A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages Volume II Part 5

Even more significant of the growing authority of the University and the waning power of the Papacy was a decision rendered in 1502. Alexander VI. had levied a t.i.the on the clergy of France, with the customary excuse of prosecuting the war against the Turks. The clergy, whose consent had not been asked, refused to pay. The pope rejoined by excommunicating them, and they applied to the University to know whether such a papal excommunication was valid, whether it was to be feared, and whether they should consequently abstain from the performance of divine service. On all these points the University replied in the negative, unanimously and without hesitation. Had circ.u.mstances permitted the same independence in Germany, a little more progress in this direction would have rendered Luther superfluous.[155]

It is not to be supposed, however, that the Inquisition, though fallen from its former dignity, had ceased to exist or to perform its functions after a fas.h.i.+on. It was to the interest of the popes to maintain it, and the position of inquisitor, though humble in comparison with that which his predecessors enjoyed, was yet a source of influence, and possibly of profit, which led to its being eagerly sought. In 1414 we find two contestants for the post at Toulouse, and in 1424 an unseemly quarrel between two rivals at Carca.s.sonne. The diocese of Geneva was also the subject of contention embittered by the traditional rivalry between the two Mendicant Orders. It will be remembered that in 1290 this, with other French cantons, was included by Nicholas IV. in the inquisitorial province of Besancon, which was Dominican. Geneva belonged, however, ecclesiastically to the metropolis of Vienne, which was under the Franciscan Inquisition of Provence, and Gregory XI. so treated it in 1375. When Pons Feugeyron was commissioned, in 1409, Geneva was not mentioned in the enumeration of the dioceses under him; but when his commission was renewed by Martin V., in 1418, it was included, and he began to exercise his powers there. There at once arose the threat of a most scandalous quarrel between the combative Orders; the Dominicans appealed to Martin, and in 1419 he restored Geneva to them. Yet in 1434, when Eugenius IV. again confirmed Pons Feugeyron's commission, the name of Geneva once more slipped in. The Dominicans must again have successfully reclaimed it, for in 1472, when there was a sudden resumption of inquisitorial activity under Sixtus IV., in confirming Frere Jean Vaylette as Inquisitor of Provence, with the same powers as Pons Feugeyron, Geneva was omitted in the list of his jurisdictions, while the Dominicans, Victor Rufi and Claude Rufi, were appointed respectively at Geneva and Lausanne; and in 1491 another Dominican, Francois Granet, was commissioned at Geneva.[156]

Yet the position thus eagerly sought had no legitimate means of support.

In the terrible disorders of the times the royal stipends had been withdrawn. Alexander V., in 1409, instructed his legate, the Cardinal of S. Susanna, that some method must be devised of meeting the expenses of the inquisitor, his a.s.sociate, his notary, and his servant. He suggests either levying three hundred gold florins on the Jews of Avignon; or that each bishop shall defray the cost as the inquisitor moves from one diocese to another; or that each bishop shall contribute ten florins annually out of the legacies for pious uses. Which device was adopted does not appear, but they all seem to have proved fruitless, for in 1418 Martin V. wrote to the Archbishop of Narbonne that he must find some means of supplying the necessary expenses of the Inquisition. Under such circ.u.mstances the attraction of the office may, perhaps, be discerned from a pet.i.tion, in this same year 1418, from the citizens of Avignon in favor of the Jews. The protection afforded by the Avignonese popes to this proscribed cla.s.s had rendered the city a Jewish centre, and they were found of much utility; but they were constantly molested by the inquisitors, who inst.i.tuted frivolous prosecutions against them, doubtless not without profit. Martin listened kindly to the appeal, and it proves the degradation of the Inquisition that he gave the Jews a right to appoint an a.s.sessor who should sit with the inquisitor in all cases in which they were concerned.[157]

Still the Inquisition was not wholly without evidence of activity in its purposed sphere of duty. We shall see hereafter that Pierre d'Ailly, Bishop of Cambrai, when, in 1411, he prosecuted the Men of Intelligence, duly called in the inquisitor of the province, who was Dominican Prior of St. Quentin in Vermandois, to join in the sentence. In 1430 we hear of a number of heretics who had been burned at Lille by the deputy-inquisitor and the Bishop of Tournay; and in 1431 Philippe le Bon ordered his officials to execute all sentences p.r.o.nounced by Brother Heinrich Kaleyser, who had been appointed Inquisitor of Cambrai and Lille by the Dominican Provincial of Germany--a manifest invasion of the rights of his colleague of Paris, doubtless due to the political complications of the times. This order of Philippe le Bon, however, shows that the example of supervision set by the Parlement was not lost on the feudatories, for the officials are only instructed to make arrests when there has been a proper preliminary inquest, with observance of all the forms of law. I shall have occasion hereafter to speak of the part played by the Inquisition in the tragedy of Joan of Arc, and need here only allude to the appointment, in 1431, by Eugenius IV., of Frere Jean Graveran to be Inquisitor of Rouen, where he was already exercising the functions of the office, and where he was succeeded in 1433 by Frere Sebastien l'Abbe, who had been papal penitentiary and chaplain--another evidence of the part.i.tion of France during the disastrous English war. People were growing more careless about excommunication than ever. About 1415, a number of ecclesiastics of Limoges were prosecuted by the inquisitor, Jean du Puy, as suspect of heresy for this cause; they appealed to the Council of Constance, and in 1418 the matter was referred back to the archbishop. Still the indifference to excommunication grew, and in 1435 Eugenius IV.

instructed the Inquisitor of Carca.s.sonne to prosecute all who remained under the censure of the Church for several years without seeking absolution.[158]

With the pacification of France and the final expulsion of the English, Nicholas V. seems to have thought the occasion opportune for reviving and establis.h.i.+ng the Inquisition on a firmer and broader basis. A bull of August 1, 1451, to Hugues le Noir, Inquisitor of France, defines his jurisdiction as extending not only over the Kingdom of France, but also over the Duchy of Aquitaine and all Gascony and Languedoc. Thus, with the exception of the eastern provinces, the whole was consolidated into one district, with its princ.i.p.al seat probably in Toulouse. The jurisdiction of the inquisitor was likewise extended over all offences that had hitherto been considered doubtful--blasphemy, sacrilege, divination, even when not savoring of heresy, and unnatural crimes. He was further released from the necessity of episcopal co-operation, and was empowered to carry on all proceedings and render judgment without calling the bishops into consultation. Two centuries earlier these enormous powers would have rendered Hugues almost omnipotent, but now it was too late. The Inquisition had sunk beyond resuscitation. In 1458 the Franciscan Minister of Burgundy represented to Pius II. the deplorable condition of the inst.i.tution in the extensive territories confided to his Order, comprising the great archiepiscopates of Lyons, Vienne, Arles, Aix, Embrun, and Tarantaise, and covering both sides of the Rhone and a considerable portion of Savoy. In the thirteenth century Clement IV. had placed this region under the control of the Burgundian Minister, but with the lapse of time his supervision had become nominal.

Ambitious friars had obtained directly from the popes commissions to act as inquisitors in special districts, and therefore acknowledged no authority but their own. Others had a.s.sumed the office without appointment from any one. There was no power to correct their excesses; scandals were numerous, the people were oppressed, and the Order exposed to opprobrium. Pius hastened to put an end to these abuses by renewing the obsolete authority of the minister, with full power of removal, even of those who enjoyed papal commissions.[159]

The Inquisition was thus reorganized, but its time had pa.s.sed. To so low an ebb had it fallen that in this same year, 1458, Frere Berard Tremoux, Inquisitor of Lyons, who had aroused general hostility by the rigor with which he exercised his office, was thrown in prison through the efforts of the citizens, and it required the active interposition of Pius II.

and his legate, Cardinal Alano, to effect his release. The venality and corruption of the papal curia, moreover, was so ineradicable that no reform was possible in anything subject to its control. But three years after Pius had placed the whole district under the Minister of Burgundy we find him renewing the old abuses by a special appointment of Brother Bartholomaus of Eger as Inquisitor of Gren.o.ble. That such commissions were sold, or conferred as a matter of favor, there can be no reasonable doubt, and the appointees were turned loose upon their districts to wring what miserable gains they could from the fears of the people. Only this can explain a form of appointment which became common as "inquisitor in the Kingdom of France," "without prejudice to other inquisitors authorized by us or by others"--a sort of letter-of-marque to cruise at large and make what the appointees could from the faithful.

Similarly significant is the appointment of Frere Pierre Cordrat, confessor of Jean, Duke of Bourbon, in 1478, to be Inquisitor of Bourges, thus wholly disregarding the consolidation of the kingdom by Nicholas V. It is hardly necessary to extend the list further.

Inquisitors were appointed by the popes in constant succession, either for the kingdom of France or for special districts, as though the inst.i.tution were at the height of its power and activity. That something was to be gained by all this there can be no question, but there is little risk in a.s.suming that the gainer was not religion.[160]

Several cases occurring about this period are interesting as ill.u.s.trations of the spread of the spirit of inquiry and independence, and of the subordinate position to which the Inquisition had sunk. In 1459, at Lille, there was burned a heretic known as Alphonse of Portugal, who led an austere life as an anchorite and frequented the churches a.s.siduously, but who declared that since Gregory the Great there had been no true pope, and consequently no valid administration of the sacraments. In the account which has reached us of his trial and execution there is no allusion to the intervention of the Holy Office.

Still more significant is the case, in 1484, of Jean Laillier, a priest in Paris, a theological licentiate, and an applicant for the doctorate in theology. In his sermons he had been singularly free-spoken. He denied the validity of the rule of celibacy; he quoted Wickliff as a great doctor; he rejected the supremacy of Rome and the binding force of tradition and decretal; John XXII., he said, had had no power to condemn Jean de Poilly; so far from St. Francis occupying the vacant throne of Lucifer in heaven, he was rather with Lucifer in h.e.l.l; since the time of Silvester the Holy See had been the church of avarice and of imperial power, where canonization could be obtained for money. So weak had become the traditional hold of the Church on the consciences of men that this revolutionary preaching seems to have aroused no opposition, even on the part of the Inquisition; but Laillier, not content with simple toleration, applied to the University for the doctorate, and was refused admission to the preliminary disputations unless he should purge himself, undergo penance, and obtain the a.s.sent of the Holy See.

Laillier thereupon boldly applied to the Parlement, now by tacit a.s.sent clothed with supreme jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters, asking it to compel the University to admit him. The Parlement entertained no doubts as to its own competence, but decided the case in a manner not looked for by the hardy priest. It ordered Louis, Bishop of Paris, in conjunction with the inquisitor and four doctors selected by the University, to prosecute Laillier to due punishment. The bishop and inquisitor agreed to proceed separately and communicate their processes to each other; but Laillier must have had powerful backers, for Bishop Louis, without conferring with his colleague or the experts, allowed Laillier to make a partial recantation and a public abjuration couched in the most free and easy terms, absolved him, June 23, 1486, p.r.o.nounced him free from suspicion of heresy, restored him to his functions, and declared him capable of promotion to all grades and honors. Frere Jean Cossart, the inquisitor, who had been diligently collecting evidence of many scandalous doctrines of Laillier's and vainly communicating them to the bishop, was forced to swallow this affront in silence, but the University felt its honor engaged and was not inclined to submit.

November 6, 1486, it issued a formal protest against the action of the bishop, appealed to the pope, and demanded "Apostoli." Innocent VIII.

promptly came to the rescue. He annulled the decision of the bishop and ordered the inquisitor, in conjunction with the Archbishop of Sens and the Bishop of Meaux, to throw Laillier into prison, while they should investigate the unrecanted heresies and send the papers to Rome for decision. Very suggestive of the strong influences supporting Laillier is the pope's expression of fear lest the pressure brought to bear on the University should have forced it to admit him to the doctorate; if so, such action is p.r.o.nounced void, and all engaged in the attempt are ordered to desist under pain of incurring suspicion of heresy. It is not a little singular that the Bishop of Meaux, who was thus selected to sit in judgment on Laillier, was at this very time under censure by the University for reviving the Donatist heresy of the insufficiency of the sacraments in polluted hands--the Eucharist of a fornicating priest was of no more account, he said, than the barking of a dog. Many an unfortunate Waldensian had been burned for less than this, but the inquisitor had not dared to hold him to account. Nor do we hear of his intervention in the case of Jean Langlois, priest of St. Crispin, who, when celebrating ma.s.s, June 3, 1491, horrified his flock by casting on the floor and trampling the consecrated wine and host. On his arrest he gave as his reason that the body and blood of Christ were not in the elements, and as he stubbornly refused to recant, he expiated his error at the stake. Similar was the fate of Aymon Picard, who, at the feast of St. Louis in the Sainte-Chapelle, August 25, 1503, s.n.a.t.c.hed the host from the celebrant and cast it in pieces on the floor, and obstinately declined to abjure. All this was significant of the time coming when the Inquisition would be more necessary than ever.[161]

The present degradation which it shared with the rest of the Church in the constantly growing supremacy of the State is manifested by a commission issued in 1485, by Frere Antoine de Clede, appointing a vicar to act for him in Rodez and Vabres. In this doc.u.ment he styles himself Inquisitor of France, Aquitaine, Gascony, and Languedoc, deputed by the Holy See and the Parlement. The two bodies are thus equal sources of authority, and the appointment by the pope would have been insufficient without the confirmation by the royal court. How contemptible, indeed, the Inquisition had become, even in the eyes of ecclesiastics, is brought instructively before us in a petty quarrel between the Inquisitor Raymond Gozin and his Dominican brethren. When he succeeded Frere Gaillard de la Roche, somewhere about 1516, he found that the house of the Inquisition at Toulouse had been stripped of its furniture and utensils by the friars of the Dominican convent. He made a reclamation, and some of the articles were restored; but the friars subsequently demanded them back, and on his refusal procured from the General Master instructions to the vicar, under which the latter proceeded to extremities with him, wholly disregarding his appeal to the pope, though he finally, in 1520, succeeded in obtaining the intervention of Leo X. Imagination could scarcely furnish a more convincing proof of decadence than this exhibition of the successor of Bernard de Caux and Bernard Gui vainly endeavoring to defend his kitchen gear from the rapacious hands of his brethren.[162]

It is quite probable that this dispute was envenomed by the inevitable jealousy between the main body of the Order and its puritan section known as the Reformed Congregation. Of this latter Raymond Gozin was vicar-general, and his anxiety to regain his furnis.h.i.+ngs was probably due to the fact that he was altering the house of the Inquisition so as to accommodate within it a Reformed convent. The vast buildings which it had required in the plenitude of its power had become a world too wide for its shrunken needs. The original home of the Dominican Order, before the removal in 1230 through the liberality of Pons de Capdenier, it contained a church with three altars, a refectory, cells (or prison), chambers, guest-rooms, cloisters, and two gardens. In approving of the proposed alterations, Leo X. stipulated that some kind of retiring-room with convenient offices must still be reserved for the use of the Inquisition. This epitomizes the history of the inst.i.tution. Yet it had by no means wholly lost its power of evil, for in 1521 Johann Bomm, Dominican Prior of Poligny, and inquisitor at Besancon had the satisfaction of despatching two lycanthropists, or wer-wolves.[163]

The career of the Waldenses forms so interesting and well-defined an episode in the history of persecution that I have hitherto omitted all reference to that sect, in order to present a brief, continuous outline of its relations with the Inquisition, which found in it, after the disappearance of the Cathari, the only really important field of labor in France.

Although by no means as numerous or as powerful in Languedoc as the Cathari, the Waldenses formed an important heretical element. They were, however, mostly confined to the humbler cla.s.ses, and we hear of few n.o.bles belonging to the sect. In the sentences of Pierre Cella, rendered in Querci in 1241 and 1242, we have abundant testimony as to their numbers and activity. Thus, references occur to them--

At Gourdon in 55 cases out of 219 At Montcucq in 44 " " " 84 At Sauveterre in 1 case " " 5 At Belcayre in 3 cases out of 7 At Montauban in 175 " " " 252 At Moissac in 1 case " " 94 At Montpezat in no " " " 22 At Montaut in no " " " 23 At Castelnau in 1 " " " 11

and although many of these are mere allusions to having seen them or had dealings with them, the comparative frequency of the reference indicates the places where their heresy was most flouris.h.i.+ng. Thus, Montauban was evidently its headquarters in the district, and at Gourdon and Montcucq there were vigorous colonies.

They had a regular organization--schools for the young where their doctrines were doubtless implanted in the children of orthodox parents; cemeteries where their dead were buried; missionaries who traversed the land diligently to spread the faith, and who customarily refused all alms, save hospitality. A certain Pierre des Vaux is frequently referred to as one of the most active and most beloved of these, regarded, according to one of his disciples, as an angel of light. Public preaching in the streets was constant, and numerous allusions are made to disputations held between the Waldensian ministers and the Catharan perfects. Still, the utmost good feeling existed between the two persecuted sects. Men were found who confessed to believing in the Waldenses and to performing acts of adoration to the Cathari--in the common enmity to Rome any faith which was not orthodox was regarded as good. The reputation of the Waldenses as skilful leeches was a powerful aid in their missionary labors. They were constantly consulted in cases of disease or injury, and almost without exception they refused payment for their ministrations, save food. One woman confessed to giving forty sols to a Catharan for medical services, while to Waldenses she gave only wine and bread. We learn also that they heard confessions and imposed penance; that they celebrated a sacramental supper in which bread and fish were blessed and partaken of, and that bread which they consecrated with the sign of the cross was regarded as holy by their disciples. Notwithstanding the strength and organization of the sect, the Waldenses were evidently looked upon by Pierre Cella with a less unfavorable eye than the Cathari, and the penances imposed on them were habitually lighter.[164]

From Lyons the Waldensian belief had spread to the North and East, as well as to the South and West. It is a curious fact that while the Cathari never succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng themselves to any extent beyond the Romance territories, the Waldenses were already, in 1192, so numerous in Lorraine that Eudes, Bishop of Toul, in ordering them to be captured and brought to him in chains for judgment, not only promises remission of sins as a reward, but feels obliged to add that if, for rendering this service, the faithful are driven away from their homes, he will find them in food and clothing. In Franche Comte, John, Count of Burgundy, bears emphatic testimony to their numbers in 1248, when he solicited of Innocent IV. the introduction of the Inquisition in his dominions, and its discontinuance in 1257 doubtless left them to multiply in peace. In 1251 we find the Archbishop of Narbonne condemning some female Waldenses to perpetual imprisonment. It was, however, in the mountains of Auvergne and the Alpine and sub-Alpine regions stretching between Geneva and the Mediterranean that they found the surest refuge.

While Pierre Cella was penancing those of Querci, the Archbishop of Embrun was busy with their brethren of Freyssinieres, Argentiere, and Val-Pute, which so long continued to be their strongholds. In 1251, when Alphonse and Jeanne, on their accession, guaranteed at Beaucaire the liberties of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, the Bishop-legate Zoen earnestly urged them to destroy the Waldenses there. There were ample laws on the munic.i.p.al statute-books of Avignon and Arles for the extermination of "heretics and Waldenses," but the local magistracy was slack in their enforcement and was obliged to swear to extirpate the sectaries. The Waldenses were mostly simple mountain folk, with possessions that offered no temptation for confiscation, and persecuting energy was more profitable and more usefully directed against the richer Cathari. We hear, indeed, that from 1271 to 1274 the zeal of Guillaume de Cobardon, Seneschal of Carca.s.sonne, urged the inquisitors to active work against the Waldenses, resulting in numerous convictions, but among the far more populous communities near the Rhone the Inquisition was not introduced into the Comtat Venaissin until 1288, nor into Dauphine until 1292, and in both cases we are told that it was caused by the alarming spread of heresy. In 1288 the same increase is alluded to in the provinces of Arles, Aix, and Embrun, when Nicholas IV. sent to the n.o.bles and magistrates there the laws of Frederic II., with orders for their enforcement, and to the inquisitors a code of instructions for procedure.[165]

About the same period there is a curious case of a priest named Jean Philibert, who was sent from Burgundy into Gascony to track a fugitive Waldensian. He followed his quarry as far as Ausch, where he found a numerous community of the sectaries, holding regular a.s.semblies and preaching and performing their rites, although they attended the parish churches to avert suspicion. Their evangelical piety so won upon him that, after going home, he returned to Ausch and formally joined them.

He wandered back to Burgundy, where he fell under suspicion, and in 1298 he was brought before Gui de Reims, the Inquisitor of Besancon, when he refused to take an oath and was consigned to prison. Here he abjured, and on being liberated returned to the Waldenses of Gascony, was again arrested, and brought before Bernard Gui in 1311, who finally burned him in 1319 as a relapsed. In 1302 we hear of two Waldensian ministers haunting the region near Castres, in the Albigeois, wandering around by night and zealously propagating their doctrines. Still, in spite of these evidences of activity, little effort at repression is visible at this period. The Inquisition was crippled for a while by its contest with Philippe le Bel and Clement V., and when it resumed unrestricted operations, Pierre Autier and his Catharan disciples absorbed its energies. Although the sentences of Bernard Gui at Toulouse commence in 1308, it is not until the _auto de fe_ of 1316 that any Waldenses appear among its victims, when one was condemned to perpetual imprisonment and one was burned as an unrepentant heretic. The _auto_ of 1319 appears to have been a jail-delivery, for poor wretches appear in it whose confessions date back to 1309, 1311, 1312, and 1315. On this occasion eighteen Waldenses were condemned to pilgrimages with or without crosses, twenty-six to perpetual prison, and three were burned. In the _auto_ of 1321 a man and his wife who obstinately refused to abjure were burned. In that of 1322 eight were sentenced to pilgrimages, of whom five had crosses, two to prison, six dead bodies were exhumed and burned, and there is an allusion to the brother of one of the prisoners who had been burned at Avignon. This comprises the whole work of Bernard Gui from 1308 to 1323, and does not indicate any very active persecution. It is perhaps noteworthy that all of those punished in 1319 were from Ausch, while the popular name of "Burgundians," by which the Waldenses were known, indicates that the headquarters of the sect were still in Franche Comte. In fact, an allusion to a certain Jean de Lorraine as a successful missionary indicates that region as busy in proselyting efforts, and there are not wanting facts to prove that the Inquisition of Besancon was active during this period. In the _auto_ of 1322 many of the sufferers were refugees from Burgundy, and we learn that they had a provincial named Girard, showing that the Waldensian Church of that region had a regular organization and hierarchy.[166]

In his "_Practica_" Bernard Gui gives a clear and detailed statement of the Waldensian belief as it existed at this time, the chief points of which may be worth enumerating as affording us a definite view of the development of the faith in its original seat after a century and a half of persecution. There was no longer any self-deceit as to connection with the Roman Church. Persecution had done its work, and the Waldenses were permanently severed. Theirs was the true Church, and that of the pope was but a house of lies, whose excommunication was not to be regarded, and whose decrees were not to be obeyed. They had a complete organization, consisting of bishops, priests, and deacons, and they held in some large city one or two general chapters every year, in which orders were conferred and measures for mission work were perfected. The Waldensian orders, however, did not confer exclusive supernatural power.

Although they still believed in transubstantiation, the making of the body and blood of Christ depended on the purity of the ministrant; a sinner was impotent to effect it, while it could be done by any righteous man or woman. It was the same with absolution: they held the power of the keys direct from Christ, and heard confessions and imposed penance. Their antisacerdotalism was strongly expressed in the simplification of their faith. There was no purgatory, and consequently ma.s.ses for the dead or the invocation of the suffrages of the saints were of no avail; the saints, in fact, neither heard nor helped man, and the miracles performed in their name in the churches were fict.i.tious.

The fasts and feasts prescribed in the calendar were not to be observed, and the indulgences so lavishly sold were useless. As of old, oaths and homicide were forbidden. Yet enough of the traditional ascetic tendencies were preserved to lead to the existence of a monastic fraternity whose members divested themselves of all individual property, and promised chast.i.ty, with obedience to a superior. Bernard Gui refers, with a brevity which shows how little importance he attached to them, to stories about s.e.xual abominations performed in nocturnal a.s.semblies, and he indicates the growth of popular superst.i.tion by a brief allusion to a dog which appears in these gatherings and sprinkles the sectaries with his tail.[167]

The non-resistance doctrines of the Waldenses rendered them, as a rule, a comparatively easy prey, but human nature sometimes a.s.serted itself, and a sharp persecution carried on at this period by Frere Jacques Bernard, Inquisitor of Provence, provoked a b.l.o.o.d.y reprisal. In 1321 he sent two deputies--Freres Catalan Fabri and Pierre Paschal--to the diocese of Valence to make inquisition there. Former raids had left the people in an angry mood. Mult.i.tudes had been subjected to the humiliation of crosses, and these and their friends vowed revenge on the appearance of the new persecutors. A plot was rapidly formed to a.s.sa.s.sinate the inquisitors at a village where they were to pa.s.s the night. For some reason, however, they changed their plans, and pa.s.sed on to the Priory of Montoison. The conspirators followed them, broke down the doors, and slew them. Strangely enough, the Prior of Montoison was accused of complicity in the murder, and was arrested when the murderers were seized. The bodies of the martyrs were solemnly buried in the Franciscan convent at Valence, where they soon began to manifest their sanct.i.ty in miracles, and they would have been canonized by John XXII.

had not the quarrel which soon afterwards sprang up between him and the Franciscans rendered it impolitic for him to increase the number of Franciscan saints.[168]

A few Waldenses appear in the prosecutions of Henri de Chamay of Carca.s.sonne in 1328 and 1329, and, from the occasional notices which have reached us in the succeeding years, we may conclude that persecution, more or less fitful, never wholly ceased; while, in spite of this, the heresy kept constantly growing. After the disappearance of Catharism, indeed, it was the only refuge for ordinary humanity when dissatisfied with Rome. The Begghards were mystics whose speculations were attractive only to a certain order of minds. The Spirituals and Fraticelli were Franciscan ascetics. The Waldenses sought only to restore Christianity to its simplicity; their doctrines could be understood by the poor and illiterate, groaning under the burdens of sacerdotalism, and they found constantly wider acceptance among the people, in spite of all the efforts put forth by the waning power of the Inquisition. Benedict XII., in 1335, summoned Humbert II., Dauphin of Viennois, and Adhemar of Poitou to a.s.sist the inquisitors. Humbert obeyed, and from 1336 to 1346 there were expeditions sent against them which drove them from their homes and captured some of them. Of these a portion abjured and the rest were burned; their possessions were confiscated and the bones of the dead exhumed. The secular and ecclesiastical officials of Embrun joined in these efforts, but they had no permanent result. In Languedoc Frere Jean Dumoulin, Inquisitor of Toulouse, in 1344 attacked them vigorously, but only succeeded in scattering them throughout Bearn, Foix, and Aragon. In 1348 Clement VI.

again urged Humbert, who responded with strict orders to his officers to aid the ecclesiastical authorities with what force might be necessary, and this time we hear of twelve Waldenses brought to Embrun, and burned on the square in front of the cathedral. When Dauphine became a possession of the crown the royal officials were equally ready to a.s.sist. Letters of October 20, 1351, from the governor, order the authorities of Briancon to give the inquisitor armed support in his operations against the heretics of the Brianconnais, but this seems to have been ineffective; and the next year Clement VI. appealed to the Dauphin Charles, and to Louis and Joanna of Naples, to aid Frere Pierre Dumont, the Inquisitor of Provence, and summoned prelates and magistrates to co-operate in the good work. The only recorded result of this was the penancing of seven Waldenses by Dumont in 1353. More successful were the Christian labors of Guillaume de Bordes, Archbishop of Embrun from 1352 to 1363, surnamed the Apostle of the Waldenses, who tried the unusual expedient of kindness and persuasion. He personally visited the mountain valleys, and had the satisfaction of winning over a number of the heretics. With his death his methods were abandoned, and Urban V., from 1363 to 1365, was earnest in calling upon the civil power and in stimulating the zeal of the Provencal inquisitors, Freres Hugues Cardilion and Jean Richard. The celebrated inquisitor Francois Borel now appears upon the scene. Armed expeditions were sent into the mountains which had considerable success. Many of the heretics were obstinate and were burned, while others saved their lives by abjuration. Their pitiful little properties were confiscated; one had a cow, another two cows and clothes of white cloth. In the purse of another, more wealthy, were found two florins--a booty which scarce proved profitable, for the wood to burn him and a comrade cost sixty-two sols and six deniers. One woman named Juven who was burned possessed a vineyard. The vintage was gathered and the must stored in her cabin, when the wrathful neighbors fired it at night and destroyed the product.[169]

All this was of no avail. When Gregory XI. ascended the pontifical throne, in 1370, his attention was early directed to the deplorable condition of the Church in Provence, Dauphine, and the Lyonnais. The whole region was full of Waldenses, and many n.o.bles were now beginning to embrace the heresy. The prelates were powerless or negligent, and the Inquisition ineffective. He set to work vigorously, appointing inquisitors and stimulating their zeal, but the whole system by this time was so discredited that his labors were ineffectual. The royal officials, so far from aiding the inquisitors, had no scruple in impeding them. Unsafe places were a.s.signed to them in which to conduct their operations; they were forced to permit secular judges to act as a.s.sessors with them; their proceedings were submitted for revision to the secular courts, and even their prisoners were set at liberty without consulting them. The secular officials refused to take oaths to purge the land of heresy, and openly protected heretics, especially n.o.bles, when prosecutions were commenced against them.[170]

Gregory duly complained of this to Charles le Sage in 1373, but to little purpose at first. The evil continued unabated, and in 1375 he returned to the charge still more vigorously. No stone was left unturned. Not only was the king requested to send a special deputy to the infected district, but the pope wrote directly to the royal lieutenant, Charles de Banville, reproaching him for his protection of heretics, and threatening him if he did not mend his ways. Certain n.o.bles who had become conspicuous as favorers of heresy were significantly reminded of the fate of Raymond of Toulouse; the prelates were scolded and stimulated; Amedeo of Savoy was summoned to a.s.sist, and the Tarantaise was added to the district of Provence that nothing might interfere with the projected campaign. As the spread of heresy was attributable to the lack of preachers, and to the neglect of prelates and clergy in instructing their flocks, the inquisitor was empowered to call in the services of Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustinians, to spread over the land and teach the people the truths of religion. These multiplied efforts at length began to tell. Charles issued orders to enforce the laws against heresy, and when Gregory sent a special Apostolic Internuncio, Antonio, Bishop of Ma.s.sa, to direct operations, persecution began in earnest. Frere Francois Borel, the Inquisitor of Provence, had long been struggling against the indifference of the prelates and the hostility of the secular power. Now that he was sure of efficient seconding be was like a hound slipped from the leash. His forays against the miserable populations of Freyssinieres, l'Argentiere, and Val-Pute (or Val-Louise) have conferred on him a sinister reputation, unredeemed by the efficient aid which he contributed to regaining the liberties of his native town of Gap.[171]

The immediate success which rewarded these efforts was so overwhelming as to bring new cause for solicitude. The Bishop of Ma.s.sa's mission commenced early in May, 1375, and already, by June 17, Gregory is concerned about the housing and support of the crowds of wretches who had been captured. In spite of numerous burnings of those who proved obstinate, the prisons of the land were insufficient for the detention of the captives, and Gregory at once ordered new and strong ones to be built in Embrun, Avignon, and Vienne. To solve the financial complications which immediately arose, the bishops, whose negligence was accountable for the growth of heresy, were summoned within three months to furnish four thousand gold florins to build the prisons, and eight hundred florins per annum for five years for the support of the prisoners. This they were allowed to take from the legacies for pious uses, and the rest.i.tutions of wrongly-acquired funds, with a threat, if they should demur, that they should be deprived of these sources of income and be excommunicated besides. The bishops, however, were no more amenable to such arguments than those of Languedoc had been in 1245, and, after the three months had pa.s.sed, Gregory answers, October 5, the anxious inquiry of the Bishop of Ma.s.sa as to how he shall feed his prisoners, by telling him that it is the business of every bishop to support those of his diocese, and that any one who refuses to do so is to be coerced with excommunication and the secular arm. This was a mere _brutum fulmen_, and in 1376 he endeavored to secure a share in the confiscations, but King Charles refused to divide them, though in 1378 he at last agreed to give the inquisitors a yearly stipend for their own support, similar to that paid to their brethren at Toulouse.[172]

All other devices being exhausted, Gregory at last had recourse to the unfailing resource of the curia--an indulgence. There is something so appallingly grotesque in tearing honest, industrious folk from their homes by the thousand, in thrusting them into dungeons to rot and starve, and then evading the cost of feeding them by presenting them to the faithful as objects of charity, that the proclamation which Gregory issued August 15, 1370, is perhaps the most shameless monument of a shameless age--

"To all the faithful in Christ: As the help of prisoners is counted among pious works, it befits the piety of the faithful to mercifully a.s.sist the incarcerated of all kinds who suffer from poverty. As we learn that our beloved son, the Inquisitor Francois Borelli, has imprisoned for safe-keeping or punishment many heretics and those defamed for heresy, who in consequence of their poverty cannot be sustained in prison unless the pious liberality of the faithful shall a.s.sist them as a work of charity; and as we wish that these prisoners shall not starve, but shall have time for repentance in the said prisons; now, in order that the faithful in Christ may through devotion lend a helping hand, we admonish, ask, and exhort you all, enjoining it on you in remission of your sins, that from the goods which G.o.d has given you, you bestow pious alms and grateful charity for the food of these prisoners, so that they may be sustained by your help, and you, through this and other good works inspired by G.o.d, may attain eternal blessedness!"[173]

Imagination refuses to picture the horrors of the economically constructed jails where these unfortunates were crowded to wear out their dreary lives, while their jailers vainly begged for the miserable pittance that should prolong their agonies. Yet so far was Gregory from being satisfied with victims in number far beyond his ability to keep, that, December 28, 1375, he bitterly scolded the officials of Dauphine for the negligent manner in which they obeyed the king's commands to aid the inquisitors--a complaint which he reiterated May 18, 1376. From some expressions in these letters it is permissible to a.s.sume that this whole inhuman business had shocked even the dull sensibilities of that age of violence. Yet in spite of all that had been accomplished the heretics remained obstinate, and in 1377 Gregory indignantly chronicles their increase, while reproaching the inquisitors with their slackness in performing the duties for which they had been appointed.[174]

What effect on the future of the Waldenses a continuance of Gregory's remorseless energy would have wrought can only be matter of conjecture.

He died March 27, 1378, and the Great Schism which speedily followed gave the heretics some relief, during which they continued to increase, although in 1380 Clement VII. renewed the commission of Borel, whose activity was unabated until 1393, and his victims were numbered by the hundred. A good many conversions rewarded his labors, and the converts were allowed to retain their property on payment of a certain sum of money, as shown by a list made out in 1385. In 1393 he is said to have burned a hundred and fifty at Gren.o.ble in a single day. San Vicente Ferrer was a missionary of a different stamp, and his self-devoted labors for several years in the Waldensian valleys won over numerous converts. His memory is still cherished there, and the village of Puy-Saint-Vincent, with a chapel dedicated to him, shows that his kindly ministrations were not altogether lost.[175]

The Waldenses by this time were substantially the only heretics with whom the Church had to deal outside of Germany. The French version of the _Schwabenspiegel_, or South German munic.i.p.al code, made for the Romande speaking provinces of the empire, is a.s.signable to the closing years of the century, and it attests the predominance of Waldensianism in its chapter on heresy, by translating the _Kaezer_ (Catharus) of the original by _vaudois_. Even "Leschandus" (Childeric III.) is said to have been dethroned by Pope Zachary because he was a protector of vaudois. That at this period the Inquisition had become inoperative in those regions where it had once been so busy is proved by the episcopal tribunals being alone referred to as having cognizance of such cases--the heretic is to be accused to his bishop, who is to have him examined by experts.[176]

How completely the Waldenses dropped out of sight in the struggles of the Great Schism is seen in a bull of Alexander V., in 1409, to Frere Pons Feugeyron, whose enormous district extended from Ma.r.s.eilles to Lyons and from Beaucaire to the Val d'Aosta. This comprehended the whole district which Francois Borel and Vicente Ferrer found swarming with heretics. The inquisitor is urged to use his utmost endeavors against the schismatic followers of Benedict XIII. and Gregory XII., against the increasing numbers of sorcerers, against apostate Jews and the Talmud, but not a word is said about Waldenses. They seem to have been completely forgotten.[177]

After the Church had reorganized itself at the Council of Constance it had leisure to look after the interests of the faith, although its energies were mostly monopolized by the Hussite troubles. In 1417 we hear of Catharine Sauve, an anchorite, burned at Montpellier for Waldensian doctrines by the deputy-inquisitor, Frere Raymond Caba.s.se, a.s.sisted by the Bishop of Maguelonne. The absence of persecution had by no means been caused by a diminution in the number of heretics. In 1432 the Council of Bourges complained that the Waldenses of Dauphine had taxed themselves to send money to the Hussites, whom they recognized as brethren; and there were plenty of them to be found by any one who took the trouble to look after them. On August 23, of this same year, we have a letter from Frere Pierre Fabri, Inquisitor of Embrun, to the Council of Basle, excusing himself for not immediately obeying a summons to attend it on the ground of his indescribable poverty, and of his preoccupations in persecuting the Waldenses. In spite of the great executions which he had already made, he describes them as flouris.h.i.+ng as numerously as ever in the valleys of Freyssinieres, Argentiere, and Pute, which had been almost depopulated by the ferocious raids of Francois Borel. He now has in his dungeons of Embrun and Briancon six relapsed heretics, who have revealed to him the names of more than five hundred others whom he is about to seize, and whose trials will be a work of time, but as soon as he can absent himself without prejudice to the faith his first duty will be to attend the council. Evidently the harvest was abundant and the reapers were few.[178]

In 1441 the Inquisitor of Provence, Jean Voyle, made some effort at persecution, but apparently with little result, and the Waldensian churches seem to have enjoyed a long respite, for the terrible episode of the so-called Vaudois of Arras, in 1460, as we shall see hereafter, was merely a delirium of witchcraft. In France, so completely had the Waldenses monopolized the field of misbelief in the public mind that sorcery became popularly known as _vauderie_ and witches as _vaudoises_.

Accordingly, when, in 1465, at Lille, five "Poor Men of Lyons" were tried, and four of them recanted and one was burned, it was necessary to find some other name for them, and they were designated as Turelupins.[179]

It is not until 1475 that we find the inquisitors again at work in their old hunting-ground among the valleys around the headwaters of the Durance. The Waldenses had quietly multiplied again. They held their conventicles undisturbed, they dared openly to preach their abhorred faith, and their missionary zeal was rewarded with abundant conversions.

Worse than all, when the bishops and inquisitors sought to repress them in the accustomed manner, they appealed to the royal court, which was so untrue to its duty that it granted them letters of protection and they waxed more insolent than ever. In vain Sixtus IV. sent special commissions armed with full powers to put an end to this disgraceful state of things. Men at this time in France recked little of papal authority, and the commissioners found themselves scorned. Sixtus, therefore, July 1, 1475, addressed an earnest remonstrance to Louis XI.

The king was surely ignorant of the acts of his representatives; he would hasten to disavow them and lend the whole power of the State, as of old, to the support of the Inquisition.[180]

The correspondence which ensued would doubtless be interesting reading if it were accessible. Its purport, however, can readily be discerned in the Ordonnance of May 18, 1478, which marks in the most emphatic manner the supremacy which the State had obtained over the Church. The king a.s.sumed that his subjects of Dauphine were all good Catholics. In a studied tone of contemptuous insolence he alludes to the old Mendicants (_vieux mendiens_) styling themselves inquisitors, who vex the faithful with accusations of heresy and hara.s.s them with prosecutions in the royal and ecclesiastical courts for purposes of extortion or to secure the confiscation of their property. He therefore forbids his officers to aid in making such confiscations, decrees that the heirs shall be reinstated in all cases that have occurred, and in order to put a stop to the frauds and abuses of the inquisitors he strictly enjoins that for the future they shall not be permitted to prosecute the inhabitants in any manner.[181]

Such was the outcome of the efforts which, for two hundred and fifty years, the Church had unremittingly made to obtain despotic control over the human mind. For far less than such defiance it had destroyed Raymond of Toulouse and the civilization of Languedoc. It had built up the monarchy with the spoils of heresy, and now the monarchy cuffed it and bade it bury its Inquisition out of the sight of decent men. This put an end for a time to the labors of the Inquisition against the Waldenses of Dauphine, but the troubles of the latter were by no means over. The death of Louis, in 1483, deprived them of their protector, and the Italian policy of Charles VIII. rendered him less indifferent to the wishes of the Holy See. At the request of the Archbishop of Embrun, Innocent VIII. ordered the persecutions renewed. The Franciscan Inquisitor, Jean Veyleti, whose excesses had caused the appeal to the throne in 1475, was soon again at work, and had the satisfaction of burning both consuls of Freyssinieres. Though the Waldenses had represented themselves to Louis XI. as faithful Catholics, the ancient errors were readily brought to light by the efficient means of torture.

Though they believed in transubstantiation, they denied that it could be effected by sinful priests. Their _barbes_, or pastors, were ordained, and administered absolution after confession, but the pope, the bishops, and the priests had lost that power. They denied the existence of purgatory, the utility of prayers for the dead, the intercession of saints, the power of the Virgin, and the obligation of keeping any feast-days save Sunday. Wearied with their stubbornness, the archbishop, in June and July, 1486, summoned them either to leave the country or to come forward and submit, and as they did neither he excommunicated them.

This was equally ineffective, and he appealed again to Innocent VIII., who resolved to end the heresy with a decisive blow. Accordingly, in 1488, a crusade on a large scale was organized in both Dauphine and Savoy. The papal commissioner, Alberto de' Capitanei, obtained the a.s.sistance of the Parlement of Gren.o.ble, and a force was raised under the command of Hugues de La Palu, Comte de Vanax, to attack them on every side. The attack was delayed by legal formalities, during which they were urged to submission, but refused, saying that their faith was pure and that they would die rather than abandon it. At length, in March, 1489, the crusaders advanced. The valley of Pragelato was the first a.s.sailed, and, after a few days, was reduced to the alternative of death or abjuration, when fifteen obstinate heretics were burned. In Val Cluson and Freyssinieres the resistance was more stubborn and there was considerable carnage, which so frightened the inhabitants of Argentiere that they submitted peaceably. In Val Louise the people took refuge in the cavern of Aigue Fraide, which they imagined inaccessible, but La Palu succeeded in reaching it, and built fires in the mouth, suffocating the unhappy refugees. This, and the confiscations which followed, divided between Charles VIII. and the Archbishop of Embrun, gave a fatal blow to Waldensianism in the valleys. To prevent its resuscitation the legate left behind him Francois Ploireri as Inquisitor of Provence, who continued to hara.s.s the people with citations and p.r.o.nounced condemnations for contumacy, burning an occasional _barbe_ and confiscating the property of relapsed and hardened heretics.[182]

With a new king, in the person of Louis XII., there came a new phase in the affairs of the Waldenses. A conference was held in Paris before the royal chancellor, where envoys from Freyssinieres met Rostain, the new Archbishop of Embrun, and deputies of the Parlement of Gren.o.ble. It was resolved to send to the spot papal and royal commissioners, with power to determine the status of the so-called heretics. They went to Freyssinieres and examined witnesses, who satisfied them that the population were good Catholics, in spite of the urgent a.s.sertions of the archbishop that they were notorious heretics. All the excommunications were removed, which put an end to the prosecutions. On October 12, 1502, Louis XII. confirmed the decision, and Alexander VI., to whose son, Caesar Borgia, Louis had given the Duchy of Valentinois, embracing the territory in question, was not disposed to run counter to the royal wishes. The Waldenses were, however, unable to loosen the grip of the Archbishop of Embrun on the property which he had confiscated, in spite of positive orders for its restoration from the king, but at least they were allowed, under the guise of Catholicism, to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d after their own fas.h.i.+on, until the crowding pressure of the Reformation forced them to a merger with the Calvinists. In the Brianconnais, in spite of occasional burnings, heresy continued to spread until, in 1514, Antoine d'Estaing, Bishop of Angouleme, was sent thither, when the measures he adopted, vigorously enforced by the secular authorities, put an end to it in a few years.[183]

CHAPTER III.

THE SPANISH PENINSULA.