HOW THE INQUISITION OVERRAN EUROPE
_The South of France._
The Inquisition had uphill work before it in the South of France. There
was plenty of heresy, but also plenty of popular sympathy with it. The
Church’s repressive powers were not fully organized, the clergy were
unpopular, the Bishops looked with a jealous eye on the Inquisition, and
the Papal commands to assist the Inquisitors were frequently disobeyed.
The Dominican priesthood, however, was burning with zeal, and succeeded
in so far inflaming the popular feeling as to be able to commit serious
acts of persecution without episcopal protest. The notorious Inquisition
of Toulouse was set up in 1233, and, although for some years the Bishops
maintained their superior jurisdiction, the Inquisitors seized every
opportunity to disregard it and act independently. A revolting case
occurred in 1234, when a dying woman confessed her heresy to the Bishop
of Toulouse under the impression that he was a heretic Bishop. She was
carried off on her bed and burnt, and the Bishop was able to go back to
an interrupted dinner and return thanks to God for his achievement.
The popular sentiment vented itself many times in risings and tumults,
especially at Albi and Toulouse, but with only temporary effect, though
in 1234 a civil war broke out in Narbonne which lasted for three years.
Count Raymond of Toulouse (the seventh of his name) was, like his
predecessor, placed in a very difficult position between a persecuting
Church and an angry people. His indifference to religion exposed him to
the accusation of heresy, and, life being unbearable with the Church at
constant enmity, he was compelled to persecute his own people, and his
natural slackness in that unpleasant task kept him plentifully supplied
with trouble. Bigotry was at that time less tinctured with financial
greed than it afterwards became; the persecutors were mostly good men,
whose sincerity brings into stronger relief the appalling results of
their actions.
By about 1237 the Inquisition had established a definite supremacy over
the Bishops, and reduced the terror-stricken people to obedience--a
result to which the conversion of Raymond Gros, one of the heretical
leaders, strikingly contributed. By the execution, two years later, of
180 Cathari at Montwimer, the heretical sect received a blow from which
it never recovered. Count Raymond, however, actually succeeded in
getting the Inquisition suspended in his dominions for three years,
during which time his people were at least able to breathe; but by 1241
the Inquisitors, knowing the negligence of the Bishops and emphasizing
to Rome the growing power of heresy, were able to resume active
persecution. In that year occurred the death of Pope Gregory IX, one of
the principal founders of the Inquisition, and for two years the Papal
throne was virtually vacant. But the Inquisition had sufficient
authority to proceed with vigour, and that it did so is shown by the
large number of sentences and the speed with which the criminal list was
got through. At the small town of Montauban, in one week of May, 1242,
no fewer than 252 persons were sentenced for heresy--a plain indication
that the infection was general. The punishments were mostly penances,
but some of them involved real hardship. Three pilgrimages--one of 500
miles--for eating at the same table with heretics was a severe return
for a friendly action, and showed the need of carefully choosing one’s
company. These harsh penalties became so frequent that some localities
were almost depopulated.
The massacre of a whole tribunal of Inquisitors and their Familiars in
1242, at a castle in the neighbourhood of Toulouse, was followed by war,
in which Count Raymond was defeated; and his reconciliation with the
Church marked the triumph of the Inquisition. A determined band of
heretics threw themselves into the strong castle of Mont Ségur, and held
out till 1244, when the place was captured by treachery and 205 men and
women were cast into the flames. The energetic labours of the
Inquisitors extended over half Languedoc, and some thousands of heresy
cases were dealt with in the space of two years. Count Raymond, who had,
in the latter part of his life, become a vigorous persecutor, died in
1249, and the Inquisition, relieved of its doubtful ally, had a halcyon
time for the next twenty years. A more troublous period followed, for
with the diminution of the power of great nobles, such as the Counts of
Toulouse and Foix, that of the Crown became consolidated, and men began
to turn to it for relief from the insufferable tyranny of the
Inquisition. Opposition to its secret and arbitrary influence arose, not
from heretics only, but also from good Catholics, who perceived that the
land was being ruined, and whose humanity was outraged by the constant
use of torture. With its superior concentration of purpose, the
Inquisition fully held its own until, in 1291, Philippe le Bel, the King
of France, ordered his officials to disobey the commands of the
Inquisitors, except in the case of confessed heresy. Under threat of
excommunication Philippe came to an understanding with the Pope which
lasted for two years, when the quarrel broke out afresh, and the
Carcassonne Inquisition had to suspend operations for three months.
A case occurred in 1300 which illustrates the power of the Inquisition.
The Pope, Boniface VIII, had sworn to burn all the inhabitants of
Carcassonne, because one of its citizens had declined to bribe a Papal
Cardinal when proffering complaints. Gastel Fabre, the man’s father, who
had died in 1278, was declared a heretic (the documents are believed to
be forgeries); an ineffectual appeal was made, but the man’s estates
were confiscated, and so long after as 1329 the bones of his wife were
exhumed by the vengeful Inquisition. The sharp quarrels which arose
early in the century between the Franciscans and the Dominicans led to
the powers of the Inquisition being in some respects curtailed, and thus
brought about a slackening of persecution, which proved to be only
temporary. A more decided check was experienced in 1308, when Pope
Clement V and his Cardinals gave a judgment against the Holy Office,
which was considered responsible for the evil condition of the South of
France.
Certain reforms were outlined by the Council of Vienne in 1312,
particularly in regard to the use of torture, the improvement of the
loathsome dungeons of the Inquisition, and the conduct of its officials;
but the restrictions imposed were evaded with the customary ingenuity,
and soon became a dead letter. With the accession of John XXII to the
Papal chair matters became easier for the Inquisition. In 1319 the
esteemed Franciscan, Bernard Delicieux, the only man who had dared to
offer consistent opposition to the Holy Office, was tried on numerous
charges, tortured in spite of his advanced age, and condemned to
degradation from Holy orders and life-long imprisonment in chains, with
a diet of bread and water, in the prison at Carcassonne. Under these
severities his death in a few months relieved the Inquisition of a
formidable enemy.
The reaction went on rapidly. The cities which had struggled against the
Inquisition were reduced to subjection and public repentance in 1319,
and the persecutors were at length free to reap the fruits of their
victory. The Catharist leaders were sent to the stake, and the heresy
became practically extinct. Its fate was not entirely unmerited, but the
agency that brought it about must be wholly condemned. It had propagated
a queer medley of doctrines, the anti-social effect of which was not
fully perceived by their advocates, though the Church understood from
the first how its privileges would fare if liberty of thought were
allowed to the people.
In that beautiful, sunny land of Languedoc a civilization of splendid
promise, reaching out far in advance of the age into civic activities,
industry, art, and science, had been developed by an energetic and
patriotic people. Unfortunately for them, their civilization was not of
the ecclesiastical type, and the Church felt that it had a legitimate
grievance. The Inquisition left Languedoc in ruins; it found a garden,
and made it a wilderness. It descended upon happy homes, and left them
in desolation and mourning. External unity of faith was achieved, but
with it the moral debasement of the Church. By the unscrupulous,
systematic, and long-continued abuse of power it gained a triumph for
the evil effects of which no repentance can atone.
The moving finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.
The only good result of the Inquisition’s activities was one which it
never intended. In its greed for money it forgot an equally greedy and
much more deserving rival. The Crown, seeing how profitable persecution
had become, at length exercised the right, when it possessed the power,
to take the proceeds, and seized for more useful purposes the
confiscations of heretic property. The estates of a ruined nobility were
taken over by the king’s officers, and the Holy Office unwittingly aided
the consolidation of a secular power which in the end reduced it to a
nullity.
_Northern France._
In the year 1233 a relentless Dominican bigot named Friar Robert was
appointed Inquisitor for Western Burgundy. This crazy fanatic raged
through the north of France, burning large numbers of people. So
notorious became his excesses that after some years his commission was
withdrawn, and he spent the rest of his days in prison. Persecution was
not greatly checked, for the intensity of the general feeling against
heresy was such that even the saintly Louis IX declared that the only
argument to use with a heretic was to thrust him through with a sword up
to the hilt. In the hands of the Dominicans persecution went on
vigorously all over France, then a much smaller country than now, and
the zeal of the orthodox was frequently stimulated by Papal Bulls urging
greater vigour. Milman relates a terrible occurrence in 1239, but does
not state that it took place by order of the Inquisition. In the
presence of the Archbishop of Rheims, seventeen bishops, and 100,000
persons, no fewer than 183 Manichæans were burnt outside the city of
Rheims, and all of them perished without fear.[26] The right of asylum
in churches was withdrawn from heretics in 1281 by Pope Martin IV.
Not until 1310, however, did the first formal burning alive by the
Inquisition take place in France. The Manichean holocaust, formal
enough in a practical sense, appears to have been an irregularity. On
May 30 of that year a woman who had advocated free love and other
heresies died at the stake with such devotion that the spectators were
moved to tears. The sect to which she belonged, the Brethren of the Free
Spirit, furnished a good many victims in the course of the next few
years, when the Inquisition reached the height of its power. But with
the growth and consolidation of the authority of the Crown the
Inquisition was absorbed by the secular courts till it became little
more than a department of the State. Its comparative impotence was made
more perceptible by the removal of the Holy See from Rome to Avignon,
and by the Great Schism (1378-1447) which shook the Papacy to its
foundations. The wars with the English, which were then so frequent and
prolonged, also made conditions unfavourable to the Inquisition by
causing the withdrawal of the royal stipend; and the University of Paris
to a large extent took its place as an investigator of heresy cases.
When the wars were over an attempt was made by Pope Nicholas V in 1451
to revive and increase the activity of persecution, but with no
permanent success. So far had the Holy Office become out of touch with
the spirit of the times that the roving commissions which were
frequently granted to special Inquisitors also failed to re-establish
the authority of the institution. The people of Lyons in 1458 were even
bold enough to throw their Inquisitor into prison, and it was only with
difficulty that he was released. A few years later Jean Laillier, a
priest in Paris, spoke his mind freely about the clergy, and the
Inquisition did not feel strong enough to burn him. Two other priests,
who at mass threw the Host on the floor and trampled on it, committed an
unpardonable crime, and duly suffered at the stake.
In the south of France the Waldensians remained powerful in the
fourteenth century, even after the terrible persecutions through which
they had gone. The most obnoxious of their tenets appears to have been
the not unreasonable proposition that the sacraments were valueless when
administered by sinful priests. To stamp out this peculiar heresy
vigorous efforts were made by Pope Gregory XI in 1375, and a little
later great hauls of heretics were made, and many burnings resulted. Men
and women were torn from their homes to rot in the overcrowded prisons,
yet still the remorseless pontiff reproached the Inquisitors with their
slackness, and spurred them to greater energy. One ecclesiastic, St.
Vincent Ferrer, hit upon a daring novelty, and tried the effect of
kindness; but, although he made many converts, who were content to lose
some of their property to save the rest, the Church was dubious about
such experiments, and went on methodically with its burnings. In 1393
Inquisitor Borel of Grenoble is credited with having brought to the
stake 150 persons in one day. This exceptional achievement was followed
by a prolonged lull, and in 1478 Louis XI issued an ordinance limiting
the powers of Inquisitors and clearly establishing the supremacy of the
State. Five years later the king’s death gave the Church another
opportunity, which was quickly utilized. Innocent VIII determined to
suppress the Waldensian heresy once for all. He ordered a crusade
against the heretics, and after stubborn resistance they submitted. In
one valley many of them took refuge in a remote cave, but were
discovered and suffocated by the smoke of fires built at its mouth.
Relief was once more gained when Louis XII came to the throne of France,
and the Waldenses secured a certain liberty of worship until, in the
times of the Reformation, they became absorbed in the Calvinist body. So
hated by the Roman Church was the grim faith of Calvin that in 1538 a
Grand Inquisitor was burnt for embracing it.[27] A few years later Pius
V ordered the Catholics to slay every Huguenot who fell into their
hands.
_Aragon and Castile._
The Inquisition was established in Aragon in 1238, but a long time
elapsed before it was organized with anything like efficiency. A nest of
Catharans had been rooted out in 1237, but the records are scanty, the
principal incident being the stoning to death of an Inquisitor by the
inhabitants of Urgel, the chief centre of heresy. Greater vigour was
shown at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and Pope Clement VI
urged the kings of Aragon and Navarre to track down the many Waldenses
who had fled from Toulouse. About the middle of the century the
Inquisition was concerned in a heated dispute which arose between the
Dominican and Franciscan Orders regarding one of those fatuously futile
subjects on which men were roused to the extremity of passion in the
Middle Ages. The Franciscans maintained that the blood of Christ after
his death remained on earth--a proposition which filled the Pope and the
Dominicans with horror. After this interesting question had been
wrangled over for 122 years a great debate took place at Rome, when the
warmth of the disputants was not moderated by the bitterly cold weather.
Neither party could prove its case, but neither would give way, and as
the Pope at last forbade further discussion the vital question of what
became of Christ’s blood remains to this day unsolved. In Aragon neither
the Crown nor the bishops supported the Inquisition with any particular
ardour; the burning of heretics was an occasional luxury, confiscations
were few, and the Inquisitors had failed to gain the popular sympathy.
Not until about 1481, when the Spanish Inquisition was established on a
sound commercial basis, did the persecutors show great activity or
inspire profound terror.
Castile also was little troubled by the Inquisition until the latter
part of the fifteenth century. In 1401 Pope Boniface issued a Bull for
the repression of heresy, but only a slight effect was produced. It is
worth noting that the heresy was not that of daring to think for one’s
self (such boldness was then rare in Spain), but the idolatrous worship
of plants, trees, and stones--the relics of pagan practices which the
Church had incautiously permitted to survive. Aversion to the Papal
Inquisition continued until the energetic measures of Ferdinand and
Isabella rendered its manifestation dangerous, and smoothed the path of
the orthodox.
_Italy._
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Italy was in such a state of
anarchy, due to the constant wars between its petty States, that heresy
found a congenial soil, though the work of the Inquisition was not made
easier. Catharism flourished in Lombardy, and propagated itself all over
Europe. Its openly taught doctrines were soon met by violent repression.
The Waldensian refugees from the south of France settled in the Cottian
Alps, where they supported themselves only by the most remarkable
industry. The freethinking emperor, Frederick II, did not respond warmly
to the urgent appeals made by the Popes to suppress the heretics, for he
knew the value of an increasing body of well-conducted and hard-working
citizens.
In 1224, however, Pope Honorius appointed two Bishops with special
powers, which they at once proceeded to exercise. The first result was
an insurrection at Brescia, in which several churches were burnt. These
disturbances were repressed and the ringleaders lightly punished by
fines, and it was not until Gregory IX placed the matter in the hands of
the Dominicans that satisfactory progress was made. The power of the
episcopate had waned, and the Inquisition was free to use its new
authority almost as it pleased. It was not welcomed by the people, and
its officials were at times roughly handled; but its grip was gradually
tightened, largely owing to the zeal and eloquence of the Dominican
Giovanni da Vicenza, who performed innumerable miracles, including the
raising to life of ten dead persons. This man, whose burning of heretics
did not imperil his great reputation as a peacemaker, was appointed
Perpetual Inquisitor in 1247, and is believed to have perished in 1265
in a crusade against Manfred, King of Naples. The death in 1250 of
Frederick II deprived the heretics of a certain measure of protection,
and removed a powerful obstacle to the Inquisition’s activity. The power
of bigotry to stifle humane feeling is exhibited by Fra Giovanni Schio,
who, though personally one of the gentlest of men, could, after
preaching a beautiful sermon on love, calmly have sixty people burnt
alive.[28] A still more remarkable figure is that of Peter of Verona,
commonly known as St. Peter Martyr, who was one of the most renowned of
all Inquisitors. His great gifts of preaching and his wonder-working
powers were employed in the suppression of heresy, then rapidly growing
in the northern and central parts of Italy. At Milan, and later at
Florence, he carried on the holy work of burning, headed an army of the
faithful, and in two deadly battles broke the strength of heresy, and
with it that of the Ghibelline party, which was opposed to the Papacy.
It is said that Peter never broke his fast before sunset, and passed
most of the night in prayer--habits which may have had something to do
with his persecuting zeal. The murder of this godly man in 1252 by a
band of heretics whom he had driven to extremities did not, strangely
enough, result in any barbarous vengeance being inflicted on the
assassins, who escaped very lightly. One of the perpetrators, after due
repentance, was allowed to die peacefully as a _beato_ of the Dominican
Order. He even figures among the saints in the church erected to the
memory of the man he helped to murder. None of the guilty men appears to
have been executed; and one of them, though a notorious heretic, was
only imprisoned after a lapse of forty-three years. In this the Church
probably acted shrewdly, for the martyr’s halo and the saint’s wonderful
miracles redounded to its credit in a striking degree, and one of the
first results was the formation of a society, the Crocesegnati, or
Knights of the Cross, by persons of station, who swore on the holy cross
to devote their lives to the extermination of heresy and heretics. This
society, which had branches in most of the Italian cities, greatly aided
the Inquisition, and remained in existence until the nineteenth century.
Another energetic bigot, Rainerio Saccone, formerly a Catharian,
extended the power of the Holy Office, supported by repeated Papal Bulls
and the appointment of fresh Inquisitors. These efforts were impeded by
Ezzelin da Romano, whose evil reputation has been, perhaps, somewhat
exaggerated, and who, as a ruler, possessed at least one good
quality--that he would permit no religious persecution. In 1241 he was
condemned as a heretic--an operation several times repeated without
result, until at length, in accordance with time-honoured custom, a
crusade was organized against him, one of the Papal Bulls containing a
provision that persons found in possession of stolen property might
receive absolution if they applied it to the purposes of the Crusade. At
the outset victorious, Ezzelin was at last defeated, and received wounds
from which, refusing all aid, he died. The victor, Pallavicino, was,
however, no friend of the Inquisition, and, being irritated by the
Pope’s ungrateful treatment of him, he used every opportunity to prevent
the Inquisitors from carrying on their work. Pallavicino was summoned to
the Papal presence to answer for his heresy, and, disregarding the
summons, became involved in war, and died in 1268, when besieged in one
of his castles.
In spite of occasional but determined opposition, the Inquisition was by
this time supreme all over the Peninsula; the temporal power of the
Church grew with its triumph, and heretics were burnt in considerable
numbers. It was hardly possible, says an Italian writer, for a man to be
a Christian and die in his bed.[29] At one small town seventy persons,
and at Piacenza, it is said, twenty-eight wagon loads of human beings,
were thus put to death. It is curious that of one man who secretly
propagated heretical opinions, while professing to be a devout Catholic,
many miracles were recorded after his death. When the evidence of his
heterodoxy was found to be conclusive, they ceased, and the quarrel
which arose about his sanctity lasted for thirty-two years, until the
Pope decreed that the charge of heresy was proved, that his bones should
be burnt, all his property confiscated, and all sales or transfers of it
declared void.
In the kingdom of Naples and Sicily, Charles of Anjou, whose ambition to
dominate Italy had been fostered by the Papacy, established the
Inquisition about 1268 or 1269. It looked sharply after the financial
results, but, although its operations were at first carried on with
vigour, it did not assume the compact and effective form which it
possessed in the South of France. Heretics were occasionally burnt, but
numbers remained unmolested--a fact which implies some inefficiency on
the part of the Inquisitors. At Venice the success of the persecutors
was still more meagre, for the Republic jealously kept them in
subordination. Its lack of persecuting zeal aroused the ire of the Pope,
but his peremptory orders were complied with only in such a way as to
leave the supremacy of the State unimpaired. Reserving the right to
control confiscations, it undertook only to defray the Inquisitors’
expenses. The Inquisition was becoming no longer a paying concern, and
its decay in Italy, as in France, went on steadily during the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries. Catharism had been virtually stamped out, but
the Waldenses remained obstinate, strong in their simple faith and
hopefulness, their incessant industry, and hardy virtues. In spite of
the burning of some of their number in 1312, they flourished in their
remote villages until a pitiless persecution by Gregory XI, in 1375,
thinned their ranks and avenged the murder of two Inquisitors. About the
middle of the fifteenth century a zealous priest in one raid burned
twenty-two relapsed heretics, whose property was confiscated. A respite
then ensued, but persecution was shortly recommenced, in the form of a
crusade. On one occasion five heretics were sentenced to be burnt, but
managed to escape. Determined not to be baulked of his prey, the
Inquisitor burnt in their stead three other persons whose confessions
had secured their pardon. The Waldenses fought bravely, and once nearly
annihilated the crusading army, but in the end they were overpowered.
Many emigrated to more peaceful districts, where they maintained a
precarious existence till 1530, when, like their brethren in France,
they were merged in the Calvinist body.
In the Sicilies the Jews were the chief objects of the Inquisition’s
activities, but its power, although stimulated in the middle of the
fifteenth century by an impudent forgery of the Inquisitor of Palermo,
was not equal to its ambitions; its judgments continued to be subject to
revision by the State, and were largely nullified by the opposition of
the people until the Reformation gave a fresh impetus to the sacred duty
of persecution.
_Bosnia._
The strength and persistence of the Catharan heresy determined Innocent
III to convert the nominal allegiance of the Slav race in the south-east
of Europe into a definite submission to the rule of Rome. Driven from
the Adriatic shore, the Cathari of Italy went to Bosnia, where a
considerable number of their faith already flourished. Although the
sword supplemented the love of God, the efforts of the Church resulted
in only a temporary obedience. Under the relentless pressure of Rome,
Dominican Inquisitors arrived in Bosnia by instalments during the
thirteenth century, and the martyrdom of some of them only inflamed the
zeal of the rest. Holy crusaders ravaged the country, repeating the
horrors of the Albigensian wars. Time after time heresy was to all
appearance extirpated, but it raised its head again as soon as the
pressure was removed. More than a century of hopeless confusion and
strife between Dominicans and Franciscans, as well as between them and
heretics, followed, and in 1331 it was found that the worship of trees
and fountains still prevailed among the “Christian” population. The
progress of heresy may be estimated from the fact that early in the
fifteenth century Catharism became the State religion of Bosnia.
Matters were complicated by the invasion of the Turks, to whose Sultan,
Mohammed II, the King rendered allegiance on the fall of Constantinople
in 1453, not because of any admiration for Islam, but because he could
obtain military assistance from Christendom only on terms of complete
submission to Rome, which meant a free hand for the Inquisition. Under
another King, who refused payment of the agreed tribute to the Turkish
Sultan, the country was conquered, almost without a struggle, by the
Ottomans. Most of the Cathari embraced the Moslem faith, and thus a sect
which had existed for more than a thousand years became extinct. The
majority of the orthodox left the country rather than practise their
religion under Moslem tolerance.
_Germany._
It was discovered in 1209 that the diocese of Strassburg was gravely
infected with heresy, and a large number of unfortunate persons perished
at the stake. On one day in that city the episcopal authorities caused
to be burnt eighty persons who had failed to pass successfully through
the ordeal of the red-hot iron. Catharism was little known in Germany,
and the heretics were mainly Waldenses. A body allied to them, known as
the Ortlibenses, or Brethren of the Free Spirit, founded by one Ortlieb,
of Strassburg, held that God was the essence of all creatures, and
invisible except through them. From this it followed, or was believed to
follow, that man, being an embodiment of the spirit of God, was
incapable of sin. This doctrine swept away, not merely the entire
apparatus of theology, but the whole system of observances which
constituted the religion of the Church and the source of its wealth. And
as it was broad enough to include the Prince of Darkness himself in the
possibility of redemption, its advocates became known as Luciferans, a
designation which gave rise to many scandalous reports. The tenets of
the Ortlibenses were doubtless capable of being abused, though there is
little evidence to show that they were so to any serious extent. Spurred
on by Gregory, the cruel fanatic, Conrad of Marburg--whom he had
appointed first Inquisitor of Germany--carried on the work of
persecution to the utmost of his power, but his success failed to
satisfy the merciless Pontiff. Transparently-invented confessions,
detailing hideous and absurd orgies of devil-worship, which Conrad
extracted from the Luciferans and forwarded to the Pope, drove him
almost insane with wrath, and persecution was carried on with such
frantic intensity that even the Bishops protested against its excesses.
Conrad was greatly mortified by the acquittal of a powerful noble, Count
Sayn, who had been accused of the deadly crime of riding on a crab!
During this reign of terror the Ortlibenses were suppressed, with the
burning of ten of their leaders, who met their fate with calmness; and a
few years afterwards, on July 31, 1233, Conrad was murdered. In this
case, also, a singular leniency on the part of the Church towards
serious crime was observed, the guilty parties being punished merely
with excommunication. Strangely enough, the Church has not manufactured
a saint out of Conrad of Marburg, whether because of his brutal
treatment of St. Elizabeth of Thuringia, or because of the unpopularity
caused by his excessive zeal, history does not record. It is to the
credit of the German Bishops that they declined to give any public
approval of his actions. Another persecuting Conrad, who had much to do
with the troubles, was slain, and his assistant hanged. The number of
these men’s victims is not known, but that it must have been large is
shown by the profound impression produced in Germany by the persecution.
It should be mentioned that the secular code and episcopal laws of
Germany made ample provision for the suppression of heresy without
reference to the Inquisition.
The doctrines of the Ortlibenses embodied a mixture of ascetic and
pantheistic tendencies which, though at first pure, were afterwards so
developed as to be made a cloak for immoral practices. The original
ideal seems to have been fairly well maintained, and it is doubtful
whether there was any foundation for the charges made by some Italian
ecclesiastics, that the ideas of sinlessness and of bodily nakedness as
a state of grace were deliberately employed for the corruption of women.
Another notorious sect, calling themselves the Friends of God, held the
daring conception that it was possible for Jews and Moslems to obtain
salvation, and refused to denounce heretics as long as God tolerated
them.
The episcopal Inquisition was not organized in Germany until 1317, and
was directed mainly against the Beghards (known also as the Lollards),
who originated in the Netherlands and taught that poverty was the
greatest virtue. Upon these inoffensive people the Archbishop of Cologne
had opened war a few years earlier. The female heretics, known as
Beguines, were severely persecuted, though not to death; and it is said
that on his death-bed Pope Clement V bitterly regretted authorizing the
proceedings against them. Walter the Lollard, the most dangerous heretic
of the Rhine provinces, was terribly tortured in 1322, and, on the
special instructions of the Pope, he and many of his followers perished
in the flames, meeting their fate with undaunted cheerfulness. In 1353
renewed attempts were made to establish the Inquisition in Germany, but
without success. The well-known mania of the Flagellants was persecuted
as heresy, and many people were burnt, while many others were left to
rot in underground dungeons. Another sect, called the “Friends of God,”
furnished more victims, and during the great plague the murder of Jews
was thought to be pleasing to God. In 1369 the Emperor Charles IV took
the Inquisition under State protection, and it was organized for work,
five Inquisitors being appointed, though it still lacked houses and
prisons. The unfortunate Beghards and Beguines were turned out of their
houses, which were appropriated by the Inquisitors, of course without
paying compensation, and not without opposition from the Bishops, who
saw their own prerogatives threatened. The Beghards had been allowed to
make their opinions public by means of tracts written in the vernacular;
the censorship vested in the Holy Office rectified the oversight. Both
the Bishops and the civil authorities objected to indiscriminate
persecution, and even succeeded in obtaining from Gregory XI authority
to restrict the Inquisitors’ activity in regard to the Beghards and
Beguines. Being almost unmolested for a time, the Waldensian heretics
again came into prominence, and from 1393 to 1397 suffered severely from
persecution. At Steyer, in the latter year, more than a hundred
Waldenses of both sexes were burnt. Of the followers of Conrad Schmidt,
of Thuringia, many were discovered in 1414, and ninety-one were burnt in
one town, forty-four in another, and many more in the villages of that
province. A still more horrible case occurred two years later, when 300
of the Flagellants, penitent as well as impenitent, suffered at the
stake in one day.
The superiority of the episcopate over the Inquisition was asserted by a
Bull of Eugenius IV in 1431, which had the novel effect of rendering the
Inquisitors liable to excommunication if they interfered with the
Bishops. Persecution went on, however, until, in the time of the
Reformation, most of the heretical bodies lost their identity in the
spread of Lutheranism. One of the precursors of that great movement was
Gregory of Heimburg, who for twenty-five years boldly wrote and preached
against the Papacy and the abuse by the Church of its power. A similar
campaign was carried on by Hans of Niklaushausen, who proclaimed that
the wickedness of the clergy was bringing about the destruction of the
world. He was seized by the episcopal tribunal of Wurzburg, and silenced
in the customary manner. In spite of intermittent activity and a large
number of burnings in Germany, the Inquisition never obtained a firm
foothold in that country; while in Bavaria it was not formally
established till 1599, and did not retain power for long. Had it been as
strong and efficient as it proved in Spain, the career of Martin Luther
would have been a brief one, and the Reformation would have been
postponed indefinitely.
_Bohemia._
In 1257, owing to a request by the King of Bohemia for aid in
suppressing heresy, the Inquisition was, under episcopal sanction,
established in his dominions, and two Inquisitors were appointed. The
people evidently thought them more than sufficient, for when, in 1341,
another ecclesiastic was empowered to act he was speedily slain by the
angry populace. Bohemia was in the fourteenth century one of the most
prosperous countries in Europe; but the state of its morals was far from
satisfactory, the clergy in particular being worldly and depraved, and
almost universally practising concubinage. The privileges of the Church
were habitually sold for cash, and the land was full of vagrants, whose
clerical immunities enabled them to gamble, brawl, drink, and rob at
their pleasure. The demand of Innocent VI in 1354 for a tenth of the
ecclesiastical revenues of the Empire to enable him to carry on his
Italian wars threw Germany into an uproar. The scandalous moral laxity
of the clergy passed almost unreproved, but an attack on the Church’s
money bags was a much more serious matter. The clergy sheared their
flocks without mercy, but they had the strongest objection to being
shorn. Eighteen years elapsed before the Papal Inquisition was set up in
Bohemia by Bull of Gregory XI, and it was then confined to five of the
more important provinces, Prague being omitted. Many forerunners of the
reformer John Huss appeared in Bohemia, and the general dissatisfaction
with the Church had given rise to a powerful movement on behalf of
liberty--a movement stimulated by the influence of John Wycliffe, whose
writings were greatly esteemed in Prague. Wycliffe and his followers
boldly taught that the Pope was Antichrist, and that excommunications
might be disregarded. The clergy were vicars of Satan, their churches
dens of thieves and habitations of fiends. It is curious that the
Inquisition, relentless in its persecution of the Waldenses, appears to
have seen nothing specially objectionable in the doctrines of Huss. At
any rate, it took no official part in his trial, which, however, was
modelled on the familiar Inquisitorial procedure. The controversy
between orthodoxy and heresy now centred on points of doctrine rather
than on the purification of the Church. The reformers contended that the
Papal claim to the power of the keys was either essential to salvation
or a cunning lie to gratify power and self-interest. Huss was
excommunicated; and, although victorious in argument, his injudicious
reliance on the Emperor’s honour led to his terrible end in 1415.
Sigismund’s violation of his safe conduct was expressly recommended and
defended by the clergy, on the ground that, under the law, a heretic
could neither expect nor receive protection, and that the word of a
king could not be allowed to prejudice the Catholic faith. Technically
the contention was sound, for the law was largely an ecclesiastical
creation, which reversed the accepted ideas of morality, and a word from
Rome could absolve men from the most sacred obligations. The Council of
Constance, having rid the world of John Huss and Jerome of Prague, began
to apply the methods of the Inquisition to the whole kingdom of Bohemia,
while making no attempt to check the corruption which had been the chief
cause of the growth of heresy. A Bull of Martin V in 1418 urged prelates
and Inquisitors to track out the heretics and deliver them to justice,
and all secular rulers were commanded to aid the work. In the following
year rebellion broke out, and the hardy zealots rivalled the persecutors
in atrocities of cruelty. After ten years of struggle peace was
restored. The more moderate among the reformers accepted the dogmas of
the Church, while the extremists held firmly to their anti-sacerdotal
opinions. They were met by another revival of bigotry. An energetic
Inquisitor appointed by the Pope in 1436 persecuted throughout Hungary
and Austria with extreme severity, but no detailed record of his victims
remains. From the rude and miserably poor Hussites arose the sect of
Moravian Brethren, which has existed for 400 years to the present day,
preserving amid sore trials and persecutions the simplicity and purity
of its faith.
_The Netherlands._
In the middle of the sixteenth century the most prosperous portion of
Europe was the Netherlands or Low Countries, which comprised the
provinces now forming the kingdoms of Holland and Belgium. Many large
towns adorned these fertile plains, inhabited by an energetic and
hard-working people, whose vast commerce extended to every quarter of
the globe. Antwerp, the banking centre of Europe, contained nearly as
many people as then inhabited London; and splendid public buildings
testified to the taste, wealth, and civic spirit of its citizens. The
municipal institutions of the country were in advance of those of any
other, and even the poorer classes lived in something like comfort,
while education was so diffused that there was scarcely a peasant who
was unable to read and write. As in the south of France 300 years
earlier, a rich and progressive civilization had been developed by a
self-reliant and independent people, and had created a predisposition to
heresy--that is, it stimulated men’s minds in every department of life,
and in none more powerfully than in that of religion. The Church had
succeeded in destroying the civilization of Languedoc. It joined
zealously in a similar attempt in the Netherlands. But it had to do with
a different people.
In 1520 the Emperor Charles V, of whose dominions the seventeen
Provinces of the Netherlands formed part, issued the first of his nine
Edicts for the purpose of enforcing religious uniformity. These made up
a complete system of persecution, and included the introduction of the
Inquisition, not after the Spanish model with which Charles was
familiar, but in the somewhat less efficient and imposing form
instituted by the Papacy in the thirteenth century, and perfected by
long experience. Certain safeguards were insisted upon by the
Netherlands, such as the vesting of inquisitorial powers in laymen, and
confirmation of sentences by members of provincial councils. The Emperor
appointed a supreme Inquisitor for the whole country, and the Edicts
were so efficiently carried out as to render the Spanish organization
superfluous. These “placards,” as they were termed, were directed
against Protestantism, which had made remarkable progress among a people
to whose temperament it strongly appealed, and had not been repressed by
the local tribunals of the episcopal Inquisition. Under Charles’s Edicts
great numbers of persons were put to death for such enormous offences as
reading the Bible, ridiculing the sacred wafer, or even casting a
disapproving glance on a graven image. Motley states that in 1546 the
number of victims had been estimated by the Venetian Envoy at 30,000,
and it is accepted by most historians as true that during Charles’s
reign from 50,000 to 100,000 persons suffered death for their religious
opinions, and that his son Philip caused at least half as many to be
executed.
These figures are in all probability exaggerated, but they at least
indicate very severe and prolonged persecution. The mere terms of the
Edict of 1550 compel this conclusion. They provide that the crimes of
printing, copying, possessing, or circulating the works of the
Protestant Reformers, image breaking, unauthorized worship or discussion
whether in public or in private, disputes upon or exposition of the
Scriptures, or preaching openly or secretly, were to be punished by
death; “the men with the sword and the women to be buried alive, if they
do not persist in their errors; if they do persist in them, then they
are to be executed with fire; all their property in both cases being
confiscated to the Crown.”[30] The Edict also forbade any aid or favour
of suspected heretics, and provided that persons who failed to denounce
them became thereby liable to the same punishments as the heretics
themselves. In order to forestall any softening of the hearts of the
judges, they were forbidden, under the threat of severe penalties, to
grant or request pardons, or to relax the severity of their
instructions.
This barbarous Edict, which merely completed previous enactments of
almost equal ferocity, was renewed and confirmed by Philip II when, in
1555, he assumed the reins of power on the Emperor’s abdication. Though
egregiously in error in yielding to the counsels of his spiritual
advisers, Charles was an able and prudent ruler, who persecuted only for
supposed reasons of State, and did not scruple to employ Protestants in
his service, provided they were fit men. His appointment of an
Inquisitor-General for the Netherlands was confirmed by Pope Adrian VI
in 1522, thus establishing the Papal Inquisition; but, the official
being dismissed for forgery, fresh Inquisitors were nominated to see
that the Edicts were obeyed. “They were empowered,” says Motley, “to
inquire, proceed against, and chastise all heretics, all persons
suspected of heresy--and their protectors. Accompanied by a notary, they
were to collect written information concerning every person in the
provinces ‘infected or vehemently suspected.’ They were authorized to
summon all subjects of his Majesty, whatever their rank, quality, or
station, and to compel them to give evidence, or to communicate
suspicions. They were to punish all who pertinaciously refused such
depositions with death. The Emperor commanded his presidents, judges,
sheriffs, and all other judicial and executive officers to render all
‘assistance to the Inquisitors and their familiars in their holy and
pious Inquisition, whenever required so to do,’ on pain of being
punished as encouragers of heresy--that is to say, with death. Whenever
the Inquisitors should be satisfied as to the heresy of any individual,
they were to order his arrest and detention by the judge of the place,
or by others arbitrarily to be selected by them.... In conclusion, the
Emperor ordered the ‘Inquisitors to make it known that they were not
doing their own work, but that of Christ, and to persuade all persons of
this fact.’”[31]
The strangely perverted vision which could thus see the work of Christ
in the merciless cruelty of the Inquisition need not be analysed. The
mean-souled bigot Philip made the most desperate efforts to break the
will and enforce the submission of a high-spirited and resolute people,
among whom the tenets of Protestantism had made remarkable progress. For
details of the appalling and well-nigh incredible horrors perpetrated by
the Inquisitors, the monster Titelmann in particular, the reader is
referred to Motley’s great work.
The persecutions produced the effects which might have been foreseen.
They caused the immortal revolt of the Netherlands. “Nothing was talked
of but the Edicts and the Inquisition. Nothing else entered into the
minds of men. In the streets, in the shops, in the taverns, in the
fields; at market, at church, at funerals, at weddings; in the noble’s
castle, at the farmer’s fireside, in the mechanic’s garret, upon the
merchants’ exchange, there was but one perpetual subject of shuddering
conversation. It was better, men began to whisper to each other, to die
at once than to live in perpetual slavery. It was better to fall with
arms in hand than to be tortured and butchered by the Inquisition.”[32]
Eminent men inveighed against the tyranny of the Government, and several
of the nobles refused to obey the Edicts. At first it was debated
whether Philip would be mad enough to enforce them, but all doubt as to
his intentions was removed by the Inquisition being formally proclaimed
in every town and village throughout the country. The Netherlanders
steeled their hearts, and prepared to resist to the death. As Motley
remarks: “They knew that the obligation of a King to his vassals was as
sacred as the duties of the subjects to the sovereign.” Philip was not
unaware of the peril, but, like the wooden-headed bigot that he was,
considered the danger of discrediting the Inquisition greater than any
inconveniences that were likely to result from its rigour. The general
indignation became so pronounced that Philip was urged to modify his
instructions in some important particulars, the chief of which were the
repeal of the Edicts and the abolition of the Inquisition. Very
reluctantly he agreed to make certain concessions, but the sincerity of
his compliance may be estimated from the facts that he withdrew the
Papal but maintained the Episcopal Inquisition, stimulating the latter
to fresh exertions, and that he agreed to relax the penalty of death for
heresy, though, considering the promise extorted from him, he declined
to be bound by it. He wrote to his envoy at Rome that this was, perhaps,
the best arrangement, “since the abolition would have no force unless
the Pope, by whom the institution had been established, consented to its
suspension. This matter, however, was to be kept a profound secret....
The Papal institution, notwithstanding the official letters, was to
exist, unless the Pope chose to destroy it; and his Holiness had sent
the Archbishop of Sorrento, a few weeks before, to Brussels, for the
purpose of concerting secret measures for strengthening the Holy Office
in the Provinces.”[33] The severity of the Edicts Philip declined to
mitigate; his secret resolve was not only to keep them in full force,
but so efficiently to support the Inquisition that all his heretic
subjects could be exterminated, even if it cost him his realm and his
life.
All this time persecution was going on, and men and women were being
daily tortured, beheaded, strangled, and burnt alive. Did the Church of
Christ utter one word of protest? Let the Archbishop of Cambrai answer.
An intercepted letter written by him to Cardinal Granvelle in 1565
contained these words: “Since the pot is uncovered and the whole cookery
known, we had best push forward and make an end of all the principal
heretics, whether rich or poor, without regarding whether the city will
be entirely ruined by such a course. Such an opinion I should declare
openly were it not that we of the ecclesiastical profession are accused
of always crying out for blood.”[34]
An even more precise indication of the general feeling in the Church is
found in the resolution passed at a great meeting of the rulers and
nobility in the same year. The question debated was whether any change
should be made in the treatment of heretics. The lay doctors present
were all in favour of the death penalty being abolished. All the
ecclesiastics stoutly maintained the opposite opinion, and unanimously
resolved that no attempt should be made to improve a system which had
hitherto worked so well, and that heretics were to be rigorously
chastised, as before. That Philip shared to the full their truculent
zeal is shown by his fury when he learnt that in May, 1567, a decree of
slightly mitigated ferocity had been issued by his representative, the
Duchess of Parma. He ordered its immediate revocation, on the ground
that its excessive clemency was indecent and contrary to the Christian
religion. The clemency consisted in permitting heretics to be hanged
instead of being burnt alive. This royal fanatic personally commended
the outrageous Titelmann for his persecuting energy.
When the Prince of Orange, who had earnestly defended the cause of
freedom, left the Netherlands for Germany in 1567, the country, says
Motley, “was absolutely helpless, the popular heart cold with
apprehension. All persons at all implicated in the late troubles, or
suspected of heresy, fled from their homes. Fugitive soldiers were
hunted into rivers, cut to pieces in the fields, hanged, burned, or
drowned, like dogs, without quarter and without remorse. The most
industrious and valuable part of the population left the land in droves.
The tide swept outwards with such rapidity that the Netherlands seemed
fast becoming the desolate waste they had been before the Christian era.
Throughout the country those Reformers who were unable to effect their
escape betook themselves to their old lurking-places. The new religion
was banished from the cities, every conventicle was broken up by armed
men, the preachers and leading men were hanged, their disciples beaten
with rods, reduced to beggary, or imprisoned, even if they sometimes
escaped the scaffold. An incredible number, however, were executed for
religious causes. Hardly a village so small, says the Antwerp
chronicler, but that it could furnish one, two, or three hundred victims
to the executioner. The new churches were levelled to the ground, and
out of their timber gallows were constructed. It was thought an
ingenious pleasantry to hang the Reformers upon the beams under which
they had hoped to worship God.”[35]
The troubles became more and more serious, and at length culminated in
open revolt. In 1567 the Duke of Alva arrived in Brussels with a
well-appointed army of Spanish veterans, and at once began his career of
blood and cruelty. When he left the country, six years later, a baffled
man, he is said to have boasted that he had caused 18,600 persons to be
executed during that period. On the 16th February, 1568, the Inquisition
framed the most comprehensive death-warrant ever issued, and ten days
later Philip confirmed it; the whole of the inhabitants of the
Netherlands were regarded as heretics and condemned to death, a few
persons only being excepted by name. Motley appears to have no doubt as
to the authenticity of this appalling document, but Prescott states that
he can find no Spanish record of it, and that it is related by only two
Dutch historians. In 1568 the rebellion broke out in earnest, and led to
that great and glorious war which lasted, with intervals, for eighty
years, with the result that the Low Countries were delivered from the
oppressor, and one of the noblest of nations secured its independence
and religious freedom.
_The Spiritual Franciscans._
A section of the Mendicant Order founded by Francis of Assisi became
known as the Spiritual Franciscans, whose adherence to their vows of
poverty and purity was disapproved, as reflecting on the luxury and the
moral apathy which prevailed in the Order generally. The Inquisition
took up the task of showing the folly of being righteous overmuch, and
in the fourteenth century the Spiritual Franciscans were very firmly
handled. Twenty-five of them were severely tortured in 1318, and four
were burnt at Marseilles for the criminal inconsistency of wearing
flowing garments and having granaries and cellars. The lawfulness of
possessing property was then one of the great questions that distracted
the Church, and people ran the risk of being burnt whichever opinion
they held. Encouraged by their success, the Inquisitors proceeded with
increased vigour. At Narbonne the bishops tried to protect some accused
persons, but were cowed by Inquisitorial threats. Three victims went to
the stake in 1319, seventeen during the Lent of 1321, and several in the
following year. At Lunel seventeen were burnt, at Beziers nine, and at
Carcassonne 113 persons were executed between 1318 and 1350. All these
fell victims to the Dominicans, but the orthodox Franciscans rivalled
them in zeal, 114 persons being burnt by them in the year 1323. Having
departed from their original moderation, the Franciscans had become
energetic persecutors, who even went the length of burning a man for
persistently refusing to break his vows of poverty and chastity.
In the latter part of the thirteenth century great unrest in religious
matters prevailed throughout Europe, and credulity took strange forms.
The expectation that the era of the Holy Ghost was about to begin was a
common and harmless delusion which the orthodox felt in duty bound to
extirpate. With little difficulty and by comparatively lenient methods
and the use of a moderate amount of torture, the Inquisition put an end
to a small sect called the Guillemites, named after a woman who was
worshipped as an incarnation of the Holy Ghost, and whose resurrection
after death was confidently looked for. Other eccentric modes of piety
were suppressed with only a few burnings, but the episode of Dolcino in
1300 was a much more serious matter.
Apparently a man of commanding personality but holding a curious medley
of religious opinions, Dolcino was soon recognized as the spiritual head
of a community numbering several thousand persons, who called themselves
the Apostles. The success of his mission being dangerous to the Church,
the Pope Clement V proclaimed a crusade against him. He and his
followers camped on a bleak mountain summit in the province of Vercelli,
supporting themselves by raids for food into the neighbouring valleys.
Three crusades failed, but a fourth was successful; and after terrible
sufferings, cannibalism being resorted to by the besieged, the mountain
was captured with merciless slaughter on both sides, the fanatics were
broken up, and their leaders handed over to the secular arm and punished
with the utmost barbarity. The beautiful Margarita, Dolcino’s “sister in
Christ,” refusing pardon and offers of marriage, was slowly roasted
alive before his eyes, and Dolcino himself was taken on a cart through
the district on a hot summer day, and gradually torn to pieces with
red-hot pincers. Such was the man’s resolution that he bore this
frightful treatment without even a change of countenance. Strange as
were some of the tenets of these enthusiasts, they were harmless enough
in a moral sense, their chief crimes being their protests against the
evil lives of the clergy, their success in making converts, and their
contention that Christ had forsaken the Church of Rome because of its
wickedness. Believing purity of life to be the first essential to
salvation, they scorned the formalities of priestly religion, and
dedicated themselves to poverty, chastity, and humility.
In the fourteenth century the great question which divided the Church
was that of the poverty of its founder, and to this all other questions
had to give way. The Franciscans ventured to say that Jesus was very
poor in worldly goods. The Dominicans, on the other hand, were confident
that he possessed some property, though they could not say exactly how
much. On this momentous question the good old Church was rent almost in
twain. Regardless of Scripture, the Dominicans even hung on the walls of
their monasteries pictures representing Jesus on the Cross, with one
hand nailed and the other putting money in his pouch. The latter Order
was favoured by the Pope, who persecuted the Franciscans with great
persistency, and men were burnt for holding heretical opinions on a
subject of which no one possessed the smallest fragment of knowledge.
With the death of the chief defenders of comparative sanity in
religion--Marsilio of Padua, William of Ockham, and others--the
Spiritual Franciscans again underwent severe persecution, and
controversy centred round the rights and privileges of the Church and
the moral condition of the clergy. The well-known sect of the
Fratricelli maintained that the real heretic was the Church, which by
its evil conduct had created the heresies that it punished, and by its
doctrines perverted the minds of simple believers. Popular sympathy in
their favour was powerless to prevent punishment. The Popes commanded
the Inquisitors to persecute, and about the middle of the century
several persons were burnt in Italy and France, a number apparently in
the presence of Pope Nicholas V. One of the leaders was burnt by
instalments, and lingered for three days before death freed him from his
torturers. Under this vigorous repression the Fratricelli became extinct
towards the end of the fifteenth century.