitors were quite unequivocal in
'
their language. Pertinax non tantum est relaxandus,
sed etiam vivus a saeculari pot estate conburendus.' 1
Simancas, likewise, has no qualms. The best human
law demands the burning of the heretic in this according ;
'
with the divine law. Christ is quoted in proof. Igne
igitur extirpanda est haeretica pubis ne nobis :
Deus irascitur, si haereticos dimittimus impunitos.' 2

A favourite line of argument was that adopted by
Ludovico a Paramo, in comparing the Church to the
ark of Noah. As God utterly destroyed the unbelievers
outside the Ark by a deluge, so now does he destroy
3
the heretic. It is modern humanitarianism, not
Inquisitorial authorities, that seeks to disclaim moral
responsibility for the stake.
The outward and visible sign of the Church's approval
was its participation in the ceremony of execution.
This took place frequently as part of a great and elaborate
' '
function known as the sermo generalis or act of faith
the auto-da-fe of the Spanish Inquisition. There could
be a sermo generalis without an execution. A burning
was not the essential feature of the ceremony. The
auto had humble beginnings. In the early days of the
Inquisition in Toulouse there might be one every week or
so. In rapid, business-like fashion the sentences against
heretics were pronounced in the presence of the civil
and ecclesiastical officers. But in course of time the
proceedings came to be much more elaborate, the object
being to impress the popular mind. The sermo generalis
usually took place on a Sunday and inside a church,
1
J. a Royas in Zilettus, vol. xi, pt. ii, p. 231.
2
Simancas, ibid., p. 181.
Ludovico & Paramo, bk. i, p. 47.
224 PENALTIES
a platform being erected upon which the culprits were
placed. The ceremony, which started in the early
morning, began with a sermon appropriate to the
occasion, preached by an inquisitor. After this an
indulgence was announced for all who had come to take
part in the solemnity the civil magistrates took an
;
oath of fidelity, and excommunication was fulminated

against all who had in any way thwarted the Inquisition
in the pursuance of its labours. Next the confessions
of the penitents were read, followed by the recital of
the form of abjuration, which they repeated word by
word. It does not appear that they wore any such
distinctive garb as was customary inthe Spanish
Inquisition of later days. The inquisitor then absolved
the penitents from the excommunication which their
heresy had incurred, the formal sentences were read
out, first in Latin, then in the vulgar tongue ; after
which the culprits were brought forward in order corre-
sponding with the degree of their guilt, beginning with
the least guilty and ending with the impenitent and
relapsed. For the disposal of the latter adjournment
was made to another place, where they were handed
over to the lay authorities. The victims destined to
pay the last penalty were not at once executed. It
was not seemly that the execution should take place
on a Sunday, and they were given another night to make
their peace with God. The following day they were
brought to the stake, accompanied by ghostly comforters,
who would earnestly exhort them to penitence, seeing
that, except in the case of the relapsed, reconciliation
was possible up to the last moment. They were forbidden
to exhort the victims to quiet submission for fear that
this might suggest that they were doing something to
1
expedite the punishment in store for the heretics.
This would have been an irregularity. Yet so
implicitly did the Church believe in death for the obstinate
heretic, that she pursued his body even after death.
1
For description of Sermo generalis, see Directorium, pp. 437-42,
548-59 ; Practica, pp. 83-6.
PENALTIES 225
For death did not terminate heresy and it was
;
evidently felt to be obnoxious that anyone who had

been a heretic, even though his heresy had never been
detected during life, should pass beyond the reach of
ecclesiastical justice. Notwithstanding the pronounce-
ment of Ivo of Chartres that the powers of the Church
extended only to the present world, by the middle of
the thirteenth century it seems to have been generally
recognized that the corpses of all persons, whose heresy
was discovered only after their demise, were to be dug
up and disposed of in accordance with the degree of
their guilt. 1 In 1209 a synod at Paris caused the body
of Amaury de Bene to be flung to the dogs, and in 1237
the bodies of certain heretic nobles were carried through
the streets of Toulouse and solemnly burnt. 2 The
practice seems to have been partly due to a popular
feeling that it was a dreadful and scandalous thing that
a heretic should be buried in consecrated ground, partly
to a desire on the part of the inquisitors to demonstrate
their implacable zeal and unlimited power. 3
All inquisitorial sentences, with the single exception of
death which, strictly speaking, was not an inquisitorial
sentence at all could be, and frequently were, commuted.
Thus for imprisonment is substituted the wearing of
crosses in view of the penitent's having given infor-
mation about a plot against the inquisitor's life. The
procuring of the capture of other heretics is similarly
rewarded. 4 Commutation to a lighter penance is
allowed to a woman, because she has a number of small
children ; to a man, because he has a wife and family
5
dependent upon him. Such unconditional remitments
897 Pope Stephen VII had dug up the body of his predecessor,
1 In
Formosus, solemnly tried and condemned it, had it mutilated and

thrown into the Tiber. There is a case in 1022 of the body of a Mani-
chaean of Orleans, who had died three years before, being exhumed.
2 See
Lea, vol. i, pp. 231-2, 553
; De Cauzons, vol. ii, pp. 354-61.
8 For
sentences against the dead, see Practica, pp. 58, 122-6 ;
Liber Sententiarum, pp. 32-4, 162-7, 333.

4
Ibid., pp. 43, 48.
6
Ibid., p. 54.
Q
226 PENALTIES
were rare temporary alleviations were more frequent. 1
;
Penitents might be allowed to leave prison, for periods

varying from a few weeks to two years, on account of
child-birth or illness. 2 A husband and wife, both in prison
for heresy, might be allowed access to one another. 3
A right of appeal existed, from the bishop to the
metropolitan, from the inquisitor to the Pope. The
papacy was at first averse to receiving appeals in cases
of heresy, Lucius III in 1185 declaring that he would
have none of them. 4 When, however, the Inquisition
was established, the right was acknowledged. But it
was at best of doubtful and partial utility. It was a
condition that the appeal must be lodged before the
sentence was pronounced. In other words there
could be no appeal against a decision of the tribunal.
It was valid only as against an alleged injustice in pro-
cedure. 5 A complaint on the latter ground could easily
be rectified by the inquisitors themselves by the simple
device of starting the process anew and carefully avoiding
the irregularity of which complaint was made. If the
inquisitors regarded the appeal as frivolous, they could
dismiss it. It is clear that they regarded all appeals
as a nuisance, an unwarrantable embarrassment. 6 The
most successful appeals lodged against the tribunal
were those brought by powerful nobles and influential
towns. 7 For the ordinary person, devoid of influence,
the right of appeal offered small hope of deliverance.
1
Liber Sententiarum, pp. 50, 53.
3
Douais, Documents, vol. ii, pp. 128-36 (passim), 151-2.
3
There is the case also of a man, condemned to life imprisonment,
being permitted to stay with his invalid father as long as the latter
survived. The father may have been seriously ill and his remaining
days likely to be few. The case is, however, interesting. Douais,
L Inquisition, p. 232.
4
In the bull, Fraternitatem tuam. See Fr6A6ricq,Corpus,vol. i,No.57.
5
Directorium, p. 491.See De Cauzons, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 397.
Ludovico a Paramo, op. cit., p. 124. See Tanon, op. cit., p. 437.
7 As for
example the Sire de Parthenay, see Lea, vol. i, p. 451 ;
and the towns of Albi and Carcassonne, see Tanon, pp. 439-40. It is
worth noticing that the notary, who drew up the appeal of the latter
city against Nicholas d'Abbeville, was prosecuted for heresy and
imprisoned.
PENALTIES 227
We
have valuable evidence as to the comparative
frequency of the various penances prescribed by the
Inquisition. The practice of different inquisitors varied,
as was inevitable, when so much was left to the arbi-
trary decision of the individual judge. But a general
computation is possible. Imprisonment, confiscation of
property, the wearing of crosses are the sentences that
occur most frequently. No inquisitor in the Middle
Ages was more vigorous and efficient than Bernard Gui.
In a collection of sentences extending over a period
of seventeen years, 1308-23, there are 307 of imprison-
ment, 143 of wearing crosses, 69 of exhumation, 9 of
pilgrimages without the wearing of crosses, 40 of con-
demnation of fugitives as contumacious, 45 of relaxation
to the secular arm i.e. only 45 sentences of relaxation
;
Another veritable hammer of heretics/

'
out of 613. l
Bernard de Caux, has left voluminous records of his
cases between the years 1246 and 1248. There are a
large number of sentences of life imprisonment not ;
a single mention of relaxation. 2 This is very remark-

able, as it seems highly unlikely that Bernard de Caux
never came across an impenitent in the course of his
duties, and the suggestion is at least plausible that the
records are incomplete, being only entries of sentences
3
of imprisonment. But the clear indication of the
evidence is that the number of cases of relaxation must
have been comparatively small in the aggregate and
very small in comparison with other sentences.
This may appear strange to those whose sole idea of
the Inquisition is that of a court mainly concerned with
the burning of heretics. Such a conception rests upon
a misunderstanding of the object and function of the
tribunal. It did not aim at making great holocausts
of victims it desired only to make a few examples.
;
Except in Languedoc, where the heretics were in a

1
See Douais, Documents, vol. i, p. ccv., where the sentences are
classified.
8
Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 1-87.
*
Tanon, p. 479.
228 PENALTIES
majority and powerful, a few examples always sufficed.
It sought not vengeance, which was a synonym for
failure, but reconciliation, which meant success. More
characteristic of the Inquisition than its sentences of
relaxation, with their attendant horrible consequence,
in reality more effective and perhaps more terrible, was
its whole method of procedure, its use of torture, moral
as well as physical, the agony of the rack and the nervous
strain of prolonged and tortuous examination, its
utilization of the humiliation of the cross- wear ing, of

the dull and hopeless misery of harsh and lengthy im-
prisonment, by which the spirit of the victim was broken
and the purity of the faith preserved.
CHAPTER VI
CONCLUSION
THE story of mediaeval heresy is but a chapter in a much
larger subject, that of the slow and painful develop-
ment of religious tolerance and freedom of thought.
Heresy essentially free choice in the sphere of religious
belief incontradistinction to implicit obedience to
doctrinal authority was a serious problem to the Church
in the early centuries of the Christian era. During
the long, distracted and desolate epoch of the barbarian
invasions it ceased to be a potent factor in history. But
when Europe recovered from the malady, the lethargy
of the Dark Ages, and the human mind was again awake,
it became once more a problem. The rationalistic
speculations of Eriugena, Roscellinus and Berengar ;
the disordered ravings of Tanchelm the aggressive

;
anti-sacerdotalism of the Cathari or Paulicians, and of

the vagrant Waldenses, present us with the three out-
standing types of mediaeval heresy. By far the most
influential, those which the Church recognized as the
most hurtful and dangerous, were the last. In the case
of the Cathari there was a clear and a very remark-
able revival of a heresy that had much afflicted the /
early Church, Manichaeism. Their dualist theology was
hopelessly pessimistic ; their practical teachings a mere
gospel of despair. The crude dualism and perverted
antinomianism of the sect contained little indeed that
either merited respect or promised lasting influence.
Only in the hint of a genuine hatred of the gross and

the cruel was there aught to respect ; only in its Donatist
doctrine and its denunciation of the Catholic clergy
was there the likelihood of lasting influence. In their
hostility to the claims, and their diatribes against the
abuses, of the clergy, Paulicianism and Waldensianism
230 CONCLUSION
stood united. These two heresies gave a popular currency
in the lands where they secured a foothold to anti-
sacerdotalism, which involved not only the condemnation
of all backsliding on the part of the clergy from the
strictest and most rigid interpretation of the Christ-like
life, but also -as the result of this the rejection of the
doctrinal basis of the peculiar privileges of the clergy,
namely the conception of the mediatorial character of
' '
the priesthood. The Arnoldist Poor Men ; the Petro-
brusians, insisting on the sole efficacy of the individual's
own faith, unaided by churches and sacraments the ;
Henricians in their ascetic denunciation of clerical world-

liness and rejection of the sacraments the Poor Men of;
Lyons, adopting the rule of absolute poverty, preaching

in streets and countryside because, although illiterate,
they were conscious of an inward vocation, and so being
led on to undertake other priestly functions though
unordained the Cathari asserting that the Catholic
;
Church was lost in materialism and worldliness and

that they were the true church of Christ all these
were inherently the aggressive enemies of the priest-
hood. There was a similar note in much of the popu-
lar poetry in those southern lands in which these
heresies took firmest root. It is a note scornful, defiant,
often ribald and profane, that comes into the songs
of the goliards and troubadours. With a robust and
crude Rabelaisianism they burlesque, not only clerical
manners, but the holiest ceremonies and the most sacred
doctrines. Even in miracles and mystery plays the note
is sometimes heard in the poems of Rutebeuf, the
;
' ' '
Roman de la Rose and Reynard the Fox/ it is most
resonant. In the popular poetry there is undoubtedly
something of the unconsecrated paganism of the average
man -his innate secularism rebelling against clerical
privilege, when not fortified by personal worthiness.

it is
Yet between the Provencal troubadour and the Paulician

heretic there was something akin ; and with the noble-
man of Languedoc, only too willing to take the excuse
for despoiling the clergy, they were alike popular. We
CONCLUSION 231
may regret the total extinction of the exotic, semi-Moorish

culture of southern France, which the Albigensian
crusades involved ;
we need not regret the virtual ex-
1
tinction, with it, of the heresies. If there was something
worthy of esteem in their demand for spiritual reality

and personal holiness, this was confused with other
elements, which were perverted and absurd, sometimes
even repulsive and abominable. On their constructive
side the heresies of Waldenses and Albigenses had nothing
of genuine value to offer. In so iar as they have
significance, it is because of their anti-clerical elements,
which are in part a cause, but more a symptom, of a
trend of popular sentiment.
The second type of mediaeval heresy is that represented
by Tanchelm, Eon de 1'Etoile, Segarelli, Dolcino, the
Flagellants. It belongs to the province, not of the
theologian but of the psychologist, specially interested

in the study of depraved emotion and diseased
imagination. Its foundation is that perverted sexuality
which is so strangely connected, as a matter of
psychological fact, with intensity of religious enthusiasm.
The cases of Tanchelm and Eon are no doubt cases of
simple religious mania. None of the heresies of this
type had, or from their character was at all likely
to have, any but the most fleeting results. They have,
symptoms of the powerful
nevertheless, their interest, as
emotionalism which seemed equally liable to produce
a fierce animalism or an intense religious asceticism.
The same raw material otf unregenerate sense and passion
gave to the Church saints and heresiarchs. Ever in the
Middle Ages there was a tendency to excess, excess of
self-abnegation, excess of self-indulgence, a tendency
to push ideas both of doctrine and conduct to extremes.
Thus did the Spiritual Franciscans tend to see in their
founder a superman, to make the cult of poverty an
'
1
Taylor, op. cit., pp. 283-4 n - The philosophic ideas of such
seem gathered from the flotsam and jetsam of the later antique world ;
their stock was not of the best, and bore little interesting fruit for
later times.'
232 CONCLUSION
obsession, to believe themselves a new order destined
to inaugurate the era of the Holy Ghost.
The third type of mediaeval heresy is of an altogether
different nature. In all
It is intellectual, philosophic.
the other heresies there is a taint of rottenness, disease.
Here, on the other hand, there is the health and sanity
of honest thinking and though the thought be crude,
obscure or exaggerated, there is at least the possibility of
lasting results. In the re-discovery and re-absorption of
the intellectual heritage of classical and patristic times
there was always the danger of heresy. The process of
adapting knowledge, pagan in source, coming sometimes
through infidel channels, was certainly perilous. It has
to be remembered that it was the Church that initiated
and carried through this process that to the Church the
;
world is indebted for the Renaissance of the twelfth and

thirteenth centuries. But the process inevitably presented
serious problems. In the first place, it yielded a copious
mass of new comment and interpretation upon the
original body of Christian dogma, viewed from a
philosophic standpoint. Apply the logical methods of
scholasticism and envisage dogma in the light of the
metaphysical problem of the relations between the
universal and the particular, and you have to decide
whether the realist, the nominalist or the conceptualist
is the true interpreter of the creeds. The difficulty was
increased with the advent of Aristotelianism in the
century. One exposition of Aristotle was
definitely declared to be heresy that of the Averrhoists.
(thirteenth
But the Augustinian opponents of St. Thomas Aquinas
endeavoured to confound him in the charge of heresy :
and it was for a time doubtful whether Aristotelianism

in any shape or form could be accepted as orthodox.
Not only Alberto-Thomists in their attack upon the
Averrhoists, but secular clergy warring with regulars,
Franciscans inveighing against Dominicans, all glibly
brought the convenient accusation of heresy against
their opponents. Itwas for lawful authority to deter-
mine categorically what was orthodox, what heretical.
CONCLUSION 233
But no authority was, as a matter of fact, impartial or
certain to be final. Authority, whether papal, conciliar
or academic, was itself wedded to one school of thought
or another, swayed by the predominant philosophy of its
own passing day.
It was not only a question of new ways of regarding,
new interpretations of, existing dogma. There was also
the problem presented by new dogmas, such as those
of the Beatific Vision and the Immaculate Conception.
Such tenets were not in themselves either inherently
orthodox or heretical. When a creed is stabilized,
completely rigid, it is easy to be exactly faithful to it ;
but when it is fluid, even for the most orthodox of intent,

safety can only be found in caution.
But the chief potential source of trouble in the
intellectual ferment of scholasticism lay in the fact that it
inevitably placed side by side two different authorities, the

objective authority of the Church as enshrined in Scripture,
tradition, papal and other lawful ecclesiastical dicta, and,
on the other hand, the subjective authority of the human
reason. All discussion, all argument is necessarily an
appeal largely to this second authority. While the

great majority of the scholastics only used reason in
order to justify revealed truth and never questioned the
superiority of the infallible, the divine authority of the
Church over the fallible authority of man's intellect, there
were others, such as Eriugena and Abelard, who placed
reasonfirst. Finally, there came a scholastic in Wycliffe,
whose realism led him into dangerous errors, not only
subversive of the cardinal doctrine of transubstantiation,
but also threatening the whole status and mediatorial
character of the priesthood.
It ismost important to remember that the scholastic
philosophers were in all cases clerics, representative of,
and not antagonistic to, Catholic theology that even the
;
Averrhoi'sts were also clerics, having no desire to break

with the Church. On the other hand, the freedom of
thought which the universities stood for and dialectic
fostered, and which the Church not only did not repress,
234 CONCLUSION
but even encouraged, had a tendency to produce heresy.
Realism evolved pantheism nominalism unitarianism.
;
The intellectual influences of university life brought

forth Gerson, D'Ailly and the other whole-hearted
reformers who made the great effort at revival of the
Church from within which failed at Constance and Basel ;
but it also brought forth Wycliffe and Hus, whom those

Councils condemned. It was never absolutely clear
where the dividing line between orthodoxy and heresy
would rest. However much they might be reconciled
or confused, the ideals and methods of theology and
philosophy cannot be the same. The postulates of the one
are not those of the other and the more the scientific
;
spirit is developed, the fewer the postulates of any sort

that ready to accept. The Averrhoists at least saw
it is
this, only saving their position by the equivocation of

the double truth.
Which was really the more dangerous to Catholic
doctrine the organized heresies, as a rule ignorant,
perverted, having the seeds of their own destruction in
their very rottenness, which the Church did systemati-
cally persecute or the philosophical speculations of the

;
universities, with their temptations to rationalism which

the Church in the main tolerated ? l Each produced
a force not wholly transient a force operative in the
breaking up of the mediaeval system. The first was
anti-sacerdotalism the second a habit of independent
;
thought and criticism. It is true that the anti-

sacerdotalism of Luther and the secular spirit of Renais-
sance humanism, with its entire indifference to religion,
were the decisive factors in breaking up the fabric of
mediae valism, and the movements of Luther anism and
humanism were largely new creations. Yet Luther owed
much to Hus, and Hus everything to Wycliffe, the
1
Mandell Creighton,Persecution and Tolerance (1895), P- 55-
'
Leo X was tolerant
of the philosophic doubts of Pomponazzo con-
cerning the immortality of the soul, because such speculations were not
likely to affect the position of the Papacy ; but could not allow Luther
to discuss the dubious and complicated question of indulgences because
itmight have disastrous effects upon the system of papal finance.'
CONCLUSION 335
scholastic, and the detached attitude of the Italian
humanist was only one step in advance of that of the
Latin Averrhoist. Neither the wandering sectaries,
in part suggesting, in partmerely articulating, an anti-
sacerdotal sentiment, nor the philosophers with their
speculations concerning universals and the ultimate
cause of being, were without influence in bringing about
the collapse of the mediaeval structure.
It is of no use studying the question of the attitude
of the mediaeval Church towards heresy unless one is
prepared to use imagination enough to envisage heresy

from the mediaeval point of view. Men's mental out-
look is governed by the intellectual conditions of their
own day. A few individuals may be, as the phrase goes,
* '
in advance of their time but at the best they form
;
only a small minority. To consider abstractly the rights

and wrongs, the advantages and disadvantages of in-
stitutions and systems is the function of the philosopher.
But the historian, while not ignoring the abstract question,
has specifically the function of ascertaining what, in point
of fact, people's opinions have been and why they formed
them. Much that has been written on the subject of
religious toleration is of only limited validity because it
simply denounces, and does not attempt to explain or
to appreciate, the psychology of intolerance. 1 Thus, for
' '
example, Locke's Letters on Toleration have little

argumentative value, because they are based on a complete
ignoratio elenchi. Religious toleration is a great principle,
but many modern dithyrambs on the inalienable right
of liberty of thought and conscience fall rather wide
of the mark, can convince only the already converted.
It is not very profitable to bring forward the theory of the
indefeasible right of free thought in condemnation of
mediaeval society to the whole of which, and by no
means to its clerical elements only, the conception of
such a right was entirely foreign. After all, even to-day the
belief in an absolute toleration is held by only a very few,
and even these anarchists will usually be found to hold
1
See Acton, History of Freedom of Thought, pp. 569-71.
236 CONCLUSION
it with certain reservations. 1 Organized society cannot
tolerate the forces which are subversive of it. It does
not tolerate the criminal.
'
A universal and absolute
toleration of everything and everybody would lead to a
general chaos as certainly as a universal and absolute
2
intolerance.' It is undoubtedly true that a certain
'
measure of intolerance is essential to all that is, or moves,
or lives, for tolerance of destructive elements within the

organism amounts to suicide/
3
The individual possesses
rights in so far as they are not prejudicial to the welfare
of his fellowsand the interests of the entire community.
And the recognition that the maintenance of social
order was perfectly compatible with the acknowledgment
of the right of individual opinion and the permission
'
of diversity of views, this in the Middle Ages was a

4
discovery to be made, not a truth to be proved.'
For the Middle Ages religion was not divorced from
the secular life. The Respublica Christiana was an unity
and a potent reality. The common faith was the panoply
of the State. Devotion to it was an integral part of
patriotism, and the counterpart of loyalty to the secular
prince and of obedience to his laws. The man,
therefore,
who assailed the faith assailed society in cutting himself
;
off from the Church he outlawed himself from the State.

Acknowledgment of the sacred truths of Christianity
was the foundation of all morality. The mediaeval
mind could not conceive of morality apart from religion.
Hence respect for the divine law, as revealed in the
Scripture and the Church, was regarded as the sole
guarantee for the security of ordered society. Heresy
was considered as essentially anti-social, anarchic was ;
conceived of as analogous to false coining or treason.

Only to falsify truth was more heinous than to falsify the
1
E. S. P. Haynes, Religious Persecution (1904), p. 40. A Liberal
'
has recently been defined as one who would never have taken the
chance of imposing silence on the deceivers of mankind. If we hold by
this definition, very few Liberals have ever existed, or do exist now.'
2
D. G. Ritchie, Natural Rights (1903), p. 160.
3
The Catholic Encyclopedia (1907-14), on Heresy, vol. vii, p. 261.
*
Creighton, Persecution and Tolerance, pp. 9-10.
CONCLUSION 237
coin and treason against God than treason against man.
The exposition of the nature of heresy in Ludovico a
Paramo is most logical. The character of a state depends
on its religion ; the faith isthe foundation of the state. 1
Heretics cannot dwell in harmony with catholics for if
:
difference of language severs, how much more difference

of belief ? 2 Heresy is productive of all manner of vice
and immorality, which are antagonistic to order and
3
government.
To the Churchall this was self-evident. How could
she stand neutral as between truth and falsehood, and
treat them as if on an equality ? She found all the strong
walls and bastions, defences of the theocratic city, of
which she was the appointed warden, being attacked by
an insidious enemy within the gates. She had the power
to defend how could she be justified if she held her hand ?
;
The heretic questioned her credentials, turned her claims

to ridicule, threatened to bring down the whole structure
of the Christian polity to the ground. Both in self-
defence and in common loyalty to her mission she must
strike. All the intensity of religious conviction inspired
to persecution. Tolerance, argues de Maistre, only
indicates religious indifference. 4 Moreover, the mediaeval
churchman was inevitably much influenced by the in-
junctions of the Old Testament. The Church succeeded
5
to the heritage of the synagogue.
But it was not the Church only that was persuaded
of the essentially dangerous and anti-social character of
heresy. Partly, no doubt, as the result of the Church's

teaching through many generations, but certainly of
their own accord and not as the result of any direct
instruction, both secular rulers and the ordinary laity
1
Ludovico a Paramo, op. tit., pp. 281-2.
2
Ibid., pp. 288-9.
3
Ibid., pp. 333-4-
*
Considerations sur la France suivies
Joseph de Maistre, dcs . . .
lettresa un gentilhomme russe sur I 'inquisition espagnole (Brussels,

1844), pp. 281 et seq. Cf. Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. vii, p. 261,
'
Toleration came in when faith went out.'
8
De Cauzons, op. cit., vol. i, p. 9.
238 CONCLUSION
were equally convinced. 1 They all lived in a thoroughly
theocratic atmosphere. The prince sincerely saw in
the heretic an enemy of all authority, and therefore
2
of his own. Secular legislation was just as unequivocal
in its treatment of heresy as was Canon law. To the
ordinary layman the heretic appeared as a thoroughly
cross-grained, cantankerous, dangerous person, certainly
of some immoral propensities and perhaps sexually
3
perverted.
Such was the mediaeval point of view ; and, once
granted the necessary premises, it is extremely logical
and exceedingly hard to combat. Now-a-days we do
not accept those premises but in the Middle Ages
;
we should probably not have dreamed of questioning

them. On the extraordinarily interesting and im-
portant question of the causes of this change of attitude
authorities do, and are likely to, differ, though many
students will agree in combining their conclusions. To
those who, like John Stuart Mill and Lecky for instance,
attribute religious persecution almost entirely to the
doctrine of exclusive salvation, the causes of the growth
of tolerance will appear to be the extension of the
sceptical spirit and the process of the secularization of
4
politics. Others, such as Bishop Creighton (who will
not agree that persecution is to be explained by the
doctrine of exclusive salvation at all), 5 or as Sir F. Pollock
(who classifies different types of intolerance -tribal,
1
Pollock, Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics (1882), on The
'
Theory of Persecution, pp. 144-5. However eager the clergy might

be to stimulate and direct the anger of the faithful against heretics,
their efforts would have been in vain if the bulk of the laity had not
been predisposed to persecute heretics when duly pointed out. So far
from persecution being merely the creature of priestcraft, it would be
as near the truth to say that priestcraft was invented in order to
organize persecution.'
2
Haynes, pp. 52-9.
op. cit.,
8
Ibid., p. 3.
'
And
the heretic often lacking in tact and a sense
of proportion is as offensive to the believer as one who should rudely
tell him that his doctor was a quack and his solicitor a swindler.'
CJ. p. 55-
4
Mill, On Liberty ; Lecky's Rationalism, esp., chs. iv and v.
6
Op. cit., pp. 5, 113-15-
CONCLUSION 239
political, social), insiststrongly upon the simple factor

'
of experience. not the demonstration of abstract
It is
rights, but the experience of inutility, that has made

*
governments leave off persecuting/ After all, the
great justification of liberty of thought lies not in the
attempted demonstration of a natural right, but in
the records of the painful process whereby toleration has
been achieved. 2 It would have saved an infinity of blood-
shed and misery, would have freed the palimpsest of
history of some of its most terrible blots, could the principle
of toleration have been established without that awful
struggle. But none of the great triumphs of mankind
have been achieved save after centuries of effort, loss
and failure.
To the moral judgment of our own day no instrument
of persecution seems more odious than the Inquisition.
Protestants have persecuted just as whole-heartedly as
catholics, and with far less excuse but the Inquisition
;
stands by itself, as a regular specialized tribunal for

persecution, immensely efficient, with an existence of
centuries to its record. 3 We have seen the way in which
the Inquisition came into being. Both the circumstances
of its origin and the intentions of its various founders
gave the tribunal a character only semi- judicial. Indeed,
if we object the Inquisition was a bad court
that
of justice, its originators could retort with truth that
it was not intended to be a simple court of justice.
The Inquisition was created to deal with erring

children, not criminals ; not merely to pronounce
a verdict, but to produce reconciliation and amendment ;
not to punish, but to penance. The Church, through

the Inquisition, was dealing in the spirit of a parent
1
Pollock, op. cit. t p. 175.
2
Freedom of Thought (Home Univ. Lib.),
J. B. Bury, *A History of
p. 14. 'A
long time was needed to arrive at the conclusion that
coercion of opinion is a mistake, and only a part of the world is yet
convinced. That conclusion, so far as I can judge, is the most impor-
tant ever reached by man. It was the issue of a continuous struggle
between reason and authority. .' . .
8
Cf. Langlois, op. cit., pp. 21-47.
240 CONCLUSION
with her own children, over whom
she had all a parent's
rights of discipline and chastisement, but also evincing
a parent's deep desire for something more than justice
and punishment, for the ending of estrangement and the
restoration of loving union in the family. Such was the
pure theory of the Inquisition, a much more benignant con-
ception than that of the ordinary law-court. In the latter,
the mere fact of repentance would not avail in the former,
;
if it were sincere, it availed everything. So de Maistre,

defending the Spanish Inquisition, declared it to be the
most lenient, the most merciful tribunal in the world.
But we have to consider the point of view, not only
of the judge, but of the defendant. Whatever the
real nature of the tribunal, the man brought before it
was on his trial. The tribunal did pronounce a verdict,
and upon that verdict his reputation, perhaps his freedom
or his life, He wanted justice, not mercy
depended. :
and the Inquisition might be lenient, but it was not

fair. It was radically unfair. It gave no facilities
whatever" for the plea of Not Guilty. It cared nought
for the reputation of the accused. He had already lost
his reputation by being before the court at all. The
' '
very fact of defamation, of being suspect inferred

guilt. To leave the court of the Inquisition without a
stain upon one's character was virtually impossible. In
all manner of ways the accused was at a disadvantage
in the suppression of the names of witnesses and of

evidence, in the refusal of legal assistance, in the use of
torture, and above all in the fact that the judge was also
the prosecutor, who regarded it as perfectly legitimate
to browbeat and confuse the defendant, if he was so
misguided and unfilial as to endeavour to defend himself.
Inquisitorial procedure was a miserable travesty of justice ;
and its mercifulness was forthcoming only on its own terms.

To all save the meekly submissive the Inquisition typified
not mercy and love, but remorselessness and cruelty.

While in studying the origins of the Inquisition
we are bound to examine, and to seek to understand,
the point of view of those who were responsible for its
CONCLUSION 241
inception, in estimating its character and results we

need not, nay we ought not, to judge by any other
criterion than that dictated by the highest conceptions
of right and justice. The common, the accepted, standard
of to-day both as regards justice and humanity is, happily,
greatly higher than that of the Middle Ages. Much

that has been written of the Inquisition has been vitiated
by an attempt mind and conduct of
to read into the
men humanitarianism which is the
of mediaeval times a
peculiar product of the modern world, and which they

could not even have understood. Even more vitiated
would be any thesis which, not satisfied with justifying
the originators of the Inquisition, sought to justify the
institution itself. Certainly the motive for such an
attempt could not be impartiality. Only moral obli-
quity can be blind to the transparent abominations of
inquisitorial procedure.
If character as a tribunal was essentially evil,
its
evil also were some of the Inquisition's results. Secular
princes discerned its remarkable potential utility to
themselves and regarded it with envy and admiration.
Its methods had a satisfactory efficiency found in no other
court. By such methods conviction could be practically
assured. The charge of heresy could therefore be
preferred against political enemies with the happiest
prospects of advantage. The destruction for purely
political ends was achieved by the use of inquisitorial
methods of the Templars, Jeanne d'Arc, Savonarola. 1
Templars, see H. Finke, Papstum und Unter-
1 For the trial of the
gang des Templerordens (Minister, 1907) M. Lavocat, Proce's des Freres

;
et de I'ordre du Temple (Paris, 1888) Collection de Documents inedits sur

;
V his toirede France Proce's des Templiers, J. Michelet (Paris, 1841) Lea,
;
vol. iii, pp. 238-334. Lea's treatment of this complicated subject is

masterly, and is conclusive against Philip IV and Clement V. For the
trial of Jeanne d'Arc, see J. Quicherat, Proems de Condamnation et de
Rehabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc (Paris, 1841-9) H. S. Denifle and
E. Chatelain, Le proces de J. d'Arc et I'Universite de Paris (Paris, 1897) i
A. France, Vie de Jeanne d'Arc (Paris, 1908) ;A. Lang, The Maid of
France (1908) ; Lea, vol. iii, pp. 338-78, etc. For trial of Savonarola,
see P. Villart, Life and Times of Savonarola (Eng. trans.), 1899) ; Lea,
vol. iii, pp. 209-37. For papal use of the Inquisition for political
purposes, see Lea, vol. iii, ch. iv, generally.
R
242 CONCLUSION
Those are the most notorious, but there are other
instances of this abuse of the sacred tribunal for purely
secular, and sometimes base and immoral, purposes.
Worse still and possibly this is the worst aspect
of the whole story of the Inquisition its pernicious
methods of procedure were borrowed by the admiring
secular princes for their courts, which did not pretend
to have the double nature which was the explanation,
if not the excuse, for the Inquisition's adoption of its
system. Thus civil courts in Europe came to be
tarnished by the system of inquisitio, the secret enquiry,
the heaping up of disabilities for the defence, the applica-
tion of torture all these abuses having the august
sanction of ecclesiastical use. The lay authority could
triumphantly vindicate such innovations, whereby justice
became an unequal contest between authority, com-
bining the two characters of prosecutor and judge, and
the unhappy prisoner, by pointing to the example of the
Church, the repository of the sublime truths of divine
justice and Christian charity. To the fortunate fact
that the Inquisition never secured a footing in the British
Islands is largely due their maintenance, in contra-
distinction to Continental states, of the open trial and
of the great maxim that no one is presumed to be guilty,
that the onus of proof lies with the prosecution. It
was not the fault of the Church that the secular power
admired and imitated the methods of the Holy Office ;
but it is surely a calamity that it should have been able

to find in an ecclesiastical tribunal a system which must
seem to every fair-minded man to-day so abhorrent to
the whole spirit and tenor of the Christian gospel.
No attempt has been made in these pages to present
the heresies of the Middle Ages in any heroic light, to
slur over the pernicious crudities of many of them. As
between the spiritual and intellectual ideals represented
by the mediaeval Church and those represented by the
majority of the sectaries the choice is self-evident.
Wycliffites and Husites stand obviously on a far higher
plane, but Petrobrusians, Cathari, Dolcinists, Flagellants
CONCLUSION 243
and many others had no fertile ideas to bequeath to a
laterday and were, at best perhaps, a nuisance in their
own. Yet it has to be remembered that not only noble-
minded men like Hus and Jerome of Prague, whose creed,
whether true or not, was in any case sane and pure and
exalted, but also innumerable others, whom we know
only as names in inquisitorial records, who whatever
the faith they professed stood constant through physical
and mental anguish, to perish perhaps at the last at
the stake in a world barren of pity with no friendly
faces to encourage them these suffered for a great ideal,
that of fidelity to the spirit of truthfulness, of intellectual
integrity. All who have died rather than be false to
themselves and their vision of truth, thus demonstrating
to the world their conviction that belief is worth dying
for whether Catholics or Protestants or the most erring
of mediaeval heretics have done service to the cause of
human progress. For, if it be true that only through the
tragic experience of centuries of religious persecution could
mankind attain to the establishment of the principle
of liberty of thought and conscience, then every one of
us to-day who enjoys the benefits of such liberty owes
a debt of gratitude to the men and women who for
conscience* sake braved obloquy, torture-chamber and
fire.
NOTE ON AUTHORITIES
A FULL bibliography of the subject of Heresy and its Re-
pression in the Middle Ages would be exceedingly lengthy.
All that is attempted here is to give a select list of a few of
the most useful, important and most easily accessible works.
The most thorough bibliography for the subject available
is that in T. de Cauzons, Histoire de V Inquisition en France
(q.v.) t the list of books covering forty pages and including

850 works. This is for the history of the tribunal in France
alone.
It has to be borne in mind that by far the greater part
of our contemporary evidence for the history of mediaeval
heresies is hostile evidence, consisting of denunciations of
them by orthodox theologians, the treatises of inquisitors
who condemned their adherents, notes made of evidence
given by defendants. Only those heretics who were them-
selves philosophers or theologians and these, such as Siger
of Brabant, Wycliffe and Hus, are relatively very few have
left their own records behind them. Due allowance, there-
fore, has to be made in using most contemporary authorities
for considerable bias.
INQUISITORIAL TREATISES
These on the whole, the most generally valuable of

are,
contemporary sources. The two most important for the
period dealt with in this book are :
Nicholas Eymeric, Directorium Inquisitorum cum com-

mentariis F. Pegnae (Rome, 1585 ; also Venice, 1607).
Bernard Gui, Practica Inquisitionis haerelicae pravitatis
(ed. C. Douais, Paris, 1886).
Eymeric was inquisitor in Aragon in the latter half of

the fourteenth century. His compendious work is probably
the most authoritative of all inquisitorial treatises, being
a complete exposition of the principles of the tribunal and
the doctrines of the different sects with which it had to deal,
and giving the minutest details of its procedure. Bernard
AUTHORITIES 245
Gui, appointed inquisitor at Toulouse in 1306, was the most
vigorous and remarkable of those who helped to stamp out
Catharism in Languedoc after the Albigensian crusades.
The following treatises are not contemporary, but they
are valuable as expositions of the permanent principles and
methods of the tribunal. They are also useful for the
occasional comments made by these later experts on the
work of their predecessors :
J. Simancas, De Catholicis Institutionibus.

A. Bzovius, Historiae Ecclesiasticae.
J. a Royas, De Haereticis.
Bernard of Como, Lucerna Inquisitorum haereticae pravi-
tatis.
Arnaldo Albertini, Tractatus de agnoscendis assertionibus

Catholicis et haereticis.
Zanchino Ugolini, De Haereticis.
All these, among other similar tracts, are included in

Zilettus, Tractatus Univer si Juris (Venice, 1633), vol. xi, pt. ii.
See also Ludovico Paramo, De origine et progressu officii

Sanctae Inquisitionis (Madrid, 1598).
Umberto Locati, Opus iudiciale inquisitorum (Rome,
1572).
F. Pena, Inquirendorum haereticorum lucerna (Madrid,
1598).
Carena, Tractatus de officio Sanctae Inquisitionis (Lyons,
1669).
II
COLLECTIONS OF ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS
There are records of the proceedings and sentences

pronounced in the inquisitions in the South of France in
Liber sententiarum Inquisitionis Tholosanae, 130713, printed
as an appendix to Philippe a Limborch, Historia Inquisitionis
(Amsterdam, 1692). Note that this Liber sententiarum is
not included in Chandler's English translation of Limborch.
These are the sentences pronounced by Bernard Gui. The
proceedings of the inquisition of Carcassonne, notably the
sentences of Bernard de Caux, are contained in Documents
pour servir 4 I'histoire de I'Inquisition dans le Languedoc
(ed. C. Douais, Paris, 1900).
246 AUTHORITIES
There are exceedingly useful extracts from original
documents of various sorts relating to mediaeval heresies
in the following :
J. J. Bellinger, Beitrdge zur Sektensgeschichte (Munich,

1890), vol. ii.
P. Fredericq, Corpus documentorum Inquisitionis haereticae
pmvitatis Neerlandicae (Ghent, 1889-1906), vols. i-iii.
For the edicts of ecclesiastical Councils the best collection
is :
P. Labbe, G. D. Mansi, etc., Sacrorum conciliorum nova

et amplissima collectio (Paris, 1901-13), esp. vol.
xxii,1166-1225 vol. xxiii, 1225-1268
; vol. xxiv,
;
1269-1299 vol.;xxv, 1300-1344 vol. xxvi, 1344-

;
1409.
For papal bulls between 1198 and 1304 see A. Potthast,
Regesta PontificumRomanorum (Berlin, 1874 et seq.).
Important documents relating to the Dominican order
are in Ripoll et Bremond, Bullarium ordinis S. Dominici
(8 vols., Rome, 1737 et seq.).
The Constitutions of the Emperor Frederick II are in
J. L. A. Huillard-Breholles, Historia diplomatica Friderici

Secundi (Paris, 1852-61).
Ill
HISTORIES OF THE INQUISITION
There are two useful histories of comparatively early

date:
J. Marsollier, Histoire deI'

Inquisition (Cologne, 1693).
P. a Limborch, Historia Inquisitionis (Amsterdam, 1692).
The English version is History of the Inquisition (tr.
S. Chandler, London, 1731). The latter is used in
this book except when the Liber sententiarum, only
printed in the original, is referred to. Limborch's,
although avowedly a propaganda work, is still of
value, because it was based on the treatises of
inquisitors, making particularly full use of Eymeric,
and it is easy to make proper allowance for the
avowed bias.
In 1817 appeared the first version (a French translation)

AUTHORITIES 247
of the great work on the Spanish
Inquisition by J. A. Llorente
under the Histoire critique de V Inquisition d'Espagne.
title,
The original Spanish text was not published till 1822. Only
the introduction and first four chapters are relevant to the
mediaeval Inquisition.
English writers have been mainly interested in the Spanish
Inquisition, as founded by Ferdinand and Isabella, and in
the Inquisition in Portgual. English seamen and traders
suffered at their hands, either in the Peninsula or its
dependencies, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
See, for example, English Merchants and the Spanish
Inquisition in the Canaries (Royal Historical Society, ed.
L. de Alberti, A. B. Wallis Chapman, 1912) R. Dugdale's
;
A Narrative of popish cruelties ; or a new account of the Spanish

Inquisition (1680) in Harleian Miscellany, vol. vii, p. 105 ;
J. Stevens, The Ancient and Present State of Portugal . . .
containing . A curious Account of the Inquisition (London,

. .
1705). Later English writers show a similar strongly

Protestant bias, e.g. F. B. Wright, A History of Religious
Persecution from the Apostolic to the Present Time ; and of
the Inquisitions of Spain, Portugal and Goa (1816) ; W. H.
Rule, History of the Inquisition (London, 1868). Only the
firstnine chapters of the last-named book are concerned
with the Middle Ages.
All previous works were superseded by the monumental
labours of the American historian, H. C. Lea, in his
Superstition and Force (Philadelphia, 1866; 4th ed., 1892).

A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (New
York, 1887).
A History of the Inquisition of Spain (New York, 1906-7).
The Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies (New York,
1908).
Chapters in the Religious History of Spain connected with
the Inquisition (Philadelphia, 1893).
Together, these volumes represent an immense fund of

learning and the most painstaking research. For this reason
it will be long indeed before they are superseded.
They
have been adversely criticized, as being marred by strong
anti-Catholic prejudice. Colour is undoubtedly lent to the
charge by the rather unfortunate fact that the History of
the Inquisition of the Middle Ages opens with an account of
the abuses of the mediaeval Church and that the whole argu-
248 AUTHORITIES
ment book appears as though largely based upon these
of the
initial Lea is also inclined to be biased in
contentions.
favour of all heretics as against their persecutors. But while
in detail he may be open to criticism and his attitude is
quite clearly Protestant, the great bulk of his work remains

unshaken. The Romanist point of view with regard to it
should, however, be studied. It is summarized, for example,
in P. M. Baumgarten, H. C. Lea's Historical Writings : a
critical inquiry (New York, 1909), and will be found inciden-
tally in the works of recent Catholic historians of the Inquisi-

tion (q.v. infra). There are admirable critiques of Lea's work
in :
Lord Acton's The History of Freedom of Thought and other
Essays (London, 1909) ;

P. Fredericq's Introduction to the French translation
of Lea's History of the Inquisition of the Middle
Ages (tr. S. Reinach, Paris, 1900, pp. i-xxviii) }
and in articles by S. Reinach on his Spanish Inquisition in

Revue Critique, No. 18, May 1906, p. 300 No. 42, Oct. 1907,
;
p. 301 No: 5, Feb. 1908, p. 86.

;
Recent works from the Romanist standpoint have been :
C. Douais, L' Inquisition ; ses Origines, sa Procedure

(Paris, 1906).
H. Maillet, L'ftglise el la repression sanglante de I'heresie
(Liege, 1909).
E. Vacandard, The Inquisition, a Critical and Historical
Study of the Coercive Powers of the Church (tr. B. L.
Conway, 1908).
C. Moeller, Les Buchers el les Autos-da-fe de I'
Inquisition
depuis Moyen Age
le in Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique
(Louvain, 1913, vol. xiv, pp. 720-51).
Mgr. Douais has done much able and learned work on

the history of the mediaeval Inquisition, and the Abbe"
Vacandard's book is most moderate and fair-minded. The
most considerable work of scholarship written on the subject
of recent years has, however, been T. de Cauzons, Histoire
de I'
Inquisition en France (2 vols., Paris, 1909, 1913, un-
finished).
There is a critical survey of some of the most recent work
done on the Inquisition by P. Fredericq, Les recents historiens
AUTHORITIES 249
catholiques de en France in Revue historique,
I'Inquisition
vol. cix, 1912, pp. 307-34). Mainly critical is C. V. Langlois,

L 'Inquisition apres des travaux recents (Paris, 1902).
IV
LEGAL ASPECT OF THE INQUISITION
On this important subject there is not a great deal, but
the following are excellent and most valuable :
L. Tanon, Histoire des Tribunaux de V Inquisition en

France (Paris, 1893).
P. Fournier, Les Officialites au Moyen Age (Paris, 1889).
A. Esmein, Histoire de la Procedure Criminelle en France,
et specialement de la procedure inquisitoire (Paris,
1882).
Esmein's book forms the substantial foundation of a

more comprehensive work in the American Continental Legal
History series, viz. A History of Continental Criminal Procedure
(Boston, 1913).
See on this subject note on p. 205 supra.
WORKS DEALING SPECIALLY WITH THE ALBIGENSES AND

THE ORIGINS OF THE INQUISITION
J. J.Vaissete and C. Devic, Histoire Generale de Languedoc

(Toulouse, 1872-1904).
Moneta, Adversus Catharos et Waldenses (Rome, 1743).
P. Melia, The Origin, Persecutions and Doctrines of the
Waldenses, from Documents (London, 1870).
C. Schmidt, Histoire et Doctrine de la Secte des Cathares ou
AlUgeois (Paris, 1848).
A. Monastier, Histoire de I'ttglise Vaudoise depuis son
origine (Paris, 1847).
B. Haureau, Bernard Delicieux et V Inquisition Albigeoise
(Paris, 1877).
C. Douais, Les Heretiques du midi au XIII* siecle (Paris,
1891) j L'Albigeisme et les FreresprecheursdNarlonne
au XIII e siecle (Paris, 1894) Les AlUgeois, leur
;
origine (Paris, 1879).

250 AUTHORITIES
J. Ficker, Die Gesetzliche Einfuhrung der Todesstrafe fur
Ketzerei in Mittheilungen des Instituts fur oesterreich-
ische Geschichtsforschung (1880), pp. 177-226.
Havet, UHeresie et le Bras seculier au Moyen Age
J.
jusqu'au treizieme siecle in (Euvres (Paris, 1896),
vol. ii, pp. 117-81.
C. Henner, Beitrdge zur Organisation und Competenz der
pdpstlichen Ketzesgerichte (Leipzig, 1890).
A. Luchaire, Innocent III, vol. ii, La Croisade des Albi-
geois (Paris, 1905).
VI
WORKS DEALING WITH JOACHIM OF FLORA AND THE
' '
EVERLASTING GOSPEL
Joachim of Flora, Concordia novi et veteris Testamenti
(Venice, 1579) '>

Expositio in Apocalypsin (Venice,
1527) Psalterium decent Cordarum (Venice, 1527).
;
Chronica Fr. Salimbene Parmensis (Parma, 1857) al so >
in Monumenta Germ. Hist., vol. xxxii (1905-13), ed.

O. ttolder-Egger.
E. Renan, Joachim de Flore et VEvangile eternel in Nouvelles
Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse (Paris, 1884).
E. Gebhart, L'ltalie Mystique ; la Renaissance religieuse
au Moyen Age (6th ed., 1908) ; Recherches nouvelles
sur I'histoire du Joachitism in Revue historique, vol.
xxxi (1886).
S. Reinach, Cultes, Mythes et Religions (Paris, 1905),
vol.pp. 173-83.
i,
J. J. Dollinger, Prophecies and the Prophetic Spirit in

the Christian Era (ed. A. Plummer, 1873).
E. G. Gardner, Joachim of Flora and the Everlasting
Gospel in Franciscan Essays (1912).
VII
ON SORCERY AND WITCHCRAFT
The principal authorities are :
Sprenger's Malleus Maleficarum and F. Bartholomew

de Spina's De Strigibus,
AUTHORITIES 251
Both are included Malleorum quorundam Maleficarum
in
tarn veterum quam recentiorum authorum tomi duo (Frankfort,
1582). In Zilettus (q.v. supra) there is Bernard of Como's

De Strigibus.
See also W. E. H. Lecky's History of Rationalism in Europe
and authorities there cited.
VIII
FOR WYCLIFFE, Hus AND THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE

The principal works of Wycliffe are published by the
Wyclif Society. See especially De Dominio Divino (ed.
R. L. Poole, 1890) Tract, de Civili dominio liber primus
;
(ed. R. L. Poole, 1885) De Eucharistia (1892) ; De Potestate

;
Pape (ed. J. Loserth, 1907. See also Fasciculi Zizaniorum

Magistri Johannis Wyclif (Rolls series, ed. W. W. Shirley,
1858). See also the Chronicon Angliae (ed. Maunde
Thompson, 1874) Chronicon of Henry Knighton (ed. Lumby,
;
1895), vol. ii D. Wilkins, Concilia M. Britanniae et Hiberniae

;
(1737)' voL "I-

The Hus are edited by H. B. Workman and
Letters of
R. M. Pope (1904). Invaluable is F. Palacky's Documenta
Mag. Joannis Hus (Prague, 1869).
For the works of Gerson and D'Ailly see J. Gerson, Opera
(Antwerp, 1706). Works of D'Ailly are included in this
volume.
See also Theodoric de Niem, De Schismate (Leipzig, 1890).
The works of Marsiglio of Padua and of William of Ockham
are in Melchior Goldast, Monarchia S. Romani Imperil
(Hanover, Frankfort, 1611-14), vol. ii. They are summarized
in S. Riezler, Die literarischen Widersacher der Pdpste zur
Zeit Ludwig des Baiers (1874).
See also the following relating to Bohemia or the Council
of Constance :
Aeneas Sylvius, Historia Bohemica (1453).

Etienne Baluze, Vitae Paparum Avenionensium (Paris,
1693).
H. der Hardt, Magnum oecumenicum Constantiense
v.
Concilium (Frankfort, 1697-1742).
E. Martene and V. Durand, Veterum Scriptorum et monu-
mentorum amplissima collectio (Paris, 1724-33), vol.
vii, pp. 425-1078).
252 AUTHORITIES
The following also are useful :
N. Valois, La France et le Grand Schisme d' Occident (Paris,
1896-1902).
J. B. Schwab, /. Gerson (Wiirzburg, 1858).
B. Labanca, Marsiglio da Padova (Padua, 1882).
H. B. Workman, The Dawn of the Reformation : the Age
of Wyclif (1901) j The Dawn of the Reformation :
the Age of Hus (1902).
J. Lewis, History of the Life and Sufferings of John

Wicliffe (1720).
J. Loserth, Wyclif and Hus (tr. W. J. Evans, 1884).
G. M. Trevelyan, England in the Age of Wy cliffe (1904).
G. V. Lechler, Wyclif and his English Precursors (tr. P.
Lorimer, 1878).
R. L. Poole, Wyclif and Movements for Reform (1889) ;
Illustrations of the History of Mediceval Thought (1884).

H. Rashdall, Article on Wycliffe in Dictionary of National
Biography (1900), vol. Ixiii.
A. H. Wratislaw, Native Literature of Bohemia in the
Fourteenth Century (1878).
Count Liitzow, The Life and Times of Master John Hus
(1909).
H. Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages
(1895), vol. ii.
Also of course M. Creighton, History of the Papacy (1903-9),

Introd. and Books I and II.
IX
GENERAL ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORIES AND WORKS ON
HERESIES
C. H. Hahn, Geschichte der Ketzer (Stuttgart, 1845-50).

J. J. v. Mosheim, Institutes of Ecclesiastical History (Eng.
tr.,2nd ed., 1850).
J. C. L. Gieseler, Ecclesiastical History (Eng. tr. 1853),
esp. vol. iii, which contains extracts from documents.
F. Milman, History of Latin Christianity (4th ed. 1883),
esp. vols. v and vi.
J. J. Dollinger, Beitrdge zur Sektensgeschichte (Munich,

1890).
A. Harnack, History of Dogma (tr. W. Gilchrist, 1894-9).
AUTHORITIES 253
See also on special subjects the following :
F. Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle

Ages (tr. A. Hamilton, 1894-1902), vols. v and vi.
J. H. Reusch, Der Index der ver botenen Bilcher (Bonn, 1883).
J. Guiraud, Saint Dominic (Eng. tr., 1901).
P. Sabatier, Life of Saint Francis of Assisi (tr. L. S.
Houghton, 1904).
H. O. Taylor, The Medieval Mind (1911).
E. Renan, Averroes et I'Averroisme (Paris, 1861).
P. F. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et I'Averroisme latin
au XIIP silcle (Fribourg, 1899), with invaluable
appendix containing Siger's Works.
M. de Wulf, History of Medieval Philosophy (Eng. tr.,
1909).
B. Haur6au, Histoire de la Philosophie Scolastique (Paris,
1880).
C. Douais, Essai sur V organisation des etudes dans Vordre
des Freres-Precheurs (Paris, 1884).
Registmm epistolarum fratris Joannis Peckham (Rolls
Series, ed. C. T. Martin, 1884).
Rutebeuf, CEuvres Completes (1874-5), vol. i, passim.
De Tribus Impostoribus (ed. Philomneste Junior, i.e.
P. Gustave Brunet, Paris, 1861).
J. Owen, Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance (1893).
ON THE GENERAL QUESTION OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT

AND THE THEORY OF RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
Representative works, among many :
J. Locke, Letters concerning Toleration.

J. S. Mill, On Liberty.
W. E. H. Lecky, History of Rationalism in Europe, ch. iv.
Sir F. Pollock, The Theory of Persecution in Essays in
Jurisprudence and Ethics (1882).
M. Creighton, Persecution and Tolerance (1895).
D. G. Ritchie, Natural Rights (1903) The Principles of
State Interference (1902).
E. S. P. Haines, Religious Persecution (1904).
Joseph de Maistre, Lettres a un gentilhomme russe sur
I'
Inquisition espagnole (Brussels, 1844).
254 AUTHORITIES
Lessing's Nathan der Weise.
Sir J. Stephen, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (2nd ed., 1874).
J. M. Robertson, A Short History of Free Thought, Ancient
and Modern (1906).
The Catholic Encyclopedia- (1907-14), articles on Heresy
and Inquisition.
J. B. Bury, A History of Freedom of Thought (Home
University Library).
INDEX
A BANG, Peter of, as Averrho'ist, Aquinas, St. Thomas, and Averrho-
ism, 64-5
as sorcerer, 109 and Realism, 91
Abelard, Peter, as rationalist, 7-8, on nature of heresy, 157-8, 183
r 5> 57- 8 9i, 233
. otherwise mentioned, 39, 85, 223,
Abubacer, Arabian philosopher, 60 232
Accusatio, system of, 141, 143-4 Aquitaine, Catharism in, 22
Achellini, Paduan Averrho'ist, 70 Spiritual Franciscans in, 43
Advocates, use of, in Inquisition, Aragon, Inquisition in, 159, 172-3
198-9, 240 Arc, Joan of, 109, 164, 241
Aegidius Romanus, vindicates Aris- Arianism, 125-6, 217
totle against Averrho'ists, 67 Aristotle and Arabian philosophy,
Affirmative heretics, 185 58-62, 232
Albertus Magnus of Cologne, 39, and Scholasticism, 63, 66-7, 74
6 4-7. 75 Arnaldo da Villanova, 41
Albi, Catharan stronghold, 136 Arnaud of Citeaux, Archbishop of
Albigensian Crusade, 5, 77, 137-8, Narbonne and papal legate,
159, 162, 231 137-8, 144, 146
Alexander III, Pope, 18, 132, 141, Arnaud, Guillem, inquisitor, 159
211 Arnold of Brescia, 15, 1 8
Alexander IV, Pope, 41, 42, 64, Arnoldists, followers of Arnold of
107, 109, 156, 167, 202, 218 Brescia, 16, 230
Alexander VI, Pope, and witch- Arras, witches of, 121, 203
craft, n8n. Arzevedo, Diego de, Bishop of
Alexander of Hales, 39, 56 Osma, his work among Cath-
Alfarabi, Arabian philosopher, 59 ari, 137
Alfonso II, King of Aragon, his Asceticism and profligacy, 3-5
edict against heretics, 132, 157, Astrology, 108
172, 217 Athanasius, Saint, on persecution,
Amaury de Bene, his heresies con- 126
demned, 49, 53, 63, 165, 225 Aubryot, prevdt of Paris, 163
Amaury of Rheims, Rector of Aucassin et Nicolette, 5-7
University of Paris, 67 Augustine, Saint, on persecution,
Ambrose, Saint, on Priscillianism, 55, 96, 127
128 Augustinianism, in scholastic philo-
Anjou, Charles of, 168-9 sophy, 56, 66-7, 75, 232
Annibaldi, Senator in Rome, 154 Auto-da-fe, 163, 1 80, 223
Anselm of Bee, 7-8, 57 Auxerre, Hugh, Bishop of, 133
Antinomianism, Catharan, 31 Avempace, Arabian philosopher, 60
of Amaury de Bene, 49 Averrhoes, or Ibn-Roschd, his
Antisacerdotalism in mediaeval career, 60 n.
heresy, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, his philosophy, 58, 60-2
32-3, 53. 77. 80, 90, 136, attitude to religion, 61-2
229-30, 234-5 and The Three Impostors, 72
Aphrodistias, Alexander of, 70 views of Gerson concerning, 72
Apostolic Brethren, in Brittany, 15, views of Petrarch concerning,
J 7 71-2
The followers of Segarelli, 47 Avicenna, Arabian philosopher, 59-
Appeals from Inquisition, 226 60
'
Aquinas, St. Thomas, and Aristo-

'
Avignon, Babylonish captivity of,

teljanism, 64 n, 71, 80, 86, 103
256 INDEX
DACON, Roger, 39, 53, 74, 107 Bulls, papal :
Bagdad, Aristotelian philoso- Ad dbolendam (Lucius III), 133

phers in caliphate of, 59-60 Ad extirpanda (Innocent IV),
Banishment, penalty for heresy, r 55-7 I0 7> 201, 213, 221
217, 221 Clericis laicos (Boniface VIII),

Basel, Council of, 12, 234 77. 79
Beatific Vision, dogma of, 84-5, 233 Cum adversus haereticam pravi-
Beghards or Beguines, 48, 50-1, 75, tatem (Innocent IV), 154, 220
165-6, 214 Cum inter nonnullos (John XXII),
Believers, Catharan adherents, 29- 45
3i Etsi de statu (Boniface VIII), 79
Benedict XI, Pope, 162 Excommunicamus (Gregory IX),
Benedict XII, Pope, 175 153-4
Benedict XIV, Pope, 50-1 Exiit qui seminal (Nicholas III),
Berengar of Tours, 7, 57, 130, 140 n., 42,44
229 Licet Heli (Innocent III), 190
Bergamo, Dolcino's crusade in, 47 Pastoralis Praeeminentiae (Cle-
Bernard de Caux, inquisitor in ment V), 176
Languedoc, 148, 202, 215, 227 Quod super nonnullis (Alexander
Bernard, Saint, and Abelard, 8, 57 IV), 107
and Henry of Lausanne, 17 Quorundam (John XXII), 43-4
otherwise mentioned, 3, 38, 85 Unam sanctam (Boniface VIII),
BSziers, Spiritual Franciscans in,
43 Burgundy, Inquisition in, 159
fall of, in Albigensian Crusade, 138 Robert le Bugre in, 163
Bishops, failure of their courts to
deal with heresy, 141-5
their part in Inquisition, 182-3
Black Death, its influence on Flagel- pALABRIA, Joachim of Flora
lant mania, 51 - in>34
Boccaccio, his tale of The Three Calomar, Duke of Croatia and
Rings, 72-3 Dalmatia, 174
Boethius of Dacia, Parisian Aver- Cambrai, burning of heretics at,
rhoi'st, 58, 66-9 anno 1076, 129-30
Bogomiles, Manichaean sect, 22, 24, Robert le Bugre in, 162
26 Canon law, and clerical abuses, 12
Bohemia, Catharism in, 22 and witchcraft, 112-13
Flagellants in, 51 and torture, 177, 201
Husitism in, 94-8 (passim), 175 and death-penalty, 131, 134, 143,
Inquisition in, 159, 174-5 193, 222, 238
Bois, Peter du, 78 Carcassonne, Catharism in, 148
Bologna, University of, 6, 70, 95 Spiritual Franciscans in, 43
Bona ventura, Saint, 39, 41, 53, 56 Castelnau, Pierre de, papal legate in
Boniface VIII, Pope, 42, 77-80, 107, Languedoc, 137, 144-6
1 60, 174 Cathari, 12, 22-34, 3 8 4 6 77, 8 4
Boniface IX, 50 95, 128-38, 151, 159, 160, 170,
Bosnia, Catharism in, 174 211, 214-18, 229, 236, 242
Bourges, Pragmatic Sanction of, Celestine III, Pope, 34
103, 164 Cesena, Michael de, 79, 81, 85
Brescia, Dolcino in, 47 Chalons, Apostolic Brethren in
'
Brethren of the Free Spirit/ 49, diocese of, 15
51, 165-6, 175 Chambre ardente in Parlement de
British Isles, their immunity from Paris, 165
Inquisition, 176-7 Champagne, Catharism in, 22
Brittany, see Apostolic Brethren Robert le Bugre in, 162
Bruno of Cologne, founder of Car- Charles IV, Emperor, 165
thusian order, 38 Chrysostom, Saint, on treatment of
Bruys, Pierre de, 17 heretics, 113, 126-7
Bulgaria, Catharism in, 23 n., 174 Citations, inquisitorial, 188, 192
INDEX 257
Civil courts, influence of Inquisition Councils, decrees of ecclesiastical :
on, 177, 205 n., 242 Vienne (1311-12), 43-4, 70, 161,
Civitas Dei, conception of, 1,12, 32, 180, 183
77 Counsellors, inquisitorial, or periti,
Clarendon, Assize oj, 132, 177, 182
217-18 Creighton, Bishop, on religious
Clement V, Pope, 42, 44, 48, 156, tolerance, 238
161-2, 176-7, 202 Cremona, Peter Martyr in, 167
Clement VI, Pope, 52 Crocesegnati, the, 167
Clement VII, Pope, 85 Crosses, wearing of, as inquisitorial
'
Clementines,' the, decrees of penance, 208-9, 225, 227-8
Clement V, 161-2, 165 Crusade, see Albigensian
Cologne, mob and heretics in, anno Crusades and Islamism, 62, 70-3
1143, 180 Czech nationalism and Husite move-
Commutation of penalties in Inqui- ment, 95, 103
sition, 225-6
Compagnia della Fede, in Milan, 167
Conciliar movement, 12-13, 9 6 103 ,
TVAILLY, Cardinal Peter, a
Confiscation of property, inquisi- moderate reformer, n, 234
torial penalty, 211-14, 216-17, his defence of Concitiar move-
227 ment, 86, 97
Conrad of Marburg, 146, 147 n. t 165 at Council of Constance, 98, 100,
Consolamentum, Catharan rite, 102
28-31 andastrology,. 108
Constance, Council of, 51, 98-102, Dalmatia, Inquisition in, 174
234 Damiani, Peter, 38
Constantine, Emperor, 125, 151 Dancing mania, the, 5, 53, 105, 166
Contumacious heretics, treatment Dante, and Joachim of Flora, 34
of, 219, 221, 227 and Dolcino, 47
Conventuals, see Franciscans and Siger of Brabant, 69
Cordova, Aristotelian philosophers his De Monarchia, 80-1
in caliphate of, 59 Defence, difficulties of, in Inquisi-
Council, General, principle of, 11-12, tion, 192-205 (passim), 240-2
81-3 Defensor Pads, Marsiglio's, 45, 82-3
views of Michael of Cesena con- Delation, inquisitorial encourage-
cerning, 8 1 ment of, 141-4, 180-1
views of Ockham, 81 Delays, inquisitorial, 200-1, 228
views of Marsiglio, 82 Delegates, inquisitors as papal,
views of Gerson, D'Ailly, Niem, 144-9 (passim), 179
etc., ii, 96-7 assistants to inquisitors, 180
Councils, decrees of ecclesiastical : D61icieux, Bernard, 160, 162, 194
Albi (1254), 199 De aeternitate mundi, work by Siger,
Avignon (1209), 143 66
Beziers (1233), 209 De anima intellectiva, work by Siger,
Beziers (1246), 209-10, 215, 220 66
Lateran (1179), second, 132 De haeretico comburendo, statute of,
Lateran (1215), fourth, 141-3, 94. J 77
155, 201, 222 De modis uniendi et reformandi
Montpellier (1119), 136, 143 ecclesiam, tract attributed to
Narbonne (1227), 143, 208, 215 Niem, 97
Rheims (1049), 131 De unitate intellectus contra Aver-
Rheims (1157), 131, 141, 217 roem, of Albertus Magnus, 64
Tarragona (1242), 173, 197, 205, De unitate intellectus contra Aver-
220 ro'istas. of Aquinas, 66
Toulouse (1119), 131 Denuntiatio, judicial system of, 141 ,
Tours (1163), 131 144

Valence (1248), 148, 209 Diffamatio, judicial system of, 143,
Verona (1184), 19, 133, 141-2, 190-3
155. 217 Disabilities, civil, of heretics, 217
INDEX
Dolcino, Fra, 12, 47-8, 214, 231 Ferrer, inquisitor in Languedoc.
Dominic, Saint, 38-9, 137, 145, *59
208-9 Fines, exaction of, by Inquisition,
Dominicans, in University of Paris, 210-11
56,64 Fiore, seeJoachim of Flora
rivalry with Franciscans, 65, 232 Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh,
use by Gregory IX against here- on doctrine of poverty, 84
tics, 140 Flagellants, why considered heretics,
areas allotted to, for prosecution 5. 2 3i
of heresy, 159 spread of the mania, 51-3, 105,
Donatists, 14, 125, 127, 229 1 66, 242
Duns Scotus, 91 Flagellation, inquisitorial penance,
208-9
Flanders, Tanchelm in, 14
da Romano, 168 Catharism in, 22
prCCELIN
Eckhart, Master, 49, 53 Flagellants in, 51, 53
Edward I and Boniface VIII, 79 Robert le Bugre in, 162-3
Edward II and Templars, 176-7 Florence, Peter Martyr in, 167
Elias of Cortona, 39 France, northern, Inquisition in,
Empire and Papacy, their relations, 151, 159, 162-5
1-3, 13, 42, 45, 72, 79, 84, 152 Francis of Assisi, Saint, 8, 38-48
Endura, Catharan suicide, 27, 29 (passim), 53
England and Inquisition, see British Franciscans, influence of their foun-
Isles der, 38
Eon de 1'Etoile, 12, 15, 17, 231 of Elias of Cortona, 39
Episcopal Courts, see Bishops the Conventuals, 39, 41, 43, 79
Erasmus, 72, 166 the Spirituals, 41-4, 48-53 (pas-
Eriugena, John Scotus, 57, 229, 233 sim), 77-84 (passim), 231
Eugenius IV, Pope, 51, 103, 118 rivalry with Dominicans, 56, 65,
Evidence, rules of, in Inquisition, 146-8, 159, 232
195-8 used by Gregory IX against
Excommunication, of heretics, 217, heretics, 146-8
224 areas allotted to them for prose-
for secular rulers neglecting their cution of heresy, 159
duties against heretics, 156-7 Fraticelli, in Languedoc, 45, 214
Extortion, inquisitorial, 210-14 in Germany, 48-9
Eymeric, Nicholas, inquisitor of Frederick I, Barbarossa, Emperor,
Aragon, on authorship of The relations of Church and State
Everlasting Gospel, 36 under, 2
relations with Raymond Lully, 71 his treatment of heretics, 133,
complaints of poverty of Ara- 15. I 57
gonese Inquisition, 173 Frederick II, Emperor, and Aver-
his ideals as inquisitor, 179 rhoists, 62
on use of advocates, 198-9 and The Three Impostors, 72
on use of torture, 203-4 his Constitutions against heresy,
on fines in Inquisition, 210, 214 149-56, 166, 169, 220
on eleventh hour repentances, 219 question of his responsibility for
his Directorium Inquisitorum, the stake, 151-2
244-5 orders destruction of heretics'
houses, 218
pABIANp, inquisitor, 174

citizen of
Fabri, Carcassonne,
prosecuted posthumously, 160
^
QAUNT, John
Geoffrey d'Ablis,
of, 93
inquisitor in
Familiars, inquisitorial officials, Languedoc, 202
180-1 Gerard of Abbeville, opponent of
Fautors of heretics, treatment of, 1 87 Mendicants in University of
Ferdinand the Catholic, of Aragon, Paris, 65
172 Germany, Catharism in, 22
INDEX 259
Germany, Flagellants in, 51-3 Heretic, definition of, 123, 183-5
Illuminism in, 47 compared to coiner, 157-8
Inquisition in, 50, 151, 157, 165- compared to traitor, 211, 214,
166, 218 223
Gerson, Jean, moderate reformer, Hohenstaufen, fall of the house of,
ii, 234 77, 79, 168
on Averrhoes, 72 Holland, Flagellants in, 51
on General Councils, 96-8, 102 Holy Ghost, predicted advent of, 37,
Ghazali, or Algazel, opponent of 40
Arabian Aristotelianism, 60 supposed incarnations of, 66, 232
Gherardo da Borgo San Donnino, Holy Roman Empire, conceptions
reputed author of The Ever- of, 1-3, 78
lasting Gospel, 36 Honorius III, Pope, 8, 35, 150, 169 n.
Ghibellines and heresy, 168 Houses, destruction of heretics', 218
Goslar, execution of heretics at, 129 Hugo of Saint Victor, 57
Grace, time of, in inquisitorial prac- Hungary, Catharism in, 22
tice, 191 Flagellants in, 51
Gratian, on witchcraft, 112 Inquisition in, 174
on death penalty for heretics, 131 Hus, John, expounds doctrines of
on torture, 201 Wycliffe, 94-6
Greece, infected by Catharism, 22 summoned to Bologna, 95
Gregory VII, Pope, and heretics of his doctrine of Predestination, 96
Cambrai, 130 at Constance, 98-103
Gregory IX, Pope, on teachings of otherwise mentioned, n, 12, 175,
Aristotle, 63 234, 243, 244
and Frederick II, 72
and the Mendicant orders, 39,
M5-9
and Conrad of Marburg, 146 TLLUMINISM, 49 51
attitude of, to episcopal juris- Immaculate Conception, dogma
diction over heresy, 130, 148-9 of the, 86, 233
question of his responsibility for Impenitent heretic, treatment of the,
the stake, 152-5, 220 219-21, 224
otherwise mentioned, 162, 166, Imperfect heretic, treatment of the,
169, i?3 185
Gregory XI, Pope, 50, 109, 118 .,
Impostors, The Three, 72
1 66, 170 Imprisonment.inquisitorial penance,
Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, 8, 212, 214, 225, 227-8
9, 35. 63 perpetual, 131, 215-16, 220-1, 227
Guala, Bishop of Brescia, 153 Innocent III, Pope, and Albigensian
Guglielma, 46, 105 Crusade, 135-7
Gui, Bernard, inquisitor in Langue- and system of inquisitio, 144-5
doc, 184, 202 and demolition of heretics' houses,
his resentment against the Cle- 218
mentines, 161 Innocent IV, Pope, his bull Cum
on the ideal inquisitor, 179 adversus haereticam pravitatem,
classification of his sentences, 227 J 54-5
his Practica, 245 s bull
his Ad extirpanda, 155, 167,
his Sententiae, 245 201, 213
his regulations regarding torture,
156, 201-2
Stephen, 38 on exaction of fines, 210
JJARDING,
HenryII of England, and on demolition of heretics' houses,
Cathari, 132 218
and Assize of Clarendon, 132, 157 his attitude towards persecution,
Henry III, Emperor, and Cathari, 220
129 otherwise mentioned, 9, 42, 146,
Henry VI, Emperor, 132-3, 218 148
Henry of Lausanne, 17 Innocent VIII and witchcraft, 1 1 8
260 INDEX
Inquisitio generates, 191-2 T ACTANTIUS, on persecution,
Inquisitio specialis, 191-2
Inquisitio, judicial system of, 177, Landun, John of, Averrhoist, 69, 70
190, 242 Languedoc, Saracen influence in, 16,
Intellect, the active and passive, 62, 231
Averrhoist doctrine of, 60-1, Henricians in, 17
66-7 Catharism in, 41, 138
Interrogatory, inquisitorial, 192- Joachitism in, 41, 43
205 (passim) Averrhoism in, 62
Intolerance, religious, its causes, Inquisition in, 159-62, 215-17,
235-6. 2 38 218
Italy, Manichaeism in, 22 otherwise mentioned, 136, 137,
Arnaldo da Villanova in, 41 139, 230
Spiritual Franciscans in, 43-5, 47, Lawyers in Inquisition, 182
60 Lecky, W.
E. H., on religious per-
Flagellants in, 51 secution, 238
Siger of Brabant in, 69 Leo I, Pope, 128
Averrhoism in, 70 Leo X, Pope, as patron of Aristo-
Inquisition in, 44, 151, 153, 157, telianism, 70
166-71, 213, 217 Leo the Isaurian, 22
Isabella, Queen of Castile, 172 Lessines, Gilles de, in correspond-
Islam, philosophy of, 59-61 ence with Albertus Magnus,
Lully's crusade against, 70-1 65-6
Ivo of Chartres, 112, 141, 225 Lessing, hisNathan der Weise
Lewis the Bavarian, his conflict
with John XXII, 45, 79
Matthias of, 94 Li6ge, mob and heretics in, anno
JANOW, 1145, 130
Jehovah, Catharan views con-
Locke, on religious toleration, 235
cerning, 23
Lollards, extent of their influence,
Jerome of Prague, at Council of
93-4, 103
Constance, 98, 102
Lombard, Peter, 57, 85
Poggio and his death, 102
otherwise mentioned, 95, 126, 175, Lombardy, Dolcino in, 48
Inquisition in, 150, 153, 167-8
243
Lorraine, Inquisition in, 159
Joachim of Flora, 34-8, 40-7 Louis the Great of Hungary, 174
John the Baptist, Catharan views Louis IX, King of France, 151, 163
on, 25
Luciferans, see Brethren of the
John of Parma, see Parma Free Spirit
John XXI, Pope, 68 Lucius III, Pope, 133, 211-12, 226
John XXII, Pope, his attitude
towards doctrine of poverty, Lully, Raymond, his crusade
against Islam, 70
43-5. 77 in conflict with Eymeric, 71
relations with Lewis of Bavaria,
Luther, his indebtedness to Hus,
45. 79. 84
attacked by Michael of Cesena, 103, 234
otherwise mentioned, 89, 92, 106,
Ockham, etc., 79, 81 1 66
attitude towards doctrine of
Beatific Vision, 85 Lutheranism, soil prepared for, in
attitude towards sorcery, 109 Germany, 49, 51
otherwise mentioned, 162
Julian, Emperor, on persecution
among Christians, 106, 125
MAGDEBURG, Albert, Arch-
bishop of, 153
Maifreda, devotee of Guglielma, 46
KERLINGER, German inquisi- Mainz, Pragmatic Sanction of, 103
66
tor, 1
Maistre, Joseph de, on tolerance,
Koran, orthodox faith of, 59, 70 237
Krerasier, John Militz, 94 defends Spanish Inquisition, 240
INDEX 261
Malleus Maleficarum, by Sprenger, Negative heretic, treatment of, 185
H3 Neoplatonism, 55-6, 59, 123
Manichaeism, revival of ancient, 22, Nicaea, Council of, 125
32 Nicholas d' Abbeville, inquisitor in
its different forms, 24, 27 Languedoc, 160, 226 n.
in Roman empire, 126-7 Nicholas III, Pope, 42, 44
otherwise, see Catharism Nicholas V, Pope, 164, 169
Marca, Giacomo della, his crusade Niem, Dietrich, and Conciliar move-
in Slavonia, 174 ment, n, 97-8
Marguerite la Porete, her execution, Nifo, Augustino, Paduan Aver-
163 70
rho'ist,
Marriage, Catharan views concern- Nominalism, its tendencies towards
ing, 27 Tritheism or Unitarianism, 7,
views of Conrad Schmidt con- 234
cerning, 52-3 and doctrine of Transubstantia-
Marsh, Adam, 35 tion, 91, 92, 95
Marsiglio of Padua, arguments of Norbert, Saint, Archbishop of Mag-
his Defensor Pads, 45, 53, 73, deburg, 14, 38
82-4, 86-7, 97
Martin V, Pope, 103
Martin of Tours and Priscillian, 128
William in con-
Martyr, Peter, as inquisitor in Italy, QCKHAM,
^^ of,
troversy against John XXII,
167
45, 53, 79
Mary, the Virgin, Catharan views his arguments in favour of
concerning, 14, 25 General Councils, 81-2, 97
See also Immaculate Conception
otherwise mentioned, 91
Maximus, Emperor, and Priscillian,
Olivi, Pierre Jean, 41
127-8
Melfi, Constitutions of, 150-1
Orcagna, his delineation of Aver-
rhoe's, 72
Mendicant orders, see under Domini-
Ordeal, used for trial of heresy, 141
cans, Franciscans
Ortlieb of Strassburg, 49
Metempsychosis, Catharan belief in, Orvieto, death of Siger of Brabant
26
at, 69
Milan, Guglielmites in, 46 6
Dolcino in, 47 Oxford, University of,
Peter Martyr in, 167

Mill, John Stuart, his views on
religious toleration, 238 centre of Italian Aver-
Minorites, see Franciscans
pADUA,
* rhoism, 69-70
Missionary character of inquisitors, Pallavicino, Uberto da, 168
188-90, 219, 239-40 Pantheism, and Realism, 7, 91, 234
Mithraism, 123 in Germany, 49
Moneta, on Waldensianism, 19 Paramo, Ludovico a, on origin of
Montfort, Simon de, in Albigensian Inquisition, 188
Crusade, 138 on death penalty for heresy, 223
Montsegur, fall of, 160 on nature of heresy, 237
Moors, see Saracens Paris, University of, Averrhoiism in,
Moral offences, when triable by 56,63
Inquisition, 187-8 controversies in, 64, 69
its part in Conciliar movement,
96-7
XTAPLES, Inquisition in, 168 otherwise mentioned, 6, 35, 50
Narbonne, Spiritual Franciscans 85, 164-5
in, 43 Parlement de Paris, its jurisdiction
Arabian philosophy in, 62 over heresy, 164-5
Nationality, force of, in religious Parma, Segarelli in, 47
matters, 2-3, 78-80, 94-5, 103, Inquisition in, 168
177 Parma, John of, and Spiritual Fran-
Navarre, Inquisition in, 159 ciscans, 36, 40-1, 53
262 INDEX
Partenay, Sire de, 163 w. Praemunire, statute of, 79
'
Paul, Saint, on false prophets,' 124 Prague, University of, 94, 105
otherwise mentioned, 194 Prato, Edict of, 218
Paulicians, see Cathari Priscillian, Spanish heretic, 127
Peckham, John, Archbishop, his Prisons, inquisitorial, 215-16
controversy with the Domini- Privileges of inquisitors, 179
cans, 56, 65 Protestants and persecution, 239
Pedro II, King of Aragon, his edict Provence, see Languedoc
against heretics, 132, 134, 137, Provisors, Statute of, 79
157, 172, 217 Pulci, his Morgante Maggiore, 73
Pefiaforte, Raymond of, his influ- Purgatio Canonica, system of, 142,
ence on Gregory IX regarding 191-2
heresy, 153
his activity in Aragon, 172-3
his definition of a heretic, 183 n AINERIO Saccone, see Saccone
Penances, inquisitorial penalties -^Rais, Marshal Gilles de, 109-11
regarded as, 188-90 Raymond V, Count of Toulouse,
their nature, 206-15, 219, 221, 136
227, 239 Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse,
Perfected heretic, treatment of, 185 136-7
Perfected, the, among Cathari, 28-31 Realism, philosophy of, its tendency
Peter Lombard, see Lombard to Pantheism, 7, 234
Peter Martyr, see Martyr of Aquinas, 91
Peter the Venerable, 17 of Wycliffe, 91, 95, 233
Petrarch, his opinion of Averrhoi'sts, Reformation, the Protestant, I, 12,
71-2 94, 98, 103-4
Petrobrusians, 17, 230 Registers, inquisitorial, 181
Philip Augustus, King of France, Relapsed heretic, treatment of, 181,
his treatment of heretics, 130 219-21, 224
and Albigensian Crusade, 137-8 Relaxation to secular arm, formula
Philip IV, the fair, his quarrel with of, 220, 227-8
Boniface VIII, 78, 80, 160 responsibility of Church for, 220
and inquisitorial abuses in Lan- responsibility of State regarding,
guedoc, 160-1, 202 149-50 (passim), 221-2, 237-8
maintains supremacy of crown Religion, Averrho'ist views regard-
over Inquisition in France, ing, 61, 67-9, 72-6
161-4 Renaissance, of twelfth century,
his attack on Templars, 164 112, 232, 234
Philosophy, see Scholastic, also Italian, i, 76, 103, 234
Aristotle, Averrhoes, Siger, etc. Reuchlin, 104, 166
Picardy, Catharism in, 22 Richard of Cluny, 19
Piedmont, Waldensianism in, 170 Robert II, King of France, and
Pilgrimages, inquisitorial penance Carthari, 128
of, 205-8, 211, 227 Robert le Bugre, 162-3
Pisa, Council of, 97 Rome, Annibaldi in, 154
Pius II, Pope, 103 Roscellinus, his heresy, 7, 12, 57,
Pleadings, possible, for defence 129, 229
before Inquisition, 197-200
Poggio and Jerome of Prague, 102
Poland, Inquisition in, 174-5 QABBAT, the witches', 110-16,
Pollock, Sir F., on religious intoler-
ance, 238-9 Saccone, Rainerio, of Vicenza,
Polycarp, on heretics, 124 167-8
Pomponazzi, as Aristotelian, 70 Sachsenhausen, Protest of, 45
Ponzinibio and witchcraft, 113 Sacraments, Donatist views con-
Poor Men of Lyons, see Waldo cerning, 17
Portugal, Inquisition in, 172 Petrobrusian views concerning, 1 7
Poverty, Franciscan doctrine of, Henrician rejection of, 17
40-6, 79, 81, 230-1 Catharan attitude to, 28
INDEX 263
Sacraments, Conrad Schmidt's views Stake, the, edict of Pedro II enjoin-
concerning, 53 ing, 132-3
Flagellants' views concerning, 5,52 attitude of mob to, 129-35
Saint-George, Fulk de, inquisitor (passim)
in Languedoc, 160 attitude of Church to, 130, 149-
Salimbene, and his Chronicle, 36 58, 219-24
Salvation, Exclusive, influence of Constitutions of Frederick II
doctrine on religious intoler- relating to, 149-56
ance, 238 responsibility of Gregory IX for,
Saracens, their influence in Lan- 149-54, 220
guedoc, 1 6, 62 justification of, by Aquinas, 157-8
influence in Spain, 59, 73 penalty for impenitent and re-
on Frederick II, 62 lapsed, 219-20
otherwise mentioned, 132, 138 prescribed by De Haeretico Corn-
Satan, Catharan views regarding, 24 bur endo, 94, 177
witches, supposed compact with, ceremony of, at autos, 223
105, 124 (passim) frequency of the penalty of,
Savonarola, 241 227-8
Savoy, Waldenses in, 170 Strassburg, mob and heretics at,
Scandinavia, Inquisition in, 176 anno 1114, 130
Scepticism and religious toleration, Suspects of heresy, treatment of,
238 185-7
Schism, the papal, n, 12, 71, 80, Synodal witnesses, see Testes
86, 96-8, 103, 164, 1 66, 171 Synodales
Schmidt, Conrad, 52
Scholastic philosophy, 6-8, 54, 56,
62-76 (passim), 81-104 (pas- 'TANCHELM, 14, 15, 229, 231
sim), 232-5 Tempier, Etienne, Bishop of
Scot, Michael, 62 Paris, 66-8
Secular arm, see Relaxation Templars, suppression of the, 164,
Segarelli, Gherardo, 46-7, 105, 231 176-7, 241
Sens, Council of ecclesiastical pro- Tertullian, on heretics, 124-5
vince of, 63 Testes synodales, 143, 190-1
Sermo generalis, see auto-da-fe. Theocracy, mediaeval, 1-3, 238,
Sicily, Inquisition in, 150, 167 239-40
Siger of Brabant, leader of Paris Theodosius II, his laws against
Averrhoists, 12, 66-9, 244 heretics, 126
Sigismund, King of the Romans, Theoduin, Bishop of Liege, his
at Council of Constance, 99, advice regarding treatment of
101 heretics, 1 30
otherwise mentioned, 174 Toleration, principle of religious,
Socii, their functions in Inquisition, 73, 83, 124-5, 222 2 35-9
>
1 80 Tors, Conrad, 165

Sorcery, 105-11 Torture, of reputed witches, 119-22
Spain, Inquisition in, 44, 171-3 used by Constantine against
Arabian philosophy in, 59-62, 73 Donatists, 125
Spina, Bartholomew de, on witch- in days of Julian, 125-6
115
craft, 113, used against Templars, 176-7
Spiritual Franciscans, see Francis- Edward II prevailed upon to sanc-
cans tion use of, in England, 176-7
Sprenger, on witchcraft, 113-20 of delay, 200-1, 228
(passim) as used in Inquisition, 201-5,
Stake, the, death of Hus at, 102 240, 242
of Jerome of Prague at, 102 rules of A d extirpanda concerning,
of de Rais at, in 20 1
of witches at,118-19 frequency of, 201-3
of Cathari at, anno 1022, 128 repetition or continuation of,
of heretics of Cambrai at, anno 203-4
1076, 129 otherwise mentioned, 227
264 INDEX
Transubstantiation, views of Beren- Waldo, Peter, 18-20, 140 n., 230
gar concerning, 7 Wazon, Bishop of Liege, on tolera-
views of Wycliffe concerning, tion, 130
90-2, 233 Wenzel, King of Bohemia, and
Treason, analogy of heresy to, 211, University of Prague, 95
214, 223 Wessel, Johann, 166
Treviso, Inquisition in, 169 William of Auxerre, 63
Trinity, tendencies of Realism and William of Moerbeke, 64
Nominalism regarding doctrine William of Saint- Amour, 41, 65
of, 7, 85, 100 Witchcraft, causes of the craze, in
Tritheism, of Roscellinus, 7 Canonist ruling regarding, 107,
Trivium, the, 56 112-13
Troubadours, their antisacerdotal- circumstantial stories of, 114-16
ism, 136, 230 psychology of, 117-18
Tuscany, Honorius III and heretics before Inquisition, 118-22
trials
in, 169 n. in Arras, 121, 203
Witnesses, treatment of false, by
Inquisition, 196, 209
TTBERTO da Pallavicino, see withholding of names in
u Pallavicino Inquisition, 195-6, 200, 240
of,
Urban IV, Pope, 63, 202 Wycliffe, John, on clerical abuses,

Urban V, Pope, 165, 174 ii, 86
his doctrine of Lordship, 86-90
his denial of Transubstantiation,
yALENTINIAN n> fas i aw s 90-2

heretics, 126 his translation of the Bible, 89,
against
Val, Simon du, French inquisitor, 68 92-3
Vaudois, see (i) Waldensianism, otherwise mentioned, 12, 94, 95,
(ii) Witchcraft
in Arras 96, 98-100, 103, 233, 234,
Vegetarianism, Catharan, 26 244
Venice, legislation against sorcery
in, 107
Inquisition in, 169-70 , of Savoy, 170
Dolcino in, 47
Vercelli,
Vincent of Beauvais, 57
"yyALDENSIANISM, 10, 12, 16, VABARELLA, Cardinal, 96

19-22, 32, 75, 77, 95, 132, 165, Zimara, Italian Averrhoist, 70
170-1, 175, 193, 229, 231 Zimiskes, John.toleratesManichaeans
Waldhauser, Conrad, 94 in the Balkans, 22
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IV

(Oxford Historical and Literary Studies

Mr. Turberville's little book is an indispensable

THE MAKING OF BLAISE

He has written and imagined well. 1

Every scene and episode and person pulsates

A. S. TURBERVILLE, M.C., M.A., B.Litt.

Dmy 8vo Cloth 230 Pages

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Demy 8vo Cloth 300 Pages

THE WARS OF THE ROSES

THE INSTITUTE OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES

BANGOR, April, 1920.

WALDENSES AND CATHARI

ORIGINS OF MEDIAEVAL HERESY

important qualifications. It is with the qualifications

earthly interests the world had its secular rulers and

and mediators the sacred hierarchy. But the secular

with that of the Pope. But always the two authorities

Christendom was distracted by bitter strife between

priesthood. And the authority of the rulers of the

Truce of God/ Men realized themselves no doubt in

an ever increasing degree through the Middle Ages,

they also thought of themselves quite naturally as

If we comprehend the oneness of human society in the

First, there were psychological conditions. In contrast

the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in which the mind

the idea of the universal empire still held sway, secular

glorious minster and the mean and filthy hovels round

gruity in spending immense wealth, time and labour

not mean that she was wholly consecrated. St. Bernard

eloquent testimony to the fact that extreme asceticism

Comparable with the fearless scepticism of this

Middle Ages knew little of Plato they were conversant

for the extreme acuteness and subtlety which came from

alertness of mind. Such intellectual nimbleness was

uphold and defend the Catholic faith. On the other

and that there could be two truths, in the two different

in each disjointed unit, if applied to theology, left no

the wandering scholars of his time, gifted with extra-

conclusions were generally orthodox enough. It was

in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. There is no need

century a most marked revival of the Donatist doctrine

not be the same. Skill in his art is what we expect from

the composer and his audience, he cannot interpret the

unworthiness may jar upon and lacerate the feelings of

unbiased contemporary testimony there is none. Yet,

need of reform. The best minds always were and to ;

all the outbreak of heresies in the twelfth and thirteenth

chapter on Solicitation/ pp. 25196.

one of very great difficulty. It was essential in purify-

suffering from the havoc of the Hundred Years War.

confirmed by the papacy. The loftiest aspirations were

disputations of theologians like Roscellinus and philo-

the contention between papacy and secular princes

WALDENSES AND CATHARI

bathed they would be cured. We need not necessarily

he was, together with his followers, seized by the Arch-

later by a clout on the head administered by an avenging