"When any one went over to the heretics, he who received him said,
'Friend, if you wish to be one of us, it behoves you to renounce the
_whole faith_ that is held by the Roman Church.' He must answer, 'I
renounce.' 'Then receive the Holy Spirit from the good men,' and then
he breathes seven times in his face. Also he says to him, 'You must
renounce that cross which the priest made on you in baptism, on your
breast, and on your shoulders, and on your head, with oil and chrism.'
He must answer, 'I renounce it.' 'Do you believe that water can work
your salvation?' He answers, 'I do not believe it.' 'You must renounce
that veil which the priest placed on your head when you were baptized.'
He must answer, 'I renounce it.' Thus he receives the baptism of the
heretics, and denies the baptism of the Church. Then they all place
their hands upon him, and kiss him, and clothe him with a black
garment, and from that hour he is as one of themselves."
The ceremony of consolation, or heretication, was only performed at the
point of death; but if the sick person should show signs of recovery,
he or she was required to abstain from food, or to open a vein, so as
to prevent convalescence and precipitate death. I may as well give
a few instances which came under the notice of the inquisitors of
Toulouse, from Limborch:--
"This admission was believed to save the soul of the person admitted,
and was called spiritual baptism, the consolation, the reception, and
the good end; and it was believed that those sanctified by it were
bound from that moment to abstain from touching a person of another
sex, and from food, or the soul fell from its state of purification.
Thus we read of the trial of a woman whose father had been received
amongst the Albigenses, 'that she was forbidden by her father to touch
him, because after his reception no woman ought to touch him, and from
that time she never did touch him.' (Fol. 49.) And in another woman's
trial, 'that it was unlawful for her to touch Peter Sancii, and that
she heard that it was reported amongst them that they neither touch
a woman, nor suffer themselves to be touched by one.' (Fol. 68.) But
inasmuch as it was possible that the person received might return to
his former pollutions (says Limborch in his introduction to the Acts
of the Inquisition), his reception was delayed to his last sickness,
when there was no more hopes of recovery, that so he might not lose
the good he had received; for which reason some were not admitted,
though one of the Albigenses was present, because it was not believed
they would immediately die. Thus it is reported of Peter Sancii (fol.
68) that having called 'to hereticate a certain sick woman, she was
not then hereticated, because he did not think it proper, upon account
of her not being weak enough.' And afterwards, though the distemper
grew more violent, Peter Sancii did not hereticate her, because she
recovered. As for those who were received during their illness, they
were commanded to make use of the Endura, that is, fasting, and to
hasten death by opening a vein and bathing. Thus it is related of a
certain woman, that 'she persevered in the abstinence which they call
the Endura many days, and hastened her bodily death by losing her
blood, frequent bathing, and greedily taking a poisonous draught of the
juice of wild cucumbers, mixing it with broken glass, that, by tearing
her bowels, she might sooner die.' (Fol. 14-_b_.) Of another, it is
said, 'that she was forbidden by her mother-in-law to give her little
daughter, who had been hereticated by Peter Sancii, any milk to drink,
by which the child died.' (Fol. 46.) Another confesses, 'that she had
not seen her father since his heretication eating or drinking anything
but cold water.' (Fol. 49.) But one Hugo, who continued several days
in the Endura, did afterwards, by his mother's persuasion, eat and
recover. (Fol. 63.) The same year, Peter Sancii invited him 'to enter
into the Endura, and so to make a good end; but he would not agree to
it till he came to die.' The same Hugo saw 'that Sancii procured and
hastened his own death by bleeding, bathing, and cold.' Peter Auterii
is said to have received another woman, 'and after her reception to
have forbidden any meat being given to the said hereticated sick woman;
and that there were two women who attended her, and watched that there
should be neither meat nor drink given her the whole night, nor the
following day, lest she should lose the good she had received, and
contradict the order of Peter Auterii; although the said sick woman
begged them to give her some food. But the third day after she did eat
and grew well.' (Fol. 65-_b_.) In the sentence of Peter Raymund and of
the Hugos, we read these things concerning the Endura: 'You voluntarily
shorten your own corporal life, and inflict death upon yourself;
because you put yourself in that abstinence, which the heretics call
Endura, in which Endura you have now remained six days without meat
or drink, and would not eat, nor will, though often invited to do
so.' (Fol. 82-_b_.) However, all would not subject themselves to so
severe a law. For we read of a certain woman 'that she suffered not
her sick daughter, though near death, to be received; because then her
said daughter must be put in the Endura.' (Fol. 71.) There is also
an instance of a woman, who, for fear she should be taken up by the
Inquisitors, put herself in the Endura; and sending for a surgeon,
ordered him to open one of her veins in a bath, and after the surgeon
was gone, she unbound her arm in the bath, that so the blood running
out more freely, she might sooner die. After this she bought poison
in order to destroy herself. Afterwards she produced a cobbler's awl,
which in that barbarous age they called alzena, intending to run it
into her side; but the women disputing among themselves, whether the
heart was on the right side or the left, she at last drank up the
poison, and died the day after. (Fol. 30-_b_)."[22]
[22] Historia Inquisitionis, Amst. 1692, c. 8.
Now a great deal of abuse has been poured on the Inquisition, and
its crimes have been vastly exaggerated. Gieseler speaks of the
bloodthirsty Inquisition as a "monster raging with most frightful fury
in Southern France,"--strong language for so calm an historian. But
we ask, was it not necessary that such a system, destructive of life,
should be put down? That the fautors of this atrocious self-murdering
should be summarily dealt with, when they persuaded mothers to let
their children perish on their sick-beds, men to pine themselves to
death, and women to swallow broken glass, to tear their bowels, when
their health began to amend? We have got the Acts of the Inquisition
at Toulouse during sixteen years that it "raged with frightful fury,"
_i.e._, between 1307 and 1323. The whole number of cases reported is
932; but it is obvious that the same individual might, and in fact
did, often reappear before the Inquisition more than once in the
course of sixteen years. Having confessed some connection with heresy,
he was sentenced to wear a little cross, or tongue of red cloth, let
into the garments, or simply to wear a cross round the neck, or to
make a pilgrimage to a certain church, or to use certain prayers; of
such sentences 174 are recorded. If the person condemned to do this
disobeyed, he was put in prison for a while; there were 218 such
cases. If he escaped from prison, or ran away from the country, he was
condemned as a fugitive; there were 38 of these. Some of the leaders of
the heresy who had caused the death of many persons, and incorrigible
heretics who had broken out of prison, were condemned to death; there
were 40 fautors of heresy sentenced--twenty-nine Albigenses, seven
Waldenses, and four Beghards; thirty-two of these were men, and
eight were women. Among the sentences recorded are 113 remissions
of penances, 139 discharges from prison, and 90 sentences of heresy
pronounced against persons deceased.[23]
[23] A large number of the sentences--all the most important--are
translated and published in Maitland's Tracts and Documents, together
with many of the letters, bulls, edicts, and controversial writings on
the Albigenses.
Now when we consider what these Albigensian "perfect" men were, and how
dangerous they were to the well-being of society, by their influence
over superstitious and ignorant peasants, urging them to self-murder,
and thus causing the death of very many persons, we do not think that
the Inquisition at Toulouse deserves all the odium that has been cast
upon it. Many of those whom it condemned to death would probably have
received a sentence of transportation for life in England at the
present day; and though the execution of from two to three persons
a year is certainly to be deplored, it is not just to denounce the
Inquisition as bloodthirsty, when it sentenced to death those who had
caused many innocent and ignorant persons to immolate themselves. We
do not for a moment pretend to justify the Albigensian war; but we
can understand the alarm caused to the Pope and to Christian France
by the heathen reaction in Provence, Narbonne, and Toulouse. Nor were
the Albigenses free from blame in other particulars. They exhibited
their contempt for Christian churches and sacraments in a peculiarly
offensive manner, likely to exasperate Catholics to the uttermost. One
instance shall suffice, and that is so gross that it must be given in
Latin:--
"Erat quidam pessimus hæreticus apud Tolosam, Hugo Faber nomine, qui
quondam lapsus est in dementiam, quod juxta altare cujusdam ecclesiæ
purgavit ventrem, et in contemptum Dei, cum palla altaris tersit
posteriora sua ... quæ omnia cum vir venerabilis abbas Cistercii....
Comiti retulisset, et eum moneret ut puniret qui tantum faciens
perpetrarat, respondit comes quod nullo modo propter hoc puniret in
aliquo cives suos."
Peter of Castelnau, of whom we have now to speak, sprang from an
illustrious family in the diocese of Montpellier, and was archdeacon of
Maguelonne, when he was appointed by the Pope to be one of his legates
in the southern provinces infected with heresy. But the desire of a
higher perfection led Peter to renounce the honours of the world, and
in 1200, to receive the Cistercian habit in the abbey of Fontfroide.
In 1203, he was again obliged to resume his labours as legate, together
with Brother Raoul, his colleague, a Cistercian monk like himself.
He visited Toulouse, where his efforts to repress heresy met with
indifferent success. In 1204, he met the leaders of the Albigenses in
conference at Carcassonne.
Hopeless of effecting any good result, Peter of Castelnau implored the
Holy Father to relieve him of the burden laid on him, which, he said,
was more than he could bear. But the Pope refused to permit him to
resign his office, and Peter was obliged to revisit Toulouse in 1205,
and exact of the Count of Toulouse an oath that he would suppress by
fire and sword the heresy that pervaded his domains. He was ordered on
pain of excommunication to become the inquisitor and executioner of his
own subjects.
At the same time Peter deposed Raymond, bishop of Toulouse, and thus
prepared the way for the election of his friend Foulques, a fierce
and bloodthirsty, if zealous soul.[24] Then the legate turned to the
Rhone, and traversed the provinces of Arles and Vienne. In 1206, he
was at Montpellier, deploring with his colleague, Raoul, the sterility
of their united efforts. At this time of disappointment, God, who, to
use the words of William de Puylaurens, "knows always how to hold in
reserve His arrows in the quiver of His Providence," sent them out
of Spain two holy and valiant athletes. In July, 1206, the venerable
Diego di Azebes, bishop of Osma, accompanied by the sub-prior of his
church, tapped at their door with his pilgrim's staff. They opened, and
admitted with the bishop that sub-prior, who was S. Dominic.
[24] Foulques was famous as a troubadour for his licentious poetry. His
biography is given December 25: by an irony of fate, the commemoration
of this firebrand is on Christmas Day, when "Peace on earth" was sung
by angels.
The legates opened their hearts to the bishop, and told him of their
despair. The bishop gently reproved them, and bade them have a good
courage, and preach the Word in season and out of season, and be
careful to set a holy example. Let them go forth with neither scrip
nor purse, like the apostles; and the success which had not attended
two legates ambling over the country on their mules, would attend
two apostles going barefoot. The advice of the bishop was approved;
the legates only asked of him to accompany them with his sub-prior.
The bishop consented, and the four set forth one morning out of
Montpellier, without shoes on their feet, and no money in their pouch.
At once the difficulties melted away, and numerous conversions were
made. At Beziers and Carcassonne, they met with great success. The
whole town of Caraman, on the Lauraguais, abjured heresy. But their
success was not lasting: Peter saw that the only way in which he could
hope to extinguish heresy was by a more persuasive weapon than the
tongue.
However, he returned into the heat of the battle shortly after, to
attend the conference with the heretics, held at Montreal. After this
the four apostles separated to preach in different parts. Peter,
finding that Raymond, Count of Toulouse, hung back from using the sword
to constrain his people to abjure their heresy, excommunicated him, and
the Count at once swore, as he had done before, that he would put down
the errors of Albigensianism. Peter of Castelnau felt that, to use his
own words, "The cause of Jesus Christ will not succeed in these lands,
till one of us who preach in His name shall die in defence of the
faith; may it please God that I shall be the first to feel the sword of
the persecutor."
The Count met the legate at S. Gilles, on the banks of the Rhone, for
conference, which led to nothing. On January 15th, 1209, Peter had
said Mass, and was preparing to cross the river, when two men ran up,
and one of them pierced him through the sides with a lance. Peter fell
down, exclaiming, "Lord, pardon him, as I forgive him!" then he said a
few words to his fellows, and died, praying fervently. The Count seems
to have been guiltless of ordering or approving the murder.