THE MEDIEVAL INQUISITION
THE MEDIEVAL INQUISITION
A STUDY IN RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
BY
CHARLES T. GORHAM,
_Author of “The Spanish Inquisition,” etc._
ISSUED FOR THE NATIONALIST ASSOCIATION, LIMITED
LONDON:
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.4
1918
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE MORAL CONDITION OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH
PAGE
Simony 7
Clerical Celibacy 12
CHAPTER II
A CRUSADE AGAINST CHRISTIANS
Religious Persecution 27
CHAPTER III
THE FOUNDING, CONSTITUTION, AND PRACTICE OF
THE INQUISITION
The Inquisitorial Method 37
Evidence 39
The Defence 41
Sentence 42
Confiscation 45
Relaxation and the Stake 47
CHAPTER IV
HOW THE INQUISITION OVERRAN EUROPE
The South of France 49
Northern France 54
Aragon and Castile 57
Italy 58
Bosnia 63
Germany 64
Bohemia 68
The Netherlands 70
The Spiritual Franciscans 78
CHAPTER V
MISCELLANEOUS ACTIVITIES
Political Heresy 82
The Templars 83
Joan of Arc 85
Sorcery and Magic 86
Intellect and Faith 94
Censorship of Books 97
The Greek Church 98
Indulgences and Simony 99
CHAPTER VI
THE GENTLE ART OF WHITEWASHING
Bibliography 121
THE MEDIEVAL INQUISITION
CHAPTER I
THE MORAL CONDITION OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH
Although it has been said of human nature that the more it changes the
more it is the same thing, it is yet true that at different epochs it is
actuated by widely different ideas. The underlying passions are the
same, but the forces evoking them vary so greatly that sometimes, as in
considering the history of the Middle Ages, we seem to be concerned with
beings from another planet. One of the most powerful of these forces is
religion; and, though religion in the abstract is assumed to bring out
all that is best in human nature, it has in the past only too frequently
appealed to and stimulated its baser elements. The evil is due partly to
erroneous religious teaching, but probably still more to the obstinate
imperfection of the material on which religion has to work. The vast
majority of human beings are even now incapable of appreciating and
practising an absolutely pure religion, and probably no such religion
has ever yet had a fair trial. Dogmatic systems there have been in
abundance, but these are not to be identified with religion. It has been
one of the most serious drawbacks to the claims of historic Christianity
that, disregarding the spirit of its own moral precepts, it has treated
religion as a mere system of belief and ceremonial observance, which has
defeated the object it was intended to promote.
In two respects organized Christianity has been a huge mistake. It has
misunderstood the nature of the salvation it proffered, representing it
as rescue from endless physical torment in another state of existence
instead of moral victory in this. It has made an assumed correctness of
intellectual belief instead of right conduct the condition of this
salvation, with the inevitable consequence that ceremony has usurped the
place of virtue, and religion has become a matter of externals. And its
claim to Divine inspiration and support led naturally to a demand for
obedience so complete that no room was left for liberty of opinion and
mental expansion. The claim to Divine inspiration involved the existence
of a spiritual hierarchy with ever-growing demands and ever-increasing
power. Refusal to obey these demands necessarily implied disbelief in
the doctrines underlying them, of which doctrines the hierarchy was the
sole expositor. Thus every opinion which deviated from the authorized
view became heretical, and, heresy being an impious opposition to the
Divine will and to all that was good and true, deserved the severest
repression. From this dogmatic standard, which the ignorant were unable
to question, arose that terrible system of religious persecution which
has covered organized Christianity with indelible shame. The present
inquiry is not concerned with the truth or falsehood of the Church’s
theological basis, but only with its effects. The general conditions of
the Middle Ages being what they were, those effects were in a sense
inevitable, and the moral condemnation which must be visited upon the
medieval Church applies less to individuals than to the system which
produced them--a system which was incompatible not only with the rights
of individuals, but with the progress of humanity in civilization and
happiness.
What, then, was the moral condition during the Middle Ages of the
organization which made these extravagant claims to supremacy? To us who
live in the twentieth century it may appear very plain that priestly
domination could not be favourable to improvement in morals or in
knowledge. Prevent people from thinking, and you prevent them from
improving. They lose the desire to improve; they become incapable of
improvement; they neither know nor care for the pleasures of knowledge;
they relapse into a state resembling that of animals. Can it be supposed
that this has no effect upon their morals? And the class which puts
forward the claims in question becomes equally debased. Selfishness,
ignorance, and cruelty become as marked in the shepherds as in the
flocks they are supposed to lead, with the additional vice of a
tyrannical arrogance born of class privilege and the claim to superhuman
authority.
The religious extortion that went on impoverished the people and
demoralized the clergy. After King John’s surrender to the Pope, England
was bled for the benefit of foreign ecclesiastics to the extent of
thrice the income of the Crown. Throughout Europe the administration of
justice was shockingly corrupt, and was not improved by the Papal
practice of granting letters authorizing the exercise of judicial
functions by any one who could pay the fees. Not only were these letters
frequently forged, but it was easy for unprincipled persons to pretend
that they possessed them, and such was the danger of raising objections
that few of the victims dared to dispute their validity. In Rome itself
there was a factory for the production of these interesting forgeries;
but, though it was suppressed by Innocent III, the practice continued,
and to the people the consequences were the same whether the letters
were genuine or false. With such a system it is not surprising that the
Bishops fleeced their own flocks with little scruple.
Excommunication was imposed for trifling offences; but, however
unjustly, the victim had to pay for being reconciled to holy Church. The
magnificent abbeys and cathedrals which are the glories of architecture
were to some extent an expression of religious faith, but even more of
the clerical pride which reared them with money exacted from the poor.
Preaching was almost wholly neglected, and this was one of the reasons
why heresy became formidable. Parish priests could not preach without
special licence from the Bishops whose prerogative preaching was, and by
whom it was neglected because they were engrossed with worldly cares and
pleasures and warlike duties. The Lord Bishop was first and foremost a
man of war, especially in the thirteenth century. A story is told about
the Bishop of Beauvais, one of the most ruthless of these warriors for
Christ, who, when captured by the English, complained to the Pope that
his privileges as a Churchman had been violated. In reply to the
remonstrance of His Holiness, Richard I sent him the coat of mail in
which the Bishop had been captured, with the Scriptural inquiry: “Know
whether it be thy son’s coat or no.” Benefices were openly sold, or
bestowed upon children, seven years being the minimum age fixed by some
Popes for the clerical function. The abuses that grew out of the system
of pluralities, the exactions connected with tithes, confessions,
absolutions, marriages, funerals, were endless, a large part of the
Church’s wealth being derived from legacies which the fear of hell
prompted the dying to leave at death or frequently to hand over during
life.
In 1170 a Papal decree was issued that wills were invalid unless made in
the presence of a parish priest, and notaries were sometimes
excommunicated for failure to comply with this condition. Nor did the
dead escape the clerical maw. It was customary to leave money to the
Church for masses for the repose of the soul, and to present oblations
at the funeral. The corpse was the property of the parish, but the
priest was often deprived of his privileges by a neighbouring monastery
having induced the dying man to bequeath to it his remains. Hence arose
the most unseemly squabbles for possession of the body--a rivalry
further complicated by the rise of the Mendicant Orders and their bitter
struggles for fees.
Even greater social evils resulted from the immunities from secular law
which the clergy succeeded in gaining. The first of these was that
worthless men were attracted to the Church, and did as they pleased
under the shelter of its privileges. Malefactors habitually pleaded
clerical rights; the Church, in a spirit of comradeship worthy of a
better cause, as regularly took up their defence. Crime flourished, and
the community suffered. Innocent III reinstated a Bishop of
exceptionally bad character who had been imprisoned for rebellion
against the King of Denmark, and decided that priests could not be
arrested by laymen and brought before the episcopal court even when
detected in gross crime. Under these conditions it was almost impossible
for laymen to obtain justice, whether in regard to offences against
person or offences against property. And, the clergy being the only
educated class, their opportunities for exploiting the popular ignorance
were abundant and fully utilized.
Monasteries were the fruit of good intentions, but, in spite of
occasional examples to the contrary, soon became degraded to an
extraordinary degree. Rome could easily be bribed to grant exemption
from the jurisdiction of the Bishops, and the liberty of monks and nuns
degenerated into the foulest licence. The abodes of religion were
feudal castles, in which the monks lived as riotously as the barons, and
waged private war with equal ferocity. As for the nunneries, many of
them were notoriously no better than brothels. With these varied
attractions, it is not surprising that the lawless found in the monastic
life a congenial refuge; and many a robber baron and many a criminal
temporarily weary of crime discovered a safe and easy way of gratifying
his untamed passions. So little were the obligations of honesty observed
that within the monasteries themselves the inmates had to take special
precautions against theft by their fellows, each monk having to keep a
wary eye on his own spoons, dishes, and bedclothes. The holy tramps who
wandered about selling false relics and working false miracles became so
great a nuisance that they were sometimes killed without mercy when
detected in their frequent crimes.
The system of indulgences so carefully worked out by the Church produced
the most various results throughout Europe. A death-bed gift to the
Church atoned for an evil life; trifling religious observances were
thought to secure not only remission of the pangs of Purgatory, but
forgiveness of all sins committed after baptism. In short, all sin was
condoned on the most favourable terms, and eternal salvation purchased
for the price of a pair of boots. The bones or the dead bodies of saints
were held to protect believers from all ills, and to ensure prosperity;
even a single glance at the image of St. Christopher preserving one from
disease or sudden death for the rest of the day. Some of the beliefs
connected with the worship of the sacred wafer reveal a credulity which
only carefully-fostered ignorance could render possible. A specimen
wafer placed in a beehive to check disease among the bees was so highly
appreciated by those intelligent insects that they built a little
chapel around it, with windows, roof, and bell-tower all complete, and
an altar inside, on which they reverently placed the wafer. A woman who
crumbled a wafer over her cabbages to protect them from caterpillars was
at once punished by incurable paralysis.
_Simony._
The scandals connected with the sale of indulgences are too well known
to need description, but the universal prevalence of simony is less
generally realized. Simony is defined as “giving or receiving, or
intending to give or receive, anything temporal for anything
spiritual.”[1] The term is derived from Simon Magus, who is stated in
_Acts_ viii, 18, 19, to have offered St. Peter money for the privilege
of communicating the Holy Ghost. This abuse formed one of the great
scandals in the Church, especially in the thirteenth century, and was so
deeply rooted that the efforts of reforming Pontiffs like Gregory VII
produced little result. Less conscientious Popes were such notorious
offenders that the venality of the Papal court became a byword, and some
vicars of Christ amassed enormous private fortunes by this dubious
means.
Simony was a heresy which came under the jurisdiction of the
Inquisition, and could not long have flourished had that efficient body
determined to stamp it out. There is no record that the Inquisition ever
even undertook a prosecution for simony; it was too profitable to the
Roman Curia. From the highest to the lowest the Church was infected with
this vice: there was scarcely a church in Christendom free from it, and
Pope John XXII drew up a regular scale of absolutions for the most
moderate fees. In order to pay the expenses of his soldiers and of his
building operations, Boniface XI once dismissed suddenly all the
prelates at his Court and many others, and then sold their places to the
highest bidders, with the result that some of the ejected Bishops
wandered about in a state of starvation. Newly appointed prelates were
bled freely, and if the demands were not met they became simple priests
once more. Boniface appointed as Bishops the men who were willing to pay
the most liberally, archbishoprics commanding the high figure of 60,000
to 80,000 florins. Yet one of the great questions debated in the
thirteenth century was the question whether it was possible for the Pope
to commit simony! Every one knew that many Popes actually did commit an
offence of which the evil effects were far reaching. If the love of
money is not the root of all evil, it is the root of much, and its
effects in the sphere of religion are peculiarly deplorable. The Papal
Court was filled with a swarm of ecclesiastics greedy for preferment by
any means whatever. When they obtained it they at once set to work to
recoup themselves for the time spent and the bribes they had to give, by
extorting money from their flocks, to the complete neglect of their
spiritual duties. In the administration of justice ecclesiastics
acquitted the guilty for bribes, and trumped up charges against the
innocent, which had to be compounded for cash. A bishop who resided in
his diocese was the exception that proved the rule. Men preferred to
live under the tyranny of the baron rather than under the dangerous
protection of the Church.
Money being the real qualification for the ministry of the Gospel, the
priests were generally as illiterate as they were immoral. “They haunt
the taverns and brothels, consuming time and substance in eating,
drinking, and gambling; they quarrel, fight, and blaspheme, and hasten
to the altar from the embraces of their concubines.”[2] The higher
clergy, who could readily purchase exemptions, considered themselves
free to indulge in every kind of excess; the monks were licentious and
unruly vagabonds, who carefully avoided keeping their vows; the
mendicants, who pretended to greater strictness, gave themselves up to
every kind of fleshly indulgence; the morals of nunneries were such that
to join one was the same thing as becoming a public prostitute. A Jew is
said to have become convinced that Christianity must be of God, since it
continued to exist in spite of the wickedness of the clergy. The visions
of St. Birgitta and the vehement warnings of St. Catherine of Siena were
fruitless to stem the torrent of iniquity. Nearly the whole Church being
in this condition, reform from within was hopeless, as indeed was stated
in 1437 by a Dominican bishop. Exaggeration may be suspected, but that
it was not easy to exaggerate the following incident will show. “In 1459
there died at Arras at the age of eighty Nicaise le Vasseur, canon and
head of the Chapter of Arras. He not only had daughters and committed
incest with them, but also with a granddaughter whom he had by one of
them. Yet so blunted was the moral sense of Church and people that, as
we are told, this monster officiated _très honorablement_ in Divine
service on all feasts and holidays, and the only comment of the
chronicler is that he did it most becomingly. When in 1474 news of the
death of Sixtus IV was received in Rome with a pæan of joy, people
commented not so much upon his selling benefices to the highest bidder
and his other devices for extorting money as upon the manner in which he
rewarded the boys who served his unnatural lusts by granting to them
rich bishoprics and archbishoprics.”[3] When Pope Alexander VI was
reproached with Papal connivance with crime, he is said to have made the
cynical reply: “God does not desire the death of a sinner, but that he
should pay, and live.”[4]
That the Church should have made its principal aim correctness of belief
(or rather obedience to its authority), and purity of life a secondary
consideration, involved the policy of religious persecution
systematically followed by the Inquisition. Except as a source of
revenue, crime was of little consequence. Virtuous heretics were
exterminated, and the guilty orthodox absolved from the worst crimes, in
the name of Christ. A Flemish chronicler relates in 1379 “that it would
be impossible to describe the prevalence everywhere of perjuries,
blasphemies, adulteries, quarrels, brawls, murder, rapine, thieving,
robbery, whoredom, debauchery, avarice, oppression of the poor,
drunkenness, and similar vices, and he illustrates his statement with
the fact that in the territory of Ghent within the space of ten months
there occurred no less than 1,400 murders committed in bagnios,
brothels, gambling houses, taverns, and other similar places.”[5] In the
Italian Church there was no devotion, in the laity neither faith nor
morals. Factions filled the streets with blood, the roads were closed by
robbers, the seas swarmed with pirates. “Parents slew with rejoicing
their children who chanced to be of the opposite faction.”[6] Æneas
Sylvius wrote in 1453: “Whether I look upon the deeds of princes or of
prelates I find that all have sunk, all are worthless.... Execration and
falsehood and slaughter and theft and adultery are spread among you, and
you add blood to blood..... There is no shame in crime, for you sin so
openly and shamelessly that you seem to take delight in it.”[7]
The flagrant immorality of many of the Bishops, and the frequency with
which they took part in war, were even in rude times deemed unbecoming
to their profession; but the difficulty of getting them punished by any
ecclesiastical court was so great that in most cases the offenders could
continue to tread the primrose path of dalliance without fear of
retribution. About the worst of these clerical rakes was the Archbishop
of Besançon, who in 1198 was accused of perjury, simony, and incest. He
was formally indicted by his Chapter, but the Pope, on the authority of
the Gospel story of the woman taken in adultery, charitably dismissed
the charge with a caution. The hardened old sinner continued his gay
career for sixteen years, but was at length driven from his see by the
townspeople. It took ten years to get rid of another prelate, a Bishop
of Toul, and a few years later he was killed by his uncle in revenge for
a murder. This gentleman’s favourite mistress was a daughter of his own,
the mother being a nun.
Whatever were the causes of this appalling state of things, it is
difficult to reconcile it with the claim that the Christian Church is a
Divine institution. Yet it would not be true to say that no virtue
existed. Even in the Church there were good and sincere men who strove
earnestly to check the tide of iniquity. And those whom the Church
hounded to death far surpassed it in purity of life. The poor persecuted
heretics were noted for their blameless conduct, their singular
industry, their self-sacrifice and endurance, which formed a lesson to
the orthodox. “Ignorant and toiling men and women--peasants, mechanics,
and the like--dimly conscious that the system of society was wrong,
that the commands of God were perverted or neglected, that humanity was
capable of higher development if it could but find and follow the Divine
Will; striving, each in his humble sphere, to solve the inscrutable and
awful problems of existence, to secure in tribulation his own salvation,
and to help his fellows in the arduous task--these forgotten martyrs of
the truth drew from themselves alone the strength which enabled them to
dare and to endure martyrdom.”[8] The earnest and devoted ministers of
the Church, the virtuous and humble believers among the laity, were as
drops in the ocean of evil; and it was popularly believed that
Antichrist was ruling in the world, and that the awful Day of Judgment
was at hand.
_Clerical Celibacy._
The great question whether priests should or should not be permitted to
marry caused the deepest agitation in the Church for many hundreds of
years. As early as the fourth and fifth centuries the Church decided it
in the negative, but this and many later prohibitions were nullified by
the liberty which it allowed in practice. The early Church had so great
a horror of the matrimonial state that some theologians seriously
doubted whether the salvation of married persons came within the
possibilities of the Divine scheme.
During the eleventh century the Church succeeded, after long and violent
struggles, in enforcing upon its priesthood at least a nominal celibacy,
but it did not succeed in improving the ecclesiastical morals. As the
celibate party were the more fanatical, and usually applied to priests’
wives the term “concubines,” it was not easy to distinguish lawful or
_quasi_-lawful unions from illicit connections. Anyhow, when priests
found they could not marry, they generally had no hesitation in taking
to themselves concubines, or sometimes a succession of paramours--a
custom so commonly recognized that a layman confessing an illicit amour
was forbidden to name his erring partner because it would give the
priest an opportunity to exploit her frailty. Thus illicit connections
on the part of priests were winked at, while marriage was forbidden--an
excellent example of straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. This
eccentric notion of morality led to horrible abuses. Pope Alexander II
declined, in 1064, to deprive of communion a priest who had committed
adultery with the wife of his father, and a little later reduced the
penance imposed on another priest found guilty of incestuous relations
with his own mother. The institution of matrimony afforded to the
priesthood perpetual opportunities for exacting money. The remotest
degree of blood relationship was found to be perilous, but ingenuity and
cash overcame the difficulty. Bishops did not scruple to receive a
tribute known as the “cullagium,” which enabled a “celibate” priest to
solace his holy duties with wife or concubine. The difficulty remained
acute until the fifteenth century, human nature having proved as
rebellious as ever. It was only in 1414 that it was finally settled by
the Council of Constance, the rigid moralists who formed that conclave
being accompanied by an army of prostitutes. The attempt to enforce
clerical celibacy, or, rather, the rule which required its observance,
was a chief contributing cause of the scandalous state of ecclesiastical
morals in the Middle Ages, as, indeed, is expressly stated by Alain
Chartier, a French chronicler of the early fifteenth century.
In those Anglo-Saxon times, in which romancers have discovered a wealth
of simple virtue, clerical chastity had many chinks in its armour. A
Saxon chronicler of the eleventh century attributes the ruin of the
kingdom to the vices of the clergy having drawn upon it the wrath of
God. It was a common practice for priests to put away their wives, and
live in open adultery with other women. A century later no improvement
was perceptible, many of the clergy having two wives, and changing them
at pleasure. An instance is recorded of the Abbess of Avesbury, whose
recklessness in having three children procured her a life-pension, but
was surpassed by the laxity of her nuns, who were dismissed from their
“abode of love.” Giraldus Cambrensis relates that nearly all parish
priests in England and Wales had companions who were indifferently
regarded as wives or concubines. In Ireland matters were equally bad,
the chief blame being naturally visited on the less guilty women. The
condition of Scotland may be imagined from a single instance in the
sixteenth century. A certain Prior--afterwards Bishop of Moray--once had
a pleasant conversation with his gentlemen regarding the number of their
mistresses, and chuckled in glee over the fact that, though the youngest
man present, he had outdone them all. He rejoiced in twelve mistresses,
of whom seven were the wives of other men. His achievement paled before
that of Cardinal Pier-Leone, who used to make his visitations as Papal
Legate accompanied by a concubine and by his children--who were also his
sister’s.
Horrors like these were, it may be hoped, exceptional, but there is a
vast mass of evidence proving that society as a whole, and the clerical
element in particular, was morally in a condition that can scarcely be
matched in history. A French writer of the nineteenth century, Abbé
Helsen, alludes to the “ordinary custom” that when a priest’s servant
“becomes pregnant and cannot be saved by a prudent absence he dismisses
her, and takes another, perhaps younger and more attractive.”[9] In
many convents the nuns abandoned themselves “to the most hideous
licentiousness--those who were good-looking prostituting themselves for
hire; those who were not so fortunate hiring men to gratify their
passions, while the older ones acted as procuresses.”[10] In Spain,
according to Pelayo, a fourteenth-century writer, the illegitimate
children of priests were almost as numerous as those of the laity. Of
Avignon, Petrarch says that “chastity was a reproach and licentiousness
a virtue.” The aged priests were fouler in their wickedness than the
younger, while with the Pontiff the vilest crimes were pastimes. And
Petrarch claims to tell only part of the truth. Of all European
countries the same story is told. Details concerning the French clergy
of the eighth century are “unfit for publication” in the twentieth. In
nunneries infanticide was common, and priests had to be forbidden to
have mothers, aunts, or sisters living in their houses. The Archdeacon
of Salzburg in 1175 lamented bitterly his complete failure to reform the
clergy or prevent the ordination of priests who continued to live in
adultery with the wives of other men; while four centuries later the
German prelates were vigorously assailed for allowing such foulness as
still existed in the Church. They excused themselves by pointing to the
example set by the Pope. A specially culpable Spanish priest was charged
in 1535 with blasphemy, theft, cheating, seduction, brothel-haunting,
and other offences. He did not go unpunished. He was fined two ducats,
the costs of his trial, and thirty days’ seclusion! A protest was made
by the Senate of Rome in 1538 against the reforming efforts of Pius V on
the ground that the compulsory celibacy of priests would make it
impossible for the citizens to preserve the virtue of their wives and
daughters. Peter Cantor and others in the twelfth century deplored the
moral superiority of the laity; the same thing had been said in England
as far back as the times of St. Dunstan; and the Beggars’ Petition of
1535 showed that the anomaly still existed more than four hundred years
later.
It has been hinted that the Church made earnest efforts to reform its
own members. But this is true only so far as its reputable heads were
concerned. Marriage at its best had a taint of sin; its violation was a
trifle; but the fulfilment of religious vows and observances was an
obligation to which everything else must yield. To St. Peter Damiani
marriage was a “frivolous and unmeaning ceremony”; an irregular
celebration of Mass was a “horrible crime.” Sexual licence was a
necessary evil, of much less importance than an infraction of
ecclesiastical laws. Virtue indeed was dangerous when women were
occasionally burnt because they refused to become the victims of
priestly lust.[11] So late as 1801 it was argued in a tract published at
Warsaw that marriage is incestuous and schismatic, and therefore worse
than simple licentiousness.[12] Six centuries earlier the German Church
had been described by Pope Gregory as “abandoned to lasciviousness,
gluttony, and all manner of filthy living,” the clergy “committing
habitually wickedness which laymen would abhor.”[13]
But the Church did its utmost to stamp out the evil! It did nothing of
the kind. Its attempts to reform its servants were occasional,
mischievously lenient, and sometimes insincere. Priests, being human
beings, were not naturally worse than other human beings. But they
formed part of a system which heaped upon them every kind of privilege
and exposed them to every variety of temptation. A Bishop of Lausanne
who in the thirteenth century tried his hand at reform had to flee for
his life; another Bishop in Rome was murdered. In fifteenth-century
Germany the Bishop of Paderborn strove desperately for seven years to
purify the monasteries. After various attempts had been made to poison
him, he was compelled to give up a task which the example of the Vicar
of Christ made hopeless. Similar efforts made by St. Charles Borromeo in
Milan ended in his failure and narrow escape from martyrdom. In England
Cardinal Wolsey’s attempt to enforce a reforming Bull from Rome was
frustrated by the notoriety of his own vices. The clergy in the public
estimation were given over to a reprobate mind; not only were they
immoral, but they squeezed from the people the money which the Pope
exacted from them. In 1529 a bill was passed in the House of Lords for
the reformation of the clergy, who showed their appreciation of it by a
determined opposition.
According to Dean Milman, clerical depravity was general in the
thirteenth century throughout all the principal European countries. A
remarkable number of ecclesiastics were accused at the visitation of the
Archbishop of Rouen in 1248 and 1249, but the tenderness of the Church
was satisfied with light punishments, or no punishment at all, for
serious crimes, while the imaginary sins of the heretic were visited
with the most painful of all forms of death. Nor did the Archbishop’s
rigour extend to the worst offences of the lower clergy. Milman refers
to the case of the Bishop of Liège, who at a public banquet boasted that
in less than two years he had had fourteen children.[14] It is related
that when it was decreed that priests should dismiss their concubines
Pope Innocent ordered the command to be withdrawn, as there was no sin
in doing what was done by all priests.[15] In the thirteenth century the
Council of Ratisbon lamented the scarcity of priests who led good lives,
and so late as 1832 the Archbishop of Malines found it necessary to make
a similar complaint.[16]
Not only were the Church’s thunders ineffective because the higher
clergy could escape them, but the reasons for them failed, even in the
Middle Ages, to command universal assent. Sin was condemned rather
because it violated an ordinance than because it broke a Divine law, or
because it injured society. Some canons of 1476 protested against
crimes, not because of their wickedness, but because they might deprive
the clergy of the privilege of exemption from the Bishops’ jurisdiction.
A scuffle between three priests over a harlot that took place in a house
of ill-fame was reprehended, not because of its disgraceful nature, but
because it occurred on Ash Wednesday. The solicitation by priests of
female penitents was a serious matter for the holy men if committed
during the actual confession, otherwise it was a trifle. It was more
convenient to punish the women. As late as 1707 the Sorbonne decided
that if a woman insisted on denouncing a guilty priest she committed a
mortal sin. Usually the Church contended that the personal character of
the priest had nothing to do with the sanctity of his office--a doctrine
of which unscrupulous men took full advantage. Thus was evolved a
standard of morality which bore no relation to moral truth, and readily
lent itself to perversion.
For many hundreds of years the Church was an open sore, which made
thought a crime, purity an eccentricity, and progress a dream. From this
festering mass heresy was born, crucified, and rose again.