Meanwhile the publication of the Clementines had produced results not

corresponding exactly to the intentions of Clement. The canon directed

against the heretics received little attention, and five years elapse

before we hear of any serious persecutions under it. The heretics were

poor; there were no spoils to tempt episcopal officials to the thankless

labor of tracking them and trying them, and few of the bishops had the

zeal of John of Zurich to divert them from their temporal cares and

pleasures. The Beguinages, however, were an easy prey; there was

property to be confiscated in reward of intelligent activity. Besides,

many of the establishments were under the supervision of the Mendicant

Orders, and were virtually or absolutely Tertiary houses, the

destruction of which gratified the inextinguishable jealousy between the

secular clergy and the Orders; the struggle between John XXII. and the

Franciscans, moreover, was commencing, and the Tertiaries of the latter,

who were popularly known as Beguines in France, were fair game. The

bishops for the most part, therefore, neglected the saving clause of the

canon respecting the Beguinages, and construed literally and pitilessly

the orders for their abolition. So eager were they to gratify their

vindictiveness against the Mendicants that, when these interfered to

save their Tertiaries, they were excommunicated as fautors and defenders

of heresy. Thus arose a persecution which, though bloodless, was most

deplorable. All through France and Germany and Italy the poor creatures

were turned adrift upon the world, without means of support. Those who

could, found husbands; many were driven to a life of prostitution,

others, doubtless, perished of want and exposure. Even the

quasi-conventual dress to which they were accustomed was proscribed, and

they were forced to wear gay colors under pain of excommunication. In

the history of the Church there have been many more cruel persecutions,

but few which in suddenness and extent have caused greater misery, and

none, we are safe to say, so wanton, causeless, and lacking even the

shadow of justification. The impression made on the popular mind is

seen in the current report that on his death-bed Clement bitterly

repented of three things--that he had poisoned the Emperor Henry VII.

and that he had destroyed the Orders of the Templars and of the

Beguines.[415]

The Church had declared, in the great Council of Lateran, that no

congregations should be allowed to exist save under some approved rule.

The Beguines had gradually, almost unconsciously, grown up in practical

contravention of this canon. The solution of their present difficulties

lay in attaching themselves to some recognized Order, and John XXII., in

1319, recognizing the mischief wrought by the heedless legislation of

Vienne, promised exemption from further persecution of those who would

become Mendicant Tertiaries. Large numbers of them sought this refuge,

though their adhesion was more nominal than real. They preserved their

self-government, their habits of labor, and their ownership of

individual property. In a bull of December 31, 1320, and others of later

date, John drew the distinction between those who lived piously and

obediently in their houses, and those who wandered around disputing on

matters of faith. The former, he is told, amount to two hundred thousand

in Germany alone, and he bitterly reproached the bishops who were

disturbing them on account of the comparatively small number whose

misconduct had drawn forth the misinterpreted condemnation of Clement.

They are in future to be left in peace. This, at least, put an end, in

1321, to the persecution of those of Strassburg.[416]

The innocent Beguines thus obtained a breathing-space, and the gaps in

their ranks were soon filled up. The obnoxious members, however, felt

the effects of the Clementine canon as severely as the habitual sloth

and indifference of the German prelates in such matters would permit.

Archbishop Henry, of Cologne, was one of the few who manifested an

active interest in the matter, and his exertions were rewarded with

considerable success. The Lollards and Beghards no longer ventured to

show themselves publicly, and in the absence of organized machinery it

was not easy to detect them, but in 1322 the archbishop had the good

fortune to capture the most formidable heresiarch of the region. Walter,

known as the Lollard, was a Hollander, and was the most active and

successful of the Beghard missionaries. He was not an educated man, and

was ignorant of Latin, but he had a keen intelligence and ready

eloquence, indefatigable enthusiasm and persuasiveness. His proselyting

labors were facilitated by his numerous writings in the vernacular,

which were eagerly circulated from hand to hand. He had been busy in

Mainz, where he had numerous disciples, and came from there to Cologne,

where he chanced to fall into the archbishop's hands. He made no secret

of his belief, refused to abjure, and welcomed death in the service of

his faith. The severest tortures were vainly employed to force him to

reveal the names of his fellow-believers; his constancy was unalterable,

and he perished in the flames with serene cheerfulness.[417]

The episcopal Inquisition was not as efficient as the zeal of the

archbishop might wish, but, such as it was, it pursued its labors with

indifferent success. In 1323 we hear of a priest detected in heresy, who

was duly degraded and burned. In 1325 greater results followed the

accidental discovery of an assembly of Beghards. The story told is the

legend common to other places, of a husband, whose suspicions were

aroused, tracking his wife to the nocturnal conventicle and witnessing

the sensual orgies which were popularly believed to be customary in such

places. The episcopal Inquisition was rewarded with a large number of

culprits, whose trial was speedy and sure. Those who would not abjure,

about fifty in number, were put to death--some at the stake, and some

drowned in the Rhine, a novel punishment for heresy, which shows how

uncertain as yet were the dealings with heretics in Germany. It is quite

probable that some of these poor creatures may have sought to shield

their errors under the reputation of the great Dominican preacher,

Master Eckart, and thus brought upon him the prosecution which worried

him to death. It is possible, also, that pursuit of this higher game may

have diverted the archbishop from the chase of the humbler quarry, for

we hear of no further victims in the next few years, though we are told

that the heresy was by no means suppressed.[418]

Archbishop Henry died in 1331 without further success, so far as the

records show, and his successor Waleran, Count of Juliers, took up the

cause in more systematic fashion. He endeavored to organize a permanent

episcopal Inquisition by appointing a commissioner whose duty it was to

inquire after heretics, and who had power to reconcile and absolve those

who should recant--in fact, an inquisitor under another name. The

success of this attempt did not correspond to its deserts. In March,

1335, Waleran was obliged to announce that the evil had greatly

increased in both the city and diocese, and he called upon all his

prelates and clergy to assist his Inquisition by rigidly enforcing the

statutes of Archbishop Henry. This was as ineffective as the previous

measures. The heretics were so bold that they openly wore the garments

of the sect and followed its practices; nay, more, the inquisitor was

either so negligent or so corrupt that he gave absolutions without

requiring conformity. In October of the same year, therefore, the

archbishop issued another pastoral epistle, in which he pronounced all

such absolutions void, and deplored the constant spread of the

heresy.[419]

The zeal of the Archbishops of Cologne was not without imitators.

Throughout Westphalia, Bishops Ludwig of Munster, Gottfrid of Osnabruck,

Gottfrid of Minden, and Bernhard of Paderborn had been active in

eradicating the heresy within their dioceses. In 1335 Bishop Berthold of

Strassburg made a spasmodic effort to enforce the Clementines, and in

the same year there were some victims burned in Metz. The Magdeburg

Archbishop Otto was of more tolerant temper. In 1336 a number of

"Brethren of the Lofty Spirit" were detected in his city, who did not

hesitate, under examination, to admit their belief, which to pious ears

sounded like the most horrible blasphemy; yet he liberated them after a

few days' confinement on their simply recanting their errors verbally.

In this same year, however, we have the first instance of a papal

inquisitor at work in north Germany. Friar Jordan, an Augustinian

eremite, held a commission as inquisitor in both sections of Saxony. He

was not well versed in the inquisitorial process, for when at Angermünde

in the Uckermark he came upon a nest of Luciferans, he humanely offered

them the opportunity of canonical purgation. Fourteen of them failed to

procure the requisite number of conjurators, and were duly burned. From

Angermünde Friar Jordan seems to have hastened to Erfurt, where he was

present at the trial of a Beghard named Constantine, though the

proceedings were carried on by the vicar of the Archbishop of Mainz.

There was no desire to punish the heretic, who bore a good reputation

and was useful as a writer of manuscripts. He asserted himself to be the

Son of God, and that he would arise three days after death, so there was

ample ground for the endeavor humanely made by his judges to prove him

insane. A long respite was given him for this purpose, but he

persistently declared his sanity, refused all attempts at conversion,

and perished in the flames.[420]

When the effort was made to find heretics there seems to have been

plenty of them to reward the search. In this same year, 1336, we hear of

the discovery in Austria of a numerous sect who, from the description,

were probably Luciferans. The rites of their nocturnal subterranean

assemblies bear a considerable resemblance to those revealed by the

penitents of Conrad of Marburg, showing how the tradition was handed

down to the outbreak of witchcraft. We are told that they had

contaminated innumerable souls, but they were exterminated by the free

use of the stake and other cruel torments. The next year, in

Brandenburg, many simple folk were seduced into demonolatry by three

evil spirits who personated the Trinity; and though these were driven

off by a Franciscan with the host, the dupes persisted in their error,

and preferred burning to recantation. Even divested of its supernatural

embroidery, the heresy, probably Luciferan, must have been one which

excited enthusiasm in its followers, for at the place of execution they

declared that the flames lighted to consume them were golden chariots to

carry them to heaven. Another instance of Luciferanism occurred at

Salzburg, in 1340, when a priest named Rudolph, in the cathedral, cast

to the ground the cup containing the blood of Christ, a sacrilege which

he had previously committed at Halle. Under examination, he denied

transubstantiation, and asserted the final salvation of Satan and his

angels. He was obstinate to the last, and consequently was burned.[421]

The Brethren of the Free Spirit had by no means been suppressed. In 1339

three aged heresiarchs of the sect were captured at Constance and tried

by the bishop. Disgusting practices of sensuality were proved against

them, and they described their abhorrence of the rites of the Church in

the most revolting terms. Their constancy held good until they were

brought to the place of execution, when it failed them; they recanted,

and were sentenced to imprisonment for life in a dungeon on bread and

water. In 1342, at Würzburg, two more were forced to recantation.

Persecution, however, was spasmodic, and in many places toleration

practically existed. Thus, in Suabia, in 1347, we are told that the

heresy of the Beghards spread without let or hindrance. It was

impossible to eradicate it, even had there been efforts made to suppress

it, which there were not, and it would eventually have overturned the

Church had there not finally arisen theologians able and willing to

combat it.[422]

About this period flourished Conrad of Montpellier, a canon of Ratisbon,

one of the most learned men of the day, who wrote a tract against the

sect. In spite of the condemnation uttered by the Council of Vienne, he

says it continues to increase and multiply, as there are no prelates

found to oppose it. The heretics are mostly ignorant peasants and

mechanics, who wander around wearing the distinctive garments of the

sect, which are also frequently used as a disguise by Waldenses. They

seek hospitality of the Beguines, whom they corrupt by persuading them

that man, through piety, can become the equal of Christ. At Ratisbon,

Conrad met one of these, who was not suffered to enjoy security, for the

bishop arrested him, and, on his obstinately maintaining his errors,

cast him in a dungeon, where he perished. Another, named John of

Mechlin, preached his heresy publicly through upper Germany, where his

eloquence gained him crowds of followers, including nobles and

ecclesiastics, though Conrad declares that, on arguing with him, he

proved to be utterly ignorant. There would appear to have been equal

toleration in the Netherlands, for about this period, at Brussels, a

woman named Blomaert, who wrote several treatises on the Spirit of

Liberty and on Love, was reverenced as something more than human, and

when she went to take the Eucharist she was said by her disciples to be

attended by two seraphim. She vanquished the most learned theologians,

until John of Rysbroek succeeded in confuting her.[423]

* * * * *

Since the disputed election of Louis of Bavaria, in 1314, the relations

between the empire and the papacy had been strained. The victory of

Mühldorf, in 1322, which assured to Louis the sovereignty, had been

followed, in 1323, by an open rupture with John XXII., after which the

strife had been internecine. Each declared his enemy a heretic who had

forfeited all rights, and the interdicts which John showered over

Germany had been met by Louis with cruel persecution of all

ecclesiastics obeying them, wherever he could enforce his power.[424]

Such a state of affairs had not been favorable for the persecution of

heresy; it may, partially at least, explain the immunity enjoyed in so

many places by heretics, and the impossibility of introducing the

Inquisition in any form of general organization. Though the papacy

assumed that the imperial throne was vacant, and asserted that, during

such vacancy, the government of the empire devolved upon the pope, these

pretensions could not practically be made good. With the death of Louis,

in 1347, and the recognition of his rival, Charles IV.--the "priest's

emperor"--Rome might fairly hope that all obstacles would be removed;

that the opposition of the episcopate to the Inquisition would be broken

down, and that the field would be open for a persistent and systematic

persecution, which would soon relieve Germany of the reproach of

toleration. When Clement VI., in 1348, could paternally reprove the

young emperor for lack of dignity in the fashion of his garments, which

were too short and too tight for his imperial station, the youth could

surely be relied upon to obey whatever instructions might be sent him

with regard to the suppression of heresy. The same year saw the

appointment of John Schandeland, doctor of the Dominican house at

Strassburg, as papal inquisitor for all Germany.[425]

Scarcely, however, had the pope and emperor felt their positions

assured, and preparations had been thus made to take advantage of the

situation, when a catastrophe supervened which defied all human

calculation. The weary fourteenth century was nearing the end of its

first half when Europe was scourged with a calamity which might well

seem to fulfil all that apocalyptic prophets had threatened of the

vengeance of God on the sins of man. In 1347 the plague known as the

Black Death invaded Europe from the East, making leisurely progress

during 1348 and 1349 through France, Spain, Hungary, Germany, and

England. No corner of Europe was spared, and on the high seas it is said

that vessels with rich cargoes were found floating, of which the crews

had perished to the last man. Doubtless there are exaggerations in the

contemporary reports which assert that two thirds or three quarters or

five sixths of the inhabitants of Europe fell victims to the pest; but

Boccaccio, as an eye-witness, tells us that the mortality within the

walls of Florence from March to July, 1348, amounted to one hundred

thousand souls; that in the fields the harvests lay ungathered; that in

the city palaces were tenantless and unguarded; that parents forsook

children and children parents. In Avignon the mortality was estimated at

one hundred thousand; Clement VI. shut himself up in his apartments in

the sacred palace, where he built large fires to ward off the

pestilence, and would allow none to approach him. In Paris fifty

thousand were said to have perished; in St. Denis sixteen thousand; in

Strassburg sixteen thousand. That these figures, though vague, are not

improbable, is shown by the case of Béziers, where, in 1348, Mascaro,

who was chosen _escudier_ to fill a vacancy, records in his diary that

all the consuls were carried off, all their _escudiers_ or assistants,

and all the _clavars_ or tax-collectors, and that out of every thousand

inhabitants only a hundred escaped. As though Nature did not cause

sufficient misery, man contributed his share by an uprising against the

Jews. They were accused of causing the plague by poisoning the waters

and the pastures, and the blind wrath of the population did not stop to

consider that they drank from the same wells as the Christians, and

suffered with them in the pestilence. From the Atlantic to Hungary they

were tortured and slain with sword and fire. At Erfurt three thousand

are said to have perished, and in Bavaria the number was computed at

twelve thousand.[426]

It was not only by the massacre of the Jews that the people sought to

placate the wrath of God. The gregarious enthusiasm of which we have

seen so many instances was by no means extinct. In 1320 France had seen

another assemblage of the Pastoureaux, when the dumb population arose,

armed only with banners, for the conquest of the Holy Land, and an

innumerable multitude wandered over the land, peaceably at first, but

subsequently showing their devotion by attacking the Jews, and finally

manifesting their antagonism to the hierarchy by plundering the

ecclesiastics and the churches, until they were dispersed with the sword

and put out of the way with the halter. In 1334 the great Dominican

preacher, Venturino da Bergamo, roused the population of Lombardy to so

keen a sense of the necessity of propitiating God that he organized a

pilgrimage to Rome for the sake of obtaining pardons, variously

estimated as consisting of from ten thousand to three millions of

penitents. Clothed in white, with black cloaks bearing on one side a

white dove and olive-branch, and on the other a white cross, they

marched peaceably in bands to the holy city, though when Venturino went

to John XXII., in Avignon, to get the pardons for his followers, he was

accused of heresy, and had to undergo a trial by the Inquisition.[427]

Such being the popular tendencies of the age, it is no wonder that the

profound emotions caused by the fearful scourge of the Black Death found

relief in a gregarious outburst of penitence. Germany had suffered less

than the rest of Europe, only one fourth of the population being

estimated as perishing, but the religious sensibilities of the people

had been stirred by the interdicts against Louis of Bavaria, and the

pestilence had been preceded by earthquakes, which were portents of

horror. It well might seem that God, wearied with man's wickedness, was

about to put an end to the human race, and that only some extraordinary

effort of propitiation could avert his wrath. In this state of mental

tension it needed but a touch to send an impulse through the whole

population. Suddenly, in the spring of 1349, the land was covered with

bands of Flagellants, like those whom we have seen nearly a century

before, expiating their sins by public scourging. Some said that the

example was set in Hungary; others attributed it to different places,

but it responded so thoroughly to the vague longings of the people, and

it spread so rapidly, that it seemed to be the result of a universal

consentaneous impulse. All the proceedings, at least at first, were

conducted decently and in order. The Flagellants marched in bands of

moderate size, each under a leader and two lieutenants. Beggary was

strictly prohibited, and no one was admitted to fellowship who would

not promise obedience to the captain, and who had not money to defray

his own expenses, estimated at four pfennige per diem, though the

hospitality universally offered in the towns through which they passed

was freely accepted to the extent of lodging and meals; but two nights

were never to be spent in the same place. Monks and priests, nobles and

peasants, women and children were marshalled together in common

contrition to placate an offended God. They chanted rude hymns--

"Nü tretent herzu die bussen wellen.

Fliehen wir die heissen hellen.

Lucifer ist ein bose geselle," etc.--

and scourged themselves at stated times, the men stripping to the waist

and using a scourge knotted with four iron points, so lustily laid on

that an eye-witness says that he had seen two jerks requisite to

disengage the point from the flesh. They taught that this exercise,

continued for thirty-three days and a half, washed from the soul all

taint of sin, and rendered the penitent pure as at birth.

From Poland to the Rhine the processions of Flagellants met with little

opposition, except in a few towns, such as Erfurt, where the magistrates

prohibited their entrance, and in the province of Magdeburg, where

Archbishop Otho suppressed them. They spread through Holland and

Flanders, but when they invaded France, Philippe de Valois interfered,

and they penetrated no farther than Troyes. The guardians of public

order, indeed, could not look without dread upon such a popular

demonstration, which by organization might become dangerous. When the

Flagellants of Strassburg proposed to form a permanent confraternity,

Charles IV., who was in that city, peremptorily forbade it. Already

dangerous characters were attracted to the wandering bands; in many

places their zeal had led to the merciless persecution of the Jews, and

there were not lacking symptoms of a significant antagonism to the

Church, manifesting itself in attacks upon ecclesiastics and clerical

property. The Church, in fact, looked askance upon a religious

manifestation not of her prescription, and her susceptibilities were not

soothed by the daily reading, amid the flagellation, of a letter brought

by an angel to the Church of St. Peter, in Jerusalem, relating that

God, incensed at the non-observance of Sundays and Fridays, had scourged

Christendom, and would have destroyed the world but for the intercession

of the angels and the Virgin. This was accompanied by a message that

general flagellation for thirty-three and a half days would cause him to

lay aside his wrath. There was danger, indeed, of open antagonism and

insubordination. The Mendicants, who endeavored to discourage this

independent popular penitence, incurred the bitterest hostility, which

had no scruple in finding expression. At Tournay the orator of the

Flagellants denounced them as scorpions and antichrists, and on the

borders of Misnia two Dominicans, who endeavored to reason with a band

of Flagellants, were set upon with stones; one had sufficient agility to

escape, but the other was lapidated to death.[428]

When in Basle about a hundred of the principal citizens organized

themselves into a confraternity, and made a flagellating pilgrimage to

Avignon, they excited great admiration among the citizens, and most of

the cardinals were disposed to think highly of the new penitential

discipline. Clement VI. penetrated deeper below the surface, and

recognized the danger to the Church of allowing irregular and

independent manifestations of zeal, and of permitting unauthorized

associations and congregations to form themselves. Moreover, what was to

become of the most serviceable and profitable function of the Holy See

in administering the treasures of salvation, if men could cleanse

themselves of sin by self-prescribed and self-inflicted penance? The

movement bore within it the germ of revolution, as threatening and as

dangerous as that of the Poor Men of Lyons, or of any of the sects which

had thus far been successfully combated, and self-preservation required

its prompt suppression at any cost. From the standpoint of worldly

wisdom this reasoning was unanswerable, but members of the Sacred

College were obstinate. They prevailed upon Clement not to execute his

first intention of casting the Flagellants into prison, and the

discussion on the policy to be pursued must have been protracted, for it

was not until October 20, 1349, that the papal bull of condemnation was

issued. This took the ground that it was a disregard of the power of the

keys and a contempt of Church discipline for these new and unauthorized

associations to wear distinctive garments, to form assemblies governed

by self-dictated statutes, and performing acts contrary to received

observances. Allusion was made to the cruelties exercised on the Jews,

and the invasion of ecclesiastical property and jurisdiction. All

prelates were ordered to suppress them forthwith; those who refused

obedience were to be imprisoned until further orders, and the aid of the

secular arm was to be called upon if necessary.[429]

Clement was correct in his anticipation of the effects of the new

discipline on the minds of the faithful. When the subject came up for

discussion at the Council of Constance, in 1417, and San Vicente Ferrer

was inclined to regard it with favor, his lofty reputation and his

services in procuring the abandonment of Peter of Luna (Benedict XIII.)

by Spain rendered it impossible not to treat him with respect, but

Gerson took him delicately to task and wrote a tract to show the evils

resulting from the practice. Experience, he said, had shown that the

members of the sect of Flagellants were led to look with contempt on

sacramental confession and the sacrament of penitence, for they exalted

their peculiar form of penance, not only over that prescribed by the

Church, but even over martyrdom, because they shed their own blood,

while the blood of martyrs was shed by others. This led directly to

insubordination and to destroying the reverence due to the Church, and

was the fruitful parent of heresy. From some of his allusions, indeed,

we may gather that it frequently caused collisions between the people

and the priesthood, in which the latter were apt to be roughly

handled.[430]

This shows how inefficient had been Clement's prohibition, and how

obstinately the practice had maintained itself until it had risen to

the rank of a new heresy. When his bull was received by the German

prelates they fully comprehended the dangers which it sought to avert,

and addressed themselves vigorously to its enforcement. The Flagellants

were denounced from the pulpit as an impious sect, condemned by the Holy

See. Those who would humbly return to the Church would be received to

mercy, while the obdurate would be made to experience the full rigor of

the canons. This thinned the ranks considerably, but there were enough

of persistent ones to furnish a new harvest of martyrs. Many were

executed, or exposed to various forms of torment, and not a few rotted

to death in the dungeons in which they were thrown. Even ecclesiastics

could not be prevented from adhering to the obnoxious sect. William of

Gennep, Archbishop of Cologne, in a provincial council excommunicated

all clerks who joined the Flagellants; yet this was so completely

disregarded that in his vernal synod of 1353 he was obliged to order all

deans and rectors of churches to assemble their chapters, read his

letters, and make provision for the public excommunication by name of

all the disobedient, to be followed within a fortnight by their

suspension. We shall see hereafter with what persistent obstinacy the

outbreak of flagellation recurred from time to time, and how it was

regarded as heresy, pure and simple, by the Church. Meanwhile, it is not

to be doubted that the Brethren of the Free Spirit took full advantage

of the excitement prevailing in men's minds, and of the upturning which

resulted, both spiritually and socially. When the bands of Flagellants

first made their appearance they were joined in many places, we are

told, by the heretics known as Lollards, Beghards, and Cellites.

Involved in common persecution, they grew to have common interests, and

they became too intimately associated together not to lend each other

mutual support.[431]

Thus far the faith had not gained the advantage which had naturally been

expected to follow the undisputed domination of the pious Charles IV. At

the end of 1352 Innocent VI. ascended the papal throne and promptly

repeated the attempt to introduce the papal Inquisition in Germany by

renewing, in July, 1353, the commission as inquisitor of Friar John

Schandeland, and writing earnestly to the German prelates to lend him

all assistance. The pestiferous madness of the Beghards, he said, was

blazing forth afresh, and efforts were requisite for its suppression. As

in their dioceses the Inquisition had no prisons of its own, they were

required to give it the free use of the episcopal jails. We are told in

general terms that Friar John was energetic and successful, but no

records remain to prove his activity or its results, and it is fair to

conclude that the bishops, as usual, gave him the cold shoulder. There

is no proof even that he was concerned in the condemnation of the

Beghard heresiarch Berthold von Rohrback, who in 1356 expiated his

heresy in the flames. Berthold had previously been caught in Würzburg,

and had recanted through dread of the stake. He ought to have been

imprisoned for life, but the German spiritual courts, as usual, were

unversed in the penalties for heresy, and he was allowed to go free,

when he secretly made his way to Speier. There he was successful in

propagating his doctrines until he was again arrested. As a relapsed

heretic, under the rules of the Inquisition, there was no mercy for him,

but the rules were imperfectly understood in Germany, and again he was

treated more leniently than the canons allowed, and was offered

reconciliation. This time his courage did not fail him. "My faith," he

said, "is the gift of God, and I neither ought nor wish to reject his

grace." That Innocent's attempt to introduce the Inquisition proved a

failure may be gathered from the action of William of Gennep, in his

vernal synod of Cologne in 1357. While deploring the increase of the

pernicious sect of Beghards, which threatens to infect his whole city

and diocese, he makes no allusion whatever to the papal Inquisition and

the canons. The measures of his predecessors are referred to, in

accordance with which all parish priests are directed to proceed against

the heretics, under threat of prosecution for remissness, and

excommunication is pronounced against those who aid the Beghards with

alms.[432]

Undeterred by ill-success the effort was renewed. From a MS. sentence of

June 6, 1366, printed by Mosheim, we learn that the Dominican, Henry de

Agro, was at that time commissioned as inquisitor of the province of

Mainz and the diocese of Bamberg and Basle, the latter of which belonged

to the province of Besançon. He was conducting an active inquisition in

the diocese of Strassburg, whose bishop, John of Luxembourg, had

gratified episcopal jealousy by not allowing him to perform his office

independently, but had adjoined to him his vicar, Tristram, who acted in

the matter not simply as representing the bishop in the sentence, but as

co-inquisitor. According to the rules of the Inquisition, the judgment

was rendered in an assembly of experts. The victim in this case was a

woman, Metza von Westhoven, a Beguine, who had been tried and who had

abjured in the persecution under Bishop John of Zurich, nearly half a

century before. As a relapsed heretic there was no pardon for her, and

she was duly relaxed.[433]

Thus far whatever hopes might have been based upon the zeal of Charles

IV. had not been realized. He seems to have taken no part in the efforts

of the papacy, and without the imperial exequatur the commissions issued

to inquisitors had but moderate chance of enjoying the respect and

obedience of the prelates. In 1367 Urban V. returned to the work by

commissioning two inquisitors for Germany, the Dominicans Louis of

Willenberg and Walter Kerlinger, with powers to appoint vicars. The

Beghards were the only heretics alluded to as the object of their

labors; prelates and magistrates were ordered to lend their efficient

assistance and to place all prisons at their disposal until the German

Inquisition should have such places of its own. This was the most

comprehensive measure as yet taken for the organization of the Holy

Office in Germany, and it proved the entering wedge, though at first

Charles IV. does not seem to have responded. The choice of inquisitors

was shrewd. Of Friar Louis we hear little, but Friar Walter (variously

named Kerling, Kerlinger, Krelinger, and Keslinger) was a man of

influence, a chaplain and favorite of the emperor, who had the temper of

a persecutor and the opportunity and ambition to magnify his office. In

1369 he became Dominican Provincial of Saxony, and continued to perform

the duplicate functions until his death, in 1373. He lost no time in

getting to work, for in 1368 we hear of a Beghard burned in Erfurt, and

to his unwearied exertions is generally attributed the temporary

suppression of the sect.[434]

Still there was at first no appearance of any hearty support from either

the spiritual or temporal potentates of Germany, and without this the

business of persecution could only languish. When, however, the emperor

made his Italian expedition, in 1368, the opportunity was utilized to

arouse him to a sense of his neglected duties. It was rare indeed for an

emperor to have the cordial support of the papacy, and we may reasonably

assume that Charles was made to see that through their union the

Inquisition might be rendered serviceable to both in breaking down the

independence of the great prince-bishops. Thus it happened that when

that institution was falling into desuetude in the lands of its birth,

it was for the first time regularly organized in Germany and given a

substantive existence. From Lucca, on June 9 and 10, 1369, the emperor

issued two edicts which excel all previous legislation in the unexampled

support accorded to inquisitors--the extravagance of their provisions

probably furnishing a measure of the opposition to be overcome. All

prelates, princes, and magistrates are ordered to expel and treat as

outlaws the sect of Beghards and Beguines, commonly known as _Wilge

Armen_ or _Conventschwestern_, who beg with the vainly prohibited

formula "_Brod durch Gott!_" At the command of Walter Kerlinger and

his vicars or other inquisitors, all who give alms to the proscribed

class shall be arrested and so punished as to serve as a terror to

others. With special significance the prelates are addressed and

commanded to use their powers for the extermination of heresy; in the

strongest language, and under threats of condign punishment to be

visited on them in person and on their temporalities, they are ordered

to obey with zeal the commands of Friar Kerlinger, his vicars, and all

other inquisitors as to the arrest and safekeeping of heretics; they are

to render all possible aid to the inquisitors, to receive and treat them

kindly and courteously, and furnish them with guards in their movements.

Moreover, all inquisitors are taken under the special imperial favor and

protection. All the powers, privileges, liberties, and immunities

granted to them by preceding emperors or by the rulers of any other

land are conferred upon them, and confirmed, notwithstanding any laws or

customs to the contrary. To enforce these privileges, two dukes (Saxony

and Brunswick), two counts (Schwartzenberg and Nassau), and two knights

(Hanstein and Witzeleyeven) are appointed conservators and guardians,

with instructions to act whenever complaint is made to them by the

inquisitors. They shall see that one third of the confiscations of

heretic Beghards and Beguines are handed over to the Inquisition, and

shall proceed directly and fearlessly, without appeal, against any one

impeding or molesting it in any manner, making examples of them, both in

person and property. Any contravention of the edict shall entail a mulct

of one hundred marks, one half payable to the fisc and one half to the

party injured. Besides this, any one impeding or molesting any of the

inquisitors or their agents, directly or indirectly, openly or secretly,

is declared punishable with confiscation of all property for the benefit

of the imperial treasury, and deprivation of all honors, dignities,

privileges, and immunities.[435]

These portentous edicts provided for the _personnel_ of the Inquisition

and the exercise of its powers, but to render it a permanent institution

there were still lacking houses in which it could hold its tribunals,

and prisons in which to keep its captives. The imperial resources were

not adequate to this, and nothing was to be expected from the piety of

princes and prelates. Somebody must be despoiled for its

benefit--somebody too defenceless to resist, yet possessed of property

sufficient to be tempting. These conditions were exactly filled by the

orthodox Beghards and Beguines, who, since their temporary persecution

after the publication of the Clementines, had continued to prosper and

to enjoy the donations of the pious. They were accordingly marked as the

victims, and, a week after the issue of the edicts just described,

another was published in which these poor creatures are described as

cultivating a sacrilegious poverty, which they assert to be the most

perfect form of life, and their communities, if left undisturbed, will

become seminaries of error. Moreover, the Inquisition has no house,

domicile, or strong tower for the detention of the accused and for the

perpetual incarceration of those who abjure, whereby many heretics

remain unpunished and the seed of evil is scattered. Therefore the

houses of the Beghards are given to the Inquisition to be converted into

prisons; those of the Beguines are ordered to be sold and the proceeds

divided into thirds, one part being assigned to repairing roads and the

walls of the towns, another to be given to inquisitors, to be expended

on pious uses, among which is included the maintenance of prisoners. But

three days' notice is given to the victims prior to expulsion from

their homes.[436]

If the Inquisition could have been permanently established in Germany

this unscrupulous measure would have accomplished the object. What

between the imperial favor and Kerlinger's energy it at last had a fair

start. The last edict alludes to two additional inquisitors whom

Kerlinger was authorized to appoint and to his successful labors, by

which the heretic Brethren of the Free Spirit had been completely

destroyed in the provinces of Magdeburg and Bremen, and in Thuringia,

Hesse, Saxony, and elsewhere. Probably this is exaggerated, but we learn

from other sources that Kerlinger was zealously active and that his

labors were rewarded with success. In Magdeburg and Erfurt he burned a

number of heretics and forced the rest to outward conformity or to

flight. We hear of him at Nordhausen in 1369, where he captured forty

Beghards; of these seven were obdurate and were burned, and the rest

abjured and accepted penance. This is probably a fair example of his

work, and we may believe Gregory XI. when, in 1372, he says that the

Inquisition had destroyed heresy and heretics in the central provinces

and driven them to the outlying districts of Brabant, Holland, Stettin,

Breslau, and Silesia, where they are gathered in such multitudes that

they hope to be able to maintain themselves; wherefore he earnestly

calls upon the prelates and nobles to bring the good work to an end by

efficiently supporting the Holy Office in its final labors. Apparently

Kerlinger had not been anxious to divide his authority by exercising his

power to appoint two additional colleagues, and Gregory now intervened

to relieve him of this duty and place the German Inquisition on a

permanent footing by assimilating its organization to that of the

institution elsewhere. He increased the number of Inquisitors to five

and placed their appointment and removal in the hands of the Dominican

master and provincial, or either of them. Kerlinger and Louis, however,

were to remain as two of the five, and no power, whether imperial or

episcopal, should have authority to interfere with the free exercise of

their functions.[437]

A further extension of the power of the Inquisition granted by Charles

IV. was of no great importance at the time, but has the highest interest

to us as the first indication of what was to come. A leading feature of

the Beghard propaganda was the circulation among the laity of written

tracts and devotional works. Composed in the vernacular, they reached a

class which was not wholly illiterate and yet was unable to profit by

the orthodox works of which Latin was the customary vehicle. For the

suppression of this effective method of missionary work the Inquisition

was intrusted with a censorship of literature, to which further

reference will be made hereafter. Less interesting to us, but probably

more important at the time, was the permission granted to the

inquisitors to appoint notaries. It will be remembered how jealously

these appointments were guarded, and this concession was evidently

looked upon as a special favor. The inquisitors apparently had been

trammelled by the lack of notaries, and they were now authorized to

appoint one in each diocese, and to replace him when removed by death or

disability.[438]

As regards the seizure of the Beguinages, it was ruthlessly carried out

by Kerlinger. Those of Mühlhausen had been very flourishing, and on

February 16, 1370, four of them were delivered by him to the magistrates

to be converted to public uses--probably the city's share of the

plunder. It would seem, however, that obstacles were thrown in his way.

The jealousy of the bishops was not likely to look with favor upon this

permanent establishment of the Inquisition in their dioceses, with

prisons and landed property that would render it independent. Mosheim

judiciously suggests that as these houses were benevolent gifts for

pious uses the bishops could assert them to be under their jurisdiction

and not subject to an imperial edict; nobles and citizens, moreover, had

been trained to regard their inoffensive inmates with favor, and were

not eager to share in the spoils. Whatever may have been their motives,

Kerlinger could not have found the way open to the general confiscation

that he desired. In 1371 he was obliged to petition Gregory XI.,

reciting the existence of heretics called Beghards and Beguines, and the

imperial edict confiscating their conventicles, the confirmation of

which he desired. There was nothing to lead Gregory to suppose that

there was in this anything but the well-understood confiscation of

heretical property, and he willingly gave the desired confirmation.[439]

Thus, after a desultory struggle lasting for nearly a century and a

half, the Inquisition finally established itself in Germany as an

organized body. For a while, at least, the office of inquisitor was kept

regularly filled as vacancies occurred. When Kerlinger died, in 1373,

his successor in the Provincialate of Saxony, Hermann Hetstede, is

qualified as being an inquisitor, and the same title is given to Henry

Albert, who followed Hetstede in 1376. The Holy Office seems to have

been almost exclusively in Dominican hands, and we rarely hear of its

functions as performed by Franciscans. The good work proceeded apace. In

1372 Kerlinger had a heretic of higher rank than usual to deal with in

the person of Albert, Bishop of Halberstadt, who publicly taught

fatalistic doctrines--possibly some form of predestination such as

Wickliff was commencing to formulate. This resulted in a great decrease

in pious works, for it struck at the root of the invocation of saints,

masses for the dead, and liberality to the clergy, and the consequences

threatened to be so serious that Gregory XI. ordered Kerlinger, together

with Hervord, Provost of Erfurt, and an Augustinian named Rodolph, to

force the bishop to an abjuration, and in case of disobedience to

transmit him to the papal court for judgment. In the same year Gregory

recounts with much satisfaction the success of the inquisitors in

driving the Beghards out of central and northern Germany; he stimulated

the emperor to support their labors with fresh zeal, and sent

encyclicals to the princes, prelates, and magistrates, commanding them

to use every effort to render the work complete, by exterminating the

heretics in the regions where they had taken refuge. Early in the next

year he commissioned the Dominican, John of Boland, an imperial

chaplain, as inquisitor in the dioceses of Trèves, Cologne, and Liège,

the Beghards and Beguines being the objects specially indicated; and

Charles hastened to invest him with all the powers specified in his

letters of 1369, ordering the Dukes of Luxembourg, Limburg, Brabant, and

Juliers, the Princes of Mons and Cleves, and the Counts of La Marck,

Kirchberg, and Spanheim to serve as conservators and guardians of the

edict.[440]

Although the Brethren of the Free Spirit were the chief objects of all

this inquisitorial activity, the Flagellants were not neglected. In 1361

a demonstration of these enthusiasts in far-off Naples awakened the

solicitude of Innocent VI. In 1369 we hear of an outbreak of women

coming from Hungary, which was summarily suppressed in Saxony. In 1372

Flagellants reappeared in various parts of Germany, asserting the

peculiar efficacy of their penance as replacing the sacraments of the

Church, so that Gregory XI. felt it necessary to direct the inquisitors

to exterminate them. In 1373 and 1374 this irrepressible tendency took a

new shape, known as the Dancing Mania, which broke out at the

consecration of a church in Aix-la-Chapelle. Bands of both sexes, mostly

consisting of poor and simple folk, poured into Flanders from the

Rhinelands, dancing and singing as though possessed by the Furies. Under

intense spiritual excitement the performer would leap and dance until he

fell to earth with convulsions, when his comrades would revive him by

jumping upon him, or a cloth which he wore, tied around the belly, would

be tightly twisted with a stick. This was generally looked upon as a

kind of demoniacal possession until a multitude of these dancers

assembled at Herestal and consulted together as to the best plan for

slaying all the priests, canons, and clergy of Liège, when the madness

was recognized as no longer harmless. Still it spread over a large

portion of Germany and lasted for several years. Though not in itself a

heresy, it led in some places to heretical opinions on the sacraments,

for it was popularly explained by attributing it to defective baptism,

caused by the universal practice among priests of keeping

concubines.[441]

Scarce had the Inquisition been fairly organized and had settled to its

work, when its arbitrary proceedings awakened active opposition. As the

heretic Beghards and Beguines were the principal objects of its

activity, and the orthodox ones of its cupidity, the sufferings of the

latter speedily awoke compassion which found expression in terms so

decided that Gregory XI. could not refuse to listen. Accordingly, in

April, 1374, he wrote to the Archbishops of Mainz, Trèves, and Cologne,

reciting these complaints and ordering a report about the life and

conversation of the persons concerned, who should be protected and

cherished if innocent, and be punished if guilty. At least from Cologne

and Worms, probably from the other prelates, came answers that the

persecuted communities were composed of faithful Catholics. In Cologne

the magistrates intervened and complained energetically to the pope that

a Dominican inquisitor was vexing the poor folk, and they asked that his

proceedings be stopped. The victims, they said, were people of little

culture, who were interrogated with questions so difficult that the most

skilful theologians could scarce answer them, while their edifying lives

had led the clergy to protect them against the threats of the

Inquisition. Proceedings were thus checked, but still the peculiar

garments which the devotees had always worn furnished an excuse for

continued persecution, and another appeal was made to Gregory, to which

he responded in December, 1377, by ordering the prelates not to permit

their molestation on this account so long as they were good Catholics

and obedient to the ecclesiastical authorities. The German bishops were

thus fully armed with papal authority to restrict the operations of the

inquisitors, and those who, like Bishop Lambert of Strassburg, were

themselves disposed to persecution, did not dare to proceed further. The

regular communities of Beghards and Beguines were assured of toleration,

and if the heretical Brethren of the Free Spirit managed to share in

this immunity, it probably did not give the prelates much concern.[442]

All this was discouraging to the zeal of inquisitors whose institution

had hardly yet taken root in the land, but worse was still to follow. In

1378 died both Gregory XI. and Charles IV. The election of Urban VI.

gave rise to the Great Schism, and Wenceslas, the son and successor of

Charles, was notoriously indifferent to the interest of religion as

represented by the Church. Thus deprived of its two indispensable

supporters, the Inquisition could not make head against episcopal

jealousy. In 1381 there could have been no inquisitors in the extensive

dioceses of Ratisbon, Bamberg, and Misnia, for we find the Archbishop of

Prague as papal legate ordering the bishops to appoint them, and

threatening to do so himself in case of disobedience. Still the

Inquisition did not entirely pretermit its labors. In 1392 we hear of a

papal inquisitor named Martin who travelled through Suabia to Würzburg,

finding in the latter place a number of peasants and simple folk

belonging to the sect of Flagellants and Beghards. They had not in them

the stuff of martyrs, and accepted the penance imposed upon them of

joining in a crusade then preaching against the Turks--the first time

for nearly a century that we meet with this penalty. Then Martin went to

Erfurt--always a heretical centre--where he came upon numerous heretics

of the same kind. Some of these were obstinate and were duly burned,

others accepted penance, and the rest sought safety in flight. The

following year there was burned at Cologne, by the papal inquisitor,

Albert, a leading Beghard known as Martin of Mainz, a former Benedictine

monk and a disciple of the celebrated Nicholas of Basle; and in his

trial there are allusions to others of the sect executed not long before

at Heidelberg.[443]

About this period, after a long interval, we again become cognizant of

the existence of Waldenses. The Beghards had succeeded in concentrating

upon themselves the attention of the papal and episcopal inquisitions,

and the followers of Peter Waldo had remained unnoticed, doubtless owing

their safety to outward conformity, though by absenting themselves from

their parishes about the Easter tide they sometimes managed to escape

taking communion for five or six years in succession. Thus laboring

quietly and peacefully, preaching by night in cellars, mills, stables,

and other retired places, they gained numerous converts among the

peasants and artisans, who saw in the sanctity of their lives, as sadly

admitted by the so-called Peter of Pilichdorf, the strongest contrast

with the scandalous license of the clergy.[444] Thus they multiplied

in secret until all Germany was full of them, including the

closely-related sect of Winkelers. About 1390 they were discovered in

Mainz, where for a hundred years they had lurked undisturbed. The

Archbishop, Conrad II., kept the matter in his own hands. In 1392 he

issued a commission, as episcopal inquisitors, to Frederic, Bishop of

Toul, Nicholas of Saulheim, the Dean of St. Stephen, and John Wasmod, of

Homburg, a priest of the cathedral, to whom the papal inquisitor could

adjoin himself if he so chose. These inquisitors were armed with full

authority to arrest, try, torture, sentence, and abandon to the secular

arm all heretics, and were instructed to proceed in accordance with the

practice of the Inquisition. They zealously discharged their duty. A

number of Waldenses were already in the episcopal prison, and they made

diligent perquisition after the rest. By free use of torture they

obtained the necessary avowals and evidence. Those who were obstinate

were handed over to the secular arm, and an _auto de fé_ celebrated at

Bingen in 1392, where six-and-thirty wretches were burned, proved that

the papal Inquisition itself could not have been more effective. A

little tract on the examination of Waldenses, evidently written on this

occasion, shows that the inquisitorial process was fairly well

understood, and that the episcopal officials had not much to learn from

their rivals.[445]

When attention was once attracted to this secret heresy, it was not long

before Waldenses were discovered everywhere. In a short list of them,

dated 1391, Poland, Hungary, Bavaria, Suabia, and Saxony are

represented. The author of the tract which passes under the name of

Peter of Pilichdorf, who took an energetic part both with the pen and in

action in suppressing this suddenly discovered heresy, informs us, in

1395, that the Netherlands, Westphalia, Prussia, and Poland were not

infected with it, while Thuringia, Misnia, Bohemia, Moravia, Austria,

and Hungary numbered their heretics by thousands. Curiously enough, in

this list he omits Pomerania, where, along the Baltic regions, the

Waldenses were thickly scattered from Stettin to Königsberg. The heresy

had been deeply rooted there for at least a century, and the local

priesthood seem to have borne no ill-will to the harmless sectaries, who

conformed outwardly to the orthodox observances. Even when in confession

intimations of the heresy escaped, as sometimes happened, they were

wisely and mercifully overlooked. Yet there is evidence of previous

persecution in the confession of Sophia Myndekin, of Fleit, who said

that she had been fifty years in the sect, that her husband had been

burned at Angermünde, and that she had only escaped on account of

pregnancy, while all their little property was confiscated. They were

poor folk, mostly peasants and laborers, and though there are occasional

allusions in the trials to men of gentle blood, the tenets of the sect

excluded all who owed feudal military service, war and bloodshed being

strictly forbidden. They were visited yearly by their ministers, some of

whom were mechanics, and others learned men skilled in Holy Writ,

probably from Bohemia, who preached, heard confessions, and granted

absolution, the utmost secrecy being observed in these ministrations.

Moreover, collections were made and remitted to the headquarters of the

sect, showing that they formed part of the great Waldensian

organization.[446]

They had long been unmolested when one of their ministers, known as

Brother Klaus, who had visited them in 1391 and had heard many

confessions, apparently became frightened at the movement against them.

He apostatized, and seems to have betrayed the names of his penitents.

The Church made haste to secure the fruits of his repentance. Brother

Peter, Provincial of the Celestinian Order, was appointed papal

inquisitor, and early in 1393 he came to Stettin armed with full powers

from the Archbishop of Prague and the Bishops of Lebus and Camin to

represent them. He issued citations, both general ones from the pulpits

of the infected region, and special summonses to individuals. This

naturally caused great excitement, and some of the suspects fled; in

Klein-Wurbiser, indeed, there was a faint demonstration made against the

inquisitorial apparitors, but there was no resistance, and the great

majority submitted to the inevitable. Friar Peter, as customary, was

lenient with those who spontaneously confessed and abjured; all took the

oaths, including that of persecuting heresy and heretics, with only an

occasional manifestation of hesitancy. Torture seems to have been

unnecessary; there was no exhibition of obstinacy, and no burnings. They

were condemned to wear crosses and perform other penance, and when, as

was usually the case, their parents had died in the sect, they were

required to indicate the place of burial, presumably for exhumation.

From January, 1393, until February, 1394, Friar Peter was engaged in

this work. One of his registers, comprising four hundred and forty-three

cases, was in the hands of Flacius Illyricus, fragments of which have

recently been discovered and described by Herr Wattenbach.[447]

From Pomerania, Friar Peter hastened to the south, where he found

Waldenses as numerous, and less inclined to submission. He has left a

brief memorial of his labors, written in 1395, in which he expresses his

fears that the heresy would become dominant, as the Waldenses were

resorting to force, and were employing arson and homicide to intimidate

the orthodox. His only evidence of this, however, is that on September

8, those of Steyer, to punish the parish priest for receiving the

inquisitors in his house, burned his barn, and affixed to the town

gates, by night, a warning in the shape of a half-burned brand and a

bloody knife. This offence was cruelly avenged, for in 1397, at Steyer,

more than a hundred Waldenses of either sex were burned. In this

relentless persecution the case of a child of ten condemned to wear

crosses shows how unsparing were the tribunals, while others in which

the culprits were burned for relapse, having already abjured before the

inquisitor, Henry of Olmütz, indicate that this was not the first effort

made to exterminate the heresy. How extended it was, and how vigorous

its repression, may be gathered from the pseudo Peter of Pilichdorf, who

tells us that from Thuringia to Moravia a thousand converts were made in

two years, and that the inquisitors who were busy in Austria and Hungary

expected soon to have a thousand more.[448]

About the year 1400, in Strassburg, there was active persecution against

a sect known as Winkelers, who were discovered to have four assemblies

in the city, and others in Mainz and Hagenau. In their confessions they

alluded to their comrades in many other places, such as Nordlingen,

Ratisbon, Augsburg, Tischengen, Soleure, Berne, Weissenberg, Speier,

Holzhausen, Schwäbisch-Wörth, Friedberg, and Vienna. Although, strictly

speaking, not Waldenses, they had so many traits in common that the

distinction is rather one of organization than of faith. In 1374 one of

their number returned to the Church, and the fear of his betraying the

little community led to his deliberate murder, the assassins being paid,

and undergoing penance to obtain absolution. Some years later the

inquisitor, John Arnoldi, was threatened with similar vengeance and left

the city. In the final persecution some thirty families were put on

trial, while many succeeded in remaining concealed. There was but one

noble among them, Blumstein, who abjured, and who, some twenty years

later, is found filling important civic posts. Though reference is made

in one of the trials to members of the sect who had been burned at

Ratisbon, those of Strassburg were more fortunate. The inquisitor,

Böckeln, is said to have received bribes for assigning private penance

to some of the guilty; and though the Dominicans demanded the burning of

the heretics, the magistrates interceded with the episcopal official,

and banishment was the severest penalty inflicted. Torture, however, had

been freely used in obtaining confessions. After this, nothing more is

heard in Strassburg of either Winkelers or Waldenses until the burning

of Frederic Reiser in 1458.[449]

There evidently was ample work for the Inquisition in Germany, but it

seems to have been more anxious to repair its defeat in the contest with

the Beghards than to operate against the Waldenses. In the general

excitement on the subject of heresy it was not difficult to render the

Beghards objects of renewed suspicion and persecution. To some extent

the bishops and most of the inquisitors joined in this, but the suspects

had friends among the prelates, who wrote, towards the close of 1393, to

Boniface IX., eulogizing their piety, obedience, and good works, and

asking protection for them. To this Boniface responded, January 7, 1394,

in a brief addressed to the German prelates, ordering them to

investigate whether these persons are contaminated with the errors

condemned by Clement V. and John XXII., and whether they follow any

reproved religious Order; if not, they are to be efficiently protected.

An exemplified copy of this brief, given by the Archbishop of Magdeburg,

October 20, 1396, shows that it continued to be used and was relied upon

in the troubles which followed, soon after, through a sudden change of

policy by Boniface. The Inquisition did not remain passive under this

interference with its operations. It represented to Boniface that for a

hundred years heresies had lurked under the outward fair-seeming of the

Beghards and Beguines, in consequence of which, almost every year,

obstinate heretics had been burned in the different cities of the

empire, and that their suppression was impeded by certain papal

constitutions which were urged in their protection. Boniface was easily

moved to reversing his recent action, and by a bull of January 31, 1395,

he restored to vigor the decrees of Urban V., Gregory XI., and Charles

IV., under which he ordered the Inquisition to prosecute earnestly the

Beghards, Lollards, and _Zwestriones_. This gave full power to molest

the orthodox associations as well as the heretic Brethren of the Free

Spirit, and a severe storm of persecution burst over them. Even some of

the bishops joined in this, as appears from a synod held in Magdeburg

about this time, which ordered the priests to excommunicate and expel

them. Yet this again aroused their friends, and Boniface was induced to

reissue his bull with an addition which, like the contradictory

provisions of the Clementines, shows the perplexity caused by the

admixture of orthodoxy and heresy among the Beguines. After repeating

his commands for their suppression, he adds that there are pious

organizations known as Beghards, Lollards, and _Zwestriones_, which

shall be permitted to wear their vestments, to beg, and to continue

their mode of life, excommunication being threatened against any

inquisitor who shall molest them, unless they have been convicted by the

ordinaries of the diocese.[450]

This left the matter very much to the discretion of the local

authorities, but the spirit of persecution was fairly revived, and the

Inquisition made haste to fortify its position. Under pretext that the

bulls of Gregory XI. were becoming worn by age and use, it procured

their renewal from Boniface IX., in 1395, though the pope is careful to

express that he grants no new privileges. In 1399 it succeeded in having

the number of inquisitors increased to six for the Dominican province of

Saxony alone, on the plea that its wide extent and populous cities

rendered the existing force insufficient. This was not without reason,

for the province embraced the great archiepiscopal districts of Mainz,

Cologne, Magdeburg, and Bremen, to which were added Rügen and Camin.

Camin belonged to the province of Gnesen, and Rügen formed part of the

diocese of Roskild, which was suffragan to the metropolitan of Lünden in

Sweden, thus furnishing the only instance of inquisitorial jurisdiction

in any region that can be called Scandinavian, save a barren attempt

made, in 1421, under the stimulus of the Hussite troubles. A few weeks

later Boniface issued another bull, ordering the prelates and secular

rulers of Germany to give all aid and protection to Friar Eylard

Schöneveld and other inquisitors, and especially to lend the use of

their prisons, as the Inquisition in those parts is said to have none of

its own, which shows that Kerlinger's scheme of obtaining them from the

property of the Beghards had not proved a success. Eylard set vigorously

to work in the lands adjoining the Baltic, which from their remoteness

had probably escaped his predecessors. At Lubec, in 1402, he procured

the arrest of a Dolcinist named Wilhelm by the municipal officials,

showing that he had no familiars of his own; the accused was examined

several times in the presence of numerous clerks, monks, and laymen,

showing that the secrecy of the inquisitorial process was unknown or

unobserved, and he was finally burned. He had a comrade named Bernhard,

who fled to Wismar, whither Schöneveld followed him and had him burned

in 1403. The same year he seized a priest at Stralsund, who rejected all

solicitations to abjure, and was burned as a persistent heretic; and at

Rostock he condemned for heresy a woman who drove away with the

bitterest reproaches her son, a Cistercian monk, when he urged her to

recant, and who likewise perished in the flames.[451]

About this period heresy appears to have had also to contend with a

reaction on the part of the secular authorities. When, in 1400, the

Flagellants made a demonstration in the Low Countries, the magistrates

of Maestricht expelled them, and when the people took their side the

energetic interference of the Bishop of Liège put an end to the

insubordination; besides, the Sire de Perweis threw a band of

Flagellants into his dungeons and Tongres closed its gates upon them, so

that the epidemic was checked. With the year 1400 the comparative peace

which the Beguines had enjoyed for some fifteen years came to an end.

Their most dreaded enemy was the Dominican, John of Mühlberg, whose

purity of life and energy in battling with the moral and spiritual

errors of his time won him a wide reputation throughout Germany, so that

when he died in exile, driven from Basle by the clergy whom his attacks

had embittered, he was long regarded by the people as a saint and a

martyr. About 1400 he stirred up in Basle a struggle with the Beguines,

which for ten years kept the city in an uproar. Primarily an episode in

the hostility between the Dominicans and Franciscans, it extended to the

clergy and magistrates, and finally to the citizens at large. In 1405

the Beguines were expelled, but the Franciscans obtained from the papacy

bulls ordering their restoration, and the retraction of all that had

been said against them. At last, in 1411, Bishop Humbert and the town

council, excited by a fiery sermon of John Pastoris, abolished the

associations, which were forced to abandon their living in common and

their vestments, or to leave the place. The city of Berne followed this

example, and the magistrates of Strassburg took the same course, when

some of the Beguines adopted the former alternative and some the

latter. Many of these took refuge secretly at Mainz. They were

discovered, and the archbishop, John II., holding them to be heretics,

ordered them to be prosecuted. The matter was intrusted to Master Henry

von Stein, who set vigorously about it. The refugees from Strassburg,

mostly women, were thrown into prison; we also hear of a nun who was

likewise incarcerated, and of a youth from Rotenburg, who was mounted on

a hogshead in the public square, and in the presence of the populace was

obliged to accept the penance of crosses, in an _auto de fé_ much less

impressive than those which Bernard Gui was wont to celebrate.[452]

It was not long before this that the Brethren of the Free Spirit were

deprived of their greatest leader, Nicholas of Basle. As a wandering

missionary he had for many years been engaged in propagating the

doctrines of the sect, and had gained many proselytes. The Inquisition

had been eagerly on his track, but he was shrewd and crafty, and had

eluded its pursuit. Forced, probably about 1397, to fly to Vienna with

two of his disciples, John and James, they were discovered and seized.

The celebrated Henry of Hesse (Langenstein) undertook their conversion,

and flattered himself that he had succeeded, but they all relapsed and

were burned. As Peter, the Celestinian abbot, was at this time

Inquisitor of Passau, he probably had the satisfaction of ridding the

Church of this dangerous heresiarch, whose belief in his own divine

inspiration was such that he considered his will to be equal to that of

God.

Not long after a similar martyrdom occurred at Constance, where a

Beghard, named Burgin, had founded a sect of extreme austerity. Captured

with his disciples by the bishop, he would not abandon his doctrines,

and was duly relaxed. Gerson's numerous allusions to the Turelupins and

Beghards show that at this period the sect was attracting much attention

and was regarded as seductively dangerous. With all his tendency to

mysticism, Gerson could recognize the peril incurred by those whom he

describes as deceived through too great a desire to reach the sweetness

of God, and who mistake the delirium of their own hearts for divine

promptings: thus disregarding the law of Christ, they follow their own

inclinations without submitting to rule, and are precipitated into guilt

by their own presumption. He was especially averse to the spiritual

intimacy between the sexes, where devotion screened the precipice on the

brink of which they stood. Mary of Valenciennes, he says, was especially

to be avoided on this account, for she applied what is set forth about

the divine fruition to the passions seething in her own soul, and she

argues that he who reaches the perfection of divine love is released

from the observance of all precepts. Thus the Brethren of the Free

Spirit were practically the same in the fifteenth century as in the

times of Ortlieb and Amauri.[453]

Giles Cantor, who founded in Brussels the sect which styled itself Men

of Intelligence, was probably a disciple of Mary of Valenciennes, and

the name was adopted merely to cover its affiliation with the proscribed

Brethren of the Free Spirit. Its doctrines were substantially the same

in their mystic pantheism and illuminism; and their practical

application is seen in the story that on one occasion Giles was moved by

the spirit to go naked for some miles when carrying provision to a poor

person. So open a manifestation would have insured his prosecution had

there been any machinery for persecution in efficient condition in

Brabant; but he was allowed to propagate his doctrines in peace until he

died. He was succeeded in the leadership of the sect by a Carmelite

known as William of Hilderniss, and at length it attracted, in 1411, the

attention of Cardinal Peter d'Ailly, Bishop of Cambrai. Fortunately for

William, the bishop chose to direct the proceedings himself, and they

show complete disregard of inquisitorial methods. He appointed special

commissioners, who made an inquisition; both the names and the testimony

of the witnesses were submitted to William, who made what defence he

could. In rendering judgment d'Ailly called in the Dominican Prior of

St. Quentin, who was inquisitor of the district of Cambrai, and the

sentence was as irregular as the proceedings. William had no desire for

martyrdom, and abjured the heresy; he was required to purge himself with

six compurgators, after which he was to undergo the penance of three

years' confinement in a castle of the bishop's, while if he failed in

his purgation he was to be imprisoned in a convent of his order during

the archbishop's pleasure--a most curious and illogical medley. He

succeeded in finding the requisite number of compurgators, but though he

disappeared from the scene his sect was by no means extinguished, and we

hear of the persecution of a heresiarch as late as 1428.[454]

That Clement VI. did not err when he foresaw the dangerous errors

lurking under the devotion of the Flagellants was demonstrated in 1414.

The sect still existed, and its crude theories as to the efficacy of

flagellation had gradually been developed into an antisacerdotal heresy

of the most uncompromising character. A certain Conrad Schmidt was the

constructive heresiarch who gave to its belief an organized

completeness, and his death made no diminution of the zeal of his

disciples, nor did the failure of his prophecy of the end of the world

in 1309. The curious connection between the Flagellants and the Beghards

is indicated by the fact that these Flagellant Brethren, or Brethren of

the Cross, as they styled themselves, regarded Conrad as the incarnation

of Enoch, and a certain Beghard, who had been burned at Erfurt about

1364, as Elias--an angel having brought their souls from heaven and

infused them into Schmidt and this Beghard while yet in the womb.

Schmidt was to preside at the approaching Day of Judgment, which was

constantly believed to be at hand, Antichrist being the pope and the

priests, whose reign was drawing to an end.

When, in 1343, the letter commanding flagellation, to which I have

already alluded, was brought by an angel and laid on the altar of St.

Peter, God withdrew all spiritual power from the Church and bestowed it

on the Brethren of the Cross. Since then all sacraments had lost their

virtue, and to partake of them was mortal sin. Baptism had been replaced

by that of the blood drawn by the scourge; the sacrament of matrimony

only defiled marriage; the Eucharist was but a device by which the

priests sold a morsel of bread for a penny--if they believed it to be

the body of Christ they were worse than Judas, who got thirty pieces of

silver for it; flagellation replaced them all. Oaths were a mortal sin,

but to avoid betraying the sect the faithful could take them and receive

the sacraments, and then expiate it by flagellation. The growth of such

a belief and the mingled contempt and hatred manifested for the clergy

prove that to the people the Church was as much a stranger and an

oppressor as it had been in the twelfth century. It had learned nothing,

and was as far from Christ as ever.

Conrad Schmidt had promulgated his errors in Thuringia, where his

sectaries were discovered, in 1414, at Sangerhausen. Thither sped the

inquisitor Schöneveld--called Henry by the chroniclers, but probably the

same as the Eylard, whom we have seen at work some years before on the

shores of the Baltic. The princes of Thuringia and Misnia were ordered

to assist him, and they were eager to share in the suppression of a

heresy which threatened to revolutionize the social order. The

proceedings must have been more energetic than regular. Torture must

have been freely used to gather into the net so many victims; nor can a

patient hearing have been given to the accused. Their shrift was short,

and before Schöneveld had left the scene of action he had caused the

burning of ninety-one at Sangerhausen, forty-four in the neighboring

town of Winkel, and many more in other villages. Yet such was the

persistence of the heresy that even this wholesale slaughter did not

suffice for its suppression. Two years later, in 1416, its remains were

discovered, and again Schöneveld was sent for. He examined the accused.

To those who abjured he assigned penances, and handed over the obstinate

to the secular arm. His assizes must have been hurried, for he did not

stay to witness the execution of those whom he had condemned, and after

his departure the princes gathered all together, both penitents and

impenitents, some three hundred in number, and burned the whole of them

in one day. This terrible example produced the profound impression that

was desired, and hereafter the sect of Flagellants may be regarded as

unimportant. Some discussion, as we have seen, took place the next year

at the Council of Constance, when San Vicente Ferrer expressed his

approbation of this form of discipline, and Gerson mildly urged its

dangers; but when, in 1434, a certain Bishop Andreas specified, among

the objects of the Council of Basle, the suppression of the heresies of

the Hussites, Waldenses, Fraticelli, Wickliffites, the Manichæans of

Bosnia, the Beghards, and the schismatic Greeks, there is no allusion in

the enumeration to Flagellants. Yet the causes which had given rise to

the heresy continued in full force and it was still cherished in secret.

In 1453 and 1454 Brethren of the Cross were again discovered in

Thuringia, and the Inquisition was speedily at work to reclaim them.

Besides the errors propagated by Conrad Schmidt, it was not difficult to

extort from the accused the customary confessions of foul sexual

excesses committed in dark subterranean conventicles, and even of

Luciferan doctrines, teaching that in time Satan would regain his place

in heaven and expel Christ; though when we hear that they alleged the

evil lives of the clergy as the cause of their misbelief we may

reasonably doubt the accuracy of these reports. Aschersleben,

Sondershausen, and Sangerhausen were the centres of the sect, and at the

latter place, in 1454, twenty-two men and women were burned as

obstinate heretics. In 1481 a few were punished in Anhalt, and the sect

gradually disappeared.[455]

* * * * *

The case of the Beghards and Beguines came before the Council of

Constance in several shapes. To guard themselves from the incessant

molestations to which they were exposed they had, to a large extent,

affiliated themselves, nominally at least, as Tertiaries, to the

Mendicant Orders, chiefly to the Franciscan, whose scapular they

adopted. In a project of reform, carefully prepared for action by the

council, this is strongly denounced; they are said to live in forests

and in cities, free from subjection, indulging in indecent habits, not

without suspicion of heresy, and though able of body and fit to earn

their livelihood by labor, they subsist on alms, to the prejudice of the

poor and miserable. It was therefore proposed to forbid the wearing of

the scapular by all who were not bound by vows to the Orders and

subjected to the Rules. It was also pronounced necessary to make

frequent visitations of their communities on account of the

peculiarities of their life, and magistrates and nobles were to be

ordered not to interfere with such wholesome supervision under pain of

interdict. It was possibly to meet this attack that numerous testimonial

letters from the clergy and magistrates of Germany certifying to the

orthodoxy, piety, and usefulness of the associations were sent to Martin

V., who submitted them to Angelo, Cardinal of SS. Peter and Marcellus,

and received from him a favorable report. Towards the close of the

council, in 1418, a more formidable assault was made upon them by

Matthew Grabon, a Dominican of Wismar, who laid before Martin V.

twenty-four articles to prove that all such associations outside of the

approved religious orders ought to be abolished. To accomplish this,

after the approved style of scholastic logic, he was obliged to assert

such absurd general principles as that it was equivalent to suicide, and

therefore a mortal sin, for any secular person to give away his property

in charity, and that the pope had no power to grant a dispensation in

such cases. Grabon's propositions and conclusions were referred to

Antonio, Cardinal of Verona, who submitted them to Cardinal Peter

d'Ailly and Chancellor Gerson. The former reported that the paper was

heretical and should be burned, while the jurists should be called upon

to decide what ought to be done to its writer. The latter, that the

doctrine was pestiferous and blasphemous, and that its author, if

obstinate, should be arrested. Grabon was glad to escape by publicly

abjuring some of his articles as heretical, others as erroneous, and

others as scandalous and offensive to pious ears. The triumph of the

Beguines was decisive, and they might at last hope for a respite from

persecution. The associations increased and flourished accordingly, and

under their shelter the Brethren of the Free Spirit continued to

propagate their heresy.[456]

From this time forward the attention of the Church was mainly directed

to Hussitism, the most formidable enemy that it had encountered since

the Catharism of the twelfth century. This will be considered in a

following chapter, and meanwhile I need only say that its secret but

threatening progress throughout Germany called for active means of

repression and led to more thorough organization of the Inquisition. The

bull of Martin V., issued February 22, 1418, against Wickliffites and

Hussites, is addressed not only to prelates but to inquisitors

commissioned in the dioceses and cities of Salzburg, Prague, Gnesen,

Olmütz, Litomysl, Bamberg, Misnia, Passau, Breslau, Ratisbon, Cracow,

Posen, and Neutra. While of course this is not to be taken literally, as

though there were an organized tribunal of the Holy Office in each of

these places, still it indicates that in the districts infected or

exposed to infection the Church was arming itself with its most

effective weapons. The growing danger, moreover, was leading the bishops

to abandon somewhat their traditional jealousy. In this same year, 1418,

the council of the great province of Salzburg not only urged the bishops

to extirpate heresy and to enforce the canons against the secular powers

neglecting their duty in this respect, but commanded all princes and

potentates to seize and imprison all who were designated as suspect of

heresy by the prelates and the inquisitors. Thus at last the episcopate

recognized the Inquisition and came to its support.[457]

Yet the attention of the persecutors was not so exclusively directed to

the Hussites as to allow the Brethren of the Free Spirit to escape, and

in their zeal they continued to molest the orthodox Beguines in spite of

the action of Martin V. at Constance. In 1431 Eugenius IV. found himself

obliged to intervene for their protection. In a bull, addressed to the

German prelates, he recites the favorable action of his predecessors and

the troubles to which, in spite of this, they were exposed by the

inquisitors. Those who wander around without fixed habitations he orders

to be compelled to dwell in the houses of the confraternity, and those

who reside quietly and piously are to be efficiently protected. This

bull affords perhaps the only instance in which the episcopal power is

rendered superior to the Inquisition, for the bishops are authorized to

enforce its provisions by the censures of the Church, without appeal,

even if those who interfere with the Beguines enjoy special immunities,

thus subjecting the inquisitors to excommunication by the prelates. This

stretch of papal power exasperated Doctor Felix Hemmerlin, Cantor of

Zurich, who detested the Beguines. He wrote several bitter tracts

against them, and explained the favor shown them by Eugenius by

irreverently stating that the pope had himself been once a Beghard at

Padua. In one of his numerous assaults upon them, written probably about

1436, he alludes to several recent cases within a limited region, which

would indicate that in spite of the papal protection of the Beguines,

the Brethren of the Free Spirit were actively persecuted, and that, if

the statistics of the whole empire could be procured, the number of

victims would be found not small. Thus in Zurich a certain Burchard and

his disciples were tried and penanced with crosses; but they were

subsequently found to be relapsed and were all burned. At Uri, Charles

and his followers were similarly burned. At Constance Henry de Tierra

was forced to abjure. At Ulm, John and a numerous company were subjected

to public penance. In Würtemberg there was a great heresiarch punished,

whose conviction was only secured after infinite pains. Then from

Bohemia there come Beghards every year who seduce a countless number to

heresy in Berne and Soleure. This leads one to think that Hemmerlin, in

his passion, may confound Hussites with Beghards, and this is confirmed

by his assertion that there is in Upper Germany no heresy save that

introduced by the foxes of this pernicious sect. Nider, in fact, writing

immediately after the Council of Basle had effected a settlement with

the Hussites, when, for a time at least, in Germany they were no longer

considered enemies of the Church, declares that heretics were few and

powerless, skulking in concealment and not to be dreaded, although he

had, in describing the errors of the Brethren of the Free Spirit, stated

that they were still by no means uncommon in Suabia. It was evidently a

member of this sect whom he describes as seeing at Ratisbon when

proceeding with the Archdeacon of Barcelona on a mission from the

Council of Basle to the Hussites. She was a young woman of spotless

character, who made no effort to propagate her faith, but she could not

be induced to recant. The archdeacon advised that she be tortured to

break her spirit, which was done without success and without forcing her

to name her confederates; but when Nider visited her in her cell during

the evening, he found her exhausted with suffering, and he readily

brought her to acknowledge her error, after which she made a public

recantation. This shows us that there could have been no Inquisition in

Ratisbon, and that the local authorities had even lost the memory of

inquisitorial proceedings.[458]

In 1446 the Council of Würzburg found it necessary to repeat the canon

of that of Mainz in 1310, ordering the expulsion of all wandering

Beghards using the old cry of "_Brod durch Gott_" and preaching in

caverns and secret places, showing the maintenance of the traditional

customs and also the absence of more active persecution. In 1453

Nicholas V. formally adjoined them to the Mendicant Orders as

Tertiaries. Some of them obeyed and formed a distinct class, known as

Zepperenses, from their principal house at Zepper. They diminished

greatly in number, however, and in 1650 Innocent X. united them with the

Tertiaries of Italy, under the General Master residing in Lombardy. The

female portion of the associations, which became distinctively known as

Beguines, were more fortunate. They were able to preserve their identity

and their communities, which remain flourishing to the present day,

especially in the Netherlands, where in 1857 the great Beguinage of

Ghent contained six hundred Beguines and two hundred locataires or

boarders.[459]

Still there remained a considerable number both of heretic Brethren of

the Free Spirit and of orthodox Beghards of both sexes who recalcitrated

of being thus brought under rule and deprived of their accustomed

independence. Thus it is related of Bernhard, who was elected Abbot of

Hirsau in 1460, that among other reforms he ejected all the Beguines

from their house at Altburg, on account of their impurity of life, and

replaced them with Dominican Tertiaries. This aroused the hostility of

the Beghards who dwelt in hermitages in the forest of Hirsau, and they

conspired against the abbot, but only to their own detriment. In 1463

the Synod of Constance complains of the unlawful wearing of the

Franciscan scapular by Lollards and Beguines; all who do so are required

to prove their right or to lay it aside, and able-bodied Lollards are

ordered to live by honest labor and not by beggary. This latter practice

was ineradicable, however, and twenty years later another synod was

compelled to repeat the command. In 1491 a synod of Bamberg refers to

the provisions of the Clementines against the Beguines as though their

enforcement was still called for; and Friar John of Moravia, who died at

Brünn in 1492, is warmly praised as a fierce and indefatigable

persecutor of Hussites and Beghards. These insubordinate religionists

continued to exist under almost constant persecution, until the

Reformation, when they served as one of the elements which contributed

to the spread of Lutheranism.[460]

* * * * *

It was impossible that Hussitism should triumph in Bohemia without

awakening an echo throughout Germany, or that the Hussites should

abstain from missionary and proselyting efforts, but the spread of the

heresy through the Teutonic populations was sternly and successfully

repressed. In 1423 the Council of Siena, under the presidency of papal

legates, showed itself fully alive to the danger. It sharply reproved

both inquisitors and episcopal ordinaries for the supineness which alone

could explain the threatening spread of heresy. They were urged to

constant and unsparing vigilance under pain of four months' suspension

from entering a church and such other punishment as might seem

opportune. They were further ordered to curse the heretics with bell,

book, and candle every Sunday in all the principal churches. Holy Land

indulgences were offered to all who would assist them in capturing

heretics, as well as to rulers who, unable to capture them, should at

least expel them from their territories. The earnest tone of the council

reflects the alarm that was everywhere felt, and it unquestionably led

to renewed exertions, though only a few instances of successful activity

chance to be recorded. Thus, in 1420, a priest, known as Henry Grünfeld,

who had embraced Hussite doctrines, was burned at Ratisbon, where

likewise, in 1423, another priest named Henry Rathgeber met the same

fate. In 1424 a priest named John Drändorf suffered at Worms, and in

1426 Peter Turman was burned at Speier. Even after the Council of Basle

had recognized the Hussites as orthodox, and under the Compactata they

enjoyed toleration in states where they held temporal authority, they

were still persecuted as heretics elsewhere. About 1450 John Müller

ventured to preach Hussite doctrines throughout Franconia, where he met

with much acceptance and gained a numerous following, but he was forced

to fly, and one hundred and thirty of his disciples were seized and

carried to Würzburg. There they were persuaded to recant by the Abbot

John of Grumbach and Master Anthony, a preacher of the cathedral. More

tragic was the fate of Frederic Reiser, a Suabian, educated in

Waldensianism. Under the guise of a merchant he had served as a preacher

among the Waldensian churches which maintained a secret existence

throughout Germany. At Heilsbronn he was captured in a Hussite raid,

when, carried to Mount Tabor, he recognized the practical identity of

the faiths and received ordination at the hands of the Taborite Bishop

Nicholas. He labored to bring about a union of the churches, and

wandered as a missionary through Germany, Bohemia, and Switzerland.

Finally he settled at Strassburg, which was always a heretic centre, and

gathered a community of disciples around him. He called himself

"Frederic, by the grace of God bishop of the faithful in the Roman

Church who spurn the Donation of Constantine." He was detected in 1458

and arrested with his followers. Under torture he confessed all that was

required of him, only to withdraw it when removed from the

torture-chamber. The burgomaster, Hans Drachenfels, and the civic

magistracy earnestly opposed his execution, but they were obliged to

yield, and he was burned, together with his faithful servant, Anna

Weiler, an old woman of Nürnberg.[461]

Reiser had been specially successful with the descendants of the

Pomeranian Waldenses who, as we have seen, abjured before the inquisitor

Peter in 1393. They appear to have by no means abandoned their heresy,

and were easily brought to the modifications which assimilated them to

the Hussites--.the adoption of bishops, priests, and deacons, the

communion in both elements, and the honoring of Wickliff, Huss, and

Jerome of Prague. In this same year, 1458, a tailor of Selchow, named

Matthew Hagen, was arrested with three disciples and carried to Berlin

for trial by order of the Elector Frederic II. He had been ordained as a

priest in Bohemia by Reiser, and had returned to propagate the doctrines

of the sect and administer its sacraments. His followers weakened and

abjured, but he remained steadfast, and was abandoned to the secular

arm. To root out the sect, Dr. John Canneman, who had tried Hagen, was

sent to Angermünde as episcopal inquisitor; he found many sectaries but

no obstinacy, for they willingly submitted and abjured.[462]

There was, in fact, enough in common between the doctrines of the more

radical Hussites and those of the Waldenses to bring the sects

eventually together. The Waldenses had by no means been extirpated, and

when, in 1467, the remnant of the Taborites known as the Bohemian

Brethren opened communication with them, the envoys sent had no

difficulty in finding them on the confines between Austria and Moravia,

where they had existed for more than two centuries. They had a bishop

named Stephen, who speedily called in another bishop to perform the rite

of ordination for the Brethren, showing that the heretic communities

were numerous and well organized. The negotiations unfortunately

attracted attention, and the Church made short work of those on whom it

could lay its hands. Bishop Stephen was burned at Vienna and the flock

was scattered, many of them finding refuge in Moravia. Others fled as

far as Brandenburg, where already there were flourishing Waldensian

communities. These were soon afterwards discovered, and steel, fire, and

water were unsparingly used for their destruction, without blotting them

out. A portion of those who escaped emigrated to Bohemia, where they

were gladly received by the Bohemian Brethren and incorporated into

their societies. The close association thus formed between the Brethren

and the Waldenses resulted in a virtual coalescence which gave rise to a

new word in the nomenclature of heresy. When, in 1479, Sixtus IV.

confirmed Friar Thomas Gognati as Inquisitor of Vienna, he urged him to

put forth every exertion to suppress the Hussites and Nicolinistæ. These

latter, who took their name from Nicholas of Silesia, were evidently

Bohemian Brethren who adhered to the extreme doctrine common to both

sects, that nothing could justify putting a human being to death. Thus

the struggle continued, and though the danger was averted which had once

seemed threatening, of the widespread adoption of Hussite theories,

there remained concealed enough Hussite and Waldensian hostility to Rome

to serve as a nucleus of discontent and to give sufficient support to

revolt when a man was found, like Luther, bold enough to clothe in words

the convictions which thousands were secretly nursing.[463]

Signs, indeed, were not wanting in the fifteenth century or the

inevitable rupture of the sixteenth. Prominent among those who boldly

defied the power of Rome was Gregory of Heimburg, whom Ullman well

designates as the citizen-Luther of the fifteenth century. He first

comes into view at the Council of Basle, in the service of Æneas

Sylvius, who was then one of the foremost advocates of the reforming

party, and he remained steadfast to the principles which his patron

bartered for the papacy. A forerunner of the Humanists, he labored to

diffuse classical culture, and with his admiration for the ancients he

had, like Marsiglio of Padua, imbibed the imperial theory of the

relations between Church and State. With tongue and pen inspired by

dauntless courage he was indefatigable to the last in maintaining the

rights of the empire and the supremacy of general councils. The power of

the keys, he taught, had been granted to the apostles collectively;

these were represented by general councils, and the monopoly in the

hands of the pope was a usurpation. His free expression of opinion

infallibly brought him into collision with his early patron, and the

antagonism was sharpened when Pius II. convoked the assembly of princes

at Mantua to provide for a new crusade. Gregory, who was there as

counsellor of the princes, boldly declared that this was only a scheme

to augment the papal power and drain all Germany of money. When Nicholas

of Cusa, a time-server like Pius, was appointed Bishop of Brixen and

claimed property and rights regarded by Sigismund of Austria as

belonging to himself, Sigismund, under Gregory's advice, arrested the

bishop. Thereupon Pius, in June, 1460, laid Sigismund's territories

under interdict, and induced the Swiss to attack him. Gregory drew up an

appeal to a general council, which Sigismund issued, although Pius had

forbidden such appeals, and he further had the hardihood to prove by

Scripture, the fathers, and history, that the Church was subject to the

State. It was no wonder that Gregory shared his master's

excommunication. In October, 1460, he was declared a heretic, and all

the faithful were ordered to seize his property and punish him. To this

he responded in vigorous appeals and replications, couched in the most

insolent and contemptuous language towards both Pius and Nicholas. In

October, 1461, Pius sent Friar Martin of Rotenburg to preach the faith

and preserve the faithful from the errors of Sigismund and his

heresiarch Gregory, and, professing to believe that Martin was in

personal danger, he offered an indulgence of two years and eighty days

to all who would render him assistance in his need. He also ordered the

magistrates of Nürnburg to seize Gregory's property and expel him or

deliver him up for punishment. We next find Gregory aiding Diether,

Archbishop of Cologne, in his quarrel with Pius over the unprecedented

and extortionate demand of the Holy See for annates; but Diether

resigned, Sigismund made his peace, and Gregory was abandoned to his

excommunication, even the city of Nürnburg withdrawing its protection.

He then took refuge in Bohemia with George Podiebrad, whom he served

efficiently as a controversialist, earning a special denunciation as a

heretic of the worst type from Paul II., in 1469; but Podiebrad died in

1471. Gregory then went to Saxony, where Duke Albert protected him and

effected his reconciliation with Sixtus IV. He was absolved at Easter,

1472, only to die in the following August, after spending a quarter of a

century in ceaseless combat with the papacy.[464]

If Gregory of Heimburg embodies the revolt of the ruling classes against

Rome, Hans of Niklaushausen shows us the restless spirit of opposition

to sacerdotalism which was spreading among the lower strata of society.

Hans Böheim was a wandering drummer or fifer from Bohemia, who chanced

to settle at Niklaushausen, near Würzburg. He doubtless brought with him

the revolutionary ideas of the Hussites, and he seems to have entered

into an alliance with the parish priest and a Mendicant Friar or

Beghard. He began to have revelations from the Virgin which suited so

exactly the popular wishes that crowds speedily began to assemble to

listen to him. She instructed him to announce to her people that Christ

could no longer endure the pride, the avarice, and the lust of the

priesthood, and that the world would be destroyed in consequence of

their wickedness, unless they promptly showed signs of amendment. Tithes

and tribute should be purely voluntary, tolls and customs dues were to

be abolished, and game was no longer to be preserved. As the fame of

these revelations spread, crowds flocked to hear the inspired teacher,

from the Rhinelands, Bavaria, Thuringia, Saxony, and Misnia, so that at

times he addressed an audience of twenty thousand to thirty thousand

souls. So great was the reverence felt for him that those who could

touch him deemed themselves sanctified, and fragments of his garments

were treasured as relics, so that his clothes were rent in pieces

whenever he appeared, and a new suit was requisite daily. That no one

doubted the truth of the Virgin's denunciations of the clergy shows the

nature of the popular estimation of the Church, for the vast crowds who

came eagerly to listen were by no means composed of the dangerous

elements of society. They were peaceful and orderly; men and women slept

in the neighboring fields and woods and caves without fear of robbery or

violence; they had money to spend, moreover, for the offerings of gold

and silver, jewels, garments, and wax were large--large enough, indeed,

to tempt the greed of the potentates, for after the downfall of Hans the

spoils were divided between the Count of Wertheim, suzerain of

Niklaushausen, the Bishop of Würzburg, and his metropolitan, the

Archbishop of Mainz. The latter used a portion of his plunder in

building a citadel near Mainz, the destruction of which soon afterwards

by fire was generally regarded as indicating the displeasure of the

Virgin.

Bishop Rudolph of Würzburg repeatedly forbade the pilgrimage to

Niklaushausen, but in vain, and at length he was led to take more

decided steps. The great festivity of the region was the feast of St.

Kilian, the martyr of Würzburg, falling on July 8. On the Sunday

previous, July 6, 1476, Hans significantly told his audience to return

the following Saturday armed, but to leave their women and children at

home. Matters were evidently approaching a crisis, and the bishop did

not wait for the result, but sent a party of guards, who seized Hans and

conveyed him to a neighboring stronghold. The next day about six

thousand of his deluded followers, including many women and children,

set out for the castle, without arms, believing that its walls would

fall at their demand. They refused to disperse when summoned, but were

readily scattered by a sally of men-at-arms, supported by a discharge

from the cannon of the castle, in which many were slain. Hans was easily

forced by torture to confess the falsity of his revelations and the

deceits by which he and his confederates had stimulated the excitement

by false miracles; but his confession did not avail him, and he was

condemned to be burned. At the place of execution his followers expected

divine interference, and to prevent enchantment the executioner shaved

him from head to foot. He walked resolutely to the stake, singing a

hymn, but his fortitude gave way and he shrieked in agony as the flames

reached him. To prevent his ashes from being treasured as relics, they

were carefully collected and cast into the river. The priest and Beghard

who had served as his confederates sought safety in flight, but were

caught and confessed, after which they were discharged; but two

peasants--one who had suggested the advance upon the castle and one who

had wounded the horse of one of the guards who captured Hans--were

beheaded.[460]

If Gregory of Heimburg and Hans of Niklaushausen represent the

antagonism to Rome which pervaded the laity from the highest to the

lowest, John von Ruchrath of Wesel indicates that even in the Church the

same spirit was not wanting. One of the most eminent theologians and

preachers of whom Germany could boast, celebrated in the schools as the

"Light of the World" and the "Master of Contradictions," he was a

hardy and somewhat violent disputant, who in his sermons had no scruple

in presenting his opinions in the most offensive shape. Like Luther, of

whom he was the true precursor, he commenced by an assault upon

indulgences, moved thereto by the Jubilee of 1450, when pious Europe

precipitated itself upon Rome to take heaven by assault. Step by step he

advanced to strip the Church of its powers, and was led to reject the

authority of tradition and the fathers, recurring to Scripture as the

sole basis of authority. He even banished from the creed the word

"_Filioque_," and his predestinarian views deprived the Church of all

the treasures of salvation. How little he recked of the feelings of

those whose faith he assailed is seen in his remark that if fasting was

instituted by St. Peter, it was probably to obtain a better market for

his fish.

It shows how rusty had become the machinery of persecution and the

latitude allowed to free speech that John of Wesel was permitted so

long, without interference, to ripen into a heresiarch and to

disseminate from the pulpit and professorial chair these opinions, as

dangerous as any emitted by Waldenses, Wickliffites, or Hussites. In

fact, but for the bitter quarrel between the Realists and Nominalists,

which filled the scholastic world with strife, it is probable that he

would have been unmolested to the end and enabled to close his days in

peace. He was a leader of the Nominalists, and the Dominican Thomists of

Mainz were resolved to silence him. The Archbishop of Mainz was Diether

of Isenburg, who had been forced to abandon his see in 1463, but had

resumed it in 1475 on the death of his competitor, Adolph of Nassau; he

did not wish another conflict with Rome, to which he was exposed in

consequence of his public denunciations of the papal auctions of the

archiepiscopal pallium; he was threatened with this unless he would

surrender John of Wesel as a victim, and he yielded to the pressure in

1479.

In the great province of Mainz there was no inquisitor; trial by the

regular episcopal officials would be of uncertain result; and as there

was a Dominican inquisitor at Cologne, in the person of Friar Gerhard

von Elten, he was sent for. He came, accompanied by Friar Jacob

Sprenger, not yet an inquisitor, but whom we shall see hereafter in that

capacity busy in burning witches. With him came the theologians from the

universities of Heidelberg and Cologne, who were to sit as experts and

assessors, and so carefully were they selected that one of the

Heidelberg doctors, to whom we are indebted for an account of the

proceedings, tells us that among them all there was but one Nominalist.

He evidently regards the whole matter as an incident in the scholastic

strife, and says that the accused would have been acquitted had he been

allowed counsel and had he not been so harshly treated.

The proceedings are a curious travesty of the inquisitorial process,

which show that, however much its forms had been forgotten, the

principle was rigidly maintained of treating the accused as guilty in

advance. There was no secrecy attempted; everything was conducted in an

assembly consisting of laymen as well as ecclesiastics, prominent among

whom we recognize the Count of Wertheim, fresh from the plunder of Hans

of Niklaushausen. After a preliminary meeting, when the assembly

convened for business, February 8, 1479, the inquisitor von Elten

presided, with Archbishop Diether under him, and opened the proceedings

by suggesting that two or three friends of the accused should warn him

to repent of his errors and beg for mercy, in which case he should have

mercy, but otherwise not. A deputation was thereupon despatched, but

their mission was not speedily performed; the inquisitor chafed at the

delay, and began blustering and threatening. A high official was sent to

hurry the matter, but at that moment John of Wesel entered, pallid, bent

with age, leaning on his staff, and supported by two Franciscans. He was

made to sit on the floor; von Elten repeated to him the message, and

when he attempted to defend himself he was cut short, badgered and

threatened, until he was brought to sue for pardon. After this he was

put through a long and exhausting examination, and was finally remanded

until the next day. A commission consisting principally of the Cologne

and Heidelberg doctors was appointed to determine what should be done

with him. The next day he was again brought out and examined afresh,

when he endeavored to defend his views. "If all men renounce Christ,"

he said, "I will still worship him and be a Christian," to which von

Elten retorted, "So say all heretics, even when at the stake." Finally

it was resolved that three doctors should be deputed, piously to exhort

him to abandon his errors. As in the case of Huss, it was not his death

that was wanted, but his humiliation.

On the 10th the deputies labored with him. "If Christ were here," he

told them, "and were treated like me, you would condemn him as a

heretic--but he would get the better of you with his subtlety." At

length he was persuaded to acknowledge that his views were erroneous, on

the deputies agreeing to take the responsibility on their own

consciences. He had long been sick when the trial was commenced, all

assistance was withheld from him; age, weakness, and the dark and filthy

dungeon from which he had vainly begged to be relieved broke down his

powers of resistance, and he submitted. He publicly recanted and

abjured, his books were burned before his face, and he was sentenced to

imprisonment for life in the Augustinian monastery of Mainz. He did not

long survive his mortification and misery, for he died in 1481. The

trial excited great interest among all the scholars of Germany, who

were shocked at this treatment of a man so eminent and distinguished.

Yet his writings survived him and proved greatly encouraging to the

early Reformers. Melanchthon enumerates him among those who by their

works kept up the continuity of the Church of Christ.[466]

It is evident from this case that the Inquisition, though not extinct in

Germany, was not in working order, and that even where it existed

nominally a special effort was requisite to make it function. Still we

hear occasionally of the appointment of inquisitors, and from the career

of Sprenger we know that their labors could be fruitfully directed to

the extirpation of witchcraft. Sorcery, indeed, had become the most

threatening heresy of the time, and other spiritual aberrations were

attracting little attention. In the elaborate statutes issued by the

Synod of Bamberg, in 1491, the section devoted to heresy dwells at much

length on the details of witchcraft and magic, and mentions only one

other doctrinal error--the vitiation of sacraments in polluted

hands--and it directs that all who neglect to denounce heretics are to

be themselves treated as accomplices, but it makes no allusion to the

Inquisition. Still there is an occasional manifestation showing that

inquisitors existed and sometimes exercised their powers. I shall

hereafter have occasion to refer to the case of Herman of Ryswick, who

was condemned and abjured in 1499, escaped from prison, and was burned

as a relapsed by the inquisitor at The Hague, in 1512, and only allude

to it here as an evidence of continued inquisitorial activity.[467]

The persecution of John Reuchlin, like that of John of Wesel, sprang

from scholastic antagonisms, but its development shows how completely,

during the interval, the inquisitorial power had wasted away. Reuchlin

was a pupil of John Wessel of Groningen; as the leader of the Humanists,

and the foremost representative in Germany of the new learning, he was

involved in bitter controversy with the Dominicans, who, as traditional

Thomists, were ready to do battle to the death for scholasticism. The

ferocious jocularity with which Sebastian Brandt dilates, in his most

finished Latinity, upon the torture and burning of four Dominicans at

Berne, in 1509, for frauds committed in the controversy over the

Immaculate Conception, indicates the temper which animated the hostile

parties, even as its lighter aspect is seen in the unsparing satire of

Erasmus and of the _Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum_. When, therefore,

Reuchlin stood forward to protect Jews and Jewish literature against the

assaults of the renegade Pfefferkorn, the opportunity to destroy him was

eagerly seized. In 1513 a Dominican inquisitor, the Prior Jacob von

Hochstraten, came from Cologne to Mainz on an errand precisely similar

to that of his predecessor von Elten. Unlike John of Wesel, however,

Reuchlin felt that he could safely appeal to Rome, where Leo X. was

himself a man of culture and a Humanist. Leo was well disposed, and

commissioned the Bishop of Speier to decide the question, which was in

itself a direct blow at the inquisitorial power. Still more

contemptuously damaging was the bishop's judgment. Reuchlin was declared

free of all suspicion of heresy, the prosecution was pronounced

frivolous, and the costs were put upon Hochstraten, with a threat of

excommunication for disobedience. This was confirmed at Rome, in 1415,

where silence was imposed on Reuchlin's accusers under a penalty of

three thousand marks. The Humanists celebrated their victory with savage

rejoicing. Eleutherius Bizenus printed a tract summoning, in rugged

hexameters, all Germany to assist in the triumph of Reuchlin, in which

Hochstraten--that thief, who as accuser and judge persecutes the

innocent--marches in chains, with his hands tied behind his back, while

Pfefferkorn, with ears and nose cut off, is dragged by a hook through

his heels, face downwards, until his features lose the semblance of

humanity. The Dominicans are characterized as worse than Turks, and more

worthy to be resisted, and the author wonders what unjust pope and

cowardly emperor had enabled them to impose their yoke on the land.

These were brave words, but premature. The quarrel had attracted the

attention of all Europe, the Dominican Order itself and all it

represented were on trial, and it could not afford to submit to defeat.

Hochstraten hastened to Rome; the Dominicans of the great University of

Cologne did not hesitate to say that if the pope maintained the sentence

they would appeal to the future council, they would refuse to abide by

his decision, they would pronounce him to be no pope and organize a

schism, and much more, which shows upon what a slender tenure the papacy

held the allegiance of its Janissaries. Leo cowered before the storm

which he had provoked, and in 1416 he issued a mandate superseding the

sentence, but the spirit of insubordination was growing strong in

Germany, and Franz von Sickingen, the free-lance, compelled its

observance. As the Lutheran revolt grew more threatening, however, the

support of the Dominicans became more and more indispensable, and in

1420 Leo settled the matter by setting aside the decision of the Bishop

of Speier, imposing silence on Reuchlin, and laying all the costs on

him. Hochstraten, moreover, was restored to his office.[468]

The reparation came too late to render the Inquisition of any service,

now that its efficiency was more sorely needed than ever before. Had it

existed in Germany in good working order, Luther's career would have

been short. When, October 31, 1517, he nailed his propositions

concerning indulgences on the church-door of Wittenberg, and publicly

defended them, an inquisitor such as Bernard Gui would have speedily

silenced him, either destroying his influence by forcing him to a public

recantation, or handing him over to be burned if he proved obstinate.

Hundreds of hardy thinkers had been thus served, and the few who had

been found stout enough to withstand the methods of the Holy Office had

perished. Fortunately, as we have seen, the Inquisition never had struck

root in German soil, and now it was thoroughly discredited and useless.

Hochstraten's hands were tied; Doctor John Eck, inquisitor for Bavaria

and Franconia, was himself a Humanist, who could argue and threaten, but

could not act.

In France the University had taken the place of the almost forgotten

Inquisition, repressing all aberrations of faith, while a centralized

monarchy had rendered--at least until the Concordat of Francis I.--the

national Church in a great degree independent of the papacy. In Germany

there was no national Church; there was subjection to Rome which was

growing unendurable for financial reasons, but there was nothing to

take the place of the Inquisition, and a latitude of speech had become

customary which was tolerated so long as the revenues of St. Peter were

not interfered with. This perhaps explains why the significance of

Luther's revolt was better appreciated at Rome than on the spot. After

he had been formally declared a heretic by the Auditor-general of the

Apostolic Chamber at the instance of the promoter fiscal, the legate,

Cardinal Caietano, wrote that he could terminate the matter himself, and

that it was rather a trifling affair to be brought before the pope. He

did not fulfil his instructions to arrest Luther and tell him that if he

would appear before the Holy See, to excuse himself, he would be treated

with undeserved clemency. After the scandal had been growing for a

twelvemonth, Leo again wrote to Caietano to summon Doctor Martin before

him, and, after diligent examination, to condemn or absolve him as might

prove requisite. It was now too late. Insubordination had spread, and

rebellion was organizing itself. Before these last instructions reached

Caietano, Luther came in answer to a previous summons, but, though he

professed himself in all things an obedient son of the Church, he

practically manifested an ominous independence, and was conveyed away

unharmed. The legate trusted to his powers as a disputant rather than to

force; and had he attempted the latter, he had no machinery at hand to

frustrate the instructions given by the Augsburg magistrates for

Luther's protection. In the paralysis of persecution the inevitable

revolution went forward.[469]