Like the murder of the legate Pierre de Castelnau, in 1208, the massacre

of Avignonet was a fatal error. Its violation of the traditional

sanctity of the ecclesiastic sent a thrill of horror even among those

who had small sympathy with the cruelty of the Inquisition, while the

deliberateness of its planning and its unsparing ferocity gave color to

the belief that heresy was only to be extirpated by force. Sympathy,

indeed, for a time might well change sides, for the massacre was

practically unavenged. Frère Ferrer, the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, made

due inquest into the affair, and after the capture of Montségur, in

1244, some of the participants confessed all the details, but the real

culprits escaped. Count Raymond, it is true, when he had leisure from

pressing business, hanged a few of the underlings, but we find Raymond

d'Alfaro, in 1247, promoted to be Viguier of Toulouse, and representing

his master in the proceedings with regard to the burial of the old

count, and, finally, he was one of the nine witnesses to Raymond's last

will. Another ringleader, Guillem du Mas-Saintes-Puelles, is recorded as

taking the oath of allegiance to Count Alfonse, in 1249, after the death

of Raymond. Guillem's participation in the murders has special interest,

as showing the antagonism created by the violence of the Inquisition,

for in 1233, as Bailli of Lavaur, he had dutifully seized a number of

heretics and carried them to Toulouse, where they were promptly

burned.[41]

The massacre of Avignonet came at a time peculiarly unfortunate for

Count Raymond, who was nursing comprehensive and far-reaching plans,

then ripe for execution, for the rehabilitation of his house and the

independence of his land. He could not escape the responsibility for the

catastrophe which public opinion everywhere attached to him. Although

he had recently, on March 14, solemnly sworn to persecute heresy with

his whole strength when, apparently sick unto death, he had sought

absolution at the hands of the episcopal official of Agen, yet he was

known to be hostile to the Dominicans as inquisitors, and had bitterly

opposed the restoration of their functions. On May 1, just four weeks

before the event, he had made a solemn declaration in the presence of

numerous prelates and nobles to the effect that he had appealed to Rome

against the commission of Dominican inquisitors by the provincial in his

territories, and that he intended to prosecute that appeal. He protested

that he earnestly desired the eradication of heresy, and urged the

bishops to exercise energetically their ordinary power to that end,

promising his full support to them and the execution of the law both as

to confiscation and the death-penalty. He would even accept the friars

as inquisitors provided they acted independently of their Orders, and

not under the authority of their provincials. One of his baillis even

threatened, in the church of Moissac, seizure of person and property for

all who should submit to the penalties imposed by the inquisitors, as

they were not authorized by the count to administer justice. Such being

his position, it was inevitable that he should be regarded as an

accomplice in the murders, and that the cause which he represented

should suffer greatly in the revulsion of public feeling which it

occasioned.[42]

Raymond had been busy in effecting a widespread alliance which should

wring from the House of Capet its conquests of the last quarter of a

century. He had been joined by the Kings of England, Castile, and

Aragon, and the Count de la Marche, and everything bid fair for his

reconquest of his old domains. The massacre of Avignonet was a most

untoward precursor of the revolt which burst forth immediately

afterwards. It shook the fidelity of some of his vassals, who withdrew

their support; and, to counteract its impression, he felt obliged to

convert his sham siege of Montségur into an active one, thus employing

troops which he could ill spare. Yet the rising, for a while, promised

success, and Raymond even reassumed his old title of Duke of Narbonne.

King Louis, however, was equal to the occasion, and allowed the allies

no time to concentrate their forces. His victories over the English and

Gascons at Taillebourg and Saintes, July 19 and 23, deprived Raymond of

all hope of assistance from that quarter. Pestilence forced the

withdrawal of the main army of Louis, but a force under the veteran

Imbert de Beaujeu operated actively against Raymond, who, without help

from his allies and deserted by many of his vassals, was obliged to lay

down his arms, December 22. When suing for peace he pledged himself to

extirpate heresy and to punish the assassins of Avignonet with an

effusiveness which shows the importance attached to these conditions.

The sagacity and moderation of King Louis granted him easy terms, but

one of the stipulations of settlement was that every male inhabitant

over the age of fifteen should take an oath to assist the Church against

heresy, and the king against Raymond, in case of another revolt. Thus

the purity of the faith and the supremacy of the foreign domination were

once again recognized as inseparably allied.[43]

The triumph of both had been secured. This ended the last serious effort

of the South to recover its independence. Henceforth, under the treaty

of Paris, it was to pass irrevocably into the hands of the stranger, and

the Inquisition was to have unrestricted opportunity to enforce

conformity in religion. It was in vain that Raymond again, at the

Council of Béziers, April 20, 1243, summoned the bishops of his

dominions--those of Toulouse, Agen, Cahors, Albi, and Rodez--urging them

personally or through proper deputies, whether Cistercians, Dominicans,

or Franciscans, to make diligent inquisition after heresy, and pledged

the assistance of the secular arm for its extirpation. It was equally in

vain that, immediately on the accession of Innocent IV., in June, a

deputation of Dominicans, frightened by the warning of Avignonet,

earnestly alleged many reasons why the dangerous burden should be lifted

from their shoulders. The pope peremptorily refused, and ordered them to

continue their holy labors, even at the risk of martyrdom.[44]

Despite this single exhibition of hesitation and weakness, the Order was

not lacking in men whose eager fanaticism rendered them fully prepared

to accept the perilous post. The peril, indeed, was apparent rather than

real--it had passed away in the revulsion which followed the useless

bloodshed of Avignonet and the failure of Raymond's rebellion. There was

a rising tide in favor of orthodoxy. A confraternity organized in

October, 1243, by Durand, Bishop of Albi, is probably only the

expression of what was going on in many places. Organized under the

protection of St. Cecilia, the members of the association pledged

themselves not only to mutual protection, but to aid the bishop to

execute justice on heretics, Vaudois and their fautors, and to defend

inquisitors as they would their own bodies. Any member suspected of

heresy was to be incontinently ejected, and a reward of a silver mark

was offered for every heretic captured and delivered to the association.

The new pope had, moreover, spoken in no uncertain tone. His refusal to

relieve the Dominicans was accompanied with a peremptory command to all

the prelates of the region to extend favor, assistance, and protection

to the inquisitors in their toils and tribulations. Any slackness in

this was freely threatened with the papal vengeance, while favor was

significantly promised as the reward of zeal. The Dominicans were urged

to fresh exertion to overcome the threatened recrudescence of heresy. A

new legate, Zoen, Bishop-elect of Avignon, was also despatched to

Languedoc, with instructions to act vigorously. His predecessor had been

complained of by the inquisitors for having, in spite of their

remonstrances, released many of their prisoners and remitted penances

indiscriminately. All such acts of misplaced mercy were pronounced void,

and Zoen was ordered to reimpose all such penalties without appeal.[45]

Still more menacing to the heretic cause was the reconciliation at last

effected between Raymond and the papacy. In September, 1243, the count

visited Italy, where he had an interview with Frederic II. in Apulia,

and with Innocent in Rome. For ten years he had been under

excommunication, and had carried on an unavailing struggle. He could no

longer cherish illusions, and was doubtless ready to give whatever

assurances might be required of him. On the other hand, the new pope was

free from the predispositions which the long strife had engendered in

Gregory IX. There seems to have been little difficulty in reaching an

understanding, to which the good offices of Louis IX. powerfully

contributed. December 2, Raymond was released from his various

excommunications; January 1, 1244, the absolution was announced to King

Louis and the prelates of the kingdom, who were ordered to publish it in

all the churches, and January 7 the Legate Zoen was instructed to treat

him with fatherly affection and not permit him to be molested. In all

this absolution had only been given _ad cautelam_, or provisionally, for

a special excommunication had been decreed against him as a fautor of

heretics, after the massacre of Avignonet, by the inquisitors Ferrer and

Guillem Raymond. Against this he had made a special appeal to the Holy

See in April, 1243, and a special bull of May 16, 1244, was required for

its abrogation. No conditions seem to have been imposed respecting the

long-deferred crusade, and thenceforth Raymond lived in perfect harmony

with the Holy See. Indeed, he was the recipient of many favors. A bull

of March 18, 1244, granted him the privilege that for five years he

should not be forced by apostolic letters to answer in judgment outside

of his own dominions; another of April 27, 1245, took him, his family,

and lands under the special protection of St. Peter and the papacy; and

yet another of May 12, 1245, provided that no delegate of the Apostolic

See should have power to utter excommunication or any other sentence

against him without a special mandate. Besides this, one of April 21,

1245, imposed some limitations on the power of inquisitors, limitations

which they seem never to have observed. Raymond was fairly won over. He

had evidently resolved to accommodate himself to the necessities of the

time, and the heretic had nothing further to hope or the inquisitor to

fear from him. The preparation for increased and systematic vigor of

operations is seen in the elaborate provisions, so often referred to

above, of the Council of Narbonne, held at this period.[46]

Yet so long as heresy retained the stronghold of Montségur as a refuge

and rallying-point its secret and powerful organization could not be

broken. The capture of that den of outlaws was a necessity of the first

order, and as soon as the confusion of the rebellion of 1242 had

subsided it was undertaken as a crusade, not by Raymond, but by the

Archbishop of Narbonne, the Bishop of Albi, the Seneschal of

Carcassonne, and some nobles, either led by zeal or by the hope of

salvation. The heretics, on their side, were not idle. Some baillis of

Count Raymond sent them Bertrand de la Bacalairia, a skilful maker of

military engines, to aid them in the defence, who made no scruple in

affirming that he came with the assent of the count, and from every side

money, provisions, arms, and munitions of war were poured into the

stronghold. In the spring of 1243 the siege began, prosecuted with

indefatigable ardor by the besiegers, and resisted with desperate

resolution by the besieged. As in the old combats at Toulouse, the women

assisted their warriors, and the venerable Catharan bishop, Bertrand

Martin, animated their devoted courage with promises of eternal bliss.

It is significant of the public temper that sympathizers in the

besiegers' camp permitted tolerably free communication between the

besieged and their friends, and gave them warning of the plans of

attack. Even the treasure which had been stored up in Montségur was

conveyed away safely through the investing lines, about Christmas, 1243,

to Pons Arnaud de Châteauverdun in the Savartès. Secret relations were

maintained with Count Raymond, and the besieged were buoyed up with

promises that if they would hold out until Easter, 1244, he would march

to their relief with forces supplied by the Emperor Frederic II. It was

all in vain. The siege dragged on its weary length for nearly a year,

till, on the night of March 1, 1244, guided by some shepherds who

betrayed their fellow-countrymen, by almost inaccessible paths among the

cliffs, the crusaders surprised and carried one of the outworks. The

castle was no longer tenable. A brief parley ensued, and the garrison

agreed to surrender at dawn, delivering up to the archbishop all the

perfected heretics among them, on condition that the lives of the rest

should be spared. Although a few were let down from the walls with ropes

and thus escaped, the capitulation was carried out, and the archbishop's

shrift was short. At the foot of the mountain-peak an enclosure of

stakes was formed, piled high with wood, and set on fire. The Perfect

were asked to renounce their faith, and on their refusal were cast into

the flames. Thus perished two hundred and five men and women. The

conquerors might well write exultingly to the pope, "We have crushed

the head of the dragon!"[47]

Although the lives of the rest of the captives were guaranteed, they

were utilized to the utmost. For months the inquisitors Ferrer and P.

Durant devoted themselves to the examinations to secure evidence against

heretics far and near, dead and alive. From the aged Raymond de Péreille

to a child ten years of age, they were forced, under repeated

interrogatories, to recall every case of adoration and heretication that

they could remember, and page after page was covered with interminable

lists of names of those present at sermons and _consolamenta_ through a

period extending back to thirty or forty years before, and embracing the

whole land as far as Catalonia. Even those who had brought victual to

Montségur and sold it were carefully looked after and set down. It can

readily be conceived what an accession was made to the terrible records

of the Inquisition, and how valuable was the insight obtained into the

ramifications of heresy throughout the land during more than a

generation--what digging up of bones would follow with confiscation of

estates, and with what unerring certainty the inquisitors would be able

to seize their victims and confound their denials. We can only guess at

the means by which this information was extracted from the prisoners.

Torture had not yet been introduced; life had been promised, and

perpetual imprisonment was inevitable for such pronounced heretics; and

when we see Raymond de Péreille himself, who had endured unflinchingly

the vicissitudes of the crusades, and had bravely held out to the last,

ransacking his memory to betray all whom he had ever seen adore a

minister, we can imagine the horrors of the two months' preliminary

captivity which had so broken his spirit as to bring him to this depth

of degradation. Even a perfected heretic, Arnaud de Bretos, captured

while flying to Lombardy, was induced to reveal the names of all who had

given him shelter and attended his ministrations during his missionary

wanderings.[48]

Henceforth the Cathari could hope only in God. All chance of resistance

was over. One by one their supports had broken, and there was only left

the passive resistance of martyrdom. The Inquisition could track and

seize its victims at leisure, and king and count could follow with

decrees of confiscation which were gradually to transfer the lands of

the South to orthodox and loyal subjects. The strongest testimony that

can be given to the living earnestness of the Catharan faith is to be

found in the prolongation of this struggle yet through three hopeless

generations. It is no wonder, however, if the immediate effect of these

crowding events was to fill the heretics with despair. In the poem of

Isarn de Villemur, written about this period, the heretic, Sicard de

Figueras is represented as saying that their best and most trusted

friends are turning against them and betraying them. How many believers

at this juncture abandoned their religion, even at the cost of lifelong

imprisonment, we have no means of accurately estimating, but the number

must have been enormous, to judge from the request, already alluded to,

of the Council of Narbonne about this time to the inquisitors to

postpone their sentences in view of the impossibility of building

prisons sufficient to contain the crowds who hurried in to accuse

themselves and seek reconciliation, after the expiration of the time of

grace, which Innocent IV., in December, 1243, had ordered to be

designated afresh.[49]

Yet, in a population so thoroughly leavened with heresy, these thousands

of voluntary penitents still left an ample field of activity for the

zeal of the inquisitors. Each one who confessed was bound to give the

names of all whom he had seen engaged in heretical acts, and of all who

had been hereticated on the death-bed. Innumerable clews were thus

obtained to bring to trial those who failed to accuse themselves, and to

exhume and burn the bones of those who were beyond the ability to

recant. For the next few years the life of the inquisitors was a busy

one. The stunned populations no longer offered resistance, and grew used

to the despair of the penitents sentenced to perpetual prison, the

dragging of decomposed corpses through the streets, and the horror of

the Tophets where the victims passed through temporal to eternal flame.

Still there is a slight indication that the service was not wholly

without danger from the goadings of vengeance or the courage of despair,

when the Council of Béziers, in 1246, ordering travelling inquests,

makes exception in the cases when it may not be safe for the inquisitors

to personally visit the places where the inquisition should be held; and

Innocent IV., in 1247, authorizes the inquisitors to cite the accused to

come to them, in view of the perils arising from the ambushes of

heretics.[50]

The fearless and indefatigable men who now performed the functions of

inquisitor in Languedoc can rarely have taken advantage of this

concession to weakness. Bernard de Caux, who so well earned the title of

the hammer of heretics, was at this time the leading spirit of the

Inquisition of Toulouse, after a term of service in Montpellier and

Agen, and he had for colleague a kindred spirit in Jean de Saint-Pierre.

Together they made a thorough inquest over the whole province, passing

the population through a sieve with a completeness which must have left

few guilty consciences unexamined. There is extant a fragmentary record

of this inquest, covering the years 1245 and 1246, during which no less

than six hundred places were investigated, embracing about one half of

Languedoc. The magnitude of the work thus undertaken, and the incredible

energy with which it was pushed, is seen in the enormous number of

interrogatories recorded in petty towns. Thus at Avignonet there are two

hundred and thirty; at Fanjoux, one hundred; at Mas-Saintes-Puelles,

four hundred and twenty. M. Molinier, to whom we are indebted for an

account of this interesting document, has not made an accurate count of

the whole number of cases, but estimates that the total cannot fall far

short of eight thousand to ten thousand. When we consider what all this

involved in the duty of examination and comparison we may well feel

wonder at the superhuman energy of these founders of the Inquisition;

but we may also assume, as with the sentences of Pierre Cella, that the

fate of the victims who were sifted out of this mass of testimony must

have been passed upon with no proper or conscientious scrutiny. At

least, however, they must have escaped the long and torturing delays

customary in the later and more leisurely stages of the Inquisition.

With such a record before us it is not easy to understand the complaint

of the bishops of Languedoc, in 1245, that the Inquisition was too

merciful, that heresy was increasing, and that the inquisitors ought to

be urged to greater exertions. It was possibly in consequence of the

lack of harmony thus revealed between the episcopate and the Inquisition

that Innocent, in April of the same year, ordered the Inquisitors of

Languedoc to proceed as usual in cases of manifest heresy, and in those

involving slight punishment, while he directed them to suspend

proceedings in matters requiring imprisonment, crosses, long

pilgrimages, and confiscation until definite rules should be laid down

in the Council of Lyons, which he was about to open. These questions,

however, were settled in that of Béziers, which met in 1246, and issued

a new code of procedure.[51]

In all this Count Raymond, now thoroughly fitted in the Catholic groove,

was an earnest participant. As his stormy life drew to its close,

harmony with the Church was too great an element of comfort and

prosperity for him to hesitate in purchasing it with the blood of a few

of his subjects, whom, indeed, he could scarce have saved had he so

willed. He gave conspicuous evidence of his hatred of heresy. In 1247 he

ordered his officials to compel the attendance of the inhabitants at the

sermons of the friars in all towns and villages through which they

passed, and in 1249, at Berlaiges, near Agen, he coldly ordered the

burning of eighty believers who had confessed their errors in his

presence--a piece of cruelty far transcending that habitual with the

inquisitors. About the same time King Jayme of Aragon effected a change

in the Inquisition in the territories of Narbonne. Possibly this may

have had some connection with the murder by the citizens of two

officials of the Inquisition and the destruction of its records, giving

endless trouble in the effort to reconstruct the lists of sentences and

the invaluable accumulation of evidence against suspects. Be this as it

may, Innocent IV., at the request of the king, forbade the archbishop

and inquisitors from further proceedings against heresy, and then

empowered the Dominican Provincial of Spain and Raymond of Pennaforte to

appoint new ones for the French possessions of Aragon.[52]

When St. Louis undertook his disastrous crusade to Damietta he was

unwilling to leave behind him so dangerous a vassal as Raymond. The vow

of service to Palestine had long since been remitted by Innocent IV.,

but the count was open to persuasion, and the bribes offered show at

once the importance attached to his presence with the host and to his

absence from home. The king promised him twenty thousand to thirty

thousand livres for his expenses and the restitution of the duchy of

Narbonne on his return. The pope agreed to pay him two thousand marks on

his arrival beyond seas, and that he should have during his absence all

the proceeds of the redemption of vows and all legacies bequeathed to

the crusade. The prohibition of imposing penitential crusades on

converted heretics was also suspended for his benefit, while the other

long pilgrimages customarily employed as penances were not to be

enjoined while he was in service. Stimulated by these dazzling rewards,

he assumed the cross in earnest, and his ardor for the purity of the

faith grew stronger. Even the tireless activity of Bernard de Caux was

insufficient to satisfy him. While that incomparable persecutor was

devoting all his energies to working up the results of his tremendous

inquests, Raymond, early in 1248, complained to Innocent that the

Inquisition was neglecting its duty; that heretics, both living and

dead, remained uncondemned; that others from abroad were coming into his

own and neighboring territories and spreading their pestilence, so that

the land which had been well-nigh purified was again filled with

heresy.[53]

Death spared Raymond the misfortunes of the ill-starred Egyptian

crusade. When his preparations were almost complete he was seized with

mortal illness and died, September 27, 1249, with his latest breath

ordering his heirs to restore the sums which he had received for the

expedition, and to send fifty knights to serve in Palestine for a year.

That his death was generally regretted by his subjects we can readily

believe. Not only was it the extinction of the great house which had

bravely held its own from Carlovingian times, but the people felt that

the last barrier between them and the hated Frenchmen was removed. The

heiress Jeanne had been educated at the royal court, and was French in

all but birth. Moreover, she seems to have been a nonentity whose

influence is imperceptible, and the sceptre of the South passed into the

hands of Alphonse of Poitiers, an avaricious and politic prince, whose

zeal for orthodoxy was greatly stimulated by the profitable

confiscations resulting from persecution. Raymond had required repeated

urging to induce him to employ this dreaded penalty with the needful

severity. No such watchfulness was necessary in the case of Alphonse.

When the rich heritage fell in, he and his wife were with his brother,

King Louis, in Egypt, but the vigilant regent, Queen Blanche, promptly

took possession in their name, and on their return, in 1251, they

personally received the homage of their subjects. By a legal subtlety

Alphonse evaded the payment of the pious legacies of Raymond's will, and

compounded for it by leaving, on his departure for the North, a large

sum to provide for the expenses of the Inquisition, and to furnish wood

for the execution of its sentences. Not long afterwards we find him

urging his bishops to render more efficient support to the labors of the

inquisitors; in his chancery there was a regular formula of a commission

for inquisitors, to be sent to Rome for the papal signature; and

throughout his twenty years of reign he pursued the same policy without

deviation. The urgency with which, in December, 1268, he wrote to Pons

de Poyet and Étienne de Gátine, stimulating them to redoubled activity

in clearing his dominions of heretics, was wholly superfluous, but it is

characteristic of the line of action which he carried out consistently

to the end.[54]

The fate of Languedoc was now irrevocably sealed. Hitherto there had

been hopes that perhaps Raymond's inconstancy might lead him to retrace

the steps of the last few years. Moreover, his subjects had shared in

the desire, manifested in his repeated marriage projects, that he should

have an heir to inherit the lands not pledged in succession to his

daughter. He was but in his fifty-first year, and the expectation was

not unreasonable that his line might be perpetuated and the southern

nationality be preserved. All this was now seen to be a delusion, and

the most sanguine Catharan could look forward to nothing but a life of

concealment ending in prison or fire. Yet the heretic Church stubbornly

held its own, though with greatly diminished numbers. Many of its

members fled to Lombardy, where, even after the death of Frederic II.,

the civic troubles and the policy of local despots, such as Ezzelin da

Romano, afforded some shelter from the Inquisition. Yet many remained

and pursued their wandering missions among the faithful, perpetually

tracked by inquisitorial spies, but rarely betrayed. These humble and

forgotten men, hopelessly braving hardship, toil, and peril in what they

deemed the cause of God, were true martyrs, and their steadfast heroism

shows how little relation the truth of a religion bears to the

self-devotion of its followers. Rainerio Saccone, the converted

Catharan, who had the best means of ascertaining the facts, computes,

about this time, that there were in Lombardy one hundred and fifty

"perfected" refugees from France, while the churches of Toulouse,

Carcassonne, and Albi, including that of Agen, then nearly destroyed,

numbered two hundred more. These figures would indicate that a very

considerable congregation of believers still existed in spite of the

systematic and ruthless proscription of the past twenty years. Their

earnestness was kept alive, not only by the occasional and dearly-prized

visits of the travelling ministers, but by the frequent intercourse

which was maintained with Lombardy. Until the disappearance of the sect

on this side of the Alps, there is, in the confessions of penitents,

perpetual allusion to these pilgrimages back and forth, which kept up

the relations between the refugees and those left at home. Thus, in

1254, Guillem Fournier, in an interrogatory before the Inquisition of

Toulouse, relates that he started for Italy with five companions,

including two women. His first resting-place was at Coni, where he met

many heretics; then at Pavia, where he was hereticated by Raymond

Mercier, former deacon of Toulouse. At Cremona he lived for a year with

Vivien, the much-loved Bishop of Toulouse, with whom he found a number

of noble refugees. At Pisa he stayed for eight months; at Piacenza he

again met Vivien, and he finally returned to Languedoc with messages

from the refugees to their friends at home. In 1300, at Albi, Étienne

Mascot confesses that he had been sent to Lombardy by Master Raymond

Calverie to bring back Raymond André, or some other perfected heretic.

At Genoa he met Bertrand Fabri, who had been sent on the same errand by

Guillem Golfier. They proceeded together and met other old

acquaintances, now refugees, who conducted them to a spot where, in a

wood, were several houses of refuge for heretics. The lord of the place

gave them a Lombard, Guglielmo Pagani, who returned with them. In 1309

Guillem Falquet confessed at Toulouse to having been four times to Como,

and even to Sicily, organizing the Church. He was caught while visiting

a sick believer, and condemned to imprisonment in chains, but managed to

escape in 1313. At the same time was sentenced Raymond de Verdun, who

had likewise been four times to Lombardy.[55]

The proscribed heretics, thus nursing their faith in secret, gave the

inquisitors ample occupation. As their ranks were thinned by persecution

and flight, and as their skill in concealment increased with experience,

there could no longer be the immense harvests of penitents reaped by

Pierre Gella and Bernard de Caux, but there were enough to reward the

energies of the friars and to tax the adroitness of their spies. The

organization of the Inquisition, moreover, was gradually perfected. In

1254 the Council of Albi carefully revised the regulations concerning

it. Fixed tribunals were established, and the limitations of the

inquisitorial districts were strictly defined. For Provence and the

territories east of the Rhone, Marseilles was the headquarters,

eventually confided to the Franciscans. The rest of the infected regions

were left to the Dominicans, with tribunals at Toulouse, Carcassonne,

and Narbonne; and, from such fragmentary documents as have reached us,

at this time the Inquisition at Carcassonne rivalled that of Toulouse in

energy and effectiveness. For a while safety was sought by heretics in

northern France, but the increasing vigor of the Inquisition established

there drove the unfortunate refugees back, and in 1255 a bull of

Alexander IV. authorized the Provincial of Paris and his inquisitors to

pursue the fugitives in the territories of the Count of Toulouse. At the

same time the special functions of the inquisitors were jealously

guarded against all encroachments. We have seen how, in its early days,

it was subjected to the control of papal legates, but now that it was

firmly established and thoroughly organized it was held independent; and

when the legate Zoen, Bishop of Avignon, in 1257, endeavored, in virtue

of his legatine authority, which fourteen years before had been so

absolute, to perform inquisitorial work, he was rudely reminded by

Alexander IV. that he could do so if he pleased in his own diocese, but

that outside of it he must not interfere with the Inquisition. To this

period is also to be ascribed the complete subjection of all secular

officials to the behests of the inquisitors. The piety of St. Louis and

the greed of Alphonse of Poitiers and Charles of Anjou rivalled each

other in placing all the powers of the State at the disposal of the Holy

Office, and in providing for its expenses. It was virtually supreme in

the land, and, as we have seen, it was a law unto itself.[56]

The last shadow of open resistance was dissipated in the year 1255.

After the fall of Montségur the proscribed and disinherited knights,

the _faidits_, and the heretics had sought to establish among the

mountains some stronghold where they could feel safe for a moment.

Driven from one retreat after another, they finally took possession of

the castle of Quéribus, in the Pyrenees of Fenouillèdes. In the early

spring of 1255 this last refuge was besieged by Pierre d'Auteuil, the

royal Seneschal of Carcassonne. The defence was stubborn. May 5 the

seneschal appealed to the bishops sitting in council at Béziers to give

him assistance, as they had done so energetically at Montségur. The

reply of the prelates was commendably cautious. They were not bound,

they said, to render military service to the king, and when they had

joined his armies it had been by command of a legate or of their

primate, the Archbishop of Narbonne. Nevertheless, as common report

described Quéribus as a receptacle of heretics, thieves, and robbers,

and its reduction was a good work for the faith and for peace, they

would each one, without derogating from his rights, furnish such

assistance as seemed to him fitting. It may be assumed from this that

the seneschal had to do the work unaided; in fact, he complained to the

king that the prelates rather impeded than assisted him, but by August

the place was in his hands, and nothing remained for the outlaws but the

forest and the caverns. In that savage region the dense undergrowth

afforded many a hiding-place, and an attempt was made to cut away the

briers and thorns which served as shelter for ruined noble and hunted

Catharan. The work was undertaken by a certain Bernard, who thence

acquired the name of Espinasser or thorn-cutter. Popular hatred has

preserved his remembrance, and expresses its sentiment in a myth which

gibbets him in the moon.[57]

With the land at its feet, the Inquisition, in the plenitude of its

power, had no hesitation in attacking the loftiest nobles, for all men

were on a level in the eyes of the Most High, and the Holy Office was

the avenger of God. The most powerful vassal of the houses of Toulouse

and Aragon was the Count of Foix, whose extensive territories on both

sides of the Pyrenees rendered him almost independent in his mountain

fastnesses. Count Roger Bernard II., known as the Great, had been one of

the bravest and most obstinate defenders of the land, and, after the

pacification of 1229, Raymond had been obliged to threaten him with war

to force him to submit. His memory was proudly treasured in the land as

"_Rogier Bernat lo pros et sens dengun reproche_." His family was

deeply tinctured with heresy. His wife and one of his sisters were

Waldenses, another sister was a Catharan, and the monk of Vaux-Cernay

describes him as an enemy of God and a cruel persecutor of the Church.

Yet, when he yielded in 1229, although he does not seem to have

energetically fulfilled his oath to persecute heresy in his domains, for

in 1233 we hear of his holding a personal conference at Aix with the

heretic bishop Bertrand Martin, he was in other respects a loyal subject

and faithful son of the Church. In 1237 he counselled his son, then

Vizconde de Castelbo in Aragon, to allow the Inquisition in his lands,

which resulted in the condemnation of many heretics, although Ponce,

Bishop of Urgel, his personal enemy, had refused to relieve him of

excommunication as a fautor of heresy until 1240, when he submitted to

the conditions imposed, abjured heresy, and was reconciled. At his

death, in 1241, he left liberal bequests to the Church, and especially

to his ancestral Cistercian Abbey of Bolbonne, in which he died in

monkish habit, after duly receiving the sacraments. His son, Roger IV.,

gave the _coup de grâce_ to the rising of 1242, by placing himself under

the immediate sovereignty of the crown, and defeating Raymond after the

victories of St. Louis had driven back the English and Gascons. He had

some troubles with the Inquisition, but a bull of Innocent IV., in 1248,

eulogizes his devotion to the Holy See, and rewards him with the power

to release from the saffron crosses six penitents of his choice; and in

1261 he issued an edict commanding the enforcement of the rule that no

office within his domains should be held by any one condemned to wear

crosses, any one suspected of heresy, or the son of any one similarly

defamed.[58]

All this would seem to give ample guarantee of the orthodoxy and loyalty

of the House of Foix, but the Inquisition could not condone its ancient

patriotism and tolerance. Besides, if Roger Bernard the Great could be

convicted of heresy, the confiscation of the broad inheritance would

effect a great political object and afford ample spoils for all

concerned. Twenty-two years after his death, therefore, in 1263,

proceedings were commenced against his memory. A faithful servitor of

the old count still survived, Raymond Bernard de Flascan, bailli of

Mazères, who had attended his lord day and night during his last

sickness. If he could be brought to swear that he had seen heretication

performed on the death-bed, the desirable object would be attained.

Frère Pons, the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, came to Mazères, found the

old man an unsatisfactory witness, and threw him into a dungeon.

Suffering under a severe strangury, he was starved and tormented with

all the cruel ingenuity of the Inquisition, and interrogated at

intervals, without his resolution giving way. This was continued for

thirty-two days, when Pons resolved to carry him back to Carcassonne,

where possibly the appliances for bringing refractory witnesses to terms

were more efficacious. Before the journey, which he expected to be his

last, the faithful bailli was given a day's respite at the Abbey of

Bolbonne, which he utilized by executing a notarial instrument, November

26, 1263, attested by two abbots and a number of monks, in which he

recited the trials already endured, solemnly declared that he had never

seen the old count do anything contrary to the faith of Rome, but that

he had died as a good Catholic, and that if, under the severe torture to

which he expected to be subjected, human weakness should lead him to

assert anything else, he would be a liar and a traitor, and no credence

should be given to his words. It would be difficult to conceive of a

more damning revelation of inquisitorial methods; yet fifty years later,

when those methods had been perfected, all concerned in the preparation

of the instrument, whether as notary or witnesses, would have been

prosecuted as impeders of the Inquisition, to be severely punished as

fautors of heresy.[59]

What became of the poor wretch does not appear. Doubtless he perished in

the terrible Mura of Carcassonne under the combination of disease,

torture, and starvation. His judicial murder, however, was gratuitous,

for the old count's memory remained uncondemned. Yet Roger Bernard

III., despite the papal favor and the proofs he had given of adhesion to

the new order of things, was a perpetual target for inquisitorial

malice. When lying in mortal illness at Mazères, in December, 1264, he

received from Étienne de Gâtine, then Inquisitor of Narbonne, an

imperious order, with threats of prosecution in case of failure, to

capture and deliver up his bailli of Foix, Pierre André, who was suspect

of heresy and had fled on being cited to appear. The count dared only in

reply to express surprise that no notice had been given him that his

bailli was wanted, adding that he had issued orders for his arrest, and

would have personally joined in the pursuit had not sickness rendered

him incapable. At the same time he requested "Apostoli," and appealed

to the pope, to whom he retailed his grievances. The inquisitors, he

said, had never ceased persecuting him; at the head of armed forces they

were in the habit of devastating his lands under pretext of searching

for heretics, and they would bring in their train and under their

protection his special enemies, until his territories were nearly ruined

and his jurisdiction set at naught. He, therefore, placed himself and

his dominions under the protection of the Holy See. He probably escaped

further personal troubles, for he died two months later, in February,

1265, like his father, in the Cistercian habit, and in the Abbey of

Bolbonne; but in 1292 his memory was assailed before Bertrand de

Clermont, Inquisitor of Carcassonne. The effort was fruitless, for in

1297 Bertrand gave to his son, Roger Bernard IV., a declaration that the

accusation had been disproved, and that neither he nor his father should

suffer in person or property in consequence of it.[60]

When such were the persecutions to which the greatest were exposed it is

easy to understand the tyranny exercised over the whole land by the

irresponsible power of the inquisitors. No one was so loftily placed as

to be beyond their reach, no one so humble as to escape their spies.

When once they had cause of enmity with a man there was no further peace

for him. The only appeal from them was to the pope, and not only was

Rome distant, but the avenue to it lay, as we have seen, in their own

hands. Human wickedness and folly have erected, in the world's history,

more violent despotisms, but never one more cruel, more benumbing, or

more all-pervading.

For the next twenty years there is little worthy of special note in the

operations of the Inquisition of Languedoc. It pursued its work

continuously with occasional outbursts of energy. Étienne de Gâtine, and

Pons de Poyet, who presided over its tribunals for many years, were no

sluggards, and the period from 1373 to 1375 rewarded their industry with

an abundant harvest. Though heretics naturally grew scarcer with the

unintermitting pursuit of so many years, there was still the exhaustless

catalogue of the dead, whose exhumation furnished an impressive

spectacle for the mob, while their confiscations were welcome to the

pious princes, and contributed largely to the change of ownership of

land which was a political consummation so desirable. Yet heresy with

incredible stubbornness maintained itself, though its concealment grew

ever more difficult, and Italy grew less safe as a refuge and less

prolific as a source of inspiration.[61]

In 1271 Alphonse and Jeanne, who had accompanied St. Louis in his

unlucky crusade to Tunis, died without issue, during the homeward

journey. The line of Raymond was thus extinct, and the land passed

irrevocably to the crown. Philippe le Hardi took possession even of the

territories which Jeanne had endeavored, as was her right, to alienate

by will, and though he surrendered the Agenois to Henry III., he

succeeded in retaining Querci. No opposition was made to the change of

masters. When, October 8, 1271, Guillaume de Cobardon, royal Seneschal

of Carcassonne, issued his orders regulating the new _régime_, one of

the first things thought of was the confiscations. All castles and

villages which had been forfeited for heresy were taken into the king's

hand, without prejudice to the right of those to whom they might belong,

thus throwing the burden of proof upon all claimants, and cutting out

assigns under alienations. In 1272 Philippe paid a visit to his new

territories; it was designed to be peaceful, but some violences

committed by Roger Bernard IV. of Foix caused him to come at the head of

an army, with which he easily overcame the resistance of the count,

occupied his lands, and threw him into a dungeon. Released in 1273, the

count in 1276 rendered such assistance in the invasion of Navarre that

Philippe took him into favor and restored his castles, on his renouncing

all allegiance to Aragon. Thus the last show of independence in the

South was broken down, and the monarchy was securely planted on its

ruins.[62]

This consolidation of the south of France under the kings of Paris was

not without compensating advantages. The monarch was rapidly acquiring a

centralized power, which was very different from the overlordship of a

feudal suzerain. The study of the Roman law was beginning to bear fruit

in the State as well as in the Church, and the imperial theories of

absolutism as inherent in kingship were gradually altering all the old

relations. The king's court was expanding into the Parlement, and was

training a school of subtle and resolute civil lawyers who lost no

opportunity of extending the royal jurisdiction, and of legislating for

the whole land in the guise of rendering judgments. In the appeals which

came ever more thickly crowding into the Parlement from every quarter,

the mailed baron found himself hopelessly entangled in the legal

intricacies which were robbing him of his seignorial rights almost

without his knowledge; and the Ordonnances, or general laws, which

emanated from the throne, were constantly encroaching on old privileges,

weakening local jurisdictions, and giving to the whole country a body of

jurisprudence in which the crown combined both the legislative and the

executive functions. If it thus was enabled to oppress, it was likewise

stronger to defend, while the immense extension of the royal domains

since the beginning of the century gave it the physical ability to

enforce its growing prerogatives.

It was impossible that this metamorphosis in the national institutions

could be effected without greatly modifying the relations between Church

and State. Thus even the saintliness of Louis IX. did not prevent him

from defending himself and his subjects from ecclesiastical domination

in a spirit very different from that which any French monarch had

ventured to exhibit since the days of Charlemagne. The change became

still more manifest under his grandson, Philippe le Bel. Though but

seventeen years of age when he succeeded to the throne in 1286, his rare

ability and vigorous temper soon led him to assert the royal power in

incisive fashion. He recognized, within the boundaries of his kingdom,

no superior, secular or spiritual. Had he entertained any scruples of

conscience, his legal counsellors could easily remove them. To such men

as Pierre Flotte and Guillaume de Nogaret the true position of the

Church was that of subjection to the State, as it had been under the

successors of Constantine, and in their eyes Boniface VIII. was to their

master scarce more than Pope Vigilius had been to Justinian. Few among

the revenges of time are more satisfying than the catastrophe of Anagni,

in 1303, when Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna laid hands on the vicegerent

of God, and Boniface passionately replied to Nogaret's reproaches, "I

can patiently endure to be condemned and deposed by a Patarin"--for

Nogaret was born at St. Felix de Caraman, and his ancestors were said to

have been burned as Cathari. If this be true he must have been more than

human if he did not feel special gratification when, at command of his

master, he appeared before Clement V. with a formal accusation of heresy

against Boniface, and demanded that the dead pope's bones be dug up and

burned. The citizens of Toulouse recognized him as an avenger of their

wrongs when they placed his bust in the gallery of their illustrious men

in the Hôtel-de-ville.[63]

It was to the royal power, thus rising to supremacy, that the people

instinctively turned for relief from the inquisitorial tyranny which was

becoming insupportable. The authority lodged in the hands of the

inquisitor was so arbitrary and irresponsible that even with the purest

intentions it could not but be unpopular, while to the unworthy it

afforded unlimited opportunity for oppression and the gratification of

the basest passions. Dangerous as was any manifestation of discontent,

the people of Albi and Carcassonne, reduced to despair by the cruelty of

the inquisitors, Jean Galande and Jean Vigoureux, mustered courage, and

in 1280 presented their complaints to Philippe le Hardi. It was

difficult to sustain their charges with specific proofs, and after a

brief investigation their reiterated requests for relief were dismissed

as frivolous. In the agitation against the Inquisition thus commenced,

it must be borne in mind that heretics had little to do. By this time

they were completely cowed and were quite satisfied if they could enjoy

their faith in secret. The opposition arose from good Catholics, the

magistrates of cities and substantial burghers, who saw the prosperity

of the land withering under the deadly grasp of the Holy Office, and who

felt that no man was safe whose wealth might arouse cupidity or whose

independence might provoke revenge. The introduction of the use of

torture impressed the popular imagination with special horror, and it

was widely believed that confessions were habitually extorted by

insufferable torment from rich men whose faith was unblemished. The

cruel provisions which brought confiscation on the descendants of

heretics, moreover, were peculiarly hard to endure, for ruin impended

over every one against whom the inquisitor might see fit to produce from

his records evidence of ancestral heresy. It was against these records

that the next attempt was directed. Foiled in their appeal to the

throne, the consuls of Carcassonne and some of its prominent

ecclesiastics, in 1283 or 1284, formed a conspiracy to destroy the books

of the Inquisition containing the confessions and depositions. How far

this was organized it would be difficult now to say. The statements of

the witnesses conflict so hopelessly on material points, even as to

dates, that there is little dependence to be placed on them. They were

evidently extracted under torture, and if they are credible the consuls

of the city and the archdeacon, Sanche Morlana, the episcopal Ordinary,

Guillem Brunet, other episcopal officials and many of the secular clergy

were not only implicated in the plot, but were heretics in full

affiliation with the Cathari. Whether true or false they show that there

was the sharpest antagonism between the Inquisition and the local

Church. The whole has an air of unreality which renders one doubtful

about accepting any portion, but there must have been some foundation

for the story. According to the evidence Bernard Garric, who had been a

perfected heretic and a _filius major_, but had been converted and was

now a familiar of the Inquisition, was selected as the instrument. He

was approached, and after some bargaining he agreed to deliver the

books for two hundred livres Tournois, for the payment of which the

consuls went security. How the attempt failed and how it was discovered

does not appear, but probably Bernard at the first overtures confided

the plot to his superiors and led on the conspirators to their ruin.[64]

The whole community was now at the mercy of the Inquisition, and it was

not disposed to be lenient in its triumph. While the trials were yet

going on, the citizens made a fresh appeal to Pierre Chalus, the royal

chancellor, who was passing through Toulouse on a mission from the court

of Paris to that of Aragon. This was easily disposed of, for on

September 13, 1285, the inquisitors triumphantly brought before him

Bernard Garric to repeat the confession made a week previous. He had

thoroughly learned his lesson, and the only conclusion which the royal

representative could reach was that Carcassonne was a hopeless nest of

heretics, deserving the severest measures of repression. As a last

resort recourse was had to Honorius IV., but the only result was a brief

from him to the inquisitors expressing his grief that the people of

Carcassonne should be impeding the Inquisition with all their strength,

and ordering the punishment of the recalcitrants irrespective of their

station, order, or condition, an expression which shows that the

opposition had not arisen from heretics.[65]

In reply to these complaints the inquisitors could urge with some truth

that heresy, though hidden, was still busy. Although heretic seigneurs

and nobles had been by this time well-nigh destroyed and their lands had

passed to others, there was still infection among the bourgeoisie of the

cities and the peasantry. It is one of the noteworthy features of

Catharism, moreover, that at no time during its existence were lacking

earnest and devoted ministers, who took their lives in their hands and

wandered around in secret among the faithful, administering spiritual

comfort and instruction, making converts where they could, exhorting the

young and hereticating the old. In toil and hardship and peril they

pursued their work, gliding by night from one place of concealment to

another, and their self-devotion was rivalled by that of their

disciples. Few more touching narratives can be conceived than those

which could be constructed from the artless confessions extorted from

the peasant-folk who fell into the hands of the inquisitors--the humble

alms which they gave, pieces of bread, fish, scraps of cloth, or small

coins, the hiding-places which they constructed in their cabins, the

guidance given by night through places of danger, and, more than all,

the steadfast fidelity which refused to betray their pastors when the

inquisitor suddenly appeared and offered the alternative of free pardon

or the dungeon and confiscation. The self-devotion of the minister was

well matched with the quiet heroism of the believer. To this fidelity

and the complete network of secret organization which extended over the

land may be attributed the marvellously long exemption which many of

these ministers enjoyed in their proselyting missions. Two of the most

prominent of them at this period, Raymond Delboc and Raymond Godayl, or

Didier, had already, in 1276, been condemned by the Inquisition of

Carcassonne as perfected heretics and fugitives, but they kept at their

work until the explosion of 1300, incessantly active, with the

inquisitors always in pursuit but unable to overtake them. Guillem Pagès

is another whose name constantly recurs in the confessions of

heretications during an almost equally long period. The inquisitors

might well urge that their utmost efforts were needed, but their methods

were such that even the best intentions would not have saved the

innocent from suffering with the guilty.[66]

The secretly guilty were quite sufficiently influential, and the

innocent sufficiently apprehensive, to keep up the agitation which had

been commenced, and at last it began to bear fruit. A new inquisitor of

Carcassonne, Nicholas d'Abbeville, was quite as cruel and arbitrary as

his predecessors, and when the people prepared an appeal to the king he

promptly threw into jail the notary who drew up the paper. In their

desperation they disregarded this warning; a deputation was sent to the

court, and this time they were listened to. May 13, 1291, Philippe

addressed a letter to his Seneschal of Carcassonne reciting the injuries

inflicted by the Inquisition on the innocent through the newly-invented

system of torture, by means of which the living and the dead were

fraudulently convicted and the whole land scandalized and rendered

desolate. The royal officials were therefore ordered no longer to obey

the commands of the inquisitors in making arrests, unless the accused be

a confessed heretic or persons worthy of faith vouch for his being

publicly defamed for heresy. A month later he reiterated these orders

even more precisely, and announced his intention of sending deputies to

Languedoc armed with full authority to make permanent provision in the

matter. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of these

manifestoes as marking a new era in the relations between the temporal

and spiritual authorities. For far less than this all the chivalry and

scum of Europe had been promised salvation if they would drive Raymond

of Toulouse from his inheritance.[67]

It was probably to break in some degree the force of this unheard-of

interference with inquisitorial supremacy that in September, 1292,

Guillem de Saint-Seine, Inquisitor of Carcassonne, ordered all the

parish priests in his district for three weeks on Sundays and

feast-days to denounce as excommunicate all who should impede the

business of the Inquisition and all notaries who should wickedly draw up

revocations of confessions for heretics. This could not effect much, nor

was anything accomplished by a Parlement held April 14, 1293, at

Montpellier, by the royal chamberlain, Alphonse de Ronceyrac, of all the

royal officials and inquisitors of Toulouse and Carcassonne to reform

the abuses of all jurisdictions.[68]

Shortly after this, in September, 1293, Philippe went a step further and

threw his ægis over the unfortunate Jew. Although Jews as a class were

not liable to persecution by the Inquisition, still, if after being once

converted they reverted to Judaism, or if they proselyted among

Christians to obtain converts, or if they were themselves converts from

Christianity, they were heretics in the eyes of the Church, they fell

under inquisitorial jurisdiction, and were liable to be abandoned to the

secular arm. All these classes were a source of endless trouble to the

Church, especially the "neophytes" or converted Jews, for feigned

conversions were frequent, either for worldly advantage or to escape the

incessant persecution visited upon the unlucky children of Israel.[69]

The bull _Turbato corde_, ordering the inquisitors to be active and

vigilant in prosecuting all who were guilty of these offences, issued in

1268 by Clement IV., was reissued by successive popes with a pertinacity

showing the importance attached to it, and when we see Frère Bertrand de

la Roche, in 1274, officially described as inquisitor in Provence

against heretics and wicked Christians who embrace Judaism, and Frère

Guillaume d'Auxerre, in 1285, qualified as "Inquisitor of Heretics and

Apostate Jews in France," it is evident that these cases formed a large

portion of inquisitorial business. As the Jews were peculiarly

defenceless, this jurisdiction gave wide opportunity for abuse and

extortion which was doubtless turned fully to account. Philippe owed

them protection, for in 1291 he had deprived them of their own judges

and ordered them to plead in the royal courts, and now he proceeded to

protect them in the most emphatic manner. To Simon Brisetête, Seneschal

of Carcassonne, he sent a copy of the bull _Turbato corde_, with

instructions that while this was to be implicitly obeyed, no Jew was to

be arrested for any cause not specified therein, and, if there was any

doubt, the matter was to be referred to the royal council. He further

enclosed an Ordonnance directing that no Jew in France was to be

arrested on the requisition of any person or friar of any Order, no

matter what his office might be, without notifying the seneschal or

bailli, who was to decide whether the case was sufficiently clear to be

acted upon without reference to the royal council. Simon Brisetête

thereupon ordered all officials to defend the Jews, not to allow any

exactions to be imposed on them whereby their ability to pay their taxes

might be impaired, and not to arrest them at the mandate of any one

without informing him of the cause. It would not have been easy to limit

more skilfully the inquisitorial power to oppress a despised class.[70]

Philippe had thus intervened in the most decided manner, and the

oppressed populations of Languedoc might reasonably hope for permanent

relief, but his subsequent policy belied their hopes. It vacillated in a

manner which is only partially explicable by the shifting political

exigencies of the times so far as we can penetrate them. In this same

year, 1293, the Seneschal of Carcassonne is found instructing Aimeric,

the Viscount of Narbonne, to execute royal letters ordering aid to be

rendered to the inquisitors there. This may have been a mere local

matter, and Philippe, for a while at least, adhered to his position.

Towards the end of 1295 there was issued an Ordonnance of the royal

court, applicable to the whole kingdom, forbidding the arrest of any one

on the demand of a friar of any Order, no matter what his position might

be, unless the seneschal or bailli of the jurisdiction was satisfied

that the arrest should be made, and the person asking it showed a

commission from the pope. This was sent to all the royal officials with

strict injunctions to obey it, although, if the accused were likely to

fly, he might be detained, but not surrendered until the decision of the

court could be had. Moreover, if any persons were then in durance

contrary to the provisions of the Ordonnance, they were to be set at

liberty. Even this did not effect its object sufficiently, and a few

months later, in 1296, Philippe complained to his Seneschal of

Carcassonne of the numbers who were arrested by the royal officers, and

confined in the royal prisons on insufficient grounds, causing scandal

and the heavy infliction of infamy on the innocent. To prevent this

arrests were forbidden except in cases of such violent presumption of

heresy that they could not be postponed, and the officials were

instructed, when called upon by the inquisitors, to make such excuses as

they could. These orders were obeyed, for when, about this time,

Foulques de Saint-Georges, Vice-inquisitor of Carcassonne, ordered the

arrest of sundry suspects by Adam de Marolles, the deputy seneschal, the

latter referred the matter to his principal, Henri de Elisia, who, after

consultation with Robert d'Artois, lieutenant of the king in Languedoc

and Gascony, refused the demand.[71]

No previous sovereign had ventured thus to trammel the Inquisition.

These regulations, in fact, rendered it virtually powerless, for it had

no organization of its own; even its prisons were the king's and might

be withdrawn at any time, and it depended wholly upon the secular arm

for physical force. In some places, as at Albi, it might rely upon

episcopal assistance, but elsewhere it could do nothing of itself.

Philippe had, moreover, been careful not to excite the ill-will of his

bishops, for his Ordonnances and instructions alluded simply to the

friars, thus excluding the Inquisition from royal aid without

specifically naming it. His quarrel with Boniface VIII. was now

beginning. Between January, 1296, and February, 1297, appeared the

celebrated bulls _Clericis laicos_, _Ineffabilis amoris_, _Excitat nos_,

and _Exiit a te_, whose arrogant encroachments on the secular power

aroused him to resistance, and this doubtless gave a sharper zest to his

desire to diminish in his dominions the authority of so purely papal an

institution as the Inquisition. So shrewd a prince could readily see its

effectiveness as an instrument of papal aggression, for the Church could

make what definition it pleased of heresy; and Boniface did not hesitate

to give him fair warning, when, in October, 1297, he ordered the

Inquisitor of Carcassonne to proceed against certain officials of

Béziers who had rendered themselves in the papal eyes suspect of heresy

because they remained under excommunication, incurred for imposing taxes

on the clergy, boasting that food had not lost its savor to them nor

sleep its sweetness, and who, moreover, dared with polluted lips to

revile the Holy See itself. Under such an extension of jurisdiction

Philippe himself might not be safe, and it is no wonder that tentative

efforts made in 1296 and 1297 to find some method of reconciling the

recent royal Ordonnances with the time-honored absolutism of the

Inquisition proved failures.[72]

Meanwhile, the exigencies of Italian politics caused Boniface suddenly

to retrace his steps. His quarrel with the Cardinals Giacomo and Pietro

Colonna rendered it advisable to propitiate Philippe. In May, 1297, he

assented to a tithe conceded to the king by his bishops, and in the bull

_Noveritis_ (July, 1297) he exempted France from the operation of the

_Clericis laicos_, while in _Licet per speciales_ (July, 1298) he

withdrew his arrogant pretension imperatively to prolong the armistice

between France and England. A truce was thus patched up with Philippe,

who hastened to manifest his good-will to the Holy See by abandoning his

subjects again to the inquisitors. In the Liber Sextus of the Decretals,

published by Boniface March 3, 1298, the pope included, with customary

imperiousness, a canon commanding the absolute obedience of all secular

officials to the orders of inquisitors under penalty of excommunication,

which if endured for a year carried with it condemnation for heresy.

This was his answer to the French monarch's insubordinate legislation,

and Philippe at the moment was not inclined to contest the matter. In

September he meekly enclosed the canon to his officials with

instructions to obey it in every point, arresting and imprisoning all

whom inquisitors or bishops might designate, and punishing all whom they

might condemn. A letter of Frère Arnaud Jean, Inquisitor of Pamiers,

dated March 2, of the same year, assuring the Jews that they need dread

no novel measures of severity, would seem to indicate that the royal

protection had been previously withdrawn from them. The good

understanding between king and pope lasted until 1300, when the quarrel

broke out afresh with greater acrimony than ever. In December of that

year the provisions of _Clericis laicos_ were renewed by the bull _Nuper

ex rationalibus_, followed by the short one, of which the authenticity

is disputed, _Scire te volumus_, asserting Philippe's subjection in

temporal affairs and calling forth his celebrated rejoinder, _Sciat tua

maxima fatuitas_. The strife continued with increasing violence till the

seizure of Boniface at Anagni, September 8, 1303, and his death in the

following month.[73]

Under this varying policy the fate of the people of Languedoc was hard.

Nicholas d'Abbeville, the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, was a man of

inflexible severity, arrogantly bent on pushing his prerogatives to the

utmost. He had an assistant worthy of him in Foulques de Saint-Georges,

the Prior of the Convent of Albi, which was under his jurisdiction. He

had virtually another assistant in the bishop, Bernard de Castanet, who

delighted to act as inquisitor, impelled alike by fanaticism and by

greed, for, as we have seen, the bishops of Albi, by a special

transaction with St. Louis, enjoyed a half of the confiscations. Prior

to his elevation in 1276 Bernard had been auditor of the papal camera,

which shows him to have been an accomplished legist, and he was also a

patron of art and literature, but he was ever in trouble with his

people. Already, in 1277, he had succeeded in so exasperating them that

his palace was swept by a howling mob, and he barely escaped with his

life. In 1282 he commenced the erection of the cathedral of St. Cecilia,

a gigantic building, half church, half fortress, which swallowed

enormous sums, and stimulated his hatred of heresy by supplying a pious

use for the estates of heretics.[74]

To such men the protection granted to his subjects by Philippe was most

distasteful, and not without reason. Heretics naturally took advantage

of the restrictions imposed on the Inquisition and redoubled their

activity. It might seem, indeed, to them that the day of supremacy of

the Church was past, and that the rising independence of the secular

power might usher in an era of comparative toleration, in which their

persecuted religion would at length find its oft-deferred opportunity of

converting mankind--a dream in which they indulged to the last. More

demonstrative, if not more earnest, was the feeling which the royal

policy aroused in Carcassonne. The Ordonnances had not only crippled the

Inquisition, but had shown the disfavor with which it was regarded by

the king, and in 1295 some of the leading citizens, who had been

compromised in the trials of 1285, found no difficulty in arousing the

people to open resistance. For a while they controlled the city, and

inflicted no little injury on the Dominicans, and on all who ventured to

support them. Nicholas d'Abbeville was driven from the pulpit when

preaching, pelted with stones and pursued with drawn swords, and the

judges of the royal court on one occasion were glad to escape with their

lives, while the friars were beaten and insulted when they appeared in

public and were practically segregated as excommunicates. Bernard Gui,

an eye-witness, naturally attributes this to the influence of heresy,

but it is impossible for us now to conjecture how much may have been due

to religious antagonism, and how much to the natural reaction among the

orthodox against the intolerable oppression of the inquisitorial

methods.[75]

For some years the Inquisition of Carcassonne was suspended. As soon as

secular support was withdrawn public opinion was too strong, and it

succumbed. This lasted until the truce between king and pope again

placed the royal power at the disposal of the inquisitors. In their

despair the citizens then sent envoys to Boniface VIII., with Aimeric

Castel at their head, supported by a number of Franciscans. Boniface

listened to their complaints and proposed to depute the Bishop of

Vicenza as commissioner to examine and report, but the papal

referendary, afterwards Cardinal of S. Sabina, required a bribe of ten

thousand florins as a preliminary. It was promised him, but Aimeric,

having secured the good offices of Pierre Flotte and the Duke of

Burgundy, thought he could obtain his purpose for less, and refused to

pay it. When Boniface heard of the refusal he angrily exclaimed, "We

know in whom they trust, but by God all the kings in Christendom shall

not save the people of Carcassonne from being burned, and specially the

father of that Aimeric Castel!" The negotiation fell through, and

Nicholas d'Abbeville had his triumph. A large portion of the citizens

were wearied with the disturbances, and were impatient under the

excommunication which rested on the community. The prosperity of the

town was declining, and there were not wanting those who predicted its

ruin. The hopelessness of further resistance was apparent, and matters

being thus ripe for a settlement, a solemn assembly was held, April 27,

1299, when the civic magistrates met the inquisitor in the presence of

the Bishops of Albi and Béziers, Bertrand de Clermont, Inquisitor of

Toulouse, the royal officials, sundry abbots and other notables.

Nicholas dictated his own terms for the absolution asked at his hands,

nor were they seemingly harsh. Those who were manifest heretics, or

specially defamed, or convicted by legal proof must take their chance.

The rest were to be penanced as the bishops and the Abbot of Fontfroide

might advise, excluding confiscation and personal or humiliating

penalties. All this was reasonable enough from an ecclesiastical point

of view, but so deep-seated was the distrust, or so strong the heretical

influence, that the people asked twenty-four hours for consideration,

and on reassembling the next day refused the terms. Six months passed,

their helplessness and isolation each day becoming more apparent, until,

October 8, they reassembled, and the consuls asked for absolution in the

name of the community. Nicholas was not severe. The penance imposed on

the town was the building of a chapel in honor of St. Louis, which was

accomplished in the year 1300 at the cost of ninety livres Tournois. The

consuls, in the name of the community, secretly abjured heresy. Twelve

of the most guilty citizens were reserved for special penances, viz.,

four of the old consuls, four councillors, two advocates, and two

notaries. Of these the fate was doubtless deplorable. Chance has

preserved to us the sentence passed on one of the authors of the

troubles, Guillem Garric, by which we find that he rotted in the

horrible dungeon of Carcassonne for twenty-two years before he was

brought forward for judgment in 1321, when in consideration of his long

confinement he was given the choice between the crusade and exile, and

the crushed old man fell on his knees and gave thanks to Jesus Christ

and to the inquisitors for the mercy vouchsafed him. Some years later

intense excitement was created when Frère Bernard Délicieux obtained

sight of the agreement, and discovered that the consuls had been

represented in it as confessing that the whole community had given aid

to manifest heretics, that they had abjured in the name of all, and thus

that all citizens were incapacitated for office and were exposed to the

penalties of relapse in case of further trouble. This excited the people

to such a point that the inquisitor, Geoffroi d'Ablis, was obliged to

issue a solemn declaration, August 10, 1303, disclaiming any intention

of thus taking advantage of the settlement; and notwithstanding this,

when King Philippe came to Carcassonne in 1305 the agreement was

pronounced fraudulent, the seneschal Gui Caprier was dismissed for

having affixed his seal to it, and confessed that he had been bribed to

do so by Nicholas d'Abbeville with a thousand livres Tournois.[76]

Encouraged by the crippling and suspension of the Inquisition, the

Catharan propaganda had been at work with renewed vigor. In 1299 the

Council of Béziers sounded the alarm by announcing that perfected

heretics had made their appearance in the land, and ordering close

search made after them. At Albi, Bishop Bernard was, as usual, at

variance with his flock, who were pleading against him in the royal

court to preserve their jurisdiction. The occasion was opportune. He

called to his assistance the inquisitors Nicholas d'Abbeville and

Bertrand de Clermont, and towards the close of the year 1299 the town

was startled by the arrest of twenty-five of the wealthiest and most

respected citizens, whose regular attendance at mass and observance of

all religious duties had rendered them above suspicion. The trials were

pushed with unusual celerity, and, from the manner in which those who at

first denied were speedily brought to confession and to revealing the

names of their associates, there was doubtless good ground for the

popular belief that torture was ruthlessly and unsparingly used; in

fact, allusions to it in the final sentence of Guillem Calverie, one of

the victims, leave no doubt on the subject. Abjuration saved them from

the stake, but the sentence of perpetual imprisonment in chains was a

doubtful mercy for those who were sentenced, while a number were kept

interminably in jail awaiting judgment.[77]

The whole country was ripe for revolt. The revival of Philippe's quarrel

with Boniface soon gave assurance that help might be expected from the

throne; but if this should fail there would be scant hesitation on the

part of desperate men in looking for some other sovereign who would lend

an ear to their complaints. The arrest and trial for treason of the

Bishop of Pamiers, in 1301, shows us what was then the undercurrent of

popular feeling in Languedoc, where the Frenchman was still a hated

stranger, the king a foreign despot, and the people discontented and

ready to shift their allegiance to either England or Aragon whenever

they could see their advantage in it. The fragile tenure with which the

land was still held by the Kings of Paris must be kept in view if we

would understand Philippe's shifting policy.[78]

The prosecutions of Albi caused general terror, for the victims were

universally thought to be good Catholics, selected for spoliation on

account of their wealth. The conviction was widespread that such

inquisitors as Jean de Faugoux, Guillem de Mulceone, Jean de

Saint-Seine, Jean Galande, Nicholas d'Abbeville, and Foulques de

Saint-Georges had long had no scruple in obtaining, by threats and

torture, such testimony as they might desire against any one whom they

might wish to ruin, and that their records were falsified, and filled

with fictitious entries for that purpose. Some years before, Frère Jean

Martin, a Dominican, had invoked the interposition of Pierre de

Montbrun, Archbishop of Narbonne (died 1286), to put a stop to this

iniquity. Some investigation was made, and the truth of the charges was

established. The dead were found to be the special prey of these

vultures, who had prepared their frauds in advance. Even the fierce

orthodoxy of the Maréchaux de la Foi could not save Gui de Levis of

Mirepoix from this posthumous attack; and, when Gautier de Montbrun,

Bishop of Carcassonne, died, they produced from their records proof that

he had adored heretics and had been hereticated on his death-bed. In

this latter case, fortunately, the archbishop happened to know that one

of the witnesses, Jourdain Ferrolh, had been absent at the time when, by

his alleged testimony, he had seen the act of adoration. Frère Jean

Martin urged the archbishop to destroy all the records and cause the

Dominicans to be deprived of their functions, and the prelate made some

attempt at Rome to effect this, contenting himself meanwhile with

issuing some regulations and sequestrating some of the books. It was

probably during this flurry that the Inquisitors of Carcassonne and

Toulouse, Nicholas d'Abbeville and Pierre de Mulceone, hearing that they

were likely to be convicted of fraud, retired with their records to the

safe retreat of Prouille and busied themselves in making a transcript,

with the compromising entries omitted, which they ingeniously bound in

the covers stripped from the old volumes.[79]

About this time occurred a case which confirms the popular belief in

inquisitorial iniquity, and which had results of vastly greater

importance than its promoters anticipated. When the disappointed

Boniface VIII. swore that he would cause the burning of Aimeric Castel's

father, he uttered no idle threat. Nicholas d'Abbeville, a fitting

instrument, was at hand, and to him he privately gave the necessary

verbal instructions. Castel Fabri, the father, had been a citizen of

Carcassonne distinguished for piety and benevolence no less than for

wealth. A friend of the Franciscan Order, after duly receiving the

sacraments, he had died, in 1278, in the hands of its friars, six of

whom kept watch in the sick-room until his death, and he had been buried

in the Franciscan cemetery. We have seen in the case of the Count of

Foix how easily all these precautions could be brushed aside, and

Nicholas found no difficulty in discovering or making the evidence he

required.[80] Suddenly, in 1300, the people of Carcassonne were startled

by a notice, read in all the parish churches, summoning those wishing to

defend the memory of Castel Fabri to appear before the Inquisition on a

day named, as the deceased was proved to have been hereticated on his

death-bed. The moment was well chosen, as Aimeric Castel, the son, was

absent. The Franciscans, for whom the accused had doubtless provided

liberally in his will, felt themselves called upon to assume his

defence. Hastily consulting, they determined to send their lector,

Bernard de Liegossi, or Délicieux, to the General Chapter then

assembling at Marseilles, for instructions, as, in the chronic

antagonism between the Mendicants, the matter seemed to be regarded as

an assault on the Order. The wife of Aimeric Castel provided for the

expenses of the journey, and Bernard returned with instructions from the

provincial to defend the memory of the deceased, while Eléazar de

Clermont, the syndic of the convent, was deputed by the Guardian of

Narbonne to co-operate with him. Meanwhile Nicholas had proceeded to

condemnation, and when, July 4, 1300, Bernard and Eléazar presented

themselves to offer the testimony of the friars who had watched the

dying man, Nicholas received them standing, refused to listen to them,

and on their urging their evidence left the room in the most

contemptuous manner. In the afternoon they returned to ask for a

certificate of their offer and its refusal, but found the door of the

Inquisition closed, and could not effect an entrance.

The next step was to take an appeal to the Holy See and ask for

"Apostoli," but this was no easy matter. So general was the terror

inspired by Nicholas that the doctor of decretals, Jean de Penne, to

whom they applied to draw the paper, refused unless his name should be

kept inviolably secret, and nineteen years afterwards Bernard when on

trial refused to reveal it until compelled to do so. To obtain a notary

to authenticate the appeal was still harder. All those in Carcassonne

absolutely refused, and it was found necessary to bring one from a

distance, so that it was not until July 16 that the document was ready

for service. How seriously, indeed, all parties regarded what should

have been a very simple business is shown by the winding-up of the

appeal, which places, until the case is decided, not only the body of

Castel Fabri, but the appellants and the whole Franciscan convent, under

the protection of the Holy See. When they went to serve the instrument

on Nicholas the doors, as before, were found closed and entrance could

not be effected. It was therefore read in the street and left tacked on

the door, to be taken down and treasured and brought forward in evidence

against Bernard in 1319. We have no further records of the case, but

that the appeal was ineffectual is visible in the fact that in 1322-3

the accounts of Arnaud Assalit show that the royal treasury was still

receiving an income from the confiscated estates of Castel Fabri; while

in 1329 the still unsatisfied vengeance of the Inquisition ordered the

bones of his wife Rixende to be exhumed.[81]