first apparition of the Flagellants. Suddenly, in 1259, in Perugia, no
one knew why, the population was seized with a fury of devotional
penitence, without incitement by friar or priest. The contagion spread,
and soon the whole of upper Italy was filled with tens of thousands of
penitents. Nobles and peasants, old and young, even to children five
years of age, walked solemnly in procession, two by two, naked except a
loin-cloth, weeping and praying God for mercy, and scourging themselves
with leather thongs to the drawing of blood. The women decently
inflicted the penance on themselves in their chambers, but the men
marched through the cities by day and night, in the sharpest winter,
preceded by priests with crosses and banners, to the churches, where
they prostrated themselves before the altars. A contemporary tells us
that the fields and mountains echoed with the voices of the sinners
calling to God, while music and love-songs were heard no more. A general
fever of repentance and amendment seized the people. Usurers and robbers
restored their ill-gotten gain; criminals confessed their sins and
renounced their vices; the prison doors were thrown open, and the
captives walked forth; homicides offered themselves on their knees, with
drawn swords, to the kindred of their victims, and were embraced with
tears; old enmities were forgiven, and exiles were permitted to return
to their homes. Everywhere was seen the operation of divine grace, and
men seemed to be consumed with heavenly fire. The movement even spread
to the Rhinelands and throughout Germany and Bohemia; but whatever hopes
were aroused of the regeneration of man vanished with the subsidence of
the excitement, which disappeared as rapidly as it came, and was even
denounced as a heresy. Uberto Pallavicino took effectual means of
keeping the Flagellants out of his city of Milan; for when he heard of
their approach he erected three hundred gibbets by the roadside, at
sight of which they abruptly retraced their steps.[243]
It was in a population subject to such tempests of emotion, and groping
thus blindly for something higher and better than the hopeless
degradation around them, that the Mendicant Orders came to gather to
themselves the potential religious exaltation of the time. That they
should develop with unexampled rapidity was inevitable.
Everything favored them. The papal court early recognized in them an
instrument more efficient than had yet been devised to bring the power
of the Holy See to bear directly upon the Church and the people in every
corner of Christendom; to break down the independence of the local
prelates; to combat the temporal enemies of the papacy, and to lead the
people into direct relations with the successor of St. Peter. Privileges
and exemptions of all kinds were showered upon them, until, by a series
of bulls issued, between 1240 and 1244, by Gregory IX. and Innocent IV.,
they were rendered completely independent of the regular ecclesiastical
organization. A time-honored rule of the Church required that any
excommunication or anathema could only be removed by him who had
pronounced it, but this was revolutionized in their favor. Not only were
the bishops required to give absolution to any Dominican or Franciscan
who should apply for it, except in cases of such enormity that the Holy
See alone could act, but the Mendicant priors and ministers were
authorized to absolve their friars from any censures inflicted on them.
These extraordinary measures removed them entirely from the regular
jurisdiction of the establishment; the members of each Order became
responsible only to their own superiors, and in their all-pervading
activity throughout Europe they could secretly undermine the power and
influence of the local hierarchy, and replace it with that of Rome,
which they so directly represented. This independent position, however,
had only been reached by degrees. Papal briefs of 1229 and 1234,
enjoining them to show proper respect and obedience to the bishops, and
empowering the bishops to condemn any friars who abuse their privileges
of preaching for purposes of gain, show that complaints of their
aggressions had commenced thus early, and that Rome was not yet prepared
to render them independent of the hierarchy; but when the policy had
once been adopted it was carried to its fullest development, and the
cycle of legislation was completed by Boniface VIII., in 1295 and 1296,
by a series of bulls in which, following his predecessors, the
Mendicants were formally released from all episcopal jurisdiction, and
the statutes of the Orders were declared to be the only laws by which
they were to be judged, all provisions of the canon law to the contrary
notwithstanding. At the same time, by a new issue of the bull _Virtute
conspicuos_, commonly known as the _Mare Magnum_, he codified and
confirmed all the privileges conferred by his predecessors.[244]
The Holy See was thus provided with a militia, recruited and sustained
at the expense of the faithful, panoplied in invulnerability, and
devoted to its exclusive service. In order that its usefulness might
suffer no limitation, in 1241 Gregory IX. granted to the friars the
privilege of freely living in the lands of excommunicates, and of asking
and receiving assistance and food from them. They could, therefore,
penetrate everywhere, and serve as secret emissaries in the dominions of
those hostile to Rome. Human ingenuity could have devised no more
efficient army, for, not only were they full of zeal and inspired with
profound convictions, but the reputation for superior sanctity which
they everywhere acquired secured for them popular sympathy and support,
and gave them an enormous advantage in any contest with local
churches.[245]
Their efficiency, when directed against temporal opponents, was
thoroughly tried in the long and mortal struggle of the papacy with
Frederic II., the most powerful and dangerous enemy whom Rome has ever
had. As early as the year 1229 we hear of the banishment of all the
Franciscans from the kingdom of Naples, as papal emissaries seeking to
withdraw from the emperor the allegiance of his subjects. In 1234 we
find them raising money in England to enable the pope to carry on the
struggle, and using every device of persuasion and menace with a success
which realized immense sums and reduced numbers to beggary. When, in the
solemnities of Easter, 1239, Gregory fulminated an excommunication
against the emperor, it was to the Franciscan priors that he
communicated it, with a full recital of the imperial misdeeds, and
ordered them to publish it with ringing of bells on every Sunday and
feast-day. It was the most effective method that could be devised to
create public opinion against his adversary, and Frederic retorted with
another edict of expulsion. When Frederic was deposed by the Council of
Lyons, in 1244, it was the Dominicans who were selected to announce the
sentence in all accessible public places, with an indulgence of forty
days for all who would gather to listen to them, and plenary remission
of sins to the friars who might suffer persecution in consequence. Soon
afterwards we find them playing the part, which the Jesuits filled in
Jacobean England, of secret emissaries engaged in hidden plots and
fomenting disturbances. Frederic always declared that the conspiracy
against his life in 1244 was the work of Franciscans who had been
commissioned to preach a secret crusade against him in his own
dominions, and who encouraged his enemies with prophecies of his speedy
death. When, as the result of papal intrigues, Henry Raspe of Thuringia
was elected, in 1246, as King of the Romans, to supersede Frederic,
Innocent IV. sent a circular brief of instructions to the Franciscans to
use every opportunity, public or secret, to advocate his cause, and to
promise remission of sins to those who should aid him. Again, in 1248,
we find friars of both orders sent as secret emissaries to stir up
disaffection in Frederic's territories. He complained bitterly of it, as
he had always cherished and protected the Mendicants, and he met the
attempt with savage ferocity. The Dominican Simon de Montesarculo, who
was caught, was subjected to eighteen successive tortures; and Frederic
instructed his son-in-law, the Count of Caserta, that all friars showing
signs of disaffection, or contravening the strict regulations which he
prescribes, shall not be exiled as heretofore, but shall be promptly
burned. The shrewd and experienced prince evidently recognized them as
the most dangerous enemies to whom he was exposed. They continued to
earn his hostility by the zeal with which they preached the crusade
against him, and, after his death, against his son Conrad; and we can
regard as not improbable the statement that Ezzelin da Romano, his vicar
in the March of Treviso, put to death no less than sixty Franciscans
during his thirty years of power.[246]
The Mendicants gradually superseded the bishops, when papal commands
were to be communicated to the people or papal mandates enforced. Even
when fugitives were to be tracked, they formed an invisible network of
police, spread over Europe and available in a thousand ways. Formerly,
when a complaint reached Rome of an abuse to be rectified or of a
prelate whose conduct required investigation or trial, a commission
would be issued to two or three neighboring bishops or abbots to make an
examination and report, or to reform churches and monasteries neglectful
of discipline. Gradually this changed, and the Mendicants alone were
charged with these duties, which made the papal power felt so directly
in every episcopal palace and every abbey in Europe. They complained
repeatedly of the amount of this extra work thrown upon them, and they
were promised relief, but they were too useful to be dispensed with in
thus subjecting the Church to the Apostolic See. How disagreeable and
even dangerous these duties might be is visible in a case which shows
how little the condition of the Church in the middle of the thirteenth
century had changed from what we had seen it in the previous age. The
great electoral archiepiscopate of Trèves, in 1259, was claimed by two
rivals who litigated with each other for two years in Rome, to the great
profit of the curia, till Alexander IV. set them both aside. The Dean of
Metz, Henry of Fistigen, went on some pretext to Rome, where, by
promising to pay the enormous debts left behind by the two litigants, he
obtained the appointment from Alexander. On his return the pallium was
withheld as security for the debts which he had incurred, but without
waiting for it he assumed archiepiscopal functions, consecrated his
suffragan Bishop of Metz, and commenced a series of military
enterprises, in the course of which he devastated the Abbey of St.
Matthias and nearly burned to death the unhappy monks. These misdeeds,
and his neglect to pay his debts, led Urban IV., in 1261, to commission
the Bishops of Worms and Spires and the Abbot of Rodenkirk to
investigate the charges against him of simony, perjury, homicide,
sacrilege, and other sins, but the archbishop bribed them, and they did
nothing. Then, in 1262, Urban sent another commission to William and
Roric, two Franciscans of the province of Trèves, ordering them to
investigate and report under pain of excommunication. This frightened
all the Mendicants of the province. The Franciscan guardian and the
Dominican prior, more worldly-wise than righteous, forbade them under
pain of dungeon from exercising the functions imposed on them, and the
two unlucky commissioners were glad to escape with their lives by flying
from Trèves to Metz. The Franciscan provincial had the effrontery to
send envoys to Rome asking that the investigation be postponed or
committed to others. They were heard in full consistory, in presence of
Urban himself and of Bonaventura, the general of the Order, when Urban
bitterly retorted, "If I had sent bishoprics to two of your brethren
they would have been accepted with avidity. You shall not refuse to do
what is necessary for the honor of God and the Church." It is not worth
while to pursue the intricate details of the dreary quarrel, which
lasted until 1272 and presented in its successive phases every variety
of fraud, forgery, robbery, and outrage. It is sufficient to say that
when William and Roric were forced to work, they seem to have performed
their duty with independence and fidelity, and that the Roman curia, in
the course of the proceedings, managed to extort from the unfortunate
diocese the enormous sum of thirty-three thousand sterling marks--in
spite of which Archbishop Henry attended the coronation of Rodolph of
Hapsburg, in 1273, with a splendid retinue of eighteen hundred armed
men.[247]
* * * * *
It is easy to imagine that such functions as these produced antagonism
between the new orders and the old organization which they were
undermining and supplanting. Yet this was, perhaps, the least of the
causes of bitterness between them. A far more fruitful source of discord
was the intrusion of the Mendicants in the office of preaching and
hearing confessions. We have seen how jealously the former had always
been reserved by the bishops and how utterly it had been neglected until
the primary object of St. Dominic had been to supply the deficiency,
which Honorius III. lamented as one of the pressing wants of the age.
The Church was scarce better prepared to discharge the duty of the
confessional, which the Lateran Council had rendered obligatory and had
confined to the priesthood. Lazy and sensual priests, intent only on
maintaining their revenues, neglected the souls of their flocks and
permitted no intrusion which might diminish their gains. In the populous
town of Montpellier there was only one church in which the sacrament of
penitence could be administered, and the consuls, in 1213, petitioned
Innocent III., in view of the multitude of perishing souls, to empower
four or five of the other churches of the town to divide the duty. As
late as 1247, Ypres, with two hundred thousand inhabitants, had but four
parish churches. If the Church Militant was to perform its duty, and if
it was to regain the veneration of the people, these deficiencies must
be supplied.[248]
The first efforts of Dominic had been based on the power granted to the
legates of Languedoc to issue licenses for preaching, and these were, of
course, at the time independent of episcopal permission, but in the Rule
of 1228 it was especially provided that no friar should preach in a
diocese without first obtaining permission of the bishop, and in no case
was he to declaim against the vices of the secular priesthood. Francis
professed the humblest reverence for the established clergy; he declared
that if he were to meet simultaneously a priest and an angel, he would
first turn to kiss the hands of the priest, saying to the angel, "Wait,
for these hands handle the Word of Life and possess something more than
human;" and in his Rule it was also provided that no friar should preach
in any diocese against the will of the bishop. The bishops were not
particularly disposed to welcome the intruders, and Honorius III.
condescended to entreaty in asking them to permit the Dominicans to
preach, while he also took steps to provide preachers from among the
secular clergy by stimulating their study of theology. The intrusion of
the Mendicants on the functions of the parish priests was gradual, and
was commenced with the privilege granted them of celebrating mass
everywhere on portable altars. Some resistance was made to this, but it
was broken down; and when Gregory IX., in 1227, signalized his accession
by empowering both Orders to preach, hear confessions, and grant
absolution everywhere, the wandering friars, in spite of the
prohibitions of the Rules, gradually invaded every parish and performed
all the duties of the cure of souls, to the immense discomfort of the
local priesthood, who had always guarded with extreme jealousy the
rights which were the main source of their influence and revenue.
Complaints were loud and reiterated, and were sometimes listened to, but
were more frequently answered by an emphatic confirmation of the
innovation.[249]
The matter was made worse by the fact that everywhere the laity welcomed
the intruders and preferred them to their own curates. The fervor of
their preaching and their reputation for superior sanctity brought
crowds to the sermon and the confessional. Training and experience
rendered them far more skilful directors of conscience than the indolent
incumbents, and there arose a natural popular feeling that the penance
which they imposed was more holy and their absolution more efficacious.
If the beneficed clergy complained that this was because they soothed
and indulged their penitents, they were able to retort with justice that
the laymen preferred them for themselves and their wives rather than the
drunken and unchaste priests who filled most of the parishes. A friar
would come and set up his portable altar, as he said, for a day. His
preaching was attractive; penitents aroused to a sense of their sins
would hasten to confess; his stay was prolonged and he became a fixture.
If the place was populous, he would be joined by others. The gifts of
the charitable would flow in. A modest chapel and cloisters would be
provided, which grew till it overshadowed the parish church and was
filled at its expense. Worse than all, the dying sinner would assume the
robe of the Mendicant on his death-bed, bequeath his body to the friars,
and make them the recipient of his legacies, leading to a prolonged and
embittered renewal of the old ghoul-like quarrels over corpses. In 1247,
at Pamplona, some bodies long lay unburied owing to a fierce contention
between the canons and the Franciscans; and a division of the spoils, by
which a share varying from a half to a quarter, was allotted to the
parish priests, only gave rise to new disputes. Whenever an open
conflict arose, however much the pope might deprecate scandal, the
decision would be almost certainly in favor of the friars, and the
clergy saw with dismay and hatred that the upstarts were supplanting
them in all their functions, in the veneration of the people, and in the
profitable results of that veneration. When, in 1268, a popular uprising
against tyranny occurred in Holland and Guelderland, and, encouraged by
success, the rebels formulated a policy for the reformation of society,
they proposed to slay all nobles and prelates and monks, but to spare
the Mendicants and such few parish priests as might be necessary to
administer the sacraments. Some feeble efforts were made by the clergy
to emulate the services and activity of the new-comers, but the sloth
and self-indulgence of ages could not be overcome. It was inevitable
that the strongest antagonism between the old order and the new should
spring up, heightened by the duty which the friars felt of denouncing
publicly the vices and corruption of the clergy. Already in the previous
century the secular priesthood had complained bitterly of the impulse
given to monachism by the founding and development of the Cistercians.
They had even dared to make vigorous representations to the third
Council of Lateran, in 1179, alleging that they were threatened with
pauperization. Here was a new and vastly more dangerous inroad, and it
was impossible that they should submit without an effort of
self-preservation. There must be a struggle for supremacy between the
local churches on the one hand and the papacy with its new militia on
the other, and the conservatives manifested skill in their selection of
the field of battle.[250]
The University of Paris was the centre of scholastic theology.
Cosmopolitan in its character, a long line of great teachers had
lectured to immense masses of students from every land, until its
reputation was European and it was looked upon as the bulwark of
orthodoxy. In every episcopate it could count its graduates and the
holders of its degrees, who looked back upon it with filial affection as
to their _alma mater_. It had welcomed Dominic's first missionaries when
they came to Paris to found a house of the Order, and it had admitted
Dominicans to its corps of teachers. Suddenly there arose a quarrel, the
insignificance of its cause showing the tension which existed and the
eagerness of all classes of the clergy to repress the growing influence
of the Mendicants. The University had always been jealous of its
privileges, among which not the least was the jurisdiction which it
enjoyed over its students. One of these was slain and several were
wounded by the Paris watch in a disturbance, and the reparation tendered
for the offence was deemed insufficient. The University closed its
doors, but the Dominican teachers, Bonushomo and Elias, continued their
lectures. To punish this contumacy they were ordered to be silent, and
students were forbidden to listen to them. They appealed to the pope,
but their appeal was disregarded; and when the University resumed its
functions, they were required to take an oath to observe its statutes,
provided there was nothing therein to conflict with the Rule of the
Order. This they refused unless they were allowed two teachers of
theology, and after a delay of a fortnight they were expelled. The
provincials of both Orders at Paris took up the quarrel and appealed to
Rome, and Innocent IV. demanded the repeal of the obnoxious rules.[251]
The gage of battle was thrown and the university was resolved on no
half-measures. It would reduce the Mendicants to the condition of the
other religious orders and earn the gratitude of all the prelates and
clergy by stripping them of the privileges which rendered them so
dangerous. For this purpose it was necessary to win the favor of Rome,
and the students enthusiastically assessed themselves, economizing in
their expenses that they might contribute to the fund which was
necessary if anything was to be done with the curia. The leader of the
faculty in the quarrel was William of St. Amour, noted both as a
preacher and a teacher, learned, eloquent, and inflexible of purpose.
He was sent to the Holy See, where he found Innocent IV. in a frame of
mind adapted to listen to his arguments that the Mendicant Rules were
fitted only to lead souls to perdition. The pope had been the friend of
the Orders, and had confirmed and enlarged their privileges, but just
now was out of humor. The Dominicans asserted that this arose from their
having secretly received into the Order one of his cousins whom he loved
greatly and intended to advance in the world; and also from the
malevolence of another cousin, who proposed to build at Genoa a
fortress-palace to dominate the city, and had been prevented by the
Dominicans refusing to sell a piece of ground essential to his purpose.
Innocent's mind must indeed have been receptive of William of St.
Amour's arguments. In July and August, 1254, he had issued repeated
briefs in favor of the Mendicants and against the University. On
November 21 he promulgated the bull _Etsi Animarum_, known among the
Mendicants as the "terrible" bull, by which the members of all religious
orders were forbidden to receive in their churches on Sundays and
feast-days the parishioners of others; they were not to hear confessions
without the special license of the parish priests, they were not to
preach in their own churches before mass, so that parishioners should
not be drawn away from their parish churches, nor were they to preach in
the parish churches, nor when bishops preached or caused preaching to be
done.[252]
The bull was in reality a terrible one, for it shattered at a blow the
edifice erected with such infinite labor and self-sacrifice. To meet it,
the Dominicans not only summoned their greatest and wisest members, but
appealed to Heaven. Every friar was ordered daily after matins to recite
seven psalms and the litanies of the Virgin and St. Dominic. A brother,
during this exercise, was encouraged with a vision of the Virgin
pleading with the Son and saying "Listen to them, my Son, listen to
them!" He did listen to them, for though we may doubt the Dominican
story that Innocent was stricken with paralysis the very day that he
signed the "_crudelissimum edictum_" he certainly did die on December 7,
within sixteen days after it, and a pious Roman had a vision of his soul
handed over to the two wrathful saints, Dominic and Francis. Moreover
the Cardinal of Albano, whose hostility to the Orders had led him to
take an active part in advising Innocent to the measure, was imprudent
enough to boast that he had caused the subjugation of the Mendicants to
the bishops and would place them under the feet of the lowest priests.
The same day a beam in his house gave way; he fell and broke his neck.
It would perhaps be unjust to accuse the Dominicans of having assisted
nature in these catastrophes; but, strange as it seems to hear them
boast of having prayed a pope to death, they certainly do relate with
pride that "Beware of the Dominican litanies, for they work miracles,"
became a common phrase.[253]
The death of Innocent saved the Mendicant Orders. That his successor was
elected after an interval of only fourteen days was due to the provident
care of the Prefect of Rome, who, distrusting the operation of the Holy
Ghost, put the fathers of the Conclave on short rations, resulting in
the election of Alexander IV. The new pope was specially favorable to
the Mendicants. When John of Parma, the Franciscan general, came to him
with the customary request that he would appoint a cardinal as
"Protector" of the Order, he refused, saying that so long as he lived it
should need no other protector than himself; and his selection of the
Dominican Raymond of Pennaforte and the Franciscan Ruffino as papal
chaplains showed how willingly he subjected himself to their influence.
On December 31, ten days after his elevation, he addressed letters to
both Orders asking their suffrages and intercession with God, and the
same day he issued an encyclical, revoking the terrible bull of Innocent
and pronouncing it void.[254]
Before such a judge the case of the University was evidently lost. On
April 14, 1255, appeared the bull _Quasi lignum vitæ_, deciding the
quarrel in favor of the Dominicans. Yet William of St. Amour returned
to Paris resolved to carry on the war. In the pulpit he and his friends
thundered forth against the Mendicants. They were not specifically
named, but there was no mistaking the ingenious application to them of
the signs foretold by the prophets of those who should usher in the days
of Antichrist, nor the description of the Pharisees and Publicans made
to fit them. New and unimagined perils threatened the Church in the last
times. The devil has found that he gained nothing in sending heretics
who were easily confuted, so now he has sent the Pale Horse of the
Apocalypse--the hypocrites and false brethren who, under an external
guise of sanctity, convulse the Church. The persecution of the
hypocrites will be more disastrous than all previous persecutions.
Another weapon which lay to his hand was eagerly grasped. In 1254 there
appeared a work under the name of "Introduction to the Everlasting
Gospel," of which the authorship was ascribed to John of Parma, the
Franciscan general. We shall have occasion to recur to this, and need
only say here that a section of the Franciscans were strongly inclined
to the mysticism which now began to show itself, and that the writings
of Abbot Joachim of Fiore, now revived and hardily developed, predicted
the downfall, in 1260, of the existing order of things in Church and
State, the substitution of a new evangel for that of Christ, and the
replacement of the hierarchy by mendicant monachism. The "Introduction
to the Everlasting Gospel" attracted universal attention and offered too
tempting an opening for attack to be neglected.
The University sullenly held out, while Alexander fulminated bull after
bull against the recalcitrants, threatening them with varied penalties,
and finally calling in the assistance of the secular arm by an appeal to
St. Louis. The clergy of Paris, delighted with the opportunity afforded
by the temporary unpopularity of the Mendicants, reviled them from the
pulpit, and even attacked them personally with blows and threats of
worse treatment, till they scarce ventured to appear in the streets and
beg their daily bread. The controversy raged wilder as the indomitable
St. Amour, undeterred by Alexander's request to the king to throw him
into jail, issued a tract entitled "_De Periculis novissimorum
Temporum_," in which he boldly set forth all the arguments of his
discourses against the Mendicants. He proved that the pope had no right
to contravene the commands of the prophets and apostles, and that they
were convicted of error when they upturned the established order of the
Church in permitting these wandering hypocrites and false prophets to
preach and hear confessions. Those who live by beggary are flatterers
and liars and detractors and thieves and avoiders of justice. Whoever
asserts that Christ was a beggar denies that he was the Messiah, and
thus is a heresiarch who destroys the foundation of all Christian faith.
An able-bodied man commits sacrilege if he receives the alms of the poor
for his own use, and if the Church has permitted this for the monks it
has been in error and should be corrected. It rests with the bishops to
purge their dioceses of these hypocrites; they have the power, and if
they neglect their duty the blood of those who perish will be upon their
heads. This was answered by Aquinas and Bonaventura. The former, in his
tract "_Contra Impugnantes Religionem_," proved in the most finished
style of scholastic logic that the friars have a right to teach, to
preach and hear confessions, and to live without labor; in the same mode
he rebutted the charges as to their morals and influence, showing that
they were not precursors of Antichrist. He also demonstrated the more
suggestive theorems that they had a right to resist their defamers, to
use the courts in their defence, to secure their safety if necessary by
resort to arms, and to punish their persecutors. That his dialectics
were equal to bringing out any desired conclusion when once his premises
were granted is well known, and they did not fail him on this occasion.
Bonaventura also replied in several treatises--"_De Paupertate
Christi_," in which he earnestly pleaded the example of Christ as an
argument for poverty and mendicancy; the "_Libellus Apologeticus_" and
the "_Tractatus quia Fratres Minores prœdicent_," in which he carried
the war into the enemy's territory with a vigorous and plain-spoken
onslaught on the shortcomings and defects and sins and corruption and
vileness of the clergy. Heretics might well feel justified in seeing the
two parties into which the Church was divided thus expose each other;
and the faithful might well doubt whether salvation was assured with
either.
Yet this wordy war was mere surplusage. On the appearance of St. Amour's
book, St. Louis had hastened to send copies to Alexander for judgment.
The University likewise sent St. Amour at the head of a delegation to
demand the condemnation of the Everlasting Gospel. Albertus Magnus and
Bonaventura came to defend their Orders, and a hot disputation was held
before the consistory. The Everlasting Gospel and its Introduction were
condemned with decent reserve by a special commission assembled at
Anagni, in July, 1255, but St. Amour's book was declared by the bull
_Romanus Pontifex_, October 5, 1256, to be lying, scandalous, deceptive,
wicked, and execrable. It was ordered to be burned before the curia and
the University; every copy was to be surrendered within eight days to be
burned, and any one presuming to defend it was pronounced a rebel. The
envoys of St. Louis and the University were obliged to subscribe to a
declaration assenting to this and to the right of the Mendicants to
preach and hear confessions and to live on alms without labor, William
of St. Amour alone resolutely refusing. Alexander moreover ordered all
teachers and preachers to abstain from reviling the Mendicants and to
retract the abuse they had uttered under pain of loss of preferment--a
command which was but slackly obeyed.[255]
The victory was won for the Mendicants. The University submitted
ungraciously to the irresistible power of the papacy, and the
unconquerable William of St. Amour alone held out. He would make no
acknowledgments, no concessions. He had sworn to abide by the mandates
of the Church, but he refused to recant like his comrades. When about to
return, in August, 1257, Alexander forbade him to go to France and
perpetually interdicted him from teaching, and so great was the dread
which he inspired that the pope wrote to St. Louis asking him to prevent
the inflexible theologian from entering his kingdom. Yet from abroad he
maintained an active correspondence with his old colleagues, and the
University continued in a state of disquiet. It was in vain that
Alexander prohibited all intercourse with him. Though the Mendicants
were allowed to teach, they were ridiculed in indecent rhymes and
lampoons, which were eagerly circulated; and, on Palm Sunday of 1259 the
beadle of the University, Guillot of Picardy, interrupted the preaching
of Thomas Aquinas by publishing a scandalous and libellous book against
the Mendicants. Yet this gradually died out, and the final act of the
quarrel is seen in an epistle of Alexander's, December 3, 1260,
authorizing the Bishop of Paris to absolve those who had incurred
excommunication by keeping copies of St. Amour's book, on their
surrendering them to be burned, the number of these "rebels" apparently
being quite large. Still St. Amour remained steadfast in exile. He was
allowed to return to Paris by Clement IV. who ascended the papal throne
in 1264, and in 1266 he sent to the pontiff another book on the same
theme. Clement had hastened, in 1265, to proclaim his good-will to the
Mendicant Orders by a bull in which he confirmed in the amplest manner
their independence of the bishops, and, as was inevitable, he rejected
St. Amour's new book as filled with the old virus. William died in 1272,
obstinate and unrepentant, and was honorably buried in his native
village of St. Amour, though he is reputed as a heretic by all good
Dominicans and Franciscans.[256]
The embers of the controversy had been rekindled in 1269 by an anonymous
Franciscan who assailed St. Amour's book. Gerald of Abbeville, who is
ranked with Aquinas, Bonaventura, and Robert of Sorbonne, as one of the
four chief theologians of the age, replied with an attack on the
doctrine of poverty and a defence of the ownership of property.
Bonaventura rejoined with his "_Apologia Pauperum_," an eloquent defence
of poverty, and the Franciscan annalists relate with natural glee how
Gerard was so overcome by his adversary's logic that, under the
vengeance of God, he lost the faculty of reasoning, sank into
paralysis, and ended with a horrible death by leprosy.[257]
Though an occasional outbreak like this might occur, the victory was
won. The aggressions of the Mendicants had raised a deep and wide-spread
hostility against them in all ranks of the clergy, who recognized not
only that their privileges and wealth were impaired, that the reverence
of the people was intercepted, but, what was even more important, that
this new papal militia was subjecting them to Rome with a force that
would deprive them of what little independence had been left by former
encroachments. When, therefore, the upstarts had dared a combat with the
honored and powerful University of Paris--the shining sun, to use the
words of Alexander IV., which pours the light of pure doctrine through
the whole world, the body from which, as from the bosom of a parent, are
born the noble race of doctors who enlighten Christendom and uphold the
Catholic faith--it might well be thought that the rash interlopers had
provoked their fate. Everything had been tried--learning and wit,
reverence for established institutions, popular favor, the long-enjoyed
right of the governing faculty to regulate its internal affairs--yet
everything had failed against the steadfastness of the Mendicants
supported by the unwavering favor of Alexander. When the University of
Paris had been worsted in the struggle, though aided with the sympathy
of all the prelates of Christendom, there was little hope in further
opposition to those whom the pope, in forbidding the prelates to side
with the University, described as "Golden vials filled with sweet
odors."[258]
Yet spasmodic resistance, however hopeless, still continued. A bull of
Clement IV., in 1268, forbidding the archbishops and bishops from even
interpreting the privileges conferred on the Mendicants, shows that the
hostility was as bitter as ever. The clergy would also still
occasionally endeavor to prevent the establishment of new Mendicant
houses, or seek to drive them away by ill-treatment, with the inevitable
result of calling forth the papal vengeance. They had a gleam of hope
when the wise and learned John XXI. ascended the papal throne, but his
antagonism to the Mendicants, like that of Innocent IV., was not
conducive to longevity. The roof of his palace fell in upon him after a
pontificate of but eight months, and the pious chroniclers of the Orders
handed down his memory as that of a heretic and magician. About 1284 the
interpretation put on some fresh concessions by Martin IV. aroused the
antagonism anew. The whole Gallican Church uprose. In 1287 the
Archbishop of Reims called a provincial council to consider the subject.
He pathetically described his futile efforts to reach a peaceful
solution, the unbearable encroachments of the friars, the intolerable
injuries inflicted on both clergy and laity, and the necessity of an
appeal to Rome. The expenses of such an appeal were known to be heavy,
and all the bishops agreed to contribute five per cent. of their
revenues, while a levy of one per cent. was made on all abbots, priors,
deans, chapters, and parochial churches of the province. The pious
Franciscan Salimbene informs us that a hundred thousand livres tournois
were raised and Honorius IV. was won over. On Good Friday of 1287 he was
to issue a bull depriving the Mendicants of the right to preach and hear
confessions. They were in despair, but this time it was the prayers of
the Franciscans which prevailed, as those of the Dominicans had done in
the case of Innocent IV. The hand of God fell upon Honorius in the night
of Wednesday, he died on Thursday, and the Orders were saved. Yet the
struggle continued till the bull of Martin IV. was withdrawn in 1298 by
Boniface VIII., who in vain attempted to put an end to the quarrel which
distracted the Church. Benedict XI. was no more successful, and
complained that the trouble was a hydra, putting forth seven heads for
every one which was cut off. In 1323 John XXII. pronounced heretical the
doctrine of Jean de Poilly, who held that confession to the friars was
void and that every one must confess to his parish priest. In 1351 the
clergy again took heart for another attack. Possibly the devotion shown
by the Mendicants during the Black Death, when twenty-five million human
beings were swept away, when the priests abandoned their posts, and the
friars alone were found to tend the sick and console the dying, may have
led to fresh progress by them and have enkindled antagonism anew. Be
this as it may, a vast deputation, embracing cardinals, bishops, and
minor clergy, waited on Clement VI. and petitioned for the abolition of
the Orders, or at least the prohibition of their preaching and hearing
confessions, and enjoying the burial profits, by which they were
enormously enriched at the expense of the parish priests. The Mendicants
deigned no reply, but Clement spoke for them, denying the allegation of
the petition that they were useless to the Church, and asserting that,
on the contrary, they were most valuable. "And if," he continued, "their
preaching be stopped, about what can you preach to the people? If on
humility, you yourselves are the proudest of the world, arrogant and
given to pomp. If on poverty, you are the most grasping and most
covetous, so that all the benefices in the world will not satisfy you.
If on chastity--but we will be silent on this, for God knoweth what each
man does and how many of you satisfy your lusts. You hate the Mendicants
and shut your doors on them lest they should see your mode of life,
while you waste your temporal wealth on pimps and swindlers. You should
not complain if the Mendicants receive some temporal possessions from
the dying to whom they minister when you have fled, nor that they spend
it in buildings where everything is ordered for the honor of God and the
Church, in place of wasting it in pleasure and licentiousness. And
because you do not likewise, you accuse the Mendicants, for most of you
give yourselves up to vain and worldly lives." Under this fierce rebuke,
even though uttered by a pope whom St. Birgitta denounced as himself a
follower of the lusts of the flesh, there was evidently nothing
practicable but submission. Yet the prelates were not silenced, for a
few years later Richard, Archbishop of Armagh, preached in London some
sermons against the Mendicants, for which they accused him of heresy
before Innocent VI. In 1357 he defended himself in a discourse wherein
he handled them unsparingly, but his case dragged on, and he died in
Avignon, in 1360, before it reached an end. This was not reassuring for
the secular clergy, but still the quarrel went on. Thus in 1373 the
Franciscan Guardian of Syracuse applied to Gregory XI. for an authentic
copy of the bull of John XXII. against the errors of Jean de Poilly,
showing that in Sicily the secular clergy were contesting the right of
the Mendicants to hear confessions. In 1386 the Council of Salzburg
forcibly described the scandals wrought by the intrusion in all
parishes, uninvited and irrepressible, of those licentious wandering
friars, who kindled discord and set an example of evil, and it proceeded
to decree that in future they should not be allowed to preach and hear
confessions without the license of the bishop and the invitation of the
pastor. In 1393 Conrad II., Archbishop of Mainz, varied his persecution
of the Waldenses by an edict in which he described the Mendicants as
wolves in sheep's clothing, and prohibited them from hearing
confessions. On the other hand, Maître Jean de Gorelle, a Franciscan, in
1408, publicly argued that curates were not competent to preach and hear
confessions, which was the business of the friars--a proposition which
the University of Paris promptly compelled him to retract.[259]
The quarrel seemed endless. In 1409 the Mendicants complained that the
clergy stigmatized them as robbers and wolves, and insisted that all
sins confessed to them must be confessed again to the parish curates,
thus reviving the error of Jean de Poilly condemned by John XXII.
Alexander V., himself a Franciscan, responded to their request by
issuing the bull _Regnans in excelsis_, which threatened with the pains
of heresy all who should uphold such doctrines, or that the consent of
the priest was requisite before the parishioner could confess to the
friars. During the great schism the papacy was no longer an object of
terror. The University of Paris boldly took up the quarrel, and under
the leadership of John Gerson refused to receive this bull, compelling
the Dominicans and Carmelites publicly to renounce it, and expelling
the Franciscans and Augustinians, who refused to do likewise. Gerson did
not hesitate to preach publicly against it in a sermon, in which he
enumerated the four persecutions of the Church in the order of their
severity--tyrants, heretics, the Mendicants, and Antichrist. This
unflattering collocation was not likely to promote harmony, but the
matter seems to have slept for a while in the greater questions raised
by the councils of Constance and Basle, though the latter assembly took
occasion to decide against the Mendicants on the points at issue, as
well as to condemn the wide-spread popular belief that any one dying in
a Franciscan habit would not spend more than a year at most in
purgatory, since St. Francis made an annual visit there and carried off
all his followers to heaven. When the papacy regained its strength it
renewed the struggle for its favorites. In 1446 Eugenius IV. put forth a
new bull, _Gregis nobis crediti_, condemning the doctrines of Jean de
Poilly, which attracted little attention, and was followed in 1453 by
Nicholas V. with another, _Provisionis nostrœ_, of similar import.
This was brought in 1456 to the notice of the University, which
denounced it as surreptitious, destructive to peace, and subversive of
hierarchial subordination. Calixtus III. continued the struggle, and,
finding the University unyielding, appealed to Louis XI. for secular
interposition, but in vain; the University refused to admit into its
body any friars who would not pledge themselves not to make use of these
bulls. It is true that in 1458 a priest of Valladolid who denied the
authority of the Mendicants to supersede the parish priests was forced
to recant publicly in his own church; but the trouble continued, leading
in Germany to such scandals that the archbishops of Mainz and Trèves,
with other bishops, and the Duke of Bavaria, were obliged to appeal to
the Holy See. A commission of two cardinals and two bishops was
appointed to determine upon a compromise, which was accepted by both
parties and approved by Sixtus IV. about 1480. The priests were not to
teach that the Orders were fruitful of heresies, the friars were not to
teach that parishioners need not hear mass on Sundays and feast days in
their parish churches, or confess to their curates at Easter, though
they were not to be deprived of hearing confessions and granting
absolutions. Neither priests nor friars were to endeavor to get the
laity to choose sepulture with either; and neither party was to assail
or detract from the other in their sermons. The insertion of this
compromise in the canon law shows the importance attached to it, and
that it was regarded as a lasting settlement, applicable throughout
Latin Christendom. Its effect is seen in the inclusion, among the
heresies of Jean Lallier condemned in Paris in 1484, of those which
revived the doctrine of Jean de Poilly and declared that John XXII. had
no power to pronounce it heretical. Yet, at the Lateran Council, in
1515, a determined effort was made by the bishops to obtain the
revocation of the special privileges of the Mendicants. By refusing to
vote for any measures they obtained a promise of this, but skilful delay
enabled Leo X. to elude performance till the following year, when a
compromise was effected, which merely shows by what it forbade to the
Mendicants how contemptuous had been their defiance of episcopal
authority. They lost little by this, for in 1519 Erasmus complains in a
letter to Albert, Cardinal-Archbishop of Mainz, "The world is
overburdened with the tyranny of the Mendicants, who, though they are
the satellites of the Roman See, are yet so numerous and powerful that
they are formidable to the pope himself and even to kings. To them, when
the pope aids them, he is more than God, when he displeases them he is
worthless as a dream."[260]
* * * * *
It must be confessed that both Dominicans and Franciscans had greatly
fallen away from the virtues of their founders. Scarce had the Orders
commenced to spread when false brethren were found who, contrary to
their vow of poverty, made use of their faculty of preaching for
purposes of filthy gain; and as early as 1233 we find Gregory IX.
sharply reminding the Dominican chapter-general that the poverty
professed by the Order should be genuine and not fictitious. The wide
employment of the friars by the popes as political emissaries
necessarily diverted them from their spiritual functions, attracted
ambitious and restless men into their ranks, and gave the institutions a
worldly character thoroughly in opposition to their original design.
Their members, moreover, were peculiarly subject to temptation.
Wanderers by profession, they were relieved from supervision, and were
subject only to the jurisdiction of their own superiors and to the laws
of their own Orders, thus intensifying and rendering peculiarly
dangerous the immunity common to all ecclesiastics.[261]
The "Seraphic Religion" of the Franciscans, as it was based on a lofty
ideal, was especially subject to the reaction of human imperfection.
This was manifest even in the lifetime of St. Francis, who resigned the
generalate on account of the abuses which were creeping in, and offered
to resume it if the brethren would walk according to his will. It was
inevitable that trouble should come between those who conscientiously
adhered to the Rule in all its strictness and the worldlings who saw in
the Order the instrument of their ambition; and it did not need the
prophetic spirit to lead Francis to predict on his death-bed future
scandals and divisions and the persecution of those who would not
consent to error--a forecast which we will see abundantly verified, as
well as that in which he foretold that the Order would become so defamed
that it would be ashamed to be seen in public. His successor in the
mastership, Elias, gave the Order a powerful impetus on its downward
path. Reckoned the shrewdest and most skilful political manager in
Italy, he greatly increased its influence and public activity, till his
relaxation of the strictness of the Rule gave such offence to the more
rigid brethren that, after a hard struggle, they compelled Gregory IX.
to remove him, whereupon he went over to the party of Frederic II., and
was duly excommunicated. As the Order spread it was not in human nature
to reject the wealth which came pouring in upon it from all sides, and
ingenious dialectics were resorted to to reconcile its ample possessions
with the absolute rejection of property prescribed by the Rule. The
humble hovels which Francis had enjoined became stately palaces, which
arose in every city, rivalling or putting to shame the loftiest
cathedrals and most sumptuous abbeys. In 1257 St. Bonaventura, who had
just succeeded John of Parma as General of the Order, varied his
controversy with William of St. Amour by an encyclical to his
provincials in which he bewailed the contempt and dislike felt
universally for the Order, caused by its greedy seeking after money; the
idleness of so many of its members, leading them into all manner of
vices; the excesses of the vagabond friars, who oppress those who
receive them and leave behind them the memory of scandals rather than
examples of virtue; the importunate beggary which renders the friar more
terrible than a robber to the wayfarer; the construction of magnificent
palaces, which oppress friends and give occasion to attacks from
enemies; the intrusting of preaching and confession to those wholly
unfit; the greedy grasping after legacies and burial fees, to the great
disturbance of the clergy, and in general the extravagance which would
inevitably cause the chilling of charity. Evidently the assaults of St.
Amour and the complaints of the clergy were not without foundation; but
this vigorous rebuke was ineffective, and ten years later Bonaventura
was obliged to repeat it in even stronger terms. This time he expressed
his special horror at the shameless audacity of those brethren who, in
their sermons to the laity, attacked the vices of the clergy, and gave
rise to scandals, quarrels, and hatreds; and he wound up by declaring,
"It is a foul and profane lie to assert one's self the voluntary
professor of absolute poverty and then refuse to submit to the lack of
anything; to beg abroad like a pauper and to roll in wealth at home."
Bonaventura's declamations were in vain, and the struggle in the Order
continued, until it ejected its stricter members as heretics, as we
shall see when we come to consider the Spiritual Franciscans and the
Fraticelli. In the succeeding century both Orders gave free rein to
their worldly propensities. St. Birgitta, in her Revelations, which were
sanctioned by the Church as inspired, declares that "although founded
upon vows of poverty they have amassed riches, place their whole aim in
increasing their wealth, dress as richly as bishops, and many of them
are more extravagant in their jewelry and ornaments than laymen who are
reputed wealthy."[262]
* * * * *
Such was the development of the Mendicant Orders and their complicated
relations with the Church. Yet their activity was too great to be
confined to the defence of the Holy See and to the religious revival by
which they, for a time, reacquired for Rome the veneration of the
people. One of the collateral objects to which they devoted a portion of
their energies was missionary work, and in this they set a worthy
example to their successors, the Jesuits of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. Among the incessant labors of St. Francis his
efforts to convert the infidel were conspicuous. He proposed to visit
Morocco, in the hope of converting King Miramolin, and had reached Spain
on his voyage thither, when compelled by sickness to return. In the
thirteenth year of his conversion he travelled to Syria for the purpose
of bringing over the Soldan of Babylon to the Christian faith, although
war was then raging with the Saracens. Captured between the hostile
lines, he was carried with his companion in chains to the soldan, when
he offered to undergo the ordeal of fire to prove the truth of his
faith; he was offered magnificent presents, but spurned them, and was
allowed to depart. His followers were true to his example. No distance
and no danger deterred them from the task of winning souls to
Christianity, and in these arduous labors there was a noble emulation
between them and the Dominicans, for Dominic had likewise proposed an
extended scheme of missions in which to close his life's work. As early
as 1225 we find missionaries of both orders laboring in Morocco. In 1233
Franciscans were despatched to convert Miramolin, the Sultan of
Damascus, the caliph, and Asia in general. In 1237 the Eastern Jacobites
were brought back to Catholic unity by the zeal of Dominicans, and they
were at work among Nestorians, Georgians, Greeks, and other Eastern
schismatics. Indulgences, the same as for a crusade, were offered to all
who engaged in these enterprises, which were perilous enough, for soon
after we hear of ninety Dominicans suffering martyrdom among the Cumans
in eastern Hungary, when the hordes of Genghis Khan swept over the land.
After the retirement of the Tartars they returned and converted the
Cumans by wholesale, besides laboring among the Cathari of Bosnia and
Dalmatia, where several of them were slain and two of their convents
were burned by the heretics. The extent of the Franciscan missions may
be judged by a bull of Alexander IV., in 1258, addressed to all the
brethren in the lands of the Saracens, Pagans, Greeks, Bulgarians,
Cumans, Ethiopians, Syrians, Iberians, Alans, Cathari, Goths, Zichori,
Russians, Jacobites, Nubians, Nestorians, Georgians, Armenians, Indians,
Muscovites, Tartars, Hungarians, and the missionaries to the Christian
captives among the Turks; and however hazy may be the geography of this
enumeration, the extent of the ground sought to be covered shows the
activity and self-sacrificing energy of the good brethren. Among the
Tartars their success was for a while encouraging. The great khan
himself was baptized, and the converts were so numerous that a bishop
became necessary for their organization; but the khan apostatized and
the missionaries paid with their lives the forfeit of their zeal, nor
were they by any means the only martyrs who suffered in the cause. The
efficacy of their Armenian mission may be seen in the renunciation of
King Haito of Armenia, who entered the Order and assumed the name of
Friar John, though the vicissitudes of his subsequent career were not
encouraging to future imitators. He was not, however, the only royal
Franciscan, for St. Louis of Toulouse, son of Charles the Lame of Naples
and Provence, resisted his father's offer of a crown to become a
Franciscan. Less authentic, perhaps, are the Dominican accounts of eight
missionaries of their Order who, in 1316, penetrated to the empire of
Prester John in Abyssinia, where they founded so durable a Church that
in half a century they had the Inquisition organized there, with Friar
Philip, son of one of Prester John's subject kings, as inquisitor-general.
His zeal led him to attack with both spiritual and fleshly weapons
another king who indulged in bigamy, and by whom he was treacherously
seized and put to death, November 4, 1366, his martyrdom and sanctity
being attested by numerous miracles. Be this as it may, the Franciscans
record with pardonable pride that members of their Order accompanied
Columbus on his second voyage to America, eager to commence the
conversion of the New World.[263]
The special field of activity of the Mendicants, however, which more
particularly concerns us, was that of the conversion and persecution of
heretics--of the Inquisition, which they made their own. It was
inevitable that this should fall into their hands as soon as the
inadequacy of the ancient episcopal courts required the organization of
a new system. The discovery and conviction of the heretic was no easy
task. It required special training, and that training was exactly what
the Orders sought to give their neophytes to fit them for the work of
preaching and conversion. With no ties of locality, soldiers of the
Cross ready to march to any point at the word of command, they could be
despatched at a moment's notice whenever their services were required.
Moreover, their peculiar devotion to the Holy See rendered them
specially useful in organizing the papal Inquisition which was to
supersede by degrees the episcopal jurisdiction, and prove so efficient
an instrument in reducing the local churches to subjection.
That Dominic was the founder of the Inquisition and the first
inquisitor-general has become a part of Roman tradition. It is affirmed
by all the historians of the Order, and by all the panegyrists of the
Inquisition; it has the sanction of infallibility in the bull
_Invictarum_ of Sixtus V., and it is confirmed by quoting a bull of
Innocent III. appointing him inquisitor-general. Yet it is safe to say
that no tradition of the Church rests on a slenderer basis. That Dominic
devoted the best years of his life to combating heresy there is no
doubt, and as little that, when a heretic was deaf to argument or
persuasion, he would cheerfully stand by the pyre and see him burned,
like any other zealous missionary of the time; but in this he was no
more prominent than hundreds of others, and of organized work in this
direction he was utterly guiltless. Indeed, from the year 1215, when he
laid the foundation of his Order, he was engrossed in it to the
exclusion of all other objects, and was obliged to forego his cherished
design of ending his days as a missionary to Persia. We shall see that
it was not until more than ten years after his death, in 1221, that
such an institution as the papal Inquisition can be said to have
existed. The prominent part assigned in it to his successors easily
explains the legend which has grown around his name, a legend which may
safely be classed with the enthusiastic declaration of an historian of
the Order that more than a hundred thousand heretics had been converted
by his teaching, his merits, and his miracles.[264]
A similar legendary halo exaggerates the exclusive glory, claimed by the
Order, of organizing and perfecting the Inquisition. The bulls of
Gregory IX. alleged in support of the assertion are simply special
orders to individual Dominican provincials to depute brethren fitted for
the purpose to the duty of preaching against heresy and examining
heretics, and prosecuting their defenders. Sometimes Dominicans are sent
to special districts to proceed against heretics, with an apology to the
bishops and an explanation that the friars are skilful in convincing
heretics, and that the other episcopal duties are too engrossing to
enable the prelates to give proper attention to this. The fact simply is
that there was no formal confiding of the Inquisition to the Dominicans
any more than there was any formal founding of the Inquisition itself.
As the institution gradually assumed shape and organization in the
effort to find some effectual means to ferret out concealed heretics,
the Dominicans were the readiest instrument at hand, especially as they
professed the function of preaching and converting as their primary
business. As conversion became less the object, and persecution the main
business of the Inquisition, the Franciscans were equally useful, and
the honors of the organization were divided between them. Indeed, there
was no hesitation in confiding inquisitorial functions to clerics of any
denomination when occasion required. As early as 1258 we find two canons
of Lodève acting under papal commissions as inquisitors of Albi, and we
shall meet hereafter, at the close of the fourteenth century, Peter the
Celestinian discharging the duties of papal inquisitor with abundant
energy from the Baltic to Styria.[265]
Yet the earliest inquisitors, properly so called, were unquestionably
Dominicans. When, after the settlement between Raymond of Toulouse and
St. Louis, the extirpation of heresy in the Albigensian territories was
seriously undertaken, and the episcopal organization proved unequal to
the task, it was Dominicans who were sent thither to work under the
direction of the bishops. In northern France the business gradually fell
almost exclusively into the hands of Dominicans. In Aragon, as early as
1232, they are recommended to the Archbishop of Tarragona as fitting
instruments, and in 1249 the institution was confided to them.
Eventually southern France was divided between them and the Franciscans,
the western portion being given to the Dominicans, while the Comtat
Venaissin, Provence, Forcalquier, and the states of the empire in the
provinces of Arles, Aix, and Embrun were under charge of the
Franciscans. As for Italy, after some confusion arising from the
conflicting pretensions of the two Orders, it was, in 1254, formally
divided between them by Innocent IV., the Dominicans being assigned to
Lombardy, Romagnola, Tarvesina, and Genoa, while the central portion of
the peninsula fell to the Franciscans; Naples, as yet, being free from
the institution. This division, however, was not always strictly
observed, for at times we find Franciscan inquisitors in Milan,
Romagnola, and Tarvesina. In Germany and Austria the Inquisition, as we
shall see, never took deep root, but, in so far as it was organized
there, it was in Dominican hands, while Bohemia and Dalmatia were under
the care of Franciscans.[266]
Sometimes the two orders were conjoined. In 1237 the Franciscan Étienne
de Saint Thibéry was associated with the Dominican Guillem Arnaud in
Toulouse, in hopes that the reputation of his Order for greater mildness
might diminish the popular aversion for the new institution. In April,
1238, Gregory IX. appointed the provincials of the two Orders in Aragon
as inquisitors for that kingdom, and in the same year the same policy
was pursued in Navarre. In 1255 the Franciscan Guardian of Paris was
associated with the Dominican prior as the heads of the Inquisition in
France; in 1267 we find both Orders furnishing inquisitors for Burgundy
and Lorraine; and in 1311 we hear of two Dominicans and one Franciscan
as inquisitors in the province of Ravenna. It was found the wisest
course, however, to define sharply the boundaries of their respective
jurisdictions, for the active and incessant jealousy between the two
bodies rendered any concurrence or competition between them an explosive
mine liable to be started by a spark. Their mutual hatreds began early,
and the unscrupulous means by which they were gratified were a perpetual
scandal and danger to the Church. In 1266, for instance, a lively
quarrel arose between the Dominicans of Marseilles and the Franciscan
inquisitor of that city. The dissension spread until the two Orders were
embroiled throughout Provence, Forcalquier, Avignon, Arles, Beaucaire,
Montpellier, and Carcassonne, and everywhere they were preaching against
and insulting each other in public. Several briefs of Clement IV. show
that the pope was obliged to intervene, and his command that in future
inquisitors shall forbear to use their powers to prosecute each other,
no matter how guilty the offending party may apparently be, indicates
that the sharpest weapons of the Holy Office had been used in the
strife. When, as late as 1479, Sixtus IV. forbade inquisitors of either
Order to sit in judgment on brethren of the other, it would indicate
that the intervening two centuries had not diminished the tendency. The
jealousy with which their respective limits were defended is illustrated
by troubles which occurred in 1290 about the Tarvesina. This was
Dominican territory, but for many years the office of inquisitor at
Treviso was filled by the Franciscan Filippo Bonaccorso. When, in 1289,
he accepted the episcopate of Trent, the Dominicans expected the office
to be restored to them, and were indignant at seeing it given to another
Franciscan, Frà Bonajuncta. The Dominican inquisitor of Lombardy Frà
Pagano, and his vicar, Frà Viviano, went so far in their resistance that
serious disturbances were excited in Verona, and it became necessary for
Nicholas IV. to intervene in 1291, when he punished the recalcitrants by
perpetual deprivation of their functions. To the heretics it must have
offered excusable delight to see their persecutors persecuting each
other. So ineradicable was the hostility between the two Orders that
Clement IV. established the rule that there should be a distance of at
least three thousand feet between their respective possessions--a
regulation which only led to new and more intricate disputes. They even
quarrelled as to the right of precedence in processions and funerals,
which was claimed by the Dominicans, and settled in their favor by
Martin V. in 1423. We shall see hereafter how important in the
development of the mediæval Church was this implacable rivalry.[267]
In the busy world of the thirteenth century there was thus no agency
more active than that of the Mendicant Orders, for good and for evil. On
the whole perhaps the good preponderated, for they undoubtedly aided in
postponing a revolution for which the world was not yet ready. Though
the self-abnegation of their earlier days was a quality too rare and
perishable to be long preserved, and though they soon sank to the level
of the social order around them, yet had their work not been altogether
lost. They had brought afresh to men's minds some of the forgotten
truths of the gospel, and had taught them to view their duties to their
fellows from a higher plane. How well they recognized and appreciated
their own services is shown by the story, common to the legend of both
Orders, which tells that while Dominic and Francis were waiting the
approval of Innocent III. a holy man had a vision in which he saw Christ
brandishing three darts with which to destroy the world, and the Virgin
inquiring his purpose. Then said Christ, "The world is full of pride,
avarice, and lust; I have borne with it too long, and with these darts
will I consume it." The Virgin fell on her knees and interceded for man,
but in vain, until she revealed to him that she had two faithful
servants who would reduce it to his dominion. Then Christ desired to see
the champions; she showed him Dominic and Francis, and he was content.
The pious author of the story could hardly have foreseen that in 1627
Urban VIII. would be obliged to deprive the Mendicant Friars of Cordova
of their dearly prized immunity, and to subject them to episcopal
jurisdiction, in the hope of restraining them from seducing their
spiritual daughters in the confessional.[268]