HERESY.
The Church, which we have seen so far removed from its ideal and so
derelict in its duties, found itself, somewhat unexpectedly, confronted
by new dangers and threatened in the very citadel of its power. Just as
its triumph over king and kaiser was complete a new enemy arose in the
awakened consciousness of man. The dense ignorance of the tenth century,
which followed the evanescent Carlovingian civilization, had begun in
the eleventh to yield to the first faint pulsations of intellectual
movement. Early in the twelfth century that movement already shows in
its gathering force the promise of the development which was to render
Europe the home of art and science, of learning, culture, and
civilization. The stagnation of the human mind could not be thus broken
without leading to inquiry and to doubt. When men began to reason and to
ask questions, to criticise and to speculate on forbidden topics, it was
not possible for them to avoid seeing how woful was the contrast between
the teaching and the practice of the Church, and how little
correspondence existed between religion and ritual, between the lives of
monk and priest and the profession of their vows. Even the blind
reverence which for generations had been felt for the utterances of the
Church began to be shaken. Such a book as Abelard's "Sic et Non," in
which the contradictions of tradition and decretal were pitilessly set
forth, was not only an indication of mental disquiet ripening to
rebellion, but a fruitful source of future trouble in sowing the seeds
of further investigation and irreverence. Vainly, at the command of the
Roman curia, might Gratian seek to show, in his famous "Concordantia
Discordantium Canonum," that the contradictions might be reconciled, and
that the canon law was not merely a mass of clashing rules called forth
by special exigencies, but an harmonious body of spiritual law. The
fatal word had been spoken, and the efforts of the Glossators, of
Masters of Sentences, of Angelic Doctors, and of the innumerable crowd
of scholastic theologians and canon lawyers, with all their skilful
dialectics, could never restore to the minds of men the placid and
unbroken trust in the divine inspiration of the Church Militant. Few as
were the assailants as yet, and intermittent as were their attacks, the
very number of the defenders and the vigor of the defence show the
danger which was recognized as dwelling in the spirit of inquiry which
had at last been partially aroused from its long slumber.
That spirit had received a powerful impulse from the school of Toledo,
whither adventurous scholars flocked as to the fountain where they could
take long draughts of Arabic and Grecian and Jewish lore. Even in the
darkness of the tenth century Sylvester II., while yet plain Gerbert of
Aurillac, had acquired a sinister reputation as a magician, owing to his
asserted studies of forbidden science at that centre of intellectual
activity. Towards the middle of the twelfth century Robert de Rétines,
at the instance of Peter the Venerable of Cluny, laid aside for a while
his studies in astronomy and geometry, in order to translate the Koran,
and enable his patron to controvert the errors of Islam. The works of
Aristotle and Ptolemy, of Abubekr, Avicenna, and Alfarabi, and finally
those of Averrhoes, were rendered into Latin, and were copied with
incredible zeal in all the lands of Christendom. The Crusaders, too,
brought home with them fragmentary remains of ancient thought which met
with an equally warm reception. It is true that judicial astrology was
the chief subject of study and speculation among these new-found
treasures, but the earnestness with which more fruitful topics were
investigated and the danger which lurked in them are evidenced by the
repeated prohibitions of the works of Aristotle and the denunciations of
their use in the University of Paris. Even more menacing to the Church
was the revival of the Civil Law. Whether or not this was caused by the
discovery of the Pandects of Amalfi, the ardor with which it came, by
the middle of the twelfth century, to be studied in all the great
centres of learning is incontestable, and men found, to their surprise,
that there was a system of jurisprudence of wonderful symmetry and
subtle adjustment of right, immeasurably superior to the clumsy and
confused canon law and the barbarous feudal customs, while drawing its
authority from immutable justice as represented by the sovereign, and
not from canon or decretal, from pope or council, or even from Holy
Writ. The clearsightedness of St. Bernard was not in fault when, as
early as 1149, he recognized the danger to the Church, and complained
that the courts rang with the laws of Justinian rather than with those
of God.[46]
To understand fully the effect of this intellectual movement upon the
popular mind and heart, we must picture to ourselves a state of society
in many respects wholly unlike our own. It is not only that in civilized
lands settled institutions have rendered men more submissive to law and
custom, but the diffusion of intelligence and the training of
generations have brought them more under the control of reason and
rendered them less susceptible to impulse and emotion. Even in modern
times we have seen, in outbursts like the Revolution of '89, the
possibilities of popular frenzy when reason is dethroned by passion. Yet
the madness of the Reign of Terror is no unapt illustration of the
violent emotions to which mediæval populations were subject, for good or
for evil, giving occasion to the startling contrasts which render the
period so picturesque, and relieve the sordidness of its daily life with
splendid exhibitions of the loftiest enthusiasm or with hideous deeds of
brutality. Unaccustomed to restraint, vigorous manhood asserted itself
in all its greatness and its littleness, whether in wreaking cruel
vengeance upon the defenceless or in offering itself joyfully as a
sacrifice to humanity. Thrills of delirious emotion spread from land to
land, arousing the populations from their lethargy in blind attempts to
achieve they scarcely knew what--in crusades which bleached the sands of
Palestine with Christian bones, in wild excesses of flagellation, in
purposeless wanderings of the Pastoureaux. In the deep and hopeless
misery which oppressed the mass of the people there was an ever-present
feeling of unrest which constantly saw in the near future the coming of
Antichrist, the end of the world, and the Day of Judgment. In the
deplorable condition of society, torn with unceasing and savage
neighborhood-war and ground under the iron heel of feudalism, the common
man might indeed well imagine that the reign of Antichrist was ever
imminent, or might welcome any change which possibly might benefit, and
scarce could injure, his condition. The invisible world, moreover, with
its mysterious attraction and horrible fascination, was ever present and
real to every one. Demons were always around him, to smite him with
sickness, to ruin his pitiful little cornfield or vineyard, or to lure
his soul to perdition; while angels and saints were similarly ready to
help him, to listen to his invocations, and to intercede for him at the
throne of mercy, which he dared not to address directly. It was among a
population thus impressionable, emotional, and superstitious, slowly
awakening in the intellectual dawn, that orthodoxy and heterodoxy--the
forces of conservatism and progress--were to fight the battle in which
neither could win permanent victory.
It is a noteworthy fact, presaging the new form which modern
civilization and enlightenment were to assume, that the heresies which
were to shake the Church to its foundations were no longer, as of old,
mere speculative subtleties propounded by learned theologians and
prelates in the gradual evolution of Christian doctrine. We have not to
deal with men like Arius or Priscillian, or Nestorius or Eutyches,
scholars and prelates who filled the Church with the disputatious
wrangles of their learning. Hierarchical organization was too perfect,
and theological dogma too thoroughly petrified, to admit of this; and
the occasional deviations, real or assumed, of the schoolmen from
orthodoxy, as in the case of Berenger of Tours, of Abelard, of Gilbert
de la Porée, of Peter Lombard, of Folkmar von Trieffenstein, were
readily suppressed by the machinery of the establishment. Nor have we,
for the most part, to deal with the governing classes, for the alliance
between Church and State to keep the people in subjection had been
handed down from the Roman Empire, and however much monarchs like John
of England or Frederic II. had to complain of ecclesiastical
pretensions, they never dared to loosen the foundations on which rested
their own prerogatives. As a rule, heresy had to be thoroughly
disseminated among the people before those of gentle blood would meddle
with it, as we shall see in Languedoc and Lombardy. The blows which
brought real danger to the hierarchy came from obscure men, laboring
among the poor and oppressed, who, in their misery and degradation, felt
that the Church had failed in its mission, whether through the
worldliness of its ministers or through defects in its doctrine. Among
these lost sheep of Israel, like the Goim, whom, neglected and despised
by the rabbis, it was Christ's mission to bring into the fold, they
found ready and eager listeners, and the heresies which they taught
divide themselves naturally into two classes. On the one hand we have
sectaries holding fast to all the essentials of Christianity, with
antisacerdotalism as their mainspring, and on the other hand we have
Manichæans.
In briefly reviewing these and their vicissitudes, it must be borne in
mind that, with scarce an exception, the authorities are exclusively
their antagonists and persecutors. Saving a few Waldensian tracts and a
single Catharan ritual, their literature has wholly perished. We are
left, for the most part, to gather their doctrines from those who wrote
to confute them or to excite popular odium against them, and we can only
learn their struggles and their fate from their ruthless exterminators.
I shall say no word in their praise that is not based upon the
admissions or accusations of their enemies; and if I reject some of the
abuse lavished upon them, it is because that abuse is so manifestly
conscious or unconscious exaggeration that it is deprived of all
historical value. In general, the _prima facie_ case may be assumed to
be in favor of those who were ready to endure persecution and face death
for the sake of what they believed to be truth; nor, in the existing
corruption of the Church, can it be imagined, as the orthodox
controversialists assumed, that any one would place himself outside of
the pale for the purpose of more freely indulging disorderly appetites.
The fact is, as we have seen, that the highest authorities in the Church
admitted that its scandals were the cause, if not the justification, of
heresy. An inquisitor who was actively engaged in its suppression
enumerates among the efficient agents in its dissemination the depraved
lives of the clergy, their ignorance, leading to the preaching of false
and frivolous things, their irreverence for the sacraments, and the
hatred commonly entertained for them. Another informs us that the
leading arguments of the heretics were drawn from the pride, the
avarice, and the unclean lives of clerks and prelates. All this,
according to Lucas, Bishop of Tuy, who laboriously confuted heterodoxy,
was exaggerated by false stories of miracles skilfully directed against
the observances of the Church and the weaknesses of its ministers; but
if so this was a work of surplusage, for nothing that the heretics could
invent was likely to be more appalling than the reality as stated by the
most resolute champions of the Church. Not many controversialists,
indeed, were capable of the frank assurance of the learned author of the
tract which passes under the name of Peter of Pilichdorf, in answering
the arguments of the heretics, that the Catholic priests were
fornicators and usurers and drunkards and dicers and forgers, by boldly
saying, "What then? They are none the less priests, and the worst of men
who is a priest is worthier than the most holy layman. Was not Judas
Iscariot, on account of his apostleship, worthier than Nathaniel, though
less holy?" The Troubadour Inquisitor Isarn only uttered a truth
generally recognized when he said that no believer would be misled into
Catharism or Waldensianism if he had a good pastor:
"Ja no fara crezens heretje ni baudes
Si agues bon pastor que lur contradisses."[47]
The antisacerdotal heresies were directed against the abuses in doctrine
and practice which priestcraft had invented to enslave the souls of men.
One feature common to them all was a revival of the Donatist tenet that
the sacraments are polluted in polluted hands, so that a priest living
in mortal sin is incapable of administering them. In the existing
condition of ecclesiastical morals this was destructive to the functions
of nearly the whole body of the priesthood, and its readiness as a means
of attack had been facilitated by the policy of the Holy See in its
efforts to suppress clerical marriage and concubinage. In 1059 the Synod
of Rome, under the impulsion of Nicholas II., had adopted a canon
forbidding any one to be present at the mass of a priest known to keep a
concubine or wife. This was inviting the flock to sit in judgment on the
pastor; and though it remained virtually a dead letter for fifteen
years, when it was revived and effectually put in force by Gregory
VII., in 1074, it produced immense confusion, for continent priests were
rare exceptions. So violent was the contest excited that, in 1077, at
Cambrai, the married or concubinary priesthood actually burned at the
stake an unfortunate who resolutely maintained the orthodoxy of the
papal rescripts. The orders of Gregory were reiterated by Innocent II.
as late as the Council of Reims, in 1131, and in that of Lateran, in
1139, and Gratian embodied the whole series in the canon law, where they
still remain. Although Urban II. had endeavored to point out that it was
merely a matter of discipline, and that the virtue of the sacraments
remained unaltered in the hands of the worst of men, still it was
difficult for the popular mind to recognize so subtle a distinction. A
learned theologian like Geroch of Reichersperg might safely declare that
he paid no more attention to the masses of concubinary priests than if
they were those of so many pagans, and yet be unimpeached in his
orthodoxy, but to minds less robust in faith the question presented
insoluble difficulties. Albero, a priest of Mercke, near Cologne,
shortly afterwards, when he taught that the consecration of the host was
imperfect in sinful hands, was forced, by the unanimous testimony of the
Fathers, to recant; but he adopted the theory that such sacraments were
profitable to those who took them in ignorance of the wickedness of the
celebrant, while they were useless to the dead and to those who were
cognizant of the sin. This was likewise heretical, and Albero's offer to
prove its orthodoxy by undergoing the ordeal of fire was rejected on the
logical ground that sorcery might thus enable false doctrine to triumph.
The question continued to plague the Church until, about 1230, Gregory
IX. abandoned the position of his predecessors, and undertook to settle
it by an authoritative decision that every priest in mortal sin is
suspended, as far as concerns himself, until he repents and is absolved,
yet his offices are not to be avoided, because he is not suspended as
regards others, unless the sin is notorious by judicial confession or
sentence, or by evidence so clear that no tergiversation is possible. To
the Church it was, of course, impossible to admit that the virtue of the
sacrament depended upon the virtue of the ministrant, but these
fine-drawn distinctions show how the question troubled the minds of the
faithful, and how readily the heresy could suggest itself that
transubstantiation might fail in the hands of the wicked. In fact, even
without the suggestive commands of Gregory and Innocent, to a thoughtful
and pious mind there was a grievous incompatibility between the awful
powers vested by the Church in her ministers and the flagitious lives
which disgraced so many of them. That the error should be stubborn was
unavoidable. As late as 1396 it was taught by Jean de Varennes, a priest
of the Remois, who was forced to recant, and in 1458 we find Alonso de
Spina declaring it to be common to the Waldenses, the Wickliffites, and
the Hussites.[48]
* * * * *
One or two of the earlier antisacerdotal heresies may be mentioned which
were local and temporary in their character, but which yet have interest
as showing how ready were the lower ranks of the people to rise in
revolt against the Church, and how contagious was the enthusiasm excited
by any leader bold enough to voice the general feeling of unrest and
discontent. About 1108, in the Zeeland Isles, there appeared a preacher
named Tanchelm, who seems to have been an apostate monk, subtle and
skilled in disputation. He taught the nullity of all hierarchical
dignities, from pope to simple clerk, that the Eucharist was polluted in
unworthy hands, and that tithes were not to be paid. The people listened
eagerly, and after filling all Flanders with his heresy, he found in
Antwerp an appropriate centre of influence. Although that city was
already populous and wealthy through commerce, it had but a single
priest, and he, involved in an incestuous union with a near relative,
had neither leisure nor inclination for his duties. A people thus
destitute of orthodox instruction fell an easy prey to the tempter and
eagerly followed him, reverencing him to that degree that the water in
which he bathed was distributed and preserved as a relic. He readily
raised a force of three thousand fighting men, with which he dominated
the land, nor was there duke or bishop who dared withstand him. The
stories that he pretended to be God and the equal of Jesus Christ, and
that he celebrated his marriage with the Virgin Mary, may safely be
rejected as the embroideries of frightened clerks; nor could Tanchelm
have really considered himself as a heretic, for we find him visiting
Rome with a few followers for the purpose of obtaining a division of the
extensive see of Utrecht and the allotment of a portion of it to the
episcopate of Terouane. On his return from Rome, in 1112, while passing
through Cologne, he and his retinue were thrown in prison by the
archbishop, who the next year summoned a synod to sit in judgment on
them. Several of them purged themselves by the water-ordeal, while
others succeeded in escaping by flight. Of these, three were burned at
Bonn, preferring a frightful death to abandoning their faith, while
Tanchelm himself reached Bruges in safety. The anathema which had been
pronounced against him, however, had impaired his credit, and the clergy
of Bruges had little difficulty in procuring his ejectment. Yet Antwerp
remained faithful, and he continued his missionary career until 1115,
when, being in a boat with but few followers, a zealous priest piously
knocked him on the head, and his soul went to rejoin its master, Satan.
Even this did not suppress the effect of his teaching and his heresy
continued to flourish. In vain the bishop gave twelve assistants to the
lonely priest of St. Michael's in Antwerp; it was not until 1126, when
St. Norbert, the ardent ascetic who founded the Premonstratensian order,
was placed in charge of the city with his followers, and undertook to
evangelize it with his burning eloquence, that the people could be
brought back to the faith. St. Norbert built other churches and filled
them with disciples zealous as himself, and the stubborn heretics were
docile enough to pastors who taught by example as well as by words their
sympathy for those who had so long been neglected. Consecrated hosts
which had lain hidden for fifteen years in chinks and corners were
brought forth by pious souls, and the heresy vanished without leaving a
trace.[49]
Somewhat similar was the heresy propagated not long afterwards in
Brittany by Éon de l'Étoile, except that in this case the heresiarch was
unquestionably insane. Sprung from a noble family, he had gained a
reputation for sanctity by the life of a hermit in the wilderness, when,
from the words of the collect, "per _eum_ qui venturus est judicare
vivos et mortuos," he conceived the idea that he was the Son of God. It
was not difficult to find sharers in this belief who adored him as the
Deity incarnate, and he soon had a numerous band of followers, with
whose aid he pillaged the churches of their ill-used treasures, and
distributed them to the poor. The heresy became sufficiently formidable
to induce the legate, Cardinal Alberic of Ostia, to preach against it at
Nantes in 1145, and Ilugues, Archbishop of Rouen, to combat it with
dreary polemics; but the most convincing argument used was the soldiery
despatched against the heretics, many of whom were captured and burned
at Alet, refusing obstinately to recant. Éon retired to Aquitaine for a
season, but in 1148 he ventured to appear in Champagne, where he was
seized with his followers by Samson, Archbishop of Reims, and brought
before Eugenius III. at the Council of Rouen. Here his insanity was so
manifest that he was charitably consigned to the care of Suger, Abbot of
St. Denis, where he soon after died, but many of his disciples were
stubborn, and preferred the stake to recantation.[50]
* * * * *
More durable and more formidable were the heresies which about the same
time took stubborn root in the south of France, where the condition of
society was especially favorable for their propagation. There the
population and civilization were wholly different from those of the
north. The first wave of the Aryan invasion of Europe had driven to the
Mediterranean littoral the ancient Ligurian inhabitants, who had left
abundant traces of their race in the swarthy skins and black hair of
their descendants. Greek and Phœnician colonies had still further
crossed the blood. Gothic domination had been long continued, and the
Merovingian conquest had scarce given to the Frank a foothold in the
soil. Even Saracenic elements were not wanting to make up the strange
admixture of races which rendered the citizen of Narbonne or Marseilles
so different a being from the inhabitant of Paris--quite as different as
the Langue d'Oc from the Langue d'Oyl. The feudal tie which bound the
Count of Toulouse, or the Marquis of Provence, or the Duke of Aquitaine
to the King of Paris or the Emperor was but feeble, and when the last
named fief was carried by Eleanor to Henry II., the rival pretensions of
England and France preserved the virtual independence of the great
feudatories of the South, leading to antagonisms of which we shall see
the full fruits in the Albigensian crusades.
The contrast of civilization was as marked as that of race. Nowhere in
Europe had culture and luxury made such progress as in the south of
France. Chivalry and poetry were assiduously cultivated by the nobles;
and, even in the cities, which had acquired for themselves a large
measure of freedom, and which were enriched by trade and commerce, the
citizens boasted a degree of education and enlightenment unknown
elsewhere. Nowhere in Europe, moreover, were the clergy more negligent
of their duties or more despised by the people. There was little
earnestness of religious conviction among either prelates or nobles to
stimulate persecution, so that there was considerable freedom of belief.
In no other Christian land did the despised Jew enjoy such privileges.
His right to hold land in _franc-alleu_ was similar to that of the
Christian; he was admitted to public office, and his administrative
ability rendered him a favorite in such capacity with both prelate and
noble; his synagogues were undisturbed; and the Hebrew school of
Narbonne was renowned in Israel as the home of the Kimchis. Under such
influences, those who really possessed religious convictions were but
little deterred by prejudice or the fear of persecution from criticising
the shortcomings of the Church, or from seeking what might more nearly
respond to their aspirations.[51]
It was in such a population as this that the first antisacerdotal heresy
was preached in Vallonise about 1106, by Pierre de Bruys, a native of
the diocese of Embrun. The prelates of Embrun, Gap, and Die endeavored
in vain to stay his progress until they procured assistance from the
king, when he was driven out and took refuge in Gascony. For twenty
years he continued his mission, and the openness and success with which
he taught is shown by the story that in one place, to show his contempt
for the objects of sacerdotal veneration, he caused a great pile of
consecrated crosses to be accumulated, and then, setting fire to them,
deliberately roasted meat at the flames. Persecution at length became
more active, and about the year 1126 he was seized and burned at St.
Gilles.
His teaching was simply antisacerdotal--to some extent a revival of the
errors of Claudius of Turin. Pædo-baptism was useless, for the faith of
another cannot help him who cannot use his own--a far-reaching
proposition, fraught with immeasurable consequences. For the same reason
offerings, alms, masses, prayers and other good works for the dead are
useless and each will be judged on his own merits. Churches are
unnecessary and should be destroyed, for holy places are not wanted for
Christian prayer, since God listens to those who deserve it, whether
invoked in church or tavern, in temple or market-place, before the altar
or before the stable; and the Church of God does not consist of a
multitude of stones piled together, but in the united congregation of
the faithful. As for the cross, as a senseless thing it is not to be
invoked with foolish prayers, but is rather to be destroyed as the
instrument on which Christ was cruelly tortured to death. His most
serious error, however, was his rejection of the Eucharist.
Transubstantiation had not yet had time to become immovably fixed in the
perceptions of all men, and Pierre de Bruys went even further than
Berenger of Tours. His only recorded utterance is his vigorous rejection
of the sacrament: "O people, believe not the bishops, the priests, and
the clerks, who, as in much else, seek to deceive you as to the office
of the altar, where they lyingly pretend to make the body of Christ and
give it to you for the salvation of your souls. They plainly lie, for
the body of Christ was but once made by Christ in the supper before the
Passion, and but once given to the disciples. Since then it has been
never made and never given."[52]
There was evidently nothing to do with such a man but to burn him, but
even this did not suffice to suppress his heresy. The Petrobrusians
continued to diffuse his doctrines, secretly or openly, and, some five
or six years after his death, Peter the Venerable of Cluny considered
them still so formidable as to require his controversial tract, to which
we are indebted for almost all we know about the sect. This is dedicated
to the bishops of Embrun, Arles, Die, and Gap, and urges them to renewed
efforts for the suppression of the heresy by preaching and by the arms
of the laity.
All their efforts might well be needed, for Peter was succeeded by a yet
more formidable heresiarch. Little is known of the earlier life of
Henry, the Monk of Lausanne, except that he left his convent there under
circumstances for which St. Bernard afterwards reproached him, but which
may well have been but the first ebullition of the reformatory spirit to
which he finally fell a victim. We next hear of him at Le Mans, perhaps
as early as 1116, but the dates are uncertain. Here his austerities
gained him the veneration of the people, which he turned with disastrous
effect upon the clergy. We know little of his doctrines at this time,
except that he rejected the invocation of saints, but we are told that
his eloquence was so persuasive that under its influence women abandoned
their jewels and sumptuous apparel, and young men married courtesans to
reclaim them. While thus teaching asceticism and charity, he so lashed
the vices of the Church that the clergy throughout the diocese would
have been destroyed but for the active protection of the nobles. Henry
had taken advantage of the absence in Rome of the bishop, the celebrated
Hildebert of Le Mans, who, on his return, overcame the heretic in
disputation and forced him to abandon the field, but could not punish
him. We have glimpses of his activity in Poitiers and Bordeaux, and then
lose sight of him till we find him a prisoner of the Archbishop of
Arles, who took him to the presence of Innocent II. at the Council of
Pisa, in 1134. Here he was convicted of heresy and condemned to
imprisonment, but was subsequently released and sent back to his
convent, whence he departed with the intention of entering the strict
Cistercian order at Clairvaux. What led to his resuming his heretical
mission we do not know, but we meet him again, bolder than before,
adopting substantially the Petrobrusian tenets, rejecting the Eucharist,
refusing all reverence for the priesthood, all tithes, oblations, and
other sources of ecclesiastical revenue, and all attendance at church.
The scene of this activity was southern France, where the embers of
Petrobrusianism were ready to be kindled into flame. His success was
immense. In 1147 St. Bernard despairingly describes the condition of
religion in the extensive territories of the Count of Toulouse: "The
churches are without people, the people without priests, the priests
without the reverence due them, and Christians without Christ. The
churches are regarded as synagogues, the sanctuary of the Lord is no
longer holy; the sacraments are no more held sacred; feast days are
without solemnities; men die in their sins, and their souls are hurried
to the dread tribunal, neither reconciled by penance nor fortified by
the holy communion. The little ones of Christ are debarred from life
since baptism is denied them. The voice of a single heretic silences all
those apostolic and prophetic voices which have united in calling all
the nations into the Church of Christ." The prelates of southern France
were powerless to arrest the progress of the bold heresiarch, and
imploringly appealed for assistance. The nobles would not aid them, for,
like the people, they hated the clergy and were glad of the excuses
which Henry's doctrines gave them for spoiling and oppressing the
Church. The papal legate, Alberic, was summoned, and he prevailed upon
St. Bernard to accompany him with Geoffrey, Bishop of Chartres, and
other men of mark. Though St. Bernard was sick, the perilous condition
of the tottering establishment aroused all his zeal, and he
unflinchingly undertook the mission. What was the condition of popular
feeling and how boldly it dared to express itself may be gathered from
the reception of the legate at Albi, where the people went forth to meet
him with asses and drums in sign of derision, and when they were
convoked to be present at his celebration of mass scarcely thirty
attended. If we may believe the accounts of his disciples, the success
of Bernard was immense. His reputation had preceded him, and it was
heightened by the stories of miracles which he daily performed, no less
than by his burning eloquence and skill in disputation. Crowds flocked
to hear him preach, and were converted. At Albi, two days after the
miserable failure of the legate, St. Bernard arrived, and the cathedral
was scarcely able to hold the multitude which assembled to listen to
him. On the conclusion of his discourse he adjured them: "Repent, then,
all ye who have been contaminated. Return to the Church; and that we may
know who repents, let each penitent raise his right hand"--and every
hand was raised. Scarce less effective was his rejoinder when, after
preaching to an immense assemblage, he mounted his horse to depart and a
hardened heretic, thinking to confuse him, said, "My lord abbot, our
heretic, of whom you think so ill, has not a horse so fat and spirited
as yours." "Friend," replied the saint, "I deny it not. The horse eats
and grows fat for itself, for it is but a brute and by nature given to
its appetites, whereby it offends not God. But before the judgment seat
of God I and your master will not be judged by horse's necks, but each
by his own neck. Now, then, look at my neck and see if it is fatter than
your master's, and if you can justly reprehend me." Then he threw down
his cowl and displayed his neck, long and thin and wasted by maceration
and austerities, to the confusion of the misbelievers. If he failed to
make converts at Verfeil, where a hundred knights refused to listen to
him, he at least had the satisfaction of cursing them, which we are
assured caused them all to perish miserably.
St. Bernard challenged Henry to a disputation, which the prudent heretic
declined, whether through fear of his antagonist's eloquence or a
reasonable regard for the safety of his own person. It mattered little
which, for his refusal discredited him in the eyes of many of the nobles
who had hitherto protected him, and thenceforth he was obliged to lie in
hiding. Orthodoxy took heart and was soon on his track: he was captured
the next year and brought in chains before his bishop. His end is not
known, but he is presumed to have died in prison.[53]
We hear no more of the Henricians as a definite sect, though in 1151 a
young girl, miraculously inspired by the Virgin Mary, is said to have
converted many of them, and they probably continued to exist throughout
Languedoc, furnishing material in the next generation for the spread of
the Waldenses. We have scanty indications, however, in widely separated
places, of the existence of sectaries probably Henrician, showing how,
in spite of persecution, the antisacerdotal spirit continued to manifest
itself. Contemporary with St. Bernard's mission to Languedoc is a letter
addressed to him by Evervin, Provost of Steinfeld, imploring his aid
against heretics recently discovered at Cologne--some Manichæans and
others, evidently Henricians, who had betrayed themselves by their
mutual quarrels. These Henricians boasted that their sect was numerously
scattered throughout all the lands of Christendom, and their zeal is
shown by an allusion to those among their number who perished at the
stake. Probably Henrician, too, were heretics who infested Perigord
under a teacher named Pons, whose austerities and external holiness drew
to them numerous adherents, including nobles and priests, monks and
nuns. Besides the antisacerdotal tenets described above, these
enthusiasts anticipated St. Francis in proclaiming poverty to be
essential to salvation and in refusing to receive money. The impression
which they produced upon a worldly generation is shown by the marvellous
legends which grew around them. They courted persecution and sought for
persecutors who should slay them, yet they could not be punished, for
their master, Satan, liberated them from chains and prison. Thus if one
should be fettered hand and foot and placed under an inverted hogshead
watched by guards, he would disappear until it pleased him to return. We
know nothing as to the fate of Pons and his disciples, but their numbers
and activity were a manifestation of the pervading disquiet and yearning
for a change.[54]
* * * * *
Arnald of Brescia's heresy was much more limited in its scope. A pupil
of Abelard, he was accused of sharing his master's errors, and
incorrect notions respecting pædo-baptism and the Eucharist were
attributed to him. Whatever may have been his theological aberrations,
his real offence was the energetic way in which he lashed the vices of
the clergy and stimulated the laity to repossess the ample wealth and
extended privileges which the Church had acquired. Profoundly convinced
that the evils of Christendom arose from the worldliness of the
ecclesiastical body, he taught that the Church should hold neither
temporal possessions nor jurisdiction, and should confine itself rigidly
to its spiritual functions. Of austere and commanding virtue,
irreproachable in his self-denying life, trained in all the learning of
the schools, and gifted with rare persuasive eloquence, he became the
terror of the hierarchy, and found the laity ready enough to listen and
to act upon doctrines which satisfied their worldly aspirations as well
as their spiritual longings. The second Lateran Council, in 1139,
endeavored to suppress the revolt which he excited in the Lombard cities
by condemning and imposing silence on him; he refused obedience, and the
next year Innocent II., in approving the proceedings of the Council of
Sens, included him in the condemnation of Abelard, and ordered both to
be imprisoned and their writings burned. Arnald had fled from Italy to
France, and now he was driven to Switzerland, where we find his restless
activity at work in Constance and then in Zurich, pursued by the
sleepless watchfulness of St. Bernard. According to the latter, his
conquests over souls in Switzerland were rapid, for his teeth were arms
and arrows, and his tongue was a sharp sword. After the death of
Innocent II. he returned to Rome, where he seems to have been reconciled
to Eugenius III. in 1145 or 1146. The new pope, speedily wearied with
the turbulence of the city which had exhausted his predecessors,
abandoned it and finally sought refuge in France. Arnald was not idle in
these movements, and was generally held responsible for them. Vain were
the remonstrances of St. Bernard to the Roman commonalty, and equally
vain his appeals to the Emperor Conrad to restore the papal power by
force. At the same time Conrad treated with disdain envoys sent by the
Roman republic, protesting that their object was to restore the imperial
supremacy as it had existed under the Cæsars, and inviting him to come
and assume the empire of Italy. Eugenius, on his return to Italy, in
1148, issued from Brescia a condemnation of Arnald, directed especially
to his supporters among the Roman clergy, who were threatened with
deprivation of preferment; but the citizens stood firm, and the pope was
only allowed to return to his city on condition of allowing Arnald to
remain there. After the death of Conrad III., in 1152, Eugenius III.
hastened to win the support of the new King of the Romans, Frederic
Barbarossa, by intimating that Arnald and his partisans were conspiring
to elect another emperor and make the empire Roman in fact as well as in
name. The papal favor seemed necessary to Frederic to secure his coveted
coronation and recognition. Blindly overlooking the irreconcilable
antagonism between the temporal and spiritual swords, he cast his
fortunes with the pope, swore to subdue for him the rebellious city and
regain for him the territory of which he had been deprived; while
Eugenius, on his side, promised to crown him when he should invade
Italy, and to use freely the artillery of excommunication for the
abasement of his enemies. The domination of the Roman populace has not
been wholly moderate and peaceful. In more than one emeute the palaces
of noble and cardinal had been sacked and destroyed and their persons
maltreated, and at length, in 1154, in some popular uprising, the
cardinal of Santa Pudenziana was slain. Adrian IV., the masterful
Englishman who had recently ascended the papal throne, took advantage of
the opportunity and set the novel example of laying an interdict on the
capital of Christianity until Arnald should be expelled from the city;
the fickle populace, dismayed at the deprivation of the sacrament,
indispensable to all Christians at the approaching Easter solemnities,
were withdrawn from his support, and he retired to the castle of a
friendly baron of the Campagna. The next year Frederic reached Rome,
after entering into engagements with Adrian which included the sacrifice
of Arnald, and he lost no time in performing his share of the bargain.
Arnald's protectors were summoned to surrender him, and were obliged to
obey. For the cruel ending the Church sought to shirk the
responsibility, but there would seem to be no reasonable doubt that he
was regularly condemned by a spiritual tribunal as a heretic, for he was
in holy orders, and could be tried only by the Church, after which he
was handed over to the secular arm for punishment. He was offered pardon
if he would recant his erroneous doctrines, but he persistently refused,
and passed his last moments in silent prayer. Whether or not he was
mercifully hanged before being reduced to ashes is perhaps doubtful, but
those ashes were cast into the Tiber to prevent the people of Rome from
preserving them as relics and honoring him as a martyr. It was not long
before Frederic had ample cause to repent the loss of an ally who might
have saved him from the bitter humiliation of his surrender to Alexander
III.[55]
Though the immediate influence of Arnald of Brescia was evanescent, his
career has its importance as a manifestation of the temper with which
the more spiritually minded received the encroachments and corruption of
the Church. Yet, though he failed in his attempt to revolutionize
society, and perished through miscalculating the tremendous forces
arrayed against him, his sacrifice was not wholly in vain. His teachings
left a deep impress in the minds of the population, and his followers in
secret cherished his memory and his principles for centuries. It was not
without a full knowledge of the position that the Roman curia scattered
his ashes in the Tiber, dreading the effect of the veneration which the
people felt for their martyr. Secret associations of Arnaldistas were
formed who called themselves "Poor Men," and adopted the tenet that the
sacraments could only be administered by virtuous men. In 1184 we find
them condemned by Lucius III. at the so-called Council of Verona; about
1190 they are alluded to by Bonaccorsi, and even until the sixteenth
century their name occurs in the lists of heresies proscribed in
successive bulls and edicts. Yet the complete oblivion into which they
fell is seen in the learned glossator Johannes Andreas, who died in
1348, remarking that perhaps the name of the sect may be derived from
some one who founded it. When Peter Waldo of Lyons endeavored, in more
pacific wise, to carry out the same views, and his followers grew into
the "Poor Men of Lyons," the Italian brethren were ready to welcome the
new reformers and to co-operate with them. Though there were some
unimportant points of difference between the two schools, yet their
resemblance was so great that they virtually coalesced; they were
usually confounded by the Church, and were enveloped in a common
anathema. Closely connected with them were the Umiliati, described as
wandering laymen who preached and heard confessions, to the great
scandal of the priesthood, but who were yet not strictly heretics.[56]
* * * * *
Far greater in importance and more durable in results was the
antisacerdotal movement unconsciously set on foot by Peter Waldo of
Lyons, in the second half of the twelfth century. He was a rich
merchant, unlearned, but eager to acquire the truths of Scripture, to
which end he caused the translation into Romance of the New Testament
and a collection of extracts from the Fathers, known as "Sentences."
Diligently studying these, he learned them by heart, and arrived at the
conviction that nowhere was the apostolic life observed as commanded by
Christ. Striving for evangelical perfection, he gave his wife the choice
between his real estate and his movables. On her selecting the former,
he sold the latter; portioned his two daughters, and placed them in the
Abbey of Fontevraud, and distributed the rest of the proceeds among the
poor then suffering from a famine. It is related that after this he
begged for bread of an acquaintance who promised to support him during
his life, and this coming to the ears of his wife, she appealed to the
archbishop, who ordered him in future to accept food only from her.
Devoting himself to preaching the gospel through the streets and by the
wayside, admiring imitators of both sexes sprang up around him, whom he
despatched as missionaries to the neighboring towns. They entered
houses, announcing the gospel to the inmates; they preached in the
churches, they discoursed in the public places, and everywhere they
found eager listeners, for, as we have seen, the negligence and
indolence of the clergy had rendered the function of preaching almost a
forgotten duty. According to the fashion of the time, they speedily
adopted a peculiar form of dress, including, in imitation of the
apostles, a sandal with a kind of plate upon it, whence they acquired
the name of the "Shoed," Insabbatati, or Zaptati--though the appellation
which they bestowed upon themselves was that of Li Poure de Lyod, or
Poor Men of Lyons.[57]
It was not possible that ignorant zeal could thus undertake the office
of religious instruction without committing errors which acute
theologians could detect. It is not likely, moreover, that it would
spare the vices and crimes of the clergy in summoning the faithful to
repentance and salvation. Complaint speedily arose of the scandals which
the new evangelists disseminated, and the Archbishop of Lyons, Jean aux
Bellesmains, summoned them before him, and prohibited them from further
preaching. They disobeyed and were excommunicated. Peter Waldo then
appealed to the pope (probably Alexander III.), who approved his vow of
poverty and authorized him to preach when permitted by the priests--a
restriction which was observed for a time and then disregarded. The
obstinate Poor Men gradually put forward one dangerous tenet after
another, while their attacks upon the clergy became sharper and sharper;
yet as late as the year 1179 they came before the Council of Lateran,
submitted their version of the Scriptures, and asked for license to
preach. Walter Mapes, who was present, ridicules their ignorant
simplicity, and chuckles over his own shrewdness in confusing them when
he was delegated to examine their theological acquirements, yet he bears
emphatic testimony to their holy poverty and zeal in imitating the
apostles and following Christ. Again they applied to Rome for authority
to found an order of preachers, but Lucius III. objected to their
sandals, to their monkish copes, and to the companionship of men and
women in their wandering life. Finding them obstinate, he finally
anathematized them at the Council of Verona in 1184, but they still
refused to abandon their mission, or even to consider themselves as
separated from the Church. Though again condemned in a council held at
Narbonne, they agreed, about 1190, to take the chances of a disputation
held in the Cathedral of Narbonne, with Raymond of Daventer, a religious
and God-fearing Catholic, as judge. Of course the decision went against
them, and of course they were as little inclined as before to submit,
but the colloquy has an interest as showing what progress at that period
they had made in dissidence from Rome. The six points on which the
argument was held were, 1st. That they refused obedience to the
authority of pope and prelate; 2d. That all, even laymen, can preach;
3d. That, according to the apostles, God is to be obeyed rather than
man; 4th. That women may preach; 5th. That masses, prayers, and alms for
the dead are of no avail, with the addition that some of them denied the
existence of purgatory; and 6th. That prayer in bed, or in a chamber, or
in a stable, is as efficacious as in a church.[58] All this was
rebellion against sacerdotalism rather than actual heresy; but we learn,
about the same period, from the "Universal Doctor," Alain de l'Isle,
who, at the request of Lucius III., wrote a tract for their refutation,
that they were prepared to carry these principles to their legitimate
but dangerous conclusions, and that they added various other doctrines
at variance with the teachings of the Church.
Good prelates, they held, who led apostolic lives, were to be obeyed,
and to them alone was granted the power to bind and loose--which was
striking a mortal blow at the whole organization of the Church. Merit,
and not ordination, conferred the power to consecrate and bless, to bind
and to loose; every one, therefore, who led an apostolic life had this
power, and as they assumed that they all led such a life, it followed
that they, although laymen, could execute all the functions of the
priesthood. It likewise followed that the ministrations of sinful
priests were invalid, though at first the French Waldenses were not
willing to admit this, while the Italians boldly affirmed it. A further
error was, that confession to a layman was as efficacious as to a
priest, which was a serious attack upon the sacrament of penitence;
though, as yet, the Fourth Council of Lateran had not made priestly
confession indispensable, and Alain is willing to admit that in the
absence of a priest, confession to a layman is sufficient. The system
of indulgences was another of the sacerdotal devices which they
rejected; and they added three specific rules of morality which became
distinctive characteristics of the sect. Every lie is a mortal sin;
every oath, even in a court of justice, is unlawful; and homicide is
under no circumstances to be permitted, whether in war or in execution
of judicial sentences. This necessarily involved non-resistance,
rendering the Waldenses dangerous only from such moral influence as they
could acquire. Even as late as 1217, a well-informed contemporary
assures us that the four chief errors of the Waldenses were, their
wearing sandals after the fashion of the apostles, their prohibition of
oaths and of homicide, and their assertion that any member of the sect,
if he wore sandals, could in case of necessity consecrate the
Eucharist.[59]
All this was a simple-hearted endeavor to obey the commands of Christ
and make the gospel an actual standard for the conduct of daily life;
but these principles, if universally adopted, would have reduced the
Church to a condition of apostolic poverty, and would have swept away
much of the distinction between priest and layman. Besides, the
sectaries were inspired with the true missionary spirit; their
proselyting zeal knew no bounds; they wandered from land to land
promulgating their doctrines, and finding everywhere a cordial response,
especially among the lower classes, who were ready enough to embrace a
dogma that promised to release them from the vices and oppression of the
clergy. We are told that one of their chief apostles carried with him
various disguises, appearing now as a cobbler, then as a barber, and
again as a peasant, and though this may have been, as alleged, for the
purpose of eluding capture, it shows the social stratum to which their
missions were addressed. The Poor Men of Lyons multiplied with
incredible rapidity throughout Europe; the Church became seriously
alarmed, and not without reason, for an ancient document of the
sectaries shows a tradition among them that under Waldo, or immediately
afterwards, their councils had an average attendance of about seven
hundred members present. Not long after the Colloquy of Narbonne, in
1194, the note of persecution was sounded by Alonso II. of Aragon, in an
edict which is worthy of note as the first secular legislation, with the
exception of the Assizes of Clarendon, in the modern world against
heresy. The Waldenses and all other heretics anathematized by the Church
are ordered, as public enemies, to quit his dominions by the day after
All-Saints'. Any one who receives them on his lands, listens to their
preaching, or gives them food shall incur the penalties of treason, with
confiscation of all his goods and possessions. The decree is to be
published by all pastors on Sundays, and all public officials are
ordered to enforce it. Any heretic remaining after three days' notice of
the law can be despoiled by any one, and any injury inflicted on him,
short of death or mutilation, so far from being an offence, shall be
regarded as meriting the royal favor. The ferocious atrocity of these
provisions, which rendered the heretic an outlaw, which condemned him in
advance, and which exposed him without a trial to the cupidity or malice
of every man, was exceeded three years later by Alonso's son, Pedro II.
In a national council of Girona, in 1197, he renewed his father's
legislation, adding the penalty of the stake for the heretic. If any
noble failed to eject these enemies of the Church, the officials and
people of the diocese were ordered to proceed to his castle and seize
them without responsibility for any damages committed, and any one
failing to join in the foray was subjected to the heavy fine of twenty
pieces of gold to the royal fisc. Moreover, all officials were
commanded, within eight days after summons, to present themselves before
their bishop, or his representative, and take an oath to enforce the
law.[60]
The character of this legislation reveals the spirit in which Church
and State were prepared to deal with the intellectual and spiritual
movement of the time. Harmless as the Waldenses might seem to be, they
were recognized as most dangerous enemies, to be mercilessly persecuted.
In southern France they were devoted to common destruction with the
Albigenses, though the distinction between the sects was clearly
recognized. The documents of the Inquisition constantly refer to "heresy
and Waldensianism," designating Catharism by the former term as the
heresy _par excellence_. The Waldenses themselves regarded the Cathari
as heretics to be combated intellectually, though the persecution which
they shared forced them to associate freely together.[61]
In a sect so widely scattered, from Aragon to Bohemia, consisting mostly
of poor and simple folk, hiding their belief in the lowlands, or
dwelling in separate communities among the mountain fastnesses of the
Cottian Alps or of Calabria, it was inevitable that differences of
organization and doctrine should arise, and that there should be
variations in the rapidity of independent development. The labors of
Dieckhoff, Herzog, and especially of Montet in recent times, have shown
that the early Waldenses were not Protestants in our modern sense, and
that, in spite of persecution, many of them long continued to regard
themselves as members of the Church of Rome, with a persistence proving
how real were the abuses which had forced them to schism, and finally to
heresy. Yet, in others, the spirit of revolt ripened much more rapidly,
and it is impossible, within our limited space, to present a definite
scheme of a doctrine which differed in so many points according to time
and circumstance.
In the crucial test of belief in transubstantiation, for instance, as
early as the thirteenth century, an experienced inquisitor, in drawing
up instructions for the examination of Waldenses, assumes disbelief in
the existence of the body and blood in the Eucharist as one of the
points whereby to detect them, and in 1332 we hear of such a denial
among the Waldenses of Savoy. Yet about this latter date Bernard Gui
assures us that they believed in it, and M. Montet has shown from their
successive writings how their views on the subject changed. The
inquisitor who burned the Waldenses of Cologne in 1392 tells us that
they denied transubstantiation, but they added, that if it occurred it
could not be wrought in the hands of a sinful priest. So it was with
regard to purgatory--which for a long while was regarded as an open
question, to be definitely decided in the negative by the close of the
fourteenth century--together with the suffrages of the saints, the
invocation of the Virgin, and the other devices of which it was the
excuse. The antisacerdotalism in which the sect took its rise,
naturally, in its development, tended to do away with all that
interposed mediators between God and man, although this progress was by
no means uniform. The Waldenses burned in Strassburg, in 1212, rejected
all distinction between the laity and the priesthood. In Lombardy, about
the same time, the community elected ministers either temporary or for
life. Both the French and Lombard Waldenses of this period held that the
Eucharist could only be made by an ordained priest, though they differed
as to the necessity of his not being in mortal sin. Bernard Gui speaks
of three orders among them--deacons, priests, and bishops; M. Montet has
found in a MS. of 1404 a form of Waldensian ordination; and when the
Unitas Fratrum of Bohemia was organized in 1467, it had recourse, as we
shall see hereafter, to the Waldensian Bishop Stephen to consecrate its
first bishops. Yet the antisacerdotal tendencies were so strong that the
difference between the laity and priesthood was greatly diminished, and
the power of the keys was wholly rejected. About 1400, the Nobla Leyczon
declares that all the popes, cardinals, bishops, and abbots since the
days of Silvester could not pardon a single mortal sin, for God alone
has the power of pardon. As the soul thus dealt directly with God, the
whole machinery of indulgences and so-called pious works was thrown
aside. It is true that faith without works was idle--"_la fe es ociosa
sensa las obras_"--but good works were piety, repentance, charity,
justice, not pilgrimages and formal exercises, the founding of churches
and the honoring of saints.[62]
The Waldensian system thus created a simple church organization with a
tendency ever to grow simpler. As a general proposition it may be stated
that the distinction between the clergy and laity was reduced to a
minimum, especially when transubstantiation was rejected. The layman
could hear confessions, baptize, and preach. In some places it was the
custom for each head of a family on Holy Thursday to administer
communion in a simple fashion, consecrating the elements and
distributing them himself. Yet of necessity there was a recognized
priesthood, known as the Perfected, or Majorales, who taught the
faithful and converted the unbeliever, who renounced all property and
separated themselves from their wives, or who had observed strict
chastity from youth, who wandered around hearing confessions and making
converts, and were supported by the voluntary contributions of those who
labored for their bread. The Pomeranian Waldenses believed that every
seven years two of these were transported to the gate of Paradise, that
they might understand the wisdom of God. One marked distinction between
them and the laity was that, when on trial before the Inquisition, the
prohibition of swearing was relaxed in favor of the latter, who might
take an oath under compulsion, while the Perfects would die rather than
violate the precept. The inquisitors, while complaining of the ingenuity
with which the heretics evaded their examination, admitted that all were
much more solicitous to save their friends and kindred than
themselves.[63]
With this tendency towards a restoration of evangelical simplicity, it
followed that the special religious teaching of the Waldenses was to a
great extent ethical. The reply of an unfortunate before the Inquisition
of Toulouse, when questioned as to what his instructors had taught him,
was "that he should neither speak nor do evil, that he should do nothing
to others that he would not have done to himself, and that he should not
lie or swear"--a simple formula enough, but one which practically leaves
little to be desired; and a similar statement was made to the
Celestinian Peter in his inquisition of the Pomeranian Waldenses in
1394. A persecuted Church is almost inevitably a pure Church, and the
men who through those dreary centuries lay in hiding, with the stake
ever before their eyes, to spread what they believed to be the
unadulterated truths of the gospel in obedience to the commands of
Christ, were not likely to contaminate their high and holy mission with
vulgar vices. In fact, the unanimous testimony of their persecutors is
that their external virtues were worthy of all praise, and the contrast
between the purity of their lives and the depravity which pervaded the
clergy of the dominant Church is more than once deplored by their
antagonists as a most effective factor in the dissemination of heresy.
An inquisitor who knew them well describes them: "Heretics are
recognizable by their customs and speech, for they are modest and well
regulated. They take no pride in their garments, which are neither
costly nor vile. They do not engage in trade, to avoid lies and oaths
and frauds, but live by their labor as mechanics--their teachers are
cobblers. They do not accumulate wealth, but are content with
necessaries. They are chaste and temperate in meat and drink. They do
not frequent taverns or dances or other vanities. They restrain
themselves from anger. They are always at work; they teach and learn and
consequently pray but little. They are to be known by their modesty and
precision of speech, avoiding scurrility and detraction and light words
and lies and oaths. They do not even say _vere_ or _certe_, regarding
them as oaths." Such is the general testimony, and the tales which were
told as to the sexual abominations customary among them may safely be
set down as devices to excite popular detestation, grounded possibly on
extravagances of asceticism, such as were common among the early
Christians, for the Waldenses held that connubial intercourse was only
lawful for the procurement of offspring. An inquisitor admits his
disbelief as to these stories, for which he had never found a basis
worthy of credence, nor does anything of the kind make its appearance
in the examinations of the sectaries under the skilful handling of their
persecutors, until in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the
inquisitors of Piedmont and Provence found it expedient to extract such
confessions from their victims.[64]
There was also objected to them the hypocrisy which led them to conceal
their belief under assiduous attendance at mass and confession, and
punctual observance of orthodox externalities; but this, like the
ingenious evasions under examination, which so irritated their
inquisitorial critics, may readily be pardoned to those with whom it was
the necessity of self-preservation, and who, at least during the earlier
period, had often no other means of enjoying the sacraments which they
deemed essential to salvation. They were also ridiculed for their humble
condition in life, being almost wholly peasants, mechanics, and the
like--poor and despised folk of whom the Church took little count,
except to tax when orthodox and burn when heretic. But their crowning
offence was their love and reverence for Scripture, and their burning
zeal in making converts. The Inquisitor of Passau informs us that they
had translations of the whole Bible in the vulgar tongue, which the
Church vainly sought to suppress, and which they studied with incredible
assiduity. He knew a peasant who could recite the Book of Job word for
word; many of them had the whole of the New Testament by heart, and,
simple as they were, were dangerous disputants. As for the missionary
spirit, he tells of one who, on a winter night, swam the river Ips in
order to gain a chance of converting a Catholic; and all, men and women,
old and young, were ceaseless in learning and teaching. After a hard
day's labor they would devote the night to instruction; they sought the
lazar-houses to carry salvation to the leper; a disciple of ten days'
standing would seek out another whom he could instruct, and when the
dull and untrained brain would fain abandon the task in despair they
would speak words of encouragement: "Learn a single word a day, in a
year you will know three hundred, and thus you will gain in the end."
Surely if ever there was a God-fearing people it was these unfortunates
under the ban of Church and State, whose secret passwords were, "_Ce dit
sainct Pol, Ne mentir_," "_Ce dit sainct Jacques, Ne jurer_," "_Ce dit
sainct Pierre, Ne rendre mal pour mal, mais biens contraires_." The
"Nobla Leyczon" scarce says more than the inquisitors, when it bitterly
declares that the sign of a Vaudois, deemed worthy of death, was that he
followed Christ and sought to obey the commandments of God.
"Que si n'i a alcun bon que ame e tema Yeshu Xrist,
Que non volha maudire ni jurar ni mentir,
Ni avoutrar ni aucir ni penre de l'altruy,
Ni venjar se de li seo enemis,
Ilh dion qu'es Vaudes e degne de punir,
E li troban cayson en meczonja e engan."
In fact, amid the license of the Middle Ages ascetic virtue was apt to
be regarded as a sign of heresy. About 1220 a clerk of Spire, whose
austerity subsequently led him to join the Franciscans, was only saved
by the interposition of Conrad, afterwards Bishop of Hildesheim, from
being burned as a heretic, because his preaching led certain women to
lay aside their vanities of apparel and behave with humility.[65]
The sincerity with which the Waldenses adhered to their beliefs is shown
by the thousands who cheerfully endured the horrors of the prison, the
torture-chamber, and the stake, rather than return to a faith which they
believed to be corrupt. I have met with a case in 1320, in which a poor
old woman at Pamiers submitted to the dreadful sentence for heresy
simply because she would not take an oath. She answered all
interrogations on points of faith in orthodox fashion, but though
offered her life if she would swear on the Gospels, she refused to
burden her soul with the sin, and for this she was condemned as a
heretic.[66]
* * * * *
That all antisacerdotalists should agree, even under persecution, in a
common creed, is not to be expected. In the decrees against heretics and
in the writings of controversialists we meet the names of other sects,
but they are of too little importance in numbers and duration to require
more than a passing notice. The Passagii ("all-holy" or "vagabond") or
Circumcisi were Judaizing Christians, who sought to escape the
domination of Rome by a recourse to the old law and denying the equality
of Christ with God. The Joseppini were still more obscure, and their
errors appear mostly to lie in the region of artificial and unclean
sexual asceticism. The Siscidentes were virtually the same as the
Waldenses, the only difference being as to the administration of the
Eucharist. The Ordibarii and Ortlibenses, followers of Ortlieb of
Strassburg, who flourished about the year 1216, were likewise externally
akin to the Waldenses, but indulged in doctrinal errors to which we
shall have to recur hereafter. The Runcarii appear to have been a
connecting link between the Poor Men of Lyons and the Albigenses or
Manichæans; an intermediate sect whose existence might be presupposed as
an almost necessary result of the common interests and common sufferings
of the two leading branches of heresy.[67]