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History of the Christian Church

VOLUME 5. The Middle Ages, the Papal Theocracy in Conflict with the Secular Power from Gregory VII to Boniface VIII, AD 1049 to 1294

By Philip Schaff

CH510

Chapter 10: Heresy and Its Suppression

History of the Christian Church Volume 5 The Middle Ages, the Papal Theocracy in Conflict with the Secular Power from Gregory VII to Boniface VIII, AD 1049 to 1294

CH510 Table of Contents

Chapter 10. Heresy and Its Suppression ...... 2 5.78. Literature for the Entire Chapter ...... 2 5.79. The Medieval Dissenters ...... 4 5.80. The Cathari ...... 8 5.81. Peter de Bruys and Other Independent Leaders ...... 13 5.82. The Amaurians and Other Isolated Sects ...... 15 5.83. The Beguines and Beghards ...... 17 5.84. The Waldenses ...... 18 5.85. The Crusades against the Albigenses ...... 24 5.86. The Inquisition. Its Origin and Purpose ...... 27 5.87. The Inquisition. Its Mode of Procedure and Penalties ...... 32

Kirchen-und Ketzergesch. der mittleren Zeit, 3 Chapter 10. Heresy and Its vols. Leipzig, 1770–1774.—MOSHEIM: Versuch Suppression einer unparthei. Ketzergesch., Helmstaedt, 1746.—HAHN: Gesch. der Ketzer im Mittelalter, 5.78. Literature for the Entire Chapter 3 vols. Stuttg., 1845–1847.—A. JUNDT: Hist. du General Works: FLACIUS ILLYRICUS: Catalogus panthéisme pop. au moyen âge, Paris, 1876.— testium veritatis qui ante nostram aetatem *LEA: Hist. of the Inquisition, 3 vols. N. Y., reclamarunt papae, Basel, 1556.—DU PLESSIS 1888. On the sects, I. 67–208.—M. F. TOCCO: D’ARGENTRÉ: Coll. judiciorum de novis erroribus L’eresia net medio evo, Florence, 1884.—P. qui ab initio XII. saec. usque ad 1632 in ecclesia ALPHANDÉRY: Les idées morales chez les postscripti sunt et notati, 3 vols. Paris, 1728.— Hetérédoxes Latins au début du XIII siècle, *DOeLLINGER: Beitraege zur Sektengesch. des Paris, 1903.—HEFELE-KNÖEPFLER, vol. V.—A. H. Mittelalters, Munich, 1890. A most valuable NEWMAN: Recent Researches concerning Med. work. Part II., pp. 736, contains original Sects in Papers of Amer. Soc. of Ch. Hist. 1892, documents, in the collection of which IV. 167–221. DOELLINGER spent many years and made many FOR THE CATHARI, 5.80—BONACURSUS (at first a journeys.—PAUL FREDERICQ: Corpus Catharan teacher): Vita haereticorum seu documentorum haer. pravitatis Neerlandicae, 5 contra Catharos (1190?), Migne, 204. 775– vols. Ghent, 1889 sqq.—CAESAR OF HEISTERBACH: 792.—ECBERTUS (canon of Cologne about Dialogus.—ETIENNE DE BOURBON: Anecdotes 1150): Sermones XIII. adv. Catharorum Historiques, ed. by LECOY DE LA MARCHE, Paris, errores, Migne, 195.—ERMENGAUDUS: Contra 1877.—MAP: De nugis curialium, Wright’s ed. haeret., Migne, 204, 1235–1275.—MONETA Epp. Innocentii III., Migne, 214–216.—JACQUES CREMONENSIS (1240): Adv. Catharos et DE VITRY: Hist. orientalis, Douai, 1672, and in Valdenses, Rome, 1763.—RAINERIUS SACCHONE MARTENE and DURAND, Thes. anecd., 5 vols. (d. about 1263, was a leader among the Cathari Paris, 1717.—ARNOLD: Unpartheiische Kirchen- for seventeen years, then became a Dominican und Ketzerhistorie, Frankf., 1729.—FUESSLIN: and an active inquisitor): De Catharibus et

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Leonistis seu pauperibus de Lugduno in 1648.—MORLAND: Hist. of the evang. Churches Martène-Durand, Thes. Anecd., V. 1759– of the Valleys of Piedmont, London, 1658.— 1776.—BERNARDUS GUIDONIS: Practica LEGER: Hist. générale des églises evang. des inquisitionis hereticae pravitatis, ed. by Vallées, etc., Leyden, 1669, with large maps of C.DOUAIS, Paris, 1886.—C. DOUAIS, bp. of the three Waldensian valleys and pictures of Beauvais: Documents pour servir à l’Hist. de the martyrdoms. Leger, a leading Waldensian l’inquis. dans le Languedoc, 2 vols. Paris, 1900. pastor, took refuge in Leyden from Trans. and Reprints, by Univ. of Phila., III. No. persecution.—PEYRAN: Hist. Defence of the 6.—*C. SCHMIDT: Hist. et Doctr. de la secte des Waldenses, London, 1826.—GILLY (canon of Cathares ou Albigeois, 2 vols. Paris, 1849. Durham): Waldensian Researches, London, FOR THE PETROBRUSIANS, ETC., 1831.—MUSTON: Hist. des Vaudois, Paris, 1834; FOR THE BEGUINES AND BEGHARDS, 5.83: L’Israel des Alpes, Paris, 1851, Engl. trans., 2 BERNARDUS GUY: pp. 141 sqq., 264–268.— vols. London, 1857,—BLAIR: Hist. of the FREDERICQ, II. 9 sqq., 72 sqq.—DOELLINGER, II. Waldenses, 2 vols. Edinb., 1833.—MONASTIER: 378–416, 702 sqq.—*J. L. MOSHEIM: De Hist. de l’église vaudoise, 2 vols. Lausanne, Beghardis et Beguinabus, Leipzig, 1790.—G. 1847.—*A. W. DIECKHOFF: Die Waldenser im UHLHORN: D. christl. Liebesthaetigkeit im Mittelalter, Goetting. 1861.—*J. J. HERZOG: Die Mittelalter, pp. 376–394.—H. DELACROIX: Le romanischen Waldenser, Halle, 1853.— Mysticisme speculatif en Allemagne au 14e MAITLAND: Facts and Documents of the siècle, Paris, 1900, pp. 52–134.—ULLMANN: Waldenses, London, 1862.—F. PALACKY: Die Reformers before the Reformation.—LEA: II. Beziehungen der Waldenser zu den 350 sqq.—*HAUPT, art. Beguinen und ehemaligen Sekten in Boehmen, Prague, Begharden in Herzog, II. 516–526, and art. 1869.—*JAROSLAV GOLL: Quellen und Beguinen in Wetzer-Welte, II. 204 sqq. Untersuchungen zur Gesch. der Boehmischen FOR THE WALDENSES, 5.84, the works of Brueder, Prague, 1878–1882.—*H. HAUPT: Die RAINERIUS, MONETA, BERNARDUS GUY.— relig. Sekten in Franken vor der Reformation, DOELLINGER: Beitraege.—BERNARDUS, ABBAS Wuerz b. 1882; Die deutsche FONTIS CALIDI (d. about 1193): Adv. Bibeluebersetzung der mittelalterlichen Waldensium sectam, Migne, 204. 793–840.— Waldenser in dem Codex Teplensis, Wuerzb., ALANUS AB INSULIS (d. about 1202): Adv. haeret. 1885; Waldenserhtum und Inquisition im Waldenses, Judaeos et Paganos, Migne, 210. suedoestlichen Deutschland, Freib., 1890; Der 377–399;—Rescriptum haeresiarcharum Waldensische Ursprung d. Codex Teplensis, Lombardiae ad Leonistas in Alemannia, by the Wuerzb., 1886.—MONTET: Hist. litt. des Vaudois so-called “ANONYMOUS OF PASSAU” (about 1315), du Piémont, Paris, 1885.—*L. KELLER: Die ed. by PREGER in Beitraege zur Gesch. der Waldenser und die deutschen Waldesier im Mittelalter, Munich, 1876. Bibeluebersetzungen, Leipzig, 1886.—*F. GIESELER, in his De Rainerii Sacchone, Goetting., JOSTES: Die Waldenser und die vorluth. 1834, recognized this as a distinct work.— deutsche Bibeluebersetzung, Munich, 1885; Etienne de Bourbon, pp. 290–296, etc.—DAVID Die Tepler Bibeluebersetzung, Muenster, OF AUGSBURG: Tractatus de inquis. 1886.—*PREGER: Das Verhaeltniss der haereticorum, ed. by PREGER, Munich, 1878. Taboriten zu den Waldesiern des 14ten Doellinger gives parts of Bernard Guy’s Jahrhunderts, Munich, 1887; Die Verfassung Practica, II. 6–17, etc., the Rescriptum, II. 42– der franzoes. Waldesier, etc., Munich, 1890.— 52, and DAVID OF AUGSBURG, II. 351–319.—Also *K. MULLER. Die Waldenser und ihre einzelnen FREDERICQ, vols. I., II. Gruppen bis zum Anfang des 14ten MOD. WORKS, 5.84: PERRIN: Hist. des Vaudois, Jahrhunderts, Gotha, 1886.—*E. COMBA: Hist. Geneva, 1619, in three parts,—the Waldenses, des Vaudois d’Italie avant la Réforme, Paris, the Albigenses, and the Ten Persecutions of the 1887, new ed. 1901, Engl. trans., London, Vaudois. The Phila. ed. (1847) contains an 1889.—SOFIA BOMPIANI A Short Hist. of the Ital. introd. by PROFESSOR SAMUEL MILLER of Waldenses, N. Y. 1897. See also LEA: Inquis., ALE Princeton.—GILLES: Hist. Eccles. des églises réf. vol. II.—E. E. H : In his Name, Boston, 1887, en quelques vallées de Piémont, Geneva, a chaste tale of the early Waldenses in Lyons.—H. C. VEDDER: Origin and Early

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Teachings of the Waldenses in “Am. Jour. of den Hexenprocessen, Leipzig, 1902.—HURTER: Theol.,” 1900, pp. 465–489. art. Inquisition in Wetzer-Welte, VI. 765 sqq., FOR THE CRUSADES AGAINST THE ALBIGENSES, 5.85: and Herzog, IX. 152–167.—E. L. TH. HENKE: Innocent III.’s Letters, Migne, 214–216. The Konrad von Marburg, Marb., 1861.—B. Abbot PIERRE DE VAUX DE CERNAY in Rec. Hist. de KALTNER: Konrad v. Marburg u. d. Inquis. in France, XXI. 7 sqq.—HURTER: Inn. III. vol. II. Deutschland, Prague, 1882.—R. SCHMIDT: Die 257–349, 379–389, 413–432.—HEFELE- Herkunft des Inquisitionsprocesses, Freib. i. KNÖEPFLER: V. 827–861, etc.—LEA: I. 114– Breig. 1902.—C. H. HASKINS: Robert le Bougre 209.—A. LUCHAIRE: Inn. III. et la croisade des and the Beginnings of the Inquis. in Northern Albigeois, Paris, 1905.—MANDELL CREIGHTON: France in “Amer. Hist. Rev.,” 1902, pp. 421– Simon de Montfort, in Hist. Biog. 437, 631–653.—The works on canon law by FOR THE INQUISITION, §5.86, 87, see DOUAIS, HINSCHIUS, FRIEDBERG, and PH. HERGENROETHER BERNARD GUY, and other sources and the works (R. C.), pp. 126, 601–610.—E. VACANDARD: of DOELLINGER, SCHMIDT, LEA, HURTER (II. 257– L’inquisition, Etude Hist. et crit. sur le pouvoir 269), HEFELE, etc., as cited above.—MIRBT: coercitif de l’église, Paris, 1907, pp. 340. Quellen zur Gesch. des Papstthums, 2d ed., pp. 5.79. The Medieval Dissenters 126–146;—Doct. de modo proced. c. haeret., in MARTENE-DURAND, Thes. anecd., V. 1795– THE centralization of ecclesiastical authority 1822.—NIC. EYMERICUS (inquis. general of in the papacy was met by a widespread Spain, d. 1399): Directorium inquisitorum, ed. counter-movement of religious individualism F. PEGNA, Rome, 1578. For MSS. of Eymericus, and dissent. It was when the theocratic see DENIFLE: Archiv, 1886, pp. 143 sqq.—P. programme of Gregory VII. and Innocent III. FREDERICQ: Corpus documentorum inquis. haer. was being pressed most vigorously that an prav. Neerlandicae, 5 vols. Ghent, 1889–1902. ominous spiritual revolt showed itself in Vol. I. opens with the year 1025.—LUD. A PARAMO (a Sicilian inquisitor): De orig. et communities of dissenters. While the progressu officii s. inguis., Madrid, 1698.—P. crusading armaments were battling against LIMBORCH: Hist. inquis., Amster., 1692, includes the infidel abroad, heretical depravity, to use the important liber sententiarum inquis. the official term, arose in the Church at home Tolosonae, Engl. trans., 2 vols. London, 1731.— to disturb its peace. J. A. LLORENTE (secretary of the Madrid Inquis. For nearly five hundred years heresy had 1789–1791): Hist. critique de l’inquis. been unknown in Western Europe. When d’Espagne (to Ferdinand VII.), 4 vols. Paris, Gregory the Great converted the Arians of 1817. Condens. Engl. trans., Phil. 1843.—RULE: Hist. of the Inquis., 2 vols. London, 1874.—F. Spain and Lombardy in the latter part of the HOFFMANN: Gesch. der Inquis. (down to the last sixth century, it was supposed that the last cent.), 2 vols. Bonn, 1878.—C. MOLINIER: sparks of heresy were extinguished. In the L’Inquis. dans le midi de la France au 13e et second half of the eleventh century here and 14e siècle, Paris, 1881.—FICKER: Die gesetzl. there, in Milan, Orleans, Strassburg, Cologne, Einfuehrung der Todesstrafe fuer Ketzerei in and Mainz, little flames of heresy shot forth; Mittheilungen fuer Oester. but they were quickly put out and the Church Geschichtsforschung, 1880, pp. 188 sqq.—J. went on its way again in peace. In the twelfth HAVET: L’hérésie et le bras séculier aut moyen century, heresy again broke out âge, Paris, 1881.—TAMBURINI: Storia generale simultaneously in different parts of Europe, dell’ Inquisizione, 4 vols.—L. TANON: L’Hist. des tribunaux de l’Inquis. en France, Paris, 1893.— from Hungary to the Pyrenees and HENNER: Beitraege zur Organization und northwards to Bremen. Kompetenz der paepstlichen Ketzergerichte, The two burning centers of the infection were Leipzig, 1893.—GRAF VON HOENSBROECH: Das Milan in Northern Italy and Toulouse in Papstthum, etc., Leipzig, 1900; 4th ed., 1901. Southern France. The Church authorities Chap. on the Papacy and the Inquis., I. 1– looked on with alarm, and, led by the pope, 206.—P. FLADE: Das roemische proceeded to employ vigorous measures to Inquisitionsverfahren in Deutschland bis zu

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 5 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course stamp out the threatening evil. Jacques of The exciting cause of this religious revolt is to Vitry, after visiting Milan, called it a pit of be looked for in (1) the worldliness and heretics, and declared that there was hardly a arrogance of the clergy, (2) the formalism of person left to resist the spiritual rebels, so the Church’s ritual, and (3) the worldly numerous were they in that city. At different ambitions of the papal policy. In their points in Lombardy the clergy were actually depositions before the Church inquisitors, the driven out and Piacenza remained three years accused called attention to the pride, cupidity, without a priest. In Viterbo, in the very and immorality of the priests. Tanchelm, vicinity of Rome, the Patarenes were in the Henry of Lausanne, and other leaders majority in 1205, as Innocent III. testified. But directed their invectives against the priests it was in Languedoc that the situation was and bishops who sought power and ease most alarming, and there papal armies were rather than the good of the people. marshalled to crush out the contagion. Underneath all this discontent was the The dissenting movement started with the spiritual hunger of the masses. The Bible was people and not with the schools or princes, not an altogether forgotten book. The people much provocation as the princes had for remembered it. Popular preachers like showing their resentment at the avarice and Bernard of Thiron, Robert of Abrissel and worldliness of the clergy and their invasion of Vitalis of Savigny quoted its precepts and the realm of civil authority. The vast majority relied upon its authority. There was a of those who suffered punishment as heretics hankering after the Gospel which the Church were of the common people. Their ignorance did not set forth. was a constant subject of gibe and derision as The people wanted to get past the clergy and they stood for trial before the ecclesiastical the ritual of the sacraments to Christ himself, tribunals. The heresy of a later period, the and, in doing so, a large body of the sectaries fifteenth century, differs in this regard, having went to the extreme of abandoning the scholars among its advocates. outward celebration of the sacraments, and Our knowledge of the medieval sectaries and withdrew themselves altogether from priestly their practices is drawn almost wholly from offices. The aim of all the sects was moral and the testimonies of those who were arrayed religious reformation. The Cathari, it is true, against them. These testimonies are found in differed in a philosophical question and were tracts, manuals for the treatment of heresy, Manichæans, but it was not a question of occasional notices of ecclesiastical writers philosophy they were concerned about. Their like Salimbene, Vitry, Etienne de Bourbon, chief purpose was to get away from the Caesar of Heisterbach, or Matthew Paris, in worldly aims of the established church, and the decrees of synods and in the records of this explains their rapid diffusion in the heresy trials themselves. These last Lombardy and Southern France. records, written down by Catholic hands, A prominent charge made against the have come down to us in large numbers. dissenters was that they put their own Interesting as they are, they must be accepted interpretations upon the Gospels and Epistles with caution as the statements of enemies. As and employed these interpretations to for Catharan literature, a single piece has establish their own systems and rebuke the survived and it is a painful recollection that, Catholic hierarchy. Special honor was given where so many suffered the loss of goods, by the Cathari to the Gospel of John, and the imprisonments, and death for their religious Waldensian movement started with an convictions, only a few lines remain in their attempt to make known the Scriptures own handwriting to depict their faith and through the vulgar tongue. The humbler hopes. classes knew enough about clerical abuses

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 6 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course from their own observation; but the the East or served in the Byzantine armies, complaints of the best men of the times were may have brought them with them on their in the air, and these must also have reached return to their homes. their ears and increased the general The matters in which the heretical sects restlessness. St. Bernard rebuked the clergy differed from the Catholic Church concerned for ambition, pride, and lust. Grosseteste doctrine, ritual, and the organization of the called clerics antichrists and devils. Walter Church. Among the dogmas repudiated were von der Vogelweide, among the poets, spoke transubstantiation and the sacerdotal theory of priests as those— of the priesthood. The validity of infant “Who make a traffic of each sacrament baptism was also quite widely denied, and the The mass’ holy sacrifice included.” Cathari abandoned water baptism altogether. These men did not mean to condemn the The worship of the cross and other images priestly office, but it should occasion no was regarded as idolatry. Oaths and even surprise that the people made no distinction military service were renounced. Bernard between the office and the priest who abused Guy, inquisitor-general of Toulouse and our the office. chief authority for the heretical beliefs The voices of the prophets were also heard current in Southern France in the fourteenth beyond the walls of the convent,—Joachim of century, says that the doctrine of Flore and Hildegard. Of an independent transubstantiation was denied on the ground ecclesiastical movement they had no thought. that, if Christ’s body had been as large as the But they cried out for clerical reform, and the largest mountain, it would have been people, after long waiting, seeing no signs of a consumed long before that time. As for reform, found hope of relief only in separatist adoring the cross, thorns and spears might societies and groups of believers. with equal propriety be worshipped, for Christ’s body was wounded by a crown of The prophetess on the Rhine, having in mind thorns and a lance. The depositions of the the Cathari, called upon all kings and victims of the Inquisition are the simple Christians to put down the Sadducees and statements of unlettered men. In the heretics who indulged in lust, and, in the face thousands of reports of judicial cases, which of the early command to the race to go forth are preserved, charges of immoral conduct and multiply, rejected marriage. But to her are rare. credit, it is to be said, that at a time when heretics were being burnt at Bonn and A heretic, that is, one who dissented from the Cologne, she remonstrated against the death dogmatic belief of the Catholic Church, was penalty for the heretic on the ground that in regarded as worse than a Saracen and worse spite of his heresy he bore the image of God. than a person of depraved morals. She would have limited the punishment to the In a sermon, issued by Werner of St. Blasius sequestration of goods. about 1125, the statement is made that the It is also most probable that the elements of “holy Catholic Church patiently tolerates heresy were introduced into Central and those who live ill, male viventes, but casts out Western Europe from the East. In the from itself those who believe erroneously, Byzantine empire the germs of early heresies male credentes.“ continued to sprout, and from there they The medieval Church, following the Fathers, seem to have been carried to the West, where did not hesitate to apply the most they were adopted by the Manichean Cathari opprobrious epithets to heretics. The synod and Albigenses. Travelling merchants and of Toulouse, 1163, referring to the heretics in mercenaries from Germany, Denmark, Gascony, compared them to serpents which, France, and Flanders, who had travelled in just for the very reason that they conceal

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 7 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course themselves, are all the more destructive to Hildegard, Rupert of Deutz, and Peter Cantor, the simpleminded in the Lord’s vineyard. bishop of Paris. Bernard went farther and Perhaps the most frequent comparison was admonished Eugenius III. against the use of that which likened them to Solomon’s little force in the treatment of heretics and in foxes which destroy the vines. Peter Damiani commenting upon Cant. 2:15, “take me the and others liken them to the foxes whose tails foxes that spoil the vines,” he said, that they Samson bound together and drove forth on should be caught not by arms but by their destructive mission. arguments, and be reconciled to the Church in Innocent III. showed a preference for the accordance with the purpose of Him who comparison to foxes, but also called heretics wills all men to be saved. He added that a scorpions, wounding with the sting of false Catholic does more harm than an open damnation, locusts like the locusts of Joel hid heretic. in the dust with vermin and countless in The opinion came to prevail, that what numbers, demons who offer the poison of disease is to the body that heresy is to the serpents in the golden chalice of Babylon, and Church, and the most merciful procedure was he called heresy the black horse of the to cut off the heretic. No distinction was made Apocalypse on which the devil rides, holding between the man and the error. The popes the balances. Heresy is a cancer which moves were chiefly responsible for the policy which like a serpent. acted upon this view. The civil codes adopted The Fourth Lateran also used the figure of and pronounced death as the heretic’s Samson’s foxes, whose faces had different “merited reward,” poena debita. Thomas aspects, but whose tails were bound together Aquinas and the theologians established it by for one and the same fell purpose. Gregory IX., arguments. Bernard Guy expressed the speaking of France, declared that it was filled opinion of his age when he declared that with a multitude of venomous reptiles and heresy can be destroyed only when its the poison of the heresies. Etienne de advocates are converted or burnt. To Bourbon, writing in the last years of the extirpate religious dissent, the fierce tribunal twelfth century, said that, heretics are dregs of the Inquisition was established. The last and depravity, and for that reason cannot measure to be resorted to was an organized return to their former faith except by a divine crusade, waged under the banner of the pope, miracle, even as cinders, which cannot be which shed the blood of the medieval made into silver, or dregs into wine.” St. dissenters without pity and with as little Bernard likened heretics to dogs that bite and compunction as the blood of Saracens in the foxes that deceive. Free use was made of the East. withered branch of John 15:6, which was to The confusion, which reigned among the be cast out and burnt, and of the historical Church authorities concerning the sectaries, examples of the destruction of the Canaanites and also the differences which existed among and of Korah, Dothan, and Abiram. Thomas the sectaries themselves, appear from the Aquinas put heretics in the same category many names by which they were known. The with coin clippers who were felons before the most elaborate list is given in the code of civil tribunal. Earthquakes, like the great Frederick II. 1238, and enumerates nineteen earthquake in Lombardy of 1222, and other different sects, among which the most natural calamities were ascribed by the familiar are Cathari, Patarenes, Beguines, orthodox to God’s anger against heresy. Arnoldists, and Waldenses. The principle of toleration was unknown, or But the code did not regard this enumeration at best only here and there a voice was raised as exhaustive, and adds to the names “all against the death penalty, as in the case of heretics of both sexes, whatever be the term

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 8 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course used to designate them.” And in fact the list is established Church of the Middle Ages. not exhaustive, for it does not include the Interesting as they are in themselves and by respectable group of Northern Italy known as reason of the terrible ordeals they were the Humiliati, or the Ortlibenses of forced to undergo, the sects were side Strassburg, or the Apostolicals of Belgium. currents compared with the great stream of One document speaks of no less than seventy- the Catholic Church, to which, with all its two, and Salimbene of one hundred and thirty abuses and persecuting enormities, the credit different sects. The council of Verona, 1183, belongs of Christianizing the barbarians, condemned, “first of all the Cathari and developing learning, building cathedrals, Patarenes and those who falsely called cultivating art, furnishing hymns, themselves Humiliati or Poor Men of Lyons, constructing theological systems, and in other also the Passagini, Josephini, and Arnoldists, ways contributing to the progress of whom we put under perpetual Anathema.” mankind. That which makes them most interesting to us is their revolt against the The lack of compact organization explains in priesthood, in which they all agreed, and the part the number of these names, some of emphasis they laid upon purity of speech and which were taken from localities or towns purity of life. Their history shows many good and did not indicate any differences of belief men, but no great personality. Peter Waldo is or practice from other sectaries. The numbers the most notable among their leaders. of the heretics must be largely a matter of conjecture. A panic took hold of the Church A clear classification of the medieval heretics authorities, and some of the statements, like is made difficult if not impossible by the those of Innocent III., must be regarded as uncertainty concerning the opinions held by exaggerations, as are often the rumors about some of them and also by the apparent a hostile army in a panic-stricken country, confusion of one sect with another by awaiting its arrival. Innocent pronounced the medieval writers. number of heretics in Southern France The Cathari, or Manichean heretics, form a innumerable. According to the statement of class by themselves. The Waldenses, Neumeister, a heretical bishop who was Humiliati, and probably the Arnoldists, burnt, the number of Waldensian heretics in represent the group of evangelical dissenters. Austria about 1300 was eighty thousand. The The Amauricians and probably the writer, usually designated “the Passau Ortlibenses were pantheistic. The isolated Anonymous,” writing about 1315, said there leaders, Peter de Bruys, Henry of Lausanne, was scarcely a land in which the Waldenses Eudo, and Tanchelm, were preachers and had not spread. The Cathari in Southern iconoclasts—using the term in a good France mustered large armies and were sense—rather than founders of sects. The massacred by the thousands. Of all these Beguines and Beghards represented a reform sects, the only one which has survived is the movement within the Church, one wing going very honorable body, still known as the off into paths of doctrinal heresy and Waldenses. lawlessness, and incurring thereby the The medieval dissenters have sometimes anathemas of the ecclesiastical authorities. been classed with the Protestants. The 5.80. The Cathari classification is true only on the broad ground of their common refusal to be bound by the The most widely distributed of the heretical yoke of the Catholic hierarchy. Some of the sects were the Cathari. The term comes from tenets of the dissenters and some of their the Greek katharos, meaning pure, and has practices the Protestant Reformation given to the German its word for heretic, repudiated, fully as much as did the Ketzer. It was first used by the Cathari themselves. A grotesque derivation, invented

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 9 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course by their enemies, associated the sect with the here and there in Italy and Southern France. cat, whose form it was the pleasure of the About the year 1000 a certain Leuthard, devil to assume. From their dualistic tenets claiming to be inspired, appeared in the they were called New Manichæans. From the diocese of Châlons, destroying crosses and quarter they inhabited in Milan, called denouncing tithes. In 1012 Manichean Pataria, or the abode of the junk dealers, they separatists appeared for the first time in received the name Patarenes. Germany, at Mainz, and in 1022 at Orleans, In Southern France they were called where King Robert and his consort Constance Albigenses, from the town of Albi, one of the were present at their trial. Fifteen were tried, centres of their strength. From the territory and thirteen remained steadfast and perished in Eastern Europe, whence their theological in the flames. Constance is said to have struck tenets were drawn, they were known as one of them, her former confessor, with a Bulgari, Bugares, or Bugres. Other titles were staff and to have put out one of his eyes. given to them in France, such as Tessarants, Heretics appeared at Liège in 1025. About the Textores, from their strength among the same time a group was discovered in Treves weavers and industrial classes, or Publicani who denied transubstantiation and rejected and Poplicani, a corruption of Paulicians. infant baptism. The castle of Monteforte near Turin became a stronghold for them, and in It was the general belief of the age that the 1034 Heribert, archbishop of Milan, seized Cathari derived their doctrinal views from some of their number, including their leader heretical sects of Eastern Europe and the Gerard. They all accepted death in the flames Orient, such as the Paulicians and Bogomili. rather than adore a cross. In 1052 they This was brought out in the testimony of appeared at Goslar, where the guilty were members of the sect at their trials, and it has discerned by their refusal to kill a chicken. in its favor the official recognition which With these notices, and a few more like them, leaders from Eastern Europe, Bosnia, and the rumor of heresy is exhausted for nearly a Constantinople gave to the Western heretics. century. The Paulicians had existed since the fifth century in Asia Minor, and had pushed their About the middle of the twelfth century, way to Constantinople. The Bogomili, who heresy suddenly appeared again at Liége, and were of later origin, had a position of some prosecutions were begun. In 1145 eight men prominence in Constantinople in the early and three women were burnt at Cologne. The part of the twelfth century. It is also possible firmness of the victims was exemplified in the that seeds of Manichean and Arian heresy case of a young woman, who was held back were left in Italy and Southern France after for a time with the promise of marriage, but, these systems were supposed to be stamped on seeing her coreligionists burnt, broke from out in those regions. her keepers and, hiding her face in her dress, threw herself into the flames. And so, Caesar The Paulicians rejected the Old Testament of Heisterbach goes on to say, she descended and taught a strict dualism. The Bogomili held with her fellow-heretics to hell. At Rheims, to the Sabellian Trinity, rejected the 1157, and again at Cologne in 1163 we hear Eucharist, and substituted for baptism with of trials and burnings, but thereafter the water a ritual of prayer and the imposition of Cathari are no more heard of in Germany. hands. Marriage they pronounced an unclean relationship. The worship of images and the Their only appearance in England was at use of the cross were discarded. Oxford, 1161, when more than thirty illiterate Germans, men and women, strove to It was in the early years of the eleventh propagate their errors. They were reported century, that the first reports of the as “detesting” marriage, the Eucharist, appearance of heresy were bruited about baptism, and the Catholic Church, and as

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 10 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course having quoted Matt. 5:10, “Blessed are they The differences between the Albanenses and which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, Concorrezzi were of a theological character for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” A council and concerned the nature of God and the of bishops ordered them branded on the origin of matter. The Albanenses were strict forehead and flogged. Henry II. would not dualists. Matter is eternal and the product of allow heretics to be burnt to death, though the evil god. Paul speaks of the things, which offences in his reign against the forest laws are seen, as dung. The Concorrezzi seem to were punished with blinding and castration. have rejected dualism and to have regarded In France the Cathari were strong enough in evil as the creation of Lucifer, the highest of 1167 to hold a council at St. Felix de Caraman the angels. near Toulouse. It was attended by Nicetas of In matters of ritual and practical conduct, and Constantinople, to whom the title of pope was in antagonism to the Church establishment, given. He was accompanied by a Catharan all groups of the Cathari were agreed. Since bishop, Marcus of Lombardy. Contemporary Schmidt wrote his History of the Cathari, it reports represent the number of heretics as has been common to represent Catharism as very large. They were compared by William a philosophical system, but it is difficult to of Newburgh to the sand of the sea, and were understand the movement from this said by Walter Map to be infinite in number in standpoint. How could an unlettered folk, as Aquitaine and Burgundy. By the end of the they were, be concerned primarily or chiefly twelfth century they were reported to have with a metaphysical construction? Theirs was followers in nearly 1000 cities. The not a philosophy, but a daily faith and Dominican Rainerius gave 4,000,000 as a safe practice. This view alone makes it possible to estimate of their number and declared this understand how the movement gained such was according to a census made by the rapid and widespread acceptance in the well- Cathari themselves. Joachim of Flore stated ordered and prosperous territory of Southern that they were sending out their emissaries France, a territory in which Cluny had like locusts. Such statements are not to be exercised its influence and was located. taken too seriously, but they indicate a The Cathari agreed—to use the expression of widespread religious unrest. Men did not their opponents—in vituperating the know whereunto heresy might grow. In established Church and in calling its Southern France the priests were the objects adherents Romanists. There are two of ridicule. In that region, as well as in many Churches, they held,—one of the wicked and of the cities of Lombardy, the Cathari had one of the righteous. They themselves schools for girls and boys. constituted the Church of the righteous, Agreed as the Cathari were in opposing many outside of which there is no salvation, having customs and doctrines of the established received the imposition of hands and done Church, they were divided among themselves penance according to the teaching of Christ and broken up into sects,—seventy-two, and the Apostles. Its fruits proved that the according to one document. Chief among established Church was not the true Church. them were the Albanenses and Concorrezzi, The true Church endures persecution, does deriving their names from two Lombard not prescribe it. The Roman Church sits in the towns, Alba and Concorreggio, near Monza. A place of rule and is clothed in purple and fine position intermediate between them was linen. The true Church teaches first. The occupied by the Bagnolenses, so called from Roman Church baptizes first. The true Church the Italian town of Bagnolo, near Lodi. This has no dignitaries, prelates, cardinals, third party had a bishop whose authority was archdeacons, or monks. The Roman Church is acknowledged by the Cathari in Mantua, the woman of the Apocalypse, a harlot, and Brescia, and Bergamo. the pope anti-Christ.

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The depositions at their trials indicate that with passion, and Satan seeing this, took her the Cathari made much use of the Scriptures. and left heaven. The angels followed. The The treatises of Bonacursus, Ermengaudus, exodus continued for nine days and nights, and other writers in refutation of Catharan when God closed up the fissure which had teachings abound in quotations of Scripture, a been made. fact indicating the regard the heretics had for The Cathari divided themselves into two them. They put spiritual interpretations upon classes, the Perfecti and the Credentes, or the miracles and freely allegorized parables. Believers. The Perfect were those who had In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the man received the rite of the consolamentum, and who fell among the thieves was Adam, whose were also called bons hommes, good men, or spirit, at God’s command, descended from good Christians, or the Girded, vestiti, from heaven to earth and fell among thieves in this the fact that after receiving the lower world. The priest and the Levite were consolamentum they bound themselves with Melchizedek and Aaron, who went the “same a cord. The number of the Good Men, way,” that is, could not help him. The Old Rainerius, about 1250, gave as four thousand. Testament they discredited, pronouncing it The Credentes corresponded, in a general the work of the devil. Its God is an evil god. way, to the catechumens of the early Church, The Catharan doctrine seems to have highly and placed all their hope in the exalted Christ, though it denied the full reality consolamentum, which they looked forward of his human nature. He was created in to receiving. By a contract, called the heaven and was not born on the earth, but convenenza, the Catharan officials pledged passed through Mary as through a pipe. He themselves to administer the consolamentum neither ate material food nor drank material to the Credentes in their last hours. drink. As for John the Baptist, he was one of The consolamentum took the place of the major demons and was damned for baptism and meant more. Its administration doubting when he sent to Christ the question, was treated by the Catholic authorities as “Art thou he that should come or do we look equivalent to an initiation into heresy— for another?” haereticatio, as it was called. The usual form A strange account of the fall of the angels was in which the court stated the charge of heresy current in Southern France. Satan ascended was, “He has submitted to heretication.” The to heaven and waited in vain thirty-two years rite, which women also were allowed to for admittance. He was then noticed and administer, was performed with the laying on admitted by the porter. Hidden from the of hands and the use of the Gospel of John, Father, he remained among the angels a year which was imposed upon the head or placed before he began to use his art to deceive. He at the candidate’s breast. The candidate made asked them whether they had no other glory a confession of all his sins of thought, word, or pleasure besides what he saw. When they work, and vision, and placed his faith and replied they had not, he asked whether they hope in God and the consolamentum which would not like to descend to his world and he was about to receive. The kiss of peace kingdom, promising to give them gifts, fields, followed. vineyards, springs, meadows, fruits, gold, The Perfect had a monopoly of salvation. silver, and women. Then he began to praise Those not receiving the consolamentum were woman and the pleasures of the flesh. When considered lost or passed at death into they inquired more particularly about the another body and returned to the earth. The women, the devil said he would descend and rite involved not only the absolution of all bring one back with him. This he did. The previous sins but of sins that might be woman was decked in jewels and gold and committed thereafter. However, relapse was beautiful of form. The angels were inflamed

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 12 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course possible and sometimes occurred. At death, carnal desire. The command to avoid looking the spirit was reunited with the soul, which on a woman, Matt. 5:27, 28, was taken had been left behind in heaven. There is no literally, and the command to leave husband resurrection of the body. The administration and wife was interpreted to mean the of the consolamentum seems to have been renunciation of sexual cohabitation. confined to adults until the fourteenth Witnesses condemned marriage absolutely, century, when it was administered to sick and no man or woman living in sexual children. Those who submitted to it were said relations could be saved. The opinion to have, made a good ending.” prevailed, at least among some Catharan The consolamentum involved the groups, that the eating of the forbidden fruit renunciation of the seven sacraments. in Eden meant carnal cohabitation. Baptism with water was pronounced a As for animal nourishment, not only were all material and corruptible thing, the work of meats forbidden, but also eggs and cheese. the evil god. Even little children were not The reason given was that these were the saved who received absolution and product of carnal intercourse. The words of imposition of bands. The baptism of the Peter on the housetop, Acts 10:14, were also established Church was the baptism of John quoted. The Cathari, however, allowed the Baptist, and John’s baptism was an themselves fish, in view of Christ’s example in invention of the devil. Christ made a clear feeding the multitude and his example after distinction between baptism with water and his resurrection, when he gave fish to his the baptism of power, Acts 1:5. The latter he disciples. The killing of animals, birds, and promised to the Church. insects, except frogs and serpents, was also As for the Eucharist, the Cathari held that God forbidden. The ultimate ground for this would not appoint the consecrated host as a refusal to kill animal life was stated by one of medium of grace, nor can God be in the host, the Inquisitorial manuals to be a belief in for it passes through the belly, and the vilest metempsychosis, the return of the souls of part of the body. For the mass was the dead in the bodies of animals. substituted consecrated bread before the The condemnation of capital punishment was common meal. This bread was often kept for based on such passages as: “Give place unto months. There was also, in some quarters, a wrath, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith more solemn celebration twelve times a year, the Lord,” Rom. 12:19; and the judicial called the apparellamentum, and the charge execution of heretics and criminals was was very frequently made that the accused pronounced homicide, a survival from the Old had attended this feast. Some deposed that Testament and the influence of its evil god. they were eating Christ’s body and drinking The Cathari quoted Christ’s words, “Ye have his blood while they were listening to the heard how it hath been said an eye for an eye words of Scripture. Among the requirements and a tooth for a tooth.” One of the charges made of those who received the made against the established Church was that consolamentum were that they should not it countenanced war and marshalled armies. touch women, eat animal food, kill animals, The interdiction of oaths was in obedience to take oaths, or favor war and capital the words of Christ, and was in the interest of punishment. strict integrity of speech. The marriage bed was renounced as contrary The Cathari also renounced priestly to God’s law, and some went so far as to say vestments, altars, and crosses as idolatrous. openly that the human body was made by the They called the cross the mark of the beast, devil. The love of husband and wife should be and declared it had no more virtue than a like the love of Christ for the Church, without ribbon for binding the hair. It was the

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 13 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course instrument of Christ’s shame and death, and “A hard and wandering life. We flee from city therefore not to be used. Thorns or a spear to city like sheep in the midst of wolves. We would be as appropriate for religious symbols suffer persecution like the Apostles and the as the cross. martyrs because our life is holy and austere. It is passed amidst prayers, abstinence, and They also rejected, as might have been labors, but everything is easy for us because expected, the doctrines of purgatory and we are not of this world.” indulgences. Dr. Lea, the eminent authority on the In addition to the consolamentum, the Cathari Inquisition, has said (I. 104) that no religion practised two rites called the melioramentum can show a more unbroken roll of victims and the endura. The melioramentum, which is who unshrinkingly and joyfully sought death adduced again and again in the judicial in its most abhorrent form in preference to sentences, was a veneration of the officials apostasy than the Cathari. Serious as some of administering the consolamentum, and the errors were which they held, nevertheless consisted of a threefold salutation. The their effort to cultivate piety by other Catholics regarded it as a travesty of the methods than the Church was offering calls adoration of the host. for sympathy. Their rupture with the The endura, which has been called the most established organization can be to a cruel practice the history of asceticism has to Protestant no reason for condemnation; and show, was a voluntary starvation unto death their dependence upon the Scriptures and by those who had received the their moral tendencies must awaken within consolamentum. Sometimes these rigorous him a feeling of kinship. He cannot follow religionists waited for thirteen days for the them in their rejection of baptism and the end to come, and parents are said even to eucharist. In the repudiation of judicial oaths have left their sick children without food, and and war, they anticipated some of the later mothers to have withdrawn the breast from Christian bodies, such as the Quakers and nursing infants in executing the rite. The Mennonites. reports of such voluntary suicide are quite 5.81. Peter de Bruys and Other numerous. Independent Leaders Our knowledge of the form of Church government practised by the Cathari is scant. Independent of the Cathari and yet sharing Some of the groups of Italy and Languedoc some of their views and uniting with them in had bishops. The bishop had as assistants a protest against the abuses of the established “major” and a “minor” son and a deacon, the Church, were Peter de Bruys, Henry of two former taking the bishop’s place in his Lausanne, and other leaders. Peter and Henry absence. Assemblies were held, as in 1241, on exercised their influence in Southern France. the banks of the Larneta, under the Tanchelm and Eudo preached in Flanders and presidency of the heretical bishop of Albi, Brittany. At least three of them died in prison Aymeri de Collet. A more compact or otherwise suffered death by violence. organization would probably have been Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter the Venerable, adopted but for the measures of repression Otto of Freising, and other contemporary everywhere put in force against the sect. Catholic writers are very severe upon them and speak contemptuously of their followers The steadfast endurance of the Catharan as drawn from the ignorant classes. dissenters before hostile tribunals and in the face of death belong to the annals of heroism Tanchelm, a layman, preached in the diocese and must call forth our admiration as it called of Cologne and westwards to Antwerp and forth the wonder of contemporaries like Utrecht. There was at the time only a single Bernard. We live, said Everwin of Steinfeld,— priest in Antwerp, and he living in

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 14 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course concubinage. Tanchelm pronounced the permission. Henry won the people, but drew sacraments of no avail when performed by a upon himself the hostility of the clergy whose priest of immoral life and is said to have vices he denounced. turned “very many from the faith and the The bishop, on his return, expelled Henry sacraments.” He surrounded himself with an from his diocese. The evangelist then went to armed retinue and went through the country Lausanne and from there to Southern France, carrying a sword and preceded by a flag. joining in the spiritual crusade opened by Success turned his head. According to his Peter de Bruys. He practised poverty and contemporary, Abelard, he gave himself out preached it to the laity. One of the results of to be the Son of God. He went through the his preaching was that women of loose public ceremony of marrying the Virgin Mary, morals repented and young men were with her portrait before him. The people are persuaded to marry them. Cardinal Alberic, said by Norbert’s biographer to have drunk sent to stamp out the Henrician heresy, called the water Tanchelm washed in. He was to his aid St. Bernard, the bishop of Chartres imprisoned by the archbishop of Cologne, and other prelates. According to Bernard’s made his escape, and was killed by a priest, biographer, miracles attended Bernard’s 1115. His preaching provoked the settlement activity. Henry was seized and imprisoned. of twelve Premonstrants in Antwerp, and What his end was, is not known. Norbert himself preached in the Netherlands, Peter the Venerable, at the outset of his 1124. treatise, laid down five errors of the The movement in Brittany was led by Eudo Petrobrusians which he proposed to show the de l’Etoile, who also pretended to be the Son falseness and wickedness of. (1) The baptism of God. He was one of the sect of the of persons before they have reached the years Apostolicals, a name given to heretical groups of discretion is invalid. Believers’ baptism in France and Belgium whose members was based upon Mark 16:16, and children, refused flesh and repudiated marriage and growing up, were rebaptized. (2) Church other sacraments. Eudo died in prison about edifices and consecrated altars are useless. 1148. (3) Crosses should be broken up and burnt. The movement led by Peter de Bruys and (4) The mass is nothing in the world. (5) Henry of Lausanne was far more substantial. Prayers, alms, and other good works are Both leaders were men of sound sense and unavailing for the dead. These heresies the ability. Of the personal fortunes of Peter, good abbot of Cluny called the five poisonous nothing more is known than that he was a bushes, quinque vigulta venenata, which priest, appeared as a reformer about 1105 in Peter de Bruys had planted. He gives half of Southern France, and was burnt to death, his space to the refutation of the heresy about 1126. Peter the Venerable has given us a baptism. tolerably satisfactory account of his teachings Peter and Henry revived the Donatistic view and their effect. that piety is essential to a legitimate Of Henry of Lausanne, Peter’s successor, we priesthood. The word “Church” signifies the know more. He was a Benedictine monk, congregation of the faithful and consists in endowed with an unusual gift of eloquence. the unity of the assembled believers and not His name is associated with Lausanne in the stones of the building. God may be because, as Bernard tells us, he at one time worshipped as acceptably in the marketplace lived there. The place of his birth is not or a stable as in a consecrated edifice. They known. Abandoning the convent, he preached preached on the streets and in the open in the diocese of Le Mans during the absence places. As for the cross, as well might a halter of its bishop, Hildebert, in Rome, and by his or a sword be adored. Peter is said to have

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 15 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course cooked meat in the fire made by the crosses as holy. The festival days were deprived of he piled up and burnt at St. Gilles, near the their solemnities. The children were debarred mouth of the Rhone. Song, they said, was fit from life by the denial of baptism, and souls for the tavern, but not for the worship of God. were hurried to the last tribunal, God is to be worshipped with the affections of unreconciled by penance and unfortified by the heart and cannot be moved by vocal notes the communion. or wood by musical modulations. 5.82. The Amaurians and Other Isolated The doctrine of transubstantiation was Sects distinctly renounced, and perhaps the Lord’s Supper, on the ground that Christ gave up his Occupying a distinct place of their own were body on the night of the betrayal once for all. the pantheistic coteries of dissenters, the Peter not only called upon the priests to Amaurians and Ortlibenses, and perhaps marry, but according to Peter the Venerable, other groups, like the Passagians and he forced unwilling monks to take wives. Speronistae, of which we know scarcely more than the names. St. Bernard and Peter the Venerable, opposing the heretical view about infant The Amaurians, or Amauricians, derived their baptism, laid stress upon Christ’s invitation to origin from the speculations of the Paris little children and his desire to have them professor, Amaury of Bena, a town in the with him in heaven. Peter argued that for diocese of Chartres. Innocent III. cited him to nearly five hundred years Europe had had no appear at Rome and condemned his views. On Christian not baptized in infancy, and hence his return to Paris, the university obliged him according to the sectaries had no Christians at to publicly confess his errors. He died about all. If it had no Christians, then it had no 1204. His followers were condemned by a Church; if no Church, then no Christ. And if synod, held in Paris, 1209. this were the case, then all our fathers From the detailed account given by Caesar of perished; for, being baptized in infancy, they Heisterbach, we learn that a number of were not baptized at all. Peter and Henry laid Amaury’s followers were seized and chief stress upon the four Gospels, but it does examined by the bishops. Eight priests and not appear that they set aside any part of the William the Goldsmith, called also one of the Scriptures. seven apostles, were burnt. Four other priests The synod of Toulouse, 1119, in condemning were condemned to lifelong imprisonment. as heretics those who rejected the Lord’s Amaury’s bones were exhumed and thrown Supper, infant baptism, and priestly into a field. ordination, condemned the Petrobrusians, The Amaurians seem to have relied for their though Peter de Bruys is not mentioned by pantheistic views upon John Scotus Erigena, name. Those who hung upon the preaching of whose work, De divisione naturae, was also Peter de Bruys and Henry of Lausanne were condemned at the synod of Paris, 1209. soon lost among the Cathari and other sects. Amaury’s system was also condemned by the Bernard’s description of the religious Fourth Lateran, which represented him as conditions in Southern France is no doubt holding that God was all things, deus erat rhetorical, but shows the widespread omnia. To this he added the two doctrines disaffection which prevailed at that time that every Christian must believe that he is a against the Church. He says that churches member of Christ’s body, this faith being as were without worshippers, the people necessary to salvation as the faith in Christ’s without priests, and Christians without birth and death; and that to him who abides Christ. The sanctuary of the Lord was no in love, sin is not reckoned. God becomes longer regarded as sacred or the sacraments incarnate in believers who are members of

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Christ’s body, as He became incarnate in the heretics burnt in Strassburg, 1212. They were body of Jesus. God was as much in the body of charged with holding that the world is eternal Ovid as He was in the body of Augustine. and God is immanent in all things. He did not Christ is no more in the consecrated bread have a Son, till Jesus was born of Joseph and than in any other bread or object. The Mary. They denied the resurrection of the Amaurians denied the resurrection of the body. The death and resurrection of Christ body, and said that heaven and hell are states had only a symbolic import. The body of of the soul. The sinner carries hell in himself, Christ is no more in the eucharistic bread even as a mouth holds a bad tooth. The than in any other bread. The established believer can no more sin than can the Holy Church was the courtesan of the Apocalypse. Spirit who dwells in him. The pope is The four Gospels are the chief parts of the antichrist and the Roman Church, Babylon. Scriptures. They allowed marriage but The relics of the martyrs are nothing but dust. condemned carnal cohabitation. The From these statements the conclusion is to be Ortlibenses were, like the Amaurians, drawn that Amaury and his followers insisted spiritualists, and said that a man must follow upon the liberty of the Spirit working the guidance of the Spirit who dwells in him. independently of outer rites and dwelling in They were a part of that extensive group the heart. The Fourth Lateran, in its second designated by the general name of the canon, declared that the father of lies had so Brethren of the Free Spirit, who fill so large a blinded Amaury’s mind that his doctrine was place as late as the fifteenth century. the raving of an insane man rather than a The Passagii, or Passageni, a sect whose name heresy. Amaury absorbed Joachism, for he is first mentioned in the acts of the synod of speaks of three ages, the ages of the Father Verona, seem to have been unique in that and the Son, and the age of the Spirit, which they required the literal observance of the was the last age, had begun in Amaury’s time, Mosaic law, including the Jewish Sabbath and and would continue to the consummation of circumcision. It is possible they are identical all things. Amaury’s followers seem to have with the Circumcisi spoken of in the code of become merged with the Brethren of the Free Frederick II. As late as 1267 and 1274 papal Spirit. bulls call for the punishment of heretics who The synod of Paris, which condemned the had gone back to Jewish rites, and the Amaurians, also condemned David of Dinant, Passagii may be referred to. and ordered one of his works, the The Luciferans were so called on account of Quarternuli, burnt. His writings were also the prominence they gave Lucifer as the forbidden by the statutes of the University of prince of the lost angels and the maker of the Paris of 1215, which forbade the reading of material world and the body, and not because some of the works of Aristotle, Amaury the they worshipped Lucifer. It is doubtful heretic, and Maurice of Spain. David seems to whether they were a distinct sect. The name have been a professor at Paris and died after was applied without precision to Cathari and 1215. He shared the pantheism of Amaury, others who held that Lucifer was unjustly cast was quoted by Albertus Magnus, and his out of heaven. Heretics of this name were speculations have been compared with the burnt in Passau and Saltzburg, 1312–1315 system of Spinoza. and 1338, and as late as 1395 in other parts Belonging to the same class were the of Austria. followers of Ortlieb of Strassburg, called As for the Warini, Speronistae, and Josephini, Ortlibenses, Ortilibarii, Oriliwenses, Ortoleni, who are also mentioned in the Frederican and by other similar names. Some of their code, we know nothing more than the names. number were probably among the many

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5.83. The Beguines and Beghards the Burgenhaus in Strassburg (1292), after a While the Cathari and Waldenses were widow by the name of Burga. Other secular engaging the attention of the Church names were given, such as the Golden Frog, authorities in Southern Europe, communities, zum goldenen Frosch, the Wolf, zum Wolf, the called Beguines and Beghards, were being Eagle, zum Adler. formed along the lower Rhine and in the The communities supported themselves by territories adjacent to it. They were lay spinning, weaving, caring for the sick, and associations intended at first to foster a other occupations. Some of the houses warmer type of piety than they found in the forbade begging. Some of them, as those in Church. Their aims were closely allied to the Cologne, were afterwards turned into aims of the Tertiaries of St. Francis, and at a hospitals. As a rule they practised later period they were merged with them. mendicancy and went about in the streets Long before the close of the thirteenth crying Brod durch Gott, “Bread for the sake of century, some of these communities God.” They wore a distinctive dress. developed immoral practices and heretical The earliest community of Beghards known tenets, which called forth the condemnation to us is the community of Loewen, 1220. The of pope and synods. Beghards practised mendicancy and they The Beguines, who were chiefly women, seem spread as far as Poland and Switzerland. It to have derived their origin and their name was not long till they were charged with loose from Lambert le Bègue, a priest of Liége, who tendencies, a disregard of the hierarchy, and died about 1177. In a document of that year heresy. Neither the Beguines as a body nor he is said to have preached to women and the Beghards ever received distinct papal girls the value of chastity by word and sanction. example. It was a time when priestly Both associations were the objects of synodal concubinage in Holland was general. Like enactment as early as the middle of the Peter Valdez, Lambert gave up his goods, thirteenth century. The synod of Mainz, 1259, sought to make known the Scriptures to the warned the Beghards against going through people, and founded in Liége the hospital of the streets, crying, “Bread for God’s sake,” and St. Christopher and a house for women which admonished them to put aside offensive in derision was called the beguinage. peculiarities and not to mingle with Beguines. The women renounced their goods and lived Another synod of Mainz, 1261, referred to a semi-conventual life, but took no vows and scandals among the Beguines. A synod of followed none of the approved monastic Cologne, a year later, condemned their Rules. Houses were established in Flanders, unchurchly independence and bade them France, and especially in Germany, as for confess to priests on pain of example at Valenciennes, 1212, Douai, 1219, excommunication. In 1310 synods, held at Antwerp, 1230, Ghent, 1233, Frankfurt, 1242. Treves and Mainz, forbade clerics entering In 1264 St. Louis built a beguinage in Paris beguinages on any pretext whatever and which he remembered in his will. The forbade Beghards explaining the Bible to the beguinage of Ghent was a small town in itself, ignorant. with walls, infirmary, church, cemetery, and The communities became more and more the conventual dwellings. According to Matthew objects of suspicion, and a sharp blow was Paris, writing of the year 1250, their number struck at them in 1312 by Clement V. and the in Germany, especially in the vicinity of council of Vienne. The council forbade their Cologne, was countless. Their houses were communal mode of life, and accused them of often named after their founders, as the heresies. They were accused of refusing to Schelenhaus in Cologne, after Herman Schele, adore the host and of holding that it is

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 18 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course possible to reach a state of perfection in this pious and benevolent design developed in world. A person reaching this state is under Holland in the fourteenth and fifteenth no obligation to fast and pray, but may yield centuries, and with which German mysticism himself without sin to all the appetites of the is closely associated. body. 5.84. The Waldenses Clement’s bull erred by its failure to “O lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer discriminate between heretical and orthodox lustre flings communities, a defect which was corrected by Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown John XXII. This pope expressly gave on the lofty brow of kings; protection to the orthodox communities. In A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose the fourteenth century, the number of houses virtue shall not decay, increased very rapidly in Germany and by Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a 1400 there was scarcely a German town blessing on thy way!” which had not its beguinage. Up to that date, WHITTIER, The Vaudois Teacher. fifty-seven had been organized in Frankfurt, Distinct from the Cathari and other sects in and in the middle of the fifteenth century origin and doctrine, but sharing with them there were one hundred and six such houses the condemnation of the established Church, in Cologne and sixty in Strassburg. In 1368 were the Waldenses. The Cathari lived Erfurt had four hundred Beguines and completely apart from the Catholic Church. Beghards. The Waldenses, leaning upon the Scriptures, In the earlier part of the fourteenth century, sought to revive the simple precepts of the the Beguines appeared in Southern France, Apostolic age. They were the strictly biblical where the Inquisition associated them closely sect of the Middle Ages. This fact, and the with the Tertiaries of St. Francis and accused pitiless and protracted persecutions to which them of adopting the views of John Peter they were subjected, long ago won the Olivi. sympathies of the Protestant churches. They In the latter part of the fourteenth century, present a rare spectacle of the survival of a the Inquisition broke up many of the houses body of believers which has come up out of in Germany, their effects being equally great tribulation. divided between itself, the poor, and the Southern France was their first home, but municipality. Gregory XI., 1377, recognized they were a small party as compared with the that many of the Beghards were leading good Albigenses in those parts. From France they lives. Boniface IX., 1394, made a sharp spread into Piedmont, and also into Austria distinction between the communities and and Germany, as recent investigations have classed the heterodox Beghards with Lollards clearly brought out. In Italy, they continue to and Swestriones. But to other “Beghards and this day in their ancestral valleys and, since Beguines, who practised voluntary poverty” 1870, endowed with full rights of citizenship. and devoted themselves to the good of the In Austria, they kept their light burning as in a people, he gave papal recognition. To avoid dark place for centuries, had a close historic persecution, many of them took refuge with connection with the Hussites and Bohemian the Franciscans and enrolled themselves as Brethren, and prepared, in some measure, the Tertiaries of the Franciscan order. With the way for the Anabaptists in the time of the Reformation the Beghards and Beguines for Reformation. the most part disappear as separate The Waldenses derive their origin and name communities. from Peter Waldus or Valdez, who died These sectaries were in part forerunners and before 1218+c, as all the contemporary contemporaries of other communities with a writers agree. They were also called Poor

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Men of Lyons, from the city on the Rhone Ydros and Stephen of Ansa to translate into where they originated, and the Sandalati or the vernacular the Gospels and other parts of Sandalled, from the coarse shoes they wore. the Scriptures, together with sayings of the The name by which they were known among Fathers. He preached, and his followers, themselves was Brethren, or the Poor of imitating his example, preached in the streets Christ, based probably upon Matt. 5:3, and villages, going about two by two. When “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” According to the archbishop of Lyons attempted to stop the Anonymous writer of Passau, writing in them, they replied that “they ought to obey the early years of the fourteenth century, God, rather than men.” some already in his day carried the origin of Very unexpectedly the Waldenses made their the sect back to the Apostles. Until recently all appearance at the Third Lateran council, Waldensian writers have claimed for it 1179, at least two of their number being Apostolic origin or gone at least as far back as present. They besought Alexander III. to give the seventh century. Professor Comba, of the his sanction to their mode of life and to allow Waldensian school in Florence, has definitely them to go on preaching. They presented him given up this theory in deference to the with a copy of their Bible translation. The investigations of Dieckhoff, Herzog, and other pope appointed a commission to examine German scholars. them. Of Waldo’s life little is known. A prosperous Its chairman, Walter Map, an Englishman of merchant of Lyons, he was aroused to Welsh descent and the representative of the religious zeal by the sudden death of a English king, has left us a curious account of leading citizen of the city, of which he was a the examination. He ridicules their manners witness, and by a ballad he heard sung by a and lack of learning. They fell an easy prey to minstrel on the public square. The song was his questionings, like birds, as he says, who about St. Alexis, the son of wealthy parents do not see the trap or net, but think they have who no sooner returned from the marriage a safe path. He commenced with the simplest altar than, impressed by the claims of of questions, being well aware, as he said, that celibacy, he left his bride, to start on a a donkey which can eat much oats does not pilgrimage to the East. On his return he called disdain milk diet. On asking them whether on his relatives and begged them to give him they believed in the persons of the Trinity shelter, but they did not recognize who he they answered, “Yes.” And “in the Mother of was till they found him dead. The moral Christ?” To this they also replied “Yes.” At that drawn from the tale was: life is short, the the committee burst out laughing at their times are evil, prepare for heaven. ignorance, for it was not proper to believe in, Waldo sought counsel from a priest, who told but to believe on, Mary. “Being poor him there were many ways to heaven, but if themselves, they follow Christ who was he would be perfect, he must obey Christ’s poor,—nudi nudum Christum sequentes. precepts, and go and sell all that he had and Certainly it is not possible for them to take a give to the poor, and follow him. It was the more humble place, for they have scarcely text that had moved Anthony of Egypt to flee learned to walk. If we admit them, we from society. Waldo renounced his property, ourselves ought to be turned out.” This sent his two daughters to the convent of vivacious committee-man, who delighted so Fontevrault, gave his wife a portion of his much in chit-chat, as the title of his book goods, and distributed the remainder to the indicates, further says that the Waldenses poor. This was about 1170. went about barefooted, clad in sheep-skins, and had all things common like the Apostles. His rule of life, Waldo drew from the plain precepts of the Bible. He employed Bernard

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Without calling the Waldenses by name, the writers treat the two groups as parts of the council forbade them to preach. The synod of same body and distinguish them as the Verona, 1184, designated them as “Humiliati, Ultramontane and the Lombard Poor Men or or Poor Men of Lyons,” and anathematized as the Ultramontane and Italic Brethren. them, putting them into the same category A dispute arose between the Humiliati and with the Cathari and Patarines. Their offence the Poor Men of Lyons as to their relation to was preaching without the consent of the one another and to Peter Waldo, which led to bishops. a conference, in 1218, at Bergamo. Each party Although they were expelled from Lyons and had six representatives. The two points of excommunicated by the highest authority of discord were the Eucharist and whether the Church, the Waldenses ceased not to Waldo was then in paradise. The Lombards teach and preach. They were called to take contended that the validity of the sacrament part in disputations at Narbonne (1190) and depended upon the good character of the other places. They were charged with being in celebrant. The question about Waldo and a rebellion against the ecclesiastical authorities certain Vivetus was, whether they had gone and with daring to preach, though they were to heaven without having made satisfaction only laymen. Durandus of Huesca, who had before their deaths for all their sins. The belonged to their company, withdrew in 1207 Lyonnese claimed that Waldo was in paradise and took up a propaganda against them. He and made the recognition of this fact a went to Rome and secured the pope’s condition of union with the Lombard party. sanction for a new order under the name of The controversy at Bergamo points to a the “Catholic Poor” who were bound to definite rejection of Waldo’s leadership by the poverty; the name, as is probable, being Lombard Waldenses. Salve Burce, 1235, who derived from the sect he had abandoned. ridiculed the Waldensians on the ground of Spreading into Lombardy, they met a party their recent origin, small number, and lack of already organized and like-minded. This learning, compared the Poor Men of party was known as the Humiliati. Its Lombardy and the Poor Men of Lyons with adherents were plain in dress and abstained the two Catharan sects, the Albanenses and from oaths and falsehood and from lawsuits. the Concorrezzi, and declared the four were The language, used by the Third Ecumenical as hostile, one to the other, as fire and water. council and the synod of Verona, identified This is an isolated testimony and not to be them with the Poor Men of Lyons. Originally, accepted. But it is the charge, so often as we know from other sources, the two repeated since by the Catholic Church, that groups were closely affiliated. It is probable Protestantism means division and strife. that Waldo and his followers on their visits in In the crusades against heretics, in Southern Lombardy won so much favor with the older France, the Waldenses were included, but sect that it accepted Waldo’s leadership. their sufferings were small compared with At a later date, a portion of the Humiliati those endured by the Albigenses. Nor do they associated themselves in convents, and seem to have furnished many victims to the received the sanction of Innocent III. It seems Inquisition in the fourteenth century. probable that they furnished the model for Although Bernard Guy opened his trials in the third order of St. Francis. One portion of 1308, it was not till 1316 that a Waldensian the Humiliati early became known as the was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment Poor Men of Lombardy and had among their and another to death by burning. Three years leaders, John of Roncho. A portion of them, if later, twenty-six were condemned to not all, were treated by contemporaries as his perpetual imprisonment, and three to death followers and called Runcarii. Contemporary in the flames. In 1498, Louis XII. granted them limited toleration. During the Reformation

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 21 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course period, in 1545, twenty-two villages The history of the Waldensian movement in inhabited by the French Waldenses were different parts of Germany and Austria has pillaged and burnt by order of the parliament scarcely less interest than the Franco-Italian of Provence. movement. It had a more extensive influence It was in Italy and Austria that the Waldenses by preparing the way for other separatist and furnished their glorious spectacle of evangelical movements. It is supposed that a unyielding martyrdom. From France they translation of parts of the Scriptures overflowed into Piedmont, partly to find a belonging to the Waldenses was in circulation refuge in its high valleys, seamed by the in Metz at the end of the twelfth century. mountain streams of the Perouse, the Copies were committed to the flames. It is Luserne, and the Angrogne. There, in the also supposed that Waldenses were among Cottian Alps, they dwelt for some time the heretics ferreted out in Strassburg in without molestation. They had colonies as far 1212, eighty of whom were burnt, twelve south as Calabria, and the emigration priests and twenty-three women being of the continued in that direction till the fifteenth number. The Waldenses spread as far north century. But the time of persecution came. In as Koenigsberg and Stettin and were found in 1209, Otto IV. issued an edict of banishment Swabia, Poland, Bavaria, and especially in and in 1220 Thomas, count of Savoy, Bohemia and the Austrian diocese of Passau. threatened with fines all showing them They were subjected to persecution as early hospitality. But their hardy industry made as in 1260. Fifty years later there were at them valuable subjects and for a hundred least forty-two Waldensian communities in years there was no persecution in the valleys Austria and a number of Waldensian schools. unto death. The first victim at the stake Neumeister, a bishop of the Austrian heretics, perished, 1312. who suffered death with many others in Innocent VIII., notorious for his official 1315, testified that in the diocese of Passau recognition of witchcraft, was the first papal alone the sect had over eighty thousand persecutor to resort to rigorous measures. In adherents. In 1318 Dominican and Franciscan 1487, he announced a crusade, and called inquisitors were dispatched to Bohemia and upon Charles VIII. of France and the duke of Poland to help the authorities in putting the Savoy to execute the decree. Everything the heresy down. Bohemia had become the most Waldenses had endured before, as Leger says, important center of Waldensianism. With was as “roses and flowers” compared with these Austrian heretics the Poor Men of what they were now called upon to suffer. Lombardy kept up a correspondence and they Innocent furnished an army of eighteen- received from them contributions. thousand. The Piedmontese Waldenses were In spite of persecutions, the German forced to crouch up higher into the valleys, Waldenses continued to maintain themselves and were subject to almost incredible to the fifteenth century. hardship. The most bitter sufferings of this The Austrian dissenters were active in the Israel of the Alps were reserved for the distribution of the Scriptures. And Whittier sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, after has based his poem of the Vaudois Teacher they had accepted the Reformation. It was of upon the account of the so-called Anonymous the atrocious massacres perpetrated at that writer of Passau of the fourteenth century. He time that Milton exclaimed, speaks of the Waldenses as going about as “Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, peddlers to the houses of the noble families Whose bones he scattered on the Alpine and offering first gems and other goods and mountains cold.” then the richest gem of all, the Word of God. This writer praised their honesty, industry,

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 22 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course and sobriety. Their speech, he said, was free contain this charge. Alanus sought to refute from oaths and falsehoods. the principle by adducing Christ’s submission We have thus three types of Waldenses: the to the authority of Pilate, John 19:11, and by Poor Men of Lyons, the Poor Men of arguing that the powers that be are ordained Lombardy, and the Austrian Waldensians. As of God. This was, perhaps, the first positive for their dissent from the established Church, affirmation of a Scriptural ground for it underwent in some particulars, in their religious independence made by the later periods, a development, and on the dissenting sects of the Middle Ages. It other hand there was developed a tendency contains in it, as in a germ, the principle of full to again approach closer to the Church. liberty of conscience as it was avowed by Luther at Worms. In their earliest period the Waldenses were not heretics, although the charge was made The second distinguishing principle was the against them that they claimed to be “the only authority and popular use of the Scriptures. imitators of Christ.” Closely as they and the Here again the Waldenses anticipated the Cathari were associated geographically and Protestant Reformation without realizing, as by the acts of councils, papal decrees, and in is probable, the full meaning of their demand. literary refutations of heresy, the Waldenses The reading of the Bible, it is true, had not yet differ radically from the Cathari. They never been forbidden, but Waldo made it a living adopted Manichean elements. Nor did they book and the vernacular translation was repudiate the sacramental system of the diligently taught. The Anonymous writer of established Church and invent strange rites of Passau said he had seen laymen who knew their own. They were also far removed from almost the entire Gospels of Matthew and mysticism and have no connection with the Luke by heart, so that it was hardly possible German mystics as some of the other to quote a word without their being able to sectaries had. continue the text from memory. They were likewise not Protestants, for we The third principle was the importance of seek in vain among them for a statement of preaching and the right of laymen to exercise the doctrine of justification by faith. It is that function. Peter Waldo and his associates possible, they held to the universal were lay evangelists. All the early documents priesthood of believers. According to de refer to their practice of preaching as one of Bourbon and others, they declared all good the worst heresies of the Waldenses and an men to be priests. They placed the stress evident proof of their arrogance and upon following the practice of the Apostles insubordination. Alanus calls them false and obeying the teachings of the Sermon on preachers, pseudo-praedicatores. Innocent the Mount, and they did not know the III., writing, in 1199, of the heretics of Metz, definition which Luther put on the word declared their desire to understand the “justification.” They approached more closely Scriptures a laudable one but their meeting in to an opinion now current among Protestants secret and usurping the function of the when they said, righteousness is found only priesthood in preaching as only evil. Alanus, in good men and good women. in a long passage, brought against the Waldenses that Christ was sent by the Father The first distinguishing principle of the and that Jonah, Jeremiah, and others received Waldenses bore on daily conduct and was authority from above before they undertook summed up in the words of the Apostles, “we to preach, for “how shall they preach unless ought to obey God rather than men.” This the they be sent.” Catholics interpreted to mean a refusal to submit to the authority of the pope and The Waldenses were without commission. To prelates. All the early attacks against them this charge, the Waldenses, as at the

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 23 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course disputation of Narbonne, answered that all Waldenses were brought out at the Christians are in duty bound to spread the conference at Bergamo. Gospel in obedience to Christ’s last command As for the administration of baptism, there and to James 4:17, “to him that knoweth to do were also differences of view between the good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” The Waldenses of Italy and those of France. There denial of their request by Alexander III., 1179, was a disposition, in some quarters at least, to did not discourage them from continuing to deny infant baptism and to some extent the preach in the highway and house and, as they opinion seems to have prevailed that infants had opportunity, in the churches. were saved without baptism. Whatever the The Waldenses went still further in shocking views of the early Waldenses were at the time old-time custom and claimed the right to of the Reformation, according to the preach for women as well as for men, and statement of Morel, they left the when Paul’s words enjoining silence upon the administration of the sacraments to the women were quoted, they replied that it was priests. The early documents speak of the with them more a question of teaching than of secrecy observed by the Waldenses, and it is formal preaching and quoted back Titus 2:3, possible more was charged against them than “the aged women should be teachers of good they would have openly acknowledged. things.” The abbot Bernard of Fontis Calidi, in To the affirmation of these fundamental contesting the right of laics of both sexes to principles the Waldenses, on the basis of the preach, quoted the Lord’s words commanding Sermon on the Mount, added the rejection of the evil spirit to hold his peace who had said, oaths, the condemnation of the death penalty, “Thou art the Holy One of God,” Mark 1:25. If and some of them purgatory and prayers for Christ did not allow the devil to use his the dead. There are but two ways after death, mouth, how could he intend to preach the Waldenses declared, the way to heaven through a Waldensian? In one of the lists of and the way to hell. errors, ascribed to the Waldenses, is their The Waldenses regarded themselves, as rejection of the universities of Paris, Prague, Professor Comba has said, as a church within and Vienna and of all university study as a the Church, a select circle. They probably waste of time. went no further, though they were charged It was an equally far-reaching principle when with pronouncing the Roman Church the the Waldenses declared that it was spiritual Babylonian harlot, and calling it a house of endowment, or merit, and not the Church’s lies. As early as the thirteenth century, the ordination which gave the right to bind and Waldenses were said, as by de Bourbon, to be loose, to consecrate and bless. This was divided like the Cathari into the Perfect and recognized by their opponents as striking at Believers, but this may be a mistake. In the the very root of the sacerdotal system. They beginning of the fourteenth century, in charged against them the definite affirmation Southern France they elected a of the right of laymen to baptize and to superintendent, called Majoralis omnium, administer the Lord’s Supper. No priest, whom, according to Bernard Guy, they continuing in sin, could administer the obeyed as the Catholics did the pope, and Eucharist, but any good layman might. The they also had presbyters and deacons. In charge was likewise made that women were other parts they had a threefold ministry, allowed the function also, and Rainerius says under the name of priests, teachers, and that no one rose up to deny the charge. It was rectors. also charged that the Waldenses allowed From the first, the Lyonnese branch had a laymen to receive confessions and absolve. literature of its own and in this again a Differences on this point among the marked contrast is presented to the Cathari.

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Of the early Waldensian translation of the of the Inquisition received its full Bible in Romaunt, there are extant the New development. To the papacy belongs the Testament complete and the Psalms, whole responsibility of these merciless wars. Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes. Toulouse paid a bitter penalty for being the A translation in French had preceded this head center of heresy. According to Innocent Waldensian version. The German translation III., the larger part of its nobility was infected of the Bible found at Tepl, Bohemia, may have with heretical depravity, so that heresy was been of Waldensian origin. entrenched in castles as well as professed in The Nobla Leyczon, dating from the early part the villages. The count of Toulouse, the first of the thirteenth century and the oldest lay peer of France,—owing fealty to it for extant piece of Waldensian literature next to Provence and Languedoc,—brought upon the version of the Bible, is a religious poem of himself the full wrath and punishments of the four hundred and seventy-nine lines. It has a Apostolic see for his unwillingness to join in strictly practical purpose. The end of the the wars against his own subjects. A member world is near, man fell, Noah was spared, of the house led one of the most splendid of Abraham left his own country, Israel went the armies of the first Crusade to Jerusalem. down to Egypt and was delivered by Moses. At the opening of the Albigensian crusades Christ preached a better law, he trod the path the court of Toulouse was one of the gayest in of poverty, was crucified, and rose again. The Europe. At their close it was a spectacle of first line ran “10 brothers, listen to a noble desolation. teaching.” The poem closes with the scene of Councils, beginning with the synod of the Last Judgment and an exhortation to Toulouse, 1119, issued articles against heresy repent. and called upon the secular power to punish Through one channel the Waldenses it. Mild measures were tried and proved exercised an influence over the Catholic ineffectual, whether they were the preaching Church. It was through the Waldensian choice and miracles of St. Bernard, 1147, or the of poverty. They made the, “profession of diplomatic address of papal legates. Sixty poverty,” as Etienne de Bourbon calls it, or years after Bernard, St. Dominic entered upon “the false profession of poverty,” as Bernard a tour of evangelism in the vicinity of Guy pronounced it. By preaching and by Toulouse, and some heretics were won; but in poverty they strove after evangelical spite of Dominic, and synodal decrees, heresy perfection, as was distinctly charged by these spread and continued to defy the Church and other writers. Francis d’Assisi took up authorities. with this ideal and was perhaps more It remained for Innocent III. to direct the full immediately the disciple of the obscure force of his native vigor against the spreading Waldensians of Northern Italy than can be contagion and to execute the principles proved in so many words. The ideal of already solemnly announced by ecumenical Apostolic poverty and practice was in the air and local councils. To him heretics were and it would not detract from the services of worse than the infidel who had never made St. Francis, if his followers would recognize profession of Christianity. While Christendom that these dissenters of Lyons and Italy were was sending armaments against the Saracens, actuated by his spirit, and thus antedated his why should it not send an armament to crush propaganda by nearly half a century. the spiritual treason at home? In response to papal appeals, at least four distinct crusades 5.85. The Crusades against the Albigenses were set on foot against the sectaries in The medieval measures against heretics Southern France. These religious wars assumed an organized form in the crusades continued thirty years. Priests and abbots against the Albigenses, before the institution went at the head of the armies and, in the

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 25 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course name of religion, commanded or justified the In a general epistle to the faithful, Innocent most atrocious barbarities. One of the fairest wrote:— portions of Europe was laid waste and the “O most mighty soldiers of Christ, most brave counts of Toulouse were stripped by the pope warriors; Ye oppose the agents of anti-Christ, of their authority and territory. and ye fight against the servants of the old The long conflict was fully opened when serpent. Perchance up to this time ye have Innocent called upon Louis VII. to take the fought for transitory glory, now fight for the glory which is everlasting. Ye have fought for field, that “it might be shown that the Lord the body, fight now for the soul. Ye have fought had not given him the sword in vain,” and for the world, now do ye fight for God. For we promised him the lands of nobles shielding have not exhorted you to the service of God for heresy. Raymund VI., who was averse to a a worldly prize, but for the heavenly kingdom, policy of repression against his Catharan which for this reason we promise to you with subjects, was excommunicated by Innocent’s all confidence.” legate, Peter of Castelnau, and his lands put Awed by the sound of the coming storm, under interdict. Innocent called him a noxious Raymund offered his submission and man, vir pestilens, and threatened him with promised to crush out heresy. The all the punishments of the future world. He humiliating spectacle of Raymund’s penance threatened to call upon the princes to was then enacted in the convent church of St. proceed against him with arms and take his Gilles. In the vestibule, naked to the waist, he lands. “The hand of the Lord will descend professed compliance with all the papal upon thee more severely, and show thee that conditions. Sixteen of the count’s vassals took it is hard for one who seeks to flee from the oath to see the hard vow was kept and face of His wrath which thou hast provoked.” pledged themselves to renew the oath every A crisis was precipitated in 1208 by the year, upon pain of being classed with heretics. murder of Peter of Castelnau by two Then holding the ends of a stole, wrapped unknown assassins. Again, the supreme around the penitent’s neck like a halter, the pontiff fulminated the sentence of papal legate led Raymund before the altar, the excommunication against the Tolosan count, count being flagellated as he proceeded. and made the expulsion of all heretics from Raymund’s submission, however, did not his dominions the condition of withdrawing check the muster of troops which were suspicion against him as the possible gathering in large numbers at Lyons. In the murderer of Peter. Nowhere else was the ranks were seen the archbishops of Rheims, intrepid energy of Innocent more signally Sens, and Rouen; the bishops of Autun, displayed! A crusade was announced. The Clermont, Nevers, Baseur, Lisieux, and connections of Raymund with France through Chartres; with many abbots and other clergy. his uncle, Louis VII., and with Aragon through At their side were the duke of Burgundy, the Pedro, whose sister he had married, counts of Nevers, St. Pol, Auxerre, Geneva, interposed difficulties. And the crusade went and Poitiers, and other princes. The soldier, on. The Cistercians, at their General Chapter, chosen to be the leader, was Simon de decided to preach it. Princes and people from Montfort. Simon had been one of the France, Flanders, and even Germany swelled prominent leaders of the Fourth Crusade, and the ranks. The same reward was promised to was a zealous supporter of the papacy. He those who took the cross against the Cathari neglected not to hear mass every day, even and Waldenses, as to those who went across after the most bloody massacres in the the seas to fight the intruder upon the Holy campaigns in Southern France. His Sepulcher. contemporaries hailed him as another Judas

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Maccabaeus and even compared him to in-law. The synod of Lavaur, 1213, appointed Charlemagne. referee by Innocent, rejected the king’s In spite of the remonstrance of Raymund, propositions. Pedro then joined Raymund, who had joined the army, the papal legate, but fell at the disastrous defeat of Muret the Arnold of Citeaux, refused to check its march. same year, 1213. It was a strange Béziers was stormed and horrible scenes combination whereby the king of Aragon, followed. The wild soldiery heeded well the who had won the highest distinction a year legate’s command, “Fell all to the ground. The before as a hero of the Catholic faith, was Lord knows His own.” Neither age nor sex killed in the ranks of those who were rebels was spared. Church walls interposed no to the papal authority. The day after, the protection and seven thousand were put to victor, Montfort, barefoot, went to church, death in St. Magdalen’s church alone. Nearly and ordered Pedro’s battle-horse an armorial twenty thousand were put to the sword. trappings sold and the proceeds distributed According to the reports of the papal legates, to the poor. By the council of Montpellier, Milo and Arnold, the “divine vengeance raged 1215, the whole land, including Toulouse, wonderfully against the city. … Ours spared was granted to Montfort, and the titles neither sex nor condition. The whole city was conferred on him of count of Toulouse, sacked, and the slaughter was very great.” viscount of Béziers and Carcassonne, and duke of Narbonne. At Carcassonne the inhabitants were allowed to depart, the men in their shirts, the women The complications in Southern France were in their chemises, carrying with them, as the one of the chief questions brought before the chronicler writes, nothing else except their Fourth Lateran Council, 1215. Raymund was sins, nihil secum praeter peccata portantes. present and demanded back his lands, Dread had taken hold of the country, and inasmuch as he had submitted to the Church; village after village was abandoned by the but by an overwhelming majority, the synod fleeing inhabitants. Raymund was again put voted against him and Montfort was under excommunication at a council held at confirmed in the possession of his conquests. Avignon. The conquered lands were given to When Raymund’s son made a personal appeal Montfort. The war continued, and its to Innocent for his father, the pope bade him atrocities, if possible, increased. New recruits “love God above all things and serve Him appeared in response to fresh papal appeals, faithfully, and not stretch forth his hand among them six thousand Germans. At the against others’ territory” and gave him the stronghold of Minerve, one hundred and forty cold promise that his complaints against of the Albigensian Perfect were put to death Montfort would be heard at a future council. in the flames. The ears, noses, and lips of The further progress of the Albigensian prisoners were cut off. campaigns requires only brief notice here, for Again, in 1211, the count of Toulouse sought they were converted into a war of territorial to come to an agreement with the legates. But plunder. In 1218, Montfort fell dead under the the terms, which included the razing to the walls of Toulouse, his head crushed by a ground of all his castles, were too humiliating. stone. In the reign of Honorius, whose The crusade was preached again. All the supreme concern was a crusade in the East, territory of Toulouse had been overrun and it the sectaries reasserted themselves, and only remained for the crusaders to capture Raymund regained most of his territory. But the city itself. the pope was relentless, and again the sentence of excommunication was launched Pedro of Aragon, fresh from his crushing against the house of Toulouse. victory over the Moors at Novas de Tolosa, now interceded with the pope for his brother-

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In 1226, Louis VIII. took the cross, supported renaissance of intellectual culture fell behind by the French parliament as well as by the her neighbors in the race of progress. Church. Thus the final chapter in the crusades Protestant generations, that have been since was begun, a war of the king of France for the sitting in judgment upon the barbarous possession of Toulouse. Louis died a few measures, conceived and pushed by the months later. Arnold of Citeaux, for nearly papacy, have wondered whether another twenty years their energetic and iron-hearted movement, stirred by the power of the promoter, had preceded him to the grave. Gospel, will not yet arise in the old domain Louis IX. took up the plans of his royal that responded to the religious dissent and predecessor, and in 1229 the hostilities were received the warm blood of the Albigenses, brought to a close by Raymund’s accepting the Waldenses, and of Peter de Bruys and his the conditions proposed by the papal legate. followers. Raymund renounced two-thirds of his THE STEDINGER. While the wars against the paternal lands in favor of France. The other Albigenses were going on, another people, the third was to go at his death to his daughter Stedinger, living in the vicinity of Bremen and who subsequently married Louis IX.’s Oldenburg, were also being reduced by a brother, and, in case there was no issue to the papal crusade. They represented the spirit of marriage, it was to pass to the French crown, national independence rather than doctrinal and so it did at the death of Jeanne, the last dissent and had shown an unwillingness to heir of the house of Toulouse. Thus the pay tithes to the archbishop of Bremen. When domain of France was extended to the a husband put a priest to death for an Pyrenees. indignity to his wife, the archbishop Hartwig Further measures of repression were II. announced penalty after penalty but in directed against the remnants of the vain. Under his successor, Gerhard (1219– Albigensian heresy, for Raymund VII. had 1258), the refractory peasants were reduced promised to cleanse the land of it. The to submission. A synod of Bremen, in 1230, machinery of the Inquisition was put into full pronounced them heretics, and Gregory IX., action as it was perfected by the great accepting the decision, called upon a number inquisitorial council of Toulouse, 1229. The of German bishops to join in preaching and University of Toulouse received papal prosecuting a crusade. The same indulgence sanction, and one of its chief objects was was offered to the crusaders in the North as announced to be “to bring the Catholic faith in to those who went on the Church’s business those regions into a flourishing state.” In to Palestine. The first campaign in 1233 was 1244, the stronghold of Montségur was taken, unsuccessful, but a second carried all the the last refuge of the Albigenses. Two horrors of war into the eastern section of the hundred of the Perfect were burned. Stedingers’ territory. In 1231 another army led by a number of princes completely The papal policy had met with complete but defeated this brave people at Altenesch. Their blighting success and, after the thirteenth lands were divided between the archbishop century, heresy in Southern France was of Bremen and the count of Oldenburg. almost like a noiseless underground stream. Languedoc at the opening of the wars had 5.86. The Inquisition. Its Origin and been one of the most prosperous and Purpose cultured parts of Europe. At their close its The measures for the repression and villages and vineyards were in ruins, its extermination of heresy culminated in the industries shattered, its population organized system, known as the Inquisition. impoverished and decimated. The country Its history presents what is probably the most that had given promise of leading Europe in a revolting spectacle in the annals of civilized

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Europe. The representatives of the Church moment, and at the pope’s persistent appear, sitting as arbiters over human destiny instigation, crusading armies were drenching in this world, and in the name of religion the soil of Southern France with the blood of applying torture to countless helpless victims, the Albigenses. A writer of the thirteenth heretics, and reputed witches, and century says in part truly, in part speciously, pronouncing upon them a sentence which, “our pope does not kill nor condemn any one they knew, involved perpetual imprisonment to death, but the law puts to death those or death in the flames. whom the pope allows to be put to death, and The cold heartlessness, with which the fate of they kill themselves who do those things the heretic was regarded, finds some excuse which make them guilty of death.” in the pitiless penalties which the civil The official designation of the Inquisitorial tribunals of the Middle Ages meted out for process was the Inquisition of heretical civil crimes, such as the breaking of the victim depravity. Its history during the Middle Ages on the wheel, burning in caldrons of oil, has three main chapters: the persecution of quartering with horses, and flaying alive, or doctrinal heretics down to 1480, the the merciless treatment of princes upon persecution of witches in the fourteenth and refractory subjects, as when William the fifteenth centuries, and the Spanish Conqueror at Alençon punished the rebels by Inquisition organized in 1480. The Inquisition chopping off the hands and feet of thirty-two with its penalties had among its ardent of the citizens and throwing them over the advocates the best and most enlightened men walls. It is nevertheless an astounding fact of their times, Innocent III., Frederick II., that for the mercy of Christ the Church Louis IX., Bonaventura, Thomas Aquinas. A authorities, who should have represented parallel is found in the best Roman emperors, him, substituted relentless cruelties. In this who lent themselves to the bloody repression respect the dissenting sectaries were of the early Church. The good king, St. Louis, infinitely more Christian than they. declared that when a layman heard the faith It has been argued in extenuation of the spoken against, he should draw his sword and Church that she stopped with the decree of thrust it into the offender’s body up to the excommunication and the sentence to lifelong hilt. imprisonment and did not pronounce the The Inquisition was a thoroughly papal sentence of death. And the old maxim is institution, wrought out in all its details by quoted as true of her in all times, that the the popes of the thirteenth century, beginning Church abhors blood—ecclesia non sitit with Innocent III. and not ending with sanguinem. The argument is based upon a Boniface VIII. In his famous manual for the pure technicality. treatment of heresy the Inquisitor, Bernard The Church, after sitting in judgment, turned Guy, a man who in spite of his office elicits the heretics over to the civil authorities, our respect, declares that the “office of the knowing full well that, as night follows day, Inquisition has its dignity from its origin for it the sentence of death would follow her is derived, commissioned, and known to have sentence of excommunication. Yea, the been instituted by the Apostolic see itself.” Church, through popes and synodal decrees, This was the feeling of the age. again and again threatened, with her disfavor Precedent enough there was for severe and fell spiritual punishments, princes and temporal measures. Constantine banished the municipalities not punishing heresy. Arians and burned their books. Theodosius The Fourth Lateran forbade priests the Great fixed death as the punishment for pronouncing judgments of blood and being heresy. The Priscillianists were executed in present at executions, but at the very same 385. The great authority of Augustine was

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 29 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course appealed to and his fatal interpretation of the Sovereigns were forbidden by the council of words of the parable “Compel them to come Vienne, 1312, to allow their Mohammedan in,” justifying force in the treatment of the subjects to practice the rites of their religion. Donatists, was made to do service far beyond The legislation, fixing the Inquisition as a what that father probably ever intended. Church institution and elaborating its powers, From the latter part of the twelfth century, began with the synod of Tours in 1163 and councils advocated the death penalty, popes the ecumenical council of 1179. A large step insisted upon it, and Thomas Aquinas in advance was made by the council of elaborately defended it. Heresy, so the theory Verona, 1184. The Fourth Lateran, 1215, and and the definitions ran, was a crime the the council of Toulouse, 1229, formally Church could not tolerate. It was Satan’s established the Inquisition and perfected the worst blow. organization. Gregory IX., Innocent IV., and Innocent III. wrote that as treason was Alexander IV. enforced its regulations and punished with death and confiscation of added to them. From first to last the popes goods, how much more should these were its chief promoters. punishments be meted out to those who The synod of Tours, 1163, called upon the blaspheme God and God’s Son. A crime bishops and clergy to forbid the Catholics against God, so he reasoned, is surely a much from mingling with the Albigenses and from graver misdemeanor than a crime against the having commercial dealings with them and secular power. giving them refuge. Princes were instructed The calm discussion, to which the eminent to imprison them and confiscate their goods. theologian, Thomas Aquinas, subjects the The Third Lateran, 1179, extended the treatment due heretics, was made at least a punishments to the defenders of heretics and quarter of a century after the Inquisition was their friends. It gave permission to princes to put into full force. Leaning back upon reduce heretics to slavery and shortened the Augustine and his interpretation of “compel time of penance by two years for those taking them to come in,” he declared in clearest up arms against them. terms that heretics deserved not only to be At the council of Verona, 1184, pope Lucius separated from the Church by III. and the emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, excommunication, but to be excluded from joined in making common cause in the sacred the earth by judicial death. Errors in undertaking and announced their attitude in geometry do not constitute mortal guilt, but the cathedral. Frederick had the law of the errors in matters of faith do. empire against heretics recited and threw his As falsifiers of coin are put to death, much glove down upon the floor as a token that he more may they justly be put to death who would enforce it. Then Lucius announced the perform the more wicked act of corrupting decree of the council, which enjoined bishops the faith. The heretic of whose reclamation to visit, at least once a year, all parts of their the Church despairs, it delivers over to the sees, to try all suspects, and to turn them, if secular tribunal to be executed out of the guilty, over to the civil authorities. Princes world. The principle was that those who were were ordered to take an oath to support the baptized were under the immediate Church against heresy upon pain of forfeiting jurisdiction of the Church and the Church their dignities. Cities, refusing to punish might deal with them as it saw fit. It was not offenders, were to be cut off from other cities till the fourteenth century, that the and, if episcopal seats, were to be deprived of jurisdiction of the Church and the pope was that honor. extended to the heathen by Augustinus Innocent III., the most vigorous of Triumphus, d. 1328, and other papal writers. persecutors, was no sooner on the throne

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 30 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course than he began to wage war against heretical present themselves at the confessional at infection. In one letter after another, he least once a year. As a protection against struck at it and commended military heretical infection, boys above the age of armaments for its destruction. The Fourth seven were obliged to go to church every Lateran gave formal and final expression to Sabbath and on festival days that they might Innocent’s views. The third canon opens with learn the credo, the pater noster, and the ave an anathematization of heretics of all names. Maria. It again enjoined princes to swear to protect The legislation of the state showed its full the faith on pain of losing their lands. To all sympathy with the rules of the Church. Peter taking part in the extermination of heretics— of Aragon, 1197, banished heretics from his ad haereticorum exterminium—was offered dominions or threatened them with death by the indulgence extended to the Crusaders in fire. In 1226, Don Jayme I. of Aragon forbade Palestine. All “believers” and also the all heretics entering his kingdom. He was the entertainers, defenders, and friends of first prince to prohibit the Bible in the heretics were to be excommunicated and vernacular Romancia, 1234. From another excluded from receiving their natural source, whence we might have expected inheritance. Bishops were instructed to go better things, came a series of severe edicts. through their dioceses once or twice a year in At his coronation, 1220, Frederick II. spoke of person or through representatives for the heretics as the viperous sons of perfidy, and purpose of detecting heresy, and in case of placed them under the ban of the empire. This neglect, they were to be deposed. law was renewed at Ravenna, 1232, and later For more than a century after Innocent, the in 1238, 1239. The goods of heretics were to enforcement of the rules for the detection and be confiscated and to be diverted from their punishment of heretics form the continual children, on the ground that it was a far subject of bulls issued by the Apostolic see graver thing to offend against the spiritual and of synodal action especially in Southern realm than to offend a temporal prince. Four France and Spain. Innocent IV. and Alexander years later, 1224, the emperor condemned IV. alone issued more than one hundred such them to the penalty of being burned, or bulls. having their tongues torn out at the The regulations for the episcopal supervision discretion of the judge. The Sicilian of the Inquisition were completed at the Constitutions of 1231 made burning alive in synod of Toulouse, 1229. Bishops were the sight of the people the punishment for commanded to appoint a priest and laymen to heretics previously condemned by the ferret out heretics—inquirant haereticos—in Church. houses and rooms. They were authorized to The princes and cities of Italy followed go outside their sees and princes outside of Frederick’s example. In Rome, after 1231, and their realms to do this work. But no heretic at the demand of Gregory IX., the senator took was to be punished till he had been tried oath to seize heretics pointed out by the before the bishop’s tribunal. Princes were Inquisition, and to put them to death within ordered to destroy the domiciles and refuges eight days of the ecclesiastical sentence. In of heretics, even if they were underground. Venice, beginning with 1249, the doge If heretics were found to reside on their lands included in his oath the pledge to burn without their knowledge, such princes were heretics. In France, the rules of the Inquisition to be punished. Men above fourteen and were fully recognized in Louis IX.’s laws of women above twelve were obliged to swear 1228. The two great codes of Germany, the to inform on heretics. And all, wishing to Sachsenspiegel and the Schwabenspiegel, avoid the charge of heresy, were bound to ordered heretics burned to death. A prince not burning heretics was himself to be

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 31 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course treated as a heretic. In England, the act for the One more step remained to be taken. By the burning of heretics—de comburendo famous bull ad exstirpanda, of 1252, Innocent haeretico—was not passed till a century later, IV. authorized torture as a measure for 1401. extorting confessions. The merciless use of That the Church fully accepted Frederick’s this weapon was one of the most atrocious severe legislation, is attested by the action of features of the whole procedure. Honorius III. who sent the emperor’s edict of The Inquisitors, in spite of papal authority, 1220 to Bologna with instructions that it be synodal action, and state legislation, did not taught as part of the canon law. Frederick’s always have an easy path. In 1235, the subsequent legislation was commended by citizens of Narbonne drove them out of their popes and bishops, and ordered to be city. In 1242, a number were murdered in inscribed in municipal statute books. Avignon, whom Pius IX., in 1866, sought to To more efficiently carry out the purpose of recompense by giving them the honor of the Inquisition, the trial and punishment of canonization as he had done the year before heresy were taken out of the hands of the to the bloodiest of Inquisitors, the Spaniard bishops and put into the hands of the Arbues, d. 1485. Parma, according to monastic orders by Gregory IX. As early as Salimbene, was placed, in 1279, under 1227, this pope appointed a Dominican of interdict for three years, the punishment for Florence to proceed against the heretical the act of “certain fools” who broke into the bishop, Philip Paternon. In 1232, the first convent of the Dominicans and killed one or Dominicans were appointed inquisitors in two friars in retribution for their having Germany and Aragon. burned for heresy a certain noble lady and her maid. The distinguished Inquisitor, Peter In 1233, Gregory took the decisive step of of Verona, otherwise known as Peter Martyr, substituting the Dominicans for the bishops was murdered at Como, 1252. In Germany the as agents of the Inquisition, giving as his resistance of the Inquisition was a frequent reason, the multitude of cares by which the occurrence and more than one of its agents bishops were burdened. The Inquisitors were atoned for his activity by a violent death. Of thus made a distinct clan, disassociated from these, Konrad of Marburg was the most the pastoral care of souls. The friars were notorious. empowered to deprive suspected priests of their benefices, and to call to their aid the Down to the very close of the Middle Ages, the secular arm in suppressing heresy. From their pages of history were disfigured by the judgment there was no appeal except to the decrees of popes and synods, confirming papal court. death as the penalty for heresy, and for persons supposed to be possessed with The Franciscans were afterwards joined with witchcraft. The great council of Constance, the Dominicans in this work in parts of Italy, 1415, did not get away from this atmosphere, in France, and later in Sardinia and Syria and and ordered heretics punished even by the Palestine. Complaint was made by bishops of flames,—puniantur ad ignem. And the bull of this interference with their prerogatives, and, Leo X., 1520, condemning Luther, cursed as in 1254, Innocent IV. listened to the heresy the Reformer’s liberal statement that complaint so far as to decree that no death the burning of heretics is contrary to the will penalty should be pronounced without of the Spirit. consulting with them. The council of Vienne ordered the prisons containing heretics to be To the great humiliation of the Protestant guarded by two gaolers, one appointed by the churches, religious intolerance and even Inquisitor and one by the bishop. persecution unto death were continued long after the Reformation. In Geneva, the

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 32 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course pernicious theory was put into practice by offend against all our modern ideas of civil state and church, even to the use of torture justice. The testimony of wives and children and the admission of the testimony of was valid or required and also of persons children against their parents, and with the known to be criminals. Suspicion and public sanction of Calvin. Bullinger, in the second rumor were sufficient grounds of complaint, Helvetic Confession, announced the principle seizure, and formal proceedings, a principle that heresy should be punished like murder clearly stated by the council of Toulouse, or treason. The treatment of the Anabaptists 1229, in its eighteenth canon, and recognized is a great blot on the page of the Reformation, by the state. The Sicilian Constitutions of Strassburg being the only centre that 1231, ordered that heretics be diligently tolerated them. Cranmer persuaded Edward hunted out and, when there “was only the VI. to burn women. Elizabeth saw the death slightest suspicion of guilt,” they were to be penalty executed upon Puritans. The spirit of taken before the bishop. The intention, as intolerance was carried across the seas, and opposed to the outward commission, was was as strong in the seventeenth and made a sufficient ground of accusation. The eighteenth centuries in the American Inquisitor might at the same time be police, colonies, with some exceptions, as it was in prosecutor, and judge. Europe. The execution of Quakers in Boston, It is due to Innocent III. to say that he did not and of persons accused of witchcraft in Salem, invent the inquisitorial mode of procedure, together with the laws of Virginia and other but drew it from the practice already in vogue colonies, were the unfortunate survivals of in the state. the vicious history of the Middle Ages, which A party, not answering a citation within a forgot Christ’s example as he wept over year, was declared a heretic even when no Jerusalem, and the Apostle’s words, proofs were advanced. Likewise, one who “vengeance is mine, I will repay,” saith the harbored a heretic forty days after a warning Lord. was served was treated as a heretic. At the So far as we know, the Roman Catholic trials, the utmost secrecy was observed and Church has never officially revoked the names of the accusers were not divulged. In theory and practice of the medieval popes commending this measure of secrecy, Paramo and councils, but on the contrary the declared that the example was set by God utterances of Pius IX. and Leo XIII. show the himself in carrying out the first inquisition, in same spirit of vicious reprobation for the garden of Eden, to defeat the subtlety of Protestants and their agencies. Satan who otherwise might have 5.87. The Inquisition. Its Mode of communicated with Adam and Eve. Procedure and Penalties Penitent heretics, if there was any doubt of their sincerity, were obliged to change their The Inquisition was called the Holy Office— places of abode and, according to the synod of sanctum officium—from the praiseworthy Toulouse, if they belonged to the Perfect, had work it was regarded as being engaged in. Its to do so in all cases. The penances imposed chief officials, the Inquisitors, were exempted were fines, which were allowed by papal by Alexander IV., 1259, and Urban IV., 1262, decree as early as 1237 and 1245, from all ecclesiastical jurisdiction, whether pilgrimages, and wearing of two crosses on bishops, archbishops, or papal legates, except the left and right side of the body called the the jurisdiction of the Apostolic see, and from poena confusibilis. all interference by the secular power. They also enjoyed the right to excommunicate, lay The pilgrimage to Jerusalem was forbidden the interdict, and to absolve their agents for by a synod of Narbonne, 1243, which referred acts of violence. The methods of procedure to a recent papal deliverance prohibiting it,

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 33 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course that the sacred places might be protected reminds us of the words, perhaps improperly against the infection of heresy. Young women ascribed to Charles V. who, standing at were often excused from wearing the crosses, Luther’s grave, is reported to have refused to as it might interfere with their prospects of touch the Reformer’s bones, saying, “I war marriage. According to French law, pregnant with the living, not with the dead.” The women condemned to death, were not council of Verona, 1184, ordered relapsed executed till after the birth of the child. heretics to be turned over forthwith to the Local synods in Southern France ordered secular authorities. heretics and their defenders excommunicated In the period before 1480 the Inquisition every Sunday and that sentence should be claimed most of its victims in Southern pronounced amidst the ringing of bells and France. Douais has given us a list of seventeen with candles extinguished. And as a Inquisitors-general who served from 1229 to protection against heresy, the bells were to be 1329. The sentences pronounced by Bernard rung every evening. de Caux, called the Hammer of the Heretics, Imprisonment for life was ordered by 1244–1248 give the names of hundreds who Gregory IX., 1229, for all induced to return to were adjudged to the loss of goods or the faith through fear of punishment. The perpetual imprisonment, or both. prisons in France were composed of small During the administration of Bernard Guy, as cells. The expenditures for their erection and inquisitor of Toulouse, 1306–1323, forty-two enlargement were shared by the bishop and persons were burnt to death, sixty-nine the Inquisitors. French synods spoke of the bodies were exhumed and burnt, three number sentenced to life-imprisonment as so hundred and seven were imprisoned, and one great that hardly stones enough could be hundred and forty-three were condemned to found for the prison buildings. The secular wear crosses. A single instance may suffice of authorities destroyed the heretic’s domicile, a day’s doings by the Inquisition. On May 12, confiscated his goods, and pronounced the 1234, six young men, twelve men, and eleven death penalty. women were burnt at Toulouse. The rules for the division of confiscated In the other parts of France, the Inquisition property differed in different localities. In was not so vigorously prosecuted. It included, Venice, after prolonged negotiations with the as we have seen, the order of the Templars. In pope, it was decided that they should pass to 1253 the Dominican provincial of Paris was the state. In the rest of Italy they became, in made the supreme Inquisitor. Among the equal parts, the property of the state, the more grim Inquisitors of France was the Inquisition, and the curia; and in Southern Dominican Robert le Petit, known as Le France, of the state, the Inquisitors, and the Bougre from his having been a Patarene. bishop. Provision was made for the expenses Gregory IX. appointed him inquisitor-general, of the Inquisition out of the spoils of 1233, and declared God had “given him such confiscated property. The temptation to special grace that every hunter feared his plunder became a fruitful ground for spying horn.” The French king gave him his special out alleged heretics. Once accused, they were aid and a royal bodyguard to attend him. He all but helpless. Synods encouraged arrests by had hundreds of victims in Western offering a fixed reward to diligent spies. Burgundy and the adjoining regions. In one Not satisfied with seeing the death penalty term of two or three months, he burnt fifty of executed upon the living, the Inquisition both sexes. At Cambrai he burnt twenty, at made war upon the dead, and exhumed the Douai ten. His last deed was to burn at Mt. bodies of those found to have died in heresy Aimé in 1239, twenty-seven, or according to and burned them. This relentless barbarity another account more than one hundred and

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 34 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course eighty—“a holocaust very great and pleasing Augustinians, one of the order of Coelestin, to God” as the old chronicler put it. In 1239 he and the rest Dominicans. The laws of was himself consigned to perpetual Frederick II. were renewed or elaborated by imprisonment for his misdeeds. Rudolf, 1292, and other emperors, and the In the Spanish kingdom of Aragon, the laws of the Church by many provincial number of heretics does not seem to have councils. The bishops of Treves, Mainz, and been large. In 1232 the archbishop of Cologne interfered at times with the Tarragona was ordered by Gregory IX. to persecution of the Beghards and Beguines, proceed against heretics in conjunction with and appealed, as against the papal Inquisitors, the Dominicans. One of the most famous of all to their rights, as recognized in the papal Inquisitors, the Spanish Dominican, bulls of 1259 and 1320. After the murder of Eymericus, was appointed Inquisitor-general Konrad of Marburg, Gregory IX. called upon 1357, was deposed 1360, and reappointed them in vain to prosecute heretics with vigor. 1366. He died in exile. His Directorium In fact the Germans again and again showed inquisitorum, written 1376, is the most their resentment and put Inquisitors to death. famous treatise on the mode of treating The centres of heresy in Germany were heresy. Heretics, in his judgment, were justly Strassburg, as early as 1212, Cologne, and offered the alternative of submission or the Erfurt. The number of victims is said to have stake. The small number of the victims under been very large and at least five hundred can the earlier Inquisition in Spain was fully made be accounted for definitely in reported up in the series of holocausts begun under burnings. Banishment, hanging, and Ferdinand in 1480. drowning were other forms of punishment In Northern and Central Italy, the Inquisition practised. In 1368 the Inquisitor, Walter was fully developed, the first papal Kerlinger, banished two hundred families commissioners being the bishops of Brescia from Erfurt alone. The prisons to which the and Modena, 1224. The cases of heresy in condemned were consigned were wretched Southern Italy were few and isolated. In places, the abode of filth, vermin, and snakes. Rome, the first pyres were lighted in 1231, in As Torquemada stands out as the front of St. Maria Maggiore. From that year incorporation of all that is inhuman in the on, and at the demand of Gregory IX., the Spanish Inquisition, so in the German does Roman senator took an oath to execute Konrad of Marburg. heretics within eight days of their conviction This Dominican ecclesiastic, whom Gregory by the ecclesiastical court. The houses IX. called the “Lord’s watch-dog,” first came sheltering them were to be pulled down. The into prominence at the court of Louis IV. of sentence condemning heretics was read by Thuringia on the Wartburg, the old castle the Inquisitor on the steps of the Capitol in which was the scene of the contests of the the presence of the senator. At a later period Minnesingers, and was destined to be made the special order of San Giovanni Decollato— famous by Luther’s confinement after the diet John, the Beheaded—was formed in Rome, of Worms, 1521. Konrad became confessor of whose members accompanied the Louis’ wife, the young and saintly Elizabeth. condemned to the place of death. The daughter of King Andreas II. of Hungary, In Germany, the Inquisition did not take full she was married to the Landgrave of hold till the crusade against witchcraft was Thuringia in 1221, at the age of fourteen. At started. The Dominicans were formally his death at Brindisi, on his way to the Holy appointed to take charge of the business in Land, in 1227, she came more completely 1248. Of sixty-three papal Inquisitors, known under the power of Konrad. Scarcely any by name, ten were Franciscans, two scene in Christian history exhibits such

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 35 CH510: Volume 5, Chapter 10 a Grace Notes course wanton and pitiless cruelty to a spiritual have been given a splendid memorial in the ward as he displayed to the tender woman volumes of Fredericq. Holland’s baptism of who yielded him obedience. From the blood on a grand scale was reserved for the Wartburg, where she was adored for her days of Philip II. and the Duke of Alva in the charities and good works, she removed to sixteenth century. Marburg. There Konrad subjected her to daily In England, the methods of the Inquisition castigations and menial services, deprived never had any foothold. When the papal her gradually of all her maids of honor, and agents arrived to prosecute the Templars, separated her from her three children. On one King Edward forbade the use of torture as occasion when she visited a convent of nuns contrary to the common law of the realm. The at Oldenburg, a thing which was against their flogging of the Publicani, who are said to have rigid rule, Konrad made Elizabeth and her made a single English convert, has already attendant lie prostrate and receive a severe been referred to. In 1222 a deacon, who had scourging from friar Gerhard while he himself turned Jew, was hanged. The parliamentary looked on and repeated the Miserere. This, act for burning heretics, passed in 1401, was the most honored woman of medieval directed against the followers of Wyclif and Germany, died of her castigations in 1231. the Lollards. It was not till the days of Henry Four years later she was canonized, and the VIII. that the period of prosecutions and St. Elizabeth church was begun which still burnings in England for heresy fully began. stands to her memory in Marburg.

The year of Elizabeth’s death, Gregory IX. invested Konrad with a general inquisitorial authority and right to appoint his own assistants and call upon the secular power for aid. Luciferans, so called, and other heretics were freely burned. It was Konrad’s custom to burn the offenders the very day their sentences were pronounced. A reign of terror broke out wherever he went. He was murdered in 1233, on his way back to Marburg from the diet of Mainz. After his death Gregory declared him to be a man of consummate virtue, a herald of the Christian faith. Konrad was buried at the side of Elizabeth, but the papal inquisition in Germany did not recover for many a year from the blow given to it by his merciless hardness of heart. And so, as the Annals of Worms remarked, “Germany was freed from the abominable and unheard-of tribunal of that man.” In the Lowlands, Antwerp, Brussels, and other cities were lively centres of heresy and afforded a fine opportunity for the Inquisitor. The lists of the accused and of those executed in the flames and by other means include Waldenses, Beguines, Beghards, Apostolicals, Lollards, and other sectaries. Their sufferings