The Fourth Lateran Ordo of Inquisition Adapted to the Prosecution of Heresy

Chapter 3 The Fourth Lateran Ordo of Inquisition Adapted to the Prosecution of Heresy

Henry Ansgar Kelly

1 Prosecuting Heresy before Inquisition

It used to be common to refer to the whole sweep of Church prosecution of heresy from the Middle Ages through the Early Modern Period as “the Inquisition,” a usage that is yet to be seen in the recent Dizionario storico dell’Inquisizione (Historical Dictionary of the Inquisition).1 There is still a wide- spread assumption that “inquisition” as a form of trial was developed for prosecuting heresy and was synonymous with the fight against heresy. As we will see, this was not so, in the form in which it was introduced and explained at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. It was only later adopted and adapted for the fight against heresy. That of course raises the question of how the ecclesiasti- cal authorities coped with reports or accusations of deviant religious beliefs or practices (whether true or false)2 before inquisition came onto the scene. We have seen some of the methods used in the previous chapters, but I want to mention particularly the process of purgation, which was set forth in the decre- tal Ad abolendam issued by Pope Lucius iii at the Council of Verona in 1184. He decreed that anyone clearly taken in heresy was to be handed over to the secular authorities to be duly punished, unless he abjured, and the same was true of one who was found to be heretical by suspicion alone, unless he could demonstrate his innocence by suitable purgation.3 The process of purgation consisted

1 Dizionario storico dell’Inquisizione, ed. Adriano Prosperi with Vincenzo Lavenia and John Tedeschi, 5 vols. (Pisa, 2010). 2 There is discussion among scholars as to how much faith can be placed in the descriptions given by accusers, witnesses, and prosecutors concerning the nature of alleged heterodoxies. The debate is particularly intense concerning Catharism; see, recently, Antonio Sennis, ed., Cathars in Question (York, 2016). I take no view on specific questions, but only note that the greater the impulse to forcing self-incrimination and to neglecting due process, the greater the danger of distorting facts and finding what one wishes to find. 3 Lucius iii, Ad abolendam, Decretales Gregorii ix (= Liber Extra = x) 5.7.9, ed. Emil Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici (cic), 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1879–81), 2:780–81. The last part reads, “Qui vero inventi fuerint sola suspicione notabiles, nisi ad arbitrium episcopi juxta considerationem

76 Kelly of the suspect swearing to his innocence of the charge, accompanied by a cer- tain number of acceptable witnesses, called compurgators, who would swear to their belief in his innocence.4 This, we see, was the only stipulated way in which reputed heretics were to be tried in court. The same was true thirty years later, under Innocent iii, at Fourth Lateran. The problem of heretics was addressed in the third canon, Excommunicamus, which simply repeated the language of Ad abolendam, requiring suspects to undergo purgation; but the suspects who were not thus purged, instead of suf- fering immediate condemnation and deliverance to the secular court, were to be excommunicated, and, if they remained excommunicated for a year, they were to be condemned as if heretics.5 We must remember that Innocent iii at this time also relied on military force in the crusade against heretics in the lands of the count of Toulouse.

2 Inquisition as a New Method of Prosecuting Crimes Other than Heresy

For other crimes, like simony and similar clerical offenses, the new procedure of inquisitio was introduced, designed to replace the Roman process of ac- cusatio. In an accusatorial case, an individual (the accuser) brought a formal accusation of crime against another person (the defendant) before a judge and

suspicionis qualitatemque persone propriam innocentiam congrua purgatione monstraverint, simili sententie [i.e., relinquantur secularis judicis arbitrio, debitam recepturi pro qualitate facinoris ultionem] subjaciebunt” (“But those who are found to be so reputed by suspicion alone will be subject to a similar sentence [that is, to be left to the decision of a secular judge, to receive retribution in accord with the nature of the crime], unless at the judgment of the bishop, in view of the nature of the suspicion and their personal condition, they can demonstrate their innocence by suitable purgation”). 4 For the history of this process, see Antonia Fiori, Il giuramento del innocenza nel processo canonico medievale: Storia e disciplina della “purgatio canonica” (Frankfurt, 2013). 5 Innocent iii, Excommunicamus, x 5.7.13 (cic 2:787–89), Fourth Lateran canon 3; see specifi- cally §2: “Qui autem inventi fuerint sola suspicione notabiles, nisi juxta considerationem suspicionis qualitatemque persone propriam innocentiam congrua purgatione monstraverint, anathematis gladio feriantur, et usque ad satisfactionem condignam ab omnibus evitentur, ita quod, si per annum in excommunicatione perstiterint, ex tunc velut heretici condemnen- tur” (“But those who are found to be so reputed by suspicion alone, unless they can demonstrate their innocence by suitable purgation, according to the nature of the suspicion and their personal condition, are to be struck by the sword of anathema, and they are to be avoid- ed by all until making condign satisfaction, such that, if they persist in excommunication for a year, thenceforth they are to be condemned as if they were heretics”).