HERESIES
[Sidenote: Cause of heresy.]
It was not until the thirteenth century that the Church had to face
that spirit of scepticism or anti-religious feeling which is the chief
bug-bear of modern Christianity. Her elaborate organisation and the
gradual development of her own dogmatic position enabled her to deal
with individual writers of a speculative turn like Berengar or
Abailard. Nor were these in any sense anti-Christian. But they were
the inciters to heresy; and a real danger to the Church lay in the
filtering down of intellectual speculations to ignorant classes, by
whom they would be transformed into weapons against the fundamental
doctrines of the Christian faith. Indeed, from the eleventh century
onward the Church was constantly threatened by heresy of a popular
kind, which tended to develop into schism. And for this she had to
thank not only the growing materialisation of her doctrine, but even
more the worldly life of her ministers. Unpalatable doctrines may
commend themselves by the pure lives which profess to be founded on
them; but evil doing carries no persuasion to others.
[Sidenote: Two kinds of heretics.]
It is a real difficulty that our sources of information of all the
heretics of these centuries are chiefly the writings of their
successful opponents--the defenders of the orthodox faith. But much
information remains to us from the admissions of her supporters as to
the depraved condition of the Church at this period; so that we need
not believe the allegations or their opponents that a chief inducement
to join heretical sects lay in the greater scope for the indulgence of
sin. Charges of immorality against opponents were the stock-in-trade
of the controversialist, while the greatest authorities in the Church
allow that heresy lived upon the scandals and negligences of the
Church. Moreover, based as they were upon opposition to the existing
organisation, the doctrines of the various sects had much in common.
The Church did not distinguish between them, but excommunicated them
all alike. If, however, we would understand the developments of
opinion in the succeeding centuries, it is important to discriminate;
and a clear distinction can be made between those opponents of the
Church whose views were aimed against the development of an extreme
sacerdotalism within the Church, and those who, going beyond this
negative position, reproduced the Manichæan theories of an early age
and threatened to raise a rival organisation to that of the Christian
Church.
[Sidenote: Anti-sacerdotalists.]
The object which those who belonged to the first of these divisions
set before themselves, was to get behind the elaborate organisation
which the Church had built up and which, instead of being a help to
lead man to God, had now become a hindrance by which the knowledge of
God was actually obscured. They would therefore sweep away all this
machinery and return to the Christianity of apostolic times. Their
objection was primarily moral, but it soon became doctrinal; and among
the heretics of this class there was revived the Donatist theory that
the sacraments depend for their efficacy on the moral condition of
those who administer them. The campaign of the Church reformers
against clerical marriage seemed directly to support this view; but
the canons which forbade any one to be present at a Mass performed by
a married priest had to be explained away as a mere enforcement of
discipline; and in 1230 Gregory IX definitely laid it down that the
suspension of a priest living in mortal sin merely affects him as an
individual and does not invalidate his office as regards others. But
such declarations did nothing to meet the common feeling of the great
incompatibility between the awful powers with which the Church clothed
her ministers and the sinful lives led by a large proportion of the
existing clerical body.
[Sidenote: Extreme examples.]
From an early period in the twelfth century sectaries of this class
are found in several quarters. Two extreme instances are Tanchelm, who
preached in the Netherlands between 1115 and 1124, and Eon de
l'Etoile, who gathered round him a band of desperate characters in
Brittany about 1148. They have been described as "two frantic
enthusiasts," and Eon was almost certainly insane. Eon was imprisoned
and his band dispersed. But Tanchelm found a large following when he
taught that the hierarchy was null and that tithes should not be paid.
He came to an untimely end; but the influence of his doctrines
continued so strong in Antwerp that St. Norbert came to the help of
the local clergy and succeeded in obliterating all traces of the
heresy.
[Sidenote: Petrobrusians and Henricians.]
It was in the south of France that this and all heresy assumed a more
formidable shape. The population was very mixed; the feudal tie,
whether to France, England, or the Emperor, was slight; there was more
culture and luxury, the clergy were more careless of their duties,
while Jews had greater privileges, than anywhere else in Europe.
Moreover, the early teachers were men of education. Two such were
Peter de Bruis (1106-26), a priest, and Henry of Lausanne (1116-48),
an ex-monk of Cluny. Peter was burnt and Henry probably died in
prison. Peter preached in the land known later as Dauphiné; and the
views of the Petrobrusians, as his followers were called, so continued
to spread after his death that Peter the Venerable, the Abbot of
Cluny, thought it worth while to write a tract in refutation of them.
Henry was more formidable. He preached over all the south of France,
was condemned as a heretic at the Council of Pisa (1134), but was
released and resumed his preaching. As the bishops could not and the
lay nobles would not do anything against him, the papal legate
obtained the help of St. Bernard, who, although ill, preached at Albi
and elsewhere with an effect which was much enhanced by the miracles
which in popular belief accompanied his efforts. Henry declined a
debate to which Bernard challenged him, and so became discredited, and
shortly after he fell into the hands of his enemies.
The tract of Peter the Venerable is practically the sole authority for
the tenets of the Petrobrusians. According to this they were frankly
anti-sacerdotal. Infant baptism was held to be useless, since it was
performed with vicarious promises. Churches were useless, for the
Church of God consists of the congregation of the faithful; the Cross,
as being the instrument of Christ's torture, was a symbol to be
destroyed rather than invoked; there was no real presence and no
sacrifice in the Mass, for Christ's body was made and given once for
all at the Last Supper; all offerings and prayers for the dead were
useless, since each man would be judged on his own merits. Henry with
his followers practically adopted these views and added attempts at
social reform on Christian lines, especially in the matter of
marriage, persuading courtesans to abandon their vicious life and
promoting their union to some of his adherents.
[Sidenote: Waldenses.]
By far the most important body of these anti-sacerdotal heretics were
the Waldenses. Their founder was Peter Waldo, whose name takes many
forms--Waldez, Waldus, Waldensis. He was a wealthy merchant of Lyons
who, moved with religious feelings and himself ignorant, caused two
priests to translate into the vernacular Romance the New Testament and
a collection of extracts from the chief writers of the early Church
known as Sentences. From a perusal of these he became convinced that
the way to spiritual perfection lay through poverty. He divested
himself of his wealth and, as a way of carrying out the gospel
further, he began to preach (1170-80). He attracted men and women of
the poorer classes, whom he used as missionaries; and the neglect of
the pulpit by the clergy caused these lay preachers to find ready
listeners in the streets and even in the churches of Lyons. According
to the custom of the day they adopted a special dress; and the sandals
(_sabol_) which they wore in imitation of the Apostles gave them
the name of Insabbatati. They called themselves the Poor Men of
Lyons--Pauperes de Lugduno; Li Poure de Lyod. The Archbishop of Lyons
excommunicated them; but Alexander III, at the request of Peter,
allowed them to preach with permission of the priests. Their disregard
of this proviso caused their excommunication by the Pope in 1184 and
again in 1190; and from this time they began to repudiate the Church
which limited their freedom, and to set up conventicles and an
organisation of their own. The date of Peter's death is not known.
[Sidenote: Their Views.]
The strong missionary spirit of these sectaries spread their doctrines
with extraordinary rapidity. They consisted almost entirely of poor
folk scattered over an area extending from Aragon to Bohemia; and from
place to place differences of organisation and doctrine are to be
observed. But they were not Protestants in the modern sense, and,
despite persecution, many continued to consider themselves members of
the Church. Thus on such doctrinal points as the Real Presence,
purgatory, the invocation of saints, in many places they long
continued to believe in them with their own explanations, and their
repudiation of the teaching of the Church was a matter of gradual
accomplishment. It is true that in places they strove to set up their
own organisation. But the tendency of the Waldenses was much rather
towards a simplification of the existing organisation. The power of
binding and loosing was entirely rejected: an apostolic life and not
ordination was the entrance to the priesthood. In fact, a layman was
qualified to perform all the priestly functions, not merely to baptise
and to preach, but even to hear confession and to consecrate the
Eucharist. Thus the whole penitential machinery of the Church was set
aside. Their specially religious teaching was largely ethical, and by
the testimony of their enemies their life and conduct were singularly
pure and simple. The stories of abominable practices among them
perhaps arose from the extreme asceticism of a sect which professed
voluntary poverty; but they were no more true than the similar tales
told of the early Christians. Nor shall we regard from the same point
of view as the Churchmen of the day the charge brought against them on
the ground of their intimate knowledge of the Scriptures. Of these
they had their own vernacular translations, and large portions of them
were committed to memory. But such translations spread broadcast views
unfettered by the traditional interpretation of the Church, and the
missionary zeal of the Waldenses was proof against the horrors of the
Inquisition with its prison, torture-chamber, and stake.
[Sidenote: Cathari.]
The most formidable development of hostility to the Church came from
the Manichæism of those who bore at various times and in different
places the names of Cathari, Patarius, or Albigenses. The attraction
of the Manichæan theory lay in its apparent explanation of the problem
of evil. There exist side by side in the world a good principle and an
evil principle. The latter is identifiable with matter and is the work
of Satan. Hence sin consists in care for the material creation. It
follows that all action tending to the reproduction of animal life is
to be avoided, so that marriage was strongly discouraged. To the
earlier views was added the doctrine of metempsychosis, or the
transmigration of souls, which, acting as a means of reward and
retribution, seemed fully to account for man's sufferings. These views
together explain the avoidance as food by the Cathari of everything
which was the result of animal propagation, and also the severity of
the ascetic practices which were charged against them.
[Sidenote: Their doctrines.]
In the sphere of doctrine the division between the Cathari and the
Catholic Church was absolute. According to these sectaries Satan is
the Jehovah of the Old Testament: hence all Scriptures before the
Gospels are rejected. They accepted the New Testament, but regarded
Christ as a phantasm and not a man. Thus the doctrine of the Real
Presence had no meaning for them, indeed, they rejected the sacraments
and all external and material manifestations of religion. Here, of
course, they had much in common with the Waldenses, whom the Church
confounded with them; and there seems little doubt that the way for
the preaching of Catharism in the south of France was paved by the
previous work of Peter de Bruis and, even more, of Henry of Lausanne.
But the reasons for opposition to the Church were not the same among
the Waldenses and the Cathari; and the latter soon parted company with
the seekers after primitive Christianity by developing an organisation
of their own. Thus as the Cathari grew in numbers and carried on a
vigorous missionary work, their devotees tended to form themselves
into a Church. At least two distinct Orders were recognised. The
Perfected were a kind of spiritual aristocracy who renounced all
property and were sworn to celibacy, while they submitted themselves
to penances of such rigour that their lives were often endangered, if
not shortened. Below them were the mass of believers who were allowed
to marry and to live in the world, assimilating themselves so far as
possible to the ideal set before them by the higher caste. From the
Perfected were chosen officers with the names of bishop and deacon,
the latter acting as assistants to the chief officers. The ritual was
simple but definite, and the most characteristic ceremony was the
Consolamentum, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, by which the believers
were placed in communion with the Perfected and so became absolved
from all sin. It was performed by the imposition of hands together
with the blessing and kiss of peace given by any two of the Perfected.
This was the process of "heretication," the name given by the
Inquisitors to admission into the Catharist Church; and, except in the
case of the ministers, it was postponed until the believer lay upon
his death-bed.
[Sidenote: Their effect.]
The charges of evil practices against the Cathari were perhaps no
truer than similar accusations against the Waldenses, and their
missionary zeal was proof against even death at the stake.
Nevertheless there is no doubt that the cause of progress and
civilisation lay with Catholicism rather than with its opponents. The
asceticism of the Cathari would have resulted, if not in the
extinction of the race, at least in the destruction of the family:
their identification of matter with the work of Satan would have been
a bar to attempts at material improvement. Moreover, if ever theirs
had become the conquering faith, they would have developed a
sacerdotal class as privileged as the Catholic priesthood. The
movement has been aptly described as "not a revolt against the Church,
but a renunciation of man's dominion over nature."
[Sidenote: Their origin and spread.]
Whether the Catharist movement was spread westwards by the Paulicians
who in the tenth century were transplanted from Armenia to Thrace, or
sprang spontaneously from teachers who saw in the dualistic philosophy
a condemnation, if not an explanation, of the materialisation of
Christianity by the Church, may not be very certain; but there is no
doubt that the Cathari of Western Europe always looked to the eastern
side of the Adriatic as to the headquarters of their faith. In the
eleventh century we hear of Cathari in certain places in North Italy,
in France, and even in Germany; but although in Italy the name of
Patarins came to be applied to the sect, we need trace no connection
in the popular rising at Milan, which was stirred up by the Church
reformers against the simony and clerical marriage practised by the
Church of St. Ambrose. In the twelfth century the movement is heard of
in an increasing number of places, in certain parts of France
including Brittany, in Flanders among all classes, in the Rhine lands.
Milan was supposed to be the headquarters in Italy. In England thirty
persons of humble birth, probably from Flanders, were condemned in
1166, and an article was inserted in the Assize of Clarendon against
them.
[Sidenote: Albigenses.]
But it was in the south of France that the Cathari, no less than the
Waldenses, were chiefly to be found; with this difference,
however--that, whereas the Waldenses confined themselves chiefly to
Provence and the valley of the Rhone, the Cathari were scattered over
a much larger area, although their chief strength lay in the valley of
the Garonne. The town of Albi gave them their name of Albigenses, and
Toulouse was the chief centre of their influence. In 1119 Calixtus II
condemned the heresy at its centre in Toulouse. In 1139, at the second
Lateran Council, Innocent II called upon the secular power for the
first time to assist in expelling from the Church those who professed
heretical opinions. In 1163 Alexander III, at the great Council of
Tours, demanded that secular princes should imprison them. But the
futility of these measures appeared from the colloquy held in 1165 at
Lombers, near Albi, between representatives of the Church and of the
Albigenses before mutually chosen judges, for it made plain the
boldness of the heretics and their claim of equality with the Church.
Indeed, in 1167 they actually held a council of their own at St. Felix
de Caraman, near Toulouse, at which the chief Bishop of the Catharists
was brought from Constantinople to preside, while a number of bishops
were appointed, and all the business transacted was that of an equal
and rival organisation to the Church of Rome.
[Sidenote: Attempts at suppression.]
During the next ten years (1167-77), while the religious allegiance of
Europe was divided by the schism in the Papacy, Catharism gained a
great hold over all classes in Languedoc and Gascony. Raymond V of
Toulouse, the sovereign of Languedoc, finding himself powerless to
check it, appealed for help; but the Kings of France and England
agreed to a joint expedition only to abandon it, and the papal mission
sent in 1178, composed of the papal legate, several bishops, and the
Abbot of Clairvaux, only made heroes of the few heretics whom they
ventured to excommunicate. In 1179, at the third Lateran Council,
Alexander III proclaimed a crusade against all enemies of the Church,
among whom were included, for the first time, professing Christians.
The Abbot of Clairvaux, as papal legate, raised a force and reduced to
submission Roger, Viscount of Béziers, who openly protected heretics;
but the crusading army melted away at the end of the time of
enlistment, and the only result of the expedition was the exasperation
produced by the devastation of the land. After this failure no real
attempt was made to stop the spread of heresy until the accession of
Innocent III, while the fall of Jerusalem in 1186 turned all crusading
ardour in the direction of Palestine.
[Sidenote: Raymond VI of Toulouse.]
Meanwhile, in 1194 Raymond V had been succeeded by his son, Raymond
VI, who, if he was not actually a heretic, was at least indifferent to
the interests of the Catholic faith. Most of his barons favoured
Catharism. He himself was surrounded by a gay and cultured court, and
was popular with his subjects. At the same time the local clergy
neglected their duties, the barons plundered the Church, and the
heretics, without persecuting the Catholics, were gradually
extinguishing them in the dominions of Toulouse. Immediately on his
accession in 1198 Innocent III appointed commissioners to visit the
heretical district; but the local bishop, from jealousy, would not
help. Some effect, however, was produced when, acting on the
suggestion of a Spanish prelate, Diego de Azevedo, Bishop of Osma,
they dismissed their retinues and started on a preaching tour among
the people. The Bishop was accompanied by the Canon Dominic, and this
mission was the germ out of which shortly grew the great Dominican
Order. But the Bishop went back to Spain, and twice the papal legate
excommunicated Raymond VI because he would give no help. Once Raymond
made his peace with the Church, but the second pronouncement against
him was shortly followed by the murder of the legate Peter of
Castelnau, who had made himself peculiarly obnoxious (1208). Raymond's
complicity was never proved, but Innocent was getting impatient, and
his commissioners had made up their minds that it was easier and
quicker to exterminate the heretics than to convert them. Raymond and
all concerned in the murder were excommunicated, and a crusade was
proclaimed against them. Philip Augustus of France allowed his barons
to go, but excused himself on the ground of his relations with John of
England. Raymond hoped to avoid the threatening storm by another
abject submission; but he was obliged to surrender his chief
fortresses and to join in person the army which now assembled for the
extirpation of heresy in his own lands.
[Sidenote: The Crusade.]
Although Raymond was thus forced to appear in the ranks of his
enemies, a leader in resistance was found in his nephew, Raymond
Roger, Viscount of Béziers (1209). But his capital Béziers was stormed
by the crusading army under the legate, who, when asked how the
soldiers could distinguish Catholics from heretics, is said to have
replied, "Slay them all: God will know His own." Then Carcassonne,
deemed impregnable, was besieged, and the young Viscount, decoyed into
the enemies' camp under pretence of negotiation, was kept a prisoner.
He died, and the city was surrendered. The conquered territory was
practically forced by the legate on Simon de Montfort, younger son of
the Count of Evreux, who, through his mother, was also Earl of
Leicester.
[Sidenote: Simon de Montfort.]
In 1211 the crusaders attacked Count Raymond's territories. He had
never yet been tried for the murder of the legate, of which he was
accused; and already Philip of France had warned the Pope that in any
question of Raymond's forfeiture, it was for the French King as
suzerain and not for the Pope to proclaim it. By a visit to Rome
Raymond hoped that he had gained permission to purge himself from the
impending charges; but at the last moment this was pronounced
impossible, because in having failed to clear his lands of heresy, as
he had promised to do, he was forsworn. In a war of sieges De
Montfort's skill took from Raymond everything except Toulouse and
Montauban. Raymond's brother-in-law, Pedro II of Aragon, now
intervened; but when Innocent III, misled by his legates, refused a
further offer of purgation on the part of Raymond, Pedro formally
declared war against De Montfort. He invaded and laid siege to Muret;
but his forces were defeated and he was killed (1213). So far Innocent
III had avoided the recognition of De Montfort's conquests in
Toulouse. But early in 1215 he ratified the act of the Council of
Montpellier which had elected Simon de Montfort as lord of the whole
conquered land. Raymond, although he had never yet been tried, was
declared deposed for heresy; and the fourth Lateran Council, while
confirming this decision, left a small portion of the territory still
unconquered, for his son. It seems likely that Innocent would have
been willing to deal fairly with the Count of Toulouse; but by this
time there were too many interested in the ruin of the House of
Toulouse, and the Pope was deliberately misled by his legates. Hence
it came that a judgment which might, as it was expected that it would,
have righted a great wrong, proved only a signal for revolt. Raymond
and his son were welcomed back by an united people, and finally in
1218 Simon de Montfort was killed while besieging Toulouse.
[Sidenote: A war of aggression.]
De Montfort's son could make no headway against a people in arms. But
in 1222 Raymond VI and Philip of France vainly tried to promote a
peaceful settlement between Amaury de Montfort and Raymond VII.
Amaury, despairing of success, offered his claims to the French King,
and in 1223 Philip's successor, Louis VIII, overpersuaded by the Pope,
accepted them. The young Count Raymond vainly endeavoured to ward off
the threatened invasion and showed every desire to be reconciled with
the Church. There was scarcely any longer a pretence of religious war.
From the first it had been largely a war of races, promoted by
northern jealousy at the wealth and civilisation of the south and by a
desire for the completion of the Frank conquest of Gaul. Thus from the
beginning of hostilities the whole population of the south, Catholic
as well as heretic, had stood together in resistance to the crusading
army, and despite his tergiversations Raymond VI had never lost their
affection and support. The war lasted for three years (1226-9); Louis
VIII led an expedition southwards, which for some inexplicable reason
turned back before it had achieved complete success; and after his
death the Queen-Regent, Blanche of Castile, with the encouragement of
Pope Gregory IX, came to terms with Raymond VII. By the Treaty of
Meaux (1229) Count Raymond agreed to hunt down all heretics, to assume
the cross as a penance, to give up at once about two-thirds of his
lands, while the remainder was to go to his daughter, who was to be
married to a French prince, with the ultimate reversion to the French
Crown. In 1237 Jeanne of Toulouse was married to Alfonso, brother of
Louis IX; in 1249, on the death of Raymond VII, they succeeded to his
dominions, and on their death in 1271 without children Philip III
annexed all their possessions to the dominions of the French Crown.
[Sidenote: Punishment for heresy.]
The question of the acquisition of territory was thus shown to be far
more important than the suppression of heresy. But a university was
established at Toulouse for the teaching of true philosophy, and the
Inquisition was set up under the Dominicans for the suppression of
false doctrine. The time had definitely gone by when the Church would
rely upon methods of persuasion in dealing with heretics. And yet for
a long time there was much hesitation among Churchmen. Even as late as
1145 St. Bernard pleads for reasoning rather than coercion. And the
application of methods of coercion was equally tentative. At first the
obstinate heretic was imprisoned or exiled and his property was
confiscated. But the practice of burning a heretic alive was long the
custom before it was adopted anywhere as positive law. Pedro II of
Aragon, the champion of Raymond VI, first definitely legalised it
(1197). In 1238 by the Edict of Cremona this became the recognised law
of the Empire, and was afterwards embodied in the Sachsenspiegel and
Schwabenspiegel, the municipal codes of Northern and Southern Germany
respectively. The Etablissements of Louis IX (1270) recognised the
practice for France. It is a tribute to English orthodoxy that the Act
"de haeretico comburendo" was not passed until 1401.
[Sidenote: The secular arm.]
Early usage forbade the clergy to be concerned in judgments involving
death or mutilation. This finds expression in the Constitutions of
Clarendon (1164); and the fourth Lateran Council (1215) definitely
forbade clerks to utter a judgment of blood or to be present at an
execution. Thus the Church merely found a man a heretic and called
upon the secular authority to punish him. It was impressed upon all
secular potentates from highest to lowest that it was their business
to obey the behests of the Church in the extirpation of heresy.
Indeed, it may almost be said that the validity of this command of the
Church was the principal point at issue in the Albigensian crusade;
for Raymond's lands were declared forfeit merely because he would not
take an active part in the punishment of his heretical subjects. Thus
by the thirteenth century all hesitation as to the attitude of the
Church towards heretics had entirely disappeared. As Innocent III lays
it down, "faith is not to be kept with him who keeps not faith with
God," and Councils of this century declared that any temporal ruler
who did not persecute heresy must be regarded as an accomplice and so
as himself a heretic.
We cannot apply modern standards to the mediaeval feelings about
heresy. The noblest and most saintly among clergy and laity alike were
often the fiercest persecutors. Church and State were closely
intermingled; heresy was a crime as well as a sin; the heretic was a
rebel; mild measures only made him bolder; and in fear of the
overthrow of the whole social system the rulers of State and Church
combined to crush him.