CHAPTER II.

FRANCE.

Although Catharism never obtained in the North sufficient foothold to

render it threatening to the Church, yet the crusades and the efforts

which followed the pacification of 1229 must have driven many heretics

to seek refuge in places where they might escape suspicion. In

organizing persecution in the South, therefore, it was necessary to

provide some supervision more watchful than episcopal negligence was

likely to supply, over the regions whither heretics might fly when

pursued at home, or the efforts made in Languedoc would only be

scattering the infection. Vigilant guardians of the faith were

consequently requisite in lands where heretics were few and hidden, as

well as in those where they were numerous and enjoyed protection from

noble and city. Under the pious king, St. Louis, who declared that the

only argument a layman could use with a heretic was to thrust a sword

into him up to the hilt, they were sure of ample support from the

secular power.[125]

Accordingly when, in 1233, the experiment was tried of appointing Pierre

Cella and Guillem Arnaud as inquisitors in Toulouse, a similar tentative

effort was made in the northern part of the kingdom. Here also it was

the Dominican Order which was called upon to furnish the necessary

zealots. I have already alluded to the failure of the attempt to induce

the Friars of Franche-Comté to undertake the work. In western Burgundy,

however, the Church was more fortunate in finding a proper instrument.

Like Rainerio Saccone, Frère Robert, known as _le Bugre_, had been a

Patarin. The peculiar fitness thence derived for detecting the hidden

heretic was rendered still more effective by the special gift which he

is said to have claimed, of being able to recognize them by their

speech and carriage. In addition, he was fitted for the work by the

ardent fanaticism of the convert, by his learning, his fiery eloquence,

and his mercilessness. When, early in 1233, instructions to persecute

heresy were sent to the Prior of Besançon, Robert was nominated to

represent him and act as his substitute; and, eager to manifest his

zeal, he lost no time in making a descent upon La Charité. It will be

remembered that this place was notorious as a centre of heresy in the

twelfth century, and that repeated efforts had been made to purify it.

These had proved fruitless against the stubbornness of the misbelievers,

and Frère Robert found Stephen, the Cluniac prior, vainly endeavoring to

win or force them over. The new inquisitor seems to have been armed with

no special powers, but his energy speedily made a profound impression,

and heretics came forward and confessed their errors in crowds, husbands

and wives, parents and children, accusing themselves and each other

without reserve. He reported to Gregory IX. that the reality was far

worse than had been rumored; that the whole town was a stinking nest of

heretical wickedness, where the Catholic faith was almost wholly set

aside and the people in their secret conventicles had thrown off its

yoke. Under a specious appearance of piety they deceived the wisest, and

their earnest missionary efforts, extending over the whole of France,

were seducing souls from Flanders to Britanny. Uncertain as to his

authority, he applied to Gregory for instructions and was told to act

energetically in conjunction with the bishops, and, under the statutes

recently issued by the Holy See, to extirpate heresy thoroughly from the

whole region, invoking the aid of the secular arm, and coercing it if

necessary with the censures of the Church.[126]

We have no means of knowing what measures Robert adopted, but there can

be no doubt that under this stimulus, and clothed with this authority,

he was active and unsparing. His crazy fanaticism probably exaggerated

greatly the extent of the evil and confounded the innocent with the

guilty. It was not long before the Archbishop of Sens, in whose province

La Charité lay, expostulated with Gregory upon this interference with

his jurisdiction, and in this he was joined by other prelates, alarmed

at the authority given to the Dominican Provincial of Paris to appoint

inquisitors for all portions of the kingdom. They assured the pope that

there was no heresy in their provinces and no necessity for these

extraordinary measures. Gregory thereupon revoked all commissions early

in February, 1234, and urged the prelates to be vigilant, recommending

them to make use of Dominicans in all cases where action appeared

desirable, as the friars were specially skilled in the refutation of

heresy. Had Robert been an ordinary man this might have postponed for

some time the extension of the Inquisition in France, but he was too

ardent to be repressed. In June, 1234, we find St. Louis paying for the

maintenance of heretics in prison at St. Pierre-le-Moutier, near Nevers,

which would seem as though Frère Robert had succeeded in getting to work

again on his old field of operations. Meanwhile he had not been idle

elsewhere. King Louis furnished him with an armed guard to protect him

from the enmities which he aroused, and, secure in the royal favor, he

traversed the country carrying terror everywhere. At Péronne he burned

five victims; at Elincourt, four, besides a pregnant woman who was

spared for a time at the intercession of the queen. His methods were

speedy, for before Lent was out we find him at Cambrai, where, with the

assistance of the Archbishop of Reims and three bishops, he burned about

twenty and condemned others to crosses and prison. Thence he hastened to

Douai, where, in May, he had the satisfaction of burning ten more, and

condemning numerous others to crosses and prison in the presence of the

Count of Flanders, the Archbishop of Reims, sundry bishops and an

immense multitude who crowded to the spectacle. Thence he hurried to

Lille, where more executions followed. All this was sufficient to

convince Gregory that he had been misinformed as to the absence of

heresy. Undisturbed by the severe experience which he had just undergone

with a similar apostle of persecution, Conrad of Marburg, we find him,

in August, 1235, excitedly announcing to the Dominican provincial that

God had revealed to him that the whole of France was boiling with the

venom of heretical reptiles, and that the business of the Inquisition

must be resumed with loosened rein. Frère Robert was to be commissioned

again, with fitting colleagues to scour the whole kingdom, aided by the

prelates, so that innocence should not suffer nor guilt escape. The

Archbishop of Sens was strictly ordered to lend efficient help to

Robert, whom God had gifted with especial grace in these matters, and

Robert himself was honored with a special papal commission empowering

him to act throughout the whole of France. The pope, moreover, spurred

him on with exhortations to spare no labor in the work, and not to

shrink from martyrdom if necessary for the salvation of souls.[127]

This was pouring oil upon the flames. Robert's untempered fanaticism had

required no stimulus, and now it raged beyond all bounds. The kingdom,

by Gregory's thoughtless zeal, was delivered up to one who was little

better than a madman. Supported by the piety of St. Louis, the prelates

were obliged to aid him and carry out his behests, and for several years

he traversed the provinces of Flanders, Champagne, Burgundy, and France

with none to curb or oppose him. The crazy ardor of such a man was not

likely to be discriminating or to require much proof of guilt. Those

whom he designated as heretics had the alternative of abjuration with

perpetual imprisonment or of the stake--varied occasionally with burial

alive. In one term of two or three months he is said to have thus

despatched about fifty unfortunates of either sex, and the whole number

of his victims during his unchecked career of several years must have

been large. The terror spread by his arbitrary and pitiless proceedings

rendered him formidable to high and low alike, until at length the

evident confounding of the innocent with the guilty raised a clamor to

which even Gregory IX. was forced to listen. An investigation was held

in 1238 which exposed his misdeeds, though not before he had time, in

1239, to burn a number of heretics at Montmorillon in Vienne, and

twenty-seven, or, according to other accounts, one hundred and

eighty-three, at Mont-Wimer--the original seat of Catharism in the

eleventh century--where, at this holocaust pleasing to God, there were

present the King of Navarre with a crowd of prelates and nobles and a

multitude wildly estimated at seven hundred thousand souls. Robert's

commission was withdrawn, and he expiated his insane cruelties in

perpetual prison. The case ought to have proved, like that of Conrad of

Marburg, a wholesome warning. Unfortunately the spirit which he had

aroused survived him, and for three or four years after his fall active

persecution raged from the Rhine to the Loire, under the belief that the

land was full of heretics.[128]

The unlucky termination of Robert's career did not affect his

colleagues, and thenceforth the Inquisition was permanently established

throughout France in Dominican hands. The prelates at first were

stimulated to some show of rivalry in the performance of their neglected

duties. Thus the provincial council of Tours, in 1239, endeavored to

revive the forgotten system of synodal witnesses. Every bishop was

instructed to appoint in each parish three clerks--or, if such could not

be had, three laymen worthy of trust--who were to be sworn to reveal to

the officials all ecclesiastical offences, especially those concerning

the faith. Such devices, however, were too cumbrous and obsolete to be

of any avail against a crime so sedulously and so easily concealed as

heresy, even if the prelates had been zealous and earnest persecutors.

The Dominicans remained undisputed masters of the field, always on the

alert, travelling from place to place, scrutinizing and questioning,

searching the truth and dragging it from unwilling hearts. Yet scarce a

trace of their strenuous labors has been left to us. Heretics throughout

the North were comparatively few and scattered; the chroniclers of the

period take no note of their discovery and punishment, nor even of the

establishment of the Inquisition itself. That a few friars should be

deputed to the duty of hunting heretics was too unimpressive a fact to

be worthy of record. We know, however, that the pious King Louis

welcomed them in his old hereditary dominions, as he did in the

newly-acquired territories of Languedoc, and stimulated their zeal by

defraying their expenses. In the accounts of the royal baillis for 1248

we find entries of sums disbursed for them in Paris, Orleans, Issoudun,

Senlis, Amiens, Tours, Yèvre-le-Chatel, Beaumont, St. Quentin, Laon, and

Macon, showing that his liberality furnished them with means to do their

work, not only in the domains of the crown, but in those of the great

vassals; and these items further illustrate their activity in every

corner of the land. That their sharp pursuit rendered heresy unsafe is

seen in the permission already alluded to, in 1255, to pursue their

quarry across the border into the territories of Alphonse of Toulouse,

thus disregarding the limitations of inquisitorial districts.[129]

This shows us that already the Inquisition was becoming organized in a

systematic manner. In Provence, where Pons de l'Esparre, the Dominican

prior, had at first carried on a kind of volunteer chase after heretics,

we see an inquisitor officially acting in 1245. This district,

comprising the whole southeastern portion of modern France, with Savoy,

was confided to the Franciscans. In 1266, when they were engaged in

Marseilles in mortal strife with the Dominicans, the business of

persecution would seem to have been neglected, for we find Clement IV.

ordering the Benedictines of St. Victor to make provision for

extirpating the numerous heretics of the valley of Rousset, where they

had a dependency. The Inquisition of Provence was extended in 1288 over

Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, whose governor was ordered to defray

from the confiscations the moderate expenses of the inquisitors,

Bertrand de Cigotier and Guillem de Saint-Marcel. In 1292 Dauphiné was

likewise included, thus completing the organization in the territories

east of the Rhone. The attention of the inquisitors was specially called

to the superstition which led many Christians to frequent the Jewish

synagogues with lighted candles, offering oblations and watching through

the vigils of the Sabbath, when afflicted with sickness or other

tribulations, anxious for friends at sea or for approaching childbirth.

All such observances, even in Jews, were idolatry and heresy, and those

who practised them were to be duly prosecuted.[130]

With this exception the whole of France was confided to the Dominicans.

In 1253 a bull of Innocent IV. renders the Provincial of Paris supreme

over the rest of the kingdom, including the territories of Alphonse of

Toulouse. Numerous bulls follow during the next few years which speak of

the growth of heresy requiring increased efforts for its suppression and

of the solicitude of King Louis that the Inquisition should be

effective. Elaborate instructions are sent for its management, and

various changes are made and unmade in a manner to show that a watchful

eye was kept on the institution in France, and that there was a constant

effort to render it as efficient as possible. By a papal brief of 1255

we see that at that time the Inquisition of Languedoc was independent of

the Paris provincial; in 1257 it is again under his authority; in 1261

it is once more removed, and in 1264 it is restored to him--a provision

which became final, rendering him in some sort a grand-inquisitor for

the whole of France. In 1255 the Franciscan provincial was adjoined to

the Dominican, thus dividing the functions between the two Orders; but

this arrangement, as might be expected, does not seem to have worked

well, and in 1256 we find the power again concentrated in the hands of

the Dominicans. The number of inquisitors to be appointed was always

strictly limited by the popes, and it varied with the apparent

exigencies of the times and also with the extent of territory. In 1256

only two are specified; in 1258 this is pronounced insufficient for so

extensive a region, and the provincial is empowered to appoint four

more. In 1261, when Languedoc was withdrawn, the number is reduced to

two; in 1266 it is increased to four, exclusive of Languedoc and

Provence, to whom in 1267 associates were adjoined, and in 1273 the

number was made six, including Languedoc, but excluding Provence. This

seems to have been the final organization, but it does not appear that

the Northern kingdom was divided into districts, strictly delimitated as

those of the South.[131]

The Inquisition at Besançon appears to have been at first independent

of that of Paris. After the failure to establish it in 1233 it seems to

have remained in abeyance until 1247, when Innocent IV. ordered the

Prior of Besançon to send friars throughout Burgundy and Lorraine for

the extirpation of heresy. The next year John Count of Burgundy urged

greater activity, but his zeal does not seem to have been supplemented

with liberality, and in 1255 the Dominicans asked to be relieved of the

thankless task, which proved unsuccessful for lack of funds, and

Alexander IV. acceded to their request. There are some evidences of an

Inquisition being in operation there about 1283, and in 1290 Nicholas

IV. ordered the Provincial of Paris to select three inquisitors to serve

in the dioceses of Besançon, Geneva, Lausanne, Sion, Metz, Toul, and

Verdun, thus placing Lorraine and the French Cantons of Switzerland, as

well as Franche Comté, under the Inquisition of France, an arrangement

which seems to have lasted for more than a century.[132]

Little remains to us of the organization thus perfected over the wide

territory stretching from the Bay of Biscay to the Rhine. The laborers

were vigorous, and labored according to the light which was in them, but

the men and their acts are buried beneath the dust of the forgotten

past. That they did their duty is visible in the fact that heresy makes

so little figure in France, and that the slow but remorseless

extermination of Catharism in Languedoc was not accompanied by its

perpetuation in the North. We hear constantly of refugees from Toulouse

and Carcassonne flying for safety to Lombardy and even to Sicily, but

never to Touraine or Champagne, nor do we ever meet with cases in which

the earnest missionaries of Catharism sought converts beyond the

Cevennes. This may fairly be ascribed to the vigilance of the

inquisitors, who were ever on the watch. Chance has preserved for us as

models in a book of formulas some documents issued by Frère Simon Duval,

in 1277 and 1278, which afford us a momentary glimpse at his proceedings

and enable us to estimate the activity requisite for the functions of

his office. He styles himself inquisitor "_in regno Franciæ_," which

indicates that his commission extended throughout the kingdom north of

Languedoc, and he speaks of himself as acting in virtue of the

apostolical authority and royal power, showing that Philippe le Hardi

had dutifully commissioned him to summon the whole forces of the State

to his assistance when requisite. November 23, 1277, he gives public

notice that two canons of Liège, Suger de Verbanque and Berner de

Niville, had fled on being suspected of heresy, and he cites them to

appear for trial at St. Quentin in Vermandois on the 23d of the ensuing

January. This trial was apparently postponed, for on January 21, 1278,

we find him summoning the people and clergy of Caen to attend his sermon

on the 23d. Here he at least found an apostate Jewess who fled, and we

have his proclamation calling upon every one to aid Copin, sergeant of

the Bailli of Caen, who had been despatched in her pursuit. Frère Duval

was apparently making an extended inquest, for July 5 he summons the

people and clergy of Orleans to attend his sermon on the 7th. A

fortnight later he is back in Normandy and has discovered a nest of

heretics near Evreux, for on July 21 we have his citation of thirteen

persons from a little village hard by to appear before him. These

fragmentary and accidental remains show that his life was a busy one and

that his labors were not unfruitful. A letter of the young Philippe le

Bel, in February, 1285, to his officials in Champagne and Brie, ordering

them to lend all aid to the inquisitor Frère Guillaume d'Auxerre,

indicates that those provinces were about to undergo a searching

examination.[133]

The inquisitors of France complained that their work was impeded by the

universal right of asylum which gave protection to criminals who

succeeded in entering a church. No officer of the law dared to follow

and make an arrest within the sacred walls, for a violation of this

privilege entailed excommunication, removable only after exemplary

punishment. Heretics were not slow in availing themselves of the

immunity thus mercifully afforded by the Church which they had wronged,

and in the jealousy which existed between the secular clergy and the

inquisitors there was apparently no effort made to restrict the abuse.

Martin IV. was accordingly appealed to, and in 1281 he issued a bull

addressed to all the prelates of France, declaring that such perversion

of the right of asylum was no longer to be permitted; that in such

cases the inquisitors were to have full opportunity to vindicate the

faith, and that so far from being impeded in the performance of their

duty, they were to be aided in every way. The special mention in this

bull of apostate Jews along with other heretics indicates that this

unfortunate class formed a notable portion of the objects of

inquisitorial zeal. Several of them, in fact, were burned or otherwise

penanced in Paris between 1307 and 1310.[134]

There was one class of offenders who would have afforded the Inquisition

an ample field for its activity, had it been disposed to take cognizance

of them. By the canons, any one who had endured excommunication for a

year without submission and seeking absolution was pronounced suspect of

heresy, and we have seen Boniface VIII., in 1297, directing the

inquisitors of Carcassonne to prosecute the authorities of Béziers for

this cause. The land was full of such excommunicates, for the shocking

abuse of the anathema by priest and prelate for personal interests had

indurated the people, and in a countless number of cases absolution was

only to be procured by the sacrifice of rights which even faithful sons

of the Church were not prepared to make. This growing disregard of the

censure was aggravating to the last degree, but the inquisitors do not

seem to have been disposed to come forward in aid of the secular clergy,

nor did the latter call upon them for assistance. In 1301 the Council of

Reims directed that proceedings should be commenced, when it next should

meet, against all who had been under excommunication for two years, as

being suspect of heresy; and in 1303 it called upon all such to come

forward and purge themselves of the suspicion, but the court in which

this was to be done was that of the bishops and not of the Inquisition.

Mutual jealousy was seemingly too strong to admit of such

co-operation.[135]

* * * * *

In 1308 we hear of a certain Étienne de Verberie of Soissons, accused

before the inquisitor of blasphemous expressions concerning the body of

Christ. He alleged drunkenness in excuse, and was mercifully treated.

Shortly afterwards occurred the first formal _auto de fé_ of which we

have cognizance at Paris, on May 31, 1310. A renegade Jew was burned,

but the principal victim was Marguerite de Hainault, or la Porete. She

is described as a "_béguine clergesse_," the first apostle in France

of the German sect of Brethren of the Free Spirit, whom we shall

consider more fully hereafter. Her chief error was the doctrine that the

soul, absorbed in Divine love, could yield without sin or remorse to all

the demands of the flesh, and she regarded with insufficient veneration

the sacrifice of the altar. She had written a book to propagate these

doctrines which had, before the year 1305, been condemned as heretical

and burned by Gui II., Bishop of Cambrai. He had mercifully spared her,

while forbidding her under pain of the stake from circulating it in

future or disseminating its doctrines. In spite of this she had again

been brought before Gui's successor, Philippe de Marigny, and the

Inquisitor of Lorraine, for spreading it among the simple folk called

Begghards, and she had again escaped. Unwearied in her missionary work,

she had even ventured to present the forbidden volume to Jean, Bishop of

Chalons, without suffering the penalty due to her obstinacy. In 1308 she

extended her propaganda to Paris and fell into the hands of Frère

Guillaume de Paris, the inquisitor, before whom she persistently refused

to take the preliminary oath requisite to her examination. He was

probably too preoccupied with the affair of the Templars to give her

prompt justice, and for eighteen months she lay in the inquisitorial

dungeons under the consequent excommunication. This would alone have

sufficed for her conviction as an impenitent heretic, but her previous

career rendered her a relapsed heretic. Instead of calling an assembly

of experts, as was customary in Languedoc, the inquisitor laid a written

statement of the case before the canonists of the University, who

unanimously decided, May 30, that if the facts as stated were true, she

was a relapsed heretic, to be relaxed to the secular arm. Accordingly,

on May 31, she was handed over, with the customary adjuration for mercy,

to the prévôt of Paris, who duly burned her the next day, when her noble

manifestation of devotion moved the people to tears of compassion.

Another actor in the tragedy was a disciple of Marguerite, a clerk of

the diocese of Beauvais named Guion de Cressonessart. He had endeavored

to save Marguerite from the clutches of the Inquisition, and on being

seized had, like her, refused to take the oath during eighteen months'

imprisonment. His brain seems to have turned during his detention, for

at length he astonished the inquisitor by proclaiming himself the Angel

of Philadelphia and an envoy of God, who alone could save mankind. The

inquisitor in vain pointed out that this was a function reserved solely

for the pope, and as Guion would not withdraw his claims he was

convicted as a heretic. For some reason, however, not specified in the

sentence, he was only condemned to degradation from orders and to

perpetual imprisonment.[136]

The next case of which we hear is that of the Sieur de Partenay, in

1323, to which allusion has already been made. Its importance to us lies

in its revealing the enormous and almost irresponsible authority wielded

by the Inquisition at this period. The most powerful noble of Poitou,

when designated as a heretic by Frère Maurice, the Inquisitor of Paris,

is at once thrown into the prison of the Temple by the king, and all his

estates are sequestrated to await the result. Fortunately for Partenay

he had a large circle of influential friends and kindred, among them the

Bishop of Noyon, who labored strenuously in his behalf. He was able to

appeal to the pope, alleging personal hatred on the part of Frère

Maurice; he was sent under guard to Avignon, where his friends succeeded

in inducing John XXII. to assign certain bishops as assessors to try the

case with the inquisitor, and after infinite delays he was at length set

free--probably not without the use of means which greatly diminished his

wealth. When such a man could be so handled at the mere word of an angry

friar, meaner victims stood little chance.[137] This case in the North

and the close of Bernard Gui's career in Toulouse, about the same time,

mark the apogee of the Inquisition in France. Thenceforth we have to

follow its decline.

Yet for some years longer there was a show of activity at Carcassonne,

where Henri de Chamay was a worthy representative of the older

inquisitors. January 16, 1329, in conjunction with Pierre Bruni he

celebrated an _auto de fé_ at Pamiers, where thirty-five persons were

permitted to lay aside crosses, and twelve were released from prison

with crosses, six were pardoned, seven were condemned to perpetual

imprisonment, together with four false witnesses, eight had arbitrary

penances assigned them, four dead persons were sentenced, and a friar

and a priest were degraded. As the see of Pamiers, to which this _auto_

was confined, was a small one, the number of sentences uttered indicates

active work. December 12, of the same year, Henri de Chamay held another

at Narbonne, where the fate of some forty delinquents was decided. Then,

January 7, 1329, he held another at Pamiers; May 19, one at Béziers;

September 8, one at Carcassonne, where six unfortunates were burned and

twenty-one condemned to perpetual prison. Shortly afterwards he burned

three at Albi, and towards the end of the year he held another _auto_ at

a place not named, where eight persons were sentenced to prison, three

to prison in chains, and two were burned. Some collisions seem to have

occurred about this time with the royal officials, for, in 1334, the

inquisitors complained to Philippe de Valois that their functions were

impeded, and Philippe issued orders to the seneschals of Nimes,

Toulouse, and Carcassonne that the Inquisition must be maintained in the

full enjoyment of its ancient privileges.[138]

Activity continued for some little time longer, but the records have

perished which would supply the details. We happen to have the accounts

of the Sénéchaussée of Toulouse, for 1337, which show that Pierre Bruni,

the inquisitor, was by no means idle. The receiver of confiscations

enumerates the estates of thirty heretics from which collections are in

hand; there was an _auto de fé_ celebrated and paid for; the number of

prisoners in the inquisitorial jail is stated at eighty-two, but as

their maintenance during eleven months amounted to the sum of three

hundred and sixty-five livres fourteen sols, the average number at three

deniers per diem must have been ninety. The terrible vicissitudes of the

English war doubtless soon afterwards slackened the energy of the

inquisitors, but we know that there were _autos de fé_ celebrated at

Carcassonne in 1346, 1357, and 1383, and one at Toulouse in 1374. The

office of inquisitor continued to be filled, but its functions

diminished greatly in importance, as we may guess from the fact that it

is related of Pierre de Mercalme, who was Provincial of Toulouse from

1350 to 1363, that during more than two years of this period he also

served as inquisitor.[139]

In the North we hear little of the Inquisition during this period. The

English wars, in fact, must have seriously interfered with its activity,

but we have an evidence that it was not neglecting its duty in a

complaint made by the Provincial of Paris to Clement VI., in 1351, that

the practice of excepting the territories of Charles of Anjou from the

commissions issued to inquisitors deprived the provinces of Touraine and

Maine of the blessings of the institution and allowed heresy to flourish

there, whereupon the pope promptly extended the authority of Frère

Guillaume Chevalier and of all future inquisitors to those regions.[140]

With the return of peace under Charles le Sage the Inquisition had freer

scope. The Begghards, or Brethren of the Free Spirit, undeterred by the

martyrdom of Marguerite la Porete, had continued to exist in secret. In

September, 1365, Urban V. notified the prelates and inquisitors

throughout France that they were actively at work propagating their

doctrines, and he sent detailed information as to their tenets and the

places where they were to be found to the Bishop of Paris, with orders

to communicate it to his fellow-prelates and the Inquisition. If any

immediate response to this was made, the result has not reached us, but

in 1372 we find Frère Jacques de More, "_inquisiteur des Bougres_,"

busy in eradicating them. They called themselves the Company of Poverty,

and were popularly known by the name of Turelupins; as in Germany, they

were distinguished by their peculiar vestments, and they propagated

their doctrines largely by their devotional writings in the vernacular.

Charles V. rewarded the labors of the inquisitor with a donation of

fifty francs, and received the thanks of Gregory XI. for his zeal. The

outcome of the affair was the burning of the books and garments of the

heretics in the swine-market beyond the Porte Saint-Honoré, together

with the female leader of the sect, Jeanne Daubenton. Her male colleague

escaped by death in prison, but his body was preserved in quicklime for

fifteen days, in order that he might accompany his partner in guilt in

the flames. That such a spectacle was sufficiently infrequent to render

it a matter of importance is shown by its being recorded in the doggerel

of a contemporary chronicler--

"L'an MDCCCLXXII. je vous dis tout pour voir

Furent les Turelupins condannez pour ardoir,

Pour ce qu'ils desvoient le people à decepvoir

Par feaultes heresies, l'Eveque en soult levoir."

The sect was a stubborn one, however, especially in Germany, as we shall

see hereafter, and in the early part of the next century Chancellor

Gerson still considers it of sufficient importance to combat its errors

repeatedly. Its mystic libertinism was dangerously seducing, and he was

especially alarmed by the incredible subtlety with which it was

presented in a book written by a woman known as Mary of Valenciennes. In

May, 1421, twenty-five of these sectaries were condemned at Douai by the

Bishop of Arras. Twenty of them recanted and were penanced with crosses

and banishment or imprisonment, but five were stubborn and sealed their

faith with martyrdom in the flames.[141]

In 1381 Frère Jacques de More had a more illustrious victim in Hugues

Aubriot. A Burgundian by birth, Aubriot's energy and ability had won for

him the confidence of the wise King Charles, who had made him Prévôt of

Paris. This office he filled with unprecedented vigor. To him the city

owed the first system of sewerage that had been attempted, as well as

the Bastille, which he built as a bulwark against the English, and he

imposed some limitation on the flourishing industry of the _filles de

vie_. His good government gained him the respect and affection of the

people, but he made a mortal enemy of the University by disregarding

the immunities on the preservation of which, in the previous century, it

had staked its existence. In savage mockery of its wrath, when building

the Petit-Châtelet, he named two foul dungeons after two of the

principal quarters of the University, le Clos Bruneau and la Rue du

Foing, saying that they were intended for the students. Under the strong

rule of Charles V. the University had to digest its wrongs as best it

could, but after his death, in 1380, it eagerly watched its opportunity.

This was not long in coming, nor, in the rivalry between the Dukes of

Berri and Burgundy, was it difficult to enlist the former against

Aubriot as a Burgundian. The rule of the princes, at once feeble and

despotic, invited disorder, and when the people, November 25, 1380, rose

against the Jews, pillaged their houses, and forcibly baptized their

children, Aubriot incurred the implacable enmity of the Church by

forcing a restoration of the infants to their parents. The combination

against him thus became too strong for the court to resist. It yielded,

and on January 21, 1381, he was cited to appear before the bishop and

inquisitor. He disdained to obey the summons, and his excommunication

for contumacy was published in all the churches of Paris. This compelled

obedience, and when he came before the inquisitor, on February 1, he was

at once thrown into the episcopal prison while his trial proceeded. The

charges were most frivolous, except the affair of the Jewish children

and his having released from the Châtelet a prisoner accused of heresy,

placed there by the inquisitor. It was alleged that on one occasion one

of his sergeants had excused himself for delay by saying that he had

waited at church to see God (the elevation of the Host), when Aubriot

angrily rejoined, "Sirrah, know ye not that I have more power to harm

you than God to help;" and again that when some one had told him that

they would see God in a mass celebrated by Silvestre de la Cervelle,

Bishop of Coutances, he replied that God would not permit himself to be

handled by such a man as the bishop. His enemies were so exasperated

that on the strength of this flimsy gossip he was actually condemned to

be burned without the privilege allowed to all heretics of saving

himself by abjuration; but the princes intervened and succeeded in

obtaining this for him. He had no reason to complain of undue delay. On

May 17 a solemn _auto de fé_ was held. On a scaffold erected in front of

Nôtre Dame, Aubriot humbly confessed and recanted the heresies of which

he had been convicted, and received the sentence of perpetual

imprisonment, which of course carried with it the confiscation of his

wealth, while the rejoicing scholars of the University lampooned him in

halting verses. He was thence conveyed to a dungeon in the episcopal

prison, where he lay until 1382, when the insurrection of the Maillotins

occurred. The first thought of the people was of their old prévôt. They

broke open the prison, drew him forth and placed him at their head. He

accepted the post, but the same night he quietly withdrew and escaped to

his native Burgundy, where his adventurous life ended in peaceful

obscurity. The story is instructive as showing how efficient an

instrument was the Inquisition for the gratification of malice. In fact,

its functions as a factor in political strife were of sufficient

importance to require more detailed consideration hereafter.[142]

After this we hear little more of the Inquisition of Paris, although it

continued to exist. When, in 1388, the eloquence of Thomas of Apulia

drew wondering crowds to listen with veneration to his teaching that the

law of the Gospel was simply love, with the deduction that the

sacraments, the invocation of saints, and all the inventions of the

current theology were useless; when he wrote a book inveighing against

the sins of prelate and pope, and asserting, with the Everlasting

Gospel, that the reign of the Holy Ghost had supplanted that of the

Father and the Son, and when he boldly announced himself as the envoy of

the Holy Ghost sent to reform the world, the Inquisition was not called

upon to silence even this revolutionary heretic. It was the Prévôt of

Paris who ordered him to desist from preaching, and, when he refused, it

was the bishop and University who tried him, ordered his book to be

burned on the Place de Grève, and would have him burned had not the

medical alienists of the day testified to his insanity and procured for

him a commutation of his punishment to perpetual imprisonment.[143]

* * * * *

Various causes had long been contributing to deprive the Inquisition in

France of the importance which it had once enjoyed. It no longer as of

old poured into the royal fisc a stream of confiscations and co-operated

efficiently in consolidating the monarchy. It had done its work too

well, and not only had it become superfluous as an instrument for the

throne, but the throne which it had aided to establish had become

supreme and had reduced it to subjection. Even in the plenitude of

inquisitorial power the tendency to regard the royal court as possessing

a jurisdiction higher than that of the Holy Office is shown in the case

of Amiel de Lautrec, Abbot of S. Sernin. In 1322 the Viguier of Toulouse

accused him to the Inquisition for having preached the doctrine that the

soul is mortal in essence and only immortal through grace. The

Inquisition examined the matter and decided that this was not heresy.

The royal _procureur-général_, dissatisfied with this, appealed from the

decision, not to the pope but to the Parlement or royal court. No

question more purely spiritual can well be conceived, and yet the

Parlement gravely entertained the appeal and asserted its jurisdiction

by confirming the decree of the Inquisition.[144]

This was ominous of the future, although the indefatigable Henri de

Chamay, apparently alarmed at the efforts successfully made by Philippe

de Valois to control and limit spiritual jurisdictions, procured from

that monarch, in November, 1329, a _Mandement_ confirming the privileges

of the Inquisition, placing all temporal nobles and officials afresh at

its disposal, and annulling all letters emanating from the royal court,

whether past or future, which should in any way impede inquisitors from

performing their functions in accordance with their commissions from the

Holy See. The evolution of the monarchy was proceeding too rapidly to be

checked. Henri de Chamay himself, in 1328, had officially qualified

himself as inquisitor, deputed, not by the pope, as had always been the

formula proudly employed, but by the king, and a judicial decision to

this effect followed soon after. It was Philippe's settled policy to

enforce and extend the jurisdiction of the crown, and in pursuance of

this he sent Guillaume de Villars to Toulouse to reform the

encroachments of the ecclesiastical tribunals over the royal courts. In

1330 de Villars, in the performance of his duty, caused the registers of

the ecclesiastical courts to be submitted to him, after which he

demanded those of the Inquisition. When we remember how jealously these

were guarded, how arrogantly Nicholas d'Abbeville had refused a sight of

them to the bishops sent by Philippe le Bel, and how long Jean de

Pequigny hesitated before he interfered with Geoffroi d'Ablis, we can

measure the extent of the silent revolution which had occurred during

the interval in the relations between Church and State, by the fact that

de Villars, on being refused, coolly proceeded to break open the door of

the chamber in which the registers were kept. The inquisitor appealed,

and again it was not to the pope, but to the Parlement, and that body,

in condemning de Villars to pay the costs and damages, did so on the

ground that the Inquisition was a royal and not an ecclesiastical court.

This was a Pyrrhic victory; the State had absorbed the Inquisition. It

was the same when, in 1334, Philippe listened to the complaints of the

inquisitors that his seneschals disturbed them in their jurisdiction,

and gave orders that they should enjoy all their ancient privileges, for

these are treated as derived wholly from the royal power. Henceforth the

Inquisition could exist only on sufferance, subject to the supervision

of the Parlement, while the Captivity of Avignon, followed by the Great

Schism, constantly gave to the temporal powers increased authority in

spiritual matters.[145]

How completely the Inquisition was becoming an affair of state is

indicated by two incidents. In 1340, when the lieutenant of the king in

Languedoc, Louis of Poitou, Count of Die and Valentinois, was making his

entry into the good city of Toulouse, he found the gate closed.

Dismounting and kneeling bareheaded on a cushion, he took an oath on the

Gospels, in the hands of the inquisitor, to preserve the privileges of

the Inquisition, and then another oath to the consuls to maintain the

liberties of the city. Thus both institutions were on the same footing

and required the same illusory guarantee, the very suggestion of which

would have been laughed to scorn by Bernard Gui. Again, in 1368, when

the royal revenues were depleted by the English wars and the ravages of

the Free Companies, and were insufficient to pay the wages of the

Inquisitor of Carcassonne, Pierre Scatisse, the royal treasurer,

ordered a levy by the consuls of twenty-six livres tournois to complete

the payment. Confiscations had long since ceased to meet the

expenditures, but the inquisitor was a royal official and must be paid

by the city if not by the state.[146]

How thorough was the subjection of all ecclesiastical institutions, and

how fallen the Inquisition from its high estate, is manifested by an

occurrence in 1364, at a moment when the royal authority was at the

lowest ebb. King John had died a prisoner in London, April 8, and the

young Charles V. was not crowned until May 19, while his kingdom was

reduced almost to anarchy by foreign aggression and internal

dissensions. Yet, April 16, Marshal Arnaud d'Audeneham, Lieutenant du

Roi in Languedoc, convoked at Nîmes an assembly of the Three Estates

presided over by the Archbishop of Narbonne. One of the questions

discussed was a quarrel between the Archbishop of Toulouse and the

inquisitor whom he had prohibited from exercising his functions, saying

that the Inquisition had been established at the request of the province

of Languedoc, and that now it had become an injury. All the prelates,

except Aymeri, Bishop of Viviers, sided with the archbishop, while the

representatives of Toulouse asked to be admitted as parties to the suit

on the side of the inquisitor. No one seems to have doubted that the

marshal, as royal deputy, had full jurisdiction over the matter, and his

decision was against the archbishop.[147]

Even in Carcassonne, where the Dominicans had lorded it so imperiously,

all fear of them had disappeared so utterly that in 1354 a sturdy

blacksmith named Hugues erected a shop close to the church of the

Friars, and carried on his noisy avocation so vigorously as to interrupt

their services and interfere with their studies. Remonstrances and

threats were of no avail, and they were obliged to appeal, not to the

bishop or the inquisitor, but to the king, who graciously sent a

peremptory order to his seneschal to remove the smithy or to prevent

Hugues from working in it.[148]

Towards the end of the century some cases occurring in Reims illustrate

how completely the Inquisition was falling into abeyance throughout the

kingdom, and how the jurisdiction of the royal court of the Parlement

was accepted as supreme in spiritual matters. In 1385 there arose a

dispute between the magistrates of the city and the archbishop as to

jurisdiction over blasphemy, which was claimed by both. This was settled

by an agreement recognizing it as belonging to the archbishop, but

twenty years later the quarrel broke out afresh over the case of Drouet

Largèle, who was guilty of blasphemy savoring of heresy as to the

Passion and the Virgin. The matter was appealed to the Parlement, which

decided in favor of the archbishop, and no allusion throughout the whole

affair occurs as to any claim that the Inquisition might have to

interpose, showing that at this time it was practically disregarded. Yet

we chance to know that Reims was the seat of an Inquisition, for in 1419

Pierre Florée was inquisitor there, and preached, October 13, the

funeral sermon at the obsequies of Jean sans Peur of Burgundy, giving

great offence by urging Philippe le Bon not to avenge the murder of his

father. We see also the scruples of the Inquisition on the subject of

blasphemy in 1423 at Toulouse, where it had become the custom to submit

to the inquisitor the names of all successful candidates in municipal

elections in order to ascertain whether they were in any way suspect of

heresy. Among the capitouls elected in 1423 was a certain François

Albert, who was objected to by the acting inquisitor, Frère Bartolomé

Guiscard, on account of habitual use of the expletives _Tête-Dieu_ and

_Ventre-Dieu_, whereupon the citizens substituted Pierre de Sarlat.

Albert appealed to the Parlement, which approved of the action of the

inquisitor.[149]

Still more emphatic as to the supreme authority of the Parlement was the

case of Marie du Canech of Cambrai, to which I have already had occasion

to refer. For maintaining that when under oath she was not bound to tell

the truth to the prejudice of her honor, she was prosecuted for heresy

by the Bishop of Cambrai and Frère Nicholas de Péronne, styling himself

deputy of the inquisitor-general or Provincial of Paris. Being severely

mulcted, she appealed to the Archbishop of Reims, as the metropolitan,

and he issued inhibitory letters. Then the bishop and inquisitor

appealed from the archbishop to the Parlement. The matter was

elaborately argued on both sides, the archbishop alleging that there was

at that time no inquisitor in France, and drawing a number of subtle

distinctions. The Parlement had no hesitation in accepting jurisdiction

over this purely spiritual question. It paid no attention to the

cautious arguments of the archbishop, but decided broadly that the

bishop and inquisitor had no grounds for disobeying the citation of the

archbishop evoking the case to his own court, and it condemned them in

costs. Thus the ancient supremacy of the episcopal jurisdiction was

reasserted over that of the Inquisition.[150]

The Great Schism, followed by the councils of Constance and Basle, did

much to shake the papal power on which that of the Inquisition was

founded. The position of Charles VII. towards Rome was consistently

insubordinate, and the Pragmatic Sanction which he published in 1438

secured the independence of the Gallican Church, and strengthened the

jurisdiction of the Parlement. When Louis XI. abrogated it, in 1461, the

remonstrances of his Parlement form a singularly free-spoken indictment

of papal vices, and that body continued to treat the instrument as

practically in force, while Louis himself, by successive measures of

1463, 1470, 1472, 1474, 1475, and 1479, gradually re-established its

principles. Had not the Concordat of Francis I., in 1516, swept it away,

when he conspired with Leo X. to divide the spoils of the Church, it

would eventually have rendered France independent of Rome. Francis knew

so well the opposition which it would excite that he hesitated for a

year to submit the measure to his Parlement for registration, and the

Parlement deferred the registration for another year, till at last the

negotiator of the concordat, Cardinal Duprat, brought to bear sufficient

pressure to accomplish the object. During the discussion the University

had the boldness to protest publicly against it, and to lodge with the

Parlement an appeal to the next general council.[151]

During this period of antagonism to Rome the University of Paris had

contributed no little to the abasement of the Inquisition by supplanting

it as an investigator of doctrine and judge of heresy. Its ancient

renown, fully maintained by an uninterrupted succession of ardent and

learned teachers, gave it great authority. It was a national institution

of which clergy and laity alike might well be proud, and at one time it

appeared as though it might rival the Parlement in growing into one of

the recognized powers of the State. In the fearful anarchy which

accompanied the insanity of Charles VI. it boldly assumed a right to

speak on public affairs, and its interference was welcomed. In 1411 the

king, who chanced at the time to be in the hands of the Burgundians,

appealed to it to excommunicate the Armagnacs, and the University

zealously did so. In 1412 it presented a remonstrance to the king on the

subject of the financial disorders of the time and demanded a reform.

Supported by the Parisians, at its dictate the financiers and thieves

of the government, with the exception of the chancellor, were dismissed

in 1413, greatly to the discontent of the courtiers, who ridiculed the

theologians as bookworms; and in the same year it co-operated with the

Parlement in securing momentary peace between the angry factions of the

land. The thanks which the heir-apparent, the Duke of Guienne,

accompanied by the Dukes of Berri, Burgundy, Bavaria, and Bar, solemnly

rendered to the assembled Faculty, virtually recognized it as a part of

the State. But when, in 1415, it sent a deputation to remonstrate

against the oppression of the people through excessive taxation, the

Duke of Guienne, who was angry at the part taken by it, without

consulting the court, in degrading John XXIII. at the Council of

Constance, curtly told the spokesmen that they were interfering in

matters beyond their competence; and when the official orator attempted

to reply, the duke had him arrested on the spot and kept in prison for

several days.[152]

Though its temporary ambition to rival the Parlement in state affairs

was fortunately not gratified, in theology such a body as this was

supreme. It would naturally be called upon, either as a whole or by

delegates, to furnish the experts whose counsel was to guide bishop and

inquisitor in the decision of cases; and as the old heresies died out

and new ones were evolved, every deviation from orthodoxy came to be

submitted to it as a matter of course, when its decision was received as

final. These were for the most part scholastic subtleties to which I

shall recur hereafter, as well as to the great controversies over the

Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, and over Nominalism and Realism, in

which it took a distinguished part. Sometimes, however, the questions

were more practical. When some insolent wretch, in 1432, impudently told

Frère Pierre de Voie, the deputy-inquisitor of Evreux, that his

citations were simply abuses, the offended functionary, in place of

promptly clapping the recalcitrant into prison, plaintively referred the

case to the University, and had the satisfaction of receiving a solemn

decision that the words were audacious, presumptuous, scandalous, and

tending to rebellion (it did not say heretical), and that the utterer

was liable to punishment. Bernard Gui or Nicholas d'Abbeville would

have asked for no such warrant.[153]

To what an extent the University in time replaced the Inquisition in its

neglected and forgotten functions is shown in 1498, in the case of the

Observantine Franciscan, Jean Vitrier. In the restlessness and

insubordination which heralded the Reformation, this obscure friar

anticipated Luther even more than did John of Wesel, although in the

strictness of his asceticism he taught that a wife might better break

her marriage-vow than her fasts. In his preaching at Tournay he

counselled the people to drag the concubines and their priests from

their houses with shame and derision; he affirmed that it was a mortal

sin to listen to the masses of concubinary priests. Pardons and

indulgences were the offspring of hell: the faithful ought not to

purchase them, for they were not intended for the maintenance of

brothels. Even the intercession of the saints was not to be sought.

These were old heresies for which any inquisitor would promptly offer

the utterer the alternative of abjuration or the stake; but the prelates

and magistrates of Tournay referred the matter to the University, which

laboriously extracted from Vitrier's sermons sixteen propositions for

condemnation.[154]

Even more significant of the growing authority of the University and the

waning power of the Papacy was a decision rendered in 1502. Alexander

VI. had levied a tithe on the clergy of France, with the customary

excuse of prosecuting the war against the Turks. The clergy, whose

consent had not been asked, refused to pay. The pope rejoined by

excommunicating them, and they applied to the University to know whether

such a papal excommunication was valid, whether it was to be feared, and

whether they should consequently abstain from the performance of divine

service. On all these points the University replied in the negative,

unanimously and without hesitation. Had circumstances permitted the same

independence in Germany, a little more progress in this direction would

have rendered Luther superfluous.[155]

It is not to be supposed, however, that the Inquisition, though fallen

from its former dignity, had ceased to exist or to perform its

functions after a fashion. It was to the interest of the popes to

maintain it, and the position of inquisitor, though humble in comparison

with that which his predecessors enjoyed, was yet a source of influence,

and possibly of profit, which led to its being eagerly sought. In 1414

we find two contestants for the post at Toulouse, and in 1424 an

unseemly quarrel between two rivals at Carcassonne. The diocese of

Geneva was also the subject of contention embittered by the traditional

rivalry between the two Mendicant Orders. It will be remembered that in

1290 this, with other French cantons, was included by Nicholas IV. in

the inquisitorial province of Besançon, which was Dominican. Geneva

belonged, however, ecclesiastically to the metropolis of Vienne, which

was under the Franciscan Inquisition of Provence, and Gregory XI. so

treated it in 1375. When Pons Feugeyron was commissioned, in 1409,

Geneva was not mentioned in the enumeration of the dioceses under him;

but when his commission was renewed by Martin V., in 1418, it was

included, and he began to exercise his powers there. There at once arose

the threat of a most scandalous quarrel between the combative Orders;

the Dominicans appealed to Martin, and in 1419 he restored Geneva to

them. Yet in 1434, when Eugenius IV. again confirmed Pons Feugeyron's

commission, the name of Geneva once more slipped in. The Dominicans must

again have successfully reclaimed it, for in 1472, when there was a

sudden resumption of inquisitorial activity under Sixtus IV., in

confirming Frère Jean Vaylette as Inquisitor of Provence, with the same

powers as Pons Feugeyron, Geneva was omitted in the list of his

jurisdictions, while the Dominicans, Victor Rufi and Claude Rufi, were

appointed respectively at Geneva and Lausanne; and in 1491 another

Dominican, François Granet, was commissioned at Geneva.[156]

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

In the terrible disorders of the times the royal stipends had been

withdrawn. Alexander V., in 1409, instructed his legate, the Cardinal of

S. Susanna, that some method must be devised of meeting the expenses of

the inquisitor, his associate, his notary, and his servant. He suggests

either levying three hundred gold florins on the Jews of Avignon; or

that each bishop shall defray the cost as the inquisitor moves from one

diocese to another; or that each bishop shall contribute ten florins

annually out of the legacies for pious uses. Which device was adopted

does not appear, but they all seem to have proved fruitless, for in 1418

Martin V. wrote to the Archbishop of Narbonne that he must find some

means of supplying the necessary expenses of the Inquisition. Under such

circumstances the attraction of the office may, perhaps, be discerned

from a petition, in this same year 1418, from the citizens of Avignon in

favor of the Jews. The protection afforded by the Avignonese popes to

this proscribed class had rendered the city a Jewish centre, and they

were found of much utility; but they were constantly molested by the

inquisitors, who instituted frivolous prosecutions against them,

doubtless not without profit. Martin listened kindly to the appeal, and

it proves the degradation of the Inquisition that he gave the Jews a

right to appoint an assessor who should sit with the inquisitor in all

cases in which they were concerned.[157]

Still the Inquisition was not wholly without evidence of activity in its

purposed sphere of duty. We shall see hereafter that Pierre d'Ailly,

Bishop of Cambrai, when, in 1411, he prosecuted the Men of Intelligence,

duly called in the inquisitor of the province, who was Dominican Prior

of St. Quentin in Vermandois, to join in the sentence. In 1430 we hear

of a number of heretics who had been burned at Lille by the

deputy-inquisitor and the Bishop of Tournay; and in 1431 Philippe le Bon

ordered his officials to execute all sentences pronounced by Brother

Heinrich Kaleyser, who had been appointed Inquisitor of Cambrai and

Lille by the Dominican Provincial of Germany--a manifest invasion of the

rights of his colleague of Paris, doubtless due to the political

complications of the times. This order of Philippe le Bon, however,

shows that the example of supervision set by the Parlement was not lost

on the feudatories, for the officials are only instructed to make

arrests when there has been a proper preliminary inquest, with

observance of all the forms of law. I shall have occasion hereafter to

speak of the part played by the Inquisition in the tragedy of Joan of

Arc, and need here only allude to the appointment, in 1431, by Eugenius

IV., of Frère Jean Graveran to be Inquisitor of Rouen, where he was

already exercising the functions of the office, and where he was

succeeded in 1433 by Frère Sébastien l'Abbé, who had been papal

penitentiary and chaplain--another evidence of the partition of France

during the disastrous English war. People were growing more careless

about excommunication than ever. About 1415, a number of ecclesiastics

of Limoges were prosecuted by the inquisitor, Jean du Puy, as suspect of

heresy for this cause; they appealed to the Council of Constance, and in

1418 the matter was referred back to the archbishop. Still the

indifference to excommunication grew, and in 1435 Eugenius IV.

instructed the Inquisitor of Carcassonne to prosecute all who remained

under the censure of the Church for several years without seeking

absolution.[158]

With the pacification of France and the final expulsion of the English,

Nicholas V. seems to have thought the occasion opportune for reviving

and establishing the Inquisition on a firmer and broader basis. A bull

of August 1, 1451, to Hugues le Noir, Inquisitor of France, defines his

jurisdiction as extending not only over the Kingdom of France, but also

over the Duchy of Aquitaine and all Gascony and Languedoc. Thus, with

the exception of the eastern provinces, the whole was consolidated into

one district, with its principal seat probably in Toulouse. The

jurisdiction of the inquisitor was likewise extended over all offences

that had hitherto been considered doubtful--blasphemy, sacrilege,

divination, even when not savoring of heresy, and unnatural crimes. He

was further released from the necessity of episcopal co-operation, and

was empowered to carry on all proceedings and render judgment without

calling the bishops into consultation. Two centuries earlier these

enormous powers would have rendered Hugues almost omnipotent, but now it

was too late. The Inquisition had sunk beyond resuscitation. In 1458 the

Franciscan Minister of Burgundy represented to Pius II. the deplorable

condition of the institution in the extensive territories confided to

his Order, comprising the great archiepiscopates of Lyons, Vienne,

Arles, Aix, Embrun, and Tarantaise, and covering both sides of the

Rhone and a considerable portion of Savoy. In the thirteenth century

Clement IV. had placed this region under the control of the Burgundian

Minister, but with the lapse of time his supervision had become nominal.

Ambitious friars had obtained directly from the popes commissions to act

as inquisitors in special districts, and therefore acknowledged no

authority but their own. Others had assumed the office without

appointment from any one. There was no power to correct their excesses;

scandals were numerous, the people were oppressed, and the Order exposed

to opprobrium. Pius hastened to put an end to these abuses by renewing

the obsolete authority of the minister, with full power of removal, even

of those who enjoyed papal commissions.[159]

The Inquisition was thus reorganized, but its time had passed. To so low

an ebb had it fallen that in this same year, 1458, Frère Bérard Tremoux,

Inquisitor of Lyons, who had aroused general hostility by the rigor with

which he exercised his office, was thrown in prison through the efforts

of the citizens, and it required the active interposition of Pius II.

and his legate, Cardinal Alano, to effect his release. The venality and

corruption of the papal curia, moreover, was so ineradicable that no

reform was possible in anything subject to its control. But three years

after Pius had placed the whole district under the Minister of Burgundy

we find him renewing the old abuses by a special appointment of Brother

Bartholomäus of Eger as Inquisitor of Grenoble. That such commissions

were sold, or conferred as a matter of favor, there can be no reasonable

doubt, and the appointees were turned loose upon their districts to

wring what miserable gains they could from the fears of the people. Only

this can explain a form of appointment which became common as

"inquisitor in the Kingdom of France," "without prejudice to other

inquisitors authorized by us or by others"--a sort of letter-of-marque

to cruise at large and make what the appointees could from the faithful.

Similarly significant is the appointment of Frère Pierre Cordrat,

confessor of Jean, Duke of Bourbon, in 1478, to be Inquisitor of

Bourges, thus wholly disregarding the consolidation of the kingdom by

Nicholas V. It is hardly necessary to extend the list further.

Inquisitors were appointed by the popes in constant succession, either

for the kingdom of France or for special districts, as though the

institution were at the height of its power and activity. That something

was to be gained by all this there can be no question, but there is

little risk in assuming that the gainer was not religion.[160]

Several cases occurring about this period are interesting as

illustrations of the spread of the spirit of inquiry and independence,

and of the subordinate position to which the Inquisition had sunk. In

1459, at Lille, there was burned a heretic known as Alphonse of

Portugal, who led an austere life as an anchorite and frequented the

churches assiduously, but who declared that since Gregory the Great

there had been no true pope, and consequently no valid administration of

the sacraments. In the account which has reached us of his trial and

execution there is no allusion to the intervention of the Holy Office.

Still more significant is the case, in 1484, of Jean Laillier, a priest

in Paris, a theological licentiate, and an applicant for the doctorate

in theology. In his sermons he had been singularly free-spoken. He

denied the validity of the rule of celibacy; he quoted Wickliff as a

great doctor; he rejected the supremacy of Rome and the binding force of

tradition and decretal; John XXII., he said, had had no power to condemn

Jean de Poilly; so far from St. Francis occupying the vacant throne of

Lucifer in heaven, he was rather with Lucifer in hell; since the time of

Silvester the Holy See had been the church of avarice and of imperial

power, where canonization could be obtained for money. So weak had

become the traditional hold of the Church on the consciences of men that

this revolutionary preaching seems to have aroused no opposition, even

on the part of the Inquisition; but Laillier, not content with simple

toleration, applied to the University for the doctorate, and was refused

admission to the preliminary disputations unless he should purge

himself, undergo penance, and obtain the assent of the Holy See.

Laillier thereupon boldly applied to the Parlement, now by tacit assent

clothed with supreme jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters, asking it

to compel the University to admit him. The Parlement entertained no

doubts as to its own competence, but decided the case in a manner not

looked for by the hardy priest. It ordered Louis, Bishop of Paris, in

conjunction with the inquisitor and four doctors selected by the

University, to prosecute Laillier to due punishment. The bishop and

inquisitor agreed to proceed separately and communicate their processes

to each other; but Laillier must have had powerful backers, for Bishop

Louis, without conferring with his colleague or the experts, allowed

Laillier to make a partial recantation and a public abjuration couched

in the most free and easy terms, absolved him, June 23, 1486, pronounced

him free from suspicion of heresy, restored him to his functions, and

declared him capable of promotion to all grades and honors. Frère Jean

Cossart, the inquisitor, who had been diligently collecting evidence of

many scandalous doctrines of Laillier's and vainly communicating them to

the bishop, was forced to swallow this affront in silence, but the

University felt its honor engaged and was not inclined to submit.

November 6, 1486, it issued a formal protest against the action of the

bishop, appealed to the pope, and demanded "Apostoli." Innocent VIII.

promptly came to the rescue. He annulled the decision of the bishop and

ordered the inquisitor, in conjunction with the Archbishop of Sens and

the Bishop of Meaux, to throw Laillier into prison, while they should

investigate the unrecanted heresies and send the papers to Rome for

decision. Very suggestive of the strong influences supporting Laillier

is the pope's expression of fear lest the pressure brought to bear on

the University should have forced it to admit him to the doctorate; if

so, such action is pronounced void, and all engaged in the attempt are

ordered to desist under pain of incurring suspicion of heresy. It is not

a little singular that the Bishop of Meaux, who was thus selected to sit

in judgment on Laillier, was at this very time under censure by the

University for reviving the Donatist heresy of the insufficiency of the

sacraments in polluted hands--the Eucharist of a fornicating priest was

of no more account, he said, than the barking of a dog. Many an

unfortunate Waldensian had been burned for less than this, but the

inquisitor had not dared to hold him to account. Nor do we hear of his

intervention in the case of Jean Langlois, priest of St. Crispin, who,

when celebrating mass, June 3, 1491, horrified his flock by casting on

the floor and trampling the consecrated wine and host. On his arrest he

gave as his reason that the body and blood of Christ were not in the

elements, and as he stubbornly refused to recant, he expiated his error

at the stake. Similar was the fate of Aymon Picard, who, at the feast of

St. Louis in the Sainte-Chapelle, August 25, 1503, snatched the host

from the celebrant and cast it in pieces on the floor, and obstinately

declined to abjure. All this was significant of the time coming when the

Inquisition would be more necessary than ever.[161]

The present degradation which it shared with the rest of the Church in

the constantly growing supremacy of the State is manifested by a

commission issued in 1485, by Frère Antoine de Clède, appointing a vicar

to act for him in Rodez and Vabres. In this document he styles himself

Inquisitor of France, Aquitaine, Gascony, and Languedoc, deputed by the

Holy See and the Parlement. The two bodies are thus equal sources of

authority, and the appointment by the pope would have been insufficient

without the confirmation by the royal court. How contemptible, indeed,

the Inquisition had become, even in the eyes of ecclesiastics, is

brought instructively before us in a petty quarrel between the

Inquisitor Raymond Gozin and his Dominican brethren. When he succeeded

Frère Gaillard de la Roche, somewhere about 1516, he found that the

house of the Inquisition at Toulouse had been stripped of its furniture

and utensils by the friars of the Dominican convent. He made a

reclamation, and some of the articles were restored; but the friars

subsequently demanded them back, and on his refusal procured from the

General Master instructions to the vicar, under which the latter

proceeded to extremities with him, wholly disregarding his appeal to the

pope, though he finally, in 1520, succeeded in obtaining the

intervention of Leo X. Imagination could scarcely furnish a more

convincing proof of decadence than this exhibition of the successor of

Bernard de Caux and Bernard Gui vainly endeavoring to defend his kitchen

gear from the rapacious hands of his brethren.[162]

It is quite probable that this dispute was envenomed by the inevitable

jealousy between the main body of the Order and its puritan section

known as the Reformed Congregation. Of this latter Raymond Gozin was

vicar-general, and his anxiety to regain his furnishings was probably

due to the fact that he was altering the house of the Inquisition so as

to accommodate within it a Reformed convent. The vast buildings which it

had required in the plenitude of its power had become a world too wide

for its shrunken needs. The original home of the Dominican Order, before

the removal in 1230 through the liberality of Pons de Capdenier, it

contained a church with three altars, a refectory, cells (or prison),

chambers, guest-rooms, cloisters, and two gardens. In approving of the

proposed alterations, Leo X. stipulated that some kind of retiring-room

with convenient offices must still be reserved for the use of the

Inquisition. This epitomizes the history of the institution. Yet it had

by no means wholly lost its power of evil, for in 1521 Johann Bomm,

Dominican Prior of Poligny, and inquisitor at Besançon had the

satisfaction of despatching two lycanthropists, or wer-wolves.[163]

* * * * *

The career of the Waldenses forms so interesting and well-defined an

episode in the history of persecution that I have hitherto omitted all

reference to that sect, in order to present a brief, continuous outline

of its relations with the Inquisition, which found in it, after the

disappearance of the Cathari, the only really important field of labor

in France.

Although by no means as numerous or as powerful in Languedoc as the

Cathari, the Waldenses formed an important heretical element. They were,

however, mostly confined to the humbler classes, and we hear of few

nobles belonging to the sect. In the sentences of Pierre Cella, rendered

in Querci in 1241 and 1242, we have abundant testimony as to their

numbers and activity. Thus, references occur to them--

At Gourdon in 55 cases out of 219

At Montcucq in 44 " " " 84

At Sauveterre in 1 case " " 5

At Belcayre in 3 cases out of 7

At Montauban in 175 " " " 252

At Moissac in 1 case " " 94

At Montpezat in no " " " 22

At Montaut in no " " " 23

At Castelnau in 1 " " " 11

and although many of these are mere allusions to having seen them or had

dealings with them, the comparative frequency of the reference indicates

the places where their heresy was most flourishing. Thus, Montauban was

evidently its headquarters in the district, and at Gourdon and Montcucq

there were vigorous colonies.

They had a regular organization--schools for the young where their

doctrines were doubtless implanted in the children of orthodox parents;

cemeteries where their dead were buried; missionaries who traversed the

land diligently to spread the faith, and who customarily refused all

alms, save hospitality. A certain Pierre des Vaux is frequently referred

to as one of the most active and most beloved of these, regarded,

according to one of his disciples, as an angel of light. Public

preaching in the streets was constant, and numerous allusions are made

to disputations held between the Waldensian ministers and the Catharan

perfects. Still, the utmost good feeling existed between the two

persecuted sects. Men were found who confessed to believing in the

Waldenses and to performing acts of adoration to the Cathari--in the

common enmity to Rome any faith which was not orthodox was regarded as

good. The reputation of the Waldenses as skilful leeches was a powerful

aid in their missionary labors. They were constantly consulted in cases

of disease or injury, and almost without exception they refused payment

for their ministrations, save food. One woman confessed to giving forty

sols to a Catharan for medical services, while to Waldenses she gave

only wine and bread. We learn also that they heard confessions and

imposed penance; that they celebrated a sacramental supper in which

bread and fish were blessed and partaken of, and that bread which they

consecrated with the sign of the cross was regarded as holy by their

disciples. Notwithstanding the strength and organization of the sect,

the Waldenses were evidently looked upon by Pierre Cella with a less

unfavorable eye than the Cathari, and the penances imposed on them were

habitually lighter.[164]

From Lyons the Waldensian belief had spread to the North and East, as

well as to the South and West. It is a curious fact that while the

Cathari never succeeded in establishing themselves to any extent beyond

the Romance territories, the Waldenses were already, in 1192, so

numerous in Lorraine that Eudes, Bishop of Toul, in ordering them to be

captured and brought to him in chains for judgment, not only promises

remission of sins as a reward, but feels obliged to add that if, for

rendering this service, the faithful are driven away from their homes,

he will find them in food and clothing. In Franche Comté, John, Count of

Burgundy, bears emphatic testimony to their numbers in 1248, when he

solicited of Innocent IV. the introduction of the Inquisition in his

dominions, and its discontinuance in 1257 doubtless left them to

multiply in peace. In 1251 we find the Archbishop of Narbonne condemning

some female Waldenses to perpetual imprisonment. It was, however, in the

mountains of Auvergne and the Alpine and sub-Alpine regions stretching

between Geneva and the Mediterranean that they found the surest refuge.

While Pierre Cella was penancing those of Querci, the Archbishop of

Embrun was busy with their brethren of Freyssinières, Argentière, and

Val-Pute, which so long continued to be their strongholds. In 1251, when

Alphonse and Jeanne, on their accession, guaranteed at Beaucaire the

liberties of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, the Bishop-legate Zoen

earnestly urged them to destroy the Waldenses there. There were ample

laws on the municipal statute-books of Avignon and Arles for the

extermination of "heretics and Waldenses," but the local magistracy

was slack in their enforcement and was obliged to swear to extirpate the

sectaries. The Waldenses were mostly simple mountain folk, with

possessions that offered no temptation for confiscation, and persecuting

energy was more profitable and more usefully directed against the richer

Cathari. We hear, indeed, that from 1271 to 1274 the zeal of Guillaume

de Cobardon, Seneschal of Carcassonne, urged the inquisitors to active

work against the Waldenses, resulting in numerous convictions, but among

the far more populous communities near the Rhone the Inquisition was not

introduced into the Comtat Venaissin until 1288, nor into Dauphiné until

1292, and in both cases we are told that it was caused by the alarming

spread of heresy. In 1288 the same increase is alluded to in the

provinces of Arles, Aix, and Embrun, when Nicholas IV. sent to the

nobles and magistrates there the laws of Frederic II., with orders for

their enforcement, and to the inquisitors a code of instructions for

procedure.[165]

About the same period there is a curious case of a priest named Jean

Philibert, who was sent from Burgundy into Gascony to track a fugitive

Waldensian. He followed his quarry as far as Ausch, where he found a

numerous community of the sectaries, holding regular assemblies and

preaching and performing their rites, although they attended the parish

churches to avert suspicion. Their evangelical piety so won upon him

that, after going home, he returned to Ausch and formally joined them.

He wandered back to Burgundy, where he fell under suspicion, and in 1298

he was brought before Gui de Reims, the Inquisitor of Besançon, when he

refused to take an oath and was consigned to prison. Here he abjured,

and on being liberated returned to the Waldenses of Gascony, was again

arrested, and brought before Bernard Gui in 1311, who finally burned him

in 1319 as a relapsed. In 1302 we hear of two Waldensian ministers

haunting the region near Castres, in the Albigeois, wandering around by

night and zealously propagating their doctrines. Still, in spite of

these evidences of activity, little effort at repression is visible at

this period. The Inquisition was crippled for a while by its contest

with Philippe le Bel and Clement V., and when it resumed unrestricted

operations, Pierre Autier and his Catharan disciples absorbed its

energies. Although the sentences of Bernard Gui at Toulouse commence in

1308, it is not until the _auto de fé_ of 1316 that any Waldenses appear

among its victims, when one was condemned to perpetual imprisonment and

one was burned as an unrepentant heretic. The _auto_ of 1319 appears to

have been a jail-delivery, for poor wretches appear in it whose

confessions date back to 1309, 1311, 1312, and 1315. On this occasion

eighteen Waldenses were condemned to pilgrimages with or without

crosses, twenty-six to perpetual prison, and three were burned. In the

_auto_ of 1321 a man and his wife who obstinately refused to abjure were

burned. In that of 1322 eight were sentenced to pilgrimages, of whom

five had crosses, two to prison, six dead bodies were exhumed and

burned, and there is an allusion to the brother of one of the prisoners

who had been burned at Avignon. This comprises the whole work of Bernard

Gui from 1308 to 1323, and does not indicate any very active

persecution. It is perhaps noteworthy that all of those punished in 1319

were from Ausch, while the popular name of "Burgundians," by which the

Waldenses were known, indicates that the headquarters of the sect were

still in Franche Comté. In fact, an allusion to a certain Jean de

Lorraine as a successful missionary indicates that region as busy in

proselyting efforts, and there are not wanting facts to prove that the

Inquisition of Besançon was active during this period. In the _auto_ of

1322 many of the sufferers were refugees from Burgundy, and we learn

that they had a provincial named Girard, showing that the Waldensian

Church of that region had a regular organization and hierarchy.[166]

In his "_Practica_" Bernard Gui gives a clear and detailed statement

of the Waldensian belief as it existed at this time, the chief points of

which may be worth enumerating as affording us a definite view of the

development of the faith in its original seat after a century and a half

of persecution. There was no longer any self-deceit as to connection

with the Roman Church. Persecution had done its work, and the Waldenses

were permanently severed. Theirs was the true Church, and that of the

pope was but a house of lies, whose excommunication was not to be

regarded, and whose decrees were not to be obeyed. They had a complete

organization, consisting of bishops, priests, and deacons, and they held

in some large city one or two general chapters every year, in which

orders were conferred and measures for mission work were perfected. The

Waldensian orders, however, did not confer exclusive supernatural power.

Although they still believed in transubstantiation, the making of the

body and blood of Christ depended on the purity of the ministrant; a

sinner was impotent to effect it, while it could be done by any

righteous man or woman. It was the same with absolution: they held the

power of the keys direct from Christ, and heard confessions and imposed

penance. Their antisacerdotalism was strongly expressed in the

simplification of their faith. There was no purgatory, and consequently

masses for the dead or the invocation of the suffrages of the saints

were of no avail; the saints, in fact, neither heard nor helped man, and

the miracles performed in their name in the churches were fictitious.

The fasts and feasts prescribed in the calendar were not to be observed,

and the indulgences so lavishly sold were useless. As of old, oaths and

homicide were forbidden. Yet enough of the traditional ascetic

tendencies were preserved to lead to the existence of a monastic

fraternity whose members divested themselves of all individual property,

and promised chastity, with obedience to a superior. Bernard Gui refers,

with a brevity which shows how little importance he attached to them, to

stories about sexual abominations performed in nocturnal assemblies, and

he indicates the growth of popular superstition by a brief allusion to a

dog which appears in these gatherings and sprinkles the sectaries with

his tail.[167]

The non-resistance doctrines of the Waldenses rendered them, as a rule,

a comparatively easy prey, but human nature sometimes asserted itself,

and a sharp persecution carried on at this period by Frère Jacques

Bernard, Inquisitor of Provence, provoked a bloody reprisal. In 1321 he

sent two deputies--Frères Catalan Fabri and Pierre Paschal--to the

diocese of Valence to make inquisition there. Former raids had left the

people in an angry mood. Multitudes had been subjected to the

humiliation of crosses, and these and their friends vowed revenge on the

appearance of the new persecutors. A plot was rapidly formed to

assassinate the inquisitors at a village where they were to pass the

night. For some reason, however, they changed their plans, and passed on

to the Priory of Montoison. The conspirators followed them, broke down

the doors, and slew them. Strangely enough, the Prior of Montoison was

accused of complicity in the murder, and was arrested when the murderers

were seized. The bodies of the martyrs were solemnly buried in the

Franciscan convent at Valence, where they soon began to manifest their

sanctity in miracles, and they would have been canonized by John XXII.

had not the quarrel which soon afterwards sprang up between him and the

Franciscans rendered it impolitic for him to increase the number of

Franciscan saints.[168]

A few Waldenses appear in the prosecutions of Henri de Chamay of

Carcassonne in 1328 and 1329, and, from the occasional notices which

have reached us in the succeeding years, we may conclude that

persecution, more or less fitful, never wholly ceased; while, in spite

of this, the heresy kept constantly growing. After the disappearance of

Catharism, indeed, it was the only refuge for ordinary humanity when

dissatisfied with Rome. The Begghards were mystics whose speculations

were attractive only to a certain order of minds. The Spirituals and

Fraticelli were Franciscan ascetics. The Waldenses sought only to

restore Christianity to its simplicity; their doctrines could be

understood by the poor and illiterate, groaning under the burdens of

sacerdotalism, and they found constantly wider acceptance among the

people, in spite of all the efforts put forth by the waning power of the

Inquisition. Benedict XII., in 1335, summoned Humbert II., Dauphin of

Viennois, and Adhémar of Poitou to assist the inquisitors. Humbert

obeyed, and from 1336 to 1346 there were expeditions sent against them

which drove them from their homes and captured some of them. Of these a

portion abjured and the rest were burned; their possessions were

confiscated and the bones of the dead exhumed. The secular and

ecclesiastical officials of Embrun joined in these efforts, but they

had no permanent result. In Languedoc Frère Jean Dumoulin, Inquisitor of

Toulouse, in 1344 attacked them vigorously, but only succeeded in

scattering them throughout Béarn, Foix, and Aragon. In 1348 Clement VI.

again urged Humbert, who responded with strict orders to his officers to

aid the ecclesiastical authorities with what force might be necessary,

and this time we hear of twelve Waldenses brought to Embrun, and burned

on the square in front of the cathedral. When Dauphiné became a

possession of the crown the royal officials were equally ready to

assist. Letters of October 20, 1351, from the governor, order the

authorities of Briançon to give the inquisitor armed support in his

operations against the heretics of the Briançonnais, but this seems to

have been ineffective; and the next year Clement VI. appealed to the

Dauphin Charles, and to Louis and Joanna of Naples, to aid Frère Pierre

Dumont, the Inquisitor of Provence, and summoned prelates and

magistrates to co-operate in the good work. The only recorded result of

this was the penancing of seven Waldenses by Dumont in 1353. More

successful were the Christian labors of Guillaume de Bordes, Archbishop

of Embrun from 1352 to 1363, surnamed the Apostle of the Waldenses, who

tried the unusual expedient of kindness and persuasion. He personally

visited the mountain valleys, and had the satisfaction of winning over a

number of the heretics. With his death his methods were abandoned, and

Urban V., from 1363 to 1365, was earnest in calling upon the civil power

and in stimulating the zeal of the Provençal inquisitors, Frères Hugues

Cardilion and Jean Richard. The celebrated inquisitor François Borel now

appears upon the scene. Armed expeditions were sent into the mountains

which had considerable success. Many of the heretics were obstinate and

were burned, while others saved their lives by abjuration. Their pitiful

little properties were confiscated; one had a cow, another two cows and

clothes of white cloth. In the purse of another, more wealthy, were

found two florins--a booty which scarce proved profitable, for the wood

to burn him and a comrade cost sixty-two sols and six deniers. One woman

named Juven who was burned possessed a vineyard. The vintage was

gathered and the must stored in her cabin, when the wrathful neighbors

fired it at night and destroyed the product.[169]

All this was of no avail. When Gregory XI. ascended the pontifical

throne, in 1370, his attention was early directed to the deplorable

condition of the Church in Provence, Dauphiné, and the Lyonnais. The

whole region was full of Waldenses, and many nobles were now beginning

to embrace the heresy. The prelates were powerless or negligent, and the

Inquisition ineffective. He set to work vigorously, appointing

inquisitors and stimulating their zeal, but the whole system by this

time was so discredited that his labors were ineffectual. The royal

officials, so far from aiding the inquisitors, had no scruple in

impeding them. Unsafe places were assigned to them in which to conduct

their operations; they were forced to permit secular judges to act as

assessors with them; their proceedings were submitted for revision to

the secular courts, and even their prisoners were set at liberty without

consulting them. The secular officials refused to take oaths to purge

the land of heresy, and openly protected heretics, especially nobles,

when prosecutions were commenced against them.[170]

Gregory duly complained of this to Charles le Sage in 1373, but to

little purpose at first. The evil continued unabated, and in 1375 he

returned to the charge still more vigorously. No stone was left

unturned. Not only was the king requested to send a special deputy to

the infected district, but the pope wrote directly to the royal

lieutenant, Charles de Banville, reproaching him for his protection of

heretics, and threatening him if he did not mend his ways. Certain

nobles who had become conspicuous as favorers of heresy were

significantly reminded of the fate of Raymond of Toulouse; the prelates

were scolded and stimulated; Amedeo of Savoy was summoned to assist, and

the Tarantaise was added to the district of Provence that nothing might

interfere with the projected campaign. As the spread of heresy was

attributable to the lack of preachers, and to the neglect of prelates

and clergy in instructing their flocks, the inquisitor was empowered to

call in the services of Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and

Augustinians, to spread over the land and teach the people the truths of

religion. These multiplied efforts at length began to tell. Charles

issued orders to enforce the laws against heresy, and when Gregory sent

a special Apostolic Internuncio, Antonio, Bishop of Massa, to direct

operations, persecution began in earnest. Frère François Borel, the

Inquisitor of Provence, had long been struggling against the

indifference of the prelates and the hostility of the secular power. Now

that he was sure of efficient seconding be was like a hound slipped from

the leash. His forays against the miserable populations of

Freyssinières, l'Argentière, and Val-Pute (or Val-Louise) have conferred

on him a sinister reputation, unredeemed by the efficient aid which he

contributed to regaining the liberties of his native town of Gap.[171]

The immediate success which rewarded these efforts was so overwhelming

as to bring new cause for solicitude. The Bishop of Massa's mission

commenced early in May, 1375, and already, by June 17, Gregory is

concerned about the housing and support of the crowds of wretches who

had been captured. In spite of numerous burnings of those who proved

obstinate, the prisons of the land were insufficient for the detention

of the captives, and Gregory at once ordered new and strong ones to be

built in Embrun, Avignon, and Vienne. To solve the financial

complications which immediately arose, the bishops, whose negligence was

accountable for the growth of heresy, were summoned within three months

to furnish four thousand gold florins to build the prisons, and eight

hundred florins per annum for five years for the support of the

prisoners. This they were allowed to take from the legacies for pious

uses, and the restitutions of wrongly-acquired funds, with a threat, if

they should demur, that they should be deprived of these sources of

income and be excommunicated besides. The bishops, however, were no more

amenable to such arguments than those of Languedoc had been in 1245,

and, after the three months had passed, Gregory answers, October 5, the

anxious inquiry of the Bishop of Massa as to how he shall feed his

prisoners, by telling him that it is the business of every bishop to

support those of his diocese, and that any one who refuses to do so is

to be coerced with excommunication and the secular arm. This was a mere

_brutum fulmen_, and in 1376 he endeavored to secure a share in the

confiscations, but King Charles refused to divide them, though in 1378

he at last agreed to give the inquisitors a yearly stipend for their own

support, similar to that paid to their brethren at Toulouse.[172]

All other devices being exhausted, Gregory at last had recourse to the

unfailing resource of the curia--an indulgence. There is something so

appallingly grotesque in tearing honest, industrious folk from their

homes by the thousand, in thrusting them into dungeons to rot and

starve, and then evading the cost of feeding them by presenting them to

the faithful as objects of charity, that the proclamation which Gregory

issued August 15, 1370, is perhaps the most shameless monument of a

shameless age--

"To all the faithful in Christ: As the help of prisoners is

counted among pious works, it befits the piety of the faithful to

mercifully assist the incarcerated of all kinds who suffer from

poverty. As we learn that our beloved son, the Inquisitor François

Borelli, has imprisoned for safe-keeping or punishment many

heretics and those defamed for heresy, who in consequence of their

poverty cannot be sustained in prison unless the pious liberality

of the faithful shall assist them as a work of charity; and as we

wish that these prisoners shall not starve, but shall have time for

repentance in the said prisons; now, in order that the faithful in

Christ may through devotion lend a helping hand, we admonish, ask,

and exhort you all, enjoining it on you in remission of your sins,

that from the goods which God has given you, you bestow pious alms

and grateful charity for the food of these prisoners, so that they

may be sustained by your help, and you, through this and other good

works inspired by God, may attain eternal blessedness!"[173]

Imagination refuses to picture the horrors of the economically

constructed jails where these unfortunates were crowded to wear out

their dreary lives, while their jailers vainly begged for the miserable

pittance that should prolong their agonies. Yet so far was Gregory from

being satisfied with victims in number far beyond his ability to keep,

that, December 28, 1375, he bitterly scolded the officials of Dauphiné

for the negligent manner in which they obeyed the king's commands to aid

the inquisitors--a complaint which he reiterated May 18, 1376. From some

expressions in these letters it is permissible to assume that this whole

inhuman business had shocked even the dull sensibilities of that age of

violence. Yet in spite of all that had been accomplished the heretics

remained obstinate, and in 1377 Gregory indignantly chronicles their

increase, while reproaching the inquisitors with their slackness in

performing the duties for which they had been appointed.[174]

What effect on the future of the Waldenses a continuance of Gregory's

remorseless energy would have wrought can only be matter of conjecture.

He died March 27, 1378, and the Great Schism which speedily followed

gave the heretics some relief, during which they continued to increase,

although in 1380 Clement VII. renewed the commission of Borel, whose

activity was unabated until 1393, and his victims were numbered by the

hundred. A good many conversions rewarded his labors, and the converts

were allowed to retain their property on payment of a certain sum of

money, as shown by a list made out in 1385. In 1393 he is said to have

burned a hundred and fifty at Grenoble in a single day. San Vicente

Ferrer was a missionary of a different stamp, and his self-devoted

labors for several years in the Waldensian valleys won over numerous

converts. His memory is still cherished there, and the village of

Puy-Saint-Vincent, with a chapel dedicated to him, shows that his kindly

ministrations were not altogether lost.[175]

The Waldenses by this time were substantially the only heretics with

whom the Church had to deal outside of Germany. The French version of

the _Schwabenspiegel_, or South German municipal code, made for the

Romande speaking provinces of the empire, is assignable to the closing

years of the century, and it attests the predominance of Waldensianism

in its chapter on heresy, by translating the _Käezer_ (Catharus) of the

original by _vaudois_. Even "Leschandus" (Childeric III.) is said to

have been dethroned by Pope Zachary because he was a protector of

vaudois. That at this period the Inquisition had become inoperative in

those regions where it had once been so busy is proved by the episcopal

tribunals being alone referred to as having cognizance of such

cases--the heretic is to be accused to his bishop, who is to have him

examined by experts.[176]

How completely the Waldenses dropped out of sight in the struggles of

the Great Schism is seen in a bull of Alexander V., in 1409, to Frère

Pons Feugeyron, whose enormous district extended from Marseilles to

Lyons and from Beaucaire to the Val d'Aosta. This comprehended the whole

district which François Borel and Vicente Ferrer found swarming with

heretics. The inquisitor is urged to use his utmost endeavors against

the schismatic followers of Benedict XIII. and Gregory XII., against the

increasing numbers of sorcerers, against apostate Jews and the Talmud,

but not a word is said about Waldenses. They seem to have been

completely forgotten.[177]

After the Church had reorganized itself at the Council of Constance it

had leisure to look after the interests of the faith, although its

energies were mostly monopolized by the Hussite troubles. In 1417 we

hear of Catharine Sauve, an anchorite, burned at Montpellier for

Waldensian doctrines by the deputy-inquisitor, Frère Raymond Cabasse,

assisted by the Bishop of Maguelonne. The absence of persecution had by

no means been caused by a diminution in the number of heretics. In 1432

the Council of Bourges complained that the Waldenses of Dauphiné had

taxed themselves to send money to the Hussites, whom they recognized as

brethren; and there were plenty of them to be found by any one who took

the trouble to look after them. On August 23, of this same year, we have

a letter from Frère Pierre Fabri, Inquisitor of Embrun, to the Council

of Basle, excusing himself for not immediately obeying a summons to

attend it on the ground of his indescribable poverty, and of his

preoccupations in persecuting the Waldenses. In spite of the great

executions which he had already made, he describes them as flourishing

as numerously as ever in the valleys of Freyssinières, Argentière, and

Pute, which had been almost depopulated by the ferocious raids of

François Borel. He now has in his dungeons of Embrun and Briançon six

relapsed heretics, who have revealed to him the names of more than five

hundred others whom he is about to seize, and whose trials will be a

work of time, but as soon as he can absent himself without prejudice to

the faith his first duty will be to attend the council. Evidently the

harvest was abundant and the reapers were few.[178]

In 1441 the Inquisitor of Provence, Jean Voyle, made some effort at

persecution, but apparently with little result, and the Waldensian

churches seem to have enjoyed a long respite, for the terrible episode

of the so-called Vaudois of Arras, in 1460, as we shall see hereafter,

was merely a delirium of witchcraft. In France, so completely had the

Waldenses monopolized the field of misbelief in the public mind that

sorcery became popularly known as _vauderie_ and witches as _vaudoises_.

Accordingly, when, in 1465, at Lille, five "Poor Men of Lyons" were

tried, and four of them recanted and one was burned, it was necessary to

find some other name for them, and they were designated as

Turelupins.[179]

It is not until 1475 that we find the inquisitors again at work in their

old hunting-ground among the valleys around the headwaters of the

Durance. The Waldenses had quietly multiplied again. They held their

conventicles undisturbed, they dared openly to preach their abhorred

faith, and their missionary zeal was rewarded with abundant conversions.

Worse than all, when the bishops and inquisitors sought to repress them

in the accustomed manner, they appealed to the royal court, which was so

untrue to its duty that it granted them letters of protection and they

waxed more insolent than ever. In vain Sixtus IV. sent special

commissions armed with full powers to put an end to this disgraceful

state of things. Men at this time in France recked little of papal

authority, and the commissioners found themselves scorned. Sixtus,

therefore, July 1, 1475, addressed an earnest remonstrance to Louis XI.

The king was surely ignorant of the acts of his representatives; he

would hasten to disavow them and lend the whole power of the State, as

of old, to the support of the Inquisition.[180]

The correspondence which ensued would doubtless be interesting reading

if it were accessible. Its purport, however, can readily be discerned in

the Ordonnance of May 18, 1478, which marks in the most emphatic manner

the supremacy which the State had obtained over the Church. The king

assumed that his subjects of Dauphiné were all good Catholics. In a

studied tone of contemptuous insolence he alludes to the old Mendicants

(_vieux mendiens_) styling themselves inquisitors, who vex the faithful

with accusations of heresy and harass them with prosecutions in the

royal and ecclesiastical courts for purposes of extortion or to secure

the confiscation of their property. He therefore forbids his officers to

aid in making such confiscations, decrees that the heirs shall be

reinstated in all cases that have occurred, and in order to put a stop

to the frauds and abuses of the inquisitors he strictly enjoins that for

the future they shall not be permitted to prosecute the inhabitants in

any manner.[181]

Such was the outcome of the efforts which, for two hundred and fifty

years, the Church had unremittingly made to obtain despotic control over

the human mind. For far less than such defiance it had destroyed Raymond

of Toulouse and the civilization of Languedoc. It had built up the

monarchy with the spoils of heresy, and now the monarchy cuffed it and

bade it bury its Inquisition out of the sight of decent men. This put an

end for a time to the labors of the Inquisition against the Waldenses of

Dauphiné, but the troubles of the latter were by no means over. The

death of Louis, in 1483, deprived them of their protector, and the

Italian policy of Charles VIII. rendered him less indifferent to the

wishes of the Holy See. At the request of the Archbishop of Embrun,

Innocent VIII. ordered the persecutions renewed. The Franciscan

Inquisitor, Jean Veyleti, whose excesses had caused the appeal to the

throne in 1475, was soon again at work, and had the satisfaction of

burning both consuls of Freyssinières. Though the Waldenses had

represented themselves to Louis XI. as faithful Catholics, the ancient

errors were readily brought to light by the efficient means of torture.

Though they believed in transubstantiation, they denied that it could be

effected by sinful priests. Their _barbes_, or pastors, were ordained,

and administered absolution after confession, but the pope, the bishops,

and the priests had lost that power. They denied the existence of

purgatory, the utility of prayers for the dead, the intercession of

saints, the power of the Virgin, and the obligation of keeping any

feast-days save Sunday. Wearied with their stubbornness, the archbishop,

in June and July, 1486, summoned them either to leave the country or to

come forward and submit, and as they did neither he excommunicated them.

This was equally ineffective, and he appealed again to Innocent VIII.,

who resolved to end the heresy with a decisive blow. Accordingly, in

1488, a crusade on a large scale was organized in both Dauphiné and

Savoy. The papal commissioner, Alberto de' Capitanei, obtained the

assistance of the Parlement of Grenoble, and a force was raised under

the command of Hugues de La Palu, Comte de Vanax, to attack them on

every side. The attack was delayed by legal formalities, during which

they were urged to submission, but refused, saying that their faith was

pure and that they would die rather than abandon it. At length, in

March, 1489, the crusaders advanced. The valley of Pragelato was the

first assailed, and, after a few days, was reduced to the alternative of

death or abjuration, when fifteen obstinate heretics were burned. In Val

Cluson and Freyssinières the resistance was more stubborn and there was

considerable carnage, which so frightened the inhabitants of Argentière

that they submitted peaceably. In Val Louise the people took refuge in

the cavern of Aigue Fraide, which they imagined inaccessible, but La

Palu succeeded in reaching it, and built fires in the mouth, suffocating

the unhappy refugees. This, and the confiscations which followed,

divided between Charles VIII. and the Archbishop of Embrun, gave a fatal

blow to Waldensianism in the valleys. To prevent its resuscitation the

legate left behind him François Ploireri as Inquisitor of Provence, who

continued to harass the people with citations and pronounced

condemnations for contumacy, burning an occasional _barbe_ and

confiscating the property of relapsed and hardened heretics.[182]

With a new king, in the person of Louis XII., there came a new phase in

the affairs of the Waldenses. A conference was held in Paris before the

royal chancellor, where envoys from Freyssinières met Rostain, the new

Archbishop of Embrun, and deputies of the Parlement of Grenoble. It was

resolved to send to the spot papal and royal commissioners, with power

to determine the status of the so-called heretics. They went to

Freyssinières and examined witnesses, who satisfied them that the

population were good Catholics, in spite of the urgent assertions of the

archbishop that they were notorious heretics. All the excommunications

were removed, which put an end to the prosecutions. On October 12, 1502,

Louis XII. confirmed the decision, and Alexander VI., to whose son,

Cæsar Borgia, Louis had given the Duchy of Valentinois, embracing the

territory in question, was not disposed to run counter to the royal

wishes. The Waldenses were, however, unable to loosen the grip of the

Archbishop of Embrun on the property which he had confiscated, in spite

of positive orders for its restoration from the king, but at least they

were allowed, under the guise of Catholicism, to worship God after their

own fashion, until the crowding pressure of the Reformation forced them

to a merger with the Calvinists. In the Briançonnais, in spite of

occasional burnings, heresy continued to spread until, in 1514, Antoine

d'Estaing, Bishop of Angoulême, was sent thither, when the measures he

adopted, vigorously enforced by the secular authorities, put an end to

it in a few years.[183]