A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume II
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Title: A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume II
Author: Henry Charles Lea
Release date: April 16, 2012 [eBook #39458]
Language: English
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A HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION
VOL. II
A HISTORY OF
THE INQUISITION
OF
THE MIDDLE AGES.
BY
HENRY CHARLES LEA,
AUTHOR OF
"AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF SACERDOTAL CELIBACY," "SUPERSTITION AND
FORCE," "STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY."
_IN THREE VOLUMES_.
VOL. II
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1901
Copyright, 1887, by HARPER & BROTHERS
_All rights reserved._
CONTENTS.
BOOK II.--THE INQUISITION IN THE SEVERAL LANDS OF CHRISTENDOM.
CHAPTER I.--LANGUEDOC.
Page
Obstacles to Establishing the Inquisition 1
Progress and Zeal of the Dominicans 6
First Appointment of Inquisitors.--Tentative Proceedings 8
Popular Resistance 12
Position of Count Raymond 14
Troubles at Toulouse.--Expulsion of the Inquisition 16
Its Return and Increasing Vigor 21
Suspended from 1238 to 1241 24
Condition of the Country.--Rising of Trencavel 25
Connection between Religion and State-craft 26
Pierre Cella's Activity in 1241-1242 30
Heretic Stronghold of Montségur 34
Massacre of Avignonet.--Its Unfortunate Influence 35
Count Raymond's Last Effort.--Triumph of the Inquisition 38
Raymond Reconciled to the Church 40
Fall of Montségur.--Heresy Defenceless 42
Increased Activity of the Inquisition 44
Raymond's Persecuting Energy.--His Death 46
Desperation of the Heretics.--Intercourse with Lombardy 49
Supremacy of Inquisition.--It Attacks the Count of Foix 52
Death of Alphonse and Jeanne in 1273 56
Rise of the Royal Power.--Appeals to the King 57
Popular Discontent.--Troubles at Carcassonne 58
Philippe le Bel Intervenes.--His Fluctuating Policy 62
Renewed Troubles at Carcassonne.--Submission in 1299 67
Prosecutions at Albi, 1299-1300 71
Inquisitorial Frauds.--Case of Castel Fabri 72
Frère Bernard Délicieux 75
Renewed Troubles.--Philippe Sends Jean de Pequigny 77
Philippe Tries to Reform the Inquisition 79
Troubles at Albi.--Conflict between Church and State 82
Philippe Visits Languedoc.--His Plan of Reform 86
Despair at Carcassonne.--Treasonable Projects 88
Appeal to Clement V.--Investigation 92
Abuses Recognized.--Reforms of Council of Vienne 94
Election of John XXII. 98
The Inquisition Triumphs.--Fate of Bernard Délicieux 99
Recrudescence of Heresy.--Pierre Autier 104
Bernard Gui Extirpates Catharism 107
Case of Limoux Noir 108
Results of the Triumph of the Inquisition 109
Political Effects of Confiscation 110
CHAPTER II.--FRANCE.
Inquisition Introduced in 1233 by Frère Robert le Bugre 113
Opposed by the Prelates.--Encouraged by St. Louis 115
Robert's Insane Massacres and Punishment 116
Inquisition Organized.--Its Activity in 1248 117
Slender Records of its Proceedings 120
Paris _Auto de fé_ in 1310.--Marguerite la Porete 123
Gradual Decadence.--Case of Hugues Aubriot 125
The Parlement Assumes Superior Jurisdiction 130
The University of Paris Supplants the Inquisition 135
Moribund Activity during the Fifteenth Century 138
Attempt to Resuscitate it in 1451 140
It Falls into utter Discredit 144
The French Waldenses.--Their Number and Organization 145
Intermittent Persecution.--Their Doctrines 147
François Borel and Gregory XI. 152
Renewed Persecutions in 1432 and 1441 157
Protected by Louis XI.--Humiliation of the Inquisition 158
Alternations of Toleration and Persecution 159
CHAPTER III.--THE SPANISH PENINSULA.
ARAGON.--Unimportance of Heresy there 162
Episcopal and Lay Inquisition Tried in 1233 163
Papal Inquisition Introduced.--Navarre Included 165
Delay in Organization 167
Greater Vigor in the Fourteenth Century 169
Dispute over the Blood of Christ 171
Nicolas Eymerich 174
Separation of Majorca and Valencia 177
Decline of Inquisition 178
Resuscitation under Ferdinand the Catholic 179
CASTILE.--Inquisition not Introduced there 180
Cathari in Leon 181
Independent Legislation of Alonso the Wise 183
Persecution for Heresy Unknown 184
Case of Pedro of Osma in 1479 187
PORTUGAL.--No Effective Inquisition there 188
CHAPTER IV.--ITALY.
Political Conditions Favoring Heresy 191
Prevalence of Unconcealed Catharism 192
Development of the Waldenses 194
Popular Indifference to the Church 196
Gregory XI. Undertakes to Suppress Heresy 199
Gradual Development of Inquisition 201
Rolando da Cremona 202
Giovanni Schio da Vicenza 203
St. Peter Martyr 207
He Provokes Civil War in Florence 210
Death of Frederic II. in 1250.--Chief Obstacle Removed 213
Assassination of St. Peter Martyr.--Use Made of it 214
Rainerio Saccone 218
Triumph of the Papacy.--Organization of the Inquisition 220
Heresy Protected by Ezzelin and Uberto 223
Ezzelin Prosecuted as a Heretic.--His Death 224
Uberto Pallavicino 228
The Angevine Conquest of Naples Revolutionizes Italy 231
Triumph of Persecution 233
Sporadic Popular Opposition 237
Secret Strength of Heresy.--Case of Armanno Pongilupo 239
Power of the Inquisition.--Papal Interference 242
Naples.--Toleration Under Normans and Hohenstaufens 244
The Inquisition Under the Angevines 245
Sicily 248
Venice.--Its Independence 249
Inquisition Introduced in 1288, under State Supervision 251
Decadence of Inquisition in Fourteenth Century 253
Disappearance of the Cathari.--Persistence of the Waldenses 254
Remnants of Catharism in Corsica and Piedmont 255
Persecution of the Waldenses of Piedmont 259
Decline of the Lombard Inquisition 269
Venice.--Subjection of Inquisition to the State 273
Tuscany.--Increasing Insubordination.--Case of Piero di Aquila 275
Continued Troubles in Florence 280
Tommasino da Foligno 281
Decline of Inquisition in Central Italy 282
The Two Sicilies.--Inquisition Subordinate to the State 284
CHAPTER V.--THE SLAVIC CATHARI.
Efforts of Innocent III. and Honorius III. East of the Adriatic 290
The Mendicant Orders Undertake the Task 293
Bloody Crusades from Hungary 294
Revival of Catharism 298
Endeavors of Boniface VIII. and John XXII. 299
Fruitlessness of the Work 301
Reign of Stephen Tvrtko 303
Catharism the State Religion 305
Advance of the Turks 306
Confusion Aggravated by Persecution 307
The Cathari Aid the Turkish Conquest 313
Disappearance of Catharism 314
CHAPTER VI.--GERMANY.
Persecution of Strassburg Waldenses in 1212 316
Spread of Waldensianism in Germany 318
Mystic Pantheism.--The Amaurians and Ortlibenses 319
Brethren of the Free Spirit or Beghards.--Luciferans 323
Conrad of Marburg.--His Character and Career 325
Gregory XI. Vainly Stimulates him to Persecution 329
Gregory Commissions the Dominicans as Inquisitors 333
The Luciferan Heresy 334
Conrad's Methods and Massacres 336
Antagonism of the Prelates 338
Assembly of Mainz.--Conrad's Defeat and Murder 340
Persecution Ceases.--The German Church Antagonistic to Rome 342
The Reaction Keeps the Inquisition out of Germany 346
Waldenses and Inquisition in Passau 347
Growth of Heresy.--Virtual Toleration 348
The Beguines, Beghards, and Lollards 350
The Brethren of the Free Spirit 354
Tendency to Mysticism.--Master Eckart 358
John of Rysbroek, Gerard Groot, and the Brethren of the Common Life 360
John Tauler and the Friends of God 362
Persecution of the Brethren of the Free Spirit 367
Antagonism between Louis of Bavaria and the Papacy 377
Subservience of Charles IV.--The Black Death 378
Gregarious Enthusiasm.--The Flagellants 380
Clement VI. Condemns Them.--They Become Heretics 383
Attempts to Introduce the Inquisition.--Successful in 1369 385
Persecution of Flagellants and Beghards.--The Dancing Mania 390
Beghards and Beguines Protected by the Prelates 394
Speedy Decline of the Inquisition 395
The Waldenses.--Their Extension and Persecution 396
Renewed Persecution of the Beghards 401
William of Hilderniss, and the Men of Intelligence 405
The Flagellants.--The Brethren of the Cross 406
Triumph of the Beghards at Constance 409
Renewed Persecution 411
Hussitism in Germany.--Coalescence with Waldenses 414
Gregory of Heimburg 417
Hans of Niklaushausen 418
John von Ruchrath of Wesel 420
Decay of the Inquisition.--John Reuchlin 423
Its Impotence in the Case of Luther 425
CHAPTER VII.--BOHEMIA.
Independence of Bohemian Church.--Waldensianism 427
Inquisition Introduced in 1257.--Revived by John XXII. 428
Growth of Waldensianism.--John of Pirna 430
Conditions Favoring the Growth of Heresy.--Episcopal Inquisition 433
The Precursors of Huss 436
Wickliff and Wickliffitism 438
John Huss Becomes the Leader of Reform 444
Progress of the Revolution.--Rupture with Rome 445
Convocation of the Council of Constance 453
Motives Impelling Huss's Presence 455
His Reception and Treatment 457
His Arrest.--Question of the Safe-conduct 460
Communion in both Elements 471
The Trial of Huss.--Illustration of the Inquisitorial Process 473
Exceptional Audiences Allowed to Huss 484
Extraordinary Efforts to Procure Recantation 486
The Inevitable Condemnation and Burning 490
Indignation in Bohemia 494
Jerome of Prague.--His Trial and Execution 495
CHAPTER VIII.--THE HUSSITES.
Inquisitorial Methods Attempted in Bohemia 506
Increasing Antagonism.--Fruitless Threats of Force 508
Parties Form Themselves.--Calixtins and Taborites 511
Sigismund Succeeds to the Throne.--Failure of Negotiations 514
Crusade Preached in 1420.--Its Repulse 516
Religious Extravagance.--Pikardi, Chiliasts 517
The Four Articles of the Calixtins 519
Creed of the Taborites 522
Failure of Repeated Crusades.--The Hussites Retaliate 525
Efforts to Reform the Church.--Council of Siena 527
Council of Basle.--Negotiation with the Hussites a Necessity 530
The Four Articles the Basis.--Accepted as the "Compactata" 533
The Taborites Crushed at Lipan 535
Difficulties Caused by Rokyzana's Ambition 536
Insincere Peace.--Sigismund's Reactionary Reign and Death 538
The Calixtins Secure Control under George Podiebrad 541
Rome Disavows the Compactata.--Giacomo della Marca in Hungary 542
The Use of the Cup the Only Distinction.--Capistrano Sent as
Inquisitor 545
His Projected Hussite Crusade Impeded by the Capture of
Constantinople 551
Efforts to Resist the Turks.--Death of Capistrano at Belgrade 552
Steady Estrangement of Bohemia.--Negotiations and Attacks 555
The Compactata Maintained in Spite of Rome 559
The Bohemian Brethren Arise from the Remains of the Taborites 561
Their Union with the Waldenses 564
Their Growth and Constancy under Persecution 566
APPENDIX OF DOCUMENTS 569
THE INQUISITION.
BOOK II.
THE INQUISITION IN THE SEVERAL LANDS OF CHRISTENDOM.
CHAPTER I.
LANGUEDOC.
The men who laid the foundations of the Inquisition in Languedoc had
before them an apparently hopeless task. The whole organization and
procedure of the institution were to be developed as experience might
dictate and without precedents for guidance. Their uncertain and
undefined powers were to be exercised under peculiar difficulties.
Heresy was everywhere and all-pervading. An unknown but certainly large
portion of the population was addicted to Catharism or Waldensianism,
while even the orthodox could not, for the most part, be relied upon for
sympathy or aid. Practical toleration had existed for so many
generations, and so many families had heretic members, that the
population at large was yet to be educated in the holy horror of
doctrinal aberrations. National feeling, moreover, and the memory of
common wrongs suffered during twenty years of bitter contest with
invading soldiers of the Cross, during which Catholic and Catharan had
stood side by side in defence of the fatherland, had created the
strongest bonds of sympathy between the different sects. In the cities
the magistrates were, if not heretics, inclined to toleration and
jealous of their municipal rights and liberties. Throughout the country
many powerful nobles were avowedly or secretly heretics, and Raymond of
Toulouse himself was regarded as little better than a heretic. The
Inquisition was the symbol of a hated foreign domination which could
look for no cordial support from any of these classes. It was welcomed,
indeed, by such Frenchmen as had succeeded in planting themselves in the
land, but they were scattered, and were themselves the objects of
detestation to their neighbors. The popular feeling is voiced by the
Troubadours, who delight in expressing contempt for the French and
hostility to the friars and their methods. As Guillem de Montanagout
says: "Now have the clerks become inquisitors and condemn men at their
pleasure. I have naught against the inquests if they would but condemn
errors with soft words, lead the wanderers back to the faith without
wrath, and allow the penitent to find mercy." The bolder Pierre
Cardinal describes the Dominicans as disputing after dinner over the
quality of their wines: "They have created a court of judgment, and
whoever attacks them they declare to be a Waldensian; they seek to
penetrate into the secrets of all men, so as to render themselves
dreaded."[1]
The lands which Raymond had succeeded in retaining were, moreover,
drained by the enormous sums exacted of him in the pacification. To
enable him to meet these demands he was authorized to levy taxes on the
subjects of the Church, in spite of their immunities, and this and the
other expedients requisite for the discharge of his engagements could
not fail to excite widespread discontent with the settlement and
hostility to all that represented it. That it was hard to extort these
payments from a population exhausted by twenty years of war is manifest
when, in 1231, two years after the treaty, the Abbey of Citeaux had not
as yet received any part of the two thousand marks which were its share
of the plunder, and it was forced to agree to a settlement under which
Raymond promised to pay in annual instalments of two hundred marks,
giving as security his revenues from the manor of Marmande.[2]
The Inquisition, it is true, was at first warmly greeted by the Church,
but the Church had grown so discredited during the events of the past
half-century that its influence was less than in any other spot in
Christendom. Even in Aragon the Council of Tarragona, in 1238, felt
itself compelled to decree excommunication against those who composed or
applauded lampoons against the clergy. The abuse of the interdict had
grown to such proportions that Innocent IV., in 1243, and again in 1245,
was obliged to forbid its employment throughout southern France, in all
places suspected of heresy, because it afforded to heretics so manifold
an occasion of asserting that it was used for private interests, and not
for the salvation of souls. During the troubles which followed after the
crusade of Louis VIII. the bishops had taken advantage of the confusion
to seize many lands to which they had no claim, and this involved them
in endless quarrels with the royal fisc in the territories which fell to
the king, while in those which remained to Raymond, the pious St. Louis
was forced to interfere to obtain for him a restoration of what they
obstinately refused to surrender. The Church itself was so deeply
tainted with heresy that the faithful were scandalized at seeing the
practical immunity enjoyed by heretical clerks, owing to the difficulty
of assembling a sufficient number of bishops to officiate at their
degradation, and Gregory IX. felt it necessary, in 1233, to decree that
in such cases a single bishop, with some of his abbots, should have
power to deprive them of holy orders and deliver them to the secular arm
to be burned--a provision which he subsequently embodied in the canon
law. Innocent IV., moreover, in 1245, felt called upon to order his
legate in Languedoc to see that no one suspected of heresy was elected
or consecrated as bishop. On the other hand, priests who were zealous in
aiding the Inquisition sometimes found that the enmities thus excited
rendered it impossible for them to reside in their parishes, as occurred
in the case of Guillem Pierre, a priest of Narbonne, in 1246, who on
this account was allowed to employ a vicar and to hold a plurality of
benefices. About the same time Innocent IV. felt obliged to express his
surprise that the prelates disobeyed his repeated commands to assist the
Inquisition; he has trustworthy information that they neglect to do so,
and he threatens them roundly with his displeasure unless they manifest
greater zeal. Bernard Gui, indeed, speaks of the bishops who favored
Count Raymond as among the craftiest and most dangerous enemies of the
inquisitors. The natural antagonism between the Mendicants and the
secular clergy was, moreover, increased by the pretension of the
inquisitors to supervise the priesthood and see that they performed
their neglected duty in all that pertained to the extension of the
faith. That under such circumstances the Dominicans employed in the
pious work should suffer constant molestation scarce needs the
explanation given by the pope that it was through the influence of the
Arch Enemy.[3]
Another serious impediment to the operations of the Inquisition lay in
the absence of places of detention for those accused and of prisons for
those condemned. We have already seen how the bishops shirked their duty
in providing jails for the multitudes of prisoners until St. Louis was
obliged to step in and construct them, and during this prolonged
interval the sentences of the inquisitors show, in the number of
contumacious absentees after a preliminary hearing, how impossible it
often was to retain hold of heretics who had been arrested.[4]
To undertake, in such an environment, the apparently hopeless task of
suppressing heresy required men of exceptional character, and they were
not wanting. Repulsive as their acts must seem to us, we cannot refuse
to them the tribute due to their fearless fanaticism. No labor was too
arduous for their unflagging zeal, no danger too great for their
unshrinking courage. Regarding themselves as elected to perform God's
work, they set about it with a sublime self-confidence which lifted them
above the weakness of humanity. As the mouthpiece of God, the mendicant
friar, who lived on charity, spoke to prince and people with all the
awful authority of the Church, and exacted obedience or punished
contumacy unhesitatingly and absolutely. Such men as Pierre Cella,
Guillem Arnaud, Arnaud Catala, Ferrer the Catalan, Pons de Saint-Gilles,
Pons de l'Esparre, and Bernard de Caux, bearded prince and prelate, were
as ready to endure as merciless to inflict, were veritable Maccabees in
the internecine strife with heresy, and yet were kind and pitiful to the
miserable and overflowing with tears in their prayers and discourses.
They were the culminating development of the influences which produced
the Church Militant of the Middle Ages, and in their hands the
Inquisition was the most effective instrument whereby it maintained its
supremacy. A secondary result was the complete subjugation of the South
to the King of Paris, and its unification with the rest of France.
If the faithful had imagined that the Treaty of 1229 had ended the
contest with heresy they were quickly undeceived. The blood-money for
the capture of heretics, promised by Count Raymond, was indeed paid when
earned, for the Inquisition undertook to see that this was done, but the
earning of it was dangerous. Nobles and burghers alike protected and
defended the proscribed class, and those who hunted them were slain
without mercy when occasion offered. The heretics continued as numerous
as ever, and we have already seen the fruitless efforts put forth by the
Cardinal Legate Romano and the Council of Toulouse. Even the university
which Raymond bound himself to establish in Toulouse for the propagation
of the faith, though it subsequently performed its work, was at first a
failure. Learned theologians were brought from Paris to fill its chairs,
but their scholastic subtleties were laughed at by the mocking Southrons
as absurd novelties, and the heretics were bold enough to contend with
them in debate. After a few years Raymond neglected to continue the
stipends, and for a time the university was suspended.[5]
The most encouraging feature of the situation, one, indeed, full of
promise, was the steady progress of the Dominican Order. It had outgrown
the modest Church of St. Romano, bestowed upon it by Bishop Foulques;
and in 1230 the piety of a prominent burgher of Toulouse, Pons de
Capdenier, provided for it more commodious quarters in an extensive
garden, situated partly in the city and partly in the suburbs. The
inmates of the convent, some forty in number, were always ready to
furnish champions of the Cross, whose ardent zeal shrank from neither
toil nor peril; and when, in 1232, the fanatic Bishop Foulques died and
was succeeded by the yet more fiery fanatic, the Dominican Provincial
Raymond du Fauga, the Order was fully prepared to enter upon the
exterminating war with heresy which was to last for a hundred years.[6]
The eager zeal of the friars did not wait to be armed with the organized
authorization of inquisitorial powers. Their leading duty was to combat
heresy, and their assaults on it were unintermitting. In 1231 a friar,
in a sermon, declared that Toulouse was full of heretics, who held their
assemblies there and disseminated their errors without hindrance.
Already the magistrates seem to have looked askance on these pious
efforts, for this assertion was made the occasion of a decided attempt
at repression. The consuls of the city met and summoned before them, in
the capitole, or town-hall, the prior, Pierre d'Alais. There they
roundly scolded and threatened him, declaring that it was false to
assert the existence of heresy in the town, and forbidding such
utterances for the future. Trivial as was the occurrence, it has
interest as the commencement of the ill-will between the authorities of
Toulouse and the Inquisition, and as illustrating the sense of municipal
pride and independence still cherished in the cities of the South. It
required but a few years' struggle to trammel the civic liberties which
had held their own against feudalism, but which could not stand against
the subtler despotism of the Church.[7]
Even thus early Dominican ardor refused to be thus restrained. Master
Roland of Cremona, noted as the first Dominican licentiate of the
University of Paris, who had been brought to Toulouse to teach theology
in the infant University, was scandalized when he heard of the insolent
language of the consuls, and exclaimed that it was only a fresh
incentive to preach against heresy more bitterly than ever. He set the
example in this, and was eagerly followed by many of the brethren. He
soon, too, had an opportunity of proving the falsity of the consuls'
disclaimer. It transpired that Jean Pierre Donat, a canon of the ancient
Church of Saint Sernin, who had recently died and been buried in the
cloister, had been secretly hereticated on his death-bed. Without
authority, and apparently without legal investigation, Master Roland
assembled some friars and clerks, exhumed the body from the cloister,
dragged it through the streets, and publicly burned it. Soon afterwards
he heard of the death of a prominent Waldensian minister named Galvan.
After stirring up popular passion in a sermon, he marched at the head of
a motley mob to the house where the heretic had died and levelled it to
the ground; then proceeding to the Cemetery of Villeneuve, where the
body was interred, he dug it up and dragged it through the city,
accompanied by an immense procession, to the public place of execution
beyond the walls, where it was solemnly burned.[8]
All this was volunteer persecution. The episcopal court was as yet the
only tribunal having power to act in such matters, and it, as we have
seen, could only authorize the secular arm to do its duty in the final
execution. Yet the episcopal court seems to have been in no way invoked
in these proceedings, and no protest is recorded as having been uttered
against such irregular enforcements of the law by the mob. There was, in
fact, no organization for the steady repression of heresy. Bishop
Raymond appears to have satisfied himself with an occasional raid
against heretics outside of the city, and to have allowed those within
it virtual immunity under the protection of the consuls, though he had,
in virtue of his office, all the powers requisite for the purpose, and
the machinery for their effective use could have readily been developed.
No permanent results were to be expected from fitful bursts of zeal, and
the suppression of heresy might well seem to be as far off as ever.
Urgent as was evidently the need of some organized body devoted
exclusively to persecution, the appointment of the first inquisitors,
in 1233, seems not to have been regarded as possessing any special
significance. It was merely an experiment, from which no great results
were anticipated. Frère Guillem Pelisson, who shared in the labors and
perils of the nascent Inquisition, and who enthusiastically chronicled
them, evidently does not consider it as an innovation worthy of
particular attention. It was so natural an evolution from the
interaction of the forces and materials of the period, and its future
importance was so little suspected, that he passes over its founding as
an incident of less moment than the succession to the Priory of
Toulouse. "Frère Pons de Saint Gilles," he says, "was made Prior of
Toulouse, who bore himself manfully and effectively for the faith
against the heretics, together with Frère Pierre Cella of Toulouse and
Frère Guillem Arnaud of Montpellier, whom the lord pope made inquisitors
against the heretics in the dioceses of Toulouse and Cahors. Also, the
Legate Archbishop of Vienne made Frère Arnaud Catala, who was then of
the Convent of Toulouse, inquisitor against the heretics." Thus
colorless is the only contemporary account of the establishment of the
Holy Office.[9]
How little the functions of these new officials were at first understood
is manifested by an occurrence, which is also highly suggestive of the
tension of public feeling. In a quarrel between two citizens, one of
them, Bernard Peitevin, called the other, Bernard de Solier, a heretic.
This was a dangerous reputation to have, and the offended man summoned
his antagonist before the consuls. The heretical party, we are told, had
obtained the upper hand in Toulouse, and the magistrates were all either
sympathizers with or believers in heresy. Bernard Peitevin was condemned
to exile for a term of years, to pay a fine both to the complainant and
to the city, and to swear publicly in the town-hall that he had lied,
and that de Solier was a good Catholic. The sentence was a trifle
vindictive, and Peitevin sought counsel of the Dominicans, who
recommended him to appeal to the bishop. Episcopal jurisdiction in such
a matter was perhaps doubtful, but Raymond du Fauga entertained the
appeal. A few years later, if any cognizance had been taken of the case
it would have been by the Inquisition, but now the inquisitors, Pierre
Cella and Guillem Arnaud, appeared as advocates of the appellant in the
bishop's court, and so clearly proved de Solier's heresy that the
miserable wretch fled to Lombardy.[10]
Similar indefiniteness of procedure is visible in the next attempt. The
inquisitors, Pierre and Guillem, began to make an inquest through the
city, and cited numerous suspects, all of whom found defenders among the
chief citizens. The hearings took place before them, but seem as yet to
have been in public. One of the accused, named Jean Teisseire, asserted
himself to be a good Catholic because he had no scruples in maintaining
marital relations with his wife, in eating flesh, and in lying and
swearing, and he warned the crowd that they were liable to the same
charge, and that it would be wiser for them to make common cause than to
abandon him. When he was condemned, and the viguier, the official
representative of the count, was about to conduct him to the stake, so
threatening a clamor arose that the prisoner was hurried to the bishop's
prison, still proclaiming his orthodoxy. Intense excitement pervaded the
city, and menaces were freely uttered to destroy the Dominican convent
and to stone all the friars, who were accused of persecuting the
innocent. While in prison Teisseire pretended to fall mortally sick, and
asked for the sacraments; but when the bailli of Lavaur brought to
Toulouse some perfected heretics and delivered them to the bishop,
Teisseire allowed himself to be hereticated by them in prison, and grew
so ardent in the faith under their exhortations that when they were
taken out for examination he accompanied them, declaring that he would
share their fate. The bishop assembled the magistrates and many
citizens, in whose presence he examined the prisoners. They were all
condemned, including Teisseire, who obstinately refused to recant, and
no further opposition was offered when they were all duly burned.[11]
Here we see the inquisitorial jurisdiction completely subordinate to
that of the bishop, but when the inquisitors soon afterwards left
Toulouse to hold inquests elsewhere they acted with full independence.
At Cahors we hear nothing of the Bishop of Querci taking part in the
proceedings under which they condemned a number of the dead, exhuming
and burning their bodies, and inspiring such fear that a prominent
believer, Raymond de Broleas, fled to Rome. At Moissac they condemned
Jean du Gard, who fled to Montségur, and they cited a certain Folquet,
who, in terror, entered the convent of Belleperche as a Cistercian monk,
and, finding that this was of no avail, finally fled to Lombardy.
Meanwhile Frère Arnaud Catala and our chronicler, Guillem Pelisson,
descended upon Albi, where they penanced a dozen citizens by ordering
them to Palestine, and in conjunction with another inquisitor, Guillem
de Lombers, burned two heretics, Pierre de Puechperdut and Pierre
Bomassipio.[12]
The absence of the inquisitors from Toulouse made no difference in the
good work, for their duties were assumed by their prior, Pons de
Saint-Gilles. Under what authority he acted is not stated, but we find
him, in conjunction with another friar, trying and condemning a certain
Arnaud Sancier, who was burned, in spite of his protests to the last
that he was a good Catholic, causing great agitation in the city, but no
tumultuous uprising.[13]
The terror which Pelisson boasts that these proceedings spread through
the land was probably owing not only to the evidence they afforded of an
organized system of persecution, but also to their introduction of a
much more effective method of prosecution than had heretofore been
known. The "heretic," so called, was the perfected teacher who
disdained to deny his faith, and his burning was accepted by all as a
matter of course, as also was that of the "credens," or believer, who
was defiantly contumacious and persisted in admitting and adhering to
his creed. Hitherto, however, the believer who professed orthodoxy seems
generally to have escaped, in the imperfection of the judicial means of
proving his guilt. The friars, trained in the subtleties of disputation
and learned in both civil and canon law, were specially fitted for the
detection of this particularly dangerous secret misbelief, and their
persistence in worrying their victims to the death was well calculated
to spread alarm, not only among the guilty, but among the innocent.
How reasonable were the fears inspired by the speedy informality of the
justice accorded to the heretic is well illustrated by a case occurring
in 1234. When the canonization of St. Dominic was announced in Toulouse
it was celebrated in a solemn mass performed by Bishop Raymond in the
Dominican convent. St. Dominic, however, desired to mark the occasion
with some more edifying manifestation of his peculiar functions, and
caused word to be brought to the bishop, as the latter was leaving the
church for the refectory to partake of a meal, that a woman had just
been hereticated in a house hard by, in the Rue de l'Olmet sec. The
bishop, with the prior and some others, hurried thither. It was the
house of Peitavin Borsier, the general messenger of the heretics of
Toulouse, whose mother-in-law lay dying of fever. So sudden was the
entrance of the intruders that the woman's friends could only tell her
"the bishop is coming," and she, who expected a visit from the heretic
bishop, was easily led on by Raymond to make a full declaration of her
heresy and to pledge herself to be steadfast in it. Then, revealing
himself, he ordered her to recant, and, on her refusal, he summoned the
viguier, condemned her as a heretic, and had the satisfaction of seeing
the dying creature carried off on her bed and burned at the place of
execution. Borsier and his colleague, Bernard Aldric of Drémil, were
captured, and betrayed many of their friends; and then Raymond and the
friars returned to their neglected dinner, giving thanks to God and to
St. Dominic for so signal a manifestation in favor of the faith.[14]
The ferocious exultation with which these extra-judicial horrors were
perpetrated is well reflected in a poem of the period by Isarn, the
Dominican Prior of Villemier. He represents himself as disputing with
Sicard de Figueras, a Catharan bishop, and each of his theological
arguments is clinched with a threat--
"E' s'aquest no vols creyre vec te 'l foc aizinat
Que art tos companhos,
Aras vuelh que m'respondas en un mot o en dos,
Si cauziras et foc o remanras ab nos."
"If you will not believe this, look at that raging fire which is
consuming your comrades. Now I wish you to reply to me in one word or
two, for you will burn in the fire or join us." Or again, "If you do
not confess at once, the flames are already lighted; your name is
proclaimed throughout the city with the blast of trumpets, and the
people are gathering to see you burn." In this terrible poem, Isarn
only turned into verse what he felt in his own heart, and what he saw
passing under his eyes almost daily.[15]
As the holy work assumed shape and its prospects of results grew more
encouraging, the zeal of the hunters of men increased, while the fear
and hatred of the hunted became more threatening. On both sides passion
was fanned into flame. Already, in 1233, two Dominicans, sent to Cordes
to seek out heretics, had been slain by the terrified citizens. At Albi
the people, excited by the burning of the two heretics already referred
to, rose, June 14, 1234, when Arnaud Catala ordered the episcopal bailli
to dig up the bones of a heretic woman named Beissera whom he had
condemned. The bailli sent back word that he dared not do it. Arnaud
left the episcopal synod in which he was sitting, coolly went to the
cemetery, himself gave the first strokes of the mattock, and then,
ordering the officials to proceed with the work, returned to the synod.
The officials quickly rushed after him, saying that they had been
ejected from the burial-ground by the mob. Arnaud returned and found it
occupied by a crowd of howling sons of Belial, who quickly closed in on
him, striking him in the face and pummelling him on all sides, with
shouts of "Kill him! he has no right to live!" Some endeavored to drag
him into the shops hard by to slay him; others wished to throw him into
the river Tarn, but he was rescued and taken back to the synod, followed
by a mass of men fiercely shouting for his death. The whole city,
indeed, seemed to be of one mind, and many of the principal burghers
were leaders of the tumult. It is satisfactory to learn that, although
Arnaud mercifully withdrew the excommunication which he launched at the
rebellious city, his successor, Frère Ferrer, wrought the judgment of
God upon the guilty, imprisoning many of them and burning others.[16]
In Narbonne disturbances arose even more serious, although special
inquisitors had not yet been sent there. In March, 1234, the Dominican
prior, François Ferrer, undertook a volunteer inquisition and threw in
prison a citizen named Raymond d'Argens. Fifteen years previous the
artisans of the suburb had organized a confederation for mutual support
called the Amistance, and this body arose as one man and forcibly
rescued the prisoner. The archbishop, Pierre Amiel, and the viscount,
Aimery of Narbonne, undertook to rearrest him, but found his house
guarded by the Amistance, which rushed upon their followers with shouts
of "Kill! kill!" and drove them away after a brief skirmish, in which
the prior was badly handled. The archbishop had recourse to
excommunication and interdict, but to little purpose, for the Amistance
seized his domains and drove him from the city. Both sides sought
allies. Gregory IX. appealed to King Jayme of Aragon, while a complaint
from the consuls of Narbonne to those of Nimes looks as though they were
endeavoring to effect a confederation of the cities against the
Inquisition, of whose arbitrary and illegal methods of procedure they
give abundant details. A kind of truce was patched up in October, but
the troubles recommenced when the prior, in obedience to an order from
his provincial, undertook a fresh inquisition, and made a number of
arrests. In December a suspension was obtained by the citizens appealing
to the pope, the king, and the legate, but in 1235 the people rose
against the Dominicans, drove them from the city, sacked their convent,
and destroyed all the records of the proceedings against heresy.
Archbishop Pierre had cunningly separated the city from the suburb,
about equal in population, by confining the inquisition to the latter,
and this bore fruit in his securing the armed support of the former. The
suburb placed itself under the protection of Count Raymond, who, nothing
loath to aggravate the trouble, came there and gave to the people as
leaders Olivier de Termes and Guiraud de Niort, two notorious defenders
of heretics. A bloody civil war broke out between the two sections,
which lasted until April, 1237, when a truce for a year was agreed upon.
In the following August the Count of Toulouse and the Seneschal of
Carcassonne were called in as arbitrators, and in March, 1238, a peace
was concluded. That the Church triumphed is shown by the conditions
which imposed upon some of the participators in the troubles a year's
service in Palestine or against the Moors of Spain.[17]
In Toulouse, the centre both of heresy and persecution, in spite of
mutterings and menaces, open opposition to the Inquisition was postponed
longer than elsewhere. Although Count Raymond is constantly represented
by the Church party as the chief opponent of the Holy Office, it was
probably his influence that succeeded in staving off so long the
inevitable rupture. Hard experience from childhood could scarce have
rendered him a fervent Catholic, yet that experience had shown him that
the favor and protection of the Church were indispensable if he would
retain the remnant of territory and power that had been left to him. He
could not as yet be at heart a persecutor of heresy, yet he could not
afford to antagonize the Church. It was important for him to retain the
love and good-will of his subjects and to prevent the desolation of his
cities and lordships, but it was yet more important for him to escape
the stigma of favoring heresy, and to avoid calling down upon his head a
renewal of the storm in which he had been so nearly wrecked. Few princes
have had a more difficult part to play, with dangers besetting him on
every side, and if he earned the reputation of a trimmer without
religious convictions, that reputation and his retention of his position
till his death are perhaps the best proof of the fundamental wisdom
which guided his necessarily tortuous course. Pierre Cardinal, the
Troubadour, describes him as defending himself from the assaults of the
worst of men, as fearing neither the Frenchman nor the ecclesiastic, and
as humble only with the good.[18]
He was always at odds with his prelates. Intricate questions with regard
to the temporalities were a constant source of quarrel, and he lived
under a perpetual reduplication of excommunications, for he had been so
long under the ban of the Church that no bishop hesitated for a moment
in anathematizing him. Then, one of the conditions of the treaty of 1229
had been that within two years he should proceed to Palestine and wage
war there with the infidel for five years. The two years had passed away
without his performing the vow; the state of the country at no time
seemed to render so prolonged an absence safe, and for years a leading
object of his policy was to obtain a postponement of his crusade or
immunity for the non-observance of his vow. Moreover, from the date of
the peace of Paris until the end of his life he earnestly and vainly
endeavored to obtain from Rome permission for the sepulture of his
father's body. These complications crippled him in multitudinous ways
and exposed him to immense disadvantage in his fencing with the
hierarchy.
As early as 1230 he was taxed by the legate with inobservance of the
conditions of the peace, and was forced to promise amendment of his
ways. In 1232 we see Gregory IX. imperiously ordering him to be
energetic in the duty of persecution, and, possibly in obedience to
this, during the same year, we find him personally accompanying Bishop
Raymond of Toulouse in a nocturnal expedition among the mountains, which
was rewarded with the capture of nineteen perfected heretics, male and
female, including one of their most important leaders, Pagan, Seigneur
de Bécède, whose castle we saw captured in 1227. All these expiated
their errors at the stake. Yet not long afterwards the Bishop of
Tournay, as papal legate, assembled the prelates of Languedoc and
formally cited Raymond before King Louis to answer for his slackness in
carrying out the provisions of the treaty. The result of this was the
drawing up of severe enactments against heretics, which he was obliged
to promulgate in February, 1234. In spite of this, and of a letter from
Gregory to the bishops ordering them no longer to excommunicate him so
freely as before, he was visited within a twelvemonth with two fresh
excommunications, for purely temporal causes. Then came fresh urgency
from the pope for the extirpation of heresy, with which Raymond
doubtless made a show of compliance, as his heart was bent on obtaining
from Rome a restoration of the Marquisate of Provence. In this he was
strongly backed by King Louis, whose brother Alfonse was to be Raymond's
heir, and towards the close of the year he sought an interview with
Gregory and succeeded in effecting it. His reconciliation with the
papacy appeared to be complete. His military reputation stood high, and
Gregory made use of his visit to confide to him the leadership of the
papal troops in a campaign against the rebellious citizens of Rome, who
had expelled the head of the Church from their city. Though he did not
succeed in restoring the pope, they parted on the best of terms, and he
returned to Toulouse as a favored son of the Church, ready on all points
to obey her behests.[19]
There he found matters rapidly approaching a crisis which tested to the
utmost his skill in temporizing. Passions on both sides were rising to
an uncontrollable point. At Easter, 1235, the promise of grace for
voluntary confession brought forward such crowds of penitent heretics
that the Dominicans were insufficient to take their testimony, and were
obliged to call in the aid of the Franciscans and of all the parish
priests of the city. Encouraged by this, the prior, Pons de
Saint-Gilles, commenced to seize those who had not come forward
spontaneously. Among these was a certain Arnaud Dominique, who, to save
his life, promised to betray eleven heretics residing in a house at
Cassers. This he fulfilled, though four of them escaped through the aid
of the neighboring peasants, and he was set at liberty. The
long-suffering of the heretics, however, was at last exhausted, and
shortly afterwards he was murdered in his bed at Aigrefeuille by the
friends of those whom he had thus sacrificed. Still more significant of
the dangerous tension of popular feeling was a mob which, under the
guidance of two leading citizens, forcibly rescued Pierre-Guillem Delort
from the hands of the viguier and of the Abbot of Saint-Sernin, who had
arrested him and were conveying him to prison. The situation was
becoming unbearable, and soon the ceremony of dragging through the
streets and burning the bodies of some dead heretics aroused an
agitation so general and so menacing that Count Raymond was sent for in
hopes that his interposition might avert the most deplorable
consequences. Thus far, although perhaps somewhat lacking in alacrity of
persecution, no serious charges could be laid against him. His
officials, his baillis and viguiers, had responded to all appeals of the
inquisitors and had lent the aid of the secular arm in seizing heretics,
in burning them, and in confiscating their property. Yet when he came to
Toulouse and begged the inquisitors to suspend for a time the vigor of
their operations he was not listened to. Then he turned to the papal
legate, Jean, Archbishop of Vienne, complaining specially of Pierre
Cella, whom he considered to be inspired with personal enmity to
himself, and whom he regarded as the chief author of the troubles. His
request that Cella's operations should be confined to Querci was
granted. That inquisitor was sent to Cahors, where, with the assistance
of Pons Delmont and Guillem Pelisson he vigorously traversed the land
and forced multitudes to confess their guilt.[20]
This expedient was of no avail. Persecution continued as aggressive as
ever, and popular indignation steadily rose. The inevitable crisis soon
came which should determine whether the Inquisition should sink into
insignificance, as had been the case with so many previous efforts, or
whether it should triumph over all opposition and become the dominating
power in the land.
Guillem Arnaud was in no way abashed by the banishment of his colleague.
Returning from a brief absence at Carcassonne, of which more anon, he
summoned for trial as believers twelve of the leading citizens of
Toulouse, one of them a consul. They refused to appear, and threatened
him with violence unless he should desist. On his persisting, word was
sent him, with the assent of Count Raymond, that he must either leave
the city or abandon his functions as inquisitor. He took council with
his Dominican brethren, when it was unanimously agreed that he should
proceed manfully in his duty. The consuls then ejected him by force from
the city; he was accompanied to the bridge over the Garonne by all the
friars, and as he departed the consuls recorded a protest to the effect
that if he would desist from the inquisition he could remain; otherwise,
in the name of the count and in their own, they ordered him to leave the
city. He went to Carcassonne, whence he ordered the Prior of
Saint-Étienne and the parish priests to repeat the citations to the
parties already summoned. This order was bravely obeyed in spite of
threats, when the consuls sent for the prior and priests, and after
keeping them in the town-hall part of a night, expelled them from the
town, and publicly proclaimed that any one daring to repeat the
citations should be put to death, and that any one obeying the summons
of an inquisitor should answer for it in body and goods. Another
proclamation followed, in which the name of Count Raymond was used,
prohibiting that any one should give or sell anything to the bishop, the
Dominicans, or the canons of Saint-Étienne. This forced the bishop to
leave the city, as we are told that no one dared even to bake a loaf of
bread for him, and the populace, moreover, invaded his house, beat his
clerks, and stole his horses. The Dominicans fared better, for they had
friends hardy enough to supply them with necessaries, and when the
consuls posted guards around their house, still bread and cheese and
other food was thrown over their walls in spite of the arrest of some of
those engaged in it. Their principal suffering was from lack of water,
which had to be brought from the Garonne, and as this source of supply
was cut off, they were unable to boil their vegetables. For three weeks
they thus exultingly endured their martyrdom in a holy cause. Matters
became more serious when the indomitable Guillem Arnaud sent from
Carcassonne a letter to the prior saying, that as no one dared to cite
the contumacious citizens, he was forced to order two of the friars to
summon them to appear before him personally in Carcassonne to answer for
their faith, and that two others must accompany them as witnesses.
Tolling the convent bell, the prior assembled the brethren, and said to
them with a joyful countenance: "Brethren, rejoice, for I must send
four of you through martyrdom to the throne of the Most High. Such are
the commands of our brother, Guillem the inquisitor, and whoever obeys
them will be slain on the spot, as threatened by the consuls. Let those
who are ready to die for Christ ask pardon." With a common impulse the
whole body cast themselves on the ground, which was the Dominican form
of asking pardon, and the prior selected four, Raymond de Foix, Jean de
Saint-Michel, Gui de Navarre, and Guillem Pelisson. These intrepidly
performed their duty, even penetrating when necessary into the
bed-chambers of the accused. Only in one house were they ill-treated,
and even there, when the sons of the person cited drew knives upon them,
the bystanders interfered.
There was evidently nothing to be done with men who thus courted
martyrdom. To gratify them would be suicidal, and the consuls decided to
expel them. On being informed of this the prior distributed among trusty
friends the books and sacred vessels and vestments of the convent. The
next day (Nov. 5 or 6, 1235) the friars, after mass, sat down to their
simple meal, during which the consuls came with a great crowd and
threatened to break in the door. The friars marched in procession to
their church, where they took their seats, and when the consuls entered
and commanded them to depart they refused. Then each was seized and
violently led forth, two of them who threw themselves on the ground near
the door being picked up by the hands and feet and carried out. Thus
they were accompanied through the town, but not otherwise maltreated,
and they turned the affair into a procession, marching two by two and
singing Te Deum and Salve Regina. At first they went to a farm belonging
to the church of Saint-Étienne, but the consuls posted guards to see
that nothing was furnished to them, and the next day the prior
distributed them among the convents of the province. That the whole
affair enlisted for them the sympathies of the faithful was shown by two
persons of consideration joining them and entering the Order while it
was going on.[21]
It is significant of the position which Guillem Arnaud's steadfastness
had already won for his office that to him was conceded the vindication
of this series of outrages on the immunity of the Church. Bishop Raymond
had joined him in Carcassonne without anathematizing the authors of his
exile, but now the anathema promptly went forth, November 10, 1235,
uttered by the inquisitor with the names of the Bishops of Toulouse and
Carcassonne appended as assenting witnesses. It was confined to the
consuls, but Count Raymond was not allowed to escape the responsibility.
The excommunication was sent to the Franciscans of Toulouse for
publication, and when they obeyed they too were expelled, in no gentle
fashion, and the rebellious city was virtually left without
ecclesiastics. Further excommunications followed, now including the
count, and Prior Pons de Saint-Gilles hastened to Italy to pour the
story of his woes into the sympathizing ears of the pope and the sacred
college. Gregory assailed the count as the chief offender. A minatory
brief of April 28, 1236, addressed to him, is couched in the severest
language. He is held responsible for the audacious acts of the consuls;
he is significantly reminded of the unperformed vow of the crusade; not
only has he failed to extirpate heresy according to his pledges, but he
is a manifest fautor and protector of heretics; his favorites and
officers are suspect of heresy; he protects those who have been
condemned; his lands are a place of refuge for those flying from
persecution elsewhere, so that heresy is daily spreading and conversions
from Catholicism are frequent, while zealous churchmen seeking to
restrain them are slain and abused with impunity. All this he is
peremptorily ordered to correct and to sail with his knights to the Holy
Land in the "general passage" of the following March. It scarcely
needed the reminder, which the pope did not spare him, of the labors
which the Church and its Crusaders had undergone to purge his lands of
heresy. He had too keen a recollection of the abyss from which he had
escaped to risk another plunge. He had gone as far as he dared in the
effort to protect his subjects, and it were manifest folly to draw upon
his head and theirs another inroad of the marauders whom the pope with a
word could let loose upon him to earn salvation with the sword.[22]
The epistle to Raymond was accompanied with one to the legate,
instructing him to compel the count to make amends and perform the
crusade. To Frederic II. he wrote forbidding him to call on Raymond for
feudal services, as the count was under excommunication and virtually a
heretic, to which the emperor replied, reasonably enough, that, so long
as Raymond enjoyed possession of fiefs held under the empire,
excommunication should not confer on him the advantage of release from
their burdens. King Louis was also appealed to and was urged to hasten
the marriage between his brother Alfonse and Raymond's daughter Jeanne.
With the spectre of all Europe in arms looming up before him Raymond
could do nothing but yield. When, therefore, the legate summoned him to
meet the inquisitors at Carcassonne he meekly went there and conferred
with them and the bishops. The conference ended with his promise to
return the bishop and friars and clergy to Toulouse, and this promise he
kept. The friars were duly reinstated September 4, after ten months of
exile. That Guillem Arnaud returned with them is a matter of course.[23]
Pierre Cella was still restricted to his diocese of Querci, and as
Guillem required a colleague, a concession was made to popular feeling
by the legate in appointing a Franciscan, it being imagined that the
comparative mildness of that Order might serve to modify the hatred felt
towards the Dominicans. The post was conferred on the provincial
minister, Jean de Notoyra, but his other duties were too engrossing, and
he substituted Frère Étienne de Saint-Thibery, who had the reputation of
being a modest and courteous man. If hopes were entertained that thus
the severity of the Inquisition would be tempered, they were
disappointed. The two men worked cordially together, with a single
purpose and perfect unanimity.[24]
Guillem Arnaud's activity was untiring. During his exile in Carcassonne
he occupied himself with the trial of the Seigneur de Niort, whom he
sentenced in February or March, 1236.[25] In the early months of 1237 we
hear of him in Querci, co-operating with Pierre Cella in harrying the
heretics of Montauban. During his absence there occurred a crowning
mercy in Toulouse, which threw the heretics into a spasm of terror and
contributed greatly to their destruction. Raymond Gros, who had been a
perfected heretic for more than twenty years, one of the most loved and
trusted leaders of the sect, was suddenly converted. Tradition relates
that a quarter of a century before he had been seized and consigned to
the stake, when the prophetic spirit of St. Dominic, foreseeing that he
would return to the Church and perform shining service in the cause of
God, rescued him from the flames. On April 2, without heralding, he
presented himself at the Dominican convent, humbly begged to be received
into the Church, and promised to do whatever should be required of him.
With the eagerness of an impassioned convert he proceeded to reveal all
that lifelong intercourse with the Cathari had brought to his knowledge.
So full were his recollections that several days were required to write
down all the names and facts that crowded to his lips. The lists were
long and embraced prominent nobles and citizens, confirming suspicion in
many cases, and revealing heresy in other quarters where it was wholly
unlooked for.
Guillem Arnaud hurried back from Montauban to take full advantage of
this act of Providence. The heretics were stunned. None of them dared to
deny the truth of the accusations made by Raymond Gros. Many fled, some
of whose names reappear in the massacre of Avignonet and the final
catastrophe of Montségur. Many recanted and furnished further
revelations. Long lists were made out of those who had been hereticated
on their death-beds, and multitudes of corpses were exhumed and burned,
with the resultant harvest of confiscations. It is difficult to
exaggerate the severity of the blow thus received by heresy. Toulouse
was its headquarters. Here were the nobles and knights, the consuls and
rich burghers who had thus far defied scrutiny and had protected their
less fortunate comrades. Now scattered and persecuted, forced to recant,
or burned, the power of the secret organization was broken irrevocably.
We can well appreciate the pious exultation of the chronicler as he
winds up his account of the consternation and destruction thus visited
upon the heretical community--"Their names are not written in the Book
of Life, but their bodies here were burned and their souls are tortured
in hell!" A single sentence of February 19, 1238, in which more than
twenty penitents were consigned _en masse_ to perpetual imprisonment,
shows the extent of the harvest and the haste of the harvesters.[26]
The Inquisition thus had overcome the popular horror which its
proceedings had excited; it had braved the shock and triumphed over the
opposition of the secular authorities, and had planted itself firmly in
the soil. After the harvest had been gathered in Toulouse it was evident
to the indefatigable activity of the inquisitors that they could best
perform their functions by riding circuit and holding assizes in all the
towns subject to their jurisdiction, and this was represented as a
concession to avert the complaints of those who deemed it a hardship to
be summoned to distant places. Their incessant labors began to tell.
Heretics were leaving the lands of Raymond at last and seeking a refuge
elsewhere. Possibly some of them found it in the domains which had
fallen to the crown, for in this year we find Gregory scolding the royal
officials for their slackness of zeal in executing sentences against
powerful heretics. Elsewhere, however, there was no rest for them. In
Provence this year Pons de l'Esparre made himself conspicuous for the
energy and effectiveness with which he confounded the enemies of the
faith; while Montpellier, alarmed at the influx of heretics and their
success in propagating their errors, appealed to Gregory to favor them
with some assistance that should effectively resist the rising tide, and
Gregory at once ordered his legate Jean de Vienne to go thither and take
the necessary measures.[27]
The progress of the Inquisition, however, was not destined to be
uninterrupted. Count Raymond, apparently reckless of the numerous
excommunications under which he lay, so far from sailing for Palestine
in March, had seized Marseilles, which was in rebellion against its
suzerain, the Count of Provence. This aroused anew the indignation of
Gregory, not only because of its interference with the war against the
Saracens in Spain and the Holy Land, but because of the immunity which
heretics would enjoy during the quarrel of the Christian princes. He
peremptorily ordered Raymond to desist from his enterprise on
Marseilles, and to perform his Crusader's vow. An appeal was made to
King Louis and Queen Blanche, whose intervention procured for Raymond
not only a postponement of the crusade for another year, but an order to
the legate empowering him to grant the count's request to take the
Inquisition entirely out of the hands of the Dominicans, if, on
investigation, he should find justification for Raymond's assertion that
they were actuated by hatred towards himself. Fresh troubles had arisen
at Toulouse. July 24, 1237, the inquisitors had again excommunicated the
viguier and consuls, because they had not arrested and burned Alaman de
Roaix and some other heretics, condemned _in absentia_, and Raymond was
resolved, if possible, to relieve himself and his subjects from the
cruel oppression to which they were exposed.[28]
In this his efforts were crowned with most unlooked-for success. May 13,
1238, he obtained a suspension for three months of all inquisitorial
proceedings, during which time his envoys sent to Gregory were to be
heard. They seem to have used most persuasive arguments, for Gregory
wrote to the Bishop of Toulouse to continue the suspension until the new
legate, the Cardinal-bishop of Palestrina, should examine into the
complaints against the Dominicans and consider the advisability of
granting Raymond's request that the business of persecution should be
confined, as formerly, to the bishops. Raymond's crusade was also
reduced to three years, to be performed voluntarily, provided he would
give to King Louis sufficient security that he would sail the following
year: by performing this, and making amends for the wrongs inflicted on
the Church, he was to earn absolution from his numerous
excommunications.[29]
The temporary suspension was unexpectedly prolonged, for, owing to
hostilities with Frederic II., the cardinal-legate's departure was
postponed for a year. When at least he came, in 1239, he brought special
orders to the inquisitors to obey his commands. What investigation he
made and what were his conclusions we have no means of knowing, but this
at least is certain, that until late in 1241 the Inquisition was
effectually muzzled. No traces remain of its activity during these
years, and Catholic and Catharan alike could draw a freer breath,
relieved of apprehension from its ever-present supervision and the
seemingly superhuman energy of the friars.[30]
We can readily conjecture the reasons which impelled its reinstatement.
Doubtless the bishops were as negligent as of old, and looked after
their temporalities to the exclusion of their duties in preserving the
purity of the faith. Doubtless, too, the heretics, encouraged by virtual
toleration, grew bolder, and cherished hopes of a return to the good old
times, when, secure under their native princes, they could safely defy
distant Paris and yet more distant Rome. The condition of the country
was, in fact, by no means reassuring, especially in the regions which
had become domains of the crown. The land was full of knights and barons
who were more or less openly heretics, and who knew not when the blow
might fall on them; of seigneurs who had been proscribed for heresy; of
enforced converts who secretly longed to avow their hidden faith, and to
regain their confiscated lands; of penitents burning to throw off the
crosses imposed on them, and to avenge the humiliations which they had
endured. Refugees, _faidits_, and heretic teachers were wandering
through the mountains, dwelling in caverns and in the recesses of the
forests. Scarce a family but had some kinsman to avenge, who had fallen
in the field or had perished at the stake. The lack of prisons and the
parsimony of the prelates had prevented a general resort to
imprisonment, and the burnings had not been numerous enough to notably
reduce the numbers of those who were of necessity bitterly opposed to
the existing order. Suddenly, in 1240, an insurrection appeared, headed
by Trencavel, son of that Viscount of Béziers whom we have seen
entrapped by Simon de Montfort and dying opportunely in his hands, not
without suspicion of poison. He brought with him from Catalonia troops
of proscribed knights and gentlemen, and was greeted enthusiastically by
the vassals and subjects of his house. Count Raymond, his cousin, held
aloof; but his ambiguous conduct showed plainly that he was prepared to
act on either side as success or defeat might render advisable. At first
the rising seemed to prosper. Trencavel laid siege to his ancestral town
of Carcassonne, and the spirit of his followers was shown when, on the
surrender of the suburb, they slaughtered in cold blood thirty
ecclesiastics who had received solemn assurance of free egress to
Narbonne.[31]
It required but a small force of royal troops under Jean de Beaumont to
crush the insurrection as quickly as it had arisen, and to inflict a
vengeance which virtually annihilated the _petite noblesse_ of the
region; but, nevertheless, the lesson which it taught was not to be
neglected. The civil order, as now established in the south of France,
evidently rested in the religious order, and the maintenance of this
required hands more vigorous and watchful than those of the self-seeking
prelates. A great assembly of the Cathari held in 1241, on the bank of
the Larneta, under the presidency of Aymeri de Collet, heretic Bishop of
Albi, showed how bold they had become, and how confidently they looked
to the future. Church and State both could see now, if not before, that
the Inquisition was a necessary factor in securing to both the
advantages gained in the crusades.[32]
Gregory IX., the founder of the Inquisition, died August 22, 1241. It is
probable that, before his death, he had put an end to the suspension of
the Inquisition and slipped the hounds from the leash, for his immediate
successor, Celestin IV., enjoyed a pontificate of but nineteen
days--from September 20 to October 8--and then followed an interregnum
until the election of Innocent IV., June 28, 1243, so that for nearly
two years the papal throne was practically vacant. Raymond's policy,
for the moment, had leaned towards gratifying the papacy, for he desired
from Gregory not only the removal of his four excommunications and
forbearance in the matter of the crusade, but also a dispensation to
enable him to carry out a contract of marriage into which he entered
with Sanche, daughter and heiress of the Count of Provence, not
foreseeing that Queen Blanche would juggle him in this, and, by securing
the brilliant match for her son Charles, found the House of
Anjou-Provence, and win for the royal family another large portion of
the South. Full of these projects, which promised so well for the
rehabilitation of his power, he signed, April 18, 1241, with Jayme I. of
Aragon, a treaty of alliance for the defence of the Holy See and the
Catholic faith, and against the heretics. Under such influences he was
not likely to oppose the renewal of active persecution. Besides, he had
been compromised in Trencavel's insurrection; he had been summoned to
answer for his conduct before King Louis, when, on March 14, he had been
forced to take an oath to banish from his lands the _faidits_ and
enemies of the king, and to capture without delay the castle of
Montségur, the last refuge of heresy.[33]
The case of the Seigneurs de Niort, powerful nobles of Fenouillèdes, who
had taken part in Trencavel's insurrection, is interesting from the
light which it throws upon the connection between the religion and the
politics of the time, the difficulties which the Inquisition experienced
in dealing with stubborn heresy and patriotism, and the damage inflicted
on the heretic cause by the abortive revolt. The three brothers--Guillem
Guiraud, Bernard Otho, and Guiraud Bernard--with their mother,
Esclarmonde, had long been a quarry which both the inquisitors and the
royal seneschal of Carcassonne had been eager to capture. Guillem had
earned the reputation of a valiant knight in the wars of the crusades,
and the brothers had managed to hold their castles and their power
through all the vicissitudes of the time. In the general inquisition
made by Cardinal Romano in 1229 they were described as among the chief
leaders of the heretics, and the Council of Toulouse, at the same time,
denounced two of them as enemies of the faith, and declared them
excommunicate if they did not submit within fifteen days. In 1233 we
hear of their having, not long before, laid waste with fire and sword
the territories of Pierre Amiel, Archbishop of Narbonne, and they had
assailed and wounded him while on his way to the Holy See, an exploit
which led Gregory IX. to order the archbishop, in conjunction with the
Bishop of Toulouse, to proceed against them energetically, while at the
same time he invoked the secular arm by a pressing command to Count
Raymond. It was probably under this authority that Bishop Raymond du
Fauga and the Provost of Toulouse held an inquest on them, in which was
taken the testimony of Pierre Amiel and of one hundred and seven other
witnesses. The evidence was conflicting. The archbishop swore at great
length as to the misdeeds of his enemies. They were all heretics. At one
time they kept in their Castle of Dourne no less than thirty perfected
heretics, and they had procured the assassination of André Chaulet,
Seneschal of Carcassonne, because he had endeavored to obtain evidence
against them. Other witnesses were equally emphatic. Bernard Otho on one
occasion had silenced a priest in his own church, and had replaced him
in the pulpit with a heretic, who had preached to the congregation. On
the other hand, there were not wanting witnesses who boldly defended
them. The preceptor of the Hospital at Puységur swore to the orthodoxy
of Bernard Otho, and declared that what he had done for the faith and
for peace had caused the death of a thousand heretics. A priest swore to
having seen him assist in capturing heretics, and an archdeacon declared
that he would not have remained in the land but for the army which
Bernard raised after the death of the late king, adding that he believed
the prosecution arose rather from hate than from charity. Nothing came
of this attempt, and in 1234 we meet with Bernard Otho as a witness to a
transaction between the royal Seneschal of Carcassonne and the Monastery
of Alet; but when the Inquisition was established it was promptly
brought to bear on the nobles who persisted in maintaining their feudal
independence in spite of the fact that their immediate suzerain was now
the king. In 1235 Guillem Arnaud, the inquisitor, while in Carcassonne,
with the Archdeacon of Carcassonne as assistant, cited the three
brothers and their mother to answer before him. Bernard Otho and Guillem
obeyed the summons, but would confess nothing. Then the seneschal seized
them; under compulsion Guillem made confession ample to warrant the
inquisitor in sentencing him to perpetual prison (March 2, 1236), while
Bernard, remaining obdurate, was condemned as a contumacious heretic
(February 13, 1236), and the seneschal made preparations to burn him.
Guiraud and his mother, Esclarmonde, were further condemned, March 2,
for contumacious absence. Guiraud, however, who had wisely kept at
large, began to fortify his castles and make warlike demonstrations so
formidable that the Frenchmen scattered through the land took alarm. The
Maréchal de la Foi, Levis of Mirepoix, stood firm, but the rest so
worked upon the seneschal that the brothers were released, and the
inquisitors had only the barren satisfaction of condemning the whole
family on paper--a disappointment alleviated, it is true, by gathering
for the stake a rich harvest of less formidable heretics, both clerks
and laymen. Equally vain was an effort made two years later by the
inquisitors to compel Count Raymond to carry out their sentence by
confiscating the lands of the contumacious nobles, but the failure of
Trencavel's revolt forced them to sue for peace. Bernard Otho was again
brought before the Inquisition, and Guillem de Niort made submission for
himself and brothers, surrendering their castles to the king on
condition that he would procure their reconciliation with the Church,
and that of their mother, nephews, and allies, and, failing to
accomplish this by the next Pentecost, that he would restore their
castles and grant them a month of truce to put themselves in defence.
King Louis ratified the treaty in January, 1241, but refused, when the
time came, to restore the castles, only agreeing to pay over the
revenues on consideration that the brothers should reside outside of
Fenouillèdes. Guillem died in 1256, when Louis kept both castles and
revenues, under pretext that the treaty had been a personal one with
Guillem. The new order of things by this time had become so firmly
established that no further resistance was to be dreaded. The extinction
of this powerful family is a typical example of the manner in which the
independence of the local seigneurie was gradually broken down by means
of the Inquisition, and the authority of crown and Church was extended
over the land.[34]
Under the reaction consequent upon Trencavel's failure, and emboldened
by the ruin of the local protectors of the people, the inquisitors
returned to their work with sharpened zeal and redoubled energy. Chance
has preserved for us a record of sentences pronounced by Pierre Cella,
during a circuit of a few months in Querci, from Advent, 1241, to
Ascension, 1242, which affords us a singularly instructive insight into
one phase of inquisitorial operations. We have seen that, when an
inquisitor visited a town, he proclaimed a "time of grace," during
which those who voluntarily came forward and confessed were spared the
harsher punishments of prison, confiscation, or the stake, and that the
Inquisition found this expedient exceedingly fruitful, not only in the
number of penitents which it brought in, but in the testimony which was
gathered concerning the more contumacious. The record in question
consists of cases of this kind, and its crowded calendar justifies the
esteem in which the method was held.[35]
Summarized, the record shows--
In Gourdon 219 sentences pronounced in Advent, 1241.
In Montcucq 84 " " " Lent, 1242.
In Sauveterre 5.
In Belcayre 7.
In Montauban 254 sentences pronounced in week before Ascension
(May 21-28, 1242).
In Moissac 99 " " " week of Ascension
(May 28-June 5, 1242).
In Montpezat 22 " " " Lent, 1242.
In Montaut 23 " " " " "
In Castelnau 11 " " " " "
---
Total 724
Of these penitents four hundred and twenty-seven were ordered to make
the distant pilgrimage to Compostella, in the northwestern corner of
Spain--some four hundred or five hundred miles of mountainous roads. One
hundred and eight were sent to Canterbury, this pilgrimage, in all but
three or four cases, being superimposed on that to Compostella. Only two
penitents were required to visit Rome, but seventy-nine were ordered to
serve in the crusades for terms varying from one to eight years.
The first thing that impresses one in considering this record is the
extraordinary speed with which the work was done. The whole was
despatched in six months, and there is no evidence that the labor was
continuous--in fact, it could not have been so, for the inquisitor had
to move from place to place, to grant the necessary delays, and must
have been frequently interrupted to gather in the results of testimony
which implicated recusants. With what reckless lack of consideration the
penances were imposed is shown by the two hundred and nineteen penitents
of Gourdon, whose confessions were taken down and whose sentences were
pronounced within the four weeks of Advent; and even this is outstripped
by the two hundred and fifty-two of Montauban, despatched in the week
before Ascension, at the rate of forty-two for each working-day. In
several cases two culprits are included in the same sentence.
Even more significant than this, however, are the enormous numbers--two
hundred and nineteen for a small town like Gourdon and eighty-four for
Montcucq. The number of these who were really heretics, both Catharan
and Waldensian, is large, and shows how thoroughly the population was
interpenetrated with heresy. Even more, however, were good Catholics
whose cases prove how amicably the various sects associated together,
and how impossible it was for the most orthodox to avoid the association
with heretics which rendered him liable to punishment. This friendly
intercourse is peculiarly notable in the case of a priest who confessed
to having gone to some heretics in a vineyard, where he read in their
books and ate pears with them. He was rudely reminded of his
indiscretion by being suspended from his functions, sent to Compostella
and thence to Rome, with letters from the inquisitors which doubtless
were not for his benefit, for apparently they felt unable to decide what
ought to be done for an offence so enormous. Even the smallest
derelictions of this sort were rigorously penanced. A citizen of
Sauveterre had seen three heretics entering the house of a sick man, and
heard that they had hereticated him, but knew nothing of his own
knowledge, yet he was subjected to the disgrace of a penitential
pilgrimage to Puy. Another, of Belcayre, had carried a message between
two heretics, and was sent to Puy, St. Gilles, and Compostella. A
physician of Montauban had bound up the arm of a heretic and was
subjected to the same three pilgrimages, and the same penance was
inflicted on a woman who had simply eaten at a table with heretics. The
same was prescribed in several cases of boatmen who had ignorantly
transported heretics, without recognizing them until the voyage was
under way or finished. A woman who had eaten and drunk with another
woman who she heard was a heretic was sentenced to the pilgrimages of
Puy and St. Gilles, and the same penance was ordered for a man who had
once seen heretics, and for a woman who had consulted a Waldensian about
her sick son. The Waldenses had great reputation as skilful leeches, and
two men who had called them in for their wives and children were
penanced with the pilgrimages of Puy, St. Gilles, and Compostella. A man
who had seen heretics two or three times, and had already purchased
reconciliation by a gift to a monastery, was sent on a long series of
pilgrimages, embracing both Compostella and Canterbury, besides wearing
the yellow cross for a year. Another was sent to Compostella because he
had once been thrown into company with heretics in a boat, although he
had left them on hearing their heresies; and yet another because, when a
boy, he had spent part of a day and night with heretics. One who had
seen heretics when he was twelve years old was sent to Puy; while a
woman who had seen them in her father's house was obliged to go to Puy
and St. Gilles. A man who had seen two heretics leaving a place which he
had rented was sent to Compostella, and another who had allowed his
Waldensian mother to visit him and had given her an ell of cloth was
forced to expiate it with pilgrimages to Puy, St. Gilles, and
Compostella.[36] The list might be prolonged almost indefinitely, but
these cases will suffice to show the character of the offence and the
nature of the grace proffered for voluntary confession. There is no
pretence that any of these particular culprits themselves were not
wholly orthodox, but the people were to be taught that the toleration
which had existed for generations was at an end; that the neighborly
intercourse which had established itself between Catholic and Catharan
and Waldensian was in itself a sin; that the heretic was to be tracked
and captured like a wild beast, or at least to be shunned like a leper.
When such was the measure meted out to spontaneous penitents within the
time of grace, with harsher measures in reserve for those subsequently
detected, we can easily imagine the feelings inspired by the Inquisition
in the whole population, without distinction of creed, and the terror
common to all when the rumor spread that the inquisitors were coming.
Scarce any one but was conscious of some act--perhaps of neighborly
charity--that rendered him a criminal to the awful fanaticism of Pierre
Cella or Guillem Arnaud. The heretics themselves would look to be
imprisoned for life, with confiscation, or to be burned, or sent to
Constantinople to support the tottering Latin Empire; while the
Catholics were likely to fare little better on the distant pilgrimages
to which they were sentenced, even though they were spared the sterner
punishments or the humiliation of the saffron cross. Such a visit would
bring, even to the faithful, the desolation of a pestilence. The
inquisitors would pass calmly on, leaving a neighborhood well-nigh
depopulated--fathers and mothers despatched to distant shrines for
months or years, leaving dependent families to starve, or harvests
ungathered to be the prey of the first-comer, all the relations of a
life, hard enough at the best, disturbed and broken up. Even such a
record as that of Pierre Cella's sentences rendered within the time of
grace shows but a portion of the work. A year or two later we find the
Council of Narbonne beseeching the inquisitors to delay rendering
sentences of incarceration, because the numbers of those flocking in for
reconciliation after the expiration of the term of grace were so great
that it would be impossible to raise funds for their maintenance, or to
find stones enough, even in that mountainous land, to build prisons to
contain them.[37] That a whole vicinage, when it had timely notice,
should bind itself in a league to defeat the purpose of the inquisitors,
as at Castelnaudary, must have been a frequent experience; that, sooner
or later, despair should bring about a catastrophe like that of
Avignonet was inevitable.
* * * * *
Montségur for years had been the Mount Tabor of the Cathari--the place
of refuge in which, as its name implies, they could feel secure when
safety could be hoped for nowhere else. It had been destroyed, but early
in the century Raymond de Péreille had rebuilt it, and for forty years
he held it as an asylum for heretics, whom he defended to the utmost of
his ability. In 1232 the Catharan bishops Tento of Agen and Guillabert
de Castres of Toulouse, with a number of ministers, foreseeing, in the
daily increasing pressure of persecution, the necessity of some
stronghold which should serve as an asylum, arranged with Raymond that
he should receive and shelter all fugitives of the sect and guard the
common treasure to be deposited there. His castle, situated in the
territories of the marshals of Mirepoix, had never opened its gates to
the Frenchmen. Its almost inaccessible peak had been sedulously
strengthened with all that military experience could suggest or earnest
devotion could execute. Ever since the persecutions of the Inquisition
commenced we hear of those who fled to Montségur when they found the
inquisitor's hand descending upon them. Dispossessed knights, _faidits_
of all kinds, brought their swords to its defence; Catharan bishops and
ministers sought it when hard pressed, or made it a resting-place in
their arduous and dangerous mission-work. Raymond de Péreille himself
sought its shelter when, compromised by the revelations of Raymond Gros,
he fled from Toulouse, in 1237, with his wife Corba; the devotion of his
race to heresy being further proved by the fate of his daughter
Esclarmonde, who perished for her faith at the stake, and by the
Catharan episcopate of his brother Arnaud Roger. Such a stronghold in
the hands of desperate men, fired with the fiercest fanaticism, was a
menace to the stability of the new order in the State; to the Church it
was an accursed spot whence heresy might at any moment burst forth to
overspread the land again. Its destruction had long been the desire of
all good Catholics, and Raymond's pledge to King Louis, March 14, 1241,
to capture it had been one of the conditions on which his suspicious
relations with Trencavel had been condoned. In fact, he made some show
of besieging it during the same year, but success would have been most
damaging to the plans which he was nursing, and his efforts can scarce
have been more than a cover for military preparations destined to a far
different object. The French army, after the suppression of the rising,
also laid siege to Montségur, but were unable to effect its
reduction.[38]
On Ascension night, 1242, while Pierre Cella was tranquilly winding up
his work at Montauban, the world was startled with the news that a
holocaust of the terrible inquisitors had been made at Avignonet, a
little town about twelve leagues from Toulouse. The stern Guillem Arnaud
and the courteous Étienne de Saint-Thibery were making, like their
colleague Pierre Cella, a circuit through the district subjected to
their mercy. Some of their sentences which have been preserved show that
in November, 1241, they were laboring at Lavaur and at Saint-Paul de
Caujoux, and in the spring of 1242 they came to Avignonet.[39] Raymond
d'Alfaro was its bailli for the count, who was his uncle through his
mother, Guillemetta, a natural daughter of Raymond VI. When he heard
that the inquisitors and their assistants were coming he lost no time in
preparing for their destruction. A swift messenger was despatched to the
heretics of Montségur, and in answer to his summons Pierre Roger of
Mirepoix, with a number of knights and their retainers, started at once.
They halted in the forest of Gaiac, near Avignonet, where food was
brought them, and they were joined by about thirty armed men of the
vicinage, who waited with them till after nightfall. Had this plot
failed, d'Alfaro had arranged another for an ambuscade on the road to
Castelnaudary, and the fact that so extensive a conspiracy could be
organized on the spot, without finding a traitor to betray it, shows how
general was the hate that had been earned by the cruel work of the
Inquisition. Not less significant is the fact that on their return to
Montségur the murderers were hospitably entertained at the Château de
Saint-Félix by a priest who was cognizant of their bloody deed.
The victims came unsuspectingly to the trap. There were eleven in all.
The two inquisitors, with two Dominican friars, and one Franciscan, the
Benedictine Prior of Avignonet, Raymond de Costiran, Archdeacon of
Lezat, a former troubadour, of whose verses only a single obscene song
remains, a clerk of the archdeacon, a notary, and two apparitors--in all
a court fully furnished for the despatch of business. They were
hospitably received and housed in the castle of the count, where on the
morrow they were to open their dread tribunal for the trembling
inhabitants. When darkness came a selected band of twelve, armed with
axes, left the forest and stole cautiously to a postern of the castle,
where they were met by Golairan, a comrade of d'Alfaro, who assured
himself that all was right, and returned to see what the inquisitors
were doing. Coming back, he reported that they were drinking; but a
second visit, after an interval, brought the welcome news that they were
going to bed. As though apprehensive of danger, they had remained
together in the great hall, and had barricaded the door. The gate was
opened, the men of Montségur were admitted and were joined by d'Alfaro,
armed with a mace, and twenty-five men of Avignonet, and the fact that
an esquire in the service of the inquisitors was with him indicates that
there was treachery at work. The hall-door was quickly broken down, the
wild band of assassins rushed in, and, after despatching their victims,
there was a fierce chorus of gratified vengeance, each man boasting of
his share in the bloody deed--d'Alfaro especially, who shouted "_Va be,
esta be_," and claimed that his mace had done its full duty in the
murderous work. Its crushing of Guillem Arnaud's skull had deprived
Pierre Roger de Mirepoix, the second in command at Montségur, of the
drinking-cup which he had demanded as his reward for the assistance
furnished. The plunder of the victims was eagerly shared between the
assassins--their horses, books, garments--even to their scapulars. When
the news reached Rome, the College of Cardinals made haste to express
their belief that the victims had become blessed martyrs of Jesus
Christ, and one of the first acts of Innocent IV., after his
installation in June, 1243, was to repeat this declaration; but they
never were canonized, in spite of frequent requests to the Holy See, and
of the numerous miracles which attested their sanctity in the popular
cult, until, in 1866, Pius IX. gave them tardy recognition.[40]
Like the murder of the legate Pierre de Castelnau, in 1208, the massacre
of Avignonet was a fatal error. Its violation of the traditional
sanctity of the ecclesiastic sent a thrill of horror even among those
who had small sympathy with the cruelty of the Inquisition, while the
deliberateness of its planning and its unsparing ferocity gave color to
the belief that heresy was only to be extirpated by force. Sympathy,
indeed, for a time might well change sides, for the massacre was
practically unavenged. Frère Ferrer, the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, made
due inquest into the affair, and after the capture of Montségur, in
1244, some of the participants confessed all the details, but the real
culprits escaped. Count Raymond, it is true, when he had leisure from
pressing business, hanged a few of the underlings, but we find Raymond
d'Alfaro, in 1247, promoted to be Viguier of Toulouse, and representing
his master in the proceedings with regard to the burial of the old
count, and, finally, he was one of the nine witnesses to Raymond's last
will. Another ringleader, Guillem du Mas-Saintes-Puelles, is recorded as
taking the oath of allegiance to Count Alfonse, in 1249, after the death
of Raymond. Guillem's participation in the murders has special interest,
as showing the antagonism created by the violence of the Inquisition,
for in 1233, as Bailli of Lavaur, he had dutifully seized a number of
heretics and carried them to Toulouse, where they were promptly
burned.[41]
The massacre of Avignonet came at a time peculiarly unfortunate for
Count Raymond, who was nursing comprehensive and far-reaching plans,
then ripe for execution, for the rehabilitation of his house and the
independence of his land. He could not escape the responsibility for the
catastrophe which public opinion everywhere attached to him. Although
he had recently, on March 14, solemnly sworn to persecute heresy with
his whole strength when, apparently sick unto death, he had sought
absolution at the hands of the episcopal official of Agen, yet he was
known to be hostile to the Dominicans as inquisitors, and had bitterly
opposed the restoration of their functions. On May 1, just four weeks
before the event, he had made a solemn declaration in the presence of
numerous prelates and nobles to the effect that he had appealed to Rome
against the commission of Dominican inquisitors by the provincial in his
territories, and that he intended to prosecute that appeal. He protested
that he earnestly desired the eradication of heresy, and urged the
bishops to exercise energetically their ordinary power to that end,
promising his full support to them and the execution of the law both as
to confiscation and the death-penalty. He would even accept the friars
as inquisitors provided they acted independently of their Orders, and
not under the authority of their provincials. One of his baillis even
threatened, in the church of Moissac, seizure of person and property for
all who should submit to the penalties imposed by the inquisitors, as
they were not authorized by the count to administer justice. Such being
his position, it was inevitable that he should be regarded as an
accomplice in the murders, and that the cause which he represented
should suffer greatly in the revulsion of public feeling which it
occasioned.[42]
Raymond had been busy in effecting a widespread alliance which should
wring from the House of Capet its conquests of the last quarter of a
century. He had been joined by the Kings of England, Castile, and
Aragon, and the Count de la Marche, and everything bid fair for his
reconquest of his old domains. The massacre of Avignonet was a most
untoward precursor of the revolt which burst forth immediately
afterwards. It shook the fidelity of some of his vassals, who withdrew
their support; and, to counteract its impression, he felt obliged to
convert his sham siege of Montségur into an active one, thus employing
troops which he could ill spare. Yet the rising, for a while, promised
success, and Raymond even reassumed his old title of Duke of Narbonne.
King Louis, however, was equal to the occasion, and allowed the allies
no time to concentrate their forces. His victories over the English and
Gascons at Taillebourg and Saintes, July 19 and 23, deprived Raymond of
all hope of assistance from that quarter. Pestilence forced the
withdrawal of the main army of Louis, but a force under the veteran
Imbert de Beaujeu operated actively against Raymond, who, without help
from his allies and deserted by many of his vassals, was obliged to lay
down his arms, December 22. When suing for peace he pledged himself to
extirpate heresy and to punish the assassins of Avignonet with an
effusiveness which shows the importance attached to these conditions.
The sagacity and moderation of King Louis granted him easy terms, but
one of the stipulations of settlement was that every male inhabitant
over the age of fifteen should take an oath to assist the Church against
heresy, and the king against Raymond, in case of another revolt. Thus
the purity of the faith and the supremacy of the foreign domination were
once again recognized as inseparably allied.[43]
The triumph of both had been secured. This ended the last serious effort
of the South to recover its independence. Henceforth, under the treaty
of Paris, it was to pass irrevocably into the hands of the stranger, and
the Inquisition was to have unrestricted opportunity to enforce
conformity in religion. It was in vain that Raymond again, at the
Council of Béziers, April 20, 1243, summoned the bishops of his
dominions--those of Toulouse, Agen, Cahors, Albi, and Rodez--urging them
personally or through proper deputies, whether Cistercians, Dominicans,
or Franciscans, to make diligent inquisition after heresy, and pledged
the assistance of the secular arm for its extirpation. It was equally in
vain that, immediately on the accession of Innocent IV., in June, a
deputation of Dominicans, frightened by the warning of Avignonet,
earnestly alleged many reasons why the dangerous burden should be lifted
from their shoulders. The pope peremptorily refused, and ordered them to
continue their holy labors, even at the risk of martyrdom.[44]
Despite this single exhibition of hesitation and weakness, the Order was
not lacking in men whose eager fanaticism rendered them fully prepared
to accept the perilous post. The peril, indeed, was apparent rather than
real--it had passed away in the revulsion which followed the useless
bloodshed of Avignonet and the failure of Raymond's rebellion. There was
a rising tide in favor of orthodoxy. A confraternity organized in
October, 1243, by Durand, Bishop of Albi, is probably only the
expression of what was going on in many places. Organized under the
protection of St. Cecilia, the members of the association pledged
themselves not only to mutual protection, but to aid the bishop to
execute justice on heretics, Vaudois and their fautors, and to defend
inquisitors as they would their own bodies. Any member suspected of
heresy was to be incontinently ejected, and a reward of a silver mark
was offered for every heretic captured and delivered to the association.
The new pope had, moreover, spoken in no uncertain tone. His refusal to
relieve the Dominicans was accompanied with a peremptory command to all
the prelates of the region to extend favor, assistance, and protection
to the inquisitors in their toils and tribulations. Any slackness in
this was freely threatened with the papal vengeance, while favor was
significantly promised as the reward of zeal. The Dominicans were urged
to fresh exertion to overcome the threatened recrudescence of heresy. A
new legate, Zoen, Bishop-elect of Avignon, was also despatched to
Languedoc, with instructions to act vigorously. His predecessor had been
complained of by the inquisitors for having, in spite of their
remonstrances, released many of their prisoners and remitted penances
indiscriminately. All such acts of misplaced mercy were pronounced void,
and Zoen was ordered to reimpose all such penalties without appeal.[45]
Still more menacing to the heretic cause was the reconciliation at last
effected between Raymond and the papacy. In September, 1243, the count
visited Italy, where he had an interview with Frederic II. in Apulia,
and with Innocent in Rome. For ten years he had been under
excommunication, and had carried on an unavailing struggle. He could no
longer cherish illusions, and was doubtless ready to give whatever
assurances might be required of him. On the other hand, the new pope was
free from the predispositions which the long strife had engendered in
Gregory IX. There seems to have been little difficulty in reaching an
understanding, to which the good offices of Louis IX. powerfully
contributed. December 2, Raymond was released from his various
excommunications; January 1, 1244, the absolution was announced to King
Louis and the prelates of the kingdom, who were ordered to publish it in
all the churches, and January 7 the Legate Zoen was instructed to treat
him with fatherly affection and not permit him to be molested. In all
this absolution had only been given _ad cautelam_, or provisionally, for
a special excommunication had been decreed against him as a fautor of
heretics, after the massacre of Avignonet, by the inquisitors Ferrer and
Guillem Raymond. Against this he had made a special appeal to the Holy
See in April, 1243, and a special bull of May 16, 1244, was required for
its abrogation. No conditions seem to have been imposed respecting the
long-deferred crusade, and thenceforth Raymond lived in perfect harmony
with the Holy See. Indeed, he was the recipient of many favors. A bull
of March 18, 1244, granted him the privilege that for five years he
should not be forced by apostolic letters to answer in judgment outside
of his own dominions; another of April 27, 1245, took him, his family,
and lands under the special protection of St. Peter and the papacy; and
yet another of May 12, 1245, provided that no delegate of the Apostolic
See should have power to utter excommunication or any other sentence
against him without a special mandate. Besides this, one of April 21,
1245, imposed some limitations on the power of inquisitors, limitations
which they seem never to have observed. Raymond was fairly won over. He
had evidently resolved to accommodate himself to the necessities of the
time, and the heretic had nothing further to hope or the inquisitor to
fear from him. The preparation for increased and systematic vigor of
operations is seen in the elaborate provisions, so often referred to
above, of the Council of Narbonne, held at this period.[46]
Yet so long as heresy retained the stronghold of Montségur as a refuge
and rallying-point its secret and powerful organization could not be
broken. The capture of that den of outlaws was a necessity of the first
order, and as soon as the confusion of the rebellion of 1242 had
subsided it was undertaken as a crusade, not by Raymond, but by the
Archbishop of Narbonne, the Bishop of Albi, the Seneschal of
Carcassonne, and some nobles, either led by zeal or by the hope of
salvation. The heretics, on their side, were not idle. Some baillis of
Count Raymond sent them Bertrand de la Bacalairia, a skilful maker of
military engines, to aid them in the defence, who made no scruple in
affirming that he came with the assent of the count, and from every side
money, provisions, arms, and munitions of war were poured into the
stronghold. In the spring of 1243 the siege began, prosecuted with
indefatigable ardor by the besiegers, and resisted with desperate
resolution by the besieged. As in the old combats at Toulouse, the women
assisted their warriors, and the venerable Catharan bishop, Bertrand
Martin, animated their devoted courage with promises of eternal bliss.
It is significant of the public temper that sympathizers in the
besiegers' camp permitted tolerably free communication between the
besieged and their friends, and gave them warning of the plans of
attack. Even the treasure which had been stored up in Montségur was
conveyed away safely through the investing lines, about Christmas, 1243,
to Pons Arnaud de Châteauverdun in the Savartès. Secret relations were
maintained with Count Raymond, and the besieged were buoyed up with
promises that if they would hold out until Easter, 1244, he would march
to their relief with forces supplied by the Emperor Frederic II. It was
all in vain. The siege dragged on its weary length for nearly a year,
till, on the night of March 1, 1244, guided by some shepherds who
betrayed their fellow-countrymen, by almost inaccessible paths among the
cliffs, the crusaders surprised and carried one of the outworks. The
castle was no longer tenable. A brief parley ensued, and the garrison
agreed to surrender at dawn, delivering up to the archbishop all the
perfected heretics among them, on condition that the lives of the rest
should be spared. Although a few were let down from the walls with ropes
and thus escaped, the capitulation was carried out, and the archbishop's
shrift was short. At the foot of the mountain-peak an enclosure of
stakes was formed, piled high with wood, and set on fire. The Perfect
were asked to renounce their faith, and on their refusal were cast into
the flames. Thus perished two hundred and five men and women. The
conquerors might well write exultingly to the pope, "We have crushed
the head of the dragon!"[47]
Although the lives of the rest of the captives were guaranteed, they
were utilized to the utmost. For months the inquisitors Ferrer and P.
Durant devoted themselves to the examinations to secure evidence against
heretics far and near, dead and alive. From the aged Raymond de Péreille
to a child ten years of age, they were forced, under repeated
interrogatories, to recall every case of adoration and heretication that
they could remember, and page after page was covered with interminable
lists of names of those present at sermons and _consolamenta_ through a
period extending back to thirty or forty years before, and embracing the
whole land as far as Catalonia. Even those who had brought victual to
Montségur and sold it were carefully looked after and set down. It can
readily be conceived what an accession was made to the terrible records
of the Inquisition, and how valuable was the insight obtained into the
ramifications of heresy throughout the land during more than a
generation--what digging up of bones would follow with confiscation of
estates, and with what unerring certainty the inquisitors would be able
to seize their victims and confound their denials. We can only guess at
the means by which this information was extracted from the prisoners.
Torture had not yet been introduced; life had been promised, and
perpetual imprisonment was inevitable for such pronounced heretics; and
when we see Raymond de Péreille himself, who had endured unflinchingly
the vicissitudes of the crusades, and had bravely held out to the last,
ransacking his memory to betray all whom he had ever seen adore a
minister, we can imagine the horrors of the two months' preliminary
captivity which had so broken his spirit as to bring him to this depth
of degradation. Even a perfected heretic, Arnaud de Bretos, captured
while flying to Lombardy, was induced to reveal the names of all who had
given him shelter and attended his ministrations during his missionary
wanderings.[48]
Henceforth the Cathari could hope only in God. All chance of resistance
was over. One by one their supports had broken, and there was only left
the passive resistance of martyrdom. The Inquisition could track and
seize its victims at leisure, and king and count could follow with
decrees of confiscation which were gradually to transfer the lands of
the South to orthodox and loyal subjects. The strongest testimony that
can be given to the living earnestness of the Catharan faith is to be
found in the prolongation of this struggle yet through three hopeless
generations. It is no wonder, however, if the immediate effect of these
crowding events was to fill the heretics with despair. In the poem of
Isarn de Villemur, written about this period, the heretic, Sicard de
Figueras is represented as saying that their best and most trusted
friends are turning against them and betraying them. How many believers
at this juncture abandoned their religion, even at the cost of lifelong
imprisonment, we have no means of accurately estimating, but the number
must have been enormous, to judge from the request, already alluded to,
of the Council of Narbonne about this time to the inquisitors to
postpone their sentences in view of the impossibility of building
prisons sufficient to contain the crowds who hurried in to accuse
themselves and seek reconciliation, after the expiration of the time of
grace, which Innocent IV., in December, 1243, had ordered to be
designated afresh.[49]
Yet, in a population so thoroughly leavened with heresy, these thousands
of voluntary penitents still left an ample field of activity for the
zeal of the inquisitors. Each one who confessed was bound to give the
names of all whom he had seen engaged in heretical acts, and of all who
had been hereticated on the death-bed. Innumerable clews were thus
obtained to bring to trial those who failed to accuse themselves, and to
exhume and burn the bones of those who were beyond the ability to
recant. For the next few years the life of the inquisitors was a busy
one. The stunned populations no longer offered resistance, and grew used
to the despair of the penitents sentenced to perpetual prison, the
dragging of decomposed corpses through the streets, and the horror of
the Tophets where the victims passed through temporal to eternal flame.
Still there is a slight indication that the service was not wholly
without danger from the goadings of vengeance or the courage of despair,
when the Council of Béziers, in 1246, ordering travelling inquests,
makes exception in the cases when it may not be safe for the inquisitors
to personally visit the places where the inquisition should be held; and
Innocent IV., in 1247, authorizes the inquisitors to cite the accused to
come to them, in view of the perils arising from the ambushes of
heretics.[50]
The fearless and indefatigable men who now performed the functions of
inquisitor in Languedoc can rarely have taken advantage of this
concession to weakness. Bernard de Caux, who so well earned the title of
the hammer of heretics, was at this time the leading spirit of the
Inquisition of Toulouse, after a term of service in Montpellier and
Agen, and he had for colleague a kindred spirit in Jean de Saint-Pierre.
Together they made a thorough inquest over the whole province, passing
the population through a sieve with a completeness which must have left
few guilty consciences unexamined. There is extant a fragmentary record
of this inquest, covering the years 1245 and 1246, during which no less
than six hundred places were investigated, embracing about one half of
Languedoc. The magnitude of the work thus undertaken, and the incredible
energy with which it was pushed, is seen in the enormous number of
interrogatories recorded in petty towns. Thus at Avignonet there are two
hundred and thirty; at Fanjoux, one hundred; at Mas-Saintes-Puelles,
four hundred and twenty. M. Molinier, to whom we are indebted for an
account of this interesting document, has not made an accurate count of
the whole number of cases, but estimates that the total cannot fall far
short of eight thousand to ten thousand. When we consider what all this
involved in the duty of examination and comparison we may well feel
wonder at the superhuman energy of these founders of the Inquisition;
but we may also assume, as with the sentences of Pierre Cella, that the
fate of the victims who were sifted out of this mass of testimony must
have been passed upon with no proper or conscientious scrutiny. At
least, however, they must have escaped the long and torturing delays
customary in the later and more leisurely stages of the Inquisition.
With such a record before us it is not easy to understand the complaint
of the bishops of Languedoc, in 1245, that the Inquisition was too
merciful, that heresy was increasing, and that the inquisitors ought to
be urged to greater exertions. It was possibly in consequence of the
lack of harmony thus revealed between the episcopate and the Inquisition
that Innocent, in April of the same year, ordered the Inquisitors of
Languedoc to proceed as usual in cases of manifest heresy, and in those
involving slight punishment, while he directed them to suspend
proceedings in matters requiring imprisonment, crosses, long
pilgrimages, and confiscation until definite rules should be laid down
in the Council of Lyons, which he was about to open. These questions,
however, were settled in that of Béziers, which met in 1246, and issued
a new code of procedure.[51]
In all this Count Raymond, now thoroughly fitted in the Catholic groove,
was an earnest participant. As his stormy life drew to its close,
harmony with the Church was too great an element of comfort and
prosperity for him to hesitate in purchasing it with the blood of a few
of his subjects, whom, indeed, he could scarce have saved had he so
willed. He gave conspicuous evidence of his hatred of heresy. In 1247 he
ordered his officials to compel the attendance of the inhabitants at the
sermons of the friars in all towns and villages through which they
passed, and in 1249, at Berlaiges, near Agen, he coldly ordered the
burning of eighty believers who had confessed their errors in his
presence--a piece of cruelty far transcending that habitual with the
inquisitors. About the same time King Jayme of Aragon effected a change
in the Inquisition in the territories of Narbonne. Possibly this may
have had some connection with the murder by the citizens of two
officials of the Inquisition and the destruction of its records, giving
endless trouble in the effort to reconstruct the lists of sentences and
the invaluable accumulation of evidence against suspects. Be this as it
may, Innocent IV., at the request of the king, forbade the archbishop
and inquisitors from further proceedings against heresy, and then
empowered the Dominican Provincial of Spain and Raymond of Pennaforte to
appoint new ones for the French possessions of Aragon.[52]
When St. Louis undertook his disastrous crusade to Damietta he was
unwilling to leave behind him so dangerous a vassal as Raymond. The vow
of service to Palestine had long since been remitted by Innocent IV.,
but the count was open to persuasion, and the bribes offered show at
once the importance attached to his presence with the host and to his
absence from home. The king promised him twenty thousand to thirty
thousand livres for his expenses and the restitution of the duchy of
Narbonne on his return. The pope agreed to pay him two thousand marks on
his arrival beyond seas, and that he should have during his absence all
the proceeds of the redemption of vows and all legacies bequeathed to
the crusade. The prohibition of imposing penitential crusades on
converted heretics was also suspended for his benefit, while the other
long pilgrimages customarily employed as penances were not to be
enjoined while he was in service. Stimulated by these dazzling rewards,
he assumed the cross in earnest, and his ardor for the purity of the
faith grew stronger. Even the tireless activity of Bernard de Caux was
insufficient to satisfy him. While that incomparable persecutor was
devoting all his energies to working up the results of his tremendous
inquests, Raymond, early in 1248, complained to Innocent that the
Inquisition was neglecting its duty; that heretics, both living and
dead, remained uncondemned; that others from abroad were coming into his
own and neighboring territories and spreading their pestilence, so that
the land which had been well-nigh purified was again filled with
heresy.[53]
Death spared Raymond the misfortunes of the ill-starred Egyptian
crusade. When his preparations were almost complete he was seized with
mortal illness and died, September 27, 1249, with his latest breath
ordering his heirs to restore the sums which he had received for the
expedition, and to send fifty knights to serve in Palestine for a year.
That his death was generally regretted by his subjects we can readily
believe. Not only was it the extinction of the great house which had
bravely held its own from Carlovingian times, but the people felt that
the last barrier between them and the hated Frenchmen was removed. The
heiress Jeanne had been educated at the royal court, and was French in
all but birth. Moreover, she seems to have been a nonentity whose
influence is imperceptible, and the sceptre of the South passed into the
hands of Alphonse of Poitiers, an avaricious and politic prince, whose
zeal for orthodoxy was greatly stimulated by the profitable
confiscations resulting from persecution. Raymond had required repeated
urging to induce him to employ this dreaded penalty with the needful
severity. No such watchfulness was necessary in the case of Alphonse.
When the rich heritage fell in, he and his wife were with his brother,
King Louis, in Egypt, but the vigilant regent, Queen Blanche, promptly
took possession in their name, and on their return, in 1251, they
personally received the homage of their subjects. By a legal subtlety
Alphonse evaded the payment of the pious legacies of Raymond's will, and
compounded for it by leaving, on his departure for the North, a large
sum to provide for the expenses of the Inquisition, and to furnish wood
for the execution of its sentences. Not long afterwards we find him
urging his bishops to render more efficient support to the labors of the
inquisitors; in his chancery there was a regular formula of a commission
for inquisitors, to be sent to Rome for the papal signature; and
throughout his twenty years of reign he pursued the same policy without
deviation. The urgency with which, in December, 1268, he wrote to Pons
de Poyet and Étienne de Gátine, stimulating them to redoubled activity
in clearing his dominions of heretics, was wholly superfluous, but it is
characteristic of the line of action which he carried out consistently
to the end.[54]
The fate of Languedoc was now irrevocably sealed. Hitherto there had
been hopes that perhaps Raymond's inconstancy might lead him to retrace
the steps of the last few years. Moreover, his subjects had shared in
the desire, manifested in his repeated marriage projects, that he should
have an heir to inherit the lands not pledged in succession to his
daughter. He was but in his fifty-first year, and the expectation was
not unreasonable that his line might be perpetuated and the southern
nationality be preserved. All this was now seen to be a delusion, and
the most sanguine Catharan could look forward to nothing but a life of
concealment ending in prison or fire. Yet the heretic Church stubbornly
held its own, though with greatly diminished numbers. Many of its
members fled to Lombardy, where, even after the death of Frederic II.,
the civic troubles and the policy of local despots, such as Ezzelin da
Romano, afforded some shelter from the Inquisition. Yet many remained
and pursued their wandering missions among the faithful, perpetually
tracked by inquisitorial spies, but rarely betrayed. These humble and
forgotten men, hopelessly braving hardship, toil, and peril in what they
deemed the cause of God, were true martyrs, and their steadfast heroism
shows how little relation the truth of a religion bears to the
self-devotion of its followers. Rainerio Saccone, the converted
Catharan, who had the best means of ascertaining the facts, computes,
about this time, that there were in Lombardy one hundred and fifty
"perfected" refugees from France, while the churches of Toulouse,
Carcassonne, and Albi, including that of Agen, then nearly destroyed,
numbered two hundred more. These figures would indicate that a very
considerable congregation of believers still existed in spite of the
systematic and ruthless proscription of the past twenty years. Their
earnestness was kept alive, not only by the occasional and dearly-prized
visits of the travelling ministers, but by the frequent intercourse
which was maintained with Lombardy. Until the disappearance of the sect
on this side of the Alps, there is, in the confessions of penitents,
perpetual allusion to these pilgrimages back and forth, which kept up
the relations between the refugees and those left at home. Thus, in
1254, Guillem Fournier, in an interrogatory before the Inquisition of
Toulouse, relates that he started for Italy with five companions,
including two women. His first resting-place was at Coni, where he met
many heretics; then at Pavia, where he was hereticated by Raymond
Mercier, former deacon of Toulouse. At Cremona he lived for a year with
Vivien, the much-loved Bishop of Toulouse, with whom he found a number
of noble refugees. At Pisa he stayed for eight months; at Piacenza he
again met Vivien, and he finally returned to Languedoc with messages
from the refugees to their friends at home. In 1300, at Albi, Étienne
Mascot confesses that he had been sent to Lombardy by Master Raymond
Calverie to bring back Raymond André, or some other perfected heretic.
At Genoa he met Bertrand Fabri, who had been sent on the same errand by
Guillem Golfier. They proceeded together and met other old
acquaintances, now refugees, who conducted them to a spot where, in a
wood, were several houses of refuge for heretics. The lord of the place
gave them a Lombard, Guglielmo Pagani, who returned with them. In 1309
Guillem Falquet confessed at Toulouse to having been four times to Como,
and even to Sicily, organizing the Church. He was caught while visiting
a sick believer, and condemned to imprisonment in chains, but managed to
escape in 1313. At the same time was sentenced Raymond de Verdun, who
had likewise been four times to Lombardy.[55]
The proscribed heretics, thus nursing their faith in secret, gave the
inquisitors ample occupation. As their ranks were thinned by persecution
and flight, and as their skill in concealment increased with experience,
there could no longer be the immense harvests of penitents reaped by
Pierre Gella and Bernard de Caux, but there were enough to reward the
energies of the friars and to tax the adroitness of their spies. The
organization of the Inquisition, moreover, was gradually perfected. In
1254 the Council of Albi carefully revised the regulations concerning
it. Fixed tribunals were established, and the limitations of the
inquisitorial districts were strictly defined. For Provence and the
territories east of the Rhone, Marseilles was the headquarters,
eventually confided to the Franciscans. The rest of the infected regions
were left to the Dominicans, with tribunals at Toulouse, Carcassonne,
and Narbonne; and, from such fragmentary documents as have reached us,
at this time the Inquisition at Carcassonne rivalled that of Toulouse in
energy and effectiveness. For a while safety was sought by heretics in
northern France, but the increasing vigor of the Inquisition established
there drove the unfortunate refugees back, and in 1255 a bull of
Alexander IV. authorized the Provincial of Paris and his inquisitors to
pursue the fugitives in the territories of the Count of Toulouse. At the
same time the special functions of the inquisitors were jealously
guarded against all encroachments. We have seen how, in its early days,
it was subjected to the control of papal legates, but now that it was
firmly established and thoroughly organized it was held independent; and
when the legate Zoen, Bishop of Avignon, in 1257, endeavored, in virtue
of his legatine authority, which fourteen years before had been so
absolute, to perform inquisitorial work, he was rudely reminded by
Alexander IV. that he could do so if he pleased in his own diocese, but
that outside of it he must not interfere with the Inquisition. To this
period is also to be ascribed the complete subjection of all secular
officials to the behests of the inquisitors. The piety of St. Louis and
the greed of Alphonse of Poitiers and Charles of Anjou rivalled each
other in placing all the powers of the State at the disposal of the Holy
Office, and in providing for its expenses. It was virtually supreme in
the land, and, as we have seen, it was a law unto itself.[56]
The last shadow of open resistance was dissipated in the year 1255.
After the fall of Montségur the proscribed and disinherited knights,
the _faidits_, and the heretics had sought to establish among the
mountains some stronghold where they could feel safe for a moment.
Driven from one retreat after another, they finally took possession of
the castle of Quéribus, in the Pyrenees of Fenouillèdes. In the early
spring of 1255 this last refuge was besieged by Pierre d'Auteuil, the
royal Seneschal of Carcassonne. The defence was stubborn. May 5 the
seneschal appealed to the bishops sitting in council at Béziers to give
him assistance, as they had done so energetically at Montségur. The
reply of the prelates was commendably cautious. They were not bound,
they said, to render military service to the king, and when they had
joined his armies it had been by command of a legate or of their
primate, the Archbishop of Narbonne. Nevertheless, as common report
described Quéribus as a receptacle of heretics, thieves, and robbers,
and its reduction was a good work for the faith and for peace, they
would each one, without derogating from his rights, furnish such
assistance as seemed to him fitting. It may be assumed from this that
the seneschal had to do the work unaided; in fact, he complained to the
king that the prelates rather impeded than assisted him, but by August
the place was in his hands, and nothing remained for the outlaws but the
forest and the caverns. In that savage region the dense undergrowth
afforded many a hiding-place, and an attempt was made to cut away the
briers and thorns which served as shelter for ruined noble and hunted
Catharan. The work was undertaken by a certain Bernard, who thence
acquired the name of Espinasser or thorn-cutter. Popular hatred has
preserved his remembrance, and expresses its sentiment in a myth which
gibbets him in the moon.[57]
With the land at its feet, the Inquisition, in the plenitude of its
power, had no hesitation in attacking the loftiest nobles, for all men
were on a level in the eyes of the Most High, and the Holy Office was
the avenger of God. The most powerful vassal of the houses of Toulouse
and Aragon was the Count of Foix, whose extensive territories on both
sides of the Pyrenees rendered him almost independent in his mountain
fastnesses. Count Roger Bernard II., known as the Great, had been one of
the bravest and most obstinate defenders of the land, and, after the
pacification of 1229, Raymond had been obliged to threaten him with war
to force him to submit. His memory was proudly treasured in the land as
"_Rogier Bernat lo pros et sens dengun reproche_." His family was
deeply tinctured with heresy. His wife and one of his sisters were
Waldenses, another sister was a Catharan, and the monk of Vaux-Cernay
describes him as an enemy of God and a cruel persecutor of the Church.
Yet, when he yielded in 1229, although he does not seem to have
energetically fulfilled his oath to persecute heresy in his domains, for
in 1233 we hear of his holding a personal conference at Aix with the
heretic bishop Bertrand Martin, he was in other respects a loyal subject
and faithful son of the Church. In 1237 he counselled his son, then
Vizconde de Castelbo in Aragon, to allow the Inquisition in his lands,
which resulted in the condemnation of many heretics, although Ponce,
Bishop of Urgel, his personal enemy, had refused to relieve him of
excommunication as a fautor of heresy until 1240, when he submitted to
the conditions imposed, abjured heresy, and was reconciled. At his
death, in 1241, he left liberal bequests to the Church, and especially
to his ancestral Cistercian Abbey of Bolbonne, in which he died in
monkish habit, after duly receiving the sacraments. His son, Roger IV.,
gave the _coup de grâce_ to the rising of 1242, by placing himself under
the immediate sovereignty of the crown, and defeating Raymond after the
victories of St. Louis had driven back the English and Gascons. He had
some troubles with the Inquisition, but a bull of Innocent IV., in 1248,
eulogizes his devotion to the Holy See, and rewards him with the power
to release from the saffron crosses six penitents of his choice; and in
1261 he issued an edict commanding the enforcement of the rule that no
office within his domains should be held by any one condemned to wear
crosses, any one suspected of heresy, or the son of any one similarly
defamed.[58]
All this would seem to give ample guarantee of the orthodoxy and loyalty
of the House of Foix, but the Inquisition could not condone its ancient
patriotism and tolerance. Besides, if Roger Bernard the Great could be
convicted of heresy, the confiscation of the broad inheritance would
effect a great political object and afford ample spoils for all
concerned. Twenty-two years after his death, therefore, in 1263,
proceedings were commenced against his memory. A faithful servitor of
the old count still survived, Raymond Bernard de Flascan, bailli of
Mazères, who had attended his lord day and night during his last
sickness. If he could be brought to swear that he had seen heretication
performed on the death-bed, the desirable object would be attained.
Frère Pons, the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, came to Mazères, found the
old man an unsatisfactory witness, and threw him into a dungeon.
Suffering under a severe strangury, he was starved and tormented with
all the cruel ingenuity of the Inquisition, and interrogated at
intervals, without his resolution giving way. This was continued for
thirty-two days, when Pons resolved to carry him back to Carcassonne,
where possibly the appliances for bringing refractory witnesses to terms
were more efficacious. Before the journey, which he expected to be his
last, the faithful bailli was given a day's respite at the Abbey of
Bolbonne, which he utilized by executing a notarial instrument, November
26, 1263, attested by two abbots and a number of monks, in which he
recited the trials already endured, solemnly declared that he had never
seen the old count do anything contrary to the faith of Rome, but that
he had died as a good Catholic, and that if, under the severe torture to
which he expected to be subjected, human weakness should lead him to
assert anything else, he would be a liar and a traitor, and no credence
should be given to his words. It would be difficult to conceive of a
more damning revelation of inquisitorial methods; yet fifty years later,
when those methods had been perfected, all concerned in the preparation
of the instrument, whether as notary or witnesses, would have been
prosecuted as impeders of the Inquisition, to be severely punished as
fautors of heresy.[59]
What became of the poor wretch does not appear. Doubtless he perished in
the terrible Mura of Carcassonne under the combination of disease,
torture, and starvation. His judicial murder, however, was gratuitous,
for the old count's memory remained uncondemned. Yet Roger Bernard
III., despite the papal favor and the proofs he had given of adhesion to
the new order of things, was a perpetual target for inquisitorial
malice. When lying in mortal illness at Mazères, in December, 1264, he
received from Étienne de Gâtine, then Inquisitor of Narbonne, an
imperious order, with threats of prosecution in case of failure, to
capture and deliver up his bailli of Foix, Pierre André, who was suspect
of heresy and had fled on being cited to appear. The count dared only in
reply to express surprise that no notice had been given him that his
bailli was wanted, adding that he had issued orders for his arrest, and
would have personally joined in the pursuit had not sickness rendered
him incapable. At the same time he requested "Apostoli," and appealed
to the pope, to whom he retailed his grievances. The inquisitors, he
said, had never ceased persecuting him; at the head of armed forces they
were in the habit of devastating his lands under pretext of searching
for heretics, and they would bring in their train and under their
protection his special enemies, until his territories were nearly ruined
and his jurisdiction set at naught. He, therefore, placed himself and
his dominions under the protection of the Holy See. He probably escaped
further personal troubles, for he died two months later, in February,
1265, like his father, in the Cistercian habit, and in the Abbey of
Bolbonne; but in 1292 his memory was assailed before Bertrand de
Clermont, Inquisitor of Carcassonne. The effort was fruitless, for in
1297 Bertrand gave to his son, Roger Bernard IV., a declaration that the
accusation had been disproved, and that neither he nor his father should
suffer in person or property in consequence of it.[60]
When such were the persecutions to which the greatest were exposed it is
easy to understand the tyranny exercised over the whole land by the
irresponsible power of the inquisitors. No one was so loftily placed as
to be beyond their reach, no one so humble as to escape their spies.
When once they had cause of enmity with a man there was no further peace
for him. The only appeal from them was to the pope, and not only was
Rome distant, but the avenue to it lay, as we have seen, in their own
hands. Human wickedness and folly have erected, in the world's history,
more violent despotisms, but never one more cruel, more benumbing, or
more all-pervading.
For the next twenty years there is little worthy of special note in the
operations of the Inquisition of Languedoc. It pursued its work
continuously with occasional outbursts of energy. Étienne de Gâtine, and
Pons de Poyet, who presided over its tribunals for many years, were no
sluggards, and the period from 1373 to 1375 rewarded their industry with
an abundant harvest. Though heretics naturally grew scarcer with the
unintermitting pursuit of so many years, there was still the exhaustless
catalogue of the dead, whose exhumation furnished an impressive
spectacle for the mob, while their confiscations were welcome to the
pious princes, and contributed largely to the change of ownership of
land which was a political consummation so desirable. Yet heresy with
incredible stubbornness maintained itself, though its concealment grew
ever more difficult, and Italy grew less safe as a refuge and less
prolific as a source of inspiration.[61]
In 1271 Alphonse and Jeanne, who had accompanied St. Louis in his
unlucky crusade to Tunis, died without issue, during the homeward
journey. The line of Raymond was thus extinct, and the land passed
irrevocably to the crown. Philippe le Hardi took possession even of the
territories which Jeanne had endeavored, as was her right, to alienate
by will, and though he surrendered the Agenois to Henry III., he
succeeded in retaining Querci. No opposition was made to the change of
masters. When, October 8, 1271, Guillaume de Cobardon, royal Seneschal
of Carcassonne, issued his orders regulating the new _régime_, one of
the first things thought of was the confiscations. All castles and
villages which had been forfeited for heresy were taken into the king's
hand, without prejudice to the right of those to whom they might belong,
thus throwing the burden of proof upon all claimants, and cutting out
assigns under alienations. In 1272 Philippe paid a visit to his new
territories; it was designed to be peaceful, but some violences
committed by Roger Bernard IV. of Foix caused him to come at the head of
an army, with which he easily overcame the resistance of the count,
occupied his lands, and threw him into a dungeon. Released in 1273, the
count in 1276 rendered such assistance in the invasion of Navarre that
Philippe took him into favor and restored his castles, on his renouncing
all allegiance to Aragon. Thus the last show of independence in the
South was broken down, and the monarchy was securely planted on its
ruins.[62]
This consolidation of the south of France under the kings of Paris was
not without compensating advantages. The monarch was rapidly acquiring a
centralized power, which was very different from the overlordship of a
feudal suzerain. The study of the Roman law was beginning to bear fruit
in the State as well as in the Church, and the imperial theories of
absolutism as inherent in kingship were gradually altering all the old
relations. The king's court was expanding into the Parlement, and was
training a school of subtle and resolute civil lawyers who lost no
opportunity of extending the royal jurisdiction, and of legislating for
the whole land in the guise of rendering judgments. In the appeals which
came ever more thickly crowding into the Parlement from every quarter,
the mailed baron found himself hopelessly entangled in the legal
intricacies which were robbing him of his seignorial rights almost
without his knowledge; and the Ordonnances, or general laws, which
emanated from the throne, were constantly encroaching on old privileges,
weakening local jurisdictions, and giving to the whole country a body of
jurisprudence in which the crown combined both the legislative and the
executive functions. If it thus was enabled to oppress, it was likewise
stronger to defend, while the immense extension of the royal domains
since the beginning of the century gave it the physical ability to
enforce its growing prerogatives.
It was impossible that this metamorphosis in the national institutions
could be effected without greatly modifying the relations between Church
and State. Thus even the saintliness of Louis IX. did not prevent him
from defending himself and his subjects from ecclesiastical domination
in a spirit very different from that which any French monarch had
ventured to exhibit since the days of Charlemagne. The change became
still more manifest under his grandson, Philippe le Bel. Though but
seventeen years of age when he succeeded to the throne in 1286, his rare
ability and vigorous temper soon led him to assert the royal power in
incisive fashion. He recognized, within the boundaries of his kingdom,
no superior, secular or spiritual. Had he entertained any scruples of
conscience, his legal counsellors could easily remove them. To such men
as Pierre Flotte and Guillaume de Nogaret the true position of the
Church was that of subjection to the State, as it had been under the
successors of Constantine, and in their eyes Boniface VIII. was to their
master scarce more than Pope Vigilius had been to Justinian. Few among
the revenges of time are more satisfying than the catastrophe of Anagni,
in 1303, when Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna laid hands on the vicegerent
of God, and Boniface passionately replied to Nogaret's reproaches, "I
can patiently endure to be condemned and deposed by a Patarin"--for
Nogaret was born at St. Felix de Caraman, and his ancestors were said to
have been burned as Cathari. If this be true he must have been more than
human if he did not feel special gratification when, at command of his
master, he appeared before Clement V. with a formal accusation of heresy
against Boniface, and demanded that the dead pope's bones be dug up and
burned. The citizens of Toulouse recognized him as an avenger of their
wrongs when they placed his bust in the gallery of their illustrious men
in the Hôtel-de-ville.[63]
It was to the royal power, thus rising to supremacy, that the people
instinctively turned for relief from the inquisitorial tyranny which was
becoming insupportable. The authority lodged in the hands of the
inquisitor was so arbitrary and irresponsible that even with the purest
intentions it could not but be unpopular, while to the unworthy it
afforded unlimited opportunity for oppression and the gratification of
the basest passions. Dangerous as was any manifestation of discontent,
the people of Albi and Carcassonne, reduced to despair by the cruelty of
the inquisitors, Jean Galande and Jean Vigoureux, mustered courage, and
in 1280 presented their complaints to Philippe le Hardi. It was
difficult to sustain their charges with specific proofs, and after a
brief investigation their reiterated requests for relief were dismissed
as frivolous. In the agitation against the Inquisition thus commenced,
it must be borne in mind that heretics had little to do. By this time
they were completely cowed and were quite satisfied if they could enjoy
their faith in secret. The opposition arose from good Catholics, the
magistrates of cities and substantial burghers, who saw the prosperity
of the land withering under the deadly grasp of the Holy Office, and who
felt that no man was safe whose wealth might arouse cupidity or whose
independence might provoke revenge. The introduction of the use of
torture impressed the popular imagination with special horror, and it
was widely believed that confessions were habitually extorted by
insufferable torment from rich men whose faith was unblemished. The
cruel provisions which brought confiscation on the descendants of
heretics, moreover, were peculiarly hard to endure, for ruin impended
over every one against whom the inquisitor might see fit to produce from
his records evidence of ancestral heresy. It was against these records
that the next attempt was directed. Foiled in their appeal to the
throne, the consuls of Carcassonne and some of its prominent
ecclesiastics, in 1283 or 1284, formed a conspiracy to destroy the books
of the Inquisition containing the confessions and depositions. How far
this was organized it would be difficult now to say. The statements of
the witnesses conflict so hopelessly on material points, even as to
dates, that there is little dependence to be placed on them. They were
evidently extracted under torture, and if they are credible the consuls
of the city and the archdeacon, Sanche Morlana, the episcopal Ordinary,
Guillem Brunet, other episcopal officials and many of the secular clergy
were not only implicated in the plot, but were heretics in full
affiliation with the Cathari. Whether true or false they show that there
was the sharpest antagonism between the Inquisition and the local
Church. The whole has an air of unreality which renders one doubtful
about accepting any portion, but there must have been some foundation
for the story. According to the evidence Bernard Garric, who had been a
perfected heretic and a _filius major_, but had been converted and was
now a familiar of the Inquisition, was selected as the instrument. He
was approached, and after some bargaining he agreed to deliver the
books for two hundred livres Tournois, for the payment of which the
consuls went security. How the attempt failed and how it was discovered
does not appear, but probably Bernard at the first overtures confided
the plot to his superiors and led on the conspirators to their ruin.[64]
The whole community was now at the mercy of the Inquisition, and it was
not disposed to be lenient in its triumph. While the trials were yet
going on, the citizens made a fresh appeal to Pierre Chalus, the royal
chancellor, who was passing through Toulouse on a mission from the court
of Paris to that of Aragon. This was easily disposed of, for on
September 13, 1285, the inquisitors triumphantly brought before him
Bernard Garric to repeat the confession made a week previous. He had
thoroughly learned his lesson, and the only conclusion which the royal
representative could reach was that Carcassonne was a hopeless nest of
heretics, deserving the severest measures of repression. As a last
resort recourse was had to Honorius IV., but the only result was a brief
from him to the inquisitors expressing his grief that the people of
Carcassonne should be impeding the Inquisition with all their strength,
and ordering the punishment of the recalcitrants irrespective of their
station, order, or condition, an expression which shows that the
opposition had not arisen from heretics.[65]
In reply to these complaints the inquisitors could urge with some truth
that heresy, though hidden, was still busy. Although heretic seigneurs
and nobles had been by this time well-nigh destroyed and their lands had
passed to others, there was still infection among the bourgeoisie of the
cities and the peasantry. It is one of the noteworthy features of
Catharism, moreover, that at no time during its existence were lacking
earnest and devoted ministers, who took their lives in their hands and
wandered around in secret among the faithful, administering spiritual
comfort and instruction, making converts where they could, exhorting the
young and hereticating the old. In toil and hardship and peril they
pursued their work, gliding by night from one place of concealment to
another, and their self-devotion was rivalled by that of their
disciples. Few more touching narratives can be conceived than those
which could be constructed from the artless confessions extorted from
the peasant-folk who fell into the hands of the inquisitors--the humble
alms which they gave, pieces of bread, fish, scraps of cloth, or small
coins, the hiding-places which they constructed in their cabins, the
guidance given by night through places of danger, and, more than all,
the steadfast fidelity which refused to betray their pastors when the
inquisitor suddenly appeared and offered the alternative of free pardon
or the dungeon and confiscation. The self-devotion of the minister was
well matched with the quiet heroism of the believer. To this fidelity
and the complete network of secret organization which extended over the
land may be attributed the marvellously long exemption which many of
these ministers enjoyed in their proselyting missions. Two of the most
prominent of them at this period, Raymond Delboc and Raymond Godayl, or
Didier, had already, in 1276, been condemned by the Inquisition of
Carcassonne as perfected heretics and fugitives, but they kept at their
work until the explosion of 1300, incessantly active, with the
inquisitors always in pursuit but unable to overtake them. Guillem Pagès
is another whose name constantly recurs in the confessions of
heretications during an almost equally long period. The inquisitors
might well urge that their utmost efforts were needed, but their methods
were such that even the best intentions would not have saved the
innocent from suffering with the guilty.[66]
The secretly guilty were quite sufficiently influential, and the
innocent sufficiently apprehensive, to keep up the agitation which had
been commenced, and at last it began to bear fruit. A new inquisitor of
Carcassonne, Nicholas d'Abbeville, was quite as cruel and arbitrary as
his predecessors, and when the people prepared an appeal to the king he
promptly threw into jail the notary who drew up the paper. In their
desperation they disregarded this warning; a deputation was sent to the
court, and this time they were listened to. May 13, 1291, Philippe
addressed a letter to his Seneschal of Carcassonne reciting the injuries
inflicted by the Inquisition on the innocent through the newly-invented
system of torture, by means of which the living and the dead were
fraudulently convicted and the whole land scandalized and rendered
desolate. The royal officials were therefore ordered no longer to obey
the commands of the inquisitors in making arrests, unless the accused be
a confessed heretic or persons worthy of faith vouch for his being
publicly defamed for heresy. A month later he reiterated these orders
even more precisely, and announced his intention of sending deputies to
Languedoc armed with full authority to make permanent provision in the
matter. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of these
manifestoes as marking a new era in the relations between the temporal
and spiritual authorities. For far less than this all the chivalry and
scum of Europe had been promised salvation if they would drive Raymond
of Toulouse from his inheritance.[67]
It was probably to break in some degree the force of this unheard-of
interference with inquisitorial supremacy that in September, 1292,
Guillem de Saint-Seine, Inquisitor of Carcassonne, ordered all the
parish priests in his district for three weeks on Sundays and
feast-days to denounce as excommunicate all who should impede the
business of the Inquisition and all notaries who should wickedly draw up
revocations of confessions for heretics. This could not effect much, nor
was anything accomplished by a Parlement held April 14, 1293, at
Montpellier, by the royal chamberlain, Alphonse de Ronceyrac, of all the
royal officials and inquisitors of Toulouse and Carcassonne to reform
the abuses of all jurisdictions.[68]
Shortly after this, in September, 1293, Philippe went a step further and
threw his ægis over the unfortunate Jew. Although Jews as a class were
not liable to persecution by the Inquisition, still, if after being once
converted they reverted to Judaism, or if they proselyted among
Christians to obtain converts, or if they were themselves converts from
Christianity, they were heretics in the eyes of the Church, they fell
under inquisitorial jurisdiction, and were liable to be abandoned to the
secular arm. All these classes were a source of endless trouble to the
Church, especially the "neophytes" or converted Jews, for feigned
conversions were frequent, either for worldly advantage or to escape the
incessant persecution visited upon the unlucky children of Israel.[69]
The bull _Turbato corde_, ordering the inquisitors to be active and
vigilant in prosecuting all who were guilty of these offences, issued in
1268 by Clement IV., was reissued by successive popes with a pertinacity
showing the importance attached to it, and when we see Frère Bertrand de
la Roche, in 1274, officially described as inquisitor in Provence
against heretics and wicked Christians who embrace Judaism, and Frère
Guillaume d'Auxerre, in 1285, qualified as "Inquisitor of Heretics and
Apostate Jews in France," it is evident that these cases formed a large
portion of inquisitorial business. As the Jews were peculiarly
defenceless, this jurisdiction gave wide opportunity for abuse and
extortion which was doubtless turned fully to account. Philippe owed
them protection, for in 1291 he had deprived them of their own judges
and ordered them to plead in the royal courts, and now he proceeded to
protect them in the most emphatic manner. To Simon Brisetête, Seneschal
of Carcassonne, he sent a copy of the bull _Turbato corde_, with
instructions that while this was to be implicitly obeyed, no Jew was to
be arrested for any cause not specified therein, and, if there was any
doubt, the matter was to be referred to the royal council. He further
enclosed an Ordonnance directing that no Jew in France was to be
arrested on the requisition of any person or friar of any Order, no
matter what his office might be, without notifying the seneschal or
bailli, who was to decide whether the case was sufficiently clear to be
acted upon without reference to the royal council. Simon Brisetête
thereupon ordered all officials to defend the Jews, not to allow any
exactions to be imposed on them whereby their ability to pay their taxes
might be impaired, and not to arrest them at the mandate of any one
without informing him of the cause. It would not have been easy to limit
more skilfully the inquisitorial power to oppress a despised class.[70]
Philippe had thus intervened in the most decided manner, and the
oppressed populations of Languedoc might reasonably hope for permanent
relief, but his subsequent policy belied their hopes. It vacillated in a
manner which is only partially explicable by the shifting political
exigencies of the times so far as we can penetrate them. In this same
year, 1293, the Seneschal of Carcassonne is found instructing Aimeric,
the Viscount of Narbonne, to execute royal letters ordering aid to be
rendered to the inquisitors there. This may have been a mere local
matter, and Philippe, for a while at least, adhered to his position.
Towards the end of 1295 there was issued an Ordonnance of the royal
court, applicable to the whole kingdom, forbidding the arrest of any one
on the demand of a friar of any Order, no matter what his position might
be, unless the seneschal or bailli of the jurisdiction was satisfied
that the arrest should be made, and the person asking it showed a
commission from the pope. This was sent to all the royal officials with
strict injunctions to obey it, although, if the accused were likely to
fly, he might be detained, but not surrendered until the decision of the
court could be had. Moreover, if any persons were then in durance
contrary to the provisions of the Ordonnance, they were to be set at
liberty. Even this did not effect its object sufficiently, and a few
months later, in 1296, Philippe complained to his Seneschal of
Carcassonne of the numbers who were arrested by the royal officers, and
confined in the royal prisons on insufficient grounds, causing scandal
and the heavy infliction of infamy on the innocent. To prevent this
arrests were forbidden except in cases of such violent presumption of
heresy that they could not be postponed, and the officials were
instructed, when called upon by the inquisitors, to make such excuses as
they could. These orders were obeyed, for when, about this time,
Foulques de Saint-Georges, Vice-inquisitor of Carcassonne, ordered the
arrest of sundry suspects by Adam de Marolles, the deputy seneschal, the
latter referred the matter to his principal, Henri de Elisia, who, after
consultation with Robert d'Artois, lieutenant of the king in Languedoc
and Gascony, refused the demand.[71]
No previous sovereign had ventured thus to trammel the Inquisition.
These regulations, in fact, rendered it virtually powerless, for it had
no organization of its own; even its prisons were the king's and might
be withdrawn at any time, and it depended wholly upon the secular arm
for physical force. In some places, as at Albi, it might rely upon
episcopal assistance, but elsewhere it could do nothing of itself.
Philippe had, moreover, been careful not to excite the ill-will of his
bishops, for his Ordonnances and instructions alluded simply to the
friars, thus excluding the Inquisition from royal aid without
specifically naming it. His quarrel with Boniface VIII. was now
beginning. Between January, 1296, and February, 1297, appeared the
celebrated bulls _Clericis laicos_, _Ineffabilis amoris_, _Excitat nos_,
and _Exiit a te_, whose arrogant encroachments on the secular power
aroused him to resistance, and this doubtless gave a sharper zest to his
desire to diminish in his dominions the authority of so purely papal an
institution as the Inquisition. So shrewd a prince could readily see its
effectiveness as an instrument of papal aggression, for the Church could
make what definition it pleased of heresy; and Boniface did not hesitate
to give him fair warning, when, in October, 1297, he ordered the
Inquisitor of Carcassonne to proceed against certain officials of
Béziers who had rendered themselves in the papal eyes suspect of heresy
because they remained under excommunication, incurred for imposing taxes
on the clergy, boasting that food had not lost its savor to them nor
sleep its sweetness, and who, moreover, dared with polluted lips to
revile the Holy See itself. Under such an extension of jurisdiction
Philippe himself might not be safe, and it is no wonder that tentative
efforts made in 1296 and 1297 to find some method of reconciling the
recent royal Ordonnances with the time-honored absolutism of the
Inquisition proved failures.[72]
Meanwhile, the exigencies of Italian politics caused Boniface suddenly
to retrace his steps. His quarrel with the Cardinals Giacomo and Pietro
Colonna rendered it advisable to propitiate Philippe. In May, 1297, he
assented to a tithe conceded to the king by his bishops, and in the bull
_Noveritis_ (July, 1297) he exempted France from the operation of the
_Clericis laicos_, while in _Licet per speciales_ (July, 1298) he
withdrew his arrogant pretension imperatively to prolong the armistice
between France and England. A truce was thus patched up with Philippe,
who hastened to manifest his good-will to the Holy See by abandoning his
subjects again to the inquisitors. In the Liber Sextus of the Decretals,
published by Boniface March 3, 1298, the pope included, with customary
imperiousness, a canon commanding the absolute obedience of all secular
officials to the orders of inquisitors under penalty of excommunication,
which if endured for a year carried with it condemnation for heresy.
This was his answer to the French monarch's insubordinate legislation,
and Philippe at the moment was not inclined to contest the matter. In
September he meekly enclosed the canon to his officials with
instructions to obey it in every point, arresting and imprisoning all
whom inquisitors or bishops might designate, and punishing all whom they
might condemn. A letter of Frère Arnaud Jean, Inquisitor of Pamiers,
dated March 2, of the same year, assuring the Jews that they need dread
no novel measures of severity, would seem to indicate that the royal
protection had been previously withdrawn from them. The good
understanding between king and pope lasted until 1300, when the quarrel
broke out afresh with greater acrimony than ever. In December of that
year the provisions of _Clericis laicos_ were renewed by the bull _Nuper
ex rationalibus_, followed by the short one, of which the authenticity
is disputed, _Scire te volumus_, asserting Philippe's subjection in
temporal affairs and calling forth his celebrated rejoinder, _Sciat tua
maxima fatuitas_. The strife continued with increasing violence till the
seizure of Boniface at Anagni, September 8, 1303, and his death in the
following month.[73]
Under this varying policy the fate of the people of Languedoc was hard.
Nicholas d'Abbeville, the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, was a man of
inflexible severity, arrogantly bent on pushing his prerogatives to the
utmost. He had an assistant worthy of him in Foulques de Saint-Georges,
the Prior of the Convent of Albi, which was under his jurisdiction. He
had virtually another assistant in the bishop, Bernard de Castanet, who
delighted to act as inquisitor, impelled alike by fanaticism and by
greed, for, as we have seen, the bishops of Albi, by a special
transaction with St. Louis, enjoyed a half of the confiscations. Prior
to his elevation in 1276 Bernard had been auditor of the papal camera,
which shows him to have been an accomplished legist, and he was also a
patron of art and literature, but he was ever in trouble with his
people. Already, in 1277, he had succeeded in so exasperating them that
his palace was swept by a howling mob, and he barely escaped with his
life. In 1282 he commenced the erection of the cathedral of St. Cecilia,
a gigantic building, half church, half fortress, which swallowed
enormous sums, and stimulated his hatred of heresy by supplying a pious
use for the estates of heretics.[74]
To such men the protection granted to his subjects by Philippe was most
distasteful, and not without reason. Heretics naturally took advantage
of the restrictions imposed on the Inquisition and redoubled their
activity. It might seem, indeed, to them that the day of supremacy of
the Church was past, and that the rising independence of the secular
power might usher in an era of comparative toleration, in which their
persecuted religion would at length find its oft-deferred opportunity of
converting mankind--a dream in which they indulged to the last. More
demonstrative, if not more earnest, was the feeling which the royal
policy aroused in Carcassonne. The Ordonnances had not only crippled the
Inquisition, but had shown the disfavor with which it was regarded by
the king, and in 1295 some of the leading citizens, who had been
compromised in the trials of 1285, found no difficulty in arousing the
people to open resistance. For a while they controlled the city, and
inflicted no little injury on the Dominicans, and on all who ventured to
support them. Nicholas d'Abbeville was driven from the pulpit when
preaching, pelted with stones and pursued with drawn swords, and the
judges of the royal court on one occasion were glad to escape with their
lives, while the friars were beaten and insulted when they appeared in
public and were practically segregated as excommunicates. Bernard Gui,
an eye-witness, naturally attributes this to the influence of heresy,
but it is impossible for us now to conjecture how much may have been due
to religious antagonism, and how much to the natural reaction among the
orthodox against the intolerable oppression of the inquisitorial
methods.[75]
For some years the Inquisition of Carcassonne was suspended. As soon as
secular support was withdrawn public opinion was too strong, and it
succumbed. This lasted until the truce between king and pope again
placed the royal power at the disposal of the inquisitors. In their
despair the citizens then sent envoys to Boniface VIII., with Aimeric
Castel at their head, supported by a number of Franciscans. Boniface
listened to their complaints and proposed to depute the Bishop of
Vicenza as commissioner to examine and report, but the papal
referendary, afterwards Cardinal of S. Sabina, required a bribe of ten
thousand florins as a preliminary. It was promised him, but Aimeric,
having secured the good offices of Pierre Flotte and the Duke of
Burgundy, thought he could obtain his purpose for less, and refused to
pay it. When Boniface heard of the refusal he angrily exclaimed, "We
know in whom they trust, but by God all the kings in Christendom shall
not save the people of Carcassonne from being burned, and specially the
father of that Aimeric Castel!" The negotiation fell through, and
Nicholas d'Abbeville had his triumph. A large portion of the citizens
were wearied with the disturbances, and were impatient under the
excommunication which rested on the community. The prosperity of the
town was declining, and there were not wanting those who predicted its
ruin. The hopelessness of further resistance was apparent, and matters
being thus ripe for a settlement, a solemn assembly was held, April 27,
1299, when the civic magistrates met the inquisitor in the presence of
the Bishops of Albi and Béziers, Bertrand de Clermont, Inquisitor of
Toulouse, the royal officials, sundry abbots and other notables.
Nicholas dictated his own terms for the absolution asked at his hands,
nor were they seemingly harsh. Those who were manifest heretics, or
specially defamed, or convicted by legal proof must take their chance.
The rest were to be penanced as the bishops and the Abbot of Fontfroide
might advise, excluding confiscation and personal or humiliating
penalties. All this was reasonable enough from an ecclesiastical point
of view, but so deep-seated was the distrust, or so strong the heretical
influence, that the people asked twenty-four hours for consideration,
and on reassembling the next day refused the terms. Six months passed,
their helplessness and isolation each day becoming more apparent, until,
October 8, they reassembled, and the consuls asked for absolution in the
name of the community. Nicholas was not severe. The penance imposed on
the town was the building of a chapel in honor of St. Louis, which was
accomplished in the year 1300 at the cost of ninety livres Tournois. The
consuls, in the name of the community, secretly abjured heresy. Twelve
of the most guilty citizens were reserved for special penances, viz.,
four of the old consuls, four councillors, two advocates, and two
notaries. Of these the fate was doubtless deplorable. Chance has
preserved to us the sentence passed on one of the authors of the
troubles, Guillem Garric, by which we find that he rotted in the
horrible dungeon of Carcassonne for twenty-two years before he was
brought forward for judgment in 1321, when in consideration of his long
confinement he was given the choice between the crusade and exile, and
the crushed old man fell on his knees and gave thanks to Jesus Christ
and to the inquisitors for the mercy vouchsafed him. Some years later
intense excitement was created when Frère Bernard Délicieux obtained
sight of the agreement, and discovered that the consuls had been
represented in it as confessing that the whole community had given aid
to manifest heretics, that they had abjured in the name of all, and thus
that all citizens were incapacitated for office and were exposed to the
penalties of relapse in case of further trouble. This excited the people
to such a point that the inquisitor, Geoffroi d'Ablis, was obliged to
issue a solemn declaration, August 10, 1303, disclaiming any intention
of thus taking advantage of the settlement; and notwithstanding this,
when King Philippe came to Carcassonne in 1305 the agreement was
pronounced fraudulent, the seneschal Gui Caprier was dismissed for
having affixed his seal to it, and confessed that he had been bribed to
do so by Nicholas d'Abbeville with a thousand livres Tournois.[76]
Encouraged by the crippling and suspension of the Inquisition, the
Catharan propaganda had been at work with renewed vigor. In 1299 the
Council of Béziers sounded the alarm by announcing that perfected
heretics had made their appearance in the land, and ordering close
search made after them. At Albi, Bishop Bernard was, as usual, at
variance with his flock, who were pleading against him in the royal
court to preserve their jurisdiction. The occasion was opportune. He
called to his assistance the inquisitors Nicholas d'Abbeville and
Bertrand de Clermont, and towards the close of the year 1299 the town
was startled by the arrest of twenty-five of the wealthiest and most
respected citizens, whose regular attendance at mass and observance of
all religious duties had rendered them above suspicion. The trials were
pushed with unusual celerity, and, from the manner in which those who at
first denied were speedily brought to confession and to revealing the
names of their associates, there was doubtless good ground for the
popular belief that torture was ruthlessly and unsparingly used; in
fact, allusions to it in the final sentence of Guillem Calverie, one of
the victims, leave no doubt on the subject. Abjuration saved them from
the stake, but the sentence of perpetual imprisonment in chains was a
doubtful mercy for those who were sentenced, while a number were kept
interminably in jail awaiting judgment.[77]
The whole country was ripe for revolt. The revival of Philippe's quarrel
with Boniface soon gave assurance that help might be expected from the
throne; but if this should fail there would be scant hesitation on the
part of desperate men in looking for some other sovereign who would lend
an ear to their complaints. The arrest and trial for treason of the
Bishop of Pamiers, in 1301, shows us what was then the undercurrent of
popular feeling in Languedoc, where the Frenchman was still a hated
stranger, the king a foreign despot, and the people discontented and
ready to shift their allegiance to either England or Aragon whenever
they could see their advantage in it. The fragile tenure with which the
land was still held by the Kings of Paris must be kept in view if we
would understand Philippe's shifting policy.[78]
The prosecutions of Albi caused general terror, for the victims were
universally thought to be good Catholics, selected for spoliation on
account of their wealth. The conviction was widespread that such
inquisitors as Jean de Faugoux, Guillem de Mulceone, Jean de
Saint-Seine, Jean Galande, Nicholas d'Abbeville, and Foulques de
Saint-Georges had long had no scruple in obtaining, by threats and
torture, such testimony as they might desire against any one whom they
might wish to ruin, and that their records were falsified, and filled
with fictitious entries for that purpose. Some years before, Frère Jean
Martin, a Dominican, had invoked the interposition of Pierre de
Montbrun, Archbishop of Narbonne (died 1286), to put a stop to this
iniquity. Some investigation was made, and the truth of the charges was
established. The dead were found to be the special prey of these
vultures, who had prepared their frauds in advance. Even the fierce
orthodoxy of the Maréchaux de la Foi could not save Gui de Levis of
Mirepoix from this posthumous attack; and, when Gautier de Montbrun,
Bishop of Carcassonne, died, they produced from their records proof that
he had adored heretics and had been hereticated on his death-bed. In
this latter case, fortunately, the archbishop happened to know that one
of the witnesses, Jourdain Ferrolh, had been absent at the time when, by
his alleged testimony, he had seen the act of adoration. Frère Jean
Martin urged the archbishop to destroy all the records and cause the
Dominicans to be deprived of their functions, and the prelate made some
attempt at Rome to effect this, contenting himself meanwhile with
issuing some regulations and sequestrating some of the books. It was
probably during this flurry that the Inquisitors of Carcassonne and
Toulouse, Nicholas d'Abbeville and Pierre de Mulceone, hearing that they
were likely to be convicted of fraud, retired with their records to the
safe retreat of Prouille and busied themselves in making a transcript,
with the compromising entries omitted, which they ingeniously bound in
the covers stripped from the old volumes.[79]
About this time occurred a case which confirms the popular belief in
inquisitorial iniquity, and which had results of vastly greater
importance than its promoters anticipated. When the disappointed
Boniface VIII. swore that he would cause the burning of Aimeric Castel's
father, he uttered no idle threat. Nicholas d'Abbeville, a fitting
instrument, was at hand, and to him he privately gave the necessary
verbal instructions. Castel Fabri, the father, had been a citizen of
Carcassonne distinguished for piety and benevolence no less than for
wealth. A friend of the Franciscan Order, after duly receiving the
sacraments, he had died, in 1278, in the hands of its friars, six of
whom kept watch in the sick-room until his death, and he had been buried
in the Franciscan cemetery. We have seen in the case of the Count of
Foix how easily all these precautions could be brushed aside, and
Nicholas found no difficulty in discovering or making the evidence he
required.[80] Suddenly, in 1300, the people of Carcassonne were startled
by a notice, read in all the parish churches, summoning those wishing to
defend the memory of Castel Fabri to appear before the Inquisition on a
day named, as the deceased was proved to have been hereticated on his
death-bed. The moment was well chosen, as Aimeric Castel, the son, was
absent. The Franciscans, for whom the accused had doubtless provided
liberally in his will, felt themselves called upon to assume his
defence. Hastily consulting, they determined to send their lector,
Bernard de Liegossi, or Délicieux, to the General Chapter then
assembling at Marseilles, for instructions, as, in the chronic
antagonism between the Mendicants, the matter seemed to be regarded as
an assault on the Order. The wife of Aimeric Castel provided for the
expenses of the journey, and Bernard returned with instructions from the
provincial to defend the memory of the deceased, while Eléazar de
Clermont, the syndic of the convent, was deputed by the Guardian of
Narbonne to co-operate with him. Meanwhile Nicholas had proceeded to
condemnation, and when, July 4, 1300, Bernard and Eléazar presented
themselves to offer the testimony of the friars who had watched the
dying man, Nicholas received them standing, refused to listen to them,
and on their urging their evidence left the room in the most
contemptuous manner. In the afternoon they returned to ask for a
certificate of their offer and its refusal, but found the door of the
Inquisition closed, and could not effect an entrance.
The next step was to take an appeal to the Holy See and ask for
"Apostoli," but this was no easy matter. So general was the terror
inspired by Nicholas that the doctor of decretals, Jean de Penne, to
whom they applied to draw the paper, refused unless his name should be
kept inviolably secret, and nineteen years afterwards Bernard when on
trial refused to reveal it until compelled to do so. To obtain a notary
to authenticate the appeal was still harder. All those in Carcassonne
absolutely refused, and it was found necessary to bring one from a
distance, so that it was not until July 16 that the document was ready
for service. How seriously, indeed, all parties regarded what should
have been a very simple business is shown by the winding-up of the
appeal, which places, until the case is decided, not only the body of
Castel Fabri, but the appellants and the whole Franciscan convent, under
the protection of the Holy See. When they went to serve the instrument
on Nicholas the doors, as before, were found closed and entrance could
not be effected. It was therefore read in the street and left tacked on
the door, to be taken down and treasured and brought forward in evidence
against Bernard in 1319. We have no further records of the case, but
that the appeal was ineffectual is visible in the fact that in 1322-3
the accounts of Arnaud Assalit show that the royal treasury was still
receiving an income from the confiscated estates of Castel Fabri; while
in 1329 the still unsatisfied vengeance of the Inquisition ordered the
bones of his wife Rixende to be exhumed.[81]
The case of Castel Fabri might have passed unnoticed, like thousands of
others, had it not chanced to bring into collision with the Inquisition
the lector of the convent of Carcassonne. Bernard Délicieux was no
ordinary man, in fact a contemporary assures us that in the whole
Franciscan Order there were few who were his equals. Entering the Order
about 1284, his position of lector or teacher shows the esteem felt for
his learning, for the Mendicants were ever careful in selecting those to
whom they confided such functions; and, moreover, we find him in
relations with the leading minds of the age, such as Raymond Lully and
Arnaldo de Vilanova. His eloquence made him much in request as preacher;
his persuasiveness enabled him to control those with whom he came in
contact, while his enthusiastic ardor prompted him to make any
sacrifices necessary to a cause which had once enlisted his sympathies.
He was no latitudinarian or time-server, for when the split came in his
own Order he embraced, to his ruin, the side of the Spiritual
Franciscans, with the same disregard of self as he had manifested in his
dealings with the Inquisition. He was no admirer of toleration, for he
devoutly wished the extermination of heresy, but experience and
observation had convinced him that in Dominican hands the Inquisition
was merely an instrument of oppression and extortion, and he imagined
that by transferring it to the Franciscans its usefulness would be
preserved while its evils would be removed. Boniface VIII., as we have
seen, about this time replaced the Franciscan inquisitors of Padua and
Vicenza with Dominicans for the purpose of repressing similar evils, and
in the jealousy and antagonism between the two orders the converse
operation might seem worth attempting in Languedoc. In the hope of
alleviating the sufferings of the people, Bernard devoted himself to the
cause for years, incurring obloquy, persecution, and ingratitude. Those
whom he sought to serve allowed him to sell his books in their service,
and to cripple himself with debt, while the enmities which he excited
hounded him relentlessly to the death. Yet in the struggle he had the
sympathies of his own Order which everywhere throughout Languedoc
manifested itself the enemy of the Dominican Inquisition. Already, in
1291, Franciscans in Carcassonne had endeavored to intervene in cases of
heresy, and had been sharply reproved by Philippe le Bel at the instance
of the Inquisitor Guillaume de Saint-Seine. In 1298 they had supported
the appeal of the men of Carcassonne to Boniface VIII., and throughout
the whole of Bernard's agitation the Franciscan convents are seen to be
rallying-points of the opposition. It is there that Bernard preaches his
fiery sermons; it is there that meetings are held to plan resistance.
During the troubles in Carcassonne Foulques de Saint-Georges went with
twenty-five men to the Franciscan convent to cite the opponents of the
Inquisition. The friars would not admit them, but tolled the bell and an
angry crowd assembled, while those inside the convent assailed them with
stones and quarrels, and they were glad to escape with their lives.[82]
Vainly the inquisitors complained to the Franciscan prelates of Bernard
as an impeder of the Holy Office. The form of a trial would be gone
through, and the offender would be furnished with letters attesting his
innocence. The Dominicans asserted that Franciscan zeal was solely
caused by jealousy; the Franciscans retorted that their friends were the
special objects of inquisitorial persecution. King Philippe's confessor
was a Dominican, Queen Joanna's a Franciscan, and the two courtly friars
took part, for and against the Inquisition, with a zeal which rendered
them important factors in the struggle. The undying hostility between
the two Orders always led them to opposite sides in every question of
dogma or practice, and this was one which afforded the amplest scope to
bitterness.[83]
The _coup-de-main_ executed on the so-called heretics of Albi, in
December, 1299, and the early months of 1300, had excited consternation
too general for the matter to be passed over. King Philippe's quarrel
with Boniface was breaking out afresh, and he might not be averse to
making his subjects feel that they had a protector in the throne. With
the advice of his council an investigation was ordered, and confided to
the Bishops of Béziers and Maguelonne, but the inquisitors arrogantly
and persistently refused to allow the secrets of their office to be
invaded. This was not calculated to remove popular disquiet, and in 1301
Philippe sent to Languedoc two officials armed with supreme powers,
under the name of Reformers. As the royal authority extended and
established itself, special deputies for the investigation and
correction of abuses were frequently despatched to the provinces. In the
present case those who came to Languedoc perhaps had for their chief
business the arrest of the Bishop of Pamiers, accused of treasonable
practices, but the colorable pretext for their mission was the
correction of inquisitorial abuses. One of them, Jean de Pequigny,
Vidame of Amiens, was a man of high character for probity and sagacity;
the other was Richard Nepveu, Archdeacon of Lisieux, of whom we hear
little in the following years, except that he quietly slipped into the
vacant episcopate of Béziers. He must have done his duty to some extent,
however, for Bernard Gui tells us that he died in 1309 of leprosy, as a
judgment of God for his hostility to the Inquisition.[84]
The Reformers established themselves at Toulouse, where Foulques de
Saint-Georges had been inquisitor since Michaelmas, 1300, and speedily
gathered much damaging testimony against him, for he was accused not
only of unduly torturing persons for purposes of extortion, but of
gratifying his lusts by arresting women whose virtue he failed otherwise
to overcome. Thither flocked representatives of Albi, with the wives and
children of the prisoners, beseeching and imploring the representatives
of the king for justice, and promising revelations if they would issue
letters of safety to those who would give information--for the terror
inspired by the Inquisition was such that no one dared to testify
concerning it unless he was assured of protection against its vengeance.
The Bishop of Albi came also to justify himself, and on his return to
his episcopal seat he was welcomed with a manifestation of the feeling
entertained for him by his flock, whom the coming of the Reformers
encouraged in the expression or their sentiments. When his approach was
announced a crowd of men and women rushed forth from the gates to meet
him with shouts of "Death, death, death to the traitor!" It may
perhaps be doubted whether, as reported, he bore the threats and insults
with patience akin to that of Christ, ordering his followers to keep
their weapons down; certain it is that he was roughly handled, and had
difficulty in safely reaching his palace. A conspiracy was formed to
burn the palace, in order, during the confusion, to liberate the
prisoners, but the hearts of the conspirators failed them and the
project was abandoned. Even more menacing was the action of a number of
the chief citizens, who bound themselves by a notarial instrument to
prosecute him and Nicholas d'Abbeville in the king's court. As a
consequence, the bishop's temporalities were sequestrated, and
eventually the enormous fine of twenty thousand livres stripped him of a
portion of his ill-gotten gains for the benefit of the king, who was
bitterly reproached by Bernard Délicieux for thus preferring money to
justice. Bernard de Castanet retained his uneasy seat until 1308, when,
seeing under Clement V. no prospect of better times, he procured a
transfer to the quieter see of Puy. One of the earliest signs of the
revulsion under John XXII. was his advancement, in December, 1316, to
the Cardinalate of Porto, which he held for only eight months, his death
occurring in August, 1317.[85]
The Reformers, meanwhile, had sent for Bernard Délicieux, who was then
quietly performing his duties as lector in the convent of Narbonne. He
must already have made himself conspicuous in the affair of Castel
Fabri, and was evidently regarded as a desirable ally in the impending
struggle. According to his own story he advised Pequigny to let the
Inquisition alone, as experience had shown that effort was useless; but
on being called again to Toulouse on some business connected with the
Priory of la Daurade, and having to visit Paris in connection with the
will of Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, it was arranged, at Pequigny's
suggestion, that he should accompany a deputation which the citizens of
Albi were sending to the king to invoke his active intervention. The
court was at Senlis, whither they repaired, and there came also Pequigny
to justify himself, and Frère Foulques with several Dominicans, eager to
establish the innocence of the Inquisition.[86]
The battle was fought out before the king. Bernard urged the suspension
of the inquisitors during an investigation, or that the Dominicans
should be permanently declared ineligible while awaiting final action by
the Holy See. Supported by Frère Guillaume, the king's Dominican
confessor, Foulques preferred charges against Pequigny, but could
furnish no proofs. Pequigny retorted with accusations against Foulques,
and a commission, consisting of the Archbishop of Narbonne and the
Constable of France, was appointed to hear both sides. After due
deliberation, it reported in favor of Pequigny, and the king took the
unheard-of step of removing the inquisitor. He at first requested this
of the Dominican Provincial of Paris, who possessed the power to do so,
but that official called together a chapter, which contented itself with
appointing an adjunct, and ordering Foulques to retain office till the
middle of the following Lent, in order to complete the trials which he
had already commenced. This gave Philippe great offence, which he
expressed in the most outspoken terms in letters to his chaplain and to
the Bishop of Toulouse, whom he bitterly reproached for advising
acceptance of the terms. He did not content himself with words, for
simultaneously, December 8, 1301, he wrote to the bishop, the Inquisitor
of Toulouse, and the seneschals of Toulouse and Albi, stating that the
imploring cries of his subjects, including prelates and ecclesiastics,
counts, barons, and other distinguished men, convinced him that Foulques
was guilty of the charges preferred against him, including crimes
abhorrent to the human mind. He afflicted the people with numerous
exactions and oppressions; he was accustomed to commence proceedings
with torture inconceivable and incredible, and thus compel confession
from those whom he suspected, and when this failed he suborned witnesses
to testify falsely. His detestable excesses had created such general
terror that a rising of the people was to be apprehended unless some
speedy remedy was had. Some further unavailing opposition was made to
Foulques's removal, but not much was gained by the appointment of his
successor, Guillaume de Morières, who had previously succeeded him in
the Priory of Albi. Foulques was gratified with the important Priory of
Avignon, and when he subsequently died in poverty at Lyons he was
regarded by his Order almost in the light of a martyr.[87]
Philippe had not contented himself with getting rid of Foulques, but had
endeavored to introduce reforms which are interesting not only as a
manifestation of the royal supremacy which he assumed, but also as the
model of all subsequent endeavors to curb the abuses of the Inquisition.
It was natural that this should take the shape of reviving the episcopal
power which had become so completely suppressed. Firstly, the prison
which the crown had built on its own land in Toulouse for the use of the
Inquisition was to be placed under the charge of some one selected by
both bishop and inquisitor, and in case of their disagreement by the
royal seneschal. The inquisitor was deprived of the power of arbitrary
arrest. He was obliged to consult the bishop, and when they could not
agree the question was to be decided by a majority vote in an assemblage
consisting of certain officials of the cathedral and of the Franciscan
and Dominican convents. Arrests were only to be made by the seneschal,
after these preliminaries had been observed, except in case of foreign
heretics who might escape. The question of bail was to be settled in the
same way as that of arrest. In no case was either bishop or inquisitor
entitled to obedience when acting individually, for, as the king
declared, "We cannot endure that the life and death of our subjects
shall be abandoned to the discretion of a single individual, who, even
if not actuated by cupidity, may be insufficiently informed."
Inadequate as these reforms eventually proved, they had an excellent
temporary effect. For a time the Inquisition was paralyzed, and arrests
which had been taking place every week were suddenly brought to an end,
for during 1302 these provisions were embodied in a general Ordonnance,
and the legislation of 1293 protecting the Jews was repeated. At the
same time Philippe was careful to manifest due solicitude for the
suppression of heresy, for he published anew the severe edict of St.
Louis; and on the appointment of Guillaume de Morières to the
Inquisition of Toulouse he wrote to the seneschal instructing him to
place the royal prisons at the inquisitor's disposal, to pay him the
customary stipend, and to aid him in every way until further orders.[88]
While the new regulations may have promised relief elsewhere, they gave
little comfort at Albi, the inquisitorial proceedings of whose bishop
had given rise to the whole disturbance. Its citizens were still
languishing in the prison of the Inquisition of Carcassonne, and a
numerous deputation of both sexes was sent to the king, accompanied by
two Franciscans, Jean Hector and Bertrand de Villedelle. Again Bernard
Délicieux was present, having this time been opportunely chosen to
represent the Order on a summons from Philippe for consultation on the
subject of his quarrel with Pope Boniface. They all followed the king to
Pierrefonds and then to Compiègne. He gave them fair words, promised a
speedy visit to Languedoc, when he would settle matters, and consoled
them with a donation of one thousand livres, which he could well afford
to do, for the confiscated estates of the prisoners were in his hands,
and were never released.[89]
All this, of course, gave little satisfaction; nor were the people
placated by the removal of Nicholas d'Abbeville, for he was succeeded in
the Inquisition of Carcassonne by Geoffroi d'Ablis, who was as
energetic and unsparing as his predecessor, and who brought royal
letters, dated January 1, 1303, ordering all officials to render him the
customary obedience. Popular excitement grew more and more threatening,
and as Albi had no local inquisitors of its own, being within the
jurisdiction of the tribunal of Carcassonne, the discontent vented
itself on the Dominicans, who were regarded as the representatives of
the hated tribunal. On the first Sunday in Advent, December 2, 1302,
when the friars went as usual to preach in the churches they were
violently ejected and assailed with cries of "Death to the traitors!"
and deemed themselves at length fortunate in being able to regain their
convent. This state of things continued for several years, during which
they scarce dared to show themselves in the streets, and were never
secure from insult. All alms and burial-fees were withdrawn, and the
people refused even to attend mass in their church. The names of Dominic
and Peter Martyr were erased from the crucifix at the principal gate of
the town, and were replaced with those of Pequigny and Nepveu, and of
two citizens who were leaders in the disturbances--Arnaud Garsia and
Pierre Probi of Castres.[90]
The prisoners of Albi were still as far as ever from liberation, and
Bernard Délicieux urged Pequigny to come to Carcassonne and consider
their case on the spot. In the summer of 1303 he did so, and was met by
a large number of the people of Albi, men and women, praying him to
liberate them. While he was investigating the subject he came upon the
instrument of pacification between Nicholas d'Abbeville and the consuls
of Carcassonne in 1299. This was communicated to the people by Frère
Bernard in a fiery sermon, and a knowledge of its conditions aroused
them almost to frenzy. Riots ensued in which the houses of some of the
old consuls and of those who were regarded as friends of the Inquisition
were destroyed; the Dominican church was assailed, its windows broken,
the statues in its porch overthrown, and the friars maltreated. To
violate the prisons of the Inquisition was so serious a matter that
Pequigny seems to have wished the backing of an enraged populace before
he would venture on the step: and when he resolved upon it he
anticipated resistance so confidently that with his privity Bernard
assembled fourscore men, with skilled mechanics, in the Franciscan
convent, ready to break open the jails in case of necessity. Their
services were not needed. Geoffroi d'Ablis yielded, and in August, 1303,
Pequigny removed the prisoners of Albi. He did not discharge them,
however, but merely transferred them to the royal prisons, and refused
to carry them to the king as Bernard advised. Possibly their treatment
for a while may have been gentler, but they derived no permanent
advantage from the movement. The grasp of the Inquisition was
unrelaxing. It obtained possession of them again, and we shall see that
it held them to the last.[91]
Meanwhile advantage was taken of the access obtained to them to procure
from them statements of the tortures which they had endured, and lists
were made of the names of those whom they had been forced to accuse as
heretics. These were circulated throughout the land and excited general
alarm, the Franciscans being especially active in giving them publicity.
On the other hand, the inquisitor Geoffroi d'Ablis was equal to the
emergency. He cited Pequigny to appear and stand trial for impeding the
Inquisition, and on his refusal excommunicated him, September 29; and as
soon as word could be carried to Paris he was published as excommunicate
by the Dominicans there. This audacious act brought all parties to a
sense of the nature of the conflict which had sprung up between Church
and State. The consuls and people of Albi addressed to the queen an
earnest petition beseeching her to prevail upon the king not to abandon
them by withdrawing the Reformers, who had already done so much good and
on whom depended their last hope. A fruitless effort also was made to
prevent the publication of the excommunication. At Castres, October 13,
Jean Ricoles, stipendiary priest of the Church of St. Mary, published it
from the pulpit, as he was bound to do, and was promptly arrested by the
deputy of the royal viguier of Albi and carried to the Franciscan
convent, where he was threatened and maltreated, and the friars used
every effort to persuade him to withdraw it. This in itself was a grave
violation of clerical immunity, and it was soon recognized that such
proceedings were worse than useless. Pequigny's authority was paralyzed
until the excommunication should be removed, and this could only be done
by the man who had uttered it, or by the pope himself.[92]
The prospect of relief was darkened by the election, October 21, of
Benedict XI., himself a Dominican and necessarily pre-disposed in favor
of the Inquisition. Special exertions evidently were required unless all
that had been gained was to be lost, and, at the best, litigation in the
Roman court was a costly business. Pequigny had appealed to the pope,
and, October 29, he wrote from Paris to the cities of Languedoc asking
for their aid in the persecution which he had brought upon himself in
their cause. Bernard Délicieux promptly busied himself to obtain the
required assistance. By his exertions the three cities of Carcassonne,
Albi, and Cordes entered into an alliance and pledged themselves to
furnish the sum of three thousand livres, one half by Carcassonne and
the rest by the other two, and to continue in the same proportions as
long as the affair should last. After Pequigny's death they renewed
their obligation to his oldest son Renaud; but as the matter was much
protracted, they grew tired, and Bernard, who had raised some of the
money on his own responsibility, was left with heavy obligations, of
which he vainly sought restitution at the hands of the ungrateful
cities.[93]
The quarrel was thus for a time transferred to Rome. Pequigny went to
Italy with envoys from the king and from Carcassonne and Albi to plead
his cause, and was opposed by Guillaume de Morières, the Inquisitor of
Toulouse, sent thither to manage the case against him. Benedict was not
slow in showing on which side his sympathies lay. At Perugia, whi
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